ELEPHANT MOON (18 page)

‘That is treason.’

‘Not treason, not to me. If these letters are delivered to the right people, the Axis may win the war. So this is no small thing.’

‘But why are you telling me this?’

‘What if I was jailed by the British, come from a family of Jiffs, or at least people who want the British out of India, but then see with my own eyes what the new conquerors are truly like? Exactly how our liberators from Nippon deal with people once they have fallen into their hands. What if I was a Jiff who started to have doubts about the Japanese? And then I fell in love with an Englishwoman, as proud and arrogant as she was beautiful? What then? If I don’t carry on with my mission I betray my fellow Indians and, what’s more, my father,
who expects me to do my duty to the Netaji. But if I do, I betray the trust of the woman I love. So, what to do?’

‘Who are you? I have no idea of who you really are.’

 ‘First, I am exactly who I said I was. I did not lie to you but I did not tell you the whole story. My name really is Ahmed Rehman. I am the grandson of a Maharajah, the Lord of Swat. We are Pathans, Muslims who live in a beautiful valley, close to the line in the map the British drew, dividing Afghanistan and India. It snows where we live from November through to April, May. This place,’ he eyed the sweltering jungle with disgust, ‘is so far from what my home is like.

‘So, we have money, land, peacocks. At the age of three I had my own butler. At seven, my own Rolls, even though I was too small to sit in the driving seat, let alone drive it. At ten, my own little zoo. Monkeys, a snake, but the best were the wallabies. They used to hop in the snow… it was the most amazing sight, better than the butler or the Rolls by a million times. We are wealthy but my family is a madhouse. Throughout India, my grandfather is famous, the rebel Maharajah, a prince on the side of the paupers, a lord for Congress. He is a very old man now, but still dangerous to the British. They have locked him up in prison, without trial, under their wartime emergency powers. They do not realise the mistake they are making. He is their true friend. Throughout his life he has been a great supporter of the Mahatma, and, also of the rule of law. In ’31 he accompanied Gandhi to London, to listen to the British terms for the transfer of power. But it proved to be an empty trick, the British still playing games, playing divide and rule against us. India was insulted.’

The Jiff sighed. ‘On the long series of hops flying home, Gandhi and my grandfather stopped off at Rome and, to play the British at their own game, it was decided that they would meet the Duce. My grandfather described Mussolini’s office, an enormous gilded ballroom, empty of people, apart from this strutting ninny sitting at the very far end behind a
very large desk.  My grandfather was unimpressed with the Duce. His talk, he said, was full of violence, “blood, smoke, lava, destruction, and battles of all sorts, battles for the lira, battles for wheat, battles for births, battles against sparrows, battles against mice, battles for or against houseflies, he forgot which”. After ten minutes of the Duce, the old man said, he longed to be back with the British, their tea, cakes and hypocrisy. My grandfather knows the British put him in jail from time to time, but if Mussolini ruled India, then he suspects he might have been shot. Hitler? Worse. And what did the Mahatma ask of the Great Duce? He called very meekly for a glass of castor oil.’

At the memory of this, the Jem smiled, explaining: ‘The fascists make their enemies drink castor oil so they soil themselves, a bespoke humiliation. My grandfather said the translator didn’t dare translate the request. When they brought tea instead, the Mahatma looked at the cup quizzically. He’d made his point. Mussolini understood it well enough. So Congress is wary of the men who march in step, fascists and Communists both.

‘This is not India’s way,’ the Jemadar had continued. ‘But as the thirties wore on, the British still would not leave. People became frustrated, frustrated with the British hanging on, frustrated, too, with the non-violence of the Mahatma. My father was one of them. He fell out with my grandfather, and became attracted to Bose, who said: “If someone strikes you, strike him back, twice”.’

‘That’s why you ended up in Changi.’

‘I am a soldier, not a pacifist. The independence movement in India had always been democratic, but Bose models himself on Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, dreaming of a strong, authoritarian state by the Ganges, directed by himself, the Leader, the Netaji. Bose came to Swat many times, a funny man, clever, educated  – at least, they must do something at Cambridge - cynical, aware of what the Big Men he admires are capable of, but so enthused with the lust for power he didn’t care. My father supports Bose, believes in him as India’s
only hope. When the war started, the British arrested my grandfather, not my father. They took the wrong man.

‘Partly to get away from the madhouse, I joined up. It is a strange thing to be told that you are fighting for democracy, knowing that your grandfather, who because he is fighting for that very thing in his own country, is in jail. But, also that your father has become so frustrated by the denial of democracy, he ends up in league with its enemies. I tell you Grace, sometimes our family arguments made my head spin. But throughout all of it, I remembered what my grandfather told me about taking tea with Mussolini– that the Axis are far, far worse than the British.

‘My time in the British Indian army made me question my grandfather’s wisdom. It is an army of so-called equals. That, I am afraid to say, is a lie. The Indian Other Ranks must salute a British officer, but the British enlisted men do not have to salute an Indian officer. Soldiers are proud men. It is degrading. We are paid half the rate of the British officers, too. But that is less shaming than not being treated equally. In the first two years of the war I fought in North Africa, against the Italians. They ran away, they surrendered, they hardly ever fought. The Japanese are the opposite. But when you spoke to the Italian prisoners, you could understand why. They didn’t believe in Mussolini, they didn’t believe in his war for an Italian Empire in Africa and the British tried to deal with their prisoners correctly. We would make jokes about the Italians, but as prisoners they were
respected
. Again, the Japanese are the opposite.

‘During the battle of Sidi Barani my platoon took control of a very large sand dune. We didn’t know at the time but on the other side were thousands and thousands of Italians. They surrendered to me, a lowly Indian officer. The British gave me a medal, hurrah! But much better, the whole regiment was posted back to India and I was given leave – the British
know how to treat the grandson of a Maharajah – and I spent some time at home in Swat. In the very middle of the night, there was a commotion, a visitor.

 ‘I had been fast asleep but my mother woke me up so that I could be presented to the mystery visitor. I threw on my uniform, sleep-walked down the stairs and shook hands with the guest before I realised what I was doing, who he was. Bose, on the run from the British. He’d turned up at our house, having slipped out from house arrest while the Special Branch were snoozing. Had my grandfather been at home, he would have asked him to leave but my father was the man of the house, and Bose was an honoured guest, and we Pathans have a tradition of hospitality.’

‘I remember Mr Peach…’

‘Oh yes, the tall one, your lover.’

‘He’s not my lover.’

‘The one who just happens to delay blowing up the biggest bridge in Burma, just for your ladyship’s convenience…’

Grace interrupted him: ‘He was as drunk as a lord, on that terrible day we evacuated from Rangoon. He told me that the British had lost track of Bose, that they had no idea where he was.’

‘Well, he was in our house. I shook his hand and all I said was: “good luck, old man”. Bose laughed like a drain, the idea of a British Indian officer, in uniform, wishing him well. He remembered it, and I think he mistook my courtesy in the middle of the night – the man was a guest, after all – for a sign that I was a devotee, that I would be happy to become his willing emissary. By rights, as an officer in the army, I should have reported Bose’s presence straightaway, but that would have meant them arresting my father and taking him away too. My mother would not have liked that. So I said nothing to anyone and when I returned to my regiment, we were posted to Singapore.

‘The British and the Indians fighting together in North Africa against the Italians were magnificent. In Singapore, a disgrace. The difference? I don’t know. The generals, perhaps. Or in Africa we were fighting against the fascists. In Singapore we were fighting for the British Empire. Then came my little disagreement. The officer was planning to abandon the wounded when our position could still be defended. I challenged him and ended up in prison.’

‘What was prison like for the grandson of a Maharajah?’ Mischief edged her question.

 ‘The champagne was rather flat.’ He laughed without mirth. ‘I am a soldier. You get used to everything. But this was a bad time to be locked behind bars. During the bombing, the prison wardens ran away. When a bomb falls, you cannot hide, you cannot run. You listen to the whistle as it falls and you pray. Allah looked over me.’

‘Are you religious?’

‘No. But more than I thought. The other prisoners… screams, weeping, fists pounding against the bars. So
helpless
. It frays the nerves. The wardens ran away for good. Two days and nights. No food, no water.

‘And then the door of my cell swung open. As I said, I was freed by the Japs, an unusual experience for an officer of the King.’

‘So you became a Jiff.’

‘Yes. We, they, they call it the Indian National Army, the INA. The Japanese became, how shall I put this? Excited when they realised who I was, who my father and grandfather were. They had me march at the very front of the Jiffs, which is when that mechanic must have recognised me. How he escaped and ended up here in Upper Burma, I do not know. The Jiff high command trusted me because of my family name, without me saying a word. And I was sick of the British. I had been fighting their wars for them, and they had locked me up. So I was happy, at first, to turn a blind eye to what the Japanese were getting up to.’

The Jiff looked Grace in the eyes.

 ‘You must understand, once the Jiff officers and the Japanese realised my family connection, that I’d actually met Bose, shook his hand, wished him “Good luck, old man” I was treated like a lord. Six of us Jiffs were invited to dinner at Raffles with the Kempeitai, their SS. Champagne, oysters, women smiling at us – most Chinese, a few Russian Jewesses - sitting on chairs in the background, but we knew they were, available, while our old colonial masters were shuffling around in the very prison I had been locked up in. One of us Jiffs told the Kempeitai general that we did not want to become a puppet army. Their general said: “We do not want you to be puppets. But if we do, what is the harm in being puppets? Why is
puppet
bad?”

‘They drank whiskey until it came out of their ears, singing victory songs. My friend who spoke Japanese whispered the words the Japs were singing: “my grandfather catching fish in the Ganges…”

‘After dinner, we left Raffles and went on to an officers’ club the Japanese had taken over from the British. ‘Then, while we ate and drank, they brought in…’

Suddenly, he was crying. Shocking for Grace, the sound of this man, utterly calm, sobbing.

She tried to soothe him with kisses.

 ‘Nothing, there was nothing I could do. Just watch in silence.’

‘What? They did what? What happened?’

‘The Kempeitai brought in a British officer from some dungeon. We never found out his name. He had taunted them somehow, sworn at them. They had heard him say “Jesus”. So, for them, a big joke,’ he laughed, again joylessly, ‘so childish and so brutal. In the club, surrounded by oil paintings and stuffed heads and golf trophies, while we drank fine wines served by waiters in immaculate turbans and cummerbunds, and the comfort women poured
champagne over their breasts and invited us to lick their blouses, they brought in this poor chap and they nailed him to two wooden planks, gave him a crown of barbed wire. Drink, sing, fuck – they were fucking the comfort women – and, over there, just on the wall, a human being, nailed to a cross, in agony, eyes squirming, beseeching us, blood trickling down his face, holes in his hands and feet. What was this?
Entertainment?

‘They grew bored with him, screaming. They stuffed his mouth with a towel soaked in whisky. He would not shut up. He was a very, very brave man, and even through the gag you could hear him call them names. “Fuck, fuck you,” something like this. A while later, the pain become too much for him, and he started to moan softly. A terrible sound. Finally, a good Japanese, a young officer, daring, stood up, bowed at the Englishman, and shot him dead through the eyes. A mercy. After the shot, silence. This
banquet
, I will never forget.’

The red moon vanished behind a wall of cloud.

‘The next day, I was called in to the Kempeitai offices. I tell you Grace, I am no coward, but when I walked through that door, I was shaking inside. All smiles for the Indian officer who’d actually met the Netaji. “Here, take this satchel, a special mission for the Netaji. Take it to India. In this satchel are letters to the most important Jiffs in India, all officials or soldiers, all keeping their true sympathies from the British. Take these letters to them, hand-deliver each one, and soon India will fall.”

‘Crossing through to the British lines, just one more Indian officer on a motorbike, was pitifully easy. A few checkpoints, nothing. But things had changed. Or maybe I had. The British Army before it had been defeated at Singapore, was arrogant and rigid. In retreat, running for their lives, they showed some grace, some humanity, more than I had ever witnessed in Singapore. Now that I was a traitor to the British, I saw individual acts of bravery from British soldiers, doing their best to save the lives of others, Burmese, Chinese, Indian, too. One corporal told me: “If it was down to me, lad, if it was between keeping the
British Empire or me being back home, I’d rather be watching Tranmere.” He said it with a smile, but I knew it to be true. It made me suspect that the old soldiers of the British Army, the one I had my fight with over the fate of the wounded, were dinosaurs, from another time, and that there was a new Britain in the making, something different. Well, maybe I am wrong.