‘And damnably dangerous,’ said Alex tersely.
‘Oh, yes. As a king cobra - or a krait. A bosom friend of your delightful Commissioner Barton’s, I gather.’
‘That too.’ Alex’s voice was edged with bitterness and Hodson reached out a hand and gripping his uninjured arm gave it a little shake.
‘I know how it is. God - don’t I know! Sometimes I’ve lain awake at night feeling like … like Krishna urging Arjuna on to slaying his kin and justifying the deed. If only we could sweep out some of these obese fools what an Empire this would be!’
He threw out a hand in a gesture that seemed to embrace the vast plain and the quiet river, the ancient city of Delhi and all of India, and there was a sudden glow in his eyes. Then his hand dropped again and he said bitterly:
‘There are so many men whom one could follow blind; to hell if necessary. Lawrence, Nicholson, Edwards - oh, and a dozen other first-rate fellows. But it takes more than a hundred good men to undo the harm that one Barton can create. Or one hidebound octogenarian, for that matter. I’m not sure which is worse, the frankly venal of whom there are mercifully few, or the aged, osseous ineptitudes which this fatuous seniority system of the Army forces on us by the score. I tell you, Alex, one of the Brigadiers I served under in the affair of ‘49 could not even see his Regiment. I had to lead his horse by the bridle until the animal’s nose was on their bayonets, and even then he had to ask me which way they were facing. A seniority service such as the Company’s is very well for poor men, and a godsend to fools, whom it enables to rise equally with men of twenty times their worth. But for the purposes of discipline in peace and effective action in war there never was a worse system, and one day we are going to find that out.’
‘Probably sooner than we think,’ said Alex grimly.
Hodson looked round at him sharply. ‘What do you know?’
Alex told him. And by the time he had finished, their shadows, that the setting sun had thrown long and blue on the white sands of the Jumna at their feet, lay black behind them in the full blaze of the risen moon.
A jackal scuttled out across the silver sands to feed on the rotting remains of a half-burnt corpse that had stranded in shoal water, and a peacock called harshly from the cane-brakes of the Kudsia Bagh. The tethered horses stamped uneasily and Alex’s mare whinnied softly. ‘That will be Niaz,’ said Alex glancing over his shoulder. He stood up, and reaching down his right hand helped Hodson to his feet: ‘I shall have to go back and do my social duty. Join us, Will.’
‘Not a chance. I must be in Dagshai tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? Are you mad? William, you cannot do it! Not with a bad ankle. Why must you always ride hell-for-leather?’
‘Prefer it. And it may come in useful one day. Besides, you know I can sleep in the saddle, and as for the ankle I’ve got it strapped into splints for the occasion. That’s why I’m so lame. Damnably painful but entirely serviceable.’
He limped over to his horse and called out: ‘Ohé, Niaz Mohammed Khan. Is it thou?’
Niaz rode forward into the moonlight, and slipping from his horse gave the salute that is given only to elders of high rank.
‘Salaam Aleikum. Is it well with thee, Hodson Bahadur?’
‘Nay, ill. My star is sinking.’
‘That I have heard,’ said Niaz gravely. ‘No matter. It will rise again.’
He held the stirrup for Hodson to mount and Alex said: ‘Have they sent thee to look for me?’
‘Nay; I followed, for there was a sadhu who also came this way. A Shakta of the Left Hand. He came very quietly, keeping among the trees, and I came after to see what he would do. But hearing my horse move among the dried grass he turned back and went away to the northward. I waited to see that he did not return.’
‘Some more of your friends, Alex?’ inquired Hodson over his shoulder as his horse picked its way across the rough ground to the narrow footpath at the edge of the counterscarp.
Alex shrugged his shoulders. ‘India is full of sadhus. Do you really ride for Dagshai tonight, William?’
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Then I shall not be seeing you for some time. I’m for Lunjore on Monday. The business here is cleared up a good three or four days earlier than was expected, but Fraser has asked me to remain on over the week-end. I should get back, but I have accepted because he is having a guest whom I shall be interested to meet. Dundu Pant. The Peishwa’s heir. Met him?’
‘Once. Another krait. What is he doing here?’
‘Oh, purely a private visit I gather. Unofficial. He stays in Delhi for only two days. I admit I have always had a certain amount of sympathy for the man. There is no getting away from it, the Hindu law has allowed the right of adoption for centuries, and we cannot sweep it out of court merely because it is not a custom of the West. Sir John Malcolm had pledged the Government to bestow that pension, and had this man been the true son of the old Peishwa he would have fallen heir to it. I cannot help feeling that it was a niggardly gesture to refuse it to him on the ground that he was adopted, when in the eyes of every Hindu in India he is the legal heir.’
‘Trouble with you, Alex,’ Hodson threw over his shoulder, ‘is that you always will see the other fellow’s side of a question as well as your own. It makes life too complicated.’
Alex made a wry grimace. ‘I am aware of it. I wish I had your singleness of purpose. What is your star, William?’
‘Leadership,’ said Hodson promptly. ‘I would like to be able to make men follow me blind - as I would follow a man like John Nicholson. To damnation, if necessary.’
‘They will,’ said Alex with a smile. ‘Niaz does not hold my stirrup, nor call me Bahadur.’
Hodson laughed. ‘Do you know, I believe they will. That is, if I can prevent myself being hamstrung by a lot of incompetent old women in trousers. But I’ll get my chance one day, and then, by God, I’ll show ’em!’ He reined in his horse as they reached the Main Guard and held out his hand. ‘God bless you, Alex.’
Their hands met in a brief hard grip and then he touched his spur to his horse’s flank and galloped back under the dark arch of the Kashmir Gate while Niaz, who had dismounted, stood stiffly to the salute. Alex heard his horse’s hooves drum hollowly on the bridge over the moat and then he had gone.
‘What does Hodson Bahadur do here?’ inquired Niaz in an undertone, holding the horse for Alex to dismount.
‘He sees a friend in the city.’
‘Does he so!’ said Niaz thoughtfully. ‘Dost thou remember how in the year following the taking of the Punjab an astrologer in Amritsar city cast his horoscope and foretold that in seven years his star would arise and burn bright among much blood? Those years be all but sped, and it may be that he smells that blood.’
He took the reins and led the horses away into the shadows, while Alex walked up the ramp to the battlements and into a babel of voices and laughter and the clink of glasses and silver.
The picnickers were grouped about a long white cloth that had been spread over a carpet on the warm stone, the older ladies seated in wicker chairs and the younger ones on cushions on the carpet, with their wide skirts spreading about them like full-blown roses. The men sat cross-legged beside them or leaned against the embrasures of the battlements, while white-clad servants handed around an impressive selection of cold foods and drink. Candles had been placed upon the cloth, but the flames had attracted so many winged and crawling insects that they had been quickly extinguished, so that now only the white blaze of the moonlight lit the scene. That Indian moon whose light is as clear and as bright as many a spring evening in the West.
‘My dear Alex, we had quite given you up. Where have you been?’ Mrs Abuthnot edged her chair back a little and pulled aside her ample skirts, and Alex came over and subsided onto the carpet at her feet.
‘I’m sorry. I met a friend whom I had not seen for over two years and who leaves Delhi tonight.’
He accepted a plate of cold food and ate it abstr
actedly, his mind still on his conversation with William, but presently he became aware that someone had addressed him by name, and rousing himself he turned to find that it was Winter who sat on his left.
Winter had kept close to Mrs Abuthnot since her arrival, for although Carlyon had of late conducted himself with so much propriety, charm and consideration that she had lost a great part of her antipathy towards him, this evening she was aware of an odd feeling of disquiet. An uneasiness that had become sharply increased by Captain Randall’s failure to put in an appearance on the battlements, for were he to remain below in conversation with the lean blond man with the remarkable eyes she would either have to ride home alone with Lord Carlyon, or plead fatigue and beg a place in the carriage. Alex had no right to leave her like this! Conway expected him to protect her from annoyance and alarm, and he ought not to ride off with strangers and abandon her to the care of men like Arthur Carlyon.
In fact, his Lordship, having left her with Mrs Abuthnot, had made himself agreeable to Mrs Gardener-Smith, and when the sunset had duly been admired and the moonrise exclaimed over, had taken his place between Delia and a Miss Clifford who was making a stay in Delhi with her friend Miss Jennings, daughter of the Chaplain.
The party was a gay one, and the noise of talk and laughter disturbed the roosting birds in the trees behind the Main Guard and brought inquisitive sightseers from the purlieus of the city to crane their necks and peer up at the strange doings of the feringhis. But try as she would, Winter could not bring herself to share in the universal high spirits. She had done her best to appear interested and entertained, but the pain that had struck at her heart when she learned that Conway would not be coming to Delhi had returned to torment her among the prevailing merriment. A shy young Lieutenant of Bengal Artillery, George Willoughby, had been seated on her left, and Mrs Abuth-not’s voluminous skirts had effectively protected her right until Alex materialized out of the moonlight and sat down at her chaperon’s feet.
With his arrival some of her fear and tension and doubt faded. There was something about Alex that was instantly reassuring, and Winter fought down a sudden and childish desire to clutch at his sleeve and hold it tightly. She doubted if he would have noticed had she done so, for he appeared to be singularly distrait and as if his own thoughts were of sufficient interest to make him oblivious of the babble of talk around him. She answered Lieutenant Willoughby’s shy attempts at conversation so much at random that he could only feel relieved when at length she turned to Alex and said: ‘Who was that man you introduced to me, Captain Randall? Is he stationed in Delhi?’
Alex turned towards her with something like a frown and then his face cleared and he said: ‘Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry. I was not attending. What did you say?’
Winter repeated the question and Alex said: ‘William Hodson. No, he was only here for a day. His Regiment is at present in the Simla hills. I rather think he has taken French leave.’
‘You mean, left without permission? Are officers allowed to do that?’
‘No. But William is a law unto himself - which has caused him a great deal of trouble in the past and will probably cause him more in the future. But if ever we get into another war in this country, I would rather have William at my back than a whole army corps. Not that he’d be at one’s back. He’d be twenty paces ahead!’
Winter said: ‘You are fond of him, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Alex briefly.
‘Tell me about him.’
Somewhat to his surprise Alex found himself complying with the request and telling her something of William - that dynamic, unpredictable person whose physical endurance matched his enthusiasm and impatience. How he had worked under the object of their mutual admiration, Sir Henry Lawrence, and had at Sir Henry’s behest taken in hand the building and superintending of the Lawrence Asylum for the Children of European Soldiers, on a spur of the Kussowli hills. How he had acted as secretary, overseer and a hundred other roles, helped to raise the Corps of Guides, fought with them through the Sikh war and risen to command them. How the promotion of a young officer to so coveted a position, and Hodson’s unorthodox methods, had aroused the enmity and spite of lesser men whose jealousy had led to his removal from command, while official indolence had pigeon-holed and suppressed the findings of the court of inquiry that had exonerated him …
‘The trouble with William,’ concluded Alex, ‘is that he says what he thinks, and people don’t like that. And what he does is usually proved right, which they like even less. He has been sent to kick his heels doing a subaltern’s job in Dagshai - and this at a time when we need his kind of man more than we have ever needed them before! My only consolation is that if there ever is any serious trouble no one will be able to hold him.’
Alex had forgotten that he was talking to the promised wife of Mr Commissioner Barton who had caused him a great deal of inconvenience and irritation. He had been speaking, as he had done once before in the Malta moonlight, to someone with whom he was entirely at ease, and he looked down at her now and smiled a little wryly, realizing suddenly that he had been talking uninterruptedly through three courses, and as though the two of them had been alone: which indeed they might have been, for Mrs Abuthnot and a Mrs Forster had kept up an animated discussion above their heads and Lieutenant Willoughby had been engaged in conversation by Miss Jennings, daughter of the Chaplain of Delhi.
Alex looked away again and caught a smouldering glance that momentarily held his own. So Carlyon, at least, had noticed that he had been monopolizing the little Ballesteros for the last twenty minutes or so! Observing that look Alex was reminded vividly of Hodson’s comment of an hour ago. ‘Dangerous look in his eye,’ William had said, and he had been right. Alex looked thoughtfully back at Winter and then reached out and removed the empty plate that she held in her hands.
He said: ‘I seem to have been talking a deal too much. What a subject for a moonlight picnic. William should feel honoured. Have I bored you?’
‘No.’
A swift and appreciative smile lit Alex’s eyes. He found the brief monosyllable, shorn of the polite protestations with which a more socially experienced young lady would have adorned it, curiously touching. Alex, himself a man who did not trouble to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ unless he meant it, appreciated not only its obvious sincerity but the fact that the speaker was as yet sufficiently unversed in social small-talk to say exactly what she meant and no more.
He bent to remove a large moth that appeared to be in danger of drowning in a bowl of fruit salad, and said: ‘Why were you interested in him?’
But this time the answer took him completely by surprise, for Winter said simply: ‘Because he was a friend of yours.’
Alex looked up, startled. ‘You see,’ said Winter slowly, and as though she were explaining something to herself as much as to Alex, ‘I do not really know very much about you, but one gets to know a little more about people when you know something of their friends.’
‘And do you know more about me now?’ inquired Alex with an odd note in his voice.
‘I think so.’ She looked away from him and traced a small aimless pattern with one finger on the close pile of the Persian rug before her. ‘Alex—’ Once again she was unaware of having used his Christian name.
‘Yes?’
‘Why could not Conway come to Delhi? Was there any - any other reason?’
Alex did not answer and Winter said: ‘Other than his work, I mean?’
Damnation! thought Alex, taken off guard and completely at a loss. How did one answer a question like that and at a time like this? And what was the good of answering it? He had told her once and been slashed across the face for his pains. Was that because he had been a stranger? Now that she knew him better would she take it from him and believe it? or … ‘I cannot throw it in her face in the middle of this bloody picnic party,’ thought Alex, ‘I cannot. It will have to wait—’
‘Was there?’ persisted Winter.
??
?No,’ said Alex shortly. ‘That is - no. I—’
He was interrupted by Mrs Abuthnot who leant forward and tapped him upon the shoulder with her fan. ‘Alex, dear boy, you are sitting on my flounce and I wish to move. Thank you—’ She rose and shook out her skirts as Alex came swiftly to his feet. ‘The servants are to clear away and then we are to have some singing, I believe. I see that Lieutenant Larrabie has brought a guitar and Miss Clifford has her mandolin. Winter, my love, Mrs Forster tells me that we are to remove for a while so that the gentlemen may finish their wine. Come, dear. Come, Lottie.’
There was a ruffle and a rustle of silks and muslins as the crinolines ceased to be flattened circles and their owners drifted away in the moonlight like a flight of enormous bubbles blown along by a light breeze.
By the time they returned the debris of the picnic had been cleared away. Only the carpets and cushions remained, and an officer possessed of impressive whiskers and a luxuriant moustache was playing a sentimental ballad on a guitar. The majority of the guests did not immediately re-seat themselves in a compact group, but scattered along the ramparts talking, laughing and admiring the moonlight and the view, and Winter was relieved to see Carlyon attach himself to Delia and lead her away to look at the river - a proceeding that drew only a complacent smile from Mrs Gardener-Smith.
She could see no sign of Alex and wondered uneasily if he had gone home, but Lottie informed her that he had walked along the wall towards the Water Bastion: ‘Sophie wished to go too,’ confided Lottie, ‘but she did not have the courage to ask him to escort her, and he did not offer. He looked a little put out and as though he did not wish for company. Oh Winter, is it not a lovely night? I wonder if Edward is looking at that moon too? How I wish he were here!’