The Jewel in the Crown

(wings fluttering loudly) SARAH: Oh, Shinaz.

You're pulling my leg.

No!

I think you are.

It's impossible.

Look, we can ask Ahmed.

Hello.

You see, Mr. Perron, there is the reason why Sarah couldn't join us tonight at dinner.

She understands my scheming.

One day, I hope, Ahmed and Shinaz will fall in love.

I have long planned this.

An alliance between the son of Mohammed Ali Kasim, the political Kasims of Ranpur, and the princely Kasims of Mirat.

A royal wedding.

The illuminations, I fear, are not of my devising.

Muslims and Hindus in the city are burning one another's shops.

The fishermen will not go out tomorrow on the Izzat Bagh Lake.

Nawab Sahib will look at me and say, "Dmitri, what have you done?

What have I signed away?"

(sighs) Shall we go in?

(fire crackling) Perhaps I should take the train with you tomorrow, Mr. Perron, and fly to England.

With independence only nine days away, we shall all be migrs now.

Would you like some brandy?

Thank you.

Hosain.

Before the war, there was almost no civil disturbance in Mirat.

It's different now.

You know, Ahmed was attacked and beaten one night in the bazaar.

No, I didn't know that.

Thank you.

Fortunately, he wasn't seriously hurt.

But people have become affected now by what Congress is saying, what the Muslim League is saying in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay.

Thank you, Hosain.

On your last night with us, a little drink to Mirat.

And to the future.

Ah, yes.

The future.

Those fires are ominous.

In the past 18 months, whenever trouble threatened, I was comforted to think that Colonel Merrick was coping with it.

Tonight, I miss him.

So, perhaps, do the police.

One feels a bit like Nero, without the fiddle.

You know, Merrick had certain qualities, Mr. Perron.

I saw only the bad side, I'm afraid.

That, I think, is because, in spite of your interest in the past, you are a man of the present.

He was, without question, a man of the past.

That was his strength.

He treated the troubles here as just a silly quarrel between naughty children.

Nanny knows best.

It is the spirit of the Raj.

Preserves the British from destruction even today.

I gather from Nigel that you have an idea that Merrick's killing was intended to aggravate racial tension as much as anything.

Yes.

Not everyone feels the British have earned the immunity you all seem to be currently enjoying.

But if it is the last thing I do in Mirat, I shall ensure that this immunity continues.

Even if it means suppressing evidence.

Do you disapprove?

A little.

So do I.

But just think what might be happening out there now if we had shouted murder.

There is also the pain and distress Susan would have been caused by any open investigation.

It's a good thing in her state of mind and health that she doesn't know in what strange and unsavory circumstances her husband died.

Strange and unsavory?

I don't mean just the manner of his death.

I mean the tendencies in him which led him to it.

I see.

Do his spies come into this?

Who mentioned spies to you?

Susan.

She also mentioned the Indian clothes, his disguise.

Mr. Perron, he had no spies.

Nor did he ever go out in those clothes.

No, no, no, no.

These were mere bits of play acting.

It was he himself who was observed.

By the Khansamar.

He was a good steward.

He kept me well-informed.

But I wish he'd been more on his guard.

Unfortunately, by the time he realized the nature of Merrick's visitors, it was already too late.

Susan mentioned the boys who used to come looking for jobs.

Khansamar sent them all away.

She would have seen that while she was still here with the child.

But when she returned to Pankot, other boys came.

One especially persistent.

Day after day.

(men speaking Hindi) Khansamar?

Who is this boy?

Aziz, Colonel sahib.

Every day he's coming, every day I send away.

But he's telling me he has nowhere to go, Colonel sahib.

There's plenty to do.

Let him help Mali cut the grass.

If he works well, he can stay.

Aziz... (speaking Hindi) (speaking Hindi) So the boy stayed.

He helped the Mali.

He worked in the house and he worked hard.

Khansamar saw nothing to discredit him, until one morning when he rose soon after dawn and saw Aziz coming out from the back door of the house.

Well, he had seen the Pathan clothes before.

Colonel sahib sometimes wore them when he was alone.

"He is at heart a Pathan," Khansamar thought, "and Aziz is a fine, sturdy boy.

It may be none of my business."

Yet there was something strange which perhaps unconsciously had puzzled him before.

Since Aziz had come, no other boys had called looking for jobs.

Now, at night, sometimes he couldn't sleep.

Whenever he got up and went to look in the hut where the boy should be, he found it empty.

Until this one night.

Aziz had returned.

(door opens) But he was not in bed.

(speaking Hindi) "Where have you been?"

Khansamar asked him.

(speaking Hindi) "In the bazaar," Aziz told him, "with a girl."

(speaking Hindi) "What happened?

Did her husband find you with her?"

But Khansamar thought, "It is not a jealous husband who has done this."

(knocking) (speaking Hindi) Colonel sahib.

(speaking Hindi) That morning, he took Colonel Sahib's chota hazri to his room.

And at that moment, Khansamar conceived for Merrick a dislike.

Not a violent hatred, but a cold contempt.

And, of course, he wondered, "Why should a boy like Aziz submit quietly to that kind of treatment?"

Do you wonder, Mr. Perron?

Tell me why you don't.

I think it is clear he had been so instructed to submit, whatever Merrick did.

Instructed by whom?

Pandit Baba, possibly.

In the event, he was sent packing.

Merrick told Khansamar there was no more work for Aziz to do.

But very soon, once more, the boys appeared at the gate.

Sometimes two together, and sometimes one was allowed to stay.

Why, do you imagine?

What was in Merrick's mind?

Did he see no connection between these events and the older forms of persecution, the stone and the snake?

He believed another stone was thrown, you know.

So he told Sarah, the day he fell from his horse.

Sarah was there at the time of the accident?

COUNT BRONOWSKY: With Ahmed.

They'd gone out riding together.

Merrick had followed them, hoping to see some hawking.

He'd often tried to scrounge an invitation, but Ahmed always made excuses.

I thought you were hawking today.

Where's the falcon?

Sorry.

I don't think Mumtaz is very well.

She's off her food a bit.

Is she?

Again?

Shall we ride, then?

If you want.

Kasim, I'll race you across the nullah.

Come on!

Ronnie!

Are you all right?

What happened?

Didn't you see him?

Who?

The blighter who was crouching in the nullah.

He must have startled the horse.

He stood up and threw a stone.

You must have seen him, one of you!

AHMED: Who?

Ronnie thinks someone was hiding.

He startled the horse.

There was no one.

He got away, then.

I tell you!

I saw him!

He must have got away!

Ahmed and Sarah decided to say nothing.

Both of them felt he wanted to make trouble, to create an incident.

I'm with him now.

Tomorrow, then.

Goodbye.

Well?

What did she say?

She'll bring a Jeep at seven in the morning.

But she's not sure Ahmed will be hawking.

Ha!

What excuse this time?

Frankly, I don't think Sarah's too keen at all on the idea.

She's sure Dr. Habibullah wouldn't want you to go out.

Damn Habibullah.

But if you don't attempt anything too foolish, Sarah will pick you up.

You'll have to be content with that.

I'll be content, then.

Is there anything else you want?

Khansamar will see to it if I do.

I'll say good night, then.

Thanks, Nigel.

You know... What we were speaking of, what one should do after independence?

I shan't go home.

I shall stay on.

I'd like to settle somewhere, like Peshawar.

Up near the old Northwest Frontier, somewhere they don't do things by the book, off-the-cuff decisions.

That's where I'm best.

Yes, I know that.

I'll see you tomorrow, then.

It was the last time he was seen alive.

And I think, yes, I believe, he wanted it, waited for his death.

I believe, though you may not, that Aziz was the first young man, perhaps the only man, he had actually made love to, and that this gave him a profound moment of peace.

And in the next moment, something he could not bear.

Not the revelation of his homosexuality, his sadomasochism.

These he must have sensed before.

What was destroyed was the belief in his racial superiority.

That's why he wanted there to be a man in the nullah, a stone that was thrown.

He wanted what happened to happen.

Perhaps he hoped that his murder would be avenged in some splendidly spectacular way, a kind of Wagnerian climax.

The Raj emerging from the twilight and sweeping down from the hills with flaming swords.

"Bibighar" scrawled across his mirror with the stuff he used to paint his face.

The Bibighar in Mayapore.

Scene of the rape.

And he had been strangled with his sash.

A curious feature, wouldn't you agree?

(quietly): Nawab Sahib.

Yes, I'll come.

Mr. Perron, forgive me.

Nawab Sahib?

He has seen the fires in the city.

It is a summons I cannot disobey.

Of course.

I will come to the station in the morning to see you off, and to say goodbye as well to Sarah and Ahmed.

We shall have a lonely Independence Day in Mirat.

Well, I shall think of you in Delhi.

But still I wonder.

About that sash.

So many mysteries.

But Dr. Habibullah is convinced of this-- that he was strangled first and then mutilated.

So, a ritual killing, but when they came to it, they were mercifully quick.

Compassionate, even.

But would Merrick have wanted that?

I think not.

Justice he understood.

Compassion, never.

(hubbub of chatter) I hadn't thought we'd be quite so large a party.

I expect we shall all fit in easily enough, Mrs. Peabody.

The trunk's coming in, Reginald.

REGINALD: All right, dear.

Well, I don't know about fitting in easily.

But if there are only six of us...

Eight.

Laura, we'd better have the guns now.

There's still the tiffin box.

I think the guns first, then the tiffin box.

As you wish, Reginald.

MRS. PEABODY: Eight?

How do you make eight?

Eight-and-a-half, if you include me and the little boy.

Naturally, one includes you both.

Of course.

REGINALD: Righto, Laura.

Tiffin box now.

Coolie.

I still make it only six-and-a-half, not that mathematics were ever my strong point.

Reginald, I hope the upper berths are let down.

They'll need those to stow their things.

I have a feeling that at least two members of the departing Raj aren't going to leave without standing by their old rights.

It's the Peabodys.

There may be a fuss about Ahmed and I traveling in a first-class compartment.

For God's sake.

They'd better start getting used to it.

He's only a major.

Shall I start stowing our luggage?

You mean they've finished?

(laughs) Ah.

Um... You'd better put that there.

Good-bye, my dear.

Don't be too long before coming back.

Good-bye, Dmitri.

Dear boy.

Remember me to your father.

Tell him we need you here after the independence celebrations.

Ten days is the most I can allow.

I'll write to you from England, Nigel.

Do.

And have a good journey.

FENNY: Do we have to travel with those awful Peabodys?

They've turned the compartment into a luggage van.

It's all right, Aunt Fenny.

Mr. Perron's got everything in.

(train whistle toots) Thank you for coming to Mirat.

You gave me a lot of your time.

Oh, my pleasure.

Here's a little token of your visit.

The poems of Gaffur.

I have attempted a poor translation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Merrick, there's room for your tiffin basket on top of ours.

Please, don't worry.

Has your ayah a compartment quite close?

Oh, very close.

In fact, here.

Ayah will sit with me and help me with Edward.

I want to wave from the window.

Okay, but let the troops on first.

Reginald, let me sit at the other end.

It is a little close here.

Oh, all right, dear.

Are you sure about the basket, Mrs. Merrick?

I can put it on the berth.

Absolutely sure, Major Peabody.

Excuse me.

Come on, ayah.

(whistle blows) Good-bye.

NIGEL: Don't forget to sit on the cool side.

Good-bye, Dmitri.

Good-bye, Uncle Nigel.

Good-bye.

Good-bye, Edward.

See you again, old chap.

Au revoir.

The poems are 18th century Urdu.

The Gaffur was an ancestor of Nawab Sahib's.

A memento.

Bye!

Bye.

Come and sit here, Guy.

Thanks.

(sighs) Bang!

Are you really sure about the basket, Mrs. Merrick?

Couldn't your ayah look after it?

Try to get her to shut up about the basket.

It's the urn.

Susan won't let anyone else touch it.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

(sighs) The basket contains Colonel Merrick's ashes.

All right?

Bang!

Do you hunt, Mr. Perron?

I like a day out with the hounds or with the guns.

We hope to get in a few days at Bharatpur before going home.

You've been to Bharatpur, I suppose?

No.

Oh, you should!

What's your regiment?

I'm afraid I don't have a regiment.

I served as a private during the war.

Oh?

Then you're a civilian?

Reggie was awfully tempted to stay on and go into pharmaceuticals.

I suppose one of the few things one can do for this country now is to help them fight the battle of disease.

And poverty.

I sometimes think that's exaggerated.

Most of the Indians one knows could buy one up lock, stock and barrel.

There are the ones one doesn't know.

In the villages, Mr. Perron, every peasant woman has her gold bangles.

No, it isn't poverty.

It's the disease, the superstition, the inertia... Bang!

(train whistle blows) (screeching and clattering) (train screeches to a halt) (commotion from carriages) Reggie, see what you can see-- there's nothing on this side.

Probably a cow on the line.

(train whistle blows) SUSAN: I remember a cow on the line.

Don't you, Sarah?

SARAH: Yes, I remember.

SUSAN: I remember the train stopping and Daddy saying just what Mrs. Peabody has said: "Probably a cow on the line."

Where was it?

SARAH: Between Ranpur and Delhi, 1930.

Ranpur and Delhi!

"There's so much poetry in Indian names."

Ronnie used to say that.

Where's your home at home, Mrs. Peabody?

Northamptonshire, outside Norby.

Norby.

That's what I mean.

And mother says she's found a house at Epsom!

It sounds like an aperient.

MEN: Jai Hind!

Jai Hind!

AHMED: Major Peabody, would you pull down the shutters and close the windows on your side, please?

Mrs. Grace, please, on yours.

What's wrong, Ahmed?

What is it, Ahmed?

Nothing much.

Just some silly people.

What are you doing?

Baking us alive or something?

(men shouting) Hope you don't mind.

Yes, I do mind.

For heaven's sake, it's hot enough in here!

Come, play hide-and-seek with Chokrasahib.

(speaking Urdu) Look, Edward, Ayah's hiding.

EDWARD: I don't want to play.

It's a silly game!

No, it isn't.

Come on, help Ayah hide.

Pretend bad people are looking for her.

Now, look here, Kasim...!

(glass shatters) (woman screams) It's only a game, okay?

Ayah is pretending to hide from bad people.

Major Peabody, would you climb over and take Ayah's seat so no one can see her?

Take the boy, Sarah.

Reggie, what are you doing?

God knows what anyone's doing!

Must be some kind of damned demonstration.

MEN: Kasim!

What are they doing?

What do they want?

Kasim!

Kasim!

Kasim Sahib!

Come!

Come out!

(chanting): Kasim!

Kasim!

Kasim!

Kasim!

(breaking glass) Do we have to break in?!

Annoy the sirs and ladies?!

Come, Kasim!

Come out!

It seems to be me they want.

Be ready to lock the door.

What?

Kasim!

Sorry to disturb you, sirs, ladies.

On to Ranpur, isn't it?

(Susan crying) It's all right now.

Isn't it, Major Peabody?

(sobbing) Ayah can come out now.

Yes, yes... (engine starts up) (sobbing) Reggie, do you think we might have some light and air?

I think I might be going to faint.

Only on your side.

Here, we have a great lot of broken glass.

It was my side I was thinking of.

Perhaps you'd help, Mr. Perron.

I don't like that game.

Is it over?

Yes, it's over.

Where's Ahmed?

Has he gone to pee again?

Why is Mummy crying?

We just let him go... We all of us sat here and let him go!

(train whistle blows) (shrieking) (screaming) (shouting) You keep them in here, Perron.

They mustn't come out on the platform.

But I must.

I think not.

I'm sorry, Peabody, but I've got to go back to where Ahmed got out.

There's nothing to go back for.

I saw.

They were killing all the Muslims.

Hacking them to pieces.

GUY: Then I must get to a phone and ring Mirat.

It's only an hour away.

We can't just leave it like that.

Someone's got to go back.

But they might turn on us when they take it in, decide it's our fault.

You'd better stay here and look after the women.

I'm going to find out what's happening.

It's all right, Major Peabody.

Let Mr. Perron do what he wants.

I'll stand by the door.

You'd better lock it behind us.

There's no need to lock it now.

Stand back, please!

Give them room, stand back!

Please, stand back.

Oh, my God!

Ho Allah!

I'm going to find Movement Control and telephone Mirat.

(hubbub of chatter in Hindi) Excuse me!

I told you before.

I cannot allow private calls of any nature.

It's for the Chief Minister of Mirat.

I'm trying to raise Mirat.

The lines may be down.

Please go away!

It's no use, old chap.

(argues in Hindi) If you get Mirat, please tell them that Ahmed Kasim, the son of Mohammed Ali Kasim, must be presumed dead.

Ahmed Kasim?

Who is Ahmed Kasim?

He was traveling with us.

Then why is he presumed dead?

You're First Class, surely.

Please go away.

What is one man among so many?

Let's try the Station Master.

He's worse than this chap.

Sardarji, sardarji!

MAN: We could hear them smashing the shutters and windows and there was nothing we could do!

You know, we could be stuck here all day.

What do we do when it gets dark?

They're savages!

Absolute savages!

What do you expect?

I tell you, this is only the beginning.

Nonviolence?!

It makes you laugh.

Would you like some tea?

No, thank you.

I tried to get a message through to Mirat, but it's very difficult.

Where's Sarah?

She's gone to see what she can do to help.

I let her.

It was what she wanted.

Okay, thank you.

(speaking Hindi) (people moaning, crying) (moaning) (speaks Hindi) Are you a doctor?

No, I wish to God I were.

Water is the problem.

Some of them are dying of thirst.

Tap is just down there, please.

(speaks Hindi) Come on, let me take over.

No, I'm all right doing this.

I can't do the other thing.

But if you can, please do.

Pani... pani... (footsteps approaching) Have you seen Miss Layton?

I seem to have lost her.

She's in there, changing.

The others are still in the women's room, I suppose.

Would you like some malted milk?

No, thank you.

There's a spare sandwich or two here.

I don't want anything to eat, thank you.

You ought to eat.

Especially if you're going back.

I've just been having a word with Bob Blake.

He'll take you if you still want to go.

Who's Bob Blake?

OC refugee protection in the cantonment.

Ah.

They got here a little while ago.

I told him what happened to Kasim.

He's ringing the Station Commander in Mirat.

He'll be here to have a word with you presently, I shouldn't wonder.

There can't be much you can do, but you seemed keen, so I told Bob.

SARAH: Have you had a drink?

I offered him one but he didn't want it.

I meant a real drink.

I don't want a real drink either.

Sorry to scrounge.

Could I have a cigarette?

Yes, I'm sorry.

Are you really going back?

Are you asking me not to?

Do you want help in Ranpur?

No.

No, I want to go back too, but I can't.

I can't let Aunt Fenny cope alone.

They'll hear soon at the palace what happened to Ahmed.

Someone ought to go back to try to tell them how it did.

Ahmed and I... We weren't in love.

But we loved one another.

At that tap, filling those bloody jars...

I never hated myself so much as I did then.

My brave little memsahib act!

And I hated him for not keeping the door locked and telling us he damned well wasn't going to die.

I'm sure he smiled just before he went.

And I'm sure he said, "It seems to be me they want."

Major Peabody said he just told him to lock the door.

But I think that's because that's what he wanted to hear.

I'm sure he smiled.

What else could we have done?

Nothing.

Nothing we could do.

It's like Daphne Manners.

Like Hari Kumar.

After 300 years of India.

We've made this whole damned, bloody, senseless mess.

I'm sorry, Guy.

I'm sorry too.

Mr. Perron?

How do you do?

Guy, this is Major Blake.

How do you do?

I'm going back in about 15 minutes.

Will you be ready?

If you want to come.

Yes, yes, I've only got to change.

You'll be quite safe for the rest of the journey, Miss Layton.

I'm putting on a whole platoon.

Thanks.

I'll dig out your luggage, Guy.

It's on the top berth.

I've been on to the Station Commander at Mirat.

Count Bronowsky's on his way now to the place where the bodies are.

Is there any possibility that Kasim got away?

I don't think so.

Peabody saw it all.

Where were you traveling, Mr. Perron?

Pankot?

Just to Ranpur for the celebrations.

Any urgency?

No, none at all.

Well, I'll help in any way I can to get you away again.

Thank you.

By the way, did you see the chalk mark on the door?

Chalk mark?

Miss Layton noticed it.

Someone chalked a moon on the side of the carriage.

It must have been done in Mirat.

To show which part of the train Kasim got into.

Yours was the only First Class compartment they attacked.

Look, I'll send a chap to sort out your bags and bring them over.

Thank you.

Oh, is this yours, old chap?

Yes, thank you.

And that?

I'll take it back with me to Mirat.

Shall I see you again?

I don't know.

What is there to see?

A great deal.

(engine roaring) GUY: "Dear Sarah, "I started this in the airport lounge on my way home "and probably won't finish it before we take off.

"On Thursday in Mirat, I talked to Dmitri.

"Before I left, he asked me to give you his love, "and then made us sit for a moment on a couch and say nothing."

"Shall I see Mirat again?

"But I thought today in Ranpur "of solving once and for all the mystery of Hari Kumar.

"If he is a mystery.

"I went with that little piece of paper "on which Nigel had written words and numbers, "establishing a place where Hari might be found.

"It wasn't easy.

"The taxi driver demanded extra money "for coming to such a spot, "and the bizarre dialect was difficult for me to understand.

"The usual beggars, the appalling smell of animal and human ordure."

Hello, sir.

Hello, hello.

Do you know this place?

Yes, I know this place.

Yes?

Come!

(speaks Hindi) (shouts in Hindi) Come, sir.

Come, up the stairs... Look here.

Kumar Sahib!

(speaks Hindi) (speaks Hindi) (speaks Hindi) What is he saying?

He is saying that man has gone to work.

Ask him when he's coming back.

(speaks Hindi) (speaks Hindi) This man cannot say when he's coming.

Well, when he comes...

Yes?

Will you bring him this?

Yes sir, I bring it for your friend.

Good.

And here is baksheesh for you.

No, sir, not to worry.

Come, I show you taxi.

Thank you.

GUY: "But I didn't know, Sarah, what harm or good I'd done.

"Have done.

"What the boy will tell him of a man who came and went, "a visitor from another world, Perron Sahib.

"One of the departing Raj who left his card.

"On to Delhi, then, "for that long-awaited moment of independence, "though even as the celebrations approach, "the division of the spoils continues.

"The riots and the awful killings are still going on.

"All we can do, Sarah, is hope.

"Hope for the future, for the millions, and for India's tomorrow."

(crowd shouting) NEHRU: Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge.

Not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awaken to light and freedom.

(applause) The moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

(crowd cheering) (fire crackling) The original version of The Jewel in the Crown, including Alistair Cooke host segments, is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.