To The Coral Strand

by John Masters

  So, back to the money ... I saw that I was passing the Connaught Circus office of the Bombay-China Bank. I had told Max I was here to rob a bank. Well, why not? I had been thinking like a sahib. All the jobs I wanted, the jobs that no one would give me, were sahib’s jobs. Such jobs had been created out of nothing by the British Raj. The Indians and Pakistanis were taking them over, using their own sahibs for the purpose - and we had created them, too.

  There was no place for the English sahib, then. All right. Go back behind the day of the sahib, and what did you get? Merchant adventurers, soldiers of fortune, wandering mechanics ... men who provided India with what it needed, or thought it needed, without any missionary or evangelical purpose. Translate that into today’s conditions ... There was a shortage of lipstick, whisky, perfume, the luxuries which Indians crave as much as anyone else. Cars, big American cars, high-priced shotguns and rifles, cartridges. Wireless sets, ornate radiograms. There were laws against the importation of all these things, or heavy import duties. There were currency restrictions - but if you knew the right people you could easily get round all that, what with Portuguese territory touching India in Goa, bits of Pakistan to east and west, cordial dislike between all three nations, and not enough troops or police to guard the long borders. That was the sort of thing my ancestors would have been in, up to their necks. I could just see them, in wigs and heavy with sweat, working it all out in a back room off Chowringhee with a couple of tough, smoothly obsequious Bengali moneylenders to provide the initial working capital.

  I found myself passing the Bombay-China Bank again. I needed working capital, first to pay off my debts, secondly to start this or any other venture of my own. I did not know any moneylenders and did not want to have them exercise any control over me. Inside the bank the British manager sat in the far corner, at a big desk of his own. Two Indian clerks worked at the counter and three at tables behind. Outside the door the bank guard sat on a stool, a shotgun in hand and a kukri hung in a red sash over one shoulder. He was a Gurkha. Obviously a pensioner, probably a naik, I thought from his appearance and manner. Not one of ours though, at least not during my service.

  I walked on. It was a large step, to think of robbing a bank, though I did gamble with ‘borrowed’ money once, to help Max - Janaki, I should say. But, as I strode on, heedless of the sun burning down on my head and the crowds around me, I felt a distinct lightening. The morass seemed to be less gluey. This was not a sahib’s thing to do. I would at least get rid of that damned albatross, which had been hanging round my family’s neck for about a hundred and fifty years now.

  Ratanbir, I thought. Ratanbir can make part of the reconnaissance. I can make the rest. I might rob the Bombay-China Bank, or I might not, but if I did I was going to do it properly, when it had a lot of money on hand, and get away without a trace, and have some means of converting the money, much of which would be traceable.

  I hailed a tonga, and jolting along in the back, my mind working fast and constructively, drove to Old Delhi and my hotel, which was near the main railway station. I found Ratanbir polishing my shoes, though they were as bright as day already. I told him to go to New Delhi and make friends with the guards at the Bombay-China Bank. I gave him twenty rupees, and he saluted and went out. I looked at the closed door behind him, and thought, Max would not approve of this: rob a bank, all right, a chap might have to do that, but involve a soldier! Fine, Max, but you’re still a sahib. You can afford to be; I can’t.

  I went down to the little bar and ordered a whisky and soda, then another.

  ‘Colonel Savage?’

  I just managed to repress a groan. I raised my head and turned. It was a slender middle-aged Indian, slightly bent, with thin, greying hair and a long crooked nose. He was wearing well-cut European clothes. He said, ‘Forgive the impertinence,’ and passed me a card. It read, Mr Hussein Ali, and underneath, Chambali Industries Ltd. I handed the card back.

  He said in a low voice, ‘I wonder if we could talk in your room, Colonel?’

  The barman was out somewhere and I thought, what the hell. We went up to my room on the second floor.

  Mr Hussein walked to the little balcony and peered out right and left. He tapped the wall. I watched, smiling. I love cloak-and- dagger stuff. He saw me, and smiled himself, rather charmingly. ‘Silly,’ he said, ‘but one is a fool to omit small precautions.’ He spoke with almost no accent. I had heard of him of course. He was an Ismaili, one of the Aga Khan’s sect of Muslims. The family had gone to Zanzibar about fifty years earlier and made a fortune. Just before the war they returned to their homeland, which happened to be the State of Chambal, and now they owned practically every industry in the State - less the compulsory 15 per cent share that belonged to the Nawab.

  I indicated a chair, and myself sat on the edge of the bed. He said. ‘I have come to offer you a position, Colonel.’

  I said, ‘I’m afraid ... ’

  He raised one hand. ‘Not an ordinary position, or there would be no need for these precautions. I showed you my business card just now. I am also a member of His Highness’s Wizarat.’

  A Wizarat is the cabinet of a Muslim maharajah. (Muslim princes, by the way, are never called maharajah - always Nawab, Mir, Amir, or the like.) It was no surprise to learn that the richest man in Chambal, and its chief industrialist, had an official position with the Nawab’s government.

  He said, ‘In business I can offer you a great deal of money, Colonel, because I am sure that with your talents you will earn it. But I am also sure you have been offered that by many others. I am not here to offer you money - but a task, for India.’

  ‘For India?’ I said, raising an eyebrow.

  Hussein Ali said, ‘Yes - for the India that still lives, and strives to find expression under the mean-spirited Congress rule. For the India of splendour, of great men, of heroes, if I do not embarrass your English reserve ... I understand that the Indian Government expelled you from the Pattan Reserved Forest and ruined your most interesting enterprise, on suspicion that you were acting as a secret agent for us?’

  I nodded. It was not quite accurate, but it was near enough.

  He said, ‘We wish to prove the Indians right, though there will be no secrecy about it. I am authorised to offer you a post as an agent of the Wizarat. Officially we would employ you as a brigadier, and you would have advisory duties with our armed forces - very real and important duties, I should add. Your military salary will be two thousand rupees a month. In your other capacity you will receive ten thousand rupees a month, with a suitable house, servants, et cetera.’

  ‘What makes you think I am worth that much?’ I asked. I have a high opinion of myself, but this was flying pretty high.

  ‘First, our own observation,’ he said. ‘Second, your attitude and background as--’

  ‘A sahib,’ I said.

  ‘Precisely. I can see that you now reject the word. Naturally, I have resented the idea, too ... but you cannot in a moment undo what your predecessors have done. Whether you like it or not, you command respect, for you have conquered and ruled us. You have a reputation for impartiality, incorruptibility - and decision . . . Third, we have the opinion of Mr Huntington Blauvelt.’

  ‘My God!’ I said. Blauvelt, the Wandering Minstrel, was affecting my life more than any one of a dozen people who were earnestly trying to.

  Hussein nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Blauvelt, who is at this moment visiting the State as a guest of His Highness. Mr Blauvelt has certain - problems, but he is a singularly acute observer, even when apparently in no condition to observe anything.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now tell me, what are you trying to do, in the State? And what is my job to be?’

  He started at once to tell me, and I made an approving note. He had had the sense to realise that he must make up his mind about my reliability before approaching me at all. It would be no good hemming and hawing and fencing once he reached me.

  ‘His Highness is determined to maintain Chambal�
�s independence from both India and Pakistan,’ he said.

  All right, I thought. With luck, he might just manage it. Hyderabad, a slightly larger state, had tried, and Nehru had sent in the Indian Army. Two days - no Hyderabad. But Chambal had the enormous advantage of touching Pakistan as well as India, and so could not be treated quite so cavalierly, besides giving the Nawab the chance to play the two big nations off against each other.

  ‘We are determined,’ Hussein continued, ‘to maintain the old values of India. Most of our people are Rajputs and Jats, as you know. They reject the sickly Hinduism of Bengal. They reject Congress demagoguery. They are warriors. Three centuries ago they took the oath of allegiance to His Highness’s ancestor, and they are determined to uphold it. His Highness, for his part, while remaining a devout Muslim himself, rejects the intolerant spirit of Pakistan. There has never been any penalisation of Hindus in Chambal, and there never will be.’

  ‘There’d better not be,’ I said. Rajputs and Jats were not people who took kindly to oppression.

  ‘We reject democracy, bureaucracy, socialism, and communism,’ Hussein said. ‘Chambal has always been ruled by a sovereign, respectfully advised by the Wizarat. Under that rule there has been peace and plenty, and as much freedom as a reasonable man might ask. If a man wants to have a say in our government, let him rise by his own efforts until he sits in the seats of power - as Faiz Mohammed rose, from a butcher’s son, to be Subadar of Lapri - and as a score of others so rose, whom I can name. If a man has not that ability, let him keep his mouth shut, till his soil, and obey the orders of those who have proved themselves his betters... We will advance materially, but through the enterprise of our own leaders, not on the plans of clerks sitting in Delhi - or Karachi.’

  And you, doubtless, will make your tenth or twentieth million, pounds sterling, I thought. That did not bother me. I knew a good deal about Chambali Industries Ltd. Yes, they made money - but it all went back into new enterprises, certainly as well chosen as any government could do, and backed by a single man’s drive and determination.

  ‘That is what we are going to achieve,’ Hussein said. ‘We have a hard struggle ahead of us. You will have heard of our preparations to put our case to the United Nations, if need be. Other political and financial arrangements I will not bother you with now, though you will have to learn about them in due course. One political matter, though, will fall in your province - that is, the winning of the uncommitted states of Bandelkhand to our side. Their rulers all have the same point of view as His Highness. They too wish to preserve a way of life more suited to India than this cheap democracy. If they allow India to absorb them, not only will they themselves become landless paupers but their kingdoms will vanish, losing the identity of a thousand years - sometimes much more, as with Konpara - to become so much more raw material for Nehru’s socialist experiments. . .. We believe you can exert great influence on the ruler of Kishanpur at least, perhaps also the Rajah of Konpara, through your family connections and your own personality. We want you to persuade them to join Chambal.’

  ‘Why should they?’ I asked.

  Hussein stretched out his hands, turning them palms upward in a very Indian gesture, which I was pleased and reassured to see. He was, otherwise, so cosmopolitan, so much the international financier, that he could have been a Rothschild or a Morgan or a Baring, discussing some steel merger in Belgium. He said, ‘In Chambal we already have twelve rajahs happy to admit the Nawab’s suzerainty, and all those twelve and their ancestors have ruled their lands without interference for a long time, subject only to the orders of His Highness on matters of common concern …. I think it should not be hard to persuade Dip Rao Rawan that it is better to become the thirteenth rajah, than to disappear totally.’ I agreed, while thinking privately that those small states like Kishanpur and Konpara were probably expendable, in the Chambal view. If they could be persuaded to join Chambal, or to try to do so, the Indian Government would certainly not permit them; but it would have to turn its efforts to bringing them back into the fold and would find it hard to deal with Chambal at the same time. Of course, if the mergers could be managed, so much the better ... If I had to deal with Kishanpur, I would meet Sumitra.

  Hussein stood up. ‘I have nothing more to say, Colonel. I shall leave you to think it over, and would ask for a reply within forty-eight hours. I am at Chambal House, in New Delhi.’

  He looked straight at me, and the small, piercing dark eyes almost glittered. ‘I think you are a man who has an ideal for this country, as I have. I am offering you a post as important for the future as any you have ever had in the past. Work of value to the spirit. Something you can fight for. And afterwards, when we have achieved our independence, there will be a secure place for you, and even higher rewards - in business or government, as you wish. We shall need you.’

  He went out. I had controlled my feelings during his stay, but now I let them go. The first thing I noticed was that the morass had vanished. My legs were free. Then my eyes were focused. I had something to do, somewhere to go. Then, my heart was warm - someone needed me. Then, I felt a thrill of satisfied revenge. The bloody Indians had harried me from pillar to post, thinking I was helpless and harmless. They would regret it.

  I stood up, and exhilaration flowed in, replacing all other emotions. I thought of what was to be achieved. Was this not precisely the sum of my thoughts that dreadful day at the Pattan Rest House when I asked myself what we had done, to destroy the old India which my ancestors had found, and hand it over to the worst sort of mediocrity? I was being given a chance to start again, to create and preserve instead of destroy.

  After a few minutes I came back to the actual question, almost as an afterthought. There was no doubt in my mind at all. I would take the task and do all that I could to make Chambal free, independent, and, above all, Indian. And I would meet Sumitra.

  I was fast asleep when Ratanbir returned at midnight, drunk. He stood wavering and teetering and saluting, telling me that he had got to know the bank guards. The man on duty during the evening was a Burathoki, the same subtribe as himself; they were even distantly related; and he had been a naik in the 8th Gurkhas. ‘He’s an honest man,’ he said, belching, ‘but he drinks ... weak head. It won’t be difficult.’

  I told him to go to bed. Perhaps I should have told him I’d never meant to rob the bank, that such an idea was degrading for both of us - but I was too tired and too involved in other thoughts, and I didn’t.

  The next day at one I went to Chambal House. After a short wait I was ushered up a flight of carpeted stairs, along a tiled passage, and into Hussein Ali’s expensively simple suite. I told him I would accept his offer. He said, ‘Good,’ and, opening a drawer, handed me a long envelope, marked ‘Brigadier Savage, expenses (not accountable).’ He said, ‘Please report to me in Chambalpur within the week.’

  I said, ‘O.K.,’ and that was that. One thousand rupees.

  I took a tonga to the Imperial and sat down to lunch. Before I was through the first course the khidmatgar handed me a note. I looked up quickly. ‘Who gave you this?’

  ‘A man,’ he said, ‘a desi admi - a native. He went away.’

  I opened the envelope, which was properly addressed to me, including my decorations. The note inside read, ‘Be so good as to call on me in my office, Secretariat Buildings, any time after three o’clock this afternoon. L. P. Roy.’

  I finished my lunch, chewing carefully and trying to avoid excessive thought. I might be able to work out what L. P. Roy wanted of me, then again I might not. I might reach a conclusion, but find later that it was quite wrong. It is better to have a blank mind than a mind full of misconceptions.

  After lunch I read the Statesman and then set out for the Secretariat. A chuprassy told me that Roy Sahib’s office was close to Sardar Patel’s. A few minutes later I was announced.

  Roy’s office was not large and what with piles of books and papers, another visitor sitting in a cane chair across the table from
him, and a secretary bending over Roy’s shoulder, it seemed crowded. Roy said politely, ‘Be so good as to wait one moment, please, Colonel.’ I sat down on another chair, in the only corner free from furniture, reflecting how universally and truly Eastern is the custom of doing business in public.

  They talked in the wonderful and fantastic mixture of Hindi, Urdu, and English which had already become the lingua franca of bureaucratic India. The subject was some mines that had been willed by one petty (and deposed) rajah to another. I listened with joy to such remarks as ‘Lekin yeh joint royalties aur overriding commission ke arrangement hai’ and ‘Agar Ram Singh apne collateral descendants ke lie life interest dena chahta’ and ‘Legal aspect bilkul clear hai, magar ... ‘

  Roy finished his business with dispatch, and when he gave the decision there was no argument. A moment later we were alone, and Roy got up and closed the door. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn in the Red Fort, the clothes he wore, as far as I knew, all day and every day - a spotlessly white dhoti and shirt, bare feet tucked into sandals. His square face somehow managed, without the Gandhi cap, to look lean and ascetic, and his mop of grey hair stood out like a halo from his head.

  He said, ‘I have a short temper, which I cannot control. It is a grievous fault. I apologise for my words when we last met, near the Moti Masjid.’

  ‘I was equally at fault,’ I said, ‘my mind was elsewhere.’

  He nodded. ‘Good... I have, naturally, held a prejudice against you because you killed my brother. But I am told by many whose judgment I trust that you are, in your way, a friend of India.’

  I said, ‘Of India? Yes, I think so.’

  He said, ‘You must not take the appointment you have been offered in Chambal, whatever it is.’