Brothers of the Blade

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  Raktambar said, ‘I do not understand all of that, but – yes – some of what you say is true. But it must happen. You British try to change us too much. We do not want to be changed. We do not want to become like you. When the British soldiers first came here, they did not despise us, they took our women to wife. But now they bring their pale wives with them, haughty women who look down their noses at Indian wives of the British soldiers. This is hard to bear. And the soldiers too have changed. They wish to make us all Christians. We do not want to become Christians. We do not want to fight your wars overseas. I do not want to corrupt my caste by going over the sea.’

  ‘I’m sure we don’t want to make you Christians, do we?’

  ‘Some of you do. There are generals who visit my maharajah who ask him to become Christian as an example to his subjects.’

  Crossman nodded. ‘Well, not me.’

  ‘Some are also like you,’ conceded Raktambar, ‘but not all. And we are afraid. We are afraid we will be changed. In India there are many religions. All of them believe they are the right religion. But we do not try to change each other.’ Raktambar paused, before going on, ‘You and I, we are bound to each other in honour. I did not wish this. I tried to stop it from happening. But it has happened and we are brothers of the blade – there is no help for it. My blade protects you, your blade protects me. We must try to make our way together through these troubled times. If the British are driven from India, then you must go and our bond is at an end. If they defeat their enemies, then you will stay and we will remain locked in honour. You have saved my life, but my life would not have been in danger if you had not taken me from my home. I will save your life, sometime. It will happen, I am sure. Perhaps we will do it many times, one for the other, and will die together in some lonely place, overwhelmed by enemies.’

  ‘That’s a pretty gloomy end you envisage there – a romantic one, but a little drear.’

  The Rajput shrugged. ‘If it must be . . .’

  Crossman thought about his old comrade-in-arms, in the Crimea, the Turk Ali. Now Ali had been loyal, steadfast and true. He had loved Jack as a real brother and would have died for him. For his part, there was nothing Jack would not have done for the Bashi-Bazouk, Yusuf Ali. Now here he was with another foreign comrade who did not particularly like him, was not enthusiastic about being one of his number and would have just as soon put a bullet in him if ‘honour’ permitted it. The only thing which kept them together, Raktambar and he, was this adhesive idea that seemed to prevail over all in this land of the eastern sun. Men here, everywhere, seemed so fiercely attached to the word they made allies of invaders.

  ‘Can we ever be friends?’ asked Crossman, as the light of the day drove out the night. ‘Must we always be reluctant allies, you and me?’

  The Rajput sighed. ‘I do not know. You will always be the man who took my bride from me.’

  ‘Surely the maharajah did that?’

  ‘No, you chose me from the line.’

  ‘That’s true – but how was I to know?’

  ‘Another Rajput would have known,’ said Raktambar, nodding. ‘It is all the same with you British – you do things with closed eyes.’

  ‘Then Rajputs must be mind-readers.’

  ‘No, they read faces. It is easy to do, with open eyes.’

  And Crossman conceded that Raktambar was probably right. If he had been a little more aware that day and not wrapped up in the pomp and circumstance of his visit to His Highness Ram Singh, he might have taken more notice of Raktambar’s expression, of the reluctance which must have been written there, plain for him to see, if he had only looked.

  ‘Well, as you say, neither of us can do anything about it now. You are sorry for it. I am sorry for it.’

  Unexpectedly, Raktambar grinned. ‘Never mind,’ he said.

  ‘And now,’ Jack asked, seeing that the other two were still fast asleep, ‘can you teach me that trick with the fingers? I would love to know it.’

  The Rajput laughed. ‘Sahib, you are so foolish!’

  This nettled Crossman, both as an officer and a man.

  ‘Am I? I might not be the cleverest person in the world, but I think I’m capable of learning a parlour trick.’

  ‘But sir, you have not the right equipment.’

  Crossman was flummoxed. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Sahib, you only have one hand,’ laughed Raktambar. ‘How can you do such a trick with only one hand? One needs both, to take away the attention of the watchers. To control those who would see.’

  Crossman looked at the empty socket of his sleeve and burst out laughing too.

  ‘I hadn’t though of that. I was hoping to impress Jane when I saw her again. Damn, I’ll never be able to do that trick, will I?’

  ‘No, sahib – never.’

  ‘Damn.’

  Gwilliams, huddled in a blanket on the other side of the fire, opened bleary eyes and glared at the two men.

  ‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,’ he said in a deeply sarcastic tone, ‘but could you shout just a bit louder – I’m not quite awake.’

  ‘Time you were up and about anyway, Corporal – come on, shift your backside man. We need to be on the trail. Yes, you too, Sergeant. We’re not on a jaunt, we’re on a mission. I’ve been far too soft with you two recently. I’m thinking about morning kit inspections followed by a parade. When did we have those mainstays of the army in this regiment, eh? Inspections and parades? Something to think about, while you fetch the water Gwilliams. This is the army, after all.’

  Neither Gwilliams nor King thought their commanding officer very funny as they dragged themselves out into the day.

  21

  At last they were in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan having crossed the River Indus. Gwilliams had likened the action to that of a Roman army crossing the Rubicon or the Israelites the River Jordan. It was immensely symbolic. The Indus had fed romantic travel literature of the West since the time of Alexander the Great and actually washing one’s socks in its waters was almost a spiritual affair. The Ganges belonged to the Indians, Gwilliams told the others, but the Indus was one of those roots of mankind which belonged to everyone, white or brown.

  ‘I tell you, Sergeant, it brings a lump to my throat,’ the corporal had said, as he paddled his dirty feet in the shallows. ‘This is as much my water as the Potomac or the Colorado. Kings have come here to bathe. Nations have rose from its banks and marched across continents. The Indus. Who’da thought it, that one day I would’ve trod in its hallowed ripples?’

  King, who had no emotional feelings at all for the gushing torrent and had drawn a section of it on his maps, was baffled by Gwilliams’ sentiment. A river was something to be charted and this particular watercourse, being braided, shifted its channel sometimes by as much as six miles either way on a regular basis. No matter how accurately King drew the Indus on his maps the next time he came through this way, even be it only weeks between, the river would be in a different place. It therefore represented something a little too unstable. If he had anything to do with it, he said, he would plant willows down the banks to contain its wild wanderings, so that it behaved like sensible English rivers and stayed in more or less the same place, year in, year out.

  Now they were in the mountains, where around every corner lurked a hill man with his jezail – the long ornate musket with its carved stock – and a chora – his long Khyber knife – stuck in his cummerbund. They were deadshots, one and all, as good, if not better, than any sharpshooter in the Crimea, be he Russian, French or British. The word ‘fierce’ might have been coined for these wild tribesmen, with their pale eyes and their tangled beards.

  Crossman and his men passed the odd one or pair on mountains paths, dressed in angarka tunics, turbans on their heads and sandals on their feet. They replied to no greetings and only a slight flick of their eyes indicated they recognized the presence of others on their trail at all. Crossman never looked back at them, but he guessed that once they were
at a distance they turned round to stare at this unusual sight. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often seen in these mountains except when they were collecting revenues for the Honourable East India Company, and on those occasions were accompanied by at least a company of soldiers.

  No man ever passed them going the same way, yet when Crossman and his men arrived at a particular pass, it was defended by a hundred or more tribesmen. It was as if the eagles and falcons that circled above them carried the news of their coming. As Gwilliams said, the hills fair bristled with the barrels of firelocks and knives were thicker’n porcupine quills. A shot between the front legs of Crossman’s mare stopped him in his tracks. He waved his good hand in what he hoped was a sign of peace. Now he was going to get his chance to speak Pashto with a live Pathan.

  ‘Are you the Kafirisi?’ he called. ‘I would speak with the Kafirisi.’

  ‘No,’ came the reply, ‘we are the Bochura.’

  Crossman was relieved to hear that because the Bochura were supposed to be friendly towards the British.

  ‘I am Lieutenant Crossman, of the British army,’ he called again. ‘I would ask for safe passage through these hills.’

  A volley of shots answered his shout, none of the actually hitting a target, but frightening the horses.

  ‘So much for friendship,’ muttered Crossman to King and Gwilliams. ‘I was told the Company paid these people to be on our side. I was assured by Colonel Hawke there would be no trouble.’

  ‘Well there ain’t bin yet,’ offered Gwilliams, ‘’cept for a little crazy shooting.’

  A group of men then came out of the rocks like beetles emerging from their holes. They did indeed look a rough band, their cheeks windburnt and scarred, their beard hair stiff with white dust. They walked up to the horsemen and stared hard at what they were carrying, as well as openly inspecting the mounts and the riders. One of the Afghans peered closely at Crossman’s leather gloves, a present from Jane, which he had taken to wearing in the mountains. Beneath the left one was the metal hand he had invented with Tom. He was getting accustomed to its foibles and could now do fairly simple tasks with it, including skilful use of the reins.

  This same man grabbed the bridle of Crossman’s horse and demanded gold.

  ‘Gold?’ asked Jack. ‘What gold?’

  ‘You will give me fifty pieces of gold,’ snarled the tribesman, who was clearly a chief of some kind, ‘as payment to go through my pass.’

  ‘Your pass?’

  ‘This is the land of the Bochura. You will pay me this gold.’

  ‘Has the Company not given you money for our passage?’

  The man’s eyes were the colour of a wolf’s, yet they had not even the compassion of that wild creature’s. They were as hard as flints as they bored into Crossman’s. Money for passage may well have been given sometime in the past, they said, but that was then and now was now. Negotiations were in progress again, all other payments had been eroded away by time. It was as if word had already reached these people that the British were on their way out and one must fleece them before it was too late. Crossman realized that he would need to purchase his progress through the land. Either that, or fight his way through, which might prove more expensive. Whole regiments had tried that and had failed or had been held down for months. He’d been given some gold by Hawke. Now was the time to start using it.

  ‘Of course we have the tribute,’ said Jack, suddenly smiling, ‘but this must be done in the proper way, with tea around a fire. We have ridden many miles to visit the Kafirisi, who, as you know, are the most numerous tribe in the region and who hold sway over all others.’

  ‘The Kafirisi will not begrudge us our share of your money.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ lied Jack, who had been hoping that mention of the greater clan might cow this lesser one, ‘I simply tell you what is our goal so that we are open and easy with one another.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked King who, like Gwilliams and Raktambar, had not been able to follow a word. ‘Are they letting us pass?’

  ‘Not yet,’ murmured Jack. ‘We need to drink tea with them first.’

  They were taken to a place where the ground was reasonably flat and where there was a deep cave which went into the rock face. A fire was soon lit and tea boiled on its flames. Everyone sat cross-legged in a circle around the fire, the Bochura splitting the four intruders by forcing themselves between them, so that they were sitting apart. In between each of the soldiers were two or three of the tribesmen. The one to the right of Crossman grinned into his face with blackened teeth. They were indeed a tough-looking bunch with hard elbows that dug into the ribs of the newcomers.

  ‘So,’ said the chief, to the right of Crossman, ‘where is my gold?’

  The lieutenant reached inside his poshteen and withdrew two purses each containing twenty-five gold pieces. He handed these solemnly to the chief, who was doing his best to peer inside the poshteen to see if there were any more bags where those came from. Crossman glared at this effrontery, stroking his chin and murmuring, ‘For shame’.

  The chief stood up in front of the lieutenant, who also got to his feet, at the same time as warning his men to stay seated.

  ‘You would fight with me?’ cried the chief, his hand on his Khyber knife, a weapon which Crossman had been told could be used in an instant to disembowel an enemy, with an upward thrust that sliced through belt, clothes and belly, all in one movement. ‘Is that what you would do?’

  Crossman said, coldly, ‘I have given you the payment for our passage, yet you remain hostile. This is not the code of the hills. Is this the honour I have been told to expect?’

  ‘You would teach me honour too?’

  ‘I have been told,’ said Crossman, picking up a rock with his left hand, ‘that the men who live here are as hard as stone.’

  The chief frowned, studying the fist-sized rock Crossman had in his hand, as if he expected it to be used against him as a weapon. Several of the other tribesmen were now on their feet, their jezails pointing at the lieutenant. Ignoring Jack’s order, his NCOs jumped up, beating Raktambar to his feet by only a second. The situation was tense. No one was quite sure what was happening. Still the chief did not draw his chora, though his hand was on the hilt.

  ‘If you have been told this, it must be the truth,’ growled the chief. ‘We are of these hills, of these mountains.’

  ‘This,’ said Crossman, ‘is what I do with stones.’

  The chief and his clan stared, wide-eyed at last, as the lieutenant crushed the rock to powder with his gloved hand. It fell as dust from his fist to the ground beneath. A truly remarkable show of strength. None of the watchers said anything, but the air was taut with amazement. The chief bent down, picked up a similar rock and tried the same feat. This attempt was a failure and in the end he threw the stone to the ground.

  ‘It is a trick!’ he cried. ‘Your stone was weak!’

  Crossman then stooped and, after a long moment, picked up the chief’s stone: it crumbled like the first under the grim fingers that enclosed it.

  ‘Now,’ said Crossman, quietly, in English to his men, ‘walk slowly towards your horses, mount, and ride out with me in good order.’

  He then deliberately turned his back on the chief and walked to where his mare was tethered to a bush. He and the others swung themselves up into the saddles, took the reins of their packhorses, and left the place in single file. No one looked back. Not one of them spoke a word. They each could feel wolfish eyes boring into their backs, but Crossman sensed there would be no firing. He had made his point and the tribesmen could go back to their homes and tell a strange story unsullied by blood. ‘There is an Englishman’, they could say, ‘who is at this very moment riding through these hills, who looks as weak as a puppy, yet is stronger than a bear. We took his gold for we are the Bochura, who are afraid of no one, not even wizards.’

  ‘By God,’ said Gwilliams when they were out of earshot, ‘I don’t mind telli
ng you, sir, the sweat is running down in my pants.’

  ‘There’s more than sweat going down my breeches,’ gulped King, who appeared to be teetering on the edge of a swoon. ‘I thought we were goners that time – I had my prayers ready and loaded – my weapon would have been no use – I was shaking too much to hit anything.’

  ‘You cain’t hit anything even when you’re steady,’ growled Gwilliams.

  Raktambar was grimacing, his teeth together and his lips curled back.

  ‘I too was praying,’ he finally admitted, ‘very, very hard.’

  Crossman looked back at his men and smiled. ‘I’m glad about that,’ he said, ‘because at one point I thought I wasn’t going to get my metal fingers to open for the second rock, and that would have spoiled the show. Those prayers obviously worked, because the fist unlocked right at the moment I was beginning to panic. Now look,’ he held up his left hand, ‘this was a fine glove and it’s soiled. I shall get hell from my wife if she ever finds out. I’m sure they cost her a great deal and are impossible to replace.’

  ‘I’ll stitch you a new one myself,’ promised Gwilliams, ‘the minute we come to a market with some good leather for sale.’

  ‘What concerns me,’ said King, ‘is that the Bochura are a small tribe while the Kafirisi are one of the largest. If this is the kind of treatment we’re to receive, we have no life to look forward to.’

  ‘Little tribes are often more aggressive than big tribes, having to assert themselves to make themselves heard,’ answered Crossman. ‘Just like little people.’

  King frowned and looked at his leader. ‘Is that meant as a barb for me, sir?’

  ‘Not at all. At least, I don’t think so.’

  They rode on. Birds of prey roamed around the sky overhead, no doubt purposeful yet seeming uninterested in the ground beneath. Indolent lizards basked on the rocks. The heat in the mountains was not as fierce as it had been on the Rajputs’ plains, but the scenery was just as dreary. Sandy stone everywhere, with the occasional reddish-coloured rock. Dust devils swirled in pockets, scattering their contents. Goat bells were occasionally heard but they saw no goats, nor indeed any goatherds. The lone men who had passed the soldiers earlier like separated beads on a string had now ceased to do so. The landscape was empty, arid and bitter. It bore the presence of new men with resentment, never temperate in its mood.