The Faraway Drums (19 page)

“
I haven’t shared any bedtime stories with Mala for a year, Bobs.” He took another risk using the nickname; it was almost as bad as laying one’s hand on him. But he had to get this conversation on to an informal basis, he was never going to get Mahendra to talk while it remained
Your Highness
and
Major
. He was relieved to see that the prince did not seem to mind the sudden intimacy. “I found some papers—”

“Where? I thought—” Then Mahendra realized he had made a slip. “You’re clever—Clive, isn’t it?”

“You thought you’d taken all his papers from him? All his pockets had been cut off.”

Mahendra shook his head. “I didn’t do that nor did any of my servants. Nor did I poison Major Savanna.”

It was too dark to read his face and the soft sing-song voice gave nothing away. Yet Farnol thought Mahendra was telling the truth. “Who did, then? He did come to see you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” He walked in silence, head bent again. In the giant oak beside the bungalow a night bird cried, like a troubled child, and a monkey chattered grumpily at being awakened. “There was someone else in the palace—I don’t know who. The place is so big, so many rooms—I have never been in them all.”

“Can you make a guess who it was? No? All right then—why did Savanna come to see you? Why was he trying to get you to turn against Mala?”

“Did his papers say that? What a foolish man, putting things on paper.” It did not seem to occur to Mahendra that Farnol might be lying about the papers. “But I suppose he had to report to his superiors. He told me that the English saw my point, that Mala is not worthy of being the ruler here in Serog.”

Farnol doubted that Savanna had been acting under instructions from his superiors, certainly not from George Lathrop. “She’s not popular, I know that. But did Savanna promise to make you ruler?”

“I did not need his promises.” The head came up. “I could rule Serog without his help. There are others—”

“Who?”

But now Mahendra became crafty. They had come to the foot of the steps; an oil lamp on the verandah cut his face into thin planes of yellow and black. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and anger: he was being tricked by this Englishman. “It is none of your business, Major! Go to bed, leave me alone! Go to bed with my whoring sister, let her tell you what she knows—if she knows anything at all!”

I’ve
pushed him too far
. He had had no experience with anyone as mentally unstable as Mahendra. With the dim-witted, yes, plenty of times, and with mystics on a plane that he had found almost unreachable. But never with anyone as unpredictable as this half-mad prince. He realized that Mahendra could be driven to murder without any conscience . . . “Mala will tell me nothing because I no longer go to bed with her. I am trying to keep the peace here in Serog—”

“Who said I wanted peace? You English—you think you always know what’s good for us!” He was straining to keep a hold on himself, as if he knew the crack in him was widening. His voice was rising, thin now, no longer sing-song: “We’ll do what we want—!”

“Bobs—” The Nawab stepped out of the shadows on the verandah. “Bobs!”

Mahendra swung round and looked up in puzzlement at the Nawab. Then with something like an animal whimper he stumbled up the steps and disappeared into the bungalow. The Nawab looked after him, then down at Farnol.

“You should treat him more carefully, old bean.”

“I wish you’d mind your own business, Bertie. How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough. We must take care of our own. The Princes’ Trade Union, you know.”

Farnol went up the steps to the verandah. “You’re hiding something, Bertie. I think you may even know who’s trying to kill me. If you did, that wouldn’t be cricket.”

The Nawab looked pained. “Don’t let’s joke about holy subjects, Clive.”

“Me or cricket? You’re the one who’s joking.”

The Nawab stared at him, then he turned, saying over his shoulder as he went, “All the jokes may be over, Clive. And no one will be sorrier than I.”

III

When Farnol woke in the morning he could hear the movement and shouting outside the compound. The Baron, in cream silk pyjamas, was standing at the window.

“I think we must hurry. Prince Mahendra is already out there. He’s not planning to go without us, surely?”

Farnol pulled on trousers and jacket over his pyjamas, went out on to the verandah. The Ranee,
dressed
for travelling, was standing at the top of the steps. “What’s going on, Mala? It’s only—” He took out his watch. “Dammit, it’s only half past six! Where the devil does your brother think he’s going?”

“He’s going back to the palace. He’s no longer interested in the Durbar. I say good riddance!”

For a variety of reasons, all of them a jumble in his mind at the moment, Farnol knew he could not allow Mahendra to go back to Serog. Mahendra was involved in some major mischief; his threat to kill his sister was only part of it. But he knew that the prince would not listen to any plea or demand from himself, not after last night.

Then Bridie, dressed but looking as if she had done so in a hurry, came out on to the verandah. Farnol grabbed her by the arm and almost pulled her down the steps. He walked her up and down the drive while he quickly explained why he had to keep Mahendra with them in the caravan.

“Go down and flatter him some more, please. Tell him you need him for your story, tell him you’re going to make him its hero, anything you like. But keep him with us!”

“I don’t know that he’ll listen to me. He suspects women—I think he even hates us—”

“I’m sure he’s not the first woman-hater you’ve met. You’ll convince him he must stay with us.”

“Who’s flattering whom now?”

“You can flatter me when we get down to the Durbar. You haven’t seen me in my dress uniform. I’m truly exotic.” His smile was only fleeting. “Don’t let him go back!”

Bridie went on down the driveway and out of the compound to where Mahendra stood waiting impatiently beside the road. Farnol went back up to the verandah and the Ranee.

“What are you doing, Clive? Having Miss O’Brady offer herself to Bobs? It won’t work, you know. He’s a dedicated celibate or he’s asexual, I’m not sure which. Sometimes I can’t believe we came from the same father.”

“Did you have the same mother?”

“No. Perhaps that explains it.”

“Miss O’Brady isn’t going to offer to get into his bed. There are other ways of winning a man, Mala.”

“Really?” The Ranee smiled, as if she knew that the other ways, whatever they were, could so often be a waste of time.

The
others had now come out on to the verandah, the Nawab, the Baron and Zoltan Monday half-dressed, Lady Westbrook and Magda in their dressing-gowns. Magda’s gown was not meant to be worn outside a bedroom, but Lady Westbrook’s was a sensible, all-purpose blue woollen gown that came right up to her throat. She also wore one of her hats, which set the seal on her decorum.

“What’s the hullabaloo? Clive, you said nothing about such an early start. Breakfast isn’t ready yet!”

“I’m sorry, Viola, it’s not my doing. Prince Mahendra is planning to return home. Miss O’Brady is down there trying to persuade him not to.”

Then the Nawab, who had been uncharacteristically silent, said, “Miss O’Brady’s coming back. And so is Bobs!”

Farnol watched the prince and the reporter come up the driveway, chatting amiably; he half expected them to hold hands, so friendly did they appear towards each other. He glanced at the Ranee. “You see, Mala. There are other ways.”

She seemed not to have heard him. She was staring down at her brother and Farnol saw the odd expression on her face; it took him a moment to recognize it as relief, a weakness he had never seen in her before. Then she turned her head and smiled at him.

“You must teach them to me some time, Clive.”

Mahendra took Bridie’s arm and helped her up the steps.

He smiled at the group on the verandah, as innocent as a child who had wandered away for an early morning walk. “Did I waken you? I am so sorry. I am always an early riser, I forget that some people like to stay in bed. Is breakfast ready?”

“Bobs—” The Nawab, too, looked relieved. “Don’t get up so early again. None of us is as young as you.”

Farnol was looking at the Baron and Monday; but if they were relieved, they did not show it. Everyone went back into the house, Farnol following the Baron to their bedroom.

“You have a problem with that young man,” said the Baron.

Farnol washed, combed his hair; then remembered he hadn’t shaved. That took another five minutes and all the time he cursed for letting himself get out of his routine. He had found from long
practice
that keeping to routine, especially first thing in the morning, gave him a firm base for the rest of the day. And, God knew, he needed a firm base for the next three or four days.

He finished dressing, put on his Sam Browne belt, checked that he had full chambers in his pistol. He looked up and saw the Baron watching him.

“Wearing a pistol to breakfast?”

“Baron, from now on I’m going to wear it to bed, too. I have quite a few problems, not just the one with Mahendra.”

“Am I one of your problems, Major?” The Baron paused as he stood in front of the cracked mirror tying his tie. He looked at Farnol beyond the reflection of himself; he remarked that in the fly-blotched mirror he himself looked old and tired. With a sharp pang he wondered if Thuringia would now remain just a memory, if he would ever go home again. “It would disturb me if you thought of me as one.”

Farnol all at once felt sympathy for the old man. He had worked for his country with honesty and dignity, but Farnol was sure there had been times when Berlin’s instructions had meant that those virtues had to be sacrificed for expediency. It was the same with all diplomats, he guessed, and remembered the expediences he had had to deal in.

“No, Baron. I think you know more than you have told me. But I trust you.”

The old man bowed into the mirror. “Thank you, Major. Do you know our poet Goethe? He came from my region. He once wrote:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it
. That sounded so inspiring when I was young.
Boldness
, he said,
has genius, power and magic in it
. Now I’m not so sure. I dreamed of being another Metternich, a Bismarck. But . . . Ach!” He looked in the mirror again at himself. “Diplomacy has no room for conscience. It is even worse than politics.”

“I don’t think I’ve given a thought to conscience since we started this little trip.” He buttoned the flap of his holster. “That’s another problem altogether and I hope it doesn’t arise. Shall we go in for breakfast?”

The caravan got under way at eight o’clock before the sun had risen above the steep mountains to the east. The staff of the bungalow came out and stood in line, heads bowed and hands pressed together as first Prince Mahendra and then the Ranee passed them. Then they went back into the compound to sit and wait for perhaps months before any more visitors came to the bungalow. Lady Westbrook, who had
once
called it home, did not bother even to look back as the coach rolled down the road.

“I never enjoyed it,” she told the Ranee. “I was too often left alone there. Your father was always calling my husband up to the palace for advice. So far as I know, he never took a damn bit of notice of anything Roger ever told him.”

“That would be Father,” said the Ranee, every inch her father’s daughter. She knew the dangers of taking advice from the English: her father had advised her of that.

Farnol left Bridie to ride with Mahendra and the Nawab, to flatter one and be flattered by the other; he was sure she could handle both. She was another of his problems, a more personal one; he was becoming attracted to her, more interested in her than he should be at this time and in these circumstances. He had had several love affairs, some might say many: that depended on the tally-keeper’s experience or lack of it. But he had been in love only once. She had been one of the Fishing Fleet, one of those British girls who came out every year at the beginning of the cool weather as guests of relatives or friends, went to parties and balls and gymkhanas and never took an eye off the men, young or middle-aged, who, they had been told, were in the market for a bride. His love had been one of them, but after six months of India she had decided she could not live there and had gone home, one of those labelled Returned Empty. It had taken him a year to get over her; but he had been pleased to learn that she had found a husband in a safer clime, a wool merchant in Bradford. He could not see Bridie O’Brady wanting to stay in India and he could not see himself living anywhere else. So the problem of falling in love with her should be put right to the back of his mind. Which, as any 80-year-old priest will tell you, is easy.

He rode always with an eye on the slopes that towered above the winding road. An eagle planed lazily on the morning air and he wondered what the sharp-eyed bird could see. Would men ever be able to spy from the air? It was only eight years to this very month that those American brothers, the Wrights, had actually got a flying-machine to stay in the air. Yet last year Louis Blériot had flown right across the English Channel! There was talk that, if and when the next war came, the battles would be fought by aeroplanes. He could not bring himself to believe that, partly because he was a cavalryman and he would not want to see horses relegated to drawing carts for the supply corps. He did not wish to see war break out, not a major war as some people were already talking about, but if one had to fight, then it was better to enjoy it. His father had fought in the Second Afghan War and told him of the thrill of leading a cavalry charge. Still, he
looked
up at the sky now and wished he could see what the eagle could see.

He rode at the rear of the procession with Zoltan Monday. Immediately behind them were Karim and Ahearn, mounted on two of the Ranee’s spare horses. Ahearn was one of those Irishmen who seemed a natural horseman, as if some ancient Celt jockey had spread his seed indiscriminately through the bogs and slums of Ireland. He had never been on a horse’s back till he left Belfast and even here in India only rarely; but now he rode with the same ease and grace as the tall Sikh beside him. For the first time in his life he had a small air of dignity about him, as if he did not want to shame the magnificent chestnut he rode. The Ranee, taking her best horses down to the Durbar for her own advertisement, had elevated Ahearn, if only temporarily.