The Governor's Lady (25 page)

Major Mills raised his eyebrows.

‘I'm going after him,' he said. ‘He's still got his revolver. Or should have. He'd be better without it.'

Captain Webber looked down at the body.

‘We've got to get him up onto the bed,' he said. ‘He can't stay there all night.'

He paused.

‘And we'll need help,' he added. ‘We nearly dropped him last time, remember.'

It was a little unnerving when they reached the bed. Sir Gardnor sank onto it so naturally, and the bed creaked so convincingly, that they might have been helping him into it when drunk.

When they left him, Sir Gardnor was simply a large, vague shape under one of the Residency sheets. His face was entirely covered.

Captain Webber paused for a moment.

‘Was he a religious man?' he asked. ‘It's quite usual to leave a Bible lying on top, you know. That is, if you've got one handy.'

Outside the marquee, the Signals Officer was hanging round trying to attract Harold's attention.

‘You'll be wanting to get through to base, won't you?' he asked. ‘You give me the message and I'll do what I can. I'm not promising anything, mind you. They aren't usually receiving at this hour.'

He glanced down at his watch as he was speaking. It showed ten minutes past one.

‘Where's Major Mills?' he asked.

The Signals Officer winked back at him.

‘Directing operations. State of siege,' he said.

It was then that it occurred to Harold that, with Sir Gardnor dead and the A.D.C. in disgrace, he was the senior civilian member of the party. He found himself rather enjoying the sensation. And, when the Signals Officer handed him a pad of blank forms, he accepted it.

The opening of the message was easy. In Roman capitals, he wrote ‘ACTING CHIEF SECRETARY TOP PRIORITY IMMEDIATE'. But that was where he began to run into difficulties. He had never sent a Service telegram before. But he didn't want to keep the Signals Officer waiting, didn't want to reveal what an amateur he was. He lettered on. ‘PAINFUL DUTY INFORM YOU HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR DIED REPEAT DIED SUDDENLY 0300 HOURS THIS MORNING STOP CAUSE OF DEATH STAB WOUNDS STOP PERSONAL SERVANT QUOTE OLD MOSES UNQUOTE UNDER CLOSE ARREST STOP INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUING STOP LADY ANNE UNDER TREATMENT FOR SHOCK STOP RETURNING IMMEDIATELY SIGNED HAROLD STEBBS.'

It was only when he had finished it that he wondered whether, with Service telegrams, it was really necessary to save money by cutting down the wording.

But the Signals Officer read it out approvingly.

‘That's the ticket,' he said. ‘We're trying to get through to them now.
Won't be easy because they're not expecting us. Probably all shut down by now.'

It came as sweet relief to get back into bed again and, in the darkness, to ease off the strapping of the bandage. Captain Webber had bound it round too tight: he could feel the wad of lint pressing right down into his eyeball.

He had just arranged the pillow under his good cheek when he heard Major Mills calling him. The voice sounded eager and excited.

‘You awake?' Major Mills was asking. ‘Got some news for you.'

Harold switched on the battery-lamp beside his bed.

‘Come in,' he said.

There was a bottle of whisky and a jug of water on the folding table.

Major Mills helped himself to a drink. The very fact that he didn't blurt out his piece of news immediately showed that it was something big, something that would be worth waiting for.

‘Aaah,' he said as he put his glass down. ‘I think I've earned that.'

Under his left arm he was carrying a bundle wrapped round in a hand towel. The royal ‘G.R.' showed up in reverse at one corner. He was hugging the bundle to him.

‘What's that you've got there?' he asked.

Major Mills tapped it with his forefinger.

‘That's what Old Moses was using,' he said. ‘Key piece of evidence. Have to come up at the trial. Just going over to get the doctor to identify it. He's the one who pulled it out, you know.'

He paused.

‘Probably got his fingerprints all over it,' he added in a lunatic flash of sudden insight.

Harold still felt sure that this was not the piece of news that had brought Major Mills to his bedside: he could see that the Major was now squaring himself up to deliver it.

‘Just as well I had that roll-call,' he announced. ‘There's a man missing.'

‘One of yours?' Harold asked him. Major Mills shook his head.

‘Not exactly,' he said. ‘Household. One of the kitchen boys. No sign of him. Must have slipped out past the sentries. Don't like the look of it.'

Harold raised himself up higher in his bed.

‘Which one?' he asked.

‘New boy,' Major Mills replied. ‘Wasn't in the lot I vetted. Last minute arrangement. Never seen him before this trip. Tall, coffee coloured fellow.'

Harold leant back again against the pillow. He had just remembered those scratch-marks down the A.D.C.'s chest.

‘Pretty big kitten,' he said.

‘What's that?'

‘Nothing,' Harold told him. ‘Just something that crossed my mind.'

Major Mills looked worried for a moment, wondering if Harold was all right. But the other piece of news was too big to be kept back any longer. Light-headed or not, Harold was going to hear.

‘And there's something else you don't know,' he said. ‘Something I've only just found out.'

‘Such as?'

‘It was Old Moses who signed him on,' Major Mills replied. ‘Said he was one short. None of the others had ever met him before. Or, at least, that's what they say.'

‘And you think the two of them were in it together?'

Major Mills nodded.

‘Looks like it,' he said. ‘Damn suspicious making a bunk for it.'

He broke off to pour himself another drink, and smacked his lips over it.

‘Old Moses could tell you what's behind it all,' he went on. ‘That's for certain. Only he won't talk. Gone silent, or something.'

‘What have you done with him?' Harold asked.

Major Mills allowed himself a little smile of self-congratulation.

‘Under lock-and-key,' he said. ‘In one of the trucks. Posted an armed guard round it. For all we know—' here Major Mills dropped his voice to a whisper—‘there may be more of' em in it. Not taking any chances.'

He re-adjusted the bundle under his arm.

‘Got a patrol out looking for the other fellow,' he added. ‘Shouldn't be far away.'

Because no one had really been able to get to sleep again, they were all nervy, irritable and on top of each other when they met next morning. And, with Old Moses locked up and the kitchen boy gone a.w.o.l, even breakfast itself was in confusion.

Major Mills was the first at the table and Harold sat down beside him. It was by then a few minutes after five, and already the sun was up and in full fury. Because it was still early, the striped awning provided no protection. Uninterrupted, the heat and the glare came slanting in underneath it.

Major Mills shifted his chair back a little.

‘My God, it's going to be a hot one,' he said.

They were joined almost immediately by Captain Webber. He came out of the marquee, opposite, thoroughly hang-dog and despondent-looking.

At the sight of Major Mills, he seemed relieved.

‘I say,' he said, ‘I've just been in there.'

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as he was speaking.

‘It's like an oven. Won't be nice later. Can you lay on a burial party?'

Major Mills finished the cup of lukewarm coffee he was drinking.

‘Give me time to get my patrols back first,' he said.

His mouth was full of grounds, and he ran his tongue backwards and forwards across his teeth to clean them.

‘Shouldn't be long now. Probably picked him up already. Better see if they've sent a runner.'

Still licking his teeth, Major Mills got up and left them.

Captain Webber leant forward.

‘I'm not too keen on moving Lady Anne,' he said. ‘Not in her condition. Ought to keep her absolutely quiet. She's my responsibility, you know.'

‘Is she worse?'

Captain Webber was playing with his spoon, balancing it lengthwise across the rim of his cup.

‘She's still under sedation,' he said, ‘and I'm going to keep her that way. If she came to, she might do anything.'

‘Can't Sybil Prosser look after her?'

‘She can so long as I keep her under. I don't know after that.'

He jabbed his finger down on the end of the handle as he said it, and caught the spoon as it cart-wheeled up into the air.

‘Out of her mind when she came to just now,' he finished up. ‘Simply wasn't with us.'

‘Will she be all right?'

Captain Webber wiped away a brown stain that the spoon had made on his jacket.

‘Not my department,' he replied. ‘Hospital-case, really.'

‘Then hadn't we better get her there?'

‘It's fifty-fifty,' Captain Webber told him. ‘I can't give her proper attention out here. On the other hand, the journey may be too much for her. Might just as well toss up for it.'

He pursed his lips and seemed to be considering.

‘There's still H.E.,' he added. ‘Can't take him with us. Not in this heat. Mustn't go upsetting the driver.'

Harold shook his head.

‘He'd be furious if he thought we were just leaving him here,' he said. ‘Simply furious. He'd feel it was lacking in respect or something.'

This time Captain Webber merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘I'm not in charge of transport,' he replied. ‘It's up to the Major. But if you really want to move him, you'd better be quick about it. It's not too pleasant even now, over there in that marquee.'

He broke off for a moment because the Signals Officer was bearing down on them. He had one of his own message envelopes in his hand.

‘Just come in,' he said. ‘I couldn't raise anybody earlier. But they came back quick enough. It's their reply.'

Harold held out his hand for it, but the Signals Officer kept the envelope from him.

‘It's addressed to the A.D.C.,' he said. ‘Marked “Personal and Immediate”.'

‘Well?'

‘I've tried him,' the Signals Officer replied. ‘And he won't take it. Says he's not up to it, or something. Sounded pretty low to me.'

‘Okay,' said Harold. ‘Give it to me.'

He ripped the envelope open rather officiously. It was all quite absurd, of course. The envelope had been stuck down only a few minutes before, less than twenty-five yards away from where he was sitting. And, in any case, the Signals Officer knew exactly what the message contained.

It was a snub; a Top Priority official snub, ‘URGENTEST FROM THE ACTING CHIEF SECRETARY,' IT READ, ‘CONFIRM INSTANTLY SUBSTANCE TELEGRAM SIGNED QUOTE STEBBS UNQUOTE STOP ESSENTIAL RECEIVE CONFIRMATION BY PROPER CHANNEL STOP AWAITING IMMEDIATE REPEAT IMMEDIATE REPLY.' It was signed ‘Frith'.

Captain Webber got up, and pushed his chair back neatly against the table.

‘Think I'd better go across to see him,' he said. ‘Bad business if you're an A.D.C. and this sort of thing happens.'

He was entirely unhurried.

‘Then I'll have a look at that eye of yours. Needs re-bandaging.'

‘I'd rather have burnt the whole lot. They'll only be fighting over it when we've gone. There's practically nothing of value in any of these villages.'

Major Mills was standing in front of the heap of camp stores while he was speaking. It made a quite considerable pyramid. There were chairs, tables, spare bedding, tins of food, cooking utensils. It represented a substantial write-off of sound Government equipment.

But it was inevitable. With one thirty-hundredweight truck converted into an ambulance for Lady Anne, and the other brought into commission as a hearse, there was now a critical shortage of transport. Even Old Moses, under armed escort, was taking up valuable space in the South Staff's own regimental vehicle.

It was not the best of journeys. And they could not speed it up because of Lady Anne. Before they left Amimbo the rear springs of the thirty-hundredweight truck had been fitted with another leaf to strengthen them for the extra load; and now, lightened as the truck was, it bounced about like a ping-pong ball at anything much above twelve miles an hour. Making up time on the flatter stretches was out of the question. And, because they were always behind schedule, there was no mid-day break when the sun was really at its worst. They simply drew up for a moment, changed drivers and got going again.

With nightfall, any thought of further travel was impossible. Captain Webber was insistent, too, that Lady Anne could not stand any more of it. Or Sybil Prosser for that matter: only thirty-six hours earlier it was she who had been the camp invalid. When she climbed down out of the truck, she seemed ready to collapse on top of them.

Harold went up to her.

‘How is she?' he asked.

Sybil Prosser was still straightening up her back: she was a tall woman, and for the past eight hours she had been sitting folded and upright on a two-foot medicine case in the ambulance truck.

‘We'll be lucky if she makes it,' she said. ‘Captain Webber tells me it's all your idea.'

There was no particular bitterness in the remark: it was just an observation that she was making.

‘Can I see her?'

Sybil Prosser shook her head.

‘It wouldn't do any good,' she replied. ‘They're not letting her come round. And I don't wonder. I only hope her heart stands up to it. She's not strong, you know. She never has been.'

Her voice was as flat and expressionless as ever. It might have been a stranger they were discussing.