ACT OF LIBERATION
SUMMER came, a hot wind from the west, a season of iridescent dragon-flies and of flowers bursting through the green of the forest like spilled neon signs. The site for the new camp was cleared and levelled in its blaze. After that, the convicts were put back on their normal labours.
Then came the monsoon, bringing a respite from the heat, but claiming its own price; in no time at all, it repossessed the cleared camp site for the dripping jungle. It drove the population into their shelters, cowering before its lash, bringing with it malaria and dysentery and unknown jungle fevers, making yet another assault against the colonizers' puny efforts.
In October, the rains went. Men came out into the open once again. Work on the new camp was resumed; an enormous camp for a thousand men: officers' huts, sergeants' huts, barracks, sheds, water-points, latrines, mule lines, kitchen halls, mess-huts -even a guardroom complete with a flag pole.
The camp was barely ready before the battalion moved in; a battalion of Gurkhas, carrying murderous-looking kukries slung in their belts; slit-eyed, stumpy, swaggering, bow-legged, giving meaning to the Empire's resolve to protect the islands from a new enemy that none of the prisoners had heard of before, an enemy who was not yet an enemy but was crouching thousands of miles: away and waiting: Japan. In December, things began to move with the speed of a landslide; a rumble and a roar and a sudden shifting of the earth underfoot.
The enemy from a thousand miles away had sprung into action. Pearl Harbour was flattened. Indo-China, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, crumbled like mud houses in a monsoon flood and disappeared, leaving sad little heaps of unrecognizable debris and thick, oily bubbles on the surface.
The new year came, and every day brought the enemy closer and closer. Early in March, both the Scottish company and the Gurkha battalion were whisked away in a hurry, and with them went the women and children of the British citizens on the islands.
The ordered routine of the human beehive that was the Cellular Jail received a shattering blow. Anyone with the will to do so could have escaped; opportunities were there as never before. But no one made the attempt. The way things were shaping, to sit and wait for the Japanese to come offered the best chance of deliverance. Their women and children have already been sent off,' the convicts told one another. 'Now it's just a matter of days before the sahibs themselves follow them. They'll leave in the middle of the night-they're not going to wait and be slaughtered by the Japanese. Women and children first, and then the men themselves; it was in the highest tradition of the men who ran the Empire; sinking ships or abandoning countries, the pattern was the same, almost sacred. The convicts waited with mounting eagerness for the process to be completed.
Once more, the Andamans were entirely unprotected. At Port Blair, the prison police were the only visible remnant of the Empire's might. Debi-dayal could easily have organized a mass breakout. Everyone turned to him for guidance now, ready to do his bidding, eager to follow him; even the warders and the petty officers were turning their faces to the masters of tomorrow. We are only servants,' they kept explaining to Debi-dayal. "We only did what we did because of the Sahib's bidding. We shall serve other masters with equal zeal... we have no personal enmity against you." But Debi-dayal was in no hurry. He chose to wait, knowing it would not be for long.
It was the Sunday after the troops had gone. Port Blair lay under a burning sun. The sweep of the sea that shone like silver brought to boiling point was without a ripple. The air came from landwards, laden with the scent of the new season's blossoms. Mulligan sent for Gian at his bungalow, His wife and daughter had gone away, and now in charge of a convict bearer, the house had lost its air of prim orderliness; it was unswept and bare, like a rest house into which the occupants had moved only a few hours earlier. The remains of Mulligan's lunch were still on the bare dining table, a feast for the fat, highly-coloured tropical insects. A thin coating of dust lay on the polished coffee-table. The bull terrier bitch lay sprawled on the cool floor, fast asleep, her pink tongue showing out of her mouth. Mulligan sent his bearer away. I have something to tell you in the strictest confidence,' he said to Gian. "Yes, sir,' Gian said.
"Sit down,' Mulligan invited. Was it an indication of the pass things were coming to? The Super-sahib asking one of the convicts to take a seat? Gian hesitated and then sat down on the edge of the cane sofa, leaning forward.
The Japanese have taken Rangoon,' Mulligan said. Rangoon? What did it matter? He had only a vague idea where Rangoon was. A city on a map, known for what?-rubies?-rice? But what did make a deep impression on him was the way Mulligan seemed to have taken it. His full face was haggard; his eyes, rimmed with red, his pug nose trembled with the effort of breathing. His shoulders drooped.
'They have had to pull away the garrison from here... take them to more important tasks. Now we have no protection, none at all. When the Japanese come, there's nothing to stop them."
It was still not very clear to Gian. Why should the Japanese want to come to the Andamans? He slid back on the sofa and sat more comfortably, more sure of himself.
'No more ships will be coming to Port Blair,' Mulligan went on. "Too open, too dangerous. The islands will be abandoned."
"What happens to the... the Cellular Jail?' Gian asked. Mulligan spread out his hands; a gesture of despair. For a time, he sat in silence, holding his hands in a spread-out position on both sides of his bulging stomach; hands gnarled and wrinkled and yellowed by fever. Like the talons of some bird, Gian thought, talons swollen by disease.
"Not Debi-dayal?' Gian asked, in spite of himself.
Mulligan frowned and shook his head. 'Oh, no, not him. He'll be the first to welcome the Japanese, I've no doubt; the first to lead them on our track. Oh, no, never Debi-dayal. I have another man in mind."
"Ghasita the big Ramoshi?"
Mulligan nodded. 'Yes, he's a good man to have in an emer- gency. Strong, too. But don't say anything to him; not just yet,'
The beach where the boat was to come was all of two miles away from the forest bungalow. Gian was to keep a look-out for the boat and give a pre-arranged signal for it to send out a dinghy. The boat, Mulligan told him, would flash a signal: a green flash followed by a red flash every two seconds for half a minute. They would repeat it every half-hour for three hours. Then the boat would go away, unless, of course, there was an answering signal for it to come up: a green flare followed by a red flare.
It was Gian's job to fire the answering signal for the dinghy to be sent up. He would be given a Very pistol and shown how to use it.
*I'm afraid I'll have to leave Delilah behind,' Mulligan said. Delilah? Oh, yes, the dog, of course, lying stretched out on her belly. 'She's far too old," Mulligan was saying. 'And far too fat...he choked a sob, and began staring out of the window. He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose noisily. "I wish I could put her down,' he said. 'Put a bullet through her head as she's sleeping... but I know I won't.'
They discussed the details of the plan for another half hour, and after that Mulligan gave him tea; tea served by a convict orderly, complete with a wedge of tinned Dundee cake. And when he rose to go, Mulligan gave Gian a tin of English cigarettes.
The day was made for big things to happen; coronations or royal weddings or great military parades. The greens and the reds of the islands, the blue of the sea, had an almost artificial brightness, as in a colour photograph.
First came the planes, flying high, the tiny red circles on their wings barely discernible. There were two planes. Their quiet hum hung over the township for a long time. They circled the sky like lazy hawks looking for a kill. After a while, they began to circle lower and lower over the township. Then they made tree-top sweeps over the Cellular Jail, releasing a shower of posters.
Men and women rushed into the open, cheering the planes, scooping the leaflets like village children running after circus handbills.
It was not until the afternoon that the ships came; a cruiser and two destroyers, flying the flag with the red dot, slowly, suspiciously, zigzagging and halting, looking for mines and other dangers in waters that were wholly innocuous. They came closer and halted again. Then came voices, magnified and distorted by the ship's loudspeakers, speaking in Hindi:
'Indian brothers, we want to set you free... free your land from the British tyrant."
A jubilant crowd of convicts and ex-convicts waited on the jetty, hysterically waving Japanese flags. Debi-dayal stood in the
centre, megaphone to his mouth. He spoke in Japanese: Japanese brothers, we are waiting for you. There is no one on the islands but your friends. The British have gone away. The Andamans are yours. We welcome you!"
After that, things happened with breathtaking suddenness. Two fast boats were lowered from the cruiser and raced for the jetty, making white, curving lines on the surface of the water, The ship's megaphone blared again, this time with military curtness:
'If there is any treachery, every single person in the town will be put to deathf
There is no treachery,' Debi-dayal hailed back. "We are your brothers, waiting only to welcome you. Japan-Hind, bhai-bhai!" Japan-Hind, bhai-bhail Japan-Hind, Bhai-bhail Japan-Hind, Bhai-bhai!' the prisoners took up the cry, jumping, waving their flags.
Silence! Silence!" the voice snapped from the ship. 'Hold your hands high. High! Yes, all of you. And face away from the ships. Away from the ships! Anyone who turns will be shot-will be shot. Anyone who lowers his hands will be shot!"
But there was no thought of treachery. The settlers and the convicts waited for the liberators, their backs to the sea, their hands held high, yelling hoarsely. It was their day of triumph.
For them, the clocks had begun to run once more. They were free.
Puffing up the track skirting Saddle Mount, Mulligan paused to take a last look at the Cellular Jail. In the trembling heat of the afternoon, the flag on the mast of the central tower fluttered triumphantly; a white flag with a blood-red circle. Suddenly, Mulligan turned his face away.
March. The month of reptiles, the breeding season of the tropical jungle; a time for the centipedes, the scorpions, the murderous little vipers and the giant pythons to emerge, all in search of their mates. Only the rulers of the islands were going into hiding.
The three men, one white and two brown, marched all that day and half the night, having rested for a few hours just before dawn. Towards nine the next morning, they came to the forest hut. Two other Englishmen were already there, supervisors from the rubber plantation at Pangore, Mulligan, his face red, his feet sore, his limbs aching, his legs swollen, lay down in an undignified heap, breathing heavily. The two men with him opened the boxes of rations and began to prepare a meal. Far below, the sheet of sea lay still as a pond, beyond the curve of Port Campbell where the boat was coming to take them away. When? If it did not come that very day, it might be too late. And would the other officials on the island, the men from the tea and the timber companies, be able to join them in time?
Yet another plan of mice was in operation; the mice grinding away at it in all earnestness. As they drank their tea in thirsty, gulping mouthfuls, the one thing that they did not want to think about was what would happen to them if the boat did not arrive in time. They knew that a Japanese patrol assisted by enthusiastic volunteers must be already on their trail.
