Brothers of the Blade Read online

  ‘Oh, no sir, you – you couldn’t do that. Could you?’

  ‘Well, I’m not a rich man in my own right, I must admit, but I do have a rich father-in-law who’s generous to a fault. The family coffers are reasonably full and I have carte blanche to draw on them. I don’t suppose your men will break the bank, King, so yes, you may have them. What you say about helpers is no doubt true. We’ll probably lose a few of them on the way for various reasons. Let’s see how we go along.’

  ‘Thank you,’ cried the sergeant, his enthusiasm returning. ‘I’m most grateful. May I shake your hand, sir?’

  ‘No, you may not. It’s against regulations, or damn well should be.’ A flying beetle the size of a sparrow was battering at the lamp glass, threatening to break it with its ceramic-hard wings. The distracted Crossman smacked it with his cap, sending it like a bullet out into a night full of the sounds of crickets and other rhythmic creatures. ‘I hope you’ve recruited wisely. We don’t want any badmashes. I hope they’re good honest Indians, who won’t rob us and run off, once we bed down for the night. Understood?’

  ‘I’ve done my best, sir, but who can tell character at a glance? There’re one or two of them I believe to be trustworthy. The rest have to be vouched for by those one or two.’

  ‘All right, Sergeant.’

  In fact, King was no fool and had found a cotton exporter from Aberdeen who lived close to the barracks in a large private house. The expatriate Scot had soon fixed him up with a team of Indians, some of whom had already assisted on surveying expeditions.

  ‘All Hindus. Not that ye often get too much trouble between Hindus and Muslims, but it helps if your whole team have their festivals on the same days, otherwise they’ll all take advantage of both sets of holidays and ye’ll find yourself idling your days away waiting for them to finish one ceremony or the other. There’s one Jain amongst ’em, to handle pay and money matters. The Jains are very good with money and they won’t cheat ye. Ye won’t get the better of them in a bargain, but they’re more likely to be honest.’

  Their numbers even included an older man, a Hindu who had been a flagman with Andrew Waugh and his artificer, Saiyid Mir Mohsin. Waugh was known to Sergeant King from his studies: a mapmaker who had taken over from Colonel George Everest, the man who had extended the Great Indian Arc of the Meridian up the whole length of the Indian subcontinent to the foothills of the Himalayas in the thirties and forties.

  ‘You are the compass-wallah, sir?’ enquired the man. ‘I am called Ibhanan.’

  King, much to the astonishment of the furniture maker from Aberdeen, had shaken the Indian’s hand. ‘Compass-wallah,’ mused King, ‘I like the sound of that. Is that what they call surveyors here?’

  ‘Some do, sahib,’ replied Ibhanan, smiling.

  ‘Well then, that’s what I am, the compass-wallah.’

  Ibhanan then told him how he had assisted Waugh until that man became Surveyor-General. He had even worked with the great Everest who had taught him the use of the heliotrope, a round mirror some eight or nine inches in diameter fixed to the top of a pole. It had been Ibhanan’s job to set the heliotrope on to a mountaintop or high point so that it could be used as a marker by Everest’s surveyors located at various different compass points.

  ‘But sahib Everest, he would shout at everyone,’ said Ibhanan, with a wry smile. ‘He was very bad-tempered man.’

  The Scot intervened here. ‘Ye be careful ye don’t malign people.’

  ‘Oh, I not malign him, sahib. Everyone says it.’

  King and Ibhanan liked each other straight away, seeing something of the brass and glass in each other’s soul. King made Ibhanan his head man. Anyone who had touched the iron hem of Everest’s Great Theodolite, that monstrous metal beast which had been dragged by oxcart the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent, was akin to a disciple of the Lord so far as the sergeant was concerned. Ibhanan was one of the apostles and he, Sergeant King, had come immediately after. He wanted to hear stories, of traversing jungles, of crossing droog country, of temple towers crowned with night lights, of gullys and gorges choked with vegetation. Here was a man who helped build the holy grid-iron of the triangulation tree which grew from the south of India to the north, spreading its webbed branches from coast to coast as it grew, flourishing only on sweat and death.

  Once he had his team together, King set out to purchase a pair of camel carts to carry the men and his equipment. He knew Crossman, his new commanding officer, wished to get to the North-West Frontier as soon as possible. Personally, King could not see what the almighty hurry was, but then he granted that Crossman had more knowledge of the situation in India than he did himself. He just wished that Crossman was not such a man of excitable character. The lieutenant seemed to him to be a rash of enthusiasms, few of which he appeared to have explored in any great depth. King could not comprehend why Crossman was interested in so many things, from auxometers to zambombas, yet failed to fix that interest. He was one of those gentlemen – a class which King held in mild contempt – who collected everything they could lay their hands on and displayed them in glass cases for the admiration of their visitors. Seashells, dried monkey brains, antipodean flutes, Polynesian war bonnets, volcanic-lava jewellery.

  All right, King conceded, he had not actually seen one of those cases in Crossman’s house, but he would not put it past the officer to have a display room into which he showed only his own circle.

  King, on the other hand, had one great passion, mapmaking, and he would sacrifice everything – even at the risk of his life – to go into a region which was uncharted. He knew all the names of the famous pioneers of mapmaking in India – James Rennell, the naval officer who had begun the great affaire; Francis Wilford, of the Bengal Engineers, an ex-clerk who had become bored with life in England just as King had done; the initiator, William Lambton, of course, whose shoulder had been behind the Great Trigonometrical Survey; and finally, George Everest himself. Those men, and the multitude of Indian surveyors whose names were not yet known to King, had drawn the sergeant to his present post. He felt it was his destiny to map an unknown region, a place where the length, breadth and height of the topography was still merely guesswork. He wanted to put exactitudes down on a chart, show the actual course of a river, tell the real height of a mountain, track a vague road through wild country so that strangers might follow it without fear of becoming lost or of taking a false trail.

  The closer he came to the forbidden region of Tibet the better he liked it, for he would take any chance to enter the fastness of that territory. There were no accurate charts of Tibet. The man who mapped it, measured its mountains, traced its rivers, would be famous. He had made the mistake of mentioning this to Lieutenant Crossman, who spoke very firmly to him, telling him that any attempt by Sergeant Farrier King or any of his disciples to cross the border into Chinese Tartary would be met with severe disciplinary action. King had nodded gravely, saying it had never entered his mind that he should be the one, while at the same time he nursed the dreadful desire, the longing, the determination, to be the first mapmaker in those mountains.

  He reported back to his commanding officer who seemed pleased with his efficiency.

  ‘Camel carts, eh? Well done. We shall have our horses, of course, but we won’t be able to work them too hard in this heat. We’ll start the journey north early tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  King went back to the barracks, contented with himself.

  Crossman, whose limbs and back ached, went for a hot bath in a tub out in the yard. While he was in the tub, to his great astonishment an Indian slipped under the curtain which screened a man’s bathing from prying eyes. The man, a sleek gentleman wearing dark clothes, stared at him with a smile on his face, until Jack became exasperated.

  ‘Who sent you? I need no one to scrub my back. I’m quite capable of doing that myself with the loofah.’

  The man’s palms came together and he bowed his head.

 
‘No, sahib – I am no washing-man. I am an assassin by trade. Do you need someone killed? I will kill anyone you wish – anyone at all. If you need promotion, I will kill the next higher officer, to make a space for you. You owe money? I will kill your creditor. Is there some family business left unattended? A sister violated? I will kill her lover. Ah, I see you have lost your hand. I could kill the man who took it from you, in his bed, so that when they come in the morning they will think he has passed on in his sleep. A sword through a mattress from underneath. Anyone. Anyone at all. My fees are very reasonable, sir. If it must look like an accident, then it is of course more expensive. I am an expert with a knife. A thin blade through a door or mud wall, as a man leans against it to light his pipe. Simple. I can strangle a victim with a knotted cord and he will make no sound. Poisons? I know them all. A kerchief soaked in a potion and a man will blow his nose and die convulsing. Please, if you require my services, tell me now.’

  Crossman’s astonishment did not leave him.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘My name, sahib?’ the man in black smiled. ‘I am not shy, like some of my profession. My name is Arihant. It means one who kills his enemies. But I do not only kill my enemies, I kill anyone.’

  ‘So you said. No, I can’t think of anybody I wish to get rid of at this time. Sorry.’

  Arihant bowed again. ‘Not to worry, sir. If you do, before you leave this place, come to the coffee shop in the main square. This is where I sit every day. Peace be with you.’

  ‘And with you.’

  Arihant slipped out, leaving Jack wondering if he should keep his revolver with him at all times. What if he had been the victim? Was it so easy to hire a murderer here in India? His bathwater could be red with blood by now and it would be goodbye Fancy Jack Crossman.

  Once he had soaked out the weariness and had dressed again, he was visited by the subaltern, Fowler, of the Balooch Battalion.

  ‘Shall we tiff?’ asked Fowler. He looked around as if expecting to see a shadow standing near. ‘Where’s your boy?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Can you get your boy to fetch us luncheon?’

  ‘Oh. Actually, I don’t have an Indian man-servant – not yet anyway.’

  ‘You won’t be able to do without one here, you know old chap. No one can. Well, I can eat later. This stifling heat destroys the appetite anyway. Now, what were we talking about? Oh, yes. The Dum-Dum rumours. I heard today that there’s been a mutiny at Berhampur. There’s quite a bit of disquiet in India at the moment. I put it down to soft handling. Wouldn’t happen in my battalion. We treat them with firmness. Besides, my men love their colonel. You often hear them saying so. They would lay down their life for him.’

  ‘What do you call that incident in the market?’

  Fowler frowned and seemed annoyed. ‘That? Just an isolated case of a sepoy being intoxicated by some drug or other.’

  ‘Really? Nothing to do with a rebellion?’

  ‘Why would it be? We’ve been in India for so long,’ argued Fowler. ‘Our government of them is just. We do so much to improve their lot. They were served far worse under the Mughals.’

  ‘Still, it must be expected, especially from disgruntled individuals.’

  ‘Changing the subject, how many men have you got?’

  ‘What men? You mean coolies?’

  Fowler was aghast. ‘No, I don’t. I mean armed men. You’re surely taking a troop of sowars with you? Yes please, another chotapeg would fortify the spirit for the walk back to my own bungalow.’

  Crossman gave him his second dram of brandy.

  ‘We’re travelling as light as possible,’ admitted Crossman. ‘Just myself, my corporal and a sergeant who makes maps. We’re all the military men on the expedition. Sergeant King has a number of his own Indians to assist him with his mapmaking, but apart from them . . .’

  ‘But there are all sorts out there, man. Fierce tribesmen, bad-mashes, dacoits, thugs, tigers – the list is long. I suppose,’ granted Fowler, ‘as a small party you might slip along virtually unnoticed. There is that to your advantage. Personally, I would never ride such a distance. It’s nearly a thousand miles to the Punjab. It’d take me a year to be carried there.’ Fowler laughed. ‘Anyway, old chap, beware of blue turbans . . .’ He went on to explain what he meant by that and Crossman listened intently.

  Crossman poured himself a glass of water. He found himself forever thirsty in this land of heat and dust. He was also getting bored with Lieutenant Fowler. At first he had been grateful that a brother officer had taken the time to visit him: for the most part he had been ignored by the Bombay army. It was true he had been to tea at a colonel’s house, where the colonel’s wife had cornered him for two hours and had twittered in his ear about all the terrible things she had to bear, which included her servants, in ‘this dreadful country which I hate beyond anything’. He had met a major who was so enthusiastic about India and the Indians you would have thought he had died and gone to heaven. And he had spoken briefly with the colonel himself, who seemed preoccupied with the current relationships between the maharajahs, nawabs and the Company.

  But whatever Crossman had to say was of little concern to any of these people. In fact, they talked over the top of his replies to their questions, interrupting him without listening to what he had to say. They were Company men, not Queen’s army, and they really were not interested in him.

  But Fowler’s attitudes and idiosyncrasies were playing on Crossman’s nerves.

  He said, hardly paying attention now, ‘You said earlier you wouldn’t travel if you weren’t carried. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘Why, in a palanquin of course. No one walks, old chap. Hardly anyone rides. Then you don’t even have to find your own way. You just say to your head man “I wish to be in Bunpoor for the hunt on Tuesday” and leave it to them. Well, I can see you’re tired. Good luck, old boy.’ Fowler threw back his dram and held out his hand. As Crossman shook it, the Indian army man added cheerfully. ‘Don’t suppose we’ll ever see each other again. India is a big place and if you look at the statistics you’ll find that a lot of us die before our time, mostly of some ailment or other.’

  Fowler left with Crossman staring thoughtfully after him. The departing lieutenant, he decided, was not a bad sort, underneath. It seemed that something happened to people when they came to the subcontinent. They became careless of themselves and, yes, life. When one saw dead bodies laying unattended in the street it turned one’s spirit. There was great poverty in Britain of course – and one only had to go to Ireland to understand the horrible effects of starvation – but, if life was as precarious there, death was certainly a cause for sorrow and attention. It was the indifference which was hard to bear here: the fact that no one seemed to care.

  It was really far too early to make a judgement and Lord knew Crossman had met so very few people yet, but it did seem to him they worried about trivialities, like what sort of china was on the table, and who was carrying on with whose wife. They had not enough to occupy their minds. The army officers seemed to live for the next meal which they grumbled about when it came to the table, attended the odd parade here and there, but rarely showed their faces to their men. It appeared to Crossman that the whole place was in the doldrums. A kind of purgatory which one served out in order to get pensioned and retire to England.

  He sat down and wrote a letter to Jane, telling her briefly about the voyage and giving her his first impressions of India. They were not altogether truthful impressions: he kept his descriptions and anecdotes positive. There was little of his disillusionment in there. This was pure selfishness. He hoped that one day she would be able to join him in India and didn’t want to set her against this vast and strange land about which he yet knew very little. Time enough later to tell her how he felt about it and whether it would suit her or not.

  2

  ‘Get out of the road, you idiot!’

  Preoccupied with his recent meeting,
Crossman, in full dress uniform, hurriedly stepped aside as a coach and four swept past him, the nearside wheels narrowly missing the toes of his boots. He heard the word ‘Peacock!’ which was the coach driver delivering a final rebuke at the army man who had presumed to cross the street in front of his precious horses. Soldiers were meant to be unseen as well as not heard in their own land. They should be overseas somewhere, fighting for the empire, not littering the roads.

  ‘Your servant, sir,’ called Jack Crossman at the thundering vehicle, knowing his sarcasm was wasted. ‘And be damned.’

  His new rank still felt clean and fresh on Lieutenant Jack Crossman. He was in London, staying at one of the houses his father had kept for his own use there, in Knightsbridge. His older brother James had suggested he and Jane use it while they were in the city, James now having power of attorney over their father, whose mind had gone. James was now managing the family estates in Scotland, while Jack remained in the army, a man on special duties for the Crown. It was simply age that had addled their father’s mind. Along with his wife, the baronet was looked after by a devoted servant: a man that his two sons disliked intensely but retained for his loyalty.

  Crossman’s bride Jane had now gone back to Derbyshire, to stay with her father. The officer was not only newly promoted, but newly married. He was not quite sure which felt the most awkward. He loved his wife, of course, with a great passion. He enjoyed his new status after spending several years in the rank and file. But these two newcomers were still strangers to him and one is always awkward with a stranger.

  Jane and he had spent almost a month in London, but when it was rumoured Jack might go to the Punjab they realized that it would be impractice for Jane to follow for the moment. The North-West Frontier was no place for woman at this time, even should her husband’s duties keep him there. In fact it was most likely that Crossman would be here, there and everywhere, and rarely in one spot for more than a few days. In any case, Jane’s father had fallen ill not long after the wedding and continually asked for her. It was not a good way to start a marriage, they both admitted to the other, but there were many who had it worse. In time, when her father no longer needed her and the Punjab was not such a turbulent region, or indeed if Jack were to be based somewhere less volatile, she would go to India.