Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

‘Yes,’ said Arjun. ‘Procedures. And we have to respect them. That’s how armies are run — that’s what make them different from street gangs.’

Rajan shrugged and ran his tongue over his lips. ‘But where?’ he said. ‘Where are you going to find a place for a court-martial?’

‘We’ll go back to that teak camp,’ Arjun said. ‘It’ll be easier there.’

‘The camp? But what if we were followed?’

‘Not yet. We’ll go.’ The camp was an hour away: it would buy a little time.

‘Fall in.’ Arjun took the lead. He didn’t want to watch Kishan Singh being pushed along, with his hands tied behind his back.

It began to rain and they were drenched by the time they got to the camp. Arjun led the way across the clearing, to the tai. The area under the stilts was dry, sheltered from the rain by the structure above. Rajan let Kishan Singh go and he sank to the ground, squatting on his haunches, shivering.

‘Here,’ said Arjun. ‘We’ll hold the hearings here.’

Rajan fetched a chair from the tai and placed it in front of Arjun. ‘For you, sir,’ he said, with a mocking excess of politeness. ‘Since you are the judge.’

Arjun ignored him. ‘Let’s begin.’

Arjun tried to prolong the ritual, asking questions, going over the details. But the facts were clear: there was no disputing them. When he asked Kishan Singh to speak in his own defence, all he could do was beg, clasping his hands together. ‘Sah’b— my wife, my family. .’

Rajan was watching Arjun, smiling. ‘Any other procedures? Sir?’

‘No.’ Arjun saw that Rajan and the other men had formed a circle: he and Kishan Singh were at its centre. Arjun stood up. ‘I’ve made my decision.’ He turned to Rajan. ‘I’m putting you in charge of the firing squad,’ he said. ‘Ask for volunteers. Do it quickly.’

Rajan looked straight back at him, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘None of us will volunteer. He’s one of yours — one of your men. You will have to deal with him yourself.’

Arjun looked at the circle of men around him. They were all watching him; their faces were expressionless, their eyes unblinking. Arjun turned away; shreds of memory floated through his mind. . this is how mutiny looks from the other end; you’re alone, and the only thing you can fall back on is the authority of a distant chain of command; on threats of the army’s justice, of eventual retribution once victory is won. But what do you do when you know that there will be no victory, when defeat is certain? How do you claim the validation of the future, knowing that it will not be yours?

‘Come, Kishan Singh.’ Arjun helped his former batman to his feet. His body was very light, almost weightless. Arjun could feel his hands growing gentle, as he took hold of Kishan Singh’s arm.

It was strange to be touching him in this way, knowing what lay ahead.

‘Come. Kishan Singh.’

‘Sah’b.’

Kishan Singh stood up and Arjun took hold of his arm, pushing him forward, past the others, out of the tai’s shelter, into the rain. They waded into the tall grass and Kishan Singh stumbled. Arjun put his arm round him and held him up. Kishan Singh was so weak that he could barely walk; he rested his head on Arjun’s shoulder.

‘Keep going, Kishan Singh.’ His voice was soft, as though he were whispering to a lover. ‘ Sabar karo, Kishan Singh — it’ll be over soon.’

‘Sah’b.’

When they came to the edge of the clearing, Arjun let him go. Kishan Singh dropped to his knees, holding himself upright by clinging to Arjun’s leg.

‘Sah’b.’

‘Why did you do it, Kishan Singh?’ ‘Sah’b, I was afraid. .’

Arjun unbuttoned his leather holster with one hand and took out his sidearm — the Webley that Kishan Singh had always polished and oiled for him.

‘Why did you do it, Kishan Singh?’

‘Sah’b — I couldn’t go on. .’

He looked down at the welts and jungle sores on Kishan Singh’s head. He thought of another time when Kishan Singh had knelt between his feet, asking for his protection; he thought of his guilelessness and trust and innocence, of how he had been moved by the histories that lay behind them — the goodness and strength he had seen in him; all the qualities that he himself had lost and betrayed — qualities that had never been his to start with, he who had sprung from the potter’s wheel, fully made, deformed. He knew he could not allow Kishan Singh to betray himself, to become something other than he was — to become a creature like himself, grotesque, misshapen. It was this thought that gave him the strength to put his gun to Kishan Singh’s head.

At the touch of the cold metal, Kishan Singh raised his eyes, looking up at him. ‘Sah’b — remember my mother, my home, my child. .’

Arjun took hold of Kishan Singh’s head, curling his fingers through his matted hair. ‘It’s because I remember that I must do this, Kishan Singh. So that you cannot forget all that you are — to protect you from betraying yourself.’

He heard the shot and then he staggered away, towards a clump of trees. He reached for a branch to steady himself, and he saw, suspended in the branches, a dripping shred of flesh and bone. He could not tear his eyes from it: it was a part of Kishan Singh, of the head he’d just held in his hands. He took another step and fell to his knees. When he looked up Rajan and the other men were standing around him, watching. In their eyes there was a kind of pity.

There was rejoicing at the camp when Doh Say decided to move back to Huay Zedi. The march down the slope was a triumphal, joyful parade, complete with drums, flutes and elephants.

Doh Say gave Dinu a small place of his own, at the edge of the village. Dinu was just settling in when Raymond sought him out.

‘Come with me,’ Raymond said. ‘I have something to tell you.’

They went down to the stream, and watched the village children shooting for fish in the shallows of Huay Zedi’s stream, with their crossbows and bamboo darts.

‘I have some news.’

‘What?’

Arjun was dead, Raymond said. He’d been tracked down by a unit from Force 136; they’d caught up with him at the old teak camp.

‘Was it you who led them there?’ Dinu asked.

‘No. A deserter. One of his own men — an old soldier.’ ‘But you were there?’ Dinu said. ‘At the end. .?’ ‘Yes.’

‘What happened?’

‘They’d called me in — the people who were hunting him.

They’d heard that many of his men had left—’

‘So was Arjun alone then?’

‘Yes. Completely alone — he was back at the abandoned teak camp. The rest of his men had left, they were all gone— they’d taken off their uniforms, put on longyis and disappeared into the forest. I tried to track them — but it was impossible. They knew the jungle, those men — they’d vanished.’

‘And Arjun?’

‘There was an Indian colonel there. He tried to get Arjun to surrender, told him that it was over, he would be all right. But Arjun shouted back, calling them slaves and mercenaries. And then he stepped out, on the tai’s veranda, shooting. .’

Raymond stopped to toss a pebble into the stream.

‘It was clear,’ he said, ‘that he did not want to live.’

In 1946, when it became apparent that Burma would soon become independent, Doh Say decided to leave Huay Zedi and move eastwards, into the mountainous regions of the Burma — Thailand border. The war had pitted the peripheries of the country against its centre: Doh Say was one of many who had deep misgivings about what the future held for Burma’s minorities.