The Lion's Den

by Philip McCutchan

  From this point on, memory faded; yet something continued to nag. Something unpleasant; Fettleworth and Black had gone on to discuss him, James Ogilvie. Fettleworth had said something about his early promotion to Captain’s rank, and Black hadn’t sounded happy. Ogilvie tried to remember more, but couldn’t; his chief emotion, as he came back to the hangover-ridden morning after, was a disturbing realization of the next of those few things he could recall in patches. As if to make sure of the facts beyond all doubt, he reached out a hand and touched Mary Archdale’s naked body. She was still asleep, sleeping like a child with a small smile of happiness on her face, and he was in her bed. He had no recollection of getting there, presumably in the early hours, but he did remember with a great deal of pleasure watching Mary undress, slowly, and then coming to him with her lips parted and trembling and her arms held wide as if to enmesh him into her very body. And it had been a wonderful, wonderful night; he was grateful that the cloudy mists had lifted for long enough to let him enjoy and remember, so clearly, in so much detail, with so much deep feeling, what they had given each other, lovingly and without any holding back. It was something that for his whole period of service in India they had both longed for, but it had never happened until last night. While Mary Archdale’s elderly husband Tom had been alive, such a thing would have been unthinkable, would have meant the end of his career in the army had it come to light; and even during the year subsequent to Major Arch-dale’s death in action, on the march to Fort Gazai, any such close liaison had seemed to Ogilvie improper. One could not bed a widow still in her whole year of official mourning! The twentieth century might not be far from clutching the nineteenth by the coat-tails, but Queen Victoria, old as she might be, was still sitting like a round fat rock on the throne of England, and her edict and her morals ran world-wide throughout her Empire. One did not flout her standards — not too brazenly at all events. One was an officer and a gentleman, and Tom Archdale, Staff Major, had been a brother officer and gentleman. It had taken a night’s heavy drinking to bring down the barriers and cut through the inhibitions of his upbringing, and James Ogilvie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; but his principal regret, he found, was for all the other nights there could have been if he hadn’t been so straitlaced; Mary, he felt sure, would have lowered her standards willingly. The delay had been all on his side after Archdale’s death.

  He sat up in bed. He had a terrible shake in his hands, he noticed. Gingerly he put a foot on the floor and stood, and went over to the wash-stand where he drank some water from a covered carafe and felt the dryness of his mouth depart, though the taste that lingered was still foul and harsh. Then he went back to the disordered bed and woke Mary. He woke her urgently; the day was coming alive, the cantonments would be stirring and he had to make his way back to his quarters in his full Mess uniform. Not an unusual sight, perhaps, for a subaltern — but for a newly promoted captain?

  Mary woke, smiling up at him, her eyes clear and fresh, her breasts, her flat stomach, her thighs, all inviting him to stay. ‘Well, love,’ she said, resting her cheek on the soft flesh of her upper arm. Was it up to expectations?’

  He nodded, and went down on his knees beside the bed. He felt tears prick behind his eyelids; she seemed so defenceless, would be so alone when he had gone. ‘Mary,’ was all he could say. ‘Mary, darling.’

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ she said with a touch of wonder. ‘I enjoyed it too, oh, so much.’

  ‘I’d do anything for you, Mary.’

  ‘And me for you, love.’ She rolled over a little way; he looked down on her buttocks. He couldn’t leave her; but of course he had to, and quickly. ‘Will you come tonight, James?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve no duties. Yes, of course I’ll come.’

  ‘I’m glad, love.’ She looked up at him, frowning. ‘How much do you remember of last night, James?’

  ‘Little enough,’ he said with an attempt at a laugh. ‘Only what matters, Mary.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think other things mattered too, James. Did you hear, or rather do you remember, the conversation between Fettleworth and your Captain Andrew Black?’

  ‘No,’ he said. The nagging worry returned, worse than ever. ‘Tell me.’

  She said, ‘You never did look upon Andrew Black as a friend, did you!’

  ‘Hardly. I’m not much worried about Black now, though.’

  It was sheer bravado and she laughed at it. ‘Oh, James, you may be a Captain, a very new and very, very dear Captain — but Andrew is still the adjutant and you’d do well to remember that. If he no longer outranks you, he can still be a pestilential nuisance! Company commanders have to toe the line with adjutants, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Well, Mary? What was said?’

  ‘Briefly,’ she said, ‘Fettleworth was sounding Black about you, and Black was being his usual self. Black, it seemed, didn’t approve the recommendation for your advanced promotion. He even suggested favouritism — that you owed it to the fact your father happened to be the Northern Army Commander. To give Fettleworth his due, James, he reacted badly to that and Andrew got a flea in his ear. But here’s the point, love: Fettleworth has plans for you — unspecified plans to broaden your experience. And, in his own words, for you to acquire much knowledge for yourself and for the High Command as well. The last thing I heard him say was that he would be discussing this with Lord Dornoch shortly.’

  ‘I see.’ Ogilvie held his hands to his throbbing head. ‘What the devil has he in mind, I wonder!’

  ‘I don’t know, love.’

  ‘Well, I’m not shirking any duty...but I don’t much want to leave Peshawar just now.’

  She understood what he meant; she kissed him, and said with her lips brushing his ear with a delightfully sensual feel, ‘Nobody mentioned you leaving Peshawar, love, so don’t cross any bridges just yet.’

  ‘No, of course.’ He got to his feet and started dressing. Mary lay and watched him, watched his tall, slim, straight young body, tanned and muscular and hard with the so often rigorous life of the North-West Frontier. Her feelings about him were mixed. She loved him, and more than physically; but marriage, she believed, would not work. In the army young officers did not marry on the whole — and she was eight years older than he, which was quite a lot on the wrong side. Besides, she knew what the Ogilvie parents thought about her — not that it mattered all that much, but it wouldn’t help James, and she wanted, badly, to be a help to James. So better let things drift and find their own course...it was often the only sensible thing to do.

  Dressing with more haste than precision, and unshaven, James Ogilvie took his leave, creeping out into the bright morning like a criminal, flitting like a gilded guilty shadow for cover, putting the discretion of distance between himself and Mary’s bungalow before he could be seen. In leaving one widow’s bed, he yet must not scandalize that other Widow reigning in solemn state half-way across the world.

  CHAPTER TWO

  James Ogilvie’s return to cantonments in the comparative cool of early morning did not go unremarked, as he had known it would not. The men were about, and already a group of defaulters was marching and wheeling, with full packs and rifles, under the bullying voice of a drill-sergeant. Captain Ogilvie was given a smart eyes right, and a swinging salute from Sergeant MacBean, which, self-consciously enough, he returned. There was a glimmer of amusement in MacBean’s face; the men would understand, and sympathize, with the fellow feeling of the rank-and-file for those about to land in trouble. Trouble rose in the form of Captain Andrew Black, watching from a window. Ogilvie was allowed to go peacefully to his quarters, where his servant was waiting. He washed, shaved and dressed in more appropriate uniform, and then went along to Mess for breakfast. Breakfast was a silent meal; in the 114th Highlanders, it was not expected that breakfasting officers should even wish one another a good morning. The Times of India, moat-like before the majority of the stolidly mu
nching jaws, proclaimed this as an occasion of privileged solitude. Andrew Black, lifting his dark face for a moment from a plate of porridge, gave Ogilvie one sweeping look and that was all. Trouble would come in Black’s own good time, and it did.

  Breakfast over, Ogilvie was bidden to the adjutant’s office. On the way he met Mr. Cunningham, Regimental Sergeant-Major, a large man whose chest had earned him the nickname of Bosom. The R.S.M.’s salute was as punctilious as ever, his friendliness as obvious, but there was a very slightly disappointed look in his eye.

  ‘Good morning, Mr. Cunningham.’

  ‘Good morning, Captain Ogilvie, sir. And my heartiest congratulations, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Sar’nt-Major...but you’ve already congratulated me.’

  ‘No, sir! Begging your pardon. I’m now congratulating you upon being able to walk and talk. Sir! Rumour has it you enjoyed yourself last night. You’ll not take it amiss from a man of my age, who has your welfare much at heart, if I say that the men talk amongst themselves, sir. It grieves me to hear it. If I were you, sir, I’d watch it in the future. Mind, I understand the occasion, sir, and I’m not a man to dislike drink, not at all. But India’s India, Captain Ogilvie, and that needs to be borne in mind. Sir!’

  Another quivering salute and Cunningham marched briskly away, a cane held at precisely the right angle beneath his left arm. Ogilvie felt a stab of anger, but not for long. The R.S.M. had perhaps overstepped the mark, but there had been a glimmer of humour in his eye, and he meant well. He was a good friend to a young officer, always had been. But his words hadn’t exactly calmed the fears in James Ogilvie’s mind as he neared Black’s office.

  *

  The night before, during the conversation with his Divisional Commander, Black had been fairly forthcoming when Bloody Francis had said, ‘That young Ogilvie — feller that’s just got his captaincy. Good going, that — very early promotion. Course, it was largely on my recommendation,’ he had added with a touch of mendacity, for the recommendation, which Fettleworth had merely endorsed and forwarded, had been Lord Dornoch’s. ‘How’s he really shaping?’

  Black had hesitated at first, but Fettleworth had gone on, ‘You may answer honestly, my dear feller...this is off the record. I know it’s a question that should be addressed to his Colonel — but, well, man to man, what?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Black had answered, and then said, in that harsh voice that Ogilvie knew so well, and had so often suffered from, ‘Fair enough, sir. No worse than any other young officer.’ Young officers were never popular with Black.

  ‘And no better?’

  ‘In my opinion — no, sir.’ He had then, in reply to a further question, indicated that he himself had not approved the recommendation.

  ‘May one ask why, Captain Black?’

  ‘I did not consider him ready for the responsibility of a company, sir. He is young — to some extent he is immature. His early days at a crammer’s instead of the rough-and-tumble of a boarding school — it has left its mark. I do not say he is not conscientious. He is. He does his best. And he conducts himself well in action.’

  ‘So I was told, after that damn march on Fort Gazai.’

  ‘In my opinion, sir, a subaltern’s future is formed in his early years — while he is still a subaltern. That is where the groundwork lies, where he learns his trade as a soldier, where he learns his profession as an officer, his potentialities as a leader of men. There is more in leadership than a mere ability to face the guns. If you cut short the early years, the apprenticeship as it were, you cut short the training — and you cut short the man in the years to come.’

  ‘Quite — oh, quite. All this was naturally taken into due account. I must say I agree to some extent with what you say. Sound commonsense, very sound. But there is absolutely no reason why a company commander, just as much as a subaltern, should not continue to acquire new and broadening experiences — no reason at all. Why, we all continue to learn — even I! Yes, even I,’ Bloody Francis had repeated as if he had suddenly stumbled upon a great truth. ‘And I have plans for that young man, Captain Black...’

  And now, this morning, the young man in question must needs be dealt with by his adjutant.

  *

  ‘A poor start, James,’ Black said. ‘A poor start, for a company commander. I was not aware that you had permission to sleep out of barracks.’

  ‘I hadn’t.’

  ‘Precisely. And kindly remove that mutinous look from your face, James. You may have a Captain’s rank, but I am still the adjutant.’ Black was sitting with his elbows on the arms of his chair and was tapping his extended finger-tips together while he surveyed Ogilvie over the tops of them. If his long face had not held its customary bitter, satanic look, Ogilvie thought, he would have looked like a parson interviewing a sinning parishioner. ‘I am waiting for your explanation, James.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have no excuse.’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware of that.’ A thin smile appeared, but only momentarily. ‘But you must have an explanation, must you not?’

  Ogilvie turned his head a little, looking out of the adjutant’s window across the dust and heat of the parade-ground. Far beyond that dusty expanse and the sweat it brought to drilling bodies rose the foothills of Himalaya with their promise of cool greenness lifting to the everlasting snows on the high peaks far behind. There was a remembrance of Scotland in the very thought of Himalaya; and there were times when James Ogilvie wished for nothing more than a sight of Speyside, and the grandeur of the Cairngorms, and the awesome silences of the Pass of Drumochter so often lost in the mist, with all the memories of clan battles of long ago, and the Tummel water at Pitlochry...after nearly three years of service in India, Ogilvie found much to hate in the sub-continent — the poverty and the callousness, the cheapness in which human life, British as well as native when it came to action, was held, the dirt and squalor contrasting so vividly — and so viciously — with the extraordinary way of life of the ruling princes and their hangers-on...all that, and the terrible oppressive heat, and the everlasting dust and grit that found its way into a man’s clothing and his mouth, his food and his drink...

  He came back to the present to hear Black angrily repeating that he wished for an explanation. He gave the adjutant an answer — of a sort. He said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Andrew. I can give you no explanation.’

  ‘Other than that you were drunk?’

  Ogilvie shook his head. ‘I was not drunk. I was not incapable.’

  Once again, the thin sardonic smile. ‘I would trust not — for the woman’s sake.’

  Ogilvie started, and flushed. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Andrew?’

  ‘What I say.’ Black leaned forward. ‘James, you must do me the courtesy of crediting me with some powers of observation, and with some ability to assess a situation. You do not live in a vacuum, in Peshawar, believe me! Your association with that woman is well enough known —’

  ‘That’s no business of yours, Andrew, and you know it.’

  ‘On the contrary, when your conduct vis-à-vis Mrs. Archdale impinges upon your duties and responsibilities to the regiment, it is very much my business — and my deep concern. I have much pride in the 114th Highlanders, James, as you should know. Now — are you going to tell me a direct lie —namely, that you were not in the woman’s bed last night — or are you not? It is up to you.’

  Ogilvie snapped, ‘I have nothing more to say.’

  ‘Very well,’ Black said, shrugging. ‘I have no option but to refer the matter to the Colonel.’ He took a deep, angry breath and sent it hissing out through his nostrils, which had flared like those of a horse. ‘For now, it shall be left to rest. I have other things to say to you. You already know, of course, that you are to take over B Company from Captain MacKinlay before he leaves for Quetta. You will begin at once to acquaint yourself with his duties, and I shall expect you to maintain your company at as high a degree of efficiency as has Captain MacKinlay. You have been long enough
with the regiment, James, not to expect to plead inexperience. I shall accept no excuses for any lapses from our standards. Is that quite clear?’

  ‘Quite clear, thank you, Andrew.’

  ‘And you will gain nothing by your insolent bearing. Damn puppy!’ Black’s veneer, held together with difficulty, had now cracked wide open. ‘If I’d had my way, you would not have been given a company for many a long year yet! Why, you’re still wet behind the ears, man! And remember this: when you first joined the regiment, butter would not have melted in your mouth. You — you jumped at shadows, you rose from your chair like a jack-in-the-box when an officer senior to you walked into the Mess. You were a child — a child in a subaltern’s uniform! I have watched you make some progress towards manhood — not enough, but some — I think I can say that to some extent I have been responsible for your getting a grip on yourself. There should be a little gratitude in you for that, rather than an overweening insolence and — and such a lack of a sense of responsibility!’

  ‘I didn’t intend to be insolent,’ Ogilvie said, flushing. ‘If I was, well, I’m sorry. I’m not ungrateful for anybody’s help. It’s just that...well, Andrew, again I’m sorry, but I’m not going to stand by and let you speak as you have done about Mrs. Archdale. That’s all.’

  ‘I see.’ Black’s eyes glittered; he was still furiously angry. ‘If the woman should lose you your company even before you have assumed command, then perhaps you will think differently. Remember, you have yet to hear what Lord Dornoch has to say about your overnight absence. And let me tell you this, young man: Mrs. Archdale is fast acquiring a reputation, and an unsavoury one at that. Do not flatter yourself that you are the only man...no, no, you will hear me out...and surely to goodness you do not for one moment suppose that any widow who chooses to remain during her widowhood on an Indian military station, is anything but a blasted whore?’