by John Wilcox
He embraced them both roughly and then stepped back with a sheepish grin. ‘Ah, sorry about the dust, beggin’ your pardon, but I felt we’d be too late, see. I was worried sick. But …’ he nodded down the hill, ‘I might ’ave known you’d both be able to look after yerselves.’
Fonthill and Alice each grabbed a hand of the Welshman. ‘Well, we nearly needed you, old chap,’ smiled Simon. ‘You could have been in on the final act if you hadn’t wandered off the track looking for an alehouse. But you virtually made it in time, so thank you. Well done.’
They turned to welcome the young subaltern – the only white man in the sixty-man troop – who now joined them. He extended a hand. ‘Freddie Buckingham, Second Lieutenant, Royal Corps of Guides,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry, sir – madam – that you’ve had this welcome to our party. Damned bad thing to happen, doncher know. Apologies from the Corps. I know the colonel will be most upset.’
‘Thank you, Freddie,’ said Simon. ‘This is my wife, Alice, and, of course, you have already met 352 Jenkins – late sergeant in the Corps, I may say.’
The formalities over, the officer turned and shouted something in what sounded to Simon like Pushtu to the tall daffadar who was high on the other side of the track. The soldier responded with a negative wave of the hand.
‘I don’t think there are any more of these Pathans about,’ said Simon, ‘otherwise they would have been down on us like a swarm of locusts. We could only just handle four, as it was. So I think you can recall your men.’
The eyebrows under Buckingham’s helmet rose and his pink cheeks seemed to glisten in the sun. ‘Ah, you understood the order, so you speak Pushtu, Captain. Splendid. By the way, everybody calls me Duke. Inevitable with a surname like mine, dash it, but I’m no relation, more’s the pity …’
Fonthill smiled. ‘Duke it is, then. As to Pushtu, I learnt a bit of the language when I was here in the Second Afghan War but I am not fluent, alas.’
The young man’s face opened up again. ‘Yes, I heard how you and your remarkable chap here blacked up as natives and disappeared up into the hills for weeks on end before reporting back to General Roberts and then warning him of the Afghans’ depositions at Kandahar. Oh, yes. You’re quite famous around here, sir, I will have you know. It’s a pleasure to have you with us on our anniversary – and your famous wife, too, if I may say so.’
Alice gave a small curtsey. ‘Oh, you may say so, Lieutenant. Now, tell me. You must have met Jenkins while you were out on patrol, no doubt?’
‘No, ma’am. We had come looking for you. Colonel had learnt that you had arrived in Peshawar and sent a wire to say not to start out until we had sent an escort but we were told you had left. So I was sent off hotfoot to rescue you.’ He looked ruefully down the hill. ‘Though it looks to me, Captain, as though you and Mrs Fonthill are well able to look after yourselves.’
Fonthill and Alice exchanged glances. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that,’ said Simon. ‘It was touch and go. But we were told that the Border was quiet and that this road was safe.’
Buckingham pulled a face. ‘And so it was. But things have stirred up almost over night. Now, we’d better get back to Marden.’ He shouted another order to his troops then nodded down to the bodies of the Pathans. ‘These chaps are not exactly locals. They look to me as though they’re from the Wazir tribe from near the Khyber. Big troublemakers when they want to be and as fierce as hell. We can’t bury them in this terrain, but we’ll just cover them with rocks – and, of course, take their rifles. Come along, let’s get your wagon back on the road. I’m afraid that, with one mule dead, you will have to ride your horses, but it’s not all that far.’
All this was said with a fluent air of knowledge and self-confidence and Fonthill was reminded again of how amazed he had always been at the skill of these young men who, looking as though they had just left the sixth form of their schools, were leading men into action with the sangfroid of veterans. It was, he reflected, the Empire at its best.
Buckingham turned as he picked his way down the shale. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he called back. ‘There’s someone in my troop who is most anxious to meet you. Come on. As soon as we’re safely on the road, I’ll introduce you.’
CHAPTER TWO
The troopers, who had ranged over the hills on both sides of the track remarkably quickly, now trudged down again and quickly re-formed on the road. Intrigued by the reference to someone who wanted to meet him, Fonthill regarded the men with interest.
They were smartly turned out in collarless khaki tunics atop riding breeches with tightly bound puttees and black boots. (Simon recalled that, at their formation in 1846, at a time when every British soldier wore scarlet, they were the first troops to adopt khaki – an Urdu word of Persian origin meaning dusty or dust-coloured.) Polished leather cross belts gave prominence to their chests and red cummerbunds circled their waists. Their turbans were tightly bound and featured contrasting colours. They carried Martini-Henry carbines and cavalry sabres dangled from their saddles. They were all Pathans, natives of the Frontier, with the high cheekbones, prominent, sharp noses and ferocious black beards indigenous to these peoples, and they were, without a doubt, a handsome bunch.
Returning their grins now, Fonthill remembered that they had been recruited originally as an irregular force whose purpose it was to gather intelligence of tribal movements and act as guide to troops in the field. Shortly after their formation, they had won acclaim in the Mutiny by marching in record time across the north of India, from the Border to Delhi, to support the loyal troops besieging the city. From that moment, although they had retained their nomenclature as Guides, they had been subsumed into the India army as fighting men – and specialists in mountain warfare. Although recruited from the Border tribes, the Guides never suffered any defections or mutinous revolts. They were regarded as one of the most trusted units in the British Raj.
With snorts from the horses and a jingle of harness, the troops mounted and Simon, Alice and Jenkins trotted forward to join Buckingham at their head.
‘Now, Captain,’ said the lieutenant, ‘I promised you that there was someone in particular who was most anxious to meet you.’
‘So you did.’ Fonthill looked into the dark faces behind them. ‘I must confess I can’t quite think who it would be.’
‘Ah.’ The young man chuckled. It was clear he was happy to be playing some sort of game. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I will give you a clue. You’ve met him before, although a long time ago.’
Simon looked again around the troop. All of the men were grinning at him again, their teeth cutting slashes of white in their black countenances. All, that is, except the daffadar, who sat ramrod-straight in the saddle holding the pennanted lance and frowning straight ahead of him. He was clearly much taller than the rest of the troop and, although bearded and dark-skinned like the others in this Pathan unit, Simon realised that he was a Sikh. But his appearance rang no bells with him. He exchanged puzzled glances with Alice and Jenkins, who shook their heads negatively.
‘Very well.’ Buckingham raised his voice. ‘Daffadar!’
‘Sahib.’ The Sikh gently heeled his horse forward, so that it was level with the quartet.
‘Captain Fonthill, Mrs Fonthill, Mr Jenkins,’ said Buckingham formally, ‘may I introduce you to just about the best soldier in the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides. This is Inderjit Singh, daffadar in my troop.’
The tall Sikh immediately gave an impeccable salute and, for the first time, allowed himself to engage in eye contact with Simon. His handsome face slowly relaxed into a warm smile.
‘So glad to see you again, sahib, memsahib, sahib,’ he said to each in turn, in impeccable English, with only the trace of the Indian lilt to show that he was not some public schoolboy from Winchester or Harrow.
Fonthill frowned and stared at him. ‘I am sorry,’ he began haltingly. ‘We have met before, have we?’
‘Oh yes, sahib, but only when I was a little boy. I am grateful to you,
for you paid for my education at Amritsar. My mother, who is dead now, wanted to write to you to tell you I had joined the Guides but she did not know where to write. Now, when Buckingham Sahib tell me that you were coming, I was delighted and wondered if I could meet—’
‘Wait a minute.’ Fonthill’s frowned deepened. ‘You say I paid for your education?’
‘Yes, sahib. You see I am the son of my father, Inderjit Singh, once of the Guides. You knew him, I think, as W. G. Grace.’
‘What! You are the son of W.G.?’
‘Good Lord,’ cried Alice.
‘Bloody ’ell,’ crowed Jenkins.
‘Oh yes, sir.’ Singh was clearly delighted at the impression his father’s name had created. ‘His name is well known in the Guides – almost as famous as yours and Jenkins sahib, I think.’
Buckingham intervened. ‘So glad you’ve resumed acquaintance,’ he said, ‘but I think we had better get moving.’ He nodded to his daffadar and spoke to him in Pushtu. Immediately, the Sikh lifted his arm, pointed ahead and fell back as the troop began to walk forward, three scouts thrown out far ahead, two at the rear and, in the middle, the wagon, with one trooper squatting on its seat, urging the mule forward.
‘Now,’ said the lieutenant, ‘I’ve heard a bit about the elder Inderjit Singh, but do tell me about your involvement with him.’
But first Simon reached back and grasped the hand of the Sikh, who then, rather self-consciously, shook hands with Alice and Jenkins, before falling back again to take his place at the head of the troop. Then, Fonthill, with many an interjection from the other two, told of how Singh’s cricket-loving father – such an aficionado of the game that he had changed his name to that of the famous English batsman of the time – had guided the disguised Simon and Jenkins to Kabul and then up in the hills to gain information about the massing of the hill tribes in the Second Afghan War, eighteen years before. The trio – later joined by Alice after she had been refused permission by the authorities to report at first-hand on the conflict – had survived many a clash with the Afghans before reaching Kandahar in time to warn General Sir Frederick Roberts of the Afghan placements at that battle which had ended the war. The Sikh had died in a skirmish just before the battle and Fonthill, had, indeed, made provision for his son before leaving Afghanistan.
‘Do you know I had forgotten that,’ Simon confided at the end of his story. ‘And he’s turned out to be a good soldier?’
‘Remarkably so,’ said Buckingham. ‘Born to the job, so to speak. He’s very young to be a daffadar but everyone respects him and he rose through the ranks quickly. He’s a splendid horseman, a good shot and as brave as a lion.’
‘Just like ’is da, then,’ interjected Jenkins. ‘Wonderful bloke, old Gracey, look you. Miss ’im still.’
‘Well,’ said Fonthill, ‘he must have been only about four when I saw him for the only time, so no wonder I didn’t recognise him. I look forward to reminiscing with him about his father. Thank you for bringing him along.’
‘Humph.’ The young man snorted. ‘Wouldn’t dream of going out into the hills without him. Come along. I could do with a drink.’
‘What a splendid idea, bach,’ rejoined Jenkins.
They rode into Marden some three hours later and Simon and his two companions looked around them with interest. It was hardly a town, or even much of a village in its own right, for it was dominated by the Guides’ cantonment on its edge. Nestling between towering mountains on a small plain through which a small, gin-clear stream trickled, the garrison was similar to many that Fonthill had seen in India: barracks, bungalows, a church, a club and, inevitably, a cemetery, all surrounded by a low wall. The buildings were all of red brick and seemed, amidst the grandeur of their surroundings, to possess an air almost of melancholy, something perhaps that had leached out from the nearby graveyard, with its many stained and leaning headstones telling their sad stories of deaths in action and from cholera. Attempts to enliven the club and the bungalows had been made with the planting of shrubs and flowers, but Simon could not help but feel that this outpost of Empire was rather a sorrowful place.
The welcome, however, was warm enough. A short, khaki-clad full colonel, his Sam Browne belt trying but failing to restrain his corpulence, bustled out to greet them. His red face boasted a clipped, salt-and-pepper moustache and a wide smile.
‘Nigel Fortescue,’ he cried, pumping each of their hands in turn. ‘You are all most welcome …’ Then his voice trailed away as he took in the dust still engrained on Jenkins’s figure and his trained eye observed the traces of cordite on Fonthill’s cheek. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’ve had trouble. Damnit. Those idiots at Peshawar shouldn’t have let you come on your own. Tell me about it.’
Simon related the story of the attack on them and of the deaths of the Pathans.
‘Wazirs by the sound of it,’ said the Colonel. He turned up to Buckingham. ‘Eh? What, Duke? Wazies, eh?’
‘Yes, Colonel. But, by George, the captain and Mrs Fonthill here knocked ’em off – all four of ’em – before we were able to get there. Remarkable stuff.’
‘Well,’ interjected Simon, ‘Jenkins here got one before we were forced to send him for help.’
‘Not surprised, from what I’ve heard about you all. Now, enough of all this. You must be in urgent need of a bath, all of you – ah … er … particularly you, Mr Jenkins, eh?’
‘Very true, Colonel bach. And p’raps a drink of somethin’ cold d’ yer think?’
‘Most certainly. All in good time.’ He turned back to Simon. ‘The bad news is, I’m afraid, that you’ve missed our main celebrations by just a couple of days, don’t you know. Our fault. Should have given you a notification that we had had to bring it forward to accommodate our colonel-in-chief and, indeed, Lord Roberts, C-in-C India. Yes, both of them were here. Great honour. But they’ve had to leave for Simla. Bit of trouble about, as you have already probably heard. Oh, by the way, Lord Roberts sends his warmest regards to all three of you. Most insistent that I should pass them on. He’s sorry he’s missed you.’
Simon and Alice exchanged wry smiles. The relationship between them and the fiery little general had rarely been warm, despite Fonthill and Jenkins’s good intelligence work in the campaign, and Roberts had not taken kindly to Simon’s curt refusal to accept a permanent commission and higher rank in the Indian army offered to him. It looked now as though all had been forgiven. Another mark, he noted, of his now seemingly warm acceptance by the British army after his work in the Sudan and his appointment as a Commander of the Bath.
‘That’s very kind of them, sir. Yes. We would certainly welcome a tub.’
‘Right. I’ll get the adjutant to show you to your quarters and allocate your boys to you. The fact that you have arrived safely – oh, and by the way, have you met Daffadar Iinderjit Singh?’
‘Yes, we have. Very rewarding to see how well he has grown up – and so like his father.’
‘Yes. Good. Now. Your safe arrival has given us the excuse to have another damned good party in the mess tonight. And madam, you shall be our main guest of honour and you, Jenkins, Sergeant or whatever you are or were – got the DCM after Khartoum, I hear, eh? – shall be our honoured guest as well. No need to dress up. You’ve been travelling. Just put the best on that you have with you. Shall we say 6.30? Good. That should give you time to relax after your exertions. Welcome again.’
‘Thank you, Colonel.’
Willing hands unloaded their bags and took away their horses and they were escorted to their quarters in the club. These were spartan enough – all for single visitors so there was no double room for Alice and Simon – but the great luxury awaited, a little further along the wooden corridor, of three separate bath houses where bhistis were already boiling water for them. Within fifteen minutes Fonthill was lying with only toes and chin breaking the surface of the steam as he listened to the voice of Alice softly singing from the cubicle next door.
As he relaxed, his mind
turned to the colonel’s phrase ‘bit of trouble about’. Well, they had already met that and there was obviously more unrest in these hills. He knew what Alice’s view of that would be. Why, she had always argued, did we expect native people to take sanguinely the British occupation of their countries? Would we accept the French moving into Surrey and Norfolk and imposing their rule and culture on us? It was no use pointing out that Indians and Pathans were primitive races who benefited from the examples we set with our higher economic, social and political values. These peoples, she maintained, should have been left to have found their own levels in their own way and in their own time.
Simon wrinkled his brow. And wasn’t she right? The lives that Jenkins, Alice and he had taken that day had been forced on them, of course. They were acts of self-defence. Yet the root cause of all that violence – he saw again the blood oozing down the scree, the hatred in the eyes of the man he had killed at point-blank range, the overweening barbarity of it all – didn’t it all spring from the British invasion of their country?
He splashed the water gently with his hand to generate more heat. As he closed his eyes at the luxury, he recalled the famous message that the British General Sir Charles Napier had relayed back to the British army HQ at London’s Horse Guards after he had occupied the Indian province of Sind by force for the British East India Company in 1843. It consisted of the single Latin word, ‘Pecavvi’ – ‘I have sinned’. Such smirking arrogance! Such a pompous, self-regarding display of superiority! How very British!
Simon’s thoughts turned back to his wife. He had undoubtedly pushed her rather in persuading her to come on this trip. Fresh air and gentle climbing indeed! If his instincts were right, they could be about to become immersed in a tribal uprising that might well involve them in more violence, more killing. He stirred in the warm water. Well, perhaps they might be able to escape to the tranquillity of Kashmir and the lower reaches of the Hindu Kush, further to the east, before the trouble escalated. He must seek the advice of the colonel. They would do their duty to their hosts, take part in the final cordialities of their anniversary and then be on their way. Yes. He felt better at the thought. He had no right to put Alice in the way of further danger. They would be off as soon as possible.
