Free A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) by Paul Scott Page A

up her head? That this will be so because of all the men in the battalion who were not killed but captured only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan was not true to the salt? Only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan listened to the lies of his captors and of the enemies of the King-Emperor whose father rewarded his father with the most coveted decoration of all? Only Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan brought shame to his regiment and sorrow to the heart of Colonel Sahib?
    A pause.
    How long is it since you saw Colonel Sahib?
    No answer.
    Where do you think he is? At home in comfort? You think perhaps on the day he and the other officers were released from prison-camp in Germany that he got into an aeroplane and flew home to his family in India? This is not so. It is you who are in India first, ahead of him, ahead of all your comrades of the 1st Pankots. Like you they had not seen Colonel Sahib since the day of their capture when the officer sahibs were taken to one camp and the men to another. But on the day Colonel Sahib was released he said, now let me go to my men. I shall not go back to India without them. Come, let us find the men, let us go to the prison-camp where the men are. Let us go to the camp and collect all the men together. Let us wait in Germany until every man who was still alive after the battle and was taken prisoner has been accounted for and then let us sail back to our families in India, as a regiment. And so it has been. And only one man of the 1st Pankots has not been accounted for, one man who was not killed but who was not in any prison-camp. He had deserted his comrades to fight alongside the enemy. We do not know why. We shall find out why. Where you are going you will be asked many questions. You will be asked many questions by many officers. You will see me again also. I also shall ask you many more questions. Tonight I am not asking questions of this kind. I speak to you only of the shame and sorrow you have brought to Colonel Sahib. I do not know Colonel Sahib but I know Colonel Memsahib and I know the two young memsahibs. Susan Mem and Sarah Mem. I was in Pankot four weeks ago. They had a letter from Colonel Sahib. Be patient, he wrote. I am making arrangements about the men. So, they are patient. All Pankot is patient, awaiting the regiment’s return from across the black water. In Pankot they do not yet know the story of Havildar Karim Muzzafir Khan who let himself believe in the lies of Subhas Chandra Bose. But soon they will know. And they will be dumb with shame and sorrow. The wild dogs in the hills will be silent and your wife will not raise her head.
    The Punjab officer spoke a resonant classic Urdu. It was a language that lent itself to poetic imagery but Perron had heard few Englishmen use it so flexibly, so effectively, or to such a purpose. Throughout the speech the prisoner’s eyeshad grown brighter, moister. Perron thought he might break down. He believed this was the officer’s intention and he was appalled. He would have understood better if the officer and the prisoner were of the same regiment because by tradition a regiment was a family and the harshest rebuke might then be ameliorated by the context of purely family concern in which it could be delivered and received. Then, if the man wept, it would be with regret and shame. If he wept now it would be from humiliation at the hands of a stranger.
    But he managed not to weep. Perhaps the years in Europe had eroded his capacity to be moved – as Indians could be – by rhetoric. Perhaps he suddenly realized that nothing except full bellies would keep the wild dogs of the hills silent, and was astonished that a British officer should use such high-flown language. Perron thought that for a second or two a flash of contempt was discernible in the moist eyes. Certainly, they dried, and were directed again at the burning cigarette.
    There was silence for perhaps as long as a minute. ‘I have finished with this man,’ the officer said suddenly.