The Lion's Den

by Philip McCutchan

  Not in the very least, sir.’

  Fettleworth nodded. ‘Well said, Ogilvie, well said indeed. You are a good officer. You are also something else.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Damn it, man, you’re as cunning and artful as a blasted monkey — and so am I when I need to be, so am I!’ Smiling now, Fettleworth heaved himself to his feet and reached up to pat Ogilvie approvingly on the shoulder. ‘You’ve relieved my mind of a serious problem to a great extent, my dear fellow — I trust you will find yourself able to settle it finally.’

  SIXTEEN

  Once again past Jamrud, below the fortress and into the horrible conditions of the Khyber. Once again the bitter penetrating wind, once again the snow — though not so much of the latter as they had experienced last time. Ogilvie, without the responsibility of command, and feeling the after-effects of recent experiences still, spent much of the march, as he had when wounded, in a commissariat cart under thick blankets and greatcoats and with a fur cap pulled about his ears. Taggart-Blane struggled along behind, on foot, full of bitter complaint. Ogilvie had determined to wear him down by the time they reached the place where Mulata Din had died and where Lal Binodinand had been placed in arrest.

  Taggart-Blane had been indignant at the start but Ogilvie, finding a welcome backer in Major Arkwright of the Duke of Wellington’s — a rock-faced company commander of the old school—had told him curtly that he was to do as he was told and march with the men. Arkwright, overhearing, had spoken to Ogilvie afterwards. ‘The Army’s getting too damn soft, Ogilvie. The very idea of any unwounded man expecting to ride through the Khyber in a wagon deplorable!’

  ‘I’m not exactly wounded myself, Major.’

  ‘Not now — not now — but very recently. I’ve heard about your march, Ogilvie.’

  ‘Then you’ll have heard that Taggart-Blane brought the despatch through on his own. He’s not done so badly.’

  ‘True, true. I’m sorry, I Ogilvie — seem to have been critical of your own subaltern — too bad of me, and I do apologise. Only I cannot stomach namby-pambyism. I was used to better things — the lash, the field-gun wheel and all that went with that! It built men, by God, and we had officers to match.’ He moved away, going ahead along the line of march, leaving Ogilvie to his own thoughts and anxieties. If he had not the responsibility of the march, he had other responsibilities: the all-important agreement, signed and sealed by Lieutenant-General Fettleworth and Mr. Peabody from Calcutta; and to some extent he had the responsibility of one of Her Majesty’s judges. In his hands now lay the life of Lal Binodinand, and in a different context that of Taggart-Blane. He had somehow, and currently he knew not how, to force the issue with Taggart-Blane. As a corollary to these life-judgments, he had also a personal responsibility towards Bloody Francis Fettleworth, who was trusting in him completely to settle the affair in such a way that would leave no embarrassing ends trailing behind it. Fettleworth, as one of Her Majesty’s Lieutenant-Generals, in high Indian command, was a very important figure who must never be seen overtly to connive, to conspire, to attempt to influence the course of justice. Great care would have to be exercised throughout. No scandal must attach to the Commander of the First Division — if it did, the repercussions could be immense.

  Fettleworth had said as much, with great stress. ‘If any act of mine should be called into question — or rather, in this case, if I should appear to have in any way agreed to an improper course of action, then I don’t think I would exaggerate if I said that the whole of the sub-continent would be affected—as would the whole of the British Army throughout the world. Why, even Her Majesty’s reputation might suffer — at all events in the eyes of such of the damn niggers as can read!’

  Recalling this, Ogilvie smiled a little to himself; allowing for the pompous over-statements, some truth did in fact remain. Images must never be tarnished; and memories for things that were better forgotten were ever long. In a sense the Raj was perhaps more vulnerable to the breath of scandal and the hint of corruption in high places than it was to the force of arms and the pressures of the Frontier tribes. Yet there would, Ogilvie believed, be no scandal on this occasion; with absolutely no real reason so to think, he felt that the Gods were going to help. Even as he thought this, he looked at the hard-packed snow along the track, and felt the keenness of the funnelling wind, saw the icy-looking sky lofting above the peaks that closed in the pass, and knew that in all the world there was no more God-forsaken place than this, even though, out of all that world, it was the place that was physically among the closest to heaven.

  *

  ‘I suppose you’re going to shoot me in the back,’ Taggart-Blane said coolly.

  ‘What the devil d’you mean by that?’

  ‘What I said, damn you!’ There was a hard laugh from the darkness. ‘I know very well why you brought me on this wretched trek.’

  ‘Whatever the reason, it certainly wasn’t that! ‘

  ‘But you do admit, then, that there was an ulterior motive?’

  ‘Not ulterior, of course not.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a matter of language — of what ulterior means to you, James. Did you hope I’d be polished off by the enemy?’

  Ogilvie said, ‘I don’t think this is going to get us anywhere. Why not drop it?’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t want to drop it! I wish you’d tell me the truth — the real reason I’m here, which I’m quite sure isn’t to hold your hand or to do another heroic solo dash through the Khyber! Which brings me, rather naturally, to another point: why haven’t I been told the object of the mission, James?’ The voice was high and accusing, almost petulant. ‘I’m only assuming you’ve got some sort of terms in your pocket — nobody’s told me!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry! You mean you’re under orders not to trust me, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t discuss that — I repeat, I’m sorry. But you mustn’t imagine you’re not here on a real job, because you are. I could get knocked off, we could be ambushed again, and every officer’s needed. Those are real enough reasons for anybody, Alan. But I’ll make an admission, if you like: I was hoping the Khyber would make you see things as they are. Out here a man has time to think, and space to give him perspective. I hoped you’d see...’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Well, that conscience is important. You’ve a long life to live—’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I think the time’ll come when you’ll condemn yourself for what you’re doing to Lal Binodinand.’

  ‘I see. And you have the cheek to talk about a long life! Oh, don’t worry, I see your dilemma! Anyway, you’re still, in a sense, offering me the gentleman’s way out — aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m only asking you to get your thoughts in order, that’s all.’

  Taggart-Blane gave one of his high, semi-hysterical laughs. ‘God, but you’re pathetic! If getting one’s thoughts in order leads one to a bullet in the brain...why, for Christ’s sake, go to the bother? Do you know something?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  There was another laugh. ‘Not what you want to hear! This: I’ve a mother and a father in England, and a brother, and two sisters. I’ve an idea I mean quite a lot to them, yet you’re asking me to die by my own hand and bring misery and distress to all of them — all innocents. Have you ever thought of that? The telegram or whatever it is from the War Office...arriving, probably in the middle of a New Year’s party or something? Your son’s dead, in the bloody rotten Khyber. In heroic action? Oh, no! He blew his brains out, that’s all, rather than face a possible charge of—’

  ‘It wouldn’t be like that, I give you my word.’

  ‘Well, Judge Ogilvie, you really needn’t bother,’ Taggart-Blane said viciously. ‘If you think I’m going to bring sorrow to my family, my own flesh and blood, just for some damn black havildar, you’re very much mistaken! ‘ Taggart-Blane moved away towards his own bivouac, vanishing into the darkness. Sick
at heart, Ogilvie said nothing; but found sleep hard to come by that night. There were always the innocents to suffer. He tried not to see Taggart-Blane’s parents in his imaginings.

  Next day, tired out, he resumed the march with the men of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and by the following nightfall they had marched again into terrible weather, into a howling blizzard that sent slivers of ice flinging cruelly into the faces of the soldiers as they tried desperately to find shelter. It was nothing short of a nightmare, in which each man was sunk into a close, individual world of silent suffering.

  *

  The blizzard blew for more than twenty-four hours before any easement came. As the snow thinned Ogilvie, with Ark-wright and Surgeon-Major Corton, made his way around all the men of the escort, checking on the fitness of the soldiers to march out. There were many cases of frost-bite, which kept Corton and his medical orderlies busy rubbing the afflicted limbs with snow, trying to thaw them gradually, and looking for any signs of dry or wet gangrene. Four men had died; Ogilvie and Arkwright found them, four corpses, frozen solid, mere snow-covered heaps upon the ground.

  ‘They’ll need to be buried,’ Arkwright said. ‘It’ll be a hard task, will that!’

  ‘Yes.’ Ogilvie sounded preoccupied; he was looking all around the now visible landscape.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ogilvie?’

  ‘Taggart-Blane. I’ve not seen him.’

  Arkwright frowned. ‘Come to think of it — no more have I! That’s very odd, Ogilvie. What the devil can have become of him?’

  ‘He could have gone into a frozen sleep, I suppose, and is buried in the snow,’ Ogilvie said. ‘God knows, it’s deep enough! We must mount a full search, Major.’

  ‘Of course — at once.’

  Arkwright gave the necessary order; all fit men were set immediately to the task of searching the whole area, which, with patient endeavour, was covered almost inch by inch.

  Nothing was found, no evidence of Taggart-Blane at all.

  He must have gone, Ogilvie realised, must have deserted the march. After the main search had proved fruitless, Ogilvie questioned each man closely in case any movement had been observed during the blizzard; but with no result. Nothing at all had been seen, nothing had been heard above the howling of the ferocious wind. The place where Taggart-Blane had made his personal bivouac was roughly ascertained and a specially careful probe was made beneath the snow. There was nothing; if Taggart-Blane had gone, he had left nothing behind him. He had gone with all his equipment, his blankets, his revolver, his ammunition — gone, Ogilvie was now convinced, like a ghost, a trackless thing, into the Khyber’s snows and the wildness of those remote hills, the lonely places at the roof of the world. It would never be possible to trace him; any tracks would naturally have been covered by the falling snow, snow which even now was still drifting slowly down.

  Ogilvie felt old and utterly weary, worn out. Was this a suicide, the outward stumble of a man driven beyond endurance — a stumble out into the cold to die? Had his, Ogilvie’s, words been the last straw, had he at last driven Taggart-Blane to the gentleman’s exit from life? Or — was it an escape, an act of outright desertion, a desperate braving of cruel weather and hostile tribesmen in order to evade military justice, the retribution of the British Raj? Was it? And if so, would Taggart-Blane, with a sinner’s luck, win through and live on to become one of the world’s outcasts, a man for ever on the run? The search had been very thorough; it was certain beyond all doubt that Taggart-Blane was not in the close vicinity. He must have had strength to put a fair distance between himself and his comrades. Of course, he could have the desperate strength of the madman, the suicide’s will to do the thing properly; but somehow, to Ogilvie who knew Taggart-Blane, it failed to add up to suicide. When later his thoughts were interrupted by Major Arkwright, he knew that Taggart-Blane had indeed made a bid for escape. Some of the troops’ rations had been purloined, Arkwright said, and a commissariat mule had vanished. Suicides did not take provisions or transport.

  ‘Can we be sure it was Taggart-Blane that took the food?’ Ogilvie asked.

  Arkwright shrugged. ‘No. But in the circumstances it’s a reasonable assumption, isn’t it? I can assure you that none of my men would stoop so low — besides, not one of my men is missing, to have taken the mule.’

  ‘It could have wandered off...’

  ‘No, no. It was tethered. The tether had been cut through with a knife.’

  ‘I see.’ Ogilvie’s shoulders drooped. ‘Then in that case...yes, yours was a fair assumption, Major. He must have gone with the provisions.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Ogilvie. This is hard for you, I know.’ Arkwright coughed. ‘He struck me as an odd sort of fellow, though. Very odd. And to take the food from the mouths of men on the march through the Khyber — well, need one say more? What’s his idea? Tell me, Ogilvie: had there been trouble of some sort?’

  Ogilvie hesitated, then gave Arkwright a straight look. ‘Yes, there had been trouble, Major. But it’s a regimental matter, and I speak for my Colonel when I say we would prefer it to remain so. I’m sure you’ll understand if I say no more than that?’

  ‘Of course — of course! I fully understand. I’ll ask no more, naturally.’ Arkwright clicked his teeth in embarrassment. ‘Now we mustn’t delay further, Ogilvie. The sick have been provided for, and as soon as the dead are decently buried we must move out. I need scarcely remind you, the General’s despatch is most urgent.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Major. I’m ready to march.’ Ogilvie looked slowly around the hills, and gave a sudden shiver. ‘I’d like to think I would never see this place again!’

  *

  From the safe and distant cover of the rocky crag to which he had dragged himself, Taggart-Blane watched the British troops march out. Close to exhaustion, he was shaking violently. As the comparative warmth engendered by his desperate effort to get away was dissipated by the Khyber’s terrible cold, Taggart-Blane began to feel frozen to the point of numbness. Knowing he must keep on the move or he would undoubtedly freeze to death, he turned away from the crag and stumbled on, leading the commissariat mule by its halter. He was crying now; the tears of weakness and desperation ran from his eyes, only to freeze instantly upon his cheeks. He scarcely knew what he was doing, had no idea where he was going, except that he must get away from his companions, from the regiment, from James Ogilvie, from disgrace and ruin and perhaps a hanging.

  After a while, feeling his legs give way, he tried to mount the mule. The animal bared its teeth, kicked out at him savagely, obstinately.

  ‘You bastard! ‘ Taggart-Blane screamed. ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard!’

  Taking his revolver from its holster, he lashed out at the mule with the butt, cruelly, senselessly, drawing blood from its rump. With another wild kicking of its heels, the terrified beast went ahead, jerking on the halter and sending Taggart-Blane flying on his face in the snow. The halter slid from his grip and the mule moved fast away from him, plunging through the snow, into the beginnings of another blizzard, until it was lost to sight.

  Now there was no commissariat, and no blankets.

  Picking himself up from the snow, Taggart-Blane moved on behind the departed mule. Slipping again and again, falling, sliding, picking himself up, his flesh torn by the rocks upon which he fell, face cut and tormented by the wickedly sharp slivers of ice that were flung upon him by a biting wind, he made his slow progress to nowhere, dangerously crossing his little sector of the world’s roof. He had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards from where the mule had pitched him down, before he realised he no longer had his revolver. Two hundred yards was little enough distance to have made good in the time; but he knew it would be useless to turn, and go back, and search.

  He fell, this time on his knees, and prayed to a God to whom he had never prayed before and who seemed to have no interest in him now. After a time he got to his feet again, and lurched on, crying, calling out obscene nonsense, feeling his mind leavin
g him. When, after hours of almost semi-conscious effort, he saw the shapes of men ahead of him, he thought at first they were the British.

  ‘No!’ he called out in a thin croak. ‘Let me die here. You’ll never hang me, you’ll never do that!’ Then he saw that they were not British, but Pathans, wild men of the hills, heavily armed with rifles and long, snaky bayonets. He gave a high, crazy cackle of laughter, and collapsed again in the snow. He felt the strong hands lifting him, smelt foul breath fan his face, and looked closely into the eyes of cruelty.

  ‘A British soldier,’ he heard one man say in a dialect which he vaguely understood. ‘A British soldier, to be killed.’

  ‘No!’ Another face peered at him, and a rough hand slid around his throat, the fingers flexing against his windpipe. ‘Not to be killed yet. To be taken by the short route to Kunarja, to His Highness Jarar Mahommed! ‘

  Taggart-Blane was lifted, roughly. He was manhandled along the track upon which he had stumbled unknowingly, and pushed ahead of the bayonets until he could go no farther. Then he was lifted up and carried across the shoulder of a big-built Pathan, and in this fashion, within two days by the short route known only to the hill tribes, he was brought to the gates of Kunarja, and smuggled in almost before the eyes of the Royal Strathspeys, encamped at a distance to observe and await events.

  *

  On his first visit to Kunarja, Taggart-Blanc had feared torture. But then it had been a mere possibility, something remote, something that would probably never really happen.

  Now it was happening.

  He was screaming under the lash, as he had screamed and screamed again under the razor-sharp knives with their small but many times repeated cuts, administered in a dimly lit, airless chamber in the presence of Colonel Rigby-Smith and Jarar Mahommed.

  Taggart-Blane’s mouth was hanging open; spittle drooled from the corners, ran down his chin. His eyes stared redly. ‘I have told you everything,’ he said with difficulty. ‘There is no more to tell, I swear it!’