The Faraway Drums (33 page)

Now, swaying like a carnival tent that had collapsed about its pole, she put a hand on Clive’s arm and leaned on him. “I’d love to sit down, but there’s no room in this damned tube to bend my knees. I’d have done better to have come in my old tweed skirt and my cardigan. I’ll be glad when all this is over.”

“You won’t, you know.” Clive smiled affectionately at her. He was one of those men who had time and regard for old women. They are rare today:
I
know. “You’ll dine out on this till the next Durbar.”

“
I shan’t be here for that. This King is going to be like his grandmother, live for years. Am I right?” She looked at him shrewdly, half a dozen other questions in her eyes.

“That’s what we all hope.”

“What sort of answer is that?”

Then the Nawab, the Ranee and Prince Mahendra arrived, bright and beautiful as a trio of birds of paradise. Only the hen was as beautiful as the cocks.

The Ranee looked at Clive, admiration and lust in her dark eyes: I could have assassinated her on the spot. “Darling Clive, you do India proud!”

“Thank you, Mala. But that wasn’t the intention.”

Then Viola said, “Bertie, where are your wives? I was looking forward to that chorus line of saris! Surely you’re not keeping them in
purdah
on such an evening?”

“They have headaches,” said the Nawab.

“
All five of them?
That must be frustrating for you.” Viola glanced sideways, gave me a wicked grin.

“What a beautiful frock,” said the Ranee, not wanting to be overlooked while other, absent women were discussed. “It’s a little tight, isn’t it? Did your dressmaker run it up
on
you?”

Nothing about the Ranee was tight except her smile. She wore a rich blue sari that flowed round her like liquid silk; her movements were so lazily graceful that one was almost hypnotized just looking at her. Only the blaze of her jewellery kept you from dozing off. Her hair was done in a single thick plait worn down one side of her head and over one of those magnificent breasts; the plait was encased in a net of diamonds. She wore a collar of emeralds and rubies and each wrist was cuffed with a bracelet of diamonds set in gold: she was a willing prisoner of her own rich vulgarity. Behind her, looking sulky, perhaps even a little mad, was Mahendra, sporting nothing but a pearl stickpin in his pink turban.

“Where’s Prince Sankar?” Clive said. “He was invited.”

“Perhaps he has a headache, too,” said Viola, carrying more knives than a fancy French butcher.

“I am not his keeper, Clive.” The Nawab lost nothing in comparison with the officers of Farnol’s Horse. He wore gold breeches and a silk achkan in a pattern of red, gold and blue stripes; his turban was gold with a blue aigrette in which a ruby glimmered like a drunk’s eye. He looked to me as if he had been splashed with egg and ketchup. He saw me looking at him and he turned away from Clive as if he were glad
to
be distracted. “You see me in all my glory, Miss O’Brady. These are the MCC colours.”

“MCC?” The colours were an eyesore.

“Marylebone Cricket Club. I wore this once at Lord’s and the gateman refused to let me in.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Viola. “You’d have ruptured Jack Hobbs.”

If he was offended, he did not show it. He laughed, a little too heartily, and began to tell a boring story about when he had once batted with Jack Hobbs, who, I gathered, was a sort of Ty Cobb of cricket. The band began to play a Victor Herbert waltz and I wished there was room for dancing, so that Clive could take me in his arms.

Then a regimental orderly slipped up beside Clive. I heard him say, “You are wanted outside, Major. There’s been some trouble.”

End of extract from memoirs.

V

Private Ahearn stood in the shadow of the high wall of the Red Fort beside the main gate. He was dressed in baggy breeches, a long shirt, a leather waistcoat and a muslin turban and he felt bloody ridiculous. But Major Farnol had insisted that he had to make himself inconspicuous when he came down into the Old City to meet Karim Singh; he had even smeared dirt on his face and hands to make himself look more like a coolie. He felt like he was playing some kid’s game and he was glad none of the fellers back in the Connaughts could see him. But the last few days, ever since they had left the palace at Serog, had been no game and he had done everything that the Major had told him to. He had come here at four-thirty this afternoon, expecting Karim Singh to turn up at five o’clock as arranged, and had squatted down against the wall to make himself look even less conspicuous. At six o’clock, with still no sign of Karim, he had trudged back to the camp of Farnol’s Horse and, after an angry argument with a suspicious sentry, had reported to Major Farnol. Who had promptly sent him back here and told him to wait all night for Karim Singh if needs be.

He sat down with his back to the wall, careful not to prod himself with the bayonet he carried in the belt under his long shirt. It was the only weapon he had and he wished for the comfort of his Lee-Enfield. He watched the traffic passing him, going down to the bazaars. He ducked his head as four British
soldiers
went past on their way to the brothels; he wished he were going with them instead of sitting here; he’d rather risk a dose of the clap than what might happen here in the dark of the Fort wall. He was too uneducated, too ignorant of history, even Irish history, to appreciate the irony of a Belfast Catholic assisting to uncover a plot against the English. He was an Irish rebel, but for himself not for Ireland. He just hated the bloody Army, not the English.

But maybe things were going to be different when he got himself into Farnol’s Horse. He stirred a little, feeling the horse beneath his legs again; it was almost better than having a woman under you. He looked down the road after the soldiers who had disappeared into the darkness and all at once felt contemptuous of them. Bloody foot-sloggers. He’d been one of them himself, technically still was, but ahead of him he had more delights than those poor sods would ever find in a brothel. Karim Singh, who wasn’t a bad sort for a coolie, had told him what it was like in the regiment. It sounded just the life he’d settle for: his only real ambition was to get off his poor bloody feet . . .

He stood up, stretched his arms and almost fell over with shock as Karim Singh softly called to him from the black shadow of the gateway. “Holy Jay-sus! Where you been, boyo?”

“Come here—quick!”

Ahearn recovered, slipped into the gateway. In the darkness he could barely see Karim, but the big Sikh seemed to be pressing himself back against the stonework, an arm held across his belly.

“Where you been? Jay-sus, the Major was getting worried, yes—”

Karim was having trouble breathing. “You’ve got to get me back to camp, Mick.”

Ahearn put a hand on the arm across the Sikh’s belly, felt the warm blood soaking through the shirt. “You ain’t going to be able to walk that far, man. I’ll go and get a gharry. What happened, for Christ’s sake?”

“I followed Prince Sankar—he went to four different places—I couldn’t leave him to meet you here. But some of his chaps must have been following me—two of them jumped on me. They knifed me—”

“What happened to the buggers?”

“I killed one. The other one got away . . . Get me back to the camp, Mick. I don’t feel so bloody marvellous—”

Ahearn
ran out into the road, looked wildly up and down for a gharry. The gharry-wallahs were never around when you wanted ‘em . . . Then he saw one coming up the road and he ran down and jumped into it. He stood up in the ramshackle carriage, slapped the driver on the shoulder and told him to hurry. The driver, startled at being spoken to in English by a coolie, turned to argue and Ahearn belted him over the ear and told him to get going. The driver cracked his whip above his horse and the spavined animal broke into a stumbling trot.

Opposite the gate to the Fort Ahearn jumped down and ran into the blackness under the arch. For a moment he thought Karim Singh had disappeared; then he heard the moan and saw the Sikh had slipped to the ground. He picked him up, struggling under the weight of the much bigger man; he cursed, as he had all his life, at being so small. Somehow he half-carried Karim out to the gharry, pushed him into the smelly, flea-infested vehicle and scrambled in after him. Then he snapped at the driver to head north up the road towards the camp. The driver whipped his horse and again it broke into its stumbling trot and started up the road, the driver yelling for the slow-moving traffic to get out of his way. Ahearn, sitting beside the slouched Karim Singh, could hear the big man sighing with pain as the gharry rattled and swayed.

“Won’t be long, boyo. We’ll get you fixed up—”

Then the two men came at the gharry out of the crowd straggling down the road, one from each side. Ahearn saw the flash of a knife on either side of him and he yelled a warning to Karim and dragged his bayonet out from under his shirt. The driver, always alert for snatch-and-run robbers, slashed with his whip at the man on the left; Ahearn drove his bayonet straight into the chest of the man coming in on the right. The man fell sideways against the wheel of the gharry, clutching at the bayonet; Ahearn, not wanting to lose his own grip on his only weapon, fell out of the gharry on top of the man. He went over the top of the thug, still holding the bayonet and feeling it come loose out of the man’s chest, and rolled in the dust. He came up on his knees and saw the second man coming at him with his knife. He tried to bring the bayonet up, but he was too late. The knife went into his throat and he fell backwards into the dirt of the road.

In the instant before he died it seemed that his gaze widened to take in everything about him. He saw the gharry disappearing up the road into the darkness, the horse galloping now; he saw the dead thug beside him and the other man running into the crowd; and he saw the crowd, which had spread out to stand in a wide half-circle, nobody moving, everyone just staring silently at him as he died.
Holy Jay-sus, they’re
always
there Just standing and watching . . .yes . . .

VI

Early in the morning Farnol and George Lathrop went to see Karim Singh in the camp hospital. When he had brought Karim here last night in the gharry, Farnol had insisted that the Sikh was to be kept in a section on his own and he had stayed there till Lathrop had sent down two Ghurkas who were to stand guard over Karim till further notice. The sister in charge had wanted to ask questions, but Farnol had told her this was a Political Service matter and she had had the sense and experience to ask no more. When Farnol and Lathrop got to the hospital at six in the morning another sister was in charge.

“He had a good night.” She was one of those tough-minded, cheery nurses; she would have told John the Baptist’s head not to worry. “But he’s a very lucky man.”

Farnol knew that. When he had gone out of the reception tent last night and followed the orderly down to the gharry waiting outside regimental headquarters he had been expecting the worst. His fears had been confirmed, or so he thought, when he had seen Karim Singh stretched out on the seat of the gharry. Then the Sikh’s eyes had opened and he had whispered, “Go down to the Fort, sahib. Mick is there in the road—”

Farnol at once had sent a sergeant and three men down to the Old City, giving them a description of Ahearn and how he was dressed. By the time he had got back from seeing Karim admitted to the hospital, the rescue party was back at camp with Ahearn’s body.

Farnol had stood looking down at the little man in the dusty, blood-stained coolie’s clothes that were too big for him.

No matter how many dead men he saw he was always amazed at how even the faces of men he knew well turned into those of strangers. But this particular stranger had saved the life of Karim Singh.

“Bury him as if he was one of us, sergeant. He was going to be on our strength as from tomorrow. He was a Catholic, I think. Ask the R.C. padre to arrange a Mass for him.”

The sergeant looked puzzled. “One of us, sir? This chap?”

“Yes!” Then Farnol realized his voice was too sharp; he softened it. “I’m sorry, sergeant. Just take my word for it—Private Ahearn deserves to be buried as one of us. I think he’d appreciate it if he knew.”

The
sergeant, though curious, was not dense. “Yes, sir. We’ll see he gets a decent burial.”

“Did he have any personal things on him when you picked up the body?”

“Nothing, sir. One of the coolies in the crowd told me he’d had a bayonet, but someone had pinched that. There was another coolie in the road, looked like he’d been stabbed by a bayonet.”

“What did you do with him?”

“Told the coolies to get rid of him, sir.”

It was so easy to dispose of the unwanted dead
. He didn’t ask if the sergeant had found a tattoo mark inside the elbow of the other man. He was certain it would have been there.

Now he and George Lathrop were visiting the survivor; and he felt relief and gladness that it had been Karim Singh who had escaped. He was not quite sure what anger would have made him do if Karim had been the one to die. Probably he would have sought out Sankar and tried to kill him . . .

Karim Singh, in pyjamas and without his turban, his hair pulled up in a top-knot, looked far less imposing than usual. “I am sorry about Private Ahearn, sahib. It should not have been him who died, it had nothing to do with him—”

“What happened with Prince Sankar? Colonel Lathrop would like to know.”

Karim tried to ease himself up straighter in the bed, but Lathrop waved him down. “Stay comfortable. We’re not putting on a show here. Where did Prince Sankar go when you followed him? Was he alone?”

“He was alone, sahib. He went first to where the horses and elephants are being held. The Nawab of Kalanpur and then Prince Mahendra came to talk to him there.”

“How long were they there?”

“About half an hour, sahib.”

“Where did Prince Sankar go then?”

“To the camp of the Rajah of Batlor. He was there an hour.”