The Challenging Heights (27 page)

The work went along without serious harm to either side until a man called Shimi Par, who was well known as a troublemaker, appeared in the area. A Persian by birth, he had arrived in India via Karachi and made his way to Waziristan where he had made a reputation for himself as an orator in the mosques. Gradually it became noticed that he was preaching a jehad, a holy war, against the government of India, and suddenly all the tribes in the area were on the move.

There was a hurried exodus further south of families and government officials from Peshawar, and Orr flew in from Simla with orders.

‘We can’t get land forces up to the front in time,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to run the show. We’re to drop messages warning the tribes to return to their villages within forty-eight hours with the threat of air action if they don’t.’

Two days later, Dicken took off with another aircraft, to make sure the tribes had disappeared. He could see no movement below him and was on the point of giving up the search when he caught sight of a cloud of dust moving along a narrow valley two and a half miles south of Kat. The country they were flying over provided good cover, and with the tribesmen moving at speed, it was important that they be stopped before they broke into open country.

‘Get a message to Group Headquarters,’ he warned Babington who was flying with him. ‘Give map references and ask for instructions. It’s not our job to start a war.’

For a long time the aircraft circled, while Babington struggled with his set, but it was impossible to raise Group.

‘The ball’s in our court,’ Dicken decided and, indicating to the other aircraft to follow him, pushed his nose down and headed for the moving tribesmen.

Swooping along the valley, one behind the other, they dropped their bombs, and as they lifted, Babington’s gun began to clatter. Swinging round, they strafed the column again and again, the howl of the engine echoing back off the craggy slopes of the gorges. By the time they had finished, the column had scattered in both directions, some riding ahead, others hurrying back the way they had come, men on foot scrambling up the slopes to crouch behind rocks to fire defiant shots at them.

Before first light, the aircraft took off again, five of them this time, and found the tribesmen grouped together round their camp fires. As they returned, more aircraft took off to keep them moving and when Dicken went up again in the evening, it was clear Shimi Par had given up his invasion and his men were straggling homewards.

As he landed, the telephone went and he lifted it, expecting Orr’s congratulations. The message was somewhat different.

‘It’s started,’ Orr said.

‘What’s started, sir?’

‘Rezhanistan. The bloody place’s risen in rebellion and the whole place’s become a battlefield, with the British Legation smack in the middle.’

It was the girls in their summer dresses who had caused all the trouble. Young Rezhan females dressed in European style passing through tribal country to Peshawar to be educated in the European manner had stirred up the resentment of the Amwaris, a backward and fanatical tribe who had never paid taxes, and they had risen as one man prepared to forfeit their lives rather than send a quota of their daughters on some ungodly journey such as had been ordered. To unveil their women was against their religion and, in a country where religion was the dominant feature of life, the bitterness spread, and the Amwaris, joined by other tribes, had taken up a position astride the main road that ran from Ambul, the capital of Rezhanistan, to the Khyber pass and the safety of India. All road communication along the route was cut, and the tribesmen, joined now by Bohmands and other Pathan tribes, had invaded Ambul, blowing up bridges en route and raising to revolt the tribes in the southern half of the state. The British Legation was cut off and left with the Ambul wireless station as their only communication with the outside world and that very doubtful because thousands of armed Rezhans were marching on the city.

In Peshawar and stations along the frontier, Intelligence and Equipment Officers hurriedly began going through their papers to find out what they knew about Rezhanistan. The Rezhans were Pathans, speaking Pushtu, and virtually a law unto themselves. Every man was armed with a long rifle or a jezail, which could shoot further than a normal British rifle, and they had all been taught to fight from childhood. Their faith in Islam far outweighed all their earthly possessions and they were devoted to their religious leaders. Their country was a desolation of great peaks and deep valleys, of precipitous gorges and rushing grey rivers – barren and beautiful in the intense sunlight, and when the shadows lengthened and the peaks turned gold, pink and mauve in the setting sun. Every road and path and pass of it was said to be soaked in blood.

The rebel leader was a man called Bachi-i-Adab, the son of a water carrier. British Intelligence knew him as a bandit and the hero or villain of every fantastic story that came out of the bazaars. His quarrel was only with the King of Rezhanistan and he was not interfering with ordinary travellers, but a force of the King’s cavalry sent to deal with him had deserted to him. By this time, disaffected Kohistanis, Afridis and Waziris, to say nothing of supporters of Shimi Par, had joined him and forts to the north-west of Ambul had been captured and the whole yelling horde of fanatics was camped to the west of the British Legation, their bullets knocking in the windows as they fired on the King’s troops to the east. The possibility of a massacre was only too great and preparations were made in case a decision was taken to evacuate the women and children.

Dicken was among the officers called to a conference by Orr. The commanding officers of all squadrons were present, as well as the Air Officer Commanding in India and staff officers from Peshawar and Simla, among them, Dicken noticed, Diplock, representing his chief, Air Commodore St Aubyn.

‘This operation,’ the AOC began, ‘is going to fall entirely on the RAF. The army can’t get through because all bridges have been blown up and the casualties could be enormous because the Rezhans would initially resist such an invasion. However, if we’re to bring these people out, we’re going to need far more aeroplanes than India can provide and I’ve asked for Victorias to be sent from Baghdad.’

There were a few sidelong glances. Though the Victorias could carry twenty soldiers and their kit, their range left something to be desired.

‘That’s a distance of nearly three thousand miles, sir.’ The voice was Diplock’s.

‘Two thousand eight hundred to be exact,’ the AOC said mildly. ‘They’ll need refuelling en route. But it’s the only course open to us. They can reach Karachi in two days. There’s only one question in doubt: is the Victoria able to take off with a heavy load in Ambul, which is 6000 feet above sea level, and climb to a height of 10,000 feet to cross the mountains. Last year it was decided they could do no such thing.’

‘We can take everything off them that’s not needed,’ Orr offered.

‘We can try,’ the AOC agreed. ‘There’s also a Hinaidi heavy transport in Iraq, waiting to take the Foreign Secretary home from India. The total evacuating power, therefore, consists of twenty-four DH9s and two Wapitis, with, two thousand eight hundred miles away, a number of Victorias and the Hinaidi. I’d like to know your views, gentlemen.’

‘It can’t be done,’ Diplock said. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘Quetta’s the same height above sea level as Ambul,’ Dicken pointed out. ‘Why not carry out tests there? If the Victorias can get off from Quetta, they can get out of Ambul.’

The AOC looked round at the assembled officers. ‘I think we should try,’ he said.

Five days later, the first Victoria arrived, piloted by Hatto, and Dicken flew down to Quetta with Orr to see how it was behaving.

It was a huge machine, dwarfing the Tiger Moth alongside it. With its biplane tail, four huge wheels and two enormous wings, it looked far from easy to manoeuvre.

Hatto greeted them cheerfully. ‘Had to land at Bandar Abbas for fuel,’ he said. ‘We found we’d lost the weight off the trailing aerial so we used a tin of bully beef, but the wife of the local agent saw it and, as she’d eaten nothing but mutton for months, she persuaded us to change it for an old flat-iron.’

His manner was optimistic but he was worried. ‘She’ll stagger off in four hundred yards with a weight equal to that of twenty passengers,’ he said. ‘Then she’ll gain just enough height to fly not over but through the passes to India. Thank God it’s the cool season. In the summer heat, we couldn’t do it. We’ll be operating in conditions for which the Victorias were never designed and the engines’ll be labouring at full throttle all the time. However, with everything, even the wireless operator, out of the machine, I reckon we can just reach Ambul and return with a maximum number of passengers, though we’ll be dusting the snow off the mountains with the wingtips.’

‘The crews’ll be unarmed,’ Orr pointed out. ‘The British Minister in Ambul’s asked for it. The rebels are accustomed to indiscriminate bombing by the Rezhan Air Force and it’s felt it’ll reassure them. We’ll provide the usual gooly chits.’

As he climbed inside the Victoria to decide what else could be removed from its fitting, Hatto took Dicken to one side.

‘She’s due off any day, old boy,’ he said quietly. ‘Did you know?’

‘Zoë?’

‘Yes, she’s expected at Baghdad. She hopes to make good time to Aleppo. They’re refuelling there and making it a rest stop. This chap Packer’s expected to bring her in bang on the button.’

Dicken said nothing and Hatto looked at him curiously. ‘Perhaps if she pulls this off,’ he said, ‘she’ll settle down.’

That same night a faint message was received at Quetta from Ambul. The British Minister was known to have a small personal transmitter-receiver and, when the Rezhan wireless station went off the air, he had been forced to use it. The message was faint but it was possible to understand it, ‘…Request reconnaissance aeroplane as soon as possible.’

There were no more messages, no request for an evacuation, only silence, a silence that was hard to accept because everything was ready. The engines of the DH9s were run up every morning and Hatto’s Victorias were awaiting the call. They already knew the conditions for landing at Arpur, the aerodrome just outside Ambul, but without permission from the Rezhan authorities they couldn’t even contemplate a rescue.

That day
The Times of India
erupted in a shout of delight to the effect that Zoë Toshack and her navigator, Angus Packer, were expected very soon in Karachi in their Munson Ghost.

‘Everything,’ they reported, ‘is reported as going exactly to plan. They will fly from England in five days and the 1550-mile trip from Baghdad, with one stop for refuelling at Bandar Abbas, will be completed in just over twenty-four hours. From Bombay, they will fly to Karachi. After that starts the more difficult part of the journey over a wild unpopulated country with few facilities for aircraft, then the last stretch across the Java and Timor Seas to Darwin and on to Brisbane.’

It was beginning to look as though Zoë might pull it off and get her name in the annals of flying at last and Dicken even found himself hoping she’d succeed.

He was still studying the newspaper when Orr appeared. ‘We’ve decided to send up one of your machines,’ he said. ‘The AOC’s unhappy about the silence and we’ve got to try to re-establish contact by dropping a Popham panel.’

The Popham panel was an ingenious apparatus like a Venetian blind which had been devised for ground-to-air communication. When closed it showed dark because the tops of the slats were painted green, but, held closed by strong elastic, the slats could be opened by a cord to show the white on the other side, so that it became a simple device for sending morse.

The following day Diplock flew in. His attitude was that, in view of the danger, one of the younger pilots should be sent because he could best be spared.

Orr’s heavy brows came down. ‘That’s a damn-fool idea,’ he snorted.

Diplock’s face tightened. ‘It’s Air Commodore St Aubyn’s considered opinion,’ he said.

‘Then it’s a bloody stupid one!’ As usual, Orr was pulling no punches, even to the point of making enemies. ‘If anyone goes, it should be someone with experience.’

‘The Air Commodore–’

‘The Air Commodore’s not running this show!’ Orr snapped.

‘Sir–!’ Diplock tried again and Orr rounded on him, his face red, his moustache bristling.

‘Who the devil
are
you?’ he snapped. ‘I’ve seen you before. You seem to make a profession of arriving like a prophet of doom to veto every damn thing I suggest! Let the Air Commodore look after the little bits of paper on his desk and leave the flying to me. He was always better at flying desks than aeroplanes, anyway!’

As Diplock disappeared with a flea in his ear, Orr turned to Dicken. ‘I’d like
you
to do the trip,’ he said. ‘The panel’s got to be dropped close to the Legation building and, because you’ve got to have enough petrol for the return flight, you’re going to have no more than fifteen minutes overhead. They’ll also probably shoot at you and there’ll be no landing in the mountains on the way back. You’ll need a good wireless operator. We have to get them all out. You must make that clear.’

Choosing Babington because he knew he was good and quite unflappable, Dicken took off the following morning for the hundred-and-forty-mile flight to Ambul and back. For the first forty miles, they climbed over the featureless plain that constituted the north-west corner of India but, as they drew near the Khyber Pass, the scenery changed to the foothills and lower ranges of the Hindu Kush. Because they hadn’t reached their maximum height, they threaded their way through the valleys, rugged mountains towering on either side to eight or nine thousand feet, snow-covered and contrasting sharply with the blackness of the gorges and valleys between. After an hour they approached the Boragil Pass, where twin peaks 10,000 feet high looked like sentinels guarding the route. At the other side of the pass the terrain levelled off as it debouched on to the plain of Ambul, a stretch of land sprinkled with villages and cultivated plots 6000 feet above sea level.