Shadow of the Moon (61 page)

‘Yes,' said Alex briefly and without qualifying the statement.

Winter stood up and shook out the grey folds of her skirt. She said quite lightly, ‘I will think about it,' and was turning away when she remembered the goose. She hesitated for a moment and then said a little diffidently: ‘The - that goose. Conway thought that he had shot it. Can I take it back? Then perhaps he will not be so—'

She stopped, flushing painfully, and bit her lip; suddenly ashamed of her desire to placate her husband in this unworthy manner. But Conway would be angry enough as it was, and she could not bear another scene just now.

Alex was watching a flight of mallard who were approaching from the open water too high to allow them to pass within range. He said: ‘Of course,' without turning his head.

He did not look round as she went away, but he heard the tall grass rustle behind her, and he stood quite still, listening, until he could hear it no longer; his face drawn and bleak in the harsh sunlight.

‘Why,' demanded Alex, asking the despairing question that has been asked so often of heaven, ‘does this have to happen to me?'

An hour and a half later a horn blew, conjuring odd echoes from the water and the wandering, intersecting lines of the bunds. Beaters and
shikaris
collected the dead birds, and the guns walked back to the tents where refreshments awaited them. During the afternoon they had walked up partridge and sand grouse over the open country to the west of the jheel, leaving the duck to settle again, and only moved back to the bunds for the evening flighting.

Alex had had speech with both Kishan Prasad and the Brigadier in command at Suthragunj that afternoon. He had walked alone with Kishan Prasad to the top of a low, stony ridge that overlooked the distant jheel, and spoken bluntly and to the point, telling Kishan Prasad what he had told Winter earlier that day - that British regiments would be sent out to take over the country if the Company fell.

‘If the Company fall, it is enough,' said Kishan Prasad. ‘If I can but live to see that, I will die content.'

‘But we shall still hold India,' said Alex. ‘If it takes a year - five years, ten, twenty! - we shall go on fighting you, if only for the sake of one thing - the women. If there is a rising there will be women of ours, and children too - many of them - who will be murdered by your friends without mercy. Who
should know that better than you, who were at Khanwai? You will not be able to prevent it, and it is the one thing that my countrymen will not forgive. All else perhaps, but not that. Their deaths will arouse a hatred and a rage that will seek only revenge and not rest until it is obtained. And that revenge will fall on the heads of the innocent as well as the guilty, because men are blinded by such rage. I have seen troops run amuck, and it is not pleasant. In the last it will be your own people who will suffer most, and all to no purpose; for you will not be rid of us.'

He read the look on Kishan Prasad's face and said more quietly: ‘You do not believe that, because of what you saw in the Crimea. But it is true. We shall send out more and more British regiments.'

‘You will find it too costly,' said Kishan Prasad. ‘Your Queen and your Queen's Ministers will say, “Let be. It is not worth it.”'

‘Never. You do not understand. We are a rising power, and with every day we become richer and more powerful, and over-proud to stomach such an affront. When we have had our day the time may come when we will think as you have said, and turn from a fight. But not now. Not yet.'

‘Then I will wait for that day,' said Kishan Prasad softly. ‘And if I am dead, then my son will be ready - or if it be not him, then his son's son - or the son of that son! Would you yourself not do likewise?'

Alex did not answer and Kishan Prasad repeated the question in Hindustani, using the familiar title: ‘Tell me, Sahib, wouldst thou not do likewise wert thou of my blood and this thine own land?'

Alex stared at him, his eyes hot with a helpless anger that was as much against himself as Kishan Prasad, and he said violently and as though the words were wrenched from him: ‘
Yes
- God damn you!' and turned on his heel and walked away without once looking back to where Kishan Prasad followed more slowly behind him.

The Brigadier had been no more amenable. He was seventy-four, white-haired and exceedingly deaf, and having served in India for more than half a century, was convinced that no one had a better knowledge of the country and its inhabitants than himself.

He had listened, with one hand cupped about his ear, to Alex's views on the subject of the newly made
kutcha
road between Lunjore and Suthragunj, and had remarked that in his opinion it was a demned useful thing. If the garrison in Lunjore ever had any trouble with their men (he was aware that some of the new lot of colonels were shockin'ly incompetent and did not know how to handle natives - very different in his day; he, b'gad, had known every one of his men by name!) then the regiments in Suthragunj, loyal to a man, could now be sent over at a moment's notice to restore order. Not that there was the slightest danger of any disturbance. He himself had an ear to the ground and he would be the first to get wind of any trouble brewing. Captain Randall need have no anxiety.

Alex turned on his heel and left him without wasting further words.

31

The carriages and the ladies had left Hazrat Bagh early so as to get home before dark, but the guns had remained to shoot once more on the jheel, and had ridden back three hours later by the light of a half-moon to attend a large party given by the Commissioner to round off the day's festivities.

The gathering at the Residency had consisted of the larger part of those who had been at Hazrat Bagh, and had included the members of the self-styled Italian Opera Company, who had sung excerpts from a number of light operas and followed them by a selection of popular songs.

Alex had attended the party for reasons not unconnected with the gentleman who called himself Mr Juan Devant. He had arrived in a singularly unpleasant frame of mind, and for perhaps the first time in his life had deliberately set himself to drink too much.

Wine and spirits always circulated freely at the Commissioner's parties, even in mixed company, and although the heavy drinking of the Regency days had become a thing of the past, it remained a hard-drinking age in which a man who could not account for a bottle and more of port at a sitting was considered to be a poor specimen. But though the Commissioner's port, wine and brandy were of the best obtainable, they had little effect upon Alex beyond increasing his ill-temper, which the sight of Mr Barton openly making amorous advances to the auburn-haired ornament of the Opera Company, in complete disregard of his wife's presence, did nothing to mitigate.

It was verging on midnight when Mr Juan Devant's not unpleasing baritone embarked upon a familiar ballad:

The music and a memory hit at Alex with an unexpected, wrenching pain, and some control in him seemed to snap, as though a wire drawn taut had parted. He put down his glass, walked across the room and calmly removed Signorina Aurora Resina from the Commissioner's orbit. He had some experience of such women, and he had drunk enough to make him reckless for once of arousing the Commissioner's hostility. It suddenly did not seem to matter any longer if he did so or not. And besides, there was Winter, who should not be made to endure the insult of her husband's behaviour towards this ogling actress. But he did not want to think of Winter …

Alex could be charming enough when he chose, and he chose now. He had
blandly ignored the glowering indignation of his chief, the hostility of Colonel Moulson and the momentary shock he had seen on Winter's face, and had taken the lady away - ostensibly to view the garden by moonlight. They had not returned, though the majority of the guests, despite a long and tiring day spent in the open, had stayed until well after two o'clock.

The Commissioner had been crudely outspoken on the subject of Captain Randall's behaviour when the guests had departed, and had ended by observing that Lou Cottar had been right about the man, by God! - he was a dark horse, and they were always the worst with women: trust a woman like Lou to know! Lou had always said that Randall was no cold fish, and he'd certainly taken home a hot enough piece to keep him warm tonight. It was only he, Conway Barton, who had a cursed cold fish on his hands.

The Commissioner had returned to the deserted drawing-room to drink more brandy, and Winter had gone to her room and had sat for a long time on the edge of her bed, staring before her and thinking of Alex. Alex with his hard, nervous fingers caressing another woman's hair; Alex's slow kisses on another woman's mouth, and his dark head lying pillowed on that opulent powdered breast or buried in the suspicious brightness of those auburn curls.

She had cried only that morning for a dead bird. No, surely not for a dead bird? - for the wanton destruction of something beautiful. Was it for the beautiful day, or the strong, beautiful bird? or for her illusions and all that had happened to them? She did not know. But she could not cry now because Alex could be like Carlyon and Colonel Moulson, and Edmund Rathley who had kissed her so long ago at Ware, and - and Conway.

‘I must go away,' thought Winter, as she had thought on that day when she had first discovered that she loved Alex. ‘I will go home to the Gulab Mahal. If only I can get back there I shall be safe again - safe from everything!' And she thought, as she had thought so often, of the rose-pink walls and the brilliant flowers, and the brightly coloured birds who had been so tame that they had allowed her to touch them, and of old Aziza Begum's comfortable, sandalwood-scented lap where she had sat in the warm, star-twinkled dusk to listen to tales of Gods and Heroes.

‘I will go back,' thought Winter, staring dry-eyed into the shadows of her room. ‘If I can get back to the beginning again - the beginning of all that I remember - I can start again. If only I can get back I can start again …'

She had fallen asleep at last, fully clothed, and she had not ridden that day, either in the morning or the evening, because she had been afraid of seeing Alex.

She had not seen him again for some considerable time. Alex had taken care of that. The night he had spent in the arms of the Signorina had resolved nothing and solved no problems. It had not even made him forget, as he held her, the feel of Winter's slim body in his arms. In the cold grey light of the early morning the auburn-haired Aurora had looked blowsy and coarse - the
lip rouge with which she had deepened the red of her pouting mouth smeared and ugly, and the black from her lashes smudging her cheeks. She smelt faintly of perspiration and rice powder and overpoweringly of patchouli, and Alex had looked at her with impatience and pity and a twinge of disgust, and thought of Winter sobbing jerkily against his shoulder for the death of a wild bird. And had found that his anger had not evaporated with the morning but was still a hard, hot stone in his breast.

The complexity of his emotions exasperated him, and he had woken the woman and driven her back in the dawn light to the dâk-bungalow where the troupe were lodging, from where she and they had left later that morning for Delhi: Alex having sent word ahead of them to Mr Simon Fraser, and arranged for an unobtrusive individual to be attached to their seedy retinue of servants in a minor capacity - the previous holder of the office having been unaccountably taken ill and being unable to proceed further.

‘Am I seeing danger in every shadow?' thought Alex. ‘That man
can
sing. But so can a good many Russians. Theatrical companies do not usually get further than Calcutta or Madras, and these people have been to Luck-now. Oh well - at least we shall know now who he meets on the road and who he talks to, and Fraser can deal with it in Delhi.'

Alex attended no more parties at the Residency, and he had not ridden again with Winter. His bungalow had not seen him for days at a time, for he spent more and more of his time in the outlying villages of the district, picking up what information he could between and in the course of his official duties, and doing what lay in his power to allay the uneasiness that he could see and sense in and behind every cautiously worded greeting or inquiry.

The villagers would bring him rumours - tales such as the story of the bone-dust that was reported to have been mixed with the Government flour - and he would deny them, explaining and exhorting, and his listeners would agree. Yes, yes, he was right. The Huzoor was right. It was only a tale, and untrue. A tale spread by evil men to alarm the simple … But he knew that they did not eat the flour, and that it lay rotting in the Government-stamped sacks in warehouses and carts.

He could not reach them. Their processes of thought were not of the West. They accepted an order if it were backed by force, but that did not mean that it was of itself acceptable. They respected Alex, and many of them liked him; but he was a
feringhi
- a foreigner. Impassable gulfs gaped between them, across which they looked at each other helplessly; seeing the same things by entirely different lights and weighing them by different standards so that they appeared as dissimilar as rocks and rivers. ‘Is there a meeting-point?' thought Alex. ‘Is there any real neutral ground?' But there was Niaz, who was as much his friend as William. How did one explain his strong kinship for this man of his own age who could turn from his own race to serve one of alien blood?

He had asked Niaz that question one evening when they were lying up in a patch of high grass waiting for a slow-moving herd of blackbuck to pass within range (Alex was in camp and they were shooting for the pot), and Niaz had replied lightly: ‘I have eaten the Company's salt.'

‘That is no answer. Many have done so, but the bread that is eaten is soon forgotten.'

Niaz shrugged. ‘We are brothers, thou and I. Who can say why? Were I a dog of a Hindu I would say that perchance in some other life we were indeed kin, for I have met none other among thy race whose mind I knew - or cared to know. Yet I know thine.'

‘And if it come to bloodshed, as it may come, wouldst thou stay with me against thine own kin?'

‘
Beshak
!' The answer was prompt and leisurely. ‘I owe thee my life - and thine is forfeit to me. That alone were a rope that is hard to cut. Quiet now! They move this way …'

It was Niaz who had brought him a copy of a pamphlet that was being circulated in the city calling on all Mohammedans to prepare for a
Jehad
- a Holy War. ‘This thing is in the hands of all Mussulmans,' said Niaz, ‘and in the mosques also they preach a
Jehad
. I have heard too that it has been promised that Ghazi-ud-din Bahadur Shah, the King of Delhi, shall be restored to his own, so that once more the Mogul will rule in Hind.'

‘And what say the Hindus who hear such talk?' asked Alex.

‘They do not speak against it. And that is a strange thing, for they would not wish to see us rule them as once we did. Yet they say that they will accept the Mogul because he is of Hind, and no foreigner. Sikunder Dulkhan (Alexander the Great)' - Niaz looked at Alex with a half-smile - ‘I will fight at thy side and take thy orders when the bloodshed begins - and
I
do not say “if it begin” - but I too would like to see a Mussulman rule once more in Delhi; Sunni though he be, while we of my family be Shiahs.'

Alex said: ‘Art thou so sure then that it will come to an uprising?'

‘As sure as thou art! And were it not for thee I myself might well cry
Deen! Deen
! for the Faith.'

Alex shivered involuntarily. He had heard that fanatical war-cry in his time and had seen the green flags wave and the hot-eyed hordes of the Faithful sweep yelling up to and onto and over the guns, and he had not forgotten. He said now: ‘Who is behind this thing that comes? Is it the Hindus or the Mussulmans? Or is it the work of foreigners - Russians and Persians?'

Niaz laughed and made a gesture of negation with his hand. ‘There are many Russian spies; and Persian too. They, the Russ-
log
, plot with both, as is their custom - but always against thy people! And in despite of the police and the spies of the Company they still go about the land, even to the walls of Delhi, bringing money and arms and many promises, and their sayings and promises are printed openly in the Hindu press. But their words are of
little account: they help to boil the pot, that is all. Nay; this that will come is the Rising of the Moon,' said Niaz with oriental imagery. ‘We who were once great in the land have lost almost all that we had of power, and revolt may serve us where peace will not. This will be a
Jehad
. And I think it comes close. Dost thou remember the night of the earthquake at Hoti Mardan?'

Alex nodded. He knew only too well what Niaz meant, for the same thought had occurred to him more than once of late. Over seven years had passed since the night that Niaz had referred to, but he had never forgotten the weird, waiting hush that had preceded that violent convulsion of the earth, or the way in which the dogs and the horses had known what was coming and had striven with uneasy whining, shivering, sweating apprehension to give a warning that had not been heeded. Alex was aware again of that same uncanny, ominous feeling of expectant stillness. But it was a stillness that was not to last long, and the first warning mutter came from faraway Bengal.