The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (13 page)

Finally because she really was tired she went into
the bed-room and, putting on a very English white muslin nightgown buttoned to the neck and with long sleeves that reached to her wrists, she got into bed and drew over herself the wadded cotton quilt which the
Khansamah
had provided for her.

She fell asleep almost instantly and it seemed to her that she had only just closed her eyes when there was a knock on the door and she knew it was the Sergeant Major.

"Breakfast ready five minutes, Mem-Sahib.”

It was fun to be able to dress so quickly. Orissa only had to put on the short bodice which ended but a few inches below her breasts, wrap her sari around her and slip her hennaed feet into the flat sandals.

She packed everything else into her bag but kept out her cloak, knowing that if they did not reach the Fort before dark it would certainly be necessary.

In the Sitting-Room the Sergeant Major was waiting and Orissa looked at him in surprise.

He was not wearing his uniform.

“Mem-Sahib will excuse,” he apologised seeing the expression on her face. “It safer for rest of journey I not look like soldier.”

“I think it is very sensible of you, Sergeant Major,” Orissa said seating herself at the table.

The Sergeant Major went to fetch her breakfast and Orissa noticed that every time he went out of the room and came back into it, he very carefully shut the door.

It was then she realised that, if she had been the Indian woman she pretended to be, she would not be sitting at the table.

“You must remind me how to behave, Sergeant Major,” she smiled, “otherwise I shall give the game away by making mistakes.”

“All right here, Mem-Sahib,” the Sergeant Major replied. “I tell the
Khansamah
you very important Indian lady—a Ranee. He think strange you have no retinue, but I explain.”

“How have you explained it?” Orissa asked.

The Sergeant Major looked embarrassed.

“I tell him lady run away from wicked Rajah to find true-love,” he replied.

Orissa laughed.

“Oh, Sergeant Major, you are a romanticist
!
”

She realised he did not know what she meant, and sensing he was in a hurry to get back on to the road, she finished her breakfast and pulling her sari over her face climbed back into the
tika-gharri.

Soon they were driving on towards the mountains. The snowy peaks rose high into the clouds, the sky was translucent and at this early hour of the morning the air was fresh and invigorating.

The road was bad and sometimes almost obliterated by recent rains which had flooded the rivers they passed, but their horse having rested during the night kept up an even pace.

The road twisted and turned and Orissa was certain that had they travelled as the crow flew they would have reached Shuba in half the time.

Soon there were mountains on either side of them and the land was no longer flat nor the road so dusty.

Because she had the feeling
the
Sergeant Major was somewhat tense she talked to him, asking him about his family and if he liked the Army.

“Mem-Sahib, it is my life!”

Orissa knew the Sikhs were great fighting men and had been defeated by the British in 1849 only after several fierce battles. They had also been loyal during the mutiny.

They were happy men because their religion combined Islamic and Hindu belief and to Sikhs all men were equal before God.

But Orissa had forgotten, if she ever knew, most of their religious rites.

“We are a good people,” the Sergeant Major said, now speaking not in English but in Urdu so as to keep up their disguised roles even when they were alone.

“What rites do you have?” she asked.

“Every Sikh,” the Sergeant Major replied, “swear to keep the five ‘Ks.’ ”

“What are they?” Orissa enquired.

“Kesh,”
he answered, “to wear long hair comb in the hair.
Kachha—
a
soldiers shorts.
Kara—
a
steel bangle, and
Kirpan
—
a sabre.”

“Oh, that is not difficult to remember,” Orissa smiled. “But is it not a nuisance if your hair grows very long?”

“Some of us grumble, Mem-Sahib, but when you have worn it long since child, it no more difficult for man than woman.”

“And what are you forbidden to do?” Orissa enquired.

“We may not drink alcohol nor smoke,” the Sergeant Major replied, “and the ideal of all Sikhs is a happily married life even for our gurus.”

“I have always heard from my father what magnificent fighters you are,” Orissa said.

“The most sacred, the most venerable object in any Sikh family,” the Sergeant Major answered, “is the sword.”

Orissa knew this was true, and she remembered when she was a child seeing Sikhs in Lahore, each of them as they walked about the streets carrying his big, sometimes clumsy sword, which had been handed down from father to son over many generations.

They drove on, stopping sometimes to give the horse a rest. By the middle of the day the sun was very hot so that Orissa was glad to get out of the
tika-gharri
and sit in the shade of a deodar tree.

Now the clouds had vanished from the distant mountains and the sky was brilliant and cloudless.

It was the end of the winter and next month there would be a steady rise in temperature day after day until the break of the rains in June.

There were still trees by the road side, deodars, junipers, and maples. There were also long valleys of sand and dunes with rough shrubs covering the surrounding hills. On the hill-tops there were only bare boulders in an untidy confusion as if thrown by a giant in some Herculean test of strength.

When they were in a valley between the hills the air was almost stifling, but then there would sometimes come a little breath of wind which was very welcome.

On and on they went until Orissa found her eyes closing sleepily.

She became almost unconscious of her surroundings, being only dreamily aware of the trit-trot of the horse’s hoofs and the rumble of the wheels when they encountered a more stony part of the road.

They stopped, ate and drank, and went on again. Now the travellers they passed were few and far between.

“It appears quiet enough here at any rate!” Orissa said for something to say.

“I hopes so, Mem-Sahib,” the Sergeant Major replied.

Orissa knew from the tone of his voice he was worried.

Once she thought far away in the distance she heard the sound of shots and she knew that the Sergeant Major heard it too.

Yet when they both lifted their heads listening intently like terrier dogs, Orissa could not be certain that it had not just been a rock fall in the mountains.

On they went, and now the road was very rough and the hills rising on either side of them were more rugged than they had been before.

They drove beside a river which was flowing down from
the
mountains, sparkling and clear as it ran over the stones. Orissa knew that soon the heat of the summer would dry it up all together and leave only dark, muddy patches to tell of its passage.

The horse seemed untiring, despite the fact that with such heavy going it was not an easy drive.

Perhaps it sensed that ahead of it lay food and a comfortable stable for the night, but whatever the reason for its endurance Orissa knew it had been well
worth whatever price the Sergeant Major had paid for it.

He had already explained to her that there was nothing left of the money she had handed to him.

“I am not surprised, Sergeant Major,” Orissa said, “and I am sure that I am in your debt My Un
cl
e will compensate you for any of your own money you may have expended on my behalf.”

“Thank you, Mem-Sahib,” he said with dignity.

She was well aware that he had a great pride as had all Sikhs, and she had the feeling that if he could afford not to ask for the extra money he would have done so.

“Tell me about Shuba,” she begged.

She had a feeling that the emptiness of the road and the bleakness of the mountains on either side of them was somehow eerie and un-human.

“I not been there before, Mem-Sahib,” the Sergeant Major answered.

Orissa noticed that he had lowered his voice as if afraid they might be overheard.

“It is an old Fort?”

“No, Mem-Sahib, but not often in use.”

That alone told Orissa that the situation was serious.

She remembered hearing in the past complaints that there were never enough troops to guard the frontier. That they were now manning extra and usually unnecessary Forts meant that the authorities were definitely anticipating trouble.

They drove on. It was getting late in the day and the sun was beginning to sink when at last the Sergeant Major with a note of triumph in his voice exclaimed:

“Shuba!”

He pointed as he spoke and there ahead, golden against the mountains behind it, Orissa could see the roofs and walls of a Fort.

It was built on the plan of all British Forts, encircled by a mud wall and standing high so that an enemy to approach it would be at the disadvantage of having a steep climb before he would reach even the outer walls.

“We have done it, Sergeant Major!” Orissa said in triumph.

“Yes, Mem-Sahib.”

“It appears quiet and peaceful,” Orissa said.

She looked round as she spoke at the snowy peaks beyond the Fort and the mountains ranging away to the East and West.

“When tribesmen fight, one does not see man until he shoot,” the Sergeant Major said grimly.

Orissa remembered Major Meredith’s words when he had said:

“Behind every rock and wadi of the North West Frontier, savage tribesmen lie in ambush.”

They still had at least three miles to go before they could reach Shuba, and Orissa suddenly had the uncanny feeling they were being watched.

Were there savage tribesmen on either side of them, perhaps at this moment looking down the long barrels of their rifles preparing to take aim?

Now she saw the reason why the Sergeant Major had set aside his uniform.

“Perhaps,” she said aloud, “if the enemy are watching us, they will not think us worth a bullet!”

“Let us hope that so, Mem-Sahib,” the Sergeant Major agreed, his voice tense.

‘I am sure I am imagining such things,’ Orissa told herself.

Yet she had an unmistakable feeling of danger, almost a presentiment that they might not reach Shuba.

For the first time since they had left Peshawar the Sergeant Major applied his whip forcibly on the back of their horse.

It hastened its pace until the fragile little
gharri
swayed from side to side and the rumble of the wheels grew louder. It was almost as if they were being pursued and only speed could bring them in safety to the security of the Fort
.

Orissa held on to the side of the cart so that she could keep her balance on the hard wooden seat.

‘
Why should I be frightened?’ she asked herself. ‘It looks so peaceful!’

The Fort and the mountains ahead were suddenly bathed in a deeper and more glorious light

Overhead the sky was still clear. There was not even the shimmer of the first evening star. But the valley through which they were travelling on the last lap of their journey was in shadow and only the tops of the mountains flanking them held the brilliance of the sinking sun.

‘Please God, let us reach Shuba safely,’ Orissa prayed in her heart.

She could not explain why she should be frightened, and yet she knew she was.

She remembered as a child she had always had a strange perception in India—she had known spiritual experiences which she could not understand and had an awareness of something beyond the commonplace.

She had always known that behind the world as she knew it there was another, and that the gods and goddesses her Ayah and the Indian servants worshipped were as real to her as to them.

Now because she was in India and because she vibrated to impulses beyond the logic of her brain, she knew irrefutably that she and the Sergeant Major were at this moment within an inch of losing their lives.

‘Keep us safe! Please
...
keep us safe
!
’ Orissa whispered.

She was sure that the Sikh was praying to the God of his ancestors as she prayed to hers.

Still the little horse trotted on, until crossing a flat plain they reached the foot of the incline which led up to the Fort itself.

The road twisted and turned to make the climb easier for the bullocks which pulled the heavy guns, for the horses which dragged the wagons, and the soldiers who must march up on their feet after perhaps a very long journey in the heat of the plains.

They were climbing, climbing, and Orissa held her breath lest at the last moment the danger she sensed so vividly should materialise in the shape of a bullet
.

Then as the horse turned for the last time, she saw that ahead of her the large, nail-studded gate leading into the Fort was open and two sentries were standing just inside it.

She turned her head to smile at the Sergeant Major.

“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” she said in English. “A quick, comfortable and easy journey.”

‘
I
grateful, Mem-Sahib, we arrive without incident,” the Sergeant Major replied.

They drove in through the open gate. A soldier carrying h
is rifle came over.

“
Who are you and what do you want?” he asked in English.

“Sergeant Major Hari Singh reporting for duty!”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” the soldier ejaculated.

Then encountering the Sergeant Major’s eyes he stepped back to salute smartly.

“Pass, Sergeant Major.”

They moved on and now Orissa saw a
n
umber of soldiers hurrying towards them.