The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [581]
Wally abandoned his restful pose and sat bolt upright, staring and indignant. ‘Stop them? What the blazes for? Why, the Afghans love ‘em! – they're damned good horsemen and they thoroughly enjoy competing against my chaps. We always have a huge turn-out, and there couldn't be a better way of getting on friendly terms with them.’
‘I can see why you think so. But then you don't understand how these people think. They see it quite differently, and far from encouraging friendly feelings it has caused great offence. The truth is, Wally, that your sowars are too damn good at this type of sport, and the Kabulis have been saying that you hold them solely in order to show how easily you can defeat them, and that when your men ride at a dangling lemon and slash it in half with a sabre, or spear a tent-peg out of the ground on the point of a lance, they are merely demonstrating how they would cut down or spear their enemies – in other words, the Afghans. If you'd been able to stand among the spectators and listen, as I've done, and hear what they say among themselves as they watch, you wouldn't talk so glibly about “establishing friendly relations with the Afghans”, when in point of fact all you are doing is helping to make them a deal sourer than they are already; which God knows is sour enough.’
‘Well if that isn't the outside of enough!’ exploded Wally. ‘So that's why you were dressed up like a scarecrow and carrying off the prizes for the opposition that day. I couldn't think what you were playing at, and for two pins I'd have –’ Words appeared to fail him and Ash had the grace to look ashamed of himself and say defensively: ‘I didn't do it for fun, whatever you may think. I hoped it might even up the balance a bit and take some of the heat out of the situation. But I didn't think you'd recognize me.’
‘Not recognize you? When I know every trick of riding you possess and the way you always - Holy smoke! It's yourself who's mad, so it is. Have you any idea of the risks you were running? It's all very well for me to spot you, but I'm willing to lay you a year's pay to a rotten orange that there isn't a single jawan in the Escort who doesn't know by now who you are.’
'I wouldn't take you,’ said Ash with a crooked smile. ‘I imagine they know a lot more than you think. But they also know how to keep their mouths shut. Have any of them, for instance, reported to you that whenever they show their faces outside the citadel, the Kabulis don't just insult them, but make the worst kind of abusive remarks about you and Kelly and Jenkyns, and particularly about Cavagnari? No, I can see they haven't! And you can't blame them. They'd be ashamed to let any of you know the sort of things that are being said about you in the bazaars; which is your bad luck, because if they spoke out you might learn a thing or two.’
‘God, what a people,’ said Wally disgustedly. ‘That Sikh obviously knew what he was talking about after all.
‘What Sikh?’
‘Oh, just a Havildar of the 3rd Sikhs I was talking to one day when we were in Gandamak. He was scandalized by the Peace Treaty and the fact that we were pulling the army out of Afghanistan, and seemed to think we were all mad. He wanted to know what kind of warfare this was, and said, “Sahib, these people hate you and you have beaten them. There is only one treatment for such shaitans (devils) – grind them to powder.” Perhaps that is what we should have done.’
‘Perhaps. But it's no good talking about that now, because the main thing I came here to tell you about is a deal more important than your mounted sports. I know I've brought this up before, but this time, whether you like it or not, you're going to have to talk to Jenkyns about it. As I've already told you, the Amir has allowed a rumour to get around that the Mission is only here to act as paymaster and general benefactor: in other words, to be milked of rupees like an obliging cow. Almost everyone believes