A Christmas Garland (9 page)

“I know that,” Tallis said quickly. “We all know there had to be someone else, but it wasn’t me.” His voice was level, but there was desperation in his eyes. “I was counting bandages and checking what medicines we had left in the storeroom. I can’t prove it because no one else even knows what was there. I wouldn’t have been counting them if I knew myself what was there! It’s the only time I’m sorry we didn’t have some poor devil sick, in need of medicine!”

“Ever treat Dhuleep?” Narraway asked. “Do you know anything about him?”

“I suppose I could always invent something,” Tallis said with mock cheerfulness. “How about rabies? I let him go so he could infect the entire mutineer army. No good? I could say—”

“Tallis!” Narraway snapped. “I want to know if you knew the damn man. Did you ever treat him?”

Tallis looked slightly surprised. After a moment, he spoke seriously. “Yes. He had a bunion on his left foot. I’m intimate with it. I could draw you a picture. Couldn’t cure it, of course. But I cured his indigestion. It doesn’t exactly rate as a friendship. I cure people I don’t like exactly the same as people I do. That’s what medicine is
about.” He gave a sad, self-mocking smile. “Just like you defend people whether you think they’re guilty or not …”

Narraway was temporarily robbed of words. He had not intended to be so transparent. “Give me anything to argue with,” he begged. “What was Dhuleep like? Why did no one expect him to escape? Why was there only one guard? Who would want to help him? Who did he associate with? Who would want him free? If you didn’t do it, then someone else did. For heaven’s sake, man, help me!”

“Do you think I haven’t lain awake trying to think?” Tallis asked. “Nobody likes a telltale, but I’d outdo the best actor on stage with stories that’d curl your hair if I knew any. I thought he might know something that was worth his freedom, but who would he sell it to? Latimer? Then I wondered if he was a double traitor, to us and then to the mutineers. Maybe he was let go on purpose, like a disease, to spread lies.” He shrugged. “But as far as I know, he was just one more Sikh soldier who seemed to be loyal to us. Some are, some aren’t. We can’t afford to do without the loyal ones. I mean, look at it!” He swung his arm around, indicating the immeasurable
land beyond the cell and the compound. “We’re a handful of white men, a few tens of thousands, half the world away from home, trying to govern a whole bloody continent. We don’t speak their languages, we don’t understand their religion, we can’t stand their bloody climate, and we have no immunity to their diseases. Yet here we are, and we expect to be liked for it! And we’re all taken by surprise when they stick a knife into our backs. God help us, we’re fools!”

“Don’t say that in court tomorrow,” Narraway said drily, although he was startled by how much he agreed with Tallis.

“Never let the truth spoil a good defense,” Tallis said, paraphrasing with a crooked smile. “I haven’t got a good defense, except that I didn’t do it. And I haven’t an idea in hell who did. I’m trusting you because I haven’t
got
anything else. If you’d asked me a month ago if I believed in some kind of divine justice, or even in a manmade honor, I’d have laughed at you, probably made a bad joke.” He shrugged his thin shoulders.

Suddenly his face was totally serious. The laughter had vanished; even the self-mockery was gone. “You see
courage that’s sublime. People enduring pain, disfigurement, losing parts of themselves so they’ll never be whole again—and yet not complaining, still keeping the dignity that’s inside them intact. People care for others, even when they know they’re dying themselves. They keep faith even when it’s idiotic, even when everything’s gone and they know it’s gone.”

Narraway wanted to shout at him to stop, but he couldn’t.

“I know they’ll convict me, though I didn’t do it,” Tallis added, his eyes never leaving Narraway’s. “But I still believe you’ll find a way to prove that I didn’t. Unfair, isn’t it?” He grinned. It was a brilliant, shining smile, as if in spite of all that his brain told him, he had a kind of happiness he refused to let go of. He would not accept reality. “You should try being a doctor sometime. See this after every battle, every skirmish. They carry them in one after another, people who look to you to save them, and you can’t, but you try anyway. One thing you learn, Lieutenant: You can’t tell who’s going to live and who isn’t. You learn there’s something bigger than you, bigger than anything sense tells you. I believe in the impossible, good and bad. I’ve seen lots of it. I did
not kill Chuttur Singh, nor did I let Dhuleep go. I wasn’t even there.”

Narraway wanted to have an answer, something brave and wise to say. He wished, with a hunger that consumed him, to believe in the impossible, but he could not. So he did the only thing he could bear: He lied.

“Then I’ll believe in miracles too,” he said quietly. “And I’ll find you yours.”

He did not remain. He had already asked all the questions he could think of. He left the prison and walked outside into the dark. The vast night sky arched over him, brilliant with stars. The faint wind stirred through the branches of the few trees, a black latticework against the sheen of light. And he felt just as boxed in, as locked and shackled, as Tallis.

He walked for quite a distance. He knew that before he turned in he should report to Colonel Latimer, but he was putting it off as long as possible. He had learned nothing useful in the time he had been given to look into the case. Quite honestly, he did not believe any extension of the time would make a difference. It would just be putting off the inevitable and prolonging the misery for everyone, including Tallis himself.

He turned and went in the direction of the officers’ mess, where he knew Latimer would be at this time in the evening. Probably Busby and Strafford would be with him, which would make it worse.

He passed a couple of small buildings and heard someone tapping nails into wood. He wondered what they were making. Household furniture? Mending a chair or a table? Or maybe working on a toy for a child, a Christmas present? A wagon with wheels that turned, perhaps? He could dimly remember one in his own childhood. Only fifteen years ago he had been the right age to play with such a thing.

Would the widow’s little boy have a wagon, or colored bricks this Christmas? Perhaps Narraway could make sure that he did. He didn’t have to give it to the boy himself; that might only embarrass her, make her feel obligated to him, and he did not want that. Would the boy even like a wagon? Wasn’t it worth trying? The little girl, Helena, had given him the blue paper chain, certain that he would like it because she liked it. He should find something for her too. He would have to ask somebody. A woman would know.

He stopped and knocked on the door of the building where the banging came from. After several moments, a man in a leather apron came to the door. “Yes, sir?” he said politely. He was Indian, dark-skinned, black-haired.

“Are you a carpenter?” Narraway asked.

“No, I just mend things here and there. If you have a chair that is broken, perhaps I can help?”

“Actually … what I want is a small wooden wagon … for a child,” Narraway replied, feeling foolish.

The man looked surprised. “You have a son? You want something for him for a gift, sir?”

“No … and yes. He’s not my son, but he’s lost his father. I just thought …” He trailed off, his confidence draining away.

“I can do that,” the man said quietly. “I will make you one. Come back in a few days. I have many small pieces of wood. And red paint. It will not cost much.”

“Thank you,” Narraway replied. “I’d like that very much. My name’s Lieutenant Narraway. I’ll be back.”

As he walked past the next open door he heard a woman inside, singing. Her voice was soft and filled with music. He had no idea who she was, but she was
singing to someone she loved, of that he was certain. Probably it was a child. Reluctantly he moved on, out of earshot, toward the officers’ mess.

At first Narraway was almost relieved not to see Latimer, and he had half turned to go when he noticed Strafford in a corner, and then Latimer beside him. He pulled his tunic a little straighter and squared his shoulders, then walked across the floor, threading between the tables and chairs and rickety stools, until he stood to attention in front of Latimer.

“Sir.”

Latimer turned toward him as if he had been expecting this moment, and not looking forward to it any more than Narraway himself.

“Are you ready, Lieutenant?” he asked. His face was pale and tired. He nursed a glass of whisky in his hand as if it could feel his touch, his fingers caressing it.

“Yes, sir,” Narraway replied. They both knew it was a lie, but it was the answer expected of him.

“You’ve spoken with Tallis?” Latimer pursued.

“Yes, sir.”

“Any help?”

“Not much.”

Latimer smiled; for a moment it softened the lines in his face. “Like him?”

Narraway was not prepared for the question. “Ah … yes, sir. I couldn’t help it. Would have preferred not to.”

“If you’d said ‘no,’ I wouldn’t have believed you.” Latimer sighed. “One thing you’ll have to learn if you’re going to make it in the army, Narraway. Know when to lie to your superiors and when not to. Sometimes we know the truth, but we don’t want to hear it.”

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t know this was one of those moments.”

“It wasn’t. Your judgment is quite right. He’s a likeable man. We need the kind of humor he brings, and the unreason, the ability to hope when it makes no sense. I wish to hell it had been anybody else but him. You can’t save him, but for God’s sake, make it look as if you’re trying.”

“Yes, sir.” Narraway fell silent. He felt stupid, but there was nothing else to add.

“Busby’ll give you a hard time. Expect it, and don’t lose your temper, no matter what he says. He lost a lifelong friend in that ambush. He’d served with Tierney a long time too. That’s the fellow who lost a leg.”

“Yes, sir, I know. I spoke to him. A good man,” Narraway replied.

“Did you?” Latimer looked slightly surprised. “Tell you anything useful?”

“No, sir. Just thought I should speak to him.”

“Well, you’d better go and get a decent night’s sleep—or as decent as you can.”

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

Latimer lifted a hand in a slight salute. “Good night, Lieutenant Narraway.” Then: “Did you make any sense of it yet?” he asked suddenly.

Narraway felt the coldness deep inside him. “No, sir, but I will.”

“That was the lie I wanted to hear,” Latimer said with a faint smile.

N
ARRAWAY COULD NOT SLEEP
. H
E LAY ON HIS COT
. I
T WAS
comfortable enough, better than many places where he had slept perfectly well over the last year, but restfulness eluded him. He turned one way, then the other, sometimes with his eyes closed, sometimes staring up at
the ceiling, which was pale from the starlight through the window. Tallis’s face came back to his mind, regardless of all his efforts to banish it away. This was an inescapable burden, suffocating him.

It was not only Narraway’s career at stake, it was the whole regiment’s honor, its belief in justice as an abstract, a perfect and beautiful thing that every man strove for. Except that that was nonsense. Some men strove for it. Many merely used the word as an excuse.

Narraway had not been among the soldiers who had relieved Cawnpore after the siege. He had been farther north. But he had heard about it. What the soldiers arriving had seen had driven them almost out of their senses. The vengeance had been appalling. No one had bothered with justice then.

Had he not seen the emotion in the men, the stunned look in their eyes, the sudden clumsiness in movement, as if they lacked coordination? The horror and the grief were too enormous to recover from in just a few short months. Maybe those men would never again be quite the same men as they had been before.

Right now, faced with the immediate decision of what to say at the trial in a matter of hours, Narraway dared
not think about his future, but that time would come. He could not win; it was only the measure of his loss that counted. Some would judge him for trying at all, even though the soldier in them would know he was obeying an order he could not refuse. Reason would defend him, but emotion would not.

Again and again, he came back to reason. He could see very easily why Latimer needed to understand. It was not simply a matter of morale. Without understanding, they would commit the same errors over and over again in the future. For all he knew, they might be committing them right now.

What was he misreading? Was there something in the puzzle that did not belong? He must have some plan before morning.

He went over it again in his mind and came up with the same answers. There was no one it could have been, except Tallis. Tallis had sworn his innocence. And no one, not even Busby, could come up with a
reason why
Tallis should have wanted Dhuleep to escape.

Reason—that was the missing piece.

He could not think of anything that would justify letting
Dhuleep escape. His hunger to see sense was growing more powerful, the need for an overall intelligence that promised future control.