The Elephant Keeper's Daughter Read online

  “Just what have these men done?” Henry demanded. He seized his brother by the arm.

  Charles put up a fight, but when he could not break free, he burst out angrily, “Four wounded and four horses gone! There’s something the brown monkeys will live to regret.”

  Henry shook his head. Extreme fever must have clouded Charles’s mind.

  “You need your medication,” he said, trying to pacify him. “And I have ordered bed rest for you, in any case.”

  “Leave me! I have to teach him a lesson, this, this—”

  “Not now,” said Henry, determinedly pulling him away.

  Fifteen minutes later Charles was in his tent, slumped in a camp chair, hardly able to keep his eyes open.

  “He’ll sleep for a couple of hours,” said Henry to Charles’s orderly. “Put him to bed, but stay close. Do frequent checks to see if his temperature’s coming down.” He went over to the washstand behind a folding screen, dipped his hands in water, soaped them, and carried on. “I’ve given him quinine powder in laudanum. Watch his breathing; check it stays regular. If his condition deteriorates, send for me immediately.”

  The young man nodded, got down in front of Charles’s chair, and started to remove his superior’s boots for him.

  Henry came out from behind the screen and looked at his brother, already snoring on the camp bed the orderly had dragged him over to. This was the worst malaria attack yet. Henry thought it highly likely that the Sinhalese men had committed no wrongdoing whatsoever. On the construction site, Charles was feared for his cruelty, yet Henry feared that his excesses would eventually lead to an uprising. And Henry could imagine only too well how Charles would react to that.

  He stowed the medicine in his bag, nodded to the orderly, and left the tent. Now to tend to the workers.

  The ten men were still tied to the halberds. The corporal paced up and down behind them, obviously unsure whether to carry on with the floggings. Other workers, digging a drainage channel nearby, stole surreptitious looks at the shocking scene. When they saw Henry, relief glimmered in their eyes. As much as Charles was a source of fear, so his brother had become a source of relative hope.

  Henry beckoned to the corporal. “Help me untie them.” He took his knife from his pocket, but the corporal blocked his way.

  “Has Major Odell ordered this, sir?”

  Henry looked at him in disgust. “You’ve got eyes in your head, haven’t you? Humanity alone orders these men be set free.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Odell,” the corporal said. “I take my orders from the major. If I go against his instructions, there’ll be consequences.”

  Henry angrily pushed him aside. “If you get in my way, that’ll bring consequences, too.” He went to the unconscious worker and sliced through his bindings with one swift movement. The man slumped to the ground and lay there, motionless.

  Henry knelt and glared accusingly at the corporal as he felt for a pulse. At last the soldier dropped his whip and helped release the men.

  Henry examined the wrists and ankles of those who had escaped the beating, then sent them back to work. Finally, he turned to the two men who had been flogged.

  “We’re taking these two to the field hospital. We’ll carry one each.”

  Orderlies and patients alike gave the doctor and corporal odd looks when they dragged the beaten men into the tent. It was not customary for sick or injured natives to be treated in the same place as the British. But Henry ignored the looks, set down his wounded man on a vacant wooden bed, and gestured to the corporal to do likewise.

  “What was their offense?”

  The corporal was at a loss. “When Major Odell and his escorting party returned from the village, they had no horses and the major was very angry. He demanded ten men from Mapitigama, told me to tie them to halberds and then discipline each with one dozen lashes.”

  “You brought him ten men chosen at random?”

  The corporal swallowed hard. “That’s right, sir.”

  Henry went to the medicine cupboard and took out a bottle of alcohol and a handful of the cotton fiber scraps they used for dressing wounds. “Did Major Odell say anything about what had happened in the village?”

  “He mentioned a conspiracy, sir.”

  Henry turned to look at him in alarm. “A conspiracy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Henry sat on the bed of the more worryingly injured man, soaked some cotton with alcohol, and carefully dabbed the man’s flayed skin. “And have you any idea what this conspiracy is supposed to be about?”

  The corporal shook his head. “It is simply my task to carry out prescribed punishments.”

  Definitely easier than worrying about what’s right and what’s wrong, thought Henry. Then he said, “Thank you for your help. You can go now.”

  The corporal moved off, relieved. Henry tended to the other man and gave both of them a sleeping draught of diluted laudanum.

  As he was putting the bottles of alcohol and laudanum back into the medicine cupboard, he asked himself yet again what had turned his brother into such a brutal man. Charles had not always been like this. When they were children, Charles, the elder by three years, had shown him how to climb trees and balance on the roof of the shed behind their parents’ home. But that Charles was gone, and Henry knew he would never find him again.

  This country has changed us both, thought Henry.

  He looked at the laudanum bottle in the cupboard. More than anything else, this poppy juice had the power to dispel all his painful memories. With every fiber of his being, he craved the release and oblivion only it could bring.

  Just one mouthful, he thought, and I’ll feel better.

  He immediately pulled himself together. After the rapture, there was always disillusionment, the hard landing back in reality, and the dispiriting sense of failure. At all costs, he had to stay strong.

  And yet the hideous events of the day crowded in on him. The more he tried to quash them, the stronger they became. His eyes feasted on the brown glass of the bottle. He knew he ought to lock up the cupboard straightaway and run. But he there stayed, rooted to the spot.

  Since leaving Colombo, he had not taken any more opium. And he’d had not so much as one complete night’s sleep. He was exhausted. He was in urgent need of peace and a few hours’ rest.

  He raised his hand, fondled the brown glass, and curled his fingers around the bottle. Then he took a cautious look over his shoulder and, when he was sure there was nobody watching, slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  Henry sank into the soft, enveloping warmth of the cloud as it drifted languidly across the heavens. He was at ease, filled with only pleasurable feelings and surrounded by peace. The balmy air caressed his skin; the sun’s rays played on his eyelids. He breathed deeply, opened his eyes, and gazed in wonder at the endless azure skies above. Never before had he seen such a superb blue. If he blinked, he could even make out the individual color particles and set them dancing. This made some of them change color, turning to purple, red, orange, and yellow and becoming a new shape—a rainbow.

  At first the rainbow was small and distant, but it gradually floated toward Henry. On the arc of the rainbow was a tiny figure, childlike in stature. When the figure slid down the rainbow toward him, he realized this was no child, but Phera. His heart skipped a beat, not in fear, but in joy.

  With one bound, Phera jumped from the rainbow and lay next to him, stretched out on the cloud. Henry looked at that body, delicate but supple. His gaze drifted to Phera’s mouth. He had never seen such beautifully shaped lips before. They were slightly parted, showing teeth like little pearls nestling in a mussel shell.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Because you want me to be,” replied Phera.

  That’s it, he thought in astonishment. That’s what I want.

  He looked upward and met Phera’s huge almond eyes with their lustrous lashes. How he longed to dive into the dark eyes and lose himself as in an eternal
ocean. He wanted to touch Phera’s skin, breathe in its sweet smell and—

  Stop! The desire shocked him. This isn’t you! But his body was telling him something very different.

  Phera moved those beautiful lips and said something. But Henry was so confused by his feelings that he couldn’t make it out.

  Now someone was digging their fingers hard into his shoulder. He sat up too quickly and hit his forehead on something.

  “Ow!”

  “Wake up already! You’ve got to get up!” Phera shook him.

  He rubbed his aching forehead. His head whirled. Was Phera really here in his tent, or was it still a dream?

  Suddenly, his dream came back to him, that longing for Phera, and he went cold. He let himself fall back on the mattress with a crash.

  “Don’t you dare go back to sleep!”

  “Go away,” growled Henry. He turned to face the wall. “Leave me alone.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you? Have you had too much palm wine?”

  Henry heard footsteps tapping across the wooden boards covering the floor of his tent. There was clattering and then water running. The footsteps came toward him, and seconds later cold water splashed over his head.

  “Damn it! What do you think you’re doing?” He shook himself like a wet dog and leapt unsteadily off the bed. His feet brushed against the laudanum bottle he had left open on the floor. With a gentle clink, it tipped over, and his patients’ entire supply of laudanum poured out. The numbing poppy fragrance wafted up.

  “That’s a strange smell.” Phera made a face. “What is it?”

  “Just something for headaches.” Burning with shame, Henry kicked the bottle under the bed.

  Phera took a hand towel off the rack by the washstand and threw it to him. “Pull yourself together, will you?”

  He scratched his head. “How long have you been here? And what do you want, anyway?”

  “Hours! I kept trying and trying, but you just wouldn’t wake up!” The mahout looked exhausted. “You must come with me, Dr. Odell. I need your help.”

  “What’s happened?” He put the towel aside.

  “Your brother shot Siddhi.” Her voice had become timid, desperate.

  “Who’s Siddhi?” asked Henry, still befuddled.

  “What on earth is wrong with you? Have you really forgotten my elephant?” Phera was beside herself now. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  Thin blue streaks in the sky heralded the new day, but it was still dark enough for them to slip away unnoticed. Keeping low, Henry and Phera hurried between the tents, crept past guard posts, and plunged into the jungle. Henry stumbled along behind Phera on the muddy track.

  The ground was wet after the usual night rain; but the heat had hardly let up, and it increased now as the sun began to rise. Sweat ran down Henry’s back, a dull ache pounded at his head, and the musty scent rising from the damp earth made him feel nauseated. He heard creatures rustling in the dense greenery all around him, and he suppressed images of the snakes, scorpions, and poisonous beasts that might be making these noises. Whenever he trod through pools, he felt leeches around his ankles and calves and cursed himself for not thinking to put on boots.

  At least Phera seems to know the way, he thought as he watched the boy running ahead with feline agility and speed. Henry tightened his grip on his doctor’s bag and hurried in the wake of the mahout, deeper and deeper into the jungle.

  Just as he wanted to ask how much farther they had to go, a sunlit clearing opened up before his eyes. Colorful birds, butterflies, and dragonflies flew up in front of him, and an emerald lizard flashed behind a stone. He heard the rush and gurgle of water and then saw a sheer rock face, a waterfall tumbling down it into a natural stone pool. In places the water foamed and fell from a great height; in others its descent was slowed by rocky ledges. Trees and bushes hung over the rock, and liana clung to it down as far as the water.

  On the edge of the clearing, shaded by tall, luxuriant tree canopies, he saw a simple hut built of branches and leaves. It was obviously the mahout’s shelter.

  Henry observed the elephant wading in the pool. She had stretched her trunk as far as she possibly could over her back and was spraying her right hind leg with water. He could see she must be in pain from the wound, the size of a man’s palm, high on her hip joint.

  As Phera and Henry drew near to her, Siddhi turned with difficulty and limped out of the water. The powerful animal looked first at Phera, then took the measure of Henry with her solemn amber eyes. She walked slowly to him, then lifted her trunk, felt his head with it, and puffed her warm breath in his face. Henry looked at Phera, unsure how to react.

  “She’s welcoming you.” Phera placed her hand on the elephant’s trunk. “She knows you’re a friend and that you’ll help her. You will, won’t you?”

  “I’m not a veterinary surgeon,” replied Henry hesitantly. But when he saw Phera’s desperate look, he added, “But I’ll do everything in my power, of course.”

  First Henry cleansed his hands with alcohol. Then he touched the wound with the greatest of care. It was red and swollen inside, septic around the edge. The tip of the bullet stuck out of its center.

  “I’m going to remove the bullet,” Henry said. “It’ll probably hurt a little. Please make sure she stays still.” One false step from those legs like pillars and he’d be crushed.

  He selected a scalpel from his medicine bag and began carefully to cut away the bullet from the infected flesh. While he was doing this, Phera whispered to Siddhi and fed her bananas pulled from her trouser pockets. Siddhi allowed the operation to proceed in complete calm. Only her leg muscles betrayed a little twitch.

  “That should be it,” said Henry, dropping the bullet on the ground. “Now I need to disinfect the wound.” He took some iodine solution from his bag and sprinkled a few drops on the raw flesh. “My brother was in your village yesterday. What did he want, and why did he shoot the elephant?”

  “He said he’s going to build his road through our village. He tried to make Siddhi desecrate the tree of the Enlightened One,” Phera told him. “So I instructed her to chase him off. It’s partly my fault she got shot.” She fell silent, contrite.

  “Did Siddhi try to attack my brother, giving him cause to act in self-defense?”

  “No.” Siddhi hadn’t intended to hurt him, that was true, but Phera wasn’t sure what would have happened if the Englishman hadn’t rolled out of her way. “The horse took fright and your brother fell. When I was escaping into the jungle with Siddhi, he shot at her.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” said Henry. “My brother has done Siddhi an injustice. Now tell me everything in detail.”

  As the words tumbled out, Phera wondered how she could trust the young doctor so. Although he had never been cruel, he was nonetheless one of the hated British, aiding and abetting their misdeeds. And yet he had helped her against his brother several times now. It was confusing.

  After she had related everything there was to tell, Henry murmured dejectedly, “The alleged conspiracy. Now I see.”

  “What do you see?” she asked hopefully.

  But he just shook his head and cleared his throat. “Siddhi’s wound should heal nicely. I’ll leave you the iodine and alcohol to clean it with in case.” He placed the bottles on a flat stone and then added a handful of cotton.

  “Thank you.” A little disappointed, Phera bowed her head. But what had she been expecting? That he would haul his brother off to Colombo and put him on the next ship to England?

  When Phera looked up again, those lovely eyes were wet with tears, a sight that cut Henry to the quick. “Will you take a look at her again tomorrow?”

  Absolutely not! said his reason. Keep your distance from this boy. But his mouth said, “I’ll try.”

  They made the return journey in silence, each lost in thought. Just short of the camp, Phera stopped. “You’ll have to go on alone now. Your brother best not see me. ‘Good-bye,’ Dr. Odell. Isn’t that ho
w you say it in your language?” She held out her hand.

  He nodded without a word. When his large hand closed around Phera’s small one, he was filled with a joy so intense, it frightened him. He turned swiftly and fled.

  Moments later Henry crashed out of the jungle and into the construction site. It was swarming with engineers, soldiers, and laborers. No women anywhere.

  No wonder, he thought, hugely relieved. I just need a woman.

  Many of his countrymen, his brother included, regularly had women brought to them from the surrounding villages. For Henry, that was out of the question. Yet he could not deny he had urgent physical needs.

  Molly. He would go see Molly. Why on earth hadn’t it occurred to him sooner?

  Because she couldn’t satisfy you the last time you were together, observed a spiteful little voice in his head. On top of that, Molly was in Colombo, several days’ ride away.

  But did he have any choice? Anyway, there was another reason to go to Colombo—he had to replace the laudanum.

  He decided briefly to let Charles know he was going and then to set off. The construction site invalids would have to manage without him for a couple of days.

  “Charles!” He pushed aside the tarpaulin at the entrance to his brother’s tent and stepped inside. “Charles, I—” He stopped dead.

  “Dr. Odell!” Charles’s orderly stepped out from behind the corner screen. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  Henry shot him a stern look. “Where is my brother? I ordered bed rest. You were supposed to be watching him.”

  “I tried, Dr. Odell. But the major wouldn’t be held back.”

  “Held back?”

  The boy nodded miserably. “As soon as he woke up, he demanded I get him dressed. Then he ordered me to pack his saddlebags and bring a horse. He said he had to go to Colombo, to the governor.”

  Chapter Ten

  October 1822

  Molly straddled Henry as she moved rhythmically, hypnotically back and forth. He lay flat on the bed between her spread thighs, unable to take his eyes off her. Molly’s gorgeous, full breasts were pushed up by the corset, and her erect nipples, artfully painted red, made him so excited he struggled to hold back.