The Lotus and the Wind (21 page)

From her position Russia had three lines of attack available to her. Firstly, she could move straight forward; on this line she would pass through Balkh, climb the Hindu Kush, and advance again through Kabul on Peshawar. Secondly, she could move right; on this route she would keep south of all the mountains and come in on India’s left. Thirdly, she could go left; athwart this route lay the immensely difficult passes of the Pamirs and the Karakorams.

Against each of these attacks India could be defended. In the first case, if Russia came straight on, the defenders could advance to the Hindu Kush; they could reach it before Russia could, and they could hold its passes because their rearward communications would be shorter than Russia’s. In the second case, if Russia went right and by-passed the Hindu Kush in favour of the southern deserts of Persia and Afghanistan, the defenders could receive the attack in the passes guarding India itself--the Bolan Pass and others, less important, nearby; there again their communication lines would be short and strong while Russia’s would be stretched back over a thousand miles of waterless and trackless desert. In the third case, if Russia went left over the Pamirs, the defenders could forestall her on the passes and, once more, their rearward communications would be shorter and better.

In all this India would be taking advantage of what the general in Simla had called ‘interior lines.’ But there was a severe danger. Neither side possessed good lateral communications. For the attacker this did not matter very much. Once an attack is launched, it is launched. For the defender, India, the lack was extremely serious, because if she was deceived as to the direction of the main Russian attack she could not move her troops from one front to another quickly enough. For instance, troops committed to the Hindu Kush in the centre could not be moved quickly to the Bolan Pass in the south if the Russians’ plans turned out to have been misinterpreted.

At Balkh, Robin lay in the direct line of a direct Russian advance over the Hindu Kush. All the rumours urging him west pointed along that same direct line, towards the towns that could become the Russian bases, advance bases, and staging areas--Meshed, Herat, the new town in the Akkal oasis, Krasnovodsk. When he looked west he was gazing down the barrel of a cannon aimed at India. But was it loaded? Would it ever be loaded? And Selim Beg had written ‘north’ in the wood of his jezail. There could be more than one cannon. West was the land of camels, north and farther north the land of horses.

North meant Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva perhaps, Tashkent, Andijan, the Farghana. Russian activity there, as anywhere else, could mean one of two things--an attack, or the appearance of an attack.

Anyone knew that much. He was here to isolate the single truth, not to enumerate the multiple possibilities. He’d better classify exactly what the Russians could do, then deduce the clues that would be visible in each case, and then decide which clues to look for first.

Very well. Working backwards from that future day in eighteen-eighty-something when the Russians arrived in India--they would be coming along the northern, the central, or the southern route, or on a combination of those. Whatever this true plan of theirs is, let me call it the lowest level, the level of truth. Note One: They are unlikely to use all three routes because they would be too scattered. Note Two: For the same reason they will not use the northern and southern routes together. Note Three: They will not use the northern route by itself, because the country there is too difficult to enable them to deploy more than a small part of their available forces.

On their route or routes of invasion they will hope to meet no opposition. They will have made plans to achieve that end--that is, to hide the level of truth under a layer or level of deception. Because we are meant to find it and act on it, this level of deception will be closer to the surface than the level of truth, and easier to find and easier to work along. But it will be deep enough and difficult enough to convince us that it is the level of truth. And it must be--tactically, strategically, and administratively--as sound as the level of truth. If it isn’t, we might find it but we wouldn’t believe in it.

I am looking for work in progress. When I find it I must also find clues or facts that will help the government of India to decide whether it is the level of truth or the level of deception that I have uncovered. What such clues or facts might look like, I don’t know. But I think I will know when I see them or feel them. No, that’s what Hayling hopes will happen. I don’t know.

Robin twisted uneasily on his rug. The floor was hard and comfortless. Which way? Not south, now. He’d have to look in that direction later. North? West? Which first? He might not live to cover both.

In this crisis he recalled the thoughts that had been holding his mind after supper. West of Balkh there were certainly deserts, but the land was not as empty as in the north. The farther west he went the more he would move in civilization and among people. In the north were a few towns of ancient, long-departed glory; in between them and all around them, nothing--the Black Desert, the Hungry Steppe, the inexhaustible silence of the Pamirs. ‘What went ye out for to seek?’ The hands of men pointed west. He would go north.

Bukhara was the capital city of an amir who had once been the chief among many independent princes of Turkestan. Now all the principalities lay under the hand of Russia, and though the khans and the amirs still reigned they did not rule. In Bukhara, Robin and Jagbir stayed in that one of the city’s several caravanserais which lay closest to the eastern wall. From the first day they worked separately but on the same plan. They went out and strolled through the huge bazaars that contained seven intricate miles of streets. Their story, to be told only when asked, in the main to be left for the hearers to infer, was the truthful one that they were interested in horses. There was plenty to see and plenty to hear.

On that first day, within the first hour, Robin sensed that the stifling city reeked of intrigue. The Russians had been here twelve years. There were few overt signs of them--a hurrying officer seen in the bazaar, rumours of emissaries who wrote the Amir’s letters for him, stories of barracks that were shortly to be put up outside the town to house Russian soldiers. That last would have been interesting, except that the government of India already knew it, and that taken alone it meant little.

Robin listened to talk of horses, asked people’s opinions, gave his own, and heard a great deal. He could not tell yet whether any of it had value for him. In Bukhara everyone talked behind his hand, in undertones. In every tea-house and coffee shop there were three or four men perpetually whispering together. Once he placed himself so that he could, unknown to such a group, hear their talk. It was about a sacred text that had recently come up for sale in the book mart. In Bukhara secrecy had become a habit.

The bazaars were roofed over, every street separately, with roofs of beaten clay on undressed timber. They formed a many-branched endless tunnel where every noise echoed and redoubled itself, every smell stayed at the place of its birth to be increased by subsequent smells. And behind all, the whispering. On the third day Robin sought refuge in the quiet under the high brick dome of the book mart. Studying the famous text he had heard discussed, he saw that the man on his right, who had come to admire the same treasure, was a Powindah horse-trader. He had met and talked with the man the previous evening. He thought it might not be a coincidence that they met again here, so he said, ‘May you never be tired!’

When the Pushtu greetings were at last out of the way the Powindah said, ‘Let us retire to a corner. It is a happy chance to see you here. I have heard of a piece of business that may interest you.’ Robin agreed politely that their meeting had been an opportune coincidence. It was obvious that the Powindah had come looking for him. When they were settled the Powindah said, ‘I have been offered good money to take a couple of Russians, a man and a woman, south into Afghanistan.’

‘Indeed? I hope you will get your money in advance.’ Robin was not thinking of what the Powindah had said but of his motives in saying it.

‘I’m not accepting. My business lies here, and north. I’ll be going back south, of course, in a few weeks, but not the way these people want to go. If I recommend you to them, now, could we work out something?’

‘I think so,’ Robin said slowly. It was no good trying to assess the Powindah’s motives until he knew what the Russians wanted. He’d have to take the offer--but not sound too enthusiastic about it--and in the meantime just note that the Powindah had guided him to it. This was not a trail that he had discovered by himself. He said again, ‘I think so--a percentage perhaps? And I’ll buy from you whatever animals I need for the trip? Something like that?’

Buyers moved slowly about the mart. Close by an old man droned aloud to himself from the Koran, his voice never changing pitch or tone.

The Powindah said, ‘Twenty per cent.’

‘Ten.’

‘Fifteen.’

Robin shrugged, and the other said, ‘Someone will come to you in the serai to-morrow morning.’

The following morning, while Robin and Jagbir were squatting over the little cooking fire in their serai cell, a Turki entered the main gate and asked a question of the keeper. The latter pointed at Robin, and the Turki picked his way forward between the kneeling camels and the littered piles of dung. He wore ordinary Turki clothes, with the addition of a red waistcoat, which gave them the appearance of a livery. He stopped in front of Robin and asked, ‘Are you Khussro the horse-trader?’

‘Some say so.’

‘My master wishes to speak to you. He is a foreigner, a Russian. Muralev is his name. Come at once.’

Robin answered coldly, ‘I’ll come when I am ready. Wait there.’

He ate his meal with deliberation while the servant stamped and fumed in the yard. At the end, after belching, Robin said to Jagbir, ‘I’m going with this fellow now.’ Jagbir grunted. Last night they had arranged that he would follow at a distance and watch the house until Robin came out.

The Turki led the way through the streets for over half a mile, to a house off Bukhara’s great square, the Registan. Robin kicked off his slippers and followed the Turki up a narrow flight of wooden steps. The upper chamber was nearly dark. He paused inside the hanging curtain at the head of the stair and stood still until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Then he saw two people sitting on cushions at the far end of the room. He could not tell how tall the man was, but he seemed to be of medium height. He was about forty-five years old, and streaks of grey marked his thin, fair hair. He had a long nose, a big, tired face, and narrowish rather stooped shoulders. He wore European clothes, not too clean--white trousers, sandals, a white shirt. His coat lay in a careless heap on the rugs. He wore rimless spectacles.

The woman was a little younger, forty perhaps. She had thick blonde hair, a wide mouth, a good, short nose, and pale grey eyes set wide apart in a square face. Her high-necked Russian blouse looked extraordinarily incongruous above a pair of red silk harem trousers and big bare feet. Robin stared at her, forgetting his Persian manners. He knew in that instant that she was a Russian agent, and he was trying to work out why he knew. But it was no good. He dropped his eyes and stood in impassive silence until the man spoke.

‘Greetings! Do you drink tea, Khussro? Ho, out there, bring tea, please! Take a place.’ He had a thin, rasping voice, nasal but not unpleasant. He spoke classical Persian with an accent.

Robin folded his feet under him on a cushion and still did not speak. He wanted to look at the woman again. She had not said a word and had hardly moved, but she exuded a dominant vitality. Now she spoke, also in Persian. ‘You come from Afghanistan? Where?’

‘My home is Gharghara.’ He must not look directly at her. His first stare could have been excused on the grounds of surprise and curiosity.

‘You know the route between here and Baikh, and the roads east and south from there?’ Her voice was full and strong.

‘Well enough.’ He did not know any routes beyond Balkh except the one he had taken from Kabul. He would have to cross that bridge when he came to it. A few questions in any serai would tell him all he’d need to know.

‘Our friend the Powindah tells us you are interested in helping us.’

Robin said, ‘I might be,’ addressing the man. ‘I want to hear more details.’

It was still the woman who took up the tale. She spoke directly at him, her voice like a tenor bell, her personality wholly feminine, yet very strong, demanding his attention. He would not look at her. He stared at the man, and the man, quietly absorbed, stared at him, studying him from head to toe.

The woman said, ‘We, my husband and I, are--there’s no word for it--we’re birdcatchers. We catch birds and animals, skin them, and send the skins back to our friends in Russia, who put them in a big house and give them all names.’

Robin shrugged. Khussro would not know what a naturalist was, nor would he believe there were such people when the word was explained to him. He would be insulted that anyone should expect him to believe such a rigmarole. He said coldly, ‘As the lady says.’

After a few words in Russian to her husband, the woman went on. ‘We have enemies at home. They are jealous of us because our success puts us in greater favour than they with His Majesty the Czar. These enemies, who are also bird-catchers, are always trying to prevent us from reaching the places where the rare birds and animals are to be found. You see, there are honours to be earned for this work, from the Czar’s hand. If we do not get the honours, these others will. They are all learned men, but even learned men can be jealous. They say that we will cause trouble for Russia if we go where we want to, but their real reason is jealousy.’ Robin held his face immobile. He knew to what lengths the collector’s passion will carry men, however learned and civilized. Khussro the trader, however, would not know, or at least would never be able to think of dead birds as reasonable objects of such a passion. His proper course now, and it would be a part of the Persian good manners expected of him, was to extend the appearance of credence to this nonsense, while indicating that in due time he would prefer to have the truth. He said therefore, ‘There are indeed people in all countries who say one thing and mean another.’