by Paul Scott
On only one occasion had he had the opportunity to observe the process, and this was at dead of night when he found himself standing with a group of military police on the dockside at a point where a file of the men in question straggled past, in oddly assorted uniforms, in the imperfect lighting of well-spaced and high-pitched arc-lights which left him with no more than an impression of the vacuity that falls upon the human face when a peak of incomprehension has been reached. That they were home at last they could not doubt. The smell of home must have been unmistakable. But what this might mean to them they obviously could not judge. After the last man in the batch had gone by and the cordon of armed military police had closed in and hidden them from view, Perron had found it difficult to assess the significance of what he had just seen. There was, on this scale, surely no parallel to the situation in the whole of Anglo-Indian history? No such gathering of Indian soldiers (and the present one represented no more than the tip of the iceberg) had surely ever gone abroad across the black water to fight in the Sahibs’ wars and come back as the Sahibs’ prisoners?
He was still testing the situation to find a weakness in his estimate of it as one that was historically unique when his officer sent a message calling him over to the shed from which the security side of the operation was being conducted and there introduced him to a British officer, a major in the Punjab Regiment whose face had been burnt badly, on the left side. The left arm had been damaged too, although it had taken Perron rather longer to realize this and to appreciate that the glove hid an artificial hand. Several ribbons decorated the officer’s chest, the foremost that of the DSO.
Perron was introduced by his own officer as ‘the sergeant I was telling you about’.
‘You’ll appreciate this, sergeant,’ he said and began a story he said he’d heard earlier that evening. Perron assumed he’d already told it to the Punjab officer because the man glanced at a wrist-watch which he wore with the face on the inner side of his right wrist and then turned his attention to a wall-map of the dock area. The story was about the boatload of prisoners. In Bordeaux, hearing that they were to be shipped en masse back to India in a boat reserved exclusively for them, they decided it was the British intention to take them out to sea, disembark the crew and scuttle the ship. They refused to go until a sufficient complement of British soldiers had been taken on board to insure against the execution of such a diabolical plan.
‘Don’t you think that’s rich? I mean you have to give them full marks for an undiminished sense of self-preservation, don’t you?’
The Punjab officer broke in.
‘I’m told you speak fluent Urdu, Perron. Will you be able to follow a brief interrogation in that language?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I have a few questions to ask one of the prisoners, none of special importance but I prefer to have independent witnesses in case the man says anything I consider valuable. If he does I shall tell you what it was and you will then treat it as restricted and highly confidential information.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Whatever he pretends, this man will be very apprehensive at being singled out for immediate questioning. The MPS who’ll bring him will remain in the room but they’re British and won’t understand what is said. I want you to place yourself behind my chair and keep your eyes fixed on him, for the psychological effect. It would help if you could manage to look not in the least sympathetic.’ He turned to Perron’s officer. ‘I should like you to sit at the table with me. Have you a file you could be looking at?’
‘A file?’
‘Or an official-looking book. It’s always helpful if the man sitting next to the one asking the questions appears to be absorbed in some task of his own which the prisoner finds it difficult to connect with the proceedings.’
Perron’s officer laughed nervously. ‘I could always play patience.’
‘A file or a book preferably.’
‘Why is it helpful?’
‘It increases the prisoner’s sense of isolation and weakens whatever resolve he may have to withhold information from the one man in the room who is speaking to him. He should be here any moment. Shall we take up positions?’
They did so. The table at which the two officers sat was the ordinary trestle type, covered by an ink-stained army blanket. It had been cleared of the papers and trays that were on it when Perron visited the hut earlier. A briefcase, a spare glove, a swagger cane, marked the Punjab officer’s place. One-handed he opened the case and withdrew a file of papers and a fountain-pen. Perron’s officer, having rummaged about on another table, now joined him, bringing with him a notebook and a thick folder of assorted cyclostyled memoranda.
The room was the inner one of the two into which the hut was divided. It was poorly lit by a single electric bulb. The trestle table faced the connecting door through which the prisoner would have to come after passing through the outer room which was used by MPS and dock police but at this hour of the night, morning rather, occupied by just one sleepy corporal. It was this corporal who presently knocked on the door, looked in and announced the arrival of prisoner and escort.
They came in in file. The MP in front, a burly sergeant, halted about three paces from the desk, saluted, put a folded note on the desk, took a pace to his right and one to the rear, while the MP at the back took one to his left and then a pace forward, a manoeuvre that revealed the man they guarded; a thin, stoop-shouldered Indian in denim fatigue trousers the bottoms of which flopped over ill-fitting looking boots, a long-sleeved khaki pullover and, beneath it, a khaki shirt whose shoulder tabs were thrust through the slots made for them in the pullover. The man wore no belt. On his head there was a forage cap without a badge. The taller of the two MPS removed this roughly enough to jerk the prisoner’s head to one side. There was nothing on his sleeve to denote rank. The clothes had obviously been issued in Europe, perhaps in Bordeaux. He appeared not to have shaved for a couple of days. His thick black hair was over-long. A strand of it lay across his forehead. He stared from one officer to the other and finally at Perron who had been shocked to see that the prisoner’s hands were manacled. It was as if everything had been done to make him look and feel unworthy of any uniform whatsoever.
The Punjab officer asked the escort to remain in the room but to retire to the door. So far he did not seem to have looked at the prisoner but when he spoke to the MPS the man looked at him with close attention and took no notice when the two policemen moved. The Punjab officer (again so far as Perron could tell, having his eyes more or less dutifully fixed on the prisoner) still did not look up. After a while, perhaps as long as ten seconds, the prisoner glanced at Perron’s officer who was uselessly busy with pencil, note-book and the folder of papers, but almost immediately had his attention taken again by something the Punjab major was doing.
Perron glanced down. One-handed, the major had taken out a tin of cigarettes and a lighter. He opened the tin, selected a cigarette, lit it, closed the tin and then with the good hand reached across to the left arm which hung straight, grasped the wrist of the gloved artificial hand, raised it and placed it on the table. Having taken a draw on the cigarette he inserted it between two of the gloved fingers and left it there: an erect white tube with smoke curling from the tip.
As Perron switched his glance back to the prisoner he caught the burly MP’S eye. The MP winked.
‘Tumara nam kya hai?’ the Punjab officer asked suddenly in a low voice. The prisoner put his head on one side as a man might who recognized a language but could not identify it beyond doubt. What is your name?
Without waiting longer for an answer the officer continued; again in Urdu –
It says in this paper that your name is Karim Muzzafir Khan. Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan, 1st Pankot Rifles, captured in North Africa with the other survivors of his battalion. With his comrades. With his leaders. Colonel Sahib himself also being captured. Is this so? It says so in this paper. You recognize the emblem on the paper? Does the Sircar make
mistakes?
The man seemed bewildered. He looked at Perron, as if for help. Perron stared at the bridge of the man’s nose. The man looked down again at the officer.
Well?
Yes, Sahib.
Yes, Sahib? Yes? What is the meaning of this answer?
Karim Muzzafir Khan, Sahib.
Karim Muzzafir Khan, Havildar, 1st Pankot Rifles?
Yes, Sahib.
Karim Muzzafir Khan, Havildar? Captured with his battalion in North Africa?
Sahib.
Karim Muzzafir Khan, Havildar. Son of the late Subedar Muzzafir Khan Bahadur, also of the 1st Pankot Rifles?
Sahib.
Subedar Muzzafir Khan Bahadur? VC?
Perron was aware of his own officer looking up, alerted.
Well?
Sahib.
The Punjab officer removed the smoking cigarette, drew on it, tapped the ash into a tray, slowly exhaled and replaced it between the rigid gloved fingers. He turned a page of the file. The prisoner’s head was lowered. He was staring at the cigarette and the artificial hand as though they exerted for him the special fascination of an object or arrangement of objects which, properly interpreted, might help him to understand precisely what it was that was happening to him. Perhaps this was what the Punjab officer intended. He continued to study the new page in the file. He was in no hurry. Perron kept glancing at the cigarette. If left to burn right down would the artificial fingers react? Unexpectedly the officer removed his cap and sat back. The prisoner stared at the scarred face, then looked away at the other officer’s busy pencil and then at Perron and after a moment shut his eyes.
Are you fatigued?
The prisoner opened his eyes.
Sahib.
You are not getting good sleep?
No answer.
Why? Why are you not getting good sleep?
No answer.
Something troubles you? What? What will happen? This troubles you? What will happen to you? What will happen to your wife and children? You have a wife and children?
The man nodded.
What they will say? That this is a matter of great shame? Is that what troubles you? What your wife and children will say? What the people in your village will say to your wife and children? Is that what you are thinking? That your wife will not hold up her head? That this will be so because of all the men in the battalion who were not killed but captured only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan was not true to the salt? Only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan listened to the lies of his captors and of the enemies of the King-Emperor whose father rewarded his father with the most coveted decoration of all? Only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan brought shame to his regiment and sorrow to the heart of Colonel Sahib?
A pause.
How long is it since you saw Colonel Sahib?
No answer.
Where do you think he is? At home in comfort? You think perhaps on the day he and the other officers were released from prison-camp in Germany that he got into an aeroplane and flew home to his family in India? This is not so. It is you who are in India first, ahead of him, ahead of all your comrades of the 1st Pankots. Like you they had not seen Colonel Sahib since the day of their capture when the officer sahibs were taken to one camp and the men to another. But on the day Colonel Sahib was released he said, now let me go to my men. I shall not go back to India without them. Come, let us find the men, let us go to the prison-camp where the men are. Let us go to the camp and collect all the men together. Let us wait in Germany until every man who was still alive after the battle and was taken prisoner has been accounted for and then let us sail back to our families in India, as a regiment. And so it has been. And only one man of the 1st Pankots has not been accounted for, one man who was not killed but who was not in any prison-camp. He had deserted his comrades to fight alongside the enemy. We do not know why. We shall find out why. Where you are going you will be asked many questions. You will be asked many questions by many officers. You will see me again also. I also shall ask you many more questions. Tonight I am not asking questions of this kind. I speak to you only of the shame and sorrow you have brought to Colonel Sahib. I do not know Colonel Sahib but I know Colonel Memsahib and I know the two young memsahibs. Susan Mem and Sarah Mem. I was in Pankot four weeks ago. They had a letter from Colonel Sahib. Be patient, he wrote. I am making arrangements about the men. So, they are patient. All Pankot is patient, awaiting the regiment’s return from across the black water. In Pankot they do not yet know the story of Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan who let himself believe in the lies of Subhas Chandra Bose. But soon they will know. And they will be dumb with shame and sorrow. The wild dogs in the hills will be silent and your wife will not raise her head.
The Punjab officer spoke a resonant classic Urdu. It was a language that lent itself to poetic imagery but Perron had heard few Englishmen use it so flexibly, so effectively, or to such a purpose. Throughout the speech the prisoner’s eyes had grown brighter, moister. Perron thought he might break down. He believed this was the officer’s intention and he was appalled. He would have understood better if the officer and the prisoner were of the same regiment because by tradition a regiment was a family and the harshest rebuke might then be ameliorated by the context of purely family concern in which it could be delivered and received. Then, if the man wept, it would be with regret and shame. If he wept now it would be from humiliation at the hands of a stranger.
But he managed not to weep. Perhaps the years in Europe had eroded his capacity to be moved – as Indians could be – by rhetoric. Perhaps he suddenly realized that nothing except full bellies would keep the wild dogs of the hills silent, and was astonished that a British officer should use such high-flown language. Perron thought that for a second or two a flash of contempt was discernible in the moist eyes. Certainly, they dried, and were directed again at the burning cigarette.
There was silence for perhaps as long as a minute. ‘I have finished with this man,’ the officer said suddenly. Karim Muzzafir Khan understood English. He drew in a deep breath and glanced round, awaiting the MPS who, put off their stroke by the abruptness with which the interview had ended, made a somewhat patchy job of coming forward, saluting and leading the prisoner out.
When the door shut, the officer picked the cigarette out of the artificial hand and sat smoking and making notes on the file. The episode, to Perron, seemed pointless. His own officer obviously thought the same because he pushed away the file he’d pretended to work on, leant forward, rested his forehead on his right hand and watched the other man’s note-taking; clearly inviting comment.
At last the Punjab officer spoke.
‘I wonder whether your sergeant would ask the corporal next door to get hold of my driver and tell him I’ll be ready in about five minutes? The corporal will know where to find him.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that myself. I need to take a leak.’
Perron’s officer got up and went into the other room. He left the door ajar. Perron collected the notebook and folder and took them back to the other table. The Punjab officer stubbed the cigarette and began to repack his briefcase.
‘Were you able to follow every word?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What did you make of him?’
‘He looked fairly harmless, sir.’
The officer closed the briefcase. He leant back and looked at Perron. ‘His name has cropped up several times in depositions made in Germany in connection with the coercion of sepoy prisoners-of-war who were unwilling to join the Frei Hind force. In fact it has been linked with that of an Indian lieutenant suspected of causing the death of a sepoy in Königsberg.’ A pause. ‘But I grant you the harmless look, and, of course, he may be innocent of anything like that because a lot of these fellows are going to be only too ready to accuse each other to save their own skins.’
He put his cap on.
‘Incidentally, your officer was singing your praises before you arrived. I gather you have a degree in history and are particularl
y interested in the history of this country. Have you studied Oriental languages too? I mean, systematically?’
‘Not awfully systematically, sir. Naturally I became interested in Urdu and learned some during vacations and had some practice in conversation with a fellow-student during term.’
‘An Indian fellow-student, at university?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If you followed every word you’ve become very proficient. Have you taken Higher Standard out here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s not much use, of course, except in the army. It’s nice to be able to speak it. In my old job I generally had to use a mixture of bazaar Hindi and the local dialect of whatever district I happened to be in.’
‘What job was that, sir?’
‘The Indian Police.’
Perron was surprised. Neither the ICS nor the police had been in the least co-operative over pleas from their officers to join the armed forces. Recruiting to these services had lapsed at the beginning of the war and the men had been needed where they were, administering the law, collecting the revenues, keeping order, preserving the civil peace. Perron judged the officer to be in his middle thirties. At that age he would normally have held a senior post in the police, which would have made a wartime transfer to the army even more difficult to arrange.
The officer got up. He tucked the briefcase under the left arm which he then adjusted until it was clamped to his waist. The arm must have been amputated above the elbow. He took the spare glove and swagger cane in his right hand.
‘By the way, sergeant. I gather from your officer that you were at school at Chillingborough. When, exactly?’
Perron told him and after a moment added, ‘Were you there as well, sir?’
The officer paused before replying. ‘Hardly. I had quite other grounds for asking. Presumably you would know an Indian boy there, who called himself Harry Coomer. Actually Hari Kumar.’