by Paul Scott
‘No, sir?’
‘He’s now with a batch of prisoners that came over from Bordeaux, in a camp near Delhi. General Crawford has a letter from Colonel Layton asking to be allowed to see him. Apparently he’s the son of a Pankot Rifles Subedar who won the vc in the last war.’
‘No, she said nothing about that.’
‘Did she refer at all to our friend Merrick?’
‘Only in passing. He was in Bombay when she was. I don’t know why or for how long.’
‘Has Colonel Layton met him?’
‘She didn’t say so. I imagine he must have done.’
‘Is Merrick still in the department that’s working up these INA cases?’
‘Yes. He hadn’t been in it long when she told me about it. That’s only six weeks ago. And she and Merrick were at a party in Bombay last week. Ahmed Kasim was there. Merrick told her not to let Ahmed know he was connected in any way with the brother’s case.’
‘Ah. Well that’s one thing. The other thing is Merrick’s bound to know about the Pankot Rifles havildar too, presumably. Is he sufficiently in with the family to want to help Colonel Layton have an interview with the man?’
‘Probably. In with the family, yes. I don’t know about the other thing.’
‘No. Perhaps Layton’s letter to Crawford indicates he’s tried that string and Merrick wouldn’t play. Perhaps you’d try to find out. Crawford was going to write back and say there was nothing doing but I’ve asked him to sit on it for a few days. If Merrick’s playing along and pulling strings, let me know. We could pull a few from here. If he’s not there isn’t a hope. But in that case tell her how sorry I am her father can’t see his havildar. He may appreciate knowing that I’ve been consulted personally by Crawford.’
‘Right, sir.’
Malcolm hesitated.
‘Is young Thackeray barking up the wrong tree? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask. But I can’t help wondering. The only times you’ve mentioned her to me have been to pass on what she’s told you about Merrick. Very helpful on that first occasion. Interesting on the second. But I’ve assumed your interest in her was, what, limited to that subject? The way Thackeray spoke made me feel I’ve been insensitive.’
‘I can’t think why you should feel that.’
‘No. Well. How much have you told her – about our view of Merrick?’
‘Nothing, sir. Nothing specific.’
‘Well, that would be difficult. Even if one disregards the element of doubt. But what impression do you have of her attitude?’
‘I know she believes he made a mistake in the Kumar case.’
‘How did the subject come up?’
‘I asked her how the chap she’d visited in hospital was. And she told me he was all right and had gone to Delhi to deal with the INA cases –’
‘Yes, I remember that. We were both struck by the idea of Merrick conducting a whole series of interrogations. How did she happen to mention the Kumar case?’
‘She said she hoped he wouldn’t start every examination of INA men with a preconceived conviction of the man’s guilt. We went on from there.’
‘Did you tell her you knew Kumar?’
‘I only mentioned the school part of it. It interested her because her father went to the same one. She knew Kumar had been brought up and educated in England but hadn’t heard definitely where.’
‘Why is she so interested in Kumar?’
Rowan had asked himself the same question. He did not know the answer. He could only base an answer on Gopal’s: that Kumar was really an English boy with a brown skin and that the combination was hopeless.
‘I think she sees him as a man who couldn’t have existed without our help and deliberate encouragement. I should say that in quite an impersonal way she thinks of him as a charge to our account – guilty or not guilty. But believing him not guilty makes the charge heavier.’
‘She sounds an unusually thoughtful person.’
‘Yes, I think she is.’
‘Did you tell her he’s free?’
‘No.’
‘So she doesn’t know you keep an eye.’
‘No.’
‘I imagine she’d approve? Well –,’ Malcolm smiled, ‘– I expect you have more than one reason for hiding that particular light. I take it Kumar remains in ignorance too?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Does he still suspect Gopal’s man of being CID?’
‘That, or one of Pandit Baba’s creatures.’
‘The CID still keeps tabs, presumably?’
‘Very much so. On Gopal’s man, too.’
‘Does he mind?’
‘Gopal says not.’
‘What will you do when you’ve left Ranpur? Leave everything to Gopal?’
‘I shall have to. There’s not much to leave.’
‘Yes, well, it’s a minor matter. How are things with him though?’
‘He lives much as you’d expect. Coaching a few students at a few rupees a time.’
‘How is the aunt?’
‘She still looks after him.’
‘Is he as devoted as she deserves?’
‘According to Gopal’s man, yes.’
‘Good.’ Malcolm paused. ‘I hope we did the right thing, that’s all.’
VI
The car, which had been sent first to pick up Vallabhai Ramaswamy Gopal at his home, reached Government House a few minutes after eleven-thirty. Rowan had retrieved the envelope from the Signals Office and had it packed in his case. As he got into the car the old man said, ‘Keep away, Nigel. I have a cold you see.’ There was a smell of eucalyptus. Having spoken, Gopal clamped a square-folded handkerchief to his nose. He was wearing a grey flannel suit and had a woollen scarf round his neck.
‘How did you manage that, VR?’
‘I am catching cold easily nowadays. My wife tells me to keep an onion in my pocket. She has these outdated ideas.’
‘How is Mrs Gopal?’
Gopal jerked his head. ‘Okay. Very angry because I am not taking her to Pankot. She says what is the use of being married to a man who is always rushing off.’
‘Are you always rushing off?’
‘It is what I ask. When was I rushing off last? To Puri, isn’t it, two years ago and who was that with me? But it is useless to talk fact and logic to Lila when she is angry. Please excuse me for bringing so many things.’
Mr Gopal’s feet were hidden behind an assortment of luggage and oddments; among them an aluminium tiffin set. Outside on the roof rack he had already noticed a bed-roll and a wooden chest. His own suitcase was being put on.
‘While she quarrels with me also she gets the servant to pack this and that. It is best not to argue.’
Rowan had visited the house once. The Gopals’ quarrelling was not to be taken seriously. Jaiprakash announced through the open window that the suitcase was safely stowed. As the driver got in Mr Gopal spoke to someone on the other side of the car: a youth. He got in too and sat next to the driver.
‘It is my nephew Ashok coming to see me off. Making sure for Lila I am not rushing somewhere I shouldn’t be. Ashok, say how do you do to Captain Rowan.’
The boy turned round, ducked his head shyly but formally.
‘Ashok is doing his BA here, isn’t it, Ashok? But now he is talking of going to Calcutta for BSC.’
‘Why Calcutta?’
‘It is what we are asking. From Government College he can get BSC also, but no, he is insisting Calcutta. Ashok, tell Captain Rowan what you told Auntie Lila.’
Judging that the boy was too embarrassed to speak Rowan said, ‘Perhaps the real question is why not Calcutta?’
‘No, no, the question was definitely why Calcutta.’ Mr Gopal sometimes took a very literal line. ‘And the answer is for physics. Isn’t it, Ashok? In Ranpur he tells his Auntie there is no decent teacher in physics. For the past few days it has been physics, physics. You know what the trouble is with him, Nigel? He wishes to be the first Indian to make an atomic
bomb. He says only for power and energy but I know what is in his mind. He will blow us all up. And only last week it was Wordsworth and daffodils.’
They were through the west gate heading for the Mall and the western arm of Old Fort Road which would take them the longer but less congested way to the station. The car was now accompanied by two motor-cycle outriders – military police who had been waiting one hundred yards beyond the gate.
‘Look Ashok, what a story you will tell your mother and father. Driving from Government House with a motor-cycle escort.’ He turned to Rowan. ‘Lila said I should not bring him but I said you would not mind.’
‘Of course not. But what about getting back?’
‘He lives near the station. He is Lila’s sister’s youngest boy. He was only visiting us. It is a lift home for him very nearly, otherwise I would not have brought him.’
‘It’s very late.’
‘I’m often out as late as this, sir,’ the boy said, turning round. ‘I shall be perfectly all right.’
Rowan glanced at Gopal, but Gopal had the squared handkerchief covering the lower part of his face.
‘You speak English very well, Ashok.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He faced front. Again Rowan glanced at Gopal who jerked his head slightly, an affirmative answer to Rowan’s unspoken question. ‘He has found a very good coach and visits him two three times a week after classes. Other evenings he is attending YMCA and doing Ju-Jitsu. Mens sana in corpore sano. Ashok? You know the meaning of this?’
‘Yes, uncle.’
‘What a bright boy. Now physics. What will be the use of mind or body if you blow us all up? Will your physics cure my cold? What a state we are in. In one pocket the formula for splitting the atom and in the other an onion.’
‘Do you know the English cure for cramp, VR?’
‘No?’
‘A raw potato in the bed.’
Gopal laughed. Ashok looked round, smiling. Rowan thought: I unbend easily enough with Gopal.
He looked out of the window. He remembered the time when neither of them had quite trusted the other. Now they were friends. Before that Rowan had known of him only as a shrewd and conscientious civil servant who was said to owe his position in the Department for Home and Law to Mohammed Ali Kasim. A member of the uncovenanted provincial civil service his advancement might otherwise have been blocked by the preference given to British and Indian members of the august ICS. Rowan didn’t know in just what way he had caught MAK’s eye when MAK was chief minister but he had been a good choice for the senior position he now held in the secretariat.
They had turned off Old Fort Road and were headed south down the ill-lit Upper Tank Road with the barrack-like PWD buildings in darkness on their left and on their right the grounds of Government College – the principal’s bungalow, the playing field, the building-site for the Chakravarti extension, and finally, at the intersection with the brightly lit thoroughfare of Elphinstone Road, the old Victorian Gothic building of the College itself.
The car turned right into Elphinstone Road and was filled with sliding slanting bars of light and shadow. The motorcycle escort shortened the distance between themselves and the car to mother it through the crowds that walked freely on the road. At the Lux Cinema they were still showing Jawab.
‘Did you know old Mahsood well, VR?’
‘He was not so old. He came to see us when MAK was released from Premanagar and sent to Nanoora in Mirat. He was very upset because he wanted to go too, and Mrs Kasim would not take him because she was afraid he would tell Kasim how ill she had been. When he went Lila said “He says Mrs Kasim is ill, but he is ill also.” Then of course Kasim sent for him, so he closed the house up and joined them.’
‘He lived in the Kasim household didn’t he?’
‘Since many years. He was never married. “What do I need with wife and children?” he used to say to Lila. “MAK and Mrs MAK are like brother and sister to me and Sayed and Ahmed are like sons or nephews.” It was from Mahsood that Lila and I first heard about Sayed and INA. He said he suspected MAK would not forgive the boy and that this would be terrible for Mrs Kasim.’
‘How much do you think is generally known now about Sayed?’
‘How much? Or by how many people? Everyone is knowing something. No one is officially knowing anything. This is why the press keeps quiet. It is afraid of libel. Ask Ashok here what the students are saying. Tell Captain Rowan, Ashok, what the students are saying about Lieutenant Sayed Kasim. No? He does not want to say in front of you. The students are calling Sayed a hero because he fought with Netaji’s army against the British. They know he has been kept in prison-camp awaiting court-martial ever since he was recaptured in Manipur, but they say he will never be tried because the British are afraid that MAK will conduct the defence himself and bring proof that Indian King’s commissioned officers were left in the lurch by their English colleagues when the Japanese invaded Burma. And all things of that sort, isn’t it, Ashok?’
‘Not all students say this, uncle. Some concentrate on their studies. They aren’t interested in Bose. He is only a Bengali.’
‘Only a Bengali? You say this, Ashok? Are the physics teachers in Calcutta all non-Bengalis, then?’
‘It’s not what I say, uncle.’
‘Who is saying, then? Your friend Vidyar Awal for one, isn’t it? Ashok’s friend Vidyar is very anti-Bengali, very anti-Bose. His father is a major in the Engineers and comes from UP. You see how these distinctions arise.’
‘Yes, I do.’
Gopal sat forward suddenly.
‘What are they doing? They should have gone down Chowpatti. This is the old way to the special shed.’
‘That’s where we’re heading.’
‘To avoid crowds? There will be no crowds. Everyone knows MAK has gone up by road now.’
‘But you and I are going in the special coach, VR. Didn’t they tell you?’
‘The special coach? Oh, dear God.’
‘HE wanted us to be comfortable.’
‘Then we should go third class or in the wagon with poor old Mahsood’s coffin. Ashok, you must say nothing to your mother and father about this. Say nothing to anyone. Above all say nothing to your Auntie Lila.’
The boy was grinning. ‘Why, uncle?’
‘Oh, dear God.’
Rowan smiled, judging that Gopal was not really displeased. The little convoy turned left into the road that would bring them out at the coal and goods-yard area. They were already going past go-downs and repair sheds. Cyclists and car-driver had dipped head-lamps on. The road was not lit except where light fell from the high arc-lamps in the yards of the warehouses. There was a warm smell of drains, the acrid odour of coal and oil. They bumped over an uneven level-crossing. ‘Oh dear God,’ Gopal said again as if every spasm of discomfort were an indication of sustained discomfort to come. They approached a white post-barrier guarded by railway police. This was raised and the convoy entered an arc-lit cinder-yard and drew up at the entrance to a covered stairway to a covered footbridge. An English officer and an Indian station official were waiting for them. There was a batch of coolies to carry the baggage. The Englishman wore the armband of Movement Control. The Indian wore a sola topee. Rowan got out first. The MCO, not Captain Carter, but a man Rowan didn’t know, addressed him as sir and announced that everything was laid on. Gopal was still in the car directing the removal of his hand-luggage. The MCO spoke to his Indian colleague. ‘See to that lot, old son.’ Then he turned to the staircase as if he expected Rowan to go on ahead.
‘Okay, sir?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Rowan remained where he was. ‘Incidentally I’m not a civilian and I don’t outrank you. Has it been a problem getting the coach ready at such short notice?’
The MCO looked wary. ‘All we had to do was see the thing shunted out of the shed to the side platform. I didn’t know what the message meant at first because I didn’t know there was a special Government House coach. I’ve only been here thre
e weeks.’
‘There used to be several.’
‘Just for the Governor?’
‘Governor, staff, secretaries, clerks, files. Government used to go up en masse to Pankot every hot weather.’
‘What happened to the other coaches, then?’
‘You’ve got them in general service. You’d probably have this one too if the interior would adapt.’
‘Yes. I looked inside. If you don’t mind me saying so I thought it was bloody ridiculous nowadays.’
‘It was built for an earlier age.’
‘And there’s really just the two of you tonight?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The message said two but about four or five servants turned up.’
‘That would be about the normal complement.’
‘They’ve been making beds and putting flowers in vases. I thought probably some ladies were coming along.’
‘I think the flowers are the usual drill.’
‘There’s a drill is there?’
‘It simplifies things.’
Gopal had emerged now. He carried an umbrella. Ashok held the tiffin-set. The coolies were dividing the luggage up among themselves. Gopal called out to one of them to be very careful with the box because the clasps were unreliable and the box was heavier than it looked. To anyone not knowing Hindi it probably sounded like a complaint. The MCO looked at his watch. On his face was that familiar English expression of utter detachment from an Indian activity. As Gopal and Ashok approached he said to no one in particular, ‘Right then.’
He led the way up the staircase to the covered bridge. Their footsteps sounded hollow on the worn and grimy boards. Rowan had never travelled on the special coach himself but he had accompanied Pankot-bound guests from Government House to catch the train on several occasions. The previous MCO, Carter, had appreciated the fact that there was a special coach. Most of those who travelled on it had priority passages. Without the coach Movement Control would have found itself turfing passengers out of the ordinary first-class compartments to make room for them.
The covered bridge always reminded him of his schooldays. There had been one at Chadford where he changed trains on the journey between London and Chillingborough. This one smelt much the same, impregnated with decades of engine smoke. Briefly, above the undoubted Indianness of the station at Ranpur, he could imagine himself back at Chadford.