Soldier of the Raj

by Philip McCutchan

  When Healey had gone a soft-footed native came in with writing materials. Ogilvie went across to one of the slit-like windows and stared out over the hills, thinking about the message he had to compose. It was going to be extremely tricky, indeed the whole plan was full of dangers. What he wrote would, first of all, have to pass Nashkar Ali Khan. Then it would have to be strong enough to send Mary straight to Cunningham — not too much difficulty there, of course — and it would have to give Dornoch, when it reached his hands, the whole gist of what Healey had suggested. What Dornoch would make of a request for arms to be sent into Waziristan — what Fettleworth would make of it — Ogilvie could only guess. Very likely there would be an earth tremor in and around Divisional H.Q.! And if dither and procrastination were to be the order of the day, if Bloody Francis flew into a tantrum and decided to ignore the message as being the work of a half-wit, then he, Ogilvie, could kiss the world good-bye.

  He took a deep breath and, moving back from the window, went across to a writing-desk to make a start on what could turn out to be either a reprieve or a death warrant.

  *

  ‘It ought to be all right,’ Healey said, frowning over his shattered nose. ‘Quite good, really. Come on and let’s face His Highness — we don’t want to give an appearance of collusion by being together too long. All set?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They went out into the corridor, along the thick carpet and past the armed guards at the end. Healey led the way to a great staircase, wide and shallow, descending gracefully from the landing, past a half-landing where there stood a marble sculpture of a well-breasted naked woman and an enormous and unexpected alabaster bowl of exotically-scented flowers. They went down into a great central hall over which stood a high dome of clear green glass, through which the afternoon sun struck to give the hall itself the feeling of an aquarium. Healey went towards a big door, which was flung open by a brigandish guard on duty outside.

  They went in.

  Nashkar Ali Khan was there with a woman, whom he instantly dismissed. She went, averting her veiled face from the two men, her buttocks visible as a divided creamy blur beneath the thin material of her flowing dress.

  ‘Highness, Wilshaw Sahib has written the message.’

  ‘Bring it to me.’

  Healey took the message and handed it to Nashkar Ali Khan, who gestured them both to sit — or rather, squat uncomfortably upon cushions, half a dozen of which were arranged about the Pathan. He read the message aloud in English, rather haltingly, which made it sound stilted and unnatural, in Ogilvie’s ears, pointing up its many imperfections, its lies, half-truths and evasions. It had not been an easy message to write; now it sounded lethal.

  The Pathan read: “Go to Mr. Cunningham. Tell him I am negotiating satisfactorily and require delivery of total stock to Maizar soonest possible. He will understand and act in accordance with instructions. Am totally trusted and Cunningham’s khel units not deliberately endangering reception of caravan vehicles en route.’

  Nashkar looked up when he had finished. ‘What is its meaning?’ he asked. He tapped the piece of paper. ‘The last sentence puzzles me.’

  It would also puzzle Lord Dornoch, Ogilvie hoped. He said, ‘Cunningham Sahib has charge of one sector of our operations — that is to say, Highness, certain of the khels come within his supply and accounting procedures. It is a matter of book work. I think it best to assure him that these khels will not expect to receive, or perhaps to commandeer, his caravan themselves —though there may be some who will feel themselves entitled, until they have received your instructions not to do so.’

  ‘Such instructions will be given at once, Wilshaw Sahib!’ the Pathan looked down again at the message. ‘Now, why do you find it necessary to indicate that you are totally trusted, which I take to mean by myself — and which is not entirely the truth, and will not be so, until the arms delivery is safely made?’

  ‘I am sorry, Highness, if I have presumed too much. I think it important to assure Cunningham Sahib that I am fully competent to issue these instructions and that due payment will be made. You have not forgotten, Highness, that I came into Waziristan as a new representative in these parts, under the wing of Jones Sahib?’

  It was a tricky moment; to remind the Pathan of Mr. Jones might have an opposite effect. But all was well. Nashkar Ali Khan shrugged and said indifferently, ‘I had not forgotten. You believe that this Cunningham Sahib may be doubtful as to whether you have established yourself?’

  ‘I think it important, Highness, that he should be left in no doubt of my standing with you.’

  ‘Very well. The delivery, however, will not be made to Maizar. You will alter the message, Wilshaw Sahib. The delivery will be to a point on the provincial boundary that runs to Thal from a little east of Parachinar. Ten miles west from the village of Sikandar, which itself is five miles westward from Thal, there is the entry to a pass. The delivery will be made here.’

  ‘As you say, Highness. And your people will bring the caravan to Maizar?’

  ‘If I tell them to, they will,’ Nashkar answered enigmatically. ‘Go now, and write the message again, and then come to me again with the new message. Earless One, a word in the side of your head!’ He laughed indulgently, reaching out a hand to Healey.

  Ogilvie left them, returning to his room. There was no doubt about the fact that Nashkar and Healey had some kind of a rapport, something that they alone shared...back in his room Ogilvie rewrote the message for Mary Archdale, looking, upward at the entwined figures in their sexual orgies as if seeking inspiration for some way in which he might be able to improve what he was writing; but decided that to do any more might tempt fate too far, since Nashkar seemed to have accepted not only the message but also the hidden sting in the tail.

  *

  The promised delights came, and gave Ogilvie the uncomfortable feeling that he was fiddling while Rome burned. That night there was a magnificent banquet, with heaped food in overflowing bowls along the table, and much — very much —strong liquor. Healey drank only sparingly, but Ogilvie, after two glasses of an excellent French wine, a Montrachet that he would not have expected to find gracing the table of a Pathan, found himself beginning to mellow into a real desire to enjoy all that was being offered. You needed a long spoon to sup with the devil, he thought, but here was he in captivity and he might just as well make the most of it because it could all end very suddenly and very bloodily. So he drank deeply; Nashkar Ali Khan drank considerably deeper without showing any signs of it; so did the other guests, some of them from the palace, some from Maizar, and some, it seemed, from farther afield — all trusted henchmen of their leader. The laughter grew louder, and talk more free, as the meal progressed. There was much general enthusiasm about Kaspaturos, with the semi-drunken diners roaring out the name as though the very word itself were the promise and guarantee of victory, of the imminent advent of the promised land itself. But there was no specific mention, in this context, of Peshawar. Kaspaturos could have been sited anywhere in British-held India; but in point of fact it mattered little, Ogilvie believed, since the broad objective was so obviously the toppling of the Raj. Kaspaturos could be solidly identified later on. Ogilvie heard the forthcoming attack being discussed in some detail, and formed a picture of spearheads striking out from the Waziri border — striking out, it seemed, from three main places: from between Thal and Bahodur Khel, from the part, between Gumatti and Bannu, where he had come in with Mr. Jones, and from Jandola into Dera Ismail Khan.

  The columns attacking by way of the two northerly routes would head for Peshawar and then press on towards Nowshera, whilst the one through Dera Ismail Khan was to strike through towards Rawalpindi. Eventually all these columns, consolidating as they went and being reinforced more or less continually from Afghanistan, would converge on Murree, being joined by that time by fresh columns pouring down from Bajaur and Buner. In the meantime the main Waziri force, the great bulk of Nashkar Ali Khan’s invasion army, had been asse
mbled now and was being held in readiness in the central hills between Maizar and Gumatti, encamped and waiting and eager to go. Indeed the only fears expressed were that it would become increasingly difficult to hold the tribes from independent action if they had to wait much longer for the sadhu to speak. Somewhat to Ogilvie’s surprise in these circumstances, absolutely no suggestion was made from any quarter that, since all was ready otherwise, the force should march as soon as Wilshaw Sahib’s arms arrived, and that the holy man be disregarded. The sadhu’s hold upon their minds, upon their intelligences, seemed complete. Nothing would be done without him.

  Once again Ogilvie thought: no sign, no rising. That, also, would be written. He had another thought as well, an equally unhelpful one — that he would have liked to have incorporated in his message the plans he had overheard. But in any case it was too late for that; the message was already on its way, to Peshawar.

  *

  Drunk, or nearly so, James Ogilvie went later to his apartment. He was not surprised when, soon after he had lurched into the huge bed, a native girl came to him, smiling and snaking her hips. She appeared, though he knew this could not be the case, to have four breasts...He had drunk enough, and had looked for long enough at the scenes above his head, to have none of the qualms that had come to him when a woman had been offered by the malik in one of the villages en route. He enjoyed that night; the girl — she could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen — was experienced and clever; she taught James Ogilvie a great deal. But the morning came, the light of dawn stealing through the window slits, and the girl left him, and the dregs of the wine did not. Ogilvie felt as he had felt that first time with Mary Archdale, only much worse, and for a different reason: this time he felt dishonoured, as though he had let down a woman upon whom he was relying to bring him help, a woman who would play her part because she loved him.

  *

  The message went, very much as Nashkar Ali Khan’s message, supposedly in Ogilvie’s name, had gone earlier. Its route was as circuitous, but rather faster, for now time was shortening towards action — it must be so, the sadhu must surely speak soon! Wrapped around a stone, the message was duly flung with good aim through Mary Archdale’s open window. There, for some while until it was found by her native servant, it remained, for Mary Archdale, sick with worry in a situation that could not be resolved since no one would tell her anything, had gone to Murree to find out all she could for herself. When the native servant found the message, which had come adrift from its stone, he scanned it in some doubt and then, because he could not read the writing but felt that it might be important to the memsahib, he placed it carefully on the top of her bureau under the secure weight of the image of a heathen god, a brass Buddha that burned incense.

  Then, more or less conscientiously, he carried on with his work.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘You are making a great mistake in coming here,’ Sir Thin Ogilvie said. He said this firmly but kindly. A man who had as much of an eye for a pretty woman as Fettleworth — a man who had admired his visitor more than once in the past — he was always somewhat embarrassed by women; and on this occasion more so than ever. Worried himself, desperately worried, and anxious about his wife’s reaction, for she was still blaming herself, he could offer no comfort to Mary Archdale. There was no comfort in the truth, which he could not tell in any case; there was no comfort in what she seemed to know instinctively were palliatives and lies. ‘I would advise you, most strongly, to press your business no farther, Mrs. Archdale. To do so will not help and may well lead to great unpleasantness for you.’

  ‘In what way, Sir Iain?’

  The G.O.C. fiddled with a pencil, wishing the woman away to hell and the devil. A temperamental explosiveness added to by his own deep anxieties made his answer sharper than he had intended. He said, ‘You will not wish it to be said that you are throwing yourself at my son.’

  Close to tears, she shook her head. ‘Talk, Sir Iain! What do I care about talk! God knows I’ve had plenty of that. All I want is to know James is safe. I feel sure something terrible is happening.’

  He looked at her face closely. ‘You’re fond of him — are you not? Deeply fond of him?’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said in a low voice, ‘did you ever doubt that, Sir Iain?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, Mrs. Archdale, I did! A widow, and a young subaltern...a subaltern younger than his years owing to certain factors in his life...and you seven years the elder. By God, you should have had more sense! Do you call that love —to jeopardize his career, all his prospects? Damn it, when first you grew what you call fond of him, your own husband was alive! Do you not know India better than that, Mrs Archdale? You should have sent him packing from the start. A word would have done it. I think you are a selfish young woman, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I love him. Perhaps I am selfish to that extent. Can’t you see?’

  Sir Iain lifted his arms in despair, sighed heavily and began to sweat. He looked at the woman in front of him — little more than a girl against his own years — and tried to interpret the white face, the hollow eyes, the shaking shoulders and the way the small neat hands were twisting and twisting at a rag of a handkerchief in her lap. It was love of a sort, however misguided and ill-begotten and futureless. It could be self-pity; but he doubted if self-pity would have driven a woman all the way from Peshawar to Murree by way of Dornoch and Fettle-worth (for he had heard all about that). Answering her question to the best of his ability he said quietly, ‘I can’t be sure what I see. It may be love — the fact that you believe James to be in danger may have made you feel it to be love —’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘— but if this is so, my dear girl, I do assure you, the best way you can show your — your love, is to pursue this matter no farther.’ He mopped at his forehead. ‘May I suggest you leave it to me?’

  ‘To you, Sir Iain?’ Her voice, suddenly, lashed like a horsewhip. Her head was up, her eyes flashing. ‘Would that not be like handing him over to Pontius Pilate?’

  He was staggered. Blood rushed to his head and he felt suffocated. While he stared and gasped, she went on, ‘It was you who sent him — wherever he has gone, and I’m certain now that I know where that is, and what he was sent to do! You sent him, your own son — it would never have been ordered without the consent of the General Officer Commanding — you sent him away from Peshawar, because of me! Oh yes, Sir Iain, I know India well enough! I know its devious ways — and its dirty filthy tricks, the way the whole beastly army is run on — on personalities and likes and dislikes and intrigue. You’re responsible for what happens to James, Sir Iain, and you did it for those purely personal and very spiteful reasons!’

  Panting, she stopped, pressing a hand to her mouth now. She had gone too far, would have liked to withdraw. She had been cruel and she could see the hurt in the General’s face. But he gave her no time to say more. ‘You overrate your importance, ma’am,’ he said in a deadly cold but even voice. ‘Had I felt as strongly as you suggest, you would have been very quickly dealt with, I assure you, and with but little trouble to myself.’ He stood up, drawing himself to his full height, impressive in scarlet and gold. ‘You have had enough ropes Mrs. Archdale. Go now, before you hang yourself.’

  For a moment she sat on, with a high colour; but, before Sir Thin sent for his A.D.C. to escort her out, she went. When she had gone the G.O.C. dropped back heavily into his chair and sat gazing unseeingly out through the window, at the cool green of his garden. He felt giddy, and his heart was thumping oddly; he had seldom been conscious of its beat before. Sweat poured from him, soaked into the collar of his uniform tunic, and he felt, as he had felt when the woman had been speaking, suffocated. She had spoken in temper and anxiety but she had come so much closer to the truth than even she perhaps had realized. His alone was the ultimate responsibility; he could quite easily — so very easily in retrospect — have sunk Fettle-worth’s scheme without trace even be
fore it had begun to blossom.

  Eventually he rang for his A.D.C. Telling the young officer that he wished not to be disturbed until he signified otherwise, he went to share his trouble with his wife. Fiona was always a soothing influence in times of real trouble, and she did not fail him on this occasion. He was glad of her arms around him, of her repeated and insistent assurances that he need not blame himself and that he was big enough to disregard entirely a vicious woman’s tongue.

  ‘Not vicious, Fiona,’ he said unhappily. ‘Worried — as we are. It was that that made her say those things. I do believe she does love the boy — or thinks she does.’

  ‘Thinks, possibly. But as a fact, it’s nonsense.’ She kissed him. ‘Forget the whole thing, Iain darling. As for me, I’ve nothing but contempt for that woman now. She ought to be horsewhipped out of India!’

  She looked like an angry monarch, her husband thought, as imperiously angry as Boadicea hurling her chariot against the Roman legions.

  *

  Back in Peshawar, almost at her wits’ end now, in abject misery of spirit, Mary rang for her servant and abruptly ordered him to prepare a chota peg. Not normally a solitary drinker, she needed one badly now. The journey alone had been terrible, a hideous ordeal for a woman alone of slow, swaying railway coaches and jolting bullock carts, of heat and dust and flies and demanding beggars and occasionally the ghastly ring of the leper’s bell. She was physically exhausted and mentally drained and when the whisky was brought she clutched at the glass avidly and threw the contents down her throat.

  ‘Another,’ she said.

  ‘As the memsahib wishes.’ The servant, an elderly man who had for many years been house-boy to a succession of British military families, looked at his young mistress in some concern. He had seen the results of whisky and gin on Western women and a start was a start, whatever the stress that brought it on, and there was undoubtedly stress here. But it was none of his business and memsahibs in his experience did not welcome servants getting above themselves. So he said nothing, but prepared another chota peg.