The Faraway Drums

by Jon Cleary

  “I never question what the arms are needed for, Herr Baron. When I first started with Krupps I was assistant to their agent in Italy. We sold guns to the English to use against the Boers in the South African war. Nobody in London questioned that—”

  “Don’t make things worse for yourself by spreading lies,” said Farnol.

  “It is the truth, Major. The English needed certain types of guns for the war in South Africa and they didn’t have them. They bought them from us. They know all about it in Whitehall and the English gunners who fired the guns would know. But not the Englishman in the street or officers like yourself. No, you wouldn’t be told, Major. You English felt enough shame about the Boer War—you wouldn’t have wanted anything else to think about.” The outsider, the Hungarian, was showing uncharacteristic anger; one might have thought he was the one who had been wronged. He had learned to live with his own hypocrisy, he did not have to live with other people’s. “Not all revolutionaries are dishonourable men, Major. You don’t despise Cromwell, I’m sure—”

  It was true, Farnol thought. History was a corridor of mirrors, the good and the bad mingled in the reflections on the walls. But all he could say was, “You are under arrest, Mr. Monday. If you behave yourself, you can continue the journey just as you have been, without any interference. If not, then I’ll have to put you in the care of Karim Singh and Private Ahearn.”

  “I am still in the State of Pandar.”

  “You are in a State of Illusion, if you think that means anything to me. I can bend a boundary as well as a law. Just try me.”

  Monday looked at his glass for a moment, then he raised it and smiled at Farnol. Experience had taught him that, with certain nationalities, the image of being a good loser had its advantages. The English loved a good loser in sport, as if winning was something to be ashamed of; what mattered was to have taken part in the game, or so they said. He had never found them good losers in business, but perhaps they were another breed of Englishmen; the most successful pirates had always been Englishmen. Soldiers, of course, had no preference for winning or losing. The war, like the game, was what mattered.

  “You have my word of honour that I shall behave myself, Major. Now that you have put my business aside, perhaps I can relax and enjoy myself.”

  “Do that. Perhaps the Baron can give you a hint or two.”

  “Really?” But the Baron, who had a sense of duty and a conscience, had forgotten how to relax.

  Farnol stood up, walked to the door of the dining-tent, then turned and said sharply, “Who came and told you that Mr. Brown wouldn’t be turning up in Simla?”

  Another wild shot, but right on target this time. Monday spilled a little of his drink, took time to mop it up with his napkin. “What makes you think that? I told you, I just grew tired of waiting.”

  “No, Mr. Monday. You’d have waited a month for a half-million pounds’ order, no matter how much your wife wanted to see the Durbar. Who came to see you instead of Mr. Brown?”

  Monday said quietly, “It was Major Savanna.”

  Farnol kept control of his surprise. “Did he tell you who Mr. Brown was?”

  “No. He was very abrupt—he was with me for only a couple of minutes. He said he’d learned why I was in Simla and I had to be on the train for Kalka the next day, the Durbar Train, or he’d have me arrested. I didn’t question him. I just decided to leave.”

  Farnol went out into the evening, feeling he was trying to break free of thick cobwebs. The air was still, and warmer now; they were below the mountain winds here. Up the road the lamps of the village hung like motionless fireflies in the dark; a sad thin song came from a flute, as if the player did not look forward to the morning. A line of villagers squatted on the edge of the camp, like an audience waiting for some entertainment to begin. Poor blighters, Farnol thought. The emptiness of a peasant’s life always distressed him: he knew how bloody awful the simple life could be. He walked towards the line of villagers, spoke a few words to them in Hindi, got a few smiles in return. It was an easy form of charity but it made him feel a little better. They would be the losers if any revolution started here in their region.

  He was interrupted by Karim Singh, who appeared at his back. “You should be more careful, sahib.”

  He nodded. “I forgot, Karim. In the meantime I want you and Private Ahearn to keep an eye on Mr. Monday. He is under arrest. He can move about the camp, but he mustn’t leave it. Sleep close by him tonight, so that you can take care him.”

  “He is a bad chap, this Mr. Monday?”

  “He’s not dangerous, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Good. I should not like to shoot a chap in front of his wife.”

  “No shooting at all, dammit!” Then Farnol took a deep breath. “Sorry, Karim. I’m tired.”

  Karim was all solicitousness. “You get a good night’s sleep, sahib. The Irishman and I will take care of things.”

  Farnol headed towards his tent, but was waylaid by Bridie and Lady Westbrook. The latter snapped, “Well? You’ve kept us waiting long enough.”

  He had forgotten them. “I’m sorry, ladies. Can’t it wait till morning?”

  “No, it cannot. What’s up, Clive?”

  He was tired, too tired for explanations; but even so, he would not have told them everything. He had tended to forget that Bridie was a newspaperwoman; he lived in a country where white women rarely worked and certainly never as a reporter. He knew that, like most Americans, she was anti-imperialist; her newspaper would probably welcome any stories that put the British Raj in a bad light. He had no guarantee that, in the privacy of her tent, she had not already written a despatch on the possibility of an assassination attempt on the King; if she had, he could do nothing about it. If he forcibly took her story from her, she would only re-write it when she got to Delhi, Bombay or on the ship going home. If there was an assassination attempt, then the story must be published; but he could not assist her in a story about a rumour of a plot. He wondered if Rudyard Kipling, in his days as a newspaperman in India, would have written a story based on such a rumour.

  “I’ll tell you when we reach Delhi.” He was still sorting out in his own mind the information Monday had given him about Savanna.

  “Don’t you trust us to keep it, whatever it is, to ourselves?” Lady Westbrook’s cheroot glowed in the darkness like an angry eye.

  “No.” It would save time to be blunt.

  “Well!”

  “Goodnight, ladies. We’ll be making an early start.”

  He moved on, but hadn’t gone twenty yards before the Ranee called to him from the doorway of her tent. He was being ambushed by inquisitive women; he looked around for Magda and the Nawab’s wives, but they had already retired. He followed the Ranee into her tent, knowing, with that sinking feeling that men get when they know their actions will be misunderstood by a woman, that Bridie and Lady Westbrook had stopped outside their own tent to watch him.

  He heard Lady Westbrook say, and he was sure he was meant to hear her, “Our trouble, m’dear, was that we were wearing too many clothes.”

  But the Ranee was dressed sensibly for sleeping in a tent, though she did look out of character in her woollen nightdress. “I’m tired, Mala—”

  “Clive darling, relax. I’d never attempt to make love on a camp bed. The Army and Navy Stores never sell anything that would encourage sex—that would lose them the Archbishop of Calcutta’s custom.” She sat down in a camp chair and waved to him to do the same. “Are we going to finish the rest of the journey without any more trouble?”

  “How can I promise you anything like that? I’m surprised Bobs has been as quiet as he has.”

  “I think there are things happening that have him puzzled. I wish I knew myself what’s going on . . .”

  He shook off his tiredness, determined to add a little more information to the little he already had. “Mala, what do you know about Prince Sankar?”

  “I’ve never met him. Bertie tells me he’s not i
nterested in women.”

  “He spent, what, ten years in Europe?”

  “From what Bertie has told me—he got religion or something in his last year.” She made it sound as if Sankar had got the pox or something.

  “Sankar was at your palace the night we stayed there. Has Bobs got religion, too? He doesn’t appear too interested in women.”

  “Oh, he’ll marry some day, if he lives long enough. I think he dreams of founding his own dynasty if he can get rid of me. Who knows what mad dreams he has?” She ran a hand through the raven lushness of her hair, looked with distaste at the frail camp bed. “I hope there is something more comfortable for me when we get to Delhi. I ordered a double bed to be sent up from Calcutta or Bombay. Perhaps—?”

  “Perhaps,” he half-promised. He hated the traitor in his loins; it had memories of her that the rest of him wished he could forget. He would have to make love to Bridie as soon as she would let him; it would be the best way of exorcising Mala from himself. “But what if your tent is next to the King’s? Everything is going to be under canvas down there.”

  “Then the King should find it interesting listening to us. I’m told he’s rather stuffy, not like his father at all. Good old Edward. Did you know that I met him once when I went to London?”

  “Don’t tell me—?”

  “Clive darling, would I tell you if I had? That would be lèse-majesté in the worst possible taste.”

  He stood up. “You have a certain sense of honour, Mala. You have never told me the names of any of the men you’ve slept with.”

  “I can never remember their names, darling.”

  He stopped at the tent-flap. “Incidentally, I’ve put Mr. Monday under arrest. He came up here to sell guns, field guns, to some mysterious buyer who never turned up. You may have a rebellion on your hands very soon.”

  “Perhaps.” She sounded unperturbed. “But I’ll see that other people are deposed before I am.”

  “Bobs? Bertie and Sankar?”

  But she wasn’t to be drawn. “It’s a matter amongst ourselves, Clive. I’ll attend to it when it happens.”

  “It could happen while you are down in Delhi.”

  She shook her head reassuringly. “Not while the others are all down in Delhi with me. Rebellions need leaders on the spot. I thought you’d know that. Goodnight, Clive.”

  He went across to his own tent, glancing first towards the tent of Bridie and Lady Westbrook. It seemed to him that there was someone standing just inside the closed flap of the tent, but he couldn’t be sure. He felt like a guilty husband creeping home, and the thought suddenly made him laugh and feel better.

  The Baron, in his pyjamas, sat down heavily on his bed. “I am getting too old for these discomforts. When I first came to India I would go tiger shooting, living under canvas—”

  “How did you—?”

  “Hold a rifle? I didn’t. It was all make-believe. I’d choose the best shot in the party, sit beside him and imagine it was my shot, not his, that had got the tiger. Does it sound pathetic?” He tied a knot in his empty pyjama sleeve; though he needed no reminder. “I still enjoyed it, Clive. In any hunting party, it’s not the shooting but the talk afterwards, amongst men, that is the real enjoyment. We’d sit there, with all those noises around us that you hear only in the jungle, and—” He sighed, lay down and pulled a blanket over himself. “Diplomacy was forgotten. One could be honest.”

  Farnol undressed, got into bed and almost at once fell asleep. When he woke he had no idea whether he had been asleep for five minutes or five hours. But even in deep sleep he had heard the faint crack of a twig trodden on; he had learned, like an animal, to keep one ear awake. He lay tensed, watching the unlaced tent flap; the flap behind his head was laced tightly. The inside of the tent was black; he could not even make out the shape of the Baron on his bed opposite. But the glow of a dying camp fire threw a faint glow on the open flap; he saw the opening widen as the figure slipped in. He waited for the man to come towards him, readying every muscle to spring up from the bed. But in the darkness he abruptly lost the man; then he realized with horror that the intruder was heading for the Baron. He threw back his blanket, came up off his bed and dived across the tent. He hit the man in the back and they both fell forward on to the Baron. The bed collapsed beneath the weight of them all and the Baron cried out in German and threshed wildly with his one arm.

  Farnol felt the intruder’s arm coming back at him and sensed, rather than saw, the knife. He jumped back, pulling the man with him; grabbed the arm and jerked it up behind the man’s back. There was a gasp and a grunt of pain; but the would-be murderer was strong and wasn’t going to give in easily. He kicked Farnol in the shins, drove his other elbow into the Englishman’s midriff; then he broke loose and Farnol felt the knife slice down his pyjama sleeve, just missing his arm. He knew he had to get the assassin out of the tent; the darkness was too much of a handicap. The man seemed covered in grease and Farnol recognized the smell: it was cheetah’s fat. It was an old trick to scare away any camp dogs that might raise a warning: dogs were frightened to death of cheetahs and the mere smell of them sent a dog scurrying away.

  Farnol broke away from the man, stumbled backwards towards the opening, hit the tent-pole and almost brought the whole lot crashing down. Then he was out in the open and the man was coming after him, long knife upraised. Farnol fell back, looking for more space, and tripped over a tent-rope. He went down in a heap and the assassin stood above him.

  Then the shot rang out and the man fell forward over Farnol. The latter rolled to one side and the knife missed his head by inches. He crawled out from beneath the body of the man and saw the Baron, pistol in his one hand, standing in the tent doorway.

  “Thank you, Baron. Thank Christ you can still fire one of those.”

  He went into the tent, lit the lamp and brought it out as Karim Singh, Private Ahearn and four of the guards came running up. He kicked the dead man over on his back, reached down and pulled the turban-end away from the man’s face.

  It was the merchant, the entrepreneur who had everything, including, it seemed, knives for assassination.

  III

  “This bugger would not have got into your tent, sahib, if I had been guarding you instead of Mr. Monday.”

  “He might have killed you before he got to me, Karim.” Farnol looked down at the dead merchant; the waxed moustache was flattened against his upper lip like a big black moth. “The point is, he’s dead and not you or me.”

  But Karim Singh was still unhappy and said so to Private Ahearn as they called bearers to pick up the body and take it away. “We have to be in two places at once from now on. We have to look after the sahib as well as that other chap Monday.”

  “I’m beginning to think I oughta stayed in Simla. Whose bloody trouble is it, anyway? It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  But Ahearn was less disgruntled than he sounded. The closer he stayed to Major Farnol, the more he put the officer in his debt, the bigger his chances of being transferred to Farnol’s Horse.

  A horse, not American or Australian horizons, had become his dream. He could not remember being as happy as he had been these past few days, riding instead of marching, watering and attending to his borrowed mount each evening as if it were a favourite child. India, from the extra height of a horse’s back, had taken on a whole new aspect.

  The whole camp had been disturbed by the shot, but Farnol, curtly and with no respect for rank or sex, ordered everyone back to bed. Bridie and the others wanted to ask questions, but he was in no mood for them. He was still recovering from the shock of how close he had come once again to being murdered; he was not about to display the cracks he could feel in himself. He could be arrogant, but he was not vain: he never thought of himself as a hero nor did he strive to be one. But he did believe in keeping up appearances and right now he needed to appear to be a competent British officer, in command of himself as well as the situation. So he acted like a competent British off
icer and sent everyone to bed, as he might have dismissed a company of Farnol’s Horse. He was a little surprised that everyone did go, though Lady Westbrook made a fighting retreat.

  “You should tell us what’s going on, Clive. We could all be killed in our beds.”

  “I promise you that won’t happen, Viola. Now go back to your beauty sleep.”

  “Who needs a beauty sleep if one’s throat is cut in the morning?” But she was more concerned for him than she was for herself and he recognized it and was grateful.

  Four bearers were putting the merchant’s body on to a pallet when Farnol went back to them and pulled up the dead man’s sleeve.

  “The mark is there, sahib?” said Karim Singh.

  It was there, on the inside of the elbow. “The crown and the dagger. This one is a better tattoo than those other chaps had.”

  “This bugger had more money for a good tattoo. He’s not a coolie, this chap.”

  “No. We’ll find out in the morning who he really is.”

  He went into his tent, got into bed and felt suddenly cold. He knew it was not just from the fact that he’d been outside in only his pyjamas; he knew what sort of cold it was, the shiver of fear. He looked across at the Baron and wondered what reaction the old man was feeling.

  “You’ve just declared whose side you’re on, Baron. I’ll have to see they don’t try for you next.” “Perhaps.” The Baron seemed unworried. “I am sorry, Clive, if all this is directed from Berlin.” “I don’t think it is. Not directed. Assisted, perhaps. This is a local movement.”

  “Aah!” It was a long, sad sigh. Wishful thinking made Thuringia suddenly so much closer; he would resign immediately after the Durbar and go home. He would read Goethe and, like the poet, look around for a mistress, one old enough not to waste pity on him. But not too old: there were limits to what one should have to put up with in a woman, even a mistress. He could not, for instance, imagine Lady Westbrook’s making any man comfortable in his old age. “Why must everyone be so ambitious?”