“Oh Men! It is written that Paradise is in the shadow of spears—”
Gul Mast had heard these things before, but now they were becoming pointed and personal. The Sardar was not addressing the army; this time, he was concentrating on the survivors of the company which had come from Gul Mast’s village, some miles east of Ghazni.
Shir Dil leaped up before the harangue was half over. He said to the Sardar, “By the Four Companions! It is already as good as done! We, the men of Darabad, will capture the gun for your highness.”
“Victory and honor depend upon it. I know that you will succeed.”
The Sardar took off one of his medals and fastened it on Shir Dil’s ragged coat, where it blazed against dirt and mutton grease and old bloodstains. Shir Dil, commander of the village militia sent from Darabad in token of allegiance to the king, saluted and led off, apparently not realizing that a suicide detachment had been decorated in advance. This was too much for Gul Mast.
He said to the commander in chief, “Ya Sardar! It is not fitting to send me with the others from Darabad. My Uncle Haroun is old, and I am his only kinsman. Is it not written—”
The Sardar raised his hand. “Since half the regiment owes you money at fifteen percent per month, your uncle will inherit enough to keep him in comfort if you are taken to the mercy of Allah. So be of good cheer, Gul Mast.” He gestured toward the file that was marching by the flank. “Is it not written: there is no joy greater than dying with good friends?”
For all the democracy of the Afghan field force, Gul Mast knew when argument reached its limit. He saluted. The Sardar added, somewhat ironically, “And then the izzat—the honor that outlives a man! That is greater than the decoration which I gave Shir Dil. You go to save Kandahar for our king, and for our country.”
As he went to overtake the flanking detachment, Gul Mast was certain that the men of Darabad had been given this sacrifice detail mainly to cancel fifteen percent per month, compound interest. On top of that, if Uncle Haroun died without heirs, his estate would go to the royal treasury. Gul Mast was sure that in more ways than one, he was about to die for his country.
He cursed bitterly, and not at the snipers whose shots smacked past his peaked turban whenever his head bobbed up in a cleft of the sandstone. He was a practical man. Spending two years to ambush and shoot Rahim Ali, at considerable risk of life and expense of cartridges, that was something else: a rival money-lender is bad for business. But saving Kandahar! It didn’t make a bit of difference who controlled the town, and certainly none to the herdsmen, the water carriers, the eleven bandits, the camel drivers, and the shoemakers who had left Darabad at the king’s call. Gul Mast Khudayar’s name meant, “Rose-Intoxicated Friend of God,” but for all that, he was a practical man.
A rebel battery was checking the Sardar’s slow advance. The air was thick with fumes and rock dust, and screeching fragments; high explosive searched the entire line. Heat made the cliffs dance and shimmer. What little grass there was had been burned brown, and the few stunted trees were hardly greener than the grass. For awhile, Gul Mast’s party was unobserved; but as they wormed their way up the further wall of the valley, a machine gunner opened up.
Shir Dil dropped flat on his medal, perhaps an instant after Gul Mast. Wali Dad, slow or unlucky, spun twice, and followed the Martini-Henry that clattered to the rocks. Gul Mast got the dead farmer’s canteen and took a long drink of goat-flavored water, which tasted better, to a practical man, than the ice cold rivers of wine that flow through Paradise for deceased heroes.
The battery on the reverse slope was the key to the rebel position. Its concussions hit Gul Mast like hammer blows. Protected from the Sardar’s shrapnel peppering, it would cover the counter-attack that the rebels were about to start. And now the enemy knew that the Sardar intended to flank those Krupps and put them out of action; the machine-guns, chattering at the rate of 600 rupees a minute, told how valuable the extermination of Gul Mast and his comrades would be.
The men of Darabad resumed their advance, moving so skillfully that the enfilade fire stopped for lack of target. Shir Dil paused for breath, and said to the following file, “The sons of lewd mothers, they think they’ve wiped us out. Now look—it’s not far to the crest. From there, one dash and we’ll settle the gunners. We’ll take the gun and turn it on them.”
Gul Mast inched himself upgrade and said, “First let me look, Shir Dil, and see if this thing can be done. How do we know that they are not expecting us, and pretending they think we’re all dead?”
Shir Dil, aptly named Heart of a Lion, had sense enough to see the merit of first looking. “I’ll go up,” he said.
“No, you are our leader, let me go.”
This amazed the men of Darabad; not that anyone had doubted Gul Mast’s valor, but because assuming the leader’s risk seemed needless.
Up he went, clawing the blistering sandstone. He moved with the stealth of a master horse-thief. Gul Mast knew all the lore, but as a boy, he had been practical enough to see that even the best thieves are occasionally shot, while others were executed; whereas money-lenders, or landlords like Uncle Haroun lived to become old and gray and wealthy, and usually endowed a mosque in order to spite greedy kinsmen. So Gul Mast had decided against the respect accorded a successful bandit or horse-thief.
There was no fire to menace him. It was an easy climb, and he thanked Allah for the slug that had made him heir to Wali Dad’s canteen.
Slowly, skillfully, half an inch at a time; his grimy turban, his baggy pants, his brown hands and angular face, they blended with sun-baked gray and tan of the slope. He needed information, the facts, the actual facts, and not a valor-distorted belittling of the enemy, nor a harangue by Shir Dil, who was still light headed from having been decorated by the Sardar.
When he finally did see, he knew that he had been right from the first: a handful of hotheads could rush the two guns, could with luck put them out of action by shooting the cannoneers and then knocking the chocks from behind the wheels and trails; they would roll downhill into a deep cleft on the reserve slope.
The ground was so hard that a trail spade could not be sunk. With each blast, the pieces kicked back against solid timbers. The spades were chewed up from slashing at the rocks. But for all that, the sweating cannoneers were punishing the Sardar’s men. Allah alone knew how many rupees those shells cost!
So much was good. The rest was not. Once the battery was out of action, a band of heroes would follow. Exposed to view, they’d be cut down to the last man. There was not a chance of scrambling up the slope and back over the crest to comparative safety. This was something that hot-headed Shir Dil would never think of.
Gul Mast went back to report: “The Sardar is crazy. This thing cannot be done.”
He began to explain, until the medal-intoxicated Shir Dil shouted him down. “Some of us will come back. Those who stay—consider the glory! The king will honor us.”
“I do not see,” Gul Mast pointed out, “what a dead man does with glory. He can neither eat izzat, nor borrow money on it, nor kill an enemy with it, or buy a wife with it. This whole campaign is fool’s business. Look at the cartridges we furnish, one rupee apiece, and so far we are not humpbacked from carrying loot. Is one king different from another king? In our lives have we ever enjoyed the Gardens of Kandahar? Will we enjoy them any more for going like fools for the Sardar’s glory and our own?”
But izzat had the advantage. Shir Dil’s medal would fill a man’s hand. That it contained no more than ten rupees worth of silver had no force with anyone except Gul Mast. Yet he followed his leader. He was practical enough to know that if anyone did survive, and all things are possible to Allah, every one of his debtors would default principle and interest when it was noised about that he had been hesitant about dying for his king.
He did very well, once they cleared the crest. He spent five rupees worth of cartri
dges, firing from cover he had picked in his reconnaissance. And he did not waste a single shot. Neither did he join the rush. Prudently, he stayed in a position from which he could retreat, and watched Shir Dil and the others rush the battery of Krupps.
The guns had barely started on their backward course when rebel riflemen noted what had happened. A yuzbashi bounded up, sword in hand. Sniders and Enfields blazed. The nearest squad left cover and charged, firing as they ran, and others followed. Shir Dil and his men had their chance to learn whether or not Paradise was under the shadow of spears.
It did not last long. Two shoemakers from Darabad stood with empty rifles, facing knife-armed herdsmen, and camel drivers.
Shir Dil justified his name, and there was so much blood on him that the enemy did not see his medal.
Meanwhile, Gul Mast saw the Sardar reap the crop of izzat. The insane rush by a few men had convinced the rebels that they had been flanked. They left their lines to face the non-existent menace. There was a moment of uncertainty; there was dismay at the destruction of the guns a hundred feet below, on the ragged bottom of the cleft. And from the other flank came the Sardar’s reserves, perfectly timed, set in motion by signal flares.
They rolled up the rebel line, making the most of that shocking surprise.
Gul Mast, skulking under cover, found his chance to retreat, but not until he had taken Shir Dil’s big medal, ten rupees worth of silver.
The rebels were scattering in every direction. Since their leader had allowed himself to be outmaneuvered, they changed their minds about fighting to the end. As Gul Mast saw it, he had merely the advantage of foresight.
Now that there were no witnesses to tell of his prudence, he would readily enough collect his fifteen percent per month from half the regiment. Once certain that the rout was ensured against any rally and counter-attack, he ran forward in the general direction of pursuit, yelling and occasionally firing his Mauser.
There would be a certain amount of izzat gained from being the only survivor of an heroic attempt. Gul Mast was definitely pleased, until he heard horsemen at his right, and somewhat to his rear.
The Sardar, with one staff officer, galloped along the advancing line, directing the pursuit. Couriers were riding in every direction, carrying orders to the yuzbashis, and the higher officers.
When the Sardar saw Gul Mast, he reined in, sweaty and scowling.
Gul Mast saluted. “Allah in his mercy spared your servant to bring a report—”
Then he saw that something was wrong. The Sardar shouted, “Father of many pigs, I was watching through these glasses—I saw—”
Gul Mast was ready when the staff officer drew his pistol in anticipation of the next command. It seemed that they had both seen why one man had survived.
Gul Mast’s shot cost a rupee, and it was the one un-regretted expenditure of the campaign. The blast knocked the officer out of the saddle. The Sardar, hampered by field glasses, lost time fumbling. Gul Mast dashed to cover, for his magazine was empty and it was quite too late to shove in a clip.
When the Sardar’s pistol opened up, he wasted ammunition. Glare, dust, a zig-zagging target, and a startled horse were too much for him.
Gul Mast found refuge where no horse could follow: and the Sardar still had a victory to consolidate. Orderlies came up with messages.
That evening, Gul Mast realized the need for going to India for a long stay. He decided to forgive his debtors, since there was no chance of collecting. After the sunset prayer, he recited from the Traditions, “Allah loves the just, the generous—”
* * * *
By forgiving debts, a man won merit in the sight of God.
But it was hard, thinking of old Uncle Haroun, and those chests of coin squeezed out of the tenants of Darabad. An exile could not inherit, no more than an outlaw or an apostate; the learned Fakhru’l-Sabikani was very explicit on that point, in a manuscript whose transcription had been completed on Friday, one of the four nights at the close of Shewal, in the year of the flight 712, in Damascus. And the learned Shaykh Siraju’d-din, to say nothing of Sayyad Sharif, left no doubt on the matter.
No more doubt than there was about Gul Mast’s exile being permanent.
So he found refuge in Peshawar. He sold the big silver medal, and became a money-changer. He slept in an alley near the coppersmiths’ bazaar, and to protect his slim capital, he ate little. It was very much like war, except that no one was shooting at him, and no one promised him izzat. And after the first caravan came down from Turkestan, his ten rupees began to show a profit.
The Uzbek merchants rarely complained when he short-changed them. First, they were thick-witted, and seldom suspected until it was too late. And then, Gul Mast Khudayar was large and lean and hard-eyed, quite unlike his poetic name; so they did not care to quarrel with him.
Months later, he bought back Shir Dil’s medal. The silversmith asked, “Why didn’t you borrow from me? I might have sold this token of your valor.”
Gul Mast grinned and took a fresh chew of pan. “Oh Man, had I borrowed, I would be thy bond-slave for life. As it is, I start today as a money-lender. And look—I have not charged you for the loan of my izzat, all these days.”
Then from the north came the news of Uncle Haroun’s death. His coffers of rupees and his lands were waiting for his heir. This took all the joy from life in Peshawar, the largest town Gul Mast had ever seen.
At first, he thought that it was a trap. But as the months passed by, he became convinced that while it might be bait, Uncle Haroun had really died, and the estate had not been turned over to the royal treasury. Apparently, the Sardar was cunning; instead of reporting Gul Mast’s logic and having him outlawed, the Sardar had held his peace, perhaps trusting to the dead officer’s kinsmen to exact vengeance.
Day by day, Gul Mast weighed the chances. He would have to spy out the Darabad district, and learn just why he had not been outlawed. The thing to do was to go in disguise, and not reveal himself until he knew what was behind this curious oversight. Neither the Sardar nor the kinsmen of the staff officer would forget that izzat demanded payment of the blood debt.
Gul Mast went, finally, after considerable expense. The disguise was arranged in this wise: there was a Kashmiri woman who curled and bleached and dyed the hair of the infidel women, and painted their nails and their faces; and it was easy for her to bleach Gul Mast’s black beard until at last it was a venerable white.
He spent hours thus, at night, after the memsahibs had gone. When it was complete, he had aged forty years or more, until he looked as Uncle Haroun must have looked. Now he could spy out the district, and if all was well, he had only to wait for his beard to grow black again, and then reveal himself. Meanwhile, he could readily enough kill whatever fools carelessly admitted that they were waiting to settle Gul Mast, renegade, coward, traitor, and assassin: which was what they would consider a practical man who reasoned that it was manifestly silly to die for benefits which would be enjoyed mainly by non-combatants.
So he set out on foot, carrying his rifle as he would a walking stick. He had Shir Dil’s medal. He enjoyed looking at it, of an evening, as he drank his tea; it consoled him whenever he shuddered from thinking that perhaps something might keep him forever from inheriting Uncle Haroun’s rupees. It reminded him that he was alive, when with a less practical mind, he might be with Wali Dad and Shir Dil, and all the other izzat-drunken comrades.
When he reached the final crest, and looked down into the bowl-shaped valley and the town where his uncle had been an important man, Gul Mast was bewildered. There were the same scrawny fields, with outcropping rock and stumpy watch towers, the ugly little houses crouched inside the wall of earth and stone, the brush-roofed market booths baking in the sun. Yet something had changed: there was greenness in the square which once had been sun-blasted and dusty, and a water carrier went about, sprinkling the street which led to
the Ghazni Gate.
This extravagance was hard to understand until he saw the streak of green which led up into the hills. Grass marked the leakage from an aqueduct made of masonry. Times had changed in Darabad. Gul Mast was not quite sure whether he was stirred by seeing his old home, or by the impending contest for a dead man’s rupees.
He spread his coat on the hot earth and gave thanks to Allah for the foresight which had preserved him until this day.
He began to wonder, as he came nearer, whether his bleached beard and artificially aged skin were necessary, or worth the money they had cost. There were no familiar faces to fear; the maidan was crowded with strangers.
Gypsy women with golden coins festooning their hair flounced about, shamelessly eyeing the caravan men. Gul Mast, a stranger indeed, began to resent being cheated of the chance to see without being recognized, to bait old friends and old enemies and old debtors, cunningly pumping them dry. Darabad, the forgotten of God, had become a trading town, a town where there was water and coolness to the eyes: so that the caravans stopped instead of passing on.
In Peshawar he had been too busy to keep posted on what went on in the hills. Now he would learn by loafing at the big fountain in the middle of the maidan.
There was some difficulty in getting to its edge, for all the women of the town were there with earthen jars. Instead of drawing from a lean and brackish well, with a hoist of a hundred feet, they had only to dip, and they could spill all they pleased: no wonder the wenches were chattering.
An inscription decorated a white slab of the masonry. The gilded letters gleamed bravely in the ruddy sunset. They were elegant as the script in the mullah’s Koran, and Gul Mast wondered what the lines said; he could not read the ornate characters, for they were as much an arabesque picture as a text, and his knowledge of writing was confined to necessities such as noting the names of debtors, and calculating interest.
E. Hoffmann Price's Exotic Adventures Page 21