The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [372]
The message was a short one: Shushila had given birth to a daughter and mother and child were both well. That was all. But reading it, Ash was conscious of a sudden sinking of his heart. A daughter… a daughter instead of the longed-for son… Would a girl succeed in filling Shu-shu's heart and mind to the extent that a boy would have done? – enough to make her lose her dependence on Juli and allow her to go?
He tried to console himself with the reflection that, son or daughter, the baby was Shushila's first-born; and if it took after her it would be beautiful, so that once she got over the disappointment at its sex she was bound to love it dearly. Nevertheless a doubt remained: a small, lurking shadow in the back of his mind that spoilt some of his enjoyment in the tense, exciting, frightening days and nights in the Gir Forest that followed.
Returning in triumph to Ahmadabad with the scraped and salted hide of the man-eater, he encountered an ekka being driven at a rattling pace in the opposite direction, and was almost past it when he recognized one of the occupants and pulled up to hail him.
‘Red!’ yelled Ash. ‘Hi, Captain Red – belay there.’
The ekka came to a stop and Ash ranged alongside, demanding to know what Captain Stiggins was about, where he was off to, and why hadn't he sent word that he would be visiting Ahmadabad?
‘Bin seeing an agent. I'm on me way back to Malia. Didn't know I'd be a comin' 'ere until the last minute,’ said Captain Stiggins, answering the questions in strict rotation. He added that he had called at Ash's bungalow on the previous day and been told by Gul Baz that the Sahib was away on leave in the Gir Forest, pending his return to the North-West Frontier.
‘Then why didn't you wait? He must have told you that I was expected back today, and you know very well that there's always a bed for you any time you want it,’ said Ash indignantly.
‘Couldn't, son. I gotter get back to the old Morala. We're shippin' a cargo o' cotton over to Kutch termorrer. But I was right sorry to 'ear that you were orf up ter the Frontier and that I'd missed seein' you ter say good-bye and good luck.’
‘Come on back with me, Red,’ urged Ash. ‘Surely the cotton can wait? After all, if there was gale or a fog or something like that it would have to, wouldn't it? Dammit, this may be the last time I'll see you!’
‘Wouldn't be serprised,’ nodded the Captain. ‘But that's life, that is. ‘Ere today and gorn tomorrer; “Man fleeth as a shadder an' never continu-eth in one stay”. No son; carn't be done, not no 'ow. But I gotter better idea. Seein' as you're on leaf, why don't yer come along o' me for the trip? Land yer back nex' Toosday, cross me 'eart.’
Ash had accepted with alacrity and spent the next few days on board the Morala as the guest of the owner, lazing on deck in the shadow of the sails, fishing over the side for shark and barracuda, or listening to tales of the old East India Squadron in the days of John Company's greatness.
It was a peaceful and relaxing interlude, and when the Captain disclosed that the Morala would be sailing in a few weeks for the coast of Baluchistan, and suggested that Ash and Gul Baz should come half-way and be put off at Kati on the Indus, from where they could go by river boat up to Attock, he was tempted to agree. But there was Wally to be thought of – and Dagobaz too. The Morala had no proper accommodation for a horse, and on the open deck Dagobaz would have had a bad time of it in anything more than a gentle swell. He was obliged to refuse the offer, though he did so with regret, the more so because he realized that he was unlikely to meet Red Stiggins again, and he had enjoyed knowing him.
That was the worst of making friends like Red and Sarji: people who were not ‘members of the Club' – that closed society of Anglo-Indians who were moved across the vast map of India from this station to that