The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [148]
The Major loathed this sort of thing but joined in nevertheless. Sarah and Edward were enjoying themselves so much—besides, he did not want Sarah to think he lacked a sense of fun. Soon he got his reward. A snowball hurled by one of the twins struck him on the ear and made his head ring. He retired at that, laughing like a good sport—but displeased nevertheless, cupping his tender ear in the palm of his hand. Faith afterwards apologized: the twins had learned in a hard school and put stones in the middle of their snowballs. But the one that had hit the Major had been intended to flatten Sarah, not him. She was dreadfully sorry.
“Good heavens, why Sarah?” asked the Major, astonished that anyone could fail to like such a lovely girl.
“Oh, because she’s so bloody awful,” Faith said vaguely. “She’s always hanging around Daddy.” The Major frowned then, to show his disapproval of swearing. He frowned later, too, on thinking it over. How he wished it were him instead of Edward that Sarah was always hanging around...!
What was going on between Edward and Sarah anyway? She still came to the Majestic quite frequently, but both she and Edward were always looking so grim these days. They did not behave in the least like lovers. Although his indifference to her had been amply demonstrated, the Major still could not prevent himself from haunting the couple, in the hope of getting further opportunities to demonstrate it. Thus it was that while flitting after them along a dim corridor one day he heard Edward exclaim: “You’re not the only woman in Kilnalough!”
“Who else would look at you twice?” jeered Sarah in a tone that the Major recognized only too well. After that she stopped coming to the Majestic.
* * *
TROUBLE IN INDIA
The centre of growing Indian unrest seems to have shifted from the Punjab to the United Provinces. Here, in the Oudh district, a serious land agitation has been in progress for the past month. It has given rise to violent outbursts and the United Provinces today are passing through a crisis not unlike that which reached its most acute phase in Ireland forty years ago. Hatred of the landlords is the cause of all the trouble and, undoubtedly, the peasantry has many grievances.
The trouble in the United Provinces has furnished a rare opportunity to Mr Gandhi. His object is the expulsion of the British from India, and he will welcome the aid of the Fyazabad farm labourers just as heartily as if they were Sikhs from the Punjab or Brahmins from Madras. Unless the dispute be settled quickly the agitators will succeed in convincing the rioters that their real enemy is the Raj...
Throughout the Punjab, in Delhi, and now even in Calcutta, this fanatical “patriot” has proclaimed his boycott of British rule. He has transformed peaceful villages into hotbeds of intrigue and sedition, and his lieutenants, by their plausible sophistries, have fired the imaginations of young Indians with crazy ideas. Mr Gandhi is the author of his country’s unrest. While he is allowed to preach his gospel India will continue to seethe with discontent.
* * *
THE GREATEST NEED
Ireland is being ground to powder between the two millstones of crime and punishment. For those whose sense of horror recent events have not blunted the daily newspaper has become a nightmare. The deliberate death-blow and the wandering bullet fired in attack or defence spare neither sex nor age. On Monday night a police officer’s wife was murdered at Mallow and the officer himself sorely wounded. Immediately afterwards, in a fight with forces of the Crown, one man was killed and seven were wounded. Human life is cheaper today in Munster than in Mexico. The explosion of bombs has become a common sound in Dublin, where yesterday another attack was made on a police motor car in Merrion Square...We believe that a national demand for a stoppage of murder and lawlessness, made with a single voice by our Churches, our newspapers, our public bodies, our farmer’s unions, our Chambers of Commerce, would be the herald