Chapter 12

LED BY THE PIPERS

THE shame was harder to bear than the ostracism; it was like an ulcer, permanently tender, seated deep within his body, causing him to whimper with pain, making sleep a time of recurring nightmares.

Overnight, Gian Talwar had become the most despised man in the colony; even the warders seemed uneasy in his company; this favoured stool pigeon of the Sahib, who, unknown to anyone, carried the instrument of authority, the petty officer's whistle.

Gian was made a feri, at least two years before he was due to become one, but even before that he had become the pariah of the colony. He no longer had to wear a uniform, and he could go and live in any of the feri settlements where he could find work. But there seemed nowhere for him to go. The settlements of the Andaman islands were run by convicts whose sentences had already expired but who preferred to stay on in the islands. They told him they had no room for him; the septuagenarian head man of the Phoenix Bay colony actually spat in his face. The saw mill at Chatham, the vegetable garden at Navy Bay, even the tea garden and the rubber plantation in the interior, all turned him down.

For several days after he had become a feri, Gian found it necessary to live in one of the prison barracks, but in the end, Mulligan had found a room for him in a workers' chawl at Navy Bay even though they would not take him on as a worker in the gardens. He went on working in the victualling office as a clerk, censoring whatever mail came in, and keeping an account of the stores, a leper in a world of criminals; this lowly spy for the British raaj.

Nineteen-forty gave place to nineteen-forty-one, making a discernible dent in the allotted sentences of the convicts. Mulligan gave them a talk on the progress of the war. The British army was immense, powerful, its resources inexhaustible; they had all the troops that were needed for the growing appetite of the war, to fight in Europe and Africa and the Arab countries, and to spare. And almost as visible proof of that might, in January 1941, a whole company from a Scottish battalion arrived at Port Blair marching up to their camp to the music of bagpipes. The camp had been pitched halfway between Navy Bay and the main jetty, in a grove of palms; a row of neat, individual huts for the officers, and another, longer row of clean white tents for the troops. With the arrival of the troops, the prisoners' hopes died; the sight of the soldiers, bronzed and swaggering, marching in step along the red road, or doing drill and physical training on the square of shaved grass, was like a physical blow to those who had entertained visions of a quick German victory. In the evenings, the Jocks slouched about in the bazaar, looking for women and drink, whistling, laughing, singing snatches of song; later their mess-room radio blared loud music that could clearly be heard in the cells of the Silver Jail.

Suddenly, without even trying to, Debi-dayal had become the convicts' hero. He had dared to turn on Balbahadur, the most despised man in the jail, had sent him to hospital for three weeks, and, as they had all heard, inflicted on him a permanent infirmity. He was their benefactor; they gloated over his triumph; chuckled over what he had done to Balbahadur. When, after nine days in the prison hospital, Debi-dayal was brought back to join the others at work, they all rose to welcome him. They could see that he walked stiffly, his body obviously still a mass of aches, and that when he sat down before the pile of coconut husks which had been put before him, that his fingers could not grip the fibre. Without a word, one of the warders removed the pile and distributed it among the others. Though none of them looked at Gian, he was aware of their contempt for him. He had slunk out of the yard, feeling like a whipped dog.

So it went on. The prisoners vied with each other to do little chores for Debi-dayal, washing his plate and his clothes, pressing on him little titbits saved from their own rations or bought from the sentries. It was touching to see how hurt they looked when he refused to take them.

The sharp eyes of Patrick Mulligan did not fail to detect the new current within the jail. He went and talked things over with Major Campbell, the Commanding Officer of the military detachment. When he returned to his office, he sent for Gian.

"The Commanding Officer wants a clerk, someone who can understand both English and Hindi. I have recommended you. Go and see him in the afternoon. If he takes you on, you can start work from tomorrow."

"Thank you, sir,' Gian said gratefully.

Major Campbell was young, perhaps in his late twenties, with a frank, open face and an easy smile. Though unmistakably British, he was unlike any other white man Gian had ever seen. When his new clerk came to report his arrival, the Major held out his hand.

It was with hesitation that Gian took it; he had never before shaken a white man by the hand.

Major Campbell gave him a quick look. I think you'd better take that chain off when you start working here,' he said, pointing to the chain around Gian's neck.

We are not allowed to remove it, sir,' Gian told him. 'Not until the date engraved on the disk has passed-and only a blacksmith could get it off. It's quite strong."

'Oh, I see. Well, perhaps you could button up your collar far less embarrassing. Will that be all right with you?"

That was the Major's only stipulation; he did not want Gian to feel embarrassed while working in their midst.

Next morning, he reported for work, wearing his shirt buttoned up at the collar. His pay, he was told, was to be sixty rupees per month, on a par with that of the petty officers of the jail. It was wonderful to get away from the hostility and con- tempt of the convict world, even though he still carried the bile of shame deep within him, hidden, like the Andaman chain, from view.

Gradually, the routine of prison bells gave place to that of bugle calls. There were perquisites he had not known or hoped for; canteen cigarettes, and eleven o'clock tea and biscuits,  occasionally, a real soldier's breakfast with tinned sausages and mash.

A few weeks after Gian began his new job, Major Campbell asked Mulligan for the services of a messenger boy, and Mulligan sent him Ghasita, the big Ramoshi, who had been made a feri at the same time as Gian, and was now living in the colony at Phoenix Bay. If there was one man in the entire colony whom Gian himself would have chosen to have in the office, it was the big Ramoshi. At least he had no strong feelings about what Gian had done. He was coarse and jovial as ever, and it was good to have him, sitting outside the tent, learning soldiers' swearwords and asking Gian their meaning.

Every evening, when their work was over, Gian and the Ramoshi walked back from the camp, two men in Andaman civilians' knee-length shirts and dhotis, chatting about their work at the office. It was nearly a mile to the road junction where their ways parted, Gian's to his room in the Navy Bay chawl, the Ramoshi's to Phoenix Bay.

One day, on their way back from the office, Gian's companion was unusually silent. Normally he talked like a machine, almost without a break, whether he had any listeners or not. "What's wrong with you today? Gian asked him.

For a few seconds, Ghasita did not answer his question. Then he said:

'If I get hold of a big sailboat, will you join me?"

Join you!"

He had no idea what the big Ramoshi was saying. The thought of escape was too remote from his mind, just then. 'Join you in what?"

' A boat with a big sail,' the Ramoshi said earnestly.

But where? How?"

"There are quite a few of them about. I think I have managed to find one. But first I have to make sure of... of other details. No use going ahead with the boat."'

At last it had become clear. 'Just you and I?' he asked.

The Ramoshi shook his head. 'We will need at least one more man. But we can go about finding the third man later, when we are ready."

After that they walked in silence for a time, each wrapped in his own thoughts, through the palms and the jungle and the mild sea breeze. It was wonderful here, a paradise, people said, a paradise populated by convicts and wild men. He, Gian, had never once thought of leaving the Andamans. This was his land; he had wanted to settle down, grow old and die here..

But no longer. Here he was despised even more than in India; where he had displaced himself; in this world, he was lower than Mulligan's terrier.

He brooded on what the Ramoshi had suggested. Was this some trick of Mulligan's-a spy spying on a spy? He looked at the Ramoshi's face; a statue cut out of some dark wood and left unfinished. "You're just day-dreaming,' he said cautiously. "Why would anyone want to go away from here? You, a feri, earning what-thirty-five rupees a month. Perhaps more than you will get in India.

The Ramoshi gave him a hard stare. His jaws suddenly hardened, his fists curled, his eyes narrowed; he looked more rigid, more like a statue than ever. I have a purpose in mind,' he said very slowly. 'I must go. There is work to finish."

Gian's nerves tingled at the sudden glimpse of malevolence that was offered to him. Another murder?-he asked himself. He gave time to the Ramoshi to compose himself. Then he said, still taking care not to show any special interest. 'I really don't know how you think you can make it. Calcutta's at least six hundred miles away."

His companion shook his head impatiently. 'Not India. I was thinking of Burma.'

And how far do you think that is?" About two hundred miles; less, actually."

He seemed to have given it much thought. Gian tried to visualize the map of south east Asia, but found it difficult to calculate the distance to the coast of Burma.

Five men escaped, when I was here before,' Ghasita was telling him. 'In a stolen power-boat. They landed near Tavoy, in Burma."'

'But you can never be sure of landing at any particular spot." "Why not? One cannot go wrong during the south west monsoon. In any case, there will be land wherever the wind blows us; a thousand miles of it-from Mergui to Akyab and then right down the Malay peninsula. And it is all inhabited land. After that we make our way back to India-easy."

"What happend to the five who got away?' Gian asked.

"They?-oh, they were caught, the fools!' the Ramoshi said with contempt. But that was because they had no money with them when they landed... the fools!"

But you too will be without money... not much of it, anyway, on prison pay."

We do have the money,' the Ramoshi assured him. "We certainly do.' It was odd how he always used the plural in speaking about his plans while Gian was careful to refer to it as 'your scheme'. 'Oh, yes, the money's there, all right; for buying the boat and everything." How much will the boat cost?' Gian asked. 'A big enough. boat with a sail P

'Six sovereigns. I have settled the price.'

'Sovereigns' Ghasita looked at him in pained surprise. "But naturally. Who do you think is going to accept paper money? Neither here nor wherever we shall be landing. Prison money has special numbers.

Didn't you know? Always traceable. We must only deal in gold." *And where are you going to get the six gold mohurs?"

"Wait,' the Ramoshi said. 'Do you see that lone palm tree halfway up the road, the bent one, like an elbow; see it?"

'Yes,' Gian said, turning his head. "You mean the one with.

The big Ramoshi was laughing at having tricked him into looking the other way. He was holding out his hand. In his palm, lay a gold sovereign, glinting in the sunlight. 'Now do you believe me? he asked..

Gian tried to hide his surprise. Surely there must be some simple explanation. He might have stolen it from the office, though how a sovereign could have found its way there was difficult to imagine. "Well, I don't know. You tricked me into looking the other way, and then took out a gold mohur you have been secreting in your clothes-a coin which you must have stolen here, since you could not possibly have brought it from India." His companion frowned. 'Babuji, you are even more suspicious than Mulligan-sahib,' he complained. 'But it is a good thing to be suspicious, for that is the only way we can survive. But between friends, there should be no suspicion. There should be only open hearts. So I shall be frank with you, knowing that I am placing my neck in your hands. But I am anxious to show you that I am not trying to trick you, or anything. The truth is, I did not hide the coin in my clothes, nor have I stolen it-at least not stolen it here. I brought it with me from India in my khobri.

In my tribe, almost everyone has one... "What is a khobri?"

'Haven't you seen conjurers in India producing objects from their mouths? Where do you think they hide them? In the khobri. It's rather like the sack cattle have for storing food, just at the back of the throat, in the fleshy part. In our tribe, every male child has to have one; it's quite essential, even before we commit our first robbery to propitiate Vetal. You know that Vetal can be propitiated only with stolen gold...

'But how do you acquire a the word stuck in his throat. A khobri? Even as small children, we are made to go about with a lead ball in our gullets, suspended thereby by a thread coming out of the mouth.. like a weight dangling from a fishing line. Every morning, the ball is smeared with some kind of a corrosive juice which our priests have... an acid to burn the flesh, you know. The weight slowly makes a pocket for itself, just below the ear and slightly to the rear. As the pocket gets deeper, the flesh on top begins to close, and then only a slit is left on the surface. Within a few weeks, the khobri is ready, a secret pocket within the body itself that can defeat the closest search. After that, it is just a matter of practice. Now look at this!" And right in front of Gian's eyes, the big Ramoshi put his head back and swallowed the sovereign. How many coins can it... can a khobri hold?"

The other man laughed. Now you're asking, babujil I can tell you we have enough to buy the boat and then enough for our needs after we land in Burma. After that, we shall have to depend on our own resources. Now, will you join me?" Gian gazed at the setting sun behind the line of the palms.

Two months earlier, he would have said a firm 'no' to any such invitation without a moment's thought. Now there was a sudden and overwhelming longing to escape; escape to Burma, anywhere at all, so long as he could get away from this land of shattered illusions, where no one wanted him; the land he had once decided to make his own, to settle down on it in some coconut grove such as the one they were passing through, build a cottage, take a wife-a wife like Sundari whose photographs he still carried close to his heart.

But the land had rejected him. Here he was like a mouse painted with luminous paint and released so that the other mice shunned it. He was anxious to go, to leave this sunlit projection of the underworld far behind him.

The Ramoshi was still talking away, caught up in his dream. "Think about it,' he entreated. If you're willing to join me, I'll go ahead and make the arrangements. We shall have to get away in May, just when the monsoon wind starts, but before the rains begin. By that time, we must find another man... someone who wants to go back; not like those cattle who want to go on living here and breed... Another man?

It came to him like a flash of lightning. A man who wanted to go back, a man who was daring: Debi-dayal. This was the one thing he could do for Debi; then the shame that clutched his heart like a limpet would release him. His duty was clear.

He would do it too. He would join this venture only if the big Ramoshi agreed to take Debi-dayal as the third man; not other- wise. He would help Debi to make the getaway if it was the last thing he ever did.

They came to the end of the grove of coconut palms. Here, their ways parted. 'I will think about it,' Gian told the Ramoshi as he took the turning. 'I will let you know in a day or two.

He was alone now, on the narrow track that led to the chawl in Navy Bay, and he was deep in thought. He must have gone about a hundred yards when he heard the Ramoshi shouting behind him. 'Babuji, wait!' he was saying. 'Babuji, wait!"

Gian halted and waited for the other man to catch up with him.

"What is it?' he asked. The Ramoshi came and stood very close and waited for a few seconds to get back his wind. He stood panting, towering over

Gian, the sweat glistening on his face in tiny specks. Then he said: 

'Babuji, you are a wise man and have read many books, so there should be no need to warn you. But I just wanted to say this. I know I have put my life in your hands by telling you about my plans-that and the gold mohurs. I just wanted to give a warning, particularly after what you did to Debi-dayal babu. I do hope that... that you will not say anything about it to anyone." "Of course not!' Gian assured him.

I am only telling you in your own interest,' the Ramoshi went on almost apologetically. In our tribe, our god demands that anyone who betrays a confidence must be slain. There is no other alternative.'

It was not a threat, merely a statement of fact, and on his face, there was no anger, arrogance or even resolution; only perhaps a touch of regret that Vetal left his tribe no other choice. And then, before Gian could say anything, the big man had turned on his heels and walked away.

They were the plans of mice, plans which other mice before them had made; plans that had failed. But the mice who devised them were caught up in them now, as in a snare. For the next three days, whenever Gian and the big Ramoshi were alone together, they talked of little else. And as they talked, their plan. had begun to emerge, taking shape by the hour. Its wrinkles were smoothed out, its gaps filled, its lines darkened. It began to stand out, a scaffolding; something like a gigantic flogging- frame straddling the Burma sea.

During the week, all the convicts in the jail, excepting, of course, the D-ticket-wallas, were put on land-clearing work behind Phoenix Bay. It was rumoured that another lot of soldiers were coming to the islands, a much bigger lot, a whole battalion, and that the site was being cleared for their camp..

One evening, before the outdoor gangs returned, Gian went into the jail to see Debi-dayal. He was sitting near the coconut shed, his plate and mug beside him, waiting for the evening meal which was going to be served as soon as the others were back. Gian went and sat close to him.

For two days now, he had been thinking of what he was going to say. Now, that he was going to say it, he was conscious only of the shame welling up inside him. Debi-dayal's face, staring at him in disbelief as he blew the whistle that time, kept haunting him; that and the memory of the flogging which followed. The words he had so carefully rehearsed, escaped his mind.

"I came to say that I am sorry for what I did,' he began, talking in a whisper. I blew the whistle without thinking. It was all so sudden. I have been meaning to come and tell you how sorry I

am even though I know how inadequate it must sound." Debi-dayal was not even looking at him. He was staring straight ahead, at the central tower. Not a muscle in his face moved.

*But I have something important to say,' Gian went on. 'I have come to make a proposal. Listen carefully. I and another man are planning to get away; sometime in May. I cannot tell you the details now, but I feel the plan is bound to succeed. We have the money, we have a boat. I wanted to ask you if you would join us."

Debi-dayal did not say anything. For all the change in his expression, he may not have heard a word of what Gian was telling him.

"You must come with us, I beg of you. Give me a chance to do something for you... make me feel that I have been able to repair, in some measure, the injury I have done you.' Gian looked hopefully at the other's face, the face that was like a metal mask except for the sharp look in his eyes, the eyes of a dog looking at something in the distance.

"This is a proper plan,' Gian went on eagerly. 'A plan with a chance of success. You don't have to do anything, but get away and join us when we are ready. I shall make it possible for you to get away. In three weeks, a month at the most, you will be back in India. And remember, even if you had been able to make good your escape that evening, you would have been caught up in the settlement, or brought back by the Jaoras for the reward. Brought back dead-they never bring back anyone alive. They torture their victims before they finish them off."

Then Debi-dayal turned to look at him. It caused a quick flutter of hope in Gian's heart. Do you remember talking about truth and non-violence?'

Debi-dayal asked. 'You gave up non-violence when you killed a man, I don't know when you abandoned the truth." The contempt in his tone was like the lash of a whip. I know that you are just trying to get me involved in some talk of escape because Mulligan has told you to do it. I know it's a trap.

'I swear it isn't, Gian protested. 'I swear by everything swear by Shiva.

But even if you were in earnest, let me tell you that I would willingly rot in a cell here rather than associate with someone like you and become free. You are scum; you are far worse than Balbahadur because he at least is openly hostile you spout truth and non-violence. You are the sort of man through whom men like Mulligan rule our country, keep us enslaved; you are a slave working for the masters, proud of the service he renders, hankering after the rewards."

'Please, Gian implored. Please calm down. The gangs are coming back now. I mean every word... how can I prove it, how can I convince you?" 'Why don't you blow your whistle?' Debi-dayal said.

The next morning, when Gian saw the big Ramoshi, he told him that he was not willing to join him in his bid to escape. The plan had gone the way of other plans of other mice; the frame that straddled the Burma sea had suddenly collapsed. That very day, Gian received a letter from the lawyer, Ramunni Sarma, telling him that his grandmother had died."

It was almost symbolic, Gian thought; the last strand that had kept tugging at his heart had been severed. There was nothing to go back to now; the Andamans had become his land. It was here that he would have to live out the rest of his years, an outcast, a leper shunned by his fellow lepers.