Nor was this the only telegram that had passed. Ever since his last recall, the exchange between Amimbo and the Colonial Office had become incessant. The word ‘India’ was never once used: Sir Gardnor was extremely strict about that. But phrases like ‘contingent situation’, ‘matter we discussed’ and ‘foreseeable changes’ appeared daily; and, from the Whitehall end, ‘nothing to report’ and ‘no development to date’ turned up in the replies with monotonous regularity.
In conversation, however, Sir Gardnor was altogether less discreet; quite light-heartedly so, in fact.
‘Westminster is like that,’ he bad just remarked. ‘The delays are endless. And deliberate, I fear. But they’ll have to say something some time. One can’t leave India in suspense for ever.’
It was a small dinner party. There were only six of them, including the A.D.C. Harold had an uneasy feeling that he had been invited simply to keep up the numbers.
‘I see Lord Eldred’s name mentioned in The Observer,’ Sir Gardnor continued. ‘I’m not surprised. You could hardly say he’s been happy in Ceylon, could you? It’s his manner that puts people off, I suppose. Not that he means it. His friends speak very well of him. It’s only surprising that so few people seem to know him. In some circles he’s quite unheard of. What do you say, Mr. Frith?’
The question was unfair because Mr. Frith was temporarily enjoying one of his cherished moments of relaxation. He had sunk lower and lower in his chair, and his eyes were closed. He raised his head with difficulty.
‘I thought it was the Earl of Delmer, sir,’ he said.
He had struggled upwards as he was speaking; and, now that his chin was above table-level, he wanted to show how acute and well-informed he was.
‘It was one of the Sunday papers that had it, sir,’ he explained. ‘The Observer, I think it was. It mentioned your name, sir, and Lord Eldred’s and’—he was visibly slipping downwards again—’the Earl. The one I said just now.’
Sir Gardnor’s smile was immediately cut off at source.
‘But Delmer’s scarcely suitable, would you say? It’s been a most undistinguished career throughout. Passed over every time, in fact. And Lady Delmer, let’s face it, has hardly been an asset. Quite the reverse, in fact. Can you seriously imagine either of them in Delhi?’
Sir Gardnor paused, and appeared to be making the supreme imaginative effort. But it proved to be too much for him. He frowned, and shook his head decisively.
‘Unthinkable,’ he said. ‘Quite unthinkable. It would simply make us a laughing-stock. The Indians aren’t savages, remember. They’re a highly-civilised people. They’d spot the shortcomings immediately. Besides the poor fellow drinks too much. That’s why they sent him to the Caribbean. It’s not so conspicuous out there. But you could hardly offer Delhi to a drunkard, could you? India’s not just another Colony to be administered. It’s an entire sub-continent waiting to be governed.’
He had extended his arms while he was speaking, and seemed to be embracing something.
‘The Viceroyship,’ he went on, almost as though speaking to himself, ‘is the supreme Imperial appointment. And it presents the ultimate test. It calls for an unusually able and dedicated man at the very height of his powers.’ Here he gave his nervous, rather shrill little laugh, and smiled on Harold for a moment. ‘It is, I suppose a reflection on the age we live in that my name should even have been considered.’
Harold wondered if he was expected to reply. It was Mr. Frith, however, who replied for him. He had sunk down dormouse-fashion in his chair, and his chin was resting on his black tie, crumpling it. But he managed to get the words out.
‘Hear, hear,’ he said. ‘Quite agree, sir,’
Then he closed his eyes again.
Sir Gardnor did not appear to have noticed. He did not, in fact, appear to be noticing anything. Quite unfocused, he was staring out across the dinner table into a remote Asian world of durbars and gold turbans and Sandhurst-educated Maharajahs.
Book II
Death on Safari
Chapter 16
Lady Anne’s new Morris had at last reached Amimbo terminus.
Owing to an oversight at the dockside, the crate had been loaded on to the train upside down, and the little car had travelled the three-hundred-and-fifty miles from the coast with its wheels in the air. The Station Master, understandably perplexed by the large wooden packing-case with all the lettering the wrong way up, was still standing on his head trying to decipher it, when Army Transport arrived for the un-freighting.
Its upside-down journey from the coast had left its cream paintwork practically unscratched; and, standing there in the fierce African sunlight, with its bright brass radiator, the enormous rubber bulb for the horn and the Lucas battery in the gleaming black case on the running-board, it shone out in all its showroom newness.
‘Isn’t she a darling?’ Lady Anne asked. ‘An absolute darling, I mean. Have you ever seen anything so perfect?’
She had remained where she was in the driving-seat while she was speaking. The car itself was drawn up outside the bungalow. And it was the loud hooting of the horn that had brought Harold out to her.
‘I hear you’ve decided,’ he said. ‘You are coming on safari after all.’
‘Well, you couldn’t leave her behind when all the other cars were moving off, now could you?’ Lady Anne replied. ‘It’d break her heart.’
She was speaking rather fast, and her voice had just that little catch in it that Harold noticed always came when she’d been drinking.
‘If you’re not doing anything, get in,’ she said. ‘I’m going for a drive anyway.’
He stood there with his hand on the side of the car, looking at her. He liked her best with her face framed inside the oval of a scarf. And it was the first time he had ever seen her with any colour in her cheeks. It had come suddenly while she was speaking to him.
‘Going to let me drive?’ he asked.
She gave a little laugh.
‘It’s quite safe,’ she said. ‘I’m not the least bit tiddly. I only had a teeny-weeny little one—like that.’ She opened her fingers for a moment and then closed them again until they were about a quarter-of-an-inch apart. ‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of having a proper drink when I was taking her out for the first time. I’d have been far too scared.’
Harold moved round to the passenger seat.
‘Does Sybil approve of you going out alone like this?’ he asked, after he had climbed in beside her. ‘It’ll be dark in half-an-hour. Suppose I hadn’t been here?’
‘Oh, but I knew you were,’ she told him. ‘I could see your light. I often look over to see the light just to make sure you’re in. In any case, Sybil’s got one of her headaches. I told her to lie down.’ Again, the little laugh. ‘As a matter of fact, I told her to have the headache.’
They had already turned down the drive past the sentries, and were now heading west out of Amimbo towards the foothills.
‘Doesn’t she run beautifully?’ Lady Anne asked. ‘You can tell how much she’s enjoying herself.’
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Anywhere,’ she told him. ‘Anywhere that’s a long way off, and right away from everyone.’ She broke off for a moment. ‘You don’t know what safari’s like. You haven’t tried living in tents. I have. You are right on top of everybody all the time.’
She bent forward and patted the shiny varnish of the dashboard.
‘But this isn’t really our treat,’ she said. ‘It’s hers. I told her we’d take her out this evening. Just the three of us, I said. She understood perfectly. She’s a very understanding little car.’
The sun was already slipping down over the horizon, gathering up speed for the final plunge, when they came to the Busimo cutting.
‘This’ll do,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the Falls. They frighten me. I like being frightened when I’m with someone.’
With the tiresome heat and dazzle of the day almost over, the bush around them wa
s slowly coming to life again. It was time for the local night-shift to take over. A pair of hyaenas, carrying their shoulders high like athletes and dragging their withered rumps after them crossed the road ahead of them.
‘If Gardie was here, he’d shoot them,’ Lady Anne said. ‘He always shoots hyaenas. Just to keep his eye in, he says. Not that it bothers me much. They’re just too nasty to mind about.’
They drove on for a while in silence. It was getting dark, really dark, by now. Lady Anne switched on the headlights.
‘Any news from London?’ Harold asked.
He didn’t have to say what kind of news he had in mind.
‘Yes, and it’s no news,’ Lady Anne replied. ‘That’s what’s so marvellous. And there isn’t going to be any. Not for weeks and weeks and weeks. Gardie had a letter this morning to say so. He’s furious.’
In the rainless African night, the windscreen of the car began to mist over. There was the noise of thunder in the air. They turned the last of the horse-shoe bends in the road, and there it was, the Busimo river— wide, muddy and imperturbable—suddenly denied the solid ground it crawled upon, and launching itself aimlessly into space.
‘It’s supposed to be a beauty-spot,’ Lady Anne remarked. ‘But it’s all wet and beastly really. You’ll like it much better where we’re going.’
She turned the nose of the Morris up the narrow winding track above the Falls, and Harold watched the steering-wheel joggle in her hands. Stones and pebbles from underneath the tyres went flying into the bushes on either side. Then, round the last bend, they came on the smooth grass of the plateau. They had climbed higher than the mist, and the stars appeared again. Lady Anne switched off the engine.
‘It’s best with a full moon,’ she said. ‘But you can’t have everything.’ She leant back in the driving-seat and gave a little sigh. ‘I’ve been promising myself this all day. Ever since I woke up this morning.’
She had taken off her scarf, and was shaking out her hair.
‘There’s some drink in the back,’ she added. ‘I asked Sybil to see about it before we left. And we don’t just have to sit here in the car. There should be a rug or something.’ She gave the same slightly husky little laugh. ‘I asked Sybil to see about that, too.’
Lady Anne sat watching him while he unpacked the wicker-hamper with the drink. As well as the bottle of Haig and the soda, there was a metal box with ice-cubes in it. The box had been carefully wrapped round with one of the Residency napkins.
‘That’s right,’ Lady Anne was saying. ‘We’ll have a drink first. Then you can make love to me. Then we’ll have lots more to drink. Then I shall feel sleepy. And you can drive back. I shan’t mind by then.’
She spilt some of the whisky when he passed it to her because, instead of simply taking the glass, she tried to stroke his hand.
‘And there’s one more thing we’ve got to do,’ she said. ‘I told Sybil we’d go in and say good-night to her. She gets fussed when I’m away like this. Poor Sybil, she never gets any fun out of life herself. And she’s rather a darling really.’
It was late when they got back to Amimbo. The native stalls had been packed-up and put away, and the row of Indian shops were all battened down until tomorrow. Only the cafes remained open. In them was still light, music, joy.
Lady Anne was asleep beside him in the car. Her head kept falling over on his shoulder. Harold was watching the road. Ahead of them a red light was showing. It was at the level crossing; somewhere, still miles away probably, the one night freight train of the week was slowly making for Amimbo.
As he stopped the car, Lady Anne woke up.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Where are we? Perhaps I should have driven after all.’
Then she went to sleep again.
It was while they were waiting that Harold heard the sound of the approaching motor-bicycle. It was a robust, full-throated sound, and whoever was driving kept turning the throttle up and down, evidently for the sense of sheer power that it gave him. The machine came round the corner, and the cone of the headlamp lit up the Morris. With a crunch of tyres in the dust road as the brakes were applied, it drew up alongside. In the saddle, goggles pulled down over his eyes, sat Mr. Ngono.
‘I told myself as you passed by that it was you,’ he announced delightedly. ‘And you see that I was right. No mistake about it. Most remarkably quick-thinking, too. Because I did not even recognise the car.’
He had pushed his goggles up on to his forehead by now and was staring across at Lady Anne.
‘My most sincere forgiveness,’ he said. ‘I had absolutely no wish of any kind to intrude. Entirely the contrary, in fact. It was the car I saw first. It is a model much advertised in all the best motoring papers. Absolutely the latest thing. 1930 to the very minute.’
Lady Anne was awake now.
‘Good evening, Mr. Ngono,’ she said.
It was her best Residency voice that she was using: quiet, rather clipped and, to some ears, possibly even a trifle patronising.
Mr. Ngono tried to stand up in the saddle and make a little bow.
‘You remember my name from the last garden party?’ he asked. ‘How extremely gracious and most thoughtful. With over three hundred of your high and very eminent guests it is indeed a distinguished honour that I am by no means forgotten.’
‘You must come to our next one,’ Lady Anne told him.
‘Absolutely the very moment the invitation comes,’ he assured her, glancing towards the car again. ‘And may I be permitted,’ he asked, ‘to say that this is the most sporting and up-to-date vehicle in the whole of Amimbo. It sets an altogether new and fashionable standard for these parts.’
Lady Anne gave him one of her approving smiles.
‘You won’t be seeing it again for some time,’ she told him. ‘I’m taking it on safari tomorrow.’
Mr. Ngono gave his biggest bow of all.
‘Then allow me most politely to wish you a very happy and contented safari. All big success to it. And to his Excellency, of course: that goes absolutely without saying. Good killing everywhere you go. Something tells me it will be quite terrific. A killing we shall all talk about, and remember.’
He broke off for a moment, and seemed suddenly to have become saddened and rather wistful.
‘It is difficult to see in this light,’ he said, ‘but my motor-cycle is a new model, also. The very latest. It is an Indian twin-cylinder. Specially imported for my own pleasure. On your return, you will graciously permit me to run races with you.’
Chapter 17
When it finally got under way, the safari caravan—all eleven vehicles— was nearly three quarters-of-an-hour behind schedule.
That was because Lady Anne up to the very moment of departure had told no one that the new Morris was coming along, too. And, small though it was, it disrupted everything.
For a start, it presented the most elementary problem of precedence. Immediately behind the Governor’s Humber was where the A.D.C. recommended; but Major Mills, detailed by the G.O.C. to accompany the expedition, insisted that the truck immediately astern of Sir Gard-nor’s car must contain his soldiery. How else in an emergency, he asked, could he be expected to give adequate protection? And, if Lady Anne was to fall in behind that, they’d need one more truck if they were to be able to protect her, too. As it was, the G.O.C.’s resources had been stretched to the limit by providing a scout-car to head the procession and a breakdown lorry, complete with machine-gun mounting, to follow up the rear.
In the end, solution was found by stripping down one of the service trucks containing the tents, and fixing up a makeshift seat for a corporal and private of the South Staffs to cling onto. That meant re-stowing the displaced canvas while the Transport Officer, head down over the Morris handbook, was trying to work out how much extra oil and petrol, let alone spares, would be required for one 10 h.p. car, not yet run in, over unmade roads, for a journey of unspecified duration, in tropical conditions.
There was more military show of force than on previous safaris because of the sudden rise in outrages. There had been another peculiarly objectionable demonstration by the Leopard Men at a small village less than sixty miles to the south; and the season’s graph of stabbings had also risen sharply.
Only last night, a report had come through that a white supervisor employed by Post and Telegraphs had been found half naked in a ditch with a six-inch wound in his back, and all his personal possessions— private papers, combined volt-and-amp meter, wrist watch, money even—intact. That made it much more sinister: it looked inevitably as though murder and not clean, straightforward robbery had been the motive.
All the South Staffs men had been told to travel with their rifles at the ready.
The column came to a halt, waved down by Sybil Prosser, two hours outside Amimbo. It was an unscheduled stop. But also unavoidable. Lady Anne, much as she loved the Morris, had to admit that in that heat, that dust, that sunlight, she could go no further. And Sybil Prosser, all swathed in white scarves like a cocoon, dismounted to ask what could be done about it.
Sir Gardnor immediately had room made in the Humber. It was where he had expected Lady Anne to drive anyway, and it was only when she had chosen to bring her own car that he had moved a lot of his own things—official boxes, binoculars, books, camera, gun-case— in beside him.
But re-storing the cargo was not Major Mill’s only anxiety. They had been rounding a bluff of rock when Sybil Prosser had started her gesticulations, and the scout-car was already past it. Bristling with guns and all eyes front for hidden ambushes, it had gone hurtling on, oblivious of the fact that it had left its train behind it. What Major Mills, professionally trained to anticipate disaster, most wanted to avoid was a head-on collision with the Governor’s Humber at the blind corner when the scout-car, flat-out and bewildered, came roaring back to see what had happened.
Harold sat himself at the wheel beside Sybil Prosser, and looked across at Lady Anne in the official Humber. It was a big car with a wide back seat. In one corner was Lady Anne; and, in the other, the Governor. So far, they did not appear to have spoken.
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