Dishonored (5 page)

“Jagat, you are sure that your mother is all right?” Indrajit opened his eyes now and stared at his son. “You have had word
that she is all right?”

Jagat looked away. “Yes, Papa,” he answered quietly, “I have had word.” He clenched his fists by his side and willed his father
to avert his gaze. Jagat had never been able to lie, especially not to the man he loved and respected. There had been no word
of his mother, there had been no word of anyone, but he was too afraid of what the worry would do to his father to tell him
that. So he had lied, two days ago he had lied, and now Indrajit, in his fevered, exhausted state, woke every few hours and
asked the same question. It was agony to Jagat to have to answer him and to have to repeat his lie over and over again.

“Jagat, I am afraid that they have forgotten us,” Indrajit Rai breathed. His throat was so dry that he had lost his voice
and could barely whisper. “I want you to ask for a meeting with the colonel, with Colonel Mills…” Indrajit broke off
and rested for a few moments. “The colonel is a fair man, Jagat…” Again he had to rest, the effort seemed to drain the
life from him and he was on the edge of unconsciousness. “I want you to insist on seeing him…” he murmured before his
eyelids fluttered and closed. “He will help us, I know he will.”

Colonel Mills stood with his back to the room and stared out at the remains of the camp. The officers’ mess had miraculously
survived but most of the other buildings were burnt out, thankfully in places, leaving only the ashes of some of the slaughter.
He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun and remained standing there as a knock sounded on the door
and he called out for the person to enter.

“Excuse me, colonel, but may I have a word?”

The same officer who had gone to arrest Indrajit Rai stood by the door in the officers’ mess dining-room and waited for the
colonel to acknowledge him.

“Go ahead, captain.” Colonel Mills kept his back to the officer.

“Em… We have a bit of a problem with Rai, sir, he is making a fuss in his cell, he says his father is ill, unconscious
and that he, em…” The captain cleared his throat. “He demands to see you, sir, he demands an interview with—”

“He demands! He demands an interview!” Colonel Mills swung around, his face white with rage. “He demands an interview…!” He stopped, breathing with difficulty and in the glare of the bright sunlight the captain was shocked by how much events
in the past week had aged him. The once plump, ruddy features had become pallid, the flesh hanging in loose folds around his
neck and jowls. “That boy should have been taught a lesson years ago!” he shouted. “Bloody upstart! He demands…!”

The captain took a step backward. “Sir, I don’t think…”

“I want that man’s property confiscated! I want his family removed from their home… I want…” He stamped across the
room and yanked open the door, hollering into the anteroom. “Sergeant! Sergeant!”

The captain pressed himself against the wall, the force of Colonel Mills’ anger almost physical; it knocked him back. The
thought that he should take the colonel’s orders momentarily crossed his mind. The sergeant was a thug and his party of men
were little more than hooligans. But he dismissed the idea. The brutality of the past week had turned his stomach; he didn’t
believe in an eye for an eye. He wanted no part of it.

“Bloody sergeant! Bloody anus of a man! Where the hell is he?” Colonel Mills strode back to the table and took up his stick,
cracking it violently down on the edge before tucking it under his arm. He didn’t realize the captain was still in the room
and was talking to himself. “I’ll have those fucking darkies if it’s the last thing I do…” he muttered vehemently and,
turning to leave, he walked straight out of the room without even seeing the other man.

* * *

“Open up! Open up!” The sergeant thumped continuously on the door with the end of his truncheon, making a hell of a noise.
He smiled as the wood started to give way and cracked under the force of the blows. “Open up I said! It’s the British Army!”
His truncheon went through, the top panel of the door splitting down the center. “Open up in there!” He saw the door rattling
as someone on the other side attempted to unlock it and he couldn’t resist giving it another smack, just to let them know
he meant business.

Indrajit Rai’s bearer fumbled anxiously with the bolts inside as his mistress stood behind him. They had kept the house locked
up, despite the heat, ever since the master had been arrested, afraid every waking moment of the soldiers’ return. But now
that it had happened, Mrs. Rai was oddly calm. She had suspected that this was inevitable and she would face her fate with
dignity.

Like her son, Mrs. Rai had no faith in British justice, she had seen in the past two weeks that they were as bad as any other
nation when it came to greed and power. They had arrested her husband and her son, killed them for all she knew, and now they
had come for their property. She had hidden what she could, taken the valuables she could find, but she had no clear idea
of what her husband owned; she could not hide everything.

“Hurry up in there!” The sergeant kicked the door, impatient with the bearer’s slow-handedness. “Get a bloody move on!” he
shouted, kicking again. He was a bully, with a deep hatred of Indians and he relished the job in hand: he could hardly wait
for the door to open. “’Bout time!” he snarled as the last bolt gave way, and aiming his foot at the center of the door, he
smacked it open with the full force of his boot. The party of soldiers were inside in a matter of seconds.

Knocking the bearer down with a violent crack of his truncheon, the sergeant grabbed Mrs. Rai, tearing her arm up behind her
back and shoving her through the house toward the bedroom. She made no sound, though her face had crumpled in pain. There
he pushed her on to the bed, held her down with his knees pinned to her chest and ripped at her sari, yanking it away from
her hips and thighs. When he had exposed her, her flesh red and scratched from the struggle, he stood back and sneered at
her shock and humiliation. “I wouldn’t touch you,” he spat, “you filthy native!” and, as she began to sob with relief, he
slapped her hard across the face and left her slumped on the bed.

The rest of the house was being ransacked. As the sergeant came out of the bedroom, he put his foot up the bare ass of one
of the soldiers raping the ayah and laughed. The young woman was sobbing silently, her eyes wide open and blank with fear
and pain. He joined another of the men in the study and started emptying the contents of a bureau, hurling books, papers,
anything he found of no value across the room. The things he wanted he chucked into a sack they had brought for that purpose;
any money he pocketed.

It took less than an hour to work through the house and leave a trail of total devastation. The sergeant took the sack and
loaded it on to the wagon outside, leaving the men to take the last of what they wanted from the bungalow. When he had done
that he gave the order to leave. If he’d had his way, he’d have torched the place, but for some reason the colonel wanted
it left. He glanced back at their handiwork and smiled. If he’d had his way, there’d be no fucking Indians left in this God-forsaken
place.

Colonel Mills dismounted and tied the reins of his horse to a tree. He walked up the rest of the drive toward the bungalow,
hardly remembering it from the night of the party, and climbed the steps up on the verandah. It seemed an age ago he had been
here with his wife. He stood, looking into the broken remains of Indrajit Rai’s home and, for the first time in seven days,
he smiled, a bitter sardonic smile. This was what he wanted, this was justice.

He took the small gold and jeweled bird his men had looted from the house out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his
hand. He looked down at the uncut stones, the smooth polished rubies and diamonds, gleaming in the evening sun. Alicia would
have liked this, he thought, it was a perfect example of Rai’s workmanship. He closed his fingers around it, clutching it
so tighdy that it dug painfully into his flesh. Alicia was dead and buried, what was left of her, along with the rest of them.
Alicia would never see it.

Turning, Colonel Mills stepped down off the verandah and walked away from the house. The deathly silence of it pleased him.
He untied the reins of his horse and glanced back before mounting. He would execute the Rais the day after tomorrow, before
the new command arrived, he would not let them deny him that. That was really what he wanted, he thought finally, that was
justice.

T
HE CAMP WAS DESERTED IN THE MIDDAY SUN, JUST AS
N
ANDA
knew it would be. As he approached its boundaries with his carriage, the driver drew to a halt and he stood, as if he had
spotted an eagle up in the sky, and pointed it out to the driver. He gave his men exactly enough time to crawl out from under
the coach and into the grounds of the camp. Then, a couple of minutes later, the first part of the plan complete, the carriage
pulled off and continued on to the guard at the entrance, where Nanda made a request to see the colonel at his pleasure.

Within the quarter hour, permission was granted for this visit and Nanda rode along the main thoroughfare toward the officers’
mess, his eyes averted from the sight of the small wooden crosses marking the graves that were littered throughout the camp.
He was ashamed of the mutiny but he understood it and he knew that Colonel Mills had gone too far in his reprisals for the
massacre.

The driver set him down at the officers’ mess and Nanda gave him instructions to wait. He knew that he wouldn’t have much
time with the colonel so they’d have to move quickly. Straightening the sleeves of his sherwani, Nanda nodded to the sergeant
on the door at the mess and, hoping he could stall the colonel long enough, went inside to await his interview.

The prison block was a building directly across from the officers’ mess, a lucky coincidence for Nanda. As he went inside,
his driver jumped down from the carriage and leaned back against it, his eyes on the soldier Nanda had indicated.

“Psst… Psst, soldier,” he hissed. “I have something to show you.” He smiled and brought out a bundle from the folds of
his trousers. He held it up, a packet of postcards, and saw he had the sergeant’s attention. “Over here…” he whispered,
nodding to the back of the carriage. “I have nice photos…” again he smiled, winking, “nice photos of girls, white girls…”

The sergeant stood, a flicker of excitement licking the pit of his stomach, and, leaving his desk, he went out into the sun
and followed the driver to the back of the carriage.

“Show me,” he said, reaching for the packet of postcards. He wasn’t going to pay unless they were really good. But the driver
held on to them as he’d been told to do and untied the bundle himself. Squatting on the ground, his back to the prison block,
he laid the first of the pornographic pictures that Nanda had given him on the ground so that the sergeant had to squat beside
him to see it He watched the man’s face very closely and, seeing he had his full attention, he gave the signal behind his
back, and began to display the rest of the packet, very slowly, one by one.

In a matter of seconds, Nanda’s men were inside the prison block. The guard was taken out with a sharp blow to the back of
the neck, his keys removed and the Rais’ cell located. He would be unconscious for only a few minutes; they had to be swift.

“Indrajit Rai?” The first man unlocked the door while the second kept watch. “Indrajit Rai…” His voice was arely audible
for fear of the other prisoners overhearing. He cracked open the door, covering his nose and mouth against the stench of the
cell Jagat looked up. He had been kneeling by his father’s side, cooling his brow with the last of their water and as he saw
the man, he struggled to his feet, his legs weak.

“Malika Shuker! Praise the Gods…” His voice broke. ‘My father… he is too ill… he—” The man gripped his arm
to stop him, putting his hand over his mouth.

“We will come back tonight for you,” he whispered urgently. “Not now, Nanda is in the camp, he would be suspected now, arrested…” The man pulled a knife from his elt. “Here! You must call the guard in tonight, when you near the eagle cry… you
must use this…” He glanced nervously behind him. “Be ready, after dark, we will not be able to get in again but we will
be waiting. The ground at the back will be clear to the boundary, run across there, keep ow, we will have you covered. Listen
for the eagle…” He et Jagat go and moved back to the door. “That is the signal… when you hear that it is clear…” There was a groan from the guard as he began to come around, the man started. The eagle,” he hissed. Seconds later, without
another word, he was gone.

Jagat ran to the door but it had been relocked. He fell against it, groaning and slumped to the floor. With the other man
there might have been a chance, with his help he might have done it. But he would never get out of there alive carrying his
father, he would never make it to the boundary in time. He put his hands up to his face and closed his eyes. How could he
leave his father here? He dug his fists into his eyes, trying to stop the tears of anger and frustration. How could he do
that?”

“Rai?”

He started and swallowed painfully.

“Rai? Answer me!”

The small panel in the door was slid back and the guard looked into the cell, checking the prisoners. “Rai?”

Jagat glanced up and called out hoarsely. The guard moved on. He never usually did his round until dusk but he had dropped
off to sleep, gone out like a light in the afternoon heat, waking with his head slumped on the desk. It was something he had
never done before and it made him nervous. Satisfied that everything was in order, the guard went back to his post and Jagat
listened to his heavy footsteps recede. He stood, rubbing to try and relieve the ache in his legs, and walked across to his
father.

I can’t leave him, he thought, kneeling and dipping the rag into the water, I know I can’t. A pain of sheer desperation shot
through him. But, as he put his hand on Indrajit’s brow, he realized that he would have to.