Death on a Pale Horse Read Free

equipment, sir!”
    â€œLoss?” Pulleine glanced at him, not understanding. He turned back and looked down at the company commanders’ reports on his desk again but appeared to find no explanation there.
    The anonymous horseman kept his inconspicuous distance from the conversation. He made a convincing play of piercing a further hole in his belt with an awl from his knapsack, maintaining a frown of concentration. It surprised him that they had noticed their loss already. Not a syllable of the words between the two men escaped him. Pulleine shook his head.
    â€œVery well, sergeant-major. Loss of what?”
    Tindal was quiet and confidential. Like many of his regiment, his voice retained the low lilt of his Welsh valley.
    â€œOwain Glyndwr, sir. Missing from the mess-tent, sir.”
    â€œNonsense. What the devil would anyone want with him?”
    As even the Natal Volunteers knew by now, Owain Glyndwr was a piece of regimental mythology, the mummified head of an Abyssinian sharpshooter, brought back as a trophy after the storming of Magdala in 1867. Pickled by the surgeon-major, it had become an object of veneration to younger officers in the boisterous aftermath of regimental guest-nights.
    â€œNot nonsense, sir,” said Tindal quickly. “He’s gone. And Dai Morgan do say someone was creeping about last night when Mr. Pope’s dogs did bark. Perhaps a native spy was out in the hills, sir.”
    Pulleine looked up and scrutinised the sergeant-major a moment longer before replying.
    â€œSar’ Major! Inform Private Morgan and anyone else to whom it may apply that the purpose of this expedition is to repulse a Zulu invasion of the province of Natal. I will not have any officer or batman playing the fool at a time like this. If I hear more of this matter, or if I find that Private Morgan has laid his hands on an unauthorised rum-ration again, he and you will be visited as if by the Wrath of God. Is that plain?”
    â€œSir,” said Tindal smartly.
    â€œVery well, sar’ major. Dismiss!”
    Pulleine was still standing in the opening of the tent as the bugles blew “Column Call” and the regimental NCOs prepared to call the names of the men who had fallen in by companies. The colonel shouted across to one of his subalterns.
    â€œMr. Spencer!”
    As he watched them casually, the hunter identified Spencer as the fair-skinned young captain who went everywhere with a pet terrier running at his heels. Spencer now crossed to the colonel’s tent and saluted self-consciously, the fair skin colouring a little under the trim line of his ginger moustaches.
    â€œMr. Spencer, as orderly officer last night, please explain to me this report of the removal of Owain Glyndwr from the guard-tent!”
    â€œSar’ Major Tindal is investigating it, sir. Someone seems to have taken the head from the mess trophy-case in the small hours of this morning.”
    â€œI am aware of that, Mr. Spencer.” Pulleine rested his hand on his sword-hilt in the brightness of the African sun. “Be so good as to find the culprit, put him in close arrest, and bring him to me at defaulters’ parade tomorrow morning. Understood?”
    Spencer hesitated. Unlike his brother captains, he seemed a diffident young man who took awkwardly to the self-assurance of professional soldiering.
    â€œWith respect, sir.”
    â€œWell?” Pulleine released the hilt and adjusted the angle of the scabbard again.
    â€œThe men suspect an intruder in the camp last night, near ‘B’ Company lines.”
    â€œThe devil they do, Mr. Spencer! Then why, in God’s name, was something not done at the time?”
    â€œMorgan reported a wide-brimmed hat. Whoever he was, he was close to the wagons and the guard-tents.”
    â€œMr. Spencer,” said Pulleine softly, “almost every Natal Volunteer wears a patrol-jacket and a wide-awake hat. How could one of them—or