The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [623]
In front of them, leading them, ran a wizened figure who waved a green banner and screamed to those behind him to kill the Infidels and show no mercy. Wally did not recognize him, but even at that range Ash did. It was the fakir whom he had seen earlier that day at the pay parade: Buzurg Shah, whom he had also seen on other occasions, calling for a Jehad in the more inflammable sections of the city.
‘Destroy them! Root out the Unbelievers. Kill. Kill!’ shrieked Fakir Buzurg Shah. ‘In the name of the Prophet smite and spare not! For the Faith. For the Faith. Maro! Maro* –!
‘Ya-charya! Ya-charya!’ yelled his supporters as they fanned out over the compound and began to fire at the heads of the sepoys behind the parapet on the barracks.
Wally saw one of his men fall backwards, shot between the eyes, and a second slump sideways with a bullet through his shoulder, and did not wait for more. It was no longer a question of clearing the waste ground, but of driving the mob out of the compound; and three minutes later Ash saw him lead a third sortie, racing out through the arch of the barracks with William at his side. But this time neither Kelly nor Cavagnari had been with them: Cavagnari because Wally still would not hear of his coming, and Rosie because by now his hands were too full with the care of the wounded to allow him to take part in another charge.
The fight had been a fiercer one than the two previous sorties into the waste ground, for though once more the marksmen on the rooftops, both inside and outside the compound, were forced to hold their fire for fear of killing their own men, the odds against the garrison had lengthened considerably. The Guides were now outnumbered by fifty to one, and would have been outnumbered by even more if space had permitted, since the forces opposing them included a full three regiments of armed and mutinous soldiers as well as every disaffected, hostile or bloodthirsty citizen in Kabul. But their very numbers proved a handicap to the Afghans, for they not only hampered each other, but in the fury and stress of battle no man could be sure that he was not attacking one of his own side, as with the exception of Wally their opponents were not in uniform.
The Guides, on the other hand, knew each other too well to make any such mistake. Moreover, their sepoys carried rifles with fixed bayonets while the two Englishmen and both the Indian officers were armed with service revolvers as well as sabres; and in the murderous hand-to-hand fighting that followed, every revolver shot told, for knowing that there would be no chance to reload, the men of the Escort held their fire until the last possible moment. But the mob had not followed their example, and in the initial rush to reach the Mission compound every Afghan had discharged his musket – many of them into the air – so that now they could only oppose steel to the rifle and revolver bullets of their adversaries.
The Guides had made the best possible use of that tactical error, and followed it up so fiercely with bayonet and sabre that the Afghans gave ground before the fury of their attack. Unable to flee because of the pressure of those at the back, who could not see and urged them forward, hampered by the bodies of the dead and wounded on whom they trod as the fight swayed to and fro, they turned at last and began to attack those behind them; and suddenly panic flared like a fire through dry grass and