Free Bhowani Junction by John Masters Page B

second village. It was the same procedure, only the watchman didn’t shoot at us. I insisted on walking in front that time, because I thought Savage was thinking I was a coward for falling on my face when they fired at us. I had never been fired at before, though I had been in the Auxiliary Force, India, of course, ever since I joined the railway.
    I am used to the jungles, but of course I had to trip up two or three times while I was leading the way, just because Savage was expecting me to, and finally he told me to get back and let a Gurkha lead. He was terribly impatient. My shoes were ordinary thin shoes, and my feet hurt, and by then I was hot, thirsty, and tired.
    The moon was dull orange when we set out for the last village. It was a clear night, but near the earth in the hot weather there is a layer of hot wavy air packed with dust, and the moon, shining through it, looks orange-coloured. The dogs in that village could hear the dogs barking in the one we were leaving, across a mile and a half of fields. Savage stopped tolisten and think, and instead of going the direct way he swung us off to one side. We came up to the last village from the left, where I remembered seeing a low rocky hill.
    While we were moving across that hill, going very quietly, I got a tickle in my throat and had to cough. At once something went pad-pad a little in front. Savage said in Hindustani, ‘Standstill, or I fire!’
    The shuffling noise went on among the thin thorn bushes and the rocks, where I suppose the villagers usually grazed their goats. I saw a shape moving. It might have been a man running, it might have been a deer or a jackal or a pig. It looked like nothing but a change of light between the bushes. Besides me Savage pulled his carbine into his shoulder and fired four times very quickly— bang-bang-bang-bang!
    The shape had gone, or the movement had stopped, I don’t know which. I had forgotten how much my feet hurt. The thing might be K. P. Roy with a gun, but what frightened me more was that I was with these people who simply shot at anything that didn’t do at once what they told it to. These people had brought the war to Bhowani, as I said.
    We spread out and went forward, searching everywhere. There was no sign of anything or anyone. Finally Savage took us to the village. They’d heard the shooting, and again the watchman fired at us. The headman said there bad been strangers there early in the day. Some of them had left before dusk, and one had just gone. No one knew who he was, but the headman described him, and Savage made a note.
    At last we walked back to the railway line. By then my feet were bleeding, but I didn’t complain to Savage. When we reached the trolley he said, ‘If you hadn’t coughed you could have saved us a lot of trouble—and yourself, I expect.’
    I said I was sorry, but that I couldn’t help it. He said, ‘Imagine a cough will get you a bullet in the liver. You’ll find you can help it. Come on, hurry up.’ After wasting hours out there in the middle of the night, he was suddenly in a hell of a hurry to get back.
    We got on the trolley and headed south. It was two o’clock before we got to Bhowani, and I realized that Savage had keptVictoria all that time in my office with Kasel. Macaulay had probably been there most of the time too.
    We looked a sight as we walked in—Savage, the Gurkha orderly Birkhe, and me. We were covered with dust, my clothes were torn and my shoes cracked. I limped to the chatti in the corner and poured about half of it down my throat. Until I’d done that I couldn’t even notice who was in the room.
    I saw that there were a couple of empty beer bottles in the wastepaper basket by Victoria’s table, and crumbs of bread and a chicken bone on the floor. I thought, Victoria must have had supper in here with Macaulay. There was no one else who would be likely to bring beer up there, except me. Savage saw the bottles and crumbs too and glanced quickly at