The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [334]
‘Such as Barbur the Mogul, and other followers of the Prophet?’ asked Ash wickedly. ‘Those were also foreigners who conquered the land of the Hindus, so if the Raj goes, it may well be that those whose forefathers owned the soil will next expel all Mussulmans.’
Koda Dad bristled wrathfully, and then, as the truth of the observation struck him, relaxed again and said with a rueful laugh: ‘I confess I had overlooked that. Yes indeed. We be foreigners both: twice over, I being a Pathan and you… you neither of this country or of Belait. But the Mussulmans came here many centuries ago, and Hind has become their homeland – the only one they know. They are grafted onto it too strongly to be separated: wherefore – He checked, frowning, and said: ‘How did we come to be talking of these things? I was speaking of Afghanistan. I am troubled by what is brewing beyond the Border, Ashok, and if it is possible for you to speak a word into the ear of those in authority –’
‘Who me?’ interrupted Ash, and gave a shout of laughter. ‘Bapu-ji, you cannot be serious. Who do you suppose would listen to me?’
‘But are there not many Burra-Sahibs in Rawalpindi, Colonel-Sahibs and General-Sahibs to whom you are known, who would listen to you?’
‘To a junior officer? And one who could produce no proof?’
‘But I myself have told you –’
‘That certain men are going from village to village in the Border country, telling the tale of something that happened long before I was born. Yes, I know. But what someone else has told me is not proof. I should need more than that if I expected to be believed – much more. Without it they would laugh at me; or more likely give me a sharp reprimand for wasting their valuable time with a pack of bazaar rumours, and suspect me of trying to make myself seem important.’
‘But surely,’ urged Koda Dad, puzzled, ‘your elders in Rawalpindi must hold you in high favour now that you have just completed a difficult mission with honour? Had they not thought well of you, they would never have chosen you for such work in the first place.’
‘You are wrong there, my father,’ said Ash bitterly. ‘They chose me only because it offered a chance to remove me as far as possible from my friends, and from the frontier. And because Hindustani is my mother-tongue and the work required someone who could both speak and understand it with ease. That was all.’
‘But now that you are back, having done well –?’
‘Now that I am back they must find some other way to get rid of me until such time as my Regiment is willing to receive me again. Until then I am merely a nuisance. No, Bapu-ji, you would do better to ask Awal or Zarin to speak to Battye-Sahib or the Commandant. They would at least be given a hearing, which I should not.’
‘What is that I am to say to Battye-Sahib?’ asked Zarin's voice from behind them. His feet had made no sound on the stone stairway, for as Fatima Begum did not permit the wearing of shoes in her house, they had not heard him approach.
‘Billah! I am getting deaf in my old age,’ said Koda Dad, annoyed. ‘It is as well that I have no enemies, for a babe could stalk me in the open. I did not hear you; and Ashok, who should have done so, was talking so loudly that his ears were full of the sound of his own foolish words.’
Zarin and Ash grinned at each other, and Ash said: ‘Alas, Bapu-ji, they were not foolish. I still lie under the disfavour of those in authority, both in Rawalpindi and Mardan, and until I have served my sentence you cannot expect any words of mine to carry weight with them. Besides, they must know these things already. They have spies everywhere; or if they have not, they should have.’
‘What is the talk?’ asked Zarin, seating himself beside his father. ‘What things should already be known?’
‘Your father,’ said Ash, ‘tells me that there is trouble brewing in Afghanistan, and he fears that unless it is nipped in the bud it may lead to an alliance between the Amir and the Russ-log: