Far Pavilions (99 page)

A letter from Mardan had brought Ash this piece of news only a day after the raid on his bungalow, and the reflection that neither of his friends would be able to visit 'Pindi until the Jowaki matter was resolved had gone a long way towards softening his resentment at being so unjustly bundled off to Ahmadabad. But re-reading that letter from Wally, he had been reminded again of what Koda Dad had said on the roof of Fatima Begum's house at Attock, and was fretted by the thought that if there should be a war, the Guides would certainly be involved in it. The whole Corps would be sent, and some, inevitably, would never come back. But he, Ash, would be out of it all – kicking his heels in a dull and dusty cantonment in far-away Gujerat.

It was a lowering thought, yet on consideration he was unwilling to believe that this business of the Jowaki Afridis would develop into anything serious, or that it was connected in any way with the incidents that Koda Dad had related. The truth was that Koda Dad was getting old, and the old were apt to make much of trifles and take a pessimistic view of the future. There was no reason to take those stories too seriously.

Ash's last day in Rawalpindi had been a busy one. He had arranged the sale of two of his horses and despatched Baj Raj to the care of Wally in Mardan, paid a number of farewell visits to friends in the city, and scribbled several hurried letters to say that he was on his way to Gujerat and would probably be stationed there for at least eighteen months if not longer.

‘… and if during that time you should chance to be visiting your nieces,’ wrote Ash to Kaka-ji, ‘may I hope that you will honour me by travelling a little further, so that I may enjoy the felicity of meeting you again? The extra distance would not be too great. No more I think than fifty
koss
as the crow flies, and though it may well be half as much again by road, that is still only four or five days' journey, and I myself would come two thirds of that way to meet you. More if you would permit it, though that, I fear, you would not do…’

Kaka-ji would certainly not permit it. Nor did Ash have any real hope that the old man would even consider undertaking another journey to Bhithor. Yet there was always a chance that he might, and if he did he would certainly see and speak to Juli, and though he would not make any mention of her in writing, he could not, surely, refuse to speak of her if he and Ash should meet, when he must know that there were times when Ash would willingly have given an eye or a hand to hear that she was well and not too unhappy – or to have any news of her at all. Even bad news would have been easier to bear than this complete silence.

‘I am getting too old for such journeys,’ grumbled Mahdoo, stowing his baggage aboard the mail-train on the following night. ‘It is time I took my
wazifa
(pension) and settled down to spend my last days in peace and idleness, instead of all this running to and fro across the length and breadth of Hind.’

‘Do you mean that, Cha-cha-ji?’ asked Ash, startled.

‘Why should I say it if I did not?’ snapped the old man.

‘To punish me, perhaps? But if you do mean it, there is a dâk-
ghari
that leaves here in the morning and you could be in Abbottabad within three days.’

‘And what will become of you if I leave?’ demanded Mahdoo, rounding on him angrily. ‘Will you ask Gul Baz for his advice as you ask for mine? Or take it when it is given, as you have on many occasions taken mine? Besides, I am tied to you by a promise that I gave many years ago to Anderson-Sahib; and also by one that I gave to Ala Yar. By affection, too, which is an even stronger bond… but it is true that I grow old and tired and useless, and I have no wish to end my days in the south among idol-worshippers whose hearts are as black as their skins. When my time comes I would choose to die in the north where a man may smell the clean wind that blows off the high snows.’

‘That will be as God wills,’ said Ash lightly, ‘nor am I being sent to Gujerat for a lifetime. It is only for a short while, Cha-cha, and when it is over I will surely be permitted to return to Mardan; and then you shall take as much leave as you wish – or retire, if you must.’

Mahdoo sniffed, and went away to see to the bestowal of his own baggage, muttering to himself and looking unconvinced.

The train was only half-full that night, and Ash had been relieved to find himself the only occupant of a four-berth compartment, and thereby freed from the obligation of making conversation. But as the wheels began to turn and the lights and tumult of the railway station slid slowly past the carriage windows, giving place to darkness, he would have been grateful for a companion, for now that he was alone and idle, the optimism that had sustained him during the past two days suddenly left him, and he was no longer so certain that he would only be required to spend a year or eighteen months in Gujerat. Supposing it was two years – or three… or four? Supposing the Guides were to decide that on consideration they were not prepared to take him back at all? – ever!

The train rattled and jolted, and the oil lamp that swayed to every jolt stank abominably and filled the closed carriage with the stench of hot kerosene. Ash rose and turned it out, and lying back in the clamorous darkness, wondered how long it would be before he saw the Khyber again – and had the uncomfortable fancy that he could hear a reply in the voice of the clattering wheels – a harsh, mocking voice that repeated with maddening insistence, ‘Never again! Never again! Never again…’

The train journey to Bombay seemed far longer than he remembered it to have been on the last occasion that he had come that way, over five years ago. He had been travelling in the opposite direction then, and in the company of Belinda and her mother and the unfortunate George. Five years… Was it really only five years? It felt more like twelve – or twenty.

The railways were supposed to have made great strides since then, but Ash could see very little difference. Admittedly, an average speed of fifteen miles an hour was an improvement, but the carriages were just as dusty and uncomfortable, the stops as frequent, and there being still no through-train to Bombay, passengers were compelled to change trains as often as before. As for his carriage companions (for he had not been left in sole possession for long) they could hardly have been less enlivening. But at Bombay, where the mail-train stopped and Ash and his servants and baggage transferred into another one bound for Baroda and Ahmadabad, his luck changed. He found himself sharing a two-berth carriage with a small and inoffensive-looking gentleman whose placid manner and mild blue eyes were belied by red whiskers and a cauliflower-ear, and who introduced himself, in a voice as mild as his eyes, as Bert Stiggins, late of Her Majesty's Navy and now Captain and owner of a small coastal trading ship, the
Morala,
docked at Porban-dar on the west coast of Gujerat.

The mildness, however, proved to be deceptive; for just as the train was due to leave, two late arrivals pushed their way into the carriage, asserting loudly that they had reserved it for their own use and that Ash and Mr Stiggins were occupying it illegally. The interlopers were both members of a well-known trading concern, and they had obviously dined far too well before setting out for the station, since they seemed incapable of understanding that the number of the carriage they had reserved did not tally with the one they were attempting to occupy. Either that or they were spoiling for a fight, and if a brawl was what they desired, Ash was more than willing to accommodate them. But he was forestalled.

Mr Stiggins, who had been sitting peacefully on his berth while Ash and the guard attempted to use reason, rose to his feet as one of the intruders kicked the guard's legs from under him, toppling him backwards on to the platform outside, while the other aimed a wild punch at Ash, who had leapt to the guard's assistance.

‘You leave this to me, sonny,’ advised Mr Stiggins soothingly, and put Ash aside without apparent effort.

Ten seconds later both intruders were lying flat on their backs on the platform, wondering dazedly what had hit them, while Mr Stiggins tossed their belongings after them, apologized on their behalf to the ruffled guard, shut and fastened the carriage door and returned placidly to his seat.

‘Well I'll be damned!’ gasped Ash, unable to believe his eyes. ‘How on earth did you do that?’

Mr Stiggins, who was not even out of breath, looked faintly embarrassed and confessed to having learnt his fighting in the Navy and ‘brushed up on it’ in bars and other places – notably in Japan. ‘Them Japs is up to all sorts o' tricks; and very useful I've found 'em,’ said Mr Stiggins. ‘They lets the other bloke do all the work and knock 'imself out, so's ter speak. Simple, if you knows the way of it.’

He blew gently on the cracked skin of a knuckle, and glancing out of the window at the still recumbent gladiators, remarked in a tone of concern that ‘if them pore young fellers didn't look slippy’ they were going to miss the train, as no one among the gaping crowd of bystanders seemed to be interested in carrying them to their carriage. ‘Let's ‘ope it'll be a lesson to them both to go easy on the likker in future. As the Good Book says, “wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin’.”

‘Are you a teetotaller, Mr Stiggins?’ inquired Ash, regarding his small companion with considerable awe.

‘Cap'n Stiggins,’ corrected that gentleman mildly. ‘No, I likes a nip now an' then, but I don't 'old with wallowin' in it. Moderation in all things is me motto. One swaller too many, an' there y'are takin' on all comers an' like as not endin' up in the clink. Or, as it may be, missin' yore train like them pore young drunks are adoin' this very minute… there, wot did I tell yer?’

The guard, taking his revenge, had blown the whistle, and the train pulled out of Bombay Central Station a mere ten minutes late, leaving behind two would-be passengers who sat holding their heads and groaning amid scattered hand luggage and grinning coolies.

Ash learned a good deal about the little Captain during the remaining days of the journey, and his admiration for the Captain's fighting powers was soon equalled by his respect for the man himself. Herbert Stiggins, nicknamed ‘Red’ for reasons not wholly confined to the colour of his hair (he was known up and down the coast as the
‘Lal-lerai-wallah’,
the ‘Red fighting-fellow’), had parted company with the Navy almost half a century ago while still in his teens, and was at present engaged in the coastal trade, plying mainly between Sind and Gujerat. The
Morala
had recently been damaged in a collision with a dhow running without lights, and her owner explained to Ash that he had been in Bombay to see a lawyer about a claim for damages, and was on his way back.

His conversation was as salty and invigorating as the sea and interlarded with frequent quotations from the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer – the only printed works apart from manuals on sailing and navigation that he had ever read - and altogether he proved such an entertaining companion that by the time the train at last pulled into Ahmadabad, the two had become the best of friends.

35

Ahmadabad, the noble city that Sultan Ahmad Shah built in the first half of the fifteenth century, retained few traces of its legendary beauty and splendour. It was set in flat, featureless surroundings near the banks of the Sabar-mati River, and the fertile land was as different from the harsh, lion-coloured Border country as the sowars of Roper's Horse were different, both in appearance and temperament, from the men of the Frontier Force regiments; the Gujeratis being by nature a peace-loving folk whose best-known proverb is ‘Make friends with your enemy’.

Their senior officers struck Ash as being surprisingly old and staid, and far more set in their ways than those in his own Regiment; while as for their Commanding Officer, Colonel Pomfret, he might have been Rip Van Winkle in person, complete with ragged white beard and a set of ideas that were at least fifty years out of date.

The cantonment, however, differed little from the scores of similar cantonments scattered across the length and breadth of India: an ancient fort, a dusty sun-baked parade ground, barracks and cavalry lines, a small bazaar and a few European shops and a number of officers' bungalows standing in tree-shaded compounds where parakeets, doves and crows roosted among the branches and little striped squirrels scuffled among the tree roots.

Life there followed a familiar pattern of reveille, stables, musketry and office work, but on the social side Ash made a pleasant discovery: the presence of an old acquaintance from the Peshawar days – no other than Mrs Viccary, whose husband had recently been transferred to Gujerat. The pleasure had been mutual, and Edith Viccary's bungalow soon became a second home to him since she was, as ever, an interested and sympathetic listener, and as the last time he had seen her was prior to Belinda's defection and his own disappearance over the Border into Afghanistan, there was much that he had to tell her.

As far as his work was concerned, he found himself at a grave disadvantage in the matter of language. Once, long ago, he had learned Gujerati from a member of his father's camp; but that was too far back for him to remember it, so now he must start again from the beginning, and like any newcomer, study hard to master it. The fact that he had spoken it as a child may possibly have helped him to make better progress than he would otherwise have done – certainly his fellow officers, unaware of his background (though the nickname of ‘Pandy’ had followed him), were astonished at the speed with which he picked it up, though their Colonel, who thirty years ago had met Professor Hilary Pelham-Martyn and subsequently read at least one volume of the Professor's monumental work
The Languages and Dialects of the Indian Sub-Continent
, did not think it strange that the son should have inherited his father's linguistic talents. He could only hope that the young man had not also inherited his parent's unorthodox views.