Mountbatten
Before dawn, Delhi did not sleep. It only lowered its voice.
Lord Louis Mountbatten stood at a tall window in Government House, watching the darkness thin into a colorless gray. The gardens below were still, deceptively orderly—trimmed hedges, silent paths, the geometry of an empire that had always believed it could arrange chaos into neat lines.
Beyond the walls, the city breathed in uneven pulses: a distant shout, a whistle, the faint metallic cry of a train somewhere far off, and then—silence again, like a pause before something breaks.
The previous night had been a pageant of unity. The next morning would be an accounting.
On a table behind him lay a stack of papers that refused to become history. Telegrams. Reports. Notes marked URGENT in more than one hand. Some came from provincial officers who were still using "His Excellency" out of habit. Some from British advisers who wrote with the crisp certainty of men who had never been trapped in a crowd.
Mountbatten turned back from the window. The room's lamps made islands of light in a sea of shadow. On the nearest sheet, underlined twice, a phrase repeated like a polite threat:
PROPRIETARY ACCESS.
He disliked the phrase. It sounded commercial, harmless. It was neither.
His military instinct—old, reliable—told him the same thing it had told him in war: communications was not a convenience. It was control.
He picked up the note again, reading it not as a diplomat but as a commander.
Emergency communications access—alternate authorization route identified. Requesting signature from ministerial secretary.
Bypassing the Prime Minister. Bypassing the chain of command. Pushing urgency through the cracks.
A knock.
His aide entered—trim, hurried, eyes too awake for the hour. "Your Excellency, the advisers are here. And there is a call from London—if you wish to take it."
London. Always London. The last invisible hand that still wanted to feel a pulse here.
Mountbatten hesitated, then shook his head. "Later."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
The aide lingered, then added carefully, "There were reports overnight—Delhi station was close to a breach. It appears Patel was present. And…" He paused. "The Prime Minister himself."
Mountbatten's brow tightened. "He went personally."
"Yes."
Mountbatten exhaled. That was either bravery or theatre—or the kind of instinct that made a man dangerous because it made him unpredictable.
He walked to the table and picked up another sheet. It was not official, merely typed and circulated—one of those memos that appear from nowhere and pretend they were always there.
Continuity of expertise required. Indian personnel not fully trained. Temporary access essential.
Temporary. A word that had lived a long life in colonial administration. Temporary commissions. Temporary emergency powers. Temporary exceptions.
Temporary arrangements had a way of outliving the men who signed them.
The aide cleared his throat. "Your Excellency, if I may—Patel will not tolerate foreign access being framed as authority. He will see it as intrusion. Nehru may be persuaded, but he will not publicly support something that looks like a leash."
Mountbatten nodded slowly. "And Ram Gupta?"
The aide's expression flickered—uncertainty, a rare thing in a man trained to provide certainty. "He is… not a known quantity, Your Excellency. He speaks like an administrator, but there is something else. A hardness that does not feel ideological. It feels… personal."
Mountbatten felt the word settle: hardness.
He had met many hard men—soldiers, administrators, revolutionaries. Hardness could build a state quickly. It could also crack it from within.
He moved to the mantel where a map lay unfolded—India, still awkwardly drawn into new shapes, borders the world pretended were clean. His finger traced the Punjab corridor, the rail lines like arteries that could be severed by rumor alone. He traced Delhi, the capital that had become a funnel for grief.
If the communications grid failed—if orders did not travel—then everything else became improvisation.
Improvisation was where massacres grew.
Mountbatten had not survived war by trusting improvisation.
He turned back to the table. "Bring the advisers in."
Two men entered, both British, both dressed with the quiet confidence of those who had always assumed the state would listen. They spoke in measured tones—technical, reasonable, inevitable. They offered the same argument in different coats:
Complex system. Short timeline. Risk of failure. Need for access.
Mountbatten listened without interrupting, then asked one question.
"Supervised access is possible," he said. "Why are they insisting on proprietary control?"
One adviser smiled, patient. "Your Excellency, supervision becomes obstruction. If the engineers must wait for approvals, the system will not stabilize in time. The unrest—"
"Unrest," Mountbatten repeated, and the word tasted like smoke. "Yes."
He glanced again at the bypass note. Alternate authorization routes. Pressure applied where it would not be seen.
He dismissed the advisers with a short nod. When they left, his aide leaned in slightly.
"Your Excellency," the aide said, "if the Prime Minister refuses, the advisers will push through other signatures. They already have their routes."
Mountbatten's gaze sharpened. "I know."
He looked again at the window. Dawn was coming, pale and indifferent.
He had wanted this transfer to be remembered as graceful.
He was beginning to suspect it would be remembered as violent.
Mountbatten straightened his cuffs. Decision settled like a buttoned jacket.
"Prepare the meeting," he said. "And ensure it is private. No press. No clerks who talk."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"And one more thing," Mountbatten added quietly. "Send word that I expect Prime Minister Gupta alone."
The aide hesitated. "Patel will come."
Mountbatten's mouth tightened. "Then he comes. But I will not be surprised."
He walked out of the room and into the corridor, footsteps soft on polished floors. The building still held the posture of empire. But posture did not stop history.
By the time he reached the meeting room, the sky beyond the arches had begun to brighten.
A new day.
A new country.
And an argument that would decide, quietly, how much of the old country still lived inside the new.
Ram
By first light, the crisis desk had the exhausted rhythm of a battlefield hospital.
Men spoke in clipped phrases. Telegrams arrived in waves. Lists of rice sacks and water tanks were updated like casualty counts. The fan overhead rotated endlessly, moving warm air over warm bodies.
Ram had not slept. He had not even tried.
The bypass note sat in his pocket like a stone.
Alternate authorization route identified. Requesting signature from ministerial secretary.
The state had been born less than a day, and already someone was trying to slip a chain around its throat.
Patel appeared at the doorway, crisp despite fatigue, as if exhaustion was a private matter he refused to share with chaos.
"The Governor-General requests you," Patel said. "First light. Communications. Continuity."
Ram rose. "He asked for me alone."
Patel's eyes narrowed. "And you believed him?"
Ram didn't answer. He picked up the official seal, felt its cold certainty, and tucked it away.
Patel stepped closer. "Remember what I told you."
"No vengeance in uniform," Ram said. "No punishment by rumor. Restraint."
Patel nodded. "And in meetings like this—no anger that gives them a handle. Calm is also a weapon."
Ram gave one deliberate nod. "Come."
Patel didn't smile. He simply fell into step at Ram's right.
The car ride to Government House felt shorter than it should have. Perhaps because Delhi itself seemed to be holding its breath. Smoke still hung in pockets. Refugees still moved along the roads like slow rivers. Police stood at corners with the stiff posture of men instructed not to blink.
At the gates, British guards were still present—not as rulers, but as remnants. Their salutes were correct. Their eyes were curious.
Inside, the corridors were too clean. The air smelled of polish and flowers, not sweat and fear. It felt like stepping into a room that believed violence was something that happened elsewhere.
A staff member led them to a private meeting room.
Mountbatten was already there.
He stood when Ram entered, expression controlled, diplomatic. But his eyes assessed like a commander's.
"Prime Minister," Mountbatten said. "Sardar Patel. Thank you for coming so early."
Ram took the seat offered, neither deferential nor rude. Patel sat slightly to his side—close enough to anchor, far enough to let Ram speak first.
"Your Excellency," Ram said. "You requested a meeting on communications arrangements."
Mountbatten nodded. "Yes. I will be direct. The transition is fragile. The unrest is serious. Your administration needs a stable communications backbone immediately. The advisers recommend a temporary access arrangement to ensure continuity."
"Proprietary access," Ram said, letting the phrase land without emotion.
Mountbatten's eyebrows lifted slightly. "A technical necessity, as I understand it."
Patel's voice was calm, but it carried the weight of a man who had never mistaken "technical" for "neutral."
"Nothing that touches state communications is merely technical," Patel said. "It is sovereignty."
Mountbatten's gaze flicked to Patel, then back to Ram. "Sovereignty is precisely why stability matters. A communications failure during violence will cost lives."
Ram's tone stayed even. "And a communications backdoor will cost the nation."
Mountbatten held still for a fraction too long, then spoke carefully. "Backdoor is a loaded term, Prime Minister."
Ram pulled the folded note from his pocket and placed it on the table.
"Then let us use plain language," Ram said. "A vendor representative sought my emergency signature for unsupervised access. When refused, an alternate authorization route was identified—through a ministerial secretary."
Mountbatten's expression did not change much. But something in his eyes tightened.
Patel added, "Bypassing the Prime Minister on the first day of independence is not continuity. It is intrusion."
Mountbatten exhaled slowly. "Prime Minister, you are reading intent into administrative urgency."
Ram's voice was quiet. "I am reading pattern."
Mountbatten leaned forward slightly. "I appreciate caution. But you must understand the practical reality. You do not yet have enough trained personnel. The equipment is complex. The advisers are trying to prevent a collapse."
Patel's question came cleanly, like a gavel.
"Then why must access be unsupervised?" Patel asked. "Why not joint supervision with logs?"
Mountbatten paused. "Supervision slows—"
"Good," Patel said. "It should slow. Speed without oversight is how corruption enters."
The room sharpened.
Mountbatten's gaze returned to Ram. "Prime Minister, you are asking to run a newborn state while refusing the expertise that keeps it functioning."
Ram didn't raise his voice. "I am refusing ownership disguised as expertise."
He took out a second paper—Sharma's drafted counter-proposal—and slid it across.
"Here is our arrangement," Ram said. "Foreign engineers may assist under joint supervision—Home, Intelligence, and an Indian engineer present. Access logged daily. No private keys, no sealed compartments. Violations terminate the contract."
Mountbatten read, face composed. When he finished, he set it down carefully.
"This is… restrictive," he said.
"It is protective," Ram replied.
Mountbatten's tone cooled by a degree. "Prime Minister, I must also consider Britain's obligations—assets, personnel safety, and the broader stability of the region. If communications fail and violence expands, history will not be kind."
Ram's voice remained level. "History is rarely kind. That is not a reason to surrender control."
A thin silence stretched.
Then Mountbatten asked, almost casually, "Is this your view, Prime Minister? Or Sardar Patel's?"
Patel did not move. But Ram felt the intended wedge.
Ram answered without hesitation. "It is mine."
Patel's eyes flicked to Ram for a fraction of a second—approval without sentiment—then returned to Mountbatten.
Mountbatten held Ram's gaze longer now. "You are a decisive man."
"I am a responsible man," Ram said.
Mountbatten leaned back slightly. "Then you understand that responsibility includes outcomes. If your restrictions delay stabilization and there are failures—"
Patel's voice cut in, not loud, just final. "Then the failures will be ours, not engineered into us."
Mountbatten's jaw tightened. "Sardar Patel, you speak as if help is always a plot."
Patel's reply was calm and devastatingly simple. "Help that demands control is not help."
Mountbatten looked down at the proposal again, as if hoping the words would soften under repeated reading. They did not.
When he looked up, his expression had shifted from persuasion to calculation.
"Very well," Mountbatten said. "I will not oppose supervised access, provided it is implemented without delay. But I must insist that the administration not harass technical personnel under suspicion."
Ram nodded once. "No harassment. Only oversight."
Patel added, "And no bypass attempts. If another authorization route is used, it will be treated as sabotage."
Mountbatten's gaze tightened. "Sabotage is also a loaded term."
Patel's voice did not change. "Then do not do it."
Another pause.
Outside the window, the sun finally broke the horizon, a thin blade of light across the gardens. Beautiful, indifferent.
Mountbatten rose. "Prime Minister, Sardar—India is beginning under strain. The world is watching. I hope you understand that your choices now will shape not only your state, but your reputation."
Ram stood as well. "My reputation is not the subject. Survival is."
Mountbatten gave a small nod. "Then we are done."
As they turned to leave, Mountbatten spoke once more—softly, almost as if he did not want his own words to echo.
"Prime Minister… do not let fear of capture make you hostile to every hand offered."
Ram paused at the door. Patel stayed still beside him.
Ram answered without looking back. "I will accept hands. Not chains."
They left Government House and stepped into the morning air, which already smelled faintly of smoke.
Patel spoke when they reached the car, voice low. "He tested you."
Ram nodded. "And we held."
Patel's eyes stayed on the road ahead. "Today will test you harder."
Ram's fingers found the seal again, through cloth, as if checking the state's heartbeat.
"It already is," Ram said.
As the car moved back toward the Secretariat, a runner waited at the gates with a fresh telegram. Kishan took it, read quickly, and his face tightened.
"Prime Minister Sahib," Kishan said, passing it back, "from the crisis desk."
Ram read.
ATTEMPTED SIGNATURE REQUEST REPEATED—DIFFERENT OFFICE. SAME WORDING.
Ram folded the telegram with slow care.
Mountbatten's meeting had been polite. The real fight was not polite at all.
It was already trying again.