The Lion's Den

by Philip McCutchan

  Rigby-Smith looked around once again; the mob was watchful, intent, still silent. It would need no more than a gesture from Jarar Mahommed to send them and their razor-like knives at the throats of Rigby-Smith’s sepoys; there would be great slaughter on both sides; with the regiment hemmed in as it was currently, the sepoys would not have a proper chance. A better time would come. Rigby-Smith, drawing himself to his full height as he sat his horse, said stiffly, ‘I make no promises, Jarar Mahommed, Lead me to Gilmour Sahib, at once.’

  The Ghilzai inclined his head fractionally, then turned his horse. ‘Follow,’ he said looking back over his shoulder. ‘You and all your men.’ He moved slowly along the narrow way, between market stalls, past the hovels of his people, deeper into the varied smells of the town, with the mob crowding along beside the sepoys, watching their every move, hostile and suspicious. Ahead of E Company, James Ogilvie could almost feel the fear eating into the minds of his sepoys. This kind of situation was very different from open fighting on the plains of India or even in the Afghan passes; there was no elbow-room at all, here in Kunarja. It was a feeling of claustrophobia, and there was the stench of death and failure already.

  SIX

  Deeper now into Kunarja, they came under another gateway, this time into a stronghold, Jarar’s palace, a high building of white stone, with towers and minarets, that rose commandingly above the mean, clustered dwellings of the poor. With Colonel Rigby-Smith at their head, they marched into a wide courtyard around which the palace lay, curled and watchful with many windows looking down.

  Ogilvie shook his head. ‘If we weren’t in a trap before, we certainly are now, Alan.’

  ‘What’s the Colonel up to?’

  ‘I don’t suppose he had much option — not once he’d entered the town. Better, really, to have stayed outside and waited for Jarar to come to him.’

  ‘But all that time, Jarar could have been attacking the Residency, and the orders—’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Ogilvie glanced over his shoulder; behind him, the companies were bunching. Ahead, the subedars were marking time and looking worried, as well they might. In Ogilvie’s opinion, Colonel Rigby-Smith had acted with crass stupidity in marching his regiment into such confinement. As he looked back, he saw a movement behind, over the entrance through which they had just marched : the slow descent of a vast metal grille like a portcullis.

  He yelled a warning to Colonel Rigby-Smith, and himself ran towards the gate, pushing through the milling sepoys. He had almost got there when a native, one of the denizens of the palace, dropped like a snake from a window, landing on his shoulders and bringing him to the ground in a winded heap, and remaining astride him. Looking towards the gate, he saw that they were now neatly and totally sealed within the courtyard.

  Rigby-Smith looked angrily at Ogilvie, still flat on the ground. ‘Kindly order the release of that officer,’ he snapped at Jarar Mahommed, his face reddening.

  ‘And if I do not, Colonel Sahib?’

  ‘I shall — I shall....’Rigby-Smith’s voice trailed away; he had just seen the grille for himself. Jarar, laughing insultingly, called an order and the native removed himself from Ogilvie’s back.

  ‘Are you all right, Captain Ogilvie?’ Rigby-Smith called out.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ogilvie got to his feet and dusted down his uniform. He was somewhat bruised, but no more than that. ‘I was trying to stop that portcullis coming down—’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Ogilvie. I congratulate you on your alertness. Now, Jarar Mahommed, I wish, if you please, to see Major Gilmour.’

  Rigby-Smith was keeping nicely cool, much more so than Ogilvie would have expected; he was showing no sign of fluster to the Ghilzai leader, even though he must now know that he had done something remarkably stupid. As Ogilvie looked on, Jarar Mahommed dismounted from his horse, spoke for a moment in low tones to a dignified, turbaned native, a bearded man who salaamed low to his leader; and then went into a great doorway that, as Ogilvie was to find, led into a high-ceilinged entrance chamber off which led many corridors and a fine staircase. Soon after this Rigby-Smith was sent for and taken into the palace; and a few minutes after this again, the remainder of the officers, both British and native, were escorted into the building as well and bowed ceremoniously into one of the smaller rooms leading off the great hall. The sepoys were left outside with their havildars, under the long-barrelled rifles of the tribesmen at the surrounding windows.

  *

  ‘You’ll have to go back on it,’ Gilmour said. ‘You’ll have to, Colonel!’

  ‘But really, I — I can’t possibly! The British always tell the truth! ‘

  ‘Well, I’m awfully sorry, but this time you’ll have to say you didn’t, you told a lie. God knows why you told it — but you did! You’ve seen the error of your ways, Colonel!’

  Rigby-Smith lifted an eyebrow. ‘The error of my ways, Major Gilmour? I call that damned rude.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but you must forget all the regimental niceties now — damn it all, you know India and the Frontier! We’re not talking about some old ladies’ bun-fight in Peshawar now! I tried to warn you, to convey what I wanted you to say — but you didn’t seem to understand.’

  ‘Winks and nods and such things...’

  ‘It was all I could do,’ Gilmour said impatiently. The two men were pacing up and down a small open space, a kind of terrace that had been allocated to the British Resident and his family during what amounted in fact to their imprisonment in Jarar Mahommed’s palace-fortress; off this terrace led two rooms with small barred windows looking down directly on to the stinking dirt of Kunarja’s crowded streets of hovels. One room was for the use of Major and Mrs. Gilmour, the other was for Katharine their daughter. The Gilmours had been quite well treated; and Jarar Mahommed, at the recent interview with Rigby-Smith, had insisted that he had never had any intention of harming the representative of the Raj. Gilmour went on now, ‘You know, Rigby-Smith, I consider Fettleworth to have been high-handed over this. Or anyway — Calcutta. I suppose Fettleworth has to follow his orders, the same as the rest of us, though in all conscience...’

  ‘Yes, Major Gilmour?’

  ‘Well, I was going to say — one grows accustomed to this kind of thing with Fettleworth, doesn’t one? No need to answer that, if you’d rather not! After all, he’s your Divisional Commander — not mine, thank God.’ Gilmour gave a quiet chuckle. ‘But he does seem to, well, attract misfortune and — and a general ambience of mishandled situations. Like a magnet! He should have been much more insistent, much firmer with Calcutta. These people really have come to depend on that subsidy, you know.’ He looked hard at Rigby-Smith. ‘Do you know that?’

  ‘I do now.’

  ‘But before?’

  ‘Er...no.’

  ‘Neither did you care?’

  ‘Frankly, no.’ Rigby-Smith’s tone was stiff.

  ‘Neither does Fettleworth, in my opinion! That’s the whole truth. To him they’re just damn natives who have to toe the line, and when they don’t, you go to war.’

  ‘I don’t know that that’s entirely fair—’

  ‘Possibly not, but it’s fair rule-of-thumb. To get back to what I was saying, Rigby-Smith: you’ve come with power to discuss terms—’

  ‘But I have no such power, Gilmour, no such power at all!’

  ‘I accept that—’

  ‘Well, then!’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve got to invent the power! I tell you, it’s vital, or we’re all done for. You came here to extract me and my family, or protect us, and I’m terribly grateful, believe me. But you’re not going to be very much use at that now, I’m afraid, with your sepoys all so nicely rounded up.’ Gilmour gave a cough; he could have been indiscreet in pointing out the only-too-obvious. While Rigby-Smith and he had been fencing verbally with Jarar Mahommed, reclining on silken cushions in the banqueting hall of the palace, the 99th Rawalpindi Native Light Infantry had been firmly and insultingly disarmed. While still, so far, no
minally under the charge of their own havildars and naiks, and physically unmolested, they had been rendered utterly impotent and wide open to rifle and machine-gun fire, should it be used, from the windows that dominated the courtyard. It was a position of great indignity that was currently infuriating the British and Indian officers. Gilmour murmured, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Rigby-Smith.’

  Colonel Rigby-Smith refrained from comment, and Gilmour went on, ‘So, you see, some other way has to be found. That way is subterfuge. Terms, my dear fellow —terms leading to a safe conduct through the Khyber into India, for all of us!’

  ‘Lies, falsehoods?’

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘Not very sporting.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

  Rigby-Smith said stiffly, ‘You know what I mean, Gilmour. We British have a reputation for speaking the truth, for playing the game come what may. One hesitates...one bears in mind what may happen in the future, to other people, if we should act so as to destroy faith in our veracity. We cannot act only for ourselves, you know.’

  ‘I’ve had a good deal of time to think about this,’ the Resident said quietly. ‘As you know, word of your coming reached us ahead of you. Jarar Mahommed was convinced you would bring terms, something to discuss. He’s not such a bad ruler, you know — as savage, as bloody cruel as the rest of ‘em, but not so bad as some tribal leaders — and he feels let down.’

  ‘Yet you propose telling him lies?’

  Gilmour shook his head. ‘Not exactly. If necessary, then yes, I would — for the greater good, Colonel. Think: if we should be massacred, or even simply kept in confinement, then Calcutta’s hand would be forced. A full-scale expedition against the Ghilzais would become essential — public opinion, if nothing else, would demand that. There would be many casualties, and the Ghilzais would be broken — or Jarar would, at the very least.’ He smacked a fist into his palm. ‘I don’t want to see that, Colonel. I’ve spent a good deal of my life working for the benefit of the frontier tribes — and I don’t want to chuck all those years away!’

  ‘My dear Gilmour,’ Rigby-Smith said disparagingly, ‘that is something men are doing constantly in the Raj, or in any other part of the Empire, are they not?’

  Gilmour gave a short laugh. ‘In other words, in your view, natives are natives?’

  ‘Certainly!’

  ‘Then we know where we stand, at least! Now Colonel Rigby-Smith. Let me repeat — you have, after all, come with terms. You and I will discuss together what these terms are—’

  ‘But I have not—’

  ‘Then you shall dissemble! I assure you, it is our one and only hope. There is no other course. I’ve said Jarar Mahommed is a reasonably good ruler. He is — I stand by that. But when things go wrong for him, when he doesn’t get his own way, he is no different from all other Pathans. I repeat, he can be cruel and vicious — I needn’t elaborate, Colonel.’ Gilmour was still speaking quietly, but with insistence and sincerity. ‘You have a regiment to consider — I have a wife and daughter. It’s a big responsibility.’

  ‘I still dislike the destruction of trust...trust for the years ahead.’

  Gilmour smiled. ‘This needn’t necessarily follow. Fettleworth, remember, is a vain man...a very vain man. If he could settle the Ghilzai problem, Colonel, what a feather in his cap that would be, would it not?’

  Rigby-Smith stared at him, his brows creased into a frown and his lips pursed. ‘You mean—’

  ‘I mean you could commit Fettleworth in advance. You and I will settle the terms with Jarar Mahommed, subject of course to the agreement of Calcutta, and then we will return to Peshawar under a safe conduct — this safe conduct to be an essential preliminary to the possible granting of any terms at all — and once we’re in Peshawar, Colonel, we present Fettle-worth with a fait accompli! He must press Calcutta for agreement, for the word of a British officer and gentleman will have been given, and given, moreover, in his name — Fettleworth’s name.’ Gilmour pulled at his moustache. ‘Since, in my opinion, there must be a settlement with Jarar Mahommed whatever happens, we shall be handing Bloody Francis the wherewithal for another decoration! He’s bound to see that, given time! You’ll find him perfectly amenable, I promise you.’

  ‘Possibly, possibly.’ Rigby-Smith’s tone was full of doubt and anxiety. ‘By God, Gilmour, I don’t like this in the very least.’

  ‘You’ll come to love it, when we’re marching out for Peshawar! Now — let’s discuss the terms we’re going to propose, Colonel....’

  *

  The room where the officers were confined had, like Gilmour’s accommodation, a window, barred and set high up in the wall; it let in light and it let in the smells of Kunarja, and the sounds of the crowded streets, but it gave no available view since it was well out of reach. Ogilvie, having paced the room for hours, was now sitting on the floor with his back to a wall, with Taggart-Blane next to him. Taggart-Blane, who had not stopped worrying for an instant, asked for the hundredth time, ‘What’s going to happen, James?’

  Ogilvie stifled a sigh. ‘We can only wait and see, can’t we? Do try to be patient.’

  ‘Patient!’ The subaltern’s voice was high; soon he could become hysterical. There was decided softness there and Ogilvie couldn’t see him lasting the course in India. Meanwhile, inaction and uncertainty were preying on Ogilvie’s own mind as well. Some while earlier Major Fry had been sent for, and escorted by wild-looking guards from the room, to the presence, apparently, of Jarar Mahommed. He had not yet returned; when he did, the situation might clarify a little.

  Taggart-Blane said suddenly, ‘I can’t take much more of this, I’ll go mad—’

  ‘That’s enough—’

  ‘Rigby-Smith’s a bloody fool, he led us into this—’

  ‘Shut up, Alan!’

  ‘He’s not fit to command a battalion, and you know it. You bloody well know it, and so do I!’ Taggart-Blane’s body was shaking like a jelly. Ogilvie heard Captain Scrutton, the adjutant, getting to his feet, and saw him stalk across the room scowling bleakly.

  ‘All right, Scrutton, I’ll deal with this,’ he said.

  Scrutton faced him, his eyes cold. ‘The little blighter’s insulted my Colonel, Ogilvie. D’you expect me to stand for that?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was inexcusable. I apologise on his behalf, Scrutton, but—’

  ‘I’d like to hear his own apology, thank you, Ogilvie.’

  ‘Can’t you leave him alone? Can’t you see he’s—’

  ‘Acting like a girl? Oh yes, Ogilvie, I can see that very well indeed!’ Scrutton loomed over the subaltern, one hand on his hip, the other holding a riding-crop. ‘Now, if you please, Mr. Taggart-Blane — your apology for your damned insults!’

  Ogilvie caught Taggart-Blane’s eye and shrugged; there was nothing he could do — Scrutton was well within his rights and no decent officer could have been expected to behave otherwise. Ogilvie said, ‘Come along, Alan. Do as he asks.’

  Taggart-Blane seemed almost in tears. Without facing the adjutant he muttered, ‘Oh, all right then, I’m sorry, I apologise. Is that abject enough for you?’

  Scrutton gave a snort and turned away contemptuously, going back to his own side of the room. Taggart-Blane sat in silence after that, staring at nothing, worrying about his current situation, his face twitching with his inner fears and imaginings. He was probably, Ogilvie thought, visualising torture; if so he was not being too fanciful by any means. Torture was still part of the Pathan way of life. While the other officers talked among themselves Ogilvie, still the outcast Scot, listened to the sounds coming through the window. The cries of market stall-holders, of itinerant beggars, gusts of sudden laughter, all mingled with the more threatening sounds of the mob still milling around the walls of the palace, waiting, no doubt, to be told by their lord and master, Jarar Mahommed, that the British had agreed to start paying the subsidy again — or, in default of this, were to die in the full view of the populace.


  It was long after the day’s light had faded from behind the grille that the waiting officers heard the footsteps approaching; and then the door of the room was thrown open and two of Jarar Mahommed’s retainers were seen in the doorway, outlined in the light of a lantern carried by a third man in rear.

  ‘Highness wishes to talk with Ogilvie Sahib and Subedar Gundar Singh,’ one of the men announced. ‘You will come, please, at once.’

  Ogilvie scrambled to his feet and approached the door, where he was joined by Gundar Singh, a stout man with a heavy beard. ‘What does Jarar Mahommed want?’ Ogilvie asked.

  ‘Sahib, Highness will tell you what he wishes you to know.’

  ‘Is the Colonel Sahib with him?’

  ‘Yes, Sahib.’

  Ogilvie left the room and the door was at once secured behind him. He followed the man with the lantern, ahead of the armed escort, with the subedar beside him and breathing heavily, towards the staircase that he had seen on arrival. It was a splendid staircase of marble, rising to a half-landing and then parting to either side and climbing again in graceful curves to right and left. The lantern-bearer led the way across a wide space with tall columns lifting towards a high ceiling and a great dome; and turned along a thickly carpeted passage which in turn led direct into a lighted chamber at its end. Here, lolling on his silken cushion, lay Jarar Mahommed; sitting rather more stiffly, with crossed legs, and looking white and tired and strained, were Colonel Rigby-Smith, Major Fry, and the British Resident.

  ‘So this is Captain Ogilvie?’ Jarar Mahommed asked, running an eye over the kilted Scot. ‘From those terrible soldiers dressed as women, the ones who go into battle with a most terrible screaming instrument of torture, so as to terrify their enemies before the fight begins?’

  Ogilvie gave a half smile. ‘It is usually effective, Jarar Mahommed,’ he said.

  ‘That is so, indeed. I myself have seen it. I honour a brave opponent, Ogilvie Sahib, and I myself have fought these wild mountain-dwellers from your land. My father also. The 42nd and the 44th Regiments are mountain-dwellers, is this not so?’