Far Pavilions (138 page)

Fatima Begum, being a relic of an earlier age, saw nothing out of the way in the Sahib's desire to keep an Indian girl in some quiet little
Bibi-gurh
(women's house) near his place of work, and said as much to her nephew. Such arrangements, said the Begum, were far from uncommon and would bring no discredit upon the Sahib: when had anyone thought the less of any man for keeping a mistress? She dismissed the tale of a marriage with an impatient wave of the hand, for she had been talking to Anjuli, to whom she had taken a strong fancy, and Anjuli herself, despite all Ashok's assurances, had never been able to believe that anything as devoid of ritual and as quickly over as that strange ceremony on board the
Morala
could possibly be binding in law.

Zarin's aunt had insisted that Anjuli and her husband should spend the remainder of the Sahib's leave as her guests, and told her nephew that she herself would see to it that a suitable house was found for the ex-Rani within easy reach of Mardan; one in which she could live quietly and find no difficulty in keeping her true identity a secret, for no virtuous housewife, declared the Begum, would think of prying into the antecedents of a courtesan; and as she would not be setting up in competition with others in that trade, she would be able to live in safety and seclusion.

This last observation had not been repeated to Ash, who had gratefully accepted the offer. He had not been looking forward to spending the next few weeks scouring the countryside in search of a secluded hideaway for Juli, in a temperature that frequently reached a hundred and fifteen degrees at mid-day, and the Begum's house was large, cool and comfortable – and safe.

On the following day, as there was still no sign of either Koda Dad or Gul Baz, Ash set off for Hasan Abdal, hoping to meet Wally on the Abbottabad road. The house was still in darkness when he arose and left his drowsy wife and went very quietly downstairs, but early as it was, Zarin was up and waiting for him in the courtyard, since he too had to be away before first light. Their roads lay in different directions, for Zarin was returning to Mardan, but he had had Juli's mare saddled for Ash, and the two men mounted in silence, and rode out of the gate as the stars began to pale and from somewhere behind them in the Begum's garden a cock crowed – to be answered by another in the town, and that one by a third in the fort by the river, until presently a dozen cocks were crowing.

The air was still cool, but there was no freshness in it, and already it held more than a hint of the coming day's heat, for the stillness was undisturbed by even a breath of wind, and below the town the veil of mist on the river lay motionless above the swirling water that flowed past the walls of Akbar's fort. The riders drew rein at the junction between the lane and the high road, and for a moment or two sat listening, hoping to hear the distant clop of hoof-beats that might herald the arrival of Koda Dad Khan or Gul Baz. But the long white road lay empty, and except for the cocks and the river there was no sound.

‘We shall meet them on the road,’ said Zarin, answering the unspoken thoughts of both. ‘How soon do you expect to be in Mardan?’

‘In three weeks’ time. So if your father has not already set out, send word to him to stay in his house, and say that I will come to see him as soon as I can.’

‘I will do that. But it may be that I will meet him on the way, and if so he will be waiting here for you in my aunt's house when you return. Well, we must be on our way.
Pa makhe da kha
, Ashok.’

Ameen sera
, Zarin Khan.'

They touched hands briefly and parted. And two hours later, as the sun rose, Ash passed through Hasan Abdal, and leaving the 'Pindi road, turned left on to the one that leads to the hills and Abbottabad.

Wally had been eating breakfast under a clump of trees by the roadside near the bank of a small stream that crossed it a mile or so above the town, and he had not at first recognized the lean, travel-stained Afridi who pulled up at sight of him and dismounted among the freckled shadows of the acacias.

49

‘I suppose it was because I wasn't expecting you,’ explained Wally, plying his friend with stewed tea, hard-boiled eggs and chuppattis. ‘Your letter said to meet you at Attock so I expected to find you there all togged up in one of Rankin's best sun-proof suitings, not jogging along in the dust wearing fancy-dress. I always knew you were able to do it, but I hadn't realized that you could even take me in, and I still don't know how it's done, because your face hasn't altered – or not much – and it can't be just the clothes. Yet until you spoke I took you for just another tribesman. How the divil an all do you do the trick?’

‘There's no trick about it,’ said Ash, gulping hot tea. ‘Or if there is it probably lies in being able to think yourself into the mind and skin of whoever you are pretending to be, until you become that person; which isn't difficult for someone like me, who for most of his formative years imagined himself to be a native of this country. Anyway, most people only see what they expect to see, and if they spot a fellow in a tweed-suit and a deerstalker they automatically think “Englishman”, while one in a
shulwa
and turban, with a flower behind his ear and a
kaisora
hanging from his wrist, must of course be an Afridi. It's as simple as that.’

By now the sun was high and the heat already so fierce that it would have been cruelty to take the tired horses any further; for Wally too had been in the saddle since first light, having camped the previous night near Haripur. He had hired a tonga to bring his bearer and his gear down from Abbottabad, and Gul Baz – who had ridden far and fast in the last few days – had been only too pleased to finish the journey in this vehicle while the Sahib took over the horse.

Unlike Wally, Gul Baz had recognized Ash while he was still a good way off, and had instantly made an excuse to remove Wally's bearer Pir Baksh and the tonga driver to a spot further up the road, from where they would be unable to witness the meeting between the Sahib and his friend, which could not fail to arouse the tonga-wallah's curiosity.

In Gul Baz's opinion too many people already knew that Pelham-Sahib could pass as a frontier tribesman. The story of the pursuit of Dilasah Khan had leaked out and been told and re-told with countless additions and embroideries in every bazaar from Peshawar to Rawalpindi, and Gul Baz did not want to hear it revived again. He therefore kept his two companions engaged in talk until Wally called to him by name, when he hurried over to receive his orders and returned saying that the Sahib had met with an acquaintance – an Afridi horse-dealer – and that as the day was too hot for riding he would stay and talk with the man and take the road later. Meanwhile he desired that the servants would go on ahead in the tonga to Attock dâk-bungalow, where they would engage a room and order a meal for him and wait until he arrived: they need not hurry, as he himself did not intend to set out until late in the afternoon.

‘Which means that they'll probably spend the next few hours resting at Hasan Abdal, and arrive in Attock only just ahead of us,’ said Wally, watching the tonga rattle past and disappear round a bend in the road, before turning back to resume his interrupted conversation with the pseudo-horse-dealer.

They had not seen each other for almost two years, but in spite of all that had happened during that time it was as though they had parted only yesterday and were continuing a conversation that had been temporarily interrupted. The rapport between them remained unchanged and they might almost have been back in their shared quarter in 'Pindi, talking over the day's work; for Ash had refused to launch into any explanations until he had first heard all Wally's news, partly because he wanted to establish the old footing before he told his own, but largely because he knew that once it was told, neither of them were likely to talk of anything else.

So Wally had talked, and Ash had listened and laughed as he was brought up to date on a dozen matters, regimental, social and general. He learned that the Guides were in ‘tremendous shape’, the Commandant and the other officers the ‘best of fellows’, and Wigram Battye (recently promoted to Captain) in particular an ‘absolute corker’. In fact the words ‘Wigram says’ appeared with such frequency that Ash was conscious of a fleeting twinge of jealousy, and a regret for the old days when he himself possessed the major share of Wally's admiration – together with the tallest pedestal in his private pantheon. But those days were gone, and Wally had acquired other gods and made other friends; which was not surprising in someone so eminently likeable.

He was talking now with enormous enthusiasm of the Deputy Commis-ssioner of Peshawar – that same Major Cavagnari who had instigated and planned the operation against the Utman Khel tribesmen in which Zarin had been wounded, and a later one against Sharkot where Wally had experienced his first taste of active service. It was immediately clear that the personality and talents of this oddly named man had made a deep impression on the impressionable Wally.

‘Faith, it's the jewel of a fellow he is, Ash. A real out-and-outer. His father was a French count who was an aide-de-camp or a military attaché or something of the sort to one of Bonaparte's brothers, and he speaks Pushtu like a native and knows more about the tribes than anyone else on the Frontier. And would you believe it, he's actually a kinsman of mine? We're both related to the Lawrences, because Lord John's wife is my mother's sister-in-law, and mother was a Blacker, and one of the Blackers had a daughter who married a Frenchman – an officer in the Cuirassiers – and their daughter married Major Cavagnari's father. Which makes us vaguely related.’

‘ “Vaguely” sounds right,’ murmured Ash satirically. ‘Holy Saint Patrick, what a mixture!’

‘Be damned to you for a benighted Sassenach,’ retorted Wally, unruffled; and went on to describe the many excellences of his latest hero while Ash lay back and listened, watching the speaker's face and thanking heaven that Wally at least had not changed – except in one respect: the tale of his doings during the past two years did not include the mention of a single girl's name.

The Guides and matters military obviously filled his thoughts to the exclusion of all else, and the gay, careless and largely one-sided love affairs of the 'Pindi days that had inspired so much bad verse were apparently a thing of the past. If Wally wrote poems now, thought Ash, they would not be addressed to some damsel's blue eyes, but would probably be concerned with such abstract subjects as Patriotism or Immortality. And the next time he fell in love it would be for ever: he would marry the girl and settle down and raise a family.

But that would not be for a long while yet. Because it was plain that at present he was in love with the Guides and with the romance of Empire – the warring tribesmen and the wild Khyber hills, the swift night marches and the sudden dawn attack on some fortified stronghold across the Border, and the discipline and comradeship of life in a Corps that had never known what it was like to live on a peace-time footing, but had always been ready to march at a moment's notice should trouble flare up on that perennially inflammable Frontier.

Wally did not ask what Ash had been doing with himself during his term of attachment to Roper's Horse; the routine activities of a regiment stationed in some peaceful spot such as Ahmadabad being of little interest to either of them; and as Ash had written reasonably often (and most of his letters had contained some reference to the dullness of army life in the peaceful peninsula) Wally concentrated on the more enlivening topic of the Frontier in general and the Guides in particular. Only when that subject had been covered fairly exhaustively did he demand to know why Ash was masquerading in this outfit, and what had possessed him to waste a valuable leave sweating up the Indus on a
dundhi
instead of going on trek as they had planned, or even coming fishing in the Kangan Valley?

‘I asked Gul Baz what you'd been up to,’ said Wally, ‘but all he would say was that “doubtless the Sahib had good reasons for his actions and would explain them to me himself”. Well, it's waiting for an explanation I am, ye spalpeen, and if you're wishful to be forgiven, it had better be a good one.’

It's a long story,’ Ash warned him.

‘We've got all day,’ returned Wally comfortably, and, rolling his coat into a ball to make a pillow, he lay down in the shade and prepared to listen. ‘Carry on, Sergeant-Major. You have our ear.’

The story as told to Wally had taken rather longer to tell than the one Zarin had heard on the previous day, for Zarin had known Kairi-Bai and so did not need to be told anything of her background or people, or her childish attachment to the boy, Ashok. But when Ash had first told Wally of his youth in Gulkote he had not thought to mention Kairi-Bai, and later he had purposely concealed the fact that the State of Karidkote, whose princesses he had been charged with escorting to Bhithor, was the same place under a different name. So there was more that had to be told now; and after the first two minutes Wally was no longer lying lazily on his back, but sitting bolt upright, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.