Brothers of the Blade Read online

  ‘No, no,’ mumbled an embarrassed Sergeant King, shrinking down into his cushions, ‘please do not trouble.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind trying it though,’ the lieutenant said, surprising both the sergeant and the minister. ‘Do you think the rajah has a second pipe?’

  The rajah was delighted to have the officer join him.

  After the meal, the rajah announced that he wished to provide his guests with some entertainment. He himself made his excuses and said he had to be elsewhere, but he adjured his guests to remain and enjoy ‘the wonderful magicians’. Crossman felt enlivened and content, though he could see King was weary almost to the point of exhaustion. However, it would have been ill-mannered to leave early, so he did not give King permission to go. Instead, he lay back on the silk cushions still smoking the bhang, his mind full of fantastical scenes. A little later, through heavily hooded eyes, he saw the entertainers enter the room.

  To the delight of Gwilliams the first act was a woman stripped to the waist. She straightened her neck and to the accompaniment of musicians on sitars and drums, eased a sword down her throat up to the hilt. Then she paraded around the room, while the minister explained that her lack of modesty was to show there was no deception with the blade.

  ‘My grandpappy used to do a trick,’ Gwilliams told the other two. ‘Used to eat a whole eel in one go, cooked o’ course – just tilted his head back and fed the eel down his throat. Then he’d straighten up, close his mouth, look you right in the eye, and draw the eel’s backbone down through one of his nostrils.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said King. ‘That’s not even a trick.’

  ‘Ain’t it, though? You try it.’

  A painted man, decorated with pictures of bulls, elephants, tigers and cobras, and hung with many-coloured ribbons, whirled like a dervish and took honey from a finely honed sword blade with his tongue as he did so. He did this trick several times, without once cutting himself.

  Finally, a woman swallowed a piece of red cloth the size of a handkerchief and then slit her own side with a knife, before drawing the handkerchief from the open wound.

  Once the magicians had finished, Gwilliams left for the quarters he and King shared. King suggested that it was time they all went to bed. The sergeant looked completely fatigued, his physical tiredness probably not helped by the heavy meal and the drink he had imbibed that evening. But there was a stubbornness about him. He was not happy at leaving Crossman smoking the bhang.

  ‘You go,’ said Crossman, pleasantly. ‘I’ll stay for a while.’

  King said, sternly, ‘That stuff isn’t good for you.’

  Crossman ignored him.

  ‘Major Lovelace told me you were once addicted to laudanum.’

  Crossman’s eyes opened wide, despite the pleasantness of the bhang smoke, and he felt a rising irritation.

  ‘Major Lovelace has no right to tell you such things.’

  ‘He said to watch out for it, if there was no one senior to do so.’

  ‘Did he now?’ The irritation was flaring into anger. ‘Well, I tell you what, Sergeant, you mind your own business, how’s that?’

  ‘You are my business, sir, when you’re like this.’

  ‘Like what, sir? Like what? You are an impertinent sergeant. An insubordinate NCO. I shall . . .’ He suddenly lost the thread of his sentence and all interest in where it was leading.

  ‘Sir?’ King pleaded.

  Crossman lifted heavily hooded eyes and stared into the middle distance as if he could see some vision there.

  ‘Have you ever had a woman, King? Lovely creatures, women.’

  The sergeant hesitated, then said, ‘I fell for a church girl, once.’

  ‘Is she waiting for you?’

  ‘No, not her.’

  Crossman sucked on his pipe, drawing the bhang smoke into his lungs gratefully.

  ‘Was she beautiful?’

  ‘When she smiled, she filled you with sunshine – she was a most beautiful woman, when she smiled.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well then, she so rarely smiled.’

  ‘You did right not to ask her to wait, Sergeant. There’s nothing so terrible as living with a dough-faced woman. They make your life . . .’

  Jack tailed his sentence away as a huge wave of lethargy overcame him. Suddenly he could no longer keep his eyes open and King had to help him to his feet. The sergeant supported his officer back to his quarters, rolled him on to his bed, and then left. The lieutenant slept for about three hours, before waking with a start, and finding he could not back to sleep again for love nor money. Tangled with the muslin curtains of the four-poster, he still had his boots on. He also had a foul taste on his tongue which could only have come from the bhang.

  He sighed and murmured to himself, ‘How difficult it is not to indulge in these corrosive pleasures.’

  Sajan was lying on his rush mat in the corner of the room, snoring softly, his hand still clutching the cord to the punkah.

  Jack watched the boy’s chest rising and falling for a long time, before he too finally dropped off to asleep again.

  He was wakened about two hours later by a large dark figure who loomed over him and shook him. It was the methodist minister, who seemed inclined to talk. The man sat on the edge of his bed, while Crossman removed his boots and got himself a drink of water. He asked the minister to keep his voice down as there was a child asleep in the corner. John Stillwell raised his eyebrows but made an attempt to keep his tone low.

  ‘I wonder, Lieutenant, if I could prevail upon thee to allow me to accompany thee northwards, as far as Jaipur? It is dangerous to travel alone in these times. Yesterday I was insulted by a crowd as I passed through a village. Several people spat at my feet. They were cowed when I roared at them, but still there is a little tension in the air.’

  ‘To what do you attribute this tension?’ asked Crossman, remembering the rajah’s words about a wind of unrest.

  ‘To my mind there are several causes,’ said the minister, thoughtfully. ‘The recent annexation of Oudh has not helped matters and there have long been complaints about interference in Indian rituals, such as suttee, which are naturally distasteful to civilized men such as you and I.’

  ‘Ah, the burning of the dead man’s widow.’

  ‘Burning or live burial of the widow, yes. But I do not believe this is the time for aggressive evangelizing. Some of the customs here are not to our taste – in fact they are a direct affront to God – but we must wait our time. These rites have been several thousand years in the making and we attempt to obliterate them in a day. Too much Christian zeal at this moment will only enfiame the natives and give them fuel for the fires of rebellion.’

  Crossman did not really want the older man to join his party, which was a military mission, not a wandering tribe gathering lost souls on the way, but it would have been difficult to refuse him. If indeed anything happened – should John Stillwell be murdered by bandits or attacked by some wild beast and torn apart – some blame might be laid at the lieutenant’s door. An Englishman was asking for protection on the road: what could he do but agree to the request and allow the minister to accompany them.

  ‘We leave at noon,’ warned Crossman, ‘in the heat of the day.’

  ‘Ah, yes – the Hot. It is our burden in this land. You have no sepoys with you?’

  ‘No, what you have seen is all there is of us.’

  The minister left Crossman in peace and the lieutenant once more climbed into his bed, this time he did it properly, after removing his uniform and other accoutrements.

  Crossman passed the next day’s tiger hunt in what he later realized was a kind of dazed stupor. The previous evening’s debauch, lack of sleep, stomach upsets and a general malaise all served to send him inside himself. There were also the other agents of an Indian day: the hot sun, the stench of defecating elephants and camels, and the less obnoxious smell of horses. They were bothering him. Thus the activities going on around him were of les
s interest to him than his own lack of well-being.

  The array of personnel required to corral and shoot a tiger was dazzling. Scores of matchlock men surrounded the rajah, presumably to protect him against attacks by big cats, assassinations and other royal hazards. Household soldiery, more handsomely armed and garbed than the matchlock men, stood in watchful groups nearby. There were several richly adorned elephants whose howdahs contained female admirers of the prince. These bristled with weaponry. Servants in magnificent livery, all the colours of the earth, carried tables laden with fruits, bread, sweetmeats, drink and other hunters’ necessities. Several dozen coolies went back and forth, bearing all manner of equipment, including a small chased-brass cannon and a cauldron of fire swinging between two carrying poles.

  The hunt assembles outside the local inn. Scarlet coats dazzle the peasantry who have shambled out to watch. The well-bred mounts of the huntsmen and huntswomen fret and chafe, ready to fly at the nearest gate or wall. A goblet of wine is passed from mouth to mouth: red liquid for those who prepare to shed red fluid. Then the Master of the Hunt leads off, over the ploughed fields, the hounds calling from afar.

  It was all brilliant sunlight and deep shadow. A golden creature with black stripes needed nothing more than the light and shade in which to hide. In the distance, an army of beaters began to move their line into the forest. Gongs, cymbals, drums, trumpets, yells and bells: wildlife for miles around suddenly panicked and ran headlong through the trees and out towards the long elephant-high grasses fringing their world. The matchlock men shot these, randomly it seemed, allowing some to escape and blasting others. Several kinds of deer leapt past the guns, two large boars, many birds with magnificent plumage, strange agile cats, canines, a huge flowing river of smaller mammals, some with short bodies, others with long.

  The horn sounded clear and cold as the bark of a fox in the sharp early morning. Huntsmen charged down the hedges and fences. A ploughboy at his duty was knocked aside by the mount of a careless rider, left to nurse a bruised shoulder in a shower of divots from flying hooves. ‘Halloo! Halloo!’ Elated riders thundered over the turf of a following meadow, franking the frosty ground with horseshoe prints.

  At one point all the matchlock men formed an imperfect line and went down on one knee. They fired a single volley into the high grasses. One of them was too close and the flame that leapt from his musket’s muzzle started a flashfire. This was quickly quenched by the water carriers with their jars. In the meantime the beaters came nearer and nearer. Despite his torpitude Crossman’s heart began to pump faster. His eyes flicked back and forth along the forest pale. There was a great deal of noise now, not only from the beaters but also from the rajah’s retinue. The excited prince took aim and fired one of his Purdeys into the wavering grass in front.

  A rider took a fence too sharply. His horse broke at the knees on the far side and sent him hurtling through the air. He landed on his back knocking all the wind from his lungs. Other huntsmen were close behind, the hooves of their horses swinging dangerously close to his head. He remained there, the rest of the hunt dashing away into the bright clarity of the day, leaving him to stare up into the great vault of the sky.

  The yell that followed the rajah’s shot was human. One of the beaters staggered out of the grasses with a bleeding shoulder. He fell, ignored by everyone, at the feet of an elephant. Then a ripple went all along the the front of the spear-tipped fronds. Sunlight and shadow. The matchlock men let loose another volley, ragged this time. Several of them turned and ran away, fleeing an unseen monster. The rajah fired his second Purdey, clearing a whole avenue through the foliage in his sights.

  A flash of rufous fur, dancing between the trees. Hounds swarmed after it, skipping around roots, leaping small shrubs, their excitement bubbling forth. Blood was hot, blood was high, blood was coursing swiftly through the veins. The brassy note of the horn sounded again.

  ‘There!’ cried a voice amongst the hullabaloo. ‘In those thorn bushes!’

  ‘The rajah, dressed in an English shooting jacket and trousers, Italian boots and an Austrian hat with a cockade, stepped forward. Brilliance and shade. Crossman squinted, peering into the undergrowth, into the dappled shadowy world below the thorn trees. Did something move? He was not sure. A horrible scream. A few minutes later a coolie was dragged by his heels from the vegetation, his body covered in blood. Mauled? Had claws raked those marks on his back? Were they teeth marks on his arm? More shouting at the far end of the line. The rajah fired long again, seemingly reluctant to vacate his present spot. Let the tiger come to him. A horse bolted, crashing through a tent-pavilion in the rear, scattering crockery and other utensils. Then that ripple again, along the front of the grasses. Sporadic fire from several weapons, but no signs of a tiger.

  Down the hole went the fox, brush just escaping the jaws of the leading hound. The dogs gathered, yelping, some frantically digging with their paws. Gone to earth. Gone to earth. The huntsmen and huntswomen arrived, disappointed, staring at the bolt hole. Gone to earth, the bloody bugger. Couldn’t stand and face the foe. Sodding coward. Reynard, deep down below, panting, heart almost bursting in his chest, wondering whether they would dig him out or go on for that vixen over the next hill.

  It seemed it was all over. The tiger had fled, the bloody bugger, the cowardly sod. Bored elephants were turned by the mahouts to carry their human cargo back to the hunting lodge. Matchlock men began to move away. The rajah came over to Jack, stood at his side.

  ‘Did you see her, Lieutenant?’

  ‘I saw – no, no, I only saw movement under the trees – I think – but no tiger.’

  ‘What a great pity!’ A white-toothed smile. ‘Perhaps next time? You have not even used one of my sporting guns.’

  Crossman’s own weapon, an Enfield, was still loaded ready to fire.

  ‘We have already presumed too much on your generosity and hospitality, Your Highness.’

  ‘Such a great pity. Never mind.’ He stared towards the forest. ‘I know her now. I shall have her, never fear.’

  ‘I wish you good luck.’

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’

  Crossman asked, ‘How are the men who were hurt? There were two, I think. Are they all right?’

  The rajah looked surprised, as if it had not occurred to him to wonder.

  ‘Oh, all right, I expect.’

  ‘Good.’

  Late afternoon the party set off northwards again, heading vaguely towards Kota and the Chambal river. The going was indeed hot and dusty, the track not straight nor the surface good. The temperatures were growing daily, creeping steadily into the hundreds. Crossman ordered a halt at three and said they would rest in the shade of some thorn trees. There was a muddy waterhole nearby where the animals could drink, while the humans made do with their goatskin carriers.

  Shortly after the halt, while Crossman was shaving, Ibhanan brought the boy to him.

  ‘He was hiding under a blanket, sahib,’ said Ibhanan. ‘Shall I send him back?’

  It was Sajan the punkah-wallah, who had stowed away in one of the camel carts.

  ‘I won’t go back,’ came the defiant reply. ‘I shall follow you for ever.’

  Crossman shook his head at the boy. ‘What am I to do with you? I must send you back to the rajah. You’re his servant.’

  ‘I don’t wish to go back to the rajah,’ replied the boy with a defiant curl to his lip. ‘I wish to be a chain-man, like these others.’

  Crossman wiped the soap from his chin with his good hand and looked at Ibhanan.

  ‘How did the boy get into the cart?’

  Ibhanan seemed to hesitate, then he obviously decided that Crossman was a man who preferred the truth at all times.

  ‘He gave one of my men two annas to hide him.’

  Crossman shook his head, wearily. ‘He can’t stay, of course.’

  ‘Sahib, the rajah purchased this boy and is therefore his property. If you keep the boy you will be stealing from the rajah.
’ The older man paused before continuing. ‘But, then again, the rajah has many boys like this and will surely not miss one of them. And also, more importantly, it is not likely we shall be travelling this way again, and therefore will not have to face the rajah and answer his questions.’

  John Stillwell, who understood Hindi, had been listening to this exchange. He now intervened.

  ‘I think the child should go back to where he belongs. What if his father comes for him? Thou art bound for the borders of Chinese Tartary, where the child will never again see his family.’

  ‘We are certainly not bound for China,’ protested Crossman. Then he saw Sergeant King, hovering nearby. ‘Have you been telling this man we are going to Tibet?’

  King said quickly, ‘We should keep the boy. Look at his skin! He has European blood in his veins.’

  ‘An Anglo-Indian?’ Stillwell said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. His pallor could be the result of a lack of sun.’

  ‘Yes, yes, he must be,’ insisted King. ‘We can’t send him back, sir, to that tyrant. We must keep him.’

  Crossman said, ‘There’s no must about it, sergeant.’

  The boy stemmed any further argument between the officer and his senior NCO by crying, ‘My mother is dead. I am told my father was in the army of a nawab. I never saw him. I was raised by a woman who is married to a charcoal-maker, but she has five children already. She will have five more before too long and does not want me. I do not want to spend the rest of my life pulling on string, sahib. Please take me with you? I shall work until my hands fall from my arms. I shall work until my eyes drop out.’

  Crossman studied the boy’s troubled eyes. His concern was that the expedition was turning into a circus. Seeing the child’s desperation, he wanted to dismiss the minister’s fears and let Sajan stay with them. But what if all the boy said were not true? Perhaps he was a valuable hostage from a warring neighbour? All his practical instincts told him to send the boy back with one of the men. All his emotions reacted strongly against such a decision. What would Jane have done?