‘Five of us will go down,’ said the havildar, ‘and the rest stay here.’
He and four others then took their weapons and walked down towards the village. Thankfully, from Jack’s point of view, there was no shooting and the group returned a short while later with food and drink. It was survival of the best armed, whether with weapons of war or with the laws of the country.
Once the five had left for the village, the Dutchman had immediately begun working on the badmash who had stood up to the havildar.
‘You would be wise to let us go,’ he said quietly to the fellow, ‘for if you are caught abducting two Europeans, they will hang you for sure.’
‘They will hang me anyway, for fighting the firinghis.’
‘No, for I will speak in your favour. I will tell the authorities how you were forced to join these rebellious sepoys at gunpoint. I saw how that pompous havildar spoke to you. Do you deserve such treatment? No. A man of your fine character must be thoroughly insulted by such words. It must grieve you indeed to put up with this kind of behaviour from a mere havildar in a foreign army. Did you join the English, when they came? No, you stood back, proud of your heritage, and spat at their feet. While that fellow grovelled, took their annas and became one of them.’
‘Ha!’ said the badmash. ‘You must speak Hindi?’
‘Indeed I do,’ replied the Dutchman. ‘A little.’
Jack groaned, knowing this advantage had now been thrown to the winds.
The Dutchman was oblivious to his error and continued to try to befriend the one-eyed man. ‘I do not need to speak the language to see how arrogantly that havildar spoke to you, and how angry you were at his words. It was written all over your noble face. You are surely the descendant of a rajah, are you not? You have in your features the very image of the Rajah of Jodhpur. Are you sure you’re not related to him? He has a nose the very likeness of yours. A very aristocratic nose handed down to him by his early ancestors, conquerors every one of them. I have seen a statue of the great Iskander: your nose copies his to the very curve at the end. How does a royal personage such as yourself, a man with such rich blood in his veins, find himself in these low and uncomfortable circumstances? Surely you have been a most unlucky man?’
All the while the Dutchman was speaking the badmash was running his fingers down the slope of his nose, looking thoughtful.
‘Oh, sir,’ he said, ‘you would be amazed by my poor luck. All my life I have been the victim of bad fortune.’ He struck his own head with the heel of his hand. ‘The gods have not seen fit to show favour to me. Each time I lift myself up from the dirt, I am thrust back down again. It is a source of great anguish to me, that through no fault of my own, I am reduced to such circumstances as you see me in now.’
Jack sat and watched these exchanges in amazement at the Dutchman’s silver tongue. Surely the badmash was not falling for such drivel. The flattery Hilversum was spilling out was so obvious a child could have seen through it. At every moment Jack was expecting the badmash to burst out laughing and tell the Dutchman he knew exactly was he was doing. It was so transparent it was indeed laughable. Yet the fellow was lapping it up like milk.
It was at this point that the five sepoys had arrived back from the village, carrying food and drink, and the conversation between Hilversum and the badmash had ceased.
The exchange between the pair had not gone entirely unnoticed amongst the remaining rebels, though it did not seem as though they had heard exactly what had passed between the Dutchman and the badmash. Jack noticed, while the group was eating, one of the sepoys walk over to the havildar and whisper in his ear. The havildar stared hard at the badmash, who was at that time tearing some bread apart with his filthy fingers. A little later the havildar got up, drifted up behind the badmash, then struck the man a deadly blow with his musket butt while he was eating. The badmash fell forward, a bolt of food dropping from his mouth. One of the other sepoys lifted his head by the hair and looked into his face.
‘He is dead,’ announced the sepoy. ‘You have killed him.’
‘This man was betraying us,’ said the havildar to the rest of his men, ‘with that firinghi.’ He pointed to Hilversum. ‘He was trash. We take these fellows from the sewers and expect them to act like men, but they are nothing but trouble.’
There were, amongst the sepoys and sowars, three more of the kind of man that now lay dead in the dust. They shifted uneasily, looking at each other, then at the rebels. One of them finally spoke.
‘We are not like him,’ he said. ‘He was a Goojur from Dum-Dum, of no account, a worthless individual. He had no honour. We are men of higher regard, with a sense of loyalty to our kind.’
‘This I understand,’ replied the havildar, no doubt satisfied that he had made his point by executing the badmash. ‘We will say no more.’
The three civilians looked relieved. Jack realized they would have stood no chance against the rebel sepoys and sowars, and would have been cut down to a man. However, the havildar would know that he needed all the men he could muster. These were unhappy times which tried men to the limit. Many souls had been thrown into jeopardy.
Unwisely though, the rebels stayed the night where they were, being fatigued by their march. In the early hours they were attacked by angry villagers throwing rocks out of the darkness. No one was seriously hurt but rest was interrupted. Jack himself was struck on the shoulder by a stone, which left his joint sore. In the morning the havildar resisted the impulse to burn the village and moved on before the day became too hot.
On the march Jack spoke to the Dutchman.
‘You got a man killed back there.’
Hilversum shrugged. ‘What do you care? He was gutter trash. And I might remind you he was the enemy. If I had a gun now I would shoot the lot of them down like dogs.’
‘You be careful you don’t talk yourself into your grave.’
They spoke no more, since one of the rebels came back and remonstrated with them, telling them to keep up.
If the gods had not been with the dead man, they were not with his murderers either. At noon on the fourth day of the march they came to a narrow pass, a gorge between two sets of high sheer-faced cliffs. There was no other way through into the valley beyond. However, stuck fast in the alley-thin pass was the body of a dead elephant. Someone had tried to lead the elephant through and it had become jammed in the gorge.
One could not climb over the rancid carcass because the pass narrowed above to the width of a man’s thigh for at least twenty yards. The only possible answer was to cut the elephant out of the way, an unpleasant and difficult task. Since its death, its body had swollen, bloated with foul gases, which served to wedge it even more solidly into the gap.
The rebels hacked at the corpse with swords and knives, but the work was slow. While the innards of the dead elephant had turned to putrid matter, the skin had dried in the sun and was like armour. All afternoon they chopped and cut at the beast, blunting their swords, cursing and swearing at the man who had thought he could get his animal through such a narrow opening. The sweat rolled from their bodies, even though they were now at a higher elevation and in cooler air. When holes were finally cut, hot fetid gases flared out on the sepoys, causing them to choke in disgust.
The Dutchman was most amused and almost earned himself the same fate as the badmash, when he cried out in Hindi, ‘You see, even Ganesh is against you!’ What he did get as punishment for the remark, and Jack alongside him, was the pleasure of raking out the stinking rotten guts of the beast with his bare hands once the sepoys had cut a huge hole in the cadaver’s hide. He and Jack were forced to crawl inside the creature’s backside to scrape out the innards, the rebels hoping that the beast would collapse once it had been partially emptied of flesh. They clawed with their hands at the yellow-grey sludge, slopping it out of the man-sized opening in the elephant’s arse, almost fainting with the stench. Jack had a more difficult time of it, being only one handed, but it was a ghastly business for
both men.
‘Bloody pachyderms,’ Hilversum said under his breath in his native Dutch. ‘What God made such creatures for is beyond me.’
When evening came they were still no nearer to opening the pass wide enough for a man to squeeze through. The corpse had indeed partially collapsed, but the bones were jammed hard and formed a cage door to keep them out. Men were sent out to find wood to make a bonfire under the remains, to try to burn them out of the way, but there were few trees in the region. Those they found were weak and spindly, offering very little fuel. When the fire was eventually started, just before dawn, the stink was unbelievable and forced them all back to a quarter of a mile from the opening. Finally they decided to approach the spot again and found the bones brittle and blackened but still in place.
What did not help matters any was the lack of water in the area. They could not spare water to wash. It was a dry arid region, mostly bedrock with granite outcrops. Jack and his fellow prisoner stank. They could not even bear their own company and both were sick. In the end they rolled in the dust to try to cover the slime with a layer of dirt to cut down the power of the smell.
In the morning the havildar ordered his men to make some ropes out of various clothes. These were tied to the bones blocking the pass and with the assistance of the whole group the skeleton was finally dislodged. It had been a long and arduous task and even Jack was relieved it was over. Yes, the elephant’s carcass had delayed the rebels, but even now he could not be sure he was being followed by his men. Who knew where he was? Sergeant King had no doubt surmised that Jack had been captured by Khan and either killed or taken as a prisoner to that man’s camp.
The problem was not yet completely over. Since they were travelling into the high country of the Himalayas, it would soon get very cold and they would need all the clothes they owned. They had to sit and untie all those garments which had been used to make ropes: not an easy task when such force had been put on them. Some of the knots were so tight they had to be undone with men’s teeth: an unsavoury piece of work. By mid-morning all was completed and the group continued on their way, squeezing past the remains of the elephant and on to Tibet.
Jack’s hair was stiffly spiked with dried slime. It went in every direction. There was filth under his nails, between his fingers and toes, and in every crease of his clothes. His companion had fared no better. They both smelled like sick animals. In truth Lieutenant Crossman had never been so miserable in all his life. His arms had been retied behind him and supplies for the rebels strapped to his back. Reduced to a beast of burden now, he hardly viewed himself as human. Certainly the rebels treated him like some dumb creature, prodding him with their weapons when he went too slowly. Not with any malice; it was just an afterthought to them.
It became colder on the trail. At night Jack huddled against his companion for warmth. He had a constant headache, his bowels were playing the devil with him, and he felt giddy and sick much of the time. Hilversum confessed he too was ill. They were both in dreadful physical condition. However, they were not the worst off. At least both men had been well fed and healthy before their capture. One or two of the sepoys had been on the march or run for over a year and had been half-starved before breaking free of their army. On the first night in the mountains the first of them died. He had complained all day of a pain in his left side, just above his hip, which had him screaming in agony by nightfall. At three in the morning he suddenly stood up, announced that the pain had gone and asked for water. After taking a long drink he keeled over, falling stone dead to the ground.
‘What was that?’ whispered the Dutchman. ‘What took him in the end?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Kidney failure? Heart? We’ll never know.’
‘I hope they all die like that,’ growled Hilversum. ‘Every damn one of them.’
Jack made no reply to this, having some sympathy with the idea, but tongue-tied by a conscience which told him that no man deserved to die in such a dreary depressing place as this. On the battlefield is as good a place as any for those who wished to remain a hero in the memories of family and friends. In bed at home, surrounded by caring folk, was a better one if he cared nothing for glory. Up here in this anonymous forbidding rock land, the men were dirty, dishevelled and wracked by dysentery, and it was not a good place or time for a man to quit the world of the living.
‘How are you faring?’ asked Jack. ‘You think you can make it?’
‘Make it to where? We don’t even know where we’re going. I don’t think they know what to do with us. The truth? I feel almost done in. I can’t last a great deal longer.’
‘Me neither,’ agreed Jack. ‘We have to try to escape.’
‘I’ll take my chances with you if you see the opportunity. I’d rather be shot running away than have to endure this stroll through the roof of the world much longer.’
‘Well, we can’t untie ourselves, but we can untie each other. Tomorrow, when we stop for our first rest break, sit with your back to me. You’ll have to undo my arms, because I have no left hand . . .’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.’
‘But once I’ve got my good hand free, I’ll be able to do the same for you. Don’t rush off immediately. Wait for my signal. Keep up the pretence that you’re still bound by wrapping the cord around your hands. Am I understood?’
‘Perfectly. You’ve done this sort of thing before?’
‘I’ve been a captive once or twice, but actually never managed to escape without outside help.’
‘That’s very comforting. I’m glad to know I’m in the hands of a professional escapee.’
Jack said, ‘There’s no need for sarcasm.’
A sepoy jumped up and came over to them.
‘You shut up. No talking.’
‘We need to talk,’ Jack shouted at the man angrily. ‘We need the comfort of words.’
‘I am not listening to your excuses. You must keep silent.’
The havildar said wearily in Hindi, ‘Leave them alone – what can they do?’
The rebel stared at his leader then shrugged and sat down again.
Thus Jack and Hilversum found themselves free to talk in normal voices.
‘If we die here, which we may very well do, what will you have left undone that you wished to do?’
Jack, who had been asked the question, replied with some asperity. ‘Killing that idiot Deighnton,’ he said, then instantly regretted the remark. ‘No, no – I didn’t mean that. What then? I can hardly think. Oh, yes, I will have left undone a family. I’m newly married and have not yet had the chance to start one.’ He thought for a while. ‘I haven’t even discussed it with my wife. We haven’t yet had the luxury of time on our hands to talk over such future plans. I’m one of those, you see, who believe that immortality is leaving part of ourselves on this earth. A child. A grandchild. Perhaps several, if one is lucky. Yet, not only that . . . we influence all those we ever meet, however briefly, and part of us rubs off on them. There is our immortality – in that small influence.’
‘I am a God-fearing man, myself,’ said the Dutchman, ‘but I think I know what you mean. I once gave half a rupee to a beggar in Delhi – a spontaneous action, quite uncharacteristic of me. It was before the mutiny, of course. The upshot was the man blessed me with such fervour I knew he would tell his friends about me and that I would live on in their minds – yes, yes, I can see what you mean, I think. A limited immortality though, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, for eventually all who know you will be dead themselves.’
‘Not where progeny is concerned. Grandchildren beget grand-children. The likeness will survive ad infinitum, will it not?’
They were both quiet for a while, then the Dutchman asked, ‘Who is Deighnton?’
‘Oh,’ replied Jack, ‘a man not worthy of further notice.’
‘No, please. You’ve aroused my curiosity.’
Jack sighed. ‘A cavalry officer who’s taken it into his head to bring abou
t my downfall. I insulted a powerful friend of his – no, I didn’t just insult him, I struck him. Captain Deighnton is now determined to make me pay for affronting his friend. We’ve already duelled once, but the pistols failed us. I’m sure we’ll get round to it again if I ever get out of this mess.’
Hilversum suddenly became animated. ‘Ah! Now, that’s where I can help you, Crossman. This chance meeting was fated by the gods. I’m the very man who can assist you to kill this officer. You know what I am? You see that bag which the sepoy clings to? My bag. You know what’s in it?’
‘You told me – firearms.’
‘Yes, but a particular firearm. Just guess what it is.’
Jack stared at the now battered black leather traveller’s bag, quite uninterested in its contents at this moment in time.
‘A cannon.’
‘Come on, don’t be frivolous.’
‘This is wearisome.’
‘What else have you got to do? Try.’
‘You’re right, I can hardly stroll down to the mess tent for a glass of Madeira, can I? Um, let me hazard something. Now what does one normally duel with? Single-shot pistols?’
Hilversum first looked disappointed, then brightened. ‘How did you guess?’
Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘It leapt into my mind.’
‘Yes, single-shot pistols. Very accurate and exceptionally well-made pistols. That’s what I do, I sell small arms. There is a pistol in there, a beautifully fashioned single-shot pistol, you couldn’t miss with it. A five-year-old could knock the pip out of an ace of hearts with it. It’s very expensive of course, but how much is your life worth? The balance is perfect, the barrel is made of the finest steel and is as straight as an architect’s line. It has been lovingly crafted, that pistol, every part being precision-made over a long period of time, until the whole is a work of art. All you need to do is point and fire and your opponent will cease to breathe.’
Jack was horrified to find himself dreaming of shooting Deighnton through the heart with this miraculous single-shot pistol.
Rogue Officer Page 9
