The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [614]
The room was a narrow oblong with the door at one end, the window at the other, and the entire building, like those on either side of it, was very different from the flimsy Residency houses, for it was of a much earlier date and had once been part of the inner defences. Its outer walls were solidly constructed, and the small square window-frames were of stone in which the bars had been set before the frames were built into the house front. Had Ash possessed a file it might have been possible for him, after hours of labour, to remove two of these (one would not have been enough), but the office equipment did not include that kind of file, and an examination of the lock showed him that nothing short of a considerable charge of gunpowder could blow it in, for it was of a pattern only seen in Europe in a few medieval dungeons; the bolt being formed from a thick rod of iron that when the key was turned, slid home into a deep iron socket embedded in the stone door frame. There was no point in attempting to use his pistol on the thing; the lock was far too strong and too simple for that, and the most that a bullet could do was to damage it so that when Nakshband Khan returned with the key he would be unable to open the door…
There was no longer any question of attempting to fetch help from the palace or to join Wally and the Guides in defending the Residency, or of getting back to Juli and the house in the city either. He was as securely trapped as the members of the British Mission to Afghanistan who were making frantic efforts to prepare for the attack that they knew must come at any moment; an attack that they would have to fend off alone unless the Amir sent troops to prevent the return of the mutineers, and closed the gates of the Bala Hissar to the Heratis and others who had made for their cantonments to fetch their rifles.
But the Amir had done nothing.
Yakoub Khan was a weakling, possessing none of the fire and steel of his grandfather the great Dost Mohammed, and few if any of the good qualities (and they were many) of his unfortunate father the late Shere Ali, who might have made an excellent ruler if he had been left to himself instead of being hounded unmercifully by an ambitious Viceroy. Yakoub Khan had ample military resources at his disposal: his Arsenal was crammed with rifles, ammunition and kegs of gunpowder, and quite apart from the mutinous regiments he had close on two thousand loyal troops in the Bala Hissar: the Kazilbashis and the Artillery, and the guard on the Treasury. These, had he given the order, would have closed the citadel against the troops from the cantonments and moved against the men of the Ardal Regiment, who were breaking into the Arsenal to seize rifles and ammunition for themselves, and passing out firearms to the riff-raff from the bazaar and any infidel-hater who would join them.
A mere hundred or so Kazilbashis, or two guns and their crews, sent posthaste to bar the way to the Mission's compound, could have halted the mob and almost certainly have dissuaded them from attacking. But Yakoub Khan was far more concerned for his own safety than that of the guests whom he had sworn to protect, and he would only weep and wring his hands, and bewail his fate.
‘My Kismet is bad,’ wept the Amir to the mullahs and syeds of Kabul, who had hurried to the palace to urge him to take immediate steps to save his guests.
‘Your tears will not help them,’ retorted the head Mullah sternly. ‘You must send soldiers to guard the approaches to their compound and turn back the mutineers. If you do not, they will all be murdered.’
‘That will not be my fault… I never wished it. As God is my witness, it will not be my fault, because I can do nothing – nothing.’
‘You can close the gates,’ said the head Mullah.
‘Of what use, when there are so many of these evil men already within the citadel?’
‘Then give orders for these guns here to be moved where they can fire on the troops when they return from their cantonments, and thus prevent them re-entering.’
‘How can I do that, when I know that if