by Paul Scott
*
I got to the Pankots’ depot at ten o’clock. They had suspended the interviews. I waited an hour but Rowan didn’t turn up. I went to Area Headquarters. He had been there but had gone (I imagined) to say goodbye to the Laytons. In the signals office I introduced myself to the signals sergeant and made sure he had my telephone number. I went back to the guest house and was told that Rowan had just rung to say goodbye. For the rest of the day and throughout the evening, Ulysses-like I lashed myself to the mast of my quarters, deaf to every seduction except that of the sirens of the telephone exchange and signals office; afraid to go out, just in case a miracle had speeded Operation Bunbury up and a movement order was already on its way to me, one that required immediate action to be considered valid.
Saturday is a blank. All I remember is a reduction in the guest house staff. An invisible garrison commander had issued orders to reduce the rations and send the cooks and bhishtis, every able-bodied man, to fill the gaps at firing-ports and listening posts, leaving me attended by one shabby fellow who scavenged somewhere for pallid meals of thin gravy soup, dried meat and miserly salad and got steadily drunker, deafer and more difficult to conjure either by electric bell, handclap or parade-ground order. His name was Salaam’a. One yelled this greeting at empty space unoptimistic of his filling it. It puzzled him that I wore a sergeant’s uniform. He thought it was some kind of disguise.
*
Sunday: the first Sunday of the peace. When I woke I knew I couldn’t spent another day cooped up. I persuaded myself that Aunt Charlotte couldn’t have moved quickly enough to justify my absurd expectations unless she had pre-empted the situation some weeks ago and decided that since the war in Europe was thoroughly over there was no reason for me to carry eccentricity to the absurd length of staying out East and eating the rice needed by starving natives.
Among the notices in the guest house was one from St John’s (C. of E.). Communion at 8 a.m.; morning service at 11. I had missed the first but felt I ought to attend the second. I got out my best khaki. I polished a pair of brown shoes and rubbed up the dazzle on the badge of my side-cap. I darned a small hole in the heel of a clean pair of socks Then I shaved – twice – until the lower half of my face looked properly baked and glazed.
These were acts of contrition for the destructive and mutinous mood of the morning of my arrival in Pankot; gestures of voluntary submission to the military system. At ten-thirty I set off and marched myself to church at heavy infantry pace.
St John’s was packed. It was like poppy day at Chillingborough; hymns and prayers in chapel. All that lacked was an old boy to give an ambiguous address about the obscenity and waste of war. I glanced round, looking as it were for Harry Coomer; but met only the mass of pale and ruddy complexions of an all white congregation. Were there no Indian Christians in Pankot? No Eurasians at St John’s on this Sunday of all Sundays? Perhaps there were. My view, from one of the back pews, and to the wall side of it, close to an exit, was limited. I was among the soldiery, a lone volunteer among the pressed men. Far ahead, towards the pulpit, shoulders glittered with pips and crowns making angular shapes between decorative hats.
But no dark face that I could see. I began to feel oppressed, slightly agitated, and glanced at the nearby door. The chaplain was reading a lesson. In a moment there would be another hymn. I checked the advertised number in the borrowed hymn book. From Greenland’s Icy Mountains, From India’s coral strand, They call us to deliver, Their land from error’s chain. When the congregation got up to sing it I slid out of the pew and in a moment was in the open, going down a gravel path between ancient drunken gravestones. Outside on the road under shade trees tongas waited, their drivers slumped in their seats or disposed on the ground in twos and threes smoking bidis. I flashed a two rupee note and commandeered someone’s equipage. It could be back at the church by the time the service was over. I only wanted to go to Area Headquarters. As I climbed in I thought I heard a voice from the church saying: That’s right. Aunt Charlotte’s voice.
The signals sergeant was leaving his office as I approached it. Seeing me, he stopped dead. He ignored my courteous greeting. He stared at me as if I were his worst enemy. I followed him into the office where without a word he handed me a signal.
Bunbury.
After I’d read it, twice, he said, ‘How d’you manage it, then? That’s all I ask. How?’
But there was no vice in him. He just envied my luck. Where had I been, he wanted to know. He’d rung Pankot 200 only ten minutes ago and got no answer. I told him I’d been to church. He said, as if this explained the signal, ‘I must try it some time.’ Then he became very helpful. He took me and my AB 64 and the precious piece of flimsy paper ordering Sergeant Perron to proceed immediately to Deolali for onward transmission to UK for demobilization (War Office instruction Number Such and Such and Stroke This Stroke That) to the Admin office where he enlisted the help of a havildar-clerk who, having no axe to grind about speeding an English soldier out of the country, set to work with detached efficiency.
Interpreting a string of references at the end of the signal he told me that I ought to arrive in Deolali in possession of certain important documents including a medical on my fitness to be allowed back into the at UK at all. He checked my AB 64. So recently Zipper-bound my jabs were up to date. He told me other things I would need. He seemed quite happy telling me. I wasn’t much interested. Nothing worried me. Somewhere just behind my eyes were rosy vistas, shimmering images of a world that had become benign. Area Headquarters was full of this benevolence. It was at low-pressure, staffed by nice people who seemed to have lent themselves voluntarily to the idea of simply keeping it going between Saturday and Monday. I felt the clerk was relieved to have something to do that he could put his mind to. I could rely on him utterly. I could rely on the Signals sergeant too. He kept close to me as if he thought some of my luck might rub off.
‘Let’s find the Duty Officer,’ he said. We walked along shady verandahs. The fire-buckets, I noted, were painted an enchanting shade of red. The sand in them sparkled. We went into a semi-darkened airy room where the desks and empty chairs were waiting for tomorrow and then through into a room whose windows were unshuttered. A girl in WAC(I) uniform was at a filing cabinet.
‘Morning, Sarge,’ my sergeant said.
She had three stripes. She turned round. It was Sarah Layton.
But the original Sarah, the friendly one. I said, ‘Good Lord, you’re a sergeant too.’
‘Well I am when I’m playing soldiers.’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘Yes. I’m glad you looked in. I’ve just tried to get you on the phone.’
‘You know each other,’ the Signals sergeant accused us. We agreed that we did. He gave me an odd look but said that would make it easier. He told Sarah what I represented: a problem which Area Headquarters had to solve. He explained what the problem was, how much of it was already being tackled and what remained to be done.
While he spoke I watched her, on the look-out for any sign of disappointment that the chances of knowing each other better were limited to here and now. I thought there was such a sign but couldn’t be sure. If she had been anticipating a quiet morning on duty with nothing much to do, the expression I marked (a slight darkening of the eyes) could just as well have been irritation at the interruption as of sorrow at my departure.
‘The duty officer’s gone off somewhere, but I’ll cope,’ she said. ‘You can leave Sergeant Perron to me.’
The sergeant caught my eye, nodded in her direction. ‘You’re lucky. Most of the others slope off at the first smell of anything like work. O.K. Miss Layton. Buzz me if you get stuck.’
*
She spent a lot of time on the telephone. I sat watching her, wondering at the change in her. Probably it was only life at home that got her down. Eventually she said, ‘Right, that’s tied up so far. Let’s go.’ I followed her out of the office. She locked the door.
‘Where to?’
‘Just relax. The army’s taking care of you.’
‘What about your office? Can you just leave it?’
‘I was only sorting things out for tomorrow. I’m not officially on duty. But everyone at home has gone to church.’
We went back to the havildar-clerk. She went through documents with him, collected a batch. We went to another block. She told me to wait outside. Ten minutes later she came out with more documents. Then to another office. She came out with another batch. I said, ‘You’re making me feel redundant, that I exist only on paper.’
‘The next bit is more personal.’
She hailed a 15 cwt that was driving towards the exit. She told me to get in the back. Five minutes later I recognized the grounds of the hospital but when I got out I didn’t recognize the building. She explained it was the private wing. The duty MO had promised to ‘do me’ if we came to the private wing at mid-day. It was five to. This time it was she who waited outside. The MO was a pleasant fellow. ‘Feeling all right?’ he asked. I said I was, really. ‘Silly question,’ he muttered, filling in spaces on the form. We worked out my height and weight without the aid of scales and measures. ‘They’ll do you in Deolali, too,’ he warned, ‘but if you arrive without a medical sheet you could be held up.’ He signed the sheet and handed it to me. ‘Lucky chap,’ he said. ‘Just try not to get clap between here and Deolali. It sometimes happens.’
He came out with me and chatted to Sarah. He said if she’d finished repatriating Sergeant Perron he’d take her up to the club. She said there was still some documentation to do but that she’d probably see him there later.
Back in the havildar-clerk’s office she gave him all the documents we’d collected. They checked through them, detaching copies for different files. Finally he handed me all that I apparently required from this storm of paper: a few sheets which went into an envelope.
Outside she said, ‘Well, that’s it. All you have to do is to be at the station before mid-day tomorrow – unless –’
Without another word she led the way to the signals office. The sergeant was just coming out, going to lunch.
‘Is there any transport going into Ranpur tonight?’ she asked him. He said there probably was. She turned to me. ‘If you could get down to Ranpur during the night you could get the train that leaves at 8 a.m. You’d gain over twelve hours, and that might make a lot of difference at the Deolali end.’
I said it was a good idea. She said to the sergeant, ‘I’ll ask at the club. Perhaps you’d have a look round too, Joe, and ring Sergeant Perron at 200 if there’s anything going in.’
He said he’d have a word with a Sub-Conductor Pearson in the mess. I could go along with him now, if I wanted. I made an excuse about having food laid on and packing to do. We shook hands in case we didn’t meet again.
Sarah and I shared a tonga back up the hill. I thanked her for everything she’d done and said the food at the guest house wasn’t much cop since Nigel had gone but that it would be nice if she could have lunch with me. She said there was a lunch party at the club which she couldn’t get out of. I asked her what she’d tried to ring me about earlier. She’d rung because she knew I was on my own and wondered if I was all right, since I hadn’t rung her. I asked her whether she could manage tea. She wasn’t sure. She’d be in touch some time, though.
As she got out of the tonga at the club entrance she looked at me and said: ‘I envy you, Guy. But I’m glad for you. And I’m not at all sure you don’t deserve a medal. Ronald Merrick’s going to be furious.’
*
I told Salaam’a to bring beer to the verandah. I sat studying the precious documents. For the first time I noticed that the signal hadn’t come via Delhi, via Merrick’s department, but had originated in Poona. The first War Office instruction must have been signalled from Delhi to Poona and my old officer must have rung Delhi, been told where I was and then copy-signalled direct to Area Headquarters in Pankot. I went to my room and wrote him a note of thanks, added a PS, to the effect that my tin trunk which had been left in Poona could either be repatriated too or broken open and its contents (a greatcoat and winter uniform) disposed among the needy. Then I had a couple of gins, a pallid replica of yesterday’s pallid lunch, and composed myself to sleep, having first told Salaam’a to attend to the telephone and in any case wake me with tea at four.
*
Zipper was coming to grief. Speeding towards the beaches in landing craft on the September tides near Port Swettenham we were opened fire on by rogue Japanese who had opted out of the Emperor’s peace, chosen to die, but to take us with them. For a moment I listened, aghast, at the guns and the water rushing against the steel hulls of the boats, aghast because of the danger and of the miserable realization that Bunbury had been only an Indian ocean dream.
I raised my wrist to check the time of landing and, doing so, woke to the reality of Pankot time which said ten to five, a thunderstorm, but all well. But not wholly all well. From the bedroom I wouldn’t have heard the telephone and it looked as if Salaam’a wouldn’t have been hearing it either, being either asleep or dead drunk at last. I pressed the bell-button. Like those at Ishshee Brizhish one could never tell what effect pressing the button had unless someone turned up. No one did inside the half-minute I allowed before getting out of bed, tying a towel round my waist and going in search.
I went through the living-room shouting that ridiculous name and then out on to the verandah from whose roof water was cascading from an invisible pipe or leaking gutter on to the gravel path. Beyond, vertical rods of water obscured the view of the Summer Residence.
From contemplation of this same scene Sarah Layton turned her head, to glance up from the cane lounging chair where she rested, smoking. A tray of guest house tea was on the table by her side.
She said something that I couldn’t hear and I was too conscious of my near-nakedness to go closer and cup an ear. She indicated an unused cup. In dumb show I told her I’d be out again in a minute, and went back, splashed my face, combed my hair, and got into a shirt and slacks and sandals.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said when I joined her. ‘The boy was just going to wake you when I got here. I told him to leave you for a bit.’ She felt the pot. ‘We’d better ring for some more.’
I did so. I asked her when she’d arrived. She thought it must have been nearly an hour ago. I wondered whether she had been waiting for me to wake or for the rain to stop, but didn’t ask. She said, ‘You’ll be glad later, I mean to have slept on a bit because I’m afraid you won’t have a very comfortable trip if you decide to go tonight. The best we could do is the back of a fifteen hundred-weight that’s leading a convoy down. But it’ll take you right to the station in Ranpur.’
She opened her bag and gave me a slip of paper with a name – Sub-Conductor Pearson – and a telephone number written on it. ‘The convoy leaves at ten this evening. Call him just before seven. He’ll tell you where to go to get it. I’m afraid I drew a blank at the club, so I liaised again with Joe Baker. He was going to ring you but I said I’d call and tell you.’
Our hands touched as the paper was transferred. The softness and gentleness of her fingers balanced out the impression of hardness, of military efficiency. It occurred to me that the time she’d devoted to me could perhaps best be repaid by giving her the chance to take up some of mine if she wanted to. I didn’t have to leave Pankot tonight. And now that it came to it I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.
‘On the whole,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts, ‘I’d settle for the discomfort if I were you. Joe Baker’s had another signal. There’s a Major Foster arriving tomorrow morning on the night train. You’re asked to meet him, so I suppose he’s Ronald’s replacement.’
I’d met Major Foster. He was a ditherer, the kind of well-meaning chap whom it could be fatal to get near. If I met him and told him I had to leave on the mid-day train, on repatriation, he might out of sheer good intention invent so many prob
lems that we would still be solving them two hours after the train had gone.
I said, ‘Yes, he is the replacement. I’ll settle for a night’s discomfort. I may as well ring Sub-Conductor Pearson now. Then we’ll know how long I’ve got.’
‘I shouldn’t if I were you. Not for a while. Joe Baker said six-thirty or so.’
For some reason she reddened slightly and returned her attention to the rain, which was stopping.
Salaam’a appeared.
‘Would you prefer a drink to more tea? Nigel said I could make free so long as I didn’t dine the station. You’re not quite the station.’
‘No, I’m not, am I? I’d like a drink very much.’
I told Salaam’a to bring out the drinks trolley. When we were alone I said, ‘Can you stay and have an early meal with me?’
She didn’t answer. She must have heard. The rain had now stopped entirely. She continued to stare ahead of her. Her cigarette was nearly finished. I glanced over my shoulder to see what apparently held her attention. The sun was just coming out. The Summer Residence rose – base to roof – out of the fast-moving shadow of a retreating cloud. Sunshine had already flowed across the garden. It pressed hard against the line of the balustrade, warmed my back and made me conscious of the hastiness with which I’d put clothes on.
‘You’ve seen the house, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I expect Nigel showed you over.’
‘No. Isn’t it shut up?’
‘The servants will always let you in.’
‘There seems to be only one servant left.’
‘They live in the main quarters. They only come down if there are people at the guest house. The house itself was built in 1890. Most of it’s plain Anglo-Indian but there’s a Moghul suite where they used to put up pet princes. The throne room’s very ordinary, just a couple of chairs on a dais, and the ball-room’s quite small. But they danced on the terrace too. There used to be coloured lights in the trees.’