The Iron Tiger. Jack Higgins

sureen shuftauloo-maunind duryah,

       Ufsose! mun n’shinnah.

      Drummond handed his cup back to the

       girl and threw the song back at the Pathan, translating into English.

      There’s a boy across the river with a

       bottom like a peach, but, alas, I cannot swim.

      Hamid bellowed with laughter as he moved out of the steam, a towel about his waist. He was a Pathan of the Hazara tribe, dark-skinned, bearded. A handsome buccaneer of a man of six feet three with broad muscular shoulders.

      He smiled hugely. ‘Feeling better, Jack, headache gone?’

      ‘Ready for anything,’ Drummond replied.

      ‘Me, too.’ The Pathan ran his fingers through the long hair of the girl who still squatted at the side of the bath. ‘A good song, that, but where love’s concerned, I’m the old-fashioned kind.’

      He pulled the girl to her feet and the damp sari parted exposing her left breast. ‘Now there’s a thing.’ He swung her up into his arms and grinned down at Drummond. ‘See you later.’

      Drummond swam lazily across to the other side of the bath and back again. He repeated the process twice and then hauled himself out over the stone edge, smoothed by time. He picked up his towel, wrapped it around his waist and padded across the warm tiles.

      The next room was long and narrow with a vaulted roof and lined with cubicles, some with curtains drawn. From one he heard Hamid’s deep chuckle followed by the lighter laughter of the girl and smiled to himself.

      He went into the end cubicle, pulled the bell cord in the corner, climbed on to the stone massage slab and waited. After a while, the curtain was drawn and Ram Singh, the proprietor, entered followed by several bearers carrying buckets of hot and cold water.

      The Hindu smiled. ‘All is in order, Mr Drummond?’

      ‘You’ve made a new man of me,’ Drummond said. ‘We could do with you in Sadar.’

      The Hindu rolled his eyes to heaven in simulated horror. ‘The end of the world, Mr Drummond. The end of the world. I will send Raika.’

      He withdrew and Drummond lay there staring up at the ceiling. The end of the world. Well, that wasn’t far off as a description of Sadar. A capital city with a population of three thousand, which gave some idea of the size of Balpur itself. A barren, ugly land, harsh and cruel as its inhabitants. The last place God made. Well, not for much longer, Praise be to Allah.

      The curtain rustled and when he turned his head, Raika had entered. She was strikingly beautiful and wore a ruby in one nostril and great silver ear-rings with little bells on the end that tinkled when she moved her head.

      Her sari was of blue silk threaded with gold and outlined every curve of her graceful body. Drummond nodded, and without speaking she started to work.

      First came the hot rinse, water so scalding that he had to stifle the cry of pain that rose in his throat. She worked on his limbs to start with, first with the brushes and then with practised hands, loosening taut muscles, relaxing him so completely that he seemed to be floating, suspended in mid-air.

      And as always, he was amazed at the matter-of-factness of it all, the lack of overt sensuality. But then this was India where life and death, love and the flesh, were all a part of one great mystery.

      She sluiced him down again with another bucket of hot water that was followed immediately by one so cold it drew the breath from his body. He gasped and there was a glint of laughter in her eyes, barely contained, so that at once she became real, a creature of flesh and blood.

      She leaned over him, the damp sari gaping to the waist and Drummond cupped a hand over one sharply pointed breast. She went very still and stayed there in that position, leaning across him, her hand still reaching for the brush.

      Drummond stared up at her, the nipple hardening against his palm and something stirred in her eyes. Her head came down slowly, the mouth slightly parted, and as he slid his free hand up around her neck, there was a discreet cough at the entrance.

      Raika stood back at once completely unconcerned, and Drummond sat up. Ram Singh peered through the curtain, an anxious frown on his face.

      ‘So sorry, Mr Drummond, but there is a person to see you.’

      Drummond frowned. ‘A person?’

      ‘A Miss Janet Tate.’ Ram Singh laughed nervously. ‘An American lady.’

      ‘In this place?’

      Hamid appeared at the Hindu’s shoulder, a cigarette in his mouth. ‘A day for surprises, Jack. Any idea who she is?’

      ‘There’s one way of finding out.’

      Drummond tightened the towel around his waist, left the cubicle and went into the next room. It was beautifully furnished with heavy carpets, low divans and round brass coffee tables at which several clients were relaxing after the rigours of the bath.

      He crossed the room followed by Hamid and the Hindu, knelt on a divan and peered through the latticed partition of wrought iron into Ram Singh’s office.

      Janet Tate stood at the desk, examining a figurine of a dancer. She put it down, turned and looked around her with interest, moving very slowly across the floor, incredibly lovely in the yellow dress, the long, shoulder-length black hair framing her calm face.

      Hamid sighed softly. ‘A houri from Paradise itself, sent to delight us.’

      Drummond straightened, a frown on his face. ‘Get me a robe, will you?’

      The Hindu was back in a moment and helped him into it. ‘Aren’t you going to dress first?’ Hamid said.

      Drummond grinned. ‘My curiosity won’t allow me to wait that long.’

      When he opened the door and stepped into the office, Janet Tate was examining a tapestry hanging on one wall. She turned quickly and stood quite still.

      The man who faced her was about forty, the crisp black hair already greying a little at the temples. He was perhaps six feet in height, well built with good, capable hands. She noticed them particularly as he fastened the belt of his robe.

      But it was the face that interested her, the slight ironic quirk to the mouth of someone who laughed at himself and other people too much; the strong, well-defined bones of the Gael. Not handsome, the ugly, puckered scar running from the right eye to the corner of the mouth had taken care of that, but the eyes were like smoke slanting across a hillside on a winter’s day and she was aware of a strange, inexplicable hollowness inside her.

      ‘Mr Drummond? I’m Janet Tate.’

      She didn’t hold out her hand. It was as if she was afraid to touch him, afraid of some elemental contact which, at this first moment, she might be unable to control.

      And then he smiled, a smile of such devastating charm that the heart turned over inside her. He shook his head slowly. ‘You shouldn’t have come here, Miss Tate. It’s no place for a woman.’

      ‘That’s what the man at the hotel told me,’ she said. ‘But they have girls here. I saw two as I came in.’

      And then she realised and her eyes widened. Drummond helped himself to a cigarette from a sandalwood box on the desk. ‘What can I do for you?’

      ‘I’m trying to get to Sadar. I believe you might be able to help.’

      He frowned his surprise. ‘Why on earth do you want to go to Sadar?’

      ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sent here by the Society of Friends to escort the Khan of Balpur’s young son to our Chicago hospital. He’s to undergo serious eye surgery there.’

      And then Drummond remembered. Father Kerrigan