Far Pavilions (42 page)

Accompanied by Mahdoo and Gul Baz, the two had left by tonga for Murree, where rooms had been booked for them in one of the hotels that at this time of year were full of summer visitors escaping from the blazing heat of the plains.

Wally celebrated his own escape by falling in love with three young ladies at once: a pretty girl who sat with her mother at a near-by table in the dining-room, and the twin daughters of a High-Court Judge who had hired a cottage in the hotel grounds. His inability to choose between them prevented any of these affairs from becoming serious, but they inspired him to write a good deal of love-lorn verse, all of it deplorable, and led him to accept so many invitations to dine, dance or take tea that if Ash had not intervened, his chances of enjoying the rest and quiet advocated by the doctor would have been minimal. But Ash had no intention of wasting his leave dancing attendance on ‘a bunch of bird-witted girls and giddy grass-widows’, and said so with considerable force - adding a rider to the effect that in his opinion the objects of Wally's divided devotion were three of the most insipid damsels this side of Suez, and his doggerel was worthy of them.

‘The trouble with you,’ retorted the incensed poet, touched on the raw, ‘is that you have no soul. And what's more, if you're going to go on posing as a misogynist for the rest of your life just because some silly chit gave your fresh young illusions a black eye and a bloody nose a few years ago, you haven't any sense either. It's about time you got over Bertha or Bella or Belinda or whatever her name was, and realized that there are other women in the world – and very charming ones too. Not,’ conceded Wally generously, ‘that you have to marry them, of course. I don't think, myself, that a soldier should get married until he's at least thirty-five.’

‘ “A Daniel come to judgement”!’ mocked Ash. ‘Well, in that case, the sooner we remove ourselves from temptation the better.’

They removed themselves to Kashmir, leaving most of their luggage behind in the hotel and hiring hill ponies for the long trek between Murree and Baramullah, from where they turned aside to shoot duck on the Wula Lake and red bear and
barasingh
in the mountains above it.

It was Wally's first experience of high mountains, and gazing at the white crest of Nanga Parbat, the ‘Naked Mountain’, rising tall and stately above the long range of snows that ring Lalla Rookh's fabled valley, he could understand the awe that had moved Ash as a small boy to pray to the Dur Khaima. The whole country seemed extravagantly beautiful to him, from the lotus-strewn lakes and the winding, willow-fringed rivers, to the vast forests of deodar and chestnut that swept upwards to meet the shale and the great glaciers that lay above the snow line. He was loth to leave it, and 'Pindi seemed hotter and dustier and more unpleasant than ever as their tonga rattled along the cantonment road on the last day of leave, bringing them back once more to their bungalow. But the mountain air and the long days spent in the open had done their work. He returned fit and well, and suffered no more illness during the remainder of that hot weather.

The heat had not worried Ash, but desk work bored him to distraction and there was always too much of that in Rawalpindi. Zarin, riding over from Mardan, told him that the Guides were to provide an escort for the eldest son of the
Padishah
(the Queen) when he visited Lahore during his tour of India in the coming cold weather.

‘It's a great honour,’ said Zarin, ‘and I grieve that you will have no share in it. How much longer do they mean to keep you here, tied to a desk? It is nearly a year now. Soon it will be three years since you last served with the Guide Corps, and that is far too long. It is time you came back to us.’

But the authorities did not agree with this view. They had made a promise to send Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn further away from the Frontier as soon as a suitable opportunity presented itself, and now, nearly eleven months later, they roused themselves from the lethargy induced by the hot weather, and redeemed it.

A letter had come from the Governor of the Punjab's First Secretary requesting them, on behalf of His Excellency, to nominate a suitable British officer to escort the two sisters of His Highness the Maharajah of Karidkote, to Rajputana, to be married to the Rana of Bhithor. The officer's principal duty on the march would consist of seeing that His Highness's sisters were received with due honour and the proper salutes by any British garrisons on the route, and that their camp was adequately provisioned. On arrival in Bhitor he would be expected to see that the agreed bride-price was paid and the brides safely married, before accompanying the camp back to the borders of Karidkote. Taking all this into account, and bearing in mind that the camp was likely to be a large one, it was essential that the officer selected should not only be a fluent linguist, but have a thorough knowledge of the native character and the customs of the country.

It was that final paragraph that had brought Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn's name to mind; and the fact that the assignment would certainly take him well away from the North-West Frontier had served to clinch the matter. Ash himself had not been invited to express any opinions or allowed the option of refusing the appointment. He had merely been sent for and given his orders.

‘What they appear to want,’ said Ash disgustedly, describing the interview to Wally, ‘is someone to act as a combination of sheep-dog, supply officer and nursemaid to a parcel of squealing women and palace parasites; and I'm it. Oh well, bang goes polo for this season. Who'd be a peace-time soldier?’

‘Faith, if you ask me, it's a lucky divil you are,’ said Wally enviously. ‘I only wish they'd chosen me. Just think of it – jaunting off across India in charge of a pair of beautiful princesses.’

‘Pair of bun-faced dowds, more likely,’ returned Ash sourly. ‘Bet you anything they're fat, spoilt and spotty – and still in the schoolroom.’

‘Blather! All princesses are ravishingly beautiful. Or they should be, anyway. I can just picture them: rings on their fingers and bells on their toes, and hair like Rapunzel's – no, she was a blonde, wasn't she? They'll be brunettes. I adore brunettes. You wouldn't be asking if I could go along with you, would you now? As a sort of right-hand-man: head cook and bottle-washer? You're sure to need one.’

‘Like rabies,’ observed Ash inelegantly.

Fifteen days later he said goodbye to Wally, and accompanied by Mahdoo and Gul Baz, his head-syce Kulu Ram, a grass-cutter and half-a-dozen lesser retainers, set out for Deenagunj, a small town in British India where the wedding party, at present under the charge of a local District Officer, awaited his arrival.

14

Deenagunj lay on the fringe of the foothills, a day's march from the border of the independent State of Karidkote and some twenty miles from the nearest British garrison.

Barely more than a village, it was indistinguishable from a hundred other little towns in the northern half of the territory that is watered by the Chenab, the Ravi and the Beas Rivers, and its population seldom rose above two thousand. At the present moment, however, this figure had been disastrously increased, the Governor's secretary having under-stated the case when he expressed the opinion that the bridal camp was ‘likely to be a large one’, as it was, in point of fact, enormous.

The assembly sent by the Maharajah of Karidkote to escort his sisters to their wedding outnumbered the citizens of Deenagunj by almost four to one, and Ash arrived to find the town a mere annex to the camp, the bazaar sold out of all foodstuffs and fodder and rapidly running short of water, the city-fathers in a state of near hysteria and the District Officer, nominally in control of the camp, down with malaria.

It was a situation that might well have daunted a great many older and more experienced men than Ash. But the authorities had, after all, not chosen so badly when they nominated Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn (temporarily elevated to the rank of Captain by virtue of his office) for this particular mission. The uproar and confusion that would have conveyed, to an alien eye, an impression of riot, aroused no dismay in one who had been brought up in the bazaars of an Indian city and become accustomed at an early age to the extravagance, muddle and intrigue of life in the palace of an Indian prince.

The size and disorganization of the camp did not strike Ash as in any way remarkable, for he had not forgotten Lalji's wedding and the army of attendants that had accompanied the bride to Gulkote and settled like a swarm of locusts on the city and the Hawa Mahal. Yet Lalji's bride had only been the daughter of some small hill Rajah, while the brother of the Karidkote princesses was a full-blown Maharajah and ruler of no small state, so it was only to be expected that their escort would be proportionately larger. All that was needed was someone to take decisions and to give the necessary orders, and Ash had not served with the Guides and been tutored by Koda Dad's two sons for nothing. This was familiar ground.

He sent Gul Baz to find a guide who could take them to the District Officer, and presently they were riding through the mêlée, led by an elderly individual in uniform – presumably that of the Karidkote State Forces – who laid about him with the scabbard of a rusty tulwar as he cleared a passage for them between the shifting, shouting crowd of men and animals.

The District Officer's tent had been pitched under a
sal
tree and its occupant lay prone on a camp bed, shivering helplessly in the grip of fever. His temperature was a hundred and three (which was much the same as that in the tent) and he was unfeignedly glad to see his replacement. Mr Carter was both young and new to the district, and as it was also his first experience of malaria, it is hardly surprising that he should regard the whole situation as some form of nightmare. The endless stream of petitions, complaints and accusations, the chaos and the heat and the noise – particularly the noise -made his head feel as though it was an anvil on which iron hammers beat unceasingly, and the sight of Ash, who would relieve him of responsibility, was as welcome as water in a desert.

‘Sorry about this,’ croaked the District Officer. ‘Devilish nuisance. Afraid you'll find things are in a… bit of a mess here. Undisciplined beggars… better get 'em on the move again, soon as you can… before there's a scrimmage. There's this business about the boy, too… Jhoti – H.H.'s brother. The Heir Apparent. Arrived last night. Ought to tell you -’

He did his best to give Ash an outline of the position and some idea of the responsibilities and problems involved, but it was plain that he found it almost impossible to marshal his thoughts or make his tongue obey him, and he eventually abandoned the effort and sent instead for a native clerk, who reeled off a tally of the dowry contained in a score of iron-bound chests and the amount of ready money available for the journey, produced lists of men, waiting-women, baggage-animals, tents, supplies and camp-followers, but admitted that the numbers were only approximate and the actual total was probably somewhat higher. Even on paper the entourage was formidable enough, for it included a battery of artillery and two regiments of the Maharajah's soldiery, together with twenty-five elephants, five hundred camels, innumerable horses and at least six thousand camp-followers.

‘No need to have sent so many. Bit of swank – that's all,’ whispered the District Officer hoarsely. ‘But then he's only a boy still. Not seventeen yet… H.H., I mean. Father died a few years ago, and this… this is his chance to show off to the others – fellow princes. And to us, of course. Waste of money, but no arguing with him. Difficult young man… tricky…’

It appeared that the young Maharajah had escorted his sisters as far as the border of his state, and then turned back to go hunting, leaving the cumbersome camp in charge of the District Officer, whose orders were to accompany it as far as Deenagunj, where he would hand it over to Captain Pelham-Martyn of the Guides Cavalry. But neither His Excellency the Governor of the Punjab nor the military authorities at Rawalpindi had realized how large that camp would be. Nor had they known that there would be a last-minute addition to the party in the person of His Highness's ten-year-old brother, Jhoti.

‘Don't know why they sent him. Though I can guess,’ mumbled the District Officer. ‘Nuisance, though… didn't even know he was here until last night… More responsibility. Oh well – your pigeon now, thank God! Sorry for you…’

There were a good many other formalities that had to be completed, and by the time these had been dealt with the day was far advanced. But the sick man insisted upon leaving, not only because he craved for quiet and for clean air to breathe, but because he recognized the pitfalls of divided authority. The camp was no longer ‘his pigeon' and therefore the sooner he left it the better. His servants transferred him to a waiting palanquin and jogged away into the dusty glow of the late afternoon, and Ash went out to take over control of his command.

That first evening had been a chaotic one. No sooner had the District Officer's palanquin disappeared from sight than a clamouring horde converged upon his successor with demands for payment of bills, accusations of theft, brutality and other forms of
zulum
(oppression), and loud-voiced complaints on a score of matters ranging from inadequate accommodation to a dispute between the camel-drivers and the mahouts from the elephant lines over an allocation of fodder. Their behaviour was understandable, for the age and rank of the new Sahib who had taken over from ‘Carter-Sahib’ presupposed inexperience, and judging solely by this yardstick, it seemed to the camp (and also to the city-fathers) that the Sirkar had sent an almost insultingly inadequate representative to act as ‘sheep-dog, supply-officer and nursemaid’. They therefore reacted to this belief in a predictable manner, and discovered their mistake in something under five minutes.