A Christmas Garland (13 page)

“Would you please give us an account of the various steps you took in your investigation, and how you ruled out all the possible suspects apart from Corporal Tallis?”

In a flat voice Strafford obeyed, listing all the men he had confirmed were in the immediate area of the prison. He had a sheet of paper with names, and he read them aloud.

“We know to the minute the time of the escape,” he continued. “Most of these men were within sight of several people, and it was a simple matter to be certain beyond any possible doubt that they could not have been anywhere near the prison. In all cases the officer in charge at the time will swear to those accounted for, if you wish.”

Before Busby could say anything, Latimer spoke.

“If that satisfied you, Major Strafford, it satisfies the Court. Who did it leave unaccounted for?”

Strafford looked at his list. “Corporal Reilly, Lance-Corporal McLeod, Privates Scott, Carpenter, and Avery, and Corporal Tallis, sir.”

“Thank you. So that Lieutenant Narraway might question them also, if he feels there is some point to it, perhaps we had better hear from them directly.” He glanced sideways at Narraway, as if to be certain the Court knew that it was Narraway who was dragging out the proceedings unnecessarily.

“Yes, sir, if you please,” Narraway replied, as if it were Latimer who had asked.

Scott was the first called. In response to Busby’s careful direction, he accounted for his duties and his movements on the day of Chuttur’s death. He had been across the open yard and around a dogleg from the prison. But anyone coming or going would have had to pass him, because that was the only access to the front, and there was no door at the back of the makeshift prison.

“What were you doing, Private Scott?”

“Working on mending a storeroom, sir. Door and windows had been smashed by shellfire during the siege. I was making it weatherproof again.”

“With your back to the courtyard, then?” Busby asked.

“No, sir. During that time I was making a new frame
for the door. Had the wood up on a bench of sorts, planing it to fit.”

“So you could see anyone passing in either direction?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could anyone see you?”

“Yes, sir. Lance-Corporal McLeod and Private Avery.”

“And no one passed you? You swear to it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you were there for that entire hour, Private Scott?”

“Yes, sir. It took me longer’n that to finish.”

“And could you see Corporal Reilly from where you were?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he move at all?”

“Yes, sir. ’E came over ter me ter see ’ow I were doing, an’ ’e told me I weren’t doin’ it right. ’E showed me ’ow to.”

“And then what?” Busby pressed.

“ ’E went off be’ind me, to see ’ow the rest were gettin’ on. Then ’e came back.”

“In the direction of the prison block?”

“No, sir, other way, back toward the river.”

“Is there a way he could have gone around—in a circle perhaps—and got to the prison block?”

“No, sir, not without passing the squad ’oo were over at the end o’ the entrenchment, sir.”

“And Private Carpenter?”

“He was opposite me, working with Corporal Reilly.”

“All the time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.” Busby turned to Narraway with a slight, ironic gesture of invitation.

Narraway accepted, playing for time rather than because he had any questions in mind. He hoped that something might come to him. Testimony had shown Tallis to be exactly the sort of man Narraway had thought him: brave; irreverent, with a completely irresponsible sense of humor; intensely compassionate; dedicated to medicine. But it also had been damning, because it was clear that if Strafford could have found any other answer, he would have.

Narraway stood facing Private Scott. Detail by detail, the soldier accounted for every move he had made, repeating what he had said before, not in parrot fashion,
but as if clearly seeing it again in his mind’s eye. Narraway achieved nothing at all.

It was exactly the same with Corporal Reilly, and then with Private Carpenter. Busby asked each of them where they had been. They each gave a sober account, in very slightly different words but amounting to the same evidence. In each case they supported one another, proving that none of them could have left their position, and the other’s sight, long enough to have reached the prison block and gone inside it. Narraway began to feel as if he was wasting everyone’s time, and he could see the truth of it in the growing impatience on the faces around him.

Tallis was looking more and more desperate, struggling to keep his composure and an appearance of some kind of hope. Narraway could only guess at the courage required for Tallis to sit there silently. Was he wasting everyone’s time, drawing out the tension and pain pointlessly?

He thought of what Strafford had said of that terrible crossing with the boats on fire, the drowning and the dead, and Tallis wading in and risking his own life
without a backward glance. Narraway could not give up yet, not until he was so beaten he had nowhere else to go.

Lance-Corporal McLeod came to the stand, and Busby questioned him also.

He was perhaps twenty-two, fair-skinned, pale. His eyes were hollow, staring far beyond Busby as if he saw something else, something printed indelibly on his memory.

“And where were you exactly, Corporal McLeod?” Busby prompted.

“On the corner, sir, just beyond the building that was pretty well smashed.”

“In the southwest, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you could see the door to the prison from where you were?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you looking at it all the time?”

“No, sir. I was paying attention to what I was doing.”

“Which was what, Corporal?”

“Mending a cart, sir. Shaft was broken.”

“Was anyone helping you?”

“Yes, sir, Private Avery. Too heavy for one man, at least when it comes to lifting it together to weld.”

“And could you see Corporal Reilly and Private Scott working on the storeroom?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All the time? Are you certain?”

“Corporal Reilly could have gone the other way, sir, but not past me toward the prison, sir. Private Avery or I would have seen him.”

“Thank you. Please stay there so Lieutenant Narraway can ask you … whatever it is he needs to.” Busby did not hide the fact that he regarded this as a cruel and pointless waste of not only time but emotion. All around them was the air of danger, of hate, the bitter knowledge that fighting was going on just beyond their hearing and sight. All of northern India was in turmoil. Friends and allies were dying to save what was left of British rule, and here they were, locked up in this tiny room, arguing over a truth everyone knew perfectly well. All it really needed was to be faced, the bitter acceptance made and dealt with. Courage was necessary, not more talk, more weighing and measuring of what
they all knew. In a sense it was like vultures fighting over a corpse. Busby had not said so, not in so many words, but he had more than implied it.

Narraway did not ask McLeod anything. He knew he had tried Latimer’s patience as far as it would go.

The last witness was Private Avery.

Busby stood and faced him patiently.

“Private, would you describe to us exactly where you were at the time Chuttur Singh was killed? We have been over this before. All you need to do is recall what you told me then and tell me again, so the Court can hear you.”

Obediently, as if he were reciting some ritual litany, Avery told him exactly where he had been and what had occupied him. He seemed stunned. Narraway thought that the man blamed himself for not having seen something that could have saved Chuttur Singh, as if it had been his fault that he had been so near and done nothing to prevent the killing.

When it was Narraway’s turn to question him, he felt like he could not ask the man to repeat it all again—it would be brutal.

“Think carefully, Private Avery: Have you left anything
out? If not, there is no need for me to go over it again.”

“Nothing, sir,” Avery answered. “That’s how it was. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Just one thing that Captain Busby didn’t ask you: Do you know Corporal Tallis?”

Avery’s face went even paler. “Yes, sir.”

“How do you know him?”

“I got a bullet wound in the arm, sir. Not very bad, but it bled a lot. Corporal Tallis stitched it up for me.”

“Corporal Tallis did, not Major Rawlins?” Narraway said with surprise.

“Dr. Rawlins was busy with someone a lot worse hurt than me, sir.”

“I see. Did Corporal Tallis make a good job of it?”

“Yes, sir, very good. Healed up real well. And …” He stopped, looked at the floor. “There was a lot of blood, sir. I was scared. He made me laugh, and I felt as if it would be all right. It—it was the first time I’d been hit … sir.”

“So you know Corporal Tallis?”

“Yes, sir.” Avery looked so wretched, it was as if he were in physical pain.

“Could you see the door of the prison from where you were working?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you see him during that hour? Did you see him anywhere near the prison?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you.” Narraway sat down again because he could think of nothing further to say.

Latimer adjourned the Court, and Narraway walked out into the late afternoon. The sun was sinking low to the horizon, painting the west with burning color. The coming night had already shrouded the east, spreading a veil of shadow across the sky. He felt as if the darkness were enclosing him, wrapping around him and reaching inside.

It was a time not to be alone.

And yet only in solitude could he even attempt to concentrate his mind. Nothing so far helped. Every piece of testimony proved that no one else could have gone in through the prison door. And more than that, no one had an ill word to say about Tallis. None of them wished to believe him guilty.

Strafford’s evidence had been even worse than Rawlins’s.
He was a good man desperately bereaved, who had nevertheless done his duty without expecting anyone else to ease his burden. He had not wanted Tallis to be guilty. It betrayed everything he had trusted, even the past help that Tallis had been to him personally.

Did all this make Strafford doubt his own judgment now? If he could trust and admire a man and be so bitterly mistaken, could he have faith in himself in any other judgment? If Tallis could be so infinitely less than his estimation, then who else might also be?

And if Strafford, with his knowledge, could be wrong, why on earth did Narraway imagine that he was any better? He barely knew Tallis. He liked his humor and admired his courage. But Strafford had known the man, day in and day out, for years. He had seen his work. They had faced horror and the final, rending grief of loss together. But he’d also had the courage to accept that Tallis was guilty. What must that have cost him?

Narraway could not shake the evidence. No one was lying; no combination of men had conspired to make the situation look this way.

Perhaps Strafford was not being sarcastic when he said he had chosen Narraway because he believed in his
stubbornness and intelligence. Maybe he really did—and far from ending up feeling furious and duped, if Narraway could find a way out, a way to restore their faith in Tallis and thus in their own judgment, Strafford would be intensely grateful?

If that was the case, then by failing he was not only letting Tallis die, he was also letting down the whole regiment. It was a lonely and terrible thing to live without the faith you had once leaned on when all else was broken. Death might not be preferable, but there must be times, like at two o’clock in the morning, when it seemed a whole lot easier.

And there were women and children left without their men—like the widow whose shopping he had carried and whose little girl had given him her blue paper chain, made for a Christmas her brother had said was for everybody.

Then, suddenly, he was ashamed of his own self-absorption. Whoever was betrayed, bereaved, accused falsely or not, it was not he. He was supposed to be part of the resolution, the one who fought for justice, whether that was Tallis’s vindication or his death.

He was still walking, aimlessly. He had intended to
go to his own house and spend the evening revising all that he had learned so far, in the hope that some inconsistency would emerge or some new fact or deduction would appear.

However, as he walked along the road, he found himself turning aside from the way to his own bungalow and going instead toward the house of the widow with the little girl who had given him the blue paper chain.

It was almost dusk, and night would come quickly, as it always did in India. There was no lingering twilight of the north here. Soon there would be lights in the windows. Women would begin to cook an evening meal. The comfortable smells of food would fill the air. It would only be after the children had gone to bed that they would sit in the empty rooms downstairs and face the long aloneness of the night.

Helena was sitting on the front steps, holding a doll in her arms and talking to it. She became aware of him standing at the gate and looked up. She smiled at him shyly.

He remained where he was, smiling back at her.

The woman came to the door. He had learned that her name was Olivia Barber. Perhaps she had seen him from the window and had come to make sure her child was safe.

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” she said, clearly enough for him to hear her from where he was.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he replied. “I beg your pardon for disturbing you.”

“It’s supper time,” Helena said, still staring at him. “Are you here for supper?”

He felt embarrassed, as if he had tried to invite himself in.

Olivia put her hand on the child’s shoulder, pulling her back a little. “You are welcome to join us, if you would like, Lieutenant,” she said quietly. “I apologize for Helena’s forwardness.”

He felt even more awkward, but he very much wanted to accept. He wanted the comfort, the normality of it. And he would love, above all else, to forget defeat for an hour or two.