A Christmas Garland: A Novel Read online

  “I spoke to Tierney,” Narraway said. “Actually, I spoke to him for quite a long time. Told him about Kent, where I come from, and he told me about his home. But sir, everything you said—all these terrible things that happened—I’m not going to add to that. I’m not going to give up until I don’t have another step to go.”

  Strafford’s face was grim. “My brother said you were a stubborn sod.”

  “Yes, sir,” Narraway replied, standing to attention. “I don’t suppose you want my opinion of him?”

  “No, I bloody don’t!” Strafford’s face eased slightly. “I’ve got my own, better informed than yours.”

  Narraway relaxed a fraction, but not quite enough for Strafford to be certain of it, he hoped.

  Strafford stared at him for a moment, then turned and walked away. He disappeared in another swirl of dust as the wind eddied more sharply, the bare branches of the trees above him clattering, a host of dry seedpods falling lightly to the ground.

  Narraway also turned, but instead he walked farther away from the shattered barracks and the entrenchment, away from the Bibighar Gardens and the clustered outbuildings and the beginning of the houses. He must think of something to say tomorrow. Strafford Minor had called him stubborn but not fit to make a good soldier, all brains and no courage, no steel in the soul. He knew that because he had said it to Narraway’s face, at Eton.

  Well, he would prove that Strafford Minor was wrong.

  IN THE MORNING, BUSBY CALLED MAJOR STRAFFORD TO give evidence. He began by establishing that it was Strafford who had been commanded to investigate the murder of Chuttur Singh, which was a direct result of Dhuleep Singh’s escape.

  Then he drew in a deep breath. “I regret the necessity for going into detail in this, but you were the officer entrusted with conducting the investigation into this act that has cost the lives of ten men and will yet take the life of whoever is guilty of perpetrating it. Colonel Latimer has known you and your record for years, but his companion judges may be less familiar with exactly what manner of man you are. I say this because they are going to accept your honor, integrity, and diligence as evidence of other men’s actions and pass their verdict accordingly.”

  Strafford did not reply.

  “It is a matter of record that you have served in the Indian Army for eleven years, with distinction. Were you here during the siege last summer?”

  Strafford stiffened, and his face paled. “Yes.”

  “You must have seen an appalling amount of suffering and death.”

  “Yes.”

  “During that time, did you know the surgeon, Major Rawlins?”

  “Of course.”

  “And Corporal Tallis, his medical orderly?”

  Strafford was clearly distressed by the question. He licked his lips and coughed before replying.

  “Of course I did. Before you ask me, he was an excellent orderly, often performing duties far beyond the requirements of his office or his training. Any man here will tell you that.” He took a deep breath. “Believe me, I hate having to conclude that he is guilty of orchestrating Dhuleep Singh’s escape. I did everything I could to find any other answer at all. I failed, because there is no other.”

  Busby stood ramrod stiff, carefully avoiding Narraway’s eyes and Latimer’s.

  “Major Strafford, I need to ask you, so no one is in any doubt whatsoever regarding your personal feelings: Have you at any time had cause to dislike Corporal Tallis? We are all aware that on occasion he has been known to be … insubordinate, to have a sense of humor that is somewhat unfortunate, given to rather childish practical jokes on those he considers to be … stiffer in their command than he judges to be warranted. Has he ever played any of these rather childish jokes on you? Perhaps caused others to have less respect for you than is right? In other words, have you ever been the butt of his humor? Have you been laughed at, made fun of, had your authority belittled?”

  “No.”

  “I see. Major Strafford, I know it is difficult, but can you describe your experience of what happened here at the end of the siege?”

  A dull flush spread up Strafford’s lean face. “For God’s sake, man!” He all but choked on his words. “We were both there when Mrs. Greenway came with the note from Nana Sahib, offering on oath and treaty to give safe passage for the wounded, the women and the children, across the Ganges and then to Allahabad. In return he asked for and was given all the money, stores, and guns in the entrenchment.” His voice shook, and he had difficulty continuing.

  Narraway sat frozen, not in misery for Tallis but for Strafford himself.

  Busby waited.

  Strafford controlled himself with a fierce effort, drawing in breath again and again. His face was ashen.

  “On the morning of the twenty-seventh, those of us left went from the entrenchment to the boats. There were Indian soldiers lining the banks.”

  Busby shifted his weight. No one else in the room made even the slightest sound.

  “You know what happened after that,” Strafford said, his voice so constricted in his throat that he could barely form the words. “Tantia Topee ordered the bugle sounded, then two guns were pulled out of concealment and opened fire on the boats, with grapeshot, followed by the muskets.” The tears were running freely down his face now, and he made no effort to conceal them. “The thatch on the boats caught fire. The wounded and the helpless were burned to death. Some of the women, including my own wife, leaped into the river with their children. They too were shot, or cut down by the sabers of the troopers who rode their horses into the water and slaughtered all but a few. The men who made it to the shore were killed there, the women and children taken prisoners.”

  The room was silent.

  Finally, Latimer spoke. “Nothing we can say will ease such horror. It is all a man needs to know of hell. I presume you have some purpose, Captain Busby, in obliging Major Strafford to relive his loss?”

  Busby swallowed. “Yes, sir. Major Strafford, during all this horror, and afterward, what was Corporal Tallis’s role, to your knowledge?”

  Narraway was stunned. He had no idea what to do. The course of the trial had slipped uncontrollably out of his hands. He looked at Tallis and saw tears on his face also.

  “He was with the wounded and among the last to embark,” Strafford answered. “He did everything he could to help those further attacked. No man exhibited more selfless courage than he did.”

  “So it must hurt and dismay you, as much as it does Major Rawlins, to be forced to come to the conclusion that Corporal Tallis, and only Corporal Tallis, could have released Dhuleep Singh? And that it is possible that Corporal Tallis could’ve been the one to murder Chuttur Singh?”

  “Yes.”

  Busby gave a slight shrug. “Just in case anybody should think of it, is there any chance that Chuttur Singh was part of that hideous massacre? Could Tallis have had revenge for it in his mind?”

  “No,” Strafford said flatly. “Chuttur Singh was loyal all his life. I know that for a fact. No one could have thought differently.”

  “Thank you. Now let us continue with your detailed evidence of the day of Dhuleep’s escape and Chuttur’s murder,” Busby continued. “What evidence did you find that immediately implicated anyone?”

  “None,” Strafford replied. “Chuttur Singh had died without naming anyone, and the men who answered the alarm were too late to catch sight of anyone, even when they went after Dhuleep.”

  “So what did you do?” Busby asked. They all knew what Strafford was going to say.

  Strafford sounded tired, and there were lines of fatigue in his face. “I started questioning the other men who had been on duty—or off duty, but in the general area—at the time. They could all account for their whereabouts, except Corporal Tallis.” His jaw was tight, as if every muscle was clenched.

  Busby looked apologetic. “Since Corporal Tallis has denied any involvement in either the escape or the murder, I’m afraid that obliges me to ask you for the
details of your investigation. Lieutenant Narraway has informed me that he will not accept your assurance, as I had hoped he might, and save us this miserable exercise. God knows, we have enough else to do.”

  Narraway rose to his feet, driven by anger rather than sense. “Is Captain Busby suggesting that we hang a man for a crime of which he may be innocent, in order to save the time it takes to go through the procedure of a trial, sir?”

  Latimer’s lips thinned, and his hands on the tabletop were rigid. “Of course not!” he snapped, turning to Busby. “Captain, your choice of words was clumsy, to put it at its kindest. It is you who is wasting time with this grandstanding. Move on.”

  Busby flushed with anger. He dared not retaliate, but neither would he apologize. He turned to Strafford again.

  “Would you please give us an account of the various steps you took in your investigation, and how you ruled out all the possible suspects apart from Corporal Tallis?”

  In a flat voice Strafford obeyed, listing all the men he had confirmed were in the immediate area of the prison. He had a sheet of paper with names, and he read them aloud.

  “We know to the minute the time of the escape,” he continued. “Most of these men were within sight of several people, and it was a simple matter to be certain beyond any possible doubt that they could not have been anywhere near the prison. In all cases the officer in charge at the time will swear to those accounted for, if you wish.”

  Before Busby could say anything, Latimer spoke.

  “If that satisfied you, Major Strafford, it satisfies the Court. Who did it leave unaccounted for?”

  Strafford looked at his list. “Corporal Reilly, Lance-Corporal McLeod, Privates Scott, Carpenter, and Avery, and Corporal Tallis, sir.”

  “Thank you. So that Lieutenant Narraway might question them also, if he feels there is some point to it, perhaps we had better hear from them directly.” He glanced sideways at Narraway, as if to be certain the Court knew that it was Narraway who was dragging out the proceedings unnecessarily.

  “Yes, sir, if you please,” Narraway replied, as if it were Latimer who had asked.

  Scott was the first called. In response to Busby’s careful direction, he accounted for his duties and his movements on the day of Chuttur’s death. He had been across the open yard and around a dogleg from the prison. But anyone coming or going would have had to pass him, because that was the only access to the front, and there was no door at the back of the makeshift prison.

  “What were you doing, Private Scott?”

  “Working on mending a storeroom, sir. Door and windows had been smashed by shellfire during the siege. I was making it weatherproof again.”

  “With your back to the courtyard, then?” Busby asked.

  “No, sir. During that time I was making a new frame for the door. Had the wood up on a bench of sorts, planing it to fit.”

  “So you could see anyone passing in either direction?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Could anyone see you?”

  “Yes, sir. Lance-Corporal McLeod and Private Avery.”

  “And no one passed you? You swear to it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you were there for that entire hour, Private Scott?”

  “Yes, sir. It took me longer’n that to finish.”

  “And could you see Corporal Reilly from where you were?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he move at all?”

  “Yes, sir. ’E came over ter me ter see ’ow I were doing, an’ ’e told me I weren’t doin’ it right. ’E showed me ’ow to.”

  “And then what?” Busby pressed.

  “ ’E went off be’ind me, to see ’ow the rest were gettin’ on. Then ’e came back.”

  “In the direction of the prison block?”

  “No, sir, other way, back toward the river.”

  “Is there a way he could have gone around—in a circle perhaps—and got to the prison block?”

  “No, sir, not without passing the squad ’oo were over at the end o’ the entrenchment, sir.”

  “And Private Carpenter?”

  “He was opposite me, working with Corporal Reilly.”

  “All the time?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Busby turned to Narraway with a slight, ironic gesture of invitation.

  Narraway accepted, playing for time rather than because he had any questions in mind. He hoped that something might come to him. Testimony had shown Tallis to be exactly the sort of man Narraway had thought him: brave; irreverent, with a completely irresponsible sense of humor; intensely compassionate; dedicated to medicine. But it also had been damning, because it was clear that if Strafford could have found any other answer, he would have.

  Narraway stood facing Private Scott. Detail by detail, the soldier accounted for every move he had made, repeating what he had said before, not in parrot fashion, but as if clearly seeing it again in his mind’s eye. Narraway achieved nothing at all.

  It was exactly the same with Corporal Reilly, and then with Private Carpenter. Busby asked each of them where they had been. They each gave a sober account, in very slightly different words but amounting to the same evidence. In each case they supported one another, proving that none of them could have left their position, and the other’s sight, long enough to have reached the prison block and gone inside it. Narraway began to feel as if he was wasting everyone’s time, and he could see the truth of it in the growing impatience on the faces around him.

  Tallis was looking more and more desperate, struggling to keep his composure and an appearance of some kind of hope. Narraway could only guess at the courage required for Tallis to sit there silently. Was he wasting everyone’s time, drawing out the tension and pain pointlessly?

  He thought of what Strafford had said of that terrible crossing with the boats on fire, the drowning and the dead, and Tallis wading in and risking his own life without a backward glance. Narraway could not give up yet, not until he was so beaten he had nowhere else to go.

  Lance-Corporal McLeod came to the stand, and Busby questioned him also.

  He was perhaps twenty-two, fair-skinned, pale. His eyes were hollow, staring far beyond Busby as if he saw something else, something printed indelibly on his memory.

  “And where were you exactly, Corporal McLeod?” Busby prompted.

  “On the corner, sir, just beyond the building that was pretty well smashed.”

  “In the southwest, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you could see the door to the prison from where you were?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Were you looking at it all the time?”

  “No, sir. I was paying attention to what I was doing.”

  “Which was what, Corporal?”

  “Mending a cart, sir. Shaft was broken.”

  “Was anyone helping you?”

  “Yes, sir, Private Avery. Too heavy for one man, at least when it comes to lifting it together to weld.”

  “And could you see Corporal Reilly and Private Scott working on the storeroom?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All the time? Are you certain?”

  “Corporal Reilly could have gone the other way, sir, but not past me toward the prison, sir. Private Avery or I would have seen him.”

  “Thank you. Please stay there so Lieutenant Narraway can ask you … whatever it is he needs to.” Busby did not hide the fact that he regarded this as a cruel and pointless waste of not only time but emotion. All around them was the air of danger, of hate, the bitter knowledge that fighting was going on just beyond their hearing and sight. All of northern India was in turmoil. Friends and allies were dying to save what was left of British rule, and here they were, locked up in this tiny room, arguing over a truth everyone knew perfectly well. All it really needed was to be faced, the bitter acceptance made and dealt with. Courage was necessary, not more talk, more weighing and measuring of what they all knew. In a
sense it was like vultures fighting over a corpse. Busby had not said so, not in so many words, but he had more than implied it.

  Narraway did not ask McLeod anything. He knew he had tried Latimer’s patience as far as it would go.

  The last witness was Private Avery.

  Busby stood and faced him patiently.

  “Private, would you describe to us exactly where you were at the time Chuttur Singh was killed? We have been over this before. All you need to do is recall what you told me then and tell me again, so the Court can hear you.”

  Obediently, as if he were reciting some ritual litany, Avery told him exactly where he had been and what had occupied him. He seemed stunned. Narraway thought that the man blamed himself for not having seen something that could have saved Chuttur Singh, as if it had been his fault that he had been so near and done nothing to prevent the killing.

  When it was Narraway’s turn to question him, he felt like he could not ask the man to repeat it all again—it would be brutal.

  “Think carefully, Private Avery: Have you left anything out? If not, there is no need for me to go over it again.”

  “Nothing, sir,” Avery answered. “That’s how it was. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Just one thing that Captain Busby didn’t ask you: Do you know Corporal Tallis?”

  Avery’s face went even paler. “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “I got a bullet wound in the arm, sir. Not very bad, but it bled a lot. Corporal Tallis stitched it up for me.”

  “Corporal Tallis did, not Major Rawlins?” Narraway said with surprise.

  “Dr. Rawlins was busy with someone a lot worse hurt than me, sir.”

  “I see. Did Corporal Tallis make a good job of it?”

  “Yes, sir, very good. Healed up real well. And …” He stopped, looked at the floor. “There was a lot of blood, sir. I was scared. He made me laugh, and I felt as if it would be all right. It—it was the first time I’d been hit … sir.”

  “So you know Corporal Tallis?”

  “Yes, sir.” Avery looked so wretched, it was as if he were in physical pain.