By morning, no one on Sandalbar could pretend they had not heard about the new rules.
The bell had rung. The Sahib had spoken. The doctor had spoken. Even the Havildar had spoken, which in itself meant more than most speeches.
Now came the part everyone liked less than sermons: work.
1. Mary's Parade of Shame
Mary arrived in the yard holding a broom like a spear.
She had tied her dupatta back tightly, apron knotted over her dress, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Behind her walked two Farabis with shovels slung over their shoulders and expressions that suggested they weren't sure which was worse—bandits or this.
"Listen up!" Mary called.
Her voice did not boom like Jinnah's, but it carried—a tone perfected by years of coaxing crowded wards into lines and bull-headed men into taking their medicines.
A cluster of men near the ration queue glanced her way, then quickly looked back as if maybe she was calling someone else.
"You lot," she said pointedly, jabbing her broom in their direction. "Yes, you, Baba with the brown turban. You too, with the white cap. This is your lucky day. You get to be important."
The men looked at one another, suspicious.
"Important for what, Sister?" one asked warily.
"Important for not killing your own children," Mary said briskly. "Doctor Evelyn says the pits will be here by evening. Until then, all of you"—she circled her broom to include as many as possible—"are on covering duty."
She nodded to the Farabis.
"Show them."
Rahim and Balvinder stepped forward, shovels thudding into the dirt.
"In plain words," Mary continued, "this is what you will do. You will go to that horrible strip of ground you've been using"—she pointed squarely at the scrub belt—"and you will bury what you have left there. Properly. With soil. Deep enough that even the flies must go somewhere else."
Murmurs. Embarrassed laughter. A young man coughed and pretended not to understand.
"Sister, this is women's work," someone muttered.
Mary pinned him with a stare.
"Oh? It was women who left it there?" she asked, eyebrows rising. "Interesting. Because from what I've seen, you men are very proud of doing it anywhere you like. Consider this a chance to clean your… pride."
A few of the women hiding behind shawls snorted.
Rahim bit back a smile. "She has you there, brothers," he said in Punjabi. "Come on. Better we bury it ourselves than have the English lady and this one point at us like we are naughty boys."
He hefted his shovel and strode toward the scrub.
Reluctance began to crack. A few men followed, then more. Some went out of sheer stubbornness—not wanting to look like cowards in front of the Farabis. Others, more quietly, out of a half-formed understanding that perhaps the nurse and the doctor knew what they were talking about.
Mary turned.
"As for you women," she said, raising her voice again, "your work is here." She gestured to the rolls of cloth and bamboo poles stacked near the clinic tent. "You will help build the privacy screens for the new pits. If you want safety, you must help create it."
A stout Sikh woman stepped forward first.
"What kind of safety?" she asked. "There are always men on the path."
"Not on this one," Mary said. "There will be lamps, and Farabis at a respectful distance. But the walls—the screens—that is on you. You know what makes you feel hidden. You know which gaps make you feel watched. Show us. We'll build it the way you say."
There was a murmur at that.
Safety was a word the men used in arguments. For the women, it was a feeling in the spine, a calculation performed every time they stepped away from the group. A place that did not feel like a risk did not exist by accident. It had to be designed.
One by one, they stepped up.
2. The Dirty Work
The scrub belt became a battlefield of a different sort.
Rahim planted his shovel, spat on his hands, and began to dig.
"Here," he said to the men hovering behind him. "You see this? Deep. Not a pretty little scratch. If I can still smell it, it's not deep enough."
The others watched, faces twisted in equal parts disgust and resignation.
"This is beneath our honour," someone grumbled.
Rahim snorted. "Your honour was not beneath it when you lifted your lungi yesterday," he said. "Do it properly now. Or Doctor Sahib says your children may be beneath the earth in a week. Pick."
It was crude. It was effective.
Soon, shovels multiplied. Where no tools were available, men used broken boards, old tins, even their hands wrapped in cloth. They worked in pairs—one loosening the earth, the other piling it over disturbed patches.
Flies rose and settled, annoyed at the disturbance.
"You know," Balvinder said as he wiped his brow, "in the war they made us do this every day. Pits, trenches, lime. We cursed them then. Now I see they were saving us from dying like dogs."
"Dogs are cleaner," Rahim muttered. "They don't live twenty to a tent."
They moved methodically, section by section, turning a scattering of careless filth into something at least temporarily contained.
From the path above, women watched with a complex mix of satisfaction and embarrassment.
"About time," one said under her breath. "Always us cleaning after them at home. Let them see how it feels."
Near the pumps, a few older men clucked their tongues disapprovingly at the sight—"Sahib has turned us into sweepers"—but even they did not step close enough to be conscripted.
By mid-morning, the worst of the exposed patches were gone, buried under fresh mounds of dirt stamped flat by bare feet.
The smell did not disappear, but it dulled, no longer a slap, more a lingering insult.
Evelyn passed by once, handkerchief to her mouth, and gave a curt nod.
"Better," she said. "Not enough. But better. Keep going."
It wasn't praise. But coming from her, it might as well have been a medal.
3. Women with Walls
On the other side of the yard, the atmosphere was different.
There were no shovels here, no choking stench. Instead, there were bolts of cloth, lengths of bamboo, rope made from twisted jute, and a small army of determined women.
Evelyn had set up a demonstration with Mary's help.
"Look," she said, crouching to draw lines in the dust with a stick. "This will be the path. Here, the pit area. Here, the screens. You tell me—how high do they need to be so you do not feel exposed? This high?" She held her hand at her shoulder. "Or this?" She raised it above her head.
"Higher," one woman said at once. "If a man is standing on the other side, I don't want his shadow creeping in."
There were nods.
"And the entrance?" Mary asked. "One big gap, or two smaller ones that turn?"
"Turn," a Muslim elder said firmly. "Like a 'L' shape. So no one can see straight in, even by accident."
Evelyn smiled faintly. "Good. That we can do."
Soon the air was filled with the crackle of cloth being cut and the rhythmic thud of bamboo poles being driven into the ground. Women measured by eye and arm-span, arguing cheerfully about whether the screens should be thick or light, tucked or loose.
"Loose screens will flap," one pointed out. "Then everyone will see."
"And too thick, we will get no breeze," another countered. "We will faint inside. We are not Englishwomen used to boxes."
"Then layers," a younger woman suggested. "Two cloths, a hand apart. If the outer one moves, the inner will still hide us."
Mary listened, impressed.
"You see, Doctor?" she murmured to Evelyn. "Give them the job and they design it better than any of us could."
"Women always know where eyes will try to go," Evelyn replied softly. "We pay the price for not knowing."
They worked in teams.
Some cut and hemmed cloth, using borrowed needles and thread. Others held poles steady while the Farabis hammered them in, taking care to avoid tree roots and to keep distance from the water sources. Children were banned from the area except as runners.
Within hours, the rough shape of the latrine compound emerged.
Two separate entrances, clearly marked.A line of tall screens hung between poles, forming a sheltered corridor.Space for pits beyond, still to be dug.A designated corner for ash and water pots.
It was not pretty. It was not meant to be. It was meant to feel safe.
When one particularly blunt-tongued woman suggested adding a third, smaller screened section "for those days of the month," there was a ripple of embarrassed laughter, then a surprising wave of agreement.
"Yes," Mary said at once. "Do it. If this estate is going to be new, it may as well be new properly."
She caught Evelyn's eye, and both women shared a fleeting, conspiratorial smile.