No Man's Land (5 page)

‘You don't know the meaning of that, do you?' said Lalu to Subah.

‘Ohe
, leave this talk of meanings, you learned owls,' said Kirpu. ‘Any fool can see that they are greeting us with warmth and hospitality. Come give a shout after me, “Long live the
Francisis!”'

‘Long live the
Francisis!
' the boys shouted, and the calls were taken up, followed by roars of laughter.

Now the enthusiasm of the women in the crowd knew no bounds.

‘Vivonleshindous
!' they shouted and laughed.

‘Bolo Sri Ram Chander ki jai
!' one of the Hindu N. C. O.s shouted.

And the sepoys echoed the call.

‘Allah ho Akhbar
!' someone shouted, and was echoed back by the stalwarts of the Muhammadan companies.

‘Wah Guruji ka Khalsa
!
Wah Guruji ki
Fateh!' shouted a Sikh somewhere. And the other Sikhs took up the call while someone, more full throated than the rest, added in a shrill tenor:
‘Bole so Nihal, Sat Sri Akal
!'

And as a river in flood flows unchecked when once the dams of resistance have burst, so the calls of enthusiasm flowed across the tongues of the endless legion, emphasized by the stamping of determined feet, and punctuated with snatches of talk. And the long pageant, touched by the warmth of French greetings, inflamed by the exuberance of tropical hearts marched through this air, electric with the whipped-up frenzy, past churches, monuments, past rows of shuttered houses, chateaus and grassy fields, till, tired and strained with the intoxication of glory, it reached the racecourse of Parc Borely where tents had been fixed by an advance party for the troops to rest.

After a march past of various mounted English and French generals, a sudden halt was called. The general of the Lahore Division trotted his horse up to the head of the forces, adjusted a megaphone to his mouth, and shouted in a Hindustani whose broken edges gained volume from the incomprehensibility of his tone and emphasis:

‘Heroes of India. After the splendid reception which you have been given by the French, and the way in which you have responded with the calls of your religions, I have no doubt that you will fulfil your duties with the bravery for which you are famous!…'

The band struck up ‘God Save the King', and all ranks presented arms. After which the various regiments marched off towards the tents allotted to them.

When they had dispersed and reached their billets, and began to take off their puttees and boots, they found that their feet, unused to walking since the voyage, were badly blistered.

‘Wake up, lazybones, wake up, it is time for you to say prayers,'Uncle Kirpu was shouting as he crouched in bed puffing at the end of an Egyptian cigarette.

‘They must be tired,' said Daddy Dhanoo affectionately, as he wrapped the blanket round himself, shivering in the dawn, and invoking various names of God,
‘Om
!
Hari Om
!
Ishwar
!'

‘If we don't wake early we shall not get the ticket to heaven,' said Lalu as he stretched his body taut like a lion, yawned and rose, calling: ‘
Ohe
, Subah.'

‘Who? What?…' Subah burst, startled out of a fitful sleep, stared at Lalu with bleary, bloodshot eyes, and then turned on his side.

‘Has the bugle gone?' Lalu asked, hurrying out of his bed as though he were frightened.

‘No, I was saying that you will be late for your prayers,' said Kirpu.

‘Where does one say them?' Lalu asked as he started to dress. ‘And does one say them seated on English commodes or crouching like black men who relieve themselves on the ground.'

‘God's name is good!' Daddy Dhanoo said before Kirpu had answered. And he yawned, his big eyes closing, while the various names and appellations of the Almighty multiplied on his lips, his mouth opening like that of a tired Pekinese. This was his way of evading discussion on the topic because he had been the butt of all jokes since he had slipped off the polished edge of an English style commode on the ship.

‘
Om
!
Hari Om
!' Lalu parodied him. ‘May you be consigned to your own hell, and be eternally damned, Almighty Father of Fathers.'And he went out of the tent blaspheming.

Every blade of grass between the tents on the racecourse shone in the light of the rising sun, while a sharp cool breeze blew from where the blue line of the sky lost itself in the mist around the dove-coloured chateaus on the hills.

Lalu walked along, impelled by the superstition which he had practised in the village that to walk on the dew drops in the morning was good for the eyes.

He had not been out long before Subah came running after him.

A spoilt child, very conscious of his position as the son of the Indian head of the regiment, Subah wanted to go and pay his respects to his father, which usually meant that he wanted the gift of some pocket money. He persuaded Lalu to come with him by promising his friend a treat at the ‘Buffet' outside the camp.

They sauntered along towards the tent of the Subedar Major, and then, seeing several important looking French and British officers gathered there, stood about discussing whether Subah should go up.

With characteristic impetuosity, however, Subah ran towards his father's tent, while Lalu stood averting his eyes for fear of the officers. Lest he be seen nosing about, he began to walk away, assuming a casual expression as if he were just ‘eating the air'. Even that would be considered objectionable if he were seen by a Sahib. He hurried, because the imposing cluster of bell-topped tents spread the same fear in him as the secret, hedged-in bungalows of the Sahibs in Ferozepur cantonment, where it was an intrusion even to stare through the gates.

He hurried towards the latrines.

When he came out the camp was already alive as if it were an ordinary cantonment in India. Habitual early risers, most of the sepoys were hurrying about, unpacking luggage, polishing boots, belts and brass buttons with their spittle, washing their faces, cleaning their teeth with the chewing-sticks which they had brought from home, and gargling with thunderous noises and frightening reverberations, to the tune of hymns, chants, and the names of gods, more profuse and long winded, because the cold air went creeping into their flesh.

‘As if the hissing, the sighing and the remembrance of God would keep them warm!' Lalu said to himself, feeling the incongruity of their ritual with the fashionable ‘air and water of France'. He showed his face to the sun and, out of sheer light heartedness, began to jump across the strings of small tents towards his own tent.

‘
Ohe
, where are you going?' Uncle Kirpu shouted.

Lalu rushed in, put on his boots quickly, adjusted his turban, and walked out again.

‘The boy has gone mad!' exclaimed Kirpu to Dhanoo.

But the boy was exhilarated at being in
Vilayat
, thinking of all the wonderful shops that were in the streets through which they had passed yesterday, and the general air of elegance and exaltedness that surrounded everything.

A few Sikhs of No. 4 company stood combing their long black hair. He recalled the brutality with which the fanatics of his village had blackened his face and put him on a donkey when he had had his hair cut. The humiliation had bitten deep into him. They must look odd to the Europeans, he thought. And he wondered how many of them would have their hair cut while they were abroad or after their return to India. But the Sahibs didn't like the Sikhs to have their hair shorn, as they wanted them to preserve their own customs, even though Audley Sahib had excused him when Lance-Naik Lok Nath had reported him at Ferozepur. But for Havildar Lachman Singh and Captain Owen, the Adjutant, he would have had to go to ‘quarter guard', on bread and water for a week, and his record would have been spoilt. Instead of which Lok Nath's promotion had been stopped and the Corporal had been transferred to another platoon, though that was more because Subedar Major Arbel Singh wanted to get his son, Subah, rapid promotion. The boy wondered when Lok Nath would wreak his vengeance on him…

A group of Muslim sepoys, belonging to his regiment, sat in a circle round a hookah, however, and some dark Hindu Sappers and Miners of the next regiment were jabbering in dialect as they baked chapatees within the ritualistic four lines of their kitchen, while a Jodhpur Lancer was gesticulating with his arms and his head as he explained something to a woman who – what was he doing?

Lalu stopped to listen.

The Sappers were using foul abuse. It seemed that the woman had walked into their kitchen.

‘Silvoup silvap…
' the woman said coming up to him.

Lalu just moved his head and smiled weakly.

The woman gabbled away in French.

Lalu stood dumb with humility, and was going to salute, and go away for fear an officer might see him talking to a Mem Sahib, while the Jodhpur Lancer, equally at a loss, said: ‘I don't know what the sisterin-law wants.'

The French woman laughed at her own discomfiture, and then said in English ‘picture', pointing at Lalu, and the Jodhpur Lancer, trying to explain with her head, her eyes, her nose, her fingers, what she wanted.

But as if the very presence of a Mem Sahib, usually so remote and unapproachable in India, had paralysed them, they stood unresponsive.

Lalu looked about furtively and scanned the cavalry horses on the right, the shouting cooks and water carriers on the left and the Baluchis and the Gurkhas who were sunning themselves ahead of him. Then he looked back towards the officers' quarters, and pointed towards them, thinking that the best thing was to send her to the Subedar Major Sahib's tent. But his gaze met Subah's, who came running along abreast of a French officer on horseback.

Lalu and the Jodhpur Lancer sprang to attention and saluted.

The officer talked in his own tongue to the woman, and then, laughing, said to Subah in English:

‘The Miss wants to draw the pictures of these men.'

‘Draw my picture, Mem Sahib,' Subah said coming forward.

The French woman smiled at Subah, said something to the officer, and made a gesture to the Jodhpur Lancer, Lalu and Subah, to stand together.

But Subah thrust himself forward and thumped his chest to indicate that he wanted a portrait of himself all alone.

By this time, driven by curiosity, other sepoys were gathering round.

Whereupon the French officer said in Hindustani: ‘Mem Sahib would like a group.'

‘Fall into the group and let all of them be in the picture,' Lalu advised Subah.

‘
Han
, we also want to be in it,' said the other sepoys crowding round the woman, several rows deep, at the first touch of the pencil.

Then they all stood away, twisting their moustachios into shape and stiffening to attention as if they were going to be photographed.

The officer and the woman laughed as they talked for a moment, then the officer edged aside and the woman began to draw the picture.

‘That was the interpreter sahib,' Subah said with great importance.

The French woman sketched the group. But there were any number of subjects before her now, for other sepoys from the nearby tents had gathered round. They would come and look at the woman as though she were a strange animal, because she was so homely, so informal and so unlike the white women who came to Hindustan and never condescended to greet a native. And they posed before her, proud to be sketched, their honest faces suffused with embarrassed laughter, even as they stood, stiff and motionless, their hands glued to their sides.

The woman could draw the pictures of the sitting, standing, talking, moving sepoys with a few deft strokes even before they knew they had been sketched.

And then there was much comedy, the sepoys laughing at the caricatures of each other and exclaiming wildly as they came to life on paper, happy as children to see the sketches, and insisting on signing their name in their own language on the portraits.

When the woman had made various sketches Subah began to press for a portrait of himself. But he could not communicate his wish to her in the little French which he had learnt at school. As he came up to her with a daring familiarity, Jemadar Suchet Singh, a tall, imposing officer of No. 2 company of the 69th Rifles approached to see the confusion and said:

‘Get away, don't crowd round the mem sahib! Get away!'

‘Come, leave the skirt, let us go,' Subah said.

‘You are getting too bumptious,' shouted Suchet Singh to Subah. ‘You try to be familiar with her again, and I shall have you courtmartialed. Never mind whose son you are!'

After this warning the crowd of sepoys began to slink away.

‘Come on, my heart-squanderer, she is beyond your reach,'said Lalu, dragging Subah away. ‘And get ready to face your father because I am sure Suchet Singh will report you!…'

‘Look out, son, I am to become a Jemadar soon,' Subah said to Lalu, as they hurried towards the main road. ‘The Subedar Sahib told me today, so you behave if you value your life.'

‘
Ohe, ja, ja
, don't try to impress me!' said Lalu.

‘Oh, come, raper of your sister, we shall celebrate,' Subah said. ‘You will be my friend, even when I am an officer.'

‘Build the house before you make the door.'

‘All right, wisdom, come, and run lest we be seen.'

‘Where are we going?' Lalu asked. ‘We have to get permission if we are going out of bounds.'

‘You come with me,' said Subah, ‘there is a stall at the end of that road. I saw it when we were marching down to camp; it seemed a wineshop, because there were people with glasses full of red, pale and green wine before them. Come, we will walk through the camp as though we are not really going out, and then try and evade the sentry at the end of the road, or I shall tell him that I am the son of the Subedar Major Arbel Singh. Come, we shall be happy… You can live without fear of Lok Nath now, because now that I have got promotion he will remain where he is, in the mire…'