The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [565]
The size of the Mission had been a disappointment to Wally, who had visualized a far larger and more imposing cavalcade: one that would impress the Afghans and do credit to the British Empire. The meagreness of the Envoy's party struck him as a depressing example of Government cheeseparing, but he had consoled himself with the thought that it was an indication of the power and prestige of the Raj that where lesser nations would have found it necessary to bolster their Envoy's consequence with a horde of minor officials and an outsize Escort, a mere handful of men was sufficient for the British. Besides, the smaller the numbers the greater the glory.
It did not strike him as odd that Cavagnari proposed to travel to Kabul by way of the Kurram Valley and the Shutergardan Pass rather than by the far shorter and easier route through the Khyber, as he himself had already marched through the charnel-house that heat and drought and cholera had made of that road when the army had withdrawn from Afghanistan after the signing of the Peace Treaty, and men and baggage animals had dropped and died in their thousands on the line of march. The bodies of the former had been buried in shallow graves hurriedly scraped out of the scanty earth by the roadside, but it had not been possible to do the same for the corpses of mules and camels; and knowing that the Khyber would still be foul with the sight and stench of corruption, Wally had no desire to pass that way again until time, weather and the eaters of carrion had cleansed the road and hidden the evidence under a merciful pall of dust and grass.
By comparison the Kurram Valley, even at that season of the year, must be a paradise. And as it was no longer a part of Afghanistan (having been ceded to the British under the terms of the treaty) the victorious troops that garrisoned it had not been withdrawn; which Wally confidently supposed would ensure a peaceful passage as far as the Afghan frontier. But in this he was mistaken.
The tribes were indifferent to such things as treaties or agreements between rival governments and they continued to harass the garrisons, murdering soldiers and camp-followers and stealing rifles, ammunition and baggage animals. Deserters carried off camels under the very noses of the sentries, caravans carrying fruit from Afghanistan to India were stopped on the Shutergardan Pass and plundered by marauding bands of Gilzais, and in July alone, a British surgeon had been stabbed to death and an Indian officer of the 21st Punjabis, together with his orderly, had been attacked and killed within sight of their escort who had been riding a short distance behind. Even General Roberts himself had narrowly escaped being captured by men of the Ahmed Khel…
‘They will all be killed. Every one of them!’ exclaimed that one-time Viceroy of India, John Lawrence – brother of Sir Henry of Punjab fame – when the news reached London that the British Mission had set out for Kabul. And if conditions in the Kurram were anything to go by, the outlook was murky enough to justify that pessimistic remark.
There was certainly little sign of peace in the valley, and in order to ensure the Mission's safety a mountain battery, a squadron of Bengal Lancers and three companies of Highlanders and Gurkhas had been detailed to protect them. In addition to which General Roberts, and no less than fifty of his officers who wished to honour the new Envoy, had joined his party to set it on its way.
Thus royally escorted, Sir Louis Cavagnari and the members of his Mission had arrived at Kasim Khel, five miles from the crest of the Shutergardan Pass and barely three from the Afghan border – the cliffs known as Karatiga, the White Rock. Here, having camped for the night, they entertained the General and his staff to a farewell dinner: a function that proved to be remarkably noisy and convivial in spite of the fact that tomorrow they would