“DO you people want peace or war? If you wish for war the Government is prepared for it, and if you want peace, then obey my orders and open all your shops; else, I will shoot. For me the battlefield of France or Amritsar is the same. I am a military man and I will go straight. Neither shall I move to the right, nor to the left. Speak up, if you want war. In case there is to be peace, my order is to open all shops at once. Obey orders. I do not wish to have anything else. I have served in the military for over thirty years. I understand the Indian sepoy and the Sikh people very well. You must inform me of the budmashes. I will shoot them. Obey my orders and open shops. Speak up if you want war.”
General Fyatt was talking to a large company of Amritsar’s native representatives, lawyers, merchants, doctors, in the kotwali, the day after the massacre.
The Deputy Commissioner added: “You have committed a bad act in killing the English. The revenge will be taken upon you and upon your children.”
The large company of natives listened. Not one spoke of the Jallianwalla Bagh, or of the dead which still lay there. Richard Cobden reasoned with himself; neither did he speak. Out of all the burn of feelings and the great waste of ineffectual thoughts, it was dawning upon him that in their own good time, the dead of Amritsar’s public square would speak for themselves.
In the days that followed Dicky worked quietly, worked from the standpoint of the English almost entirely. He “exposed” himself like a film to the aftermath of the tragedy. He went after facts and statements. It was never to be ascertained, the number of killed and injured. The English granted about three hundred dead; the natives claimed five times that, even more. He was much at Headquarters; and confined himself altogether to the Civil Lines. Through Lala Relu Ram, he received certain secret reports from the native point of view, and guarded these little tissues assiduously. A cigarette case contained them all.
He went each day to the Crawling Lane, as one doing a city beat for a newspaper would call at city hall or recorders’ court. This was the place where Miss Sherwood was assaulted by the natives, on the 10th. It was narrow and thickly populated, with double-story buildings on either side, and numerous blind alleys shooting out of the lane.
The crawling order remained in force for eight days. Although General Fyatt called it “going on all fours,” and it had been called the “hand and knee order” by the press, the process consisted in the persons lying flat on their bellies and crawling like reptiles. Any lifting of the knees or bending thereof brought the rifle butts of the soldiers and police on the native backs.
“But, General,” Dicky said cheerfully, “people are forced to crawl through there or go without food and medicine—people who have never seen Miss Sherwood, much less taken part in the assault.”
“She was beaten,” General Fyatt declared. “We look upon women as sacred.”
“Ah,” said the American.