by M. M. Kaye
‘This I had not heard,’ said Ash slowly.
‘You are hearing it now! June has always been an ill month for marching; but here, where there is little shade or water and the heat and dust are worse than in the deserts of Sind, it is a foretaste of Jehanum. So take my advice, Ashok, and return to your wife. For I tell you that the road through the Khyber is so choked with troops and guns and transport, and so full of the sick and the dying, that even if you escaped the cholera you would not get through to Jamrud for several days. It would be quicker to go on foot across the mountains than to try and force a way for yourself through the press and tumult that prevails between here and the mouth of the Khyber. If your business with the Commandant-Sahib is so urgent, write it down and I will undertake to deliver it.’
‘No. A letter would not serve. I must speak to him myself face to face if I hope to convince him that what I say is true. Besides, you yourself will be travelling on that same road and are just as likely to be struck down by the cholera as I am.’
‘If I were, my chances of recovery would be greater than yours, for I am not an Angrezi,’ said Zarin dryly. ‘And if I died, my wife would not be left alone and friendless in a strange land. But there is little fear of my taking the cholera because I shall not be travelling by that road.’
‘You mean you are staying here? But I understood that Jalalabad was to be evacuated – horse, foot and guns. That everyone would be leaving.’
That is so. And I too will be going, but by way of the river.’
‘Then I will go with you,’ said Ash.
‘As yourself? Or as Syed Akbar?’
‘As Syed Akbar; for as I shall be returning to Kabul, it would be too dangerous to do anything else.’
‘That is true,’ said Zarin. ‘I will see what can be done about it.’
It was a tradition with the Guides that an officer who died while serving with the Corps should, if humanly possible, be buried at Mardan. So that when his men urged that Battye-Sahib's body should not be left behind, it was agreed that the coffin should be exhumed. But because of the difficulties of taking it with them in the heat of June, it was decided to try sending it by raft down the Kabul River through the gorges north of the Khyber, and that terra incognita the Mallagori country, to Nowshera.
Risaldar Zarin Khan and three sowars had been assigned to escort the coffin. And at the last moment Zarin had asked permission to take a fifth man: an Afridi who had arrived in Jalalabad the previous evening, and who, said Zarin mendaciously, was a distant connection of his and would be an invaluable addition to the escort, as he had made this journey before and was familiar with every turn and twist and hazard of the river.
Permission had been granted, and in the dark hour before dawn, the raft that was to carry Wigram's remains back to their last resting place in Mardan set out on the long and hazardous voyage to the plains.
57
Daylight was beginning to fade when the look-out, who had lain all day on a ledge of cliff above the river, lifted his head and whistled in imitation of a kite. Sixty yards away a second man, concealed by a crevice in the rock face, passed on the signal, and heard it repeated by a third.
There were more than a dozen watchers lying in wait along the left bank of the gorge, but even a man with binoculars would not have suspected it; and the men on the raft had no such aids. Moreover, they needed to concentrate the greater part of their attention on keeping their unwieldy craft clear of rocks and whirlpools, for the snows were melting in the mountains to the north, and the Kabul River ran high and swiftly.
There were six men on the raft, four of whom – a tall Pathan, two black-bearded Sikhs and a burly Punjabi Mussulman – wore the dust-coloured uniform of the Corps of Guides. The fifth, a lean Afridi wth a ragged red-tinged beard, was less formally clad, it being his task to wield the heavy ten-foot pole that served as a rudder; and in deference to the heat and the exertions of his office he wore only a thin shirt above the wide cotton trousers of his race. The sixth was a British officer, but he was dead. He had, in fact, been dead for close on two months – a circumstance that was all too apparent to the five who were escorting his body back to India by raft through the gorges where the Kabul River carves its way through the wild mountain country north of the Khyber, past Dakka and Lalpura and the whirlpools of the unknown Mallagori country – for the coffin had been made from unseasoned wood, and though it had been wrapped in a tarpaulin for extra protection, even the evening breeze that blew through the gorge was not sufficient to disperse the sickly odour of corruption.
The voice of the river was a rustling, hissing murmur that filled the gorge with sound but failed to drown the shrill cry of a kite, and the tall Pathan turned sharply – for the sun had already set and that call is not normally heard at dusk: ‘Down! there are men among those rocks,’ said Zarin Khan, reaching for his carbine. ‘Mohmands – may they fry in hell. Keep down: we are too good a target. But the light is poor and by Allah's grace we may win through.’
‘They may mean us no harm,’ said a Sikh, checking the loading of his rifle. ‘They cannot know who we are, and may take us for men from one of their own villages.’
The Punjabi laughed shortly. ‘Do not deceive yourself, Dayal Singh. If there are men on the cliffs they know very well who we are and will have been waiting for us. Perhaps it was fortunate after all that Sher Afzal should have fallen from the raft and been drowned in those rapids, for had that not delayed us we should have reached this spot two hours earlier and been an easier mark. As it is –’ He did not finish the sentence, for the first shot took him in the throat and he leapt up as though jerked by a string, his arms flailing and fell backwards into the river.
The splash and the sound of the shot echoed together through the gorge, and for a brief moment a dark smear stained the colourless water and was whirled away on the current; but the Punjabi's body did not surface again. The raft swept forward into the gut of the gorge, the steersman flinging his weight on the great pole and grunting with the effort as he struggled to keep the unwieldy platform on a straight course, since he knew only too well what their fate would be if they were to run aground.
A vicious spatter of shots whipped the water about them, and the three remaining men of the escort lay flat on the logs and returned the fire with the unhurried precision of long practice, aiming for the puff and flash of the old fashioned muzzle-loaders that thrust out from a dozen crevices on the cliff. But it was an unequal contest, for the enemy lay concealed on ledges and crevices high overhead and could take their time sighting for a shot, while the men of the Guides were handicapped by lack of cover and the uneasy motion of the raft, and had only the speed of their passage and the swiftly gathering dusk in their favour. The coffin provided a narrow margin of protection; but it had been lashed dead centre, and if all three took shelter on the far side of it the raft would overturn.
‘Move the stores,’ gasped the steersman, thrusting off from dimpled water that betrayed an unseen shoal. ‘Over to the left – quick! That will balance one of you.’
Zarin laid aside his carbine, and crawling to the pile of tin boxes that contained the stores and ammunition for their journey, began to stack them on one side of the raft, while Sowar Dayal Singh continued to load and fire. His fellow Sikh shifted his position, and lying down beside him, rested the muzzle of his carbine on the coffin and taking careful aim, pressed the trigger.
Something that looked like a bundle of clothing fell screaming from a ledge of rock to crash down into the boulder-strewn shallows, and Zarin laughed and said: ‘Shabash, Suba Singh. That was good shooting. Almost good enough for a Pathan.’
Suba Singh grinned and retorted with a crude country joke that was uncomplimentary to the prowess of Pathans, and Dayal Singh smiled. They had run into a trap in which one of their number had already lost his life, and their chance of escaping from it alive were not high; but all three were men whose trade was war. They loved a fight for its own sake, and their eyes glittered in t
he dusk as they laughed and re-loaded and fired at the flashes, and made grim jokes as the bullets pattered onto the raft.
A shot smashed into the coffin and the ugly stench of death was suddenly strong on the evening air, blotting out the reek of black powder and the scents of the river.
‘Apka mehrbani,* Battye-Sahib,’ said Suba Singh quietly, sketching a salute to the thing in the coffin. ‘You always had a care for your men, and but for you that would have been my head. Let me see if I cannot avenge their discourtesy towards you.’
He lifted his head and sighted carefully, allowing for the jerk and sway of the raft. The rifle cracked, and a man near the cliff top flung up his arms and toppled forward to lie still, while the jezail he had held slid from his grasp and clattered down the cliff face in a shower of stones. Suba Singh might not be a Frontiersman, but he was known to be the finest marksman in his squadron.
‘Two to us. Now let us see you do better, Pathan,’ said the Sikh.
Zarin grinned appreciatively, and ignoring the bullets that hummed about him like a swarm of angry bees, took aim at a mark that would have been invisible to anyone not bred in a country where every stone may conceal an enemy: a narrow crevice between two rocks, where the muzzle of a long-barrelled jezail protruded a few inches. The shot went cleanly home above the small circle of metal, and the muzzle dropped with an abruptness that told its own tale.
‘There,’ said Zarin. ‘Are you satisfied?’
There was no reply, and turning his head he met a blind fixed stare above the coffin. The Sikh had not moved: his chin was still propped on the stiff folds of tarpaulin and his mouth was agape as though he were about to speak, but there was a bullet hole through his temple, and Dayal Singh, lying beside him, had not even known that his compatriot had been hit…
‘Mara gaya?’ (Is he dead?) asked Zarin harshly, knowing the foolishness of the question even as he asked it.
‘Who? The misbegotten dog you fired at? Let us hope so,’ said Dayal Singh. He reached for more ammunition, and as he did so the body of Suba Singh fell sideways and lay sprawled across the raft with one arm trailing in the water.
Dayal Singh stared down at it, his outstretched hand rigid and his breath coming short. Then suddenly he began to shiver as though he had a fever. His fingers came to life again and he loaded his carbine with furious haste, cursing the while in a harsh unsteady whisper, and leaping to his feet, began to fire at the cliff, re-loading from a handful of bullets he had stuffed into his pocket.
The raft lurched dangerously, riding the full flood of the treacherous current, and the steersman flung his weight over to balance it and yelled to the Sikh to get down. But Dayal Singh was temporarily beyond the reach of reason. A red blaze of rage had swept away caution and he stood squarely astride the body of his dead comrade, facing the cliff and cursing as he fired. A bullet clipped his jaw and blood streamed into his dark beard, and presently his puttees turned red where a second shot had struck his leg. He must have been hit half a dozen times, but he neither flinched nor ceased his steady, furious swearing, until at last a bullet smashed into his chest and he staggered and dropped his carbine and fell back across the body of his fellow Sikh.
His fall tilted the raft violently to one side, and a flood of water raced across it, foaming about the coffin and sweeping away a clutter of tins and equipment; and before Zarin or the steersman could right it, the bodies of the two dead men slid down the wet logs and vanished into the river.
Relieved of their weight, the clumsy craft righted itself and Zarin rose to his knees, and wringing the water from his uniform said bitterly: ‘There go two good men; and in these times we cannot afford to lose even one such. This has indeed been a costly campaign for the Guides. Too many have died or been sorely wounded already, and now four more of us are gone – and if it does not get dark soon, you and I may well die too. A plague on these sons of warlocks. Would that I…’ He broke off and his eyes narrowed: ‘You are hit!’ he said sharply.
‘A scratch only. And you?’
‘I have taken no hurt – as yet.’
But there had been no more shots from the cliff, perhaps because the light was now too poor and the raft no longer presented a possible mark to the watchers among the rocks. The river was a grey ribbon in the dusk and the raft no more than a bobbing shadow, as elusive as a moth or a bat flitting down the gorges. An hour later the two men and their burden were clear of the cliffs with the worst of the rapids behind them, and being swept forward in the starlight through a country less well adapted to ambush.
The day had been very hot, for the monsoon had not yet reached these northern latitudes, and among the parched and treeless hills the ground gave off the stored heat of the sun in almost visible waves, as though the doors of a furnace had been thrown open. But the Kabul River was fed by the snowfields and glaciers of the Hindu Kush, and as the night wind blew coolly off the water the steersman shivered and huddled above his pole.
The coffin had been lashed to the raft with a length of stout country-made rope, but the hemp had become sodden with the night dews and the spray from the rapids, and as the weight that it held shifted to the motion of the current, the rope stretched and sagged so that the coffin moved uneasily, as though it imprisoned someone who was alive and restless.
‘Lie still, Sahib, or we lose you at the next bend,’ grunted Zarin, addressing the dead. ‘Is there a knot on your side, Ashok?’
‘Two,’ said the steersman. ‘But I dare not tighten them in the dark. If we were to strike a rock or rough water while retying them, the whole thing would pull free and throw us into the river. You must wait until dawn. Besides, after steering all day my hands are too stiff for tying knots.’
‘And you a hillman,’ jeered Zarin. ‘Why, the night is as hot as Jehanum.’
‘And the river as cold as charity,’ retorted Ash. ‘It is snow water, and I have been in it twice, so I know. Had I realized that the current ran so swiftly and that the Mohmands would lie in wait for us, I would have thought twice before I asked to come with you on such a journey. It is a mad one, anyway, for what difference does it make where a man's body lies? Will Battye-Sahib care if he rests in the earth by Jalalabad or in the cemetery at Mardan? Not he! Nor would he have cared if after we had gone the Afridis dug him up to spit on him or scatter his bones.'
‘It is we of the Guides who would care,’ said Zarin shortly. ‘We do not permit our enemies to insult the bodies of our dead.’
‘Of our Angrezi dead,’ corrected Ash with an edge to his voice. ‘This war cost us the lives of others. Yet we left their bodies among the Afghan hills and brought away only this one.’
Zarin shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. He had discovered long ago the uselessness of arguing with Ashok who, it seemed, did not see things as most other men did. But presently he said: ‘Yet you would come – and not for my sake, either!’
Ash grinned in the darkness: ‘No, brother. You have always proved fairly capable of looking after yourself. I came, as you know, because I wish to speak with the Commandant-Sahib before it is too late. If I can only see him in time, I may be able to persuade him that this mission that they talk of is doomed to disaster and must be abandoned; or at the very least, postponed. Besides, they say that the Government will send an escort of the Guides with the new Envoy to Kabul, and offer the command of it to Hamilton-Sahib.’
‘SoSo I have heard,’ said Zarin. ‘And why not? It will be a further honour for him: and a great honour for us of the Guides.’
‘To die like rats in a trap? Not if I can help it! I shall do my best to see that he does not accept.’
‘You will not succeed. There is no officer in all the armies of the Raj who would refuse such an honour. And no regiment, either.’
‘Perhaps. But I must try. I have made very few friends in my life – which I suppose is a fault in me. Out of those few, two have meant a great deal to me: you and Hamilton-Sahib; and I can't face losing you both… I cannot.’
> ‘You will not,’ said Zarin reassuringly. ‘For one thing, they may not send me to Kabul. And if – when – we win back to Mardan, you will see things in a better light. It is only because you are over-tired, and because life has been hard for you of late, that you talk like this.’
‘Oh no I don't. I talk like this because I have spoken to too many men who do not know or talk to the Sahib-log or to soldiers of the Sirkar – and also to very many others who have never even seen either – and from them I have heard things that have made me afraid.’
Zarin was silent for a space, then he said slowly: ‘I think, myself, that this has been your great misfortune: that you can talk to such people. Years ago when you were a child, my brother Awal Shah said to Browne-Sahib, who was then our Commandant, that it was a pity that you should forget to speak and think as one of us; there being few Sahibs who could do so, and such a one might be of great service to our Regiment. Therefore, because of his words, it was arranged that you should not forget. That was perhaps a mistake; for it has been your fate to belong to neither East nor West, yet to have one foot in both - like a trick rider at a Pagal-Gymkhana who stands astride between two galloping horses.’
‘That is so,’ agreed Ash with a short laugh. ‘And I fell between them long ago, and was torn in two. It is time I tried belonging to myself only – if it is not already too late for that. Yet if I had it all to do again -’
‘You would do the same as you have done; that you know,’ said Zarin, ‘– seeing that each man's fate is tied about his neck and he cannot escape it. Give me the pole: by the sound, there are rapids ahead; and if you do not have some rest that wound in your arm will give you trouble before morning. We shall not be attacked in the dark, and I will wake you before moonrise. See if you can get some sleep, for we may need all our wits tomorrow. You had better tie one of those rope-ends about your waist before you lie down, or else you will slide off into the water if the raft should tilt.’