Prentice led the way out on to a cool verandah and tea appeared.
‘One concession to the home counties,’ said Joe appreciatively, viewing an English teaset.
‘ Darjeeling,’ said Prentice. ‘I hope you can drink it. But now – what can I do? What can I tell you? I told you my theory at the dance but I don’t suppose you would accept that unscientific idea of a malign spirit?’
Joe smiled. ‘I’d love to,’ he said. ‘It would really appeal to me. But if I was caught dismissing the matter in that way it might be held that I was not really doing my job. But if you could clear up one or two small things for me… We’ll go back to the beginning.’
‘To Joan Carmichael.’
‘Well no,’ said Joe, surprised. ‘Back beyond that. Back – if you’ll forgive me – to the death of your wife.’
‘Of course,’ said Prentice hurriedly. ‘Of course. But I don’t think of them as being the same. After all, in that case the perpetrators were identified and executed.’
‘Perhaps we can start there? “Executed” you say. Can you tell me about that?’
‘Very little to tell. I knew who they were. I knew where they came from. I knew most of them by name. They were vengeful – they were courageous with hash. They were not men of much judgement. It took me a day or two to recover from the shock and then I collected a troop of Sowars from the regiment, boys I’d had my eye on for some time and who were delighted to be involved in this foray. Not short of volunteers, I might say. I went after them. Executed them. Of course I should have done nothing of the sort and they should have been brought to trial in the proper way. I even had to face a court of enquiry. But by then the deed was done and everybody, Indian and English, was on my side. All saw it as a very proper act of retribution and, if you’ll allow me to say, Sandilands – so it was!’
‘You have no doubt in your mind,’ said Joe carefully, ‘that they had come to kill you and only incidentally your wife?’
‘And Chedi Khan.’
‘Yes, Chedi Khan. Does he come into the equation?’
Prentice paused a long time before replying. ‘He was a very fine man,’ he said at last. ‘The finest the Pathan nation has to offer. Loyal, courageous, persevering and, like many Pathans, artistic, poetic and ingenious but the whole salted with a cynical and ribald sense of humour.’
‘How did he come to be in your service?’ Joe enquired.
Prentice poured them both out a cup of tea and lay back for a moment in his chair saying at last, ‘Long story. Know what I mean by proscription? No? It’s a system on the frontier. Tribes will raid their neighbours, they will pursue blood feuds, come raiding down into India and steal things. Anything they can lay their hands on, particularly rifles. Girls too. It’s their way of life. Of course we criticise but any nation that sells girls into prostitution is in no position to criticise those who merely steal girls for themselves. But a time comes when it has to be stopped and offending villages are proscribed. A punitive raid is mounted, fortifications are dismantled, watch towers demolished, crops burned, hostages taken. They’re called barramptas, these raids. It was – and still is – an accepted part of life. They know the rules. I conducted many such raids when I was serving with the Scouts on the frontier.
‘I led my first barrampta – a green young officer fresh from Sandhurst, though not new to the country – against a village called Lashtar. It was occupied by a small though extremely warlike tribe, always at odds with their neighbours, always at odds with the government. Never, it seemed, able to learn. The chief man – the Malik – was a ferocious old devil with a very bad reputation. He decided to defend the village and there was quite a scrap. He was killed. His two sons were killed and some of his neighbours and the village was set on fire. By mistake. We were not fire-raisers.
‘I rode up to supervise the conclusion of this operation and was sitting looking on when out of the smoke there blundered a slight figure. A Pathan boy aged about thirteen. Under his arm he had a brass-bound jezail.’
‘Jezail?’
‘Yes, an old musket. It could have been a hundred years old. Loaded with God knows what – nails, bits of glass, shot even. As soon as he saw me he dropped on one knee and was about to blow me to perdition. One of my troopers galloped up, sword in hand, and knocked it out of his arms. He was about to lop the boy’s head off with his talwar…’ Prentice pointed to a trophy of arms on the wall of the adjoining room. ‘There’s a talwar.’
Joe glanced at the curved blade as long as a man’s arm with its single slicing edge.
‘I yelled at the trooper to stop and put his talwar away and then I shouted in Pushtu to the boy. I told him to stay still where he was and no harm would come to him. I got off my horse and went over to talk to him. Sad tale – he was an orphan but distantly related to and living in the household of the old devil we’d just killed. As the man’s sons had been killed this boy, who told me his name was Chedi Khan, had taken it upon himself to kill as many English soldiers as he could, starting with the commanding officer – me. Honour of the tribe. I think he was very surprised to see that I wasn’t more than a few years older than he was.
‘Difficult to know what to do with him. He had no remaining ties with that village and it was quite plain that if he stayed on there – one day sooner rather than later probably – he was going to take a successful pot shot at an English officer and get himself killed into the bargain. We discussed his options. Man to man, sitting side by side on a rock. I gave him a cigarette. He seemed very intelligent. I pointed out that his future looked bleak if he stayed on and that I could order him to be taken away with us and kept as a hostage for the good behaviour of the tribe which was a usual procedure or, and I offered him a third and pretty unusual choice, he could come with us voluntarily, giving his word of honour for his good behaviour, and when he reached the appropriate age he could train as a Scout.
‘I saw by the gleam in his eye when I mentioned this third option that the soldier’s life was the one that appealed to him and decided to take a chance. There was no way this boy was going to agree meekly to ride away with us in full view of his village. The Pathan are impressed by the grand gesture so I staged one. I kicked his musket far out of reach with a derogatory comment and handed him a Lee-Metford rifle. “This is yours,” I said. Then I got up, turned my back on him and walked away towards my troop.’
‘Good Lord! Was it loaded?’
‘Oh, yes, no use being caught with an unloaded rifle in a place like that. Subadur Amir Shah was covering him, I’d already taken that in so perhaps I wasn’t risking much. All the same, I don’t think I’d have the nerve nowadays.’
‘What did the boy do?’
‘He got to his feet, aimed the rifle straight between my shoulder blades and tracked me for several yards. He never attempted to shoot the bolt. Enjoying his power, I think. Then, when he was sure the whole tribe had witnessed this, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and marched up to the company. They unloaded his rifle, mounted him behind someone and off we went.’
‘And did he join the army?’
‘Not then and there. He was too young to start with. Badly nourished as well. Scrawny little thing with conjunctivitis. And there were signs that he’d been ill-treated for some time. We had to feed him up and doctor his wounds – cuts and burns mainly – when we got him back to camp. One of my men said, “You’ll never get rid of him. He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and one day, watch out, he’ll decide to be revenged. That boy’s just biding his time.” ’