by John Masters
‘You don’t have to.’
‘That’s it, Anne. Here, now, I don’t want to. But--oh, don’t you see?--I might have to.’
She did not understand exactly what he meant. He spoke from the depths, and she should try to understand. But she couldn’t now. All that would come later when a year or two of time had proved to him that he could trust her. Then he would let her become a part of him and he would no longer know the meaning of aloneness. She whispered urgently, ‘We’ve got to fight, Robin, or you’ll be ruined. They’ll make you hate everyone. They’ll make you--kill yourself. It’s happened before.’
Twice in a long circuit of the floor he opened his mouth to speak. Twice he said nothing. The third time he said, ‘Anne, will you marry me?’
The opportunity for which she had been tensely waiting was upon her. In a few minutes, as this hypertension and ruthlessness faded in her, it would be gone. She whirled in his arms until they were in front of the band. There she stopped and, holding Robin’s hand, beckoned to the bandmaster. Still playing his violin, he leaned over, and she whispered in his ear. He smiled, turned to his musicians, and raised his bow authoritatively. The music died in the middle of a phrase. Anne said to Robin, ‘Tell them.’
The pianist struck a resounding chord. On the dais she gripped Robin’s hand more tightly and faced the floor. The people’s faces were like so many floating white balloons. None of them possessed any expression; they had not eyes or mouths or noses--except her mother. She saw her mother pushing forward through the dancers, her face pinched in horror.
Robin said in his high, clear voice, ‘I would like to announce that Miss Hildreth has done me the honour of saying that she will become my wife. Thank you.’
The pianist struck a succession of chords and stopped to await the customary burst of handclapping and shouted applause and the rush across the floor. Of course it was also customary for the engaged girl’s father to make the announcement--but what could the bandleader do? Anne knew there would be no applause and at Robin’s side she stepped down to the floor. The only sound in the ballroom was a moaning shriek from her mother--’Ooooooh!’
Major Hayling was there with her mother, half supporting her, when Anne arrived with Robin. She could not see her father anywhere. Major Hayling said to Robin, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever know how lucky you are.’ The sting in his voice robbed the words of their innocence.
Around them Anne heard the whispering, the hissed questions and answers. The whispering died, and there was silence. Everyone stood where he had been when the music stopped. At last the bandmaster caught the overpowering embarrassment and tapped his foot twice and began to fiddle furiously. Unsteadily, one by one, the band struck up ‘The Blue Danube.’
CHAPTER 8
As she tightened her chin-strap she yawned and had to wait till the yawn was finished. She felt discouraged this morning, and a little uneasy in her stomach. She turned up the watch pinned to the outside of her dress and saw that it was not yet quite six a.m. She was riding down the Grand Trunk Road towards Pabbi for a meet of the P.V.H. Hayling rode at her side. Above the clipclop of hoofs he said, ‘And what time did you get to bed last night?’
‘Four.’
‘I thought so. Not without dust and heat?’
She mumbled, ‘Mother was hysterical.’
Robin had returned to his bungalow almost at once.
When they got off the dance floor her mother had started to call him names, so he had bowed, repeated that he intended to marry Anne, and gone away. At home her mother really began, and it would have been funny really, only Anne had been so taut with excitement that she could not see it at the time. After a while the storm had burst over her father--why hadn’t he seen this coming? Why hadn’t he stopped Robin making the announcement? Why hadn’t he gone up immediately to the dais to deny that the engagement had parental sanction? Of course poor Daddy couldn’t have done that. But her mother’s crying and hysteria had been over what was done; she had not yet realized how easily it could be undone; she would, though, to-day or to-morrow. It wouldn’t take her long to see that in the circumstances Anne needed her parents’ approval even though she was of age.
Since she had awakened this morning, all the time the groom was saddling Beauty, all the time she waited in the drive for Hayling to come, she had been thinking what to do next. Her mother had never dreamed she would go out hunting, so she had not thought to forbid it. Daddy was the best hope. He wanted her to be happy and he’d promised to help her. He so seldom got what he wanted, unfortunately. Mother did not want her to be happy--or unhappy; she just wasn’t taking happiness into account at all, although of course every few minutes she would sob, ‘It’s only your happiness I’m thinking of.’ Her mother was really, in one word, thinking of esteem. She was thinking of other people’s opinions, of how the gossip would run, of money and rank and prospects.
Hayling said, ‘I suppose you’ve worked out that you’ve got to have your parents’ consent?’
‘Why?’ She knew the answer but wanted more time to think. Besides, Major Hayling might have an idea. Perhaps it wasn’t fair or wise to trust him--but perhaps she had to. Anyway, she could listen.
He said, ‘Well, first of all you obviously want people to accept him, and a lot of them won’t do it if he marries you without consent; it’ll only reinforce, instead of removing, the reasons they already have for not accepting him. Then, unless some influential people--colonels, generals, and so on--pull strings on Robin’s behalf, he’s going to face a court martial very soon.’
‘He’s not a coward! They’ll have to exonerate him.’
‘They won’t. They can’t. Not enough evidence. They’ll make a finding that will leave everything just about where it is.’
‘But, wh-what c-can w-we do?’ She bit her lip.
Hayling said, ‘Oh, damn you, Anne! I may be able to help, but only if you get your parents’ consent to the marriage. Now forget about it for a bit. We’re nearly there.’
Five minutes later they came to the meet. A sprinkling of riders had already arrived. Hayling pressed forward, greeting his friends and acquaintances. ‘Morning, Master. Morning, Featherstone; morning, Mrs. Collett; glad to see you both out.’ They milled around, twenty or thirty of them, men and women, for the most part mounted on rangy government chargers. They were dressed in khaki and grey and black, and the horses kicked up the dust around them while the riders exchanged shouted words of small talk. The whips were yelling. ‘Gi-i-i-it up, Daisy. Ho, Crocus! Ho, Tulip! Lady, ho! Nancy’--crrrack--’get your nose out of there, you bloody bitch. Come up, Violet, come up, I say!’ Crrrack!
The field moved slowly off to the covert side. The young men greeted Anne with extreme self-consciousness. Mr. Gerald Handy did not greet her at all and turned scarlet under her long stare. She felt a little better. The few women out congratulated her briefly on her engagement. She kept her face masked in a smile. Edith Collett whispered, ‘Good for you! But remember what I said.’ Mrs. Savage was not out. Robin would soon be on his way to her big bungalow. He’d probably find her at the hospital, where she spent most of her time helping to nurse the wounded soldiers. She’d know already what Robin was going to tell her. Word would have reached every part of Peshawar cantonment within an hour.
At the covert she drew apart and kept her eyes on the huntsmen while they threw hounds into the undergrowth. Hayling never left her side. As they waited he said, ‘You’ve got to be quick. Apart from your mother, there’s Robin.’
‘What about him?’
‘All right, I’ll be cruel. You’ve got to understand. I don’t think he’s half so sure about this marriage as you seem to be. And since he’s not afraid of physical things like pain--or death--he might bring himself to some harm. Accidentally, so as not to hurt you.’
‘Oh, no! I couldn’t bear it!’ It was strange and rather terrible that she should have talked to Robin about this very thing last night. The weird part was that she and Major Hayling
had come to that conclusion from opposite directions; she feared that the world would drive Robin to desperation, while, if Major Hayling’s words meant anything, he thought that it was she, Anne, who would do the driving.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ Hayling said. ‘I don’t think you forced Robin into asking you to marry him. If he loves anyone, it’s you. He is being tortured, if ever I saw a man tortured, by some sort of conviction that he’s not meant to find happiness that way--though he wants to, because of you.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
He shrugged wearily. ‘All right, don’t. That’s my opinion. And I’ve already told you why it can’t be unbiased. Believe what you want to believe. I don’t pretend to know. A beautiful young woman in love can do just about anything. Certainly she can induce a middle-aged major of cavalry to make a fool of himself.’
‘Gone awaaaay!’
Jamming her topi firmly on her head, she began to ride. For the next four hours she rode as she had never ridden before, galloping in straight lines, never deviating, recklessly hurling Beauty at every obstacle that came in the way. Hounds found twice and killed twice. Before the end, foam and sweat lathered Beauty’s flanks, and she was so exhausted that she pecked at the lowest mud walls. Rivulets of sweat ran down Anne’s face and neck, cutting muddy channels through the caked dust. Great black patches of sweat-soaked cloth stood out on her jacket among the green flecks of foam from Beauty’s mouth. The master gave her the brush of the second jack killed. She did not know where to carry it on the long hack home and at last had to give it to Major Hayling, who stuffed it into a pocket.
He mopped his brow with a large, white handkerchief. ‘I hope I never have to follow you again, Anne--at least not when you’re upset. You’ve got too much courage for your own good.’
The rush of wind and the pounding of hoofs had dispelled her fears. Robin wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him. She would make it come about. She said, ‘I’ve been worrying too much.’
‘Well, now that you have recovered your nerve--though I’ve lost mine in the process--shall we go and visit Mr. Savage? You don’t look exactly fragile or pale, but I don’t expect he’ll mind. And I want to talk to him on a subject that concerns you both.’
‘Go like this?’ Her face was scarlet under the filth, but it might be better by the time they reached Peshawar. ‘All right.’
On the way back she tried to get Hayling to tell her what he intended to discuss with Robin, but he only said, ‘Wait. I don’t want to have to go through it all twice.’ Speculating in silence as the weary horses plodded onward, she weighed the various possibilities. It would not be anything to do with getting her parents’ consent to the marriage; he’d already said that that was her responsibility. It might be about a transfer, some posting that would save Robin from being court-martialled--although what Hayling could achieve she had no idea. He must know that even he, with his contacts, could not persuade a regimental colonel to take Robin unless to send him straight out on some specially dangerous duty. And Robin had said he didn’t want to kill anyone. She suppressed a groan. She didn’t want him to take a delight in killing, but it might be his duty. He must realize that.
The little bungalow and its little patch of lawn basked in the motionless sunlight. Robin was sitting on the verandah, on the stool she had seen in his room. He rose, came forward to them, and helped her to dismount while his bearer held the horses’ heads. As they walked up the verandah steps Robin said, ‘Don’t worry about the horses, sir. Bearer, tell the groom to loosen the girths and blanket them. I’ve seen my stepmother, Anne. She seems pleased. She’ll be asking you to visit her later, I expect.’
They were standing on the verandah. Robin said, ‘Would you care for a bottle of beer, sir? I have some carbonated water for you, Anne.’
‘Robin, I can’t stay long, really. I’d love some soda. Major Hayling wants to talk to us, dear.’
‘Oh. Wait. I’ll get the chairs out.’
‘I’ll lend you a hand. Literally one.’
Robin smiled at Hayling with one of his sudden, warm smiles. Anne smiled at the two of them and watched from the doorway while they went into the little whitewashed cell. Hayling glanced at the jezail over the mantelpiece. His hand grasped the back of a chair, ready to lift. He said, ‘The chasing on the barrel there’s unusually good. Where did you get it?’
‘Off a Ghilzai who was killed at Tezin Kach. I’m not sure that he really was a Ghilzai, as a matter of fact. He and another man seemed to stray into the battle. Jagbir shot him. He had two rifles, a modem one and this.’
‘This is fairly old. It’s in good order though, as far as I can see. It’s probably quite valuable.’
‘I think it must be, sir. A man in Jellalabad tried to buy it off me on my way down.’
From the door Anne said, ‘I wish you’d sold it.’ But Robin did not smile at the reference, and she added, to cover herself, ‘Perhaps that’s what the robbers were after last night.’
Robin said, ‘I’d never thought of that,’ and took it down and handed it over for Hayling’s inspection. ‘D’you think it’s all that valuable, sir? It’s got some Arabic letters carved into the stock there, just under your hand. I made them out to mean “Horses, north.” I suppose they’re really part of the owner’s name, or--’
Hayling shifted his hand along the butt and bent down to peer at the writing, resting the barrel on the back of a chair. Then he picked up the weapon and hurried out on to the verandah so quickly that Anne had to step aside hastily or he would have run into her. She moved automatically, thinking of something else; she had remembered the word the lone man had written in blood on a rock near Attock--Atlar. Horses.
Hayling said sharply, ‘Have you or your orderly fired this? Did the man fire it before he was shot?’
‘Not that I know of. We certainly haven’t. I was watching when this man was killed, and I am sure he didn’t fire it.’ He related the story, which Anne had not heard before. He had an eerie, unfluent gift for words, and as he spoke she felt the mist of the Afghan hillside closing about her.
Major Hayling sat down slowly, the old jezail upright between his knees, the hook of his right hand resting lightly on it to keep it from falling forward. Anne sat down. Robin leaned against a pillar of the verandah in front of them. As Hayling began to speak Robin said, ‘Wait, sir,’ went back into the bungalow, and reappeared a minute later with beer, soda, and glasses. Hayling had lighted a cigar. Anne was pleased, because the smell of perspiration was very strong.
Hayling began. ‘Late last November we got word that one of the government of India’s secret agents in northern Afghanistan was on his way east to make an important report. None of us here knew the man by sight. He had served us for many years but used to make his reports through another man in Kabul. His message didn’t say why he was coming to India, except that it was important.
‘On December 17th a stranger was killed near Attock. Anne here saw him killed. His murderers, thinking they had not killed him, also hired rascals in Pabbi to stab him again and make sure. The people in Pabbi would not tell us much, and as they had committed no real crime we could not be very severe with them. However, the Pabbi incident was a mistake from the other side’s point of view, because it made us think--and in due course we received descriptions that convinced us the dead man was the agent who had been on his way to us.’
Anne listened with parted lips and heart beating fast. This was exciting enough, but she knew from Hayling’s manner that sooner or later the story would more directly affect Robin and herself.
The major blew out a cloud of blue tobacco smoke. ‘The agent’s name was Selim Beg. He lived in the Afghan frontier town of Balkh, which is north of the Hindu Kush and faces Russian-controlled territory across the Oxus. When he was shot near Attock he had a jezail. His murderers risked their lives--unnecessarily, as we then thought--to get that jezail, and they did get it. In his last moments Selim Beg wrote the Turki word Atlar in hi
s own blood on the rock where he lay. A little later, but enough later for a man to have covered the distance, and on the direct route from Attock to Kabul, and to Russia, your Jagbir shoots a man who appeared to have blundered into your battle. On him, as well as his own rifle, was this jezail. Its stock is marked with the words Atlar, Shimal. Horses, north.
‘That, with the addition of the word “north,” is the message Selim Beg gave us at Attock. So this is almost certainly Selim Beg’s jezail. His murderers would have known or guessed that the key words of his report were on his jezail--the one thing that he would never allow to leave his hand, day or night. They hoped that if they got the jezail and prevented Selim Beg from talking to us we would not be able to guess what his report was about. Selim Beg, on the other hand, must have thought that the single words “horses” and “north” would be enough by themselves, if the worst came to the worst, to put us on the track. Now--’
He peered down the barrel of the jezail and asked Robin if he could get a thin stick and some glue. Robin called Jagbir, who quickly found a stick. Robin himself went to borrow the glue from one of the other occupants of the bungalow--Anne heard the man’s curt voice, but Robin got the glue.
Hayling rubbed glue liberally down one side of the stick, thrust it into the muzzle of the jezail, and held it there. While they waited for the glue to harden he said, ‘There’s something here, all right. It’s a favourite hiding-place, as long as you think you’re not going to use the weapon.’ As he slowly drew the stick out of the barrel a roll of thin paper came with it. With Robin’s help he prised the gluey stick loose without tearing the inside paper. When he spread out the roll she saw that it was not one but four or five sheets of paper. ‘A report,’ Hayling muttered. ‘But who from and who to, we’ll have to find out.’ He began to study the graceful, tightly-written, right-to-left script. ‘H’m. Not, I think, to our address. That’s interesting.’ He rubbed his hand across his chin, his hook holding down the papers on his lap. The jezail lay on the verandah floor at his feet. ‘I haven’t got time to read them now. But tell me one thing, Anne. Did you see Selim Beg fire this, at Attock?’
