The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [582]
Wally was silent for a moment or two, and then he said irritably: ‘It would take a deuce of a lot of money, and I don't see why we should be expected to stump up the arrears of pay that are owed to the armed forces of a country that we have been at war with – an enemy country! Do you realize that a large part of what these fellows claim they are owed seems to be back pay, so that if we were fools enough to foot the bill we'd actually be paying those men for fighting us? Paying them for killing Wigram? – and a whole lot more of our fellows too? No, it's obscene! It's a monstrous suggestion and you can't possibly mean it.’
‘But I do mean it, Wally.’ Ash's voice was as grim as his face, and there was a note in it that Wally recognized with a curious sense of shock as fear: real fear. ‘It may sound like a monstrous suggestion to you, and I'm not even sure that it would work, except as a temporary measure. But it would at least remove the immediate threat and give your Mission a breathing space. It would be worth it for that alone. What Cavagnari needs most is time, and it doesn't look to me as though he's going to get it unless he buys it.’
‘Then you're really suggesting that he sends for these mutinous divils and hands them out –’
‘No I am not. I am not suggesting that he, personally, pays anything directly to the Herati regiments (who, by the way, were never in action against us and don't believe we won a single battle). But I'm willing to bet that he could galvanize the Viceroy into sending the Amir, immediately, a sum sufficient to cover what his troops are owed. It wouldn't even need to be a gift, because it could be counted as part of the yearly subsidy that was promised him by the terms of the Peace Treaty, which amounts to six crores a year. Damn it, Wally, that's six million rupees. Even a small part of that would wipe out the Amir's debt to his troops. But if the money isn't forthcoming soon, it won't be long before the whole Afghan Army is faced with the choice of starving or stealing; and believe me, they'll choose the latter, as the Heratis have done. And as you yourself would do, if you were in their shoes!’
‘That's all very well, but –’
‘There's no “but” about it. Hunger can do a lot of strange things to people as I've learned at first hand, and I only wish I could talk to Cavagnari myself. But I promised the Commandant I wouldn't, because… Well, anyway, it seems young Jenkyns is our only hope; and after all he is supposed to be the Political Assistant. You'll have to pass it on to him – tell him you had it from old Nakshband Khan – tell him anything. But for God's sake get it into his head that it's deadly serious, and that if Cavagnari hasn't realized this already, which he may well have done, he has got to realize it now. As for you, Wally, if you've any sense at all, you'll stop these sports of yours and warn the Rosebud' (this was a reference to Ambrose Kelly, who for obvious reasons was known in the Guides and to his friends as ‘Rosie’) ‘to write off his equally well-meaning scheme for starting a free dispensary, because it is already being said in the city that the Sahibs are planning to use this as a means of poisoning anyone who is foolish enough to attend.’
‘The Black Curse of Shielygh on them,’ sighed Wally with feeling. ‘May the divil