That day and the next, they followed the grisly trail of the doomed army. Alice became numb to the nightmarish sights. Part of her was thankful that Lotty was not witnessing such carnage, yet the other part shuddered to think what might be happening to her. If these tribesmen so hated the feringhis that they could indulge in such bloodlust, what hope was there that they would spare her child? And what of John? Despite what Vernon said, John was at high risk of being seized and murdered by the enemy tribes; only Akbar could prevent it and, so far, the young Barukzai leader appeared to have little sway over these vengeful chiefs.
At a huddle of huts called Seh Baba, they left the track and followed a riverbed. That night it snowed and they took shelter in a grain store; all of them crammed into one room where a local woman cooked them chapattis. The following morning, stiff and tired from a sleepless night, they carried on through the snow, climbing up steep mountain passes. The camels slid and bellowed in complaint. Wind whipped at the captives’ faces and the sun, which bounced off the snow, burnt their skin. They muffled themselves in scarves and tried to shade their eyes from the glare of the snow. Some of the children cried at the pain in their eyes and screamed that they had gone blind. Their mothers tried to reassure them that it was only temporary and told them not to look at the snow.
‘Better that they don’t see,’ said Florentia, with a tremble in her voice, ‘it will only haunt them for life.’
As they descended the next slope they plunged into shadow again. Their eyes were adjusting when someone shouted, ‘Army tents down below!’
Alice could not see them at first but as they grew closer she made out a couple of tents and a handful of men in scarlet tunics milling around them. Of the main force there was no sign. It was soon apparent that these troops – men of the 44th – were in the hands of Akbar’s guards. Sultan Jan was greeted by his fellow Afghans.
Cries of relief went up as the soldiers set eyes on the families. To the astonishment of the arriving party, they found Elphinstone and Shelton inside one of the tents being attended to by Lieutenant Jamieson. Alice greeted the young officer enthusiastically, relieved to see him alive. Their initial euphoria at seeing their commanders soon turned to outrage and disbelief. They had been taken prisoner and Elphinstone was badly wounded in the leg.
‘But where is everyone else?’ Vernon asked.
Elphinstone was too overcome to speak.
‘Butchered,’ said Shelton, his face taut with fatigue. ‘Or gone over to the enemy.’
‘Surely not?’ Florentia was indignant.
‘Some of Shah Shuja’s Afghan troops have deserted,’ Shelton said, his voice drained. ‘Some sepoys have fled. But most of our army has been wiped out.’
Alice covered her mouth to stifle a gasp of horror.
Elphinstone found his voice. ‘Brigadier Anquetil has taken command of a remnant of a few score men. Yesterday, they fought their way out of Jugdaluk.’ He nodded with his head. ‘Down there in the pass.’
‘We were tricked into going to consort with Akbar,’ said Shelton angrily, ‘only to be taken prisoner.’
‘I wanted to stay with the men,’ Elphinstone said, his expression riven with guilt.
‘They might still get through to Jalalabad,’ said Florentia. ‘They will move more quickly without us as encumbrance.’
Elphinstone nodded and closed his eyes. Alice could hardly comprehend the scale of the losses. The cantonment had housed four thousand troops and three times as many servants and followers. Where were they all? Surely there must be more survivors? Perhaps in their exhaustion and in the chaos of retreat, the generals had underestimated the number who had escaped. Then Alice thought of the endless piles of bodies in the snow and her insides turned leaden.
At daybreak, they were roused and the punishing march continued. They drew a shred of comfort from the fact that they appeared to be heading in the direction of Jalalabad. If only they could reach the garrison town then there was a chance they would all live. Elphinstone was lifted onto a makeshift palanquin and carried by his faithful troops. Despite her injured hand, Alice made sure that she rode on a mule so that she could better see the landscape. Stuck in a camel pannier she would have less chance of spotting Lotty.
All day they scaled precipitous slopes and descended the far sides. Alice scoured the bleak hillsides for signs of life and whenever they came across an isolated dwelling her hopes would rise at the slim chance that she would miraculously see Lotty running down the path to greet her.
But the deeper they trudged into the mountains, the greater was the hostility towards the foreign captives. That night, the women were spat at and refused shelter at a fortified farm. Their escort persuaded the hostile locals to at least house the wounded officers in a cowshed.
Florentia galvanised the women. ‘Let’s not make trouble. We can sleep outside – it’ll be healthier than wallowing in muck.’
So they bivouacked in the bitter wind, using saddles for pillows. Alice lay protectively against Emily and shielded Walter between them.
They were up and ready to march at daybreak and the punishing ordeal of ascents and descents began all over again. Alice’s cheeks were peeling and red-raw from the blistering sun and icy winds, and her left arm throbbed continuously from the wound in her wrist. But the sight that greeted them on that day’s journey made her ashamed of her self-pity.
As they rode past a steep defile in the snow-covered pass, they saw scores of skeletal figures crammed together taking shelter under the rocks. They seemed frozen into the landscape. But as the British column grew closer, some of the figures began to stir and stumble down the defile towards them. Alice could hardly comprehend what she was seeing; hundreds of camp-followers had somehow survived the slaughter of the past ten days.
They were half-naked and frostbitten – some had blackened limbs, and others were dressed in bloodied rags. There was a putrid stench in the air and a smell of burnt flesh, which Alice couldn’t understand.
‘Hindustanis,’ gasped Florentia.
‘My God, the poor bastards,’ said Elphinstone.
Some struggled across the ice-compacted snow, trying to reach the camel train. Others, too weak to move, held out emaciated arms and begged for help. The escort and the officers drew their weapons to fend them off.
‘Stop!’ Alice cried out. ‘Don’t shoot them!’
‘We can’t stop,’ Vernon hissed. ‘They’ll overwhelm us.’ He raised his pistol in the air and shot above their heads.
The surge of desperate people halted a moment, frightened and confused. Then pressed forward again.
‘Nobody is to fire on them!’ Elphinstone ordered.
But the ones who reached them were so weak that they could not even grab hold of the passing animals. Alice watched in distress as shame overwhelmed her. Their beseeching voices cut her to the core yet the British were about to abandon them once more. There were so many of them. How could one decide whom to save?
Suddenly Gita started screaming. ‘Adeep? Adeep!’
Alice saw a dark-haired boy, naked but for a ragged blanket, stumbling towards the mule that carried Gita and Bali.
‘Wait!’ Alice shouted. ‘It’s our servant!’
Gita scrambled off her mule and went to her son, sobbing with relief. Alice climbed down too and went to help. Adeep was shaking and wild-eyed in his mother’s arms and hardly seemed to know her. Alice took off her woollen scarf and wrapped it around the boy. Vernon wheeled his horse around.
‘Quickly, woman, get back in the saddle!’
He fended off other desperate men, while Lieutenant Jamieson helped the women lift Adeep onto Gita’s mule.
‘Bali can ride with me,’ Alice said, encouraging the boy to scramble up in front of her.
Within minutes the column was moving away from the defile, leaving behind the mass of distraught and dying Indians to their fate.
The next day they crossed the Punjshir River in flood. Several of the Afghan escort lost their lives i
n the deep and rapidly flowing icy waters trying to help the convoy across.
‘No great loss,’ Vernon muttered.
Alice was sickened. ‘How can you be so heartless? These men are trying to keep us alive,’ she said tearfully.
‘How do you know it wasn’t one of them who kidnapped our daughter?’ Vernon accused. ‘I trust none of them.’
After that they descended below the snowline. To the relief of all, they saw a fertile valley stretching out below. Stopping to drink at a stream, Emily unexpectedly spoke.
‘The Lughman Valley. I remember it from last year. We stopped at a pleasant wee town on the way to Jalalabad. Sandy bought me that blue shawl . . .’ Emily’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Oh, Sandy! Do you think I’ll ever see him or Alexander again?’
Alice put her arm around her friend. ‘We must hope,’ Alice encouraged. ‘If I didn’t think there was any chance of seeing Lotty again, I’d have curled up in the snow and given up. Look how Gita’s son Adeep has survived against the odds.’
Emily’s look changed; her dull eyes lit with a spark of defiance.
‘Aye, he did, didn’t he? It was a wee miracle.’
‘So we must believe our loved ones will return to us too,’ said Alice.
Heartened, they travelled on to the fortified town of Tighree. Optimism spread as the word went round that they were only twenty-five miles from Jalalabad and the sanctuary of Sir Robert Sale’s garrison.
CHAPTER 36
Alice was astonished to learn it was Sunday. She had completely lost track of the days; all had merged into an unrelenting nightmare of terrible happenings. But here they were, resting in a modestly comfortable fort being kindly treated by their Afghan hosts and allowed to hold a religious service. Florentia organised it, commandeering a prayer book from one of the officers and delegating the reading of prayers. They muddled through a couple of hymns that they knew by heart and the children enjoyed joining in.
Dinah broke down sobbing at the singing but the other women – especially courageous Mrs Trevor – fussed over and comforted her. By the end, spirits had been lifted. Alice was grateful to the courageous general’s wife for somehow knowing what the sore at heart needed.
Despite being locked up, Vernon got hold of cheap liquor from a Hindu trader by bribing one of the guards. Alice suspected her husband had used a piece of her jewellery to do so, as he had insisted on carrying her most valuable jewels for safekeeping. He got drunk quickly, fell asleep and snored loudly, keeping many others awake.
Their night was also disturbed by gunfire beyond the fort’s walls. In the early morning, they were roused by a guard and told to make ready to leave within the hour.
‘Are we going to Jalalabad today?’ Florentia asked. Alice knew she was longing to be reunited with her husband, Sir Robert, and thought that it would ease Dinah’s grief to see her father again too.
But the Afghan just shrugged.
Outside it was hailing. Instead of heading down the valley, Sultan Jan ordered the party in the opposite direction. Shelton protested.
‘You promised us we would be taken to Jalalabad. It was part of the agreement for us to leave your country.’
‘It is not safe,’ replied Akbar’s cousin. ‘Bad tribes attacked last night. My orders are to take you to Budeeabad.’
‘Where in God’s name is that?’ Shelton demanded.
‘You will see.’ Sultan Jan turned away and kicked his horse into a trot.
Vernon hissed, ‘Sir. Why don’t we make a run for it now? There are too few of them to stop us all.’
Shelton gave him a withering look. ‘And abandon our commander and the other injured?’
Vernon flushed. ‘No, of course not. I meant we could fight off our guard and take everyone with us.’
‘Within a whistle, their comrades would be pouring out of the hills armed to the teeth. We’ll just have to bide our time, Buckley.’
Soon the party was once more scaling the steep sides of the valley and heading north-east back into the mountains. Alice felt a clash of emotions: dread that they were being subjected to another ordeal, yet hope that by doubling back she might have more chance of finding Lotty.
Budeeabad was an impregnable fort at the top of a remote valley, reached by the weary party at the end of a further two days’ march. It appeared strangely deserted, save for a few servants and guards. Sultan Jan told them that it belonged to Akbar’s father-in-law, Mohammed Shah, and that he was renovating it for his favourite wife. The fort was surrounded by ditches and high walls.
They settled in as best they could in a cluster of rooms around a central courtyard. Mohammed Shah made sure that each had a mattress and blanket against the cold and clean clothes were divided up from the salvaged baggage. Alice washed and changed her clothing for the first time in two weeks. She was sharing a room with Emily, Florentia, Dinah, and Mrs Trevor and her seven children. Alice was full of pity to discover that, like Dinah, Trevor’s widow was also carrying a baby who would never know its father. How would the poor woman cope with an eighth child on her own? Vernon was the only man sharing their cramped quarters. Alice was thankful that he positioned himself across the doorway as their protector rather than lie next to her. There was little chance of him exercising his conjugal rights under such crowded conditions.
Two doors down was the room allocated to their handful of servants, where Gita nursed Adeep’s frostbitten feet and kept busy showing the Afghans how to cook chapattis and make coffee from parching grains of rice and barley.
There was ongoing resentment between some of the women that Lady MacNaughten had managed to hang onto a large amount of her possessions, including fabrics, jewellery and her beloved cat Nabob, while others only had the clothes that they stood up in. Alice, distressed at the bickering, gave her locket to Lieutenant Jamieson, who had been put in charge of bartering for supplies. First she removed the precious lock of Lotty’s hair and wrapped it carefully in a scrap of cloth.
‘Please, exchange this for some material, thread and needles. Gita will help me make some new clothes – at least for the ladies and children.’
Within a week, Gita had made them comfortable clothes of drawstring trousers and long tunics with blankets fashioned into cloaks. Some of the men – Vernon included – were scandalised at their women wearing native outfits but Alice and her friends ignored the criticism.
‘We’ll go back into corsets,’ announced Florentia, ‘when we reach civilisation and you men bother to dress up for dinner again.’
The children were long-suffering but soon grew bored at their confinement. Alice and the other women tried to entertain them with games of hopscotch – the squares marked out in the snow – and Blind Man’s Buff. The greatest problem though was not the monotony but the fear of not knowing what would become of them.
Alice lay awake at night listening to the sighs of other sleepless women and the babblings of those in fitful sleep. They rarely saw their leader, Elphinstone, who was confined to his bed and in constant pain. At least the children kept them occupied and stopped their minds from endlessly dwelling on the future.
One day, while a large number of them were sitting outside in the bright winter sunshine, Jamieson appeared in high spirits.
‘We have a thousand rupees to spend on food and clothing. I won it from Sultan Jan in a wager,’ said Jamieson with a wink. ‘Two days ago he bet me that Dost Mohammed would be released by today.’
‘What a stupid man,’ Vernon scoffed. ‘We wouldn’t get to hear of it even if he was.’
‘I rather think that was the point,’ said Jamieson. ‘He’s letting us have funds without anyone losing face.’
‘How kind of him,’ Alice said, smiling at the captain.
‘Kind?’ Vernon snapped. ‘You call being force-marched and incarcerated a kindness? What a ridiculous woman you are!’
Alice flushed at the public rebuke. ‘I just meant in this situation—’
‘How many times do I have to tell you th
at it doesn’t do to let down your guard and trust these people?’ Vernon said, interrupting her. ‘That’s what’s got us into this mess – believing the empty words of the Afghans.’
‘You overstep the mark, Major,’ said Shelton.
‘I meant no criticism of you, sir,’ Vernon said quickly. ‘But my wife has a weakness for these heathens and will forgive them anything.’
Florentia gave him a hard stare. ‘Some say that it is you, Major Buckley, who has a weakness for the Afghan,’ she said.
Vernon went puce at the waspish remark. ‘Meaning?’
‘I think you know exactly what I mean.’
Jamieson interjected. ‘Best not to argue over the matter.’
Vernon got up and stomped away in the direction of the soldiers’ quarters. Alice knew that he increasingly found refuge in playing cards and smoking hemp leaves with men who would not argue back. His fellow officers were finally tiring of his carping and dark moods.
Two days later, on a wet February afternoon, as Alice was agonising over whether she dared write a letter to John, a shout went up.
‘Horsemen coming up the valley!’
Alice hurried outside where others were gathering in the sleety rain.
‘Who are they?’ demanded Shelton.
‘Afghans,’ shouted the officer on the lookout. There was anxious speculation as to what this meant. Others scrambled up the stone steps to see. Someone had a spy glass – battered but still usable – and this was passed around.
‘There are Europeans with them, I’m sure of it,’ Jamieson cried.
Alice’s heart leapt. Was it Akbar paying a visit? If so, John would be with him.
Half an hour later, after feverish speculation, Sultan Jan arrived with three bedraggled prisoners. Major Pottinger led the way and was soon surrounded by fellow officers but it was the man behind him that caught Alice’s attention.
‘Lieutenant MacRae!’ Alice gasped and rushed towards the Scottish officer. ‘I thought you were—’
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 43