Companions of Paradise (24 page)

The musty smell of his uniform filled the little room.

“You must know by now,” he said, before she had sat down, “that General Sale is not returning from Jalalabad. I have been told today that General Nott is not coming, either. He says he cannot risk the long, dangerous road from Kandahar.”

His hair stood up on his head, and his boots were stained with mud, but he did not seem to notice. “This morning,” he added, “the village of Bibi Mahro came under attack by a large body of men from Kabul. They have positioned themselves on the hill above it, and are firing down into it. It will only be a matter of time before they get inside.”

“And it is our only remaining source of food.”

“Exactly,” he agreed.

“Then,” she offered, “surely there is nothing for us to do but go to the Bala—”

“We cannot,” he interrupted. “General Elphinstone and Brigadier Shelton have both refused to let us move from here.”

“But how are we to feed ourselves?”

With money enough, or with goods to barter, Nur Rahman could supply twenty, perhaps thirty people with his ruse and his donkey, but what of the thousands of others, British and native, grown-ups and babies?

He turned to face her, his back to the window. “One quarter of the British force is to attack Bibi Mahro before dawn tomorrow, under Brigadier Shelton.”

“And you are to fight?” she asked carefully.

“I am,” he said. “The plan is to take one gun of the horse artillery.”

“Only one gun? But why, when we have
seven
guns in the cantonment? Everyone knows an overused gun becomes too hot to fire. Without artillery, you might easily lose the—”

She pressed her lips together, afraid to say more.

His heavy shoulders moved up and down against the light. “General Elphinstone is convinced that we have insufficient powder for the guns, although gunpowder is the one thing we
do
have.”

Fitzgerald had gone into battle many times before. So far, he had not even been wounded. Why, then, did a sudden wave of fear rush down her back? As he moved toward her and stood over her chair, she vowed not to flinch from what he had to say.

“Miss Givens,” he leaned toward her, his face earnest, “I have no reason to believe I will not return after tomorrow's battle, but if I do not, I should like to die happy. This is not the best time to ask, but before I leave tomorrow, there is something I must know.”

In spite of her vow, she jerked back in her chair.
Not now
, she wanted to cry out.
You must not ask me now, before I know the truth about Hassan, before I have finished Haji Khan's durood….

“I want your promise that you will marry me.”

Unable to escape his exhausted presence, she forced herself to offer him a smile, not her broad, genuine one, but another, smaller, feebler, and without joy.

“This is quite unexpected, Lieutenant,” she said formally. “I must have a little time to make up my mind. You shall have my reply after the battle is over.

“But whatever happens tomorrow,” she added hastily, horrified by the terrible disappointment on his face, “please know that you will be foremost in my thoughts.”

He controlled his face, and bowed. “Very well, Miss Givens,” he replied curtly. “I shall wait for your answer.”

Without another word, he turned his back, and left her.

That evening, as she and her uncle sat at the small table in the cramped sitting room, Mariana could barely touch Nur Rahman's mutton and quince stew.

The time she had banked on had suddenly fled. Without knowing the truth, she must make her choice.

Whatever she did would cause damage.

She glared across the table at her oblivious uncle. Why had he and Aunt Claire made her pretend she was divorced?

She dropped her eyes. Worse, why had
she
lied to
them
about the night she had spent with Hassan, breathing in his perfume and the burnt scent of his skin?

I allowed nothing
, she had told them, but she had allowed everything. How many thousand times had she relived that long, transforming night?

None of this was Fitzgerald's fault. How could she blame him for needing her answer before he went off, perhaps to die on the Bibi Mahro hills?

He could not have approached her before. After all, she had hurt him two years earlier, when she had announced her engagement to Hassan in front of him and scores of his fellow officers, all of whom knew how much he wanted to marry her.

She should be grateful. She
was
grateful. In spite of the pain she had caused him, and in spite of the disgrace and ostracism her native liaison had caused, he had still found it in his heart to forgive her.

He must have thought all along that she had come to Kabul to marry him.

He had made her a generous offer, and she had treated him like a merchant selling a bolt of cotton.

But he had given her no warning. Had she been prepared, she might have offered him a less hurtful reply, or at least a more truthful one.

And what of his own feelings? He had not said he loved her. Perhaps he did not. Perhaps, like her, he only wanted to imagine a peaceful future far from this cold, mountainous land, in a house with a garden, and fair-haired children playing at his feet.

She had sent him into battle without the one thing that would have given him hope

“You must eat something, my dear,” Uncle Adrian said kindly. “We must all preserve our strength.”

She looked up at her kind, unperceiving uncle. “I will try, Uncle Adrian,” she murmured, raising a forkful of rice and meat to her mouth. “I will try.”

Later, after reciting the durood, she lay listening to the night sounds of the cantonment. Over the coughing of the troops, someone was singing a mysterious, rhythmic Indian air, full of trills and mournful wobbling sounds.

It was, Mariana thought, the song of a broken heart.

November 23, 1841

S
ince that young man of yours is in charge of the gun,” Lady Sale announced, as she steered Mariana past her now defunct vegetable garden, “you had better come to the roof with me and have a look at the fighting.”

Sorely regretting her shortcut past Lady Sale's house on her way to ask Nur Rahman for raisins, Mariana trailed reluctantly along a narrow space between the house and its outer wall.

The last thing she wanted to see from Lady Sale's flat roof, with its perfect view of the Bibi Mahro hills and the village below, was Harry Fitzgerald being killed or wounded.

Lady Sale stepped past the bloody feathers of a recently killed chicken, negotiated a pile of loose stones beneath her kitchen window, and took hold of a bamboo ladder that leaned conveniently against the wall. Without hesitating, she gripped the uprights with gloved hands, and began to climb.

Halfway up, she looked down, her field glasses swinging from her neck. “Stop dawdling, child,” she snapped. “They've been up there since three in the morning. For all we know, the battle is nearly over.”

Escape was impossible. Mariana stiffened her spine, and stepped onto the ladder.

They had sent a little over a thousand British and Indian fighting men to face a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Afghan fighters with better knowledge of the terrain.

She would not think of Fitzgerald and his gun, she decided, as she scrambled onto the roof. She did not know how she would bear her remorse if he died

“Take shelter behind one of the chimneys,” Lady Sale ordered. “Stray balls come whizzing past.”

It was just after dawn, and the snow on the mountains had turned from purple to pink and gold. Mariana crouched behind her brick fortification, straining to see what was happening.

“Shelton took seventeen companies, a hundred sappers, a few troops of cavalry, and your young man's gun at two o'clock this morning,” Lady Sale announced, her field glasses to her eyes. “He has set himself up on the hill immediately over the village, but he has already made his first mistake. He should have surprised the enemy while it was still dark, instead of wasting all this time.”

“I should have thought,” Mariana offered, “that the brigadier's first mistake was to bring only one gun. Surely he knows there is a standing order forbidding—”

“That, missy,” Lady Sale barked from her post, “is no concern of yours. I, who am a general's wife, may comment upon our military operations.
You
, an unmarried woman with designs on an officer too low in rank to marry, may
not.”

Mariana felt her face color. “I have read the rules,” she insisted stubbornly. “It is true about the guns.”

“Of course it is true,” replied Lady Sale, “but it is for
me
, not you, to say so! Where,” she asked after a pause, “have you learned about standing orders?”

“My father is interested in military history. I have read it since I was a child.”

Lady Sale sniffed. “All well and good, but you should learn to behave yourself. Ah,” she added, the field glasses once more to her eyes. “A party has started down from the top of the hill, no doubt to storm the village. Perhaps they will at last do something—but wait, they have missed the main gate, and gone past it, to one side. What fools! They are right in the line of fire from inside the walls. There,” she cried, “several have already fallen!”

Where was Fitzgerald? “Lady Sale,” Mariana began. “Can you tell me—”

Lady Sale took the glasses from her eyes and glared toward the hills. “What a stupid, senseless thing to do. They have missed their opportunity to take possession of the village! What
is
the matter with them all?”

A whistling sound came from nearby. “Musketry,” she shouted, retreating behind her chimney. “By the way,” she added, after the ball thudded into the edge of the roof, “your young man is doing quite well with his gun. He has managed to get it onto the very top of the hill and now he is firing down into the village. I can make out the smoke.”

Your young man.
Please, please, Mariana prayed, let Fitzgerald live until she could think of the right thing to say….

At nine o'clock they were still at their posts. The sun beat down on the flat roof, warming Mariana in spite of the cold wind.

Her throat felt dry. “Should we not go down,” she suggested, “and have some water?”

“What for?” Lady Sale waved a gloved hand toward the battle. “Those men up there have had no water all morning. We, at least,” she added, as a second musket ball thudded into the bricks, “are safe.”

No more than a mile from Mariana's vantage point, the two Bibi Mahro hills stood side by side, separated by a deep gorge leading to a valley beyond. On top of the right-hand hill, plainly visible above the collection of flat-roofed houses that climbed its lower slope, two groups of red-coated infantry had formed their usual dense squares. Nearby, Mariana could make out a troop of irregular Indian cavalry, distinguished by their flowing, native dress. Puffs of smoke issued from nearby, presumably from the gun.

Someone sat astride a horse on the summit of the hill, his jacket a tiny smudge of color against the distant mountains. Was it Fitzgerald?

“I understand you blotted your copybook in Lahore, two years ago,” Lady Sale said bluntly.

Mariana did not reply.

“A serious mistake,” Lady Sale decreed. “One never recovers from a scandal like that. How on earth did you allow yourself to be duped into marrying a
native?

“I should think you would have had more sense,” she added, before Mariana could think of a reply. “Moreover, it is very unwise of you to pin your hopes on a lieutenant, who is much too young for you. With all your knowledge of military matters, you must know that a lieutenant may
not
marry, a captain
may
marry, and a colonel
must
marry.

“Have you seen those horsemen on the plain?” she asked, mercifully changing the subject.

A distant swarm of Afghan riders appeared below the hills and milled about as if waiting for a signal.

“Look,” Mariana cried, pointing to the slope. “I think men are leaving the village!”

“They are indeed,” Lady Sale agreed, her glasses trained upon the hill. “They are running away, while our storming party is pinned down and unable to enter and secure it. Fools! But at least the Irregular Horse has ridden downhill to intercept the deserters.”

To Mariana's left, on the Kohistan Road, a thick stream of men on foot and horseback made its way toward them. “More armed men are coming from the city,” Mariana cried. “They are heading toward the second hill! Why have we not sent a sortie from here to cut them off?”

The men from the city numbered several thousand. Moving rapidly for men on foot, they traveled in groups toward the hills, triangular pennants aloft. They had no artillery, and save for a single, gesticulating figure at their head, they appeared to be leaderless. Nonetheless they made a terrifying sight.

Twenty minutes later, Mariana watched the first of the column begin to climb the left-hand hill, clearly making for the gorge that separated them from the British force.

The Afghan horsemen had already chased off the British irregular cavalry.

“A silly, stupid failure,” opined Lady Sale.

Fitzgerald's gun shot steadily at the column from the city. Puff after puff of smoke issued from his position, making it hard to see what was happening to the infantry squares nearby.

Mariana did not need to be told that the Afghan jezail, with its longer range and greater accuracy, was a better weapon than the British musket. If the enemy came within a quarter mile of the red-coated British and Indian squares on the hill, their fire would be both damaging and unreturned.

“We Afghans never use more than two balls to kill a man,” Nur Rahman had boasted once. “We only waste ammunition at a wedding or over a good joke.”

An hour later, the climbing column of Afghans had the British squares in their sights. Hidden behind hillocks and outcroppings, they picked off the closely packed infantrymen, one by one.

“The first square has collapsed,” observed Lady Sale, as if she were commenting upon the weather.

“Why do the brigadier's men not get down?” Mariana asked desperately. “Why are they trying to hold those squares? Surely Shelton is expecting long-range weapons fire, not a cavalry charge. And I thought we sent a hundred sappers out with the force. Why have they not created a breastwork?”

How long, Mariana wondered, would the squares stand against hot enemy fire? How long would Fitzgerald's gun continue to serve them before it overheated? How long…

“Lady Sale,” she murmured, “I do not believe I can watch any longer.”

“Do not be a goose,” Lady Sale snapped. “Those are
our
soldiers. Who is there to cheer them on but us?”

“But they are surrounded by the enemy. I cannot bear to see them lose.”

“Croaker!”
Lady Sale turned on Mariana, her high-boned face twisting with fury. “How dare you say we might lose? How dare you suggest that our Christian army is inferior to a pack of infidel savages?”

Her back to Mariana, she raised her glasses to her eyes in a sweeping gesture of British loyalty and confidence.

For two more hours, they watched the infantry squares suffer deadly losses. They saw the cavalry fail to charge. They saw the enemy, now at least ten thousand strong, overrun the unresisting British and Indian troops, and throw further reinforcements into Bibi Mahro village.

They saw the enemy capture Fitzgerald's gun, already overheated and spiked, and drive away his team of horses.

They cheered when Shelton's force somehow rallied, and drove the enemy from the gorge below, then stood in silence when, an hour later, a fresh body of Afghans arrived and rushed upon his one remaining square, slaughtering men and officers until all discipline broke. In the ensuing rout, men and officers, infantry and cavalry, all scrambled downhill toward the cantonment, killed as they ran by enemy horsemen who rode among them, hacking up the wounded where they fell, swinging swords that gleamed in the November sunlight.

As the mingled tide of panicked soldiers and pursuing Afghans neared the cantonment, a sudden burst of cannon fire came from within, followed by a brave, suicidal charge by a few native cavalrymen under a British officer, who was beheaded before Mariana's eyes with one sweep of an Afghan sword.

In moments, pursuers and pursued would all be inside the gate. No one could stop the insurgents now.

Mariana darted toward Lady Sale's betraying bamboo ladder, to fling it away. There would be time enough later, while the enemy swarmed over the cantonment, to think how to get down from the roof—

“Wait!” Lady Sale called from her post. “They are going away.”

Only yards from the open gate, the horsemen had paused, then, unexpectedly, had spun about. By the time Mariana rushed back to look, they were already riding off the way they had come, bloody swords above their heads, their shrill cries of triumph echoing across the plain.

As they prepared to make their way to the ground, Lady Sale extended a gloved hand. “I am sorry to say,” she said somberly, “that your Lieutenant Fitzgerald has been shot. I saw him fall before the retreat began.”

Numb with shock, Mariana stepped onto the waiting ladder.

Ten minutes later, still accompanied by Lady Sale, she shivered in a corner of the cantonment gateway, watching the remnants of Brigadier Shelton's force stream inside.

The air, already fouled by the rotting flesh of the dead animals outside the wall, now smelled of gunpowder and blood. The air was full of the panting breath of the filthy, exhausted survivors, the unsteady tramp of their boots, and the hoarse, unheeded cries of British officers attempting to rally their men, both Indian and British, as they poured through the gate.

Most of them still had their weapons. All wore torn, bloody uniforms. Many were missing their forage caps. Dark-skinned or white, some dropped, panting, to the ground as soon as they entered, too spent to move, while others wandered about, open-mouthed and staring, as if they did not recognize their surroundings.

“We must go and look for Fitzgerald. I will not leave you until you have learned the truth,” Lady Sale had said firmly, as she escorted Mariana through her garden, a steadying hand beneath her elbow.

Unsurprisingly, there had been no sign of him.

“If he does not appear soon,” Lady Sale said into Mariana's ear, “we must assume the worst.”

As she spoke, a final group of survivors straggled through the gate. Among them were three tattered natives, dragging a dusty, wounded European between them.

His chest was caked with blood. His ankle dripped crimson. It was only after the men had dropped him to the ground and thrown themselves down, groaning, beside him, that Mariana recognized Harry Fitzgerald.

With a cry, she started toward him.

“Stop.” Lady Sale gripped her by the arm. “This is no time for you to act the heroine. You cannot do anything for him now. People will come and take him to hospital with the other wounded.”