Shadow of the Moon (60 page)

He let the bird slip to the grass, and Winter caught at his arm as though she would have snatched it from him. And then quite suddenly she dropped her head against him and wept.

Alex stood very still, holding her: feeling the shuddering of the slim warm body under his hands. Her hair smelt faintly of lavender as it had on the walls of Delhi, and he held her quite gently because he wanted so much to hold her hard against him … because he wanted so much to thrust her away from him! The sound of her helpless, broken sobbing tore at his heart, and his face above her bent head was twisted with pain and scored with harsh lines that had not been there before. ‘Oh God,' thought Alex, ‘not this! Not now. I can't stand it.' The sun was hot on his shoulders and the warm silence was drowsy with the hum of bees among the
kikar
blossoms and sweet with the scent of lavender, and the crackle of shots seemed to come from very far off as though he were hearing them from the other end of a long tunnel. At last the choking, shuddering sobs quietened and ceased, and he put her gently away from him.

She made no attempt to turn away, but stood facing him, her long lashes sticking wetly together and her face streaked with tears, searching in the pocket of her habit for a handkerchief. It was a flimsy enough affair, and stained too with the blood that had run down the great wing. Alex produced his own and handed it over. His nostrils were pinched and there was a white shade about his mouth, but he spoke quite pleasantly: ‘Try this one,' he advised. ‘It's larger and a good deal cleaner.'

He watched her with a wrenching tenderness as she dried her eyes and blew her small nose with a complete lack of self-consciousness, and wondered
how many women would have been sufficiently oblivious of their own looks as to face his direct gaze instead of turning away to repair the ravages of tear-stains and dishevelled hair.

Winter folded his handkerchief into a careful square and drew a deep breath. ‘I'm sorry,' she apologized, her voice under control once more. ‘I don't know why I should have behaved so stupidly.'

She considered the matter gravely, looking down at the dead bird that lay beside them on the grass, its strong wings and soft breast dabbled with bright blood, and said slowly: ‘I think it was because it was such a lovely day, and when the shooting began that seemed to make it worse … because it had been so beautiful before, and so peaceful. I couldn't bear it being spoilt. And then the goose came down on top of me, and it was hurt. Conway wounded it - he wanted to kill it, and—'

‘I wounded it,' said Alex.

‘You?' she looked up at him, startled, frowning a little.

‘Yes, I saw it fall and I was coming to get it.'

‘Oh.' She was silent for a moment or two, and Alex watching her, said gently: ‘Does that make a difference?'

Her gaze came back to him and she said thoughtfully: ‘Yes. But I don't know why it should.'

‘Better? - or worse?'

She did not answer him and Alex lifted a hand that was not quite steady and brushed his fingers lightly across her forehead: ‘Don't frown, dear. It can't matter as much as all that. Give me that handkerchief.'

She held it out to him and he took it and pushed through the grass and reeds to the water's edge, and returning with it wet and dripping, washed the worst of the stains from her habit, remarking that it would dry very quickly in the sun: ‘And now come and try a shot at a duck yourself. You've never tried to fire a sporting-gun.'

Winter shuddered and jerked back, her face blank with hurt, and Alex met the look squarely. ‘You think that's callous and brutal of me, don't you? - after what has just happened. But it's sense, you know. Like getting back into the saddle after you have been badly thrown, when you're learning to ride. Didn't they ever make you do that? Besides, you'll find that hitting a moving target isn't as easy as you think. It takes a lot of skill, and that makes a difference too.'

Winter said, shuddering: ‘I don't want to kill anything -
anything
! And if I hit a bird I might only wound it, and not kill it outright. Like - like that goose.'

Alex said with deliberate harshness: ‘What do you suppose happens to any wild creature when it gets old? Nine times out of ten it dies a slow and very painful death. And it's the same with most of the animals in this country. I passed a buffalo yesterday that had fallen into a nullah and broken two of its legs. The crows had already picked out its eyes and the pariah dogs were
tearing at it. It was near the village track and twenty people an hour passed it, but though it was still alive not one of them would have dreamt of killing it.'

Winter swallowed convulsively. ‘Did you kill it?'

‘I did. And got lectured by the local Brahmin for doing so. He's a friend of mine, but bigoted. Shooting duck isn't really slaughter, whatever you may think. For one thing, it's food, and none of it will be wasted. And it takes skill. You may not like the idea of trying it yourself, but it will take the bad taste out of your mouth to see it in a different light. An antidote to sentimentality.'

His voice was suddenly mocking and devoid of pity or sympathy, and its hardness had a tonic effect upon Winter. She had needed that hardness. She came reluctantly but she came. Alex handed her a shotgun and gave a few brief directions.

‘You won't find it the same as firing at a stationary object. Swing with your mark and allow for its speed. Those are pintail coming in from your left. Now—!' Winter fired, and the three birds that had been flying towards her jinked and rose and were gone. ‘Not far enough ahead. Try again.'

He made her fire again and again, and after the first three or four attempts the panic and sick distaste that had begun to rise again to her throat died down, and she thought only of the science and theory of the shot, concentrating tensely on the flashing marks, so that when, fifteen minutes later, Alex took the gun from her and demonstrated, bringing down two birds within a yard of each other, interest had replaced horror.

‘Well?' inquired Alex looking down at her where she sat among the freckled shadows. ‘Feeling better about it now?'

Winter nodded. ‘Yes. But I still don't want to shoot anything myself.'

‘There's no reason why you should. But a sense of proportion is a useful thing to cultivate.' He laid the shotgun away and sat down on the warm grass beside her. ‘I've suffered from the same kind of mental indigestion myself. I killed something the other day - not for food nor even for the sport of trying out my skill on a difficult target, but for revenge and because I was in a damnably bad temper. I wasn't sorry for it, but it seemed pointless, and for some reason or other I lost a lot of sleep over it - at least ten minutes!'

‘A man?' asked Winter with a catch in her voice.

Alex gave a short laugh. ‘No. That is where the inconsistency comes in. I killed a man not so long ago for precisely the same reasons; but it did not seem in the least pointless, and neither did I lose any sleep over it. Don't let yourself get hurt over something like this' - he jerked his chin in the general direction of the jheel. ‘Put it in its proper place. I dislike these large scale
battues
myself. I prefer to do my shooting on my own or with one or two people at most, instead of indulging in this type of mass slaughter.'

‘Then why did you come? - if you knew what it would be like?'

‘Curiosity. I wanted to see if I could find out why Kishan Prasad and his friends had arranged this elaborate shoot.'

‘And have you found out?'

‘Yes.'

Alex did not add anything to the affirmative, but looked out across the stretch of sunlit water that lay beyond a narrow belt of grass and reeds that fringed the bund, his eyes narrowed against the sun-glare. There were fewer birds moving now, for many had risen far out of range and were making for the quieter reaches of the river or the jheels within the borders of Oudh, and those that remained were too wild to offer a reasonable mark. The firing had died down to no more than an occasional shot, and a warm, sleepy silence returned to the morning, broken only by the soft monotonous cooing of the imperturbable doves.

Winter pulled a grass-stem and bit it thoughtfully, watching Alex's brown profile against the sharp criss-cross lines of sunlight that fell between the branches of the
kikar
trees and the tall spears of dry grass. His silence contained no quality of withdrawal, and presently she said: ‘Why do you think that they gave this duck shoot?'

‘Hmm?' said Alex absently. Winter repeated the question.

‘It isn't a duck shoot,' said Alex, his eyes still on the glittering expanse of water. ‘That was merely a means to an end - and also, possibly, a rehearsal.'

‘A rehearsal? I don't understand. What are they rehearsing for?'

‘They aren't. We are very kindly doing it for them.'

He stretched out at full length and turned, lying on the warm ground and facing her. ‘It was quite simple really. Lunjore lies across one of the main roadways into Oudh, and that road crosses an iron bridge ten miles to the south. If there should be a rising in the Punjab, or Delhi way, we could hold that bridge; or if the worst came to the worst, blow it up and not only isolate ourselves from rebel troops, but prevent them from using this route into Oudh, which is at the moment a hot-bed of disaffection. There is an arsenal at Suthragunj. A very large one which is, in my opinion, inadequately protected against the possibility of a large-scale rising. Some of our local talukdars have not missed that point, and under cover of a lavish and well-organized entertainment for the garrisons and officials of both districts they have constructed a very adequate road that avoids the bridge and brings Suthragunj within roughly twenty miles of us. We in Lunjore have very kindly tested it for them, both from the point of surface and timing, by driving a variety of carriages along it, while the officers from Suthragunj have done the same from the opposite direction. And where a carriage can go, guns and ammunition-wagons can follow.'

Alex rolled over on his back with his hands linked beneath his head and watched an industrious procession of red ants hurrying along the underside of a branch above him, until presently Winter said a little uncertainly: ‘Are you - do you really think that there is going to be trouble?'

She had half-expected that he would not reply, because Alex, when he chose to answer a question, did not lie, and she knew that the majority of men, when faced with such a query from a woman, would resort to denial
or some soothing generality; but Alex said bluntly: ‘Not trouble. A rising. Yes, I do. I've thought so for about five years. We've been asking for it. Napier warned us that there would be one sooner or later if certain reforms were not instituted, but no one paid any attention to him. We cherish a theory that to listen to warnings, or act upon them, is a sign of panic and shows loss of confidence, and we would rather lose our lives any day than be accused of either. It is an exasperating trait. The kind that curls in on itself and ends by eating its own tail, because precautions that are not taken in time of peace cannot be taken when a crisis is imminent, for the simple reason that to take them then creates panic and loss of confidence at a time when one can afford to do neither.'

‘What will happen?' asked Winter.

Alex was silent for a moment or two, and when he spoke his voice held a savage bitterness that startled her:

‘We shall see the ruin, in one day or in twenty days, of what might have been the finest army in the world. And though we shall build it up again, it will never be quite the same. We shall turn half that army against its fellows, and play off Sikh against Mussulman and Mussulman against Hindu, and Gurkhas against both. There will be atrocities on both sides - all sides. The East drops straight into barbarism when it is frightened or enraged, and we shall follow its example and call it revenge - as I myself have done! There will be murders and massacres, because these people have no conception of the ultimate strength that we can bring out of Europe against them, and they will imagine that they can stamp us out—' Once again Alex was talking more to himself than to Winter - talking angrily and despairingly:

‘Even men like Kishan Prasad have no idea what they are challenging. Kishan Prasad watched the shambles at Sebastopol when the Russians threw us back and we failed to take the Redan. He saw the mess and the muddle and the raging incompetence, and missed the fact that, despite it, sheer physical courage and guts and endurance triumphed over it. He and men like him do not realize that even if they murder every white man, woman and child in the whole of India, England, and not ‘John Company', will go on sending out troops until she has smashed all opposition. And the reprisals that will follow will leave a legacy of hatred that will be handed down to future generations, from father to son and from mother to daughter. We shall forget - but they will not!'

A breath of breeze whispered across the jheel, ruffling the water and rustling through the reeds and the harsh grasses, and bringing with it a sharp reek of black powder to mingle with the faint scent of the yellow, mimosa-like blossoms of the
kikar
trees and the dusty incense of the dried grass. There was another burst of firing from away to the left and the voice of Captain Garrowby arose once more upon the quiet air: ‘
Mark
!'

A dozen teal, bunched together, swished overhead almost brushing the tree-tops with their wings, and Alex came reluctantly to his feet. ‘Energetic
beggar—' He appeared to refer to Captain Garrowby. ‘Perhaps I had better do something towards upholding the honour of the visiting team.' He glanced down at Winter and said: ‘Your habit seems to have dried. Hadn't you better be getting back?'

Winter ignored the remark. ‘Is that why you wanted me to go to the hills? - and taught me to shoot?' she inquired, leaping womanlike from the general to the personal.