‘You stayed on in Waziristan, even though you’d found what you came to look for? Why was that?’
Healey said, ‘My interest had been aroused by the other things I’d found out along the way.’
‘Anything specific?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. Just a general unrest among the tribes, a feeling they’re approaching a break-out. Of course, there’d been rumours in Ootacamund—’
‘And in Murree, and Peshawar—’
‘But you know as well as I do, Ogilvie, that we’re never without rumours in India, and especially up here on the Frontier. All the same — it’s a different thing this time. I feel it in my bones — I’m damned sure there’s something big in the air, though I’ve not been able to discover what.’
Ogilvie asked, ‘What do you know about Kaspaturos, Healey?’
‘Kaspaturos? It was an old Pathan city, the centre of the old-time Pathans’ very life.’ Healey looked across at him shrewdly. ‘Why d’you ask?’
Ogilvie was still conscious of the rigidity of his orders, but having broken the major part of them already he saw no good reason for not confiding wholeheartedly in Healey who was, after all, of the same Department as O’Kelly. He said slowly, ‘Kaspaturos and badal...it’s a theory of O’Kelly’s.’
‘Yes?’
‘He believes Kaspaturos was originally on the site of what is now Peshawar. How far would you go along with that?’
Healey reined in his horse suddenly, and sat staring across towards the Afghan mountains. ‘My God,’ he said softly. He looked at Ogilvie. ‘I don’t know how that fits the historical facts, but as a theory it could have a mighty big explosive power! It could also explain a thing or two.’
‘Such as?’
Healey said, ‘Well, I have heard talk of Kaspaturos among the tribes. Nothing definite, nothing precise, but it’s been running through the country just lately. You know the sort of things — tales of the glorious past, of long ago when the Pathans were on top of their world, when in the fifteenth century they even invaded Delhi successfully under a leader named Bahlol Lodi, and back before that as well. And you’re right - it’s all linked with badal, Ogilvie.’
‘Is that holy man behind this?’
‘I believe so, in concert with Nashkar. The holy man supplies the fervour and the spirit — and the history — while Nashkar supplies the force of arms. The intelligence and the brute strength. It’s a dangerous combination. Where did O’Kelly dig up his theories from, d’you know?’
Ogilvie told Healey all that O’Kelly had said, and Healey nodded thoughtfully. ‘He always was a clever little bugger — too clever, some said. Didn’t really go down at Wellington, or the R.M.C. either, but he’s got his majority before anyone else in his term. If he’s right over this business of Kaspaturos, Ogilvie, we’re going to be right in the dead centre of the biggest cyclone you ever saw!’
‘Do you think he is right?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. But even if he isn’t — I mean, if he’s wrong about Peshawar being, in effect, the ancient city of Kaspaturos, he could still have hit on something vital, something central to what’s brewing in Waziristan.’
‘How d’you mean, Healey?’
‘I mean this. Look at it this way. As I’ve said, there’s a strong feeling running through the khels, its unmistakable, and there’s been this breeze, this pervasive general talk of Kaspaturos emanating from Nashkar’s holy man. That’s fact. The tribes are being stirred up for what begins to feel uncommonly like a holy war — which is why I’ve stayed on beyond my orders, of course, intending to get to the heart of things before I pull out and report — if I can! But the stirring-up must be leading to some identifiable act, some concrete plan, obviously, and it’s that that I’ve not been able to pinpoint. Now, suppose, once the full pressure has been built up, with Nashkar and the holy man sitting on the valve, the whole lot is released, crystallized as it were, in the word that the identity of Kaspaturos has been revealed? That Peshawar, no less, is Kaspaturos? What happens?’
‘The attack, presumably.’
‘Quite. And what an attack, Ogilvie! All the bottled emotions that have been fermenting, the frustrations, the hopes of reviving past glories — all suddenly released, and not only released but channelled on to Peshawar and the British interlopers who occupy the city! It’ll be the biggest massacre of all time, a total outpouring of all the tribes, riding hell-for-leather across the border, right the way along! It’ll be unstoppable! And that, you see, is why all the talk I’ve picked up has always been broken off at a certain point — broken off because no one has been allowed to know any more until the pressure has been built right up. Then, and only then, will the holy man release the news about Peshawar. So even if O’Kelly is wrong factually, it doesn’t matter. The tribes will believe the holy man.’
Ogilvie said, ‘It’s all theory still, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it holds together, old man! Didn’t you say O’Kelly’s advice was for you to concentrate on contacting the sadhu, the holy man?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was sound advice, Ogilvie. If what you’ve said is right, he has to be stopped before Kaspaturos and Peshawar are connected in the tribal mind. In the light of what you’ve said, I think that’s vital.’
‘Why haven’t you had a go at the holy man yourself, Healey?’
Healey laughed. ‘Lack of opportunity — I’ve never had so much as a smell of him until now, and smell’s the right word I expect. And besides, you’ve only just made me aware of this Peshawar theory, haven’t you? But let me repeat: stop the holy man, and you won’t need to bother with Nashkar Ali Khan.’
‘I’m also under orders to find out all that’s going on and what the precise threat is. And the enemy’s plans. That’s what General Fettleworth wants — and that means Nashkar Ali Khan.’
Healey laughed. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about Bloody Francis! My instinct would be to follow O’Kelly. Frankly, in spite of what I said earlier, it could be that we have all we need about the threat that’s building up, and a good enough general picture of the plan — a bloody great outpouring across the Waziri border, a rising to be joined probably by all the Frontier tribes. All I’ve lacked has been the reason. It’s always important to try to follow the Pathan’s line of thought. Now we have that as well — and we should act accordingly.’
Ogilvie shook his head. ‘It’s still only a theory, you know.’ He added, ‘I’ve been concentrating on finding Nashkar Ali Khan, to sell him arms and get his confidence — and get him to talk. Talk fact.’
‘In other words, Bloody Francis carries more weight, even in your subconscious, than O’Kelly. Well — that’s not surprising! But as it happens, I believe you’ll find Nashkar and the sadhu both together, which you can regard as a stroke of luck.’ Healey urged his horse forward again, towards the mountains. ‘You won’t mind if I come all the way with you? I could give you directions that’d put you inside Nashkar’s scouts, but it’ll give me some kudos in old Nashkar’s eyes, if I lead in the man who can back up his armament supply.’
‘I’ll be glad to have you with me,’ Ogilvie said. Then he frowned. ‘It’s a lucky meeting, but I’ve a feeling it wasn’t just chance. Was it?’
Healey laughed. ‘Not entirely, old man, not entirely. The bush telegraph had informed me — I told you — that you’d been put on the track for Maizar, seeking out a good customer. I was determined to find you, I confess.’
‘That was why you came to Maizar, too?’
‘Yes. And my intentions, I assure you, were strictly lethal.’
‘What about my Mr. Jones?’
‘What about him, old man?’ Healey, bathed in the cold light of the moon, stared into the gloomy mountains ahead.
‘Has he got out of Waziristan? Was that the truth?’
‘Oh yes, that was true — so far as my information goes, he was observed by some tribesmen beating it through a little-known pass south
of Gumatti — between there and Bannu.’
‘That’s the way we came in.’
‘I imagine so. Waziristan’s a land of difficult entry until you know it well. Which one would suppose your Mr. Jones did.’
‘Well, I’m glad he got out, Healey. He wasn’t a bad sort, and he’s done us a good turn, at least.’
‘I still wouldn’t mind seeing him swing for all he’s done in the past. That sort — the sort who put profit before country —damn it all, Ogilvie, I’ve no time for them at all. To put no finer point upon it — they’re filthy swine! And yet, when he’s at home, I’ll wager there’s no one more respectable. A keen churchgoer, as likely as not! Fears God, and honours the Queen. Damned hypocrite.’ Ogilvie, looking sideways at Healey, saw that his companion’s face was cold and hard, forbiddingly framed by the black, flapless ear-holes and the totally bald head, cruelly ravaged by the mutilated nose. After a pause Healey asked suddenly, ‘Know what it is, a week today?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Healey stared. ‘I see you don’t. You should. It’s Her Majesty’s official birthday.’ Ogilvie fancied he detected a faint irony. He had, in fact, quite forgotten; though, had he been still on regimental duty in Peshawar, he would have been thinking of nothing else for some days past. For there would be spit-and-polish in the air of Peshawar, and much brisk activity on the parade-grounds, and an overhauling of full-dress scarlet and pipeclayed belts, all the brilliant trappings of Empire going on display to impress the natives with the far-flung authority of the little old lady with the bun, the bosom and the slightly scornful eyes. Regimental Sergeant-Major Cunningham would be busy supervising the Colour-Sergeants with their pace-sticks, Pipe-Major Ross would be rehearsing the pipes and drums of the battalion in all the appropriate tunes, including no doubt his own composition Farewell to Invermore, to tickle the ears of Lieutenant-General Francis Fettleworth as he rode along the ranks of the Royal Strathspeys on the day, in honour of the many years of his Queen-Empress. Out here in the oppressive splendour of the Waziri hills, so close now to Afghanistan, the Queen’s Majesty seemed dimmed, even to falter before a more awe-inspiring majesty of nature; and yet, somehow, the very thought of that black-clad figure was comforting to James Ogilvie. In contrast to his wild surroundings, she was almost homely — though no doubt she would have been indignant at such a thought — the mother of a large family, with a mother’s concern for all of them, and would guard each one of them with all the resources open to her. His image of her brought back familiar scenes...of the Court at Balmoral — James Ogilvie, as a child, had taken tea there with his father at Her Majesty’s command — of the little black bundle disembarking from the London train at Waverley Station on one occasion when the Royal Strathspeys, then quartered at the Castle, had provided the Guard of Honour; of the royal carriage bowling along the Mall, and the gentlemen along the way uncovering and bowing, the ladies curtseying, drooping silk into the dust uncaringly as aloof dignity trotted past. In a very positive sense, Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for ever as it seemed, was home. Beneath the splendid Royal Standard floating over Buckingham Palace or Windsor she was warped and wefted into the very fabric of society and the family, the fount of all the virtues, all the graces, braveries and sacrifices — and of a host of odd tradition. Ogilvie gave a sudden explosive laugh as he recalled how an old servant at his father’s ancestral home of Corriecraig Castle had once told him, with evident seriousness, that the new-fangled royal lavatories were furnished, not with rolls of paper as in lesser establishments, but with five-pound notes.
Healey asked, ‘What’s the joke, old man?’
‘Oh — nothing. I was thinking of the Queen, Healey.’
This was received in reproving silence, rather squashingly.
*
Up in the hills, almost on the Afghan border north-west of Maizar, the decaying sadhu, the holy man, sat gazing out over a thousand years of history, of bloody tribal warfare, of which he had personal memories extending over some ninety of those turbulent years. The old sadhu, Nashkar Ali Khan reflected as he sat at the skinny feet, reverently, was like the walking dead. His eyes, red-rimmed where they were visible, were set in deep pits under shaggy white brows that were the sole evidence of hair on the long, fragile body. The nose was immense, the lips full, the chest scraggy, with corpse-like dark brown flesh stretched as tight as parchment over the rib-cage. The legs had a withered appearance and were thin from much sitting about, and the sadhu had little self-motion, relying mainly upon the good offices of a succession of devoted attendants to move from place to place. Mostly he remained in these hills now, though he had recently been on his travels to the eastern part of Waziristan, talking to the tribes there and along a circuitous route that had brought him back at last to brood upon Afghanistan from whence all Pathans came. Frail he might be physically, and neglected in his person, but fervour and a deep inner power burned in his eyes and his influence was truly immense, truly far-flung, out of all proportion to an appearance that Nashkar Ali Khan would have considered it a heresy to describe as unprepossessing; and no jealousy had ever invaded the soul of Nashkar Ali Khan that, despite all his own worldly riches, despite his undoubted warriorcast leadership and his splendid palace outside the town of Maizar, the decaying old sadhu possessed a far greater power than he over the minds of men, an influence incomparably more insidious. For was not Mahomet, whose mouthpiece the sadhu was, good and wise and all-seeing?
‘What thoughts, Master, are passing through your mind now?’ Nashkar Ali Khan asked suddenly; the eternal brooding bored his own active mind intolerably, highly though he respected and valued the holy man. He had, after all, made his current pilgrimage in order to consult.
The sadhu moved no part of his body other than his lips; he was like a talking statue. He said in a far-off voice, ‘My son, I think of other times...of days when the world was younger, of the great power and fame of our race.’
‘Before the British came?’
‘Long before the British came, my son. Before the Mongol Empire, before Kubla Khan, before Genghis Khan even. I see back into our remote past, into the days of great glory.’
‘Which will come again, Master?’
‘They will come again, my son. Many times have I said this.’
‘I know — and I am glad.’ Nashkar Ali Khan, more finely dressed than the khel leaders but still basically a Pathan warrior, with a face that proclaimed his calling, allowed a trace of impatience to escape into his tone. ‘But the men of the tribes cannot be kept at a high pitch for too long without action. The fervour will depart. I have this very much in my mind. Success in fighting depends upon the heart and the spirit, and this time the British must be completely destroyed, all along the Frontier. You know what this means, Master?’
‘Yes, my son, I know well. I promise you success, but we must yet await the sign.’
‘You are convinced of success, when this sign comes?’
‘There will be complete success. The city the British call Peshawar will fall, and will be destroyed by fire and by the sword, and all its men, women and children will be put to death. Yes, my son, I am convinced of success, for it has been promised to us by the prophets, even by the very tenets of our faith.’
‘No more than this?’
‘It is enough.’ The holy man made a sign, and two attendants came forward and lifted him, holding the thin tall body between them so that the fragile legs dangled clear of the ground. He directed his carriers towards a fiat, projecting ledge some yards away to his left. There was a long drop below, clear into a scrub-lined cleft through which the pass ran; it looked dangerous for so frail and old a man, but there was a most excellent view into Afghanistan and an equally good panoramic one of the whole orb of the sky above the surrounding peaks. The sadhu told the bearers to set him down on this ledge. They did so, then backed away in reverence; the sadhu called for Nashkar AR Khan to join him.
‘From here,’ he said, ‘I shall no
t miss the sign.’
‘How will it come?’
The old man lifted a skinny brown arm and pointed into the Afghan hills. ‘From that direction,’ he said.
‘And what form will it take?’
‘I do not know, my son. But when it is revealed, I shall know beyond all doubt, and I will send for you.’ He sounded wholly confident. ‘I wish you and my bearers to leave me now, my son, to watch and wait in solitude.’
‘It shall be as you say, Master.’ Nashkar Ali Khan hesitated, surveying the comparatively narrow rock ledge and the terrible drop only a matter of feet away from where the sadhu sat. Old men, even old holy men, could become suddenly ill, and might try to move for help, and the sadhu, despite his frailness and the semi-motionless legs, might drag himself...the Pathan went hot and cold by turns as he thought of all his dreams of conquest vanishing, not in a puff of smoke, but in a heap of shattered bones far below in the pass. The tribes would not move if the sadhu should die before the sign was revealed. But the sadhu was his own law and his words were Nashkar Ali Khan’s commands, and argument, however reasonable, might, for all the Pathan knew, militate against the speedy revelation of signs. The mind, to be receptive, had to be composed, peaceful and remote from worldly things. Without further speech, Nashkar Ali Khan bowed and left the sadhu’s presence, making his way alone down the side of the mountain. From a bend in the pathway when he was nearing a group of his horsemen in the pass so far below the ledge, he stopped and looked back. He saw the distant, lofty figure of the sadhu sitting motionless on his perch, like a lonely old eagle frozen into stone, remote and immensely dignified. So much depended on the old man. Shaking his head, then prostrating himself to mutter a prayer, the Pathan turned away and hurried down to join his followers.
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