‘A very small scale,’ Reger said thoughtfully. ‘Well, you are welcome to put the Fuehrer’s thoughts before your leaders. He intends to do it himself. You saw the papers in his cell. He is writing a book, with the aid of Rudolf Hess. Rudolf is his secretary.’
Murdoch had assumed they had both been prisoners. ‘You mean he’s allowed a secretary, in prison?’ he asked in amazement.
‘But of course. In that prison. And for that man. It was a political offence, against a socialist government. We do not care for socialist governments, in Germany.’
Murdoch scratched his head as he tried to envisage such a situation in England.
‘The book will be published, and if you like, I will send you a copy. But I am sure it will be translated into English.’
‘And he intends to say in it what you have just told me?’
‘Amongst other things, yes. He will outline our entire programme, and invite your people to join us.’
Murdoch scratched his head some more. It was not until the next day, when they were nearly back at the house, that he remembered he had a question to ask. ‘Paul has met this man, Hitler, hasn’t he?’
‘Oh, indeed,’ Reger said with a smile. ‘Paul is one of his most fervent admirers. He will be one of the new elite, when Germany rises again.’
Chapter Eight: India, 1924
‘So what did you and Margriet talk about?’ Murdoch asked as the train sped them westward across Germany.
‘Everything you can imagine. You know what? I think she’s still carrying a torch for you.’
‘Um,’ he agreed.
‘She didn’t make advances, did she?’
‘She always makes advances.’
It was Lee’s turn to say, ‘Um. I’m glad you decided to cut the visit short. I guess it was a stupid idea in the first place. I so wanted to see young Paul...but he’s not your son any more, is he?’
‘No,’ Murdoch said.
‘Was that man Hitler really frightening?’
‘Good Lord, no. He’s just a propped-up demagogue. No, it’s Reger and people like him, Hindenburg as well, who are frightening. I really thought, when we arrived, the way Reger greeted us, that things had changed. That the Germans, or at least the German militarists, like Reger, had said to themselves, we fought and lost. That really was the war to end all wars, simply because the world, Europe anyway, cannot afford another war like that. So let’s make the best of it. Instead, you have Hindenburg apparently living in the past, and Reger ready to jettison that past in favour of the future, willing to support anyone who might be able to sway a mob to get at that future, and openly planning the wars he is going to fight to re-establish Germany’s greatness. That is frightening.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Can they ever do it, Murdoch?’
‘Well, of course they can’t. They’re limited by treaty to nothing more than a token military establishment. All they’re going to get is a smart slap across the knuckles.’
*
But he wasn’t as sure as he had pretended to her. ‘Can they ever do it?’ he asked Churchill, when they lunched together.
‘Well, of course they can. If we let them.’
‘But we won’t.’
‘Now that is an imponderable, right this minute, Murdoch. What this Socialist Government is going to do next is anyone’s bet. They’re even recognizing the Bolsheviks. However...’ He grinned. ‘The best bet anyone has is that they’re not going to remain in power a full term. Tell me, you parted from Reger on good terms?’
‘Oh, indeed.’
‘Well, if this friend of his does get his book published, and he sends you a copy, I’d like to read it.’
‘It’ll be in German.’
‘I can have it translated. I’ve heard of the fellow, Hitler, of course. Read about him when the putsch failed. He had Ludendorff on his side, you know, so he can’t be quite such a put-up job. Of course, Ludendorff disowned him when the whole thing collapsed. One would hardly expect anything else of that gentleman. But I’d like to have chapter and verse, as it were.’
‘You shall,’ Murdoch promised.
‘When do you leave for India?’
‘Next month.’
‘I envy you.’
‘Do you?’
‘Aren’t you looking forward to it?’
‘Well, yes, I am. But for purely selfish reasons. I’m looking forward to retreading the steps of Father, and Grandfather. And Great-Grandfather for that matter. And I’m looking forward to being my own boss, to all intents and purposes. But I do gather it’s rather a beastly assignment when there’s trouble.’
‘Most trouble is, beastly. But you never want to forget, Murdoch, that India is the jewel in our crown. Defend it with your life, if you have to. But defend it. Should Great Britain lose India, ever, on that same day will she lose the appellation “great”.’
Churchill was a man of unusual vehemence, in certain directions. But it was a thought to carry with him, Murdoch supposed.
*
‘Well, Ralph,’ he asked Manly-Smith. ‘Ready to head east again?’
‘Gosh, sir.’ Manly-Smith looked distinctly embarrassed. ‘I never did thank you properly.’
‘For what?’
‘Well, for making me your ADC. For giving me a chance.’
‘One should never waste talent, Ralph. Now, is Jennifer looking forward to it?’
‘She’s wildly excited, sir.’
‘And little Albert?’ The baby had been named after Jennifer’s father.
‘I think he’d be excited too, if he understood what was happening.’
‘I think we’re all excited,’ Murdoch agreed.
Because they would be travelling with the regiment. And for the first time, ever, with their wives. At least, the officers would. The age of true democracy had not yet arrived.
As it was peacetime, it was no longer possible to requisition an entire luxury liner, and so they could not all sail together in one ship. Murdoch and Lee, with Murdoch’s staff and Reynolds, were accompanied by A Squadron, Captain Bryan. Colonel Ramage, with Major Lowndes and B Squadron, Captain Destry, were on a separate ship, and C Squadron, Captain Rostron, on a third. RSM Yeald sailed with Colonel Ramage, which was a relief to both him and Manly-Smith, and his daughter.
Captain Bryan was not married, so Lee and Jennifer were the only two officers’ wives on the first ship. Already good friends, they became almost intimates as the voyage progressed, despite the considerable disparity in their ages — Lee was just old enough to be the girl’s mother. The four of them, indeed, made up a very happy party, sometimes joined by Bryan, as they explored Gibraltar, and then Malta — where there was time for a picnic excursion to the marvellously clear waters of Camino — before reaching Port Said and beginning their journey down the canal.
This was of course familiar territory to Murdoch and Manly-Smith, but not to the ladies, who were fascinated by everything they saw. Lee’s only disappointment was that they did not have time to go up to Cairo and look at the pyramids. ‘When we’re returning on long leave,’ Murdoch promised her.
From Aden it was very nearly two thousand miles almost due east across the Arabian Sea to Bombay. ‘Almost like crossing the Atlantic,’ Lee said as they steamed for four days without sighting land. ‘Except for the weather.’
As it yet wanted a month or so to the start of the monsoon season the sea was unfailingly smooth and the sun unfailingly hot. Lee and Jennifer and some of the other ladies retired to the boat deck in bathing costumes and began turning brown.
‘You want to watch that,’ Murdoch said, ‘or you’ll be mistaken for Indians when we land.’
He had never felt so relaxed. The somewhat traumatic visit to Germany seemed very far away, and the possibly traumatic situation he might have to face in Peshawar equally far in the future. This was really the first genuine holiday he and Lee had ever shared, and it was sheer bliss. Especially in the company of two such delightful people. Ralph Manly-Smith w
as proving an ideal ADC, always ready with information or maps as required. While Jennifer was a revelation, good-humoured, surprisingly well-read, and, more obviously, steeped in the history of the regiment. Her baby was also a jolly little fellow, who was no more than fretful even when he came down with a bad case of prickly heat.
Even their first glimpse of India was like a holiday. They steamed round Colaba Point and into Bombay Harbour and disembarked to cheering crowds who had apparently been advised of their imminent arrival. The crowds were composed mainly of English and Anglo-Indians to be sure, but there were quite a few dark skins amongst them.
The other two ships had not yet arrived, nor had the regimental band, but A squadron made a proud show as it marched in column of twos to its cantonment. Murdoch and Lee were immediately besieged with invitations, but they could accept very few of them, as, while Bryan and his men would await the arrival of their comrades before travelling north, Murdoch was under orders to report to Delhi as rapidly as possible. After only two days in Bombay, therefore, which allowed them just time to pay a visit to the Bhendy Bazaar and get a taste of the atmosphere of true India, they found themselves again in a train, and embarked on a much longer journey than across Germany.
They boarded at Central Station at eight in the morning and were shown to their first-class sleeper, which adjoined that shared by the Manly-Smiths. Reynolds and Sergeant Denning, in charge of communications, shared a third. The train skirted the racetrack and began a long haul up the eastern shore of the Gulf of Khambhat. Progress was slow, mainly because it stopped with monotonous regularity, and the countryside was flat and uninteresting, and terribly poor.
It was three that afternoon when they pulled into Surat, where there was a lengthy stop, and then they chugged on again. Darkness fell as they reached Baroda, and they retired to bed soon after dinner, exhausted as much by the boredom as the heat. Unfortunately the train continued until eleven, when it stopped for the night in Ahmedabad. The clanking and banging and the noise of the disembarking passengers woke everyone, and then the hot stillness of the night, which was accentuated by the barking of dogs and the many odours which drifted through the city, made sleeping very difficult. For the first time Baby Albert would not stop crying, and when they met for breakfast the following morning, served as the train finally pulled out, having been joined by it seemed thousands of passengers garbed in every manner of clothing from business suits with rolled umbrellas to saris and even dhotis, the four of them looked as if they had been on a binge.
‘Is the whole journey going to be like this?’ Lee asked.
‘I certainly hope not,’ Murdoch said.
In fact at ten o’clock, when they reached Siddapur, they could see higher land to the east, and an hour later, at Palanpur, the line definitely began to climb. Instantly it became cooler, and they lunched looking up, to the west, at the Guru Sikhar, a mountain which rose some five thousand feet.
‘Now this is splendid,’ Lee declared.
They reached Beawar at seven and Ajmer a couple of hours later. The Anivalli mountain range had been on their right all afternoon, and in Ajmer they were some two thousand feet above sea level. The train stopped here for the night, but there was no difficulty in sleeping; in fact they used blankets for the first time.
Next morning the journey resumed at seven, as usual, and after a long but interesting day, climbing up and then down, winding round hills and often seeing mountains in the distance, they chugged through the suburbs of Delhi at six o’clock, as the sun was setting in a blaze of light to the west.
They had apparently been expected earlier, because at their hotel there was an invitation to dinner that very evening. As it was from the Viceroy, Rufus Isaacs, Viscount Reading, it could hardly be refused, so it was necessary to have a quick bath and unpack somewhat crushed mess jackets and even more crushed evening gowns. Jennifer was overawed at being so quickly introduced into the highest society in India. Lee was unamused by the whole thing, until she discovered that Reading had been a special envoy of the British Government to the United States at the end of the war. Then they had a great deal to talk about.
Also present was General Sir William Birdwood, who had just taken over as Commander-in-Chief, India. He was one of the few senior serving officers whom Murdoch had not actually met, for although he had been in South Africa at the end of the Boer War, as Kitchener’s military secretary, he had arrived after Murdoch had already been sent home in disgrace. During the World War he had been commander of the Australian forces, first of all at Gallipoli and then on the western front, but there again they had not come into contact.
Murdoch knew, however, that he came of an Anglo-Indian family, whose father had been a judge famous for his independence of thought. Birdwood himself was a tall, spare man who yet had a twinkle in his eye.
‘I’ll expect you in my office tomorrow morning, General Mackinder,’ he said as the party broke up. ‘To put you in the picture.’
*
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Birdwood said, when Murdoch and Manly-Smith arrived at his office. ‘I hope you slept well?’
‘Like tops, sir,’ Manly-Smith said enthusiastically.
‘Splendid. And what are the ladies doing today?’
‘Exploring, as they don’t know how much time we have here.’ Murdoch said. ‘They’ve gone with a guide to somewhere called the Jami Masjid.’
The hotel had provided an ayah for Albert.
‘Ah, the Jami Masjid. Yes, it’s a splendid edifice. Fairly recent, of course, built by the Muslim emperors, the Mughals. But then, this is Mughal country. Actually, you’re welcome to spend a week or two here. It might pay to get acclimatized. I would take a run down into the valley, if I were you. Go to Agra and show your wives the Taj Mahal; it’s only a hundred and twenty-odd miles by rail. To come to India and not visit the Taj Mahal would be like going to England and never visiting the Tower.’
‘Then we might just do that. I had got the impression that there was a certain amount of urgency for me to get up to the Frontier.’
‘Things are very quiet there, right now,’ Birdwood said. ‘And we would naturally like them to stay that way for as long as possible. As to whether they will, no man can say, since the Viceroy was advised to release Mr Gandhi from prison last January. He may preach non-violence, but a good many of his followers don’t believe in it. There have been some quite nasty incidents, such as shooting up of police stations, and the murder of their inmates, in the past few years. The trouble is, you see, that the Hindus and the Muslims hate each other more than they hate us. Gandhi keeps trying to unite them in antagonism to the British, but he hasn’t been very successful, and every time a Muslim murders a Hindu, or vice versa, there is a fresh outbreak of violence. However, this is really outside your terms of reference. Now, here is the area of your command.’ He got up, and they walked with him to a huge wall map which had just been unrolled by one of his secretaries. North-west India. Here’s Delhi down in the right-hand corner. You’ll see that we’re never very far away from you; it’s only five hundred and fifty miles from here to the Khyber Pass, as the crow flies.
‘North-west of us from here to the Afghan border is mainly inhabited by Muslims, with the very big exception of the Punjab, of course, which is the home of the Sikhs. The Sikh enclave, as you know, has played a very big part in the military history of India. In the old days they were a hostile and very efficient enemy. After we conquered them, in one of the hardest wars ever fought out here, they became our firm friends, and of course they supported us entirely during the mutiny. It is a thousand pities there was that trouble in Amritsar in 1919. I’m not blaming Dyer. I would probably have done the same thing in his shoes. But it still is a pity. However, things have quietened down there now. It is north of the Punjab, Waziristan and Kashmir, where the border abuts that of Afghanistan, that you have to concern yourself with.
‘All the tribes up there, the Mohmands and the Afridi, the Wazirs and the Mahsuds, are in
dependent-minded, and have lived since time began by robbery and violence. They know no other way of life. Ever since we defeated the Sikhs and came into contact with the hill tribes we have been forced to engage in punitive expeditions against them whenever they have come down to pillage peaceful people who were supposed to be under our protection. This is what the North West Frontier has always been about, and when it was a matter of sending a regiment after a single recalcitrant khan, levying and collecting a fine or burning his village, it was not very serious. Occasionally, however, several of the tribes have buried their differences and got together, and then a major campaign has been necessary to restore order. You will know about those, Murdoch; your father and grandfather both fought in such campaigns. I may say that it was the opinion of most military men that although the fighting was always dirty, if you take my meaning...’
‘Yes,’ Murdoch said.
‘It was also of great value in training troops. And of course, Waziristan provided a natural buffer between anything that might be happening in Afghanistan, or beyond, and British India.
‘However, two years ago, after the Amritsar massacre, and more trouble up there, the Government came to the conclusion that the time-honoured system was uneconomic, bad for British prestige, and somehow, one gets the impression, untidy. They decided to annex Waziristan.’
‘Ah,’ Murdoch said, beginning to understand why he was sitting there.
‘The annexation was undertaken, I may say, over the advice of the Chief Commissioner for the province, Sir John Maffey, but he was presented with a fait accompli. Now, it is early days yet, and no one knows for sure what the reaction of the tribesmen is going to be. I mean, we didn’t, we couldn’t, take over the entire province. A proclamation was made, and garrisons installed at certain key points. This was the lynchpin of the Government’s plan, that permanent garrisons would restrain the habitual lawlessness of the tribes. Maffey was of the opinion that permanent garrisons provide a permanent irritation, and a permanent target for the tribes to attack, should they get in the mood. Well, in a sense he has been proved right; last year there was a serious uprising of the Mahsuds. On the other hand, the Government can also claim a point — apart from the Mahsud insurgence, which was speedily dealt with, the area has been quiet for the past year. But, and this is an important point, it is extremely doubtful that all the tribes are yet aware that they belong to Great Britain. In any event, having heard Maffey’s point of view and digested the facts of the Mahsud rising, the Government decided that it might pay to strengthen their hands up there, as it were.’
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