The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [348]
‘Do you mean that, Cha-cha-ji?’ asked Ash, startled.
‘Why should I say it if I did not?’ snapped the old man.
‘To punish me, perhaps? But if you do mean it, there is a dâk-ghari that leaves here in the morning and you could be in Abbottabad within three days.’
‘And what will become of you if I leave?’ demanded Mahdoo, rounding on him angrily. ‘Will you ask Gul Baz for his advice as you ask for mine? Or take it when it is given, as you have on many occasions taken mine? Besides, I am tied to you by a promise that I gave many years ago to Anderson-Sahib; and also by one that I gave to Ala Yar. By affection, too, which is an even stronger bond… but it is true that I grow old and tired and useless, and I have no wish to end my days in the south among idol-worshippers whose hearts are as black as their skins. When my time comes I would choose to die in the north where a man may smell the clean wind that blows off the high snows.’
‘That will be as God wills,’ said Ash lightly, ‘nor am I being sent to Gujerat for a lifetime. It is only for a short while, Cha-cha, and when it is over I will surely be permitted to return to Mardan; and then you shall take as much leave as you wish – or retire, if you must.’
Mahdoo sniffed, and went away to see to the bestowal of his own baggage, muttering to himself and looking unconvinced.
The train was only half-full that night, and Ash had been relieved to find himself the only occupant of a four-berth compartment, and thereby freed from the obligation of making conversation. But as the wheels began to turn and the lights and tumult of the railway station slid slowly past the carriage windows, giving place to darkness, he would have been grateful for a companion, for now that he was alone and idle, the optimism that had sustained him during the past two days suddenly left him, and he was no longer so certain that he would only be required to spend a year or eighteen months in Gujerat. Supposing it was two years – or three… or four? Supposing the Guides were to decide that on consideration they were not prepared to take him back at all? – ever!
The train rattled and jolted, and the oil lamp that swayed to every jolt stank abominably and filled the closed carriage with the stench of hot kerosene. Ash rose and turned it out, and lying back in the clamorous darkness, wondered how long it would be before he saw the Khyber again – and had the uncomfortable fancy that he could hear a reply in the voice of the clattering wheels – a harsh, mocking voice that repeated with maddening insistence, ‘Never again! Never again! Never again…’
The train journey to Bombay seemed far longer than he remembered it to have been on the last occasion that he had come that way, over five years ago. He had been travelling in the opposite direction then, and in the company of Belinda and her mother and the unfortunate George. Five years… Was it really only five years? It felt more like twelve – or twenty.
The railways were supposed to have made great strides since then, but Ash could see very little difference. Admittedly, an average speed of fifteen miles an hour was an improvement, but the carriages were just as dusty and uncomfortable, the stops as frequent, and there being still no through-train to Bombay, passengers were compelled to change trains as often as before. As for his carriage companions (for he had not been left in sole possession for long) they could hardly have been less enlivening. But at Bombay, where the mail-train stopped and Ash and his servants and baggage transferred into another one bound for Baroda and Ahmadabad, his luck changed. He found himself sharing a two-berth carriage with a small and inoffensive-looking gentleman whose placid manner and mild blue eyes were belied by red whiskers and a cauliflower-ear, and who