Hants & Dorset pulled up under the deep coolness of a cedar tree. Allu switched off the engine, slipped on the hand-brake and the girls piled out, to stretch and yawn and run on the grass. Grace turned to Miss Furroughs: ‘Heavens, we could be in Surrey.’
Of the planter, of anyone, no sign. The headmistress tapped on the door knocker. No one stirred. Allu tooted the horn once, lightly. No response. He leant on it, and the horn blasted across the lawn, igniting the peacocks in a paroxysm of squawks. Still, nothing. The children dozed on the grass. At length, Grace walked around the back and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Empty rooms decorated with oil paintings of stags at bay in the Highlands and stuffed pheasants in glass cases led to a large open space, lined with books and paintings, with a view of the plantation beyond. It would have been one of the most beautiful rooms she had ever been in, were it not for the white-haired planter, his face a violent green-black, his feet turning a fraction, to and fro, to and fro, as he swayed from the upstairs balcony, dangling from a rope.
On hearing the explanation for the silence, the headmistress plunged her head in her hands. Nothing was said to the children, but they seemed to sense the gloom of the adults. They got back on the bus, Allu intending to drive through the night. Later, Grace realised that it would have been wiser to stay at the suicide’s house, grim as it was, but the proprieties of peace-time still ruled their minds. They tortured themselves by trying to sleep on the bus.
Allu zig-zagged on the unlit road once too often and ended up in a ditch, on the edge of paddy-fields.
They might be able to sort it out in the morning but it seemed as good a place as any to stop, they thought, until the mosquitoes found them.
While the bus struggled to sleep, Grace sought out Allu and smelt his breath. It stank of moonshine. ‘Allu, you cannot drive the bus and drink. You are our only hope.’ She found his knapsack and rummaged through it, pulling out a bottle, half-full, of hooch.
‘Miss, I am so very sorry. But without the drink I have no courage to drive.’
‘Oh, Allu…’
He grabbed hold of the bottle – he was a strong, wiry little man, despite his age – and lobbed it into the dark, setting off the frogs in the ditch to a new riot of belching.
In the morning, Grace had to beg for petrol from the retreating army. She had none of the right chits or signatures but it turned out that it was simple enough. All she had to do was stand by the side of a road, a blonde Englishwoman holding an empty fuel can upside down. Once the driver of an army lorry saw her, he would stop. The soldiers would clamber out, cracking jokes, offering petrol, making a quick brew of tea, playing bang-bang with the boys and flirting with the older girls, while Miss Furroughs clucked around like a perturbed mother hen.
By noon, molten heat fell from the sky. The bus clattered on, sending up a cloud of dust, creamy particles that plumed everywhere, up noses, into eyes, past lips pressed tightshut. Impossible to drive a yard without every single window on Hants & Dorset that could open being open; impossible to breathe in a bus cloaked in its own fog of dust.
The things they saw: the face of a buffalo, brutal, staring out of the dust, missed by Allu by a chance few inches; waving puddles of mirages, of water promised but never produced; saffron-robed monks, staring at the bus; an old mad man, gibbering to himself, half-way up a pipal tree.
To keep fear at bay, they sang hymns until throats grew sore and mouths dry, ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ and ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended’. When the bus overtook an army convoy, they belted out ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. The Fourteenth Army was a hodge-podge of all the nations of the Empire – Mussulmans, Sikhs, askari from the East Coast of Africa, West Africans, Hindus, Parsees, Buddhists, the soldiers, blue-black,
Of the planter, of anyone, no sign. The headmistress tapped on the door knocker. No one stirred. Allu tooted the horn once, lightly. No response. He leant on it, and the horn blasted across the lawn, igniting the peacocks in a paroxysm of squawks. Still, nothing. The children dozed on the grass. At length, Grace walked around the back and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Empty rooms decorated with oil paintings of stags at bay in the Highlands and stuffed pheasants in glass cases led to a large open space, lined with books and paintings, with a view of the plantation beyond. It would have been one of the most beautiful rooms she had ever been in, were it not for the white-haired planter, his face a violent green-black, his feet turning a fraction, to and fro, to and fro, as he swayed from the upstairs balcony, dangling from a rope.
On hearing the explanation for the silence, the headmistress plunged her head in her hands. Nothing was said to the children, but they seemed to sense the gloom of the adults. They got back on the bus, Allu intending to drive through the night. Later, Grace realised that it would have been wiser to stay at the suicide’s house, grim as it was, but the proprieties of peace-time still ruled their minds. They tortured themselves by trying to sleep on the bus.
Allu zig-zagged on the unlit road once too often and ended up in a ditch, on the edge of paddy-fields.
They might be able to sort it out in the morning but it seemed as good a place as any to stop, they thought, until the mosquitoes found them.
While the bus struggled to sleep, Grace sought out Allu and smelt his breath. It stank of moonshine. ‘Allu, you cannot drive the bus and drink. You are our only hope.’ She found his knapsack and rummaged through it, pulling out a bottle, half-full, of hooch.
‘Miss, I am so very sorry. But without the drink I have no courage to drive.’
‘Oh, Allu…’
He grabbed hold of the bottle – he was a strong, wiry little man, despite his age – and lobbed it into the dark, setting off the frogs in the ditch to a new riot of belching.
In the morning, Grace had to beg for petrol from the retreating army. She had none of the right chits or signatures but it turned out that it was simple enough. All she had to do was stand by the side of a road, a blonde Englishwoman holding an empty fuel can upside down. Once the driver of an army lorry saw her, he would stop. The soldiers would clamber out, cracking jokes, offering petrol, making a quick brew of tea, playing bang-bang with the boys and flirting with the older girls, while Miss Furroughs clucked around like a perturbed mother hen.
By noon, molten heat fell from the sky. The bus clattered on, sending up a cloud of dust, creamy particles that plumed everywhere, up noses, into eyes, past lips pressed tightshut. Impossible to drive a yard without every single window on Hants & Dorset that could open being open; impossible to breathe in a bus cloaked in its own fog of dust.
The things they saw: the face of a buffalo, brutal, staring out of the dust, missed by Allu by a chance few inches; waving puddles of mirages, of water promised but never produced; saffron-robed monks, staring at the bus; an old mad man, gibbering to himself, half-way up a pipal tree.
To keep fear at bay, they sang hymns until throats grew sore and mouths dry, ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ and ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended’. When the bus overtook an army convoy, they belted out ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. The Fourteenth Army was a hodge-podge of all the nations of the Empire – Mussulmans, Sikhs, askari from the East Coast of Africa, West Africans, Hindus, Parsees, Buddhists, the soldiers, blue-black,
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