David Shaw

Snakepit

"This weather is getting unbearable. Are we never to go up to the hills?" Carol Carnac-Smyth drawled.

The other five women lying in the shallow pool of water were all of the same opinion. The searing Punjabi sun beating down on the wooden roof above their heads was far too hot for comfort, especially when the baking summer winds blew in from the arid plains which surrounded Gazepore. There were many delightful places in colonial India in which wives of British officers might live their lives. Gazepore was not one of them. A small and isolated garrison town, its only amenities for Europeans were a social club and a cinema with walls and roof of corrugated iron. And, perhaps best of all, the railhead station, which at least promised some chance of eventually leaving the dismal place.

It had been an unlucky day for the 17th Sikh Rifles when they were assigned the barracks in unlovely and unhealthy Gazepore as their regimental home.

In fact the officers' wives should have left the town already for their yearly migration at the start of the hot weather, a longed for trip up to the hill stations on the lower ranges of the Himalayas, where it was always cool and green below the eternal snow line.

Unfortunately the arrangements for their departure had been disrupted when the regiment had been ordered post haste to the North West Frontier, where the Pathans had begun raiding out of the hills again.

The Pathans and their Afghan cousins lived for fighting and plundering, being experts at both. They traversed rough terrain like mountain goats, they shot as accurately as trained snipers, they waited in ambush positions for days without a cough or a whisper, then struck with total ferocity in a whirl of knife blades. They also dyed their hair with henna, frequently made love to young boys and used handfuls of sharp stones in lieu of toilet paper. The British Army had fought everywhere and everybody in its time and, man for man, the Pathans were the toughest opponents it had ever encountered. So it was never any great surprise for any of the border regiments when they were called out to repel yet another round of raids from the tribal areas.

In fact the Sikh enlisted men and their white officers rather enjoyed the challenge of pitting their professional skills against the Pathans. The wives of the Sikh soldiers were at least left living in their own country and their own territory. It was the British wives abandoned to the heat and dust of Gazepore who found time hanging heavily on their hands. Especially with the advancing summer weather bearing down on them ever more oppressively. In faraway cities like Calcutta and Bombay there was electricity, and fans and refrigerators – but no such modern comforts were available in Gazepore. The old ways were still the only ways, and an old remedy against the heat was still the only remedy.

Many years before a Colonel's wife had discovered a small spring on the outskirts of the Regiment's cantonment, a spring which provided a trickle of wonderfully cool water from some subterranean source, even when the rocks around it were too hot to touch with a bare hand. Being a lady of enterprise and determination, the Mem-sahib had arranged for a wooden hut to be erected at the spring and a bathing pool to be made inside it. A small pool to retain the freshness of the spring water, round, twelve feet across, with a two foot high retaining wall. The spring rose in the center and an overflow pipe took away the excess water, the pool thus staying cool enough to provide a wonderful refuge from the otherwise inescapable heat.

The Colonel's lady had provided pots of ferns, tables for magazines and newspapers, even a spring driven gramophone, and then laid unmistakable claim to the hut by calling it the Moorghi-Khana, the Hen's Room. And so it had remained, a place used only by the British wives and their attendant ayahs, their maids. The ayahs were presently sitting cross legged on mats against the wall of the hut, watching the white women relaxing in the pool and ready to attend when called. One of the odd things about the Moorghi-Khana was that both types of women were wearing Indian saris wrapped about them. Normal dress for the Indian women, naturally, but only worn by the European wives when bathing in the pool. It would, of course, be unthinkable for native girls to be allowed to see white women naked – just as offensive as it would be for the British wives to see each other unclothed. Queen Victoria had been dead for a long time but her spirit still lived on in Gazepore.

Jean Ellington shook her head in disbelief at the picture in a copy of the "Tatler" she was carefully holding above the water. The magazine was the most recent copy available, having arrived on the dawn mail train only two months after being published in London.

"Have you seen these pictures from Germany? Von Hindenburg with that upstart Adolph Hitler. A Field Marshal shaking hands with a scruffy ex-corporal! It's beyond belief. Surely the Germans are never going to give any real power to a raving lunatic with a silly little mustache?"

"Don't be so naive, Jean," Camilla Hartley-Dexter said. "Hindenburg is just using Hitler's gang to get rid of the communists. As soon as that dirty job is done the Germany Army will toss Herr Hitler back into jail and throw away the key."

"Maybe," Mrs Ellington said, rather doubtfully. "But one can never tell with the Germans, can one? And the little corporal seems awfully bellicose. There couldn't be another war, could there?"

All the other women shook their heads, some a little wistfully. A war with Germany would mean a huge expansion of the Army, rapid promotion for their husbands and all the advantages which went with it – such as saying goodbye to Gazepore for ever. But there was never going to be another big war, and certainly not one in Europe.

"Never mind, darlings," Amanda Priller said lightly. "If the worst comes to the worst, we've always got the Maharajah's Own to protect us." There was an outburst of giggles around the pool.

The Maharajah that Amanda was talking about was the Maharajah of Kultoon. Kultoon was one of the small semi-independent states which were dotted about India, most of them ruled as an absolute monarchy by a hereditary Maharajah. None of these petty kingdoms were important enough to be a threat to British rule over the the sub-continent so the rulers were allowed to do pretty well what they liked inside their own territory. The Marajah of Kultoon's principal occupation, despite his age, was fornication. Both in legal wedlock and out of it no ruler had more right to be called the father of his nation.

His Highness was also a strict observer of his faith. He absolutely refused to consider having a railway built across his state less some infidel should consume pork in the dining car of a train whilst travelling through Kultooni territory. The Maharajah always had excellent reasons for resisting anything which might change his country in any way. A position strongly buttressed by the fact that the royal family of Kultoon happened to be incredibly wealthy because of several rich diamond mines inside their small country.

Not that these matters would normally have been a matter of any interest in distant Gazepore, far from Kultoon's borders. It was one of the Maharajah's increasingly erratic whims of his old age which had made the difference. For the Maharajah of Kultoon had his own army -or, to be precise, a regiment of cavalry. Outfitted in expensive uniforms, riding the best horseflesh money could buy, and well drilled in all kinds of parade ground maneuvers. The regiment was also a standing joke throughout all of India because of its title: "The Maharajah of Kultoon's Own Irregular Lancers".

To begin to understand the joke it was only necessary to take a look at its officers. Every single one of them had been fathered by the Maharajah – and they were just the legitimate tip of the iceberg. A further glance along the enlisted ranks of the Maharajah's Own Irregulars showed a further number of facial similarities clearly conceived by the Maharajah's own irregular liaisons: an astonishing number of them. The Kultooni cavalry was indeed a band of brothers -or half brothers, at any rate. And most of them had inherited in full the Maharajah's handsome good looks and strapping vitality. Which he in turn was reputed to have acquired from his own mother's indiscretion with a unscrupulous English cavalry officer called Flashman.

So perhaps it was an inherited love of fine horses which had inspired the creation of the Irregular Lancers. Nobody had cared one way or another, until the Maharajah had summoned the Vice Regal Diplomatic Representative accredited to his court and announced his desire to send his regiment to the North West Frontier to assist his good friends, the British, in defending the imperial borders of India.

Well, for a few months anyway, as the Kultooni military would obviously have to abandon any thoughts of warfare once the polo season started.

The British representative was startled, appreciative and deeply unhappy at the idea. He knew very well that the Maharajah's Irregulars fired their carbines about once a year and had never shown the slightest interest in any kind of soldiering which didn't involve shiny buttons and admiring watchers – especially female ones. Putting the Kultooni cavalry up against the Pathans would be like sending the Boston Missionary Society to drive the Apache tribes out of Arizona.

The holy warriors from Afghanistan would chew the Irregulars up like betel nuts and spit them out in bright red splashes across the mountain rocks.

On the other hand, the British hadn't ruled India for a hundred and fifty years by needlessly insulting rich and powerful Indian rulers, especially ones who were genuinely friendly towards the Empire. So the Irregulars would at least have to be sent to some garrison post up in the border areas and the Maharajah assured that they were performing honorable service. Thus would the ruler's good will be kept – a good will which would quickly evaporate if some of his favorite sons' testicles ended up as kebabs on Pathan daggers.

On the third hand – not left, nor right, but underhand – was the British diplomat's concern for one royal son in particular, the commanding officer of the Kultooni Regiment, His Royal Highness the Colonel Prince Ravi of Kultoon. The Vice Regal Diplomat knew all about young Prince Ravi, late of Eton College and Oxford University, and heir to the throne of Kultoon. He knew that Ravi was probably the most dashing and good looking of all the Maharajah's sons. The diplomat also knew that the Prince was clever, cowardly, unscrupulous and totally determined to maintain his life of privilege and wealthy indolence at all costs.

In other words he was just the sort of reliable chap the British wanted to replace the Maharajah when the old ruler finally made one trip too many to his harem and went to Allah with a smile on his face.

But there was a very good chance that Prince Ravi would not be available to be weighed in diamonds at his coronation if Colonel Ravi was allowed anywhere near the frontier passes, where every open space was swept by eagle sharp eyes behind carefully adjusted rifle sights.

The Pathans might not be great scholars or mathematicians but they could all read ground like Napoleon and judge the range to a target with incredible accuracy. Neither did they care in the slightest whether their targets had white, brown, black or yellow skin. The Pathans were a totally fair minded people: they didn't care who they shot, raped, looted or tortured.

Urgent messages were exchanged between Kultoon and New Delhi. The decision was unanimous: a place where Gurkha, Sikh and British infantry battalions needed all their professional skills to stay alive was no place for the Kultooni irregulars and their polo sticks. But since the 17th Rifles were being called out of barracks to defend Warzistan then Prince Ravi and his men could be sent to Gazepore to defend the garrison town against any threat which might emerge in the 17th's absence. Of course there was no real threat to Gazepore, only a few dacoits, loose-wallahs, and barely active bandits easily controlled by the local police. But the Maharajah didn't know that and his cavalry could mount impressive patrols around the town with spurs jingling and lance-pennants fluttering, all of which could be represented to the Maharajah as valuable frontier duty. And when the old boy finally got tired of having his regiment away from home it could be returned to him as shiny and complete as a box of lead soldiers newly purchased from Harrods.

It was a neat solution, except that the Commander-in-Chief, Army of India, was concerned that Colonel Ravi would complain to his father that the Kultooni cavalry wasn't being allowed to gallop into a place of honor on the firing line. Fortunately, the Vice Regal Representative in Kultoon was able to assure the C-in-C that it was extremely unlikely that Prince Ravi or any of his fellow officers would choose to complain to anybody about not being shot at. And so the arrangements were made and the Maharajah's Own Irregular Cavalry came to Gazepore by troop trains, as opposed to any tedious riding.

The effect was rather like a Hollywood film company complete with stars arriving in a remote Newfoundland fishing village. Mutual incomprehension and dislike on all sides. The Kultooni cavalry loathed Gazepore from the beginning – horses, men and officers. The horses fought for scraps of shade under the few shriveled trees: the men sought consolation for their exile in the Sikh soldiers' married quarters. But Gazepore had many turban wearing veterans who resented the would be wooers. And in India resentment is never an intangible emotion. Several Kultooni soldiers opted to spend their nights out of barracks – but two of them failed to return before dawn reveille.

Their remains on both occasions were soon located by watchers observing where the vultures were gathering to break their fasts. And it was also noted that whatever the carrion eaters had done to the bodies, it was impossible to blame them for the fact that the Kultooni enlisted men were found with their severed genitals sewn into their mouths. From then on most of the lancers decided to opt for prudent celibacy until they could return to the safety of their own territory.

But most frustrated of all were the rich and dashing young officers of the Maharajah's Own Irregulars. With no local woman worth their caste the only recreational pursuits left open to them were hunting the local pigs and the British wives. And though the local pig sticking wasn't too bad it soon transpired that there were far more black boars available in Gazepore than white whores. In fact all the British women treated the Kultooni officers' advances with amused contempt.

The majority of the officers had never been outside Kultoon before and had little to do with feringi women – they took their rebuffs with rueful grace. Prince Ravi and others like him who had been educated in England did not, for they had never had the slightest difficulty in seducing any number of British women in Oxford or London, whether married or not, and no matter what their social status. The color of their Kultooni skins had been no drawback at all, not when weighed against their royal birth and the weight of their purses.

But this wasn't London, it was Gazepore, and the women here belonged to a colonial society where a Mem-sahib would be far more likely to commit suicide than adultery with an Indian man. A grass widow having a casual affair in a hill station with a young British officer was certainly not unknown, nor likely to be denounced, not if done with discretion. But for a British army wife to get into bed with a Indian of any kind was as completely unthinkable as for her to make love with a goat or a British enlisted soldier. Not only was it not done, it couldn't even be imagined being done. Which was why Amanda's little joke about the Maharajah's irregulars was guaranteed to raise some laughs.

What none of the women in the pool had the slightest inkling of was that Prince Ravi had laid careful plans to give each and every one of them a lesson in Kultooni cavalry rough riding techniques: plans which were only seconds away from being implemented.

Jean rustled the magazine as a signal to her ayah to come and replace it on the table.

"Koi-hai, Lalun."

The young ayah leapt up far more quickly than usual, padding silently forward on her bare feet, eyes rolling white under masses of black and oily Madrassi hair. As she took the periodical she looked up twice at the white muslin sheets which served as a ceiling, as if expecting the wooden roof beams out of sight above them to come crashing down.

"What on earth is the matter with your girl, Jean?" Deborah Boxwood asked. "She seems as nervous as a cat on hot bricks."

"I daresay she's noticed the punkah-wallah as gone to sleep again and she's afraid she'll get the blame for it."

Jean was right. The long panel of bamboo framed fabric which hung just below the ceiling sheets wasn't moving, as it should have been to keep the air circulating in the room. Which meant in turn that the old man sitting cross legged on the verandah had fallen asleep in the afternoon heat instead of attending to his duty of continually pulling on the rope which kept the punkah swinging.

"I'll send Manga to deal with him," Carol said and clicked her fingers. The ayah who rose from her mat was by far the oldest of the servants, almost forty and only kept on because of her savage bad temper when dealing with other native servants failing in their duties. "Punka, juldi, Manga."

Manga bobbed her head and turned towards the door.

"There's no cord on it," Camilla observed.

"I beg your pardon?"

"There's no cord attached to the punkah – no wonder it's not moving."

All of the women looked up at the punkah. Camilla was right. There should have been a cord attached to one end of the punkah flap, a cord ascending up past the muslin sheets to the roof space, and to pulleys which led it sideways, through a gap in the upper wall and then down to the verandah.

Carol shook her head in disbelief at Indian inefficiency: "How tiresome. Now we'll… "

Her mouth stopped moving, lips agape in her tilted back head as the sound of tearing cloth came from above the pool. A knife blade had appeared in the muslin ceiling sheet directly overhead, slashing a gap a yard long in the fabric. The cut spread, both longways and across as the sheet was pulled on at the edges, opening up like a split sail in a gale. Each of the watchers was astonished to see, revealed in the gap, a young Indian boy lying on one of the roof beams, his legs wrapped around it with all the unthinking agility of a monkey, the shiny new knife in his hand matching the vivid white teeth displayed in a wide grin.

None of the woman had the faintest notion of what could be going on: puzzlement compounded by the sight of the punkah cord being held steady in the boy's hand, with a large round glass-like object hanging from the end of it.

The boy shouted, the cord began to run through his fingers, the object dropped, within eight feet of the surface of the pool before stopping again – and Camilla Hartley-Dexter screamed in fear.

What was hanging from four securing ropes at the bottom of the cord was a large transparent glass bowl, open topped and with steeply curved sides, like the ones used to keep goldfish in. But there was no water inside this bowl and the mass of wriggling bodies trying to climb the smooth sides were not gold in color but green. Small green snakes, each about six inches long and instantly recognizable as green kraits – the deadliest snakes on the entire subcontinent. All that was needed was for the bowl to continue its fall into the water and the whole mass of deadly and infuriated reptiles would be tipped out of their small prison into the larger confines of the pool. A fall and a release which could only mean a quick and agonizing death for anyone still inside the pool.

Jean Ellington was the first to recover at least part of her wits. She wriggled like one of the snakes herself as she tried to slide on her back over the pool's retaining wall while still keeping her eyes on the bowl hanging over them all like the sword of Damocles.

"Stop it, you fool – stop it!" Camilla screeched. "Look at him!"

Jean looked up, straight into the glistening eyes of the boy and those shiny white teeth – and the glittering steel of the knife blade now pressed against the cord hanging from the pulley below the beam he was lying on. The gesture, the meaning and the threat were all as clear and unmistakable as an aimed gun and far more terrifying. Amanda instantly stopped trying to get over the wall: furthermore, as the boy pointed a finger at her and then at the pool, she slipped back into the water without hesitation.

Normally, she might have been astonished and disgusted in obeying a native urchin. But nothing was normal with that tangle of writhing bodies and evil little heads pressing against the glass directly above her. Many terrible and fearsome things she could have borne calmly and courageously but an intertwined mass of venomous snakes were not among them. She was petrified with fear.

"Hallo, ladies. Another warm afternoon, isn't it?"

The wives gaped at the hut door and at Manga holding it open with a deep bow for His Royal Highness the Colonel Prince Ravi of Kultoon. He passed her a small leather purse which sent the ayah down on her knees in obeisance. But even that action was nowhere as astonishing as the fact that Prince Ravi was wearing nothing but a pyjamy tunic of pure silk around his muscular body, a tunic secured only by a loosely knotted sash at the waist. He strolled into the hut with all the casual assurance of a born aristocrat – and behind him came a crowd of men, the other officers of the Kultooni Irregulars, all dressed in the same half naked style as their Colonel. And all of them grinning in the same way at a shared joke. Some of them also had purses in their hands, which they threw down in front of the eye rolling ayahs.

The clinking and chinking noises as the purses hit the floor sent the Indian women into scrabbling seizures which were rapidly followed by worshipping gratitude, the servants all on their knees like Manga, arms outstretched and foreheads dipping down and down again in thanksgiving. The cavalrymen scarcely noticed the servants' reactions as they gathered in a line behind their Colonel, like spectators on the touch line of a polo field. And even the bowl of angry snakes could not keep the women's eyes away from the riding crops several of the brown skinned men were either holding or had dangling from straps around their wrists.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Your Royal Highness?" Carol Carnac-Smyth yelped.

The Prince reached out his hand and one of the younger officers put into it the heavy and ungainly shape of a Webley.45 pistol. Ravi pulled back the hammer with his thumb, lifted the barrel up and pointed it directly at the glass bowl. Then he moved it slightly to one side: there was a huge bang, the pistol recoiled in a chorus of screams and the smell of cordite spread around the room. Camilla Hartley-Dexter for one felt a sudden warmth in the water between her legs in reaction to the shot as she pissed herself in fear. The bullet must have passed within an few inches of the bowl and if it had hit it …

"Well, ladies," the Prince said calmly, "To answer the question, I thought we might have a really jolly jig-jig party. That is to say, you're the ones who get jig-jigged by all these fine fellows here -otherwise I might try a little more target practice. Think about it before you come to any rash decisions."

He handed the smoking pistol back to the junior officer then clicked his fingers. Things happened: unexpected things. A shower of silver coins fluttered down from above to land and float on top of the pool.

No, not silver coins: the same size, round as coins, silver in color but far too light to be metallic.

Jean Ellington picked one up and stared at the familiar words on it -the very same words she had first seen at school when one of the girls had shown the exact same kind of silverfoil packet to her friends in fits of giggles. What were being scattered into the pool were rubber contraceptive sheaths in their sealed packets, each one guaranteed free of defects by the manufacturers, The Imperial and Britannic Rubber Company, Adam and Eve Street, Market Harborough, Great Britain.

Jean looked up again, past the coiling snakes and saw the boy on the rafter reach into a haversack at his waist and pull out another handful of condoms to scatter like confetti over the women. Confetti might be a suitable metaphor Jean realized with total disbelief: unless this was all a incredible joke there was nothing at all to stop the Prince from treating all the white women as if they were his wives, taking them as he wished for his pleasure – and giving them to his friends as well for their gratification.

Zan-zar-zamin, land, gold and women, the traditional objects of crime on the frontier. The Prince already had land and gold in plenty: now he seemed set on completing the trilogy. But no Indian had dared to molest a European woman since the great mutiny of eighty years before.

The British suppression of the mutiny had been so ruthless that since then a unprotected English virgin with a sack of gold on her back could have walked from the mountains to the sea without fear of being molested.

"You wouldn't dare," Jean said, her voice croaking like a frog's.

Prince Ravi smiled. "You know, Mrs Ellington, I had a feeling one of you might say that. So let me introduce you to Mr Manji and his assistant."

Mr Manji was a fat little babu in a cheap copy of a European suit, his assistant a thin little babu in an even cheaper copy of a European suit. But there was nothing very cheap about the tripod they carried in or the big American made Speedmaster camera on top of it. It was the sort of camera that only a professional photographer would use and the Prince waved his hand towards it as though introducing it as well.

"Ladies, whether you want to take advantage of the contraceptives I have supplied is up to you. But you are going to have no choice at all about being photographed in every detail as you behave like a chorus line of French whores. Afterwards you may certainly tell your husbands all about it if you wish, but I doubt that New Delhi and London will begin a war of suppression against Kultoon on your behalf. Dear me, no, not with Mr Gandi already making so much political trouble. But if that should happen, and trouble is caused, you can be certain that I will make sure that every peddler of filthy pictures from Suez to Shanghai will soon be supplied with ample stocks of highly detailed photographs of each one of you being broken in as remounts for the Kultooni cavalry. And dear me, won't they sell like hot cakes in the local bazaars? Not above half, I shouldn't wonder. So my advice is not to tell any tales out of school unless you want to become very famous."

The Prince clapped his hands lightly together with glee. "But don't think I'm not prepared to deal fairly with you. If any one of you wishes it so, I will have the snake bowl lowered a little so that you may put your hand inside it and thus die without being dishonored. I'm quite certain that none of you will be so foolish, but the offer is always there, should any of you wish to emulate the fate of the good Queen Cleopatra. And as for those of you whom may be suffering overmuch from maidenly shyness, we've brought the riding crops. Red cheeks at both ends is too much of a good thing, hey?" 'He's mad, stark staring mad," Deborah Boxwood thought.

It was Carol Carnac-Smyth who spoke up though: "And what happens if you make a stupid mistake with those snakes which results in us all getting killed? Do you think the Viceroy will overlook that?"

The Prince shrugged and spread his hands like a bazaar carpet seller showing his astonishment at an unreasonable offer: "If such a sad thing should happen one could only presume the snakes were dropped into your bathing pool by those snakes in the grass in the Congress Party. No doubt some of the troublemakers that Mr Gandi is always organizing to shout in the streets for the British to quit India. Your deaths might give New Delhi the courage to deal with those scum in the way they should be dealt with."

Carol's mind raced and the conclusions she reached were not comforting: the truth was that there were very good reasons why Prince Ravi would probably be quite content to kill the British women.

Kultoon and the other independent states like it were happy to be part of a British run India, for they knew that if India ever did become independent their lands would quickly be seized by the new government and subsumed into the newly born nation. Prompted by such fears for their future the native princes were fretting because they thought the British should have hung Gandi and his fellow nationalist leaders long ago. And they knew from their grandfather's tales that when the future of British India had trembled in the balance once before it had been the massacres of British women and children which had sent the tiny British army of India into a berserker rage. A rage which had burnt and blasted all hopes of Indian independence for generations. A rage which had lasted so long that many British soldiers in India still had 'CAWNPORE WELL' tattooed on their bodies as part of the rites of passage from raw recruit to seasoned veteran. Prince Ravi and his father might well want to see some new tattoos on brawny British arms as a reminder of new atrocities: 'GAZEPORE SNAKEPIT' would probably serve their turn quite well. And when Carol looked around at the other faces around the pool she felt that most of the women understood Indian politics well enough to take Ravi's threat very seriously.

Yes, and already Ravi come within a hand's span of shattering the bowl and dropping the kraits in amongst the women. That was how little he cared about their lives: Hamlet wasn't in it compared to this mad prince. Carol could imagine the tangle of writhing green bodies falling into the water, bursting apart and spreading out in a maddened fury, and then the screams of the women trying to get out of the pool with snakes hanging from arms and legs, already fated to die in choking agony like pi-dogs with rabies, swollen tongues protruding from foam dewed lips. And because every detail of her fate was already clear in her mind she dared say nothing in rebuttal to Ravi.

The Prince looked at all the women, all apparently as speechless as Carol herself was. He grinned, lifted a languid hand and clicked his fingers: "Bring along the party requisites, please, gentlemen."

There was a bustle of activity as two officers came into the Moorghi-Khana carrying a wickerwork picnic basket between them. They lifted it up and set it down carefully on top of the table. Damp patches began to form on the magazines underneath the basket. One of the men undid the lid of the basket and lifted it up. But none of the British women even noticed that action: what they were gaping at was what four more officers were bringing into the room. It was a sight beyond belief.

The four men made their way through the onlookers, to the edge of the pool. Then they set down their burden in front of the Prince. It was a rocking horse. Made of wood, skillfully painted a realistic shade of dappled gray, a tail made of what looked like real horse hairs, and with bright blue dolls' eyes painted on the head. It was far larger than any normal toy and in fact looked as if it might have come from a fairground ride. But the strangest thing of all about it was the saddle on top of the wooden horse, a fat well padded red silk pillow of a saddle which ran all the way from mane to tail. In addition there were reins on the well shaped head, fine leather reins, and thick leather stirrups on each side of the horse with wide wooden foot rests.

Ravi patted the horse on the head: "Patience, ladies, all will soon be clear. But first a peace offering."

The officer who had lifted the lid of the basket held up chunks of white between his fingers and called out: "Come on, Kirpa, old boy, hurry up."

Another officer passed him an ice bucket. In the summer heat it seemed almost as an incongruous sight as the rocking horse, but the clatter of the white shards as the officer dropped them into the container and the way he rubbed his numbed fingers afterwards confirmed that the bucket was being used for its intended purpose. Confirmation made doubly sure as a champagne bottle was lifted carefully out of the ice filled wicker basket. The audience in the pool gaped again as the officer holding the bottle opened it with a few twists of his finger and sent the cork flying high in the air. It was obvious that he'd been trying to land it inside the bowl of snakes and missed by only a few feet. Another of the Kultooni cavalrymen had a tray ready and took out glasses from the basket, champagne glasses cold enough to be instantly covered in condensation as they were set out on the tray and each one instantly filled with foaming liquid.

"Bollinger, the 1913 vintage," Prince Ravi boasted. "I hope you ladies appreciate it. You certainly should since I had to have a private box car entirely filled with ice at a freezing works in Calcutta in order to have some small portion of it still intact by the time it got here.

I wish I could share some of the champagne with you but unfortunately my religion forbids it."

He smiled again and pointed at the rocking horse: "Champagne and a jolly fine wooden horse, hey? No doubt you are wondering what old Ravi is playing at. I already have you at my mercy, isn't it, so why the French champagne and the toy? Well, ladies, these props are for a little game we are going to be playing. The Kultooni Irregulars are inviting you all to take part in a Saumur steeplechase. Perhaps many of you know that Saumur is the town in France where French cavalry officers are trained, and I'm sure that some of you know the traditional test undertaken by an officer graduating from Samaur to prove he is a worthy successor to Marshal Ney."

The Prince smiled, held up one of the glasses above his eyes and watched the tiny streams of bubbles in it rising to the top of the champagne: "This is part of the test, proving that the aspiring candidate can hold his drink. Champagne of course, since it is in France. Each officer is given three hours to complete the test. During that time he must drink three bottles of champagne, ride thirty miles across open country and seduce three women. The order in which he carries out these tasks is left to his own judgement."

Ravi carefully put down the glass and folded his arms: "Ladies, today we are privileged to offer you the chance to show your mettle in a Saumur steeplechase. Five of you and fifteen bottles of champagne to be consumed in the next three hours. Unfortunately we can't let you go riding out into the country so we've bought you a horse in here. It may only be a rocking horse but whilst each one of you is on it I think I can guarantee there'll be some very fast galloping, my word, yes. But to make up for the lack of outdoor exercise we've increased your indoor exercise – three bottles each and four men each in three hours. Not very difficult, hey!"

He slapped his palms together and one of the ayahs came scuttling forward, to pick up the tray. "Please accept a glass each as the tray is taken around. The first lady to refuse will immediately be placed on the horse's back in exactly the same condition as Lady Godiva was when she made her famous ride through Coventry."

The woman in the pool gaped at him, except for Amanda, her eyes being fastened on the tray as the ayah knelt down to present it to her. She was totally confused as to what to do, until the Prince took a step towards her. Without any more delay she immediately decided that he was perfectly capable of making good his threat and picked up one of the cold glasses and sipped from it – the iced Bollinger as delicious a drink as anything she could ever remember tasting in her entire life.

"No heeltaps, young Amanda," the Prince said genially. "All down the hatch, chin, chin. There's a lot to drink yet."