The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [561]
Ash thanked him, and went on to talk of more personal matters. He had a request to make, one that he had given a great deal of thought to during the past few months but had only finally decided upon that same morning, during the hours that he had spent in Zarin's quarters. He asked to be relieved of his present duties, and also to be allowed to resign his Commission and leave not only the Guides, but the army.
He had not, he explained, come to this decision in haste, as the conviction that he could never settle down to becoming an army officer had been growing on him for some time. He presumed that Wigram, when Adjutant, must have told the Commandant something about Anjuli? The Commandant nodded without speaking, and Ash looked relieved and said that in that case he would understand the difficulties that had to be faced. If he had been able to return to Mardan and live openly with his wife it might have been possible for him to come to terms with army life in British India; but as there were several reasons why that could not be considered, he felt that the time had come to try and make a new life for his wife and himself…
Those long months on the journey to Bhithor, the weeks he had spent there and the years in Afghanistan had spoiled him for the narrow existence of an army officer – even an officer in such a Corps as the Guides – and made him realize that he would never be able to fit into any groove formed by nationality or creed. Therefore the only thing for him to do was to cut his ties with the past and start again, begin afresh as an individual who was neither British nor Indian, but merely a member of the human race.
The Commandant had been kind and sympathetic; and secretly relieved. For bearing in mind that peculiar story of the Hindu widow whom Ashton (according to poor Wigram) claimed to have married, and the scandal such a tale could cause if it were to become generally known, it seemed to him that the best thing for the Corps, as well as for Ashton, was for the young man to resign his commission and retire into civil life, where he could do what he liked.
They had discussed the matter rationally and without animosity; and as the war was now over and the British Army in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan, and General Browne had already left that country, the Commandant had no hesitation in saying that Ash could consider that his term of duty as intelligence officer to the Peshawar Valley Field Force had ended. He had also accepted Ash's resignation from the Guides and promised to arrange that there would be no difficulties over his resigning his commission. All that could be left to him, but in return he would like to ask a favour.
Would Ashton consent to remain in Kabul for a little longer (it might even be as much as a year) and act as an intelligence agent for the Escort of Guides? – always supposing the proposed British Mission became a reality.
‘I will certainly see that all the information you have just given me is sent to Simla, and do anything else I can do to discourage the Mission being sent – though as I have said before, I am afraid that will be very little. But if it goes, young Hamilton will almost certainly go with it as Military Attaché in command of an Escort of Guides; and after what you have just told me, I would like to know that you were at hand to give him any information he may need about the state of affairs in Kabul, and the attitude of the local population, and so forth. If the Mission is abandoned or the Guides are not, after all, called on to supply an Escort, I would let you know immediately, and you can take it that you would be a civilian from that moment, and need not even return here unless you wish.’
‘And if it is not abandoned, sir?’
‘Then I would ask you to remain in Kabul as long as the Guides are there. As soon as their term of duty expires and they are relieved by some other regiment, you are free to go. Will you do that?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said