They kill many of our men. We kill some of theirs too. But they do not get any of our boys alive; we capture about thirty of them.
We search their dead and find plenty of gold and silver coins in their belts. We hack off the ears and fingers of those who have rings.
Hodson Sahib lines up the captives under a tree. He orders them to go down on their knees. He loads his carbine and aims it at an old grey beard. ‘How long have you eaten the salt of the Company?’ he asks.
The grey beard clasps his hand and pleads: ‘
Kasoor hua
(I’ve been at fault). Forgive us!’
Others do the same, ‘
Huzoor
, forgive us,’ they whine. ‘Take all we have, but don’t kill us.’ They take off their belts and empty out coins, rings and other trinkets.
Hodson Sahib doesn’t even look at the things. ‘What regiment were you?’ he asks the grey beard.
‘The 26th. We served the sahib in many battles. We will fight for you again wherever you send us.’ He grabs Hodson Sahib’s foot. Hodson Sahib kicks him with the other foot. ‘Who is your commander?’
‘Mirza Mughal....Sahib, don’t kill us. We will tell you all we know.’
‘How many are you?’
They vie with each other in giving names of their regiments. There are 10,000 or more on the other side. Hodson Sahib knows all he wants to know. He cocks his carbine, jams it into the old man’s chest and fires. ‘Take this you
namak haram!’
The grey beard rolls over with a loud cry ‘
Ya
Allah
!’
‘Hack off the heads of these
namak harams
and feed their carcasses to the jackals,’ he orders.
The prisoners become like living corpses. We take off their belts. Our sweepers pull off their uniforms and boots. We march them naked down the ridge. We line them and tell them to kneel with their heads bent. They whine, urinate, defecate. We hack off their heads with our
kirpans
. It is like slaughtering goats for the Guru’s kitchen. Only a man’s neck is thicker than a goat’s and cannot always be severed at one
jhatka
(stroke).
Hodson Sahib gives us an extra ration of rum.
*
Two of our
risallah
had been badly wounded. I went to see them in the camp-hospital. They were lying under a
keekar
tree; there was no room inside for natives. The doctors were busy looking after
goras
, many of whom had cholera, dysentry or shivering fever. Some had just melted like wax under the heat of the sun. I sat with the boys and pressed their legs. Hodson Sahib brought a doctor who threw a packet of ointment on the ground and said: ‘Spread this on your injuries and report back for duty in two days.’
In the afternoon I went to see Hodson Sahib. He was in his tent writing something. ‘Sahib must be very tired. Shall I take off Sahib’s boots?’ He did not open his mouth but turned in his chair. I sat on the ground, unstrapped his
putties
and massaged his legs. He stopped writing and turned to me.
‘Good fighting today, eh?’
‘Sahib, they have killed a lot of our men,’ I replied.
The Sahib looked at his paper. ‘Seventeen dead, twenty-five injured, twenty horses dead or destroyed.’
I had seen many more than seventeen dead. I understood. The Sahib was only counting the
goras
. ‘It takes more than an army of jackals to fight the English,’ he said. ‘This was their big
hamla
. We have broken their backs,’ he explained: ‘Today is the 23rd day of June. It is the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Plassey when the English defeated the Mussalmans. They believed that after hundred years, it would be their turn to win. It takes more than a pack of jackals to beat the
sahiblog,
’ he said again.
I pulled off his boots. ‘The English are very
bahadur
,’ I said as I pressed his feet.
‘The best fighters in the world.’
I nodded my head. ‘Sikhs are also very
bahadur
. One Sikh is equal to 1,25,000 others.’
Hodson Sahib didn’t like that. He ran his hand over his bald head and asked ‘What happened at Mudki and Pherushahr and Sabraon and Multan and Chillianwala and Gujarat?’
‘Sahib, the Sikh army was betrayed by its officers.’
‘That is what the defeated always say, we were let down by our commanders.’
Hodson Sahib had a very short temper; I did not want to get him
gussa
by arguing with him. I said in my mind: ‘If the Sikhs were led by good generals instead of traitors, they would have marched up to your London town and fucked your mothers.’
I took off his socks and rubbed the soles of his feet. He shut his eyes and began to
ghurr ghurr
like a cat. After a while he said ‘
Theek hai
. You can go.’
I saluted and left.
Next morning when I went to see how the boys who had been wounded were doing, I did not find them under the
keekar
tree. I went to the hospital. They were not there either. A sweeper told me that they had died at night and their bodies had been taken away to be cremated.
*
These Dilliwallas would not let us breathe. At midnight when we were fast asleep they would start firing their cannons at us. On the hottest afternoon when we were dozing under the shades of trees they would creep up like thieves and go
thah
thah
with their carbines. They sent emissaries to our camp. To the Mussalmans they sent Mussalmans with the
Quran
and begged them to
jihad
against the pig-eating
firangi
. To us Sikhs they sent Brahmins carrying Ganges water in brass-pots asking us to murder the cow-eating
maleechas
. They offered us hundred rupees for every
gora’s
head and service with more pay. We remained true to our salt. We took the money they brought. Then we strung them up on
neem
trees.
The sahibs also employed spies. The chief was a one-eyed man called Rajab Ali. He came to our camp whenever he wanted and went back to the city. They said he had the ear of the king. And he did a lot of
phus phus
in Hodson Sahib’s ear and took money from him.
The blacks liked Hodson Sahib but the
goras
did not care for him. I saw this when a
paltan
called the Guides arrived from Peshawar. Hodson Sahib had often talked of the times ‘
Jab ham
Guides
me
tha...
’ From the way he spoke, the Guides must have been the greatest warriors in the world. I didn’t know why he left them. Only once he mentioned some ‘hanky panky’. However as the Guides marched in and saw Hodson Sahib, the black men broke their ranks and ran up to embrace him. What a sight it was! Pathans, Biloches, Sikhs all embracing Hodson Sahib! The sahibs looked away as if they did not know him.
One day a
gora
asked me who I was.
‘Hodson’s Horse,’ I replied coming to attention. He laughed, turned to the other
goras
and said, ‘Hodson’s arse.’ They all laughed. I did not understand what made the sahibs laugh.
Even the
Jangi Lat
Wilson Sahib did not like Hodson Sahib. He would not allow him to attack Dilli till he got more troops. And Hodson Sahib’s temper got worse as hot winds became hotter and dust-storms began to blow every afternoon.
One day early in July there was a storm the like of which I had never seen. Brown dust roasted by the sun was flung in fistfuls into our eyes and nostrils! After an hour the same dust turned cool. The day turned into night. The sky exploded with lightning and thunder. Then came the rain sweeping the dust and everything else before it. I ran out of the tent shouting to my friends: ‘
Oi
, Lehnia! The rains!
Oi
Nathia! You opium eater come out, the skies have burst!’
We threw off our turbans and uniforms and came out in our under-shorts. We let down our long hair and danced and sang. ‘
Oi
, if we only had a
mashooka
today we’d make the soles of her feet count the stars.’
The
goras
asked the natives what had happened to us. The Pathans shook their heads and smiled. The Dogras sniggered ‘Sahib, these Sikhs have long hair. The heat gets them and they go crazy.’ We yelled back at them, ‘
Oi
, your mothers and sisters also have long hair. They must feel the heat. Send them to us, we will cool the heat between their thighs.’ That shut them up.
At dusk the trees were covered with fireflies. We caught them and stuck them in our beards till our beards sparkled. And we danced the
bhangra
.
It rained all through the night. It beat on our tent like a roar, sometimes like a faint echo from far away. No one could get much sleep.
I rose at dawn. The sky was full of grey and black clouds. Everything looked washed and green. I heard a peacock call
paon
paon
. There were three — one cock and two hens on the parapet of Hindu Rao’s mansion. The cock raised its tail and made it into a fan full of green-blue eyes. I put my head inside the tent and yelled: ‘Get up you opium eaters! A peacock’s dancing!’
‘Let the peacock sleep with its mother,’ replied Lehna gruffly as he turned over. Two men came out to see the wondrous sight.
A peacock dancing on a house-top with black clouds rolling behind is a sight worth a hundred thousand rupees. What beauty the Guru has given this bird! The peacock arched its neck backwards as proud as a young prince vaunting his manliness. It took two steps forward, two steps backwards. Its brown under-wings panted like an impatient lover out of breath. Its feathers quivered with delight.
Thah
.
Down came the peacock tumbling over the wall.
Thah Thah
.
The two peahens also tumbled down on the ground.
‘
Hoi
, we’ve got all three!’ cried the
goras
.
I sat down on the wet ground and wept. These were the peacock-killing mother-fuckers we were fighting for! What do these white
bunderlogs
know of the rains? Their women do not have black hair to remind them of dark monsoon skies. Nor do they have large-rounded bosoms which would remind them of billowing white clouds. Their girls do not know how to make swings on mango trees and sing songs to the monsoon. Have you ever heard
goralog
sing? I heard them in their church at Ambala: the mems screaming
hee, hee, hoo, hoo
; men braying
bhaw bhaw
like donkeys. How could they appreciate the
ragas
of rain and the dancing of peacocks? When all the world around was green and beautiful these
goras
thought only of killing. When I got up to give Hodson Sahib his morning mug of
chai
he said ‘Now is the time to strike! Get the men ready for battle.’
*
Heavy cannons are hauled out by elephants. Camels and oxen are yoked to lighter guns. The ground is slippery. So we go barefoot. Only Hodson Sahib is on horseback. The rain slows down to a drizzle. The rocky ridge is all right, but near Sabzi Mandi we are knee-deep in slush. An elephant slithers and falls on its side with a great splash. Its mahout leaps clear but the cannon rolls over and its nozzle is stuck in the ground. The elephant manages to get on its feet and meekly raises one of its front legs to let the mahout clambar up. It takes twenty men to get the cannon back on its wheels. A slithering elephant is funny enough, a slithering camel is even funnier. It tries to sit on its bottom and gets its long legs entangled. The camel gets very
gussa
if you laugh at him.
We push on through the drizzle—slithering and falling as we go. It takes us two hours to cover a mile-and-a-half to get to Sabzi Mandi. We get there without attracting the enemy’s attention. He is enjoying the first day of the monsoon drinking
bhang
with his
mashooka
.
The rain stops. Patches of blue appear in the sky. Soon the sky over Dilli city is full of multicoloured kites. They battle in the air and as one has its string snapped it wafts down in majestic sweeps. We hear boys yelling ‘
Bo kata’
. I see men waving scarves and whistling while flocks of black, white and brown pigeons wheel in the sky. From some house in Sabzi Mandi comes the jingle of dancers’ bells and the beating of
tabla
drums. It seems as if everyone in Dilli has given himself up to merry-making.
‘Bhoom, bhoom, bhoom’
echo our cannons far away near Kashmiri Gate. Kites are quickly pulled down. Pigeons return to their lofts. Sound of singing and dancing dies out.
‘Bhoom,
bhoom, bhoom,’
reply the rebels’ guns from the bastions near Kashmiri Gate and Mori Gate. Our trick has worked. While guns are hurling abuse at each other around Kashmiri and Mori Gates, we surround an area of Sabzi Mandi including a bazaar and a garden with a big house in its centre. The bugle sounds: ‘
Hamla
!
’
Our cannon fires into the bazaar. Then we go in on the double—shooting at any face that appears at a window, bayo-netting anyone—male, female or child that comes in our way. Only from the big house in the garden is our fire returned. We take cover behind the trees. Every time any one of our party tries to get closer, he is shot. We bring up our cannon. The first ball makes a hole in a wall; the second, another. A part of the ceiling comes crashing down. We fire a volley into the house, fix bayonets and charge. There is no one to face us. We do not take chances. We surround the house and tiptoe in single file. I lead one party through a big room and up a broad staircase. And what do I see? I’ll give you a thousand chances and you will not be able to guess right. A woman! There she stands on the top of the stairs with eyes bright as stars and a diamond glistening in her nose. And what do you think she is doing? Waving her sword at me.
‘
Oi
, Nathia!’ I shout to Natha Singh who is following me. ‘Look what I’ve found!’
Natha Singh comes alongside and stares at the woman. ‘
Balley
,
balley!’
he exclaims. He shouts to the others. The staircase is full of Sikh soldiers armed with muskets and here is this woman waving an old
talwar
at us. She is no yesterday’s chicken either. At least forty, flabby and pale as these city women are. Her white hair is dyed red with henna. Her teeth stained with
betel
. Her big bosom sags beneath her thin muslin shirt.