The Far Pavilions (118 page)

‘No, just without that particular form of prejudice,’ said Ash thoughtfully. ‘And it's too late for me to acquire it now.’

Wally laughed and observed that Ash did not know how lucky he was; and after an appreciable pause, said a little uncertainly and with an unaccustomed hint of diffidence in his voice: ‘Could you… can you tell me about her? What is she like? – I don't mean what does she look like, I mean what is it you see in her?’

‘Integrity. And tolerance –
bardat
, which Koda Dad once told me was a “rare flower”. Juli doesn't make harsh judgements, she tries to understand, and make allowances.’

‘What else? There must be something else.’

‘Of course – though I should have thought that by itself would have been enough for most people. She is…’ Ash hesitated, searching for words that would describe what Anjuli meant to him, and then said slowly: ‘She is the other half of me. Without her, I am not complete. I don't know why this should be, I only know it is so; and that there is nothing I can't tell her, or talk to her about. She can ride like a Valkyrie and she has all the courage in the world, yet at the same time she is like – like a quiet and beautiful room where one can take refuge from noise and storms and ugliness, and sit back and feel peaceful and happy and completely content: a room that will always be there and always the same… Does that sound very dull to you? It doesn't to me. But then I don't want constant change and variety and stimulation in a wife; I can get plenty of that in everyday life and see it happening all around me. I want love and companionship, and I've found that in Juli. She is loving and loyal and courageous. And she is my peace and rest. Does that tell you what you want to know?’

‘Yes,’ said Wally, and smiled at him. ‘I'd like to meet her.’

‘So you shall. This evening, I hope.’

Wally had been sitting with his legs drawn up and his hands clasped about them, and now he dropped his chin on his knees, and staring ahead of him at the sun-glare on the white dust of the road and the back-drop of the foothills that lay shimmering in the heat, said contentedly: ‘You don't know how much I've been looking forward to you coming back to us. And so have a lot of others; the men still talk about you, and they are always asking for news of you and when you'll be coming back. They have a name for you – they call you “Pelham-Dulkhan” – did you know that? and when we are out on an exercise or on manoeuvres, they tell tales about your doings in Afghanistan round the camp fires at night. I've heard them at it…. and now you really are coming back at last – I can't believe it…!’ He drew a long, slow breath and let it out as slowly.

‘Is it kissing the Blarney Stone you've been?’ jeered Ash, grinning at him. ‘Stop spreading on the butter and talk sense for a change. Tell me about this Afghan business.’

Wally returned the grin, and putting personal matters aside, talked instead, and with considerable knowledge and acumen, of the problem posed by Afghanistan – a subject which at that time was much on the minds of men who served in the Peshawar Field Force.

Ash had been out of touch with Frontier matters for many months, and very little of this had so far penetrated to Gujerat, where men had less reason to trouble themselves over the doings of the Amir of a wild and inaccessible country far and far to the north, beyond the Khyber hills and the mountains of the Safed Koh. But now he was reminded again of what Koda Dad had said to him at their last meeting – and Zarin only yesterday – and as he listened to Wally, he felt as though he had been living in a different world…

During the past few years the Amir of Afghanistan, Shere Ali, had found himself in the unenviable position of the ‘corn between the upper and the lower millstones' – the simile was his own; the northern and uppermost one being Russia and the lower Great Britain, both of whom had designs on his country.

The latter had already annexed the Punjab and the Border-land beyond the Indus, while the former had swallowed the ancient principalities of Tashkent, Bokara, Kohkund and Kiva. Now Russian armies were massing on the northern frontiers of Afghanistan, and a new Viceroy, Lord Lytton, who combined obstinacy and a lofty ignorance of Afghanistan with a determination to extend the bounds of Empire to the greater glory of his country (and possibly of himself?) had been instructed by Her Majesty's Government to lose no time in sending an Envoy to Afghanistan charged with the task of overcoming the Amir's ‘apparent reluctance’ to the establishment of British Agencies within his dominions.

That the Amir might not wish to establish anything of the sort, or receive any foreign envoy, apparently did not occur to anyone; or if it did, was dismissed as unimportant. Lord Lytton was to impress upon the Amir that ‘Her Majesty's Government must have for their own agents undisputed access to its (Afghanistan's) frontier positions’, together with ‘adequate means of confidentially conferring with the Amir upon all matters as to which the proposed declaration would recognize a community of interests’. They must also be entitled to ‘expect becoming attention to their friendly councils’, while the Amir himself ‘must be made to understand that subject to all allowances for the condition of the country and the character of its population, territories ultimately dependent upon British Power for their defence must not be closed to those of the Queen's officers, or subjects, who may be duly authorized to enter them by the British Government’.

In return for accepting these humiliating terms, Shere Ali would be given advice from British officers as to how he could improve his military resources, together with the promise of British aid against any unprovoked attack by a foreign power, and (if the Viceroy
*
thought fit) a subsidy.

Lord Lytton was wholly convinced that only by bringing Afghanistan under British influence, and thereby turning that turbulent country into a buffer-state, could the advance of Russia be checked and the safety of India assured. And when the Amir proved reluctant to accept a British Mission in his capital of Kabul, the Viceroy warned him that if he refused he would be alienating a friendly power who could pour an army into his country ‘before a single Russian soldier could reach Kabul’ – a threat that merely reinforced Shere Ali's suspicions that the British intended to take over his country and extend their borders to the far side of the Hindu Kush.

The Russians too were pressing the Amir to accept a mission of their own, and both powers offered to sign a treaty with him which included a promise to come to his assistance if the other should attack him. But Shere Ali complained, with some truth, that if he were to ally himself with either power, his people would certainly object to foreign soldiers marching into their country, whatever the pretext, as they had never at any time been kindly disposed towards interlopers.

He could have added, with even more truth, that they were a fanatically independent people, much addicted to intrigue, treachery and murder, and that among their other national traits was an intolerance of rulers (or, if it came to that, of any form of authority whatsoever, other than their own desires). The Viceroy's insistence therefore put the Amir in a very awkward position, and he took the only course he could think of. He temporized, hoping that if he could only spin out the negotiations for long enough, something might turn up to save him from the indignity of being forced to accept and protect a permanent British Mission in Kabul, which could not fail to earn him the contempt of his proud and turbulent subjects.

But the more Shere Ali prevaricated, the more determined the Viceroy became to force a British Mission upon him. Lord Lytton saw Afghanistan as an uncivilized backwater inhabited by savages, and that their ruler should have the impertinence to object to a powerful nation such as Great Britain establishing a Mission in his barbarous country was not only insulting, but laughable.

Shere Ali's Prime Minister, Nur Mohammed, travelled to Peshawar to put his master's case, and though sick and ageing and bitterly resentful of the cruel pressures that were being put upon his Amir, no man could have done more. But all to no avail. The new Viceroy had not hesitated to wriggle out of any promises and obligations entered into during negotiations with his predecessor, while at the same time accusing the Amir of failing to keep to the letter of his own undertakings. And when Nur Mohammed would not give way, the Viceroy's spokesman, Sir Neville Chamberlain, turned on him in a rage, and the Amir's insulted Prime Minister and long-time friend left the Conference Chamber in despair, knowing that his arguments and pleadings had failed and there was nothing left to keep alive for.

The British negotiators had chosen to believe that his illness was merely another excuse to gain time. But Nur had been a dying man when he arrived in Peshawar; and when he died there the rumour spread throughout Afghanistan that the
feringhis
had poisoned him. The Amir sent word to say that he was sending a new Envoy to replace him, but the Viceroy ordered that the negotiations be discontinued for lack of any common ground of agreement, and the new Envoy was sent back, while Lord Lytton turned his attention to subverting the Border tribes with a view to bringing about the collapse of Shere Ali by less open means.

Some of this Ash already knew, for the Peshawar Conference had been in session before he had left for Gujerat, and the issues that had been discussed there had been known and hotly debated in every British mess, Club and bungalow throughout the northern Punjab and the Frontier provinces, in addition to the streets and shops of cities, towns and villages – the British taking the view that the Amir was a typically treacherous Afghan, who was intriguing with the Russians and planning to sign a treaty of alliance with the Tsar that would permit free passage through the Khyber Pass to his armies, while Indian opinion held that the British Raj, in typically treacherous fashion, was plotting to overthrow the Amir and add Afghanistan to the Empire.

But once Ash had left the Punjab behind him, he had found that men talked less of the ‘Russian menace’ than of their own affairs; while from the time he reached Bombay and boarded the slow train that chugged and puffed along the palm-fringed coast towards Surat and Baroda, he had hardly ever heard it mentioned, let alone seriously discussed despite the fact that the two leading English-language newspapers wrote an occasional leader on the subject, criticizing the Government for its failure to take action, or attacking ‘alarmists’ who talked of war.

Insulated by distance and the slower pace of life in Gujerat, Ash had soon lost interest in the political wrangling between the High Gods in Simla and the unhappy ruler of the Land of Cain, and it had come as something of a shock to him to discover from Zarin that here in the north men took the matter seriously, and spoke openly of a second Afghan war:

‘But I don't suppose it will come to that,’ said Wally, not without a tinge of regret. ‘Once the Amir and his advisers realize that the Raj is not prepared to take “No” for an answer, they'll give in gracefully and let us send a Mission to Kabul, and that'll be the end of it. Pity, really – No, I don't mean that of course. But it would have been a terrific experience, fighting one's way through those passes. I'd like to be in a real battle.’

‘You will be,’ said Ash dryly. ‘Even if there isn't an all-out war, the tribes are bound to start some sort of trouble before long, because if, there's one thing they really enjoy, it's taking a slap at the Raj. It's their favourite sport – like bull-fighting is to the Spaniards. We being the bull. A peaceful existence bores them, and if there happens to be a shortage of blood-feuds, or some fiery mullah starts calling for a
Jehad
(holy war), they sharpen up their tulwars and shoulder their muskets, and
Olé
! – they're off again.

Wally laughed, and then his face sobered again and he said thoughtfully: ‘Wigram says that if the Amir does agree to let a British Mission go to Kabul they'll take an escort with them, and he thinks that as Cavagnari is almost certain to be a member of it, the chances are that he'll see to it that the escort is drawn from the Guides. I wonder who they'll send? Faith, what wouldn't I be giving to be one of them. Just think of it – Kabul! Wouldn't you give anything to go there?’

‘No,’ Ash's tone was still dry. ‘Once was enough.’

‘Once…? Oh, of course, you've been there before. What didn't you like about it?’

‘A lot of things. It's attractive enough in its way; especially in the spring when the almond trees are in bloom and the mountains all around still white with snow. But the streets and bazaars are dirty and the houses tumble-down and shoddy, and it wasn't called the “Land of Cain” for nothing! You get the feeling that savagery is near the surface, and could break through at any moment like lava from a dormant volcano and that the line drawn between good-will and bloody violence is thinner there than anywhere else in the world. Not that Kabul belongs to the modern world any more than Bhithor does – in fact they have a lot in common: they both live in the past and are hostile to change and to strangers, while the majority of their citizens not only look like cut-throats, but can behave as such if they happen to take a dislike to you.’