Free The Ravi Lancers by John Masters Page A

eh? That will lead nowhere. We don’t want you marrying a European, like the Holkars. And you didn’t go to Hira Mandi? That Fleming Sahib put such puritanical ideas into your head that it’ll take some sensible Indian woman half her life to suck them out again. The Young Sahib, that’s what you are! Aiiih, my son twenty-seven and not a father! When are you going to get married again?’
    ‘When I fall in love,’ Krishna said, ‘but there’s no danger of that just now. I have more important matters in my mind.’
    He had been married as a child to the daughter of another ruling house; but the girl had died of smallpox a week before the marriage was due to be consummated, on Krishna’s sixteenth birthday.
    ‘Bholanath’s granddaughter,’ his mother said thoughtfully. ‘She’s seventeen now and very pretty. Healthy and strong, too. That’s good stock. A cousin of yours, of course, but that’s no harm.’
    ‘Mother, I must go.’ He kissed her, stopping the flow of words in his embrace, and slipped out while she was still talking.
    Hanuman, out of his splendid livery now, lay asleep across the doorway of his room. He rose silently as Krishna touched him with his foot, and said, ‘Lieutenant Pahlwan Ram was here. He said one of the dancing girls says she is in love with you. He will send her here if you want her.’
    Krishna said, ‘I’m tired. And if I didn’t take a girl in the Hira Mandi, why should I take one now? Pahlwan ought to know I don’t like that kind of love.’
    As Hanuman went on ahead of him, yawning and lighting the lamps, Krishna said, ‘That will do. I’m going to sleep now ... Do you know, we may be going to France to fight in the war?’
    The squat orderly said, ‘Whom do we fight?’
    ‘The Germans.’
    ‘Are they white or brown or black?’
    ‘White.’
    ‘Ah. That’ll be the first time I ever fought a white man. But my father fought the English in the Great Mutiny time.’
    ‘I know, Hanuman. Go now.’
    The orderly shambled out, his long arms swinging, and Krishna heard him lying down again on the mat outside the door. He began to undress. Mr. Fleming looked seriously at him from one of the silver frames on top of his chest of drawers. At the other end of the chest there was a picture of Ranjitsinhji raising his cap to the crowd after scoring a century for England; the picture was autographed by the great cricketer himself. What would they think of one of his captains offering him a dancing girl? Well, Ranji must have been brought up in similar circumstances, but Mr. Fleming would be very unhappy. Mr. Fleming had been insistent about the respect due to women, even the most humble, and about the sin of treating lightly what should be a deep, rare emotion.
    He got into his pyjamas and climbed into bed. How long would it take the Viceroy to reply? How long after that would they be given to get the regiment equipped for overseas? He felt a pang of guilt as he remembered that he had not told Colonel Hanbury yet. He’d have to do that tomorrow. The colonel was really too old for active service, but the British would probably insist that he accompany the regiment or send another BO to take his place. He saw, in a vision, the Lancers cantering across a green field, the lances swinging slowly down to the horizontal, the steel points shimmering as the horses stretched into a gallop. At their head rode ... Krishna. The demi-god, his face dark blue. Himself.
    He turned over uneasily, thinking of the conference in the temple. What would Miss Bateman think of that great phallus in the inner recess? How could she be expected to know that it was a concept of God’s immanence in creation? She would believe that Indians worshipped sex, thought of nothing but sex. Superstition, dirt, poverty ... What did the Rawal mean, that he was being sent as an envoy? Nonsense! He was going as an ally. Perhaps after this the Rajahs of Ravi would get a title equal to that bestowed on the Gaekwar of Baroda: