by Saul David
'Then we see eye to eye, Angrez.'
'So it seems. But do you really believe there's still a chance we can stop the war by recovering the cloak?'
'Yes, Angrez, I do. The mullahs and the extremists will fight with or without the cloak. But many moderate Afghans will only join a jihad if they believe it's legitimate. The cloak gives it that legitimacy.'
'But did you not say a moment ago you would join a jihad?'
'Not a jihad. I would fight to free my country. There's a difference. Put it like this, Angrez. If the Ghazni mullah succeeds in raising a national jihad, the Angrez troops at Kabul will be slaughtered and your government will have no choice but to return to avenge them, never to leave. Then even I would be forced to fight, and I'd most likely die. But if the rising is local, it will be defeated. Then there is still some hope that your government will see sense and, with its honour intact, withdraw its troops and leave us to our own devices.'
'Good Lord,' said George, impressed, 'you'd put a philosopher to shame with your sophistry. But even if you're right, and we can still make a difference by recovering the cloak, we've first got to find it. And then there's the issue of time. We're more than three weeks behind the princess, who must have reached her destination long ago. She may, at this very moment, be marching south at the head of a huge army.'
'True, Angrez, she may indeed. But never forget it takes many weeks for a man to gather an army, and for a woman even longer, so you and Ilderim may yet be in time.'
'I hope you're right,' said George, thinking it over. The odds, he knew, were stacked against them. It would be hard enough finding the cloak, let alone stealing it from the princess and her armed adherents. But he had to try or his mission would fail and Afghanistan would suffer. There was also the small matter of forfeiting the two-thousand-pound bonus he desperately needed to save the family home.
'I've made up my mind,' said George, after a long pause. 'We'll leave as soon as Ilderim returns.'
'Leave for where, huzoor?'
George turned to see Ilderim's smiling face and huge frame, covered with dust from his ride, taking up most of the doorway. 'You're back,' he said lamely, incapable of doing justice to the pleasure he felt at the sight of his comrade in arms.
'Yes, huzoor.'
'And your father is well?'
'He is, huzoor, as are you, I see.'
'Much better.'
'I'm glad. But you haven't answered my question. Where are we going?'
George rolled his eyes. 'Why, to Kohistan, of course. Where else?'
Chapter 18
Near Gulbahar, Kohistan, winter 1879
'Wait here, huzoor,' instructed Ilderim, 'while I ride into the town and make enquiries. It will be better for both of us if I go alone.'
'Very well,' replied George, blowing into his hands to warm them. 'But don't be too long. It looks like snow again and we need to find shelter before dark.'
They had left Sher Afzul's fort two days earlier and, resolved to give the British at Kabul a wide berth, had passed to the west of the city through the fertile pastures and shady orchards of the Chardeh valley, rejoining the main route north at Karez Mir. Another day's hard ride had brought them close to Gulbahar where the Shamali plains rose to meet the foothills of the Hindu Kush, the towering range of mountains that divides northern from southern Afghanistan, which the proponents of the Forward policy in Simla had long hoped to acquire as the 'scientific' northern frontier of British India. And George could see why. The most prominent of the snow-capped peaks in the distance rose to a height of twenty thousand feet, and even the smaller ones seemed to form an unbroken wall of jagged ridges and deep ravines. There were, moreover, only a limited number of passes over the natural barrier, easy to control and blocked in winter.
As Ilderim continued down the snow-covered hill to Gulbahar, a small town of flat-roofed houses at the head of the Panjshir valley, George dismounted and led his horse off the road into a forest of conifers and weeping spruce. About fifty yards in he came upon a small clearing where he knee-haltered his horse and sat down on a rock with his carbine to wait. But after half an hour, with the chill seeping into his bones, he rose to stretch his legs and ease the ache in his recently healed calf. The clearing was too small for any proper exercise, so he shouldered his carbine and struck off into the trees in an easterly direction, away from the main road, and soon came upon a forest track that led gently downhill. He followed it for about four hundred yards and was about to turn back when he heard the faint sound of raised voices. They seemed to be coming from further down the path. George walked towards them, hugging the treeline, until he came to the edge of the forest where he stopped, open-mouthed.
Directly below him, strung out along a fast-flowing river at the foot of the valley, was a huge tented encampment with a brushwood enclosure for hundreds of horses. Near the centre of the camp was a large bonfire and round it sat a vast crowd of Afghan tribesmen, listening to and occasionally heckling a man who was addressing them. They were too far away for George to hear what was being said, or to recognize faces, and he was again on the point of retracing his steps when he saw a second figure rise from the edge of the crowd and join the original speaker by the fire. Two things caught George's attention: from her gait and outline, the new speaker was almost certainly a woman; and she was wearing a heavy red cloak with tan sleeves, the jewels of its clasp sparkling at her throat.
'It can't be,' muttered George. But he knew it was. He had found Yasmin and the cloak.
For a moment he stared transfixed, his heart pounding at his first sight of the woman who had drawn him into her web only to betray him. He didn't feel anger, just sadness, and a determination to hear from her lips the answer to the question: why? Yet he forced himself to put all personal feelings aside and to concentrate on the matter in hand, which was how to steal the cloak from under the noses of a band of armed and dangerous Afghans. He knew he couldn't do it alone, and was about to return to the clearing to wait for Ilderim when a strong hand gripped his right arm, causing him to start. His spirits sank as he imagined an Afghan sentry had sneaked up on him. But when he swung round he found Ilderim, finger to his lips.
'How did you find me?' whispered George.
Ilderim snorted. 'It wasn't difficult, huzoor. You left tracks in the snow a child could have followed. What's down there?'
'It looks to be some sort of tribal gathering. A man was speaking, now a woman. I think she's Princess Yasmin, and she's wearing a red cloak with tan sleeves. It must be the Prophet's Cloak.'
'It is, huzoor. I heard talk in the bazaar at Gulbahar of a big meeting of Kohistani chiefs and their men by the Panjshir river. This is surely it. So if that Hell-cursed bitch is here, wearing the cloak, she must be trying to win them over. But why?'
'To march on Kabul. She's making her play for the throne, and her means to that end is to defeat Roberts in battle. I'm sure of it.'
Ilderim frowned. 'No Afghan will follow a woman into battle.'
'Are you certain about that?'
'I am.'
'We'll soon find out. But first we need to get closer to the camp so we can hear what they're saying. Luckily the light's fading,' said George, as he eyed the sun setting to the west, 'and we should be able to cross the fields below without being seen. We'll make for that orchard just above the camp.'
'We can do that, huzoor, but what hope have we of stealing the cloak with so many men against us?'
'Not much, it's true. But we did it once and we can do it again. I say we wait until they've all gone to sleep, then sneak in and take it. The princess will have it with her. We need to find out which is her tent. Keep close,' said George, unslinging his carbine before setting off from the wood in a stooped trot.
The camp lay six hundred yards below them, across two maize fields separated by an irrigation ditch. On the far side of the second field was the orchard of walnut trees that George had identified as the ideal place to lie up. After a nervous minute or two spent
crossing open ground in the half-light, with Ilderim cursing silently as he slipped a foot into the icy water of the irrigation ditch, they reached it unobserved. Now just eighty yards from the camp, and even less from the crowd round the fire on a plateau just above the tents, they crawled on their bellies to the bottom of the orchard where a small mound provided a convenient rest for their carbines. All eyes in the crowd, meanwhile, were on the woman speaking.
Beneath the cloak she was dressed in the same green tightly fitting jacket and white jodhpurs that she had worn on the night they had taken the cloak from the mullah. She was also veiled, presumably as a sop to the conservative Kohistani tribesmen, but her clothes, flashing eyes and extravagant hand gestures left George in no doubt that she was Princess Yasmin. Her words provided the confirmation. 'I won't deny,' she cried, straining to make herself heard at the back of the gathering stretched out before her, 'that the shame my brother has brought on his family, and on Afghanistan, by throwing off his dynastic responsibilities is a stain that cannot easily be wiped clean. But with Allah's help, and your assistance, I will try. I know there are many here who would question my right to rule . . .'
Whistles sounded from one or two in the crowd.
'. . . but I say to you, cast aside your prejudices and let me prove myself. Did not Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, show herself to be a worthy ruler, as valiant in battle as she was wise in counsel, during the sepoy rebellion against the Angrez?'
Someone in the crowd shouted that the rani was a Hindu not a Muhammadan, and that no Afghan would shame himself by hiding behind a woman's skirts.
'Did her religion make her any less inspiring to her people?' responded Yasmin. 'No. And if you need an example of a Muhammadan woman ruler, begums have been ruling the princely state of Bhopal in central India for more than fifty years.'
This last remark prompted a grey-bearded chief to rise from the front row and take the floor. 'What you say is true, Princess, but the begums of Bhopal are pawns of the Angrez. Is that how you would rule, a petticoat imitation of your lapdog brother?'
'How dare you suggest such a thing, Sher Khan?' snapped Yasmin, her eyes narrowed in fury. 'Would I have urged you to march on Kabul, with myself at your head, if I was planning to throw myself at the feet of the Angrez? No! I swear to you all that in return for your allegiance I won't rest until the Angrez have been driven from our land.'
A handful of tribesmen cheered their assent, but they were quickly silenced by glares from their maliks and headmen, at which point a second younger chief, gorgeously attired in an emerald green kurta with a yellow sash and matching yellow turban, rose to say his piece. He was lighter-skinned than most Pathans, with blue eyes and a reddish tint to his immaculately trimmed and carefully oiled beard. 'We all admire your spirit, Princess,' declared the young dandy, 'but to defeat the Angrez we will require more than that: a general needs cunning, determination and military experience. I possess all of those qualities, and you do not.'
Yasmin paused before answering, as if aware of the serious threat this chief posed to her ambitions. 'I won't deny you've seen more fighting than I have, Mir Bacha. What man has not? But it's rumoured that years of peace under my father Sher Ali have made you soft, more interested in women and fine clothes than in the rigours of a campaign.'
A few in the crowd sniggered, while Mir Bacha glared and Yasmin nodded knowingly. 'And there's one more thing you lack, cousin,' she continued, 'and that's the royal blood of the Barakzais that flows through my veins. Without it, how can you imagine the people of this country will accept you as their ruler?'
'Why do you think I want to rule, Princess? We are not here to decide the next amir. That is for the loya jirga to decide, though I won't deny my preference is for your uncle Wali Mahomed. We are here today to choose a military commander for the thousands of Kohistani tribesmen who, in a few days, will march on Kabul and destroy the Angrez. I want to be that commander. It is my destiny.'
Listening intently from his hiding place, George could sense that the charismatic young chief was getting the upper hand and that the princess had one last chance to win over the crowd.
'No, Mir Bacha. It is my destiny. Am I not wearing the sacred cloak of our Prophet?' she asked, arms spread wide to illustrate the fact. 'Did I not pluck it from the undeserving hands of the Ghazni mullah, a man who would hope to impose a medieval theocracy over our country that would set it back hundreds of years?'
Boos rippled through the crowd as the princess realized she had underestimated the mullah's popularity with the conservative Kohistani chiefs. 'How dare you malign one of Afghanistan's holiest men?' said Mir Bacha, accusingly. 'The mullah has no ambition to rule. His call for a jihad to rid this country of its foreign invaders is a patriotic act, not a selfish one, and all true believers have a duty to respond. We have done that, and I for one will co-operate with the mullah's troops, under Mohammed Jan, when we reach the capital.'
'Then you're a fool, cousin. He will use you to defeat the Angrez, then take control.'
'I don't agree. But let us give my fellow chiefs and maliks their say, shall we?'
'As you wish,' answered Yasmin, convinced that the cloak would win her a majority.
Mir Bacha turned to the crowd. 'Which of you would choose Princess Yasmin to lead you into battle?'
Not a single voice or hand was raised in her support.
'And which of you would choose me?'
A forest of arms went up.
'The council has spoken,' declared Mir Bacha. 'I will lead the advance on Kabul. It only remains, Princess, for you to hand over the cloak. I will see that it is returned to its keepers in Kandahar.'
'Give you the cloak so you can use it for your own ends? Never!' vowed Yasmin, her hands placed defiantly on her hips.
'If you will not give it to me, I shall have to take it,' said Mir Bacha.
But as he reached Yasmin and tried to spin her round so that he could remove the cloak, she whipped out a tiny pistol from her cummerbund and pointed it at her cousin's head. 'Take your hands off me,' she warned. 'You shall have this cloak over my dead body.'
Seeing the princess produce a weapon, a number of Mir Bacha's adherents drew theirs, but their chief merely laughed. 'Does the cloak mean so much to you that you'd kill one of your kinsmen to keep it? What then, Princess? You wouldn't get five yards.'
'With you dead, no. But that is your choice. Now, tell your men to place their weapons on the ground or I'll put a bullet in your brain.'
Mir Bacha hesitated, not certain that she had the nerve to carry out her threat. But a look into her unblinking brown eyes, fixed like a cobra on its prey, assured him that she did. 'Put down your weapons,' he ordered.
One by one his men complied. Yasmin then directed Mir Bacha, her gun still to his head, towards the brushwood enclosure where she instructed him to saddle a horse. 'You will regret this,' he snarled, as he put a bridle on the nearest mount. 'Princess or no, I will hunt you down, and when I do you will wish you had killed me first.'
'Save your idle threats, cousin. If we do meet again, it is you who will be begging for mercy. Now, hand me the reins and hurry with the saddle.'
From his vantage point above the camp, George had held his breath as the princess drew her weapon and pointed it at the young chief, convinced she was just seconds from death. But her luck had held and now, incredibly, it looked as if she might get away. He admired her steely nerve and silently chided the Kohistanis for refusing to recognize her outstanding qualities.
'Huzoor!' whispered Ilderim, pointing to the left of the enclosure. 'A gunman is aiming at her.'
George followed the line of Ilderim's gesture, but could see nothing. 'Where?'
'There! He's behind a rock with a rifle.'
A slight movement caught George's eye. He squinted harder and could just make out the top of someone's head, poised above a rifle barrel. He lifted his carbine and lined up the sights on the Afghan's head. He knew that if he fired the tribesmen would swarm up the
hill like a hive of disturbed bees, but if he did not the princess would be killed. He fired, the noise reverberating across the valley as the bullet thudded into the gunman's temple, jerking his head sideways.
The crowd scattered, some taking cover while others ran for their tents to retrieve their rifles. Yasmin mounted in the confusion and urged her horse up the track that led to Gulbahar as Mir Bacha shouted at his men to follow her. Two heeded his call, not even bothering to saddle their horses, but neither got further than the perimeter of the camp. One had his horse shot by Ilderim and was pitched headlong into the road; the other became George's second victim. By now the tribesmen were returning fire and George knew it was time to go. He signalled to Ilderim and they scrambled back up the hill, stopping every hundred yards or so to fire at their pursuers who, thanks to the gloom, had little to aim at.
Once under the cover of the trees, they hurried along the track to where they had left their horses, pausing only to tighten their girths before rejoining the road to Charikar where they hoped to intercept Yasmin as she fled south. A mile short of the town, they pulled off the track, and hid behind some rocks. It was now dark, though the half-moon and clear sky provided enough light to see the track, and the temperature had plummeted to well below zero. The only sound was the distant howl of a wolf. Then, faintly at first, and slowly getting louder, they picked up the regular beat of a horse approaching at the trot, its rider preferring not to canter by moonlight. George peered round the rocks and confirmed that it was the princess.
They waited until Yasmin was almost level with them before spurring on to the road. Uncertain who they were, she tried to get away by swerving her horse round George, but Ilderim managed to grab her reins and bring the animal to a halt. He looked up and found himself staring at the barrel of a pistol.
'Don't shoot, Princess!' shouted George, as he rode up. 'It's Captain Hart and Ilderim. We saved your life back at the camp.'
She kept her weapon levelled at Ilderim. 'It was you who shot the man sneaking up on me?'