The Faraway Drums

by Jon Cleary

  “He’s going back to the palace. He’s no longer interested in the Durbar. I say good riddance!”

  For a variety of reasons, all of them a jumble in his mind at the moment, Farnol knew he could not allow Mahendra to go back to Serog. Mahendra was involved in some major mischief; his threat to kill his sister was only part of it. But he knew that the prince would not listen to any plea or demand from himself, not after last night.

  Then Bridie, dressed but looking as if she had done so in a hurry, came out on to the verandah. Farnol grabbed her by the arm and almost pulled her down the steps. He walked her up and down the drive while he quickly explained why he had to keep Mahendra with them in the caravan.

  “Go down and flatter him some more, please. Tell him you need him for your story, tell him you’re going to make him its hero, anything you like. But keep him with us!”

  “I don’t know that he’ll listen to me. He suspects women—I think he even hates us—”

  “I’m sure he’s not the first woman-hater you’ve met. You’ll convince him he must stay with us.”

  “Who’s flattering whom now?”

  “You can flatter me when we get down to the Durbar. You haven’t seen me in my dress uniform. I’m truly exotic.” His smile was only fleeting. “Don’t let him go back!”

  Bridie went on down the driveway and out of the compound to where Mahendra stood waiting impatiently beside the road. Farnol went back up to the verandah and the Ranee.

  “What are you doing, Clive? Having Miss O’Brady offer herself to Bobs? It won’t work, you know. He’s a dedicated celibate or he’s asexual, I’m not sure which. Sometimes I can’t believe we came from the same father.”

  “Did you have the same mother?”

  “No. Perhaps that explains it.”

  “Miss O’Brady isn’t going to offer to get into his bed. There are other ways of winning a man, Mala.”

  “Really?” The Ranee smiled, as if she knew that the other ways, whatever they were, could so often be a waste of time.

  The others had now come out on to the verandah, the Nawab, the Baron and Zoltan Monday half-dressed, Lady Westbrook and Magda in their dressing-gowns. Magda’s gown was not meant to be worn outside a bedroom, but Lady Westbrook’s was a sensible, all-purpose blue woollen gown that came right up to her throat. She also wore one of her hats, which set the seal on her decorum.

  “What’s the hullabaloo? Clive, you said nothing about such an early start. Breakfast isn’t ready yet!”

  “I’m sorry, Viola, it’s not my doing. Prince Mahendra is planning to return home. Miss O’Brady is down there trying to persuade him not to.”

  Then the Nawab, who had been uncharacteristically silent, said, “Miss O’Brady’s coming back. And so is Bobs!”

  Farnol watched the prince and the reporter come up the driveway, chatting amiably; he half expected them to hold hands, so friendly did they appear towards each other. He glanced at the Ranee. “You see, Mala. There are other ways.”

  She seemed not to have heard him. She was staring down at her brother and Farnol saw the odd expression on her face; it took him a moment to recognize it as relief, a weakness he had never seen in her before. Then she turned her head and smiled at him.

  “You must teach them to me some time, Clive.”

  Mahendra took Bridie’s arm and helped her up the steps.

  He smiled at the group on the verandah, as innocent as a child who had wandered away for an early morning walk. “Did I waken you? I am so sorry. I am always an early riser, I forget that some people like to stay in bed. Is breakfast ready?”

  “Bobs—” The Nawab, too, looked relieved. “Don’t get up so early again. None of us is as young as you.”

  Farnol was looking at the Baron and Monday; but if they were relieved, they did not show it. Everyone went back into the house, Farnol following the Baron to their bedroom.

  “You have a problem with that young man,” said the Baron.

  Farnol washed, combed his hair; then remembered he hadn’t shaved. That took another five minutes and all the time he cursed for letting himself get out of his routine. He had found from long practice that keeping to routine, especially first thing in the morning, gave him a firm base for the rest of the day. And, God knew, he needed a firm base for the next three or four days.

  He finished dressing, put on his Sam Browne belt, checked that he had full chambers in his pistol. He looked up and saw the Baron watching him.

  “Wearing a pistol to breakfast?”

  “Baron, from now on I’m going to wear it to bed, too. I have quite a few problems, not just the one with Mahendra.”

  “Am I one of your problems, Major?” The Baron paused as he stood in front of the cracked mirror tying his tie. He looked at Farnol beyond the reflection of himself; he remarked that in the fly-blotched mirror he himself looked old and tired. With a sharp pang he wondered if Thuringia would now remain just a memory, if he would ever go home again. “It would disturb me if you thought of me as one.”

  Farnol all at once felt sympathy for the old man. He had worked for his country with honesty and dignity, but Farnol was sure there had been times when Berlin’s instructions had meant that those virtues had to be sacrificed for expediency. It was the same with all diplomats, he guessed, and remembered the expediences he had had to deal in.

  “No, Baron. I think you know more than you have told me. But I trust you.”

  The old man bowed into the mirror. “Thank you, Major. Do you know our poet Goethe? He came from my region. He once wrote: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. That sounded so inspiring when I was young. Boldness, he said, has genius, power and magic in it. Now I’m not so sure. I dreamed of being another Metternich, a Bismarck. But . . . Ach!” He looked in the mirror again at himself. “Diplomacy has no room for conscience. It is even worse than politics.”

  “I don’t think I’ve given a thought to conscience since we started this little trip.” He buttoned the flap of his holster. “That’s another problem altogether and I hope it doesn’t arise. Shall we go in for breakfast?”

  The caravan got under way at eight o’clock before the sun had risen above the steep mountains to the east. The staff of the bungalow came out and stood in line, heads bowed and hands pressed together as first Prince Mahendra and then the Ranee passed them. Then they went back into the compound to sit and wait for perhaps months before any more visitors came to the bungalow. Lady Westbrook, who had once called it home, did not bother even to look back as the coach rolled down the road.

  “I never enjoyed it,” she told the Ranee. “I was too often left alone there. Your father was always calling my husband up to the palace for advice. So far as I know, he never took a damn bit of notice of anything Roger ever told him.”

  “That would be Father,” said the Ranee, every inch her father’s daughter. She knew the dangers of taking advice from the English: her father had advised her of that.

  Farnol left Bridie to ride with Mahendra and the Nawab, to flatter one and be flattered by the other; he was sure she could handle both. She was another of his problems, a more personal one; he was becoming attracted to her, more interested in her than he should be at this time and in these circumstances. He had had several love affairs, some might say many: that depended on the tally-keeper’s experience or lack of it. But he had been in love only once. She had been one of the Fishing Fleet, one of those British girls who came out every year at the beginning of the cool weather as guests of relatives or friends, went to parties and balls and gymkhanas and never took an eye off the men, young or middle-aged, who, they had been told, were in the market for a bride. His love had been one of them, but after six months of India she had decided she could not live there and had gone home, one of those labelled Returned Empty. It had taken him a year to get over her; but he had been pleased to learn that she had found a husband in a safer clime, a wool merchant in Bradford. He could not see Bridie O’Brady wanting to stay in India and he
could not see himself living anywhere else. So the problem of falling in love with her should be put right to the back of his mind. Which, as any 80-year-old priest will tell you, is easy.

  He rode always with an eye on the slopes that towered above the winding road. An eagle planed lazily on the morning air and he wondered what the sharp-eyed bird could see. Would men ever be able to spy from the air? It was only eight years to this very month that those American brothers, the Wrights, had actually got a flying-machine to stay in the air. Yet last year Louis Blériot had flown right across the English Channel! There was talk that, if and when the next war came, the battles would be fought by aeroplanes. He could not bring himself to believe that, partly because he was a cavalryman and he would not want to see horses relegated to drawing carts for the supply corps. He did not wish to see war break out, not a major war as some people were already talking about, but if one had to fight, then it was better to enjoy it. His father had fought in the Second Afghan War and told him of the thrill of leading a cavalry charge. Still, he looked up at the sky now and wished he could see what the eagle could see.

  He rode at the rear of the procession with Zoltan Monday. Immediately behind them were Karim and Ahearn, mounted on two of the Ranee’s spare horses. Ahearn was one of those Irishmen who seemed a natural horseman, as if some ancient Celt jockey had spread his seed indiscriminately through the bogs and slums of Ireland. He had never been on a horse’s back till he left Belfast and even here in India only rarely; but now he rode with the same ease and grace as the tall Sikh beside him. For the first time in his life he had a small air of dignity about him, as if he did not want to shame the magnificent chestnut he rode. The Ranee, taking her best horses down to the Durbar for her own advertisement, had elevated Ahearn, if only temporarily.

  “I’m beginning to enjoy this,” he told Karim.

  “Major Farnol and I, we have ridden right across the top of India.” “I’ve done it on foot. It ain’t the same bloody thing, I can tell you.” “You should not always be so bloody unhappy.”

  “I’m Irish, ain’t I?” There was an Irish happiness in being unhappy. But he patted the horse’s neck and did look happy. “If I could join the cavalry, mebbe I’d sign up again.”

  Farnol heard the remark and looked over his shoulder. “Do your job properly on this trip, Ahearn, and we might get you a horse.”

  “What’s my job, sir?”

  “Seeing the sahib isn’t shot or stabbed in the back,” said Karim Singh as if he thought Ahearn should know.

  “Holy Jay-sus.”

  Farnol grinned, confident that Karim knew his job, and turned back to Monday, who was looking at him curiously. “Are you not afraid, Major?”

  “Of course. Just as you are.”

  Monday did not deny it. “It is part of the job. But I try to hide that from my wife.”

  “Why did you bring her with you on this trip to India?”

  “She comes with me on every trip.” There was another fear, that he might lose her if he left her at home; but he did not confess that. He knew she loved him, but there was always the nagging doubt. “She is a great help. Men respond to her.”

  “They buy howitzers because of a woman’s smile?”

  Monday himself smiled. “It has happened.”

  “When we get to Delhi, Mr. Monday, I am going to ask the Political Service to look into you. You won’t mind?”

  “Not at all, Major. My business is legitimate. One of my best friends is the Vickers’ representative. We exchange Christmas cards every year.”

  “If ever we should go to war, will you still exchange cards?”

  “Of course. He and I will not be at war with each other.”

  Farnol was not enjoying the conversation. But short of holding a knife at Monday’s throat, how was he going to learn the real purpose of the Krupps man’s visit to the Himalayas? He could only hope to trap him into a slip of the tongue. He looked up, saw the Nawab’s youngest wife riding in the howdah on the last elephant. On an impulse he smiled at her, expecting her to pull her veil higher and turn her head away. But she didn’t, just shook her head and only then looked away.

  “Will the Nawab mind that?” said Monday. “You flirting with one of his wives?”

  “Only if you tell him. Perhaps you pass on bits of gossip like that to your clients?”

  But Monday was too smart for that one: “The Nawab is not a client of mine. You said yourself he only collected cricket bats and balls.”

  They stopped for lunch beside the river, which now tumbled down, like a giant’s writhing hang- rope, out of a narrow defile in the hills. A sward of long grass ran from the road down to the riverbank; half a dozen elephants were marched up and down to flatten the grass and banish any snakes. A small grove of pines stood beside the river, their dark brown bark looking as if it had been applied by hand in small slabs to the slender trunks. It seemed a splendid place for a picnic and the cooks were soon lighting the fires and preparing lunch.

  Farnol dismounted and stood close to the elephants who were carrying the Nawab’s wives. As the youngest wife got down and moved apart from her companions, seemingly casually yet deliberately towards Farnol, he said softly, “Do you wish to speak to me?”

  One advantage of the veil was that one could speak without appearing to. “Not now, I cannot. But tonight, if it is possible.”

  Then she moved away after the other wives across to where a tablecloth was being laid out for them on the crushed grass. It struck Farnol that he did not know her name, who she had been before the Nawab had married her or where she came from. Or why she felt she had to speak to him.

  “Clive,” said the Nawab right behind him, “are you ogling my wives? Are you thinking of cuckolding me en masse?”

  “Not if you continue to keep them in purdah. When are you going to let them free to run around, Bertie?”

  “Dear boy, why don’t you ask Bobs when he’s going to let his menagerie free to run around? I’m a very solicitous husband—I know what’s best for them.” The Nawab was smiling as always, but Farnol suspected he was not joking when he said, “Clive, don’t compound your troubles by looking at my wives. You have enough to trouble you with Mala and the delectable Miss O’Brady. And Mrs. Monday too, I’m sure, if you give her an ounce of encouragement.”

  “The only one you’ve left out is Viola.”

  The Nawab, the smile still on his face, looking as if he had forgotten it, glanced across at the old lady making herself comfortable in a camp chair. “Viola, I think, is the only one who can look after herself.”

  “Not even Mala?”

  “Not even her.” Then he turned full away and looked at the frail wooden bridge that spanned the river. “Do you think that bridge will hold? Mala and Bobs really should spend some money on maintaining their roads and bridges. That one looks as if it was built by Akbar himself and hasn’t been touched since.”

  Farnol walked across with Karim Singh to inspect the bridge. As he did so he noticed that the Nawab moved over to speak to his wives. When he got to the bridge he manoeuvred himself so that, while appearing to be carrying out an inspection, he was looking back at the Nawab. Bertie was talking to his youngest wife, laying down the law more like a tyrannical father than a solicitous husband. The girl stood very still and, from a distance and with her face hidden behind her veil, it was impossible to tell whether she was frightened or defiant.

  “Sahib—look here!”

  Karim had slid down the bank and was perched precariously on a jumble of rocks above the raging river. Farnol, reluctantly leaving the Nawab to the disciplining of his youngest wife, clambered down the bank. And pulled up short, shocked at what he saw.

  A water-logged bundle was caught between two rocks that jutted out into the river. The sheet that bound it was ripped and almost torn from the body; the body itself looked as if it had been smashed by hammers and ripped by knives. But the smashed and battered face was recognizable as that of Rupert Savanna.

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  Farnol was no stranger to shocks; but the sight of Savanna’s mutilated body made him tremble. The dreadfully battered face bobbed and dipped in the swirl of water round the two rocks that held the body. One eye was still intact and it stared, like a dead fish’s eye, at the bright sky overhead. The ginger moustache, dark with water, looked like an ugly blood blister above the broken-toothed mouth. Farnol’s shock gave way to anger at this final indignity to Savanna. The man had been buried, he should have been left to the hidden worms.

  “Bring it—him ashore, Karim.”

  But as Karim edged out on to the rocks, a wave of white water swept over the rocks, grabbed the body and tore it loose. The sodden bundle went on down the river, hitting another rock and bouncing high into the air, then plunging back into the water like an armless diver. Then it was gone from sight.

  Karim straightened up, looked up at Farnol. “Who would do such a thing, sahib?”

  Then Farnol saw that the Sikh was looking up past him, though the question had been addressed to himself. He turned and saw Mahendra standing on the bank above him.

  “Did you see who that was, Mahendra?” This was no time for Your Highness: anger made him brutal and direct.

  “Major Savanna.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Only that his body came so far. I told my servants that when we left Serog they were to dig up the body and put it in the river.”

  “You what?” Farnol scrambled up the bank.

  “You did not ask my permission to bury him, Major. I do not want any English officer buried in Serog. I’d have told you that if you had consulted me before you put Major Savanna in his grave.”

  I am dealing with a madman, Farnol told himself. He had begun to think that perhaps Mahendra was perhaps no more than emotionally unstable, was subject to fits of temper that his detractors had swollen into insanity. But there was no temper in Mahendra now, just a coldness that was terrifying.

  “This will be reported when I get to Delhi.” Farnol knew how limp and ineffectual that sounded: he was only saved from sounding ridiculous by managing not to splutter. Which, God rest the poor bugger, Rupert Savanna would have done.