Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Once ashore the recruits didn’t know which way to look — everything was a novelty. Marching past a high wall they heard sounds that made their blood run cold: the roars and snarls of tigers, lions and leopards. In their villages they had heard such sounds only from a distance. Here the animals seemed to be right next to them, ready to pounce. The only thing that prevented them from taking to their heels was that they didn’t know which way to run.

Hukam Singh laughed at their panic-stricken faces and told them they were chootiya gadhas to be scared — these animals were just the Burra Laat’s pets. They were kept in cages, on the other side of the wall.

Then they came to the cantonment and the sight took their breath away. Everywhere they looked there were shacks, tents and long, low structures made of wood; in between were large parade grounds, where thousands of soldiers were at drill. Sahib-log could be seen everywhere, drilling, marching and lounging about, in uniforms of astonishing colours. But the most remarkable thing about them — the thing that made the recruits’ jaws drop — was that none of them had beards or moustaches. Their faces were completely smooth, their cheeks and lips as hairless as those of boys or women.

The recruits’ journey ended at an empty tent where they were told to wait.

At some point Seetul slipped away. The others were busy talking about the sights they had seen that morning and no one noticed his absence: their first inkling of it came when there was a sudden outburst of shouts, yells and shrieks, somewhere nearby. They ran out to see what had happened — and there was Seetul, being dragged towards them by a sentry.

It turned out that Seetul’s stomach was upset and he had felt an urgent need to relieve himself. Not knowing where to go, he had decided to do what he would have done in his village — that is ‘look for a bush’, as the saying went. With a lota-ful of water in hand, he had set off to find a secluded place. After some searching he had found a convenient gap in a dense wall of greenery. Keeping a careful watch for passers-by, he had pulled up his dhoti; lowering himself to his haunches, he had backed into the gap and let fly.

Unfortunately for Seetul the greenery happened to be the hedge of a colonel-sahib’s garden. Worse still, his performance had intruded upon a ladies’ picnic.

The burden of the blame fell on Hukam Singh, who had neglected to show them where the latrines were. He would later make Seetul pay dearly for his error, but now, on the sentry’s orders, he took the recruits straight to the pakhana : this too was an astonishing sight and it made them wonder whether their bowels would ever move again.

There were a few long ditches, and over them, platforms with rows of holes. A number of men could be seen, squatting on the platforms, lined up next to each other, like crows on a rope. The stench was overpowering and the rhythmic plopping sound that rose from the ditch was a constant reminder of what might happen to a squatter who lost his balance.

Back in their villages the recruits were accustomed to going out to the fields and squatting in the open, with a breeze on their faces; moreover, even though they often went in twos or threes, for mutual protection, there was usually some greenery to afford each of them a little privacy.

It made them squirm to think of being lined up like that, next to one another — but within a day or two they got used to it and quickly absorbed the unspoken protocols of the latrines, whereby certain rows were always reserved for seniors at busy times of the morning: recruits were the last in precedence.

On their third day at the depot, Bhyro Singh appeared in person at the door of their hut. This was the first time the recruits had seen him in uniform. With his height extended by his helmet and his shoulders broadened by his epaulettes, he seemed twice his size.

They followed him to a building that looked like a daftar: he told them to wait on the veranda and went inside. When he came out again, he was furious to find the recruits sitting in the shade. He berated them for sitting without permission and swore that they’d get a beating if they ever did it again: a Company sepoy could never sit unless he was expressly told to.

They jumped to their feet, unnerved, and stood rigidly upright, shoulder to shoulder, not daring to move.

In a while, an English officer appeared with a big stick in his hands. This further unnerved the recruits because they thought they were going to be beaten as a punishment for sitting down. But it was only a measuring stick, with a notch on it. The officer went down the line with it, making sure that they all stood taller than the mark.

Kesri could not stop staring at the officer’s smooth, beardless face. He had nurtured his own moustache so carefully, from the day when the first hairs appeared on his lip, that he found it hard to believe that any man would choose to shave off something so precious. But when it was his turn to be measured he saw that the officer’s lack of hair was indeed a matter of choice rather than a curse of nature — there was a distinct stubble on his cheeks, so there could be no doubt that he regularly shaved his face.

After they had all been measured, the officer sat down at a desk, picked up a pen and began to write. Kesri, like most of the other recruits, knew how to read and write in the Nagari script, but only with a slow and deliberate hand. The speed at which the officer’s pen flew over the paper was dazzling to his eyes.

The sheet of paper was then handed to Bhyro Singh who now led them to another daftar. Kesri happened to be at the head of the line, so when they got there he was the first to be picked out. Bhyro Singh beckoned to him to step forward and left the others to wait where they were. He then led Kesri to a room that smelled pungently of medicines. An English doctor was waiting inside with two memsahibs, dressed in white. As soon as Kesri had stepped in, Bhyro Singh shut the door, leaving him alone with the doctor and the two women.

The doctor now spoke to Kesri in Hindustani and told him to remove all his clothes — not just his jama but also his dhoti and langot.

At first Kesri thought he had mistaken the doctor’s words. He could not imagine that it would enter anyone’s mind to ask him to strip himself naked in front of strangers — of whom two were women! But the doctor then repeated what he had said, in a louder, more insistent voice, and one of the women spoke up too, loudly dhamkaoing Kesri and telling him to obey the doctor and take off his clothes.

Kesri had a sudden recollection of his father’s warnings about the Company’s army and how those who joined it would lose their dharma. He realized now that this was true and was assailed by a terrible onrush of remorse for not having heeded his father’s words.

As these thoughts were flashing through his head, the doctor-sahib took a step towards him. It seemed to Kesri that the doctor was about to attack him and tear off his clothes. At that instant he made up his mind. He spun around, threw himself at the door, and flung it open. Racing past Bhyro Singh and the recruits, he sprinted towards the cantonment’s bazar.

If he could lose himself in the crowd, he reckoned, he would be able to make his escape. And then whatever happened, would happen; if it came to that, he could always go back home.

He ran as he had never run before. He could hear Bhyro Singh’s voice behind him but he knew that he was rapidly outpacing the havildar.

But just as he reached the bazar, who should appear in front of him but Hukam Singh, with two other sepoys? He saw them too late to slip past: they threw him to the ground and held him down.

Although the blood was pounding in Kesri’s head he could hear Bhyro Singh’s heavy tread.