The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [647]
At first it was impossible to focus anything, but after a minute or two his sight, like his brain, began to clear, and he realized that he was lying a yard or two behind the main bulk of the mob, which was being kept at bay by the determined fire of three sepoys above the entrance to the barrack block. But their shots came at longer and longer intervals, and he became dimly aware that they must be running out of ammunition, and presently, as his gaze wandered, that there was some sort of conference going on among the mutineers who stood behind the abandoned guns.
As he watched, one of them – a member of the Ardal Regiment judging from his dress – climbed up onto one of the guns and standing upright brandished a musket to the barrel of which he had tied a strip of white cloth that he waved to and fro as a flag of truce, shouting: ‘Sulh. Sulh… Kafi. Bus!’*
The crackle of musketry died and the sepoys kneeling behind the parapet held their fire. And in the silence the man on the gun climbed down, and advancing into the open space before the barracks, called up to the beleaguered garrison that he would have speech with their leaders.
There followed a brief pause in which the sepoys were seen to confer together, and then one of them laid aside his rifle and stood up, and walking to the inner edge of the roof, called down to the survivors in the troops' quarters below.
A few minutes later three more Guides came up to join him, and together they went forward to stand behind the parapet above the archway, erect and unarmed.
‘We are here,’ said the jawan who had been elected spokesman because he was a Pathan and could speak freely to Afghans in their own tongue – and because no one of higher rank was left alive. ‘What is it that you wish to say to us? Speak.’
Ash heard a man who was standing a yard or so away draw in his breath with a hiss and say in an awed whisper: ‘Are there no more than that? There cannot be only six left. Perchance there are others within.’
‘Six…’ thought Ash numbly. But the word carried no meaning.
‘Your Sahibs are all dead,’ shouted the mutineer with the flag, ‘and with you who are left, we have no quarrel. Of what use to continue the fight? If you will throw down your arms we will give you free passage to return to your homes. You have fought honourably. Surrender now, and go free.’
One of the Guides laughed, and the grim, battle-grimed faces of his comrades relaxed and they laughed with him, loudly and scornfully, until their listeners scowled and gritted their teeth and began to finger their muskets.
The jawan who was their spokesman had not drunk for many hours and his mouth was dry. But he gathered his spittle and spat deliberately over the edge of the parapet, and raising his voice, demanded loudly: ‘What manner of men are you, that you can ask us to forfeit our honour and shame our dead? Are we dogs that we should betray those whose salt we have eaten? Our Sahib told us to stand and fight to the last. And that we shall do. You have been answered – dogs!’
He spat again and turned on his heel, the rest following; and while the mob yelled its fury the six strode back along the roof and down the far stair into the barrack courtyard. Here they wasted no time, but paused only briefly to line up shoulder to shoulder: Mussulmans, Sikhs and a Hindu sowars and sepoys of the Queen's Own Corps of Guides. They lifted the bar and threw back the doors, and drawing their swords, marched out under the archway to their deaths as steadily as though they had been on parade.
The Afghan who had spoken before sucked in his breath and said as though the words were wrenched from him: ‘Wah-illah! but these are Men!’
‘They are the Guides,’ thought Ash with a hot surge of pride, and struggled desperately to rise and join them. But even as he fought to free himself, a rush of men from behind trampled him down, driving the breath from his lungs and leaving him writhing helplessly among choking clouds of dust and a forest of chuppli-shod feet that trod on him, tripped over him,