The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [113]
‘It has to be learned when young,’ said Malik Shah consolingly, as the buck they had been stalking threw up its head and bounded away across the plain. ‘In my country, to move unseen, taking advantage of every stick and stone or blade of grass, may often mean the difference between living and dying; for we are all good shots and we make many enemies. But with you, Sahib, it is different; you have never had to lie as still as a stone, or slither from rock to rock as silently as a snake because an enemy waits for you on the far slope – or you yourself stalk one for his life. Had I a gun such as this one' (he had been shooting with his army-issue carbine) ‘I should make myself master of our valley and a score of villages among the hills. Wait here, Sahib, and I will drive the buck this way again – between that nullah and those thorn bushes yonder. That should give you a good shot.’
Ash acquired a number of friends among the villages and spent many nights as the guest of headmen beyond the Border, where few if any of the inhabitants had ever seen a white man before. The men of his own troop were drawn largely from the Border tribes: Yusafzai, Orakzai and Khattak, with a sprinkling of Afridis. But the Guides also recruited a large number of Sikhs, as well as Hindus from the Punjab, Gurkhas from Nepal, Dogras, Farsiwans (Persians) and Punjabi Mussulmans; and Ash would sometimes head southward across the Indus to shoot snipe and chinkara in the company of Risalder Kirwan Singh of the Sikhs, or Bika Ram, one of the Hindu non-commissioned officers; cheerful men whose talk reminded him of the play-fellows of his youth – those merry companions of his careless, carefree years in the bazaars of Gulkote city. Yes, it was a good time – or would have been, if it had not been for Belinda.
For Belinda's sake Ash would willingly have spent all his free time dancing attendance upon her in Peshawar. But Major Harlowe would not permit him to visit her more than once a month, and then only to take tea; and even Mrs Viccary, who was often a fellow-guest on these occasions, and would ask him back to dine and listen sympathetically to his woes, refused to concede that the Major's behaviour was unreasonable, advising him instead to try putting himself in the anxious father's place. Only at Christmas time (proverbially a season of Peace and Goodwill) had there been any relaxation of this rule, but by then the Peshawar Brigade were back from the Kajuri Plain and Belinda was involved in a festive whirl of parties, race-meetings and balls.
Ash rode over to deliver his Christmas presents at the Harlowes' bungalow, and to enter his name for the Boxing Day Point-to-Point, which to Belinda's delight he subsequently won by a short head. She seemed for some reason to regard the exploit as reflecting credit upon herself, and rewarded him with two waltzes and the supper-dance at the Boxing Day Ball that night. As a result, he enjoyed the evening, and in the course of it had a long talk with Mrs Viccary, danced with several other young ladies and made himself so pleasant to their mamas that he was later to receive a flattering number of invitations to other parties and balls. But in the event, he never attended another dance in Peshawar. He saw the New Year of 1872 in with Zarin, and in very different surroundings, for they took two days' casual leave and spent them with Koda Dad.
January and February were icy months that year: snow whitened the Border Hills, the Regiment donned poshteens (sheepskin jerkins) to keep out the cold, and Ala Yar kept a log fire burning in Ash's room in the fort where the Munshi came daily to instruct the Sahib