by M. M. Kaye
As he fell for the third time a group of tribesmen, rushing in for the kill, had been beaten off, for the sowar carried a carbine as well as a cavalry sabre, and Wigram had his revolver. Five of the attackers fell and the rest drew back, but Wigram was losing blood fast. He reloaded the revolver and with an enormous effort of will managed to raise himself on one knee. But as he did so, a stray bullet fired by someone in the mêlée further up the slope struck him full in the chest and he fell forward and died without a word.
An exultant shout went up from his surviving assailants, and they rushed forward again to hack at his body, for to an Afghan the corpse of a dead enemy merits mutilation – and never more so than when the enemy is a feringhi and an Infidel. But they had reckoned without Jiwan Singh, Sowar.
Jiwan Singh had snatched up the revolver, and standing astride his dead Commander, fought them off with bullet and sabre. He had stood there for more than an hour, protecting Wigram's body against all comers, and when the battle was over and the surviving Guides came back from the plateau to count their dead and wounded, they found him still on guard; and around him in a circle the bodies of no less than eleven dead Khugianis.
Later, when all the official reports had been sent in, the praise and blame apportioned and decorations awarded – and when the critics who had not been present had pointed out errors of judgement and explained how much better they themselves would have handled the affair – Sowar Jiwan Singh was awarded the Order of Merit. But to Wigram Battye there fell a greater honour…
When the wounded had been taken away and the stretcher-bearers came for his body to carry it back to Jalalabad (as any grave near the battle-field would certainly be dug up and desecrated as soon as the column had gone) his sowars had refused to let the ambulance men touch it. ‘It is not fitting that such a one as Battye-Sahib should be borne by strangers,’ said their Sikh spokesman. ‘We ourselves will carry him.’ And they had done so.
Most of them had been in the saddle since dawn, and all, in the heat of the day, had ridden in two charges and fought a desperate hour-long battle against tremendous odds. They were weary to the verge of exhaustion and Jalalabad was more than twenty long miles away over a road that was little more than a track over stony ground. But all through that warm April night, relays of his men plodded forward, carrying Wigram's body shoulder high. Not upon a hospital litter, but laid upon cavalry lances.
Zarin had taken his turn at that sad task, and so for a mile or two had Wally. And once a man who was not a sowar, but from his dress appeared to be a Shinwari, came out of the darkness and took the place of one of the pallbearers. Strangely enough, no one had made any move to prevent him or questioned his right to be there, and it almost seemed as though he was known to them and had been expected; though he spoke only once, very briefly and in an undertone to Zarin, whose reply was equally brief and inaudible. Only Wally, stumbling tiredly in the rear, his mind blurred by fatigue and grief and the sour aftermath of battle, did not notice the presence of a stranger in the cortège. And at the next stop the man vanished as swiftly and unobtrusively as he had come.
56
They reached Jalalabad in the dawn, and a few hours later they buried Wigram Battye in the same stretch of ground where, forty-six years ago, the British had buried their dead at the time of the First Afghan War. And where nineteen new-made graves marked the last resting-place of the eighteen troopers and an officer of the 10th Hussars whose bodies, alone of the forty-six drowned below the ford, had been recovered from the Kabul River only two short days before.
Near him were laid a Lieutenant and a Private of the 70th Foot who had died in the flank attack by the infantry. But Risaldar Mahmud Khan and the five sowars who had also died in the battle of Fatehabad were men of different faiths; and according to their several religions, their bodies were carried to the Mohammedan burial ground to be laid in the earth with the proper ritual and prayers of the Faithful, or else cremated, and their ashes gathered up and cast into the Kabul River so that they might be carried down to the plains of India and from there, by the kindness of the gods, to the sea.
Not only the regiments concerned had watched these ceremonies. The army had turned out in force, and so too had the citizens of Jalalabad and its adjacent villages, and any travellers who happened to be passing through. Among the latter, unnoticed in the peering crowds, was a gaunt, baggy-trousered Shinwari who besides watching the Christian burials from a discreet distance, had also been among the spectators at the Moslem cemetery and at the burning-ground.
When all was over and the crowds and the mourners had dispersed, the Shinwari had made his way to a small house in a backwater of the city where he was presently joined by a Risaldar of the Guides Cavalry, wearing civilian dress. The two had talked together for an hour, speaking in Pushtu and sharing a hookah, and when the Risaldar returned to the camp and his duties there he took with him a letter written on coarse paper of local manufacture with a quill pen, but addressed in English to Lieut. W. R. P. Hamilton, Queen's Own Corps of Guides.
‘There was no need to write down the name; I will give it into Hamilton-Sahib's own hand,’ said Zarin, storing it carefully away among the folds of his clothing. ‘But it would be unwise for you to come into the camp to see him, or for him to be seen speaking to you. If you will wait among the walnut trees behind the tomb of Mohammed Ishaq, I will bring his reply there sometime after the moon is down. Or it may be a little earlier. I cannot tell.’
‘No matter. I shall be there,’ said Ash.
He had been there, and Zarin had handed him a letter that he read later that night by the light of an oil lamp in a room he had hired that same morning. Unlike Wally's usual letters it was very short, and mostly concerned with his grief at Wigram's death and the loss of Mahmud Khan and the others who had died in the battle. He was, he wrote, delighted to hear that Anjuli was now in Kabul, asked to be remembered to her, and ended by urging Ash to take care of himself and expressing the hope that they would be meeting again soon in Mardan…
It was a measure of his grief for Wigram that he had not even thought to mention something that only a short time ago would have taken precedence over almost anything else: the fact that he had just achieved his greatest ambition and the realization of a long-held and most secret dream.
General Gough, who had watched the whole battle from a vantage point on a hill-top, had sent for him to express the greatest admiration for the dash and gallantry of the Guides, and to commiserate over the heavy casualties they had suffered, in particular the death of their Commanding Officer, Major Battye, whose loss would be felt not only by his own Corps, but by everyone who had known him. But that had not been all; the General had gone on to speak warmly of Wally's own exploits, ending by informing him that in view of his taking over Wigram's command and leading it in a charge against vastly superior numbers of the enemy, together with his conduct throughout the battle and his gallant rescue of Sowar Dowlat Ram, he, General Gough, was personally recommending in dispatches that Lieutenant Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton be awarded the Victoria Cross.
It would be untrue to say that Wally had been unmoved by this news, or that he had heard it without a lift of the heart and a sudden quickening of the pulses. That would have been a physical impossibility. But even as he listened to the unbelievable words that told him his name was to be put forward for the highest honour that can be bestowed for gallantry, the blood that rushed to his face drained away again, and he realized that he would gladly exchange that coveted cross for Wigram's life – or for Mahmud Khan's, or any of those other men of his squadron who would never ride back to Mardan again –
Seven dead, twenty-seven wounded (one of whom the doctor said would not pull through), and any number of horses killed or maimed – he could not remember how many. Yet he, who had come through without a scratch, was to be rewarded with a little bronze cross made out of cannon captured at Sebastopol, and bearing the proud inscription For Valour. It did not seem fair…
&
nbsp; That last thought had brought Ash to mind, and Wally had smiled a little ruefully as he thanked the General, and afterwards gone back to his own tent to scribble that brief note to Ash before writing a letter to his parents giving an account of the battle and telling them that he was safe and well.
So it was from Zarin that Ash learned that Wally had been put in for the Victoria Cross. ‘It will be a great honour for all in the Guides if the Kaiser-i-Hind should bestow this most coveted of awards on one of our Officer-Sahibs,’ said Zarin. But that had not been until late on the following night when the two met once more among the walnut trees; and Ash's delight at the news had been tinged with regret because he had not been able to hear about it at first hand.
‘You may do so before long,’ consoled Zarin, ‘for it is said in the camp that the new Amir, Yakoub Khan, will shortly sue for peace, and that all our pultons will be back in their own cantonments before mid-summer. I do not know if this is true, but any fool can see that we cannot stay here much longer when there is not enough food to feed our army, unless we let the Afghans starve. So I can only pray it is true, and if it is, we shall meet in a few months time in Mardan.’
‘Let us hope so. But I have had a message from the General-Sahib telling me to return to Kabul, and from what he says it may be that I shall have to stay there for some little time; which will not displease my wife, who being hill-bred has no love for the plains.’
Zarin shrugged and spreading out his hands in acceptance of the inevitable, said: ‘Then this is goodbye. Have a care for yourself Ashok, and give my respects to Anjuli-Begum, your wife, and remember me to Gul Baz. Salaam aleikoum, bhai.’
‘Wa'aleikoum salaam.’
The two embraced, and when Zarin had gone Ash wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down on the dusty ground between the walnut trees to snatch an hour or two of sleep before setting out on the road that led past Fatehabad and the Lataband Pass to Kabul.
Little more than six weeks later a Treaty of Peace had been signed in Gandamak by His Highness Mohammed Yakoub Khan, Amir of Afghanistan and its dependencies, and Major Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, C.S.I, Political Officer on Special Duty, the latter signing ‘in virtue of full powers vested in him by the Right Honourable Edward Robert Lytton, Baron Lytton of Knebworth, Viceroy and Governor-General of India’.
By its terms, the new Amir renounced all authority over the Khyber and Michni Passes and the various tribes in that area, agreed to a continued British presence in the Kurram, declared himself willing to accept the advice of the British Government in all his relations with other countries, and, among other things, surrendered at last to the demand that his father had so strenuously resisted – the establishment of a British Mission in Kabul.
In return he had been promised a subsidy and given an unconditional guarantee against foreign aggression, while Major Cavagnari, who had been solely responsible for obtaining his signature to this document, was rewarded by being appointed to head the Mission as British Envoy to his Court at Kabul.
With a view to allaying Afghan suspicions and hostility, it had been decided that the new Envoy's suite should be a comparatively modest one. But though (apart from Major Cavagnari's) no names had yet been mentioned, camp rumour had no doubts as to one other. And as news flies fast in the East, within a day of the Amir's return to Kabul a member of his household guard had informed a personal friend – once a Risaldar-Major in the Guides and now a pensioner of that Corps – that his old Regiment had been selected for the honour of providing an escort for the Angrezi Mission, and that a certain officer-Sahib who had distinguished himself in the battle against the Khugianis would command it.
Sirdar Bahadur Nakshband Khan had in turn carried this information to a guest in his house: one Syed Akbar, to whom, with his wife and a Pathan servant, the kindly Sirdar had offered the hospitality of his home…
Following his dismissal by Cavagnari, Ash had given up his post in the Bala Hissar, though in obedience to the General's wishes he had continued to make Kabul his base. Yet because the type of information required by the Peshawar Valley Field Force was not so readily available in Kabul as in the countryside surrounding the headquarters of the invading army, he was often away, and Anjuli saw little of him. But from her point of view even that little compensated a thousand times for the hardships of the journey through the snowbound passes, since it was immeasurably better than not seeing him at all and getting no news of him other than an occasional oblique verbal message sent by Zarin to his aunt in Attock.
These days, when Ash left her he could never tell her with any certainty how long he would be away, or send her word of his return; but at least it meant that each day when she awoke she could think – ‘Perhaps he will come today.’ So that she lived always in hope, and when that hope was realized, was happy beyond expression – far more so than those who take happiness for granted because they feel their hold on it to be secure, and do not visualize it ending. In addition to which, as she had told the Begum, she felt safe in Kabul, safe from the Rana's people, whose spies would never track her here, so that she could forget the fears that had haunted her in India. And after the glaring sun-burned landscape of Bhithor, and the rocks and the barren salt-ranges around Attock, the air of Kabul and the sight of snow and high mountains was a perpetual source of refreshment.
Her host, who was a wise and cautious man, had taken pains to ensure that no one in his house, neither his family nor his servants, should suspect that Syed Akbar was anything other than he seemed. And when Anjuli had arrived in mid-winter and Ash had declared that they must move elsewhere, the Sirdar had insisted that they both stay, but suggested that in case Anjuli's command of Pushtu should prove inadequate when subjected to the strain of daily conversation with the women-folk of the household, it might be as well to say that she was a Turkish lady, which would account for any mistakes she might make.
The household had seen no reason to query this, and accepted her as such. They had also taken a great liking to her, as the Begum had done, and Anjuli soon became one of them, learning their ways and helping with the numerous household tasks – cooking, weaving, embroidering, grinding spices and preserving, pickling or drying fruit and vegetables. And in her spare time, studying the Koran and committing as much as possible to memory, for she could not afford to show ignorance in religious matters. The children adored her because she was never too busy to fashion toys for them, fly kites or invent enthralling stories as she had been used to do for Shushila; and here, in a land of tall, fair-skinned women, she was no longer considered raw-boned and over-large, but accounted beautiful.
Had she been able to see more of Ash she would have been completely happy, and the times when they were together were as idyllic as the honeymoon days of that long, enchanted voyage up the Indus. Nakshband Khan had rented them a small suite of rooms on the topmost floor of his house, and here they could retreat into a private world of their own, high above the hubbub of the busy, bustling life below.
Yet even when Ash was in Kabul, there was still work for him to do, and he must tear himself away from those peaceful upper rooms and go into the city to listen to the talk in the great bazaar, and discover what was being said in the coffee shops and serais, and in the outer courtyards of the Bala Hissar where an army of petty officials, place-seekers and idle servants whiled away the days in intrigue and gossip, and where he would talk with acquaintances and listen to the opinions of the citizens and men who were passing through Kabul. Merchants with caravans from Balkh, Herat and Bokhara, peasants from outlying villages bringing goods to market, Russian agents and other foreign spies, soldiers drifting back from the fighting in the Kurram or the Khyber, slant-eyed Turkomans from the north, strolling-players, horse-dealers, fakirs and men on pilgrimage to one of the city's mosques.
In this way he learned of the signing of the Peace Treaty, and after that he looked hourly for a message recalling him to Mardan: but none came. Instead, he heard one day from the Sirdar that a British Missi
on headed by Cavagnari would be coming to Kabul, and that its Escort would almost certainly be drawn from his own Corps and commanded by his best friend. And within an hour of hearing this, he set off hot-foot for Jalalabad to see the Commandant of the Guides.
Ash had confidently expected to be back within a week. But when he reached Jalalabad it was to find that Colonel Jenkins, who now that hostilities were ended was once again in command of the Corps, had already left; as had Cavagnari and General Sam Browne, and Wally too – for when the Peace Treaty had been ratified in early June, the invading army began to pull out of Afghanistan. Jalalabad was to be evacuated, and those regiments still encamped there were preparing to leave.
‘You are too late,’ said Zarin. ‘Hamilton-Sahib left with the advance party, and the Commandant-Sahib some days before them. If all went well, they should be back in Mardan by now.’
‘Then I too must go to Mardan,’ said Ash. ‘Because if it is true that Cavagnari-Sahib is to take a British Mission with an Escort of Guides to Kabul, then I must see the Commandant-Sahib at once.’
‘It is true,’ confirmed Zarin. ‘But if you will be advised by me you will turn back, since to go forward is to take your life in your hands, and there is your wife to be thought of. It was all very well when she was in Attock where my aunt would have cared for her, but what will become of her now if you die on the road and she is left alone in Kabul?’
‘But the war is over,’ said Ash impatiently.
‘So they say. Though as to that I have my doubts. But there are worse things than war, and cholera is one of them. Living in Kabul, you will not have heard that the black cholera is raging in Peshawar so fiercely that when it reached the garrison, the Angrezi troops were moved in haste to a camp six miles outside the cantonments; but to no purpose, for this time it is the Angrezi-log whom it is striking the hardest, and few who take it recover. They are dying like flies in a frost, and now it is sweeping up the passes to meet our army as it returns to Hind, so that it seems we shall lose more lives in quitting this country than ever we lost in taking it. I am told that so many have already died of the cholera that the roadside is lined with graves.’