Flood of Fire (16 page)

The night before their journey's end, the recruits stayed up late. By this time they had developed strong bonds with each other. They were all of roughly the same age – in the mid-teens – and none of them had been away from their families before.

A couple of the boys were from remote inland villages and had seen even less of the world than Kesri. The most rustic of them all was a weedy fellow by the name of Seetul, and he was regarded as the clown of the group.

That night they talked about what lay ahead and what it would be like to be under the command of English officers. Seetul was the one who was most concerned about this. One of his relatives, he said, had recently visited a town where there were many Angrez. On his return he had told them a secret about the sahib-log – white-folk – something that could not on any account be repeated.

What is it?

Kasam kho!
Promise you won't tell anyone?

After they had all sworn never to tell, Seetul told them what his relative had said: the sahib-log's womenfolk were fairies – they each had a pair of wings.

When the others scoffed he told them that his relative had seen proof of this with his own eyes. He had seen a sahib and memsahib going by in a carriage. Not only was she dressed in clothes that were as colourful as a fairy's wings, but when the carriage came close everyone saw, with their own eyes, that the sahib had put his hands on her shoulder, to prevent her from flying away. There could be no doubt that she was a fairy – a
pari
.

Kesri and the others laughed at Seetul's rustic gullibility – but
the truth was that they too were apprehensive about encountering the sahib-log; they had also heard all kinds of stories about them, back in their villages.

But the next day, when they arrived at Barrackpore, the novelty of seeing the sahib-log paled before the utter strangeness of everything else. Even before the boat docked they spotted a building that was like nothing they had seen before – a palace overlooking the river, with peacocks on the roof, and a vast garden in front, filled with strange, colourful flowers.

Hukam Singh sneered at the awed expressions on their faces. The Barrackpore bungalow was only a weekend retreat for the Burra Laat – the English Governor-General: it was a mere hut, he said, compared to the Laat-Sahib's palace in Calcutta.

Once ashore the recruits didn't know which way to look – everything was a novelty. Marching past a high wall they heard sounds that made their blood run cold: the roars and snarls of tigers, lions and leopards. In their villages they had heard such sounds only from a distance. Here the animals seemed to be right next to them, ready to pounce. The only thing that prevented them from taking to their heels was that they didn't know which way to run.

Hukam Singh laughed at their panic-stricken faces and told them they were chootiya gadhas to be scared – these animals were just the Burra Laat's pets. They were kept in cages, on the other side of the wall.

Then they came to the cantonment and the sight took their breath away. Everywhere they looked there were shacks, tents and long, low structures made of wood; in between were large parade grounds, where thousands of soldiers were at drill. Sahib-log could be seen everywhere, drilling, marching and lounging about, in uniforms of astonishing colours. But the most remarkable thing about them – the thing that made the recruits' jaws drop – was that none of them had beards or moustaches. Their faces were completely smooth, their cheeks and lips as hairless as those of boys or women.

The recruits' journey ended at an empty tent where they were told to wait.

At some point Seetul slipped away. The others were busy talking about the sights they had seen that morning and no one noticed
his absence: their first inkling of it came when there was a sudden outburst of shouts, yells and shrieks, somewhere nearby. They ran out to see what had happened – and there was Seetul, being dragged towards them by a sentry.

It turned out that Seetul's stomach was upset and he had felt an urgent need to relieve himself. Not knowing where to go, he had decided to do what he would have done in his village – that is ‘look for a bush', as the saying went. With a lota-ful of water in hand, he had set off to find a secluded place. After some searching he had found a convenient gap in a dense wall of greenery. Keeping a careful watch for passers-by, he had pulled up his dhoti; lowering himself to his haunches, he had backed into the gap and let fly.

Unfortunately for Seetul the greenery happened to be the hedge of a colonel-sahib's garden. Worse still, his performance had intruded upon a ladies' picnic.

The burden of the blame fell on Hukam Singh, who had neglected to show them where the latrines were. He would later make Seetul pay dearly for his error, but now, on the sentry's orders, he took the recruits straight to the
pakhana
: this too was an astonishing sight and it made them wonder whether their bowels would ever move again.

There were a few long ditches, and over them, platforms with rows of holes. A number of men could be seen, squatting on the platforms, lined up next to each other, like crows on a rope. The stench was overpowering and the rhythmic plopping sound that rose from the ditch was a constant reminder of what might happen to a squatter who lost his balance.

Back in their villages the recruits were accustomed to going out to the fields and squatting in the open, with a breeze on their faces; moreover, even though they often went in twos or threes, for mutual protection, there was usually some greenery to afford each of them a little privacy.

It made them squirm to think of being lined up like that, next to one another – but within a day or two they got used to it and quickly absorbed the unspoken protocols of the latrines, whereby certain rows were always reserved for seniors at busy times of the morning: recruits were the last in precedence.

On their third day at the depot, Bhyro Singh appeared in person
at the door of their hut. This was the first time the recruits had seen him in uniform. With his height extended by his helmet and his shoulders broadened by his epaulettes, he seemed twice his size.

They followed him to a building that looked like a daftar: he told them to wait on the veranda and went inside. When he came out again, he was furious to find the recruits sitting in the shade. He berated them for sitting without permission and swore that they'd get a beating if they ever did it again: a Company sepoy could never sit unless he was expressly told to.

They jumped to their feet, unnerved, and stood rigidly upright, shoulder to shoulder, not daring to move.

In a while, an English officer appeared with a big stick in his hands. This further unnerved the recruits because they thought they were going to be beaten as a punishment for sitting down. But it was only a measuring stick, with a notch on it. The officer went down the line with it, making sure that they all stood taller than the mark.

Kesri could not stop staring at the officer's smooth, beardless face. He had nurtured his own moustache so carefully, from the day when the first hairs appeared on his lip, that he found it hard to believe that any man would choose to shave off something so precious. But when it was his turn to be measured he saw that the officer's lack of hair was indeed a matter of choice rather than a curse of nature – there was a distinct stubble on his cheeks, so there could be no doubt that he regularly shaved his face.

After they had all been measured, the officer sat down at a desk, picked up a pen and began to write. Kesri, like most of the other recruits, knew how to read and write in the Nagari script, but only with a slow and deliberate hand. The speed at which the officer's pen flew over the paper was dazzling to his eyes.

The sheet of paper was then handed to Bhyro Singh who now led them to another daftar. Kesri happened to be at the head of the line, so when they got there he was the first to be picked out. Bhyro Singh beckoned to him to step forward and left the others to wait where they were. He then led Kesri to a room that smelled pungently of medicines. An English doctor was waiting inside with two memsahibs, dressed in white. As soon as Kesri had stepped
in, Bhyro Singh shut the door, leaving him alone with the doctor and the two women.

The doctor now spoke to Kesri in Hindustani and told him to remove all his clothes – not just his jama but also his dhoti and langot.

At first Kesri thought he had mistaken the doctor's words. He could not imagine that it would enter anyone's mind to ask him to strip himself naked in front of strangers – of whom two were women! But the doctor then repeated what he had said, in a louder, more insistent voice, and one of the women spoke up too, loudly dhamkaoing Kesri and telling him to obey the doctor and take off his clothes.

Kesri had a sudden recollection of his father's warnings about the Company's army and how those who joined it would lose their dharma. He realized now that this was true and was assailed by a terrible onrush of remorse for not having heeded his father's words.

As these thoughts were flashing through his head, the doctor-sahib took a step towards him. It seemed to Kesri that the doctor was about to attack him and tear off his clothes. At that instant he made up his mind. He spun around, threw himself at the door, and flung it open. Racing past Bhyro Singh and the recruits, he sprinted towards the cantonment's bazar.

If he could lose himself in the crowd, he reckoned, he would be able to make his escape. And then whatever happened, would happen; if it came to that, he could always go back home.

He ran as he had never run before. He could hear Bhyro Singh's voice behind him but he knew that he was rapidly outpacing the havildar.

But just as he reached the bazar, who should appear in front of him but Hukam Singh, with two other sepoys? He saw them too late to slip past: they threw him to the ground and held him down.

Although the blood was pounding in Kesri's head he could hear Bhyro Singh's heavy tread.

Haramzada! Bahenchod!

Bhyro Singh was panting as he spat out the curses: Bastard, you think you can get away from me? Chootiya, haven't I loaned you money and fed you for a month? You cunt, you think I'm the kind of man you can steal from and get away …?

Kesri felt the havildar's massive hand seizing the back of his neck. It pulled him to his feet and then lifted him off the ground. Then Bhyro Singh's other hand took hold of his dhoti and langot and tore them off.

A crowd had gathered now. Bhyro Singh hoisted up Kesri's writhing body and turned it from side to side, showing the onlookers his underparts.

Here, have a look – this is what the haramzada thought he would hide.

Then he flung Kesri to the dust and gave him a kick.

You're no better than a runaway dog, Bhyro Singh spat at him. Don't think you can cheat me like you did your father. You have no one to turn to now, and nowhere to go. This is your jail and I am your jailer – you had better get used to it.

The bitter truth of the havildar's words dawned on Kesri as he was covering himself with his retrieved clothes – with neither friends nor kin to come to his aid, he had become a kind of pariah as well as a prisoner. Only now did Kesri grasp that in choosing to run away from home, with Bhyro Singh, he had abandoned not just his family and his village, but also himself – or rather the person he had once been, with certain ideas about dignity, self-containment and virtue.

For Kesri the significance of this incident was not diminished by the discovery that many recruits had suffered similar, and even worse, humiliations at the hands of NCOs. One of the lessons he took from it was that every soldier had two wars to fight: one against enemies on the outside and the other against adversaries on the inside. The first fight was fought with guns, swords and brawn; the second with cunning, patience and guile.

The next few months were a blur of beatings, dhamkaoings and sleeplessness as the recruits were drilled into shape. Along the way there were many moments when Kesri might have run away had he not been so vividly reminded that he had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. But then at last came a day when the first four Articles of War, on the subject of desertion, were read out to Kesri and his cohort of recruits, after which they were administered the oath of fidelity in front of the regimental colours. From then on, even though they were on probation for one month more, without
any salary or battas, things became a little easier because the recruits were now considered full-fledged members of the Pacheesi.

It was in that month of continuing pennilessness, when the new sepoys had to subsist on an allowance of two annas per day, that Kesri discovered another, sweeter lesson in the memory of his humiliation by Bhyro Singh: he learnt that unexpected rewards were sometimes to be found amidst the rubble of defeat.

One day while walking past the cantonment's ‘red' area – the ‘Laal Bazar' – he heard a girl's voice calling to him: Listen, you there, listen!

The voice was coming from an upstairs window, in a tumbledown house that was known to be a
lal kotha
– a ‘red house'. There was a window ajar, on the floor above. When he stepped up to the house, it opened a little wider, revealing the painted face of a young girl. She smiled and beckoned to him to come up.

He climbed up a narrow staircase and found her waiting at the top.

What's your name?

Kesri Singh. And yours?

Gulabi. You were the one, weren't you, who was trying to run from Havildar Bhyro Singh that day?

He flushed and retorted angrily: What's it to you?

Nothing.

She smiled and led him into a room where there was a charpoy in one corner.

Once inside he was overcome with panic; his many years of training in self-control was suddenly at war with his desire in a way that he had never experienced before. In his head there was an insistent voice of warning, telling him that to discard the disciplines of wrestling would come at a cost; some day he would pay a steep price for his pleasure.