Far Pavilions (96 page)

Wally had joined him a day later, and the two had trekked into Kashmir by way of Domel and the Jhelum gorge, and spent a month camping and shooting among the mountains beyond Sopore. During which time Wally had grown a short-lived beard, and Ash an impressive cavalry moustache.

It had been a halcyon interlude, for the weather had been perfect, and there had been endless things to talk about and to discuss. But though Ash, while again omitting any reference to Juli, had told Wally in some detail about his visit to Fatima Begum's house, oddly enough (or perhaps understandably, considering how preoccupied he had been with his personal problems) he had not thought to mention Koda Dad's tale of trouble brewing beyond the Border. It had slipped his mind, for he had, in fact, not paid over-much attention to it: there was always trouble on the Frontier, and the affairs of Afghanistan did not interest him as much as his own.

Half-way through July the weather broke, and after enduring three days of pouring rain and impenetrable mist on a mountain side, the campers beat a hasty retreat to Srinagar, where they pitched their tents in a grove of
chenar
trees near the city, and made arrangements to return by tonga along the cart-road – the prospect of long marches on foot through a continuous downpour being too dismal to contemplate.

After the keen, pine-scented air of the mountains, they found Srinagar unpleasantly warm and humid, the city itself a squalid jumble of ramshackle wooden houses, crammed together and intersected by insanitary alleyways, or narrow canals that smelt like open sewers – and frequently were. But the Dal Lake was ablaze with lotus blossoms and alive with the flashing blue and green and gold of innumerable kingfishers and bee-eaters, and they bathed and lazed, gorged themselves on the cherries, peaches, mulberries and melons for which the valley was famous, and visited Shalimar and Nishat – enchanting pleasure gardens that the Mogul Emperor, Jehangir, son of the great Akbar, had built on the shores of the Dal.

Yet all too soon, like all pleasant times, the careless, sun-gilt days were over and they were being rattled and jolted along the flat cart-road to Baramullah at the mouth of the valley, and from there into the mountains and the pouring rain; clattering through vast rock gorges and forests of pine and deodar, jogging through the streets of little hill villages, and along tracks that were no more than narrow shelves scraped out of mountainsides that dropped sheer away to where the foam-torn Jhelum River roared in spate three hundred feet below.

They were not sorry to see Murree again, and to be able to sleep in beds that were both dry and comfortable, though Murree too had been swathed in the mist and rain of the monsoon. But as they jogged down the endless turns of the hill road, the clouds thinned and the temperature rose, and long before they reached the level of the plains they were back again in the gruelling heat of the hot weather.

Mahdoo was back from his holiday in his home village of Mansera beyond Abbottabad, and feeling, he said, rested and greatly refreshed. But though he looked much the same, it was clear that the long journey to Bhithor and that headlong return in the worst of the hot weather had left its mark on him, and that he like Koda Dad Khan was beginning to feel his age. He had brought a young relative with him: a good-tempered, gangling youth of sixteen with a deeply pock-marked face, who answered to the name of Kadera and would in time, said Mahdoo, become a good cook: ‘For if I am to have a “makey-learn”, I prefer to choose my own and not be worried by some
chokra
who cannot be trusted to boil water, let alone prepare a
burra khana
!’

The bungalow smelt stalely of mildew and lamp-oil and overpoweringly of flowers, the
mali
(gardener) having filled every available jar with tight bunches of marigolds and zinnias, and there was a pile of letters on the hall table, mostly mail from Home and addressed to Wally. Two, not in English, were for Ash, and both had been written over six weeks ago and described the ceremonies and festivity that had accompanied the installation of the new Maharajah of Karidkote. One was from Kaka-ji and the other from Mulraj, and both had thanked Ash yet again for his ‘services to their Maharajah and the State’, and passed on messages from Jhoti, who appeared to be in high feather and wanted to know how soon the Sahib would be able to visit Karidkote. But apart from that reference to his ‘services’, there had been no mention at all of Bhithor.

‘Well, what else did I expect?’ thought Ash, folding away the sheets of soft, hand-made paper. As far as Karidkote was concerned that chapter was closed, and there was no point in turning back the pages when there was so much to look forward to. Besides, in India the posts were still slow and uncertain, and the distance between the two states of Karidkote and Bhithor was roughly the same as that which separated London from Vienna or Madrid. It was also unlikely that the Rana, having failed to cheat the late Maharajah, would wish to correspond with his successor or encourage Jhoti's sisters to do so.

That same evening, their first back from leave, Wally had suggested that they drop in at the Club to look up various friends and hear the latest news of the station, but as Ash preferred to stay and talk to Mahdoo, he had gone there alone – to return two hours later with an unexpected guest: Wigram Battye, who was also on his way back from leave.

Lieutenant Battye had been shooting on the borders of Poonch, and Wally, meeting him on the Mall and hearing that he intended to spend a day or two in 'Pindi, had insisted that he would be far more comfortable in their bungalow than at the Club (which was not strictly true) and brought him back in triumph. For though Ash still held first place in Wally's regard, Wigram came a close second, not only because he happened to be a likeable and very popular officer, but because his eldest brother, Quentin – killed in action during the Mutiny occupied a special niche in Wally's private hall of fame.

Quentin Battye had taken part in that famous march to the Ridge of Delhi when the Guides, at the height of the hot weather, had covered close on six hundred miles in twenty-two days, storming a rebel-held village on the way, and going into action within half an hour of their arrival at the Ridge, despite having marched thirty miles since dawn. The battle had been Quentin's first and last. He had been mortally wounded (‘
noble Battye, ever to the fore
' wrote Captain Daly in his diary that evening), and dying a few hours later had muttered with his last breath the words of a famous Roman: ‘
Duke et decorum est, pro patria mori.
’

Wally, himself a patriot and a romantic, had been moved by that story and fully approved the sentiment. He too considered that to die for one's country would be a good and splendid – thing, and in his eyes Quentin's brothers, Wigram and Fred, both now serving with the Guides, were tinged with the gold of reflected glory, as well as being what he termed ‘cracking good fellows’.

Wigram, for his part, had taken to young Walter Hamilton at their first meeting over a year and a half ago, which was in itself no small tribute to Wally's character and personality, considering that the meeting had been arranged by Ash, whom Wigram regarded as being wild to a fault – not to mention the fact that young Hamilton obviously regarded him as some sort of hero instead of a thoroughly difficult and insubordinate junior officer who, in the opinion of his seniors (and they included Lieutenant Battye), had been more than lucky to escape being cashiered.

In the circumstances, Wigram might have been forgiven if he had decided to steer well clear of Pandy Martyn's protégé. But it had not taken him long to realize that there was nothing slavish in the younger man's attitude towards Ashton, and that his admiration for him did not mean that he would try and emulate his exploits. Walter's head might be in the clouds, but both his feet were firmly on the ground, and he had a mind of his own. ‘A good boy,’ thought Wigram. ‘The kind who will make a first class Frontier officer, and who men will follow anywhere because he will always be out in front… like Quentin.’ Wigram had made a point of seeing what he could of Ensign Hamilton whenever duty or pleasure brought him to Rawalpindi, and had spoken so warmly of him to the Commandant and the Second-in-Command that it was largely due to his efforts that Walter had been offered a commission in the Corps of Guides.

Ash was not unaware that Wigram, as a dedicated soldier, regarded him with a certain amount of disapproval, and though they were on tolerably good terms, and on the whole got on well together, that it was Walter's company that Wigram enjoyed, and Walter who brought out the best in Quentin's quieter, steadier brother, making him laugh and relax and behave as though he too was a young ensign again.

Watching them now as they joked and talked together, Ash could only be grateful for Wigram's presence, though at any other time he might well have felt a twinge of jealousy at Wally's obvious admiration for the older man, and the fact that they had plainly seen a good deal of each other during the eight months that he had been away, and become fast friends. But he had not been looking forward to these last few days in the bungalow, with the rooms strewn with reminders of Wally's departure and the loneliness that would follow, and Wigram's presence would not only help to make the time pass quicker, but ease the strain of parting from the only real friend he had ever made among men of his own blood.

It would also help Wally, since as Wigram was leaving on the same day they would be riding together, which not only meant that Wally would have a companion on the journey, but that he would arrive in Mardan in the company of one of the most popular officers in the Corps. That alone should guarantee him a flying start, and his own engaging personality, together with the excellent reports that Zarin would have carried back, would do the rest.

Ash had no fears for Wally's future in the Guides: he had been born under a bright star and would one day make a great name for himself. The sort of name that he, Ash, had once imagined himself making.

The bungalow had seemed very quiet after Wally had gone, and there were no more martial hymns from his bathroom of a morning. It also seemed intolerably empty – empty and over-large, and depressingly squalid.

Ash had not noticed until now how dilapidated it had become, or how shoddy were the few bits of furniture they had hired at an exorbitant monthly rate from a contractor in the bazaar. He had thought it comfortable enough before, and despite certain obvious drawbacks, even friendly. But now it appeared sordid and inhospitable, and the smell of mildew and dust and mice that pervaded it was an active offence. The room that had been Wally's study and bedroom already looked as though it had been unoccupied for years, and the only proof that he had ever slept and worked there was a torn scrap of paper that appeared to be part of a laundry list.

Looking about that empty room, Ash was conscious of an uncomfortable conviction that he had lost Wally. They would meet again, and certainly see a good deal of each other in the future once he himself was allowed to return to the Regiment. But time and events would be bound to loosen the close ties of friendship that at present existed between them. Wally would find other and worthier men to admire - Wigram, for one – and because he was bound to be liked and to make friends wherever he went, he would be an immensely popular officer and an asset to the Guides. Ash did not do him the injustice of imagining that he would allow any new friendship to diminish the old one, yet its quality was bound to alter at the will of circumstances and pressures, and what officialdom termed ‘the exigencies of the service’.

The morning had been dark and overcast, and now a gust of wind, forerunner of one of the violent monsoon rainstorms that periodically drenched the plains, swept through the deserted room, setting the
chiks
flapping and bringing with it a small cloud of dust and dead neem leaves from the verandah beyond. It sent the crumpled fragment of paper, sole relic of Wally's occupation, bowling across the matting to Ash's feet, and he stooped and picked it up, and smoothing it out saw that it was not a laundry list. The poet had been jotting down rhymes –

Divine. shine. pine. mine. wine? Valentine. en…

En—? ‘Entwine?’ pondered Ash, amused. Or perhaps something more exotic, like ‘encarnadine’ –? (Wally's verse was apt to be peppered with such words). Ash wondered whom he had been addressing, and if one day he would meet a girl who would not only attract his passing fancy, but capture it and keep it for good. Somehow he could not picture Wally as a sober and settled pater familias. As a love-lorn suitor, yes. But a suitor who took good care not to press his suit too hard or allow himself to be taken too seriously, and who preferred to pursue some unobtainable She.

‘The fact is,’ mused Ash, ‘that he enjoys paying court to pretty girls and scribbling poems bewailing their cruelty or praising their eyebrows or ankles or the way they laugh, but that's about as far as it goes, because the thing he is really in love with is glory. Military glory, God help him. Until he gets that out of his system, no girl has a ghost of a chance. Oh well, he's bound to grow out of it one of these days: and out of me too, I suppose.’

He turned the scrap of paper over and discovered on the reverse side part of an exercise in Persian. Wally had evidently been translating a passage from Genesis into that language, and it occurred to Ash that this crumpled fragment of paper provided an accurate sketch of the boy's character, in that it bore evidence of his piety, his attempts to write verse, his light-hearted philandering, and his dogged determination to pass the Higher Standard in Languages with Honours. The translation proved to be a surprisingly good one, and reading the graceful Persian script, Ash realized that Wally must have been studying even harder than he had thought –

... set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the East of Eden…

Ash shivered, and crumpling up the scrap of paper into a ball, flicked it away as though it had stung him. Despite his upbringing, he was not over-given to superstition and a belief in omens. But Koda Dad had talked of trouble in Afghanistan and been disturbed by the possibility of another Afghan war, because the Frontier Force Regiments would be the first to become involved; and Ash knew that among men of the Border country, and throughout Central Asia, it is believed that the plain of Kabul is the Land of Cain – that same Nod that lies to the east of Eden – and that Cain's bones lie buried beneath a hill to the south of the city of Kabul, which he is said to have founded.