And the elephant raised his trunk vertically in the air and trumpeted the Salaamut or royal salute that he had been taught to make.  Then, at Ramnath’s signal, he lowered his trunk and crooked it.  The man put his bare foot on it, at the same time seizing one of the great ears.  Then Badshah lifted him up with the trunk until he could get on to the head into position astride the neck.  Then the new mahout, salaaming again to the officer, started his huge charge off, and the elephant lumbered away with swaying stride to its peelkhana, or stable, two thousand feet below in the forest at the foot of the hills on which stood the Fort of Ranga Duar.  For this outpost, which was garrisoned by Dermot’s Double Company of a Military Police Battalion, guarded one of the duars, or passes, through the Himalayas into India from the wild and little-known country of Bhutan.

Its Commanding Officer watched the elephant disappear down the hill before returning to his little stone bungalow, which stood in a small garden shaded by giant mango and jack-fruit trees and gay with the flaming lines of bougainvillias and poinsettias.

Dismissing the post orderly, who was still waiting, Dermot threw himself into a long chair and took up the letters that he had flung down when Badshah’s screams attracted his attention.  They were all routine official correspondence contained in the usual long envelopes marked “On His Majesty’s Service.”  The registered one, however, held a smaller envelope heavily sealed, marked “Secret” and addressed to him by name.  In this was a letter in cipher.

Dermot got up from his chair and, going into his bedroom, opened a trunk and lifted out of it a steel despatch box, which he unlocked.  From this he extracted a sealed envelope, which he carried back to the sitting-room.  First examining the seals to make sure that they were intact, he opened the envelope and took from it two papers.  One was a cipher code and on the other was the keyword to the official cipher used by the military authorities throughout India.  This word is changed once a year.  On the receipt of the new one every officer entitled to be in possession of it must burn the paper on which is written the old word and send a signed declaration to that effect to Army Headquarters.

Taking a pencil and a blank sheet of paper Dermot proceeded to decipher the letter that he had just received.  It was dated from the Adjutant General’s Office at Simla, and headed “Secret.”  It ran: 

“Sir: 

“In continuation of the instructions already given you orally, I have the honour to convey to you the further orders of His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief in India.