He dropped three or four stones, with his other hand feeling his pulse. Even when the stones fell straight it seemed ages before the splash answered.
“About fifty feet to the water,” he said. “If we can get it up, and if the water is good, it means we can stay here for a while. The women say that Rani’s baby will be born in two or three days.”
They found a rope and bucket in the sheds, but it took a lot of trial and error and a lot of many-voiced arguments before the men rigged up a method of getting a bucket down all that distance and making it lie sideways when it reached the water, so that it filled, and then tilted upright when it was full. Hauling a full bucket up from fifty feet was tiring, too, but it was better than walking to Strake. And the water when it came was so sweet and clean that Cousin Punam decided it was safe to drink without boiling.
It was Gopal who found the corn. While Rani was in labor, three days later, the older children were shushed away. Nicky didn’t follow them up to the big barns because she felt uncomfortable there. She was looking, with little luck, for late wild strawberries in the matted grass on the banks of the lane when Gopal came hurrying past, his hands cupped close together as if he was trying to carry water. Nicky thought he’d caught a bird and ran to look.
“Nicky, you’re a ninny,” he said. “This is food. I climbed an iron ladder up one of those round towers and opened a lid at the top and it is full of corn. There is enough to feed us for a year. Look, it is dry and good.”
He ran on to show his treasure to the menfolk, while Nicky returned to combing through the weeds for strawberries. She found no more of the little red globules of sweetness, but caught a grasshopper instead, let it tickle her prisoning palms for a moment, then held it free and watched it tense itself for its leap, and vanish.
The baby was born in a cow byre. It was a boy. That night the Sikhs held full council. It was just as noisy and muddled with cross talk as any of the ones they’d heard on the road, but Nicky got the feeling that even in the middle of rowdy arguments they were being more serious, paying more attention to what the others said. From time to time they would ask her a question.
“We cannot use any of the tractors, can we Nicky?”
She shook her head.
“But we can reap and plow and dig and plant by hand?”
“Oh yes.”
“And there is nothing wrong with this wheat?” “Wrong?” She looked through the gateway to where the beautiful tall blades waved, gray as fungus under the big moon, but already tinged with yellow by daylight as the year edged toward harvest.
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Surbans Singh, “this is a modern crossbred variety of wheat, and another of barley. The madness does not apply to them, you think?”
“Oh no!”
Another long fusillade of Punjabi followed. Then . . .
“Nicky, would the madness make the villagers come and destroy us if we were to set up a blacksmith’s shop?”
“What would you do?”
“Make and mend spades and sickles and plows and other tools.”
“I mean, how would you do it? What would you use?”
“We would have to make charcoal first, which is done by burning wood very slowly under a mound of earth. Then we would have to contrive a furnace, with bellows to keep the charcoal burning fiercely. And when the iron was red-hot we would hammer it, and bend it with vises and pincers, and then temper it in water or oil.”
“Water,” said Nicky. “Where would you get the iron from?”
“There is plenty lying around the farm.”
“I think that would be all right. You could try, and I could always tell you if I thought it wasn't. Why do you want to know?”
“First, because if we are to stay here we shall need hand tools. This farm is highly mechanized, which is no doubt why the farmer left; he felt he could not work it without his tractors. But secondly, we shall need more to eat than wheat. We shall have to barter for meat and vegetables until we can produce our own. Some of us have seen smithwork done in India, in very primitive conditions; Mr. Jagindar Singh was a skilled metalworker in London, and two more of us have done similar work in factories and garages; so we think we can set up an efficient smithy. But perhaps the villagers will not have our advantages, so we shall be able to barter metalwork with them in exchange for the things we need.”
“That's a good idea,” said Nicky, astonished again by the amount of sense that seemed to come out of all the clamor and repetition. “But do you think the villagers will actually trade with you? They didn’t look very friendly when we came through, and they haven’t come up here at all.”
“If we make something they need, they will trade with us,” said Uncle Jagindar somberly. “It does not matter how much they dislike us. We have found this in other times.”
The whole council muttered agreement. Kewal gave a sharp, snorting laugh which Nicky hadn’t heard before.
“We must be careful,” he said. “If we become too rich they will want to take our wealth away from us.”
“I expect there are quite a lot of robbers in England now,” said Nicky. “Like those ones we fought on the other side of Aldershot — men who’ve got no way of getting food except by robbing the ones who have.”
This set off another round of argument and discussion in Punjabi. The men seemed to become very excited; voices rose, eyes flashed, an insignificant uncle even beat his chest. Nicky edged back out of the circle to ask Gopal what they were talking about. He was allowed at the council, but he was thought too young to speak (Nicky wouldn’t have been listened to either if she hadn’t been the Sikh’s canary).
Gopal laughed scornfully, but he looked as excited as the rest.
“They are going to make weapons,” he said. “Swords and spears and steel-tipped arrows. A Sikh should carry a real sword when times are dangerous. But I will tell you a joke — we Sikhs won most of our battles with guns; we used to run forward, fire a volley and then run back until we had time to reload. It does not sound very brave, but all India feared us then. What is the matter, Nicky? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. But they will not make guns now;
instead they will turn this farmyard into a fort which we can defend against the robbers.’’
After that the council became less serious, dwindling into boastings and warlike imaginings. Gopal translated the louder bits.
“My Uncle Gurchuran says we must capture horses and turn ourselves into cavalry, and then we can protect the whole countryside for a fee. A protection racket. We often lived like that in the old days . . . Mr. Parnad Singh says his father was Risaldar at an archery club in Simla, and he will teach us all to shoot. A risaldar is a sort of sergeant . . . My Uncle Chacha makes a joke of him and Mr. Parnad Singh is angry . . . My Uncle Jagindar is trying to smooth him down; he says it will be useful to have a good shot with a bow for hunting, and that Uncle Chacha must be careful what he says, because he is so fat that he will make a first-rate target. That is unfair because Uncle Chacha is the quickest of them all, and the best fighter. You saw how he fought against those robbers. Now he is pretending to be angry with Uncle Jagindar, but that does not matter because it is inside the family . . . My grandmother is speaking. She says we must all be careful how we talk to one another, because we are in a dangerous world and we cannot afford to have feuds with one another. My goodness, she says, we Sikhs are a quick-tempered people. She is beginning to tell a story. She tells very good stories, for children and adults too.”
The council had fallen silent at the creak of the old woman's voice. There had been a brief guffaw of laughter at her second sentence, but that was all. One of the men turned to glare at Gopal because his translation was spoiling the silence. He too stopped talking.