ABSTRACT

The Last Ride Together, I decided, should be to the polo ground, out in the direction of the Taj Mahal, where Shireen’s memories like mine could race back a full sixteen years. Ginger, since the order of precedence was sacrosanct in my small stable, would come behind us, ridden by the head syce; and after him, mounted by the second syce, an elegant bay—parting gift of Malcolm Darling, the Punjab Civilian of fame, to one whose staying power in India, as things turned out, topped his own by very little. Next day, all three horses would be taking the road to Gwalior where a trio of Dutchmen operating a firm there had undertaken to provide them with a gentle retreat. Soon we were trotting past the Agra Club; the doors were closed now, its members ghosts already. And then, Civil Lines traversed, we were turning left and approaching what, if luck assists, can be a prospect of unsurpassable beauty. The heat haze of the dawn wreathes the foundations of the Fort in a muslin scarf, so that viewed from this point of aesthetic advantage the upper battlements appear to be floating on air. And that morning luck assisted.