by John Wilcox
‘So giving him time to slip away again. Your protest has been noted and no doubt you will repeat it to the general when we return. In the meantime, gentlemen,’ he looked around at the officers, ‘I am in command. Is that understood?’
There were muted growls of assent. ‘Very well. Go about your duties. Dawson. Get those scouts out ahead, NOW.’
‘Very good, sir.’
In fact, the scouts were back within the hour, revealing how close the column was to the mullah’s house. It was situated, they said, in a little valley over the hill. It was whitewashed and surrounded by a low wall. There seemed only one entrance. The Pathans were camped irregularly all around the house and numbered perhaps about three hundred. The camp bustled, but cooking fires were still lit and there seemed to be no formal guards posted.
Fonthill commended the scouts and called the officers forward. Alice, unbidden, stayed at the edge, notepad at the ready. ‘Now,’ said Simon, ‘the object of this exercise is to capture or kill the mullah – not to have a stand-up fight with his bodyguard. We must presume that Sayyid Akbar is in the house. He is easily recognisable because he always wears long white robes. We will clearly have to fight our way through the encampment to get to him, which will not be easy.’
The circle was silent and Appleby-Smith’s face was as white as a sheet. ‘So,’ continued Simon, ‘we will create a diversion to draw away as many of the tribesmen from the house as possible. Mr Dawson, you will take half a troop and ride to the west. At exactly,’ Fonthill drew out his watch and consulted it, ‘half past noon, you will create great noise and fuss and attack the encampment from the west. Kill as many men as possible, and then retreat, drawing away as many tribesmen as you can.
‘Then the main party, led by me, will gallop through the encampment to the house. We will line the wall outside to deter attacks, while I and a small party go inside the house and … er … extract the mullah. We will then mount up and cut our way out of the encampment. If you detect that our party is in trouble, Mr Dawson, I would be grateful if you would come to our assistance. If that is not necessary, we will meet up on the western end of the defile where we were attacked and ride like hell back to Maidan. The Pathans lack cavalry so we should not be followed closely. Any questions?’
‘What,’ asked Buckingham, ‘if the mullah is not in the house?’
‘Then we find the bastard – and quickly. Is that all? Good. I would be grateful, Mr Buckingham, if you would pick twenty of your best men and join myself, Mr Jenkins and Daffadar Singh in the party to go into the house.’
‘Honoured, sir.’
Fonthill turned to Appleby-Smith. ‘I would be grateful, Captain, if you would command the men manning the wall to keep the Pathans at bay, while we enter the house to take the mullah.’
‘Humph!’
The squadron rode out within minutes and once reaching the point where the path parted, bade farwell to Dawson who rode away to the left. Then Fonthill threw aside his turban and, with great caution, led the rest of the party at walking pace ahead to where, the scouts had told him, a patch of trees looked down on the encampment. There, under their cover, the squadron halted and Simon looked up to his left to a hill where he could now begin to see a small party of horsemen gathering. Good, Dawson was in position. He pulled out his watch. 12.25. No sign of movement behind the low wall surrounding the house. But it was clear that the Pathans were preparing to leave, for fires were being doused and there was great movement between the tents.
Simon moved his horse towards where Alice was sitting on her mount at the rear of the group, two troopers posted one either side of her.
‘Alice,’ he said, ‘do not charge with us. Stay here with these men who have been instructed to look after you. As soon as we have gone in, ride back to the defile and wait for us. If we are not back within the hour, ride back to Maidan.’
His wife showed no sign of dissent. ‘Very well, Simon. Good luck.’
Fonthill nodded. Then, ‘The men should draw sabres,’ he instructed Appleby-Smith. He looked at the man sharply. The captain was perspiring under his pith helmet, but that was to be expected in the heat.
Suddenly, there was an outbreak of firing from the hill on the left. Immediately, all was confusion down in the encampment. Drums began to beat and tribesmen could be seen hurrying back to their tents for rifles and then running up towards the firing.
‘Ah!’ Fonthill suddenly rose in the stirrups. From the door of the house, a familiar figure clad in white robes appeared, stared towards the hill and then pointed and shouted to the men by the wall. They, too, began running up towards the hill. The mullah paused for a moment and then disappeared back into the house.
‘Now is our moment,’ shouted Simon, drawing his pistol. ‘At the trot, forward!’ The horsemen broke cover from the coppice and trotted down the incline towards the encampment. Immediately, some of the Pathans running up towards the hill knelt and fired towards them. One trooper fell from his horse. ‘Canter,’ shouted Fonthill, and then, as the squadron gathered momentum, ‘CHARGE!’
Once again and for the third time in his life, Fonthill experienced the supreme thrill of leading a cavalry charge against an enemy. He was conscious of Jenkins now riding at his side and of how hot the air was as he sucked it into his lungs, then he was among the tribesmen, riding with his head down, gripping hard with his knees and marvelling at the path he was carving among the Pathans.
One man lunged at him with a spear and he fired at him but he was past him before he was aware if the bullet had gone home. He was aware of Jenkins also firing and of bullets singing past his head before the gateway in the low wall suddenly appeared before him.
Damn! He was going too fast to rein in – he would have to jump it! Waiting until the last moment, he thrust down in the stirrups and hauled back on the reins, leaning forward as the horse rose and then back as it plunged over the gate. Miraculously, he stayed in the saddle and pulled the beast’s head round to halt it. He half fell from the saddle and fired at a Pathan who swung at him with a sword, bringing the man down. A pistol shot at his side told him that Jenkins had arrived and, suddenly, the men of the squadron were dismounting at the other side of the wall and running through the gate.
Fonthill glimpsed Inderjit helping the handlers to pull the horses away behind the wall and Buckingham directing men into position along the wall – where the hell was Appleby-Smith? Jenkins, limping from a sword cut high on the thigh, was at his side again.
‘Inside,’ he shouted and pushed aside the door to the house. A bullet immediately cracked into the wall by his cheek and another whistled away over his shoulder. He fell to this knee and fired blindly into the interior, dark after the harsh sunlight outside. Suddenly, he was pushed to one side and he became aware of Buckingham, revolver in hand, leading a party of sabre-wielding troopers into the room and immediately engaging in hand-to-hand fighting with Pathans who seemed to spill into the room. Simon caught a flash of white robes from behind the fighting as a door was opened and shut.
‘352,’ he called, ‘are you hurt?’ It was still difficult to adjust to the gloom of the interior.
‘Perfectly all right, bach sir, and right beside you. Just a scratch near the arse, that’s all.’
‘I think the mullah has gone through a door at the back there. We must get through this mob and after him.’
‘Let me go first.’ The Welshman, his eyes now ablaze and completely oblivious to the blood running down his thigh, picked up a chair and charged straight into the combatants ahead, hurling friend and foe alike aside as he whirled it from side to side. Close behind him, Simon blazed away with his pistol and, suddenly, the two were facing a door at the rear.
Flinging it open, Fonthill ducked through, pistol raised, and fired as a huge man with a scar down his cheek lunged at him with a sword. The bullet took Alice’s old jailer squarely in the chest and, as he fell, Simon glimpsed a white-robed man pulling himself through a window at the far end of the room. He
fired quickly, hitting the wall as the mullah slipped through and the hammer of the revolver then fell on an empty chamber.
Cursing, Fonthill tossed aside the gun, picked up the sword and ran to the window. He heard Jenkins’s despairing cry, ‘Don’t go there, he’ll kill you …’ as he pulled himself up and then fell headfirst through the open window, and sprawled onto grass on the other side. But the sword spun away from him and, as he scrambled to his knees, he looked up into the black eyes of the Mullah Sayyid Akbar.
The toe of the Afghan’s boot caught him under the chin and sent him spinning down again and he rolled away as the mullah’s sword thudded into the ground by his shoulder. The force of the blow, however, embedded the blade momentarily into the thick loam that lay beneath the well-watered grass of the garden and gained Simon several seconds of precious respite, enabling him to pick up his sword and stagger to his feet.
For a moment, the two adversaries regarded each other.
Akbar’s teeth flashed as he grinned. ‘You must be Fonthill,’ he said. ‘I must say, your wife screams delightfully when she is hurt. I am sorry she didn’t stay with me long enough for me to cut off those delicate fingers …’ As he spoke he sprang forward, bringing his curved sword down in a glittering arc.
Fonthill was no swordsman. Now, as he jumped aside awkwardly to avoid the blade, he shot a quick glance up at the window. The glass had slammed shut, explaining the absence of his old comrade. He sucked in his breath. Well, he reflected grimly, this is one battle he would rather wage alone. He had a personal score to pay.
The mullah now circled him, his blade held low. Simon forced himself to think. Both swords were of the Pathan type, long, curved and slightly weighted at the end. If the Afghan was going to fight in the Pathan manner, swinging his blade in a cutting motion, then that might provide just a split second of opportunity if Simon used the point to thrust, European style … It was, after all, the most direct path to the target.
Then Akbar was on the attack again, skipping forward – he was obviously fit and, of course, the younger man – in a series of scything blows. But Simon’s weeks of campaigning and of living roughly had toughened his own frame and he found no difficulty in avoiding these advances. Until, that is, his foot slipped on the wet grass and the mullah’s blade caught him on the left upper arm, causing him to fall to one knee.
‘You are dead, Englishman,’ shouted the Afghan. He lifted his sword to strike again and then a shot rang out. It missed the mullah, but whistled by his ear, causing him to pause.
‘Get up, Simon,’ screamed Alice, her head protruding above the wall as she sat her horse on the other side, ‘that was my last shot.’
Her shot and her voice distracted Akbar and as he turned to look at her, Simon sprang forward, thrusting low and catching the Afghan in the chest. The sword was no rapier so the point did not penetrate far enough to kill, but it gave Fonthill the chance to pull the blade back and swing it up and then down, two-handedly, cleaving the mullah’s head in two.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dawson and his little party had ridden down from the hill to help disperse what were left of the tribesmen around the house and the mansion itself was then torched, with the bodies of the dead Pathans inside it. Fonthill did consider taking the mullah’s body back to Maidan but thought better of it. So he, too, was committed to the flames, although his white robes were hung on a tree nearby to indicate his fate.
The squadron had lost only twelve troopers, with four wounded. The biggest loss, by far, however, came when the dead at the wall were counted. Inderjit lay there, one bullet through his chest, another through his head. He, together with the other bodies, were tied to their horses for the ride back.
The death of the Sikh overshadowed any jubilation at the victory – or any chastising of Alice by Simon for disobeying his orders. She confessed that she had no problem convincing her escort that they should join in at the rear of the charge. Seeing Simon and Jenkins disappear into the house she had, on instinct, ridden round it to the rear until she heard the mullah’s voice.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t actually kill him,’ she whispered. ‘I had my own revenge to take on that terrible man.’
As they set off for the return journey, with the blackened timbers of the mullah’s house as a backdrop, it suddenly occurred to Fonthill that no one had seen anything of Appleby-Smith since the beginning of the action. The mystery was solved, however, as they rode through the thicket and, on the other side, found his horse, standing above his body. He had been shot through the back and then hacked to pieces.
What was left of him was tied to his horse and Fonthill gathered the officers together. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I propose to tell the colonel, his brother-in-law, that the captain was killed bravely doing his duty in the face of the enemy. Let it rest there.’ Everyone nodded, mutely.
Simon’s wound proved to be superficial and Jenkins’s to be a little deeper but not serious. It had been the loss of blood from his thigh that had prevented him jumping up and climbing through the window.
‘I let you down, bach sir,’ he said, gloomily on the ride back. ‘It could ’ave cost you.’
‘You have never, ever let me down, 352. And neither has my wonderful wife.’ He reached out a hand to either side and, for a moment or two, they rode three abreast, holding hands.
Whether because of the death of the mullah or the presence of Lockhart’s patrols ranging ever wider, the squadron was not harassed on their journey back to Maidan. There, Fonthill reported immediately to the general, who heard of the death of the mullah with equanimity.
‘It was him or me, sir,’ said Simon. ‘There was no way we could bring him in.’
Lockhart nodded and, as he removed his glasses to clean them in that well-remembered action, Fonthill noticed how tired were his eyes.
‘I’m glad he’s gone,’ he said. ‘That will help hugely. This campaign is not quite over, because I expect further trouble from the Zakka Khel Afridis, particularly as we retire. But the Orakzais are coming in to surrender and the winter is coming on so the end is near. I think it safe to say that the Pathan Revolt is virtually over.
‘My dear fellow, you have given yeoman service and I can’t thank you enough. I shall report accordingly to the Viceroy and back to the Horse Guards. You are free to go – and perhaps get on with this holiday of yours.’ He gave a weary smile. ‘But is there anything I can do for you before you go?’
‘Yes, there is, sir.’ Fonthill leant forward and told of the death of Inderjit and of his two small children, now orphaned, back in the Guides’ depot at Marden. ‘I propose to bequeath a reasonable sum of money to the regiment,’ he said. ‘I would be grateful if you would ask Fortescue to see that it is used for the daffadar’s children’s education and upbringing. That would be important to Alice, Jenkins and me.’
‘Of course.’
That evening, as Simon sat quietly, allowing Alice to replace the dressing on his arm, he told her about his decision to help Inderjit’s children. She nodded firmly in agreement. ‘Do you feel guilty about his death?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I keep thinking of his orphaned children.’
‘Well, he was a soldier and a brave and good one. If you are a soldier, you live with death. And I certainly don’t feel guilty about killing the mullah.’
‘No. Of course not. But, you know, he had a sort of point.’
‘What point?’
‘His argument about the British possessing his country. Our whole imperial concept.’
‘Humph! Well, to start with, it isn’t his country. He was an Afghan.’
‘Yes, I know. But … oh, never mind.’
Alice worked on in silence for a moment, bathing the wound. Then Simon told her of what Lockhart had said about the campaign being virtually over. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Shall we go on up to the Hindu Kush for that bit of gentle climbing?’
Alice winced. ‘Do you know, darling, having been kidnapped, forced to kill a
Pathan at close quarters and having nearly witnessed you being decapitated, I would value a bit of piece and quiet, however gentle the climbing. What about Norfolk?’
Fonthill sighed. ‘I hoped you would say that.’
‘And there’s another thing. We never thought, in planning the climbing, about Jenkins.’
‘What about him?’
‘Remember? He hates heights. He would never have climbed.’
‘Ah. I’d forgotten. That settles it, then. Wouldn’t want to upset Jenkins. Back home it is, then.’ He looked up in admiration at his wife, now as bronzed as him from the sun and wind of the Border. ‘Could you spare a kiss, nurse?’ he asked.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As always, I must distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction in the book. Fonthill, Alice, Jenkins, Inderjit, Captain Appleby-Smith, ‘Duke’ Buckingham, Colonel Fortescue, Lieutenants Dawson, Barnes, Benyon and others of the minor characters are fictional, of course. But Viceroy Elgin, Generals Lockhart, Yeatman-Biggs and Blood, Brigadiers Westmacott and Kempster, Colonel Meiklejohn, Major des Voeux and his pregnant wife, Commissioner Udny, Captain Barton, the officers named in the dash across the nek under Dargai, Lieutenant Colonel Mathias, CO of the Gordons and his Colour Sergeant Mackie, who did push him up the cliff face there, Piper Findlater VC, who carried on playing while shot through both ankles and later made a fortune playing his pipes on the halls of Victorian Britain, the Amir of Afghanistan, the Mad Mullah who led the attack at Malakand and the Mullah Sayyid Akbar himself – they all very much existed.
I have, though, to make a confession about the Mullah Sayyid Akbar. He was certainly one of the most charismatic of the priests sent across the border from Afghanistan to rouse the Border tribes. And he did howl defiance at the British from the Dargai Heights and he also built a house that was later burnt by the British. Alas, I have not been able to discover his fate after the Revolt, nor to learn much about him personally. So I have reconstructed his character, throwing in, ahem, more than a touch of colour – his fantasising about Cambridge, Sandhurst and so on. I can only plead that any novel set against the romantic background of India’s North-West Frontier deserves a villain who is robust, so I decided to manufacture one, or at least, to tweak the character of one who existed.
