The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [617]
‘Only a scratch,’ said Sir Louis impatiently. ‘But it's made my head swim like the very devil. Tie it up like a good fellow and send one of those idiots for William. We've got to get another letter through to the Amir. He's our only hope, and – Oh, there you are, William. No, I'm all right. It's only a flesh wound. Get a pen and paper and write while Kelly patches me up – hurry. Are you ready?’
He began to dictate while William, having snatched pen and paper off the desk in the next room, wrote rapidly, and Rosie cleaned him up and bandaged his head, and stripping off the stained shirt replaced it with one of Wally's.
‘Who are we going to get to take it, sir?’ asked William, hastily sealing the folded sheet of paper with a wafer. ‘It isn't going to be easy to send anyone out, now that we're surrounded.’
‘Ghulam Nabi will take it,’ said Sir Louis. ‘Send him up here and I'll talk to him. We shall have to smuggle him out by the back door of the courtyard and pray to God that there is no one out there as yet.’
Ghulam Nabi was a native of Kabul and an ex-Guide whose brother was at that time Wordi-Major of the Guides Cavalry in Mardan. He had taken service with the British Mission on their arrival as a chupprassi, and he agreed at once to take Cavagnari-Sahib's letter to the palace. William had accompanied him down to the courtyard and stood by with a revolver while the bolts were withdrawn from a small, unobtrusive and seldom-used door in the back wall of the courtyard, near the tent that housed the baggage.
The wall itself was no thicker than a single mud brick, and behind it lay a narrow street that was part of a network of alleyways and houses, the roofs of the latter already packed with excited spectators, many of whom had armed themselves with ancient jezails and opened fire on the Infidels in the spirit of Jehad. In consequence the street itself was almost deserted, and Ghulam Nabi had slipped through the little door, and crossing to the opposite side where any marksman immediately overhead would find him a difficult target, took to his heels and ran in the direction of the palace in the Upper Bala Hissar.
But even as he vanished round the corner into a connecting alleyway, shouts from behind him and a spatter of shots from above showed that he had been spotted. Feet raced in pursuit, and the door had barely been closed and bolted when fists beat upon it.
Within minutes a crowd had gathered on the far side and were pounding on it with staves and musket butts, and though it was stouter than the main door into the courtyard, there was no knowing how long it would stand up to that sort of treatment. ‘We shall have to block it off,’ panted William; and they had done so with everything they could lay their hands on – tables, yakdans, tin-lined boxes full of winter clothing, a sofa and an imported mahogany sideboard, while Ghulam Nabi, having shaken off his pursuers in the maze of alleyways, reached the palace in safety by way of the Shah Bagh, the King's Garden.
But though he had been permitted to deliver Sir Louis' letter, he had not been allowed to return with a reply. Instead, like the previous messenger, he had been ordered to wait in one of the small ante-rooms while the Amir considered what answer he would send. And there he had waited all day.
Out on the plain near Ben-i-Hissar, the grass-cutters and their escort heard the sound of firing, and Kote-Daffadar Fatteh Mohammed, realizing where it came from and well aware of the hatred with which the Herati regiments and the city regarded the foreigners in the Bala Hissar, was uneasily certain that it spelled danger for the British Mission. Hastily rounding up the scattered foragers, he