The Road To Kandahar (Simon Fonthill Series)

by John Wilcox

  ‘John Campbell, the Standard. How do you both do?’

  Simon nodded and gripped Campbell’s hand. Jenkins did the same, bestowing on the young man one of his wide, life-enhancing grins.

  ‘I’m afraid that you have the advantage of us,’ said Simon.

  ‘Oh, Alice told me all about you both.’ Simon’s face hardened. How many people had Alice spoken to of him? Would this young man, too, know about his injuries? Campbell’s smile turned into a frown. ‘You know - Alice Griffith of the Morning Post.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. She is a colleague of yours.’

  ‘Very much so.’ Campbell’s warm manner returned. ‘She’s a very good friend. We came up here together. We got here too late for the fighting, alas, but Alice told me a little about you and the Sergeant here.’ He turned and directed his open smile at Jenkins. ‘I gather you’ve had a rare old time of it.’

  ‘That would be very true, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘Very true indeed. But the Captain ’ere and me,’ he grew expansive, ‘are quite used to that sort of thing, look you.’

  ‘Well, you certainly look the part - whatever part it was.’ Campbell put his hand on Simon’s arm. ‘Look here, Fonthill, I don’t want to pinch Alice’s story, nor to intrude into what’s forbidden to know, but I would welcome the chance to chat with you about your experiences here.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Fact of the matter is that we’ve not much to write about now that the war is virtually over, and I would most appreciate the chance of telling of your experiences behind the lines, so to speak. If Alice has not already done so, that is.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got a right old story to—’ began Jenkins. But Simon cut him short.

  ‘What did Alice tell you, Mr Campbell?’

  Simon’s coldness immediately put Campbell into a mode defensive of Alice. ‘Oh, nothing at all, really. Only that you and she were old friends back home and that you had spent some time up in the hills during the uprising and that you had been wounded . . . but nothing serious, I understand.’ His voice had tailed away and then recovered, but the momentary flash of embarrassment told everything to Simon. So Alice had been talking! But had she? Like Covington, Campbell could have picked this up from the scuttlebutt of garrison life. After all, enough people knew of his injuries. Simon shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you should believe everything that you might read one day in the newspapers. I am afraid that we have nothing very interesting to say and the little that we could say is, of course, privileged. I am sorry, Mr Campbell. Please excuse us.’

  Simon and Jenkins walked on in silence for a moment. Then the Welshman spoke.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, bach sir, I thought you were a bit ’ard on ’im. ’E seemed a nice enough bloke. And I wouldn’t ’ave minded ’aving a nice woodcut of me appearin’ in the Standard, like.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot. We can’t talk to newspapermen. We’re soldiers.’

  ‘I thought we were ex-soldiers now. Unless, that is, you’ve gone an’ joined us up again, like you did before. Anyway, W.G. tells me that you an’ Miss Alice ’ad a nice long talk the other night. An’ she’s a newspaperman . . . or woman, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s different. We’re old friends. And anyway, I didn’t tell her anything.’

  At the mention of Alice’s visit, Simon’s face had coloured slightly under the dye - slightly, but enough for Jenkins to notice. The Welshman lifted his eyebrows and then smiled, but decided to say nothing. They walked on.

  New excitement hit Kabul a few days later, when the news spread that a column was about to arrive from Kandahar, led by Sir Donald Stewart, a general senior to Roberts, who was coming to take command at Kabul of all of the British forces in Afghanistan. The word was that this would leave Roberts free to return home, while the future of Afghanistan - and in particular of who would replace the departed amir as ruler of the kingdom - would be settled. Simon, whose mind had been set seething again with speculation about exactly how close a friend Alice Campbell had become, was relieved to hear the news. This must mean that troops would be sent back to India and that Jenkins, W.G. and he could accompany them. Would Alice and her journalist friends go too? he wondered. He did not know whether he wished for this or not, but he resolved anew to put Alice from his mind.

  For her part, Alice had been busy enough. She had, in fact, observed the hangings. She had done so from a balcony discreetly overlooking the square, a privilege for which she had paid a Kabul merchant handsomely. She had wished to be out of sight because she was unsure how she would react to the spectacle: not that she was worried that she would collapse at the horror of it all, but rather that her indignation would express itself too publicly. Accordingly, she stood behind a column on the balcony, stonily making notes, even as the bodies swung. That evening her dispatch, along with those of her colleagues, had been submitted to the General to be read and approved before they were all handed to the signaller for sending down the telegraph line to London.

  Usually, the Commander-in-Chief made few alterations to the copy. There had been little need to do so with the writings of the others. With one exception, they had all been satisfyingly eulogistic in conveying to the Empire the success of Roberts in avenging Cavagnari and in subjugating the tribes of Afghanistan. That exception had been Campbell, who had had his knuckles rapped for questioning Roberts’s estimate of the size of Mohamed Jan’s army. Realising that he would have to accept censorship if he was to be allowed to continue to use the only way of communicating with his newspaper, Campbell had shrugged and toed the line. Not so Alice. The General had found something to query or reject in every story written by her since her arrival in Kabul. Her narrative of the burning villages, seen as she approached Sherpur, had been deleted completely. So, too, had her emphasis on the absence of the judiciary in the make-up of the military tribunal set up to try those accused of leading the attack on the Residency. Her fulminations had been coolly rejected by Roberts’s ADC - her interface with the command, for no journalist saw the General personally.

  Accordingly, when she received back her copy for the hangings - initialled by Roberts on every page and therefore approved - she sat down and wrote a separate page, inserted it in the text and forged the General’s initials at the bottom. This page painted the scene of the execution in cool, objective terms, and yet no one who read it could fail to comprehend the writer’s disgust at the ritual and at the less than judicial methods used to try and then sentence the hanged men. The story winged its way back to London, via Tehran, and Alice sat and waited for the repercussions. She had no illusions about the fuss that would be caused if the story was used in its original form - and, knowing her editor, she was confident that it would not be suppressed back home. She realised that, for breaking the rules, Roberts would probably banish her from Afghanistan, but she was prepared to take that risk. The war was over and there was little more to say anyway. The important thing was that she had not betrayed her principles.

  Events, however, did not quite work out the way that Alice had expected.

  Afghanistan’s short spring had slipped into hot summer, and Alice was in the tiny room allocated to her in the Bala Hissar, avidly reading two newspapers that had reached her from India in the supply column which had recently made its way safely through the passes. They gave her just the information she needed and she smiled as she read the prose - rather too purple for her taste, but useful ammunition nevertheless. She was busy sidelining various passages when a heavy smash on the door heralded the arrival of John Campbell.

  ‘Open up,’ he thundered. ‘Open up, in the name of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Roberts, Lord High Executioner.’

  Alice carefully put away her newspapers - friend or not, Campbell was still the opposition - and pushed up the latch. ‘For goodness’ sake, Johnny, you will have us both arrested.’

  But the happy crooked smile she expected was missing. Campbell, despite the fooling, was frowning. ‘Bad, bad news, I
’m afraid, Alice.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A whole British brigade in the field out in the west at Maiwand has been attacked and defeated. There have been over a thousand killed and wounded, and what’s left is scattered over the fifty miles between Maiwand and Kandahar.’

  ‘Oh God! Then the war’s back on again.’

  ‘Seems like it. It’s been a terrible defeat for us - almost as bad as Isandlwana, by the sound of it. Our force in the south-west is holed up in Kandahar, frightened to come out, and Ayub Khan - he’s the son of the old amir, you know, the one before this cove who betrayed us at Kabul and then bolted to India . . .’

  Alice nodded.

  ‘. . . he’s cock-a-hoop with his victory, naturally, and is either going to besiege Kandahar or advance directly on Kabul. Anyway, the rumour is that Stewart will remain in command here and Bobs will raise a special fast-moving force and march on Kandahar to relieve the garrison there and, hopefully, knock Ayub off his perch before the whole country is ablaze again. Obviously, the press corps will go with Bobs and we are to prepare to leave within, probably, a couple of days.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  Campbell frowned. ‘What’s the matter? Roberts can’t forbid a woman to go, however hard the terrain. You have accreditation. He won’t upset the Morning Post, surely?’

  With a groan, Alice sat on her camp bed and gestured Campbell towards the stool, the only other form of seating in the room. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I know I’ve upset him. I know he won’t let me go.’ And slowly she told Campbell of how she had avoided censorship by forging Roberts’s initials and telegraphing her critical story of the hangings. ‘He will use this as an excuse to get rid of me. I know he will. I will not be allowed to cover the best story of the whole campaign. Damn! And damn again!’

  Campbell gave a rueful smile. ‘Oh dear, Alice.’ He reached across and took her hand. ‘I have to say, my dear, that perhaps you have over-reached yourself this time.’ He shook his head. ‘You can’t just go around forging the signature of a commander in the field, you know, and expect to get away with it.’

  Alice withdrew her hand. ‘Oh, I know that, dammit. But it was a risk worth taking. I thought the war was over, for goodness’ sake, and I wasn’t worried about being thrown out. There was nothing more of importance to report - or so I thought. I wonder if Covington can help—’

  Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. A young subaltern entered. ‘General Roberts’s compliments, miss . . . er . . . ma’am. He would be grateful if you could spare him a few moments in his headquarters as soon as is convenient,’ he gave a bashful smile, ‘but I think he means right away.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Very well. I shall come directly.’

  She closed the door behind the young man and turned back to Campbell. ‘Well, here it is. The sack. Give me a minute, Johnny, will you?’

  Campbell stood. ‘Of course. But would you like me to come with you. Perhaps I can help?’

  ‘You are very sweet. But no. I shall go alone. Please push off now.’

  Campbell stood uncertainly for a moment, then leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek and left. Alice sat on the stool, looked in her travelling mirror and combed her hair. She applied a little face powder, tucked a scarf around her neck and pulled her cloak around her shoulders. At the door, she paused, turned and then rescued from a drawer the two newspapers she had just received from India. She slipped them under her cloak and stood for a moment. Then, her cheeks slightly flushed but her head held high and her jaw thrust out, she strode off to meet the General.

  As soon as she was ushered into Roberts’s office she could see that it was a hanging party waiting for her. Behind his desk Roberts stood stiffly. To his left was Brigadier Massey and to his right Brigadier Lamb. Covington - a furious-faced Covington, who regarded her with frowning, hard blue eyes - glowered in a corner, behind Lamb.

  Roberts did not invite her to sit. The four men remained standing as he addressed her without preamble. ‘Miss Griffith, I have asked you here to—’

  Alice looked around and drew up a chair. ‘Oh, do sit down, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I certainly shall.’

  Roberts was thrown for a moment. ‘What? Oh . . . er . . . yes, do, of course.’ Awkwardly, the four men sat and Roberts began again. ‘Miss Griffith, I have asked you here today because I have just received a telegram from the Horse Guards in London which relates that a story has been published in the Morning Post, written, it would seem, by you, which implicitly criticises the action I have taken to punish those responsible for the cowardly attack on our Residency. There are to be questions asked in the House about it and I am being requested to provide answers.’

  ‘Oh yes, General.’

  ‘There is one particular passage in the story - that, indeed, which contains the criticism - which I certainly do not remember reading in the draft of your dispatch which you submitted to me for censoring.’

  Alice smiled and shook her head. ‘Oh no. Certainly not, Sir Frederick.’

  Roberts looked puzzled. ‘I don’t quite follow.’

  ‘I certainly did not submit my story to you for censoring, General. I did so because you have ordered that every dispatch from the correspondents here had to be given to you for reading before being telegraphed. But I did not submit my story to you to have it censored.’ She smiled again and continued, keeping her voice level and without heat, as though she was explaining something self-evident to a small child. ‘Censoring, of course, is anathema to any journalist worth his - or her - salt. It is regarded by us all as the action of a command which is unsure of itself and uncertain of the reaction of the public back home to the course it has taken; as an attempt, in fact, to prevent the public from knowing the true facts of any, shall I say, controversial development in the field. How can it be regarded as anything else?’

  ‘Paw!’ The exclamation came from Massey, whose face glowed darkly red in the poor light of the little office. But Roberts held up a hand to cut short his interruption. He leaned forward.

  ‘My dear young lady. Since journalists,’ he emphasised the word slightly, as though it was distasteful to him, ‘have begun to accompany armies in the field, it has become very necessary to vet their writings to make sure that, however inadvertently, they do not contain facts which might give information or comfort to the enemy. It has become essential, in fact.’

  ‘But General,’ Alice leaned forward in turn, ‘there are at least three reasons why this is not so.’ She slapped a forefinger into her palm. ‘Firstly, you are surely not saying that my quite objective description of the elaborate proceedings you created to bring about the death of forty-nine members of the army which opposed your invasion of their country would have given essential information or succour to the enemy. Secondly, it is right that the people of Britain should know that you feel it necessary to burn villages here for miles around - if it is necessary, then they should take this on board as part of the cost of these wars, but they should know about it. And thirdly, the whole point of accreditation for newspaper correspondents is that the army should feel comfortable with the standard and seniority of the journalists who accompany a force in the field.’ Alice smiled again, although her eyes were cold. ‘Sir Frederick, I am the daughter of a former brigadier in the 64th Foot and have been brought up in an army family. I have covered all of the recent campaign in South Africa and I understand that my reports from there have received commendations from several members of the Government. I am accredited and, General, I can be trusted to report the facts - even though you and I might disagree from time to time upon certain interpretations of them.’

  Covington coughed politely. ‘Sir, on this last fact, at least, I can give some support to Miss Griffith. I knew her father and was with her in Zululand, and—’

  Without taking his eyes off Alice, Roberts said, ‘That will do, Covington.’ Alice shot a swift glance of thanks to the tall man in the corner.

  ‘It won’t do to argue like this
, Miss Griffith,’ said the General. ‘Whatever the rights and wrongs of censorship, it is not your place to contravene rules which have been set up by a commander in the field.’ There were murmurs of ‘Hear, hear’ from the two brigadiers flanking him. Roberts straightened his back. ‘I must ask you, madam. Did you insert an extra page in your copy and then forge my initials to that page so that it was included in your dispatch telegraphed to London?’

  ‘Of course not, General.’ Alice gave him her sweetest smile. ‘You must have forgotten that part of the story - or, perhaps, given the fact that you have so many demands on your time, in addition to reading ever single word we scribblers record, maybe you skipped a page?’

  It seemed to Alice that every one of the men facing her drew in his breath sharply. ‘I am afraid,’ said Roberts, ‘that I cannot accept that. But I have one further point to make.’ He leaned forward again. ‘If those references in your dispatches which I have been forced in the past to delete and your report of these recent . . . um . . . judicial executions were balanced and reasonable, why is it that no one else has written them.’

  ‘Ah, but they have, General.’ Alice reached inside her cloak and drew out two newspapers. ‘I have received only today these copies of two highly respected newspapers in India, The Bombay Review and The Friend of India. Apropos your executions, the first says, and I quote, “Is it according to the usages of war to treat as felons men who resist invasion?” And the Friend writes, “We fear that General Roberts has done us a serious national injury by lowering our reputation for justice in the eyes of Europe.” Now, gentlemen, I repeat that these are respected organs of opinion in India who are not in principle opposed to the British Raj. But here,’ she slapped the newssheets with her hand before passing them across the desk, ‘they felt that they must speak out.’

  The room was silent for a moment. Then Roberts cleared his throat. If he was impressed with Alice’s arguments, he gave no sign. ‘These opinions are irrelevant, Miss Griffith. I am afraid that you have lost the trust of the command in Afghanistan and I must ask you to leave the country as soon as possible. This will be the day after tomorrow, when you will join a column returning to India.’