by Jane Feather
But every time Akbar Khan spoke, Ayesha was touched by the menace underlying the soft, seemingly conciliatory tone. He was inciting this incohesive group to concerted attack. He didn’t say it, but she could hear it in every word and every pause. How could the feringhee be trusted? They made promises, but they maintained their forces in fighting readiness. Of course, they were seriously weakened by the closing of the passes. Of course, they did not appear to be taking elementary precautions against the possibility of attack. Of course, they probably despised the Afghan so thoroughly that it did not occur to them to prepare a defense.
A hiss of rage greeted this seemingly careless observation, and the voices rose now in agitation. And this time Akbar Khan made no attempt to quiet and soothe.
Ayesha slipped from the antechamber, her feet numbed with cold, but it could not match the deadly chill in her soul as she faced the absolute recognition of the path about to be taken … unless she could work some magic on Akbar Khan.
It was October the thirtieth.
“How could Sale have lost upward of one hundred and twenty men?” exclaimed Sir William, for once bereft of his calm superiority. “It’s a bare three miles from Jugdulluk to Gundamuk.”
“Three miles of mountain tracks, winding between commanding heights,” Lieutenant Ralston pointed out with his customary accuracy. “The general says in his dispatch that the rear guard was attacked continuously by Ghilzais, who trapped them in the pass.”
“I can read, thank you, Lieutenant,” the Envoy declared icily. “And it reads like a piece of gross mismanagement to me. Why did not the main body of his army wait for the rear to close up on them before making the descent into the pass? What happened to his flanking detachments? Just tell me that. They should have been posted to protect the column.”
“Oh, how can we know?” wittered General Elphinstone. “If one is not there to see the situation, it’s very hard to pass judgment, Macnaghten.”
“The fact is that General Sale must now be at Gundamuk, awaiting further orders,” Kit put in. “What should I send to him?”
“Why, that he should return to Kabul immediately, of course!”
“Very well, General.” Kit saluted punctiliously and closed the door very softly behind him. With each new disaster, each new piece of bungling, his sense of unreality increased. In many ways, the entire gruesome fiasco had become a joke, he thought.
A grim joke … none grimmer … but without a degree of gallows humor one would never retain one’s sanity in this house of delusion.
The subaltern deputed to make the hazardous journey across Afghan-held territory to Sale at Gundamuk received his instructions with fortitude. “You’d be advised to adopt Afghan dress,” Kit said, “and your men as well. You’ll have a better chance of avoiding unwelcome attention.”
The advice was acknowledged with a stoical grin, and the young man went off to gather his escort. Kit returned to his bungalow, where, under the disapproving eye of Harley, his batman, he donned Afghan costume himself, darkened his face with boot polish, shrugged into a fur-lined sheepskin coat, and set off on horseback into the city.
It had been easy enough to acquire the tunic, the turban, the loose trousers now tucked into the tops of his boots, and he felt immeasurably more comfortable thus attired as he rode through the city streets. There were no Europeans to be seen. Indeed, there were few people around at all; those there were gathered in knots at street corners or in doorways. An air of dread expectancy hung over the city, raking his spine with the now familiar chills.
Leaving his horse at Burnes’s residence, he went on foot, as he had done for the last seven days, ever since he had seen her in the bazaar, to Akbar Khan’s house, where he stood in the concealment of a facing doorway, keeping silent vigil, wrestling with the problem that still refused to admit of solution.
Nothing seemed to matter anymore but this mission he had embarked upon. It consumed his every waking moment. He had discussed it endlessly with his friends, but their enthusiasm and inventiveness tended to diminish in direct relation to the diminishing level of brandy in the bottle and the lateness of the hour. He could hardly blame them. It wasn’t as if they had his knowledge of Ayesha-Annabel to feed the obsession. But as the collar tightened around the British presence in Kabul, so his determination hardened … became the only reality in this crazily deluded existence.
It was the afternoon of November the first.
Ayesha stood to one side of the window, looking down onto the street, down on the still figure in native dress, watching the house. What did he hope to achieve by this watching? It was a question she asked herself every time she saw him. And she wished passionately that he would go away, would leave her to live her life, would allow her to return to the peace and acceptance she had had before he had leaped into the calm waters of her existence. And she was afraid for him.
“We must allow no one to pass between the cantonment and the city.” Akbar Khan’s voice came from the corridor outside. “As a first step, we will isolate them in their encampment.”
“But what of Burnes in the residency, and the men in the Treasury?” It was the voice of Badar Khan, and Ayesha knew that the two men were going to the council chamber where yet another shura was convened. She moved closer to the tapestry-shielded doorway.
“Forced to remain in the city, they will be cut off from their fellows in the cantonment,” Akbar Khan replied. “We will begin to puncture the confidence of the feringhee dogs, create a degree of unease as they see we have the power to restrict their movements.”
“But perhaps we should do more than that,” Badar Khan said slowly.
“What do you have in mind?”
“A show of strength.”
“A direct attack?”
“The people are restless,” the other responded obliquely.
Ayesha shivered. She knew that the sedition amongst the citizens of Kabul had been carefully fostered by Akbar Khan and his fellow sirdars. If they unleashed the ferocity of the mob upon the enemy, the resulting horrors were not difficult to imagine.
“Perhaps we should just leave the people to make their own decisions,” Akbar Khan was saying casually. “Go into the shura, my friend. I will follow you in a moment.”
Ayesha stepped hastily away from the tapestried doorway, just as Akbar Khan entered the room. He regarded her shrewdly. “Were you listening?”
She blushed. “I could not help but overhear.”
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I think, on occasion, that you position yourself in such a way as to ensure that you cannot help it.”
“Why do you encourage this incitement?” she said with sudden passion, thinking of the man outside, below the window. “What benefit will accrue if there is violence?”
“What makes you think I am encouraging it?” he said with a careless shrug. “What the people do is their business.”
“You know that is not so!” Agitated, she stepped toward him. “You know you can prevent an insurrection, if you choose. Does it amuse you to play with people in this fashion? To watch someone else do your killing for you?”
“You overreach yourself, Ayesha,” he warned softly. “The feringhee must learn the nature of the Afghan, and the nature of the Afghan’s revenge for insults done him. They must be taught to fear us.”
As she had been taught, she recognized bleakly. She did fear them. She feared Akbar Khan. He had never treated her unkindly, never threatened her, never so much as punished her occasional childhood offenses, but the knowledge of his absolute power was sufficient intimidation. She touched her hands to her forehead in a graceful salaam of submission.
“I came to tell you to remain within doors,” he said in his usual calm voice, as if the last exchange had never taken place. “Until I can be certain there will be no disturbance, I do not want you to leave the house.”
“As you wish,” she said without expression.
He left without further words, and she returned to the window.
The watcher was gone. Night was falling, and the winter wind rushed through the deserted streets, setting a door to banging with forlorn, hollow resonance.
Chapter Seven
“Damned impertinent savages!” Burnes exploded, later that night. “Who the hell do they think they are? Refusing to let anyone pass between the city and the cantonment!” He glared at the sepoy messenger who had just returned to the residency, having been turned back by a hostile crowd when he attempted to leave the city with a message from Burnes to Macnaghten.
The sepoy wisely made no response, correctly assuming that the question had not really been asked of him. The tirade continued to fall upon his head, however, until William Broadfoot, Burnes’s secretary, coughed awkwardly. “Not really the man’s fault, Sir Alexander. He couldn’t help being turned back.”
Sir Alexander shook his head disgustedly and waved a dismissive hand at the sepoy, who beat a relieved retreat. “I don’t suppose it means anything,” he said, rather more moderately. “Just a touch of unrest. It’ll die down by the morning. If it doesn’t, Elphinstone’ll send in a brigade, just to show ’em who’s in charge here.”
“But how can he do that, Alexander, if we cannot get a message through to tell him of the situation?” Burnes’s younger brother spoke up, turning from the window where he had been looking out onto the night-dark garden.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Charlie,” his brother reassured him. “Once it’s light, we’ll get a message through; there’s no need—” He stopped at the sound of voices in the hall outside. “Hell and the devil! Is that Kit Ralston?” He flung open the library door. “Kit, what the devil are you doing here? I thought you’d left the city hours ago.”
Kit came into the room, blowing on his hands. “Dear God, but it’s cold out there. No, I decided to wander the bazaars for a while, see if I could deduce anything useful. I can pass amongst them unnoticed in this guise.” He gestured expressively at his native costume.
“You look just like one of ’em,” Burnes declared. “Apart from no beard. Did you hear the impudent bastards are preventing anyone going from here to the cantonment?”
Kit nodded gravely, shrugging out of the heavy goatskin coat. “It’s ugly, Burnes. There’s a head of steam out there just waiting to blow.”
“Oh, rubbish. A few of our troops will soon put paid to their nonsense!”
“If you’ll take my advice, you’ll have the guards doubled,” Kit said bluntly. “Both here and at the Treasury … oh, no thanks.” He declined William Broadfoot’s offer of his cigar case. “But I could do with a brandy. I’m chilled to the bone.”
The drink was instantly forthcoming, and a lowering silence fell on the room. Kit paced restlessly, kicked at a slipping log in the hearth, frowned into his goblet, his thoughts with Ayesha. He could have sworn he had seen her at the window this afternoon … and that she had seen him. But another figure had come into the room. He had seen the bulk move past the window, and it required little educated guesswork to recognize the sturdy, powerful shape of Akbar Khan. What dealings had they had up there? The speculation simply fed his obsession, and he struggled to close his mind to it, returning his attention to his companions’ newly resumed discussion.
“D’you think they know in headquarters that we’re confined to the city?” Charlie Broadfoot asked tentatively.
Kit shrugged. “Hard to say. But it’s all blown up so quickly, I doubt it. Until nightfall, things were as normal as they ever are in this place.”
“Think you could get through, Ralston? Dressed like one of ’em?” asked Broadfoot.
“Probably, particularly as I’m riding bareback. They’d recognize a British saddle at the drop of a hat.” He went to the window and drew aside the heavy curtain, peering into the unyielding darkness. “Let’s see what happens in the morning. Maybe Alexander is right, and the atmosphere will calm down. Night shadows can embolden a braggart, but the first light of day will serve to deflate him.”
“It’s that damned Akbar Khan, you mark my words,” Burnes declared savagely. “If I could get my hands on him, I’d see him hanged for a traitorous rebel.”
Kit contented himself with a raised eyebrow. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll get some sleep. If the situation hasn’t improved by dawn, I’ll make a break for the cantonment.”
“Yes, yes, of course, my dear fellow. I’ll get Abdul to show you to one of the guest rooms.” Burnes went to the door. “I daresay you’ll want to wash off that … that … well, whatever it is on your face,” he suggested with a fastidious curl of his lip, stroking his own neat moustache. “Doesn’t seem fitting for a British cavalry officer to go around lookin’ like a bloody native.”
“You’ll be glad enough of it in the morning, if someone has to try and get through to headquarters,” Kit responded without heat. “On occasion, expediency requires certain sacrifices, Burnes. It’s fortunate I don’t object to making them.”
He followed Burnes’s servant upstairs to a large, comfortable chamber at the front of the house, declined all offers of refreshment and hot water, pulled off his boots, and lay down fully clothed on the bed. He intended to catnap for what remained of the night, and be ready to leave at first light.
It was barely light on the morning of November the second, however, when he came to full awareness with an uncanny sense of impending danger. He lay in the darkened room, straining every sense to identify what had woken him so abruptly. At first, he could isolate nothing out of the ordinary. Slipping from the bed, he padded to the window and drew aside the curtain. A thin gray light from an overcast sky was encroaching on the night-dark. With instinctive stealth, he pushed open the casement, leaning out into the frigid air. Then he heard the sound. It was coming from beyond the walls of the residency. The sound of feet, an ominous hum of voices … a hum that swelled like storm-tossed waves on a pebble beach.
Hastily, he drew on his boots, checked his pistol, and ran downstairs. In the hall, he found Broadfoot and the Burnes brothers. Sir Alexander seemed unperturbed, and was as immaculately dressed as if he were about to pay a morning call. Broadfoot and Charlie, on the other hand, looked as rumpled as men who had just tumbled from their beds.
“Looks like a little riot,” Sir Alexander said, brushing down his frock coat, straightening his cravat. “I’ll have a word with ’em from the upstairs verandah … soon send ’em packing.”
“Did you double the guards?” Kit asked, going to the barred front door. “Open up,” he instructed the alarmed servant.
“Couldn’t see the point, dear fellow,” Burnes said. “Can’t imagine what such a rabble would want with me.”
“An attack on the residency would be a powerful spur to the rebels, and a powerful rallying point,” Kit declared curtly, shrugging into his coat. He stepped into the courtyard. The growing light cast chilly shadows, enfolding the bushes and plants adorning the courtyard. He crossed to the great barred gates. Guards stood upon the high stone wall with drawn arms. Through the bars, he saw the slowly gathering crowd. They pressed toward the gate, but made no particularly threatening move at the sight of the brown-faced, turbanned man in his goatskin coat, or at the sepoy guards, who were, after all, not feringhee.
Kit said nothing, realizing that once he opened his mouth his disguise would be punctured, and he was now absolutely certain that he was going to be glad of his costume before many more hours were up.
He returned to the house. “I’ll get word to Macnaghten.”
“I’ll speak with them first. Don’t want to start squealing unnecessarily.” Burnes progressed with measured step upstairs and marched onto the verandah overlooking the courtyard and the street beyond. At the sight of the feringhee, in his dark frock coat, his leather spats, his fawn beaver top hat, a great bellow went up. Fists were raised, staves flourished, and the wicked blades of scimitar and khyber knife gleamed dully in the half light.
Kit shivered at the depths of menace expressed by that lowering, threatening mob. The las
t restraints had somehow been ripped away, and the hatred and need for vengeance now loomed monstrous and unhindered. This fierce, proud people had been subjected to an alien yoke, and they were now going to throw off that yoke and avenge the insult.
Burnes raised his voice above the crowd, and for a moment they fell silent, listening to his fluent Pushtu. Kit had an instant’s hope that this skilled linguist would be able to calm them, then his heart sank. The political officer’s harangue became increasingly patronizing, expressing the sorrow and annoyance of a father when faced with a child’s tiresome insubordination.
A stone flew through the air and struck a front window. The sound of breaking glass brought the mob surging to the gate, screaming insults. Some leaped for the wall, and one of the sepoy guards discharged his musket the instant before he was dragged down into the howling mob, his scream rising shrill in the air.
Burnes stepped back hastily into the house, slamming the verandah door behind him. He threw the bar across it before turning to the silent trio behind him. His expression had lost some of its assurance, and his usually dapper moustache seemed to droop.
“We’d best arm ourselves,” he said. “Do you think you can make it to the cantonment, Kit? We’re going to need reinforcements.”
“I can but try. I wonder if they’re covering the stable gates.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but ran from the room, down the stairs and down the corridor to the rear of the house. “Bar the door behind me,” he ordered the sentry, knowing that once that was done, he was on his own in the open.
The door clanged shut, the bar fell with a heavy thump. The yells of the mob were growing more powerful. The sepoy guards on the wall were shooting, and Kit now heard shots coming from the front of the house. Presumably his companions had begun their defense. It was getting lighter by the minute. He ran across the stableyard, skinned his fingers in his haste to draw back the frozen bolts of the stable door. His horse greeted him with a restless whinny. The other animals were all shifting in their stalls, nostrils flared, whickering their unease. Kit grabbed the halter hanging on a hook in the stall wall, slipped it over the horse’s head, and sprang up on the broad back. The horse leaped for the door the minute he felt his rider’s weight, and they burst out into the now-full daylight.