There is a long silence.
We’re in the big field. Where is Ratna? Where is Venkateshia’s wife, Lakshamma? And Nose-scratching Nanjamma? And Seethamma and Vedamma and Chinnamma and all? ‘How are you, Madamma?’ I ask. ‘Hush!’ says someone in front of us, hid beneath the harvest, and as we raise our heads, we see men hid behind this ridge and that in this field and that, and their white clothes and their tufts and braids. And there is Kanthapura, too, across the canal and the aloe lane, and there’s not a light, and the streets are milk-splashed under the moon. There’s Rangamma’s veranda and Nanjamma’s mango well, and Sami’s courtyard with its cart, yokes on the earth and backs in the air; the dustbin is by the main street square, and the Corner-house coconut tree is dark and high. There seems to be not a beating pulse in all Kanthapura.
Now, there’s the gruff voice of the white officer and the whispered counsels of the soldiers. Soon they’ll begin the attack again.
The attack began not from their side but ours, for someone broke open the gas cylinders of the city lights, and they made such a roar that the officer thought it was a gunshot, and immediately there was a charge, and the soldiers came grunting and grovelling at us, bayonets thrust forward, and shot after shot burst through the night, and we knew this time there would be no mercy, and we rose and we ran; and someone from the Bebbur mound had run up to the barricades where there was neither soldier nor officer, and had tried to hoist the National flag, and the coolies rushed behind him, and the coolies from the Himavathy bend rushed towards them, and there was a long ‘Vandè Mataram!’ and the soldiers, fiercer, dashed behind us, and man after man gasped and cried and fell, and those that were tying bandages to them, they, too, got bayonet thrusts in the thighs and arms and chest, and we spread over field and bund and garden, and when we came to the canal there were so many of us to wade through, that the boys said, ‘Go ahead, go ahead, sisters,’ and they stood there, holding hand to hand and arm to arm, one long aloe hedge of city boys, their faces turned to the Bebbur mound. And the soldiers rush at them, but one goes forward and says, ‘Brother, we are non-violent, do not fire on innocent men,’ and the white officer says, ‘Stop,’ and he says to the soldier, ‘What does he say?’ and the soldiers laugh, ‘They say they’re innocent,’ and the officer says, ‘Then ask them if they will be loyal to the Government,’ and the boys ask, ‘What Government?’ and the officer answers, ‘The British Government,’ and the boys say, ‘We know only one government and that is the government of the Mahatma,’ and the officer says, ‘But ours is an Indian Government,’ and he says to a soldier, ‘Plant this flag here,’ and we who are on the other side of the canal, we lie behind the bund, and we look at the flag being planted just between Satamma’s boundary stone and the bel tree, and the moon is still there and the fields fretful with a mountain wind. And the officer says, ‘Salute, and march past the flag, and you will be free,’ and then he says, ‘Come out,’ and the boys cry in answer, ‘Inquilab Zindabad! Inquilab Zindabad!’ and the boys at the back begin:
O fire, O soul,
Give us the spark of God-eternal,
That friend to friend and friend to foe,
One shall we stand before Him.
And the flame of Jatin,
And the fire of Bhagat,
And the love of the Mahatma in all,
O, lift the flag high,
Lift the flag high,
This is the flag of the revolution.
And suddenly a boy rushes to the flag and a host of bayonets are thrust at him, and another boy rushes up behind him, and at him the officer aims his pistol, and then others cry and shout and rush at the flag, and the parrots and the bats and the crows come screeching out of the bel tree; and the coolies are now running down the Bebbur mound, and there is a hand-to-hand fight, and some, frightened, fall into the canal, and others go rushing this side and that, but the city boys, they squat down, they plop on the harvests and they squat down. But someone has hit the officer and he falls, and then curses and bayonets fly, and the coolies of the Bebbur mound have arrived, and they are holding the gaslight boxes in front of them, and some carry gas cylinders on their heads, and they carry sickles and lathis in their hands. But a voice is heard saying, ‘No violence, in the name of the Mahatma,’ and we know it is Ratna’s voice — but, where is she? Where? And the coolies answer back, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Say, brother, Gandhi Mahatma ki jai!’ and the soldiers rush towards them and fall on them, and the coolies fall on the soldiers, and the city boys cry, ‘Stop, stop,’ but bayonets are thrust at them too, and there is such a confusion that men grip men and men crush men and men bite men and men tear men, and moan on moan rises and groan on groan dies out, while the ambulance men are still at work and men are bandaged, and shot after shot rings out and man after man falls like an empty sack, and the women take up the lamentation: ‘He’s gone — he’s gone — he’s gone, sister!’ they beat their mouths and shout, ‘He’s gone— he’s gone — he’s gone, Moorthappa!’ and somebody adds, ‘He’s gone — he’s gone — he’s gone, Rachanna!’ and over the moans and the groans rises the singsong lamentation, ‘Oh Ammayya, he’s gone — he’s gone — he’s gone, Rachanna!’
And men are kicked and, legs tied to hands and hands tied to legs, they are rolled into the canal, and the waters splash and yells rise up, ‘Help, help, Ammayya!’ And the coolies rush up and some shout, ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ and others shout back, ‘Vandè Mataram!’ and a bayonet is thrust at one and he falls, and again through the night rises the lamentation, ‘Ammayya — he’s gone — he’s gone — he’s gone, Moorthappa,’ and it whirls and laments over the canal and the sugar cane field and the Bebbur mound and Skeffington Coffee Estate and the mango grove of the Kenchamma temple — and crouching, we creep back through the village lane, behind lantana and aloe and cactus, looking at the Bebbur mound, where the Gandhi flag is still flying beneath the full-bosomed moon, and the canal-bund beyond which three thousand men are shrieking and slaying, weeping, wounding, groaning, crawling, swooning, vomiting, bellowing, moaning, raving, gasping. and at the village gate there’s Satamma and Nanjamma and Rachamma and Madamma, and Yenki and Nanju and Pariah Tippa and old Mota and Beadle Timmayya and Bora and Venkata, and the children are there, too, and old men from the city, and the coolies of the fields who said, ‘Punjab, Punjab’. And we ask ourselves, ‘Who will ever set foot again in this village?’ and Madanna’s wife, Madi, says, ‘Even if you want to, the police are not your uncle’s sons, are they? For every house and byre is now attached.’ And then more and more men crawl up, and more wounded are brought up, on shoulders and arms and stretchers are they brought up, naked, half covered, earth-covered are they brought up, with dangling legs, dangling hands and bleeding hands, and with bleeding mouths and bleeding foreheads and backs are they brought up, city boys and peasant boys are they, young and bright as banana trunks, city men and peasant men, lean-ribbed, long-toed, with cut moustaches and long whiskers — peasant women and city women are they, widows, mothers, daughters, stepdaughters — and some speak in free voices and some in breathless sputters, and some can do no more than wallow and wail. And women walk behind them, beating their mouths and singing, ‘Oh, he’s gone — he’s gone, Cartman Rudrappa; Hè, said he to his bulls, and hè, hè, said he to his cart, hè, hè, hè, said he to the wicked whip; he’s gone — he’s gone — he’s gone, Rudrappa,’ and another woman adds, ‘He’s gone, Potter Siddayya. ’