To The Coral Strand Read online

  ‘October, in Delhi ... We’re getting near, Collector. Asti janu, choro. I think I’ll stand up, if you don’t mind.’ The jeep slowed and Max thought, He’s as sharp as ever. Calling Ranjit ‘Collector’ suddenly, like that, established the official relationships, and made an acknowledgement that the Sikh was in charge.

  It would be easier if Rodney and the D.C. changed places, so that Rodney could hold on to the windshield, Max thought. But that would put the two Indians in the back seat. ‘Here, hang on to my shoulder,’ he said. He settled his red cap more firmly on his head, grasped his pipe between his teeth, and began to search the side of the road. They’d just passed milestone 28. If the Gonds meant business ... The jeep swept round a sharp bend and lurched to a halt, throwing the passengers forward.

  A sharp clattering sound from the hood made Max look up, and he saw an arrow turning in the air, to land beyond in the mud. Several large boughs blocked the road.

  ‘No farther,’ a voice called from the jungle in accented Hindi. ‘Go back, or we will shoot, with guns.’

  ‘Sit still, everyone,’ the D.C. said sharply.

  Rodney turned his face towards the jungle, from where the invisible voice had called. He spoke conversationally, in Hindi. ‘Ohe, brother! Is Badal the shikari still alive?’

  After a long pause the voice answered grudgingly, ‘No, he is dead. Now, go back, or we will shoot.’

  ‘Gulu, then? His younger brother.’

  ‘Gulu’s the chief now,’ the D.C. muttered.

  Rodney said, ‘Tell Gulu, the chief, that Savage Sahib is here and wishes to talk to him about hunting. Savage Sahib, great-great-grandson of the Deliverer.’

  There was a long pause, and then the voice said, ‘I recognise you, sahib. Wait.’

  Rodney sat down and said, ‘We’ll have a long wait. Gulu will be in the village.’

  ‘Who was the Deliverer?’ the D.C. asked curiously.

  ‘William Savage.’

  ‘The man who destroyed Thuggee?’

  Rodney nodded. ‘He spent a lot of time with the Gonds after that. It was nothing to do with the Thugs, as far as I can make out, that they call him the Deliverer. It was the British Government he saved them from, who were going to do something dreadful to them.’

  ‘Build a school, perhaps,’ the D.C. said dryly.

  They all laughed, and then settled down to wait. Max examined the jungle curiously. There were probably half a dozen small dark men in there, with bows and arrows and a couple of ancient muskets trained on them from no more than fifteen feet - and he could see nothing. At least one man, probably two, had just run off through the heavy undergrowth towards the village - and he had heard nothing. He sighed and began relighting his pipe. If he could train his sepoys to move like that...

  Heavier clouds piled up in the sky, and he felt hungry. Why had no one remembered to bring food? Probably because Rodney intended to ask the Gonds for it, to establish that they were guests. Who was it who’d written, ‘If you want to make a friend, allow him to do you a favour’? Now Rodney would have to eat fried rat and raw ants. Thank God he himself was a Hindu and could properly refuse.

  A man stood suddenly in the road five feet from the jeep’s hood. He wore a loincloth, and nothing else, and carried a small long-handled axe in his hand. He was short, square, and very black, with short grizzled hair over a wide, angular, wrinkled face. Rodney stood up. ‘Gulu - greetings!’ He stepped down from the jeep and walked forward. The two embraced formally, first clasping each other round the shoulders and then standing back and bowing, palms joined.

  ‘May your belly always be full, sahib. You look well.’

  They exchanged polite small talk for a few minutes. Then the old Gond said, ‘Come to the village, and we will eat and drink. The mahua arrack from this year is good, though fiery, and I have a little left, a barrel, from last year.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rodney said. ‘I am with these friends - Ranjit Singh-sahib, Deputy Commissioner ...’

  Gulu the chief folded his thin, strong arms across his chest. ‘I do not know him. He may not pass.’

  The D.C., his face set, began to climb out of the jeep. Rodney said in a low voice, ‘Very easy, Collector!’ He turned back to the Gond. ‘I think you do know him, Uncle. Whether or no - he is my friend and so is the other, the General-sahib, Dadhwal. And the driver, Havildar Ratanbir, a Gurkha. Him you know, he came with me before, when we were in the army.’

  ‘Him I know,’ the chief said. He went forward and embraced the Gurkha.

  Rodney said, ‘We are unarmed, all of us.’

  The old Gond had returned to the middle of the road, arms folded, the axe blade over his right shoulder, his head high, silent, unsmiling.

  Rodney said slowly, ‘Was it not said, once, that the Deliverer and his seed, from then to the end of time, were Gonds? Free to eat and drink and hunt in all Gond lands? To demand the life of any Gond man, with or without reason? Put their own life into any Gond woman not already pregnant? Were these words only the promise of a Hindu banniah, to be forgotten when there is no profit to be made from them?’

  God, the general thought, he’s being hard on them. The promise must already have lasted a century and a quarter; and the deed Rodney was now helping the D.C. to accomplish would mean the end of the promise and the end of the kind of society that could give and keep it.

  The old chief stood a minute longer, then bowed his head. ‘It was said. I am sorry. They may come, as your friends. For no other reason.’

  ‘We come as the representatives of the Government of India,’ the D.C. said stiffly.

  The old chief bowed ironically, and Max thought, we do not, we come under the protection of an Englishman, in our own country. Well, that’s the way it was. Next year, the year after, it would be different. There was nothing to be done about it now, except be patient and understanding.

  ‘Get in the jeep, Gulu,’ Rodney said. The old man threw a few words over his shoulder into the silent jungle and climbed in. Two men appeared and dragged away the tree boughs. Ratanbir drove slowly on, Gulu now perched on the back seat between Max and Rodney.

  It’s all over, Max thought, all over bar the shouting. The Gonds were not fools and the only real problem was to reach them without creating another bloody incident.

  As he had predicted, the tension relaxed all day, slowly but steadily. An hour after reaching the compact village - all the huts were very small, and two or three families lived in caves - they ate, and not mice or worms but a fine fish, with curried vegetables and chapatties. Outside the hut a short, heavy rain fell, darkening earth and sky. Inside, they sat on beaten earth and were served in silence by Gulu’s grand-daughters. Gulu had vanished and did not reappear until mid-afternoon. By then the rain had stopped, the hot sun had dried the grass, and the appearance of able-bodied men in considerable numbers proved that the pickets and scouts had been recalled.

  Then Gulu came, and Rodney talked with him for a long time outside, while he himself and Ranjit pretended to sleep in the hut. It would be undignified for the D.C. to hang around, aimless, while the Englishman talked, and this was a good way out. Rodney and Gulu were not far off, and Max, listening to their voices, caught enough to know that Rodney was not discussing the school, nor yesterday’s attack on the Assistant Commissioner’s party, but shikar. There were a good many tigers over to the west, across the border in Chambal State, the old Gond said. A man who went out from here, or from Lapri, could have good shooting. There was good fishing, also - he named four kinds of fish. Then they reminisced about Rodney’s last visit, and two or three times Gulu cackled with laughter. Max heard the clink of bottles, and later the gurgle of liquid. He hoped Rodney knew what he was doing. The ice had to be broken, but if the Gonds were still in a state of fear and inner tension they might get fighting drunk. Rodney would be all right, but he and Ranjit could easily finish up with poisoned arrows in their guts.

  ‘Now try the arrack, sahib,’ he heard the chief say distinctl
y. ‘That is this year’s.’ There was a faint female giggle. The granddaughters were pretty girls, for Gonds, and young; they must be great-grand-daughters. The Gonds often consummated marriage at twelve or younger.

  The sounds of talk and laughter increased outside and the D.C. sat up. ‘About time we joined the party, I think,’ he said. They brushed off their clothes and walked out. Twenty villagers were gathered by then, all men except for the two girls crouched in the background. A momentary silence greeted them, broken by Rodney calling, ‘Sit down, Collector. I happen to have brought a little rum with me. Gulu has been telling me about the shikar ...’

  Then they all talked about shikar, which to these people meant food and life; and from there to the state of the few crops the Gonds grew, a little millet on the cleared hillside, a little rice in the bottoms. The D.C. never mentioned the object of his visit and Max thought, he’s good, he has the I.C.S. stamp of confidence and firmness, plus an Indian’s sense of community, of not being a stranger, however marvellous. As the dusk fell the girls brought little scraps of toasted, curried meat. Max ate without inquiring what they were. They would not be beef anyway, because the Gonds owned no cattle, only a few goats. Two young men lit a bonfire and at the edge of the circle women began to appear, squatting on their hunkers, loinclothed like the men, bare breasted, the younger ones with at least one baby, sometimes two, at breast, and another in the lap.

  The murmuring increased, more food came, more people came. Full darkness crept up from the reed-rimmed shore of the lake. Arrack passed round, in bamboo mugs, teak bowls, and earthenware jars. An hour after dark a young man shuffled out in front of the fire and began to dance. Others joined him. Singing began, guttural and almost tuneless melodies that wandered about near the bottom of the scale. Small drums began to rattle and throb. On Max’s right, Gulu squatted between Rodney and the D.C.

  The two wide-mouthed girls crouched close behind Rodney. Max felt sure, from their protective, intimate attitude that Rodney had slept with them when he was last here. He wondered whether he would do so again tonight. Perhaps he would have to, to avoid upsetting the Gonds, if they had been offered to him as a special gift or because of his relationship with the Deliverer. Himself, he’d rather not. Gond women were really not attractive, and although Janaki would understand if he had to - he just didn’t want to. He’d hardly ever wanted another woman than her. To be honest, hardly any other woman had ever wanted him - unlike Rodney. It must be a problem at times, that animal vitality which could at any moment make any woman, even the most respectable, suddenly think of bed. Ah, well, it wasn’t likely to be a problem of his. He puffed contentedly at his pipe, noting that about two more rums would be enough for him.

  The D.C. was saying, ‘No - he died this morning. It was in his fate.’ He spoke equably, as though the murder of a policeman on duty was a mere accident, which might have happened to anyone. Good, Max thought; really, it was an accident. A sudden outburst like that, from the Gonds, was an act of nature. There would be many more such, among many Indian tribes and peoples, before they could all be treated as rational human beings, answerable to a court of law for every action. And now the subject had been broached, and the old Gond was relaxed and full of rum and arrack.

  The D.C. began to tell Gulu about the school he himself had been to, as a little boy in a Punjab village. Rodney got up, caught the two girls by the wrists and dragged them out, giggling and shrieking, into the centre of the circle by the fire. ‘Now I shall dance,’ he cried.

  He began to gyrate and twist, his feet shuffling time with the beat of the nearest drum - there were a dozen different beats, half a dozen groups of dancers. Holding the girls tight, he danced with ludicrously suggestive movements, and most of the audience collapsed on to the grass, laughing with painful gasps. The girls dragged free and rushed into the shadow of a hut, where they hid their faces behind their hands and watched, cackling with laughter as loud as anyone.

  After five minutes Rodney beckoned, and Ratanbir the Gurkha stepped out into the firelight. Rodney seized a drum from a man collapsed with laughter and began to beat a subtle complex rhythm. Ratanbir, his face downcast and earnest, began to dance. Rodney sang, a haunting, repetitive melody.

  Max poured himself another rum. The D.C. and the chief, their heads close together, were talking about schoolteachers. Where could they find a teacher who understood the Gond language? How could the village pay for such people? The Gurkha danced in slow grace, his powerful, squat body bending and turning as sinuously as a girl’s. The audience was silent, except for the murmurs of Gulu and the D.C. The fire crackled and hissed as a few drops of rain fell. The underside of the trees reflected a diffuse yellowish light down on the thatched roofs of the huts, the dark heads, the babies sleeping in their mothers’ arms.

  Gulu the chief rose suddenly to his feet and clapped his hands with a short explosive sound. Ratanbir stopped dancing. Rodney let the rhythm of his drum die down in two more phrases, soft and softer. Gulu spoke a few short sentences in his own language, which Max could not understand. The D.C. leaned over to him and whispered, ‘He’s agreed. We won’t build the school. We’ll give them some money, and they’ll build it themselves. We’re getting a Gond-speaking teacher up from Jubbulpore. He never gave us a chance to tell him that before.’

  The old man flung his arms wide in a motion that said, without the need for words, let joy be unconfined. The drums struck up, the singing redoubled, dancers gyrated wildly on the grass.

  Rodney approached and Max got up, his hand out. ‘Congratulations, Rodney.’

  His friend looked tired now and his smile was a little grim. ‘Thanks ... I don’t like it, you know.’

  ‘What, education for the Gonds?’

  Rodney looked back at the fire and the dancing figures. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps not even that. Certainly not bringing out these people’s basic warmth and then - stabbing them in the back. Next time you come here it won’t be like this. There’ll be a political rally instead. Guest speaker - Mr Purshottamdass Tirthankardass, M.L.A.’ He went abruptly over to the headman and said, ‘Uncle, I am tired. With your permission, I shall go to sleep.’

  ‘Thus early?’ the old man said in surprise. ‘You did not sleep at all last time you came to Bhilghat.’ The D.C. was looking up at Rodney, his expression compassionate. Rodney said, ‘The Collector Sahib wishes to sit up all night, though. All Sikhs are mighty drinkers of rum, and the Collector Sahib is a champion among Sikhs.’

  ‘That’s a dirty trick,’ the D.C. said in English. ‘Well, I suppose even the worst hangover in history would be worth it.’

  Gulu said, ‘Very well, sahib.’ He gestured with his chin. ‘Your women are there.’

  ‘Not tonight, Uncle. I could not do justice to them.’

  He strode away towards the hut appointed for them. Max made his own apologies and followed. It was dark inside and there was no bed, only three flattened piles of dry grass. As Max entered he heard the rustling of grass and muttered, ‘Which one are you taking, Rodney?’

  ‘This one, in the corner.’ A match flared and then the glow of a cigarette end. Now also the light from the fire outside, slipping in through a hundred tiny cracks in the walls, enabled Max to see. Rodney was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his pile of grass, the cigarette hanging from his lower lip and his face twisted up in the smoke. He bent forward to untie his shoe laces. Max sat down and followed suit.

  Rodney loosened his belt and said, ‘That’s it. Not a very complicated toilette.’ He sat there, just as he had in the jeep, staring towards the open doorway and the shadowed jungle, lit by the fire from the other side. He began to speak. ‘Poor girls ... She smelled very different, and she was beautiful where these are ugly - to my eyes - but there was something of the same in her. A different relationship with a man. She was as passionate as these half-savage girls are, and they are like rutting animals, and like them, she’d never found that there was a war between men and women. There was none of the
hostility you sometimes feel with our women. The moon was in the same phase as it is tonight, and it shone on her hair, her hair flowing like a dark river so that all I could see was hair and all I could feel was flesh, and all I could smell was ... India.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Max asked gently. ‘I don’t mean her name, but...’

  ‘My first Indian woman,’ Rodney said. ‘I wonder whether I’ve had my last. I’m engaged, remember? That’s why I didn’t go to the girls. Frances wouldn’t understand. You know her?’

  ‘No. She’s John Clayton’s sister, isn’t she - the fellow who was your M.T.O. in Burma?’

  ‘Yes. He was in McFadden Pulley’s before he volunteered. He got me my job with them when I chucked the Service. His wife went home to put the kids in school, so Frances came out to housekeep for him, early in ‘47 ... Almost one year of total chastity for R. Savage. You ought to win some bets on that.’ He laughed aloud, the strange mood vanished. ‘Good night.’

  The grass rustled and Max lay back, pillowed his head on his arms, and soon fell asleep.

  Shortly before noon the next day the jeep ground over the brow of the last hill on the return journey, and Max saw the quarries and the pall of reddish dust that marked Sabora in the valley below. Now Rodney was driving, and Max sitting beside him. Rodney turned his head and said, ‘Eh, atharsi! Collector Sahib lai utha.’

  Max watched, smiling, as the Gurkha gently moved his shoulder. The D.C. sat up, yawning and rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He looked very pale and dishevelled. As he adjusted the pink puggaree more firmly on his head, he muttered, ‘God, I feel awful.’

  ‘And two beautiful ladies to greet you when we arrive,’ Rodney said cheerfully.

  ‘Oh, no!’ the D.C. cried. ‘Who?’

  ‘My wife and the Rani of Kishanpur - Sumitra,’ Max said. ‘Sumitra?’ the D.C. said. ‘I’d better hurry back to Bijoli, full speed. My wife will give me hell if she hears I’ve been meeting her in deserted dak bungalows at the back of beyond.’