Supping With Panthers

Also by Tom Holland

Fiction

THE VAMPYRE

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

ATTIS

THE SLEEPER IN THE SANDS

Non-fiction

RUBICON

PERSIAN FIRE

MILLENNIUM

Copyright

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 9780748115334

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Tom Holland 1996

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

Contents

Also by Tom Holland

Copyright

Preface

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Author’s Note

For my parents.
Blood will out.

‘Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It’s pure lunacy.’

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.

‘The blood is the life.’

Bram Stoker,
Dracula.

P
REFACE

London,
15
December,
1897.

To those whom it concerns—

If you are reading this letter, then you will no doubt suspect the danger you are in. The lawyers you have approached are under instructions to deliver to you a body of papers. The story they reveal is a terrible one. Indeed, only recently did I understand its full extent when a copy of Moorfield’s book was sent to me from Calcutta, together with a bundle of letters and journals. Start with Moorfield’s book, at the chapter titled ‘A Perilous Mission’ – I have left three letters where I found them within the pages of the book. Otherwise the papers are arranged by myself. Read them in the order in which they have been placed.

My poor friend. Whoever you may be, whenever you may read this – do not doubt, please, that what is recorded did occur.

May God’s hand protect you.

Yours in grief and hope,

ABRAHAM STOKER.

P
ART
O
NE

Extract from the memoirs of Colonel Sir William Moorfield, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.,
With Rifles in the Raj
(London,

A PERILOUS MISSION

A secret mission – ‘Shmashana Kali’ – a mountain journey – the bloody idol – an ominous discovery.

I come now to perhaps the most extraordinary episode of my whole long career in India. In the late summer of 1887, when the boredom of garrison duty had become almost unbearable, I received an unexpected summons to Simla. There were no details of what the mission might be, but since the heat on the plains was by now pretty sweltering I was not averse to a jaunt up to the hills. I have always had a love of mountains and Simla, perched high on a promontory above cedars and mists, was certainly a place of striking beauty. However, I had but little time to admire the views, for no sooner had I arrived at my allotted quarters when a message came to me from one Colonel Rawlinson, ordering me to report to him at once. A quick shave and a change of uniform, and then I was on my way again pronto. Had I known where the meeting was to lead, I might not have walked with such an eager step – and yet the thrill of soldiering was in my blood again, and I would not have exchanged it for all the world!

Colonel Rawlinson’s office was set apart from the regular H.Q., down a side street so dark that it seemed more suitable to a native bazaar than the quarters of a British officer. Any uneasiness I may have suffered on this account, however, was soon banished by my first sight of Colonel Rawlinson himself, for he was a tall, spruce man with a hint of steel in his eye, and I found myself liking him instinctively. He led me straight away into a teak-lined study, filled with maps and decorated along the walls with the most extraordinary collection of Hindoo gods. There were two men waiting for us there, seated at a circular table. One I recognised at once – it was old ‘Pumper’ Paxton, my commanding officer from Afghanistan! I had not seen him for five years now – yet he looked as hale and hearty as he ever did. Colonel Rawlinson waited as we exchanged our greetings; then, once we had finished, he introduced the second man, who had been sitting until this moment obscured by shadow.

‘Captain Moorfield,’ said the Colonel, ‘please meet Huree Jyoti Navalkar.’

The man leaned forward; he bobbed his head in the native manner and I saw – with a sense of shock, I don’t mind admitting – that the fellow was not even a soldier, but your typical Babu, a fat, sweating office-wallah. Colonel Rawlinson must have observed my surprise, yet he offered no explanation for the Babu’s presence; instead he began to flick through some papers, then stared up at me again, that look of steel still glinting in his eye.

‘Outstanding career record you have here, Moorfield,’ he said.

I felt myself getting red. ‘Oh, that’s all rot, sir,’ I muttered.

‘I see you gave a good account of yourself in the Baluchistan show. Get into the mountains at all, did you?’

‘I saw a bit of action there, sir, yes.’

‘Fancy seeing a bit more of the hills?’

‘I’ll go wherever I’m sent, sir.’

‘Even if it’s not in your regular line of soldiering?’

I frowned at this and caught old Pumper’s eye, but he just looked away and said nothing. I turned back to Colonel Rawlinson. ‘I’m willing to have a crack at anything, sir.’

‘Good man!’ he smiled, patting me on the shoulder, then reaching for his swagger stick. He crossed to a large map hanging on the wall, and as he did so his face froze once again into an expression of deadly seriousness. ‘This, Moorfield,’ he said, tapping with his stick at a long purple line, ‘is the frontier of our Indian Empire. It is long and, as you yourself will know only too well, it is thinly protected. And here’ – he tapped with his stick again – ‘is the territory of His Imperial Majesty, the Russian Tsar. Observe further, this zone here – the mountains and the steppes – these belong neither to Russia nor to ourselves. Buffer states, Moorfield – the playground of spies and adventurers. And right now, unless I am very much mistaken, there is a storm brewing there, a mighty tempest, and it seems to be blowing towards our Indian frontier.’ He tapped at an area left blank on the map – ‘Towards here, to be precise.’ He paused. ‘A place named Kalikshutra.’