“Very low, I should imagine.”
“We had forty-eight casualties in total.”
Blackstone nodded, but said nothing.
“It was a terrible sight to behold,” Carlton continued, “but it would have been even worse if the Dervishes had been as well-armed as we were, because then there would have been huge losses on both sides.”
“What’s the point you’re making?” Blackstone wondered.
“The European powers — especially France and Germany — are as well-armed as we are, and if we have to fight them, it will be a real bloodbath which will make Omdurman seem like no more than a skirmish.”
“What do you think the chances are that we will have to fight them?” Blackstone asked.
“Very high! Far too high! I know you could say it’s forty years since we fought the Russians in the Crimea. But forty years isn’t that long in the larger scheme of things.”
“True,” Blackstone agreed.
“And think of the wars which might have been! Which almost were!” Carlton continued. “It’s just two years since we nearly went to war with the Germans because of their support for the Boers in southern Africa. And it’s less than one year since there was talk of us declaring war on France because it wanted to annex part of the Sudan. So who’ll be the next enemy? Russia again? Or will we revive our quarrel with the French or the Germans? Nobody knows! The way I see it, everything’s so delicately balanced between the Great Powers that it’ll only take the slightest shift, one way or the other, to upset the whole blasted apple cart.”
“Then everybody had better learn to tread very carefully, hadn’t they?” Blackstone said.
“But that’s just the point, you see. They’re not treading carefully at all! There are any number of high-ranking officers in all the countries I’ve mentioned who see themselves as the next Napoleon and are just itching for a fight. And their rulers are sometimes no better. Her Majesty the Queen, thank the Lord, is willing to be guided by her government, but the German Kaiser’s always looking for trouble, and as for the Tsar of Russia — he’s well-meaning enough, but he’s a very weak man, and the last chap you want in charge of a loaded gun is one who’ll fire it through pure bloody loss of nerve.”
“You talk as if you know the Kaiser and the Tsar personally,” Blackstone said.
Carlton laughed nervously. ‘Is... er... that the impression I gave you?” he asked. “I never meant to. But I do know their sort, if you understand what I’m saying. I’ve served with all kinds of men in the Army, and there’s plenty of indecisive ones like Nicholas of Russia, and plenty of mad buggers like William of Germany.”
They’d been dancing around the main point long enough, Blackstone decided. “Tell me about the second coach that left the Big House on the morning of the robbery,” he said.
“The second coach?”
“The one that had its crest masked over with black paint.”
“How did you... how did you know about that?” Carlton gasped.
“It doesn’t matter how I know,” Blackstone told him. “The point is, I don’t know enough to conduct my investigation properly. And unless you choose to enlighten me, I’ll probably never find this infernal golden egg.”
Carlton looked more shocked now than he had when Blackstone had mentioned the blacked-out coach.
“The golden egg!” he echoed, as if his brain were incapable of any other response. He made a determined effort to pull himself together. “Is that what you think this whole affair is all about?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I knew you were being kept in the dark about some things. You have to be when you’re dealing with matters of national security. But it never even occurred to me that they’d keep you so much in the dark. Damn it, it’s not fair! It’s not fair at all! It’s like sending a man into enemy territory wearing a blindfold.”
“You have the power to remove that blindfold if you choose to,” Blackstone pointed out.
“And I will!” Carlton said firmly. “I’ll do it whatever it costs me personally. They can court-martial me, if they like. I don’t care. It’s unforgivable to treat a front-line soldier like you as if he were...”
“As if he were what?” Blackstone asked.
But Carlton was no longer looking at him. Instead, the Major’s eyes were scanning the middle distance.
“I don’t like that,” he said worriedly.
“What are you talking about?”
Carlton pointed his finger in the direction of his gaze. “I’m talking about them!”
A group of riders was approaching, Blackstone saw. There were six of them, and they were moving at a gallop.
Carlton drew his sword. “What, in God’s name, was I thinking of, to let us get cornered like this?” he said angrily. “How could I ever have been so completely stupid?”
“Put your sword away,” Blackstone advised. “You don’t know yet that you’re even going to need it.”
“Don’t I just? Haven’t you seen the bloody fur hats that they’re wearing, man!”
“Yes, but—“
“That means they’re Cossacks, you idiot. They’re the nearest thing that Russia’s got to the Mongol Horde.”
“Are they out to rob us?’
“Of course they’re not. They’re out to bloody kill us! And it’s all my fault. I set it up for them.” Carlton slashed his sword through the air. “Listen, Blackstone, I’ll hold them off while you make a run for it.”
“I’m not running,” Blackstone said firmly.
“But you’re not even armed.”
“Then give me your pistol, and I will be.”
“I’m ordering you to go!” Carlton screamed.
“I’m not in the Army any more, so your order’s not worth a tuppenny damn,” Blackstone told him.
The Cossacks were drawing ever closer, and Blackstone had seen enough men riding into battle in his time to be sure that Carlton had been right in his assessment of their intention.
“Look here, Sergeant, you really have to go while you still can,” Carlton said desperately.
“No!”
“But don’t you see, it doesn’t really matter if I’m killed, whereas it will be an absolute disaster if they lay their hands on you.”
“Why?” Blackstone demanded. “What’s so special about me?”
“We’ve no time to talk about that now. Just get the hell out of here.”
“The pistol, Major!” Blackstone said. “Give me the bloody pistol, for God’s sake!”
Carlton unbuckled his holster with his free hand, took out the gun and passed it to Blackstone. “If my father had ordered you to leave, you’d have gone without question,” he said miserably.
At the rate the Cossacks were moving, they were not more than a half a minute away. They had still not drawn their swords nor unsheathed their rifles, but that meant nothing. Because what they did have in their hands were their short whips, and a Cossack’s whip was a lethal weapon.
Blackstone sighted the pistol, and loosed off a round. It went over the riders’ heads, as he’d intended it to. A warning shot. He knew, even as he fired it, that it was probably a waste of a bullet, but at least he’d given the Cossacks a chance to back away.
The riders kept on coming. Suddenly — without any warning at all — Carlton spurred his horse forward, then wheeled it around sideways. He was deliberately presenting a barrier that the Cossacks would have to deal with before they could get at Blackstone, but he was also effectively blocking the Inspector’s line of fire.
“Get out the way, you bloody idiot!” Blackstone shouted.
“And miss all the fun?” Carlton yelled back. “There’s only six of them, Sergeant. I don’t need any help from you, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d get the hell out of here.”
It was British-officer-class bravado at its most extreme, and neither the man who spoke the words nor the one who heard them spoken believed them for a moment. Like his father before him, Major Carlton w
as putting his own life at risk in an attempt to save a man he considered to be serving under him.
The Cossacks had been riding in a tight formation, but now they parted, so that two were approaching Carlton from his left flank and two from his right. The remaining pair separated — again one to the left and one to the right — and cut an even wider swathe, avoiding the confrontation completely. Their job, it seemed obvious, was to deal with Blackstone.
The Major slashed out at the leading Cossack coming at him from the right, but the man had been ready for such a move, and veered his horse to the side. Carlton swung around to deal with the first of his attackers from the left — but too late. The handle of the Cossack’s whip caught him in the throat. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. He tried both to hold on to his sword and to avoid falling backwards in his saddle, but his body betrayed him in both respects. The sword fell to the ground, and the Major lurched towards the hindquarters of his mount.
He might have been able to stage some kind of recovery, given time, but the Cossacks were intent on seeing that did not happen, and only moments after being struck by the whip, he was being dragged off his mount.
The two remaining Cossacks were clear of the melee, and coming at Blackstone. The Inspector took careful aim and shot at the one approaching from the left. He was aiming, for the chest, but his target was moving deliberately erratically, and he only succeeded in hitting him in the shoulder.
There was no time to loose off a second shot. Even as his brain was noting the success of the first, he felt a huge weight crash into him, and then was flying towards the ground with the second Cossack’s powerful hands already locked tightly around his throat.
The two men hit the earth with considerable force, though since Blackstone was on the bottom, it was his body which absorbed most of the impact.
The air knocked out of him — and feeling as if every bone in his body had been broken — Blackstone fought back, thrusting his outstretched fingers at his opponent’s eyes. But his aim was off and he only succeeding in jabbing the Cossack in the forehead.
The Cossack shifted position, so that now he was straddling his opponent. He had released his grip on Blackstone’s throat, but only so he could reach for the knife he carried in his belt. Blackstone clawed up and grabbed at the descending knife-arm. Yet even as he did so, he knew it was a wasted effort, because the Cossack had both position and leverage on his side.
As Blackstone gasped and struggled, the knife, aimed at his chest, drew closer and closer.
Experience of other knife wounds, received in the past, told him that he would probably feel no more than a gentle prick at first. Then the knife would dig deeper, slicing its way through his flesh. And if it did not encounter resistance from a rib in its journey, it would go on until it reached his heart.
For less than a single beat of that heart, his body would scream at him that this should not be happening — that it could not be happening. Then it would be forced to accept that it had happened, and give up the ghost. The heart would stop beating — and he would be dead.
A terrible cacophony of noise filled what Blackstone took to be the last few moments of his life. There was his own laboured breathing — as loud, to his ears, as a cannon’s blast. There was the grunting of the man on top of him, as he strained to bring the conflict to its final, bloody conclusion.
The horses’ hooves pounded on the ground, the men riding them shouted loudly, as men always will in battle. And when yet another sound was added to the fearful din going on around him — this time a single loud crack — Blackstone could not be entirely sure what it was. But he thought it might have been a shot.
The Cossack who was straddling him suddenly went rigid, and then — almost immediately — limp. His burning eyes glazed over. His heavy breathing was transformed into a desperate gurgle, and then stopped completely. The knife fell from his hand.
With some considerable effort, Blackstone pushed the dead Cossack clear of him, and then tried to struggle to his feet. But it was no more than a pointless exercise. The fall from the horse, the pressure that had been exerted on his windpipe, the tremendous fight he had put into trying to keep the knife away from his heart, now finally proved too much for him. As he pressed down on the ground with his hands, hoping it would give him the necessary leverage, his brain informed him that it had had enough — and shut down.
Chapter Seventeen
It was the sun which had gently awakened him when he had been lying in Sweet Agnes’s bed only a few hours earlier, and it was the same sun — though far hotter and more unforgiving now — that he was aware of as he regained consciousness on the hard, but springy, ground of the Russian steppe.
Blackstone’s first thought was to wonder why he was still alive. His second was to ask himself whether it was intended that he should continue in that state, or if he was merely experiencing a temporary reprieve.
Where were his enemies? Were they watching him, even at that moment? If they were, then they probably thought he was still unconscious, and hence no threat. It was not much of an advantage he had over them, but it was the only one he’d got — and he was damned if he was going to squander it by moving before he was completely ready.
He cautiously opened one eye, and saw the pistol Major Carlton had given him, lying on the ground a few yards away.
Good, he told himself. He at least had a weapon with which he could kill one or two of the Cossacks before the rest inevitably cut him down.
He listened for the telltale sounds which would reveal the enemy’s position to him. But there was only the noise of the wind, whistling through the grass. He waited, expecting to hear one of the Cossacks break the silence, but none did.
Had they gone? That didn’t make any sense. The Cossacks were not the kind of men to confuse unconsciousness with death. And even if they had, they would surely not have left Major Carlton’s pistol behind them.
He listened again. A horse snorted, and pawed its hoof on the ground, but still no one spoke.
Perhaps the Cossacks were waiting for him to make the first move. Perhaps they had been wagering about how long it would take him — or whether he would have the courage to move at all.
He tensed himself for action, then rolled over several times and grabbed the pistol. Once he had it firmly in his hand, he forced himself up into a crouching position. His chest hurt like the devil. So did his arms, his legs and his head. But he already had the gun cocked, and he was more than ready to take the Cossack bastards on.
There were no Cossacks to take on! Save for the two horses — his own and the Major’s — which were quietly munching at the grass, the vast plain seemed to be totally empty.
Why were the horses still there? Left to their own devices, they should have wandered off, because with horses — as with men — the grass was always greener in some other place.
“There’s no time for this idle speculation,” he told himself with all the anger his weary frame could muster. “No time at all! You’ve got to get back to the redoubt. Your men will be waiting for you there.”
His mind was wandering, he realized, and wondered if he had a fever. Fever or not, he had to get back — and to the Big House where the robbery had taken place, not to the military redoubt back in India.
He could understand now why the horses had stayed where they had. There’d been no choice in the matter. A peg of some kind had been hammered into the ground, and the beasts had been tethered to it.
But where was Major Carlton? What the devil had happened to Major Carlton? He shifted his gaze a little to the left and got his answer. Carlton was lying on the ground a dozen yards from the tethered horse.
“Are you all right, Major?” Blackstone shouted in a cracked voice. “Do you think you can stand up?”
The Major made no reply.
Blackstone slowly straightened up. Rising to his feet brought on temporary giddiness. Walking towards the Major made him acutely aware of aches and pains he’d only suspected while he
’d been lying on the ground. But it was the unanswered questions which were troubling him the most.
What was it that Major Carlton had been about to tell him when the Cossacks appeared from out of nowhere? Why had the Cossacks appeared at all? Had it been their intention to kill anyone at all they came across, or were they on a definite mission? And if they had been on a definite mission, why had they failed to accomplish it, when there seemed to be absolutely nothing standing in their way?
Even before he bent down to touch Carlton, he knew that the other man was dead, but he went through the motions of searching for signs of life anyway.
The slash of the whip across his throat had probably been what killed him, Blackstone decided. It would have crushed his windpipe, and from then on it was only a matter of time before he choked to death. But his attackers had made doubly sure that their assault had accomplished its aim — the deep red stain around his heart was proof of that.
So why not me? Blackstone asked himself again. Why was I spared?
For all his boyish good looks, the Major had possessed a manly figure, and — deadweight — it would have been a hard enough task for a Blackstone feeling on the top of his form to hoist the corpse over the saddle. Blackstone as he was now, found it almost impossible. Each attempt to heft Carlton up brought on new bouts of agony, and the horse — as if through pure malevolence — kept shifting its position every time the operation looked like being successful.
In the end, however, Blackstone did achieve his objective, and once he had Carlton hanging over both flanks of the horse, he tied the dead man’s wrists to his ankles, in order to ensure that he did not slip off again.
The ride to the point at which they had encountered the Cossacks had been fast and furious. Covering the same ground in reverse was a much slower process. Blackstone — partly as a result of his own injuries, partly in deference to the dead major — never let the two horses go beyond a gentle trot.
And all the time he was making his way back to the military cordon, he kept expecting the Cossacks to reappear — to correct the mistake they made earlier and finish him off.
Blackstone and the House of Secrets (The Blackstone Detective series Book 3) Page 13
