The Far Pavilions (84 page)

The unexpectedness of the attack took Mr Porson aback, but only momentarily. Recovering himself, he turned to look the interrupter up and down, and then said blandly: ‘Not at all. One was merely endeavouring to illustrate a point: that in this country, all you Anglo-Indians obviously get on admirably with your inferiors and enjoy the company of your betters, but make no effort at all to make friends with your equals.’

‘May one ask, sir,’ inquired Ash with deceptive mildness, ‘how many years you have spent in this country?’

‘Oh, shut up, Pandy!’ muttered an anxious acquaintance, jerking warningly at Ash's coat-sleeve. ‘
Stash it
!’

Mr Porson, however, remained unruffled, not because he was used to being heckled (the type of audience he was accustomed to lecture to were far too well-bred to interrupt the speaker), but he could recognize a heckler when he saw one, and now he sat back in his chair, smoothed his waistcoat, and placing the tips of his plump fingers together, prepared to deal with this boorish young Anglo-Indian:

‘The answer to your question, my dear sir, is “none”. One is only a visitor to these shores, and –’

‘One's first visit, I presume?’ cut in Ash.

Mr Porson frowned, and then, deciding to be tolerant, laughed. ‘Quite right. I arrived in Bombay in November, and alas, I leave again by the end of this month; one's time is not one's own, you understand. But then someone like myself, a mere visitor with a fresh eye and an open mind, is, I fancy, better qualified to see flaws in a system, it being a true saying that “The onlooker sees most of the game!” ’

‘Not in this case,’ said Ash shortly. ‘The particular flaw you have singled out is one that a great many globe-trotters and temporary visitors have noticed and commented on, but as far as I know, none of these critics has stayed here long enough to practise what they preach. Had they done so, they would very soon have discovered that in nine cases out of ten the boot is on the other foot, for the middle classes in this country – like their counterparts in any other one – are a pretty conservative lot, and it is they more often than the Anglo-Indians who call the tune. I am afraid, sir, that you fall into an error common to superficial observers when you accuse your countrymen of cold-shouldering them. It is not nearly as simple as that, because it's by no means a one-sided affair, you know.’

‘If by that you mean what I think you mean, ’ intervened Major Raikes angrily, ‘then, by George, I'd like to say –’

‘A moment, please!’ said Mr Porson authoritatively, quelling the interruption with a firm gesture of one podgy hand. He turned back to Ash: ‘But my dear young man, one is, of course, prepared to believe that many Indians of this class might hesitate to invite into their homes
some
of the British whom one has, oneself, had occasion to meet out here. (One need not particularize, need one? No names, no pack-drill!) But surely it should be the duty of every one of you to do all in your power to break down the barriers and get on close terms with these people? Only by doing so can you come to understand one another's view-point, and help to forge those bonds of loyalty and mutual respect without which our Raj cannot hope to retain its hold on this country.’

This time it was Ash who laughed, and with a genuine amusement that made Mr Porson stiffen angrily. ‘You make it sound very easy, sir; and I won't pretend that it isn't possible, because of course it is. But what makes you think that they really wish to make friends with us? Can you give me one good reason, one single one, why they should?’

‘Well, after all, we are –’ Mr Porson stopped himself just in time, and actually blushed.

‘Their conquerors?’ said Ash, finishing the sentence for him. ‘I see. You feel that as members of a subject race they should be gratified to receive invitations from us, and be only too eager to welcome us into their own homes?’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ snapped Mr Porson, his empurpled countenance betraying only too clearly that this was precisely what he had thought – though he would certainly have put it in different words. – merely intended – What I meant to say was… Well, one has to admit that we are in a – in a position to offer a great deal in the way of – of… Western culture, for instance. Our literature. Our discoveries in the fields of medicine and science and… and so on. You had no right to put words into my mouth, Mr – er…?’

‘Pelham-Martyn,’ supplied Ash helpfully.

‘Oh.’ Mr Porson was somewhat taken aback, for he happened to be acquainted with several Pelham-Martyns and had once lunched at Pelham Abbas, where, having monopolized the conversation through two courses, he had received one of Sir Matthew's stinging set-downs. The episode was still green in his memory, and if this outspoken young man should be related to that family –

‘If I did you an injustice, sir, I apologize,’ said Ash. ‘It was a natural assumption, as a great many visitors do seem to hold that view –’

Had he stopped there, the chances are that he would have been back in Mardan that summer, and much that came later would not have happened – or happened differently. But the subject under discussion was one that interested him a great deal, and so he did not leave well alone, ‘– but it might help you to modify it,’ continued Ash, ‘if you were to try putting yourself in the other fellow's shoes just for a minute or two.’

‘Putting myself…?’ Mr Porson was offended. ‘In what way, may one ask?’

‘Well, look at it this way, sir,’ said Ash earnestly. ‘Imagine the British Isles as conquered territory, as it was in Roman times, but part of an Indian Empire instead. An Imperial colony, in which Indians hold every post of real authority, with an Indian Governor-General and Council proclaiming and enforcing laws that are completely alien to your way of life and thought, but which make it necessary for you to learn their language if you hope to hold any reasonably well-paid post under them. Indians controlling all the public services, garrisoning your country with their troops and recruiting your countrymen to serve in the ranks of regiments that they themselves would officer, declaring anyone who protested against their authority a dangerous agitator, and putting down any rising with all the force at their command. And don't forget, sir, that the last of those risings would have been less than twenty years ago, when you yourself were already a grown man. You would remember that rising very well, for even if you had not fought in it yourself, you would have known people who had, and who had died in it - or been hanged for complicity, or suspicion of complicity, or merely because they had a white skin, in the reprisals that followed it. Taking all that into account, would you yourself be eager to get on close and friendly terms with your Indian rulers? If so, I can only say that you must be a truly Christian person, and that it has been an honour to meet you. Your servant, sir.’

He bowed, and turning on his heel, walked out without waiting to hear if Mr Porson had anything further to say.

Mr Porson had not. Having never considered the problem from that angle, he was temporarily silenced. But Major Raikes and his friend Captain Crimpley, who had been among those present, had both said a great deal. Neither had any liking for Mr Porson; whose opinions and criticisms on the subject of Anglo-Indians they considered offensive, but Ash's views (and his temerity in expressing them to a stranger old enough to be his father and brought to the Club as a guest) had touched both on the raw.

‘Brazen impertinence and sheer bloody bad manners,’ fumed Lionel Crimpley. ‘Butting into a private conversation and spouting a lot of seditious twaddle to a man he hadn't even been introduced to. And a house-guest of the Commissioner's, too! It was a calculated affront to the entire Club, and the Committee should force that young sweep to apologize or get out.’

‘Oh, rats to that,’ retorted Major Raikes, dismissing the Committee with an impatient sweep of the hand. ‘The Committee can look after itself, and as for that numbskull Porson, he's nothing but a swollen-headed snob. But no officer has a right to say the sort of things that Pelham-Martyn said, or even think them. All that tripe about supposin' the British Isles were garrisoned by Indian troops – putting ideas into their heads, that's what it is, and damned treasonable ideas, too. It's about time someone kicked that young man's backside hard, and the sooner the better.’

Now there can always be found in any military station – as in any town or city anywhere in the world – a smattering of bored and muscular louts who delight in violence and are only too eager to take a hand in ‘teaching a lesson’ to any individual whose views they do not happen to share. Major Raikes therefore had no difficulty in recruiting half-a-dozen of these simple-minded souls, and two nights later they burst into Ash's bedroom in the small hours to drag him from his bed and beat him insensible. Or at least, that had been the idea.

In the event it had not turned out quite the way they had planned it, for they had neglected to take into account the fact that Ash was a remarkably light sleeper, and had long ago, from stark necessity, learned how to defend himself; and that when it came to fighting he had no respect for Queensberry Rules or any false ideas as to ‘sportsmanship’.

They had also, unfortunately, failed to realize that the uproar would arouse the occupants of the servants' quarters as well as the sleeping
chowkidar
, all of whom, imagining that the bungalow was being attacked by a gang of robbers, had seized any weapon they could lay hands on and charged bravely to the assistance of Pelham-Sahib, the
chowkidar
wielding chain and
lathi
with deadly effect, Gul Baz laying about him with an iron bar, while Kulu Ram, Mahdoo and the sweeper had pinned their faiths respectively to a polo-stick, the kitchen poker and a long-handled broom…

By the time lights were brought and the mêlée sorted out, both sides had sustained casualties, and Ash was certainly insensible; though not, as intended, from the attentions of Major Raikes and his bravos, but as a result of tripping over a fallen chair in the darkness and knocking himself out on the corner of the dressing-table. The Major himself had received a broken nose and a sprained ankle, and no combatant, with the sole exception of the agile Kulu Ram, had come out of the engagement unmarked.

The affray, though brief, had been far too noisy (and its impressive tally of minor fractures, black eyes, cuts, sprains and bruises, too glaringly visible) to be ignored or glossed over. Questions had been asked in official quarters, and as the answers had been considered unsatisfactory, a searching inquiry had been instituted. This had revealed the shocking fact that native servants had actually taken part in the fracas, attacking and being attacked by British officers. The Authorities had been horrified: ‘Can't have this sort of thing going on,’ declared the Brigade Commander, who had served with Have-lock's forces in Cawnpore and Lucknow during the Mutiny and had never forgotten it. ‘Could lead to anything. Anything! We shall have to get rid of that young trouble-maker, and in double-quick time.’

‘Which one?’ inquired a senior Major, pardonably confused. ‘If you mean Pelham-Martyn, I can't see that he can be held responsible for –’

‘I know, I know,’ snapped the Brigade Commander impatiently. ‘I'm not saying that it was his fault. Though it can be argued that he provoked the attack by speaking out of turn at the Club, and being rude to that fellow who is staying with the Commissioner. But there is no denying that, intentionally or otherwise, he is a trouble-maker: always has been – his own regiment got him transferred to us, and still don't seem to want him back. Besides, it was his
nauker-log
who attacked Raikes and Co., don't forget. They may have had every reason for doing so, and if it
had
turned out to be a raid by a band of dacoits, we'd have said they were loyal fellows for coming to his rescue. But in the circumstances, this isn't at all the sort of tale we want circulating round cantonments or told as a joke in the city, so the sooner we get rid of him the better.’

Major Raikes, his nose and ankle in plaster, had been severely reprimanded for his part in the affair and ordered to take himself off on leave until his injuries were healed. His confederates had been confined to their quarters for a similar period, after receiving a tongue-lashing that they would remember for the rest of their lives. But Ash, who as the victim and not the aggressor might have been expected to escape any share of blame, had been given twenty-four hours in which to pack up his belongings, settle his debts and arrange to leave with his servants and his baggage by road to Jhelum, where they would take the mail-train bound for Delhi and Bombay.

He was to serve on attachment with Roper's Horse, a cavalry regiment stationed at Ahmadabad in Gujerat, nearly four hundred miles north of Bombay – and more than two thousand miles distant by road and rail from Rawalpindi…

On the whole, Ash had not been sorry to leave 'Pindi. There were things he would miss: the company of several friends in the city, the foothills that could be reached so easily on horseback, the sight of high mountains clear-cut against the sky, and the hint of woodsmoke and pine-needles that sometimes tinged the air when the wind blew down from the north. On the other hand, it could not be much more than seventy miles to the border of Rajputana, and little more than a hundred as the crow flies from Bhithor; he would be nearer Juli, and even though he could not enter the Rana's territory, that was some small consolation – as was the fact that however unfair he considered his arbitrary expulsion from Rawalpindi, he was not disposed to quarrel with a verdict that rescued him from sharing a bungalow with Lionel Crimpley.

There was also some comfort in the thought that in any case he would not have been able to see either Wally or Zarin for some time to come, as all leave for the Guides had recently been cancelled following rumours that further trouble was to be expected from the Jowaki Afridis, who apparently objected to some change in plan over the allowance paid to them by the Government in return for keeping the peace.

A letter from Mardan had brought Ash this piece of news only a day after the raid on his bungalow, and the reflection that neither of his friends would be able to visit 'Pindi until the Jowaki matter was resolved had gone a long way towards softening his resentment at being so unjustly bundled off to Ahmadabad. But re-reading that letter from Wally, he had been reminded again of what Koda Dad had said on the roof of Fatima Begum's house at Attock, and was fretted by the thought that if there should be a war, the Guides would certainly be involved in it. The whole Corps would be sent, and some, inevitably, would never come back. But he, Ash, would be out of it all – kicking his heels in a dull and dusty cantonment in far-away Gujerat.