_ PHASE IV. DUST OF THE ACTUAL
CHAPTER VIII
"The patience of the British is as long as a summer's day;
but the arm of the British is as long as a winter's night."
--Pathan Saying.
They parted on the understanding that Roy would come in to tiffin on Sunday. Instead, to his shameless relief, he found the squadron detailed to bivouac all day in the Gol Bagh, and be available at short notice.
It gave him a curious thrill to open his camphor-drenched uniform case--left behind with Lance--and unearth the familiar khaki of Kohat and Mespot days; to ride out with his men in the cool of early morning to the gardens at the far end of Lahore. The familiar words of commands, the rhythmic clatter of hoofs, were music in his ears. A thousand pities he was not free to join the Indian Army. But, in any case, there was Rose. There would always be Rose now. And he had an inkling that their angle of vision was by no means identical....
The voice of Lance, shouting an order, dispelled his brown study; and Rose--beautiful, desirable, but profoundly disturbing--did not intrude again.
Arrived in the gardens, they picketed the horses, and disposed themselves under the trees to await events. The heat increased and the flies, and the eternal clamour of crows; and it was nearing noon before their ears caught a far-off sound--an unmistakable hum rising to a roar.
"Thought so," said Lance, and flung a word of command to his men.
A clatter of hoofs heralded arrivals--Elton and the Superintendent of Police with orders for an immediate advance. A huge mob, headed by students, was pouring along the Circular Road. The police were powerless to hold them; and at all costs they must be prevented from debouching on to the Mall. It was brisk work; but the squadron reached the critical corner just in time.
A sight to catch the breath and quicken the pulses--that surging sea of black heads, uncovered in token of mourning; that forest of arms beating the air to a deafening chorus of orthodox lamentation; while a portrait of Ghandi, on a black banner, swayed uncertainly in the midst.
A handful of police, shouting and struggling with the foremost ranks, were being swept resistlessly back towards the Mall--the main artery of Lahore; and a British police officer on horseback was sharing the same fate. Clearly nothing would check them save that formidable barrier of cavalry and armoured cars.
At sight of it they halted; but disperse and return they would not. They haggled; they imposed impossible conditions; they drowned official parleyings in shouts and yells.
For close on two hours, in the blazing sun, Lance Desmond and his men sat patiently in their saddles--machine-guns ready in the cars behind them--while the Civil Arm, derided and defied, peacefully persuaded those passively resisting thousands that the Mall was not deemed a suitable promenade for Lahore citizens in a highly processional mood.
For two hours the human tide swayed to and fro; the clamour rose and fell; till a local leader, after much vain speaking, begged the loan of a horse, and headed them off to a mass meeting at the Bradlaugh Hall.
The cavalry, dismissed, trotted back to the gardens, to remain at hand in case of need.
What the Indian officers and men thought of it all, who shall guess? What Lance Desmond thought, he frankly imparted to Roy.
"A fine exhibition of the masterly inactivity touch!" said he, with a twitch of his humorous lips. "But not exactly an edifying show for our men. Wonder what my old Dad would think of it all? You bet there'll be a holy rumpus in the city to-night."
"And then----?" mused Roy, his imagination leaping ahead. "This isn't the last of it."
"The last of it--will be bullets, not buckshot," said Lance in his soldierly wisdom. "It's the only argument for crowds. The soft-sawder lot may howl 'militarism.' But they're jolly grateful for a dash of it when their skins are touched. It takes a soldier of the right sort to know just when a dash of cruelty is kindness--and the reverse--in dealing with backward peoples; and crowds, of any colour, are the backwardest peoples going! It would be just as well to get the women safely off the scene."
He looked very straight at Roy, whose sensitive soul winced, at the impact of his thought. Since their brief talk, the fact of the engagement had been tacitly accepted--tacitly ignored. Lance had a positive genius for that sort of thing; and in this case it was a godsend to Roy.
"Quite so," he agreed, returning the look.
"Well--you're in a position to suggest it."
"I'm not sure if it would be exactly appreciated. But I'll have a shot at it to-morrow."
* * * * *
The city, that night, duly enjoyed its 'holy rumpus.' But on Monday morning shops were open again; everything as normal as you please; and the cheerful prophets congratulated themselves that the explosion had proved a damp squib after all.
Foremost among these was Mr Talbot Hayes, whose ineffable air of being in the confidence of the Almighty--not to mention the whole Hindu Pantheon--was balm to Mrs Elton at this terrifying juncture. For her mountain of flesh hid a mouse of a soul, and her childhood had been shadowed by tales of Mutiny horrors. With her it was almost an obsession. The least unusual uproar at a railway station, or holiday excitement in the bazaar, sufficed to convince her that the hour had struck for which, subconsciously, she had been waiting all her life.
So, throughout Sunday morning, she had been a quivering jelly of fear; positively annoyed with Rose for her serene assurance that 'the Pater would pull it off all right.' She had never quite fathomed her daughter's faith in the shy, undistinguished man for whom she cherished an affection secretly tinged with contempt. In this case it was justified. He had returned to tiffin quite unruffled; had vouchsafed no details; simply assured her she need not worry. Thank God, they had a strong L.G. That was all.
But authority, in the person of Talbot Hayes, was more communicative--in a flatteringly confidential undertone. A long talk with him had cheered her considerably; and on Monday she was still further cheered by a piece of news her daughter casually let fall at breakfast, between the poached eggs and the marmalade.
Rose--at last! And even Gladys' achievement thrown into the shade! Here was compensation for all she had suffered from the girl's distracting habit of going just so far with the wrong man as to give her palpitations. She had felt downright nervous about Major Desmond. For Rose never gave one her confidence. And she had suffered qualms about this new unknown young man. But what matter now? To your right-minded mother, all's well that ends in the Wedding March--and Debrett! Most satisfactory to find that the father
was a Baronet; and Mr Sinclair
was the eldest son! Could anything be more gratifying to her maternal pride in this beautiful, difficult daughter of hers?
Consequently, when the eldest son came in to report himself, all that inner complacency welled up and flowed over him in a volume of maternal effusion, trying enough in any case; and to Roy intolerable, almost, in view of that enforced reservation that might altogether change her tone.
After nearly an hour of it, he felt so battered internally that he reached the haven of his own room feeling thoroughly out of tune with the whole affair. Yet--there it was. And no man could lightly break with a girl of that quality. Besides, his feeling for her--infatuation apart--had received a distinct stimulus from their talk about his mother and the impression made on her by the photograph he had brought with him, as promised. And if Mrs Elton was a Brobdingnagian thorn on the stem of his Rose, the D.C.'s patent pleasure and affectionate allusions to the girl atoned for a good deal.
So, instead of executing a 'wobble' of the first magnitude, he proceeded to clinch matters by writing first to his father, then to a Calcutta firm of jewellers for a selection of rings.
But he wavered badly over facing the ordeal of wholesale congratulations--the chaff of the men, the reiterate inanities of the women.
On Tuesday, Rose warned him that her mother was dying to give a dinner, to invite certain rival mothers, and announce her news with due eclat.
"Hand us round, in fact," she added serenely, "with the chocs and Elvas plums!--No! Don't flare up!" Her fingers caressed the back of his hand. "In mercy to you, I diplomatically sat down upon the idea, and remained seated till it was extinct. So you're saved--by your affianced wife, whom you don't seem in a frantic hurry to acknowledge...!"
He caught her to him, and kissed her passionately. "You
know it's not that----"
"Yes,
I know ... you're just terror-struck of all those women. But if you will do these things, you must stand up to the consequences--like a man."
He jerked up his head. "No fear. We'll say to-morrow, or Thursday."
"I'll be merciful, and say Thursday. It's to be announced this afternoon. Have you mentioned it--to any one?"
"Only to Lance."
A small sound between her teeth made him turn quickly.
"Anything hurt you?"
"You've quick ears! Only a pin-prick." She explored her blouse for the offending pin. "Do you tell each other everything--you two?"
"Pretty well--as men go."
"You're a wonderful pair."
She sighed and was silent a moment. Then, "Shall it be a ride on Thursday?" she asked, giving his arm a small squeeze.
"Rather. There are Brigade Sports; but I could cry off. We'll take our tea out to Shadera, have a peaceful time there, and finish up at the Hall."
So it was arranged, and so it befell, though not exactly according to design.
* * * * *
On Thursday they rode leisurely out through the heat and dusty haze, away from bungalows and the watered Mall, through a village alive with shrill women, naked babies, and officious pariahs, who kept Terry furiously occupied: on past the city, over the bridge of boats that spans the Ravi, till they came to the green secluded garden where the Emperor Jehangir sleeps, heedless of infidels who, generation after generation, have picnicked and made love in the sacred precincts of his tomb.
Arrived at the gardens, they tethered the horses, drank thermos tea and ate sugared cakes, sitting on the wide wall that looked across the river and the plain to the dim huddled city beyond. And Roy talked of Bramleigh Beeches in April, till he felt home-sick for primroses and the cuckoo and the smell of mown grass; while, before his actual eyes, the terrible sun of India hung suspended in the haze, like a platter of molten brass, till the turning earth, settling to sleep, shouldered it almost out of sight.
That brought them back to realities.
"We must scoot," said Roy. "It'll be dark, and there's only a slip of a moon."
"It's been delicious!" she sighed; and they kissed mutually--a lingering kiss.
Then they were off, racing the swift-footed dusk....
Skirting the city, they noticed scurrying groups of figures, shouting to each other as they ran; and the next instant, Roy's ear caught the ominous hum of Sunday morning.
"Good God! They're out again. Hi--You! What's the
tamasha?" he called to the nearest group.
They responded with wild gestures, and fled on. But one lagged a little, being fat and scant of breath; and Roy shouted again. This time the note of command took effect.
"Where are you all running? Is there trouble?" he asked.
"Big trouble, Sahib--Amritsar," answered the fleshly one, wiping the dusty sweat from his forehead, and shaking it unceremoniously from his finger-tips. "Word comes that our leaders are taken. Mahatma Ghandi, also. The people are burning and looting; Bank-
ghar,[29] Town Hall-
ghar; killing many Sahibs and one Mem-sahib.
Hai! hai! Now there will be
hartal again; Committee
ki raj. No food; no work.
Hai! hai![30] Ghandi
ki jai!"
"Confound the man!" muttered Roy, not referring to the woebegone one. "Look here, Rose, if they're wedged up near Anarkali, we must change our route. I expect the squadron's out; and I ought to be with it----"
"Thank God, you're
not. It's quite bad enough----" She set her teeth. "Oh,
come on."
Back they sped, at a hand-gallop, past the Fort and the Badshahi Mosque; then, neck and neck down the long straight road, that vibrant roar growing louder with every stride.
Near the Church they slackened speed. The noise had become terrific, like a hundred electric engines; and there was more than excitement in it--there was fury.
"Sunday was a treat to this," remarked Roy. "We shan't get on to the Mall."
"We can go through Mozung," said Rose coolly. "But I want to
see--as far as one can. The Pater's bound to be there."
Roy, while admiring her coolness, detected beneath it a repressed intensity, very unlike her. But his own urgent sensations left no room for curiosity; and round the next swerve they drew rein in full view of a sight that neither would forget while they lived.
The wide road, stretching away to the Lahori gate, was thronged with a shouting, gesticulating human barrier; bobbing heads and lifted arms, hurling any missile that came to hand--stones, bricks, lumps of refuse--at the courageous few who held them in check.
Cavalry and police, as on Sunday, blocked the turning into the Mall; and Roy instantly recognised the silhouette of Lance, sitting erect and rigid, doubtless thinking unutterable things.
Low roofs of buildings, near the road, were alive with shadowy figures, running, yelling, hurling bricks and mud from a half-demolished shop near by. Two mounted police officers made abortive attempts to get a hearing; and a solitary Indian, perched on an electric standard, well above the congested mass, vainly harangued and fluttered a white scarf as signal of pacific intentions. Doubtless one of their 'leaders,' again making frantic, belated efforts to stem the torrent that he and his kind had let loose.
And the nightmare effect of the scene was intensified by the oncoming dusk, by the flare of a single torch hoisted on a pole. It waved purposefully; and its objective was clear to Roy--the electric supply wires.
"That brute there's trying to cut off the light!" he exclaimed, turning sharply in the saddle, only to find that Rose had not even heard him.
She sat stone-still, her face set and strained, as he had seen it after the tournament. "
There he is," she murmured--the words a mere movement of her lips.
He hated to see her look like that; and putting out a hand, he touched her arm.
"I don't see him," he said, answering her murmur. "He'll be coming, though. Not nervous, are you?"
She started at his touch--shrank from it almost; or so he fancied. "Nervous? No--furious!" Her low tone was as tense as her whole attitude. "Mud and stones! Good heavens! Why don't they
shoot?"
"They will--at a pinch," Roy assured her, feeling oddly rebuffed, and as if he were addressing a stranger. "Stay here. Don't stir. I'll glean a few details from one of our outlying sowars."
The nearest man available happened to be a Pathan. Recognising Roy, he saluted, a fighting gleam in his eyes.
"
Wah, wah! Sahib! This is not man's work, to sit staring while these throw words to a pack of mad jackals. On the Border we say,
paili lath; pechi bhat.[31] That would soon make an end of this devil's noise."
"True talk," said Roy, secretly approving the man's rough wisdom. "How long has it been going on?"
"We came late, Sahib, because of the sports; but these have been nearly one hour. Once the police-
log gave buckshot to those on the roofs. How much use--the Sahib can see. Now they have sent a sowar for the Dep'ty Sahib. But these would not hear the Lat Sahib himself. One match will light such a bonfire; but a hundred buckets will not put it out."
Roy assented, ruefully enough. "Is it true there has been big trouble at Amritsar--burning and killing?"
"
Wah, wah! Shurrum ki bhat.[32] Because he who made all the trouble may not come into the Punjab, Sahibs who have no concern--are killed----"
An intensified uproar drew their eyes back to the mob.
It was swaying ominously forward, with yellings and prancings, with renewed showers of bricks and stones.
"Thus they welcome the Dep'ty Sahib," remarked Sher Khan with grim irony.
It was true. No mistaking the bulky figure on horseback, alone in the forefront of the throng, trying vainly to make himself heard. Still he pressed forward, urging, commanding; missiles hurtling round him. Luckily the aim was poor; and only one took effect.
A voice shouted, "You had better come back, sir."
He halted. There was a fierce forward rush. Large groups of people sat down in flat defiance.
Again Rose broke out with her repressed intensity, "It's madness! Why on
earth don't they shoot?"
"The notion is--to give the beggars every chance," urged Roy. "After all, they've been artificially worked up. It's the men behind--pulling the strings--who are to blame----"
"I don't care
who's to blame. They're as dangerous as wild beasts." She did not even look at him. Her eyes, her mind were centred on that weird, unforgettable scene. "And
our people simply sitting there being pelted with bricks and stones ... the Pater ... Lance...."
She drew in her lip. Roy gave her a quick look. That was the second time; and she did not even seem aware of it.
"Yes. It's a detestable position, but it's not of their making," he agreed; adding briskly: "Come along, now, Rose. It's getting dark; and I ought to be in Cantonments. There'll be pickets all over the place--after this. I'll see you safe to the Hall, then gallop on."
Her lips twitched in a half-smile. "Shirking congrats again?"
"Oh, drop it! I'd clean forgotten. I'll conduct you
right in--and chance congrats. But they'll be too full of other things to-night. Scared to death, some of them."
"Mother, for one. I never thought of her. We must hurry."
For new-made lovers, their tone and bearing was oddly detached, almost brusque. They had gone some distance before they heard shots behind them.
"Thank goodness! At last! I hope it hurt some of them badly," Rose broke out with unusual warmth. She was rather unusual altogether this evening. "Really, it would serve them right--as Mr Hayes says--if we
did clear out, lock, stock, and barrel, and leave their precious country to be scrambled for by others of a very different
jat[33] from the stupid, splendid British. I'm glad
I'm going, anyway. I've never felt in sympathy. And now, after all this ... and Amritsar ... I simply couldn't...."
She broke off in mid-career, flicked her pony's flanks, and set off at a brisk canter.
Pause and action could have but one meaning. "She's realising," thought Roy, cantering after, pain and anger mingled in his heart. At such a moment, he admitted, her outburst was not unnatural. But to him it was, none the less, intolerable. The trouble was, he could say nothing, lest he say too much.
At the Lawrence Hall they found half a company of British soldiers on guard,--producing, by their mere presence, that sense of security which radiates from the policeman and the soldier when the solid ground fails underfoot.
Within doors, the atmosphere was electrical with excitement and uncertainty. Orders had been received that, in case of matters taking a serious turn, the hundred or so of English women and children gathered at the Club would be removed under escort to Government House. No one was dancing. Every one was talking. The wildest rumours were current.
At a crisis the curtains of convention are rent and the inner self peers through, sometimes revealing the face of a stranger. While the imposing Mrs Elton quivered inwardly, Mrs Ranyard--for all her 'creeps' and her fluffiness--knew no flicker of fear. In any case, there were few who would confess to it, though it gnawed at their vitals; and Roy's quick eye noted that, among the women, as a whole, the light-hearted courage of Anglo-India prevailed. It gave him a sharp inner tweak to look at them all and remember that nightmare of seething, yelling rebels at Anarkalli. He wished to God Rose had not seen it too. It was the kind of thing that would stick in the memory.
On their appearance in the Hall, Mrs Elton deserted a voluble group and bore down upon them, flustered and perspiring.
"My darling girl--thank God! I've been in a fever!" she cried, and would have engulfed her stately daughter before them all, but that Rose put out a deterring hand.
"I was afraid you'd be upset--so we hurried," she said serenely; not the Rose of Anarkalli, by any means. "But we were all right along the Mozung road."
That 'we,' and a possessive glance--the merest--at her lover, brought down upon the pair a small shower of congratulations. Every one had foreseen it, of course, but it was so delightful to
know....
After the sixth infliction, Roy whispered in her ear, "I say, I can't stand any more. And it's high time I was off."
"Poor dear! 'When duty calls...?'" Her cool tone was not unsympathetic. "I'll let you off the rest."
She came out with him, and they stood together a moment in the darkness under the portico.
"I shall dream to-night, Roy," she said gravely. "And we may not even see the Pater. He's taken up his abode in the Telegraph Office. Mother will want to bolt. I can see it in her eye!"
"Well, she's right. You ought all to be cleared out of this, instanter."
"Are you--so keen?"
"Of course not." His tone was more impatient than loverly. "I'm only keen to feel--you're safe."
"Oh--safe!" she sighed. "
Is one--anywhere--ever?"
"No," he countered with unexpected vigour, "or life wouldn't be worth living. There are degrees of unsafeness, that's all. It's natural--isn't it, darling?--I should want to feel you're out of reach of that crowd. If it had pushed on here, and to Government House, Amritsar doings would have been thrown into the shade."
She shivered. "It's horrible--incredible! I suppose one has to be a lifelong Anglo-Indian to realise quite
how incredible it feels--to us."
He put his arms round her, as if to shield her from the memory of it all.
"I'll see you to-morrow?" she asked.
"Of course. If I can square it. But we shall be snowed under with emergency orders. I'll send a note in any case."
"Take care of yourself--on my account," she commanded softly; and they kissed.
But--whether fancy or fact--Roy had an under sense of mutual constraint. It was not the same thing at all as that last kiss at Shadara.
There they had come closer, in spirit, than ever yet. Now--not two hours later--the thin end of an unseen wedge seemed to be stealthily pressing them apart.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 29: House.]
[Footnote 30: Alas, alas!]
[Footnote 31: First a blow, then a word.]
[Footnote 32: True talk. Shameful talk.]
[Footnote 33: Caste.] _