The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [576]
The Sirdar shrugged and gave up.
‘It was profitless to say more,’ he told Ash. ‘Nevertheless, after I had left his presence I saw Jenkyns-Sahib leaving the courtyard, and I followed him and asked permission to speak to him apart. We walked together by the stables in the cavalry lines while I disclosed the same matters to him, and when I had done, he spoke sharply, saying “Have you told Cavagnari-Sahib this?” When I told him that I had just done so, and of the reply I had received, he was silent for a space, and then he said: ‘What the Envoy-Sahib says is true. The British Government will not be harmed by losing three or four of us here.” Now I ask you, what can one do with men like that? I have wasted my time and theirs, for it is clear that they will not be warned.’
Ash had fared little better with Wally, whom he had managed to meet on several occasions and with comparative ease, as Sir Louis' policy of encouraging visitors and keeping open house meant that the Residency was always full of Afghans, who left their attendants in the compound where they fell into conversation with the Residency servants and the men of the Escort. This had made it a simple matter for Ash to mingle with them and get a message passed to Wally making an assignation to meet at some spot where they could talk together without attracting attention, and after that first meeting they had also devised a simple code.
But though Wally was always unfeignedly glad to see him and took a deep interest in all he had to say, there was never any question of his attempting to pass on anything Ash told him to Sir Louis. The Commandant, with whom Ash had discussed this point in Mardan, had recognized the trouble this could lead to, and in briefing Wally before he left, had impressed it upon him that the Envoy would have his own sources of information and that it was no part of Lieutenant Hamilton's duties to supplement them. If at any time he had reason to believe that Sir Louis was ignorant of some vital matter that he himself had learned from Ashton, then he should mention it to the Envoy's Secretary and Political Assistant, William Jenkyns, who would decide whether to pass it on or not.
‘I did that the other day,’ confessed Wally ruefully, ‘and never again. Will bit my head off. Told me that Sir Louis knew a damn sight more than I did about what went on in Kabul, and suggested that I run away and play with my soldiers – or words to that effect. And he's right of course.’
Ash shrugged and remarked ungraciously that he sincerely hoped so. He was feeling worried and apprehensive, not only on account of the many disturbing things that were being said and done in the city, or his fears for the safety of Wally and the Guides, but because he was afraid for Juli. For there was cholera in the city. There had as yet been no cases of it in the Bala Hissar or near the quiet street in which Nakshband Khan's house stood, but the disease was rampant in the poorer and more congested quarters of Kabul; and there came a day when Ash heard from a friend of the Sirdar's, a well-known Hindu whose son was in the service of the Amir's brother Ibrahim Khan, that it had broken out among the disaffected troops.
Had it not been for the fact that half India, to his certain knowledge, was also suffering from a raging cholera epidemic that year, he would almost certainly have taken Anjuli away that same day and abandoned Wally and the Guides without a second thought. But there being nowhere he could take her with any certainty of escaping it, he had decided that it was probably safer for her to stay where she was, as with luck the cholera would not reach their quarter of the city; and in any case it was bound to diminish drastically with the onset of autumn. But it was an anxious time, and he grew thin from strain and found it increasingly difficult to talk to Wally of the dangers that threatened the Mission. Or, with his mind filled with fears for Juli, to sit around discussing that indefatigable poet's latest composition.