Raj Quartet by Paul Scott -- Division of the Spoils

[Frybabe]

Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet. We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence,  the third book of the Raj Quartet.

Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo

Hi Kidsal, welcome back!

Red Shadow is the nickname someone gave to Merrick's hired fellow. Can't think of the word I want right now. He apparently did a number of things like an orderly, go-fer, bodyguard(?), guy Friday.

[straudetwo]

Great to see you back, kidsal, I'm so glad.  
As Frybabe said,  Merrick came to Pankot several times to have his artificial arm/hand re-fitted at the military hospital there. One time he came with a flamboyant servant in tow, described by Paul Scott as a "Pashtun".  We talked about this term a little bit and came to conclude that it is a tribal designation, and Frybabe supplied a link which showed men in their traditional attire, honorable and respectable.

But Merrick's servant was a bird of a different feather.  His name was Suleiman and Perron dubbed him " the Red Shadow". The medical non-commissioned men in Pankot, especially gay "Sophie" Dixon, immediately spotted him for what he apparently was: slippery, sexually accommodating,  ready and able to do ANYthing for his master - or any other comers, (but Perron declined), no matter how shady or cruel.

After recognizing Pinky's proclivities in the hospital ("it takes one to know one"), Merrick put Suleiman to the task of procuring a boy for Pinky, a novice. Armed with this knowledge, Merrick black-mailed Pinky into handing over the key to the file cabinet in Captain Richardson's office. Pinky was told to wait outside, guarded by none other than the Red Shadow, the procurer, while Merrick took his time to read Susan's SECRET file before he put it back. It contained all the details of Susan's breakdown and hospitalization. That was all Merrick needed to put his plan to marry Susan into action.

More later

 

[kidsal]

Was surprised (and grateful) that Scott retold the story of Kumar and Daphne.  There is so much detail and so many people that sometimes I forget who is who?

[straudetwo]

kidsal
Somtimes it is difficult to keep track of who is who, where and when.  So the accounts of the same events by different characters is really helpful. I think it is remarkable that Hari Kumar is still a presence in this fourth volume. We don't meet him again, not directly that is, but we'll hear from him in another chapter of this book.

What Merrick had to say about the night of the Bibighar Garden and his role in the investigation is self-serving, of course. We readers witnessed with Lady Manners what happened when Hari was interrogated by Rowan and Mr. Gopal.  And Rowan's own report, when he finally opened up to Guy Perron, was the most detailed and revealing by far. Had it not been for Mr. Gopal's persistent  and different line of questioning, the essence of the truth would never have been discovered, especially since Rowan originally believed that Hari was guilty.  

A wrong was righted, Hari was released.  But what good did freedom do him? He lived hand-to-mouth
with the aunt and rejected anything that smacked of charity. Rowan spoke to Perron of his concern for
Hari and wondered if Guy might be able to do something for Hari once Guy was back in England in his old university job. The prospects were dim, at best.

It is tempting to speculate whether Rowan would have told Sarah what he knew about Merrick if she had pressed harder.  I don't think so.  He was the consummate political expert,  the Governor's obedient servant, politics his career even as his future was uncertain now.
_________________________

The telephone rang again and Sarah though it might be her mother calling back to apologize.  But the  call was taken elsewhere in the house.  Once she stopped shaking she walked back into the living room and picked up Barbie's package. Inside she found a book, Emerson's Essays,  and something soft, marked In the Event of My Death. Dear Sarah:  the butterfly lace. Hastily she put it down, unable to face the memory it evoked. She opened the book and read a few passages, remembering how fond Barbie had been of the essays. Sarah found them tiresome and self-righteous.

The other package contained  large envelope and several smaller ones, variously marked, To Sarah.  Not to be Opened before My Death. Private and Personal: To Colonel Layton's daughter. To the Girl who Visits me. To the Girl with the fair helmet of Hair. To Whom it Might Concern. To Gillian Waller from a  friend - heart-breaking evidence that Barbie had not recognized her in the end, had even given her a new name, Gillian Waller. The name rang a bell  but Sarah couldn't remember why.

She put the notes back into the large envelope and stuffed it and the lace into her shoulder bag. Rowan came back in. "That's settled", he said, looking pleased. "Tomorrow. Probably in the evening."

"Which leaves you free for tonight?" asked Sarah.
"Yes", he answered. "Would you prefer to dine here?"
"I think that's ruled out, Nigel", Sarah said.  "I'm not inventive enough to think of an excuse that would cover both of us."  
"In that case I'll come to Rose Cottage", he answered.

Noticing the package was gone from the table Rowan asked,"Mystery cleared up?"
"There wasn't much of a mystery", Sarah answered, "but I haven't looked through everything yet.
Are you keen on Emerson?"

"I don't know him, I'm afraid", said Rowan. "Guy Perron is the expert. He was quoting him last night."
Sarah: "Oh? Barbara Batchelor was an expert too I should think, judging by the homework she seems to have done on him.  I thought you might like to keep the book as a reminder of a pretty odd sort of mission."

"I shan't need reminding", replied Rowan. "If you don't want it, why not give it to Guy? It might cheer him up."
"Is he very down-in-the-mouth"? asked Sarah

"I shouldn't say that. Fighting mad might be nearer the mark. He told me he has a scheme to wangle his repatriation. But I never did know when Guy was serious."
Sarah: "I should say he is serious when necessary. For instance in Bombay he saved a man from drowning in the tub."
Rowan: "But not - I gathered - from chucking himself out of the hospital window later and breaking his neck. So Guy said."

"I didn't know that", said Sarah. "Poor Captain Purvis.  I think Guy Perron should have the book if you don't want it. When will  you see him?"
Rowan wasn't sure. Guy had not been billeted. "Poor Guy", he said. Two suicides in one week and being attached to Merrick's department is a bit much.
Incidentally, Guy told me last night you had met another Chillingborough alum, Jimmy Clark.
Where was that?"
"In Calcutta", Sarah said.
"What was he doing there?"
"Passing through, looking up old acquaintances, including Uncle Arthur and Aunt Fenny. He'd been on one of Uncle Arthur's courses and was quite the blue-eyed boy."

"Was that the only time you met him?" asked Rowan.
"Yes", Sarah said."He flew off he next day on a glamorous-sounding appointment. Or perhaps he was just swanning around."

Rowan: "Probably. What did you make of him?"
Sarah: "I thought he talked a lot of sense. He had us all sized up pretty well."
Rowan: "Us?"
Sarah:"People like us. English people in India. Except that he didn't think we were really English any more. He said we got left behind. Preserved in some kind of Edwardian sunlight."
Rowan laughed. "Let's eat", he said.

Conclusion of this chapter and commentary to follow.

[Gumtree]

Traude Thank you for continuing your summary - you always tap into the most pertinent aspects of this huge novel which reinforces its power for me.

The complexity of the novel makes it difficult to comment upon the small players in the vast scheme - though they are the ones which make it come to life...

 Barbie Batchelor and Guy Perron are two vastly different characters yet both responded to something in the Emerson - interesting.

I found Hari to be a 'presence' right throughout the four volumes - he seemed always to be there somewhere in the background - especially in relation to Merrick.

[straudetwo]

Gum.  It really is my pleasure.  I am grateful to you and those who are here.  

What makes summarization difficult is the structure, the presentation of radically different perspectives in the dealings of the British and Indian politicians, the latter bitterly divided among themselves.
The author's focus is consistently sharp-pointed; objective, unbiased.  Major or minor, the characters are believable. (The unvarying distinct  focus made me think of a play by John Van Druten,  titled I am A Camera, based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood,  a contemporary of W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury.  "The Berlin Stories" were also the basis of Cabaret with Joel Grey and Lisa Minelli.)  
*  *  *  *  *  *  
An extraordinary feast was laid out.  "Game pie of a kind" Rowan pointed ot. "And champagne, also of a kind. Compliments of Government House. It came up in the icebox."

"Who is all this meant for?" asked Sarah. "Not for me.  Could it be for the elusive congressman, Mr. Kasim?"
No said Rowan, it was for him, from H.E.,  because this was his last assignment for the Governor.
"They are taking me back into the political."

Sarah:  "When? When are you going? What's your ambition? The Residency at Hyderabad?"
"Too late", Rowan , "I'd need another ten or fiteen years."
Sarah: "Then why go on?  Why not just get out?"

Nigel: "I thought we already talked about that when we first met over Count Bronowsky's champagne at the station in Ranpur.  You said nothing was an excuse for working at half-pressure, or standing back from a job while it's still there to be done".
Sarah: "And you've remembered!  It doesn't sound like me at all. I can't have been thinking straight."

"Have some more game pie", said Nigel.
"I can't even go through this", she answered, and suddenly she felt nauseated. She murmured an excuse.  She shivered.  But it was not a fever,  she realized, it was delayed shock, a physical response to the emotional strain of the ride home from the Dak bungalow, knowing that either Aunt Fenny or her mother had told Col. Layton about the abortion in Calcutta.  But that had been for her to tell her father; no one else.
She began to weep as she'd never done before, not even at that time in Calcutta, when Aunt Fenny took her into her arms in the hospital room. To muffle the sound of her crying, she turned on the taps ful force and bathed her ruined face in cold water. A Layton face, more than a Muir face.  Built to last.  

She remembered when she had last thought that, in the garden at Rose Cottage, bending down for the scent of a rose. Barbie was with her. it had been before Mabel's death; Susan was still pregnant. And Barbie had asked who Gillian Waller was.  And gone on to explain that Mabel had uttered the name in her sleep when Barbie checked on her to remove Mabel's eye glasses and turn off the light.
Then Barbie asked "Is Susan more cheerful?"
"Not cheerful" said Sarah. "Holding on."
"To what?" Barbie asked. "Would you say she is dangerouly withdrawn?"

And Sarah rembered another occasion in the garden when Barbie had grabbed her arm again and again.
"They say the child should have a father.  I'd encourage it if I were you. If she doesn't marry again you'll never get away. Some people are made to live and other are made to help them. If you stay, you'll end like that,  like me."

"Are you all right, Sarah?" Nigel called from the bedroom.
"Yes, thank you", she called back.

She waited until she heard the bedroom door click shut. She considered her reflection in the mirror and slowly understood the irony. There goes a man she might have been happy with and who up to the time he rang her at the daftar, when she told him about Susan and Ronald, probably thought he could be happy with her.
She completed the repair of her face, exaggerating the lipstick, and put a smile on her face before she opened the bathroom door.
*  *  *  *  *
This is the end of the chapter The Dak Bungalow.
What happened subsequently at the dinner in the Layton house has been described by Guy Perron in he previous chapter, The Moghul Room. As the keen observer he was he noticed the coolness between Sarah and Rowan although he - and the readers - did not know why until the end of the Dak Bungalow chapter.  Some details may warrant looking at again.

The next chapter The Circuit House leads us on to a different track,  back to Congressman Kasim. It advances the plot. There's going to be a meeting between Mr. Kasim and his elder son Sayed, a Lieutenant in the Indian Army, captured by the Japanese, who went over to the Indian National Army and was promoted, recaptured by Indian forces and held in Delhi prison. Newly minted Lieutenant Merrick is in charge of his case.
I am confident that the salient facts of this chapter can be summarized relatively easily. There are no revelations in this chapter about Sarah or Susan.  Merrick is there, of course,  holding all the cards. And we wonder about his reasons  for wanting to marry Susan.

Thank you again.

[straudetwo]

P.S.  I discovered earlier that the header with the bungalow and map needs to be refreshed. Sadly, that is a task I cannot manage. Sorry.

[Frybabe]

Nigel: "I thought we already talked about that when we first met over Count Bronowsky's champagne at the station in Ranpur.  You said  nothing was an excuse for working at half-pressure, or standing back from a job while it's still there to be done".
Sarah: "And you've remembered!  It doesn't sound like me at all. I can't have been thinking straight."

I loved that passage. Thank you for including it.

What a shame that Merrick seems to have spoiled things between Sarah and Rowan. Obviously, Rowan feels very strongly about avoiding entanglements of any kind that include Merrick.

Oh, I came across something interesting that I want to explore further. While looking up George Orwell, I discovered he was born in India in 1903 and was sent to England for his schooling. He eventually returned to India for a while, spending five years as a member of the Indian Imperial Police. When I get some time I'd like to see what he might have written of the experience.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe. Thank you.  Good idea to investigate Orwell. A surprising number of writers have background in the raj, I've discovered. Will write them down from now on.

[Frybabe]

George Orwell served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, not in India as one would expect from the name. Anyhow he did write about it. I think these two are articles - A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant. His novel Burmese Days, so I read, depict his experiences in service. He found it totally unsuitable, began to despise British Imperialism and resigned after five years. Interestingly, Burmese Days was published in the US in 1934, a year before it was published in Britain.

[straudetwo]

Thank you, Frybabe.

Yes,  Orwell.  He was born in Burma in 1903 as Eric Arthur Blair.  When he was five, his father, a plantation owner, sent him to England, the traditional routine for educating British children.
In 1922 he, the son,  returned to Burma where he still had connections, and joined the police force.
Though not the "jewel  in the crown", Burma was part of the British Empire.  

After the Japanese had taken Singapore and boldly marched into Burma,  the British mounted an offensive to retake Burma. The poorly-planned effort ended   in ignominy;  officers, men, sepoys in full retreat.  Among them were Paul Scott's fictional characters Nigel Rowan and Teddie Bingham.

[kidsal]

Perhaps you quoted this but believe it is very revealing.  Sarah's father:
"Without India what would we have been?  Lawyers, merchants?  India's always been an opportunity for quite ordinary English people to live and work like a ruling class.  A ruling class that few of us could really lay claim to."  Did the U.S. act the same in the Philippines?

[straudetwo]

kidsal

Thank you for quoting that passage. Much more of this long exchange between father and daughter is worth quoting, e.g. continuing  from page 370, when Sarah said
"India is no longer an opportunity", and
Col. Layton answers "That is hardly Ronald's fault."

Sarah : "I didn't mean it that way.  I meant it's no longer any use looking at Susan's
future from that angle. It's all finished. She ought to go home. Ronald's the kind of man who'll kever let her. He's worked too hard to get here.  It would be different if they were in love. But they're not. I don't believe he's capable of feeling that for anybody."

Col. Layton leaned back and said "It's not his first prposal though. Is it?"
"Isn't it?" asked Sarah.

"Didn't you know ?"
"Know what?"

"That he was very fond of the girl in that wretched case that caused him so much trouble."

Sarah: "Daphne Manners?  Ronald told you he was very fond of Daphne Manners?  Fond enough  to propose to her? "

(page 371) Col. Layton, "Yes, he did."
Sarah: "It's not the impression he originally gave me. All he said was that  he once thought he liked her but that he went off her pretty quickly when he realized she wasn't sound."
Col. Layton:  "Sound?"
Sarah: "He may not have said 'sound'. But that's what he meant. Not sound. Meaning too friendly with Indians."
Col. Layton: "He told me he proposed marriage to her. I don't see it as a thing a man would invent."
Sarah: "And I don't seee it as a thing a man would talk about.  Why did he?"

Col. Layton: "I suppose I asked him. I mean not directly. We were talking about the case, about his future.  ... Wretched case altogether. Wretched to talk about.  I'd really prefer not to."

Sarah: "All right, daddy, we won't talk about it. That doesn't mean we may not have to live with it,  Susan especially, if people start pressing for inquiries into some of the things that were done at the time.  But I mustn't say that, must I?   The mere prospect might make you feel sorry for him. You should never feel sorry for Ronald."

Col. Layton: "I'd feel sorry for any man who was victimized."
Sarah: "Victimized, yes. So would I."

It occurred to Sarah then that she had repaid him badly for the care and affection he'd shown making arrangements like these before telling her something he thought might upset her. She had not set his mind tot rest, she had not even spoken kindly to him in the last few minutes.

"It was a lovely breakfast", she said. "I'm sorry if I've spoiled it. I honestly didn't mean to."
Col. Layton assured her she had not.
*  *  *  *  *  *
A recap.

Sarah had met Merrick twice, the first time in Mirat on the day of Susan's wedding, and the second time after Teddie's death when she visited Merrick in the hospital in Bombay.  She had not liked him.
After surgery and discharge Merrick came to the hospital in Pankot for adjustments  of his artificial hand. He called on the Laytons and  found  Rose Cottage shuttered, the family away on holiday.

Sarah learned later from Clarissa Peplow, the rector's wife,  what had happened on that day.
Barbie had come to Rose Cottage in a tonga to retrieve her trunk, ready for pickup on the steps, as per instuctions from Capt. Coley.  A stranger was on the terrace and she challenged him.  It was Merrick. She recognizd him from the description she had been given.  They talked about the missions and Edwina Crane.  Barbie became animated,  opened the trunk, took out the butterfly lace and pressed the heavy picture of Queen Victoria with the adoring children at her feet into Merrick's hand.  She disregard his warning and climbed into the tonga, the lace shawl wrapped around her head.

We know that the tonga overturned somewhere down on Club Road,  spilling everything into the ditch. We also know that Barbie climbed out alive and  made her way back to the rectory. Coming in the door she asked for a spade (!) and announced she had seen the devil. The devil was Ronald Merrick.

By the time the family returned from holiday Merrick had left Pankot.  Sarah had not liked him.
It became animosity when he turned up in Pankot  again and again on the excuse of visiting the hospital.  Sarah felt that Merrick was attaching himself to them. Yet she found herself in his company more often than was explainable, for example at the movies or at the Chinese restaurant,  whenever it as inconvenient to entertain him at Rose Cottage because Susan ws unwell or had take too much of her sedative.  Going out with Merrick when he was in Pankot became one more of many duties that had been lumbered on Sarah or she had stupidly volunteered for.
Merrick knew she didn't like him. For reasons known only to himself he bided his time.

In time he told Sarah about the morning when Barbie asked him to supervise  the loading and securing of the trunk on the back of the tonga. He strongly advised her against it.  In vain. Barbie had struck him as over-excited,  wearing the lace shawl like a bridal veil, he said.  "Exalted may be a better word", he added. 

The web of butterflies, worked by a blind old Frenchwoman ino a magnificent large shawl, given to Mabel by the mother of her first husband,  used for Sarah's christening and for Susan's baby.  And what was left of the shawl with its rusty stains Barbie had worn at the Samaritan hospital in Ranpur;  returned to Sarah.

[straudetwo]

A heap of gratitude to the kind , helpful hand who refreshed the header.  
The map is going to come in handy when we look at the territory destined to become Pakistan, a new, autonomous nation on the subcontinent in 1947.

With much appreciation,
Traude

[straudetwo]

kidsal
I have been thinking about your question about the Philippines in your # 131 and will try to answer it later. It was not my intention to ignore it!!

[kidsal]

I just know that there was discrimination in the Philippines.  During WWII, our Navy discriminated against the Philippino sailors -- used as cooks, waiters -- same as Blacks.  I have a friend whose husband is Philippino -- he was a teenager at the time of WWII.  He and his friends helped runs supplies to American fighter pilots who had been shot down and were in hiding in the hills.  At the end of the war they gave them college tuition and he became a doctor.  But when you read McArthur's story of life in the Philippines - soldiers liked being stationed there as they were treated so royaly.

[straudetwo]

Thank you for your last post, kidsal.  I needed to think about your interesting question, which is definitely pertinent in relation to our book.  But I  needed to do more research on the war in the Pacific.
 
Google is a wonderfully rich source of information about anything under the sun. Everything  can be found there, although the entries are not always consistent in every detail. On that scale that might be impossible to avoid. The truth is that I have found many incongruities and inaccuracies on European history and literature and would have loved to inform Google of the discrepancies.  I never did.

In this context I found one reference on The Philippines and the United States: A short history of the security connection  by Adrian E. Cristobal, and A. James Gregor,

"The history of the security relationship between the Philippines an the United States began with the occupation (!) of the archipelago by American forces at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Bases were established in the Philippine islands and the general conviction by U.S. defense specialists was that they served strategic purposes. Nonetheless, there was little preparation undertaken for their adequate defense.  As a consequence, the inhabitants of the Philippines suffered Japanese occupation during World War II. The subsequent liberation brought still more havoc.  ..."
But was hardly all.
Another source pointed me to the Philippine-American War  (1899-1902),
"an armed military conflict between the United States and the Philippines which arose from the First Philippine Republic struggle against the U.S. annexation  (!) of the islands.  ..."

General MacArthur was in the picture too, of course. Thank you for reminding me. But could forget his tall impressive presence and the fact that he DID return? Years later.

No doubt westerners thought themselves superior to the people they governed in East Asia. But there have always been class differences in any civilization, e.g. than among Indians themselves (the castes), and possibly among Filipinos.  I say that because I have a personal connection.

More later

[straudetwo]

This is the connection.  It dates back years.

We had not been in Washington long and had few friends.  A colleague in the patent law office were I worked wangled an invitation to a 'grand old party' for my husband and me. We were the first guests(!),  and it was our first cocktail party.  Of course we had been to sit-down dinners back in Europe, but had no experience standing around while balancing a glass and a plate or a cigarette; never "circulated". The hostess and her husband ignoring our obvious awkwardness,  were most gracious and facilitated introductions.

That's how we met Lucia and her husband Jim. Lucia told me she was from the Philippines and worked in P.R. at a bank. I nodded politely although I had no idea what it meant, never heard of public relations before. It was a memorable night, the flickering candles, the whirring fans, the gloved waiters noiselessly circulating,  the smoke, and Lucia, talking, talking.  

On another occasion I met her sister Lilia and we had lunch a few times. When alone together, the sisters conversed in Tagalog, a native tongue, one of the official languages of the Philippines.  While I felt an instant liking for Lilia, I never quite warmed to Lucia.  She told me (over and over) about the number of servants back home outside Manila, that their mother managed the business and sent the daughters money to bolster their incomes, and how frequently she sent them tickets for a flight home.

I listened politely and, of course, NEVER asked questions (even though they did occur to me). We had little in common. I had no time to worry about fashions. I had other concerns, we had to make our way in this new world in an entirely new beginning, and we had a little girl to take care of.  We had no relatives in this country. No sooner had we arrived in Washington, our sponsors, a military family who lived in Arlington, were transferred.  But we were never out of touch. Lucia and I drifted apart. We went to Lilia's wedding and remained in contact with her  until we moved from Virginia to Massachsetts.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe
I came upon more interesting information on "Images of the Pathan: The Usefulness of Colonial Ethnography". It begins with quotes by two different British colonial officers who served in India in the eigtheen hundreds.

It is a LONG scholarly treatise but the introductory  paragraphs confirm that a special meaning was attached to the term 'Pathan', a term that had given us pause in this discussion.  

"Contrasts in the British colonial view of Pathan character are the norm rather than the exception.  In official reports they were viewed either as brave and honorable, or as treacherous scoundrels as the otges demonstrate as the quotes demonstrate.

The controversy over Pathan personality extended into literature as well. The romantic view of the courageous warrior Pathan was popularized by colonial writers like Mundy and Kipling and, in recent years, by Kaye's monumental best seller, The Far Pavilions. The counter view was taken most strongly in Scott's The Raj Quartet, in which the Pathans are made to symbolise all that is sinister, cruel and corrupt in the subcontinent.."

[straudetwo]

In the new chapter The Circuit House the scene shifts back to the Fort at Premanagar, where Mohammed Ali Kasim, known as M.A.K., was imprisoned in 1942 immediately after the riots in Mayapore and held there for fifteen months.  Kasim was one of few remaining Muslim members in the indian Congress; most of his Muslim colleagues had joined the Muslim League, clamorously calling for the creation of a separate Muslim state.  

The British administration was fully aware and, in Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, the reader is given to understand that some British governors looked favorably on partition. as the only ultimate solution.  One of them was Sir George Malcolm.
M.A. Kasim had been Indian minister in Sr. Malcolm's administration; he was known and respected as a man of principles, standing firmly for an independent but undivided India.

After Kasim had been taken into custody at his home - something he fully expected - he was taken to the governor's office, which he had not anticipated.  The governor tried to persuade Kasim to 'declare himself',  at least to resign his membership in the Congress.  Sir Malcolm made clear that this was entirely his own initiative and that he was 'putting his neck out'. In exchange for agreeing to the governor's proposal, Sir Malcolm would rescind the order of Mr. Kasim's incarceration.  The offer was declined.

At Premanagar Kasim read his beloved Urdu poet Gaffur and the Koran. He prayed.  He chafed under the imposed inactivity and because he was not receiving mail initially, because of the  "oversight" by the British officer in charge at the prison.  The correspondence, once it began, was censored, of course.

M.A. Kasim was not happy with the choices his sons had made.  He had almost given up on Ahmed, his younger son, who had become an aide at the court of the Nawab of Mirat, working under the tutelage of the wazir, Count Bronowsky.  Sayed, the elder son, had become an officer in the Indian army and was taken prisoner by the Japanese.  His father, Mr. Kasim senior, did not know that Sayed had gone over to the INA, the Indian National Army, that he had become  "Jiff", nor that he was recaptured by the British.

Under these circumstances, and given Mr. Kasim's prominence, the British could no longer afford to hold Mr. Kasim. Once again Governor Malcolm devised a face-saving, secret mission.  On his orders Nigel Rowan and Count Bronowsky engineered Mr. Kasim's release  - NOT to his house in Ranpur, but into the custody of his distant cousin, the nawab of Mirat. He was reunited with his life and lived in the Nanoora Hills where she died. The official word: Kasim was released for reasons of health.  His mail was still censored.

When first presented with the news, Kasim refused to believe that Sayed had gone over to the INA and 'blamed the messenger', Ahmed.  He continued to think of Sayed as a traitor and steadfastly refused to write to him.

At this juncture in the story  Kasim makes a return trip to Premanagar for a reunion with Sayed.  He is again accompanied by Ahmed,  by his new secretary and by a servant.  We have reason to believe that this too is Governor Malcolm initiative. Sayed is being brought up from Delhi by Merrick, just back from Ceylon and Rangoon, newly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and decorated with the DSO.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

The train from Mirat, with the Nawab's coach, arrived at Premanagar station in the wee hours of the morning. 
At 5 o'clock Ahmed told him it was time.
"How far is the Circuit House? I have forgotten", Mr. Kasim asked.
"About half an hour's drive", replied Ahmed. "The limousine is waiting."

The railway coach and the limousine belonged to the Nawab. But this was the last time he would find himself in his kinsman's and  Count Bronowsky's debt. When what had to be done at Circuit House was done, he would return to the coach, which was filled with all the accumulated stuff of his life under restriction at Nanoora, and travel by rail to Ranpur to stay in his own home permanently.

Mr. Mehboob, the new secretary, came fussily across the dimly lit and deserted cinder-yard to greet him and conduct him to the waiting limousine. Hosain carried Kasim's briefcase.  The secretary had been Mr. Mahmood's assistant and when Mahmood began to lose his grip but could not bring himself to admit it, called in  and relied on Mehboob. He gave him the nickname: Booby. Booby-Sahib.  As a secretary, He wasn't a patch for poor old Mahmood, and as a man Mr. Kasim found him irritatingly like an English caricature of an Indian - possessive towards people with power, arrogant to those with none.

Even his physical characteristics fitted him for the part he played with such breathless intensity.
Booby-Sahib handed Mr. Kasim 3 pieces of  personal mail , one from Bapu  (Ghandi's nickname),  one from Mr. Kasim's daughter in Lahore, and the third from "your indefatigable supplicant, Pandit Baba Sahib". The reader knows the Pandit as the instigator of Merrick's persecution.

"Come along, Ahmed", he said.  But Ahmed said he'd ride in the escort car.  It was not a surprise. Kasim's younger son and the secretary had never pulled on well together.
"Why are they giving us an armed escort? "  Mehboob asked.  "So much tamasha about everything!" 
(tamasha = confused excitement; a lot of to-do)

Light was just beginning to come when they reached the Circuit House.  Kasim could see men waiting in the compound, one of them with a slung rifle. The sight of the man with the rifle unnerved him. The presence of such a man suggested that they had already brought Sayed from the fort.
Presently the men disappeared and the one with the rifle made himself scarce. Then Kasim allowed himself to focus on the dawn-image of the fort, or, rather,  on the place where the silhouette should be, a few miles distant but elevated commandingly above the plain on the hill.

He did not at first identify it. When he did,  he stared, fascinated by the evidence of its relatively diminutive proportions.  It had originally been a Rajput fort. The Muslims had conquered it.  It was they who had built the mosque and the zenana house where he had spent his imprisonment. The Mahrattas had invested it.  The British had acquired it. So much history in so insignificant a monument? Insignificant, that is to say, in relation to the vast stretches  of the Indian plain.

Kasim and Mehboob were ready at the appointed time.  There was a knock on the door. An English voice said:
"The party is fully present now but the senior conducting officer would appreciate a preliminary word with Mr. Kasim."   Mehboob opened the door wider and a young English civilian stepped in.  He identified himself as the assistant to the Divisional Commissioner and brought the Commissioner's apologies for being unable to be there himself.
He asked whether the advance private word with the conducting officer would be all right and if it might be - in private.  Kasim said he would send word. Just then Ahmed came in. 

"Have you seen your brother, Ahmed?" Kasim asked.
Ahmed: "No, but I have seen the conducting officer. I thought I'd better warn you. It's Merrick."

"Merrick?"
Ahmed: "The ex-police officer in the Manners case, the one Pandit Baba's been pestering you about.  I didn't know that Merrick had anything to do with the INA, but he was in the army in intelligence when we met him in Mirat. Actually I saw him again in Bombay about three weeks ago. He said he was working in Delhi."

"Ah, yes. That Merrick.   The one Dmitri told me was badly wounded. You never told me you saw him again so recently."
Ahmed: "I haven't seen much of you since getting back. And the case didn't seem to interest you."

"No", Kasim said. "But perhaps it will. He knows you know him in connection with that old case?"
Ahmed: "Yes."

"So he will assume that by now I know too. In fact he would probably assume you would be here with me to meet your brother, which means that he does not in the least mind my knowing who he is.  But he must know, mustn't he, Booby, that he's on the [/b]list[/b]?"

Booby: "It's clear, Minister. He hopes to ingratiate himself somehow.  You could always say you will meet nobody except Sayed."

"What is his rank, Ahmed?"
"Major, I think."

Kasim: "Since you know him it would be a good idea if you went now and brought him along personally.
Go with him, Booby. I shan't want you again until this is over . Ahmed, just give me one minute."

When they had gone, Kasim went to the single window which overlooked the inner courtyard.  A policeman with a rifle was posted nearby facing towards him. There were bars but no glass in the window.  Kasim closed the inner shutters. The only light in the room now came from the single naked bulb in the center of the room and from the high fanlight on the wall that faced the front compound. The furniture was sparse : a string  charpoy with a mattress,  two wooden armchairs and two smaller chairs, a table. He made a move to sit at the chair behind the table but then decided ro remain standing.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

"Major Merrick?  Please come in."

Kasim offered his hand, and felt a twinge of pity for a man with such a badly disfigured face and such an obviously useless left arm, clamped to his body with the cap tucked at elbow level and a briefcase suspended from the gloved fingers of an artificial hand.  The man said,
"Actually, Lieutenant Colonel since I and your younger son last met, Mr. Kasim"

The grip of the right  hand was strong- like he voice. Kasim now saw the pip and crown on each shoulder tab and the ribbon of the DSO.  

Merrick said, "I'm  sorry about the few minutes delay, but when we arrived your elder son asked for a few minutes alone", The journey from Delhi had not been taxing and that he and Lt. Kasimhad had breakfast alone.

Kasim replied that his concern about Sayed's breakfast had already been  answered satisfactorily, adding,
"Please tell me, what is the purpose of this preliminary private word?"

Merrick:  "The purpose is to tell you as much as possible about the charges which Lieutenant Kasim will probaly have to face."
Kasim hoped he showed no surprise. But he was surprised.
He said: "I have not asked for this; I'm not sure I wish to be told anything about such matters. My son himself must have a good idea what the charges may be.  What can you tell me that he cannot?"

Merrick: "Naturally, Mr. Kasim, it is entirely up to you whether we have preliminary words. It was not my own department's idea, but Government seemed to think it fair." (!)

"Fair?" Kasim asked.

Merrick: "The charges and evidence in these cases are not fully prepared yet by any means,  but Government feels that your son would be much more at ease if he doesn't have to tell you everything himself."
He paused.  "It could after all be a bit painful for him."

"Painful?" Kasim asked.  
Merrick kept him waiting for a reply. He seemed utterly composed and in command.  "He has never struck me as being among those who are unrepentantly proud of the situation they find themselves in."

"Very well, then" said Kasim. "Tell me what you wish - but as briefly as possible."

Merrick elaborated:  waging war against the King-Emperor was the almost unavoidabale common charge; that there was incontrovertible evidence that Sayed was captured fighting in one of the INA units which accompanied the Japanese when they tried to invade India in 1944; that the unit he commanded surrendered voluntarily and seemed to have been abandoned by the Japanese without access to supplies or communication lines. However, voluntary surrender or no, he was in arms waging war.

Kasim: "You were in that theater of war ourself, Colonel?"  
Yes, said Merrick,  he was an intelligence officer on the staff of one of the divisions brought in to mount the counter-attack, therefore the INA became a concern.  

"One does the job one is given", Merrick added. "The INA were involved in that incident, but I was wounded entirely  by my own fault."
Kasim: "How was that your own fault?"

Merrick:  "I was trying to stop a fellow officer acting thoughtlessly ..." and paused.  "You asked me to be brief."

"I know", Kasim answered. "But I should like to hear about this other matter.  It is all relevant to my rather sparse knowledge of the INA."

Merrick outlined the events of that day in the jungle; the former Indian soldier from Teddie's own regiment; Teddie's search for other Indian allegedly hiding nearby; the burning jeep;  Merrick's  severe injuries.

"What are the other charges against Sayed?" asked Kasim.

Merrick:  "Incitemen? Abetment? Bringing aid and comfort to the enemy? As I said the charges are not framed yet."

Kasim:  "Is there another more serious factor that may be considered?"
Merrick: "More serious factor, Mr. Kasim?"

Kasim: "One hears gossip, tales, possibly exaggerated, or so one hopes, that recuritment was not always voluntary, that in a few cases certai methods were used to persuade sepoy prisoners- of-war to join."

"You mean brutal methods?"
"Yes, I meant that", answered Kasim.

After several moments Merrick said, "The only answer I can give you, Mr. Kasim, that I don't know. ...
A lot of evidence has been collected of cases of torture and brutal behavior, and several officers and NCOS have been named,  but your son's name has never bee among them. The men who surrendered with him have invariably soken of him with great respect  in regard to his care for their welfare.  The point is that the men we have access to, those already recaptured, represent only a percentage of the eventual sources of evidence. There are al those still in Malaya, for instance."

"Yes. I see. Thank you. And this is all you have to tell me?"

"I think so. I hope it's helped you in a general way."
"Yes", answered Kasim and made a decision.

"Tell me, Colonel Merrick,  are you still troubled - as  I understood from Ahmed you were - by incidents devised to remind you that your conduct as Superintendent of Police in Mayapore - I should say suspected conduct -
had made you unpopular in certain quarters and wasn't going to be forgotten?"

Merrick smiled.  A cheerful smiled, Kasim thought.
"Not until recently", he said.

"Another stone?"
"No. Chucking stones at British officers is a hazardous operation. They've reverted to the subtle approach. The bicycle again."

It had happened in Delhi, Merrick said, before he returned from Rangoon. His cook, a Muslim,  had told him.  A bad odor came from the saddle bag: which containe putrid pork. Kasim averted his face to disguise his own revulsion. "You should report it to the police", he said.

"I always do", Merrick answered. "This kind of childish persecution doesn't bother me personally. ... The Bibighar affair was used as an excuse to stir up trouble generally.  It looks to me as if it's going to be given another innings in conjunction with the INA cases  because it's been discovered I'm connected with them."

"Given another innings, by whom?"

"By whomever prefers anarchy over law and order. Has Coun Bronowsky never talked to you, while you've been
living in Nanoora, about the power exercised in India by unommitted and irresponsible forces?  He as very eloquent about it the first time I met him."

"Count bronowsky and I", Kasim said, "don't have an intimate relationship in spite of my younger son's connection with him. He and I are politically opposed.  He is dedicated to the continuing autocratic authority of the Nawab. I am dedicated to the diminution and final extinction of the autocratic authority of all the Indian princes."

"I suppose you and I are potentially opponents too, Mr. Kasim."

"You and I?"
Merrick:  "I and your party. Surely I'm on the list?"

"What list, Colonel Merrick?"
"The list of officials whose conduct in nineteen forty-two may be inquired into. I'm told it looks as if  I'm likely to be on it."

"Told by whom?"

"The CID officer I reported the incident to.  Not that it surprised me.  I imagine my old friend Pandit Baba of Mayapore won't be happy until I am (on the list). He's the one responsible for this childish persecution, but there's never been any clear evidence to connect him with it. You know the man I mean, Mr. Kasim?"

Kasim smiled.    "I've never met him.   I think now I must see Sayed.  You are due to take him back to the fort
when?"

"When your meeting is finished;  back to Delhi this evening."

"Then I will say good-bye to you now, Colonel Merrick. "  
Again he made a snap decision,  adding,  "I don't think we shall ever be opposed in the sense you mean. Not you and I personally.  I am not interested  in past quarrels, only in solving present and future problems. It is the only way any of us will ever make progress."

"Quite.  Quite", Merrick said.  For the first time he looked uncertain of himself,  disappointed,  if the unscarred side of his face was anything to go by.

"I'll bring Sayed now", he said.

"No, please don't bring him.  It would offend me o see him physically in the custody of anyone.  I apologize for any inconvenience,  but I would prefer to see Sayed in the courtroom.  At least it will be larger nd airier. They can post as many men outside as they wish. That should take only a few minutes to arrange, shouldn't it?  Perhaps you'd be so kind as to send someone to let me know when everything is eady."

"I'll come myself, Mr. Kasim."

To be continued

[Frybabe]

Traude, I'm such a dunce. I only just know got the significance of the bicycle showing up now and again. DUHHHHHHH! Of course, reference to the planted bike in Kumar's case.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe Thank you for the post.
Here's what Merrick also told Mr. Kasim:

"It (the bicycle) is obviously a symbol of the bicycle I'm supposed to have planted outside the house of one of the boys who assaulted Miss Manners. Miss Manners' bicycle.  The bicycle's rather a good touch. They began  after I'd left Mayapore just by chalking inauspicious signs outside the door of my bungalow. Then one day there was this rusty old bicycle outside my quarters. That was in Mirat, just before someone chucked the stone. The incidents have a twofold purpose, of course - to let me know it's known where I'm presently living and working, which they do, and to undermine me psychologically, which they don't."

However,  I submit the chalk marks were NOT "inauspicious", and the bungalow in Mirat  was NOTt "his" alone. Teddie stayed there too.   It was Teddie who found those chalk marks, and the bicycle.  And Teddie who caught the stone, meant for Merrick, on the way to the church on the day of the wedding.  But where there any incidents BEFORE Mirat?  I mean in the backwater place to which Merrick was temporarily exiled, before he became an officer in intelligence?  And "supposed to have planted" is a falsification: readers know he DID plant it to incriminate Hari Kumar.

We also know that Merrick has presented a totally different picture -  to the authorities in Mayapore (they didn't quite believe him, though),  to  Bronowsky,   to Barbie,  to Sarah.   Over and over he declared that the "boys" were  "in it together".  We could say that he told these untruths so often that he came to believe them himself,  but that would be wrong because he was convinced from the very beginning that all the boys were guilty.  Not only were his perceptions skewed,  he was willing to do and say anything to enhance his stature and make himself indispensable.  
It's interesting that Mr. Kasim felt a "twinge of pity" when he saw Merrick's ruined face and useless arm.  Col. Layton felt the same way - only more so.  

But what exactly was it that made Merrick want to marry Susan?  What was he after?  Was there something satanic about him?  Poor Barbie, in ill health, mourning for Mabel and confused, had reported that she "had seen the devil" at Rose Cottage.  I have the feeling her words carry a great deal of weight because Scott described her  with infinite compassion, almost with reverence.
Thank you for being here.

Back to the Circuit House.

[Frybabe]

I absolutely do not remember reading that passage about the bike OR I forgot I did.

As for Merrick wanting to marry Susan. I got the impression that at some point (probably the evening he sat on the porch and talked with Sarah) he was starting to feel his age, wanted a chance at some kind of respectability and normalcy in his life, and of course, advance his position in life. By the way, I really thought at first that he was interested in Sarah. He probably got the vibes that she didn't like him and went for the Susan. Having said that, his clandestine digging into Susan's psychological records indicates something calculating. What did he stand to gain from it. To find out what he was about to get into? To find out how to best approach her and her family?

Why on earth would Susan want to marry him. But then, she didn't know what we know about him did she. My take on it is that she just "went along", kind of a mechanical thing. I didn't get much of a sense that she was thinking of a father for her son, but that certainly would have entered into it. She certainly wasn't thinking clearly because of her depression.

[straudetwo]

Thank you, Frybabe.

Clearly, self-advancement was one of Merrick's motives.  India gave him a uinque chance, way beyond anything he could have aspired to in England.  He had become an influential man in Mayapore, a force to be reckoned with. He ingratiated himself to both the British civilian administrator and the more bellicose Brigadier Reid - the latter later disgraced like Brigadier General  Dyer after the Massacre of Amritsar in 1919.  

Merrick's rise in the Indian Police may have been meteoric, but he lacked social connections. From all indications in the first volume he was socially insecure.  It is quite possible that he was longing for a personal life back in Mayapore; he did unburden himself to some extent vis-a-vis  Daphne.  But she rejected his attention;
in fact, she scorned him -  and he took his revenge on Hari. The matter of Merrick's  sexual ambiguity is only hinted at in the first volume but looms larger in the other volumes, especially in Spoils.

The ruthlessness, the cruelty, the means  Merrick employed in the pursuit of his goals are appalling. Was he totally without compassion, then ?  He was good with Susan's son who adored him.  (Would he have done as  good a job if the child had been a girl?)  
Did he have a psychological need deep down that made him WANT to torment and humiliate those he considered weak - and enjoy it?  There's more to puzzle over in the last chapter of this volume.

[straudetwo]

A few additional comments on this chapter are in order, I believe.

Kasim's new secretary Mr. Mehboob, nicknamed Booby-Sahib by his late predecessor, knows all the ins and outs of Indian politics and is clearly devoted to Mr. Kasim.  However, he is rather obsequious,  and technically incorrect, when he calls Kasim "Minister".  It made Kasim uncomfortable and he protested - to no avail.

In this chapter we learn that Mr. Kasim also has a  daughter in Lahore.  Both she and her husband fervently support a division of India.  She has written to her brother Sayed all along and,  in the latest letter to her father, urged him to "come over" to their side.  

When Mehboob joined Mr. Kasim at Premanagar station he reported that, before leaving Ranpur, he had received a call from Government House inquiring whether Mr. Kasim was on his way to Premanagar,  and to confirm Kasim's appointment with the Governor on the following day -- obviously another attempt by Governor Malcolm to "nudge" Mr. Kasim to change his stance.

Now in the Circuit House Kasim did not recognize the corridor along which Merrick was leading him. Merrick opened a door to a small room.  It had the acrid odor of legal millstones grinding fine and slow between sessions, and of his youth, pleading interminable cases in court-houses much like this. Had choosing the court-room for the meeting with Sayed   been a mistake?  Wouldn't it be like putting Sayed on trial?  But then, for him, what was about to follow was Sayed's trial.

Merrick's called out,  "Mr. Kasim, are you all right?"
"Yes, I am perfectly all right. I just thought ..." and broke off.

There was a third man whom Merrick urged forward, a tall man, taller than himself, broad-boned, dressed like an active service officer in dark green cotton uniform, pale brown skin, dark-browed, brown-eyed.  He had a moustache British style. The hair was cropped too, but not too close. A fine-looking man.

Sayed did not wait for the reception he would get. In one silent, effortless flowing movement he knelt down at Kasim's feet, placed his hands on Kasim's shoes, lowered his head on to his hands and then raised it, at the same time removing his hands, and rose. Kasim instinctively put his arms around him. After a few moments Kasim released his son and said,  "Come, let us go through".  
Merrick was walking down the corridor, his back to them, but he had been a witness.

To be continued









 

[straudetwo]

Kasim led the way through the magistrate's room out on to the dais in the court-room and down into the well. He stopped at one of the pleaders' tables, the table at which Sayed must have been sitting. There was an empty coffee cup and a used ashtray. The smell of tobacco hung in the air.
He still drank too, probably, like Ahmed, but with the excuse that the habit qas acquired in army messes just to prove equal capacity with British officers. The smoking was new and, despite himself. he found the dirty ashtray regugnant. But he said nothing. Also without a word, Sayed removed it and tk t across to another table.

"Come, sit", Kasim said. "Have yu seen Ahmed yet?"

"Not yet, father. But Ronald told me he's here."
"Ronald?"

"Ronald Merrick.. The chap you've been talking to. He said he'd make sure Ahmed and I had a word afterwards. He's quite a good fellow really."

The voice was strong too, the accent clipped,  more so than Kasim remembered from their last meeting, certainly more clipped than when Sayed  graduated from the Indian military academy. 
"You sound like a British officer",
he had told him then, and they both laughed. 
He could have stopped Sayed from choosing the army as a career, and he had been criticized for not doing so.  It hadn't always been easy for him to explain why he had a son who held the King-Emperor's commission. Nor could it have been easy for Sayed when young Englishmen, fellow members of the mess, who his father was.  But Sayed never complained, and when Kasim became Chief Minister in Ranpur,  any embarrassment Sayed might have felt vanished.  He remembered Sayed saying,"You are a Minister, I am an officer. We are both necessary."  He meant necessary to India and Kasim had been moved.

He asked, "How are you being treated ?  You look well. Put on an inch or two. Like Ahmed. Who is commandant at the fort nowadays? Still Major Tippet?"  Sayed replied that he was there only overnight and did not know.
"When I swas released to to to Mirat," Kasim continued, "they brought me here first of all to meet Ahmed. Now that  I am going back home it seemed a convenient place for us to meet. If I had come to Delhi, the world would havebeen watching. Anyway, this has given you an outing.  What did they tell you?"

"First they told me to get ready for a trip. When Ronnie Merrik came back from Rangoon, he put me in the picture. He said Government had given permission for us to meet and that he as coming with me."

Kasim asked, "So, the impression was that I had petitioned Government and Government had decided to be magnanimous?"

"Yes",  was Sayed's answer.

"It is not entirely accurate" Kasim replied and Sayed said, knowing how "devious they can be", he had "not swallowed it whole."

"Devious to what end?"  Kasim wondered, and when Sayed hesitated, he encouraged his son to speak freely.

Sayed looked down on the table. "They know you've neer written to me. They think this shows you disapprove of what I've done." He glanced up. [/b] "It would be very useful to them to have someone like you on their side. A member of Congress, ex-Chief Minister. A Muslim. Someone to denounce us all as traitors. They realize such people will be in short supply." [/b]

"Quite so," Kasim said. Both major parties will stand behind the INA although the true nature of INA came as a surprise to many of us. Among those of us at Simla (the Conference of Indian leaders in June of 1945 organized by the then British Viceroy Lord Wavell) it was generally agreed that INA would be supported. "

"Generally? Not unanimously?" Sayed asked.

Kasim went on to explain
 
that all parties would jointly organize the defense - if these cases ever came to trial;
but that the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief would have the ultimate say-so in this situation that was legally without precedent and administratively farcical;
that it would take years to court-martial every INA soldier,
but that in the event a scale of priorities would have to be established - and that on such  scale every Indian officer commissioned by the King will be at the top.

He asked his son for details about why and when he joined INA and

[straudetwo]

I'd been laboring over a long post and was unaware that at some point the computer ceased cooperating, something I realized much later.
When I completed the post, I tried to send it - and promptly failed. My next thought was to SAVE the message by printing it.  But to compound the misery, the printer needed a new cartridge - which took time to install, though I was able to print the post eventually.

Only NOW have I discovered that part of the message did make it!  I am so sorry. At least you'll see that I have not been inactive  

Now I need to recover from this calamity. Will copy the rest of the post ASAP.

[straudetwo]

Here now with renewed apologies is the balance of my post 147 which ended in mid-sentence.    

Asked for details why and when his son had joined INA, Sayed began to describe the outrages he and his men - and untold numbers of other POWs - had suffered under the Japanese. The exchange between father and son became more intense and more emotional.  Focused on the eventuality of a trial,  his father considered every one of the possible charges Merrick had mentioned and how to answer them. His conclusion:

"I strongly advise you NOT to mention any of this hardship to a British magistrate; you would find no sympathy. You'd be considered a coward.  Your military career is over. You should plead guilty to waging war against the King and then submit a reasoned statement setting out the considerations that led you to do so.  I will help to choose and instruct your defense counsel, but in a wholly private and confidential manner.  Pleading guilty is the only way to come to court with any ind of integrity left."

"Integrity? Sayed countered.  "What have you ever done, father, except to wage war against the King?
What is the difference between you and me, except you went to prison now and again and I carried a gun?
You are throwing everything away!  No one will trust and respect you if you don't   stand up for us along with other Indian leaders."

Kasim:  "The only contract of this kind I ever made was with myself, to do what I could to obtain the independence and freedom and unity and strength of this country.
I did not interfere with your decision to become a soldier,  because I asked myself what kind of independent country India will be without a professionally trained army to defend that independence.  
But you can no longer be a soldier. You can no longer help your country.  That is what angers me.  Your life so far has been a waste."

Sayed stared at him.  "It is not "a" country. It is two countries. Perhaps it is many countries, ut primarily two.
If I'm not wanted in one, perhaps I shall be wanted in the other."

"Ah", exclaimed Kasim, "then we are even more divided!"

"No", Sayed said.  "We're  only divided by your refusal to face facts, father, and by your reliance on this or that legal interpretation, and also - I begin to think - by your reliance on the British to act like gentlemen.  I no longer believe in such concepts. It's no good to rely on principles, no good reling on the British. They're interested only in themselves and always have been.  Now they're afraid of the Americans and the russians and will try to get rid of India as quick as they can.  Then where will you be,  father?  There's only one answer and it is to seize what we can for ourselves and run things our own way from there.

"You said my military career is finished. I would agree with you.  But it would be finished also if the British raj were replaced by a Hindu raj - because I am a Muslim and they hate us. They even hate each other - from the United Provinces, the Punjab, Bengal.  A Hindu raj would be a catastrophe.  They hate and envy us because we have something that holds us together: we have Islam.  
The only thing that matters in this world, father, is power. We must grasp our own.   Surely you have thought of that?"

Carefully, Kasim said "You are asking me to throw everything away and go over to the League?"

"It wouldn't be throwing anything away.  Nita and Guzzy (Kasim's daughter and son-in-law) are very keen on this. Their letters are full of hints that you would be welcomed by Jinnah (the emergent leader of Pakistan).

Perhaps we should say goodbye now, father.  Thank you for coming to see me."

"You have come the greater distance" Kasim said.
"That is my duty",  said Sayed and asked "You will write to me?"

Kasim nodded. He hugged his son and murmured 'Allah be with you' into Sayed's shoulder.

[straudetwo]

Fewer than twenty pages are left to summarize in the chapter of The Circuit House, but it has taken me longer to continue  than I had anticipated.  I had not intended to quote as much as I have in the preceding posts but found it inevitable.  However, I believe only a direct quote can fully reflect the meaning of what is being expressed and how it is taken by the respondent. A reader had reason to pause as well. I am sorry it took me longer than I intended.

In the evening of this exhausting day, the Nawab's limousine took Mr. Kasim's party back to Premanagar station,  where they were to catch the night train  from Mirat to Ranpur.  A tire puncture delayed them and the station master registered concern when they arrived late.  But in good time the Nawan's coach was shunted to a more convenient place for coupling. Then it was Mr. Mehboob's turn to fuss that there were no steps to facilitate Kasim's climbing up.
 
"We don't need steps", Kasim said and reached for the handgrips to heave himself up, only to find himself steadied from within by Ahmed who was holding the suitcase he had brought from Mirat.  "Surely you're not going yet?" he asked. "Please sit, I'll send for tea. And why don't you come to Ranpur with me for a few days? I could use your help with a few things."

Ahmed  said he wanted to to return to Mirat in the Nawab's limousine and have the tire properly repaired in a garage on the way because he had to attend a council meeting in the morning.  Kasim tried to dissuade Ahmed who waved aside all arguments, politely but firmly.  Kasim's heart sank.
He recalled Ahmed's coming to the fort, he had feared bad news about his wife , and remembered his  relief when Ahmed told him she was well. Relief that turned to bitter-sweet resignation when he learned that she was to share his partial release and suffer the humiliation of living under restrictions in Mirat.  After the relief, the resignation and the humiliation came the shock of learning of Sayed's capture.  How he had called his first-born a traitor and insulted Ahmed - who seemed to have forgiven him.
 
In a flash it occurred to him that his release could have been the turning point in his relationship with Ahmed  - except that his own stubbornness, his peremptoriness, his coldness of manner, his careful avoidance of showing emotion were perhaps the chief impediments to a closer understanding.  During his mother's fatal illness, Ahmed became merely dutiful in matters where dutifulness seemed obligatory - like right now, with Ahmed poised to get off the train.

Kasim quickly asked how Ahmed had found Sayed, what they had talked about, and was there anything Ahmed wanted to share.
Ahmed said general things, personal things, about  hawking and not drinking too much.

"But what about Jinnah?", Kasim iasked.  "No? He didn't tell you he insisted that I go over to Jinnah?"

"Nothing like that at all", said Ahmed and explained that a subaltern was present in the room-  though not seated close enough to overhear, that he was with his brother for about ten minutes, and that Merrick had informed him only his father could be alone with Sayed.  

"That's all they allowed? But it doesn't matter. So let me settle the question of what your feelings would be if I went over to the League. The League is very strongly placed.  While most of the Congress was in prison in the last few years, they have paved the way to divide the country. In the elections they are likely to win most of the seats reserved for the Muslims. Even my own is not safe. Jinnah would welcome me. I might even get a portfolio in whatever central government he is able to set up in whatever kind of Pakistan he is able to wrest out of us. To make sure
of a portfolio I could also do what perhaps a father should. Publicly defend my son against charges of treason.
I put it in these crude terms because for once Amed, for once  I am asking you to tell me what your honest opinion would be if I did these thigs. Your mother always followed me. It was not easy for her eventually because her own family became very Pakistan conscious and very Jinnah conscious, just as Nita and Guzzy have become.  What I am asking you is whether you and Sayed and Nita and your mother were thinking that I was wrong all the time, and that you were all conforming  and saying nothing out of family loyalty. Whether it is your view that now I should in turn conform for everybody's sake, including my own."

Beneath them the coach wheels clanked. The coach had been coupled to a shunting engine.
"I've got no view, father", Ahmed said, getting up. "You know I don't understand these ins and outs.  They don't seem to me to have anything to do with ordinary problems although I suppose they must.  But however many solutions are found, people are still dying of starvation, or they are killing each other senselessly."

Kasim got up too. "Then it means you don't care either way?  At least one of the questions is out of the way. I shan't have to be conscience-stricken about you as well as Sayed. That is a relief. You see I made my mind up long ago what I would have to do. I have only been waiting for the moment when I was forced to take action.  Ahmed, whatever your answer had been, my mind would not have altered.
But one likes to know where one stands with one's own family. To me Sayed is a man whose actions remain indefensible because he broke his word, he broke his contract.  It follows that I cannot break mine. Never in my life shall I go over to Jinnah.  I did not say so to Sayed  ..."

The train shoved forward a yard and stopped again.  Righting himself, Kasim said, "This is my position. I think you deserve to know. Now you'd
better go if you're not coming to Ranpur" and slid open the door, leading the way through the deserted corridor, the thick carpet muffling their footsteps. They embraced formally.

"Don't hang around too long in that garage", Kasim said and released his son.  Pulling him back  he asked him not to tell Sayed anything he had said for it might make things harder for Sayed later. He added that his comments on Jinnay were made in confidence but would become public knowledge soon enough. "Since you profess political detachment I can't expect you to approve or disapprove, but I'm sorry if I've spoken roughly. I haven't meant to upset you."

Again the train jerked and this time started moving slowly. Ahmed clasped one handrail and went down the steps.

"Why should I be upset?" he called. "I've won my bet with Dmitri. He bet me you'd go over to Jinnah. I bet him you wouldn't."
The whistle blew and Ahmed raised his voice: "He wouldn't offer stakes, though.  We both expected me to win, really..."

Ahmed jumped off and ran a few paces.  
"Mind yourself, shut the door", Ahmed shouted.

"Ahmed",  Kasim called back, "what do you mean?  Expected or wanted?  Ahmed ..."

The train gained speed and he turned - straight into Booby.
"Minister, what are you doing?  Why is this door open? Why isn't someone here looking after things in a proper way?
It is getting so that no one can be relied on to look after you at all!"

Next: Last appointment at Government House

[straudetwo]

Governor Malcolm and MAK had an amicable working relationship for several years that began before the war in Europe.  There was mutual respect and genuine sympathy.  (That can be seen in Kasim's  addressing Malcolm as "Governor-ji" in The Day of rhte Scorpion and here. the ji indicates repect, affection, admiration, rolled in one.) They knew precisely where the other stood but neither could or would change his stance. Their exchanges had been frank and sincere -  despite the unbridgeable divide. And Malcolm had not given up yet.

Kasim reaffirmed that he would not contest the upcoming election and would not nourish the idea that the INA were heroes;
he woud continue to stand for a free, united, independent India.  
Does that mean, Malcolm asked, that Kasim would not align himself with  the defence of the INA.  Kasim said yes.  

But if he did not defend the INA and his son, how could be survive politically, Malcolm wondered.  Was he going back to practicing law?  
Kasim said he was fortunate not having to earn a living.
But, Malcolm insisted, what if legal matters came up that could be of interest to Kasim?  
Legal matters involving possible inquiries and legal processes?  
Matters that might arise from the civil disturbances  that followed the arrests of Congressmen like Kasim?

"I am not interested in anything like that," Kasim said. "To me it is all water under the bridge."

Eventually he got up to leave. Pleasantries were exchanged.  Before they got to the door to the ante-room Malcolm stopped and asked whether Kasim remembered the last thing Malcolm had said to him before he was sent off to the Premanagar  Fort.

"Yes, I remember it very well. You said you would leave a thought in my mind, that one day this room might be mine."

Malcolm: "If it is what you want I might almost guarantee it. Ranpur hasn't had an Indian Governor before. but you wouldn't be the first Indian Governor appointed in the country."

For a moment the temptation of the peak - that splendid upper air, the immensity of the landscape - made Kasim's head spin.
Then he heard himself saying:  "Well you see how difficult that would be, unless the Viceroy had been succeeded by  a Governor General of a self-governing dominion, and unless his executive council had been superseded by an Indian cabinet responsible to a freely elected cental Indian Assembly. ...  Please don't misunderstand me."

"I don't misunderstand", Malcolm replied and smiled.  "I had hoped to be able to make your rustication  temporary."
Thus they parted.
There were no more cards to play...

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Homecoming.

On the road to Kasim's house the crowds were still milling, waiting for Mr. Kasim,  patient and eager to welcome him back from whatever great occasion had called him out.  Close to the entrance the car slowed to a crawl.  Booby Sahib was prepared.  With crowds he was a different man.  He beamed, rolled down the window and spoke reassuringly to those who were closest, and the people parted like a Red Sea. Triumphantly he turned to Kasim and said, "You see, Minister, here we are, finally at home."

When he knocked on Kasim's door later, he was invited to come in and sit down. One immediate concern was a reply to Bapu's letter of condolence. Kasim decided it would be handled in the morning. For the moment, Booby said, there's only the letter from Pandit Baba. Kasim flicked his hand.
"Oh, throw it away, Booby. It's all water under the bridge. We've never answered him before, why should we now?  We do not even know, only guess, what he is bothering me personally for. He is a tiresome man and of no account."

"Yes, Minister, I will throw it away.  Ahmed rang this afternoon when we were out."
"Saying what?"
"I couldn't get the hang of it. We need more intelligent staff, Minister."

"What did the message say?"
"Three words only, expected and wanted".

"That is all?"
"That is all, Minister."
Kasim smiled.  "It is enough. Thank you,  Booby. That is all for tonight."

This completes the summing up of "The Circuit House" chapter.


Before us we have the last chapter of this volume, titled Pandora's Box.
It begins in June of 1947 with Perron's return to India and Bombay. He is our guide, again, and will tell us the rest of the story.
Thank you for accompanying me this far.

[straudetwo]

Pandora's Box

In this last chapter of the fourth volume of The Raj Quartet Paul Scott brings all the intricate threads in the fabric of the story to a seamless close.  Though I have been distracted by and concerned about illness in the family I have been thinking of how I in turn can best sum up this complex story, and what approach to use. Unfortunately that hasn't become clear to me until today. Apologies for my delay.

Our guide in this final chapter is again Guy Perron, returned to India two years after his repatriation. The perspective of the narrative is obviously his;  but some historic details of the final struggle for Indian independence need not be outlined since the outcome has long been known. The readers now want to know what happened to he characters they have come to know and, for the most part,care about. That necessitates learning a bit more about  the Princely States generally because the fictitious Mirat was one of them.

More than 568 of these existed in India before independence. They  were a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by he British, but rather by an Indian ruler under the form of suzerainty or paramountcy.

The rulers had different titles, including Maharaja = great king.  Some Hindu rulers used the title Thakur or  the variant Thakore.  The Sikh princes in the Punjab region tended to adopt Hindu type titles. Most Muslim rulers  used Nawab.

After long months of  indecision, uncertainties,  unsuccessful conferences with Indian leaders,  failed missions and journeys across the Atlantic, some leaders at Whitehall (including  Sir Stafford Cripps of the Labor party) who were laboring over a so far elusive plan for a retreat from India, discovered  large blank areas on the maps of the subcontinent they could not explain. They turned out to be the Princely  States.

Finally the long delays came to an unexpectedly rapid end,  considered in hindsight as possibly too precipitous,  when Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten Viceroy of India.  

To be continued

[Frybabe]

Hi Traude,

Sorry to hear about illness in your family. Family comes first.

Maybe you can clear up something for me at the end of the book. My memory has faded a little, but wasn't the very first narrator (way back in the first book) someone who had come to India long after all these events. Did Scott ever say who that was? I remember going through the whole series waiting for an answer and not finding it. Did I miss it? Or do we assume it was supposed to be Scott himself?  I expected the series to end back with the very first narrator and learn who it was. I carried the notion the whole way through the series that it was someone who was related to one of the characters or who was drawn to go by family stories passed down. Someone who went to find a personal history and came back with something much, much greater.

Funny how you can get these thoughts in your mind without anything actually being said that it is so.

[straudetwo]

Thank you for your # 154, [b/Frybabe[/b].
Indeed there is an implication from the start in volume 1 of The Raj Quartet that the narrator of the story is the author himself. It is never actually confirmed in any of the volumes,  but many reviewers  and readers have come to the same conclusion.  They express an even stronger conviction that Guy Perron is in fact the author himself and that Perron's views are the author's own.  Everything seems to "fit"!

Alas,  not all web sources are current, nor are all accurate.  I've found discrepancies in historic dates pertaining to European history and 20th century German writers   , and I've learned to check, double-check, even triple-check. In good faith I shared with you one source that reflected on Scott's all too brief life,  lamented that he had little to say about himself and his writing (true), and  bemoaned the fact that no biography had been written yet. Fortunately that is no longer true:  

Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet by Hilary Spurling was published in 1991, obiouvsly after  the above-mentioned report.  I expect that we will talk about Scott either after we finish volume four, or after Staying On.
Thank you again.

To be continued

[Frybabe]

Thanks for the info on the biography, Traude. I am going to check into it.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe  

On the last day of May 1947, Mountbatten  (Perron calls him "the bustling new Viceroy") was back in Delhi from the latest consultation in London.

On June 2 he met with Indian leaders and told them in confidence of the new plan he had proposed that had been approved by the British cabinet.
On June 3 he said  in a broadcast to the Indian nation  it was now clear that that the division of India into tow self-governing dominions, India and Pakistan, was inevitable, adding that the British Parliament would pass the necessary legislation.

On June 4  he held a press conference (which some old hands thought unnecessarily showy).  In answer to a question he confirmed that
the hastening-hrough of legislation at Whitehall meant that Government would transfer power not next year but THIS year. He said:
"I think the transfer  could be about the fifteenth of August."

The astonished questioner did a rapid calculation. Ten weeks to go. Ten weeks.  Ten weeks?
******

Perron had stayed in touch with Nigel Rowan and with his former intelligence officer in Poona. They sent him several political cartoons from a popular Indian-controlled English-language newspaper, cartoons that were amazingly intuitive, interpretive and remarkably predictive.  
When Perron arrived in Bombay, he went first to the newspaper office.  The editor,  clearly feeling honored by the visit,  showed Perron copies of all the cartoons and explained their meaning and context.  Perron found one of them especially expressive.

"I have a party tomorrow", said the editor. "Come to my house, I'll show you the original."  Perron explained that he could not accept because he had to leave Bombay in the morning.

"Then take this copy," the editor said. "I have never yet had in my office an Englishman all the way from London who comes to see me entirely to discuss Halki " (the cartoonist's pseudonym).

Perron thanked him. He felt rather moved.  It was the special gift Indians had to move you unexpectedly;  unexpectedly because you felt that historically you did not deserve any consideration or any kindness.

To be continued

[Gumtree]

Hello again, Traude: I hope the illness within your family will soon be happily resolved. It is a constant worry when someone near and dear is ill and one feels so helpless.  However, you should not apologise here as I'm sure, that like me, everyone reading this discussion is grateful for the time and thought you devote to it and also for the clear sighted appreciation of Scott which you offer. It is a gift to us. Thank you.

Frybabe raised the question of the identity of the early somewhat mysterious narrator. I'm afraid I am with those who consider that the narrator is indeed Scott himself and I expected he would reveal himself before the end. When Perron appeared on the scene and continued to play a key role I soon had the unfounded conviction that he too is Scott in another guise.

I really must find the Spurling biography of Scott.

I love the description of Mountbatten as 'the bustling new Viceroy' - so apt. Mountbatten was admirable in many ways but was always  a showman ever seeking to further his own career. I read somewhere that he clearly saw the situation in India as being beyond any immediate solution and that agreement between the factions could perhaps never be reached no matter how long the discussions took. He decided therefore that it would be better (for whom?) if the British were to leave quickly and let the Indians sort out the mess alone. Of course, at home, he was lauded for his swift and decisive action.



 

[straudetwo]

Many thanks, Gumtree.
The recent crisis involved my son-in-law who is a cardiac patient and has a number of angiograms behind him. A wonderfully cheerful man, he continues to work. Recently he had a sudden setback.  Monitoring showed that he suffers from severe cardiac arrhythmia. The doctor recommended a pace maker, and it was implanted last week. My daughter reports that he is on the mend.  I wish I could have been with them.
Thank you and Frybabe again.

To continue.
Hilary Spurling's biography of Paul Scott is available, I found,  at Amazon: a handful of new copies and many ore used ones.  Barnes & Noble has 49 used copies. One way or the other, I'm determined to order one.

Mountbatten, exactly!
He had a distinguished career in the war in Europe and North Africa.  He was a favorite of Churchill's.  In 1943 he was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia, where he set out to raise the morale of the Allied forces there who thought of themselves as  'the forgotten army'.  The re-conquest of Burma was completed by 1945, and in September of that year Mountbatten  accepted the formal surrender of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in Singapore.  He intended to resume his naval career when Prime Minister Attlee - impatient with Wavell's fumbling and failed missions - asked Mountbatten to assume the role of Viceroy of India, and charged him with the task of transferring sovereignty of India from the British crown to independent rule. Independence was achieved, albeit in the form of two independent states, India and Pakistan, admidst rioting, the migration of milliond. and massacres.

Mountbatten took credit - and was given credit, though not universally - for the swiftness of the process, but the cost of freedom was enormous.  A strong case can be made that by hastening the transfer of power, Mountbatten in fact made it less manageable : because not enough troops were in place when the rioting escalated.

These events have been retold by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre  (authors of Is Paris Burning?) in Freedom at Midnight and in Mountbatten and India. The latter is about the authors'  research and their interviews with Mountbatten.

While the Partition plan announced in early June of 1947 did set out the principles of freedom and division,  the position and the future of the five hundred odd Princely states was left unclear.  All of them had recognized the British as the 'paramount power'.  Especially large ones, like Hydarabad, harbored the hope that their way of life might continue unchanged.  Some of the more ambitious rulers began , in the words of one scholar, "to luxuriate in wild dreams of independent power in an India of many partitions".
That all of them were integrated ultimately is an achievement for which Mountbatten deserves credit.

But Churchill  (among many others) was famously displeased with Mountbatten and further enraged by the flamboyant conduct of Edwina Mountbatten and her meddling in governmental affairs.  After 1948 Churchill never spoke to Mountbatten again.

What happened in the small fictional Mirat, where most of the action in this last chapter takes place and where familiar characters converge, will be viewed through the lens of Guy Perron.

Thank you for being there.

To be continued