The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno Page B

huffing once, a low, baleful melody that ends with a lilting, dirge-like whistle.
    “Help is on the way,” George says, taking a step closer. He reaches a hand out toward the rhino’s soft, febrile hide. The animal’s wrinkled white skin is covered in bristly brown hairs. The lieutenant changes his mind, and returns his hand to his hip. The rhinoceros sinks farther. A number of bubbles explode around its trapped mass as it quickly begins to descend. George lurches forward without thinking, but the rhino is much too dangerous, its enormous head lashing about in panic. All at once, the empty valley echoes with the report of rifle fire. George turns quickly, surveying the gray land, his stern hand shading the sun, and catches sight of Ishari hurrying back along the road. The young lieutenant curses, seeing the boy is empty-handed. He turns back to the rhinoceros, which has sunk even farther, its noble head the only thing remaining above the dark murk.
    Ishari reaches the lieutenant entirely out of breath. He is so winded he cannot speak. The lieutenant, seeing the red in the young sepoy’s cheeks, softens, impressed by the boy’s exuberance, dedication, and loyalty. He places his hand on the Hindu boy’s shoulder and notices the poor, trembling child is covered in blood. The boy opens his mouth to speak, but is still too overcome, too frightened. Ishari turns, pointing back toward the military cantonment. Another rifle shot echoes across the open field, then a second, then a third.
    “Ishari, my boy, what has happened? What have you seen?”
    But Ishari still cannot speak. He reaches his hand up, touching the young lieutenant’s clean-shaven face, then collapses. Only then does the lieutenant see the young sepoy has been stabbed, a gaping wound left across his back. The boy clutches the lieutenant’s ankle, sinking into the soft, wet ground. He gasps, coughing up blood, trying to untie the lieutenant’s bootlaces. George kneels beside him, clasping the boy’s shoulder, but sees it is already too late. The poor child is dead, his hand fast at the laces of his commander’s brown boot. George looks up and sees a cloud of smoke rising steadily from the direction of the cantonment. Something is wrong. He leans over and gently folds the fingers of his fallen protégé away from the toe of his boot. He makes a perfect knot in each shoelace and then feels for his pistol. He finds it at his hip and then rushes off. The road is uneven and full of stones, and the lieutenant is out of breath before he reaches the outskirts of the military encampment. His heart pounds dreadfully with each stride, and once or twice he nearly trips. He can hear gunfire and the sounds of what must be screaming by the time the gray, bulky shapes of the barracks come into view. Moments later, his heart wrenched loose in his chest, his brow slick with sweat, he stumbles into the cantonment and sees the impossible: the other British officers of his regiment, the Eleventh, lie dead.
    A foot, a leg, an arm, a face staring there wide-eyed in the mud, the barracks are a shambles.
    Somewhere beyond the shadows of the cantonment are more shouts and more gunfire, and the lieutenant, stricken, brandishes his weapon nervously, still unsure what has happened. Certainly it must have been an ambush of some kind, the Thuggees perhaps, but there is no sign of any assailants other than spent rifle cartridges and the loamy, blood-smeared bodies of his fellow officers. Hurrying into the first barrack, the regimental headquarters, he sees it is empty, a wooden table and chairs smoldering with fire, papers and field manuals strewn about. The next barrack, the colonel’s quarters, is untouched, signs of struggle strangely absent. The colonel’s pajamas, blue-and-white striped, lie on the dirty ground, a bedpan overturned on the white sheets of the imperious-looking field cot.
    The third tent is inconspicuously crowded. The lieutenant, lifting the tent flap aside, gags