by M. M. Kaye
Several hundred voices answered him, and once again he raised his hand and waited, and when they fell quiet, asked them to choose a spokesman: ‘You – you with the scarred cheek’ – his lean forefinger pointed unerringly at one of the ring-leaders – ‘stand forward and speak for your fellows. What is the meaning of this shameful gurrh-burrh, and why have you come battering at the doors of one who is the guest of your Amir and under His Highness's protection?’
‘The Amir – ppth!’ The man with the scar spat on the ground, and related how his regiment had been cheated at the pay parade, and that having failed to get any satisfaction from their own Government they had bethought them of Cavagnari-Sahib and come here seeking justice from him. They asked only that he would pay them the money that was their due. ‘For we know that your Raj is rich and so it will mean little to you. But we here have starved for too long. All we ask for is what we are owed. No more and no less. Give us justice, Sahib!’
Despite the looting and the rowdy, hooligan behaviour of the rebellious troops, it was plain from the speaker's tone that he and his fellows genuinely believed that the British Envoy had it in his power to right their wrongs and give them what their own authorities refused: their arrears of pay. But the expression on the strong, black-bearded face that looked down on them did not change, and the stern, carrying voice that spoke their own language with such admirable fluency remained inflexible:
‘I am grieved for you,’ said Sir Louis Cavagnari. ‘But what you ask is impossible. I cannot interfere between you and your ruler, or meddle in a matter that is the sole concern of the Amir and his army. I have no power to do so, and it would not become me to attempt it. I am sorry.’
And he had stuck to that in the face of howls and shrieks of rage and a growing chorus of threats; repeating again, in pauses in the uproar, that this was a question that they must settle with the Amir or their Commander-in-Chief, and though he sympathized with them he could not interfere. Only when Amal Din, standing behind him, warned him through shut teeth that certain shaitans below were gathering stones did he turn and leave the roof. And then only because he realized that to wait any longer left him with the choice of becoming an easy target for the stone-throwers, or else allowing them to suppose that they had driven him to retreat from the roof and take cover below.
‘Barbarians,’ commented Sir Louis unemotionally, divesting himself of his uniform in the safety of his bedroom and replacing it with cooler and more comfortable garb. ‘I think, William, that I had better send a message to the Amir. It is high time he sent some responsible person to control this rabble. I cannot imagine what Daud Shah is up to. No discipline, that is their trouble.’
He strode into his office next door, and was about to sit at his desk to write when a voice that did not come from the lane below, but from the roof of the barrack block on the opposite side where the twenty-four men of the Guides Infantry stood to their arms behind the parapet, bellowed across the narrow gap that fighting had broken out by the stables and that the mutineers had killed a syce and were attacking Sowar Mal Singh… That Mal Singh was down… That he was wounded…
The mob in front of the Residency heard and roared its approval, and while some broke away and began to run back towards the stables, others began to batter on the door leading into the Residency, where Wally, waiting with the Guides in the courtyard behind it, moved among his men, reiterating that no one must fire until ordered to do so, and urging restraint. When the flimsy wood began to splinter and the rusty iron hinges bent and cracked they rushed to put their shoulders to the door, pushing against the weight of the rioters outside; but it was a losing game. As the last hinge snapped the door fell in on them and the crowd burst into the courtyard, and simultaneously, from somewhere outside, a shot rang out.
65
The sharp, staccato sound sliced through the din, silencing it as swiftly and effectively as a slap across the face will silence a fit of hysterics; and Wally thought automatically, ‘Jezail’ – for a modern imported rifle does not make the same noise as the long-barrelled muzzle-loading jezail of India.
The silence lasted less than ten seconds. Then once again pandemonium exploded as the mob, momentarily halted by the sound of the shot, began to fight its way forward into the Residency courtyard, yelling ‘Kill the Kafirs! Kill them! – Kill! Kill!’ Yet still Wally would not give the order to fire.
Even had he done so it is doubtful if he would have been heard above that frenzied clamour. But suddenly, somewhere in the mêlée, a carbine cracked, and then another – and another… And all at once the attackers turned and fled, stumbling and trampling over the bodies of fallen men and the wreckage of the broken door, and shouting now for firearms – for muskets and rifles with which to slay the infidels. ‘Topak rawakhlah. Pah makhe! Makhe!’* screamed the mutineers as they ran from the Residency and streamed back across the compound, some making for the Arsenal and the rest for their own cantonments outside the city limits.
Once again the brilliant morning was calm and still… and in that stillness the men of the British Mission, left alone, breathed deep and counted the dead. Nine mutineers and one of their own syces; and Sowar Mal Singh, who was still alive when they found him by the stables, but died as they carried him into the Residency – and whose sabre had accounted for three of the enemy dead, for he had gone to the assistance of the unarmed syce and defended him valiantly against impossible odds. Of the other six, four had been shot and two killed in hand-to-hand fighting, tulwar against sabre. And seven of the escort had been wounded. The Guides looked at each other and knew that this was not the end but only the beginning, and that it would not be long before the enemy returned. And that this time the Afghans would carry more than side-arms.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ thought Wally, ‘if that. Fifteen minutes at most.’ And aloud: ‘Close the gates and give out the ammunition. Block the ends of the lane – no, not with bales of straw, that will burn too easily. Use yakdans, feed bins, anything – take the bars from the stables. And we will need to cut loopholes in the parapets…’
They worked desperately. Officers, servants, syces; soldiers and civilians, toiling together literally for dear life; dragging up baggage-wagons and empty ammunition boxes, flour barrels, firewood, saddle-bags, tents and ground-sheets and anything else that could possibly be pressed into service to reinforce the entrance to the compound and barricade the lane. They piled bales of fodder to form a flimsy wall across the open ground behind the gutted stables, pierced loopholes in the walls of the Residency and the parapet surrounding the barrack roof, and pitched the bodies of the enemy dead into a godown at the far end of the compound, laying their own two on charpoys in Amal Din's vacated quarter.
Cavagnari sent an urgent message to the Amir informing him that his troops had made an unprovoked attack upon the Residency, and claiming the protection he owed to his guests; and while awaiting his messenger's return from the palace, turned his hand to helping construct a makeshift parapet out of scratched-up earth, furniture and carpets on the roofs of the two Residency houses. But his messenger did not return.
The man had arrived at the palace only to be put in a side room and told to wait, and an answer had been sent back instead by the hand of a palace servant. ‘As God wills, I am making preparations,’ wrote His Highness the Amir Yakoub Khan. But he sent no guards, not even a handful of his loyal Kazilbashis.
Others were also making preparations.
Aided by his lone hospital assistant and a motley group of bearers, khidmatgars, cooks and masalchis (scullions), Ambrose Kelly was preparing rooms on the lower floor of the Mess House to accommodate casualties and provide an operating theatre, while William Jenkyns and half-a-dozen sepoys raced to and fro removing the contents of the ammunition tent – which, together with a second tent containing an assortment of baggage, had been pitched for greater safety in the Residency courtyard. This they divided between the barracks and an ante-room on the ground floor of the Envoy's House, where it would b
e less vulnerable to rifle-fire from the rooftops and windows of the many houses that overlooked both the Residency and the Mission's compound – from the nearest of which, though they did not know it, another officer of the Guides was even then looking down on them and watching them as they toiled.
Ash had recognized the futility of forcing his way into the compound in the wake of several hundred disgruntled and undisciplined soldiers, when it was too late to warn or advise. And when no shots greeted the invaders he realized that neither advice nor warning was needed. Wally must already have instructed the Guides not to fire and was in no danger of losing his head and precipitating a battle by reacting too strongly. The boy clearly had his men well in hand, and with a modicum of luck the situation would not get out of control before Cavagnari was able to speak to the Afghan soldiery.
Once let the Envoy talk to them, and their fears would subside. He had only to promise them that he himself would see to it that their grievances were righted and that they would receive the pay they were owed – if not from the Amir then from the British Government – and because to the tribes his name was one to conjure with, they would believe him. They would accept Cavagnari-Sahib's word where they would have accepted no one else's and everything might yet be well.
Ash had turned and gone back to his office in the Munshi's house, and looking down from his window, had witnessed the looting of the stables, the theft of the horses from the cavalry pickets and the subsequent rush to the Residency. He had seen, too, the tall, frock-coated figure in the white helmet come out upon the roof of the Envoy's house and walk calmly to the edge to quell the vociferous crowd below, and had thought, like William, ‘By God, he's a wonder.’
He had never had any great liking for Louis Cavagnari, and had come to detest his policy. But seeing him now he was filled with admiration for the coolness and courage of a man who could walk out, unarmed and alone except for a solitary Afghan orderly, and stand calmly looking down on that threatening, stone-throwing mob without showing the least sign of alarm.
‘I'm damned if I could have done that,’ thought Ash. ‘Wally is right: he's a great man and he'll get them all out of this jam. He'll pull them through… it's going to be all right. It's going to be all right…’
The acoustics of that part of the Bala Hissar were peculiar (a fact not fully realized by the dwellers in the Residency compound, though Ash had once warned Wally about it), the reason for this being that the site of the compound made it a natural theatre, in the manner of ancient Greece where the stone seats swept upward in a semi-circle of steeply rising tiers from the stage below, to form a sounding-board that enabled even those in the top-most tiers to hear every word spoken by the actors.
Here, in place of seats there were the solid walls of houses built on rising ground, and therefore producing much the same effect. And though it would be an exaggeration to say that every word spoken in the compound could be heard by the occupants of those houses, shouted orders, raised voices, laughter and snatches of conversation were clearly audible to anyone in the nearer buildings who cared to stand at a window, as Ash was doing, and listen. Particularly when the breeze was blowing from the south, as it was today.
Ash caught every word that the spokesman for the mutineers shouted up to Sir Louis, and every syllable of Sir Louis' reply. And for a full half minute he could not believe that he had heard aright. There must be some mistake… he must have heard wrong. Cavagnari could not possibly…
But there was no mistaking the full-throated howl of rage that burst from the mob when the Envoy ceased speaking. Or the cries of ‘Kill the Kafirs!’ ‘Kill! Kill!’ that succeeded it. His ears had not deceived him. Cavagnari had gone mad and now there was no knowing what the mob would do.
He saw the Envoy turn and leave the roof, but his view of the Residency courtyard was restricted by the west wall of the three-storeyed Mess House in which Wally, Jenkyns and Kelly had their quarters, and he could only see the further half by the Envoy's House, and the turbaned heads of the escort who waited there; indistinguishable at that range from the servants, as they were still in undress, having not yet changed into uniform when the compound was invaded. But he could pick out Wally easily enough, for he was hatless.
Ash saw him moving among the Guides and realized from his gestures that he was urging them to remain calm and not on any account to fire. Then suddenly his attention was drawn from the courtyard to the stables by frantic shouts from the sepoys who were stationed on the roof of the barracks…
The sepoys were yelling and pointing, and looking in the direction of the outflung arms Ash saw a single man – presumably a sowar, for he was wielding a cavalry sabre – standing astride the huddled body of a syce and surrounded by a ring of Afghans who were attacking him from every side, slashing at him with knives and tulwars and leaping back as he whirled his sabre about him, fighting like a cornered leopard. He had already brought down two of his assailants and wounded others, but he himself had taken terrible punishment: his clothing was ripped in a dozen places and stained with his own blood, and it was only a question of time before he tired sufficiently to allow his attackers to close in. The end came when three men engaged him simultaneously, and as he fought them off, a fourth leapt at him from behind and drove a knife into his back. As he fell the pack closed in, stabbing and hacking, and a yell of rage went up from the watching sepoys on the barrack roof.
Ash saw one of them turn from the parapet and run back along the roof of the Mohammedan quarters to cup his hands about his mouth and bellow the news to the Residency, and heard the mob in the lane below howl their approval as they rushed to attack the door into the Residency courtyard, flinging themselves against it again and again, like a human battering-ram.
He did not see who had fired that first shot, though he too realized that it had been fired from an old-fashioned muzzle-loader and not a rifle, and presumed that one of the men from the Arsenal must have carried a jezail as well as a tulwar, and discharged it to discourage any camp-followers from coming to the rescue of the wounded Sikh. But the momentary silence that followed that shot made the concerted yell that ended it ten times more shocking, and the murderous cries of ‘Kill! Kill!’ told him that any chance there may have been of persuading the mob to leave by peaceful means had been lost.
The pendulum had swung over to violence, and should the mutineers succeed in breaking into the Residency they would loot it as thoroughly as they had looted the stables: only this time there would be no jostling and horseplay. The time for that had gone. The swords and knives were out, and now the Afghans would kill.
The din outside was so great that it was surprising that Ash should have heard the door of his little office creak open. But he had lived too long with danger to be unmindful of small sounds, and he whirled round – to see ex-Risaldar-Major Nakshband Khan, of all people, standing in the doorway.
The Sirdar had never, to his knowledge, visited the Munshi's house before, yet it was not the unexpectedness of his arrival that startled Ash, but the fact that his clothing was torn and dusty and that he was shoeless and breathing heavily, as though he had been running.
‘What is it?’ demanded Ash sharply. ‘What are you doing here?’
The Sirdar came in and closed the door behind him, and leaning against it, said jerkily: ‘I heard that the Ardal Regiment had mutinied and attacked General Daud Shah, and that they were besieging the palace in the hope of getting money from the Amir. But knowing that the Amir has none to give, I ran quickly to warn Cavagnari-Sahib and the young Sahib who commands the Guides to beware of the Ardalis, and to let none of them enter the compound today. But I was too late… And when I followed these mutinous dogs and tried to reason with them, they set upon me, calling me traitor, spy and feringhi-lover. I was hard put to it to escape them, but having done so I came here to warn you not to leave this room until this gurrh-burrh is over, since too many here will know that you dwell as a guest under my roof – and half Kabul knows that I am a pensioner o
f the Guides, who are now being attacked down there; for which reason I do not dare return to my own house while this trouble lasts. I could be torn to pieces in the streets, so I mean to take refuge with a friend of mine who lives here in the Bala Hissar, close by, and return later when it is safe to do so – which may not be until after dark. Stay you here also until then, and do not venture out until – Allah! What is that?’
It was the crack of a carbine, and he ran to join Ash at the window.
The two stood side by side, glaring down at the turmoil below where the Guides in the Residency courtyard, driven back by the sheer weight of numbers, were giving ground before the tulwars and knives of the yelling mob, fighting them off with drawn sabres. But it was clear that the shot had taken effect in more ways than one.
Apart from the fact that fired into the scrimmage it had almost certainly killed or wounded several of the invaders, the impact of the sound in that enclosed space was a sharp reminder that tulwars were useless against bullets. The lesson was driven home by the three shots that followed, and the courtyard cleared like magic; but Ash and the Sirdar, watching the mutineers break and run, knew that they were not seeing a rabble in retreat, but men racing to fetch muskets and rifles – and that it would not be long before they were back.
‘May Allah have mercy on them,’ whispered the Sirdar. ‘This is the end…’ And then sharply: ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the palace,’ said Ash curtly. ‘The Amir must be told –’