Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “I, too, am anxious to know that!” said Ranjoor Singh.

  “You are surly, my friend! You do not like this pistol? You take it as an insult? Is that it?”

  “I am thinking of those regiments, and of these grenades, and of what I mean to do,” said Ranjoor Singh.

  “Let us talk it over.”

  “No.”

  “Please your self!”

  They sat facing each other for hour after dreary hour, leaning back against bales and thinking each his own thoughts. After about four hours of it, it occurred to the German to dismantle the wireless detonator.

  “We should have been blown up if the police had grown inquisitive,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, returning to his seat.

  After that they sat still for four hours more, and then put their clothes on, not that they were dry yet, but the German had grown tired of comparing Ranjoor Singh’s better physique with his own. He put his clothes on to hide inferiority, and Ranjoor Singh followed suit for the sake of manners.

  “What rank do you hold in your army at home?” asked Ranjoor Singh, after an almost endless interval.

  “If I told you that, my friend, you would be surprised.”

  “I think not,” said Ranjoor Singh. “I think you are an officer who was dismissed from the service.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I am sure of it!”

  “What makes you sure?”

  “You are too well educated for a noncommissioned officer. If you had not been dismissed from the service you would be on the fighting strength, or else in the reserve and ready for the front in Europe. And what army keeps spies of your type on its strength? Am I right?”

  But then came Yasmini, carrying her food-basket as the rest had done. She knocked at the outer trap-door, and the German ran to peep through a hidden window at her. Then he went up a partly ruined stair and looked all around the clearing through gaps in the debris overhead that had been glazed for protection’s sake. Then he admitted her.

  She ran in past him, ran past him again when he opened the second door, and laughed at Ranjoor Singh. She seemed jubilant and very little interested in the bombs that the German was at pains to explain to her. She had to tell of five regiments on the way.

  “The first will be here in two or three hours” she asserted; “your men, Ranjoor Singh — your Jat Sikhs that are ever first to mutiny!”

  She squealed delight as the Sikh’s face flushed at the insult.

  “What is the cocked pistol for?” she asked the German.

  He told her, but she did not seem frightened in the least. She began to sing, and her voice echoed strangely through the vault until she herself seemed to grow hypnotized by it, and she began to sway, pushing her basket away from her behind a bale near where the German sat.

  “I will dance for you!” she said suddenly.

  She arose and produced a little wind instrument from among her clothing — a little bell-mouthed wooden thing, with a voice like Scots bagpipes.

  “Out of the way, Ranjoor Singh!” she ordered. “Sit yonder. I will dance between you, so that the German sahib may watch both of us at once!”

  So Ranjoor Singh went back twenty feet away, wondering at her mood and wondering even more what trick she meant to play. He had reached the conclusion, very reluctantly, that presently the German would fire that pistol of his and end the careers of all three of them; so he was thinking of the squadron on its way to France. In a way he was sorry for Yasmini; but it was the squadron and Colonel Kirby that drew his heart-strings.

  Swaying to and fro, from the waist upward, Yasmini began to play her little instrument. The echoing vault became a solid sea of throbbing noise, and as she played she increased her speed of movement, until the German sat and gaped. He had seen her dance on many more than one occasion. So had Ranjoor Singh. Never had either of them, or any living man, seen Yasmini dance as she did that night.

  She was a storm. Her instrument was but an added touch of artistry to heighten the suggestion. Prom a slow, rhythmic swing she went by gusts and fits and starts to the wildest, utterly abandoned fury of a hurricane, sweeping a wide circle with her gauzy dress; and at the height of each elemental climax, in mid-whirl of some new amazing figure, she would set her instrument to screaming, until the German shouted “Bravo!” and Ranjoor Singh nodded grave approval.

  “Kreuzblitzen!” swore the German suddenly, leaping to his feet and staggering.

  And Yasmini pounced on him. Ranjoor Singh could not see what had happened, but he sprang to his feet and ran toward them. But before he could reach them Yasmini had snatched the German’s pistol and tossed it to him, standing back from the writhing German, panting, with blazing eyes, and looking too lovely to be human. She did not speak. She looked.

  And Ranjoor Singh looked too. Under the writhing German, and back again over him, there crawled a six-foot hooded cobra, seeming to caress the carcass of his prey.

  “He will be dead in five — ten minutes,” said Yasmini, “and then I will catch my snake again! If you want to ask him questions you had better hurry!”

  Then Ranjoor Singh recalled the offices that men had done for him when he was wounded. He asked the German if he might send messages, and to whom. But the dying man seemed to be speechless, and only writhed. It was nearly a minute before Ranjoor Singh divined his purpose, and pounced on the hand that lay underneath him. He wrenched away another pistol only just in time. The snake crawled away, and Yasmini coaxed it slowly back into its basket.

  “Now,” she said, “when he is dead we will drive back to Delhi and amuse ourselves! You shall run away to fight men you never quarreled with, and I will govern India! Is that not so?”

  Ranjoor Singh did not answer her. He kept trying again and again to get some message from the German to send perhaps to a friend in Germany. But the man died speechless, and Ranjoor Singh could find no scrap of paper on him or no mark that would give any clue to his identity.

  “Come!” said Yasmini. “Lock the door on him. We will tell the general sahib, and the general sahib will send some one to bury him. Come!”

  “Not yet,” said Ranjoor Singh. “Speak. When did you first know that these Germans had taken this vault to use?”

  “More than two years ago,” she boasted, “when the old priest, that was no priest at all, came to me to be doorkeeper.”

  “And when did you know that they were storing dynamite in here?”

  “I did not know.”

  “Then, blankets?”

  “Bah! Two years ago, when a Customs clerk with too much money began to make love to a maid of mine.”

  “Then why did you not warn the government at once, and so save all this trouble?”

  “Buffalo! Much fun that would have been! Ranjoor Singh, thy Jat imagination does thee justice. Come, come and chase that regiment of thine, and spill those stupid brains in France! Lock the door and come away!”

  CHAPTER 14

  Brother, a favor I came to crave,

  Oh, more than brother, oh, more than friend!

  Spare me a half o’ thy soldier grave,

  That I sleep with thee at the end!

  Spur to spur, and knee to knee,

  Brother, I’ll ride to death with thee!

  THE crew of the Messageries Maritimes steamship Duc d’Orléans will tell of a tall Sikh officer, with many medals on his breast, who boarded their ship in Bombay with letters to the captain from a British officer of such high rank as to procure him instant accession to his request. Bound homeward from Singapore, the Duc d’Orléans had put into Bombay for coal, supplies and orders. She left with orders for Marseilles, and on board her there went this same Sikh officer, who, it seemed, had missed the transport on which his regiment had sailed.

  He had with him a huge, ill-mannered charger, and one Sikh trooper by way of servant. The charger tried to eat all that came near him, including his horse-box, the ship’s crew, and enough hay for at least two ordinary horses. But Ra
njoor Singh, who said very little to anybody about anything, had a certain way with him, and men put up with the charger’s delinquencies for its owner’s sake.

  When they reached the Red Sea, and the ship rolled less, Ranjoor Singh and his trooper went to most extraordinary lengths to keep the charger in condition. They took him out of his box and walked him around the decks for hours at a time, taking turns at it until officer, trooper and horse were tired out.

  They did the same all down the Mediterranean. And when they landed at Marseilles the horse was fit, as he proved to his own brute satisfaction by trying to kick the life out of a gendarme on the quay.

  Another letter from somebody very high, in authority to a French general officer in Marseilles procured the instant supply of a horse for the Sikh trooper and two passes on a northbound train. The evening of their landing saw them on their way to the front, Ranjoor Singh in a first-class compartment, and his man in the horse-box. Neither knew any French to speak of, but the French were very kind to these dark-skinned gentlemen who were in so much hurry to help them win the war.

  It was dark — nearly pitch — dark at the journey’s end. The moon shone now and then through banks of black clouds, and showed long lines of poplar trees. Beyond, in the distance, there was a zone in which great flashes leaped and died — great savage streaks of fire of many colors — and a thundering that did not cease at all.

  Along the road that ran between the poplars two men sent their horses at a rousing clip, though not so fast as to tax them to the utmost. The man in front rode a brute that lacked little of seventeen hands and that fought for the bit as if he would like to eat the far horizon.

  In the very, very dark zone, on the near side of where the splashes of red fire fell, jingling bits and a kick now and then proclaimed the presence of a regiment of cavalry. Nothing else betrayed them until one was near enough to see the whites of men’s eyes in the dark, for they were native Indian cavalry, who know the last master-touches of the art of being still.

  Between them and the very, very dark zone — which was what the Frenchmen call a forest, and some other nations call a stand of timber — a little group of officers sat talking in low tones, eight Englishmen and the others Sikhs.

  “They say they’re working round the edge — say they can’t hold ’em. It looks very much as if we’re going to get our chance tonight. When a red light flashes three times at this near corner of the woods, we’re to ride into ’em in line — it’ll mean that our chaps are falling back in a hurry, leaving lots of room between ’em and the wood for us to ride through. Better join your men, you fellows! Oh, lord! What wouldn’t Ranjoor Singh have given to be here! What’s that?”

  There came a challenge from the rear. Two horsemen cantered up.

  “Who are you? What d’ you want?”

  “Sahib! Colonel Kirby sahib!”

  “What is it? Hallo — there are the three lights — no, two lights — that’s ‘Get ready!’ Who are you? Why — Ranjoor Singh!”

  “Salaam, sahib!”

  “Shake hands. By gad — I’m glad! Find your squadron, Ranjoor Singh — find it at once, man — you’re just in time. There go the three lights! Outram’s Own! — in line of squadron columns to the right — Trot, March! Right!”

  Ranjoor Singh had kept the word of babu Sita Ram, and had managed to be with them when the first blood ran.

  THE END

  KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES

  The Khyber Rifles is a real life regiment founded in 1878 and still in existence today. Originally, it was one of the frontier para military forces established under British rule in India and as the name implies, their key role was to guard and defend the Khyber Pass (a mountain pass connecting present day Afghanistan and Pakistan and used for millennia as a route to invade these territories – even Alexander the Great did so). The majority of the ranks were made up of Alfridi tribesmen and the officers were drawn from British officers in other Indian regiments. With an exciting and evocative remit such as this, it is little wonder that adventure writers like Mundy were drawn to create stories about the Khyber Pass — and there are innumerable non-fiction books about the events that have unfolded in the pass should the reader be inspired enough by Mundy’s novel to read more.

  This was Mundy’s third novel and was initially serialised in nine parts in the populist Everybody’s Magazine beginning in 1916. It was published as a book in America later in that year, but was not published in Britain until 1917, by Constable. The pass and any forces associated with it were practically common parlance with Mundy’s audience by the time he wrote this novel, thanks to the various conflicts that had occurred during the British activity in the region, so the author must have been aware that he had a ready core readership for the novel — it was indeed to become one of his most popular works and at the time of publication, was also his longest. In 1919, Mundy proudly announced to the New York Times that 15,000 copies of the novel had been sold and it was eventually translated into numerous languages. After a number of false starts, the novel was turned into a movie in 1953, starring Tyrone Power, but little remained of the original story apart from the title.

  Mundy combined a number of powerful images in this novel that had made their debuts separately in his other works, but bringing them together was a compelling combination and made for a strong story line: a charismatic woman, the army, war, indigenous peoples, a deranged mullah and the secret service amongst others. Mundy devised the name for the lead character, Captain Athelstan King, by reversing the order of King Athelstan’s name — the first Saxon monarch to rule all of England and whose benign influence extended to establishing a civil service of sorts, a legal code and successfully protecting England against invasion. Presumably Mundy did this to give his hero the same sense of justice and courage, as his (almost) namesake.

  King is a man that loves mathematics and logic, to the point where it influences the decisions he makes in life. He is of English stock, but born in India, like several generations of his forebears and is completely at ease in his birth country; his interest in medicine enables him to adopt the disguise of a hakim or Indian medicine man when needed. In fact, some of his army colleagues thought he was too much steeped in Indian culture and there is talk that he might even “pray to Allah on the sly”. He works for the secret service using the Khyber Rifles as a cover, but of course, in the interests of the British rule of India. Another major character, it could be said, is India itself, depicted from the very beginning as a magical country peopled with men and women of honour, courage and resourcefulness. When the First World War begins, India is keen to step up and do their bit to support the British nation in the fighting, sending men and manufacturing supplies. Summoned to Peshawur, King is ordered by a general to work with another gifted agent, Yasmini, to help enter the Khinjan caves to gather intelligence on the plots brewing on the Northern border, in particular, the rumours of a jihad or holy war.

  King is not happy with this choice of associate. Yasmini is half Russian and well connected to Rajput aristocracy, highly intelligent, a gifted linguist with an interesting past and an overriding ambition for power. In the general’s words, “Some say she’s a she-devil. I think that’s an exaggeration, but bear in mind she’s dangerous… If you’ve got nous enough to keep on her soft side and use her — not let her use you — you can keep the ‘Hills’ quiet and the Khyber safe!”

  After an eventful journey, King arrives in Dehli where he is supposed to rendezvous with Yasmini and meets with Rewa Gunga, Yasmini’s childhood friend and devoted assistant, but the woman herself is nowhere to be seen and King finds himself sent on a series of false trails as he tries to work out her movements. He unexpectedly finds himself in her favour when he arranges to send thirty of her best agents to her in the North. Finally, King receives a request from her to join him at Khinjan, near the frontier and so King sets out on horseback, meeting a variety of people along the way, who seem absolutely devoted to Yasmini, yet King has yet to meet h
er himself! The gold bracelet Yasmini sends him to wear acts like a talisman and he only has to show it to those he meets to receive respect. Her influence is everywhere, but she is covert; when he needs help it appears; when he is hungry, food arrives courtesy of this mysterious woman. After many encounters with local tribes, a mullah and witnessing a dramatic religious event, King finally meets his elusive colleague and he is not disappointed. How will they now work together to make their mission a success?

  There are some pleasing descriptions of Indian city life in this novel, with its crowds, dust, heat and curious characters, but the reader should not expect a travel guide to early twentieth century India. Instead, expect Mundy to play on his reader’s stereotypical preconceptions of the country, with undulating veiled women dancing with snakes and strange English dialect spoken by local people. Also, whilst King is a well drawn character, he is also stereotypically English, with his reserve, “stiff upper lip” and determination – all qualities that Mundy’s readers — Britain’s allies —looked for in 1916 in the throes of war. This is a story where one has to “go with the flow” — oddities such as men dressed as Roman soldiers and ancient Greek lamps still in use in the Indian frontier hills and caves, plus the mystical qualities of the stunning Yasmini, just have to be accepted as part of the adventure. It is tremendous fun — an adventure bordering on mystical fantasy.

  Any reader who has also read the Fu Manchu novels may see a similarity between Yasmini and the daughter of the evil Dr Fu Manchu (the characters created by Sax Rohmer) who was writing at the same time as Mundy, but this is more than likely coincidental or an attempt by two adventure/mystery writers to appeal to popular tastes of the times.

  The first edition

  The first edition’s title page

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