The Damascened Blade

by Barbara Cleverly

  ‘By the way, Joe,’ James was saying, ‘hope you won’t mind but I’ve had your things moved down to Zeman’s old room. Had to accommodate yet another VIP who arrived this afternoon and I thought it more appropriate to put him upstairs.’ He waved a hand to the far side of the square where there stood an open-topped tourer, grey with dust, the flag of the High Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province drooping wearily on the bonnet.

  ‘See you in an hour then.’ He put a hand on Joe’s shoulder and his voice lost its briskness. ‘Damned glad you’re back! I’ll go and tell Betty – she’s been worried sick. Now, where’s Grace?’ And he went back to help Grace who was struggling to take her medical case from her horse.

  In a few quick strides Joe caught up with Lily Coblenz and neatly placed himself in front of her before she could go through the archway into the guest wing. She looked up at him, resigned and truculent.

  ‘Into the garden. Now,’ said Joe pointing an imperious finger.

  When he was sure they were not being observed he said carefully, ‘I was wondering if you had anything to say before this all gets a bit public? That, you can’t have failed to notice, was the Commissioner’s car in the courtyard. When we appear in front of him with our stories I’d like to think we were saying the same thing.’

  ‘What were you expecting me to say?’

  ‘Well, to start with, something on the lines of “Sorry,” “I apologize for the trouble I’ve caused,” or even “Aw, shucks!” and, to go on with, an explanation of the precise nature of your “arrangement” with your abductor. And before you tell me it’s none of my business – it certainly is my business! I’ve been placed in the unenviable position of answering for your safety for the duration of your stay. If I feel I am no longer able to fulfil this obligation I shall put you – hog-tied if necessary – in the back seat of Sir John Deane’s motor car ready for delivery back to Peshawar.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to apologize for! All this and worse would have happened if I’d not been here. Why, you wouldn’t even have known where we were, I’ll bet, if I hadn’t signalled to that plane!’

  ‘That was you? Ah. That was well done, Lily,’ said Joe, relenting. ‘The pilot noticed your flash and it confirmed other information we had concerning your whereabouts. But Iskander? What have you to reveal?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve had no chance to speak to the guy! You know he was sent away from the village!’

  ‘Not good enough, Lily! Something’s been going on.’

  ‘Oh, okay then, I suppose you’ll have to know. There was this jirga meeting of the whole tribe – men, that is – and I saw it all. Halima told me what was going on. She’s the Malik’s wife but she’s also Iskander’s sister, bet you didn’t know that! Iskander set himself up against Ramazad. Big mistake! He was outranked, out-talked and then outlawed by Big Chief Serpent Tongue. Well, I felt kind of sorry for the feller. He’s no family apart from Halima and now he hasn’t even a tribe. He doesn’t deserve that, Joe! Now I know these Pathans love their native land but they do travel. It’s not unknown. In fact, they’re all over India and some have even gone to Australia. I sent him a note before he disappeared telling him to meet me back at the fort and discuss . . . coming back to the States with me,’ she finished defiantly. ‘That’s no mean offer, Joe!’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not but, tell me, Lily, and I intend to press you on this – on what terms exactly did you envisage Iskander would be accompanying you?’

  ‘I’ve given that quite a lot of thought,’ she said. ‘And I’m open to suggestions. Bodyguard, companion, adviser on Indian affairs? How does that sound? He could be based in Delhi or even come back to the States with us. Who knows? He’s just the kind of man my father would get along with. He’ll find him a job. Iskander speaks English better than your average American, he’s smart and he’s charming.’ Her eyes narrowed for a second and she added, ‘Besides which, things going as they are – the company expanding into India – it wouldn’t be bad to have someone on the ground who knows how things work. Someone we can be sure will look out for our side because the other side has rejected him. That’s the best kinda loyalty you can get, Joe – the one-way pull kind.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean and I agree, but Lily – this man is no one’s poodle. And we all heard what he had to say about his Pathan nature back there at the river. I think he was trying to warn you, prepare you for his rejection of your offer. And, anyway, there’s probably little we could do to help him in the circumstances. He must be under considerable scrutiny by the powers that operate in this land – after all, he’s guilty of kidnap and abduction times two and though you may be prepared to forgive and forget, Lord Rathmore will be demanding retribution.’

  ‘Retribution? What kind of retribution?’

  ‘Very serious, I’m afraid. In fact, if I’d been Iskander, I would have avoided coming back here. He could easily have done that. He is, under British law, guilty of abduction, kidnap, threatening to kill. I think Rathmore could talk this up into a capital charge if he sets his mind to it.’

  Lily’s face darkened. ‘Rathmore! He’ll set his mind to it all right! Joe, you’ve got to find a way of fixing him! Can’t you think of something?’

  ‘I’ll try. It would give me considerable personal satisfaction to nail the man but I’m not hopeful. Men like Rathmore are protected by often unseen and undeclared forces. They do favours for those high up in government and one day they call in those favours. He struts around and behaves as though he were impregnable and I’m sad to say that’s because he very probably is. I think it certain that he has it in his power not only to wreck my career but that of James as well and certainly to see to it that Iskander is either hanged or, at best, put into the deepest dungeon in Peshawar and left there for many years. We’ll find, I think, that in all this he will be supported by Edwin Burroughs. I must say, Lily, I’m not looking forward to this meeting.’

  To Joe’s surprise Lily put out a hand and rubbed solicitously at his eyebrow. ‘You’ll think of something, Joe! But no one’s going to pay a whole lot of attention to you if you don’t smarten yourself up a bit and wash off that eye paint or whatever it is. Come on! Let’s hear that Lindsay war cry again – what was it? – “E’en do and spare not!” That’s not bad!’

  An hour later, washed and confident in a fresh uniform, Joe ran upstairs and tapped on Lily’s door. She joined him looking cool in a short blue silk dress and a simple sapphire-studded necklace.

  ‘Not sure what sort of entertainment James has lined up for us – could be anything from court martial to beauty parade,’ she said. ‘But if the Commissioner’s going to be there I thought it couldn’t hurt to go for the angelic look.’

  ‘You missed by about a mile,’ said Joe, looking at her appreciatively, ‘but don’t worry – he’ll like the result.’ He peered at her face more closely and she swept a concealing hand over her nose.

  ‘I know! I look simply awful! Ride two days without a sun helmet and see if your nose looks any better!’

  ‘Before we go down, Lily, there’s something I’d like you to look at with me. What do you say to a little breaking and entering?’

  He paused outside James’s room and listened, ear to the door. ‘No sound.’

  ‘There won’t be. I left my door open because I wanted to hear Betty if she came upstairs. Just to say hullo . . . They never came up. I guess they stayed down there in the durbar hall. Grace didn’t come up until about half an hour ago – now I wonder what can have detained her downstairs, don’t you, Joe? Telling tales out of school? She went back down five minutes ago. We’re alone up here,’ she finished quietly. ‘How about the ground floor rooms?’

  ‘They’ve all gone over apart from Rathmore. I heard him still crashing about. I listened shamelessly at the door.’

  Joe smiled. Lily knew exactly what he was up to. He pointed in silence to the door of James’s room.

  ‘I had already noticed that,’ she said, eyes dancing.
<
br />   Joe knocked on the door and called, ‘James? Betty?’ Hearing no answer he opened the door and stepped inside followed by Lily. A perfectly ordinary scene met their eye. Neat, clean and utilitarian, there was nothing apparently to attract attention but Joe methodically gave every item of furniture an assessing look. Of the two narrow beds, the one nearer the door was obviously that of James. Tucked underneath the brass candlestick on the bedside table there was a War Office pamphlet. Lily could not resist moving closer to read the title.

  ‘“Victualling On The March”’ she read out, rolling her eyes in disbelief. ‘Jeez! Do you suppose he’s reading it aloud a chapter a night to Betty?’

  On Betty’s matching table between the two beds was a Bible and a copy of Home Chat wedged under her candlestick and open at a story by P.G. Wodehouse. At the foot of Betty’s bed was Minto’s box. Peering inside, Joe grunted. ‘No one at home. Our furry friend has apparently gone to the meeting as well. I think I’ve seen all I need to see. How about you, Lily?’

  ‘One more thing, Joe.’ She moved to the small cubicle which passed for a bathroom and opened the door. ‘Same as the other rooms, I guess,’ she said. ‘Water jug, washing bowl, washing things. Yup! That’s it! We can go now.’

  They left the room, closing the door behind them, and stood together at the head of the stairs before descending. ‘Almost impossible,’ thought Joe, ‘to come downstairs from a bedroom floor and not look guilty! Perhaps we should come down hand in hand? That would baffle and enrage Rathmore! Baffle and enrage Burroughs too. Leave them all with the impression that Lily and I have spent the last hour in bed together!’ And with a sudden stab to the heart, he thought, ‘How I wish it were true!’ In a moment of mutual solidarity and bravado, they linked arms and went downstairs.

  As they walked across the square towards the durbar hall, the insistent notes of a bugle call floated over the fort and, to amuse and distract Lily, Joe sang the words the soldiery had long ago fitted to the Officers’ Mess Call:

  ‘Officers’ wives have puddings and pies

  But sergeants’ wives have skilly,

  And the private’s wife has nothing at all

  To fill her poor little belly.’

  ‘I know how she feels! Do you realize, Joe, I’ve had nothing to eat for over a day? What I wouldn’t give for a bowlful of skilly – whatever that is!’

  ‘It’s grits – I think you’d call it grits,’ said Joe. ‘But didn’t they give you food at Mahdan Khotal? The Scouts and I were only there for about three hours but they sent us three lots of refreshment in that time. Surely . . .?’

  ‘Oh, they kept sending me plates of this and that but I couldn’t eat. When someone you like’s screaming in agony and probably dying in the next room it sort of shuts down your appetite.’

  ‘We may find the next hour has much the same effect,’ said Joe lugubriously as they arrived at the open door of the durbar hall.

  They stood for a moment in the doorway allowing their eyes to adjust to the darker interior. Already seated around a table which had been set out in the centre of the room, James and Betty waited side by side, ready to defy the world. A small white face peered out from Betty’s lap and snarled. Minto, too, was ready as always to defy the world. Edwin Burroughs, bored and bleak, was giving nothing away; Iskander sat with blank face and expressionless eyes; Fred, as ever cheerful, smiled his pleasure at seeing them. Grace, looking exhausted and wary, just managed a wan smile of welcome. At the head of the table with his back to them was a grey-haired and solid figure. All turned to greet them as they stepped into the room.

  ‘Well, there you are!’ came an amiable and gravelly voice and the figure at the head of the table turned. Not the Commissioner. Much, much worse! Inevitably perhaps: Sir George.

  ‘There now,’ he said, his face wreathed in avuncular smiles. ‘There now! The two people above all whom I wanted to see! Sandilands, the Harbinger of Doom and Miss Coblenz, the Sower of Discord. The fact they should both be under restraint can hardly have escaped anybody but we will first see what they have to say. Now, come and sit by me, Miss Coblenz, and may I say how well it suits you to have been out in the sun? Sandilands, why don’t you sit next to your charge? And now we only await Lord Rathmore.’

  He turned again to Lily and said conversationally, ‘I had a telephone call from your esteemed father yesterday morning. How on earth he got through I can’t imagine but there you are – that’s Americans for you. And didn’t they after all invent the electric telephone? Or have I got that wrong? He asked how you were. I didn’t know how you were! So I said, “Fine!” He then asked where you were. I didn’t know that either so I said you’d gone to spend the weekend with friends. That’s rather a loose description of your recent excursion into the inaccessible interior but I didn’t think the time was ripe for a larger account. I’ll just pause there and ask you the question – “How are you?”’

  ‘Starving!’ said Lily with spirit. ‘Haven’t had anything to eat for twenty-four hours and not much to drink.’

  ‘Help yourself, Lily,’ said Betty, suddenly contrite. ‘There are sandwiches. Not very exotic, I’m afraid. I cut them myself. I didn’t know how many to cut for.’ And a very English-looking plate of hard-boiled egg and cress, cucumber and corned beef, lamb and pickle sandwiches was hurried down the table to Lily.

  ‘Aw! Wow! It’s not puddings and pies but it shore beats skilly,’ said Lily, helping herself.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, Sir George,’ said Joe with a helpful smile, ‘you could well say that Lily had spent the weekend in the country with friends. She was never for a moment out of the sight of Iskander or Iskander’s sister and later Grace and myself. Lord Rathmore too, of course, was of the party.’

  Joe was momentarily taken aback by his own suppleness. George’s ability to manipulate the truth was evidently catching. A fleeting narrowing of the clever old eyes in satisfaction made Joe want to kick himself. Was he already following in the direction George had decided they would all go? He looked critically at the man Lily had concluded was the chief, though unacknowledged, authority in India.

  To recognize the fact that it was Sunday and not, therefore, a working day, he was suavely but casually dressed in a dark blue blazer bearing on its pocket the insignia of an obscure but distinguished and long-defunct Cambridge cricket club, white flannel trousers and a club tie. George Jardine looked as though his Bentley had just dropped him off at Hurlingham to watch a chukka or two with friends. There was no indication in his bearing that he must have set out on his journey immediately after putting down the telephone on speaking to Joe at nine o’clock on Saturday morning. Joe knew just enough about the workings of India to guess that he had been driven to Umballa to get a train – probably a special summoned up at a moment’s notice for official use – and travelled the four hundred miles west to Peshawar. Sir John Deane would have sent a car to pick him up at the station somewhere round about midnight.

  After a night’s sleep at the Commissioner’s residence and an unhurried opportunity over breakfast to fill himself in on the situation to date and to decide with Sir John what the official line was going to be, Joe calculated, he would have set off for Gor Khatri. Sir George’s jocular charm did not disguise from Joe the realization that his very presence here at the heart of things testified to the extreme seriousness of their predicament. Joe might be the Harbinger of Doom but George was, to his mind, the Deus ex Machina, the Big Gun wheeled out to level the opposition. His anxiety increased. This spoke of a formidable opposition.

  Lily, however, seemed unaffected. ‘That’s right! I was with friends the whole time and if any nosy parker wants to know, that’s what they’ll hear from me!’ she said stoutly.

  Edwin Burroughs tapped his finger ends on the table with exasperation but remained silent. Fred wrestled with a smile.

  ‘Family occasion, you might say,’ Lily went on, enjoying her invention. ‘Iskander took me to stay with his sister, the Malik’s wife, and I was l
ucky enough to be there for the birth of her child.’

  It was Grace’s turn to look thoughtful.

  ‘Ah, yes! Alexander! The convenor of this jolly expedition, the Afridi Robin Hood!’ said Sir George. And then, turning to the company at large, ‘I always call him Alexander. It’s what Iskander means – did you all know that? Alexander the Great! He rose to the occasion, you know, conquered the civilized world, and the interesting thing to see will be if Iskander can do the same. For various reasons this would seem to be a time of opportunity.’ He smiled benevolently around the table.

  On cue but with her mouth full, Lily cut in, ‘We have an opportunity – that is to say the Coblenz Corporation have an opportunity, an opportunity in which we may be so lucky as to involve Iskander.’

  The room looked at her with astonishment. All, that is, except Iskander himself who looked thoughtfully down at the table in front of him.

  ‘It’s obviously no secret,’ she went on, ‘but just so’s everyone’s got it straight – I’ve offered Iskander a position with the Coblenz Corporation. Either in Delhi or in the States, it hasn’t been decided yet. And I should say he’s still considering the offer – it’s still on the table, you might say.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sir George genially, ‘I may be old but I’m not too old to experience surprise occasionally and there aren’t many people around in this part of the world who can surprise me but, Lily, it would seem you are one of them! Perhaps you can surprise me too, Alexander?’ he said.

  ‘We are in a discussion,’ said Iskander. ‘These things do not depend on me. There are many people to be consulted. Perhaps some of them are round this table. It would not be right to say more than that the proposition is under discussion.’

  ‘Politics,’ said Sir George, ‘are like unto running an infants’ school. Did you know that? Put the infants together and they will either play together or kill each other. I’ve seen it time and again. And the question is – and the reason for my being here at all is – which is it to be?’ He turned to James. ‘Anything in that bottle, James?’ he enquired, pointing. ‘It’s been a long day. I wouldn’t refuse a whisky. Others may feel the same . . .’