‘But is that the only thing between us and oblivion, sir?’
‘Probably. Perhaps. Who knows? I’m not one of those officers to exude confidence just to keep my men in good spirits, King. You’ll have to sweat it out alongside me. Give me a hand, if you will.’
At that moment Gwilliams began whistling a tune, which startled a hawk from a nest up on a cliff edge. The hillmen laughed. They whistled, of course, but to signal, rarely to entertain. They sang in those rough whisky voices of theirs, played their mountain drums and flutes, but whistling was not their forte. The hawk did not seem to like the melody and screeched, the sound echoing around the rock walls of its home. Gwilliams stopped whistling and mimicked the raptor’s cry perfectly. One or two of the hillmen did the same and soon the valleys were ringing with the sounds of false hawk cries. Then came the sound of another bird, this time the cry reminded Crossman of a ptarmigan. Gwilliams copied it exactly. King tried but failed miserably, tried again, got better, until he too had it. The game continued, all the way along the trail, right up to the walls of a natural fortress.
Crossman left his men to take care of the horses. He himself was taken by Skinny to a tall tribesman who was clearly linked to him by blood. They were obviously cousins or even brothers. This was Akbar Khan, the paramount chieftain of the Kafirisi, a man with an incredible nose. In profile this magnificent organ looked almost square, the bridge jutting out at a right angle from Khan’s forehead into a sharp corner which then fell steeply to his mouth. If it had not been for the hard eagle’s eyes, the nose might have dominated the whole face. As it was, the eyes impressed Crossman more. They cut into him like blue diamonds.
‘Salaam-ali-kum,’ said Crossman.
There was not a responding greeting. Instead, Khan said in English, ‘Why have you come here?’
Crossman began to reply in Pashto, but this seemed to irritate the leader of this large tribe, the men of whom were now milling round, listening to the conversation. He switched to English, realizing that Khan did not wish his followers to understand what was passing between them.
‘I have been sent to obtain some assurances,’ replied Jack. ‘I would be grateful, sir, if you would hear me out.’
There was a great deal of noise going on around them, of men and animals. Cooking fires filled the bowl of rock with drifting smoke which smelled of herbs. It was not certain whether this fortress in the mountains, surrounded by walls of rock, most of it natural but reinforced in places with some mud-and-stone brickwork, was the real home of the tribe. There were no women that Crossman could see, though they might have been in one of the many caves. Dogs and horses, camels, chickens, other livestock were in evidence, hobbled or wandering around, rooting amongst piles of rubbish. There was a Muslim cemetery on a patch of hard earth in the western area of the fortress. Apart from the lack of females there were also no children. It was possible this place was the tribe’s main fall-back defence, while their villages were scattered throughout the region.
Akbar Khan nodded towards a cave entrance.
‘We shall talk in there,’ he said, ‘but you will not call me “sir” – this is a term used by the British, not by us. You will call me Khan.’
When they entered the cave it took Crossman a good ten minutes to adjust his eyes from the brightness outside to the dimness within. There were lamps though, filled it seemed with scented oil. Tapestries hung on the walls of the cave, giving it a homely feeling. On the packed-earth floor were carpets and cushions and the odd brass-plate-topped ‘table’ on which stood ornate brass jugs and containers. It was simple and elegant.
In here there was indeed a woman, but whether young or old was impossible to say, for her black garment and veil covered all. Jack thought she moved like a mature younger woman, but tried to avoid studying her which would have been impolite and most likely construed as insulting. She drifted like a shadow in the background, not even allowing the stranger to look into her eyes. Whether she was curious about him was difficult to tell, though she did appear to be startled when he first came in.
Both men sat cross-legged on the floor. It was a position Jack was becoming used to, though it still felt awkward. He then smelled the fragrance of fresh coffee, heard it being poured, and his eyes closed in anticipation.
‘You have had a hard coming,’ said Khan in an amused voice. ‘The coffee smells good?’
‘Delicious,’ murmured the lieutenant.
‘Then the taste will be disappointing, for coffee always smells better than it tastes. Now, to get down to business. You are Lieutenant Crossman of the 88th Connaught Rangers, so my brother tells me. I know why you are here – it is very obvious. What you must tell me is what you have brought me to persuade me not to rouse the hill tribes and attack the British while they are concerned with their rebellion from their lackey troops.’
‘The mutiny . . .’
‘Some would call it an uprising. I myself have no love for those tribes over there, whether Hindu or Muslim, Jain or Sikh – they are all jackals and dogs so far as I am concerned – but I can understand why they have come to a time when they wish to shake off the fleas that live on their back.’
Crossman did not particularly like the British being likened to fleas but it would have been counterproductive to his mission to argue such.
‘The mutiny or rebellion, call it what you will, has left us with a vulnerable rear. Make no mistake that if you seek to profit by our misfortunes, Khan, we will eventually overcome. You might, at the outset, make some gains, but the Honourable East India Company army will be strengthened by the British army itself and in a very short time those gains will be wrested back. We will always prevail. We are invincible . . .’
Khan grinned. ‘You were not invincible on the retreat from Kabul. A namesake of mine slaughtered twenty thousand soldiers.’
Now Crossman bristled, his national pride wounded. The coffee tasted bitter in his mouth. He could not let this go unchallenged. These people of the mountains respected only one thing besides honour. Strength. Strength of fighting men. They lived by it. They died by it. Weakness was considered unworthy and there was no point in being self-effacing or modest when talking to one of the strongest chieftains of the ferocious and fierce hill warriors.
‘Not twenty. There were four and a half thousand troops and twelve thousand camp followers. It’s true all were killed, except one. However, you and I know how easy it is to attack travellers through this land, especially a straggled band of refugees. Many of them died of the cold. Victory was Kabul’s, I grant you, but it was no true test of the might of the British army. We have conquered, we are conquering, we will conquer again. You may win a few battles, here in the hills, but we will win the war.’
‘Why do you think that is, Lieutenant?’
‘Because we are a highly disciplined fighting force, whose men are drilled and trained to an exquisite sharpness. We have generals who are skilled in greater warfare, who can command vast numbers of men and retain control over them even in the heat and confusion of battle.’ Jack paused, seeing something in Khan’s eyes, then added, ‘As individuals our men are no braver than hill warriors, who fight with great courage and motivation in their rugged homeland, but you cannot always choose the battlefield, Khan. If you are to retain any gains over us eventually you have to come out and meet us on our terms. You, each of you, fight with great intensity and with great honour, but you don’t have our control. You’re also a loose federation of tribes, who fight amongst yourselves with as much fervour as you fight against the stranger. We will exploit the more treacherous among you. We’ll turn tribe against tribe. We’re good at such warfare. I can assure you that if you do attack our rear someone will come and take retribution. Whether you care about this or not, is of course entirely up to you.’
Crossman paused again, before adding, ‘These words may anger you, but I am here to speak the truth, not to stroke you.’
Crossman’s heart was beating fast as he spoke. Some of what he
said was bluster and bravado, but much of it he believed to be true. Both he and Khan knew that if the uprising in India spread to include the Bombay army and the Madras army, it would be all up with the British. They would be driven out of India ignominiously. On the other hand, if the mutiny was contained and held down, it was also true that the British army would pay back with interest any who had taken advantage of the situation. He was speaking the truth, sour and ugly as it seemed, and there was no point in saying things he thought the chieftain might want to hear.
There was a long period of silence between them before Akbar Khan finally said, ‘You would not be here if you did not fear us.’
‘Very true,’ replied Crossman. ‘You could hurt us.’
Khan nodded. ‘And so, on a lighter note, what have you brought me, Lieutenant?’
Crossman reached inside his garment and withdrew a heavy money belt which even his own men did not know existed. He laid it in front of Khan.
‘Gold, and the promise of revenues from the other side of the border, once this trouble is out of the way.’ There was a bad taste in Crossman’s mouth, but he repeated what he had been told to say by Colonel Hawke. ‘A blind eye might be turned by the British towards raiding parties crossing the Punjab into Kashmir.’
Akbar Khan nodded. ‘And where is your piece of paper?’
He meant the treaty which Crossman had brought with him for Akbar Khan to sign, giving assurances of non-hostility.
‘Here,’ said Jack, taking it out of his shirt. The woman refilled his coffee cup. ‘And so it was . . .’ He tore the treaty in half.
Akbar Khan looked surprised for the first time during their meeting.
Jack explained, ‘All I want is your word of honour.’
Now Khan smiled again and wagged a finger. ‘You are very clever, Lieutenant. If I signed this paper it would mean nothing to me. But if I give my word of honour and later break it – why, that would bring shame on me and on my sons for generations to come. Clever. Well, I do give you my word, but not because I fear the British army. What are they but a lot of little men in red coats, doing as they are told? No, I give you my word because I like you. I like you as a man. How did you lose your hand?’
Crossman felt the exhilaration of triumph wash through him, as he answered the last casual question.
‘My hand? Ah, it was crushed by a ladder.’
‘How very disappointing. This is no story. You must learn to lie about such things. I thought perhaps a sword in battle . . .’
‘It was in battle. A terrible battle with the Russians where we lost many men and few survived. I had been shot through the face, bayoneted, and a great ladder, which needs a dozen or so men to carry it, and is used for scaling fortress walls fell on my arm.’
‘They have ladders for that? Ingenious. I simply make my men climb up the brickwork like monkeys. So, you were wounded many times in this battle, yet you live! Now that is almost a story.’ He leaned forward, the huge nose almost touching Jack’s cheek. ‘If I were you, when someone asks about the hand, tell them you fought with Akbar Khan’s champion to obtain his word of honour. You slew the champion, who sliced off your hand with his chora at the moment of death. Thus did you win the admiration of a great hill-tribe chieftain, who gave you his word that he would not attack and annihilate the British army once its back was turned. Now that is a much better story and one worth losing a left hand for.’
‘Your brother perhaps?’ said Jack, entering into the spirit of the thing. ‘That tall lean warrior who brought me in?’
‘My brother,’ Akbar Khan replied with heavy contempt, ‘is no champion. He is an idiot, born with the brain of a tapeworm. You must invent someone far more worthy than that infestation of the gut. Now, while you finish your coffee I shall tell you about the Kafirisi. It is very interesting. Come, drink – there is plenty more. There was once a chieftain named Karam Fatteh Khan, whose tribe, the Kafirisi, invaded the north of India in what you call the eleventh century – not ours, of course, for we Muslims have the proper calendar – as part of a greater force of a huge and mighty Afghan army. At first they settled in the Attock and Fatehjang region of the Punjab, but Karam Fatteh Khan was assassinated by his half-brother, who eventually fled with some of the tribe into these hills. This is where he settled and the tribe has flourished since those times. Those who remained in the Punjab have since become weak and are of no real account. But we in the hills have thrived on the harshness such arid landscapes offer. Since then we have lived as warriors and raiders, extracting dues from weaker tribes and quelling all those who have set themselves against us. Now, what is the history of your tribe?’
Jack said, ‘My father is a clan chieftain, like yourself. Many years ago the clans fought amongst themselves but were then invaded by the English and so they joined to battle the invaders. Sometimes the Scots won, sometimes the English, and things remained much as they were. Then the English lost their king and wanted ours to rule them, which we agreed to, thinking that a common king would unite us. I am half-English myself, so this arrangement is quite acceptable to me, though there are many on both sides of the border who harbour distrust. The two great tribes of the English and Scots joined together under a new banner. There have been troubles since, but we remain as we are, for the time being, together.’
‘So,’ said Khan, sipping his coffee, ‘now you must return to Peshawar?’
‘That way, yes, if we ever get there. We had some little encounter with the Bochura on our way here. They may not let us go back through their passes without a fight.’
‘The Bochura!’ Khan spat into a corner. ‘The Bochura are cockroaches. I will give you some men who will take great pleasure in killing a few of the Bochura. It is time we paid them a visit and taught them a few lessons in who are the rulers of these hills.’
‘Thank you, Khan. I will not hesitate to accept.’
Akbar Khan thrust a hand forward, smiling, to grasp Jack’s.
‘We are friends now, you and I. We would die for each other.’
‘Naturally,’ replied Jack. ‘Of course.’
22
The battle for the passes through Bochura country was a fierce one in terms of ammunition used, though loss of life was minimal. None of Colonel Hawke’s four was killed, but two of the Kafirisi died. They fell mostly because of their rashness and impatience. The passes were indeed heavily defended and it took a week and several days to force the way through. How many of the enemy fell, Crossman had no idea. Any Bochura who were hit were dragged away by their comrades, either to recover from their wounds or to die.
The daily battles went through a routine which rarely varied. Usually the day began with an exchange of jibes. They started with insulting families, the names of which seemed to be known to both sides, and ended with challenges to single combat. No one was foolish enough to respond to these challenges of course, except with a further challenge. Then the shooting would begin with everyone ensconced neatly inside a sangar, thus presenting the flimsiest of targets to the enemy. The idea, it seemed to Crossman and his men, was not to actually hit your man directly, a virtually impossible task given the protection, but to aim at a particular curve or overhang in the rock and hope to strike him with the ricochet.
‘Barkin’ squirrels,’ said Gwilliams, with satisfaction. ‘This is how it’s done, sir. Now you get my meaning.’
One morning they woke and their insults were not returned in kind. A spyglass was useless in this kind of country, unless you were looking at hawks, so the subsequent investigation had to be physical. A tentative probing suggested that the pass was now open and clear. This may have been the prelude to a trick, but thankfully for Crossman it was not. The Bochura had retreated back into their mountainside hideaways again. The Kafirisi escorted their charges up to the border and a little beyond, before retiring back the way they had come. Crossman’s mission had been successful so far. It remained to be seen whether Akbar Khan would be a man of his word, but the lieutenant had a gut
feeling that Khan would not attack. Although Jack had seen nothing like the number, Hawke had said that Khan could muster ten thousand men within an hour, the Afghans being ever ready for war. He had loaned Jack two hundred of his hillmen and, having fought with them, the lieutenant was heartily relieved they were not going against them.
Once again they plunged into the jungles of the Punjab, frightening the hornbills so that they clattered in the canopy. This time they beat the same path back again. When they had set out from Khan’s fortress the month of July had just been entered. Raktambar had celebrated the Hindu festival of Ratha Yatra, the chariot journey, on his own. The monsoon had reached up into the Punjab and the season which in India they called the Wet had arrived with hundreds of inches of rainfall. Rain fell from the heavens like none Jack had seen before: it was as if they were travelling through waterfalls. For the first time in his life Jack knew what a ‘deluge’ was and it slowed the party down tremendously. It was not that it rained all day – on the contrary, the periods of rain were relatively short – but so much came down in so short a time streams became rivers, rivers floods, and any paths turned to quagmires which swallowed the horses’ feet.
With the rain came a different wildlife: amphibians by the million – and leeches. Like all white men the three soldiers detested leeches. They knew the best way to removed them was with a lighted cigar or twig, but everything was so soggy they could not produce fire and they had to pinch them off ‘at the arse’ leaving behind a head that festered. Raktambar was no more a lover of leeches than were his companions and he too suffered. It was a miserable coming they had of it, with mud to their eyebrows and a jungle that hung limp and fetid around them. The days when they had almost died of thirst – not so very long ago – in a dry arid landscape mocked them in their memories. Here was the Wet, at which even Noah and his sons might have marvelled.
Brothers of the Blade Page 25