The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [587]
But not even to William, who decoded all the Envoy's confidential messages, did he give his reasons. An omission that troubled his loyal secretary not a little, since to William the Viceroy's offer had seemed a godsend: a quick and easy way out of an exceedingly tricky situation, and an admirable solution to the most pressing of the problems that were bedevilling the harassed Amir, not to mention his equally harassed capital.
It had never occurred to William that his Chief would not see the offer in this light. But August wore on and Sir Louis made no move to accept it, or even to discuss the possibility of doing so, though every day brought fresh evidence that passions in the city were rapidly building up to flash-point, and that disaffection was now rife among the regiments on duty in the Bala Hissar itself.
This last was no more than a rumour that had only recently reached William at secondhand, via Walter Hamilton; yet he could not help wondering if were true. Was it possible that the regiments at present quartered inside the Bala Hissar were in fact any more reliable than the Heratis, and if so, was the Amir playing a double game? There was no doubt that he had been exceedingly angry over the affair of the sentries who had stoned the Hindu: but not with the sentries. His wrath had been directed against Sir Louis for daring to dismiss them and refusing to allow them to be replaced – and with Lieutenant Hamilton, who had carried out Sir Louis' order.
Did the Amir, mused William, really intend to go on an autumn tour of his northern borders with Sir Louis, leaving his capital to the mercy of a mutinous gaggle of unpaid regiments and scheming ministers? Sir Louis certainly seemed to think so, and spoke of it as though it was an accepted fact.
No one could possibly have wished for a more loyal or admiring supporter than William Jenkyns. But as the summer drew to a close there were times, particularly if he happened to lie awake too long in the small hours of the night, when small pin-pricks of doubt nagged at William's mind and he caught himself wondering uneasily if Louis Cavagnari's sudden elevation in rank had not impaired his judgement and made him blind to much that would never have escaped his attention in the old days.
Wild horses could not have dragged the verbal expression of such a suspicion from the Envoy's loyal Secretary, but he was increasingly baffled by his Chief's determination to ignore what was becoming clear to others in the Mission (and glaringly obvious to many outside it, if the warning words of such visitors as the Sirdar Nakshband Khan were anything to go by). Yet as day succeeded day without any sign that the tension in the city was decreasing, Sir Louis still continued to occupy himself with ideas for reforming the administration, plans for the forthcoming tour and the prospects of partridge shooting on the charman – the uncultivated grazing grounds in the valley – and, despite the Amir's warnings, to ride out daily with a guard of Afghans to see and be seen by the citizens of Kabul.
William could not understand it. He was well aware that his Chief was a man who did not suffer fools gladly and was inclined to be a little too scornful of lesser men. It was part of his character, and William had once heard someone at a dinner-party in Simla saying of Cavagnari that one could easily visualize him behaving as the Comte d'Auteroches had done at the Battle of Fontenoy, when he called out to the opposing British line that the ‘French Guards never fired first’.
At the time, William had laughed and agreed – and thought the more of Pierre Louis Napoleon in consequence. But now he recalled how that famous incident had ended, and no longer felt like laughing; for in response to those flamboyant words the British had fired first, and their murderous