A Christmas Garland (15 page)

“No,” the sergeant said without hesitation. “It was Tallis who reported the theft. If he’d waited, we probably wouldn’t have known who did it—or got it back, for that matter.”

“So you caught Dhuleep Singh because of Tallis?”

“I suppose so. But it wasn’t Tallis as got ’im, it was a couple of regulars called … Johnson was one of ’em. I think the other was Robinson, or Roberts. Something like that.”

“What sort of a man was Dhuleep, before the theft?”

“Dunno. Ordinary, I think. Bit of a sneaky sod, but a good enough soldier. At least he seemed that way. If ’e ever stole before, ’e got away with it.”

“Why was there only one guard looking after Dhuleep?” Narraway asked.

“ ’Cos ’e were just a miserable layabout, an’ ’e were locked up tight in a cell anyway. Probably wouldn’t ’ave bothered locking ’im up, if it ’adn’t been the medicines ’e took.”

“Thank you.” Narraway stood up. “I’d better go look
over all this past evidence and see if I can make anything different of it.”

The sergeant stood as well, a big man, broad-chested, his shoulders sagging with weariness. “Ye’re a tryer, I’ll say that for yer. Don’t give up, do yer?”

“Not till it’s over,” Narraway answered, finding the praise both bitter and welcome.

A
N HOUR LATER
, N
ARRAWAY HAD GONE OVER ALL THE
evidence yet again when he suddenly came across what looked like an inconsistency between what Corporal Reilly had said and Private Carpenter’s account. It was very tiny: just something in the order of events. He looked at his notes, reread them to make sure it was not his own hasty writing misleading him.

Corporal Reilly had said that he had been standing at the corner, where he could see Scott on the far side of the courtyard, planing the wood for the new door, and McLeod and Avery in the corner opposite, with a clear view of the prison entrance a hundred yards away to their left.

He also said that Carpenter had been there the entire time with him, as was borne out by all three of the others.

But if Reilly was right, and his account matched Scott’s, then Carpenter was lying. He had backed up McLeod and Avery, when actually they must have been out of his sight, in the direction of the prison. It was a very small discrepancy, but they could not all be correct. Was it just an error by a man too tired, too shaken to remember accurately? Did it even matter now? Not if his own idea was right. But what if it wasn’t? He could not afford to rely on it. If it was wrong, he must have something to fall back on. They had all sworn that their time was accounted for and that no one else could have gone into the prison before Grant led the response to the alarm.

He must waken Carpenter right now and get some explanation. Tallis’s life could depend on it.

Narraway crossed the open space to the remnants of the barracks where Carpenter was billeted and found him with some difficulty. He had to explain to a guard who he was and that his errand could not wait. He expected to find Carpenter asleep. Instead, the man was
lying uncomfortably on a straw mattress, tossing fitfully. He sat up as soon as he was aware of Narraway’s presence in the room.

Narraway apologized immediately. He kept his voice as quiet as he could make it, so as not to disturb the other men who were within earshot and might also sleep lightly.

“I need to speak to you before the trial resumes tomorrow. Privately.”

“What?” Carpenter was dazed. “Lieutenant? You’re going to call me again?” He pushed his hand through his hair and sat up a little further. “What for?”

“Can we go outside?” Narraway asked. He phrased it as a request, but it was in effect an order.

In silence Carpenter stood up, pulled on his trousers and tunic, and followed Narraway outside into the night. The clear sky’s blaze of stars gave little light, and the wind was higher than before, scraping the branches and rattling the leaves on the tamarind trees twenty feet away.

“What is it, sir?” Carpenter asked, shivering a little.

Narraway went over Carpenter’s evidence step by step. He knew it by heart now. He repeated every moment,
every word that accounted for someone else. Did it matter? He had no idea. He could not afford to let anything slip.

“Yes,” Carpenter said wearily.

Narraway shook his head. “No,” he denied quietly. “Not if Corporal Reilly was where he said he was, doing what he said he was doing. In that case, he would have been around the corner, out of sight of the prison. It can’t be right. One of you has it wrong. Is that a mistake, or a lie? Think carefully before you decide, Private.”

Carpenter stood motionless. Narraway’s eyes were used to the dark, but even so he could see no expression on Carpenter’s face.

Carpenter blinked several times, as if the dust eddies troubled him. He rubbed his arm over his face. Narraway waited. He felt guilty. There was no arrogance, no anger in the man in front of him, just an inner conflict he could not resolve.

“If you don’t tell me the truth, Tallis may be hanged for something he didn’t do,” he said at last. “A good man, a man we need, will suffer an injustice we can’t ever put right. Was it a mistake, Private Carpenter, or a lie?”

Carpenter chewed his lip.

Again Narraway waited. He thought for a moment that Carpenter had fallen asleep on his feet.

“It was a lie, sir.” Carpenter’s voice in the dark was painful, as if his mouth was too dry to form the words properly.

“Did you leave, or did Reilly?” Narraway asked, chilled now by the fact that what had been only a possibility—a straw to grasp for—had become a reality.

“I did, sir,” Carpenter replied. He straightened up until his body was stiff. “I didn’t see anything relevant to Dhuleep Singh’s escape, sir. Nor did I see Corporal Tallis. I can’t help with what happened, sir.”

Narraway found that he was shivering too.

“I still want to know where you were,” he said aloud.

Carpenter looked resigned, beaten. “I was with Ingalls, sir. Ingalls was … ill.”

“Then Major Rawlins would know that,” Narraway reasoned, wondering why Rawlins had said nothing earlier. Was it possible he did not know of Carpenter’s testimony? That seemed hard to believe.

“Private Carpenter!” he said sharply.

“Yes, sir?” Carpenter stiffened.

“ ‘Yes, sir, Rawlins knows of this,’ or just, ‘Yes, sir, I am paying attention’?” Narraway demanded.

“Yes, sir … I am paying attention. No, sir, Major Rawlins doesn’t know. It was … it wasn’t that kind of illness …”

“You mean he was drunk? Why didn’t he just sleep it off, like anyone else?” Narraway was puzzled, even disturbed. “Carpenter! You’d better tell me the truth now, rather than have me drag it out of you, and this Ingalls, in court in a few hours’ time.”

“Yes, sir.” Carpenter’s body sagged, as if he no longer had the strength or the will to stand upright.

Narraway took him by the arm. The private’s flesh was cold even through his tunic. “Here. For God’s sake come and sit down, and tell me what was wrong with Ingalls and why you went to him rather than call a doctor.”

Carpenter stopped resisting. Together they walked over to a heap of rubble still lying piled up from the bombardment of the siege. For a moment or two Carpenter sat bent forward, composing his thoughts, then he began to speak.

“Ingalls drinks … badly. He was right out of it that
day. Jones covered for him. We always do.” He did not look at Narraway. “But he couldn’t handle this. Ingalls was worse than usual. He was shaking like a leaf and sobbing. Jones couldn’t keep him from yelling out. In his own mind, Ingalls must’ve been miles away, in another world, back in the time when we first came in after the siege. He was one of the ones who found the bodies in the well at Bibighar. They swore an oath then, and he thinks he’s betrayed it because he …” He stopped, lowering his head into his hands.

“What?” Narraway asked, feeling brutal. He was afraid of what he was going to hear. “I have to know if I’m going to help Tallis,” he insisted.

“He would get delirious,” Carpenter said. “See it all again, smell the blood, hear the flies. Tallis used to help him sometimes, you know. Made him laugh.” He twisted around to face Narraway for a moment. “You’ve got to help Tallis, sir. I don’t know what the hell happened, but he couldn’t have done it, unless he had a reason—I mean, one he couldn’t get out of, one that …” He turned away again and fell silent.

“So you went to Ingalls that day? Because Jones couldn’t handle it?” Narraway prodded him.

“Ingalls was out of it,” Carpenter said. “He was going to kill himself. Said he’d failed. General Wheeler’s daughter was haunting him. He could see her ghost everywhere.”

“What?” Narraway gasped. “General Wheeler’s daughter? What are you talking about, man?”

Carpenter looked at him.

“Why were you the one to go?” Narraway demanded.

“Because I was there too.”

“Where?”

“In the Bibighar. She was one of the women they killed. We found her head. Somebody—I think it was Frazer—cut off her scalp and divided it up, a piece of it to every man. He told us to count the hairs on our piece and swear an oath to kill one mutineer for every hair. Ingalls couldn’t do it. He tried …”

Narraway sat frozen, unaware of everything around him, the night wind in the tamarind branches, the dust devils stirring across the open ground, the starlight.

Carpenter moved a little, just shifting position. “What have we become, sir? Ingalls doesn’t understand anymore. He asks over and over again what the hell we’re doing here anyway. Never mind making the Indians
into Christians, what are we making ourselves into? And you know what, sir? I can’t answer him. I don’t know what to do! Tell you the truth, that day I wished Tallis was there. He knew what to say, ’cos he’d make fun of it all and just be … gentle.”

Narraway sat without moving or speaking. He wanted to save Tallis so badly it was like a physical pain inside him, as if something necessary for survival were missing and the emptiness was going to eat him away.

“Tallis, he wouldn’t even say you were going to live if he knew you were going to die,” Carpenter went on, his voice seeming almost disembodied in the darkness. “But if you were scared out of your wits, or so drunk you couldn’t stand up, and seeing all kinds of things that weren’t there, if you’d run away like an idiot and sat angry in a corner, hugging your knees and crying like you couldn’t stop, he’d still talk to you like you were a man, and worth something.”

“How long did you stay with Ingalls?” Narraway asked.

“Don’t know. Until he calmed down and I was sure he’d sleep it off, and not cut his throat. Couldn’t very well hide all the knives, could I?” He gave a sharp burst
of laughter. “Tallis said that once: ‘Let’s hide all the knives and guns so no one’ll kill themselves. ’Course, then they won’t be able to kill one another either, but there are no perfect answers, eh?’ And then he gave that crazy laugh of his.” He let out a long sigh. “But that doesn’t help, does it? I’d have sworn on my life he’d never hurt anyone. Reilly was there, and Scott only lied to save me. And I lied to save Ingalls the humiliation. Makes no difference to the fact that no one but Tallis could have got in there, because he was still the only one who had the chance.”

He turned to Narraway, sitting up straighter. “Pity you can’t hang Ingalls instead. He’d like it. It’d put him out of his misery. Tallis would’ve said that, and laughed. Except it’s not funny, ’cos it’s true. I can’t help you, sir.”

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Narraway said quietly. “I thought for a few moments that I’d find something. Go back to bed. You might sleep. You have to sometime.”

For several more moments Carpenter didn’t move, then at last he rose to his feet, stiffly.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, and before Narraway could reply, he stumbled away into the shadows and was lost.

Narraway sat uncomfortably on the rubble a few moments
longer, then he stood up and walked slowly to his own quarters, and a few hours of oblivion before the battle.

T
HE NEXT MORNING WAS STILL AND COLD
. I
T HAD NEVER
been known to snow in Cawnpore, but it was easy to believe that the shortest day of the year was coming, and Christmas would be only a few days after that.