by Tom Holland
‘Steady on, old chap,’ I protested, ‘you’re talking about this woman as though she might almost be real.’
‘Real?’ The Professor smiled and spread his arms. ‘What do we mean by real?’
‘Damned if I know. You’re the Professor, you tell me.’
‘If she exists – if…’ – his voice trailed away – ‘then she is something terrible. Something, perhaps, beyond the reckoning of man.’
We all stared at him in silence; then the Sergeant-Major cleared his throat. ‘And this lady,’ he asked, ‘if she isn’t here…’
‘Yes?’
‘Well then, sir – where would she be?’
‘Ah.’ The Professor shrugged. ‘That is a different issue altogether. But not here, and that is all that matters to us for the present. Not here.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘So come – let us make use of our advantage. Let us leave this place as soon as we can.’
And off we set. The place seemed deserted, but as before we were careful as we went, for if we couldn’t be smelled we could still be seen. We kept up a cracking pace and Eliot, I noticed, was soon lagging behind. ‘What’s the matter, old chap?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, ‘it’s just this damn leg of mine.’ I glanced down at it. The spear seemed to have gone pretty deep, and I guessed the wound was giving Eliot quite a bit of pain. But he assured me he was fine and so we carried on, Eliot slowing his pace down more and more. At length he collapsed and, looking at his wound again, I realised it was grimmer by far than he had ever let on. It was clear he wouldn’t be walking much further for a while.
We had a brief council of war over this. Eliot told us to press on, like the gallant chap he was, but we were none of us having that. We knew that Pumper couldn’t be far off now; if we could only hold out, then all might still be well. Our major problem, of course, was our total lack of firepower; but it was at this point that the Professor came up trumps again. He told us that he had stumbled across a great supply of explosives and arms, brought up by the Russians and no doubt intended for use against the Raj but now abandoned. It was agreed at once that we should attempt to recover them. Only one slight drawback, however, attended this plan. The arms cache was back by the ruined city wall.
Back therefore we had to turn – and an agonising trip it was, to be sure. We went as carefully as ever, but this time we caught glimpses – as we had not done previously – of pale-faced creatures gathered in the shadows. We would keep out of their way and trust that they had not caught a return glimpse of us, but I didn’t like it and nor, I could tell, did Professor Jyoti. He kept glancing up at the sun, which was high in the sky now. ‘It is past noon,’ he muttered to me at one stage. ‘The sun is starting to decline.’
‘It has a way to go yet,’ I replied.
‘Yes,’ said the Professor, staring round, ‘and so do Colonel Paxton and his regiment.’
At length we reached the stretch of wall where the arms had been abandoned. Thank the Lord, they were still there. We began to gather them together, and as we did so Eliot, who had been posted as look-out, gave us a cry. ‘We’ve got company,’ he shouted. ‘Over there.’
I looked up. Amongst the shattered stones of the city behind us, about thirty figures had gathered and were watching as we dug. I looked to my right, and then to my left; more of the blighters, watching us again. It was clear what their plan was – they were cutting us off from our routes of retreat, so that we would have nothing behind us but the mighty abyss. I looked at the bridge and saw, to my astonishment, that it was unguarded; I studied the tower beyond it, and again saw no trace of anyone. ‘The tower,’ I asked Professor Jyoti, indicating it, ‘ever observed anyone moving up there?’
The Professor frowned. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘but that doesn’t mean it’s empty.’
True enough, I thought – but that would be a risk we would have to take. We had no other choice.
I shared out what we needed from the cache of arms: weapons, explosives, ammunition. The rest I ordered to be dragged to the abyss; there was no fire rising from its depths now, but it seemed quite deep enough to serve our needs – and so it proved, for once the weapons had gone over the side we neither saw nor heard them land. We retreated to the bridge; as I have said it was a beautifully carved thing, but I knew it would have to go, for by now a crowd was forming all along the base of the wall and I was afraid they might rush us at any time. Fortunately, the engineering experience I had picked up in the Punjab stood me in good stead; pretty soon I had the bridge loaded with explosives, and we all dropped back a bit, where the cover was better, and waited for the action to get under way. Nothing happened, however. The afternoon sun continued to decline, and the crowds watching us remained by their wall. With each hour that passed, however, their numbers increased.
All too soon, the western peaks were touched with pink. I was growing impatient. I did not want to wait until darkness for the fight to begin; I wanted to see action before then, so that I could give the beggars a bloody nose and warn them of what they might expect from us. As I glanced across the far side of the abyss, my eye caught the statue of Kali on her hideous machine and an idea struck me. ‘Professor,’ I said, ‘give me some covering fire. Cuff and I are going to toss that foul instrument of torture into the abyss. If that doesn’t draw them out, then nothing will.’
The Professor frowned, then nodded. He lowered his rifle, and as he did so the Sergeant-Major and I ran back across the bridge. As we hurried to the statue, I heard the crowds behind us starting to stir. I glanced round; only a few were crawling forward, but as Cuff began to heave at the statue and our intention became plain, so we heard a low moan and the whole line began to move.
‘Quick!’ Eliot shouted across to us; we heaved again, but still the statue wouldn’t topple, and suddenly three or four broke from the line and began shambling towards us.
‘This will have to be our last try!’ I shouted out. I could hear footsteps behind me now, but still we heaved, and then the Sergeant-Major bellowed out a great oath to the sky, and there was a rending of metal and earth and wood. The statue teetered over the abyss’s edge; the sun touched the gleaming hooks, so that they were dyed red one final time, and then they were falling – and the statue with it, and all that damnable machinery. I watched it go, and then I smelt the stench of rotting flesh behind me, and I turned to see dead eyes staring into mine. I felled the creature with a good left hook; he began to rise again, but I shot him through the heart and he lay there twitching like a landed fish. One down, I thought; how many more to go?
We began to retreat, and the crowds now were no longer keeping their distance but were trying to cut us off from the bridge. I almost thought we wouldn’t reach it, for the blighters were literally snapping at our heels, and it was a hellish close thing. As we crossed, a swarm of our pursuers lurched after us, and as we gained the far side, so I heard the fizz of gunpowder snaking past my feet. We all ran on, then dived and blocked our ears; up went the bridge; down went our pursuers into the abyss.
It had been a good job, though I say it myself, and we had won ourselves a breathing space. The crowds fell back from the shattered bridge, and those who remained we picked off easily. But it was growing very dark now, and I knew that night-time would see our troubles really begin. Soon the stars were burning in the sky, and we made out movements again by the city wall. Fortunately, my field-glasses had survived the past few days intact and I was able to get a pretty good view of what was going on; I had soon worked out what their game-plan was. ‘They’ve chopped down trees,’ I muttered, ‘and they’re bringing them up. For God’s sake, we must stop them before they reach the abyss.’
Well, we put up a bloody good show. As the creatures began to draw near to us, we gave them all the fire we could and managed to halt them in their tracks for a while. But they wouldn’t stay down; I had never fought such an enemy before, and in the final count we were outnumbered a hundred to one. The beggars were soon swarming by the edge
of the abyss; they laid down a tree, and began to swarm across that. We dropped our guns, and gave the tree on our side all the muscle-power we had; it was a hell of a job, but we did it, and the tree and its load was toppled into the abyss. But we knew there would be more, and that sooner or later they would get across; I began to think it might be time to retreat, for the tower would be easier to hold than open ground. I gave the order; we started to prepare ourselves to withdraw, with Cuff carrying Eliot and the ammunition box, and the Professor – who was too fat to run – accompanying him. Meanwhile I held to my position, giving the brutes opposite us all I had, but it was desperate now, for I might as well have been a mosquito attempting to halt an elephant’s charge. There was a mighty crashing as a second tree thudded on to our side of the abyss. I watched as countless numbers of the brutes began to crawl across the trunk. ‘Time to head off,’ I thought to myself.
I retreated in good order up to the tower. Behind me, a mob of the creatures had crossed the abyss and were howling and baying in the most blood-curdling manner. Just outside the tower I was met by Sergeant-Major Cuff, who led me through a courtyard and into the tower itself. We found ourselves in a long, low room with the appearance of a temple sanctuary; it was dominated, as the palace had been, by an empty throne. Doors behind it led away into the dark; but one on the side of the room had a faint glow of light, and it was towards that exit that we turned. We ran up steps, as the passageway grew ever more narrow and close; as we ran I heard our footsteps answered by those of our pursuers, who must have seen where we had gone and who were now below us, sealing us in. The light though was getting stronger, and at length I saw it to be a torch held by Professor Jyoti, who was waiting crouched in the passageway.
‘A most extraordinary find, this,’ he said, beaming at us. ‘Have you seen these carvings? They must be centuries old,’ He swept his torch along the wall, and I had a vague glimpse of yet more obscene images – women in assorted states of undress, feeding on what seemed to be human remains. Apt enough, you may think, in view of our own plight; and I confess that for a moment the images quite took away my breath, so vivid they were. But this was scarcely the time to be studying them – the footsteps behind us were drawing ever nearer, and when I turned I could see the gleam of pallid eyes.
‘Where’s Eliot?’ I shouted.
The Professor pointed. ‘Just up ahead. That’s where we must make our stand.’
‘Good,’ I answered, for I could smell the reek of our pursuers now, and I knew they must sink us if we had too far to go.
Ahead of us the steps grew suddenly steep. I peered up them and felt fresh air against my face, and caught the gleam of stars. ‘Hello?’ I heard Eliot’s voice call down. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Only us, sir,’ answered the Sergeant-Major. ‘Bit of company behind us though.’ He stood aside as the Professor climbed the steps. Our pursuers were almost on to us now; ‘Quick, sir!’ shouted Cuff, but having lost so many of my men so terribly, I was damned if I was going to risk another one’s life. Nor was this mere idle heroism; the Sergeant-Major had the ammunition box with him, and I knew that if that were lost then we would all be done for.
‘Go on, man!’ I shouted. Still the Sergeant-Major wouldn’t budge. ‘Dammit, I’m giving you an order!’ I bellowed, and only then did he begin to climb. As I tried to follow him, however, I felt cold fingers clasping round my leg, and when I tried to kick them away I lost my balance and fell back into the dark. I felt myself crash into someone, and then I was hitting the stone floor. I opened my eyes … I saw a face. It seemed without lips, for the flesh round the mouth had rotted away, but it still had teeth, and they were open, and the stench of its breath as it pressed down towards my throat was like that of a sewer or an opened tomb. This was all the matter of a second, you must understand; before I had time even to put up a struggle, I heard a great bellow of rage and the thud of feet landing next to my head, and the creature by my throat was rising up again.
‘You bastards!’ I heard the Sergeant-Major roar. ‘You bastards, you bastards, you bastards!’
The creatures were making for him; he was finished, I thought, for he didn’t have the space or the time to use his gun, but he did have the ammunition box and so he flung that instead. The box, as I have mentioned, was of a fair old weight, and the rage with which Cuff hurled it served to dash the first rank of the creatures quite down onto the ground.
‘You bloody fool!’ I shouted. ‘You brave, bloody fool! Now get up those steps!’
The Sergeant-Major nodded. ‘Very good, sir,’ he barked, and up he went.
I followed him, scrambling away as fast as I could, for I didn’t want to be pulled down a second time. But the creatures weren’t moving. When I glanced back round, those on the ground were still lying there. I could make out their eyes watching me with their imbecile stare, and I could see human forms – a multitude of them, stretching back down the passageway. I felt a sudden tremor of the most terrible fear. It wasn’t the creatures, however, who had unsettled me; rather I had been struck by the queerest sense that they shared my fear with me; and that there was something approaching far more dreadful than they. And then, even as I was struck by this feeling, the creatures stirred and turned and bowed low to the ground. I peered down the passageway, but the light seemed to have grown suddenly much more dim, as though blackness were seeping up from the depths. This will all sound pretty crackpot, I know, and even now I’m not quite sure what it was that I saw. But at the time I had no doubt: I was witnessing bad magic. For as the darkness rose, so it seemed to draw in the light, much as blotting paper will absorb spilt ink. What lay within that darkness, I had no wish to see. I clambered up the steps and breathed in fresh open air.
‘Captain, look.’ Professor Jyoti was pulling on my arm excitedly. I stared about me. We were on the temple’s very summit, on the curve of a dome. Below us rose walls crowded with stone and wooden statuary. Some of the wooden statues had been broken up to form a barricade – by Eliot, I guessed, for he seemed tired and pale, as though overworked, and his leg was still damp with blood. But at least now, I thought, he wouldn’t have to use it again. This dome would clearly be our final stand.
‘Captain, look.’
The Professor was beckoning to me, I hurried to the edge of the dome and peered down at the scene below. A line of redcoats was marching from the jungle. At the front of the column blew a Union Jack, and the faint strains of ‘The British Grenadiers’ rose to me on the mountain breeze.
‘But damn it,’ I muttered, ‘they will be too late.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked the Professor.
I glanced at the steps leading back into the dark. ‘The ammunition – we have lost it.’
‘Lost it?’ The Professor stared at me, then back at the advancing line of British troops. I turned to Sergeant-Major Cuff, who was standing guard by the steps. ‘Any sign of movement yet?’
‘Yes, sir, they’re massing.’
I turned to Eliot. ‘Light the barricades. Let old Pumper know we’re here
‘Sir!’ It was Cuff. ‘They’re coming up now!’
I rushed to the steps. Cuff was heaving off some statue’s head; he rolled it to the edge of the steps and let it drop. It was the damnedest bit of bowling I ever saw, for the deck was quite cleared and for a while all was still. Then I saw human forms moving again, down in the darkness, and I caught the glint of eyes at the base of the steps. Cuff had a second lump of stone in his hands. I glanced round at the barricade. The flames were starting to take. I turned back to the steps. The creatures were almost at our feet. ‘All right,’ I whispered. I lowered my arm. ‘Now!’
Down rolled the stone, and again the creatures were cleared from the steps. We were out of bowls though now, for there were no more statues’ heads to be taken; a slab was loose, however, and we shifted that so that it blocked the way, but I doubted it would hold off the enemy for long. I glanced down over the temple’s edge; flames were rising from the jungle, and
Pumper’s men were advancing on the abyss. Even as I watched they cleared the bridgeheads, but it looked like being a tight thing, for the flagstone was already shifting under the Sergeant-Major’s feet and the fire we had lit was taking time to spread. We all of us gathered round to hold down the slab as the flames behind us began to crackle and lick, and minutes, precious minutes, slowly passed. Suddenly there was a shiver from below our feet, and the slab of stone cracked from side to side. Hands reached upwards and we all fell back.
The barricade now was a regular blaze, and so we hurried to take up our places behind it, for we knew that the enemy hated fire. And for a while indeed they seemed to be repelled by it; more and more of the creatures were massing by the steps, but still they hung back, and all the time Pumper’s redcoats were drawing nearer, and my hopes began steadily to rise and rise. Then suddenly the enemy were at us. We fired; our remaining bullets were rapidly spent, and even though the stones in front of our barricade were slimy with gore, the creatures still rolled forward like the tide of a flood. We were swinging flaming brands at them now. One I caught in the face, and I watched his eyeballs shrivel and melt; another was torched like a bag of straw. From below us I heard a crackle of rifle-fire, and I knew that Pumper must have reached the foot of the temple. If only we could hold out! If only we could make it stick. Still the enemy came at us. I was weakening now. We all were. If the enemy turned our flanks, then we would surely die. Screams were ringing everywhere as the creatures were engulfed by the tongues of our flames, but I knew that their sheer weight of numbers was starting to tell. I looked at the far flank. The body of a burning man twisted and stumbled against the flames, but behind him were more men and I knew it was over, for our flank had been turned. Then the creatures paused; suddenly even the screams died away, and I could hear nothing but the crackling of the flames. A lull settled across the whole deadly scene. Far below us I heard British rifles again, but I was not tempted to hope this time, for I knew that death was waiting for us. I stared into the flames; I composed myself; I prayed I would not go unworthily.
