The Glass Palace

thirty-two

It was early evening by the time the 1/1 Jats left Sungei Pattani. They drove out of their base in a convoy of trucks, heading northwards, on the north — south highway. On reaching the town of Alor Star, they were deposited at the railway station and told to await further instructions. The men settled down at one end of the platform, the officers commandeered the other.

The station was the smallest and prettiest that Arjun had ever seen: it looked like a dolls’ house version of the railway stations he’d known in India. There was a single, narrow platform, under a low, red-tiled awning. Potted palms hung in clusters from the beams and the wooden columns that lined the platform were wrapped in brightly coloured bougainvillea bushes.

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland had stayed on at divisional headquarters and he arrived late. At midnight he called his officers together to brief them on the latest sitrep. There was to be a drastic change in tactics, he said. There were indications that the Japanese were about to enter the war: their forces were believed to be preparing to attack Malaya from the north. In order to forestall this a strike force was to thrust deep into Siam, to secure the eastern seaboard: this was intended to be a pre-emptive attack to deny a Japanese invasion force the potential landing grounds of the coast. The 1/1 Jats were to play a key part in this operation. The battalion’s orders were to hold itself in readiness to entrain at a half-hour’s notice. At dawn they would move northwards with the objective of occupying a beach-head near the coastal town of Singora. ‘Jot these down.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland read out a string of map references while the officers took notes.

After the briefing Arjun spread a map on the station floor, under a naked lightbulb, brushing away the insects and moths that came to settle on the surface. He could feel his index finger shaking in excitement as he followed the thin red line of the road that led to the beach-head. This was it then: the proof of all these years of training; the waiting was over at last. Arjun glanced at the flower-bedecked platform: it struck him that this was a very unlikely place from which to launch a major operation.

It was hard to sleep. At about 3 a.m. Kishan Singh brought him a cup of tea in an enamel mug. Arjun took it gratefully, without asking where it had come from. Beside him Hardy was dozing peacefully in a long-armed chair, with his turban tipped back. Arjun stood up and strolled down the platform, picking his way past the huddled figures of the men. He noticed a light in the station master’s office, and stepped in.

The station master was a Goan Christian. He was fast asleep, lying sprawled at his desk. There was a radio on a shelf. Arjun stepped round the desk and turned on the radio. He began to fiddle idly with the knobs. Presently, the crackling airwaves yielded a newsreader’s voice: ‘. . heavy fighting near Kota Baharu. .’

Kota Baharu was in eastern Malaya: Arjun knew of it because of a friend who was stationed there. It was a small, out-of-the-way coastal town. Arjun turned up the volume and listened again: now the newsreader was talking of massive Japanese landings along the seaboard — he heard him mention Singora, the town they were meant to occupy the next day. Arjun turned and went sprinting down the platform to the waiting room where he had left the CO.

‘Sir.’

The CO and Captain Pearson were dozing in armchairs.

‘The balloon’s up, sir: the Japs have landed.’

‘Impossible, Lieutenant.’ The CO sat up.

‘It’s on the radio, sir.’

‘Where?’

Arjun led them to the station master’s room. Along the platform the men were stirring now, aware that something was under way. Arjun pushed the station master’s door open. The man was awake, groggily rubbing his fists in his eyes. Arjun stepped round him and turned up the volume. The newsreader’s voice filled the room.

This was how they learnt that their pre-emptive strike had itself been pre-empted by an operation of unprecedented scale, involving synchronised attacks on targets thousands of miles apart — an air attack on Pearl Harbor and amphibious landings along the Malay peninsula. Singora, the town that was to have been their objective, was one of the first to have been occupied.

‘Gentlemen.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland gave his officers a polite smile. ‘If my knowledge of the army is any guide, I would suggest that you make yourselves comfortable here. It may be a while before we hear anything from HQ. .’

There was something very comforting about the note of irony in his voice: listening to him, Arjun found it hard to imagine that anything could go seriously wrong.

There was a large airfield at Alor Star, and at first light a squadron of Blenheims took to the air. The 1/1 Jats cheered as the planes buzzed over the station. A couple of hours later, the Blenheims came circling back with empty fuel tanks. Within minutes of their return a flight of Japanese planes came humming over the horizon. They attacked the airport in close formation, at the precise moment when the refuelling Blenheims were at their most vulnerable. In a matter of minutes the planes were in flames. The timing of the raid was uncannily precise. There could be no doubt that the enemy had been tipped off by a spy or a local informer.

Later in the day Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland drove over to the airfield with a few of his officers. A medical centre had been hit and there was a powerful smell of chemicals. On the apron, the tar had liquefied around the Blenheims. In the distance there was a row of attap huts. These served as barracks for the Malay auxiliaries who guarded the airfield. The men were nowhere to be seen and Arjun was sent to look for them. He found their barracks in perfect order. The beds were all made and each had a kitbag hanging beside it. Rifles stood leaning against the wall, in neat rows, exactly as regulations demanded. But the men were gone. It was evident that after going through all the daily motions of tidying their quarters, the troops had quietly deserted.

Dinu had spent the night on a cot on the veranda of Ilongo’s mother’s house. He woke up early. Both Ilongo and his mother were still asleep. He looked at his watch. The train to Penang wasn’t till midday; many long hours lay ahead.

He stepped outside and looked up at the mountain. The light had begun to change; the forest seemed to be coming alive. It struck him that he had never photographed the chandis at this time of morning. He spotted Ilongo’s bicycle, standing inside a doorway. He decided to cycle up to the mountain with his cameras.

He put his equipment together quickly and cycled faster than usual. When he got to the stream he dispensed with his usual rituals: instead he went straight up to the clearing and set up his tripod. He was changing a roll when the first raiders flew over Gunung Jerai. At first he paid no attention, assuming that the planes were landing at the Sungei Pattani airbase. But minutes later, when the forest began to reverberate to the sound of explosions, he knew that something was wrong. When the next flight of bombers came by he looked more closely. The planes were flying quite low and there was no mistaking their markings. They were Japanese.

Dinu’s first thought was for Alison. He hadn’t seen her since she’d left for the beach, with Arjun, but he remembered that she had planned to go to Sungei Pattani that day — she had told him this the day before. She had errands to run.

It struck Dinu that she was probably still in town. He left his tripod standing where it was and hurried down to the bicycle. He went first to Morningside House where the cook confirmed that Alison had left the house very early that morning, in the Daytona. On his way out Dinu stopped to check on Saya John. He found him dozing peacefully in an armchair, on the veranda.

Cycling down to the office, Dinu noticed that a large number of people had collected on the parade ground. On approaching he saw that Ilongo was addressing the assembly, standing on a chair, speaking in Tamil. Dinu caught his eye and signalled to him to step aside for a quick word.

‘What’s happening, Ilongo?’

‘Haven’t you been listening to the radio?’

‘No.’

‘Japan’s entered the war. The airstrip at Sungei Pattani has been bombed.’

Dinu took a moment to absorb this. ‘Alison went to Sungei Pattani this morning. .’ he said. ‘We have to go down there and see if she’s all right. .’

‘I can’t go right now.’ Ilongo gestured at the people assembled on the parade ground. ‘They’re waiting. .’

‘Why — what do they want?’

‘The managers of some of the neighbouring estates have abandoned their offices and driven off to Singapore. Our people here are worried. They want to make sure they’ll get paid. .’ Breaking off to reach into his pocket Ilongo pulled out a set of keys. ‘Here — you go yourself. Take the truck.’

Dinu pushed the keys back. ‘I don’t drive.’

‘Then wait — I’ll be done soon.’

Dinu watched from the balcony of the estate office while Ilongo addressed the assembly. The meeting seemed to last for ever: it was noon by the time the crowd began to disperse. Shortly afterwards Ilongo started up the truck, and they drove off in the direction of Sungei Pattani.

They soon ran into another crowd. The air raids had ended a good few hours before, but people were pouring down the road, heading away from town. Many were on foot; several families had their belongings slung over their shoulders, tied up in sheets; a boy was pushing a bicycle with a huge radio strapped to the carrier; two men were pulling an elderly woman behind them in a makeshift trolley. Nearer town the roads were clogged with honking cars. Sitting stalled in the truck, Ilongo began to ask questions, leaning out of the driver’s window: he learnt that the air raid had taken the town by surprise; there had been no alarms, no warning. Now, everyone who had the option was heading into the countryside, to wait out the trouble.

They parked the truck behind a shop and walked into town. They checked all the places where Alison might conceivably have gone — the banks were empty and most of the shops had their shutters down. Alison’s hairdresser was gone.

‘Where could she be?’

‘She’ll be all right — don’t worry.’

On the way back to the estate, they took a road that led them past the perimeter of the airstrip. The apron was littered with smoking heaps of metal but the runways were untouched. They came across an Indian — a caretaker who told them that there was a rumour that the Japanese bombers had been guided in by a spy, a traitor from the British forces.

‘An Indian?’ Dinu asked apprehensively.

‘No — an Englishman. We saw him being led away, under arrest.’

Dinu was both shocked and relieved.

It was only when they were back at Ilongo’s house that Dinu remembered that he’d been planning to leave for Penang. He decided to put off his departure for the time being: he couldn’t leave without making sure that Alison was all right. He went up to Morningside and sat down to wait.

By the time Alison’s car came up the driveway it was almost sunset. Dinu was at the door, waiting. The relief of seeing her unharmed had the effect of uncorking all the anxieties of the day. He began to shout as she stepped out of the roadster. ‘Alison. . where the hell have you been? You’ve been gone the whole damned day. .’

She snapped back at him: ‘And what about you? Where were you last night?’

‘I was at Ilongo’s,’ he said defiantly. ‘I’m going to leave. . for Rangoon.’

She gave a hard little laugh. ‘Good luck to you then. Let’s see how far you get.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was in Butterworth this morning. There’s chaos on the roads. I don’t think you’re going to get very far.

‘Butterworth? What were you doing in Butterworth?’

She raised an eyebrow and her voice went cold. ‘It’s none of your business.’ She brushed past him and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

Dinu stood fuming in the porch for a few minutes and then followed her up the stairs. ‘Alison. .’ He knocked at the door, his voice contrite. ‘I’m sorry. . I was just worried.’

She opened the door, wearing a white satin slip. Before he could say any more, she threw her arms around him. ‘Oh, Dinu.’

‘Alison. . I was frantic. . you being gone all day, with the bombing. .’

‘You shouldn’t have worried. I was fine — nowhere near the bombs. They were hitting the port and I was on the other side of town.’

‘But why did you go there anyway. .? All the way to Butterworth? What for?’

She took his face between her hands and kissed him. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said. ‘Let’s not talk about it now. Let’s just be glad we’re together and we’re both all right.’

thirty-three

Several hours passed without the 1/1 Jats receiving any word from divisional headquarters. Just after nightfall, a convoy of trucks arrived to move them to another location. They could tell they were travelling north but it was very dark and they could see nothing of the countryside.

At dawn Arjun discovered that they were encamped inside a rubber plantation. Beyond a few hundred yards the greenery seemed to solidify into a circular, bark-striped wall. Between the canopy of green leaves above and the carpet of dead foliage underfoot there seemed to be no direct light and no shadows. Sound appeared to travel and linger without revealing its point of origin. It was as though he had woken up to find himself inside an immense maze where the roof and the floor had been padded with cotton wool.

At the morning’s briefing they learnt that the battalion was now positioned near the township of Jitra, very close to the northernmost tip of the Federated Malay States. Here the peninsula narrowed to a thin neck, forming a bridge between Malaya and Siam: any army advancing from the north would have to squeeze through this gullet and it was here that a southerly advance could best be throttled. The 1/1 Jats, along with several other battalions, had been concentrated along the north — south highway. It was along this road that the Japanese were expected to make their advance. Chance had thus thrust the 1/1 Jats into the first line of defence.

Arjun was commanding his battalion’s C Company: they were positioned a few hundred yards to the left of the north— south highway. Hardy was with D Company, on the far side of the road. They were flanked by the Leicestershire Regiment on one side and the 14th Punjab on the other.

The first job was to dig trenches, but here again the terrain proved deceptive. The soft loamy soil was easy to dig into, but hard to shore up. Ground water leaked in at unpredictable depths. The wireless sets began to malfunction and the problem was traced to the environment: the placement of the trees was found to interfere with the reception of radio waves. Even runners could not be relied upon. Disoriented by the geometrical maze of the plantation, they kept losing their way.

Then the rains broke. It dripped constantly and this too reinforced the impression of being locked inside a padded cage. Looking up, the soldiers would see rain pouring down from the sky. But by the time the water reached them, the showers had slowed to a steady drizzle. The dripping would continue long after the rain had stopped. They would look up to find that the skies had cleared; yet down where they were the rain kept falling, hour after weary hour. It was as though the leafy canopy were a wet mattress, emptying slowly under its own weight.

With the soil turning to mud, their jeeps and lorries began to slide out of control. The vehicles were found to have been equipped with sand-grip tyres, intended for use in the deserts of North Africa. Orders were issued banning them from entering the plantation: supplies now had to be carried in on foot.

On the afternoon of the second day, Hardy came running over and dropped into the trench. Arjun could tell from his face that he was ripe with news.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Just heard a rumour.’

‘What?’

‘There was trouble with the 1st Hyderabads, at Kota Baharu.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘After the first Jap attack there was a panic at the airstrip. The airmen were Australians and apparently they left in a hurry. The Hyderabads’ NCOs wanted to pull out too but the CO wouldn’t let them. They mutinied, shooting a couple of officers. They’ve been disarmed and arrested. They’re being sent to Penang, as a labour force.’

Arjun surveyed his trench, looking uneasily at the faces of his men. ‘Better keep that to yourself, Hardy.’

‘Just thought I’d let you know.’

The battalion’s headquarters were deep inside the plantation, well to the rear of Arjun’s company. Late on the second day, signals engineers laid a telephone line. The first call was from Captain Pearson.

‘Contact?’

‘Nothing yet,’ said Arjun. The day had faded almost imperceptibly away, the gloom deepening slowly into a dripping, clammy darkness. At that very moment, the dark wall ahead was pierced by a red flash.

‘Sniper!’ said the havildar. ‘Down, sah’b, down.’ Arjun lunged face forward into the ankle-deep water at the bottom of the trench. There was another shot and then another. Arjun fumbled for the phone only to find that the line had gone dead.

Now the flashes of gunfire began to range through the surrounding darkness. The shots sounded at irregular intervals, punctuated by the dull thud of mortars and the spitting of light machine guns. To the right, from the direction of Hardy’s emplacement, there came the sound of a Bren gun. This brought only a moment’s relief, for Arjun noted suddenly, with an odd sinking feeling in his belly, that the Bren was rattling on too long: it was as though the men were too panicked to remember the ordered bursts that Hardy had tried to drill into them during weapons training.

Now the enemy snipers appeared to be on the move, pivoting freely around their position. As the hours passed the trench began to seem more a trap than a shelter: there was a peculiar defencelessness about being pinned into a stationary position by a mobile adversary. When they returned fire, it was as though they were letting fly randomly, in the way that a chained animal circles at the end of its leash, snapping at an unseen tormentor.

The dripping of the trees continued without interruption through the night. Soon after daybreak, they saw a Japanese spotter plane, circling overhead. A half-hour later another plane flew by, dipping low over their lines. It left behind a trail of paper that fluttered slowly down from the sky, like a great flight of butterflies.

Most of these sheets settled on the canopy above, but a few trickled through to the ground. Kishan Singh fetched some, handing one to Arjun and keeping a couple for himself.

Arjun saw that it was a pamphlet, written in Hindustani and printed in both Devanagari and Arabic script. It was an appeal directed to Indian soldiers, signed by one Amreek Singh of the Indian Independence League. The text began: Brothers, ask yourselves what you are fighting for and why you are here: do you really wish to sacrifice your lives for an Empire that has kept your country in slavery for two hundred years?

Arjun heard Kishan Singh reading the pamphlet aloud to the others and the blood rushed to his head. He shouted: ‘Hand those to me.’ Crumpling the pamphlets, he buried them deep under his heel, in the mud. ‘Anyone who’s found with these,’ he said crisply, ‘will be up for court martial.’

Minutes later, with a blast that was like a moving wall of sound, the Japanese heavy artillery opened up. The first shells went skimming over the tops of the trees, sending down showers of leaves and small branches. But then, slowly, the explosions began to move in their direction. The earth shook so violently as to send the water at the bottom of the trench shooting into their faces. Arjun saw a fifty-foot rubber tree rising gracefully from the earth and jumping several feet into the air before somersaulting towards them. They flattened themselves at the bottom of the trench just in time to get out of its way.

The bombardment continued without a break for hours.

Manju was in a deep sleep when Neel shook her awake. She rolled over, in a daze. It seemed as though weeks had gone by since she had last slept. Jaya was a colicky baby and often cried for hours. Nothing would stop her once she started. Even Woodward’s Gripe Water had little effect: a tablespoonful would send her into a light doze but an hour or two later she’d be up again, crying harder than ever.

Manju glanced at Jaya’s crib and saw that she was still asleep. She rubbed her eyes and turned away from Neel. She could not disguise her annoyance at being disturbed. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Why did you wake me up?’

‘I thought you’d want to know. .’

‘What?’

‘The Japanese have entered the war.’

‘Oh?’ She still could not understand what this had to do with her being roused from her sleep.

‘They’ve invaded Malaya.’

‘Malaya?’ Now everything was suddenly clear. She sat up. ‘Arjun? Dinu? Is there any news?’

‘No.’ Neel shook his head. ‘Nothing directly. But the radio said something about the 11th Division being involved in the fighting. Isn’t that Arjun’s division?’

She’d had a letter from Arjun just last week. He hadn’t said very much about himself — just that he was well and thinking of her. Mostly, he’d asked about Jaya and her own health. He’d also mentioned that he’d met Dinu and he was fine— Dolly had been glad to hear that.

‘Do you still have Arjun’s letter?’ Neel asked.

‘Yes.’ Manju jumped out of bed and went to fetch the letter.

‘Does it say anything about his division?’ Neel said.

The numeral 11 leapt at her almost at once, from the folds of the page. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s his division.’ She looked at her husband and her eyes filled with tears.

Neel put his arm round her shoulders and held her tight. ‘There’s no reason to worry,’ he said. ‘As far as I can make out the 11th Division is headquartered very close to Morningside. Dinu will let us know what’s going on.’ Then the baby woke up. Now, for the first time, Manju was grateful for Jaya’s cantankerousness. Her ceaseless crying left her with no time to think of anything else.

Later that evening they were paid a visit by an eminent member of the Indian community in Rangoon — a lawyer by the name of Sahibzada Badruddin Khan. It so happened that the whole family was at home when the visitor dropped by.

Mr Khan was worried and he had come to give them some news. He had attended a meeting of some of the city’s most prominent Indians. They had decided to form a Refugee Evacuation Committee. It was felt that in the event of a Japanese advance into Burma the Indian population would be vulnerable on two fronts — they would be defenceless against hostile sections of the Burmese public and, what was more, as subjects of the British Empire, they would be treated as enemy aliens by the Japanese. Many members of the community had expressed fears of a coming catastrophe: the committee’s intentions were to get as many Indians out of Burma as possible.

Rajkumar was amazed to learn of these measures. He was in an optimistic mood, despite the recent news. He had just discovered that a friend of his had secured a contract for a long stretch of the Burma — China road. He was now absolutely confident that he would be able to sell his stocks of timber at exactly the kind of price he had been hoping for.

‘What?’ Rajkumar broke into a disbelieving laugh. ‘You mean you people are going to run away from Burma — because the Japanese have invaded Malaya?’

‘Well, yes. People feel. .’

‘Nonsense, Khan.’ Rajkumar slapped his friend on the back.

‘You shouldn’t be taken in by these scaremongers. Malaya’s a long way from here.’

‘Still,’ said Mr Khan, ‘there’s nothing wrong with being prepared — especially where there are women and children involved. .’

Rajkumar shrugged. ‘Well, Khan, you must do what you think best. But as for myself I think this is a great opportunity.’

‘Opportunity!’ Mr Khan raised an eyebrow. ‘How so?’

‘There’s no mystery to it, Khan. With America in the war, there’ll be more money for defence preparations. Burma is crucial to the survival of the Chinese Government in Chungking: the north — south road will be their main supply line. I’m willing to bet that the road is going to be built faster than anyone ever expected.’

‘And if there’s an attack?’

Rajkumar shrugged. ‘It’s a question of nerve, Khan. I can understand why you’d want to leave. But for us it would be too soon. I’ve spent a long time preparing for this and I am not going to leave now.’

Manju was hugely reassured by Rajkumar’s words. It was a great comfort to know that she did not have to think about going anywhere right now. Coping with Jaya was hard enough at home: she could not begin to imagine what it would be like in less favourable circumstances.

In the morning, a runner brought a message to Arjun’s trench. It was from battalion headquarters: they were to fall back on the Asoon line — a string of defensive fortifications along a river, a few miles down the road. When Arjun gave the order to move there was a muted cheer. He felt like joining in himself — anything would be better than staying pinned in that trench.

They made their way through the plantation in good order but when they reached the road it became clear that the withdrawal was turning quickly into a headlong retreat. The men began to show signs of apprehension as truck after truck passed them by, packed with troops from other units. Arjun stayed with them long enough to see them into a truck and then he jumped into a jeep with Hardy.

‘Yaar, did you hear?’ Hardy said under his breath.

‘What?’

‘The Japs have sunk the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.’

‘Impossible.’ Arjun looked at him in disbelief. These were two of the most powerful battleships ever made, the pride of the British navy. ‘It can’t be true.’

‘It is true — I ran into Kumar; he told me.’ Suddenly a gleeful grin lit up his face. ‘I can’t wait to tell Pearson: I want to see the look on that bastard’s face. .’

‘Hardy,’ Arjun shouted, ‘have you gone mad?’

‘Why?’

‘Have you forgotten that those ships were here to defend us? We’re all on the same side, Hardy. A Jap bullet can’t pick between you and Pearson.’

Hardy gave him a startled glance, and for a moment they looked at each other in mutual bewilderment. ‘You’re right,’ said Hardy. ‘Of course. But you know. .’

‘Let’s drop it,’ Arjun said quickly.

When they reached the Asoon river, the Japanese artillery fell unaccountably silent. Grateful for the respite, the 1/1 Jats took up positions beside the road, with their backs to the river. At this point, the north — south highway ran along a raised embankment, with thick stands of rubber on either side, leading as far as the eye could see. The whole battalion was now concentrated in one place, positioned to defend the approaches to the river. Their vehicles were lined up off the road, along the slopes of the embankment.

Arjun saw Hardy stepping out on the road and went to join him. Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland was just a few paces away, at the battalion’s temporary command post. He was with Captain Pearson, who was fumbling with a map case.

Arjun stopped in the middle of the road to confer with Hardy. ‘Why do you think they’ve stopped shelling?’ he said.

‘They seem to hold back at times,’ Hardy said. ‘It’s hard to say why.’

‘You don’t think it’s because their own armour is moving up, do you?’

Hardy scoffed at this. ‘What armour? None of us has any tanks — neither them nor us. This isn’t tank country.’

‘That’s what we were told. But. .’ Somewhere in the distance there was a rumbling sound. They both spun about on their heels to look down the road. It was now almost sunset. The clouds had cleared briefly and the sky had turned bright scarlet. The highway ran straight for a couple of hundred yards before disappearing around a bend: rubber trees rose above it on either side, almost coming together at the top to form an arch. The road was empty: there was nothing ahead.

Hardy breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That gave me a fright. .’ He raised his sleeve to his forehead. ‘I told you — this isn’t tank country: that’s the one thing we can be sure of, thank God.’

A moment later, with a great grinding of its metal treads, a tank turned the corner. On top of the turret, silhouetted against the sky, was a gunner’s helmeted head. The turret swivelled in their direction until its gun became a single circular eye. Then the tank shuddered and its hollow eye turned a blazing red. At the bottom of the embankment, a petrol tank exploded and a half-ton truck did a little hop and burst into flames.

For an instant Arjun stood his ground. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this. A dim recollection of unfinished business urged him to turn and run back down the road, to his company, to rally them into throwing up the wall of fire that the CO had talked about at the last briefing. But the CO had said categorically that there would be no tanks— and anyway, the CO was gone now, rolling down the side of the embankment, along with Captain Pearson. On both sides of the highway, men were scattering into the plantation, running for cover.

‘Run, Arjun!’ The voice was Hardy’s, and it jolted him awake. ‘Run, run.’

He was stranded in the middle of the road, like a startled deer, and the first tank was almost upon him, so close that he could see the eyes of the man in the turret, darkened by a thick pair of goggles. He jumped, throwing himself over the side of the embankment, lunging sidewise to clear the CO’s burning jeep. Then he picked himself up and ran for the trees: suddenly he was inside a long tunnel of greenery, his feet cushioned by a carpet of fallen leaves.

The lucidity that had possessed him momentarily as he was standing in the middle of the road had vanished now. Its place was taken by a blind, unseeing urgency. It was quite possible that he was heading straight towards a nest of Japanese guns. But even if he had known that to be so he would not have been able to stop himself. It was as though his breath and his blood had fused together to pound at his brain in unison, urging him on, pushing him to run in this direction.

He ran several yards without stopping. Then, leaning against a tree trunk, he turned, panting, to look back: the trees fell into a sightline at the end of which a small stretch of road was clearly visible, enclosed in a circular frame, as though he were looking through a telescope. He saw tank after tank rolling down the highway. By the sides of the embankment lay the vehicles of the 1/1 Jats. Some were upturned and some were on fire.

The sight was beyond comprehension. He could find no way of explaining what had happened, even to himself. Was this what was meant by the phrase ‘put to rout’—this welter of fear and urgency and shame; this chaotic sensation of collapse in one’s head, as though the scaffolding of responses implanted by years of training had buckled and fallen in?

Arjun had a sudden aching vision of their battalion’s headquarters in Saharanpur: he recalled the building they called ‘the Nursery’—the long, low bungalow in which the officers’ mess was housed. He thought of the heavy, gilt-framed paintings that hung on its walls, along with the mounted heads of buffalo and nilgai; the assegais, scimitars and feathered spears that his predecessors had brought back as trophies from Africa, Mesopotamia and Burma. He had learnt to think of this as home, and the battalion as his extended family — a clan that tied a thousand men together in a pyramid of platoons and companies. How was it possible that this centuries-old structure could break like an egg-shell, at one sharp blow — and that too, in this unlikeliest of battlefields, a forest planted by businessmen? Was the fault his own? Was it true then, what the older Englishmen said, that Indians would destroy the army if they became officers? This at least was beyond doubt: as a fighting unit the 1/1 Jats no longer existed. Every man in the battalion would now have to fend for himself.

He’d left his pack in the jeep, on the river: it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be running for his life within minutes of climbing out. All he had on him now was his.45 Webley, his water bottle and his belt with its small pack of odds and ends.

He looked around. Where was Hardy? Where were the CO and Captain Pearson? He’d caught glimpses of them earlier, as he was running into the plantation. But now in the gathering gloom it was hard to tell what lay ahead.

The Japanese infantry would almost certainly be mopping up behind their tanks, combing the plantations. It was possible that he was being watched even as he stood there, through any one of the hundreds of sightlines that converged on the precise spot on which he was standing.

What was he to do now?

thirty-four

To drive to Gunung Jerai was Alison’s idea. She and Dinu left the house well before sunset, in the Daytona, taking the road that circled around the mountain. The kampongs seemed deserted now, the daytime panic having yielded to a watchful quiet. In the markets there were hardly any people in sight. Alison was able to drive through at high speed.

They made good time and turned on to the summit road while there was still plenty of light. When they began to climb, the sound of the car rose to a shrill, steady whine. It was twilight on the slopes, because of the thick forest cover. Alison had to switch on her headlamps.

The turns on the road were very sharp. They came to a bend that switched back on itself, rising upwards at a steep angle. Alison had to stop and reverse the car in order to make the turn. As they were coming out of the corner, they both looked up at the same time. The sky above the northern horizon seemed to be darkened by a stain — a cloud of tiny, horizontal brushstrokes. Alison stopped dead, and they stared— several moments passed before they realised that they were looking at a flight of planes, heading directly towards them, from the north. They were facing the aircraft head-on and in profile the planes seemed stationary, their advance signalled only by a gradual thickening of their outlines.

Alison started the car again, and they went speeding up the road. The lodge loomed ahead, in the gathering darkness. It was empty, deserted. They parked under the porch and walked up to the veranda that ran around the building. Tables were placed along its length, draped in white cloth, weighted down with heavy ashtrays. Plates had been laid out, as though in expectation of a crowd of diners.

They could feel the roar of the approaching bombers under their feet, in the vibrating planks of the wood floor. The planes were very close now, flying at low altitudes. As they stood watching, the flight suddenly separated into two, parting round the mountain, like a stream flowing past a boulder. Banking steeply one wing veered off towards the seaward slope of the mountain, on a flight path set for Butterworth and Penang. The other wing headed for Sungei Pattani, on the landward side.

Alison reached for Dinu’s hand and they began to walk along the balcony, making their way between the dining tables. The tablecloths were flapping in the breeze and the plates were covered with a thin film of dust.

There were no clouds today. Far below, in the dimming twilight, the island of Penang appeared as a dark shoal afloat on the sea; to the south-east lay Sungei Pattani, a small raft of habitation, marooned in an ocean of rubber trees. They could see roads and rail-lines, glimmering in the last flicker of daylight. The landscape was like a map, lying unfurled at their feet.

The planes were losing height in preparation for their bombing runs. Sungei Pattani was the nearest of the targets and it was the first to be hit. Bursts of flame appeared on the dark landscape, strung closely together in straight lines, like rows of bright stitches on an inky fabric.

They went around the veranda, picking at the tablecloths and running their fingers over the dust-filmed plates. They saw yet another cloud of planes approaching; on the seaward side, the bombers were diving low over the port of Fort Butterworth. Suddenly a great tower of orange flame shot up from the coast reaching hundreds of feet into the sky; the blast that followed was of such magnitude as to make itself felt all the way up the mountain.

‘Oh my God!’ Alison threw herself on Dinu. ‘They’ve hit the oil-tanks at Butterworth.’

She buried her face in Dinu’s chest, snatching at his shirt, bunching up the cloth in her fists. ‘I drove past them, just that day.’

Dinu held her fast. ‘Alison, you still haven’t told me why you went. .’

She wiped her face on his shirt and pulled away from him. ‘Give me a cigarette.’

Dinu lit a cigarette and put it between her lips. ‘Well?’

‘I went to see a doctor, Dinu — a doctor who doesn’t know me.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought I might be pregnant.’

‘And?’

‘I’m not.’

‘And what if you had been pregnant, Alison,’ Dinu said quietly. ‘Would you have wanted the child to be Arjun’s?’

‘No.’ She threw her arms round him, and he could feel her sobbing into his shirt.

‘Dinu, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘About what?’

‘About everything, Dinu. About going away that day— with Arjun. It was a mistake — a terrible, terrible mistake. If you only knew, Dinu. .’

He silenced her by putting a finger over her lips. ‘I don’t want to know. . Whatever happened. . I don’t want to know. It’ll be better that way. . for both of us. We don’t need to talk about Arjun again.’

He was cut short by a flash of light, an explosion that illuminated the whole town of Sungei Pattani. A series of lesser explosions followed, one after the other, like a string of fireworks.

‘The armoury,’ Alison said. She lowered herself to her knees and stuck her head into a gap between the veranda’s rails, holding on to the wooden bars with her fists. ‘They must have hit the armoury.’

Dinu knelt beside her. ‘Alison,’ he said urgently, gripping her shoulders. ‘One thing’s for sure. . You have to go away. With Japan and America at war, you’re in danger here. Your mother was American. . Your brother still lives there. . There’s no telling what would happen if the Japanese managed to push through. You’ve got to get away.’

‘But where to?’

‘To Singapore; you’ll be safe there. It’s very well defended. We’re too close to the border here. . and you have to take your grandfather with you. You’ve got to leave.’

She shook her head, violently. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to go.’

‘Alison, you can’t just think about yourself.’

‘You don’t understand, Dinu — I’m a territorial animal. I’d rather take a few of them with me than give up what’s mine.’

‘Alison, listen to me.’ Dinu gripped her hands and shook them. ‘You have to do it. . For your grandfather’s sake, if not your own.’

‘And what about the estate?’

‘Ilongo will run it while you’re away. . You’ll see. . You can trust him, you know that.’

‘And you — you’ll come with us, of course. Won’t you?’ ‘Alison, I should go back, to Burma. . My family. . They might need me now.’

‘But you could come to Singapore with us first; you could probably get a ship there. It might even be easier.’

Dinu paused to think. ‘You may be right. Yes. . I’ll come.’

She reached for his hands. ‘I don’t think I could bear to go without you. Especially now.’

‘Why now?’

She dug into his chest with her forehead. ‘Because I think I’m in love with you, Dinu — or something like that at any rate. I didn’t know it before, but I know it now.’

He pulled her closer. He did not care what had happened between her and Arjun; nothing mattered but this — that she loved him and he loved her. Nothing else was of any account, not the planes, not the bombs, nothing but this. This was what happiness was — he’d never known it before; this melting away, this exaltation, your guts spilling into your head, filling your eyes — your mind transformed into your body, your body instinct with the joy in your mind; this sensation of reality having met its end.

Although the sunset was still a few minutes away, under the rubber trees it was already dusk. Arjun had heard many complaints about the terrain over the last few days, but it was only now that he became fully aware of the peculiar deceptiveness of his surroundings. He had a strange sense of having stepped into a picture that had been created with the express purpose of tricking the eye. At times the tunnels of foliage around him seemed still and empty, but moments later they appeared to be alive with movement. With every step, figures and shapes seemed to appear and disappear, as rows of trees fell into and out of alignment. Every gracefully arched tree held the promise of cover, yet there was no point that did not intersect with a perfect line of fire.

Arjun knew that many others had taken shelter in the plantation; at times he could sense their presence around him. Every now and again he’d hear whispers, or the sound of footsteps, echoing down the long, straight corridors that stretched away from him in every direction. Sometimes he’d hear a sound, somewhere close at hand. He’d spin around only to find that he’d stepped on a branch that was hidden under the carpet of dead leaves on the ground. It was impossible to distinguish form from shadow, movement from stillness— the real and the illusory seemed to have merged without seam.

Just as twilight was turning to darkness, he heard the click of a safety catch. A whisper followed, from somewhere nearby. ‘Kaun hai? Who is it?’

The voice sounded familiar, but Arjun waited until he heard the whisper again: ‘Kaun?’

This time he was certain. ‘Kishan Singh?’

‘Sah’b.’

Arjun took a couple of steps to his right and found himself face to face with his batman. ‘How did you find me?’ He acknowledged Kishan Singh’s salute gravely, trying not to reveal the full extent of his relief.

‘Buckland-sah’b sent me,’ Kishan Singh said.

‘Where is he?’

‘Over there.’

It turned out that Kishan Singh had escaped into the plantation with a dozen others from the battalion. They’d succeeded in keeping together through the confusion that had followed the Japanese tank attack. Eventually they’d met up with Hardy as well as Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland. Captain Pearson was still missing. They were now keeping watch to see if they could intercept anyone else.

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland was sitting with his back against a tree trunk, his right arm cradled in an improvised sling. He acknowledged Arjun’s salute with a nod and a slight gesture of his left hand.

‘Glad to have you back with us, Lieutenant.’

Arjun was elated to hear his wry voice again. He grinned.

‘Glad to see you too, sir. How bad’s your arm?’

‘Just a graze — and it’s been seen to. Fortunately we have a medical chap with us.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland gave Arjun a stiff-lipped smile. ‘Do sit down, Roy. No need to stand on ceremony now.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Arjun cleared a place for himself on the carpet of dead leaves.

‘You’ll be glad to know that Hardy made it too,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland said. ‘I’ve sent him off to forage for water. We’re very short.’

‘It happened so fast, sir.’

‘Yes, it did rather, didn’t it?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland’s voice faded away. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, rasping, almost unrecognisable.

‘Tell me, Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘do you think I let the side down?’

There was something about his tone that moved Arjun. ‘No, sir,’ he said vehemently. ‘There was nothing you could have done, sir.’

‘There’s always something one could have done.’

‘But what could you have done, sir? We didn’t have any air support. We didn’t know about the tanks. It’s not our fault, sir.’

‘If you’re in command it’s always your fault.’

They were quiet again for a while. Presently the Lieutenant-Colonel said: ‘Do you know what I’ve been thinking of, Roy?’ ‘Sir?’

‘The Nursery — in Saharanpur. I remember when it was built. My father was CO at the time, you know — and the 1/1 Jats were still called the Royal Battalion. We were away in Simla for the summer and when we came back there it was — the building that would come to be known as the Nursery. There was a ceremony and a burra khana for the men. My mother cut a ribbon. I remember how proud I was to see our colours hanging there — moth-holes and all. This was what got me started on military history. By the age of ten I knew our battle honours by heart. I could have told you exactly how Jemadar Abdul Qadir got his Victoria Cross. I was in my last year at school when the Royal Battalion went to the Somme. I came across something that Field Marshal Sir John French said in a speech and I cut it out.’

‘What did he say, sir?’

‘Something to the effect of: “The Jats will never be forgotten on the Western Front.”’

‘I see, sir.’

The Lieutenant-Colonel’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And what do you think they’ll say about what happened to us today, Roy?’

Arjun replied quietly: ‘I think they’ll say we did what we could under the circumstances.’

‘Will they? I can’t help wondering. This was one of the finest units in one of the finest armies in the world. But today we were dispersed without being able to return fire. I will have to live with the knowledge of that for the rest of my life.’

‘You can’t blame yourself, sir.’

‘Really?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland was quiet again. In the silence that followed Arjun became aware that it was raining and the canopy had begun to release its usual slow, unvarying drip.

‘Sir.’ Hardy stepped suddenly out of the darkness, taking them by surprise. He handed the CO a green bottle. ‘Water, sir.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘There was a small pond sir. We strained the water and used a few chlorine tablets. I think it’s safe, sir.’

‘All right then.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland’s voice was businesslike again. ‘You two had better get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll head south-east. With any luck we’ll be able to circle back towards our own lines.’

The rain continued without interruption, the moisture descending with the steady insistence they had all come to dread. Hardy commandeered a bedroll from one of the men, and he and Arjun sat leaning against a tree trunk, sitting at right-angles to each other, keeping watch in the darkness. Mosquitoes buzzed incessantly and for once Arjun was grateful for his puttees. But there was little he could do about his unprotected neck and face. He slapped at the insects and thought with longing of the mosquito cream he’d left behind at the Asoon river, tucked deep inside his pack.

‘Sah’b.’ Arjun was startled by the sound of Kishan Singh’s voice.

‘Kishan Singh?’

‘Sah’b.’

Kishan Singh slipped something into his hand and was gone before Arjun could say anything else.

‘What is it?’ Hardy said.

Arjun held his hand up to his nose. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘I do believe it’s mosquito cream. He must have given me his own. .’

‘Lucky bloody chootiya,’ Hardy said mournfully. ‘My batman would happily see me eaten alive before he parted with his. Let me have some — there’s a good chap.’

Sleep was impossible: there was nothing to do but to wait out the night. At times Hardy hummed, under his breath, with Arjun trying to guess the tunes. Intermittently they talked, in muted voices, catching up on the events of the last few hours.

In a low whisper Hardy asked: ‘What was Bucky saying to you back there?’

‘We were talking about what happened. .’

‘What did he say?’

‘He was blaming himself.’

‘But there was nothing he could have done.’

‘That’s not how he sees it. It was strange to listen to him— to hear him talking about it in such a personal way, as though he was responsible. I just hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘Well, how could you?’

‘Why couldn’t I?’

‘To us it makes no difference really, does it?’

‘Of course it does. If it didn’t we wouldn’t be sitting here in the rain.’

‘Yes, but think about it, yaar Arjun — for example, what would have happened if we’d held our position on the Asoon? Do you think we — us Indians — do you think we would have been given the credit?’

‘Why not?’

‘Think of those newspapers in Singapore — the ones that were writing about all the brave young soldiers who’d come to defend their colony. Do you remember?’

‘Of course.’

‘Remember how all those brave young soldiers were always Australian or Canadian or British?’

Arjun nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘It’s as if we never existed. That’s why what happened at Asoon doesn’t matter — not to us, anyway. Whether we’d held our position or not, it would have been the same. Yaar, I sometimes think of all the wars my father and grandfather fought in — in France, Africa, Burma. Does anyone ever say— the Indians won this war or that one? It would have been the same here. If there had been a victory the credit for it would not have been ours. By the same logic the blame for the defeat can’t be ours either.’

‘It may not matter to others, Hardy,’ Arjun said, ‘but it matters to us.’

‘Does it really, Arjun? I’ll tell you what I felt when I was running into the plantation. Frankly I was relieved — I was glad that it was over. And the men, I’ll bet most of them felt exactly as I did. It was as if some kind of charade had come to an end.’

‘What charade, Hardy? There was nothing make-believe about those tanks.’

Hardy slapped at the mosquitoes that were buzzing around them. ‘You know, yaar Arjun, over these last few days, in the trenches at Jitra — I had an eerie feeling. It was strange to be sitting on one side of a battle line, knowing that you had to fight and knowing at the same time that it wasn’t really your fight — knowing that whether you won or lost, neither the blame nor the credit would be yours. Knowing that you’re risking everything to defend a way of life that pushes you to the sidelines. It’s almost as if you’re fighting against yourself. It’s strange to be sitting in a trench, holding a gun and asking yourself: who is this weapon really aimed at? Am I being tricked into pointing it at myself?’

‘I can’t say I felt the same way, Hardy.’

‘But ask yourself, Arjun: what does it mean for you and me to be in this army? You’re always talking about soldiering as being just a job. But you know, yaar, it isn’t just a job — it’s when you’re sitting in a trench that you realise that there’s something very primitive about what we do. In the everyday world when would you ever stand up and say—“I’m going to risk my life for this”? As a human being it’s something you can only do if you know why you’re doing it. But when I was sitting in that trench, it was as if my heart and my hand had no connection — each seemed to belong to a different person. It was as if I wasn’t really a human being — just a tool, an instrument. This is what I ask myself, Arjun: in what way do I become human again? How do I connect what I do with what I want, in my heart?’

‘Hardy — it doesn’t do any good to think like that. .’

They heard Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland’s voice, somewhere nearby: ‘Not so much talk, please. .’

Arjun cut himself short.

thirty-five

The offer, when it finally came, was so good, so much in excess of Rajkumar’s highest hopes, that he made the messenger repeat it twice, just to make sure that he had got it right. On hearing confirmation, he looked down at his hands and saw that they had begun to shake. He could not trust himself to rise to his feet. He smiled at the messenger and said something that his pride would not otherwise have allowed him to say.

‘Could you help me up?’

Leaning on the messenger’s arm he went to the open window of his office and looked down into his timberyard to see if he could spot Neel. The yard was now stacked high with the stocks of timber he had accumulated over the last year. His son’s bearded face was half-hidden behind an eight-foot pile of freshly milled planks.

‘Neel.’ Rajkumar’s voice erupted from his chest in a joyful bellow. He shouted again. ‘Neel.’

There was no reason to disguise his gladness: if ever in all his life he had had a moment of triumph, it was this.

‘Neel!’

‘Apé?’ Neel turned his face up to his father, in surprise.

‘Come up, Neel — there’s good news.’

His legs were steadier now. Standing upright, he clapped the messenger on the back and handed him a coin. ‘Just some tea money. .’

‘Yes, sir.’

The messenger smiled at the openness of Rajkumar’s delight. He was a young clerk, sent to Rangoon by Rajkumar’s contractor friend — the one who was working on the Burma— China road, up in the far north. Just as Rajkumar had foreseen, the building of the road had assumed a new strategic urgency with America’s entry into the war. It was to be the principal supply line for the Government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. New funds had become available and work was proceeding apace. The contractor now found himself in need of a very substantial amount of timber — hence the offer to Rajkumar.

The deal was not without its drawbacks. There was no advance of the kind that Rajkumar would have liked, and the exact date of payment was not guaranteed. But this was wartime after all, and every businessman in Rangoon had learnt to adapt. Rajkumar had no hesitation in accepting the offer.

‘Neel!’

‘Apé?’

Rajkumar observed his son’s face closely as he told him the news. He was delighted when he saw Neel’s eyes lighting up; he knew that Neel was glad not merely because of the concluding of a long-hoped-for deal but also because this would be a vindication of his almost childlike belief in his father. Looking into his son’s shining eyes, Rajkumar could feel his voice going hoarse. He drew Neel to his chest and hugged him, holding him tight, squeezing the breath from his body, so that his son gasped and cried out aloud. Between the two of them there had always been a special bond, a particular closeness. There were no other eyes in the world that looked into Rajkumar’s without reservation, without judgement, without criticism — not Dolly’s, not Saya John’s, Dinu’s least of all. Nothing about this triumph was sweeter than the redemption of his boy’s trust.

‘And now, Neel—’ Rajkumar gave his son’s shoulder an affectionate punch—‘and now there’s a lot to be done. You’re going to have to work harder than you ever have.’

‘Apé,’ Neel nodded.

Thinking of all the arrangements that had to be made,

Rajkumar’s mind returned quickly to the matter at hand. ‘Come on,’ he said, starting down the ladder, ‘let’s try to get an idea of what we have to do and how much time we have.’

Rajkumar had sold off all his properties except for the timberyard on the Pazundaung Creek. The creek’s mouth lay at the intersection of the Rangoon and Pegu rivers and it provided quick access to the riverport. Many of the city’s sawmills, warehouses, petroleum tanks and rice mills were concentrated along the banks of this waterway. The yard itself consisted of not much more than an open space, crammed with timber and perpetually wreathed in a fog of sawdust. It was surrounded by a high perimeter wall and at its centre there stood a small cabin, elevated on stilts — a structure that vaguely resembled the tais of upcountry forests, except that it was built on a much smaller scale. The cabin served as an office for Rajkumar.

As he walked around the yard Rajkumar could not help congratulating himself on his foresight in concentrating all his stocks in one place — he’d known all along that the order, when it came, would have to be quickly executed: events had proved him right. But even then the job ahead would not be an easy one. Rajkumar saw that he would require large teams of oo-sis and elephants, coolies and trucks. His own elephants had long since been sold off and, with the exception of a couple of caretakers, all his regular employees had been dismissed. He had accustomed himself to managing with hired workforces.

There was a lot to be done and he wished he had more help. Rajkumar could tell that Neel was trying hard, but he was a town-boy, inexperienced in the timber business. Rajkumar knew that Neel was not to blame for this: it was his own fault for never having encouraged him to work in the timber business.

‘I don’t want to be working with strangers,’ Rajkumar confided to Neel. ‘I’d prefer to have Doh Say. He’d know exactly how to go about this.’

‘But how are we to reach him in Huay Zedi?’

‘We can reach him through Raymond.’ This was Neel’s old friend, Doh Say’s son. He was now a student at Rangoon’s Judson College. Rajkumar thought the matter over and nodded to himself. ‘Yes, Raymond will be able to send him word. We must make sure to go and look for him this evening.’

When Rajkumar and Neel got back to Kemendine, the glow of victory was still bright on their faces. Dolly guessed at once that something was up. ‘What is it? Tell me.’

Both Rajkumar and Neel began to talk at once, in voices that were loud enough to bring Manju running down the stairs, with the baby in her arms.

‘Tell me too. Start again. .’

Now for the first time in many weeks there was a lightening in the atmosphere of the house. Neither Arjun nor Dinu had yet been heard from — but this was an occasion when the anxieties of the war could legitimately be forgotten. Even Dolly, so long the sceptic, finally began to believe that Rajkumar’s plans were about to pay off; as for Manju, she was overjoyed. The whole family piled into the Packard, with Manju holding the baby and Neel in the driver’s seat. Laughing like children, they set off for Judson College, to find Doh Say’s son, Raymond.

It was not long before Christmas now, and the central part of Rangoon was being readied for the festivities. This was the area that housed the big department stores, the fashionable restaurants, the clubs, bars and hotels. It was here too — within range of a few blocks of gabled, red-brick buildings — that most of the city’s churches, schools and other missionary institutions were located. In December this quarter became one of the city’s great seasonal attractions. People flocked in from other neighbourhoods — Kemendine, Kokine, Botataung, Kalaa Bustee — to promenade through the streets and admire the Christmas decorations.

This year the customary bright lights had been forbidden by the air-raid wardens. But otherwise the war had not greatly affected the spirits of the neighbourhood; on the contrary, the news from abroad had had the effect of heightening the usual Christmastime excitement. Among many of the city’s British residents, the war had occasioned a renewed determination to carry on as usual. As a result the big shops and restaurants were just as brightly decorated as ever before. Rowe and Co. — the big department store — had put up its usual Christmas tree, a real pine, sent down, as always, from the Maymyo hills. The tree’s base was surrounded by drifts of cottonwool and its branches were whitened with a frosting of Cuticura talcum powder. At Whiteway, Laidlaw — another large department store — the tree was even larger, with trimmings imported from England.

They stopped at the Scott Market and went to the Sun Cafe, to sample the famous chocolate-covered Yule logs. On the way they passed a Muslim butcher who was tending a flock of live turkeys and geese. Many of the birds bore little wire tags — they had been reserved months in advance, by European families. The butcher was fattening them for Christmas.

Judson College was customarily one of the centres of Rangoon’s Christmas festivities. The college was run by American Baptists and it was one of the best-known educational institutions in Burma.

Raymond was in the college’s red-brick chapel. He was rehearsing Handel’s Messiah with the choir. They sat down to wait, at the back of the chapel, and listened to the massed voices, surging through the arched rafters. The music was glorious and even the baby was lulled into silence.

At the end of the rehearsal Neel intercepted Raymond and brought him over. Raymond was a good-looking, sturdily built young man with sleepy eyes and a doleful smile. He had been studying in Rangoon for three years, and was thinking of a legal career.

Raymond was delighted to see them and immediately undertook to send word to his father. He was confident that he would be able to get word to Huay Zedi within a few days, by means of a complicated network of telegrams and forwarders.

Rajkumar did not doubt for a moment that Doh Say would come immediately to Rangoon to help him out.

Next morning, Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland sent Arjun ahead with Kishan Singh and two other men. The men were armed with their usual Lee Enfield.303 rifles, while Arjun was issued their only Tommy gun.

Shortly before noon, Arjun came upon the plantation manager’s house. It was a squat, two-storeyed bungalow with a tiled roof. It stood in the centre of a clearing that was almost perfectly square. The clearing was surrounded on all sides, by straight, orderly stands of rubber trees. A gravelled driveway snaked across a well-mowed lawn, leading to the front door. The garden was dotted with bursts of colour: the flowers were mostly English varieties — hollyhocks, snapdragons, hydrangeas. At the back there was a tall jacaranda tree with a wooden swing suspended from a branch. Beside it stood an elevated water storage tank. There were beds planted with vegetables — tomatoes, carrots, cauliflowers. A paved path led through the vegetable patch, to the back door. A cat was clawing at the door, crying to be let in.

Arjun circled around the clearing, keeping well within the shelter of the rubber trees. He followed the driveway a little distance down the slope: it could be seen winding through the plantation to join a tarred road, a half-mile or so away. No one was in sight.

Arjun put one of his men on watch and sent another to report back to Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland. Then, with Kishan Singh following close behind, he skirted round the house until he was facing the back door. He crossed the back garden at a run, taking care to keep his head down. The door was latched but gave way easily when he and Kishan Singh put their shoulders to it. The cat that was waiting outside went streaking into the house, through Arjun’s feet.

Arjun stepped across the threshold and found himself standing in a large kitchen of European design. There was a wood-burning oven, made of iron, and windows that were draped with white lace curtains. Porcelain plates and bowls stood in rows in the wooden cabinets that lined the walls; the ceramic sink was scrubbed clean and the tin drainer beside it was stacked with glass tumblers and a row of freshly cleaned baby bottles. On the floor, there was a dog’s feeding bowl. Where a refrigerator had once stood there was a rectangular discolouration, outlined against the whitewashed wall. On the kitchen table there lay heaps of eggs and bread, and a couple of half-used tins of Australian butter and processed cheese. It was evident that the refrigerator had been emptied in great haste before being carried away.

Although Arjun was now certain that there was no one in the house, he was careful to have Kishan Singh back him up as he went through the other rooms. The bungalow was littered with signs of a hasty departure. In the bedroom, drawers lay upturned, and brassieres and women’s underclothing were strewn across the floor. In the living room, a piano stool stood forlornly by the wall. Half-hidden behind a door Arjun found a stack of framed photographs. He glanced at the pictures— a church wedding; children, a car and a dog — the photographs had been piled into a box, as though ready to be transported. Arjun had a sudden vision of the woman of the house making a last frantic run through the bungalow, looking for the box while her husband and family sat outside in a lorry that was piled high with strapped-down luggage; he imagined her rummaging in the cupboards while her husband gunned the engine and the dog barked and the children cried. He was glad that they’d got away when they had; annoyed, on their behalf, with whoever it was that had argued them out of leaving earlier.

He went back to the kitchen and switched on the overhead fan. To his astonishment it worked. On the table there stood a couple of bottles of water, still awash in the puddles of sweat that had formed around them when they were emptied from the refrigerator. He handed one to Kishan Singh and drained the other himself, almost at a gulp. The water had a dull, metallic taste as it coursed down his throat: it was only now that he remembered that it was a long time since he had last eaten.

Minutes later the others arrived.

‘Plenty of food here, sir,’ Arjun said. Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland nodded. ‘Good. Heaven knows, we need it. And I imagine we can clean up a bit as well.’

Upstairs there were two bathrooms, with fresh towels waiting in the racks. Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland used one bathroom while Arjun and Hardy took turns with the other. The water came from the shaded tank outdoors and was pleasantly cool. Before undressing Arjun stood his Tommy gun against the door. Then he filled a bucket and poured the cool water over his head. On the sink there lay a curled tube of toothpaste: he couldn’t resist squeezing some on to his forefinger. With his mouth foaming he glanced out of the bathroom window. Kishan Singh and a couple of the other men were standing under the water tank, bare-bodied, sluicing water over their heads. Another man was keeping watch, smoking a cigarette, his hand resting loosely on his rifle.

They went back to the dining room and found it neatly laid, with plates and silverware. A meal had been prepared by a lance-naik who had some experience of the officers’ mess. There was a salad of tomatoes and carrots; eggs scrambled in butter and hot toast. Canned goods of many kinds had been found in the kitchen cupboards: there was duck-liver pate, a plate of pickled herrings, thick slices of Dutch ham — all laid out nicely on porcelain plates.

In the sideboard that stood beside the dining table Arjun discovered a few bottles of beer. ‘Do you think they would mind, sir?’

‘Don’t see why they should.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland smiled. ‘I’m sure if we’d met them at the club they’d have told us to help ourselves.’

There was an interjection from Hardy. ‘If you had met them at the club, sir,’ he said quietly, offering a politely worded correction. ‘The two of us wouldn’t have been allowed in.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland paused, with a tilted beer bottle in his grasp. Then he raised his glass and gave Hardy an ironic smile. ‘To the clubs that won’t have us, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘May they be for ever legion.’

Arjun raised a half-hearted cheer. ‘Hear, hear.’ He put his glass down and reached for the plate of ham.

Just as they were helping themselves, new cooking smells came wafting out of the kitchen: the fragrance of freshly rolled parathas and chapatis, of frying onions and chopped tomatoes. Hardy glanced down at his plate and its piles of ham and herring. Suddenly he stood up.

‘Sir, may I be excused for a minute?’

‘By all means, Lieutenant.’

He went into the kitchen and returned with a tray of chapatis and ande-ka-bhujia—eggs fried with tomatoes and onions. Glancing at his plate, Arjun found himself growing hungry all over again: to look away was an effort.

‘It’s all right, yaar.’ Hardy was watching him with a smile. ‘You can have some too. A chapati won’t turn you into a savage, you know.’

Arjun sank back in his seat as Hardy shovelled chapatis and bhujia on to his plate: he lowered his gaze, in the sullen way of a child who is caught between warring parents. The weariness of the night before came on him again and he could barely bring himself to touch his food.

When they were done with eating Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland told Hardy to go outside, to check on the men who were guarding the bungalow’s approach road.

Hardy saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’

Arjun would have risen from the table too, but Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland stopped him. ‘No hurry, Roy.’ He reached for a beer bottle. ‘Some more?’

‘I don’t see why not, sir.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland poured beer into Arjun’s glass and then filled his own.

‘Tell me, Lieutenant,’ he said presently, lighting a cigarette. ‘How would you rate our morale at this moment?’

‘After a lunch like this one, sir,’ Arjun said brightly, ‘I would say it couldn’t be better.’

‘It was a different story last night, eh, Lieutenant?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland smiled through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘I don’t know if I would say that, sir.’

‘Well, you know I have ears of my own, Lieutenant. And while my Hindustani may not be as good as yours, I can assure you it’s perfectly adequate.’

Arjun shot him a startled glance. ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at, sir.’

‘Well, none of us could sleep much last night, could we, Lieutenant? And whispers can carry a long way.’

‘I don’t quite take your meaning, sir.’ Arjun felt his face growing hot. ‘Are you referring to something I said?’

‘It doesn’t really matter, Lieutenant. Let’s just say that there was a certain similarity of tone in all the voices around me.’

‘I see, sir.’

‘Lieutenant — I think you probably know that I — we — are not unaware of some of the tensions in our Indianised battalions. It’s quite plain that many of our Indian officers feel strongly about public issues — particularly the question of independence.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t know what your own feelings are, Roy, but you should know that as far as the thrust of British public opinion goes, independence for India is just a matter of time. Everyone knows that the days of Empire are over — we’re not fools, you know. The last thing an ambitious young Englishman wants to do today is to go out to a backwater. The Americans have been telling us for years that we’re going about this the wrong way. One doesn’t have to keep up an Empire with all the paraphernalia of an administration and an army. There are easier and more efficient ways to keep a grip on things — it can be done at less expense, and with much less bother. We’ve all come to accept this now — even chaps like me who’ve spent our lives out east. The truth is that there’s only one reason why England holds on any more — and that is out of a sense of obligation. I know this may be hard for you to believe but it’s true. There’s a feeling that we can’t go under duress and we can’t leave a mess behind. And you know as well as I do that if we were to pack our bags now, then you chaps would be at each other’s throats in no time — even you and your friend Hardy, what with him being a Sikh and you a Hindu, a Punjabi and a Bengali. .’

‘I see, sir.’

‘I’m telling you this, Lieutenant, only to alert you to some of the dangers of the situation in which we now find ourselves. I think we both know that our morale is not what it might be. But this is, of all times, the last in which anybody should waver in their loyalties. The reverses we’ve suffered are temporary — in a way they are a blessing in disguise. America’s entry into the war makes it absolutely certain that we shall prevail, in time. In the meanwhile perhaps we should remind ourselves that the army has a very long memory when it comes to questions of allegiance and loyalty.’

The Lieutenant-Colonel paused to extinguish his cigarette. Arjun sat staring silently into his glass.

‘You know, Roy,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland said quietly, ‘my grandfather lived through the Mutiny of 1857. I remember that he bore very little rancour towards the civilians who’d got mixed up in the troubles. But as for the soldiers — the sepoys who’d led the Mutiny — that was another matter altogether. Those men had broken an oath: they were traitors, not rebels, and there is no traitor so contemptible as a soldier who reverses his allegiances. And if such a thing were to happen at a dodgy time, I think you would agree with me, wouldn’t you, Roy, that it would be hard to conceive of anything quite so unspeakable?’

Arjun was about to answer when he was interrupted by the sound of racing footsteps. He turned to a window to see Hardy running across the front lawn.

‘Sir,’ Hardy came panting to the windowsill. ‘Got to move, sir. . Jap convoy heading up the road.’

‘How many? Could we take them on?’

‘No, sir. . There’re at least two platoons — maybe a company.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland pushed his chair calmly back, dabbing his lips with a napkin. ‘The main thing, gentlemen,’ he said quietly, ‘is not to panic. Take a moment to listen to me: this is what I want you to do. .’

They left the house by the rear entrance with Arjun in the lead and Hardy and Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland bringing up the rear. On reaching the shelter of the first row of trees Arjun fell into a defensive position. With him was a detail composed of Kishan Singh and two other men. Their orders were to cover the others until everyone was clear of the grounds.

The first Japanese truck pulled into the compound just as Hardy and Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland were running across the back garden. For a moment Arjun allowed himself to believe that they had managed to escape unseen. Then a volley of gunfire erupted out of the back of the truck and Arjun heard a chorus of whistles shooting past, well over his head.

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland and Hardy were almost abreast of him now. Arjun waited till they were clear before giving the order to return fire. ‘Chalao goli.’ They fired indiscriminately, in the general direction of the bungalow. The only result was the immediate shattering of the kitchen’s windows. In the meantime, the Japanese truck had swung round to take shelter on the far side of the house.

‘Piche. Chalo.’

Arjun gave the order to fall back while staying in position himself, firing randomly, hoping to give Kishan Singh and the others time to regroup. He saw that the newly arrived Japanese soldiers were slipping into the trees one by one. He rose to his feet and began to run, holding his Tommy gun under his arm. Glancing over his shoulder, he encountered the now familiar sight of dozens of long files of trees, telescoping towards him— but with the difference that now, each tunnel offered a glimpse of a tiny grey-uniformed figure, somewhere in the far distance, running in pursuit.

Arjun began to run faster, breathing hard, watching out for the branches that lay hidden underneath the fallen leaves. A hundred feet or so ahead, the land fell away steeply. If he could get as far as that he might be able to lose the pursuing soldiers. He sprinted, shortening his steps as he neared the lip of the declivity. Just as he was going over the top he felt his right leg shooting out from beneath him. He fell, tumbling face first down the slope. The shock of the fall was compounded by confusion: he could not understand why he had fallen. He hadn’t tripped and he hadn’t lost his footing — he was sure of that. Grasping at the undergrowth he managed to bring himself to a halt. He tried to get back on his feet and found that he couldn’t. He looked down and saw that his trouser leg was covered in blood. He could feel the wetness of the cloth against his skin yet he was not conscious of any pain. His pursuers’ footsteps were closer now, and he glanced around himself quickly, looking at the carpet of dead leaves that stretched away in every direction.

Just then he heard a sound, a familiar whisper. ‘Sah’b.’

He rolled over to find himself looking at Kishan Singh: his batman was lying prone, hidden inside a dark opening — a culvert or drainage pipe of some kind. The opening was blanketed by leaves and undergrowth. It was very well-hidden, almost invisible. The only reason that Arjun could see it at all was because he was lying flat on the ground.

Kishan Singh extended a hand and dragged him into the culvert. Then he crawled out to scatter leaves over the traces of Arjun’s blood. Minutes later they heard the sound of footsteps racing past overhead.

The culvert was just wide enough for the two of them to lie side by side. Now, suddenly, Arjun’s wound began to make itself felt, the pain welling out of his leg in waves. He tried to stifle a groan, not quite successfully. Kishan Singh threw a hand over his mouth and wrestled him into silence. Arjun realised that he was about to black out and he was glad: at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than oblivion.

thirty-six

Even though he was following the news closely on the radio, Dinu had trouble understanding exactly what was under way in northern Malaya. The bulletins mentioned a major engagement in the region of Jitra but the reports were inconclusive and confusing. In the meantime, there were other indications of the way the war was going, all of them ominous. One of these was an official newspaper announcement, listing the closing of certain post offices in the north. Another was the increasing volume of southbound traffic: a stream of evacuees was pouring down the north — south highway in the direction of Singapore.

One day, on a visit to Sungei Pattani, Dinu had a glimpse of this exodus. The evacuees seemed to consist mainly of the families of planters and mining engineers. Their cars and trucks were filled with household objects — furniture, trunks, suitcases. He came across a truck that was loaded with a refrigerator, a dog and an upright piano. He spoke to the man who was driving the truck: he was a Dutchman, the manager of a rubber plantation near Jitra. His family were sitting crowded in the truck’s cab: his wife, a newborn baby and two girls. The Dutchman said he’d managed to get out just ahead of the Japanese. His advice to Dinu was to leave as soon as possible— not to make the mistake of waiting until the last minute.

That night, at Morningside, Dinu told Alison exactly what the Dutchman had said. They looked at each other in silence: they had been over the subject several times before. They knew they had very few choices. If they went by road one of them would have to stay behind — the estate’s truck was in no shape to make the long journey to Singapore and the Daytona would not be able to carry more than two passengers over that kind of distance. The only alternative was to go by train — but rail services had been temporarily suspended.

‘What are we going to do, Alison?’ Dinu said.

‘Let’s wait and see,’ Alison said hopefully. ‘Who knows? Perhaps we won’t have to leave after all.’

Late that night they were woken by the crunch of bicycle wheels, rolling up the gravelled drive of Morningside House. A voice called out from below: ‘Miss Martins. .’

Alison got up and went to the window. It was still dark. Parting the curtains, she leaned out, peering down into the drive. Dinu glanced at a bedside clock and saw that it was four in the morning. He sat up: ‘Alison? Who is it?’

‘It’s Ilongo,’ Alison said. ‘He has Ah Fatt with him — from the restaurant, in town.’

‘At this time of night?’

‘I think they want to tell me something.’ Alison let the curtain drop. ‘I’m going downstairs.’ She pulled on a dressing gown and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, Dinu followed. He found Alison sitting in a huddle with the visitors. Ah Fatt was talking urgently, in rapid Malay, stabbing a finger in the air. Alison was biting her lip, nodding: Dinu could see a deepening anxiety in the crimped lines of her face.

In a while Dinu jogged her elbow. ‘What are you talking about? Tell me.’

Alison stood up and took him aside.

‘Ah Fatt says that Grandfather and I have to leave — for Singapore. He says it’s going badly on the front. The Japanese may be able to push through in a day or two. He thinks the Kempeitai — their secret police — have information about us. .’

Dinu nodded. ‘He’s right. It won’t do to wait any longer. You’ve got to go.’ Tears started into Alison’s eyes. ‘I don’t want to go, Dinu. Not without you. I really don’t.’

‘You have to, Alison. Think of your grandfather. .’

‘Miss Martins,’ Ah Fatt interrupted, to let them know that he’d heard that a special evacuation train would be leaving from Butterworth that morning. He wasn’t sure that they’d be able to get on it — but it was worth trying.

Dinu and Alison exchanged smiles. ‘We’ll never get another chance like this,’ Alison said.

‘Let’s wake your grandfather,’ Dinu said. ‘Let’s not waste any time.’

They left early the next day in one of the estate’s trucks. Ilongo drove and Dinu rode in the back with the luggage. Alison sat in front, with Saya John. There was little traffic, because of the time of day, and they arrived in Sungei Pattani in half the usual time. The town was silent: many of the shops and houses were locked or boarded up. Some had notices hanging outside.

A short way from town they picked up the main highway. The road’s embankment was dotted with parked vehicles. Families could be seen to be sleeping in their cars, snatching a little rest before daylight. At intervals one-and-a-half-ton military trucks came barrelling down the highway, heading south. They would bear down very suddenly, pushing other traffic off the road, headlights blazing, sounding their horns. Dinu caught occasional glimpses of soldiers, squatting in the trucks’ tarpaulin-covered beds.

Approaching Butterworth, the road was jammed with cars and trucks. The railway station was right next to the ferry terminus that connected the mainland to the island of Penang. This area had taken several hits during the recent bombing raids and there was a great deal of confusion in the rubble-strewn streets. People could be seen heading towards the station on foot, carrying bags and suitcases.

Ilongo parked in a side street and left Alison, Dinu and Saya John in the truck while he went ahead to make inquiries. He came back an hour later to report that they had a long wait ahead. There were rumours that the train would not leave until after midnight. Penang was being evacuated too and a fleet of ferries was to be dispatched under cover of darkness. The train would not depart until the ferries had returned to Butterworth with the Penang evacuees.

Alison took a room in a hotel so that Saya John could rest. They spent the day taking it in turns to go out to make inquiries. Night fell and at ten o’clock there was still no news. Then, a little after midnight, Ilongo came running into the hotel with the information that the ferries had been sighted, returning from Penang. Shortly afterwards a train was shunted into the platform of the railway station.

Alison woke Saya John and Dinu paid for the hotel room. They stepped out into the darkened street and joined the crowd that was hurrying toward the station. The entrance had been cordoned off and could only be approached through a defile that was packed with people and luggage.

A few yards from the entrance Ilongo decided to turn back. He put an arm around Saya John and gave him a big hug. ‘Goodbye, Saya.’

Saya John gave him a blankly affectionate smile. ‘Be careful how you drive, Ilongo.’

‘Yes, Saya.’ Ilongo laughed. He turned to Alison and Dinu but before he could say goodbye they were pushed ahead by the press of bodies. He shouted after them: ‘I’m going to spend the night in the truck. You can find me there — just in case. Good luck.’

Dinu answered with a wave. ‘And to you too. . good luck.’

The entrance to the platform was manned by two guards, both Indian. They were dressed in green uniforms and had rifles slung over their shoulders. There were no tickets to be checked: the guards were looking the evacuees over and ushering them through.

They got to the gate with Saya John leaning heavily on Alison. Dinu was directly behind them, carrying their suitcases. Just as they were about to go through the entrance, a guard stopped Alison with an outstretched arm. There followed a hurried consultation between the two guards. Then the guards gestured to Dinu, Alison and Saya John to step aside. ‘Please. . Move away from the gate.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Alison said to Dinu. ‘What’s happening?’

Dinu stepped up to face the guards. ‘Kya hua?’ he said, addressing them in Hindustani. ‘Why’ve you stopped us?’

‘You can’t go through.’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t you have eyes?’ a guard said to him brusquely. ‘Can’t you see that this train’s only for Europeans?’

‘What?’

‘You heard — it’s only for Europeans.’

Dinu swallowed, trying to keep his composure. ‘Listen,’ he said carefully, ‘that can’t be true. . This is wartime. We were told that this was an evacuation train. How can it be only for Europeans? There must be some mistake.’

The guard looked him in the eye, and gestured at the train with his thumb. ‘You’ve got eyes of your own,’ he said. ‘Dekh lo—take a look.’

Craning over the guard’s shoulder, he looked up and down the platform, at the train’s windows: he could not see a single face that looked Malay or Chinese or Indian.

‘This is impossible. . it’s madness.’

‘What? What’s impossible?’ Alison tugged at his arm. ‘Dinu, tell me, what’s going on?’

‘The guards say this train is only for whites. .’

Alison nodded. ‘Yes. I had a feeling that it would be— that’s how things are. .’

‘How can you say that, Alison?’ Dinu was frantic now and sweat was pouring down his face. ‘You can’t put up with this stuff. . Not now. Not when there’s a war. .’

Dinu spotted a uniformed Englishman, walking along the platform, checking a roster. Dinu began to plead with the guards: ‘Listen — let me through — just for a minute. . just to have a word with that officer over there. . I’ll explain to him; I’m sure he’ll understand.’

‘Not possible.’

Dinu lost his temper. He shouted into the guard’s face. ‘How can you stop me? Who’s given you the right?’

Suddenly a third man appeared. He was dressed in a railway uniform and he too appeared to be Indian. He herded them away from the entrance, towards a flight of stairs that led back to the street. ‘Yes please?’ he said to Dinu. ‘I am the station master — please tell me: what is the problem?’

‘Sir. .’ Dinu made an effort to keep his voice even. ‘They are not letting us through. . They say the train is only for Europeans.’

The station master smiled apologetically. ‘Yes — that is what we have been given to understand.’

‘But how can that be?. . This is wartime. . This is an evacuation train.’

‘What can I say? Why, in Penang, Mr Lim, the magistrate, was turned back even though he had an official evacuation letter. The Europeans would not let him board the ferries because of his being Chinese.’

‘You don’t understand. .’ Dinu began to plead. ‘It’s not just Europeans who are in danger. . You can’t do this. . It’s wrong.’

The station master pulled a face, shrugging dismissively. ‘I do not see what is so wrong with it. After all it is common sense. They are the rulers; they are the ones who stand to lose.’

Dinu’s voice rose. ‘That’s nonsense,’ he shouted. ‘If that’s the way you look at it, then the war’s already lost. Don’t you see? You’ve conceded everything worth fighting for. .’

‘Sir,’ the station master glared at him, ‘there is no reason to shout. I am just doing my job.’

Dinu raised his hands and grabbed hold of the station master’s collar. ‘You bastard,’ he said, shaking him. ‘You bastard. . it’s you who’re the enemy. People like you — just doing their jobs. . you’re the enemy.’

‘Dinu,’ Alison screamed. ‘Look out!’

Dinu felt a hand closing on the back of his neck, wrenching him away from the station master. A fist slammed into his face, knocking him to the floor. His nostrils filled with the metallic smell of blood. He looked up to see the two guards glaring angrily down at him. Alison and Saya John were holding them off. ‘Let him be. Let him be!’

Alison reached down and helped Dinu to his feet. ‘Come on, Dinu — let’s go.’ She picked up their luggage and ushered Dinu and Saya John down the stairs. When they were back on the street, Dinu steadied himself against a lamp-post and put his hands on Alison’s shoulders. ‘Alison,’ he said, ‘Alison— maybe they’ll let you on, by yourself. You’re half-white. You have to try, Alison.’

‘Shh.’ She put a hand over his mouth. ‘Don’t say that, Dinu. I wouldn’t think of it.’

Dinu wiped the blood from his nose. ‘But you have to leave, Alison. . With your grandfather — you heard what Ah Fatt said. One way or another you have to go. . You can’t stay at Morningside any more. .’

From inside the station there was a piercing whistle. All around them, people began to run, crowding into the station’s entrance, pushing at the gates. Dinu, Alison and Saya John held on to each other’s arms, anchoring themselves to the lamp-post.

At last they heard the train pulling away. ‘It’s gone,’ said Saya John.

‘Yes, Baba,’ Alison said quietly. ‘It’s gone.’

Dinu stepped back and picked up a suitcase. ‘Let’s go and find Ilongo,’ he said.

‘Tomorrow morning we’ll go back to Morningside.’

‘To stay?’

Dinu shook his head. ‘I’ll stay there, Alison,’ he said. ‘They won’t harm me — I don’t have anything particular to be afraid of. But you and your grandfather — with your connections— American and Chinese. . There’s just no telling what they would do to you. You have to go. .’

‘But how, Dinu?’

At last Dinu said the words they’d both been dreading:

‘The Daytona. . It’s the only way, Alison.’

‘No.’ She threw herself on him. ‘Not without you.’

‘It’ll be all right, Alison.’ He was careful to speak quietly, feigning a confidence that he was far from feeling. ‘I’ll join you soon. . in Singapore, you’ll see. We won’t be long apart.’

It was dark when Arjun returned to consciousness. The sensation in his leg had subsided to a raw, throbbing pain. As his mind cleared Arjun realised that a stream of water was flowing past him and the culvert was resounding to a dull, drumming noise. It took him several minutes to understand that it was raining.

Just as he was beginning to stir, Arjun felt Kishan Singh’s hand tightening on his shoulder, in warning. ‘They’re still around, sah’b,’ Kishan Singh whispered. ‘They’ve posted pickets in the plantation. They’re waiting.’

‘How close are they? Within earshot?’

‘No. They can’t hear us in the rain.’

‘How long was I out?’

‘More than an hour, sah’b. I bandaged your wound. The bullet passed cleanly through your hamstring. It’ll be all right.’

Arjun touched his thigh gingerly. Kishan Singh had unwrapped his puttees, rolled up his trousers and applied a field dressing. He’d also made a kind of cradle to keep his leg out of the water, by propping two sticks against the sides of the culvert.

‘What shall we do now, sah’b?’

The question confounded Arjun. He tried to look ahead but his mind was still clouded by pain and he could think of no clear plan. ‘We’ll have to wait them out, Kishan Singh. Tomorrow morning we’ll see.’

‘Han, sah’b.’ Kishan Singh seemed relieved.

Lying motionless in the inches-deep water, Arjun became acutely aware of his surroundings: of the wet folds of cloth that were carving furrows into his skin, of the pressure of Kishan Singh’s body, stretched out beside him. The culvert was filled with the smell of their bodies: the mildewed, rain-soaked, sweat-stained odour of their uniforms, the metallic smell of his own blood.

His mind strayed, disordered by the pain in his leg. He remembered suddenly the look that Kishan Singh had given him on the beach that day, when he came back from the island with Alison. Was it scorn that he’d seen in his eyes— a judgement of some kind?

Would Kishan Singh have done what he had? Allowed himself to make love to Alison; to prey upon her; to betray Dinu, who was both a friend and something more? He didn’t know himself why he’d been driven to do it; why he’d wanted her so much. He’d heard some of the chaps saying that these things came on you in wartime — on the front. But Kishan Singh was on the front too — and it was hard to think of him doing anything like that. Was that part of the difference between being an officer and a jawan—having to impose yourself, enforce your will?

It occurred to him that he would have liked to talk about this. He remembered that Kishan Singh had once told him that he’d been married off at the age of sixteen. He would have liked to ask Kishan Singh: what was it like when you were married? Had you known your wife before? On the night of your wedding how did you touch her? Did she look you in the face?

He tried to form the sentences in his head and found that he did not know the right words in Hindustani; did not even know the tone of voice in which such questions could be asked. These were things he did not know how to say. There was so much that he did not know how to say, in any language. There was something awkward, unmanly even, about wanting to know what was inside one’s head. What was it that Hardy had said the night before? Something about connecting his hand and his heart. He’d been taken aback when he said that; it wasn’t on for a chap to say that kind of thing. But at the same time, it was interesting to think that Hardy — or anyone for that matter, even he himself — might want something without knowing it. How was that possible? Was it because no one had taught them the words? The right language? Perhaps because it might be too dangerous? Or because they weren’t old enough to know? It was strangely crippling to think that he did not possess the simplest tools of self-consciousness— had no window through which to know that he possessed a within. Was this what Alison had meant, about being a weapon in someone else’s hands? Odd that Hardy had said the same thing too.

Waiting for the minutes to pass he could feel his mind fixing on his wounded leg. The pain grew steadily, mounting in intensity until it saturated his consciousness, erasing all other sensation. He began to breathe in gasps, through gritted teeth. Then, through the fog of pain in his head, he became aware of Kishan Singh’s hand, gripping his forearm, shaking his shoulder, in encouragement.

‘Sabar karo, sah’b; it’ll pass.’

He heard himself say: ‘I don’t know how long I can last,

Kishan Singh.’

‘You can last, sah’b. Just hold on. Be patient.’

Arjun had a sudden premonition of blacking out again, sinking face first into the rainwater, drowning where he lay. In panic he clutched at Kishan Singh, holding on to his arm as though it were a life raft.

‘Kishan Singh, say something. Talk. Don’t let me pass out again.’

‘Talk about what, sah’b?’

‘I don’t care. Just talk, Kishan Singh — about anything. Tell me about your village.’

Hesitantly Kishan Singh began to speak.

‘The name of our village is Kotana, sah’b, and it’s near Kurukshetra — not far from Delhi. It’s as simple a village as any, but there is one thing we always say of Kotana. .’

‘What is that?’

‘That in every house in Kotana you will find a piece of the world. In one there is a hookah from Egypt; in another a box from China. .’

Speaking through a wall of pain, Arjun said: ‘Why is that, Kishan Singh?’

‘Sah’b, for generations every Jat family in Kotana has sent its sons to serve in the army of the English sarkar.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since the time of my great-grandfather, sah’b — since the Mutiny.’

‘The Mutiny?’ Arjun recalled Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland’s voice, speaking of the same thing. ‘What does the Mutiny have to do with it?’

‘Sah’b, when I was a boy, the old men of the village used to tell us a story. It was about the Mutiny. When the uprising ended and the British re-entered Delhi it came to be known that a great spectacle was to be held in the city. From Kotana a group of elders was deputed to go. They set off at dawn and walked, with hundreds of others, towards the southern postern of the old capital. When they were still far away they saw that the sky above the city was black with birds. The wind carried an odour that grew stronger as they approached the city. The road was straight, the ground level and they could see a long way into the distance. A puzzling sight lay ahead. The road seemed to be lined by troops of very tall men. It was as though an army of giants had turned out to stand guard over the crowd. On approaching closer, they saw that these were not giants, but men — rebel soldiers whose bodies had been impaled on sharpened stakes. The stakes were arranged in straight lines and led all the way to the city. The stench was terrible. When they returned to Kotana the elders gathered the villagers together. They said, “Today we have seen the face of defeat and it shall never be ours.” From that day on, the families of Kotana decided that they would send their sons to the army of the English sarkar. This is what our fathers told us. I do not know whether this story is true or false, sah’b, but it is what I heard when I was a boy.’

In the confusion of his pain, Arjun had trouble following this. ‘What are you saying then, Kishan Singh? Are you saying that the villagers joined the army out of fear? But that can’t be: no one forced them — or you for that matter. What was there to be afraid of?’

‘Sah’b,’ Kishan Singh said softly, ‘all fear is not the same. What is the fear that keeps us hiding here, for instance? Is it a fear of the Japanese, or is it a fear of the British? Or is it a fear of ourselves, because we do not know who to fear more? Sah’b, a man may fear the shadow of a gun just as much as the gun itself — and who is to say which is the more real?’

For a moment, it seemed to Arjun that Kishan Singh was talking about something very exotic, a creature of fantasy: a terror that made you remould yourself, that made you change your idea of your place in the world — to the point where you lost your awareness of the fear that had formed you. The idea of such a magnitude of terror seemed absurd — like reports of the finding of creatures that were known to be extinct. This was the difference, he thought, between the other ranks and officers: common soldiers had no access to the instincts that made them act; no vocabulary with which to shape their self-awareness. They were destined, like Kishan Singh, to be strangers to themselves, to be directed always by others.

But no sooner did this thought take shape in his mind than it was transformed by the delirium of his pain. He had a sudden, hallucinatory vision. Both he and Kishan Singh were in it, but transfigured: they were both lumps of clay, whirling on potters’ wheels. He, Arjun, was the first to have been touched by the unseen potter; a hand had come down on him, touched him, passed over to another; he had been formed, shaped — he had become a thing unto itself — no longer aware of the pressure of the potter’s hand, unconscious even that it had come his way. Elsewhere, Kishan Singh was still turning on the wheel, still unformed, damp, malleable mud. It was this formlessness that was the core of his defence against the potter and his shaping touch.

Arjun could not blot this image from his mind: how was it possible that Kishan Singh — uneducated, unconscious of his motives — should be more aware of the weight of the past than he, Arjun?

‘Kishan Singh,’ he said hoarsely, ‘give me some water.’ Kishan Singh handed him a green bottle and he drank, hoping that the water would dissipate the hallucinatory brilliance of the images that were passing before his eyes. But it had exactly the opposite effect. His mind was inflamed with visions, queries. Was it possible — even hypothetically — that his life, his choices, had always been moulded by fears of which he himself was unaware? He thought back to the past: Lankasuka, Manju, Bela, the hours he had spent sitting on the windowsill, the ecstatic sense of liberation that had come over him on learning that he had been accepted into the Military Academy. Fear had played no part in any of this. He had never thought of his life as different from any other; he had never experienced the slightest doubt about his personal sovereignty; never imagined himself to be dealing with anything other than the full range of human choice. But if it were true that his life had somehow been moulded by acts of power of which he was unaware — then it would follow that he had never acted of his own volition; never had a moment of true self-consciousness. Everything he had ever assumed about himself was a lie, an illusion. And if this were so, how was he to find himself now?

thirty-seven

When they left for Morningside, the next day, the roads were even busier than on the way out. But theirs seemed to be the only vehicle going north: everyone else was heading in the opposite direction — towards Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Heads turned to stare as they drove by; they were flagged down several times by helpful people who wanted to make sure they knew where they were going.

They passed dozens of army trucks, many of them travelling two abreast, with their klaxons blaring, crowding them off the road. Over long stretches they were forced to drive on the grassy verge, crawling along at speeds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour.

It was late afternoon when they came into Sungei Pattani: it was just a day since they’d last driven through, but the town already seemed a changed place. In the morning, they’d found it empty and ghostlike: most of its inhabitants had scattered into the countryside; its shops had been boarded and locked. Now Sungei Pattani was empty no longer: everywhere they looked there were soldiers — Australians, Canadians, Indians, British. But these were not the orderly detachments they had grown accustomed to seeing; these were listless, weary-looking men, bunched together in small groups and ragged little clusters. Some were ambling through the streets with their guns slung over their shoulders, like fishing rods; some were lounging in the shade of the shophouse arcades, eating out of cans and packets, scooping out the food with their fingers. Their uniforms were sweat-stained and dirty, their faces streaked with mud. In the town’s parks and roundabouts— where children usually played — they saw groups of exhausted men, lying asleep, with their weapons cradled in their arms.

They began to notice signs of looting: broken windows, gates that had been wrenched open, shops with battered shutters. They saw looters stepping in and out of the breaches— soldiers and locals were milling about together, tearing shops apart. There were no policemen anywhere in sight. It was clear that the civil administration had departed.

‘Faster, Ilongo.’ Dinu rapped on the truck’s window. ‘Let’s get through. .’

They came to a road that was blocked by a group of soldiers. One of them was pointing a gun at the truck, trying to wave it down. Dinu noticed that he was swaying on his feet. He shouted to Ilongo. ‘Keep going; they’re drunk. .’ Ilongo swerved suddenly, taking the truck over the median, into the other lane. Dinu looked back to see the soldiers staring after them, cursing: ‘Fuckin’ monkeys. .’

Ilongo turned into an alley, then took the truck speeding down a side road, out of town. A few miles further on, he spotted an acquaintance standing by the roadside. He stopped to ask what was going on.

The man was a contractor on a rubber plantation not far from Morningside. He told them they were lucky that they were still in possession of their truck: on his estate, every single vehicle had been commandeered. An English officer had come through with a detachment of soldiers earlier in the day: they’d driven their trucks away.

They exchanged glances, all of them thinking immediately of the Daytona, back at its Morningside garage.

Dinu began to chew on his knuckles: ‘Come on, let’s not waste time. .’

A few minutes later they drove past Morningside’s arched gateway. It was as though they had entered another country; here there was no sign of anything untoward. The estate was tranquil and quiet; children waved at them as they drove up the unpaved road. Then the house appeared, far ahead on the slope: it looked majestic, serene.

Ilongo took the truck directly to the garage. He jumped down and pulled the door open. The Daytona was still inside.

Dinu and Alison stood looking at the car. Dinu took hold of her arm and nudged her into the garage: ‘Alison. . you should set off right now. . there’s so little time.’

‘No.’ Alison pulled her arm free and slammed shut the garage door. ‘I’ll leave later — at night. Who knows how long it’ll be before we see each other again? I want to spend a few hours with you before I go.’

In the morning Kishan Singh went to investigate and found that the Japanese had withdrawn from the plantation, under cover of night. He helped Arjun crawl out of the culvert and propped him upright, on the leaf-carpeted ground. Then he eased off Arjun’s wet clothes, wrung them out, and spread them in a sunlit spot.

Arjun’s chest and stomach were puckered from their long immersion, but the pain in his leg had eased. He was relieved to see that the bandage on his thigh had done its work, stopping the flow of blood.

Kishan Singh found a branch that could be used as a crutch and they started off slowly with Arjun stopping every few paces to adjust his grip. Presently they arrived at a gravelled track. Keeping to the shelter of the treeline they followed the direction of the track. In a while they began to notice signs of approaching habitation — shreds of clothing, footprints, discarded eggshells that had been carried away by birds. Soon they saw curls of woodsmoke rising above the trees. They caught the familiar smells of rice and scorched mustard seeds. Then they spotted the plantation’s coolie lines: twin rows of shacks, facing each other across the track. Large numbers of people were milling about in the open and it was clear, even from a distance, that something unusual was under way.

The shacks lay in a gentle depression, a basin, surrounded by higher land on all sides. With Kishan Singh’s help Arjun climbed up a low ridge. Lying flat on their stomachs, they looked down into the basin below.

There were some fifty dwellings in the lines, arranged in parallel rows. At one end there was a small Hindu temple— a tin-roofed shed surrounded by a wall that was painted red and white. Next to the temple there was a clearing with an open-sided shed, also roofed in tin. This was evidently a communal meeting place, it was this shed that was the focus of the excitement. Everyone in the hamlet was heading in its direction.

‘Sah’b. Look.’ Kishan Singh pointed to a black car standing half hidden beside the shed. There was a flag on the bonnet, affixed to an upright rod. The flag seemed very small from that distance and Arjun failed to recognise it at first glance. It was both familiar and unfamiliar; of a design that he knew well, but had not seen in a long time. He turned to Kishan Singh and found his batman watching him warily.

‘Do you know that jhanda, Kishan Singh?’

‘Sah’b, it is the tiranga. .’

Of course — how could he have failed to recognise it? It was the flag of the Indian national movement: a spinning wheel, set against a background of saffron, white and green. He was still puzzling over the flag when there followed a second surprise. A familiar khaki-turbaned figure came out of the shed, walking towards the car. It was Hardy and he was deep in conversation with another man, a stranger — a white-bearded Sikh, dressed in the long, white tunic of a learned man, a Giani.

There was no reason to wait any longer. Arjun struggled to his feet. ‘Kishan Singh, chalo. .’ Leaning heavily on his crutch he began to walk down the slope towards the shed.

‘Hardy! Oye, Hardy!’

Hardy broke off his conversation and looked up. ‘Yaar?

Arjun?’

He came running up the slope, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Yaar — we thought for sure the bastards had got you.’

‘Kishan Singh came back for me,’ Arjun said. ‘I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him.’

Hardy clapped Kishan Singh on the shoulder. ‘Shabash!’

‘Now tell me—’ Arjun jogged Hardy’s elbow—‘what’s going on here?’

‘No hurry, yaar,’ Hardy said. ‘I’ll tell you, but we should get you cleaned up first. Where exactly were you hit?’

‘Hamstring, I think.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘Better today.’

‘Let’s go somewhere where we can sit down. We’ll get your wound dressed.’

Hardy beckoned to a soldier. ‘Jaldi — M.O. ko bhejo.’ He led Arjun into one of the shacks and held the door open. ‘Our HQ,’ he said with a grin.

It was dark inside, the narrow windows being draped in ragged bits of cloth. The walls were of wood, covered with layers of soot, and there was a powerful smell of smoke. Beside one wall there stood a narrow string charpoy: Hardy led Arjun to the bed and helped him sit down.

There was a knock at the door and the medical orderly entered. He subjected Arjun’s bandage to a careful examination and then ripped it off, in one quick movement. Arjun grimaced and Hardy handed him a glass of water.

‘Drink up. You need it.’

Arjun drained the glass and handed it back. ‘Hardy?’ he said. ‘Where’s Bucky?’

‘He’s resting,’ said Hardy. ‘There’s a vacant shed down the road. It was the only suitable place for him. His arm’s been troubling him. We had to give him painkillers. He’s been out all morning.’

The orderly began to swab Arjun’s wound and he braced himself by gripping the edge of the bed.

‘So tell me, Hardy,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘I’ll make it as short as possible,’ said Hardy. ‘It happened like this: last night, not long after we lost you, we came across a couple of rubber tappers. They were Indian and when we spoke to them they said we would be safe in the coolie lines. They brought us here. They were very welcoming: gave us food, beds. Showed us the shed where we put Bucky. We didn’t know this then, but it turned out that some of them were members of the Indian Independence League. They sent word to their office and this morning Gianiji arrived, in a car — flying the flag. You can imagine how amazed we were. Turns out he’s Giani Amreek Singh — recognise the name? His signature was on the pamphlets the Japs dropped on us at Jitra.’

‘Yes,’ said Arjun, drily. ‘I know that name. What does he want?’

Hardy paused, humming a tune under his breath. Arjun knew that he was thinking carefully about what he was going to say next.

‘Arjun, do you remember Captain Mohun Singh?’

‘Yes. 1/14 Punjab, right? Wasn’t he at Jitra too? I thought I saw him on the way to the Asoon line.’

‘Yes. They took cover in the plantation and headed eastwards just as we did.’

‘So what about Captain Mohun Singh?’

‘Gianiji told me that he’d made contact with the Indian Independence League.’

‘Go on.’

‘Wait.’ The orderly had finished dressing Arjun’s wound. Hardy saw him out and then shut the door. He paused, running a finger through his beard. ‘Look, Arjun,’ he said, ‘I don’t know how you’ll take this. I’m just telling you what I know. .’

‘Go on. Hardy.’

‘Captain Mohun Singh has taken a big step.’

‘What step?’

‘He’s decided to break with the Britishers.’

‘What?’

‘Yes,’ said Hardy in a flat, even voice. ‘He’s going to form an independent unit — the Indian National Army. All the 14th Punjab officers are with him — the Indians I mean. Kumar, Masood, many others too. They’ve invited all of us to join.’

‘So?’ Arjun said. ‘Are you thinking of doing it?’

‘What can I say, Arjun?’ Hardy smiled. ‘You know how I feel. I’ve never made a secret of my views — unlike some of you chaps.’

‘Hardy, wait.’ Arjun stabbed a finger at him. ‘Just think a minute. Don’t be in a hurry. How do you know who this Giani is? How do you even know he’s telling the truth about Captain Mohun Singh? How do you know he’s not just a Japanese stooge?’

‘Amreek Singh was in the army too,’ Hardy said. ‘He knew my father — his village isn’t far from ours. If he is a Japanese stooge then there must be some reason why he became one. In any case, who are we to call him a stooge?’ Hardy laughed. ‘After all, aren’t we the biggest stooges of all?’

‘Wait.’ Arjun tried to marshal his thoughts. It was a huge relief to be able to speak out at last, to bring into the open the long arguments that he had conducted with himself in the secrecy of his mind.

‘So what does this mean?’ Arjun said. ‘That Mohun Singh and his lot will be fighting on the Japanese side?’

‘Yes. Of course. For the time being — until the British are out of India.’

‘But Hardy — let’s think this thing through. What do the Japanese want with us? Do they care about us and our independence? All they want is to push the Britishers out so they can step in and take their place. They just want to use us: don’t you see that?’

‘Of course they do, Arjun,’ Hardy shrugged his acquiescence. ‘If it wasn’t them it would be someone else. There’ll always be someone trying to use us. That’s why this is so hard, don’t you see? This is the first time in our lives that we’re trying to make up our own minds — not taking orders.’

‘Hardy, look.’ Arjun made an effort to keep his voice calm. ‘That’s how it may look to you right now, but just ask yourself: what are the chances that we’ll be able to do anything for ourselves? Most likely we’ll just end up helping the Japs to get into India. And what would be the point of exchanging the Britishers for the Japanese? As colonial masters go the British aren’t that bad — better than most. Certainly a lot better than the Japanese would be.’

Hardy gave a full-throated laugh, his eyes shining. ‘Yaar Arjun, think of where we’ve fallen when we start talking of good masters and bad masters. What are we? Dogs? Sheep? There are no good masters and bad masters, Arjun — in a way the better the master, the worse the condition of the slave, because it makes him forget what he is. .’

They were glaring at each other, their faces no more than inches apart. Hardy’s eyelid was twitching and Arjun could feel the heat of his breath. He was the first to pull away.

‘Hardy, it won’t help for us to fight each other.’

‘No.’

Arjun began to chew his knuckles. ‘Listen, Hardy,’ he said. ‘Don’t think that I disagree with what you’re saying. I don’t. I think for the most part you’re right on the mark. But I’m just trying to think about us — about men like you and me— about our place in the world.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Just look at us, Hardy — just look at us. What are we? We’ve learnt to dance the tango and we know how to eat roast beef with a knife and fork. The truth is that except for the colour of our skin, most people in India wouldn’t even recognise us as Indians. When we joined up we didn’t have India on our minds: we wanted to be sahibs and that’s what we’ve become. Do you think we can undo all of that just by putting up a new flag?’

Hardy shrugged dismissively. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m a simple soldier, yaar. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at. To me, it’s a question of right and wrong — what’s worth fighting for and what’s not. That’s all.’

There was a knock on the door. Hardy opened it to see Giani Amreek Singh standing outside.

‘Everyone’s waiting. .’

‘Gianiji, ek minit. .’ Hardy turned back to Arjun. ‘Look, Arjun—’ his voice was tired after the effort of the argument— ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Gianiji has offered to take us through the Jap lines, to Mohun Singh. For myself I’ve made up my mind already. I’m going to explain this to the men; I’m going to tell them why I think this is the right thing to do. They can decide for themselves. Do you want to come and listen?’

Arjun nodded. ‘Yes.’

Hardy handed Arjun his crutch and they went together to the communal shed, walking slowly down the gravel track. The shed was full: the soldiers were at the front, squatting in orderly rows. Behind them were the inhabitants of the coolie lines: the men were in sarongs, the women in saris. Many of the tappers had children in their arms. At one end of the shed there stood a table and a couple of chairs. Hardy took his place behind the table while Arjun and Giani Amreek Singh seated themselves on the chairs. There was a lot of noise: people were whispering, talking, some of the children were giggling at the novelty of the occasion. Hardy had to shout to make himself heard.

Once Hardy began, Arjun realised, with some surprise, that he was a talented speaker, almost a practised orator. His voice filled the shed, his words echoing off the tin roof—duty, country, freedom. Arjun was listening intently when he became aware that a film of sweat was running down his face. He looked down and realised that he was dripping — sweat was pouring off his elbows and off his legs. He felt himself growing feverish as he had the night before.

Suddenly the shed rang to the sound of massed voices. The noise was deafening. Arjun heard Hardy bellowing into the crowd: ‘Are you with me?’

There was another eruption; a huge burst of sound welled up to the roof and came echoing back. The soldiers were on their feet. A couple of them linked arms and began to dance the bhangra, shaking their shoulders and stamping their feet.

Behind them the workers were shouting too — men, women, children — throwing things in the air, clapping, waving. Arjun looked at Kishan Singh and saw that his face was flushed, joyful, his eyes alight.

Arjun noted, in a detached and almost disinterested way, that since the time he’d entered the shed, everything seemed to have altered. It was as though the whole world had suddenly changed colour, assumed a different guise. The realities of a few minutes before now seemed like an incomprehensible dream: had he really been surprised to look over the bluff and see an Indian flag in the coolie lines? But where else would such a flag be? Was it really true that Kishan Singh’s grandfather had won a decoration at Flanders? Was it true that Kishan Singh was the same man that he had always taken him to be — the most loyal of soldiers, descended from generations of loyal soldiers? He looked at the dancing men: how was it possible that he had served with those men for so long and never had an inkling that their acquiescence was not what it seemed to be? And how was it possible that he had never known this even of himself?

Was this how a mutiny was sparked? In a moment of heedlessness, so that one became a stranger to the person one had been a moment before? Or was it the other way round? That this was when one recognised the stranger that one had always been to oneself; that all one’s loyalties and beliefs had been misplaced?

But where would his loyalties go now that they were unmoored? He was a military man and he knew that nothing— nothing important — was possible without loyalty, without faith. But who would claim his loyalty now? The old loyalties of India, the ancient ones — they’d been destroyed long ago; the British had built their Empire by effacing them. But the Empire was dead now — he knew this because he had felt it die within himself, where it had held its strongest dominion — and with whom was he now to keep faith? Loyalty, commonalty, faith — these things were as essential and as fragile as the muscles of the human heart; easy to destroy, impossible to rebuild. How would one begin the work of re-creating the tissues that bound people to each other? This was beyond the abilities of someone such as himself; someone trained to destroy. It was a labour that would last not one year, not ten, not fifty — it was the work of centuries.

‘So, Arjun?’ Suddenly Hardy was kneeling in front of him, looking into his face. He was beaming, glowing with triumph.

‘Arjun? What are you going to do then? Are you with us or against us?’

Arjun reached for his crutch and pushed himself to his feet. ‘Listen, Hardy. Before we think of anything else — there’s something we have to do.’

‘What?’

‘Bucky, the CO — we have to let him go.’

Hardy stared at him, without uttering a sound.

‘We have to do it,’ Arjun continued. ‘We can’t be responsible for his being taken prisoner by the Japs. He’s a very fair man, Hardy, and he’s been good to serve under — you know that. We have to let him go. We owe him that.’

Hardy scratched his chin. ‘I can’t allow it, Arjun. He’d give away our position, our movements. .’

Arjun interrupted him. ‘It’s not a question of what you’ll allow, Hardy,’ he said tiredly. ‘You’re not my senior, and I’m not yours. I’m not asking you. I’m letting you know that I’m going to give the CO some food and some water and then I’m going to let him find his way back across the lines. If you want to stop me you’ll have a fight on your hands. I think some of the men would take my side. You decide.’

A thin smile crossed Hardy’s face. ‘Look at you, yaar.’ His voice was acid with sarcasm. ‘Even at a time like this you’re a chaploos—still thinking of sucking up. What are you hoping for? That he’ll speak up for you if things don’t turn out right? Take out a little insurance against the future?’

‘You bastard.’ Arjun lurched towards Hardy, reaching for his collar, swinging his crutch.

Hardy stepped away easily. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Theek hai. Do what you want. I’ll send someone along to show you where Bucky is. Just be quick — that’s all I ask.’

thirty-eight

Alison and Dinu spent an hour clearing out the dark room. There was no electricity and they had to work by candlelight. They took down his enlarger, stacked his trays, packed away his prints and his negatives, wrapping them in old cloth and laying them in boxes. When they were done, Dinu snuffed out the candle. They stood still in the airless warmth of the cupboard-like room, listening to the night-time buzz of cicadas and the croaking of wet-weather frogs. Intermittently they could hear a distant, staccato sound, a kind of barking, as though a pack of dogs had been disturbed in a sleeping village.

‘Guns,’ she whispered.

Dinu reached for her in the darkness, pulling her towards him.

‘They’re very far away.’

He held her, his arms tightening round her body. He opened the palms of his hands and ran them over her hair, her shoulders, along the concave curve of her back. His fingers snagged in the strap of her dress and he peeled the fabric slowly away, picking it off her shoulders, tugging it back. Sinking to his knees, he ran his face down the length of her body, touching her with his cheek, his nose, his tongue.

They lay on the cramped floor, pushed up close, legs intertwined, thigh on thigh, arms extended, the flatness of their bellies imprinted on each other. Membranes of sweat hung cobwebbed between their bodies, joining them, pulling them together.

‘Alison. . what am I going to do? Without you?’

‘And me, Dinu? What about me? What will I do?’

Afterwards, they lay still, pillowing each other’s heads on their arms. He lit a cigarette and held it to her lips.

‘One day,’ he said, ‘one day, when we’re back here together, I’ll show you the true magic of a dark room. .’

‘And what’s that?’

‘When you print by contact. . when you lay the negative on the paper and watch them come to life. . the darkness of the one becomes the light of the other. The first time I saw it happen I thought, what must it be like to touch like this?. . with such utter absorption?. . For one thing to become irradiated with the shadows of another?’

‘Dinu.’ She ran her fingertips over his face.

‘If only I could hold you in that way. . so that you were imprinted on me. . every part of me. .’

‘Dinu, there’ll be time.’ She took his face between her hands and kissed him. ‘We’ll have the rest of our lives. .’ Rising to her knees she lit the candle again. Holding the flame in front of his face, she looked fiercely into his eyes, as though she were trying to bore into his head.

‘It won’t be long, Dinu?’ she said. ‘Will it?’

‘No. . not long.’

‘Do you really believe that? Or are you lying — for my sake? Tell me the truth, Dinu: I’d rather know.’

He gripped her shoulders. ‘Yes, Alison.’ He spoke with all the conviction he could muster. ‘Yes. We’ll be back here before long. . We’ll be back at Morningside. . Everything will be the same, except. .’

‘Except?’ She bit her lip, as though she were afraid of hearing what he was going to say.

‘Except that we’ll be married.’

‘Yes.’ She burst into delighted laughter. ‘Yes,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘We’ll be married. We’ve left it too long. It was a mistake.’

She picked up the candle and ran out of the room. He lay still, listening to her footsteps: the house was quieter than he’d ever known it to be. Downstairs, Saya John was in bed, exhausted and asleep.

He got up and followed her through the dark corridors to her bedroom. Alison was unlocking closets, rummaging through drawers. Suddenly she turned to him, holding out her hand. ‘Look.’ Two gold rings glinted in the candlelight.

‘They belonged to my parents,’ she said. She reached for his hand and pushed one of the rings over the knuckle of his ring finger. ‘With this ring I thee wed.’

She laughed, placing the other ring in his palm. Then she extended a finger, holding her hand in front of her.

‘Go on,’ she challenged him. ‘Do it. I dare you.’

He turned the ring over in his hands and then slipped it into place, on her finger. ‘Are we married now?’

She tossed her head, laughing, and held her finger up to the candlelight. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In a way. In our own eyes. When you’re away you’ll still be mine because of the ring.’

She shook free the mosquito net that hung down from the ceiling, draping it over the sides of her bed. ‘Come.’ She blew out the candle and drew him into the net.

An hour later, Dinu woke to the sound of approaching planes. He reached for her hand and found that she was already awake, sitting up with her back against the headboard. ‘Alison. .’

‘Don’t say it’s time. Not yet.’

They held each other and listened. The planes were directly overhead, flying low. The windows rattled as they went past.

‘When I was little,’ Dinu said, ‘my father once told me a story about Mandalay. When the king was sent into exile, the palace girls had to walk through the city, to the river. . My mother was with them and my father followed, keeping to the shadows. It was a long walk and the girls were tired and miserable. . My father put together all his money and bought some sweets. . to lift their spirits. The girls were guarded by soldiers — foreigners, Englishmen. . Somehow he — my father — managed to slip through the cordon. . He gave my mother the packet of sweets. Then he ran back into the shadows. . He watched her open the packet. . He was amazed. . The first thing she did was to offer some to the soldiers who were marching beside her. At first he was angry; he felt betrayed. . Why was she giving them away. . especially to these men, her captors? But then, slowly he understood what she was doing and he was glad. . He saw that this was the right thing to do — a way to stay alive. To shout defiance would have served no purpose. .’

‘I think you’re trying to tell me something, Dinu,’ she said quietly. ‘What is it?’

‘I just want you to be careful, Alison. . not to be headstrong. . not to be the woman you are, just for a while. . to be cautious, quiet. .’

‘I’ll try, Dinu.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I promise. And you too: you have to be careful as well.’

‘I will — it’s in my nature. We’re not the same in that way. . That’s why I worry about you.’

Another flight of planes went by. It was impossible to keep still any longer, with the windows rattling as though they would break. Alison swung her legs off the bed. She picked up the handbag in which she carried the Daytona’s keys. It was unexpectedly heavy. She opened the clasp, looked inside and raised an eyebrow at Dinu.

‘It’s your father’s revolver. I found it in a drawer.’

‘Is it loaded?’

‘Yes. I checked.’

She shut the clasp and slung the bag over her shoulder. ‘It’s time.’

They went down to find Saya John sitting on the veranda, in his favourite wing-chair. Alison dropped to her knees beside him and put an arm around his waist.

‘I want your blessings, Grandfather.’

‘Why?’

‘Dinu and I are going to be married.’

His face broke into a smile. She saw to her delight that he had understood; that his eyes were clear and unclouded. He motioned to both of them to come closer and put his arms round their shoulders.

‘Rajkumar’s son and Matthew’s daughter.’ He swayed gently from side to side, holding their heads like trophies, under his arms. ‘What could be better? The two of you have joined the families. Your parents will be delighted.’

They went outside and found that it had begun to rain. Dinu buckled down the Daytona’s hood and held the door open for Saya John. The old man gave him a pat on the back as he stepped in.

‘Tell Rajkumar that it’ll have to be a big wedding,’ he said. ‘I shall insist on having the Archbishop.’

‘Yes.’ Dinu tried to smile. ‘Of course.’

Then Dinu went to Alison’s side and knelt beside the window. She would not look at him.

‘We won’t say goodbye.’

‘No.’

She started the car and he stepped back. At the bottom of the drive, the Daytona came to a stop. He saw her leaning out, her head silhouetted against the car’s rain-haloed lights. She raised an arm to wave and he waved back. Then he ran up the stairs, racing from window to window. He watched the Daytona’s lights until they disappeared.

The shed in which Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland had spent the night was a small red-brick structure, surrounded by trees. It was about a quarter of a mile from the coolie lines. Arjun was led there by a fast-talking young ‘contractor’, dressed in khaki shorts: it was he who carried the water bottle and the cloth bundle of food that had been prepared for the Lieutenant-Colonel.

The contractor showed Arjun a track that led southwards through a range of low hills. ‘There’s a town a couple of miles away,’ he said. ‘The last we heard it was still held by the British.’ They came up to the steps that led into the building. The contractor handed over the water bottle and the bundle of food that he had been carrying.

‘The colonel will be safe if he keeps to this track. It won’t take him more than an hour or two to the town, even if he walks very slowly.’

Arjun went gingerly up the steps to the door. He knocked and when there was no answer, he used the tip of his crutch to push the door open. He found Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland lying on the cement floor, on a mattress.

‘Sir.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland sat up suddenly, peering around him. He said sharply: ‘Who is it?’

‘Lieutenant Roy. Sir.’ Arjun saluted, leaning on his crutch.

‘Oh, Roy.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland’s voice warmed.

‘I’m glad to see you’

‘I’m glad to see you too, sir.’

‘You’re wounded — what happened?’

‘Bullet through the hamstring, sir. It’ll be all right. And how’s your arm?’

‘Been acting up a bit.’

‘Do you think you’re well enough to walk, sir?’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’ He glanced sharply at the cloth bundle and the water bottle that Arjun was carrying in his hands. ‘What have you got there, Roy?’

‘Some food and water, sir. The Japanese are advancing down the north — south highway. If you head in the other direction you should be able to get across the lines.’

‘Get across the lines?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland repeated this slowly to himself. ‘Am I going alone then? What about you? And the others?’

‘We’re staying here, sir. For the moment.’

‘I see.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland rose to his feet, holding his right arm stiffly across his chest. He took the water bottle from Arjun and examined it, turning it over in his hands. ‘So you’re going over, are you — to the Japs?’

‘That’s not how I would put it, sir.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland looked at Arjun closely, frowning.

‘You know Roy,’ he said at last. ‘You, I never took for a turncoat. Some of the others, yes — you could see where the possibility might lie. But you: you don’t have the look of a traitor.’

‘Some would say that I’ve been a traitor all along, sir.’ ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland shook his head. ‘In fact you don’t believe any of it.’

‘Sir?’

‘You don’t. Or else you wouldn’t be here, bringing me food and water. Only an incompetent soldier would help an enemy escape. Or a fool.’

‘I felt I had to, sir.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ said Arjun, ‘it’s not your fault, sir. You’ve always been fair to us. You were the best CO we could have hoped for — under the circumstances.’

‘I suppose you expect me to thank you for saying that?’ ‘I don’t expect anything, sir.’ Arjun held the door open. ‘But if you don’t mind, sir, there’s not much time. I’ll show you the way.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland stepped out and Arjun followed him. They went down the steps and into the trees. When they were a little distance away, Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland cleared his throat. ‘Look, Roy,’ he said. ‘It’s not too late. You can still change your mind. Come away with me. We can give them the slip. We’ll forget about this. . this incident.’

A moment passed before Arjun answered. ‘Sir, may I say something?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Sir, do you remember when you were teaching at the academy — you once quoted someone in one of your lectures. An English general — Munro, I think his name was. You quoted something he’d said over a hundred years ago about the Indian army: The spirit of independence will spring up in this army long before it is even thought of among the people. .’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland nodded: ‘Yes. I remember that. Very well.’

‘All of us in the class were Indians and we were a little shocked that you’d chosen to quote something like this to us. We insisted that Munro had been talking nonsense. But you disagreed. .’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes. At the time I thought you were playing devil’s advocate; that you were just trying to provoke us. But that wasn’t true, was it, sir? The truth is you knew all along: you knew what we’d do — you knew it before we did. You knew because you made us. If I were to come away with you now no one would be more surprised than you. I think, in your heart, you would despise me a little.’

‘That’s rubbish, Roy. Don’t be a fool, man. There’s still time.’

‘No, sir.’ Arjun brought himself to a halt and held out his hand. ‘I think this is it, sir. This is where I’m going to turn round.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland looked at his hand and then at him. ‘I’m not going to shake your hand, Roy,’ he said quietly, in an even, emotionless voice. ‘You can justify what you’re doing to yourself in a thousand different ways, but you should make no mistake about the truth, Roy. You’re a traitor. You’re a disgrace to the regiment and to your country. You’re scum. When the time comes you’ll be hunted down, Roy. When you’re sitting in front of a court-martial I’ll be there. I’ll see you hang, Roy. I will. You should have not a moment’s doubt of that.’

Arjun dropped his hand. For the first time in many days he felt completely certain of his mind. He smiled.

‘There’s one thing you can be sure of, sir,’ he said. ‘On that day, if it comes, you’ll have done your duty, sir, and I’ll have done mine. We’ll look at each other as honest men — for the first time. For that alone this will have been worthwhile.’

He saluted, balancing on his crutch. For an instant, Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland hesitated and then, involuntarily, his hand rose to acknowledge the salute. He turned on his heel and walked into the trees.

Arjun watched him leave and then he swung himself round on his crutch and went hobbling back to the coolie lines.

Alison had been driving for about an hour when she noticed that the Daytona’s pedals were growing hot under her feet. She began to watch the bonnet and caught sight of leaking wisps of steam. She pulled off the road, and when her grandfather turned to look at her, she flashed him a reassuring smile. ‘It’s all right, Baba,’ she said, ‘don’t worry. It’ll just take a minute.’ She left him sitting inside and climbed out.

With the car at a standstill, she could see steam leaking through the grille. The bonnet was too hot to touch. She wrapped her scarf around her hand and felt under the hood for the catch. A geyser of steam gushed into her face and she sprang back, coughing.

It was very dark. She reached through the window on the driver’s side and turned the headlights on. She spotted a branch, lying on the ground, near her feet. She used it to lever up the hood and a cloud of steam welled out. She propped the bonnet open and went back to the driver’s window to turn the headlights off.

‘It won’t be long, Baba,’ she said. ‘We’ll just wait a while.’ To the north, she could see flashes of light. On the highway the flow of traffic had dwindled to an occasional speeding car. She had the feeling that she was among the last on the road; those who’d planned to leave were long gone and everyone else was waiting to see what would happen next.

The night was cool and it wasn’t long before the steam from the radiator dissipated. She wrapped her hand in the scarf again and unscrewed the cap. Then she fetched a bottle and poured in some water: it boiled up almost immediately, frothing over the top. She splashed some water over the radiator and waited a while longer before pouring the rest in. Slamming the hood shut, she went back to the driver’s seat.

She gave her grandfather a smile. ‘It’s all right now,’ she said. ‘We’ll be fine.’

She turned the key and was hugely relieved when the engine responded. Switching on the headlamps she pulled on to the road again. No other cars had passed them in a while. With the road to herself, she was tempted to drive at high speed. She had to remind herself that she had to go slowly if the car was not to overheat.

They’d gone only a few miles when the engine started to knock. She knew now that there was no point trying to go any further. At the next turn she pulled off the main road. She was on a dusty side road, little more than a gravelled track. On both sides, there were stands of rubber: she felt obscurely grateful for this, glad to be in a familiar environment.

The best thing to do, she decided, was to stay close to the road: perhaps she’d be able to flag down some help in the morning. She took the car a short distance down the track and then turned into the trees, pulling up at a spot that was sheltered by a bush. She turned the engine off and opened her door.

‘We’ll stay here for a while, Baba,’ she said. ‘We can go on when the light’s better.’ She prised the bonnet open again and came back to the driver’s seat. ‘Go to sleep, Baba,’ she said. ‘There’s no point staying awake. There’s nothing we can do right now.’

She climbed out and walked around the car. With the headlights turned off, it was very dark: she could see no lights and no sign of habitation. She went back to the driver’s seat and sat down again. Saya John was sitting up, looking intently at his hand. His fingers were spread out in front of him, as though he were counting something.

‘Tell me, Alison,’ he said. ‘Today is Saturday — isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ She tried to think what day it was but she’d lost track. ‘I don’t know. Why do you ask?’

‘I think it’s Sunday tomorrow. I hope Ilongo remembers that I have to go to church.’ She stared at him. ‘I’m sorry, Baba,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to miss church tomorrow.’

He glanced at her like a disappointed child and she was suddenly contrite for having snapped at him. She reached for his hand. ‘Just this once, Baba. We’ll go to Mass in Singapore, next week.’

He gave her a smile and leaned back, resting his head against his seat. She looked at her watch. It was four in the morning. It would be dawn soon. Once it was light she’d go back to the highway and see if she could flag down a truck or a car: something was sure to come along. She let her head fall back against the seat: she was tired — not afraid, just tired. She could hear her grandfather, drifting off to sleep, breathing slowly and deeply. She shut her eyes.

She was woken by a shaft of sunlight, shining through the feathery canopy above. She stirred and her hand fell on the seat beside her. It was empty. She sat up, startled, rubbing her eyes. When she looked at the seat she saw that her grandfather was gone.

She opened the door and stepped out. ‘Baba?’ He’d probably gone into the trees to relieve himself. She raised her voice. ‘Baba — are you there?’ Shading her eyes, she turned all the way around, peering into the dim tunnels of rubber around her. He was nowhere to be seen.

Stepping around the car, she stumbled on his brown leather suitcase. It was lying open on the ground, with clothes spilling out, scattered among the leaves. He’d been looking for something — but what? Glancing around, she spotted some clothes, lying on the ground, a few feet away. She went to investigate and found a pair of trousers and a shirt, the clothes her grandfather had been wearing the night before.

A thought struck her. She darted back to his suitcase and rummaged quickly through the rest of his clothes, looking for the dark suit that he liked to wear to church. It wasn’t there: she was sure that he’d had it with him when they set out. It wasn’t like him to go anywhere without it. That was what he’d changed in to; she was sure of it. He’d probably wandered off, along the highway, thinking that it would lead him to his church. She would have to hurry if she was to find him before he got into trouble.

She reached into the car and snatched her handbag off the seat. It occurred to her that she could try and follow in the car but she decided against it. There was no telling how much time she’d waste trying to start it. It would probably be quicker on foot. Slinging her handbag over her shoulder, she began to run towards the highway.

She could tell, even when she was a good distance away, that there was no traffic. The highway was very quiet. But when she was some twenty yards from the road she heard some distant voices. She stopped to look, glancing sidewise along a corridor of tree trunks. She spotted a group of bicyclists, in the distance: there were some half-dozen of them and they were cycling in her direction.

Her first reaction was relief; she knew that if she ran hard, she’d be able to reach the road just as the cyclists were going past. Maybe they’d be able to help. She took a couple of steps and then she stopped and looked again, sheltering behind the trunk of a tree. She realised now that the bicyclists were all wearing caps and that their clothes were all of exactly the same colour. Grateful for the shelter of the plantation, she slipped a little closer to the road, being careful to stay out of view.

When the cyclists were some twenty yards away, she saw that they were Japanese soldiers. They were unshaven and their grey uniforms were spattered with dust and mud, their tunics drenched in sweat. Some had caps with long neckcloths while others wore helmets, covered with nets. They were wearing tightly bound puttees and canvas shoes. The man who was in the lead had a sword attached to his belt: the scabbard was clattering rhythmically against his bicycle’s mudguard. The others were carrying rifles, fitted with bayonets. Their bicycles creaked and squealed as they went past. She could hear them panting as they pedalled.

A short distance ahead, there was a corner where the highway described a sharp turn. The cyclists were still in view as they went around the bend: she heard one of them shout, raising his hand to point down the road. Suddenly she was seized by a sharp sense of misgiving. She’d thought that she’d find her grandfather heading back, in the direction of Sungei Pattani: but what if, instead, he’d headed in the other direction?

She glanced in both directions and saw that the highway was empty. Sprinting across the road, she slipped into the stands of rubber on the far side. Heading diagonally through the trees, she caught sight of the highway again: she saw the backs of the cyclists, pedalling along, pointing at a diminutive figure a long way ahead. It was a man, wearing a hat and a suit, ambling along by the side of the road. Alison knew that it was her grandfather. The soldiers were closing on him, pedalling hard.

She began to run, fast, dodging between the trees. She was still several hundred yards away when the soldiers caught up with Saya John. She saw them dismounting, letting their bicycles drop on the grass. They surrounded him and the sound of a voice came floating back to her: one of the soldiers was shouting, saying something she couldn’t follow. She began to mumble to herself as she ran, ‘Please, please. .’

She could tell that her grandfather hadn’t understood what the soldiers were saying. He touched his hat and turned away, trying to push past them. One of the soldiers put out a hand to stop him and he waved it aside. All the soldiers were shouting at him now, but he seemed not to hear anything. He was flicking his hand at them, as though trying to brush off street-corner loiterers. Then one of the soldiers struck him, slapping him hard across his face, knocking him off his feet. He fell heavily to the ground.

Alison came to a stop, panting, leaning her weight against a tree trunk, holding it with both hands. If only he would keep still, they would go away, she was sure of that. She began to mumble to herself, praying that he’d been knocked unconscious. They wouldn’t bother with him: surely they’d see that he was just a confused old man; that he meant no harm.

But then her grandfather’s prone body began to move again. He stirred and sat up with his legs spread out in front of him, like a child waking in the morning. He reached for his hat, put it on his head and pushed himself to his feet again. He looked at the soldiers with a bewildered frown, rubbing his face. And then he turned his back on them and began to walk away.

She saw one of the soldiers pulling his rifle off his back. He shouted something and cocked the gun so that the bayonet was pointing directly at the old man’s back.

Almost without thinking, Alison reached for her handbag. She pulled out the revolver and dropped to one knee. Crossing her left arm in front of her, she steadied her wrist against her forearm, just as her father had taught her. She took aim at the man with the bayonet, hoping to drop him. But at exactly that moment, another soldier stepped across her line of fire; the bullet hit him in the ribs and he fell screaming to the ground. The man with the bayonet froze for an instant, but then, suddenly, as though triggered by a reflex, his arm moved, driving the blade in and out of Saya John’s body, in one quick motion. Saya John toppled over, falling face first on the road.

She was perfectly calm now, breathing evenly. She took aim carefully, and fired again. This time she hit the man with the bayonet. He screamed and dropped his rifle, falling face first on the ground. Her third shot went wide, ploughing up a divot of grass on the roadside. The soldiers were flat on their stomachs now, and a couple of them were sheltering behind Saya John’s inert body. Her targets were smaller now, and her fourth shot went wide. But with her fifth, she hit another soldier, sending him spinning on his side.

Then, suddenly, something slammed into her with great force, throwing her on her back. She could feel no pain, but she knew she’d been hit. She lay still, looking up at the arched branches of the rubber trees around her. They were swaying in the breeze, like fans.

She was glad that it would end like this; with her eyes resting on something familiar. She remembered what Dinu had said about his mother and the sweets she had shared with her captors. The memory made her smile; that wouldn’t have suited her at all. She was glad that she’d made them pay; that she hadn’t gone without striking back.

She could hear their footsteps now and knew that they were running towards her. She raised the gun to her temple and shut her eyes.

thirty-nine

Doh Say, ever the loyal friend, forswore his family’s Christmas celebrations in order to be of help to Rajkumar. He arrived in Rangoon on December 22. Just as Rajkumar had expected, he quickly took matters in hand, arranging for the hiring of a team of elephants and some half-dozen oo-sis. Neel had already organised the rental of two lorries. It was decided that the clearing of the Pazundaung timberyard would start the next day.

They left the house early in the morning — Doh Say, Raymond, Neel and Rajkumar. They went in the Packard, with Neel driving. Dolly and Manju waved them off. They got to the yard to find that the oo-sis had already arrived, along with their elephants. The rented lorries were there too. Rajkumar was relieved: he’d been hoping to get an early start. He’d worried that the teams might turn up late.

But then, an unexpected hitch arose. ‘We would like to talk to you,’ one of the lorry drivers said. A delegation came up to the small cabin that served as an office; it turned out that the oo-sis and lorry drivers wanted a part-payment at midday.

It was not uncommon, of course, for hired crews to make demands just as the day’s work was getting started: that was exactly when they were in the best position to bargain. Rajkumar’s original plan had been to go to the bank in the early afternoon, when the work was almost done. With the Christmas holidays beginning tomorrow, this was the last day in the week when the banks would be open. He’d taken the precaution of visiting the bank the day before to make sure that the money was ready and available. He could have taken it with him right then, but had thought better of it. It wasn’t safe — especially now that they were alone at home, with no gatekeepers to keep watch. He’d decided to come back when the work was near completion.

This new development meant that Rajkumar would have to change his plans. He persuaded the men to start work, promising to have the money ready at midday. He went to the window of his office to watch them get started.

He smiled as he looked down on the yard, with its huge, neat stacks of timber. It was unnerving to think that this was the sum total of everything he possessed. He knew he ought to be on his way, but he couldn’t help dawdling. Even now, after all these years, he could not resist the spectacle of watching elephants at work: once again he found himself marvelling at the sure-footedness with which they made their way through the narrow aisles, threading their great bodies between the timber stacks. There was something almost preternatural about the dexterity with which they curled their trunks around the logs.

He spotted Neel, darting between the elephants. It made Rajkumar nervous to see his son down there, with the animals.

‘Neel,’ Rajkumar called out. ‘Be careful.’

Neel turned round, a wide smile on his bearded face. He waved.

‘I’ll be fine, Apé. You should be on your way to the bank now. Don’t leave it too late.’

Rajkumar looked at his watch. ‘There’s still time. The bank’s not even open yet.’

Doh Say added his voice to Neel’s. ‘Yes, go now, Rajkumar. The sooner you get there, the sooner you’ll be back. I’ll take care of everything here — it’ll be all right.’

Rajkumar walked out into the street and found a cycle-rickshaw. The driver pedalled hard and they soon found themselves nearing the centre of the city. The traffic was heavy and Rajkumar was afraid that he’d be held up. But the driver threaded deftly through the streets and brought him to the bank in good time.

Rajkumar paid off the driver and climbed a wide flight of stairs. The bank’s main doors were closed: it was still a quarter of an hour to opening time. Some half-dozen men were already waiting at the door. Rajkumar joined the line. The morning was exceptionally clear with scarcely a cloud in the sky. It was an unusually cool day for Rangoon and many passers-by were swathed in woollen shawls and cardigans.

The bank was situated at a busy intersection. The surrounding streets were jammed with the usual start-of-the-day rush-hour traffic. Buses were inching along the road, belching smoke; under looped awnings of wire, trams were rumbling by, their bells tinkling.

Suddenly, an air-raid siren started up, somewhere in the distance. Neither Rajkumar nor the people around him paid much attention. Air-raid warnings had sounded several times over the last few weeks — they had all proved to be false alarms. At the bottom of the bank’s steps, a footpath hawker was frying baya-gyaw in a large, soot-blackened pot. She grimaced in irritation and went on with what she was doing. Rajkumar’s response was much the same as hers: he was annoyed to think of the delays the sirens would cause.

The sirens sounded a second time and now people paid more attention. It was unusual to have two alarms going off in such quick succession. Heads appeared in the windows of the buses and trams; eyes turned towards the sky as though in search of rain.

Rajkumar spotted an air-raid warden in a tin hat. He was walking down the street, waving his arms at pedestrians. Rajkumar knew the warden: he was an Anglo-Burmese bookmaker, an acquaintance from his own racing days. He went hurrying down the steps to accost him.

The warden wasted no time on civilities. ‘Better find a safe place, Mr Raha,’ he said brusquely. ‘The balloon is definitely up. They’ve passed the second warning system.’ Cupping his hands around his mouth the warden began to shout at the passers-by: ‘Get out of here; get to your shelters, go home. .’

A few people stared but otherwise no one paid attention. The warden fumed, with his hands on his hips. ‘Look at them; they think it’s a bloody circus. .’

There was a small patch of garden in front of the bank. Months before, slit trenches had been dug between the ornamental palms. But in the meantime evil-smelling pools of moisture had accumulated in the trenches, along with white-haired mango-pits and other bits of refuse. People balked at jumping in.

Rajkumar went back up the steps to see if the bank had opened. Just then the air-raid sirens went off, for the third time. Now everyone took notice. The traffic on the streets came to an abrupt halt. There was no panic and no running for shelter. Instead people climbed out of their trams and buses and stood on the streets in a half-disbelieving daze, looking skywards, shading their eyes against the light. Several men came up the stairs to stand beside Rajkumar: the bank’s threshold commanded an excellent view of the surroundings.

‘Listen.’ A low steady droning became audible in the distance.

The sound lent a sudden and ominous credibility to the idea of an imminent air raid. There was a moment of uncertainty and then panic swept like a gale down the streets. People began to run. Some darted indoors, others hurried away, dodging through the stalled traffic. The foul-smelling trenches at the corner were filled in seconds.

Somewhere nearby, a woman let out a howl of pain. Spinning round, Rajkumar saw that the baya-gyaw cart had been upended at the bottom of the steps; the vendor’s pot had tipped over, spattering her with boiling oil. She was running down the road, shrieking, clawing at her clothes with both hands.

Rajkumar decided not to brave the panicked crowd. Instead he braced himself against the bank’s heavy doors. The distant drone changed into a loud rhythmic noise. Then the first planes came into view: tiny specks, approaching from the east. The city’s anti-aircraft guns opened up with a dull, thudding sound. The guns were few and they were concentrated mainly in the vicinity of Mingaladon airport and the military cantonment. But there was something reassuring about the thought that the city’s defences were operational. Even in the midst of the panic, many people could be heard to cheer.

The bombers changed formation as they approached the eastern peripheries of the city, dipping lower in the sky. Their fuselages opened and their cargo of bombs began to descend, trailing behind the craft like glinting, tinsel ribbons. It was as though an immense silver curtain had suddenly appeared over the eastern horizon.

The first bombs fell several miles away, the explosions following in evenly spaced rhythmic succession. Suddenly there was a booming sound, several times louder than all the preceding blasts. From somewhere in the eastern reaches of the city, a huge cloud of black smoke mushroomed up towards the sky, almost engulfing the bombers.

‘They’ve hit the oil tanks,’ someone said, ‘on the Pazundaung Creek.’

Rajkumar knew at once that this was right. His stomach lurched. The city’s main oil reservoirs were on the far side of the creek, well within sight of his timberyard. He looked up at the bombers and saw that they were making another run over the same area. He realised now that they were not bombing blindly: they were targeting the city’s long waterfront, aiming for its mills, warehouses, tanks and railway lines.

Suddenly Rajkumar thought of the elephants, working in his yard. He recalled how unpredictable these animals were in their response to noise. It sometimes took just a single sharp sound to stampede a herd. Once, in the old days, at a teak camp, he had witnessed such a stampede; the echo of a gunshot had startled an old cow elephant into producing a distinctive trumpeting note; this had triggered an instinctive response in the herd. There had been a lot of damage and it had taken the oo-sis hours to regain control of their animals.

What would happen if a team of elephants were to panic inside the log-jammed confines of a timberyard? It was unthinkable.

Rajkumar could no longer bear to remain where he was. He set off on foot, in the direction of Pazundaung. The bombs were coming closer now, falling in curtains, floating towards the city’s centre. Suddenly a bullock-cart appeared directly ahead, racing at him down the footpath. The runaway bullocks were foaming at the mouth, showing the whites of their eyes. The driver was screaming, holding on to the sides of the cart. Rajkumar jumped aside just in time to let it pass by.

A flight of planes was passing directly overhead. Rajkumar looked up into the bright, clear December sky. They swooped downwards and their bays opened. Strings of bombs appeared, falling sidewise, catching the light, sparkling like diamonds.

There were no trenches nearby. Rajkumar crouched in a doorway, holding his hands over his head. The air shook and he was aware of the sound of shattering glass.

He lost track of how long he stayed there. He stirred only when he felt a warmth at his back. Turning around he saw a dog, pushing against him, whimpering in fear. He thrust the dog aside and stood up. Columns of smoke were climbing into the sky from all around him. He thought of Dolly, Manju and Jaya, his grandchild. He glanced in the direction of Kemendine and was relieved to see that that part of the city was relatively unaffected. He started to walk in the other direction, towards his timberyard, in Pazundaung.

On Merchant Street a marketplace had been hit. Fruit and vegetables lay scattered along the sides of the road. Already beggars and ragpickers were scratching through the debris. He noticed the burnt-out remains of a shop and recalled, almost with a sense of nostalgia, that this was his favourite place to buy tandoori chicken. A blast had driven a set of skewers through the clay walls of the oven, breaking it in half, like an eggshell. He heard a man’s voice calling for help. He hurried on. He had no time: he had to get to his yard in Pazundaung.

He passed the storefront of Rowe and Co. The windows were shattered and there were gaping holes in the walls. Looters were climbing in through the gaps. He could see the store’s Christmas tree lying aslant on the floor. There was an old woman working busily beside it, her face white with talcum powder. She was picking cottonwool off the floor, stuffing it into a sack.

In front of the telegraph office a water main had been hit. A ten-foot-high jet was spraying into the sky. There was water everywhere, gathering in puddles, flowing down the road. A whirlpool was swirling around the mouth of the shattered main.

People had been crouching along the walls of the telegraph office when the water source was hit. Many had died. Dismembered limbs could be seen in the pool that was spinning around the main: there was a child’s arm, a leg. Rajkumar averted his eyes and walked on.

Approaching Pazundaung, he saw that both sides of the creek were blanketed in flames. While still a good distance away he spotted the perimeter walls of his yard. They were shrouded in clouds of smoke.

Everything he owned was in that place, all that he had ever worked for; a lifetime’s accumulation of labour stored as a single cache of wood. He thought of the elephants and the bombs falling around them; the flames leaping from the well-stacked wood; the explosions, the trumpeting.

It was he who had concentrated all his holdings in this one place — that too was a part of the plan — and now the bombs had claimed it all. But it didn’t matter; nothing mattered so long as Neel was unharmed. The rest were just things, possessions. But Neel. .

He turned into the alley that led to his yard and saw that it was filled with swirling clouds of smoke. On the skin of his face, he could feel the scorching heat of the fire that was raging through his yard. He shouted into the smoke: ‘Neel.’

He saw a figure taking shape in the distance. He began to run.

‘Neel? Neel?’

It was Doh Say. His lined, wrinkled face was blackened with smoke. He was weeping.

‘Rajkumar. .’

‘Where’s Neel?’

‘Forgive me, Rajkumar.’ Doh Say covered his face. ‘There was nothing I could do. The elephants ran wild. I tried to send your boy away but he wouldn’t listen. The logs got loose and he fell under.’

Now Rajkumar saw that Doh Say had been dragging a body through the alley, pulling it away from the fire. He ran over to it and fell on his knees.

The body was almost unrecognisable, crushed by an immense weight. But despite the terrible disfigurement Rajkumar knew that this was his son and that he was dead.

Once, when she was still a girl, Manju had observed the shaving of a widow’s head. This was at a neighbour’s house in Calcutta: a barber had been paid to do it and the women of the family had been round to help.

In her sewing box Manju came upon a pair of scissors. Seating herself at her dresser she looked into the mirror and tried the scissors on her hair. The blades were dull with use and her hair was strong, thick and black — a young woman’s hair. The scissors were useless. She dropped them back into her sewing box.

The baby began to cry, so Manju shut the door on her. She went down the stairs to the kitchen — a dark, sooty, airless room, at the back of the house. She found a knife, a long, straight-bladed knife with a serrated edge and a wooden handle. She tried it on her hair but found that it was no more use than the scissors.

Casting around for a better instrument, Manju recalled the scythes that had once been used to cut the compound’s grass. These scythes were very sharp: she remembered how the hissing of their blades had echoed through the house. The malis who’d tended the grounds were long gone, but the scythes remained. She knew where they were to be found: in an outhouse by the front gate.

She opened the front door and ran across the compound to the outhouse. The scythes were exactly where she had thought, piled in a heap with the other gardening implements. She stood in the knee-deep grass of the compound and held up her hair, drawing it away from her head. She raised the scythe and hacked at it, blindly, because her hand was behind her head. She saw a lock of hair falling on to the grass and this gave her encouragement. She sawed at another handful and then another. She could see the pile of hair growing in the grass around her feet. The one thing she could not understand was the pain: why should it hurt so much to cut one’s hair?

She heard a voice, speaking softly, somewhere nearby. She turned around and saw that it was Raymond, standing beside her. He put out a hand, reaching for the scythe. She took a step away: ‘You don’t understand. .’ she said. She tried to smile, to let him know that she knew what she was doing and that it could not be done any other way. But suddenly his hands were on her wrist. He twisted her arm and the scythe fell from her grasp. He kicked it, sending it flying aside.

Manju was astonished at the strength of Raymond’s grip; at the way he was restraining her with a wrestler’s armlock. No one had ever held her in this way — as though she were a madwoman.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Raymond?’

He twisted her hands around so that they were in front of her face. She saw that her fingers were smeared with blood.

‘You’ve cut yourself,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve cut your scalp.’

‘I didn’t know.’ She tried to jerk her arms free but this only made him tighten his hold. He led her into the house and made her sit in a chair. He found some cottonwool and swabbed her scalp. The baby began to cry: they could hear her downstairs. Raymond led her to the stairs and gave her a nudge.

‘Go. The child needs you.’

She went up a few steps, and then she couldn’t go any more. She couldn’t bear to think of going into that room and picking up the child. It was pointless. Her breasts had run dry. There was nothing she could do. She buried her face in her hands.

Raymond came up the stairs and pulled her head back, gripping it by the remains of her hair. She saw him drawing his arm back and then his hand hit her across the cheek. She clutched her stinging face and looked at him. His gaze was steady and not unkind.

‘You are the mother,’ he said. ‘You must go to the child. A child’s hunger doesn’t stop, no matter what. .’ He followed her to the room and kept watch until she picked the baby up and held her to her breast.

The next day it was Christmas and in the evening Doh Say and Raymond left the house to go to church. Shortly afterwards the sirens sounded and the bombers came back. The baby had been sleeping but the sirens woke her. She began to cry.

The day of the first raid, Manju and Dolly had known exactly what to do: they’d gone to a windowless room on the ground floor and waited until the sirens sounded the all clear. There had been such a sense of urgency then: but now none of it remained. It was as though the house were already empty.

Manju stayed in bed with the baby while the bombs fell. That night the infant’s voice seemed louder than ever: louder than the sirens, the bombs, the distant explosions. After a while Manju could no longer bear the sound of the child’s crying. She climbed out of bed and went down the stairs. She opened the front door and stepped into the compound. It was very dark except for distant flames and flashes of light shooting through the sky.

She saw another figure ahead of her and somehow, even in the darkness, she knew that it was Rajkumar. This was the first time that she’d seen him since Neel’s death. He was still dressed in the clothes that he’d been wearing that morning: a pair of trousers and a shirt that was now blackened with soot. His head was thrown back and he was staring into the sky. She knew what he was looking for and she went to stand beside him.

The planes were far up in the sky, barely visible, like the shadows of moths. She longed for them to come closer; close enough to see a face. She longed to know what kind of being this was that felt free to unleash this destruction: what was it for? What sort of creature could think of waging war upon herself, her husband, her child — a family such as hers — for what reason? Who were these people who took it upon themselves to remake the history of the world?

If only she could find some meaning in this, she knew she would be able to restore order to her mind; she would be able to reason in accustomed ways; she would know when and why it was time to feed the baby; she would be able to understand why it was necessary to take shelter, to care for one’s children, to think of the past and the future and one’s place in the world. She stood with Rajkumar and looked into the sky. There was nothing to be seen but shadows far above and nearer at hand, flames, explosions and noise.

Doh Say and Raymond returned the next morning, after sheltering in a church through the night. The streets were mostly empty now, they said. The workers who serviced the city were mainly Indians and many of them had fled or gone into hiding. In some areas there was already a stench of uncleared nightsoil. At the port, ships were going up in flames, with their cargoes still intact in their holds. There were no stevedores left to do the unloading — they too were mainly Indian. The administration had opened the gates of the Rangoon lunatic asylum and the inmates were now wandering about trying to find food and shelter. There were looters everywhere, breaking into abandoned houses and apartments, carrying their trophies triumphantly through the streets.

Doh Say said that it was no longer safe to remain in Rangoon. The Packard had miraculously survived the bombing. Raymond had retrieved it and brought it back to Kemendine. Dolly loaded the car with a few necessities — some rice, dal, milk powder, vegetables, water. Then Raymond took the wheel and they drove out of the house: the plan was that they would all go to Huay Zedi and remain there until conditions changed.

They took the Pegu road, heading northwards. The central areas of the city were eerily empty, yet many major thoroughfares were impassable and they had to circle round and round to find their way out of the city. Buses lay abandoned at intersections; trams had jumped off their tracks and ploughed into the tar; rickshaws lay sidewise across the road; electric cables and tramlines lay knotted across the footpaths.

They began to notice other people — a few scattered handfuls at first, then more and more and still more, until the roads became so thickly thronged that they could barely move. Everyone was heading in the same direction: towards the northern, landward passage to India — a distance of more than a thousand miles. They had their possessions bundled on their heads; they were carrying children on their backs; wheeling elderly people in carts and barrows. Their feet had stirred up a long, snaking cloud of dust that hung above the road like a ribbon, pointing the way to the northern horizon. They were almost all Indians.

There were cars and buses too, along with taxis, rickshaws, bicycles and ox-carts. There were open trucks, with dozens of people squatting in their beds. The larger vehicles kept mainly to the centre of the road, following each other slowly in a straight line. Cars went leapfrogging along this line, passing the buses and trucks with a great trumpeting of their horns. But the press of traffic was such that even they made very slow progress.

At the end of the first day the Packard had not quite left Rangoon behind. By the second day, they had worked their way towards the head of the column of refugees, and now they made better time. Two days later they found themselves looking across the river, towards Huay Zedi.

They made the crossing and stayed in Huay Zedi several weeks. But then it became clear that the Japanese advance was accelerating. Doh Say decided to evacuate the village and move its inhabitants deeper into the jungle. By this time Manju’s behaviour had become very erratic: Dolly and Rajkumar decided that she had to be taken home. They elected to make one last effort to reach India.

An ox-cart took them to the river — Manju, Dolly, Rajkumar and the baby. They found a boat that took them upriver, through Meiktila, past Mandalay to the tiny town of Mawlaik, on the Chindwin river. There they were confronted by a stupefying spectacle: some thirty thousand refugees were squatting along the riverbank, waiting to move on towards the densely forested mountain ranges that lay ahead. Ahead there were no roads, only tracks, rivers of mud, flowing through green tunnels of jungle. Since the start of the Indian exodus, the territory had been mapped by a network of officially recognised evacuation trails: there were ‘white’ routes and ‘black’ routes, the former being shorter and less heavily used. Several hundred thousand people had already tramped through this wilderness. Great numbers of refugees were still arriving, every day. To the south the Japanese army was still advancing and there was no turning back.

They carried the baby in a shawl that was slung hammock-like over their shoulders. Every few hundred yards they would stop and switch loads, taking turns, all three of them, Manju, Dolly and Rajkumar. They would switch between the baby and the tarpaulin-wrapped packages in which they kept their clothes and their bundle of firewood.

Dolly was using a stick, limping heavily. On the instep of her right foot there was a sore that had first showed itself as an innocuous-looking blister. In three days it had grown into a huge inflammation, almost as wide as her foot. It leaked a foul-smelling pus and ate steadily through skin, muscle and flesh. They met a nurse who said that it was a ‘Naga sore’; she said that Dolly was lucky that hers had not been invaded by maggots. She had heard of a case when a boy had developed such a sore in his scalp: when it was treated with kerosene, no fewer than three hundred and fifty maggots were taken out, each the size of a small worm. And yet the boy had lived.

Despite the pain Dolly called herself lucky. They met people whose feet had almost entirely rotted away, eaten by these inflammations: hers was not nearly so badly affected. It made Manju wince to watch her: not because of her obvious pain, but because of her willed imperviousness to it. They were so strong, the two of them, Dolly and Rajkumar, so tenacious— they clung so closely together, even now, despite their age, despite everything. There was something about them that repelled her, filled her with revulsion: Dolly even more than Rajkumar, with her maddening detachment, as though all of this were a nightmare of someone else’s imagining.

There were times when she could see pity in Dolly’s eyes, a sort of compassion — as though she, Manju, were somehow a sadder creature than she herself; as though it was she who had lost her hold on her mind and her reason. That look made her seethe. She wanted to hit Dolly, slap her, shout in her face: ‘This is reality, this is the world, look at it, look at the evil that surrounds us; to pretend that it is an illusion will not make it go away.’ It was she who was sane, not they. What could be better proof of their insanity than that they should refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of their defeat; the absoluteness of their failure, as parents, as human beings?

Their firewood was wrapped in big, furry, teak leaves, to keep the rain out. It was tied with a rope that Rajkumar had rolled, from a length of vine. Sometimes the rope would come loose and a stick or a bit of wood would fall out. Every piece that fell out disappeared instantly — being either snatched up by the people behind, or else trampled into the mud, too deep to retrieve.

The mud had a strange consistency, more like quicksand than clay. It would suck you in, very suddenly, so that before you knew it, you were in thigh-deep. All you could do was keep still and wait, until somebody came to your help. It was worst when you stumbled, or fell on your face; it would cling to you like a hungry animal, fastening upon your clothes, your limbs, your hair. It would hold you so tight that you could not move; it would immobilise your legs and arms, sucking them tightly in place, in the way that glue holds insects.

Somewhere they’d passed a woman. She was a Nepali and she’d been carrying a child in the same way that they were, slung in a folded cloth. She’d fallen face-first in the mud and been unable to move; it was her bad fortune that this happened on an unfrequented trail. There was no one around to help; she’d died where she lay, held fast by the mud with her child tied to her back. The baby had starved to death.

Rajkumar would get very angry if they lost any part of their trove of firewood. It was he who collected most of it. He’d keep watch as they walked and every now and again he’d spot a branch, or some twigs that had escaped the notice of the tens of thousands of people who had gone ahead of them, passed the same way, tramping the sodden earth into a river of mud. In the evenings, when they stopped he would walk into the jungle and come back carrying armloads of firewood. Most of the refugees were afraid of leaving the trail; there were persistent rumours of thieves and dacoits, keeping watch and picking off stragglers. Rajkumar went anyway; he said that they could not afford for him to do otherwise. The firewood was their capital, their only asset. At the end of each day it was this wood that Rajkumar bartered for food — there were always people who needed wood; rice and dal were no use without fires to cook them on. Wood bought food more easily than money or valuables. Money cost nothing here. There were people — rich Rangoon merchants — who would give away fistfuls of notes in exchange for a few packets of medicine. And as for valuables, they were just an extra weight. The trails were littered with discarded goods — radios, bicycle frames, books, a craftsman’s tools. No one even stopped to look.

They came across a lady one day, dressed in a beautiful silk sari, a peacock-green Kanjeevaram. She looked to be from a wealthy family but she too had run out of food. She was trying to bargain with a group of people who were sitting by a fire. Suddenly she began to undress and when she’d stripped off her sari they saw that she had others on underneath, beautiful, rich silks, worth hundreds of rupees. She offered up one of these, hoping to exchange it for a handful of food. But no one had any use for it; they asked instead for kindling and wood. They saw her arguing vainly with them — and then, perhaps recognising finally the worthlessness of her treasured possession, she rolled the sari into a ball and put it on their fire: the silk burnt with a crackling sound, sending up leaping flames.

The firewood had splinters, which would work their way into your flesh, but Manju preferred carrying the wood to carrying her daughter. The baby cried whenever it came near her. ‘She’s just hungry,’ Dolly would say. ‘Give her your breast.’ They would stop and she would sit, in the rain, with the baby in her arms. Rajkumar would rig a shelter above them, with leaves and branches.

A little bit further, they said. India isn’t far now. Just a little bit more.

There was nothing in her body — Manju was certain of this— but somehow the baby would find a way of squeezing a few drops from her sore, chafing breasts. Then, when the trickle ran dry, she would begin to cry again — in an angry, vengeful way, as though she wanted nothing more than to see her mother dead. At times she would try to feed the baby other things — she would work a bit of rice into a paste and tuck it into a corner of the child’s mouth. She seemed to relish the taste: she was a hungry girl, greedy for life; more her grandparents’ child than her own.

One day Manju fell asleep sitting up with the baby in her arms. She woke to find Dolly standing over her, looking worriedly into her face. She could hear the buzz of insects, flying around her head. They were the shimmer-winged bluebottles that Rajkumar called ‘vulture-flies’ because they were always to be seen on people who were too weak to go on — or who were near death.

Manju heard the baby screaming in her lap, but for once the sound did not bother her. There was a restful numbness in her body: she wanted nothing more than to sit there as long she could, relishing the absence of sensation. But as always her tormentors were bearing down on her; Dolly was shouting at her: ‘Get up, Manju, get up.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Please let me be. Just a little longer.’ ‘You’ve been sitting there since yesterday,’ Dolly shouted.

‘You have to get up, Manju, or you’ll stay there for ever. Think of the baby; get up.’

‘The baby’s happy here,’ Manju said. ‘Let us be. Tomorrow we’ll walk again. Not now.’

But Dolly wouldn’t listen. ‘We won’t let you die, Manju. You’re young; you have the baby to think of. .’ Dolly took the child out of her arms and Rajkumar pulled her to her feet. He shook her hard, so that her teeth rattled.

‘You have to go on, Manju; you can’t give up.’

She stood staring at him in the pouring rain, in her white widow’s sari, her hair shorn. He was dressed in a tattered longyi, shod in mud-caked slippers. His belly was gone and his frame was wasted with hunger; his face was mottled with white stubble, his eyes blood-shot and red-rimmed.

‘Why, old man, why?’ she shouted at him. She called him buro in contempt; she no longer cared that he was Neel’s father and that she’d always been in awe of him: now he was just her tormentor, who would not let her enjoy the rest that she had earned. ‘Why do I have to go on? Look at you: you’ve gone on — and on and on and on. And what has it brought you?’

Then, to her surprise, tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down the cracks and fissures of his face. He seemed like a stricken child: helpless, unable to move. She thought for a moment she’d won at last, but then Dolly stepped in. She took his arm and turned him round so that he was looking ahead, to the next range of mountains. He stood where he was, his shoulders sagging, as though the truth of their condition had finally dawned on him.

Dolly pushed him on. ‘You can’t stop now, Rajkumar — you have to go on.’ At the sound of her voice, some inner instinct seemed to take hold of him. He slung the bundle of firewood over his shoulders and walked on.

There were places where the trails converged and became bottlenecks. Usually these were on the banks of streams and rivers. At each of these crossings there would be thousands and thousands of people gathered together, sitting, waiting— moving through the mud with tiny, exhausted steps.

They came to a river that seemed very broad. It flowed with the speed of a mountain stream and its water was as cold as ice. Here, on a stretch of sandy bank, surrounded by steep jungle, there was the largest gathering of people they had yet come across: tens of thousands — a sea of heads and faces.

They joined this great mass of people and sat squatting, on the river’s sandy bank. They waited, and in time, a raft arrived. It was unwieldy-looking and not very large. Manju watched it as it bobbed on the swollen river: it was the most beautiful craft that she had ever seen and she could tell that it was her saviour. It filled up in minutes and went away upstream, chugging slowly round a great bend. She did not lose faith; she was certain that it would return. And sure enough, in a while, the raft came back again. And again and again, filling up in minutes each time.

At last it was their turn and they climbed in. Manju handed the baby to Dolly and found herself a place by the raft’s edge, where she could sit by the water. The raft started off and she watched the river rushing past; she could see its whirlpools and its swirling currents — the patterns of its flow and movement were etched on its surface. She touched the water and found that it was very cold.

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the baby crying. No matter how loud the noise around her, no matter how many people she was surrounded by, she always knew her daughter’s voice. She knew that Dolly would soon seek her out and bring the baby to her; that she would stand over her, watching, to make sure that the child was fed. She let her hand fall over the raft’s edge and thrilled to the water’s touch. It seemed to be pulling at her, urging her to come in. She let her arm trail a little, and then dipped her foot in. She felt her sari growing heavier, unfurling in the water, pulling away from her, tugging at her body, urging her to follow. She heard the sound of crying and she was glad that her daughter was in Dolly’s arms. With Dolly and Rajkumar the child would be safe; they would see her home. It was better this way: better that they, who knew what they were living for, should have her in their care. She heard Dolly’s voice, calling to her— ‘Manju, Manju stop — be careful. .’ and she knew the time had come. It was no effort at all to slip over, from the raft into the river. The water was fast, dark and numbingly cold.