The Damascened Blade

Chapter Eleven

Threading his way neatly along the lines of communication linking the fort with Peshawar and Peshawar with the air base at Miram Shah, Fred, by being the only person in the fort who knew exactly what he wanted, had got his own way. Replacing the receiver he smiled with conspiratorial satisfaction at Joe and James and looked at his watch. ‘08.00 hours. There’ll be a plane up in half an hour – I’d be happier with half a dozen but one’ll have to do for now. It’ll be landing here in… oh… just over an hour and then we’ll tell the pilot what all this is about. I’ll go and get a bit of a map together showing the search area and get the football field marked out for landing. All right if I take a squad of your blokes with me, James?’ And he had bustled off, competent, purposeful, relishing the vindication of his views at last. But as he left the room some of his confidence left with him and James seemed sunk in gloom once again.

‘You’ve done everything you could as a matter of urgency and first response,’ said Joe, ‘but let us note that we have a very serious situation here, one far beyond your immediate responsibility, James. Obviously, we’ve got to report back to Peshawar and seek their instructions.’

‘How can I find the words to do that? said James despairingly.’Tell me – how do I explain all this in a few words?’

‘Here’s the phone, James!’ said Joe. ‘This should come from you, not from me. I’m nobody. My only job is or has been to keep an eye on blasted Lily and a right balls I’ve made of that! Now – make a few notes. Pick up the telephone. Ring up Sir John Deane in Peshawar and seek instructions. Tell him, in the first place, that Rathmore’s disappeared. We may look on him as a bumbling halfwit in whose ultimate fate we have no personal concern but he’s quite a prominent citizen. He has the ear of some brass hats in Delhi and Calcutta who will be interested to say the least in his fate. And the first thing you say to Peshawar is, “Your one-man trade delegation has been kidnapped. Sorry!” And the second thing you have to say is, “Zeman Khan, a prominent Afghani national, closely associated – indeed, closely related – to the Amir of Afghanistan, is dead in our care. The diagnosis from a reliable medical source speaks of food poisoning. Zeman’s associate, kinsman, second-in-command and close friend rejects this diagnosis and has snatched Rathmore as a hostage it seems, threatening this or that unless the matter is reinvestigated or indeed investigated.” And while the poor man is digesting this so welcome piece of information you should add that Lily Coblenz, American citizen, guest of the British Government, has also apparently been snatched. Unless, of course, she has run off to join the circus.

‘And if all this mixed information doesn’t stand his hair on end, I will be astonished. But what we need is instructions. You’re not the Viceroy, still less am I. Throw the whole dismal heap into his lap and stand back – that would be my advice. And why don’t you do it now, James? And while you’re about it – why not send a tough reply to Iskander? Threaten him with the full weight of the entire Indian Army. Call Lord Roberts back from the grave – he’d know what to do!’

‘Send a gunboat?’ said James.

‘Something of that sort. And when it comes to a gunboat, you’ve got some very good people here. It’s not up to you to declare war on Afghanistan of course but get permission to rattle a sabre!’

‘Hell, Joe!’ said James desperately. ‘I’m not often at a loss but… I think this’ll cost me my career,’ he added miserably.

‘Cost you your career? Nonsense! No such thing! Where, I’d like to know, is the old free-booting spirit of Clan Lindsay? Let’s hear the skirl of the pipes… “Lochaber no more” and all that!’

Joe picked up the telephone and put it in James’s hand. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, patting him on the shoulder and pointing out of the window. ‘I shall be there. Smoking a cigarette. The first of many, I dare say, before we’ve sorted this out. But just get on with it! I’ll be composing a letter to Iskander if you don’t mind.’

‘Mind! I’d be very relieved!’

Joe had hardly lit the promised cigarette before James emerged, half amused, half exasperated. ‘I don’t believe this! The bastard! He’s on the bloody golf course! On the golf course! The fate of nations hangs in the balance and the Commissioner is on the golf course! That’s what’s wrong with the Indian Empire! You’ve no idea how often this happens.’

‘So how did you leave it?’ said Joe.

‘Well, just for once I took a strong line. I said, “This is a grade one emergency. I don’t want to talk to anyone else about it. Get him back at the double.” Was I right?’

‘Right? Of course you were right!’

Joe took a sheet of foolscap paper and began to write.

To Muhammed Iskander Khan, Captain in the service of HM the Amir of Afghanistan.

Sir,

I have received and read with interest your communication of the 20th April 1922 and in respect of this seek confirmatory instructions from my superiors. In the meantime:-

1. I see no reason to reject the findings of the preliminary autopsy performed on the body of Major Zeman Khan here at the fort.

2. We are discussing an event which took place on British territory and as such the matter will be judged under the provisions of British law which must be upheld.

3. Obviously, I will be prepared to initiate a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of Zeman Khan but would not be prepared to embark on this while the issue is clouded by the illegal apprehension and sequestration of Lord Rathmore.

4. No further steps will be taken in the matter until His Lordship has been returned to our care in good health. As a necessary preliminary to any investigation I must insist that you make arrangements accordingly forthwith.

5. The reaction of HMG to any failure on your part to meet this condition will be prompt, resolute and effective.

‘ “Prompt, resolute and effective”, indeed!’ said James. ‘Sounds good… ’

‘It’s not very good,’ said Joe, ‘but if you’re talking to the Commissioner it might be sensible to read it to him. I think you shouldn’t utter a threat of tough stuff to come without his approval.’

‘I very much agree,’ said James. ‘What do we do in the meantime?’

‘Do what I’m about to do,’ said Joe, ‘have a whisky and soda. Steady the quaking nerves.’

At this moment the telephone rang. ‘It’s Peshawar,’ said James, his hand over the receiver.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Joe. ‘But be bloody, bold and resolute! Nothing to hide, after all.’

‘You never know how he’s going to take things,’ said James nervously. ‘Sometimes he can be all sweetness and reason and sometimes he can be an absolute sod!’

‘Only one way to find out,’ said Joe and, patting him on the shoulder, he stepped out into the sunshine and looked out on to the fort, puzzled to find his friend, usually so decisive, now apparently in retreat.

Faintly he could hear James speaking. Faintly he measured the intervals for reply. This went on for a long time. For a very long time in Joe’s estimation. He fought off the temptation to stand at James’s elbow and listen. He waited and waited until at last James appeared, flushed but, Joe was glad to notice, seemingly relieved and seemingly more cheerful.

‘Well?’ said Joe.

‘Well!’ said James. ‘I think – well! The first thing I told him was that this was getting a bit beyond me… ’

‘Can’t think why you said that,’ said Joe, ‘you’re doing very well.’

‘Not as well as all that. I explained to him that this had become a complicated police enquiry and that I’d got quite enough to do commanding the fort without going round on hands and knees with a magnifying glass. While I was there he put a call through to Simla. I don’t know what’s happened to the Posts and Telegraph Department of the Indian Empire but the speed with which these things are handled still surprises me – and the long and short of it is that I spoke to Sir George Jardine himself and – old boy – I hope you won’t be too horrified – but you’re still on attachment to the Bengal Police and, like it or lump it, you’ve been appointed to initiate, conduct and complete the enquiry! The return of Sherlock Sandilands in fact and – honestly – I simply can’t tell you how relieved I am. Sorry, Joe! Didn’t mean to drop you in the shit. But at least you’ve now got some official status. And, having cleared that out of the way – and I explained the whole plot to him – he said, “This is too important to be dealt with locally. It has to go up to the Council. And we need some political involvement.” ’

‘Now what the hell does that mean?’ said Joe.

‘I think it means that the grand strategy should be put in the hands of one of the Heaven Born, not left in the hands of a humble cavalry major on attachment to the Scouts.’

‘An Indian Civil Servant, you mean?’

James’s face had cleared as he spoke and he almost laughed as he replied. ‘He said, “Now who can I think of? Who’s available?” Oh, Joe! You’re going to like this! An official with adequate powers is not only available but in situ! Know who he meant? None other than the Warren Hastings of the twentieth century – Edwin Burroughs!’

Joe was aghast. ‘Good God! Didn’t you explain to him that this is the same Edwin Burroughs whose name has risen several places to top the list of suspects? How can he possibly lead the mopping-up operation if he’s under suspicion?’

James fixed Joe with a bleak but resolute stare. ‘Look, Joe. None of us murdered Zeman if that’s what you’re implying. And I wish you’d stop harping on that. We have the opinion of Grace Holbrook on this – death by natural causes or misadventure at the worst if the theory about the arsenic is correct – and I’d be obliged if you’d leave it there. As you said yourself, we oughtn’t to be stampeded into a barmy bit of theorizing just because Iskander wasn’t happy with the official decision. And with this in mind, I think you should now go to Burroughs and explain what’s happened.’

‘Correction,’ said Joe. ‘You can go and explain.’

‘Further correction,’ said James. ‘We’ll go together.’

They set off to bang on Burroughs’ door.

‘Come!’ an irascible voice called.

They stepped inside to find Burroughs sitting up in bed, bottle of bismuth tablets in one hand and a glass of water in the other, gold-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose, pink with indigestion, girt in a pair of broad-striped pyjamas.

‘I’ve been sitting here,’ he said without preamble, ‘like a damn fool, hoping that somebody would come and tell me what the hell’s going on. So I could say in a manner of speaking I’m glad to see you. What have you to tell me?’

‘Morning, Sir Edwin,’ said Joe. ‘Quite a lot to tell you one way and another.’

‘Well, keep it short. There’s only one thing in which I’m seriously interested,’ Sir Edwin interrupted, ‘and that is – just how soon can it be arranged for me to leave? I have work to do in Delhi which really cannot be put on one side. I hadn’t reckoned to be away from my desk for more than a day or two but I’ve now been away – thanks to the delay in Peshawar – for a week. I really need to get back. Now, you were saying?’

‘There’s been a bit of a change,’ James Lindsay began tentatively.

‘A change affecting your status in the affair,’ Joe supplied. ‘A change affecting my status too, for that matter.’

‘What the devil’s that supposed to mean?’ said Burroughs. ‘I’ve done what I came here to do which is to assess the present position in this part of the NWFP and all I have seen so far persuades me that the so-called Forward Policy has been a mistake and I shall continue to say so as soon as I can get back to Delhi.’

‘It’s not quite as simple as that,’ said Joe and they explained.

Burroughs’ face changed from pink to white and back again. He sat up in bed and gobbled. Disjointed words and phrases came across.

‘Disgraceful… ridiculous… incompetent… no concern of mine… purely local difficulty… I’ve got better things to do… ’

In a pause in his tirade James said, ‘Sandilands has prepared this letter for Iskander Khan. The text has been checked and approved by Sir George Jardine. In the changed circumstances, we need your approval and your signature. With this I think I can get the letter into his hands although of course, as you will appreciate, his present whereabouts are still unknown.’

‘My approval? I don’t approve!’

‘I’m ready to send this letter on its way – time is of the essence – and I do now need your authority to do so,’ said James. He passed it to Burroughs with a pen and waited for him to countersign it.

Burroughs sank back among his pillows. ‘This,’ he said petulantly, ‘is precisely the situation I did not want. I hold you entirely responsible, Lindsay, for having let this arise. And I shall say so!’

As he spoke a drone began to grow in the sky above them.

‘What the devil’s that?’ said Burroughs suspiciously.

‘Aerial reconnaissance.’

‘Aerial reconnaissance? On whose authority, I’d like to know? This is a sensitive situation! What fool authorized anyone to overfly tribal territory? If you’re trying to explain to me that the situation is incandescent I can think of nothing more likely to precipitate serious trouble than a mob of aggressive flying corps subalterns galloping through the skies above a friendly neighbouring state! I suppose this is the doing of that damn fool Moore-Simpson! Where the devil’s he? I need a few words of explanation from him! Where is he?’

‘Preparing to take the next flight up again, I think. Er, would you like to accompany him, sir? I’m sure room could be found in the rear observer’s seat for you,’ said Joe kindly.

They left Burroughs spluttering with dismay and made their way to the football field in time to see a Bristol Fighter plane bouncing along to a halt feet from the boundary. The Scouts delegated to mark out the landing area doused the lighted flares they had set in each corner of the pitch and, chattering excitedly, hurried over to take a closer look at the aircraft. Fred was there to greet the two men as they climbed out and he introduced them to James and Joe.

The pilot pulled off flying helmet and goggles and held out a hand, smiling and cheerful. Hugh Blackett was very young, very blond and very blue-eyed. As yet untanned and unlined, he could not have been long in India. It must have been all of two minutes since he was captaining the first eleven, Joe thought with stabbing reminders of the hundreds of young sacrifices he had seen making their way over to the enemy lines in the war. The wings on his chest were very new. The second man, who saluted negligently and got straight to work on the plane, was introduced as ‘Flight Sergeant Thomas Edwards, my ack emma.’ The single Observer wing on his chest was very faded.

‘Have to take your aircraft engineer with you in this country,’ Fred explained. ‘Now what I propose we do while Tommy does his stuff is retire to the ops room and have a look at this map I’ve got together. I’ll take her up for the next tour while Hugh gets his breakfast and then he can relieve me. Joe? James? Either one of you want to come up in the observer’s seat?’

They made their way to a whitewashed, mud brick building at the centre of the fort. Tidy and uncluttered with everything to hand, it was a scene they were all familiar with. A large table dominated the room, filing cabinets and bookcases lined it and in a corner the only unmilitary note: a gouty armchair, one of its legs propped up on a copy of Whitaker’s Almanack 1910, a year-old copy of Punch lying open over one arm.

The four heads descended on the map Fred had taken from the maps room and James began to fill in the topographical details. ‘Here’s the fort and here’s Afghanistan and somewhere between the two is what we’re looking for,’ he began.

To their relief the pilot took in the problem at once, asking shrewd questions and supplying useful information of his own. He noted distances from friendly forts, fuel supplies, possible landing areas and traced the known route of the escaping Afghanis to the last known point nearly half-way along the Khyber.

‘Any word from Landi Kotal?’ he asked.

‘We heard nearly an hour ago that there has still been no sighting. They’ll let us know the minute they have anything. The only thing moving in the Khyber has been a Powindah caravan. On its way down to us to overnight by the river. They do this every year. They’re coming from Samarkand and Bokhara and en route for Peshawar. I thought we might stop them and have a word. If our friends were in the Khyber then they’ll know about it. The Powindah are a gypsy race. They’re called the postmen of the province and nothing escapes their intelligence system. Their Malik owes me a favour. The local Afridi snatched two of their little boys who’d strayed behind the caravan to chase a wandering sheep last year. They reported it to me and I took out a gasht.’

‘You took out a gasht?’ said Joe. ‘To chase up two boys and a stray sheep?’

‘Fifty Scouts went out. Wasn’t difficult. We found the mob, feasting on the missing sheep and one of them standing guard over the boys. We hauled in two of their sentries, held guns to their heads and didn’t put them down until the boys had been released. But the Afridis complained that they had only snatched them in revenge for the two of theirs who were taken by the Powindah the year before. They sell the poor little buggers as slaves.’

James sighed. ‘You can never get back to the beginning of these things,’ he said wearily. ‘Or the end. All you can do is make it clear we don’t tolerate these goings-on.’

‘Okay,’ said Fred, anxious to draw their attention back to the map. ‘So this is our area and we’ll ignore the caravan on its way down. You’ll question them when they get here, James.’ He outlined with a finger the area of search. ‘The Bristol can fly for three hours before refuelling so we’ll count on – to be on the safe side – an hour out and an hour back. She can do a hundred and twenty-three miles per hour but we’re aiming to take it slowly and steadily. Stooging about at a slow speed you can see an amazing amount in normal conditions but,’ he sighed and swept a dismissive hand over the brown, crowded contours of the map, ‘doesn’t look very hopeful, I’m afraid. You could hide a division in this sort of terrain. And it’s all rocks, overhangs and cover of some sort all the way up to the Afghan border. It’s their own backyard. They have friends there who will hide them. They could be anywhere in fifty square miles by now.’

‘And don’t forget that they’re camouflaged – their clothes are brown and floppy, even their horses blend into the terrain,’ said James. ‘Their hearing is acute. They’ll hear you coming miles away and have plenty of time to hide themselves. It’s a wild goose chase!’

‘At least there won’t be any opposition from the air.’ said Joe, ‘but what about sniping from the ground? Any fear of that?’

‘There’s always fear of that,’ said Fred with a quick look at Hugh.

‘Thought I was in for some trouble on the way over,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Came up over the Bazar Valley. Didn’t realize it was miles out of your search area so I was keeping an eye peeled on the way. Twenty miles back over Afridi territory I thought I’d spotted a smudge of smoke in the sky. Here,’ he pointed at the map. ‘Rather high and no sign on the ground. Dispersing fire? I diverted to get a closer look but then I caught a flash of sunlight on metal. Looked like the start of a helio signal to me but then I remembered where I was and thought, “Rifle barrel. Bloody hell! Afridis are up!” I did a few acrobatics and went on my way. No shots.’

‘Well, if that’s all clear,’ said Fred, rolling up the map, ‘we’ll be off. Coming, Joe? Hugh, old son, we’ll relieve you of your hats and goggles and stuff.’

Ten minutes later Joe was sitting nervously in the rear seat of the plane, which had been turned on its axis, watching as Fred with total confidence, enthusiasm even, fiddled with the controls, interminably carrying out checks. At last he was satisfied. ‘Switches off!’ he called to the flight sergeant standing by the propeller. Tommy Edwards swung the big blade of the propeller. ‘Contact, sir!’ he shouted back. ‘Contact!’

The twelve cylinder Rolls Royce engine, hardly cooled, fired up reassuringly at the first attempt. Fred waited, listening to the note and checking again the dials in front of him. He raised his hands above his head to signal for the chocks to be pulled away and two Scouts standing by obliged. He took a firm grip of the throttle and began to move slowly forward over the football pitch. Tommy saluted, rather unnecessarily Joe thought, to indicate that the sky was clear and the plane started forward, gathering speed. Fred pulled the joystick back and the machine swept gracefully up into the air.

Joe touched the folded sheet of paper tucked into his belt. Hugh had held it out to him the moment before he climbed into the plane. ‘Better have this with you, sir,’ he had said without emphasis. ‘We all carry one. Just in case.’

Joe had run an eye over the short script. In English and in Urdu the document declared that a very large amount of money would be handed by His Majesty’s Government to any person returning the bearer safe and sound. The better the condition of the airman, the larger the amount of money, it added. ‘More arithmetic on the frontier!’ Joe thought. He began to calculate the value of Fred’s experience and training, to say nothing of his own, adding on the cost of the aircraft and converting the sum into rupees in an effort to distract his mind from the terror he always felt when he left the safety of the ground. He checked his revolver. He familiarized himself with the two Lewis machine guns mounted to hand in the rear cockpit. There might be men in these hills who could not read either English or Urdu. Another problem was that the scheme of rewarding the tribesmen for delivering chaps back to base instead of killing them had given them an unexpected source of revenue and now any plane that flew overhead was seen as a legitimate target, a cash bonanza for the village. The number of planes lost in the ensuing turkey shoot had actually increased. As James said – how could you ever disentangle cause and effect in this country?

He looked at the man who now held his life in his hands. The jaunty tilt of Fred’s head told him that he, at least, was relishing the situation and Joe wondered again about the emotions, the compulsions even, that drove him. The skill and pleasure he showed in controlling this infernal flying machine were obviously high on the list and soon Fred’s confident handling of the noisy, bucking brute began to soothe Joe’s nerves. He thought perhaps he might relax so far as to release the two-handed grip on his seat with which he had unconsciously and futilely been attempting to keep the plane aloft.

Queasily, Joe looked over the side at the hills fought over so passionately for so many centuries. They had so little to offer and this was never more apparent than from a thousand feet up. Brown, barren, repellent, comfortless, he thought. In the distance green river valleys chequered with sugar cane fields and orchards only served to point up the desolation of the Tribal Territories. No wonder the inhabitants of this wilderness had made their living from raiding. Zan, zar, zamin – women, gold and land, and only available to those who were prepared to acquire a gun and use it to exact what they wanted.

Covering the port side, Joe swept the bare crags, all depth reduced from up here to ripples on a shingle-strewn sandy beach any one of which could be sheltering an invisible troop of thirty horsemen. In minutes they were overflying the Khyber Pass which snaked, dark and sinister, even from a height, making its tortuous way following the track of the rushing Khyber river for thirty miles. The only sign of life was a huge dust cloud beneath which nothing was discernible. The nomad Powindahs on the move towards the fort? Joe assumed so. The fort at Landi Kotal when they reached it was barely distinguishable from the surrounding khaki-coloured rocks but Joe was heartened to see a friendly signal flicker up at them from below as they flew over. They flew on right to the Durand Line marking, the extent of British claimed territory and, having no wish to start an international incident, Fred turned before he reached Afghanistan but not before they had a chance to survey from an even greater height the routes into the country. Still no sign of a troop of horsemen. Fred gave a thumbs down and signalled that he was about to turn for home.