by John Wilcox
It was Covington who brought the good news. Tired of sprawling before Alice’s meagre fire, he had strolled forward to the edge of the camp, where he could view the road to Kabul. Standing by a sentry, he shielded his eyes from the glare of the setting sun and squinted down the track. Then he spun on his heel and strode - he never ran - towards Gough’s tent. ‘They’re back,’ he said. ‘And they’ve got a messenger from Roberts with them.’
That evening the little outpost, swollen by the relieving force, celebrated the successful defence of Kabul and the rout of the Afghan army. It was too late for the brigade to advance to the capital and so the officers’ mess broke open the champagne and toasted the defenders.
‘Only Roberts could have done it,’ exulted Gough, an Indian Army man.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ murmured Covington, gently sweeping upwards the end of his moustache with a forefinger. ‘Wolseley could have seen ’em orf equally well.’
The story of the defence had been brought by a captain of the Guides, and after dinner Covington made it his business to befriend the officer, plying him with champagne, then port and brandy - the column’s advance had also been slowed somewhat by the need to transport essential elements of comfort - and encouraging him to talk freely about all that had transpired in Kabul since the General had fought his way in, nearly three months before. Covington was to be Chief of Staff and head of intelligence, and he always felt happier, when taking up a new position, to discover as much as he could about the background to the situation. Gossip about events and personalities, he maintained, was as important as the facts delivered to him from formal briefings. After all, it was all intelligence.
So it was that he was able to give Alice news of Simon, as they rode together on the advance the next morning. He did so with studied nonchalance - and more than a little concealed pleasure.
‘Ah, you remember your little friend Fonthill ...?’
‘What?’ Alice twisted in the saddle. The mention of his name made her realise, with a small pang of guilt, that she had thought little of him in recent months. There had been so much to do and so many new sensations and experiences to absorb, not least emotionally, that he had slowly but irrevocably fallen from her thoughts. Of course! Simon had come out to do some sort of intelligence work. He would now be under Covington’s command again. How awful for him! Her guilt made her stammer out the questions without thought. ‘Simon Fonthill?’ she asked. ‘Is he here? In Kabul? Is he all right?’ She cursed herself for sounding like a schoolgirl.
Campbell, riding as usual on her left, as Covington rode on her right, turned interestedly. This name was new to him. Alice sounded concerned.
‘Now, Alice, do calm yourself,’ murmured Covington, looking straight ahead but with a faint smile on his lips. ‘As far as I know he is all right, and indeed, it sounds as though he has been quite busy. But, inevitably, he has made a bit of a fool of himself. To be expected, of course.’
Alice regained her composure and turned to Campbell. ‘We speak of a family friend of mine, from the border country, back home.’ She smiled. Although she addressed Campbell, she was speaking as much to Covington. ‘We were almost brother and sister at one time, but I have not seen him for months. I had forgotten he was here.’ She turned to Covington. ‘What do you mean, made a fool of himself?’
‘Ah yes. Well. It seems that he was in Kabul when the Residency was burned. Of course, he took no part in the defence.’ He looked across at Campbell. ‘This young man earned a reputation in South Africa for not quite being wherever the action was, you understand. In fact—’
Alice interrupted. ‘That is most unfair. You know very well—’
Covington held up his hand. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Very well. We won’t go into all that again. Anyway, he observed the fall of the Residency from, it seems, the besieging crowd, and then escaped, only to fall into the hands of this mullah chap who has raised the whole accursed country against us.’ The Colonel eased himself in the saddle and smoothed his moustaches. ‘Then, would you believe, he was put through the wringer by some Pathan woman or other - only Fonthill could be tortured by a woman, don’t you know—’
‘Tortured?’ Alice put her hand to her mouth. The thought of Simon, shy, sensitive Simon, being tortured was horrific.
‘Well, so he says. Nobody else saw it, except his man, some ranker chap - a wild Welshman - who is always with him and is alleged to have seen something messy and interrupted it.’
Ah, thought Alice, the splendid Jenkins, 352. It would have been all right if he was there.
‘Anyway, it’s significant that he seems perfectly all right now.’ Covington enveloped them both in a wide smile of mock surprise. ‘A magical recovery you might say, except that he claims to be impotent, it seems. Though - saving your presence, my dear Alice - how he has had the chance to prove or disprove that in these damned mountains, I really wouldn’t know. If you ask me, this young man was using his imagination again.’
Alice frowned. ‘Impotent. Impotent? What do you mean? What did they do to him?’
For the first time Covington looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Look,’ he said, fixing his gaze firmly ahead again, ‘I don’t know the details, but I am sure the whole thing is another cock-and-bull story, invented by Fonthill to excuse the fact that, once again, he wasn’t doing his duty. Anyway, it will be, ah, interesting to have him in my command again. Now, if you will excuse me, I feel I should ride with Gough for a while. As a courtesy, you understand.’ He raised a languid hand to his pillbox hat, kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, and cantered ahead.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ asked Campbell.
Alice pulled her wide-brimmed hat more firmly on to her head and thrust her jaw forward. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, Johnny. It doesn’t matter.’
As the column moved down on to the plain beside the river, leading to Kabul, it passed between burning villages where Roberts’s cavalry had put homes to the torch, partly in revenge for the assault on the fort and partly to ensure that no cover would be provided for further attacks. Alice wrinkled her nose in disgust as the smoke spiralled upwards to the cold blue sky, and reflected, once again, that this invasion by the British Army seemed a deliberately brutal act of revenge, a punitive expedition on a grander scale than ever before. She stole a glance at Campbell, who was looking around him with ingenuous interest. He seemed to keep an open mind on these things - indeed, he had always argued that it was wrong for a journalist to take sides: it put pressure on accurate reporting. Alice had now learned to keep her opinions to herself, particularly when in the presence of the army and, for that matter, of the other members of the press corps with the column. Nevertheless, she looked away in disgust as the brigade picked its way towards the fortress, between the burial parties who were disposing of the human detritus left by yesterday’s battle. She rode in silence through the massive archway of Sherpur.
The arrival of a relieving column that had, in the event, nowhere to relieve was something of an anti-climax to the garrison, which had already celebrated the defeat of the Afghan army. Nevertheless, Roberts set about ‘tidying up’, as he put it, with characteristic energy. He re-opened communications with India, re-laying the telegraph and occupying key defensive positions along the route; a military governor of Kabul was reestablished; all walled enclosures within a thousand yards of the cantonment were razed to the ground; roads fit for guns were made all around the outside walls; and two bridges, strong enough to take artillery, were thrown across the Kabul river. More ambitiously, towers were built on the Shahr-i-Darwaza range, and three forts were established: on the Asmai heights; on the south-west point of Siah Sang, which commanded the Bala Hissar and the city; and on the river crossing. The Bala Hissar itself was partly reconstructed to provide accommodation for Brigadier Gough’s arrivals and to give a continuous line of fire.
Roberts had won his battle, but he was also determined to show that he had won the war and that there could never be another uprisi
ng in the capital. He turned his attention to the peace, however, as well. He issued a proclamation to the people of Kabul and surrounding territory, announcing that ‘at the instigation of some seditious men, the ignorant people, generally not considering the result, raised a rebellion. Now many of the insurgents have received their reward and, as subjects are a trust from God, the British Government, which is just and merciful, as well as strong, has forgiven their guilt.’ All those who came in without delay, continued the proclamation, would be pardoned, excepting only Mohamed Jan and . . . here Roberts listed a number of leading Afghans whom he suspected of being involved in the insurrection. The aim, of course, was to rebuild the commerce of the city and to restore some sort of stability to the capital.
The proclamation worked. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, families who had fled from the fighting came down from the surrounding hills and the streets of Kabul began to throng again. But Roberts also had an agenda of revenge. The British Empire could not be seen by the world to have shrugged off the violation of its Residency in Kabul, and the General reinstated his two commissions of enquiry into the causes of the insurrection and the identities of the people behind it.
The atmosphere within the citadel, however, was not one of complete sanguinity. Despite, or even perhaps because of, the establishment of the two commissions, there was an underlying current of unrest of which everyone - from Roberts downwards - was aware. The battle had been won overwhelmingly, but was the war completely over? The people in the bazaar were surly and there were rumours of forces out in the country, particularly to the west, who refused to be cowed. Accordingly, Lamb took his brigade out to the north, at first, and then to the west, in a show of authority, while Roberts continued rebuilding the defences of the capital.
Simon was detached from all of this activity and was unware of the underlying tension in Kabul. In fact, he did not know at first of the arrival of the relief column and of Alice and Covington. On the evening of the successful conclusion of the battle, his temperature suddenly rose and he relapsed into a fever. It was not as severe as that he had suffered four months before, but it was enough to cause concern to Knox, the young Scotsman who had first treated him. Jenkins - a willing nurse - was assigned to attend to him and Simon was put to bed in the small room he had found for the three of them, out of the way of the main complex within the fortress. It was so secluded, in fact, that it was as though he had been forgotten by the Sherpur command. The demands on Covington’s time were those of Chief of Staff rather than head of intelligence, and indeed, the responsibility for intelligence had seamlessly reverted to the political officers, who now attempted to resume their cordial relationships with local chiefs. Simon’s illness, it seemed, was the perfect excuse for the Kabul hierarchy to forget the three of them completely.
The fever left Simon by the fourth day, but despite the cheerful care of Jenkins and W.G., it was replaced by the onset of lassitude and depression. The bare brown mud walls of the little room pressed in on him, but he could not summon sufficient energy to leave his bed. The future stretched before him as an empty waste. He was tired of killing, completely disenchanted with what he considered to be the brutality of the British Army and devoid of ambition, except that of extracting Jenkins and himself from their involvement with the army. At the same time, his fear of impotence grew stronger. Dr Knox still could offer neither comfort nor practical help, except to pass him along to his superiors in Delhi. There was little pain now from the injuries, just the familiar dull ache. But there was no sign of life, either.
It was in this depressed condition that Alice eventually found him.
She bustled in, on the fifth day after her arrival, looking spring-like in a patterned cotton blouse and light woollen skirt, her hair tied back with a familiar lime-green scarf. ‘My dear, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ she began. ‘No one seemed to ...’ Her voice tailed away, as Simon levered himself into a sitting position, his eyes wide and startled.
For a moment Alice stood quite still by the door, looking down at Simon. She had had no idea, of course, that he had spent the last six months dressed as and looking like an Afghan, nor had she wished to enquire from Covington exactly what role Simon had played during the recent campaign. Jenkins had been relieved as nurse for an hour by W.G., past whom she had swept with hardly a word, so there had been no warning of the change in Simon’s appearance, nor of the marks left on his face by his injuries. She observed now a thin, hawk-faced, broken-nosed Afghan, his brown eyes staring unusually brightly from a face that appeared even darker in the shadows of the little room. His black hair hung down, native fashion, to his shoulders and the hand stretched towards her, half in surprise, half in greeting, extended from an equally brown wrist, whose bones protruded like that of an invalid. But if Alice, for one brief moment, thought she had stumbled into the wrong room, she was immediately reassured by the familiar shy smile that immediately lit up the young Pathan’s countenance.
‘My dear Alice,’ Simon said, struggling upwards, ‘I am so sorry . . . You find me in a terrible mess here, I’m afraid. I’ve been a bit unwell, you see. How wonderful to ...’
‘Oh Simon.’ Alice sat on the bed, put her arms around him without hesitation and warmly kissed his cheek, before gently pushing him back on to the pillows again. ‘My dear ...’ She tailed off again, as tears came into her eyes.
Simon looked away. ‘Sorry about all this.’ His gesture this time took in his face as well as the tumbled bedclothes around him. ‘I must look a bit strange, I suppose. Had to go native, you see. Skin and hair dyed and all that.’ He looked up at her again and smiled, half apologetically. ‘I heard that you had arrived, but I’ve had a bit of a fever so that I couldn’t get to see you. Much better now, though.’
He made to throw off the bedclothes but Alice restrained him. ‘No, don’t get up. I can’t stay long and I just came to find where you were, but now that I know, I shall be back. Though I must have your story. Tell me what happened, please.’
Simon shook his head. ‘Not much to tell, really, but what there is would take too long.’ He lowered his gaze again, then looked up at her sharply. ‘I hear that Covington arrived with you. You know that I am supposed to report to him?’
Alice nodded.
‘Well that would be intolerable for me, of course. I shall have to find some way of resigning and taking Jenkins with me. But it’s difficult if the enemy is still in the field.’ Simon looked away for a moment. ‘I can’t have them saying that I’m running away, you see.’
Alice gripped his hand. ‘I don’t think there will be any question of that. In fact, I think that we have all arrived too late. The Afghan army has been defeated and there’s no story any more, although there are one or two rumours about trouble in the west. I don’t see how they can stop you resigning now that the campaign is virtually over.’ She scowled. ‘From what I’ve learned, Roberts is about to hang Afghans by the dozens, to close the book, so to speak. So it must be over.’ Her expression softened. ‘But I hear that you have been . . . wounded. Are you all right?’
Simon shook his head and avoided her eyes. ‘Good Lord, yes. Broken nose and a couple of hurt ribs, that’s all. I’ll be perfectly all right once I’ve shaken off this fever. And that’s almost gone now.’ He smiled again and this time held her gaze. ‘Matter of fact, I’ve been lying here feeling a bit sorry for myself. I’m something of a sham at the moment, dear Alice, so it’s a good thing that you are here to shake me out of it.’ He squeezed her hand.
‘And dear old Jenkins, 352, is he still with you?’
‘Couldn’t get by without him.’
‘Very well, my dear.’ She stood up. ‘Now I must go. The General has received the recommendations of his two courts of enquiry and is, I understand, about to announce judgement on those whom he believes are responsible for the attack on the Residency and who have had the audacity to defend their homeland and oppose this invasion.’ She smiled. ‘So I must somehow report all of thi
s factually but also attempt to show the Tories back home who read the Morning Post what an old barbarian their wonderful Bobs really is.’
Simon frowned. ‘Alice. Do be careful. He is a very powerful man - particularly out here - and I have the feeling that he is the sort who strongly resents criticism. It happens to generals, you know: particularly successful ones.’
Alice bent down and planted a kiss on Simon’s forehead. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful - and I will be back to see you soon.’ At the doorway she turned and smiled at him, but she was frowning as she left.
Simon lay back on the bed and examined the ceiling. He had dreaded her visit. Only yesterday Jenkins had brought the news that the relieving column included Alice in the small party of journalists travelling with it. The Welshman’s black button eyes had gleamed with pleasure: ‘You’ll never guess, bach, who’s waltzed in with the new brigade - this’ll cheer you up, see.’ But it hadn’t. In fact, Simon’s despondency had increased at the thought that Alice, pure, virginal Alice, might hear what had happened to him in the mullah’s camp. He had squirmed with embarrassment at the thought of her knowing of his injuries. It somehow seemed a weakness - and one consistent with the misfortunes that had dogged him since leaving England so long ago. To Alice he must seem like a loser.
