He read that the Komagata Maru had been diverted from Calcutta’s port and forced to anchor off the town of Budge Budge. British officers searched passengers and ship for copies of the Ghadar newspaper, for arms, for other seditious items, but found none. They demanded the Indians board a train to Punjab, but most refused. Passengers tried to deliver the ship’s holy book to the local gurdwara. Officers forced them back with guns. Passengers tried to chant the sacred rehras while seated near the dock. Police beat them with lathis. Passengers tried to escape the beating, escape the gunshots, escape the bloodshed. Many succeeded but some failed. Bystanders died too, Indian and English. By twilight, twenty-six bodies lay at odd angles on the dock and shoreline, their blood mixing with waters that would run, eventually, into the sacred Ganga.

In the desert darkness, Amarjeet identified those who were killed. “Ishar Singh. Arjan Singh. Ratan Singh . . .” He read slowly, shaping his tongue around all twenty names, allowing each their dignity. Last, he mentioned Mastan Singh, from their own village.

When he heard the final name, Jivan leaned forward in his chair. The ground beneath him seemed to rumble and move. He stood, placed his whiskey glass on the table, and escaped the circle of lamplight, leaving the others to wonder after him.

Jivan woke early in a moonless morning. The household was still asleep. His mind went to the scene from the previous night. Mastan Singh had shared his boyhood with Jivan, had been his older brother’s playmate, had saved Jivan when he had fallen into a well at the age of six. Jivan was tempted to say that the dead man was in the wrong. Hadn’t the British built the railways, dug the irrigation canals, gifted land, brought civility? He was tempted to proclaim that Government should eradicate the disloyal wherever they found them, for the supreme cause of political stability. But he could not. He opened the safe that stood in his bedroom and gathered his cavalry medals.

They were firm, solid in his palm. He had been awarded the first in Shandong Province for taking an injury to his leg while saving a comrade. He earned the second for discovering guerrillas who lay in wait by the roadside. The third and fourth were for taking charge of his unit in Shanghai when the commanding Risaldar had been struck down.