by Nev March
“Hullo,” I said, lacing up my shoes for the fight. Smith would wrap my hands and help me don my gloves. Gloves were mandatory now, since we followed the Marquess of Queensberry rules. McIntyre had given me twenty minutes to tease a confession from Akbar. He could delay the match only so long. After that, betting closed and the fight would commence. Wagers were high, odds two to one favoring Akbar. Given my history of injury, that was rather generous. Blast, I was in no shape to go against him.
“I know you,” Akbar said, in perfectly accented English, as his attendant worked his shoulders with gusto.
“Yes,” I agreed. Dressed as a missionary, I’d met him in Ranjpoot. I doubted that he knew that was me. No, he was thinking of our fight on the deck of Vahid Cruiser, where he’d downed me and escaped.
“Captain James Agnihotri,” he said with an urbane grin, “formerly of the Fourteenth Bombay Regiment, Dragoons. War hero. Injured in Karachi.”
I heard the word “Karachi,” but no picture swamped my mind, no numbing chill of terror. Nightmares still crept through the windows of my sleep, but hearing the dreaded word no longer squeezed my breath away. Well, now! Diana and Adi were right. I was done hiding from it.
“Yes.” I watched Akbar. What did he make of my cool acknowledgement?
Brows haughty, he glowered, assessing me, then snapped to his guards, “Leave us!”
I had to prod Akbar, get him talking, and provoke a confession. Keeping a conversational tone, I asked, “I’m curious. The women on the ship. Why did you abduct them?”
Akbar gave me an affronted stare. Had he denied it, I might have thought less of him. Instead, a corner of his mouth twitched. Then a smile widened across his handsome face.
“Trying to rattle me, Captain?” he chuckled, showing his disdain for such a ploy. “I’m going to beat you to a pulp.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but why go after the women? Don’t you have enough in Ranjpoot?”
His smile dimmed. He shook his head and brushed aside my barb. “You know nothing.”
“You’re probably right. So tell me. How did it start?”
When Akbar looked at me coldly, I said, “You’re an educated man, an Oxford man, so why?”
Akbar strolled across to the enormous garland and pulled out a cluster of purple spikes. “Know what this is, Captain?”
He wanted to talk about flowers? “No.”
“It is called purple milkweed,” he said. “It makes a fine poison.”
More intimidation, I thought irritably. The audience outside sounded restless. I’d have to move Akbar along quicker, but how? I asked, without irony, “You know a great deal. How’s it used?”
He gave me a piercing stare. “In drink. It’s given to widows, before they become suttee.”
Suttee. The ritual burning of Hindu widows upon the funeral pyre of their husbands. Wasn’t that archaic custom abolished long ago? What was he on about?
He saw my confusion. Amused, he said, “Did you think, because British law bans it, that it does not happen? I assure you, it does, and not just in the princely states. Well, that’s where we started.”
“Started what?” I said.
“Sending the women to Guyana and Demerara. Why burn them, when they’re toys I could sell?” He spread his hands wide in a flourish. “I just paid off the Brahmins at the Burning Ghat. Instead of milkweed, a sleeping potion was given. Relatives removed to a distance, the woman extracted from the pyre and presto! Set it ablaze. No one’s the wiser, and a grateful widow is my prize. They were so keen to escape, they boarded our ship without question.”
With growing horror, I understood. He rescued women from immolation and sold them for a tidy profit.
“So what happened? Why try to take the Parsee girls?”
He shrugged. “Supply and demand. Such high demand for fair ones! Light-skinned girls fetch higher prices. Simply had to expand the hunt.”
I maintained a puzzled look. “You just lift them off the street?” Like Chutki, my valiant little mite.
“You are Indian, aren’t you?” he said. “Agnihotri means you are of Brahmin birth. That is the highest caste, those who tend the temple fire.”
“Yes.” Dressed as I was today, scruffy beard and unkempt hair, no doubt I appeared a native.
“So why join them? Why fight for the bleedin’ English?”
I expressed surprise. “For the purse,” I said. “A thousand rupees.”
“Tsch.” He dismissed it as a paltry sum. “Inquilab! Revolution! That is our destiny. For that we need gold—lots of it. Then we take back what’s ours.”
I drew a slow breath. This was sedition, as blatant as could be! So where was McIntyre? Had he and his constables not heard?
To keep Akbar talking, I said, “Take back … India?”
“Why not?” he said, in his clipped Oxford accent. “The bastards bleed us dry with taxes. Take our cotton for their factories, sell it back to us at a hundred times the price! Too good to drink with us, won’t play cricket with us, who needs them? Join us, Agnihotri. Take back your motherland.”
My God, he was serious. Akbar was planning another rebellion! Barely thirty years ago, thousands of Indians had paid a terrible price for just such treason. Where was McIntyre?
“How?”
“Throw this fight. Not too soon, though. Third round. There’s five hundred in it for you.”
Playing for time, I bargained. No Indian worth his salt settles without haggling. I shook my head. “The prize is a thousand.”
He grinned. “All right, a thousand rupees if you cede.”
I didn’t consider it for a second but pretended to work out the mathematics of it. Where the devil was McIntyre? Akbar seemed to enjoy my hesitation.
“Two thousand, Captain!” he hissed. “Decide now!”
“No.”
The bell chimed. Outside a roar went up. Akbar smirked, rolling his shoulders.
I’d got his confession, but McIntyre wasn’t here to arrest him. The match was on.
* * *
By the end of the second round, I was winded. Akbar’s reach exceeded mine, he had a vicious right, and he was fast. I’d kept up with him, backing away, matching blow for blow, watching for a weakness, but it cost. I was tired.
Built like an ox, he was formidable. Twice before, I’d met him, man to man, and both times come off poorly. On the dark balcony near Diana’s room, he’d gotten away. When we grappled on the deck of Vahid Cruiser, he’d tripped me and escaped. Now he played to the crowd, enjoying their roars when his blows landed.
During introductions and reading of the Queensberry rules, I scanned the crowd for McIntyre. The Superintendent was conspicuously absent. So I boxed.
As the third round started, I took one to the head. Pain flashed. Then I glimpsed my chance. Akbar’s guard dropped as he went into his favorite one-two sequence. I danced to my right, and he set up for another go. I went into the gap, and let fly. For Bacha.
All my weight packed into a small area on his jaw. It nearly broke my shoulder. Akbar’s head snapped back, his eyes lost focus, but he didn’t fall. His guard fell away, and I threw myself to doing the most damage possible.
Time. The bell rang the end of the round, breaking into my attention like a thunderclap. We broke apart.
I heard the crowd roar, saw Sutton beaming like a hungry jackal. His smile stiffened into a warning. I started to turn.
Akbar’s kick caught me in the small of my back. I slammed into the dirt. Something gave way, sending a spasm down my side. Instinct cried out a warning, demanding, shrieking in my head. Pulling my elbows in, I rolled away from Akbar.
That movement carried me into the referee’s knees. He tripped over me with a shout, falling forward.
Cries of “Foul!” erupted, filling the hall. Akbar had not waited for the bell to start the next round. He had followed me, so the referee tumbled into him. They dropped in a tangled heap, Akbar cursing. In the ensuing confusion I climbed to my feet.
&n
bsp; Locking away the pain, I bounced to the side and let him come. I’d lost the capacity to duck, so I rolled with his fearsome right, and struck. For Pilloo. Hot pain stabbed my shoulder.
Akbar swayed. As prince he had plenty of practice meting out punishment, but few dared to pound him. And I did.
I could not feel my legs now. Each blow cost me at least as much damage as I gave. Sweat singed my eyes. I shook it away, following Akbar, moving in. More! I hit him hard, then again, putting my weight into it. For Chutki. My fist landed with a jolt that jarred my teeth.
Akbar slid to his knees. The referee sang out, “One, two…”
Jaw slack, Akbar stayed down, seeming insensible to the mounting shouts.
The crowd’s roar deafened me. In my corner, both McIntyre and Sutton leapt up, curiously alike, joy and pain creasing their faces. Right, I thought, spat out blood. Time to arrest the princeling.
I turned back … the ring was empty! I staggered. Someone caught me about the waist. Sutton, grinning with pride. Where was Akbar? Disbelieving, I shook away the sweat crowding my eyes and searched the raucous crowd. The devil had slipped away.
“My God, Jim,” said Adi, flushed, eyes sparkling. “What a fight.”
I said, “Akbar. Got away.”
He bent closer. “What? Can’t understand you, Jim. By God, it hurt to watch you.”
Someone unlaced my gloves, pulled them off. Diana cupped my hand in hers. Her tiny fingers shook. “Jim,” she said, saw my eyes. “Thank heaven!”
“I’m sorry, lad,” said McIntyre. His sandy mustache bristled. “Sutton went over my head. The Viceroy, you see? Said it was too late to stop the match. Told us to get him after. But Akbar’s missing.”
I spat out blood. Why in heaven hadn’t they set a perimeter and caught the blighter? Ah, I realized, Palghar was neutral ground—and the ruler favored Akbar.
“Steady,” said Doctor Jameson, out of sight. “Get that splint on him now.”
“Akbar’s gone? Splendid,” said Sutton. “We’ll have a rematch!”
Adi and McIntyre both swiveled toward him, glaring.
“All right, all right!” Sutton retreated, showing us his palms in mock surrender.
I hoped he’d wagered a fortune and made a killing on it, because winning it had nearly done me in. Akbar had slipped my trap. Again.
CHAPTER 64
PORT KARACHI REVISITED
The next day, Adi and I settled accounts, much to my advantage, since he was a generous employer. In funds at last, I rented a room at a boardinghouse near Fort Market. Since I was still recovering from the fight, Smith came by to help me move my things.
After packing the clothing the Framjis had gifted me in a trunk, I folded my uniform. A small red box rolled out—my medal.
Tossing it to Smith, I asked, “Stephen, why the devil did they give me this?”
He snatched it from the air, popped it open and grinned. “The Order of Merit. Wondered where it had got to—you didn’t wear it at the inquest.”
A dull ache grew in my forehead as I stashed my uniform in the trunk. “We survived … Karachi. So why? I remember … things that don’t make sense. A Pathan attacked me—I saw him twisted, crumpled on the ground. How could that be?”
Smith’s face froze in an attitude I had not seen before. He pulled in his lips, rubbed his mustache with a knuckle and narrowed his eyes.
His silence disturbed me. Sitting on the bed, I said, “You fell from the horse and got hurt, so I stayed with you. Our lads went ahead. They were trapped and killed.”
Smith’s mouth opened in surprise. “That’s what you recall?”
What was that odd note in his voice? I said, “More or less. I pieced it together.”
He drew a slow breath and shook his head. It made me uncomfortable, the way he regarded me, like a dog he wasn’t sure was friendly. His fingers twitching, he leaned back.
“Well, do you remember anything?” I asked. “Your knee had you delirious for a bit.”
Smith shook his head. “Never broke my leg in my life, Jim. It was you who fell from Mullicka. We left you with the packhorse and a scout, Ram Sinoor, and went on ahead to recon the port. We walked into an ambush.”
A knot formed in my throat. “But I heard our chaps … yelling, the shots, screams.”
“Afghans—came out of nowhere. Afridi tribesmen.”
A shudder shook me. I clutched the bedpost, trying to understand. “So I sent Sinoor back to alert the regiment. That part’s right. But you weren’t with me?”
“Not until later.”
“You fought them off?”
Smith stared at me. “You don’t remember any of it?”
“No,” I said. But that wasn’t quite true. I could see twisted figures in doorways, men I’d drunk with, trained with, laughed with, now crumpled in the dust. A Pathan leapt at me, head bloodied. I’d gripped my knife and struck.
Smith said, “You came for us, Jim. It took a while. Only five of us left, then. We held them off, those bloody Pathans, for three days, awaiting relief.”
I could not look at him as he continued. “Our chaps started shelling the port, remember? Doctor Jameson said you’d recall it in your own time.”
“I don’t want to remember, Smith! Just tell me.”
“You held them off. That’s why Sutton put you up for the VC.”
His smile drooped. “Just before relief arrived, you got shot. A head wound, Jim. You weren’t yourself for over a year. I visited, off and on. At the sanatorium, you were … amenable, obeyed simple instructions. Just sat there. Didn’t know me. Then one day you said, ‘Hullo, Stephen.’ You were reading the papers, cool as you please. Just like that, you were back.”
I touched the line above my ear that throbbed at night, the clump of hair that would not comb down flat. “It happened in 1890?”
He nodded, watching me. “Yes. Two years ago.”
I’d been out of it for over a year? “Smith, you’re sure about this?” Seeing him nod, I said, “The regiment was disbanded. Who survived?”
He stopped a few feet away, mustache bristling. “Well, I joined the Bombay Grenadiers. Pathak and Rashid went to Africa. Suri went home after his term. He grows apples.”
Was it true? I searched his beaming face. Four of my friends lived. I felt lighter, filled with unfamiliar buoyancy. “No one told me.”
Face flushed, he barked out a laugh. “We did, man, many times! You just. Weren’t. There.”
I’d injured my knee. That’s why I took so long to reach my Company. I remembered that Pathan, the leader perhaps, who came at me with a knife. Unbidden, my hand covered the scar in my side where he’d hit me. Those bloodshot eyes, that turbaned head, the blood running down his face, the man in my nightmares … I’d killed him.
So my dreams of mayhem were memories. Dead Pathans demanding to be remembered, my countrymen, insisting I own what I’d done and what I was. Little wonder they haunted me.
I slumped against the bedpost and grimaced as I saw images out of order, my memory a book whose pages I had pulled apart. I’d reached my lads after all, using my rifle as a crutch, hobbling forward on a torn knee.
* * *
In the gymkhana two days later, Smith slouched on a stool as I tapped at the punching bag. My shoulder ached, but working it kept it limber.
“Jim, me lad! Read this,” said Smith, grinning as he thrust the Chronicle at me. He’d folded it to Byram’s editorial.
I left the punching bag swinging and wiped off with a towel, draped it around my neck and raised two fingers to signal a masseur. I threw my leg across a chair, facing the back so the trainer could knead my neck, and read:
The Slave Ship Vahid Cruiser seized last week with ninety-four women and thirty-seven men in shackles was bound for Guyana. Official sources today named its owner as Seth Nur Akbar Suleiman, Crown Prince of Ranjpoot. He has absconded and is presently at large.
When Indians with privilege and power prey upon those of their compatri
ots who are weak and vulnerable, the dispossessed, the young, orphans and widows, we ought to be ashamed to call them leaders.
“Ashamed to call them leaders?” I said, “Bloody hell. The princes and Rajas won’t like that.” Akbar would like it even less.
When power is not tempered by wisdom, and greed runs untrammeled over the bodies of our women, the future of society is in peril. If Indians ever seek to share the reins of self-government, then we must be better at policing our own. Wealth and influence must not exempt anyone, English or Untouchable, Educated or Illiterate, from being subject to Law.
Whose Law, you ask? It is our Law together that governs Indians, one that neither the lowliest Chaprasei nor indeed His Excellency the Viceroy Himself can abjure. Neither Prince nor Potentate may trample upon the breast of India but that she rise up and strike him down.
I read the last line aloud: “Bring Prince Akbar and his cronies to justice! May any man or Rani who shelters him hide their heads in shame.”
“Great stuff,” said Smith, grinning.
“Pompous old chap,” I said with affection. Byram had outdone himself, naming Akbar and the Rani directly. It would be harder for him to hide.
McIntyre too would feel the sting of this editorial when the Viceroy and Ministry chaps demanded why Akbar was still at large. Scanning the page, I breathed a grateful sigh. There was no mention of my name.
“The match is on page seven.” Smith chuckled. “Sporting news. Right below the Derby winners.”
“Mm, imagine that.” I sighed as the masseur kneaded my side, still sore from Akbar’s kick.
At the door stood a familiar short, uniformed bearer, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Indians were not permitted inside the white-only gymkhana. It was Gurung.
The Durwan intercepted him, hand splayed. “You cannot enter. British officers only!”
“Han-ji! I know!” Gurung’s glance searched pairs of bare-chested men pounding at each other. I’d not been to the house, so Adi had probably sent me a message. I handed back Smith’s newspaper and went over.