The Strangler Vine (9 page)

‘We stopped at Bindachal,’ he called out to my retreating back,
‘because I thought Xavier Mountstuart would have chosen to visit it. The temple priest told me he came in March.’

The road from the Ganges down towards Poona, Nagpore and the western coast – a road that runs over 700 miles – was little more than a rutted dirt path worn by centuries of bullock carts, camels and feet. Occasionally it would end before a fallen tree, whereupon we would retrace our steps and look for a newer, fainter track to take us onward. There could have been no greater contrast with the Grand Trunk Road, so constantly full of bustling travellers. There were far fewer journeyers and for miles at a time we passed no one. Two more days brought us out of Bengal and into the Company territory of Saugor and Nerbudda River.

‘They say that the Nerbudda is so pure and clean,’ Mir Aziz said, ‘Mother Ganga herself is coming to wash in its waters.’

By daylight the landscape was verdant and leafy. There were moments, indeed, when I had a strange intimation of almost being in England. The earth turned dark red, like the Devon soil, and as we rode, splashing through the half-dried mud, clouds of small yellow butterflies floated along before us and on either side tiny yellow flowers sprang from the banks. The jangal – the thickest I had so far seen – alternated with flat green scrub, and far off there were soft hills covered in clusters of delicate leafy trees. Mir Aziz told me their names: the common sal with which the villagers built their huts; banyans with their thick muscular trunks and long wooded tendrils hanging down under the spread of leaves; peepul trees, tall with dark green shiny leaves which the villagers used as medicine for headaches and pains; sissos and mahua; teak with its huge heart-shaped leaves and fluffy white seed-heads.

But for all the odd moments of familiarity, for all the lushness, there were other times, especially at night, when the landscape seemed strange and sinister, an old forest harbouring an old and secret evil. This was Thugs’ heartland, they had buried their victims in mango groves, and in turn Major Sleeman had hung them from the trees. Jiggins had told me to watch for dacoits and robbers, for
whom the thick monsoon growth provided perfect cover. Mir Aziz said the forests were occupied by Bhils and Gonds, tribes who had once ruled these parts and who wore bones in their ears and noses, painted themselves and preyed on human flesh. For myself, I noticed strange growths in the trees, where one grey trunk, about a fist-width, wound itself round and round another, entrapping and surrounding it even as a python squeezes life out of its prey. Sometimes there would be copses in which tree upon tree was in the course of being thus encircled.

Major Sleeman’s presence and influence resonated down the road, as if combating this old evil. Twice a day we would come to a well-tended mango grove, small oases of sanctuary planted to provide shelter for travellers to pitch their tents. Most, according to the villagers, had been planted on Sleeman’s orders. One village was even named Sleemanabad in gratitude for the hundred acres he had purchased for it after the local guroo had prophesied that he would have a son. At another they pointed proudly to a large sal tree on which the Major had hung the leaders of a particularly fiendish gang of Thugs.

The villages were usually little more than a cluster of huts plastered in pale blue, with a few plantain trees and fields of lentils studded with covered platforms where farmers watched over their crops. It was in these – rather than the occasional plantations we came upon – where Blake made inquiries. He would seek out the headman or guroo, while gangs of small children covered in nothing but dust surged to meet us, thrusting their fingers up to touch us, grabbing for my shiny coat buttons. The mothers, their faces covered, watched us silently from their huts. Blake would talk in the local lingo, then he and Mir Aziz would be invited into a hut, and when they emerged all would be smiling. Blake would gesture for Nungoo to bring out a map, on which he would note our position. Whether anything was vouchsafed about Mountstuart’s whereabouts I did not know: I had not spoken with Blake since our exchange after Bindachal, and I was too proud to ask.

On the night before we came to Jubbulpore, we camped in a mango grove with a small, well-kept tank. Nungoo produced a pipe
and trilled strange, uncouth sounds, and Sameer sang quietly along with him. Mir Aziz brought out the huqqa he had smoked in the evenings since Benares, and offered to tell me the names of the stars and some new plants I had seen. I acquiesced gratefully, glad of a little talk and aware that tomorrow in Jubbulpore such familiarities would be less appropriate.

I retired but sleep eluded me. I lay in the dark thinking about Jubbulpore, listening to the hum of the grasshoppers and the cry of a jackal. I dozed for a while. I came half to my senses and I was back in my room at home in England. It was a summer night. The window was open. I could feel the breeze and for a moment I felt perfectly at ease. Then I remembered that the gentle airs of the West Country were a long way away. I was in a tent in the Mofussil and the movement of the air around me was unnatural; something had happened. In the moment I understood this, I sensed that I was not alone. There was someone in my tent. He moved as quietly as anything could, but I was sure he was at the foot of my bedroll. I knew he must be watching me for any sign of consciousness and so I kept my eyes shut.

If he was an assassin I would already be dead. If not an assassin, therefore, a thief. It was almost tempting to lie still and let him make off with my paltry possessions so he might see just how poor a travelling sahib could be. I made a small stretching, shifting movement, as if in sleep, to free the sheet where it was tightly pinned against my chest. Then abruptly I rolled forward and dived towards him and my few small packs.

There was enough moonlight to see that the thief was entirely naked, and he glistened as if he were covered in water or oil. As soon as I moved towards him he jerked backward and as quickly as I had seized his arm, it slipped from my grasp. I saw that one side of the tent flap had been cut away; it was this that had brought on my dream of home. I lunged forward again, this time gripping his leg about the middle of the calf. He stumbled, but the oil made him so difficult to hold that almost at once he was straight away back upon his feet. He swung round at me as I advanced again, and I felt a sting all through my arm. Then he was away, half stumbling
and half running across the clearing to where our horses were tethered.

I took the pistol from under my bedroll where I had been keeping it, and followed after him.

‘Hai! Hai! Thief!’ I shouted. The grove was mostly in shadow, but the moon illuminated enough for me to take in the scene. My attacker was already halfway across the clearing. The horses were loose and excitable, and near them a group of figures were moving in a way which at first sight looked oddly like a rough country dance. Then I understood that it was Nungoo, who had been on watch, fighting off two men. Another naked thief stood by the trees. I was filled with rage.

‘Get away,’ I roared, running towards Nungoo and his attackers. It did not occur to me that they might misunderstand my meaning, and they did not. The second thief vanished into the trees. My thief, only a little behind, followed him at speed. Both were screaming what I imagined were angry and fearful oaths. One of Nungoo’s attackers detached himself and flew towards me, brandishing a knife. I waited until he was four paces from me, then I shot him and he fell, a bullet in his throat. The second attacker, seeing the fate of his comrade, made a last thrust at Nungoo’s chest, then turned to run away. Nungoo fell to the ground.

I hesitated as he ran. The pistol was a Collier repeater. There was nothing else like it. It could shoot six bullets in succession, but its wondrous qualities were somewhat offset by its tendency to blow off one’s hand with the second shot if it was not cleaned. In a moment Nungoo’s attacker would be all but lost in the shadows. I turned the barrel, cocked the hammer and gazed into the dark, fancying I had caught a flash of movement. I pulled the trigger.

It was a lucky shot. I heard him fall.

This whole episode took barely a minute. I was standing at the far end of the clearing when the others emerged from their tents.

‘Don’t follow them,’ Blake shouted. ‘You’ll never catch them now.’ He called something to Sameer, who ran to secure the horses, and something else to Mir Aziz, who with Blake went to the fallen figure of Nungoo. I followed after.

It was evident that Nungoo was beyond help. He lay on his side, his arms awkwardly splayed out like a doll’s, his head twisted back, his eyes open, as if he had been thrown down from a great height. From his neck there streamed dark rivulets of blood. The moon was brokenly reflected in its viscous surface. We stood quiet for a moment. Blake leant and touched Nungoo’s neck, then pushed him over so his chest was upward. There were many more dark wounds in his chest and stomach.

‘Why did he not call out?’ I said, more angrily than I meant.

‘They crept up on him. One of them managed a cut at his throat but it didn’t kill him, though I suspect he couldn’t make a noise. Then he fought hard until they did for him.’

Without a word, Mir Aziz brought a lantern and lit it with the tinderbox. First he set about rearranging the body so that it lay straight. Then he began to search our baggage. The brigands had not had time to take much, but our packs were strewn upon the ground, rice and flour trampled all about. My small tent had been cut all the way up one side before I had woken. The last few pieces of my silver cutlery and a few coins had gone. One set of books lay scattered about; the others spilled out of the package my attacker had hit me with. Mir Aziz stepped carefully through the debris until he found what he wanted: a pack of cotton sheets. A few feet from him one of the thieves lay still, his long skewering knife still in his hand.

‘This one is dead,’ said Blake. Then he walked over to the other fallen figure in the shadows and bent down. ‘This one,’ he added, and there came a whimper and a splutter, ‘is still just alive.’

Mir Aziz was wiping the blood from Nungoo’s body. From where I stood I could see that both thieves were naked, and their oiled skin gave off an uncanny sheen in the moonlight. I had heard stories of robbers who covered themselves in grease to steal into tents and to slip through the fingers of a would-be captor. So skilful were they, it was said, they could tickle their sleeping victims with a feather, making them turn and wriggle, until they had stolen the rings from their fingers and the clothes from their backs.

Mir Aziz spread a cotton blanket over Nungoo. Sameer sliced
another into rags and they began to wash the body under its cover. I would have liked to have offered my help, but it was such a private scene it did not seem proper to interrupt it, and I noted that Blake did not. The wounded thief stirred and cried out. I was not keen to take a closer look at my handiwork – I had shot many things before but never a man – but I knew I must.

The bullet had entered the lower part of his back, under his ribs, passed through his guts and come out on the other side. I could see blood streaming from both back and stomach. He had tried to turn himself and was leaning on his side, breathing shallowly. ‘What should we do with him?’ I whispered.

‘The bullet came out, but it will likely have ruptured his innards and he’s bleeding very fast. I can’t do much for him, and I doubt Mir Aziz could either, even if he wished to,’ Blake said. ‘It will be a slow death. You could save him pain by putting him out of his misery now.’

‘I cannot,’ I said. We looked at the man. He seemed barely aware of us, but the pain must have been monstrous. At last Blake said, ‘I can bind the wound to slow the bleeding.’

He pulled Nungoo’s bedroll from his collapsed tent and folded it, then gently moved the thief so he was lying upon it. From the little pouch about his own neck, Blake took a ball of something soft and brown, pulled a little off and pushed it into the thief’s mouth, forcing a little water between his lips.

‘That is opium?’

‘Yes.’

‘He killed Nungoo.’

‘And now he too dies. A poor exchange for both of them. The opium’s the best I can do for him.’ He took two great swabs of rag and folded them. ‘Come and help me.’ We put one swab under his back, and Blake put the other over the stomach wound and pressed down upon it. The thief gasped and muttered something. I stood up. Blake looked up.

‘Avery, you’re bleeding.’

I saw he was right. I was still holding the pistol in my right hand. I had quite forgotten it. There was a thick gash along my arm from
below the elbow into my hand. It was slick and wet and, now that I saw it, it hurt acutely.

‘It is nothing,’ I said, but I dropped the gun and my hand began to shake.

Leaning across the thief’s body, Blake took hold of my arm and turned it over. ‘At least it missed the vein, Mr Avery. Now sit down and let me see it.’ But I could not.

‘I must just collect my books,’ I said, and I set about clumsily gathering my scattered volumes and put them into a pile, and all the while drops of blood dripped on to the covers. Blake watched me.

When I had finished he said, ‘Ever shot a man before?’

‘Two,’ I said. ‘No.’

‘Come here. Take my place. Press down on the wound with your other hand.’ I did not relish the task, but I did as he asked. He fetched a pile of Sameer’s rags. ‘We’ll wrap it for now.’ He swabbed my arm and bandaged Sameer’s rag tight about it. Then he pulled out the purse from round his neck and took out the ball of opium. He pinched off a small piece and held it out to me. I shook my head.

‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Like as not I’ll have to stitch your wound. Take it, it’ll help.’

I took the small brown ball and placed it in my mouth, and he pushed me out of the way and resumed his pressure on the thief’s stomach. The opium was easy to chew, a little like beeswax but bitter, and a dusting of cinnamon had been added to it to make it more palatable.

Mir Aziz was reciting some kind of prayer over Nungoo’s body. Sameer sat next to him, his head bowed.