The Ravi Lancers (50 page)

‘Sahib ... sahib ... here I am.’

He realized he was looking straight through Narayan Singh, standing at attention beside the valise and the suitcase in the Paddington booking office. His head ached more violently, but with the pain came a steadying. He had only to buy two tickets to Woodborough, sit in the train for a couple of hours, and then he’d be home.

He leaned out of the window of the room, his elbows rested on the sill. It was Diana’s room, and he was sleeping in it because Joan said he must not be disturbed at night by her insomnia. This morning, as on each of the five days he had been here so far, his mother had brought him breakfast in bed. After eating he had dozed some more, read
The Times
, and dozed again, until he began to feel restless. Then he got up, washed, shaved, and dressed. The day was bright, white clouds like flocks of heavy-fleeced sheep grazing the sky above Salisbury Plain. Narayan Singh and the slacker, Young Marsh, were weeding the tomato patch. His mother was talking to the rissaldar-major, who was standing between rows of cauliflowers, a trowel in his hand. Ralph Harris was sitting on a bench, sunning himself; there was a worse slacker than Young Marsh, really, for he had been given a decent education, and knew what he owed his country. From an open window downstairs there escaped the wail of a suffering violin, where that sodomite Fuller, or whatever his name was, was teaching Louise. Joan had arranged that. He wouldn’t have allowed it himself, if he’d been asked. And if it had been Rodney instead of Louise, he’d have thrown the fellow out on the spot. But those swine were supposed to be afraid of women, even little girls.

He found himself frowning fiercely, and looked back to his mother and the RM. That made him feel better. They were so much of a kind, those two. His mother was twenty-five years older, and that was the reason the RM showed her a deference which would otherwise have been inappropriate. His mother remembered a few words of Hindustani from a time she had spent in India with her brother, old General Savage, donkey’s years ago; and the RM had picked up a few words of English in his years with the Guides, and now, of French; but, as Warren knew, they mostly spoke each in his own tongue, and communicated by means other than words. His mother was probably telling the RM how she wanted the cauliflower seedlings set up, and he was understanding, although the words made no sense to him. Another time she had shown him the old church, and talked about its history and meaning, and he had nodded and understood.

His mother went on up the garden, her basket over her arm. The RM knelt to continue his weeding. He was wearing khaki slacks, ammunition boots, a khaki shirt and turban, and, though still a little drawn from his bout with pneumonia, had begun to insist that he was fit to return to the regiment in France. Farther along, Young Marsh picked up the corduroy coat he had hung on a pear tree at the edge of the vegetable garden, went to Warren’s mother, said something, and left. Warren turned away and finished his toilet. Ten minutes later he went down and joined the workers. The RM and Narayan Singh stiffened to attention. His mother held up her cheek to be kissed. Warren stretched luxuriously and said, ‘Eleven thirty! I ought to be ashamed of myself.’

‘No, Warrie, that’s what you were sent here for.’

They strolled together up and down the gravel walk, while the two Indians returned to their digging. ‘They are so good,’ his mother said.

‘They’re farmers,’ he said. ‘They miss the soil ... Mother, I wish you wouldn’t employ Young Marsh--a convicted criminal.’

‘Now, Warrie,’ his mother said gently, ‘the sentence was reduced on appeal, and then suspended. He only had to pay a five pound fine.’

‘Which you or Joan paid,’ he said, his voice hardening. ‘When I think of the men fighting in France, and this big fit young brute here, slacking ... I don’t know how you can do it. If you sacked him no one else would employ him. He’d have to volunteer.’

His mother laid a thin hand on his arm. ‘I do know how you feel, but I can’t dismiss him for something that’s his business, not mine.’

‘It’s every woman’s business, mother,’ Warren said. ‘If the women of England encourage slackers, what hope is there?’

‘It’s for him to decide. If they pass a law saying that everyone has to serve that would be a different matter, but now it’s for each of us to make up our own mind.’

‘And I’d like to know why Ralph hasn’t decided to do his bit,’ Warren snapped. ‘Look at him ... not even working to pay for his keep here.’

‘I don’t mind that,’ his mother said. ‘Though I do wish he would find some job to keep him happy.’

‘He seems happy enough here,’ Warren said, ‘as long as no one asks him to do any work.’

‘Now have a nice sit down, dear,’ his mother said, ‘and enjoy the sun while we have it. Tomorrow it might rain.’

Warren moodily watched the RM at his weeding for a time, then said abruptly, ‘Put that down, sahib. Come with me.’

The RM obediently put away the trowel, donned his tunic, straightened his turban and fell into step at Warren’s side. Five minutes later they were sitting on a bench outside the Green Man, looking across the road at the cricket field, glasses of beer before them.

‘No one to play cricket,’ Warren said, indicating the shuttered pavilion and the grazing cattle. ‘All the men have gone to fight the war ... except Harris-sahib, who prefers to read books, and that other one who works for my mother. A worthless fellow,’ he ended viciously.

‘As the sahib says,’ the RM said.

‘Be healthy,’ Warren said, raising his tankard.

‘Be healthy, presence,’ the RM said, and drank deeply. ‘This is good beer, sahib, much better than is sold in bottles from Solan and Murree for the
gora-log
.’

‘Sahib,’ Warren said abruptly, ‘we’ll be going back to France soon. There’ll be a big offensive in the autumn. I heard talk about it at Abbeville and on the ship. The regiment will take part.’

‘We will not fail to do all that man can do,’ the RM said.

‘The Germans are strong, hard, well trained. We have to be stronger, harder, better trained.’

‘Huzoor-sahib!’

‘When we get back we must work at the regiment as you have been working in my mother’s garden ... finding the weeds, rooting them out mercilessly. You understand what I mean?’

‘Yes, presence.’

‘Of any rank, any station! The weak. The cowardly. The careless. The disloyal.’

‘Yes, presence.’

Warren drank again, staring across the field at the wooded slope of the land, the Elizabethan chimneys of Pennel House just showing above the trees, the bare breasts of the Plain high and stark beyond.

‘England!’ he said softly. ‘We shall win! At any cost, we shall win!’

The hobbled pony grazed along the grassy bank under the trees. The trap stood, shafts in the air, where the lane crossed the stream at an Irish bridge. The picnic hamper lay open on the grass and Joan was getting out glasses and a bottle of wine. Louise and Rodney splashed about in the shallows of the river, Louise wearing a bathing dress with flounced skirts to below her knees, Rodney a triangle of blue and white striped cotton. Warren was wearing a bathing suit which was still damp to the touch, for as soon as they had arrived at the picnic spot he had gone into the deep pool for a swim. Ralph Harris sprawled back against a tree trunk, his hands clasped behind his head.

‘There,’ Joan said. ‘It’s still cold.’

Warren drank some of the chilled white wine. He, too, rested against a tree. He wished Joan hadn’t insisted on inviting Ralph to the picnic. Bees droned heavily among the flowers, swallows swooped low over the water, the river tinkled, and there was the distant hum of an aeroplane from the Royal Flying Corps airfield at Upavon on the Plain.

‘Be careful, don’t go near the deep pool there,’ Joan called to the children.

Warren drank again. Joan was looking less peculiar than usual, though her hair still hung down like a gypsy’s. Yesterday, for an afternoon visit to Pewsey, she’d worn trousers. Now she was feminine again, frowning in concentration as she began to cut the bread and spread the butter for the sandwiches.

‘Here,’ Warren called to his daughter. ‘I’ll teach you to swim.’ He stepped gingerly into the stream. Louise was splashing about in water to her knees. Warren lifted her under one arm and walked out towards the deep water of the pool at the far side. ‘No, daddy! ‘ the girl suddenly screamed. ‘I don’t want to! ‘

‘Oh, let her go,’ Joan called. ‘She’ll learn in time.’

‘She’ll learn now!’ Warren snapped. He held tight hold of the struggling girl as he transferred one hand to her stomach. ‘Now, stop it, at once, Louise! ... I’ve got you. You can’t sink. Just pretend you’re a...’ but the child screamed and struggled and sobbed and would not rest supported on his hand. He shouted at her, ‘Then swim on your own, damn you! ‘

He took his hand away and stepped back. The girl’s frantic face disappeared under water, came up again with a terrified shriek, and disappeared again.

‘Go like this,’ Warren shouted, imitating the breast stroke. ‘You won’t sink. Come on!’

Joan splashed violently past him, seized her daughter by the hair, dragged her out and up, and floundered back towards the bank, crying, ‘There, there, it’s all right, darling. You’re out now.’

Warren came slowly up out of the water. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he snarled. ‘She was just beginning to swim.’ Ralph Harris sighed and lit a cigarette.

‘She was drowning,’ Joan snapped. ‘She was in a panic. You...’ The girl stopped her sniffles and ran back to the water. ‘See!’ Warren shouted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s got to learn to swim sooner or later. She’s just taking the easy way out. Like some other people here.’

‘Do you mean Sam? Or Ralph?’ she flared. ‘Why should they go and fight in a war that’s destroying everything it’s supposed to be saving? Cities, farms, cathedrals, churches, libraries ... manners, kindness, charity, love ... all gone. Look at yourself, Warren, inside yourself, instead of just the face in the mirror. Don’t you realize what sort of person you have become?’

He shouted, ‘I won’t have any more of this! Louise
will
learn to swim. And they will
not
wear those ridiculous clothes you put them in. Or lack of clothes. They’re the laughing stock of the village. And they will be told what to do, and whipped if they don’t do it. You’re bringing them up like ... gipsies, no better disciplined than puppies.’

‘I’m bringing them up according to the Harz-Goldwasser method,’ she said angrily, ‘which is designed not to stunt but develop the child’s creative impulses. You used to think it was good, once.’

‘To hell with Harz and Goldwasser. Why should my children be filled with bloody Hun notions? And Louise is not to have any more lessons from Fuller.’

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she said.

‘That’s what you think,’ he snarled. ‘But if you won’t enforce the proper standards, I will. I’m not going to have my children associate with a sodomite hiding under an alias.’

‘He’s a gentleman and a scholar,’ she stormed. ‘How can you be so vindictive? Nothing’s ever been proved against him, only gossip by nasty-minded people.’

‘People who don’t want any of his filthy perversion,’ Warren said.

‘Your second-in-command doesn’t seem to mind,’ Ralph cut in. ‘Krishna offered him a job in his state any time he wanted to accept.’

‘What Krishna Ram does or says is his business,’ Warren said. ‘He’s an Indian. We’re English. Fuller will not enter my house again.’

‘It’s not yours. It’s your mother’s,’ Joan snapped.

The aeroplane buzzed like a giant bee in the clouds. That was the sound of the war, God damn it, aeroplanes humming and buzzing all day up and down, up and down over the trenches in the blue sky.

‘Oh stop it, for Christ Almighty’s sake!‘ he yelled.

The children playing under his window awakened him before he had slept an hour. He frowned in annoyance, and thought of shouting to them to be quiet; but he heard the rissaldar-major’s voice, and, glancing out, saw that the RM was giving them piggyback rides. He didn’t have the heart to disturb the game, but he couldn’t sleep through the noise, so crossed the hall in his pyjamas to the big bedroom at the back, where Joan slept. It was the day after the scene at the river picnic, another afternoon of heavy air, slow drifting clouds and the sounds of late summer. The curtains were open and he went to close them to shut out the strong light. As he neared them, his hands out, he saw his wife slip into the little room at the end of the stables where the groom used to sit and polish the saddlery in the days when they had a groom. The door closed. Warren stepped back instinctively. What was Joan doing there? She had moved quickly, with a glance to right and left as she entered the room. There was nothing in there, as far as Warren remembered, but a table and chair and an old camp bed. There was a little window facing the side. He edged back, looked, and saw that the faded curtains on the little window were drawn. His heart began to pound. He slipped back across the landing and dressed quickly. The children were still playing with the RM. His mother would be resting in her room. Narayan Singh was digging in the tomato bed. Warren went quickly down the stairs and out of the back door. He crossed the brick-paved stable yard on stockinged feet and paused at the door of the little room at the end of the stables. Did he hear sounds, a rhythmic panting, the moans of a woman in passion? Sounds he had not heard from Joan for a long time.

The door would be bolted; but he remembered the bolt--a flimsy affair, the metal rusted from years of disuse, the screws set in rotting wood. He stepped back, then rammed his shoulder into the door with all his weight and strength. The bolt gave way with a rending of wood and he half fell, half ran into the room. A flood of heat, as sensual and achingly bitter-sweet as a massage of the prostate, overcame him.

The man’s trousers hung round his ankles, the great gluteal muscles of his bare buttocks rhythmically contracting in the final throes of orgasm. His body, wearing a white shirt, covered the body of the woman under him. Her legs were well clasped round his back, her arms round his neck, her pelvis heaving against his thrusts.