Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (36 page)

The old lady spread her hands. “That I do not know, sir. They were driving away at speed.”

Alfie looked at Smethers. “Europeans, one big and one small... The Russian pair?” He turned back to the woman. “And these Europeans – were they Russian?”

The woman shrugged. “Russian? European?” she said, smiling disarmingly. “With respect, sir, I cannot tell the difference.”

“Christ! By Christ, what a damned farrago!” Smethers muttered, beating his thigh with his stick. “There’s obviously no more we can do here... Come on, Littlebody.”

Alfie nodded his thanks to the proprietor and followed Smethers from the guest house.

“So now the blasted Russians have the girl. And you know what that means?”

Alfie shook his head as he followed Smethers along the street. “No, sir.”

“You haven’t heard about Volovich and Yezhov? They’re monsters, Littlebody. Psychopaths. They particularly enjoy torturing their victims. The girl doesn’t stand a chance.”

Alfie winced as Smethers led the way across the square to a taxi rank. If Colonel Smethers considered the Russians to be psychopaths, then Alfie didn’t like to dwell on the depths of their depravities – or on the fate of the girl.

“There’s only one road from the town, Littlebody. It’s my guess that they made either for the train station or the airyard. We’ll try the airyard first.”

They slipped into the back of the first cab in the rank and Smethers ordered the driver to take them to the airyard at the double.

As the car tore down the main street, taking the bends at speed with little regard for life and limb, Alfie hung on and considered the girl. He saw her smile in his mind’s eye, her laughing eyes, and heard her amused, educated tones as she discussed religion with him in Dehrakesh. He closed his eyes and tried not to think of her at the mercy of the Russian psychopaths.

Ten minutes later the car raced towards the dazzling arc-lights surrounding the airyard, pulled up with a screech of brakes before the main gates and juddered to a halt. Smethers threw a handful of rupees at the driver and dashed from the cab, Alfie giving chase.

An armed guard halted them at the gate. Smethers and Alfie showed their identity passes and gained admittance. As they hurried across the tarmac to the brick-built terminal building, a brigadier with pork-chop sideburns hurried out to meet them.

“Security bods, what? Dammit, you took your time, didn’t you?”

“Colonel Smethers and Lieutenant Littlebody,” Smethers said, saluting. “What’s going on here, sir?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, Colonel. Airship took off an hour ago without permission. German pair aboard, landed this morning from Delhi.”

“German?” Smethers said. “You sure they weren’t Russian?”

“Well, they might have been, at that,” the brigadier allowed. “Anyway, a sentry heard shooting aboard, decided to have a quick recce, and next thing, the bloody ’ship takes off, snapping guy ropes willy-nilly. Nearly decapitated one of me men. I sent a few Sopwiths up after ’em, but I doubt we’ll apprehend it. Bloody cloud cover, y’see.”

“Which way were they heading?” Smethers asked, gazing up into the night sky.

The brigadier pointed. “East,” he said. “They were aboard an old ship, but even so they’ll have the cloud cover working for ’em.”

Smethers requisitioned the airyard’s fastest vessel and a pilot, fuelled up and, in due course, took off. Alfie watched the lighted airyard recede rapidly beneath them as Smethers steered the ship east towards the border with Nepal.

They sat in armchairs in the swinging gondola. Smethers pulled a flask from his jacket and took a swift nip.

“What I don’t understand,” Alfie said at last, “is why the Russians should be taking the Chatterjee girl and the boy to Nepal?”

Smethers smacked his lips. “I dread to think,” he muttered.

“If the Colonel doubted that his planes could apprehend them,” Alfie said, “then how will we?”

Smethers said, “I know exactly where they’re heading, Littlebody. We’ll go straight there and wait until they arrive. Ambush the blighters and nab the girl.” He laughed. “And then the fun will begin,” he finished.

Alfie turned from the colonel and stared out into the darkness.

A
LFIE WOKE WITH
a start.

He blinked, wondering for a second where he was. He recalled setting off from the airyard at Rishi Tal, heading east for Nepal... He was wallowing in the depths of a comfortable armchair, lulled by the drone of the airship’s engines, which evidently had sent him to sleep. He sat up, then realised what had woken him.

Colonel Smethers sat in the opposite armchair, leaning forward and staring intently at him. The reek of whisky filled the room. The colonel’s hip flask lay at his feet, and his face was the puce shade of the hopelessly inebriated. This, however, was not what alarmed Alfie so much as the fact that Smethers was pointing a revolver at him.

“Have... have you ever known fear, Littlebody? I mean
real
fear? The kind of gut-wrenching terror that makes a man want to... want to shit himself, hm?”

Alfie stared at the pistol. He felt sweat trickle down his face. He knew fear now, but he was damned if he was about to admit it to the colonel.

“Well, man!”

“Ah...” Alfie temporised. “Well...”

“Go on, Littlebody. Tell me.”

“No, sir,” he said, wondering why the hell a drunken madman was aiming his revolver at him. “No, I haven’t. Not that type of fear, sir.”

Smethers grunted. He sat forward in the chair, his elbows lodged on his knees. His aim wavered as he focused on Alfie. “Well, I have, Littlebody.” He shook his head. “I’ve tasted fear, real, bowel-quaking fear, and I’ll tell you this for... for nothing, I don’t ever want to taste it again.”

“No, sir,” Alfie stammered.

Smethers grinned at him. “So... so I think it only right that you... you should have a little taster, what?”

“I don’t know about that, sir,” Alfie began.

Smethers blinked, belched – chewed on a reflux of single malt bile and swallowed it – then said, apropos of nothing, “You heard about Poona, 1916, Littlebody?”

“Ah, yes, sir. The rebellion.”

“The rebellion. That’s right. I was there, Littlebody. So was my wife.”

Alfie nodded, his heart labouring. All it would take was for Smethers’ trigger finger to twitch, drunkenly, and the show would be over. “Is that right, sir?” he said.

Smethers had never before mentioned that he had a wife. The thought of the maniac being married was hard to credit.

“That is right, Littlebody. I was there. Right in the bloody thick of it...” He leaned even further forward, so far that Alfie thought he was about to slip off the seat. “That’s where I tasted fear, real fear, for the first time. Fear and almighty grief, Littlebody.”

Alfie nodded, not at all liking where this might be leading.

“And... and I thought, you being a lily-livered little wog-lover and what have you, you should have a little taster, what?”

Alfie licked his lips. Sweat drenched his torso. “I... I’m not sure about that, sir.”

Smethers laughed. “Well, I am, Littlebody. To which effect...” He raised his revolver with renewed concentration and aimed it at Alfie’s chest. “Y’see, I’ve loaded me piece with one... one single bullet. Catch me drift? One bullet. Now... let’s play a game. It’s called roulette. Russian roulette, so I’m reliably informed. I first played it in 1916, in Poona...”

Alfie tried not to groan with fear. He glanced behind Smethers. The door to the control cabin, where their pilot would be sitting in happy ignorance of what was taking place here, was shut. Surely, he thought, Smethers wouldn’t open fire with the pilot just yards away?

But Smethers was in his cups, he reminded himself, gripped by God knew what emotions and far from logical...

“Now... now this is how we play,” Smethers went on. “You sit tight there, young Littlebody, sit tight while I... while I raise me piece, take aim and...”

Alfie gripped the arms of the chair and pressed himself back as Smethers raised his revolver and squeezed the trigger.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber and Alfie whimpered.

“One down, five to go, Littlebody. Only... tell you what, I’m a sporting man. I’ll play fair. If you survive four more shots, then... then I’ll let you off. How’s that? Can’t ask any fairer, can you, what?”

“Sir, I think...” he began.

“You think what?” Smethers snapped.

“I think this isn’t a good idea, sir.”

Smethers barked a laugh. The pistol wavered. “Well, I think it’s a capital idea, Littlebody. Show you a little fear, what? Show
you
what
I
went through in 1916.”

He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger.

Alfie cried out and jumped.

“Two down!” Smethers cried. “Funk, Littlebody. Was that funk I saw there? Heard... heard you’re rather good on that score, what?”

Alfie found himself close to tears. “Please, please, sir...”

“No good. No good, Littlebody. No amount of pleading will do you any good, Littlebody. Men don’t plead. I didn’t plead, y’see.”

Alfie thought desperately. Perhaps, if he got Smethers talking about what happened in the rebellion at Poona, then he might distract the colonel long enough so that he could launch himself from the chair and disarm the madman.

“What happened, sir?”

Smethers’ gaze lost its focus as he looked back in time. “I was in me bungalow. Mary... Mary, God bless her, was asleep in the bedroom. I was burning the old midnight oil, reading something or other. Wasn’t expecting a thing...” He looked up at Alfie. “Well, you don’t, do you?”

Alfie gulped. “No, sir.”

Smethers stirred himself, stared at the weapon in his hand and aimed it at Alfie’s chest.

If Alfie launched himself at the lunatic, knocked him flying... He sat up, preparing himself.

“Sit back!” the colonel spat. “Sit back like a man and listen to what I’m saying, damn you!”

Alfie sat back, quivering.

“So there I was, midnight, the town quiet... When all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose. First thing I know, bunch of blasted sepoys – me own bloody men, most of ’em – burst into the bungalow and tie me to the blessed chair. Others... others barged into Mary’s bedroom...” He blinked. Tears pooled in his ice blue eyes. “Give her this, the gel showed her mettle. Didn’t cry out. Thirty minutes later... I heard the shot.”

Alfie a shook his head. “God... My God, I’m sorry.”

Smethers looked up and stared at Alfie as if seeing him for the first time. He raised his revolver and pulled the trigger again. Yet again the hammer fell on a vacant chamber. Alfie wept.

“Three down, Littlebody!” Smethers barked with laughter. “Two more and you live to fight another day, what? Now, where was I?”

“Poona, sir. The bungalow. The sepoys bound you to the chair.”

“That’s right, so they did, the dirty little cowards... So there I was. Mary dead in the bedroom and me knowing me number was up. I’d be next... But you know what, Littlebody? I was damned if I’d let the bastards put the fear of God in me. I faced them like a man. Didn’t so much as flinch. Their leader, a big Sikh... he pulled up an armchair, positioned it right in front of mine and pulled out his revolver. And his men, a dozen of them, positioned themselves around the room and watched, grinning like they do, y’know?” Smethers shook his head at the recollection. “Strange thing was, he called me sahib this, sahib that, servile even when he was about to shoot me dead... ‘Now we are playing a little game, you and me, sahib. Have you heard of Russian roulette, sahib?’ I stared the man in the eye and told him to shoot me if that’s what he intended. But no, he didn’t want to do it like a man. The bastard wanted to see me quail. But I’ll tell you, Littlebody, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose control.”

Lightning fast, Smethers raised the pistol and squeezed off another shot. Alfie screwed his eyes tight shut as the hammer snapped on yet another empty chamber.

Smethers returned to his story, shaking his head. “So there I sat, watching Gunga Din as he slipped one bullet into his revolver and spun the cylinder. Then he aimed at me and... and pulled the trigger. And by Christ, Littlebody, I sat up proud and straight and didn’t move a muscle, didn’t so much as blink! Y’see, I was ready for death, after... after what they’d done to Mary, y’see...?”

Alfie licked his lips, nodded his understanding.

Four down. Two more chambers remained. Although Alfie was gripped with fear as he’d never experienced it before, he had sufficient wits to calculate that his chances – if Smethers could be relied on to keep his word – were fifty-fifty.

He gripped the arms of his chair and offered up a silent prayer.

“So Gunga Din raised his piece and pulled the trigger again, and again – and I stared straight into his evil black eyes and didn’t bat an eyelid, and y’know what, Littlebody? It worked. It got to him. My stare, my defiance, my dashed British backbone showed him what a snivelling coward he was, him and all his men, standing around watching him playing games with the white man.”