‘But we killed innocent men. Men who did nothing to hold us down—’

  Pritam grasped Jeevan in an iron grip, fingers digging deep into his flesh. ‘There are no innocents,’ he said with a sardonic smile. ‘This is the lesson we must learn . . .’

  He let his words hang in the cool evening air for a moment. ‘We must learn or die,’ he finished, once again leaving Jeevan in no doubt as to his choices. ‘Do you understand me, brother?’

  Jeevan nodded.

  ‘Are you sure? Because I will not tell you again. There will be no more sobbing and crying – that is a child’s way. Be a man and stand up for your country . . . your family.’

  Jeevan nodded again.

  ‘Stand up or lie down and die, just like you did when your own mother died,’ said Pritam, reinforcing his point and sending a dagger of pain through Jeevan’s heart. ‘And trust me, brother. If you let me down again, you will join the rest of them.’

  The shudder that rocked Jeevan seemed to emanate from his soul. It sent wave after wave of electricity up and down his spine. He had been betrayed by Hans Raj. How else could Pritam have known of his mother’s death and the despair and helplessness it had caused in his heart? Something snapped loose inside his head and he set himself a new task. He nodded for a third time and forced out his words.

  ‘I won’t let you down again,’ he lied. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Good, good,’ replied Pritam. ‘Now, let’s get back to the city. The goreh will try and rescue their own and get them to the fort. We can’t allow that to happen.’

  Jeevan stayed at the back of the group, biding his time. He knew now that he did have a choice – just one. He had to get away. Everything he had been told, everything that had led him to this day – it had all been lies. Nothing the gang had done would help India to be free. They hadn’t killed a single soldier or captain or general. They hadn’t taken a single piece of ground the British cared about. All they had done was set fire to their own city and kill innocents along the way.

  Jeevan found himself thinking of his friend Gurdial; and of the soldier he had been so quick to judge, Bissen Singh. One was a real friend, the other a real soldier. Jeevan realized that he was neither: despite the smiling faces of his so-called family, he was caught in a trap, surrounded on all sides by evil intent. How foolish he had been to believe their honey-soaked words about love and family. His need to belong had led him down a dirty, immoral and dangerous path, and all because evil men had spoken the words they knew he’d wanted to hear. Smiling faces, he told himself, sometimes hid rotten souls.

  HMP Pentonville, London,

  13 July 1940, 8.55 a.m.

  Udham Singh (aka Ram Mohammed Singh Azad)

  I can hear them coming. I know their footsteps. Uncle Tom is heavy. His feet fall like those of a stubborn water buffalo and his breath escapes his throat in short, violent rasps. Albert, the other hangman, is slight and seems to smell of cough mixture. If I wanted I could snap his neck with one hand. But I have no wish to do such a thing any more. I am ready to meet my Maker, and I have done enough killing. I do not want to think of such things in the five minutes that remain to me.

  My waking dreams are continually filled with the faces of those who died in the massacre. They do not leave me alone. I see them all – the women, the children. A river of blood flows from the killing field. The drains are full of bodies. I can see a small child, a girl, wandering through the haze, clutching her rag doll. I want to reach out to her, to hold her, to tell her everything will be fine . . . But nothing will ever be the same again. Not for me. Not for her . . .

  By the time I was done helping, no one was left – no dead and no injured. There were bodies in the well but we had to wait until daybreak to retrieve them, and even then we only managed to pull out a few. Those people are nothing but ghosts now. They swim around inside my head and disturb my sleep. They poke me with their bony fingers and scream at me with their disembodied voices. Soon I will join them and become what they became. I too will become one of the ghosts of Amritsar.

  When they took me into the orphanage, my eyes were swollen with tears. For many years after she died, I refused to believe that my mother was dead. It took the massacre to make me realize that she was truly gone. And then all I did was replace one with another. India became my mother, and my sole reason for living was vengeance; I let ice fill my soul. I did not wish to become a murderer, but Life and Fate conspired and here I am, awaiting the hangman’s noose.

  Let no one be mistaken. I go to my end with no fear. I am not about to die. Death is for those who do not believe – let them become food for maggots. When the last breath is gone from my body, my soul will leave this place and return to my home – to the golden land of the five rivers. And finally, after so many years, perhaps I will find my resting place. God knows, it has escaped me until now. I have spent this life trying to find my place. And now I know where it is. Hurry, Mr Hangman, and help me to reach it. I do not wish to wait a second longer.

  Amritsar, 12 April 1919

  WHENEVER THE DREAMS came, they drenched Bissen Singh in sweat. And this morning was no exception. He sat upright in bed, like a corpse on a funeral pyre, every muscle in his wiry frame taut. His head pounded in time with the gunfire of his dreams. Round after round, shell after shell, a thunderous cacophony of destruction and death, the smell of gunpowder like a phantom in his senses. Perspiration dripped from his brow, and his right leg and buttock throbbed with pain, where the grenade had torn away flesh and shattered bone four years earlier.

  The images that haunted him receded to wherever dreams lived. But he could still make out the faces of the men he had killed, and of those who had died alongside him. The final image, frozen in his mind, was like a rose in the early morning English dew. It was her face, her smile, her eyes . . .

  Two hours later Bissen Singh woke for the second time, the noise of the bustling streets rousing him from yet another dream. He sat up, swung his legs over the edge of his bed and shook his head free of explosions and gunfire. The wailing of dying young men calling for their mothers rang in his ears. And then it was all gone except for the continuous low-level ringing, which he had carried with him from the Western Front, via Brighton and Cape Town, and home again to the land of the five rivers. The air around him was thick with his own smell and that of rotting onions, and it brought back the past once more. He stood up and stretched before bending over and touching his toes as his back popped and cracked. Then he walked across the dirt floor to the wooden shutters and opened them. The world flooded into his small room, making his grey eyes squint.

  Out in the street the sun was already beating down, uncomfortably warm for the time of year. Bissen Singh made his way through the narrow lanes of old Amritsar, heading for the post office. More in hope than expectation. The hope of a letter, a note. Something. Anything. All around him traders hawked their wares and people went about their business. Children and animals wandered the mazy paths, not caring where they went. Colours assaulted his eyes; the smell of dung and dust and sweat ate into his nasal lining. Amritsar, the city of his youth. A city that had become alien to him upon his return from the war. He heard the beeping of a horn and stepped aside to let a car pass. Its brakes squealed as a cow walked right into its path.

  ‘Damned animals!’ shouted the British officer sitting in the back. He had grey hair and a thick black moustache. On the seat next to him were two rifles and a lathi.

  Bissen looked at him. The officer, General Reginald Dyer, acknowledged the look, a slight nod of the head – a mark of respect for his exploits on behalf of his king and emperor. At least that’s what Bissen tried to believe. The truth, whatever that was, held no meaning for him any more. His truth – the thing he wanted to believe in most of all – was thousands of miles away. In another world. In another lifetime perhaps.

  ‘Chall, chall!’ demanded General Dyer.

  The driver, a rotund, red-faced police officer called Plomer, made no reply, but set off down the narrow lane once more, pap-pap-papping on the horn as he went. Bissen watched them leave through a cloud of red dust, wondering what they were doing travelling through the streets without an armed escort. Amritsar was in open rebellion, the riots of two days earlier lending an edge of menace to the city. Four goreh had been killed and many injured.

  But then again, Reginald Dyer was no ordinary British officer. More Indian than English in all regards bar the colour of his skin and the elevated position this gave him, Dyer was arrogantly confident of the respect Amritsaris had for him. No other British officer would have dared to venture along the back streets at such a tense time. But then no other British officer had such an admiration for Sikhs, as far as Bissen knew.

  By the time he had reached the post office he had seen the devastation caused by the riots. The managers of the National Bank had been doused in kerosene and set alight – both dead. Shops all across the city had been looted and destroyed, with people on both sides beaten indiscriminately.

  ‘Such an evil thing, bhai,’ commented Gurnam Lal, a cloth weaver whom Bissen bumped into outside his shop.

  Bissen listened as Gurnam told him what had happened elsewhere in the city – or at least what he had heard.

  ‘These people,’ said Bissen, shaking his head. ‘They are like dogs that shit in their own basket and roll around in it—’

  ‘Who?’ asked Gurnam. ‘The goreh?’

  Bissen sighed. ‘No, Gurnam Lal-ji – the Punjabis. Tell me – how did it hurt the Empire that these so-called revolutionaries burned down their own city?’

  ‘But—’

  Bissen shook his head. ‘I don’t wish to talk of this any more.’

  Just then, Gurnam’s wife, a delicate, petite woman called Gian, came out of their open-fronted shop. ‘Sat-sri-akaal,’ she said to Bissen.

  ‘Phabbi-ji,’ offered Bissen, smiling.

  ‘Tell me, young man,’ she teased. ‘How old are you now?’

  ‘The same as I was yesterday and the day before that and the one before that too,’ he replied.

  ‘Twenty-four,’ said Gian. ‘And yet you have no wish to take a wife? Who will make your food for you, Bissen Singh?’

  ‘I have my mother and my sisters,’ he told her.

  ‘But they have returned to your ancestral village. From what I hear you are alone here in the city.’

  ‘How do you know so much of my business?’ asked Bissen.

  ‘Why,’ replied Gian, winking at her husband, ‘you are the talk of the young women of Amritsar – despite your limp.’

  Bissen half smiled and then thanked Gurnam for all the news. ‘I must be on my way,’ he said. ‘Much to do . . .’

  ‘Will we see you at the Vaisakhi festivities tomorrow?’ asked Gurnam.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ replied Bissen.

  As he continued down the lane, the images flooded back into his head. Gian’s mention of his limp had set his mind racing. And talk of wives had brought her back too. Bissen hurried back to his room, thankful that he had a small amount of pheme left. Tomorrow he would visit the priest at the gurdwara, and talk of dreams and sins. Today he longed only for the arms of Morpheus . . .

  Neuve Chapelle, France, 9 March 1915

  BISSEN SINGH’S UNIT, the 1/39 Garwahl Rifles, reached the forward lines at nightfall, by which time he was exhausted, cold and dirty. Three days had passed since his last opportunity to wash, and his feet were blistered from having to wear boots a size too small. All around him his companions, part of Lahore Division, attempted to rest. Some cleaned their weapons while others began eating their meagre provisions. The trenches weren’t particularly deep but the water had surfaced anyway, seeping through the rotten duckboards that had been put down. Rain added to the misery of their surroundings, particularly when it turned into a light snowfall. But Bissen had grown used to such discomforts in his time with the British Expeditionary Force. The trenches were hellish and only two avenues provided an escape – death or serious injury.

  Bissen stepped around a large rat that sat up imperiously on one of the duckboards, seemingly unfazed by the arrival of the men. It nibbled at a scrap of discarded food, eyes shining in the growing darkness. Bissen moved further along the trench, keeping his head low so that an enemy sniper wouldn’t spot his turban. He found a dugout, shallow but relatively safe, and sat with his feet hanging down to the floor, his back arched, neck straining. Putting his Lee Enfield .303 rifle to one side, he searched the pockets of his jacket for cigarettes. Constantly aware of any danger, he turned towards the rear of the dugout and lit it quickly. Days earlier he had seen what happened when a Tommy enjoyed his smoke too openly. The bullet had entered the boy’s head dead centre and blown his brains out of the back of his skull before his second drag.

  Once he had finished his cigarette, Bissen turned and moved towards the front wall of the trench, below a thick line of sandbags. His eyes, growing more accustomed to the gloom, searched out the nearest fire-step. He crept across and, placing a boot on the three-foot ledge, peered quickly over the edge. In that instant he made out nothing except broken tree trunks and lines of barbed wire. He listened carefully for sounds from across the open ground but he heard only a few whispered words from his comrades and the squeaking of rats.

  He made his way back to the dugout and was just sitting down on the damp earth when two of his friends, Jiwan and Bhan, joined him.

  ‘Do you have a cigarette, bhai?’ asked Jiwan, a young man of nineteen years. His beard was not yet more than a few wisps of golden-brown hair and his turban seemed far too big for his head.

  ‘Saleyah – don’t you know it is forbidden for Sikhs to smoke?’ teased Bissen, smiling.

  ‘I doubt God is watching us here,’ laughed Jiwan.

  Bhan Singh clapped the boy across the back of his head, cursed, and then turned round to light his own cigarette. ‘God watches over us wherever we go,’ he told the lad.

  ‘I was only—’ began Jiwan, but Bhan cut him off in a show of authority – authority based on the fact that, at twenty-five, he was one of the oldest men in the unit.

  ‘I know what you were saying, you son of a goat herder: here we are in this man-made hell and God will forgive us our small acts of sin.’

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ replied Jiwan.

  ‘Three days ago I killed a boy younger than Jiwan,’ said Bissen. ‘He was crying and wore no boots.’

  ‘Bhai, that is just what we have to do,’ Bhan reminded him.

  Bissen appeared not to have heard his words. ‘I took my bayonet and I cut through his guts until they spilled out into the mud,’ he continued, his eyes glazed.

  ‘There will be much worse to come in the morning,’ Bhan Singh told him. ‘Much worse . . .’

  For the next few minutes they crouched in silence. It was Jiwan who eventually spoke up.

  ‘Do we know what the plan is?’ he asked Bhan.

  ‘I do,’ replied Bhan. ‘They gave me a map.’

  ‘A map?’ Bissen looked surprised.

  Bhan Singh pulled a scrap of paper from one of his pockets and showed it to his friends. ‘It even has coloured lines on it; targets for the battle.’

  Battle plans on paper were rare. In fact Bissen had never even seen one. He took the map from Bhan and peered at it more closely. Their position for the start of battle was clearly marked. They would begin to the right of the British First Army, under the direction of James Willocks, commander of the Indian Corps. He looked at the position of the German trenches. They seemed so close, the first line sitting in front of the village.

  ‘Are we to take the village?’ he asked Bhan Singh.

  His friend nodded. ‘And there will be a surprise for our enemies,’ he whispered.

  ‘What surprise?’ asked an excited Jiwan.

  Bhan shook his head. ‘I cannot say,’ he replied as three huge rats slid across Bissan’s boots and into the water at the base of the trench.

  Bissen kicked out and caught rodent flesh. A shriek pierced the air. ‘Damn rats!’ he said. ‘It’s a wonder they don’t try to eat us as we sleep.’

  ‘Sleep?’ asked Bhan Singh. ‘I wish I could remember what that means . . . How I long for the village of my birth. Instead, here I am fighting a white man’s war.’

  Jiwan glanced at Bissen. When Bissen refused to return his look he shook his head. ‘We are fighting to keep the world free, bhai-ji,’ he told Bhan.

  ‘For king and emperor – to help maintain this British Empire. I was there when Willocks made his speech too. It means nothing to me.’

  ‘But that is mutiny,’ whispered Jiwan. ‘Court-martial . . .’

  ‘However I am killed,’ replied Bhan Singh, ‘it will be here, fighting for these people so that they can continue to keep our motherland in shackles. Or perhaps I’ll die running away? Wherever it is, it won’t be for the good of my own country.’

  ‘I think you need to rest, bhai-ji,’ said Jiwan, his brown eyes darkening with concern. Bhan Singh was one of the most courageous and loyal men he had ever met. For him to be speaking of such things could only be explained by lack of sleep. Why else would he risk being courtmartialled?

  ‘Rest will come when I am back in my own land,’ said Bhan. ‘Not until then. And if that means never, then that is the will of God.’

  Bissen turned and lit another cigarette, thankful that the trenches they occupied were still so fresh. No battle of any consequence had taken place, which meant there were no rotting corpses for the rats and maggots to feast on. There was only the vile, putrid odour coming from the latrines, which were just deep holes covered with planks of wood coated in urine and faeces.

  He thought about the impending death that dawn would bring. The lottery of leaving the trenches and charging with bayonet fixed at a line of enemy guns. Of not knowing how many seconds you had left on this earth. Of praying with the depths of your soul that the God you had learned to worship since infancy would indeed be waiting for you when you went to meet Him. Not the empty, lonely void of perpetual nothingness but a true heaven, angels and all.