The Faraway Drums

by Jon Cleary

  “They’ll annoy the hell out of you half the time,” Farnol told Bunting. “The other half, you’ll finish up admiring them.”

  “There are so many of them. At school one read about them, but millions don’t mean anything when one reads of them in a schoolbook—”

  “Where did you go to school?” The Nawab turned his head, his attention distracted; he trod on a sleeping form, walked over it as if it were a bag of rubbish. “Harrow? I say! You must come up to Simla some time. Do you play cricket?”

  The Superintendent’s office was crammed with complaining travellers who looked as if they might not travel for at least another week. Fists were raised and tickets waved like empty grenades: they were just as useless. A chee-chee minor official yelled that there would be no refunds, everybody would have to wait till there were trains available. A stout Parsee, wife and three children clinging to him as if he were some beast of burden, turned and shouted at Farnol and Bunting, the two Englishmen, that it just wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all, the Government should be ashamed of itself, it wouldn’t have been like this under Lord Curzon.

  The Superintendent was a Scot, a hunk of Grampian granite dumped down here in northern India. He picked up a long cane and swished it round him and the crowd fell back against the walls. He ran a hand through the barbwire of his red curls and grinned balefully at the newcomers.

  “To think I could’ve gone to bloody Canada!”

  Bunting introduced Farnol and the Nawab. “I’ve explained, Mr. Morton, that you had to let the special go that was intended for them.”

  “I’ve got no bloody engines, that’s the trouble. Get me an engine and I’ll give you a couple of carriages and some wagons, but that’s all I can do for ye.”

  The Nawab said, “I understand my cousin, the Rajah of Pandar, has a special train. Has it gone yet?”

  “No, it’s still out in the yards. If His Highness doesn’t mind hitching the extra carriages and wagons on . . . Ask the mon himself. He’s over there in the corner.”

  Farnol turned towards the corner where, despite the crush in the rest of the room, there was a clear space. A man sat there on a rickety chair that his very presence turned into a throne; two tall, muscular guards stood behind him, swords hanging from their belts. He was dressed in a dark blue achkan and pale blue turban and he was smiling at the surprise on the face of his cousin, the Nawab.

  “You and your friends are welcome to travel with me, Bertie.”

  Farnol had seen him only once before and then only fleetingly; but there was no mistaking the hooked nose, the deep-set eyes and the black beard. He was the brown-robed mystic who had been on the terrace of the monastery in the high mountains on the day Farnol had talked with the lama.

  8

  I

  Extract from the memoirs of Miss Bridie O’Brady:

  THE RAJAH of Pandar’s special train did not get away from Kalka till midnight. He did not invite any of the women aboard his own carriage and we were left to make ourselves comfortable in the single carriage, instead of the two promised, that the Railway Superintendent was able to make available to us.

  “The engine just won’t be able to pull any more,” he explained. “Not with all your wagons loaded with elephants. You’re lucky as it is that the track is downhill all the way. Well, have a good trip.”

  It was a car that Pullman or Wagon-Lits would have used for the transportation of criminals, if they had been in that business. The windows were barred, both those on the corridor and those on the outside of the compartment; the door was stout teak with heavy bolts on it and a sign above it, Beware of Dacoits; the seats, which doubled as bunks, were smeared with cracked leather rather than covered with it. It was a mobile slum.

  “I’m sorry about this,” said Clive, inspecting the accommodation. “I’m afraid things are better for us men.”

  “I’m sure,” said Viola Westbrook, who had lived a life that was always better for men.

  “It’s nothing luxurious. Sankar seems a rather austere chap. There’s just more room.”

  “I’d settle for that,” I said. “I’ll take the top bunk, Viola. Goodnight, Clive. Enjoy being a man.”

  He grinned at both of us, backed out into the corridor and bumped into the Ranee. “Clive, have you seen this carriage? I can’t travel in something like this! I’m sure it hasn’t been used since the Mutiny!”

  “That’s what we should do,” said Viola. “Mutiny!”

  Backed up behind the Ranee in the corridor were Magda and the Nawab’s five wives. Beyond them was the train’s conductor, a thin Hindu wearing an ill-fitting uniform and an equally ill-fitting expression of authority.

  “Allow me passage, ladies. Stand aside, ladies—” He reached the Ranee. “Allow me, Your Highness—”

  She hit him across the face with her jewelled handbag, a several-thousand-dollar thwack; he staggered back with blood instantly spurting from a cut across his nose. She didn’t even look at him, but continued to glare at Clive. “Tell Sankar I wish to see him—at once!”

  “I’m here.” The women stood aside for him. The conductor disappeared, holding his bleeding nose. I noticed that Prince Sankar, like the Ranee, didn’t give the conductor even a glance. “What is the trouble?”

  The Ranee told him in Hindi and it sounded to me as if there was a lot of swearing in it. He just gazed at her superciliously and I realized that here we had a man who had only contempt for women. I am never quite certain how to deal with such men. Misogynists are usually torn in a love-hate relationship with women; the majority of men, who love and need women, try to keep us in our place because they treasure the security of being amongst their own sex; bars and clubs and lodges are only symbols of men’s cowardice and never worry me. But contemptuous men? I have never been able to handle contempt from either men or women.

  “You are welcome to get off the train. I shan’t be offended if you do.” He had a soft voice, that of a man who didn’t use it much. He spoke in English, as if his message was meant for the rest of us as well. He was handsome in a, yes, cruel way; as I said before, I like arrogance in a man; but not cruelty. He had the coldest face I had ever seen; compassion would only have disfigured it, “But beggars can’t be choosers. Ask any of the beggars out there on the platform.”

  I thought for a moment that the Ranee was going to hit him with her handbag. But she whirled abruptly, pushed her way through the Nawab’s wives and disappeared into a compartment down the corridor. The compartment door was slammed to with a crash. The wives looked at each other, nodded and went back to their own compartments; perhaps they were more used to contempt than I was. Or Magda.

  “Your Highness, the least we deserve is some bedding and blankets. Please see that the servants bring us bedding from the carts.”

  Sankar looked at Clive. “Who is this one?”

  “Madame Monday.”

  Then Clive introduced Viola and me, but Sankar did not even glance at us. He just looked at Magda. “Everything is packed and on the wagons, we can’t waste time unpacking. I’ll send you your husband. He will have to comfort you.”

  Then he turned and left the car. Viola said, “Clive, are you going to let him treat us like that? Dammit, this is an English train! Kick him off and let him see whether beggars can be choosers or not!”

  “Viola, he has precedence, even if he is out of his own State. I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with what he’s offered you. I’ll send Karim Singh and Private Ahearn to take care of you. And some bearers.” He looked at Magda. “I’ll tell your husband to travel with you, Madame Monday.”

  “If you were a gentleman,” I said, “you’d also travel with us and share our discomfort.” What I meant was that I should feel safer if I knew he was close at hand. I was coming to need him, which is another step to falling in love.

  “I wish I could. But I have some business to attend to.”

  I followed him out on to the platform. The crowd stood at a respectful distance, curious as e
ver and, some of them, resentful. Under the corrugated-iron roof of the platform the clamour gave us privacy: no one would hear what we said.

  “Clive, who is that man Sankar? Is he the one who has been trying to kill you?”

  In the dim illumination of the station it was impossible to read anything from his shadowed expression. Then, very quietly, he said, “Yes, I think so.”

  “But why?” I must have cried out, because he put a soothing hand on mine. “For God’s sake, Clive, tell me what’s going on!”

  He looked around at the crowd, a thousand pairs of eyes watching us with a sort of animal patience. Then he took my arm and led me along to the end of the platform. We were beyond the platform lights here, lit only by the moon on which scudding clouds seemed to shred themselves like dark hessian. A few yards from us a large cow stood like a white rock monument.

  “Tell me, Clive, please—for our sake!”

  He sighed: Secret Service men hate to reveal secrets. I often wonder what CIA men talk about in bed with their wives. “There’s a plot to assassinate the King. I have no definite proof—”

  I suppose the suspicion of something like it had been there in my mind ever since that first evening in Simla. So I didn’t gasp or have an attack of the vapours; and I felt no excitement at the news scoop that now lay in my hands. No, I just felt sick. Assassination is almost as old as murder: how long after the killing of Abel was the first tribal leader done to death by treachery? I was fifteen years old when President McKinley was shot and I remember I was sick: I grieved for the man but more for my country. Just two years ago as I write this, I was so sick that I had to take to my bed: but then I grieved as much for President Kennedy as I did for America.

  “What do they want? Independence? Isn’t there some other way—does a man have to be assassinated?”

  “The man happens to be a king. Read your history, Bridie—kings have always been expendable—” He held my hand. “Kings are so—so visible. Revolutionaries have nothing to gain by killing nobodies—”

  “They’ve been trying to kill you!” For love a woman will reduce a man to nothing.

  He smiled, kissed me for my gaffe. It was so natural that I thought nothing of it: we were partners now. “I think I’m out of danger now. We’re too close to home, as the saying goes.”

  “Clive, please—do take care.”

  “I shall—I promise. But you must promise me you’ll mention this to no one. This is not for the newspapers, yours or anyone else’s.”

  I hesitated; but with the taste of him on my lips there was nothing else I could say: “I promise.”

  We went back to the train. He put me into my carriage, pressed my hand and went on up to Prince Sankar’s car. We women’s car was at the very rear of the train, behind the wagons of horses and elephants. Which, I suppose, was some consolation: we could have been behind a wagonful of camels.

  Mr. Monday came down to join his wife and five minutes later the train pulled slowly out of Kalka. I stood in the corridor while Viola got undressed and looked out at the crowd on the platform. The sleepers did not stir, just lay there like the dead. But the would-be travellers, those without a train to carry them where they wanted to go, stood and watched as we slowly pulled away. A group of young men stood opposite my window and they stared at me till I could feel embarrassment flushing through me like a fever. One of them took a step forward and I thought he was going to spit at me. But all he did was smile and say, “Be sure that the elephants and horses have a pleasant journey, memsahib.” I think I’d have felt better if he had spat at me.

  I went into our compartment, got undressed, said goodnight to Viola and climbed into the upper bunk. I used my travelling bag as a pillow and covered myself with my topcoat and tried to tell myself that I was so exhausted I should sleep anyway. But I have never been a good subject for auto-suggestion; Celtic pessimism never allows you to expect too much. The train wheezed and jolted its way through the night and it seemed as if I heard and felt every mile of the 200-mile journey. I wondered how the King was sleeping this night; but of course he would not know what I knew. Once I heard Magda in the next compartment cry out: she could have been dreaming or making love. Whatever, she was enjoying the journey much more than I.

  End of extract from memoirs.

  II

  The Rajah of Pandar’s private carriage was not a corridor car with compartments. It was what the Americans call a day-coach. All the seats had been removed, some rugs put on the floor and half a dozen cane chairs, with cushions, placed by the windows. Some camp beds had also been brought aboard for the comfort of the Rajah’s guests, plus some blankets. The carriage was, in effect, a men’s club on wheels, even if a less-than-luxurious one. It was still a good deal better than the women’s club at the tail of the train.

  Farnol reclined in one of the chairs and studied the Rajah. Sankar had not offered his guests a night-cap and Farnol, remembering the man’s devotion to religion, had not expected any; but he had, with a sort of cold politeness, offered them cups of tea. Farnol sipped his and wondered if it had been poisoned. But it was unlikely that Sankar would want so many witnesses to another attempted murder.

  “I have the feeling I’ve seen you before, Your Highness,” he said, trying a line like a fisherman casting.

  “I doubt it, Major. I am not a social person.”

  “Oh, this wasn’t a social occasion. Somehow the memory is of us being alone together.” It was difficult to feel comfortable and even-tempered while drinking tea with a man who had tried to murder you. “It’s hazy, but you know how hazy memory can be sometimes.”

  “I have an excellent memory.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll come to me sooner or later.” Or should he come out with it now, tell Sankar he had seen him at the monastery in the mountains, at the Viceroy’s Lodge and in the bazaar in Simla? He wondered if there was a good or poor quality tattoo inside the elbow in the silk achkan sleeve.

  “Sankar, I notice you have no elephants on the wagons behind,” said the Nawab.

  “I shall be riding a horse in the parade. There will be enough ostentation without adding to it.”

  “A little pomp and ceremony never hurt anyone, old chap.” Farnol had noticed that the Nawab looked nervous and uncomfortable as if he had just questioned an umpire’s decision at cricket. “I’ve brought a golden howdah with me.”

  Farnol waited for Sankar’s lip to curl; but the man was not so obvious as that, at least not in his facial expressions. “What about you, Bobs? Do you have a golden howdah, too?”

  “I have to ride with Mala in her coach.” Mahendra was sulky and withdrawn; but, Farnol noticed, also a little deferential. “She is the ruler of Serog. I am invited only for the ride.”

  “What about you, Baron?” Sankar hadn’t spoken to the old man since the latter had come on board the train. “Is there going to be some German pomp and ceremony?”

  “No, Your Highness. We Germans will just be spectators at this coronation. He is your Emperor, not ours.”

  Farnol waited for a reaction from Sankar but there was none. He was convinced now that the Rajah of Pandar was the leader of the plot that had the Nawab and Mahendra in its web and that had, somehow, entangled Savanna. But he was no closer to knowing the whole plot, nor if the King was still to be assassinated.

  “And you, Major? Are you to be just a spectator?”

  “I shall be riding with my regiment.”

  “And adding to the pomp and ceremony, no doubt. There is no one who does it quite so well as the English.”

  “I understand the Kaiser puts on a good show. And Emperor Franz Josef does it very well in Vienna, I’m told.”

  “I saw them both while I was in Europe. Operetta, nothing more. The English are the only ones who can make a pageant of it.”

  “Would you like all that to finish?” Another line thrown.

  “Oh, it will all die out some day, Major. Money can’t go on being wasted on such vanities.” He took out a w
atch, a golden one; he allowed himself a small vanity or two. “It is one o’clock. Perhaps you gentlemen would care to turn in.”

  He got up and went out on to the rear platform of the carriage, closing the door after him. Farnol hesitated, then, avoiding the looks of the Nawab and Mahendra, he followed Sankar out on to the platform. The Rajah did not seem surprised to see him.

  “I like to look at the peace of the stars before I go to sleep,” he said.

  “What do you do on stormy nights?”

  “You English are so down-to-earth. How could you have produced all the poets you have? On stormy nights, Major, I trust to memory.”

  “Of course. You told me what an excellent memory you have. My own has suddenly improved. I remember where I saw you—at a monastery on the Tibet Road, beyond Jangi.”

  “It is possible. But when I go away to meditate, I leave memory at home.”

  Behind them the open wagons rattled in the black box of the night. Dimly Farnol could see the elephants swaying like badly packed cargo; horses gazed backwards into the night like carousel steeds going the wrong way. In other wagons the escort guards, mahouts, syces and bearers slept packed in on each other, human livestock. At the far end of the train was the carriage where the women rode. If Sankar chose to attack him now, to throw him off the platform, he would be chopped to pieces before Bridie rode over the top of him. He felt the coldness in his spine and he leaned back against the door of the carriage.

  “My cousin told me you had an adventurous trip down from Simla.”

  “We down-to-earth English thrive on adventure.”

  For the first time Sankar smiled, a thin blade in the starlight. “Of course. That was what brought you to India in the first place, wasn’t it?”

  “Adventure and profit.” One had to be honest. Idealism had never been encouraged by the East India Company, but a sense of adventure did pay dividends.