A Back Passage in India

"All very well she was virgo et cetera, but might she have been nevertheless...ah, might nevertheless her penetralia been trespassed upon?"

Only be Needledick the Boogfucker, thought the Doctor, she was tighter than the finish at the Grand National, whan I lost fi'pun' eight shillin's an' tuppence. "Most unlikely. No sign of bruisin', hematoma, distention, naethin' of the sort."

"And you examined further?"

"Ah did thot. There was petrolatum in ano, but thot's no unco strange, wi' the prickly heat and the chafe and a' that. Nathin' strange there."

Thank God for that perjurious old bastard, thought Miss Quested, unless he's bloody incompetent, in which case thank God anyway. My rosebud was like a prize cabbage after belle-mère got through.

Schraederling sighed. "No further questions."

Viswanathan didn't wait to be asked. "No cross examination, Your Worship."

"Rest and move for judgment," said Schraederling. Miserable case, witnesses like butter...well, that's show biz, he thought. But I facking hate to lose to that nigger sodomite Viswanathan, damn him!

"We shall now adjourn for luncheon," said Sir Delafell, and did so, banging his gavel.

Viswanathan went to join Dr Odwallah, M.D., for a quick Kema with Roti and some hard thinking. He thought thus: This case is won, but any junior stuffgownsman could win this one, scarcely breaking a sweat. Schraederling has naught but blustering summation, for he has nothing up to which to sum. They haven't a case, and they know it; even that jackass Sir Delafell Austinn knows it. He shouldn't even let it go to the jury, he should dismiss the charges out of hand. But Congress Party didn't send me down here to head a ball into the net that was gone past the goalie anyway. So let me give the English one in the eye for the honour of Congress Party and the people of India. I'll call my best witness.

Schraederling's lunch with Resident Magistrate Heaslop was mediocre, but it was the best Heaslop could do, what with everything being readied for the escape to Simla. Schraederling barely suppressed a post-prandial belch, at the cost of almost spitting his cigar onto the table. His digestion would soon be much worse.

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In the dusty street outside the Courtroom, natives had been gathering since dawn. Work abandoned and neglected, they saw the contest as one between the mighty Oppressor and the innocent Professor Godbowel, as a cataclysmic event, a turning point, one that might mark the end to the night of darkest subjugation, or worse, as the triumph of villainous perversion of justice, yet another link in the fetters that shackled them.

Somehow there had formed in the native mind, influenced by the few spectators of their colour and persuasion permitted entrance to the trial, who understood little of the proceedings, the wholly unsupported notion that it was Mr Resident Magistrate Heaslop's mother who was the accused's only friend in the Court, bar the celebrated Ramjamit Viswanathan, Q.C., whose brilliant efforts to secure the truth were unendingly thwarted by the evil machinations of the English.

They set up a chant, invoking such gods as they thought might be of aid. "Mrs Moore, Mrs Moore." It grew louder as the proceedings continued, merging like the echoes of the Malabar Caves, "Ess Miss Ess Moore, Ess Miss Ess Moore, Ess Miss Ess Moore!"

The sitting resumed. "Mr Viswanathan, call your witness."

"Edna, Lady Bitsfugger," said Ramjamit Viswanathan, Q.C.

The gasp was audible throughout the Court. Bloody fucking hell and bugger me to Baluchistan, thought Mrs Moore. What can that old cunt know about it?

As it turned out, quite a good deal.

Ramjamit Viswanathan, Q.C., knew the best way to deal with a loose cannon of a witness was to clear the gun deck and stand well back.

"Your name, and title if any?"

"Edna Shawangunk, Lady Bitsfugger, but call me 'Bits', ever'buddy does."

"Very well, Lady Bits, where do you reside?"

"Government House, N' Dehli. Permanent place of abode Grosvenor Square, London West One."

"When did you arrive in this town of Agashiwallah?"

"Last week, and I can't wait to get home."

"Why came you hither?"

"Some young junior Secketterry at Gov House said to see the caves here, so I did."

"When did you see the caves?"

"Same day this yere alleged offense took place."

"Did you see there and then any of the people here in this Courtroom?"

"Righty-ho I did, I saw the Resident Magistrate there, and his Mummy, and her girlfriend, the one she's cuddlin' there, and that fellahin in the dock, and maybe one or two of those placemen over yonder with the R.M."

A slight tremor in the Courtroom as she spoke the words "girlfriend, the one she's cuddlin' there", evoked a raised eyebrow from Sir Delafell.

"Tell His Worship, prithee, in your own words, what acts and transactions you observed that day wherein those whom you have just named took any part."

"Well," said Bits, taking a deep breath and throwing back her head, "I went into the caves from the far side, with a torch and an Ordnance map and one of your Webley .455s, didn't know what I might find, d'ye see. An' as I went, I looked at the walls an' that, and saw who scratched on the walls who did what to whom and who loved whom, and call on such-an-one for a good time, an' all that.

"So I'm gettin' to this Echo Chamber thingy, which I hear is hot shit an' the grand Maharajah of the place, an' then I hear 'slap slap slap', a sound I well know. 'Holy Saint Michael of Vladivostok,' I thinks to meself, 'someone's gettin' some round the next bend'. So I dims me torch with me hankerchee, like, and peers round the bend, and there's me old bunkie Hephaestia Moore from the Kaisar-i-Hind givin' the girlfriend a good Jolly Roger from astern. She got her bent over, an' has a seven-inch strappy well-secured, and Junior Miss over there's takin' it all in, every stroke.

'An extry added attraction,' thinks I to meself, an' then Junior Miss starts floggin' the little fella in the boat, but Hephy Moore knocks her hand away and bloody near sinks the canoe. Junior Miss grunts like a buggered boar hog, gushes like Niagara Falls, and collapses.

"Never losin' an opportunity, I'm floggin' me own little feller and feelin' no pain, when Hephaestia takes off like a bat out 'a' Hell, I get off good, yonder bugger in the dock thingy there comes in, and shows me the best yardarm I seen since HMS Victory when we left Southampton. 'Mamma mia,' thinks I, 'wouldn't I like to do a horizontal Charleston on that there,' an' that one, lookin' at Sleepin' Beauty stretched out with her ass pointed Heavenward and her puss peepin' out as well, whacks his ol' Willy like a good 'un, fires off a salute to feminine beauty, and he's securin' his tackle when in comes Hephaestia with the Resident dude and his merry men, howlin' like they was ejected from an Irish public house half an hour after closin' time.

"I figgered 'game over, Bits, time to saddle up and move it out', so I did."

Fuck me and ten generations of my ancestors, thought Mrs Moore, those sounds in the caves...it was Bits.

"No further questions," said Ramjamit Viswanathan, Q.C. "Would my learned friend care to cross-examine?"

"I think not," said St John Schraederling, Q. C., wishing himself in Hong Kong, or perhaps San Francisco, but thanking whatever gods may be that his fee was paid in advance.

Sir Delafell Austinn, Q.C., his underpants wet with urine after Lady Bits' Chaucerian extravaganza, announced that the trial was over, the accused was to be set at large, that there was nothing for the jurymen to consider (at which said jurymen thanked whatever gods may be), thanked all for their attendance, and trotted off for a cold IPA or three.

And as Professor Godbowel walked into the sunshine, a large crowd, awaiting the verdict, fired up the chant "Ess Miss Ess Moore, Ess Miss Ess Moore", deeming her to be the heroine who set free their heroic Professor, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

And Lady Bitsfugger, walking out arm in arm with Ramjamit Viswanathan, Q.C., upon whose well-set-up frame she had devious designs, involving handcuffs and a nine-inch strappy, that she would soon carry out, announced to all present, "Good God, that wass a good 'un, what?"