Soldier of the Raj

by Philip McCutchan

  And what had been the result? Why — the more-or-less expected one! Captain Ogilvie was lost to them altogether now; he had been withdrawn by a wise father from the dangers of Peshawar, to serve more circumspectly on his father’s Staff to the, no doubt, inordinate glee of the Murree mothers. And very possibly he would not return to his regiment until he was safely and respectably married off to some dull girl who would not be able to hold a candle to the daughter, of say Mrs. Brigadier-General Kintoul, Mrs. Colonel Maitland-Cornish, or Mrs. Major Evans. And yet there was mystery, a nagging uncertainty; for rumour had come back from Murree that Captain Ogilvie was presently on leave of absence. Well, perhaps that was natural; he had earned a respite, he had seen a good deal of action, and there was always plenty of leave going in Murree and Ootacamund and Simla. You were not ‘on duty’ in the same sense as in the Peshawar garrison, with its proximity to the Khyber Pass and the constant necessity of maintaining patrols.

  Still — the Mrs. Colonels and the Mrs. Majors clucked — it was a great pity, a great shame for Ida and Olive, Ellen and Susan and Mildred...and it was rather odd too, really. On leave he might be; what was certain was that he was not with his light-o’-love in Peshawar.

  It became very considerably odder after Mrs. Surgeon-Major Warrender had allowed an indiscretion to pass her lips.

  *

  ‘A spy? I can’t believe it, Margaret. Surely you’re mistaken!’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Margaret Warrender shook her gingery curls. Normally overawed by Mrs. Carmichael, who was bigger and louder and more senior — her husband was Director of Medical Services at Division — Mrs. Warrender was feeling the power of superior knowledge and was emboldened thereby. ‘Oh, I assure you I’m not mistaken, Mrs. Carmichael. I saw the message myself — it was I who gave it to my husband as a matter of fact. It startled me so much — it came through the window quite close to me. I was very upset. I thought at first it must have been one of these dreadful agitators, and on the dear Queen’s birthday of all days.’

  ‘Just the day they would choose,’ Mrs. Carmichael stated, heaving her chest. ‘They should be herded together and used for pig-sticking, in place of innocent pigs. That’s my opinion. Now, what about this — this spy? Such a terrible word to use! Was there a name?’

  ‘Yes. Wilshaw Sahib.’

  ‘Wilshaw? Was the regiment given?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wilshaw.’ Mrs. Carmichael absently pulled down the pince-nez secured by a thin gold chain to a spring device in a button-shaped case on her breast, then let the glasses bound back again. ‘I don’t think I know any Wilshaw, either here or in Nowshera.’ She reflected, mentally reviewing the regiments and corps of the Division. ‘Possibly he’s from H.Q. in Murree, Margaret.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he could be.’

  ‘And he’s in danger of his life?’

  ‘In danger of torture, the message said.’

  ‘What a very terrible thing.’ Mrs. Carmichael clicked her tongue and looked distressed. ‘How dreadful for his family. I suppose nothing will be done about it.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Well, I should imagine not! I’ve always heard that people who do that sort of job don’t expect help. It’s understood, I believe.’

  Margaret Warrender nodded, and her somewhat weak blue eyes filled with sudden tears. ‘How dreadful! What a brave thing to do, though.’

  Mrs. Carmichael gave a sniff. ‘To ask for help?’

  ‘Well, I meant to undertake such a job really.’

  ‘Oh — yes. Yes, brave, very. Not quite the thing, though. Not the kind of thing a gentleman would take part in. One doesn’t wish to sink to the level of the natives, Margaret.’ Mrs. Carmichael, who always gave the impression of being an instructress in all things military, social and worldly, leaned towards her friend, or subordinate, with her hands clasped in her lap. Her voice become formal. ‘I think you should not be telling me any of this, Margaret. What did your husband have to say on the subject?’

  Margaret Warrender looked down, away from the hard and accusing, yet interested, eyes. ‘He did say I wasn’t to. But I haven’t really, have I, Mrs. Carmichael? I mean, telling you is quite safe. Naturally, I wouldn’t dream of saying a word to anyone else.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so. Yes, of course, it is safe with me. But I hope you’ll be careful. If General Fettleworth had wanted this known, I imagine he would have said something in orders. There must be a good reason for secrecy. It is up to us to respect it.’

  ‘Oh, of course, Mrs. Carmichael, of course, you’re quite right. Another cup of tea?’

  Mrs. Carmichael inclined her head graciously, keeping her back straight. ‘Thank you.’

  Margaret Warrender reached out and jerked a bell-pull, and a native servant came in, bowing, to attend to the ladies’ needs. From then on the conversation, though still tete-a-tete, was of a more general nature concerning polo and pig-sticking, and petit-point, and home, and then, inevitably, of promotion; and even more inevitably of the Queen, and Windsor, and what a trial the Prince of Wales must be to his mother with all his gallivanting and unconventional ways and his love of horse racing, and of the Dukes of Cambridge and Connaught and how standards had slipped since the former had departed from the Horse Guards and his office as Commander-in-Chief of the Army. The name of Wilshaw was not mentioned again, nor, naturally, was espionage. And thereafter both ladies were most conscientious and dutiful in their strict control of their tongues when talking to other people, except perhaps in the case of their most intimate and bosom friends, those in whom they could trust absolutely and who would never reveal a confidence — other than in confidence. For it was all very intriguing to ladies with not enough to fill their days; and after a little while, as the story, though never talked about, somehow managed to make the rounds out of earshot of the menfolk, a touch of fantasy began to weave its way into the strict truth, and the vague theorizing of some of the ladies — the drawing-room ponderings of who, why, what, when and where — began to slot into the story and into the original message. Within little more than a day or two the keen ears of Mrs. Colonel Bates of the Supply and Transport had picked up the information that the strange Mr. Wilshaw, now missing, had been attached to Army Headquarters in Murree.

  When she had digested this information fully, and had had time in which to think it over, put two and two together, and invent a few conclusions, she made it her business to pay a friendly call on Mary Archdale. Mary, though more than astonished, was pleasant enough, and offered her tea, which was accepted. Mrs. Bates spent half-an-hour in innocuous chit-chat before approaching the point, and then she approached it obliquely. She said, ‘That nice young man I saw you with — oh, a long time ago now, it must have been — at the race meeting in Simla. Do you remember, Mrs. Archdale?’

  ‘Yes. That afternoon at Annandale. Of course I remember!’

  Mary gave a sudden laugh. ‘James had told you the night before that he didn’t care for racing, and then you saw us there!’

  Mrs. Bates flushed angrily. So typical, she thought, of the woman to be tactless — tactless and insulting. A lack of breeding of course, always showed. ‘I really can’t remember everything a subaltern says to me, Mrs. Archdale. However — I do recall that he was a nice young man...what’s the matter now?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mary answered. She had laughed again, remembering the look, all that time ago, on Mrs. Bates’s face when she had seen them — caught them would be how she would have regarded it herself — and had referred to James as ‘your Mr. Ogilvie’, and how her own reaction to Mrs. Bates had been the remark to James that she was an extraordinarily ugly woman, an opinion she had seen no reason to change since. ‘Do go on.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mrs. Bates bit her lip angrily, and decided to hurt well and truly now. ‘As I say...a nice young man. Mr. Ogilvie, was it not?’

  ‘He’s Captain Ogilvie now, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Really? I’m so glad. Such quick promotion. Of cou
rse, his father’s the G.O.C.’

  ‘There’s no connection, I assure you, Mrs. Bates.’

  ‘Oh, but of course not — what a suggestion — kindly do not credit me with having made it, Mrs. Archdale.’

  ‘Very well, Mrs. Bates.’ Mary poured tea, smiling sweetly. ‘What suggestion were you making, then?’

  ‘None,’ Mrs. Bates snapped, reddening unattractively. ‘I was merely going to say that I understood he had been appointed to his father’s Staff, and —’

  ‘In other words, you know very well he’d been promoted, and you know very well we’re close friends, and have been for a long time, so we’ll take all that as read, Mrs. Bates. I’m flattered that you’ve been keeping your eye on us all this time, which I’m quite sure you have. I expect you’ve come along to commiserate with me in my — shall we say — grass widowhood?’

  Mrs. Bates gave a gasp. ‘I consider that a little brazen,’ she snapped. ‘What you do is your own affair —’

  ‘Indeed it is.’

  ‘— but it is in the worst possible taste to — to flaunt your conquests under the garrison’s noses in the way you do. And what,’ she added viciously, ‘have you to say to that?’

  Mary kept her temper and laughed in Mrs. Bates’s face. ‘I say that jealousy does more harm to the possessor than to the victim, Mrs. Bates. Your jealousy’s been showing in your face for a long time now. Another cup of tea?’

  Mrs. Bates stood up, shaking all over. ‘You can keep your tea, Mrs. Archdale. I’ve never been so insulted.’ The feathers in her bonnet waved and dipped as though giving support to her indignation. ‘I came to give you a friendly word, some information about Captain Ogilvie’s whereabouts, and look at the reception I get!’

  ‘Give me the word,’ Mary said. ‘Since I’m sure it’s far from friendly, it should help relieve your feelings. What is it, Mrs. Bates?’

  ‘I’ll not utter —’

  ‘Oh, yes, you will, Mrs. Bates!’ Mary got to her feet and swept round the S. and T. colonel’s lady, putting herself between the agitated woman and the door. ‘I’m sure you don’t want a scene. You can certainly rely on my servants listening to any racket, and spreading it all over Peshawar. I know you look on me as the Scarlet Woman, Mrs. Bates. Let me tell you, I’ll live right up to my reputation if you don’t finish what you started to say about James!’

  Mrs. Bates was not without a kind of courage in the face of adversity, in the face of having an unkindly meant intrusion somehow turned it back again much more unkindly than she had originally intended. She asked disparagingly, ‘You have heard no rumour?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘I must say I’m scarcely surprised. You naturally have no friends, as I would speak of friends, in Peshawar. You are out of things. That is why I came — trying to be a friend.’

  ‘Please come to the point.’

  ‘Very well, since you insist, that young man is no better than a spy. That’s what he is — a spy. That’s why he went to Murree. It explains the rather curious appointment. Now he’s got his deserts. He’s been captured by the Pathans in Waziristan.’ Mrs. Bates panted. ‘I call it the vengeance of God.’

  ‘And I,’ Mary said between her small white teeth, ‘call you a bitch,’ and suddenly her hand shot out and took the Colonel’s lady once on each sallow cheek, hard.

  *

  For Mary, that night was torment.

  She had not let Mrs. Bates go until the woman had told her all she knew, or had made up in order to hurt. Having spoken, Mrs. Bates, clutching her draggled dignity and lifting the hem of her dress clear of the floor, had swept out muttering threats. Mary hadn’t even listened to the nature of the threats, knowing they were so much wind. In point of fact, Mrs. Bates, having opened her mouth far too wide for safety, was a very frightened woman. She had laid herself open to Mary Archdale, and Mary, by saying a few words in the right places, could make life very hard for Colonel and Mrs. Bates. Colonel Bates might even be forced to leave the station, or at the very least to send his wife away. Mary, however, had no intention of hounding anyone as pitiful as Mrs. Bates, anyone as sunk in their own spiteful thoughts as was that unfortunate ugly hag. Mary’s own thoughts were all of James Ogilvie, and they revolved in a distressing circle of uncertainty, of a wonderment as to how much was true and as to how she could ever find out for certain. Racked with this worry and uncertainty, she paced her bedroom most of the dark hours. To some extent, what the woman had mouthed at her had had the ring of truth, and also it held together. James had indeed gone to Murree, or so he had said; and yet he had been vague about it, not as forthcoming as usual, and there had been the instruction not to write, and the uncertainty as to how long he would be away...and there was the basic fact of his having been appointed to Sir Iain’s Staff. She had always been a shade worried about that, seeing it as an attempt on Lady Ogilvie’s part to bring about a separation. Perhaps there had been a more sinister reason behind it, a more dangerous one for James.

  It made sense and it could be true.

  Flinging herself on the bed, she gave way to tears, and she cried herself to sleep. She woke in the morning, luckily before she was called by her servant, to find herself still dressed, and stiff and rather cold and with a hollow-eyed face that stared back at her from the looking-glass, when she got up from the disordered bed, like death itself.

  She could eat little breakfast, though by the time the meal was ready she had done her face and looked considerably better. She drank strong coffee, and Scarlet Woman that she was, imperilled the blood-pressures of Peshawar by lighting a cigarette. She made a wry face as the blue smoke spiralled into the air, crossing a shaft of sunlight that streamed through the opened slats of the shutters. She had no right to be getting in such a state over James Ogilvie; she had no claim upon him, nor him upon her. It was unlikely enough that they would ever marry, and she was in fact unsure if she would even welcome the idea. She had never been in love with Tom Archdale, whom she had married as a result of parental pressure; but even so, marriage to him had only made her detest him more — things had worsened rather than improved with close and constant familiarity. Not that James Ogilvie could ever be compared with poor Tom, of course; but her experience of marriage had been unpleasant and it was all she had to go upon, except for her parents’ marriage and that had been a fiasco too. Marriage hadn’t done much for Mrs. Bates either. She would start with much love and devotion for James, but she would not wish to watch it dwindle, to see the spark go out. She loved him, in a sense, too much for the stifling deadweight of marriage with all its conventions and attitudes and formal reactions, and its certainties. There was a wonderful excitement in their present relationship — or there had just begun to be, when he had been posed.

  Mary sat for a long time, just staring into space while, a little later, the servant noiselessly cleared the table around her. What, she had wondered again and again, of James himself? What dreadful things is he undergoing? She had heard so many terrible stories of the cruelties practised by the Pathans — Tom had told her a few, bolstering his own image by recounting the daily dangers he had been up against. The soldiers never even left their dead behind, never mind the wounded, when fighting the Pathan. James might not even be left with the outward and visible symbols of his manhood.

  She gave a loud cry, quite involuntarily: ‘Oh love, oh love.’

  *

  White-faced but unshakeably determined she hired a carriage and went to see Lord Dornoch, privately, in his quarter. She was conscious of some constraint from the stately Lady Dornoch, who, though kind, was formal in her manner. The image of the Scarlet Woman seemed to have preceded her; but Lady Dornoch was a very different kettle of fish from Mrs. Colonel Bates and it was she herself who suggested, with innate tact, that perhaps Mrs. Archdale might prefer to talk to her husband in his study.

  ‘Thank you so much, Lady Dornoch,’ she said. ‘That is kind of you.’

  ‘You’re in some trouble,’ the tall, rather gaunt Scotsw
oman answered. ‘I know you’ll find my husband understanding.’

  Mary smiled a little, gratefully. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘Does it show?’

  ‘It would be unnatural if it did not,’ Lady Dornoch said.

  ‘Then you know--?’

  The Colonel’s wife laid a hand on her arm. ‘Off you go, my dear girl,’ she said crisply, ‘and tell my husband all about it.’

  In Dornoch’s study she asked the question direct: ‘Lord Dornoch, please tell me, where is James?’

  Dornoch shook his head and looked away from her searching eyes, his own eyes sadly worried. ‘He was posted, as you know, to Murree, Mrs. Archdale.’

  ‘Yes. But — after that? Where is he now?’

  ‘One would imagine — in Murree.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, ‘you’re going to be difficult.’ She made use of her eyes, just for a moment, before she realized that with Dornoch this would be quite the wrong tactic. ‘Have you heard the rumours?’ she asked.

  ‘What rumours, Mrs. Archdale?’

  ‘Why, about James.’

  ‘I never listen to rumour,’ Dornoch said sharply. Then he leaned towards her, resting his elbows on the huge old arms of the leather chair that he had brought from his home in Scotland. ‘And if you’re wise, Mrs. Archdale, neither will you. Please believe me when I say that so far as is known officially, you have no cause for anxiety about Captain Ogilvie, and --’

  ‘So you have heard the rumours?’

  Dornoch blew out his cheeks. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in saying I’ve heard them. I am taking steps to have them checked. Take no notice — I repeat this — take no notice of rumours, my dear girl. They’re terribly unreliable things!’

  ‘But do you believe this one?’ she persisted.

  His answer was quick and final. ‘By no means. It’s a lot of poppycock.’ Once again he looked away, this time under cover of a pretence of feeling for his cigar case. ‘Captain Ogilvie is in Murree — or more precisely is currently on leave — and in due course will rejoin the regiment.’