by M. M. Kaye
‘They will kill me,’ wailed the Amir to the persistent mullahs, who had finally been granted another audience. ‘They will kill us all.’
Once again the head Mullah had pleaded with him to save his guests and urged him to order his artillery to fire on the mob. And once again the Amir had refused, insisting hysterically that if he should do so the mob would instantly attack the palace and murder him.
At long last, shamed into action by their reproaches, he summoned his eight-year-old son, Yahya Khan, and setting the little boy on a horse, sent him out accompanied only by a handful of Sirdars and his tutor – the latter carrying a copy of the Koran held high above his head where all could see it – to implore that maddened mob, in the name of God and His Prophet, to sheathe their weapons and return to their homes.
But the mob that had howled so fervently for the blood of the Unbelievers was not to be turned from its savage sport by the mere sight of the Holy Book or the scared face of a child, heir to Afghanistan or no. The trembling tutor was pulled from his saddle and the Koran wrenched from his hands to be flung on the ground and kicked and trampled upon, while the mob shrieked insults and threats at the hapless ambassadors, jostling and clawing at them until they turned tail and fled back to the palace in fear of their lives.
But there was still one Afghan who did not fear the mob.
The indomitable Commander-in-Chief, Daud Shah, wounded as he was, left his bed, and summoning a few of his faithful troopers, rode out to face the scum of the city with as much courage as he had faced the mutineers of the Ardal Regiment earlier that same day. But the mob cared as little for the authority of the army as it had for the sacred Book of its loudly proclaimed faith. Its interest was concentrated on killing and loot, and it turned on the valiant General like a pack of snarling pariah-dogs attacking a cat; and like a wild cat he fought back with teeth and claws.
For a brief space he and his troopers managed to hold them off, but the odds were too great. He was dragged from his horse, and once on the ground, the mob closed in, kicking and stoning him. Only the intervention of a handful of his soldiers, who had seen him ride out and who now charged to the rescue, laying about them with such fury that they drove the mob back, saved the battered man and his hopelessly outnumbered troopers from death. But they had had no option but to withdraw, and supporting their wounded Commander-in-Chief they limped back to safety.
‘We can do no more,’ said the watching mullahs, and recognizing at last the fruitlessness of human intervention, they left the palace and returned to their mosques to pray instead for Allah's.
67
It seemed to Ash, as he raged to and fro racking his brains for a way of escape, that he had been trapped in this small, stifling cell for a lifetime… Could time have moved so slowly for the Guides who had been fighting all through that hot, interminable morning and on into the afternoon without a moment's respite, or were they too hard pressed to take account of it, unaware of its passing because they knew that for them each breath they drew could be the last one, and knowing it lived only for the moment, and that by the grace of God?
There must be some way of getting out… there must be.
Hours ago he had considered the possibility of hacking his way out through the mud ceiling between the joists, until the thud of feet on the hard mutti roof overhead warned him that there were men up there, a great many of them judging by the clamour of voices and the vicious crackle of muskets – as many as there were on every house-top and at every window within his range of vision, not to mention those that he could not see.
After that he had turned his attention to the floor. It should be comparatively easy to break through it, since like all the floors in the building it consisted of pine-wood planks supported on heavy crossbeams and plastered over with a mixture of mud and straw; and had it not been only too evident that the room below was already occupied by the enemy, who were firing out of the window immediately under his own, the long Afghan knife he carried with him would have made short work of the dried mud, and enabled him to pry loose a plank so that he could wrench up one or more neighbouring ones. But where the window was concerned the knife was use-ess.
Ash had spent some time on the window, and had actually made a rope so that he would be able to lower himself from it, using knotted strips torn from the cotton sheeting that covered the platform on which a scribe sat cross-legged at work. But the bars had defeated him. And though the inner walls on either side of him were reasonably thin (in contrast to the one with the door in it) even if he were to break a hole through one or other it would not help him, because the room on his right was a windowless store room crammed to the roof with old files, while the one on the left contained the Munshi's library, and both were always kept locked.
Despite this knowledge, he had wasted a considerable amount of time and energy on burrowing through into the latter, in the hope that either the window-bars or the lock in the library might prove to be flimsier than his own. But when at last he managed to kick and hack and scrape a hole large enough to squeeze through, it was only to discover that the lock was of the same pattern, while the window (besides being as stoutly barred) was even smaller than the one in his own room.
Ash wriggled back again and resumed his vigil, watching and listening, hoping against hope, and praying for a miracle.
He had seen each of the four sorties, and though unlike the Sirdar he had not been able to see the first of the two charges that drove the mutineers out of the waste ground of the Kulla-Fi-Arangi, he had seen the whole of the third engagement. And it was while watching it that he had remembered belatedly that he not only carried a pistol, but had a service revolver and fifty rounds of ammunition hidden away in one of the numerous tin boxes that were stacked against the walls.
If he could not go down and fight with the Guides in the compound below, at least he could still do something to help them, and hastily removing the revolver from its hiding place, he levelled it from the window only to realize afresh why both sides had ceased firing. While the fight lasted and the protagonists were embroiled in a hand-to-hand struggle, no one could be certain whom a bullet or a musket ball might strike, and he too must hold his fire. Even when the enemy broke and ran, he resisted the temptation to speed them on their way because the range was too great to allow him to be certain of hitting his mark and his supply of ammunition was limited and too valuable to be wasted.
The twenty-three rounds he had subsequently expended during the course of that morning had certainly not been wasted, nor had there been any risk of the shots being traced to his window. There being too much lead flying round for anyone to be certain of such a thing. Five had accounted for as many enemy snipers, who had been firing from other and less closely barred windows lower down and further to the right and been incautious enough to lean well out in order to fire at the sepoys holding the barrack roof. A further fourteen had caused several deaths and considerable damage among the mob who had murdered the Hindu clerk, while the last four had disposed of four mutineers who during the sortie led by Jemadar Jiwand Singh had attempted, under cover of the fighting, to crawl towards the barracks in the lee of the low boundary wall that divided the Munshi's house from the British Mission's compound.
Koda Dad Khan would have approved his pupil's performance, for it had been good shooting. But as the range of a revolver is small, Ash's field of fire was very limited, and he knew that against the enormous numbers that the enemy were throwing against the Residency, any assistance that he could give was at best derisory.
The compound lay stretched out below him like a brightly lit stage seen from the royal box of a theatre, and had he been able to exchange the service revolver for a rifle, or even a shot-gun, he could have helped to reduce the fire that was being directed at the barracks and the Residency from every house-top within a radius of three or four hundred yards. But as it was he could do almost nothing. He could only watch in an agony of fear and frus-ration as the enemy bored loopholes in the c
ompound wall that enabled them to fire at the garrison in complete security, while members of the mob that had been routed and driven from the compound by that last furious charge began to steal back again, at first by twos and threes, and then, getting bolder, by tens and twenties until at length several hundred had taken cover in the gutted stables and deserted servants' quarters, and behind the maze of crumbling walls.
It was, thought Ash, like watching a spring tide crawling in across mud flats on a windless day, creeping inexorably forward to drown the land; except that the rising of that human tide was not silent, but accompanied by shots and screams and yelling voices that together fused into a continuous roar of sound: a roar that rose and fell as monotonously as storm waves crashing on a pebble beach. Ya-charya! Ya-charya! Slay the Infidels. Kill! Kill! – Maro! Maro!
Yet gradually, as the day wore on and throats became hoarse from con-inual shouting and parched with dust and smoke and the choking fumes of black powder, the war cries and the yelling began to die down, and with the voice of the mob reduced to a menacing growl, the sharp crackle of fire-arms became magnified – as did the shrill exhortations of the Fakir Buzurg Shah, who continued to harangue his followers with unflagging zeal; calling upon the Faithful to smite and spare not, and reminding them that Paradise awaited all who died that day.
Ash would have given much to assist the Fakir to achieve this goal himself, and he waited hopefully for the man to come within range. But that fanatical rabble-rouser appeared to be in no hurry to enter Paradise, for he stood well back among the mob on the far side of the stables, safely out of sight of the Guides who manned the parapets of the barracks and the windows of the Residency – and far beyond the reach of Ash's revolver; though not, unfortunately, out of hearing. His high-pitched litany of Hate had the carrying quality of a hunting horn, and his repetitive shrieks of ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ rasped at Ash's taut nerves and almost drove him to close the heavy wooden shutters in order to escape from that sound.
He had actually been on the verge of doing so – despite the fact that it meant shutting out the daylight and his view of the compound – when another sound stopped him: one that he was first aware of only as a distant murmur, but that as he listened grew in volume until it was identifiable as cheering… The mob were acclaiming someone or something, and as the vociferous applause came steadily nearer and louder until it drowned both the ravings of the Fakir and the din of firing, Ash's heart leapt, for the thought flashed into his mind that the Amir had sent the Kazilbashi Regiments to the relief of the beleaguered British Mission after all.
But the hope was no sooner born than he saw the Fakir and the rabble surrounding him begin to leap and yell and throw up their arms in frenzied welcome, and knew that this was no relieving force that was being hailed, but some form of enemy reinforcements, probably a fresh contingent of mutinous troops from the cantonments, thought Ash.
He did not see the guns that were being man-handled by scores of men through the narrow approaches by the Arsenal until both were well clear of the surrounding buildings and almost level with the cavalry lines. But the Guides on the barrack roof had seen them as they were manoeuvred through a breach in the mud wall and into the compound, and while a sepoy ran to tell Hamilton-Sahib of this new danger, the rest turned their fire on the scores of Afghans who were dragging and pushing the two guns towards the barracks.
The sepoy's news had spread through the Residency with lightning swiftness. But it is one of the advantages of military life that in times of crisis the issues are apt to be clearly defined, and a soldier is often faced with a simple choice: fight or die. No one had needed to wait for orders, and by the time Wally and the men who had been with him on the upper floor of the Envoy's House reached the courtyard, William and every active sepoy and sowar in the Residency had already assembled there.
All that was necessary was to tell the jawan who had brought the news to warn his companions to concentrate their fire on the enemy beyond the perimeter, and to send two men ahead to unbar the far doors that closed off the archway from the barrack courtyard. But even as they ran across the lane, both guns fired almost simultaneously. The men staggered as the ground rocked to the deafening crash of the double explosion, but reeled on, coughing and choking, through an inferno of smoke and flying debris and the reek of saltpetre.
The echoes of that thunderous sound reverberated around the compound and beat against the furthest walls of the Bala Hissar, sending flocks of crows flapping and cawing above the roofs of the palace, and drawing a howl of triumph from the mob as they saw the shells explode against the corner of the barrack block. But unlike the two buildings in the Residency, the outer walls of the barracks were not lath and plaster but built of mud bricks to a thickness of more than six feet, while the two corners at the western end were further protected by the fact that each contained a stone stairway to the roof.
The shells had therefore done little damage to the men behind the parapets, who, though momentarily blinded by smoke and debris and deafened by the noise, obeyed their orders, and lifting their sights continued to fire at the enemy as Wally and William, with twenty-one Guides, emerged from the archway below them and raced towards the guns.
The fight was a brief one, for the mutineers who had dragged the guns into position and fired them were exhausted by their efforts, while the rabble from the city had no taste for facing trained soldiers at close quarters, and fled at the sight of them. After a fierce ten minutes the mutineers had followed their example, abandoning the guns and leaving behind them more than a score of dead and wounded.
The cost to the Guides had been two men killed and four wounded, yet that by comparison was a far higher figure for a force whose numbers were being whittled down with frightening speed, and though they had captured the guns – and with them the shells that had been brought down from the Arsenal and abandoned when the amateur gunners fled – that too proved to be a hollow victory. For the guns were too heavy and the distance to the barracks too great; and now scores of enemy rifles and muskets were opening fire again…
Despite that storm of bullets the Guides had struggled desperately to pull their booty back, harnessing themselves to the ropes and straining to drag the unwieldy things over the dusty, stony ground. But it was soon clear that the task was beyond them: it would take too long, and to persist could only result in the entire party being killed.
They took the shells, though that was small comfort as it was obvious that further supplies would soon be hurried down from the Arsenal; but they could not even put the guns out of action, for in the heat and urgency of the moment one small but vital thing had slipped Wally's mind – the fact that though he alone among his men had been in uniform when the mutineers from the pay parade had invaded the compound, he had not been wearing his cross-belt, and had not thought to put it on since, or had time to do so. But a cross-belt carries two small items that are not intended for ornament but strictly for use: the ‘pickers’ that can be used, among other things, for spiking guns.
‘It's my own fault,’ said Wally bitterly. ‘I ought to have thought. If we'd even had a nail – anything. I'd clean forgotten we weren't properly dressed. Well, the only thing for it is to concentrate all our fire on those bloody guns and see that no one is able to re-load them again.’
The doors inside the archway had been closed and barred again behind them, and the survivors slaked their thirst from chattis of cold water that had been brought up from the hammam: Mussulmans as well as Unbelievers, for the regimental Mulvi had declared this to be a time of war, and at such times it is permissible for soldiers engaged in battle to break the fast of Ramadan.
Having drunk they had returned to the Residency which they had left barely a quarter of an hour ago – only to find it fulfof smoke, for the enemy behind the wall had not been idle while they were gone. More ladders had been pushed out from house-tops on the far side of the street, and while the Afghans, crawling along these perilous bridges, had reinforced the surviv
ors of the fight on the stairway, their friends in the street below had hacked their way through the flimsy walls and thrust live coals and oil-soaked rags through holes they had made in the foundation.
The Residency and the compound, already hemmed in on three sides, was now being assailed from above and below as well, since besides possessing themselves of the stables and cavalry lines and every house-top in sight, the enemy had established themselves in force on the roof of the Mess House and had broken through its foundations.
The courtyard, the ground-floor rooms and the barrack-block were full of dead and dying men, and of the seventy-seven Guides who had seen the sun rise that morning, only thirty were left. Thirty… and the ‘troops of Midian’ who ‘prowled and howled around’ numbered – how many thousands? Four?… six?… eight thousand men?
For the first time that day Wally's heart sank, and facing the future squarely and clear-eyed he deliberately abandoned hope. But this was something that William, as a member of the Foreign and Political Department and an apostle of Peace by Negotiation and Compromise, was still not prepared to do.
William had returned from that abortive attack on the guns to exchange the unfamiliar sabre and service revolver for his shot-gun, and hastily filling his pockets with cartridges, he hurried up to the roof of the Envoy's House to fire at the Afghans who were massing on the roof of the higher house on the opposite side of the courtyard. It was only then that he became aware of the volume of smoke that was billowing out from the ground-floor rooms of the Mess House, and realized that if the fire took hold they were lost.