The Strangler Vine, page 10
Mir Aziz spread a cotton blanket over Nungoo. Sameer sliced another into rags and they began to wash the body under its cover. I would have liked to have offered my help, but it was such a private scene it did not seem proper to interrupt it, and I noted that Blake did not. The wounded thief stirred and cried out. I was not keen to take a closer look at my handiwork – I had shot many things before but never a man – but I knew I must.
The bullet had entered the lower part of his back, under his ribs, passed through his guts and come out on the other side. I could see blood streaming from both back and stomach. He had tried to turn himself and was leaning on his side, breathing shallowly. ‘What should we do with him?’ I whispered.
‘The bullet came out, but it will likely have ruptured his innards and he’s bleeding very fast. I can’t do much for him, and I doubt Mir Aziz could either, even if he wished to,’ Blake said. ‘It will be a slow death. You could save him pain by putting him out of his misery now.’
‘I cannot,’ I said. We looked at the man. He seemed barely aware of us, but the pain must have been monstrous. At last Blake said, ‘I can bind the wound to slow the bleeding.’
He pulled Nungoo’s bedroll from his collapsed tent and folded it, then gently moved the thief so he was lying upon it. From the little pouch about his own neck, Blake took a ball of something soft and brown, pulled a little off and pushed it into the thief’s mouth, forcing a little water between his lips.
‘That is opium?’
‘Yes.’
‘He killed Nungoo.’
‘And now he too dies. A poor exchange for both of them. The opium’s the best I can do for him.’ He took two great swabs of rag and folded them. ‘Come and help me.’ We put one swab under his back, and Blake put the other over the stomach wound and pressed down upon it. The thief gasped and muttered something. I stood up. Blake looked up.
‘Avery, you’re bleeding.’
I saw he was right. I was still holding the pistol in my right hand. I had quite forgotten it. There was a thick gash along my arm from below the elbow into my hand. It was slick and wet and, now that I saw it, it hurt acutely.
‘It is nothing,’ I said, but I dropped the gun and my hand began to shake.
Leaning across the thief’s body, Blake took hold of my arm and turned it over. ‘At least it missed the vein, Mr Avery. Now sit down and let me see it.’ But I could not.
‘I must just collect my books,’ I said, and I set about clumsily gathering my scattered volumes and put them into a pile, and all the while drops of blood dripped on to the covers. Blake watched me.
When I had finished he said, ‘Ever shot a man before?’
‘Two,’ I said. ‘No.’
‘Come here. Take my place. Press down on the wound with your other hand.’ I did not relish the task, but I did as he asked. He fetched a pile of Sameer’s rags. ‘We’ll wrap it for now.’ He swabbed my arm and bandaged Sameer’s rag tight about it. Then he pulled out the purse from round his neck and took out the ball of opium. He pinched off a small piece and held it out to me. I shook my head.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Like as not I’ll have to stitch your wound. Take it, it’ll help.’
I took the small brown ball and placed it in my mouth, and he pushed me out of the way and resumed his pressure on the thief’s stomach. The opium was easy to chew, a little like beeswax but bitter, and a dusting of cinnamon had been added to it to make it more palatable.
Mir Aziz was reciting some kind of prayer over Nungoo’s body. Sameer sat next to him, his head bowed.
‘Were they Thugs, Mr Blake?’
He shook his head, his hands pressing hard on to the wounded thief’s stomach. ‘These were roadside thieves taking their chances.’
‘They looked like savages.’
‘They’re hungry. There have been some bad years and the monsoon was thin up here, the harvest will be poor. Some are already feeling it and have taken to the roads. A bad bet on their part. Their skill is stealth. They’d have planned to strike Nungoo unconscious and counted on you not waking.’
Another minute passed. ‘Those were two good shots,’ he said. ‘You’re handy with the pistol.’
‘I almost did not try the second. I thought the Collier might have my hand.’
‘They’re temperamental, Colliers,’ he said. ‘But you know your way round a gun.’
‘I’ve been shooting since I was a small boy.’ It was strange. I could not actually see Blake’s eyes, they were shadowed by his brows, but under the force of his imagined gaze I felt compelled to continue.
‘I grew up in Devon, between Dartmoor and the coast. A small village called Bainton. My father was – is – a fine marksman. It is the only thing I inherited from him. I’ve been going out after coneys and game since I can remember. I miss the woods and the fields. You were right, Mr Blake, I am not at home in the city.’
‘Sisters and brothers?’
‘Three brothers, two now dead, and my sister. My oldest brother Harry will have the estate, such as it is, and has a commission in the army. Fred was in the navy, he died at sea. James died when I was small, I hardly remember him. I am the youngest.’
‘And your sister?’
‘Louisa, she is closest to me in age. She takes care of my father.’ There was something in the way he listened that slightly unnerved me, as if he heard more than I said.
‘Your mother’s dead?’
‘Three years since.’ My eyes strayed back to Nungoo’s prostrate body.
‘You prize your books, Mr Avery,’ he said.
‘As you so eloquently observed a few days ago, Mr Blake, I have little else to prize. They are virtually my only possessions.’ I felt a touch light-headed and the pain in my arm began to float away. ‘May I ask you something? How did you know I was in debt – I mean, beyond the obvious?’
‘Your signet ring was missing; I remembered it from the first time I saw you,’ he said. ‘And the pocket watch. With young officers it’s usually cards. The pocket watch goes before the ring. The ring is an heirloom, the pocket watch is a gift.’
I nodded.
‘I observe things. Small things, don’t forget them. Put them together.’ There was a pause. ‘There’s a lot of Mountstuart in that pile of books,’ he said.
‘I have read almost everything he has written. You knew him, did you not, Mr Blake?’
‘A little. A long time ago.’ Blake took a length of clean rag and began to tuck it deftly under the thief’s body. He wound it round him several times, covering each wound. The man was silent; he seemed all but insensible. Blake tied the ends of the bandages as tight as he could.
‘This one cannot feel much now. Let me see your hand.’ He began to probe the wound with his fingers. It was longer than I’d thought, but not too deep.
‘What’s Pickwick Papers?’ he said.
The question seemed so utterly peculiar and out of place that I stumbled over my answer.
‘It concerns, er, a retired London gentleman and his friends who, er, go on perambulations around the English countryside and have adventures. It is comic.’
Again Blake’s silence seemed to compel me to speak. ‘It was my friend Macpherson’s particular favourite.’
‘Short and pale, with the freckles and sandy hair.’
‘Really, Mr Blake,’ I said, suddenly annoyed. ‘If you have not been spying on me, you are doing an extremely bad job of persuading me otherwise.’
‘He was at the levee with you. I never forget a face.’
The thought of Frank brought me up short and I took a deep breath before I could recollect myself.
‘That hurts?’
‘No. My friend, Macpherson. He was killed two days before we left Calcutta.’
‘I’m sorry for it.’ He wiped away the blood. ‘What happened?’
‘He was killed in Blacktown.’
‘The officer murdered at the Bangbazaar? That was him?’
‘You heard of it?
‘It’s rare that a white man finds his end in Blacktown these days – though not as rare as you might think.’ He turned my arm over. ‘Your man used a katar, you can see by the wound,’ he said. ‘It’s carried on the knuckles and delivered like a punch. It could have been much worse. I’ll clean it and sew it. Mir Aziz would do a better job than I, but I can’t disturb him now. You understand?’ I nodded. The fire was down to a few embers. Quickly, he coaxed them to life.
‘How did your friend Macpherson die?’
‘He was stabbed and there was a cord around his neck.’
‘Some story about him, wasn’t there?’
‘He was in debt to a moneylender.’ A pause. Again, I felt compelled to say more than I quite wished to. ‘Someone in the Political Department seemed to think he might have had papers he should not have. His reputation was ruined. I still cannot believe it. He was so – so good. He never drank, or gambled. He was a generous friend. But when I think back, the days before he died, he was melancholy, low-spirited. I thought it was my fault.’
Blake placed a small sealed pot among the now glowing embers.
‘This is ghee. When it melts, I’ll clean the wound with it. It should stop the bleeding. It may hurt.’
‘I can show it to the military doctor at Jubbulpore,’ I said.
‘Hah.’ It was an abrupt, non-committal sound. He poured the ghee along the wound. The opium did its work well.
‘You do not have much use for physicians?’ I said.
‘Kill more than they cure.’ He poured off the pool of butter, then started again. ‘Why were your friend’s low spirits your fault?’
‘It is he that you have to blame for my presence here. He put my name forward, I think. I was not as grateful as I should have been.’
Blake finished with the ghee, then brought forth a small leather folder from which he retrieved a needle and cotton. He threaded the needle, and pulled the sides of the wound together with one hand while pushing the needle through the skin. Although I could feel it pulling and the sensation was not pleasant, the pain was remarkably reduced.
‘Have you found signs of Mountstuart along the road?’ I said.
In and out went the needle. ‘He travelled among the natives and avoided European company.’
‘That was why there was no sign of him on the Grand Trunk Road.’
‘Not among the whites. He travelled with three servants and he won a monkey in a dice game.’ He looked up from his work. ‘You are disappointed that Mountstuart preferred to be among the natives.’
‘No.’ But I was. Blake was now near the last stitch and I thought I would get little from him once the stitching was done. I said, ‘Did you learn much from the headmen about Mountstuart?’
‘He was seen all down the Poona road in April. Made a spectacle of himself – no surprise, it’s what he’s known for. In one place he paid for a village feast – they were grateful, food has been scarce. The harvest was bad. In another he recited verses of the Mahabharata.’ I did not know what this was, but I did not say so. ‘In another, he apparently killed a boar with such fastidiousness the villagers felt able to eat it – though I doubt the truth of that. Nonsense has always accumulated round Mountstuart. There.’
He pulled the thread tight and bit off the end with his teeth.
‘I thank you, Mr Blake,’ I said. ‘And I wish to apologize for questioning your commitment to our endeavour.’
For a moment I thought he might laugh at me.
‘Accepted, Mr Avery.’
He tied my hand into a sling and said we should pack the wound with banana leaf or some herb called brahmi, which would speed the healing.
Nungoo’s body had by now been wrapped in a clean white sheet. Mir Aziz was entirely silent. I could think of nothing to say to him. Sameer, wet-eyed, carefully helped me into my best uniform. I had spent several days agonizing over how I should present myself at Jubbulpore: whether I should break into my second bar of Windsor soap, how I might take the creases and dust from my uniform. Now such preoccupations seemed absurd.
‘Mujhe bahut afsos hai,’ I said falteringly to Sameer. I am very sorry. ‘Nungoo – good man. Fine man.’ I tried to take his hand in mine, but it was too painful so I brushed it instead.
‘Nungoo’s body must be buried within a day,’ Blake said. ‘We’re none of us up to digging a grave. It’s only a few hours to Jubbulpore, we will make arrangements to have him buried there.’
Blake brought from his packs a black broadcloth tail-coat – a little rumpled and dusty – and a white summer shirt and white trousers, and put them on. The sun had risen and the day was by now almost warm. At Blake’s bidding I went to look at the wounded thief. I saw that he was dead. He had made hardly a sound. I looked into his face; he was not much older than me.
‘We’ll take their bodies too. We should not leave them by the roadside,’ said Blake.
We rode for several hours. But though beyond the trees the countryside was verdant and well tended, with fields of papaya, pomegranate and jackfruit trees, and though the road was wider and flatter and gritted with small stones and more like a road than anything since Mirzapore, there was no rejoicing. Apart from his prayer, Mir Aziz had said no word since Nungoo’s death; Sameer wept openly. Blake lapsed into silence and looked as dour and weary as I had seen him. I had been the cause of two men’s deaths. It was not how I had imagined our arrival at Jubbulpore. The heat was oppressive and we passed thicket upon thicket in which the trees had been encircled by other sinisterly twisting grey trunks.
‘It is as if one tree would squeeze the life out of another, and then another, and then another,’ I said aloud. ‘What are they?’
‘They are called strangler vines,’ said Blake.
And so we came to Jubbulpore with three corpses.
Chapter Six
At the edge of Jubbulpore two sentries carrying muskets and wearing jackets the colour of dust eyed us suspiciously as Blake asked for directions to the Thuggee bureau. I had rarely felt such relief in arriving anywhere, so I ignored their stony glances and looked about as we rode into the cantonment. It was immediately evident that the place was exceptionally neat and well ordered, from the freshly gravelled road lined with coconut and toddy palms, to the small barracks and parade ground, to the humming bazaar where shopkeepers were beginning to lay out their wares and the natives about their daily chores stopped to gaze at our grisly cargo.
Our gloomy escorts led us to a sprawling collection of whitewashed cottages joined haphazardly together. A long verandah was crowded with servants and sepoys, who craned to look but did not approach. After a few minutes a short, dark-haired man, dressed in the same grey-brown material as the sepoys, hurried out of the doorway and down the steps. When he saw us he started.
‘The sepoy says you were asking for the Thuggee bureau,’ he said, surveying us. ‘What is it that you want?’
‘We were attacked on the Mirzapore road, about two hours’ ride back,’ Blake said. ‘There were four of them. My assistant despatched two, but was wounded and is in need of care and rest.’ I turned to stare at Blake and tried to hide my surprise. It would be no exaggeration to say that he was a different man. The edges had been brushed off his voice; it was filled with authority. He even sat on his horse differently. ‘Another of our party was killed and requires burial. We have brought the bodies of our assailants since we assumed the Thuggee Department would wish to inspect them.’
‘Well, I am afraid you cannot come into the Thuggee bureau,’ the man said, looking us over with an expression of distaste. It must be admitted that we were not impressive: we were dusty, somewhat creased around the edges and possibly a little malodorous.
‘What is your name, sir?’ said Blake sharply.
‘Captain James Pursloe, Assistant Superintendant of the Thuggee bureau,’ the man said. There was something slightly petulant about his manner, though he looked to me a good ten years older than I.
‘A captain, eh?’ said Blake. The man squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. ‘Captain Pursloe, I have come 700 miles, all the way from Calcutta, in three weeks, to see Major Sleeman. I have letters of introduction from Government House. I have three bodies and a wounded man. I want accommodation, medical attention for my assistant, and to bury our Mahommedan companion, according to his traditional rights, within the day. I hope that is not too much for you.’
Captain Pursloe pulled himself up and squared his shoulders.
‘Yes, sir.’
Now another Company officer appeared: an enormous, burly officer dressed in the same grey-brown material as the others, with a sunburnt face and a jutting jaw that gave him a belligerent air. The big officer gave Pursloe a careless nod.
‘Lieutenent Mauwle,’ the latter said, a little nervously I thought, ‘these gentlemen have come all the way from Calcutta. They were attacked on the road to Mirzapore, not two hours since.’
‘How many?’ said Mauwle curtly.
‘Four,’ said Blake. ‘Oiled and shaven. Two dead, two escaped. Here are the bodies.’
‘They’ll be Bhils,’ said Mauwle. He had a thick Scottish brogue. He barked an order in the local lingo and the crowd about us slowly began to disperse. Then he advanced on them, and they scattered. He came alongside our horses and lifted back the head of one of our attackers, grunted and dropped it again.
‘I’ll take some men out, they’ll not get far.’
‘An attack is, I assure you, a very rare occurrence here,’ Pursloe said. ‘The roads around Jubbulpore are very safe these days. You are a very small party, Mr er—’
‘My name is Jeremiah Blake, and I am the Company’s Special Inquiry Agent.’
The sulky, persecuted look was replaced by one of alarm.
‘I cannot say I have ever heard of a Special Inquiry Agent,’ he said. ‘May I … may I ask what your visit concerns?’
Lieutenant Mauwle, mounting the steps of the Thuggee Department, turned round.
