Supping With Panthers (3 page)

The next day, and the next after that, we toiled up the mountainside. The path grew ever more precipitous and narrow, zig-zagging up an almost sheer wall of rock, while above the abyss burned a pitiless sun. I began to understand why the inhabitants of a place such as Kalikshutra, if indeed they existed at all, should be called demons, for I found it hard to believe that any human dwellings could lie ahead of us. Certainly, my own enthusiasm for mountains began to pall somewhat! But at last, as the second day began to dim into dusk, the path we were taking started to level out and we saw traces of green amongst the rocks ahead As the sun’s dying rays disappeared behind the cliff, we rounded an outcrop of rock and saw ahead of us a vast expanse of trees stretching upwards into purple cloud, while still higher, just visible, gleamed the ghostly white of the mountain peaks. I stood for a moment to admire this splendid view; and then I heard a cry from one of my men who had continued down the path. I began to run myself, of course, and as I did so I heard the buzzing of flies.

I joined my man past a further crag of rock. He was pointing at a statue. Beyond it the jungle began, so that the statue seemed to stand like a sentinel guarding the approach into the undergrowth and trees. My soldier turned back to me, an expression of disgust on his honest face. I hurried up to join him, and as I inspected the idol I saw something slung around its neck -something alive. The stench was frightful. It reminded me of rotting meat and then I realised, as I watched the thing slung around the idol’s neck, that I was staring at the swarming of maggots and flies, countless thousands of them, so that they seemed to form a living skin feeding on whatever it was that lay there underneath. I prodded the thing with my pistol butt; the flies rose in a buzzing cloud of black and there, maggot-ridden, hung a pile of guts. I cut them down and they fell with a soft thud on to the ground. As they did so, I saw to my surprise the gleam of gold. I smeared away the blood, and saw around the idol’s neck an expensive-looking ornament Even I, who have no eye for woman’s things, could see at once that it was of a fair old workmanship. I inspected the necklace more closely; it was formed of a thousand tiny drops of gold, all strung together in a kind of a mesh, and must have been worth a pretty packet in anyone’s book. I reached up to try to remove it. At that very same moment, a shot rang out.

The bullet whistled over my shoulder and pinged into a rock. I looked up and picked out our assailant immediately; he was standing alone on the crest of the ravine. He aimed his rifle a second time, but before he could fire I had the great good fortune to bag him in the leg. The man tumbled down the slope and I thought he might be done for, but not a bit of it, for he picked himself up and, using his rifle as a crutch, began to drag himself across to the road where we stood. All this time he was jabbering away, waving at the statue; I couldn’t make out a word he was saying, of course, but I could guess his meaning well enough. I stood back from the statue, my hands raised to show I had no interest in his idol’s gold. The man stared back at me, and for the first time I got a good look at him. He was old, with tattered pink robes and streaks of the most foul-smelling substance daubed across his face and arms, so that he stank to the very height of heaven. In short, he had
brahmin
written all over him. He looked pale, and his eyes were filling with tears. I glanced down at his leg. It was bleeding pretty bad, and I bent down to try and tend the wound, but as I did so the
brahmin
flinched away from me and started to let rip with his tongue again. This time, I fancied I caught the word ‘Kali’. ‘Kali,’ I repeated and the man bobbed his head.
‘Han, han, Kali!’
he screamed, then burst out into tears.

Well, the conversation was shaping up nicely and I was not a little perplexed as to what I should do next. Suddenly, however, I heard footsteps at my back.

‘Perhaps I can be of assistance?’ a voice said in my ear.

I turned round to see a man standing there, not in uniform but a European all the same. He had a thin, gaunt face, with an aquiline nose and rather the air of a bird of prey. He would not have been more than thirty, I estimated, yet his eyes seemed those of a much older man. I wondered who the devil he could be; and then suddenly – in a flash – it came to me.

‘Doctor Eliot?’ I asked.

The young man nodded. I introduced myself. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly, ‘I was told you might be coming’ He stared down at the priest, who by now was laid out on the ground, clutching his leg and still muttering to himself.

‘What’s he saying?’ I asked.

Eliot didn’t answer me at first. Instead, he knelt down and began to tend to the
brahmin’s
leg.

I repeated my question.

‘He is accusing you of sacrilege,’ said Eliot without looking up.

‘But I didn’t take his gold.’

‘You cut down the guts, though, didn’t you?’

I snorted. ‘Ask him why they do it,’ I ordered brusquely. ‘Ask him why they smear the idol with blood.’

Eliot spoke something to the priest. The old man’s eyes dilated with fear; I saw him point at the statue and then sweep with his arm at the darkness of the jungle; I heard him mutter words I recognised,
‘Vetala-pancha-Vinshati’
– words I had heard from the Babu back in Simla. Then the old man began to scream violently; I bent down beside him, but Eliot already had him in his arms and he brushed me away. ‘Leave the poor man alone,’ he ordered. ‘He’s in great pain. You’ve already shot him, Captain Moorfield – isn’t that enough good work for now?’

Well, I was nettled by this comment, I freely admit, but I took the doctor’s point – that there was nothing I could do – and so I rose to my feet. I had been intrigued, however, by the mention of the Babu’s demons; Eliot must have read my thoughts, for he looked up at me and told me he would find me later on. I nodded again, then turned on my heels. His manner may have been a little short, but Eliot struck me as a sound man in the essentials, the sort of chap I was willing to trust. I went off to supervise the pitching of our tents.

Some time later, with the sentries posted and our camp shipshape, I was sitting alone enjoying a pipe when Eliot joined me. ‘How’s your patient?’ I asked.

Eliot nodded. ‘He’ll pull through,’ he said as, with a sigh, he slumped down beside me where I sat. For a long while he said nothing at all, just stared into the fire. I offered him a pipe; he took it and filled it up himself. After several minutes’ further silence, he stretched out like a cat and turned to me.

‘You should not have tampered with the statue,’ he said at length.

‘Fakir still upset then, is he?’

‘Naturally,’ my companion replied. ‘He holds himself responsible for appeasing the gods. Hence the golden jewellery, you see, Captain, and the goat guts round the neck…’

‘Goat guts?’ I interrupted.

‘Why?’ Eliot’s bright eyes gleamed. ‘What did you think they were?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ I grunted, tapping out my pipe. ‘Just seems odd, I suppose – kicking up that fuss about some animal’s insides.’

‘Not really, Captain,’ Eliot murmured, hooding his eyes again. ‘Because you see, by insulting the goddess you have also insulted her worshippers, the dwellers of Kalikshutra – the very people whose country you are about to invade. The
brahmin
is afraid for his own folk, who live scattered around here amongst the foothills. He says that now there will be nothing to stop them from being attacked.’

‘What, by the fellows higher up the mountainside?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I don’t understand. I’ve left them the gold -surely that’s what really matters? Why should anyone care for goat guts and blood? Why would that ever stop anyone’s attacks?’

Eliot shrugged languidly. “The superstitions here can sometimes seem rather strange.’

‘Yes, so I’ve been told. Demon worship, and all that. What lies behind it, do you think? Anything much?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Eliot. He poked at the fire and watched the sparks fly up into the night. Then he glanced back at me, and as he did so his air of relaxation seemed suddenly gone. I was struck again by the depths that seemed to wait behind his eyes, remarkable in a man so much younger than myself. Two years I have worked here,’ he murmured at length, ‘and there’s one thing, Captain, that I am sure about. The mountain folk are terrified of something – and it isn’t just superstition. In fact, if s what drew me to come here in the first place.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Oh, odd things reported in out-of-the-way journals.’

‘Such as?’

Eliot glanced up at me, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Really, Captain, you wouldn’t be interested. Ifs a rather obscure branch of medical research.’

‘Try me.’

Eliot smiled mockingly. ‘It’s to do with the regulation and structure of the blood.’ My face must have betrayed me, for his smile broadened and he shook his head. ‘To put it simply, Captain, the white blood cells take a long time to die.’

Well, this had me sitting up, and no mistake. I stared at the man in astonishment. ‘What,’ I asked, ‘you don’t mean to say they can prolong a chap’s life?’

‘Not exactly.’ Eliot paused. ‘They may give the illusion of it, perhaps, but only for a while. You see’ – he paused again – ‘they also mutate.’

‘Mutate?’

‘Yes. Like a cancer spreading through the blood. It ends up destroying the nerves and the brain.’

‘Sounds pretty grim. What exactly is the disease, do you think?’

Eliot stared at me; then he shook his head and looked away. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘I have only had a couple of chances to examine it’

‘But wasn’t it to study the sickness that you came here?’

‘Yes, originally. But I soon found out that the natives discouraged interest in anything to do with the disease and, since I am their guest here, I have respected their wishes and not pursued my research. I have had more than enough to do here as it is, establishing my hospital and fighting diseases which are all too well-known.’

‘But even so – you did say you had seen a couple of people with your mystery disease?’

‘Yes. It was shortly after Lady Westcote was abducted – you heard about that, no doubt?’

‘Very briefly. A terrible case.’

‘It appears,’ continued Eliot dispassionately, ‘that intrusions of such a kind, from the outside world, will always disturb the sufferers from the illness, draw them out from their hiding-places to stalk the foothills and jungles round about.’

‘Goodness!’ I exclaimed. ‘You make them sound like wild beasts!’

‘Yes,’ agreed Eliot, ‘but that is very much how the natives here regard them – as the deadliest of foes. And from my own observation of the two cases that I mentioned I think they are right to be so afraid, for the disease is indeed deadly – highly infectious, and destructive of the mind. That is why I am willing to help you now, for the presence of the Russians here is dangerous in the extreme. If they remain here long, God knows how rapidly the disease may start to spread.’

‘And is there no cure?’ I asked, appalled.

Eliot shrugged. ‘None that I know of. But the two cases I treated were not with me for very long. I had them a week or so, but it was a race against the process of atrophication. In the end I lost out – the brain-sickness got to them. Both the victims disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Back to where they had come from.’ Eliot turned and gestured at the forest and the distant mountain peaks. ‘You know the legend’ he said. ‘That’s where all the demons live.’

‘Are you serious?’

Once again, Eliot hooded his eyes. ‘I don’t know’ he said at last, ‘but it seems clear that the higher up the mountain you go, the greater the incidence of these cases becomes. It is my theory that the local people have observed this phenomenon and explained it by constructing a whole mythology.’

‘Meaning all this talk of demons, and such rot?’

‘Exactly so.’ Eliot paused, and slowly opened his eyes again. He glanced over his shoulder and despite myself I did the same. The moon, as ghostly and pale as the mountain peaks, was almost full, and the jungle behind us seemed a patchwork of blues. Eliot stared at it, as though trying to penetrate its very depths; then after a while he turned back to me.
‘Vetala-pancha-Vinshati,’
he said suddenly. ‘When the
brahmin
spoke that phrase, you recognised it, didn’t you?’

I nodded.

‘How?’

‘I was told,’ I replied, ‘by a Professor of Sanskrit, no less.’

‘Ah.’ Eliot nodded slowly. ‘So you’ve met Huree?’

I tried to remember if that had been the Babu’s name. ‘He was fat,’ I said, ‘and damnably rude.’

Eliot smiled. ‘Yes, that was Huree,’ he agreed.

‘So how do you know him, then?’ I asked.

Eliot’s eyes narrowed. ‘He visits here occasionally,’ he replied.

‘Up here?’ I chuckled to myself. ‘But he’s so confoundedly fat! How the devil does he manage it?’

Eliot smiled again faintly. ‘Oh, in the cause of his research he could manage anything.’ He reached inside his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, taking out a folded sheaf of papers. Those articles I mentioned, the ones that persuaded me to come up here – it was the Professor who wrote them.’ He handed the papers across. ‘He sent me this one just a month ago.’

I glanced down at it.
‘The Demons of Kalikshutra,’
I read.
‘A Study in Modern Ethnography.’
And then there was a sub-title, in smaller print ‘Sanskrit Epics, Himalayan Cults, and the Global Tradition of the Meal of Blood.’ I frowned. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Should I be interested in this?’

There seemed to be mockery in Eliot’s glance. ‘So Huree didn’t tell you what
“vetala-pancha-Vinshati”
meant, then?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course he did, it’s the word for demon.’

Eliot pursed his thin lips. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘around here it means something much more specific than that’

‘Oh, really?’

Eliot nodded. ‘yes. Something which, with my interests, I’ve always found particularly intriguing – the association of myth, with medical fact, you see, being particularly suggestive in the regions of the East…’