Stealth

By William Leonard

Shockwaves race through the English households in Peshawar when the wife of a young civil servant is engulfed by a scandal that shakes the Victorian values which distinguish so much of the British Raj. Of course the best way to deal with this sort of thing is to hastily recover and turn one’s attention to other urgent matters. Captain Walter Denton’s Brigadier does exactly that. But Walter is an experienced India hand. His boots have been on the ground for decades and he starts to see another, chilling possibility at the bottom of that unfortunate incident. In this distant part of the empire, Captain Denton finds himself almost alone in thinking there might be a connection between the young wife’s shame and one of the most senior officials in the whole of this North West Frontier Province of India. And if he is right, that official is in grave danger. But from whom? And how? Bringing all his experience to bear, and following his instincts that have been finely honed during his time in this far flung outpost, Walter finds himself in exactly the right spot as the enemies of the Raj close in for a brutal end game. Like the polo his corps play, or the rough buzkashi from across the Afghan border, the final outcome is secured only in the dying seconds of this game.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Leonard
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781513075693

Book preview

1

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Samuel Lester pulled open the courtyard door with a savage yank and stooped forward. Hands trembling. Mouth twisted into a silent, mangled roar. He managed to slow down going under the little door frame. It was always too low.

Grunting he stamped onto the narrow, darkening lane. Half turning he grabbed the handle of the wicket gate and slammed it shut behind him with an almighty crash.

Panting, he paused. Face contorted. Head ringing with things he wished he could have thought to add a minute earlier, as he had stormed out of the room leaving his wife ashen faced and clutching the baby on her knee.

A huge horse abruptly emerged from the dimness and clopped up to him on giant hooves.

Startled, Samuel shrunk back quickly. The rider was just as surprised by this sudden eruption in the deserted alleyway. He pulled the reins away, forced an apologetic half smile and tried to turn the near-accident into a mumbled end-of-the-day greeting.

Samuel nodded and grunted something to the disappearing passerby. But his eyes were on the vague distance. He turned hard on his heel and stalked off, turning up his coat collar and hunching his shoulders into the evening.

That was it. He’d decided. He was going to do something ... for himself!

You might not have thought Samuel Lester was decisive like this if you looked across the crowded office to the desk he shared with Thomas Went.

Sheets of handwritten paper slowly piled up on it as he failed to make copies and write summaries fast enough to keep up with the flow.

Knowing his job, was part of the problem.

Samuel’s  grasp was poor on the thick files holding details on his department’s new office in the old city. He understood insufficiently the arguments breaking out about the proposed route of the irrigation system Central Government would build.

But added to that, Samuel was constantly having to stop and write small explanatory notes for a demanding officer down the wide passageway. He would shove letters across his—much larger and grander—desk and tell the limp office orderly to, Give that to Lester Sahib to do. And then come back. Be quick!

But you would almost certainly have noticed Samuel’s duties in the clerical section of the Land Office were a labour.

You’d have seen his slumped shoulders. And everyone saw the stifled yawns when the early afternoon heat began to filter down from the high ceiling. His colleagues would mimic the habit he’d fallen into of putting his head to one side and idly twisting and knotting a wisp of hair when he pushed himself back in his chair with a quiet sigh and tried again to make sense of the latest document the orderly had laid softly and neatly on the exactly right place on the desk.

He hadn’t left England for this.

But now he was stomping away from his familiar neighbourhood. Eyes screwed up and blasting the ground a few paces before him. Hands clenched rigid behind his back. Further and further from the lanes with lanterns newly lit, with night watchmen starting to unwind from the heat of the day and prepare for evening duties, and English families sitting down to dine on white china.

Heading for to the unsavoury lanes where the Europeans seldom went. Where Samuel Lester knew, in his heart, he should also not go.

2

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At the end of one small dark lane he stopped and peered into the gloom. On each side tall houses went up like canyon walls.

At the entrance a barefoot tailor was standing up from where he’d sat cross legged behind his ornate black sewing machine since morning. He slowly stretched his back and held the luxury for a moment. Then, with a sudden jerk of his tired shoulders, he let the tension fall away and let out a loud sigh. In an easy movement he slipped his feet into shiny slippers and whisked his waistcoat off a hook. Then stepped backwards onto the dusty street at the front of his tiny shop. Again, it was time to pull the heavy wooden shutters across and fasten the large lock.

Neither man exchanged a greeting. Even though Samuel was a sahib and both men were only a yard apart. Thin tailor scuffled in his leather slipper-shoes with the ankle strap worn flat and shiny under his heel, and slowly raised up the first shutter into place. He kept his back to the foreigner.

Probably deliberately, Samuel thought to himself, with a savage sneer. Can’t say I blame him.

Samuel looked down the lane. Something inside him was trying to say, No.

Samuel’s friend, Mohammed, had stood here with him a week earlier and pointed out a particular door. Near the end of the lane. The one with a string of faded tinsel across the lintel in a forlorn attempt to