Flood of Fire (18 page)

Not being a member of the clan, Kesri had to look elsewhere to learn about the Pacheesi's inner workings. The man he turned to was a gifted but unlikely source of advice: none other than Pagla-baba, the Naga ascetic who travelled everywhere with the battalion.

Pagla-baba was thin and very tall, with limbs that looked as if they were made from fire-blackened bamboo. His joints were huge and gnarled, and his skin was smeared from head to toe with ash, as was his matted hair, which he wore on his head in a thick turban of coils. When the battalion was on the move, he marched with his earthly possessions on his back, slung on a length of rope – they consisted of a rolled-up mat, a set of three sharp-edged discs and a standard-issue brass lota, no different from those that were strapped upon the knapsacks of the sepoys. At the insistence of the battalion's English officers he would sometimes wear a band of cloth around his waist, but when out of their sight he usually tucked it in so that it covered nothing. The ash was his clothing, he liked to say, and his genitals and pubes were daubed even more liberally with it than the rest of his body.

The English officers hated Pagla-baba and not just because he liked to bring the blush to their cheeks by flaunting his impressive manhood: they resented him for his hold on the soldiers and were
flummoxed by his appeal. They never tired of pointing out to the sepoys that every paltan had its contingent of regimental pundits and maulvis to serve their religious needs; these functionaries were army employees, just like the Anglican chaplains who ministered to the officers, and the Catholic padres who tended to the battalion's drummers, fifers and musicians (most of whom were Christian Eurasians and had entered the ranks through orphanages and poorhouses).

To the officers it was baffling that with so many respectable men of religion to turn to, the sepoys should resort instead to a naked budmash who didn't even take the trouble to wear a langooty and went around with his artillery hanging out, as if to deliver a barrage.

What they didn't understand was that as far as most sepoys were concerned regimental pundits and maulvis were important only for formal observances; when it came to their private hopes and fears, sorrows and beliefs, they needed messengers of a different kind. Ascetics like Pagla-baba were not just men of religion but also soldiers, and had served in armies and warrior bands. They understood the lives of sepoys in a way that no pundit or maulana ever could: they provided practical advice as well as spiritual guidance. In the battlefield, sepoys had much more faith in the protection of the amulets they received from faqirs and sadhus than in the blessings of pundits and imams.

It was also a great help that the ascetics were unusually well-informed: their networks extended everywhere and they frequently had access to better intelligence than the army's spies. For all these reasons there was scarcely a battalion in Bengal that did not have an ascetic in its camp – and it didn't matter what religion they professed to follow or whether they called themselves gosains or sufis. This too was a great annoyance to the Angrez officers for they liked to have people neatly in their places, with the Gentoos and Musselmen in their own corners.

Kesri was fortunate in being drawn into Pagla-baba's inner circle through no effort of his own. It so happened that Pagla-baba had paid many visits to the annual mela that was held near Nayanpur. He had an astonishing memory for names and faces and he remembered having seen Kesri there, many years before. Because of that chance connection he took an interest in Kesri's welfare from the
time he entered the paltan – and Kesri, for his part, felt an instinctive affinity for Pagla-baba, largely because he made fun of pundits and purohits and all their endless observances of rules and rituals.

It was Pagla-baba who told Kesri about a way to get ahead in the paltan without having to depend on Bhyro Singh and his clan: volunteering for overseas service. Officers always took special note of a sepoy who volunteered, he said, because balamteers who were willing to travel on ships were hard to find in the Bengal Native Infantry. Most of the sepoys of the Bengal army were from inland regions like Bihar and Awadh, and they didn't like to cross the sea: some felt that it compromised their caste standing; others objected to the additional expense as well as the inconvenience and danger. This was why overseas service was generally voluntary in the Bengal army: mandatory foreign deployments had led to disaffection in the past, so when troops were needed for missions abroad it was usually the Madras army that supplied them.

Yeh jaati-paati ki baat sab bakwaas haelba
– all this talk of caste is bakwaas of course, said Pagla-baba, in his hoarse, crackling voice. When travel battas are offered, Bihari sepoys run like rabbits to sign up. The same if there's any talk of prize money. Afterwards, they'll pay for a little ceremony to remove the taint of crossing the black-water, and that'll be that. Any sepoy will volunteer when there's a glint of gold – but it's when you sign up without any money on offer that the Angrez officers will really take notice of you.

Kesri would have volunteered at once if possible, but it took a while before an opportunity arose. One day the CO-sahib announced that balamteers were being sought to reinforce a British garrison on the Bengal-Burma frontier. The garrison was on an island called Shahpuri, at the mouth of the Naf River, which marked the border between the East India Company's Bengal territories and the Burmese Province of Arakan. The island was a few hundred miles from Calcutta and the reinforcements were to be sent there by ship: this being just a spell of garrison duty, there were to be no special travel battas; nor was there any possibility of prize money or any other emoluments.

Kesri lost no time in putting his name on the list of volunteers – and since there were no financial incentives, he assumed that
nobody else from his battalion would sign up as a balamteer. But when the full list was posted, it turned out that Hukam Singh had also volunteered, having been promised a temporary rank of naik, or corporal: worse still, Kesri was assigned to his very platoon.

When they arrived at the island there was not a man among them who did not regret having come. The encampment was a stockade on a sand-spit, hemmed in by jungle and marshland, river and sea. A sizeable Burmese force had already assembled on the far side of the Naf River, with obviously hostile intent.

Kesri did not have to wait long for his first taste of combat. One day, while out on patrol, his company was ambushed by a Burmese raiding party. The sepoys could only get off a single volley before their attackers closed on them: after that it was every man for himself, with the sepoys' bayonets pitted against the spears and cutlasses of the Burmese.

Kesri found himself facing an onrush from a man with a fear-somely tattooed face and a huge, flashing cutlass. He dropped to one knee, as he had so often done in drills, and took his bayonet back, in preparation for the thrust. His lunge, when he made it, was perfectly executed. The attacker was evidently unprepared for the length of the weapon and was caught in mid-stride. The bayonet went right through his ribs and into his heart.

This was the first time that Kesri had killed a man. His attacker's tattooed face was so close that he could see the light dimming in his eyes – but to his horror the head kept coming towards him, even after the eyes had gone blank. He gave his rifle a savage thrust, trying to extricate his bayonet from the dead man's ribs. But he succeeded only in shaking the corpse, so that the head whipped back and forth: a ribbon of drool curled out of the dead man's mouth and hit Kesri in the face. He realized now, in mounting panic, that his bayonet was trapped between the man's ribs.

Meanwhile, from the edge of his vision he could see another man bearing down on him with an upraised cutlass. He tugged on the butt of his rifle again, but it wouldn't come free. The impaled corpse clung stubbornly to the bayonet, with the eyes wide open, staring into Kesri's face.

The other attacker was so close now that there was no time to lower the corpse to the ground and coax out the blade. Kesri had
no choice but to use the dead man as a shield. When the attacker's cutlass began its descent, he torqued his body, as he had learnt to do in the wrestling pit, and levered the corpse up to absorb the blow.

The first stroke hit the corpse on the back, pushing the tattooed face against Kesri's and knocking him to the ground. The strike was blunted, but not entirely deflected. Kesri knew he had been hit, because he could see his blood spurting over the dead man's face.

Then the attacker came at him from the other side. Kesri had the full weight of the corpse on him now. Again he waited until the blade had begun its descent and then he heaved on the butt of his rifle, using the corpse to block the slashing cutlass.

Again the strike was only partially deflected. It hit him in the arm this time, glancing off an amulet that Pagla-baba had given him. At the same time it somehow also jerked loose his bayonet. Still covered by the corpse, Kesri pulled the blade free, taking care to keep it hidden from his attacker. He waited for the man to close in for the kill and only then did he make his thrust, shoving his bayonet through the gap between the corpse's arm and flank. This time he aimed for the stomach, and was lucky to hit home. The second attacker collapsed upon the first and the impact of his fall knocked the breath out of Kesri, who was now buried under both their bodies. His head began to spin and the last thing he was aware of was Hukam Singh's voice, shouting at him, telling him to get up.

After that Kesri spent a month in the garrison's field-hospital, recovering from his wounds. Lying in bed, he promised himself that when it was his turn to put recruits through bayonet drill, he would teach them always to aim for the stomach: it was the softest part of a man's body and there was no danger of getting your bayonet trapped between any bones.

A few months after Kesri had returned to active duty the whole garrison was evacuated from Shahpuri, by ship. Back at the military cantonment in Barrackpore, Kesri found a letter waiting for him, from his village: his brother Bhim had dictated it to a letter-writer.

In the intervening years Kesri had regularly sent money home, through sepoys who were going on leave. Through them he had
also received news of his family: he knew that after his departure, Bhim had stayed back to look after their land.

Now Bhim was writing to say that it was time for Kesri to return to the village for a visit. Their father had forgiven everything and was eager to see him, for many reasons. One was that he was involved in some litigation over a piece of land and had been told that the magistrate, who was English, was more likely to rule in their favour if Kesri was seen in the courtroom, dressed in the uniform of a Company sepoy. Another reason was that they had received a splendid proposal of marriage for Kesri: it was from a family of rich landowning thakurs. The girl's brothers were also Company sepoys, so it was a perfect match in every way.

Bhim ended with the observation that he was himself eager to see the matter of Kesri's marriage settled so that he could start thinking of getting married himself.

Kesri was in no hurry to find a wife: he had thought that he would do what many sepoys did, and wait till he had left service. But he was also keen to be reconciled with his parents, so he took leave for four months and went home.

On reaching Nayanpur, he was astonished by the stir that was created by his arrival. It turned out that in his absence he had become a figure of some note in the village. The money he sent home had provided his family with new comforts and had also allowed them to hold pujas at the local temples. All of Nayanpur turned out for the
prayashchitta
ceremony that his family held, to remove the stain of his overseas travels. When he appeared in court with his father, the English magistrate took special note, and the ruling did indeed go in his favour.

As for Kesri's doubts about getting married, they were quickly swept aside by his family. The dowry that had been offered was so substantial that there would have been no question of saying no to the alliance, even if he had wanted to, which he didn't, since there were no grounds for objection: the bride was plump, fair and quite amiable; and she also got on well with his mother and sisters – especially Deeti, who doted on her. Kesri saw immediately that his family had chosen well, and he, for his part, was prepared to do his best to live up to all that was expected of him, as a husband. The wedding was a grand affair, attended by hundreds of people.
His in-laws had wide connections, so all the zamindars of the district came, as well as the mukhiyas of the nearby villages.

With things going so well, Kesri briefly contemplated retiring from service and moving back home permanently. But a couple of months of playing the householder resolved his doubts. He found, to his surprise, that he missed the orderliness of his life with the Pacheesi; he missed the regularity of knowing exactly when he would eat and sleep and bathe; he missed the cheerful camaraderie; he missed his hut, where everything was within reach and in its place; he missed the straight, well-swept streets and lanes of the cantonment – the galis of the village he had grown up in now seemed to him chaotic and dirty.

After a few months of family life even the oppressive hierarchies of military rank seemed more bearable. At least you knew exactly where you stood with everyone around you – and coping with the petty tyrannies of naiks and havildars was no more difficult than dealing with his father. And compared with the complications of the marital bed, his transactions with Gulabi were vastly more satisfying.

But even if Kesri had been inclined to stay, he knew it wouldn't have been feasible. The family had grown accustomed to the money he sent home; and in different ways they had all come to relish the prestige of being closely related to a man who wore the uniform of a power that was increasingly feared and respected. What was more, by the time his leave drew to an end Kesri could tell that his family – all except Deeti – were tiring of having him at home. He understood that the gap left by his departure from home had been filled by the continuing flow of their lives; his return, although welcome at the start, had now begun to disrupt the new currents.