The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [80]
‘It's the old Horse Guards' attitude,’ said the Senior Instructor. ‘All those fellows were as caste-ridden as Hindus, and used to regard an India Army officer as some form of Untouchable. Why, old Cardigan wouldn't even eat in mess with one. But if we want to have an Empire, we need our best material to serve overseas, not our worst. And thanks be to God there are still enough of the former who are prepared to go.’
‘Would you class young Pandy Martyn among the best?’ inquired the Company Commander sceptically. ‘Damned if I would. If you want my opinion, he's as wild as a hawk and liable to fly off at a tangent at any moment. Doesn't take any too kindly to discipline either, for all that surface appearance of docility. I don't trust the type. The army's no place for Radicals – especially the Indian Army. In fact they're a downright danger, and if I had any say in it I'd keep ‘em out of it. And that goes for young Pandy!’
‘Nonsense. He'll probably end up as another Nicholson. Or a Hodson, anyway.’
‘That's just what I'm afraid of – or would be, if I were his future C.O. Both those two were mountebanks. Useful ones, I grant you. But only because of the particular circumstances. It was probably fortunate that they died when they did. From all one hears, they must have been quite insufferable.’
‘Oh, well, perhaps you're right,’ conceded the Senior Instructor, losing interest in the subject.
As at school, Ash made no close friends at Sandhurst, though he was liked, and to a great extent admired – the latter again almost solely on account of his success as an athlete. He won the Pentathlon, played football, cricket and fives for the College, took first place in the riding events and marksmanship, and passed out twenty-seventh in a list of two hundred and four cadets.
Uncle Matthew and Aunt Millicent, Cousin Humphrey and two elderly female Pelham-Martyns attended the Passing-Out Parade. But Colonel Anderson had not been present. He had died in the previous week, leaving a small legacy to each of his two Indian servants, in addition to a sum sufficient to cover their return to their own country, and a letter to Ash asking him to see that they reached their homes in safety. His house and its contents had been left to a nephew, and Ash, Ala Yar and Mahdoo had spent their last month in England at Pelham Abbas; embarking at the end of June on the S.S. Canterbury Castle, for Bombay. The years of exile were over, and for all three of them, home lay ahead.
‘It will be good to see Lahore again,’ said Mahdoo. ‘There be many larger cities in Belait, but save only in the matter of size, none can rival Lahore.’
‘Or Peshawar – or Kabul,’ grunted Ala Yar. ‘It will be pleasant to purchase proper food in the bazaars once more and to smell the morning among the Khyber hills.’
Ash said nothing. He leaned upon the rail and watched the foam-streaked water widen between the ship and the shore, and saw life opening before him like a vast sunlit plain stretching away and away towards unimaginable horizons. A plain across which he could travel at will, choosing his own path and taking his own time.
He was free at last. He was going home, and the future was his to do what he liked with. The Regiment first: the Guides and Zarin and soldiering among the wild hills of the North-West Frontier… perhaps one day he would command the Corps; and after that a Division. In time – who knew? he might even become Jung-i-Lat Sahib – Commander-in-Chief of all the armies in Hind – but that would be a long way ahead… he would be old then and all this would be in the past. He did not have to think of the past just now: only of the future…
Book Two
Belinda
8
Ash had returned to India in the late summer of 1871.
It was a year that had not been without interest to many millions of people. France had seen the capitulation of Paris, heard Prince William of Prussia