The Sun in the Morning (70 page)

I suppose Bets and I ate something that day, but if so I don't remember doing so. As far as I can recall we spent all our time on deck watching India go by, afraid to miss any of the familiar sights; the palm-thatched huts, the broom-stick palms, the groves of trees, the water buffaloes and the paddy birds; and the people — the people!

The Hoogly is one of the most treacherous rivers in the world, for it channels most of the silt of the great Ganges Delta and is therefore
full of sandbanks that change their position from day to day according to the whim of the currents. And because it has claimed more ships than any other river, a Hoogly pilot can command very large sums for his services. Yet even now, with all the modern aids that the pilots have at their disposal, a ship can be lost to the sands, and as we edged up the river that day we passed the half-submerged wreck of a passenger-ship that had run aground with the loss of many lives only a couple of days previously on an unseen shoal. Her funnels, mast and bridge, and part of her upper desk, were still above the water, and the thick, muddy currents swirled hungrily around and through them. But what the quicksands catch they keep. The Hoogly has been a graveyard for ships for hundreds of years, and one of the ‘City of London's' officers told me that by next day there would be nothing visible of that ship but the wreck buoys and, possibly for a day longer, the tip of the tallest mast. No more.

Towards evening we landed at Calcutta's Garden Reach where we were met by Sir Charles and Lady Teggart — friends of my parents with whom we would be staying for a week — and a great many of Tacklow and Mother's Indian friends who had come down to welcome them back. Almost all the latter brought garlands: so many of them that when Tacklow entered the Teggarts' car he was almost hidden by tinsel and flowers. There were garlands for Bets and myself too; one each, made of jasmine bossoms. It was a wonderful homecoming…

Years later I was to read in a book called
Eleven Leopards
, by Norah Burke, who loved India as much as I do, a paragraph she wrote about her own return to that country after many years. Here it is:

Was it indeed really India again after all these years? Yes! it was India … My heart moved as does the heart of anyone who has ever lived there. Did we British bleed India for what we could carry away? Or did our men give their health — their lives for her? Did we help and love her, bring her out of cruel ignorance — famine? Did we educate her children, tend her sick, guard her frontiers, irrigate her fields, save her forests? Well, whatever else we did, we loved her.

Yes, very many of us truly loved her. We still do.

Grandfather's Passing-Out Certificate from the East India Company College, Addiscombe (later, Haileybury).

Left: The Times
listing of entrants into the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, 6 January 1888.

Right:
Listing of cadets passing out of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, 6 March 1889.

I am so proud of
The Times of India
's> valedictory column written on Tacklow's retirement that I reproduce some of it here. Since it was written before the publication of the Honours List, he is referred to as Colonel Kaye.

Intelligence Department people are shy birds which prefer as a rule to avoid the glare of the limelight. Obviously, their work necessitates such habits. Yet it is a pity, for more reasons than one, that the general public is given so little opportunity of realizing the magnitude and the importance of the services that they perform for the State. In a few days' time there will leave India, perhaps for ever, a man whose recollections, if they were to be published, would reveal more than the autobiographies of many Viceroys. Yet his work had been little known, and his Department too frequently labours under a sinister reputation which it has done nothing to deserve. Colonel Cecil Kaye, the Director of the Central Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India, has held charge of this important office for five years, after … succeeding Sir Charles Cleveland. The policy of appointing a soldier to control what was primarily a police department was much criticized at the time … Colonel Kaye, who has a distinguished military career, came to the forefront of the cipher experts during the war. He held the post of Deputy Chief Censor, and discharged that most exacting and delicate of duties in a manner which proved his possession of rare tact and good humour. The same qualities have marked his administration of the Intelligence Bureau … Colonel Kaye will long be remembered at the headquarters of the Government of India for his kindness, his good humour and his absolute straightness. Never has there been a more disinterested servant of the public, or one more free from suspicion of utilizing a position of great confidence for any other purpose than the general good.

Also by M. M. Kaye

The Far Pavilions

Trade Wind

Shadow of the Moon

Death in Berlin

Death in Cyprus

Death in Kashmir

Death in Kenya

Death in the Andamans

Death in Zanzibar

The Ordinary Princess

 

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Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Foreword

1. ‘Only yesterday—!'

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

2. The Silver Sails

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

3. Morning's at Seven

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

4. Peacocks and Lilies

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

5. Unwillingly to School

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

6. The Locust Years

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Appendix

Also by M. M. Kaye

About the Author

Copyright