The Strangler Vine (31 page)

By now our horses were dancing with fear, but their excitement prevented our enemies from throwing themselves upon us. Two more came upon me, shifting and ducking so I had no clear shot. One came close enough to land me a blow with his stave that almost knocked me senseless. I learnt then that men fighting for their lives have an advantage over men who fight for any other motive. I staggered and the other tried to skewer me with his knife, but I pulled away and the blade merely cut my upper arm. I shot him, and then the other. Neither was a clean kill, but both went down in a pool of their own blood, gasping and struggling as the life leaked out of them.

Behind me, Blake was surrounded. He cut about him, but one dacoit grabbed him from behind and as he struggled another prepared to run him through. The Collier felt hot, and its aim was imperfect even for a pistol, but I got a bullet into Blake’s attacker and another into the man on his back. Those were my last bullets. I saw Blake stab his blade twice into each of the wounded men. That left one dacoit, Mir Aziz and Hogwood. More than enough. The dacoit came after Blake, who was panting and gasping and covered in blood, much of it his own.

Hogwood wheeled about on his horse, still unwilling to involve himself in the skirmish. I picked up a sword. Mir Aziz walked towards me. His sword was out of its fine black scabbard, his pistol was in his other hand, and he smiled. He was clean and unbloodied; he too had planned to keep himself unsullied. As he approached, Hogwood lifted his reloaded rifle, uncertain whether to shoot Blake or me. He decided upon me. We were not far and it was an easy shot, but before he could pull the trigger Blake lifted his short dagger – the one with which he had killed Rada Kishin – and threw it fast and hard into Hogwood’s eye. Hogwood screamed and fell
heavily from his horse on to the ground. But the dacoit with whom Blake had been struggling lunged forward and made a deep thrust. Blake deflected it with his left hand. He toppled with a gasp and, as he fell, he jammed his sword upward into the dacoit’s thigh. The noise was like a pig being stuck.

Now it was Mir Aziz and me.

I raised my sword and stepped towards the right, away from his sword hand. He stuffed his pistol loosely into his belt. I knew how good he was, far better than I, and stronger too. He came closer and we exchanged parries. I struggled even to match those first two blows. I realized I was at the end of my strength.

He took a step back and said, ‘You cannot win, Avery Sahib. But I will make it quick and clean.’

I shook my head and stumbled back. Mir Aziz came on, and I kept backing as he slashed down. I half stumbled on a stone, and then he was above me, at first striking down with the sword, and then, when I blocked him, pressing down with his weight so that I slipped on to my back. I tried to scrabble backward, but he kept advancing, breathing hard but calm, determined to finish me. My retreat was halted by a tree root. I could not withdraw any further, and I was at his mercy. He stood over me and prepared his downward thrust. I did not try to parry, but in my desperation there came a last burst of strength born of the pure desire to survive, and I threw myself forward like a pocketknife, grabbed the pistol in his belt, twisted it round and discharged it straight into his stomach. He gave a grunt and sat down.

I stood up and tottered away. ‘No,’ he gasped. I turned. He was leaning on his elbow, and beckoned me with some difficulty. The blood was already blooming all across his stomach. He looked up at me steadily, his breathing ragged. We both knew it would be a slow death. I picked up his sword. He nodded and shut his eyes. Mine, I found, were wet, but I pushed the blade between his ribs and into his heart.

Blake was a mass of wounds: a cut in his thigh, another in his side, and blood was pouring from his hand, but he was alive. Mountstuart lay crumpled in the dust where Mir Aziz had thrown him
aside. The red stains on his side reminded me of the tiger’s hide – a memory that seemed joined to some other man’s life. I was glad his face was not marred. I managed to retrieve three horses. When I returned, Blake had crawled over to Mountstuart’s body. He began to mutter.

‘I was wrong. I was so wrong. I was so wrong. It wasn’t Sleeman. It was never Sleeman. You were right, Avery. You said he was misguided. He believes all of it. It is Buchanan who knows what Thuggee is, and will not have it exposed. It was Buchanan all the time. He had me find Xavier so Mir Aziz could kill him.’

‘But Colonel Buchanan is the Chief Military Secretary,’ I said. I was becoming alarmed, I had never seen Blake in such a state, and I was most concerned about the blood.

‘He also works,’ said Blake, ‘as Xavier and I did, for the Secret and Political Department. Always had his own stratagems. A bastard always.’

He was very pale. Very gently I took his arm. One of his fingers was dangling from his hand.

‘Do you have any more opium, Jeremiah?’

It was an effort for him to look at me, and then his gaze was dull. ‘I never had any. There was none to be found. I gave Xavier some beeswax. He knew what it was, but he gathered himself anyway.’

Then he set his jaw. ‘Buchanan played me so well. He knew that I could find Xavier, and that if I disappeared no one would be much surprised or alarmed. He gave me a clever native, knowing that I of all people would be more than likely to take him into my confidence, and an innocent, knowing I’d weaken and take him under my wing. And I did both.’

After that, he barely spoke. I cut strips from Mountstuart’s blanket and bound all his wounds, especially his hand, as tight as I could. I managed to drag Mountstuart on to a horse though it cost me more than I admitted. I had a melancholy recollection of Nungee in his shroud, balanced across a saddle, just as Mountstuart now was. I had to tie him on. Blake was hardly able to stand, but he made me retrieve Mountstuart’s report from the slim wallet he had carried around his neck. I did not think that he would be able to ride on his
own. I almost had to lift him into the saddle. He sagged terribly, but he would not let me ride behind him.

Thus we came to the barracks at Mirzapore: two riders, one near unconscious, and the body of the most famous man in India. Blake could not, by then, walk. I carried him in.

It seems to me that the stories – the myths – began the very moment that we arrived at Mirzapore. By that time, Blake was not conscious and I was covered in blood and filth, and very weak. There was a sepoy waiting for us on the edge of Mirzapore near the barracks – I learnt later that Hogwood’s sepoys had already delivered the news of Mountstuart’s discovery, rescue and imminent arrival. I suppose Hogwood and Mir Aziz had planned to present themselves as the sole survivors of the Thug ambush that was to cost our lives.

When the sepoy saw us he turned and ran back into the barracks. I remember dismounting, stumbling over to Blake and drawing him from his saddle so I could carry him. He was a dead weight and I almost fell over. I tied the reins of Mountstuart’s horse to my arm and walked through a stone arch into a parade ground. On the other side of it a cluster of officers were walking, then running, towards me. There were many sepoys.

‘I am Lieutenant William Avery,’ I said as they reached me. I was by now breathing very rapidly and had to catch my breath. ‘I have the body of Xavier Mountstuart. We were attacked some twenty miles outside Mirzapore. My colleague Jeremiah Blake is sorely wounded and requires medical assistance.’

There was uproar. People kept arriving and everyone seemed to be talking at once. Again I tried to explain. Mountstuart had been murdered, we had fought for our lives, that much was understood. As for the rest – Hogwood, Thugs, dacoits – no one quite seemed to listen, or perhaps I did not describe it correctly. I could hear the different versions taking wing about me, though I endeavoured to correct them, but I was having some difficulty in breathing. I remember thinking the snatches of words were like small birds hopping further and further beyond my grasp as I tried to round
them back up. But by then, I was more concerned about Blake than the babble about us.

‘I must have a doctor!’ I cried. Someone tried to take Blake from me but I shook him off.

‘Confound it, man, can’t you see you are badly cut?’ someone said. And I saw it was true: there was a deep slash in my upper arm that was bleeding. I remembered the time before, on the road near Jubbulpore, when I had not noticed, and it all seemed very puzzling, and then it began to hurt.

‘Lieutenant!’ someone said to me sharply, and I came to myself. Two native orderlies had arrived with a stretcher, and I was persuaded to lay Blake upon it. I followed them into a quiet room off the parade ground where there were two clean white beds. I longed to lie down on one. I later learnt the regimental hospital was being rebuilt and so we were saved the depredations of a crowded flyblown dormitory. A gruff medical man and a number of native orderlies set about cleaning me up and attending to Blake. I remember asking the medic if he would clean our wounds as Blake had mine, with ghee and herbs. He looked at me as if I were mad and said Blake was so far gone that like as not he’d die and the hand would certainly have to come off. At that I stood up and shouted that I’d die first. The orderlies crowded round and with gentle hands forced me to sit again, and the medic, seeing my agitation, reluctantly allowed that he would do his best and that he had seen the ghee cure. A major came. It transpired they had been expecting us – without any great optimism – for some time, for Sameer had presented himself a week before at the barracks with Blake’s despatches and a tale that we had gone to rescue Mountstuart from the Thugs. The Major said he must hear what had taken place. The medic said my wound must be attended to, but the Major was insistent. The medic raised his voice, and the Major reluctantly withdrew with promises that he would return.

All in all, they said, I was lucky, the muscle was torn but the bone was not splintered. They wanted to remove my clothing, but I would not take it off as Mountstuart’s report was tucked inside my
shirt and so they had to cut my sleeve off. They bandaged me and put me to bed. I endeavoured to stay awake to watch Blake – who lay quite motionless – but I succumbed to sleep in the end.

When I woke, Sameer was seated cross-legged on the floor by Blake’s bed. He stood up and took my hand and began to utter a stream of his usual nonsense. I realized he was saying, ‘I sent your books.’ After that, he went back to his post by Blake’s bed, whence he would not be dislodged. Blake had not woken. The Major returned with a younger officer who took notes. He said that I must have a talent for getting into dramatic scrapes, and that all Mirzapore had heard about the Rao’s tiger hunt. He said Mountstuart’s body was to be buried with all due honours, and he asked me to tell him how Mountstuart had met his end. It was hard to be clear, to put everything in the right order. I began with our capture by Rada Kishin and how Blake had saved us, confining myself to a sketchy description of Mountstuart’s fragile state. On the subject of their conclusions about Thuggee and Jubbulpore, I could not even begin. When I came to the point when Hogwood found us, I began to sweat.

‘Mr Hogwood was a fine Company man,’ said the Major. ‘He was due for promotion. His is a sad loss. Major Sleeman will be most upset.’

I steeled myself. ‘It was Hogwood that shot Mountstuart,’ I said.

The Major and his secretary looked at me as if I had gone mad. ‘You are not yourself, Lieutenant Avery,’ said the Major.

I looked him in the eye.

‘I swear on my life, sir. I saw Hogwood shoot Mountstuart in cold blood, deliberately.’ I went on to describe the ambush, Mir Aziz’s arrival and the subsequent fight. I ignored the amazement, nay disbelief, on the faces of my listeners. When I concluded my account, the Major seemed aghast.

‘Furthermore, I have in my possession a document written in Mountstuart’s own hand concerning the work he was doing before he died. Most important work commissioned by the Board of Control in London. He entrusted it to Mr Blake, who in turn has entrusted it to me.’

We both looked at Blake’s prone form.
The Major does not expect him to survive
, I thought. I hurried on.

‘Mr Mountstuart intended to deliver it directly to the Governor General. I suppose that task now falls to me. Oh God, is he still here?’ I started up and immediately felt exceedingly dizzy.

I reached into my shirt with my good arm and drew out Mountstuart’s envelope. The Major stared at it – as well he might, the dark blots across its surface could not have been anything but blood – and his eyes grew almost round with astonishment. He put his hand out for it, but I drew back and thrust it again into my shirt.

‘I am sorry, sir, but I can surrender it to no one but the Governor General himself,’ I said.

‘I do not think that the Governor General is in the habit of granting audiences to lieutenants,’ he said, a little stung. ‘I must say, moreover, that I do not understand how it was that you and your companion came to be tramping the jangals of Doora in search of Mountstuart in the first place.’

‘Mr Blake and I were charged with finding Mountstuart by Colonel Patrick Buchanan, at Government House in Calcutta in late September.’ Buchanan’s name stirred some response in the Major; I did not dare begin on the subject of him. ‘Mountstuart paid with his own blood to get this to Mirzapore,’ I said. ‘I do not mean any disrespect at all, but I cannot give it up to you.’

The Major considered for a moment. ‘The Governor General has decided to remain in Mirzapore for Mountstuart’s interment,’ he said. ‘You were with him when he died, and of course there is the whole Doora issue. I suppose something may be done.’

I felt very tired after the interview and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke there were four men about my bed, peering at me: two civilians and two senior officers. I was too bleary to make out their faces, save for one short, plump, bespectacled man with small black eyes, who stood closest to the bed.

‘Ah, Lieutenant Avery,’ he said, ‘you are awake. I am the Governor General’s Political Secretary, Sir William Macnaghten. I believe you have something for him. If you will give it to me, I will ensure
he receives it.’ He had an odd little black brush of a moustache that inched its way across his upper lip.

‘But it needs Mr Blake, sir,’ I said. ‘The Governor General must see him. He knows it all, sir, and more. You must have the complete picture.’

Sir William Macnaghten pulled his brows together and contemplated the recumbent Blake.

‘The Governor General gives the oration at Mountstuart’s funeral in a few days and then afterwards goes on to Allahabad. I am sure he will wish to meet the men who were with Mountstuart when he died. We will do our best to arrange an audience. In the meantime, I am the Governor General’s closest aide, Mr Avery. I must be firm. The document, please.’

I was relieved to be shot of it.

I woke the next morning feeling considerably better. Blake was still in a bad way, very weak. We had by then been moved to separate rooms and Sameer firmly ejected. The doctor said the officers were deciding what to do with him, as he belonged to no regiment, though he claimed to have worked for the Company for some several years. I said that I would vouch for him, and that he deserved only praise and reward for his conduct. But he was not allowed back, and when I proposed to get up and take a turn outside, an officer came and said that I must keep to my room and rest until we saw the Governor General.

‘And may I be the first,’ he said, suddenly very warm and taking my hand – then releasing it for fear that his impulsive gesture might cause me pain, as I was much bruised and bandaged – ‘to shake your hand, Lieutenant Avery! Everyone talks of you. The tiger hunt in Doora. And now Mountstuart’s last stand! Well, it is quite something. I should say no more, but the camp is abuzz. We all hope to drink your good health – both your healths – in due course!’

For several hours I lay in my bed feeling strangely unsettled. Then I went to sit with Blake, though the orderlies were reluctant. He had woken but barely spoke. His arm and hand were bandaged. I knew they had taken off two of his fingers, and there was
considerable doubt as to whether he would win through at all. For many hours he had lain in a stupor, but by early evening he had recovered enough to take some water and a little nourishment. As he ate, I told him about my interview with the Major and the Governor General. He sat for a while then called for paper and pen and lay back, cradling his arm in his lap.

‘I need to explain it to you,’ he said, and his voice was not much above a hoarse whisper. ‘In case I am not well enough to see the Governor General. You must listen to me and you must take notes.’

‘I am sure you will be well enough,’ I said.

‘Nevertheless,’ he said. He took another breath, swallowed, and drew himself up again and winced. ‘I was wrong about Sleeman,’ he went on. ‘He may hate all contradiction, but he is not knowingly corrupted. He wants too much to be seen as a good man. He longed for a dark secret foe to fight for the soul of Hind, and he convinced himself he found one. It’s there in his book. His endless questions about Kali, alongside the Thugs’ answers, all different, all contradictory.’

‘What about your innocent victims? The hanged tribesmen.’

‘Oh, that is true enough. At Jubbulpore, they long since ceased to listen to what their captives say. Thuggee and banditry is the story and everything is made to fit within it. It is a crime, but a different kind of crime.’

‘Hogwood then.’

‘You know most of it already. He was Buchanan’s creature, the Political Department’s man in Jubbulpore. He had two private dak runners to send correspondence. That’s how I used to work. One for the normal channels, one for secrets. In my certainty about Sleeman I forgot that. It was he who wrote to Buchanan about the true reason for Xavier’s visit and then that he’d disappeared. In the bazaar there was a rumour that the ‘small magistrate’ had sent men to kill Mountstuart. I thought they meant Sleeman, because of his short stature, but since I was sure that Xavier had left Jubbulpore, I dismissed it. What they meant was the lower, junior magistrate: Hogwood. And at the exhumation, remember, he was over by the tree when they found the grave; he saw the marker and pushed
Mauwle to the right place. I’m sure Mauwle was quite suggestible: he loves to be right.’

I could see it, the two of them by a tree, Hogwood tracing his fingers across the bark, and then Mauwle starting to pace the ground beneath it; I remembered him handing over his letters to the two dak runners the day I came to see him.

‘Hogwood knew about Rada Kishin’s band and how they were allowed to continue their business to keep alive the fear of Thuggee, and the accusations that Vishwanath Singh was protecting Thugs. But he never had any direct contact with them. It would have been too dangerous. So Buchanan did not know where Mountstuart was, but he probably had an inkling that he had been taken. Perhaps Hogwood had heard something from Doora.’

‘From Doora?’

‘He admitted he had been sending money to the Rao’s enemies. In his bungalow, I found a ledger I didn’t understand. I could not see what it was for. I think it was a record of money and correspondence sent to Doora to the Rao’s rivals. It is just the kind of ploy Buchanan likes. Weaken a state through bribery and promises to one faction you’ll never keep.’

‘So he and Buchanan encouraged the attempts on the Rao’s life?’

‘At second hand. It is not surprising. It is the kind of thing Mountstuart and I did, though not so overtly. And I would never have put the records on paper.’

He was finding it hard to keep his eyes open.

‘One more thing. Your friend Macpherson. I don’t believe his death was an accident. Then his reputation ruined.’

‘Macpherson never gambled and barely drank. I do not believe he would have stolen papers,’ I said. ‘And the last thing he said to me was that he had forced me into something I’d never asked for. I have thought a deal about that in the last two days.’

‘Killed and discredited. Similar things were done in my time, but to influential natives in the independent states. Early on, I was convinced they deserved it. Then I came to believe that things were more complicared.’ He yawned and winced again.

‘I think Macpherson became concerned about the oddness and
secrecy around our party. I bet he found something – most likely about Mir Aziz. Buchanan wanted it kept quiet. If I live I’ll find your moneylender and we’ll get the truth of it.’