Free The Towers Of Silence (The Raj quartet) by Paul Scott Page B

had not read it. ‘I see you’ve all got your tickets,’ one member said. But it was no laughing matter.
    The purpose of the meeting, announced several days earlier, was to discuss arrangements to protect lives and property in the event of riots occurring in Pankot. So unlikely had this seemed that provision had been made for only half the number of people who came. The meeting was delayed for a quarter of an hour while more chairs were brought into the main lounge. Eventually it got under way with an address by Colonel Trehearne in his capacity as senior member of the cantonment board. His voice, although musical, lacked power. ‘Can’t hear!’ someone at the back shouted. He was shushed. Older hands knew from experience that Trehearne’s contribution to any public gathering bore the same relationship to what followed as an overture did to an opera. If you came in after he had sat down you’d missed nothing.
    He was succeeded by two civil officers from district headquarters down in Nansera: Bill Craig, assistant to the deputy commissioner, who assured the meeting that the district was so far unaffected by the disturbances in the plains and expected to remain so; and Ian MacIntosh of the Indian police who confirmed Craig’s report and opinion and added that three men from Ranpur, on whom the CID had kept an eye, had just been arrested for disturbing the peace by attempting to harangue the inhabitants of a nearby village. Mr MacIntosh added that he used the word ‘attempting’ advisedly because the villagers had simply laughed at the men and might have stoned them if a truck-load of constables had not intervened and taken them off to a place of safety: gaol.
    The atmosphere in the club which had been rather tense at the start as a result of the reports in the Ranpur Gazette now reverted to near-normal. The groundswell of indignation, of determination to stand no nonsense, of fear, of sad annoyance that things should have come to this pass, was checked by the counter-pressure of communal good-humour; hilarity, almost.
    At this point an Indian officer from General Rankin’s staff, Major Chatab Singh, known affectionately as Chatty (which he was) got on his feet and explained in broad outline civil and military plans to keep control in Pankot and Nansera (which was ten miles down the road, on the way to Ranpur), should the unthinkable actually happen. There were to be collection points for residents who desired to seek refuge from riots and attacks on European property and installations; for example women living on their own, or with children, and women whose husbands were off-station or likely to be in the event of serious disturbances in the area. One such centre would be the club itself. Chatty said he appreciated that these would henceforth be known as funk-holes but hoped that would not put people off using them if the need arose.
    He spoke with humour and precision. His handsome wife, who headed the small Indian section of military wives, made precise notes. People laughed at his jokes, which were not too clever. Had they been so the suspicion might have arisen that Chatty harboured bitter thoughts inside that neatly turbanned head.
    After a short pause for question and answer Isobel Rankin got up and announced that after refreshments the heads of the various women’s committees were to meet in the card room. These women were co-opted to form the special Pankot women’s emergency committee. She said she hoped this would turn out to be both its inaugural and closing session. She referred to the notice in the Ranpur Gazette and to the rumours of such attacks which had been current in the last few days, grossly exaggerated in regard to the number of women said to have been hurt.
    She did not (she said) wish to play down the seriousness of what had apparently happened in Mayapore but warned against the effects of what she called excessive reaction. Before she left the platform she asked whether Mrs Smalley was