The Far Pavilions Page 31

  These and other ‘Wally-isms’, such as his occasional use of brogue, were an endless source of amusement to Ash. Though it is probable that in anyone else he would have found them tiresome or dismissed them, scornfully, as affectation. But then Wally was… Wally – fidus Achates.

  Apart from Zarin, who had been more like an elder brother to him, Ash had never had a really close friend. He seemed to have no talent for friendship with those of his own blood. At school and the Military Academy, and later in the Regiment, he had always been something of a loner; an observer rather than a participant; and even at the height of his popularity as an athlete, no one had been able to claim that they knew him well or were on particularly friendly terms with him, though many would have liked to do so. But then he had never cared whether he was liked or not, and though, on the whole, he had been, it had been a luke-warm emotion, which was largely his own fault. Yet now, and entirely unexpectedly, he had found the friend that he had missed in those earlier years.

  From the moment of their, meeting he had felt at ease with Walter; so much so, that he had told him what he had told no one else, not even Zarin – the full tale of the grim tracking-down of Dilasah Khan and the death of Ala Yar and Malik. The savage revenge that the hunters had taken on the thief and killer, the long, terrible journey back through territory held by hostile tribes who had hunted the hunters, and the ambush that had been laid for them on the very fringe of the Border by several men of the Utman Khel who had seen and coveted the carbines, and from which they had barely escaped with their lives after Ash and Lal Mast had been wounded…

  It was a story that the Commandant of the Guides had heard, in part, from the four men of Dilasah's tribe, though not from Ash, who had initially been too ill to be interrogated, and had later confined himself to answering questions in the fewest possible words. Ash's official account of those two years had been colourless in the extreme. But the full story was anything but colourless, and Walter – himself the stuff of which heroes are made – had listened enthralled and become a hero-worshipper in his turn. There was no one like Ash! And, naturally, no regiment like the Guides.

  Walter had always meant to be a soldier. The heroes of his childhood had been Joshua and David, Alexander the Great and Rupert of the Rhine, and all his dreams were of military glory. They were very private dreams and he had never imagined himself being able to talk of them to anyone. Yet he had talked of them to Ash, and without embarrassment, and taken a good deal of ribbing on the subject with unimpaired good temper.

  ‘The trouble with you, Wally,’ said Ash. ‘is that you've been born too late. You ought to have been a cavalier. Or one of Henry's knights at Agincourt. But there are no worlds left to conquer now – and precious little glamour or chivalry about modern warfare.’

  ‘Perhaps not in Europe,’ agreed Wally, ‘but that's why I wanted to come out here. It's different in India.’

  ‘Don't you believe it.’

  ‘But it is! It must be, in a country where guns are still dragged by elephants and the rank and file of a Regiment like yours have competed for the honour of serving in it. Your sowars and sepoys are not pressed men, or riff-raff from the slums of big cities like Lahore and Peshawar. They're yeomen – gentlemen adventurers who have enlisted for honour. It's magnificent.’

  ‘I can see that you are a hopeless idealist,’ said Ash drily.

  ‘And it's a misbegotten cynic you are,’ retorted Wally. ‘Haven't you ever wanted to storm an impregnable position or defend an impossible one? I have. I'd like to lead a cavalry charge, or a forlorn hope. And I'd like my countrymen to remember me as they remember men like Philip Sidney and Sir John Moore. And him over there: “Nikalseyne” –’

  They had been riding across the open country west of ‘Pindi, and Wally flung out an arm to point at a rocky hillock on the horizon, crowned by a granite obelisk that commemorated the name of John Nicholson, killed while leading an assault during the battle for Delhi, seventeen years ago. ‘That's the way I'd like to die. Gloriously – with a sword in my hand and at the head of my men.’

  Ash observed dampingly that Nicholson's men had failed to follow him, and that he had in fact lingered on in agony for at least three days after being shot.

  ‘What if he did? That's not the way he'll be remembered. Alexander said it all more than two thousand years ago' – there was a glow in the boy's eyes and his face had flushed like a girl's – ‘ “It is a lovely thing to live with courage, and to die leaving behind an everlasting renown.” I read that when I was ten, and I've never forgotten it. That's exactly –’

  He broke off as a sudden shiver made his teeth chatter, and Ash said: ‘Goose walking over your grave – and serve you right. Speaking for myself, I'd rather play safe and live to a ripe and undistinguished old age.’

  ‘Oh, rats!’ retorted Wally scornfully, firm in the conviction that his friend was a hero. ‘It's getting damned chilly out here. Race you to the road.’

  Ash was no stranger to hero-worship. He had received a good deal of it from his juniors in the days when he had been a member of the first eleven at his school, and later when he had played for the Military Academy; and once, long ago, from a little girl; ‘a small sour-looking little thing like an unripe mango’. He had never taken it very seriously and had in general found it either irritating or embarrassing; and on occasions, both. But Wally's admiration was different, and it warmed his heart because it was a tribute from a friend, and not slavish adulation for mere physical prowess and skill at games, regardless of whether the possessor of it was, in himself, an admirable or a despicable character; or a dull one.

  The two became known in Rawalpindi as ‘The Inseparables’ and if one were seen without the other there was always someone to call out: ‘Hullo David – what have you done with Jonathan?’ or ‘Blowed if it ain't Wally! I didn't recognize you without Pandy – you look improperly dressed.’ These and other equally foolish pleasantries had at first attracted the disapproving attention of several senior officers, none of whom would have objected very much to their juniors keeping half-caste mistresses or visiting the harlots' quarter of the bazaar (always provided they were discreet about it) but who had a horror of what they termed ‘unnatural vice’.

  To these grey-beards any close friendship between young men was suspect, and they feared the worst; but careful inquiry revealed nothing that could be termed ‘unnatural’ about the vices of either young officer. In that respect at least, both were unquestionably ‘normal’ – as Lalun, for one (the most alluring and expensive courtesan in the city), could have testified. Not that their visits to such establishments were very frequent; their tastes lay in other directions, and Lalun and her kind merely represented experience: one of many. Together they rode, raced and played polo, shot partridge on the plains and chikor among the hills, fished or went swimming in the rivers, and spent far more than they could afford on buying horses.

  They read voraciously – military history, memoirs, poetry, essays, novels: De Quincey, Dickens, Thackeray and Walter Scott; Shakespeare, Euripides and Marlowe; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Balzac's La Comédie Humaine and Darwin's Descent of Man… Tacitus and the Koran, and as much of the literature of the country as they could get their hands on – their tastes were catholic and all was grist to their mill. Wally was working for his Lieutenancy and Ash coached him in Pushtu and Hindustani, and talked to him by the hour of India and its peoples; not the British India of cantonments and Clubs, or the artificial world of hill stations and horse shows, but that other India: that mixture of glamour and tawdriness, viciousness and nobility. A land full of gods and gold and famine. Ugly as a rotting corpse and beautiful beyond belief…

  ‘I still think of it as my own country, and that I belong here,’ confessed Ash, ‘even though I've learned that feeling one belongs doesn't mean much, unless one is accepted as belonging; which I am not – except by Koda Dad, and sometimes by strangers who don't know my history. To those who do, it seems I am and always will be a
“Sahib”. Though when I was young I was, or thought I was, a Hindu for almost seven years – a life-time, to a child. In those days it never occurred to me or to anyone else that I was not one, yet now no high-caste Hindu would care to sit at the same table with me, and many would have to throw away their food if my shadow fell on it, and wash themselves if I so much as touched them. Even the humblest would break any dish or cup that I had eaten or drunk from, so that no one else would be defiled by using it. That sort of thing isn't so with Mohammedans, of course; but when we were hunting Dilasah Khan and I lived and fought and thought as one of them, I don't think that any of the men who knew who I was ever really forgot it. And as I can't seem to learn to think of myself as a Sahib or an Englishman, I presume that I am what the Foreign Office would call “A stateless person”. A citizen of no-man's-land.’

  ‘ “That Paradise of Fools, to few unknown”,’ quoted Wally.

  ‘What's that?’

  ‘Limbo – according to Milton.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, you may be right. Though I wouldn't have described it as a Paradise, myself.’

  ‘It might have its advantages,’ suggested Wally.

  ‘Maybe. But I admit I can't think of any,’ said Ash wryly.

  Once, sitting out in the warm moonlight among the ruins of Taxila (the 'Pindi Brigade was in camp), he had spoken of Sita, which was another thing that he had never been able to do before. Not even to Zarin and Koda Dad, who had known her.

  ‘… so you see, Wally,’ concluded Ash reflectively, ‘whatever people say, she was my real mother. I never knew the other one and somehow I can't believe in her; though I've seen a picture of her of course. She must have been a very pretty woman, and I don't suppose that Mata-ji – Sita – was pretty. But then she always looked beautiful to me, and I suppose it's because of her that I feel that this country, and not England, is my own. Anyway, Englishmen don't talk about their mothers. It's considered to be either “soppy” or “bad form” – I forget which.’

  ‘Both, I think,’ said Wally, and added smugly: ‘Though I'm allowed to, of course. It's one of the privileges of being Irish. Sentiment is expected of us. It's a great relief. Your foster-mother must have been a remarkable woman.’

  ‘She was. I didn't realize just how remarkable until much later on. One takes such a lot for granted when one is young. She had more courage than anyone I have ever known. The best kind of courage, for she was always afraid. I know that now, though I didn't then. And she was such a little woman. She was so small that I…’

  He broke off and sat staring out across the plain, remembering how easy it had been for an eleven-year-old boy to lift her in his arms and carry her down to the river…

  The night wind smelt of wood-smoke from the camp fires, and very faintly of pine trees from the near-by foothills that lay like wrinkled velvet in the moonlight. Perhaps it was that last that had recalled the ghost of Sita. ‘She used to talk to me about a valley in the mountains,’ said Ash slowly. ‘I suppose it must have been her home, where she was born. She was a hill-woman, you know. We were going to go and live there one day and build a house and plant fruit trees and keep a goat and a donkey. I wish I knew where it was.’

  ‘Didn't she ever tell you?’ asked Wally.

  ‘She may have done once. If she did, I've forgotten. But I imagine it's somewhere in the Pir Panjal; though I always used to think it must be in the mountains below the Dur Khaima. You don't know about the Dur Khaima, do you? It's the highest mountain in the range you can see from Gulkote: a great crown of snow peaks. I used to say my prayers to it. Silly, isn't it?’

  ‘Not really. Did you ever read Aurora Leigh? – “Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes.” You were merely taking off your shoes – that's all. And you aren't the only one either: millions of people must have felt the same, for there are holy mountains all over the world. And then there was David, of course: “Levavi oculos” –’

  Ash laughed. ‘ I know. It's funny you should say that. I used to think of the Dur Khaima every time we sang that in chapel.’ He turned to face the foothills and faraway line of the mountains that rose up behind them, dark against the stars, and quoted in an undertone: ‘ “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” D'you know, Wally, when I first came to England and didn't know any better, I tried to find out in what direction the Himalayas lay so that I could face that way when I said my prayers, like Koda Dad and Zarin, who always faced towards Mecca. I remember my aunt was simply horrified. She told the vicar that I was not only a heathen, but a devil-worshipper.’

  ‘You can see her point,’ said Wally tolerantly. ‘Now I was luckier. Fortunately for me, my family never discovered that for years I thought I was praying to my godfather. Well, you can see how it was – “God-the-Father” – it was perfectly obvious to me. Particularly as the old boy had an impressive set of white whiskers and a gold watch-chain, and every one was terrified of him. I can tell you it gave me no end of a jolt when I finally discovered that he wasn't really God and that I'd been sending my petitions to the wrong address. All those years of earnest supplication straight down the drain. It was a disaster, so it was.’

  Ash's shout of laughter woke the occupant of the nearest tent, and an irate voice urged them to shut up and let a fellow sleep.

  Wally grinned and lowered his voice. ‘No, seriously now, it was the waste that worried me most. But I've come to the conclusion that it's the intention that counts. My prayers had been perfectly genuine, as I expect yours were too, so the fact that they were wrongly addressed was an error for which I do not believe the Almighty will hold us responsible.’

  ‘I hope you're right. Do you still say your prayers, Wally?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Wally, genuinely surprised. ‘Don't you?’

  ‘Sometimes. Though I'm not sure who I address them to.’ Ash stood up and slapped the dust and dried grass from his clothes. ‘Come on, Galahad, it's time we turned in. This bloody exercise is due to start at 3 a.m.’

  In the circumstances it was hardly surprising that Wally should have set his heart on joining the Guides, though there was, as yet, very little that he could do about it because he must first pass for his Lieutenancy. Ash had been in some doubt whether a good word from him might not hinder rather than help his friend's chances of being offered a vacancy, so he had used a more oblique method and introduced him to Lieutenant Wigram Battye of the Guides, who had twice been over to Rawalpindi on duty. And, later on, to Zarin.

  Zarin had taken short leave in the heat of June and ridden into 'Pindi bringing messages from his father and brother, and news of the Regiment and the Frontier. He had not been able to stay for long as the monsoon was due at any moment, and once it broke, the fords would be impassable and travelling become a slow business; but he had stayed long enough to gain an excellent impression of Ashok's new friend. Ash had made certain that Zarin should see for himself that the boy was an admirable shot and a born rider, and had encouraged the two to talk, knowing that under his own unorthodox tutorage, and the more scholarly methods of a Munshi, Wally had already made great strides in the two main tongues of the Frontier. And though Ash had said nothing in his praise, Mahdoo had said a great deal:

  ‘That is a good Sahib,’ said Mahdoo, gossiping with Zarin on the back verandah. ‘One of the old kind, such as Anderson-Sahib was in his youth. Courteous and kind, and with the bearing and courage of a king. Our boy has become a changed man since they met. Cheerful again, and full of laughter and jokes. Yes, good boys both.’

  Zarin had learnt to respect the old man's judgement, and Wally's own character and personality did the rest. Wigram Battye too watched and listened and approved; and both he and Zarin carried favourable reports back to Mardan, with the result that the Guides, always on the look-out for good material, took note of Ensign Walter Hamilton of the 70th Foot as a possible future addition to their Corps.

  The hot weather that year
had not been as abominable as the previous one, but it was Wally's first and he suffered all the torments that can beset the novice undergoing his first experience of soaring temperatures. Prickly-heat, boils and sandfly-fever, dysentery, dengi and other hot-weather maladies plagued him by turn, and eventually he went down with a severe attack of heat-stroke and spent several days in a darkened room, convinced that he was dying – and with nothing done of all the many things he had hoped to do. On the advice of the M.O., his Colonel had packed him off to the hills to recuperate, and Ash had managed to get leave and gone with him.

  Accompanied by Mahdoo and Gul Baz, the two had left by tonga for Murree, where rooms had been booked for them in one of the hotels that at this time of year were full of summer visitors escaping from the blazing heat of the plains.

  Wally celebrated his own escape by falling in love with three young ladies at once: a pretty girl who sat with her mother at a near-by table in the dining-room, and the twin daughters of a High-Court Judge who had hired a cottage in the hotel grounds. His inability to choose between them prevented any of these affairs from becoming serious, but they inspired him to write a good deal of love-lorn verse, all of it deplorable, and led him to accept so many invitations to dine, dance or take tea that if Ash had not intervened, his chances of enjoying the rest and quiet advocated by the doctor would have been minimal. But Ash had no intention of wasting his leave dancing attendance on ‘a bunch of bird-witted girls and giddy grass-widows’, and said so with considerable force - adding a rider to the effect that in his opinion the objects of Wally's divided devotion were three of the most insipid damsels this side of Suez, and his doggerel was worthy of them.