SENTENCE OF EXILE
At the words of the telegram Raymond started and Frank stared in
bewilderment at the Colonel.
"But I never asked for the Military Police, sir," he exclaimed. "I----"
The Colonel licked his dry lips and, working himself up into a passion,
shouted:
"No, you didn't. But I did. I applied for you to be sent to it. I asked
for you to be transferred from this station. You can ask yourself the
reason why. I will not tolerate conduct such as yours, sir. I will not
have an officer like you under my command."
Frank flushed deeply.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I don't understand. I really don't know what
I've done. I should----"
But the Colonel burst in furiously:
"He says he doesn't know what he's done, Major Hepburn. Listen to that!
He does not know what he's done"; and the speaker pounded on the desk
with his clenched fist, working himself up into a rage, as a weak man
will do when he has to carry out an unpleasant task.
"But, sir, surely I have a right----," began Wargrave, clenching his
hands until the nails were almost driven into his palms in an effort to
keep his temper.
"I cannot argue the question with you, Wargrave," said the Colonel
loftily. "You have got your orders. Headquarters approve of my action. I
have discussed the matter with my Second in Command, and he agrees with
me. You can go. Raymond, make out the necessary warrants for Mr.
Wargrave's journey and give him an advance of a month's pay. He will
leave to-morrow. Tell the Quartermaster to make the necessary
arrangements."
Frank bit his lip. His years of discipline and the respect for authority
engrained in him since his entrance to Sandhurst kept the mutinous words
back. He saluted punctiliously and, turning about smartly walked out of
the Orderly Room. In the glaring sunshine he strode out of the compound
and down the white, dusty road to his bungalow, his brain in a whirl,
blind to everything, seeing neither the sepoys saluting him nor his
_syce_ hurrying after him and dragging the pony by the bridle.
When he reached his house he entered the sitting-room and dropped into a
chair. His "boy" approached salaaming and asked if he should go to the
Mess to order the Sahib's breakfast to be got ready. Wargrave waved him
away impatiently.
He sat staring unseeingly at the wall. He could not think coherently. He
felt dazed. His bewildered brain seemed to be revolving endlessly round
the thought of the telegram from Headquarters and the Colonel's words "I
will not have an officer like you under my command." What was the
meaning of it all? What had he done? A pang shot through him at the
sudden remembrance of Colonel Trevor's assertion that Major Hepburn
agreed with him. Frank held the Second in Command in high respect, for
he knew him to be an exceptionally good soldier and a gentleman in every
sense of the word. Had he so disgraced himself then that Hepburn
considered the Colonel's action justified? But how?
He shifted uneasily in his chair and his eyes fell on Mrs. Norton's
portrait. At the sight of it his Company Commander's advice to him about
her and Mrs. Trevor's spiteful remarks flashed across his mind. Could
Violet be mixed up in all this? Was his friendship with her perhaps the
cause of the trouble? He dismissed the idea at once. There was nothing
to be ashamed of in their relations.
A figure darkened the doorway. It was Raymond. Wargrave sprang up and
rushed to him.
"What in Heaven's name is it all about, Ray?" he cried. "Is the Colonel
mad?"
The adjutant took off his helmet and flung it on the table.
"Well, tell me. What the devil have I done?" said his friend
impatiently.
Raymond tried to speak but failed.
"Go on, man. What is it?" cried Wargrave, seizing his arm.
The adjutant burst out:
"It's a damned shame, old man. I'm sorry."
"But what is it? What is it, I say?" cried Wargrave, shaking him.
The adjutant nodded his head towards the big photograph on the
writing-table.
"It's Mrs. Norton," he said.
"Mrs. Norton?" echoed his friend. "What the--what's she got to do with
it?"
Raymond threw himself into a chair.
"Someone's been making mischief. The C.O.'s been told that there might
be a scandal so he's got scared lest trouble should come to him."
Frank stared blankly at the speaker, then suddenly turned and walked out
of the bungalow. The pony was standing huddled into the patch of shade
at the side of the house, the _syce_ squatting on the ground at its head
and holding the reins. Wargrave sprang into the saddle and galloped out
of the compound. Raymond ran to the verandah and saw him thundering down
the sandy road that led to the residency.
Arrived at the big white building Frank pulled up his panting pony on
its haunches and dismounting threw the reins over its head and left it
unattended.
Walking to the hall door he cried:
"_Koi hai_?"
A drowsy _chuprassi_ at the back of the hall sprang up and hurried to
receive him.
"_Memsahib hai_? (Is the mistress in?)"
"_Hai, sahib_. (Yes, sir)" said the servant salaaming.
Wargrave was free of the house and, taking off his hat, went into the
cool hall and walked up the great staircase. He entered the
drawing-room. After the blinding glare outside the closely-shuttered
apartment seemed so dark that at first it was difficult for him to see
if it were tenanted or not. But it was empty; and he paced the floor
impatiently, frowning in chaotic thought.
"Good morning, Frank. You are early to-day. And what a bad temper you
seem to be in!" exclaimed a laughing voice; and Mrs. Norton, looking
radiant and delightfully cool in a thin white Madras muslin dress,
entered the room.
He went to her.
"They're sending me away, Violet," he said.
"Sending you away?" she repeated in an astonished tone. "Sending you
where?"
"To hell, I think," he cried. "Oh, I beg your pardon. I mean--yes,
they're sending me away from Rohar, from you. Sending me to the other
side of India."
The blood slowly left her face as she stared uncomprehendingly at him.
"Sending you away? Why?" she asked.
"Because--because we're friends, little girl."
"Because we're friends," she echoed. "What do you mean? But you mustn't
go."
"I must. I can't help it. I've got to go."
Pale as death Violet stared at him.
"Got to go? To leave me?"
Then with a choking cry she threw her arms about his neck and sobbed.
"You mustn't. You mustn't leave me. I can't live without you. I love
you. I love you. I'll die if you go from me."
Frank started and tried to hold her at arm's length to look into her
face. But the woman clung frenziedly to him, while convulsive sobs shook
her body. His arms went round her instinctively and, holding her to his
breast, he stared blankly over the beautiful bowed head. It was true,
then. She loved him. Without meaning it he had won her heart. He whose
earnest wish it had been to save her from pain, to console her, to
brighten her lonely life, had brought this fresh sorrow on her. To the
misery of a loveless marriage he had added a heavier cross, an unhappy,
a misplaced affection. No exultant vanity within him rejoiced at the
knowledge that, unsought, she had learned to care for him. Only regret,
pity for her, stirred in him. He was aware now as always that his
feeling for her was not love. But she must not realise it. He must save
her from the bitter mortification of learning that she had given her
heart unasked. His must have been the fault; he it must be to bear the
punishment. She should never know the truth. He bent down and
reverently, tenderly, kissed the tear-stained face--it was the first
time that his lips had touched her.
"Dearest, we will go together. You must come with me," he said.
Violet started and looked wildly up at him.
"Go with you? What do you mean? How can I?"
"I mean that you must come away with me to begin a new life--a happier
one--together. I cannot leave you here with a man who neglects you, who
does not appreciate you, who cannot understand you."
"Do you mean--run away with you?" she asked.
"Yes; it is the only thing to do."
She slowly loosed her clasp of him and released herself from his arms.
"But I don't understand at all. Why are you going? And where?"
He briefly told her what had happened. His face flushed darkly as he
repeated the Colonel's words.
"'He wouldn't have an officer like me under his command,' he said. He
treated me like a criminal. I don't value his opinion much. But Major
Hepburn agrees with him. That hurts. I respect him."
"But where is this place they're sending you to?" she asked.
"Ranga Duar? I don't know. Eastern Bengal, I believe."
"Bengal. What? Anywhere near Calcutta?"
"No; it must be somewhere up on the frontier. Otherwise they wouldn't
send Military Police to garrison it."
"But what is it like? Is it a big station?" she persisted.
"I can't tell you. But it's sure not to be. No; it must be a small place
up in the hills or in the jungle. There's only a detachment there."
"But what have I got to do with your being sent there?" she asked in
perplexity.
"Don't you understand? Someone's been making mischief," he replied.
"Those two vile-minded women have been talking scandal of us to the
Colonel."
"What? Talking about you and me? Oh!" she exclaimed.
His words brought home to her the fact that these bitter-tongued women
whom she despised had dared to assail her--her, the _Burra Mem_, the
Great Lady of their little world. Had dared to? She could not silence
them. And what would they say of her, how their tongues would wag, if
she ran away from her husband! And they would have a right to talk
scandal of her then. The thought made her pause.
"But how could I go with you to this place in Bengal? Where could I
live?" she asked.
"You'd live with me."
"Oh! In your bungalow? How could I? And how would I get there?" she
continued. "I haven't any money. I don't suppose I've got a ten-rupee
note. And I couldn't ask my husband."
"Of course not. I would----" He paused. "By Jove! I never thought of
that." It had not occurred to him that elopements must be carried out on
a cash basis. He had forgotten that money was necessary. And he had
none. He was heavily in debt. The local _shroffs_--the native
money-lenders--would give him no more credit when they knew that he was
going away. All that he would have would be the one month's advance of
pay--probably not enough for Violet's fare and expenses across
India--the Government provided his--and certainly not enough to support
them for long. He frowned in perplexity. Running away with another man's
wife did not seem so easy after all.
Violet was the first to recover her normal calm.
"Sit down and let us talk quietly," she said. "One of the servants may
come in. Or my husband--if people are talking scandal of us."
She touched the switch of an overhead electric fan--the Government of
India housed its Political Officer in Rohar much more luxuriously than
the military ones--and sat down under it. Wargrave began to pace the
room impatiently.
"Come, Frank, stop walking about like a tiger in a cage and let's
discuss things properly."
With an effort he pulled himself together and took a chair near her. The
woman was the more self-possessed of the two. The shock of suddenly
finding herself up against the logical outcome of her desires had
sobered her; and, faced with the prospect of an immediate flight
involving the abdication of her assured social position and the
surrender of a home, she was able to visualise the consequences of her
actions. The most sobering reflection was the thought that by so doing
she would be casting herself to the female wolves of her world--and she
knew the extent of their mercy. There were others of her acquaintance
besides Mrs. Trevor who would howl loud with triumph over her downfall.
The thought has saved many a woman from social ruin.
Thinking only of what she had so often told him of the misery of living
with a man as unsympathetic as her husband, Frank pleaded desperately
with a conviction that he was far from feeling. The hard fact of the
lack of sufficient money to pay for her travelling expenses, the
difficulty of getting off together from this out-of-the-way station,
were not to be got over. Then the impossibility of knowing whether she
could remain with him when he was on frontier duty and of supporting her
away from him, the realisation of the fact that they would have to face
the Divorce Court with its heavy costs and probably crushing damages,
all made the situation seem hopeless. In despair he sprang up and
resumed his nervous pacing of the room.
At last Violet said:
"All I can see, dearest, is that we must wait. It will be harder for me
than for you. You at least will not have to live with anyone uncongenial
to you. But I must. Yet I can bear it for your sake."
He stopped before her and looked at her in admiration of her courageous
and self-sacrificing spirit. Then he bent down and kissed her tenderly.
Sitting beside her he discussed the situation more calmly than he had
hitherto done. It was finally agreed that he was to go alone to his new
station, save all that he could to pay off his debts--he would receive a
higher salary in the Military Police and his expenses would be less--and
when he was free and had made a home for her Violet would sacrifice
everything for love and come to him. With almost tears in his eyes as he
thought of her nobility he strained her to his heart. When the time came
for parting the woman broke down completely and wept bitterly as she
clung to him. He kissed her passionately, then with an effort put her
from him and almost ran from the room, while she flung herself on a
lounge and sobbed convulsively.
One of the Residency _syces_ had taken charge of the pony; and Wargrave,
mounting it, galloped madly back to his bungalow, his heart torn with
anguish for the unhappiness of the broken-hearted woman that he was
leaving behind.
When he arrived home he found that Raymond and his own "boy" and
sword-orderly (his native soldier-servant) had begun his packing for
him, for his heavy baggage had to be despatched that afternoon. The
bungalow was crowded with his brother-officers waiting to see him. He
had intended to avoid them, for he felt disgraced by the Colonel's
censure which it was evident the Commanding Officer had not kept secret,
though the whole matter should have been treated as confidential. But
they made light of his scruples and showed him that he had their
sympathy. He had meant to dine alone in his room that night; but his
comrades insisted on his coming to the Mess, where they were to give him
an informal farewell dinner. They would take no refusal.
Daly, who was the Acting Quartermaster of the battalion, told him that
the arrangements for his journey had been made. He was to leave at dawn
and drive sixty miles in a _tonga_--a two-wheeled native conveyance
drawn by a pair of ponies--to a village called Basedi on the shores of a
narrow gulf or deep inlet of the sea which formed the eastern boundary
of the State of Mandha. Here he would have to spend the night in a
dâk-bungalow--or rest-house--and cross the water in a steam-launch next
morning. After that, five days more of travel by various routes and
means awaited him.
Before dinner that night a few minutes apart with Hepburn made Frank
happier than he had been all day. For his Company Commander told him
that he had only agreed with the Colonel's action because he believed
that it would be for the subaltern's own good, not because he considered
that the latter had done anything to disgrace him. Hepburn added that if
he was given command of the regiment in two years' time--as should
happen in the ordinary course of events--he would be glad to have
Wargrave back again in the battalion then. Frank, with a guilty feeling
when he remembered his compact with Violet, thanked him gratefully, and
with a lightened heart went to the very festive meal that was to be his
last for some long time, at least with his old corps.
The Colonel had refused to agree to his being invited formally to be the
guest of the regiment; and neither he nor the other married man, the
Doctor, were present. If they slept that night they were the only two
officers in the Cantonment that did; for none of the others, not even
senior major, Hepburn, left the Mess until it was time to escort their
departing comrade to his bungalow to change for the journey. And, as the
_tonga_-ponies rattled down the road and bore him away, Frank's last
sight of his old comrades was the group of white-clad figures in the
dawn waving frantically and cheering vociferously from the gateway of
his bungalow.
The memory of it rejoiced him throughout the terrible hours of the long
journey in the baking heat and blinding glare of the Hot Weather day.
The worse moments were the stops every ten miles to change ponies, when
he had to wait in the blazing sunshine. His "boy," who sat on the front
seat of the vehicle beside the driver, produced from a basket packed
with wet straw cooled bottles of soda-water, without which Wargrave felt
that he would have died of sunstroke.
Then on after each halt; and the endless strip of white road again
unrolled before him, while the never-ceasing clank of the iron-shod bar
coupling the ponies maddened his aching head with its monotonous rhythm.
As the weary miles slid past him his thoughts were with Violet, so
beautiful, so patient and brave in her self-denying endurance. And he
cursed himself for having added to her pain, and inwardly vowed that
some day he would atone to her for it.
At last the _tonga_ rattled into the bare compound of the Basedi
dâk-bungalow standing on a high stone plinth. The untidy
_khansamah_--the custodian of the rest-home--hurried on to the verandah
to greet the unexpected visitor and show his "boy" where to put the
sahib's bedding and baggage in a bleak room with a cane-bottomed wooden
bed hung with torn mosquito-curtains.
From a glass case in the sitting-room containing a scanty store of
canned provisions the _khansamah_ provided a meal with such ill-assorted
ingredients as Somebody's desiccated soup lukewarm, a tin of sardines
and sweet biscuits to eat with them, and a bottle of beer to wash it
down with. Wargrave was too choked with dust, too sickened with the heat
and glare, to have any appetite. After a smoke he dragged his weary body
to bed and in spite of the mosquitoes that flocked joyously through the
holes in the gauze curtains to feast on him slept the profound sleep of
utter exhaustion.
He was up at daybreak; for the tide served in the early morning and only
at its height could the launch approach the shore, which at low water
was bordered with the filthy slime of mangrove swamps.
Landed at the other side of the gulf he had even a worse experience of
travel before him than on the previous day. For the next stage of the
journey was forty miles across a salt desert in a tram drawn by a camel.
The car was open on all sides and covered by a cardboard roof; and its
wooden seats were uncomfortably hard for long hours of sitting. The heat
was appalling. It struck up from the baked ground and seemed to scorch
the body through the clothes. The glare from the white sand and even
whiter patches of salt was blinding and penetrated through the closed
eyelids. A hot wind blew over the hazy, shimmering desert, setting the
whirling dust-devils dancing and striking the face like the touch of a
heated iron. Wargrave's small store of ice and mineral water was
exhausted, and he felt that he was likely to die of thirst. For in the
villages where they changed camels cholera was raging; and he dared not
drink the water from their wells.
The tram slid easily along the shining rails that stretched away out of
sight over the monotonous plain, the camel loping lazily along, its
soft, sprawling feet falling noiselessly on the sand. The last ten miles
of the way lay through less sterile country; and the tram passed herds
of black buck--the pretty, spiral-horned antelope. Used to its daily
passage, the graceful animals, which were protected by the game-laws of
the native State through which the line ran, barely troubled to move out
of its way. They stood about in hundreds, staring lazily at it, some not
ten yards off, the bucks turning their heads away to scratch their sides
with the points of their horns or rubbing their noses with dainty hoofs.
That night Wargrave slept at a dâk-bungalow near the terminus in a
little native town with a small branch-railway connecting it with a main
line. Then for four days he travelled across the scorching plains of
India, shut up in stuffy carriages with violet-hued glass windows and
Venetian wooden shutters meant to exclude the heat and glare. Over bare
plains broken by sudden flat-topped rocky hills, through
closely-cultivated fields and stretches of scrub-jungle, by mud-walled
villages, he journeyed day and night. The train crossed countless wide
river-beds in which the streams had shrunk to mean rivulets; but when it
clattered over the Ganges at Allahabad the sacred flood rolled a broad
and sluggish current under the bridge on its way to the far-distant Bay
of Bengal.
On the fourth night Wargrave slept on a bench in the waiting-room of a
small junction, Niralda, from which a narrow-gauge railway branched off
to the north from the main line through Eastern Bengal. At an early hour
next morning he took his seat in the one first-class carriage of the toy
train, which journeyed through typical Bengal scenery by mud-banked
rice-fields, groves of tall, feathery bamboos and hamlets of pretty
palm-thatched huts, their roofs hidden by the broad green leaves of
sprawling creepers. Soon across the sky to the north a dark, blurred
line rose, stretching out of sight east and west. It grew clearer as the
train sped on, more distinct. It was the great northern rampart of
India, the Himalayas. Then, seeming to float in air high above the
highest of the dark mountain peaks and utterly detached from them, the
white crests of the Eternal Snows shone fairy-like against the blue sky.
As Wargrave gazed enraptured, suddenly hills and plain were shut out
from his sight as the train plunged from the dazzling sunlight into the
deep shadows of a tropical forest. And the subaltern recognised with a
thrill of delight that he was entering the wonderful Terai Jungle, the
marvelous belt of woodland that stretches for hundreds of miles along
the foot of the Himalayas through Assam and Bengal to the far Siwalik
range, clothing their lower slopes or scaling their steep sides into
Nepal and Bhutan. Deep in its recesses the rhinoceros, bison and buffalo
hide, herds of wild elephants roam, tigers prey on the countless deer,
and the great mountain bears descend to prowl in it for food. Frank had
learned on the way that Ranga Duar was practically situated in it; and
the knowledge almost consoled him for his exile in the promise of sport
that kings might envy.
At a small wayside station in a clearing in the forest his railway
journey ended. Beside the one small stone building two elephants were
standing, incessantly swinging their trunks, flapping their ears and
shifting their weight restlessly from leg to leg. Frank, on getting out
of his carriage, learned with pleasure from their salaaming _mahouts_
(drivers) that these animals were to be his next means of transport, a
novel one that harmonised with the surroundings. On the back of each
great beast was a massive, straw-filled pad secured by a rope passing
surcingle-wise around its body.
Each _mahout_ carried a gun, one a heavy rifle, the other a
double-barrelled fowling-piece, which they offered to Wargrave.
"_Huzoor_!" (the Presence--a polite mode of address in Hindustani), said
one man, "the _Burra_ Sahib (the Political Sahib) sends salaams and
lends you these, as you might see something to shoot on the way."
"Oh, the Political Officer. Very kind of him, I'm sure," remarked the
subaltern. "What is his name?"
"Durro-Mut Sahib."
"What a curious name!" thought Frank. For in the vernacular "_durro
mut_!" means, "Do not be afraid!" He concluded that it was a nickname.
"Why is he called that?" he asked in Hindustani.
"Because the Sahib is a very brave sahib," replied the man. "Where he is
there no one need fear."
The other _mahout_ nodded assent, then said:
"The Commanding Sahib has sent Your Honour from the Mess a basket with
food and drink. I have put it on the table in the _babu's_ (clerk's)
office in the station."
Frank blessed his new C.O. for his thoughtfulness and made a welcome
meal while he watched his baggage being loaded on to one of the
elephants.
"_Buth_!" (Lie down) cried the _mahout_; and the obedient animal slowly
sank to its knees and stretched out its legs before and behind. Frank's
"boy" mounted timorously when the luggage had been strapped on to the
pad. When the subaltern was ready the second elephant was ordered to
kneel down for him; and he clambered up awkwardly and clung on tightly
when the _mahout_, getting astride of the great neck, made it rise.
Along a broad road cut through the forest the huge beasts lumbered with
a plunging, swaying stride that was very tiring to a novice. Holding
both guns Frank glanced continually ahead, aside and behind him with a
delicious feeling of excited hope that at any moment some dangerous wild
beast might appear. On either hand the dense undergrowth of great,
flower-covered bushes and curving fan-shaped palms, restricted the view
to a few yards. From its dense tangle rose the giant trunks of huge
trees, their leafy crowns striving to push through the thick canopy of
vegetation overhead into the life-giving air and sunshine.
But no wild animal appeared to cheer Wargrave on the long way; and as
hour after hour went by his whole body ached with the strain of sitting
upright without a support to his back and being jolted violently at
every step of the elephant. At last they reached a clearing in the
forest where stood the _mahout's_ huts and a tall, wooden building, the
_peelkhana_, or elephant stables. It lay at the foot of the mountains;
and from here the road wound upwards among the lower hills, under steep
cliffs, by the brink of precipices and beside deep ravines down which
brawling streams tumbled.
As the party mounted higher and ever higher the big trees fell away
behind them until Frank could look down on a sea of foliage stretching
away out of sight east and west but bounded on the south by the Plains
of India seen vaguely through the shimmering heat-haze. Up, up they
climbed, until far above him he caught glimpses of buildings dotted
about among jungle-clad knolls and spurs jutting out from the dark face
of the mountains. And at last as evening shadows began to lengthen they
reached a lovely recess in the hills, a deep horse-shoe; and in it an
artificially-levelled parade-ground, a rifle-range running up a gully, a
few bungalows dotted about among the trees and lines of single-storied
barracks enclosed by a loopholed stone wall told Wargrave that he had
come to his journey's end. This was his place of exile--this was Ranga
Duar.