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Alfriston is a charming village to visit. Lord Amulree invited me to spend a week-end at an abandoned coastguard station, National Trust property, on the cliffs a mile or so to the south-west of Alfriston. At the pub called The Tiger I heard a yokel say, “Yes, my boy's regiment has been posted abroad. Some place they call the Khyber.” He hadn't heard of it, but I had; the name Khyber Pass was as familiar to my ears as were the words ‘Gordon Highlanders’ or ‘Kitchener’ or the ‘Relief March to Khartoum’. Historical debris, like the ‘Ridge’ on which was our old house in Delhi years after it had been the home of the British Army quelling the ‘Mutiny’, and of General Dyer who ‘saved India by a timely order to fire’ at Amritsar. Of course some Indians got killed, but India was ‘saved’. My parents found it most disturbing when their son began to believe stories that General Dyer's troops lost their heads and opened fire – and continued to fire their machine guns into the dense and helpless crowd of Indians milling around in the restricted square.
‘Massacre’ is a word; but the thing of which it is the name is … is … well, it depends on your point of view. After long experience I found that there was an artist who could show me the beauty of a butcher's shop. I would not have noticed that the Little House in Delft was beautiful if Vermeer had not drawn my attention to it. So why is it that I remained blind to the beauties of a massacre at Amritsar or of the preservation of soldierly discipline even when provoked by the helplessness of a crowd?
What has all this got to do with your friend at Alfriston?
One day I was alone at The Gold Cross, a pub at Alfriston whose unpretentious appearance could not compete with the rival, wood-timbered elegance of The Star. Baudelaire's description of the useless
glitter of a distant star and the unapproachable majesty of the beautiful woman, shows better than I could ever do the fundamental superiority of the comfort of The Golden Cross in c