by Talbot Mundy
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
The 1953 film adaptation
Looking back towards the Vale of Peshawar, on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass.
Chapter I
Suckled were we in a school unkind
On suddenly snatched deduction
And ever ahead of you (never behind!)
Over the border our tracks you’ll find,
Wherever some idiot feels inclined
To scatter the seeds of ruction.
For eyes we be, of Empire, we!
Skinned and Puckered and quick to see
And nobody guesses how wise we be.
Unwilling to advertise we be.
But, hot on the trail of ties, we be
The pullers of roots of ruction!
— Son of the Indian Secret Service
The men who govern India — more power to them and her! — are few. Those who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood of words are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that India is the home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.
The men who know — and Athelstan King might claim to know a little — answer that she is the original home of chivalry and the modern mistress of as many decent, gallant, native gentlemen as ever graced a page of history.
The charge has seen the light in print that India — well-spring of plague and sudden death and money-lenders — has sold her soul to twenty succeeding conquerors in turn.
Athelstan King and a hundred like him whom India has picked from British stock and taught, can answer truly that she has won it back again from each by very purity of purpose.
So when the world war broke the world was destined to be surprised on India’s account. The Red Sea, full of racing transports crowded with dark-skinned gentlemen, whose one prayer was that the war might not be over before they should have struck a blow for Britain, was the Indian army’s answer to the press.
The rest of India paid its taxes and contributed and muzzled itself and set to work to make supplies. For they understand in India, almost as nowhere else, the meaning of such old-fashioned words as gratitude and honor; and of such platitudes as, “Give and it shall be given unto you.”
More than one nation was deeply shocked by India’s answer to “practises” that had extended over years. But there were men in India who learned to love India long ago with that love that casts out fear, who knew exactly what was going to happen and could therefore afford to wait for orders instead of running round in rings.
Athelstan King, for instance, nothing yet but a captain unattached, sat in meagerly furnished quarters with his heels on a table. He is not a doctor, yet he read a book on surgery, and when he went over to the club he carried the book under his arm and continued to read it there. He is considered a rotten conversationalist, and he did nothing at the club to improve his reputation.
“Man alive — get a move on!” gasped a wondering senior, accepting a cigar. Nobody knows where he gets those long, strong, black cheroots, and nobody ever refuses one.
“Thanks — got a book to read,” said King.
“You ass! Wake up and grab the best thing in sight, as a stepping stone to something better! Wake up and worry!”
King grinned. You have to when you don’t agree with a senior officer, for the army is like a school in many more ways than one.
“Help yourself, sir! I’ll take the job that’s left when the scramble’s over. Something good’s sure to be overlooked.”
“White feather? Laziness? Dark Horse?” the major wondered. Then he hurried away to write telegrams, because a belief thrives in the early days of any war that influence can make or break a man’s chances. In the other room where the telegraph blanks were littered in confusion all about the floor, he ran into a crony whose chief sore point was Athelstan King, loathing him as some men loathe pickles or sardines, for no real reason whatever, except that they are what they are.
“Saw you talking to King,” he said.
“Yes. Can’t make him out. Rum fellow!”
“Rum? Huh! Trouble is he’s seventh of his family in succession to serve in India. She has seeped into him and pickled his heritage. He’s a believer in Kismet crossed on to Opportunity. Not sure he doesn’t pray to Allah on the sly! Hopeless case.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite!”
So they all sent telegrams and forgot King who sat and smoked and read about surgery; and before he had nearly finished one box of cheroots a general at Peshawur wiped a bald red skull and sent him an urgent telegram.
“Come at once!” it said simply.
King was at Lahore, but miles don’t matter when the dogs of war are loosed. The right man goes to the right place at the exact right time then, and the fool goes to the wall. In that one respect war is better than some kinds of peace.
In the train on the way to Peshawur he did not talk any more volubly, and a fellow traveler, studying him from the opposite corner of the stifling compartment, catalogued him as “quite an ordinary man.” But he was of the Public Works Department, which is sorrowfully underpaid and wears emotions on its sleeve for policy’s sake, believing of course that all the rest of the world should do the same.
“Don’t you think we’re bound in honor to go to Belgium’s aid?” he asked. “Can you see any way out of it?”
“Haven’t looked for one,” said King.
“But don’t you think—”
“No,” said King. “I hardly ever think. I’m in the army, don’t you know, and don’t have to. What’s the use of doing somebody else’s work?”
“Rotter!” thought the P.W.D. man, almost aloud; but King was not troubled by any further forced conversation. Consequently he reached Peshawur comfortable, in spite of the heat. And his genial manner of saluting the full-general who met him with a dog-cart at Peshawur station was something scandalous.
“Is he a lunatic or a relative or royalty?” the P.W.D. man wondered.
Full-generals, particularly in the early days of war, do not drive to the station to meet captains very often; yet King climbed into the dog-cart unexcitedly, after keeping the general waiting while he checked a trunk!
The general cracked his whip without any other comment than a smile. A blood mare tore sparks out of the macadam, and a dusty military road began to ribbon out between the wheels. Sentries in unexpected places announced themselves with a ring of shaken steel as their rifles came to the “present,” which courtesies the general noticed with a raised whip. Then a fox-terrier resumed his chase of squirrels between the planted shade-trees, and Peshawur became normal, shimmering in light and heat reflected from the “Hills.”
(The P.W.D. man, who would have giggled if a general mentioned him by name, walked because no conveyance could be hired. Judgment was in the wind.)
On the dog-cart’s high front seat, staring straight ahead of him between the horse’s ears, King listened. The general did nearly all the talking.
“The North’s the danger.”
King grunted with the lids half-lowered over full dark eyes. He did not look especially handsome in that attitude. Some men swear he looks like a Roman, and others liken him to a gargoyle, all of them choosing to ignore the smile that can transform his whole face instantly.
“We’re denuding India of troops — not keeping back more than a mere handful to hold the tribes in check.”
King nodded. There has never been peace along the northwest border. It did not need vision to foresee trouble from that quarter. In fact it must ha
ve been partly on the strength of some of King’s reports that the general was planning now.
“That was a very small handful of Sikhs you named as likely to give trouble. Did you do that job thoroughly?”
King grunted.
“Well — Delhi’s chock-full of spies, all listening to stories made in Germany for them to take back to the ‘Hills’ with ’em. The tribes’ll know presently how many men we’re sending oversea. There’ve been rumors about Khinjan by the hundred lately. They’re cooking something. Can you imagine ’em keeping quiet now?”
“That depends, sir. Yes, I can imagine it.”
The general laughed. “That’s why I sent for you. I need a man with imagination! There’s a woman you’ve got to work with on this occasion who can imagine a shade or two too much. What’s worse, she’s ambitious. So I chose you to work with her.”
King’s lips stiffened under his mustache, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled into crow’s-feet to correspond. Eyes are never coal-black, of course, but his looked it at that minute.
“You know we’ve sent men to Khinjan who are said to have entered the Caves. Not one of ’em has ever returned.”
King frowned.
“She claims she can enter the Caves and come out again at pleasure. She has offered to do it, and I have accepted.”
It would not have been polite to look incredulous, so King’s expression changed to one of intense interest a little overdone, as the general did not fail to notice.
“If she hadn’t given proof of devotion and ability, I’d have turned her down. But she has. Only the other day she uncovered a plot in Delhi — about a million dynamite bombs in a ruined temple in charge of a German agent for use by mutineers supposed to be ready to rise against us. Fact! Can you guess who she is?”
“Not Yasmini?” King hazarded, and the general nodded and flicked his whip. The horse mistook it for a signal, and it was two minutes before the speed was reduced to mere recklessness.
The helmet-strap mark, printed indelibly on King’s jaw and cheek by the Indian sun, tightened and grew whiter — as the general noted out of the corner of his eye.
“Know her?”
“Know of her, of course, sir. Everybody does. Never met her to my knowledge.”
“Um-m-m! Whose fault was that? Somebody ought to have seen to that. Go to Delhi now and meet her. I’ll send her a wire to say you’re coming. She knows I’ve chosen you. She tried to insist on full discretion, but I overruled her. Between us two, she’ll have discretion once she gets beyond Jamrud. The ‘Hills’ are full of our spies, of course, but none of ’em dare try Khinjan Caves any more and you’ll be the only check we shall have on her.”
King’s tongue licked his lips, and his eyes wrinkled. The general’s voice became the least shade more authoritative.
“When you see her, get a pass from her that’ll take you into Khinjan Caves! Ask her for it! For the sake of appearances I’ll gazette you Seconded to the Khyber Rifles. For the sake of success, get a pass from her!”
“Very well, sir.”
“You’ve a brother in the Khyber Rifles, haven’t you? Was it you or your brother who visited Khinjan once and sent in a report?”
“I did, sir.”
He spoke without pride. Even the brigade of British-Indian cavalry that went to Khinjan on the strength of his report and leveled its defenses with the ground, had not been able to find the famous Caves. Yet the Caves themselves are a by-word.
“There’s talk of a jihad (holy war). There’s worse than that! When you went to Khinjan, what was your chief object?”
“To find the source of the everlasting rumors about the so-called ‘Heart of the Hills,’ sir.”
“Yes, yes. I remember. I read your report. You didn’t find anything, did you? Well. The story is now that the ‘Heart of the Hills’ has come to life. So the spies say.”
King whistled softly.
“There’s no guessing what it means,” said the general. “Go and find out. Go and work with Yasmini. I shall have enough men here to attack instantly and smash any small force as soon as it begins to gather anywhere near the border. But Khinjan is another story. We can’t prove anything, but the spies keep bringing in rumors of ten thousand men in Khinjan Caves, and of another large lashkar not far away from Khinjan. There must be no jihad, King! India is all but defenseless! We can tackle sporadic raids. We can even handle an ordinary raid in force. But this story about a ‘Heart of the Hills’ coming to life may presage unity of action and a holy war such as the world has not seen. Go up there and stop it if you can. At least, let me know the facts.”
King grunted. To stop a holy war single-handed would be rather like stopping the wind — possibly easy enough, if one knew the way. Yet he knew no general would throw away a man like himself on a useless venture. He began to look happy.
The general clucked to the mare and the big beast sank an inch between the shafts. The sais behind set his feet against the drop-board and clung with both hands to the seat. One wheel ceased to touch the gravel as they whirled along a semicircular drive. Suddenly the mare drew up on her haunches, under the porch of a pretentious residence. Sentries saluted. The sais swung down. In less than sixty seconds King was following the general through a wide entrance into a crowded hall. The instant the general’s fat figure darkened the doorway twenty men of higher rank than King, native and English, rose from lined-up chairs and pressed forward.
“Sorry — have to keep you all waiting — busy!” He waved them aside with a little apologetic gesture. “Come in here, King.”
King followed him through a door that slammed tight behind them on rubber jambs.
“Sit down!”
The general unlocked a steel drawer and began to rummage among the papers in it. In a minute he produced a package, bound in rubber bands, with a faded photograph face-upward on the top.
“That’s the woman! How d’you like the look of her?”
King took the package and for a minute stared hard at the likeness of a woman whose fame has traveled up and down India, until her witchery has become a proverb. She was dressed as a dancing woman, yet very few dancing women could afford to be dressed as she was.
King’s service uses whom it may, and he had met and talked with many dancing women in the course of duty; but as he stared at Yasmini’s likeness he did not think he had ever met one who so measured up to rumor. The nautch he knew for a delusion. Yet — !
The general watched his face with eyes that missed nothing.
“Remember — I said work with her!”
King looked up and nodded.
“They say she’s three parts Russian,” said the general. “To my own knowledge she speaks Russian like a native, and about twenty other tongues as well, including English. She speaks English as well as you or I. She was the girl-widow of a rascally Hill-rajah. There’s a story I’ve heard, to the effect that Russia arranged her marriage in the day when India was Russia’s objective — and that’s how long ago? — seems like weeks, not years! I’ve heard she loved her rajah. And I’ve heard she didn’t! There’s another story that she poisoned him. I know she got away with his money — and that’s proof enough of brains! Some say she’s a she-devil. I think that’s an exaggeration, but bear in mind she’s dangerous!”
King grinned. A man who trusts Eastern women over readily does not rise far in the Secret Service.
“If you’ve got nous enough to keep on her soft side and use her — not let her use you — you can keep the ‘Hills’ quiet and the Khyber safe! If you can contrive that — now — in this pinch — there’s no limit for you! Commander-in-chief shall be your job before you’re sixty!”
King pocketed the photograph and papers. “I’m well enough content, sir, as things are,” he said quietly.
“Well, remember she’s ambitious, even if you’re not! I’m not preaching ambition, mind — I’m warning you! Ambition’s bad! Study those papers on your way down to Delhi and see that I get them back.�
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The general paced once across the room and once back again, with hands behind him. Then he stopped in front of King.
“No man in India has a stiffer task than you have now! It may encourage you to know that I realize that! She’s the key to the puzzle, and she happens to be in Delhi. Go to Delhi, then. A jihad launched from the ‘Hills’ would mean anarchy in the plains. That would entail sending back from France an army that can’t be spared. There must be no jihad, King! — There must — not — be — one! Keep that in your head!”
“What arrangements have been made with her, sir?”
“Practically none! She’s watching the spies in Delhi, but they’re likely to break for the ‘Hills’ any minute. Then they’ll be arrested. When that happens the fate of India may be in your hands and hers! Get out of my way now, until tiffin-time!”
In a way that some men never learn, King proceeded to efface himself entirely among the crowd in the hall, contriving to say nothing of any account to anybody until the great gong boomed and the general led them all in to his long dining table. Yet he did not look furtive or secretive. Nobody noticed him, and he noticed everybody. There is nothing whatever secretive about that.
The fare was plain, and the meal a perfunctory affair. The general and his guests were there for other reason than to eat food, and only the man who happened to seat himself next to King — a major by the name of Hyde — spoke to him at all.
“Why aren’t you with your regiment?” he asked.
“Because the general asked me to lunch, sir!”
“I suppose you’ve been pestering him for an appointment!”
King, with his mouth full of curr did not answer, but his eyes smiled.
“It’s astonishing to me,” said the major, “that a captain should leave his company when war has begun! When I was captain I’d have been driven out of the service if I’d asked for leave of absence at such a time!”
King made no comment, but his expression denoted belief.
“Are you bound for the front, sir?” he asked presently. But Hyde did not answer. They finished the meal in silence.