Red Earth and Pouring Rain (66 page)

His voice rose and there was never such a wonderful thing as the flapping of the flags, the colours of the coats of arms and
the pages’ uniforms, all against the dark sky, and all the boys’ faces as they looked at each other with eyes afire, and there
was indeed there a band of brothers, and there was not one of us who could have said afterwards that he did not almost weep.
All agreed it was the most splendid Parents’ Day that had ever been.

The Sixth were doughty knights, and they paid their allegiance to a king, and this was Haliburton, a favourite of Dr Lusk’s,
a large and
lumbering sort of fellow who got red in the face in the games of cricket and through his weight and momentum played a tolerable
sort of football. He was good at everything but outstanding in nothing, generally kind to his juniors and sincere in prayers.
I liked him, and it was known that Dr Lusk liked him, since he was made the ruler at our revels, and with his height he made
a picturesque king. During the speech he sat at Dr Lusk’s side and I can see his face plain even now, believing and stirred
as all of us. He had fine yellow hair and a trick of holding his head to one side when he smiled, which he did even with his
cardboard crown on and his eyes fixed on the doctor. Aye the doctor moved us that afternoon with his vision of what we were,
and what we could become, and I believed him as we all did as we must, but the day was not over yet, for I was to find yet
the other half. After the speeches and the prizes there was a tea, buns and polite chatter on the lawn in front of Dr Lusk’s
house; I stood with my parents, feeling shunned. Nobody was about to associate with them, she being scandalous still from
the marriage, and he nobody; but them, he and she, exclaimed about the fragrance of the damn buns as if nothing was happening.
I suppose they were accustomed to it, or rather judging from their panache they expected it and saw it as a martyrdom. But
it was horrid, no introductions for me or them, no invitations to visit, and finally my father decided he had enough and looked
around for the doctor. Must thank the doctor, said he, and bustled around, me in tow (she standing alone like Boadicea) until
a flunkey told us the doctor had retired, very temporarily, to his study. So what must we do but go thumping into the doctor’s
house, he had the confidence of the devil, my father; and we proceeded without hesitation into the domain of Dr Lusk, where
I had never been, and no mortal boy as far as I know. And a dark place it was, full of enormous heavy furniture hideously
carved and ornamented, all stuffed together until you couldn’t move without knocking your shins, samplers on the walls and
a yellow light about it all. We found the study, murmuring inside, and my father knocked on the door, polite tap-tap-tap,
and the wood slid aside, and there was Dr Lusk, sitting still with his arm out, and hunched across from him, the crown on
his knee, Haliburton, his shoulders forward and his face serious, stopped in the middle of a sentence. Gratitude, wanted to
thank you, said my father, and he and Dr Lusk walked a step or two away to the
parlour to confab, leaving Haliburton and I a-staring at each other. Now there was something in his countenance so curious,
so odd, anger it was, defiance, and something else, fear, no, terror; and I seeing this clearly said without thinking, I don’t
know where it came from —what were you telling him, Haliburton? At this he sprang up, took two steps towards me, and said
as if he were choking, shut up, shut up. And now suddenly I had that sensation again, secrets falling warm and fresh into
my hands, barriers parting, I understood it all suddenly, all symmetry and perfection, and I said, smile on my face and tears
of absolute joy starting to my eyes —Haliburton, you’re a bloody sneak. I mean I comprehended with utter clarity the doctor’s
omnipotence, his knowledge; and Haliburton said no, but no, but then back came my father and the doctor, and we fell to good-byes
and thank-you’s. Outside my mother waited, chewing pensively on a bun, what an appetite she had, but I was too excited to
take offence even at her sticky hug and her farewell exhortations full of Jesus and prayers. No, I went in to breakfast the
next day and ate the miserable bloody bread and butter in an absolute excitement at the gift I had received; Haliburton I
didn’t see all day until he found me after school and suggested a walk. Now see here, he said, when we were out among the
trees, now see here, I don’t know what you thought you were saying yesterday; and he looked as if he were good for a few more
minutes of that sort of pap, which I think was supposed to frighten me, but I said shortly, Haliburton, let off with that,
because you’re a bloody sneak. And at the word sneak he emptied, as if punctured, and I marvelled at this word I hadn’t even
known a few weeks before. I had to learn it, and learn that at Norgate you could be a debauchee, a wastrel, a cheat, a thief,
and still the boys would think nothing of it and certainly there were some who would think you a fine fellow for it; but if
you were revealed to be a sneak it was the end of your career and your life. You were forever marked, and you were let known
it by word and blow; it was the furthest insult to schoolboy honour, and so now the word sneak took the strength from Haliburton
like a knife. Now look here, he said, but pleading-like now, Dr Lusk thinks you’re a fine fellow, and I’ve seen you looking
at him, you know his task, and he needs to know things, it’s very important, you can’t run a school if you don’t know certain
things, what’s going on, d’you see? I see you’re a sneak, Haliburton.
There’s nothing dishonourable about it, said he, and Dr Lusk said so. You’re a bloody liar and a sneak, Haliburton, gentlemen
don’t peach on their friends and fellows. So now he looked stricken and rushed off, and I let him go; stewing in his predicament,
I suppose he was, and he couldn’t tell his mentor, because even if they found a pretext to expel me I would tell, by crook
or hook or spite, and there was the end for him. The next day at Assembly he looked frightened, as if expecting the worst,
I mean he was walking around looking into everyone’s faces as if trying to conjecture if they knew, and when he saw me he
smiled a pursed little smile, and then I knew I had him. I sidled up to him after the talk (Dr Lusk in fine fettle about the
field of honour) and whispered, see me in your rooms at four. At four I went up, amidst curious glances, because everybody
knew I had been taken up by Durrell, so what was Haliburton about, but inside he was half-delirious with fear. As soon as
the door shut he said, quavering, you haven’t told anyone, have you, old fellow? He had a spread laid out, toast and marmalade
and tea and fat sausages, and I sat down and took a bite before I shrugged, no. Have some of this marmalade, he said, and
coolly I took it, and said, listen here, Haliburton. I’m not going to tell anyone. Yes, he said, yes. He was leaning across
the table, holding out a jar, and I put down my knife and reached across, the devil knows where I got the confidence, but
I reached across and touched his hair, stroked it you could say, and let my knife-hand knuckle rub across his cheek, and he
went from red to white and back. I won’t tell anyone, I said, if you do what I say. He shut his eyes, trembled, the jar still
out to me and shaking, and eyes still shut he whispered yes. What, said I, what was that, Haliburton? Yes.

In the afternoon, before dinner, there was a furious game of football, the fellows of the Upper House and Gartner’s against
the rest. The numbers varied but there were always enough for a huge hacking knot, all elbows and boots and knees, and somewhere
the ball. You’d come out of it scraped and bleeding, panting and red in the face, wrung out as if you’d been to a battle.
You’d lie down on the grass and feel your chest heave, your team sprawled beside you. Then somebody would say once more into
the breach gentlemen and you’d say your mother but all the same you’d spring up, and it was glorious.

* * *

We do not mollycoddle your sons here said Dr Lush. We make them on these playing fields into soldiers.

Durrell is dead now these three years, murdered by a berserk native in Hong Kong where he served as a consular official. But
Dr Lusk is still alive.

and Haliburton’s thighs white under his shirt and Durrell’s face half hidden by shadow and pale and perfect. And I said to
Haliburton you over there and he bent over the foot of the bed and when I raised up the shirt his face hidden by the sheet
which he had bunched up in his fists around his head and his shoulders shaking. Every beat of my heart roaring through my
temples but I knelt over him but could do nothing, loosen up, damn you I said loose loose but still I was thwarted, it was
not him but me I was too nervous and filled with disgust, and looking up at Durrell’s face like marble, eyes hidden, I was
filled with shame and springing up I took a riding whip from the mantelpiece and swung. At the first stroke my frenzy passed
clean away and I felt instead a keen interest and curiosity, and the second was placed to the best of my ability and with
restraint and complete calculation, and at his groan I was complete. But I laid on better and better and his buttocks tightening
and flinching away and then giving way and soft and on I went until the room was filled with the sharp slaps and the blood
ran black in the light. Then I leaned over her and her head moved limply on the end of her neck in time with me and the blond
hair against the white sheet, and I looked at Durrell who leaned forward an elbow on his crossed knee and his eyes like brilliant
knife-points in the dark and he said, no, observe, observe. He turned her face to me and we looked together at the half-open
mouth and the stained cheeks and now I understood

Hey Sarthey d’you want to come along to town said Byrd. So we walked together, and far ahead of us on the country road were
fellows ambling along, capering and talking. The trees hung over the hedges so that we were in a tunnel of shadow but on the
golden fields the sun lay brightly. And locking arms we walked.

When Sanjay had finished reading what he had of Sarthey’s diary he was overcome by fear, and this was a horror he had never
known. It was
not the fear of the unknown, nor the apprehension of death, nor the pain of blood and laceration. It was a sensation of flying
apart, of falling to pieces inside and vanishing, and every moment of holding on demanded an effort, as if he were on a ladder
that slipped eternally from his grasp. It was dark outside, but as Sanjay forced himself to walk in circles around the room
he saw and sensed the first light. He made himself think of an immediate problem, which was how to dispose of the pieces of
paper on the bed before he had to face Sarthey, as he was certain he must soon in the day. Somehow he felt that he had to
hide his knowledge, that it was advantageous to appear ignorant, and so he examined the room carefully but there was no window
open, no chink in the wall, no hiding place at all. Finally he stood at the bed again, picked up a tattered piece of paper,
trying not to look at the fine script on it, and thrust it into his mouth; it turned into a sticky mass in an instant, elastic
and hard to swallow, tasting bitterly of ashes, but despite a quick rush of nausea he persisted and finally forced it down.
One by one, one piece after another, walking around the room, sometimes bending over and clutching his stomach, he ate it
all, and when he finished he leaned panting on the wall in a cold trembling sweat.

He heard Sikander’s voice before the door opened, and so he stood rather formally with his hands behind his back, facing the
threshold.

‘The Marathas lost at Assaye,’ Sikander said as soon as he came in. ‘We just received word by relay messenger.’ Sanjay said
nothing, having known this for a certainty during the night, and now feeling as if all this were inconsequential, since he
had already decided what he must do. ‘De Boigne’s brigades are destroyed. The Chiria Fauj is gone: they fought like lions.
They knew they had lost and they went on. It was no pretty battle of manoeuvre, no flying cavalry, no great movements. It
was a great slogging business, the brigades standing firmly and the British moving up and firing and firing. Then the brigades
closing ranks over the casualties, and it went on through the afternoon until there was nothing left. It is all gone. It was
a butcher’s business, and the English won.’

He looked again at Sanjay, awaiting a response, but Sanjay saw only the flat light of the morning, and all the images of the
Chiria Fauj disappearing into a mess of mud and bone seemed only real, only what must happen —there was no horror in it.

‘Mr. Sarthey is here to see you,’ said Sikander.

Sanjay waited impatiently, consumed by a sense of mission; he felt now as if something was over —the Brigades of Hindustan
were gone —as if something had changed, and something was gone forever, so there was no need for idle talk or recriminations.
He awaited Sarthey’s abuse with equanimity, and when the Englishman appeared Sanjay looked straight into his eyes with such
indifference that the other was taken aback, flabbergasted and silenced.

‘What were you thinking?’ Sarthey said. ‘You, even you?’ Then, irritated by Sanjay’s silence, ‘I suppose I was a fool to anticipate
anything else. One couldn’t expect anything of a primitive like you, no matter how well you mouth English. Despite the polish
you remained after all what you always were: a little unschooled savage.’

Sarthey’s contempt made no impression because Sanjay had already dedicated his life to killing him, and though the fear was
huge and present he had already learnt how to manage it behind a wall of resolve and logic. He looked at the Englishman’s
mouth opening and shutting.

‘He is mad,’ said Sarthey. ‘Let him go.’

As soon as Sanjay was released he went to the house of Begum Sumroo, which was a short distance away and famous throughout
Delhi. When he left, he had not looked at Sikander, saying only, ‘I will come for you,’ and at the Begum’s house he brushed
aside all polite enquiry about his health, and stood very still, staring at a wall until he was allowed in for an audience.
Before she could speak he said, ‘I wish to speak to you alone.’ She sat up at his rudeness, but then settled back slowly,
motioning her attendants out of the room.