The British officer next in
seniority to you will command the detachment in your absences You may
communicate to him as much of the contents of this letter as you deem
advisable, impressing upon him the necessity for the strictest secrecy.
"You will in all matters communicate directly and confidentially with this
office.
"I have the honour to be, Sir,
"Your most obedient servant."
Here followed the signature of one of the highest military authorities in
India.
Dermot stared at the letter.
"So that's it!" he thought. "It's a bigger thing than I imagined."
He had known when he consented to being transferred from a staff
appointment in Simla to the command of a small detachment of a Military
Police Battalion garrisoning an unimportant frontier fort on the face of
the Himalayas that he was being sent there for a special purpose. He had
consented gladly; for to him the great attraction of his new post was that
he would find himself once more in the great Terai Jungle. To him it was
Paradise. Before going to Simla he had been stationed with a Double Company
of the Indian Infantry Regiment to which he belonged in a similar outpost
in the mountains not many miles away. This outpost had now been abolished.
But while in it he used to spend all his spare time in the marvellous
jungle that extended to his very door.
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