“And vet vou continue to stav, whv then?”

“I have too much here, projects, experiments, too many plans. I hadn’t intended to stay. I first came for work. There was only a glimmer that it was for something different. Or maybe it is simpler than that, perhaps I won’t leave because I am afraid to hand over my command to someone else. They would not do this…peacefully.” He paused, and took the cigar from his mouth. He stared at the smoke seeping from its end. “There are times when I have doubts.”

“About the war?”

“No, perhaps I am expressing myself poorly. I don’t doubt what I have done here. I know it is right. I doubt only what I have missed in doing it.” He rolled the cheroot back and forth between his fingers. “I listen to you, and how you speak of your wife—I had a wife once. And a daughter—a tiny baby who was mine for one day. There is a Shan saying that when people die it is because they have done what they needed to, because they are too good for this world. I think of her when I hear them say this.”

“I am sorry,” Edgar said. “The Colonel told me. But I didn’t feel like it was my position to ask.”

“No, you are too considerate…But I should apologize, Mr. Drake: these are sad, distant thoughts.” He straightened his back in the saddle. “Besides, you asked me why I stay. That is a difficult enough question. Perhaps, everything I just told you about not wanting to give up the camp is wrong. Perhaps I stay simply because I cannot leave.” He put his cigar back in his mouth. “Once I tried. Not long after I began to work at the hospital in Rangoon, another surgeon arrived with his battalion, to remain in Rangoon for a year before moving up-country. It had been years since I visited England, and I was given the option to return home for a few months. I booked a berth on a steamer and traveled from Rangoon, where I was stationed at the time, to Calcutta, and there boarded the train to Bombay.”

“It is the same route that I followed.”

“Then you know how stunning it is. Well, that trip was even more stunning. We were not thirty miles from Delhi when the train stopped at a small supply depot and I saw a cloud of dust rise up over the desert. It was a group of riders, and as they drew closer, I recognized them as Rajasthani herders. The women were dressed in exquisitely colored veils, which still glowed a deep red despite the dust that had settled over them. I think they had seen the train from a distance and had come to inspect it out of curiosity. They moved back and forth beside us, pointed at the wheels, the engine, the passengers, all the time talking in a language I couldn’t understand. I watched them, the passing color, still thinking, and I boarded the steamer to England. But when the boat reached Aden, I disembarked and took the next steamer back to Bombay, the next train back to Calcutta. One week later, I was back at my post in Pegu. I still don’t know exactly why seeing the herders made me turn back. But the thought of returning to London’s dark streets while those images continued to dance in my head seemed impossible. The last thing I wanted to become was one of those sad veterans who bores any listening ear with disjointed tales of unfamiliar places.” He inhaled deeply on the cheroot. “You know, I told you how I have been translating the Odyssey. I always read it as a tragic tale of Odysseus’s struggle to find his way home. Now I understand more and more what Dante and Tennyson wrote about it, that he wasn’t lost, but that after the wonders he had seen, Odysseus couldn’t, perhaps didn’t want to, return home.”

There was silence.

“That reminds me of a story I once heard,” said Edgar.

“Yes?”

“It was not long ago—three months, maybe—when I first left England. I met a man on the ship in the Red Sea. An old Arab.”

“The Man with One Story.”

“You know him?”

“Of course. I met him long ago, when I was in Aden. I have heard many speak of his story. A story of war is never lost on a soldier.”

“A story of war?”

“I have heard soldiers tell me the same story for years. I can almost recite it now; the images of Greece are so vivid. It turns out the story is true, both he and his brother were just boys whose families had been killed by the Ottomans, and worked as spies during the War for Independence. I once met an old veteran from the War who said that he had heard of the brothers, their valor. Everyone wants to hear the story. They feel that it is auspicious, that those who hear it perform bravely in battle.”

Edgar stared at the Doctor. “Greece?…”

“Yes?” asked the Doctor.

“You are certain it was about the Greek War for Independence?”

“The story? Of course. Why? Are you surprised that after so many years I still remember it?”

“No…I am not surprised at all. I too remember as if I heard it yesterday. I too can almost recite it now.”

“Is there something wrong then?”

“No, nothing wrong, I suppose,” said Edgar, slowly. “Just thinking of the story.” Thinking, Was it different only for me, I could not have imagined it all, this all.

They rode on, and passed through a grove of trees with long twisted pods that made rattling sounds as they shook. The Doctor said, “You wished to say something. That the Man with One Story reminded you of something I said.”

“Oh…” Edgar reached up and picked one of the pods. He broke it open, the dried seeds spilling out over his hands. “It doesn’t matter. It is just a story, I suppose.”

“Yes, Mr. Drake.” Carroll looked quizzically at the piano tuner. “They are all just stories.”

The sun was low in the sky as they passed over a small rise to look down on a collection of huts in the distance. “Mongpu,” said the Doctor. They stopped by a dusty shrine. Edgar watched Carroll dismount and lay a coin at the base of a small house that held a spirit icon.

They began their descent, the ponies’ feet splashing in the mud of the trail. It grew darker. Mosquitoes came out, great clouds, breaking and coalescing like dancing fragments of shade.

“Foul creatures,” said the Doctor, swatting at them. His cheroot had burned to a short stub, and he took the sardine tin once again from his pocket. “I recommend that you smoke, Mr. Drake. It will keep the insects away.”

Edgar remembered the malaria attack, and conceded. The doctor lit a cigar and passed it to him. Its taste was liquid, intoxicating.

“I should probably explain a little about the meeting,” said the Doctor as they began to ride again. “As you have read, since the annexation of Mandalay, there has been active resistance from a union of forces called the Limbin Confederacy.”

“We spoke of this when the sawbwa of Mongnai came.”

“We did,” said the Doctor. “But there is something I didn’t tell you. For the past two years, I have been in close negotiation with the sawbwas of the Limbin Confederacy.”

Edgar took the cigar awkwardly from his mouth. “You wrote that no one had met with the Confederacy…”

“I know what I wrote and what I told you. But I had reasons for that. As you probably know, at the time that your boat was somewhere in the Indian Ocean, a force was established at Hlaingdet under Colonel Stedman: companies from the Hampshire Regiment, a Gurkha company, Bombay sappers, with George Scott as political officer, which gave me hope this wouldn’t turn into a full war; he is a close friend, and I don’t know anyone as sensitive to local issues as he is. But since January, our forces have been engaged in active battle near Yawnghwe. Now the commissioner feels that the only way to control the Shan States is through force. But because of the overtures by the Mongnai sawbwa, I think we can negotiate peace.”

“Does the army know about this meeting?”

“No, Mr. Drake, and this is what I need you to understand. They would oppose it. They don’t trust the princes. I will put this bluntly– I, and now you, are acting in direct defiance of military orders.” He let the words sink in. “Before you speak, there is something else. We have also spoken briefly about a Shan dacoit prince named Twet Nga Lu, known as the Bandit Chief, who once seized the state of Mongnai but who has since retreated to terrorize the villages ruled by the true Mongnai sawbwa. They say that few people have ever seen him. What they haven’t told you is what they don’t know. I have met the Bandit Chief many times.”