The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (16 page)

“What is it?” she asked.

“Meredith has brought me bad news,” Colonel Hobart replied. “There are so many tribesmen encamped in the mountains that we can expect an assault at any moment.”

Orissa said nothing. Her eyes were on her Uncle’s face as he went on:

“Although the authorities may have realised our communications are cut, there is no reason to think they will be alarmed. Telegraph wires are continually being blown down or swept away by avalanches in
this part of the world, and they would expect if we were in danger we would send a message by some other means.”

“But you have been unable to do so,” Orissa murmured.

“Meredith therefore thinks,” her Uncle went on, “the only possible chance of our communicating with the British at Peshawar is for him to reach them and explain the situation.”

Orissa was still for a moment before she asked:

“But why should he be more successful than anyone else? You told me this morning that two men have already been killed trying to take messages from the Fort.”

“Meredith has his own methods of getting in and out of this place,” Colonel Hobart answered.

“You mean ... that was where you were ... last night?” Orissa asked speaking directly to Major Meredith.

He slightly inclined his head but did not reply. “What Meredith has done,” her Uncle went on, “is to bribe one of the enemy to go to Peshawar. There is a chance—but it is a slim one—that he will be successful. It was in fact a wild risk for Major Meredith to take, which might have resulted in his being exposed and killed on the spot.”

There was a note in the Colonel’s voice which told Orissa that he had already spoken sharply to Major Meredith for endangering his life in such a manner, but now her Uncle continued:

“At the same time, Major Meredith now thinks that he should go himself to ensure that if the man does get through, then reinforcements will in fact come to save us from what, if the enemy strikes, might be total annihilation.”

“This
...
cannot be ... true!” Orissa said almost in a whisper.

“We have to face facts, my dear,” her Uncle answered.

“Yes, of course,” Orissa said striving to keep the horror out of her voice.

At the same time she could not help wondering why her Uncle was telling her all this. Then he said:

“Major Meredith has persuaded me that his plan is the only possibility of saving the men who are under my command and prevent the Fort from falling into enemy hands.”

The Colonel’s lips tightened.

“That would not be an overwhelming military disaster, but it would mean a great deal of loss of face as far as the British are concerned, and undoubtedly encourage the tribesmen to attempt other assaults.”

“I can see that,” Orissa said.

“We shall therefore endeavour to hold out at all costs,” the Colonel went on. “That goes without saying and Major Meredith leaves tonight.”

Orissa’s eyes went towards the Major.

Then her Uncle said quietly:

“You will go with him.”

For a moment Orissa felt she could not have heard aright.

“Did you
say
... I would go with ... him?”

In reply the Colonel sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand in his.

“My dear, I have had a terrible choice to make in this matter. First to let you stay here and take a chance that the reinforcements will arrive in time, or else to believe Major Meredith when he tells me that if anyone can take you to safety it will be he.”

“But I would rather stay with you,” Orissa said quickly.

She felt as she spoke a stab of horror, not only at encountering the unknown danger, but of going away alone with Major Meredith.

“I would like to keep you here,” Colonel Hobart replied, “but a battle taking place against such enormous odds will not be a sight for any woman’s eyes, and besides
.
..
”

He hesitated and was obviously searching for the right words.

“What your Uncle is trying to say to you,” Major Meredith interposed, “is that in the event of the Fort being overrun someone will have to shoot you!”

Orissa went very pale but she did not protest. She knew that after the Mutiny no Englishman would leave a woman to the mercy of natives inflamed by blood.

“I ... understand,” she said in a low voice.

Her Uncle rose to his feet.

“I knew that I could rely on you, Orissa,” he said. “You have been brought up in the shadow of the Regiment, and you are behaving as I should expect you to behave in such circumstances.”

Orissa smiled at his praise. Then she said:

“But how can I go with the Major? What should I wear? Surely I will need a disguise?”

“Of course,” Major Meredith said, “but it is important, you understand, that no-one even in this household should see you leave or learn how you are disguised.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Will you therefore go upstairs at once, and tell your bearer you are going to bed early and do not wish to be disturbed in the morning. Later the Colonel will make what excuses are necessary.”

Orissa rose to her feet.

“What do I do then?”

“You wait until your bearer has gone to the servants’ quarters and then you come downstairs. Do not come into this room, but go to your Uncle’s Study which looks onto the back of the house. There will be no servants in the Hall. They will have been sent on various errands.”

“I will do as you say.”

“You can of course bring nothing with you,” Major Meredith said, “and to save the trouble of taking your clothes upstairs after you have changed I suggest you put on the sari you were wearing when you arrived.”

“I will do that.”

Orissa turned as she spoke and walked towards the door.

There really seemed nothing else to say.

She did exactly as she had been told. She went to her bed-room, rang for the bearer, told him she did not wish to be disturbed, and after he had left her, put on her sari and went quickly down the stairs.

There was, as Major Meredith had promised, no
-
one in the Hall and she reached her Uncle’s Study at the back of the house without being seen.

The Major was waiting for her and he was alone.

“We must move as quickly as possible,” he said, “so will you change into these clothes?”

As he spoke he pointed to what at first appeared to be a bundle of rags. Then Orissa realised they were the somewhat tattered garments of a boy.

“You expect me to wear ... those?” Orissa asked in a tone of horror.

A smile twisted Major Meredith’s lips for a moment as he said:

“You do not suppose you would get far through the enemy lines looking as you look now. Many of the men out there have not seen a woman for some months.”

The intimation in his words made Orissa blush, then she said angrily:

“There must be some better disguise which does not show my legs.”

“This is not the moment for simpering, girlish modesty,” he said scathingly.

His words made Orissa even more angry.

“I can see you are determined to make our journey as unpleasant as possible!”

“You should not have come here at all, and it will not be easy to get you away.”

“You are really putting yourself out on my account, are you not?” Orissa asked sarcastically. “I have no desire to accompany you, Major Meredith. It would be far easier, I am sure, to stay here and fight.”

If she meant to annoy him, she succeeded.

“I can assure you, Lady Orissa,” he replied in an icy tone, “I also would much rather stay here and fight; and if you really think I wish to encumber myself with a whining, complaining female, you are very much mistaken!”

If he had slapped her in the face Orissa could not have been more incensed.

She drew herself up to answer him fiercely but at that moment her Uncle came into the room.

“You should hurry,” he said in an anxious tone. “The further away from the Fort you are by dawn, the safer it will be.”

“I am well aware of that, Sir,” Major Meredith answered. “Perhaps you would persuade your niece to change into these garments I have provided for her.”

“Of course,” Colonel Hobart agreed. “Hurry, Orissa, we will wait outside.”

He went from the Study and Major Meredith followed him.

Orissa slipped o
ff
her sari and with some distaste put on the shapeless garments which were worn by Mohammedans. She was hardly decent before the Major knocked at the door and without waiting for an answer came in.

Orissa saw him glance at her bare legs, and blushed.

Then he knelt down in front of her and proceeded to put on her feet a pair of her strongest slippers and, still without speaking, he took some strips of coarse woollen material and wrapped them round her legs as the hillmen do in the cold weather, and criss-crossed them with strong strings of cotton, to hold them in place above the knee.

Colonel Hobart came into the room just as the Major had finished.

“That will certainly keep her warmer,” he said approvingly.

Orissa had not loosened her hair when she changed from her evening gown into the sari, and now the
Major, taking a faded length of material which had once been pink but now only showed patches of its original colour, twisted it competently around her head as a turban.

While he did this, the Colonel brought from a side table a saucer in which there was some pale brown liquid.

“I shall have to stain your skin, Lady Orissa,” Major Meredith said. “But only slightly; many Pathans are pale.”

It was the first time he had spoken since they had raged at each other and she felt that his voice still held a note of anger.

“Will it wash off?” the Colonel asked.

“It comes off fairly easily with soap and water,” Major Meredith replied curtly, “but it will not be removed by rain.”

He picked up a sponge.

“Shut your eyes,” he commanded.

Orissa felt him sponge her face all over and then her neck and taking her hands one after the other he continued with his work until she saw that her skin was now a soft, golden brown.

“I will just change into my own clothes, Sir,” he said to Colonel Hobart.

He went from the room and her Uncle brought Orissa a small glass of wine from a side-table.

“This will fortify you on your journey, my dear,” he said, “and I want to say how proud I am of you.”

Orissa felt the tears come into her eyes.

“You will be all right, Uncle Henry?” she asked.

“We can only put our trust in God,” Colonel Hobart replied, “and I promise you if anyone can save us it will be Major Meredith. I have implicit faith in him.”

Orissa gave a little sigh.

She could not tell her Uncle how annoyed she was with the Major at that particular moment.

The Colonel put the glass into her hand and said:

“I also want you to take these.”

She saw that he was offering her four small, white pills.

“What are those?” she asked.

“Two are for protection against malaria,” the Colonel answered. “The other two against dysentery.”

Orissa flushed.

She knew how embarrassing it would be on the trip that she was about to take if she encountered any sort of illness, let alone those that her Uncle had just mentioned.

She took the four pills from him.

“Take them with the wine,” he said. “It will help them dissolve.”

Obediently she put the pills onto her tongue and thinking they had a somewhat unpleasant taste drank down the whole glass of wine as her Uncle had suggested.

As she drank it she thought it was very unlike the wine which had been served at dinner.

“Uncle Henry
...”
she began and felt a sudden strange numb feeling in her head.

It was almost like a headache and yet more intense. Then even as she thought about it ... she found it difficult to think...

She was sinking ... sinking away and although she fought frantically against the terrifying feeling of paralysis which was invading her body and making it inanimate
...
she finally lost consciousness
.

CH
A
P
TE
R
EIGHT

Orissa felt her head was splitting open and her eyes were so heavy that they seemed to sink like stones into her face.

Her mouth was dry and waves of deep, unpleasant sleep seemed to keep drifting over her like shifting water.

She made an inarticulate murmur and a voice said:

“Drink this!”

She wanted to refuse, wanted to slip away into oblivion where she would not be conscious of the pain in her head. But she found herself sipping water which was cool and refreshing in her mouth.

“A little more,” the voice came again.

Now she knew who spoke and with an effort tried to raise her heavy eye-lids.

She did so and gave a cry of horror.

“It is all right,” Major Meredith said.

She could hardly believe the long-haired and strangely marked face belonged to him, but there was no mistaking his voice.

He made her drink again by forcing the cup which held the water against her lips until, as she felt the
pain of her head receding a little, she managed to murmur:

“Where am ... I?”

He laid her back gently on what she now realised was soft sand.

“We are about seven miles west of Shuba,” he answered.

Orissa was silent, trying to remember what had happened last night.

She could hear her Uncle’s voice telling her to drink the glass of wine and swallow the pills.

“You ... drugged ... me!” she murmured.

She meant her voice to sound aggressive, but it only sounded weak and distant.

With what was almost a superhuman effort she raised herself a little and found that she was in a shallow cave.

Outside there was sun-shine, brilliantly golden and now she could feel waves of heat coming in towards her.

It took her a moment to focus her eyes in the light and to look at Major Meredith.

He was sitting cross-legged on the ground beside her and for a moment she had a sudden tremor of fear that she had been deceived and it was not he but the Fakir he was impersonating.

He had long, dark, tangled hair falling to his shoulders, and round his head was the twisted cloth which just revealed the crimson caste-mark on his forehead.

He was naked to the waist, his chest was smeared with ash and slashed with streaks of ochre paint beneath the traditional bead-necklace which he wore.

His loins were girt about with a loin cloth tied in the intricate devices of a Saddhu’s cincture, and she saw lying on the ground beside him a thick, woollen cloak such as the Northern Fakirs often wear when travelling in the hills.

He saw the astonishment in her face and smiled.

“India is full of Holy Men,” he said, “stamping, shouting and proclaiming different faiths, shaken with
the force of their own zeal! All command respect from friend or foe.”

“So we ... came through the ... enemy lines,” Orissa said.

As she spoke she caught sight of her legs and gave a little cry. They were covered with bandages deeply stained with blood.

“They are only theatrical props,” Major Meredith explained. "Your presumed death was my excuse for cursing the British by every god in the Asiatic Calendar. I only hope they are not effective.”

He bent forward as he spoke to unwrap the stained bandages from Orissa’s legs and making them into a bundle, threw them away into a comer of the cave.

“There was ... no need for ... you to ... drug me,” Orissa said resentfully.

“On the contrary,” Major Meredith retorted, “you had to look dead, very dead, and I do not believe that even you with your capacity for acting would not have flinched at some of the sights I saw last night.” She ignored the innuendo about her acting.

“You carried me all this way?” she asked.

“About seven miles over stony ground,” Major Meredith answered, “and you weigh at least a ton! It was a fearsome task!”

Orissa felt words of protest rising to her lips and then she said shrewdly:

“I have the suspicion, Major Meredith, that you are deliberately
...
provoking me as you did
...
last night.”

He gave a short laugh.

“You are too perceptive. I find that people usually do what you want them to do far quicker if they are needled emotionally.”

Orissa put her hand to her forehead.

She was about to say that her head felt as if it was splitting open and she was indeed angry that he should not have trusted her. Then she remembered what he had said about “snivelling, complaining women.”

She could not give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right in that, if nothing else.

Carefully, because it hurt her head to move, she sat up and Major Meredith unwrapped a piece of paper in which reposed some chapattis.

“Eat. It will make you feel better,” he said.

Orissa was about to refuse and then she saw the common-sense of his suggestion.

She took a small piece of chapatti and forced herself to take a bite out of it.

“What did you
...
give me?” she asked and he knew she was not referring to the food.

“A devil’s draught which knocks a man out instantly, and opium.”

“I thought opium gave one pleasant dreams.”

“Not if you take too much of it!” he answered briefly.

“Well, I suppose I must suffer in a good cause. Are we safe here?”

She tried to speak lightly but he answered her in all seriousness:

‘We have had to make a detour to avoid arousing suspicion amongst the tribes encamped along the side of the road. It means of course more miles to travel and it will take a longer time than if we could have gone straight to Peshawar.”

“Do you want to move on now?” Orissa asked wondering if she was capable of walking.

‘We move only at night,” Major Meredith explained. “Tribesmen have eyes like hawks—they also have sentries. Fortunately these hills are full of caves, as I have found before.”

“Do you always go disguised as a Fakir?” Orissa enquired.

“I have quite a reputation along the Frontier,” he said with a twist of his lips. “If I die, it is far more likely to be from a British bullet which kills me inadvertently than one from the enemy.”

Orissa gave a little sigh, then she said:

“If there is nothing you wish me to do at
this
moment, can I go to sleep?”

“I think it an extremely sensible idea,” Major Meredith replied, “and it is what I intend to do myself.”

He crawled as he spoke to the mouth of the cave and looked out warily keeping well in the shade. Then he came back and settled himself about a foot away from Orissa.

“Sleep well,” he said, a mocking note in his voice. “I will wake you in plenty of time before we need to start on our journey South.”

Orissa lay down and shut her eyes.

Then almost as if she could not help herself she asked:

“Was I really very
...
heavy?”

She heard Major Meredith chuckle.

“No heavier than the dead boy you were supposed to be.”

She felt annoyed because he had not flattered her as any other man would have done.

She slept through most of the day, and when she finally awoke as the sun was sinking it was to find that the effects of the drug had worn off and her brain felt clear and alert once again.

She did not refuse the chapatti which Major Meredith gave her and she had a drink of the water from the water bottle. She knew without asking it was something he did not bother to carry when he was alone.

She remembered how hungry he had seemed at dinner the night before and she was certain on his usual sorties he either went hungry or relied on offerings from ‘the faithful’ who believed in his powers.

Outside, below the cave where they were hiding, there was a country of great peaks and deep valleys. The intense sunshine of which Orissa had felt the warmth all day was now lessening as the shadows lengthened to turn the tops of the mountains and rocks gold, pink and mauve in a last burst of glory.

The air was still, clear and sparkling, but Orissa
had a feeling it would soon turn cold and they would feel the wind blowing off the snows.

“How can you bear to wear so little clothing?” she asked curiously.

She was aware that after the first glance she had hardly looked at Major Meredith, embarrassed at seeing a white man so naked.

“I have hardened my body over the years,” he replied. “It is you I am worried about.”

“I shall be warm enough.”

“I hope so,” he answered, “but I did steal for you some protection from the cold.”

He drew from under his own cloak as he spoke one of the hillmen’s woollen blankets. It was nothing more or less than a large square of wool with a hole in the centre for
the
head.

“It may not be very clean” he warned, “but at least it will keep out the worst of the wind.”

Orissa found this was true when as soon as darkness fell they left the cave and started to walk along an extremely narrow and stony track which could barely be traversed even in single file.

At first she found it almost impossible to see anything but Major Meredith’s body moving in front of her, his head silhouetted against the sky.

Then as the stars came out growing brighter every moment and her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she was able to distinguish things more clearly but she had little time to think of anything but keeping up with him.

He walked with the easy stride of an athlete which was both rhythmic and graceful. Although his feet were bare he seemed not to mind the roughness of the path or that sometimes they had to pass through spiky undergrowth which Orissa felt painful even through the wrappings on her legs.

After they had walked for an hour she was aware that she was beginning to flag a little, but she told herself that even if she died in the attempt she would not complain or ask him to go slower.

She knew also without his saying so that they were still too near to the tribesmen encamped around the Fort for it to be anything but risky to be moving at all, and she half-expected to hear the sudden report of a gun and the whistle of a bullet as it went past them.

On and on they went and only when they had been walking for over two hours did Major Meredith ask if she would like to rest.

He must have heard her stumble several times in the last few minutes, she thought, and while she was longing and aching to sit down if only for a few seconds, she managed to reply with a note almost of indifference in her voice:

“That would be very pleasant, if it would not delay us too much.”

“I have been going too fast for you. You must forgive me,” Major Meredith said in a low voice, “but I do not have to tell you that every mile we put between us and Shuba increases our chance of survival.”

“I realise that,” she answered.

They did not speak again as that also would have been dangerous, but they sat down and after what seemed to Orissa a very short time, they moved on.

It was cold, and now she could feel the wind that had come from the snows on her cheeks.

The blanket was warm as Major Meredith had anticipated, and the mere exertion of walking kept her from feeling any other discomfort than weariness.

On and on they went, climbing, descending, climbing again, keeping as much as possible high above the valley.

What was most exhausting was clambering down the sides of a gorge, which fortunately was not at this time of the year a torrent of water, and then scrambling up the other side.

They were however able to drink the clear, pure water, cold from the snows, and Major Meredith filled the water bottle.

Then at last when Orissa was beginning to feel that
she would have to ask for respite however humiliating it might be, there was a light in the East and the dawn came with incredible swiftness.

They were high on a mountain where there were great boulders, and between two of them Major Meredith found a low cave and crawled into it.

“It is quite clean,” he said in a low voice and Orissa followed him on her knees.

Having passed through the entrance the cave sloped upwards. It smelt faintly of animal but it was not an unpleasant smell and on the floor there was sand that seemed to Orissa at that moment as comfortable as a feather-bed.

She sank down and without even speaking fell asleep.

She must have slept for four or five hours before she opened her eyes. At first she thought she was alone and then she realised that Major Meredith was blocking the entrance to the cave, lying flat on the ground and peering out into the sun-shine.