Chapter 2
By craning his head to look forward through the dirty glass of the carriage window, Simon could see the foothills of the mountains of Swat to the right, and to the left, those of Waziristan, which looked down from Afghanistan on to the border with India. Although the train had not climbed very far from the hot plains of India, he could already detect a certain freshness in the air, a crisp harbinger of the snows of the Hindu Kush.
Opposite him, Jenkins stirred and opened one eye. ‘Where are we, then?’
‘Just coming into Khushalgarh, I think,’ said Simon, flattening his cheek against the glass in an attempt to look ahead. As they had already learned, opening the window let in not only the heat but also the soot-laden fumes from the twenty-year-old engine, straining two carriages ahead. ‘In fact, I think I can see the Indus now.’
‘Is this where we get off, then, bach sir?’ Jenkins yawned and stretched his arms luxuriantly. ‘I’ve just about had enough of this old puffer, look you.’
Although it was little more than three weeks since they had left the army of Lord Chelmsford in South Africa, the two men carried no trace of their military background. Both were dressed in nondescript mufti: simple khaki shirts tucked into lightweight cotton trousers, with loose-weave white jackets slung above their canvas bags on the rack above their heads. They could have belonged to almost any stratum of the heterogeneous working population of British India: engineers, railway officials, or civil servants from the growing class of bureaucrats that kept the sub-continent functioning. The casual observer, however, might have puzzled about their ethnic origins. While both - and particularly Simon - carried with them something of the nonchalant air of confidence that went with their undoubtedly European clothing, their skins were quite dark and gave them the appearance of Indians or Eurasians. Simon’s brown eyes and, especially, the black coals of Jenkins added to this impression.
‘No, not yet.’ Simon had to raise his voice to be heard above the hiss of escaping steam as the train slowed itself to a halt at Khushalgarh station. ‘The one after this is for us. Kohat. About another twenty-five miles. Then it’s back on to horseback and up into the hills.’
As he finished speaking, the door crashed open and a round-faced English officer, with captain’s stars on his shoulders, a tropical topi with a pugree wound round it on his head, and dressed in lightweight khaki and brightly gleaming Sam Browne belt and riding boots, started to climb into the carriage. On the second step, however, seeing Jenkins and Simon, he paused, stepped down again, swung the door back to look at its exterior, and then, with a frown, put his head into the compartment.
‘Look here, this is a first-class coach, isn’t it?’ It was more a statement than a question and he gestured vaguely with a swagger stick as he spoke.
‘Yes, do come in,’ said Simon. ‘There’s plenty of room.’
‘What ...?’ The officer blinked at Simon’s smooth tones, took a quick look at Jenkins and climbed into the compartment. Gingerly, he took a corner seat as far away from Jenkins as possible and put a small valise on the rack, stealing a glance at the two men’s luggage as he did so. What he saw obviously decided him.
‘Now look here,’ he said again, pointing with his cane to Simon, ‘you know perfectly well that only Europeans are allowed in first cl—’
‘Fonthill,’ Simon interrupted him, stretching out a languid hand of introduction. ‘Guides. Captain.’
‘Queen’s Own Corps of Guides,’ added Jenkins, helpfully.
The captain’s jaw dropped. ‘Barlow,’ he said automatically. ‘Eighth Foot.’ He looked again from Simon to Jenkins and back again. Outside a whistle blew.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Simon. ‘This is Jenkins, 352.’
‘Sergeant,’ added Jenkins proudly, his white teeth cutting a swathe through his black countenance as he gave Barlow a huge grin. Then he jumped to his feet, grabbed the bewildered captain’s hand, shook it vigorously and sat down again.
‘Sergeant!’ spluttered Barlow. ‘Sergeant!’ He swung round to Simon, who was still sprawled in his corner. ‘You know very well that non-commissioned officers do not travel first class.’
‘This one does,’ said Simon imperturbably.
‘What?’ Barlow turned from one to the other uncertainly, before addressing Simon again. ‘I am not travelling in the same compartment as an NCO. Dammit, I wouldn’t do it even . . . even . . . even if the man was English.’
Jenkins retained his smile but his eyes had hardened. ‘Ah well, look you, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m Welsh, so perhaps that’s all right, is it?’
‘Damn your impertinence. Get out of this carriage.’
Jenkins looked quickly across at Simon, who shook his head.
‘I said get out.’ With a swift movement, Barlow grabbed Jenkins by his shirt front and hauled him to his feet. But Simon was even quicker. He sprang from his seat, slipped one hand under Barlow’s belt and clamped the other on the back of his uniform collar and swung him away from Jenkins towards the open door. Then, his foot against the man’s buttocks, he ejected him through the doorway like a bullet from a gun. At that point, with a hiss, the train began to move forward.
Unhurriedly, Simon pulled down Barlow’s valise and threw it out after him, as the train gathered speed. Then he leaned out, closed the door with a thud and resumed his seat in the corner.
Jenkins stroked his moustache for a moment and then broke the silence. ‘Now we shall both be blown from the mouth of a cannon,’ he said. ‘Or you will. It was nothing to do with me, look you. I thought you were supposed to be gentle and quiet, like?’
‘Pompous bounder,’ murmured Simon. And closed his eyes.
An hour later, the old engine wheezed into Kohat. It was not the end of the line, for the tracks now turned south to complete a loop at Dera Ismail Khan, but it was the nearest point to the Frontier south of Peshawar. Kohat certainly looked like a border town. There was no platform, and the two men stood with their bags in a rough square bounded by wooden shacks. Through a gap they could glimpse the tents of an army cantonment.
‘Where to now, then, bach sir?’
‘Now,’ said Simon looking around him, ‘we find the stables of one Sheram Khan, Pathan and dealer in fine horses. I’m told it’s near a market. It can’t be far.’
The two men picked up their bags and began walking down a rough cart track between shacks, which soon opened out into a busy bazaar. The street became lined with stalls selling a colourful selection of northern Indian foods and artefacts: almond curd balushai sweetmeats; delicious-smelling boluses of spiced mutton, fried in fat with cabbage and onions; tobacco; trinkets of silver, turquoise and, perhaps, gold; dung cakes and firewood; long swathes of cotton and gauze in colours which sang the skills of the dyer. For Simon and Jenkins, who had had little time to explore Indian village life during their brief time in the sub-continent, it was all breathtakingly colourful. Nor did they feel out of place. Kohat had been the departure point of Major-General Roberts’s column, and the little town hummed with the business this had brought. The bazaar thronged with an eclectic mixture of castes and nationalities - wild-haired Akalis from the Sikh states; short, fat Gujarat traders from the south; tall Pathans with kohl-rimmed eyes and noses like eagle beaks; a sprinkling of dowdy, cotton-suited Eurasian clerks; and, everywhere, off-duty sepoys of the Indian Army, in their khaki drill, turbans and puttees, mixed with the occasional British Tommy, turning over the wares of the stallholders with dismissive fingers.
‘Just like Rhyl, bach,’ murmured Jenkins, as they picked their way through the crowd.
A stall selling saddlewear and other leather pieces showed them to be near their goal. Behind the stall, a low archway opened on to a surprisingly spacious stable containing about a dozen horses in rough stalls. A small boy sat cross-legged, splicing a hempen halter.
‘Sheram Khan?’ enquired Simon. The boy, wide-eyed, gestured towards an open doorway to their left. A tall Pathan, his distinctive hill man’s robe hitched at the middle by a deep embroidered Bokhariot belt, rose as they entered.
Simon gave him a respectful Musselman’s salaam and said, ‘Starrai Mashe! Khwar Mashe, janab ali. Sheram Khan?’
The hill man bowed in silent acknowledgement and observed Simon with sharp eyes.
In English, Simon said: ‘The cholera is bad in the south. I trust it has not come here?’
‘The cholera has not reached us.’ Sheram Khan spoke in excellent English and smiled slightly behind his long, grey-flecked beard. ‘Good. I have been expecting you. The General and Lamb Sahib are most anxious that you travel up to their camp as soon as possible. I am to tell you that you must travel on as soon as . . .’ he paused for a moment, ‘I can turn you into respectable Persians.’
He stepped forward and examined the two men’s faces in turn. ‘The walnut dye is good,’ he said, rubbing Jenkins’s cheek gently with his thumb.
‘It’s not walnut, I understand,’ said Simon. ‘Our people in Gharghara have found something better now. This is supposed to last for about nine months before it starts to wear slightly.’
The Pathan nodded in approval. ‘Your Pushtu sounded well. Can you speak it fluently?’
Simon grinned sheepishly. ‘I’m afraid not. You see, we have only had three weeks’ training at Gharghara.’
Sheram Khan regarded him impassively. ‘Then, my friend,’ he said, ‘you will last for two weeks in the hills, perhaps three if you are lucky and can shoot well.’
‘No. We will be supplied with an interpreter to travel with us when we reach the General’s camp. And, of course, we are to be Persian traders from Mashad in the north, who do not speak the Pushtu of the Afghan.’
The Pathan nodded slowly. ‘You are of the Guides?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I respect you. The Guides fight well. Come, we have little time.’
An hour later, two Persians left the stable. They were dressed in the flowing robes of their race; one rather more finely than the other, with the edges of his turban cloth edged in gold and a Delhi-embroidered waistcoat showing beneath the loose top-garment. He rode a fine Balkh stallion ahead of his companion, who was mounted less richly on a serviceable horse from Herat.
‘You’ve no right to be ridin’ ’im,’ hissed Jenkins from the rear. ‘I should have had that one. You’ll fall off if you ’ave to gallop. This one would ’ave suited you better. It might just pull a milk cart on a fine day.’
‘Shut up, 352,’ murmured Simon. ‘Just try and be a little more Persian-like, there’s a good chap.’
Jenkins snorted in disgust and pulled hard on the long rein that linked him to the laden donkey reluctantly trotting behind. Then, silently, they picked their way through the streets of Kohat to the plain beyond. There they set their horses’ heads almost due west, towards the dark hills which rose before them and merged imperceptibly into the silver-capped escarpment dominating the far skyline.
Major General Roberts’s main camp lay roughly fifty miles ahead of them, at the Afghan fort of Kuram, at the head of the Kuram valley, although the General had established a forward post higher in the hills at Alikhal. Simon’s orders were to press on with all speed along the route taken by Roberts’s little army of five thousand men and to meet the General at Kuram, where he would receive instructions for his mission. The orders, as paraphrased orally by Sheram Khan, were cryptic: don’t delay; the route is only partly patrolled and the local Afridis are not to be trusted, so be on your guard.
The pair camped the first night at Thal, a little township which Roberts had used as the last springboard for his invasion. There they met the stony tributary of the Indus which flowed from north-north-west and which was to be their guide into Afghanistan proper. Although they were climbing gradually and the air was undoubtedly crisper, the sun beat down relentlessly, and Simon and Jenkins slipped off their top garments and rode only in shirts and breeches, retaining their turbans as much for solar protection as for disguise.
Their track followed the river, which, although shallow in this high summer, and rock-strewn, varied from fifty to a hundred yards in width. They were now entering the Kuram valley, a barren, rocky plateau bordered by tall, magnificently wooded mountains. These were highest to the north and east. But Simon and Jenkins’s route led to the north-west and the Sufed Koh range, where, directly ahead of them at the nine-thousand-foot high pass of Peiwa Kotal, Roberts had fought his battle to clear the way to Kabul.
Steadily they climbed until the mountains closed in and the stream, hissing and gurgling joyfully on its downward passage to the Indus, narrowed perceptibly. Their way now lay through craggy defiles, and Simon marvelled that Roberts had been able to take his army this way, with its camels and elephants carrying the heavier guns. It must have been continually susceptible to ambush.
He screwed up his eyes and peered up at the heights on either side. Was Roberts able to post scouts up there to protect his flanks as he advanced? Just about possible, perhaps. But the two men had no such luxury now, and they rounded each bend in the track with care, hoping to meet an army patrol, for the General had said that he was taking pains to keep the route open.
Rocks and crags, however, were all that met their gaze. The valley had now narrowed further to become a gorge and the distant vista of snow-capped peaks had long since disappeared. To the front and above them was a succession of spurs, covered with dense forests of deodar. Simon realised that, as the junior of the three invading generals, Roberts had drawn the shortest straw. This was by far the toughest approach to Kabul.
‘Do you know, bach sir,’ said Jenkins from the rear, ‘I think I’d rather have Zululand. At least we could see where we were goin’.’
Simon looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. The sun had slipped away over a peak an hour ago and it was noticeably colder. ‘We’d better camp here,’ he said, pulling his horse’s head away from the track towards a mossy bank, which stretched invitingly under a rock overhang. ‘It should be safe to light a fire.’
The two men dismounted and Jenkins began relieving the donkey of part of its load. The horses were hobbled - an unnecessary precaution in truth, because they could not have wandered far - and Simon gathered wood and began lighting a fire as Jenkins broke out their sleeping rolls and took water from the stream.
It was quite dark by the time they had eaten. ‘Snug enough, though, isn’t it?’ said Jenkins comfortably.
‘Hmmn. Perhaps just a bit too snug.’
Simon got to his feet and walked softly to the edge of the trees that came down to the rock overhang. He peered into the darkness and stood still, listening. Then he sniffed. Equally quietly, he walked back to Jenkins and crouched down beside him.
‘I don’t like it, 352,’ he said. ‘This big overhang stops the fire being seen to some extent, but the smell of wood smoke is strong and will carry up the gorge. If there is anyone about it won’t take long for them to know we are here.’ He looked around. ‘I think we shall have to forsake the fire. Come on.’
Together the two men unlashed some of the carpet samples that gave them credibility as traders, and laid them out like bed rolls, spoked away from the guttering fire. Then, taking their blankets and rifles, they stole quietly into the steep forest, finding a spot nearby which afforded them a view of the camp and where they could find cover, to some extent, by burrowing into the leaves and pine needles which covered the rocks.
‘I’ll take first watch,’ whispered Simon.
‘Kick me if I snore, then,’ said Jenkins, wrapping his blanket round him so that his moustache protruded over the edge like a little black rodent at rest. Within seconds he was asleep.
Simon, after a cold and uneventful first watch, was fast asleep when a gentle dig in the ribs from Jenkins’s rifle woke him. The half-light of dawn revealed the gorge as Simon inched himself alongside the Welshman to look down on their campsite.
At first he could see nothing, then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he spotted them. At either side of the rock overhang, two men - four in all - stood motionless. So still were they that it was difficult to pick them out, in their dun-coloured clothing, from the grey of the rock. Then, moving like cats, one man from each side approached the camp fire.
Simon focused his eyes carefully in the gloom and saw that the two remaining men carried long-barrelled Afghan jezails, or muskets. The men tiptoeing towards the campsite seemed to be unarmed, until a charred ember of firewood slipped and caused the dying fire to blaze momentarily. The two men froze for a second, but not before the flame had caused the knife blades in their hands to flash. Jenkins lifted his rifle.
‘No,’ Simon whispered into his ear. ‘I want to see what they’re going to do first. Don’t fire till I do. Then I’ll take the two in the middle. You shoot the men waiting - they’re the hardest targets.’
‘Oh, thank you very much, I must say,’ mouthed Jenkins. But he carefully took a bead on the most distant Afghan.
As the two men converged on the fire, the watchers saw that they were Pathans: tall, slim men, wearing turbans wrapped precariously like bundles of washing on their heads. They stole in noiselessly on soft sandals, slightly upturned at the toes.
‘Do you think there are more in the trees?’ whispered Jenkins, without taking his eyes off his target.
‘Don’t know. We’ll have to take that chance.’
The Pathans each moved towards what appeared to be a sleeping man. Then they exchanged glances. One nodded, and both men swung their arms up and down in terrifying arcs and plunged their daggers into the sleeping forms.
‘Right,’ hissed Simon, and fired.
Almost simultaneously Jenkins too pulled his trigger. One of the two attackers immediately fell, as did 352’s target on the edge of the trees. Simon and Jenkins quickly grabbed second cartridges from the rock by the side of their rifles and, using their thumbs, pressed them into the depression behind their back-sights and fired again. Despite the fact that he had to swing his rifle round, Jenkins got his shot away before Simon and dropped his second man as the Pathan fired his cumbersome musket. The second attacker, however, had run into the blackness of the trees before Simon could sight on to him.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘And damn again. Come on. There’s nothing to be gained by hiding now.’
The two men got to their feet and crashed down in a shower of rocks to the campsite, running to where the Pathan had disappeared into the forest. He was, of course, nowhere to be seen. Rifles at their hips, Simon and Jenkins stood back to back for a moment, facing the trees, expecting an attack, or, at the least, a volley of firing from the darkness. But there was nothing. Only silence.
Jenkins looked quickly over his shoulder at Simon. ‘You all right, bach sir?’
‘For God’s sake, yes. Look about you, into the trees. He must be there somewhere.’
His words were interrupted by two reports from the forest, some hundred and twenty yards above them, one from the right, the other from the left. The first ball hit the rock immediately above Simon’s head, causing splinters to fly, before ricocheting down the gorge with a mournful whine. A rock splinter caught Simon above the eye and he felt blood trickle down his face. The other slug whistled through the loose folds of Jenkins’s shirt and thudded into a tree behind him.
‘Quick!’ shouted Simon. ‘Get them before they can reload. You take the left ...’
But Jenkins had already gone. Moving with remarkable agility for such a thickset man, he bounded up the rock face and had disappeared before Simon could finish the sentence. Simon peered into the gloom. Dawn was flooding the gorge with light but the forest remained almost impenetrable. Concentrating hard, however, he thought he saw the remnants of a wisp of smoke lingering by the branch of a fir tree, about a hundred yards above him to his right. He thought quickly: how long did it take to reload a musket? It was a fifty-fifty chance. Heaving himself up by a tree root, he scrambled into the dubious protection of the forest darkness, using his rifle as a lever to push himself upwards and sometimes scraping along on all fours. He could hear no sound save that of his own noisy progress as he crashed through the undergrowth, but concealment was of no importance. The Pathan - God, could there be more than one? - had seen him enter the forest and would either be scrambling away himself or, more likely, thrusting the ball down the long barrel of his jezail and filling his pan with powder.
In fact, when Simon finally saw his man, he was doing neither of those things. He was waiting: his musket perfectly balanced, his head still behind the crude rear sight and his thumb in the act of cocking the flintlock. Simon flung himself to one side as he heard the first, tiny explosion in the priming pan, and then the second, much louder, as the powder in the main charge at the base of the gun was fired. So close was he that he felt the blast of the ball as it missed his right shoulder.
Simon had no time to aim, so he fired from the hip. A dull click was the result. In his anxiety to chase the assassins, he had forgotten to reload - and the Martini-Henry was a single-shot rifle.
The Pathan reacted quicker than Simon. Throwing aside his musket, he pulled from the cummerbund at his waist a long curved dagger and threw himself at his assailant. Instinctively, Simon presented his rifle to the Pathan as though it carried a bayonet at the end. The result was almost as effective as if it had done. The muzzle caught the Pathan squarely in the midriff as he hurled himself forward. Just under four feet long, and weighing nine pounds, the Martini-Henry was a most effective longstaff and the blow completely winded the Afghan. Simon had a momentary impression of a face contorted with surprise, the cheeks blown out and black eyes popping above a strong, hooked nose, before he himself was knocked to the ground by the force of the collision.
Together the two men rolled down the hill, crashing from tree to tree as each clawed at the ground for purchase. Simon was brought up sharply at the base of a large deodar, hitting his head on the trunk. Dazed, he was half aware that the Pathan was scrambling back up the slope towards him, knife in hand, when a solitary shot rang through the forest and the Afghan fell, a black bullet hole neatly drilled above his left ear.
Unsteadily, Simon rose to his feet and saw Jenkins twenty yards away, slipping another cartridge into the chamber and lowering the lever behind the trigger guard to cock the rifle.
‘Thanks, 352. I think he would have had me that time.’
‘You’re very welcome, sir bach. I couldn’t shoot earlier because you two was lovin’ yourselves all over the ground, see. But I did see you present the bayonet to ’im, just like you was on the parade ground.’
Simon smiled and looked quickly around. ‘I didn’t hear you shoot before. Did yours get away?’
Jenkins looked offended. ‘Oh no. Like you, in the fuss, like, I didn’t have time to reload. So I used this, see.’ From his belt he drew a knife and scabbard and, slipping off the sheath, showed Simon the blood-stained blade. He nodded to the dead Afghan. ‘Two can play at that game, look you.’
Simon wrinkled his nose. ‘Jenkins, you never fail to amaze me.’
‘Well, I dunno why. I’m good at killin’, you know that.’
Simon looked around. The sun was now penetrating the foliage in bright shards of light, bringing little coils of steam from the wet pine needles and making the rock outbreaks glisten. The tree trunks marched relentlessly above them, climbing vertically from the forty-five-degree slope. But no sound came from them: no birdsong or scuffle of wildlife, and no sight or echo of human activity.
The two men stood quietly, each moving his head slowly to scan the forest and straining to hear a twig snap or a pebble slide. Nothing.
‘Well, if there were more of them, they’ve gone now all right,’ said Jenkins eventually.
‘Hmmmn.’ Simon frowned. ‘I wonder. Damn! The horses. They might have doubled back. Quick.’
The two half ran, half slid down between the trees to the trail below and to the camp under the rock overhang. But the two horses and the donkey were undisturbed, grazing happily on the mossy bank. Simon and Jenkins loaded the donkey and mounted their horses, to resume their ascent along the rocky trail. They now rode with their rifles in their hands, eyes constantly scanning the rocks and trees that climbed above them either side of the fast-flowing water. Each bend in the trail was now approached with great caution, Simon, in the lead, edging round the rock face while Jenkins covered him, rifle at his shoulder.
This, and the fact that the going became steeper as they climbed, made for slow progress, and Simon estimated that they had covered only perhaps a mile and a half in the first hour when they met the army patrol.
The encounter showed how inadequate their precautions would have been if the ambush had been for real. Simon edged round one particularly awkward bend in the trail, where a jagged tooth of a rock made the corner completely blind, and called Jenkins to follow. Immediately, a dozen rifles poked at them from the top of a rocky ledge on the right and a young voice shouted at them in Urdu.
‘Damn,’ breathed Simon. Holding up his hand with the palm towards the cliff face, he cried: ‘Allah kerim. Allah kerim.’ He could see no sign of the speaker; only the rifles pointing down at them, with what appeared to be a brown face behind each one. The voice again shouted either a command or a question in Urdu.
Standing in the stirrups, Simon replied in Pushtu: ‘You must forgive this traveller, but I do not speak the language of the Indus.’
There was another pause, and then the speaker replied, this time with some exasperation, ‘Well, dammit, do you speak English?’ It was a voice from the playing fields of any English public school, high-pitched and querulous.
Simon smiled. ‘Yes, dammit, I do. But it would be better if I could see who the hell I’m speaking to.’
At this, a slight figure emerged above the parapet and scrambled down to the road. He was dressed in a tight-fitting uniform of dark green, with a pistol in a black leather holster at his side and a black topi on his head. He might have cut a sinister figure in those hills but for his face, which was cherubically pink and sported a startlingly blond moustache. He could not have been more than twenty-one years of age.
‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said, as he approached Simon. ‘Had to be sure you weren’t a couple of pahari choors.’ He held up his hand. ‘Chambers. Second Lieutenant, 5th Gurkhas.’
‘Glad to see you.’ Simon shook his hand warmly. ‘Fonthill. Captain, Corps of Guides. This is Sergeant Jenkins.’
‘Oh, sorry, sir.’ Chambers briefly stiffened into a formal salute and then nodded cordially to Jenkins. ‘Don’t see many white NCOs in the Guides - if you are white, that is.’
‘This one’s a bit special. How far are we from General Roberts’s camp?’
‘About half a day, if we get a move on.’ The young man turned and shouted an order in Gurkhali. Immediately the rifles disappeared from the ledge and, within seconds, some twenty Gurkha infantrymen appeared on the trail and fell in loose order. Simon looked at them with interest. He had heard about these little mountain men from Nepal. They had a formidable reputation as fighters, yet now they appeared almost childlike in their green uniforms and pillbox hats, which they wore jauntily to one side. They seemed like page boys on a day’s outing from a London gentleman’s club. Yet they carried their rifles with easy grace and every man had a broad-bladed kukri hanging from his belt.
Chambers regarded Simon and Jenkins with an ingenuous smile. ‘I must say, you Guide chaps do go native magnificently,’ he said. ‘You certainly look the proper article. My chaps nearly blew your heads off as you rounded the bend.’
‘Ah, that’s because we’re Welsh, see,’ interjected Jenkins helpfully, his smile cutting a great white gash under his moustache.
‘What? Oh, I see. Yes. Well.’ Chambers looked puzzled for a moment. Then his smile returned. ‘Welsh, eh? So you’re used to the mountains, of course.’
‘Not really,’ said Simon. ‘Don’t you think we’d better get on? We had a bit of trouble back there.’
‘Eh? Oh. Yes, sir. Of course. We thought we heard firing down the pass about an hour ago, so we hurried on down. We were sent out to escort you in, because the Afridis here are a two-faced lot. They profess friendship but they’d as soon cut your throat as shake your hand. This route is supposed to be open back to the border but it needs constant patrolling.’
Simon looked down at the little men with their ageless brown faces. ‘Aren’t the cavalry used for patrolling?’
‘What? Good lord, no. Not here. These chaps are the best in the world in this territory.’ Chambers gazed at his platoon with pride. He seemed like a school prefect out with a party of fourth-formers. ‘Horses are no good here. My chaps are the thing for these rocks. You’ll see.’
He barked a further command, and immediately, two men splashed through the stream and disappeared on the far side, while another two climbed among the trees and went ahead on the right bank. Half of the remainder fell into double file ahead of Simon and the rest behind Jenkins. Then the little column set off, Chambers chatting continuously to Simon as he strode beside him.
Simon soon saw the young man’s point about the Gurkhas. They moved silently and, seemingly, effortlessly along the rocky path, maintaining a far faster pace than the two horsemen had managed. The trail was now very steep, and Simon was happy in the knowledge that flank men were out ahead of the party.
As they neared Kuram, the trail widened and flattened, and they fell in with a company of Punjab Cavalry who had been out on patrol on the plain. They made a fine sight with their lances, coloured turbans and great beards, and Simon felt that Jenkins and he were being escorted into Kuram by the pick of the Indian Army.
The town itself was little more than a handful of huts clustered around the brown mud walls of an Afghan hill fort. The ramshackle fort could not house all Roberts’s men, and the white bell tents of the troops surrounded the fort like a besieging army. Although the sun was still quite high in the sky, it was noticeably colder here, and Simon shivered as they were escorted through the guard lines.
A major on the General’s staff received them in the fort, and here Simon said goodbye to Chambers, who trotted off with his soldiers as though they had all just got out of bed. Here, too, he parted company with Jenkins, who was dispatched to the sergeants’ mess of a British line battalion, there being no unit of Guides in the camp.
‘Now try and behave like a sergeant,’ whispered Simon.
‘Very well, bach sir. I’ll try and find someone to shout at, then.’
Both the General and Colonel Lamb - the latter having only arrived at the camp himself two weeks before - were out on reconnaissance, and Simon was ordered to wait on the General at nine that evening, after dinner. General Roberts, he was told, was anxious to see him as soon as possible.
Simon was allocated a tent and advised that he could eat at the officers’ mess of the Punjab Cavalry. But after washing himself thoroughly in a hand bowl, he chose instead to wander among the huts of the Afridis who lived at Kuram and farmed the surrounding inhospitable plateau. He bought a bowl of goat stew and some coarse Afghan bread, and sat cross-legged in the dust, his back to the wall, feeding himself fastidiously, using his fingers and the bread, impervious to the curious gazes he elicited.
Precisely at nine o’clock, he presented himself at the General’s headquarters. The fort was a gloomy place, built for defence rather than comfort. The walls were about twelve feet thick and enclosed a cramped quadrangle. But they were flaking and crumbling here and there, and Simon estimated that they would be unlikely to withstand even a light artillery bombardment. He was led into a small, stuffy anteroom, lit by rush flares flickering on the walls. It was medieval and primitive; not at all how he imagined the palaces of the Raj to be. In fact, he reflected, Afghanistan was completely unlike India. If the predominant colours of the sub-continent were bright - the yellow of saffron, the silver of silk, the bright blue of the sky - then the land of the Pathans was painted in browns and greys.
The call came quickly, and Simon was ushered into a much bigger room, lit by candles and a large fire, with unglazed windows through which he could glimpse stars and hear the murmur of the camp. Two figures, silhouetted against the fire, rose to greet him. As they did so, Simon almost gasped in disbelief. The two men could have been twins, so similar were they in stature and bearing.
The first figure was that of Colonel Lamb. The second, however, seemed almost a replica of the Colonel: also five foot two, slightly built, flag-staff straight and with Lamb’s direct gaze. Frederick Sleigh Roberts, VC, had been Quartermaster General of the Indian Army when the call had come to lead the Kuram Field Force. He had won his Victoria Cross in the Mutiny as a subaltern twenty-five years earlier, but he had seen comparatively little active service and had never commanded in the field until now. His success in the fierce skirmish at Peiwa Kotal had been his first victory as a commander, and it had won him instant fame.
Roberts did not advance to meet Simon, but stood by the fire, his hand extended. As he approached, Simon realised that height and posture were all that the General shared with Lamb. While the Colonel was sunburned and cleanshaven, Roberts’s cheeks were pink and he wore side whiskers which ended in a short, grey-flecked beard. Both men wore comfortable smoking jackets, with loose scarves at their throats. They could have been two English country gentlemen - the squire and the doctor - finishing their port after dining well.
‘You had trouble on the way up, I hear,’ said Roberts. He spoke softly, with nothing of Lamb’s staccato delivery.
‘Yes, a little, I’m afraid. We had to kill four Afridis.’
Roberts gestured to a chair. ‘Tell me about it.’
Simon told the story as briefly as he could. He would have been briefer, in fact, but the General continually interrupted him to ascertain details - ‘At what range did you fire?’ ‘Why do you feel there were no more attackers?’ ‘Describe Jenkins to me; is he as well disguised as you?’
His account finished, Simon was silent. The General looked at him without speaking. Colonel Lamb shifted in his chair, but he too said nothing. Simon began to feel embarrassed.
Eventually, Roberts spoke. ‘I don’t like it,’ he murmured.
‘Sir?’
‘You are supposed to be agents. I didn’t expect that you would thunder into the hills, virtually shooting on sight.’
Simon bristled. ‘With respect, sir, if we had not done so we would both now be dead.’
The General scratched at his beard. ‘What rifles did you have?’
‘Martini-Henrys, sir.’
‘Ah. There you are then!’ Roberts rose to his feet and began to pace around the room. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘We . . . er . . . brought them with us from Zululand, sir.’ Simon stirred uneasily.
The General stopped pacing and stood before him. ‘Did it not occur to you, young man, that a Persian carpet trader from the north and his servant would be highly unlikely to go about their business carrying the latest British Army rifles?’ He still spoke quietly, but every word was uttered with precision. It occurred to Simon that Roberts’s career as Quartermaster General of the Indian Army meant that his life had been one of careful planning and attention to detail.
He too stood up. ‘Yes, sir. That’s why we kept them carefully concealed until we were attacked.’
‘Hmmmn.’ The General’s blue eyes were completely expressionless. ‘Nevertheless, it’s not like the Afridis to attack a couple of merchants in the middle of the night. They would be curious about you . . . want to talk to you and offer you mint tea before slitting your throats. No. It’s my bet that they saw your rifles and took you for what you are - a couple of gora-logs, playing the game.’
‘The game, sir?’
Roberts looked at him sharply. ‘How long have you been in India?’
‘Just under a month, sir.’
‘What training have you had here?’
‘A little over two weeks in the school at Gharghara, in the hills. We learned some Parsi and a little Pushtu, native manners, how to measure distances by keeping our foot paces consistent . . . that sort of thing.’ Simon suddenly felt inadequate. ‘There was time for little else. I was told to hurry on to you by this date. I am sorry if . . .’
For the first time Roberts smiled. ‘Do sit down, Fonthill. Here, have some . . . dammit, Baa-Baa, you’ve virtually finished the brandy!’
An unusually quiet Lamb stood up. ‘I’ll fetch some more,’ he murmured and walked to the door.
Roberts leaned forward. ‘Yes, I was aware that you had little time for training here. Frankly, Fonthill, I’ve been forced to take a gamble with you. Lamb tells me that you and your man were the best intelligence people he had in South Africa. I asked him to bring you out because we are damned short of that sort of material here. Not that we don’t have some fine men operating. Cigar?’
Simon shook his head and the General leaned back and blew blue smoke to the ceiling.
‘Both we and the Russians have had agents working in and around Afghanistan for the last forty or fifty years; white men but living like natives, surveying the passes and roads, watching each other’s movements, gauging which tribe is friendly and which isn’t. That sort of thing.’
He smiled. ‘The newspapers back home have called it “The Great Game”, and in a way it is. Except that there aren’t any rules.’ Roberts’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s a very dangerous game, Fonthill. But then . . .’ the smile came back, ‘you’ll know about this sort of thing because you’ve played it in Zululand.’
Simon’s heart sank. The last thing he wanted was to be regarded as some sort of master spy, skilled at subterfuge and disguise.
‘Not really, sir,’ he began. But Lamb had returned, and the next few moments were taken up with the brandy bottle. Despite the fire, the open windows made the room cold, and Simon was glad of the warm liquor. It helped to stop his heart from thumping. The Great Game sounded frightful.
The General settled back in his chair and sipped at his glass. ‘My irritation of a moment ago was caused by the fact that your disguise may well have been penetrated by the Afridis who attacked you. If it was, you have two chances. Firstly, you may have killed all the members of that attacking party. Secondly, even if a couple of the Pathans did get away, their particular tribe could well keep the news to themselves in the hope that they can pick you off themselves later to settle the score.’
For the first time, Colonel Lamb now intervened. ‘You may well wonder, Fonthill, why we would even think of sending a blacked-up chap into hostile territory which he doesn’t know and where he can’t speak the lingo, eh? What? What?’
Simon smiled. ‘I must confess, it had occurred to me, sir.’ He tried not to sound ironic.
‘Quite. Quite.’ Lamb bounced in his chair, pleased that he had so successfully put himself in the other’s place. ‘Well, we’re not such duffers as we seem. You see, this godforsaken country is really a loose collection of little kingdoms, which, although they formally owe allegiance to the Amir in Kabul, act very autonomously. There’s not much cross-fertilisation between ’em, so to speak. That’s one reason why those Afridis might not pass on to their neighbours the news of your presence.
‘The other - more important - point is that Afghanistan is a sort of crossroads. It’s the link between India and central Asia. All kinds of queer Johnnies are always travelling through it. Traders from Persia. Horse dealers from Samarkand. Fakirs from India. Teachers and their chelas. They speak their own tongues and often no other. So if you play your parts properly, you won’t seem at all unusual to the paharis - that means hill men - whose territories you pass through.’
The Colonel sank back, satisfied that he had made his point well. Simon nodded thoughtfully. ‘But I must be able to communicate, mustn’t I?’
A great grin seamed Lamb’s face and his teeth gleamed in the firelight. Even the General smiled faintly. ‘We’ve taken care of that,’ said Lamb. ‘We’re giving you a Sikh interpreter. He’s a Guide and he knows the hills, the tribes and the dialects well.’
‘He is, I understand, a trifle . . . ah . . . eccentric,’ interposed Roberts. ‘But the best man for the job, without a doubt. You will meet him in the morning.’
Simon nodded. ‘Thank you. Now, sir. What exactly is it you want me to do?’
Roberts took a reflective puff at his cigar. ‘You’ve read the briefing notes which I sent to Colonel Lamb?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You will know, then, that we have agreed peace terms with the Amir, Yakub Khan. Under the terms, mine is the only column that has been allowed to remain in Afghanistan.’ He smiled wryly. ‘And, as you can see, we’re not camped very far into the country. The other two columns, under General Stewart at Kandahar, and Sir Sam Browne’s force in the Khyber, have both been withdrawn.’
The General stubbed out his cigar in an earthenware dish. ‘However, we do have a military mission in Kabul itself, the capital. Sir Louis Cavagnari has gone there with a small force to set up the Residency.’
Roberts looked at the floor momentarily before continuing, and Simon intuitively felt that this straight-talking man was about to dissemble. ‘Cavagnari’s a good man, of course. Knows the country well. First-class diplomat - in fact, it was he who negotiated the treaty. His dispatches sent here for onwards transmission to the Viceroy in Simla are all full of optimism.’ Now the General held Simon’s gaze again. ‘But I don’t like it.’
‘Why not, sir?’
‘The Afghans may not be the world’s most united nation, but they’re quite cohesive in the sense that, not unreasonably, they don’t like their country being invaded by foreigners - particularly unbelievers. They’re mainly Musselmen, you see. They are fine fighters - although not as good as they think they are - and the trouble is that we’ve not defeated them properly in battle yet. Our southern army just went straight through to Kandahar without any fighting at all. In the Khyber, we had a few skirmishes but little else. Here, we gave ’em a bloody nose on the high pass, but you can’t say that the nation has been defeated.’
The General looked across at Lamb and smiled. ‘So I believe the pot is simmering. I want to know where, when and how it might boil over, and that’s why I sent for Colonel Lamb.
‘You see, Fonthill, I have found our intelligence to be poor here. Yes, we have a much-vaunted system of political officers. But although these people have military rank, they are really civil servants and lack what I consider to be a proper strategic sense of our situation here. They’re all damned optimists and placators, it seems to me. The other point is that each officer is limited to his own territory and has no perception of what is happening, or likely to happen, in the valley next door.
‘As a result of this, I have asked Colonel Lamb to create an army intelligence operation to serve the Field Force here. Lamb rates you highly, so he has brought you with him to be in the van, so to speak.’
‘The van, sir?’
Roberts nodded. ‘I want you to go to Kabul. Cavagnari has only been there a month, but he will have settled in by now. Of course you will inform him of any development which you believe will have relevance to his work. But you will not report to him. You will deal with Colonel Lamb, who will remain here.’
Simon’s brow creased into a frown. ‘But I can’t stay at the Residency, sir.’
‘Of course not,’ Lamb interjected. ‘You and 457 - whatsisname - and your interpreter must live in Kabul as carpet traders. Sir Louis will need to refurbish the Residency, so there is every reason why a Persian merchant should visit him. But you must find lodgings in the city.’
The General now rose to his feet and Simon did the same, sensing the dismissal. ‘What we need from you, Fonthill,’ said Roberts, ‘is news of that pot. I want to know if there is an amalgamation of the mullahs in the hills; where the tribes will gather for it; and, of course, when they are likely to strike.’
Roberts seized Simon’s arm in emphasis. ‘The possibility of the tribes massing is what interests me most. If they stay disunited, I can pick them off separately. If they unify, it will be a very different matter. We would be outnumbered by a hundred to one.’ He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Good luck, my boy.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Simon shook hands with both men and turned for the door.
‘Fonthill.’ It was Colonel Lamb who called. ‘I will walk with you to your tent.’
Once outside the General’s quarters, Lamb bustled into a quick walk, along the corridor, across the enclosed ground and through the massive gates of the fort towards the British lines, all the while gripping Simon’s arm.
‘Sorry about the early rubbishing,’ he said. ‘But Bobs was worried that you had blown everything when you killed those hill men. And you may well have done. Can’t be helped. You had no alternative. I understand that. But you’re at greater risk than ever, my boy.’
Simon gulped. ‘I’m not sure I’m the best man to be a spy, Colonel. For one thing—’
‘Rubbish.’ Lamb stopped at the lines of the Punjab Cavalry. The distinctive smell of horses and manure filled the air. ‘You did well in Zululand. No different here. Two things, though.’
‘Sir?’
‘Exchange those Martini-Henrys for a couple of old Sniders. They don’t shoot as well, but they fit better. A Persian trader would never be able to get his hands on Martini-Henrys, but Afghanistan is full of old Sniders.’
‘Very good, sir. And the second thing?’
Colonel Lamb looked up at Simon quizzically. ‘Did you throw a certain Captain Barlow of the 8th Foot out of a railway carriage at Khushalgarh?’
Simon examined the stars above, set like diamonds in blue velvet. ‘I certainly did, sir. Man’s a bounder.’
The Colonel sighed. ‘I suppose I was aware that you were not enamoured of what we might call conventional army officers. Very well. But get out of here as soon as you can in the morning. Barlow has filed a formal complaint and I can deal with it much better if you are lost somewhere in the hills.’
‘Thank you, sir. Good night.’
‘See me first thing in the morning. Sleep well, Fonthill.’