The cholera came to Lahore the way all disasters came to great cities: on the back of routine.
It began invisibly, in the heat that followed the rains. Water that had flooded courtyards and lanes in July now withdrew into gutters, nullahs, and shallow wells. Puddles shrank, but what they left behind did not vanish. It boiled quietly in handpumps and earthen pots, waiting.
By the time anyone used the word cholera aloud, half the city was already afraid to drink.
1. Lahore Drowning on Dry Land
In the old city, lanes that usually rang with hawkers now held a different sound: retching behind doors, the slap of bare feet running to fetch a hakeem or a doctor, the low, urgent mutter of prayers.
At Mayo Hospital the verandas were lined with charpoys. The beds inside were full; the beds outside were full; the spaces between the beds were filling with relatives squatting on their haunches, staring at the thin, shivering shapes under cotton sheets.
Buckets stood under cots, half-shadowed by hanging cloth, attended by exhausted orderlies and newly recruited volunteers. Carbolic acid and lime could not quite mask the sour tang of sickness and fear.
In the airy chamber of the Lahore Municipal Council, men in white suits and stained achkans argued over maps. Blue pencil lines marked wards. Red circles marked "clusters"—euphemism for neighbourhoods where too many bodies had been carried out in a week.
"We have printed notices," one councilor said in exasperation. "Boil water. Use latrines. Do not defecate near wells. Every mosque has read the advisory."
"Who is reading," another snapped, "when their children are dying?"
The Medical Officer pushed his spectacles up his nose with an ink-stained finger.
"We are sending teams to Shahdara as well," he said. "Cases across the river. The ferry ghats are infected. If we close the bridge, we strangle trade. If we leave it, we let the disease ride across."
"So we try to fight it everywhere and lose everywhere," someone muttered.
Outside, tongas rattled haphazardly toward hospital gates: bodies slumped, heads lolling, hands clutching stomachs as if they might hold life in by sheer will.
2. Shahdara: The First Spillover
Shahdara, with its gardens and the ghost of kings, did not escape.
In the small bazaar near the tomb, a child collapsed beside a sweet stall. By dusk, two more households were sick. By morning, the mosque committee argued with the local panchayat about whether to close the well.
"They say it is God's test," one man told the tahsildar's clerk, voice thick with anger and confusion. "But the doctor sahib says it is the water. Who do we offend if we stop drawing from it?"
"Whichever you choose," the clerk replied wearily, "someone will say you are wrong."
By the third day, a makeshift ward had been set up in the verandah of a school: charpoys in a row, clay vessels of boiled water cooling in the shade, a harassed sub-assistant surgeon barking at villagers to stop washing the sick with unboiled water from the same ghats that fed the disease.
The local committee did what it could. It was not enough.
3. Montgomery: A District Under Siege
In Montgomery, the disease did not arrive with drama. It arrived with the mail.
A report from a rural dispensary: "Three cases, two fatalities, symptoms consistent with cholera."Another from a canal-side village: "Several deaths of sudden onset—suspect water contamination."A telegram from the civil surgeon: "Outbreak confirmed. Urgent need for additional saline and staff."
In the district office, Harrington spread the papers out on his desk. Each report might as well have been written in blood.
On a rough district map, small crosses began to appear in pencil. Villages along the canal. Settlements clustered near ponds. Lines where people drew water without knowing they were drawing death.
He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Sir?" his assistant ventured. "Orders for the thanas?"
"Everything we can spare," Harrington said. "Tell them: warn people. Boil water. Stop bathing in the canals. Lime the wells. Coordinate with local committees. And send copies of the Lahore advisories to every tahsil office."
He knew even as he spoke that pieces of that chain would fail.
In one village, the chowkidar would never deliver the notice. In another, the poster would be pasted on the wall of a building nobody used. In a third, a mullah would call boiling water an insult to God's gift and half the congregation would nod.
The disease would not wait for bureaucracy to catch up.
Over the next ten days, the reports grew worse.
"Ten deaths in Basti Kalan—suspected cholera.""Twenty-five cases in Chak 179—no space in local hospital, sending to Montgomery.""Outbreak in weaver quarter. Children most affected."
At the Montgomery civil hospital, the corridors began to resemble Lahore's—cot after cot, every flat surface pressed into service. Saline dripped from makeshift stands. Nurses moved like ghosts in sweat-soaked uniforms.
Montgomery was not Lahore, with its municipal board and newspaper pressure. It had fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer beds, fewer sanitation officers. It had more distance between villages, more wells that no one monitored, more stubborn habits.
The situation moved from "serious" to "worse" faster than the file headings could change.
And then, in the middle of this creeping disaster, a strange pattern emerged.
4. Ten Villages That Did Not Break
On the big wall map in Harrington's office, nearly every part of the district had acquired some kind of mark—red crosses, underlined names, dates scrawled in the margins.
But there was a pocket—small, irregular, almost untidy in outline—that remained, day after day, mostly without marks.
Ten villages. The ones wrapped into Sandalbar's orbit.
At first, Harrington thought it was a clerical lag.
"Perhaps their reports are delayed," the civil surgeon suggested. "The mail lines are not always prompt from that side."
"Not from Sandalbar," Harrington said. "Jinnah's people send reports whether we ask for them or not."
Even so, he waited an extra day.
On the third day of waiting, a different kind of report arrived.
It was written in careful, almost teacherly Urdu, with neat columns and no dramatics.
"Village Chak 11-SB: Two suspected cases of severe diarrhoeal illness detected by women's health worker. Both isolated within three hours. Whole household placed under observation. Drinking water only from filtered tank. Neighbours informed. No further spread observed."
"Village Chak 13-SB: One case, elderly male, brought early to Sandalbar clinic. Rehydrated. Teaching given to family. Latrine pits limed."
"All ten villages: daily inspections by female health workers. Hand-washing and boiling protocols reinforced. No deaths to date attributed to cholera within Sandalbar cluster."
Underneath, a note in a different hand—Ahmed's—added:
"Farabi posts have reminded villagers: any household with sickness that fails to report at once will be removed from khaddar work lists. No cloth orders. No wages. No exceptions."
Harrington read that twice.
"Threatening them with livelihoods," the civil surgeon said, looking over his shoulder. "Harsh."
"It's not a threat," Harrington replied slowly. "It's an alignment of fear. They're afraid of the disease. They're also afraid of losing work. So they choose to fear both in the same direction."
He tapped the page.
"Who organized the women?" he asked.
"Dr Evelyn, Nurse Mary Anglo-Indian D'Souza woman," the Harrington said. "They trained local girls as health workers. Gave them notebooks instead of bangles. I thought it was a curiosity at first. Now…"
Now, it looked like a wall around ten small worlds.