This
Man of the
by Alastair Dunlop
(submitted to BBC Radio as a short story)
He lived, this man of the
In the house with them
there lived the two buffaloes by whose strength the ground was tilled and the
water drawn. From them his wife got fuel for the fire and milk. They were
nearly as much to him as his land and he probably thought more of them than of
his daughter who, after all, would cost him much money when she was to marry.
The village in which he
lived was not a large one; not more than seven hundred people counting both
communities and the untouchables. He lived with the rest of those of his belief
in one area, while separate from them lived the people of the other community.
In another corner or the village lived the sweepers and their kind, kept apart
by the system under which they lived and the nature of their work.
His land had been in his
family for many years and was his life. He would die for it, for he knew that
without it he and all his family would be bound to die anyway. By western
standards it was little, only about three acres, but it was to go to his son,
and to his son's son, and beyond that his imagination could not take him.
Until a short time ago
there had been no thought in his village of unrest or of politics or of
'freedom'. Everyone had been content as long as there was water and the crops
were sufficient. There I had been no great thought of religion nor that a man
might be an enemy and should be killed because or a difference in birth or
name. It had in fact been quite the opposite. He had many friends in the
village amongst the men of the other community. When they met in the fields or
under the big tree in the centre of the village they made jokes and called each
other brother, and would eat each other's food and drink from the same vessel
without thought of pollution. But lately there had been talk or great changes
in the country. The white Raj was to go and the people would be ruled by their
own kind.
For years, so he had been told, his leaders had been fighting for this and had suffered
and gone to prison so that he could be free.
In his village there was a
strange rumour. Men said that when the day of freedom came they must make the
country round them safe for the people of their own religion. If they did not
do this the opposite community would kill them and take away their land. If he
was not prepared to fight, he might lose his land.
After much of this talk he
heard that men were collecting spears and that even home made bombs were
concealed in the houses of some of the more hot-headed. So he went to the
village blacksmith and asked him if this were so, and whether men were buying
weapons. When he was told that it was true he bought a spear blade, the end of
which was threaded so that if need be he could screw it into the end of his staff
and protect his land and cattle if any should try to steal them.
The stories circulating
round his village grew more and more alarming and there was mounting tension
and fear of attack throughout his district. No longer did the members of the
two communities call each other 'brother' when they met. Rather they passed one
another at a distance so that they should have warning if they were to be
attacked. Sentries were posted on rooftops at night to prevent raids and spears
and axes were carried openly unless the Police or Army were in the vicinity.
One day his village was
visited by an Army patrol, and all the villagers collected to hear what the
white officer had to tell them. He said that there were many soldiers in the
district and that all men must live in peace with their neighbours as they had
done for so long. And they all agreed with him.... even those of the other
side. Then the officer told them that if ever they were in danger they should
come to him at his headquarters, which were in the nearest town, and that he
would send men to see that they were protected. Then he went away.
As the days passed the
tension increased and all the people that he spoke to were becoming more and
more frightened. Sleep was difficult, for apart from the fear which was in his
heart, the fear of losing his land or his son, the sentries on the roof-tops
kept wailing and shouting to let their friends know that they were awake and
that all was well.
Then one day he heard that
rioting had started in the chief city of the district and that many people of
both religions had been killed. As this news passed from mouth to mouth the
hatred, which had been under the surface in his own
village, began to come to the top. Some of the men that he met who had once
been his friends threatened him and bragged of their strength and said that
soon they would take his land and his wife from him and would kill him and all
those that believed as he did.
He was frightened now and
he thought that if he went to tend his crops he would be attacked and killed
while he was alone in his fields, and so he and others of his religion banded
together and went out to the land in parties carrying their axes and spears and
staffs and took courage in being together and hoped that in numbers they might
be safe.
But worse was to come, for
he heard that a village not many miles from his own had been attacked by an
armed mob and that many men and women and children of his own creed had been
killed. He heard too that the attackers had burnt the houses that they had
raided and had looted the grain and had taken many young girls away for their
pleasure and to force them to renounce their religion.
Now the people of his
faith were frightened to such an extent that their manhood left them and they
cared little for what might happen. Sometimes as they talked they said,
"We are strong and we are armed. Once we ruled
But they were to be
tested, for one day shortly after noon they saw their enemies collecting in the
fields all round the village in the woods and gardens nearby. Some were on
horses and some on foot but all were carrying some form of weapon. There
were spears and axes and swords which they could see in the bright sunlight.
And some had shotguns and even rifles which they had stolen or bought from
deserters from the Army. And all of them were shouting their war-cries,
although to be sure, a few of these had been born in the schools and colleges
of
All his people were
frightened and in their fear they turned to the village headman to help them,
for he was a servant of the Government although a man of the other faith and it
was his duty to protect and guide them. He said that he would do this and told
them that they should all collect in the big house in the centre of the village
and that when they were all there he would lock the doors on the outside and
when the mob came that wished to kill them, he would say that all had left in
the night and their enemies seeing the locked doors would believe him and go
away.
But somehow he did not
think that the headman was telling the truth and he decided, although all the
others were of a different mind, that he would go and hide in his fields which
he knew as he knew his son's face.
He therefore climbed the wall
at the back of his house and made his wife and father and children do the same
and he went and hid in his fields in a place where the crop was high and where
there was no path on which the enemy might approach. And he watched the village
After all his friends had
gathered in the big house as they had been told to do, the mob came in and it
was met by the headman who had said that he would protect the villagers against
their enemies. He saw that the headman talked with the leaders of the mob and
then he saw that they were collecting wood and taking it to the big house where
his friends were hiding and he realised what they were going to do. And he
wept, silently, for fear that he flight be heard.
Then he remembered the
officer who had come to his village not many days before and had said that if
ever they were in danger they should come and tell him and he would send men
who would protect them and kill their enemies. So, telling his wife and father
to remain hidden in the fields with the children, he started to run the eight
miles to where the officer had his headquarters.
For the
first four or five hundred yards he was cunning and ran doubled up where the
crops were highest and would conceal him from the people in the village but
after that he straightened and ran as fast as he could. But the raiders had
been cunning too and had thought that perhaps someone would try to escape, some
worker in the fields maybe who had not been present when the headman gave his
advice or a visitor from somewhere nearby and they had posted pickets on all
the paths which led from the village.
This he realised when he
heard a shout and felt a quick pain burn its way down his back. It was a sword
slash but only the very point had touched him and spurred by this and by his
fear he ran on and away from the man who had tried to kill him.
He ran on, avoiding those
villages where he knew that men of the other religion lived, until he reached
the town where the officer had told them that they would get help. There he met
a soldier who took him to where the officer was sitting at his table. He went
in covered with sweat and with his shirt soaked with blood from his wound and
his eyes swollen with tears he had shed in the fields and as he ran, and he
told the officer what he had seen.
Soon he was travelling
back over the ground that he had covered with such difficulty before and with
him in the truck were men armed with rifles and machine guns, and as they raced
along he spoke to the sepoys who were sitting with him and was surprised when they
called him 'brother' for they were not of his religion.
But as they approached the
village he knew that he was too late for he could see the long, straight column
of smoke from the fire in which his friends were being burnt alive reaching
into the still afternoon air and its slow easy rising seemed to mock the agony
from which it sprang.
As they got closer they
could see the raiders scattering into the crops, warned by the pickets of the
arrival of men stronger than they, and when they drove into the centre of the
village where the big house had been, all that there was for him to see was its
ashes and those of the men and women and children that he had once known.
Then, as he wept and beat
his breast in sorrow for them, he suddenly remembered his wife and children
that he had left with hip father in the fields, and asking -the officer for men
to protect him while he left the village, he went out to his land, the land
that he would leave to his son and to his son's son.
He found them, first his
son and his newly born daughter lying there amongst the trampled corn in their
young blood, which had spilled from them as their throats had been cut. A
little distance away the father lay dying, slowly, of a spear thrust in his
belly. His father told him where his wife was. She had been too young and
pretty to kill, at any rate for a little while, and she had been taken away by
the mob leader himself, thrown across his horse. Then the father died and the
man was left on his land.
Now
he had nothing. He was free.