The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [496]
Unfortunately, the Government of India distrusted men of ability. They suspected that the Dost would be difficult to manipulate and might even, if they were not careful, decide to ally himself with Russia; and discussing this possibility in the rarefied atmosphere of Simla, the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, and his favoured advisers came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to get rid of the Dost (who had done them no harm and his country much good) and replace him with the now elderly ex-Amir Shah Shuja; their argument being that this aged nonentity, if bound to his British champions by ties of gratitude and self-interest, could not fail to become a biddable tool who would willingly sign any treaty they cared to dictate.
But though the war that Lord Auckland forced upon Afghanistan had ended in total disaster for the British, the majority of those who had helped to launch it did very well for themselves, since to mark the initial victory, medals, titles and honours had been showered upon them – none of which could be taken away. But the dead who rotted in the passes received no decorations: and within two years Dost Mohammed Khan was once again Amir of Afghanistan.
The waste, thought Wigram, the injustice and stupidity and the cruel, senseless waste. And all to no purpose, because now once again, after a lapse of almost forty years, it seemed that a handful of men in Simla were planning to force another Amir – the youngest son of that same Dost Mohammed – to accept a permanent British Mission in Kabul. Worse still, there had actually been a time when the Amir would have been only too willing to accommodate them. Five years ago, dismayed by threats of rebellion and the growing power of Russia, Shere Ali had made overtures to the then Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, and asked for an assurance of protection against any aggressor; but his request has been refused. Embittered by this rejection, he had decided to turn instead to Russia (who had shown a flattering eagerness to discuss treaties of friendship and alliance with him); yet now these same Angrezis, who had rebuffed him when he asked for help, were actually demanding, as a right, that he should welcome a British Envoy to his capital and cease ‘intriguing’ with the Tsar.
‘If I were in his shoes, I'd see 'em damned first,’ thought Wigram, and realized that there was no profit in thinking like that. This was how wars came about.
All those years ago Lord Auckland and his friends had sent thousands of people to their deaths on the mere supposition that Shere Ali's father might consider an alliance with Russia. Was Lord Lytton now about to do the same, and with no more proof than before, basing his decisions on suspicion, gossip and rumour, and the garbled accounts of paid spies?
In the course of the past few years Wigram had seen a good deal of Wally's kinsman the Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar, Major Louis Cavagnari; and until recently his opinion of the D.C. had been almost as high as Wally's. Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari was a curious person to be found occupying such a position, for as Wally had related, his father had been a French count who had served under the great Napoleon, become Military Secretary to Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, and married an Irish lady, Elizabeth, daughter of Dean Stewart Blacker of Carrickblacker (though despite his Gallic names the Deputy Commissioner, having been brought up in Ireland, had always regarded himself as British, and preferred his friends to call him ‘Louis’ because it seemed to him the least foreign of his three given names).
For twenty years he had