Smiling and waving, Nashkar Ali Khan rode towards a low hill, a central point in the gathering. Way was made for him, and with his staff he rode to the top of the gentle incline, remaining mounted, sitting for a while looking out over the flickering fires and the sea of faces that were turned towards him, over the steel of swords and lances and bayonets, the dull gleams from the wooden butts of the rifles; and, listening to the roar of sound, of sheer enthusiasm and pent-up, centuries-old anger and hatred that over the months he had fanned into this strong flame that now burned before him, he was convinced his was an unstoppable force, bound for immense and shattering and final victory.
He stood in his stirrups, lifting a hand. ‘The Prophet has spoken,’ he said in a loud, carrying voice when the tumult had eased. For a while he could go no farther; the tumult was at once intensified, echoing off the surrounding hills, back and forth like a million tongues. When he was able to speak again he said, ‘My people, I have promised you Kaspaturos, and this promise I shall keep, with the help and guidance and strength of Mahomet to lead us on. You have all seen the sign of the Prophet...his sign to us that all is in our favour and that our cause is just. You have been waiting long, and patiently. I, also, have waited — for the sign, without which we could not move. Thus it is written. Now the long wait is finished, or almost so. Shortly before the next setting of the sun, we shall march. One more day’s patience, for it is better that we cross the borders under cover of the full night, when the British are largely sleeping, and their sight is dimmed.’
There was a roar of approval, and more shouts of Kaspaturos, the watchword of the campaign to come. Nashkar’s face was full of emotion, but he was under complete control as he turned to Healey. ‘A most excellent fighting spirit, Earless One,’ he said through the din. ‘If the British could but hear the shouts, they would tremble in their beds this night, knowing the truth, which is, that within but a few more sun’s risings, the Frontier will have become the grave of the Raj and the grave of all its upholders. So be it! It is written.’
‘It is written, Highness. The will of Mahomet shall prevail.’ Healey, who had caught only fragments of his speech, paused, his face gleaming with sweat in the fires’ light, his naked ear-holes battered by the rising crescendo of sound that filled the immense natural arena. ‘Yet we must still have a care, Highness.’
‘Earless One, you must speak much louder, for I cannot hear.’ Nashkar waved his arms for silence, and his staff did likewise, standing in their stirrups to demand peace for their leader. Healey himself had been unable to hear Nashkar’s last words, but had guessed their meaning.
As the noise decreased, Healey spoke loudly: ‘Highness, we must yet have a care. We do not know where the sadhu is, nor what his interpretation.’
The words fell into something approaching quiet; by no means a silence, and they were unheard more than a couple of yards away. But Healey had spoken quite loudly enough for his words to be caught by men in the front of the crowd pressing close to the leader. Nashkar, who was far from being a fool, realized this, and realized that the Earless One had committed a rank indiscretion. Fury gripped him like a vice; his face suffused and hardened, and without further thought he struck out viciously, knocking Healey from his horse with the one blow. At once, he realized that another indiscretion had been committed, this time by himself. He controlled his mounting fury, and slid from his horse. Bending, he lifted Healey to his feet and embraced him. ‘A thousand pardons, Earless One,’ he said loudly. ‘I have sinned against my closest, most trusted adviser and friend.’ His tone was friendly, placatory, but there was steel beneath. He embraced Healey again, very publicly.
‘You will forgive a thoughtless act, brought about by the strain of the long wait for the Prophet to send his sign?’
Healey bowed; they understood one another perfectly well, with crystal clarity. In a loud voice Nashkar Ali Khan said, ‘The sadhu is safe and sends by me, his servant, the tidings that the Prophet has given the sign. Kaspaturos awaits our coming, and we shall not disappoint the glorious city of our fathers!’
There were cheers and cries, but a good point had been made and overheard nevertheless, as Healey could see, and Highness was going to have a devil of a job working his way clear of that. He hid the gleam in his eyes, noting the wondering conversations that were going on in the vicinity, and the outward movement of the warriors, pressing away to pass the word, the shattering word that, unaccountably, the sadhu seemed to have vanished without confirming Mahomet’s message in person and Highness was trying to gloss this vanishment over. It was very strange; at this moment of all moments, any believer would indeed have expected the sadhu to appear and give the message personally. Within ten minutes, by which time Nashkar Ali Khan and his staff were making their way towards a richly ornamented tent being set up by their retinue, there was a noticeable restlessness in the air, and a growing murmur of wonderment. Tongue was given to this restless wonder by the time the leader was about to sit down to a meal. The tongues, growing louder and more numerous every second, were now shouting a different refrain:
‘Where is the sadhu? Why is the sadhu not here? Where is the sadhu? Tell us, O Lord Nashkar, tell us!’
Seeing the malignant look of fury in Nashkar’s eyes, and feeling the hand of death touch his shoulder, Captain Healey bent his face towards his food and smiled inwardly.
*
Back, angrily, upon the low hilltop, Nashkar Ali Khan once again addressed his tribesmen. ‘May the wrath of Mahomet fall upon you if you continue to disturb my due rest, doubters of my word! I tell you, the sign has come and that is all that matters now.’
‘Where is the sadhu, O Lord Nashkar, highest in the land?’
‘The sadhu is old, and he is resting. He has had a long fast and he is weak.’ The Pathan paused. ‘He is in my palace, outside Maizar. He is safe and well, but he is tired, and too old a man to face such a multitude after the loneliness of the hills.’
His face hard, he turned away, striding back through a cleared lane towards his tent. He would say no more; he was not a man much given to explanation. But he grew more disturbed as he heard the noise rising around him, saw the shaken heads and the doubting looks. Savagely, beneath his breath, he cursed the very existence of the sadhu, whose unknown fate, though he had allowed none except the Earless One to see his anxiety, had been causing him worry ever since the sign itself had come but had not been reported from the sadhu’s lonely peak. It was possible, of course, that the sadhu, knowing full well that the sign would have been seen all over Waziristan, had in the event felt no need to signify further. Yet it was most unlikely; he had had the runner for the express purpose of sending his confirmation...and the men whom Nashkar had dispatched subsequently had not yet returned.
The answer, of course, to any reasonable man, must lie in Wilshaw Sahib.
Back in his ornate tent, Nashkar Ali Khan strode up and down restlessly, deeply concerned now. In anger he listened to the mob-sounds outside. The sign had come, had been so clearly manifested to all, and he, Nashkar Ali Khan himself, had given his confirmation of its meaning! Who were the tribesmen, to doubt him and to demand further evidence? Who indeed! They were a rabble — but he could achieve nothing without them. And, being a Pathan, a man of ancient race, with the same deep, inborn faith, the same superstitious link with a remote past, he could not but understand and, in under-standing, tremble for the implications.
‘It was you, Earless One, who induced me to trust Wilshaw Sahib,’ he said bitterly. ‘This makes me ask myself why it was I grew to have trust in you!’
‘Highness, I have done nothing to lessen your trust. I was as deceived by Wilshaw Sahib as you were, and we do not know that he went towards the sadhu.’
‘Then where is the sadhu, where is his messenger, Earless One? And one thing we do know, and this is, that it was you who talked too loudly of the fact that the sadhu had not personally spoken. I shall remember this. If my ambitions are frustrated, Earless One, I sha
ll know where to turn for my revenge!’ Nashkar resumed his restless pacing, watched by Healey. Healey recognized the leader’s dilemma. Of a certainty more men could be sent to the west, to seek out the sadhu and discover, if they could, what had happened to the men sent to him earlier. But if something had happened those fresh men would see it, and would return with bad tidings, and the tidings would spread like wild-fire, and that, indeed, would be the end of the affair.
Healey left the tent while Nashkar prowled; and in his own way continued the good work, by nods and winks and shrugs and a mournful face when questioned by the anxious tribesmen. The sadhu, he confirmed again and again, had indeed not signified, and no one could say where he was. It was very strange, and very disturbing, and the omens were now far from good.
*
Ogilvie had halted his troops some while before, with the encampment distantly in view.
‘I’ve no doubt they’ll have posted sentries,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep well outside the perimeter for the time being. Mr. Cunningham, if you please?’
‘Sir!’
‘Keep the men in cover — we’ll do a little scouting on our own account before we move on. D’you see the lie of the land?’
‘It looks as if they’re in a kind of bowl, sir, hemmed in by the hills.’
‘Yes. And this track leads right in. I think we’ll have to climb, Sar’nt-Major. Get into the hills, and look for that vantage point to address them from as the Colonel wanted — somewhere defendable, for preference!’
‘Aye, sir. It’s true we’d not stand a chance if we rode straight into the mass. I’ll detail scouts right away, sir, and accompany them myself, with your permission.’
‘Thank you, Sar’nt-Major.’
Cunningham wheeled his horse, walking it away as quietly as possible. Ogilvie heard his low voice, issuing orders to the men. As those not required for scout duty moved silently into such cover as they could find beside the track, and dismounted, Ogilvie sat his horse and stared ahead towards the enemy’s distant camp. It was an uncomfortable feeling, to be so close, in such miniscule numbers, to that immense fighting force of fanatical Pathan warriors. They could be overwhelmed in an instant, hacked to pieces almost before they had had a chance to sight their rifles, if events should go against them now. As he sat in the stillness, the awe-inspiring silence of the lonely hills gripped him, seeming to press down upon his ears like a blanket. But after a while he became aware of some curious distant sound, one that at first he could not identify. It was a kind of murmur, low but continuing, a sound that could perhaps be the shouts of very many men, a sound of war and fervour. The tribesmen were being whipped up to a frenzy, evidently. It was not a healthy sound.
Dismounting after Cunningham and the scouts had moved away, Ogilvie led his horse back towards his hidden troop. He had a word with each of the soldiers, reminding them that there was to be no firing, whatever the provocation, unless and until he gave the word. The lives of all of them, he impressed upon them, hung upon a total avoidance of fighting. They would come upon the vast encampment as men bearing information, not arms. They had to be seen to come in peace, at any rate until the regiment arrived and deployed around the perimeter.
‘It’ll merely be the bigger slaughter when that happens,’ a private named Mauchline said.
‘Come, Mauchline,’ Ogilvie said sharply. ‘You didn’t speak that way, when you made contact with me back in that pass, did you?’
‘I’ve had time to think a wee bit more since then, sir.’
‘And time to get cold feet?’
‘No, sir. A wee grain o’ sense, that’s all!’ He spat at Ogilvie’s feet, mutinously. ‘We’ll all be dead by sunrise and you know it, Captain Ogilvie.’
‘I know no such thing!’ Ogilvie felt his face whitening with anger. ‘You’ll stop talking like this at once, Mauchline, and you’ll obey orders as a soldier of the 114th, or I’ll have you before the Colonel the moment we return to cantonments, on a charge of insolence.’
‘I’ve no’ said a word that’s insolent, sir!’
‘The army’s not yet finished with the charge of dumb insolence, Mauchline, as well you know,’ Ogilvie reminded him. ‘But now I’ll tell you something else: if you continue undermining morale, you’ll be dead by sunrise without a doubt, for I shall exercise my prerogative as an officer in command of troops confronting the enemy, and I shall shoot you.’
‘You don’t mean that, Captain Ogilvie!’
Ogilvie gave a grim laugh. ‘I hope you’ll not be trying to find out,’ he said, and turned away. He was conscious of the thud of his heart, of a dryness in his mouth. Never before had he made such a threat; until now, he would not have believed himself capable of it. But he had spoken in temper because he had the feeling, very strongly, that the imminent events would be decisive, that on the efforts of his small force could well depend the future of the whole of the British Raj, or at the very least the fragile stability of the North-West Frontier. A grandiose thought, perhaps; but a valid one. Empires in the past had hung upon as gossamer a thread. The repercussions of a wholesale slaughter in North-West India would shake the British Empire badly, would rock the foundations of Windsor Castle itself, probably topple the Viceroy in Calcutta and the Government in Westminster. It was a huge responsibility for a mere Captain of Infantry in his twenty-third year; but it was possibly an even greater one to shoot a defenceless private, to commit what under other circumstances would be a cold-blooded, premeditated murder. Ogilvie’s anguish was real enough as he sent up a prayer that Private Mauchline would not force him to face up to his threat.
They waited. They waited in silence mostly now, with Ogilvie’s ears attuned to the sound still coming, more strongly he fancied, from the distant camp. It was more than an hour before Cunningham returned with his scouting party. ‘There’s a route to the north, sir,’ the R.S.M. reported. ‘It’s a difficult climb, and the horses’ll not make it, but I believe it will suit our purpose. There’s a tongue of rock jutting out, so far as I can see - projecting close to the perimeter of the camp.’
‘Did you get near the camp?’
‘Not too close, sir. I thought it best not to risk being seen —’
‘Quite right —’
‘— but near enough sir, to hear a deal of racket. You can hear it even from here.’
‘So I’ve noticed. What is it, d’you think, Sar’nt-Major?’
Cunningham shrugged. ‘It’ll be the blood-stirrers at work, sir, the fanatics. They’ll be in a high state, sir. We can only hope it’ll not be so high they’ll not listen to what the runner has to say.’
Their eyes met; Ogilvie looked at Cunningham’s strong features, saw him lift a hand to twirl at the once-waxed end of his moustache, which was now drooping down his chin like a China-man’s. In a low voice, as they stood apart from the rest of the men, Ogilvie asked, ‘What d’you make the chances, Sar’nt-Major?’
‘Oh, we’ll get by, sir, never fear!’
‘Yes, but I want to know, Sar’nt-Major.’ He repeated his question. ‘What are the real chances?’
‘Chances, Captain Ogilvie?’ Cunningham looked back along the way he had just come, towards the camp and the flickering night-fires that were now being lit as darkness started to come down. He reached out a hamlike hand, which he placed with rough affection on Ogilvie’s shoulder. ‘The British Army’s well used to long odds, sir. A touch of boldness has often enough won the day, long before now. I told you — we’ll get by! It’s a custom we have.’ He hesitated. ‘But just in case we don’t all come out, sir, I’ll wish you luck. You’ve always been a credit to the regiment, sir, if I may say so — and to your father.’
He reached out a hand. Ogilvie took it, and gave it a warm clasp. ‘And the same to you, Bosom — if I may say so!’
Without further talk, Cunningham, assuming what the order would be, turned away and roused the men from their cover, forming them up to ride as far as the northward-leading track he had found. ‘We’ll need t
o leave the horses once we reach the incline, Captain Ogilvie,’ he said. ‘We must chance them being found.’
‘Right you are, Sar’nt-Major. I’ll leave a man on guard, for what good it’ll do. We may be in need of those horses!’
‘Aye, sir.’ They moved out, heading through the increasing darkness for the invasion army’s perimeter, quietly, carrying their rifles at the ready. Within ten minutes they had reached the foot of the climb, within fifteen they had moved all the horses up as far as they could go, and had left them under guard on a small plateau off the track. As they climbed from there, Ogilvie gave orders for the men to collect what wood they could find en route. ‘I’ve an idea a fire would help,’ he explained to Cunningham. ‘It’ll attract attention — that is, if we can light it.
‘I have matches, sir.’
‘I thought you would, Sar’nt-Major! Where d’you keep them, in that rig you’re wearing?’
‘Uncomfortably, sir — in my loin-cloth. We must hope they’re not sweated through.’ They went on, climbing, scrambling up, dislodging rocks and stones and debris from the hillside. The moon was visible now, eclipse-free; there was a little cloud coming up from the north-west, and there was wind that freshened as they gained height. After some ten minutes Ogilvie saw the jut of rock described by Cunningham, distantly protruding towards the dotted fires that illuminated the bowl of the hills. The sounds were louder now, though spasmodic, for the wind was taking them and flinging them away into the emptiness from time to time, as it gusted fitfully. A little more climbing and the way flattened out, becoming a good deal easier. They made good speed after that, going farther ahead now than Cunningham had gone earlier, still seeing no sentries. This Ogilvie did not find especially surprising, in spite of his caution in halting his troop in cover in case there should be any posted. Nashkar Ali Khan would scarcely be expecting any sudden forays by the British Army or indeed anyone else; any men who came along this way would have the sole intention of joining his levies for the forthcoming attack. Another short, fast march brought Ogilvie’s small force to the verge of the long tongue of rock, and thereafter they moved with greater circumspection, falling, in due course, upon their stomachs and creeping painfully onward like snakes in the night, carrying rifles and the gathered wood with difficulty. The moon was bright now, spreading silver over all; Ogilvie could see the assembled tribesmen plainly, and the immensity of the gathering appalled him. Now the cries were filling their ears with a sound of sheer menace. There was a hate-fed fury in those almost animal cries and yells, more hate in the rifles that were being brandished in the air. Nashkar Ali Khan must be having his work cut out, Ogilvie thought, to hold these wild hillmen in check until he was ready to march — and wondered, indeed, why he had not marched before this. With that howling mob tearing through the passes and bounding down on Peshawar and Nowshera and Murree, no one was going to have a chance. And behind them, when Nashkar called for their support, would come the Afghan hordes from beyond the Khyber, riding past the forts at Torkham, and Ali Masjid high on its rock, and Landi Kotal, and Jamrud...passing hell-bent into British India with fire and sword.
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