by John Wilcox
‘My … husband? What on earth has he got to do with it?’
‘Oh, everything, my dear. You see, my spies have told me about his mission to Kabul to persuade the Amir to take no militaristic part in the Pathan revolt. We know that he is on his way back to Peshawar now …’
‘What?’ Alice sat bolt upright. ‘Where is he now? Has any harm befallen him?’
Ali shook his head. ‘As far as I know, he is in splendid health and he is probably approaching the Afghan-Punjab border at this very moment, or, at least, he will be very near to it.’
Alice sat back and tried to compose herself. ‘Good. Then tell me, what do you want of him?’
‘Very well. Now listen.’ His voice had taken on an edge of steel. ‘As I told you, we have many, many men and we will undoubtedly win this fight. But there is no doubt that the British army will throw troops and modern artillery at us. The Amir – whom I know well, of course …’
‘Of course.’
He ignored the irony. ‘The Amir will probably accede to the Viceroy’s request that he sends no troops to our aid. But if he is openly insulted he could well lose his temper, because he, too, hates the British and all their works. As a result, he could well commit a considerable number of his well-equipped army to join us. After all, they would all almost certainly be delighted to do so. They are brothers to the Pathans.’
Alice frowned. ‘The Viceroy – nor anybody else in a position of power in the Raj – would dream of openly insulting the Amir. You know that.’
‘Of course. But it is perfectly simple to forge a letter from the Viceroy – marked with an open copy, of course, to the Russian commander-in-chief at Bukhara across the border in their territory. I have the Viceroy’s writing paper here, a copy of his seal and plenty of samples of his signature. The letter would say something to the effect that news had reached Simla that the Amir had been instrumental in sending mullahs across the border into the Punjab to raise the tribes. Something, by the way,’ Ali’s voice dropped to a purr, ‘that is perfectly true.
‘As a result,’ he went on, ‘the Viceroy will call the Amir a dishonest and disroyal cur and inform him that a force was being prepared in the Punjab to invade Afghanistan immediately. As a result, my dear Mrs Fonthill, the Amir will erupt with rage and send his army across the damned Durand Line to join us as soon as you could say Queen Victoria.’
Alice sat for a moment digesting what had been said. Eventually she said: ‘But the Amir would know that the Viceroy would never write that sort of letter. He would immediately suspect that it was a forgery.’
Ali nodded. ‘Of course. But not if your husband personally delivered the letter, informing the Amir that he had been intercepted at the frontier, told to turn round and deliver it and that he assured the old boy that it was no forgery.’
Alice snorted. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. My husband would never …’ Her voice tailed away. Then she spoke in a low voice, little more than a murmur. ‘Ah, you would threaten that something would happen to me if he did not carry out this mission. Is that it?’
‘Exactly so.’
She spoke now in a voice quivering with fury. ‘That is a dastardly thing to do. You misunderstand my husband if you think that he would agree to such a course of action.’
‘Oh, I think he would. If, that is, we proved our intent by forwarding to him some part of you to show that we were serious. Shall we say your index finger, one anyway containing a ring with which, of course, he would be very well acquainted.’
A silence fell. ‘And you would do such a thing?’ Alice asked quietly.
‘Oh, I’m afraid so. Our cause is just, you see.’
‘Then you are, what I first thought you to be, an uncivilized savage. A disgrace to the human race.’
He held up his hand, a faint sneer on his face. ‘Ah, Mrs Fonthill, I should warn you that I never did respond to flattery – even from those pretty girls at Cambridge. Now, we must first ascertain exactly where your husband is and then, I am afraid, we shall have to carry out what I fear will be rather brutal surgery. Oh,’ he held up one finger. ‘There is one way of avoiding the … ah … amputation.’
Alice turned her head away and did not respond.
‘That is,’ he continued, ‘if you wrote him a letter pleading with him to do what we wish, confirming, otherwise, that you will certainly be harmed.’
‘I shall do no such thing. Do what you like with me.’
‘Very well. I shall ask Abdul to take the finger. Probably tomorrow. I would find doing such a thing myself personally distasteful, you see – although I shall certainly watch. I do apologise, but I fear we have no anaesthetics with us. It will be quite painful. I leave the thought with you. Now, if you will excuse me.’
He gave his customary half bow and turned away through the tent opening, carefully threading the closing cords behind him.
Alice sat staring bleakly at the canvas and began to shiver. She sat like that for a while before removing the two rings that she wore on the third finger of her left hand. At least she could prevent them from taking them off. She rose and, at a spot near the centre pole of the tent, she knelt and clawed at the earth with her fingernails. Having dug a small hole she pulled at the rings and, with an effort, was able to slip them off her finger. She pushed them into the hole and covered them with earth, stamping down the loose soil with her foot until any sign of disturbance had disappeared.
She lay on her bed and began to concentrate. Ali the Damned seemed to have her whichever way her mind twisted. If she refused to sign any plea to Simon, then the finger would be amputated; she shuddered – would they use a hammer and chisel or, even more horrifying, saw it off? If she signed the letter, so avoiding the amputation, Simon would know she must be under great pressure to have done so, possibly torture. Either way, he would be likely to agree, knowing his love for her. Could he find a way out? Perhaps taking the letter to the Amir and then explaining the circumstances to him personally? Would the Amir believe him, having what must seem like a genuine letter from the Viceroy in his hand and knowing that the Viceroy’s charge about sending the mullahs to incite unrest was true? This last point was the clever twist.
Alice felt tears run down her cheeks but they were caused as much by frustration as fear. What on earth could she do?
She lay for a while as her brain whirled. Well, there were two alternatives, both of them acts of despair. She could make her escape attempt that very night and, if she was able to leave the camp, at least delay the sending of the letter to Simon while they searched for her. This might give him time to cross the border and be more difficult to find in the hills and valleys as he sought a different way back to Peshawar. But, of course, Ali would anticipate her escape attempt and he would probably increase the guards, maybe so that the tent itself would be circled by them.
Alternatively – and she reached under her blanket top and touched the reassuring cold steel of the little handgun in the pocket of her dress – she could wait for the arrival of Ali and Abdul in the morning and simply kill them. What would happen then? Well, she would be overpowered and then probably tortured to death. Or, more satisfyingly, she could use the last bullet on herself.
She put both hands to her face and let the tears pour until the pillow was soaked. Oh! Simon. Would she never see him again? Then, with a jerk, she sat up. This would never do. Her dear husband would be ashamed of her if he saw her now. The escape must be attempted before she fell back on that final solution. She sat for nearly an hour, minutely examining possible courses of action before she decided exactly what she would do. It was full of risks and quite unlikely to succeed but, what the hell – what had she got to lose?
That evening, she ate only a few morsels of her meal, carefully wrapping what was left in the washbag that had remained in her travel bag. Then she lay on the bed in an attempt to rest and store energy. She did not sleep, of course, but lay with her mind racing.
Alice was dreading another visit from Ali but it di
d not materialise. She peeped through the lacings of the tent flap and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that night had fallen blackly, with no trace of the moon. She twisted her head to see who was on guard outside the tent but could see no one. She hoped it would not be Abdul, because he had been kind to her and had certainly saved her life.
This waiting was the worst part, for Alice had no watch and she wished to time her attempt for the deepest hours of darkness, when the whole camp should be asleep. Eventually, she stood, discarded her blanket and retrieved her rings from their hiding places and replaced them on her fingers. Then she pulled on her riding boots – there was no way she could walk across the scree and rocks of the hillside in her slippers – removed her brassiere and knickers so that her pubic area was shamelessly nude and pulled down her dress, smoothing it over her breasts so that they stood out provocatively. She combed her hair and quickly checked the handgun to ensure that it was loaded and, as far as she could see, fully operative. Then she took the scarf that had functioned briefly as a burkha and wound it tightly round her hand, with the gun clenched in the fist, making a small bundle.
Alice stood by the entry to the tent, listening again so intently that she could hear her heart thumping. Thank God the camp was never quiet. Even during the hours of darkness someone quite near was thumping a drum, a fire outside one of the nearby tents was guttering low but still crackling and, inevitably, a dog was barking. She took a deep breath and began gently unthreading the cords holding the tent flap in place.
Very cautiously, she looked outside. Yes, there was a guard and, thankfully, it was not Abdul. He was a stocky (good, similar in height to herself!) man and, as he turned, she could see that he looked quite young. His beard was not fully grown, merely a stubble. He frowned at her and she held her finger to her lips, in the universal request for silence, thrust out her breasts and smoothed them with her free hand, smiled, lifted her skirt quickly before beckoning him to come inside the tent.
The Pathan’s jaw dropped and he stood uncertainly for a moment. She flounced her skirt again and jerked her head, pouting her lips. Alice’s heart nearly missed a beat as the guard remained there. Then, he looked around him furtively and moved quickly towards the tent. She held open the tent flap so that he could enter, but he gestured her in first with his rifle.
She flounced in before him and, holding the bound pistol behind her back, gently slid her free arm around his neck, pulling his head towards her. Then she kissed his mouth, forcing it open with her tongue – God, he tasted foul! Then she knelt down on the bed and waved to him to join her.
This time he grinned and, laying aside the rifle, he slumped onto the divan beside her and began struggling to remove his bandolier. Alice closed her eyes, offered up a quick, silent prayer for the man, pulled him towards her, pushed her pistol, still heavily wrapped in her scarf, against where she judged his heart would be and under where his loose gown was now lying in folds, and pulled the trigger.
The report, muffled by the tightly bound scarf and the Pathan’s clothing, emerged as only a sharp crack, and Alice quickly put her free hand to the man’s mouth to stifle any sound he might make. As he fell away with a muffled groan, she sprang up, discarding the scarf, and pulled the tent flap across to close the opening and stood, gun poised, ready to sell her life dearly.
She remained there for all of a minute, hardly daring to breath. No sound came from outside the tent, except the continued beating of the drum, the crackle of the fire and the barking of the dog – enough familiar noises, thank God, to have muffled the sound of the shot. She thrust the gun back into her pocket and loosely threaded the cord to hold the flap in place.
Then, gritting her teeth, she knelt at the side of the man and felt for the neck artery. He lay, his mouth and eyes open, a look of complete astonishment on his face. But she could detect no pulse and she began tearing at his clothes before the blood that was seeping through his clothing at the chest could stain it too noticeably.
Alice awkwardly slipped her knickers on over the riding boots, fastened her bra and began pulling on the outer garments of the Pathan: his coarse cotton overshirt, his poshteen, his cummerbund and belt, through which an Indian army leather ammunition pouch was slipped – yes, he too would have killed to get that – and from which hung his two-foot-long knife. Thank God his turban was not unravelled and she gingerly put it on her own head, pushing her hair up underneath it, so serving the extra purpose of wedging it there firmly. She picked up her sparse provisions and tied the bag to the belt, grabbed the rifle and tiptoed to the tent exit.
There, on an afterthought, she put down the rifle and returned to the bed, pushing the Pathan roughly into the foetal position and draping the blanket over him. Then she pulled the strands of his long hair over the edge of the blanket and covered much of his head with the pillow. At first sight, in the gloom of the tent, it could, she felt, be herself, still asleep.
‘Sorry, young man,’ she whispered to him. ‘But you will know that this is a violent, very violent country. He who lives by the sword … and so on. But I am sorry. Perhaps I shall soon join you.’
Then she gently pulled back the tent flap and stepped out into the night.
If there was another guard posted at her tent, she could not see him – perhaps he was at the rear. Carrying the rifle at the trail she began walking firmly, as though on some duty, although she had not the faintest idea of where she was going. She remembered Simon telling her that, although the Pathans were magnificent fighters, splendid shots and skilled at finding and using cover, they lacked the formal disciplines of professional soldiers. Did this mean, then, that they never posted guards in camp at night? She fervently hoped so.
Without looking to right or left, she strode purposefully on, being greeted by dogs but only once being hailed in slurred speech by a man who lay outside a tent – drugs, probably, because, of course, Muslims never took alcohol. She raised a languid hand in reply and hoped to God that her turban was not about to slide off as a result.
Eventually, she reached what was the end of the irregular line of tents and the beginning of the ever-present jumble of rocks and scree. She chose to pick her way down the slope, hopefully towards the road. But this time, she would not turn to the east, towards Jamrud and Peshawar, to where, hopefully, the Pathans would expect her to head. No. She would turn west, towards the Afghan border.
She was going to meet Simon, or die in the attempt.
CHAPTER NINE
Kabul was about an hour behind them, and they had been riding through pleasing country, much of it orchards, that was now beginning to rise into foothills. It had not been easy to regroup the column ready to ride out and Fonthill had become restive at the delay. He had used the time to send Inderjit Singh into the bazaars again to see if he could pick up news about the Pathans’ attack on the Khyber forts but the Sikh had been unable to gather anything more than that the mullah had raised a vast army and was descending on the Pass.
It was enough to fuel Simon’s anxiety about Alice and he had urged the column into a trot as it pulled out of Kabul, accompanied now by taunts from the citizens lining the narrow streets. The pace, however, had had to be slowed for the sake of the horses and he now sat the saddle in some disquiet.
It was not just the inevitable adjustment to the pace of the advance that disconcerted him but the fact that, for the last minute or so, he had sensed instinctively that something was wrong. Nothing seemed to have changed: the sun beat down from the bluest of skies and the landscape seemed empty of people, but something had alerted him to danger. So what the hell was it?
He stood tall in the stirrups and looked ahead again to where the ground began to fold into valleys and dark rises. Ah yes! There it was. A sudden flash of the sun reflecting from bright metal, just where the road began to wind between outcrops of rock. A likely place for ambush, of course.
It could perhaps be that the sun had caught some bright part of a farm implement, or was even reflecting from a
sheet of water. But farm implements in Afghanistan were invariably made of wood and they had long since left the river behind and pools were rare in this barren country.
He called to Appleby-Smith. ‘Clarence. Use your field glasses and scan ahead where the road starts to climb and disappear. See anything?’
The captain focused the glasses and then lowered them. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. Why?’
‘I thought I saw the sun reflecting from some bright piece of metal. Could be a sword or a spear.’
The captain immediately showed concern. ‘Ah. I suggest we halt here and send a scouting party on ahead.’
‘No. We can’t spare the time. And, anyway, that would show them that they had been seen and they would either wait and ambush the scouts or simply retire and try to attack us at another place later. No, let us keep advancing as though we have seen nothing.’
Simon regarded the officer closely. ‘May I suggest you study the terrain? There may be a way around what looks like that defile.’
Appleby-Smith nodded and pulled out of the column to gain a better view.
‘No,’ shouted Fonthill. ‘Come back. Look from here. We don’t want them to think that we have seen them. We must keep advancing in the normal way.’
The captain rejoined the column and studied the hills ahead. He put down the field glasses, turned to Simon and offered them to him. ‘I think I caught a glimpse of something moving there, where the road disappears,’ he said. ‘But it’s probably nothing. Take the glasses. I can’t see an alternative way round. The hills start climbing there and it looks like rough ground. I still think we should stop here and investigate further.’
‘Hmm.’ Fonthill gazed steadily and then handed the binoculars to Jenkins. ‘Here, 352, you take a look. You’ve got the sharpest eyes of anyone I know.’
The Welshman refocused and sniffed. ‘There are definitely blokes skulkin’ in them rocks where the road bends,’ he grunted. ‘An’ there’s what looks like a bit of a separate track curling up and round to the right there.’
