To The Coral Strand

by John Masters

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘You are an idealist, after all.’ That night, after the love-making, which was as long and as detailed as the night at Kishanpur, she whispered in my ear, ‘I love you, Rodney.’ Then she burst into tears, and for an hour I held her against me, while she sobbed quietly and whispered over and over again, ‘But I love you, I love you.’

  I felt that I had mounted the steed Pegasus. She lited me out and above the poison gas of Chambal politics. I went at my work with a new vigour and came back at night refreshed and alert, to be transported by the magic of her love and affection to new, more vivid clouds.

  I needed all the energy and élan I could muster. India began an economic blockade against us, and it became harder and harder to keep the army and the civilian populace content. Our three Constellations flew in from Europe, via Karachi, as fast as they could make the round trip, bringing in arms and supplies, but it was a drop in the bucket against our needs. Chartered ships plied in and out of Digra at enormous cost. There the cruiser H.M.S. Chambal lay to her moorings, conserving oil, while the Italian crew played cards and suffered from le cafard. Our puny railroad system began to fall to pieces. We were fast reaching the point where we must force India to act. If we did not, we would collapse of our own weight.

  I poured out my thoughts to Sumitra. She soothed me, her hand on my brow. I said, ‘There are times when I feel there can be no building until we pull everything up by the roots, His Obstinate Highness included, and start again from scratch … ‘

  ‘That’s what the Indians are trying to do,’ she said. She took my hand and held it tight. ‘And, Rodney darling ... she began.

  I interrupted. ‘But I’ve eaten the old bugger’s salt and, by God, I’m going to earn it.’ I jumped up and poured myself a stiff drink. Sumitra sighed, and I mentioned that the Nawab mistrusted her, as he mistrusted everybody. ‘I expected it,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he’ll feel different tomorrow. I’ve unearthed an Indian agent - quite an important one. Ram Lubhaya.’

  ‘My God,’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’

  Lubhaya was No. 2 in the Communications Department.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I heard something, and told the secret police yesterday. Today they searched his house and found incriminating letters from L. P. Roy. He’s in jail now.’

  ‘That ought to show them about you,’ I said.

  She said, ‘Yes. I think it will.’

  Two weeks later I went down to Lapri to run a training exercise for the local guerrillas. I had been to Lapri many times during my time in Chambal, for the gorge and the Sakti plain behind were the keys to any military defence of Chambal. Twice I had seen Margaret Wood. She was looking more composed, though wan and tired. The loneliness must have been getting her down because she gave me tea and obviously tried to keep me, talking about nothing, until I had to break away.

  Now here I was again, this time standing in thin trees near the edge of the slope, about halfway between Dhain and Lapri, looking down on the gorge road from India. The little village of Gidha nestled halfway up the farther slope. A motley gang of local men surrounded me and I examined them carefully. This was the kind of thing the American magazines would love, if only I could afford to let them take photographs here. I could see the captions now ... Jungle Natives Fight for Freedom! Intrepid Guerrillas Prepare to Defend Homeland against Armed Might of India! ... Tall hawk-faced ratmouthed Savage (see cut) English mystery man prepares secret hideout. In my mind’s eye I picked out the men who would make the most fierce photographs.

  I sighed regretfully. To work ... I had twenty men from Lapri, Dhain, Gidha, and other villages farther west. Five had modern rifles, and all knew how to use them. I had personally given them a course, back in the jungles, earlier in the day. That was a waste of my time - any lance naik could have done it - but Gokal Singh had protested his inability to spare me even a lance naik, so I did it myself.

  The men were mostly ignorant and raw, but most had a spark of patriotic feeling, and one or two some basic knowledge of the problem. I had just appointed a wizened old bird from Dhain as the over-all commander. Age is always important in India, and he was a skilled shikari and poacher, though getting a little creaky in the joints. I called him the Marquess, as he looked like Reading, the ex-Viceroy.

  Now I gathered them all closer, made them squat down, and began to talk. ‘This is where you have to work, when the time comes,’ I said, pointing down at the gorge. ‘The Indian soldiers will have to use that road for their tanks and trucks, and for the men who march. They cannot defend every inch of it - it is too long, the jungle is too thick. On the other hand, you can’t stop them. They are too strong and you are too weak ...’

  A few faces showed a glimmer of understanding. The rest stared down in wooden puzzlement, mixed with alarm. I told them they must organise into groups of three or four. They must hit and run away - snipe a single man here, blow up a culvert there. They must prepare several caches in the jungle, where they could hide ammunition, rifles, and also wounded men. I told the Marquess that each group was to know only the site of its own cache, so that they could not even by accident betray the others. (Or under pressure, I added to myself.) The Marquess raised one wrinkled and hooded eyelid, like a sardonic cobra. The object was to delay the Indians, and to force them to use more and more soldiers on guarding their communications, so that there would be fewer when they debouched on the plain, where our own army would meet them.

  More ... we wanted information about little-known tracks through the hills south of Dhain, and north of the northern escarpment. We must know which paths the Indians used, how many men, how fast, any tanks or vehicles. I would set up an army post at Sakti, ten miles west. All information must be sent there by the quickest means.

  We began a series of small exercises. I pointed out a tree or a rock as a pair of Indian sentries. The Marquess divided the men into groups, and I watched while group after group did a quick stalk and pretended to kill and escape. I showed them how to cover each other, so that men in hiding protected the man in motion. We examined various sites for caches and discussed their advantages and disadvantages.

  Finally, I arranged a practical ambush. A broken stream bed ran steeply down the hill in a north-easterly direction, from somewhat below Dhain towards the Pattan Rest House and the Shakkar. It was a steepish run of rock, in step and fall, not very wide. I would wait at the top, and after half an hour begin to walk down it, alert. I was supposed to represent a patrol of six men. The guerrillas, acting in concert under the Marquess, were to ambush me before I reached the jeep road at the foot of the hill. They went off down the nullah and I lit a cheroot.

  It was time Sumitra and I got married. There were still mysteries and depths in her which I could not get at, and, I felt, never would until marriage gave her full confidence. I suppose there has never been a mistress who is not always aware of the relationship’s impermanence, and therefore holds back something vital, which she can salvage from the wreck. I had also come to appreciate the depth of her involvement with her native soil (and mine, incidentally). Her years in Europe and America had passed like a shallow stream, and, except for the occasions when she still wore

  Western clothes, might never have existed. I ground my teeth on the cigar. We’d got to win our fight for Chambal’s independence. Otherwise we would both be in exile, for ever ... if I did not end in front of a firing squad.

  I glanced at my watch, stubbed out the cheroot, and started down the nullah. I kept my eyes open, but not unnaturally so. Let’s see, I thought, a section would come down here with two men in front, one on each side of the nullah and as high up as they could get; then would come the section commander and the Bren gun team; and two more men would follow thirty yards or so behind. The ambush must take account of all those. They’d probably forget to allow for the dispersion, rush in on the front men, and get caught by the two at the back ...

  A slight change of light, from a reddish matt of rock to a darker sheen, caught m
y eye a little right and ahead of me. Now, would I have seen that? Before I had made up my mind whether to start pretending firing, a man materialised from the shadows, a rifle in his hand. It was Chadi, my old shikari from Pattan. A sound behind me made me turn my head and I saw Mitoo and young Ganesha. Both were armed.

  ‘Chadi!’ I said. ‘My friends! Is the village hungry again? And I see you have rifles. A little old, but good.’ They were of an obsolete mark, obviously from Indian arsenal stocks. I smiled.

  Chadi did not smile. He said, ‘Sahib, you are on Indian soil.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’d probably have to get a map and a surveyor’s instrument to make sure of that, wouldn’t we?’

  The border between Chambal and India ran due north and south here, across this very hill. I realised about now that the three had not seen or heard the Marquess. How could that be? Ah, the cunning old Marquess, really in the spirit of our game, had moved his party downhill off to the side, so that there would be no footmarks or crushed leaves in the nullah to attract the attention of the ‘Indian patrol’. Was he within earshot? Probably not, because if he could hear us, these three could certainly have heard him getting into position.

  Chadi said, ‘We shall have to take you down to Pattan to the head constable.’

  I was wearing Chambal uniform, and carrying a long thumb stick. Otherwise I had no weapon. It would be awkward to be dragged off prisoner into India, whatever the legality of the matter, which would be impossible to prove one way or the other. Here, possession would be all ten points of the law.

  I had not expected this. I had an organisation among the Bhilghat Gonds, under Gulu, but nothing in Pattan. It seemed to me that the Indians, knowing my close connection with the place, would be too much on the lookout there. But this ... that they should have organised guerrillas, and from my own people! I felt cold, and murderous, but held my face under control.

  I said reproachfully, ‘Is this how you repay what I did for you?’ I looked at Mitoo and Ganesha.

  Ganesha was young, and I had been a great hero to him. He muttered, ‘Surely we can let the Gora-Raja go?

  Chadi felt the strain, but life in these hills is hard, as I had learned for myself. For a time I had led them towards a dream. The dream had collapsed. Chadi had to live. He’d taken a new allegiance.

  ‘I am sorry, sahib,’ he said quietly. ‘We have promised.’

  I shrugged. ‘Let us go down then. Or would you prefer to shoot me here and save yourselves trouble?’

  ‘Don’t speak like that, sahib,’ Mitoo wailed, ‘we have promised ..

  I started down the nullah, hoping we would get far enough down for the Marquess to hear us before Chadi headed out and east, directly towards Pattan, which now lay almost behind our right shoulders. I hadn’t gone ten paces when he said, ‘This way, sahib.’ He was as sharp as a razor, Chadi. He had realised that I knew perfectly well where Pattan was. Therefore, if I was heading on down the nullah, I must have a reason for it.

  We climbed up out of the nullah, and at the top the Marquess was waiting with his rifle aimed at Chadi’s heart. ‘Don’t raise your guns,’ he said in a hungry voice. ‘I am not alone.’ We heard the rest pounding up the hill then.

  The Marquess said, ‘You were late, sahib. I came up to see ... and saw ... and went back and told them to come ... and hurried up myself. I know you, Chadi of Pattan. What are you doing on the earth of Chambal?’

  Chadi did not answer. The three were surrounded now. ‘Take their rifles,’ I ordered. Grinning, my guerrillas did so. They were wildly excited, their eyes shining. The boring game had turned into reality. I looked at the three prisoners. It would be best if they did not return home. Nothing would more discourage the people of Pattan and other villages from doing police and scouting work for the Indians than to have it leak out that three of the best shikaris in the district had mysteriously disappeared.

  The Marquess was carrying the universal long-handled small- bladed axe, tucked now through his loincloth. He handed his rifle to another man and drew the axe. I stared at the three men. Young Ganesha was quaking with terror, though silent. These bloody people had betrayed me. They’d all better learn that the day of the pukka sahib was over. The day of Hodson and Edwardes and Nicholson was coming back, the day of the hard men of total power, instant decision, and no remorse.

  I remembered the warmth of Mitoo’s wife’s arms round my neck. These people had given me something, too. We’d shared everything, during time that could not be measured, and it wasn’t their fault that that time had ended. It was the shape of the continuum at that point in history.

  The Marquess looked expectantly at me. I said, ‘Take them to the jail at Sakti. They are to reach there alive and well. Understand? From there I will have them moved to Chambalpur as soon as possible.’

  I would have them thrown into the dungeons, to join others. The effect, of total disappearance, would be the same; but sooner or later they’d get back to their families. If the Indians won, they’d be released. If we won, I’d see that they were let out. The bastards ought to be thankful for their lives.

  The Marquess looked disgruntled and still hungry, and I said sharply, ‘Remember what I said! Without discipline we are lost before we begin.’

  Ganesha fell to his knees. ‘Thank you, Gora-Raja ... Raja, Gulu has been arrested.’

  ‘Silence!’ Chadi snapped. The Marquess hit him hard on the side of the head with the axe handle and he stumbled, and groaned, but recovered himself.

  Ganesha gabbled on, ‘Yesterday, sahib. He and a dozen others in Bhilghat. The police went. Another man is to answer messages in his name, pretending … ‘

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I motioned to the Marquess. ‘Take them away, by the hill roads.’

  We split up, the others going back up the nullah towards Dhain and I going on down alone. My mind raced and caught.

  Gulu arrested. The whole of my guerrilla organisation among the Gonds wrecked. They must have had an eye on Gulu, after I’d given the D.C. a practical demonstration of my special position with the Gonds; but this was more definite. They had something on him. As he kept no papers, couldn’t read, in fact, it was something else. I had met Gulu twice since coming to Chambal, once on the border near Bhilghat, once outside Lapri ... and that time, by pure chance, Margaret Wood had passed, walking alone along a deserted path miles from anywhere. She’d seen us. Jesus Christ, the bloody bitch had told the Indians ...

  I reached the road and strode fast along it towards Lapri and the mission. I’d fix her for good and all this time. His Suspicious Highness was right after all - trust nobody, nobody at all.

  At the mission bungalow I ran up the steps and knocked on the door. She came out smiling, an envelope in her hand. ‘I saw you coming,’ she said. She gave me the envelope and I took it automatically. ‘Do come in and ... ’

  I snapped, ‘You are to evacuate this mission in forty-eight hours. If you are not out of Chambal territory within that time you will be arrested and taken to the concentration camp. You will receive confirmation of these orders, in writing, before--’ I looked at my watch, it was five o’clock ‘--before six.’

  I turned and went down the steps. I heard her crying behind me, ‘What is the matter?’ I heard her footsteps running down the veranda, felt her hand on my arm. ‘Rodney! Colonel... Brigadier ... what’s happened? What have I done?’

  I soon outdistanced her and in Lapri stood over Faiz Mohammed while he wrote out the order. The Nawab had long since given senior civil and military officials authority to put any suspicious or traitorous people into a concentration camp, without inquiry or trial. I watched him walk down the road to the mission bungalow to deliver it. Then I got into the Bentley and drove back to Chambalpur.

  There I had a dozen people to tell, a dozen moves to make to counteract the effects of the action against Gulu. It was very serious indeed, because I had counted on the Gonds, with their jungle craft, posing a real threat to the Indians’ southern flan
k. Gond quiescence would release at least two more Indian battalions to come against us. And there was an air of urgency liberated by the act, because the Indians would not have moved until they were on the point of major action. Otherwise they’d merely be giving us time to start all over again.

  I did not reach the house until midnight, and only then remembered the letter Margaret Wood had given me. It was dated from Bhowani the day before. It was from Max. It began: My dear Rodney, Some friends and I got together a week ago, and agreed that your tremendous talents are being wasted in your present job ….

  The letter went on to offer me any one of five jobs: secretary of a club in Calcutta, another in Bombay; secretary of a racecourse somewhere else; top executive positions with two big industrial firms. It continued:

  We have a good deal of influence, and can assure you not only that the jobs mentioned are all available and held for you, but that we can ensure that any previous misunderstandings between you and the Government of India will be forgotten.

  In view of that last paragraph, Max must have got on to some of my I.C.S. friends. Senior Indians of the I.C.S. were quite indispensable, and the government knew it. Swallowing my peccadilloes, if the I.C.S. demanded it, would be no trouble at all.

  The letter ended. We - all your friends - do most sincerely urge you to accept one of these offers, and as soon as possible.

  Sumitra came in while I was reading, and leaned over my shoulder. When I had finished I put the letter back in its envelope, and burned it carefully in the grate, where a small fire sputtered - it was winter now, and cold at night. Sumitra said, ‘Why do you burn the letter? Don’t you want to keep it, for later ... in case?’ I said, ‘Max has to be protected against his own better nature. He could get into a lot of trouble, writing letters like that to English adventurers in the pay of the Muslim despot ... ’

  I thought what a damned good man Max was. Max, my enemy. Max, the cuckold. Max, too big to think of that, only that I had shared a love for all that he loved, and I had lost. Max, oh, Max, I thought, what a God-damned bloody tragedy.