The Damascened Blade(13)

‘Or maybe I should have gone down,’ Joe said. ‘Not sure when exactly my stewardship kicked in.’

Zeman eyed the two men in their manifest consternation with malicious amusement. ‘Dropped your heiress by the roadside, have they?’ he asked.

‘Don’t even mention such a thing!’ said James, biting his finger. ‘If such an awful thing could possibly have happened, that’s the end of my promising career! I’ll kill that bloody Monty Melville!’

Joe looked a question.

‘Monty Melville. Ninth Lancers. He was supposed to shepherd this convoy to us. There he is! Prancing about in front of the troop. What the hell have you done with her, Monty? I suppose the damned girl hasn’t travelled with the Scouts?’ he said, tracking back to the lorry-load of Scout infantry in the centre of the column.

All three men stared and said together, ‘She’s not there.’

‘Perhaps she changed her mind?’ said Joe hopefully. ‘Perhaps she’s stayed on to taste the delights of Peshawar?’

‘The only explanation and what a relief that’ll be!’ said James. ‘All the same, I’d have expected them to tell me that when they radioed they were about to set off, wouldn’t you?’

‘Probably changed her mind at the very last minute. Decided to go shopping or something. Didn’t much like the look of the other travellers . . . anything . . .’ suggested Joe.

Zeman had been sweeping the convoy with his hawk’s eyes. Suddenly he laughed. ‘This lady whose non-appearance causes you so much anxiety – would she be young and fair-haired, athletic, capricious? Yes? Then I fear I have bad news for you both!’

He pointed downwards to where the cavalry troop, partly obscured by a haze of dust, was coming more clearly into view. ‘I had heard,’ he said, ‘that we were to be honoured by the presence of a British cavalry regiment. Rare but not unknown in this part of the world, and here they are. But that’s not all! When I report back to the Amir do I tell him the red line is running so thin these days that the British are reduced to recruiting women?’ He began to laugh. ‘Hedged about in the centre of this martial array I think you’ll find what you’re looking for!’

James stared and stared. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said. ‘Bloody girl! How the hell did she get there? I’ll kill Melville when I catch up with him! How on earth could he have let this happen?’

‘I don’t think you need worry,’ said Joe. ‘I think she’s safe enough. I can’t think of anywhere more safe within the bounds of the Indian Empire. Either way, I’m going down to meet the damn girl.’

‘I think I’d better stay here with James,’ said Zeman, ‘though I must admit I am very curious to meet this paragon. She might be disconcerted to confront a hairy tribesman such as myself. I’m sure she must have been warned about “men like me”.’

‘If she has, she doesn’t seem to have heeded the warning.’

Indignantly, Joe clattered down to the courtyard, mounted the horse being held ready for him and set off through the gates of the fort. Pausing briefly in the garden and leaning low he picked two choice roses and tucked them into his epaulette. He cantered down the road to meet the oncoming convoy, passing each car in turn with something between a wave and a salute, acknowledging the lorry-load of armed Scouts and finally confronting the troop of Ninth Lancers led by Monty Melville. Carefully sunk in the protection of this force, pink, dishevelled and wearing a borrowed Lancer’s helmet, dark glasses pushed up on her damp forehead, riding firmly astride, his charge raised an excited face to him and he bore down upon her in wrath.

‘Just what,’ he said, hardly able to pick his words, ‘the hell do you think you’re doing?’ He crooked an imperious police forefinger at her and indicated that she should withdraw from the crowd and present herself.

‘Well, my!’ The voice could not have been more cheerful and unconcerned and could not have been more incongruously American. ‘I guess you must be my policeman, Commandant Sandilands!’ she said, easing her horse out of the mêlée. ‘Do you know – they tried to put me in a – what did they call it? – a staff car! I wasn’t going to do that. I haven’t come all the way from Chicago to drive about in a Delage! Gee! This is just great! This is the proper way to travel in this country!’ She beamed round her at the line of admiring British troopers.

‘Young lady did well!’ said the troop sergeant. ‘Could have been doing it all her life.’ And there was a murmuring of adoring agreement from the troop.