The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [137]
September had been as scorching as July, but now October was almost out, and the mercury in the thermometer that hung in the mess verandah retreated daily. Men went abroad again at midday, and the wind that blew off the mountains at sunset carried a refreshing edge of coolness. But apart from a few brief and isolated showers there had been no sign of the autumn rains – until tonight, when for the first time in many months there were clouds in the sky…
‘This time – Shukr Allah* – they will not fail us,’ said the sentry devoutly. ‘The wind is behind them and I can smell rain.’
‘I too,’ said his companion. The two men sniffed appreciatively, and as a sudden gust whirled up the dust and obscured any further movement on the plain, they turned together and continued on their rounds.
The wind had been blowing only fitfully since moonrise, but now it steadied and blew strongly, driving the banked clouds before it until presently they reached the moon and blotted it out. A quarter of an hour later the first swollen drops of rain splashed down out of the darkness: forerunners of a lashing torrent that within seconds turned the dust of the long, scorching summer into a sea of mud, and transformed every dry nullah and ditch into a fully fledged river.
Under cover of darkness and that raging bedlam of noise and water, the handful of men that one of the sentries had mistaken for chinkara passed the outposts unseen. But head-down against the wind-driven rain, they missed their way and were challenged by the guard on the gate of the fort.
It had been no part of their plan to be dragged before Authority that night. They had hoped to reach the cavalry lines without being detected, and to lie up there until morning; but as it was, the havildar in charge of the guard had sent for the Indian officer on duty, who in turn sent for the Duty Officer; and presently the Adjutant was fetched from the mess where he had been playing whist, and the Second-in-Command, who had retired early, aroused from his bed.
The Commandant had also retired early, but not to sleep. He had been writing his weekly letters home when he was interrupted by the entrance of two of his officers, accompanied by as sorry an object as had ever been seen in that room. A gaunt, bearded tribesman with a bandaged head, from whose tattered blanket, worn cloak-wise in the manner of the Frontier, a dozen little rivulets poured onto the Commandant's cherished Shiraz carpet. The bandage too leaked a steady red-stained trickle down one hollow and unshaven cheek, and the blanket that clung wetly to the man's scare-crow body failed to conceal that he held something long and bulky under its sodden folds. He let his arms drop, and the carbines that he had been carrying slid down and fell with a clatter into the circle of light shed by the oil lamp on the writing table.
‘There they are, sir,’ said Ash. ‘I'm sorry… we took so long… about it, but… it wasn't as easy as… we'd thought.’
The Commandant stared at him and did not speak. He found it difficult to believe that this was the boy who had stormed into his office nearly two years ago. This was a man. A tall one, for he had come late to his full height, and lean with the leanness of hard muscle and harder living. His eyes were sunk deep in his head, and he was ragged, unkempt and wounded, and dazed with fatigue. But he held himself erect and forced his tongue to the English that it had not spoken for so long:
‘I must… apologize, sir,’ said Ash haltingly, the words blurred by exhaustion, ‘for… letting you see us like – like this. We didn't mean… We meant to spend the night with Zarin and – make ourselves presentable, and in the morning… But the storm –’ His voice failed and