by John Wilcox
Eventually, Jenkins tailed off, taking out a rag and blowing his nose noisily, as though to mark the end of a tale well told. Roberts frowned and drummed his fingers on the table top. ‘How many men did the mullah have in the valley?’
‘Don’t know, sir. Couldn’t really see, was the truth of it.’
‘Dammit man, you must have seen something.’
Jenkins’s eyes narrowed and held the pale blue gaze of the General. ‘Oh aye. I saw that cow of a woman tryin’ to burn Mr Fonthill’s privates. But it was a bit dark, see, to take in much else . . . sir.’
Roberts snorted through his moustache, his mouth pursed and he took a deep breath through his nose, as though to issue a rebuke, but then thought better of it. Instead, he turned to W.G. ‘When you were in the north with Cavendish last year, was the area teeming with Russian troops?’
The Sikh looked slightly puzzled. ‘That, sir, was in Mr Cavendish’s report, sir, undoubtedly.’
‘Yes,’ the General spoke impatiently, ‘but I want to get your impression. You were there. I know you have good eyes and a good brain.’
W.G. beamed. ‘The General is very kind. No, sir. No troops teeming, sir. Not teeming at all, sir. What there were looked to me very much like second eleven, sir.’
‘What, what? Second what?’
Lamb leaned over. ‘Cricket, sir.’ He gestured almost imperceptibly to W.G. with his pen. ‘You will remember, sir, I think. Cricket.’
Roberts frowned. ‘Oh yes. Cricket. I had forgotten. Bloody game. Hated it myself. But never mind.’ He turned back to Jenkins. ‘Did you - did either of you - get the impression that Captain Fonthill had gathered information of any useful kind as a result of his . . . er . . . experience in the mullah’s camp?’
Jenkins wrinkled his nose so that his moustache almost met his eyebrows. ‘We don’t know, sir. Mr Fonthill wasn’t able to talk much once we’d got away. But you can be sure of one thing: he will have tried. Oh yes, sir. He will have tried.’
At this Lamb smiled and nodded but Roberts’s expression of thinly veiled irritation remained. ‘Very well, Sergeant. We shall have to wait and see. It could be quite important. Now,’ he stood up, ‘that will be all. You will not return to general duties because I want you to stay with Captain Fonthill until he recovers. I don’t want to break up the team, so to speak.’ He shot a glance at the Sikh and smiled for the first time. ‘There will be plenty for you to do, once we start our advance. You have both done well. Now dismiss.’
Both men sprang to attention - no salute, for they were not wearing regulation caps - turned and marched out of the hut. Outside, they stood and looked uncertainly at each other.
‘Well,’ said Jenkins. ‘Excused duties for a bit. That’s the best bit of news I’ve heard on this postin’.’
W.G. looked around him, his eyes taking in the bell tents pitched unevenly on the sloping ground, their guy ropes weighed down with stones where stakes would not penetrate the rocky terrain. ‘No chance of pitching stumps and playing a game though, Sergeant bach,’ he said glumly. ‘Pity.’ He emulated a flowing off drive. ‘I am being a little out of practice, you know.’
Jenkins’s eyes went heavenwards. ‘Bloody ’ell, Gracey. Give it a rest for a bit, there’s a good feller. Let’s go an see the Captain.’
But an orderly shooed them away at the tent opening. The doctor knew that Simon was facing his crisis point and that he had to fight his battle alone. In fact, it was little more than an hour later that Simon regained full consciousness. For him, the last few days had been a tumble of pain, discomfort - he had vomited several times from his precarious seat on the horse - and a mess of nightmarish fantasies: surrealistic dreams of fire, burning, dark, wild-eyed faces and always heat, heat, heat. He had been vaguely aware of being lifted from the horse at the camp and of the doctor’s ministrations to the centre of his burning. But what was left of the rational part of his mind had become more and more consumed with torture and the great question of whether he had given away vital information.
As he opened his eyes and concentrated on the white canvas of the tent wall above him, he was aware that he had passed a climax in his illness and had survived it. Although perspiration still trickled from his hair on to the sodden pillow, he was no longer on fire. He felt utterly exhausted, but the arm which hung down from the bed to touch the beaten earth was cold, healthily cold. He wiped the perspiration away from his eyes and then tucked the arm under the welcoming bedclothes and concentrated on the tent pole while his mind went back. No. As best as he could remember, he had told the mullah nothing. That was a relief.
Then a flicker of pain from his genitals - not a stab of anguish, more a gentle reminder that all was not well after all - took his mind on to the agony of the fire and the burning brand. He groaned involuntarily and explored with his hand. He was tightly trussed but, apart from that gentle reminder, there was no pain now, just a dull background ache, like that from the sensitive scar of a once open wound. He moved slowly on to his side. That little jar of pain again, but nothing more. He lay quite comfortably, yet his mind was far from tranquil, even though the demons of betrayal had been banished. He had never made love in all his twenty-four years. He had bought a glass of the then fashionable port and lemonade mixture for a tart in a pub near Sandhurst when he had been a cadet, but had found himself unable to go through with the act with someone who smelt of stale tobacco and God knows what else. Would he even be capable of it now? Had that hag, with her fire-stick, robbed him of the gift of fatherhood? Quietly, his mouth half stifled by the pillow, he moaned.
The medical orderly found him lying, eyes wide open, breathing regularly, and doubled away for the doctor.
‘Good man. You’ve passed the worst.’ The young Scot put his hand to Simon’s brow. ‘I’ve broken the only bloody thermometer between here and Simla but there’s nae doubt that yer temperature is way doon.’ He took Simon’s pulse and nodded approvingly. ‘Good. Would yer like some porridge?’
Simon forced a smile. ‘Does it have to be either porridge or haggis? Can’t I have something English, like a cup of tea?’
The doctor grinned back. ‘I don’t approve o’ the sentiments but I applaud the spirit. Aye, I’ll get yer a cuppa.’ He made to go, but Simon restrained him.
‘Sorry, I know you must be busy, but could I ask you something? Am I . . . am I permanently hurt down there? Will it be possible for me to . . . you know . . .?’
The doctor frowned. ‘You’ll want an honest answer, and I wish I could could gi’ yer one, but I can’t. I’m just an army doctor wi’ two years’ service under his belt, and while I can cut off a leg wi’ gangrene in five minutes an’ hae the laddie fit an’ well within five weeks, I ken very little about what a burn will do to an erection. An’ that’s a fact.’
He perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Look, laddie, it’s like this. It could be you need a skin graft but there’s no way we can do that here - in fact, I doubt if there’s anyone in India who can do that to a penis - and by the time we got you back to England, I should think there’d be no point tryin’. So it’s a question of waitin’ and seein’.’ He ran a hand through his red hair and gave a lop-sided smile. ‘There’ll not be much of a chance of you exercisin’ yer wee winkie in that way here, in any case. But no.’ The smile disappeared. ‘As yer know, when a chap gets . . . er . . . excited, blood rushes into the penis and the dear wee thingy expands. This means that the skin on your johnny stretches - that’s what a foreskin’s fer. Now, you’ve taken a bit of a burnin’ there, and whether what’s left of yer skin can recover to the point that it can manage a bit o’ stretchin’ remains to be seen.’
He stood up. ‘But it’s no’ all gloom an’ doom, by any means. There’s no infection there, as far as I can see - that’s what was worryin’ me about yer fever. You owe a lot to the chappies who brought you in. They dressed you rough but proper. Lookin’ at yer, it seems yer all skin an’ bones, but if there’s nae fat on yer, there’s plenty o’ musc
le, an’ I’d say you’ve got the constitution of a Highland buck.’ His blue eyes smiled again. ‘You’ve turned the corner now, laddie. You’re awful bruised still about the ribs but that’ll soon go. The swellin’ on that broken nose is goin’ doon quickly and your breathin’s all right, so it’s best to leave the nose well alone. The General will surely send you back doon the line. Just keep takin’ good nourishment an I’d say you’ll be fit again within a couple o’ weeks. Now, the General and his wee colonel are hoppin’ up an’ doon to see yer. Are you up to it? We’ll change your dressin’ afterwards.’
Simon nodded.
With an answering nod, the doctor was gone and Simon was left with his thoughts. He had found nothing to reassure him in the Scotsman’s prognosis and he had listened with growing dismay to the analysis of his injury. The evidence seemed to point to a future arid in every sense.
His gloomy thoughts were broken by the entry of General Roberts and Colonel Lamb. Roberts looked down at him with an expressionless face.
‘Ah, Fonthill. Good. Dr Knox says you seem to be better. How do you feel?’
‘Not bad, sir, thank you.’
‘Good. Now, we don’t wish to tire you, but things are warming up a little, as I know you know. Do you feel fit enough to tell us everything that happened? I would like to know every single thing you can recall, from the terrible affair at Kabul to what . . . what happened to you in the mullah’s camp. Are you up to it?’ And then he added, almost - and uncharacteristically - apologetically, ‘Time is of the essence now, you see.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Colonel Lamb leaned across and took Simon’s hand, resting on the coverlet, and shook it firmly. ‘Well done, Fonthill. Well done indeed. Glad to have you back.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The General dragged up a camp stool and Lamb took out his notebook. ‘Right, fire away. In your own good time.’
So Simon related all that had happened, from the time that the trio had entered Kabul to their flight through the hills and their pursuit by the Ghilzais. Both men listened carefully, without interruption, Lamb, as before, taking notes.
At the end, Roberts pulled on his silver moustache. ‘Why did you not join Sir Louis and help to defend the Residency?’
‘As I explained, sir, we arrived too late to get through the crowd. We felt we could help the defence best by shooting from the houses.’
‘Humph. Now, tell me again about the mullah. There was no question, do you think, of him blustering a bit - adopting a negotiating position to get more rupees from us to help?’
Simon gave a half-smile - at the question, and at the memory of the hatred in the mullah’s cold black eyes. ‘No chance, sir. He doesn’t like us much.’
‘Hmmmn. Sixty thousand tribesmen, you say? And twenty thousand Russians on their way?’
Simon nodded. ‘That’s what he said.’
Roberts looked across to Lamb, who was scribbling away on the other side of the bed. ‘Don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘At least, don’t believe that there is a Russian force in the offing. We would have heard about that, somehow. But,’ he put his riding crop to his moustache and mused, ‘given that the feller was exaggerating for effect, even twenty thousand tribesmen coming down at us from the hills as we advance could give us no end of a problem.’ He looked down again at Simon. ‘How many men, would you say, had the mullah got there in his encampment?’
‘Oh, I saw comparatively few, sir. I wasn’t in much of a state to notice anyway. I’d been beaten a bit, you see.’
Roberts evinced no sympathy. ‘Indeed. But could a large force have gathered there, in that valley? I mean, did it look like a rallying point where the hill tribes could confederate against us?’
‘Bit too small, sir, I should think. But I saw enough on the journey to know that there are plenty of valleys which could serve as such a meeting place, though the mullah talked about the tribes gathering at Kabul.’
‘Right.’ Roberts stood up. ‘You’ve done well, Fonthill. I must confess that I was a little surprised that you couldn’t force your way into the Residency to help Cavagnari more directly - perhaps it could have made a difference. But then I wasn’t there.’ His rosy face remained imperturbable. ‘Letting yourself be captured was also a great risk and could have misfired. Nearly did. But,’ he shrugged, ‘I am grateful to you. I shall see that you are moved back to India to recover from your wounds.’
‘No, sir.’ The force of Simon’s response took both men by surprise. He raised his head from the pillow in emphasis. ‘I do not wish to go down the line, sir. The doctor says that I am strong and that I should be able to get up and resume duties in about two or three weeks. It will take as long as that to get to India and back. I might as well stay here to recover.’
Roberts’s face remained impassive and totally without sympathy. ‘Look, sir.’ Simon raised himself on one elbow. ‘You are going to need all the intelligence you can get on the advance, and my men and I now know all the country from here to Kabul.’ He winced inwardly at the lie. ‘We know the city, too. Even if you began the advance tomorrow - and I know you can’t do that - I could be with you well before you reached the walls of Kabul.’ He lowered himself back on to the pillow and then spoke with slow emphasis. ‘I am not going back, sir. There is nothing for me in India. I can be useful to you here.’
The General looked down at the young man, noting the truculent set of his jaw and the directness of his gaze, and then glanced across at Lamb. The Colonel nodded, almost imperceptibly.
‘Very well, Fonthill. But there can be no room for invalids in an advance. This army will begin the invasion within a week. You will be riding by then, or I will move you back. Understand?’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Very well.’ Roberts nodded at Lamb, who rose and stuffed his notebook into a pocket and directed a smile at Simon. At the tent opening the General paused, like a schoolboy who had suddenly remembered his manners, and turned. ‘Er . . . get well, then, Fonthill.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As the tent flap fell back, Simon mouthed the word ‘bastard’ and lay back on his pillow. Suddenly, he felt exhausted and realised how weak he was. The General’s inquisition had taken what little strength he possessed after the passage of the fever. He knew that, whatever the worth of Colonel Lamb’s friendship, the General was a ruthless man. He was as much a careerist as any politician and there was no way that Simon could rely on any indulgence from him. Lord, there had even been an intimation of disapproval that he had not led his team to certain death in the Residency! How worldly was this man who had led all his soldiering life in colonial India?
Simon studied the canvas above him and explored again the dressing beneath his coarse cotton nightshirt. Could he be fit to sit a horse again within a week? One thing was certain: he would not be dismissed back to India; jettisoned as a lightweight who had failed in his first mission; dumped back into the stiflingly structured world of army base camps. No. He clenched his teeth. He would ride within a week.
‘There’s no way you can do that, sonny,’ said Dr Knox, when Simon told him. ‘You’ll no’ get your strength back in time. Just possibly two weeks but not seven days. And if you do, which you won’t, you’ll have to ride wearin’ a wee nappy.’
‘Right, Mother,’ sighed Simon. ‘Let’s start by changing this damned dressing down here.’
That night he slept like a baby, and the next day, refreshed, began a regime of gentle sit-ups in his cot, followed by crawling on hands and knees and, later, slowly walking around his bed. He was helped by the fact that he carried no weight and his ‘constitution of a Highland buck’, and although his appetite was poor, he forced himself to eat the porridge and light curries which were brought to him. Jenkins and W.G. visited him daily, and, with the Sikh’s help, Simon traced on an old Indian Survey map the rough route they had taken in their escape from Kabul. The map had been borrowed from the General’s ADC, and looking at it, Simon realised th
e extent of Roberts’s problem. The map showed little of the detail of Afghanistan, tracing only the main roads between the border and Kabul and the larger cities and towns such as Kandahar and Herat. The mountains were only shaded in and no attempt had been made to delineate the tribal regions that were so important a part of Afghanistan’s geography. Roberts was about to invade like a blind man feeling his way across a road riven with potholes.
On the sixth day, Simon mounted a horse again. He promptly became dizzy and would have fallen but for Jenkins’s supporting hand. He sat astride the saddle for a while and found to his relief that no pain came from beneath the dressing that still wrapped his genitalia, only the familiar dull ache. And (was it wishful thinking?) even this seemed to be receding a little now. Once the horse was urged into a walk, however, the dizziness returned and Simon had to be helped down to sit on a rock for a while, his head between his knees.
Nevertheless, he did not miss the advance. If the march had begun on the day planned for it, then Simon would have been left behind, but Roberts’s commissariat still lacked its full complement of supplies for the invasion and one more precious day was granted to the sick man. It was enough. When the bugles sounded the advance at five a.m. the next morning, Simon was ready, sitting erect, if a little gingerly, astride his Balkh stallion, Jenkins and W.G. flanking him on serviceable army mounts.
Colonel Lamb cantered up. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Fine, sir.’
‘And how’s your leg, Llewellyn?’
‘Jenkins, sir, 352 Jenkins. Fine, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course.’ Lamb pulled in his rein to curb the friskiness of his horse. ‘Now look, Fonthill. You are to take it easy this first day. Stay with the column until way after we have crossed the Shutargardan. Then seek me out for orders. We shall want some keen scouting then. I shall want the three of you to move out into the hills, above the column and beyond our cavalry patrols.’ He looked down the line. ‘Short of bloody transport, of course. Always are. By the time we get beyond the Shutargardan we shall be strung out along this track like washing on a line.’ He sniffed and eased the chin band on his helmet. ‘With six thousand men on the advance there will probably be half a day’s march between the head and the arse of this column. So we will be very vulnerable once we’re in Afghanistan proper and they’ll be at us then. We shall want plenty of eyes and ears. Right?’