The Ravi Lancers (60 page)

Krishna said, ‘I think my grandfather would ask that we be returned to Ravi.’

The general said, ‘I quite agree. The 44th Lancers must be over their anthrax long since and General Glover would like to have them back. No offence, you know, but in Mespot they’d be mounted, real cavalrymen again. As for your regiment, you’ve lost so heavily that the general is returning the 8th Brahmins to my brigade, and taking you back as divisional troops ... but he told me he won’t use you except in real emergencies.’

Krishna said, ‘Then I may take it that we will be sent back to Ravi at the first opportunity?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘I shall notify my grandfather accordingly, sir.’

That was it, he thought. The general was standing up. By now there were four rows of ribbons on his left breast. He would do anything for more of them ... risk his life ... or see that the Ravi Lancers were sent home to Bharat-desh. Krishna said, ‘I have heard from many sources of your heroism at Fosse-Garde, sir. As we are now leaving your brigade, I ask you to honour us by accepting membership in the Royal Order of the Sun of Ravi.’

The general’s long face reddened with pleasure. ‘Why, that’s very good of you, my boy. The Royal Order of the Sun of Ravi, eh? What is the, er, ribbon like? And I suppose there’s a cross to go with it?’

‘Not a cross, sir,’ Krishna said, ‘we are Hindus. A gold and enamel sunburst, to be worn as a collar, with a yellow and white ribbon. My grandfather will send you your collar as soon as possible, but meantime...’ He unfastened the tinsel brooch from the left breast of his silk tunic and said, ‘Here, sir ... On behalf of His Highness Sir Sugriva Valadeva Yudisthir Bhishma Pandu Abhi-manyu Satrughna Krishna Vishnu, Surya-ka-Chora, Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India, I bestow upon you the Royal Order of the Sun of Ravi.’

He pinned the brooch on the general’s tunic. The general saluted, his back rigid, the monocle glinting in his eye.

Major Bholanath lay sprawled on a broken bed in what had been the mayor’s house of Contamines. His white moustaches were curled up, and protected by a handkerchief tied round his head. He was wearing khaki riding breeches, army socks and a flannel shirt, and he was smoking a hookah of hashish. His orderly squatted at his feet blowing on the charcoal in the bowl of the hookah. Krishna, wearing no Sam Browne belt but otherwise fully dressed in an ill-fitting uniform, sat on a bench beside him. The sound of music, Indian music, drifted through the village from the town square, where the regimental band, their instruments brought up from the base, were playing for a dance while the massed sowars, all in uniform, watched a dozen dancers, ceremonially dressed and garlanded, shuffle and gyrate over the cobbles.

‘You’re the commanding officer now,’ Krishna said.

‘Very well, prince,’ the old man mumbled, the words coming out slowly and luxuriously. ‘Tell me what you wish. It shall be done.’

‘And we’ll be sent back to Ravi soon.’

‘Good ... though I shall be sorry not to fight these Germans some more ... they are good warriors … ‘

‘I hope we have had our last casualties. There have been enough. Six hundred and twenty killed and wounded since we came to France--for what?’

’Who have gone ahead “along the mighty steps”?’ old Bholanath mumbled. ‘Colonel Hanbury was the first. He should have been tending his garden long since.’

‘He was younger than you, uncle ... Himat, I wish he had not had time to think again, at the last...’

‘Sher Singh ... Bateman-sahib gave him his desserts, saving me the trouble.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was he who killed the half-caste, Flaherty, meaning to murder the colonel. My rissaldar found out ... Then there was Mahadeo Singh--well, he died as he would have wished, though in a place far from his home.’

‘The Heavenly Twins ... one knowing the glory and one the bitterness.’

‘The black doctor. He was a good man.’

‘He and the pandit-ji aren’t dead, only prisoners.’

‘What difference? ... So many good rissaldars and jemadars. Aiih, we shall have much teaching to do when we get back to Basohli.’

‘Mind that you see that the regiment is properly purified after crossing the Black Water, uncle.’

‘Have no fear ... but you will be back with us by then.’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. It will depend on the court martial.’

‘There will be no court martial. The British will find some way of preventing it ... You forgot one more good man destroyed by this war.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Bateman-sahib. But he did not go down before doing what he set out to. He has changed us, all of us.’

‘He is not defeated yet,’ Krishna said sadly. ‘There is yet more that he can do, and will.’

The thin November sunlight gleamed along the bare arms of the oak trees in the woods, and hoar frost lingered in the shadowed grass under the cottage walls. The furrowed land swept up through misty distance to the brow of the Plain, elms standing in silhouette, stark guardians of the crest. Faint from the valley Warren heard the sound of a hunting horn. At his side, Diana said, ‘They’re drawing the Bohun copses.’

Warren said, ‘I didn’t know there was any hunting this year.’

‘It’s difficult,’ Diana said, ‘with the hunt servants gone to the army and taxes so heavy, but so many officers on leave said that a day’s hunting was all they longed for, when they were in France, that the Master has arranged one day a week ... Warrie, I’m pregnant.’

They walked on in silence along the canal bank, the spaniel Fudge trotting beside. It was Saturday and she had only arrived late yesterday evening to spend the weekend at Shrewford Pennel. Before that, once or twice while he was in hospital, she had come to see him, but had not mentioned--this. Warren knew he ought to say something but no words would form.

‘Krishna will be able to come as soon as the court martial is over, won’t he?’ she said.

Warren said, ‘If he wants to...’

‘Oh, Warrie,’ she said, ‘you think he doesn’t want to ... marry me?’ She sounded miserable, and frightened.

He said, ‘I thought he did, at first ... and I was against it. I told him so. I thought it should not be allowed ... because the marriage would not succeed. You would not be happy. There is too much difference in your ways of thought ... your backgrounds ... what you think important... your religions, if you like.’

He walked on, sucking on his pipe. Fudge was not as affectionate as he used to be, Warren thought. Did he know, or guess, what had happened to Shikari? Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake, of trusting even a pet dog, again.

Diana said, ‘But you’ve changed your mind? You think we should get married?’

‘If you are pregnant, yes,’ he said dryly, ‘though you may have to get a divorce or separation later ... But I’m not sure now that Krishna wants to marry you. Because you are English ... European. He is turning away from everything Western. At first he blamed me personally for all the bad things of this war, the unpleasant things that can’t be avoided--then he found the sin to be in all Europe, in all our way of life. You are part of it.’

It was Diana’s turn to keep silent. They walked a mile along the canal bank and turned. The cry of the horn came sharper on the damp breeze, blended now with the falling whistle of an express rushing down the vale.

Diana said, ‘What sentence do you think they’ll give him?’ Warren said, ‘The prosecution will ask for the death sentence’--he heard her intake of breath--’but as he is, what he is, I’m sure it will never be carried out. Or, perhaps, imposed ... My God, Diana, I wish I could let the whole thing go, pretend it never happened, so that he could marry you and you both go off to Ravi and live happily ever afterwards. But I can’t.’

‘I know you can’t, Warrie,’ she said, laying her hand on his arm. ‘You must do your duty.’

She understood, he thought. Did Krishna? Did any of them know the meaning of duty?

Diana said hesitantly, ‘Of course, I don’t really know him very well.’

‘No,’ Warren said. ‘Nothing like as well as I do. It’s a pity, but I don’t see how you, or any woman, can know the man she thinks she wants to marry. You don’t live with them before you’re married, though that fellow Goldwasser suggests in his book that there should be some arrangement of the sort ... legally, with everyone’s approval, for six months on end, he proposes.’

Diana said, ‘I wish Krishna and I could have done that. I was--I am--so lonely. Thirty-one years old. Paris was so exciting ... But I love him, I love him,’ she finished defiantly, as though to reassure herself.

After a time she said, ‘I feel that I am being torn apart. Krishna, whom I love, is going one way, and you, whom I worship, are going the other way. I think I understand why each of you is doing what you are doing. But I have to make a choice, don’t I... What am I to do, Warrie?’

He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know.

They walked on. From outside the silence between them might have been taken for their old companionable quiet, a lack of need to exchange words, that there had always been; but it was not. Warren walked enclosed within a circle of his own thoughts, which Diana only touched where her unhappiness touched a similar chord in him. What had happened to her? What would become of her? These thoughts made him shiver, but not for her sake; for his own, because the formulation of the idea forced him to ask the same questions of himself.

When they turned into the drive they saw their mother standing outside the little greenhouse, a pink slip in her hand. The rissaldar-major stood in front of her, holding her elbows. Warren broke into a run. His mother’s face was pale, and there were tears in the corners of her eyes, but staying there, held. He took the telegram form from her hand as she sank her head on the rissaldar-major’s shoulder. Warren read the telegram, hearing the RM’s muttered Hindi words of comfort. The War Office regretted to inform them that Guardsman Ralph Harris had been killed in action.

‘He was not a soldier,’ his mother said, raising her head.

And I sent him, Warren thought. Is that what she means? I killed him? Joan was in the house somewhere. He could see the children through the drawing-room window. Millions of people who were not soldiers had died, and more were going to. Diana had her arm round her mother’s shoulders, and the RM had stepped back.

‘We did all we could for him, didn’t we?’ his mother said, her voice choking.

More than all, Warren thought, especially you, my mother, taking into your house and your heart your husband’s bastard.

His mother said, ‘He was the only one who needed me. Now he’s gone ... What am I to do?’

Warren stood silent. Again, he could not answer, because he did not know.

His mother went into the house on Diana’s shoulder. Now he had to tell Joan. That would be the worst of all.

He found her in the sewing-room, letters before her, the machine idle, cloth scattered on the floor. He squared his shoulders as though going up into No Man’s Land, and said, ‘Ralph’s been killed in action.’

‘I know,’ she said, her fingers touching the letters. ‘One of these is from his platoon commander and the other from a guardsman who’d been his friend in training. I suppose a telegram’s just arrived? It must have been delayed ... Ralph and the guardsman had only been in France two days. The letters were addressed to Mother, but I opened them. I had a feeling...’

‘Do they say how he was killed?’

She laughed, a bitter humourless laugh. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The officer says he was killed instantly, while doing his duty, by a stray German shell. The guardsman says he was hit by shell splinters while he was on the latrine, and died in agony six hours later.’ She laughed again. ‘How would it have been, Warren? You’ve seen it all ... his bowels blown out? His brains running out of his head?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Warren said. She was looking directly at him, the large eyes larger, wider, the pale hair luminous round her face.

‘Not a very noble end,’ she said. ‘One to match his beginnings.’ He had thought she would cry, but there were no tears.

He said, ‘He was doing his duty.’

‘Thanks to you,’ she said. He looked wonderingly at her. What did she mean?

‘We’ve hardly spoken for three months, have we?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘First you were in France, then hospital ... I’ve been thinking. I didn’t love Ralph. I hated the war. But it’s winning. You know, I could go and kill Germans, myself, thinking of Ralph, blown to bits on a latrine ... Krishna’s beaten you, hasn’t he?’

‘The court martial will decide that,’ he said, his voice harsh.

‘Don’t you see,’ she insisted, ‘he will have got his Indians out of Europe, whatever the court does to him? That’s the point, isn’t it? A rejection of all that you have been trying to teach.’

Warren didn’t answer. It was impossible to accept what she said, and face the consequences, without further mental preparation, as though for an assault.

She said, ‘Here, the war’s winning, Warren. Everything flows into it, it flows out into everything, everybody ... Some time ago I had to admit to myself that I didn’t love Ralph. Before that I knew I didn’t love you. So apparently I don’t love anyone, only hate ... What’s to become of me, Warren? Tell me, tell me!’

Her hand was on his, crushing, clawing like a drowning woman’s. He pulled himself free and went out, the memory of her hand burning like a blister on his wrist. His head ached sharply, as it used to before they sent him home the last time. What was to become of them? Diana. Joan. Mother. England. India. Mankind? He could hear only the crushing thunder of artillery, without cease, surrounding him so closely that it was inside him as well as outside; and the universal crackle of machine guns.

The rissaldar-major was in the greenhouse, dis-budding chrysanthemums. He straightened as Warren came in. Warren said, ‘We return to France the day after tomorrow, sahib.’

‘Jee, huzoor.’

‘I heard a pheasant in the wood as we were coming back from our walk. We’ll go shooting. In half an hour.’

‘Jee, huzoor.’

The RM was looking doubtfully at him. Perhaps his eyes were wild, or there was something distraught, undone, about his manner. The RM looked as though he were going to say something, then his mouth closed. He must want to ask how he could retain the trust of the Ravi sowars when he had helped put their godling, their Son of the Sun, into a British gaol ... or against a wall, facing a firing squad of beef-eating British soldiers. There was no answer. No answer to anyone.