The Game - Laurie R. King [149]
The urchin donkey-boy could only be Kimball O’Hara’s son.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We had no time to spend on explanations or even greetings, not with the maharaja’s stallion skimming across the ground in pursuit of reinforcements. O’Hara paused only long enough to look at Nesbit’s leg, then whirled and set off at a fast trot, his robes dancing around him and the rifle over his shoulder, the boy on his heels.
“Wait!” I called. “We can double up on the horses.” But O’Hara never looked back.
So Holmes and I rode my fresher horse, putting Nesbit up on the chestnut; once we had the wounded man in safety, I could always come back with both horses to fetch O’Hara and the child.
We left them far behind across the terai. Once among the trees, however, we began to climb, dismounting every half mile or so to lead the horses around some precipice or across the slick stones of a quick-running stream. When we felt quite certain not only that we were well free of the Khanpur border but that we would see the maharaja’s men should they pursue us onto government land, we brought Nesbit down from his horse to see to his bleeding. Holmes loosed the belt tourniquet and ripped open the fabric to explore the bloody wound with delicate fingers.
Nesbit, white-faced but in control, said, “The bullet will need to be cut out. But it’s doing no harm for the present. It’ll keep.”
Holmes nodded, but replaced the too-snug belt tourniquet with lengths torn from the remains of his puggaree. I was about to suggest that I take the two animals back for the others while Nesbit rested, when Bindra’s chatter floated up the hill. We put Nesbit on one horse and the boy on the other, and hiked over hill and ice-girt stream until we were above the snow-line. Soon we came to a path, much trampled by booted men and heavy bullock-drawn carts.
The encampment lay to the north, but Nesbit said, “There’s a dak bungalow a mile and a half to the south.”
“I think we should go on to the encampment,” I said. “That leg needs a surgeon.”
“All it needs is to have the bullet dug out; even the boy could manage that.”
“It is right under the skin,” Holmes agreed.
“Going to the encampment would necessarily bring the Army into our actions,” O’Hara pointed out in a mild voice. “Have we decided to do that?”
I looked at the others and sighed. “All right. But just overnight. And if there’s any sign of fever, I’m going for a doctor myself.”
We turned south and soon came to the promised dak bungalow, one of the network of travellers’ rests scattered across India for the use of European officials. It was a low stone building with two more ramshackle structures behind it, one for horses, the other for resident and visiting servants. Bindra led the horses away towards the one, while from the other scurried a startled pair of men, astonished at our unheralded approach and unaccustomed anyway to parties on the road at this time of year. The inside of the bungalow would have benefitted from a broom and scrub-brush, but the plaster had been whitewashed within the last year, and the place was too cold to smell of anything but damp.
The men were even more taken aback by our scant baggage, which consisted of two rifles and a cloth bag belonging to Bindra, and that contained nothing but a blanket, some very old chapatis, a handful of dried apricots, and his mirror. With ceremony, the older of the two servants carried the grubby object before us into the bungalow, laid it onto a rough-hewn table, and turned to the business of making a fire, shaving slivers of dry cedar from a log with the heavy knife that had been left on the hearth for the purpose.
Camp chairs were quickly brought, sheets for the two iron beds promised and bed-rolls for those condemned to the floor, but the first things Holmes demanded were a honed razor