A Christmas Garland (3 page)

Tallis stared at him, started to speak, then stopped again.

“Are you protecting someone else?” Narraway asked sharply. “Is this some debt of honor you owe?”

Tallis was completely stunned. No denial in words could have carried such complete conviction as his silence.

“Debt of honor?” he finally said, incredulously; then he started to laugh, quietly but with a jarring, hysterical note underneath it.

Narraway felt ridiculous and painfully helpless. He had expected anger, despair, self-pity, but not this.

Then Tallis stopped laughing as suddenly as he had begun.

“I did not murder Chuttur Singh to pay a debt of
honor,” he said quietly, almost mildly. “I’m a medical orderly who just happens to be wearing a soldier’s uniform. I save lives—any lives. I’d treat a sick dog if I had one. Any debt of honor I owe is to medicine.”

Narraway could think of nothing to say. He did not even know where to begin.

“For God’s sake, man, think!” he said desperately. “Who was friendly with Dhuleep? Who might have owed him something, or sympathized with him? Is it possible someone had a … a debt to cancel, or a feud with anyone who was part of the patrol that was wiped out? If it wasn’t you, then it has to have been someone else.”

Tallis’s brilliant blue eyes opened wide. “Is that why they’re saying I did it? Because I owed someone, or hated someone on the patrol? I’m a medical orderly. I don’t even know who was on the damn patrol! I’m one of the few men in the station who never has time to gamble or run up any debts. Half of our medical staff was killed in the siege.”

“Then think of anything you’ve heard, gossip, tales,” Narraway urged him. “We’ve no time.”

“I’ve no time,” Tallis corrected him. “The regiment
needs this incident put to bed as quickly as can be made to look decent. I can’t blame them for that.” He pulled his lips tight. “Happy Christmas, Lieutenant.”

N
ARRAWAY SLEPT BADLY
. S
UCH DREAMS AS HE HAD WERE
tangled and filled with a sense of hopelessness. He woke fighting against the sheets as if they were binding him, keeping him from escape. He was gasping for breath, in spite of the fact that there was nothing over his face. Again and again he saw Tallis’s eyes. Was he innocent? Could this be a monstrous mistake? Did the authorities so desperately need to find the traitor, and make everyone believe justice had been done, that actual justice was the price? What other answer could there be? It seemed that no one else had had the opportunity to kill Chuttur Singh, so by default it had to have been Tallis. But what was his motive? What was Narraway missing that would make sense of it?

He was so tired, his head pounded and his eyes felt full of grit.

H
E ROSE EARLY
,
WASHED
,
SHAVED
,
AND DRESSED BEFORE
going to the mess and taking a brief breakfast. He liked the fruit they’d had in the summer—mangoes, bananas, and guavas—but there was none left now. He acknowledged other officers but sat alone so he could avoid conversation. He needed to think.

Latimer had given him one day to create some kind of defense for Tallis. An appeal for mercy was pointless. The only answer to a verdict of guilty was execution. Soldiers were killed all the time. Cawnpore was steeped in blood. Death was cheap. One more was barely even noticeable.

After he had eaten, he went outside and walked along the dusty roadway. The low bungalow houses of the officers were ramshackle now: three or four rooms set in extended areas that in better times would have been gardens. He did not hear the silent footsteps behind him and only became aware of Captain Busby when the man spoke, almost at his elbow.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” Busby said briskly, not disguising
the fact that he had obviously sought Narraway out intentionally. “Good idea to get away from the barracks a bit. Glad you thought of it.”

“Good morning, sir,” Narraway replied tersely, wondering what Busby wanted with him. He was not ready to discuss strategy yet, or accept any instruction, for that matter.

They came to a crossroads. Busby moved closer, obliging Narraway to accept the tacit guidance and turn along the wider road into the town.

The first building they passed was the library, looking dusty and deserted, its doors closed. There were two women standing on the steps with books in their hands, chatting to each other then glancing up the street toward the tearooms and the bazaar.

A couple of men came down from the breakfast club next to the library and nodded at the women, touching their hats courteously. They looked serious, avoiding anything more than the minimum acknowledgment of Busby and Narraway.

The billiard rooms were deserted this early in the day, as was the Freemasons Lodge with its handsome entrance. Narraway had intended to go toward the river.
He did not want to face the noise and the constant interruptions of the bazaar, with pleas to buy this or that, but Busby was intent on conversation and he could not escape.

“Doesn’t look the same as it used to,” Busby said ruefully as they passed the doors of the newsrooms. “Everyone’s trying, of course, but the memories of the siege are all over the place, and the fear that it will happen again lingers. Every place you look at makes you think of someone who’s gone. Thank God it’s Christmas soon. Remind us who we are, what we believe in.” Busby was talking casually, but his voice was edged with tension. He was a fraction taller than Narraway and perhaps seven or eight years older. His fair skin was burned red-brown by the Indian sun, and he walked with a very slight limp, as if from an old wound. There was a thin scar on the side of his left cheek, hardly noticeable.

“Yes, sir,” Narraway agreed. “I’ve seen some of the children making garlands of colored paper,” he added as they passed the theater, where in better times the younger men had performed all kinds of music and comedies for the general entertainment. It was silent now.

Busby smiled. “We must protect the men. They have
a right to expect that of us. We bring them here, thousands of miles away from everything they knew and loved, and expect their total loyalty. We receive it, and sometimes I think we take it too lightly. We owe it to them, especially the wives of those killed on the patrol, to see this trial to a swift end.” He glanced at Narraway and then back at the rutted road they were walking along. “I hope you can see that.” He said it with a lift in his voice, as if it were, at least in part, a question.

He outranked Narraway, but in the matter of the trial of John Tallis, rank should mean nothing.

“As rapidly as justice allows, sir,” Narraway agreed.

“What witnesses do you propose to call?” Busby asked rather briskly.

“I don’t know,” Narraway admitted. “I only got the case yesterday evening, and I’ve never represented anyone on trial before.”

“For heaven’s sake, you’re an officer, man!” Busby said dismissively. “I’m not a lawyer either. We’re after the truth, not tricks of the law. A loyal Sikh officer has been cut to pieces, and ten of our own men were ambushed out there.” He waved his arm in a general southerly direction. “Nine of them are dead. We’ve got widows,
at least half a dozen more fatherless children. Tallis is responsible for that. The legality of it is just for the record’s sake; don’t harrow up everyone’s emotions and open old wounds by asking a lot of unnecessary questions.”

Narraway did not answer. There was no point in telling Busby that the colonel had asked him to do more than just tidy it away. Latimer wanted answers, wanted to understand what had gone so terribly wrong.

They walked a few paces in silence. A man pushing a cart of vegetables veered and jolted over a hole ahead of them. Two women—probably officers’ wives, from the cut of their clothes—passed on the opposite side, inclining their heads slightly.

“I’m not sure if you are the right man for this,” Busby went on, now staring straight ahead. “We might have been better off with someone who’d actually been through the siege and understood the suffering, the deeper issues.”

“I think Colonel Latimer chose me precisely because I hadn’t been through it,” Narraway answered. “He wants this to be fair. If I’d been here through the siege, I’d have loyalties to certain men more than others, perhaps
men to whom I owed my life. I might not favor them in any way, but people couldn’t be sure of it, of my motivations.”

Busby was quiet. They passed a small nondenominational church on the other side of the street. The post office was just ahead of them. They both looked battered, scarred by shells that had exploded too close. A shop nearby was darkened by the stains of an old fire, spreading out like the shadow of a hand.

“I don’t know who you’re going to call,” Busby said suddenly. “No one else could have done it, you know. Don’t go trying to raise doubt as to the honor of decent men. Apart from the fact that you won’t get Tallis off—and by God, neither should you—you certainly won’t do yourself any favors. If you want to make a career in the army, you’ll understand loyalty.” His voice took on a sudden, intense emotion. “That’s what it’s all about—courage under fire, steadfastness, and loyalty. You’re no damn use to man or beast if your own men don’t know that, come hell or high water, they can trust you.”

He glanced sideways at Narraway, his eyes sharp. Then, after a moment’s penetrating stare, he looked ahead again. “I assume you know that already, and I
don’t have to tell you? Make a good job of this and the whole regiment will respect you. Filthy responsibility, I know.”

“Yes, sir,” Narraway agreed, trying to put his words carefully. “My aim is to defend Tallis so that no one afterward—history, if you like—can say he wasn’t dealt with fairly. I hope that won’t take time, and I sincerely hope it won’t necessitate my calling anyone as witness to an event that distresses them more than is unavoidable. But haste now may lead to grief; to dishonor that will later damage the regiment, and even the reputation of the Indian army in the future.”

Busby stopped abruptly and swung around to face Narraway. “I think I underestimated you, Lieutenant. You’re going to be a damn nuisance, aren’t you? But if you think you can teach me the best way to handle this and earn the regiment’s loyalty and respect, you are profoundly mistaken. Which I will soon show you.”

“Yes, sir,” Narraway said with a brief flicker of satisfaction. “I’m sure you will, sir, and with the utmost fairness. You can hardly fail to secure Tallis’s conviction, considering the circumstances.”

“I don’t just want to secure his conviction, damn it,”
Busby said sharply. “I want to get the matter over with, with the least pain to the men and women who have suffered abominations you can’t even begin to imagine.” He swiveled around and started to walk swiftly back toward the barracks and the entrenchment where the army had been besieged. “Come!” he commanded.

Narraway turned and followed him, catching up with an effort. He did not want to go to the entrenchment again. He knew what had happened there, and could imagine the terror of it all. It was a barren square of ground, a hundred yards or so in either direction, with two- or three-story buildings along most of two sides. The rest was walled by simple earthworks, dug by spade and thrown up to less than the height of a man. During the eighteen days and nights of the incessant bombardment from Nana Sahib and his men, nine hundred people had lived there. Many had died of heatstroke, of cholera, or from their wounds.

Narraway still shuddered as he pictured the people huddled together, terrified, exhausted, trying to protect one another, waiting for relief that never came. He could see the ghosts of them in his mind. He wanted to turn and walk away, but he could not ignore Busby, who was
his senior officer. And perhaps even more than that, he did not want Busby to know how deeply affected he was.

He stood silently. If Busby had anything to say, he would have to initiate the conversation himself.

In the distance a dog barked, a woman called out a child’s name. There was an echo of laughter, exactly as if everything were perfectly normal—sounds of life, like new green shoots of trees coming up after a forest fire.