The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [134]
‘If anyone is responsible, it's me,’ declared Ash with a fine disregard for grammar. ‘I'm the one who ought to be sacked or sent after Dilasah, because I knew there was something wrong somewhere, and I ought to have seen that he didn't get a chance to do anything like this. But Malik and the others had nothing whatever to do with it, and it's not fair that their faces should be blackened in this way. It's not their fault that he belongs to their tribe, and it's downright unjust that -’
He got no further. The Commandant told him in one brief, blistering sentence what others had previously told him at greater length but with less clarity, and dismissed him from the Presence. Ash took his troubles to Zarin, but once again received no encouragement from that quarter, for Zarin considered the Commandant's action to be a wise one. So too did Risaldar Awal Shah.
‘How else will he get our rifles back?’ demanded Awal Shah. ‘We of the whole Guide Corps have scoured the countryside and have not caught so much as a glimpse of Dilasah. But it may be that his own kin will be able to read his mind and follow his trail, and in two days, or three, they will return with the rifles. Thus their honour and ours will be saved.’
Zarin grunted in agreement, and Koda Dad, who happened to be paying a rare visit to his sons, not only sided with them but took Ash to task.
‘You talk like a Sahib,’ said Koda Dad crossly. ‘To prate of injustice in such a matter is foolishness. The Commandant-Sahib is wiser, for he is thinking not as an Angrezi but as a Pathan, while you – you who were once Ashok – are looking at this as though you had never been anything but Pelham-Sahib. Chut! how many times have I not told you that it is only children who cry “it is not fair” – children and Sahib-log? Now at last,’ added Koda Dad acidly, ‘I see that you are indeed a Sahib.’
Ash returned to his quarters sore and discomforted, and as angry as before. Yet even then he might have saved himself from folly if it had not been for George – for George and Belinda…
Walking into the mess that night, Ash met one of his fellow subalterns, newly returned from a visit to Headquarters in Peshawar.
‘Heard the news about that fellow Garforth?’ inquired Cooke-Collis.
‘No. And I don't want to, thanks all the same,’ retorted Ash rudely. He had not expected the story to spread quite so quickly, and the thought of having to listen to some second-hand or third-hand version of it sickened him.
‘Why, didn't you like him?’
Ash ignored the question, and turning his back, hailed a khidmatgar and ordered himself a double brandy. But Cooke-Collis was not so easily put off: ‘Think I'll have one too. Hamare waste bhi,* Iman Din. I need it, by jove. Nasty business at any time, but when it's someone you know, it's a bit of a shock, even if you didn't know them very well, and I didn't really; though I'd met him at several dinner-parties and dances and all that sort of thing, because he got asked all over the place. Very popular with the ladies, even though he was only a junior boxwallah. Not that I've anything against boxwallahs, you know; daresay they're a very pleasant lot. But Garforth was the only one you seemed to meet almost everywhere, and I won't deny that it was a nasty shock to hear that he -’
‘Was a half-caste,’ finished Ash impatiently. ‘Yes, I know. And I don't see that it is any concern of yours or anyone else's, so you needn't go on about it.’
‘Was he a half-caste? I didn't know that. Are you sure? He didn't look it.’
‘Then what on earth are you talking about?’ demanded Ash, angry with himself for betraying George's secret to someone who obviously did not know it and would now inevitably hand it on.
‘Garforth, of course. He shot himself this afternoon.’
‘ What?’ Ash's voice cracked. ‘I don't believe