Veils of Silk (60 page)

The warrior didn't know how long he had been stumbling through the mountains, for he had been out of his head for much of the time. In some ways delirium was better, for then there was no pain. But now his awareness cleared, and he saw that he had managed to make his way through most of the Shpola Pass. Surely it was the hand of Allah that had kept him on the treacherous
track when he could so easily have pitched into the abyss. Would it be blasphemy to hope Allah might also send some food? He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, but it had been days. Soon he would not have the strength to continue.

Yet continue he must, for much depended on him. He wavered to a halt and leaned against the cliff face. The pass was a haunted place and the wind wailed eerily, like the voices of doomed men. Not far beyond the eastern end of the pass was his home, where there would be food and warmth and someone to bind his wounds. But the remaining distance might as well have been a thousand leagues, for all the chance he had of crossing it.

Then he heard the chinking sound of hooves echoing through the pass. For a moment panic surged through him, clearing his head. They had caught up with him and there would be too many to fight. But no, the sound came from ahead, not behind. He listened carefully. The stony cliffs distorted sound, making it hard to judge how many horses were coming, but he decided that it was only a single traveler. Allah had not forsaken him, for soon he would have transportation as well as food and water.

It didn't occur to him that the approaching rider might be a friend, not after so many days when every man's hand had been turned against him. He retraced his steps to a spot where the trail was a little wider and a jagged boulder reared up to a height above a rider's head. Slowly, pain stabbing through his shoulder, he crawled onto the boulder and hunkered down so that he would be concealed from the rider's view.

Then he drew his knife and waited.

Ruefully Laura decided that the Pathan guide hadn't been joking when he called the Shpola a marmot track. The pass wasn't much more than a steep-sided, winding slash in the rocky mountains. At best, the track was wide enough for two men to ride abreast. Usually it was narrower than that. This section they were currently traversing consisted of a ledge clinging precariously to a cliffside. Far below tumbled a narrow river of violent, white water rapids. The way the wind whistled between the cliffs made her exceedingly grateful that she wouldn't be here during a storm, for it was all too easy to imagine being blown into the gorge. She kept most of her attention fixed on the track directly in front of her, though her sure-footed horse was doing most of the hard work.

But it wasn't only the obvious physical dangers that made the pass disquieting. It seemed a place of ill-omen. Laura rode with her rifle ready, though she doubted that it would be of much use against ghosts.

She glanced up for a moment, wanting a sight of Ian. If her husband was uneasy, it didn't show. He rode about sixty feet ahead of her, as calm as if he were showing off a new hack in a London park. She hoped that soon he would have enough information so that they could turn back; she most emphatically did not want to spend the night in the pass.

Laura was about to return her gaze to the track when a dark shape suddenly rose from the top of the boulder that Ian was passing. With horror, she realized that it was a man with a lethal blade flashing in his hand—and he was on Ian's blind side. She screamed, "Ian, above you!"

Two months earlier shouting would have been all she was capable of, but she was no longer limited by the constraints of a sheltered young Englishwoman. As the attacker launched himself at Ian, she whipped up her rifle, cocked it, and fired.

The attacker shrieked and changed direction in midair, his knife spinning away into the gorge. Alerted by Laura's warning, Ian reached for his revolver, but before he could draw, his horse trumpeted with fright and reared onto its hindquarters. For the next minute, he fought a desperate battle to regain control of his mount. Only superb horsemanship kept horse and rider from pitching off the track into the gorge.

Laura's own horse shied when she shot, but mercifully didn't panic. Knowing that she could move faster on foot, she hurtled from her mount and raced down the stony trail. The attack had taken place too quickly for her to feel fear, but she made up for the lack in the moments it took her to reach Ian.

By the time she reached him, he had dismounted and was soothing his nervous horse. The attacker, a Pathan, was lying on his back on the path. A moment before, he had been the embodiment of evil, but now he was only a limp, ragged body. Laura braced herself against the cliff, so shaky she could barely stand now that the emergency was over. "Did… did I kill him?"

"Not unless he died from his fall." His horse under control, Ian scanned the narrow pass, his one eye missing nothing. "The fellow appears to have acted alone. If he'd had confederates, they'd be all over us by now."

His words reminded Laura that her rifle was empty, so she reloaded with clumsy fingers. When she was done, Ian put one arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. "A superb piece of marksmanship. You shot the knife right out of his hand."

She wiped her perspiring face with the tail of her turban. "Pure accident. I was actually aiming at his body because that was the largest target. My main thought was to make sure the shot was high enough so that I wouldn't hit you by accident."

"You shouldn't have admitted that. I was about to take the credit for being such a great shooting instructor." He chuckled. "I thought I was teaching you to protect your life. Instead, it appears that you saved mine."

His lightness and his touch steadied Laura. As she began to relax, she wondered if this was why she had felt so compelled to accompany Ian. Though it had been more luck than skill on her part, she may indeed have saved her husband from having his throat cut. Thank God for Russian stubbornness.

The moment of tranquility ended when the attacker's eyes opened. Ian immediately released Laura and drew his revolver. But all of the fight had gone out of the Pathan. There were clumsy bandages on his left arm and right calf, and his gaze was hopeless, like that of a man who had bet everything on one last throw of the dice and lost. Nonetheless, Ian kept the gun trained on him. Speaking in Pashto, he said, "Are you alone?"

The man glared but didn't answer.

Ian shifted his aim to the man's abdomen. His tone conversational, he said, "Any idea how long it will take you to die from a bullet through the belly?"

In a raspy but defiant voice, the Pathan said, "Go ahead and shoot, pig. You'll learn nothing from me."

Ian cocked the revolver, wondering whether it would be possible to intimidate the man into talking, or if stronger measures would be required. Then Laura said urgently, "Ian, isn't he wearing the trousers of a Company soldier?"

Ian studied the Pathan and saw that under his ragged brown cloak and blood-stained shirt, he was indeed wearing sepoy
trousers. Sharply Ian said, "Do you serve the Sirkar?"

"Aye," the man said sullenly. "A
havildar
and proud of it."

A havildar was the rank equivalent of a sergeant. Beginning to feel excited, Ian said in English, "Laura, get some food and water for this fellow." Switching to the Urdu used in the army, he said, "You were part of the retreat from Kabul?"

For an unguarded moment, the man shuddered. Then he recovered and spat. "You'll get no information from me, you filthy swine," he said again. "Tell your masters that Gulab Khan died as a man—true to his salt."

Ian yanked off his turban so that his auburn hair was visible. "Your masters and mine are the same, Havildar Gulab Khan. I am an officer of the 46th Native Infantry."

Gulab Khan stared at him, his gaze going from Ian's hair to his blue-gray eye and back. Then he wordlessly lifted one trembling hand in a salute.

Laura brought the waterskin and poured a little water into the Pathan's mouth, then gave him two cold chapatis left over from the night before. As the man wolfed them down, she said quietly in English, "Do you think he'd take some brandy? It might help revive him."

Ian looked at the havildar consideringly. Alcohol was forbidden to Muslims and most wouldn't touch it, but there were exceptions. Certainly the man needed something; now that he had found allies, he was on the verge of lapsing into unconsciousness. "It's worth a try. Bring me some."

She poured some brandy into a tin cup. Ian took it and held it before Gulab Khan's eyes. "I need to talk with you about what is happening on the far side of the mountains, Havildar. To ask this of you is a grievous sin, and I shall honor your wishes if you refuse. But for the sake of the Sirkar, will you consider taking spirits this once, in order to restore your strength?"

Gulab Khan hesitated, torn between morality and expedience. To make the decision easier, Ian dipped a finger in the cup, then solemnly flicked a drop of brandy away. "The Prophet said that thou shalt not drink a single drop."

Putting that single drop safely out of bounds was enough to make up the havildar's mind. He drank the brandy in two swallows, and it had a visibly bracing effect on him. "What would you know, huzar?"

"Briefly tell me what happened to the army."

While Laura cleaned and rebound his wounds, Gulab Khan filled out the story that Ian had first read in Rajiv Singh's dispatch. The havildar wasn't sure how long it had been since he was wounded; perhaps ten days. He had managed to keep a small group of his men together during most of the retreat, but a few miles from Jallalabad they had been surrounded and cut down by five times their number of mounted Afghans.

Gulab Khan was wounded, and the body of another man fell across him. The Afghans were so laden by loot that they took only the valuable rifles and didn't bother to search their victims' bodies, so they didn't realize there was a survivor.

Deciding that it was time for a break, the Afghans built a fire next to the sepoy corpses and cooked a meal. As they ate, they had talked cheerfully of their victory and about what would come next. One man was a chieftain, and he told the riders that soon they would go over the Shpola Pass to India. There they would join an army that would sweep the British into the sea as easily as the Afghans had swept them from Kabul.

When he heard that, Gulab Khan realized that he could not allow himself to die, in spite of his wounds and his hunger and the fact that he was half frozen from lying in the snow. When the Afghans left, the havildar got to his feet and salvaged a shirt and cloak from a dead comrade in order to cover his distinctive red coat. Then he began limping onward, determined to tell what he had heard to General Sale Sahib in Jallalabad.

After the arduous trek to Jallalabad, it had been a crushing blow to get within sight of the fort and discover that he could not enter. The plains around the fort were alive with galloping, shooting, shouting Afghans, and trying to make his way through them would have been suicide.

At that point, Gulab Khan almost gave up. But he was an Afridi as well as a soldier of the Sirkar, and he would not lie down and die when he was the bearer of vital news. Sure that he could not get through the Khyber, he had doggedly set out for the Shpola Pass, which he knew from his youth.

When he sagged back against the boulder, Ian said quietly, "You have behaved with magnificent courage, Gulab Khan. The Sirkar is blessed to have such men."

The havildar's eyes flickered open. "The most important tidings I have saved for last, huzar," he gasped. "The Afghans are less than half a day behind me."

Ian swore. "They have entered the pass?"

"With my own eyes I have seen them," Gulab Khan said. "When I reached the top of the pass and looked back, I saw an endless line of warriors, some mounted, some on foot. And guns, huzar. They are hauling guns."

For a moment, Ian looked at Laura and felt a flash of disabling fear. He should never have allowed her to come. The invasion had begun, and the invaders were within a few miles. He allowed himself only an instant of furious regret before asking, "Havildar, is there a place in the pass where one man might hold off an army?"

Gulab Khan thought, then gave a slow, wolfish smile. "There is, huzar, just a little way ahead."

Ian helped the havildar to his feet, then lifted him onto his own horse. "Show me."

Ian walked his mount along the path, using one hand to steady Gulab Khan while Laura followed with her own horse. Half a mile farther was a spot that might have been designed with ambush in mind. The track had been rising for some time, and here it reached its highest elevation before starting to drop again. As the trail fell away, it doubled back around a descending horseshoe bend. The track on the other side was so narrow that literally only one man at a time could come around the bend. A sniper stationed on this side would have a clear shot at anyone coming from the opposite direction. He would also have the advantage of height, and in the mountains, whoever controlled the heights controlled the territory. Not only could Ian hold off an army here, he would have most of the advantages on his side. "Well done, Havildar. This is perfect."

"No, huzar," the Pathan said. With a wave of his hand, he indicated the mountain above their heads. "
That
is perfect."

Looking up, Ian saw a dark hole that must be the mouth of a small cave. A man stationed there would not only have a clear line of fire at anyone headed east on the track, but he himself would be almost impossible for the enemy to eliminate. Digging a badger out of a hole would be child's play by comparison.

"Excellent, Gulab Khan," Ian said. "With enough food and ammunition, a man in that cave could hold this pass forever."

"So we're going to climb up there and wait for the Afghans?" Laura said as she studied the cave.

"Not 'we.' " Ian braced himself for the argument he knew would come. "I'm going to sit up there with most of the ammunition, and you are going to take the horses and Gulab Khan back through the pass to his village. Then you'll enlist an escort of his grateful kinfolk to take you into the Punjab until you find a British regiment, which you will lead back here."