by Saul David
They clattered to a halt at the gatehouse. There was no sign of the surly havildar, but his replacement looked no more pleased to receive them. Once again Ilderim did the talking and they were soon waved through. At the Residency George was pleased to note that the guard had been strengthened, with six on duty at the entrance to the outer compound and another six on the inner gate. ‘It seems our warnings weren’t entirely disregarded,’ he said to Ilderim, as they dismounted.
‘Maybe not, huzoor, but what can twelve do against many thousands?’
They explained to the guards they had an appointment with the munshi and hurried into the main house where George almost collided with the resident who, having just returned from his morning ride, was still wearing his jodhpurs and hacking jacket. ‘Ah, it’s Harper, the Cassandra,’ sneered Cavagnari, ‘come to warn us the sky is about to collapse. I thought I made my feelings plain yesterday.’
‘You did, perfectly,’ said George, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘But events have moved on since then. As we rode up the hill from the city just now we could see the Herat troops marching across the plain.’
‘What of it? Like as not they’re coming to receive their pay.’
‘And what if there isn’t money to pay them?’
‘Then they’ll come back when there is.’
George frowned. ‘I believe you’re being a little optimistic. If you only knew the temper of the troops you’d be taking every precaution. They’ll be here in minutes.’
‘I’ve heard enough of this,’ said Cavagnari. ‘Jemadar!’ An immaculately dressed Sikh officer appeared from a side room. ‘Escort this pair out of the compound without delay, please.’
The jemadar was about to comply when the sound of shouting caused him to pause. Cavagnari strode over to the door and opened it. The shouts and yells were much louder now, as if they were getting closer. He turned to the native officer. ‘Jemadar, take two men and find out what’s happening.’
‘Sir.’
Minutes later the jemadar returned, his chest heaving with exertion. ‘Sahib, come quick! Hundreds of unruly soldiers have entered the outer compound.’
‘Why didn’t the guard stop them?’ asked Cavagnari.
‘They didn’t want to shoot for fear it would make matters worse.’
‘Where’s Hamilton?’
‘He’s at the cavalry lines, sahib, trying to stop the crowd looting.’
‘I must speak to them,’ said Cavagnari. ‘Pir Ali!’
The munshi appeared from his office and acknowledged George with a slight dip of his head. ‘Yes, sahib?’ he said to Cavagnari.
‘Come with me. I need you to translate.’
‘Shall we come too?’ asked George.
‘If you must.’
They hurried through the gate into the outer compound and past the infantry barracks. Up ahead, stretching from the cavalry lines to the low mud wall, stood a thin picket of Guides, rifles at the ready. Beyond them raged a huge crowd of infuriated half-savage soldiery in their undress uniform, clutching clubs, wooden staves and stones, and shouting curses and threats.
They ran forward to the centre of the thin khaki line where they were met by Lieutenant Hamilton, who had reinforced the initial guard with another twenty men. He gestured towards the mob. ‘They’re demanding their arrears of pay, sir.’
‘Are they indeed?’ said Cavagnari. ‘Cheeky blighters. I’ll soon set them straight.’
‘Sir Louis,’ said George, ‘if you have the money it might be the safest option to pay them.’
Cavagnari gave George a withering look. ‘Nonsense. They’re the amir’s soldiers, not mine. If he doesn’t stand on his own two feet now, he never will. Stand aside!’
The guard complied, enabling Cavagnari and Pir Ali to walk through the picket and stop within ten yards of the mutinous soldiers who, having recognised the resident, had fallen silent.
Prompted by Cavagnari, the munshi spoke to the crowd: ‘His Excellency Sir Louis Cavagnari, Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to His Royal Highness the Amir of Kabul, wishes me to tell you that, even if he wanted to, he could not furnish your arrears of pay because he does not have enough money.’
The angry yells began again.
‘But,’ continued Pir Ali, forced to shout to make himself heard, ‘he will speak to the amir today to try to ensure that you are paid what you are owed as soon as possible. In the meantime he asks you to cease this disorder and return quietly to your barracks.’
The crowd responded by jeering and throwing rocks, one of which narrowly missed Cavagnari’s head. But Pir Ali was not so fortunate, a missile catching him flush on the forehead. The crack as stone met skull was quickly followed by the boom of shots from the Guides’ Sniders. Three Afghans fell to the ground, as did Pir Ali, while the crowd scattered in all directions.
George and Ilderim rushed forward and dragged Pir Ali to safety as the crowd rapidly funnelled out of the compound.
‘Will he live?’ asked Cavagnari, as they placed Pir Ali’s unconscious body gently on the ground.
‘I don’t know,’ replied George, feeling his wrist. ‘His pulse is weak. He took quite a blow to the head.’
‘Hamilton, order four of your men to carry Pir Ali back to the Mess House so Dr Kelly can examine him. Then withdraw the rest of the guard to the barracks and the inner courtyard. Make sure all the doors are barricaded and the roofs manned. They’ve dispersed for the moment but they might return.’
‘I’d say that’s very likely, sir,’ said George. ‘My guess is they’ve gone to loot the armoury and rouse their fellows.’
Cavagnari cleared his throat. ‘It seems, Harper, you were right all along. I apologize for doubting you. How long do think we’ve got?’
‘An hour, maybe less. Your best course is to appeal to the amir for protection. If he sends some of his own regiments to intervene, the Herat troops would never dare to attack.’
‘I’m sure you’re right. Hamilton, who would you recommend as a messenger?’
‘Sowar Taimur, sir. He’s descended from the Sadozai amirs of Kabul and speaks the lingo. If he takes off his uniform, he shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion.’
‘Taimur it is, then. Tell him to collect the letter from my house in five minutes. And can you also provide Harper and his guide with Sniders and ammunition from the armoury? We’ll need their help if the mob returns.’
‘Sir.’
As Cavagnari returned to his house, Hamilton turned to George. ‘Are you armed, Mr Harper?’
George patted the shoulder holster he was wearing under his jacket. ‘I have a revolver.’
‘What about Ilderim Khan?’
‘He has his Khyber knife.’
‘Much good that will do him. Has either of you used a Snider before?’
‘No,’ said George, ‘though I have fired a Martini-Henry.’
‘I have handled neither, huzoor,’ put in Ilderim. ‘When I was a Guide we used muzzle-loading Enfields.’
Hamilton laughed. ‘One ahead of his time, one behind. But no matter, you’re both familiar with firearms and a quick demonstration will set you straight.’
‘If I may ask,’ said George, ‘why are you still armed with the Snider? The British Army stopped using it years ago.’
‘Which is why we have it now. Since the Mutiny, there’s been an understandable mistrust of native soldiers and a deliberate policy to keep them at a slight disadvantage by issuing them with the previous generation of firearm to that used by the British Army. So when British troops got the Martini-Henry a few years ago, our men were given their Sniders.’
‘Doesn’t that benefit our enemies?’
‘Not in Afghanistan. Oh, I know what they say about the Snider – that it’s a breech-loading conversion of the old Enfield rifle, whereas the Martini-Henry was custom-built. And that’s all true. But the Snider still has a couple of major advantages: it’s accurate to a thousand yards, which is further than the Martini-Henry, and its slug packs a greater p
unch.’
‘What about rate of fire? Is it as quick as the Martini?’
‘Almost.’
‘Really?’ George raised his eyebrows.
‘In skilled hands, anyway. Look, I’ll show you.’
He took a rifle from the nearest soldier and showed George how to cock the hammer before using a lever on the left of the breech to slide the side-hinged block to the right. The old cartridge, he explained, could then be extracted either by hand, or by turning the rifle on its back to allow it to drop out. Finally a new cartridge could be inserted and the block returned to its original position for firing. ‘Effective, isn’t it?’ said Hamilton.
‘Not really,’ said George. ‘With the Martini-Henry you just pull the lever behind the trigger guard and the weapon is ready to reload. But beggars can’t be choosers. I’m sure it will suffice.’
George squinted down the sight of his Snider, took a deep breath and gently squeezed the trigger. A metallic click sounded as the hammer struck the firing pin, but no explosion. He lowered the weapon and went through the loading procedure that Hamilton had taught him. But no matter how many times he did it he couldn’t get the hang of it. Part of the problem was that you needed two hands, and that made the whole process far clumsier than loading the Martini-Henry. There was also the issue of recoil: he’d suffered many a painful shoulder from firing the .45 calibre Martini-Henry; but the Snider was .577 and reputedly had a kick like a mule’s. Not that he’d know until he actually fired it.
He glanced at his pocket-watch. Ten minutes to nine, and already the glare from the sun was making it hard to focus. He could feel a trickle of sweat rolling down his back and sensed it was going to be a long, hot day. He and Ilderim had been kneeling with Lieutenant Hamilton and a party of Guides behind a makeshift parapet on the flat roof of the Mess House for more than forty-five minutes and still there was no sign of either the messenger or the mutinous troops. Of more immediate concern to George, however, was the state of Pir Ali’s health. The unconscious munshi had been put to bed on the second floor of the Mess House but there had been no news of him since.
He stood up to stretch his cramped limbs and to get a better view of the Bala Hissar’s layout. Directly below him, away to the west, stretched the Residency’s mostly deserted outer compound, though the Guides’ cavalry horses were still picketed at the far end; the only troops were the twenty or so men guarding the infantry barracks, the roof of which was a nerve-racking but manageable leap of about ten feet from where George was standing on the south-west corner of the Mess House. Due south of George was Cavagnari’s house, and behind him, to the north-east, a garden that led to the amir’s palace, no more than 250 yards away.
A voice spoke behind him: ‘He should have been back by now, Hamilton. What’s keeping him?’
It was Cavagnari. He and his secretary, Jenkyns, a tall Scotsman with a neat moustache, had climbed up to the roof for a better view.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ replied Hamilton. ‘I suppose it’s possible he’s been detained.’
‘By the amir? Never. He wouldn’t dare. But unless we hear back soon we’ll have to send another message. And another, until that rascal Yakub responds.’
‘Just give me the word, sir. My sowars are ready for anything.’
‘Can I ask, sir,’ interrupted George, ‘how is Pir Ali? Has he come round yet?’
‘I’m afraid not. Dr Kelly thinks his skull is fractured and that he may not live.’
George’s heart sank. Without Pir Ali’s contacts he knew that locating the cloak would be like finding a needle in a haystack. But he had only a moment to dwell on the matter before Hamilton pointed to a gathering cloud of dust beyond the fortress’s main gate. ‘Sir, we have company.’
‘My God,’ breathed Cavagnari. ‘How many must there be to raise a cloud like that?’
At first all they could hear was the din and rush of hurrying feet, but soon the sound swelled to an audible chant from countless throats. ‘Ya Charyar! Ya Charyar!’
‘What are they saying, Ilderim?’ asked George.
‘It’s the Ghazi war-cry,’ explained Ilderim. ‘It means “Hail, the four Prophets of Muhammad”, and promises death to the non-believer.’
As if to confirm Ilderim’s words, a mob of soldiers and civilians came pouring down the road that led from the main gate and spilt through the lanes that fed into the far end of the Residency’s outer compound. Some clutched the green flag of jihad, others a variety of ancient and modern weapons: muskets, swords, rifles, pistols, clubs and knives. There were hundreds of them, and they kept coming.
‘Sights at four hundred yards,’ roared Hamilton, above the din. ‘Hold your fire until they reach the cavalry lines. Steady . . . steady.’
Memories of the desperate fight at Rorke’s Drift flooded back to George as he waited, heart thumping, for the order to fire. How he and most of the tiny British garrison had survived wave after wave of Zulu attacks he would never know, but this time the odds were even worse, the position less defensible and the enemy better armed.
‘Fire!’ shouted Hamilton.
George pulled his trigger and the stock slammed viciously into his shoulder. He had no idea whether he had hit his target but, given the number of bodies he had fired into, it didn’t seem to matter. As the boom of the first volley echoed behind him, and the smoke from the black powder cartridges began to clear, he could see gaps in the charging mass. But still they came.
Hamilton ordered a second volley, and a third, and each time the Residency’s rooftops erupted into smoke and flame. By the fourth volley the charge had been broken, and upwards of a hundred bodies, some still, others writhing in agony, littered the ground between the cavalry lines and the infantry barracks. Many hundreds more had taken cover and were firing back from the roof of the stable block, some godowns to the left and the low mud wall to the right.
‘Independent firing,’ called Hamilton. ‘But only shoot if you have someone in your sights. Our ammunition is limited and Heaven knows how long they’ll keep this up.’
Cavagnari looked across from his own position in the firing line. ‘How limited, Lieutenant?’
‘Fairly, sir. Each man has seventy rounds on him, and we have five thousand in reserve, which works out at another seventy per man. It sounds sufficient, but we’ll soon run through it if we’re not careful.’
George nodded in agreement. For him it was déjà vu. At Rorke’s Drift he and the other hundred and forty or so defenders had shot off forty thousand rounds in just under twelve hours. At Isandlwana, a few hours earlier, the problem hadn’t been quantity but supply: the increasingly desperate, and ultimately doomed, attempt to get the bullets out of their boxes and up to the firing line. ‘May I suggest,’ said George, above the zip and whine of incoming bullets, ‘that you ensure the ammunition boxes are unscrewed and the packets ready for distribution? If they rush us we’ll need the bullets to hand.’
‘The advice of a civilian is always welcome, Harper,’ replied Hamilton, his voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘but not required in this instance. The boxes are no longer secured by screws – Isandlwana taught us that lesson – and I’ve already divided them between the various houses and ordered the sliding tops to be removed.’
‘A wise precaution, Hamilton,’ said Cavagnari, ‘but Yakub is bound to intervene long before we run out of ammunition.’
‘Hamilton Sahib!’ shouted a sowar manning the opposite side of the roof, with a view of the royal palace.
‘What is it, Dowlat Ram?’ asked Hamilton.
‘Horsemen are coming from the amir’s palace.’
‘At last!’ exclaimed Cavagnari. ‘I knew Yakub wouldn’t leave us in the lurch. How many are coming, sepoy?’
‘Three, sahib.’
‘Only three? You must be mistaken! Let me see for myself.’
Cavagnari kept low as he crossed the roof, followed by Jenkyns, Hamilton and George in the same crouching stance. All four joined Dowlat Ram behind the low barr
icade. ‘There, sahib,’ said the sepoy to Cavagnari, pointing to a trio of riders advancing up the lane that led from the royal palace.
‘Well, that explains it,’ said Cavagnari. ‘See the big rider in front? That’s General Daoud Shah, Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Army. If anyone can restore order, he can.’
The lead rider was a huge man whose broad shoulders and huge frame almost dwarfed the Arab horse he was riding. He was simply dressed in a drab black kurta and trousers, with matching cap, and only his jewel-studded sword-hilt hinted at the high office he held. George held his breath as Daoud and his two aides approached the rear of the mob, which, by now, had entirely surrounded the Residency compound, and was tightly packed into the lane that ran along the back of the Mess House. Without breaking stride, the horsemen rode into the crowd and tried to force their way through. At first the mob gave way, but as soon as the soldiers among them recognized Daoud they surged angrily around his horse and those of his aides. Daoud tried to force the crowd back with the flat of his sword, but weight of numbers told and he and his aides were dragged from their mounts. As George and the others looked on in horror, the enraged mob struck at the defenceless officers with clubs, stones and even their fists.
‘Should we fire into the crowd, Sir Louis?’ asked Hamilton.
‘Too dangerous. You might hit Daoud. But by all means shoot those on the fringes. It just might disperse them.’
Hamilton gave the order and a volley rang out from that side of the roof, bringing down ten or so rioters and causing the others to flee for cover. They left behind the three apparently lifeless bodies of the Afghan officers.
‘My God!’ exclaimed Cavagnari. ‘If they’re prepared to kill their own general, what hope have we?’
Barely had he finished speaking than a fusillade of shots began to ricochet off the roof behind them, the sound not unlike a swarm of angry bees. George knew at once that the mutineers were firing from above, which could only mean the upper fort. He looked up and saw the tell-tale puffs of smoke along the ramparts. ‘They’ve taken the citadel, Sir Louis!’ he shouted. ‘We’re sitting ducks if we stay here.’
