The Faraway Drums (20 page)

“I’m beginning to enjoy this,” he told Karim.

“Major Farnol and I, we have ridden right across the top of India.” “I’ve done it on foot. It ain’t the same bloody thing, I can tell you.” “You should not always be so bloody unhappy.”

“I’m Irish, ain’t I?” There was an Irish happiness in being unhappy. But he patted the horse’s neck and did look happy. “If I could join the cavalry, mebbe I’d sign up again.”

Farnol heard the remark and looked over his shoulder. “Do your job properly on this trip, Ahearn, and we might get you a horse.”

“What’s my job, sir?”

“Seeing the sahib isn’t shot or stabbed in the back,” said Karim Singh as if he thought Ahearn should know.

“Holy Jay-sus.”

Farnol grinned, confident that Karim knew
his
job, and turned back to Monday, who was looking at him curiously. “Are you not afraid, Major?”

“Of course. Just as you are.”

Monday did not deny it. “It is part of the job. But I try to hide that from my wife.”

“Why did you bring her with you on this trip to India?”

“She comes with me on every trip.” There was another fear, that he might lose her if he left her at home; but he did not confess that. He knew she loved him, but there was always the nagging doubt. “She
is
a great help. Men respond to her.”

“They buy howitzers because of a woman’s smile?”

Monday himself smiled. “It has happened.”

“When we get to Delhi, Mr. Monday, I am going to ask the Political Service to look into you. You won’t mind?”

“Not at all, Major. My business is legitimate. One of my best friends is the Vickers’ representative. We exchange Christmas cards every year.”

“If ever we should go to war, will you still exchange cards?”

“Of course. He and I will not be at war with each other.”

Farnol was not enjoying the conversation. But short of holding a knife at Monday’s throat, how was he going to learn the real purpose of the Krupps man’s visit to the Himalayas? He could only hope to trap him into a slip of the tongue. He looked up, saw the Nawab’s youngest wife riding in the howdah on the last elephant. On an impulse he smiled at her, expecting her to pull her veil higher and turn her head away. But she didn’t, just shook her head and only then looked away.

“Will the Nawab mind that?” said Monday. “You flirting with one of his wives?”

“Only if you tell him. Perhaps you pass on bits of gossip like that to your clients?”

But Monday was too smart for that one: “The Nawab is not a client of mine. You said yourself he only collected cricket bats and balls.”

They stopped for lunch beside the river, which now tumbled down, like a giant’s writhing hang- rope, out of a narrow defile in the hills. A sward of long grass ran from the road down to the riverbank; half a dozen elephants were marched up and down to flatten the grass and banish any snakes. A small grove of pines stood beside the river, their dark brown bark looking as if it had been applied by hand in small slabs to the slender trunks. It seemed a splendid place for a picnic and the cooks were soon lighting the fires and preparing lunch.

Farnol dismounted and stood close to the elephants who were carrying the Nawab’s wives. As the youngest wife got down and moved apart from her companions, seemingly casually yet deliberately towards Farnol, he said softly, “Do you wish to speak to me?”

One advantage of the veil was that one could speak without appearing to. “Not now, I cannot.
But
tonight, if it is possible.”

Then she moved away after the other wives across to where a tablecloth was being laid out for them on the crushed grass. It struck Farnol that he did not know her name, who she had been before the Nawab had married her or where she came from. Or why she felt she had to speak to him.

“Clive,” said the Nawab right behind him, “are you ogling my wives? Are you thinking of cuckolding me
en masse
?”

“Not if you continue to keep them in
purdah
. When are you going to let them free to run around, Bertie?”

“Dear boy, why don’t you ask Bobs when he’s going to let his menagerie free to run around? I’m a very solicitous husband—I know what’s best for them.” The Nawab was smiling as always, but Farnol suspected he was not joking when he said, “Clive, don’t compound your troubles by looking at my wives. You have enough to trouble you with Mala and the delectable Miss O’Brady. And Mrs. Monday too, I’m sure, if you give her an ounce of encouragement.”

“The only one you’ve left out is Viola.”

The Nawab, the smile still on his face, looking as if he had forgotten it, glanced across at the old lady making herself comfortable in a camp chair. “Viola, I think, is the only one who can look after herself.”

“Not even Mala?”

“Not even her.” Then he turned full away and looked at the frail wooden bridge that spanned the river. “Do you think that bridge will hold? Mala and Bobs really should spend some money on maintaining their roads and bridges. That one looks as if it was built by Akbar himself and hasn’t been touched since.”

Farnol walked across with Karim Singh to inspect the bridge. As he did so he noticed that the Nawab moved over to speak to his wives. When he got to the bridge he manoeuvred himself so that, while appearing to be carrying out an inspection, he was looking back at the Nawab. Bertie was talking to his youngest wife, laying down the law more like a tyrannical father than a solicitous husband. The girl stood very still and, from a distance and with her face hidden behind her veil, it was impossible to tell whether she was frightened or defiant.

“Sahib—look here!”

Karim had slid down the bank and was perched precariously on a jumble of rocks above the
raging
river. Farnol, reluctantly leaving the Nawab to the disciplining of his youngest wife, clambered down the bank. And pulled up short, shocked at what he saw.

A water-logged bundle was caught between two rocks that jutted out into the river. The sheet that bound it was ripped and almost torn from the body; the body itself looked as if it had been smashed by hammers and ripped by knives. But the smashed and battered face was recognizable as that of Rupert Savanna.

IV

Farnol was no stranger to shocks; but the sight of Savanna’s mutilated body made him tremble. The dreadfully battered face bobbed and dipped in the swirl of water round the two rocks that held the body. One eye was still intact and it stared, like a dead fish’s eye, at the bright sky overhead. The ginger moustache, dark with water, looked like an ugly blood blister above the broken-toothed mouth. Farnol’s shock gave way to anger at this final indignity to Savanna. The man had been buried, he should have been left to the hidden worms.

“Bring it—him ashore, Karim.”

But as Karim edged out on to the rocks, a wave of white water swept over the rocks, grabbed the body and tore it loose. The sodden bundle went on down the river, hitting another rock and bouncing high into the air, then plunging back into the water like an armless diver. Then it was gone from sight.

Karim straightened up, looked up at Farnol. “Who would do such a thing, sahib?”

Then Farnol saw that the Sikh was looking up past him, though the question had been addressed to himself. He turned and saw Mahendra standing on the bank above him.

“Did you see who that was, Mahendra?” This was no time for
Your Highness
: anger made him brutal and direct.

“Major Savanna.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Only that his body came so far. I told my servants that when we left Serog they were to dig up the body and put it in the river.”

“You
what
?” Farnol scrambled up the bank.

“
You did not ask my permission to bury him, Major. I do not want any English officer buried in Serog. I’d have told you that if you had consulted me before you put Major Savanna in his grave.”

I
am
dealing with a madman, Farnol told himself. He had begun to think that perhaps Mahendra was perhaps no more than emotionally unstable, was subject to fits of temper that his detractors had swollen into insanity. But there was no temper in Mahendra now, just a coldness that was terrifying.

“This will be reported when I get to Delhi.” Farnol knew how limp and ineffectual that sounded: he was only saved from sounding ridiculous by managing not to splutter. Which, God rest the poor bugger, Rupert Savanna would have done.

“What do you think the Government will do, Major? They’ll be so busy bending their knees to the King, wondering who’s going to get a knighthood, that your report will just be pigeon-holed and forgotten.” He was that worst sort of madman, one who thought intelligently. “Don’t fret yourself, Major. The body will finish up at the bottom of the river eventually. What’s the difference whether it is buried under water or earth? It’s the soul that counts, isn’t that what you Christians teach?”

Farnol shut his mouth, deciding to say nothing further. Whatever he said would not matter: Mahendra would only laugh. The prince stared at him, challenging him, then he turned and walked away, his thin arrogant back offering one last insult.

Then Karim, still down on the rocks above the river, called out. “Sahib—come down again! Look!”

Farnol, still trembling with anger and frustration, slid down the bank again. He looked up under the bridge to where Karim was pointing. One of the timber supports of the bridge roadway had been sawn through; a second was sawn halfway through. The saboteurs, whoever they were, had been interrupted by the arrival of the caravan. Or, macabre irony, had been scared off by the sudden appearance of Savanna’s body.

“The buggers could be somewhere close, sahib.” Karim looked up at the surrounding slopes. “You think they are going to take another pot-shot at you?”

Farnol was scanning the steep hillsides. They were only sparsely cloaked with trees. A few scrubby pines, some cactus trees that looked like dead signallers propped up, their raised arms semaphoring messages that had no meaning: he could see no worthwhile cover for a sniper. But then he had known
Pathan
tribesmen who had fired on him from behind the cover of a rock no bigger than their heads and he had not seen them till they had shot at him. He felt a tightening of his nerves, a creeping itch in his back.

“Karim, get Private Ahearn and half a dozen men. Chop down two of those pines over there, trim them and shove them up here beside those two supports. And Karim—” The Sikh paused, looked back. “Say nothing about Major Savanna’s body. If anyone saw it, I don’t think they recognized what it was. So mum’s the word.”

“Of course, sahib. Mum’s the word.”

Karim scrambled up the bank. Farnol looked up again at the sabotaged supports, wondered who seemed so intent on his not getting down to Delhi; for he was certain, even if he was self-centred in his concern, that he was still the target. Then he wondered if he should attempt to shore up the bridge at all. Perhaps he should have waited to see if any of his fellow-travellers would have hung back from crossing the bridge. But that would mean exposing the innocent to danger and he couldn’t risk that.

He went up the bank and across to the picnic. The Ranee, sitting in a camp chair, turned her head sharply as she heard the sound of the axes cutting into the pines. “Why are they cutting down those trees?”

Why should she be concerned with what the servants are doing?
But Farnol told them curtly of the sabotage Karim had found under the bridge. “I don’t know if those extra supports I’m putting in will be enough, but we’ll have to risk it. We’ll go across one by one on foot, then one horse at a time, then the bearers pulling the coach and the victoria and the
tongas
.”

“What about the elephants?” said the Nawab.

Farnol had been watching him, the Ranee and Mahendra: if anyone in the party had any connection with the saboteurs, they were the three main suspects. But none of them gave anything away. The Nawab and the Ranee appeared as concerned as himself that the journey should continue, and safely; Mahendra, Savanna apparently forgotten, seemed careless of whether they went on or not. Farnol felt he was touring with a troupe of actors far more experienced and talented than himself.

“Do you have to take the elephants with you?”

“Of course!” The Ranee was not going to sacrifice appearances at the Durbar for the sake of safety here at the bridge.

Farnol shrugged, though he did not like the thought of putting the elephants at risk. The
generations
of India-born Farnols had not bred that English trait out of him: he hated to see any animal hurt, even those he hunted. And he truly loved elephants.

“Well,” said the Nawab, “don’t let’s spoil lunch.”

Farnol sat with Bridie and Lady Westbrook in the camp chairs that had been set out for the party. They were a little apart from the others and Bridie said quietly, “You look worried, Clive.”

He had debated whether to tell her about the discovery of Savanna’s body and decided against it. “I feel I shouldn’t be sitting here with you. Just in case someone has me in his sights.”

“He’d have shot you before this if he was going to,” said Lady Westbrook, munching on cold chicken, boiled egg and a tomato. She had learned long ago never to let anything spoil her appetite; she believed that one’s mind worked better on a full stomach than an empty one. She looked up at the hills, but her eyes were no longer good enough for distant viewing and all she saw was a blur of yellow and grey-green slopes. Once she had stood on a mountain-top on the Tibet Road with her husband and seen the edge of the world; or so she allowed her memory to tell her. Her memory was as sharp as her eyesight had once been, but she knew the pleasure of letting it slip occasionally into imagination. “You’ll just have to watch out when you get to the other side of the river. What’s that on that plate there, m’dear?”

“Caraway seed cake,” said Bridie. “Would you care for a slice?”

“Two,” said Lady Westbrook.

Farnol finished his lunch, having eaten slowly, stretching out the minutes till he could no longer delay the crossing of the bridge. Karim and Ahearn had supervised the propping up of the supports of the bridge and now the journey had to be continued.