Barbara Cleverly - The Last Kashmiri Rose

‘Oh, Midge,’ said Nancy, tightening her arm about her, ‘it sounds like the voice of sense to me. I’ve not had the chance to say it yet so I’ll say it now – I think you’ve got a good chap there.’

‘And I’ll add – don’t ruin everything by going off at half cock,’ said Andrew. ‘Diplomacy. That’s the only way. You’ll only alienate Giles if he thinks you’ve come telling tales to us. What’s he doing at the moment?’

‘He was showing me how to do silk painting. I was enjoying it. We were having a good time until he spoiled it.’

‘Well, I suggest you go straight back as though nothing’s happened, pick up your brush and start painting again. We, meanwhile,’ he indicated everyone present with a wide gesture, ‘will put our considerable skills to discussing your problem and finding a way to its solution.’

‘That’s an outstandingly good offer, Midge, when you look at the talent on show,’ said Dickie. ‘Go back, love, and reassure him. Listen to what he has to say. And, above all, don’t go throwing down any gauntlets that someone else will have to pick up. After all, he’s been waiting for his daughter to come home and she’s hardly unpacked her bags before she announces her intention of marrying an unknown Gurkha. You must allow him time!’

‘Oh, all right. I’ll do what you say, Dickie. But I don’t think he cares a button about me,’ said Midge morosely.

They all stood and watched Midge walk slowly back through the street, dragging her heels and pausing to cast a last reproachful glance back at Dickie before she turned the corner.

‘Are you really the guardian of that bundle of trouble?’ Joe asked.

‘Not exactly,’ said Andrew. ‘Midge wouldn’t understand the distinction but I am Prentice’s executor and trustee. People in India die quite often and quite suddenly, especially the military. It’s safer to name an official by his position and there’s always a Collector of Panikhat. And, for the moment, I am he.’

The calm that followed the tornado of Midge’s appearance was welcome to all. Andrew called for another pot of coffee and, as though by agreement, they settled themselves at the table on the verandah. Discreetly, Andrew took charge of the coffee and dismissed the servants.

‘Joe,’ he said, ‘if I read your expression correctly, you have something to tell us.’

Dickie Templar stirred uncomfortably and started to get to his feet. ‘Look, if you chaps are about to have a conference or something, I’ll make myself scarce for a while…’

‘No!’ said Joe abruptly. ‘It is important that you stay. What I have to say concerns you, your future and your past very closely.’

Dickie looked puzzled. Nancy and Andrew exchanged glances.

Joe produced his notebook. ‘Templar, I have a list here of names which I copied from the mess records last night before the Manoli binge. They refer to the night of the 17th of March twelve years ago. It was a Saturday and it was the night the Prentice bungalow burned down. There were five officers of Bateman’s Horse dining that night. Their names are: Carmichael, Forbes, Simms-Warburton, Somersham and Templar.’

Nancy sat up with a jerk and Andrew put down his coffee cup very carefully. Neither spoke.

‘Take your time to remember and tell us exactly what happened that night. As I say, it is vitally important.’

Dickie was silent, his expression grave. Finally he said, ‘Important for whom? For you?’

‘For me, yes, certainly, but mostly for you yourself.’

‘Well, this is all very mysterious. And, quite honestly, it’s not something I have any pleasure in thinking back on. But if you have to know I’d better tell you, I suppose… It’s Prentice, isn’t it? Has he been talking? Has he asked you to rake all this up again? Is he trying to use this as a wedge between me and Midge?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Prentice has said nothing to me. As far as I am aware he has never spoken of it to anyone. Just try and recall the events of that evening if you can.’

Dickie paused for a moment, focusing on the past.

‘There were five of us dining in the mess that night. Most of us had cried off going to some awful Panikhat Week event – a midnight picnic, I think.’ He shuddered. ‘Being eaten alive by mosquitoes while you ate cucumber sandwiches and drank tepid champagne wasn’t my idea of fun. All the same, I wish now I’d gone… There we all were in the mess, some of us pretty drunk – no, I have to say, somewhat paralytic. I was not. In fact I was fed up with the rest of them. I didn’t like the Greys officers and they didn’t like me. They’d adopted the terrible practice of not speaking to junior officers and not expecting junior officers to speak unless spoken to. A lot of regiments used to be like that and cavalry regiments especially. I got fed up with them. “Snobbish, conceited, ill-mannered louts,” I said to myself at the advanced age of eighteen! I went off to have a pee to get away from them and looking out of the window I saw, for God’s sake, that the bloody place was on fire. Was anyone taking any notice? Not as far as I could see. Drawing a deep breath, I went back and told them. While they were drinking themselves senseless, the cantonment had caught fire. What were they going to do about it?

‘Well, you can believe it or not but what they were intending to do about it was absolutely bugger all! Oh, sorry, Nancy! Ticked me off for mentioning it! Junior officers were not expected to rush in announcing a fire apparently. They were interested enough to walk on to the verandah and ascertain that the rumpus – by that time there were shots to be heard too – was coming from Prentice’s bungalow. That made them laugh. They all hated him, I think, for one reason or another, and they just stood there and watched the spectacle. One of them actually called for a brandy and stood sipping it while the bungalow went up. That was Simms-Warburton. He was really blotto… “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,” I remember he said. “Your house is on fire, your children are gone. Except that they aren’t – took his wife and daughter with him, I suppose. He usually does.”

‘ Carmichael was the senior officer present. And he’d drunk more than any of us. Could hardly move.’

‘Five glasses of port,’ said Joe.

‘Was it? Hmm… And you can add the claret he’d drunk earlier. He loathed Prentice and couldn’t see any reason for rushing to save his bungalow. “Stay where you are,” he said. “It’s not our job to go running around after a fire. Leave it to the Queen’s – they’re on duty. This is the army, you know. And to be more precise, the Indian army. Not the bloody Boy Scouts! So, stay where you are! I’ll make that an order if you like.”

‘And so we stayed where we were, for precious minutes – perhaps for as long as a quarter of an hour – and finally I could bear it no longer and Philip Forbes, the regimental doctor, backed me up and we went down there. The rest trailed down after us. I wouldn’t be surprised if, over all, we had wasted half an hour.’

Suddenly his tone changed and, haunted afresh by the memory, his face stiffened as he resumed, ‘You asked if I remembered. Of course. I shall never forget. And when we got there, the dacoits had got away and Dolly Prentice was dead. And Prentice’s bearer was dead, apparently going to the rescue, brave chap that he was. And it was only by the mercy of Providence and the brilliant improvisation of Midge’s ayah that she wasn’t killed too! Those buggers were high on hash. They’d have put anything white – man, woman or child – on the bonfire if they could. And…’

He stared vacantly around the company for a moment. ‘… it might so easily have been Midge. She was on the menu all right!’