Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

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.’