Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

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We do not mollycoddle your sons here said Dr Lush. We make them on these playing fields into soldiers.

Durrell is dead now these three years, murdered by a berserk native in Hong Kong where he served as a consular official. But Dr Lusk is still alive.

and Haliburton’s thighs white under his shirt and Durrell’s face half hidden by shadow and pale and perfect. And I said to Haliburton you over there and he bent over the foot of the bed and when I raised up the shirt his face hidden by the sheet which he had bunched up in his fists around his head and his shoulders shaking. Every beat of my heart roaring through my temples but I knelt over him but could do nothing, loosen up, damn you I said loose loose but still I was thwarted, it was not him but me I was too nervous and filled with disgust, and looking up at Durrell’s face like marble, eyes hidden, I was filled with shame and springing up I took a riding whip from the mantelpiece and swung. At the first stroke my frenzy passed clean away and I felt instead a keen interest and curiosity, and the second was placed to the best of my ability and with restraint and complete calculation, and at his groan I was complete. But I laid on better and better and his buttocks tightening and flinching away and then giving way and soft and on I went until the room was filled with the sharp slaps and the blood ran black in the light. Then I leaned over her and her head moved limply on the end of her neck in time with me and the blond hair against the white sheet, and I looked at Durrell who leaned forward an elbow on his crossed knee and his eyes like brilliant knife-points in the dark and he said, no, observe, observe. He turned her face to me and we looked together at the half-open mouth and the stained cheeks and now I understood

Hey Sarthey d’you want to come along to town said Byrd. So we walked together, and far ahead of us on the country road were fellows ambling along, capering and talking. The trees hung over the hedges so that we were in a tunnel of shadow but on the golden fields the sun lay brightly. And locking arms we walked.

When Sanjay had finished reading what he had of Sarthey’s diary he was overcome by fear, and this was a horror he had never known. It was not the fear of the unknown, nor the apprehension of death, nor the pain of blood and laceration. It was a sensation of flying apart, of falling to pieces inside and vanishing, and every moment of holding on demanded an effort, as if he were on a ladder that slipped eternally from his grasp. It was dark outside, but as Sanjay forced himself to walk in circles around the room he saw and sensed the first light. He made himself think of an immediate problem, which was how to dispose of the pieces of paper on the bed before he had to face Sarthey, as he was certain he must soon in the day. Somehow he felt that he had to hide his knowledge, that it was advantageous to appear ignorant, and so he examined the room carefully but there was no window open, no chink in the wall, no hiding place at all. Finally he stood at the bed again, picked up a tattered piece of paper, trying not to look at the fine script on it, and thrust it into his mouth; it turned into a sticky mass in an instant, elastic and hard to swallow, tasting bitterly of ashes, but despite a quick rush of nausea he persisted and finally forced it down. One by one, one piece after another, walking around the room, sometimes bending over and clutching his stomach, he ate it all, and when he finished he leaned panting on the wall in a cold trembling sweat.

He heard Sikander’s voice before the door opened, and so he stood rather formally with his hands behind his back, facing the threshold.

‘The Marathas lost at Assaye,’ Sikander said as soon as he came in. ‘We just received word by relay messenger.’ Sanjay said nothing, having known this for a certainty during the night, and now feeling as if all this were inconsequential, since he had already decided what he must do. ‘De Boigne’s brigades are destroyed. The Chiria Fauj is gone: they fought like lions. They knew they had lost and they went on. It was no pretty battle of manoeuvre, no flying cavalry, no great movements. It was a great slogging business, the brigades standing firmly and the British moving up and firing and firing. Then the brigades closing ranks over the casualties, and it went on through the afternoon until there was nothing left. It is all gone. It was a butcher’s business, and the English won.’

He looked again at Sanjay, awaiting a response, but Sanjay saw only the flat light of the morning, and all the images of the Chiria Fauj disappearing into a mess of mud and bone seemed only real, only what must happen — there was no horror in it.

‘Mr. Sarthey is here to see you,’ said Sikander.

Sanjay waited impatiently, consumed by a sense of mission; he felt now as if something was over — the Brigades of Hindustan were gone — as if something had changed, and something was gone forever, so there was no need for idle talk or recriminations. He awaited Sarthey’s abuse with equanimity, and when the Englishman appeared Sanjay looked straight into his eyes with such indifference that the other was taken aback, flabbergasted and silenced.

‘What were you thinking?’ Sarthey said. ‘You, even you?’ Then, irritated by Sanjay’s silence, ‘I suppose I was a fool to anticipate anything else. One couldn’t expect anything of a primitive like you, no matter how well you mouth English. Despite the polish you remained after all what you always were: a little unschooled savage.’

Sarthey’s contempt made no impression because Sanjay had already dedicated his life to killing him, and though the fear was huge and present he had already learnt how to manage it behind a wall of resolve and logic. He looked at the Englishman’s mouth opening and shutting.

‘He is mad,’ said Sarthey. ‘Let him go.’

As soon as Sanjay was released he went to the house of Begum Sumroo, which was a short distance away and famous throughout Delhi. When he left, he had not looked at Sikander, saying only, ‘I will come for you,’ and at the Begum’s house he brushed aside all polite enquiry about his health, and stood very still, staring at a wall until he was allowed in for an audience. Before she could speak he said, ‘I wish to speak to you alone.’ She sat up at his rudeness, but then settled back slowly, motioning her attendants out of the room.

‘I have no time,’ he said. ‘But you will forgive me. I come to ask a boon.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘Am I your son?’

‘I have heard it said.’

‘Is it true?’

She shrugged.

‘I was once told a story about the first time you saw the man called de Boigne. You said, “Everything will become red.” You said something about an idea.’

‘I said it, but I do not know what I meant. It was like a dream. I saw him and I said it.’

‘It does not matter. Listen. The Brigades of India are gone. The time has changed. I will drive the English from India. But to do this I ask a boon.’

‘What?’

‘I have heard you know things.’

‘I don’t believe half those things myself.’

‘Nevertheless I ask you to tell me. You know the old books, and so I ask you to tell me.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I wish to be strong. I wish to be hard. I wish never to die.’

She flinched, and her eyes grew watery and old. ‘It is very difficult.’

‘I can do it.’

‘It is dangerous.’

‘I will do it.’

‘Do not ask this of me.’

‘I must ask you.’

‘I am your mother and father and you cannot ask this of me.’ ‘I am your son and I ask you.’

‘Go home, Sanjay!’ She stood up and screamed at him. ‘Go home to your poor mother and your father and be good to them. Write poetry and have children and live in your own city and die there like a man who is loved and who has a home.’