The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [631]
‘He was always lucky,’ observed William quietly.
The Secretary's face, like Wally's – like all their faces – was a sweat-streaked mask of blood and dust and black powder. But his eyes were as quiet as his voice, and though he had been firing or fighting without intermission for hours now, he still looked what he was: a civilian and a man of peace. He said: ‘How much longer do you suppose we can hold out, Wally? They keep tunnelling through like moles, you know. As fast as we block up one hole they make another. It's been fairly easy to deal with, because now we know what they're at, whenever we see a bit of plaster fall out we stand clear and then empty a shot-gun into the hole the minute it gets big enough. They don't fancy that. But it needs a lot of men to watch the whole length of the wall in the courtyard as well as inside both houses. I don't know how many you've got, but there are less than a dozen of your chaps left over here. And not so many more than that in the courtyard, I imagine,’
‘Fourteen,’ confirmed Wally briefly. ‘I've just checked. Abdulla, my bugler, says he thinks there are still between fifteen and twenty over in the barracks, and with seven in the Mess House -’
‘Seven!’ gasped William. ‘But I thought – What's happened?’
‘Ladders. Didn't you notice? Those bastards behind us got hold of ladders and managed to get onto the roof and drive our fellows off it. They got into the house and gave us a bad few minutes, but we got rid of them. For the time being, anyway.’
‘I didn't know,’ said William numbly. ‘But if they're on the roof that means we're surrounded.’
‘I'm afraid so. What we've got to do now is to immobilize that gang on the Mess House, by stationing a couple of chaps with shot-guns by the inner windows of the Chief's office to blaze off the moment any scutt up there shows the tip of his nose. They may have chased us off it, but it won't do them any good if they have to huddle on their stomachs in the furthest corner of it. You'd better stay down here and deal with the lot who are trying to dig through the wall, while I –’ he stopped, and tilting his chin, sniffed the tainted air and said uneasily: ‘Can you smell smoke?’
‘Yes, it's coming from the street at the back. We've been getting a whiff of it through the holes those rats have been making. I imagine there must be a fire in one of their houses. Not surprising when you think of the number of archaic muzzle-loaders that are being loosed off in every direction.’
‘As long as it stays on the other side of the wall,’ said Wally, and was turning to leave when William stopped him.
‘Look, Wally, I think we ought to try again to see if we can't get a message through to the Amir. He can't have got any of the others. I won't believe that if he knew how serious things were with us he wouldn't do something to help. We've got to find someone to take another letter.’
They had found someone, and this time the messenger had won through, posing as one of the enemy. Dressed in blood-stained garments, with an artistic bandage about his head, he had actually succeeded in delivering William's letter. But the confusion that he found at the palace was far worse than when Ghulam Nabi (who still waited anxiously in an ante-room) had brought that second letter from Sir Louis, hours ago. This latest messenger was also told to wait for a reply: but no reply was ever given him, for by now the Amir had become convinced that when the mobs from the city had dealt with the British Mission, they would turn on him for having permitted the Infidels to come to Kabul, and make him and his family pay for it with their lives:
‘They will kill me,’ wailed the Amir to the persistent mullahs, who had finally been granted another audience. ‘They will kill us all.’
Once again the head Mullah had pleaded with him to save his guests and urged him to order his artillery to fire on the mob. And once again the Amir had refused, insisting hysterically that if he should do so the mob would instantly attack the palace and murder him.
At long last,