by John Masters
‘No, sir.’
‘See much action? I mean--h’rrm--how was it up there?’ His father-in-law’s several chins quivered with embarrassment, and his eyes wandered away. Poor man, he really was kind, and as thin-skinned as a gazelle in spite of his appearance. Robin said, ‘No, sir, I didn’t see any action. I think, if you’ll excuse me, I must move on.’
‘Must you? Oh, well--Sultan! Tell the Gurkha to bring the horses round. H’m.’
‘Give my affectionate regards to Mrs. Hildreth, won’t you, sir?’
‘Of course, of course. She’s in Kashmir--Srinagar. Went up in May. I’m a grass-widower. Hardly a woman left in the station, except Anne and Mrs. Collett.’
They stood on the verandah, waiting for the horses. Major Hildreth hemmed and cleared his throat once or twice before getting out, ‘Give Anne a kiss from her father, eh? She’s been in often to see me since May. Goes out a lot. Makes me feel like a child now. She’s a great lady now--and--ah--she loves you, boy.’
‘Thank you, sir. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye. Well--good-bye.’ Robin and Jagbir mounted, and Major Hildreth watched them till they turned out of the drive. From the road Robin saw him shake his head, pick up his paper, and return inside the bungalow.
Major Hayling greeted them without surprise. He said, ‘Good. Right on time. Would you like a bottle of beer?’
‘Not another, sir, or I’ll go to sleep.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘Over the Shutagardan, then through the Tirah.’
‘Ah. Very few of us have been through there. I’m surprised the Kurram Valley commander didn’t forbid you--oh, you didn’t ask him? And you were in uniform? Yes, I see. Jagbir must make a perfect Hazara in the proper clothes, but of course I agree that a Hazara would be an unusual sight in the Tirah.’
They had reached the major’s office. The walls were bare of pictures or maps, and very few papers lay on the desk. A large, square safe stood in one corner. Hayling lit a cigar. ‘Have you been to see your wife yet?’
‘No, sir. She’ll be resting. I’ll go in the evening.’
‘Good idea. It’s hot as hell now. We’re having a real brute of a hot weather.’ He glanced out of the window at a thermometer hanging in the shade of the verandah. ‘A hundred and eighteen. You must be fried to a cinder.’ He drew on his cigar. ‘How did you get on in Gharghara?’
‘All right, I think. I can speak Hazara and Zaboli Persian well enough. Jagbir learned Hazara quickly. He doesn’t have a big vocabulary, but as a peasant he wouldn’t. I learned something about business when I went on a trading trip to Herat in the late spring with Faiz Ali. I think I’m ready.’
‘Good.’ Hayling surveyed him through the cigar smoke. ‘We’re ready too. You remember that report in the barrel of the jezail? It was from an agent in Jellalabad, to the Russians.’
‘How is that known, sir?’
‘Because the fellow works for both sides, and we know his handwriting. It was routine stuff, about our troop movements in Afghanistan. Our reconstruction of the whole story goes something like this. First, our man Selim Beg discovers something. He dares not trust even a word to paper. He scratches “Horses, north” on the butt of his gun and comes east, meaning to report to us well beyond the places where the Russians would expect him to come in. He was probably heading for Rawalpindi--even Simla. However, they get him and take his jezail because they suspect that he has his report rolled up in the barrel, or because they know he’s scratched those two words on the butt.
‘On their way back to their base--which was probably Balkh--they’d have to pass through Jellalabad, where the two-sided agent lives. He says, “Here, save me a trip, take this with you,” and gives them his monthly routine report. They roll it up in the jezail. That’s important, in spite of the report’s actually being valueless, because it proves that the men who murdered Selim Beg and took his jezail are connected with Russian espionage, which in turn proves that Selim Beg had something big to tell us. Well then, these two stumble into your battle, and so--you get married and live happily ever after. Damn it, I’m sorry, Robin.’
Robin’s head kept nodding forward. The major’s spurt of bitterness could not penetrate his weariness.
Hayling said, ‘Keep awake another minute. We--by which I mean the Viceroy and the government at home--have come to the conclusion, on other grounds of course, that the Russians mean business. Events may change the Czar’s mind, but at this moment his generals are planning further large advances southward. Our agents will remain at their posts. As they are local men they cannot readily move. Independently of them, you will enter Russian-controlled Asia and find out what the Russians’ specific plan is. We know their general intention--an advance on India. What we don’t know is the methods by which they hope to achieve it. You and I leave by dak to-morrow morning for railhead, then train and dak to Simla. In Simla you will receive full information, but no more instructions. There aren’t any.’
‘Will I be coming back here afterwards?’
‘I doubt it.’ Hayling pushed back his chair quickly. ‘That is not my doing. Here.’ He pushed open the door of a small room off his study. It contained a narrow camp bed and a single camp chair. ‘Sleep here until you’re ready to go to your wife’s. Come back at seven to-morrow morning. By the way, where are your desi clothes, and Jagbir’s?’
‘In the Nau Jabbar Khan serai in Kabul.’
‘With Dost Khan?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Now get some sleep. I’ll tell that little man of yours.’
Robin awoke and knew without looking at his watch that it was five o’clock. The sun still shone, but the glare had died out of it, and a slight, hot breeze ruffled the trees. He dressed and whistled quietly outside the servants’ quarters. Jagbir appeared immediately, wearing only white cotton drawers. Robin said, ‘I’m going to my memsahib. There’s nothing for you until seven to-morrow morning, here. We’re going to Simla.’ He walked across the compound to the stables and began to resaddle Bahram, the shaggy pony he’d bought during his schooling period in Gharghara.
Behind him Jagbir cleared his throat cautiously; then again. Robin said, ‘What is it, son?’
‘Got no money. Want five rupees. Loan. Till pay-day.’ Robin smiled, found a ten-rupee note in his pocket, and handed it over. ‘The government owes you a lot more than this by now. Remember these people here are not Hazaras but Pathans. Pathan husbands have long knives and short tempers.’
‘And fleas.’ Jagbir smiled shyly, a warm, quiet grin that just showed his regular white teeth, and said, ‘Perhaps I won’t even need any money.’
Robin watched his back as he returned to the quarters. Jagbir knew all animals and knew himself as an animal, and women in their animal nature. He was never unhappy.
Robin rode out of the compound and across the cantonment to the Colletts’ bungalow. He found Edith Collett in the garden, wearing a dark-blue dress and a large straw hat. She was walking slowly along behind a gardener and telling him which flowers to cut among the roses and the cannas. She looked up as he came in, and floated easily across the dry grass to him, her hand outstretched. By the time he dismounted a groom had appeared, running, to lead his horse away. She was well served.
She held out her hand. ‘Why, Mr. Savage! Oh, I’m going to call you Robin, whatever Anne thinks. Why didn’t you warn us you were coming?’
‘I couldn’t, ma’am. Is Anne in?’
‘Yes. Now don’t go rushing in, dear boy. You’ll frighten her into a fit. Wait in the drawing-room, first on the right inside, and I’ll tell her you’re here.’
She slipped into the house ahead of him and entered a door farther along the passage. Robin sat down in the drawing-room, leaned back, and waited. He wanted to see Anne but also he was afraid. In some ways he felt more confident than ever before in his life. He knew that he would face the work ahead of him with a kind of hard-edged competence. Here he was--lean, sunburned, fit, and ready. H
e could stand away from that able young man, appraise him, and admire. That man, Lieutenant Savage of the Intelligence, was like a razor. But Robin felt fear because he thought Anne might like the young fellow--she must have come here to Edith Collett’s to cultivate competence--while he himself was not at all sure that he could bear to live with him.
For he--Robin, the doubtful searcher--was in no better case than when he had left for Gharghara. He still lacked something--a sign, a vision, what the chemists called a catalyst. The job, perhaps? Or Anne? He’d have to see what the months had done to her; she’d have had time to think. . . . Asia was always waiting to see, waiting for travellers to come or to depart, waiting for camels, for horses, for the rain-storm to begin, the dust-storm to end.
He noticed that the language of his thoughts was Zaboli Persian. That Lieutenant Savage would surely go far. Mrs. Collett walked with great poise, but perhaps she was not altogether happy. It would be sad if Anne had caught from her other unhappinesses besides her own. Jagbir would be on his way to the bazaar to drink strong spirits and fall upon someone’s wife. Jagbir was a lover but not a Lothario. He seemed able, just by looking shyly at her, to soften the fibres of any woman in Asia. In Gharghara the only people who had loved him better than the women were the women’s husbands. He outdrank them, outclimbed them on the mountain, seldom spoke, heard a song once and sang it perfectly a week later, and ate great hunks of raw flesh with them as if he had been a Tartar of the Horde. He could not read and he could not write.
Robin had not moved hand or foot and he had been waiting a long time. She must be making a careful toilette. Five months ago she would have rushed in to him, flushed from afternoon sleep, dress awry, hair undone, face gleaming with sweat.
She came in almost silently, but he heard the thin shimmer of her dress. He guessed that she wanted to surprise him, so he did not move. She closed the door secretly behind her and slipped around until suddenly she was in front of him. He had been examining men and women for five months, learning to remember in one glance every detail of their faces, dress, and manner. Anne was very beautiful. Her red-gold hair was cut into a short fringe in front, highly curled on top, and coiled at the back. Her dark-green dress curved up under her breasts, pushing them higher. The dress had a high neck and mutton-chop sleeves. Her waist was three inches smaller than it had been, and her bustle six inches bigger. He heard a low muttering in the passage and recognized the voices of Edith Collett and a servant.
Anne said, ‘Robin, my darling husband!’ She held out her hands, leaning back a little. He stood up, took her hands, and kissed them. They were white and smooth as alabaster, the nails manicured. Her eyelids fluttered down over her eyes, and she leaned forward to him, her lips parted. He pressed his lips, closed, against hers and turned his cheek gently to caress her face with his. Slowly she opened her eyes, carefully she disentangled her hands. ‘Dearest! Oh, you’re sunburned, but handsome!’ Her eyes were bright, then the lids sank half over them again in a kind of drowsy abandon.
Her voice sounded strangely deep and throbbing. He said, ‘Have you got a cold, Anne?’
She sat down. Leaning back in the chair, she said, ‘No, silly! I’m feeling wonderful,’ but her voice went uncertainly higher, and some of the words were almost as clear as of old. She said, ‘Robin dear, I don’t know where Edith’s got to. Do go and call her.’
He went out into the passage and heard Mrs. Collett’s voice at the back of the house. Surely Anne must have asked her to stay away for a few minutes, until these first greetings were over. Why then did she pretend that Mrs. Collett had disappeared?
Mrs. Collett heard his footsteps and came along the passage to him. Her bearer followed with a bottle of wine and three glasses on a silver tray. In the drawing-room Edith said, ‘Please pour for me, Robin.’ He decanted a little into his own glass, sipped, and poured out for all three, filling his own glass last. He noticed Anne looking at him approvingly. She drawled, ‘This is a Manzanilla, Robin.’
‘Oh.’
‘Whom shall we drink to, Edith?’
‘To the bride and the bridegroom! Then you can drink to each other and I to both of you!’
Robin lifted his glass and drank. It was a bitter-sweet, sophisticated wine, and he did not think Anne could really like it. The women chatted idly about people and events of Peshawar. Anne used her hoarse new voice with a pleasant assurance. She made witty interjections, leaning back in her chair and holding her glass as if she had been born with it. Edith asked him to smoke, as neither of them minded tobacco. He drew cautiously on the first European cigarette he had seen for five months. After a hookah it tasted like hay. Anne had cut herself down so that she fitted perfectly into this environment; but she thought she had grown up to it. She sat in beauty and ease among the furniture, like a piece of it gifted with the power of speech.
In Afghanistan, above the Helmand River, the plains swept free to the mountain wall, and the wind blew cold across them. Men and women alike wore sheepskin coats and high felt boots. The black tents dotted the plain, and in them the women made a world and came to resemble their goats as Anne resembled the Chippendale. In the tents there was a cosy, familial smoke and the smells of fat and women and fecundity. Outside, the barren wind blew from pole to pole.
‘Wouldn’t you like to go and change now, Robin?’ Anne asked at last. ‘We’ll have a late dinner. Your clothes will be laid out for you by now.’
The bearer was waiting for him at the door of the bedroom. This had been Anne’s room alone for--what?--four months? It was new-pin tidy and smelled of eau de cologne and perfume. The red-gold curtains and bedspread would exactly match her hair. He turned back the cover curiously; the pillow-cases and sheets had been changed since she got up from her nap. The portrait he had painted of her hung above the bed. Looking at it, he saw that it contained nothing of her. The technique was good.
He told the bearer to leave him, and climbed into the tub. He had never liked servants hovering around him, and in the past months had got used to doing everything for himself. He hoped Anne would come and talk to him while he changed. The Anne he had left would have. That girl would have been running anxiously in and out to see if he needed anything, to assure herself that what she had arranged was right. However, everything was right, and this woman Anne knew that it was, so she wouldn’t come.
It was strange, but he had not felt lonely in Gharghara. That had come only when his time was up and he had to return to India. Every night of the journey increased his eagerness to see her and talk to her. He would keep berating himself for a fool that he had ever had a doubt about her. He would tell himself that her lively, radiant innocence was like the sun that he had once compared her to, shining into the dark corners of his mind. She could be a companion on the mountains to him, if he would teach her, he had said. He and she would share together whatever wonders they found in life, he had said.
Now it had all changed again. This place was not his place. Surely it was not hers either--but was she not altering herself to fit into it? At seven o’clock to-morrow morning he would be gone.
In the drawing-room he found Anne alone. He said, ‘Where’s Mrs. Collett?’
‘Do call her Edith. She had to go out to dinner.’
That was another lie. Colonel Franklin had properly called him a prig because such little deceptions hurt him. Of course Edith had gone out so that he and Anne could have this evening to themselves. He said, ‘I won’t have the chance to call her anything for a long time. I have to leave to-morrow.’
Anne’s carefully arranged roguishness dissolved. He watched real sorrow and near-panic sweep across her face. Then she got control of herself. ‘Robin, what a shame! But I suppose it can’t be helped. I did so want to hear all about what you’ve been doing, but we won’t have time, will we? Have another glass of Manzanilla. Sit there and just let me look at you. You’re thin, but so--strong-looking. You’re not angry or anything, are you?’ Her last words were uncertain and on them her v
oice wavered out of its low pitch.
‘No. Why?’
‘Your mouth.’
‘I was born with it, Anne. I can’t help it.’
‘I love it.’ When she poured out his wine she leaned across him, pressing her breast against his arm. Her perfume was the same as that which subtly permeated the bedroom. Before, she used to apply a simple flower perfume to herself in large quantities and smell wonderfully young and happy in consequence. This was heavier, tangier stuff, and it reminded him more of animals than of flowers.
She began to tell him of the efforts she had made not to feel lonely while he was away. She was enthusiastic over the kindness and hospitality of the numerous grass-widowers in the station, who had been as lonely as she. She had seen a lot of Rupert, nearly as much of Tom, and quite a bit of Harry. Rupert was Major Hayling; she did mention the surnames of the others, but he forgot them by the time she’d finished the sentence. He nodded and agreed that they were good men to be so kind to her. Her manner changed. She became more hesitant and began almost to pout. After a time she changed the subject with a queer mixture of pique and relief. Soon after that the bearer announced that dinner was served. She stood near the door, smiling at him, until he held out his arm. Then, her hand light on his elbow, she glided at his side into the dining-room.
A single four-branched candelabra stood on the small rosewood dining-table. The light fell on the glowing wood and on the bank of white roses at each side. More roses in a wheel-vase ringed the base of the candelabra. Two silver-staved oak buckets stood on the sideboard, and from each protruded the neck of a bottle of champagne. The gold-foil labels glinted against the background of sparkling ice and rosy wood. The bearer pulled back Anne’s chair, and Robin handed her into it. The double damask napkins were folded into patterns of rings, hers plain, his spreading out at one side into a signet. The bearer served them ice-cold consommé.
She had changed, indeed. She drank two glasses of champagne for every one of his. He liked champagne but did not need much of it, and she kept urging him to take more. It had no evil effect on her; only her eyes sparkled and her tongue ran more easily, always smooth, always witty, sometimes warm. She dominated the little banquet without effort and without a word to the servants. She lifted her eyes off his for a fraction of a second, and a course was cleared away. She moved two fingers of one hand, and the glasses were refilled. Robin recognized with a pang that she had become expert in the mechanics of living, and that she thought the achievement was of the first importance. She showed the depth of her new competence when the main course came, and it was roast lamb. Robin said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t eat meat any more.’
