Death at the Durbar

by Arjun Gaind

  Compared to the second Durbar, the first had been rather a muted, lackluster affair. In 1903, Lord Curzon had decided to hold a requiem celebration, ostensibly to fete the succession of Edward VII to the throne. While the King had refused to travel out to India, his brother, the Duke of Connaught, had been dispatched to attend, and what had ensued was a wastefully extravagant display of pomp and circumstance so dazzling it had nearly bankrupted the government. In typical Curzonian fashion, it had been a grand excuse for him to lord himself about, and he had done just that, mounting a caparisoned howdah atop an elephant like some sultan of old, and forcing the Princes of India to congregate in the heat and dust while he acted even more self-important than usual.

  Nobody had expected a third Durbar, but then, when Edward had died and George V had ascended to the throne, the new King had commanded one final extravaganza, deciding this time around to be the first British monarch to travel out to India and accept homage from the Native Princes in person. As a result, once more the Maharajas and Nawabs of India had been summoned from across the length and breadth of the sub-continent, a collection of the wealthiest and most ancient bloodlines in the world, forced to bow and scrape like common khidmutgars to appease the ego of a King whose ancestors had been little better than pig farmers in Bavaria.

  Personally, Sikander disapproved of tamasha in general, and this Durbar was about as big a tamasha as they came. The British had declared it a celebration of Empire, but Sikander was smart enough to recognise it for what it really was, little more than showing off on a grand scale, designed mainly to discourage the Russians and the Germans from casting their greedy eyes toward the jewel in England’s crown. That was what rankled him most, not that he was being forced to be part of the King’s show, but the fact that he had no choice in the matter. It was anathema to his very nature to acquiesce without resistance, but on this occasion, he had been forced to do exactly that. He had to put what was best for Rajpore before his own preferences, even if it meant being paraded around like a prize heifer.

  Still, he thought, leaning forward as the car crested the Ridge, whatever else their flaws, you certainly had to give the English credit for their organizational skills. Below, as far as the eye could see, a million twinkling lights were arrayed neatly, as if the stars themselves had fallen to Earth. This was the Durbar camp, an expanse that covered almost twenty-five square miles.

  Until a few months ago, this had been sylvan countryside, dotted by an assortment of settlements and acres of arid farmland. But then, the Corps of Engineers, ever-efficient, had descended like a plague of proverbial locusts. Their task had been a mammoth one. A grand total of fifty square miles had been earmarked for the celebrations. As a result, almost forty villages had been leveled, and their inhabitants resettled. Vast expanses of swampy marshland had been drained, and the River Jumna embanked to create an artificial plain just north of the ancient walls of Shajahanbad. A hundred miles of metaled roadway had been excavated, and forty-four miles of railway track laid, including ten miles of narrow-gauge. Twenty-nine new stations had been built, including the complete renovation of the Selimgarh Station, where the King was due to make his arrival.

  Several hospitals had been erected, two exclusively for Europeans and three segregated ones, not to mention a veterinary hospital for animals of all kinds. An ambulance corps of a hundred men had been raised, and a fire brigade deployed, to combat the ever-present threat of fire. Close to one-hundred-twenty miles of pipeline had been laid to provide an adequate supply of clean water, and more than a hundred miles of telephone cable strung. And, of course, the pièce de résistance: more than a one-hundred-fifty miles of electric wire had been erected to provide the entire camp with electric lights. And all of this had been achieved amid the blazing heat of summer while battling the plague and an unseasonable drought.

  The end result of all this furious labor? A vast tent city had sprung out of nothingness, a sea of canvas, like some fantastical mirage come to life. At the extreme northern edge was the Coronation Amphitheater and the Review Ground, where the King would view a march past of the fifty-thousand soldiers in attendance. From the Ampitheater, two roads led southwards, the Princes Road and the Kingsway, bisected by the Mall. Surrounding these thoroughfares, one hundred-seventy-five separate encampments had been laid out. To the south of the Mall lay the English camps, over two hundred individual encampments, which included separate areas earmarked for each state and several sporting grounds, as well as the vast expanse of the King Emperor’s camp, which covered almost seventy-two acres immediately abutting Delhi Ridge.

  North of the Mall, arranged in a rough isosceles, lay the camps assigned to the Native Princes. While the senior potentates had been given the plum plots next to the central causeway, the appropriately named Coronation Road, the lesser Maharajas had been given space at the distant fringes, very near the Najafgarh Canal and the Wazirpur nullah. Sikander’s own encampment was at the distant corner of the Princes’ enclosure, very near the horse mews, with a bad water supply and the constant smell of dung, so far removed, it barely qualified to be considered Delhi at all, which was exactly why he had decided to decamp to the Majestic, a decision he was yet to regret.

  A discreet cough intruded upon his reverie. Swiveling his neck, Sikander discovered that he was being watched. Captain Campbell had only been feigning sleep, it seemed, for his eyes were now wide open, fixed upon Sikander with an unblinking intensity, his expression a mixture of curiosity and something more indistinguishable, suspicion perhaps, or wariness, he could not quite tell.

  “It is an honor to be working with you, Mr. Singh,” he said. “I have heard great things about you and your abilities.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.” His mouth split into a thoroughly insincere grin. “John Simpson is a great friend of mine. He speaks of you very highly.”

  Sikander’s eyes narrowed. Simpson was the newest Resident officer of Rajpore. He had been transferred there some two years previously, actually arriving to investigate Sikander after the previous Resident had died under mysterious circumstances. Rather than hampering Sikander’s investigations, Simpson had been of invaluable assistance then, and several times after. As a result, he was a man Sikander had come to count on as a friend, one of the few Englishmen he trusted. In fact, he found himself wishing Simpson were here now. He could use a friend to watch his back, but sadly, Simpson, along with Ismail Bhakht, Sikander’s Chief Minister, had been selected to be part of the contingent that had traveled out to Bombay to greet the King upon the arrival of his ship, the Medina.

  Still, the fact that Simpson was a friend of this Captain’s made Sikander’s frigid opinion of the man thaw, if only by a whit.

  “Well, Captain,” he murmured, “don’t you think it is high time you told me where you are taking me?”

  Campbell responded to this question with another, even more sanguine smile.

  “Aren’t you the legendary detective, sir? Why don’t you tell me?”

  Sikander pursed his lips. “Very well, if that is how you want to play it,” he said, deciding to take up the gauntlet, if only to spite Campbell. “You may think you are very clever, Captain, but unknowingly, you have already given me more than enough clues for me to make a calculated deduction about our destination.”

  “Is that so?” Campbell replied, his voice as smooth as silk. “Please, do enlighten me.”

  “Well, first there is the matter of your regimental affiliations. Your lieutenant is of the Black Watch, and you, Campbell, are from an even more illustrious regiment, the Coldstream Guards, which can only mean that you must be attached to an important personage, indeed. Then, of course, there is the small matter of this vehicle. This is the twenty hp Standard Landaulet, not the ten, and while there are more than fifty Standards here at the Durbar for British use, only two of them, as far as I am aware, are of this particular model. Last, there is the simple fact that you
have chosen to take the same route the Durbar procession will follow, up the Rajpur Road toward the Kingsway. That can only mean one thing. You are taking me to one of the British encampments, most likely the Commander in Chief’s camp.”

  Sikander challenged the Captain: “Am I correct?”

  Campbell did not reply, either to confirm or deny. Instead, he sat back, closing his eyes once again.

  “Just a wee bit longer, sir. You shall find out for yourself, soon enough.”

  Chapter Three

  “Here we are,” Campbell said some twenty minutes later. The car came to a halt, and he hopped off with boundless agility. Sikander dismounted at a statelier pace. He made a great show of stretching his back as Campbell paused to instruct Lieutenant Munro to remain with the vehicle, but it was all an excuse. Instead, he used this delay to take a surreptitious look around, studying his surroundings, which seemed to be the epicenter of a neat encampment. Some distance behind them, loomed a massive archway shaped like a flaming star, illuminated brilliantly. Before it, a vast oval lawn stretched into the distance, bordered by three intersecting roads. At the crossroads, on Sikander’s immediate right, stood a flat topped shamiana-style reception tent, as massive as a barn, its frontage lined by a long row of white and gold pillars. Beyond it, he saw two even larger tents arranged in a rough L, at the junction of which four other automobiles were parked, surrounded by what seemed to be half a paltan of soldiers, all looking very alert, and all members of the Black Watch as well, judging by their kilts.

  “This way,” the Captain said, as he led Sikander past the reception tent, making his way up a gentle slope toward a small circuit house, a nondescript cottage with a tin roof and a broad verandah, like a dak bangla. Arrayed around it were six large tents, in two rows of three, adjoining a neatly trimmed rose garden.

  As Campbell came to a stop in front of the first row of tents, the sickly sweet scent of the roses inundated Sikander’s senses, and he realised with a shudder exactly where he was.

  “This is not the Commander in Chief’s camp, is it?”

  “Indeed, it is not,” Campbell laughed. “It is nice to see that even the legendary Sikander Singh can be fallible from time to time.”

  Crossing over to the tent in the middle, he leaned forward and pulled open its flap.

  “They are waiting for you, Mr. Singh.” He offered Sikander an insolent grin. “And do try to be a bit more impressive, if you can manage it. The gentlemen in there, they are not quite as friendly as I am.”

  Squaring his shoulders, Sikander fought off a clenching at the pit of his stomach. Striding past Campbell, he entered the tent to find himself in a formal meeting room—what the Continentals described as a salon.

  It was richly appointed in splendor, its blinding panoply of gilt and brocade so ornate that it made Sikander, a man more than accustomed to luxury, blink disbelievingly. Dumbfounded, he could not help but cast a stunned eye about him. While he had certainly been prepared for opulence, given that this was the King Emperor’s reception pavilion, this was very nearly gauche. It was difficult even to believe he was in a tent, if not for the whispering sighing of the canvas roof above. The floors underfoot were not packed earth or bare brick, but rather Persian marble. The walls were royal blue silk, festooned with brocade tapestries, which looked to be genuine Gobelins, or at least excellent imitations. Directly to his left, he saw a triptych of paintings that looked to be original Gainsboroughs, beneath which stood a pietra dura cabinet, and a large Breguet regulator clock. To his right, he noticed a very handsome mahogany and ivory tableau atop which sat a chess set in jade and mother of pearl, flanked by two gilded fauteuils and a well-upholstered duchesse briseé chaise.

  Sikander was forced to cut short his appreciation of the décor as he noticed the cluster of people at the far end of the room, watching him intently.

  It was a decidedly curious assemblage. There were five of them, four gentlemen of the Occidental persuasion and one native. The English he did not recognize, but something about the Indian seemed very familiar. It took Sikander a moment to place the face—it had been some years since their paths had crossed, and he had changed almost beyond recognition, but undoubtedly, this was the very man who had sent him such a cryptic summons.

  It was impossible to live in Punjab and not be aware of who Malik Umar Hayat Khan was. His grandfather had begun his career as John Nicholson’s personal interpreter but, over time, had risen from obscurity to become one of the largest landowners in North India, his services deemed so invaluable to the burra sahibs in Simla that they had made him first a Nawab and then a peer of the realm. The grandson, who faced Sikander now, had been his contemporary at school briefly before Malik had departed for Harrow and he for Eton. He remembered a rather podgy pudding of a boy who had always been dreadfully homesick. They had never quite managed to be friends, but on more than occasion, Sikander had rescued him from the grim attentions of their seniors, not because of any shared affinity, but rather because he had felt sorry for Malik Umar, who had been quite as awkward as Tom Brown.

  All that had changed, of course. The shy, bumbling creature so willing to burst into tears at the drop of a hat was long gone. Instead, the man staring back at him was very nearly a stranger, tall, slim, exceedingly urbane with his carefully trimmed moustache and pomade-slicked hair, dressed in a simple black achkan so elegant it made Sikander feel like a pauper.

  He wracked his memory, trying to recollect what gossip he had heard over the years. He knew that Malik Umar had earned a reputation as quite a soldier, and that he was one of the new King’s personal aides, which was why he had been appointed as the Durbar’s herald, a fact that made him perhaps the most powerful Indian in the camps—senior, technically, even to the Nizam, though he was but a mere Captain in rank.

  It was apparent from his self-assured demeanor that Malik Umar was only too comfortable playing this role. At first, there was no warmth on his face as he eyed Sikander, no flicker of recognition. Instead, all Sikander saw reflected there was a cold hauteur, that habitual calculation of a man of wealth and quality experiences when he encounters another of his ilk.

  But then, after a heartbeat, a quite astounding transformation took place.

  “Ah, here he is at last!” Malik Umar exclaimed, and everything about him seemed to undergo a metamorphosis. It was unnerving, to say the least. In the blink of an eye, it was like Malik had become another person, throwing open his arms genially, his thin lips splitting into a reptilian smile as he came forward to greet Sikander.

  “It has been far too long, old friend. How good of you to come!”

  The greeting was much too brittle to be anything but contrived. Sikander shivered, his paranoia, never far from the surface, flaring to wary life. Malik Umar was making far too much of their relationship, which had been tenuous at best. It was obviously for the benefit of the Englishmen, which could only mean one thing—something rotten was afoot and his old classmate intended, no doubt, to land him squarely arse-first in it.

  “It’s not as though I had much of a choice,” Sikander replied, pointedly ignoring Malik Umar’s outstretched hand. “Your baboons insisted on dragging me here like I was a common criminal.”

  “Come now, don’t be so melodramatic. You aren’t in any trouble, I promise you. Forgive the hugger-mugger, but I am sure you understand we could not take the risk you were seen coming here, not without raising too many suspicions.”

  “Enough prevarication, Malik Umar. What exactly do you want from me?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you could do me a favour.” Malik Umar’s face tightened, as if to suggest he was not happy having to put himself so squarely in Sikander’s debt.

  “What sort of favour?”

  “In a moment. But first come along, let me make a few introductions, yes?”

  Placing one perfectly manicured hand on Sikander’s wrist, he gently steered him toward the q
uartet of Englishmen who had been watching their exchange.

  “This,” Malik Umar said, gesturing at the closest man, a squat solemn-faced fellow clad in the accouterment of a military policeman, “is the deputy commissioner of the Punjab, Mr. Edward Lee French.”

  The gentleman made no move to offer Sikander any felicitations, merely a hostile scowl that seemed to begin somewhere near his navel. Here was an enemy, Sikander thought instinctively, a man who would do everything in his power to obstruct him.

  As was his habit, rather than feel intimidated by such a display of naked antagonism, he offered the man a purposefully cheeky grin.

  “Mr. French,” he said, ignoring his rank if only to needle the man, “how very interesting to meet you!”

  “I wish I could say the same,” the commissioner replied with a sniff and deliberately turned away, a calculated rebuff.

  “Have we met before?”

  “No, but my nephew, Jardine, was your superintendent in Rajpore.”

  That certainly explained the man’s hostile demeanor, Sikander thought. Until a year or so ago, Jardine had been the head of the Rajpore Constabulary. However, his enduring incompetence had caused Sikander to request the new Resident, John Simpson, to impeach him. The last he had heard, Jardine had returned to his native Gloucester, his career in India all but over, but apparently not before managing to fill his uncle’s ears against Sikander quite thoroughly.