part0011

For the D.S.P. was referring to his immediate superior, the Deputy Inspector General, who had summoned him just the Tuesday before. That officer’s words were as fresh in his memory as if they had only been uttered the moment before.

‘It is a damned disgrace, Chandra,’ he had thundered, banging the office desk before him with the palms of both his hands simultaneously. ‘One single man out there in the blue, leading a handful of nondescript ruffians; and nearly two thousand policemen after him for almost three years! And yet they cannot catch him.

‘Come, man, do you realise it?’ he asked, warming to his subject. ‘The whole of India is laughing at us. Every bloody policeman, in every bloody police force, in every bloody state in this peninsular is asking, ‘What the hell are two thousand policemen, from four states, about? They cannot catch one hairy brigand!

‘Our name stinks to high heaven. The governments of these four states write me D. Os. practically every ruddy week, asking me for a full report on what progress we have made. Progress, my left foot! These bastards at headquarters appear to have no other work to do. They just sit on their fannies at their desks and dictate silly letters to some little bit of fluff they call their stenographer.

‘But let us face the fact, Chandra my boy. We have absolutely no progress to report to them. Every week I pass the buck and write the same reply, but in different words: “Investigations are proceeding satisfactorily and we expect to be able to raid Man Singh’s headquarters very shortly.”

‘But no raid takes place. Because it can’t; for the childish reason that we don’t know where the bugger’s headquarters are.’

The D.I.G. was working himself up to a fine pitch of rage. His name was Sen Gupta, and he was a Bengali. One of the smartest officers in the Calcutta Police, he had been assigned to the special task of eliminating Man Singh and his dacoit bands, with 1700 policemen and officers under his command to achieve this result.

That result, however, had not materialised.

Sen Gupta was an intelligent man, and he was an officer who expected—and got—ruction from his subordinates. He drove them and lashed them with his tongue, till they did something about it.

His rather large head was covered with short, stiff hair, with no signs of grey in it despite his fifty years of age. It was the sort of hair that always refused to be combed or brushed, and so he left it alone. A close-clipped, black toothbrush moustache sat above his upper lip and added to his stern appearance. Grey-green eyes glittered from almost hairless eyebrows. A longish nose; thin, selfish lips; and a square, slightly protruding chin, combined with the moustache and bristly hair to give him decidedly formidable aspect.

Slightly above average height—he was exactly 5 foot 10½ inches—he was a heavily-built man who touched the scales at 200 pounds.

Above all, he was decidedly short-tempered, and when he became angry he would snort like a bull, breathe in gasps, and hammer his unfortunate desk or whatever article of furniture came within reach with the palms of his hands; and he would go on hammering, harder and harder.

He was doing that just now .

Almost idly, Chandra wondered as to which of the two were suffering more—the D.I.G’s hands or the D.I.G’s table.

Sen Gupta stopped gasping suddenly, and went on in a dry voice, selecting his words.

‘Do you know, Chandra, when I was at school in Calcutta, my second language was Latin. God knows why they taught it and why I learnt it. I have forgotten the whole ruddy subject except for one phrase which stuck in my head. And for that one phrase I shall be always grateful to the language of the Caesars.

‘The phrase is, “Faeces taurus sapientum sedit”. And it means, “Bullshit baffles brains”.

‘And that is exactly what I have been doing in my reports all these weeks, Chandra my boy. Baffling the brains of these blighters at headquarters; that is, if they have any brains at all, which I doubt—with my bullshitting reports.

‘But the game is played out and cannot go on any longer. Even the dimwits there have woken up to the fact that my weekly letters are just parrot-like repetitions and don’t mean a damned thing.

‘The people in New Delhi consider us the choicest set of nincompoops out of all the policemen in India. I don’t know what the outside world thinks. But, if they have heard of what is going on, I, as the head of these operations, must be considered to be on a level of intelligence comparable with Donald Duck.’

Throughout the tirade, Chandra had not said a word. He had been through several of the sort before, and knew that if he dared to interrupt the Old Man would probably explode altogether, and burst a blood vessel and die.

So he wisely kept silent.

Sen Gupta went on and on in the same strain for a while. Chandra was thinking: What the hell! This fat bastard keeps yapping by the mile. Why doesn’t the bugger get off his bottom and do something himself, instead of crying on my shoulder.

Chandra was a tall, lean man, and very dark. He came from the city of Madras, in southern India. Comparatively young—he was 35 years old—to hold the rank of a District Superintendent, he had put in meritorious service in his earlier years with the Madras Police among the criminal tribes of that State; and had also spent some time pursuing dacoits in the area around Bastar State and the central parts of the Godavari River where outlaws, although of a minor character, had operated for generations on end.

In fact, any police officer or policeman who had had some knowledge or experience in the pursuit of dacoits, or outlaws of any description, major or minor, throughout India, had been drafted into the special force that had been organised, and placed under Sen Gupta to liquidate Man Singh and his notorious followers.

Eventually the D.I.G. was silent. Having given vent to his emotions, he began to feel somewhat less pent-up. Just then, Chandra was saying, ‘All you state is true, Sir. But what do you suggest be done?’ It was a tactless question, put too soon after his recent outburst.

Sen Gupta bristled afresh.

‘A damned silly question to ask, Chandra,’ he said, shortly. ‘Damned silly, indeed! That is exactly what I am asking you, man. So what the hell is the good of asking the same question back to me? Why, do something of course. You have a hell of a lot of men under you. Cross the Chambal River and comb out every ravine on the other side systematically. Rather simple when you come to think of it after all, what?’

Chandra grew angry beneath his dark skin, and his face took on a somewhat ashen hue. What the hell, he thought again; as if Man Singh and his gang will be sitting tamely on the other side, just waiting for us to come and catch him.

‘I will have a shot at that, Sir,’ was all he commented.

The Old Man had not even bothered to look up at his junior officer. He was staring at the new sheet of blotting paper on the pad before him.

Then he took up the pen on his desk, dipped it in ink, and drew a face roughly on the blotter. It was a face with an absurdly-long, twirling moustache and a huge beard .

Although he had drawn it himself, the face seemed to leer up at him, mockingly.

Sen Gupta jabbed the point of the nib at the drawing. The ‘Relief’ nib struck the paper and the point bent backwards. But the caricature appeared to smirk as much as before.

The D.I.G. flung the pen across his desk and yelled, ‘Orderly! Idher haow! (Come here).’

A police constable marched into the office at a terrific rate; jerked himself to such an abrupt halt that his body leaned forward on its own two feet with the impetus of the speed he had been walking at, and saluted vigorously, the fingers of his right hand vibrating in the region of his temple.

‘Bring ‘cha,’ ordered the D.I.G.; and then to Chandra, ‘won’t you have a cup of tea?’ he invited.

‘No thank you, Sir,’ Chandra answered rather stiffly; and then, hesitatingly, ‘if that is all, I will get back to my people and see what can be done.’

The D.I.G. nodded, absent-mindedly.

And thus the interview had ended. Chandra had clicked his heels and saluted before turning about and walking out of the D.I.G.’s large and airy office.

Sen Gupta had merely nodded again.

Now it was Saturday, and Chandra was sitting at another desk. This one belonged to the Inspector of Police stationed in the town of Bhind. The Inspector’s office itself was an annex to the Police Station. Overhead the punkah (long fan made of plaited tatty or cuscus roots) swayed to and fro at a regular rhythm, pulled by means of a rope passing through a hole in the front wall and over a pulley. The ‘operator’ squatted on the verandah outside. He was an almost naked cooly.

As a token of deference towards his senior officer, the Inspector had surrendered his own chair to Chandra, who now sat on it at the Inspector’s table. The latter sat on another wooden-bottomed chair opposite the D.S.P. at the other end of the table. Chandra had been telling him of the interview he had had with the D.I.G., and had closed his account with the assertion that really something had got to be done about it.

The Inspector was anxious to appear cooperative and efficient. But he had been in the district longer than Chandra and longer than the D.I.G., and knew the problems involved. He was a Rajput named Gulab Singh, who had served in the Army and been transferred to the Police, subsequently. Some 45 years of age, wizened in look and wearing the usual Rajput whiskers and beard, he was as tough as nails. Many a time previous to the advent of his two present officers, he had accompanied punitive expeditions of police across the Chambal to try to search the ravines. From every one of those sorties they had returned empty-handed, and from not a few with less policemen than had set out. Some of these policemen had been shot by snipers hiding behind boulders or in caves or among the cliffs with which the ravines abounded. At other times the whole, party had been ambushed and many killed before they were even aware of danger. So, the D.S.P.’s anxiety for action and the D.I.G.’s impatient annoyance did not succeed in arousing much enthusiasm in Gulab Singh, the Inspector.

‘Huzoor,’ he told Chandra in Hindi, ‘there is a proverb which says, “The foolish clamour for deeds and sometimes wise men suffer thereby”. To enter among the ravines with a large number of men by day is quite futile. If the police force is big, the dacoits just vanish. If it is small, we will be fired upon and some of us killed. I have seen it happen over and over again, many times.’

Chandra did not reply. He was thinking deeply. What the Inspector had just said was quite true, and he had to admit it in spite of the D.I.G’s impatience. To take a body of policemen across the Chambal in broad daylight would produce no result whatever. Either they would see nobody all that day, or they would be shot at, unexpectedly.

Nevertheless, something just had to be done.

So the D.S.P. continued to think, and the Inspector continued to regard him stonily, lost in his own meditation.

Suddenly Chandra stiffened involuntarily. An idea had come to him. A good idea. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. A slight smile played about the corners of his mouth.

‘Inspector Sahib,’ he spoke with deliberation. ‘You have said that it was futile to take a force across the river and into the ravines at daytime as the outlaws would see us coming?’

‘That is so, huzoor,’ replied Gulab Singh, patiently.

‘Then what if we take them across secretly at the dead of night and hide the other side during the day?’ The Inspector’s eyes opened a little wider in astonishment. What silly scheme is this, he wondered. ‘Man Singh’s spies are everywhere, Sir. The river is watched at night. They would see us crossing.’

‘Not necessarily, Inspector, not necessary,’ continued Chandra, indulgently. ‘We would choose a dark night for the undertaking; and a time when nearly all men are asleep, including the sentries of friend and foe alike.’ Here Chandra smiled very confidingly, as if to indicate to his subordinate that he knew all about the vagaries of sentries all the world over.

Gulab Singh did not reply.

‘Please hand me that wall calendar, Gulab Singh,’ continued Chandra after a while, ‘and please fetch the large map of the area that has been issued to all police stations and chowkies and should be hanging on the wall. Where is it?’

‘Here Sahib,’ said the Rajput, rising from his chair and walking across the room to an ancient wooden almirah standing in the corner. He unhooked the front latch and the door of the almirah swung crazily open. Chandra heard the hinges squeak, even at that distance.

Reaching his hand up, Gulab Singh felt along the topmost shelf and brought down a roll of paper, almost a yard long.

He took it to the desk, removed the pen-rack and ink bottle that stood there, placing them on the window sill, and put the roll of paper before Chandra. It was the map.

Chandra unrolled it.

The edges began to curl up again. The Inspector noticed this. He walked back to the window and returned with the pen-rack and ink bottle, placing the former on top of the left-hand edge, and the ink bottle on the right edge of the map. The two bottom corners he prevented from rolling themselves up by the simple expedient of opening the desk top slightly, pushing the bottom edge of the map inside, and then reclosing the top.

For there was no paperweight in his office.

The Inspector then walked across the room, removed the large calendar hanging by a nail on the wall opposite to his desk, and placed it on the map before the D.S.P.

Chandra studied the calendar in silence, while Gulab Singh sat down again on the wooden chair opposite him and relapsed into thought.

It was the 10th of the month. The new moon would be on the 15th.

‘How many policemen have we stationed near the river who could be moved under cover of darkness, quickly?’ he asked.

The Inspector considered the question for a few seconds.

‘There are twenty-four armed constables, two sergeants, and a Sub-Inspector at Raoti,’ he answered, ‘and it is four and a half miles from the river.’

‘Hmmm,’ mused Chandra. And then, ‘That’s all?’

Before Gulab Singh could answer, he continued, ‘Not much; but still, not too few. They will have to do the job. To march more men, either in the daytime or at night, would give the whole show away. People would know something is afoot and that the police were making a move of some kind. Man Singh would be informed.

‘And what arms have these twenty-seven men got?’ he next inquired.

‘As you know, huzoor, all the police squads in this area are specially trained men. They are either of ex-army stock, or come from the Armed Reserve. And every detachment is accompanied by an automatic weapon unit, with two tommy guns. The rest of the men will have service rifles; and of course the Sub-Inspector will have his revolver.

Chandra could not help smiling at the meticulous reply furnished by his subordinate .

‘And can we get boats to cross the river without telling the owners in advance, or asking their permission? That is most important, Inspector Sahib. As you know, this badmash (bad man) has his agents everywhere; I have no doubt even among the boatmen. They would inform him if they had the slightest hint as to our movements.’

Gulab Singh thought again. Then he said, ‘There will be two or three small boats always tied up at a place called Kenchen. It is a point half-a-mile upstream. The river takes a bend there and becomes narrower. You will see it if you look at the map, Sir.’

Chandra began to study the map on the desk before him.

Then the Inspector added, ‘But they are small boats, huzoor, and might hold ten men at the most—certainly not twenty-seven.’

‘How many boats are kept there normally?’ asked Chandra.

‘Maybe two or three,’ said the Inspector. ‘I can find out exactly, if your honour wishes.’

‘Tch!—don’t do that,’ Chandra replied, testily. ‘Your inquiries would probably excite suspicion. We will have to chance our luck. If there are less than three boats, we will have to come back for the men who are left behind. And there won’t be only twenty-seven men, Gulab Singh,’ he continued, meaningly, ‘there will be twenty-nine. For you and I are going on this little jaunt. I intend to see this thing through, myself.’

There was another silence as Chandra looked alternately at the map and at the calendar.

‘Today is Saturday, the 10th,’ he mused aloud. ‘We have five days to go before the new moon which will be on Thursday, the 15th, according to the calendar. So we must act on the 12th, 13th or 14th, eh. The Old Man wants action soon. In fact, the sooner the better.

‘Suppose we fix Monday the 12th?’ he queried, looking up at his subordinate as if expecting a reply.

‘What is in your mind, Sir?’ asked the Inspector, innocently.

A look of annoyance flitted across Chandra’s countenance momentarily. Then he remembered he had been thinking and talking to himself and not to Gulab Singh. So he started to elaborate on his plan aloud.

‘Now listen attentively, Inspector. Nobody should be told in advance about this move, do you understand? Not even the Sub-Inspector and the policemen who are to accompany us. Their tongues might wag and the information leak out. If that happens, the expedition is doomed to failure. Worse still, we might be ambushed,’ and he looked up meaningly. ‘Therefore, only you and I, and no other living soul, knows about this.’

‘Now tomorrow, which is Sunday the 11th, you and I will start on a tour of inspection of all out posts in this area. It will be just a regular inspection and nothing else. But we will call it a ‘surprise check’. We shall arrange to reach Raoti somewhat late on the afternoon of Monday the 12th. There, we will carry out a rather thorough inspection. We will check the men, their equipment, their camp, their uniforms, and even inquire into the quality of the rations they are being given to eat.

‘We will do all this leisurely. I will be exceptionally strict and ask a dozen questions. You do the same. Between us, we will make it too late to push on to the next outpost that evening.

‘So I shall call the Sub-Inspector, berate him for the several faults I have managed to unearth, and blame him for being the cause of detaining us. I shall say to him something like this, ‘Sub-Inspector, because of all these things that I have found, it has become too late for the Inspector and me to move on tonight. Due to you, and you alone, we must stay here till morning. So, pitch a tent which the Inspector and I will share tonight. And prepare dinner, for we are hungry. And don’t forget to wake us up at crack of dawn tomorrow. We must be on our way before sunrise.

‘Having said all this to discomfort that unfortunate officer, we will have dinner and retire early.

‘But not to sleep, Inspector.

‘At exactly midnight, I shall call you. You, in turn, will awaken the S.I. and bring him to our tent. Then, and only then, shall I acquaint him with what is to happen .

‘By two o’clock we should have the men ready, with arms and ammunition, and prepare to move.

‘The problem of preparing and taking food with us for the next three days is decidedly ticklish, Gulab Singh. I mean the three days for which I plan the expedition to last. We dare not tell the camp cook overnight to prepare chappatties. His activities would excite suspicion and he may talk. We could chance it that there might be something in the eating-line ready in the kitchen. But it would be quite insufficient for one thing; and knowing these cooks as I do, I doubt there would be any eatables on hand. You must bear in mind that the men will have to hide in the ravines all the next day and move again at night. And continue doing this for the following two days.

‘Yes, this question of food is one hell of a problem, Inspector. Does any solution occur to you?’

Gulab Singh racked his brain. After some minutes, he said, ‘There appears but one way out, Sir. We shall have to get the police cooks here, at Bhind, to start preparing chappatties right away—hundreds of them. Sufficient for twenty-nine men for three days. These chappatties we will have to take along with us in the back of the jeep when we set out tomorrow. We shall have to keep them hidden in the jeep till the last moment and then distribute them among the men to put into their haversacks before we actually set forth to cross the river.

‘The chappatties will become stale, Sahib, and be as hard as tinplates. The men will be mutinous and probably chuck them away rather than eat what will seem like cardboard, after three days.

‘You will surely turn into the most unpopular D.S.P. in the whole of India after that.’ Gulab Singh could not restrain himself from uttering this last sentence with a mirthless laugh.

‘I know, Inspector Sahib,’ admitted Chandra, speaking earnestly, ‘yours is an excellent suggestion and incidentally the only solution to the problem, for which I am grateful. Unfortunately, we Indians don’t like tinned rations.

‘But don’t worry,’ he went on to add, ‘I shall give the men a short pep talk before we actually set out, explaining that it was impossible to have done anything else if we wanted to observe complete secrecy. I shall also promise double promotion to each man, and the equal division of the reward of fifteen thousand rupees which is going begging for the apprehension of this Man Singh, among the twenty-eight of you people.’

Gulab Singh acknowledged the implication in his superior officer’s last statement with a slight nod of his wizened head and a flitting smile.

‘How many chappatties are the cooks to prepare, Sahib?’ he asked, instead.

‘I intend to eat the same as the rest of you’, replied Chandra. ‘Let us do some mental arithmetic, then. Twenty-nine men, for three days, at, say ten chappatties a day for all meals. What does that work out to?’

He did some silent calculation.

‘Eight hundred and seventy chappatties; my God! Do you think the cooks could prepare that much here in the short time left to them? They will have to work like hell; and all night.’

‘Surely, Sahib; and the sooner we start them off, the better. Are there any more instructions your honour wishes to give before I go along and set the cooks to work?’

‘Let me think a minute,’ said Chandra, slowly. ‘The general idea is to cross the Chambal that night; hide ourselves in the ravines next day while keeping a sharp lookout for any of the dacoits on the move; creep forward again the following night and hide once more the next day; and repeat the same thing on the third day.

‘By then, if our luck is any good, we may stumble upon something or someone. Even if we do not succeed in finding their headquarters, should we capture one of them we might be able to bribe him—or, if necessary, force him to lead us to where this Man Singh himself hides out.

‘But we won’t be able to stay for more than three days I suppose, with those chappatties becoming drier each day, Oh,’ and he looked up, remembering something, ‘don’t forget to make the men fill their water bottles before we start. They will certainly be needed. In fact, we may run short of water. ’

Chandra stopped talking and mopped the perspiration that was streaming down his face with his handkerchief.

‘Damned hellhole!’ he muttered darkly, ‘if it is like this now, what must we have to endure when summer comes? I wish to God I had never been sent to this bloody place.’

It was, indeed, oppressively hot.

Gulab Singh himself had suddenly found the room very sultry. Then he noticed that the punkah above their heads had stopped moving.

‘The punkah has stopped, huzoor,’ he explained, ‘the wretched cooly must have fallen asleep.’

Both men walked out on to the verandah. The punkah-cooly, dressed only in a loincloth about his waist, was curled up on the bare stone floor, sound asleep.

‘Wake up, you swine!’ said Chandra, prodding the recumbent figure with the toe of his boot. ‘Is this the way in which you do your job?’

The man sat up and blinked his eyes against the glare of the sun outside.

‘Balah,’ admonished Gulab Singh, ‘I have warned you many times before not to sleep at your post. I shall fine you eight annas for this.’

The cooly seized the end of the punkah rope in both his hands and started pulling it for all he was worth. There was an expression of injured innocence on his face. The pulley creaked with the movement, and the punkah swayed jerkily.

It took three such small tarpaulin sheets to hold the lot, and filled the rear seat of the jeep to capacity.

The D.S.P. and he then set out on their inspection tour. It was nearly two o’clock by the time they left .

They inspected two outposts that evening, camped the night in a Travellers’ Bungalow, and continued their inspection the following morning, which was Monday, the 12th.

Three more units were checked. Then followed Monday’s midday meal. It was 3.30 p.m. exactly when the jeep came to a halt at Raoti.

The Sub-Inspector in charge of the police unit turned out of his tent, half-dressed, to greet his superior officers. The visit had been entirely a surprise.

‘Good afternoon, Sub-Inspector,’ greeted Chandra in his most official manner, ‘I have come on a surprise check. Get yourself dressed, and the men. I shall give you ten minutes.’

‘But I received no intimation that your honour was coming,’ complained the S.I., indignation and apprehension vying each other, plainly, in the expression on his face.

‘Exactly,’ answered Chandra curtly, ‘that is what I meant when I said “surprise check” just now. So, hurry up.’

Gulab Singh turned aside to hide the smile that he could hardly suppress. The Sub-Inspector’s obvious discomfiture at their sudden visit, was almost pathetic.

Ten minutes later the men had fallen in in three ranks with their rifles. The Sub-Inspector stood before them.

‘Squad, “shun!” he ordered.

The policemen sprang to attention.

Then, ‘Slope arms!’; and finally;

The D.S.P. returned the salute and made the appropriate approach by walking up to the paraded men; Inspector Gulab Singh following in his rear.

The Sub-Inspector saluted, and Chandra returned the salute.

‘All right, Sub-Inspector’, he ordered, ‘I will now inspect the men.’

‘Squad, slope arms!’

The men sloped arms, and Chandra began walking down the front rank. Behind him followed Gulab Singh; and behind him again, the Sub-Inspector .

Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a martinet to find fault. And Chandra proved himself to be a real martinet, that day.

‘When did you last polish your buttons?’ he asked one constable.

‘Whose uniform are you wearing? It is much too big for you.’

‘Boots are meant to be polished. Do you ever do that?’

The rear ranks fared even worse.

When the parade had finally been dismissed, Chandra held an armoury inspection, a kit inspection, a tent inspection, and finally a ration check.

It was after five o’clock when he had at last got through. The unfortunate Sub-Inspector had been wishing for the past hour or so that the earth would open suddenly and swallow him up; or, better still, that this bastard of a D.S.P, would drop dead.

But neither eventuality happened.

‘A very poor show; very poor, indeed,’ said Chandra, pursing his lips and looking witheringly at the exhausted S.I. ‘That is why I always conduct surprise checks. They show up faults that would never otherwise come to light.’

The tired S.I. did not comment.

Chandra then looked at his watch and allowed his countenance to register alarm. He shook his wrist and then held the watch to his ear.

‘Great Heavens,’ he exclaimed, aghast, ‘my watch shows a quarter-past five o’clock! Is that right, Inspector?’

Gulab Singh made a show of consulting his wristwatch in turn. Then he said plainly, ‘That time is correct, huzoor. The inspection has, indeed, taken very long.’

‘I should bloody well think it would,’ retorted Chandra, quickly, ‘with everything wrong or improper in some form or the other.’

Then he turned to the S.I., and glared at him.

‘Sub-Inspector Tulak Ram’, he spoke, acidly, ‘it has become too late for me to move on tonight, because of all this delay; and you are responsible for it, entirely.

‘Have a tent pitched. The Inspector and I will share it. And prepare khana (food) for both of us. We will rest here and move on tomorrow at dawn. Call me without fail at five o’clock. ’

If the S.I. had looked disconsolate before, his face was now a study in dismay.

My God, he was thinking, is this accursed man going to stay here all tonight?

‘Well?’ Chandra’s question broke in, icily, upon his thoughts.

Tulak Ram struggled manfully to recover his composure.

At last he said, ‘There is no spare tent,’ adding hastily, ‘but you will flatter me, Sir, if you and the Inspector would be pleased to occupy mine. I will sleep with the sargeants tonight. And khana shall certainly be prepared.’

It took hardly ten minutes for the S.I. to remove his belongings from his tent. Gulab Singh drove the jeep up and parked it near the entrance so that nobody would nose around and wonder what the tarpaulins at the rear might contain. Then he entered the tent, after Chandra.

‘Poor devil,’ the latter was saying in an undertone, ‘he must be hating me, like hell.’

‘I have no doubt he is wishing your honour was dead,’ commented Gulab Singh in a matter-of-fact voice.

And they both laughed.

Dinner was served in the tent punctually at eight o’clock.

Half-an-hour later, Tulak Ram dutifully presented himself at the entrance.

‘A hot bath has been prepared and is ready for both of you, Sirs,’ he announced, ‘may I instruct my orderly to bring it to the bathroom at the rear?’

‘Thank you,’ said Chandra gracefully, ‘that was thoughtful and kind of you, Tulak Ram, but I hope the water in these parts is clear.’

The S.I. did not acknowledge the thanks with even a smile; while the look he gave the D.S.P. was distinctly hostile.

They both bathed, in succession.

Soon after nine o’clock, the S.I. came again and inquired if there was anything more they wanted. Chandra said, ‘No, thanks. ’

At 10 p.m. the police bugler sounded the ‘Last Post’ and the camp fell into darkness.

There was only a single camp cot—the Sub-Inspector’s—in the tent, on which Chandra lay down. A rope charpoy borrowed from one of the sergeants, had been provided for the Inspector.

‘Take a nap, Gulab Singh,’ Chandra whispered across to his companion on the other charpoy. ‘I am not feeling sleepy. I shall call you at midnight.’

The Inspector was tired and fell asleep almost at once. It seemed to him hardly five minutes later when he felt a hand shaking him by the shoulder.

He opened his eyes. It was pitch-dark. Then he remembered where he was. Standing over him he could feel somebody shaking him; gently but persistently.

It was Chandra, and he was saying, ‘Gulab Singh, wake up; it is ten minutes to twelve o’clock.’

The Inspector sat up on the charpoy, yawned, and stretched both arms above his head.

‘Now go to the other tent and fetch the S.I. And as you are about it, you might as well call the two sergeants who are sleeping with him. I will outline the plan to the three of them when they get here.’

Gulab Singh got up from the charpoy. He slipped his feet into his boots for fear of treading on a cobra or saw-scaled viper in the darkness, but did not lace them. Then he left the tent.

He walked across the few yards that separated them from the neighbouring tent occupied by the sergeants where he knew Tulak Ram was sleeping, entered, took out his matchbox from the breast pocket of his khaki tunic, and struck a match.

He could make out a figure sleeping on a charpoy. Two others lay on the floor.

The man on the charpoy appeared to be having a nightmare. He was muttering incoherently in a high-pitched key. Gulab Singh thought he recognised the S.I.’s voice .

Probably he was dreaming of some demon, with the face of the D.S.P. hotly pursuing him. Gulab Singh smiled to himself at the thought.

The match he held between his fingers commenced to burn him. He threw it down, struck another, and approached the dreamer.

The flickering light revealed that he had been correct. It was indeed Tulak Ram. And he was undoubtedly having a nightmare.

And then the second match went out.

Gulab Singh reached downwards and shook the S.I. gently. It took some minutes to wake him up.

Then the Inspector struck a third match and whispered to the astonished Tulak Ram that the D.S.P. wanted him and the two sergeants to come to his tent immediately.

The S.I. could contain his indignation no longer. He muttered aloud, ‘What! In the middle of the night! Can’t the bugger even sleep? This is unendurable. I shall tell this bugger tomorrow morning that he can stick this job where the monkey stuck the plum. I’m resigning; first thing in the morning.’

Gulab Singh chuckled aloud.

‘Okay; okay,’ he spoke soothingly; ‘but see what he wants, first. Maybe you will change your mind after that.’

‘No bloody fears,’ retorted the S.I., now thoroughly exasperated, ‘this D.S.P. is the kind of feller I would like to meet on a dark night on a lonely road. He won’t be fit after that, in a hurry, for any more of his blasted surprise checks. Damn his bloody eyes!’

But he got up, and woke both the sergeants, one after the other.

The four of them trooped across to the D.S.P.’s tent in a bunch. The lantern had been lighted and was burning dimly.

They found Chandra seated on the edge of the camp cot awaiting them. Tulak Ram made a mental note of the fact that the wooden rod of his camp cot, upon which the D.S.P. was sitting, was actually bending under his weight and in momentary danger of breaking in two. Would this pig pay for it if it snapped? Assuredly not. Beneath his breath he cursed the officer afresh .

He also saluted, half-heartedly.

‘Be seated, boys,’ Chandra spoke affably, ‘you may smoke if you wish while I let you into a little secret.’

Look at this blighter, Tulak Ram was thinking to himself. He sends the Inspector in the middle of the night to wake and call me, and then has the nerve to tell us to smoke if we want. Who the hell thought of bringing cigarettes, anyhow?

As if he was able to divine the hostile thoughts that flowed from his subordinate, Chandra stuck his hand into the pocket of his bush-coat and fished out a packet of Gold Flake cigarettes, followed by a round, nickel-plated army lighter, and offered them to his subordinates in turn.

They each took a cigarette. Chandra helped himself also. Then the lighter was passed from hand to hand, and within a minute the narrow confines of the tent was filled with the haze of tobacco smoke.

The secret is just this. My visit of inspection last afternoon was no inspection at all. It was only done to provide an excuse for my coming here late in the afternoon, and for remaining overnight with you.

‘Particularly to you. Sub Inspector Tulak Ram, do I owe an apology for my churlish behaviour all afternoon. But I had to make it appear that everything was wrong in the camp in order to delay my inspection to the point that it grew too late to depart and I would be forced to spend the night here. Actually, Tulak Ram, you have a fine show here and have organised matters very creditably. I shall make a report to this effect just as soon as I get back to headquarters.

‘The D.I.G. is raising hell about this Man Singh feller because he is still at large and we cannot catch him.

‘So, as soon as I am through outlining details of the plan to you now, we will silently awaken the men, issue arms and ammunition, and start off on an expedition which is to last for three days.

‘We will go down to the Chambal River and cross it in boats which, the Inspector tells me, will be moored at the point where the river takes a bend—Kenchen, is it not, Gulab Singh? ’

The Inspector nodded his head in the dim light and Chandra went on.

‘We will cross very silently and penetrate as far as possible into the ravines. But at the first indication of dawn we shall hide ourselves in some ravine or cave. Before that, we will post a couple of men to watch carefully during the hours of daylight that follow.

‘Without being seen themselves, they should keep a careful lookout for bands of dacoits moving in any direction or towards any particular place.

‘Our whole purpose is to try to discover the lair where this Man Singh character hides out, make a lightning raid on it, and capture or kill him.

‘If nothing happens that first day, we will advance again a little farther in among the ravines the second night and hide once more when daylight comes. And so also for the third night and day.

‘If we have seen no one, or captured nobody during those three days, we will return on the fourth night. Secrecy won’t much matter then. When we reach the river we will have to swim two or three of our men across to return with the boats.

‘That is the scheme, in general.

‘There are some details which we must now go into.

‘The first is this. After we have all crossed tonight, two or three men must go back with the boats. It will not do for the owners, next morning to find that their boats have mysteriously crossed the river during the night. They will raise an alarm which might get to Man Singh’s ears, and he will be astute enough to know a police party had effected a crossing.

‘This is a point we completely overlooked hitherto, Inspector,’ added Chandra, addressing Gulab Singh. ‘Since you said a boat would not hold more than ten men, we shall need three boats, and that will require three men to bring them back to the mooring place. And we cannot afford to delay on the further bank waiting for the three men to swim back to us. So our party won’t be twenty-nine strong as we thought originally, but will only have twenty-six men .

Turning to the Sub-Inspector, he continued. ‘It was not advisable, for reasons of security, to inform you in advance, Tulak Ram. The same holds good as regards the preparation and taking of food with us. So the Inspector and I have brought 870 chappaties, prepared by the police cooks at Bhind, along with us which you will find stored at the back of the jeep. This is the ration for the full three days and was to be divided among the twenty-nine of us. Now that there will be only twenty-six, we will have a couple more of them to go round.

‘I know that they will be very stale and very dry, by the third day. But that cannot be helped.

‘However; I can assure you of this, Sub-Inspector. If we succeed in capturing or killing Man Singh within the next three days, every man jack of us will receive a double promotion. Also, I will see to it that the reward of Rs. 15,000 that stands for the arrest of Man Singh or the surrender of his dead body, is evenly distributed among the twenty-eight of you.

‘Now, Tulak Ram. You must first pick out the three men who are to bring back the boats tonight. And also ensure that there are three good swimmers amongst the other twenty-three, for those three men will have to swim across to fetch the boats to us for our return journey.

‘Distribute arms, and at least 100 rounds of ammunition each, to the men who are to cross, including the tommy gun unit who must have ample reserves. Inspector Gulab Singh will give you the chappaties, which should be issued thirty-three to a man. And everybody should carry a full water bottle. That is very, very important.

‘No noise is to be made in waking the men—no talking—no explanations—no lights—and the least possible delay.

‘It is now past 12.30 a.m.,’ Chandra said, consulting the dial of his wristwatch. The men must fall in and be ready to march, fully equipped, by two o’clock. The three men who bring back the boats will come back to the camp and assist the permanent chowkidar to look after the things that are here till the expedition returns .

‘I will address the men briefly for a few minutes and explain what is afoot before we start off,’ Chandra added, ‘by 2.05 a.m., on the dot, we must move, Sub-Inspector. So go to it at once; and you, Gulab Singh, please help him.’

It was past 2.10 a.m., however, before the D.S.P., had finished addressing the assembled constables in an undertone and explaining the whole plan to them.

They moved off after that in single file, to minimise making a noise, each man walking close behind the one in front of him.

The Sub-Inspector led, as he knew the way. Then followed the D.S.P., the Inspector, and the two tommy gunners with one of the sergeants. After that the twenty-two constables were strung out, including the three men who were to return with the empty boats. The remaining sergeants brought up the rear.

They moved diagonally cross-country in the direction of their embarking point at Kenchen, rather than make directly for the river.

After about an hour’s walking, they came to a footpath that, Tulak Ram whispered, led from the village of Raoti, some five miles away, to the very point of crossing, at Kenchen, for which they were making. Progress was a bit easier after that, and more silent.

Not twenty minutes later the S.I. halted them, and then crept forward himself silently to the landing stage, to ascertain how many boats were actually moored there, and if anyone was watching them.

Ten minutes after that he was back with the good news that five small boats, in all, were moored to the bank, and that not a soul was with them. A glowing tribute, indeed, to the absolute trust and regard that existed between the owners and Man Singh and his followers.

Chandra congratulated himself on the extreme precautions he had taken to keep the whole expedition a secret—down to the ridiculous point of preparing 870 chappaties in advance and having to cart them along with him from Bhind.

What chance would there have been otherwise, when such feelings of good-fellowship existed between the local folk and this crafty gangster? They would assuredly have conveyed to him every single move made by the police party if they had come to know of it. Small wonder previous expeditions had failed, or ended in disaster! No doubt the officers who had planned them had not attended to such small details personally and as closely as he had. Not taken such infinite pains to keep their movements a secret till literally the very last moment.

The Old Man would be very pleased with him, Chandra thought. And Chandra was very pleased with himself.

The party approached the moored boats.

All five of the craft were identical in construction and capacity. Just ordinary river boats crudely made from cut planks put together almost anyhow. And they certainly would not hold more than ten men in each.

Three of the boats were untied and pushed into the water, and the three men who were to pole them back were assigned accordingly, one to each boat.

Then the three police officers, one sergeant, the two tommy gunners and three constables got into the craft which was to cross first; nine constables got into the second boat; and the remaining sergeant and seven men into the third boat.

In that order they commenced crossing the river, each boat being poled along silently by means of the long bamboo with which it was equipped. Less than ten yards separated the craft from each other.

It was very very dark, and the water looked black and forbidding.

They were within perhaps twenty yards of the opposite bank when it happened, swiftly and all of a sudden without any warning whatever.

As if from they very depths of the river itself, a giant octopus seemed to reach up and seize each craft on its port side, with many tentacles.

And that was the side from which the current was flowing.

At least, that is what it appeared was happening, as Chandra watched for a split second while the boat he was in heeled over dangerously to the left.

As the gunwale of the boat on that side was forced still closer to the river’s surface, the mystery of the apparent octopus was explained .

The tentacles that had come out of the water and had looked so black were human arms. As the boat canted still closer to the water human heads came into view, bobbing out of the river in a line—about twenty of them to each boat, at least.

There were men in the water. And they were all pulling upon the sides of each of the boats—and on the same side, to port. The boats would capsize in a second or two.

One word rang in the D.S.P.’s brain—it was ‘Dacoits’!

Hastily, Chandra grabbed his revolver from its holster and fired at point-blank range at one of those heads. The head disappeared beneath the surface of the river.

And simultaneously the boat he was in turned over and they were thrown into the water.

Of what exactly happened after that, Chandra had little clear recollection.

He heard yells of pain and curses of rage all around him. The water churned and frothed with intense activity. He caught glimpses of steel as knives flashed aloft and screams of agony followed when they descended. There came the dull thud of blows being administered and the sickening crack of human skulls.

Something heavy descended on his head with terrific force, and he remembered no more.

It was broad daylight when Chandra regained consciousness. There was an acute pain at the back of his skull. He tried to raise his hands to discover what was wrong, but found he could not, for both hands were tied behind him.

He was alone and there was no sign of any of his companions.

Chandra looked about him. He was lying under a glade of trees beneath which tents had been pitched. Men were sitting in groups beside them, talking. Around him, in a circle, appeared a continuous ridge of rocky cliffs and boulder-strewn hillocks.

Then a voice rang out.

‘Look brothers; the policeman is awake. ’

A group of men surrounded him, and he at once knew them for what they were.

Dacoits of Man Singh’s band.

As he gazed at them, their circle at one end broke and two men strode forward.

The first was an outstanding figure. He was an old man with a high forehead. He had a flowing beard, whiskers and huge moustache.

Often enough had Chandra read that description of its owner upon whom he was now gazing—and over and over again had he studied and memorized it. He knew he was face to face with the redoubtable Rajah Man Singh, himself.

The other man who walked behind the leader was carrying an army-model tommy gun in the crook of his right arm. There was nothing outstanding about this second man, beyond the fact that he scowled fiercely down at the police officer.

‘Salaam, D.S.P. Sahib,’ greeted Man Singh in his musical voice. ‘You wanted so much to see me, and here I am.

‘Incidentally, Sahib, you are the second policeman to ever reach my secret hiding place. I congratulate you both; you are brave men.

‘The first died; shot, whether you care to believe me or not, by a policeman himself and not by one of my men. Of course it was an accident. But I came to like that man. His name was Katar Singh, an Inspector in the C.I.D.

‘Now, you too must die, Sahib; and in your case you will have to be shot by one of my followers. For it is forbidden for a policeman to look upon my secret headquarters, and live.

‘But, because you are an officer and a brave man who did his duty well, you shall not be tortured, Sahib. You will be killed outright. After all, each one of us must die at some time or the other, and my own turn will follow when it has been appointed to take place. You merely go before me, Sahib; that is all.