Drums Along the Khyber

by Philip McCutchan

  Ogilvie caught himself up sharply. ‘It’ hadn’t happened; probably never would. He was running much too far ahead of himself, becoming too grandiose in his thoughts altogether. Nevertheless Mary Archdale—and it may have been no more than a train of emotion started by Cunningham’s words about his wife—Mary Archdale became a goal to return to, something beyond the regiment and even his own life, to lead him out of captivity and sharpen his instinct for survival. And whether or not it had anything to do with thoughts of Mary Archdale Ogilvie, afterwards, couldn’t possibly have said; but the fact remained for the record that, as he thought about her, and as he stared upward from his recumbent position in the direction of the iron trench cover that he couldn’t see though it was no more than inches above the tip of his nose, the idea for the breakout came to him.

  And, at the same time, he remembered the pipes.

  *

  On the hill-top held by Dornoch’s brigade the casualties, as Cunningham had forecast, had been heavy. The artillery had been badly depleted and until reinforcements could reach them they had only four guns firing, while all the indications were that the northern peak was similarly depleted. Sir Iain Ogilvie, still with Brigade H.Q., was becoming increasingly alarmed as to the general situation and was not slow to say as much to the Colonel of the 114th over a whisky-and-soda as the field kitchens prepared the officers’ luncheon.

  “It’s going to be touch and go, Dornoch. By all accounts, that damned supply column’s very heavily protected.” He had expressed this opinion many times already in the last few hours and by this time Dornoch was merely nodding his agreement. “Dammit, we can’t afford to let it go through—we simply can’t! Calcutta’ll have my head on a charger, see if they don’t!” He swallowed his whisky, then paced up and down for a few minutes before stopping, and, once again, lifting his glasses to sweep the enemy lines and the town and fort behind. “There’s got to be a change of plan, Dornoch. I’m forced to the conclusion we can’t go on holding the hills for long enough now. That damn nigger will hold his column somewhere up the valley till he’s silenced all our guns—or what’s left of them—hey? And reduced the men to a damn handful, too.” He lowered the glasses and glared belligerently at the Colonel. “Hey?”

  Dornoch said, “It’s possible, sir, but what’s the alternative?”

  “Damned if I know! There has to be one, though, and I’ve never been stumped before, Dornoch, never! I remember once when I was fighting the damn Sikhs...but I dare say I’ve told you before, come to think of it—”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh. Well—thing is what’ll the rebel be expecting us to do? Work that out, and there you have it!”

  “Yes, sir. He’ll be expecting us to do what we’re doing, I imagine—hold on for reinforcements.”

  “We’ll soon be needing the whole damn siege line brought up at this rate. I can’t afford to denude the perimeter too much, Dornoch. Some sectors are already beginning to look like a woman I saw once in Port Said...but never mind, never mind. That damn nigger’ll break through as soon as he finds a weak spot—you know that.” He paced again, gnawing anxiously at his moustache.

  Dornoch said, “I think you may be wrong, sir, about Ahmed Khan holding up his supply column. He’s not going to give us time to reinforce too well.”

  “No, I don’t agree. He knows our strength, you can wager that! He’ll realize what I’ve just said—that I wouldn’t risk weakening the perimeter. I only hope to God the 88th come through the Khyber intact—and in time!” So far no word of the Connaught Rangers’ progress had come through, beyond the fact that they were on their way; naturally, they would be forced-marching for all they were worth. The General realized now that he had acted foolishly in holding them in reserve at all—every man-jack was needed here before Jalalabad; he’d been guilty of underestimating the rebel and that was an unforgivable military sin that could be expiated only in victory. Victory was a most remarkable expiator of almost everything under God’s heaven, except cowardice or treason. Sir Iain’s face tightened at the thought of treason. He’d accused the boy of it, in a blind fit of unreasoning anger. He was sorry for that, though he would find it impossible ever to admit it; but all the same, there was a nagging anxiety in his mind that the boy could have done something damned silly and damned wrong. It was so blasted odd, he thought, that any British officer should urge his Divisional Commander to accept a rebel’s terms—it was damned impertinence of a rebel even to suggest terms at all—and of course he had never forwarded those outrageous proposals, he hadn’t had the time; he would do so, when he’d dealt with the supply column, after which Ahmed Khan wouldn’t be in any position to dictate anyway. The boy could have been under threat and had given in. That was cowardice, if not treason. And if that should come out...Sir Iain’s hands shook. Then his jaw thrust forward and his eyes hardened. Better—far batter—if he should die! He would be a hero then, unless the facts were so blatant that the men talked about them afterwards. But then the Regimental Sergeant-Major would always support his officers, and put a stop to any such damned nonsense, such flagrant disloyalty. That was what men like Bosom Cunningham were for.

  The boy’s mother would miss him, of course. Curious, for a soldier’s wife, and a soldier’s daughter too...but she’d forgive him any military sin so long as he came back to her. Suddenly the General felt a strange pricking behind his eyelids and he went off into a fit of coughing, with his back to Dornoch and the Brigade Major, who had just come up, while he fished out his handkerchief. The moment passed and he swung round. He said irritably, “Oh, for God’s sake, someone give me a suggestion. If it’s too damn silly I’ll say so. If it’s any good, and it works, I’ll give the credit where it’s due. Come, gentlemen, speak your minds.” He looked at Dornoch first. “Well?”

  Dornoch said, “We must continue as planned. There are only two other courses. Withdraw, or—”

  “I’m damned if I’ll withdraw.”

  “Quite. Or form column and march west, then cut across the supply route higher up and hope to ambush the supply train. But we haven’t the men to ensure success.”

  “Of course we haven’t! Once we’re in the open, the rebel will attack from the rear—we’d be sandwiched. Archdale?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence from the Brigade Major, and not for the first time Sir Iain wondered how the devil the dead Brigadier-General had managed to put up with him. Archdale was a man of turgid mind, as well as body, and he had the most extraordinarily stupid face; nevertheless he was ambitious, and just astute enough to know that an ambitious man of small intellect should never, never commit himself when speaking to a Divisional Commander in what he privately believed to be a fairly hopeless situation. Sir Iain, realizing all this instinctively, glared at him and was seized with a sudden desire to torment. Sir Iain was the kind of commander who made a particular point of acquainting himself with all manner of small detail about the men under him, especially those closest, because experience had taught him that a commander is none the worse for having about himself an aura of divinity; and that the revelation from time to time of minute personal data impressed both officers and men to an extraordinary degree with his sagacity, clairvoyance and insight; and, of course, he knew well about that confounded field lavatory and the spying activities of the duly executed bum-havildar. So he snapped suddenly, and turned away on his heel when he had done so, “Don’t strain yourself, Brigade Major. If you prefer to keep your lips as tight shut as your damn backside, it’s your own affair, I suppose. But possibly action will open them both.”

  *

  During that evening and night, some reinforcements came in; but they were no more than bits and pieces, units and guns brought out of the line on a piecemeal basis from wherever they could be more or less painlessly spared. The Brigade was augmented by two batteries of mountain artillery, drawn now by mule-trains, a company of sappers for what they were worth, two companies of sepoys and—most welcome—one of the Black Watch. The
Royal Strathspeys were glad to be joined by more Highlanders, and spirits began to revive despite the comparative paucity of the numbers. They revived still further when the news at last came through by the field telegraph that the 88th Foot, The Connaught Rangers, had cleared the Khyber Pass, albeit with some regrettable losses, and were marching post-haste to join the Brigade before Jalalabad.

  But hard on the heels of this good news came a report from a runner sent by Brigade’s extended scouting parties dispersed dangerously well down the valley towards the Hindu Kush. This report indicated that Ahmed Khan’s reinforcements were already in the vicinity. A strong column estimated at many thousands of men with artillery, cavalry and wagons had been sighted that evening just as the light had faded and were believed to have halted in a position about thirty miles to the west of the peaks.

  *

  Working in silence, with men posted in the trench and just inside the door of the cellar to listen out for the first indications of any approaching footsteps, the imprisoned Scots had toiled under Ogilvie’s direction at the plan he had thought up. Cunningham had agreed with him that it would have more chance of success than his own idea of chipping away at the wall beside the door-lock and bolts; for one thing, it would be less obvious, at any rate to a cursory inspection, if they should be interrupted. The new plan was this: Ogilvie had realized that the hole in the outside of the wall where the key was inserted to operate the cover mechanism above the trench, was in fact right above the hole he had made in the inner cellar wall; and that a little additional work should expose the mechanism, and that that mechanism would most likely be workable by hand from within. In the very nature of things in Afghanistan it was bound to be of the simplest and most basic construction. He had also told the R.S.M. of his idea in regard to Ahmed Khan’s bagpipes. He had said, “If we can get hold of those pipes from the store, and get clear away from the fort with them, we can put them to work. Once we hit the rear of the rebel force across the valley—well, we spread out and start playing, all together at a signal from me! How’s that?”

  Cunningham had thought it sounded all right. “A good blast of wind, sir, to put the breeze up them well and truly. Yes, it’ll help.”

  There was only one interruption during the day, again for water and food, and the sounds overhead when this arrived gave such of the men as were below ample time to crawl back into the trench before the lid went slowly back. Circumstances had forced them all to become excellent actors; the bleary, unshaven faces that stared up, shutting their eyes against the glare of the day, were beaten and docile enough for anyone’s closest scrutiny. The water and food passed, over went the lid again and after allowing half an hour by counting, in case anyone should be lingering up above, Ogilvie and Cunningham got to work again. As dusk came down once more, the last dusk now before the arrival of the supply column, they had laid bare the mechanism of the trench cover.

  Lying at full stretch in the trench, with his head inwards, Ogilvie felt carefully around the works, then, moving aside, he asked the R.S.M. to do likewise. When. Cunningham had finished he asked, “Well, Sarn’t-Major? What d’you think?”

  “It’s just clockwork, sir.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “It should be simple enough, if heavy.”

  “It’s going to be that, all right. Still we’re going to manage now.” All at once Ogilvie was confident in spite of all the odds against them. “We’ll leave it alone till we hear sounds of Ahmed Khan moving his men out from the fort,” he went on. “As soon as they’re away we’ll wind the thing back, then out we go. I think we can rely on all attention being directed towards the forward line.”

  “Aye, sir. There’s just one more thing, if I may suggest it.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “It’s our uniforms, sir. With them we’ll not stand a chance, wherever the attention’s directed—”

  “But we’ll be over the wall and away from the fort and the town—just as soon as we’ve got hold of the pipes.”

  “That’s true, sir, or anyway we hope it is. But we still have the courtyard to cross. Now, we can overcome this quite easily. I suggest we all strip to our underpants, smother our bodies with mud, and go out naked. The underpants’ll look near enough like loincloths and if we’re mistaken for Thugs, well, that’ll be better for us than if they recognize us for what we are. Our shirts we can tie round our heads, turban-wise. D’ye follow, Mr. Ogilvie?”

  “Oh, I follow all right...but isn’t there a snag? How the devil do we get hold of any mud? There’s dirt in plenty—dry stuff—but mud, no!”

  “We’re pretty dirty already, sir, from the sweat, but mud’s easy made, if the men urinate.”

  “Oh—yes.” Ogilvie hesitated. “All right, then, I’m with you, Sarn’t-Major. It’s a good idea.”

  “Then I’ll give orders that that is to be done before we start to move the lid, sir.”

  “Very good, Sarn’t-Major. When I give the word, I’ll have everyone down in the dungeon and I’ll brief them. Then you can have your muddying-up operation.” After this, so that nothing should go wrong at the last moment, Ogilvie sent all the men back up to the trench and joined them himself with Cunningham. Then they waited. They could do no more for now. It seemed an interminable wait.

  *

  Ogilvie was feeling a sense of let-down, of anti-climax as the night wore along with nothing happening, a feeling that there had been a shift in Ahmed Khan’s plans, that the supply column was not after all coming through this night. Keyed-up for the break-out as they all were, he felt they could never struggle through another day, another night, and maybe, for all he could tell now, more days and nights after that. And he was on the verge of giving way to a feeling of utter and total helplessness and abandonment when the brooding silence of the fort beyond the coffin-like lid was broken by a strident bugle call.

  In his ear Cunningham said violently, “By God, this is it!”

  All around, the men held their breaths once more. Within half a minute of the bugle call, the courtyard above came alive. They heard clearly the shouted, excited orders, the moving feet and the rumble of limber wheels. When this had been going on for some time Ogilvie heard the key slot into the hole in the wall and the lid start to move. It opened. They lay as if dead. There was a laugh above them and then Ahmed Khan’s voice saying something in Pushtu and a few moments later the lid was moved back over them again. They lay listening, trying to interpret the various sounds. Soon there was another short bugle call, followed quickly by a trumpet, and then the sound of many men, horses and guns on the move. The column went by them quite closely, making for the gatehouse, and took a long while to pass.

  At last the courtyard became quiet again.

  It was a deep and absolute silence with an air of finality about it. Ogilvie gave it a while longer, forcing himself to count slowly to one thousand. Then he whispered to Cunningham to move the men down and himself slid towards the excavated hole. Within three minutes all the men were in the dungeon. “Now listen carefully,” Ogilvie said, keeping his voice low. “Remember what I say, and follow out your orders to the letter. You already know what you’re to do about your uniforms. Once that’s done, we get the trench uncovered just far enough for us all to crawl out when we’re ready to do so. Then we man the trench and we lie still. We all go out together when I give the word, and we all head at once to our right, and get under the lee of the fort wall. We follow this right the way around the courtyard to where it joins the main tower—that’s the one with the battlements, you’ll remember. Just before we reach the end of the wall, there’s the doorway where the bagpipes are kept. I’m assuming it’s not locked—it never has been to my knowledge. We go in there and grab those pipes. There should be at least twenty of them. If we can find any arms, so much the better, of course. We stay inside that door till I give the word to clear out, and when I do, we make as fast as we can for the corner of the tower and we climb the wall. Once we’re down the other side,
we make for Ahmed Khan’s advanced line with all the speed we’ve got. We make towards the left of their line, so we’re heading in the general direction of the hill held by the 114th. And when I give the word on the march, I want you all to spread out left and right and play those pipes with every drop of breath you’ve got. It doesn’t matter if you can play a tune or not—just blow. If we’re successful in causing a diversion, we may be of some help to the regiment. Any questions?”

  Brown asked, “What about the quarter-guard, sir? Aren’t they going to see us?”

  “We can only hope not, Corporal. They won’t see us come out of the trench, not from the gatehouse anyway. They won’t have us in view till we’re more than half way round the walls, in fact, and I’m hoping they won’t be worrying about what’s going on inside the fort at all. They won’t see any need to. If we’re lucky, both the quarter-guard and anyone who happens to be manning the battlements will be watching out for his Highness’s column coming back with the supply train—all ready to celebrate a victory! On the other hand, if they do happen to see us, since we’ll be looking like natives I’m fairly certain they won’t open fire right away. In the event of being seen we’ll scatter, and it’ll be a case of every man for himself. We’ll have to skip the pipes then, and go for the wall and join up the other side. All right, all of you?”