Hart of Empire (5 page)

'And did you ever regret your decision?'

'No,
huzoor
. Those thirteen years in the corps were the best of my life. I didn't want to leave. I was forced to after injuring my shoulder in a bad fall. It was my troop commander who found me this job.'

'Do you like working here?'

Ilderim frowned. 'It pays for my bed and board, and the occasional prostitute.'

'But it doesn't compare with soldiering.'

'No.'

'Well,' said George, flashing his broadest smile, 'I might have the solution. How would you like to work for me? My name's James Harper. I'm employed by the Anglo-Indian Trading Company and in two days I leave for Kabul to find new business. But as it's my first time in the country I need a bodyguard-cum-guide-cum-language tutor. Your background and military training suggests you would be just the man.'

Ilderim raised his eyebrows. 'You say you're a businessman,
huzoor
? You look more like an officer to me.'

'Are you calling me a liar?'

'I know a soldier when I see one.'

George's jaw dropped. He could not believe how easily Ilderim had seen through his cover story, but knew it would be counterproductive to lose his temper. 'I
was
a soldier, but I'm not any longer. Are you satisfied?'

'It means nothing to me,
huzoor
, but I will say this. Soldier or no, your grasp of Pashto is shakier than a Hindu's rifle aim. I heard you practising earlier. Not good.'

'Bloody cheek!' said George, laughing. 'Though I won't deny I've much to learn, which is where you come in. Clearly you think highly of yourself so I'll pay you double what you're earning here, and a bonus of a hundred rupees when we return to Karachi. What do you say? It must be better than opening doors for fat businessmen and their ugly, uptight wives.'

Ilderim grinned wolfishly. 'They're not all ugly,
huzoor
, or so uptight they won't ask for Ilderim to deliver a glass of warm milk to their room. But what you say is true - it's no job for a warrior. So I'll eat your salt if you treble my pitiful wage and offer a bonus of two hundred rupees.'

'Is there no limit to your effrontery?' asked George. 'Two and a half times and one hundred and fifty rupees. Take it or leave it.'

'I will take it.'

'Then let us shake on it,' said George, and regretted this excess of bonhomie as Ilderim's huge fist closed painfully over his.

Two days later, after a hearty breakfast of lamb chops and curried fowl, George was striding across the lobby to the main staircase when he was hailed by the clerk at the desk. 'Excuse me, Harper Sahib, a letter has arrived for you from South Africa.'

George's heart gave a little skip. Perhaps it was from Fanny Colenso, the daughter of the Bishop of Natal, with whom he had fallen in love the previous year, only for her to tell him that she did not reciprocate his feelings. Instead she would devote her life to clearing the name of her lover Colonel Durnford, killed at Isandlwana and a convenient scapegoat for the defeat. But the childlike handwriting on the cream envelope told him it was from Lucy Hawkins, the former housemaid he had been trying to protect when he had killed Henry Thompson in Plymouth. He had written to both women before his departure with the barest outline of his mission and his alias, saying that the Metropole would forward any mail. How typical, he thought, that Lucy was the first to respond. She had done well for herself since their first parting at Cape Town in March 1878, and was now running a successful saloon in the diamond town of Kimberley. She loved him still - and had said as much as he lay in hospital in Pietermaritzburg, recovering from the wound he had received at Rorke's Drift. He had told her he was in love with Fanny Colenso.

Did he still feel the same? He suspected as much from his initial disappointment that the letter was not from Fanny; yet he could not deny the depth of his feelings for Lucy, whose generous gift of a diamond had helped to pay off his mother's previous debts. They had been through much together and there was no question that he found Lucy attractive. She was a natural beauty, with her delicate oval face, green eyes and curly chestnut hair. What self-respecting man would not desire her? She also had spirit and determination - traits that George prized above all others - and, despite her lowly birth, a natural intelligence that would take her far in the world. It already had. He admired her hugely, he concluded, but that wasn't the same as love. Or was it?

Back in his room he read her letter:

The Lucky Strike

Long Street

Kimberley

Cape Colony

Dearest George

I can hardly write I'm shaking so much. This morning I received a letter from that monster Colonel Harris, threatening to expose us both as murderers unless I return to England and re-enter his service, in line with the terms of the loan he agreed with my father. I don't know what to do. I daren't mention this to my protector, Mr Barnato, for fear he'll turn me out. I'm terrified Harris will pay me a visit. Please advise me.

Your loving friend

Lucy

Anger flared in George's breast. Poor Lucy, he thought, hounded by that brute. He knew, though, that Harris was bluffing and said as much in his reply, counselling Lucy to sit tight and destroy any subsequent letters. Harris had no evidence against them, he added, and would find it impossible to refute the alibi that George's former lover, Mrs Bradbury, had given them to atone for a previous wrong. As for Harris paying her a visit, it was impossible for him to do so while the Zulu war was still being fought and likely to continue for some time. Meanwhile George promised to return to South Africa as soon as he could to reassure her in person. He signed off 'with much love' and, for the first time, meant it.

Later that morning, as George was handing in the letter for posting and paying his bill at the front desk, he caught sight of a tall, fair-haired man on the far side of the lobby he was sure he recognised from the voyage. The man was smartly dressed in a cream linen suit and apparently reading a newspaper - but George was convinced he was being watched because every time he glanced in that direction the man looked back to his paper. He was about to go over and ask him his business when the hotel manager, an unctuous European called Beresford, interrupted his train of thought: 'I trust you have had a pleasant stay, Mr Harper, and that everything was to your satisfaction?'

'What's that?' said George. 'Um . . . yes, very satisfactory, though I can't say I've enjoyed being woken every morning by the Muhammadans' call to prayers.'

'No, sir, but there's little we can do about that. If the Mutiny taught us anything it's that you tamper with the natives' religion at your peril.'

'I'm sure. I wasn't suggesting . . .' George trailed off as he remembered the man observing him. He looked over again but he had gone.

Chapter 4

Kotri railway station, Sind, midsummer 1879

The whistle sounded twice as the train approached the small town of Kotri, an oasis of whitewashed buildings fringed with orange, lime and mango trees on the right bank of the Indus. George could feel only relief that the tedious ten-hour journey was over and that he no longer had to stare at the drab, featureless desert that covered much of southern Sind.

The small station was packed with passengers, and as the train juddered to a halt with a squeal of its brakes and a great whoosh of steam, they surged forward, some clambering onto the roof, others passing children and sacks of their possessions through open windows, one or two even using the doors.

George stepped down from the cool haven of his first-class carriage into this seething mass of humanity, keeping a tight hold on his kit-bag as turbaned traders offered their wares from behind carts heaped with colourful spices, and railway officials, in their blue tunics and caps, tried in vain to keep order. He had been warned about the chaos of an Indian railway station but nothing, he now realized, could have prepared him for such a sensory overload. A voice hailed him. '
Huzoor!
Wait there!'

It was Ilderim, towering head and shoulders above the other passengers, but still a good fifty yards further down the platform, having just got out of third class. As he moved towards George the crowd seemed to part, intimidated as much by his size as by the steel-rimmed wooden club, or
lathi
, he clutched in his right hand.

On reaching George he rattled off instructions to a waiting gaggle of porters: two were to carry their bags while a third collected their horses from the livestock carriage and met them at the ghat, or landing place. 'This way,
huzoor
,' he said to George. 'We'll take a gharry to the river. It's not far.'

From the back of the pony-drawn carriage George got his first view of the famed Indus, the two-thousand-mile river that flowed from the Tibetan plateau to the Arabian Gulf, whose Greek name had been given to the entire sub-continent. Its span at Kotri was more than half a mile, yet it was close to bursting its banks, thanks to the recent onset of the monsoon and the melting of the summer snows. The ghat below teemed with native craft, some with thatched roofs, and all crammed with merchandise bound for or just arrived from the booming port of Karachi. The exception was a small steamer with a rear paddle-wheel, and a barge attached to either side, that was tied to a rough wooden jetty.

'Is that
it
?' asked George, having imagined something much grander.

'Yes,
huzoor
. A fine vessel, no?'

George was about to answer in the negative when his attention was drawn to a tall man boarding the steamer by a rickety gangplank. He was wearing a light-coloured suit and George could have sworn he was the man from the hotel. 'Ilderim, have you seen that man before?' he asked, pointing at the steamer.

'Which man,
huzoor
?'

'The European who just boarded.'

'There are many Europeans on deck. Which one?'

'The one in the cream suit. I'm sure he was watching me at the hotel.'

'I have no memory of him,
huzoor
.'

'Well, perhaps you weren't on duty - or he didn't leave you a tip. But, believe me, he was there.'

'And you'd like me to keep an eye on him,
huzoor
?'

'Yes, please, if it's not too much trouble.'

Ilderim frowned at his employer's attempt at a joke. 'Consider it done.'

But Ilderim had little opportunity to make good his promise because, for the first week of the voyage up the Indus, the mysterious European spent most of his time in his cabin, even taking his meals there rather than in the communal saloon. Only occasionally did he venture on deck, and only at night when the stifling heat made even the first-class cabins all but unbearable. Ilderim had spotted him once or twice from the shore where he and George, after one torturous night on board, had taken to sleeping rough, wrapped in thin mosquito nets to discourage the swarms of insects. It was as well for them that the steamer only travelled by day to minimize the chances of grounding on the many sandbanks that lay just below the river's fast-flowing surface, and at night was usually anchored alongside a wood station so that fuel for the hungry boilers could be replenished. One by one the other passengers had followed their lead until only the stranger remained on board at night, which made George more suspicious still. When he quizzed the skipper, a light-skinned Anglo-Indian called Skinner, he received a curt reply: 'Where he sleeps at night is his business.'

As the days passed George began to think less of the stranger and more about his mission. His grasp of Pashto was increasing by the day and even Ilderim - who took little pleasure from his duties as language tutor, or
munshi
, which he seemed to regard as beneath him - was forced to concede that he was a fast learner. George knew that he would have to be fluent if he was to have any chance of getting his hands on the cloak, and redoubled his efforts, spending many hours studying in his cabin.