A Christmas Garland (2 page)

Narraway took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes, sir,” he said, as if he had some idea in his head how to do it. It was a lie, by implication. He had no idea whatsoever. He saluted and left the room.

He walked away from the command building without any notion where he was going. It was totally dark now, and the sky was burning with stars and a low three-quarter moon. There was sufficient light to see the broken outline of the walls and the black billows of the tamarind trees, motionless in the still air. His feet made no sound on the dry earth.

He passed few other people, even on the road beyond the entrenchment. Sentries took no notice of him. In his uniform he passed unquestioned.

Half a mile away, the vast Ganges River murmured and shifted in the moonlight, reflecting on an almost unbroken surface, streaked here and there only when the current eddied.

The prisoner who had escaped and the guard who
had been savagely murdered in the process were both Sikhs. That in itself was not extraordinary. The Sikhs had been on both sides during the mutiny. India was made up of many races and religions, languages and variations in culture from region to region. Internal wars and squabbles abounded.

John Tallis was British, but one set of his grandparents had been Indian—Narraway had no idea, though, if they had been Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Muslim, or something else. He dreaded meeting the man; yet, as soon as he had any clarity in his mind as to how he should approach the subject, he must do it.

The crime had been monstrous, and there could be no defense. The guard, Chuttur Singh, had been hacked to death. It had not even been a simple breaking of his neck or cutting his throat, which, while gruesome, would at least have been quick. The massacre of the patrol was equally bloody, but it was, in a sense, part of war and so to be expected. But it would not have happened had the enemy not known exactly where to find the patrol and at what hour. When Dhuleep Singh had escaped, he had passed that information over.

What had changed John Tallis from a first-class medical aide, a man of compassion and loyalty, into a man who could betray his own?

Narraway was walking slowly, but already he was at the beginning of the street that led into the battered and bedraggled town. In the distance he could see the spires of two of the churches against the skyline. Nearer him, there were a couple of shops with their doors closed. There was hardly anyone around—just a glimpse of light visible here and there from a half-shuttered window, a sound of laughter, a woman singing, the smell of food. The air was chilling rapidly with the darkness. If he stood still, he would become aware of the cold.

He started to walk again, smelling the dampness of the river as he got closer to it. The earth was softer under his feet.

What did Latimer really expect of him? He had implied that he required Narraway to find something that would make sense of Tallis’s act. Because people needed to understand, because no one could fight chaos. Maybe a lack of reason is man’s last and worst fear, the one against which there are no weapons?

Was Latimer—as the man in command, the one everybody looked toward—trying to create a belief in order, a reason to fight?

Narraway went through the last trees and stared across the surging water, away to the northeast, where he knew Lucknow was, beyond the horizon. Exactly a month before Christmas, General Havelock had died outside the city, worn out, beaten and bereaved. Had he finally felt the consuming darkness of loss and panic and been overwhelmed by it, unable to see hope?

How much is morale affected by the character of a leader? It was a question Narraway had asked himself many times, both at school and, later, in his military training. An officer must know his tactics, must understand both his own men and his enemy, must be familiar with the terrain and with the weapons, must guard his supply lines, must gain all the Intelligence of the enemy that he possibly can. Above all he must earn the trust and the love of his men. He must act decisively and with honor, knowing what he is fighting for and believing in its worth.

Latimer had to deal with John Tallis immediately, and in such a way that no one afterward would look
back on it with shame. Victor Narraway had been chosen to bear the burden of defending a man who was totally indefensible. He was strategically and emotionally trapped, exactly as if he were besieged in the city of his own duty, and there was no escape, no relief column coming.

It was already late. There was no point in waiting any longer. The situation would not get better. He turned away from the sheet of light on the river and walked into the shadows again, making his way back toward the barracks and the makeshift prison where John Tallis was being kept until his trial, and inevitable sentence of death.

He must begin tonight.

T
HE GUARDS STOOD TO ATTENTION OUTSIDE THE PRISON
door. In the darkness it was hard to see their faces, so their expressions appeared blank. They looked at Narraway with indifference. One of them held up an oil lamp. They were both young, but they had been in India long enough for their fair skins to be burned dark by the
sun. They recognized the insignia of rank on Narraway’s uniform.

“Yes, sir?” the taller of the two said with no flicker of interest.

“Lieutenant Narraway, to see the prisoner,” Narraway told him. He expected distaste, a forced civility. He saw nothing at all. Was the man genuinely impartial, or—after the siege—had he no feelings left?

“Yes, sir,” the man said obediently. “You’ll pardon me, but may I have your sidearm, sir? No weapons allowed when you’re with the prisoner.”

Narraway remembered with a chill that the prisoner who escaped had murdered the guard with the guard’s own weapon. He handed over his revolver without demur.

A moment later he was inside the cell, standing face-to-face with John Tallis. The man was tall, a little hunched over; naturally lean, but it seemed the low rations and the exhaustion from first the long, burning summer under siege, and now imprisonment, had left him gaunt. He still wore his army uniform, but the trousers bagged on him. The tunic hung hollow over his chest and pulled a little crookedly at the shoulders. His
thick, black hair was lank and his blue eyes startling against the sun-weathered skin of his face. He might have been any age, but Narraway knew he was thirty.

Narraway introduced himself. “I’m going to defend you at your trial,” he explained. “I need to talk to you because I have no idea what to say. I know your regimental history because it’s a matter of record. Everyone agrees you were one of the best medical orderlies they’ve ever known.”

He saw Tallis lift his chin a little, his mouth twisting into a self-mocking smile. His teeth were white and perfect. “That’ll come in useful if I’m ever charged with incompetence,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t help now.”

Narraway struggled for something to ask that might offer any mitigation. What on earth did Latimer think he could do? There was no defense! He was going to be completely useless.

“Tell me what happened,” Narraway said aloud. “Exactly. Give me all the details you can remember. Go back as far as you need in order to make some sense of it.”

Tallis looked incredulous. “Sense? When did you get here, yesterday? There isn’t any sense. It’s a colossal
pileup of one idiocy after another. Bullets greased with pig fat, cow fat. It’s probably bloody mutton anyway! Nobody’s listening to anyone. People are just settling old scores, or shooting scared at anything that moves.”

“You must have had some reason for helping Dhuleep,” Narraway said desperately. “Give me something, anything at all to say on your behalf.”

Tallis’s eyes opened wider. A look of terror was naked in their blue depths for a moment; then he concealed it. He swallowed convulsively, his throat so tight he all but choked. “I didn’t do it,” he answered. “And I haven’t any idea who did.”

Narraway was at a total loss. Tallis was not justifying himself, not making excuses, not blaming anyone else. He was just giving a sheer, blank denial.

“But there was no one else who could have,” Narraway said as calmly as he could manage. “Everyone else’s whereabouts are accounted for, one way or another.”

“Then someone is lying, or got it wrong,” Tallis answered. “I did not kill Chuttur Singh or let Dhuleep Singh go. You have to prove that.”

“I’ve got less than two days,” Narraway protested. “Captain Busby’s already been through all the details of the night, and Major Strafford. There was no one else who could’ve done it.”

“I didn’t do it,” Tallis said simply. He gave a shrug of his bony shoulders. “I’m a medical orderly. I only kill people by accident, never on purpose.”

Narraway was startled, angry; then suddenly he saw the black humor in Tallis’s eyes. In that instant he felt a wave of compassion for the man’s courage. In other circumstances, a thousand miles from here, he could have liked him. He licked his dry lips. “Where were you when Chuttur Singh was murdered?” he asked.

Tallis thought for a moment. “If it happened when they say it must have happened, I was in the storeroom, alone. I was counting what supplies we had, and going over what we could possibly get ahold of if any kind of relief supplies came in, and considering what we could make for ourselves with things from the bazaar,” he replied. “If I could prove it, I would have already. It’s a pretty good mess in there. We’ve been making do for a long time. I’m just about out of inventions.”

“Did you not make lists of anything, inventory, notes about what to get?” Narraway struggled to think of something that could help support Tallis’s claim.

“Certainly,” Tallis replied, “but I can’t prove when I wrote them. I could have done it anytime in the previous twenty-four hours. Believe me, I count those damn things in my sleep, hoping I’ve got it wrong and that we have more supplies left than I thought. I sometimes even get up in the night and count again, hoping items have got together and bred—like bedbugs.”

Narraway ignored the analogy. “Did you know Chuttur Singh?” he asked.

Tallis looked away, and when he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “Yes. He was a good man. Silly sense of humor. Always coming up with crazy jokes that weren’t funny. But he made me laugh, just because he laughed.”

That sounded so normal to Narraway; it was absurd that they should now be talking about murder, thinking about an execution. It was a nightmare he must wake up from. He used to know how to do that, when he was a boy—make himself wake up. “And Dhuleep?” he asked.

“Different altogether,” Tallis replied, watching Narraway
closely. “Quiet. Never knew what he was thinking. He used to recite poetry to himself. At least I think it was poetry. It could have been a string of curses, or a recipe for curry, for all I know. Or a letter to his grandmother.” He blinked. “If they hang me, will you write a letter to
my
grandmother? Tell her I died bravely? Even if I don’t?”

Narraway drew in his breath to remonstrate with him, tell him not to be flippant or not to give up hope, but the words slipped through his mind and were all useless. They were going to hang Tallis in less than a week, get the whole matter dealt with and out of mind before Christmas, for everybody’s sake—everybody except Tallis and his family back in England, proud of him.

“If it should prove necessary, and you give me an address, of course I will,” he said instead, as if it were the natural answer. But it was also of no help at all.

Narraway knew Latimer was looking for more than Tallis’s surrender. He needed some answers that allowed the men to have hope, which revealed a spark of sanity amid the senselessness and the fear.

“Somebody did kill the man, and you’re the only one
unaccounted for,” he pointed out sharply. “Everyone else was busy and in someone else’s sight. Look, if you had a reason for killing him, if you know something about him, tell me.” He started to say that for Tallis’s own sake he should explain the circumstances, but stopped abruptly. Whatever Tallis said, it would make no difference at all when it came to his sentence, and they both knew it. If he pretended that wasn’t the case, Tallis would think him a liar or a fool, and it would break the spiderweb-thin thread of connection between them.

He began again. “The regiment needs to know the truth. There’s chaos and death everywhere. We need at least to believe in ourselves.”

Tallis closed his bright blue eyes. “My God, you’re young! What—nineteen? This time last year you were sitting for exams behind some neat, wooden school desk, waiting for the bell to ring and tell you time’s up.”

“Twenty,” Narraway snapped, feeling the color burn up his face. “And I—” He stopped short, stung by shame at the absurdity of getting defensive about his age and experience. Tallis was facing trial for his life, and he had been offered nothing better than the most junior lieutenant to defend him.

Narraway lowered his voice and kept it steady. “Please, for the sake of the regiment, the men you know and who’ve trusted you—help them make sense of this. Give them a reason, whatever it was. Why did you want to rescue Dhuleep? What did you think he was going to do? If you didn’t mean to betray the patrol, or get Chuttur killed, what went wrong? If someone is lying, who? And why?”