Hart of Empire (14 page)

'Left? To be butchered by the Afghans? I won't do it.'

Boots sounded on the stairway below and, seconds later, Hamilton appeared in the doorway. He had a bloody gash over his right eye and was helmetless. 'The mutineers have broken into the compound below. They bored loopholes in the wall and shot the men guarding the gates.'

'What about the messenger?' asked George.

'He scaled the wall, but I wouldn't wager a rupee on his survival. Our only hope of getting to the barracks now is over the roof.'

'I'm afraid it's too late for that, Walter,' said Kelly. 'They're on the roof too.'

Hamilton's face drained of all colour. 'My God, we're trapped.'

'Not necessarily,' said George. 'My guess is that only a handful of insurgents have made it up ladders and onto the roof. The last thing they'll be expecting is for us to risk an assault from below. So if we do it now, using every able-bodied man, we might take them by surprise. What do you say?'

Hamilton frowned. 'I don't know . . . it sounds very risky. Might we not be better to sit tight and hope the amir comes to our assistance? Even if we do retake the roof, how are we to move Sir Louis and the other badly wounded?'

'We can't,' said Kelly, 'and Harper knows it. Though I doubt that's his real name. He has just told me he's a British captain on undercover duty, and therefore your superior.'

Hamilton looked from George to Kelly and back again. 'Is that true?'

'Yes. You guessed I'd had military training and I confirmed that. What I didn't tell you was that I'm still a soldier. I don't want to pull rank but I will if I have to.'

'Now, just hold on a minute. You say you're a serving captain, but why should I believe you?'

'Because--'

'Hamilton Sahib!' a voice hailed from below.

The lieutenant ran out to the landing and looked down the stairs. 'What is it, Mehtab Singh?'

'The Afghans in the courtyard have set fire to the building. The flames are spreading.'

George joined Hamilton on the landing from where they could both see, through the window overlooking the front of the building, the first plumes of black smoke. 'That settles it. It's the roof or nothing.'

'All right.' Hamilton turned to the Sikh jemadar who, with Ilderim and Kelly, had joined them on the landing. 'Mehtab Singh, gather all the able-bodied and any wounded who can walk on the top-floor landing. Leave the rest with a pistol so they can decide how it ends.'

'Sahib.'

George returned to the bedroom in which Cavagnari and Pir Ali lay unconscious. He knelt next to the
munshi
and shook him gently by the arm. There was no response and he had to accept that Pir Ali was all but dead, and that he would never learn what the spy had found out about the cloak, if anything. He left the room and climbed the stairs to the top-floor landing where he found the remnants of the garrison gathered. They were a motley crew, eighteen in total, including six walking wounded. Some of the Guides were heavily bandaged, others had lost their turbans, but all were armed with a rifle and fixed bayonet. Hamilton, Jenkyns and the doctor had both a sword and a pistol, George a pistol, and Ilderim his rifle and Khyber knife.

'This is it, men,' said Hamilton, the crackle of burning timbers clearly audible from the ground floor, 'it's all or nothing. We're dead men if we don't clear the roof, so let's give it everything. Mehtab Singh and I will lead the way through the trapdoor and, if we survive, provide covering fire for the rest of you. Are there any other volunteers for the covering party?'

A forest of arms went up. 'You and you,' said Hamilton, pointing to George and Ilderim. 'The rest of you are to jump as soon as you reach the gap between the two roofs. Don't hesitate. It looks a long way, but it's manageable. And remember, no quarter to mutineers.'

'No quarter!' roared his men, as they shook their weapons.

'Follow me!' Hamilton tugged open the door of the room that led to the roof, and fired his pistol once before tearing up the stairs, his boots clattering on the wooden steps. Mehtab Singh was close behind him, followed by George and Ilderim. More shots rang out as Hamilton and Mehtab Singh passed through the trapdoor, then a scream of pain. When George poked his head through he fully expected to see two bodies and a host of armed mutineers waiting to despatch him. But the only casualty was a prone Afghan clutching a stomach wound. Both Hamilton and Mehtab Singh were still alive, the latter shot in the left arm, and were firing at the backs of six retreating Afghans as they ran across the roof to the rear of the house. George leapt clear of the trapdoor and opened fire, as did Ilderim, and one of the Afghans slumped to the floor. The others scrambled onto and down the ladders they had used to scale the Mess House from the flat roofs of the houses behind.

Hamilton poked his head through the trapdoor. 'For God's sake, hurry! The roof's clear but it won't be for long.'

The first Guide emerged and was directed by Hamilton to the front right corner of the building where the gap to the lower roof of the Sikh infantry barrack was a nerve-racking perpendicular angle of ten feet. 'Jump!' roared Hamilton.

The soldier hesitated for a moment, then took a short run up and leapt into the abyss. Others followed, though by now the mutineers were firing from both the tops of the ladders and the upper Bala Hissar - bullets were ricocheting all over the Mess House roof. One Guide was hit in the back as he was about to jump, and tumbled three floors to the alley below, his body hitting the stone paving with a sickening thud.

George was certain the shot had come from a mutineer poking his head above a ladder so he waited, pistol outstretched, for the man to reappear and when he did he shot him. With a groan, the mutineer fell. By now black smoke from the fire had obscured much of the Mess House, enabling Jenkyns, Kelly and the surviving Guides to make it across safely to the barracks. 'Your turn,' shouted Hamilton, to George and Ilderim.

George was in the act of holstering his pistol when a body stirred beside him. It was the wounded mutineer. Before George could react, the mutineer had grasped his fallen rifle and was pointing it at George's chest. At point-blank range he knew the Afghan could not miss. He waited for the explosion, his body tensed against the bullet. But as the Afghan squeezed the trigger a blade flew through the air, entered his back and exited his chest, its bloody red point emerging a full two inches. The Afghan dropped his rifle and toppled sideways.

'That makes up for last time,
huzoor
,' said Ilderim, as he ran forward, placed a foot on the mutineer's back and, with a loud grunt, pulled free his Khyber knife. He then wiped it clean on the mutineer's
kurta
before replacing it in his belt. All the while George was staring at his assailant's body, finding it hard to believe that he had cheated death by the narrowest margin for the second time in a matter of weeks.

His shoulder was tugged. '
Huzoor!
'

'What?'

'It's our turn. Let's go.'

At the edge of the building Ilderim threw his rifle to some Guides waiting below. Then he and George took a short run up and jumped together. Ilderim made the distance with feet to spare, though he stumbled forward on landing. George miscalculated and landed with both feet on the parapet. For a second it seemed his momentum would carry him forward to safety. But then his right foot slipped on a loose piece of masonry and he began to fall backwards. He threw up his arms in a futile attempt to regain his balance and a strong hand gripped his wrist to pull him, sprawling, on to the roof. The swarthy, bearded face of one of Hamilton's Pathans smiled down at him. 'A lucky escape, sahib.'

'Yes, and not my first.'

A bullet pinged through the air, close to George's head, and he and the Pathan ducked behind the parapet where they were joined by Ilderim. George looked up to the Mess House roof, waiting for the final pair to make the leap. The building was burning fiercely now, and screams were coming from the second-floor rooms where the wounded were being engulfed by flames. George turned away, unable to watch. As he did so another jumper landed beside him with a thump, and rolled forward. It was Hamilton.

'Where's Mehtab Singh?' asked George.

'Dead. He was shot in the head as we made our way across the roof. Sepoy,' said Hamilton, addressing the Pathan next to George, 'is Jemadar Jewand Singh still alive?'

'Yes, sahib, he's down in the courtyard with the wounded.'

'And the others who jumped across?'

'There too, sahib.'

'Good. And where is most of the firing coming from?'

'All over, sahib, but particularly from the houses beyond the mud wall,' said the Pathan, pointing, 'and the cavalry lines and stables.'

Hamilton lifted his head a few inches to get a better view of the outer compound beyond the barracks. 'There seem to be even more bodies out there than before. Did they try to rush you again?'

'Twice, sahib, but a few well-aimed volleys had them running like sheep.'

'Well done.' Hamilton turned to George. 'Come with me, Harper, and bring Ilderim Khan. This place is pretty solid, with gates at either end of a central courtyard dividing the Sikh block below us from that of the Muhammadans. But the outer gate opposite the cavalry lines is weak and needs to be strengthened. If we can do that we might even hold out till nightfall, or at least till Yakub comes to our rescue.'

'Do you still think he will?' asked George. 'It's been at least three hours since Daoud Shah was dragged from his horse. Yakub must know. So why hasn't he sent his own troops to restore order?'

'I don't know. But one thing is certain: if he leaves us to our fate, a British Army will march on Kabul, depose Yakub and take control of the country. He must know that too.'

'Yes,' said George, nodding, 'which makes me suspect he's thrown in his lot with the mutineers. Either that or he knows his own troops won't obey orders to save the Feringhees.'

'That's possible, but it's not a scenario I want to contemplate because the closest British troops are eighty miles distant in the Kurram valley. Even if they knew our predicament, they could never get here in time.'

A loud boom echoed from the far side of the compound, close to the cavalry lines, followed by an explosion at the front of the barracks block, shaking the whole building and throwing up a cloud of masonry and dust. They all ran to the parapet at the front of the Sikh quarters, from where they could clearly see, at a distance of no more than 150 yards, a team of Afghan gunners reloading an artillery piece behind a low mud wall to the left of the main gate into the compound. The handful of Guides on either side of the officers was trying to target the gunners, but the return fire from hundreds of Afghan riflemen made a carefully aimed shot practically impossible.

'Christ, they've brought up another gun,' said Hamilton. 'We'll have to knock that one out now.'

'How, in Heaven's name, will we do that?' said George. 'We'll be cut down if we try to cross the compound.'

'We did it once, and we can do it again. What time is it?'

George pulled out his pocket-watch. 'A quarter to twelve.'

'Then we'll rush the gun at midday,' said Hamilton. 'That should give us enough time to prepare.'

George was far from convinced that this charge would succeed. But then an idea formed in his head: a means of extricating both himself and Ilderim from their horrific predicament with, if all went well, a chance of saving the garrison. 'I've had an idea, Hamilton, but I think we should discuss it with the others.'

'Yes indeed,' said the lieutenant, lowering his head as another bullet whizzed by. 'Let's go below. The steps are just over there.'

They descended a single flight of dusty steps from the roof and emerged on the right side of the barracks' vaulted entrance, facing a second stairway that led to the roof of the Muhammadan block. Hamilton pointed to the flimsy outer door, made from unseasoned planks. 'I had that made when we arrived in July to mask the stairs to the roof but there doesn't seem to be much point in barricading them now. If the gun gets its range it will disintegrate like matchwood.'

Another explosion shook the barracks wall, bringing dust and plaster down on their heads. 'As I said,' he added, 'we have little time.' He hammered on the huge iron-hinged inner door.

'Who is it?' demanded a Guide on the other side.