Belonging (18 page)

I noticed that his speech, like Simon’s, was more hesitant than it had been before the war, and that he held his hands locked together to control the tremors.

He fell silent and I watched him staring into the fire, his face sombre, heavy, with new lines around his eyes and mouth. He yawned suddenly like a cat, his teeth white in the firelight, then looked at me as though he’d woken from a sleep. ‘I’m sorry, Lila. I’m being a whining bore.’

‘No, I want to hear about it.’

He smiled.

‘You’re just being polite. It’s nice of you not to say I told you so. You were right, of course… about me being a fool to sign up, I mean. I wanted to play my part but I realised… in training… the officers feel uneasy around me. I’m not quite one of them but… all that guff they spew about izzat – honour – and all that rubbish. And the regiment being our father and mother. They even issued all the Sikhs and Hindus with a copy of the
Bhagavad
Gita
… to persuade us this is a holy war.’

‘You’re bitter.’

‘Yes, but I have no right to be, do I? I was stupid, acting out a schoolboy fantasy. And I don’t mind paying the price for my own stupidity, but Baljit…’ He looked down, his throat working. ‘He trusted me, you see. I was his burra bhai, who knew what we were getting into… I was supposed to look after him. He’d only been married a few months. His wife is expecting a child. ’

‘How did it happen?’

For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he said, ‘We were advancing. We’d been reminded that we
had to walk slowly and hold the line. Baljit and I were next to each other. He must have seen or heard something I didn’t, because he shoved me… knocked me into a crater and jumped in beside me… and a second later a shell landed right where we’d been. I don’t know how he knew… sometimes you just have an instinct.

‘Of course at first you’re disorientated by the shock and the noise. I remember the sudden silence… and then… this… this tremendous feeling of calm. Just lying there and watching all the debris – the earth and… bits of shrapnel and clothing and other bits and pieces – flying through the air above us, silhouetted against the sky. It was really quite beautiful. I didn’t know till later that I’d been wounded. Baljit was lying on top of me… his face was on my chest… he was shaking. I thought he was just shocked. I pushed him off and then I saw the blood… I got out a field dressing but it wouldn’t stop; it just kept coming…’ He paused. ‘And then the strangest thing happened. It was as if I was floating, looking down at myself trying to staunch Baljit’s wound, and then I was even higher, right above the battlefield, and I could see it all… had all the time in the world to explore every detail… the scarred fields and the barbed wire and the wounded and dying men. I could even see the layout of the German trenches, so much straighter and better made than our own, and I felt nothing – no grief, or hatred or enmity – just a sense of wonder and calm, as though none of it mattered… none of it meant anything. And the next moment I was back in the mud and the filth, scrabbling to stop the blood, panicking… knowing it was hopeless and that I was losing him…’

He closed his eyes; he was trembling.

I heard a buzzing in my head and saw a red fountain spraying up the wall and the god dancing in the moving
shadows. I stood up and went to him and he put his arms around me. His shoulders heaved and shook as I held him, feeling his hot tears soaking through my blouse.

The next day I suggested a visit to Shaves Wood to see the bluebells. Barbara begged off, saying she had some shopping to do in Brighton, so we went alone. I took him, I think, in a bid to reawaken his memories of the happy times we had spent there – those warm sunny days when I had gathered flowers to make crowns and bracelets for us all. But this time the day was overcast and still. It had been a wet spring, and the soldiers in the trenches were floundering deep in mud. In the wood, the mostly untrodden paths were firm underfoot, but the smell of damp humus lingered in the air. The air felt muggy and the sharp bursts of birdsong sounded faintly threatening, like warnings in the silence.

We were silent too. There was a distance, a heaviness between us, as though we both knew something needed to be said or done, but neither had the energy to initiate it. I could tell he was depressed and I myself was close to tears. Too much had happened, in us and in the world. I wondered if it would be possible for us ever to be happy again.

We walked quietly one behind the other until at last I said, ‘Shall we sit?’

He shrugged and followed me into a clearing. The bluebells had withered already, as had the anemones. The undergrowth was scratchy and unfriendly and nettles bloomed everywhere, encouraged by the rain.

I found a log, which smelt of fungus, and perched on one end. He sat down, leaving a gap between us. I looked sideways at him as he squatted, hunched over, long hands hanging between his knees, staring at the ground. Anger flared in me
at his depression, his withdrawal, and yet I knew he could not help it. I felt for a moment as though I were in one of those fairytales where the prince is transformed into an animal and the princess has to undertake a dangerous journey to prove her love. But it was he who would be going on the dangerous journey while I waited, helpless, at home. I berated myself for my disappointment. What mattered was not my romantic dreams but the reality of his suffering. And yet I could not help resenting it. I had hoped that I could comfort him, but once again I was not enough. He needed rest, boredom, normality; not emotion, not more intensity.

I stood up and walked away, over towards a pond I remembered, and leant against a tree looking at it. It was stagnant now, the water still and unmoving, and there was not a sound. Even the birds had stopped. I heard twigs crack as he came up behind me. He was standing so close that I could feel his breath on the top of my head. I leant back until I was resting against his body and he slid his arm around my waist and pulled me into him, burying his face in my hair.

We stood like that for a long time, and then I turned in his arms and looked up at him.

‘Lila,’ he said, in the way only he could say it, with that lilt in the middle. Then he bent his head and kissed me. When he started to draw back I put my hands on either side of his face and held his mouth with mine. He made a small sound and then I felt his body relax and he began to kiss me back, pulling me close into him until I could feel the whole hard, trembling length of his body against mine. One of his hands moved up to my throat, stroking the skin, and then slipped down on to my breast. I felt myself slide into that world of sensation; everything faded away except the sweetness of his mouth on mine, the warmth of his hand. I shivered and then, without
warning, he pulled away so suddenly that for a moment I lost my balance and had to steady myself against him. I looked up at him, shocked by the precipitancy of his withdrawal. His face was grey.

‘What is it?’

He shook his head. ‘We’d better get back.’ He turned and began to make his way through the wood. His strides were so long that he was out of it before I caught up with him. He had slowed and was walking with his head hanging.

I felt a flare of anger. ‘What is it, Jagjit? Tell me.’

He said dully, avoiding my eyes, ‘I think it’s better if we call the whole thing off. You should try to forget me. Things were different then… before. I was different. I thought then we could make a life together – be happy… but now it’s all…’

‘All…?’

He shook his head. ‘Better to forget it… just be friends. I should go back tomorrow.’ He forced a smile.

‘But why?’ I wanted to say, should have said; I should have forced him to explain, but the old familiar misery rose up and choked me. I wasn’t wanted. I couldn’t give him what he needed. I wasn’t enough, just as I hadn’t been for Father. I would never be enough.

We walked back to the house in silence.

The next day he returned to the hospital and three weeks later he was passed fit for duty and given compassionate leave to visit his family in India before being transferred to a new area of operations.

It has taken me a fortnight to be able to write down the story as Father told it to me, and as far as possible I have tried to do it in his own words. Today is my twenty-fifth birthday. It has rained all day and Father has stayed in his room. It has brought back to me the many birthdays I spent alone as a child, feeling guilty because I believed myself responsible for my mother’s death, while he was drowning his depression with drink. Despite the pity I feel for him, I cannot help resenting him for never thinking to reassure me.

This evening Kishan Lal urged me to speak to him, so I went to his room. His eyes were red and I could tell he had been drinking, but to my surprise he got up, washed his face and came to the dinner table. Afterwards we sat out on the verandah listening to the rain rattling on the corrugated roof. I had given up any thought of conversation so was surprised when he picked up his narrative without prompting.

He told me how, as he lay ill, his sepoys had brought him news about the massacre at the boats where Nana Saheb, having accepted Wheeler’s surrender and promised the garrison safe passage to Allahabad, had ordered his troops
to open fire on them at the river. One of his sepoys later told him that he had tried to rescue my mother but she fought him off, perhaps fearing he was trying to abduct her. Later, Father learnt that some of the women and children had survived and been taken captive, but he had no way of knowing if my mother or Sophie were among them. Desperate to do something, he had pleaded with his sepoys to take him to join the rescue column, but they had heard that the men under the new command of Brigadier General Neill were hanging every native they could lay hands on, regardless of guilt or innocence, and they refused. Finally he had persuaded them to carry him in a palanquin to the road down which the column was approaching and to leave him there to be discovered.

‘I have never seen an army in such a state, Henry. The rain was unrelenting – ’ he glanced out at the drenched garden ‘ – much as it has been today – and the tents being carried on bullock carts had swelled and become so heavy that the bullocks died of exhaustion. The column was forced to abandon all its supplies, the soldiers eating only what they could carry and sleeping out in the rain. They were filthy and exhausted, but when they heard that the women were still alive every man of them expressed their willingness to fight to the death to save them.

‘Nana Saheb’s forces came out from Cawnpore to meet us. Both sides fought with courage and skill – loath as I am to admit it, his general, Tatya Tope, was magnificent, but our men fought like tigers. The battle lasted for three days until eventually the enemy was defeated. Then our men collapsed and slept where they fell. I was desperate to go into Cawnpore that same night but General Havelock would not allow it. He promised me that first thing in the morning he
would despatch a detachment of Highlanders, led by Captain Ayrton, to the rescue and that I could accompany them. I could just about sit a horse by then, with the support of young Peter Markham, who by some strange chance was in the relief force. He had been my rival for your mother’s hand, and later became engaged to your Aunt Mina – his regiment had been transferred from Palestine to help put down the Mutiny. When he heard that I was alive he came to see me and we rode in together. He died a few weeks later, of the cholera, poor boy.’

He paused for a long time then and I could tell he was gathering the strength to go on. I don’t think I shall ever forget his description of what followed next.

As they rode into Cawnpore that morning, they saw a lot of subdued Indians standing with their heads bowed. Some came forward timidly to offer milk and sweetmeats, which some of the Highlanders accepted. Inside the city they were hailed by a man in shackles who turned out to be Jonah Shepherd, a Eurasian who had been in the entrenchment but had been sent out as a spy by General Wheeler. He had been captured by the mutineers and was now looking for his wife and daughters, whom he had last seen in the entrenchment. He offered to lead them to the house where he had been told the women were being kept.

‘Seeing what was left of Cawnpore through the eyes of the Highlanders was a shock. All the European bungalows had been burnt down, the church burnt out and despoiled. When I saw the entrenchment from the outside it seemed inconceivable that we could have survived there for so long. It was a mere furrow in the earth, surrounding the ruins of the two barracks – just heaps of rubble. We paused to look over the wall. Every yard of it was scarred with shot and shell and covered in broken bottles, old shoes and half-buried
round shot. Everywhere vultures and crows were picking at the bones that still lay about in the open. I shall never forget the smell…’

I felt suddenly hot. My breath shortened and that familiar feeling of suffocation came over me. ‘Father…’

But he was beyond hearing me, caught in the grip of his inner vision. ‘We passed the ravine where my sepoys had sheltered after General Wheeler threw them out of the entrenchment and I pointed out to Ayrton the barracks where I had been wounded. And then we came to the river. The smell was worse… Soon after we came to a group of men who looked at us fearfully…’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘A little further on we saw another group standing by the roadside in silence, and when they saw us they looked at us with sorrowful faces and silently pointed through some compound gates. The men all fell silent; I think we all knew then that we were too late.

‘As we passed through the gate the stench was heavier… the air seemed weighted with it. Part of me wanted to stop, but our horses just kept walking. It was like being in a dream. Just inside the gate was a great pile of women’s clothing and possessions… When Jonah Shepherd saw this he stopped and went back to the gate to wait. I wish now that I had done the same.’ He took a shuddering breath.

‘It’s all right, Father. I know what happened.’

He shook his head. ‘I can still remember the flies – a great black cloud of them and the buzzing – and my feet sticking to the floor… And then I…’ He closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he was going to faint. Then he went on, ‘Peter must have helped me back to the gate. The officers came out – words were unnecessary – their ashen faces told the story. Shepherd, who was weeping, asked if they had
found any bodies. They shook their heads. Then we heard a shout – some Highlanders who’d been exploring the garden. We followed them. There was a bloody trail through the bushes that led to a well…’ His head dropped.

‘Father!’ I stood up, filled his glass and pressed it into his hand. ‘Drink this.’

He raised his head and took a long swallow. I had heard enough and wanted to stop him, but now that the festering wound was open he seemed to want to purge it completely. ‘I begged the Indians who were standing there to tell me if anyone had been spared. I told them my wife had been expecting a baby. Had they seen her? They were silent.

‘At the enquiry, witnesses said that they saw four men with swords enter the garden. Their leader was the lover of the woman who was guarding the prisoners. They were butchers by profession…’

We sat in silence for a long time. Kishan Lal, coming through to trim the lamp wick, paused and stared, then looked at me and shook his head reproachfully. Father ignored him.

‘They were never buried, you know. Never even counted or identified. Sherer, the magistrate who later conducted the inquiry, arrived soon afterwards and ordered the well filled in. Havelock gave permission, to prevent the spread of disease.’

‘Then you can’t be sure?’

He looked at me with those naked blue eyes. ‘Don’t you think I’ve hoped, Henry – hoped and prayed that by some miracle she might have been spared? I even consoled myself that she might have been abducted – some of the Eurasian women were, you know, General Wheeler’s daughter among them – and they might have mistaken her for one… She was dark, like you. I knew it was a fantasy, because she would have done anything to get back to you, but even the most absurd
fairy story was preferable to imagining and dreaming, as I did every day and every night for years – and sometimes still do – what her end must have been.’ He raised his eyes to mine at last. ‘So now you know.’

I had, of course, known the story already, but I had not known my mother was among the victims of the bibighar, and that made all the difference. I could understand now why he had never talked of it; how those pictures must have played through his mind over and over again as he imagined my mother’s fate. How had she died, in what terror and pain? Had she been one of the women thrown into the well alive to slowly suffocate under the bodies of her companions? In his guilt and shame, he had felt responsible, and I could see that it had never occurred to him that I might feel myself to blame.

‘I still don’t understand how I survived.’

‘I was told that when we got back from the bibighar I collapsed and raved like a madman for two days. And then Peter came to me and said that a native had come forward with a baby and they thought it might be Cecily’s. I knew it was impossible, that no baby could have survived, but they brought the man to me.’ He raised his eyes to mine. ‘He told me he had heard that there was a sahib who was looking for a baby and that he had found you in a carpet bag he bought in the bazaar… a more likely explanation is that he had thieved it from that pile of possessions in the garden and was shocked to find a baby inside.’

‘Then you don’t actually know that I’m… that I’m your s…’ My throat closed on the word.

‘There’s no doubt at all in my mind, Henry… no doubt that you are my son, and hers. Apart from the fact that you look like your mother – you have her eyes and her smile – you were found in her carpet bag with some letters to her
sister that she wrote while in the entrenchment, and you were wearing her lucky Sussex stone, which she placed around your neck. Do you still have it?’

I reached into my shirt and pulled it out. My throat was tight with tears.

‘Henry, the last words she ever wrote were about you. She knew those butchers were coming to kill them and she hid you in the bag in the hope that you wouldn’t be found. It was lucky that you slept, but the darkness and airlessness in the bag must have helped, and even if you had woken they would never have heard your cry amidst all their screams. You were her gift to me, Henry, the most precious gift I’ve ever been given. When I held you in my arms I felt…’

I knew I must not look at him or we would both weep. I cleared my throat. ‘Thank you for telling me, Father.’

He waited until I looked up and his eyes met mine and held them. ‘I should have told you long ago. I’m sorry, Henry, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak of it.’

I managed, past the lump in my throat, to stammer out, ‘I un-understand, Father.’

‘The truth is, I have spent years trying not to think of it, yet thinking of practically nothing else. The odd thing is, since I started telling you the story, the dreams have stopped. I’ve slept better in the last two nights than I have at any time since she died.’

I did not add that he and I have talked more in the last week than in the entire rest of my life.

Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death. Last night I had the old dream again. I woke in terror, as I often have
before, to find the screams were mine. Father was shaking me by the shoulder. ‘Henry, wake up. Wake up. It’s all right, you’re safe.’

He sat with me till the terror faded and I could go back to sleep. When I woke this morning, he had gone to the Lines.

Tonight, without prompting, he told me what happened after the massacre: how everyone had seemed to lose their reason and sense of restraint. Soldiers, beside themselves with rage and guilt at not having got there in time, vowed to avenge themselves on any native they encountered; souvenirs from the bibighar were treasured; a Highlander had shown him a bloodstained handkerchief and said that, if he was ever tempted to trust a native again, he would look at it and it would remind him of his desire for revenge.

‘It was as though we were all possessed. Discipline went out of the window and Neill lost complete control of his “Lambs”, so called because they were devout Christians. They spent all their time drunk, rampaging through the town, killing and burning. And Havelock’s men – known as “The Saints” for their sobriety – joined in, until Havelock ordered all the liquor bought up. Indian women were ravished in the streets; children were burnt alive. Even the Sikhs joined in, shooting any Indian they saw. Poor Sherer was forced to issue notices for respectable citizens to affix to their doors, absolving them of any part in the Mutiny.

‘More and more extreme punishments were devised to frighten and humiliate the mutineers and to break down their defiance: beef or pork was forced into their mouths; they were smeared with cow’s blood or sewn into pigskins; Hindus were told they would be buried and Muslims burnt to ensure their eternal damnation. We even revived the old Mughal punishment of blowing men from cannons.

‘It seemed to me that we had all died and gone to hell – a hell like in one of Bosch’s paintings… Caught up in an ecstasy of wickedness. General Neill – a man who prided himself on his Christian faith – came up with a punishment the Inquisition would have been proud of. Every condemned mutineer was to be made to clean up a portion of the bibighar – with his tongue! We thought we were superior… that we were civilised, because we could control our impulses and they couldn’t. When I think of our behaviour I shudder with shame. But who am I to judge, after what I did?’

‘What do you mean?’

He paused, struggling to find the words. ‘I myself betrayed someone… a man far better than I shall ever be. His name was Ram… Ram Buksh. He was a jemadar in my regiment and had shown me nothing but loyalty… he saved my life at the risk of his own during the first Sikh campaign, when he was just a boy. I took him under my wing and we became friends… In the second campaign he did so well that I promoted him. That created some resentment, because promotion in the Indian Army is, as you know, usually by seniority. But he was an exceptional soldier with a fine intellect. I have never found another companion with whom I shared so much.’