Shadow of the Moon (80 page)

‘By the jungle,' said Alex briefly.

‘On foot then?'

Alex nodded. ‘All but a few of those who were in the Residency
Koti
were slain. I came away across the nullah with three memsahibs whom I left half a
koss
from here. They follow, but slowly. I have marked the way. Let us go.'

They descended the swaying ladder and shouldering their burdens went out into the hot shadows of the forest. The river ran past less than two hundred yards from the Hirren Minar, but the banks were steep and overhung by the dense jungle so that none passed that way, and the road and the bridge of boats lay away to the right, a scant mile from the hidden ruin. No paths led there, but Alex and Niaz knew this part of the jungle well, and they had their own tracks through the apparently trackless thickets and the man-high grass, the trees and the cane-brakes.

They moved with more and more caution as they neared the road, and presently the jungle thinned out a little and they heard the gurgle of the river running between the boats, and the creak and strain of the bridge.

‘Wait here,' whispered Niaz. ‘I will go forward and see if the road be clear.' He laid down the load he carried and wriggled away like a lizard through the thick scrub.

Alex sat down with his back to a tree-trunk and tried not to think of a dozen things that he had seen that morning. Things that made his stomach heave and cramp with rage, and a red haze swim in his brain so that some primitive, unreasoning, tribal instinct had made him, for one dreadful
instant, want to get his hands round Niaz's throat at the Hirren Minar - because of the things that men of Niaz's race had done that day. He had seen, too, for a fractional moment, a like antagonism in Niaz's face, and known that the drag of race and blood had pulled at him also. It had been there for less than a breath, but he had recognized it for what it was.

‘But we are not only our people - we are ourselves,' thought Alex, ‘
ourselves
! No we are not - we are chained together by environment and customs and blood … “
I arm their hands and furnish the pretence
…”' He found that he was unable to think clearly and wished that he need never think again.

The undergrowth rustled and gave up Niaz who said cheerfully and without troubling to lower his voice: ‘I have locked the toll-keeper and the police guard in the toll-house and have taken away their muskets. Remains now those on the far side.'

Alex said: ‘Had they heard aught?'

‘Nay; for two slept, and that they would not have done had the news been told.' He lifted his discarded burden and said: ‘Why do we not cut the boats loose? That would suffice.'

‘For a time only, for the boats would strand and they would use them again. And I would close this road.'

They came out cautiously into the thinner belt of jungle by the bridge-head where the grass was trampled down and the ashes of old fires showed where travellers had stopped for the night. The road lay long and empty under the dancing waves of heat, and the small stone-built toll-house was silent. There was no sound to be heard except the gurgling of water between the close-lashed boats.

Alex glanced at the toll-house under frowning brows and Niaz said sweetly: ‘They will not cry out. I have bound them.'

‘And the others in the huts behind?'

‘They sleep. And all the muskets were in the toll-house. They will not move for some hours yet. Why should they? There was no outcry.'

They walked down the slope of the road onto the bridge, into the full blaze of the blinding noonday and the sun-dazzled water, the creaking planks hot under their feet. The heat shimmered off the wood in quivering waves that smelt of tar, and the glittering river that slid beneath them did not cool it. The banks narrowed and the river ran deep from a hundred yards above the bridge to a mile below, for the bridge spanned it at its narrowest point. But upstream the sand bars and the shallows widened until they were lost in the heat haze. There were row upon row of mud-turtles basking in the glare at the edge of the sand bars on the far side of the river, but except for the turtles there seemed to be nothing else alive within a dozen miles, and the hollow sound of their footsteps on the planks of the bridge was loud in the hot silence.

A drowsy toll-keeper heard it and came reluctantly to the door of the mud hut that served as a toll-house on the Oudh bank of the river. Seeing a sahib
he salaamed and hurriedly straightened his turban. Alex returned the salute and inquired as to the prospects of
shikar
in the jungles by the bridge. He had, he said, glancing down at the stain that Mrs Holly's blood had left on the sleeve of his coat, shot a leopard that morning not a mile up the road. While he talked Niaz moved between them and the hut.

Five minutes later the horrified toll-keeper and the two men in the hut who constituted the bridge guard were sitting gagged and bound in the inner room, and Niaz was making fast the door. He carried the two antiquated muskets out and flung them into the water as he and Alex ran back along the causeway and onto the bridge.

They worked swiftly and methodically in the boiling sun, laying the charges, tamping and connecting fuses, never certain that the intense heat of the hot wood and the burning metal would not detonate the explosive of itself. The sweat poured off them and the dazzling glare off the river scorched their faces and hurt their eyeballs.

‘Listen!' said Niaz suddenly. ‘There are horses on the road.'

Alex leapt to his feet and stood for a moment listening intently; and heard the faint faraway sound that Niaz had heard. He snatched up the rifle and thrust it at Niaz. ‘Four more and we have done. Hold them off for a little—'

Niaz turned and raced for the bridge-head and Alex bent to the charges again, working with feverish speed. The sound of horses' hooves was clearer now and presently he heard the crack of a rifle-shot, but he did not lift his head or look round. He must have more time - only a little more time. The noise of the river was astonishingly loud under his feet, and the heat of the iron bands that reinforced the planking burnt his hands as though it were red-hot. Once again he seemed to hear Sir Henry's voice speaking from the shadows of the verandah in the Lucknow Residency - ‘…
it is time we need - time most of all
—'

‘Only five minutes!' prayed Alex, ‘it isn't much to ask - only five minutes—!'

He heard a fusillade of shots and a bullet sang past his head like a hornet, but still he did not look round.

Niaz reached the toll-house, and leaping the step of the shallow verandah, unbarred the door and ran to the small window that looked down the long Lunjore road, ignoring the groans of the three bound and gagged men who watched him from the floor with starting eyes.

There were perhaps twelve or fifteen riders, sepoys from Lunjore, advancing at a leisurely trot for the bridge; either men bringing the news of the rising to Oudh, or an advance party sent to secure the bridge for the main body of the mutineers who would cross later that day to swell the ranks of the malcontents in the newly annexed province.

Niaz waited until they were within range, and fired; aiming deliberately for the leading horse in order to create the maximum confusion. He saw the
horse rear and fall, and the dust rose in a choking cloud as the men drew rein and came to a sudden stop. He re-loaded swiftly and fired into the dusty smother; heard a yell and the scream of a wounded horse and saw the riders scatter to either side of the road.

Knowing that they were unlikely to come any further for several minutes, he fetched the muskets belonging to the police guard that he had piled against the wall out of their reach. With several muskets and Alex's rifle, he should be able to save time on loading. He looked at the priming of one and noted with irritation that its owner had permitted the weapon to reach an un-soldierly state of dirt. ‘
Police
!' said Niaz, and spat scornfully to show his disgust.

He re-loaded the rifle again and watched with interest, reserving his fire, while the skirmishers at the road's edge conferred together. Presently one of them cupped his hands about his mouth and, evidently under the impression that it was the bridge guard and the toll-keeper who were firing upon them, bellowed that they were friends and urged the guard to join them - the
feringhis
being dead and all Lunjore in the hands of its rightful owners.

The man moved incautiously out into the road and Niaz shot him and watched his riderless horse bolt down the road and gallop wildly past the toll-house. There was a crash and a splash as the frenzied animal went wide of the bridge and plunged headlong into the deep water, and Niaz heard shrill feminine screams from the three small huts twenty yards behind the toll-house where the toll-keeper's family lived. A fusillade of shots spattered up the dust and chipped flakes of stone from the walls, and he saw the remaining horsemen hurriedly dismount and disappear into the jungle.

‘Now they will come up under cover on either side of the road,' thought Niaz, and remembered with dread that Alex, working alone on the empty bridge, would provide an admirable target. He fired again at random into the jungle just ahead of where the men had entered it, discharging each of the muskets in turn and re-loading with feverish haste.

A woman ran out across the sun-scorched ground opposite the window, and a musket-ball fired from the jungle on the far side of the road whipped past her and smacked against the corner of the toll-house, sending a shower of chips flying. She shrieked and ran back again and Niaz grinned and fired in the direction from which the shot had come. Three more riderless horses galloped past with trailing reins and he heard their hooves thunder on the bridge and hoped that they had not ridden Alex into the water.

There was a back door to the toll-house and a woman beat upon it and screeched to her husband to come out and take refuge in the jungle for they were being attacked by
dacoits
, but the remainder of the police guard had presumably either run away or joined the sepoys. There were men now in the jungle opposite, and a bullet entered the open door and ricochetted round the small room.

Niaz turned from the narrow, iron-barred window in the end wall, and
running to the door fired into the thick scrub on the opposite side of the road. As he did so something struck his chest and he fell sideways, the rifle jerking from his hand to slide along the floor and come to rest against the far wall.

After a moment he came dizzily to his knees and crawled towards the rifle, but he could not reach it. He groped instead for his revolver and dragging it painfully from its holster, raised himself a little and fired at a face that peered through the high grass at the road's edge, and saw a man lurch forward and fall on his face in the dust. And then he heard the sound of running feet, a crash of shots, and Alex had leapt the stone step of the verandah, stumbled over him and turning, had fired his revolver at a man on horseback who rode shouting for the bridge.

The shouting voice stopped as though cut off with a knife and there was the sound of a fall, a clatter of hooves and a brief moment of silence. And then the crashing blast of an explosion; and another and another, joining together in a single shuddering roar of sound, and the glaring day was dark with flying splinters of wood and choked with the scent of cordite and the reek of black powder. Then silence slammed down like an iron shutter and the river gurgled no longer, but ran quiet and unimpeded from bank to bank.

Alex spoke breathlessly into that silence: ‘Quickly, before they recover - out by the back!' He had barred the door behind him and was across the room, pulling at the heavy bolts that closed the back door. He drew it open a crack and said: ‘There is no one there - quick!'

‘I cannot,' said Niaz.

Alex whipped round, seeing for the first time that Niaz had not been merely kneeling to fire, but was wounded, and he crossed the floor in a single bound. He knelt swiftly and thrust an arm under him, lifting him: ‘Hold about my neck and I can carry thee.'

‘No,' said Niaz urgently. ‘This is the end for me. Go - and go swiftly while there is yet time -
mera kham h$oBgya
(my work is finished).'

Alex looked down at the greying face against his arm and the bright, swiftly spreading stain that soaked the dusty tunic, and pulling back the reddened cloth he saw that there was nothing that he or anyone could do, and a desperation and a wrenching rage beyond anything he had felt that day tore at him with the savagery of a taloned paw. He heard dimly and as though through a roaring fog, the crack of rifle-fire, but he did not move.

Niaz said: ‘Thou hast seen how it is with me … go now. I can still … fire a gun … it will hold them … for a little. Get to the jungle … there be the memsahibs to be … thought of—'

Winter - Lottie - Lou Cottar … If it had not been for them he, Alex, would have reached the river an hour or more ago. This would never have happened. How long would they live if he died? He had left Mrs Holly to die alone and slowly. He had had to - because of those three women. And because of the bridge. But the bridge had gone. He had stopped at least one road into Oudh, and perhaps by doing so had bought, at the price of his
friend's life, a little more time. Only a very little more, for there were so many other roads. Winter had courage, and so had Lou Cottar. And there was ammunition and a certain amount of food at the Hirren Minar.

Once again, and for a brief moment, he saw Winter's face quite clearly, against the rough stone walls of the shadowed room; as clearly as he had seen it in Alice Batterslea's garden. But it did not mean anything to him any more. She would have to take her chance. He would not leave Niaz to die alone as he had left Mrs Holly.

Alex drew his arm away very gently, laying Niaz back, and getting to his feet he closed and bolted the back door and dropped the shutters across the two windows, fitting the iron bars that held them into the sockets. He took up the guns one by one and loaded them methodically. There was an earthenware jar of water in the room and he fetched a brass
lotah
, stepping over the bodies of the three bound men who lay in a terrified huddle on the floor at the far end of the room, and filling it, brought it to Niaz.