The service had to be moved from Perambur to a larger venue in Vepery. The entire Anglo-Indian community has turned out, the women in hats and black veils. He can barely glimpse the altar through wreaths stacked near the coffin. A framed photograph of a strikingly handsome Jeb leaning on a hockey stick reminds Digby of Rudolph Valentino. The church is hot, the service long, the air thick with the cloying scent of gardenia.
When Jeb’s teammates, a phalanx of men in blue blazers and white slacks, carry the coffin down the aisle, a woman’s wail shatters the silence, and sobbing sounds fill the church.
Outside, Digby hears his name called. Owen grasps Digby’s hand. He looks sleepless, hunched over. “Doc, we know what happened in the operating theater. We do. I know you tried to prevent it.”
Digby hasn’t said a word to anyone outside the hospital.
“I want you to know,” Owen says, straightening up, “we saw the hospital superintendent. Shifty bugger! All he cared about was trying to protect Arnold. The big boss himself at the Railways petitioned the governor on the family’s behalf. The governor called up the director of the Indian Medical Service. He’s promised an inquiry. We won’t let this go, Digby.” He searches Digby’s face. “I know he’s your boss and all. But Doc, don’t protect the bastard.”
“Owen, I’ll tell the truth if asked,” Digby says simply.
Owen nods. He says, “Jeb was no saint. He needed more time to finish sowing his wild oats. But he didn’t deserve this.”
Digby asks a question that has troubled him: “Owen, why didn’t Jeb go to the Railway Hospital?”
The reason, it turns out, was his new flame, Rose. “Rose is the hospital superintendent’s bloody daughter. Jeb was a bit of a Romeo, you know. Anyway, Rose went all jealous-jalebi when she found he was putting applications with other girls here and there. And her father got into it. Worst part is the bugger lives opposite us. He came home and made a scene and then his son started yapping about how our family is like this and like that, and next thing, big bloody gumbaloda Govinda, with hockey sticks, stones, bones, and all. Even my mother gave a few kicks. So you see, Doc. That’s why no Railway Hospital for Jeb.”
To the Editor, The Mail:
The death of Jeb Pellingham, Olympic hockey hopeful, is a national tragedy. But the way his family is being treated is a national disgrace. Mr. Pellingham died because of the negligence of a surgeon at Longmere Hospital, but despite the promises by the Governor to hold an investigation, two months have passed and no hearing date has been set. Meanwhile, the family and delegates of the Anglo-Indian community are unable to get a copy of the coroner’s report.
Mr. Pellingham’s bad luck was to be in the hands of a surgeon whose reputation is so poor that he was sent away from Government General Hospital. No Europeans seek his care. Still, he stays on at Longmere, paid well to do little, and what little he does is dangerous. The curious citizen must ask: Is it because one of his brothers is the Chief Secretary to the Viceroy, and the other a Governor of a northern presidency? Why else is this murderous man being shielded?
Once upon a time we Anglo-Indians were the proud sons and daughters of British men, with all the privileges of citizenship. No longer. If self-rule for India becomes real, no doubt we will be further disenfranchised. Yet the country relies on us for the smooth functioning of its machinery. It is time for the Anglo-Indian community to reconsider its unstinting support of the government, going back to the 1857 mutiny when the boys of La Martinière College in Lucknow held on, or to Brendish and Pilkington in the Delhi telegraph office who held on at great peril to signal the British that the mutineers had entered the city. In the Great World War, three-quarters of the eligible Anglo-Indian population served with distinction. We can hold on no longer.
India has lost a good man in Jeb Pellingham, and perhaps its best chance for another hockey gold. The indifference to his death and the absence of an inquiry is a blow to the heart of the Anglo-Indian Community. We will not let this rest.
Sincerely,
Veritas
Celeste lets The Mail fall to the table. Suddenly, she’s in a glass house with all of Madras looking in. The Letters section of The Mail is more popular than the front page. In the previous month, readers were mesmerized by a debate around the hiring of qualified Indians to the Indian Civil Service. This rule change was meant to appease Indians, but the old-guard British ICS officers were livid about the dilution of their ranks by natives. “India without the ‘Steel Frame’ of a British ICS will collapse,” said one letter, while another argued that “it is well known that Brahmins fail when admitted to the highest rank.” There were so many letters from ICS officers (who signed with only one initial) that it was spoken of as the “White Mutiny,” much to the viceroy’s displeasure.
The letter from “Veritas” carries the stamp of truth even as it accuses her husband of little less than murder. A man who can be indifferent to his wife’s pleas and who rips young children from her bosom must carry that cruel indifference into his work. The secret of the care of the patient, she once read, is in caring for the patient, and if that is true, Claude couldn’t help but fail. He too was born in India, but to a military family. For the longest time she thought his wound came from being sent away to England when he was so young, torn from his ayah’s arms. But so were Claude’s brothers, and they grew to be caring, generous, and successful. Claude had the same promise when they first met; she was swept away by his looks, his confidence, and his determination to have her. It took time to realize that something was missing in him; this missing piece cost him a happy marriage and his professional advancement.
That evening, she’s in the living room when Claude comes home in his tennis whites. His eyes fall on the Mail on the table before her. He doesn’t look at her. At the drinks tray, he pours a small one.
“The lawn looks very dry. Would you speak to the maali, dear?” he says in a bright, business-as-usual voice. He heads to his study with his glass, doing a poor job of concealing with his body the whisky decanter he slipped off the tray.
The next morning at breakfast, Claude is more bleary-eyed than usual. He stops abruptly while uncapping his soft-boiled egg, then he leaves. She thinks something in the New India next to his plate upset him. But no, it’s the telegram beneath the paper.
VERITAS LETTER PUBLISHED BOMBAY CHRONICLE STOP TOBY CONSULTED STOP DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT CONTACT TOBY OR ME AT OUR OFFICES STOP
It’s from Claude’s brother, Everett, the governor of Bombay Presidency. Toby, the other brother mentioned in the telegram, is chief secretary to the viceroy.
Over the subsequent days, the Letters section in the Mail keeps alive the issue of Jeb’s death. Claude is not mentioned, but the viceroy, his chief secretary, and the governor of Bombay Presidency are, and that cannot please them.
Two weeks later, the viceroy comes to Madras for a planned visit that he will wish was not on his books. As his special carriage slides into Central Station, the partially dressed viceroy is appalled when he pulls aside the curtains in his bed-suite and sees a phalanx of hockey players in uniform, wearing black ribbons and standing silently at attention. Behind them, a crowd of nearly a hundred people hold placards bearing Jeb’s name, and the words RELEASE AUTOPSY REPORT! They are as silent as ghosts.