The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [231]
“And so the natives feel themselves defiled...well, good gracious!”
“No, not by that, Mrs Dunstaple, but by the grease on the cartridges...it’s only on balled cartridges of course...that is, a cartridge with a ball in it. You empty in the powder and then instead of throwing it away you ram the rest of the cartridge in on top of it. But because it’s rather a tight fit you have to grease it, otherwise the ball would get stuck. With the new Enfield rifles, which have grooves in the barrel, the balled cartridge would certainly get stuck if it wasn’t greased.”
“Bless my soul, so it was the grease!”
“Of course it was, that’s what worried Jack Sepoy! Somehow he got the idea that the grease comes from pork or beef tallow and he didn’t like it touching his lips because it’s against his religion. That’s why there was trouble at Barrackpur. But now Major Bontein has suggested a change of drill...in future, instead of biting off the end we’ll simply tear it off. That way the sepoys won’t have to worry what the grease is made of. As it is, the stuff smells disgusting enough to start an epidemic, let alone a mutiny.”
Hudson added that there had been yet another spot of bother on the twenty-seventh of February, at Berhampur, a hundred miles to the north where the 19th Bengal Infantry had refused to take percussion caps on parade; the absence of any European regiment had made it impossible to deal with this mutinous act on the spot...Now the defaulting regiment was slowly being marched down to Barrackpur for disbandment. But there was no cause for alarm and, besides, now that everyone had finished eating, a game of blind man’s buff was being called for.
Everyone cried that this was a splendid idea and in no time the bearers had cleared the hampers to one side (and then been cleared away themselves) and the game was ready to begin. One of the ladies, a plump girl who was already rather hot from laughing so much, had duly been blindfolded and now she was being turned round three times while everyone chanted a rhyme that one of the officers, who had decided as a pastime to study the natives, had learned from the native children:
“Attah of roses and mustard-oil,
The cat’s a-crying, the pot’s a-boil,
Look out and fly! The Rajah’s thief
will catch you!”
With that they all darted away and the young lady blundered about shrieking with laughter until at last her brother, who was afraid that she might have hysterics, allowed himself to be caught.
This brother was none other than Lieutenant Cutter, a very amusing fellow indeed. As he lunged here and there he kept up a gruff and frightening commentary to the effect that he was a big bear and that if he caught some pretty lass he would give her a terrible hug...and the ladies were so alarmed and delighted that they could not help giving away their positions by their squeals, and they kept only just escaping in the nick of time.
But soon it became evident that there was something rather peculiar about Lieutenant Cutter’s blunderings. How did it happen that far from blundering impartially as one would have expected of a blindfolded man, time and again he ignored his brother officers and made his frightening gallops in the direction of a flock of ladies? Perhaps it was simply that he could locate them by their squeals. But how was it that he so frequently galloped towards the prettiest of all, that is to say, towards Louise Dunstaple, and finally caught the poor moaning, breathless creature and gave her the terrible bear-hug he had threatened (and how was it, Fleury wondered, that he had so plainly become animally aroused