Communist Cookbook

Roy Chowdhury Sharmishtha

Description

As the Second World War draws to a close, George Clark finds himselfbeginning his regimental life with the British Army in the remote outpost ofBajapur. Battle-worn and broken-hearted, he is soon caught in a periloustangle. Intelligence officer James Ruffington wants George to spy onlocal nationalist activists in order to please the paranoid and communistobsessedCaptain Dennis Porter. For this, George must not only betrayhis close friend Deborah Sunderland but also use Anna Benson, his newlove, to infiltrate the local Congress networks. Set amidst the political unrest of 1940s India, The Communist Cookbookis an enthralling story of espionage and divided loyalties.

Sujets

• Cooking

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351181781
• Langue: English

Extrait

Sharmishtha Roy Chowdhury

THE COMMUNIST COOKBOOK
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Author s Note
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE COMMUNIST COOKBOOK
Sharmishtha Roy Chowdhury teaches History at Emerson College, Boston. She lives in Connecticut. The Communist Cookbook is her first novel.
For Sunil and Mili, who never tire of my army brat tales
Author s Note
Pithampur is a fictional princely state in the present-day Yamunanagar district of Haryana (what used to be eastern Punjab in British times). Bajapur, a fictional army cantonment, is close by, on the banks of the Yamuna. The 126th East Yorkshire Regiment is a fictional battalion, as are the 33rd battalion of the King s Own Regiment, and the 23rd East Yorkshire Regiment. The fort of Ahirabad is also fictional. But German prisoners of war were indeed imprisoned in the fort of Purandar near Pune. The detachment of the Seaforth Highlanders with whom George went on patrol in Burma did actually undertake similar missions in 1943.
Historical personalities apart-such as Carol Hagerman Durand, the first woman to qualify for the US Olympic equestrian team-the characters, places and political organizations mentioned in this book are fictional. Some, like Ramu Chowkidar, are inspired, though, by real-life personalities. While Captain Dennis Porter is a fictional caricature, his extreme ideology has real-life echoes. Major General Edwin Walker of the United States Army was dismissed from service in 1961 for his extreme anti-communist views in the 1950s and 1960s. At the other end of the spectrum, Americans like Anna Benson too existed, many of whom would eventually end up as targets of Senator Joseph McCarthy s anti-communist witch-hunts in the 1950s.
ONE
When George could no longer stand the gloomy interior of the room, he walked out to observe the early-morning barracks scene unfolding in the square below. Through the lush bougainvillea, the sun s rays cast trellised shadows on the golden-milky liquor of his tea. Sipping the steaming liquid, he watched as below him squads of men formed up and jogged their way in dusty clouds to morning drill. Good luck, George! some of his former mates shouted at the slim young man in pressed jungle greens. George smiled and waved his travel papers back at them, clasping the documents tightly. These were his papers to the train, and to the Officer Training School at Mhow in central India. If he passed the rigours of reading, writing and the physicals at the OTS, he would in some months time be commissioned as Second-Lieutenant George Clark. Age twenty-five. Regiment unknown. Future unknown.
In the cool morning of a north Indian December, George found himself remarkably clear-headed. He was one of the lucky ones, out of the fifty or so enlisted men who had gone before the Selection Board in May to be put through various tests: physical fitness, psychological aptitude and so on. George had been one of the few deemed qualified to proceed for officer training at Mhow, a garrison town in the Central Provinces.
It was George s battlefield performance that had earned him a Selection Board nomination from his Commanding Officer in Burma. In June 1943, he had been part of a long-range penetration patrol in northern Burma. His group had been part of a larger detachment that included a patrol group of the Seaforth Highlanders, a battle-hardened unit of Scotsmen. They had attacked a Japanese base and in the battle that followed, George had earned his citation by fighting hard, covering his men as they retreated and, above all, by refusing to leave behind the body of Rifleman Michael Briggs on the battlefield. For this act, George had been wounded, hospitalized in Calcutta, promoted to Sergeant, shortlisted for the officer s Selection Board, but in one of those inexplicable twists of military logic had then been posted, not back to Burma as he thought he might be but to a new unit in Pithampur, a small, princely state in the eastern Punjab.
Here, among the waving green wheat fields, a contingent of British forces-two battalions resting after the Burma campaign-helped the old Raja keep an uneasy peace between himself and his people, as Indian National Congress activists, Communist agitators, war reversals and economic turbulence chipped away at the prestige and the power of the British Empire. George had served his year with the 7/13 Yorkshire Rifles in Pithampur in aching boredom. There had been no spectacular uprisings here, just daily grumblings of rebellion that were squelched by the heavy hand of the Pithampur police. Still, the inactivity had had one positive effect: over time the nightmares about Burma had faded from George s consciousness, even the vivid recurring one about the skirmish that had earned him his OTS entry.
In the dream, George found himself inching forward with the others in his long-range penetration patrol, through the grass then into the jungle, leaves brushing against his sweating face. To his right, Rifleman Mike Briggs breathed heavily, so heavily that George hissed at him to be quieter. Morale in the group was average to low. Everyone knew that this operation was about to end. The Chindits campaign, dreamed up by Col. Orde Wingate, the eccentric British Army officer so beloved of the higher authorities and so despised by lower-level commanders, was supposed to harass the Japanese forces behind the enemy s lines. Although the Chindits succeeded in troubling the Japanese, by early 1943 most of the special units had retreated into India, and the campaign had boiled down to the occasional hit-and-run attack by local units that were able to organize it. George s section was one such group.
Around the advancing men, small animals scurried away. George saw a slim shape writhing away from them into the denser undergrowth. He slowed down immediately-if anyone was bitten by a snake then that was it for him, there were no evacuation procedures for long-range patrols in this war. All the men had painted their guns dull black, and sweat further darkened the jungle green of their uniforms. The straps of his pack were cutting into George s sweaty back-he knew that the skin was going to be raw and bloody at the end of this operation. Sweat was already dripping from his forehead into his eyes, and he had to keep wiping his eyelashes with a handkerchief. In front of him he saw the whiplash-thin figure of Sergeant Bill Bowers scratching his itching groin. Rashes, conjunctivitis, athlete s foot-these were the least of the illnesses that struck down soldiers in this theatre of war. Gentian violet was the only medicine prescribed by the Medical Officer attached to the unit.
George saw a slight rustle in the undergrowth and dropped to the ground. Instinctively, he pulled his grenade and lobbed it at the living, breathing body he knew was crawling through the shrubbery. The dream always ended at this point, leaving him sweating and yet cold in the humid dark.
The reality in Burma had been just as disorganized as his remembrance of those events. There had been a suppressed shout from the front of the line, somebody staggered into him, all followed by a semi-orderly taking up of positions amid a rattle of guns and whining of bullets that struck and ricocheted off trees, creating explosions of bark and leaves. George was half-smothered by the weight of Briggs whose foot was resting on his shoulder, throwing his aim off, and who, despite the cursing, would not move. Suddenly, the firing ceased.
We have to get out of here, was the general sentiment articulated by the sergeant leading the platoon, and as George tried to rise to his feet, he discovered that Briggs s weight on him was in fact that of a dead man. Michael Briggs, twenty-one years old, lay sprawled in the dense undergrowth, his lifeless face creased and frozen in the last pangs of pain. The sergeant cursed softly, and, as if on cue, a concerted attack by at least three Japanese machine guns began on their position. In the mel e, everyone scattered, George dragging Briggs, then hauling his body across his shoulders in a fireman s lift and lurching in the general direction of safety. Briggs s dead hands dragged behind him and caught on tree branches and shrubs, slowing George down. A rushing noise filled his ears and his eyes dimmed from time to time. It was later that he discovered that he too had been shot three times in the leg, but in the mad scamper to safety the injury had not registered in his brain. Later, collapsing into the sergeant s arms he drifted into unconsciousness, dimly aware of being lifted onto a makeshift litter. There had been a lot of walking, he recalled, then a murmur of voices, some trucks, a field hospital and finally Calcutta, hot and humid but strangely restful after the madness of the jungle.
A luv ly sight, ain t it, mate? The nasal East London accents of Nate Mason cut sharply into George s reverie. The composition of the 7/13 Yorkshire Rifles had been turned topsy-turvy by the war, so that the traditionally North-Eastern English unit now had men from all over the country to make up any which way for manpower shortage. Nate, the Londoner who had never set eyes on the rolling hills of Yorkshire for which his unit was named, grinned down at his barracks-mates all booted up and being led away by snarling NCOs. Now the East London man shook George s hand for the last time and added as he walked away. And the RSM wants to see you double quick, Clark. George had never been Nobbie or Nobs to any of his fellow soldiers.
George raced down the stairs, at the foot of which Regimental Sergeant-Major Tom Barrett waited. You did not keep an RSM waiting, even if you were soon going to be several notches above him in the hierarchy. RSM Barrett- Sir to all cowering recruits-was a soldier of the old school, the most feared