‘And who may you be, sir?’
‘I am Captain Charles Devereaux, of the First East Folk Regiment of Infantry, and I am on my way to Cherat to join my battalion on promotion.’
‘Oh! indeed! How do you do, Captain Devereaux! I am sorry that I did not know you at first! Will you come in or are you inclined for a little stroll? Will you come over to the mess of the 130th and let me introduce you to the officers? I am afraid you won’t get to Cherat quite so soon as you may wish; every blessed machine with wheels has been ordered for a week to come, so that if I were offered lakhs [thousands] of rupees I could not get you a conveyance here — besides which the road from Publi to Shakkote, at the foot of the hill, is rutted and bad for anything heavier than an ekka [one-horse native carriage], and you would have to go up the hill to Cherat either on foot or on horseback when you got there.’
The whole manner of the man changed when he found I was an officer, and what was more a captain, i.e. just one grade below himself in rank. Had I been a subaltern, he might have kept up a higher degree of hauteur.
At first I thought my new acquaintance rather an agreeable man. He spoke affably and pleasantly. He asked me about my voyage, my stay in Bombay and journey up country. He spoke about the war which would practically come to an end when the Khandahar expedition had blown Ayub Khan and the conquerors of the ill-fated Marwand to the four winds of heaven; then he returned to the subject of Nowshera, the dak bungalow and its inmates. He spoke of my well-known (as far as her most secret charms were concerned but otherwise perfectly unknown) mistress and commenced a series of very subtle questions, which, from their very guardedness, showed me that there was one person, and one circumstance, which he was approaching like a cunning cat stalking a sparrow, taking every cover as a guard as he crept up to it. I remembered the evident repugnance my new love had shown when speaking of Major Searle, and I fenced his questions until at last he asked me openly: ‘Have you seen a woman, a rather lady-like person, in the bungalow?’
‘I have seen one lady,’ I replied, ‘but there may be more than that for all I know in the house; I have not been over it, so I cannot tell if the one I have seen is the person you refer to.’
‘Well!’ said he, ‘let me warn you that the woman I refer to is the wife of a non-commissioned officer — she is very pretty, and, I regret to say, about the most abandoned woman in India, if not in the whole world. She must be suffering from nymphomania, for she cannot see a man without she asks him to have her, and as she is really lovely to look at it is quite on the cards that if she asks a young man, fresh out from England like you, he might accept the proposition, and think that he had fallen in with a very good thing indeed — but — pardon me — let me finish — the penalty for adultery with a European woman in India is two years’ imprisonment and a fine of two thousand rupees, and expulsion from India of the woman herself. Already the woman I speak of has rendered herself liable to expulsion hundreds of times; no one has as yet informed against her, but her conduct at Peshawar has been so scandalous and indecent that proceedings will most likely be taken against her. A strict watch — of which she is not aware — is being kept on her, and some unfortunate fellow, say yourself, for you are young and no doubt do not dislike the ladies — ha! ha! ha! — might find himself a victim of her lust, for lust it is and nothing else.’
‘Well! Major Searle,’ I replied, ‘I am a married man and so I hope less liable to temptation from the path of duty than the unfortunate bachelor. Many thanks, however, for your timely warning, for of course I know that, married or single, a man may become the victim of his passions, especially when taken off his guard by a pretty woman!’
‘Ah! You speak truly!’ he replied, ‘and I can tell you that this wretched creature is as lovely as a houri, and as lustful as the most able whore in Babylon.’
I had not lived so long a life in the worship of Venus without having seen a good deal of the hidden springs of men’s minds, and I came to the conclusion that this tirade of friend Major Searle’s was not altogether spoken on the side of virtue, or caution, but that it was a kind of warning, ‘Don’t you touch that woman, she is my preserve, and no one hunts in the forest between her thighs but myself!’
Our arrival at the mess brought the conversation to a close. Like most messes of regiments which have been some time in India, this one was composed of a nice set of generally hospitable officers, all more or less languid from a long residence in a hot and unhealthy climate. They were also too much accustomed to seeing new faces, through the men going to or returning from Afghanistan, to be very greatly interested in me, but they were cordial and kind, made me drink a couple of pegs, asked me to dinner the next night, which happened to be their guest night, and begged me to consider myself an honorary member of their mess so long as I should remain in Nowshera.
I would willingly have excused myself from accepting their kind invitation to dinner, because I was so infatuated with my charming girl in the dak bungalow that the thought of being out of reach of her brilliant charms was purgatory to me, and my senses, but Major Searle was there, and his eyes were on me, and I felt that if my surmises as to the relations between himself and my lovely woman were correct, I had better ward off any suspicion on his part by cordially accepting the invitation, which I accordingly did with all the warmth I could muster. This seemed to relieve the major, for he turned and chatted with another officer. They asked Searle whether he would come and meet me at dinner, but he said he had some work to do tomorrow evening, but if he could find time he would gladly come and rattle the balls about at a game of billiards later in the evening.
After waiting a decent time I said I would go and have a look about whilst daylight lasted, and Searle proposed to accompany me. The man bored and bothered me and I wished him in hell, for my ideas about him began to become very jealous. I thought it extremely likely that he had fucked my charmer, indeed I was certain he had, but I could not suffer him to continue to do so whilst I was in Nowshera. I meant to keep her delicious cunt for myself, she had offered it to me, and I was its present master and entitled to remain so! I knew of the law and of the fine of which he had spoken, and they did not frighten me (as like all Draconian laws, it was seldom it was put in force), but I could not hide from myself that a jealous man, especially one who was something of a brute, would be able to interfere very sadly with such a liaison as I had now on hand, and make it very uncomfortable for the woman too. I had the sense, however, to try and keep my feelings under control and be as agreeable as possible. Our walk was a very simple and short one, for it was straight from the mess to the dak bungalow, whither Searle, as if unconsciously, led the way. I offered him a peg but he declined, as he said the liquor in the bungalow was vile, which was true, and they had no ice. Neither had the mess, then. Ice was unknown beyond Jhelum. But the mess had the simple means, so easily used whilst the hot, dry winds last, of cooling liquids by placing bottles in baskets of wet straw, in a position where the wind blows upon them. The rapid evaporation soon causes the temperature of the bottles to fall very low, and ice is not wanted. I did not know or had forgotten this, but I very soon had it put into practice by the khansama, and that very night and every day following I had cool drinks.
We sat on the verandah until it was dark. The gallant major never referred to my connection, whose brilliant and piercing eyes I felt darting their rays at us from behind the chick, and whose ears I was sure were drinking in every word. Then Searle went, only referring to his important conversation with the warning words: ‘Don’t forget what I told you!’
‘All right, major. Many thanks. Good-night.’
When it was certain that he was gone, my lady glided on to the verandah and occupied the chair that Searle had sat in.
‘What has that brute been telling you about me?’ she asked, her voice quivering with passion.
I gave her an exact account of all that had passed between us, and when I told her, though in much softened language, about the way he had spoken of her, she rose to her feet and walked up and down the verandah in a towering rage — like an infuriated