by Thalassa Ali
“She is a gallant woman,” Lady Sale observed to her daughter, after Lady Macnaghten had climbed the stairs to her room followed by her nephew, a candle flickering in his hand. “I would never have expected it of her. And that foppish, fool nephew of hers has somehow developed a spine.”
She stood and held her hands to the fire. “I wonder what became of Miss Givens. I cannot believe Mott's claim that an Afghan chief abducted her, and then demanded her entire family, including the servants, as hostages. I think she and her uncle have plotted an escape to India.”
“If they have,” her daughter said bluntly, “then they are cowards.”
“Perhaps they are,” mused Lady Sale, “but they are clever cowards. There is more to that Givens girl than meets the eye. And now,” she added briskly, “we must go to bed, for tomorrow we shall march.”
MORNING ARRIVED in Mariana's tent without sun, or any sign of Hassan Ali Khan.
When Nur Rahman held out a cup of morning tea, Mariana returned his greeting distractedly, her breath white in the tent's freezing air. When he did not leave immediately, but sat down by her doorway, his knife ready at his belt, she understood that he, too, was worried.
“All our drivers have taken their animals, and left,” he volunteered.
“The pack animals are gone? But why?”
He shrugged. “Hassan Ali Khan is supposed to supply all their food. It finished last night. When he had not returned this morning, they went away. Ghulam Ali and I told them to wait, but they said they must seek food and work elsewhere.”
“Are we all alone, then?”
“No.” The boy shook his head. “The servants are in four tents behind us, but they are afraid. They say they have been threatened by people who think they are spying for the British.”
“And what of Ghulam Ali?”
“He is outside your doorway with a musket. He has been there since dawn.”
Her chest tightened. “And he is our protection?”
Nur Rahman raised his chin. “Ghulam Ali and I,” he said, pointing to his own, wicked-looking knife, “are your protection.”
Mariana stood up, tightened her sheepskin across her chest, and pushed the door curtain aside. There was no sign of the courier. The other tents that had dotted the sloping ground in front of her were gone, except for the three menacing-looking ones she had seen the night before.
“Ghulam Ali is not there.” She pushed her hands into her sleeves against the invading wind. “Ask the servants to bring more hot coals.”
Nur Rahman went out, and returned almost immediately. “There is no one in the servants’ tents,” he whispered. “They are gone.”
“Gone?” She stared. “But where would they go, in this weather?”
“I heard one of them say yesterday that he has a Hindu friend in the city. Perhaps they have gone to find him. I found a tribesman standing near their tents just now,” he added. “He said that he and his friends had been teasing the servants, threatening to come at night and kill them all. He said they were cowards to run away.”
“Perhaps they were not teasing.” A shiver ran down Mariana's back. She had seen only two of Hassan's servants since her arrival, but she knew enough of Indian households to imagine them all—at least three personal servants, a pair of cooks, a sweeper, someone to wash Hassan's clothes, grooms, porters, someone to attend to the fire, a courier….
“And what of Ghulam Ali?” she asked sharply.
The boy shook his head. “He has not returned.”
“Then we are alone.” Panic rose in Mariana's throat.
She put a hand on the tent pole to steady herself. Even the freezing roads would be safer than this vulnerable, unguarded tent. Who knew what horrors they would risk if they stayed.
“We must leave at once,” she said urgently.
“No.” Nur Rahman shook his head. “We must wait. Ghulam Ali cannot have gone far. Hassan Ali Khan is coming back soon. He will—”
“How do you know Hassan will come?” she demanded, her voice rising. “How do you know he has not been killed? How do you know Ghulam Ali is not lying somewhere outside with his throat cut?”
Her shoulders sagged at the sound of her own terrible words. “We have no food left, Nur Rahman, and only that knife of yours for protection. The men in front of us have seen me here. They know we're alone.”
“But where will we go?”
“To Haji Khan's house. He will know what to do. If Hassan returns, he will find me there.”
If. The Afghans would have seen that Hassan was Indian. She must not picture him shot by a sniper, lying crumpled by the side of the road.
No one knew where she was.
Nur Rahman threw up his hands. “Khanum,” he cried, “we cannot go to the city! It is at war. No women will be allowed on the streets.”
She found her chaderi and threw it on. “Then we must join the British on their march to Jalalabad. If we hurry, we can join the vanguard, where the senior ladies are—”
“No!”
“Please, Nur Rahman,” she begged, her chin wobbling with fright beneath her veil. “We must get away from here before we are killed. Tomorrow morning the British will have marched away, and the city will be safer. We will go to Haji Khan's house then.”
Nur Rahman squeezed his eyes shut.
When she did not reply, he opened his eyes and sighed. “If I am to walk on the road with you,” he said resignedly, “then I must fetch my own chaderi.”
Like a pair of countrywomen, with dirty, worn chaderis over their sheepskins, they walked together under the high gate of the caravanserai, then turned east, along the narrow, trampled path to the city, and the road to Jalalabad.
A faint thudding came from the distance.
“Heavy guns,” Mariana said as they walked. “The British must be fighting a rearguard action, to cover the retreat.”
As they neared the city, the sound of artillery grew louder. Mariana walked heavily, weighed down by her sheepskin, her movements hampered by her sodden chaderi.
Her face burned from the cold.
Nur Rahman pointed. “Look!” he cried, over the thundering of the guns.
To their left, past leafless orchards, heavy gray smoke rose into the air.
“The British fort has fallen,” he said.
She stared despairingly at the column of smoke. She had never thought the enemy would set the cantonment on fire. Where were Lady Macnaghten and Lady Sale? Where were Charles Mott and Harry Fitzgerald?
“Akbar Khan's men have captured the British artillery,” the boy went on. “They are firing after the British as they run away.”
Run away. It was a terrible admission, but it was correct. The rising smoke certainly did not speak of tactical retreat, a prelude to future victory. It told only of dismal, hopeless flight.
It had taken the Afghans no time at all to use the captured artillery….
Two boys approached, leading a donkey.
Nur Rahman stopped them to ask for news. The elder of the two pointed east, toward the Hindu Kush mountains. His companion gestured excitedly, a wide grin on his dirty face.
When they had gone, Nur Rahman turned to Mariana. “Those boys watched everything, even the shooting,” he said. “They say that Afghan fighters have disrupted the retreating column. They say the British and Indian soldiers are not returning the Afghan artillery fire, and that most of their baggage was plundered before they had even crossed the river.”
Mariana shivered. The smoke now seemed to come from more than one fire. Had Fitzgerald lost all his guns? What would become of the poor, desperate column as it tried to force its way through the first, claustrophobic Khurd-Kabul pass? How would it survive that pass, and the next one, and the next? What of the half-starved sepoys who marched in this bitter cold, or the camp followers, the twelve thousand unarmed men, women, and children? What of the shoeless, runny-nosed babies she had seen in the bazaar?
At its narrowest, the Jagdalak Pass was only six feet
wide.
Her legs felt weak. Her feet had lost their feeling. She wanted to sit down, but there was nowhere to rest, only snow, gray skies, leafless trees, and more snow.
“We must avoid the fighting,” Nur Rahman said thoughtfully. “We will turn north to avoid the path of the British army, then travel parallel to them until we reach the head of the column. At dark, after the Ghilzais have stopped shooting, and dispersed to their homes, we will join the British camp.”
She nodded numbly.
“Since it has taken them all morning to cross the river,” he said, “they will not have gone far. Early tomorrow morning, before the fighting begins again, we will get away and return to the city. But we must move quickly.”
Had they made a mistake? she wondered, as she forced herself to follow the boy. Had they abandoned Hassan's camp too soon? Why, in her panic, had she failed to leave a note for Hassan? Was he searching for her even now?
If he was, then please make him wait for her at Haji Khan's house.
Nur Rahman pointed toward a narrow path leading north across the snowy landscape. “This is the road,” he said.
It was two more miles before the path they followed was intersected by a second, equally narrow one. Beside that unprepossessing crossroad, a wooden lean-to sat on a patch of packed snow. In its questionable shelter, a red-cheeked man tended a fire beneath a battered samovar.
As she toiled toward it, Mariana looked longingly at the fire and the worn carpets that had been spread on the snow to accommodate the chaikhana's half-dozen customers.
She and Nur Rahman had not a single coin between them.
A second pot stood balanced at the edge of the fire. It was the scent from that pot that drove Mariana to twist off the small gold ring she had worn since she was eighteen, and hold it out to the proprietor.
He pocketed the ring and pointed to a separate place behind the lean-to, out of sight of his male guests. “Wait there,” he said, as Mariana and Nur Rahman sat gratefully down on a shabby Bokhara carpet. “I will bring soup.”
IT WAS noon before Hassan and Zulmai arrived at the caravanserai, Hassan riding a glossy chestnut stallion and leading a black mare. Behind them followed the eight mules, loaded with food supplies and live chickens in cages covered with felt wrappings. Beside the mules, a boy with a stick drove five nanny goats.
Terrified of what Hassan would say, but desperate to share his burden, Ghulam Ali ran heavily toward them and fell to his knees.
“Bibi is gone,” he sobbed, “she is gone!”
“What? When?”
The courier looked up, hot tears standing in his eyes. “I went to relieve myself this morning, out of sight of her tent. I could not wait any longer, Sahib.”
“And when you came back?” Hassan sat absolutely still on his stallion.
“They were gone. Nothing had been stolen. The bolsters, the rugs, all are still there. I do not know what happened. I never thought anyone would kidnap them.”
“I did not know,” Ghulam Ali added miserably, gesturing at the four empty servants’ tents, “that the servants had all run away.”
“Did anyone see them leave?” Zulmai demanded.
Ghulam Ali's face crumpled. “I did not think to ask. I have been so—”
“Get off your knees,” Zulmai ordered, “and ask the tea seller by the gate.”
“Two women in chaderis went past this morning,” the old man offered when the three men approached him. “I think they turned that way,” he added, pointing toward the city. “They appeared to be alone,” he added carefully, “and they did not seem to be ladies of wealth.”
Before he had finished speaking, Hassan clucked to his new stallion. “I do not know when I will be back,” he threw over his shoulder, as his horse cantered under the gate and onto the road.
“Ghulam Ali,” Zulmai ordered, “stay with our baggage. Do not let anyone disappear with our food stores. I will bring more pack animals to carry our tents, and then you and I will wait and see whether Hassan Ali Khan finds his wife.”
January 6, 1842
As she gulped her second bowl of soup, Mariana looked through a gap in the tea shop wall. She elbowed Nur Rahman, and pointed.
A thickly dressed man was approaching the chaikhana. Behind him strode a pair of blond, two-humped Bactrian camels.
Her eyes on the new guest, Mariana reached into the pocket of her poshteen, took out Hassan's medallion, and slid it from its chain and into her palm.
An olive, read its delicate Arabic letters, neither of the East, nor of the West.
“Here is what we will do,” she whispered.
Half an hour later, when the camel-driving customer put down his teacup and stood to leave, Mariana and Nur Rahman got up and followed him to where his tethered animals waited, their jaws moving rhythmically.
Nur Rahman cleared his throat. “Please,” he said sweetly, “will you take us toward Butkhak?”
The man's face was seamed from exposure to the sun. He frowned, his eyes politely averted from them. “But Butkhak is on the road to Jalalabad,” he replied dubiously. “Why do you want to go there? Do you not know what is happening?”
“We live just past Begrami,” Nur Rahman explained. “We have become late, and now we fear we will not reach there before sunset.”
The man shook his head. “I am not going that way.”
Nur Rahman held out his hand. Mariana's gold chain dangled from his fingers. “We can offer you this.”
The man shrugged, took the chain, and put it into his pocket. “If there is danger,” he warned, “I will turn back.”
“Once we are past Begrami, we will be sure to find the head of the British train,” Nur Rahman whispered.
The man picked up a stick. Making a curious guttural sound, he tapped the forelegs of one camel, then the other.
One after the other, they knelt obediently down, front knees first, hindquarters second.
Mariana's had mild, long-lashed eyes. It smelled warm and musty. Even kneeling, it was tall. She reached up and grasped two handfuls of its luxuriant hair, then, with a discreet boost from Nur Rahman, struggled onto its back, and settled between its humps.
Her plight could be worse, she thought, as they started off. The snow had stopped, although the sky was still heavy and gray. Her stomach was full, and the shaggy humps protected her from the fiercest blasts of wind. She pushed her hands into the sleeves of her poshteen, hunched her shoulders against the cold, hoping she was doing the right thing.
The afternoon light had begun to change. The city and the Bala Hisar were already behind them. Their escort strode rapidly along, saying nothing, the lead ropes in one hand.
As the light began to fade, sounds came from the distance, of a great body of men, carts, and animals on the move.
Their road was taking them nearer to the retreating army. Sounds began to distinguish themselves from the general din: shouts, cries, and shots.
The Ghilzais were still firing on the column. People must have been killed, but who?
She swayed with her camel's stride, listening intently to the sounds of battle. How long, she wondered, was the column? How much farther must they go to find the vanguard?
Their guide stopped and looked back at her. “We will reach Begrami after dark,” he announced. “Do you know the way to your house?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Nur Rahman fluted.
Mariana closed her eyes. She felt as if she had been traveling for weeks. The rhythmic chiming of the camels’ ankle bells reminded her of something
She awoke when her camel stopped.
Night had already fallen. Animals blew nearby. A chorus of competing voices combined with the creaks and groans of transport vehicles.
“We have reached Begrami,” their guide announced. He was barely visible in the blackness. “I cannot take you any farther. The foreigners and their army have blocked the way. They are all around us. I do not know what to do with you now,” he added mournfully. “I wish I had not
agreed to help you.”
“Oh, no,” Nur Rahman assured him. “It is all right. We will get down now. We can walk the rest of the way.”
“Impossible,” the man declared. “I have taken responsibility for your safety. There is a fort a little way behind us. I must take you there.”
Another fort. Mariana held her breath.
“Leave us here!” Nur Rahman's voice held a note of hysteria.
“I will not allow two women to walk through a foreign army camp in the middle of—”
“Leave us!” Nur Rahman screeched. “Make the camels kneel down! Keep the gold chain! We want to get off!”
The man said nothing, but a moment later Mariana heard his guttural noise again, and felt the tapping of his stick.
Her camel dropped, joltingly, to the ground. She slid from its back. Almost at once she felt Nur Rahman tug at her chaderi.
“Run,” he urged quietly, “before he changes his mind!”
Clutching each other, they hurried clumsily away.
“Make no sound,” Nur Rahman whispered.
At last they heard the man speak to his camels. A moment later the jingling of their ankle bells told them he was leaving.
Groans and cries came from ahead of them. Mariana's heart contracted as they picked their way toward the sound.
When they arrived, she peered around her with growing dismay.
The British camp, if it could be called one, was a disgrace. No cooking fires beckoned them. No lamplight glowed from inside sheltering tents. Barely visible, silhouetted against the pale snow, men lay singly and in groups as if they had fallen where they stood. Sobs and whimpers filled the air.
A shadowy form lay across Mariana's path. She bent over it.
“Where are the senior officers? Where is General Elphinstone?” she asked, first in English, then in Urdu.
The body in the snow proved to be an Indian sepoy. “I do not know where they are, Memsahib,” he replied through chattering teeth. “I only know that I am dying from the cold.”
Impulsively, she reached down and touched his arm. He wore only his regular uniform, the thin red coat he had worn throughout the summer and autumn.