Two weeks after the first lane was sealed, the cholera curves began to bend.
Not dramatically. Not cleanly. But enough that even cautious doctors started using words like "plateau" in their reports.
Government House called another meeting.
This time, the atmosphere in the small council chamber felt different: less panic, more calculation.
The Governor sat at the head of the table, flanked by the Premier and the Health Member. Harrington stood by a large chart pinned to a board; Jinnah sat slightly to one side, a stack of wireless summaries before him.
On the chart, two lines crawled across the weeks:
One for Lahore district.
One for Montgomery.
Both had risen sharply after the floods. Both now showed a wobbling, downward drift.
"We must be careful not to celebrate too early," Harrington said. "Under-reporting is still a risk. But compared to three weeks ago, we are seeing fewer new cases in the wards where the scheme has been implemented fully."
She tapped a set of circles drawn on the map.
"These areas," she said, "with active local sanitary councils, functioning cordons, and Farabi support, are stabilising. Those without are… patchier."
The Health Member cleared his throat.
"We must also note," he said, "that the weather is changing. The worst heat is passing. Historically, cholera waves often diminish as the season turns."
The Premier nodded vigorously.
"Quite," he said. "We should not attribute everything to our measures. The people will say we are boasting over their misfortune."
He is already preparing the story that absolves and flatters at once, Bilal murmured.
The Governor glanced at the Premier, then at the chart.
"Weather has helped," Sir Geoffrey said. "But it did not change the fact that some wards improved faster than others. Those wards coincide rather neatly with your 'offensive' measures, Mr. Jinnah and Harrington."
He turned back to Harrington.
"You said 'fully implemented'," he said. "Explain."
"In some wards," he replied, "the sanitary councils exist only on paper. The imam agrees, but the granthi never shows up. The pandit preaches cleanliness but continues to bless the same old well. The folk singers were never recruited. The local councillor 'forgets' to close lanes. In those places, the Farabis are either kept at arm's length or used as decorative guards."
"And in others?" the Governor asked.
"In others," Harrington said, "the clergy speak plainly. The singers perform the songs. The cordons are respected. The Farabis act as both muscle and reporters. Those are the wards where the decline is steepest."
The Premier shifted.
"Even so," he said, "publicly we must present this as a joint success. Government leadership, medical advice, public cooperation, favourable weather…"
Jinnah's voice cut through the sentence, quiet but firm.
"Call it what you like in your speeches," he said. "So long as the corpses do not return when the next monsoon comes."
The Premier stiffened.
"You do not value the importance of public narrative, Mr. Jinnah," he said. "If we confess that we were saved only by one estate's experiment, what does that make of the Unionist Party's years of governance?"
"A warning," Jinnah said. "Not to confuse years in office with competence in crisis."
The Premier's eyes flashed.
"I will not have you imply—"
"Gentlemen," the Governor interjected. "This is not an election rally."
Silence fell.
Sir Geoffrey looked at the chart again.
"The Unionist Party will say," he said slowly, "that cholera was already nearing the end of its natural arc. That the floodwaters receded. That the air cooled. That your measures, while helpful, were not decisive."
"That is their right," Jinnah said coolly. "Cholera will not sue them for libel."
"And what," the Governor asked, "is your own judgement?"
Jinnah did not hesitate.
"My judgement," he said, "is that nature began the retreat, and our measures turned it into something more than luck."
He tapped the table lightly.
"If we had done nothing," he said, "your lines would still fall eventually. After claiming more lives. We have merely shortened the distance between peak and decline—and taught a few thousands that boiling water and reporting sickness are not foreign conspiracies."
He is careful not to overclaim, Bilal noted. You are not writing a pamphlet. You are recording a ledger.
The Health Member nodded reluctantly.
"There is another point," he added. "In the wards where the scheme worked best, there were fewer attacks on health workers. Fewer rumours of 'poisoned wells'. The Farabis' presence and the clergy's cooperation made the work… survivable."
"And in Montgomery city?" the Governor asked.
"Similar pattern," Harrington said. "Your Excellency will see in the summaries—"
She handed him a thin sheaf.
"—that the lanes with active inspection and enforcement are faring better than those left to 'natural course.'"
The Governor glanced at the top sheet.
"Montgomery Ward 7: previous daily average 10–12 new suspected cases; now 3–4. No recent deaths in lanes with sealed wells and enforced boiling rule. Adjacent ward without measures continues at 7–9."
He set the paper down.
"Very well," he said. "We will not argue over the proportions of credit today. The practical question is: how long do we maintain this heightened state?"
"Until we have four consecutive weeks of clear decline across all wards," Harrington said. "Then we can begin to step down cordons, turn auxiliary wards back into pure worship spaces. But the habits we have introduced—hand-washing, boiling, ash use—must be pushed longer. Otherwise, the next outbreak will arrive to find the ground prepared in all the wrong ways."
The Premier looked pained.
"You would keep Farabis embedded in our wards for over a month more?" he asked.
"Yes," Harrington said.
"And then?" he pressed. "They return to their estate and we pretend they were never there?"
Jinnah answered.
"They return to Sandalbar as agreed," he said. "But the wireless sets can remain. The local sanitary councils can remain. The clergy and singers will have already learned their lines. Your machine will have acquired a habit it did not have before."
"Or," the Premier said, "it will acquire a grudge. Officials do not like being watched."
"Officials," Jinnah replied, "do not have to like it to benefit from it."
The Governor smiled faintly.
"You are consistent, Mr. Jinnah," he said. "If nothing else."
Unionist Spin
Later that week, a short editorial appeared in a Lahore newspaper sympathetic to the Unionist Party. The headline was moderate, the tone soothing:
"CHOLERA WANING – PROVIDENCE AND PRUDENCE"
The article praised the Government for "steady leadership," thanked doctors and volunteers, mentioned "experimental measures in certain wards," and concluded that "with the receding of floodwaters and the merciful change of weather, the city can look forward to a gradual return to normalcy."
The word "Farabi" did not appear once.
Nor did "Sandalbar."
In a coffee house near the Mall, two young lawyers read the piece.
"See?" one said. "In the end, it is always the weather. Governments take credit, but the clouds do the real work."
The other shrugged.
"My cousin lives in Shahdara," he said. "He says those khaki men with rifles and radios did more than the clouds. Whatever the papers say."
At Sandalbar, Ahmed read the same editorial and snorted.
"They are already writing you out," he told Jinnah, who was going through a new batch of wireless reports.
"They are writing cholera out," Jinnah corrected. "I am merely collateral omission."
"And you are not angry?" Ahmed pressed.
Jinnah considered.
"Anger is free," he said. "But time is not. I prefer to spend mine on the next problem."
You also know, Bilal whispered, that the ones who matter most—the imams, the granthis, the women who learned to cover pits—carry a different version in their heads. Let the papers write half the story. The rest is written in the habits of hands.
The Governor, for his part, drafted his own circular to Simla and Delhi.
In it, he described an outbreak "managed with a combination of traditional public health practices and innovative local measures," noted that "Mr. M.A. Jinnah's Sandalbar experiment provided a useful model," and stressed that "the collaboration between Government, local religious authorities, and auxiliary enforcement demonstrates the value of flexible administration during crises."
It was a careful document: enough praise to acknowledge, enough distance to avoid suggesting that the Raj needed an Indian barrister to think for it.
Quiet Ledger
In the Emergency Control Room, the big chart on the wall acquired a new line: a thin, grey one, descending more steadily than the others.
Evelyn labelled it in small letters:
"Combined wards with full scheme applied."
She did not show it to the press. It was for her, for Jinnah, for the Governor, for the handful of officers and clerks who had lived through those first, wild weeks of resistance.
"History will argue," she said one evening, as they studied the lines. "Some will say it was us. Some will say it was the weather. Some will say it was God."
"History has room for all three," Jinnah replied. "I am content if my share remains in the footnotes and in the drains that do not overflow."
And in the next time, Bilal added. When someone, somewhere, facing another outbreak, remembers: 'Once, there was a scheme with songs and wires and wolves in lanes. We might try something like it.'
Jinnah did not answer aloud.
He merely picked up the latest Farabi report, marked "Bhati Gate Ward", and read:
"Today: no new cases. People still boiling water without being watched."
For a man who distrusted optimism, it was as close to a victory line as he allowed himself.