The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [335]
‘Good! We could do with one,’ approved Zarin. ‘We have eaten idleness for too long, and it is time we were given a chance to fight again. But if the Sirkar fears that Shere Ali will permit the Russ-log to gain control of Kabul, or the tribes allow them to occupy the country, then they know nothing of the Amir or his people.’
‘True… that is true,’ conceded his father. ‘And if this new Lat-Sahib’ (he meant Lord Lytton, who had succeeded Lord Northbrook as Viceroy and Governor-General) ‘can be prevailed upon to tread carefully, using patience and friendship and much wisdom in his dealings with the problems of the Amir and the people of Afghanistan, then all may yet be well. But should his councillors continue on the present course, I am very sure that the end will be war, and though when I was young I too relished fighting and danger, I find that now I am old I have no wish to see villages burned and crops laid waste, and the bodies of all those who once lived there lying unburied; food for the foxes and the carrion crows.’
‘Yet the mullahs tell us that no man dies before his time,’ said Zarin gently. ‘Our fates are written.’
‘It may be,’ admitted Koda Dad doubtfully. ‘But that is something else that of late I have become less sure of; for how can the mullahs – or even the Prophet himself? – read all the mind of God? There is also another thing – have still three sons (for I count Ashok here as one), all of them jawans* who serve in a regiment that will be among the very first to be called upon to figh if there should be another war with Afghanistan; and though you will say am growing womanish, yet I would prefer that they were not cut down in their prime but lived, as I have done, to see their sons grow to manhood and beget many grandsons; and when they die at the last that they should did full of years and contentment… as I, their father, will do. Therefore distresses me to hear the whispers that go up and down the Frontier, and to see the storm clouds gather.’
‘Do not fear, Bapu-ji,’ consoled Ash, stooping to touch the old man's feet. ‘A wind will arise and blow these clouds away, and you can be at ease again – while your three sons bite their nails for idleness, and quarrel with their friends for lack of an enemy to fight.’
‘Thak!’ (let be) snorted Koda Dad, preparing to rise. ‘You are as bad as Zarin. You think of war only as a game or as a chance to obtain promotion and honour.’
‘And loot,’ added Ash with a laugh. ‘Do not forget the loot, my father. I spent eight days in Kabul searching for Dilasah Khan, and it is a rich city.’
He reached down a hand to help the old man to his feet, but Koda Dad brushed it aside and rose without assistance, settling his turban and remarking austerely that the young displayed too much levity and not enough respect for their elders. ‘Let us go down. It is time that we ate, for I must see my sister and also rest awhile before we start our journey back.’
They ate together in the open courtyard, and afterwards went up to pay their respects to Fatima Begum and to thank her for her hospitality. The old lady kept them gossiping for well over an hour before dismissing them to get what sleep they could before midnight; at which hour a servant awakened them and they rose and dressed, and leaving that hospitable house, rode away together down through Attock to the bridge of boats.
The Indus was a wide expanse of molten silver under the blaze of the full moon, and as ever, the voice of the ‘Father of Rivers’ filled the night with sound, hissing and chuckling between the tethered boats that jerked and strained against the current, and rising to a sustained thunder downstream where the gorge narrowed. It was not too easy to make oneself heard above the river noises, and none of the three attempted it. There was, in any case, nothing more to be said, and when they dismounted at the bridge head to embrace as sons and brothers in the Border country are accustomed to do on meeting or parting, they did so without words.
Ash helped Koda Dad to remount,