Far Pavilions (166 page)

‘But I do mean it, Wally.’ Ash's voice was as grim as his face, and there was a note in it that Wally recognized with a curious sense of shock as fear: real fear. ‘It may sound like a monstrous suggestion to you, and I'm not even sure that it would work, except as a temporary measure. But it would at least remove the immediate threat and give your Mission a breathing space. It would be worth it for that alone. What Cavagnari needs most is time, and it doesn't look to me as though he's going to get it unless he buys it.’

‘Then you're really suggesting that he sends for these mutinous divils and hands them out –’

‘No I am not. I am not suggesting that he, personally, pays anything directly to the Herati regiments (who, by the way, were never in action against us and don't believe we won a single battle). But I'm willing to bet that he could galvanize the Viceroy into sending the Amir,
immediately,
a sum sufficient to cover what his troops are owed. It wouldn't even need to be a gift, because it could be counted as part of the yearly subsidy that was promised him by the terms of the Peace Treaty, which amounts to six crores a year. Damn it, Wally, that's six million rupees. Even a small part of that would wipe out the Amir's debt to his troops. But if the money isn't forthcoming soon, it won't be long before the whole Afghan Army is faced with the choice of starving or stealing; and believe me, they'll choose the latter, as the Heratis have done. And as you yourself would do, if you were in their shoes!’

‘That's all very well, but –’

‘There's no “but” about it. Hunger can do a lot of strange things to people as I've learned at first hand, and I only wish I could talk to Cavagnari myself. But I promised the Commandant I wouldn't, because… Well, anyway, it seems young Jenkyns is our only hope; and after all he is supposed to be the Political Assistant. You'll have to pass it on to him – tell him you had it from old Nakshband Khan – tell him anything. But for God's sake get it into his head that it's deadly serious, and that if Cavagnari hasn't realized this already, which he may well have done, he has got to realize it now. As for you, Wally, if you've any sense at all, you'll stop these sports of yours and warn the Rosebud' (this was a reference to Ambrose Kelly, who for obvious reasons was known in the Guides and to his friends as ‘Rosie’) ‘to write off his equally well-meaning scheme for starting a free dispensary, because it is already being said in the city that the Sahibs are planning to use this as a means of poisoning anyone who is foolish enough to attend.’

‘The Black Curse of Shielygh on them,’ sighed Wally with feeling. ‘May the divil fly away with the spalpeens: he's welcome to them. When I think of all we meant to do – and dammit, will do – to help these ungrateful bastards to have a better life and fairer laws, I could spit, so I could.’

Ash frowned and observed with an edge to his voice that possibly they did not want to be helped by foreigners – except financially. Money was the one and only thing that could help the Amir and his people, and save the foreigners in the Residency from disaster. ‘If the troops get paid you may all still have a chance of scraping through with nothing worse than a bloody nose and a few bruises. But if it doesn't, I wouldn't bet a brass farthing on the safety of the Mission, or the future prospects of the Amir either.’

‘Faith, what a cheerful little ray of sunshine you are,’ observed Wally with a wry smile. ‘I suppose you'll tell me next that every mullah in the place is calling for a Holy War?’

‘Oddly enough, they aren't. Or only a very few. There is a fiery gentleman down Herat way who is being very vocal, and an equally vocal fakir here in the city. But by and large the majority of mullahs have been remarkably pacific and seem to be doing their best to keep things on an even keel. It's a pity they haven't got a better Amir; one can't help feeling sorry for the poor fellow, but he's not half the man his father was – and he, Heaven knows, wasn't anything to write home about. What the Afghans need now is a strong man: another Dost Mohammed.’

‘Or a fellow like that one over' there,’ suggested Wally, nodding his head in the direction of Barbur's tomb.

‘The Tiger? God forbid!’ said Ash fervently. ‘If
he'd
been in command here, we would never have got further than Ali Masjid. Now there's someone you should write an epic poem about: Ode to a Dead Emperor.
Hic jacet ecce Barbur, magnus Imperator. Fama semper vivat
*
… “Lie lightly on him, gentle earth.” ’

Wally laughed and said that he would try his hand at Barbur when he had finished with ‘The Village of Bemaru’, which was still giving him trouble. The political situation was not mentioned again and the talk turned to pleasanter subjects: to books and horses, mutual friends and the prospects of
shikar
in the cold weather. ‘Do you remember that Christmas we spent at Morala,’ said Wally, ‘and the evening we brought down eight teal between us at one go, and seven of them fell into the river and we had to go in after them because the
shikari
couldn't swim? Do you remember –’

A sudden and stronger gust of wind whined through the bushes and raised a cloud of dust that set him coughing. Mingled with the dust were a few rain drops, and he scrambled to his feet, exclaiming: ‘Glory be! I believe it's going to rain. That's something to be thankful for. We could do with a good downpour provided it doesn't wash the whole place away in a river of mud. Well, I must be off. Time I got back to my neglected duties if I don't want to get a rap over the knuckles from my respected Chief. See you sometime next week. And in the meantime I'll have a talk with William, and think about discontinuing the sports – though I suspect you're exaggerating, you old Job's Comforter. No, don't see me to the gate: Taimus is out there.
Salaam aleikoum!
’

‘And the same to you, you poor purblind blinkered off-scouring of an Irish bog. And for God's sake don't go trailing your coat riding around the countryside without an escort again. It's too damned unhealthy.’

‘ “Too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,” ’ declaimed Wally soulfully. ‘Ah, away with you! It's a pessimist ye‘are and I don't know how I put up with you at all, at all.’ He laughed again, and gripped Ash's hand: ‘Be easy now; I'll watch out for myself, I promise. Next time I'll bring a posse with me, all armed to the teeth. Will that satisfy you?’

‘I shan't be satisfied until you and Kelly and the rest of our fellows are safe back in Mardan again,’ replied Ash with a worn smile, ‘But for the present I suppose I shall have to settle for an armed posse. Mind now that you don't move without it, you benighted bog-trotter.’

‘Cross-me-heart,’ said Wally cheerfully, suiting the action to the word. ‘Not that I shall get the chance if your depressing view of the future turns out to be correct. Ah well, as Gul Baz would say “All things are with God”.
Ave,
Ashton,
morituri te salutant!
’ He flung up an arm in the Roman salute and strode off singing ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ in a loud, tuneful voice and as though he had not a care in the world.

62

Apart from an occasional spatter of drops, the threatened storm did not break until close on sunset, and Wally arrived back at the Residency only lightly bespeckled by raindrops and in excellent spirits. But once there he had been brought sharply back to earth, for he was met with a message that ordered him to report to Sir Louis Cavagnari the instant he returned.

As the order had been given more than two hours earlier, the reception he received from his Chief was not cordial. Sir Louis had suffered a severe blow to his self-esteem and he was still fuming with anger and inclined to blame all those who had witnessed the mistreatment of the Hindu by the Afghan sentries, but failed to inform him of it. In particular the officer in command of the escort, whose business it was to have known of the incident and reported it at once, either to him or to his secretary, Jenkyns.

If young Walter knew about it and had said nothing, by God he'd give the boy a piece of his mind. And if he did not know, then he should have known. His Indian officers ought to have told him about the disgraceful treatment that had been meted out to a Hindu gentleman who had merely called to pay his respects to the British Envoy. How many others had also been refused admittance by the Afghans? Was this the only would-be caller who had been turned away, or merely the latest?

Sir Louis required an answer to these questions at once, and the fact that Lieutenant Hamilton, when sent for, could not be found, had done nothing to soothe his ill-humour, and Wally, who had never seen his hero really angry before and thought of him as a man whom nothing and no one could ruffle, discovered his error within minutes of his return.

The Envoy had found relief for his pent-up rage in giving his military attaché not the ‘rap over the knuckles’ so recently and lightly referred to, but a coldly furious dressing-down of major proportions. A hail of questions had rattled about Wally's ears, and when at last he was given the opportunity to speak, he had disclaimed any knowledge of the incident involving the Hindu, promised to speak severely to all those under his command who had seen it and not reported it, and suggested that they had only kept silent out of consideration for Sir Louis, as it reflected great
shurram
(dishonour) on the Envoy and every member of the Mission that such things should be done by the Afghans, and even greater
shurram
to speak of it and thereby put the Sahibs to shame. But he would certainly talk to them and make them understand that any further incidents of this kind should be reported at once.

‘That will be unnecessary,’ said Sir Louis icily. ‘I intend to ensure that there shall be no more. You will go at once to the Afghan guard and tell them that I do not desire their services any longer, and that they are dismissed and will leave immediately. See to it please. And mount a double guard of your own men. Now send Jenkyns to me.’

A curt nod dismissed Wally, who saluted smartly and withdrew, conscious of an odd feeling that his knees were made of india-rubber and that he had recently been run over by a railway train. The sweat that was running down his face and neck was not solely due to the heat, and he mopped it dry with his handkerchief and having drawn a deep breath and let it out again slowly, shook himself like a dog coming out of water and went off to fetch William and dismiss the Afghan guard.

The guard commander had questioned his authority to do so, insisting that his men were there by order of the Amir and for the protection of the ‘foreigners’. But Wally's command of Pushtu was excellent (Ash had seen to that) and smarting from the effects of that tongue-lashing from his Chief, he was in no mood to put up with what he regarded as Afghan shennanigans. Just as Cavagnari had vented his pent-up wrath on Wally's head, so Wally in turn found relief for his own feelings in telling the Afghans what they could do with themselves and why. They had not lingered.

That done, he had turned his attention to speaking strongly to his jawans on the unwisdom of keeping silence when they saw dishonour being put upon them themselves and the entire British Mission. But the replies he had received had shaken him, for they confirmed everything Ash had said about the insults that were hurled at any soldier or servant from the Residency who had the temerity to appear in the city, and the reason why this had been kept from the Sahibs.

‘We were ashamed to repeat such things to you,’ explained Jemadar Jiwand Singh, speaking for the Guides; and later Wally's own bearer, fat Pir Baksh, had used the self-same words on behalf of the many servants who had accompanied the British Mission to Kabul.

‘I suppose the Chief
does
know what's going on?’ said Wally uneasily, talking the matter over later that evening with Dr Kelly while the storm that had been threatening since late afternoon raged above Kabul. ‘I mean about… Well, things like the ill-feeling there is against us – the Mission – among the Afghans; and all that row and rumpus they are kicking up in and around Kabul.’

The doctor's eyebrows rose and he said placidly: ‘Of course he does. He's got spies all over the shop. Don't be a young ass.’

‘He didn't know about the Afghan guard turning people away,’ said Wally, troubled. ‘None of us knew until today. None of us four, that is, though apparently all the rest knew what was going on inside our gates and under our very noses. Did
you
know that any of our fellows who go into the city get insulted by the Kabulis? I didn't, and it makes me wonder just how much our lot have been keeping from us, and how many of the rumours we hear are true. Or if the Chief even hears half of them. Do you suppose he knows?’

‘You can be sure he does,’ insisted Rosie loyally. ‘He's always been up to every rig and row, and there have never been any flies on him. So don't be worrying your head about him. He's a great man, so he is.’

‘Damn you, Rosie, I'm not worrying,’ said Wally indignantly, flushing up to the roots of his hair. ‘Nor have I got the wind up. But – but I only learned today that the local population have decided that those mounted sports I've been putting on are solely designed to show ‘em that the regiments of the Raj can beat the stuffing out of them with one hand tied behind our backs; and that they resent them accordingly.’