Free The Lotus and the Wind by John Masters Page A

all equally vile because equally human, all equally far from the silence and solitude of God. Mclain wept on the gaunt sides of Glencoe, Robin over the Mutiny--he knew it now. Perhaps for a time Mclain would fear man as Robin did. These others, who could not bear to watch, had never known what Mclain had just learned. They would never know the pit. Or silence.
    ‘We got--right place--’ Colonel Findlater tried to help Mclain up, but he needed to kneel and had to speak. Embarrassment flooded the general’s face, and the soldiers kept passing, shuffling on under the lacy snow.
    ‘The Gurkhas wouldn’t come. We got over the--down into the valley--a hundred, two hundred. With knives! They never--rifles. And we--not--Not time! They--’
    His wandering, blank eyes passed over Robin’s face. Robin stood still, limp from the welling flood of his understanding of the young man who had been thrown down into the same lonely place with him. He could not have borne for anyone to pass between them, cutting off the almost visible reaching-out of his spirit.
    Mclain said again, ‘They--they--they--’ He tore loose from those who held him. He hit Robin in the face with the back of his bloody left hand, and again with the palm. ‘You--wouldn’t come. Oh, coward. You were afraid. Your skin!’ He began to scream, grasping Robin by the throat and feebly shaking him.
    Robin felt the sting of blood on his bruised lips. One loose tooth grated against another. The snow fell like touches of an icy sword on his cheek. The Gurkhas of his company stood behind and around him, watching, their faces set in utter impassivity.
    He said softly, ‘I wasn’t afraid, Mclain.’ He would not say any more now. He understood. If he did not explain it might still all blow over.
    ‘Yes, you were!’ Mclain had returned from Glencoe. If he remembered now that he had been there, he was ashamed of it. When he spoke he had regained a wavering control over his voice. ‘You’re a coward, like all your bloody Indians. My men saw you. My men saw him, sir’--he turned to Lieutenant-Colonel Findlater--’two of them I sent up with a message, asking him to come. He was skulking behind a wall on the hill. There was just a little sniping. Oh, you--oh, God, you--’
    ‘Have Mr. Mclain carried to the surgeon at once, Findlater, and well taken care of,’ the general said harshly, raising his voice to cut into Mclain’s ugly, panting fury. ‘The matter will be investigated. And about those men, your dead’--the general fumbled for words, then blurted out with awkward brusqueness--’I can only hold up the advance for an hour.’
    Findlater muttered, ‘I understand, sir.’
    The general swung his horse’s head and turned down the valley, not acknowledging Robin’s salute. Robin stood by the side of the track. Along the column the bugles blew ‘Stand Fast!’ Mclain had gone, carried away, retching, on a stretcher. Colonel Findlater spoke briefly to a captain of his Highlanders; the soldiers ranked behind the captain stared at Robin or up the hill. The captain asked some question, Findlater answered, and a sergeant-major ran to halt two passing camels of the baggage train. The camels were loaded with picks and shovels. The captain gave an order, almost silently, and the Highlanders began to march, wheeling left and climbing slowly up the hill.
    Robin watched the fall of the snow. And what was he, if to his mind silence and solitude were just--nothing? The answer was always the same: nothing. This that had come about to-day might make Anne understand without his having to hurt her.
    The rest of the 13th would not be up for some time. He said, ‘Maniraj-sahib, see that our wounded are taken care of by the field hospital.’ Then he began walking up the hill with the Highlanders.
    A lieutenant at the tail of the climbing column said curtly, ‘There’s no need for you to come, Savage.’
    ‘I must.’
    He walked up through the snow, knowing that he was alone,