Amita closed her eyes and clung to the chair.
It was over soon. There had been more rocking to left and right, dips and climbs as the wings beat or they glided. She heard the roar of something outside and for a moment blinked her eyes open to see a British sky-liner thundering past so close she thought they would be ripped apart on its rotors.
She slammed her eyes shut again.
A few minutes later and motors in the wall behind her roared and there was a series of jerks that seemed to want to push her through the floor, and then quiet. Steam pressure vented with a steady hiss. There was a final creak as the wings moved. She opened her eyes and saw they were in another air-dock. Or was it the one they had left? It seemed they all looked the same.
She tried to get up and realised she was still buckled in place. She fumbled with the belt and got it undone as her navigator came down the aisle and opened the door to the passage. He went out of sight but she heard the outside door opening and the crash as the stairs were folded out.
She climbed unsteadily to her feet. She glanced to where Maliha was talking to the pilot again. She made a decision and clambered out through the door to the exit. He wasn’t there so she stumbled down the steps and stood on solid ground.
She took a deep breath. She had not realised how stuffy it was in the air-plane.
A steam carriage detached itself from the buildings ahead and bumped across the grass towards them. It was much larger than her mistress’s vehicle. The driver and another man were in uniform in the front. There was a passenger compartment in the middle and the furnace, perhaps with a stoker, at the rear.
“Miss Anderson’s party?” said the driver. Amita nodded. “Luggage?” She pointed round the back, and the second man jogged off. Maliha was at the entrance. Françoise was helping her down. Amita scowled.
The luggage was quickly loaded, and the three climbed aboard. It was luxurious with settees and armchairs—though they were all bolted down.
The vehicle bumped off across the grass and whisked them the short distance to a hotel. They had a suite.
Maliha and Françoise went down to dinner. Amita ate in the room.
v
Valentine placed the cleaned and oiled gun on his case, and sat back in his chair. The sun was low in the sky and there were light clouds. According to the almanac tonight was almost a new moon; it would be dark. Clouds would help.
He picked up the map again. The British Ordnance Survey produced excellent maps using their airships, even of Pondicherry. He had circled an area inland: some hills between a lake and the river.
From his own experience he knew that navigating an air-vessel was not easy. In fact it carried the same difficulties as sea navigation and used many of the same solutions. When he had flown all the way to the Americas he had used dead-reckoning over the ocean.
He’d never told Maliha how close he came to ditching in the sea through sheer exhaustion when he’d carried her precious cargo to New York. Only the constant prodding of the Thai princess had kept him awake. He’d planned the return journey more carefully and flown via Russian Alaska and the Japanese islands.
Over land, as long as you had a map and major landmarks to follow, things were easier. Generally you followed rivers, roads and the atmospherics. Or the coastline.
He looked at the map. The information that piece of vermin had provided him with had given a general area. Then it was a matter of asking the question: If I wanted to hide an air-dock, where would I put it?
The answer came slowly: Not along any major route, which meant not near the coast, a road or river, and Pondicherry had many of those. The area he had been told about was distant enough from them.
There were no major highlands to avoid but there were hills, and hills had valleys in which ships could be hidden. However even the ships arriving secretly must be able to navigate which meant they had to follow landmarks. And they would be flying at night, which most honest pilots avoided.
So, a smaller river or road running into the hills from a major one, or even better, the sea, would be ideal. The ship would arrive as normal, look as if it were following the usual route, and then turn away. It would head into the hills and disappear.
But there was more than one way to skin a cat. The hidden air-dock would need supplies of coal and perhaps diesel, as well as food.
He stood up, put on his jacket and pocketed his gun. He ran his hand across his chin. He had shaved it all off after Amita had tidied his hair but it had grown again and rasped like sandpaper. No time now.
He folded up the map and shoved it into another pocket. He put his wallet in an inside pocket. A hat was essential in this climate and he had opted for a Fedora when once he would have worn a bowler. He growled to himself as he went out and locked the door.
He had resigned from the Foreign Office but found himself working for them again in an unofficial capacity. It was not that the British Government had come to him; he had sought out Sir Bertram in his club and asked to come back, and he had been accepted as a roving agent on retainer.
It was the complete lack of a proper conclusion to the Guru Nadesh case that was the problem. At least that was what Valentine told himself. He’d killed Nadesh with his own hands, the reason why Maliha had rejected him, but Nadesh had been working for someone else, a Terence Timmons, and he became Valentine’s target.
If he could track down this Timmons and bring him to justice then perhaps Maliha would forgive him. He shook his head. What did it matter? She was not the kind to change her mind. She always had to have her own way. She was infuriating, delicate, with a mind like a scalpel, and a tongue like a lash.
He looked up and discovered he’d come to a stop outside the building. He wished she would stop preying on his mind. She was the one who had sent him away. She had pushed him out of her life. If she wanted him back she could damn well tell him so.
He set off in the direction of the air-dock but not for any sort of air-plane.
Near the entrance to the dock was a carriage hire establishment. He quickly negotiated for their smallest trap and handed over a deposit. The horse was put in harness and its eyes covered by blinkers. The animal was a bit on the thin side but Valentine gave it a check; it was fit enough and followed his actions with interest but no complaint. Good, the beast wasn’t too nervy.
He jumped up on to the two seat bench. It was padded but the stuffing was old and thin. It didn’t matter. He checked his pocket watch. It was a couple of hours before dark, that should provide plenty of time.
He set the mare off at a comfortable trot, a rate that would cover the distance without tiring the animal.
They left the town behind and headed north towards the ferry. The horse must have crossed the river many times and had no trouble with the noisy steamer. Still, with the blinkers it couldn’t see the huge paddles turning. Valentine climbed down and kept hold of the bridle, just to ensure it couldn’t turn its head.
He’d get this over with, send a message to Maliha via Amita, and then continue with his mission. The cargo ship he was currently signed to lifted in the morning, heading for South Africa. It was one that had missing time on its record. It was one of those things you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for abnormalities. He had spent weeks studying the itineraries and official manifests of Timmons’ fleet. And there were discrepancies.
Of course a secret air-dock would be just the sort of thing Timmons would need if his fleet was involved in criminal activities. But there was no specific reason to think his investigation and Maliha’s were related.
She was just solving a suicide. He shook his head, almost in disbelief. It was just like her to want to solve a death that was not a murder. She could be quite perverse. Like throwing him out for defending her virtue.
On the far side of the river he turned left instead of heading towards the city. The road was little more than a well-used dirt track but the horse stepped lightly long it and the suspension on the cart was sufficient to make th
e uneven terrain tolerable.
They passed through several villages, attracting the attention of all the dwellers that probably didn’t see a white face from one month to the next, despite the fact they were ruled by the whites. He stopped at one village where the river bank was a gentle slope down to the water. He unhitched the horse, led her down to the water and, keeping hold of the reins, let her go. She walked a few steps into the sluggish current and began to drink. He kept an eye out for crocodiles.
Village children edged nervously down the slope, standing in a group watching him in silence. He smiled at them and their faces broke into grins revealing their white teeth.
The horse had finished drinking. Valentine grabbed the halter and brought her head round. He felt something touch his foot. He looked down and found a little girl bent over double, her hands on his foot.
He fought off the impulse to pull away. He knew it was a sign of respect, but it was so un-British. She didn’t move, then he remembered and touched her head. She bounced upright, and stared at the horse then back at him.
“You want a ride?” he said.
She looked at him without understanding. He pointed at the horse’s back; her eyes grew even wider. He took that as a yes and lifted her—she weighed almost nothing—and placed her on the horse. She knelt on the wide back then clung on as he brought the horse round and led it back up the slope.
The other children were laughing and clapping and shouting in what he supposed was Hindi. The girl laughed between moments when the horse’s motion caught her off balance and she had to cling on again.
He lifted her down and she jabbered to the others, some of whom were looking at him hopefully. But he did not have time. He shook his head sadly, and their faces dropped. He got the horse hitched up again and set off, waving to the crowd of children.
There were adults who had watched the whole thing from the safety of their homes, barely more than shacks. They pressed their palms as he passed. He had always thought of it as being like a military salute. Anyway Maliha would have been proud of him, he thought. If she considered him at all.
By the end of the second hour the light was going but he was approaching the hills which lay to the north, with the river still on his left. He looked for a route that would take him into the hills. The maps were good but they did not have every minor path.
There was a wooden bridge across a tributary to the river and just past it a rough track leading towards the hills.
He looked at them and wondered at his foolhardiness. Did he really think he could find the right valley in these hills while on foot? In the dark? He sighed and kept on; at least he would get as far as he could before it became too dark to drive the cart.
It reached the point where he could no longer see where he was going. He’d packed some fruit but nothing more to eat. He shook his head in dismay at his own unpreparedness.
He unhitched the horse and stripped off the tack, leaving just the bridle. He created a makeshift hobble from a strap and put it round the horse’s front legs to stop her wandering too far. He managed to find some bits of wood for a small fire, cleared a space and got it going.
He ate the fruit and stared into the fire. What was he doing? She wouldn’t appreciate him interfering anyway, so what difference did it make? Just stay the night here, go back in the morning, and get back on board for the trip to South Africa.
The cart would be better for sleeping in, or on, even though it was small. There were too many ways to die in India what with the snakes and scorpions, not to mention leopards and elephants.
With the night being so dark, the sky was filled with stars and the Milky Way was a creamy strip running across it. He had spoken to a Royal Navy Void-sailor one time who had told him that no matter how many stars you could see here on Earth, twinkling in the night, out in the void there were so many more, and they did not flicker but lay embedded like diamonds in the firmament.
A cloud moved across the sky blotting out a section of the stars. He should probably try to get some sleep, though the cart was far from comfortable. He closed his eyes but something was nagging at him.
He opened his eyes again. The cloud had moved. It had surprisingly regular lines. He watched it gliding across the sky, utterly silent, the way that clouds are utterly silent. He licked his finger and held it up. There was a slight breeze, but only a slight one and it was at almost right angles to the way the cloud was moving.
The cloud was perfectly rectangular. It was big and completely on its own. Not another one in the sky. The moon was not quite new and a sliver of it still showed. And, as the cloud crossed the sky, there was a reflection of the moon along its side.
Valentine jumped up, found his bag, and made sure he had his gun. The ship was drifting towards the hills behind him. He needed to hurry. He took a line on its direction of travel and then chased after it through the dark, stumbling and tripping across the uneven ground.
vi
Although the vessel seemed to be just drifting it soon merged with the hills ahead and was lost to sight. Valentine studied the stars above the point where it had disappeared and spotted the tail of Ursa Minor pointing almost directly at the place.
Of course the constellation would move as time wore on but he hoped he would get to the location before that became a problem. Besides it seemed to be following the course of the tributary he had been following just as he had expected.
Now that he didn’t have to keep watching the sky he made better progress. He simply glanced up every now and then to ensure he was staying on the right line. He reached the lower slopes of the hills and climbed steadily towards the summit.
When he reached the top he found he was pointing more west than he intended and adjusted his route across the gently rolling hill. It seemed reasonable to assume they would have patrols so he took out his gun, though in the silence of the night he would rather not use it.
He reached the summit, still without any sign of life, and started down the other side.
Finally he reached a point where the slope of the hill was such that he could see down into the valley. Or rather, in the dark of the night, he could see there was not a single light in the thick blackness that lay there. Only the strip of the river was visible, reflecting the sky as it wound its way up the valley.
He sat down, setting the gun down beside him.
He should just go back. Giving up so easily, Valentine? That was easy for her to say, what would she have done? Not gone traipsing across the countryside without information or a plan. Yes, well, she wasn’t here. He was tired. And having an imaginary conversation with his ex—whatever she was—really was of no help unless she was right. Was there something he should be thinking about?
He stood up and looked at the hills and the valley.
If he was right about following the river then there was no reason they should stop here, just at the entrance to the valley. In fact that was exactly the wrong place; they would easily be visible since that was no small vessel. It must have been the size of a big Zeppelin at least.
All right, so they follow the river and not stop until they’ve at least gone round the bend. He looked further up the valley, to where the dark line of the river turned to the right. Just there.
I’ll go that far and if there’s still nothing, I’ll go back, he thought to himself.
He set off along the hill rather than go down into the valley: too much chance of meeting another person, or stumbling into a marsh.
Thirty minutes later the constellations had moved several more degrees in the sky and he was reaching the point where he would be able to see around the bend in the valley. His tiredness was getting to him. He drifted off a couple of times even as he walked. The air was warm and, if he wasn’t mistaken, getting warmer. Clouds were building slowly from the south. It might not be monsoon but it still rained.
If it started to rain before he got back there was a risk of getting lost, but he’d worry about that when it happened.
; The corner of the valley opposite dropped away as he moved forward, revealing the new part of the valley bit by bit. He saw the shadows of trees first, lying long and flat. The light behind them came into view. Under the glow of electric lights stood a fenced compound. It was big enough to accommodate a number of buildings, including an estate house. The ship he had seen lay on the ground, dwarfing the buildings and the house. It was larger than the biggest Zeppelin he had ever seen and was of no design he recognised.
It did not appear to have any national flag or insignia on it that he could make out. The side of the ship had a huge hatch in it which was folded down. A few figures stumbled out. They were tied and dark-skinned like shadows. An armed man drove them forwards. He struck one that was lagging behind the others and drove him to his knees.
Valentine felt a tightening in his throat; the anger welled up. There was perhaps nothing more despicable in the world than slavers. He stood up.
What do you think you’re doing, Valentine?
There was a movement in the foreground, at the base of the hill on which he sat. Two men with dogs, and rifles across their shoulders.
What good will you do anyone if you’re dead?
Valentine watched as the slaver pounded the butt of his rifle into the back of the prone slave. He ground his teeth. The two guards walked along the line of the hill two hundred yards below him. He could hear the murmur of their voices.
A bark from one of the dogs echoed up the slope. It was a warning. He ducked down so that he was not silhouetted against the stars. The dog barked again and the men stopped, peering up the hill.
Valentine barely dared to breathe. The dog barked again and then yelped as one of the guards gave it a kick. You should trust your dog, Valentine thought to himself. Kicking it wouldn’t encourage it to do its job right.
The guards walked on.
But then I would not want them to. He looked up again at the compound. He wondered briefly whether this place was British territory. The control of land around Pondicherry was complicated, but even if it was British, the French would most certainly take exception to a raid.
Wind in the East Page 14
