The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [625]
‘Was that what he was singing?’ asked Cavagnari, sighting carefully. He pulled the trigger and gave a grunt of satisfaction: ‘Got him!’
‘No,’ said William, winding his home-made bandage about a shallow cut on his left hand. ‘It was something about “charging for the God of Battle and putting the foe to rout” –’ He used his teeth to help him pull the knot tight, and resuming his coat said: ‘Do you want me to write another letter, sir?’
‘Yes. Make it short. And tell that damned scoundrel that if he lets us die he's done for, as the Sirkar will send an army to take over his country and -No, better not say that. Just urge the fellow in the name of hospitality and honour to come to our assistance before we are all murdered. Tell him our case is desperate.’
William sat down to write again to the Amir, while Cavagnari sent a servant to inquire if there was anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the Bala Hissar who was prepared to run the risk of trying to take a letter to the palace – other than a soldier, who could not be spared. The risk was a grave one, for, with the back door barricaded, every rooftop within sight occupied by enemy sharpshooters, and the approaches to the compound held by the mob, the chances of anyone being able to win through were negligible. Yet William had barely finished writing when the servant returned with one of the office clerks, an elderly quiet-voiced Hindu with relatives in Kabul, who knew his way about the Bala Hissar, and possessing the Hindu indifference to death, had volunteered to make the attempt.
William went down with him to the courtyard while Wally sent a man over to the barracks and two more up to the roofs of the Residency, to tell the jawans there to do what they could to draw the fire of the enemy while the messenger made his attempt.
The Hindu had been helped over the barricade that blocked the southern end of the lane between the Residency and the barracks, and turning right, hurried forward, hugging the windowless back wall of the Mohammedan quarters, where he was temporarily protected from the enemy on the housetops to the north. But once past the barrack block he had to run the gauntlet of the open ground; and already a number of the enemy had crept back into the compound to take cover in the cavalry lines and behind the low mud walls that enclosed the pickets. A score of these, led by the fakir, rushed out to intercept him before he could reach the Kulla-Fi-Arangi, while others cut off his retreat. And though he held up the letter, calling out to them that he was unarmed and bore a message to their Amir, they fell upon him with knives and tulwars, slashing, stabbing and literally hacking the defenceless man to pieces in full view of the garrison.
The brutal murder did not go unavenged, for the sepoys on the barrack roof leapt to their feet and fired volley after volley at the killers, and Wally, who had watched from the roof of the Mess House, sent Jemadar Jiwand Singh and twenty Guides to drive them out of the compound. It was the fourth sortie that the Guides had launched that morning, and once again they drove the Afghans back and took a terrible revenge for the mangled thing that still clutched in one severed hand a blood-soaked piece of paper that implored the help of the useless craven who sat upon the throne of Afghanistan.
Wally had seen many ugly sights during the past year, and thought himself immune from them. But the savage and barbaric dismembering of the unfortunate Hindu – who as an unarmed messenger carrying a letter to the ruler of Afghanistan should have been protected by his office – had turned his stomach, and he had run down from the roof with the intention of leading that charge himself. But on reaching the courtyard he had been greeted by the news that the enemy in the rear, having failed to break down the small door in the back wall of the Residency courtyard, were now sapping the wall itself and had already broken through in two places.
The threat was too grave to be ignored, so sending the Jemadar to lead the sortie instead,