Far Pavilions (173 page)

He had not been a moment too soon. As the last of the twenty-four sepoys disappeared up the steep flight of steps that led to the roof, and the door in the wall of the Residency courtyard closed behind the rest of the Escort, the riotous crowd that had been milling around at the far end of the compound in search of plunder began to break up.

Those who had been lucky enough to gain possession of a horse, or (less enviably) a saddle or a sabre or some such desirable piece of loot, were hastening to leave with their spoils before their less successful comrades succeeded in robbing them of these ill-gotten gains. But the empty-handed, who numbered several hundred, abandoned the deserted lines and ransacked stables, and suddenly recalling the purpose for which they had come, surged in a body across the compound and through and around the barracks, to gather before the Residency and shout once more for money – and for Cavagnari.

A year and more ago Wally, writing to Ash of his latest hero, had said that he did not believe that Cavagnari knew the meaning of fear: an extravagant statement that has been made about many men, and is usually untrue. But in this instance it was no exaggeration. The Envoy had already received a garbled warning from the Amir, who hearing that all was not going well with the pay parade, had hurriedly dispatched a message to Sir Louis urging him not to allow anyone to enter the Mission compound that day. But the message had arrived only minutes before the mob, and far too late to be acted upon, even if there had been any adequate way of keeping them out, which there was not.

The Envoy's first reaction to the tumult in the compound had been anger. It was, he considered, a disgrace that the Afghan authorities should permit the precincts of the British Mission to be invaded in this manner by a horde of undisciplined savages, and he would have to speak sharply about it both to the Amir and Daud Shah. When the looting stopped and the rabble turned their attention to the Residency and began to shout his name, demanding money with uncouth threats and flinging stones at his windows, his anger merely turned to disgust, and as the chupprassis hurried to close the shutters, he withdrew to his bedroom, where William, running up from his office on the ground floor below, found him donning his Political uniform: not the white of the hot weather, but the blue-black frock-coat usually worn in the cold months, complete with gilt buttons, medals, gold braid and narrow gold sword-belt.

Sir Louis appeared to be completely oblivious of the racket below, and seeing the look of cold and disdainful detachment on his face, William was torn between admiration and an odd feeling of panic that had nothing to do with the howling horde outside or the sound of stones rattling like hail against the wooden shutters. He was not normally given to imaginative flights, but as he watched the Envoy shrug himself into his coat it struck him that so might a noble of Louis XVI's day – an ‘Aristo’ – have looked when hearing the screeching of the
canaille
outside the walls of his château…

William cleared his throat, and raising his voice in order to be heard above the din said hesitantly: ‘Do you mean to… are you going to speak to them, sir? ’

‘Certainly. They are not likely to leave until I do, and we really cannot be expected to put up with this ridiculous form of disturbance any longer.’

‘But… Well, there seem to be an awful lot of them, sir, and –’

‘What has that got to do with it?’ inquired Sir Louis chillingly.

‘Only that we don't know how much they want, and I – I wondered if we'd got enough. Because our own fellows have only just been…’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ inquired the Envoy, busy adjusting the fastening of his ceremonial sword so that the tassels showed to advantage.

‘Money, sir, rupees. It seems to be what they want, and I presume this means that when it came down to brass tacks there wasn't enough to go round this morning, and that is why –’

He was interrupted again. ‘
Money
?’ Sir Louis' head came up with a jerk and he glared at his secretary for a moment and then spoke in tones of ice: ‘My dear Jenkyns, if you imagine for one moment that I would even consider allowing myself and the Government I have the honour to represent to be blackmailed – yes, that is the word I mean –
blackmailed
, by a mob of uncivilized hooligans, I can only say that you are very much mistaken. And so are those stone-throwing yahoos outside. My topi, Amal Din –’

His Afridi orderly stepped smartly forward and handed him the white pith helmet topped by a gilt spike that a Political Officer wore with his official uniform, and as he clapped it firmly on his head, adjusted the gilded strap across his chin and moved to the door, William sprang forward saying desperately: ‘Sir – if you go down there -’

‘My dear boy,’ said Sir Louis impatiently, pausing in the doorway, ‘I am not really in my dotage. I too realize that if I were to go down to them only those in the forefront of the crowd would see me, while those who could not would continue to shout and make it impossible for me to be heard. I shall of course speak to them from the roof. No, William, I do not require you to come with me. I will take my orderly, and it will be better if the rest of you keep out of sight.’

He crooked a finger at Amal Din and the two tall men left the room, Sir Louis striding ahead and the Afridi following a pace behind, hand on sword hilt. William heard their scabbards clash against the side of the narrow stairway to the roof and thought with a mixture of admiration, affection and despair: ‘He's magnificent. But we aren't in a position to refuse them, even if it does mean giving in to blackmail. Can't he see that? That fellow in Simla was right about him – he's going up there to do just the same sort of thing that French Guards officer did at Fontenoy… and the Light Brigade at Balaclava… “C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!” It's suicide –’

Unlike the barracks, there was no parapet surrounding the flat roofs of the two Residency houses, though both were screened from the view of the maze of buildings directly behind them by a man-high wall. The other three sides had a rim of brick no more than a few inches high, and Sir Louis walked to the edge, where all below could see him, and held up a commanding hand for silence.

He did not attempt to make himself heard above the din but stood waiting, erect and scornful: a tall, black-bearded, imposing figure in the trappings of his official uniform, with the gilt spike on his helmet adding inches to his height. Medals glittered on his coat and the broad gilt stripe that adorned each trouser-leg shone bright in the early sunlight of that brilliant morning, but the cold eyes under the brim of the white pith helmet were hard and unwavering as they stared down contemptuously on the clamouring mob below.

The Envoy's appearance on the roof had been greeted with an ear-splitting yell that might well have made even the bravest man flinch and draw back, but for all the response it drew from Sir Louis it might have been a whisper. He stood there like a rock, waiting until it pleased the crowd to stop shouting, and as they gazed up at him, man after man fell silent, until at last he lowered that imperious hand – it had not even quivered – and demanded in stentorian tones what they had come for and what did they want with him?

Several hundred voices answered him, and once again he raised his hand and waited, and when they fell quiet, asked them to choose a spokesman: ‘You – you with the scarred cheek’ – his lean forefinger pointed unerringly at one of the ring-leaders – ‘stand forward and speak for your fellows. What is the meaning of this shameful
gurrh-burrh
, and why have you come battering at the doors of one who is the guest of your Amir and under His Highness's protection?’

‘The Amir –
ppth
!’ The man with the scar spat on the ground, and related how his regiment had been cheated at the pay parade, and that having failed to get any satisfaction from their own Government they had bethought them of Cavagnari-Sahib and come here seeking justice from him. They asked only that he would pay them the money that was their due. ‘For we know that your Raj is rich and so it will mean little to you. But we here have starved for too long. All we ask for is what we are owed. No more and no less. Give us justice, Sahib!’

Despite the looting and the rowdy, hooligan behaviour of the rebellious troops, it was plain from the speaker's tone that he and his fellows genuinely believed that the British Envoy had it in his power to right their wrongs and give them what their own authorities refused: their arrears of pay. But the expression on the strong, black-bearded face that looked down on them did not change, and the stern, carrying voice that spoke their own language with such admirable fluency remained inflexible:

‘I am grieved for you,’ said Sir Louis Cavagnari. ‘But what you ask is impossible. I cannot interfere between you and your ruler, or meddle in a matter that is the sole concern of the Amir and his army. I have no power to do so, and it would not become me to attempt it. I am sorry.’

And he had stuck to that in the face of howls and shrieks of rage and a growing chorus of threats; repeating again, in pauses in the uproar, that this was a question that they must settle with the Amir or their Commander-in-Chief, and though he sympathized with them he could not interfere. Only when Amal Din, standing behind him, warned him through shut teeth that certain
shaitans
below were gathering stones did he turn and leave the roof. And then only because he realized that to wait any longer left him with the choice of becoming an easy target for the stone-throwers, or else allowing them to suppose that they had driven him to retreat from the roof and take cover below.

‘Barbarians,’ commented Sir Louis unemotionally, divesting himself of his uniform in the safety of his bedroom and replacing it with cooler and more comfortable garb. ‘I think, William, that I had better send a message to the Amir. It is high time he sent some responsible person to control this rabble. I cannot imagine what Daud Shah is up to. No discipline, that is their trouble.’

He strode into his office next door, and was about to sit at his desk to write when a voice that did not come from the lane below, but from the roof of the barrack block on the opposite side where the twenty-four men of the Guides Infantry stood to their arms behind the parapet, bellowed across the narrow gap that fighting had broken out by the stables and that the mutineers had killed a syce and were attacking Sowar Mal Singh… That Mal Singh was down… That he was wounded…

The mob in front of the Residency heard and roared its approval, and while some broke away and began to run back towards the stables, others began to batter on the door leading into the Residency, where Wally, waiting with the Guides in the courtyard behind it, moved among his men, reiterating that no one must fire until ordered to do so, and urging restraint. When the flimsy wood began to splinter and the rusty iron hinges bent and cracked they rushed to put their shoulders to the door, pushing against the weight of the rioters outside; but it was a losing game. As the last hinge snapped the door fell in on them and the crowd burst into the courtyard, and simultaneously, from somewhere outside, a shot rang out.

65

The sharp, staccato sound sliced through the din, silencing it as swiftly and effectively as a slap across the face will silence a fit of hysterics; and Wally thought automatically, ‘Jezail’ – for a modern imported rifle does not make the same noise as the long-barrelled muzzle-loading jezail of India.

The silence lasted less than ten seconds. Then once again pandemonium exploded as the mob, momentarily halted by the sound of the shot, began to fight its way forward into the Residency courtyard, yelling ‘Kill the
Kafirs
! Kill them! – Kill! Kill!’ Yet still Wally would not give the order to fire.

Even had he done so it is doubtful if he would have been heard above that frenzied clamour. But suddenly, somewhere in the mêlée, a carbine cracked, and then another – and another… And all at once the attackers turned and fled, stumbling and trampling over the bodies of fallen men and the wreckage of the broken door, and shouting now for firearms – for muskets and rifles with which to slay the infidels. ‘
Topak rawakhlah. Pah makhe
!
Makhe
!’
*
screamed the mutineers as they ran from the Residency and streamed back across the compound, some making for the Arsenal and the rest for their own cantonments outside the city limits.

Once again the brilliant morning was calm and still… and in that stillness the men of the British Mission, left alone, breathed deep and counted the dead. Nine mutineers and one of their own syces; and Sowar Mal Singh, who was still alive when they found him by the stables, but died as they carried him into the Residency – and whose sabre had accounted for three of the enemy dead, for he had gone to the assistance of the unarmed syce and defended him valiantly against impossible odds. Of the other six, four had been shot and two killed in hand-to-hand fighting, tulwar against sabre. And seven of the escort had been wounded. The Guides looked at each other and knew that this was not the end but only the beginning, and that it would not be long before the enemy returned. And that this time the Afghans would carry more than side-arms.