The Elephant Keeper's Daughter Page 19

  “What are your plans, once we’ve reached our destination?” Henry asked, watching the monk retie his pouch.

  “If you want me to, I’ll stay near you,” replied Mahinda.

  “Thank you,” said Henry quietly.

  He took two tin pots out of his saddlebag, went to the river, and filled them with fresh water. Back at camp, he took from their luggage a small bag of beans and another of rice, put a handful of both in one of the pots, and set it on the fire. Mahinda put the other pot next to it and, when the water was boiling, poured the liquid into both earthenware bowls.

  “Are you hungry?” Henry asked Mahinda as the aroma rose from the rice and beans. He asked this every evening. And, every night, the abbot would shake his head with a smile. He ate his only meal of the day early in the morning, a little steamed rice with herbs from his leather pouch.

  “Your drink is ready.” He handed Henry the bowl of root stock. Henry emptied it in a few mouthfuls. The stock was almost clear and tasted not unpleasant, a little like spinach.

  “How did it begin with you and the opium, my friend?” asked the monk, sounding less formal than before.

  “It’s not so easy to explain.”

  Henry picked up the pot of beans and rice, stirred it with a metal spoon, and started to eat.

  “I imagine you’re carrying someone else’s burden on your shoulders, would that be it?”

  Henry’s throat tightened. He lowered the spoon and sat for some long moments.

  “It began after the Uva Rebellion.”

  Mahinda’s body stiffened, but Henry did not notice because he was staring into the dancing flames of the campfire.

  “Our regiment was ambushed by the rebels. Almost all of my colleagues were killed. Afterward the governor at the time, Brownrigg, ordered retaliation attacks throughout Uva. I was present at one such attack and watched as an officer and his soldiers massacred a whole village. Nobody was spared. The men were murdered, the surviving women brutally raped, and every last rice plant burnt.”

  “Did you yourself murder, rape, and pillage?”

  “No. As a doctor, I took a solemn oath to save life, not to destroy it. I wanted to prevent the massacre and I failed—” Henry buried his face in his hands.

  Mahinda made an abrupt movement. But he checked himself and regained his serenity.

  Henry let out a deep breath and let his hands drop from his face. “After two years we had the rebellion under control. Calm returned to the country, but not to my head. The memories of the brutality I saw still haunt me.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I can only forget them when I’m smoking opium.”

  He stopped talking and stared into the flames. Mahinda was silent, too.

  The only noises were the crackling of the fire and the calls of the night birds. After some time Mahinda said, “My friend, you must report these events to the governor.”

  “That’s what I did!” Henry’s fists were clenched. “I reported the whole thing to Governor Brownrigg. Without the slightest success. All that mattered to him was that the rebellion had been subdued.”

  “Were the lives of my brothers and sisters worth nothing?” asked Mahinda.

  Henry shook his head slowly. “Apparently not.” He closed his eyes, realizing how desperately he needed to talk openly about the atrocities. It would slightly reduce his own burden, and bring some small sense of justice for the Sinhalese, the violated and the dead.

  “My own brother instigated that massacre. He had an entire village sent up in flames because five rebel leaders had hidden away there. Three of them died when he captured the village. He forced the remaining two to watch while he tortured their families. Then he had them beheaded.”

  “Are the families dead, too?”

  “I don’t know anything about the family of the one whose name was Deepal Sirisena. But the other was Jeeva Maha Nuvara. His widow actually lives with her two children not far from here. I saw them again quite by chance, when a mahout—”

  “Only two children?” Mahinda’s eyes flashed. “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure,” answered Henry. “She has a daughter and a son, and the daughter has a little boy.”

  Mahinda stared into the fire. The dancing flames reflected in his eyes and made them glow like hot coals. His posture was so still it reminded Henry of the statues of Buddha he had seen in the temple. The monk’s face, however, no longer radiated serenity and peace but looked stiff with shock and anger. Then a shudder ran through him as if he was trying to shake off inner demons.

  “You must feel like a grain of rice between two millstones whenever you think about your brother,” said Mahinda, his voice raw. “In spite of that pain, you will one day have to make a choice: your brother or justice. Now finish your food and then let’s meditate.”

  Henry ate his food down in silence. When he had finished, and had washed up his bowl and spoon, he sat down again before the fire, straightened his back, and crossed his legs. The position was still uncomfortable. But, like Mahinda, he placed his hands low, beneath his navel, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on his breath. It often took a while for his thoughts to calm, but today he could not manage it at all.

  The ostensible benefits of meditation seemed further out of reach than ever. All the unresolved crises still echoed through his thoughts. Charles and his violent outbursts, the young mahout who triggered his worrying cravings and dreams, and Eranga, who had likely been murdered over the stone Henry now knew to be a sapphire. He slipped his right hand into the pocket where he had stowed it.

  On the morning of his departure, he had gone back to Chang and could not believe his eyes when the man handed him, instead of a hunk of gravel, a jewel, its deep blue like an ocean without end. Chang told him how the jeweler who polished the stone had wanted to pay a lot of money for it. Chang himself had already offered Henry an astounding sum in return for the stone and information about where it had been found. But Henry wasn’t interested in the money. He wanted to find out how, and why, Eranga had died. Once Chang had understood that Henry would not sell him the stone, he gave his guest a warning.

  “Mr. Henry, you good man, so I give good advice. This sapphire very valuable. Not show everyone. People killed for much less.”

  People like Eranga, Henry thought once again. He shivered in spite of the warm night air.

  The cacophony of frogs’ mating calls coming from the river broke his train of thought. Somewhere in the branches above, an owl was hooting, and Henry’s horse stamped impatiently. Although Mahinda had not yet said the meditation was over, Henry opened his eyes. The forest surrounded him, black as pitch, impenetrable. The orange light of the campfire played over Mahinda’s face, motionless, as if sculpted in stone.

  What secrets are you hiding? wondered Henry, looking at him keenly.

  He called to mind all the conversations he had so far had with the monk. A picture gradually took shape in his mind’s eye.

  “You were a rebel,” he said softly in the darkness. “Once the rebellion was put down, you went underground.”

  Mahinda opened his eyes.

  “You’re hiding in that little monastery in Colombo, right? Are you being hunted by the British?”

  “I was the personal astrologist to Sri Vikrama Rajasinha,” replied Mahinda. “Before making important decisions, the king would always seek my advice. I drew up horoscopes for him and served faithfully for years. After we lost him, I supported the rebellion under Wilbawe. I took the Sacred Tooth of the Enlightened One to Badulla so that the people could acknowledge Wilbawe as king. You British never knew about me. You are now the first.”

  A burning branch snapped on the fire, and a glowing length of wood rolled from the flames. Mahinda picked up another small branch and threw it in. “I heard about the massacre when Jeeva and Deepal died. I realized that we’d lost, so I helped Wilbawe to flee.”

  “It is my duty to hand you over,” said Henry, his voice subdued. “In my government’s view, you�
�re a criminal.”

  “You will no more hand me over,” said Mahinda calmly, “than I will slit your throat tonight while you sleep.”

  “Are you threatening me, friend?”

  “Don’t be afraid, Henry Odell,” said the abbot. He leaned forward. “The Enlightened One says, ‘Enmity gives rise to enmity; friendship puts it to rest.’”

  Chapter Eleven

  October 1822

  “I don’t hear anything.” Henry reined in his horse. But the jungle was never silent. All around was buzzing, squawking, chirping, screeching, and whistling.

  “How can you say that?” asked Mahinda from behind him in the saddle.

  “What I mean is no construction noise.”

  It unsettled him not to hear hammering or sawing, the crack of splintering timber, the roar from gigantic trees as they fell to the ground. He listened for the overseer’s signal horn and the piercing bursts of trumpeting from the working elephants. The building site could not have been more than half a mile away.

  “Hold on tightly!” he told the abbot, and urged his horse into a gallop along the narrow jungle path.

  Thin branches whipped painfully at their faces, and Mahinda bounced in the saddle like a sack of rice, clinging to Henry for dear life. Fortunately, it was not long before they saw the new road, winding down from the Kadugannawa Pass like a huge, rust-colored snake.

  “Something’s not right.” Henry pulled up his horse so sharply that Mahinda flopped hard against his back.

  “It looks very quiet,” his travel companion agreed, trying to regain his balance.

  An almost-deserted construction site lay before the two men. A small group of Indian workers dozed beneath the broad canopy of a jacaranda tree. In a water hole a short distance from the road, two elephants were bathing, their mahouts grooming them with coconut shells. A few Sinhalese workers squatted around a small fire, cooking what looked like a pot of rice. There was not one Englishman to be seen.

  “Hey, you!” Henry trotted his horse over to the men.

  They woke in alarm. When they saw Mahinda, they bowed their heads respectfully. Though Hindu, they wanted to show their respect for the monk. The Sinhalese around the cooking fire also greeted Mahinda.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Henry. “Why aren’t you working? And where are the soldiers, the engineers, and all the other British?”

  The workers looked uncertainly at one another.

  “All the white men are sick,” said one of them.

  “What do you mean, sick?” asked Henry.

  The man looked helplessly back at him. “They’re sick.”

  Henry was seized by guilt. It was his responsibility to care for everyone at the site. Instead, he had been in Colombo for reasons he could not explain without heaping trouble upon himself. Maybe an epidemic had broken out and men had actually died. If so, then he had utterly failed in his duty as a doctor.

  Just then Henry heard pathetic gasping in the undergrowth close by. He jumped down from his horse and hurried toward the noise. He almost tripped over the corporal, crouched behind some tall ferns with his trousers down.

  “Good God, man, what are you doing?”

  “Dr. Odell!” Red in the face, the corporal quickly stood up. But he had forgotten his trousers, still around his ankles, and he stood naked from the waist down.

  “Heavens above!” Henry turned away. “This place stinks like a cesspit. Have you got diarrhea?”

  “I’m afraid I do. Sincere apologies.” Grimacing with pain, the corporal bent to pull up his trousers. “Just as you’d left, it all started—vomiting, shitting, the lot. None of our men escaped. Only the coolies didn’t go down with it. But they’re used to the food and this hellish climate.” Sighing wearily, he fastened his pants. “Since everyone got the runs, it’s been chaos. With all the white men sick, the Sinhalese and coolies have been able to disappear bit by bit.”

  “Sorry?”

  “They’ve cleared off, gone to ground somewhere in the jungle. Every day just a couple here and there, so it wasn’t noticeable at first. But we’ve all been too sick to have stopped them, in any case. Meanwhile, there’s only a handful of workers left.”

  “So my brother isn’t back from Colombo?” asked Henry, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

  “If the major had been here, none of this would’ve happened. He’d have cracked down hard, that one. Damn!” The corporal, seized by more stomach cramps, hurried back to squat behind the ferns again.

  Henry turned on his heel and made his way back to Mahinda, waiting near the Sinhalese workers, still patiently holding the horse by its bridle.

  “I must get to the field hospital. An epidemic’s broken out,” Henry told him.

  “I’ll come with you.” Mahinda swiftly handed the reins to one of the workers.

  “There’s vomiting and diarrhea through the entire camp,” Henry explained. “I fear it could be typhus.”

  A strange, ghostly atmosphere hung over the narrow paths between the rows of British tents. Occasional groans and violent retching came from inside.

  Prepared for the worst, Henry pushed back the tarpaulins at the entrance to the hospital tent. The nauseating smell of disease, unemptied chamber pots, and unwashed bodies hit them. In this heat, the stink was almost unbearable.

  The tent was packed. Men lay in twos on the narrow, makeshift cots. Blankets had been spread on the floor to create even more bed space. The faces of the sick were drawn, their cheeks sunken. Some tossed and turned, moaning. Others vomited. Henry and Mahinda clambered over arms, legs, and heads, but had to watch out for brimming pots and sick bowls, too. Henry stopped at one bed and spoke to the soldier.

  “Tell me how you are.”

  “Got pains,” groaned the man, clutching at his belly.

  “Diarrhea? Vomiting?”

  The soldier gave a feeble nod.

  While Henry questioned him about what he had eaten and drunk, he felt the patient’s forehead and was relieved to find it cool. He lifted the man’s undershirt to examine his torso for the purple rash typical of typhus and palpated the area around the spleen. Eventually, he said, “Try to get some sleep. Then drink some tea with plenty of sugar. That’ll help you get strength back.”

  He carried out the same examination of several other patients. All had the same severe pains, but none showed any symptoms of the feared disease.

  “It looks like we are not dealing with a typhus epidemic, at least,” he told Mahinda, who’d followed silently at his side.

  “No rash and no swelling of the spleen,” agreed Mahinda. “But if the toxins in the gut multiply, typhus can still develop.”

  “What action would you advise?” asked Henry, impressed that Mahinda had made the same diagnosis.

  “A meat-free diet, because meat rots inside the gut,” the abbot answered. “Give them tea made from the bark of the kumbuk tree. And get them to gargle with salt water. On top of that, they must rest until they are well.”

  “I’d thought of something similar,” said Henry. “But I’m not familiar with this tree.”

  “There are a few on the banks of the Nanu Oya. I’ll go and collect some bark for you. Then later I’ll show you how to prepare the tea.”

  “Doctor! God, it’s good to see you back!” One of Henry’s assistants lurched toward him from the back of the tent. He looked exhausted, his weary face unshaven, his once-white apron heavily stained. Two more assistants appeared behind him, carrying chamber pots for emptying outside.

  “We don’t know how to carry on, Doctor,” conceded one of them. “I’ve given them peppermint tea and mustard plasters, enemas and hot poultices, but nothing helps. Then, the men suffering most, I wanted to give them laudanum. But there isn’t any. I could have sworn there was another full bottle.” He wiped his perspiring face with his filthy sleeve.

  “You’ve done well,” Henry reassured him, inwardly berating himself. “The laudanum was finished, but I’ve brought more from Colombo.�
�� Prepared for the worst, he looked around them and asked, “How many dead?”

  “None, thank God. But there’re a few who won’t last much longer. The epidemic set in soon after you left.”

  “Have you boiled all water, as instructed?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve made sure all the food was thoroughly cooked.” The assistant rubbed at his eyes, red and sore.

  Henry placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “When did you last get any sleep?”

  The man smiled weakly. “The day before yesterday, I think.”

  “Go and put your head down for a couple of hours. I’ll take care of the patients now.”

  Henry left the field hospital. He wanted a good look at the kitchen. There could, after all, be infected foodstuffs there, incorrectly prepared and the cause of the enteritis outbreak. Mahinda, who had already returned from the river with some strips of fresh bark, accompanied him.

  The field kitchen was nothing more than a sturdy cart, the back half of which consisted of a roughly crafted cupboard. The doors stood open, revealing wooden shelves of bowls, little packs of spice, bottles, jugs, and cooking utensils. Food supplies, principally rusk and sacks of rice, dried peas, and beans, were stored in the cart itself. The work surface was composed of a folding table under a tarpaulin stretched between the top of the cupboard and two posts rammed into the ground. The stove consisted of a hole in the ground for a fire, on which an iron cauldron was simmering gently.

  A Sinhalese kitchen worker was gathering together cooking equipment on the worktable. He had stacked the dirty crockery and cutlery in a pot ready for scouring with sand down by the river. As Henry and Mahinda got closer, he hurriedly put the little spice packs and a couple of earthenware bowls in the cupboard and closed the doors.

  “Where’s the regimental cook?”

  “He’s sick,” replied the man. His gaze followed Mahinda, who had gone over to the cupboard and opened it again. “Are you looking for something, venerable hamudru?”

  “Only somewhere to keep the bark,” answered the monk. Without turning his head, he stuffed the rolled strips of bark into an empty container and began inspecting the cupboard.