The Pledge by Howard Fast

circumstances.’
    â€œShorham: ‘How long have you been in Calcutta, Mr. Bacon?’
    â€œBacon: ‘About a month.’
    â€œShorham: ‘I’m making the point that there have been famines here before and there will be again. We cannot control these matters.’
    â€œBacon: ‘But there were and still are enormous supplies of rice here in Calcutta. You could have confiscated the rice, paid the dealer a reasonable sum, and either distributed or sold the rice to the people. I’m not saying you could have averted all that happened, but thousands of lives could have been saved.’
    â€œShorham: ‘You forget. We have no authority to do anything of the kind. This is not Russia. We respect property.’
    â€œBacon: ‘In March, when Indians raided one of the rice warehouses, you gave your troops orders to shoot to kill. Eleven people died.’
    â€œShorham: ‘A mob action which we had to deal with. A mob is a mob. There’s no bloody difference.’
    â€œBacon: ‘General Shorham, I am pressing my questions because I have been told by a number of people, in Europe as well as here, that this famine was the result of a British decision, in the face of a then threatening Japanese advance into India, to break the will of the people in Assam as well as eastern Bengal so that they could not welcome the Japanese as liberators and join them against the British. I am not offering any evidence for this. I have no evidence in writing, but I do have the word of people who claim to have absolute knowledge of this.’
    â€œShorham: ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Bacon? You dare to come here with some bloody slander worthy of Julius Streicher — to accuse His Majesty’s Government here in India of a slaughter so great that it deserves to stand beside the worst that the Nazis have done? Are you out of your fucken mind? How dare you!’
    â€œBacon: ‘I have only repeated what I have heard, and all I desire from you, General, is a denial.’
    â€œShorham: ‘I will not dignify it with a denial.’”
    Major Hillton finished reading from the interview and dropped the papers on his desk. He maintained his silence long enough, as he saw it, for Bruce to become thoroughly uncomfortable. From Bruce’s point of view, it was not discomfort but irritation at being subjected to a lecture by a fool.
    â€œYou do know,” Hillton went on, “that we and the British are allies, and that the alliance is signed with the blood of thousands of British and American young men.”
    â€œMajor Hillton,” Bruce said softly, “I am not some eighteen-year-old GI, standing in front of you with his eyes on the ground. I have been a part of this war for more than three years.”
    â€œAnd the war goes on. We still face the Japanese, Mr. Bacon, and in the face of that fact, you come here to a country that you don’t know — not one damn thing, with problems you have never faced, which we must face —”
    Enamored with the word face , Bruce thought.
    â€œâ€” and then you throw this goddamn crazy accusation at the British High Command. Do you realize what you have done?”
    â€œI’ve done my work. I’m a journalist.”
    â€œAnd the war? As an American are you beyond any responsibility for that?”
    â€œMajor, there are two million American troops in this country, and no Japanese have yet set foot on Indian soil nor is there the slightest likelihood that they ever will. If they’re here for anything, they’re here to stop the Indians from rising, and if that is what I believe, I am going to damn well write it.”
    â€œMr. Bacon, you have created more difficulties between us and the British than you can possibly imagine. We have labored for months to make our alliance work. You’ve thrown a bomb into the heart of it.”
    â€œWhat the devil gives with you, Major? You’re in