Golden Afternoon (61 page)

Mother was delighted. So much so that she even dashed off a hasty note to Saadat, with whom she had always been on the friendliest terms, thanking him for the offer and saying how pleased she was at the prospect of a further spell in Tonk, etc. It was a personal letter between friends, and one that should never have been treated as an ‘official document' and filed as ‘evidence'. She hadn't stopped to think before she wrote it, and plainly did not consider it to be of enough importance to mention to Tacklow: but Saadat showed it to one Abdul Karim,
^*
a nasty piece of work, who passed it on to the Major. Nor apparently had she paid any attention to that remark of Tacklow's about ‘not looking forward to the prospect of more years in Tonk'. She probably didn't even notice it, for the surviving letters written during this period make harrowing reading — if one reads between the lines. He never actually
asks
her to come to Tonk; but the fact that he is worried and lonely, harried by rumours of plots and counter-plots and the discovery that he can trust no one — that there is not one single person with whom he can discuss the situation in confidence, certain that whatever he says will not be distorted, and that someone will not soon be spreading a twisted and unrecognizable version of it throughout the city — is clear in every line.

He needed Mother at this time more than he had ever needed her, or anyone else, before. And he says as much, by implication, in every letter, even going so far as to say things like, ‘If by chance you find that you could get away, you could always get the night-train from Delhi, and I could meet you at Sawai-Muderpore, or Sirohi, and we can drive back to
Tonk from there. But I quite see that you are tied by the girls, who can't be abandoned on their own …'

Why not, for heaven's sake?
I was twenty-one! — coming up twenty-two. We had plenty of friends in Srinagar who would have kept an eye on us, and with Kadera and Mahdoo as well, we could have been left on that houseboat in perfect safety. I've never been able to forgive Mother for not going to him when he needed her so badly.

To cut a long story short, the old Nawab died, and Major Barton turned up in Tonk to represent the AGG Rajputana at the various ceremonies and festivities that accompanied the enthronement of the new Nawab of Tonk, His Highness Said-ud-Daulah Wazir-ul-Mulk Nawab Hafiz Sir Mohammed Saadat Ali Khan Bahadur Sowlat-i-Jung, GCIE. In other words, our old friend Saadat. And when that was completed, the Major, who on this occasion had elected to put up in the No.
I
Guest House, sent for Tacklow and told him that His Highness the Nawab-Sahib had informed him that he, Sir Cecil, had been ‘putting pressure' on him, Saadat, to extend his term of employment in the state for a further three or four years. But since His Highness had no desire to do any such thing, he had asked Major Barton to speak for him, and to see that Sir Cecil vacated his house and left the state as soon as possible.

Tacklow, staggered by being given the sack in this abrupt and ungracious manner, could only suppose that some palace underling had been creating mischief on purpose, and hastened to tell the Major that he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He had had no intention of staying on in the job for longer than originally requested by the old Nawab. It was the old man who had asked him to stay until Saadat had learned the ropes, and Saadat himself who had implored him to stay on for at least a second term. There had been a mistake.

When, to his horror, the Major insisted that the only mistake had been his, Tacklow's, in thinking that he could ‘twist Saadat round his little finger', Tacklow lost his temper and insisted that the allegations should be repeated in the presence of the new Nawab. This was something the Major had obviously expected — he'd have been stupid if he hadn't. Saadat was waiting in a nearby room, and was produced almost immediately. Tacklow said that, furious and insulted as he was, he couldn't help feeling sorry for the wretched man. He seemed miserably embarrassed, and he wouldn't look at Tacklow. Barton asked the questions and the Nawab said ‘Yes' or ‘No' to all of them until there was one
totally insufferable one relating to the keys of the Treasury, made at the suggestion of Abdul Karim, the original snake-in-the-grass, that money and jewels were ‘understood' to be missing from it. Saadat, presumably remembering how Tacklow had saved it for him, and knowing full well that but for Tacklow he would almost certainly have inherited a bankrupt Treasury, replied surlily that since he had no detailed knowledge of what was in it, he could not possibly be expected to know if anything was missing.

That question was hastily dropped. But he had endorsed the others, and when he had finished, Tacklow said to him, ‘Nawab-Sahib, you know that this is not true. You cannot have forgotten so soon what you have said to me. Tell the Sahib the truth. For the sake of your honour!'

Well, he hadn't got any of course — not when it came to having to choose between beginning his reign by getting on the wrong side of the Assistant to the AGG Rajputana, and sacrificing Tacklow. For in the hierarchy of the princely states of India and the pecking-order of the Foreign and Political Department, an ex-Indian-Army Officer — even an ex-Head of Intelligence — once he has retired, cuts no ice compared with a working Assistant to the AGG Rajputana. It was perfectly obvious, of course, that the Major had been infuriated by the news that the newly enthroned Nawab had asked Tacklow to stay on in the same job. And equally obvious that he had not only shown it, but having scared the living daylights out of the poor man, shown him a way of escape by suggesting that it must have been Tacklow's fault, since he, the Major, was unwilling to believe that such an idea would ever have
occurred
to the Nawab; unless, of course, Sir Cecil had put it there, and bullied him into accepting it …?

It could only have been something on those lines, and I imagine the unfortunate Saadat must have jumped at it. The only person who was stunned by all this and literally
couldn't
believe his ears was my poor Tacklow. For, having no conception of the offence that had been caused during that wretched stay in Ajmer, it never once occurred to him that the Major had avoided us ever since because he hated our collective guts, and he was totally unprepared for the sheer hatred that showed plainly along with the accusations. When Saadat wouldn't answer him, he turned on the Major and said: ‘Since one of us must be lying, will you please tell us which one you believe?'

‘I believe the Nawab,' said the Major.

Tacklow, even less willing to believe his ears, said, ‘You are calling me a liar, in fact?'

‘I am telling you that I prefer to believe the Nawab,' repeated the Major, and walked out of the room, followed by Saadat, who turned his head at the last moment and, looking at Tacklow for the first and the last time, gave him an imploring look accompanied by a faint shrug of the shoulders and a slight spreading of the hands that Tacklow said was an obvious apology and a plea that Tacklow would please understand why he couldn't help doing this. After which he scuttled away in the wake of the Number Two Seed Rajputana, followed by the Snake, who probably slithered.

Well, that was all. A minor affair, you may think. But it shattered my darling Tacklow, who had always considered that anyone who took it upon themselves to govern a country and a people not their own
must
make it a matter of the highest importance to be just and truthful in all their dealings. That was Rule Number One with him; and to be told to his face, in the presence of the Nawab and one of his underlings, that he was a liar was as shocking as though a bucketful of pig-swill had been publicly flung in his face.

What he ought to have done, of course, was to leave immediately for Simla — or at least for Ajmer — and laid his case in person before the Top Brass. Instead of which, being Tacklow, he sat down and wrote to various senior officials who could have dealt with it. This meant that Major Barton got in with his own carefully doctored version well before Tacklow's letters were delivered. After that he hadn't a hope. Every single one of the men to whom he wrote wrote back to say, in effect, that he didn't have to worry, since no one who knew him would ever believe for an instant that he had bullied the Nawab into retaining his services, or lied to Barton. The very idea was so absurd that not one of his friends or acquaintances would take ‘that fellow's' word against his —
But
… why on earth hadn't he gone at once to Simla or to Ajmer with his story, instead of letting ‘that fellow' get in first? Didn't he
realize
that the F and P was practically a mafia when it came to backing their own members, and that they would stick together like glue?

Of course they were right. Barton got in first with a basinful of lies and soft soap (he may even have told the truth, and relied on his boss, as a ‘member of the Club', to back him!). Tacklow kept all those letters. They
were in the file labelled the ‘Tonk Affair', and when I burned it I kept back one of them: because it was from a great friend of Tacklow's, and because I liked him. His name was the Hon. Sir Alexander Muddiman and he had, I think, been a member of the Viceroy's Council. I still have it.

In the end, when it was much too late, Tacklow went to Ajmer to see the AGG, who sent for Barton to ask him, in Tacklow's presence, why he had accused Sir Cecil of being a liar. And as if it was not bad enough to accuse Tacklow in front of Saadat of being a liar — and repeat it! — he insisted that he had never said any such thing. At
no
time had he ever accused Sir Cecil of lying. Pretty, wasn't it? He covered up his first two lies by lying a third time. And got away with it, of course. No wonder India got tired of the British and threw us out.

Mother didn't make things better by writing to ask Saadat to keep Tacklow on. It was one of the silliest things she ever did, because Saadat showed both her letters to Abdul Karim, who, having got hold of them, sent them to the Major, who pretended to believe that Tacklow not only knew about them but had put her up to writing them. In fact, he had never laid eyes on either of them, or known anything about them, and Mother had thought she was pouring oil on troubled waters and cleverly saving Tacklow's job for him. The first he knew of them was when he was shown them in the AGG's office. Poor Tacklow; he
did
have a rough time of it. And Tonk hadn't finished with him yet. There was still a final little bowl of swill to toss in his face before he left …

All his friends had told him off for not having the sense to leave Tonk at once and make tracks for Simla and the seats of the Mighty, to lay his case before them. But it hadn't occurred to them to ask him
why
he hadn't done so. He hadn't left because his contract with the old Nawab had still a few weeks to run, and he thought it was his duty to stay, because of the promise he had made to the old Nawab that he would do his best to protect the interests of Nunni and his mother. There wasn't much he could do for the Begum, for by now she was a virtual prisoner in Tonk. But he journeyed to the Begum's home state (I don't know that I ever knew what that was) and from there to Delhi, where he saw and spoke to everyone who might be able to help her, and pulled every string he could on her behalf, and on Nunni's. He managed at last to get the money paid on Nunni's behalf, and extracted a promise that she and the boy should be allowed to leave for the hills during the worst of the hot weather.

He had not received his own last quarter's pay, and was told, while in Delhi, that this would be paid to him by an emissary of the state who would be along any day now. Tacklow, having completed whatever business he had to do in Delhi, stayed on there, waiting for this man from Tonk, and eventually received a letter to say that Sirdar Bahadur someone-or-other would be arriving in Delhi the next day. The next day brought not the Sirdar, but another letter to say that the money had been deposited to his credit in one of the Delhi banks. It hadn't been, of course; nor had the bank ever heard of Sirdar Bahadur Whoziz and, after making inquiries of several other Delhi banks, they reported back to Tacklow that there seemed to have been no such person. And no money either. Tacklow gave up and left for Kashmir.

No wonder he wanted to get the hell out of India with all possible speed, and make for the country where he had met the girl of his dreams and been so happy that he still saw it through a golden haze of romance. And that is really why we ended up in China.

We didn't manage to get there at once. There were all sorts of arrangements to make. A house to be rented at Pei-tai-ho for one thing, and passages to be booked on a ship that would land us in China at the best time of year instead of the middle of winter, when North China is so cold that the sea has been known to freeze for three miles out from Ching-wang-tao, and most rivers are impassable.

Letters flew to and fro between Mother's family in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin and other Chinese cities, and the Post Office on the Bund at Srinagar (from where we collected our mail), as the details of our flit were thrashed out. In the end it took another year to make all the arrangements and get our passages booked for the right time of year. Meanwhile, Bets and I continued to have the time of our lives while the going was good.