Far Pavilions (29 page)

Major Harlowe, for his part, had paid no particular attention to Ensign Pelham-Martyn beyond vaguely noting that his pretty little daughter seemed to have attracted two personable young admirers. He had acknowledged his wife's introductions to Ash and Mr Garforth, and promptly forgotten their names, though he would nod amiably to them whenever they met at one of the staging posts on the road, and twit his daughter on having acquired two beaux already.

The road wound through the desolate Salt Ranges that lay between Jhelum and the great cantonment of Rawalpindi, and swept onward, past the ruins of Taxila and among low rocky hills that showed above a barren plain like the bones of starving cattle, to end on the banks of the Indus under the grim shadow of Attock Fort. Here the travellers descended, and having paid off their drivers, crossed the river by ferry and continued their journey in fresh relays of dâk-
gharis
along a road that ran parallel to the Kabul River. The autumn rains had turned the river to a swirling, rust-stained torrent, but the plains were still parched and dusty, and beyond the swollen river the land stretched away towards the hills, lion-coloured and rock-strewn, its trees and fields dried to a uniform gold by the furnace heat of the summer months.

The hills were nearer now, and the horizon no longer limitless but bounded by bleak folds and ridges of rock that changed colour with every hour of the day: at one moment seeming fifty miles away and as blue and transparent as glass, and at another a mere furlong distant, rust-brown and streaked with the black shadows of innumerable gullies. Behind them the Border hills and the mountains of Malakand rose up in ridge after ridge like frozen waves breaking on the rim of the plain, guardians of a harsh land inhabited by a score of turbulent tribes who recognized no law save that of force, lived in fortified villages and indulged in savage blood-feuds, and waged perpetual war either with each other or the British. For this was the North-West Frontier: the Gateway of India through which Alexander of Macedon and his conquering Legions had marched when the world was young. Beyond its inhospitable passes lay the Kingdom of Sher Ali, Amir of Afghanistan. And beyond that, the vast and menacing Empire of the Tsars.

To Belinda, the countryside seemed depressingly bleak and empty, but at least there was no lack of traffic on the Peshawar road, and looking out from the window of the dâk-
ghari
she could see an occasional Englishman on horseback or driving a trap, as well as the now familiar country carts and plodding pedestrians; and once a column of British soldiers on the march tramped past, a file of laden baggage elephants rolling in their wake, and the thick dust dimming their scarlet coats to an indeterminate and rusty grey.

There were camels too, creatures that she could remember seeing as a child: long lines of them carrying enormous loads that jolted and swayed like bumboats in a choppy sea, high above the inevitable goats and cattle that were being herded from one village to the next. As they neared the outskirts of Nowshera the traffic thickened and the drivers of phaetons and
tikka-gharis
, tongas and
ekkas
, whipped up their ponies for a final burst of speed and raced each other into the town, scattering pedestrians like startled chickens and raising a smothering cloud of dust that set their passengers choking. The town was a small one with a dâk-bungalow that differed very little from a dozen others on the road, and it was not until Ash came to say goodbye that Belinda realized that this was where he must leave them.

He stood hat in hand in the late evening sunlight, gazing at her with his heart in his eyes and finding that it was impossible to say any of the things he had meant to say, because her parents were listening and it was plain to him from Mrs Harlowe's flustered manner and her husband's polite indifference that nothing had as yet been said on the subject of an engagement. In the circumstances he could only press Belinda's hand, and assure her that he would ride over to Peshawar at the first opportunity to give himself the pleasure of calling upon her. Mrs Harlowe said that they would be happy to see him; though not for a week or so, for what with all the unpacking… perhaps next month? and her husband said vaguely: ‘Of course, of course, adding that around Christmas most of the young fellows managed to get a few days' leave from their regiments and he dared say that Mr – er – er? would be able to do so too and must certainly look them up. Belinda blushed and murmured something to the effect that she hoped Mr Pelham-Martyn would be able to visit Peshawar long before Christmas, and at this point the driver of the Harlowes'
ghari
, who had been superintending a change of horses, announced that he was now ready to take the road.

Major Harlowe embarked his family once more, the doors slammed shut, a whip cracked and they were gone in a cloud of dust, leaving Ash standing in the roadway feeling depressed and inadequate and wishing that he had summoned up enough courage to kiss Belinda before them all and thereby force the issue. Mrs Harlowe's reference to ‘sometime next month’ had not been encouraging, but it was her husband's remark about ‘a few days’ leave at Christmas' that had given him a really disagreeable jolt, for he had looked forward to riding over to Peshawar within a day or two of his arrival, and until that moment it had not occurred to him that leave to do so might not be granted to a newly joined subaltern; or not unless he could give some particularly pressing reason for requesting it, and he could hardly discuss the subject of his engagement to Belinda with his Adjutant or the Commanding Officer before it had even been mentioned to her father. He could only hope that once Mrs Harlowe had explained matters to her husband, Major Harlowe might demand his presence in Peshawar, or else ride over himself to Mardan. But that would depend largely on his reception of the news, and Ash was suddenly a lot less confident that he would approve it.

‘The Regiment have sent a tonga,’ said Zarin, appearing abruptly at his side. ‘It will not take us all, so I told Gul Baz to hire a second for himself and Mahdoo, and they have gone on ahead with the baggage. The day grows late and there is more than ten
koss
to be covered before we see Mardan. Let us go.’

10

Night falls swiftly in the East, for there is no lingering dusk to soften the transition from daylight to darkness. The Kabul River had been gold with the sunset as Ash and his three companions crossed the bridge of boats at Nowshera, but long before they reached Mardan the moon was high and the shadow of the little star-shaped fort that Hodson built in the years before the Great Mutiny lay black on the milk-white plain.

In the old days, when the Land-of-the-Five-Rivers (the Punjab) was still a Sikh province, and the only British troops within its borders were East India Company regiments stationed at Lahore to uphold the authority of a British Resident, the idea of an elite and highly mobile force, capable of moving to any trouble-spot at a moment's notice, had been conceived by Sir Henry Lawrence, that great and wise administrator who was to die a hero's death during the Mutiny, in the beleaguered Residency at Lucknow.

This ‘fire-brigade’ would consist of one troop of cavalry and two companies of infantry, unhampered by tradition and run on entirely new lines, in that it would combine soldiering with early and accurate intelligence work, and its members – handpicked men commanded by handpicked officers – would wear a loose, comfortable, khaki-coloured uniform that would blend into the dusty background of the Frontier hills, instead of the regulation scarlet coat and tight stock in which a majority of regiments marched, sweltered and suffered in temperatures that made such clothing a torment – and which could be seen from miles away. As a further break with tradition, Sir Henry had named his brain-child ‘The Corps of Guides’ and entrusted the raising of it to one Harry Lumsden, a young man possessed of exceptional ability, character and courage, who had fully justified the choice.

The original headquarters of the new Corps had been at Peshawar, and at first its duties had consisted of dealing with the marauding Frontier tribes, who preyed on the peaceful villagers, carrying off women, children and cattle into the inhospitable Border hills, in defiance of the Sikh Durbar who were nominally in control of the Punjab and in whose name a handful of British officials exercised authority. Later on the Corps had been sent south to fight in the plains round Ferzapore, Mooltan and Lahore, and had served with distinction in the bloody battles of the Second Sikh War.

It was only when the war had ended and the Punjab been annexed by the Company's Government that the Guides had returned once more to the Frontier – though not to Peshawar. The Border having become more settled, they had selected a site near the Kalpani River where the tracks from Swat and Buner meet, and exchanged their tents for a mud-walled fort at Mardan on the plain of Yusafzai. It had been a desolate and treeless spot when Hodson had begun work on the fort, and his wife, Sophia, writing home in January of 1854, had said of it: ‘Picture to yourself an immense plain, flat as a billiard table but not as green, with here and there a dotting of camel-thorn about eighteen inches high by way of vegetation. This, far as the eye can see on the west and south of us, but on the north the everlasting snows of the mighty Himalayas above the lower range which is close to our camp.’

The view had not changed: but the Corps had grown in size and the Guides had planted trees to shade their cantonment, and on this autumn night the garden that Hodson had made for his wife and their only and dearly loved child, who was to die in infancy, was sweet with the scent of jasmine and roses. In the cemetery where the dead of the Ambeyla campaign lay buried, a dozen tombstones gleamed white in the moonlight; and near by, at the junction of three roads, a mulberry tree threw a black patch of shadow above the place where Colonel Spottiswood, Commanding Officer of the Bengal Infantry Regiment that had been sent to relieve the Guides in the black year of 1857, shot himself when his beloved regiment mutinied.

The familiar scents and sounds of the cantonment drifted out to Ash like a greeting. The smell of horses and wood-smoke, of water on parched ground and spiced food cooking over charcoal fires, the stamp and whicker of cavalry chargers tethered in the lines, and the beehive hum of men gossiping after a hard day's work. In the Officers' Mess half-a-dozen voices were singing a popular music-hall ballad to the strains of a tinny piano, and somewhere in the bazaar a tom-tom beat a monotonous counterpoint to the doleful howling of pariah dogs baying the moon. A conch brayed in a temple and from far out on the milky plain beyond the river came the mournful cry of a jackal pack.

‘It is good to be back,’ said Zarin, sniffing the night air with approval. ‘This is better than the heat and noise of the south and the racket of trains.’

Ash made no reply. He was looking about him and realizing that this small, man-made oasis between the foothills of the Himalayas and the wide sweep of the plain would be his home for many years. From here he would ride out with his Regiment to keep the peace of the Border and to fight battles among those hills that showed like folds of crumpled cloth in the moonlight, or to dance, hunt and race in any one of a dozen gay stations from Delhi to Peshawar; but for whatever reason he left it, either on duty or for pleasure, as long as he served with the Guides he would always come back to Mardan…

He turned to grin at Zarin and was about to speak when a figure detached itself from the shadow of a neem tree by the roadside, and moving out into the moonlight, brought the tonga to a halt.

‘Who is it?’ asked Ash in the vernacular – but even as he spoke the memory of another moonlight night came back to him, and without waiting for an answer he leapt from the tonga and was in the dusty road, stooping to touch the feet of an old man who stood by the horse's head.

‘
Koda Dad
! – it is you, my father.’ There was a break in Ash's voice and the past came back to him as though lit by bright flashes of lightning.

The old man laughed and embraced him. ‘So you have not forgotten me, my son. That is good, for I do not think I should have known you. The little boy has grown into a tall strong man – almost as tall as I; or is it that old age has shrivelled me somewhat? My sons sent word that you were coming, so I made the journey to Mardan, and Awal Shah and I have waited by the roadside these last three nights, not knowing when you could come.’

Awal Shah stepped out of the shadows and brought his hand up to a salute; his father and Zarin might forget that Ash was an officer, but Jemadar Awal Shah would not.

‘Salaam, Sahib,’ said Awal Shah. ‘The
gharis
being delayed, it was not known when you would reach here. But my father wished to see you before you made your salaams to the Colonel Sahib. Therefore we waited.’

‘Yes, yes,’ nodded Koda Dad, ‘for tomorrow will not do. Tomorrow you will be an officer-Sahib with many duties to perform, and your time will not be your own. But tonight, before you have reported yourself to those in authority, you are still Ashok and may, if you will, spare half an hour to speak to an old man.’