The Elephant Keeper's Daughter Read online

  “I am one of many who are fighting to drive you intruders from Kanda Uda Pas Rata,” Jeeva told him through the interpreter.

  “You have a new ruler, our King George, whom you have deprived of the elephants of Vikrama Rajasinha. You have joined traitors and rebels and have murdered British citizens. Surely you must know that you have been sentenced to death in absentia? You will now receive your punishment. But first,” continued the commander, “I’m going to teach you and this rabble to show complete obedience to your British masters.” This time he did not wait for the interpreter but went to the railing and roared something to his soldiers. A burst of applause and cheers followed, with gunfire added to the howls of delight.

  Piercing screams from the women followed. Children wailed, and Phera heard the men begging the soldiers. A few shots and they were silenced.

  “Come on, lads! There’s plenty of skirt on the loose here. Show them what you’re made of, redcoats!”

  The men stepped up to the mark with no hesitation. Not a single village woman still alive escaped their clutches.

  “Have you truly lost your mind?” Henry shouted at his brother.

  His face white and drawn, he looked at the remains of the meager village. Smoke still billowed from the huts, the little vegetable gardens and surrounding rice fields were irretrievably damaged, and the dead and the dying sprawled everywhere. Men bayoneted mothers’ bellies, spilling guts and blood where the women still lay shielding their children. Infants, children, the elderly had all fallen victim to the massacre. Cattle had been slaughtered indiscriminately, too, but a handful of goats had escaped, now wandering around amongst ruined homes and corpses.

  “This must stop now!” Henry seized his brother by the arm. As a doctor, he was unarmed, a status he now regretted for the first time in his career. Had he had a gun, he would have turned it on his own without a moment’s hesitation. But as it was, he was powerless, forced to watch this atrocious behavior.

  A malicious smile played around Charles’s lips. “Don’t be so damned priggish. I know you haven’t had a woman for ages. You must need a rut just as much as the men do. Get on with it. Take one.” He looked over the women on the veranda. “Which one would you like, my dear brother? That one?” He pointed at Mihiri, trying to hide behind Kalani. “Or this? No, you’re not having that beauty.” He sneered lasciviously at Samitha, who clung desperately to her husband. Charles’s eye found the women’s mother. Her hair loose, dressed only in a thin nightdress, Anshu clutched a sheet against her body as if to protect herself. “What about this one, brother? No young filly but well broken in.” Charles stepped forward and tore the sheet from her. Anshu cried out and folded her arms across her breasts.

  “Damn it, Charles! Where is your honor?”

  Henry was about to pull his brother back, but Jeeva got there first. He shoved aside the soldier guarding him and gave Charles such a powerful blow to the chin that the Englishman stumbled backward and almost fell. Two soldiers, bayonets at the ready, seized Jeeva, but Charles called out, “Just tie him up, don’t kill him.” He addressed Jeeva directly. “So that’s your wife, elephant keeper? Now you’ll see what happens to the wives of troublemakers.”

  Jeeva struggled ferociously against the soldiers. But one struck him across the head with a rifle butt and brought him to his knees. The wound opened, blood flowed, and the soldier tied Jeeva’s hands behind his back.

  Tharindu rushed at Charles with a howl of rage. He reached under his shirt for his secret dagger and lashed out. But the soldier standing next to Charles was faster. He buried his gleaming steel bayonet deep in Tharindu’s chest. The young man collapsed, gasping, and was dragged to the railing and hurled over the side.

  “My son, oh, my son!” Deepal stood staring in shock at the bloody bayonet. He made no attempt to resist the soldier who, at a nod from Charles, seized and bound him.

  Tharindu’s body had landed with a dull thud not far from Phera. His face was horrifying. From her hiding place, she had seen nothing but heard everything. It was clear that most of the village had been murdered. The same fate now threatened her own family. Psindu had fallen already, and now Tharindu.

  She heard him groaning pitifully and saw him attempting to lift his head. In vain.

  “Tharindu,” whispered Phera, still full of hope. “Look at me.”

  There was a slight movement in his shoulders. Slowly, he turned his head toward her. She could see how hard it was for him. Her eyes tried to hold his gaze.

  “Stay,” she begged him softly. “Please stay with me.”

  He grimaced in pain. His eyes widened, then froze. Phera pressed her hand over her mouth, trying desperately to silence her anguish.

  Henry cleared the railing in one bound, landed next to Tharindu, and carefully placed two fingers on the boy’s neck. When he felt no pulse, he took him by the shoulders and laid him carefully on his back.

  Although he had expected as much, he was dismayed by those lifeless eyes. The boy had barely reached manhood and yet had not shown a moment’s hesitation in defending the rebel leader’s wife. His courage had cost him his life. Henry reached out and gently closed the dead boy’s eyes. As he looked up, he noticed something beneath the veranda.

  A mud-covered creature stared back at him, wide-eyed, its crouched body tensed like an animal poised to flee. Henry knew he should report the creature, but everything in him fought against that. This mud-smeared native seemed even younger than the boy at his feet. He would not hand another child to his bloodthirsty brother.

  Slowly and deliberately, he lowered his head to signal he would not give the child away. But the creature showed no reaction, and he had no idea whether his message had been understood.

  “Time for some fun!” Henry was roused from his thoughts by Charles’s voice. He looked up and saw his brother walk over to the rebel leader’s wife, grab her roughly by the hair, and push her toward the soldier who had killed the boy. Jeeva roared, struggling in vain to free himself. Samitha, Mihiri, and Kalani wept helplessly.

  “Soldier, your reward. You’ve earned her.” Charles gave the man an encouraging nod. Then he saw Henry’s expression. “Something wrong, brother dear? Shall I choose one for you, then?” He grabbed Mihiri. She fought back, trying to scratch his eyes out. Holding her at arm’s length, Charles took a long look. “Well now, a little wild cat. Do you want her, Henry? She’s probably never had a man before.”

  Henry sprang to his feet and raced up the steps. “Leave the girl alone!” He pushed his brother against the railing. Taken aback, Charles released Mihiri. She scurried to Kalani.

  Then Henry dashed toward the soldier who held Anshu. “Stop! That is an order!”

  Uncertain for a moment, the man faltered and looked over at Charles. He guffawed. “You’re a civilian, Henry! You can’t give orders to anyone, not even an ordinary soldier.”

  At that moment Kalani groaned in agony and clutched at her heart. Mihiri tried to support her, but she fell to her knees. She was gasping for breath as she dragged herself toward the house and leaned against it.

  “Kalani, Kalani!” Mihiri crouched down near their maid, but two soldiers dragged her away. Kalani saw her but seemed defeated. The blood had drained from her face. Slowly, her eyes closed; she swayed and slid to the floor. Henry ran forward but was too late.

  “She’s dead.” His eyes full of reproach, he looked at his brother. “Heart failure.”

  “Oh, I might just cry!” Charles’s face showed his disgust. “Do you realize you are overstepping your powers as regimental doctor and showing a dangerous level of sympathy for the rebels?” He raised his pistol, stepped toward Henry, and pressed the weapon to his brother’s chest. “You know the punishment for military disobedience.”

  Henry did not flinch. “Who are you? What on earth has happened to you?”

  “Go to hell,” hissed Charles. He turned to a nearby soldier. “Dr. Odell is disputing my military authority. Tie him up and take him away!”

&nbs
p; “You can’t mean that!” Henry was so amazed, he offered no resistance as his hands were bound behind his back.

  “Killjoys have no place here!” declared Charles after his brother had been forced into the house by two soldiers. Then he clapped, shouting, “Take the women, comrades. Do whatever you want with them, as often as you want. The party hasn’t even begun!”

  The soldier who had killed Tharindu ripped off Anshu’s nightdress, hurled her naked body to the veranda floor, exposed his erection to all, and then rammed it between her legs.

  Two soldiers seized Mihiri and bent her over the railing. A third pulled up her sari, grasped her by the hips, and forced his way inside her. Mihiri howled in pain. Behind her stood a line of soldiers, waiting to take their turn. They had found the palm wine and were drinking and jeering while they each took Mihiri, one after another. With every new torturer, her cries weakened until she was reduced to whimpers. She eventually fell silent, seeming almost to lose consciousness.

  Jeeva raged against the ropes that tied him. Tears streamed down his face.

  Samitha was trembling, struggling not to scream out all her fear and horror. Upali kept his arms tight around her. Her eyes wild, she looked from her mother to Mihiri as the soldiers subjected them to the most abhorrent acts, things she could never have imagined even in her darkest dreams. The lecherous voice and lustful glances of the British commander had not escaped her. As he came and stood in front of her, a suggestive smile on his face and a pistol in his hand, she knew she was next.

  And so did Upali. He lunged for the commandant’s throat. Charles had raised his pistol, and fired. The bullet went into Upali’s forehead. Like lumber he fell to the floor.

  “Clean this up,” ordered Charles, without so much as a sideways glance at the body. He looked into Samitha’s eyes. Then he put his free hand around her throat. His thumb stroked her pulse, almost gently. But then he squeezed hard. Samitha choked and tried fruitlessly to turn away from him.

  “Frightened, little one?” Charles whispered in her ear. “I like that.” His hand slid from her throat, first to her right shoulder, then to her left, and ripped away her nightdress. He took a long look and licked his lips. Then he grabbed one of her breasts, digging his fingers into the delicate flesh. She winced with pain but made no sound.

  “You want to stand up to me, do you? I like that even better.” Charles pushed his knee between her legs and forced them apart. He pushed the barrel of his pistol between her thighs.

  Phera still crouched, motionless, beneath the veranda. When the Englishman who had discovered her hideout had argued with his commander, she had felt the smallest flicker of hope. This man had not betrayed her. Perhaps he was trying to help her family and the few survivors. But when she’d heard him rebuked and taken away, Phera’s tiny flame had died without a trace. She had wept silently with Mihiri’s cries. Her mother’s groans of agony and her father’s sobs had nearly driven her out of her mind, and she hardly dared wonder what was in store for Samitha and Upali. As if to answer the question, a shot rang out directly above her, and a weight hit the wooden floor. Drops of blood trickled through the planks and fell onto Phera. She rubbed wildly at her face, as if possessed. To stop herself going insane with fear, she bent forward, pressed her forehead against her knees, wrapped both arms around her head, and rocked back and forth.

  By the afternoon, a petrified silence hung over the village. The cries of children, the moans of the women and the pleading voices of their husbands, the shooting and drunken roars of the soldiers had all fallen away. Intoxicated on palm wine, most of the soldiers now lay in the shade of the trees, sleeping it off. Only the soldiers under orders to guard a few survivors had not joined the carousing.

  The pungent odor of fire hung over the clearing, mingling with the sickly smell of the dead. Dark swarms of flies hovered and hummed in the heat over the rapidly decomposing corpses.

  The British had hung from the strongest branches of the Bodhi tree the twenty village men not killed in the massacre. This desecrated the sacred tree of the Enlightened One, but none of the survivors were capable of protest.

  Anshu was sitting on the veranda floor, wrapped in her torn nightdress. She fought to ignore the persistent pain in her belly and looked at Jeeva. The soldiers had tied up her husband and Deepal back-to-back and left them in the middle of the clearing, where they had been mercilessly exposed to the burning sun for hours. Some of the women had attempted to bring them water, and Anshu wanted to tend to Jeeva’s wounds, but the guards had repeatedly driven them back.

  Deepal stared into nothingness, impassive. Jeeva, his jaw set, had found a fixed point on the ground between his feet, and refused to return Anshu’s gaze. He had been forced to stand by while his wife and Mihiri had been raped. The commander had abused Samitha with his pistol right there on the veranda, then pulled her into the house. Jeeva’s grief and shame was bottomless.

  Anshu wanted to tell her husband he should feel no guilt for these barbaric acts. But she could not reach him.

  Her thoughts turned to their children. All her hope rested on Phera, who had somehow managed to escape the house. Now Anshu prayed with all her remaining strength that at least one of her children was unscathed.

  It was agony not to know what was happening to Samitha. After dragging her into the house, the commander had not reappeared for hours. Then, sated and smug, he had swaggered out onto the veranda, legs wide apart, and made a show of buttoning up his pants. But of Samitha there was no sign. If Anshu had been able to hear her weeping and calling out, she would have felt less frantic. Instead there was a strange stillness that gave her little hope that her eldest daughter was still alive.

  Anshu stroked Mihiri’s head. Her attempts to untangle the girl’s hair came to naught, her mind filling repeatedly with appalling images of the day’s events.

  After the soldiers finished with her, Mihiri had slid from the railing to the veranda floor and not moved since. Had Anshu not been able to see the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her back, she would have taken her for dead. The British had not stopped Anshu from moving her daughter into the shade, at least. Mihiri was unconscious, blood pouring from between her thighs. And while Anshu tried frantically to staunch the flow, her daughter quietly breathed her last.

  Anshu closed her eyes and took another deep breath so as not to lose all composure. In silence, she offered up paritta prayers to protect the soul of her dead child on its way to the other world. She tried to find the strength to recall the good, the wonderful and happy events in her daughter’s life. In the end, Mihiri would find joy in looking back at her mother from the other world. But Anshu could only weep. She knew Buddha was displeased by selfish mourning, but she could not control the pain in her heart. She kept asking herself which of Mihiri’s deeds in an earlier incarnation could have warranted such a cruel price in this life.

  Charles bounced into the room where his brother was locked up. He had just completed his tour of inspection around the burnt-out village and noted with great satisfaction what a resounding success his retaliatory action had been. Every last one of the settlement’s huts, fields, and reserves had been destroyed.

  He thought about the young Sinhalese woman he had just been enjoying to the full. She had done all she could to fight him off, had struggled, scratched, spat, and kicked. She had behaved just to his liking, and he had taken pleasure in disciplining her. Once he had finished with her, he strode out without a backward glance at the young woman curled up on the floor. Now he felt a new man, ready to lead the last strike against the rebels.

  He observed Henry, who stood in front of the window, his back toward him. His brother’s legs were secured at the ankle, his arms bound behind him. Two soldiers were on guard.

  When will this idiot see that the army is not a playground for sloppy sentimentality? Clearing his throat, Charles asked, “Have you calmed down now?”

  “Why did you hang those men? Brownrigg gave no order to obliterate the whole villa
ge.”

  Charles shrugged. “He gave the order to make an example of them. But I’m not here to argue with you, brother. I’d like to invite you for tea.”

  Henry looked at him suspiciously as Charles took him by the shoulders and made him turn back to the window.

  They watched two soldiers setting up a small table and two campstools on the veranda. An assistant to the regimental cook appeared, carrying a basket from which he took a white tablecloth. He placed it on the table, followed by napkins, a set of bone-china cups and saucers, and teaspoons. Last of all came a silver teapot, a bowl of sugar, a small jug of milk, and a platter of sandwiches.

  “This can only be a bad joke,” Henry murmured.

  “Sadly, we have to go without cake. But I have arranged entertainment that will make up for the pitiful lack of provisions,” replied Charles.

  “You mean not all the women have been raped and the men murdered?”

  “We’ve dealt with all the women, but not the men. Two rebel leaders are still alive.”

  “And what does this little drama have to do with that?” Henry nodded at the tea table.

  Charles gave him a look of mock reproach. “Didn’t you hear me? Didn’t I promise you a show? While we enjoy our tea, the two rebel leaders will be beheaded.”

  “Again you go too far! It is your duty to pass sentence only through an official court.”

  Charles waved aside his brother’s objections. “I’m the court around here. Besides, the two traitors were given death sentences in absentia a long time ago.”

  “I’ll report you to Brownrigg,” threatened Henry.

  Charles’s eyes narrowed. “Then I wish you every success. You know perfectly well that Brownrigg’s commission is to subdue the rebellion in Uva. I have fulfilled this commission to such perfection that I am justified in hoping for military honors.” He smoothed the front of his uniform. “It might actually be you in front of the war tribunal. Plenty of my soldiers have been witness to your repeated opposition to my orders.” He pushed his fist hard against Henry’s chest, making him stumble and fall to the ground.