The Ravi Lancers (9 page)

He patted the head of the squirming, barking Shikari, threw his topi lightly at the bearer who came out, salaaming, to meet him, and went into the drawing room. He thought of ordering a drink but decided against it. He had a lot of thinking to do, apart from the packing, and arranging for the disposal of the contents of the bungalow. He called, ‘Dost Mohammed!
Nimbu pani.’

While the bearer was squeezing the lemon, Warren thought, he’d have to leave him behind; but he’d take his orderly, Narayan Singh, if the CO would let him transfer for the duration. It would be good to have one real soldier at his side ... or his back.

He sipped the lemonade, the bearer dismissed, the fox terrier at his feet. Bees hummed outside the closed windows and drawn blinds. The punkah swung lazily in the gloom over his head, worked by the punkah boy half asleep on the veranda by a rope tied to his big toe. The regiment was going to stay here, horseless, rotting, while he went to war. War ... with Indians who would be much more like the Indians the British had fought a century and more ago than the sepoys and sowars of the modern Indian Army. Raised under a despotism, religion, superstition, custom would be more important to them than discipline or law. Their relationships, their whole life would be guided by persons, personalities, personal emotions--not impersonal principles.

He shook his head. He would find out all about this soon enough. Now, he must think of the immediate necessities ... but the blue envelope on the mantelpiece caught his eye. That was from his mother, posted five weeks ago, telling him that all was well with Joan and the children. Joan’s own letters had become progressively scarcer since she reached England. But there had been no trouble between the women, nor with Ralph, as he had half-expected; in fact, early letters from Diana had been full of how well Joan and Ralph had got on with each other. It was not surprising, really, for they were both intellectuals. He ought to have realized that it needed someone like Joan, so unorthodox and Bohemian, to make poor Ralph forget for a moment that he was the illegitimate son of Warren’s father. But now, in this letter, his mother said she had found a good position for Ralph with
Blackwood’s Magazine
in Edinburgh, and that he had left to take it up. Edinburgh was a long way from Wiltshire. Pity they couldn’t have found Ralph another job in London; yet Di in her letter, enclosed with their mother’s, seemed to think that Ralph’s going to Edinburgh was an excellent plan. Perhaps it was, for Ralph--but Joan would be alone again in Shrewford Pennel, without any intellectual stimulus, for no one could call good old Di a blue-stocking.

Joan ... the bungalow was still full of her, with her long face and long nose and distant smile, that warmed without warning; and her dresses that made the other memsahibs gasp with astonishment; and her strange unrhymed ecstatic poems in imitation of Swinburne; and her paintings that looked like nothing on earth and yet held the eye so that one was always wondering what they might possibly be; and her habit of smoking a cigar now and then (though it made her feel sick); and letting the children run about naked, without topis, and do what they wanted, and her Harz-Goldwasser Method and her Montessori System. The other memsahibs swore she was ruining the children. Well, there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of by wives of cavalry officers . . .

Shikari licked his dangling hand unexpectedly and he looked down to see the dog looking up at him with soft eyes, the stump of a tail stirring. He fondled his ears and thought, what’s going to happen to you when I go. He might ask another officer to look after him, but for how long? It would be inhuman to put him down, fit and in the prime of his life. The dog licked his hand again and Warren thought, by God, I’ll take him with me! Why not? He had never thought dogs should be taken on manoeuvres, as some of his fellow officers did, and he probably wouldn’t have thought of taking Shikari to war if the regiment, his own regiment, was going and he among them. But the prospect of being alone in the Ravi Lancers suddenly made him quail. He bent down and said, ‘Shikari, you’re coming to France!
Parlez-vous français?’

As he stood in front of the mirror that evening while Dost Mohammed eased him into the high-collared mess jacket with its rows of gold braid, he thought it was appropriate that there should be a regimental guest night on this his last day with the regiment--his last time for full mess kit, last days as a captain ... so many lasts. In the mirror he saw Joan’s line drawing of a nude, that hung on the opposite wall. What a fury of whispering there had been over that, when the other wives saw it, as they were being led through here on their way to the
ghuslkhana
at dinner parties! It was a great pity Joan couldn’t come with him to Ravi and the Lancers. She understood much about Hinduism that he could only try to. She found nothing shocking in the sexuality displayed in the temples. ‘Shocking’ wasn’t the right word for his own thoughts about it, but he didn’t know what was. ‘Degrading’, perhaps--for surely it was degrading to equate God with the animal functions of procreation.

There must be more to it than that, of course. With luck, he might learn a lot from the Ravi Lancers--at least as much as they were going to learn from him.

He went out, his one miniature medal swinging against his chest, and walked to the mess. The Oxford Fusiliers’ band, lent for the occasion, was playing on the lawn and the liveried servants moved about with drinks on silver trays. The rain had passed, and mosquitoes whined around the oil lamps set on high stands. Through the open doors of the dining room he could see the shining mahogany table and the silver trophies and the damask napery set in lotus blossom shape at each place. He had seen it all so many times before, but this was going to be the last time--for how long? The band was playing selections from
The Yeomen of the Guard
and the guests were beginning to arrive: the major-general commanding the district, the Commissioner, officers from other regiments of the garrison.

The Roast Beef of Old England!
They sat down to dinner and the sherry was passed. Soup and more sherry.
The Merry Widow
. Fish from Karachi, packed in ice, and sent up on the Sind Mail, with white wine. Meat, tough lamb and roast potatoes, with champagne.
Floradora
. Dessert. More champagne. Savoury, angels on horseback, Port, sherry, madeira.

‘Mr. Vice, the King-Emperor.’

Scrape of chairs on stone tiles. Raising of glasses. Port sparkling red, bright against the lamps. The mess dafadar at salute behind the president’s chair. The servants in a row against the wall, all at attention.

‘Gentlemen, the King-Emperor.’

God Save the King
. Drink. Hesitate. But to throw the glass over your shoulder had been forbidden ten years ago as a waste of money.

General Glover was still on his feet, his glass raised. ‘Mr. President, I offer a toast. To victory!’

The president rose again. ‘Mr. Vice--victory!’

‘Gentlemen--victory! ‘

This time the word,
victory
, rumbled along the table, and the general himself was the first to throw his glass over his shoulder. It smashed against the wall and the pieces fell tinkling to the floor. Twenty glasses followed with a sound of crystal bells.

In the anteroom Warren found himself sitting next to the Commissioner, who was wearing white tie and tails, the collar of the Star of India around his neck.

‘I hear you’re going to the Ravi Lancers, Bateman,’ he puffed. He was fat and bald, with shrewd sharp dark eyes. ‘Have you ever served with Rajputs?’

‘No, sir ... But I thought Ravi was a Dogra state.’

‘Dogra is a purely geographical term. The people who live in that area are of various castes. The men you are going to serve with will call themselves Rajputs. Are you looking forward to it?’

Warren said slowly, ‘Yes, sir. I think so. It’s not going to be easy. My CO wonders whether it’s really wise to send any Indian troops to France, and I suppose that would apply even more strongly to States Forces.’

The Commissioner said, ‘I know what he means, but there’s a more subtle danger than that. A danger to the Indians. In exposing them to the power of alien gods, if you like. The gods of Europe do not speak Hindi. They have nothing in common with the gods of the Mahabharata. The right sacrifices and mantras may not work there. The men will feel isolated, out of their depth, alone. They will need comforting more than disciplining.’

An interesting idea, Warren thought, and different from what his colonel believed. The Commissioner said, ‘If I may venture a word of advice, Bateman, I would go slowly, go cautiously. React rather than act. We civilians have to deal with the Indian more as he is, less than with what we can make him, than you do in the army. We have learned that methods which will work with Englishmen, won’t necessarily work with Indians. It’s what outsiders would call deviousness, but often it isn’t devious, it is just... Indian. They have their own ways of thought, you know.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, I thought it would do no harm to mention it ... So you are going to do battle under the walls of Troy, with Lord Kitchener as Achilles and the Kaiser as Hector. I wonder what would represent Helen in this modern
Iliad?
’

Warren said, ‘Belgium, I suppose? ... I have thought it’s more like the
Mahabharata
.’

‘Oh,’ the Commissioner said, surprised, ‘you know the
Mahabharata?
’

‘Yes, sir. And the
Ramayana
... The
Iliad
always seems to me to be about a war where it will not really make any difference who wins, because there’s no difference between the two sides. The
Mahabharata
gives me an impression that it is not only about a war between nations, but between ideals, between good and evil, almost. More like
Paradise Lost
.’

‘Yes,’ the Commissioner said thoughtfully, ‘and in that other war, all the fighters are on one side, all the thinkers, the questioners, on the other. So war itself is turned sideways and becomes both less tangible and more sensible. I am an old fogey and a man of peace, but I wonder, after this German war is settled, what will be left of what we were fighting for.’

‘It’ll be over by Christmas, a lot of people say,’ Warren said. ‘Our cavalry people--the ones who are going overseas--are afraid they won’t get there in time.’

‘And what do you think?’ the Commissioner said, his beady eyes gleaming.

Warren said slowly, ‘I think it will be long ... and unpleasant, sir. And not like anything we have been practising and training for.’

‘You are a heretic, aren’t you?’ the Commissioner said. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘But you’re dead right.’

‘Victory, victory!’ a young man shouted at the other end of the room, waving a brandy glass.

‘Victory!’ the others chorused.

‘Spurs off! ‘ a voice rose. ‘High cockalorum! ... Come on! Ned, Fowler, Tommy, Rouse ... line up here. Other side there . . .

Crash, a picture fell from the wall as the line of young bodies formed up against it. A grinning mess servant ran in to sweep up the mess. All the bearers and waiters were peeping round the heavy curtains to watch the sahibs at play.

‘Off with his bags...’

‘Hold tight, they’re coming.’

‘Go!’

The rich embroidered jackets were hurled into corners. The shirt-sleeved young men ran across the room, leaped into the air and crashed down on the other side. Sweat began to run. A chair broke. On the lawn the band was playing selections from the works of Johann Strauss.

‘Come on, Warren! ‘

Warren put down his glass, it was the last time, and these were his friends and comrades, his brother officers, fellow Englishmen.

But it suddenly seemed childish, as Joan had always thought these mess antics were. The demi-gods and heroes of the
Mahabharata
didn’t act like this when they were, so to speak, between wars: they spent their time seducing milkmaids . . .

‘Go on. Enjoy yourself,’ the Commissioner said, raising his glass. ‘The Ravi officers won’t be the same at all.’

Warren took off his jacket and spurs, threw them into the corner, and hurled himself at the opposite line.

Warren Bateman sat in the back of the jolting tonga, facing sideways, his feet propped against the awning support on the left side, his back against the support on the right, Shikari curled up beside him. The pipe tasted aromatic and fresh in his mouth, the fields were green with growing wheat, and a light rain was falling, the end of a heavy monsoon shower that had lasted half the night and well into the morning. The road stretched behind, pools of water spattered by the falling rain and long ribbons of water marking the ruts in the deep mud. With his orderly, Narayan Singh, perched up front with the
tongawala
, and their valises, suitcases, and bedding rolls under the seat, the pony could manage no more than a fast walk in the heavy going.

Eighteen miles to Basohli, still. Perhaps he’d have done better to hire a horse in Pathankot and ride, but then he would have arrived without his kit, and it was very unlikely that a State regiment would be able to fit him out with decent clothes and equipment. He’d just have to contain himself in patience. He was, after all, in India, not British India but Vedic India ... and this ancient tonga was taking him ever deeper into its mysterious heart. The villages, sprawled low in mud wall under thatched roofs, did not look different from the villages in British India, whose border he had passed an hour ago. The temples were the same, the oxen the same in the fields, the red-bodiced women the same at the wells, the wiry loin-cloth’d men the same in the crops, but there was an unmistakable air of the East, unsupervised. The milestones which, over the border, marked the miles and furlongs in freshly painted English numerals, were now marked in almost illegible Nagri, where the stones were still standing. The trees lining the road had not been trimmed for a century, and the road itself would have been a disgrace to a village track in the poorest province of the Raj, although it was one of the only two carriage roads into Basohli, the capital.