Ethan had checked himself at the sight of Jayadeep, whose expectation of death was written all over his face, and he took a seat on the straw, just as he had the previous day. Here, Ethan had explained to Jayadeep that he was required in London for an important mission; that Arbaaz had given his blessing for it.
It would involve him going undercover. “Deep cover” was how Ethan put it. Before Jayadeep went thinking this was some kind of pity mission—that Ethan was doing anything he could just to save the youngster from the Assassin’s blade—Ethan told him he wanted Jayadeep because Jayadeep had been his star pupil.
“You’ll remember I advised against sending you on Assassin assignment?” Ethan had said that afternoon, and Jayadeep nodded sadly. “Well, that’s because I saw in you a humanity that I think can be helpful to the Brotherhood. The job I have in mind is by no means pleasant. You will become a different person, Jayadeep, all vestiges of your former self buried within the folds of a new disguise. You will no longer be Jayadeep Mir, do you understand?”
Jayadeep had nodded, and Ethan had left. Only this time the door remained open.
It took Jayadeep some moments of contemplation before he, too, rose to his feet and left the cell—stepping out of The Darkness at last.
* * *
“The mission begins now,” Ethan Frye told him the next morning at dusk. The warmth Jayadeep was used to seeing in his tutor’s eyes was absent. Ethan’s relief at having freed Jayadeep was short-lived. Now was time to attend to the next phase of the operation.
They stood alone on a harbor wall. The hulls of boats clunked together in the gentle swell; gulls swooped and called and preened. “I’m about to leave you,” said Ethan, looking the boy up and down, noting the pauper’s clothes he wore, just as directed. “You need to make your own way to London. Find somewhere to live, somewhere befitting a man of very limited means indeed. Here . . .” He handed Jayadeep a small pouch of coins. “This is for your subsistence. It won’t go very far so spend it wisely. And remember that from this moment forth you are no longer Jayadeep Mir, son of Arbaaz and Pyara Kaur of Amritsar, accustomed to comfort and wealth and the attendant respect of others. When you arrive in London you arrive as the scum of the earth, a brown-skinned outsider without a penny to your name, which, incidentally, will be Bharat Singh. However, your alias—the name that I will know you by—is The Ghost.”
Jayadeep had thought then that he hated the name Bharat Singh. The Ghost suited him better.
“When you have lodgings I need you to find work,” continued Ethan, “but at a very specific place, the significance of which will become clear in some months’ time. I need you to find work at the Metropolitan Railway dig in the northwest of the city.”
Jayadeep had shaken his head in confusion. Already there was so much to take in. A new life? A new job? All of it in a strange, foreign land, without the benefit of his family name, without his father’s tutelage and Ethan’s guidance. It seemed impossible, what was being asked of him, and now this. A railway?
“Don’t worry about that just at the moment,” said Ethan, reading his thoughts. “All will become clear when you’re in London.” He ticked things off his fingers. “First find lodgings of some kind. Lodgings suited to a man on the very lowest rung of the social ladder; then become acquainted with your surroundings, then secure employment at the Metropolitan Railway dig. Is that clear?”
“I think so.” The young man could only nod and hope these mysteries would somehow solve themselves in due course.
“Good. You have three months from today to do it. In the meantime I need you to study this . . .”
A leather-bound folder tied with a thong was duly produced from within the older Assassin’s robes.
Jayadeep took it, turning it over, wondering what lay within.
“I suggest you read the papers during your passage then toss the lot in the ocean. Just make sure you have committed its contents to memory. In the meantime, we shall meet on this day three months’ hence, in the gardens of the Foundling Hospital on Gray’s Inn Lane Road at midnight. Now, and this is the most important aspect of what I’m telling you. Under no circumstances are you to demonstrate that you have any abilities beyond those expected of a dirt-poor seventeen-year-old Indian boy. Walk small, not tall. You’re not an Assassin and you are not to behave like one. If you find yourself under threat, then be cowed. If you appear to be a more competent and able worker than your fellow men, then try less hard. The important thing for you now is to blend in every single way. You understand?”
The Ghost nodded, and water lapped at the harbor wall as the sun poked its way into a new day.
NINETEEN
Lost in his memory of his last morning at home in India, The Ghost had almost walked past the house that acted as his meeting place with his handler.
Number Twenty-three and Twenty-four Leinster Gardens, Paddington, looked just like any other houses on the street, but what only a handful of people knew—the neighbors, the builders, and, more pertinently, The Ghost and Ethan Frye—was that the two houses were in fact false fronts built to hide a hole in the ground.
It had been Charles Pearson’s idea. Constructing his railway, he had come across an immediate problem, which was finding an engine suitable for use underground. An ordinary steam engine, with its usual emission, would have suffocated passengers and crew straightaway. It is unacceptable for railway operators to kill their passengers, so Mr. Pearson cast about for a solution. First he had the idea of dragging carriages through the tunnels using cables, then, when that proved impractical, came up with a plan to use atmospheric pressure. That proved impractical, too—though it was of course great fodder for the city’s many satirists.
It was John Fowler who came to Mr. Pearson’s rescue, in this as in so many aspects of the line. He had overseen the construction of an engine where smoke and steam would be diverted into a tank behind the engine. The only trouble was that the smoke and steam would need to be released at some point, and that was why Number 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens, W2, were set aside, so that the engines from below could, quite literally, “let off steam.”
The opening of the Metropolitan Line was still over a year away, and it was here that The Ghost and Ethan Frye would meet.
“How are you?” said Ethan that night. He had been sitting on the edge of the void, staring down to where timbers crisscrossed just below his dangling boots.
The Ghost nodded but said nothing, a closed book. He took a seat next to Ethan. His bare feet dangled next to the boots of his mentor, a great darkness below them.
“You will be pleased to know we are moving to the next phase of the operation,” said Ethan. “Matters are going to come to a head. You will find yourself under scrutiny. I have no doubt whatsoever that you will be followed and your credentials checked by our Templar friends. Are you confident your cover remains absolutely secure?”
The Ghost pondered whether this was the time to tell Ethan about Maggie and his unofficial guardian role at the tunnel. It was a conversation he’d carried out in his head many times, imaginary explanations where he’d tell Ethan that he hadn’t intended to set himself apart, just that he had been unable to stand by and allow injustice to prevail, and one thing had led to another. Surely Ethan would . . . well, even if he didn’t approve, then he would certainly understand. After all, it wasn’t as though The Ghost were a recognizable public hero, news on the front page of the Illustrated London News.
But no. He kept his mouth shut. He said nothing and walked willingly into the next phase of the plan.
“Which is what?” he asked.
Mischief lit his master’s eyes. It was a look that The Ghost had come to love when he was a child in the security of Amritsar. Now, staring down into the void in noisy, dirty London with only uncertainty ahead of him, he wasn’t so sure.
“You will need to write a letter to our friend Mr. Cavanagh. You can u
se your knowledge of Cavanagh to establish your credentials. I’ll leave the details up to you. The important thing is that you tell Mr. Cavanagh that he has a traitor in his ranks and that you hope to curry favor with him by unveiling this traitor.”
Ethan nodded, his gaze fixed on the darkness below. “I see,” he said, when Ethan had finished. “And what then?”
“Wait for a body to be discovered at the dig.”
“When?”
“Difficult to say. In the next few days, I’d imagine, depending on the rainfall.”
“I see. Am I allowed to know whose body will be discovered?”
“You remember our Templar friend, Mr. Robert Waugh.”
The Ghost did indeed remember him. “The pornographer?”
“The very same. Only Mr. Waugh hasn’t been altogether straight with his associates. He’s been using his erotic prints to make a little extra money, a sideline I uncovered last night.”
“When you killed him?”
“Oh no, I didn’t kill him.” Ethan slapped The Ghost heartily on the shoulder. “You did.”
TWENTY
As he returned from his meeting with Ethan, The Ghost reflected on the first time he became aware of the man he now saw every day at the dig. The man known primarily as Cavanagh. It was on the passage from Amritsar to England, when he had done as he was told and opened the folder given to him by Ethan on the harbor wall.
Inside was an introductory note from Ethan, explaining that the contents were dispatches copied and decoded from a Templar haul. The papers had been replaced; as far as the Assassins knew the Templers had no idea they were in possession of the information.
The dispatches had been compiled from firsthand accounts assembled by Templar documentarians, and they began innocuously enough, with a factual account of the English retreat from Kabul in 1842.
The Ghost knew all about the march from Kabul, of course. Everybody did. It was one of the most disastrous events of English military history, and the turning point of the godforsaken war in Afghanistan. Sixteen thousand soldiers, families and camp followers had embarked on a ninety-mile retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad in January 1842. Only a handful made it.
Not only did they have food for just five days, but their leader, Major-General William Elphinstone—otherwise known as Elphy Bey—had a head as soft as his body was frail. Not only was he idiotic, but he was gullible and believed every lie that the Afghan leader, Akbar Khan, told him.
Akbar Khan told Elphy Bey a lot of lies. In return for the British Army’s handing over the majority of their muskets, Khan guaranteed safe passage, as well as offering an escort through the passes. He also gave assurances that the sick and wounded left in Kabul would be unharmed.
It took Khan roughly an hour to go back on his word. The march had only just left the cantonment when his men moved in to loot, burn tents, and put the wounded to the sword. Meanwhile, the rear guard was attacked. Porters, camp followers and Indian soldiers were butchered, and with little or no resistance from the column, the Afghans began mounting increasingly brazen sorties, swiftly devastating the baggage train. They were barely out of Kabul and the march left behind a trail of trunks and corpses.
Very few tents were taken on the march, and they were reserved for women, children and officers. That night most lay down to sleep in the snow and by next morning the ground was littered with the corpses of those who had frozen to death in the night. Frostbitten and starving, the march pressed on, hoping to beat the worst of the weather and withstand the constant Afghan attacks.
For reasons known only to himself, Elphy Bey ordered a rest at just two o’clock in the afternoon, when what he should have done was heed the advice of his officers and press on through the dangerous Khord-Kabul Pass. Perhaps the old boy had simply lost his mind completely, for his decision meant handing the pass to the Afghans whose snipers took up position on the ledges, while their cavalry readied themselves for more sport.
Sure enough, shots began to ring out as the column entered the pass the following morning, and the march stopped as negotiations were carried out. Akbar Khan agreed to let the column through in exchange for hostages, but his deceit knew no bounds, for after the hostages were handed over, the firing began again, while mounted tribesmen rode into the column, scattering followers, hacking down civilians and soldiers and even carrying off children.
Three thousand lost their lives in the pass, and all supplies were lost. That night the remnants of the march camped with just four small tents and no fuel or food. Hundreds died of exposure.
The killing continued over the next few days. To escape the massacre some killed themselves while others deserted, though they were not allowed to escape by the Afghans, who only spared those they might ransom later—the officers, wives and children. Soldiers, servants and followers were butchered.
By the fifth day the column numbered just three thousand—five hundred of them soldiers. Elphy Bey gave himself up, later to die in captivity, while the wives and families surrendered also. Still the march struggled on, numbers dwindling, and was attacked at the Jugdulluk Crest, suffering appalling casualties. Running battles took place overnight, in feet of snow, until the survivors got to Gandamak, by which time they numbered fewer than four hundred.
They took up position on a hill, but found themselves surrounded by Afghans, who commanded them to surrender. “Not bloody likely!” scoffed a sergeant, and his retort would become something of an English national catchphrase. He was as good as his word, though, so the Afghan snipers went to work before a final attack.
Jugdulluk Crest was no battle; it was a massacre. Six officers escaped, five of whom were cut down on the road to Jalalabad. Just one, William Brydon, made it. Part of his skull had been sheared off by an Afghan sword stroke but he’d survived the blow thanks to a copy of Blackwoods Magazine stuffed into his hat. “Never knew this old bit of Lolland drivel could come in so handy,” he’d apparently remarked.
Of the sixteen thousand who had set off from Kabul six days previously, he was the only one to reach his destination.
Except . . . not quite. The story of good old William Brydon making it alone to Jalalabad was a good one—such a good one that it loomed large in the public consciousness for some time. Sadly, however, it was not quite the truth, because there were other survivors. Just that the methods and means of their survival were not quite as noble as the stoicism of Dr. William Brydon. A man will do anything to survive, to live to see another sunrise, feel the lips of his wife and children, laugh along with a drink in his hand. So, yes, there were others who lived through that disastrous march, but their exploits were not to be applauded, celebrated, sung about nor later immortalized by artists. They were not even “exploits” at all, in the sense that the word suggests adventure and derring-do. They were acts of survival, pure and simple. Dirty and mean and ruthless and executed at a dreadful cost to others.
And so it was that on the march there was a certain commander who went by the name of Colonel Walter Lavelle. This man Lavelle belonged to the Order of the Knights Templar. He was not an especially high-ranking Templar, not a person of interest to the Assassin Brotherhood but known to them nevertheless.
Shortly before the march was due to leave Kabul, a corporal by the name of Cavanagh inveigled himself with Walter Lavelle.
“I wonder if I could have a word, sir,” said this Cavanagh on the morning of the march.
Seeing a certain seriousness and, if he was honest with himself, a little danger in this man’s eyes, Lavelle had nodded, despite the fact that the man was a mere corporal, and the two men moved to the shelter of a cypress tree, away from where servants and followers were loading carts, and horses struggled beneath the weight of panniers and saddlebags. Indeed, the courtyard was a hive of industry. Above the sound of men cursing and struggling and orders being issued and women wringing their hands and crying, came the constant exhortations
of Lady Florentia Sale, the wife of Major General Robert Henry Sale, a woman in whose honor the word “redoubtable” might well have been minted. Lady Sale left nobody in doubt that she considered this march a mere afternoon excursion, a matter of little import for the might of the English army and that to think otherwise was treacherously un-English. “Oh, do cease your bawling, Florence, and make yourself useful,” she would exhort. “You there, have a care. That is my very best Madeira wine. And you, watch that china or my Jalalabad soirées will be somewhat lacking in finesse. I’m planning my first one for two days’ hence. What a hoot it will be to meet the good ladies of Jalalabad.”
Away by the cypress tree, Corporal Cavanagh turned to Lavelle and in a dead-eyed way said, “She’s a fool.”
They were well out of earshot but even so, the colonel spluttered indignantly, as colonels were in the habit of doing. “Have you gone mad, sah? Have you taken leave of every single one of all your senses at bloody once? Do you know who you’re talking to, man? Do you know who you’re talking about? That is . . .”
“I know full well who I’m talking to and who I’m talking about, sir,” replied Cavanagh evenly (by gad the man was a cool fish and no mistake), “and it’s precisely because I know who I’m talking to that I feel I can talk openly. Forgive me if I misjudged the situation and I shall retire to continue preparing the men of my section.”
He made as though to walk away from the cypress tree, but Lavelle stopped him, curious to hear what was on the impertinent corporal’s mind. “I’ll hear you out, man. Just mind your tongue is all.”
But Cavanagh did nothing of the sort. He planned to speak his mind and speak it he did. “Do you know how far it is to Jalalabad? It’s ninety miles. We have an army of fourteen thousand, but hardly a quarter of them are soldiers, the rest of them a great rabble: porters, servants, women and children. Hardly a fighter among them. Do you know what the conditions are like, sir? We’ll be marching through a foot of snow on the worst ground on earth and the temperature freezing. And what of Akbar Khan? He’s been in the hills, going from this chief to that, gathering support for further hostilities. Khan will not stand by his word. As soon as we step outside those gates he will begin taking us apart. Lady Sale thinks she’ll be having her first Jalalabad soirée in two days’ time. I say we’ll be lucky to make that march in two weeks. We don’t have arms, ammunition, or enough food or supplies. The march is doomed, sir, and we are doomed with it unless we join forces to take action.”
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