To The Coral Strand

by John Masters

  A chill wind blew round the group of headquarters tents and trucks scattered among the trees at the eastern edge of the. plain. The sun had just set and an even violet light spread across the sky. A burned-out tank stood like a ruined monument in the plain, about a mile away. Farther off, the village of Sakti lay under the blue haze of its cooking fires. It was the third day after the battle.

  The general finished filling his pipe and methodically found his matches. He kept them always in his right-hand tunic pocket. He lit one and held it over the bowl. With the second match the pipe began to draw well. The general blew out each match in turn, held it until he could break it, then dropped the halves into the ash tray on the table beside him. The second time, he noticed a small hole in the green baize laid over the table. He pulled out his notebook and wrote: Camp Comdt, hole in my baize.

  Behind him, on another table in the far corner of the tent, flowers and offerings of gur lay at the feet of a small statue of the monkey-god Hanuman, his own personal avatar. Beside the statue, on one side, stood portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru; on the other a portable bookcase, containing the Mahabharta, King’s Regulations, the Ramayana, the Indian Army List, the Bhagavad Gita, the Life of Robert Clive, Memoirs of the Emperor Baber, and Wavell on Leadership.

  The general heard a discreet cough outside the tent and saw the tips of a pair of brown shoes. A voice said, ‘Sir ... it is Major Gupta. You sent for me?’

  ‘Yes. Come in.’

  A small dark fat man sidled apologetically in, saluted, and stood at attention just inside the tent flap. The general said, ‘I wanted to ask how your patient is ... Colonel Savage.’

  The fat major said, ‘The A.D.M.S. saw him again this afternoon, sir. Of course we cannot be sure, but bullet seems to have made clean passage without puncturing intestine or wital organs. He has been suffering from obvious shock, but owing to good general condition he is making rapid recowery from that. He is somewhat weak, naturally. Temperature 101.1, pulse 95, poor wolume, and increased rate of breathing. Unless A.D.M.S. diagnosis is wrong though, and it is confirmed by X-rays, he should recower after suitable period in base hospital.’

  ‘Is he ready to be moved?’

  The major said, ‘If moved carefully, yes. He has excellent powers of resistance ... I found him out of bed just now, sir, standing by exit. When I insisted he must get back he said he was looking for nurses’ quarters. He needed a woman and told me to send him a nurse at once.’

  ‘And doubtless you told him sexual intercourse was contraindicated until his wound had healed properly?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course! I explained the effect on the walls of the stomach tissue and the drawing away of blood, the general strain on muscle. Besides, I said his request was impossible, as there are no nurses with a field ambulance. Besides ...’

  ‘It’s against Army Instructions, India, to have sexual intercourse with nurses.’

  ‘Precisely, sir. Also ...’

  ‘Also, it is not a nice thing to suggest, being insulting to Indian womanhood. No, for God’s sake, don’t agree with me ... I want to talk to him. He has important information I need. Could you bring him here?’

  The major said doubtfully, ‘I think so, sir. Of course, in absence of military necessity, on medical grounds alone, it is not to be recommended, but ... ‘

  ‘Bring him now. Wait -I suppose he has no clothes?’

  ‘No, sir. What he was wearing was evening dress, mufti, without coat, and in wery poor condition, quite u/s. I have made out destruction certificate ...’

  ‘I’m sure. Give him these. I think they’re about the right size.’ He got up and handed the doctor a small roll done up in a faded blue durrie.

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ The major saluted and backed away.

  The general sat down again. Bloody silly little man. With a fellow like that in charge, perhaps it wasn’t really necessary to make any special arrangements. Rodney was more than capable of dealing with him. But at any moment they’d send him back to the main military hospital in Bhowani, and that would be different.

  Why did so many of the new generation take themselves so seriously? It wasn’t like that in the old days. Look at Brigadier Moti Yasurvedan, Moti the Menace, with his monocle and his hackin’ jacket down to his knees, motoring off to take over the pacification of Chambalpur. Moti’s command car was always followed, at a respectful distance, by a three-ton truck with armchairs, sofas, silver, linen, a small four-poster bed, and a portable bar. Moti, when on outpost duty on the Frontier just before the war, had left his squadron to his rissaldar, with a thousand copies of his signature, and flown to Paris. And would have got away with it if he hadn’t run into his colonel in Maxim’s ...

  The general chuckled and wondered how much longer the teams playing cricket on the plain could continue in the rapidly failing fight. With the pitch as rough as an obstacle course, they must have been playing by radar even half an hour ago.

  A steady crunching of boots on the dry leaves made him turn his head to the left. He saw his A.D.C. striding through the trees, shotgun on shoulder and English pointer quietly at heel. He called out, ‘Any luck, Chop?’

  ‘Not a bloody thing, sir. The birds must have been frightened by the noise the other day. They’ve probably reached Cape Comorin by now.’

  The young captain disappeared. The general relit his pipe. There were good ones in the younger crowd. And certainly the British had plenty of bad ones. All the same, there was a loneliness ... it took a lot of effort to combat it. He missed them - even Talbot, even Byrne, whom he’d fought to earn his nickname. What a narrow-minded blighter Byrne was - wonder what he’s doing now? Never got very far, retired as a lieutenant-colonel right after the war, probably pig farming in Essex. He was a blighter, all right. But no one ever had to tell him when to blow his nose, what attitude to adopt. He made up his own mind, and never asked anyone’s permission. No one had to give him lectures about esprit de corps or work to convince him that he was the best in the world. He knew it.

  That was it - confidence. Very unpleasant when it led to kicking Indians out of first-class compartments and yelling about Wog music, but, oddly enough, it hadn’t cut them off as much as you’d expect. They never shouted at sowar or sepoy. Their manners to the V.C.O.s were wonderful. Say a word against Dogra or Mahratta or Garhwali - whichever they happened to be serving with - and it was worse than imputing sodomy to the King. Their viceroys lived and moved like monarchs - wasn’t it Edward P. who said he never really knew how royalty lived until he stayed at Viceregal Lodge? - but the rest didn’t give a damn for the Viceroy, and not much more for the commander-in-chief. Ride hard, play hard, don’t ask questions, never doubt yourself or your regiment ... The gap they created was between themselves and the Indian upper-middle class - his own. He’d never seen an Englishman until he left the little village where his father owned land to go to school. Now they’d gone - and everything about him breathed of them, and again the laurels of victory crowned the Colours they had devised and set up as symbols, and now given into his hands.

  He went out and beckoned to the Sikh military policeman sitting on a bench ten yards away. The Sikh leaped to attention, saluted, and ran up. The general said, ‘Have the jawans eaten?’

  ‘Not yet, sahib. We are eating by turns.’

  ‘The war is over. You can all eat together tonight. Go now, and get your tot of rum. You needn’t come back until ten. Enjoy yourselves. Sat sri akkal!’

  ‘Sat sri akkal!’ the soldier replied, saluting with a broad smile.

  The general looked at his jeep, parked behind his tent, and called, ‘Harnam Singh!’

  Another Sikh popped out from inside the guard tent. ‘You, too. Off you go.’

  When the driver had followed the military policeman, the general took his red divisional flag off the jeep’s fender, rolled it into its khaki cloth cover, and carried it back into the tent.

  Another jeep puttered up. Major Gupta and a medical order
ly helped Rodney down from the seat beside the driver. Rodney came forward, leaning heavily against the doctor. Max noticed that the khaki sweater, green trousers, and woollen shirt he had sent fitted him perfectly. About the boots he couldn’t be sure, but they looked all right. He saw by a bulge at Rodney’s pocket that he had the beret tucked away there. That was important. The M.P.s were demons on correct dress - as he’d insisted they should be.

  The general pulled forward another canvas-seated chair and Rodney lowered himself into it. The general said, ‘All right, Gupta. You can go now. I’ll call you when I’m finished ... Are you comfortable, Rodney?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment.’ He picked up the field telephone on the table and said, ‘C.I.E.M.E., please ... Divisional commander. Are you ready to talk about the tank recovery state yet? . . . Good. No, give me a ring here in ... twenty minutes.’

  He put down the handset and smiled at his friend. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any of your awful cheroots. How are you, really?’

  ‘Not bad. A little weak, but not as weak as Gupta thinks ... That field ambulance is a bit of a mess, Max. Anwar’s a good doctor and so’s Gupta, but they’ve got no idea of administration. The orderlies play cards all day, the jerries aren’t emptied, they keep running out of rations ...’

  Max said, ‘I’ve had my eye on it for some time. Thanks ... Rodney, I don’t want to be melodramatic, but you’re in danger. Roy got a dispatch out - I had to end military censorship as soon as they surrendered - and now the press and the government know all about you. Did you have to shoot Gokal?’

  Rodney said, ‘Either that or lie down. I told you I’d fight, one day.’

  ‘I didn’t like him myself ... You can go home without feeling you’ve failed, Rodney. I was thinking, before you came - so much that I see and touch and feel is yours. You’re leaving something pretty good, at least I think so, and a few hundred thousand others like me. And you’re taking a lot with you, too. You can’t leave your memories behind.’

  Rodney held out his hands slowly. ‘Empty-handed,’ he said quietly. ‘Beaten ... How did the 1/13th do?’

  ‘Very well. Forty casualties. I don’t suppose they’d have had any, except for you.’

  ‘One does what one has to.’

  The general sighed. ‘I know ... Look, there’s no time to waste. In a day or two, even by tomorrow perhaps, you will be on your way, put into the machine. To the C.I.M.H. in Bhowani. Then - to Delhi jail, I suppose. Is there anyone you want me to tell? Your father ...’ As soon as he had said the words he remembered, but it was too late.

  Rodney said, ‘My father is dead. He was killed during Partition, on a very appropriate date as a matter of fact - August 14, 1947, the day before Independence.’

  Max said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Rodney was looking down at the table. ‘I should have been up there with him, with Pete Rees on the Boundary Force. I wasn’t. I was in Bombay, seeing about getting a job with McFadden Pulley. Perhaps I would have been killed up there, too. And then we would have all come to an end tidily, no loose ends, exactly on Glamorous Dickie’s schedule ... It’s rather wonderful to think of Attlee and the Admiral, with about three months’ knowledge of India between them, breaking up in half a year what it took us two centuries to build. Not only that, but getting the whole damned lot loaded on to ships, pushed under the carpet, or at least disposed of somehow. Only they moved too fast for me. I got left over, me and five hundred rajahs. They, poor simple-minded saps, went round waving the treaties in which the Noble British Government guaranteed them their independence. They actually thought the Honest British Sailor would concern himself to see that those silly scraps of paper were honoured. I didn’t have a piece of paper ... You had no business to accept the partition of India, Max. No business to ride over the princes like a gang of Nazis. You only had to wait a few years, and do it honourably, even if it meant having us around that much longer. Twenty years from now this won’t be the army you knew - you’re brutalising yourselves, and India.’

  Max said, ‘I don’t know ... I feel a bit dirty, in a way ... But we’d waited a long time already. Time seems different from inside a jail, even though you think the jailer has tremendous qualities. And I suppose there comes a time when you have to tear down something, so that you can start to rebuild. The princes really were out of date, a sort of political slum, somebody called them ... Janaki’s in Bhowani, at Flagstaff House. There’s no sentry at the back where that lane runs along the garden hedge.’

  The telephone rang. ‘Divisional commander ... Yes, it is urgent, as a matter of fact, and I want to see that damaged gun for myself. I’ll be right over.’

  He stood up, and picked up his red-banded hat. ‘I have to go to the C.I.E.M.E. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

  Rodney said, ‘All right. By the way, you’ll find three men of Pattan in the Chambalpur dungeons. Their names are Chadi, Mitoo, and Ganesha. They probably ought to get a medal. Better still, give them some cash from the imprest before you have to go back to peace accounting.’

  The general made a note in his little pad. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m glad about them. Roy had an idea that we might be able to add them to the charges against you, if we searched hard enough in the jungles.’ He went out, glancing back once. His friend was sitting with his head in his hands, staring down at the table. He looked ill and tired and bitter. The general turned back, and said in a low voice, ‘For God’s sake, Rodney, no more violence.’

  The man at the table nodded without looking up. The general went out and walked quickly and quietly through the trees towards a cluster of lights a hundred yards away to the east.

  He had hardly reached it, greeted the waiting colonel, sat down inside a tent similar to his own, and begun to examine the chart spread out before him, when the telephone rang. The colonel picked it up.

  ‘C.I.E.M.E. ... Yes, he’s here, sir.’ He turned to the general. ‘It’s L. P. Roy, sir. He’s on his way through from Chambalpur and wants to speak to you. He’s in your tent.’

  The general swore silently. ‘Tell him I’ll be right over,’ he said. ‘This will have to wait.’

  He walked slowly back to his headquarters. His jeep was still standing behind his tent. A government car with a civilian driver sitting behind the wheel was parked close by. Sheer, rotten luck! Rodney had looked fit enough to drive eighty miles, and, dressed as a sepoy, with his command of Hindi and no M.P. likely to stop him, he ought to have got through to Bhowani without trouble in a couple of hours. Trying to escape on foot, though, in his state ...

  L. P. Roy was seated in his chair and the general felt a small stir of resentment. Why did the damned man have to keep emphasising his superiority over the military? They’d done what they were told, hadn’t they?

  Roy spoke in English. ‘Good evening, General. All is quite well in Chambalpur. We have installed Dunawal as temporary chief minister, and he hopes to form a provisional government by tomorrow. I am on the way back to Delhi to report to the Prime Minister. I am going to catch the night train at Bhowani. I would be glad if you could give me something to eat.’

  ‘Delighted.’

  ‘Thank you. While we are waiting, I would like to see the prisoner, Savage.’

  ‘All right,’ the general said. ‘Would you care for a drink?’

  Roy waved his arm. ‘I do not drink, as I think you know, General. In fact, I recall advising you that the alcohol habit was un-Indian and a relic of British imperialism.’ He stood up. ‘Let us go and see the prisoner now.’ He looked fanatical and bitter - as bitter as Rodney, Max thought. What did he have to be bitter about? He wished he had the Prime Minister to talk to, to explain to, instead of this hot-tempered, bigoted politician. Nehru had his faults, but ungenerosity was not one of them - and he was a gentleman.

  He thought slowly, now what’s the best way of holding Roy off for a little? He had promised Rodney half an hour. So far only twenty minutes had passed. Of course, Rodney woul
dn’t need the time so much, going on foot. He could be anywhere, whereas in the jeep he could only be up or down the road.

  ‘Let us go,’ Mr Roy repeated impatiently. His white Gandhi cap sat straight on top of his thick hair, and his dhoti was spotlessly white.

  ‘Sir ... General Dadhwal ...’ The fat doctor peered into the tent, saluting. ‘Sir, it is my medical duty to adwise you that the patient should return to the hospital now. He has been here nearly forty-five minutes, and that ...’ He peered round the tent. His face took on a comical expression of surprise, then fear.

  Max thought of saying he’d sent Rodney back to the hospital. Then they’d all go and look for him there - but Gupta had just come from the hospital and could say he hadn’t arrived. Besides, Roy was sharp as a knife, and it was too late.

  ‘You left the prisoner here,’ Roy snapped, ‘with General Dadhwal?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the doctor stammered, ‘forty-five minutes ago. I. . .’

  Roy waved a hand. ‘Go, go!’

  He turned coldly on Max. ‘We will hold you responsible for this, General! I promised Savage that he would pay dearly if he opposed us. You will face a court-martial, and it will not be packed by your friends. There are some generals who understand there has been a change in India!’

  Max said nothing. The longer Roy spoke the longer it would be before he would have to give any effective orders to recapture Rodney. ‘I was going to recommend you for a high order, and promotion, for your good work in this affair,’ Roy snapped. ‘Now I will withdraw those recommendations. Unless Savage is found, at once!’

  Max said, ‘You must do whatever you think fit. We all must. Personally, I think you are being petty.’

  Roy was not really a bad or petty man, just a product of his nature and the political history of the past thirty years. But he was famous for two things: his fanatical hatred of the British and his short temper. Max hoped to stir the latter into further time-wasting fulminations. He succeeded.