“We have but to wait for six days. To do nothing but to wait. Yes. And the Sirkar will roll its men and its guns over the passes and set the young Prince in his father’s place.”
It was a good plan — an excellent plan. Only a doubt stayed in Wafadar’s mind. Would Shuja-ul-Mulk accept it? He should, of course, according to all Tokoti reasoning. But he had made friends among the English, and he was loyal to his friendships. There was a simplicity in Wafadar’s young master which had a strength of its own.
“Carruthers Sahib and his wife are very dear to our Prince,” he said.
“Well, then, we shall not tell him,” urged Rajab. “We shall wait until the Feast of Muharram and keep this a secret between us two until then.”
But Wafadar would not hear of it. He had run the risk of death, he had lost his place in his country, he was an exile with the boy and for the sake of the boy. He had been devoted to the father Sher Afzul, he had transferred that devotion to the son. He would at any moment have cheerfully given his life to serve him, and the more he served him, the greater grew his passion to serve him. Not for anything in the world would he now be false to him.
“His Highness must know to-night,” he said.
“He is a boy,” said Rajab doubtfully. “What should he know?”
“What he does know,” answered Wafadar. “That he is our master. That the last word is his. Let us go and find him.”
The two men got up from the ground and went to the house on the edge of the town where the refugees lived. Shuja-ul-Mulk came up to them as they reached the door, breathing quickly like one who had been running; as indeed he had been doing. In these days he was turning his hand to whatever work offered. Now he held a horse, now he watched a stall while its owner was away. To his neighbours of the bazaar he was just a penniless little boy glad to earn a few annas towards the upkeep of his lodging, and, for a wonder, honest. Just now he had carried a thin tussore suit, which a native tailor had been making, to a tourist at the dak bungalow, and had a couple of rupees as his reward.
But he took Wafadar and Rajab into the grimy little room, lit the kerosene lamp and became what by right he was, the Kahn of Tokot. Had the tourist of the tussore suit pushed his head into that room, he would have carried away a picture in his mind which would have made his tour memorable. He would have seen by the light of the cheap lamp his messenger-boy sitting with great dignity and a grave face upon the side of his bed, whilst two grown men, kneeling before him on the floor, bent their foreheads to the ground and spoke humble words of obeisance.
“May Your Highness live for ever! May his servant speak?”
“Speak,” said Shuja-ul-Mulk, and he listened to the end of Rajab’s story, and then for a long while was silent.
Neither of his two servants could know to what last word his thoughts were leading him. Now and then a draught made the flame of the lamp waver across his face, now and then it smoked and cast a shadow. But Shuja-ul-Mulk sat like an idol, a boy of twelve years, deciding whether two people who were his good friends should live or die, whether a kingdom — oh, a tiny one, but still a kingdom — should be regained, whether the misery of this dragging, poverty-stricken existence in Peshawur, this nightmare of an existence should cease.
“We have only to hold our tongues — only to wait for the night of Muharram. A mere six days.”
The temptation was strong. He looked at the blackened walls, the sordid horror of this hovel — and they fell away and his eyes dwelled upon the orchards of his own uplands, white with their blossom as the snows of the Himalayas high above them or the foam of the river at their feet. A mere matter of holding the tongue. Oh, if he did, it was sure that the passes would ring with the tramp of battalions and that he would ride in the midst of them. He had the sound of that marching in his ears. But there was a sound which would break through it, close his ears to it as he might — the sound of a young woman’s voice. And, hearing it, he felt the kind touch of her hand upon his shoulder and his own tears wet upon his cheeks.
He thought for a little longer, and then, rising from his bed, he went to a corner of the room and picked up his drum.
“You will wait here, both of you. I shall be away for a little while,” he said.
But as he turned towards the door, Rajab stood between it and him.
“Where are you going?” he cried violently, his face working with passion.
“It is not for you to ask,” the boy answered. “Stand aside, Rajab!”
“And if I will not?”
Wafadar suddenly seized Rajab by the arm and flung him against the wall.
“I shall see to it that he does,” said Wafadar, and the boy walked out of the house.
The swift darkness of the East had fallen upon Peshawur, but it was still early. The houses and the booths were bright with lights, and though the roadway between them was black and silent, now a white robe flashed or a sharp, gaunt Afghan face showed for a second in the glare of a lamp. There were many abroad taking the coolness of the night into their lungs. The boy slipped between the groups as swiftly as a snake, his drum slung upon his shoulder. He was in a great fear lest he should be too late. As soon as he was clear of the Bazaars and the thronged roads, he took to his heels again and ran between walled lanes. A wide parade-ground opened out. Before him, across the parade-ground the windows of a line of barracks were alight and a porticoed building in the centre of them was ablaze. It was the guests’ mess-night of the Middlesex Regiment. The boy’s heart was beating furiously and his body ran with sweat. At every moment he expected to hear the fifes and bugles blow the last call of the day— “Lights out.” But without hearing it he reached a spot long since agreed upon, and swinging his drum in front of him he summoned his friend — all the more forcing himself to a sharp, staccato note because with each tap he was destroying a hope of his own.
He repeated the call, and Bill Holder came out of the darkness towards him.
“Bill, I must see the Colonel Sahib.”
Bill was startled by the audacity of the request.
“Oh, you must see the Colonel, must you, Shuggy? Just like that!”
“Yes. He will take me to the Governor of the Province.”
“Ow indeed!” said Bill. “Wouldn’t yer like the Viceroy to join yer party too, Shuggy! He’s got nothin’ to do to-night. I’ll send him a wire to Simla.”
“Bill, it’s terribly serious.”
Bill Holder came close to Shuja-ul-Mulk and stared at him. Then he said in a changed voice:
“You know, Shuggy, if you let me in, I’m for it.”
“I wouldn’t, Bill.”
“Orl right. I’ll see what I can do.”
Bill Holder, greatly daring, asked for an immediate word with Captain Morris, who by the best of fortune was dining with the Regiment that night. An orderly, after much argument, went into the dining-room.
“Holder says, Sir, that there’s a boy you’ll know as Sugar-and-Milk here with news that can’t wait.”
Captain Morris turned to his neighbour, the Second in Command.
“I think I ought to find out what’s up.”
The Second-in-Command passed on the message to the Colonel, who was not very pleased, but consented with a short nod.
Morris found Bill Holder shivering at his own presumption.
“Where is the boy?” he asked.
“Out there, Sir. Beyond the sentries.”
“Fetch him in. If you’re stopped, say that the boy has a message for me!”
Bill disappeared at a run. Morris heard a challenge, and in a minute Shuja-ul-Mulk stood in front of him. It took Morris just five minutes to grasp the importance of the message. Then he wrote an urgent note and sent it in to the Colonel. Luckily dinner was nearing its close. The Colonel told the Mess-Room Steward to take Morris and the boy into the Colonel’s Office. He waited to give the Loyal Toast and then, calling the Second-in-Command to take his chair, he hurried thither himself.
“This, Sir, is Shuja-ul
-Mulk, the son of the old Khan of Tokot,” said Morris.
Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh was a soldier of the modern school, neither over-conscious of his dignity nor obsessed by the drill-yard. He nodded at the boy standing in front of him, rather liked the look of him, and said:
“Well, let’s hear your story!”
For the second time that evening Shuja-ul-Mulk told it; and he was not interrupted. When he had finished the Lieutenant-Colonel asked:
“And this man Rajab? He’s honest? He can be believed?”
Shuja-ul-Mulk nodded his head vigorously.
“He wanted me to keep the news secret. There would have been no sense in doing that if it was false.”
“To make merit with you, perhaps?”
Shuja-ul-Mulk’s face expanded in a smile.
“But, Sir, what have I to offer him if it is false?”
Marsh looked the boy over with a new interest.
“That sounds reasonable. Why did he wish you to keep the news secret?”
“He thought it would be to my advantage.”
“Oho!” said the Lieutenant-Colonel. He followed out that train of thought. A punitive expedition would mean inevitably a new ruler at Tokot. And here he was, in rags, with every inducement to hold his tongue, yet not holding it. “And it might have been, too,” said Marsh.
The boy said nothing. Not to anyone was he going to describe, in whatever poor way he could, that night upon the verandah, the warm sound of Marjorie Carruthers’ voice, the comforting touch of her hand upon his shoulder.
“Right!”
He turned to Captain Morris.
“Would you mind getting on to the Residency and asking if I can see His Excellency?”
Whilst Morris rang up the Residency, Marsh rang a bell. An orderly came into the office and saluted.
“I want my car at the door at once. Then ask Major Carvil” — he was naming the Second-in-Command, who now sat in his place at the high table— “to apologise for my absence. There is business which cannot be delayed.”
As the orderly went out of the room Captain Morris got his answer from the Residency.
“His Excellency will see you at once, Sir.”
“Good!” said the Lieutenant-Colonel. Then, brushing his moustache with his fingers, he said to Shuja-ul-Mulk.
“You know, my lad, if you’ve let me in, I’m for it.”
In spite of an effort to retain his gravity, Shuja-ul-Mulk laughed aloud to the indignation of Captain Morris.
“And what the devil are you laughing at?” exclaimed Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh, at once suspicious that some trick was being played upon him.
Shuja-ul-Mulk begged his pardon contritely, but those were the very words which his friend Bill Holder the drummer-boy had used when he had prayed him to secure for him a moment’s interview with the Colonel Sahib. The Colonel Sahib’s face relaxed.
“Yes, we’re all in the same boat, Bill Holder the drummer-boy and the Colonel Sahib. He’ll get a whacking from the band-master’s cane and I’ll be told where I get off by the Commander-in-Chief. There’s the car! We’ll go. You’d better come too, Morris.”
The Colonel Sahib noticed that a drum was on a chair outside the office door and that Shuja-ul-Mulk picked it up. But it was not a regimental drum, and he knew when to ask questions and when to leave them alone. An anxious drummer-boy was loitering at the end of the passage, and he stood at attention and saluted. The Colonel Sahib halted.
“Are you Bill Holder?”
“Yes, Sir,” and the drummer-boy’s voice quavered a little with apprehension.
“Well, you’ve done very well,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh.
He stepped with Morris into the back of the car. Shuja-ul-Mulk, drum and all, climbed in beside the chauffeur.
“The Residency,” said Morris and the car drove off.
“Gawd!” said Bill Holder the drummer-boy.
7
A FEW MINUTES later a curious scene was presented in the library of the Residency. Sir Arthur Brooke, a Lieutenant-Colonel of Gurkhas who had been dining with him, a short, broad, sunburnt man, renowned from one end of the frontier to the other for his immense strength and the adoration his soldiers had for him, and an aide-de-camp, all three in black ties and dinner-jackets, Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh and Captain Morris in full dress, were, the five of them, seated in a semicircle listening without a word or a movement, whilst a little boy from the hills in rags told for the third time that night a grim story of a double murder planned and a frontier in flames.
“Carruthers had a wireless with him,” said Sir Arthur to his aide-de-camp when the boy had finished, and the aide-de-camp went off to try to get communication with Tokot.
“Meanwhile we must prepare for a rush expedition,” Brooke continued. To him, who had spent the most of his life upon the frontier, the boy’s story had the very stamp of truth. A fanatic and ambitious priest, the murder of an agent of the Sirkar, a people whipped up into a frenzy — here were the elements of many a tragedy of that wild region.
“What can we do? It wouldn’t need a great force if we move quickly. We could stamp the fire out before it’s well alight.”
A company of Gurkhas, half a battalion of the Middlesex, a section of Engineers and a battery of mountain-guns could be got off to-morrow if the orders went out to-night. A battalion of the Punjab Infantry stationed at Rawal Pindi could follow in support. The whole force to be under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh.
“It’s a time proposition,” said the Governor.
According to Marsh, the force could be rushed up to Tokot in seven days.
“But seven days won’t do,” cried Brooke.
“I can cut a day off that,” said Adare of the Gurkhas.
“Six days. But Muharram falls on the fifth!” said Brooke. “The evening of the fifth day is the day set apart for the murder. If we could anticipate that, the situation may be saved altogether. There’ll be no signal, and, with our men on the spot, no revolt. But once murder’s done — —”
It was at this moment that the aide-de-camp came back into the room, and before he spoke it was evident to all that he had failed.
“I could get no answer.”
The instrument might be out of order, of course. Jolted about on the back of a mule over those parodies of roads, it was very likely to have been damaged on the way up. Mountains too did affect the wireless, didn’t they? But in everybody’s mind was the conviction that treachery had been at work.
“Three men of Carruthers’ levies have been tampered with, you said,” the Governor asked of Shuja-ul-Mulk.
“Yes, Sir.”
“I’ll send a telegram to Carruthers to move out quickly,” said Brooke and he drafted a telegram there and then. “If he started at night, it might not be discovered that he had gone before it was too late to catch him”; and Brooke handed the telegram to his aide-de-camp. “Code that and send it off. But it’s very likely that the line is cut or even accidentally broken.” He looked anxiously at Adare.
“Six days, you say?”
“The best we can do, Sir.”
“There’s no snow on the passes.”
“I have allowed for that.”
Sir Arthur Brooke beat upon his table with his fist.
“Six days and Muharram’s on the fifth day.” He was conscious of a dreadful helplessness. “A good officer, Carruthers. Too good to lose! . . . A young wife too!” He had a picture before his eyes of men in a frenzy beating down the doors by the light of torches with a man and a girl standing at bay within. “Ghastly! Well, six days, then!”
But Shuja-ul-Mulk said eagerly.
“Sir, Sir, with a mule and some rations, I could do it in five.”
Brooke, who was moving restlessly about the room, stopped and stared at the boy. The Lieutenant-Colonel of Gurkhas sized him up. “Light — not an ounce of waste flesh — lithe and strong. I wonder.” But he did so silently. There was a complete silence in the room, a silence of amaze
ment, incredulity, and the boy’s clear treble broke it again.
“A boy who carries no baggage but a cloak with a hood and his food, a boy who knows the road and has a strong mule — he can go fast.”
“You?” cried the Governor.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Adare. “He’s as hard as nails, I should think, and he has lived hard. He’ll sleep when he must — for an hour or two. A poor boy on the road with a fast mule. Five days? I shouldn’t wonder.”
“But he’s known,” argued Brooke. “He’s the son of Sher Afzul. If he reaches Tokot, it’ll be only to get his throat cut.”
“No, Sir,” the boy pleaded. “I could slip through when the light falls. Nothing will be done until night has come and all the bonfires are alight.”
“But, good God, boy, if you got through to the Agency House, what could you do, except be killed with the Agency people?”
The Agency people! He was avoiding the names of Carruthers and his wife. It was he who had sent Carruthers to Tokot — who had not refused a permit for his wife.
“I have a hiding-place there. A safe one! Even if it was discovered, two or three men could hold it against all comers for a day — oh, for much more than a day.”
“Oh, a hiding-place,” cried Brooke, holding up his hands in exasperation. “Oh, I know! Masterman Ready and Treasure Island and all that. A hiding-place!”
“In the Agency grounds,” the boy continued.
“Others will know of it,” Marsh interrupted.
“It was never found all the time the Mission was at Tokot.”
“And no one knows of it?” asked the Gurkha Colonel.
“Only Bill Holder.”
“And who’s Bill Holder?” exclaimed the Governor.
“One of my drummer-boys,” said Marsh.
“I showed it to him,” Shuja-ul-Mulk urged.
The one man who was frankly on the boy’s side was Adare. The whole scheme was fantastic — mad if you liked it. But they were on the frontier — a part of the world where mad and fantastic things happened every day. A forlorn hope — very well! — the most forlorn of all forlorn hopes, if you will. But the only one!
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 691