Page 72 of A Shimla Affair
A silence followed his pronouncement, and Ratan Babu nudged the Viceroy with his gun, signalling that he speak.
‘You will have to concede more.’
Lord Ripon looked up. ‘I was getting to it. A letter of admission pertaining to the events surrounding Jamshedji Mistry will be provided to his family. And the last, but not the least, as a gesture of goodwill, as an anticipation to Britain’s long-term plan for the subcontinent, a public address announcing India’s self-governance in due course will be acceded to. It will be a special feature on the BBC.’
‘Don’t pretend as if it’s even for us, Lord Ripon,’ Ratan Babu said. ‘The only nation that stands to gain goodwill from this gesture is Britain! There is no such thing as due course—independence for India must be granted within the year if you don’t want all of these heads on a spike!’
‘You forget yourself, you filthy swine,’ Ripon got up with a start, his chair falling back and both Ratan Babu and Ripon’s guard had their guns centimetres from each other’s chests. They stood like that for a tense moment, before the Viceroy appealed for peace.
‘And what about the third condition, the apology?’ I asked.
‘Impossible,’ Lord Ripon said flatly, without a hint of hesitation in his voice. ‘There will be no apologies whatsoever.’
‘Then there will be no freedom for the Viceroy!’ I snarled, banging my hand on the table.
‘Then so be it,’ Lord Ripon glared at me. ‘Keep him in here forever, chop him up into little pieces and throw them down the valley, fling him out of the window as you did with the others. But England will not apologize. India was conquered and belongs to us, still does, and we will never, ever apologize for that.’
I stared at the shameless man—at first, amazed by his attitude, but then I realized he was still just doing his job.
The Viceroy wasn’t so happy to hear his outburst though. ‘The demand was for an apology from me, and it is in my power to grant it. And so, I say, Iwillapologize publicly. I will make a broadcast, write a letter, whatever you would like. If you let me out of here, free and fine, I will apologize for England’s crimes in any way you need me to.’
Lord Ripon said nothing at that and simply stared at the Viceroy for a long time. Finally, he spoke. ‘Hard to say we were once friends.’ He then turned to us. ‘Negotiations are over.’ Ripon got up.
I didn’t know what else to do, so we let their party leave. I had to discuss with the others, I had to get the Viceroy back.
But Charles now stood blocking all of us. He turned to the Viceroy in anger, ‘Well, that was about the stupidest thing you could have done.’
Charles looked wild with fear, and I didn’t understand what could have happened so quickly to make him feel like this. It’s true that Lord Ripon had not subscribed to all that we had said. But I could see no immediate cause for this reaction.
‘Pack up! Everything, now!’ Charles growled. He asked to be untied, and then began pacing the room, as if he were in charge and one of us had gone and ruined everything for him. We all looked at him quizzically until the Viceroy spoke up.
‘What are you going on about, Nayler?’
Charles looked at the Viceroy like he would kill him, much faster than any of us ever could.
‘You told them that you would make the apology even when they do not consent to it! You are a dead man from this moment on, and not just you, but all of us in here! I don’t know how long it is before they get the approval, but they are going to bomb this place down. They have to sacrifice you anyway now. You stand in their way and are a much bigger liability alive than dead. Once you are dead, they could make a martyr out of you, but alive, you pose the threat of revealing what went on here, of making an apology they would never allow.They need you to be dead now, do you understand that?Sir, this was a huge error in your judgement, and now everyone here would have to pay the price of your short-sightedness. You shouldn’t have said that you will apologize, you really shouldn’t have …’
I didn’t know how to take it. I knew Charles was right, logically, but I still wasn’t sure whether we could trust him completely. The others looked as unsure as I did; how could we abandon the operation based on his judgement?
The Viceroy stood shook for a moment, ready to argue, but then the words seemed to have been snatched out of his mouth. He sank down on the floor as he realized what Charles was saying.
Charles walked up to me and held me by the shoulders, ‘Nalini, it’s over. You must run. Think about yourself, your sisters. Noor is dying. Do you have a way out?’
Of course, there was a way out, set up for us right from the beginning, when Begum Jaan had planned with us.
Would leaving now spell a colossal waste of all that we had done? Would we be like rats, running away at the first sign of trouble? Should we stay and fight any which way, or should we take account of the revised situation?
‘Mr Nayler is right,’ Noor said from where she sat in the foyer. Hidden from our view, her voice barely a whisper but still inciting further fear in me. She was hurt but fully aware and, having followed our discussion in detail, her voice had regained some of the determination it always seemed to hold.
‘So, we leave everyone here and run?’ Ratan Babu asked, his tone indicating that he didn’t like any bit of that plan.
Charles cast a quick look at the Viceroy. ‘Him, you can’t leave here. No, if he wants to have any chance of living, he better flee as well. There is no place left for him, that much I can tell you. And as long as he is still alive, he could still be a bargaining chip for you. It’s time to escape the hotel, and Shimla.’
It was hard to accept at first, but when we did, we moved fast. We bound the Viceroy up again, only by his arms. He knew as well as us that we were his best chance for survival at the moment, so I was not afraid that he would run from us. The bigger problem was Noor, still too weak to keep in motion with us. Ratan Babu would have to carry her, which meant that we would lose one shooter, one person who could help us get cover when needed.
I looked at the hostages, most of whom were leaning against something or someone, their eyes exhausted and fearful. Only Wagner, although most of his face was still covered, gazed at us attentively, ready to crush us to death if only he got a shot at freedom.
‘What about Guruji?’ I asked, and my question brought stillness. On the urgency of the moment, all of us had forgotten about him.
