Alex turned his horse, and following the direction of her gaze said: ‘They will be leaving soon. This shoot will mark the end of the season.’
‘Where do they go?’
Alex jerked his chin to the north-west. ‘Central Asia - Outer Mongolia - Siberia. To breed. They will come back this way when the next cold weather sets in.’
‘That is Hazrat Bagh out there, isn’t it? What lies on the other side of it?’
‘Nothing nearer than Suthragunj. But there are no roads.’
‘They are making a road,’ said Winter, and pointed with her riding-crop to a thin brown line that wandered away across the plain.
‘Yes. That’s a temporary track so that the ladies of the garrison can all drive out in comfort to watch the duck shoot. No expense is being spared to impress upon your husband and the garrison how friendly and co-operative our local landowners are, and I should dearly like to know—’
He did not finished the sentence, and Winter said curiously: ‘What do you wonder?’
Alex did not answer. Winter had discovered that he seldom answered a question unless he wished to do so; he merely ignored it. He turned now, screwing up his eyes against the dazzle of the newly risen sun, and said, ‘Listen to those partridges calling. I must bring a gun out here one evening.’
Winter was silent for a moment or two, listening to the clangour of the partridges and thinking of other things, and presently she said: ‘You had one yesterday, didn’t you? A pistol, I mean. Do you always carry one?’
‘No. Only recently.’
‘Have you got one now?’ inquired Winter.
Alex nodded, his eyes on a covey of partridges that whirred up from among the low thorn-scrub and skimmed away across the tops of the sun-gilt grass where Niaz sat his fidgeting horse at the foot of the knoll.
Winter said abruptly: ‘Will you give it to me?’
Alex turned sharply. ‘What?’
‘Will you give me a pistol?’
‘What for?’
‘I should feel - safer,’ said Winter lightly, affecting an interest in a pair of weaver-birds who were fluttering anxiously about their dangling nest in a thorn tree below.
Alex surveyed her with narrowed eyes and said drily: ‘Thinking of shooting anyone?’
‘No,’ said Winter soberly. ‘Not even myself.’
The Eagle snorted and backed as though he had felt a sudden jerk on the bridle, and there was a momentary silence while Alex brought him under control. When he had done so he inquired shortly if she had ever used firearms before.
Winter shook her head. ‘No. But I do not suppose it is very difficult, is it?’
‘Try.’ Alex dismounted, and pulling the Eagle’s reins over his head, whistled to Niaz and turned to help Winter from the saddle. The sunlight glinted on the barrel of the small Tranter revolver as he explained its mechanism.
‘Is it loaded?’ inquired Winter.
‘My dear girl,’ said Alex impatiently, ‘do you really imagine that I should carry one that wasn’t? Here - take it. No, don’t aim as low as that. Fire it in the air.’
The report sent Furiante dancing and snorting indignantly, and startled a peacock and his five demure brown wives who had been roosting unseen on the far side of a clump of pampas grass, sending them squawking away.
‘Well done,’ said Alex approvingly. ‘You didn’t jump; but you must allow for the recoil.’
‘Show me how.’
She handed it back to him and Alex said sharply: ‘Don’t ever hand anyone a loaded weapon in that way again!’
There was a bright blue jay’s feather caught among the thorns of a kikar tree less than a dozen yards away, and he jerked up his hand and fired. The feather vanished and Niaz, behind them, gave a grunt of approval.
Winter said: ‘Is that really the way to do it? Not taking aim?’
‘No,’ admitted Alex with a grin. ‘That was just showing off. I apologize. I’ll do it for you slowly this time. Stand behind my shoulder and look along the barrel.’
He levelled the revolver and fired. ‘Think you can do better now?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Winter took the weapon less gingerly, selected a mark and pulled the trigger. Her slim wrist jerked to the kick of the discharge and the bullet went high of the mark. Alex made her fire the remaining rounds and then remarked: ‘Not bad. You can keep it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Winter gravely. She held it out to him and said: ‘Will you reload it for me, please.’
Alex shook his head. ‘No. Not until I’ve taught you how to use it. For the present it is safer unloaded. And probably just as effective as a deterrent.’
He saw the hot colour rise in a wave from her throat to the roots of her hair, and had a sudden startled suspicion as to why she had wanted a pistol. Winter thrust the weapon into the pocket of her riding-habit and turned away to where Yusaf held the indignant Furiante, and Alex, following her, helped her to the saddle and stood holding her stirrup-leather and looking up at her under frowning brows. Winter did not return his look. The bright colour was fading from her face and her expression gave nothing away, and after a moment he dropped his hand without speaking.
They cantered back in single file between the high tufts of grass, the rocks and the flat-topped thorn trees, and when they reached the rifle-range broke into a gallop and did not draw rein until they came to the outskirts of the cantonments. Alex had stopped before the gate of the Residency, for his own bungalow lay barely a hundred yards beyond it, and said briefly: ‘Bring that pistol with you tomorrow and I’ll teach you how to use it. It may come in useful.’ He watched her turn in under the shadow of the gateway, and rode back to his own bungalow with an expression on his face that was anything but pleasant.
Winter had proved an apt pupil. She had an excellent eye and no tendency to gasp or flinch at loud noises, and within a week she could be trusted to hit a reasonable mark at ten paces and a larger one at twenty.
Alex had asked no further questions as to why she had wanted a pistol, and he did not know that three days after he had given it to her she had used it, unloaded but with, as he had predicted, a satisfactorily deterrent effect, against his superior officer.
Conway rarely visited his wife’s room, but he had done so on the night following the Tuesday party and had found it locked against him. He had created a scene, which availed him nothing. The next night, finding it still locked, he had decided to teach his wife a lesson, and on the following evening he had walked in upon her as she was dressing for dinner. He had been tolerably sober and therefore more dangerous, and had bellowed to Johara, who was sulkily assisting with his wife’s toilet, to get out and stay out.
‘Now, my dear wife,’ said Conway unpleasantly, his pale eyes red-rimmed with rage and brandy, ‘you will find that there are other times of day when I can demand your obedience. You can take that dress off again. You won’t need it.’
Winter had remained unruffled. She had opened a drawer of her dressing-table and turned towards him with the Tranter revolver in her hand. She had been perfectly polite and quite definite. He had not married her for love, but for money, and he had got what he wanted and must be content with that. She would fulfil her duties as his wife in every way except this, but if he ever attempted to force his attentions upon her again she would shoot him.
‘Not to kill you, Conway. I shall stop short of murder. But just to hurt you painfully enough to ensure that such a thing does not occur again. I hope you realize that I mean it?’
If she had screamed or raged Conway might not have believed it. Because she did neither, but faced him with white-lipped calm, he had blustered and shouted and called her unprintable names, but had backed out of her room and had not attempted to enter it again. Later he had made an effort to find the revolver and remove it, but he had been unable to do so, and neither Yasmin or Johara had given him any help in the matter. After that, as he had little enough desire for her, he had left his wife severely alone. The rev
olver had served its purpose, but Winter continued to take instruction in how to fire it. Partly because it amused her, but largely because it gave her an excuse to see Alex.
Alex had taught her with a grim, unsmiling efficiency, making her load and fire, reload and fire again until her wrist ached. ‘You never know when it may come in useful,’ was all he would say.
One day he had brought a rifle with him on the morning ride, and had told her to fire it. It was, he said, one of the new issue; the Enfield rifle that was to replace the old-fashioned infantry musket - the famous ‘Brown Bess’ that had long outlived its usefulness.
He had made her lie down to fire it, holding the heavy weapon as though she had been on the range, and had lain beside her on the dew-wet ground explaining the method and mechanism and exhorting her not to hold it as though it were made of glass. The recoil had bruised her cheek and shoulder badly, and the bullet had gone far wide of the towering ant-hill, over two hundred yards distant, at which she had been aiming. Alex had refused to let her fire it again. He had fired it himself, and Niaz, seeing the distant explosion of dust, sucked in his breath and said ‘Wah!’ in an awed voice.
Both Niaz and Yusaf had regarded the rifle with considerable interest. ‘Is it true that this thing will fire a ball many times the distance of the old ones?’ inquired Niaz. ‘How is it done?’
‘It has grooved bores,’ said Alex.
‘They will be difficult to load; especially when they are fouled,’ commented Niaz, squinting down the barrel.
Alex shook his head. ‘Not so, for the cartridge papers are greased.’ He took one out of the pocket of his riding-coat, and biting off the end, rammed it down the barrel to demonstrate, and fired again.
‘May I try?’ inquired Niaz.
Alex handed over the gun and another cartridge and Niaz bit off the end and spat it out upon the ground. ‘Pah!’ he said with a grimace. ‘With what is that greased?’ He lay down, cuddling the butt against his cheek, sighted carefully and fired. A fluff of dust showed that the bullet had chipped the ant-hill, and Niaz laughed.
‘Hai! This is indeed a good weapon. Now all that we require is a war so that we may try it on an enemy!’
‘May a man buy such a gun for his own use?’ inquired Yusaf, his eyes sparkling. ‘Beyond the Border such a thing would be worth many times its weight in silver.’ Yusaf was by birth a Pathan, and blood-feuds added much to the excitements and hazards of life in his own territory.
Alex did not answer. He was staring down at the small scrap of greased paper that Niaz had spat out upon the ground, and there was an odd, still look on his face. He drew another cartridge from his pocket and stood looking at it, turning it over in his hand and rubbing the ball of his thumb slowly across the greased paper wrapping, until at last Winter said: ‘What is it?’
‘Hmm?’ He turned towards her, but his eyes were blank and unfocused and they looked past her as though she was not there.
Yusaf said: ‘Huzoor, may I too try the gun?’
Alex’s eyes narrowed suddenly. The abstraction left them and his hand clenched hard over the cartridge that he held. ‘Assuredly.’ He turned slowly and held out the cartridge, and Winter, watching him as she always watched him when he was not looking at her, was all at once aware that behind that casual gesture his nerves were tense and alert as if he were waiting for something to happen; for some expected - or unexpected? - reaction. She was so sure of it that she turned quickly to look at Yusaf, half-expecting to see him recoil from Alex’s outstretched hand; but he took the cartridge without hesitation, and biting off the end of it as Alex and Niaz had done, rammed it home.
Yusaf did not lie down to fire in the manner of a sepoy. He handled the musket as a tribesman, and the ball struck the top of the ant-hill and disintegrated it. ‘Shabash!’ applauded Niaz.
Alex handed him a second cartridge without ever taking that quiet, intent gaze from him, and a curious spark leapt to life in his eyes as Yusaf, having bitten off the top of the second cartridge, rubbed his mouth swiftly with the back of his hand.
Yusaf fired again, and missed. ‘That is bad shooting,’ said Niaz. ‘Thou shouldst come and fire on the range. The second shot should be better than the first.’
‘In my country,’ said Yusaf, ‘it is the first shot that counts. If a man fail with his first, he may not live to fire a second. Come over the Border on thy next leave, Niaz Mohammed, and we will show thee!’ He handed the rifle to Niaz and once more drew the back of his hand across his mouth.
Alex saw the gesture, and he turned away and stood looking out across the plain with his hands in his pockets, and after a moment or two Winter heard him say something under his breath that sounded like ‘… and furnish the pretence’.
‘What is it?’ she asked, as she had asked five minutes earlier, troubled by something in his manner that she could not understand.
Alex looked round at her with a faint frown as though he had forgotten that she was there. ‘What is what?’
‘You said something about furnishing a pretence.’
‘Did I? I must have been thinking aloud.’
‘What about?’ inquired Winter, unaccountably disturbed.
Alex gave a short laugh. ‘I was thinking of some lines of Dryden’s. “When churls rebel against their native prince, I arm their hands and furnish the pretence, and housing in the lion’s hateful sign, bought senates and deserting troops are mine.” It seemed remarkably appropriate.’
He turned on his heel, and although it was still early they rode no further that day, but turned back to the cantonments - Alex riding with a speed and recklessness that he had never shown before when he had been out with Winter, and as though he had once again forgotten that she was there.
An hour later he had been ushered into Colonel Gardener-Smith’s office where he had been forced to wait for some considerable time.
‘Good morning, Captain Randall,’ said the Colonel making a belated appearance and eyeing Alex with some uneasiness. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting. Awkward time of the day for me—’
He wondered what Randall had come about this time, and hoped that it was no more alarmist nonsense about an armed rising planned for the coming hot weather. Efficient young man, very. Colonel Gardener-Smith had a profound respect for Captain Randall’s knowledge and ability. But all these outstanding young men who were pets of the political - ‘Lawrence’s Young Men’ - had bees in their bonnets. Randall’s was the fear of mutiny; not a localized affair, but something on a far larger scale that would involve the whole of the Bengal Army and not merely one, or at the most two, regiments.
Such an idea was of course complete nonsense. Not that Colonel Gardener-Smith imagined that India had seen the last of mutinies and rebellions. That was perhaps too much to hope for. Now and again one was likely to hear of some dissatisfied and mismanaged regiment causing trouble, but as for the entire Army, nonsense! It would need something more than local grievances to do that - a common denominator that would set off a panic among all sepoys everywhere. But misuses and abuses of authority were always localized affairs, and could not disturb the Army as a whole. His own Regiment, for instance, was loyal to the core, and he had recently written a letter to the Calcutta Times expressing his indignation on the subject of those men who had so little respect for the known character and fidelity of the British-led sepoy as to attempt to blacken him in the public prints by suggesting that he was ready to turn against his masters. No such thing! The Colonel was almost tempted to agree with Colonel Moulson (a man whom he could not bring himself to like) that men who expressed such views must be considered to be losing their nerve and should resign from the service of the Company.
Not that Randall appeared to be deficient in either physical or moral courage, but that last interview, at which both Colonel Packer of the 105th N.I. and Colonel Moulson of the 2nd Regiment of Lunjore Irregulars had been present, had been distinctly trying. One could not help thinking that Captain Randall was, at the very least,
guilty of exaggeration. And at the worst must be suffering from overstrain or sunstroke. He had put his case with a convincing lack of heat, and had kept his temper remarkably well in the face of what the Colonel could not help thinking was unnecessarily insulting behaviour on the part of Moulson; but all the same …
Colonel Gardener-Smith frowned and said with more hostility than he had intended: ‘Well, what is it now?’
Alex had been standing by the window when he entered, looking out over the sun-baked parade-ground and turning something over and over in his hand. He had replied briefly to the Colonel’s greeting and now he walked over to the table and tossed the object down upon it and said without preamble: ‘That is one of the cartridges for the new Enfield, sir. Can you tell me what they are greased with?’
The Colonel stared, considerably taken aback both by the question and the tone in which it was uttered. He picked the thing up, examined it and dropped it, and marked his displeasure by seating himself behind his desk and keeping Alex standing. Randall might occupy a reasonably senior civilian post in Lunjore, but in the presence of a commanding officer he was a mere brevet captain and must remember to conduct himself as such.
He said coldly: ‘I have no idea. And I hardly think that the composition of cartridge-grease lies within your province.’
Alex said: ‘Perhaps not, sir, but it must be within yours. Those cartridge-papers have to be bitten, and if there is any doubt as to the composition of the grease, it is a thing that will affect the caste of every sepoy in the Army. A grievance that will unite men of every regiment - a common denominator.’
The mention of a term that had so recently passed through his own mind checked the Colonel’s rising anger, and he cast a startled glance at the innocent-seeming object that Alex had thrown down on his desk. He looked at it for a minute or two in silence and then looked up again at Alex’s expressionless face and thought fleetingly that Randall appeared to have aged a lot recently. He said slowly: ‘You mean, if it were animal fat—?’
‘If it should contain any lard or animal fat,’ said Alex harshly, ‘no sepoy should be asked to touch it, let alone bite it. The pig is an unclean animal to a Mussulman and the cow a sacred animal to the Hindu, while the fat of any dead creature is an abomination to both. But no one knows that better than you, sir.’