Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

‘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.

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.