The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [517]
‘Been losing your temper again, Ashton?’ inquired Wigram with a faint smile' ‘Because you're talking poppycock, you know. Of course he doesn't think anything of the sort. Or if he does, it means you've gone out of your way to give him that impression. What have you been saying to upset him?’
‘The truth,’ said Ash bleakly. ‘And I might just as well have saved my breath and stayed in Kabul, for he does not want to believe it. I'm beginning to think that none of them do – the fellows in Simla, I mean.’
‘What won't they believe?’
‘That there is no danger whatever of the Amir allowing the Russians to build roads and establish military bases in his country, and that even if he were mad enough to agree to it, his people would not and it is they who count. I've told Cavagnari again and again that the Afghans do not want to take sides with either of us: Russia or the Raj – Yes, yes, I know what you're going to say: he said it too… “But the Amir welcomed the Russian Mission to Kabul.” Well, what if he did? What the hell else could he do – bearing in mind that there was a Russian army across the Oxus and advancing on his borders, half his territories were in revolt, and news of Russian victories in Turkey was spreading across Asia like wildfire? He did his damnedest to put Stolietoff and his lot off, and then tried to delay their arrival; but when it became clear that they were coming anyway, he did the only thing he could do short of shooting them all and taking the consequences: he put a good face on it and gave them a public welcome. That's all there was to it. He didn't want them any more than he wants us, and the Viceroy knows it – or if he doesn't, his intelligence service must be the worst in the world!’
‘You must admit that it didn't look too good from this end,’ observed Wigram judicially, ‘after all, the Amir had refused to receive a British Mission.’
‘And why not? We prate about our “rights” in Afghanistan and our “right” to have a Mission in Kabul, but who the hell gave us these “rights”? It isn't our country and it has never been a threat to us – except as a possible ally of Russia's and a base for a Russian attack on India, and everyone knows by now that any danger of that, if it ever existed, ended with the recent signing of the Berlin Treaty. So it's sheer flaming nonsense to pretend that we have anything to fear from Afghanistan herself. The whole thing can almost certainly be settled peaceably; it's not too late for that. There is still time. But it seems that we prefer to consider ourselves seriously threatened and to pretend that we have leaned over backwards to conciliate the Amir, but that our patience is now exhausted. Good God, Wigram, do our blasted Big-wigs want a second Afghan war?’
Wigram shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘Why ask me? I'm only a poor bloody cavalry officer who does what he's told and goes where he's sent. I'm not in the confidence of the great, so my opinion isn't worth much; but from what I hear, the answer is “Yes” – they do want a war.’
‘That's what I thought. Imperialism has gone to their heads and they want to see more and more of the map painted pink, and to go down in the history books as great men; Pro-Consuls and modern Alexanders. Pah! – it makes me sick.’
Wigram said: ‘You mustn't blame Cavagnari. I heard him tell Faiz Mohammed at Ali Masjid that he was only a servant of the Government, who did what he was told. And that's as true of him as it is of me.’
‘Perhaps. But men like him, men who really do know something about the Khyber tribes and can talk to them in their own dialects, should be advising the Viceroy and his fellow fire-eaters to hold their horses, instead of urging them to charge. Which is what he would seem to be doing. Oh well, I've done my best; but it was a mistake to think that anyone could ever make him believe anything that