“I was a captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards,” Learoyd said. He shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Ages, seems like.”
“What happened?” Andre said.
“Why am I an infantry private now, you mean? I was broken. I was in a bit of a state after she left me. My commandin’ officer saw me sulking about and drinkin’ too much. I suppose he meant to snap me out of it. Provoked an argument. Told me I was better off without the bloody bitch. It was the wrong thing to say to me, you understand, and the worst time to say it. I thrashed him to within an inch of his life. Took five men to pull me off him, otherwise I’m sure I would have beaten him to death. All things considered, my punishment could have been far worse. Circumstances were taken into account, that sort of thing. I couldn’t remain with the Guards after that. I requested a transfer to an infantry regiment and it was expeditiously granted. As to the pain, well, it subsided after a while. After a while longer, it more or less went away. But the memory comes back every now and then.” He took a pull from his flask. “We do not, fortunately, have an infinite capacity for pain. But we do remember.”
He handed her the flask. “Join me?”
“Thank you, I will,” said Andre.
“Do yourself a favour,” Learoyd said. “When we reach Peshawar, you keep right on goin’. This country is no place for someone like you.” He held up a hand to forestall her comment.
“I don’t mean to imply that you’re not up to it. I mean that it’s no place for you. No place for any of us. We don’t belong here. We came here with our bloody empire and our bloody customs and our bloody rules, and we’re tryin’ to impose the whole lot on people who want no part of it. I wonder how the folks at home would feel if Sadullah brought his Ghazi army into London, if he came with a corps of mullahs to do missionary work and instruct good Anglicans in the ways of Mohammad. Made them all build bloody mosques, closed down all the pubs and put veils on all the women. We’d start our own jehad. The lads and I are here for the duration, but you, there’s nothin’ to hold you here. Go back to London, find yourself a nice bloke and get married. Have yourself some kids, and talk about all this with the ladies over tea. Go home before this land withers your soul.”
“Has it withered yours, Chris? “ she said.
He sighed. “Perhaps it has. I don’t know if I could go back home now. I’ve been here too long. In London I’d likely wind up on Leicester Square with a tin cup. Soldierin’ is all I know.”
“You’re an educated man,” she said.
“That’s neither here nor there. Soldierin’ gets in your blood after a while. It changes a man. It’s all fine and good for a young chap just commissioned. He can parade around in his full dress, impressin’ all the girls. For a bloke like me, who’s been out on the front, it’s another matter. Your home becomes your barracks, your family the men you serve with. You begin to talk like them and think like them. If you spend any time on the frontier, you begin to go a little native. You go back home and it’s another world. One that doesn’t make much sense somehow.”
He stretched out his hand and she passed the flask back to him.
“It’s a strange thing,” he said, staring up at the rock walls towering above them. “I both hate and love this country. It isn’t mine, you see, and it never shall be. Look at Din over there. He’s got no home, but he’s happy as a lark. He’s got his soldier suit and he isn’t an untouchable out here and that’s all it takes to make him satisfied. Ortheris, well, Stanley doesn’t much care where he is nor what he’s doin’ so long as he comes out of it okay. A more easygoin’ chap you’ll never meet. Mulvaney? If Terrence would have his way, he’d be back with the field force headin’ for Chakdarra, He dearly loves a good, rousin’ dustup. He’s not truly happy unless he’s putting his steel in someone’s gizzard. In England he’d probably be in gaol. But me, I think about things far too much, so I look for trouble to keep my mind from thinkin’.” He smiled.”As they say, it may not be much, but it’s a livin’.”
He handed her the flask. “Here, have another drink.”
“What are we drinking to?” said Finn, returning with the others.
“Old times,” said Andre.
Finn took out his own flask and unscrewed the cap. “I’ll drink to that,” he said.
“Old times,” Learoyd said, holding up his flask.
“Old times,” they echoed. They drank. And then a rifle shot cracked out. Ortheris fell to the ground.
The camp of Sayyid Akbar possessed all the atmosphere of a Kabul bazaar. It had engulfed the small cliffside village where it was situated, enlarging it many times. Tents had been erected not only all around the village, on all sides of it, but in the village streets as well. The thousands of tribesmen who gathered in answer to Akbar’s summons made the camp festive and cacophonous. The mood was infectious. A great leader had arisen. The Light of Islam would rid the land of the hated British once and for all, and as the hoped-for day grew near, the fanatical enthusiasm of the tribesmen reached a fever pitch.
News of the siege at Malakand had spread quickly. There were as many different accounts of what had happened or was happening there as there were tongues. One version reported that the British garrison had been wiped out to the last man. Another claimed that the British garrison was being starved out. Still another story had it that the British soldiers were being decimated in ceaseless attacks by the faithful. The most popular seemed to be that the British soldiers had attempted to escape and were cut to pieces in the Malakand Pass. Sadullah supposedly had the head of the British commander on a pike. Sadullah himself had led the attacking forces, impervious to the bullets of the British. Sadullah was even now on his way to join Sayyid Akbar, the Light of Islam, bringing his thousands of followers with him. Together they would strike the final blow and call down the host of heaven to destroy the alien invader.
It was like a giant festival. Veiled women danced for the pleasure of the raucous mob. Horsemen played games of uzkashi, a savage Afghani version of polo in which the “ball” was a freshly killed goat. The object of the game was for the carcass of the goat to be dragged across the goal line, and there weren’t any rules beyond that. It was a juba—a fair—in which the temper of the throng possessed an ebb and flow, like tides, the noise often rising to a deafening level.
In the centre of the village was a large brick house which Sayyid Akbar had taken as his headquarters. Outside its walls a pit had been dug. It was deep and square, with sheer walls of earth that made it impossible for anyone thrown into it to climb out. The pit had been filled with bugs of every description, so many that the floor writhed with them. As Phoenix looked into it, he saw that several unfortunate British soldiers, as well as native tribesmen who had served in British regiments, had been thrown into the bug pit. One of the men had gone insane after who knew how much time spent in there with inspects crawling over him. He screamed continually, ceaselessly trying to clamber up the sheer walls of the pit, clawing at them with his ruined hands, much to the amusement of the watching tribesmen. Another of the men had died and his body lay in a corner, slowly being devoured by bugs. The others were not far from dead themselves. They expended what little energy they had by constantly brushing off the insects. It was clear that none of them had slept for a long time. Sleep in such an environment was even more terrifying than wakefulness.
“Poor bastards,” Phoenix mumbled under his breath. “Sayyid Akbar must be really something. It takes a truly sick mind to come up with this.”
“I’ve seen sicker,” said agent Fox, standing close to Phoenix. “But this one is right up there with the best of them.”
“There must be well over ten thousand men here,” said agent Sable. “And if it’s true that the Mad Mullah’s coming here with his followers, that will make it at least twice as many. None of the garrisons in the area will be able to cope with a force that size.”
“They didn’t cope,” said Phoenix. “Landi Kotal was overrun. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will.”
“Look,” said Fox. He pointed to several men wearing khaki uniforms and turbans with red swatches of cloth in them.
“Khyber Rifles,” Phoenix said. “Colonel Warburton’s legendary native regiment. According to history it broke Warburton’s heart when he found out his men deserted to the Ghazis. He trained them into the finest fighting force in the country, and this was his reward. Still, I wonder if you can really blame them.”
“What does that mean?” Sable said.