The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [136]
Ala Yar had learned to read a little English during his years in Belait, and ten minutes later, having deciphered the address, he was in the Commandant's office.
Ash had indeed gone over the Border. But not to visit Koda Dad. He had gone to join Malik Shah and Lal Mast and their fellow clansmen, who had been sent to track down Dilasah and bring back the two stolen rifles. And though search parties were sent out to bring him in, they could find no trace of him. He had vanished as completely as Dilasah had done, and nothing more was heard of him for almost two years.
That afternoon Zarin had gone to the Commandant and asked for special leave so that he might go in search of Pelham-Sahib. But this had been refused, and a few hours later, after a long talk with Mahdoo and a shorter and slightly acrimonious one with Zarin, Ala Yar had gone instead.
‘I am the Sahib's servant, and he has not yet dismissed me from his service,’ said Ala Yar. ‘There is also the promise that I made to Anderson-Sahib that I would see to it that the boy came to no harm, and as you cannot go after him, I must do so. That is all.’
‘I would go if I could,’ growled Zarin. ‘But I too am a servant. I serve the Sirkar and I cannot do as I please.’
‘I know. Therefore I go in your stead.’
‘You are an old fool,’ said Zarin angrily.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Ala Yar without rancour.
He left Mardan an hour before sunset, and Mahdoo accompanied him for a mile along the track that leads towards Afghanistan and stood to watch him grow smaller and smaller against the vast, desolate background of the plain and the Border hills, until at last the sun went down and the dusty purple twilight hid him from sight.
Book Three
World out of Time
13
‘There are men out there. Beyond the nullah, to the left,’ said one of the sentries, peering out at the moonlit plain. ‘Look – they are moving this way.’
His companion turned to stare in the direction of the pointing finger, and after a moment or two laughed and shook his head. ‘Gazelle. This drought has made the chinkara so bold that they do not fear to approach within a stone's throw. But if those clouds yonder do not fail us, there should soon be grass in plenty.’
The summer of 1874 had been a particularly trying one. The monsoon had been late and scanty and the plains around Mardan were burned to a dry golden-brown in which no trace of green showed. Dust-devils danced all day among the mirages and the parched thorn bushes, and the rivers ran low and sluggishly between banks of blinding white sand.
There was no grass on the hills either, and most of the game had moved up the far valleys in search of food. Only a few wild pig and chinkara had remained, and these plundered the fields of the villagers by night, and would occasionally even venture into the cantonment to eat the shrubs in Hodson's garden, or nibble the leaves of the mulberry tree that marked the place where Colonel Spottiswood had killed himself over seventeen years ago. The sentries had become so accustomed to the sight of them that a dark shape skirting the parade ground or moving among the shadows no longer brought a challenge followed by the crack of a carbine; and in any case, the section of Frontier adjacent to Mardan had been quiet for so long that men were becoming used to peace.
There had been no ‘Border incidents’ for over five years, and the Guides had had no active soldiering to occupy them. They had provided an escort under Jemadar Siffat Khan to accompany a new Envoy on a mission to Kashgar, and a year later two of the escort had carried the completed treaty from Kashgar to Calcutta in sixty days. A sepoy of the Guides Infantry had been detailed to accompany a messenger across the Oxus and from there, by way of Badakshan and Kabul, to India, and a sowar of the Cavalry, who had been sent to Persia with a British officer bound on a special mission, had been