The Distant Kingdom Read online

  The Dost then tried to surrender to the English, but Sir William Macnaghten refused his conditions. He fled north-west to Bokhara while the Army of the Indus then fought its way up through the Khyber Pass to Caubul, and was able to escort Shah Soojah into his ancestral city unopposed.

  The deserted wives hoped that this success would mean the swift return of their husbands, but they soon heard that only half the army was packing its traps for the long march back to India. There had been some consternation when rumours had begun to circulate that the army had been raised not simply to escort the new king to Caubul, but also to garrison his city for him, and indeed help him administer his whole territory. It quickly became clear to even the most sanguine that some occupying force would be necessary.

  But no one wanted her husband to be part of it, particularly once the news of poor Colonel Fletcher’s death arrived. It seemed that he had been set upon on the road between Caubul and Candahar and butchered.

  When Perdita heard that, she made herself ignore her dislike of his wife and daughter and hurried to the house they shared to give them her condolences. She found Mrs Fletcher lying in a darkened room, sniffing at a vinaigrette and entertaining Lady Macnaghten and Emma Colvin. She received Perdita’s regrets graciously, but turned straight back to her other guests to say:

  ‘But if I do go home to my sister, as indeed, Lady Macnaghten, I long to do, poor dear Maria will be left here on her own. I expect that Jamieson will take over the regiment from my dear departed husband’ – her eyelids dropped in reverence for the dead for a moment – ‘and she will have no one to help and advise her. It is not easy to be the colonel’s lady.’

  Lady Macnaghten patted one of the brown-spotted hands that plucked so nervously at her handkerchief, and said warmly:

  ‘Please do not distress yourself, Mrs Fletcher. I shall be here to advise Maria. As soon as the countryside around Caubul is settled, Macnaghten has promised to send for me, and if the 121st is to form part of the garrison, well, then Maria can travel up to Caubul with me.’ She caught sight of Perdita sitting silent on the other side of the sofa. ‘And you, too, of course, Lady Beaminster.’

  Perdita smiled briefly and hoped fervently that Marcus’s regiment would be sent back to India soon. She asked civilly after Maria and then, seeing that the two elder ladies were bored with her, left kind messages and went home to wait for news.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As soon as it was safe to do so, Sir William sent a young cousin of his, Edward Conolly, down to Simla to fetch Lady Macnaghten, and Marcus Beaminster and Major Jamieson took advantage of the opportunity to send for their own families. The party left Simla in February and set off towards Ludihana and Ferozepore, where they would cross the Sutlej into Afghanistan.

  They had over seven hundred miles to go, and it seemed that they could never travel at more than a snail’s pace. Two of the ladies rode, but Mrs Jamieson was frequently unwell and had to be carried in a palanquin like the children and their ayahs. Then there were the hundred or so camels bearing all the baggage and furniture they were taking to ensure reasonable comfort in their new homes.

  Marcus had written to Perdita describing the house he had taken for her in the newly built cantonment and, this time determined not to put up with ugly and uncomfortable surroundings, she had brought much of the furniture Edward had ordered for her when she had told him of the Station bungalow. Then there were carpets, hangings, china, wall-shades and shawls as well as all her own and the children’s luggage. She had been afraid that her twenty-five camels might be excessive for the march and camp life on which she had embarked, until she saw the numbers belonging to the other ladies.

  The camel drivers were forever quarrelling with the banghy-men and with the ladies’domestic servants, many of whom fell ill, or moaned about the dangers of the country to which they were going. Sometimes Perdita would see an expression of exasperation cross the face of young Conolly. His sepoys were well trained, and could be depended upon to break up the physical fights between the various different bands of servants, but it was to the lieutenant they looked for justice in their squabbles, and she believed that he found some difficulty in sympathizing with the oriental mind.

  She was often tempted to intervene when she overheard the angry altercations, but always stopped herself, knowing how little he would appreciate her help and in any case doubting that her understanding was much superior to his. She was, however, shocked that he could hardly address a word to a native without adding ‘Damn your eyes’, or some other curse, and she did her best to keep her children out of his way.

  The long hot trail across the Punjab tried all their tempers, and Perdita at least felt relieved when they reached the Indus and saw the savage slopes of the Khyber Pass ahead. She knew that once into the pass they would be entering enemy territory, but to her the mountains were exhilarating: so different from the misty purple, pine-clad hills around Simla. Something in the sight of the steep, granite rocks towering up over tiny fertile valleys pleased her. The torrential rivers ran cold and clear, and every foot of cultivable land was crammed with fruit trees, vegetables and wheat crops: The villages through which the party rode consisted generally of a small, dilapidated fort that protected a group of mud-walled houses with flat roofs and small defensive windows.

  The travellers watched picturesquely dressed tribesmen working their fields with their mysteriously veiled women beside them, and decided that they had rarely seen so well formed a race. The men were mostly tall, with fine dark eyes and prominent noses, and they rode their horses and shaggy ponies with superb grace and control. Perdita was especially taken with the children, laughing beauties with huge, speaking eyes and pale brown skins. The little girls gave some indication of the probable good looks of their veiled mothers.

  To Perdita, watching in relief as the Afghans waved peacefully at the English children who rode in camel panniers and palanquins with their ayahs, the life in these villages seemed very appealing: to grow crops and herd animals in scenery of such splendour, unworried by social or political upheavals, seemed ideal – infinitely preferable to life in Simla or Calcutta. She said as much to Maria Jamieson, who did not even bother to reply. All she said, twisting her full, pink lips in disdain, was:

  ‘I had always supposed the tribesmen to be dangerous, but here they are herding sheep like any other peasants.’ Perdita answered:

  ‘Well, they are all armed. I dare say they would not be so peaceful if they resented our army.’

  Lady Macnaghten, riding on ahead that morning, misheard and edged her horse back nearer to Perdita’s to say:

  ‘But we are not their enemies, Lady Beaminster, and they do not resent us. My husband has written often to explain that the people of this land are happy to have their rightful king restored. They came to detest the Dost when he started to ally himself with those dreadful Persians. It is no wonder that these farmers watch peacefully as we ride through their villages. They know that we are their friends.’ She waved towards a group of little girls playing in the dust outside a squalid-looking house. They flashed their irresistible smiles and waved back. ‘It is gratifying to know that we have been able to bring peace even to so turbulent a country as this.’

  They reached cantonments at Caubul late one afternoon in May, very stiff, tired and argumentative. Behind them straggled the long caravan of camels bearing their baggage. The children were fractious and tearful and Perdita had found herself growing more apprehensive with each mile they advanced further into Afghanistan. But even so she was relieved when they finally reached their destination.

  Marcus was looking remarkably well, she thought, and he was very solicitous when he saw how pale she was. He made her leave the unpacking and go to lie down, while he attempted to wring some kind of order from the two parties of servants and the mountains of baggage.

  She was still asleep when he went into her room dressed for dinner, and so he wrote her a note of explanation and concern for her health, and sal
lied forth to Alexander Burnes’s house in the city, where he spent a convivial evening with a mixture of political and army officers. One or two of the unmarried men were wondering aloud whether the arrival of the memsahibs would circumscribe their amusements, but Sir Alexander waved their fears aside with a plump hand, and described in exhaustive if louche detail the charms of his latest Afghan inamorata.

  Marcus listened in growing disgust and was not surprised when Colonel Robert Warburton took the first opportunity to slip away, but one of the other guests asked what was up. James Thurleigh, as one of Sir William’s peripatetic political officers, knew all the details and said breezily:

  ‘Haven’t you heard? The old fool is well and truly caught. Unlike our host here, who understands how to treat these women, he is going to marry one.’

  ‘Good God, an Afghan?’

  ‘Yes, I cannot imagine why, except that she is said to be a niece of the Dost and perhaps he thinks he’ll reap some political advantage, or perhaps like Beaminster’s esteemed father-in-law, he loves her.’

  Marcus winced inwardly at the heavy sarcasm his friend laid on the word and moved away to talk to another officer whose expression of disagreement suggested that he too would prefer to discuss another subject.

  James saw the withdrawal, and once again silently cursed the English ladies for the complications they always brought with them, and the divisions they always drove between their husbands and old friends. He went over to Marcus later in the evening to make amends by asking:

  ‘Do you go to the cockfight tomorrow, old fellow?’

  ‘I hope so. I expect my wife will wish to rest, but if she does not, I think I shall have to ride with her: show her something of the country.’ He saw James frown, and said, ‘After all, she has crossed India to come here. I can’t carry on now as though I were a bachelor.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ answered his friend, forbearing to ask as he would have liked: and why the devil did you send for her?

  Marcus would have found the question difficult to answer. He did not admit, even to himself, that he had missed her presence in his life.

  She was still tired and pale when they met at the breakfast table the next morning, but when he suggested that she might like to spend the day in bed, she said:

  ‘I don’t think so. There is nothing so boring as lying idle when there is so much to be done, however tired one may be.’ She saw his look of surprise and smiled in some amusement. ‘Nothing that need concern you, Marcus; I merely want to see this house arranged, and all the furniture I brought up properly disposed. You don’t mind, do you, if I have things changed around?’

  ‘Of course not. This is your house, to do with as you please. But I had hoped you would ride with me. The plain looks at its best now with the fruit trees in blossom and the worst of the rain over for the year. And the city is interesting.’

  Perdita thought she heard real disappointment in his voice, but quickly told herself that she must have been mistaken. Then, just in case the miracle had happened, she modified her plans, and said:

  ‘Perhaps we could ride later this afternoon before we dine, if it is really safe.’

  ‘Of course it’s safe. I have to report to General Cotton this morning,’ he looked down at his watch and went on, ‘in about forty minutes, and if you will be busy I shall go on into the town. I may not be back until four or five, but we can ride then. Please don’t exhaust yourself while I am gone.’ She promised and watched him go, feeling slightly encouraged.

  As she went about her self-imposed tasks that morning, making the servants lay the carpets she had brought and rearrange the new furniture until she was happy with the result, she thought about her husband. In the light of his apparently genuine desire for her company, not to speak of his sending for her when he could have left her in Simla, it began to seem to her that she had misunderstood him in the past; that perhaps if was her unworthy suspicions that had caused the lack of ease in their dealings. Perhaps she had expected too much of Marcus in their marriage, just as Aneila had told her. Standing in the newly arranged drawing room with part of her mind occupied with what to put on the half-round side table between the windows to lighten the blank wall, she resolved to change herself, to be the sort of wife Aneila had tried to teach her to be, and then perhaps she would learn how to find in her husband the kind of friendship she had had with Charles Byrd.

  And she resolved not to write any more letters to the American, deciding that it was as much her concentration on him as anything else that had prevented her getting on better terms with her charming but difficult husband. After all, before she had met Mr Byrd, Marcus had been much more affectionate and ready to talk to her than he became as they went about in Simla society after Charlie’s birth.

  At much the same time, Marcus Beaminster was standing with his friends in the crowded courtyard of Mohammed Ali Khan’s house near the Char Chouk in Caubul waiting to watch a pair of black fighting cocks tear each other to pieces. Marcus felt rather uncomfortable. He much preferred the Afghans’ partridge fights, which were contests of skill only, and always stopped before either of the birds damaged the other – but he was ashamed of his squeamishness. To distract himself, he looked around the tight-packed circle of men and young boys. He was quite surprised to see how few facial differences there were between the English and the Afghans. The tribesmen were a little darker of complexion, of course, but not really so much as he would have suspected, and it seemed to him that if they were cleaned up and dressed in European clothes, some of them would have been almost indistinguishable from many dark-eyed Englishmen. For some reason the idea filled him with a vague disquiet.

  A new tension shivered through the close-packed crowd as the birds were brought into the improvised cockpit. Marcus knew that they were trained to fight, and having heard some of the methods that were used he leaned forward to look curiously at them. Edward Conolly, standing on his right, said:

  ‘I fancy the old champion; what about you, Thurleigh?’

  ‘No, I’ve faith in the challenger. I’ll take you. How much?’

  ‘Ten guineas.’

  ‘Paltry. Never mind. Beaminster?’

  ‘What? Oh, all right, I’ll stake the same.’

  The birds’turbaned owners opened their large wicker cages and the two cocks strutted out, their black feathers gleaming and their tiny eyes glittering. The atmosphere in the courtyard was tense and already riven with violence. Not only were the birds to be fought to death, but the men watching them and laying bets on their battle were enemies too. They might admire each other’s skills and manliness, and be quiescent for the time, but the English had invaded Afghanistan, occupied it, planted on it a ruler of their choosing and were treating it very much as their own. They had built their houses on the Caubul plain, sent their officers to gather the new king’s taxes, settle his people’s disputes and pull recalcitrant clans and villages into line. Some of them had dishonoured the wives and sisters of the Afghan men, and now they had made it clear that they were planning to stay by bringing their own wives and children up from Hindustan.

  More than one of the bearded faces in the crowd were blazing with an anger and defiance that had nothing to do with the morning’s entertainment.

  The two birds circled round each other for a while, feinting this way and that. Then the old one succeeded in distracting his adversary long enough to land on his back and latch in his spurs for a second or two before the younger, pecking furiously and using his strong wings like paddles, dislodged him. Both birds were soon bleeding, but they fought on with courage and skill. For several bouts it was not clear which would triumph, and each time they separated and retreated to regather their strength, the watching men raised their bets. The fight must have lasted for nearly nine minutes when Marcus heard James Thurleigh’s voice, hoarse and breathless:

  ‘Look, the champion’s tiring. It won’t be long now.’

  The two English officers who had backed him watched in regret as they real
ized it was true. He wrought one more savage gash in the other’s left wing before he was finally beaten to the ground. There was complete silence in the crowd as the men waited for the victor to kill the loser. He took his time, and the elder bird tried to push himself up off the dirt floor. But his strength was gone and with a pathetic flap of his wing, he sank back. The new champion trampled on his body and raked sharpened spurs deep into his neck. As they saw the blood spurt out, the English men knew it was over.

  The men of both races who had backed the winner shook hands and slapped each other on the back in friendly congratulation, before turning to demand their winnings from the rest. The shifting crowd released the pressure on Marcus, and he turned to face James Thurleigh to pay his debt.

  ‘So you were right after all. Who would have thought that the victor of thirty fights would fall like that?’

  ‘You had only to look at the new one’s pedigree. I talked to Mohammed Sharrif earlier and he told me that none of this one’s line ever liked to be beaten – and he’s young and full of hate. I was sure he would trounce the old black. Besides,’ he said with a smile that demanded, acknowledgement, ‘I am always right.’

  Unusually Marcus did not respond to the mockery in James’s smile and he was annoyed to see an inward, calculating look in his friend’s clear brown eyes. Unaware of any tension, Conolly answered gaily:

  ‘Of course he is, Beaminster. What political officer was ever wrong?’

  ‘That sounds remarkably like a sneer,’ said James, who remembered all too vividly the loathing of most regimental officers for the better paid politicals, who took precedence over them whatever their actual seniority.

  ‘God forbid. Only a small joke, old fellow. Are you going back to cantonments for tiffin, Beaminster?’