of a blue and white sky, drifting in the middle of a marshy field, its gray shape unchanging, hovering only a meter or two above the muddy earth. The cloud has begun to cause some panic among the superstitious villagers whose sugarcane and potato farms lie just outside of Meerut, and so Lieutenant George Kasper has been dispatched to see what there is to see.
George Kasper—unwitting descendant of the London Kaspers, with family relations in England beginning in the fifth century, and with other crooked branches of the same family tree reaching from England to France back to Germany—would rather be drawing his maps. Instead, today, on this morning in the year of 1857, in the unvanquished colony of British India, the young lieutenant stands glaring at the shape of a single gray cloud, unmoving, uncelestial, the soft, wet-smelling sugarcane extending around him in all directions, distinctly marking how alone in this moment he truly is. Ishari, his sepoy scout, forever loyal, only a boy really, age twelve or thirteen, a Hindu by birth but more and more British each day, stands some hundred meters back along the dry road. He watches each of the lieutenant’s gestures, trying his best to read George’s thoughts through his physical expression, his every movement, his every twitch.
“Well, I must admit, Ishari, this is certainly something of a puzzle,” the young lieutenant whispers. George, only thirty-two years old himself, thinks he ought not foul this up in front of the young Hindu. There has been trouble recently in Meerut: unexplained fires in colonial storehouses, and yesterday the British hanged another sepoy, Mangal Pandey, a Hindu private of the Thirty-fourth Regiment who attacked his British sergeant with a sword and wounded a nearby adjutant on his horse. George feels the young boy’s eyes along his back and takes another step deeper into the swampy muck. The cloud looms closer, making a terrible aching sound. George blinks again. The sun cuts behind an acacia tree. George hears the low, heartbroken moan again, and holds his hand up, shielding his eyes. Suddenly he smiles, relieved, seeing the cloud is no cloud at all. It is a rhinoceros, magnificent and ancient and startling white, lurching there in the mud.
George stares a little longer and sees the poor giant is trapped in what may very well be quicksand, too old to struggle or perhaps just resigned to the fate that lies beneath the florid estuary. Dear old man , George thinks. It seems your reign has come to an end. As a geographer for the British East India Company, it is my sad duty to inform you that we no longer have any use for rhinoceroses of any kind. From now on, you and all of these unpredictable rivers, these septic marshes, these troublesome plains, will all be redrawn, refigured on my map. These plundered kingdoms and useless villages will be made uniform and compliant to the thoughtful order of British rule. The animal gives a low, melancholy groan again, sinking deeper. It will soon drown in the mud. George decides he will have to shoot it, that being the Christian thing to do. A magical cloud? A magical cloud? The sooner these people learn of civilisation, the better off all of us will be , George thinks. The young lieutenant raises his Enfield rifle, aims for the monster’s enormous head, but finds he cannot fire. The brutish creature is staring directly at him now, its head bowed, its great horn radiant. The lieutenant places his finger on the rifle’s trigger, but still he cannot shoot. There, stranded in the weeds and murk, white as carved stone, the rhinoceros looks like a god.
“Ishari, go fetch the largest rifle you can find,” George calls back. “Ask the colonel if he knows where to find an elephant gun.” Ishari nods, holding his helmet as he does, and hurries off, his knees stepping high, as he has been taught. George turns back to the rhinoceros and sees the sad monster rearing its gigantic head, its gray horn luminous,
George Kasper—unwitting descendant of the London Kaspers, with family relations in England beginning in the fifth century, and with other crooked branches of the same family tree reaching from England to France back to Germany—would rather be drawing his maps. Instead, today, on this morning in the year of 1857, in the unvanquished colony of British India, the young lieutenant stands glaring at the shape of a single gray cloud, unmoving, uncelestial, the soft, wet-smelling sugarcane extending around him in all directions, distinctly marking how alone in this moment he truly is. Ishari, his sepoy scout, forever loyal, only a boy really, age twelve or thirteen, a Hindu by birth but more and more British each day, stands some hundred meters back along the dry road. He watches each of the lieutenant’s gestures, trying his best to read George’s thoughts through his physical expression, his every movement, his every twitch.
“Well, I must admit, Ishari, this is certainly something of a puzzle,” the young lieutenant whispers. George, only thirty-two years old himself, thinks he ought not foul this up in front of the young Hindu. There has been trouble recently in Meerut: unexplained fires in colonial storehouses, and yesterday the British hanged another sepoy, Mangal Pandey, a Hindu private of the Thirty-fourth Regiment who attacked his British sergeant with a sword and wounded a nearby adjutant on his horse. George feels the young boy’s eyes along his back and takes another step deeper into the swampy muck. The cloud looms closer, making a terrible aching sound. George blinks again. The sun cuts behind an acacia tree. George hears the low, heartbroken moan again, and holds his hand up, shielding his eyes. Suddenly he smiles, relieved, seeing the cloud is no cloud at all. It is a rhinoceros, magnificent and ancient and startling white, lurching there in the mud.
George stares a little longer and sees the poor giant is trapped in what may very well be quicksand, too old to struggle or perhaps just resigned to the fate that lies beneath the florid estuary. Dear old man , George thinks. It seems your reign has come to an end. As a geographer for the British East India Company, it is my sad duty to inform you that we no longer have any use for rhinoceroses of any kind. From now on, you and all of these unpredictable rivers, these septic marshes, these troublesome plains, will all be redrawn, refigured on my map. These plundered kingdoms and useless villages will be made uniform and compliant to the thoughtful order of British rule. The animal gives a low, melancholy groan again, sinking deeper. It will soon drown in the mud. George decides he will have to shoot it, that being the Christian thing to do. A magical cloud? A magical cloud? The sooner these people learn of civilisation, the better off all of us will be , George thinks. The young lieutenant raises his Enfield rifle, aims for the monster’s enormous head, but finds he cannot fire. The brutish creature is staring directly at him now, its head bowed, its great horn radiant. The lieutenant places his finger on the rifle’s trigger, but still he cannot shoot. There, stranded in the weeds and murk, white as carved stone, the rhinoceros looks like a god.
“Ishari, go fetch the largest rifle you can find,” George calls back. “Ask the colonel if he knows where to find an elephant gun.” Ishari nods, holding his helmet as he does, and hurries off, his knees stepping high, as he has been taught. George turns back to the rhinoceros and sees the sad monster rearing its gigantic head, its gray horn luminous,
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