Some Kind of Grace, page 21
‘With all holy men. How can they intercede for us with God, if they have blood on their hands?’
‘How indeed?’
‘It is cold, sahib, and it will soon be dark. I shall not keep you longer. But before you go, I wish to tell you that it was I, Rafiq, who volunteered to kill the woman. Goodbye, sahib.’
He turned and stalked back to his two comrades and the horses.
McLeod called after him. ‘At any rate, take care of her now.’
It was Salamodin who shouted back: ‘We shall do what we can.’
McLeod felt like rushing back and demanding a stronger assurance; but he hesitated only a moment or two before hurrying away in the opposite direction, towards the fire, the police, and ultimately home. He felt he was turning his back on Margaret for the last time. She would be behind him in the darkness forever.
The hillside was littered with those great red boulders now purple with shadow, and with low thorn bushes that scratched like fierce little animals against his ankles. The wind, too, cold and dusty, held him back.
There was no guard, so that he was able to walk right up to the fire unnoticed. A sheep had just been roasted, and the policemen, wrapped in blankets, were squatted round the fire, holding pieces of hot mutton in their hands.
The smell made McLeod bold. ‘Salaam,’ he cried.
Though astonished, and in some cases momentarily terrified, they kept on squatting and chewing. Then a sergeant scrambled up and, like an old woman, in his blanket went hobbling fast towards the smaller of the tents.
McLeod asked if he could have a seat at the fire and a bit of mutton, as he was cold and hungry. At once room was made for him, and three knives began slicing eagerly at the carcase.
The sergeant came hurrying back. Close behind him were two officers, one a young lieutenant, and the other Major Samad of Mazarat.
‘Good evening, Major,’ said McLeod.
‘So it is you.’
‘As large as life.’
‘Yes, I am glad to see that you are still alive.’
‘And with a good appetite, too. Thanks for looking after my car.’
‘I have questions to ask of you. Please come with me to my tent.’
‘It’s warm here by the fire.’
‘I must insist.’
‘Do you mind if I take this mutton with me?’
The Major could hardly have refused; his own mouth was still greasy. Some of the soldiers grinned.
‘As you wish.’ He marched back to his tent.
McLeod followed with the lieutenant who looked about eighteen.
‘Tell me,’ asked McLeod, ‘have you come from Mazarat?’
‘Yes, but I was new there.’
‘Is the Colonel still there? The one whose wife and children died of smallpox?’
‘There is another Colonel.’
‘What happened to the other one? Did he die? He was very ill with malaria.’
‘He is not there now, but I do not think he died.’
The Major was seated on a low stool. His dish of mutton lay on the ground beside him, looking like a dog’s. He gave McLeod a smile that was like a snarl.
‘You are talking about the Colonel?’ he asked. ‘You wonder what happened to him? Did you think, because he had neglected his duty in giving you a pass, that he would be degraded, or cashiered, or even imprisoned? Perhaps you have forgotten that his father is a friend of the king. He has gone home to rest, that is all. I think he is now considering taking another wife.’
McLeod squatted on the ground. ‘I’m glad to hear it. He was very kind to me.’
‘Too kind, Mr. McLeod.’
‘Is there any tea available?’
There was a teapot, but it was empty. The Major, glaring, nodded at the lieutenant, who thrust his head out, and yelled: ‘Chai.’
‘Thanks,’ said McLeod.
‘We are at your service, sir. You would not like a bath, with hot water?’
‘I’d be delighted.’
‘You laugh, Mr. McLeod. Yet I assure you there are officers of no higher rank than mine who travel with such luxuries as baths. They are rich. I am poor. My father is a humble official in Hezrat.’
He paused while a soldier handed in a pot of tea.
‘Help yourself, Mr. McLeod.’
McLeod was already doing so.
‘Now if you please, what is the explanation?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean, Mr. McLeod. For days we have followed you, for hundreds of miles. We find you here, in this wilderness where no one lives.’
‘I was climbing the mountains.’
‘Why?’
‘In my country it is a sport.’
‘So I have heard. But, if you will pardon me, I do not believe you. You must have had another purpose.’
‘What other purpose?’
‘You are a bold, clever man, Mr. McLeod. Also you know the language very well. Are you not a spy?’
‘What is there to spy on here? You said yourself it was a wilderness.’
‘I do not know this part of the country, Mr. McLeod. I do not know what is here to spy on. What I do know is that General Hussein, Commandant of the Secret Police, himself flew to Mazarat, to order me to follow you and bring you back.’
‘The General is a friend of mine.’
‘So you said before in Mazarat. He was very angry.’
‘Not with me, I’m sure.’
‘Not with you, you think? And not with the Colonel, whose father is the king’s friend. With whom then? Yes, with everyone else; and especially with poor Major Samad. He was very angry with him.’ The Major’s hand shot up to his cheek, where perhaps it had been slapped by Hussein’s glove.
‘Is he still in Mazarat?’
‘No. He flew back the same day, by special plane. I believe I am grateful to you, Mr. McLeod. I have enjoyed the travelling; and since I have found you, alive and well, it is possible some credit will be given to me.’
‘And now you’ve found me, what are you going to do with me?’
‘Take you back to Mazarat first; thereafter you will be conducted back to the capital, where the General, and perhaps the Minister himself, will ask you questions.’
‘I see.’ McLeod contemplated the sheep-bone he had in his hand. ‘In your travels, did you come through a village called Haimir?’
The Major made a noise of disgust. ‘A filthy hole.’ Then he brightened. ‘We passed the blue lakes, too, and talked with the holy man. He told me there was much good fortune in store for me.’
No doubt in astute return for some free tea and nan.
‘He is a very holy man,’ said the Major. ‘All year he guards the shrine, alone. In the winter the snow is higher than a camel’s head. Often his only food is his dreams of God. I should think such a man’s prophecies are to be respected. Do you not agree?’
‘Did he tell you I had been there?’
The Major frowned. He glanced at the lieutenant, who looked at the ground.
‘I see he didn’t,’ said McLeod. ‘Well, I was there.’
‘We saw the marks of the tyres,’ murmured the lieutenant.
‘Do not think we are so foolish, Mr. McLeod,’ said the Major. ‘You spoke of Haimir. I know why. It was there your friends were killed. I think you went there on a sad pilgrimage. Is that not right, Mr. McLeod?’
McLeod nodded.
‘That is what General Hussein said, too. So you saw Haimir? I do not think you would enjoy seeing it.’
‘No.’
The Major grinned. ‘You would have approved of us, Mr. McLeod. Our visit was short, but I think they will remember it.’
McLeod closed his eyes. The bone in his hand became a human bone. The tea in his cup turned to blood.
‘What did you do to them?’ he whispered.
‘Oh, we just kicked them about a bit. For the sake of authority. That place must become known throughout the whole country as a place of terror. As an example, you understand.’
McLeod wished he could pray. He saw the old woman’s face, and the little girl’s, who had so boldly confronted him, with her small brother on her back.
The Major laughed, and poured himself another cup of tea. Into it he dropped six spoonfuls of sugar. When he drank he sucked loudly.
‘I see you are still sick with hatred. Perhaps you think our justice is weak; we should have put them all to death, because all were equally guilty. I am inclined to agree, because to make it a place of terror the ground ought to have been soaked with their blood so that it could be seen for years. But then, it is a good thing, too, to keep some of them alive, for further punishment.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more about them.’
‘I understand, Mr. McLeod.’
‘The old woman, with the blind eye?’
‘You remember her? Yes, she’s the she-wolf that leads the pack. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s crawling about on all fours at this moment.’
‘Why?’
Again the Major misinterpreted McLeod’s difficulty of speech. ‘She got in the way and showed her fangs; so somebody took his boot to her. I heard her leg was broken. At her age it won’t mend in a hurry.’
McLeod shuddered.
Laughing, the Major patted him on the shoulder. ‘You enjoy such talk? You and I will ride together back to Mazarat, and I shall tell you more about what we did at Haimir.’
‘No.’ Yet despite that snarl of denial McLeod did want to hear and hear again of every single act of cruelty perpetrated there; and he wanted, too, to rush back to the valley and yell it all to Donald before he died, and to Margaret before her child was born.
Whatever else he did, surely he must at least exonerate those people at Haimir so that persecution of them would end. If necessary, to prove their innocence he should produce Margaret alive. But though that would prove they were guiltless of her death, it would also reveal that they had helped to involve despotic authority in a folly whose consequences might be disastrous to it, both at home and abroad. Would it not be better then to think of Donald’s agony in the valley, and Margaret’s peculiar martyrdom, as, in some way he could not understand, acts of expiation that would be heeded? That, he thought, was how Goodwood Purdie, with a little more grace perhaps, might shuffle off responsibility.
Round their fire the policemen were chanting a melancholy song of love.
He got up. ‘I’ll have to put up my tent.’
‘Sleep in here.’
‘No, thank you. You’re crowded enough.’
‘Do you wish me to order some men to help you?’
‘It’s not necessary.’
As he was about to go out, the Major stopped him: ‘Mr. McLeod, if you wish, we shall return by way of Haimir.’
McLeod was tempted.
‘I think you would like to see that old woman again, Mr. McLeod?’
‘I’ll tell you in the morning.’
‘Yes. And in the meantime dream of them. Let me tell you a strange thing for your dreams: most of the men have a disease which makes their members large.’
As McLeod crept out into the cold wind, he heard the Major keep on laughing, heartily and cruelly.
Twenty-two
It was afternoon, four days later, when the Land-Rover, tawny with dust, passed the British Embassy with the Union Jack fluttering over the white Residence.
Major Samad, still escorting him, was relieved when McLeod did not stop. ‘You prefer to live at the hotel?’ he asked discreetly.
‘Yes.’
‘I am glad, because, to tell you a secret, I was instructed not to allow you to enter your Embassy until General Hussein or the Minister himself had spoken with you. See, I have had my hand on my gun. You and I are now friends, McLeod. It would have been very unpleasant for me to ask you to do what you did not wish to do.’
McLeod’s reason for not wanting to stop at the Embassy was that he still hadn’t been able to decide what he should report to Minn and Gillie. By his silence he might very well be burying Margaret Duncan alive; but by speaking he might be the means of her being dragged out to face a world whose curiosity would be much more persevering than its compassion.
‘You will pardon me if I must leave two of my men at the hotel,’ said the Major. ‘Not as guards, you understand, but as attendants.’
‘When will you report?’
‘At once. It is possible the General may wish to see you this evening.’
‘I’ll need a shave first, a bath, and a change of clothing.’
‘Can you not get all those at the hotel?’
‘If I’m lucky.’
‘You will be lucky.’
At the hotel the Major strode in, as demanding as destiny. He roared at the timid servants in their fierce shaggy uniforms the colour of dried blood. Some scampered out to carry in McLeod’s luggage, others rushed upstairs to prepare a room, and a few flocked into the manager’s office to fetch that reluctant official.
He recognised McLeod. ‘So they have caught you again?’ he murmured in French.
‘I’d like a room.’
‘Impossible, Mr. McLeod. Not a single one is vacant. In any case, would you not be safer, and more comfortable, at your Embassy?’
‘What does he say?’ demanded the Major.
‘He says there’s no room vacant.’
‘Tell him there must be a room. No, let us find one ourselves.’ He shouted to the four policemen who had accompanied him from Mazarat. ‘Go upstairs and find a room, a good room. If there is already someone in it, throw him out.’
The policemen dashed off, delighted as schoolboys.
The manager was dismayed. ‘How can I run a hotel in such a country?’
McLeod refused to heed the appeal in the sad eyes.
‘They may insult a Russian or an American,’ sighed the manager.
The Major, tapping at his holster, was admiring a poster advertising Indian Airlines; it showed an Indian beauty, with flowers in her hair.
Outside a crowd had gathered.
From above came, in an American accent, sounds of amused indignation. Then at the top of the steps appeared a small bespectacled man, who needed a shave, a bath, and a change of clothing almost as much as McLeod himself. He seemed to have been interrupted at his afternoon nap, for he yawned and kept stuffing his flowered shirt into his khaki slacks.
‘Mr. Bolton, an American writer,’ whispered the manager. ‘He has come to write a book about the country, but he is having a little trouble about a visa. I understand they think he asks too many impertinent questions.’
The questions the American was asking then were pertinent enough. ‘Is there a revolution in progress, gentlemen? But I’ve been in revolutions before and never been dragged off my bed. Is it a matter of insufficient baksheesh? Or am I personally considered unworthy?’
He had come down the stairs as he spoke. He winked at McLeod. ‘Is it for you, sir, that I am being asked, so rudely, to make way?’
McLeod could only scowl in shame.
‘I don’t know who you are, sir, though I hope to have that honour as soon as you feel inclined to tell me. My name’s Josh Bolton, author, here in the way of business. I don’t resent this. I find it fascinating. It will make, not a chapter, unless I pad like hell, but a section of a chapter; and the folks reading will think it quaint.’
‘But, Mr. Bolton,’ said the manager, in some agitation, ‘I promised you the room only for three days. Those three days are up. You said you would be moving to the I.C.A. rest-house.’
‘True,’ agreed Bolton. ‘But it has transpired that some compatriot in authority, some obstructive bastard, has made the discovery that I’m not eligible.’
McLeod could not help grinning at that gently spoken parenthesis. ‘Couldn’t we share the room?’ he asked. ‘In any case, I might not need it. Technically, I’m under arrest. I’ve just been brought in from Mazarat, and I’m to be held here until this monkey with the holster has reported to his superiors.’
Bolton held out his hand. ‘Your name will be McLeod then?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. McLeod. Delighted to know you. Certainly we can share the room. There happens to be two beds; one with maybe ten less fleas than the other; but what’s ten in a thousand?’
‘I want a bath.’
‘So do I; so does every other guest in the place. I understand a colony of rats, not all of them alive, occupies the pipes. If you’re the loud-voiced aggressive type, which I’m not, you can cuss them into fetching you up hot water in jugs; but the first jugful’s turned cold by the time the second arrives, so what’s the use of a third?’
‘I’ll get a bath.’
‘Show me, sir.’
A word to Major Samad started it. Feeling neglected during the conversation between McLeod and the American, he relished the chance to assert himself again. Up to the room he rushed, and roared at the servants who soon brought a large rumbling zinc bath and about a dozen jugfuls of hot water that, save for a little greasy scum on top, was reasonably clean.
‘I could almost find it in my heart, sir,’ said Bolton, as he watched the wonder, ‘to ask you not to throw it out when you’re through with it, but let me use it after you. I could pass it on in my turn.’
Then the Major ordered everyone to leave McLeod alone in the room. Bolton was pushed out by two policemen.
‘Perhaps in a short time someone will telephone, Mr. McLeod,’ said the Major. ‘Until then you must see no one and speak to no one.’
McLeod was already undressing. By removing his trousers he also removed the Major, who fled, so embarrassed he felt obliged to push out of his way, on the stairs, an old man in a black karakul hat, who despite his age was undeniably male and so, under his greasy clothes, endowed with that virility that the Major had still to prove he possessed himself.
Outside the room, on one of the easy chairs in the corridor, Mr. Bolton smoked a cigar and scribbled notes.
Two hours later the Major returned, much subdued, to report that General Hussein intended to call at six o’clock, in half an hour.
‘After he has said his prayers.’
The reason for the Major’s bitterness was that he now foresaw no promotion for himself out of this business. Indeed, he smelled disaster. The fat Commandant had been in a slimming panic about his own position, in danger because of some other secret matter; it was rumoured he had displeased the Prime Minister. Certainly when he had snarled that he would go to see McLeod after he had said his prayers, he had not been jesting.
