CHAPTER FOUR
‘I’m very sorry to hear you’re leaving us, Captain Ogilvie, sir, even though it’s only temporarily. You’d have made a fine company commander, sir, if I may say so.’
Ogilvie smiled. ‘Thank you, Sar’nt-Major. I’m sorry too, but it can’t be helped. As you say — it’s only a temporary appointment, and not of my seeking.’
‘Aye, sir. You have my best wishes in the interval. I’ll be obliged if you’ll give my best respects to Sir Iain Ogilvie, sir.’
‘Thank you again, Mr. Cunningham. I know my father’ll be glad to have news of you.’
‘Then good-bye for the time being, sir.’
Ogilvie held out his hand; Bosom Cunningham’s grip was warm. A Sergeant-Major of the old school, Ogilvie hated lying to him, even by inference, even as the result of orders; Cunningham was the sort of man who made one feel ashamed of an untruth. Cunningham and his father — and Cunningham’s father as well — had in the past given their service together to the Royal Strathspeys, and Sir Iain Ogilvie himself had more than once put his trust in that large, tough Highlandman.
*
It was a circuitous business — much more circuitous than Ogilvie had imagined it would be, and time-consuming. But in India’s lazy heat there was, it seemed, time in which to take even war easily. O’Kelly’s route orders indicated that the important thing was authenticity. So Ogilvie went first to Murree with two metal trunkfuls of kit, by train and bullock cart. A hundred or so miles by the flight of a carrion bird, Murree was considerably more when the creaking railway carriage took its passengers by way of Nowshera, Attock and Rawalpindi. At Nowshera Ogilvie’s solitude was interrupted by a gaunt-looking Major of the Green Howards, but not for long. After an abrupt good-morning the Major flapped open a Times of India and went to ground behind its pages, with long thin legs thrust out beneath the deaths, births and marriages, the human events that signposted an army’s and an Empire’s tenure of the East. Ogilvie stared in silence out of the window as the train jolted fussily along the track. Under a burning sun he inhaled the age-old smells of the sub-continent, the unmistakable smells that told a man, if nothing else did, that he was in India. It was a stifling morning and Ogilvie, each time the slow old train stopped at a halt, swatted at innumerable flies, vicious brutes with what his father would have called blue arses. He beat at them with waving arms till they buzzed away and joined others crawling over putrefying matter by the side of the track, or over decayed beggars lying totally inert in the shadows cast by the wooden platform of the halt, men still as death despite the irritation of the wandering hairy legs and probing mouths, their thin, stick-like limbs thrust out into the dust, the eroding marks of disease inescapable in their pitiful faces. Beggars...without the strength in their sinews to lift a beggar’s dish or whine for alms.
Reaching Murree at last, Ogilvie left one of his trunks at army headquarters, a trunk ostentatiously painted in white with his name, rank and regiment. Then, without a sight of his father, he proceeded in accordance with Major O’Kelly’s orders to the house of a Civilian, a Mr. Totness, a gentleman from the finance department of the Government in Calcutta, attached for duty with Army Command in Murree. Here, Ogilvie changed out of uniform into mufti from his second trunk, putting on a cream tussore suit and a civilian topi. When Mr. Totness had given him a bulky package that included a number of documents, and had indicated which he was to keep on his person and which he was to read, memorize and then destroy by fire, he proceeded, after a good meal and half a bottle of French wine, again by bullock-cart, out of Murree to the small town of Abbottabad in the Hazara district of the Punjab. This terrible progress took him right through the night and deposited him, just as a splendid dawn came up over the hills, at a hostelry run, as he had been told by Mr. Totness, by a former havildar — major of the native regular troops of the Indian Army — a man, Mr. Totness had said, absolutely to be trusted for his loyalty to the British Raj. Here, Ogilvie was given a clean room and breakfast. After breakfast, he studied his documents with more care than he had so far been able to do. His new identity was that of a Mr. Ernest Wilshaw, travelling arms salesman, representing a large British combine — Dilke-Braybrook-Chalmers of Birmingham. There was a curriculum vitae of Mr. Wilshaw attached, fully comprehensive as to background; and there was a great deal of useful arms-sales information designed to give him all he needed to know in order to keep his end up. Having read and memorized all of this, he struck a match and set fire to it in the safety of an earthen vessel which he found beneath the bed; and with some difficulty, for the receptacle was not large enough to be entirely safe, he restrained the flames from total destruction of the loyal havildar’s property. Then he read the literature which he was to keep, and found it consisted mainly of leaflets descriptive of the virtues of the Dilke-Braybrook-Chalmers products. There was also what seemed to be an order book and a book of cheques, some of which had been used, drawn on the London branch of a British bank; and, in addition, some ready cash — no less, indeed, than ten thousand pounds equivalent in five-pound notes drawn on the Bank of England and in rupees. This was for his personal expenses and for any bribery that might become necessary once he was inside Waziristan. Study over, he slept — with the money securely beneath his pillow. After some hours another meal was brought and the next act took place when at 5 p.m. the ex-havildar bowed an entrance to his room and said, ‘Sahib, there is a person below who wishes to see you.’
‘His name, Ram Sadar Singh?’
‘He says his name is Jones Sahib.’
‘Then send him up, Ram Sadar Singh.’ The havildar bowed himself out again, and Ogilvie grinned to himself. The appellation of ‘sahib’ had come with reluctance from the hostelry-keeper’s lips; his description of Mr. Jones as ‘a person’ was much closer to his real feelings. Not for the first time, Ogilvie reflected that there was no snob like the British-orientated Indian in British India; Mr. Jones — which was not in fact his real name, as Ogilvie had been warned — was clearly not a gentleman.
The man appeared, smiling, and bounced into the room, full of bonhomie. He said, ‘Mr. Wilshaw, I’ll be bound! Eh? Nice to meet you, sir, nice indeed.’
‘Thank you Mr. — Jones. That’s a compliment I return.’ He shook the man’s hand. Jones was middle-aged and short and fat, and wore a heavy brown moustache, its waxed ends drooping in the close, stuffy heat. The door closed; they heard the havildar’s footsteps receding down the stairs. ‘We can talk, Mr. Jones. Ram Sadar Singh’s to be trusted, I’m told.’
‘That’s right, Mr. Wilshaw, that’s quite right. I’ve heard he’s a good old scout — never met him before, mind, not myself, to be honest he don’t like my trade, but I know all about him.’ Mr. Jones, without being so invited, sat himself on the bed and hooked his thumbs into his braces, which he brought out like catapults and then released to twang back against almost woman-sized breasts. ‘Nice to sit down,’ he said, blowing out his cheeks. ‘Lord, Mr. Wilshaw, I feel just like my old lady —haven’t sat down all day. I dunno, life’s a rush sometimes. Still, I can’t complain, not really, I make plenty of money and that’s what counts, eh? Not that I wouldn’t give a lot of it to be back in Brum right now, I can tell you, Mr. Wilshaw.’
‘Brum?’
‘Ah, that’s it — Birmingham, as if you didn’t know. What’s the matter, Mr. Wilshaw? Got a nasty smell or something, have I?
I —’
‘Well, you look as if I have!,
Ogilvie flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that...oh, well, never mind!’
‘Come on, out with it, let’s be honest.’
Really, Ogilvie decided it was the only way so long as it could be done without giving offence. He smiled. ‘It’s a little different from the service. I’m not used to this sort of thing, you know.’
‘Not quite like the Colonel or the Major, am I?’ Chirpily, Jones returned his smile. ‘Wouldn’t know what to do with me serviette at supper an’ that’s a fact. I a
dmit it. Still, it takes all sorts to make a world, Mr. Wilshaw. I hope I’m going to be of service to you, that’s all. That’s my job for now, and believe me, I’m not used to your sort either.’
‘I’m sure we’ll get to know one another,’ Ogilvie said diffidently.
‘We’d better, seeing we’ve to spend quite a little while in each other’s company, Mr. Wilshaw. When’ll you be ready to leave?’
‘As soon as you like.’
‘Right. We’ll get old Ram Singh to give us some supper, then we’ll be on our way south and west. I’m taking it you know the drill?’
Ogilvie nodded. ‘You’re the real salesman for Dilke-Bray-brook-Chambers...this is in fact your last tour of duty in India, and you’re showing the new man the territory. Correct?’
‘As ever was,’ said Mr. Jones. ‘And believe me, it’s dead lucky for yours truly that it is my genuine last tour, cos I’d never dare come back after this lot. I’d be the deadest duck you ever set eyes on, Mr. Wilshaw. I dare say you know what sort of memories the tribes have!’
‘Yes, I do. Well...it’s a pretty decent thing you’re doing, Mr. Jones.’
‘So what’s that supposed to mean? Eh?’ Jones looked, for no reason that Ogilvie could see, suddenly angry. ‘All it means to me is that it’s very curious a dirty bastard like me should do anything decent. Talk about condescension. Why, you’re all the same! Don’t interrupt, it’s bloody rude, didn’t nanny tell you? Look, Mr. Wilshaw. Don’t you make the mistake of seeing everything in black and white. I’m an arms salesman by profession and it’s made me a good living. Oh yes, I know how the guns and the bullets are used sometimes, but if I didn’t do it, somebody else would, and I have a living to make same as anyone. I’ve a wife and seven kids in Brum, five of ‘em grown up and off my hands, true, but what I’ve sold out here’s helped ‘em grow up. Believe it or not to look at me, I’ve got an old mother as well. Eighty-eight she is, and blesses me for keeping her. A man has to do what he can, and this is what I dropped into. It doesn’t mean I can’t be decent, Mr. Wilshaw. But you’ve only to say the word and I’ll ride back to Kagan with pleasure and leave you to explain to your precious Colonel —’
Mr. Jones’s voice had risen and Ogilvie had almost to shout the words: ‘For God’s sake, man, shut up! You’ll be heard all over Abbottabad!’
‘Oh — sorry!’ Mr. Jones’s hand flew to his mouth. ‘You’re quite right, Mr. Wilshaw. Very sorry.’
‘So am I,’ Ogilvie said in immense relief. ‘You’ve misunderstood me entirely, but I apologize very sincerely. I only meant to thank you, that’s all.’
‘Ah, but you were wondering what had made me decent all of a sudden, and don’t deny it, Mr. Wilshaw. What’s more, I’m going to tell you.’ He struck an attitude. ‘The Queen, God bless her! The British Empire on what the sun never sets, the good old Raj, the memsahibs and the squire and his relations, and us all in our proper stations, Rule Britannia and the British Grenadiers. So help me God.’ He dabbed at his streaming face with a bright green handkerchief.
‘Tripe,’ Ogilvie said, half smiling. ‘You don’t mean a word of that!’
‘No,’ said Mr. Jones complacently, ‘but you’d like me to, and it’s what makes you tick. Now I’ll tell you the solemn truth.’ He used the handkerchief again, this time to dab at a tear that had suddenly trickled from his right eye. ‘My old dad...he was the Regimental Sergeant-Major of the 14th. What they call the West Yorks now, the Prince of Wales’s Own. Yes, sir, a British Non-Commissioned Officer.’ Mr. Jones glanced towards the ceiling, reverently. ‘He’s up there somewhere now, looking down and not liking what he sees. I’m going to shift his sights for him, Mr. Wilshaw.’
As suddenly as the tear had sprung, Mr. Jones winked. Taken in conjunction with the apparent emotion of that tear, the wink was quite incongruous, and all at once Ogilvie realized that the arms salesman was slightly tight. He didn’t for the life of him know how to take his new companion, or what to believe, but he could foresee certain elements of danger in the mission if he was to remain long with Mr. Jones.
*
They left Abbottabad after the evening meal, heading south-west out of the little town through mean streets of sleazy hovels and past the inevitable beggars, making towards the Indus River to cross into Kohat south of Khushalgarh. Mr. Jones had provided his own transport — a bullock-cart, covered, with a horse ambling along behind. The horse was for Ogilvie’s onward transportation once they had parted company, which they would do shortly after they had entered Waziristan, and in the cart was a small tent which Ogilvie would take with him. Jones said, ‘All I need do, Mr. Wilshaw, is to make you known to a few of the khel leaders, the maliks they call ‘em, and after that the word’ll spread fast. You’ll be all right with my say-so behind you. I’m — trusted.’ He used the word with an odd inflexion, almost diffidently. Ogilvie understood why; he was about to break another trust. Ogilvie wondered mischievously what Mr. Jones’s old dad would have to say when he looked down from above on that, but assumed that approval would be the order of the heavenly day in the circumstances.
‘As for me, I’ll get to hell an’ out once I’ve established your bona fides, Mr. Wilshaw, if you’ll forgive the term. After that, well, you’re on your own.’
They jogged along a rutted track, slowly, uncomfortably, with Jones driving. Ogilvie sat alongside him on a hard bench-like piece of wood, soon aching in every part of his body and wishing he could stretch out in the back. This was impossible, or if not precisely impossible, pointless; for the back was filled with the hard stuff — literally — under a tarpaulin. When Ogilvie had inquired what was there, Mr. Jones had said laconically, ‘Samples, Mr. Wilshaw, samples. Under the trash, that is.’
‘Trash?’
‘Beads and trinkets. I do a nice little trade with the women. That’s me perks. It’s also good cover. I’m well known to the authorities as a trader in rubbishy jewellery, and officially, that’s what I am.’
‘And the...samples? What are they samples of?’
‘As if you didn’t know, Mr. Wilshaw. Guns, of course. And ammo. Junk very largely, like the trinkets, but impressive to the tribes. Gaffing parts...Colts, Mausers, Mannlichers, Lebels, Rosses.’ He glanced sideways at Ogilvie, as the last of the light faded from the sky. We haven’t got around to the new pieces yet. The automatic rifles, and the Long Lee-Enfield that’s replacing the Snider and the Martini-Henry in the British Army.’
‘Thank God for that!’
‘Thank my old dad,’ Mr. Jones said, winking again. ‘He’s up there keeping an eye on God, jogging his elbow just a little way in the right direction...keeping an old sweat’s eye on God an’ me and his British troops.’
A few minutes later Ogilvie broke the silence by asking, ‘What happens if we run across a British military patrol...with all that lot in the cart?’
‘You’ll have to talk us out of it, Mr. Wilshaw.’
‘I can’t do that. I’m under orders not to talk to anyone not directly involved.’
Mr. Jones shrugged. ‘Don’t cross your bridges, Mr. Wilshaw. I’ve always found that a good rule of life. If I hadn’t, why, I’d be dead from worry by this time.’
‘It should be thought about, though. We should be ready.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps the R.S.M.’ll see us through!’
‘R.S.M.?’
‘Your father, Mr. Jones.’
‘Oh — my old dad. Yes. Well, reckon he will.’ Mr. Jones lapsed again into silence, leaving Ogilvie to wonder if his old dad was no more than a figment of his imagination, though it could certainly be assumed he’d had one some time or other. Another thought came into Ogilvie’s mind as well, an unkind one that asked him how much Mr. Jones was being paid by the minions of Calcutta to make this journey worth his while. Somehow, the ring of the cash register seemed more germaine to Mr. Jones than did any lofty-dwelling, haloed R.S.M.
*
The bullock-cart and its attendant impatient horse forded the Indus three dawns late
r and came into Kohat. They made their tedious way along the valleys, around fifty miles south of Peshawar itself as they headed, westerly still, towards Teri, whence they would drop down into Waziristan by way of Bannu. It was during the fifth night, some thirty-two hours of actual driving time after fording the Indus, that the trouble came, and came a little to the north of Bahodur Khel as they were about to cross the old caravan route leading north to the mouth of the Khyber Pass.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Now, what the hell was that?’ Mr. Jones asked suddenly, pulling the bullock-cart up short. It was pitch dark now, with no moon at all, and there was a chilling wind coming down on them from Himalaya.
They listened.
Ogilvie said, ‘I didn’t hear anything, Mr. Jones.’
‘Call yourself a soldier!’ Jones’s voice was low, no more than a whisper. ‘Good Christ, Mr. Wilshaw, I reckon I’ve done more Frontier time than you have when it comes to the pinch, nipping out of here and there. And I tell you now, there’s a patrol not far off.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘I heard a rattle of equipment, that’s how. Hark!’
Ogilvie listened again. At first he heard nothing to break the heavy, brooding silence of the darkness beyond the occasional cry of a night bird; then, distantly still, he fancied he heard what the arms salesman had heard: a thin jingle of harness. Mr. Jones had very sharp ears; there was no sound of horses’ hooves. The indication was that the horses were moving at a walking pace and on soft ground, and that the patrol, if it was a patrol, was in fact closer than he had thought.
Soldier of the Raj Page 6