The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [634]
It was, thought Ash, like watching a spring tide crawling in across mud flats on a windless day, creeping inexorably forward to drown the land; except that the rising of that human tide was not silent, but accompanied by shots and screams and yelling voices that together fused into a continuous roar of sound: a roar that rose and fell as monotonously as storm waves crashing on a pebble beach. Ya-charya! Ya-charya! Slay the Infidels. Kill! Kill! – Maro! Maro!
Yet gradually, as the day wore on and throats became hoarse from con-inual shouting and parched with dust and smoke and the choking fumes of black powder, the war cries and the yelling began to die down, and with the voice of the mob reduced to a menacing growl, the sharp crackle of fire-arms became magnified – as did the shrill exhortations of the Fakir Buzurg Shah, who continued to harangue his followers with unflagging zeal; calling upon the Faithful to smite and spare not, and reminding them that Paradise awaited all who died that day.
Ash would have given much to assist the Fakir to achieve this goal himself, and he waited hopefully for the man to come within range. But that fanatical rabble-rouser appeared to be in no hurry to enter Paradise, for he stood well back among the mob on the far side of the stables, safely out of sight of the Guides who manned the parapets of the barracks and the windows of the Residency – and far beyond the reach of Ash's revolver; though not, unfortunately, out of hearing. His high-pitched litany of Hate had the carrying quality of a hunting horn, and his repetitive shrieks of ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ rasped at Ash's taut nerves and almost drove him to close the heavy wooden shutters in order to escape from that sound.
He had actually been on the verge of doing so – despite the fact that it meant shutting out the daylight and his view of the compound – when another sound stopped him: one that he was first aware of only as a distant murmur, but that as he listened grew in volume until it was identifiable as cheering… The mob were acclaiming someone or something, and as the vociferous applause came steadily nearer and louder until it drowned both the ravings of the Fakir and the din of firing, Ash's heart leapt, for the thought flashed into his mind that the Amir had sent the Kazilbashi Regiments to the relief of the beleaguered British Mission after all.
But the hope was no sooner born than he saw the Fakir and the rabble surrounding him begin to leap and yell and throw up their arms in frenzied welcome, and knew that this was no relieving force that was being hailed, but some form of enemy reinforcements, probably a fresh contingent of mutinous troops from the cantonments, thought Ash.
He did not see the guns that were being man-handled by scores of men through the narrow approaches by the Arsenal until both were well clear of the surrounding buildings and almost level with the cavalry lines. But the Guides on the barrack roof had seen them as they were manoeuvred through a breach in the mud wall and into the compound, and while a sepoy ran to tell Hamilton-Sahib of this new danger, the rest turned their fire on the scores of Afghans who were dragging and pushing the two guns towards the barracks.
The sepoy's news had spread through the Residency with lightning swiftness. But it is one of the advantages of military life that in times of crisis the issues are apt to be clearly defined, and a soldier is often faced with a simple choice: fight or die. No one had needed to wait for orders, and by the time Wally and the men who had been with him on the upper floor of the Envoy's House reached the courtyard, William and every active