Tellman thanked him and took his leave. What had happened to Balantyne in the intervening years which had made him the stiff and solitary man he was now? Why was Treadwell’s view of him so … unrecognizable?
The next soldier he found was one William Sturton, another ordinary man, who had risen through long service to the rank of sergeant and was immensely proud of it. He was stiff with rheumatism now, and his white hair and whiskers shone in the dappled shade as he sat on the park bench, eager to talk, remembering the glories of the past with this young man who knew nothing and was so happy to listen.
“ ’Course I remember Colonel Balantyne,” he said with a lift of his chin, after Tellman had introduced himself. “It were ’im as led us w’en we rode inter Lucknow after the Mutiny. Never seen anyfink like it.” His face was set hard as he strove to control the anguish of memory that tore him even now. Tellman could not imagine what lay in his inward vision. He knew poverty, crime and disease; he knew the ravages of cholera in the slums, and freezing corpses of the beggars and the old and the children who lived in the streets. He knew all the agony inflicted by helplessness and indifference. But he had never seen war. Individual murders were one thing; the carnage of mass destruction was beyond his knowledge. He could only guess, and watch the sergeant’s face.
“You went in …” he prompted.
“Yeah.” Sturton was looking beyond him, his eyes misted over. “It was seein’ the women and children that got me. I’m used ter seein’ men cut ter pieces.”
“Colonel Balantyne,” Tellman said, forcing him back to the issue. He did not want to hear the other details. He had read about it, been told in school, enough to know he dreaded it.
A thread of breeze stirred the leaves, making a sound like waves on a shore. Away in the distance a woman laughed.
“Never forget the Colonel’s face.” Sturton was lost in the past. He was in India, not the milder heat of an English summer afternoon. “Looked like death ’isself, ’e did. Thought ’e were gonna fall orff ’is horse. Stumbled w’en ’e got orff. Knees fair wobbled w’en ’e walked over ter the first pile o’ corpses. ’E’d seen plenty o’ death on the battlefield, but this were different.”
In spite of himself, Tellman tried to imagine it, and felt sick. He wondered what Balantyne’s emotions had been, how deep? He looked like such a stiff, cold man now.
“What did he do?” he asked.
Sturton did not look at him. His mind was still in Lucknow thirty-four years before.
“We was all took bad at it,” he said quietly. “The Colonel took charge. ’e was white as death an “is voice were shakin’, but ’e told us all wot ter do, ’ow ter search the buildings ter make sure there weren’t no ambushes. Ter see if there were anyone ’iding, like.” There was fierce pride in his voice, faraway things remembered, and the fact that he had done his duty and survived into these softer times. “Secure the bounds, put a watch in case they returned,” he went on, not looking at Tellman beside him. “ ’e sent the youngest fer that … keep ’em out o’ the way o’ the dead. Some of us was took pretty ’ard by it. Like I said, it were the women, some of ’em wi’ babes even. ’e went ’round ’isself to see if any of ’em was still alive, like. Gawd knows ’ow ’e did it. I couldn’t a’. But then that’s w’y ’e’s a colonel an’ I in’t.”
“He was a colonel because his father bought his commission,” Tellman said, then instantly and without knowing why, wished he hadn’t.
Sturton looked at him with patient contempt. His face was eloquent that he considered Tellman beneath explaining to.
“You dunno nuffink about duty or loyalty or nuffink else, or yer wouldn’t say such a damn stupid thing,” he retorted. “Colonel Balantyne were the sort o’ man we’d a’ followed any place ’e’d a’ gorn, an’ proud ter do it. ’e ’elped us bury the dead, and stood over the graves and said the prayers for ’em. Even on ’ot nights if I shut me eyes I can still ’ear ’is voice sayin’ them words. Never wept, ’course ’e wouldn’t, but it were all there in his face, all that ’orror.” He sighed deeply and remained silent for several moments.
This time Tellman did not venture to interrupt. He was full of strange and troubling emotions. He tried to imagine the General as a younger man, a man with an inner life of emotions, anger, pain, pity, all masked with a mighty effort because it was his duty, and he must lead the men, never let them doubt him or see weakness, for their sakes. It was not the Balantyne he had believed he knew.
“So wot d’yer want ter know about the Colonel for, then?” Sturton burst across his thoughts. “I in’t gonna tell yer nuffink agin ’im. In’t nothing ter tell. If yer think as ’e done suffink wrong, yer daft … even dafter an’ more iggerant than I took yer for, an that’s saying a lot.”
Tellman took the reproach without argument, because he was too confused to justify himself.
“No …” he said slowly. “No, I don’t think so. I’m looking for someone who is trying to hurt him … an enemy.” He saw the look of anger on Sturton’s face. “Possibly from the Abyssinian Campaign, perhaps not.”
“Yer got any idea wot yer doin’?” Sturton said disgustedly. “Wot kind o’enemy?”
“Someone vicious enough to try to attempt blackmail with a false story,” Tellman answered, then was afraid perhaps he had betrayed too much. He felt as if any step he took he was on uncertain ground. Suddenly everything was shifting beneath his feet.
“Then yer’d better find ’im!” Sturton said furiously. “An’ soon! I’ll ’elp yer!” He stiffened as if to move and begin straightaway.
Tellman hesitated. Why not? He could use any expert help he could obtain. “All right,” he accepted. “I need to know anything you find out about the attack on the supply train at Arogee. That’s the event that’s being lied about.”
“Right!” Sturton agreed. “Bow Street, yer said. I’ll be there.”
Tellman spent the next two days discreetly following Balantyne himself. It was not difficult, since Balantyne went out very little and was so deep in thought as never to look to either side of himself, far less behind. Tellman could have been striding step by step with him and probably not have been noticed.
The first time the General went out in a carriage with his wife, a dark, handsome woman Tellman found intimidating. He was very careful not to catch her eye, even by accident. He wondered what had made Balantyne choose her … and then realized that perhaps he had not. Maybe it was an arranged marriage, family links, or money. She was certainly elegant enough as she walked across the pavement past the General, barely looking at him, and accepted the coachman’s hand up into the open carriage.
She arranged her skirts with a single, expert movement and stared straight ahead. She did not turn as Balantyne got in beside her. He spoke to her. She replied, again without looking at him. She told the coachman to proceed before he moved to do so.
Tellman felt vaguely embarrassed for the General, as if he had been somehow rebuffed. It was a curious sensation, and one that took him entirely by surprise.
He followed them to an art exhibition where he was not permitted inside. He waited until they emerged a little over an hour later. Lady Augusta looked bright and hard-and impatient. Balantyne was speaking with a white- haired man, and they seemed deep in conversation. They regarded each other with respect which bordered on affection. Tellman remembered that the General painted in watercolors himself.
Lady Augusta tapped her foot.
Balantyne was some minutes more before he joined her. All the way home she ignored him, and back in Bedford Square she alighted from the carriage and went to the front door without waiting for him or looking back.
On the second occasion he went out alone, pale-faced and very tired. He walked quickly. He gave a threepenny piece to the urchin who swept the crossing over Great Russell Street, and a shilling to the beggar on the corner of Oxford Street.
He walked to the Jessop Club and disappeared inside, but he came out less than an hour later. Tellman followed him back to Bedford Square.
Then Tellman returned to Bow Street and went to Pitt’s old files to read the case of the murders in the Devil’s Acre and the startling tragedy of Christina Balantyne. It left him with a feeling of horror so intense the helplessness to affect it knotted inside his stomach, the anger at the pain he could not reach, the willful destruction and the loss.
He ate a brief supper without any pleasure in it, his imagination in the dark alleys of the Devil’s Acre, the blood on the cobbles, but every now and then worse scenes intruded into his imagination: frightened little girls, children no older than Pitt’s Jemima, screaming … unheard, except by other little girls, cowering and just as helpless.
