A Christmas Garland: A Novel Page 11

  “Could Tallis have been in on it?” It was a question he really did not want the answer to, but he dared not evade it. “For profit?” he added.

  “No,” the sergeant said without hesitation. “It was Tallis who reported the theft. If he’d waited, we probably wouldn’t have known who did it—or got it back, for that matter.”

  “So you caught Dhuleep Singh because of Tallis?”

  “I suppose so. But it wasn’t Tallis as got ’im, it was a couple of regulars called … Johnson was one of ’em. I think the other was Robinson, or Roberts. Something like that.”

  “What sort of a man was Dhuleep, before the theft?”

  “Dunno. Ordinary, I think. Bit of a sneaky sod, but a good enough soldier. At least he seemed that way. If ’e ever stole before, ’e got away with it.”

  “Why was there only one guard looking after Dhuleep?” Narraway asked.

  “ ’Cos ’e were just a miserable layabout, an’ ’e were locked up tight in a cell anyway. Probably wouldn’t ’ave bothered locking ’im up, if it ’adn’t been the medicines ’e took.”

  “Thank you.” Narraway stood up. “I’d better go look over all this past evidence and see if I can make anything different of it.”

  The sergeant stood as well, a big man, broad-chested, his shoulders sagging with weariness. “Ye’re a tryer, I’ll say that for yer. Don’t give up, do yer?”

  “Not till it’s over,” Narraway answered, finding the praise both bitter and welcome.

  AN HOUR LATER, NARRAWAY HAD GONE OVER ALL THE evidence yet again when he suddenly came across what looked like an inconsistency between what Corporal Reilly had said and Private Carpenter’s account. It was very tiny: just something in the order of events. He looked at his notes, reread them to make sure it was not his own hasty writing misleading him.

  Corporal Reilly had said that he had been standing at the corner, where he could see Scott on the far side of the courtyard, planing the wood for the new door, and McLeod and Avery in the corner opposite, with a clear view of the prison entrance a hundred yards away to their left.

  He also said that Carpenter had been there the entire time with him, as was borne out by all three of the others.

  But if Reilly was right, and his account matched Scott’s, then Carpenter was lying. He had backed up McLeod and Avery, when actually they must have been out of his sight, in the direction of the prison. It was a very small discrepancy, but they could not all be correct. Was it just an error by a man too tired, too shaken to remember accurately? Did it even matter now? Not if his own idea was right. But what if it wasn’t? He could not afford to rely on it. If it was wrong, he must have something to fall back on. They had all sworn that their time was accounted for and that no one else could have gone into the prison before Grant led the response to the alarm.

  He must waken Carpenter right now and get some explanation. Tallis’s life could depend on it.

  Narraway crossed the open space to the remnants of the barracks where Carpenter was billeted and found him with some difficulty. He had to explain to a guard who he was and that his errand could not wait. He expected to find Carpenter asleep. Instead, the man was lying uncomfortably on a straw mattress, tossing fitfully. He sat up as soon as he was aware of Narraway’s presence in the room.

  Narraway apologized immediately. He kept his voice as quiet as he could make it, so as not to disturb the other men who were within earshot and might also sleep lightly.

  “I need to speak to you before the trial resumes tomorrow. Privately.”

  “What?” Carpenter was dazed. “Lieutenant? You’re going to call me again?” He pushed his hand through his hair and sat up a little further. “What for?”

  “Can we go outside?” Narraway asked. He phrased it as a request, but it was in effect an order.

  In silence Carpenter stood up, pulled on his trousers and tunic, and followed Narraway outside into the night. The clear sky’s blaze of stars gave little light, and the wind was higher than before, scraping the branches and rattling the leaves on the tamarind trees twenty feet away.

  “What is it, sir?” Carpenter asked, shivering a little.

  Narraway went over Carpenter’s evidence step by step. He knew it by heart now. He repeated every moment, every word that accounted for someone else. Did it matter? He had no idea. He could not afford to let anything slip.

  “Yes,” Carpenter said wearily.

  Narraway shook his head. “No,” he denied quietly. “Not if Corporal Reilly was where he said he was, doing what he said he was doing. In that case, he would have been around the corner, out of sight of the prison. It can’t be right. One of you has it wrong. Is that a mistake, or a lie? Think carefully before you decide, Private.”

  Carpenter stood motionless. Narraway’s eyes were used to the dark, but even so he could see no expression on Carpenter’s face.

  Carpenter blinked several times, as if the dust eddies troubled him. He rubbed his arm over his face. Narraway waited. He felt guilty. There was no arrogance, no anger in the man in front of him, just an inner conflict he could not resolve.

  “If you don’t tell me the truth, Tallis may be hanged for something he didn’t do,” he said at last. “A good man, a man we need, will suffer an injustice we can’t ever put right. Was it a mistake, Private Carpenter, or a lie?”

  Carpenter chewed his lip.

  Again Narraway waited. He thought for a moment that Carpenter had fallen asleep on his feet.

  “It was a lie, sir.” Carpenter’s voice in the dark was painful, as if his mouth was too dry to form the words properly.

  “Did you leave, or did Reilly?” Narraway asked, chilled now by the fact that what had been only a possibility—a straw to grasp for—had become a reality.

  “I did, sir,” Carpenter replied. He straightened up until his body was stiff. “I didn’t see anything relevant to Dhuleep Singh’s escape, sir. Nor did I see Corporal Tallis. I can’t help with what happened, sir.”

  Narraway found that he was shivering too.

  “I still want to know where you were,” he said aloud.

  Carpenter looked resigned, beaten. “I was with Ingalls, sir. Ingalls was … ill.”

  “Then Major Rawlins would know that,” Narraway reasoned, wondering why Rawlins had said nothing earlier. Was it possible he did not know of Carpenter’s testimony? That seemed hard to believe.

  “Private Carpenter!” he said sharply.

  “Yes, sir?” Carpenter stiffened.

  “ ‘Yes, sir, Rawlins knows of this,’ or just, ‘Yes, sir, I am paying attention’?” Narraway demanded.

  “Yes, sir … I am paying attention. No, sir, Major Rawlins doesn’t know. It was … it wasn’t that kind of illness …”

  “You mean he was drunk? Why didn’t he just sleep it off, like anyone else?” Narraway was puzzled, even disturbed. “Carpenter! You’d better tell me the truth now, rather than have me drag it out of you, and this Ingalls, in court in a few hours’ time.”

  “Yes, sir.” Carpenter’s body sagged, as if he no longer had the strength or the will to stand upright.

  Narraway took him by the arm. The private’s flesh was cold even through his tunic. “Here. For God’s sake come and sit down, and tell me what was wrong with Ingalls and why you went to him rather than call a doctor.”

  Carpenter stopped resisting. Together they walked over to a heap of rubble still lying piled up from the bombardment of the siege. For a moment or two Carpenter sat bent forward, composing his thoughts, then he began to speak.

  “Ingalls drinks … badly. He was right out of it that day. Jones covered for him. We always do.” He did not look at Narraway. “But he couldn’t handle this. Ingalls was worse than usual. He was shaking like a leaf and sobbing. Jones couldn’t keep him from yelling out. In his own mind, Ingalls must’ve been miles away, in another world, back in the time when we first came in after the siege. He was one of the ones who found the bodies in the well at Bibighar. They swore an oath t
hen, and he thinks he’s betrayed it because he …” He stopped, lowering his head into his hands.

  “What?” Narraway asked, feeling brutal. He was afraid of what he was going to hear. “I have to know if I’m going to help Tallis,” he insisted.

  “He would get delirious,” Carpenter said. “See it all again, smell the blood, hear the flies. Tallis used to help him sometimes, you know. Made him laugh.” He twisted around to face Narraway for a moment. “You’ve got to help Tallis, sir. I don’t know what the hell happened, but he couldn’t have done it, unless he had a reason—I mean, one he couldn’t get out of, one that …” He turned away again and fell silent.

  “So you went to Ingalls that day? Because Jones couldn’t handle it?” Narraway prodded him.

  “Ingalls was out of it,” Carpenter said. “He was going to kill himself. Said he’d failed. General Wheeler’s daughter was haunting him. He could see her ghost everywhere.”

  “What?” Narraway gasped. “General Wheeler’s daughter? What are you talking about, man?”

  Carpenter looked at him.

  “Why were you the one to go?” Narraway demanded.

  “Because I was there too.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Bibighar. She was one of the women they killed. We found her head. Somebody—I think it was Frazer—cut off her scalp and divided it up, a piece of it to every man. He told us to count the hairs on our piece and swear an oath to kill one mutineer for every hair. Ingalls couldn’t do it. He tried …”

  Narraway sat frozen, unaware of everything around him, the night wind in the tamarind branches, the dust devils stirring across the open ground, the starlight.

  Carpenter moved a little, just shifting position. “What have we become, sir? Ingalls doesn’t understand anymore. He asks over and over again what the hell we’re doing here anyway. Never mind making the Indians into Christians, what are we making ourselves into? And you know what, sir? I can’t answer him. I don’t know what to do! Tell you the truth, that day I wished Tallis was there. He knew what to say, ’cos he’d make fun of it all and just be … gentle.”

  Narraway sat without moving or speaking. He wanted to save Tallis so badly it was like a physical pain inside him, as if something necessary for survival were missing and the emptiness was going to eat him away.

  “Tallis, he wouldn’t even say you were going to live if he knew you were going to die,” Carpenter went on, his voice seeming almost disembodied in the darkness. “But if you were scared out of your wits, or so drunk you couldn’t stand up, and seeing all kinds of things that weren’t there, if you’d run away like an idiot and sat angry in a corner, hugging your knees and crying like you couldn’t stop, he’d still talk to you like you were a man, and worth something.”

  “How long did you stay with Ingalls?” Narraway asked.

  “Don’t know. Until he calmed down and I was sure he’d sleep it off, and not cut his throat. Couldn’t very well hide all the knives, could I?” He gave a sharp burst of laughter. “Tallis said that once: ‘Let’s hide all the knives and guns so no one’ll kill themselves. ’Course, then they won’t be able to kill one another either, but there are no perfect answers, eh?’ And then he gave that crazy laugh of his.” He let out a long sigh. “But that doesn’t help, does it? I’d have sworn on my life he’d never hurt anyone. Reilly was there, and Scott only lied to save me. And I lied to save Ingalls the humiliation. Makes no difference to the fact that no one but Tallis could have got in there, because he was still the only one who had the chance.”

  He turned to Narraway, sitting up straighter. “Pity you can’t hang Ingalls instead. He’d like it. It’d put him out of his misery. Tallis would’ve said that, and laughed. Except it’s not funny, ’cos it’s true. I can’t help you, sir.”

  “I’m sorry for waking you,” Narraway said quietly. “I thought for a few moments that I’d find something. Go back to bed. You might sleep. You have to sometime.”

  For several more moments Carpenter didn’t move, then at last he rose to his feet, stiffly.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said, and before Narraway could reply, he stumbled away into the shadows and was lost.

  Narraway sat uncomfortably on the rubble a few moments longer, then he stood up and walked slowly to his own quarters, and a few hours of oblivion before the battle.

  THE NEXT MORNING WAS STILL AND COLD. IT HAD NEVER been known to snow in Cawnpore, but it was easy to believe that the shortest day of the year was coming, and Christmas would be only a few days after that.

  The small courtroom was grim. No one looked as if they had slept, and the very idea of celebrating anything like Christmas seemed absurd, an idea belonging to a different world.

  Busby stood up.

  “I have no more witnesses to call, sir.” He addressed Latimer but included the other two officers in his gaze. “There is no question that Dhuleep Singh was released from his cell and Chuttur Singh was hacked to death. While it is possible Dhuleep killed Chuttur, I have demonstrated beyond any doubt that there was no one else who could have let Dhuleep out in the first place except Corporal John Tallis. I cannot offer any explanation for why he did so. Whether he was threatened, or bribed, or simply lost his sanity under the pressure of events, I don’t know, nor do I believe that it matters. The facts remain.”

  Latimer nodded slowly, his face furrowed deep with unhappiness. He turned to Narraway. “Do you have anything you would like to say, or to ask, Lieutenant Narraway? It is your duty to offer anything you can on behalf of the prisoner.”

  Narraway stood up slowly. His brief sleep had been full of nightmares. His mouth was dry.

  “Yes, sir.” He swallowed. “Captain Busby has presented a powerful case for Corporal Tallis’s guilt, but it rests solely on the fact that he was unable to find anyone else to blame. He has not shown that Corporal Tallis was actually seen at the time and the place, that he has behaved like a guilty man, or that he had any mark on him that would prove a fight: bruises, cuts, blood—not even a torn or stained uniform. He has given us no reason at all why Tallis should do such a thing, except in a bout of complete insanity, which must have come on without warning and went again without leaving any mark behind it. As Captain Busby admits, he simply has no one else to blame.”

  Busby stood up.

  “Sit down, Captain,” Latimer said grimly. “Your disagreement is taken for granted. Give the man his chance.”

  Busby’s face tightened, but he did not speak again.

  “Sir,” Narraway resumed, “I believe there may be some explanation for all the facts we have other than Corporal Tallis’s guilt, but I need to question the witnesses again, very precisely, before I can be certain. I have already found some errors and dismissed them after investigating more closely, because I found them to be unrelated to Dhuleep Singh’s escape. I need now to explore certain other aspects that these errors may have thrown light upon.” That was something of an exaggeration. He had no intention of telling them about Carpenter and Ingalls, but he had to make it sound as if he had a better cause for recalling witnesses than speculation, however plausible.

  Latimer hesitated, seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. “Proceed, Lieutenant Narraway, but if you stray far from the point I shall stop you myself, never mind any objection Captain Busby may have.”

  “Yes, sir. I call Corporal Grant again.”

  Grant was duly reminded of his oath and, looking puzzled, faced Narraway.

  The lieutenant was painfully aware that everyone in the room was looking at him with displeasure and a degree of suspicion. He avoided meeting Tallis’s eyes.

  “Corporal Grant …” Narraway stopped and cleared his throat. Suddenly his whole idea seemed absurd. He was going to make a complete fool of himself, ruin his career, disappoint Latimer, see Tallis hanged. He cleared his throat again. “Would you remind us where you were when you heard the prison alarm, and what you did? Please be absolutely exact, and if there is something you don’t recall
, say so. There is no shame in having your mind so bent in your duty, especially in times of emergency, that you don’t notice other things.”

  Grant did as he was asked, slowly and carefully.

  When he had finished, Narraway picked up the thread again, his voice shaking a little.

  “The dying Chuttur Singh told you that the prisoner had escaped,” he confirmed. “That he had valuable information regarding the patrol, and that at all costs you should go after him. He himself was beyond help, even had you found a doctor for him, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grant agreed. “I wanted to get help for Chuttur, but he insisted it was pointless and I should go after the prisoner.” He looked distressed, his face flushed.

  “And then Sergeant Attwood and Private Peterson arrived?” Narraway needed every last detail clear, exact.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was it dark in the room? Was Chuttur’s face splashed with blood?” He held his breath for the answer.

  “Yes, sir,” Grant answered, his voice wretched.

  Busby rose to his feet, his face grim, his voice grating with anger. “Sir, these men all did exactly what they were trained to do, and what was the right thing. If the lieutenant is trying to suggest now that they were somehow mistaken and should have stayed with the man, when he was beyond all help, he is being cruel and is quite wrong. This only displays Lieutenant Narraway’s inexperience, and—”

  Latimer held up his hand. “Enough, Captain Busby. Your point is perfectly clear.” He turned to Narraway. “Lieutenant, are you trying to suggest that any or all of these men should have tried to assist Chuttur Singh rather than go after the escaped prisoner? It was a judgment made in the heat of the moment, but I believe it was the correct one. Either way, what difference does it make to the guilt or innocence of John Tallis?”

  Narraway felt the blood burn up his face. He knew he had sounded brutal, as if he were blaming Grant, but there was no other way. Please God, he was right!