Drums Along the Khyber

by Philip McCutchan

  But they understood some of it, it seemed.

  As Faiz Gheza gave the order to move, there was a jingle of harness, the men in the shafts started dragging the cart forward, bumping it heavily over the rough surface towards the gates, where the dismounted quarter-guard was brought to attention—and then as they moved out past the gatehouse they heard, from ahead of the cart and its forward escort of mounted men, an old Highland lament, played falteringly and thinly on the pipes of a solitary piper. It was a nice gesture on the part of Ahmed Khan. Ogilvie took a sideways look at Cunningham. The R.S.M.’s face had gone a deep purple and there was a suspicious sparkle in his eyes, and he was holding himself, if possible, straighter than ever. The pipes played the cortege through the ramshackle, smelly streets. Flies buzzed, descending in loathsome swarms upon the humps beneath the flag. There were murmurs from the crowds and some fists were shaken, and some men spat. But Ahmed Khan’s cavalry was not to be trifled with. At a word from Faiz Gheza the escort drew their sabres and that was that. The crowd fell back from the horses and the hard, thrustful faces of their riders; they followed distantly, as the cortège moved on beyond the mud walls and out into the sand-hills, leaving the Kabul River away to their right as Ogilvie’s true party had done that morning. Darkness was falling swiftly now and the bearers lit lanterns on the handcart; but despite the darkness any attempt at a breakout would be fated from the start. The mob behind would turn into a savage hunting pack, directed on to their prey by the cavalry. An evening exchange of artillery fire was starting to the west. To the accompaniment of the rumble of the fire and the distant flashes from the opposing guns, the remains of the three soldiers were lifted from the handcart and shallow graves were excavated in the sand by the bearers. Without the aid of a prayer-book, Ogilvie murmured a few words over the bodies and Bosom Cunningham threw down handfuls of sand, the graves were filled in and the outlines marked with boulders with the British Flag planted on a staff at their heads.

  Then the cavalcade started for the fort.

  There was a shake in Cunningham’s voice when he said, “My God. What motivates the rebel, Mr. Ogilvie? I swear I could have cried like a bairn when the pipes started up!” The R.S.M. was more shaken than Ogilvie had ever dreamed of seeing him.

  “Don’t ask me to explain, Sarn’t-Major,” he said. “It’s beyond me. He’s half good and half bad—like all of us, I suppose.”

  Cunningham nodded. It was full dark by this time, but they were fitfully lit by the flickering cart-lanterns. Ogilvie said, “You wanted a word with me, Sarn’t-Major. Now’s the only chance we shall get.”

  “Yes, sir.” The R.S.M.’s lips seemed scarcely to move and he kept his eyes front and his voice low. “When we were in the trench I felt a crumbling with my feet. I reckoned the wall was imperfect. There might be a way out to the dungeon for what it’s worth. I couldn’t try it myself. Avoirdupois—I’m too fat! A thin man could maybe do it. Then this evening I was sent for to the dungeon, to supervise the preparation of Atkinson’s body. The niggers provided a lantern and I had the time to look around. The wall by the trench is definitely crumbling all right—right up by the top of the dungeon, Mr. Ogilvie. It could be worth remembering.”

  Ogilvie whispered back, “Thank you, Sarn’t-Major,” and then they were coming back through the town. Soon they were at the gatehouse and once again they were separated each to his own quarters.

  Ogilvie remembered once again that the dungeon had been left unguarded while the men had been in the trench. If only they could all come together, something might be done...

  *

  From a window Ogilvie watched the native piper, the man who had played for the burial. Idly, he watched the man go into the doorway opposite and come out without his pipes, and then make off in the general direction of the quarter-guard. After he had disappeared Ogilvie went on staring from the window, thoughtfully, as the sentries passed and re-passed. Something, some vague and ill-formed notion, had begun to stir in his mind. That man had walked in and out of the doorway easily enough—he had unlocked no locks and had left the door unlocked when he had come out. If only he, Ogilvie, could break out from his sumptuous prison, that store might perhaps provide a useful if temporary hiding-place...

  He shrugged, wondering what the point would be. But it was just a thought, possibly useless in itself.

  He turned away.

  The sentries were far too alert—far too conscious, no doubt, of what would happen to them if they allowed their prisoner to escape. The watch was changed every two hours, day and night. No man was permitted to grow weary. There was no escape that way, nor by way of the solid, equally well guarded door leading to the passage.

  But the pipes were calling to James Ogilvie as he tried to find sleep that night. Those pipes, Ahmed Khan had said, had been taken years before and obviously they had belonged to a Scottish regiment; perhaps they could be made again to play their part in war! The notion grew, but was still unformulated, and Ogilvie knew still that he could do nothing unless and until the whole British party was together again and able to act as a unit. But time was not on the side of the British; no delay at all could be afforded—if there was to be action, it had to be taken before Ahmed Khan’s supply column reached the siege perimeter. Ogilvie’s thoughts circled, round and round in his head throughout that night. Again, and almost continuously now, he heard the distant artillery bombardment. The British losses would be growing, the British reserves of ammunition would be becoming depleted and they too had their urgent supply problems, to say nothing of the sickness. There were other worries also that weighed upon Ogilvie, personal anxieties as to what the battalion would be thinking of his pressing for terms on behalf of a rebel. He had seen the contempt in his father’s face and his father’s words had hurt cruelly. By now his father may well have regretted his language and his sentiments, but it had been said, and had been overheard by Andrew Black into the bargain. But perhaps Black had been right. Perhaps he hadn’t been officer material from the start. Certainly he had had no commission so insistently to propagate the cause of the rebel, the Empire’s sworn enemy. His father had been right as well: he had known nothing whatever of frontier ways. Ahmed Khan had made rings round him.

  *

  A pageant, an unreal parade of the past went through his head. Stories he had heard from his father, from his father’s friends, in childhood days seemed to come alive for him as he lay sleepless, hearing the tread of his gaolers outside the windows. Stories, some of them, that went back to the days even of the old East India Company, the days before the mutiny had led to the establishment of the formal British Raj in India, the taking over from the traders and soldiers of John Company in the name of the Empress of India. He saw in his mind’s eye the regiments attempting to stem the flood-tide of rebellion as that mutiny got under way, their colours marching before them or going down in a welter of blood and gunpowder and the hideous cries of tormented, dying men. He saw the glorious defence of Delhi by General Wilson following upon the gallop to the Delhi Fort of the mutineers of the 3rd Light Cavalry; their assembly below the Musamman Burj; the murder of Captain Douglas of the 31st Bengal Native Infantry; the blowing of the Kashmir Gate by the British relieving column. He heard the pipes of Havelock calling the bearded Highlanders on to the relief of Lucknow...

  The gallant blowing-up of the Kashmir Gate, even though it was an act from outside and not inside, remained in his mind to torment him with his own inadequacy. If only he could do something like that, if only he could blow this fortress’s gatehouse and then overpower the quarter-guard...if! If he had the gunpowder, if he had weapons, if he could release his imprisoned men, if they all bore as many lives as a cat—then they might break out; but to do what, after all? They couldn’t hope to reach the British lines through five miles of alerted hostile country.

  In the morning Ogilvie had a blinding headache and his eyes were red-rimmed with lack of sleep. After breakfast Faiz Gheza came to him.

  “You will
accompany me to His Highness, Ogilvie sahib,” he said. “At once.” He led Ogilvie from the room, and towards the spiral stone staircase leading to the battlements. Once again Ahmed Khan, surrounded by his lieutenants, was scanning the distant British line through field glasses. As Ogilvie was brought up he turned and lowered the glasses.

  “Good morning, Ogilvie sahib,” he said. “I think there is another matter in which you can assist me.”

  “I’m giving you no help, Ahmed Khan.”

  “But you have done so already! To refuse more help is only to split hairs, Ogilvie sahib, is it not?”

  Ogilvie shrugged. “Give it whatever name you choose. Taking your terms to my father wasn’t help exactly. What is it this time?”

  Ahmed Khan smiled, and paced the stone roof for a while before answering. “Ogilvie sahib,” he said at last, coming to a halt in front of him, “movements have been noticed along the British line. I cannot say what these movements are—whether they are of infantry or cavalry or artillery, whether or not they are accompanied by ammunition and supply trains. If I knew all this it would be a great help to me in assessing the strength of the British on the peaks, in assessing how much opposition I must plan to meet when my supply column reaches the end of the valley. Do you understand?”

  Ogilvie felt a prickle of fear. He said, “I thought you said you had spies planted in the British lines? Don’t they—”

  “Unfortunately, one spy only. Equally unfortunately, no reports have come from him for some while. I fear he may have been discovered. But on the fortunate side of the coin, Ogilvie sahib—I have you!”

  “I don’t see the point,” Ogilvie said, playing for time. “Why do you bother? I thought you were confident you could get your column through to the fort, whatever the British did?”

  “Oh yes,” Ahmed Khan said at once, “I am confident still, of course. That has not changed an iota. Nevertheless, I wish to be in a position to estimate the strength of the British as closely as I can—because, you see, it is shortly going to be necessary for me to make my own dispositions. That is to say, I shall have to deplete the strength of the fort, and I wish to know by how much I should do so.”

  “You intend sending out a support column from here, to help the supply train through?”

  “Yes, of course. Naturally, I expect, and am ready for, a strong attack, but I do not know how strong. I have to strike a balance between leaving the fort too unprotected, and keeping too many men here who could more profitably be used to bring the supply train through. Now I think perhaps you understand?”

  “I don’t understand what you think I can do to help.”

  “No? Then I shall tell you, Ogilvie sahib.” Ahmed Khan stared into his eyes, standing very close to him now. “You will take the glasses, and you will study your formations, and you will interpret for me all that you see. With your more intimate knowledge of your own army, I believe you will be able to tell me things which I may have missed, or misinterpreted. And you will not tell me falsely, Ogilvie sahib. Because if you do, it will be so much the more unpleasant for you afterwards, when I shall have found out the truth.” He pushed the glasses at Ogilvie. “Now, look, and look well.”

  “I’m not doing anything of the sort.”

  “I say that you are, Ogilvie sahib!”

  Ogilvie shrugged, tried to conceal the trembling in his hands. “You can’t make me.”

  “No? I wonder! Think, Ogilvie sahib—think deeply of whether or not I have means to make men talk!”

  “I repeat,” Ogilvie said, “I’m not helping you. You can do what you like!”

  “Truly spoken indeed,” Ahmed Khan said softly. He laughed. “And what I shall like, is to see you flogged.” He lifted his hand, giving a signal to two of his followers who at once laid hold of Ogilvie. His helmet was taken away, his khaki tunic unbuttoned and removed, and the shirt. He was dragged across the roof to the battlements and held by his wrists across one of the embrasures, held tightly across the stonework. Looking over his shoulder he saw a tall man holding a leather whip, its many thongs weighted with lead pellets. He looked away, stared down the sheer side of the tower, straight down into the plain outside the walls, saw the rise of the courtyard towards the wall just where the side of the tower was built into it—quite close, that must be, to his own apartment if ever he saw it again now. He closed his eyes, and prayed.

  Ahmed Khan moved behind him. “Now you will change your mind?”

  “No”

  “You are very, very foolish. This information that I want—it is not vital to me, though useful certainly. You would be guilty of little disloyalty to your comrades out there, who are going to be cut to pieces whether you help me or whether you do not! You will suffer quite needlessly, Ogilvie sahib.”

  “Then why go on with this? Is it just sadism, the sadism of Afghanistan, the sadism of a heathen?”

  “Or of a dirty nigger?” Ahmed Khan said as softly as he had spoken before. “No, it is not this. Only I am not to be denied, Ogilvie Sahib. My wishes are not to be set aside—my men know this and have often felt the proof of it upon their backs! They must see that the same is true of the British, that I, Ahmed Khan, am the master!” After this there was a pause. Ogilvie’s eyes were still closed. He gave a convulsive pull against the gripping hands on his wrists as the first cut came down hard on his back; but he made no sound beyond an involuntary grunt. There was a pause of about ten seconds, then the next cut whistled down. After four more cuts, Ahmed Khan stopped the flogging and once again asked if he had changed his mind. He had not. The lashes continued. They mangled the flesh of his back and left him weak and in agony, and on the nineteenth he fainted. Salt, spirit and chillies were rubbed into his wounds, and he came to, and cried aloud.

  “Now will you speak?”

  He could scarcely have spoken if he had wanted to, but he managed to repeat the one word: “No.”

  “Then all your men will suffer,” Ahmed Khan said, livid with anger. “Every one of them, and you yourself with them, will go at once to the courtyard trench and will remain there until I decide if I have any further use for you.”

  Ogilvie’s wrists were let go; he slumped to the stone below the battlements but was dragged roughly to his feet. His shirt and tunic were pulled over his lacerated body. His feet dragging, he was half carried down the spiral staircase and out into the courtyard. He was dragged across towards the dungeon and thrown heavily against the wall. He lay in a daze of pain until he heard the men being brought up from the cellar and then somehow his pride brought him staggering to his feet. He leaned against the wall, his face white beneath its tan. Then he saw the Regimental Sergeant-Major being marched from his quarters to join the rest.

  Somehow he managed to return Cunningham’s salute. The R.S.M.’s face was stony and dangerous. He said, “This is a bad business, Mr. Ogilvie, sir. I’m that sorry for what’s happened.”

  “It’s all right, Sarn’t-Major. I’m the one that’s sorry. I’ve let you all in for it, now.”

  “That’s no way to think of it, sir. We’ll take what’s coming, never fear.”

  *

  Ahmed Khan had not come down into the courtyard for the men’s incarceration in the trench. He was apparently still studying the British positions and movements and making his assessments for the action to come. Faiz Gheza was left to attend to the details, and he made no objection when Cunningham picked Ogilvie up bodily and laid him gently in the trench, then himself lay down beside him. Ogilvie’s back was in torment as the shirt rubbed him and he felt the hard contact with the brick-like earth beneath. There was a moment of panic as the iron lid began to close and he felt he must suffocate. He cried out incoherently. Death could not be far off now. There was a dull clang as the lid closed altogether and they were in the total, unrelieved darkness. He lost consciousness again, for how long he didn’t know. Coming round to the horror of that close imprisonment he heard murmurs, curses, moans from along the line of men. He was thankfully aware of the
proximity to him of Cunningham. By now, all footfalls from above had stopped. Some while later Cunningham spoke to him. The R.S.M. said, “Sir, it’s an ill wind, as they say. The nigger may not have done himself so much good after all.”

  Ogilvie bit down on his pain and asked, “How’s that?”

  There was the briefest chuckle. “Because I’ve laid you down just where the inner wall is weak, Mr. Ogilvie. And I’m thinking you’re the right build to squirm through...once that back of yours is better, that is.”

  “I don’t see what good it’s going to do us now. Oh, we’ll be a good deal easier—but only till they open up and find out what we’ve done.”

  “Ah—but before they do that, sir, we’ll be gone! If we choose the time right, that is. You see, the absence of sound from above means to me that the cellar door is not guarded—”

  “You’re right, Sarn’t-Major, it isn’t, but—”

  “Well, sir, it’s my belief it’ll not be locked either. I have not heard them lock it after the men came up. Why should they bother, when it’s empty?”

  “Why indeed?” Ogilvie said dully. But soon he felt a faint hope and things began to slot into place in his mind. When the supply column neared the entry to the valley, Ahmed Khan, he knew, was going to deplete his garrison here in the fort—he’d said that. And there would be an excitement in the fort, an excitement that, especially if Ahmed Khan himself should be absent with his advanced line, assisting the passage of the supply train, could lead to a certain lack of vigilance. Once again Ogilvie thought of the piper, and the door through which the man had gone with his pipes.

  Perhaps a second Havelock could yet bring something off!

  They sweated it out through that day, waiting their time. They endured torture, gradually feeling the dehydration in their bodies, all those hours as the sun heated the iron and turned the trench into an oven humid with sweat. Ogilvie, with his lacerated back, was naturally in a worse state than any of the others; merely to lie still was painful enough, but after a while he was visited by an enervating restlessness that kept his body twitching but without the relief of being able to stretch any part of himself other than his legs, and those only in the one direction. And with them, moving his toes cautiously, he was able to feel through his boots the crumbling of the inner wall. Later, as the twitching died away at last into an exhausted stupor, he fell into a troubled sleep in which continually he heard the scream that had been torn from Colour-Sergeant MacNaught the night his shoulder had been shattered in the assault on the peaks. By evening all the men were in a semi-stupefied condition; no chink of daylight had penetrated but Ogilvie could tell by the cooling iron that the day’s heat had passed off them an hour or so earlier; he could begin to reckon time in a rough fashion. By now it would be dusk, and soon it would be night—and still, after that, some forty-eight hours yet to go before the supply column was due to pass between the British positions.