Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  After lunch he was closeted with the general again for twenty minutes. Then one of the general’s carriages took him to the station; and it did not appear to trouble him at all that the other occupant of the carriage was the self-same Major Hyde who had sat next him at lunch. In fact, he smiled so pleasantly that Hyde grew exasperated. Neither of them spoke. At the station Hyde lost his temper openly, and King left him abusing an unhappy native servant.

  The station was crammed to suffocation by a crowd that roared and writhed and smelt to high heaven. At one end of the platform, in the midst of a human eddy, a frenzied horse resisted with his teeth and all four feet at once the efforts of six natives and a British sergeant to force him into a loose-box. At the back of the same platform the little dark-brown mules of a mountain battery twitched their flanks in line, jingling chains and stamping when the flies bit home.

  Flies buzzed everywhere. Fat native merchants vied with lean and timid ones in noisy effort to secure accommodation on a train already crowded to the limit. Twenty British officers hunted up and down for the places supposed to have been reserved for them, and sweating servants hurried after them with arms full of heterogeneous baggage, swearing at the crowd that swore back ungrudgingly. But the general himself had telephoned for King’s reservation, so he took his time.

  There were din and stink and dust beneath a savage sun, shaken into reverberations by the scream of an engine’s safety valve. It was India in essence and awake! — India arising out of lethargy! — India as she is more often nowadays — and it made King, for the time being of the Khyber Rifles, happier than some other men can be in ballrooms.

  Any one who watched him — and there was at least one man who did — must have noticed his strange ability, almost like that of water, to reach the point he aimed for, through, and not around, the crowd.

  He neither shoved nor argued. Orders and blows would have been equally useless, for had it tried the crowd could not have obeyed, and it was in no mind to try. Without the least apparent effort he arrived — and there is no other word that quite describes it — he arrived, through the densest part of the sweating throng of humans, at the door of the luggage office.

  There, though a bunnia’s sharp elbow nagged his ribs, and the bunnia’s servant dropped a heavy package on his foot, he smiled so genially that he melted the wrath of the frantic luggage clerk. But not at once. Even the sun needs seconds to melt ice.

  “Am I God?” the babu wailed. “Can I do all the-e things in all the-e world at once if not sooner?”

  King’s smile began to get its work in. The man ceased gesticulating to wipe sweat from his stubbly jowl with the end of a Punjabi headdress. He actually smiled back. Who was he, that he should suspect new outrage or guess he was about to be used in a game he did not understand? He would have stopped all work to beg for extra pay at the merest suggestion of such a thing; but as it was he raised both fists and lapsed into his own tongue to apostrophize the ruffian who dared jostle King. A Northerner who did not seem to understand Punjabi almost cost King his balance as he thrust broad shoulders between him and the bunnia.

  The bunnia chattered like an outraged ape; but King, the person most entitled to be angry, actually apologized! That being a miracle, the babu forthwith wrought another one, and within a minute King’s one trunk was checked through to Delhi.

  “Delhi is right, sahib?” he asked, to make doubly sure; for in India where the milk of human kindness is not hawked in the market-place, men will pay over-measure for a smile.

  “Yes. Delhi is right. Thank you, babuji.”

  He made more room for the Hillman, beaming amusement at the man’s impatience; but the Hillman had no luggage and turned away, making an unexpected effort to hide his face with a turban end. He who had forced his way to the front with so much violence and haste now burst back again toward the train like a football forward tearing through the thick of his opponents. He scattered a swath a yard wide, for he had shoulders like a bull. King saw him leap into third-class carriage. He saw, too, that he was not wanted in the carriage. There was a storm of protest from tight-packed native passengers, but the fellow had his way.

  The swath through the crowd closed up like water in a ship’s wake, but it opened again for King. He smiled so humorously that the angry jostled ones smiled too and were appeased, forgetting haste and bruises and indignity merely because understanding looked at them through merry eyes. All crowds are that way, but an Indian crowd more so than all.

  Taking his time, and falling foul of nobody, King marked down a native constable — hot and unhappy, leaning with his back against the train. He touched him on the shoulder and the fellow jumped.

  “Nay, sahib! I am only constabeel — I know nothing — I can do nothing! The teerain goes when it goes, and then perhaps we will beat these people from the platform and make room again! But there is no authority — no law any more — they are all gone mad!”

  King wrote on a pad, tore off a sheet, folded it and gave it to him.

  “That is for the Superintendent of Police at the office. Carriage number 1181, eleven doors from here — the one with the shut door and a big Hillman inside sitting three places from the door facing the engine. Get the Hillman! No, there is only one Hillman in the carriage. No, the others are not his friends; they will not help him. He will fight, but he has no friends in that carriage.”

  The “constabeel” obeyed, not very cheerfully. King stood to watch him with a foot on the step of a first-class coach. Another constable passed him, elbowing a snail’s progress between the train and the crowd. He seized the man’s arm.

  “Go and help that man!” he ordered. “Hurry!”

  Then he climbed into the carriage and leaned from the window. He grinned as he saw both constables pounce on a third-class carriage door and, with the yell of good huntsmen who have viewed, seize the protesting Northerner by the leg and begin to drag him forth. There was a fight, that lasted three minutes, in the course of which a long knife flashed. But there were plenty to help take the knife away, and the Hillman stood handcuffed and sullen at last, while one of his captors bound a cut forearm. Then they dragged him away; but not before he had seen King at the window, and had lipped a silent threat.

  “I believe you, my son!” King chuckled, half aloud. “I surely believe you! I’ll watch! Ham dekta hai!”

  “Why was that man arrested?” asked an acid voice behind him; and without troubling to turn his head, he knew that Major Hyde was to be his carriage mate again. To be vindictive, on duty or off it, is foolishness; but to let opportunity slip by one is a crime. He looked glad, not sorry, as he faced about — pleased, not disappointed — like a man on a desert island who has found a tool.

  “Why was that man arrested?” the major asked again.

  “I ordered it,” said King.

  “So I imagined. I asked you why.”

  King stared at him and then turned to watch the prisoner being dragged away; he was fighting again, striking at his captors’ heads with handcuffed wrists.

  “Does he look innocent?” asked King.

  “Is that your answer?” asked the major. Balked ambition is an ugly horse to ride. He had tried for a command but had been shelved.

  “I have sufficient authority,” said King, unruffled. He spoke as if he were thinking of something entirely different. His eyes were as if they saw the major from a very long way off and rather approved of him on the whole.

  “Show me your authority, please!”

  King dived into an inner pocket and produced a card that had about ten words written on its face, above a general’s signature. Hyde read it and passed it back.

  “So you’re one of those, are you!” he said in a tone of voice that would start a fight in some parts of the world and in some services. But King nodded cheerfully, and that annoyed the major more than ever; he snorted, closed his mouth with a snap and turned to rearrange the sheet and pillow on his berth.

  Then the train pulled out, amid a din o
f voices from the left — behind that nearly drowned the panting of overloaded engine. There was a roar of joy from the two coaches full of soldiers in the rear — a shriek from a woman who had missed the train — a babel of farewells tossed back and forth between the platform and the third-class carriages — and Peshawur fell away behind.

  King settled down on his side of the compartment, after a struggle with the thermantidote that refused to work. There was heat enough below the roof to have roasted meat, so that the physical atmosphere became as turgid as the mental after a little while.

  Hyde all but stripped himself and drew on striped pajamas. King was content to lie in shirt-sleeves on the other berth, with knees raised, so that Hyde could not overlook the general’s papers. At his ease he studied them one by one, memorizing a string of names, with details as to their owners’ antecedents and probable present whereabouts. There were several photographs in the packet, and he studied them very carefully indeed.

  But much most carefully of all he examined Yasmini’s portrait, returning to it again and again. He reached the conclusion in the end that when it was taken she had been cunningly disguised.

  “This was intended for purpose of identification at a given time and place,” he told himself.

  “Were you muttering at me?” asked Hyde.

  “No, sir.”

  “It looked extremely like it!”

  “My mistake, sir. Nothing of the sort intended.”

  “H-rrrrr-ummmmmph!”

  Hyde turned an indignant back on him, and King studied the back as if he found it interesting. On the whole he looked sympathetic, so it was as well that Hyde did not look around. Balked ambition as a rule loathes sympathy.

  After many prickly-hot, interminable, jolting hours the train drew up at Rawal-Pindi station. Instantly King was on his feet with his tunic on, and he was out on the blazing hot platform before the train’s motion had quite ceased.

  He began to walk up and down, not elbowing but percolating through the crowd, missing nothing worth noticing in all the hot kaleidoscope and seeming to find new amusement at every turn. It was not in the least astonishing that a well-dressed native should address him presently, for he looked genial enough to be asked to hold a baby. King himself did not seem surprised at all. Far from it; he looked pleased.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said the man in glib babu English. “I am seeking Captain King sahib, for whom my brother is veree anxious to be servant. Can you kindlee tell me, sir, where I could find Captain King sahib?”

  “Certainly,” King answered him. He looked glad to be of help. “Are you traveling on this train?”

  The question sounded like politeness welling from the lips of unsuspicion.

  “Yes, sir. I am traveling from this place where I have spent a few days, to Bombay, where my business is.

  “How did you know King sahib is on the train?” King asked him, smiling so genially that even the police could not have charged him with more than curiosity.

  “By telegram, sir. My brother had the misfortune to miss Captain King sahib at Peshawur and therefore sent a telegram to me asking me to do what I can at an interview.”

  “I see,” said King. “I see.” And judging by the sparkle in his eyes as he looked away he could see a lot. But the native could not see his eyes at that instant, although he tried to.

  He looked back at the train, giving the man a good chance to study his face in profile.

  “Oh, thank you, sir!” said the native oilily. “You are most kind! I am your humble servant, sir!”

  King nodded good-by to him, his dark eyes in the shadow of the khaki helmet seeming scarcely interested any longer.

  “Couldn’t you find another berth?” Hyde asked him angrily when he stepped back into the compartment.

  “What were you out there looking for?”

  King smiled back at him blandly.

  “I think there are railway thieves on the train,” he announced without any effort at relevance. He might not have heard the question.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Observation, sir.”

  “Oh! Then if you’ve seen thieves, why didn’t you have ’em arrested? You were precious free with that authority of yours on Peshawur platform!”

  “Perhaps You’d care to take the responsibility, sir? Let me point out one of them.”

  Full of grudging curiosity Hyde came to stand by him, and King stepped back just as the train began to move.

  “That man, sir — over there — no, beyond him — there!”

  Hyde thrust head and shoulders through the window, and a well-dressed native with one foot on the running-board at the back end of the train took a long steady stare at him before jumping in and slamming the door of a third-class carriage.

  “Which one?” demanded Hyde impatiently.

  “I don’t see him now, sir!”

  Hyde snorted and returned to his seat in the silence of unspeakable scorn. But presently he opened a suitcase and drew out a repeating pistol which he cocked carefully and stowed beneath his pillow; not at all a contemptible move, because the Indian railway thief is the most resourceful specialist in the world. But King took no overt precautions of any kind.

  After more interminable hours night shut down on them, red-hot, black-dark, mesmerically subdivided into seconds by the thump of carriage wheels and lit at intervals by showers of sparks from the gasping engine. The din of Babel rode behind the first-class carriages, for all the natives in the packed third-class talked all together. (In India, when one has spent a fortune on a third-class ticket, one proceeds to enjoy the ride.) The train was a Beast out of Revelation, wallowing in noise.

  But after other, hotter hours the talking ceased. Then King, strangely without kicking off his shoes, drew a sheet up over his shoulders. On the opposite berth Hyde covered his head, to keep dust out of his hair, and presently King heard him begin to snore gently. Then, very carefully he adjusted his own position so that his profile lay outlined in the dim light from the gas lamp in the roof. He might almost have been waiting to be shaved.

  The stuffiness increased to a degree that is sometimes preached in Christian churches as belonging to a sulphurous sphere beyond the grave. Yet he did not move a muscle. It was long after midnight when his vigil was rewarded by a slight sound at the door. From that instant his eyes were on the watch, under dark of closed lashes; but his even breathing was that of the seventh stage of sleep that knows no dreams.

  A click of the door-latch heralded the appearance of a hand. With skill, of the sort that only special training can develop, a man in native dress insinuated himself into the carriage without making another sound of any kind. King’s ears are part of the equipment for his exacting business, but he could not hear the door click shut again.

  For about five minutes, while the train swayed head-long into Indian darkness, the man stood listening and watching King’s face. He stood so near that King recognized him for the one who had accosted him on Rawal-Pindi platform. And he could see the outline of the knife-hilt that the man’s fingers clutched underneath his shirt.

  “He’ll either strike first, so as to kill us both and do the looting afterward — and in that case I think it will be easier to break his neck than his arm — yes, decidedly his neck; it’s long and thin; — or—”

  His eyes feigned sleep so successfully that the native turned away at last.

  “Thought so!” He dared open his eyes a mite wider. “He’s pukka — true to type! Rob first and then kill! Rule number one with his sort, run when you’ve stabbed! Not a bad rule either, from their point of view!”

  As he watched, the thief drew the sheet back from Hyde’s face, with trained fingers that could have taken spectacles from the victims’ nose without his knowledge. Then as fish glide in and out among the reeds without touching them, swift and soft and unseen, his fingers searched Hyde’s body. They found nothing. So they dived under the pillow and brought out the pistol and a gold watch.

 
After that he began to search the clothes that hung on a hook beside Hyde’s berth. He brought forth papers and a pocketbook — then money. Money went into one bag — papers and pocketbook into another. And that was evidence enough as well as risk enough. The knife would be due in a minute.

  King moved in his sleep, rather noisily, and the movement knocked a book to the floor from the foot of his berth. The noise of that awoke Hyde, and King pretended to begin to wake, yawning and rolling on his back (that being much the safest position an unarmed man can take and much the most awkward for his enemy).

  “Thieves!” Hyde yelled at the top of his lungs, groping wildly for his pistol and not finding it.

  King sat up and rubbed his eyes. The native drew the knife, and — believing himself in command of the situation — hesitated for one priceless second. He saw his error and darted for the door too late. With a movement unbelievably swift King was there ahead of him; and with another movement not so swift, but much more disconcerting, he threw his sheet as the retiarius used to throw a net in ancient Rome. It wrapped round the native’s head and arms, and the two went together to the floor in a twisted stranglehold.

  In another half-minute the native was groaning, for King had his knife-wrist in two hands and was bending it backward while he pressed the man’s stomach with his knees.

  “Get his loot!” he panted between efforts.

  The knife fell to the floor, and the thief made a gallant effort to recover it, but King was too strong for him. He seized the knife himself, slipped it in his own bosom and resumed his hold before the native guessed what he was after. Then he kept a tight grip while Hyde knelt to grope for his missing property. The major found both the thief’s bags, and held them up.

  “I expect that’s all,” said King, loosening his grip very gradually. The native noticed — as Hyde did not — that King had begun to seem almost absent-minded; the thief lay quite still, looking up, trying to divine his next intention. Suddenly the brakes went on, but King’s grip did not tighten. The train began to scream itself to a standstill at a wayside station, and King (the absent-minded) — very nearly grinned.