The Faraway Drums

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‘No,’ said Bridie. ‘I’m sorry, Major Farnol. I’m accompanying Lady Westbrook.’

‘Damn!’ said Farnol and didn’t apologize.

Twenty minutes later the wagons and flat-cars were empty. The elephants and horses were down on the road, the elephants saddled with their howdahs; half a dozen of the Ranee’s men were struggling with her coach as they eased it down the steep path to the road. There had still been no more shots and Farnol had the feeling he was working in a vice that would close as soon as the train had disappeared. But he knew he had to stay with the party going down by road, more for his own reasons than for theirs. Somehow he had to get on the telegraph to Colonel Lathrop. He was certain that Lathrop would take heed of his warning of a plot against the King’s life.

He spoke to the sergeant of the escort. ‘When you get back to Simla tell Captain Weyman I suggest he has everyone on twenty-four-hour stand-by. I’ll have the telegraph line repaired as soon as possible.’

‘You think they’ll try coming up to Simla, sir?’

‘I doubt it. This isn’t some sort of uprising, sergeant – we’d have heard about it before this if anything had been stewing. I think they are just dacoits and nothing more.’

‘Puzzles me why they haven’t opened up on us. Them buggers usually don’t waste no time.’

‘It puzzles me, too, sergeant.’

‘You think they’re waiting to pop them off down there?’ The sergeant nodded down at the small caravan gathering on the road below. ‘Maybe I’d better give you some of my blokes, sir –’

‘No, they’re needed to guard the train, just in case. Hop aboard, sergeant, there’s the whistle.’

The train creaked its iron joints, the wheels gave faint squeals, then it started to ease slowly backwards up the slight incline. Farnol stood beside the track, nodding to the heads hanging out of the windows as they went by above him. The stout woman would have fallen out of her window if she could have squeezed through; she could see the social climax of her life disappearing as the train took her backwards away from it, all the unwritten letters to her less fortunate friends in England never to be written at all; her tirade at Farnol drifted back, harder on the ear than the clang and screech of the iron wheels. Two little girls hung out of a window crying, deprived of the biggest picnic they would ever have seen. Finally the engine went past, puffing and grunting and wheezing like an old bull elephant coaxed out of retirement to push its way through a teak forest; the conductor stood on the step, ready to drop off and take cover further up the line where he could hide and wait for the arrival of the relief train, if and when it came. The engine went by, Farnol waved to the driver, then turned to walk down the path to the road. And stopped.

On the other side of the line, between the tracks and the steeply rising hillside, stood a man and a woman, two suitcases beside them.

3

‘Awfully sorry to trouble you, Major.’ It was the long-nosed, long-jawed man who had spoken to Farnol earlier. He had put on a deer-stalker cap and it only seemed to accentuate the long thinness of his face. ‘My name is Monday. This lady is my wife.’

She was pretty in a vague sort of way, as if her looks came and went with shifts of light. She was dressed in a brown travelling suit and brown hat and she reminded Farnol of a good-looking field mouse. She smiled sweetly.

‘We’re coming with you, Major. I’m sure you’ll be able to find room for us.’

All at once Farnol suspected she might be a field mouse with very sharp teeth. ‘Sir, just who are you that you think you can invite yourself to travel with me?’

‘Please don’t misunderstand me, sir. We are not forcing ourselves on you.’ For the first time Farnol noticed that the man had a slight accent. ‘Perhaps we should not have got off the train without requesting your permission. But here we are and I trust you will not leave us here.’

‘I may do just that, sir. You still haven’t told me who you are.’

‘I am the Asian representative for Krupps.’ Both he and his wife stood very still, as if the name Krupp sounded like the single note of a leper’s clapper bell even in their own ears.

‘You have an English name, or so it sounds.’

‘My grandfather was English. My wife and I are Hungarian. But we always stand for God Save The King.’

‘Bully for you,’ said Farnol and started walking down the path towards the road. When he stopped and looked back the Mondays were still standing on the far side of the railway line, their suitcases still on the ground. ‘Righto, you’d better follow me. But I warn you – I shan’t be responsible for you.’

‘You are a sweet man.’ Magda Monday followed Farnol down the path, leaving her husband to struggle with the two suitcases. ‘So gallant.’

Farnol just bowed his head, then looked up past her at her husband whose arms looked as if they were being pulled out of their sockets by the weight of the suitcases he carried. ‘Cannonballs, Mr Monday?’

Monday managed a Hungarian smile, which can be read a dozen ways. ‘We shall enjoy the Major’s company, my dear. The English sense of humour is famous.’

Mrs Monday put her hand out for Farnol to help her down a steep part of the path; she went past him on a wave of perfume that suggested she might have upset a bottle of it all over herself before getting off the train. He noticed that the buttons of her brown jacket were undone; her bodice was low-cut, exposing more bosom than one expected to see in India in the daytime. She saw the direction of his gaze and looked directly at him, turning her body slightly towards him. He knew a whore when she smiled at him.

‘Englishmen never treat their women with any sense of humour, do they, Major?’

‘Only when we bury them, madam. Our graveyards are full of husbands’ wit.’

Bridie O’Brady, Lady Westbrook, the Ranee of Serog and now this one: Farnol could feel his latent misogynism rising sourly within him. He led the way down to the road, getting well ahead of them, and walked up to Baron von Albern, who stood beside the Ranee as they waited for horses to be hitched to the Ranee’s coach. The other horses were being saddled; final adjustments were being made to the howdahs on the elephants’ backs. None of the servants looked enthusiastic about the journey ahead and kept glancing over their shoulders up at the surrounding hills.

‘Herr Baron, those people coming down the path are Hungarians – the gentleman says he is a representative of Krupps. Do you know anything about him?’

‘Not much, Major.’ The Consul-General was straightforward, which may have explained why he had never risen to being an ambassador. ‘They only arrived two days ago. They stayed at the Hotel Cecil. Herr Monday paid a courtesy call on me.’

‘Was he intending to sell arms to anyone in Simla?’

‘I couldn’t say. He told me nothing about his business.’

Then the Mondays came down on to the road. Zoltan Monday dropped the suitcases and began bending his arms as if he were trying to push them back into their sockets. Bridie and the others looked at the pair curiously, then all looked at Farnol. Curtly he explained who the newcomers were, saw the Ranee look at them with sharp interest when he mentioned the name Krupp. The Nawab, standing in front of his six wives, gave a bright smile of welcome to Madame Monday, but ignored her husband. Lady Westbrook sniffed loudly and Bridie made mental notes for her as-yet-unthought-of memoirs.

‘I am delighted to meet you all,’ said Magda, who would have introduced herself in the same way to every circle of Hell. At fifteen she had walked the Fisherman’s Bastion above Budapest looking for men; at twenty she had found Zoltan in the chandeliered lobby of the Astoria Hotel. She had trained herself for rebuffs as a boxer builds the muscles of his midriff to absorb punches. ‘I’m sure we shall have a very good journey together.’

‘It won’t be for want of your trying.’ The Ranee had already decided there were too many women in her caravan; she also recognized a possible mischief-maker. She got up into her coach. ‘Get in, Viola. You, too, Miss O’Brady.’

‘Thank you, Your Highness, but if I may I’d like to ride one of your horses with Major Farnol.’

‘As you wish.’ The Ranee, not trained for rebuffs, made no attempt to sound gracious. She turned her head away and looked down at the Hungarian woman. ‘Perhaps you had better ride with us, Madame Monday.’

‘Monday?’ Lady Westbrook had donned her two hats again and looked like a war-torn pagoda. She looked Magda up and down as the latter got into the coach and sat opposite her. She decided that Magda was riff-raff. ‘Is that your name or the day you are available?’

Magda’s smile had the bright shine of a razor turned to the sun. ‘I have just been complimenting the Major on the English sense of humour.’ She moved sideways on the seat to make room for the bulk of the Baron. ‘We appear to have taken sides, Herr Baron. You and I against the British Empire.’

The Baron put on his glasses, looked across at the ladies of the Empire. ‘I should never take sides against such a formidable force.’

The procession got under way. Karim and two of the Nawab’s armed men rode up front on horses, with Farnol, Bridie and the Nawab immediately behind them. Then came the Ranee’s coach, the twelve elephants, their howdahs stuffed with the Nawab’s wives and all the luggage, and finally the rest of the horses ridden by Zoltan Monday and the Ranee’s and the Nawab’s escorts. All over India similar caravans were making their way towards the Great Durbar, but none of them had been forced to make their march in the way this one had been.