The Far Pavilions (158 page)

He had taken no account of the passing time and had no idea of how quickly it had gone. He had come to the Residency with the intention of burning or burying Wally's body so that it would not be left to rot in the sun or be torn and disfigured by kites and carrion crows, but now he realized that he could not do this; the ground was too hard for him to dig a grave in it single-handed and the Residency was still burning far too fiercely to make it feasible for him to carry Wally's body into it without being badly burned himself – or possibly overcome by heat and smoke.

Besides, if the body were to disappear, rumours might spread that the Lieutenant-Sahib had not been killed after all but had recovered sufficiently to escape from the compound during the night, and must be hiding somewhere; which would certainly ensure a house-to-house search, and the possible death of a number of innocent people. Anyway, Wally would not know or care what happened to his body now that he had discarded it.

Ash laid down the quiet hand, and getting to his feet, stooped and lifted Wally from the ground, and carrying him to the gun, laid him on it, placing him carefully so that he should not fall. He had led three charges in an effort to take that gun, so it was only right that it should provide him with a bier on which he could lie in state; and when he was found there, those who came would only think that one of their number had placed him there for the same reason that he had been spared mutilation – in recognition of gallantry.

‘Goodbye, old fellow,’ said Ash quietly. ‘Sleep well!’

He lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, and it was only as he turned away that he noticed that the stars had begun to pale, and knew that the moon must be rising. He had not realized that so much time had passed since he came into the compound to look for Wally, or that he had stayed far longer than he intended. Juli and Gul Baz would be waiting for him, and wondering if he had come to any harm; and Juli would think –

Ash began to run, and reaching the shadows of the houses around the Arsenal, fled through the network of narrow alleyways and streets to where the Shah Shahie Gate, still unguarded, gaped on a view of the valley and hills of Kabul lying grey in the waning starlight and the first rays of the rising moon.

Anjuli and Gul Baz had been waiting for him in the shelter of a clump of trees by the roadside. But though they had waited there for more than an hour in a growing fever of fear and anxiety, they asked no questions; for which Ash was more grateful than for anything else that either of them could have done for him.

He could not kiss Juli because she was wearing a bourka, but he put his arms about her and held her close for a brief moment, before turning aside to change quickly into the clothes that Gul Baz had ready for him. It would not do to travel as a scribe, and when he mounted one of the ponies a few minutes later he was to all outward appearances an Afridi, complete with rifle, bandolier and tulwar, and the wicked razor-edged knife that is carried by all men of Afghanistan.

‘I am ready,’ said Ash, ‘let us go. We have a long way to travel before dawn, and I can smell the morning.’

They rode out together from the shadows of the trees, leaving the Bala Hissar and the glowing torch of the burning Residency behind them, and spurred away across the flat lands towards the mountains…

And it may even be that they found their Kingdom.

NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS

The following notes are for the benefit of those readers who (in common with the author) like to know how much of a historical novel is true and how much is pure fiction.

Ash is a fictional character but the Guides and his fellow-officers in that Corps are not, and everything that they do in this book, with a few obvious exceptions, is true. The affair of the stolen carbines and their recovery actually happened; as did the incident of the sentry who fired at the rider of a supposedly stolen horse, the latter story being told me by my father, who himself heard the verdict given. It was my father who explained the Trinity to a group of jawans with the aid of a greasy tin and three drops of water, and he too failed his written language paper for the reason attributed to Ash, though unlike Ash he sat for the examination again, made two deliberate errors, and passed with flying colours.

Walter Hamilton did arrive in Rawalpindi in the autumn of 1874 and joined the Guides in 1876; and the poem is one of his own. A lone British officer (not in the Guides) actually did escort a little Rajput prince and his two sisters to their respective weddings, together with a far larger bridal camp than the one I have described – his included 2,000 elephants and ‘about 3,000 camels' for a start. When they finally arrived in the state where the boy was to be married, its ruler, the bride's uncle, behaved in the same manner as my fictitious Rana of Bhithor, and the officer dealt with the situation exactly as Ash did. The tale of the suttee is also fiction based on fact, as it is known that at least one Englishman rescued a widow from her husband's pyre, and subsequently married her.

All the Second Afghan War material is on record (except for Ash's involvement in it). Much of the information supplied to Cavagnari by ‘Akbar' was in fact supplied by an ‘unknown' spy or spies. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem (later set to music) about the disaster that overtook the 10th Hussars on the eve of the Battle of Fatehabad; it is called ‘Ford o' Kabul River’, and has a most haunting tune. Wigram Battye's sowars did refuse to allow the stretcher-bearers to take his body back to Jalalabad, but insisted on carrying it themselves on a bier formed from cavalry lances; and when the British army pulled out of Afghanistan after the signing of the Treaty of Gandamak, his coffin was exhumed and sent by raft to India through unknown territory, where it was ambushed by tribesmen who killed several of the escort. He lies buried in the Old Cemetery at Mardan, and alongside him is the grave of his brother Fred, killed sixteen years later leading the Guides Infantry into battle during the Chitral Relief Expedition.

As for the defence of the Kabul Residency, very little is known about it, and that little is mostly based on hearsay – the evidence of those messengers who were sent to beg help from the Amir (only one of whom, the Shahzada Taimus, was actually involved in the fighting), together with a sepoy who was in the city buying flour when the attack came, and the three sowars who were out with the grass-cutters. No one else survived. The defenders of the Residency died to the last man, as is described in Henry Newbolt's poem ‘The Guides at Kabul’. All other accounts of the siege were collected over a month later from Afghans, few of whom would admit to being eyewitnesses, but who described what friends or acquaintances had, so they said, told them. For this reason I have had to make up my own mind about what really happened and fight the battle according to my own ideas – helped by the fact that the collected accounts tally to a certain extent; at least as to the order in which the various events took place.

There is a story that Walter's body was found next morning laid out on one of the guns that he tried to capture, and I have made use of it. There were also less pleasant stories, but as none of the bodies was ever found, no one knows what was done to them; except that Cavagnari's must have been burned in the Residency.

Ash's host in Kabul, the Sirdar, was a real person, and his conversations with the Envoy are on record; but as Zarin and Awal Shah are fictional characters I could not include either in the Escort, because the name of every Guide who accompanied the Envoy to Kabul is known, and the names of those who died there are engraved on the Cavagnari Arch at Mardan, where they can be seen to this day.

Finally, I would like to add that many British women and children were saved from massacre and given refuge by kindly Indians at the time of the Mutiny; and for years afterwards stories would crop up about a child rescued in this manner being brought up to think that it was a native of the country. Perhaps the best known of these tales is the one about the youngest daughter of General Wheeler of Cawnpore, who was supposed to have been discovered in the Zenana of a man who had either saved or abducted her, and when found showed no desire at all to be rescued! There are several versions of this tale, and probably none are true: but there is no reason to suppose that one or two children, orphaned during the Mutiny, did not grow up, and end their days believing that they were Indian by blood. And the story of the sepoy who accepted a drink from a little goatherd, which is also true, will be well known to many ex-Indian Army officers who were given their tale to translate either into or out of the vernacular by their munshis for their language exams.

GLOSSARY

Achkan
tight-fitting three-quarter-length coat

‘
Afsos!
’ ‘Sorrow!’; ‘How sad!’

Angrezi
English; Englishman

Angrezi-log
English people

Ayah
child's nurse

Baba
baby; young child

Baba-log
children

Badshahi
royal

Bai
brother

Barat
friends of the bridegroom

Begum
Mohammedan lady

Belait
England

Beshak
without doubt

Beta
son

‘
Be-wakufi!
’ ‘Stupidity’; ‘Nonsense!’

Bheesti
water-carrier

Bhoosa
straw

Bibi-gurh
women's house

Bourka
one-piece head-to-heels cloak, with small square of coarse net to see through

Boxwallah
European trader

Budmarsh
rascal; bad man

Burra khana
big dinner-party

Burra-Sahib
great man; top man

Cha-cha
uncle

Charpoy
bed (usually string or webbing)

Chatti
large earthenware water-pot

Chik
sun-blind made of split cane

Chirag
small earthenware oil lamp, used in festivals

Chokra
boy

Chota hazri
literally, small breakfast (early morning tea with fruit)

Chowkidar
night watchman

Chuddah
sheet; shawl

Chunam
polished plaster; lime

Chuppatti
flat cake of unleavened bread

Chuppli
heavy leather sandal with studs on sole, worn on the Frontier

Chutti
leave

Dacoits
robbers

Daffadar
sergeant (cavalry)

Dai
nurse; midwife

Dâk
mail; post

Dâk-bungalow
posting- house; rest-house

Dâk-ghari
horse-drawn vehicle carrying mail

Dal
lentils

Dawaza
door; gate

‘Dekho!’
‘Look!’

Dhobi
washer of clothes; laundryman

Dhooli
palanquin

Durbar
public audience; levee

Ekka
light two-wheeled trap

Fakir
religious mendicant

Feringhi
foreigner

Fu–fu band
village band of Indian instruments

Gadi
throne

Ghari
any horse-drawn vehicle

Ghari-wallah
driver of the above

Ghazi
religious fanatic

Ghee
clarified butter

Godown
storage room or shed

Gur
unrefined cane sugar

Gurral
mountain goat

Gurrh-burrh
tumult; noise

Hakim
doctor

Halwa
sweetmeats

Havildar
sergeant (infantry)

Hazrat
Highness

Hookah
water pipe for smoking tobacco

Howdah
seat carried on back of elephant

Hukum
order

Huzoor
Your Honour

Istri-dhan inheritance

Itr
scent

Izzat
honour

Jawan
literally, young man; used for soldier

Jehad
holy war

Jehanum
hell

Jellabies
fried sweets made of honey and batter

Jemadar
junior Indian officer promoted from the ranks (cavalry or infantry)

Jezail
long-barrelled musket

Jheel
shallow, marshy lake

Jung-i-lat Sahib
Commander-in-Chief

Kala
black

Khansamah
cook

Khidmatgar
waiter at table

Kila
fort

Kismet
fate

Koss
two miles

Kus-kus tatties
thick curtains made of woven roots

Larla
darling

Lathi
long, heavy stick, usually made from bamboo

Lotah
small brass water-pot

Machan
platform built in a tree for hunting big game

Mahal
palace

Mahout
elephant driver

Mali
gardener

Malik
tribal headman

‘
Maro!
’ ‘Strike!’; ‘Kill!’

‘Mubarik!’
‘Congratulations!’; ‘Well done!’

Mullah
Mohammedan priest

Munshi
teacher; writer

Narwar
coarse webbing

Nauker
servant

Nauker-log
servants

Nautch–girl
dancing girl

Nullah
ravine or dry water-course

Ooloo
owl

Padishah
Empress

Pan
betel-nut rolled in a bay leaf and chewed

Panchayat
council of five elders

Patarkar
small firework

Piara
(-i) dear

Pice
small coin

Pujah
worship

Pulton
infantry regiment

Punkah
length of matting or heavy material pulled by a rope to make a breeze

Purdah
seclusion of women (literally, curtain)

Pushtu
the language of the Pathans

Raja
King

Rajkumar
Prince

Rajkumari
Princess

Rakhri
pendant worn on the forehead

Rang
colour

Rani
Queen

Resai
quilt

Resaidar
junior Indian officer promoted from the ranks (cavalry)

Risaldar
senior Indian officer promoted from the ranks (cavalry)

Risaldar-Major
the most senior Indian officer promoted from the ranks (cavalry)

Rissala
cavalry (regiment)

Sadhu
holy man

Sahiba
lady

Sahib-log
‘white folk’

Saht-bai
‘seven brothers' – small brown birds which go about in groups, usually of seven

Sepoy
infantry soldier

Serai
caravan hostel

‘Shabash!’
‘Well done!’

Shadi
wedding

Shaitan
devil

Shamianah
large tent

Shikar
hunting and shooting

Shikari
hunter, finder of game

Shulwa
sleeved tunic

Sikunder Dulkhan

Alexander the Great

Sirdar
Indian officer of high rank

Sirkar
the Indian Government

Sowar
cavalry trooper

Syce
groom

Tálash
inquiry

Tamarsha
show; festival

Tar
telegram (literally, wire)

Tehsildar
village headman

Tiffin
lunch

Tonga
two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle

Tulwar
curved sword

Yakdan
leather trunk, made to be carried on mules

Yuveraj
heir to the throne

Zenana
women's quarter

Zid
resentment

Zulum
aggression