The Faraway Drums (6 page)

He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed him. He went back to his own room, dragged on the clothes nearest to hand, the tailcoat and dress trousers, over his pyjamas, pulled on his shoes; then, still carrying the candlestick but also his pistol this time, he went down to the entrance hall. He switched on lights, found a
bell-
pull and gave it several tugs that almost pulled it out of the ceiling, creating a carillon effect down in the depths of the servants’ quarters. In less than two minutes the butler and two bearers, stumbling with haste, puzzlement and the effects of the sleep from which they had been disturbed, came up from the rear of the house. With them was Karim Singh, the only one who looked fully alert.

“Where’s Major Savanna?” Farnol addressed the butler, an elderly Punjabi who had a proprietary interest in the Lodge; he had seen Viceroys come and go, none of them had the tenure that a good servant had. “Did he say anything to you about going out tonight?”

“No, sahib.” The butler looked bewildered and indignant: it wasn’t right that he should be aroused in the middle of the night, in His Excellency’s own house, and rudely interrogated by this army officer who was only a major, not even a colonel. “He should be asleep in his room.”

“He isn’t—his bed hasn’t been slept in. And I’ve had a chap in here who tried to kill me.” He didn’t mention Bridie. The attack on her had been accidental, he was certain, and he wanted to protect her from any further involvement.

The two bearers hissed with shock, looked over their shoulders, waiting for another attack. The butler said, “I regret that, sahib. It has never happened before. His Excellency will be most disturbed—”

“I’m sure he will. Karim, get down to the guard-house, get the guard up here on the double—”

“You can call them on the telephone, sahib.” The butler lifted a big red velvet cover, like a huge tea-cosy, from a side-table, exposing a telephone. “We have every modern convenience.”

Every modern convenience but an effective guard system. Farnol called the guard-house and a minute later there was a banging on the front door. The butler, moving with all the dignity of a State occasion, went to the doors and opened them. Three soldiers came plunging in, a sergeant and two rankers, one of them Private Ahearn.

“How many did you have on picquet tonight?” Farnol demanded.

The sergeant blinked in the light; he, too, had been sound asleep down in the guard-house. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

“Major Farnol.” He saw Ahearn’s eyebrows go up; then he remembered he had shaved off his beard. “Private Ahearn escorted me up here earlier this evening.”

The sergeant stood to attention. “Four men on picquet, sir. Did they miss something?”

“
They missed a bloody thug who got in here and tried to kill me. He got away, went down the south side of the hill. There’s no point in going after him,” he said as the sergeant looked over his shoulder to give an order to Ahearn and the other ranker. “He’ll be halfway to Kalka by now. Have you seen Major Savanna at all?”

The sergeant looked at his two men and Ahearn said, “Yes, sir. He went out on his horse about half an hour ago.”

“Riding?”

“Yes, sir. I thought it was a bit queer, too.”

“How was he dressed?”

“Why, like he was going on a trip, sir.” Ahearn was a young man, skinny and short, with the long Irish upper lip, thick black eyebrows that looked like caterpillars ready to advance on the potato of his nose and an expression that hinted he had come out of his mother’s womb without bothering to bring any innocence with him. “Breeches, bandolier, the lot. He had a rifle in his saddle scabbard.”

“You don’t miss much.”

“No, sir. The Irish can’t afford to.”

“That’s enough!” snapped the sergeant, Irish too, but careful of his sergeant’s pay. A few shillings a day extra could buy an Empire-builder, Farnol thought. “Do you want me to send someone after the Major, sir?”

“Did he say where he was going?” Farnol looked back at Ahearn.

“No, sir. Didn’t say a word, just rode right by me like I wasn’t there.”

Farnol now was mystified and worried; but did his best not to show it. “Righto, sergeant. Double the picquet, stay up here close to the house. I’ll see you at six in the morning. Dismiss.”

The soldiers went away, then Farnol dismissed the butler and the two bearers. At last he looked at Karim Singh. “It was meant to be another ambush, Karim.”

“I should never have left your door, sahib.” Karim was looking around him, shaking his head in wondering disgust. He had a proper respect for surroundings and something was wrong with the scheme of things when some bugger would try to murder a British officer in the Viceroy’s own house. “I should be ashamed that I went down to the servants’ quarters and allowed myself the luxury of a
charpoy
. To sleep in a
bed
is jolly marvellous, but not while your master has his throat cut.”

“Bring your things up to my room and sleep inside my door.”

Karim disappeared towards the depths of the house and Farnol climbed the stairs. Normally a clear thinker, his mind now seemed a mud-heap of confusion. He was no stranger to mystery; that was part of the trade of a political agent. But, had he ever had occasion to give the matter any thought, he would have classified Rupert Savanna as the least mysterious man in India, no more opaque than the air of these mountains on a clear day, every thought, prejudice and remark open to even the simplest intelligence. He tried to run his mind back over the evening, rummaging for a clue that might have hinted at Savanna’s intention to depart secretly; but he could think of nothing, Savanna had been as bland as his boiled shirtfront. In future he would watch Rupert Savanna more closely.

At the top of the stairs Bridie was waiting for him. She was still in her peignoir and her hair was still down round her shoulders; but she had run a brush through it and she looked beautiful and composed. He wondered at the mysteries he might find in her if given the opportunity. “Is everything safe now?”

“I think so. I just hope Major Savanna is safe. He’s—”

“I heard. I’ve been standing up here listening.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“If he hasn’t returned by then, you might ask the Ranee where he is. I was down in the hall this evening when she arrived. I heard her tell him that if he wasn’t gone by this morning, he would have her to answer to.”

III

Savanna had not returned by morning. Farnol borrowed two horses from the Lodge stables and he and Karim rode along one of the lower roads to the Barracks. Simla was the summer capital of the Government of India and for eight months of the year the sub-continent was ruled from the over-crowded, stacks-on-the-mill town clinging to its narrow-spined ridge. In late October the government departments moved back to Calcutta where the commercial population, swallowing its sourness at having been deprived of all the summer trade, welcomed them with over-stocked stores and inflated prices, a state of business affairs that lasted only a few days, after which both resentment and prices fell. Next year the government
would
be moving to Delhi for those months when it was not at Simla and the merchants of Calcutta were ready to start their own Mutiny for being thus deserted.

Simla had a year-round British population and all the government departments kept on skeleton staffs there during the winter months. The main part of the army battalions went back to the plains with the government, but a company was always kept on duty in the big Barracks.

Captain Weyman, red-faced and red-eyed, pickled in gin and sour cynicism, was the company commander. “No, I haven’t seen Major Savanna in the week he’s been up here. He’s one of those Lodge blighters, can’t see down his nose as far as us barracks-wallahs. Are you a friend of his?”

“No. I’m with Farnol’s Horse.”

“Your name’s Farnol, too? Oh yes, I’ve heard of you. One of the club, eh?”

Farnol recognized the type: a British Army officer who had come out to India hoping to transfer to one of the posh Indian Army regiments and had not been accepted. He knew the snobbery attached to such acceptance and did not accept it but he had never made an issue of it. One either lived with it or one got out of the regiment; of course he had been accepted because he had been born into Farnol’s Horse. But, though he would not have admitted it to anyone, he had partly turned his back on the system by becoming a political agent.

“If you like. Then Major Savanna didn’t come down here during the night and ask for an escort?”

“Blighter’s missing, eh? You want me to send out a search party?” But Weyman showed he had no real concern for the safety of the missing Savanna, the Lodge snob.

“Never mind. Thanks for the offer.”

Weyman smiled at the sarcasm. “Always glad to help you Indians.”

As they rode away Karim Singh said, “Why do they dislike us Indians so much, sahib?”

Farnol smiled at the Sikh’s implied designation of Indians: he meant the Indian Army, of which he was a proud member. “Because we are the fortunate ones.”

“You think so?” Karim pondered while he rode; then he nodded. “I suppose so. We are the best of all, aren’t we?”

Perhaps, thought Farnol; but he wondered if all the circles of British life in India rode in their own small circle of mirrors. The lady he was going to see, though not British, spent her life looking in
mirrors,
cracked though some of them might be.

The Ranee of Serog’s small domain began on the first ridge south of the Simla ridge and ran almost down to Kalka, the rail junction at the foot of the ranges. She had a palace somewhere in her territory, but neither Farnol nor anyone else from Simla had ever been invited there; she also owned one of the largest houses in Simla itself. She had never become like her neighbour, the Nawab of Kalanpur, more British than the British; but she liked the social life of this very social town and the unattached men that it offered. It had more appeal than living in the palace with her half-mad brother.

Once the servant who had announced him had left the room, Farnol was greeted by slim arms that wrapped themselves round his neck and a mouth that smothered him with a kiss that had nothing to do with caste or class. “Darling Clive! You hardly looked at me last night! I wondered if those Tibetan lamas had got to you, converted you to celibacy or something.”

They had been lovers a year ago, but he had thought that was all past history. The Ranee collected lovers as she collected gems; she had once told him that she graded her men as she did her diamonds. She had classified him as a perfect blue-white, which he had thought must be the ultimate till he had found himself superseded by an Italian Consul who was evidently a superior gem in bed, the Ranee’s preferred setting. He wondered where the Italian was now, whether he, too, had been replaced by someone even closer to perfection.

Farnol withdrew from her arms and the musky smell of her perfume. She wore no other jewellery this morning than a double-strand necklace of pearls and a heavy gold bracelet that looked like a more expensive class of shackle.

“Come and have breakfast with me like we used to! You are lucky to find me out of bed so early. But I have to catch that train this afternoon and there is so much one has to do!”

She had a large staff who did everything but blow her nose for her. She was the hedonist supreme and when he had been her lover he had enjoyed humouring her. It was almost six months since he had last had a woman, a young lady out on a visit from England who in private had proved to be no lady at all; looking at the Ranee now, still feeling her body against him, he was sorely tempted to forget other things for half an hour or so. But no, he told himself: he hadn’t come here to make love to her or banter with her.

“Mala, where is Major Savanna?”

She
put her spread hand to her bosom; her gestures at times could be as extravagant as her jewellery. “Darling, you don’t think I’ve taken
him
to my bed, do you?”

He sighed patiently. He hated arguing with women or interrogating them, either as lover or political agent. “Did I suggest that? I’m not jealous, Mala, I’m here on business. Do you know where he is?”

The Ranee was not only vain and nymphomaniacal, she was also as shrewd as any trading woman from the bazaars. She had kept her voluptuous looks and she was confident that for some years yet she would not have to do more than lift a finger to have men come to her bed; she had only contempt for any will-power that men professed to have below the navel. But she would never be subject to any of them for, with her, love was a hunger of the body and not the heart.

“Don’t be sharp with me, Major Farnol. I don’t keep track of minor government officials.”

“Your Highness—” He hadn’t called her that in private since their first meeting. “You know Major Savanna is more than a minor government official.”

“Oh? What is he then?” Through the windows of the large morning-room in which they stood he could see a hawk planing on the breeze, ready to pounce: it struck him that her voice was suddenly like the hawk’s flight, lazy but alert.

“You know he is like me, a political agent, a senior one.” He didn’t mention the Secret Service, though that was not its official name; nothing was secret if it was talked about. “You were heard last night to tell him that if he wasn’t gone by this morning, he would have you to answer to. How is it that a British officer, who isn’t seconded to your service, has to answer to you?”

The hawk had dropped out of sight, fallen on some invisible prey. A monkey clambered up and sat on the window-sill and the Ranee walked towards it and snapped at it. It looked at her with its decadent child’s eyes, clicked its teeth at her, then disappeared below the sill. The Ranee leaned out of the window, as if she were actually interested in where the monkey had gone. At last she turned back into the room.

“Whom do you have spying on me, Major? One of the servants up at the Lodge? I think His Excellency would be interested in that.”

“You’re free to complain to him, Your Highness.” They were now exhibiting the cold formality of ex-lovers, which has the same chill as that of diplomats about to declare war on each other.