Chapter Seven
The fat sergeant was sweating, sweating more than he usually did. He sat around the small table, in one of the tents to the far end of the camp. He had heard whispers of a game, a game of Ganjifa and a game that would settle all of his outstanding debts in one fell swoop, but the newly promoted corporal who served the fresh sun-burnt lieutenant from England.
"The bet is 5000," Ghadnar smiled, knowing how the lure of the game would have come to the sergeant's greedy ears and once they had sat him down; Ghadnar knew they had him.
The game had been going on for three hours now, the hour was late the white ivory markers were on the table and the old circular cards, beloved by the Mughal kings of Persia and old India, were held in the remaining three players. Ghadnar was an experienced card player and not above cheating but the third player was his man, who helped lure their man ready to fleece him. The sergeant had been lucky in the initial stages of the game but now he was heavily overdrawn and had four markers on the table before him and had to win or place himself in a desperate position. As the final tricks were played against him, the cards fell to the table and his tension grew with each fall of cards. The last trick would be the climax and the winner, would win the pot, that sat in the middle of the table. The sergeant could taste bile in his mouth and the sweat ran in rivulets down his face and soaked his beard, but Ghadnar was cool and confident, his accomplice dropped his cards and shrugged. Now, the cards fell to the sergeant who placed his trick down in front of the pile of gold coins in front of him. He looked up,
"My trick I think!" He grinned but then Ghadnar dropped the three king cards, and the game was his.
"I fear not sergeant, you will have to pay your markers by tomorrow!" Ghadnar shrugged casually.
"I...I cannot pay straight away!" The sergeant's fat lips trembled. He looked around the table,
"Well, let us walk back to your tent, and discuss how your debt will be settled," The sergeant had lost his smile and as they walked back, his face was ashen as he agreed to Ghadnar's terms,
"So, your wife will come to my tent, for the next seven nights, beginning with this night, as compensation for the three markers you took for the game but I am out of pocket and I must have half what you owe before we march on Jhansi!" Ghadnar smiled slyly as the sergeant sloped off to give his wife the bad news, that she would be whoring for him to pay off more gambling debts. He waited in the darkness, his hand brushing the colossal erection in his jodhpurs. All his scheming had led to this moment when the woman would be his for the night and the rest of the week. Of course, he would ensure that the sergeant wouldn't have to find the money he owed, as he intended to have him murdered on his way to or from the town trying to gamble for a way out or raising some loan to pay him way out of his debts. He watched the tent, the light of an oil map made disturbing shadows on the canvas as the sergeant whispered to his wife, and then heard her reply. The sergeant barked some sharp order and the conversation stopped abruptly.
Within minutes, the wife emerged from the tent and looked dejected. She glanced up at Ghadnar and saw him in the darkness,
"My husband owes you?" She asked quietly. Ghadnar held out his arm and she stepped forward a folded hers into the crook of his elbow, looking like an old couple they walked away from the sergeants' tent.
She didn't look back as they walked to his tent,