‘No, sahib, but I cannot invent someone to please you.’
‘Of course not, for there is someone back there.’
‘I am saying, sahib, that I saw no one.’
Jack peered back through the heat-haze again, unsure of himself, a little worried about the effect of heat on the brain.
Raktambar had changed his palace uniform for white cottons and finally Crossman and King had followed suit. The temperatures on the plains were often 120 degrees or more. When it was a still day they sweltered on their horses. When it was a blowy day the wind was hot and burned their skins. The two guides, taking turns to ride ahead and scout the terrain, worked at half their former speed.
King had not done a great deal of mapping while on the march, though he had produced those linear maps which a foreign army prized. His sketching hand was quick and talented. He drew the roads and tracks they took, and the landscape either side, using shading, contours and symbols where necessary. Fords over rivers, passes through mountains, other physical barriers that could hinder an army were important. What came out at the end was a snake of a map which would enable an army on the march to find its way north or south without too much trouble. It mattered not to a general leading a forced march what lay beyond six miles either side of the road. He needed to be shown any distant hills or forests which could hide an enemy, and gorges which could conceal an ambushes, but as long as these were clearly marked and he could take cognizance of them, the easiest, straightest road was what he needed to reach B from A.
King showed his maps to Crossman one night. They were in the lieutenant’s tent, bothered only by the moths which battered against the glass of the lamp. Crossman studied the efforts under the lamplight and was quite impressed.
‘These look excellent,’ he said, ‘though before you puff yourself up too much, I’m no expert.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’m grateful for your opinion.’
Crossman lowered the sheaf of charts. ‘My father was a good artist, you know.’
One of the men came to ask King a question, which took the sergeant some time to answer.
Crossman, waiting for his attention again, drifted off.
13
Betty went to a cabinet hanging on the wall by the back door and opened it with a small key. Inside were larger keys. She took one from a hook and handed it to him. Then fetched him a lamp from another cupboard.
‘It’ll be a bit dark and stale in there, sir. I’ve not been in there for an age. I was told to stay out, by your father. I said that to the mistress . . .’
He knew she meant Jane.
‘That’s all right, Betty. I understand.’
Crossman went out of the kitchen into the hallway. He shivered. It was very chilly there, the draughts coming straight under the door which led on to the street. He could not bear the cold after that long winter in the Crimea where many soldiers froze to death for want of adequate clothing. It was one of the reasons why the Punjab was so appealing to him. There would be times, he knew, when there would be snow and ice in the North West Frontier, but he understood the winters there were short. The winters he had known seemed to last for ever and a day.
Climbing the stairs he put the key in the lock to the mysterious room, turned it, then opened the door. He stepped inside. It was gloomy and smelled musty. Thick curtains kept out the light and kept the smell and dampness within. He crossed the room and drew back the curtains. Then he opened a window despite the fact that the weather outside was worsening. There needed to be some air in the place to freshen it.
It was now about three o’clock and it was already growing dark outside. He lit the lamp and held it up to survey the room. The place was indeed a mess, with too many chairs and overstuffed sofas. Underfoot was bare of carpets and splashes of oil paint decorated the wooden floor. He saw bunches of brushes in glass jars, standing as if they had been used just yesterday. He counted at least seven easels, one or two with half-finished paintings still mounted on them. Two other paintings, with slashed canvases, littered the walking space: presumably his father had not been satisfied with the way they had been going. Leaning against one wall were a whole stack of finished works, some of people, some of scenes.
One or two of the scenes he recognized. They were of the Crimean landscape he knew so well. Crossman began leafing through the rest of them. There was one of his brother in full uniform, holding his shako under his left arm. And one of his mother in a ball gown. Then there were the nudes, obviously painted here in this room, the subjects draped over one or another of the overstuffed sofas. Crossman had to consciously stop himself from disapproving. Not because he did not appreciate fine paintings – though actually he did not, since he preferred to think of himself as a man of science not of art – but because of his father’s history with women. He wondered how many of those voluptuous nudes had been seduced by the old man. How many had received extra money on top of their modelling fee?
He knew he was being prudish, but he felt with good cause. His father had caused misery in the family with his philandering. Crossman himself was a natural child, not a legitimate one.
Finally, Crossman came to a painting which made him start backwards and catch his breath.
‘What?’ he muttered, astonished. ‘When did the old goat do this?’
He found himself staring at his own image in full 88th sergeant’s dress uniform. His father had painted him! And with his NCO rank. The major had hated the fact that one of his sons had joined the ranks. It had made him breathe fire when forced to acknowledge it. Yet – yet clearly he had viewed his bastard son from afar: had actually painted him in that uniform. Crossman felt both angry and amazed. He was angry because he did not understand and he was amazed at the enigmatic character that was his father.
Why did the old man have to be so complicated, so complex? Why couldn’t he just be a damned ale-swilling libertine with nothing to him but loose morals and a gluttonous appetite for sex? Why should there be pretensions to anything fine in his character? Why couldn’t he be bad through and through, so that his natural son could feel happy and justified in feeling contempt for him and everything about him?
‘You bloody old goat,’ Crossman swore, harshly, ‘damn you to hell, man.’
A shadow drifted away from lamplight in the doorway.
Crossman went to the doorway quickly and caught Betty halfway down the stairs.
‘I was just talking to myself,’ he said, weakly. ‘It was not intended that anyone should hear.’
Betty’s expression was one of a frightened woman. He realized how he must have sounded. Like a madman, of course.
‘I – I’m sorry, Betty. You were not meant to hear that. I was ranting you know, but it was not anything to do with you or Tom.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It was your father.’
‘Yes.’
‘Forgive me if I say out of turn, Master Alexander, but times are passed and it’s better to forgive and forget.’
‘Thank you, Betty. I’m sure you’re right.’
She continued down the stairs now and Crossman went back to collect the lamp and lock the door. The painting could stay where it was. All the paintings could. His brother would know better what to do with them. Either they would go out with the rubbish or be stored up in Scotland. He couldn’t imagine James selling them. Not that one, anyway. He and his brother loved each other as brothers should, but even James had not approved of Crossman’s running away and joining the infantry as a private. Only his step-mother understood. She was a woman and women saw into souls.
14
‘You say your father was a good artist?’ said King. ‘Is he dead then?’
Crossman came back with a jolt. ‘No – no, senile. His mind has gone. But in his day he could do you a watercolour of a proposed battlefield so that you could imagine yourself in there. Generals loved him for it. Of course, most army officers can produce reasonable sketches or paintings. It’s part of the job. But some of them actually find t
hey’re quite skilful artists. I’ve seen some landscapes to rival the best of our so-called genius painters, even surpass them. Take that chap Turner, for example. My father’s paintings could knock his into a cocked hat.’
King was having none of this.
‘Oh, come, sir. Joseph Turner is England’s pride. They’re brilliant in their composition.’
‘Brilliant, yes,’ argued Crossman. ‘Too brilliant. All that blinding light. What you want is something highly representational, not something that looks like it’s rising from the mist on a winter’s morning. I can’t be doing with the man. I think his work is highly overrated. Constable, now there’s a painter for you. Trees look like trees and rivers like rivers.’
‘But your grandfather would not have approved of Constable.’
‘What does that mean?’ Crossman swatted a mosquito on the back of his neck and felt great satisfaction in his success.
‘I’m afraid it means you have reached a point in your life where you are looking back to old heroes, sir.’
‘Careful, Sergeant,’ protested Crossman, ‘I’m only a few years older than you.’
King sighed. ‘But it’s in the mind.’ He quickly changed the subject as he saw his commander beginning to bristle. ‘We’re straying from the subject. I expect your father was, as you say, sir, an excellent artist. So, you approve of the maps then, sir?’
Crossman’s attention went back to the charts.
‘Very good, yes, very good. What are a mapmaker’s instructions for route surveys such as these?’
King’s chestnut hair bobbed over the map as he poured out his enthusiam.
‘To observe everything on the road, or that is visible from it, which can be considered of any importance, particularly hill forts, remarkable peaks, mountains, hills, ghats, passes and towns. Rivers or nullahs – all that sort of thing.’
‘Well, you’ve done that. The detail is quite extraordinary.’ The lieutenant looked up. ‘But have we used any of our men in producing these? Can you justify the expense to which I have been put?’
King felt flattened for a moment. He rallied.
‘The perambulator-wallahs, yes sir.’
‘Using the measuring wheels. But the others, no?’
‘Well, that time you were sick and down with some fever, I did do some wide-scale mapping in which all the men were used.’
To King’s relief Crossman accepted this as his justification.
‘Fair enough, Sergeant. So long as they have not been wasted.’
‘And they’re with us for the time when they’ll be of great use, sir, once we reach the north-west. There are areas there which have no maps at all. I doubt I could recruit such men in the Punjab.’
‘As you say.’
At that moment there came sounds of a great commotion going on outside. Crossman snatched his revolver out of its holster and King rushed through the tent flaps empty-handed. They were just in time to see one of their tents flying through the night, heading away from the light of the fires. It looked like a fleeing phantom. One or two of the Indians chased it for a short distance, then it turned on them and headed back to the camp. The pursuing Indians turned too and raced ahead of the streaming canvas. The pursuers had now become the chased.
‘What is it?’ cried King. ‘Is there a man inside?’
‘No man, sahib,’ yelled Sajan, his little legs carrying him to the nearest tree, which he proceeded to climb. ‘Big pig.’
It seemed there was a massive humpbacked boar caught in the folds of the tent, which now came hurtling into the camp again, over the campfire scattering the burning logs, and crashing into yet another tent. The boar was shrieking now and thrashing like mad. It rolled over, found its legs again, and went thudding into one of the Indians. The man was knocked aside, fortunately only winded and bruised. The boar thundered on, shaking his unwanted garment, trying to free himself from its embraces. A pole with a lamp on top was its next victim, the lamp sailed into the night, smashed, and burning oil scattered on the grasses. Little fires began to spread over the stubble-grass, which was naturally very dry at this point in the season.
Crossman thought that enough was enough. He took aim at the flailing tent and shot through the canvas. His first shot did not kill the boar, but his second and third finished it off. It sank to its knees with a sigh. After a few more moments the tent was still again, but heavily pregnant.
Men were running around now, grabbing water containers, using coats to flail out the flames. Once the fire was under control, King extricated the boar from the tent. He found it was his own accommodation and was somewhat aggrieved to find two of the bullet holes were on the ridge of the canvas. Moreover, the boar’s tusks had pierced the tent too.
‘We’re not far away from the monsoon rains,’ he complained. ‘A patch is never as good as the original.’
Once the camp was put to rights again, the fire was relit and the lamps in place again, they assessed the rest of the damage. One of the poles to King’s tent was also broken and his personal items scattered over a wide area. A few things were broken. His precious instruments, however, were in another tent and had not been touched. The second tent which had been uprooted belonged to some chain-men. It had been ripped all down one side. The men were not overly concerned. They could sleep out in the open just as easily as under canvas and often did.
Sajan was fascinated by the dead boar. He poked it with a stick and remarked how stiff were its bristles. Crossman said the boy could have one of the tusks but Sajan shook his head when the bloody-ended tooth was presented to him. It was a bit too grisly for his liking.
‘Damn fortunate it wasn’t a tiger,’ Crossman said to Raktambar, ‘for I doubt my little revolver would have stopped a big cat. How did it come to enter the camp anyway? I thought the fire was supposed to keep them out.’
‘It was chased in here, sahib,’ replied the Rajput in a smug voice, ‘probably by a big tiger.’
Crossman stared out into the night. Raktambar might have been trying to worry him, but it seemed a likely story. The boar must have been panicked by something out there and boars of this size were not frightened by mongooses. A leopard or a tiger was the most likely explanation, and of those two the tiger more probable. Thus it followed that out there in the night there was no doubt a tiger of fairly large proportions.
‘Take the carcass,’ he ordered four of the men, ‘and throw it well away from the camp. If there’s a tiger out there, he’ll smell the blood and come for it and we shan’t be troubled by him – or her. Once the beast has fed he won’t bother with a few scrawny humans.’
‘We’ll keep a few choice cuts though?’ said King. ‘It’s our boar, after all.’
‘Butcher it quickly, then. Don’t leave it until morning.’
For the remainder of the night most of the camp lay awake listening for sounds of some large creature ripping their tent with its claws. Gwilliams slept soundly enough. So did Sajan, who could not have kept his eyes open if God were having a tantrum. But for the most of them, they remained conscious, their imaginations running away into the realms of horror.
The next two days were fairly uneventful. The party continued its ascent up to the Punjab. Yes, the land was flat, but they crawled along at climber’s pace, as if they were indeed going up a sheer face to a summit in the Himalayas. The heat bore down on them with a ferociousness that left Crossman aching in every limb. Insects bothered them continuously. The flies were large bloated creatures that crawled into their mouths, up their noses and into their ears. Then there were the massed midges that stuck to their sweaty faces in their thousands. Blood-sucking bugs went into their veins at night, leaving nasty little wounds that took time to heal. Snakes, rats and other low creatures of the field added to their misery.
Happily there were few mosquitoes, since the land was parched and the monsoon rains had yet arrived.
15
On the morning of the third day after the tiger scare, Crossman was woken by a wild-eye
d Sergeant King.
‘Run off!’ cried King. ‘Stolen them!’
Crossman sat up with his head buzzing. Sleep had not come until two o’clock and he was not totally compos mentis. There had been reports to write and some sort of clicking insect, much louder than any clock Jack had ever heard, was trapped somewhere in the tent and kept him awake. Halfway through the night the sound changed from clicking to a loud harsh continuous note: the noise of a saw driven by an engine. The creature was then distracting the lieutenant so much he had searched for it, only to find the beetle had wonderful powers of ventriloquism. Going to one spot in the tent where he was certain to find the creature, the sound actually switched to another corner. It was both amazing and frustrating. Yet even though he stood, concentrating, and listened very hard he did not catch the insect. It could truly cast its voice to several feet away, thus fooling its hunter.
Jack tried to concentrate now. He was suddenly aware that King must have been speaking before he had actually woken up. The sergeant was staring, waiting for an answer to a question. The he started gibbering again: not making sense at all.
‘Calm down, Sergeant. What’s the trouble?’
Gwilliams stepped through the flap then. ‘Gone,’ he said. ‘No trace.’
Crossman rubbed his head.
‘Please, Corporal, Sergeant – can I have a full report? Two seconds ago I was fast asleep. I am not a mind-reader.’
‘One of the Indians,’ blurted King, ‘has run away. He’s taken three of my instruments with him.’
‘Which of them?’
‘The two chronometers and a sextant.’
‘Both of the timepieces?’
‘Yes.’
This was bad. Chronometers were very expensive items. Eventually they would have to be replaced or paid for. By rights any non-personal equipment in the field was the property of the ‘regiment’ and it was the quartermaster’s job to find the money to buy new. Crossman was thousands of miles from his battalion: he imagined the quartermaster and, indeed, the colonel of the 88th Foot might justly feel indignant at receiving a bill for two chronometers stolen on the Indian subcontinent. Sometimes a regiment short of funds would raise the cash by selling one of its captaincies, or even majoracies. There was clearly no chance of that, though at that precise moment the lieutenant would have dearly loved to sell his sergeant.
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