Two days after the radio agreement, Jinnah was summoned again.
Not to the Governor's grand, wood-panelled study with its portraits and stiff hospitality, but to the smaller council chamber tucked deeper inside Government House. The difference was not decorative; it was procedural. The grand room was for visible decisions. This one was for the questions that could not yet afford witnesses.
A clerk led him down a narrower corridor, past shuttered windows and a cleaner smell of limewash and cold stone. The council chamber itself was a rectangle of echo, its high ceiling bare, its walls lined with maps and charts instead of paintings.
Punjab peeled apart on the plaster: canal networks like blue veins, railway schematics in black, agrarian census charts in red and brown. The nervous system of the Raj, pinned up in loops and grids.
Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency was already seated at the head of the table, hands clasped on the polished surface. There were no files in front of him today, no visible stack of telegrams from Delhi. That, Jinnah knew, meant that the matter was both important and unsettled.
He took the offered chair opposite, placing his hat precisely on the table beside him.
The Governor studied him for a moment, then cleared his throat.
"Muhammad," he began slowly, his voice echoing just enough to remind them they were alone with the building's bones, "your… proposal from our last meeting has been forwarded to Delhi."
Jinnah inclined his head very slightly.
"Fifty villages under coordinated management," Sir Geoffrey continued. "Seed trials. Medical licensing for your clinic. Radio facilities. Telecommunications support."
His mouth tightened.
"Preliminary responses are favourable."
No flicker passed over Jinnah's face. No smile, no sigh of relief. His stillness was almost infuriating to administrators used to supplicants.
You don't need to celebrate,Bilal remarked in his mind, you only need him to keep talking.
"But," the Governor said, the word dropping like a small stone into the space between them, "another issue has arisen. One that does not concern Delhi alone."
He leaned back, steepling his fingers.
"With Sandalbar expanding as it is," he said, "and with your so-called Farabis operating, effectively, as a local constabulary…"
He searched for the right phrase, one that acknowledged reality without dignifying it too much.
"…we find ourselves in an anomalous position. An armed force, recruited and directed by a private landholder, functioning in a significant territorial pocket, without formal army oversight."
He let the sentence hang.
There it is,Bilal said. The word he is afraid of is not 'anomalous.' It is 'mutiny.'
"We cannot," the Governor continued, "have such a force, however loyal it appears, operating in a vacuum. The Crown requires a measure of supervision over all organised arms within the province."
He leaned forward, the maps behind him making his shoulders look almost like part of the drawn frontier.
"I intend," he said, "to assign an army unit of ten officers — regular British officers, not sepoys — to oversee your estate's martial affairs. They will verify weapon ledgers, ammunition logs, training protocols, security measures. They will not command your Farabis directly, but they will have authority to inspect and to report."
His eyes narrowed a fraction.
"This is not meant to undermine you, Muhammad. It is… structural necessity. A safeguard."
He braced internally. He had dealt with Nawabs and Rajas; he knew how they reacted when the Crown proposed putting boots on their lawns. Pride rose first, then wounded dignity, then long speeches about ancient rights.
He expected stiffening shoulders, a narrowed gaze, perhaps a controlled objection dressed in legal language.
Instead, Jinnah simply nodded.
"That is acceptable."
Sir Geoffrey blinked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"That is acceptable," Jinnah repeated, voice calm. "But ten officers will not suffice."
The chamber went very still. Even the slight murmur of the ceiling fan seemed to recede.
The Governor frowned.
"Not suffice?" he echoed. "What exactly do you mean?"
Jinnah leaned back, folding his hands lightly in his lap as if explaining a logistical table, not entertaining an insult.
"Sandalbar spans fifty villages now, Governor," he said. "Ten officers can observe. At best, they become visitors who write quarterly reports. If you wish to ensure discipline, reliability, and proper integration of Crown procedures, you will need more than visitors."
He held up three fingers.
"I require thirty."
The Governor stared.
He genuinely thought, for a heartbeat, that he had misheard.
"Thirty… what?" he asked carefully.
"Thirty personnel," Jinnah clarified. "Ten officers, ten NCOs — corporals or sergeants, as your military advisers deem fit — and ten medical corps personnel."
He added, almost conversationally:
"With appropriate small-arms stocks and ammunition, of course."
Silence thickened. The stone room suddenly seemed too small to hold the idea.
A company-sized British presence inside an Indian estate.
"You," Sir Geoffrey managed, "want thirty British soldiers… stationed at Sandalbar."
"Not just soldiers," Jinnah corrected, still soft. "Officers. Medical staff. Men trained in procedure and in the habit of record-keeping."
He let the words settle, then added the most disorienting piece.
"And," he said, "I prefer officers with families."
The Governor's breath caught.
"With… families?" he repeated.
"Yes," Jinnah said, as if discussing irrigation rotations. "Married officers. If possible, some with children."
Sir Geoffrey pushed his chair back half an inch, as though to get a better view of the man in front of him.
"Explain," he said.
Jinnah obliged, his tone as patient as it was precise.
"Men with families seek stability, Governor," he said. "They avoid unnecessary confrontations because any disturbance could endanger their own households. They have a stake in the peace around them."
He gestured lightly toward the wall maps.
"An unmarried, restless subaltern may dream of action. A married captain with a wife and two children worries about cholera, schoolbooks, and whether the roof leaks."
And you,Bilal murmured, intend to give them no reason to dream of anything except a quiet pension.
"Their presence," Jinnah continued, "creates natural discipline. They will keep their quarters in order, their routines steady. Their wives, in time, will engage with the village women — clinics, lessons, sewing circles, temperance lectures, whatever their inclinations. The children will need safety; their fathers will therefore enforce order with a thoroughness that no external command could inspire."
He let the next sentence fall with deliberate weight.
"And a settled British presence," he said, "within Sandalbar strengthens Crown legitimacy in the region. It is a visible anchor. Those villages will not see the Raj only as far-away offices in Lahore or Delhi. They will see it living in the next lane — eating the same food, breathing the same air, sending its own children to play under the same trees."
Sir Geoffrey sank back slowly into his chair.
He realised he was watching something he had almost never seen in this building: a man inviting Imperial oversight, and then turning it gently into leverage.
"Do you understand," he said quietly, "what you are really asking for? Officers with families do not deploy to volatile frontiers. They settle. They build small worlds — clubs, churches, gardens. They bring expectations, Muhammad. They bring pressure. If trouble breaks out, their safety becomes the Empire's priority."
"That," Jinnah replied, "is precisely why I want them."
He propped an elbow on the chair's armrest, his index finger resting lightly against his cheek.
"A settled officer," he said, "treats his surroundings as home. And a home is defended better than any outpost. If Sandalbar is, in their eyes, a place where their wives host teas and their children chase kites — then every attempt to destabilise Sandalbar becomes, automatically, an attack on a British home."
He is turning your safeguard,Bilal noted dryly to the unseen Governor, into his shield. You give him oversight; he receives insurance.
The Governor shook his head, slowly, as if trying to dislodge a disorienting dream.
"Any other landholder," he murmured, more to himself than to Jinnah, "would be outraged at this proposal. They would speak of honour, of autonomy, of insolence. They would say: 'No British garrison on my land.'"
Jinnah's gaze did not waver.
"I am not any other landholder."
"No," Sir Geoffrey replied, "you are not."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Let me be blunt, Muhammad," he said. "Some of my colleagues suspect you. They see a parallel command structure — your Farabis — and they imagine the worst. That one day, a signal will go out from Sandalbar and fifty villages will rise at your word. That army rifles will face our own."
"If I intended such madness," Jinnah said evenly, "I would not ask you to put thirty of your own officers inside my supposed fortress."
His tone cooled by a degree.
"And if, despite that, someone alleges mutiny where there is none, or files a false report about my intentions," he added, "they should remember one thing."
He held the Governor's eyes.
"I sit, still, as a King's Counsel. I have stood in your Privy Council chamber, arguing cases on the strength of British law. If anyone wishes to drag my name through mud with fabricated charges, they will find that I trust your courts more than your martial rumours. And in court, Governor, I have rarely lost — even against English barristers."
The words were not a threat. They were a reminder: he was not a prince to be pushed in the dark; he was a lawyer who fought in daylight.
Sir Geoffrey exhaled slowly.
Beneath the annoyance of being out-maneuvered, something else flickered: a grudging respect.
"Your authority," he said, "rests very little on inherited land, and very much on the results you produce. You think in ledgers, not in genealogies."
"My authority," Jinnah answered, "comes from the work I can point to. If British officers and British structures help me expand that work, then their presence is not an intrusion. It is an asset."
The Governor leaned back, looking up at the map of canals as if the answer might be written there.
The unit would consist of ten British officers, ten locally recruited non-commissioned officers, and ten medical corps personnel, with dependents permitted to reside on the estate.
A quiet cantonment inside an Indian experiment.
A risk.
A guarantee.
At last he straightened, decision settling over his features like a uniform.
"Very well," he said. "I will request the necessary complement. Ten officers. Ten corporals or sergeants. Ten medical corps. They will be permanently posted to Sandalbar for the duration of this… experiment."
He hesitated only a heartbeat.
"And," he added, "I will indicate that married officers are preferred."
Jinnah inclined his head, not too deeply.
"Thank you, Governor."
Sir Geoffrey gave a short, almost disbelieving laugh.
"You are the first Indian," he said, "who has ever asked me, with a straight face, to build a small British colony on his own estate."
Jinnah allowed himself a faint smile.
"Then at least," he replied, "I shall have one unique honour in your administration."
The Governor rose, signalling the conversation was at an end.
"I will have the Military Secretary coordinate with you on housing, rations, and lines of authority," he said. "They will not be under your command, Muhammad. That must be clear."
"Of course," Jinnah said. "They will be under theirs. And under yours. I will simply make sure their homes are… pleasant."
And busy,Bilal added. Comfortable officers are predictable officers. Happy wives are better wardens than anxious captains.
As Jinnah reached for his hat, Sir Geoffrey spoke once more.
"Understand this," he said. "If ever I smell disloyalty, I now have thirty of my own eyes watching your wolves."
Jinnah settled the hat on his head.
"And if ever I smell malice where there is only honest work," he answered quietly, "I have recourse to your own courts."
He dipped his head in parting.
"In that sense, Governor, we share the same leash."
When he stepped back into the corridor, the air felt cooler, sharper. Somewhere beyond the high compound walls, the city moved in its usual chaos — tongas, hawkers, clerks, prayer calls.
Inside Jinnah's mind, Bilal spoke softly.
You have turned their fear of your independence into a reason to live under their flag and behind their families, he said. If Sandalbar burns now, they will rush to save it faster than any Nawab's palace.
Jinnah did not answer. He simply walked down the corridor, hearing the faint echo of his own steps and, beneath that, the quiet, future noise of boots and children's voices on Sandalbar soil.
A quiet garrison was coming.
Not as a chain around his neck, but as another piece on a board he intended to play, patiently, for years.