by M. M. Kaye
Ash observed with a smile that according to Kairi's uncle, the Rao-Sahib, no one learnt over-much from the mistakes of their parents and even less from those of their grandparents; for the reason that all men, using hindsight, were convinced that they could have done better, and in trying to prove it either ended up making the same mistakes, or new ones that their children and their children's children would criticize in their turn. ‘He told me,’ said Ash, ‘that old men forget, while young ones tend to dismiss events that occurred before they were born as ancient history. Something that happened very long ago and was naturally mismanaged, considering that everyone involved – as can be seen by looking at the survivors – as either a creaking grey-beard or a bald-headed old fool. In other words, their own parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts.’
Koda Dad frowned at the lightness of his tone, and said with a trace of sharpness: ‘You may laugh, but it would be as well if all those who like myself can remember that first war against the Afghans, and all who like you and my son Zarin Khan had yet to be born, would consider that conflict, and what became of it.’
‘I have read of it,’ returned Ash lightly. ‘It does not make a pretty tale.’
‘Pretty!’ snorted Koda Dad. ‘No, it was not pretty, and all who engaged in it suffered sorely. Not only Afghans and Angrezis, but Sikhs, Jats and Punjabis and the many others who served in the great army that the Raj sent against Shere Ali's father, the Amir Dost Mohammed. That army won a great victory, slaying large numbers of Afghans and occupying Kabul, where they remained for two years and doubtless expected to stay for many more. Yet in the end they were forced to abandon it and to retreat through the mountains – close on seventeen thousand of them, men, women and children, of whom how many think you reached Jalalabad? One! – one only out of all that great company who marched out of Kabul in the year that my son Awal Shah was born. The rest, save for some few whom the Amir's son took into custody, died among the passes, butchered by the tribes who fell upon them like wolves upon a flock of sheep, for they were weakened by cold, it being winter and the snow lying deep. Some four months later my father had occasion to pass that way, and saw their bones lying scattered thick for mile upon mile along the hillsides, as though…’
'I too,’ said Ash, ‘for even after all these years, many are still left. But all that happened very long ago, so why should it disturb you now? What is wrong, Bapu-ji?’
‘Many things,’ said Koda Dad soberly. ‘That tale that I have just told you, for one. It is not so old a tale, since many men still living must have seen what my father saw, and there must also be others, far younger than myself, who took part in that great killing and later told their sons and grandsons of these things.’
‘What of it? There is nothing strange in that.’
‘ No. But why is it that now of a sudden, and after so many years, the tale of the destruction of that army is being told again in every town and village and household throughout Afghanistan and the lands that border upon it? I myself have heard it told a score of times in the past few weeks; and it bodes no good, for the telling of it breeds conceit and over-confidence, encouraging our young men to think scornfully of the Raj and to belittle its power and the strength of its armies. And there is another curious thing: the teller is nearly always a stranger, passing through. A merchant perhaps, or a Powindah, or some wandering mendicant; a holy man on pilgrimage or someone on a visit to relatives in another part of the country, who has asked for a night's lodging. These strangers tell the story well, making it live again in the minds of folk who first heard it ten, twenty, thirty years ago, and had almost forgotten it, but who now retell it to each other and become boastful and full of wild talk. I have begun to wonder of late if there is not something behind it. Some plan… or some person.’
‘Such as Shere Ali, or the Tsar of Russia?’ suggested Ash. ‘But why? It would not pay Shere Ali to embark on a war with the British.’
‘True. But it might please the Russ-log if he should do so, for then he would hasten to ally himself to them so that he might call upon them to aid him. All the Border knows that the Russ-log have already swallowed up much of the territory of the Khans; and were they to gain a firm foothold in Afghanistan, who knows but that they might one day use it as a base for the conquest of Hind? I for one have no desire to see the Russ-log replace the Raj – though to speak truth, child, I would be happy to see the Raj depart from this land and the Government return once again to the hands of those to whom it rightfully belongs: the native-born.’
‘Like myself,’ observed Ash with a grin.
‘Chut! You know very well what I mean – to the men of Hind whose land this is and whose forefathers owned the soil, not to foreign conquerers.’
‘Such as Barbur the Mogul, and other followers of the Prophet?’ asked Ash wickedly. ‘Those were also foreigners who conquered the land of the Hindus, so if the Raj goes, it may well be that those whose forefathers owned the soil will next expel all Mussulmans.’
Koda Dad bristled wrathfully, and then, as the truth of the observation struck him, relaxed again and said with a rueful laugh: ‘I confess I had overlooked that. Yes indeed. We be foreigners both: twice over, I being a Pathan and you… you neither of this country or of Belait. But the Mussulmans came here many centuries ago, and Hind has become their homeland – the only one they know. They are grafted onto it too strongly to be separated: wherefore – He checked, frowning, and said: ‘How did we come to be talking of these things? I was speaking of Afghanistan. I am troubled by what is brewing beyond the Border, Ashok, and if it is possible for you to speak a word into the ear of those in authority –’
‘Who me?’ interrupted Ash, and gave a shout of laughter. ‘Bapu-ji, you cannot be serious. Who do you suppose would listen to me?’
‘But are there not many Burra-Sahibs in Rawalpindi, Colonel-Sahibs and General-Sahibs to whom you are known, who would listen to you?’
‘To a junior officer? And one who could produce no proof?’
‘But I myself have told you –’
‘That certain men are going from village to village in the Border country, telling the tale of something that happened long before I was born. Yes, I know. But what someone else has told me is not proof. I should need more than that if I expected to be believed – much more. Without it they would laugh at me; or more likely give me a sharp reprimand for wasting their valuable time with a pack of bazaar rumours, and suspect me of trying to make myself seem important.’
‘But surely,’ urged Koda Dad, puzzled, ‘your elders in Rawalpindi must hold you in high favour now that you have just completed a difficult mission with honour? Had they not thought well of you, they would never have chosen you for such work in the first place.’
‘You are wrong there, my father,’ said Ash bitterly. ‘They chose me only because it offered a chance to remove me as far as possible from my friends, and from the frontier. And because Hindustani is my mother-tongue and the work required someone who could both speak and understand it with ease. That was all.’
‘But now that you are back, having done well –?’
‘Now that I am back they must find some other way to get rid of me until such time as my Regiment is willing to receive me again. Until then I am merely a nuisance. No, Bapu-ji, you would do better to ask Awal or Zarin to speak to Battye-Sahib or the Commandant. They would at least be given a hearing, which I should not.’
‘What is that I am to say to Battye-Sahib?’ asked Zarin's voice from behind them. His feet had made no sound on the stone stairway, for as Fatima Begum did not permit the wearing of shoes in her house, they had not heard him approach.
‘Billah! I am getting deaf in my old age,’ said Koda Dad, annoyed. ‘It is as well that I have no enemies, for a babe could stalk me in the open. I did not hear you; and Ashok, who should have done so, was talking so loudly that his ears were full of the sound of his own foolish words.’
Zarin and Ash grinned at each other, and Ash said: ‘Alas
, Bapu-ji, they were not foolish. I still lie under the disfavour of those in authority, both in Rawalpindi and Mardan, and until I have served my sentence you cannot expect any words of mine to carry weight with them. Besides, they must know these things already. They have spies everywhere; or if they have not, they should have.’
‘What is the talk?’ asked Zarin, seating himself beside his father. ‘What things should already be known?’
‘Your father,’ said Ash, ‘tells me that there is trouble brewing in Afghanistan, and he fears that unless it is nipped in the bud it may lead to an alliance between the Amir and the Russ-log: which in turn would lead to another war.’
‘Good! We could do with one,’ approved Zarin. ‘We have eaten idleness for too long, and it is time we were given a chance to fight again. But if the Sirkar fears that Shere Ali will permit the Russ-log to gain control of Kabul, or the tribes allow them to occupy the country, then they know nothing of the Amir or his people.’
‘True… that is true,’ conceded his father. ‘And if this new Lat-Sahib’ (he meant Lord Lytton, who had succeeded Lord Northbrook as Viceroy and Governor-General) ‘can be prevailed upon to tread carefully, using patience and friendship and much wisdom in his dealings with the problems of the Amir and the people of Afghanistan, then all may yet be well. But should his councillors continue on the present course, I am very sure that the end will be war, and though when I was young I too relished fighting and danger, I find that now I am old I have no wish to see villages burned and crops laid waste, and the bodies of all those who once lived there lying unburied; food for the foxes and the carrion crows.’
‘Yet the mullahs tell us that no man dies before his time,’ said Zarin gently. ‘Our fates are written.’
‘It may be,’ admitted Koda Dad doubtfully. ‘But that is something else that of late I have become less sure of; for how can the mullahs – or even the Prophet himself? – read all the mind of God? There is also another thing – have still three sons (for I count Ashok here as one), all of them jawans* who serve in a regiment that will be among the very first to be called upon to figh if there should be another war with Afghanistan; and though you will say am growing womanish, yet I would prefer that they were not cut down in their prime but lived, as I have done, to see their sons grow to manhood and beget many grandsons; and when they die at the last that they should did full of years and contentment… as I, their father, will do. Therefore distresses me to hear the whispers that go up and down the Frontier, and to see the storm clouds gather.’
‘Do not fear, Bapu-ji,’ consoled Ash, stooping to touch the old man's feet. ‘A wind will arise and blow these clouds away, and you can be at ease again – while your three sons bite their nails for idleness, and quarrel with their friends for lack of an enemy to fight.’
‘Thak!’ (let be) snorted Koda Dad, preparing to rise. ‘You are as bad as Zarin. You think of war only as a game or as a chance to obtain promotion and honour.’
‘And loot,’ added Ash with a laugh. ‘Do not forget the loot, my father. I spent eight days in Kabul searching for Dilasah Khan, and it is a rich city.’
He reached down a hand to help the old man to his feet, but Koda Dad brushed it aside and rose without assistance, settling his turban and remarking austerely that the young displayed too much levity and not enough respect for their elders. ‘Let us go down. It is time that we ate, for I must see my sister and also rest awhile before we start our journey back.’
They ate together in the open courtyard, and afterwards went up to pay their respects to Fatima Begum and to thank her for her hospitality. The old lady kept them gossiping for well over an hour before dismissing them to get what sleep they could before midnight; at which hour a servant awakened them and they rose and dressed, and leaving that hospitable house, rode away together down through Attock to the bridge of boats.
The Indus was a wide expanse of molten silver under the blaze of the full moon, and as ever, the voice of the ‘Father of Rivers’ filled the night with sound, hissing and chuckling between the tethered boats that jerked and strained against the current, and rising to a sustained thunder downstream where the gorge narrowed. It was not too easy to make oneself heard above the river noises, and none of the three attempted it. There was, in any case, nothing more to be said, and when they dismounted at the bridge head to embrace as sons and brothers in the Border country are accustomed to do on meeting or parting, they did so without words.
Ash helped Koda Dad to remount, and taking one of the old man's hands in both his own, pressed it to his forehead, holding it there for a long moment before he released it and stood back to let the two men ride forward onto the bridge. The horses' hooves rang loud on the tarred planks, like drum beats tapping out a counterpoint to the roar and chuckle of the river. But the sound diminished swiftly, and all too soon it merged with the noise of water and was lost.
The sentry on duty at the bridge yawned largely and lit a cheap bazaar-made cigarette, and Ash's horse, taking exception to the sudden fizz and splutter of the sulphur match and the brief flare of light, threw up its head and began to snort and sidle. But Ash did not move. He waited until the two horsemen reached the far side, and as they breasted the rise of the road, saw the taller of the two lift a hand in farewell and the other check his mount to look back. At that range it was impossible to make out his features, but the moonlight was brilliant enough to show that familiar nod of admonition, and Ash smiled and held up both his hands in a gesture of acceptance. He saw Koda Dad nod again as though satisfied, and the next moment father and son rode on, and Ash watched them grow smaller and smaller until they reached a turn in the Peshawar road and were swallowed up by the shadow of the hillsides.
‘You do not go with your friends, then?’ asked the sentry idly.
For a moment it seemed as though Ash had not heard the question, and then he turned and said slowly: ‘No… no, I cannot go with them…’
‘Afsos,’ commiserated the sentry with easy sympathy, and yawned again. Ash bade him good-night, and mounting the restive horse, rode back alone to the Begum's house where he was to spend the remainder of the night and the best part of the following day.
The old lady had sent for him next morning and they had talked together for over an hour – or rather the Begum had talked while Ash, separated from her by the split-cane chik, had listened, and occasionally answered a question. The rest of the time he had been left very much to himself. For which he was grateful, as it gave him a much needed period of quiet in which to think over what Koda Dad had said on the subject of Anjuli; and when he left the Begum's house shortly after moonrise, he was in better spirits and a more equable frame of mind than he had enjoyed for some considerable time; and with a quieter heart. He did not press his horse, but took the sixty-odd miles at a leisurely pace, and having changed into his own clothes in a convenient cane-brake, arrived back at the rest-house by the Murree road well before the moon was down. The temperature in his room was well over a hundred and the punkah did not work, but he had spent the day there, and left on the following morning for the pines and the hill breezes of Murree.
Wally had joined him a day later, and the two had trekked into Kashmir by way of Domel and the Jhelum gorge, and spent a month camping and shooting among the mountains beyond Sopore. During which time Wally had grown a short-lived beard, and Ash an impressive cavalry moustache.
It had been a halcyon interlude, for the weather had been perfect, and there had been endless things to talk about and to discuss. But though Ash, while again omitting any reference to Juli, had told Wally in some detail about his visit to Fatima Begum's house, oddly enough (or perhaps understandably, considering how preoccupied he had been with his personal problems) he had not thought to mention Koda Dad's tale of trouble brewing beyond the Border. It had slipped his mind, for he had, in fact, not paid over-much attention to it: there was always trouble on the Frontier, and the affairs of Afghanistan did not interest him as much as his own.
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sp; Half-way through July the weather broke, and after enduring three days of pouring rain and impenetrable mist on a mountain side, the campers beat a hasty retreat to Srinagar, where they pitched their tents in a grove of chenar trees near the city, and made arrangements to return by tonga along the cart-road – the prospect of long marches on foot through a continuous downpour being too dismal to contemplate.
After the keen, pine-scented air of the mountains, they found Srinagar unpleasantly warm and humid, the city itself a squalid jumble of ramshackle wooden houses, crammed together and intersected by insanitary alleyways, or narrow canals that smelt like open sewers – and frequently were. But the Dal Lake was ablaze with lotus blossoms and alive with the flashing blue and green and gold of innumerable kingfishers and bee-eaters, and they bathed and lazed, gorged themselves on the cherries, peaches, mulberries and melons for which the valley was famous, and visited Shalimar and Nishat – enchanting pleasure gardens that the Mogul Emperor, Jehangir, son of the great Akbar, had built on the shores of the Dal.
Yet all too soon, like all pleasant times, the careless, sun-gilt days were over and they were being rattled and jolted along the flat cart-road to Baramullah at the mouth of the valley, and from there into the mountains and the pouring rain; clattering through vast rock gorges and forests of pine and deodar, jogging through the streets of little hill villages, and along tracks that were no more than narrow shelves scraped out of mountainsides that dropped sheer away to where the foam-torn Jhelum River roared in spate three hundred feet below.
They were not sorry to see Murree again, and to be able to sleep in beds that were both dry and comfortable, though Murree too had been swathed in the mist and rain of the monsoon. But as they jogged down the endless turns of the hill road, the clouds thinned and the temperature rose, and long before they reached the level of the plains they were back again in the gruelling heat of the hot weather.