Isabella Rockwell's War (2 page)

“You have your
mother’s brains, thank heavens,” he smiled. “But I cannot speak to
you of this, so please don’t ask me.”

She nudged him
for confirmation.

“I am right,
though?”

John Rockwell
held her close, looking out over her head to where clouds gathered
on the far horizon.

“The truth is;
even I’m not sure where I’m going. You know of our problems along
the Afghan border. The Russians would much rather they were in
control of India than the British, so there are always uprisings to
sort out and rebellions to put down.”

Isabella
frowned.

“Why does
anyone have to be in control of India? Why can’t India be in
control of itself?”

John Rockwell
laughed and took off his glasses, rubbing them with the rag in his
hand.

“I often think
the same thing. It’s such a beautiful country – I rather feel we
ruin it.”

“So why are we
here?” Isabella persisted.

Her father
rubbed his brow.

“India is
rich. That’s all there is to it. Don’t let anyone tell you any
different, about how the British civilized the Indians. That’s
rubbish. It’s all about money and it always has been. India has
spices, silks, jewels and gold, which England wants, so we trade,
but it’s never a fair trade. We take far more than we give.” He was
silent for a minute. “But then,” her father continued in a softer
tone, “for me personally, our occupation is a blessing. I would
never have met your mother, never have had you, and never had the
chance to live in this country, which I love more than my own. I’d
be digging ditches in Ireland, and that’s if I were lucky.”

“That sounds
awful.”

“Well, we are
not well-born. I have no inheritance to leave to you and I must
work for my living. India, at least, offers able men a chance to
make something of themselves.”

Isabella
digested this.

“I will get a
job also, Papa, when I am grown.”

Her father
laughed.

“Will you not
marry?”

Isabella
wrinkled her nose.

“What? So I
can watch the children, whilst my husband goes out and has all the
adventures? No, thank you. I shall be chief groom to His Majesty
the Maharajah of Rajasthan.”

He ruffled her
hair.

“Fair enough,
but then you must learn your lessons well, for it is not a job for
an uneducated person. On my return from this trip, I would be very
glad to have a decent report from Miss Hobbs, especially in view of
the last one.”

Isabella hung
her head and muttered, “Yes, Father.”

Her father
patted her shoulder.

“Come, cheer
up. It’s not forever. Soon your childhood will be gone. Then you’ll
be free to make all the decisions you want, and all your mistakes
will be your own.”

How right he’d
been.

The following
day had been the last time she’d seen him, laughing over his
shoulder at something Josha Bilram had said, the camp behind him
forgotten and his mind already on the task ahead. How she wished
she could go with him. To camp under the starry sky and shoot
snakes from her saddle for target practice, leaving the schoolroom
far behind. What wouldn’t she have given?

Instead, she
had returned to the porch and the comfort of Abhaya, who’d enfolded
her in a vanilla-scented embrace.

“Ai Baba, I
know, I know,” she said as Isabella’s tears had soaked her sari,
“but he will return soon, don’t be sad.” So Isabella had composed
herself and tried to talk herself out of her feeling of unease,
which was surely just because it was the first time he’d ridden out
alone. He and Josha Bilram would be fine and, though it would take
time, he would come home.

Occasionally,
she would wake in the night and swing her legs out of bed to make
her way to her father’s room for comfort, as she had when she was
little. Then she remembered he was gone. After a few nights of
this, she stopped waking at all.

Three weeks
later, however, she’d woken with a start, as if someone had called
her name. It was the hour before dawn, and the night was close and
black, monsoon clouds blocking out the stars. Isabella went to her
window and looked out. As if from nowhere a wind blew through from
the north, making her jump with its suddenness. It blew through the
trees and blew through the stables waking the horses. It blew
through the porches, making shutters bang and then, just as
suddenly as it had arisen, it left; and all became still once
again.

The hairs on
Isabella’s neck rose at a sudden crash from the living room, where
she found her father’s portrait blown from its hangings, the frame
broken, lying on the floor. Tucking it carefully under one arm she
padded from room to room securing the shutters. Then she closed the
front door, and placed a statue of their family god against it. A
tricky wind like that needed watching, it meant sorrow for
someone.

Three days
later, she’d been in the stables, and seeing the dark shadow of
Abhaya’s head over the stable door, she felt a deep dread. Abhaya
never came to the stables.

“What is it
Mama-gi?” she asked hardly wanting to look at Abhaya’s face. Abhaya
took Isabella’s hands in her own work-worn ones, and sat her on a
hay bale. Isabella felt her blood turn to ice.

“Your Papa,
dearest.” Isabella shivered despite the heat of the day. “He was
supposed to make a rendezvous…but he didn’t make it. Nor did Josha
Bilram.” Abhaya took a deep breath and held her close. “A little
later they found your father’s saddlebag. The leather had been
torn, as if there’d been a great battle. Its contents were
scattered. His horse was found dead nearby.”

“His horse is
dead?” These, oddly, were the first words from her mouth. Not able
to wrap her mind around the death of her father, all she could
think of was his horse. The one he’d hand-reared from a foal, and
ridden to victory at the regiment gymkhanas, year after year. Now
her father would whistle at the paddock gate and Flash wouldn’t
come. “It must have been a very great battle for him to fall from
his horse.”

Abhaya nodded
her head slowly, never taking her eyes from Isabella’s.

“Yes, it
must.”

“Is there no
sign of his body?”

“No.” She
rubbed Isabella’s hands. “Your hands are cold.”

Isabella
nodded.

“I feel
cold.”

“Come, let us
go.”

As Isabella
had left the stables, she wondered at how it were possible to enter
a place as one person and, in such a short space of time, leave it
as someone else.

That night she
had lain staring at the ceiling of her room. The mosquito net made
her room look hazy and indistinct. She was dry-eyed and fearful. If
she went to sleep she would have to wake again to a reality she
didn’t think she could bear. Was she asleep already? Isabella
couldn’t tell. She knew Abhaya had plundered her store of healing
herbs for something to help with her shock, but it hadn’t worked.
All she could see was her father’s body, blasted by the heat, flies
at his nose and mouth, like the corpse she’d come across
unexpectedly one day, half hidden in the blonde grasses by the road
into town.

She shut her
eyes, unable to bear it any longer.

Throwing off
the sheets, she hurried through the house, lit by the soft lamps
Abhaya had left burning in case John Rockwell’s spirit needed to
find its way home. Pulling saddlebags from a cupboard, she hastily
stuffed some crackers and a canteen of water into them, before
unlocking the gun cupboard. She lifted her gun down and held it in
her hands, feeling the weight of cold wood and metal, smoothing her
fingers over the catch. It felt awkward and unfamiliar, though
she’d handled it a hundred times before. Her fingers ran along the
top shelf of the cupboard. She found six cartridges rolling around
out of their box. They would do. Now she was ready.

The moon shone
on the ground as she tiptoed from the porch, a breeze lifting the
dark shadows of the trees surrounding the camp. In the corral, the
horses stood snoozing, head to tail. Bumblebee whickered when he
saw her, eyes bright and ears forward. She rubbed his ears.

“We’re going
to find Papa and you must help me.” Bumblebee rubbed against her,
as she saddled him, and led him out across the sandy parade ground
onto the long lane which connected the camp to the main Rawalpindi
Road. All the bungalows were dark, the night watchmen asleep on the
porches. Her gaze fell on her own home, warmly lit with moths
dancing at the lamps.

What about
Abhaya?

Shouldn’t she
have left a note? Something loving or at least reassuring? Well, it
was too late now. Abhaya would understand. She always did.

Isabella
decided she would follow the road north. She had a good idea of
where he might be. His cavalry were always fighting in the
foothills north of Rawalpindi, which lay next to Afghanistan. She
was sure this was to where he’d been sent. There was no thought in
her head other than to find her father, or her father’s body,
whichever came first. She would beg for food and water along the
way, and her father had always told her she had an excellent sense
of direction, so she had no need of a map or a compass. All that
kit the soldiers took with them, why did they need it?

After all,
look at her; she was going to be fine.

The night wind
blew against her face, bringing her abruptly back to the present
and the vultures’ harsh croak echoed in her ears. Her eyelids felt
full of grit as she dragged them open and her mouth, now hours
after her last drink was bone dry; her stomach cramped like a vice,
unused to the nearly raw meat she’d eaten earlier. The night was
closing in and a jackal barked in the hills high above her. Raising
herself painfully, she poked the fire. She had one round of
ammunition left, which might see her through the night. She didn’t
dare think about tomorrow.

Had she really
thought she could find her father so ill-prepared?

No water, no
ammunition and not the faintest idea of where she was? He would be
ashamed of her.

A flat grey
plain lay in front of her, sharp with stones, which cut through the
soles of her boots. Whatever lay beyond was impossible for her to
see as the horizon merged with a shimmer into a blue nothingness.
Still, she had better not stay here. Putting one foot in front of
the other, she continued her journey; grateful at least Bumblebee
wasn’t here with her, and that in freeing him a week earlier, she’d
saved his life.

All through
that dark night she walked with no moon to guide her. Sometimes she
felt she might be asleep and dreaming, her footfalls occasionally
echoing off the stone. Whenever her thirst became too much to bear,
she forced herself to think of her loveliest memories; riding with
her father, baking with Abhaya, swimming in the creek behind the
camp, Abhaya calling her in for supper….

When the sun
rose, it surprised her.

Isabella
stopped and watched it first touch the mighty mountaintops of the
Hindu Kush turning them from grey to purple, then to scarlet. She
watched as it chased the blue shadows from the scrubby hillsides
and she watched as it crept across the plain, driving the darkness
away before, finally, arriving in a burning yellow stream at her
feet. The sudden light showed nothing, except the same grey

plain
stretched before and behind her. She’d travelled all night long and
nothing had changed; for all she knew, she could have been walking
around in circles.

Utterly
defeated, she sank to her knees. There were no trees or even
scrubby bushes for her to curl up beneath. There was nothing but
rock and stony heat and hard blue sky. It was all over. Not only
had she failed her father and the regiment, she’d failed Abhaya,
and she’d failed herself.

Wrapping her
hands around her legs, she laid her burning head on her knees. She
was crying, but produced no tears. As her consciousness faded, she
imagined she could see her father and Josha Bilram, their scarlet
and gold uniforms a brilliant splash against the grey. She smiled
in greeting, and one of them raised his arm. Then all went
dark.

Did clocks
tick in heaven? Isabella thought not. She opened her eyes, and a
brown room swam into view. The walls were beige and the furniture,
though plain, was of heavy mahogany. The room smelt of camphor, and
wooden shutters blocked the light from outside.

She was at the
British High Commission in Rawalpindi and, judging by her toes
moving beneath the grey wool blanket, she was alive. She swung her
legs from the bed and found, though her soles were bruised, she
could stand. She peered at herself in the mirror, and saw her
sun-darkened skin had blistered and peeled on her nose and
forehead. Her dark hair was a matted tangle. How Abhaya would ring
her hands in horror at the sight of it.

Isabella
smiled, remembering the pleasure Abhaya took from brushing it. Poor
Abhaya – what must she have put her through?

Leaning into
the mirror she licked a finger and removed some dirt from her
cheek. That she was lucky to be alive was an understatement. She
sat back down on the bed. What had happened to her? The door
opening made her jump. A ginger-haired soldier put his head around
the door.

“Ah good,
you’re up. I’ll send someone to help you change. Colonel Hearthogg
wants to see you.”

An hour later,
clean and fed, Isabella knocked on the Colonel’s door. This wasn’t
going to be pretty, but it was best to get it over with. Then she
could start the three-day journey home to Abhaya, who she was
missing terribly. How Isabella wished Abhaya were here now, so she
could tell her how sorry she was for running away in such a
manner.

“Come in,”
slurred a voice. The Colonel’s office was thick with dark
furniture. Shelves bulged with books, that Isabella would have laid
money on he’d never read. On one wall were maps of the known world,
the British Empire marked out in pink, and his mahogany desk was
strewn with paper scrolls, magnifying glasses and the racing pages
of the newspaper. There was also an overwhelming smell of
brandy.