The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [138]
The Commandant turned to the Adjutant and said curtly: ‘Are the others out there?’
‘Yes, sir. All except Malik Shah.’
‘He's dead,’ said Ash tiredly.
‘And Dilasah Khan?’
‘He too. We got back most of the ammunition. He hadn't used much of it. Lal Mast has it…’ Ash stared down at the carbines for a long moment, and said with sudden bitterness: ‘I hope they're worth it. They cost three lives. That is a high price to pay for anything.’
‘For honour?’ suggested the Commandant in the same curt voice.
‘Oh – honour!’ said Ash; and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Malik and Ala Yar… Ala Yar… His voice broke and his eyes were suddenly full of tears. He said harshly: ‘May I go now, sir?’ And almost as he spoke he fell forward, as a tree falls, and lay sprawled and unconscious across the cavalry carbines that had been stolen two years ago and recovered at the cost of three lives. One of them Ala Yar's…
‘He'll have to be cashiered, of course,’ said the Second-in-Command.
His tone made the remark less an assertion than a query, and his Commanding Officer, who had been drawing complicated patterns on the blotting paper, looked up sharply.
‘Well, I mean – it seems a pity,’ said the Major defensively. ‘After all, when you come to think of it, it was a damned fine show. I've been talking to Lal Mast and the others and they –’
‘So, oddly enough, have I,’ interrupted the Commandant with some asperity. ‘And if you intend to play Devil's Advocate, you're wasting your time. I don't need one.’
Two days had passed since Ash and his four companions had stumbled into Mardan, but the rain was still falling and the little fort was loud with the sound of water drumming upon the flat roofs, cascading from pipes and gutters, and splashing into the inch-deep lake that had replaced the dusty paths and parched lawns of the previous week. Malik Shah's family were to be awarded a pension, and his four fellow-tribesmen had been congratulated and reinstated, their uniforms returned and two years' back-pay handed over to them. But Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn, who faced a charge of Absent Without Leave for the space of twenty-three months and two days, was technically under close arrest – though in actual fact confined to bed in the quarters of the Medical Officer, Ambrose Kelly, with a high fever due to a head wound that had become septic. His fate and his future were still under discussion.
‘You mean you agree with me?’ demanded the Major, startled.
‘Of course I do. Why else should I have bothered to go over to Peshawar yesterday? You don't suppose I spent over an hour jawing with the Commissioner, and two more arguing with an assortment of brass-hats, just for the fun of it, do you? Ashton's an insurbordinate young bastard, but he's too valuable to throw away. Look – what's the most useful thing to any military commander who is planning a campaign or trying to keep order in a country like this? Information! Early and accurate information is worth more than all the guns and ammunition one could ask for, and that's why I'm going to fight like a steer to keep that young idiot. I don't imagine any other Corps could get away with it; but then we're not like any other Corps. We've always been pretty unorthodox, and if one of our officers can spend a couple of years on the other side of the Border without being spotted as an Englishman or shot as a spy, he's too bloody useful to lose and that's all there is to it. Though mark you, what he really deserves is a Court Martial. And they'd cashier him.’
‘But what the hell are we going to do with him?’ demanded the Major. ‘We can't just let him stay on here as though nothing had happened, can we?’
‘No, of course not. The sooner he leaves Mardan the better. I propose to see if I can't get him transferred to another unit for a couple of years. Preferably a British one, where he can cool his heels and mix with his own people for a change. He needs to get right away from his friends and the Frontier for a while; and it won't do him any harm to go somewhere down south.