Hart of Empire (34 page)

Too stunned to move, George gazed up at the night sky, its blackness relieved by scores of brilliant stars. Then his view was obscured by a bearded face. '
Huzoor!
Can you hear me?'

'Yes,' replied George, half forgetting his predicament. 'No need to shout. Where's the princess?'

'I'm here, Angrez,' she answered, from behind Ilderim.

'What about the horsemen?'

'They turned tail when the defenders spotted them and switched targets. They've ceased firing now. They must think we're all dead.'

Ilderim helped George up into a sitting position, but as he did so the main gates of the cantonment were thrown open and out rode a troop of lancers with lighted torches who made directly for them.

'I'm British!' George shouted, as the horsemen surrounded them with lowered lances. 'My name is James Harper.'

'You don't look British to me,' said the troop officer, a tall man with a pencil-thin moustache.

'That's because I'm in disguise,' said George, with more than a hint of sarcasm, his mood not improved by the pain in his shoulder. 'But I can assure you I am. Major FitzGeorge will vouch for me.'

'We'll see about that. What about your accomplices? Who are they?'

'The man's my guide. The lady's a member of the Afghan royal family.'

'Is she now?' said the officer, peering at Yasmin with new respect. 'You can explain everything to the Major. But quite what you think you were doing, charging through the enemy lines and appearing unannounced below our walls, is anyone's guess. It's a miracle you weren't all killed. Fortunately for you, an eagle-eyed sentry spotted the Afghans in pursuit and eventually put two and two together. But not before your horse was hit, I see. Can you ride or do you need a litter?'

'I can ride,' said George, rising to his feet with Ilderim's help. 'My shoulder's a little sore, but otherwise I'm all right.'

'Good. Jump up behind me. We'll have you in the fort in a jiffy. I'm Captain Fanshawe, Ninth Lancers, by the way,' he said, extending his hand.

George took it. 'A Delhi spearman, eh?' he responded, using the nickname for the 9th that had been earned during the Indian Mutiny.

'Yes,' said Fanshawe, helping George up behind him. 'Though I suspect we might be given a less respectful soubriquet after the regiment's poor show in the Chardeh valley the other day. Let's go, before the Afghans see what we're up to.'

Barely a minute later they were clattering through the gateway and into the fortified cantonment, which had, only three months earlier, housed the Herat regiments responsible for the attack on the Residency. Now it had become a place of refuge for General Roberts's army of invasion and would soon, George knew, be the focus of a huge attack by those Afghans - notably the Ghazni mullah and Mir Bacha - who were determined to remove the British by force.

Once through the gate, guarded by the familiar big-boned soldiers of the 5th Punjabis, they drew rein and dismounted. Though it was dark and hard to pick out detail, George could tell by the spread of camp-fires that the cantonment covered a huge area and would, as a result, be extremely difficult to defend.

'This way, if you please,' said Fanshawe, leading them towards a cluster of buildings close to the gate they had just passed through. He knocked on the door of a single-storey house.

'Who is it?' asked a familiar voice.

'It's Captain Fanshawe of the Ninth Lancers. I've just brought in a man called James Harper. He's here with his guide and, um, an Afghan princess. Harper says he knows you.'

Hurried footsteps, and the door swung open to reveal the handsome features of Major FitzGeorge. 'Harper! Is that you?' he said, catching sight of the heavily bearded George in his Afghan garb. 'My God, it is. It must be almost three months since I last saw you at Ali Khel. Yet here you are again, safe and sound, with your faithful guide. And this is?' he asked, inclining his head towards Yasmin.

'Yakub's sister, Her Highness Princess Yasmin.'

FitzGeorge gave her an admiring glance. She was still clad in her masculine riding garb, her face streaked with dust and grime, but there was no disguising her beauty.

'I'll be damned,' he said, shaking his head. 'So you're the cause of all that firing. I thought it was the sentries getting the jitters. But do come in, all of you. And thank you, Fanshawe, I'll take charge from here.'

They filed past FitzGeorge into a large, whitewashed room, part of which was wreathed in shadows. The rest was lit by a single oil lamp, and contained a table covered with papers, a few scattered chairs and, most welcome of all, a small wood-burning stove. 'Do sit down,' said FitzGeorge. 'Would any of you like a drink or something to eat?'

George repeated the question to Yasmin in Pashto.

'Yes, but no pork,' she said, placing a chair close to the stove and rubbing her arms for warmth.

'She'd like . . .'

'I know,' interrupted FitzGeorge. 'I speak Pashto. What about your guide?'

'He'll have what she has.'

'Fine. I'll get my servant to rustle something up. I won't be a moment,' said FitzGeorge, opening the door and disappearing into the night.

Minutes later he was back. 'Brrr. It's cold out there. The refreshments are on their way. In the meantime, Harper,' said FitzGeorge, lighting a second oil lamp, 'can I have a word with you in private?'

'Of course,' said George, turning to Yasmin. 'He wants to speak to me alone. I won't be long.'

Yasmin nodded her assent, though George could tell she was unhappy at being excluded. He followed FitzGeorge through to his bedroom, a Spartan affair with a camp-bed, a trunk and a mahogany chest of drawers.

'Where did you get that?' asked George, pointing at the chest.

'I liberated it from one of the palaces in the Bala Hissar before we abandoned the place. Handsome, isn't it?'

'Yes, it is, but I wouldn't let the princess see it if I were you. It's technically her property - or, at least, her brother's.'

'Don't be such a prig, Harper. It's a legitimate spoil of war. Do sit down while I get you a whisky.'

George sat on the camp-bed while FitzGeorge poured the drinks.

'I'm relieved to see you again, Harper,' said FitzGeorge, handing him a glass containing a more than generous dram. 'But I won't deny I'm surprised. When Yakub came into our camp shortly after you'd delivered the general's message, and there was no word from you, we all assumed you'd been killed. What happened to you? And how did you find the princess?'

George took a large gulp from his glass, letting the fiery liquid warm his throat. He knew he couldn't tell FitzGeorge everything so decided to stick as close to the truth as possible. 'My intention was to deliver the message to Yakub and then leave the country. But when Yakub told me he had left his family defenceless in the Bala Hissar at Kabul, I was so angered by his cowardly behaviour that I decided to return with Ilderim to see if we could help. I had met the princess while I was recovering from the wound I received during the attack on the Residency, and I was worried for her safety.'

'Having seen the princess, I can well understand your eagerness,' said FitzGeorge, with a lascivious wink. 'She's a fine piece. But I still can't believe you'd risk returning to a city teeming with armed rebels, any one of whom would have happily slit your throat, for the sake of a woman, however beautiful. There must be more to it than that.'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' said George, flustered. 'I went back to save the princess, that was all.'

'So you say - but let's not fall out over this. I didn't really care why you returned to Kabul. The fact is you did, and by doing so you may have come across vital intelligence. So, please, tell me everything.'

George sat there for a moment, mulling things over. He knew there was a strong chance that the prickly, self-serving individual before him was his half-brother. There were just too many coincidences for that not to be true. But that didn't mean he had to like him. Neither did he have to help him. But this wasn't about helping Harry FitzGeorge. It was about saving an army and, with a bit of luck, preventing the Indian government from absorbing yet another unwilling country into the British Raj. To do that he would have to tell FitzGeorge the truth, or most of it anyway.

So George related exactly what had happened in the Bala Hissar, only diverging from the truth when they had taken refuge in the pleasure garden at Beni Hissar. At that point, George claimed, the princess had persuaded him to escort her north to Kohistan where she had family and knew she would be safe.

'
Safe?
She'd have been a darned sight safer with us. Why didn't you bring her to join her brother?'

George had expected this question and had his answer ready. 'Because, Major, she didn't want to. She didn't agree with Yakub's decision to leave Kabul for our camp, and was furious that he did so without telling anyone, leaving her and his wives to the tender mercies of the mutineers and, as it turned out, his own guard. With her father dead, it was only natural that she would seek refuge with her mother's family in Kohistan.'

FitzGeorge nodded. 'Yes, I can see that. So what happened next?'

'On the way north we were waylaid by bandits and, in the scrimmage, I was shot in the calf.' George lifted his trouser leg to show the purple scar tissue. 'We got away, just, thanks to Ilderim, but it was many weeks before I could walk again. During that time the princess caught wind of the plan by the principal Kohistani chiefs, led by her cousin Mir Bacha, to join forces with the Ghazni rebels to attack you here at Sherpur.'

'Well, if that was the plan, the mullah's men have jumped the gun because they and other tribesmen from the Kabul area attacked us in force a week ago in the Chardeh valley.'

'Yes,' said George, 'we heard of the fighting on the way down here, and Lieutenant Fanshawe mentioned something about it. What went wrong?'

'Everything. We knew that trouble was afoot in late November when we started to receive reports that large bands of men were collecting in the Ghazni area at the instigation of the local mullah.'

'Do you mean Mullah Mushk-i-Alam?'

'That's the fellow. Anyway, apparently at his instigation, villagers in the area to the south-west of Kabul began to refuse to hand over supplies and forage. We sent Baker's brigade to knock a few heads together, take some headmen as hostages, that sort of thing, but it only made matters worse, and as the armed opposition grew we were forced to withdraw. A couple of days later our local appointee as governor was murdered.'

'I heard about that,' said George.

'Did you? Then you must also have known about the growing unrest in Kohistan. Naturally we feared a coalition between the two groups and tried to forestall it by sending columns out to intercept them. But we were the ones taken by surprise when the mullah's men appeared in force in the Chardeh valley, twelve thousand strong, and almost wiped out a brigade of cavalry under Massy.'

George was appalled that a general as experienced as Roberts had made the same elementary mistakes - dividing his forces, inadequate intelligence - that had cost Lord Chelmsford a camp full of supplies and more than thirteen hundred lives in Zululand at the start of the year. But he made no mention of this, for fear of revealing his recent military past, and instead asked FitzGeorge how Roberts had managed to pull the chestnuts from the fire.

'With a lot of good fortune. We arrived on the scene as Massy began his retreat, and as soon as the chief saw the seriousness of the situation he ordered infantry from Sherpur to hold the two passes into the Chardeh valley. He also ordered a charge by some of Massy's cavalry so that four guns of horse artillery could be extricated. But the charge made little impact and we had difficulty rallying the Ninth Lancers who began to panic. In the confusion the guns were abandoned in a ditch near the Ghazni road and many of our men were killed. The chief was almost one of them. He was helping a dismounted trooper out of the ditch when he was attacked by a knife-wielding villager. Fortunately a sowar of the First Bengal Cavalry intervened and we got him safely away. What saved us from total disaster was the arrival in the enemy's rear of one of our columns under Brigadier Macpherson. It deflected the enemy from the Nanachi Pass, which leads directly here and was then unguarded, and gave our troops time to secure the southern pass, the Deh Mazang, through which we retired. But it was a close-run thing.'

'It sounds it. What of the guns? Were they lost to the enemy? asked George, well aware that the loss of a single artillery piece was a professional disgrace from which few generals recovered.