‘This is like our own home. We would ask for anything we want. Sat Sri Akal.’

John Taylor was an Englishman and a member of the Indian Civil Service. He was only twenty-eight but these two qualifications had led to his being made the Deputy Commissioner and the virtual ruler of an area larger than two English counties, with a population of nearly a million natives.

Taylor did not belong to the class which had produced the builders of the Empire. He was the son of a school master. His wife, Joyce, had been a nurse—a very pretty nurse. He had met her at the hospital where he had been sent for a medical check-up before joining the service. From the very start, they found themselves isolated from the English community. They found the snobbery of the senior English officials a little irksome. They did not share their views about the role of Englishmen in India. Although Taylor, as the English Deputy Commissioner, was elected President of the exclusively European Club, he never went to it. His wife avoided the company of other memsahibs and restricted the duties, which her status imposed on her, to purely Indian circles. But their attempts to make friends with Indians were not very successful. The Indians refused to be treated as equals; they refused to be frank and outspoken; and at some stage or other they tried to exploit their association. So the Taylors gave up trying to find friends in India. They spent their after-office hours together—going out riding, taking long walks, or just being at home. They disliked people invading the privacy of their home and Taylor had issued strict instructions that no one was to call at the house except on the day set apart for visitors. He had a repertoire of little tricks by which he put subordinates, who tried to be familiar, in their places. He kept them waiting. He took a long time to answer simple questions; he lit a cigarette or casually knocked tobacco out of his pipe on the heels of his shoe while the other was on pins and needles waiting for a reply. At times he was just abrupt; sometimes even rude.

Buta Singh believed that Taylor had a personal regard for him and would always treat him with special consideration As minutes accumulated to make half-an-hour and then three-quarters, doubts began to assail his mind. ‘Did you give Sahib my card?’ he asked the orderly.

‘Immediately, sir. Sahib looked at it but said nothing.’

Buta Singh had always tipped the Deputy Commissioner’s staff and had no fears about his card having been deliberately withheld. He could not understand why the Sahib had not come out to greet him or ask the chaprasi to show him in. ‘Didn’t he say whether or not I was to wait; or does he want me to see him in his office at the law courts?’ he asked.