“We’ll put Major Hogan in charge to keep him quiet. And we’ll give them a six-pounder, though I don’t suppose they’ll find much use for it. Now we’d better get down and set up those batteries while we still have the chance.”
Major Hogan was a rather muddled and peppery old fellow who was generally considered to have been too long in the East. The garrison under his command was composed of Harry Dunstaple (relegated there until his wrist was properly mended), a couple of portly Sikhs, half a dozen very elderly native pensioners who had loyally presented themselves on hearing of the Company’s difficulties, a taciturn man from the Salt Agency called Barlow and, lastly, Fleury. Major Hogan, as it happened, was the only officer over the rank of lieutenant to have survived the slaughter at Captainganj. He might have laid claim to the military command of the whole enclave but had not done so … Years had passed since he had last taken any serious interest in his profession.
Although disappointed to be posted to the safest place inside the enclave, Harry swallowed his feelings and set to work to improve the Collector’s fortifications. Soon Fleury was hard at work too, sitting in the shade of a Greek pillar and directing the native pensioners who came tottering up from the river bed with boulders where to put them. But Fleury had little stamina and presently this tedious job became too much for him; so he sauntered away in a rather unmilitary fashion. Harry would have reprimanded him, because one cannot have a soldier, even an amateur soldier like Fleury, leaving his post whenever he gets bored, but Harry had just received delivery of his six-pounder and could think of little else … it was made of brass and he had set his two Sikhs to polishing it. Brass cannons are lighter than iron but gunners who knew their business, like Harry, preferred them because they were less likely to burst. But brass does have a disadvantage, too. If a great number of shots are fired the muzzle becomes distorted into an ellipse from the shot constantly hammering upwards against its rim, and then loading becomes difficult or impossible. But several hundred shots would have to be fired before this happened, which would take weeks or months of siege warfare … and there was no question of the garrison at Krishnapur having to hold out for more than a few days, while help was sent from Barrackpur on Dinapur. So Harry had no need to worry about that.
Fleury had wandered over to the Residency hoping to find someone to have a chat with, perhaps even Louise if he were lucky … but everything was in turmoil. All the men were working in a frenzy to throw more earth on to the ramparts before the sepoys had a chance to attack … they did not even appear to see Fleury standing there amiably in his Tweedside lounging jacket. And where the women were, heaven only knew … though he would not have been surprised to learn that they were organizing something else, somewhere else. Fleury wandered away, feeling unwanted. At the Church, there was more feverish activity; a difference of opinion was taking place because the Collector had ordered food, powder and shot to be stored in the Church; the Padre and some members of his congregation were entertaining serious doubts about the propriety of this. But while the more spiritual were entertaining doubts, the military were shifting the stones. Fleury watched the great earthenware jars containing grain, nice, flour and sugar being carried into the Church and arranged in rows at the back.
When he returned to the banqueting hall he found Harry behaving rather oddly. He was gazing in a trance at the brass cannon and running his fingers over its soft, hairless, metal skin. It might have been a naked young girl the way Harry was looking at it. He gave a start when he heard Fleury approach, however, and slapped the chase in a more manly fashion.
“Look here, Harry, you must tell me all about cannons. To begin with, what’s this thing like a door-knob on the end for?”
“That’s the cascable,” muttered Harry, taken aback. He could see that Fleury was not going to be such a success as he had hoped.
“Sometimes, Tom, I wonder that I am not an atheist myself!”
It was the Collector who had uttered this heartfelt cry. He and the Magistrate were standing in the vernacular record room of the Cutcherry; from outside there came the steady clinking of spades as a detachment of English private soldiers, the remainder of the General’s “odds and ends” on their way to Umballa, threw gravel against the outer wall.
The Collector was displeased; he had just had to arbitrate a dispute over the graveyard between the Padre and the Roman Catholic chaplain, Father O’Hara. A small portion of the graveyard had been reluctantly allotted to Father O’Hara by the Padre for his Romish rites in the event of any of the half dozen members of his Church succumbing during the present difficulties. But when Father O’Hara had asked for a bigger plot, the Padre had been furious; Father O’Hara already had enough room for six people, so he must be secretly hoping to convert some of the Padre’s own flock to his Popish idolatry. The Collector had settled the dispute by saying with asperity: “In any case, nobody’s dead yet. We’ll talk about it again when you can show me the bodies.”
The vernacular record room, which had a surprisingly cheerful appearance, was the very centre of the British administration in Krishnapur and as such was the object of the Magistrate’s scientific scrutiny. He had come to see this room as an experimental greenhouse in which he watched with interest, but without emotion, as an occasional green shoot of intelligence was blighted by administrative stupidity, or by ignorance, or by the prejudices of the natives.
As a matter of fact, it even looked like a greenhouse. Its walls were lined from floor to ceiling with tier over tier of stone shelves; to protect the records from white ants they were tied up in bundles of cotton cloth brilliantly dyed in different colours for ease of reference … and these bright colours gave the shelves the gay appearance of flower-beds. This cloth protection, however, was not always effective and sometimes when he opened a bundle the Magistrate would find himself looking, not at the document he required, but at a little heap of powdery earth. And then he would give a shout of bitter laughter which echoed across the compound and had more than once caused the Collector to raise his eyebrows, fearful for his sanity. In India all official proceedings, even the most trivial, were conducted in writing, and so the rapidity with which the piles of paper grew was alarming and ludicrous. The Magistrate was constantly having to order extensions to be made to his laboratory. Sometimes, when tired, he no longer saw it as an experimental greenhouse but instead as an animal of masonry that crept steadily forward over the earth, swallowing documents as it went.
The Collector, his splendid ruff of whiskers standing out clearly against a bank of yellow bundles, was looking at the Magistrate in a moody, persecuted sort of way. The Magistrate himself was standing with his head against a bank of cinnamoncoloured documents which so nearly matched the colour of his own hair and whiskers that for a moment it seemed as if his eyes, nose and ears were floating disembodied above the morning coat. He knew what the Collector was feeling persecuted about and could not resist persecuting him a little more, thinking with relish: “His high-mindedness could hardly be expected to survive the pressure of circumstances.” He enquired innocently: “How about the mosque?”