The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [112]
‘We shall have to watch that young man,’ said his Squadron Commander. ‘Good stuff in him, but he lacks balance.’
‘Too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,’ quoted Lieutenant Battye. ‘I agree. But he'll learn.’
‘I suppose so; though there are times when I have my doubts about it. If only he had a cooler head and a bit more steadiness, he'd be first-class material for a Corps like this. But he's too apt to go off at half-cock. Frankly, he worries me, Wigram.’
‘Why? The men think the world of him. He can do anything with them.’
‘I know. They treat him as though he were some sort of minor deity, and I believe they'd follow him anywhere.’
‘Well, what's wrong with that?’ demanded the Lieutenant, puzzled by his senior's tone of voice.
The Squadron Commander frowned and tugged unhappily at his moustache, looking baffled and irritated: ‘On the face of it, nothing. All the same, and just between the two of us, I'm not at all sure that in a crisis he wouldn't leap before he looked and lead them into something he couldn't get them out of. He's got plenty of courage, I'll grant you that. Possibly too much. But he seems to me to be guided too often by his emotions and not enough by… And there's another thing: in a pinch, and supposing he had to make a decision, which way would his loyalties lie? With England or India?’
‘Good God,’ gasped the Lieutenant, genuinely shocked. ‘You aren't suggesting he'd turn traitor, are you?’
‘No, no, of course not. Well… not exactly. But with a fellow like that – with that background I mean – there's no knowing how it might look to him. It's a deal simpler for you and me, Wigram, for we are always going to assume that our side of any question is the right one; because it's ours. But which is his side? See what I mean?’
‘Can't say that I do,’ admitted the Lieutenant uneasily. ‘After all, it's not as though he had any Indian blood in him, is it? Both his parents were as British as – as beer. And just because he was born out here – Well, I mean, dozens of fellows were. You were, for one.’
‘Yes, but I never once thought of myself as an Indian! Well he did, and that's the difference. Oh well, time will show. But I'm not at all sure that we didn't make a hell of a mistake in fetching him back to this country.’
‘Couldn't have stopped him,’ said the Lieutenant with conviction. ‘He'd have got back even if he'd had to walk – or swim. Seems to look upon it as his home.’
‘Exactly what I've been saying – but it isn't: not really. And one day he's going to find that out, and when he does, he'll realize that he doesn't belong anywhere – unless it's in Limbo, which as far as I remember is somewhere on the fringes of Hell. I tell you, Wigs, I wouldn't be in that boy's shoes for all the tea in China; and I probably wouldn't have cared a damn about it if he'd managed to get back here off his own bat, because that would have been his own affair. As it is, we – the Corps – saddled ourselves with the responsibility for it, so it's ours too, and that's what worries me. Though mark you, I like the boy.’
‘Oh, he's all right,’ said the Lieutenant easily. ‘A bit difficult to get to know, if you know what I mean. You get just so far and no further. But there's no denying that he's the best all-rounder on the sports side that we've had in years, and we ought to knock spots off the rest of the Brigade at next month's gymkhana.’
Neither Awal Shah nor Zarin were in Ash's squadron, and he saw comparatively little of them in Mardan, though whenever possible one or other of them would accompany him out shooting. When neither of them could do so, he would either go alone or take one of his sowars Malik Shah or Lal Mast, tribesmen from the country beyond the Panjkora, whose company he enjoyed and from whom he had learned much.
Malik Shah was an excellent shikari who could stalk a herd of gurral so cunningly that not one would see him until he was well within range; and in this his cousin, Lal Mast (the relationship