Уильям Николсон - Motherland

In the midst of all the noise, Geraldine begins to utter low screams. She has her eyes tight shut, her hands over her ears, and she shakes her head from side to side.

‘It’s all right,’ says Larry, putting his right arm round her. ‘It’s all right. I’ll get you out.’

Holding her tight and close, he forces his way back through the cheering crowd, using his left shoulder to open up a space between the packed bodies. He feels Geraldine shaking, and hears her low screams, as he pulls her after him. At first their progress is slow, but as he works his way to the back of the crowd he finds they can move more easily. And so at last they emerge into a side street, where there is open space.

He holds her in his arms and lets her sob.

‘There,’ he says, soothing her. ‘There, all safe now.’

The sobbing ceases. She remains in his arms, her face pressed to his chest. He feels the jerky shuddering of her chest as her breaths come slower and slower. Then she turns away, to dab the tears from her eyes.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘What a little fool you must think me.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ says Larry.

‘I don’t know what happened. Suddenly I started to feel trapped. I couldn’t bear it.’

‘You were trapped. That’s quite a crowd.’

‘But you got me out.’

The light rain is still falling, bringing welcome refreshment on this burning day.

‘Come on. Let’s walk back.’

The next day Mountbatten hands Radcliffe’s award to Nehru, and cables it to Jinnah in Karachi. Within hours, the Punjab is in flames. Ten million people are on the move, seeking safety on either side of the new borders. Three hundred thousand Hindus and Sikhs flee Lahore. In Amritsar Muslim women are stripped naked, paraded through the streets, and raped. Sikh fighting mobs, armed with machine guns and grenades, descend on Muslim villages and slaughter the inhabitants. Muslims at Ferozepur attack a train carrying Sikh refugees, and kill all they can reach. What begins as hysterical fear mutates into hysterical rage.

Hindu refugees begin to arrive in Delhi, bringing with them hunger, disease, and a poisonous lust for revenge. Within days the riots and the killings have taken over the capital. The main railway station, packed with Muslims trying to flee, is bombed by Hindus. In the subsequent riot police fire into the crowd. Looters smash Muslim shops in Connaught Circus. Muslim tonga drivers are dragged from their tongas and hacked to death. Arson attacks start fires across the city.

All flights in and out of Delhi are cancelled. Syed Tarkhan is unable to make his transfer to Karachi. Rupert and Geraldine Blundell, due to fly home on September 8th, are obliged to remain in Government House, one of the few islands of security. Lady Mountbatten learns that hospitals are being attacked, and the wounded massacred in their beds. She requests that the troops protecting Government House, who are the governor-general’s bodyguard reinforced by the 5/6th Gurkhas, should add to their duties the protection of hospitals. She asks Larry and Syed Tarkhan to coordinate the allocation of guards.

‘No need to go into the city yourselves,’ she says. ‘Just make sure we do the best we can with the men we have.’

Syed Tarkhan is deeply distressed by the violence.

‘It’s only what you said would happen,’ says Larry.

Tarkhan shakes his head.

‘I feel ashamed,’ he says. ‘I feel to blame.’

So many staff have left that there is a shortage of both cars and drivers. Government House rents three Buick Eights, and one is made available to transport hospital guards. Larry learns that Tarkhan proposes to drive the car himself.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, Larry,’ says Tarkhan. ‘There’s no need.’

He means there’s no need for Larry to put himself in danger. This is no longer Larry’s country. But Larry too feels shame and blame.

‘Think of it as a last hurrah for the motherland,’ he says.

‘Ah, I see.’ Tarkhan smiles at that. ‘A noble gesture.’

They pack into the Buick: a Gurkha lieutenant, three of his men, and Larry. Tarkhan takes the wheel. They drive across the city to Old Delhi. They encounter no trouble on the way, but here and there they see burned-out shops and overturned trucks.

At the Victoria Zenana Hospital the Gurkhas take up their post, and Larry receives a report on the latest casualties from the nurse in charge.

‘Not so terrible.’

‘The mobs will be out after dark,’ says Tarkhan.

They drive back through the deserted streets of the Paharganj area as the light fades in the sky. Crossing the overbridge by New Delhi station they hear shouts. Then comes a burst of gunfire, and the windscreen explodes into fragments. Tarkhan gives a grunt and tips over to one side, then with a convulsive movement rights himself.

‘Syed!’

The car lurches out of control, heading for the parapet of the bridge. Tarkhan struggles with the wheel, panting loudly. The car shudders to a stop. Tarkhan slumps forward, blood pouring from his right shoulder. The engine cuts out.

‘Syed!’

Before Larry can make a move to help him, an army lorry comes screeching up, and eight or nine armed men jump out.

‘Out of the way! Out of the way!’ They point their guns through the shattered windscreen. ‘This is for the Muslim scum!’

Larry can hear from their voices that they’re beyond reason. They’ve come out hunting to kill, and they no longer care. The gun barrels jab at him.

‘Out of the way!’

Half paralysed by terror, he realises dimly that he himself is not in danger. He is an Englishman. Their war is no longer with the likes of him. All he has to do is move aside and let the fratricidal rage take its course. These thoughts pass through his mind at lightning speed, even as his eyes fall on Tarkhan’s hands, which still grip the steering wheel. He hears the wounded man groan. He sees the fingers of one hand open and close. This simple human gesture is all it takes.

‘No!’ he cries.

He throws himself across Tarkhan, embracing him, as if his arms have the power to shield him from gunfire.

‘Muslim scum!’ shout the armed men. ‘We shoot Muslim dogs! You will die too!’

Larry pulls Tarkhan even more tightly into his arms, so that the blood from his wound runs down his own chest. He hears Tarkhan’s choking voice.

‘Go, Larry. Leave me.’

The men with the guns tug at his sleeves, shouting. He closes his eyes and rocks his friend in his arms and waits to die.

Now the shouting is loud and close. A gun fires, a single shot echoing in the night. He smells the smell of fresh blood. He hears Syed Tarkhan’s low groans. Then he hears another sound: the growl of the army lorry driving away.

He draws a long deep breath. He becomes aware of the drumming sound in his ears, and knows it’s his own pulsing blood. Have they killed his friend in his arms?

‘Syed?’

Tarkhan turns to him, groaning. He can see no fresh wound.

‘I’m taking you to the hospital.’

He drags the wounded man into the passenger seat, and wedges him between the seat and the door. He starts the engine. Hand trembling on the gear stick, he reverses onto the road, and turns to drive back the way they came.

At the Victoria Zenana Hospital the nurses stretcher Tarkhan into a ward and tear the blood-soaked clothing from his upper body. Larry stays by his side.

‘How badly is he hurt?’

‘He’ll live,’ they tell him. ‘How about you?’

‘I’m not hurt.’

Tarkhan has lost consciousness. A doctor comes and examines the single gunshot wound.

‘Smashed the collarbone,’ he says. ‘Lucky not to have got the main artery.’