The Raj Quartet, Volume 1: The Jewel in the Crown: The Jewel in the Crown Vol 1 (Phoenix Fiction) by Paul Scott Page B
Authors: Paul Scott
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they got their weight under the running-board and the fenders and began to heave rhythmically, until of a sudden the car turned over. From this display of strength one of them, anyway, got courage. Turning from the car he came at Miss Crane, raised his hand and hit her across the face, once, twice, then pushed her back towards the ditch and, using both arms, tumbled her down the three-foot embankment. Falling, she lost consciousness. When she came to and had collected her senses and strength she scrambled up the bank on her hands and knees and found the Ford burning and the rioters in the distance.
Limping, she walked to where Mr. Chaudhuri still lay. Reaching him she knelt and said, “Mr. Chaudhuri,” but could not touch him because of his bloody face and open eyes and the awful thing that had happened to the side of his head. “No,” she said, “no, it isn’t true. Oh God. Oh God, forgive me. Oh God, forgive us all,” and then covered her face and wept, which she had not done for years, and continued weeping for some time.
She dried her eyes by wiping them on the sleeve of her blouse, once, twice, three times. She felt the first heavy drops of rain. Her raincape had been in the back of the car. She said, in anguish, “But there’s nothing to cover him with, nothing, nothing,” and stood up, crouched, got hold of his feet and dragged him to the side of the road.
“I can’t help it,” she said, as if to him, when he lay bloody and limp and inhuman in the place she had dragged him to. “There’s nothing I can do, nothing, nothing,” and turned away and began to walk with long unsteady strides through the rain, past the blazing car, towards Mayapore. As she walked she kept saying, “Nothing I can do. Nothing. Nothing.”
A hundred yards past the car she stopped. “But there is,” she said, and turned and walked back until she reached Mr. Chaudhuri’s body. She sat down in the mud at the side of the road, close to him, reached out and took his hand.
“It’s taken me a long time,” she said, meaning not only Mr. Chaudhuri. “I’m sorry it was too late.”
As Mr. Poulson said afterwards, the troubles in Mayapore began for him with the sight of old Miss Crane sitting in the pouring rain by theroadside holding the hand of a dead Indian. On that day, the day of the arrests of members of the Congress subcommittees in the district, Mayapore itself had been quiet. The uprising got off to a slow start. Only Dibrapur and the outlying districts appeared to have jumped the gun. Mr. Poulson set off from Mayapore in the afternoon, in a car, accompanied by one of Mr. Merrick’s inspectors of police, and a truckload of constables, to investigate rumours of trouble in the subdivisions that couldn’t be contacted by telephone, and although when he reached the village of Candgarh he found the Subinspector of Police from Tanpur, one constable and three linesmen from the Posts and Telegraphs, locked in the police post, it was not until he proceeded along the road to Tanpur and found first of all Miss Crane’s burned-out car and then Miss Crane herself that he really began to take the troubles seriously.
The troubles which Mr. Poulson and several others began by not taking seriously took until the end of August to put down. Everyone in Mayapore at that time would have a different story to tell, although there were stories of which each individual had common knowledge. There was, to begin with, the story of Miss Crane, although that was almost immediately lost sight of following the rape of the English girl in the Bibighar gardens on the night of August the 9th, at an hour when Miss Crane was lying in the first delirium of pneumonia in a bed in the Mayapore General Hospital. Later, when Miss Crane found it impossible to identify any of the men arrested that day in Tanpur, for a short while she came again into prominence. People wondered whether she was genuinely at a loss to recognize her own attackers and Mr.
Limping, she walked to where Mr. Chaudhuri still lay. Reaching him she knelt and said, “Mr. Chaudhuri,” but could not touch him because of his bloody face and open eyes and the awful thing that had happened to the side of his head. “No,” she said, “no, it isn’t true. Oh God. Oh God, forgive me. Oh God, forgive us all,” and then covered her face and wept, which she had not done for years, and continued weeping for some time.
She dried her eyes by wiping them on the sleeve of her blouse, once, twice, three times. She felt the first heavy drops of rain. Her raincape had been in the back of the car. She said, in anguish, “But there’s nothing to cover him with, nothing, nothing,” and stood up, crouched, got hold of his feet and dragged him to the side of the road.
“I can’t help it,” she said, as if to him, when he lay bloody and limp and inhuman in the place she had dragged him to. “There’s nothing I can do, nothing, nothing,” and turned away and began to walk with long unsteady strides through the rain, past the blazing car, towards Mayapore. As she walked she kept saying, “Nothing I can do. Nothing. Nothing.”
A hundred yards past the car she stopped. “But there is,” she said, and turned and walked back until she reached Mr. Chaudhuri’s body. She sat down in the mud at the side of the road, close to him, reached out and took his hand.
“It’s taken me a long time,” she said, meaning not only Mr. Chaudhuri. “I’m sorry it was too late.”
As Mr. Poulson said afterwards, the troubles in Mayapore began for him with the sight of old Miss Crane sitting in the pouring rain by theroadside holding the hand of a dead Indian. On that day, the day of the arrests of members of the Congress subcommittees in the district, Mayapore itself had been quiet. The uprising got off to a slow start. Only Dibrapur and the outlying districts appeared to have jumped the gun. Mr. Poulson set off from Mayapore in the afternoon, in a car, accompanied by one of Mr. Merrick’s inspectors of police, and a truckload of constables, to investigate rumours of trouble in the subdivisions that couldn’t be contacted by telephone, and although when he reached the village of Candgarh he found the Subinspector of Police from Tanpur, one constable and three linesmen from the Posts and Telegraphs, locked in the police post, it was not until he proceeded along the road to Tanpur and found first of all Miss Crane’s burned-out car and then Miss Crane herself that he really began to take the troubles seriously.
The troubles which Mr. Poulson and several others began by not taking seriously took until the end of August to put down. Everyone in Mayapore at that time would have a different story to tell, although there were stories of which each individual had common knowledge. There was, to begin with, the story of Miss Crane, although that was almost immediately lost sight of following the rape of the English girl in the Bibighar gardens on the night of August the 9th, at an hour when Miss Crane was lying in the first delirium of pneumonia in a bed in the Mayapore General Hospital. Later, when Miss Crane found it impossible to identify any of the men arrested that day in Tanpur, for a short while she came again into prominence. People wondered whether she was genuinely at a loss to recognize her own attackers and Mr.
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