A Division of the Spoils

by Paul Scott

  He went back to the window. The train was passing a village. Water buffalo wallowed in the local tank. Women walked with baskets of cow-dung on their heads. Men drove skeletal goats and horned cattle. There was a smell of smoke. It would be a hot dry day.

  *

  It was gone nine o’clock when the train drew into Mirat (Cantonment): two hours late according to the new schedule. He was glad that he hadn’t announced his arrival in advance and put anyone to the trouble of meeting him.

  The platform was crowded. Officers, wives, mounds of luggage. Departing British. A train seemed to be expected in the other direction, from Mirat to Ranpur. The restaurant was crowded too. There wasn’t a vacant table and he didn’t want to share. He decided to push on and told the coolie to take him to where tongas were to be had.

  The concourse was also crowded, mostly by squads of British troops squatting on piles of kit-bags, smoking. Perron’s suitcase and hold-all were put on to a tonga. He told the man to go to the club. The tonga set off through the cantonment bazaar. Perron breathed in the familiar smell: an oily, spicy scent mingling with that of burning charcoal. And then they were out on to the first of the wide geometrically laid out roads of a military station, metalled roads with khatcha edges, shade trees, and lime-washed stones marking the culvert crossings over monsoon ditches, which gave access to the compounds of the old bungalows. The tonga passed neat white-shirted Indian clerks on cycles and was passed in turn by military trucks. Once you had seen one cantonment, it was said, you had seen them all.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the club. The way in was by a broad gravel drive that curved through a compound darkened and cooled by trees and shrubs. The colonnaded façade was dazzling white. Against the white the sprays of red and purple bougainvillaea stood out exuberantly. After the tonga wallah had taken the luggage into the vestibule Perron paid him off.

  There was no one in the vestibule. The hall beyond led to a terrace set with wicker chairs and tables. The vestibule was dark, high ceilinged. There were palms in brass pots. He banged a bell on the desk (which was discreetly positioned behind a pillar). A servant appeared from behind another pillar. Perron asked for the secretary. While he waited he studied some of the framed photographs that hung on the white-washed walls. These were mostly of victorious teams from old tournaments in the 1920s. Tennis, polo, cricket, golf. There was a photograph of Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales.

  A young Indian in European clothes came into the vestibule, asked if he could help, explained that the secretary was still having breakfast. Perron gave him his card and said he would be in Mirat for a little while and wondered whether the club could offer temporary membership, and if so whether it might include accommodation, say for tonight, and some breakfast now. The card he offered was the one that gave his London club address. The man glanced at it and said he was sure this could be arranged but that he would speak to the secretary. The bearer came back. The clerk told him to show the sahib out on to the terrace and serve him breakfast.

  The terrace was longer and wider than the view from the vestibule suggested. Apart from the wicker chairs and tables which were arranged close to the balustrade to give occupants a view directly on to a long sweep of lawn and flowerbeds (with, beyond, behind a white painted fence, rougher ground set out for jumping and riding displays), there was also a line of club dining-tables and chairs ranged along the length of the inner wall. The tables were free of napery, their mahogany surfaces highly polished. Each had a silk shaded lamp. There were probably a dozen of these tables and, between each pair, casement doors which led into the interior. Half-way along the terrace one of the tables was occupied by two Indian officers and an Indian civilian (or an officer in civilian clothes). The rest were empty. At the far end of the line of wicker chairs and tables sat a European woman. She wore sunglasses and was drinking coffee. The Indian officers and the civilian were finishing breakfast. The bearer guided Perron to the first of the empty dining-tables.

  He was a grizzled old man, white-uniformed, sashed, barefoot, gloved and turbanned. Having seated Perron he went away, returned almost at once with a tray from which he took things to lay a single place on the gleaming surface. Having done this he produced the final item – a menu secured in a silver-plated stand. ‘Sahib,’ he said, and went, leaving Perron to consult the bill of fare. Perron, picking the card up by its stand, suddenly leant back, gazed out at the sweep of lawn, the canna-lilies, the immense earthen pots of delicately tinted and scented flowers that stood sentinel between each batch of wicker chairs and tables. India, he thought. India. I’m back. Really back. Why, he wondered, was the Mirat Gymkhana Club so familiar? And then saw why. Once, both wearing civilian clothes, Bob Chalmers had breakfasted him at the Turf Club in Poona. The Mirat Gymkhana might have been a duplicate. The bearer came out again with a wooden contraption which he opened up and set behind the side-plate. A newspaper rest. Upon this he placed a folded newspaper called the Mirat Courier.

  ‘No Times of India?’

  ‘Not until midday, Sahib. Yesterday’s is available.’

  ‘I think not yesterday’s. What is Fish Soufflé Izzat Bagh?’

  ‘Local fish, Sahib. Caught daily in Izzat Bagh lake. Cooked with spice and served with rice. Today not recommended.’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘Today not fresh, Sahib. Fish too long on ice. Fishermen not going out two day now.’

  Perron ordered eggs and bacon and, when the old man had gone turned to watch the belligerent shining blue-black crows making hungry sorties on to the wet lawn. The Indian officers suddenly laughed aloud and slapped their napkins down. The European woman wearing the sun-glasses was getting up, gathering her things. She went through one of the open casement windows at the far end of the terrace. The civilian with the officers went on talking. Perhaps he was telling them funny stories.

  ‘Mr Perron?’

  An elderly man, short, stout, bald, stood by Perron’s table. Perron got up, took the offered hand.

  ‘Macpherson,’ the man said. ‘I’m the secretary. Please –’ But Perron remained standing until, accepting his invitation Macpherson sat too. ‘I hope you’re being looked after all right.’ Perron assured him he was. ‘Don’t have the fish, incidentally.’

  ‘Your chap’s already warned me off it.’

  ‘That must be old Ghulam. Thank God for him anyway. Staff’s difficult nowadays. Night train from Ranpur?’ Perron nodded. ‘Should have been in at seven. It gets worse every year. I see from your card you’re from home. Been out here long?’

  ‘About ten days. Can you put me up for the night?’

  ‘For as long as you like. Nowadays we have more departures than arrivals. All the same, even for a night I’m afraid you’ll have to pay temporary membership and I’m afraid the fee’s for a minimum of one calendar month. War-time rule, dating from when young officers were coming and going and being posted overnight.’

  ‘And forgetting to pay their bills?’

  ‘That’s about it. Still, a lot of them are dead long since, I expect. You’ve been out here before haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but not for long. A couple of years during the war.’

  The Indian officers and the civilian had got up and were approaching. Macpherson looked up. ‘Everything all right, Bubli?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mac.’

  ‘Are you dining tonight?’

  ‘Who can tell, with one thing and the other?’

  ‘If you don’t tell you’re likely to get Fish Soufflé Izzat Bagh.’

  ‘Oh, God help us. I’ll let you know. See you, Mac.’

  ‘See you, Bubli.’

  ‘Nice fellow,’ Macpherson said when they were alone again. ‘Gentleman. But then most of them are. Which I can’t say for some of our fellows.’

  ‘How long have you been secretary, Mr Macpherson?’

  ‘About ten years. Mirat was my first station. Oh, years ago before the other war. Artillery. I got a chance to come back in ninetee
n thirty. Jumped at it. Retired in thirty-five. Took this on. Don’t regret a single day. Look forward to many more. No ties at home anyway.’

  Perron nodded. He understood that here was where Macpherson would prefer to die.

  ‘I had a job, though, back in ’thirty-seven, opening membership to Indian officers. It split the committee right down the middle. But I said if a man’s got the King’s Commission what does it matter what his complexion is. During the war the old members agreed I was right. It damned well disgusted us. We were damned well ashamed, I mean of some of our own countrymen. Do you know what they did once? Emptied all the chamber pots from the men’s room into the swimming pool, because they’d seen a couple of Indian subalterns swimming there. I marched them out pretty smartly. Chamber pots in the swimming pool were just about their Kingston Bypass style. Of course, that was wartime, ’fortytwo, when the Indian politicians were kicking up a fuss. But do you know what happened here a few weeks ago?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Swimming pool again. Someone excreted into a Gandhi cap and floated it. I never found out who. But I had my suspicions. Had to drain the pool, have it scraped, and get a Brahmin priest along to do a purification ritual before it was refilled. No Indian’s been in it since. It’ll be all right though.’

  ‘Whom did you suspect?’

  ‘The leader of what I called Mirat’s second-fifteen rugger club. The English officer who let wind when I took Mirat’s Chief Minister into the men’s bar one evening.’

  ‘Did the chief minister comment?’

  ‘Not directly. He’s not an Indian. If he had been he wouldn’t have commented at all. But he couldn’t resist saying, Shall we get some fresh air?’ Macpherson waved a hand, indicating the terrace. Perron’s breakfast began to arrive. ‘Sorry, Mr Perron. Unpleasant subject. Enjoy your breakfast.’

  Perron stood to acknowledge the secretary’s leave-taking. He said, ‘I know the man you mean, Dmitri Bronowsky? Actually I’m in Mirat to see him. Perhaps I can telephone from here and leave a message that I’ve arrived?’

  Macpherson hesitated. ‘Is he expecting you?’

  ‘In general, yes.’ Perron explained about the telegram that had awaited his arrival in Bombay. ‘But I didn’t wire back. I thought I’d just turn up.’

  ‘I know he was here a few days ago but he may have gone to Gopalakand. I can find out easily enough. He’s got a full plate just now. Not just Patel and company. Things haven’t been too good here the past week or so.’

  ‘It all looked quiet enough this morning.’

  ‘Oh, in the cantonment. But across the lake, in the city. Not so good. That’s why we don’t recommend the Fish Soufflé Izzat Bagh. The fishermen are Muslims. They’ve fished the Nawab’s lake since the eighteenth century. Tradition. Special sect. But they haven’t dared go out the last couple of days since a couple of them were found drowned. They call it murder and blame the Hindus. So it looks as if we may be back to how it was last year and earlier this. There’s a curfew in the old city. But we can always make you comfortable here, Mr Perron. I’ll send my clerk along with the temporary members’ book.’

  Macpherson went. Perron drank his orange juice. The clerk came with the book. Perron filled in the columns at the top of the clean page at which the book was open. He resisted the temptation to turn back and check how long it had been since the club had last received a temporary member.

  The front page of the Mirat Courier for today, Monday August 4, featured a muddily reproduced photograph of the Viceroy in Delhi with some of India’s leading princes, which Perron had already seen in The Times of India. There was no reference in the accompanying article to Mirat’s own prince, the Nawab, but the tone of the article suggested that the editor was anxious to convey an impression that the relationship between the princes and the Viceroy was of the friendliest kind; which, however true, was largely irrelevant to the political issue. The front page was, in fact, all sweetness and light. There was no follow-up to the rumour Perron had heard that Jinnah was accusing the Sikh leader Tara Singh of planning to assassinate him and sabotage the partition of the Punjab.

  The bearer brought his bacon and egg and, glancing up, Perron saw that the woman in the sunglasses had come out of the further casement doorway and was walking slowly along the central strip of coconut matting. From a distance he’d assumed that she was middle-aged, perhaps because her hair looked dull, colourless, and because the sunglasses accentuated the rather disagreeable set of the mouth. Nearer to, he saw that she was quite a young woman, thin but well-shaped, with a good bust, and a graceful walk of the kind that suggested she had always been proud of her carriage and had worked at perfecting it: an acquired good carriage, rather than the natural good carriage that he remembered as characteristic, for example, of Sarah Layton. As she came nearly level with his table Perron smiled and said, ‘Good morning.’ She smiled too and murmured good morning and went slowly on. She reminded him (he realized) of a younger Mrs Layton. She had that kind of composure: indolence almost. She left behind her a whiff of scent just heavy enough to suggest that it was expensive.

  Before starting on his breakfast Perron turned the Mirat Courier over to its back page. Here was another muddy photograph, illustrating a report headed ‘Happy Occasion in Ranpur’, and by-lined ‘From our Ranpur Correspondent’. He settled to eat and read.

  ‘The grounds of Government College in Ranpur were the scene of a happy occasion on Saturday when His Excellency the Governor, Sir Leonard Perkin, opened the new college building in which a future generation of Indian engineers will receive their education. “Let us hope,” Sir Leonard said, “that these young men, on whose shoulders India places great responsibility, as she moves forward into a new industrial age, will look back on the times they spent here, in this handsome building, with a gratitude at least as great as we here feel today to its inspirer and founder and principal benefactor, Mr Chakravarti.”

  ‘Sir Leonard went on to recall how, just two years ago, when the future seemed less certain, his distinguished predecessor, Sir George Malcolm, laid the first stone for the new wing. “Many of you,” Sir Leonard said, “will remember that occasion and perhaps regret as I do that Sir George is not here to open the splendid college that has arisen from that single stone. Be assured that I shall send him an account and appropriate photographs of it.”

  ‘Sir Leonard went on to speak of the gratitude he himself had always felt to the evening technical institute he had attended as a youth after a hard day’s work in the industrial north of England. He then referred to the “grave doubts” he had had when, in 1946, Prime Minister Attlee had proposed to put his name forward as Governor in Ranpur. “Well, Len, the PM said to me, we’ve already sent Fred Burrowes to Bengal and he’s an old railwayman too and not doing too badly. Unfortunately,” Sir Leonard continued, “Fred has stolen my best joke, which was that while I knew nothing about shootin’ and huntin’ I knew quite a bit about tootin’ and shuntin’, so perhaps after all I could be of some service in the brief period I hoped it might take, which indeed it has taken, for us to climb down from the footplate and make way for you chaps, of whose skill and devotion and confidence in the future this college is both proof and symbol.”

  ‘Amid popular acclaim, Sir Leonard then led the way from the platform to the main entrance of the new building. Receiving the key he made a characteristically generous gesture, placing the key in the door and then inviting Mr Chakravarti to turn it so that he would be the first to enter the college which Mr Chakravarti described later as “the fulfilment of an old dream.”

  ‘Present among the guests was Mr Mohammed Ali Kasim, obviously recovered from the recent chill that prevented his attendance at the Chamber of Commerce dinner two weeks ago. Until the announcement also two weeks ago that Mr Trivurdi would succeed Sir Leonard Perkin, Mr Kasim had been widely tipped as the new Governor-designate. Answering your reporter’s questions, Mr Kasim said he had no particular plans for the immediate future but that Mr Trivurdi’
s appointment as Governor was one that would have his whole-hearted approval. He declined to answer our question whether the Governorship had been offered to him first, and whether such a refusal was an indication that presently Mr Kasim intends to return actively to politics in the province.’

  The article about the Chakravarti building had seen Perron through his bacon and egg and part of his toast and marmalade. The bearer asked if the sahib desired a fresh pot of coffee. Perron said he did. He took another piece of toast and folded the Mirat Courier to pages two and three. A glance at page two showed that it was taken up entirely by box-advertising, so he placed the paper on the stand with page three towards him.

  Another muddy photograph; but suddenly he paused, a piece of toast on its way to his mouth, but never getting there. He pushed back his chair and took the Courier over to the stronger light near the balustrade. The face in the photograph was virtually unrecognizable. The heading alone made identification possible:

  Lieutenant-Colonel Merrick, DSO

  A moving ceremony

  ‘The funeral service for the late Lt.-Col. (Ronnie) Merrick, DSO, whose tragic death we reported last week, was held last Saturday here at St Mary’s, in a simple but moving ceremony conducted by The Reverend Martin Gilmour who, in his short address to a large congregation, spoke of Colonel Merrick as “a man who came into our midst, a stranger, and inspired us all by his devotion to duty, and has now gone, leaving us not poorer but richer for the example he set.” ’