The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [534]
‘Good for Ash! I wonder if he is up there with them? – I wouldn't put it past him. Jove, I wish he was here with us. If only – Are you going to pass this on to the General?’
‘Yes, for what it's worth,’ said Wigram, writing hastily in a small loose-leaf notebook. He ripped out the page, folded it, and calling up his orderly, sent him galloping off with it to General Gough. ‘Not that it'll be needed, because his pickets will have told him as much already. But it won't do any harm to have it confirmed.’
‘Did you tell him that Ash thinks we should –’
‘No, I did not. I don't believe in teaching my grandmother to suck eggs. Believe me, Gough is no fool, and he doesn't need Ashton or anyone else to teach him his business. He'll have worked that out for himself.’
General Gough had indeed done so. He had sent out a number of patrols, and later that day he had talked with as many of the local chiefs and Maliks as could be persuaded to meet him, in an endeavour to sound out the temper of the people, and discover, if he could, which tribes were likely to fight and which could be relied on to remain neutral – or to vanish into the hills like Azmatulla and his men.
But as the day wore on it became increasingly clear to him that the whole countryside was hostile, and when patrol after patrol reported further reinforcements hurrying to the help of the Khugianis, he began to work on his plans for the coming battle. There was nothing much that could be done that day as his baggage-animals had still not arrived, and did not do so until well after sunset – plodding wearily into camp as darkness fell and the cooking-fires filled the air with the scent of wood-smoke and a heartening smell of food.
The whole column now knew that there would be a battle on the morrow, and made their preparations accordingly. Wigram had slept soundly that night, and so too had Zarin. They had, to the best of their ability, done all those things that had to be done, and could rest with quiet minds. But Wally had lain awake for a long time, staring up at the stars and thinking.
He had been seven years old when he had seen in the window of a Dublin shop a hand-tinted engraving that depicted a cavalry regiment charging at Waterloo, sabres in hand and plumes flying, and had then and there decided that when he grew up he would be a cavalry officer and ride like that at the head of his men, fighting his country's foes. Now at last – tomorrow if Wigram was right – that old schoolboy dream would come true. For though he had been in action before, he had never yet been in a major engagement, and until now his only experience of a cavalry charge had been practice ones during squadron training. Would the reality turn out to be very different from anything he had imagined? not wildly exciting, but ugly and terrifying – and not glorious at all?
He had heard countless stories of the Afghans' methods of dealing with cavalry. They would lie on the ground, their long razor-sharp knives at the ready, and slash upwards at the legs and bellies of the horses to bring the riders down. A trick, he was given to understand, that could be remarkably successful, particularly in a scrimmage: and he could well believe it. Wigram said that sabres and lances were little use against it, and that a carbine or revolver were one's best hope, since faced with the prospect of being shot on the ground, most Afghans preferred to fight and die on their feet. It was this sort of thing that no amount of practice charges could teach one. But after tomorrow he would know…
He wondered where Ash was, and what he was doing. Would he be watching the battle from somewhere up on the hills? If only the two of them could have ridden together tomorrow! Wally gazed into the darkness, and remembering the past, dropped suddenly into sleep – to be awakened in the first faint light of dawn to find the camp stirring to life and his Commanding Officer shaking his shoulder.
‘Awake, O Sleeping Beauty,’ exhorted Wigram.