‘No, sir, but we know where the arms consignment was to be delivered. I don’t doubt the Pathans who take it over will be knowing where to take it, and there’s at least a chance Captain Ogilvie will not be far away from where that is, if he’s still being, as he says he is, trusted as an arms representative.’
‘It’s not possible,’ Dornoch murmured, as if to himself. ‘Not possible at all.’
‘Well, maybe not, sir. With your permission, sir, I’ll be going. I have much to see to.’
Dornoch gave him a searching look. ‘You’ll do nothing without my permission, Sar’nt-Major. No Nelson touches — if you don’t mind! Be sensible, man! You’re right on the heels of your pension.’
‘Fourpence a day, or little more,’ Cunningham said in disgust. ‘Do you think I’d weigh that, or all my years of service, against Captain Ogilvie’s life?’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Och, don’t fret yourself, sir, I’ll no’ be quite so foolish as to commit any act of mutiny and risk the men’s lives by leading a platoon into Waziristan. But the regiment, now, that would be different.’
‘Away with you!’ Dornoch said peremptorily.
‘Aye, sir. But with respect, sir, will you think the matter over?’
‘No,’ Dornoch said. ‘Of course I’ll not!’
That night, which was a guest night in the Mess, he was very silent, very preoccupied, unusually taciturn with the junior officers and the senior ones as well. The senior officers, who knew the facts, understood; Lord Dornoch’s regiment was his life, and all his officers and men were his family. That was a fine thing in a Colonel, but it was perhaps a pity to carry it too far. Life went on, however many sacrifices were made. There was really no need to spoil the party, as Mrs. Colonel Bates acidly remarked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Healey said, ‘Nashkar’s worried. There’s still been no word from the border — no sign of any arms caravan. Something’s gone wrong, old boy.’ They were walking together in the palace courtyard, and Ogilvie knew he was being carefully watched, not only by the quarter-guard at the great gateway, but also from the windows of the palace itself. Trust had not yet entirely evaporated, but had tended to diminish over the last few days. Word had filtered back that his message had been delivered to Mary Archdale’s bungalow but from that time on there had been total silence.
‘Do you know what he means to do?’ Ogilvie asked.
‘Nashkar? No, I don’t. I only wish I did — though in all conscience, Ogilvie, there’s dashed little we could do about it if I did! All I can say is, I’ve done my damnedest, my very best, to get it across to him that he must wait for more arms before he moves. I’m pretty sure I’ve made him think hard, but it can’t last forever. If our people don’t play up, well...’ He shrugged.
Ogilvie said, ‘I can see their point of view. Fettleworth’s point of view. After all, I’m expendable — like poor Jones. So are you, though I don’t suppose they even know you’re here. We can both be written off.’
‘We didn’t exactly initiate that message with the sole intent of saving our own skins, Ogilvie.’
‘No, but that was part of our hope, wasn’t it? We must face the fact that Fettleworth may see it as just that — a way of getting ourselves out while there’s still time.’
‘Man’s an ass if he does,’ Healey said briefly.
Ogilvie grinned. ‘A considerable body of opinion in Peshawar thinks that’s just what he is. Anyway — have you any ideas as to what we do if that message is disregarded?’
‘At the moment, none. We just have to wait and see, old boy. Isn’t that a large part of a soldier’s lot? Hang around, hold your fire till you see the whites of the bastards’ eyes, stand and be shot at, or stoned by the mob while you grin and bear it...turning the other blasted cheek in case you provoke ‘em?’
‘You’re full of platitudes this morning, Healey.’
‘I apologize, most humbly.’ They stopped talking as they came closer to the quarter-guard of liveried but still wild-looking Pathans, grim bearded men with dirty rifles. ‘Sooner them than me,’ Healey said when they had turned and were pacing back across the courtyard. ‘Those rifles. As likely as not, they’ll blow up in their faces when they fire ‘em!’
They parted soon after that and Ogilvie climbed alone to the battlements and leaned through one of the embrasures to stare out across the desolate, light-brown hills rolling to eternity. He thought of the British garrison far away to the north-east beyond the Horizon’s undulating rim. It was not, in fact, such a tremendous distance to Peshawar in terms of miles; but it was a cruel country to cross and the passes were very, very few and difficult of access. Indeed, to a man who did not know the territory well, as Jones had done, there was virtually no pass at all below Thal. However, there would undoubtedly be men in Peshawar or Nowshera to act as guides...if only the high command would move! By now Ogilvie was having the strongest doubts of anything happening other than his own very bloody death, and then the massacre. He knew his father well enough, his father who was the vital intermediary between Fettleworth and Calcutta. He appreciated the terrible quandary in which his father would now be placed. How could a General ever order out men, to risk their lives to save his son? If, in that message, there had appeared the smallest suggestion that the proposal was intended as a personal appeal, then it would have to go unanswered. There was the additional complication of Mary Archdale’s involvement. When Healey had made that carefully interpolated suggestion, it had seemed a brilliant scheme; now, Ogilvie was not so sure. Mary would at once introduce the personal note, and the mere fact of her forwarding the message was bound to influence his father. He felt convinced of that now. The whole thing would have been badly misunderstood. Then there was Mary herself. She would be desperately worried about him since the arrival of the message; it had not been fair on her either. There could be nothing worse than to have to sit at home and wait for news; and she would know well enough what the Pathans were capable of inflicting on prisoners. Ogilvie had been up there on the battlements for some half an hour, deep in his thoughts of Peshawar, when he heard the thin wail of a native pipe stealing up to him from the inner courtyard of the palace; and, just for a wildly insane moment, he could fancy it was the fifes of some gallant English battalion approaching through the waste of hills. He felt the more alone when the moment had passed.
That evening he spoke again to Healey. ‘Nashkar’s left the palace,’ Healey said. ‘Riding alone.’
‘Where to?’
Healey said on a note of pessimism, ‘He’s gone to have a word with the sadhu. This I do not like.’
*
It was full night when Nashkar Ali Khan reached the foot of the track leading from the pass to the heights. Beneath a bright moon, he scrambled up the rocky path, seeing the silvery outline of the age-old man above him. Some men said that he was one hundred and twenty years old, but Nashkar privately doubted this. Of a certainty, however, he was close upon a hundred, and it was a miracle in itself that such an old man could continue to live on his high perch, almost unclad in the cold night air and with no food to sustain him. It could be only the direct intervention of Mahomet that was keeping him alive, Nashkar knew this beyond any doubt. The hand of the Prophet fed him with heavenly dew, warmed the scraggy body with celestial fire. It was all written, yet it was none the less miraculous. The Pathan leader hastened up the track as fast as he could, his vision of the sadhu leading him on like a lodestar. His heart seemed to burst within his body, not from the undoubtedly stiff climb, for he was a fit and vigorous man, and hard as steel, but from a sense of boundless pride that he, Nashkar Ali Khan, was the selected instrument of Mahomet, via the sadhu, to implement Mahomet’s own purpose of extending Islam to the total exclusion from the Frontier lands of the infidel British.
Arriving upon the rock ledge, Nashkar prostrated himself before the death-still figure that seemed cleft in permanency to the mountain. His beard swept the rock close to the sadhu’s bony feet, upon which the spread toes
sat like claws, yellow and horny.
‘Holy One,’ he intoned. ‘Master, mouthpiece of the Prophet. May you live a thousand years.’ He paused, awaiting a response. When none came he lifted his head just a fraction, opening an eye to peer anxiously at the mask-like features above his bent body. Surely the old man was not dead, surely Mahomet — in what, of course, would still remain his undoubted wisdom — had not withdrawn his spirit to that other world and left his earthbound servant without communication? Surely this could not be! He spoke again, more loudly: ‘Holy One, Master, mouthpiece of the Prophet. May you live a thousand years.’ The last sentence was uttered very loudly indeed, and Nashkar was filled with an intense relief when his opened eye saw a slight wiggle of the sadhu’s toes. The old man was not dead, he had fallen asleep — that was all.
‘May you also live a thousand years, my son,’ the creaky old voice said. It came from afar off, it seemed to Nashkar, even from the sky itself, a thin, frail sound like the workings of an untended water-wheel.
‘Is there anything you wish for, Holy One? Some comfort...perhaps some food?’
‘No, my son, my fast will not end until the sign is seen, and comfort is not necessary.’
‘And the sign, O Master, O Holy One?’
It took some while for the answer to come. Nashkar waited in trembling impatience. ‘It will come, my son. Never fear.’
‘When?’
‘In a short time now. A few more risings of the sun, a few more settings. Then the shadow will come, casting itself before the event...and I shall know, and I shall inform you.’
The Pathan nodded submissively; on the way up, coming past the place where the Englishman had been imprisoned, he had passed the watchful runner, the man who would start the vital heavenly message on its way to Maizar and the east. ‘I shall wait, Master, with all the patience at my command.’
‘Do this, my son. Why did you come to see me?’
Nashkar felt humbled, despised his own shortcomings, his unworthy desire to see for himself that all was well on that mountain peak, his nagging and wicked feeling that it was perhaps possible for even Mahomet to nod on occasion. He said, ‘O Master, I came to see if you had any word for me in the meantime, any command.’
‘I have none.’ Now the voice was like the gentle sighing of a breeze; undoubtedly the old man was very weak. ‘You will know, as soon as I shall know. Go now, my son.’ The toes wiggled again; this time they seemed to hold a message of impatience, and Nashkar took the hint. He got to his feet, only faintly aware of the terrible smell that emanated from the sadhu, for he was accustomed to such smells arising from the open drainways of Maizar, and bowed his way from the presence. As he made his way down once again to the pass, he was conscious of another unworthy but none the less worrying thought: how terrible it would be if the sadhu should be asleep when the sign came!
*
The officers came in ones and twos, casually, to Lord Dornoch’s quarter in cantonments, drifting from the regimental lines as if bound for nowhere very important. Word had been discreetly passed to this effect; and only Andrew Black saw fit to proceed at a marching pace, stiff and straight as ever, his dark face scowling with an intensity of disapproval. The thing, in his opinion, was monstrous, quite monstrously outlandish and unorthodox — and highly dangerous. He had never heard the like and he had no intention of taking part. He had not yet gone as far as saying this to the Colonel, having merely ex-pressed his strong objection when Dornoch, half an hour before, had spoken privately of his mad scheme to Major Hay and himself. But he would do so, for Dornoch had already said it would be a case of volunteers and no pressed men, even though, once they had volunteered, they would come under his orders and the responsibility would be his alone.
Black entered Dornoch’s quarter, placed his helmet smartly beneath his left arm and, with his kilt swinging, stalked to the Colonel’s study. Curtly, Dornoch told him to sit down and wait till everyone was present. Dornoch’s eyes were strangely alight, strangely feverish. He had passed a restless night, a night of real torment after the Mess guest night festivities were over, and had suffered agonizing indecision during the morning also. But then decision had come, final decision, the more irrevocable because it had not come easily. He had weighed everything and there was no doubt left. He was risking his men — that was most important and the hardest part of the decision — his appointment, even his career. This could end in Court Martial; would most certainly do so if he failed. But he would not fail, he felt that very strongly. And in any case he could not, would not, leave Ogilvie in the hands of the damned heathens! If he did, if he lifted no finger to help, he could never live with the memory afterwards...
‘All officers are present, Colonel.’ This was fatherly old John. Hay, Major and second-in-command, an unimaginative but intensely loyal subordinate whom Dornoch would like to see take over the battalion from him in due course, but who would possibly never be seen quite as command potential by the brass hats.
‘Thank you, John,’ Dornoch said. He sat back in his chair and smiled round at the officers over-filling his study. There was one Warrant Officer present — Bosom Cunningham, taking up the room of two. Dornoch took in Black’s disagreeable face and thereafter tried to forget it. There, he knew, was one who would not come and who would not be missed either. He said, ‘Now, gentlemen, I’ll not beat about the bush. I have some hitherto confidential and perhaps surprising information for you.’ As briefly as possible he told them all the facts as known and when these had sunk in he said, ‘We’re going in to get Ogilvie.’
There was, as he had expected, a stir, and an exultant one. The subalterns especially were jubilant, and Dornoch lifted a hand at once to stop any noisy demonstration. ‘I see I have your support,’ he said. ‘Thank you for that. But I want you to bear in mind that this will be no flag-waving expedition and there will be no jingoism. It’ll be just — a tough slog, that’s all. The next thing I have to say is this: I want volunteers, from both officers and men. And N.C.O.s of course,’ he added, turning to Cunningham. ‘I’ll leave that to you, Sar’nt-Major.’
‘Sir!’
‘Company commanders will sound out their companies the moment they leave here. I want the whole battalion to move out if possible, but there’s to be no pressure on any man. I must make it clear we’re about to commit what is virtually an act of mutiny — or I am. At the least, it’s acting without orders.’ He paused. ‘Well, gentlemen? Who wishes to leave?’
Black moved forward. ‘I do, Colonel. I shall have no part in this. I wish that to be clearly understood, and duly noted in orders.’
‘Very well, Andrew, it’s entirely up to you. Before you go, I think it only fair to the others that you should have an opportunity of publicly stating your reasons for not volunteering.’
‘It’s not that I have any personal fear—’
‘No suggestion that you have, Andrew. There’s not a stain on your military character!’ Dornoch smiled, a little whimsically.
‘Thank you, Colonel. My objections are these: I have a distaste for flouting the wishes of higher authority, even if those wishes have not been expressly communicated by way of orders. We all know, I think, that General Fettleworth does not wish to exacerbate the Frontier situation. Secondly, I can see no use in what you propose. You are unlikely to reach Ogilvie —you are more likely to cause him to be put to death the moment you cross the border.’ He gave a loud sniff. ‘In short, Colonel, I believe you are about to commit an act of the gravest military folly! You may end by involving, and unnecessarily involving, the whole of the British Army in India, and the native Indian Army also.’
Dornoch inclined his head. ‘Is there anything further, Andrew?’
‘No, Colonel, there is not.’
‘Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind withdrawing now. There’s just one thing,’ he added, as the Adjutant shouldered his way to the door. Black stopped. ‘I don’t want this discussed outside this room. That’s to say, Andrew, if you’ll forgive m
e, no reports to the Staff. Do you understand?’
‘I understand very well, Colonel,’ Black flared, ‘and I consider it my duty to go straight to Division — ’
‘That’s enough!’ Dornoch got to his feet, his face hard. ‘A word in your ear — outside.’
In the hall Dornoch said, ‘Andrew, I’m about to do something I seldom if ever do, and that is, to pull rank and connections on you. I want your word that you’ll say nothing to Division or anyone else. If you refuse to give it, I’ll put you in open arrest under the charge of Captain MacKinlay. And if you give your word and subsequently break it, by God, Andrew, I’ll see to it that not only does the 114th get a new adjutant the moment I return, but I’ll also see to it that you’re drummed out of India so fast your feet won’t touch ground on the way to the troopship. I’ll still have the power. Understood?’
Black ground his teeth in fury. ‘Understood!’ he answered viciously. ‘You have my word on one condition, Lord Dornoch. That is, that you’ll put it in writing that you used threats to ensure my silence, that I have been threatened into not doing my duty!’
Dornoch nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll do that, Andrew, gladly, for it’s certainly the truth! I have your word?’
‘You have my word.’ Saying no more, Black swished about and stalked off. Dornoch, his eyes shining even more brightly with that strange inner light, went back into his study. There was no doubt about it, the atmosphere was thoroughly against the adjutant; but Dornoch felt that he should deal with the points raised by Black as publicly as Black himself had been permitted to raise them.
‘The exacerbation of the Frontier situation,’ he said. ‘Since the Frontier has been in a state of exacerbation from the days when first I knew it, I do not feel we can allow such a consideration to stand in the way of what I mean to do. It seems fairly clear that the tribes mean to attack in any case, whatever the views of Division may have metamorphosed themselves into, and I see no harm in bringing matters to a head earlier — if that is the effect our expedition has. As to the possibility that an intervention may mean Ogilvie’s death — yes, I agree that could be, but I believe he is in the gravest danger as it is and that when his request for arms is not met — as it will not be — then he will surely die in any case. We can make things no worse in that respect. If nobody has any further observation to make, I’ll go straight into the orders for the march and the entry into Waziristan.’ He paused. ‘No comments?’
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