He must learn to harden his feelings in future, John determined. Never again would he give his heart so completely or so recklessly.
June and their final examinations came. In a stuffy classroom with a hot sun blazing in at the windows, the senior cadets sweated over papers in mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry and languages. They assembled models of gun carriages and drawings of fortifications for a grand exhibition to which directors of the East India Company would be invited. For three weeks they drilled and practised military manoeuvres in readiness for the day-long public examination, which would be judged by a visiting general.
‘General Horton is a friend of my father’s,’ Vernon boasted. ‘I expect to pass with flying colours.’
‘Pass out with a flagon of brandy more likely,’ joked Colin in Gaelic.
Vernon pushed Colin against the wall. ‘Speak bloody English, you heathen!’
John was swift to pull Vernon off his friend. Buckley already reeked of liquor and it was barely noon. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. His friend Symonds seemed reluctant to get involved.
‘Well, you can hardly speak your native tongue,’ John mocked. ‘But I suppose you won’t need to in the cavalry – just have to neigh like a horse.’
Vernon took a swing at John, which the Highlander sidestepped easily. Vernon lost his balance and staggered against the wall. Snorting with derision, Colin and John walked away.
‘I hope we get sent to the opposite ends of India,’ Colin said. ‘Why is he such a drunken oaf?’
‘Have you ever met General Buckley?’ John replied. ‘He’s a hard bastard with a hot temper. Even Symonds says so. He still beats Vernon like a schoolboy.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Colin in surprise.
‘Vernon told me when we first started here – before he took against me. Got drunk and started blubbering like a baby about how he could never please his father.’
Colin gave him a baffled look. ‘Were you never tempted to tell his hangers-on what a weakling he is? You could have made a laughing stock out of him – the way he’s always trying to do to you.’
John shook his head. ‘It would be like teasing a pup that’s had a kicking from its master. I pity Vernon more than I dislike him.’
The day of the public examination and inspection went off as planned, with General Horton and the Company directors pleased with the displays and drills. Prizes were awarded. John received a medal for his language skills – top in his class for Hindustani and Persian – and was one of twenty elite cadets selected to join the corps of engineers.
Colin was chosen for the artillery – the next most valued branch of the Company army. The rest – and those who failed in languages – passed out into the infantry. Vernon was among them.
‘I’ll be recommended for the cavalry,’ he said bullishly. ‘That’s what I want anyway. Nothing better. We’re the cream of the Company army.’
‘If you say so,’ John said with a dry smile.
‘Where as you, Sinclair, will be spending your army career designing latrines for the backsides of the infantry.’
‘A noble cause,’ John replied, sauntering off.
That night, Colin held a party to celebrate John’s medal and their success in passing out. A dozen of the northern men were crammed into his room, drinking brandy punch and singing. Two serving girls brought bread and cheese and were persuaded to stay. Colin played his fiddle and John and his friends taught the girls steps to the Scottish dances.
Abruptly, the door flew open. Vernon, Symonds and a dozen others barged in.
‘Having a party without us,’ Vernon cried, lurching forward. ‘Not very gentlemanly.’
Loudly, the group pushed their way in, swigging from half-drunk bottles of claret and port. Vernon seized the punch bowl and drained it off, spilling half of the liquor down his front.
‘Carry on, Sinclair,’ he slurred, ‘with your funny dancing.’
Colin had stopped playing. There was palpable tension between the two groups of young men as they squared up to each other.
‘Nancy here will dance with me, won’t you, girl?’ Vernon grabbed at the waitress.
She resisted. ‘Please, sir, I don’t want—’
‘Course you do,’ Vernon drawled. ‘It’ll hardly be the first time.’
There was jostling and laughing as the new arrivals crowded around.
‘Leave her be,’ John ordered, ‘and get out.’
Vernon sneered. ‘Or what? The Scotchie who doesn’t fight will try to stop me?’
‘Go on, Vernon,’ Symonds drunkenly encouraged, ‘show the Scotch how it’s done. Give her a kiss and I’ll have her next.’
The other intruders guffawed and egged him on. Nancy looked scared but it was her air of resignation that made John furious. This had obviously happened before; Vernon and his ilk thought the serving girls were theirs for the taking.
Sickened, John leapt forward and seized Vernon by his jacket.
‘Out now, you stinking drunkard!’
Symonds threw a punch at John’s head, which made his vision blur, but John kept his grip on Vernon. At once Colin set on Symonds. In an instant the room was in uproar as the two sides traded blows. Fists flew and bottles smashed. Vernon, for all his inebriation, was a strong adversary. He threw off John’s hold and swung at him, catching him on the left cheek. John punched him on the jaw. Vernon staggered back. John went after him. They fell into the passageway, battling it out. All John’s pent-up anger at Vernon’s relentless slurs against him and his friends – all the wounding comments about Alice – found release in the fight.
The two strong men fought on until Vernon put up his hands and gasped, ‘Enough.’
John stood back panting, his knuckles raw and his mouth tasting of blood.
Symonds was hauled from the room by his friends, half-conscious. Colin’s room looked as if a hurricane had whipped through it; the furniture up-ended and glass everywhere. The girls, John was thankful to see, had fled unscathed.
Colin, shirt ripped and nose bloodied, held up his fiddle and bow in triumph.
He grinned. ‘All in one piece.’ A cheer went up.
John could feel his eye closing up. Through cut and swelling lips he grimaced. ‘Give us a victory tune, MacRae – loud enough for Buckley and his sycophants to hear.’
Colin struck up a march. John and his comrades stamped their feet and bellowed. The noise spilled out into the June night.
John left Addiscombe in July and headed north with Colin, their wounds almost healed. Vernon and his clique had avoided them since the fight.
‘Good luck,’ John had wished his rival.
After a moment of indecision, Vernon had replied, ‘And to you too, Sinclair. You’ll need it more than me.’
They had shaken hands but Vernon’s smile had been forced, his blue eyes cold.
John stayed a week with Colin at his home near Inverness and then rode for Skye and Ramanish. Come September, they would be sailing for India. Riding back through the mountains, John’s heart burst with longing at the first sight of his island home. He had sent word ahead and Hercules had prepared a feast for him at the castle. His foster father and Azlan rode out to meet him, the Afghan firing off his jezail in the air as a salute. John’s young cousin Iskandar – now a slim, handsome nine-year-old with his father’s dark eyes – rode with them.
The men and the boy cantered down the final slope with whoops of joy. The sea was calm and glinting gold in the evening sun. Beyond, the isle of Rùm lay like a slumbering beast. People waved and called out a welcome as they rode by. John insisted on stopping at Morag’s cottage.
‘You won’t find her there, my friend,’ said Azlan.
John frowned in concern.
‘There is no need to worry,’ Hercules assured him. ‘Your aunt awaits you at the castle – along with your new cousin.’
John’s mouth fell open. A broad grin spread across Azlan’s face.
‘You have another c
hild?’ John gasped.
‘A princess,’ said the Afghan proudly. ‘Ariana – the pure and noble.’
John leant out of his saddle and clasped his friend. ‘Congratulations, Uncle!’
That night there was much feasting and celebration – both for John’s homecoming and in honour of his month-old baby cousin. Ariana was pink-cheeked and had a shock of black hair. She looked content in her mother’s arms, her large, dark eyes already focusing about her in interest.
John had an emotional reunion with his aunt – the woman who had been like a mother to him when he had lost his own – and she held out her precious bundle.
‘Hold her,’ Morag encouraged. ‘We would like you to be her godfather.’
John’s eyes smarted as he took Ariana cautiously in his arms. She gazed up at him and he felt a tug on his heart – a surge of protective love – that took him by surprise. He gripped her with more confidence and she stopped her soft mewling, her rosebud mouth opening a fraction as she continued her solemn stare.
‘She knows you already.’ Morag smiled. ‘See how content she is in your arms.’
Hercules laughed. ‘She empties her lungs when I pick her up. But she knows a good man when she sees one.’
John laughed, kissed Ariana gently on the head and handed her back.
John filled his days with helping out in the fields with the late haymaking – cold, wet weather in the spring had delayed growth – and in cutting peats from the marshy bog for the fire. He went up into the high pastures with his old friend Donald to visit the shieling where Peigi and other young people from the village were tending the cattle. To the dismay of Peigi’s family, Duncan, the piper, had not renewed his year-long hand-fast marriage to Peigi and had disappeared to the mainland. If Peigi had any regrets about Duncan, she hid them well by flirting with John.
‘You were always my first choice, Spanish John.’ She winked and gave him a lingering kiss on his cheek.
John laughed it off and did not encourage her attentions. He was not going to risk being bruised in love again. Besides, Peigi’s kiss just made him ache all the more for Alice. No other woman came close to stealing his heart.
After that, he spent his remaining days out hunting with his chief and Azlan. They talked to him nostalgically about India and the lands of the Afridis close to the Khyber Pass from where Azlan hailed. Hercules had once told John that Azlan’s closest family had been wiped out in an epidemic of typhoid fever while he was away on a trading trip. Hercules had come across the heartbroken Afghan in Peshawar and offered him a job as his guide in the lawless tribal hills beyond British-held territory.
‘If you ever have cause to travel to Peshawar or beyond, my friend,’ said Azlan, ‘you must say that I am your Afridi brother. You will be welcome in my home.’
John was touched, though he doubted after all these years away from his people whether Azlan’s name would give him protection. From what he had heard at Addiscombe, the only defence from the warlike tribes in the Khyber and beyond was strong artillery or a fat purse to buy their co-operation. But he knew the proud Afridi would be insulted by such talk.
On the eve of his going, John went to visit Morag, Iskandar and baby Ariana one last time at the cottage. He felt sad at leaving them – he had quickly grown as fond of Ariana as he was of Iskandar – yet he was excited by the adventure ahead.
As they chatted, John became aware of Azlan watching them quietly from the doorway.
His uncle stepped forward. ‘I would like you to have my hunting knife,’ he said, holding out the brass-handled, bejewelled blade with two hands.
‘I couldn’t possibly take it,’ John said, overcome by the gesture. He knew how special it was to the Afridi. He carried it everywhere.
‘It belonged to my father and my father’s father,’ Azlan continued. ‘You are like a son to me and I wish you to take it.’
John swallowed hard. He took the knife. ‘Thank you.’ John put his right hand to his heart in a gesture of respect. ‘I shall carry it always and think of you, my uncle.’
Slipping the knife into his belt, he stepped forward and embraced the Afghan. Behind them, Morag let out a sob, which set Ariana wailing.
‘Look how my women cry for you,’ Azlan exclaimed in mock annoyance.
Turning, John embraced his aunt and kissed the yelling baby. When he held out his arms to Iskandar, the boy responded with a bashful hug.
‘Come back to us safely,’ Morag cried. ‘Promise me.’
‘My wife,’ said Azlan, ‘that is for Allah to decide.’
The next day, as morning broke and sun spilled over the craggy mountain tops, John left Ramanish. Hercules stood on the battlements, his piper playing a salute beside him, and watched John ride away. At the top of the pass, John turned one final time to look at his home and the dearly familiar cluster of houses and fields sheltering behind the ancient fortress. Fishing boats were putting out to sea and cattle bellowed at being herded across the hill. He filled his mind with the view; even if he was lucky and survived army life, it would still be many years before he would return home.
He sat erect in the saddle and saluted Ramanish and his chief, the strains of the pipes still carrying to him through the still air. Then he swung his horse around, kicked it into a brisk trot and turned his thoughts southwards.
John had not intended to detour on his way to London. Colin had already sent word that he was in the English capital and awaiting passage east. But as John made his way by stages across the Highlands, then by coach down through Perthshire and to Edinburgh, he was plagued by thoughts of Alice. The nearer he drew to Northumberland, the greater grew his desire to see her.
He had said goodbye to all those most dear to him and could hardly contain his excitement at travelling to India, but only one thing disturbed his peace of mind – a final chance of seeing Alice to make sure that there was no spark of love left between them to ignite. Perhaps there was a reason that she had not written back to him. Her father might have forbidden it, horrified at the idea of her going so far away to India with a man she hardly knew. Yet Alice might still harbour feelings for him.
Even as he delayed in Newcastle for an extra night at The Turk’s Head, John ridiculed himself for his weakness. Alice – if she remembered him at all – would probably be embarrassed by his turning up at Tolland Park. It was nearly two years since the storm that had thrown them together. At nineteen she was probably already married to some rich member of the Northumberland gentry.
He wrote her a note asking to see her, then in an agony of indecision, tore it up and booked himself on the late-afternoon stagecoach to London via York.
Restless, he went out to speak to the hostler. ‘How far is it to Tolland Park?’ John asked.
‘Half an hour’s ride,’ the man said.
Impulsively, John paid him to saddle up a horse and give him directions. It was five hours till his coach left; he would seek out Alice and declare how he felt one last time. If she rebuffed him again, then he would sail to India without a backward glance.
The rain was already heavy as he left the city and by the time he reached the muddy lanes leading away from the River Tyne, John was drenched through to the skin. It fell from the sky in torrents. He rode on, tucking his chin into his collar and gritting his teeth.
Tolland Park was secluded behind high stone walls and mature trees; through the heavy rain he could see nothing of the house except ranks of distant rooftops and chimney pots set well back in rolling parkland. John felt a stab of misgiving. He had not expected it to be quite so grand. The high iron gates were firmly shut.
John dismounted and led his horse under an overhanging tree. He would wait for the worst of the rain to ease off and then knock at the lodge house and ask for admittance. Doubts beset him. She might be away. What if she was entertaining and he arrived like a half-drowned dog at her door? He imagined a drawing room full of men like Vernon looking down their long aristocratic noses at him, and the women tittering behin
d their hands. He would be a laughing stock.
Then he chided himself for his lack of courage. Alice, the brave lass who had put to sea to save the lives of ordinary people, could not have changed so much. Whatever she thought of him, she would not allow him to be humiliated by her rich new friends.
As he strengthened his resolve, he heard the clatter of horses’ hooves on the carriageway beyond the gates, and then the call of a coachman. He watched as an elderly man emerged from the lodge house and set about heaving the gates open. A moment later, a pair of chestnut horses emerged from the far side pulling a well-polished carriage behind. The coachman sat above, large hat dripping, and whipped the pair into a trot.
Heart hammering, John stepped forward to see who sat inside the coach. He thought he saw two figures. He ran at the carriage, waving at the coachman to slow down. But the man didn’t see him, his head bent against the pouring rain.
For an instant, he saw a face at the window. An elegant woman with hair piled on top of her head in elegant coils, glanced out. He could see her pale swanlike neck and the velvet of her cloak. John gaped. The carriage was past him before it sunk in that the sophisticated woman was Alice. His heart pounded in shock. She had looked right through him without a flicker of recognition. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered. But her vivid eyes had shown no warmth.
John stood by the roadside, mud-spattered from the hasty carriage, and regained his breath. Alice was no longer the girl he had fallen in love with; she was a rich heiress speeding off to some social engagement and completely unattainable for the likes of him.
‘Can I help you, lad?’ the old gatekeeper called out. He was panting from the exertion of closing the gates.
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 13
