Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Very good,” said Jeff, “But what if he refused to take extra passengers?”

  “International scandal instantly! Eminent French aviator ordered to the ground and sent home for conspiring with unsavory babu to smuggle undesirables to Katmandu, which is forbidden territory! Nay, nay! Having started, he must continue! After reaching neighborhood of Katmandu, he makes forced landing. We vanish. He invents prevarication about throttle having jammed wide open, or some other mechanical alibi that authorities can pretend to believe for the sake of saving face, each knowing that the other spies on each and neither of them actually looking for a scandal. Point is, that he had not yet received a message from our Princess. I delivered it.”

  Baltis snorted but said nothing at the moment. It was Jeff who spoke next:

  “All right, let’s say you bluff him into taking us. Will the ‘plane hold us all?”

  “Like can with one sardine too many. Chummy — no room to be distant to each other.”

  “How about the weight?”

  “Spill gasoline from reserve tank. Eight pounds to the gallon — spill a hundred pounds — plenty left to take us all the way to Katmandu.”

  “He will be watched,” said Jeff. “The moment he heads away he will be followed.”

  “They will have to summon aviators, warm up engines, telephone to God- knows-who, for God-knows-what instructions signed in triplicate on Blue-form B. He will have a long start, sahib.”

  “But suppose they overtake us?”

  “What with? He has just broken all world’s distance records. Barring a few pursuit ‘planes, all of which are guarding North-West Frontier from raids by Pathan and Afridi Hillmen, his is much the fastest ‘plane in India — perhaps in all the world. Catch as catch can — I wish them luck. But I bet you pounds Egyptian fifty.”

  “All right,” said Jeff, “we’ll try it. But how are we to find the place where Dorje landed?”

  “We will take Vasantasena. I believe she knows it.”

  “She does,” said Benjamin.

  Chullunder Ghose grinned. I think he knew exactly what would happen next. “Then all we have to do,” he added, “is to eat breakfast, borrow rugs and overcoats, and take our Princess and the other lady to the place at which I made our l assignation. It is—”

  “I will not go!” Baltis interrupted. “Henri de la Fontaine Coq will certainly not take you unless I go also.” She was a bargainer by instinct; but I think her main motive was exasperation that Chullunder Ghose had discovered her plan, stolen it and made it practical.

  “You will not stay here,” said Benjamin. “I will turn you out into the street!”

  “Where you will be arrested and sent back to France,” I suggested.

  “Do they send women like you to Devil’s Island?” Jeff wondered. Chullunder Ghose stood up and faced her, arms akimbo: “Sweet sahiba, this babu speaks reverently, always being worshipful of disrespect for rules on conduct. Self am pre-Falstaffian anti-delusionist, to whom all human honor rooted in a mess of profiteering stands. In man, spiritual honor is an unknown quantity, but dimly guessed at by those who have friends in tight places. Jimmy Jimgrim, to my face, has called me very often names that I would not repeat in presence of such beauty and integrity as yours. But, behind my back, he has described me as his friend and always trusted me. It seems he thinks that you are necessary to his designs on Dorje. Consequently, if this babu lives, you will accompany us, if necessary in a sack, until our Jimmy Jimgrim sends you to the devil.”

  Jeff glanced at Benjamin. “Have you a sack that’s big enough?”

  But Baltis sneered. “Could I persuade an aviator from the inside of a sack?”

  “Not likely,” said the babu, “but I think I can persuade you. Jimmy Jimgrim needs us; you shall therefore use your full charm on that aviator. Otherwise I will cut your nose off.”

  She glanced at Jeff, then at me. “They would never let you attempt it.”

  “I would hold you while he did it,” I retorted.

  “I have stuff that makes a wound burn like eternal fire,” said Benjamin.

  Chullunder Ghose continued. “But I offer you this promise. Am professional liar, an immoralist, a person of no reputation and even less desire for one. Nevertheless I keep all promises. If you will play your part and use your charms on Captain Henri de la Fontaine Coq, until we reach Nepal; and if you try to play no tricks on us, I promise you my friendship as the only comprehensible religion.”

  “That is different,” she answered. “I accept that. You will support me before Jeemgreem? I need Jeemgreem’s help if I shall outwit Dorje.”

  “I will say you are a good girl. He will not believe it, but he will condone my indiscretion,” said the babu.

  Baltis nodded, turned and went into the inner room, presumably to tell Vasantasena. Benjamin, leading the way, invited us to breakfast in an upper room. Chullunder Ghose took Jeff’s arm:

  “Rammy sahib, crown me! Mayhem! Me, who cannot see a tooth pulled and not shudder! And oh, what have I promised? Friendship — to a woman, to whom friendship is a bargain on a scratch-me basis, and I scratch you! She will scratch my eyes out. I will bet you pounds Egyptian fifty that the Jewess overboils the eggs.”

  PART 3. THE UNCROWNED

  CHAPTER 35. “She is a happening — a tragedy exuded from the womb of ruin.”

  Captain Henri de la Fontaine Coq was of the type that impudently upsets calculations, having genius for seeing flaws in rules, but seldom profiting by it, except in excitement, which is some men’s standard of value. And as alcohol makes some men brazenly indifferent to consequences, so excitement made him icily remote from prudence. He had calm eyes that observed everything, feared nothing except boredom, and appeared to be quietly laughing at the absurdity of caring two sous whether the sun should rise or not tomorrow morning. We amused him. Baltis amused him immensely. It intrigued him beyond laughter that no one had remembered to stipulate what his movements should be while in India; that Nepal is closed territory into which no alien may enter; that there was actually no order in council or any other published rule (since nobody had thought of it) forbidding foreign ‘planes to fly into Nepal.

  The appointed rendezvous was to the north of Delhi, on a maidan where the jungle, that has overgrown the ancient city, lies hedged around with ruins. It was a landing place that called for iron nerve, because of broken masonry that had been piled in heaps as part of an abandoned scheme for clearing the whole area; but it was easy to see from the air and had the additional advantage that there were no dwellings near it except those of criminals who make their hives among the ruins.

  We went to the place in a closed car, not unlike a delivery van or a police patrol wagon; there were small gratings, instead of windows; it was the sort of thing in which women are transported from one harem to another. It was Vasantasena’s hearse in which many a woman had taken chastity for burial, and the driver was a taciturn Moslem who nodded when Benjamin spoke to him, made no remarks, and favored us with no more recognition than if we had been sacks of merchandise, although he seemed to fear Vasantasena. He drove at a moderate speed, negotiated carefully the rough track leading through the jungle to the cleared maidan, waited just exactly long enough for all of us to get out, glanced to make sure we had done so, and then drove away again, ignoring Jeff’s offer of money.

  Wrapped like mummies in the clothing Benjamin provided, and a bit uncomfortable because Vasantasena had brought tragedy as well as convention along with her, we sat on broken masonry and waited until daylight. Twenty minutes followed, each of them as irritating as the other, and all of us nervous from lack of sleep as well as from wondering whether Henri de la Fontaine Coq would come. It is a paradoxical world, in which there are no more conventional people than public prostitutes. Vasantasena stood off even Baltis. It was Chullunder Ghose who seduced from her the one short speech she did make. In the courtly Persian that such women, in common with poets and elegant social swells, consider is the only language fit t
o speak he shot one question at her.

  “Dorje will reimburse you for the burning of your house?”

  “And my women!” she retorted. “Dorje is a devil who has stabbed his servant.”

  He translated for my benefit, then added comment: “And the strange thing, sahibs, is that she regards us and an airplane simply as the instruments provided for her by the moralistic god she worships. It is not revenge she seeks, nor will she do an act of justice. There is a sort of absoluteness. Dorje has done that to her which sets up consequences; she gives birth to consequence; it is a sacred frenzy such as actuated all those widows who committed suttee in the days gone by. She intends to slay Dorje but not to survive him. And she is absolutely sure that she will slay him. I tell you, she is no longer human; she has identified herself with forces as irrational as tides and storms. She is a happening — a tragedy, exuded from the womb of ruin, destined to bring forth cataclysm.”

  “What do you know about women?” Baltis asked him.

  “Nothing, most inscrutable sahiba. That is why I ignorantly dared to offer you my friendship — such as it is — such as it is. I am enigma to myself.”

  Dawn broke brazen-yellow and three jackals, jabbering obscenely, fled as if they thought the great descending ‘plane was something prehistoric, lurking in the tombs of memory — some monstrous bird of prey, perhaps a pterodactyl. Henri de la Fontaine Coq made one of those landings that destroy an onlooker’s belief in prudence and the laws of gravity and common sense. It was a superbly perfect landing, too good to be anything but accident or almost superhuman skill. He taxied to a standstill within twenty feet of us and calmly signed to us to turn the ‘plane around, so that he might take off unobstructed. There was no wind; his only problem was the piles of debris.

  He smiled with the curious air of one who regards a biped as an anachronism — estimated, I suppose, our aggregate poundage — got out — spilled a quantity of gasoline which he remarked, in French to Baltis, might help to explain his movements to the Royal Air Force, should they turn inquisitive — helped Baltis into the front seat, and climbed in after her. Jeff and I had to restart the engine and that, even with Jeff’s weight and strength, took several minutes. Then the rest of us scrambled into the rear cockpit, wedged like herrings in a barrel. To make matters worse, Chullunder Ghose and Vasantasena were both air-sick soon after we started.

  We escaped the Royal Air Force by about five minutes, perhaps less. Our aviator had been watched and was seen to descend. Supposing him in difficulties, five ‘planes took the air to fly to his assistance, rising almost at the same moment as ourselves. Coq calmly turned toward them. Seeing him apparently returning without trouble they went to ground again. Coq at once began circling for altitude, and it was not until he was several thousand feet above the Air Force hangar that he took a bee-line toward the north-east. Then, barring accident, we were beyond pursuit.

  Baltis was in her element. The wine of excitement made her eyes so brilliant that it was noticeable even through the goggles that Coq lent her. Several times she stood and turned to look at us, enjoying our discomfort. Her triumphant smile suggested the intention to make us pay at compound interest for each humiliation she had suffered at our hands. I wrote on a scrap of paper: “Can he find Katmandu?” and passed it to her. She nodded — showed a map that Coq had brought with him. It became evident that on her way from Cairo she had fully informed the Frenchman as to what might be expected of him. I scribbled on another sheet of paper:

  “It is not Katmandu, but a valley perhaps fifty miles from there. Can you find it?”

  She borrowed my pencil and was a long time writing her reply, which was only two words jerkily scrawled. I have kept them, pasted in a notebook, as the only souvenir of her that I have excepting a scar that is as indelible as memory itself:

  “Vous m’embêtez!”

  I showed it to Jeff. He produced an unregistered Colt automatic that Benjamin had supplied from some unlawful arsenal; Benjamin had armed me, too, and even forced a pistol on Chullunder Ghose. Jeff wrote on a page of his own memorandum book, tore it out and passed it to me to hand to her. When she turned to receive it he showed her the pistol. The message he wrote was:

  “One trick — even one mistake — and I will shoot you. This is a promise. J.R.”

  Jeff keeps his promises, as she was perfectly aware. She was careful after that to make no gesture that suggested anything except attention to the job. She kept the map on her knees and conned the distant land-marks.

  Jeff and I were worrying about the prospect of pursuit. There was no fear of our being followed from Delhi; we had too much start at too high speed. But nothing would be easier than for ‘phone or telegraph to send on word ahead of us. We could ignore all ‘planes already in the air, since those would have no excuse to suspect us of lawless flight; but ‘planes on the ground could be sent up to get in our way and force us down, so we scanned the horizon nervously. As a matter of fact, the only ‘plane that did come near us was a Royal Air Force unit on patrol; but it was slower than we were by twenty or thirty per cent and its pilot, though he tried hard, had no time to gain sufficient altitude. We passed directly over him, and though he followed for a while and appeared to be trying to signal to us, he was soon outdistanced, and I doubt whether he could see how many passengers we had, although it was impossible for us to duck down in the crowded cockpit.

  I suppose I never will get used to the speed with which the leagues trail out beneath and behind an airplane. I am a natural-born biped, fond of hoofing it leisurely and not air-minded. Trains seem fast enough, and the Woolworth Building high enough. I discover myself almost scandalized by a speed of a hundred miles an hour. A hundred and twenty — a hundred and forty miles an hour removes me from the realm of reason and I simply don’t believe my senses. When I saw the Brahmaputra River, which is the Tsangpo slightly civilized, and Darjeeling, and the Mountains of Nepal, there was no mistaking them and yet they were no more genuine, to my mind, than remembered dreams. That journey, even now, seems unreal, and it was rendered more so by the Frenchman’s perfectly sublime indifference to consequences. He undoubtedly believed he was acquiring information, or about to do so, useful to his government; and he probably knew as well as any other taker of such chances that at least ninety per cent of the risks run and the ingenuity expended by the secret services is as useless as afternoon tea at a cocktail party. But air-mindedness and normal prudence seem incompatible. A genuine airman, who is as scarce as a genuine poet, views life relatively to a brand new set of values. He belongs, I believe, to a new race; and he has the apparent youthful irresponsibility of all things young — and irresponsibility to standards that an ageing race considers sacred because it seeks to justify its inhibitions.

  Baltis might be also of that new race. She was at least equally contemptuous of custom and the etiquette of nations. She and he hit it off famously. They seemed to understand each other without speech — almost without gesture. She appeared to me to acquire a new self-confidence during that swift journey, as if Henri de la Fontaine Coq were a magician who had conjured forth, by mere proximity, her hidden value. He appeared to trust her absolutely, which was rather disconcerting to us passengers, because it was she who compared the landscape with the map, she who guided us above the winding valleys of Nepal between enormous mountains. No reason appealed to me why she should sit there with our lives in her hands. But there was nothing to be done about it.

  It was she who first discerned the mass of palaces and temples that is Katmandu. From a height in the air it looks like a patternless jumble of fantastic toys that someone played with and forgot; and the enormous snow- topped mountains heaped on one another to the northward look like foaming waves about to burst and overwhelm the place. We flew lower — much lower — I suppose because she and he desired to look at the forbidden city. We could presently see crowds of people, some of whom were evidently soldiers, and we had some faint idea of the excitement we were causing. Most of them ha
d certainly seen ‘planes before; but there is not one native of Nepal who does not know that theirs is forbidden territory.

  We were signalled, with flags. When we ignored that, we were fired at. A whole company of troops were marched on to a level space that looked like a drill-ground and fired three volleys at us, but the bullets came nowhere near. Then we saw them dragging out some kind of cannon, but before they could bring that into action we had circled the city and were heading away northward, climbing and then spiralling to get more altitude. There was a pass that Baltis seemed to recognize, although she shrugged her shoulders at the map now. It looked barely negotiable by men on foot and quite impossible for horses; here and there were ascents as steep as the face of the New Jersey Palisades, and where the slopes were less terrific we could see the deep grooves cut by avalanching rocks and snow.

  And now the wind became a problem. It began to blow in sudden ice-shod squalls that made our course a swerving zig-zag. The ‘plane bumped and swayed like a small boat on an open sea with wind against tide. The roar of the exhaust seemed somehow lacking in assurance, as if the stream of sound was slightly interrupted at its source — not less yet, but less solidly convincing. Henri de la Fontaine Coq began to finger the controls and to watch the gauges so intently that there could be no doubt there was something not right with the engine.