The Faraway Drums (10 page)

“You think they’ll try coming up to Simla, sir?”

“I doubt it. This isn’t some sort of uprising, sergeant—we’d have heard about it before this if anything had been stewing. I think they are just dacoits and nothing more.”

“Puzzles me why they haven’t opened up on us. Them buggers usually don’t waste no time.”

“It puzzles me, too, sergeant.”

“You think they’re waiting to pop them off down there?” The sergeant nodded down at the small caravan gathering on the road below. “Maybe I’d better give you some of my blokes, sir—”

“No, they’re needed to guard the train, just in case. Hop aboard, sergeant, there’s the whistle.”

The train creaked its iron joints, the wheels gave faint squeals, then it started to ease slowly backwards up the slight incline. Farnol stood beside the track, nodding to the heads hanging out of the windows as they went by above him. The stout woman would have fallen out of her window if she could have squeezed through; she could see the social climax of her life disappearing as the train took her backwards away from it, all the unwritten letters to her less fortunate friends in England never to be written at all; her tirade at Farnol drifted back, harder on the ear than the clang and screech of the iron wheels. Two little girls hung out of a window crying, deprived of the biggest picnic they would ever have seen. Finally the engine went past, puffing and grunting and wheezing like an old bull elephant coaxed out of retirement to push its way through a teak forest; the conductor stood on the step, ready to drop off and take cover further
up
the line where he could hide and wait for the arrival of the relief train, if and when it came. The engine went by, Farnol waved to the driver, then turned to walk down the path to the road. And stopped.

On the other side of the line, between the tracks and the steeply rising hillside, stood a man and a woman, two suitcases beside them.

III

“Awfully sorry to trouble you, Major.” It was the long-nosed, long-jawed man who had spoken to Farnol earlier. He had put on a deer-stalker cap and it only seemed to accentuate the long thinness of his face. “My name is Monday. This lady is my wife.”

She was pretty in a vague sort of way, as if her looks came and went with shifts of light. She was dressed in a brown travelling suit and brown hat and she reminded Farnol of a good-looking field mouse. She smiled sweetly.

“We’re coming with you, Major. I’m sure you’ll be able to find room for us.”

All at once Farnol suspected she might be a field mouse with very sharp teeth. “Sir, just who are you that you think you can invite yourself to travel with me?”

“Please don’t misunderstand me, sir. We are not forcing ourselves on you.” For the first time Farnol noticed that the man had a slight accent. “Perhaps we should not have got off the train without requesting your permission. But here we are and I trust you will not leave us here.”

“I may do just that, sir. You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“I am the Asian representative for Krupps.” Both he and his wife stood very still, as if the name
Krupp
sounded like the single note of a leper’s clapper bell even in their own ears.

“You have an English name, or so it sounds.”

“My grandfather was English. My wife and I are Hungarian. But we always stand for
God Save The King
.”

“Bully for you,” said Farnol and started walking down the path towards the road. When he stopped and looked back the Mondays were still standing on the far side of the railway line, their suitcases still on the ground. “Righto, you’d better follow me. But I warn you—I shan’t be responsible for you.”

“You are a sweet man.” Magda Monday followed Farnol down the path, leaving her husband to
struggle
with the two suitcases. “So gallant.”

Farnol just bowed his head, then looked up past her at her husband whose arms looked as if they were being pulled out of their sockets by the weight of the suitcases he carried. “Cannonballs, Mr. Monday?”

Monday managed a Hungarian smile, which can be read a dozen ways. “We shall enjoy the Major’s company, my dear. The English sense of humour is famous.”

Mrs. Monday put her hand out for Farnol to help her down a steep part of the path; she went past him on a wave of perfume that suggested she might have upset a bottle of it all over herself before getting off the train. He noticed that the buttons of her brown jacket were undone; her bodice was low-cut, exposing more bosom than one expected to see in India in the daytime. She saw the direction of his gaze and looked directly at him, turning her body slightly towards him. He knew a whore when she smiled at him.

“Englishmen never treat their women with any sense of humour, do they, Major?”

“Only when we bury them, madam. Our graveyards are full of husbands’ wit.”

Bridie O’Brady, Lady Westbrook, the Ranee of Serog and now this one: Farnol could feel his latent misogynism rising sourly within him. He led the way down to the road, getting well ahead of them, and walked up to Baron von Albern, who stood beside the Ranee as they waited for horses to be hitched to the Ranee’s coach. The other horses were being saddled; final adjustments were being made to the howdahs on the elephants’ backs. None of the servants looked enthusiastic about the journey ahead and kept glancing over their shoulders up at the surrounding hills.

“Herr Baron, those people coming down the path are Hungarians—the gentleman says he is a representative of Krupps. Do you know anything about him?”

“Not much, Major.” The Consul-General was straightforward, which may have explained why he had never risen to being an ambassador. “They only arrived two days ago. They stayed at the Hotel Cecil. Herr Monday paid a courtesy call on me.”

“Was he intending to sell arms to anyone in Simla?”

“I couldn’t say. He told me nothing about his business.”

Then the Mondays came down on to the road. Zoltan Monday dropped the suitcases and began
bending
his arms as if he were trying to push them back into their sockets. Bridie and the others looked at the pair curiously, then all looked at Farnol. Curtly he explained who the newcomers were, saw the Ranee look at them with sharp interest when he mentioned the name Krupp. The Nawab, standing in front of his six wives, gave a bright smile of welcome to Madame Monday, but ignored her husband. Lady Westbrook sniffed loudly and Bridie made mental notes for her as-yet-unthought-of memoirs.

“I am delighted to meet you all,” said Magda, who would have introduced herself in the same way to every circle of Hell. At fifteen she had walked the Fisherman’s Bastion above Budapest looking for men; at twenty she had found Zoltan in the chandeliered lobby of the Astoria Hotel. She had trained herself for rebuffs as a boxer builds the muscles of his midriff to absorb punches. “I’m sure we shall have a very good journey together.”

“It won’t be for want of your trying.” The Ranee had already decided there were too many women in her caravan; she also recognized a possible mischief-maker. She got up into her coach. “Get in, Viola. You, too, Miss O’Brady.”

“Thank you, Your Highness, but if I may I’d like to ride one of your horses with Major Farnol.”

“As you wish.” The Ranee, not trained for rebuffs, made no attempt to sound gracious. She turned her head away and looked down at the Hungarian woman. “Perhaps you had better ride with us, Madame Monday.”

“Monday?” Lady Westbrook had donned her two hats again and looked like a war-torn pagoda. She looked Magda up and down as the latter got into the coach and sat opposite her. She decided that Magda was riff-raff. “Is that your name or the day you are available?”

Magda’s smile had the bright shine of a razor turned to the sun. “I have just been complimenting the Major on the English sense of humour.” She moved sideways on the seat to make room for the bulk of the Baron. “We appear to have taken sides, Herr Baron. You and I against the British Empire.”

The Baron put on his glasses, looked across at the ladies of the Empire. “I should never take sides against such a formidable force.”

The procession got under way. Karim and two of the Nawab’s armed men rode up front on horses, with Farnol, Bridie and the Nawab immediately behind them. Then came the Ranee’s coach, the twelve elephants, their howdahs stuffed with the Nawab’s wives and all the luggage, and finally the rest of
the
horses ridden by Zoltan Monday and the Ranee’s and the Nawab’s escorts. All over India similar caravans were making their way towards the Great Durbar, but none of them had been forced to make their march in the way this one had been.

There was no scabbard on Farnol’s saddle and he rode with his rifle slung across his shoulder. The procession eased its way down the narrow sloping road, its pace geared to that of the elephants. Farnol was already resigned to the fact that they would probably have to go all the way down to Kalka by these means. He had little faith that a relief train would be sent up; all the regular drivers would be working on the extra trains going down to Delhi for the Durbar; any relief driver would fall sick as soon as he learned he had to take a train up into the hills where dacoits were operating. If he and the others made the journey safely, he estimated that it would take them five days to get down to Kalka; from there it was only an overnight trip by train to Delhi. That would give him still a day or two before the King was due to arrive in the capital, time for him to see George Lathrop and convince him that extra protection should be provided for the King-Emperor. That is,
if
he could convince Lathrop: so far he had no more evidence than the attack on his own life. The King himself, if offered such evidence, might brush it aside. An attempt to kill a sovereign’s subject did not necessarily mean the ruler himself was next on the list. The King might feel that was taking democratic precedence too far.

“I think they’ve done a bunk, Clive,” said the Nawab looking around.

“Perhaps. But I’m still puzzled, Bertie—why go to all that trouble to stop the train, then just buzz off?”

Bridie had been silent ever since she had got off the train. She was aware of the tension in Farnol; it was reflected in herself. In the course of her job as a reporter she had once or twice been threatened by hooligans, but she had never felt that her life was in danger. She was not a cowardly girl, but she did not know yet if she was brave; for the moment she was glad of the men riding on either side of her, no matter how inadequate their protection might be. She was not helped by the restive horse she was mounted on; she wished now that she had not been so quick to decline the Ranee’s invitation to ride in the coach. She was riding side-saddle, as she had seen all the women in Boston doing; it was the way ladies were expected to ride and in certain matters she tried to pass for a lady. That was her Irish mother’s influence; it had never been Sheila O’Brady’s ambition that her only daughter should grow up to be the biddy of some Boston
ward
boss, as she had done. Bridie had been on a horse no more than half a dozen times and her discomfort added to her tension. She sat the horse like a wooden doll.

“You don’t look comfortable, Miss O’Brady,” said the Nawab. “Would you prefer to ride one of the elephants? I can give you a howdah to yourself.”

Then the bullet zipped past Farnol’s head, ricocheted off a rock and whined away. The sound of the shot followed immediately, as did the second bullet. It hit Farnol’s saddle just as he dropped down out of it; the horse shied, but the bullet had hit the thickest part of the saddle and hadn’t gone through. Farnol pulled the rearing horse down; the Nawab had grabbed the reins of Bridie’s horse and was swinging it and his own mount back towards the shelter of the elephants. Karim and the two guards up front were already off their horses and returning the fire; it came from halfway up the steep slope above the road, from the midst of a thick stand of deodars. Farnol had quietened his horse, had unslung his rifle and was scanning the dense forest above him.

“Cease fire!”

Karim and the two guards ceased firing, tried to soothe their nervous horses. Then Karim said, “You want me to send these two chaps up there, sahib?”

Even in the tension of the moment Farnol had to smile. Good old Karim, who knew when to sacrifice someone else’s valour for his own discretion. “No, stay where you are. I think they’re already moving out.”

He had caught a glimpse of movement up through the trees: two, maybe three men going swiftly up the slope. He thought he recognized one of the men, but he was too far away; perhaps his imagination was playing tricks, conjuring up the man in the blue scarf. There had been no more shots after the first two. And those two had been aimed at him, at no one else in the caravan.

“Righto, remount. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Leading his own horse he went back to the coach, where the driver, with the aid of his assistant, was just getting the coach’s two horses under control. In the coach itself Lady Westbrook was trying to revive Magda Monday, who had fainted. Her husband had ridden forward from the rear and was gazing anxiously down at his wife, who lay with her head in the Baron’s lap. The Ranee ignored the unconscious Magda and looked out at Farnol. She had raised a parasol against the afternoon sun and looked sedate and
regal.

“Well? Have they gone?”

He didn’t know whether to admire her or suspect her: her coolness was almost too perfect. “I think it’s safe to go on. Those shots were meant for me, not the rest of you.”

Lady Westbrook, who had been waving a bottle of smelling salts under Magda’s nose, abruptly sat up straight. “Why should they only shoot at you, Clive? Are you something special?”

Lady Westbrook knew what he was; she knew what everyone in the Punjab States was. “Political agents are often targets, Viola. You know that—your husband was one.”

“No one ever tried to pop him off in this part of the country.” She gave her attention again to Magda, who was now beginning to stir. “Come on, gel—wake up! Does she often go off like this, Mr. Monday?”

“I don’t think she has ever been shot at before,” said Monday, still anxious about his wife.