The Distant Kingdom Read online

  She picked him up and called to his mother:

  ‘Where are you going? Have orders …?

  The woman called back with none of the obsequious deference Perdita was accustomed to from Hindus:

  ‘No. But any fool can see that death awaits all who stay for the sahibs’orders.’

  Seeing the sense of that, yet knowing that to push on towards the pass without military protection would be tantamount to suicide, Perdita set about packing up ready for the column to move off. She started to roll up the sheepskins, directing the children to put on their coats and tighten the wrappings round their legs. They simply looked at her, puzzled, until she realized that both had always been dressed by their ayahs. Neither had any idea how to put their own arms into the sleeves of a coat.

  Perdita knelt down in the snow, soaking the skirts of her gown to dress the two children, talking gently to them as she did so. Charlie’s normal exuberance was dimmed, and Annie’s eyes were dilated with fear. Perdita hoped they did not understand quite how precarious was the army’s situation, and forced her voice into calm.

  They were all waiting by the fretful, stamping ponies who had had no fodder since the previous day, when Marcus rode up. He said:

  ‘The order of march is to be reversed today. We are to form the rear guard under Brigadier Anquetil, and the 5th and the 54th will form the advance with the Shah’s 6th (what’s left of it) and four guns. Will you ride with them or with the rest of the ladies in the centre?’

  ‘With the advance, Marcus,’ she said, determined to follow Aktur’s instructions.

  ‘You will not be alone. Lady Sale and Emily Sturt will be with you. We march at eight. Oh, and take care of the ponies’hooves; they probably have ice embedded there. Do something about it. I can’t stay.’

  She watched him ride off to join the rear guard, and set about trying ineffectually to do something about the ice in the ponies’ hooves. It was rock solid, and obviously caused them some discomfort, but she had no idea what to do.

  A sapper sergeant who was passing saw what was the matter and came to help her. He knocked the ice out with a chisel and mallet and roughly bade her mount.

  ‘I’ll put the children up, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant. I am afraid I do not know your name.’

  ‘Deane, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, thank you Sergeant Deane. I wish I had something to give you.’

  He touched his cap and said:

  ‘Never mind. Farewell now.’

  He went on his way, while Perdita urged the children forward to join the advance guard. As they went, their yaboos stumbling over the bodies of men, women and children that littered the area, Annie called:

  ‘Mama, I don’t like it. Why can’t I sit in a khajava like Maria Jamieson?’

  ‘Because it is safer to ride, Annie. It is not comfortable, but it is safer. Come, let’s trot to get warm. Heels down, knees in. Come on. That’s right. Not so fast, Charlie: we mustn’t outstrip the column. Look here’s Lady Sale. Good morning.’

  ‘If it can be called so,’ she answered. ‘Have you breakfasted?’

  ‘In some sort.’ They smiled at each other, well knowing the danger they faced, the privations they would suffer, but sharing a determination to get through.

  The column moved off at a walk. Within thirty minutes, Perdita heard firing, and, looking back, terrified, saw the tribesmen pouring down towards the rear guard and the remaining baggage. It was hard to see what was happening, but sepoys came running past the column towards the straggling camp followers who had anticipated the march and were clogging the route and making a steady, soldierly advance impossible.

  Lady Sale, whose expression of disgusted irritation showed exactly what she thought of the proceedings, directed her daughter’s attention to the increasing numbers of Afghans riding on both flanks of the column. All she said was:

  ‘So much for fourteen-and-a-half-lakhs’worth of protection.’

  They pushed on towards the pass, Perdita’s mind full of fear for Marcus fighting with his men at the rear, but trying to keep the children amused and not too afraid. She thought that Lady Sale probably disapproved of such young children riding in the van, but was not going to relinquish the position unless she had to. When trouble came she wanted them to be mobile, not trapped in unwieldy camel panniers that could be tumbled in the snow if their camel were shot, like so many of the women and children.

  It shamed her that she could so coolly think of the possible fate of the party in the centre, of women with whom she had shared the last two years, some heavily pregnant, others having only just given birth and now ludicrously clad in their nightgowns under the rugs and furs with which they covered themselves. But overriding all her training, all her conscious wish to help others, was a furious instinct to survive, to defend her own and let everyone else do as they would. She did not like it, but she would not fight it.

  A young galloper came riding past Perdita, threading his way as quickly as he could through the muddle of men, horses, guns, women and frightened camp followers. Perdita and Lady Sale watched as he rode up to General Elphinstone’s party. He dismounted, saluted and handed something over to the general. The note must have been very short because Elphinstone quickly read it and beckoned to two of his officers. The three of them talked for some time, the colonel vigorously, the younger man shaking his head and pointing towards the column and Elphinstone turning his head from one to the other as though he was a spectator at a tennis game. Perdita said with feeling:

  ‘It is tantalizing not knowing what they are saying.’

  Lady Sale answered with contempt:

  ‘Frustrating rather! Knowing how supine and bigoted this command is, I expect they are taking some ridiculous decision that will end in the loss of hundreds of lives.’

  ‘If only your husband were here, Lady Sale.’

  ‘He would be if he could. I expect that he is still pinned down at Jellalabad and could not risk having the brigade cut up. Better a strong British force at Jellalabad than that.’ Her ladyship’s over-severe tone suggested to Perdita that the general’s wife too had some doubts about her husband’s absence from this fighting retreat, and so she held her peace.

  Lady Sale put her spurs to her pony’s sides, saying over her shoulder:

  ‘I am going to find out what is happening. Wait there, Emily, with Lady Beaminster.’

  Perdita quietly asked how Emily’s husband was faring; he was now back on his feet, but obviously suffering from his wounds. His wife was describing something of his courage and determination to do his duty in spite of what he thought was the cowardice and stupidity of many of the senior officers when her mother returned.

  ‘The messenger was from Brigadier Anquetil. It seems that the rear is being harassed by tribesmen and the guns are at risk. Anquetil has requested reinforcements.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Perdita, more afraid for Marcus than for the guns.

  ‘It is considered that the road is too choked for a sufficient force to get through. We are to press on. The want of management and military sense of this operation is shocking. Why can’t Shelton send some men from the centre?’

  The three women looked back, the two younger thinking about their husbands, the elder of the incompetence and supineness she saw all around. Charlie said:

  ‘What is happening to the guns, Mama?’

  ‘The tribesmen are trying to take them from our column, Charlie.’

  ‘Well, Papa will stop them won’t he?’

  Perdita tried to smile encouragingly, but she could no longer bring herself to tell soothing lies and so she said:

  ‘We must all hope so. Now, come along you two. Back to the column.’

  The small party followed her, and they rode on to Boothak, where once again the column was halted, and more messages were brought up. They learned later that General Elphinstone decided at Boothak that the rear was in real danger of being cut off. He ordered a halt and sent back all the troops tha
t could be spared and two of the guns. Perdita was torn between an instinct that said to her, ‘Ride on, ride on or you will perish’and a horrible fear of what was happening to Marcus. If she had not had the children to see to, she might have ridden back herself, so great was her anxiety.

  She helped the children off their ponies and set them to running up and down, round and round: anything to keep them warm and lively, while she and the other women looked back to try to make out what was happening. They saw Brigadier Shelton take possession of some of the nearer hills and keep the enemy in check for at least fifty minutes before retiring. Perdita and Lady Sale were watching in reluctant admiration when they saw what they took to be a messenger riding down from the Afghan troops.

  As he came nearer they saw he was one of theirs and Lady Sale soon recognized him as a Captain Skinner, with whom she was slightly acquainted. They waited, wondering what was happening this time and when the column would be able to move on again, when they heard that Skinner had been to talk to Akbar Khan himself.

  The Khan, who had been with his tribesmen all that day, had apparently expressed his regret for what was being done but said that the column had been attacked only because it had left the cantonments too early, without waiting for the escort he had promised. He now offered to provide not only men to protect the column, but also food and firing if the general would halt the column and not push on through the Koord-Caubul pass that day.

  To Lady Sale’s hardly disguised fury, the general acquiesced and ordered a halt. Perdita, who was becoming as forthright as the general’s wife, said.

  ‘We cannot have moved even as far as we did yesterday. This is absurd.’

  Emily Sturt said:

  ‘But it will be worth it if we are given proper food and something to keep warm with.’

  ‘If,’ said her mother with something very like a snort. ‘I expect it is Bellew who has urged this halt.’

  ‘Well, Mama, at least the firing has stopped and those savages are keeping away from our people,’ said Emily.

  Perdita left them to their disagreement and set about preparing another bivouac, feeling bitterly resentful that the English should have suffered so much at the hands of the Afghans and now were forced to waste half a day’s marching time waiting about for them to do as they chose. It seemed worse than absurd for the commanders to believe the word of a man who had already murdered Sir William, broken agreement after agreement, promise after promise, and watched his soldiers killing the English all that morning without intervention. Either he was in favour of the murders or he was without control over the tribesmen. Whichever was the case, there was no point in waiting around for his promised escort.

  She hoped that Marcus would be able to leave his men some time that night to see her and the children. Trying to drive all fear from her voice as usual, she made Charlie and Annie snuggle down into the poshteen bed, early though it was, and gave them a little ottah and a handful of raisins each, while she told them stories.

  By the time her husband arrived her voice was aching with cold and effort, and she was glad to be able to keep silent for a while as Charlie questioned his father closely as to what had happened during the day. Marcus told the children one version, making it sound as much like a retelling of the story of St George and the dragon as he could, and then, in French, he gave Perdita the reality.

  ‘We have lost four guns: two were spiked by the 44th as the Afghans overcame them, and two more had to be abandoned – six-pounders. The poor horses could not drag them any further through this infernal snow.’

  Perdita tried to lighten his unhappy face with a small joke.

  ‘Until today I had always thought of the infernal regions as being hot. Well, perhaps it will be better to freeze than to burn for our sins.’

  He acknowledged her attempt with a brief, hard smile, and said:

  ‘That’s right: keep your courage up, my love. We shall get through only with courage.’

  I know,’ she said, ‘courage and Akbar.’

  ‘I would not put much faith in him. I know the general believes he means to give us food and an escort through the pass, but do not rely on it. I am worried about your going through in front …’

  She interrupted:

  ‘But, Marcus, Aktur …’

  ‘I know what he told you. And you must do as you think best. We have only the slimmest chance, and I do not believe one part of the column will be much safer than any other. But what I do say is that if there is trouble remember Lieutenant Davis, who …’

  ‘Took his guns through at a gallop,’ supplied Perdita thoughtfully. ‘Yes, Marcus, I shall remember.’ She saw that he was gathering his horse’s reins preparatory to remounting and said: ‘But you will be back tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘If I can.’

  She did not see him again for hours, and when he finally arrived it had been dark for some time and snow was falling. Once more she had refused to join any of the other women in the only tent and had spent some time rigging up a kind of shelter to keep the children’s faces clear of snow. She had just lain down herself, the end of her turban covering her nose and mouth, when she heard at least two men crunching through the snow and made out a tiny, flickering light coming towards their little camp. Very quietly, so as not to wake the children, who had eventually succumbed to sleep, she called:

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ His voice sounded thinned by exhaustion, and when he came closer and she could see his face in the uncertain light of his lantern, she was shocked by his pallor. She said:

  ‘What has happened?’

  He seemed unable to speak, and it was Thurleigh who answered for him:

  ‘Beaminster has been trying to teach the men to bivouac like this for warmth, but it is an uphill struggle. They cannot understand that the animal warmth generated by all their bodies together will protect them far better than each man keeping his clothes to himself.’

  The two men added their own sheepskin cloaks to the makeshift bed and eased themselves into it, feet inwards. One of them must have kicked Charlie for he half-stirred and mumbled:

  ‘Ayah. Is it morning?’

  This time Marcus spoke, and the child relapsed into sleep.

  It was a colder night even than the one before, or it seemed so to Perdita, and although she slept for a few hours before dawn, Marcus found himself jerked awake every time he began to relax into sleep. He felt tormented for his men, many of whom he had had to leave wounded, dying, beside the road at the mercy of the Afghans’knives. But there was nothing more he could have done for them. They could not be carried through with the baggage train, because what was left of that was in chaos; and the camp followers were dying more quickly even than the sepoys.

  He was haunted by the sight of one tiny Indian girl, who could not have been much older than little Annie, kneeling by the side of the road quite naked. She was alone and would be dead by morning. But even if he had picked her up and asked Perdita to look after her, there would have been a hundred others like her and he could not take them all.

  He shut his eyes and tried to sleep once more. But apart from his frantic and overstimulated brain, there was the noise to keep him awake. Camels bellowed; horses and yaboos neighed in pain and hunger; children cried; and all around men of both races groaned and cursed as the cold bit into their flesh and fear and the certainty of death into their minds.

  Only dawn freed him from the torment of lying still; and the resumption of hostilities gave him a chance to take some mind-numbing action.

  Despite Akbar’s promise of protection and an end to harassment, it was clear to everyone that the array of tribesmen drawn up between the camp and the entrance to the Koord-Caubul pass was hostile. Officers struggled out of their makeshift tents and bivouacs all round, calling to their men and trying to instil some kind of order. Too many of the sepoys were so frostbitten that they could not pull the triggers of their muskets and more than one of the cavalry had to be lifted on to their
horses, too stiff to mount.

  But Major Thain put himself at the head of the 44th and, joined by Marcus Beaminster and Captain Lawrence with some of the 121st, made a spirited charge at the assembled Afghans. As usual they dispersed under the threat of organized attack and the brave force was cheered as it returned to the encampment.

  Perdita assumed that the column would march immediately, taking advantage of this small victory over the enemy, but no orders were given. Seeing Captain Thurleigh riding past at almost eleven o’clock, she hailed him and begged for news. He pulled his horse to a halt for a moment, sympathizing with the fear on her face, and shouted:

  ‘The Sirdar is said to be having the pass cleared of hostile Ghilzais and we are to wait. We are trying to get some order in the column so that the fighting men are not encumbered with this rabble.’ He waved his hand towards the struggling mass of humanity and animals all around him in the snow.

  ‘What did Uncle James mean, Mama?’ came a voice at Perdita’s elbow. She squatted down in the snow beside the children and tried to explain:

  ‘We have to ride through a narrow passageway between these high hills: through there. And there are bad men there now, who have to be moved away before we can go through. So we have to wait.’

  ‘Mama, I do not like it,’ said Annie, pinched and pale with hunger, fatigue and cold. Her face reminded Perdita all too easily of Aneila’s at the end and she hugged the girl, whispering:

  ‘Nor do I, Annie. But we have to put up with it, so that we can go home. Now,’ she went on more briskly, ‘when we do ride into the pass we must go as quickly as we can. Stay close to me and when I tell you to you must make the ponies gallop really fast.’

  ‘But I hate galloping,’ Annie protested, her voice trembling on the edge of a rare whine.

  ‘I know you do, Annie, but it must be done. Promise me.’ She smiled gaily, as though they were negotiating over some game, and the child said reluctantly:

  ‘Very well.’