Zeman laughed. ‘Go on, Lindsay! Let her have a go. See if she can do it. Every woman in my village could do it. Go on, Miss Coblenz – for the honour of the great American Republic! Slay and spare not!’
‘This is not the OK Corral, Miss Coblenz,’ said James, smiling with difficulty, ‘this is almost a war zone. Any rifle shot heard in the vicinity of the fort evokes a military response. As you can probably understand.’
Zeman looked around him with a wide gesture. ‘But all the officers who could be expected to react are here present,’ he said slyly. ‘No harm, surely, in loosing off one round? Himalayan pheasant aren’t built to withstand rifle fire. One shot should do it,’ he added, cocking a conspiratorial eyebrow at Lily.
James nodded to Joe and, deeply reluctant but unable to dodge the challenge, Joe took a rifle from a nearby Scout and handed it to Lily. ‘That’s the safety catch,’ he began. ‘And remember once the bullet has left the rifle it travels for about a mile which is why, on the whole, we don’t gun down marauding wild fowl with express rifles but I suppose it’s safe enough while the condemned has its back to a rock face. Be careful now – that thing has a kick like a mule!’
Flushed and excited, Lily shrugged him aside, brought the rifle up to her shoulder and fired. In a cartwheel of feathers and squawks the pheasant virtually disintegrated. Amidst general applause, a Scout brought the battered body back and proffered it to Lily.
‘Jeez!’ said Lily, surreptitiously rubbing her shoulder. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘Put a tail feather in your hat,’ suggested Lord Rathmore.
‘Get yourself photographed with your quarry,’ said Grace. ‘That’s what most shikari who come up here do.’
‘I should send it down to the kitchen,’ said Fred Moore-Simpson, laughing. ‘Waste not, want not! Tell them to serve it up for dinner tonight.’
‘Or what’s left of it,’ said Rathmore.
James took a look round, mentally calling the roll. ‘Someone missing,’ he said. And then, ‘Where’s Burroughs?’
‘He had to leave us,’ said Fred. ‘He’ll be flat on his back by now, drinking a little and thinking a lot and yearning for Delhi. Poor old sod.’
* * *
At the end of what had been a long day, a day in which Betty Lindsay had revised her seating plans at least half a dozen times, she surveyed her final arrangements. Not bad, she decided. Not perfect but the best that this incongruous mob could possibly supply. The men of course had done a splendid job and really the Pathan feast laid out in the durbar hall was very glamorous and impressive. Pathans were surprising. A warrior race indeed and, if she was to believe all she was told, treacherous, vengeful and ruthless, yet they could spend happy hours decorating a dinner table and to a standard that would put a Home Counties Women’s Institute to shame. Thick rugs had been spread in the centre of the room and surrounded by tasselled cushions. A white cloth covered the rugs and this was decorated with candles and sprays of blossom and spring flowers. Dishes of Pathan and Persian food were to appear in procession to be set out down the length of the table so that the guests might help themselves. Nervously Betty wondered whether she had remembered to tell everyone to use only their right hand. Yes, she was sure she had.
She stood for a peaceful moment alone to calm herself before the guests arrived in the doorway of the durbar hall enjoying its unusual beauty. James had taken her on her own private reconnaissance tour that morning and she remembered his pleasure when she had gasped with delight on entering. ‘Our pride and joy!’ he had said. ‘When I got here this was just a store room with the accumulated rubbish of two thousand years on the floor! About a foot thick, I’d guess. Dust, cigarette ends, goat shit, dead rats, fallen plaster – you can imagine! I set people to clear it up as a fatigue – a punishment, you know – shovelling muck off the floor, scrubbing it down, then we made the most remarkable discovery. Under the debris there was what you now see. I think it’s a Buddhist stupa . . . second, third century AD? We cleaned it down and whitewashed it and left it to speak for itself.’
Betty looked again at the ancient tiled floor. How would you describe it? Turquoise and gold? No – turquoise and chestnut. Polished, mysterious and serene, the floor reflected the encircling arcade. The last shafts of warm sunshine knifed down from the rim of the dome and seemed to set the floor ashiver. And how sensible, Betty thought, how typical of her husband that he would have left the room free of any Western frippery, content to allow the natural materials and the graceful proportions to make their own statement.