The Far Pavilions (126 page)

Ash sighed deeply and relaxed. He felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders: a dragging weight of responsibility that like Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea had been growing steadily heavier and more irksome to carry. Though he had the sense to realize that this was largely his own fault for being conceited enough to imagine that the information he had been at such pains to collect would be considered sufficiently important to affect the decisions of the Viceroy's council, and to weigh the scales of power in favour of peace instead of war. He should have known better.

His usefulness – if any – had lain only in the fact that his messages served to confirm or contradict the accuracy of tales sent in by native spies who were prone to exaggerate, or suspected of being over-credulous. As a check on such stories his own efforts had probably been of use, but apart from that they had counted for very little; and made no difference at all to the Viceroy's decisions – or to anyone else's. The vital issue of Peace or War must already have been decided upon before ever he himself volunteered to serve as a spy, and it would not have been altered except on direct orders from London, or the complete and absolute submission of Shere Ali to the demands of the Viceroy and the Government of India.

‘I needn't have bothered,’ thought Ash. ‘Here have I been thinking of myself as the White Hope of Asia, and imagining that thousands of lives could depend on what I could find out and what use I made of it, and all the time I've been no more than just one more informer spying for the Raj – and not even drawing extra pay and allowances for it!’

The humour of it suddenly struck him and he laughed for the first time in many weeks, and then seeing the startled distaste on Cavagnari's face, apologized:

‘I' m sorry, sir. I didn't mean to offend you. It's only that… I've been taking myself so seriously of late. Seeing myself as a sort of
deus ex machina
with the fate of my friends and the nation – two nations – depending upon me. You are right to get rid of me. I'm not cut out for this sort of work, and I should have had more sense than to let myself be talked into it in the first place.’

He had not expected the older man to understand how he had felt, but Louis Cavagnari was only English by adoption. The blood in his veins was French and Irish, and he too was a romantic – seeing History not only as the story of times past, but as something in the making. Something that he himself could play a part in… Perhaps a great part…

His expression softened and he said: ‘There is no need to talk like that. You have been a great help. Much of the information that you have sent us has proved valuable, so you must not think that your efforts have been wasted. Or that I am not deeply grateful to you for all that you have done, and all that you have attempted to do. No one is more aware than I am of the grave risks you have run and the dangers you have cheerfully faced; and of the sacrifices you have made. In fact once this campaign is over, I shall have no hesitation in recommending that you be awarded a decoration for bravery.’

‘Rats!’ observed Ash inelegantly. ‘I do beg you will do no such thing, sir. I hate to disillusion you, but for someone like myself there has been precious little danger, for I have never felt very different from the people I have met and talked to while I have been here. I haven't had to – to shed a skin, if you know what I mean, or grow another one. That has made it easy for me. That, and the fact that the country has been so disturbed with levies being rushed from point to point, that a stranger in one of the tribal districts no longer stands out like a sore thumb. So you see I have never really felt afraid for myself. I don't think anyone quite understands that; but it has made a great difference. The only thing I have been afraid of, and that weighed on my mind, has been my responsibility, as I saw it, for preventing a disastrous mistake: another – Oh, well, you know all about that, so there's no point in going into it again.’

‘None,’ agreed Cavagnari briefly. ‘On that subject we must agree to differ. But I repeat, I am sincerely grateful to you. I mean that. I am also sorry that our ways have to part. I shall of course pass on to the proper authorities the news you have just brought me regarding Shere Ali's arrival at Mazar-i-Sharif and the state of his health, and also your personal view of the situation. It may make some difference; I don't know. But the conduct of this war is not in my hands. If it were… But that is neither here nor there. This is goodbye then. I presume you will be returning to Mardan? If it would be of any help, I could arrange for you to travel back to Peshawar with one of our convoys.’

‘Thank you, sir, but I think it would be better if I found my own way back. Besides, I'm not sure yet when I shall be leaving. That will be up to my Commanding Officer.’

Cavagnari gave him a sharp, suspicious look but refrained from comment and the two men shook hands and parted. The Political Officer turning back immediately to his desk and the work that demanded his attention, while his erstwhile agent was shown out into the street by the confidential servant who had admitted him, and who now locked and barred the door behind him.

After the heated office the night air felt piercingly cold, and the man who on Cavagnari's orders had brought Ash into the fortified town, and been instructed to wait and see him safely out again, had taken shelter from the wind in the doorway of the opposite house, so that for a moment Ash was afraid he had gone, and spoke anxiously into the windy darkness:

‘Zarin?’

‘I am here,’ said Zarin, coming forward. ‘You have been a long time talking to the Sahib and I am perished with cold. Did your news please him?’

‘Not particularly. He already knew half of it, and will hear the rest within a day or two. But we cannot talk here.’

‘No,’ agreed Zarin. He led the way through the unlighted streets, moving as swiftly and silently as a cat, and presently stopped beside a low, mud-brick building below the outer wall. Ash heard an iron key grate in a lock, and then he was being shown into a small room lit by a single chirag and the red glow from a charcoal brazier that filled the cramped space with a welcome warmth.

‘Your quarters?’ asked Ash, squatting on his heels and spreading out his hands to the glowing coals.

‘No. I have borrowed it from one of the nightwatchmen who is on duty at this time. He will not be back before dawn, so we shall be safe for some hours; and there is much that I wish to hear. Do you know that it is close on seven months since I last saw you? That is more than half a year – and in all that time I have heard nothing. Not one word: save only that Wigram-Sahib had seen and spoken to you on the crest of Sarkai Hill early in November, and that you had asked him to see that a letter went by a safe hand to Attock.’

Zarin had carried that letter himself, and was able to report that Anjuli was in good health and much beloved by all the household, and that she had been studying Pushtu with such diligence that she could already speak it fluently. Also that both she and his aunt prayed daily for Ash's safety and his early return – as did Gul Baz and all in the Begum's house. ‘There. Now that I have told you what you most wish to know, you can eat with a quieter mind. Here are chuppattis and
jal frazi
that I have kept hot for you. You do not look to me as though you have fed well of late; if at all – you are as lean as an alley-cat.’

‘So would you be if you had come on horseback and by camel, and on foot over the Lataband, from Charikar beyond Kabul in little more than five days,’ retorted Ash, falling upon the food. ‘It is not a journey to be undertaken in winter, and as it was necessary to come quickly, I have eaten and slept in the saddle so that I need not waste the nights.’

He reached for a tin mug filled with strong tea and liberally sweetened with
gur,
and drank thirstily, and Zarin, watching him, said: ‘Is it permitted to ask what news you carried?’

‘Why not? I came to tell Cavagnari-Sahib something that he already knew. That the Amir Shere Ali has left Kabul, intending to travel to Russia in order to lay his case before the Tsar. And also, which he did not know, that the Amir is now in Mazar-i-Sharif and will never live to cross the Oxus, let alone reach St Petersburg, for he is a dying man, and therefore his son, Yakoub Khan, is already Amir of Afghanistan in all but name.’

Zarin nodded assent. ‘Yes. The first part was already known; the news of Shere Ali's flight was brought to Jalalabad by one of our pensioners, Nakshband Khan, who was once a Risaldar of the Guides Cavalry and now lives in Kabul.’

‘I know. I too have been living in Kabul. I obtained work there as a scribe – in the Bala Hissar itself – and it was I who asked him to carry that news to Cavagnari-Sahib.’

‘
Wah-illah
! I might have known. But if that is so, why come here yourself in such haste?’

‘I came because I hoped to make it clear that this flight of the Amir's means that he can no longer claim to rule Afghanistan, and that this is the end of the road for him, and therefore, if there is any justice, an end to the war also, which the Viceroy-Sahib insisted was against the Amir only. I hoped that this would mean that the fighting could now cease, but it seems not. The war will continue because the Lat-Sahib and the Jung-i-lat-Sahib and other like-minded men wish it to continue. As for me, I am a free man again. Cavagnari-Sahib having told me that he no longer needs my services.’

‘So? That is indeed good news!

‘Perhaps. I do not know, for there are two words about that. Zarin – is it possible for me to speak to Hamilton-Sahib without anyone knowing?’

‘Not unless you can arrange to stay in Jalalabad until he returns, and I do not know when that will be; he and some others of our
rissala
have accompanied an expedition against the Bazai clan of the Mohmands. They left only yesterday and may not be back for several days.’

‘And Battye-Sahib? Has he gone with them? Him I must see.’

‘No, he is here. But it will not be easy for you to see him without anyone coming to hear of it, because he has recently been made a Major-Sahib and given command of the
rissala;
and that being so he has much work to do and is seldom alone – unlike Cavagnari-Sahib, who has many visitors who come to see him by stealth and at strange hours of the night. But I will see what can be arranged.’

The news of Wigram's promotion was a surprise to Ash, who did not know that Colonel Jenkins had been given command of a newly formed Brigade consisting of the 4th Mountain Battery, the Guides Infantry and the 1st Sikhs, and he said: ‘Tell me what has been happening here. I know almost nothing of what our armies have done, because where I have been the talk has always been of the other side, and I have heard only that the Amir's forces inflicted great casualties on the British before withdrawing from their positions, with small loss to themselves, in order to lure the invaders further from their base-camps and make it easier for small parties of raiders to cut their supply lines. They also speak of the Peiwar Kotal as though it was a great victory for the Afghans, and it was not until yesterday that I learned by chance that this was not so, and that it was stormed and held by our troops. Tell me what you yourself know or have heard at first hand.’

Zarin knew a good deal, and during the hour that followed Ash learned much that he had not known before; though some of it he had suspected. The Guides, being part of the Peshawar Valley Field Force, had not been involved in the battle for the Peiwar Kotal; but a kinsman of Zarin's had taken part in both attacks, and having been wounded and spent a week or two in hospital, was sent home on sick-leave. Zarin had bumped into him in Dakka and been given an account of the action, and according to the wounded man, General Roberts, commander of the Kurram Valley Field Force, had been deceived by the false reports of Turi spies, employed by the Afghans, into thinking that the enemy were retreating in disorder and the heights of the Peiwar Kotal could be taken without a fight. His troops set out in force from the Kurram Forts, only to find at the end of the long march, when all were tired and cold and hungry, that the Afghans were ready and waiting for them, strongly entrenched and in great numbers.

‘It was learned afterwards, so my cousin told me,’ said Zarin, ‘that the enemy's strength had been greatly increased by the arrival of four regiments and six guns from Kabul, so that they numbered close on five thousand men with seventeen guns. Moreover they fought, he said, with great valour and fury, repulsing us again and again and inflicting such heavy losses that it took our army close on two days to capture the Peiwar Kotal. Wherefore the victory when it came proved a most costly one, both in blood and the materials of war.’

Even making allowances for the boastful talk he had heard in Kabul and Charikar, Ash had suspected that all was not going too well for the forces of the Raj; and most of what Zarin told him confirmed this. The victorious advance upon Kabul appeared to have ground to a halt for lack of transport, while the troops encamped in Jalalabad and the Kurram were suffering from sicknesses brought on by the severe cold – the hardest hit being the British regiments and those from down-country, who were unaccustomed to such freezing temperatures. There was also a chronic shortage of pack-animals, and so little fodder in the Khyber that for weeks past the chief Commissariat Officer had been complaining that unless he could send his camels back to the plains for a fortnight's grazing, he would need new ones in the spring to replace the thousands that would be dead, and whose rotting carcasses were bound to breed a pestilence.

Similar complaints, said Zarin, had come from the Kurram front; and also from Kandahar, where that part of General Stewart's army that had occupied Khelat-i-Ghilzai had been forced to fall back and were now encamped. The other part, which had been advancing on Herat, had been brought to a stop on the Helmand – as had General Sam Browne in Jalalabad. Zarin had been told by the men of a new draft that had arrived a few days ago that at Dadar, Jacobabad and Quetta there was the same crippling lack of transport, and that the desert and the passes were strewn with dead camels and abandoned stores…