But there were soldierly qualities of mind and person in Basil Traherne to which the fine old specialist had had to respond. And if Doctor Traherne had not served with the Colors (Agnew simply refused to consider Volunteers) he had served the regiment well. He had disinfected and healed a diseased drain under the floor of the canteen when Crossland hadn’t even suspected it, he had fought enteric through more than one epidemic, and had turned a cholera camp into a refreshed place of rest and frolic as innocuous as a kindergarten suffering placidly a slight visitation of mild German measles. And now Doctor Traherne had declared war upon malaria, and it looked as if that enemy of the British Army in the East was going to be defeated at last—defeated by the batteries of the English doctor’s knowledge, patience and skill. It wasn’t in Agnew to steel his heart or shut his respect and camaraderie against the man who was doing that, even if he didn’t wear the uniform.
And at the Colonel’s bungalow Doctor Traherne came and went as he would; always welcomed, always regretfully sped. But that bungalow door was practically shut in his face this morning.
The Colonel Commander Sahib was writing his English chits; no one could see him. And when the khansamah had said it he deliberately, though obsequiously, barred the way. Traherne could not get past Ali Halim without knocking him down, that was clear, and Traherne would not do that except in the last resort, for Halim was old, and they were most excellent friends. And at the far end of the hall—unlike most of its ilk, the Colonel’s bungalow had a hall—the physician saw an orderly waiting outside Agnew’s den. No doubt the orderly was armed; and Traherne was not.
But he was going to see the Colonel, and have considerable speech of him too, before the English mail went.
How?
He looked about him and thought: not a bad brace of trumps to play when in such doubt of means as his.
“Right-o, then,” he said cheerfully, “but I’ll wait here a bit, and cool, before I go. I’ve been walking fast”—which was true—“and I’m confoundedly hot and tired”—which was not true.
Ali Halim salaamed, and Doctor Traherne sat himself down in a very beautiful and big chair, which Kathleen Agnew had coveted and the Colonel paid for, in Lahore, standing now beside a very ugly hall table which the Colonel had admired in a catalogue, and had had sent out all the way from the Tottenham Court Road.
How?
A gong, a disk of hammered brass, slung in a frame of carved and inlaid camphor-wood, which Kathleen also had coveted somewhere and with the usual result, stood beside a bowl of magnolia buds on the Tottenham Court table. It never was used. Not even Kathleen Agnew dared use it. For the master of the bungalow detested noise, except bugle-calls, regimental bands and drill and parade orders, and the mighty music of battle, almost as much as he despised civilians. Even the clocks in his bungalow had to tick softly, and were not allowed to strike above a whisper. No bell rang for meals here, and certainly no gong was struck. “A damned impertinent way of telling a gentleman his food was ready—of course it was ready, when it was the precise moment at which it should be ready.” Meals were not even announced under Colonel Agnew’s rule. You went in to a second on time—and the meal was ready, ready then, neither before nor after. More than one English woman, visiting India, and the Agnews’ guest for a day or a meal, wondered how her host would have adjusted himself to the post-war servants of London. Kathleen could have told them that he would not have done so, but that in all human probability they would have adjusted their post-war selves to him—or, if they didn’t, he’d “cook the stuff himself.”