BULLOCKS AND BANGLES
THE day of Vishnu-dutt's acquittal was a black day for the Little House. It even made a crack in Aji's equanimity. For the first time, the eternal lamp in Shiva's room remained unlit.
At the trial, no one except Gian said that he actually saw Vishnu-dutt in the field. The farmhands working in Piploda steadfastly swore that they had not seen him for days. Tukaram gamely admitted that his eyesight was weak and that he saw anything beyond a few yards only as a blur, and that even if his sight had been perfect, he could not have seen what was hap pening at the other end of the field because his vision had been cut off by the fallen tree. Under cross-examination he said that his earlier statement to the contrary had been motivated by his loyalty to the Little House,
Coward!... coward!... coward!' Gian kept muttering to himself as Tukaram gave his evidence, without faltering, mouth- ing his phrases as though they had been carefully rehearsed. At the moment, he hated Tukaram even more than Vishnu-dutt. And then out of nowhere had come the memory of his own cowardice, back in the sunlit field, when he had hung back at a safe distance instead of going forward with his brother. Tukaram at least had the justification of being subjected to the dreaded torture-chamber of the Indian police. What was his justification?-his light- hearted acceptance of the creed of non-violence? But that was merely a political expedient-a weapon specially forged to serve the struggle against the British; how could it ever serve as a philosophy of life itself?
The darogah had bought a new motor-cycle. The Big House had announced a major pooja to the family god. The priest bustled about his tasks importantly. In the Little House, Gian grimly applied himself to the tasks of the karta, despising himself.
Three days after the trial was over, as Aji was serving the mid-day meal, she asked:
"When do you have to go back to college?"
For a moment, he had blinked at her, uncomprehendingly.
He had not thought of college since Hari's death. 'College! Oh, no; I'm not going back,' he told her.
You have to go; there is only another year left." He shook his head. That part of his life had already ended.
"Aji, my work is here, taking care of the fields, looking after you.' 'I don't need looking after,' his grandmother had said very evenly. 'You must go and finish your studies; become a big man- a district Collector. Your father wished it. Hari too-you owe it to him.'
What I owe to Hari can never be paid,' Gian said very gravely. "He would not have died if I had done what I should."
But Aji went on with her own theme. He would not even buy a new coat for himself, nor chaplis, so that you should be given everything you needed. He would not even get married, although there were many offers. Now you are not even prepared to finish what he gave up so much for."
Was she mad, the old woman? Where was the money coming from? They had only about fifty acres of land left. Enough to live on but certainly not enough for him to go to college; not unless you had an elder brother looking after things without taking anything for himself. How could she imagine that he would leave everything and go away?
"The fields will be cultivated by the tenants,' Aji said, almost in answer to his thoughts. Even if we do not get the full yield for the year, it won't matter. The bullocks, we shall have to sell.'
'Sell Raja and Sarja? They were like children to Hari.' A man cannot have bullocks as his children.'
"And who is going to buy them? No one will buy ten-year old bullocks." 'We can sell them to the Vaccine Institute at Sonarwadi. They are always ready to buy cattle; we can arrange for them to come and take them away." "Yes, and do you know what they do with the animals they buy? the Vaccine Institute?' Gian snapped in sudden anger.
"They make long razor-cuts all over their bodies and inject them with smallpox serum so that they go sick. Then they take out the serum and... and sell them to butchers. By that time, they are just skin and bone."
Aji nodded her head. "Yes, I know what they do there."
And yet you are willing to sell Raja and Sarja-to have their skin taken off in little strips and then be sold for meat!' 'Cattle cannot be allowed to come in the way of human beings," she told him in a flat voice.
It was quite unbelievable. Aji who had pampered the bullocks since they were calves, as family pets who would come and nibble at the cabbage-stalks from her hand whenever she called out to them. Raja and Sarja, whose bodies were always hand-rubbed by Tukaram, their brass bells polished with tamarind juice every week. He remembered their ride from the station, when Hari and he had walked behind the cart to spare their feet.
Aji was talking nonsense, of course, and at any other time, he would have laughed at her ignorance. Now all he said was: 'But we won't even get much money for them. The Vaccine people pay by weight; two annas a pound. We will hardly get a hundred and fifty rupees for them."
"We cannot turn up our noses at a hundred and fifty rupees."
"But, don't you understand, it will cost at least seven hundred for me to go back to college?
I know, Aji said. "This should bring you the rest... at least five hundred."
Even as he glared at her, speechless, she removed the two gold bangles from her hands. "They are five tolas each,' she was saying. 'At least they were, when they were made.'
When they were made, almost fifty years ago now, when she was a little girl, rebellious, unbending. Now she was surrendering them, when she was grey and wrinkled and silver-haired; still rebellious in her own way, still unbending. It almost brought tears to his eyes to see her bare wrists. She had risen, leaving the bangles before his thali. "You have not taken your second helping of rice,' she was saying. "Wait,
I have set some curds. You have always liked curds."
'And if I do go,' Gian asked. 'What happens to you?"
'Me? I can look after myself. We can have a woman come in to do the washing... I don't need anyone to look after me."
'Are you really sure you will be able to manage without anyone looking after you?"
Don't you give it a thought. Go back to college and study hard."
It was good to know that his grandmother was confident about being able to manage without him. He had been worrying about that. It simplified so many things. 'I am really glad to know that,' he told her. 'And of course, that fifty acres will still provide enough for one person to live comfortably.
"Yes,' Aji said, putting the katori of curds on his thali. "Why should you give up your studies?-in the last year too. Surely not on account of me, an old woman, a leaf about to fall any day.' She shook her head. 'When do you have to go back?'
She had brought it to a head and he had to tell her. But somehow it was much easier than he had feared, particularly now that he knew that she could manage without him.
Aji, I am not going back to college,' Gian told her very evenly.
Aji stared long and hard at her grandson, and for a moment he wondered whether she had fathomed his innermost thoughts. But it did not bother him. For the first time since the death of his brother, he was suddenly aware of hunger. He began to mix the curds with the rice..
The people from the Vaccine Institute came and took Raja and Sarja away. They went away willingly, almost jubilantly, clanging their bells, having gorged themselves on their last big meal of cottonseed and munched their last titbits of cabbage stalks at Aji's hands.
After that, Gian began his search for the axe. Every morning, he would leave the house before sunrise, carrying his mid-day meal with him, tied up in a bundle. He would not return till long after dark, tired and footsore, his eyes red, his clothes covered with dust, his arms full of new scratches. For a while, Aji must have taken it for granted that he was working in the fields, just as Hari. had done just as her husband Dada had done all those years ago. He even bore the same look-the look of a man working to redeem himself, setting himself a gruelling pace to overcome some inner enemy. But when, a few days after the bullocks had gone, one of the tenants came to the house to ask for paddy-seed, she discovered that Gian had never once been to the fields. That evening she tackled him about it.
"Sohansingh was here today, from the lower field,' she said, 'to ask for seed. He was saying that you have not been there even once.
"I will go tomorrow,' Gian told her.
"Where did you go today?"
Oh, I was just... just working; working elsewhere. I cannot be expected to go to the fields every day,' he said irritably. Aji had left it at that. You will go tomorrow, won't you?' she had asked.
"Yes, of course,' he promised.
But the next morning too he did not go to his own field. He went where he had been going every day for the past week: to Piploda.
There was no one there any more, in the field or in the hut. A murder had been committed there, everyone knew that; and no farmhand would have dared to set foot on the field so long as the evil spirits that haunted the place had not been propitiated. Until then, Piploda would be under a curse.
The propitiation would be duly attended to. The pandit would see to it that it was performed with the fullest ritual so that no one should have any doubts that the evil spirits had been exor- cized, the curse lifted. For the time, however, the field was deserted.
Gian worked undisturbed. He had gone about it systematically, beginning his search at the back of the hut. He had already combed both sides of the path to a distance of thirty paces, because that was how far a strong man might be able to hurl a timber axe. He had dug ant-hills and poked about into ant-cater holes; he had looked behind every bush, climbed some of the bigger trees... it had seemed hopeless.
That afternoon, as he lay on the grass, exhausted and unaccoun- tably hungry, he once again tried to work out in his mind where Vishnu-dutt could have secreted the axe as he was running away. He tried to put himself in Vishnu-dutt's place the place of a man who had just committed a murder. He could not have carried it very far, nor could he have thought out any really elaborate hiding place. How could anything as big as an axe a five-pound blade on a four-foot long handle-be hidden so successfully that the police could not discover it?
And as always, his thoughts brought him back to the tank; the tank that grandfather Dada had built by putting a bund across the brook. The footpath from the hut led to the tank and past it, and that was the path Vishnu-dutt must have taken. He was a strong, agile man. If he threw away the axe with all his strength. while passing the tank, it would almost certainly fall in the deepest part. How deep was it there?-thirty feet?-more? And what was the bottom like? It was bound to be mud-soft, black mud.
Overhead, the clouds were like heaps of enormous grey cabbages. They were the advance guard of the monsoons which would break within a week or ten days. After that, because of the way things sprouted in the jungle, it would be quite impossible to look for an axe. And the longer he concentrated on the jungle itself, the longer he was putting off the most obvious place, the tank. Gian shuddered. It had to be faced. The slime, the eerie green light under water, the prolonged holding of breath, the tangle of dead bamboos and underwater creepers lining the floor of the tank, the black remains of decomposing vegetation, the treacherous, sucking mud.
He sat up and looked about him. The jungle was picked clean by the summer. It trembled under the fierce sun, and yet the trees bore new leaves, tender and flesh-pink. The pebbles under foot were hot to the touch.
He opened the bundle containing his lunch, but his hunger had already vanished. It was just as well, he reminded himself, it was always better not to have had a full meal before entering water. He munched the dry rotis and pickles mechanically, and threw away the mixture of rice and curds. He washed his fingers and lay back for a time, his eyes closed. Then he took off his clothes and walked to the bund.
He began a systematic series of dives. He was going to search the floor of the tank as he had searched the jungle along the path, foot by foot, right from the embankment to a distance of thirty feet. When he finished work that afternoon, he felt limp with exhaustion and had barely covered a tenth of the dam's length.
Three days later, he had still not covered even a third of the length. But on the fourth morning he found it, on the sixth or seventh dive of the day. He saw it because it was lying on a layer of clean white mud which looked grey-green in the water. It was clearly visible from some distance away, the blade shining dully like a black pearl-shell, the shaft standing awkwardly aslant.
It was surprising that a professional police diver should have missed it, Gian thought, and then began to wonder if he really had missed it.
Later the same evening, Gian walked into the police station and demanded to see the darogah. They made him wait outside for a few minutes, and then a constable came and told him that the darogah-sahib would see him.
"What is it?' the darogah asked crossly.
'I have just killed Vishnu-dutt,' Gian told him. 'Killed him with the same axe with which he murdered my brother."
And then the darogah noticed the blood that was spattered on his shirt in a diagonal streak.
I had to find the axe,' Gian was telling him. "You see, it was important that he should be killed with the same axe.'
ANGRY YOUNG MEN
DEBI-DAYAL had always wanted to be a strong man; not muscle-bound or broad-chested, but quick and wiry and able to hit hard, an adept at judo, that ancient art of the Samurai which was said to be so much superior to the wrestling of India and the boxing of the West. It taught you to conquer by yielding. You did not have to possess strength; you made use of your adver- sary's strength. What you needed was agility and a knowledge of where to aim. He was determined to be the equal of any man, however tall or muscular; the man versed in the art of hand-to-hand fighting whom no British soldier would dare to challenge. Debi hated the British, as they all hated the British; that was what brought them together, Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs, men of differing religions united in the cause of freedom as blood-brothers: the Freedom Fighters.
He was that man now, at nineteen; his muscles were supple, springy, his reflexes conditioned for quick retaliation, his action catlike in its deliberation; confident that he could cripple an assailant by lashing at his windpipe with the edge of his palm, the palm which was made hard as wood by constant hammering against wood, or by ramming his knee into his opponent's groin. He ached to prove himself, to match his precious skill against a real-life adversary, so that he could maim with a spine-breaking guillotine-chop, or break an arm with the hold known as the elbow-twist, or emasculate a man for life by administering a scrotum-kick.
It had taken him six years, but it had been worth it. Six years of relentless training, of rigid discipline, to say nothing of cultivating reverence towards the art of judo itself. Every day he had knelt before the black-belt shrine, recited his prayers and made solemn promises never to use his skill except in self-defence. He himself had never believed in all that mumbo-jumbo at the shrine, but the Japanese instructor, Tomonaga, had always insisted upon it; Tomonaga, obese, repulsive, deceptively soft. Tomonaga who resembled nothing so much as a pale-yellow, mangy gorilla who looked at the world out of rheumy eyes and hissed like a reptile through blackened teeth, but who was a fourth-degree initiate in the hierarchy of judoists and was entitled to wear the black belt.
No-evah use pressa for sprine-break, Tomonaga used to warn his pupils. And no-evah use sclotum-kick-no-evah!' It was all very well for the professional judoist to be concerned about the rules of the game. He, Debi-dayal, would use all the pressure he could for the spine-break, or for busting the Adam's apple in a white man's neck; and he would use all the force of which he was capable for the scrotum-kick. That was the whole point of learning the thing: to maim, to disable, to kill and to hell with Tomonaga and his shrine and his trade union of judo devotees. If only he had possessed this skill six years earlier!
He could never help squirming at that image of himself, weedy, pampered, overdressed, a typical rich man's son being lifted bodily by that enormous, bull-necked soldier from the Scottish Borderers.
That was in the summer of 1933, when his father had gone on his first trip to Europe and Sundar was at a summer camp with her school friends. He had cycled back from the cinema late in the evening and was going in by the back gate because he had gone to see a Norma Shearer film when he was supposed to be playing hockey, and did not want his mother to find out. As he entered the narrow, one-man opening in the back wall he had perceived a movement to his right, in the grove of casuarina trees, and then in the bright, summer moonlight, he saw the enormous dark figure of the soldier leaning over the woman who stood rigid and silent against the wall. The woman was his mother. He had stared, numb with shock and fear, and saw the soldier fumble at the knot of her choli and the two white breasts leap out in their nakedness. And then the man had given a vicious tug at the waist-band of her sari, and there stood his mother, against the wall, her body bathed in moonlight, rigid and silent as though paralysed, and then he saw the man bend down to thrust his loutish white-necked head into her chest.
A blind range had swept over him. He jumped off his bicycle and hurled himself at the man and began pounding his back with his fists. With a foul oath, the soldier turned and behind him he saw his mother's face, white with terror. She struggled free and fled towards the house, crouching, gathering her sari around her as she ran, her head hung low.
After that the big man had turned on him, slowly, almost lazily, like a dog noticing a puppy, and reached out and caught both his flailing hands into his own, locking him against his enormous sweat-reeking body. For a long time, he had held him like that, breathing out heavy fumes of drink, and then lifted him with a jerk and perched him up on the wall.
You damned little squirt!' he had said drunkenly, shaking him by the shoulders. 'Don't you know better than to come bashing in? Just when I was about to get her too,- you!
Then he had released his hold and turned away, walking jauntily, his shoulders rolling, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, whistling "You are my sunshine' and not looking back. In the bright moonlight, the tartan of his trousers could be seen distinctly until he had vaulted lightly over the wall.
Debi-dayal remained on the wall, paralysed with anger and shame, unable to move, his head bursting with thoughts of revenge, hot tears running down his cheeks, listening to the sound of the whistle growing fainter and fainter. 'Little squirt!" he had called him. That was what had hurt even more than the final obscene swearword. 'Damned little squirt!"
He was no longer a little squirt. He was the most skilled judoist among the Freedom Fighters.
He had stayed on the wall for a long time, just where the soldier had perched him, not daring to go inside the house and wishing that his sister were not away, because when Sundari was not there, he had no one to confide in. The tears had dried on his cheeks by the time his mother came looking for him. She had been standing near the entrance, she explained as she led him in, waiting for him because he was so late, when the soldier jumped over the wall and attacked her.
I was so terrified,' she gasped. 'I couldn't even cry out for help-like in a dream. It was God's mercy that you came when you did." He shuddered at the thought. Rape, a word often heard, only half understood, came to his mind; that was what would have happened, with all its accompanying scandal and humiliation. And yet he was acutely conscious that he had failed to do what he should have done.
He would have liked to meet that man now; now that he was in a position to do something that would stop him ever molesting a woman again.
He had wanted to report the man to the authorities, but his mother dissuaded him. It would have meant going to an identification parade, and who could tell one white soldier from another? And, still more important, it would never have done to have that sort of inquiry associated with people in their position, when the commanding officer of the regiment himself was an occasional guest at their house.
Even before he went to sleep that night, he had seen the sense of her arguments. This was something that was never to be mentioned, a humiliation that only multiplied itself by the number of people who knew about it. No one must know, not even his sister or his father.
He had lain awake, staring into the darkness, his clothes wet with sweat, cuddling the thoughts of revenge.
The Freedom Fighters prided themselves on being the most successful band of terrorists outside Bengal. Although less than three years old, they had an impressive record of achievement. They also prided themselves on the fact that their leader, Shafi Usman, was the most 'wanted' man in the state; the British police had proclaimed a reward of a thousand rupees to anyone giving information leading to his capture 'dead or alive', as the official phrase put it.
So far, none of them had been caught. That was because their number was small, their discipline was strict and their leader never permitted them to take foolhardy risks. But above all it was due to the fact that their leader had friends in the police department; they all knew that. They were all fervent patriots, dedicated to the overthrow of
British rule in India. Anyone who represented that rule, British or Indian, was their enemy; anything that represented that rule was their legitimate target. Jai-ram!' answered by 'Jai-rahim!" was their secret mode of greeting. The name of Rama sacred to all Hindus, and that of Rahim equally sacred to the Muslims,
In the context of the sharp differences that had now arisen. between the Hindus and the Muslims heading the nationalist struggle against British rule, the terrorist movement was the last gasp of those who wanted to carry on the struggle united. They were all willing, almost eager, to die for their motherland, and it needed a leader of Shafi's calibre to keep them from making thoughtless sacrifices. Shafi Usman was wholly unaffected by the new wave of religious fanaticism which was sweeping the country. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had banded themselves under his leadership, convinced that it was they and their counterparts in the other states who would finally oust the British from their country. They had nothing but contempt for the non-violent agitation of Mr. Gandhi and his followers; the white man, they were convinced, would never respect such abject passivity. To them, the apostles of non-violence were the enemies of the nation, bent on emasculating the population. They even sus- pected that it was a movement secretly supported by the British to strengthen their hold on the country: was not the Indian
National Congress itself started by an Englishman? "They will end up by making us a nation of sheep,' Shafi used to tell them. "That is what Gandhi and his congressmen want. That is exactly what the British too want us to be-three hundred million sheep!
Their members were required to renounce vegetarianism and the taboos of religion. Their cath of initiation was signed in blood, blood drawn from the little finger of the left hand. Their meetings always ended with their partaking of a curry made of equal parts of beef and pork, symbolising the flouting of the sacred impositions of all the religions of India: Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam. The Hindus and Sikhs venerated the cow; she was the go-mata, the universal mother; the Muslims abhorred the pig as an unclean, unholy animal. After eating a dish made of pork and beef no Hindu, Muslim or Sikh could practise his religion.
That had been a major ordeal for Debi-dayal. On that first day, he had nearly brought up his food. Countless years of penance in earlier incarnations that had made him a Brahmin in this one had been thrown away by the single act of sacrilege, the eating of beef. But it had to be done. You could not have both orthodoxy and freedom. Religious differences among the races of India were the root cause of the country's slavery, and the British had learnt to take the fullest advantage of these differences, playing the Hindus against the Muslims and the Sikhs against both.
"The nationalists have just played into their hands-Gandhi and Jinnah both,' Shafi would pronounce. "The only saving grace of the nationalist movement has gone, it is no longer united, no longer secular. The Hindus and Muslims are both going their own ways, both trying to propagate non-violence."
They themselves were the elite, having smashed down the barriers of religion that held other Indians divided; blood- brothers in the service of the motherland.
Outwardly, they were the members of the Hanuman Physical Culture Club. Their headquarters was a low, mud-walled house behind the Hanuman temple. Inside was the authentic gloom of a gymnasium, the smell of stale sweat, rubbing oil and embroca- tion, the sounds of the thuds and bumps of human bodies in the process of hardening, and of heavy, controlled breathing. On the walls were framed photographs of wrestlers and boxers: Charles Atlas, Gama and Gunga, Ibrahim, Muller, Jack Johnson, Primo Carnera and several others. In the centre of the room was the akhada, the sunken wrestling-pit filled with soft red sand. Beyond the akhada was the roped-off arena for judo with a special corner devoted to the shrine-a black belt draped over an arrangement of five photographs of the ranking judoists in Japan. Stacked along one wall were the bar-bells, the dumb-bells, the graduated wooden clubs and the chest expanders. Out in the walled-off backyard were horizontal bars, single and double, and the oiled malkhamb, the climbing-pole of the Deccan. They even had a padded vaulting horse for developing initiative and daring, just as they were supposed to do in the British army. Every evening, there were at least a dozen of them present, which usually meant that the others were on some sort of an assignment. On Saturdays, all thirty-seven of them turned up. On Saturdays, they did no physical exercises, and neither Tom- monaga nor the wrestling master were present. They bolted the doors and windows and talked, talked late into the night and made plans. Before dispersing, they ate their simple meal of coarse bread and the beef-and-pork curry, washed down with water.
They sat around the sand-pit in a horseshoe, leaving the fourth side free, their legs resting on the sandbags that lined the stone coping of the pit. At the head, on the fourth side, sat Shafi Usman.
He now called himself Singh, and had grown a beard and wore a turban because his photograph without the beard had been circulated to all the police stations in the Punjab. A figure of romance, he was said to be a favourite of the prostitutes of Delhi's Chandni Chowk and Lahore's Anarkali, but his associates knew nothing about that part of his life. The beard went well with his face and figure; it lent tone to his overall air of virility and latent power, and even helped to set him apart as their leader. He spoke in a soft, earnest voice, his large hairy hands held limp. in his lap, his accent sounding slightly outlandish to the others because of his prolonged sojourn in foreign lands. He had been to Germany and Russia, and it was a treat to listen to him talking about the wonderful achievements of Hitler and Stalin.
They accepted his position as leader without question: he belonged to that select coterie of the first batch of terrorists, the associates of Jitin Das and Hafiz Khan. Jitin Das had died in jail in the Andamans, and Hafiz Khan was said to be living in Bombay, directing the entire movement; he was the acknowledged chief of the terrorists in India, just as Gandhi was the chief of the national Congress. But Jitin Das and Hafiz Khan were just names to the members of the Freedom Fighters. Their leader was Shafi; Shafi who came to talk to them every Saturday evening and allotted to them their tasks, Shafi who shared their risks and hardships.
They knew his history. Shafi had a good deal to avenge. As a boy of seven, he had been taken to identify the body of his father, flung obscenely on a heap of other bodies, in the enclosure of the Jallianwala bagh. It was a hot April day in the year 1919, and the dead of Jallianwala had already begun to smell. There were three hundred and seventy-nine bodies in the enclosure the authori- ties knew the exact number because they had been counted-and it had taken him a long time to discover his father's body.
"The poor man had nothing to do with Mr. Gandhi's non- co-operation movement,' Shafi had told them. 'If anything, he was in the opposite camp, a staunch supporter of British rule in India. He had merely strayed into the bagh to see what was happening and could not have been there for more than a few minutes when General Dyer ordered his machine guns to open fire. Within minutes, there were 379 dead and over a thousand wounded.'
That same evening, returning from the funeral, Shafi Usman and his wailing mother had found that while going down Kucha Kaurianwala alley, they had to crawl on their bellies because General Dyer had promulgated what was called the crawling order.
"Everyone had to go on all fours,' Shafi had told them. 'Like dogs! all of us, men, women, children-no one was exempt. That is the sort of insult we have to avenge. And then we talk of non-violence! The creed of non-violence is a naked insult to the land of Shivaji and Akbar and Ranjeet.'
They had begun under his guidance, modestly enough. At first they had merely painted Hindi numbers on milestones and on road signs, and written anti-British slogans on walls. After that they went about tarring the statues of British generals and administrators. Then they went on to cutting telephone and telegraph wires, setting fire to post-boxes by putting burning, oil-soaked rags into them and playing havoc with unattended motor cars by dropping fistfuls of sand into their oil tanks.
Now they had graduated to bigger tasks: burning remote Government buildings, burning wooden sleepers on railway tracks and removing the fish-plates which joined the rails. They possessed several sets of German-made pliers for cutting wire and heavy spanners which exactly fitted the fish-plate bolts, all neatly stored behind the sandbags on which their feet now rested. During the two previous weeks, they had managed to remove no less than seven fish-plates from the railway track. So far, their most spectacular achievements had been to burn down a forest rest-house in the jungle and to derail a goods train.
But just as they were beginning to feel pleased with themselves, Bengal had gone ahead. A college girl had fired a revolver at the British Governor while he was addressing a University convoca- tion.
A mere girl has shamed us,' Debi-dayal said.
The leader shot a quick glance at him. He was not like the others, Debi-dayal, with his cream silk shirt, sports jacket and Rolex watch on his wrist. Neither poverty nor frustration had brought him into their ranks. What was at the back of all that fervour, he wondered. For him, the other members' motives were much easier to fathom; Debi-dayal had always been secretive about his.
At times, Shafi even felt a little uneasy about him. He was aware that all the other members had come to accept Debi-dayal as a sort of deputy leader. They knew Debi's father's generosity had helped to build up the front of their athletic club; that the few sticks of dynamite which Debi-dayal had managed to steal from his father's store had enabled them to derail the goods train.
"When are we going to start using our revolvers?' Imam Din asked. 'In Bengal, even girls.
And what was the use? Shafi demanded coldly. 'Cranwell did not die. They all wear steel jackets under their shirts when they go out to these functions. The girl was caught red-handed. Now she will squeal. The police will make her tell... you know their methods. The whole group will be uncovered and sent to jail, and our entire movement endangered. For what? For a girl's impetuousness. That is no way to do our work. We want to kill; we don't want to be caught. Not because we are afraid to die, but because we want to go on doing our work until the job is finished.'
The others watched him, spellbound; the leader who was a Muslim and now looked like a Sikh. His transformation gave added significance to their movement. A man's religion meant nothing. Here was a man who had been born a Muslim but had now become a Sikh; he even wore a kada, the steel bangle of the Sikh religion.
Nor had he any words of sympathy for the girl, only anxiety about how she had endangered the movement. That too was a
measure of his dedication. She had made a mistake. The torture to which she would now be subjected was just an accepted risk of their calling-in her case, perhaps, what she almost deserved. 'Can't we devise some absolutely fool-proof method of wrecking a train?" Imam Din asked.
Shafi shook his head. "There again, we must calculate the risk against the results. If we want to do it without fuss and make a clean getaway, the only thing is to remove the fish-plates and hope that the train is heavy enough or fast enough to displace a rail. We would only get another freight train, most likely. It is the weight-something like a thousand tons as against the five hundred tons of a passenger train. We can't afford to waste explosives or fuses... these we must save for emergencies.
His face was expressionless, calm, his voice sonorous, his eyes almost hypnotic with the big dark pupils half concealed by the thick, drooping lashes. As the light now fell on his face, he looked like the statue of Buddha in repose, Debi-dayal thought; a bearded Buddha in deep contemplation, radiating inner peace-a Muslim who had become a Sikh and looked like Buddha, transcending the religious insularity of ageless Indias. At the Begwad turning, I and Debi-dayal removed three fish-plates,' Basu said. "Nothing happened.'
The ties hold the rails clamped to the sleepers,' Shafi explained.
'It is often a matter of luck.' Is there no way of removing the ties?' Debi-dayal asked.
"They are nine inches long, hammered deep into the wood, four to each sleeper. It would take hours to loosen a dozen ties... but then, that would make things certain."
'Surely we can do that,' Debi-dayal said, leaning forward in his eagerness. In the harsh glare of the hissing petromax lamp which hung from the rafter, his pale, refined, almost ascetic face with sleek black hair falling over one eye, glowed with fervour. He was strikingly handsome, Shafi thought, this boy who was their chief financial prop and who had been practising the holds of judo as if his life depended on it. His eyes were large and lustrous, his lips parted. He typified the general mood of the council of war-the lust for spectacular action. Shafi felt a surge of pride for his men.
But he had to be practical; as their leader, it was up to him to curb their rashness, to prevent them from wasting themselves. 'If we remove the plates, and at the same time pull out at least a dozen ties, and then saw off or burn, say, four of the end sleepers, then we can be absolutely certain of an accident,' he told them. But with us doing the job, it would take at least two hours. The experts do it in much less time. Near Madras they managed it in forty-three minutes. Absolutely split-second timing, but they were railway workers themselves."
'But surely we are capable of all that,' Debi-dayal said. "We will rehearse for days, and then go to it, all of us working at the same time...
'No,' Shafi shook his head, running his tongue over his thick, bright pink lips. "No. There is never enough time for all that between trains. We can do it much more simply, of course, and more quickly, with explosives. But not unless the rewards are proportionately higher. If we can blow up a British troop-train, for instance, we will do it, or if the Governor's "Special" is going. But then we will need much larger quantities of explosives, dynamite, than we now possess. An electric fuse too, operated by a battery, not the sort of wick affair we have to light and run away. It's not very easy,' he looked pointedly at Debi-dayal.
Debi-dayal shifted his eyes, stabbed by an inner guilt-a two pronged guilt. He had already raided his father's store and stolen a bundle of gelignite sticks and a box of detonators, the loss of which had caused a good deal of commotion in the office. At the same time, he was aware that he had contributed less fully than the others had expected. Explosives were the life-blood of any terrorist movement, and he was the only one of their group with access to them, all neatly stacked in the Kerwad Construction Company's store.
The thought of destroying a British troop-train held them together, settled over them like a savoury smell, reducing them to silence. One by one, they all began to look at him.
Any suggestions, Debi-dayal?"
Debi felt weak and defenceless. They were as good as asking him to rob his father's godown again. There was no way out, if he was to prove himself a dedicated Freedom Fighter. I was thinking,' he said lamely, trying to play for time. "I was thinking
... there is a statue of Queen Victoria in the park at Jambotí.
It is made of marble. After six, the gates of the park are closed. All it needs is a crack with a hammer."
He could feel the contempt in their gaze. This, he was aware, was kid's stuff. They must do something that would match the activities of their group in Bengal.
It seemed a long time before Shafi came to his rescue, almost as though he too wanted to make him feel that he was not really pulling his weight. Very good,' Shafi said. 'It is a one-man job. Would you like to take it on, Basu?"
Yes, of course,' Basu said with alacrity. "Thank you."
'Good. Has anyone got anything, er... more ambitious to suggest? Shafi asked. "Something that will give our friends a real jolt?"
For a few seconds, they all looked blankly at each other. There was an uncomfortable silence, and then a member made as if to speak. Yes, Ahmad?" Shafi asked.
"Three planes landed on the military aerodrome this morning.
Two of them went away. One is still there.'
The leader shook his head doubtfully. "We cannot strike so close to this town. We have always avoided drawing attention to Duriabad,'
He had been careful about keeping their activities cleverly dispersed. He had explained to them how the police pinned little flags on maps to mark down terrorist activities. Once they got a clear pattern, it was easy to locate the centre of the activities.
It was vital to avoid the vicinity of Duriabad. I think we go in for far too much caution and very little action," Debi-dayal said. "What is to connect us with Duriabad? We've never struck within twenty miles of this place. They will only think we have come from outside. And if we can destroy a military plane, I think we should take the risk.'
Hear, hear Basu applauded. "That's the way to talk."
The murmur of assent that followed disturbed Shafi. Almost in spite of himself, he experienced a feeling of resentment. Was his leadership slipping? Was it Debi-dayal whom they now looked up to?
He gave them a reassuring smile the first time he had smiled that evening. This was the moment to play along with his followers and to respect their mood. Targets for sabotage were not easy to come by..
"There is something in what you say, of course,' he said, turning his smile on Debi-dayal. Does anyone know why the plane is here, how long it will remain?"
The planes were on their way from Peshawar to Hyderabad and landed here to refuel. There was trouble of some kind with one of them. The others went on but this one is waiting for parts to be brought,' Ahmad told them eagerly.
How do you know?"
"One of the bearers from the officers' mess was heard talking about it.'
I take it the pilot is living in the officers' mess?"
"Yes,' Ahmad said.
After that, there was silence in the room for a full minute. Shafi sat staring into the distance. The others sat staring at his face.
It is too tempting to turn down,' Shafi said. 'An absolute gift, in fact. I have frequently walked along that airstrip. There was never anybody there. It's only an emergency landing ground for Air Force planes. They have a watchman's hut and a store-room for petrol cans. I was thinking that we might burn down the store-room, too, with all that petrol. But I think we'd better concentrate on the plane. So far as I know, there is only the watchman, no other guards or anything. Am I right, Ahmad ?
"They have put on an extra police sentry, because of the plane. But he too stands at the entrance of the field. The river side is quite unguarded.'
'What about... whatever it takes to destroy a plane?" Basu asked.
Shafi gave him a level stare. 'Yes, we've got whatever it takes,' he said with another faint smile, and then paused. "The main requirement is, of course, human courage and resourcefulness. And that we've got, in great abundance, in all of you,' he waved a hand at the circle around him. The moment of doubt had passed. Once again he experienced the warm glow of their confidence.
"In Germany, there is a school for teaching sabotage,' Shafi went on. Everything from bridges and railway engines to
telephone receivers. Aeroplanes are about the easiest targets of all. An unguarded plane is an absolute gift. It's a two man job. I shall be one. I want another. Volunteers?"
Every one of his listeners raised his hand. Shafi's glance swept over their faces; this time it was a cold, professional going-over; the captain assessing his men according to the special requirements of the assignment.
It was wonderful to see their eagerness. Shafi experienced a surge of pride as he scanned their faces, rigid, expectant, aglow with fervour, and for the first time that evening he wondered how long it could be maintained. The Congress and the Muslim League had come to a final parting of ways, with Hindus and Muslims separated into opposite camps, learning to hate each other with the bitterness of ages. Even their own leaders had begun to take sides. Hafiz had already written to him from Bombay complaining about the callousness of the Hindus towards the Muslims, suggesting that they should re-orientate their activities. How long would it be before the flames of communal hatred caught up with them? He looked at Debi-dayal, and once again, felt that quick, unreasoning pang of jealousy. He reminded him of a more youthful Nehru; the theatrical good looks, the background of wealth and learning, the refinement of manner, the awareness of built-in leadership. "You!' he snapped, pointing a finger at Debi-dayal.
In the black night, the two men lay side by side. The elder, bearded, dark and muscular, proud in achievement yet calm and deliberate; the other, fair and lissom, sick with nervousness, trying desperately to control the trembling of his body.
From where they lay, watching from behind the trunk of a kikar tree, their chins cupped in their hands, they could clearly see the plane, barely three hundred yards away, and could hear the crackle of twisting metal and smell the burning oil and rubber and fabric.
The flames rose, swallowing the outline of the plane, and casting a faint pink mist over the surroundings. They saw a lorry drive up and stop near the watchman's hut, its lights still on. Five or six men ran up to the circle made by the glow and then
came to an abrupt halt and instantly fell back as if thrown off by an invisible barrier. They stood by, gesticulating, puny figures in a shadow drama, their words drowned by the roar of the fire.
As he watched them, the older man grinned and stroked his beard with his fingers. He turned briefly to look at his companion. There was just enough flickering light for him to see that Debi- dayal's face had assumed an almost frightening malevolence, as though he were gripped by the joy of some secret fulfilment much greater than the mere burning of a plane. His staring eyes reflected the speck of fire, his lips were pressed together in a hard black line. Shafi went on staring at the face, almost in spite of himself, observing the weird play of light on it-like someone looking on at a cremation, Shafi thought: the face of the god of vengeance, gloating. With conscious effort, he turned his gaze back to the burning plane. For a long time, the two continued to watch the scene. They saw a car drive up along the airstrip; three men, all of them white men, jumped out of the car and joined the others.
"Officers!' the older man whispered. 'Colonel Dreyford and his adjutant. Still in mess-kit, so they must have been having a guest night. The third man will be the pilot.' He grinned and looked to the other for response. But the face was still in a trance, frozen in a bloodless mask of triumph.
Silence and darkness returned, though the smell of the burnt- out plane lingered on. For a few minutes longer, the two men surrendered to their separate thoughts, then Shafi put out a hand and shook Debi-dayal's shoulder. He had to prod quite forcibly before the younger man looked at him, with a start. Time to be offl' he whispered.
They slid away on all fours, their bellies to the ground, crawling all the way through the shrubbery beyond the trees until they reached the river bank, both of them conscious that this crawling itself was some kind of an answer on behalf of the men and women who had been made to crawl in the streets of Amritsar, twenty years earlier.
