A MADRAS ADMIRAL
(Story)
The
sight was common; yet it was like seeing a bright peacock plume slipping
unexpectedly from the book of a sprightly little schoolgirl or, for its element
of surprise, a glittering diamond ring on the finger of a ragged beggar. There
was nothing in the hour or the circumstance to foreshadow the revelation; it
happened as many things do happen; but inclined to ponder over, it seemed to be
one of life’s strangest evocations.
It
was the time of the year when the days were getting longer, and a long day was
drawing to a close. Rain had fallen till early if afternoon, then a sudden sun
had dried up the tarred roads and the sky was unrolled as a vast sheet of
flawless blue ready to be a manifesto of the stars. Five years ago the German
cruiser Emden had bombarded Madras, smashing a portion of the compound
wall of the High Court Buildings–one can still see the stone slab bearing the
inscription of the bombardment fixed as a souvenir here–throwing the City into
a dreadful panic. I remember it all vividly to this day; the petrol tanks of
the Burma Oil Company hit by a shell into a raging conflagration which no fire
brigade could put out and dying of itself after fifteen hours, the din of the
cannonade, the wild exodus of the people, streets near the beach cluttered up
with splintered wood and glass, twisted tramcar posts, burrowed walls, barrels
of tar honeycombed with bullet-holes disgorging their stuff as though the pit
of Acheron had overflowed–I remember it all, but more vividly than everything I
remember the dead body of a constable attached to the Beach Division who was on
beat that fateful night in September 1914, floating in the Springhaven, his
skull split open by a shrapnel.
But
this evening, to my eyes, Madras looked like a new City, not as I had seen it
in the shadow of a war, but in peacetime newly planned and built, and the
people hurrying along the thoroughfare were the architects and masons who had
raised it with their own hands. What a thought! But the human imagination is
such that it can picturize what it wills and wants.
I
had stepped out of a grocer’s shop with a packet of dried fruits under my arm,
on a road in Royapuram to walk to my house which was a mile away northward and
more than half the distance within sight of the sea. A nip in the air put extra
vigour into my stride; both wayfarers and wheeled
traffic were thin along the route at this hour of near nightfall and I was free
to enjoy the loveliness of the lingering daylight as a final enchantment of
evening always accorded to man by the passionate sun of the tropics. Clear air,
blue sky, bright stars–their beauty is
stimulus to the mind for fresh ideas, for flights of fancy, but are these
always as beautiful? I am not certain. For my mind while apprehending Nature’s
charm at that moment suddenly registered the image of that dead constable
floating in the Springhaven. But are not the dead beautiful too? Yes, only when
they die a natural death and not violently as did this policeman his head cleft
in twain. Abruptly the train of my reflections was sundered by the sharp
rataplan of a drum, and I saw a procession emerge from a bye-street into the
high road. Even at about a hundred yards away I knew what it was a corpse was
being borne to the burial ground. I stopped. The procession approached nearer.
Two sturdy young fellows walking in front of the drummer, their torsos bare,
turned double, treble somersaults in the air, while the drummer himself seemed
sunk in a trance, his instrument producing such sad, staccato notes, and often
so brazen that it looked as though the shindy would make the corpse rise and
sit up in its bier. A steady drone travelled over the drumbeats: a low hum
which rose from the whispered talks among the crowd of mourners.
I
had not moved from where I stopped. While walking or riding on a rickshaw,
bicycle, bus, tram, or car, if a funeral cortege met my sight, I have never
failed to pause, shuffle the sandals off my feet, and pray for the soul of the
dead, irrespective of caste, creed or colour. I have managed to do the
requiescat as unobtrusively as possible but once I had the misfortune of being
caught in the act by a friend who ridiculed me for what he called my
mawkishness. May be, but I don’t mind being dubbed a sentimental bloke; often
what in the view of others is a weakness in one has proved to be a more
authentic sanctuary than any kind or degree of strength. I am not ashamed to
admit my weakness.
The
bier had come close to me now. For a moment I shut my eyes and prayed and when
I opened them again to look at the corpse the surprise it presented left them
lidless indeed–for how long I cannot
tell–presumably till it had passed the line of
my vision. No shroud covered the body. It was dressed in the uniform of a naval
officer of the highest rank–an admiral’s to be
sure–complete with cap, coat, trousers and
boots, and on its side rested a long sword. Its face seemed as ancient as the
earth, black, many-wrinkled through the grey stubble of a beard,
weather-beaten; the nose jutted like a veritable beak, as of a bird of prey,
and the mouth was drawn in, being absolutely toothless. The uniform too looked
as ancient as the earth; with its motley patches it was an admiral’s uniform
still, wrapped round the cadaver as about a scarecrow that ever was set up in a
field. Was it some huge joke, I asked myself, at the absurdity of the
spectacle. No, it couldn’t be, for who among the living dare make fun of the
dead? Here, surely, was something that staggered belief and called for
investigation. My intense surprise gave place to an equally intense curiosity.
I had noticed that the mourners belonged to the fishermen tribe. And someone
among them had marked my astonishment, for as I followed the throng with
doubtful steps and slow, he dropped behind and joined me presently which
obviously attracted the attention of those in the rear, who, with every few
yards they advanced turned round to look at us and exchange remarks among
themselves. I thought I heard a low guttural laugh which went ill with the
solemnness of the occasion.
‘Don’t
mind them,’ said my companion to me, ‘they don’t mean a thing.’
‘Sure.
You know your own people better, and that’s saying a great deal,’ I ventured to
answer.
‘You
are intrigued about that uniform, aren’t you?’
‘That’s
right.’
He
coughed, clearing his throat. I understood its special significance.
‘It’s
the first time I’m telling it to anybody,’ he said, his tone modulated in such
a manner to impart a darker shade to whatsoever the mystery might be.
Perhaps
sensing the magnitude of my curiosity he meant that it was his first real
opportunity to say what he had to say and hoped to make the best out of it,
expecting that this particular instance would yield a better harvest than all
the previous occasions he had been induced to reveal the secret.
‘Go
ahead, and you shall have your reward after you finish your story.’
‘Pechi–that’s
the name of the dead man in the uniform,’ he began, ‘and it was his dying wish
that he should be buried with it...’
‘To
be buried with it!’ I interrupted, deciding at once that the deceased must have
been a character. The quirk was unlooked for, quite fascinating.
‘Yes,
he made us take an oath on it before he lost consciousness. He has no son to
inherit the uniform and continue the line of admirals in his family. I see your
wonder, but that’s the truth. The uniform came into the possession of Pechi’s
grandfather many, many years ago–I was not born then, I heard the story from my
father..its coming was a marvel indeed. Nochi was his name and there was none
in the entire Mettukuppam who could tie a catamaran as well as he; he made
hoops of steel of an ordinary rope and rode the surf like a king. When Nochi
was a young man of thirty, he saw one evening as he was returning ashore after
the day’s fishing, a big ship lying off at some considerable distance from the
harbour. He had not seen such a huge ship anytime in his life before. He gazed
and gazed at it not knowing whether he was standing on his head or his heels.
He wished to go near it, so moved was he by its size, to look at it closely,
but as it was growing dark he postponed his decision for the morrow. But a
terrible thing happened on the following day. All through the previous night a
tempest blowed with the fury of hell, and early in the morning the sky cracked
and rain started to pour in torrents, continuing to pour like that unabated for
ten days and the fisherfolk, men, women, and children huddled together like
rats frighted to death in their huts. A darkness fell on the land and the time
of the floods seemed to be at hand. No noise was heard except the thunder of
the sea. Then suddenly they found Nochi missing in his hut, its thatch had been
torn off by the storm and his wife with their son, a stripling of twelve,
rushed for refuge to a neighbouring hut. Where could Nochi have gone in that
awful weather? Nobody could think, nobody could say. His wife was on the verge
of a collapse. Then when rains stopped and the storm went elsewhere and the
pale light of the rising sun showed that it was a real day and the waters of
the sea stretched beneath a glittering haze, a knot of fishermen standing on
the shore saw a sight which they could not forget for the rest of their lives.
It was a catamaran leaping and careering over the waves; soon with a dive of
its nose it touched the sand-floor nimbly, and who did jump out but Nochi,
grinning an over his face? Eluding every eye had he gone fishing in that horrid
sleet? No. There was no net in the catamaran, he walked up holding a big-sized
bundle in his hand. Once in his hut whose thatch had been mended by friendly
hands, and his wife collapsing again at the sudden sight of him and then
recovering and smiling through her tears, Nochi told his
adventure amid spurts of amazed chucklings, tiltings of heads, and applauding
exclamations. He had been inside the big ship and seen its many wonders.
Fearing that it might move off any time during those days of rain and storm and
he would have to die of disappointment, he had put to sea on his catamaran,
defying the angry, hill-high waves with prayers in his heart to Mariamman. And
he had had an idea before he set out. The Great Goddess gave him that–she made
him carry with him a dozen eggs, a fowl, a goodly bunch of plantain fruits and
a solid pumpkin. He had reached the ship safely, and laid his tribute before
the biggest of men who had talked to him in a language he could not understand,
but whose hearty laughter and smiles he understood fully. He had patted his
back for his bravery, and for his tribute–the eggs and the fowl he had liked
especially–had presented him with a set of dress exactly as he, the great white
man, wore. He had given him, too, apiece of paper on which some words were
written, and when Nochi had put on the uniform at his bidding, the great white
man had buckled a sword to his belt while all the other white men in the ship
had stood in a line and saluted him.
‘A
piece of paper,’ I broke in, visualising the scene of the ceremony on board the
vessel which I had concluded to be a man-of-war, ‘a piece of paper along with
the uniform and the sword. In whose keeping is it now?’
‘It’s
in the pocket of the coat Pechi wears. He inherited all the three from his father.
And because Pechi has no son to whom these naturally should go, he had ordered
for their burial too. I told you at the outset that we consented to do so under
an oath.’
‘Yes,
I do recollect your mentioning it, but will you help me to see it just for a
while before it goes into the bowels of the earth?’
‘I
shall try, but I don’t know what the others will feel about it. Moreover, the
final consent should come from Pechi’s cousin–his uncle’s son–who is the chief
mourner in the group. He’s aggrieved, poor fellow; he thought to the last
moment that the regimentals would go to him. But he didn’t reckon with Pechi’s
mind–a hard nut to crack. He coveted them really. For the heir to the uniform
had important privileges both inside and outside the Kuppam. He became a sort
of leader of the community, empowered to settle disputes, and have a share of
the daily catch. And without any let he could visit all the ships arriving
in the harbour, which enabled him to collect appreciably in cash and in kind
from sailors of all the lands. Pechi himself, his father and grandfather had
all benefited themselves greatly in this way.’
I
was not aware that we had trudged nearly three miles, that the sun had set and
the lamps on either side of the road had been lit–for
what I had heard was so absorbing–when
my companion told me, a little loudly, noting my absorption, that we had
reached the entrance gate to the burial ground. I recalled at once what I had
so much wanted to see: that piece of paper in the dead man’s bosom, tucked away
in the pocket of his admiral’s coat, ready to be swallowed by the grave.
Realizing quickly what was passing in my mind my companion said:
‘Follow
me, for I think I may succeed.’
I
have no positive aversion for Rudra’s land, but just then a sudden disquietude
as to how my venturesomeness would turn out, made me hang back for a second; at
the next, with firm steps, I had passed through the gate, my companion marching
abreast of me.
At
a short distance to my right I saw the yawning pit, and on its edge the dead
man on the bier. Torches flared all around, and the outlandish dress of the
corpse, dyed a dull red by their flames, looked more bizarre in a native
setting. It was a world of shadows and as the thought crossed my mind, I felt a
soft touch on my shoulder which sent a shiver through my frame: it was only the
hand of my companion and I felt reassured.
‘Quick,
read it,’ he whispered, holding a crumpled, dirty quarter sheet of paper whose
back was pasted over with a thicker brown paper. ‘You are lucky, I was able to
persuade Pechi’s cousin. None else knows. Quick,’ he urged me again, his voice
hoarse with excitement.
By
the light of the lantern which he held, I glanced over the paper, excited
myself. I could make out nothing. I concentrated, bringing it closer to my
eyes, beckoning to my companion to move the lantern to the angle I needed. It
seemed futile to decipher the words, if words they were; age had turned the
black ink brown, and the brown for the most part was obliterated by overmuch
thumbing. Some dashes, some flourishes about the letters were a little clear;
it certainly was the written commission given to Pechi’s grandfather by the
commander of the man-of-war, but now God alone knew the names of man and
vessel. There were nearly a score of signatures in the left bottom
corner of the sheet–obviously of captains of sailing ships and admirals of
battle ships–all ornamented with Loops and flexions. I strained and strained my
eyes and succeeded in spelling out at last ‘admiral of the catamaran fleet’
in the text of the commission, and among the signatures: ‘WM. Anderson,
S. S. Clan Menzies.’
The
time allowed me had run out. I surrendered the sheet of paper and I saw it
following the dead to his final resting place, and a particular line of
admirals becoming extinct. I then put a rupee into the hands of the man who had
told me the story and walked briskly out of the burial ground, not waiting to
know if he was satisfied with what he was given. He might or might not have
grumbled or should have grumbled having to share the tip
with Pechi’s cousin;
he might have intended to follow me to ask me for more but thought better of it
and stayed back–it might have appeared unseemly to him to Leave a burial in the
middle; but I never came upon him again to know whatsoever his feelings were.
That
night I didn’t sleep, although I was physically and mentally exhausted, and
tossing about in bed, I thought and thought again: Next to being a nation of
shopkeepers the English really are a nation of humorists, and in their time, as
empire builders, they have made tunnycatches1 into tahsildars2
and messengers into magistrates. But to have made a Coromandel fisherman
an Admiral–that beats everything.
(Originally
contributed to Swarajya)
1
Water-carriers.
2
Head of an administrative division of a district.