The flood had retreated; the work had not.
From the veranda of the Canal Bungalow, the fields beyond Sandalbar looked like a vast sheet of tarnished metal, pitted with pools where the water still lingered. The evening sun caught each puddle and cast it back in broken pieces, as if the land were trying to remember it had once been solid.
Inside, Jinnah sat at the large teak desk that had come with the Bungalow, a relic from some earlier engineer who had believed furniture could outlast rivers.
The study smelled of damp paper, disinfectant, and tired ink.
Ledgers lay open in front of him: columns of wheat purchased, rations issued, seed loans promised. On another corner of the desk sat the day's medical report—Dr. Cartwright's precise, slanted hand listing fevers, suspected dysentery cases, and, next to the word "cholera," a single line:
Initial cluster contained. No new cases in 48 hours.Risk remains acute due to polluted standing water.
Beside that, a separate note in Evelyn's sharper script:
If the Crown intends to do anything, this is when. Not after.
Jinnah picked up his pen.
The sheet he had chosen bore his name in a modest embossed script at the top—"M. A. Jinnah, Sandalbar Estate, Montgomery." It looked absurdly private and domestic for what he now had to write.
He began with the formal heading, each stroke measured.
TO: HIS EXCELLENCY, THE GOVERNOR OF PUNJAB, LAHOREFROM: M. A. JINNAH, SANDALBAR ESTATE, MONTGOMERY
Then came the salutation.
H.E. Sir,
He paused.
Outside, somewhere beyond the window, a Farabi's whistle sounded—two short notes, the patrol signal. The estate now had its own music: bells for assembly, whistles for shifts, the faint clicking of Pinto's wireless key in the hut below.
You are writing to the man who holds the legal fiction of this entire territory in his pocket, Bilal said quietly in his mind. Make sure he does not feel you are trying to take it from him.
"I am not," Jinnah thought back. "I am trying to keep his fiction from drowning in its own neglect."
He leaned over the page.
My purpose in writing is to provide Your Excellency with a full, frank, and early appraisal of the situation in the Eastern Tehsil following the recent canal breach, a report I trust will not be inconsistent with that rendered by Commissioner Harrington.
He preferred the word "frank" to "humble" or "loyal." It was more honest and, in its own way, more respectful.
He continued, the rhythm of legal prose settling over him like a familiar robe.
The entire population and primary food stocks of ten low-lying villages are now evacuated and housed within the precincts of the Sandalbar Estate. While my resources were adequate to purchase the standing crop and provide immediate shelter, the continued maintenance of this displaced population is a burden that exceeds the capacity of any private concern.
He glanced at the ledger of wheat purchases. The numbers were sobering even to him—rows of maunds and rupees that, under ordinary circumstances, would have impressed a banker.
Now they represented something else: an IOU written to an entire swathe of countryside.
We require, with utmost urgency, significant consignments of medical supplies.
He underlined "utmost" once, then thought better of it and let the ink stand without emphasis. A lawyer's instincts warned him against performing urgency. Better to let the facts carry their own weight.
He lifted Cartwright's report, scanning the lines again.
The first cholera cases had come in quietly: a child with vomiting, a woman with sunken eyes and rice-water stool. Evelyn had recognized it at once. Cartwright, summoned from Montgomery with a small trunk of supplies, had arrived cursing the canal and praising providence that at least someone here knew how to boil water properly.
For two days, the clinic had felt like the eye of a storm inside a storm.
Chlorinated water, strict isolation, latrines and ash—the crude system that he, Evelyn, Mary, and the Farabis had imposed now stood between the refugees and a graveyard of hurried pits.
He dipped his pen again.
Dr. Cartwright reports that while the initial cholera outbreak was contained—a fact owing entirely to the immediate chlorination efforts of my staff—the risk remains acute due to the vast amounts of stagnant water now covering the fields. I currently manage the only functioning isolation ward in the area, but if the outbreak widens, my limited supply of saline and anti-typhoid vaccine will prove catastrophically inadequate.
He did not add what Bilal murmured in the back of his mind—that they were one ruptured barrel or one contaminated hand away from disaster.
He stated only what he could prove.
He went on.
These ten villages are currently under the administrative care of the Sandalbar Estate, operating by verbal consent of the District Commissioner. You may be assured that every displaced person is being treated according to the highest standards of hygiene and order. However, I must request that your office dispatch a fully equipped medical unit to this district within the week, both to relieve my staff and to officially take charge of the public health crisis that is now beyond the capacity of private charity.
He let the phrase "officially take charge" sit there for a moment.
You are inviting them back onto their own stage, Bilal observed. Politely reminding them the curtain has been held open for them, not closed.
"That is the idea," Jinnah thought.
The harder part came next.
He knew how this letter would sound in Lahore: an Indian barrister with his own estate, his own guards, his own wireless sets, now claiming ten villages "under his care." Somewhere in the file rooms of the Home Department, the words "state within a state" would be forming like mildew.
He could not ignore that.
He addressed it head-on.
I understand, Your Excellency, that such an unprecedented assumption of public charge by a private entity may raise questions regarding my motives and loyalties. Permit me to say this plainly: The trust you place in me regarding this matter can be exactly the same as the trust I have always upheld when standing before the Privy Council—that is, trust founded entirely upon transparent action and unimpeachable regard for the law.
He paused, letting the sentence dry.
That line was not merely rhetoric. It was a reminder: he was not some zamindar raising a private army in the jungle. He was the same man who had argued British law before British judges and had never, to his knowledge, abused that trust.
You are staking your protection on your transparency, Bilal said softly.
"There are worse shields," Jinnah replied in thought. "Guns rust. Paper does not forget."
The closing came easily.
The object is simple: order and life. I trust you will permit us the tools to secure both.
He signed:
Your obedient servant,M. A. Jinnah
For a moment, he stared at the word "obedient."
You are obedient to the idea of order, Bilal noted. Whether the Empire deserves the credit for it is another question.
"Let them read what they prefer to see," Jinnah thought. "As long as they send the medicines."
He sanded the letter, folded it with care, and sealed it.
Outside, in the dimming light, a wireless message crackled away to Montgomery: a simple, practical signal—"LETTER TO GOVERNOR DISPATCHED STOP REQUEST MEDICAL COLUMN WITHIN WEEK STOP SITUATION STABLE BUT TENSE STOP".
The estate breathed around him: lamps being lit, children herded into tents, Farabis changing shifts at the gate.
He had done what a barrister did best—laid out facts, exposed risks, and offered the Crown a choice cloaked as a request.
Now he had to wait and see whether an Empire could be persuaded to act by something as fragile as a letter from a flooded estate.