The Ravi Lancers by John Masters

Woodsmoke from the evening cooking fires touched his nostrils, and drifts of it trailed like blue scarves across the road. A line of cattle plodded out from among the houses, and Hanuman said sharply, ‘Careful, lord! ‘ Krishna sighed, and slowed still more. The cattle were sacred, of course. His poor country would never rise until the people outgrew such superstitions. Even here in the rich foothills of the Himalayas there were more cattle than the land could support. Yet it was forbidden to kill them. Only last week his grandfather had had the right hand cut off a Muslim villager who had been found to have killed a calf and secretly eaten it on some ceremonial occasion, with his family. Superstition ... dirt ... poverty ... disease ... and yet the people so good, so kind. It frightened him to think that one day soon he would rule them. Better to die in battle, for in truth he did not understand the people as his grandfather did.
    He fell to thinking of how he should approach the Rajah to get what he wanted. Grandfather was very old--seventy-eight--and very old-fashioned. He couldn’t speak a word of English and he could barely read or write Hindi. Sometimes he was cruel and sometimes he was kind. It was impossible to tell what he was going to do because he didn’t act according to a definite set of rules, like the English did. It was important not to let him make the wrong decision at first, because although it was not impossible to get him to change his mind, it was not easy. Krishna’s goal was difficult, but worthwhile. There was a great opportunity for the State. There was a chance for glory, and for his grandfather’s army to outstrip the armies of all other States in experience and efficiency. As for himself ... his thoughts wandered, to London, to tail-funnelled ships, to the ocean he had never seen, to Buckingham Palace and the King-Emperor, a cricket field intensely green, with huge gasometers at one end, just like Mr. Fleming had told him about, and men in Free Forester and I Zingari blazers, here and there a dark blue county cap. And the women, so pale, lovely, aloof ...
    Yellow lights began to prickle the dark, the hills fell back and the city spread out ahead, sharp-edged on the left by the black void of the river. He passed the maidan and the twinkling row of lights in the cavalry lines the far side. What excitement there would be over there if they could know what he was going to propose! For a moment he thought of driving across the maidan and telling the quarter-guard the news, whence it would spread in a flash all through the regiment; but Colonel Hanbury would be offended, and in any case it was not settled yet. He must get to his grandfather as soon as possible, for fear another State forestalled Ravi with the same offer.
    As he drove slowly into the heart of the city he heard the thud of drums and the wail of chanters and hillmen’s pipes. The clash and clink of leg ornaments grew louder under the music, and he remembered that it was the Feast of Vishnu, the ancestor of his race, and the creator of the river and the kingdom. As a child he had loved those feasts and festivals, with the steady shake of drums all through the night, and the flash of women’s bangles in the light of the oil lamps, and the red glow of fires reflected in the dancers’ faces; but since growing up he had come to think them a little barbarous, surely a waste of the people’s time and energy, as much as the fantastic sums a father had to spend on the marriage of a daughter--enough, often, to entail his land to the moneylenders for three generations. Surely his grandfather could do better things for the people than pay for all these musicians and tumblers and dancers and acrobats?
    He was about to drive the car round the edge of the square behind the mass of spectators, when he noticed that a great peacock feather fan was waving under the yellow awning that had been erected by the palace gates. That meant his grandfather