Читать книгу The Remnants - W. P. Osborn - Страница 20

High in the Himalayan Mountains in the Kashmir, the Khyber Pass stretched across India’s long border with Afghanistan. No place for shirkers or cowards, Sergeant Crom had insisted that only “true soldiers” were the order of the day. Ten days of rough winter sailing, a brief stopover in Cairo and two more weeks at sea followed by another two of steady marching had brought the Third Regiment of Her Majesty’s Royal West Kent Rifles here, to the “Edge of the World”. They were stationed on the frontier to guard India, “the great bastion of the Empire,” against an invasion of maniacal warlords and bands of enraged jihadist clerics and their defiant Muslim warriors.

In late November, the weather began to dictate its own scope of fear and misery and the wind had made a mockery of their thin cotton shirts and light woolen uniforms. Every man in the regiment knew that to survive this command would require a good deal more than courage and marksmanship. A steady run of letters from Rose had quietly kept Danny focused on their future together, rejuvenating his hope and refueling his passion to return home on time. But by early spring the Royal Kents were failing badly. Their losses were horrific. Thirty-six dead and forty-seven wounded from enemy fire and nearly twice that lost to pneumonia and dysentery. Worse still was the despair, every man in the regiment knew that any prayer of relief had long since past. The last orders from headquarters had been firm and unrelenting, “the regiment will hold until relieved.”

Many of the non-coms had confirmed long ago what the senior officers dreaded most to hear, it was the night attacks from ‘these mad Muslims’ that proved most devastating. The coldest nights brought the heaviest attacks and it was always in the pre-dawn when most of the sick and exhausted succumbed. After one particularly desperate engagement, Danny and Jack stood with their backs together staring down at the newest layers of victims stacked like kindling at their feet.

Word had begun to spread throughout the company that Sergeant Crom was dead, killed by the first shot fired that night by a sniper’s round. The reaction amongst the troops was a slow paralysis. Men stood about in small clusters, muttering and shaking their heads. Somehow the passion for keeping things square and tight had quietly begun to evaporate. Danny was still dazed from a blow to the head from an enemy war club and Jack’s face bled from a small knife wound to his left cheek. Both were ragged and torn. They stood silent together for a long while barely able to hold on to their rifles.

“Lucky he got you on the head,” Jack muttered, “otherwise you might’a got hurt.”

Danny smiled and snickered softly, “Guess you’re gonna tell world you got that nick in a duel for some lady’s honour. Only problem is you ain’t ever met a lady.”

He waited several long deep breaths then continued. “We’re drowning here in a bucket of blood and guts Jack. Those crazy Mohamedens ain’t never gonna quit. It’ll never end. Now with Crom gone the boys will fold like a bad hand.”

“Yer damn right and them stinkin’ officers ain’t gonna save us either, Danny boy. They’re keep us right here til we’re all dead. We gotta get out here and soon,” Jack lamented, “or one of these nights it’s gonna be our blood.”

Danny stared down at his feet then muttered quietly, “Let’s go see Terry.”

Supporting each other arm in arm the boys struggled back inside the barricades to find a bandaging station run by the company medical corporal. After cursory treatment, they ambled across the camp to the hospital. They ducked around the lines of open cots plugged full with moaning men and weaved their way back to the furthest tent - the last stop for the fatally ill. Six men lay alone under canvass but all the medical attention was now with the victims of the attack. The boys could only stare down glumly as their younger pal who now appeared to be overwhelmed by dysentery, slipping closer to death.

“Poor kid,” Jack muttered barely above a whisper. “He only ever joined up to send his pay to his widowed mum.”

“We can’t just leave him here like this,” Danny added, “we gotta try to do somthin’.”

They looked up silently at each other and without a word between them recognized they had finally reached the end. The time for regimental orders, for endless combat and standing firm for the empire was over. They knew it was now time to run and that from now on they would be absolutely on their own.

So it was that in the pre-dawn haze of one fateful February morning Danny and Jack made the most fateful decision of their young lives. Exhausted by weeks of hand-to-hand fighting and overwhelmed by fear and cold they secretly forged awful disguises from rags stripped from dead Mujahedeen and wrapped poor Terry in a carpet stolen from an officer’s tent. They tied him to the back of an old mule and slipped out a back gate as darkness fell and headed for Karachi.

Deserters from the British Army brought a prized bounty in India, so for two long weeks the trio was forced to stay hidden among the shadows by day and forced to move silently by night, gradually sifting their way slowly down through the mountain passes. They had very little money and had few trinkets to trade so they were soon forced to beg for occasional handfuls of food and they rationed the tiny supply of quinine that they had stolen for Terry.

Finally one evening, as Jack tried to keep Terry hushed in his delirium, Danny crept through a window of a small Hindu temple hoping to steal enough food to keep them going. Finding none, he crept silently toward a back door and collided in the dark with an old man lost in the silent mantra of his evening prayers. Recovering quickly, the old one took control and thrust the point a long blade under Danny’s nose. Danny was certain he would be arrested when the priest began to shout and raise a great deal of commotion. His threats ceased immediately when Jack suddenly stepped out of the shadows and pointed a pistol at the old one’s face. As the boys began to back away toward the door, cries from outside as two others from the temple had discovered Terry and had taken him hostage. Mercifully the situation was finally defused when the old priest recognized Terry’s plight and ordered the others to bring them food.

Two days later, the three were on the move again. This time escorted by the old man’s nephew and hidden in a small caravan headed to Karachi. Their journey was poisoned by the young man’s insistence to regale them with his plans to spend lavishly the rich bounty the British are sure to pay him for these putrid deserters. When they finally reached the outskirts of Karachi, Danny and Jack seized the nephew at gunpoint and demanded that he guide them immediately to a hospital.

Dr. Persuad had trained at the Royal St. George Hospital in Liverpool and still spat with anger whenever he recalled the abuse poured on him by the soldiers of the local garrison. At first he refused to see Terry and reluctantly agreed only after his head nurse implored him to do so. Despite their heroic attempts to save Terry, he finally succumbed on the afternoon of the second day in Dr. Persuad’s surgery.

“Well, that’ll end the pay home to mum,” Jack lamented.

“Do recall his mother’s name?”

“No, he was always very secretive about all that.”

The next morning after trading the pistol for money and food, Jack arranged for a traditional Hindu cremation ceremony for Terry, convinced it would be their best cover. Danny then slipped two pound notes and a written message to Doctor Persuad’s asking him to send it on to England. The doctor agreed to try and shook his hand. “I am very sorry about your friend,” he whispered, “very sorry.”

Then Danny and Jack slipped out the back door into the alleys and back streets to begin to find their way down to the harbour. They were absolutely certain now that their only hope to survive was to find a ship headed to the United States.

After quietly nosing around the docks listening for voices that spoke English, a reluctant Dutch sailor pointed Jack in the direction of a dilapidated custom’s shed. When he asked the man for a contact name, he called back over his shoulder, “Ali, you make sure it’s Ali.”

They waited until it was near dark and slipped into the shack and stepped quietly toward the counter. “We’re looking for Ali,” Jack said barely above a whisper. A well-dressed Muslim woman nodded, stood up and tapped twice at a side door. She waved the boys into the office.

Ali stood up from his desk. He was tall and thin with a narrow mustache, likely mid-forties and well turned out in a grey linen suit, maroon silk tie and matching fez. He smiled knowingly and nodded, “Welcome, welcome my British friends.” He spoke perfect English with the slightest touch of an Indian accent. “How can I be of humble service to two brave soldiers of the Empire?”

The boys glance at each other in surprise. “Oh come, come now gentlemen …” his smile expanded as he stepped around the corner of his desk, “everyone on the docks of Karachi already knows you are here and have surmised your condition. It is no secret I assure you. Please have a seat.”

They hesitated and eased themselves down into the two wooden chairs. “Shall I cut to the chase?” Ali continued to smile as he sat down on the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. “Cut to the chase, it’s one of my favourite English phrases,” he said glibly as smoke exhaled heavily from his nostrils, “it makes everything seem so … correct, doesn’t it?”

The boys had no reply although Danny did attempt to clear his throat.

“Very well, then gentlemen. You’re in need of a ship, passage to somewhere beyond the reach of the Empire. And by your unfortunate attire, you haven’t much in the way of money to pay for such a voyage. Am I correct?” Again there was no response.

“Have you any money at all to allow me to assist you?”

Danny reached into his pocket to retrieve the last few pounds from the sale of the revolver. He set the money on the desk, “That’s it,” he muttered. “That’s the last of it.”

Ali shook his head, “Oh my,” he muttered then reached down and tucked the four one pound notes into his vest pocket. “Well gentlemen, four pounds won’t buy you passage on the Empress of India, but we may be able to find you something that can answer your requirements.”

Ali paused just long enough to capture their complete attention. “I am aware there is a steamer, the ‘Esmeralda’, heading out on tonight’s tide for America.” The boys immediately turned to each other.

“Yes, to Philadelphia, I think.” Ali’s stared at them pathetically. Then his face began a long low smile, “Will that be suitable gentlemen?”

“Very,” Jack grinned across at Danny, “very suitable indeed.”

“Very well then. You head along with my man here,” he said, pointing to a face buried in the shadows of the opposite corner.

They were stunned to realize they hadn’t even noticed the man standing there all the while. He was very large, muscular and unsmiling with a great scar that travelled across the width of his face from cheek to cheek just below his nose. He stood mute, unflinching with his right hand wrapped around the handle of a large dagger tucked beneath his sash.

“Nazim does not speak. An unfortunate misunderstanding with the British army, but he will direct you safely to your point of embarkation.”

The boys did not flinch, but would not take their eyes from him. “Well then, you must hurry along to make the tide as other clients await my assistance. Good luck to you gentlemen. Enjoy your trip to America.” And with a simple wave of this hand Ali showed them the door.

As the sun begun to set Danny and Jack lay silently buried among a large load of cotton bales and spice barrels set to be slung deep into the hole of a rusted old steamer. Curled beneath a stretch of filthy canvass, the boys closed their eyes and held their breaths as they were hoisted up by the ropes of a wretched old crane and down into the dark of the guts of the ship. Later that night as the old tub finally grumbled its way out of the harbour, they celebrated in quiet relief and crept up on deck to watch the lights of Karachi disappear on the horizon. They beamed and congratulated themselves for making good their escape, from the catastrophes of the British army and all the miseries of India. They were secured onboard an American ship, headed for home and were free to make their way to a new life.

The great shock came early the next morning as Danny and Jack slept hidden under a covered lifeboat. They were captured at gun point by a small party of crewmen, led by Luis Somoza, their vicious second mate. The six crewmen wrestled them to the ground and Somoza beat them on the head with his club, cursed and spat at them screaming that they were “filthy stowaways”. He then ordered them thrown all the way back down below decks into the bowels of the coal bins in the engine room. Once below, he thrust a long blade under Jack’s throat and laughed aloud in thick Portuguese-English to assure them that Ali, the custom’s manager, was his paid agent.

“De Esmeralda ‘ees no bound for Philadelphia!” he snickered. “Ah, no senors, she goes straight for Rio de Janeiro,” he roared in delight.

He then notified them that the captain had placed them under “’his special protection.” Somoza ended by assuring them that he intended to see that they paid heavily because they were “dirty cowards and criminals who try to steal their passage.”

* * *

Back in Tunbridge Wells, Rose grew more anxious by the day. Despite his regularity of writing, Dan’s letters arrived at very irregular intervals - often in bundles of two or three at a time. Each dispatch provided more evidence of an increasingly terrifying condition and she knew from newspaper coverage that the fighting had become desperate. Tales of bloody attacks and horrific epidemics left her sleepless and distraught. “We have become as useless as gray geese at Christmas,” he wrote, “we know death is at the door and we can only dream of escape.”

The newspaper editorials were even more devastating. They made it clear that unless the regiment was reinforced, they would soon be wiped out. The latest package of letters detailed in a very ominous tone the state of Terry’s illness and of Jack’s constant demands that they make a run for America. Rose began to draw the firm conclusion that they had to escape. Danny’s final words to her were more of a prayer as he recalled their pledge and his determination to return to her no matter the risk. “I’ll be back in time for you Luv, just as I promised - eighteen months or die tryin’. Then we’ll find a new life together somewhere safe and be far away from this stinkin’ army forever.”

That morning Rose wept quietly in the tiny tack room where she and Dan had spent their last hours making love. She poured over his last letter again and knew that his situation was dire.

Later that same afternoon, her mother pulled her aside with some unexpected news of her own. Her older brother Stephen had died suddenly in Australia, leaving Lily his sole heir. A letter from his lawyers advised that unless she was prepared to embark for Sydney to claim his cattle ranch and herd, they were prepared to sell the assets and forward the net proceeds directly to her. Mother and daughter vigorously debated the idea of quitting their positions immediately but Rose’s heart was set on waiting for Dan. Lily finally capitulated - Australia would have to wait.

While shopping in town the next afternoon, at his request, Lily and Rose met privately in a small café with Harvey Rutledge. Harvey was Lily’s occasional companion from the church choir, a bright baritone on Sundays and butcher’s assistant during the week. He casually informed them that last week he had received a cryptic message intended for Rose and directed to his care at the shop. It was addressed from a Dr. Persuad in Lahore, India. He explained that although he’d never met the good doctor he certainly had captured his name and address correctly. Harvey carefully unfolded the small note and read it aloud. Clearly the message meant nothing to either Harvey or Lil but Rose was stunned to hear that “one of the gray geese had died and the other two would be shipped immediately to the USA.”

* * *