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‘Same to you, Sir! And remove your hand from there, pronto!’
Mr Ambrose cleared his throat. ‘Pardon, Mr Linton. In the dark, I didn’t see-’
‘But you most certainly felt! Fingers off, got it?’
‘Watch your tone, Mr Linton!’
‘I can’t watch anything right now. It’s too bloody dark! Can’t we light a fire?’
There was a motion in the gloom right in front of me. It might have been a headshake. ‘No, Mr Linton. It would draw too much attention.’
‘Without a fire, how will we keep predators away?’
‘Karim will keep watch.’
‘Keep watch?’ I looked around, seeing only vague shapes and shadows. ‘How, exactly?’
‘I am well accustomed to conditions like these,’ the Mohammedan’s gruff voice came out of the darkness. ‘We have jungle in the country of my birth, very much like this, and I have the ears of a bat and the eyes of a panther. I will know if someone approaches well before they come close enough to do harm, and we will be able to- Wait! What was that?’
There was a noise, as if from a twig snapping. It was followed instantly by a silken noise that I knew all too well by now - Karim, drawing his sabre out of its sheath.
‘We have to move! There is someone-’
‘Don’t move!’
The voice cut through the hot night air like a whiplash. A voice of command. A stranger’s voice. Lights flared up all around us, sending a flash of fear through me. Blinking, I shielded my eyes from the sudden brightness. When, after a few seconds, I had grown a little more accustomed to the light and lowered my hands, I saw that from the trees all around us, men were emerging. Men in brightly coloured uniforms, similar to those of the governor’s guard at the last town we had passed.
There was one man in particular I noticed. He was tall and gaunt, with high, aristocratic cheekbones and a curl to his lips that made me think he didn’t just have power, but enjoyed using it, too. He had a high forehead, intense yellowish brown eyes and a rifle levelled at Mr Ambrose.
‘Well, well…’ he drawled, in nearly perfect, only slightly accented English. ‘Who have we here? Two Englishmen, and an Indian, if I am not mistaken. What are you doing so far from home? Speak, and speak quickly if you want to have a chance at surviving this unscathed!’
Speak?
He wanted Mr Ambrose to speak? Under threat?
Oh dear. Whoever this was, he was in for a disappointment.
‘Well? Open your mouth!’ The officer - for officer he was, no doubt - jabbed Mr Ambrose in the chest with his bayonet. Mr Ambrose didn’t even flinch. ‘Get on with it! I have a war to fight!’
Mr Ambrose wasn’t impressed. He stared down the length of the rifle, his eyes glinting ten times as cold as any steel could. He said not a word.
‘A stubborn one, eh? Very well. Barros! Costa! Bind them, take five other men and get them back to headquarters! The general will decide their fate.’
I am Horrifically Tortured
‘I am well accustomed to conditions like these,’ I mimicked as we were marched along, pulling a wooden face reminiscent of a certain inept bodyguard. ‘We have jungle in the country of my birth, very much like this, and I have the ears of a bat and the eyes of a panther.’
‘Be quiet!’ Karim growled from behind me.
‘I will know if someone approaches well before they come close enough to do harm.’
‘I said-’
‘Silence, both of you!’ Mr Ambrose’s hissed command was enough to make us shut up. ‘This is no time for senseless bickering!’
Well, he was right about that. Our situation was about as dire as it could be. Despite having discovered Mr Ambrose’s papers in his knapsack, the mysterious commander into whose hands we had fallen seemed disinclined to believe that we were simply harmless subjects of the British Empire, in the wrong place at the wrong time. To judge by the cold, calculating glances he sent our way, he was imagining a far more sinister explanation. Thanks to Mr Ambrose, I was an expert at deciphering cold, calculating glances. And these, trust me, were not boding well.
Tied together by thick, unyielding rope, we were being led off through the jungle towards the soldiers’ headquarters and this mysterious general who would decide our fate. I didn’t like the idea of having my fate decided by any man, let alone a general. In my experience, they were more used to aiming cannons at other people than trying to understand their point of v
