Shadow of the Moon (63 page)

‘He was my brother,' said Ameera, ‘and I should not speak against him, for he was only a youth, and foolish, and might have grown out of his wild ways. But I have heard from one who was there that he had drunk overmuch wine, and that seeing the
Angrezi
officers he thought to make sport of them, and he and those who were with him threw firecrackers beneath the feet of their horses and danced about them, shouting. I have heard also that though the sahibs became hot and angry and laid about them with their riding-crops, there were no shots fired. Only the
partarkars
(crackers). But Dasim's wife, Mumtaz, will not have it. She is like my husband and hates all foreigners.'

Ameera sighed, thinking of her husband Walayat Shah, and the hatred that had soured him since the Company's Government had deposed the King of Oudh. She had attempted to explain something of his attitude to Winter, though it had been difficult, since he no longer spoke his mind to his wife …

Walayat Shah had at no time felt any friendship towards the British, but he had admired force - when it was successful - and as long as the British won battles and crowned their mercenary armies with glory, he had been prepared to view them with toleration and a certain degree of respect. Now, however, they had deprived him at one stroke of all rights and privileges and put an end to his means of livelihood, so that almost overnight, from holding a position of some power and authority, he had become little more than a pauper; forced even to prove his claim before a British official to land that his family had held for generations, and which was now his only source of income. And the proving of such claims, in a land where the sword had always carried more weight than the pen, was no easy matter when written evidence of possession was virtually non-existent.

Walayat Shah's toleration of the
feringhis
changed to a corroding and vindictive hatred. And with that hatred had arisen, like a phoenix from the
fire, the memory of the past glories of his race. He had rarely thought of the history of his people while the Muslim kingdom of Oudh still stood, but now that Oudh - almost the last Mohammedan state in India - had fallen, he and many like him turned to look at the glorious past when the horned moon of Islam had blazed above India from Peshawar to the Deccan, and the Great Moguls had ruled all Hind. The fire of that great Empire had sunk now to a feeble flicker, as though it had been no more than the light of a thousand
chirags
- the small oil-lamps lit for the festival of Dewali - that together blaze like a golden bonfire, but which die out one by one as the oil burns low or the night winds blow. Only a few of the lamps that had once made that bright glare remained, for the hot winds of the warlike Mahrattas, of the Rajputs, of Guru Narnak, founder of the Sikhs, had extinguished them one by one. And then a greater wind had arisen: the cold wind of ‘John Company', blowing in from beyond the Black Water and breathing upon the last dying flicker of the Empire of the Moguls.

The British had conquered the conquerors: Mahratta, Rajput and Sikh; and now, if the British themselves were to fall, chaos would follow. Out of that chaos might not the moon of Islam rise once more, and the followers of the Prophet rule the land as they had ruled it in the great days of Akbar - of Jehangir - of Shahjehan - of Aurungzebe, ‘Holder of the World'?

Walayat Shah, brooding on present calamity and past glory, listened to the words of those who preached a
Jehad
, and dreamed the Mohammedan dream. For now a
Jehad
meant far more than the spreading of the Faith and the slaying of unbelievers. It meant revenge; and perhaps, once more, an Empire.

‘He is changed even towards me, his wife, because my mother was a
feringhi
,' said Ameera sadly, ‘and therefore I cannot ask thee to enter the Gulab Mahal. Some day, surely. But for the present it were better to keep away.'

And so that door was closed to Winter.

She had come back at last to Lucknow. But not to that charmed and peaceful starting-point whence she had hoped to recoup her strength, and find a purpose in the pattern of her life so that she might start out again with surer feet; no longer a child at the mercy of incomprehensible adult orders, but as herself, Winter de Ballesteros, released from her foolish dependence on the pasteboard figure of a non-existent knight, free of fear and loneliness and the agonizing, strangling, dragging ties of love, and able to stand alone.

The reiterated promise that one day she would return to the Gulab Mahal and then all would be well with her had grown too deeply into her consciousness to be eradicated, so that the Gulab Mahal had become far more than a mere memory of happiness. It was a spell … a charm … a philosopher's stone that could transmute base metal into gold. The moon out of reach. She had seemed within reach of it at last, but she could not stretch out her hand and touch it, because the gate was shut against her.

Not wishing to distress Ameera, Winter did not even ask the way to the Rose Palace or in what part of the city it lay, and therefore did not even know if she passed it when she drove through Lucknow. She did not think so, since the houses in which the Europeans lived lay on the outskirts of the city or in the cantonments.

The city itself was a rabbit-warren of houses, shops, mosques, temples and palaces, narrow streets, narrower alleyways and crowded bazaars. Few Europeans chose to go there, for it seethed with discontent and bitterness, rage and rumours: ‘The sahibs will not rest until they have all Hind,' ran the whispers. ‘Did they not have a treaty with the King, and have they not broken it? It is said that the last
Lat
Sahib gained honours from the Queen for stealing so much land, and now the new one means to steal more so that his honours may be the greater. Soon there will be no kingdoms in Hind, but only one land - and all of it the Company's!'

The scores of men who besieged the courts daily, asking who would now pay their pensions, were told to wait. To wait … to wait. And while they waited, they starved.

‘Couldn't be helped,' said Mr Samuel Coombs, discussing the matter with the Commissioner of Lunjore over the port. ‘You can't take over a chaotic mess like Oudh and turn it into a smooth-running concern in a few weeks. It's not possible. Augean Stables wasn't in it, and Coverley Jackson ain't a Hercules! He did his best of course, but his best wasn't good enough … not much sympathy or understanding for the plight of all the poor devils who lost their livelihood and saw their way of life being swept into Limbo when we took over. And it was no secret that he spent half his time quarrelling with his assistants - all Oudh knew it, and that sort of thing don't inspire confidence. Good thing he's gone.'

Mr Coombs, like Mr Josh Cottar, was in business, and dealt in army contracts which were in the process of amassing him a large fortune. His business methods left much to be desired, but he was a shrewd man with a considerable knowledge of Oudh, and his independent status and large financial stake in the country gave him a clearer vision of the dangers inherent in the situation than those officials whose horizons were necessarily bounded by paper reports and red tape.

Mr Barton, who had no sympathy and little understanding for any problem regarding a subjugated race, contented himself with remarking that in his opinion far too much fuss was made over the natives these days. ‘Napoleon was right, b' Gad,' said Mr Barton. ‘A whiff of grapeshot is the only medicine that a rabble understands. But now that Lawrence has taken over, I suppose we shall see the population being pampered and petted beyond all bearing.'

Mr Coombs shook his head. ‘Not Lawrence. Justice ain't pampering. By God, he's a marvel!' - Mr Coombs's hoarse voice held an unexpected note of awe. ‘He hasn't been in the place ten days, yet already one can feel the difference. Pity he wasn't sent here at the start, I say.'

‘Very nearly was,' interjected another guest, a burly, grizzled man with a bloodshot eye. ‘Fact! I'm told he offered for the post but his letter arrived too late, Canning had just appointed Jackson. Great pity. Jackson's an able feller, but too hot-tempered. Lawrence has a temper too, but he seldom loses it. Patience of the East - and that's a virtue in this country! Jackson should have been superseded months ago.'

‘The trouble is that Canning's too kindly a man,' said Mr Coombs. ‘Wouldn't like to ask for Jackson's resignation after having appointed the fellow himself, and hoped things would improve, I suppose. But I understand that the stream of complaints about the mismanagement here grew too much even for his butter-hearted Lordship, and drove him to take the plunge and throw out his nominee in favour of Sir Henry.'

‘Well, I say it was a mistake,' said Mr Barton thickly. ‘S' Henry's a sick man. Anyone c'n see it with half an eye. And a sick nigger-lover ain't what I'd have prescribed for this province. No, by God it ain't! I hear he was due to leave f' England when the Governor-General's letter came. He should ‘a gone!'

Mr Coombs surveyed his host with palpable distaste. ‘It's plain you don't know Sir Henry,' he remarked. ‘He'd have come if he was dying.
He
knew! He knows how it is. He'll do his best, and his best is a sight better than any other man's in India. If anyone can check the rot, he will - though it's my opinion the rot's gone too far to check without bloodletting.'

‘Qui' right, ‘agreed the Commissioner. ‘What did I tell you? Whiff o' grapeshot, that's the answer! Barnwell, the port's with you—'

Sir Henry Lawrence, perhaps the best-loved man in India, had arrived in Lucknow late in March to take over the administration of Oudh from Mr Coverley Jackson. He was aged by grief and disappointment, and as Mr Barton had observed, in failing health. But at Canning's request he had once again abandoned the hope of sorely needed home leave and had hurried to the help of Oudh. ‘…
man can die but once
,' wrote Lawrence to his friend and pupil, Herbert Edwards, ‘
and if I die in Oudh - after saving some poor fellow's health or skin or
izzat (honour) -
I shall have no reason for discontent … But the price I pay is high for I had set my heart on going Home
…'

No one knew better than the man who had settled the conquered Punjab and won the respect and affection of the defeated Sikhs what unavoidable tragedies resulted from such a change in Government, or how best to soften and mitigate the hardships and heartaches and hopelessness that inevitably followed in its wake. The news of his appointment sent a sigh of relief through half India. If anyone could tame the sulky, suspicious, wild-eyed stallion that was Oudh, it was Henry Lawrence.

The Conway Bartons had been invited to dine at the Residency, and Winter had had her first sight of the man whom Alex had spoken of as men speak of a god or a hero.

He was a tall man, thin to emaciation, and his grey hair and scanty straggling beard were already turning white. His haggard, hollow-cheeked face was scored with the lines of weariness and anxiety and the unending strain of sorrow for his wife Honoria, who had died three years before. But the grey, deep-set eyes were quiet and far-seeing, and they could still glow with the same fire and fervour and enthusiasm with which he had faced his task as a young man newly come to India, and which had inspired and led such men as John Nicholson and Herbert Edwards, Hodson and Alex and many others, to look upon him with affection and admiration as the best and wisest of all administrators.

The Residency was always full of guests these days, for the newly appointed Chief Commissioner kept open house for the nobles, landowners and gentry of the district, as one method of inspiring confidence and getting in touch with the opinions prevailing in Oudh. His jurisdiction did not extend beyond the borders of his own province, but as Lunjore touched upon those borders he had been anxious to meet its Commissioner, of whom he had heard little good. Mr Barton had not impressed him favourably:

‘As you are at the moment on leave, Mr Barton, you will possibly not have heard that there has been a serious incident in Barrackpore,' said Sir Henry. ‘It will soon be common property, but I thought that you might like to know of it as soon as possible, in case you think it advisable, in the circumstances, to return to your district.'

‘
Return
?' said Mr Barton, his pale eyes bulging. ‘Did you say Barrackpore? But that can hardly affect us. It is a far cry from Calcutta and Barrackpore to Lunjore.'

“‘
Delhi dur ust
,”' said Sir Henry with a wry smile.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘It is an old saying in this country,' said Sir Henry. “‘
It is a far cry to Delhi
.”' But I do not think that distance will serve to protect any of us, because what has happened in Barrackpore is likely to affect us all. The cartridge question was at the back of it again. It seems that a sepoy of the 38th Native Infantry fired on and then cut down the Adjutant and a sergeant-major who ran to his assistance, while a jemadar and twenty men who were watching refused to help. General Hearsey appears to have ridden at the man, who then shot himself. That happened the day before the 19th N.I., who mutinied at Berhampur, were disbanded, and I fear it may have unpleasant repercussions in every cantonment in India. There has already been a certain amount of trouble in Ambala, and the cartridge scare is spreading.'

‘It will blow over,' said Mr Barton comfortably.

‘I wonder. I confess I do not like this business of the cartridges. It is the worse in that it contains a substratum of truth, as there is no doubt at all that proper care was not exercised, and denials may save us less than a frank acknowledgement of error and every effort to put it right. But in that I can
have no say. I do not know how you have found it in your district, but in my opinion it is the Army and not the nobles and talukdars that we have to worry about; although I cannot in all honesty deny that the nobles have, in many instances, just cause for complaint. I have always thought that we are too apt to under-value Indian forms of Government and measure too much by British rules: and in defiance of common sense we still appear to expect that the erstwhile rulers of this country should welcome our taking to ourselves all authority and all emoluments! If we cannot treat them, particularly the soldiers, as having the same ambitions as ourselves, we shall never be safe. There has been bad feeling for many years among the Bengal Army, but now that they are beginning to realize how few we are they are discovering a dangerous consciousness of power. A havildar to whom I was speaking only the other day warned me that if we did not speedily redress their wrongs they would redress them themselves.'