Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Arjun was astonished to hear this. ‘You should tell Bucky,’ he said. ‘He should know.’

‘He must know already,’ Hardy said. ‘And if he hasn’t said anything to us, it must be for a reason. .’ They looked at each other uneasily and dropped the subject: neither of them mentioned these stories to anyone else.

A few months later the 1/1 Jats moved back to their battalion’s base at Saharanpur, near Delhi. With the descent into the plains the rhythms of their life underwent a dramatic change. The army was now expanding at a furious pace: regiments were raising new battalions and headquarters was looking everywhere for experienced personnel. Like every other battalion in the regiment, the 1/1 Jats were milked of several officers and NCOs. Suddenly they found themselves struggling to fill the gaps in their ranks. Newly recruited companies were sent up from the battalion’s training centre and a fresh batch of officers arrived, as replacements for those who’d left. The new officers consisted mainly of expatriate British civilians with Emergency Commissions — men who had until recently held jobs as planters, businessmen and engineers. They had little experience of the Indian army and its intricate customs and procedures.

Arjun and Hardy were both full lieutenants now and they were among the few regular army officers left in the unit. Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland began to depend on them more and more for the day-to-day running of the battalion.

First he saddled them with the job of forming a new administrative platoon. Then, sooner than anyone had expected, the battalion’s motorised transport was brought up to authorised strength. Three dozen fifteen-hundredweight trucks arrived, along with a dozen smaller lorries. It was discovered that the battalion had mule-trainers aplenty, but lacked drivers. Arjun was taken off the administrative platoon and appointed Motor Transport Officer. It fell to him to teach the new drivers the tricks of threading heavyweight trucks through Saharanpur’s narrow alleys and bazaars.

Even as the battalion was adjusting to its new vehicles, a shipment of armaments was sent up from New Delhi: 3-inch mortars, tommy guns and Vickers-Berthier light machine guns. Then came three Bren guns, with their carriers, six medium machine guns and five Boye’s anti-tank rifles, one for each company. Hardy was given the responsibility of running weapons training courses for the men.

Just as Hardy and Arjun were settling cheerfully into their new jobs, the CO turned everything upside down again. He pulled both Arjun and Hardy from their assignments and set them to work on preparing a unit mobilisation scheme.

By this time, most of Arjun and Hardy’s classmates from the Military Academy had already been sent abroad. Some were serving in North Africa, some in Eritrea (where one had won a Victoria Cross), and some in the East — Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore. Arjun and Hardy assumed that they too would soon be going abroad to join other units of the Indian army. When the CO asked them to draft a mobilisation plan, they took it as a sign that their departure was imminent. But a month went by without any further news, and then another. On New Year’s Eve, they saw 1941 in with a wan celebration. Despite the ban on shop talk at the mess, the conversation kept returning to the question of where they would be sent, east or west — to North Africa or towards Malaya.

Opinion was evenly divided.

Rajkumar was discharged from hospital with strict orders to remain in bed for at least a month. On returning home, he insisted on being moved up to a room at the top of the house. A bed was brought up and placed by a window. Neel bought a radio, a Paillard just like the one in the hospital, and placed it on a table, beside the bed. When everything was exactly as he wanted, Rajkumar lay down, with a wall of pillows against his back, positioning himself so that he’d be able to look across the city, towards the Shwe Dagon.

As the days passed the outlines of a plan began to take shape, very slowly, before his eyes. During the last war the price of timber had soared. The profits he had made then had sustained him for a decade afterwards. It was not too far-fetched to imagine that something similar might happen again. The British and the Dutch were reinforcing their defences throughout the East — in Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Java, Sumatra. It stood to reason that they would need materials. If he could build up a stockpile of timber in his yards, it was possible that he’d be able to sell at a good price next year. The problem was liquidity: he would have to sell or mortgage all his assets to find cash — he would have to get rid of the yards, the mills, the timber concessions, even the Kemendine house. Perhaps he could persuade Matthew to buy him out of Morningside: there might be some cash there.

The more he thought of it, the more plausible the plan seemed. The risks were huge of course, but they always were when anything important was at stake. But the rewards too could be very great; enough to clear his debts and finance a new beginning for Neel and Dinu. And there would be other advantages to arranging things in this way: all his assets would have been disposed of by the time he made his final move. After that he’d be free to leave — nothing to hold him back, nothing more to worry about.

One afternoon, when Dolly brought him his meal, he sketched his plan for her. ‘I think it could work, Dolly,’ he concluded. ‘I think it’s our best chance.’

Dolly had many objections.

‘How is all this to be done, Rajkumar? In your state of health, you can’t be up and about, travelling to Malaya and all that.’

‘I’ve thought of that,’ he said. ‘Neel and Dinu will do the travelling — not me. I’ll tell them what they have to do. One of them can go upcountry; the other can go over to dispose of our part of Morningside.’

Dolly shook her head. ‘Dinu won’t agree. He’s never wanted to have anything to do with the business — you know that.’

‘He doesn’t really have a choice, Dolly. If I were to die today, he would find himself paying off my debts whether he liked it or not. All I’m asking is a few months of his time. After that he’ll be free to follow his own interests.’

Dolly fell silent, and Rajkumar reached out to jog her arm. ‘Say something, Dolly — tell me what you think.’

‘Rajkumar,’ Dolly said quietly, ‘this plan of yours — you do know what they call this kind of thing?’

‘What?’

‘Hoarding — war-profiteering.’

Rajkumar scowled.

‘Hoarding applies to essential commodities, Dolly. That’s not what I’ll be dealing in. There’s nothing illegal about my plan.’

‘I’m not talking about the law. .’

Rajkumar’s tone grew impatient. ‘Dolly, there’s nothing else to be done. We have to take this chance — don’t you see?’

Dolly rose to her feet. ‘Does it really matter what I think, Rajkumar? If this is what you’re set upon, then this is what you’ll do. It is not important what I think.’

Late that night, when the whole house was asleep, the telephone began to ring in a hallway downstairs. Dolly got out of bed and ran to pick it up before it woke Rajkumar. She heard an operator’s voice, crackling down the line, telling her she had a trunk call. The instrument seemed to go dead for a moment, and then she heard Alison’s voice; it was very faint as though she were shouting across a crowded room.

‘Alison?’ She heard a sound that was like a sob. She raised her voice. ‘Alison, is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alison — is everything all right?’

‘No. . there’s bad news.’