The Game

The white stallion was pounding off north nearly as fast as it had come, its rider’s left hand clapped over a bleeding right biceps. Holmes was circling back at a gallop, Nesbit was bending to examine his leg, and I brought the bay to a halt and stood in the stirrups to search every bump and shrub, but not until the boy repeated the mirror trick did I find him. Bindra saw me, and rose from his hiding place half a mile away, the ladies’ compact in his hand, grinning hugely.

But that was not the end of the surprises. A few hundred yards beyond the boy, a light-skinned man in monastic robes stepped out of the beginnings of the forest, carrying in his hand some dark shape that could have been a short spear, but which I thought was a rifle. After a minute, he swung it up to rest across his shoulder, which I took as confirmation. And soon he was close enough to recognise: Kimball O’Hara.

All our chicks come home to roost.

Nesbit finished strapping his belt around his thigh and accepted Holmes’ arm to pull himself onto the gelding. But Bindra paid us no mind. Instead, he turned and flew across the ground towards the man with the rifle, leaping into O’Hara’s arms so that the monk staggered back. The sound of their laughter reached us through the still, hot air, and I kicked my mount into a canter until I was even with Nesbit.

“Who the hell is that boy, anyway?” I demanded, but the handsome, somewhat battered face just grinned at me. “Did you arrange for him to be at the horse-seller’s? Is the brat one of yours?”

“Oh no, not mine. I didn’t even know for certain that he existed, although I had my suspicions. No, I’d say the boy belongs to what one might term an earlier regime of Intelligence.”

As we approached, O’Hara’s free hand rested on the boy’s shoulder; our close-mouthed donkey-boy grinning and chattering in a manner I’d not have imagined of him. We came closer, until I saw the same exact grin displayed on the man’s face; with a flash like that of the brat’s mirror, I knew what I was seeing, wondered only that I hadn’t seen it before.

The urchin donkey-boy could only be Kimball O’Hara’s son.

Chapter Twenty-Six

We had no time to spend on explanations or even greetings, not with the maharaja’s stallion skimming across the ground in pursuit of reinforcements. O’Hara paused only long enough to look at Nesbit’s leg, then whirled and set off at a fast trot, his robes dancing around him and the rifle over his shoulder, the boy on his heels.

“Wait!” I called. “We can double up on the horses.” But O’Hara never looked back.

So Holmes and I rode my fresher horse, putting Nesbit up on the chestnut; once we had the wounded man in safety, I could always come back with both horses to fetch O’Hara and the child.

We left them far behind across the terai. Once among the trees, however, we began to climb, dismounting every half mile or so to lead the horses around some precipice or across the slick stones of a quick-running stream. When we felt quite certain not only that we were well free of the Khanpur border but that we would see the maharaja’s men should they pursue us onto government land, we brought Nesbit down from his horse to see to his bleeding. Holmes loosed the belt tourniquet and ripped open the fabric to explore the bloody wound with delicate fingers.

Nesbit, white-faced but in control, said, “The bullet will need to be cut out. But it’s doing no harm for the present. It’ll keep.”

Holmes nodded, but replaced the too-snug belt tourniquet with lengths torn from the remains of his puggaree. I was about to suggest that I take the two animals back for the others while Nesbit rested, when Bindra’s chatter floated up the hill. We put Nesbit on one horse and the boy on the other, and hiked over hill and ice-girt stream until we were above the snow-line. Soon we came to a path, much trampled by booted men and heavy bullock-drawn carts.

The encampment lay to the north, but Nesbit said, “There’s a dak bungalow a mile and a half to the south.”

“I think we should go on to the encampment,” I said. “That leg needs a surgeon.”

“All it needs is to have the bullet dug out; even the boy could manage that.”

“It is right under the skin,” Holmes agreed.

“Going to the encampment would necessarily bring the Army into our actions,” O’Hara pointed out in a mild voice. “Have we decided to do that?”

I looked at the others and sighed. “All right. But just overnight. And if there’s any sign of fever, I’m going for a doctor myself.”

We turned south and soon came to the promised dak bungalow, one of the network of travellers’ rests scattered across India for the use of European officials. It was a low stone building with two more ramshackle structures behind it, one for horses, the other for resident and visiting servants. Bindra led the horses away towards the one, while from the other scurried a startled pair of men, astonished at our unheralded approach and unaccustomed anyway to parties on the road at this time of year. The inside of the bungalow would have benefitted from a broom and scrub-brush, but the plaster had been whitewashed within the last year, and the place was too cold to smell of anything but damp.

The men were even more taken aback by our scant baggage, which consisted of two rifles and a cloth bag belonging to Bindra, and that contained nothing but a blanket, some very old chapatis, a handful of dried apricots, and his mirror. With ceremony, the older of the two servants carried the grubby object before us into the bungalow, laid it onto a rough-hewn table, and turned to the business of making a fire, shaving slivers of dry cedar from a log with the heavy knife that had been left on the hearth for the purpose.

Camp chairs were quickly brought, sheets for the two iron beds promised and bed-rolls for those condemned to the floor, but the first things Holmes demanded were a honed razor and a pot of well-boiled water. I sat before the fire and pointedly turned my back to the operation behind me. Clothing rustled, Holmes and O’Hara consulted briefly, and then the patient was wheezing a forced breath from his lungs as the razor bit in. In no more than thirty seconds came the dull tink of a metal slug sinking to the bottom of an enamelled dish- pan.

Tea was brought and drunk with gratitude, and the khansama brought a hastily killed and curried chicken to our table. We five ate enough for a dozen civilised persons, and sprawled afterwards before the fire with tobacco in various forms—all but myself and, I noticed with private amusement, Bindra, whose eyes followed the cigarette given by Nesbit to O’Hara, but who did not then pull out one of the foul little bidis I felt sure he had about his person. Instead, the boy took out the five coloured balls, and with the supreme nonchalance that does nothing to conceal great pride, he juggled. His father watched, making noises of appreciation and awe, his chest swelling along with that of his son. Holmes scraped out a disreputable pipe that one of the servants had found for him, and filled it with black leaf. A contented silence fell on our unlikely little band.

When Nesbit reached the end of his cigarette, he tossed it into the flames and glanced at where O’Hara sat, comfortably cross-legged on the floor. Bindra pocketed the balls and curled before his long-lost father, small head cradled by the man’s robes, the young face gazing at the low flames, eyes slowly closing in the warmth. O’Hara’s left hand rested on the tousled hair, his right played unceasingly with the beads of his rosary; he looked as content as the child.

Nesbit broke the silence, keeping his voice low. “Why did you not tell me about the boy?”

O’Hara smiled. “Because you would have wanted him. I was given over to Creighton’s hands when I was thirteen; plenty soon enough.”

“But the child has been living unsheltered for three years. Surely having him come to us would have been better than wherever he’s been.”

“Two years and three months, since we were separated. He has been among friends.” O’Hara’s fingers told the rosary, over and over, while the wood fire crackled and the boy’s breathing deepened.

“But how on earth did he find us?” I wanted to know.

The monk smiled down at his sleeping son. “Until twelve weeks ago, he was with his mother’s brother, in the mountains. When I succeeded in getting the amulet out, it passed through the hands of a man who knew where to find the boy. He told the lad I was safe, and then my son got it into his mind to watch Nesbit, that he might participate in his father’s rescue. You two came; he followed Holmes as he came and went, talking to Nesbit,