The Strangler Vine (15 page)

There were twenty of us at the table: the Major and Mrs Sleeman, Hogwood, Pursloe, Mauwle, the doctor and various officers and engineers from the new cantonment and their wives, two district officers from south of Jubbulpore and two recently arrived planters and their wives.

No one had mentioned the hanging, and I realized, with some relief, that no one would.

‘I know it is usual now to serve many European courses,’ the Major was saying, ‘but I find such dishes very hard on the constitution. I cannot work on a diet of pudding and roast beef in thick English sauces. The native habit of eating little meat suits me. Amelie and our regular guests are kind enough to humour me, although Lieutenant Mauwle takes a rather different view of the subject.’

‘I do, sir,’ said Mauwle, lifting his glass to him.

Meanwhile, the planters’ ladies had primped themselves and gazed at Blake all evening, trying to gain his attention. I wished they would not, as he was in an unfriendly and uncompromising mood. He had slung himself along the back of his chair, his arms crossed, his chin pointing into his chest, and his expression did not suggest he welcomed questions.

‘There is a great mystery about you, Mr Blake,’ the slightly larger of the planters’ wives said, simpering a little. ‘Try as we might all
night, we have not been able to discover what brings you to Jubbulpore.’

‘I cannot say, madam,’ Blake said. ‘Major Sleeman has expressly forbidden discussion of the matter.’

The lady persevered. ‘Oh!’ she said, and mouthed the word ‘Mountstuart?’, arching her eyebrows questioningly. Her husband coughed and nudged her, and several awkward conversations were suddenly struck up. The
khitmatgur
filled my glass with chilled claret. The second planter’s wife, sitting on my right, began to whisper loudly.

‘Is it true? Is it the poet that brings you here? We so wished to meet him, but we never had the opportunity. We are told he behaved very badly. But no one is to speak of it. You must tell me what you know. Has he disappeared? Do you think he was murdered by the natives? Or did away with himself in a fit of melancholy?’ She giggled. I raised my hand for another glass of claret and buried my face in it so I should not have to answer, until her husband shushed and frowned her into silence.

‘Lieutenant Avery,’ Mrs Sleeman broke in. She was perfectly dressed in white muslin with not a hair out of place. ‘I am sure you have many stories from Calcutta society. It is an age since we heard any of the gossip. Do tell us what they are talking of.’ The tone was charming but steely. I brought forth my Calcutta chatter, carefully skirting around the subject of Mountstuart’s book, and kept the planters’ wives entertained for some time. After several glasses of claret I could not exactly tell them apart, but they were determined to enjoy themselves and were very good-humoured, and that was a relief. Occasionally I looked over to see Pursloe, silent and mulish next to his aunt, who talked briskly across him. Eventually I exhausted my store of tales and we began to listen to the doctor, who was expatiating on the School of Industry.

‘It is not really a matter for the dinner table, I admit,’ he said, ‘but in my opinion the regime is far too liberal. To be honest this is the case at the prison too, where the vast majority of Thugs serve their sentences. The only real discomfort is that of breathing the noxious prison air, which is, admittedly, foul. Their hard labour is not hard enough.’

‘Is it not?’ said Blake.

‘Not in my opinion, sir. They are simply deprived of their liberty.’ These last words tumbled into silence: the rest of table had become quiet.

‘You are responsible for the health of the inmates, are you not, Doctor?’ Blake said. I had been praying that he would speak all evening, and now I longed for him to remain silent. ‘They die, I’m told, at a rate of two or three a week of dysentry and fever, and thus far not a single Thug sentenced even to the shortest seven-year stretch has lived to see release.’ The doctor looked furious.

‘I cannot but wonder where you came by such misinformation – and at your naivety, Mr Blake,’ the Major said. ‘The spread of disease is a problem for prisons everywhere, from Bombay to London, and I think you would find a gaol in a native state a great deal worse. You cannot lay the blame on our doctor. And you have seen how seriously we have addressed these things in the School of Industry.’

‘To which only a very small proportion of your prisoners are sent.’

‘Let us agree this is not an appropriate moment to discuss such matters,’ said the Major.

‘Oh, Mrs Sleeman,’ cried one of the planters’ wives. ‘Tell your husband not to cast us all as shrinking violets. We are starved of good and lively conversation and we are all fascinated by the Thugs.’

Mrs Sleeman laid a hand on her husband’s cuff.

‘Well, well,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘What I can say is that in our new School of Industry cleanliness and sanitation will be admirably maintained. And that we plan to counter the future threat of Thuggee by educating our Approvers’ sons to cultivate the virtues of benevolence and conscientiousness. We shall win them from the evils of Thuggee.’

‘But they will still be natives, untrustworthy, incessant liars,’ said one of the planters. There was a murmur of agreement.

‘I protest,’ said the Major. ‘One cannot generalize in such a way. It is true that many natives do not understand “truth” in the way that we do. The Thugs do lie incessantly – it has been a great problem in the Courts. But this is not simply because they have no
moral understanding. Over the years at this table we have often debated the capacity of the natives, especially the poorer sort. Some believe that they are not capable of feeling in the same way that we do. I used to think this. I have learnt they are wary of us – I wish they were not. Their own native governments have mistreated them for generations, and we do not make sufficient effort to understand them. But we can win them to the light and drive out ignorance and superstition by showing them the benefits of civilization, by demonstrating we are worthy rulers. By – for example – making the roads safe for them to travel. What native princeling has done this?’

‘You are too soft-hearted, Major Sleeman,’ said the other planter.

‘Major Sleeman,’ said Blake, ‘is there not a contradiction between your conviction that the natives lie, and your reliance on the testimony of your Approvers?’

‘I do not see one.’

‘It is the case that the Company has done much more than any native prince to bring order and prosperity to this land,’ said the first planter.

‘Has it?’ Blake said.

‘Mr Blake,’ said Major Sleeman impatiently, ‘you must agree that the Company has brought great benefits to India. You who are familiar with so many of its languages, and have seen so much of it, know better than most what it has accomplished.’

The whole table turned to Blake, save me. I prayed for some blessed interruption: for the ceiling to fall down, for a large snake to enter at the window. I drank a long draught of claret.

‘At one time I would have agreed with you,’ said Blake quietly. ‘But I am no longer so sure. I have seen corruption and chaos in the native states, just as you have. I marched with the Company into Assam and Manipore, Bahalwapore and Mysore. But after more than sixteen years I cannot say that the natives’ lot is any better than it was before. Why should we be surprised? The Company came to India to profit from it. I appreciate, Major Sleeman, that your governance has brought peace to a region blighted by wars, but all around I see the natives poorer for the
existence of the Company. And even here, the natives are anxious and angry.’

The table went deathly silent.

‘I would dispute your conclusions, Mr Blake,’ said the Major crisply. ‘After twenty years of peace, the ryots of this territory are far better off.’

‘Would they agree with you?’

‘Of course, they complain,’ the Major said. ‘But that is because they have forgotten what life was like under the
Marathas
. They say they cannot grow enough, and they say it is because they are encouraged to perjure themselves in our courts, or because of the eating of beef, or the prevalence of adultery or the impiety of the surveys we make of the local populations. The truth is over twenty years of peace their families have grown and they do not let the earth lie fallow.’

‘But I see something different: I see the Company demanding higher and higher rents,’ said Blake softly. ‘I see the old relations between landowner and peasant broken. The Company has turned the
zamindars
, the landowners, into its rent collectors. They extort money from the peasants however they can, no matter how bad the harvest has been. I see men arrive in Calcutta every day, driven off the land and starving, or indentured as all but slaves because they cannot pay their rents. They are forced to plant indigo and opium poppy when they should plant food. The Company extends its rule and the country becomes poorer.’

‘When you say “men”,’ one of the planters’ wives said, ‘do you mean natives?’

Blake stared at her.

‘You are a Jacobin, sir!’ said her husband.

‘You cannot truly believe that, Mr Blake?’ said Mr Hogwood.

‘Just now the Governor General’s party and an army of 10,000 are travelling north up the Grand Trunk Road into the famine areas north of Allahabad. What will that 10,000-strong column do, do you think? Bring bread and honey to the starving natives? Or pass through and onward like a plague of locusts?’

The company looked at Blake as if he were mad and dangerous.
And I realized that he did not care at all. Across the table Hogwood caught my eye.

‘Mr Blake, you are jaded indeed,’ said the Major.

‘Maybe I have seen too much.’ He stood up. ‘Gentleman, ladies, I bid you good night.’

I stood too. I had to follow him. ‘Major Sleeman, Mrs Sleeman.’

But Blake had already taken off into the night. As I waited for my horse, I could hear the Major talking to his guests.

‘Of course, some of their superstitions are very picturesque,’ he was saying. ‘My dear
Mauvli
, who advises me on Mahommedan matters, tells me that lightning is a flaming arrow that Allah throws at his foes. Our local zamindar, the little Sarimant of Deori, of whom I am most fond – he is the most polished, graceful and elegant creature, all rose-coloured silk and azure satin – insisted when we had our influenza epidemic some years ago that we must get the local guroo to choose a couple of goats and to chase them out of town into the forest. Scape goats, you see.’

The company laughed, and part of me wished I was back in the dining-room, laughing too.

Our packs lay on the bungalow’s drawing-room floor – the sum of our meagre baggage. Blake sat on a chair, scribbling in a notebook. He had put off his European clothes and donned kurti and dhoti. He looked grizzled and creased, and the scar on his brow bulged a little more than usual. He looked, indeed, more like himself.

‘Was that necessary?’

Blake did not answer.

‘Why will you not talk to me? Have I not shown that I deserve it?’ I said. ‘Have I not reported everything I have seen and heard? Did I not discover what Mountstuart did here – though you show little enough interest in it?’

‘You did. And I’m grateful for it.’ He returned to his scribblings.

‘You enrage the Major, you insult his guests, you disappear for hours and say nothing. And for God’s sake, Blake, you broke into the damn prison! Just explain it to me. Just a few words and I would willingly accept it all.’

He did not even raise his head.

‘Do you truly not care how these people regard you? What is it that you so dislike about Jubbulpore?’

‘Everything.’

I went to bed. I rose at first light and walked out of the bungalow. Outside the gates two natives stood guard. I told them to take me to the Thuggee bureau.

The road to Doora followed the meanderings of the Son River. On its far side we could see verdant rice and millet fields, bounded at their lower ends with mounds of earth to hold the rainwater after the monsoons. Beyond them the rocky sides of the Kaimur hills stretched north. Tributaries splashed down the rock into small waterfalls and rushing streams. My arm was healing well enough, though hours of riding made it ache.

Blake and I barely spoke. With the native robes had returned the old coarse manners – the unshavenness and the taciturnity – and I was not inclined to press my company upon him. For myself, I was in a state of gloomy brooding, my head full of contradictions. Now we had left Jubbulpore, my recollections of it were less rosy, and I was surprised at the relief I now felt, but I feared there would be little for us in Doora. Blake’s silences exasperated me, but I worried over what I had said to Major Sleeman.

Mir Aziz reckoned it would take five days to reach Doora. On the first night when we pitched camp, he brought out his huqqa, lit it and said, ‘If Chote Sahib permits, I will teach him Hindoostanee. I am excellent moonshee.’ In truth, it was the last thing I wished to do, but it seemed churlish to refuse and I was touched by his kindness. And so, in front of Blake and Sameer, I was forced to expose my tiny reservoir of Hindoostanee words, the knowledge that Mir Aziz meant well fighting a rising testiness as Sameer laughed loudly at my ignorance and Blake barely seemed to notice. It was the same the following night, but after Mir Aziz pronounced the lesson at an end, I asked him if he would tell me his story, and he agreed. He had been born, he said, in the kingdom of Oudh and had left his village at sixteen to travel to Bengal with his two uncles to join the Company’s army. One uncle, he said, had been a jack-of-all-trades, a
hakim
, a healer of sorts, a writer of
akhbars
, and a sometime moonshee and teacher of languages. He had taught Mir Aziz to write and some knowledge of figures.

Before he came to Bengal, Mir Aziz said, he had never seen a white man.

‘I wished to take service with the Bahadur Company, but I was most frightened. We had heard the sahibs were born from an egg and were terrible giants who stood many gaz high. The European ladies were said to be fairies or, if old and ugly, witches who would cast spells upon us.’

‘Were you disappointed when you saw them?’

‘A little disappointed, Chote Sahib. The first sahib I saw was very young and soft-faced, like a woman. No whiskers. A young officer with a skin the colour of milk, short of stature. He is not filling me with fear. Among us, a warrior must have a beard. But he could speak my tongue and he could write a page faster than I could mix the ink, and his house was four times bigger than that belonging to the headman of my village. His eye was sharp like a hawk. And he gave me this,’ and he pointed to his tulwar with its handsome leather and silver scabbard.

‘Sometimes I am fighting with the armies of His Majesty. They love to fight, and they worship Rum and Brandee. It takes their fear, and makes them fight like lions. I have seen it bring them back to life, and kill them too.’

‘But you did not remain just a soldier?’

‘No, Chote Sahib, after two years my officer is coming to me and saying I could be of more service elsewhere. He is telling me to go to my uncle, the hakim. I go, and my uncle is teaching me doctoring, writing, Persian. After this, I returned to the Company, and I began to perform tasks for the Company, up and down the road, from Calcutta to Lahore and beyond. Sometimes fighting, sometimes missions.’

‘Has the Company treated you well?’

‘It is putting clothes on the backs of my children. It is providing my wives with perfumes, sweetmeats and servants. It is giving me employment with honour.’

I looked over at Blake. I could not imagine him ever speaking so freely about anything.

On the third day, Mir Aziz and Blake’s manner changed. They became watchful and uneasy. Every once in a while Blake would nod and Mir Aziz would dismount and scour the ground, or Blake would ride ahead looking from side to side, as if to peer into the impenetrable undergrowth. They constantly exchanged glances. Never had I more felt that the two were engaged in some secret dialogue from which I was excluded. Sameer and I were obliged to follow, neither of us sure what we were to look for. When I asked Blake what he was watching for, he would only tell me to be attentive to anything unexpected. They did not relax their watchfulness for a moment. I began to worry that my healing arm would render me unable to help as much as I wished.

In the late afternoon we crossed from Company territory into Doora. We stopped at the first large village we came to; Blake disappeared with the headman, and made arrangements that we should sleep there in an empty hut, rather than camp at the roadside. When I pressed him, he would only say that if we were to encounter trouble, better that it should be by daylight.

We rose before first light. Blake urged us all to prime our weapons.

‘We may be safe, but the headman tells me there are a number of places up the road that are good for ambush.’

‘Why should they be so keen to attack us?’ I said. ‘They will bring down the Company on their heads. Whoever was pursuing us would be wise to pass on to some easier prey.’

Blake shrugged. ‘They would.’

Half the village, including the headman, accompanied us for almost a mile out of the village. After that, we rode on as briskly as we could. For almost half an hour we continued at a good pace, and with every moment I felt myself relax. Our pursuers would have to be mounted, and the chances of a Company party being attacked by a gang of mounted brigands, even in Doora, were remote indeed. The morning bird calls and shrieks were almost deafening. The jangal thickened and loomed and the path bent out of view. A bird
screeched loudly. I would not have particularly remarked on it had not Mir Aziz turned back to look at me suddenly, taken his musket into his hands and kicked his horse to a canter. Blake wound his reins round the pommel of his saddle and brought out his musket, and Sameer plucked his up too. We followed the path round the bend and there, ahead of us, was a vast tree trunk that had fallen across the road.

We stopped, and just as we did so, two figures crashed out of the trees to my left, their arms outstretched to snatch my reins. The first and closest man was slow, and it was not hard to keep still and shoot him in the chest as he reached forward. The recoil of my musket caused pain to flare in my hand. I swivelled to aim at the other attacker, who ducked backward out of the way. Other figures were running from the other side of the road. There came a loud report of another gun, and then another, and after a moment a third. Both Blake and Mir Aziz were shooting at the brigands. The plan had clearly been to ambush us as we reached the fallen tree trunk, but we had stopped in good time, so our horses had more room to manoeuvre. This greatly disadvantaged our ambushers. I could see Mir Aziz using his musket as a bayonet with extraordinary force and skill. Blake was swinging his tulwar, and dealt one man a great slice in the face. The fight, it seemed, was going our way. My remaining assailant made a grab at my reins. He missed and I kicked out at him, but he had a long wooden stave and dealt me a stunning blow across the shoulder. I had reached for my pistol but the blow caused me to drop it, and he thrust at me with the stave, trying to unseat me. Instead of resisting, I let myself slide from the saddle and on to the ground next to the Collier. As he stepped around my bucking horse to finish me off, I had it ready in my left hand and I shot him in the face.

I stood up and looked about me. Two more of our attackers appeared to be down. Sameer had one man at his feet and was driving off another. Blake had two to contend with. I ran up and dealt the one with his back to me a blow with my sabre – reflecting as I did so that in England I had never envisaged myself doing anything
so ungentlemanly. I had not used a sword on a man before, and it was not pleasant. The blade went through his ribs and he sank to the ground like a broken sack. Blake stabbed the other in the stomach. The rest, seeing the damage inflicted upon their companions, fled.

Sameer marched up, patted me on the shoulder, grinned widely and waved his bayonet in the air.

‘
Shaabaash
,’ he said. This means ‘well done’. It was not clear whether he referred to me or himself.

There were five bodies on the ground and, increasingly distantly, we could hear the cries and stumblings of the rest of our attackers as they escaped through the jangal. We were winded but unharmed, there was barely a scratch on any of us. A trail of flattened grasses led us through the trees to five horses and the marks of a fire. We roped the animals together and added them to our pack-horses.

‘They were using the horses to follow us, but they are finding it hard to keep up with us,’ said Mir Aziz, complacently. ‘They fight on foot, they are not in the way of being good cavalrymen like us, and thus we took the advantage.’

‘Given that the roads around Jubbulpore are so famously safe,’ I observed, ‘we have certainly been exceedingly unlucky in our encounters on them.’

‘There’s no luck in it, or accident,’ said Blake. ‘They’ve been after us for two days.’

‘Do you truly believe they were deliberately sent after us? They did a poor job of it.’

‘We were prepared. Mir Aziz, Sameer and I are used to fighting, and you did well. Very well.’

‘Who would want us dead?’ I said.

‘Someone in Jubbulpore. Someone in Doora.’

‘I suppose you are going to suggest that Major Sleeman is trying to have us killed,’ I said, my voice rising with irritation and incredulity. ‘This is perfectly ridiculous.’

Blake grunted.

‘No, Blake Sahib,’ said Mir Aziz gravely. It was the first time I had
ever heard him contradict Blake. ‘I do not think. We are small party, we travel fast. They see one Company officer – the Chote Sahib who is in uniform. They smell: urgent. They think: money. They track us one day and one night. They attack. Nothing more.’

Blake said nothing, but I knew he was not convinced.

There was no question of taking the bodies of the fallen with us, or of burying them. We dragged them to the side of the road and rode on as fast as we could. At the first village we stopped and Blake told the headman what had happened. We pressed on and camped by the roadside that night. We did not speak much of our attack.

On the sixth day the road began to fill with other travellers. Mir Aziz discovered from a large party of revellers that Doora was celebrating the seventh birthday of the Rao’s heir. As Doora was the largest state in the region, this would be a great event.

‘You’ve not met a grand Hindoo before, I’ll bet,’ said Blake, who had risen in a better mood than I had seen him in days.

‘I’ve seen those rich Calcutta
baboos
. A few of them.’

‘Not the same animal at all. They might seem exotic to you, but the Calcutta merchants and zamindars are half-European in the eyes of the rulers of the princely states. Take care with your manners.’

I eyed him, unimpressed. ‘You are giving me a lecture on manners?’

‘When it comes to native etiquette, Mr Avery,’ he said, ‘yes. It will pay to be courteous and I expect you to be. Take care not to touch anyone of the court unless they make it plain they wish you to, and then, like as not, they’ll be wearing gloves. Don’t touch any water or food bowls unless they are particularly offered to you. Don’t eat or drink from anything which a native guest has eaten from. Don’t show any curiosity about the zenanas. Remove your shoes whenever you are asked. And finally, prepare to feel insulted, and resolve to do your utmost – your utmost, now – not to show it.’

‘Why would I feel insulted?’

‘You heard Major Sleeman. Our visit is unlikely to be welcome.’

I pressed him to explain, but he would only say that there was no use painting a picture of disaster before it had befallen us.

‘What do your omens tell you about our visit to Doora?’ I asked Mir Aziz.

‘Chote Sahib, the omens are mixed,’ he said, knowing I teased him. ‘I am hearing the cry of a lone jackal at night. But also I am seeing the black crow on the left of the road. And that is a good sign.’

Doora appeared under a pale blue hazy sky. It lay at the far end of a wide green plain, the river swelling into a lake before its far-off walls. A mile before the gates Blake made us stop by a small tank and broken-down temple and we changed into our most official weeds – he in dark broadcloth, I in a uniform as well turned as Sameer could make it. He had Mir Aziz shave us both, but kept the beginnings of the moustache and beard he had grown. Then we passed through the city gateway, a mass of broken brick and peeling plaster. On each side stood a small contingent of native soldiers in silk waistcoats holding unsheathed tulwars. Natives carrying baskets of bamboo, custard apples and timber streamed around us.

Mr Crouch-Symington was a tired, perspiring, cross little man – that much was evident from the moment we saw him. Lines of exasperation were grooved into the Company Resident’s worn, yellowing face, and his mouth was puckered into a tight little pout. The news of our attack he greeted not with horror, but with exasperation.

‘Well, I must say,’ he repeated, ‘it really could not have come at a worse moment. The Rao’s ministers are likely to see it as a provocation. And there is nothing to be done about it. The perpetrators will never be found. I have the greatest respect for Major Sleeman, but just now Thuggee officers on Doora territory would put me in a most unenviable position.’

But that was far from the worst of it. We were not at all up to muster.

‘To be blunt, Mr Blake, if the Company meant to send the Rao
a real mission, it could surely have done better. I would have expected a lieutenant colonel, or a major – a senior civilian at the very least – and a decent complement of servants. You should know very well that these native princelings expect a senior member of the Company with a proper entourage. It is too bad that you do not have a contingent of Company troops. And no gifts. You must know they expect gifts. And your timing is quite disastrous. We are in the midst of the heir’s birthday celebrations. I am expecting a number of very distinguished Europeans who will be staying in the Residency.’