Eve

by Beverley Hughesdon

  I was enraged. ‘They’re my friends!’

  He ignored my interjection. ‘Your grandfather said you were bound to have picked up bad habits, staying out here – you should have been sent home to school years ago. He’s right, Eve – and I know he’d be only too happy to organise things for you. At a decent girls’ boarding school you’d be able to make some proper friends, ye’know. Just give me the word and I’ll drop him a line.’ He released the saddle and went stumping off – I almost threw his two pice back at him.

  Fury spurred on my feet, and I’d over-taken Bikram well before the last bend – he was the youngest of the four of us. Kushal and Jasodh speeded up. I was level with them by the time we reached the top, but I was still fuming as we flung ourselves panting down on the small patch of shade at the crest. The cheek of it! Who did my grandfather think he was?

  I did remember to give Apa Major Broome’s message – just. I flung it over my shoulder as I was going out again – to play with my friends. Didn’t stupid old Grandfather realise that everybody was a native of somewhere?

  I never did meet my grandfather, because he died a few months later – and left me all his money. I wasn’t at all grateful, though, because there was a condition attached: that I must be educated in England. Otherwise I couldn’t touch a penny of it until I was twenty-five. It would be no use to me and Apa at all, since I couldn’t imagine ever being as old as twenty-five. So I was jolly glad I’d spent those six months touring India instead of going to boring old England to visit him.

  It never occurred to me to wonder if Apa felt the same way.

  Chapter Six

  Apa believed that children should be reared like tiger cubs. The tigress keeps her young close beside her; she feeds them, protects them, cares for them and plays with them – but at the same time she’s teaching them the skills they need to survive in the jungle. As they grow older, and more able to fend for themselves, she gives them more freedom, until at last they can live an independent life.

  So Apa kept me in India, close beside him, teaching me the skills I would need – these skills being more extensive skills in the case of humans, hence my lessons in English, German, maths – and the proper way to behave in Naini Tal!

  But because we spent so much time in the jungle he taught me other skills too. One very early memory after meeting the tiger was of squatting down beside a river with Apa as he pointed to slots in the soft, damp earth and asked me, ‘Who do you think has been here, Eve?’

  As I studied them carefully he prompted, ‘Not very big, are they?’

  I ventured, ‘Khakar?’

  Apa nodded approvingly, ‘Well done, Eve. When, do you think?’

  I hazarded, ‘This morning?’

  ‘A bit more recently, I suspect – see how the edges are still so clear-cut…’

  And as if on cue came the coughing alarm call of the small barking deer. Hearing it I exclaimed, ‘You were right, Apa!

  As the langurs joined in with their grunting cries of warning he asked me,

  ‘What do you think those monkeys have seen, Eve?’

  ‘A leopard?’ Then, hopefully, ‘Tiger!’

  ‘Mm – I think you were probably right the first time – we’re rather high here for tiger…’

  So now, after breakfasting together beside the nine-cornered lake and arranging that he would stroll down to find me at Bhim Tal around tea-time, Apa left for his fishing and I set off in the opposite direction to explore, alone.

  I wasn’t truly alone, because there were villages in the hills above the lake. That morning I met the odd person travelling on the paths between them – a herdsman, an old woman collecting oak leaves for fodder – and I spent some time squatting down in a little water mill, chatting to the old man crouched over his grinding stones.

  But mostly I was looking, listening, noticing – and employing that extra sixth sense which Apa always claimed was really the heightened alertness achieved by using the other five senses to the full.

  Moving with the silent, toe-heel gait of the stalker I spotted a fine sambhar stag, a porcupine asleep in a crevice in some rocks, a wild boar rooting below an oak tree, and an unusually large rainbow-coloured bloodsucker lizard sunning itself on a stone in a clearing.

  In the next clearing was a dead cow, with five vultures head down inside its rotting carcass. The vultures were quarrelling, screaming, and cursing each other loudly as they jostled for the best bits. I stood watching them for a moment – there’s something so furiously alive about vultures – then with nose tightly pinched between finger and thumb I rushed past. You don’t need to toe-before-heel with vultures – not when they’re at work, they’re always making so much noise themselves.

  But by lunchtime, as Apa had predicted, I’d become bored with my own company, so I set off for Bhim Tal to see what amusements were on offer there.

  Not a great deal, was the answer at the fag end of the monsoon. I mooched around the old temple, crossed the embankment, stared at dak bungalow, school and post office, and surveyed the site where the Boer prisoner-of-war camp had been. It was when talking to a Boer prisoner – who’d been most admiring of her activities in South Africa – that Apa had discovered Aunt Ethel’s whereabouts. So he’d been able to write to her again after all the years when she’d disappeared into China.

  Next I headed for Bhim Tal’s small bazaar. Nothing was going on even there. Then I saw an Englishman coming out of the dak bungalow, and obviously intending to fish.

  Five minutes later we were chatting like old friends. I’d simply climbed a convenient tree, crawled out along a branch and dropped down at his feet to announce, ‘Hello, I’m Eve.’

  He was about Apa’s age, with grizzled hair, a brown moustache and a military bearing. He told me he was on short leave from the plains – his British regiment was doing its five-year stint in India. He was an army officer. I’d guessed as much already. He said he had a daughter who was only a year or two older than I was.

  I told him my father was a forest officer, and he was up at Naukuchya Tal, because he didn’t like being interrupted when he was fishing. My new friend, Major Falconer, said he was quite the reverse; his daughter, who was currently away at school in England, always sat and talked to him when he was fishing. I sank cross-legged to the ground beside him.

  When I told him about the Girthi Gorges he said I was a ‘plucky youngster’; over ‘The Gondoliers’, I was a ‘girl of many talents’ – I preened, and offered to teach him some Pahari to demonstrate just how talented I really was.

  We ranged widely – trees, animals, India, throwsticks, rifles. His was lying next to him in its case. The case had been embossed with his name, and a small cannon, with ‘Ubique’ underneath it. Noticing me looking he said, ‘I’m an artillery man.’ I was silent. ‘“Ubique” is Latin for “Everywhere” – everywhere there’s fighting going on, that’s where you’ll find us gunners.’ He laughed. I should have spoken, but I didn’t; he was my friend. Instead, I pointed out a bloodsucker lizard, crouching on a rock, and told him that they didn’t really suck blood, it was just a name.

  I helped him gaff a mahseer, then I filled his kettle and lit his travelling spirit stove for him. Glancing up at the sun as I waited for it to boil, I said, ‘My Apa will be coming soon.’

  Smiling his nice smile he told me that now his sons were older they insisted on addressing him as ‘Sir’, but his daughter still called him ‘Pa’, and he liked that much better.

  We were drinking our tea when Apa arrived. I jumped to my feet, eager to introduce him to my new friend, ‘Apa, this is—’ Apa said quietly, ‘We’ve met before.’ Then, ‘How do you do, Falconer?’ He held out his hand.

  Major Falconer didn’t take it. Instead he said, his voice biting, ‘I don’t shake hands with cowards.’

  For a moment I was shocked into silence, then into protest. ‘This is my Apa!’

  Major Falconer swung round to face me. He said gruffly, ‘I’m sorry, little girl. You’re a pl
ucky youngster, you deserve a better father. Goodbye.’

  Turning his back to us, he began to pack up his fishing gear.

  Apa said, ‘Come along Eve, our meal will be ready.’ He turned and walked away.

  I ran after him, ‘But Apa—’

  His voice, very distant, said only, ‘We’ll discuss the matter later.’

  We walked the two and a half miles to Naukuchya Tal, in silence all the way. I’d never heard Apa speak like that, look like that. His face was grey. As we came up to the camp site I exclaimed, ‘Apa, you’re not a coward!’

  In a voice as tired and grey as his face he replied, ‘Oh yes I am, Eve, Falconer’s quite right – though perhaps not altogether for the reason he believes. But I was a coward.’

  I was frightened. I ate the mahseer he’d caught, all the time watching Apa’s face – it was as if he wasn’t there any more. Neither of us spoke as Faizullah cleared away the remains of our meal, then, when we were alone again Apa said quietly, ‘It was bound to happen sooner or later. I should at least have prepared you. I’m sorry, Eve – I’ve been a coward there, too.’

  Then he told me.

  After Kitty was killed my Grandmother Fanny spent the rest of her life campaigning against war. Apa, meanwhile, took his entrance exams and went to the Shop – the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He passed out at the top of the list and so was commissioned into the Royal Engineers. ‘Perhaps, if I’d been lower down, and had to enter the artillery instead – perhaps I might have allowed myself to think. But perhaps not. After all, I’d known the true nature of war ever since Kitty’s death, but I’d chosen to bury that knowledge.’ He paused, before adding, deliberately, ‘For to do otherwise would have meant giving up the career I’d set my heart on.’

  I stared at him, aghast. ‘But Apa – surely you never wanted to be a soldier!’

  ‘Yes, Eve, I did. It was all I’ve ever wanted to do. It was my life – a life that I’ve missed ever since.’

  Apa felt like that! I was adrift – all certainties gone. ‘But I thought – I asked you once, why you ever went into the army, and you said you’d made a mistake – a terrible mistake—’

  ‘Yes, I made a mistake. A truly terrible mistake – I did not face up to the truth!’ He was almost shouting now. ‘I turned my back on my conscience and I became a soldier – an officer. I got good reports, my father was proud of me. He told me so. Told me that he’d lost his daughter, that his wife had betrayed him by turning against all he believed in – but he still had me, a son he could be proud of.’

  Apa bowed his head. ‘We were posted to Africa. My father came to see me off. On the dockside, he clasped my hand, wished me well, and said if the worst should happen, he would live proud in the knowledge that I had done my duty.’

  ‘That was the last time I ever saw him. Afterwards I tried, then I wrote – I wrote again and again. Each letter came back unopened. Until the one from his lawyers, forbidding me to write to him again, because I was no longer his son.’

  I whispered, ‘But Apa, surely—’

  It was as if he hadn’t heard me. In the same low voice he continued, ‘My mother was still alive then. Still waging her campaign against war. She dedicated the rest of her life to fighting that campaign, and it cost her her life. She died of a fever in Southern Africa after a hopeless attempt to prevent the destruction of poorly-armed Galeka tribesmen by the heavy guns and modern rifles of the British. In her last letter to me she described how the survivors were being hunted down like animals, how she was caring for the baby of a woman shot dead as she fetched ammunition for the pitiful muzzle-loader that her husband was trying to defend himself with.

  ‘That letter took a long time to reach me, and by then I’d arrived in South Africa myself – as part of a British military force. Nothing was certain, but we suspected the true reason for our being there was to wage war against the Zulus. To invade their territory, to seize their land. Not just a war, but a war of aggression, and one waged by a much larger power. It was wrong, terribly wrong. I knew that, my conscience knew it, but I wouldn’t admit it – I wouldn’t even think. Until my mother died, and I read her letter again – and finally saw the truth. So at last I admitted that war was truly evil. All those years I’d known, but I’d been too cowardly to admit it.

  ‘So I sent in my papers. I sent them in in plenty of time. We were not technically involved in a campaign – the ultimatum hadn’t been sent to King Cetewayo. My timing was unusual, but not unacceptable. People do resign their commission at short notice – they inherit property, or they want to marry and can’t afford to do so on a subaltern’s pay. So I was granted permission to leave, and I left. Soon after my departure my comrades marched into Zulu territory.’

  Apa stopped as if to draw breath, and when he began speaking again he was almost shouting. ‘What I didn’t know was that they would be defeated – and defeated with such terrible losses. I didn’t know! No-one could have expected it – it should never have happened – but it did!’ He was shouting now, ‘And I should have been with them, I should have died with them – died honourably!’

  I caught at that last word and challenged it. ‘But Apa, that doesn’t make sense.’

  Quietening, he told me, ‘I’m not talking about sense, Eve – I’m talking about honour. Falconer’s brother was killed at Isandlwana, so he has a special reason to call me a coward. But most other men do the same – not generally now to my face, but they say it behind my back, I know that.’

  And so did I, I’d heard them at Naini Tal. Apa’s eyes held mine as he cried, ‘Eve, if I’d known what was going to happen to my comrades I would have stayed. Eve, believe me, please believe me – I would have stayed!’

  I was so shocked by the intensity in his voice I didn’t reply. And then he was in control of himself again. ‘Falconer’s right, I was a coward, Eve. It was truly cowardice to hide my head in the sand for all those years before.’

  Urgent now he told me, ‘That’s why I’ve tried to teach you to think for yourself, Eve – teach you to be true to your own convictions, to have the courage to take the unpopular view and hold fast to it, because you know that it’s right.’ Shame dulled his voice as he said, ‘I didn’t have that courage. I knew, I knew the truth from the day I heard the manner of Kitty’s death – but I wouldn’t admit it. I wanted to please my father – and even more, I wanted to please myself. And this is the result. My daughter has to hear her father called a coward, and I have to tell her it’s true.’

  For a fleeting moment I saw that little embossed cannon again – if only I’d had the pluck to speak out and tell Major Falconer what I believed. If I saw him again then I would tell him – but what would I tell him? And then I knew, and said, ‘No, Apa, that man was wrong – how could it be cowardly to leave once you were sure it was wrong to stay?’

  And Apa replied quietly, ‘At least I would have died an honourable death.’

  ‘No! If you’d died it would have been doing something you knew was wrong – that’s not honourable Apa – how can it be?’

  Apa’s voice was dull again. ‘But at least I wouldn’t have let my comrades down.’

  ‘They were wrong, they shouldn’t have been fighting those Zulus in the first place.’

  He shook his head. ‘They fought for what they believed in.’

  ‘But you didn’t believe in it – you believed the reverse. So it was different for you.’ I added, confident now, ‘They shouldn’t have believed it, either, but if they were stupid enough to it doesn’t make any difference to you – you knew.’

  ‘Eve, I’d always known – but I hadn’t had the pluck to admit it.’

  ‘Alright, so you’d been wrong – for years you’d been wrong, but if you’d stayed in the army and fought the Zulus and killed some of them once you knew it was wrong, then you’d have been even wronger. Don’t you see?’

  There was silence. Then Apa said in a patient voice, ‘Eve, it isn’t as simple as that.’

  ‘We
ll, you always tell me it is. You always say to me, two wrongs don’t make a right.’ Into my voice had crept the slightly aggrieved note of the well brought-up child. ‘Are you saying now it’s different for you – I can’t do two wrongs, but you can?’

  ‘No, Eve – of course not. But this is an entirely different matter – I don’t think you understand.’

  ‘Apa, you just said you want me to think for myself, so I have done, and that’s what I think. And if I see that Major Falconer again I’ll tell him so.’

  Apa said flatly, ‘He won’t believe you.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s right. And you’re not right, either.’

  ‘Eve, it can’t be as simple as that—’ I heard it, the first almost hopeful note of uncertainty. Then he shook his head. ‘Look, I told your mother what I’d done, before we were married – I had to, of course – and she – she just laughed, and said it didn’t matter to her because she loved me – loved me as I was.’ Gently he said, ‘Perhaps you’ve been misled for the same reason, Eve.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’m right, I know I am.’

  Then, ‘Look, it can’t be that simple – it can’t be.’

  I wouldn’t be budged. ‘Grandmother Fanny thought it was – and so does Great Aunt Ethel. And so do I.’

  It was quite a long time before Apa replied. Then he shifted in his chair and there was a slight lift to his shoulders as he said, ‘I always wanted you to think for yourself – perhaps, now, you’re thinking for me, too. Perhaps – perhaps I’ve still got too much of the soldier in me to look at things any other way…’

  Suddenly he stood up. ‘Eve, I’m going fishing again.’ I felt my face fall. At once he reassured me, ‘Tonight, you come with me – only I need some time to think, so—’