The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [266]
The sepoys had mutinied and attacked their officers on parade, Harry explained as they set off to find the courtyard where the sais was waiting with horses for them. Nobody knew yet how serious it was. “It’s damnable,” he added. “I came out here without a pistol.” And Fleury realized from the tone of his voice that Harry, finding himself unarmed, was suffering not from fear but from disappointment. Here was a possibility of some action at last and he was going to miss it!
With Harry aggressively striding out in the lead they clattered rapidly through another series of chambers, empty except for an occasional servant asleep on the floor. There was no sign either of Hari or of the Maharajah, but the Prime Minister continued to dodge along introvertedly behind them. They came at last, by a stroke of luck, to the door by which they had originally entered the palace. Stepping outside, they were again struck by an oven-draught of hot air.
The sais who had come to warn them was now asleep in the shade of the wall and it took some moments to rouse him. The Prime Minister, his sacred thread just visible beneath his frock coat, squatted mutely on his heels at a distance and observed them in an impartial manner. He was still sitting there when at last they rode away. As the sun shone fully on Harry’s scarlet tunic, which he had re-buttoned in readiness for any military engagements which might present themselves, its colour intensified until it was almost impossible to look at with the naked eye. Then they were cantering through the outer gates where the Maharajah’s army, on which the Collector had earlier been pinning some hopes, still seemed to be in a state of repose, very much as it had been earlier.
7
Picture a map of India as big as a tennis court with two or three hedgehogs crawling over it...each hedgehog might represent one of the dust-storms which during the summer wander aimlessly here and there over the Indian plains, whirling countless tons of dust into the atmosphere as they go...until the monsoon rolls in and squashes them flat. Because there was a dust-storm in the vicinity it seemed, and was, much darker than usual. This darkness could not help but be associated with the terrible massacre at Captainganj; even the Collector, who had gone up on to the roof to be alone and had found the stars blotted out, caught himself thinking so.
Harry and Fleury had spent the late afternoon riding about the country warning indigo planters to come into the Residency. When they returned to the cantonment for the second time they found their way obstructed by abandoned carriages and hackeries; such a panic had taken place that the road to the Residency had become jammed with vehicles and people had been obliged to continue on foot, bringing what possessions they could with them or having them carried by coolies on their heads.
In the darkness of the Residency drive, which was lit only by a flaring torch on the portico, the silhouettes of men and horses thrashed and wrestled with boxes, bundles, and mysterious unnameable objects which they clung to with desperate tenacity; it was as if they were struggling up to their waists through a swamp of pitch towards the solitary, dancing flame of the Residency. Curiously enough, they struggled in almost total silence except for laboured breathing and an occasional strained whisper.
Those who managed to win through this slough of darkness and despair found themselves in the hall, which more resembled purgatory than Heaven, and was crowded with ladies and children who sat huddled on trunks and boxes. They stared about them with that wide-eyed, alert look which people have during emergencies but which is really the result of shock; if you spoke to one of these alert-looking ladies she would have difficulty understanding you.
Almost five hours had passed since the General had dived bleeding from his horse, thereby conceding the weakness of his arguments. During this time the Collector had hardly for a moment stopped giving orders. At first