Flood of Fire Read Online Free PDF

and he thanked me profusely: Mh-gol-saal, mh-gol-saall I told him that I was delighted to help; that it was but a small return for the many kindnesses that he and his family have shown me and for the long hours that I spent in his print-shop earlier in the year. It was wonderful to be back there again – Compton is perhaps the only person of my acquaintance who is as besotted with words as I am.
    Before the start of the march, Kesri had been told that it would take the advance guard about five hours to get to the next campsite. A scouting party had been sent ahead to choose a site on the shores of the Brahmaputra River. Kesri knew that by the time he arrived the camp’s lines would already have been laid out, with sections demarcated for the officers’ enclave, the sepoy lines, the latrines and the camp-bazar, for the followers.
    Sure enough, around mid-morning, after five hours on the road, Kesri’s horse began to flare its nostrils, as if at the scent of water. Then the road topped a ridge and the Brahmaputra appeared ahead, at the bottom of a gentle slope: it was so broad that its far bank was barely visible, a faint smudge of green. On the near shore, the water was fringed by a pale brown shelf of sand: it was there that the campsite’s flags and markers had been planted.
    A border of sand ran beside the river as far as the eye could see. Looking into the distance now, Kesri spotted a rapidly lengthening cloud of dust approaching the campsite from the other direction. At its head was a small troop of horsemen – their pennants showed them to be daak-sowars, or dispatch riders.
    A long time had passed since the battalion’s previous deliveryof letters; almost a year had passed since Kesri had last heard from his family. He had been awaiting the daak more eagerly than most and was glad to think that he would be the first to get to it.
    But it was not to be: within minutes of spotting the battalion’s colours, one of the dispatch riders broke away to head directly towards the column. As the only mounted man in the advance guard, it was Kesri’s job to intercept the sowar. He handed his pennant to the man behind him and cantered ahead.
    Seeing Kesri approach, the rider slowed his mount and removed the scarf from his face. Kesri saw now that he was an acquaintance, a risaldar attached to campaign headquarters. He wasted no time in getting to the matter that was uppermost in his mind.
    Is there any mail for the paltan?
    Yes, we’ve brought three bags of daak; they’ll be waiting for you at the campsite.
    The risaldar swung a dispatch bag off his shoulder and handed it to Kesri.
    But this is urgent – it has to get to your com’dant-sahib at once.
    Kesri nodded and turned his horse around.
    Major Wilson, the battalion commander, usually rode halfway down the column, with the other English officers. This meant that he was probably a good mile or two to the rear, if not more – for it often happened that towards the end of a day’s march the officers took a break to do some riding or hunting; sometimes they just sat chatting in the shade of a tree, while their servants brewed tea and coffee. That way they could be sure that their tents were ready for them when they rode into camp.
    To find the officers would take a while, Kesri knew, for he would have to run the gauntlet of the entire caravan of camp-followers, riding against the flow. And no sooner had he turned his horse around than he ran into a platoon of scythe-bearing ghaskatas – to them would fall the task of providing fodder for the hundreds of animals that marched with the column. Behind them came those who would prepare the campsite: tent-pitching khalasis, flag-bearing thudni-wallahs, coolies with cooking kits, dandia-porters with poles slung over their shoulders; and of course, cleaners and sweepers, mehturs and bangy-burdars. Next was the battalion’s laundry contingent, a large group of dhobis and