The Highest Court

Short Story:

A Tale of Indian Fiji, by I. B. Chalmers

FOR a moment there was silence while the magistrate wrote a few notes.

He looked up. “I find the accused, Agib Singh, guilty of being in possession of stolen property. Fined £lO, or one month’s imprisonment.”

The barristers collected their papers, the magistrate wrote a few more notes, and the accused climbed down from the dock to make way for the next prisoner.

Agib Singh, tall and straight as the sugar cane in his fields, stroked his silky beard and gazed across the court room at the man whom he knew to be respon sible for giving information to the police.

His eyes, cold and glassy as a cobra’s fixed on those of Maldrani, the store keeper. Maldrani seemed to shrivel under their threat.

Agib Singh paid the fine to the Clerk of the Court, waited for his receipt, then strode out into the dusty sunshine. With out looking to the right or left, he passed through the throng of gossipers and hailed a passing bus.

As soon as he had gone the clamour of tongues rose higher. Maldrani drifted among the crowd to catch the gist of the conversations, but none mentioned his name. True, there was some speculation as to who had gone to the police, for they had said “From information received we searched the accused’s house . . .” and so on, but the main theme was that a man, hitherto respected and liked by all, should stoop so low. Maldrani smiled, and set off towards his store.

IN a few weeks’ time the “crush” was due to start, so there were other, more interesting things to talk about than the recent case of Police v Agib Singh.

The days of sunshine at this time of year were good for the cane, and no rain fell to delay the planters busy laying the portable railway line to their fields in readiness or harvesting time. All the labour avail ble had been absorbed, and the gangs hf* been sorted out into teams in preparatio for cutting.

This activit. had to be based on credit, in most cases, ''ew growers can build up a reserve of cash to see them over from one crushing season to the next. Through the months of plowing, harrowing, plant ing and weeding, food and wages have to be paid for, and the majority are forced to give Bills of Sale over their crops, <3r to borrow on promisory notes. Agib Singh, however, was one of the few whose industry and thrift had placed him out of the clutches of the moneylenders.

For this Maldrani hated him; for, while ostensibly owning and operating a general store, his main source of income was from exorbitant interest levied on loans to canegrowers. In addition, he gained much satisfaction from having these tall, proud men, seek him out to ask for money; and even greater joy in feeling that he controlled their destinies he could when the whim seized him withhold credit at critical times.

The police case against Agib Singh was only the beginning of Maldrani’s attempts to break the man. As a moneylender, Maldrani had come to know most of the shady characters of the district. Quite often he acted as a receiver. And sharing his store was a jeweller an arrangement most convenient for altering settings or melting down the precious metals, to the profit of all concerned. In Agib Sin,gh’s case the rest had been simple. Stolen jewellery was planted in

Agib Singh’s house while he and his wife were away one night at a wedding. The police were tipped off next day, and the law had then merely taken its course.

SOME time elapsed—then one day, to Maldrani’s surprise, Agib Singh called at his store and meekly asked for a loan of £lOO. “Last season was bad,” he said. “I have had to buy new ploughs, and harness, and you know what they cost these days. I will give you a promissory note, my name is good, and I will repay you when I receive my cane monies.”

Maldrani could scarcely conceal his delight. He called in his friend the jeweller to witness the signatures, the money was handed over, and the note placed with others he kept in a tin box at the back of the store. Apparently Agib Singh was worse off than Maldrani had thought, for in the course of the next few days he had borrowed £5OO and had run up a considerable account for rice, sharps and kerosene for his labour gang.

On the afternoon before cane cutting was due to commence in the district, Agib Singh and his young wife came to town.

They had been married only a year, and still took delight in nosing through the shops together, to haggle over a few yards of material or a few trinkets.

Maldrani greeted them as they entered his store. “Salaam, Agib Singh,” he said, “what brings you to town?”

“Cane cutting starts tomorrow,” Agib Singh replied, “so we are having a day of relaxation in town because we will be too busy in the fields to pay another visit for several months.”

“You are staying here tonight?” asked Maldrani.

“We stay to dinner with friends, but not the night. We must catch the last ’bus home, for we farmers rise early.

ABOUT ten that night the town was in a turmoil. People rushed about yelling “Fire! Fire!” while confusion reigned. Everyone was so busy ordering his neighbour to go fetch a bucket, or do this, or do that, by the time the slightest semblance of an organised effort to quell the fire had been made, two shops in the closely-packed strip of buildings had been gutted, and others were alight.

Agib Singh stood at the outskirts of the mob, his wife at his side. Their dark skins in the flickering firelight seemed surrounded by a dull, red aura. He spoke: “A month ago the law punished me for a crime. I was innocent; and but one other knew it. Tonight, I have committed a crime, but the law will not connect tonight with a month ago, and I will stand among the innocent. Consumed in that fire is all that Maldrani owns, including my promissory notes to him, and his books of account. He is now a penniless man, and not only have I avenged the wrong he contrived against me, but also I have profited from my borrowings.”

The clamour of the crowd rose suddenly to shriller heights, and once again people began running about shouting and point ing. “Look! Look! Another fire!” There, to the east, bright as the rising sun, an orange glow was spreading upwards and outwards.

There, breathless from running, two men sank down into the cool grass in the shelter of a roadside ditch. Behind them a crackling, roaring line of fire was sweeping through the canefields. The air was full of thick smoke and falling par ticles of black ash. Presently the men rose and ran a little further to a clump of mango trees where a car was hidden.

As soon as they were seated they breathed more easily.

One spoke. “At last,” he said, “I have broken him. Tomorrow, Agib Singh will

come to me with his great tale of woe. His cane has been burnt the night before he was due to commence cutting; he cannot redeem his promisory notes; and I, Mal drani, will laugh! I can play with him like a cat with a mouse, tease him, threaten him with gaol if he does not pay. Oh, how small will this proud man be, now that he is penniless!”

He backed the car and swung into the road. At that moment he saw the 'other fire in the distance, and laughed again. “All the better, if someone else has a tire tonight. It will make that of my own creating much more like an accident, eh?”

BUT the morning revealed a different state of affairs. Reduced by fire to penury, lowered at the same time from their recent high status in the community to that of common labourers, both Agib Singh and Mald rani had to seek work to live.

Both by force of circum stance, were compelled to apply to the only employer offering, the sugar Company.

To the Mill, cane trucks are towed to discharge their loads. There they pass under an endless chain, studded with spikes These rake the cane on to a

moving platform that slopes upwards to great whirling knives, which quickly reduce the cane to small pieces, ready for the huge steam-heated rollers below to crush out the juice. Unkind fate decreed that Agib Singh and Maldrani should work together at the side of the moving platform, their job to push the heaps of

cane with poles into an orderly, even flow. There, sometimes on day’ shift sometimes on night shift, but always to gether, they laboured on the catwalk beside the cane, as silent as a pair of oxen in a double yoke, The whirr of the machinery, the scratch, scratch of the rake, the familiar clank of cane trucks banging into each other, took Agib Singh’s thoughts back to his fields. Out there, in the moonlight, they would be black patches, devoid of life, Tears started from his eyes and ran down unheeded to mingle with the sweat in his beard.

The whirr of machinery beat stronger, As if on a picture screen before him, he could see the tall cane falling to the swish of the cutters’ knives, and the burdened trucks being tugged away by stubby engines.

Unheeded, a piece of sharp cane, pro tuding over the side of the ramp, jabbed him in the chest. He put his hand to the spot and it came away warmly wet and red. Just then he heard Maldrani laugh. The roar of the mill turned into a crackling and a hissing and the red in his hand seemed to grow and grow until the whole night was aflame with burning cane, tumbling and falling—and he was part of it, his beloved cane—and tumbling

and falling . . .

Maldrani saw him faint, and watched him carried up with the cane and through the knives. He laughed as the man dis appeared, and then suddenly he was alone, and a great silence closed in. for the faint scratching of the 1-i Chief Justice’s pen, all was still, Then he spoke: ‘T am convinced in my own mind, and I note that the asses sors are also of the same opinion, that Agib Singh was struck down by the accused . The dead man’s blood on the

catwalk is mute evidence. I sentence the accused ...” Maldrani looked up to the bench. * The black cap on the Chief Justice’s head was growing wider and wider until it looked like a burnt out store dissolving anew into the roaring flames of scarlet robes. He laughed wildly, and kept on laughing . . .

FIRST PAPUAN MAID : I hear that the white men are sure to come hack soon to exploit us.

HER FRIEND : Well, I do wish they would hurry up.

The “Idle Hour” in New York after Dwight Long had sailed her round the world.