Death on a Pale Horse

by Donald Thomas

  “But he spoke of the Prince Imperial?” my friend prompted him.

  “He did, Mr. Holmes. I wrote down the exact words he used, immediately afterwards. I committed them first to memory as best I could, and then to the flames. I have a good memory, you know. It comes as a matter of habit. It would never do for a minister to read out a sermon, let alone a prayer, that he could not otherwise remember. In those hours, Captain Carey told me a story that he swore he had told to no one before. Not even to his own wife, for fear that the knowledge might put her in danger. But knowing he was likely to die, he was determined that the truth of murder must not die with him.”

  Holmes brightened up. He opened his cigarette case and leant forward to offer it to our guest. “Murder, Mr. Dordona? Indeed? Pray continue your most interesting account.”

  “Captain Carey’s patrol had ridden out on that day, when the prince met his death. So much had been done to protect this young man that the idea of his being killed went round the Blood River camp like a joke. A few days earlier, he and Captain Carey came into the camp just as General Sir Evelyn Wood was mounting. The general called out to him ‘Well, sir, you’ve not been assegaied yet?’ The prince laughed and called back, ‘No, sir! Not yet!’ You see what I mean?”

  “Who rode with him on that last day?” I asked.

  Mr. Dordona now intoned his account, rather like a child who has learnt his lesson and must repeat it.

  “Captain Carey had a patrol of troopers from Bettington’s Light Horse and another six Basuto riders. They rode out over grassland at first, the Prince Imperial and Major Grenfell at their head. Major Grenfell kept them company until the point where he turned off to another destination. They had also brought a native guide who could translate for them if it became necessary. They were following a ridge with an open landscape below them. They would have seen any tribesman a long way off.”

  “The tribes had no horses?”

  Samuel Dordona shook his head. “No, doctor. The warriors go on foot. They could never have caught up with a mounted patrol. When Major Grenfell went off on his own business, he made another joke to the prince, something about not getting shot. The prince laughed again and said something like ‘I know Brenton Carey will take very good care of me.’”

  “Afterwards they stopped for lunch?”

  “Before that, they took a wide sweep of the surrounding countryside through field-glasses. They were on the top of a hill, at the end of the ridge they had been following. The landscape was still deserted. Even a distant sound would have carried well in such a quiet place. They made sketches, mapping the land around them for an hour or so, until it was time for lunch. Just below them was a deserted village of five native huts. The escort searched the huts but found only three native dogs running wild. No one had been there recently. The troopers fetched water from the river and made a fire. Then they brewed coffee and ate their rations.”

  “How long were they there?”

  “By all accounts, about three hours. Though Captain Carey was uneasy at remaining so long, the prince was in no hurry to go. Carey was the senior officer in command, but it was not easy for him to overrule the Prince Imperial. That was at the root of the tragedy. The prince treated this survey as a picnic rather than a patrol. Just then, the native guide reappeared and said that he thought he had seen a single tribesman coming over the far hill.”

  Mr. Dordona lowered his eyes, as if to prepare us for what lay in store.

  “Even this was no cause for alarm at such a distance. All the same, Captain Carey insisted that they should gather their horses. They did so and began to mount. The prince himself called out ‘Prepare to mount.’ Just as if he had put himself in command. Each man had his foot in the stirrup and one hand gripping the saddle. At that moment there was a crash of rifle-fire, though the shots went wide. The tribesmen lack experience of firearms and are poor marksmen. However, several of the horses were startled and tried to bolt. Then thirty or forty Zulus burst towards the patrol from the tall grass just short of the village.”

  “Thirty or forty tribesmen who could not possibly have been there?” I asked.

  “I cannot see how they could have got there—so many of them. Nor could poor Carey. The place had been searched for a possible ambush.”

  “Indeed,” said Holmes quietly, in the tone of one who needs no more evidence. But Samuel Dordona was not to be denied a hearing.

  “The first casualty was Rogers, one of the troopers. He lost hold of his horse when the animal bolted at the explosion of the rifles. All the rest managed to restrain their mounts in one way or another. Of course, Rogers was helpless on foot. It seems he must have run back into the cover of the huts and fired his carbine before one of tribesmen pierced him with a spear. A few of the Zulus were carrying Martini-Henrys captured at Isandhlwana, but they fought mostly with their spears to which they were accustomed. One of them then hit Trooper Abel in the back with an assegai and brought him down from his horse. He was probably dead by the time he hit the ground.”

  “And the Prince Imperial?” Holmes inquired thoughtfully: “Where was he in all this confusion?”

  “The prince caught his horse before it could bolt, Mr. Holmes, and he was a first-rate rider. He made as if to vault straight into the saddle. He had done it hundreds of times and it should have been child’s-play to him. When Captain Carey saw this, he never doubted that the prince must have mounted. So Brenton Carey turned and led what he believed to be his entire patrol to safety at a gallop—excepting Rogers and Abel. He swore to me again on his last night alive that he had been sure the prince must be with them. Looking back presently, he saw Rogers and Abel lying dead but no one else.”

  “And the prince?” I asked.

  Mr. Dordona came unwillingly to the truth.

  “There was a native hut between the patrol and the tribesmen. It hid the details of what had happened. But then Captain Carey saw the prince’s horse, Percy, cantering out of the kraal without a rider. He guessed that the prince must have fallen as he was mounting. The young man was helpless, but he fired the last shots from his revolver at the attackers. Thirty or forty of them. In a few seconds, he was overwhelmed and killed. A matter of seconds, gentlemen. Whatever a court might say, Captain Carey protested to me that there was nothing he could have done to save him, even if he had given his own life. Nothing. Carey was a brave man, and he spoke the truth.”

  “Nothing to be done except to have foreseen such an ambush,” Holmes said as he turned his brooding deep-set eyes upon our visitor.

  “Mr. Holmes! By all the laws of military logic, those tribesmen could not have been there. Do you not see that?”

  “I find that an interesting assumption, Mr. Dordona. I see at least half a dozen ways in which an assassin might have put them there—supposing, of course, that there had been an assassin, of whatever tribe, or race, or nationality. However, I believe, as you say, that Captain Brenton Carey had done all one could expect of him in safeguarding the prince. Will that do for you?”

  I watched Samuel Dordona closely. I will not say that he smiled with relief, but a great burden seemed to drop from him.

  “At last, Mr. Holmes!” he said gratefully. “You are the first person since Captain Carey himself to suppose anything of the kind.”

  “Then so far,” Holmes said carefully, “we have lost two troopers, Rogers and Abel, and the prince. Correct?”

  Mr. Dordona nodded. “Correct, sir. There was nothing that could have been done to save any of them. And after this sudden attack, it seems that the Zulu tribesmen fled at once. No doubt they were in fear of being caught by armed horsemen. Captain Carey led his survivors back to the camp at the Upoko River. They met first of all Colonel Redvers Buller and General Evelyn Wood. To my own knowledge, both are brave men and winners of the Victoria Cross. Buller simply told Brenton Carey that he deserved to be shot. Others refused to believe the story. One of the subalterns from the 98th went into the mess-tent for dinner that evening and told th
e dreadful news. The rest thought he must be joking—because there had been so many jokes on the subject. The subalterns laughed at him and pelted him with pellets of bread.”

  “Forgive me,” said Holmes coolly. “A good deal of this story was given to the court of inquiry and the court-martial, as I recall. Wherein lies the mystery now?”

  But the tension had eased, and Samuel Dordona was not quite so upright on the edge of his chair. He sat back a little. His words became slower and quieter.

  “No one at those courts spoke of the horseman, Mr. Holmes. A horseman on the hill above, seen by one of the patrol while all this was going on below. A horseman from whose appearance poor Carey seemed to seek relief by talking to me on that last night of his life.”

  He paused, as if marshalling every detail in his mind before giving us his account of the murder.

  “Mr. Holmes, the hill above the abandoned kraal was the same one from which the patrol had mapped the surrounding countryside that morning, just before lunch. It is the only vantage point for miles around. A horseman sitting up there could not have failed to see the Zulu ambush gathering below—and he would surely have warned his comrades down there. No warning was received. Instead, gentlemen, was not this rider in a position to ensure that the Zulu attack took place—and to verify that it had done so? That was poor Carey’s question in his last hours. Do you not see what I mean?”

  “Perfectly,” said Holmes quietly. “And who saw this horseman?”

  “Trooper Pierre Le Brun, a Channel Islander. He was one of those who spoke French, and for that reason he was often detailed to attend the Prince Imperial. This rider on the hill, whoever he was, never dismounted. He wore something that might have been the uniform of the Natal Volunteers, though such items of headgear and clothing are common enough in that country. The horse was light-coloured, perhaps dappled. Trooper Le Brun was the last man in the flight from the kraal, and he would have had a view of that hilltop after the others had gone under it, riding closer to the foot of the slope.”

  “And where is Trooper Le Brun now?”

  Mr. Dordona shook his head. “Captain Carey could not tell me that. No one knows, sir. It appears that he went absent before the court-martial; but his story remained one of many legends of the war. For some time before he disappeared, Le Brun had talked of throwing in his lot with the Boer pioneers of the Transvaal. So did many other soldiers. Gold and diamonds were thought to be lying in the streets there for the taking. Rumours thrive in the aftermath of any battle, Mr. Holmes, and the truth is not easily found. Visions are reported in the sky at moments of such intensity—angels, horsemen, burning swords.”

  “And this one?” I inquired.

  “This one may simply be a copycat rumour for a story that went the rounds after Isandhlwana a few months earlier. In the last minutes of that fight, Lieutenant Melvill took the regimental colours of the 24th Foot from Colonel Pulleine to carry them to safety. As they stood together, the colonel thought he saw the first outrider of Lord Chelmsford’s column mounted on the col above the camp. Melvill’s servant, who escaped with his life when his master died at the Buffalo River, was standing by and heard this curiosity pointed out. A single rider sitting astride a dappled horse, as if watching the last act of the tragedy from above. Sitting at the salute. That was all.”

  “All this came from Captain Carey and nobody else?”

  “It did.”

  “Captain Carey, who is now conveniently dead. I am bound to say that we are singularly unfortunate in our witnesses, Mr. Dordona. How they desert us! Lieutenant Melvill. Trooper Le Brun. Captain Carey. It is so often the way with ghost stories, is it not? Everyone knows someone who has seen the elusive spectre, but what man can vouch for it from the evidence of his own eyes?”

  For a moment, Samuel Dordona looked as if we had deliberately encouraged him, only to dismiss his account.

  “I tell you the story as it was told to me, Mr. Holmes. I am no more a believer in spectres than you are. Perhaps because he was dying, Carey’s last words to me were about the phantom, if a phantom it was, above Isandhlwana. Goodness knows where the tale of this apparition came from. Officers never believed it, only the few survivors from those lower ranks who had died in their hundreds that morning. Those survivors had heard of this ghostly sighting on the col.”

  “I am relieved to hear it, sir. All the available evidence, then, points to a horseman being within sight on each occasion of a disaster. Is that so remarkable? There were enough horsemen around, in all conscience. Perhaps he was an outrider thanking his lucky stars that he was not part of the encounter, and keeping clear. Or perhaps he was a sensible fellow who felt that this was not a fight of his making. What good might he do, when everyone else was running away? Captain Carey would have been very foolish to rely upon such a man riding into a skirmish and offering himself to be butchered when he could so very easily save his skin.”

  “Do you tell me, Mr. Holmes, that you do not believe me?”

  The tone of my friend’s voice changed at once. “You misjudge me, Mr. Dordona. I do not believe readily. I confess that I was sceptical in the matter before your arrival—and until I heard your complete story. Who would not be? Almost all the doubts that I have now are on your side. I cannot vouch for Isandhlwana, of course. Such catastrophes may happen for the most ordinary reasons. The death of the Prince Imperial is another matter. Let us stick to that.”

  Mr. Dordona waited, still as a sphinx on the edge of his chair, to hear judgment passed. Sherlock Holmes spoke quietly.

  “Let us have done with apparitions, sir, and stick to the art of war. A score or more of men with rifles and spears cannot remain concealed while advancing over such flat and open terrain unless they are assisted. A man on a hill, as you describe it, is no spectre. Hidden from Captain Carey’s patrol by the ridge of that hill, he alone has the whole landscape in sight. How easily he may communicate directions to the assailants and those who command them.”

  Samuel Dordona continued to watch him closely as Holmes concluded.

  “But how convenient afterwards to be dismissed as some phantom of the veldt or a figure of common soldiers’ folklore! The litmus-paper test, sir, if I may borrow a chemical term, is simple. Surely if there was such a rider who was innocent in this matter of the prince’s death, he would have reported what he had seen immediately on his return to whatever camp he had come from. At the very least, he would have told the story to some friend or other. Why should he not—if he was innocent? The court-martial, for all its faults, seems to have been scrupulous in tendering evidence. I think we may be certain that no such report was ever made. Whether he was a spectre or flesh and blood, your horseman was no friend to Captain Carey. Again, would he not have tendered information to defend an innocent man’s honour at his trial?”

  For the first time, Samuel Dordona smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes. Thank you, sir.”

  My friend silenced him by a raised hand. “And let us not forget Trooper Le Brun. From all you have told us, I cannot see what the man had to gain by inventing such an apparition. Therefore, if our mysterious horseman is not a phantom, it seems to follow that he can only be a villain.”

  Mr. Dordona had been waiting for something. Now he took the plunge.

  “Will you come to Carlyle Mansions, Mr. Holmes? Will you and Dr. Watson come and see for yourselves a proof which will surely persuade you of the truth? The truth of a horseman on the ridge and on the col? The figure whom survivors of Isandhlwana call Death on a Pale Horse! I cannot say more at this moment, but I believe I shall convince you that Captain Brenton Carey knew the truth of something monstrous.”

  “My dear sir! I will come this minute, if you are prepared to convince me!”

  Our visitor held back.

  “The evidence is not there yet, Mr. Holmes. Have no fear, it will be. It is in safe-keeping. Will you come tomorrow? Shall we say at three o’clock in the afternoon? I shall prove to you that murder was done on that patrol at the Blood R
iver. And once the facts are in your possession as well as mine, the truth will be beyond the power of our enemies to destroy. But so long as those facts belong to me alone, I am in peril, and so is that truth.”

  I was about to accept this invitation, but the gaunt missionary in his threadbare black had not quite finished.

  “Captain Carey persuaded me that the Zulus no more committed murder on the Prince Imperial than the gunsmith whose trigger is pulled becomes the assassin of an emperor on the streets of Moscow or Paris. And is there not something far stranger than even poor Carey hinted at? Does it not strike you?”

  “Indeed,” said Holmes in the soothing tone of a keeper humouring a lunatic.

  “Mr. Holmes! Isandhlwana! The Prince Imperial! The disaster to come at Laings Nek! The worse catastrophe at Majuba Hill! The dismal surrender at Kimberley of such large tracts of our empire and the treasure they contain. All in so brief a space, like an orchestrated campaign.”

  It was an eerie echo to hear this quiet, unworldly man listing the omens that had troubled my own mind in the past twelve months.

  Samuel Dordona stood up and looked at each of us in turn.

  “I shall expect you tomorrow, gentlemen. I do not think you will be disappointed.”

  Sherlock Holmes remained seated.

  “The police will not believe you, the Army will not believe you. But precisely what was it, Mr. Dordona, that persuaded you to honour us with your patronage? I do not recall that you have yet told us. Most unusual.”

  It was put in a tone more penetrating than any attempt to bar the visitor’s way to the door, yet it did so. Samuel Dordona paused.

  “I am here on the recommendation of the only other person in whom I have confided any part of the truth as I know it.”

  Holmes relaxed but did not quite smile his reassurance.

  “Very good,” he said. “And was that when this other person told you what became of that missing member of the fatigue party at Hyderabad Camp? I refer to the soldier whose foot slipped in the imaginary mud? The man who lost his grip of the wooden tent-flooring and precipitated the so-called fatal accident which mortally injured Captain Carey?”