Chapter the Twenty-First The Frontier House
Some ninety miles southward of the tower in which Major Endicott had been besieged, on the bare summit of a low hill, stood a solitary building of stone, known to the British officers of the borderland as a frontier house. It had no pretentions to architectural excellence, consisting of a square tower, somewhat resembling a truncated chimney-stack, crowned by a small turret on a platform, which looked like a square straight-brimmed Quaker hat. Adjoining the tower was a sloping wall twenty feet high, that formed one side of an enclosure, within which were a number of rudely built huts, set up against the inward side of the wall. Neither tower nor wall had any windows, but in the latter a doorway gave entrance to the interior.
One day Dafadar Narrain Khan was squatting with a few of his sowars on the wall of the enclosure, looking out over the country before him. The building commanded a prospect extending for many miles. Its immediate vicinity was barren, stony ground; one scraggy tree raised its wizened branches at the angle of the wall. A narrow track wound through this wilderness from the doorway down the hill to the plain below, meandering northward among boulders and patches of sparse vegetation until it was lost to sight amid the dark pine-trees that covered the lower slopes of the distant hills. Beyond, as far as the eye could reach, these hills stretched, an endless series of scarps and eminences, cleft by tortuous ravines and breaking away here and there into sheer precipices. In the remote distance, a jagged snow-clad ridge flashed with purple and gold in the rays of the sun. In the opposite direction, southward, the country was rugged but less hilly. A metalled road wound away into the distance. At regular intervals on one side of it stood tall posts, carrying a telegraph wire that emerged from a hole in the tower wall.
As the troopers sat there chatting, with their rifles in the hollow of their arms, there was a sudden cry from the sentinel posted alone on the top of the tower.
“Hai, dafadar! I see a speck moving in the sky far away,” he shouted.
“How far away, Coja?” called the dafadar.
“Seven kos at least,” was the reply.
“The speck is in your own eye, my son,” cried the dafadar, and the men about him laughed: Coja was always seeing something!
The sentinel shouted a word of expostulation, then was silent, and the others resumed the conversation he had interrupted.
Half an hour passed away. The time came for changing the guard. One of the men rose, sauntered along the wall, disappeared through a narrow opening in the tower, and presently emerged on the summit. Apparently he had a brief altercation with the man he had relieved. In five minutes Coja came from the tower along the wall.
“Wah! you may mock, dafadar,” he said; “but I declare by the beard of my father I saw a speck—a black speck moving.”
“You have chewed too much betel, Coja,” said the dafadar with composure. “I too have seen dancing specks when my stomach was out of order.”
“Yes, but do those motes in the eye grow larger? Do they swell from the size of a pinpoint to the size of a little bird, and then to a great one? I thought at first it was peradventure an eagle of the mountains, but, inshallah! no eagle could look so large such a great way off. Is there a bird bigger than an eagle? Speak out of your great knowledge, dafadar.”
“There is none, foolish one—none that flies, though I have heard of a great bird that runs upon the ground swifter than the iron horse that runs on rails; the mem-sahibs wear its feathers in their hats.”
“Hai! what was this great thing, then? I saw it, and rubbed my eyes, and lo! when I looked again, it wheeled about, and soared away towards the Afghan country, and passed behind a crag yonder, and I saw it no more.”
“Wonderful eyes you have, Coja, and a wonderful tongue! Do we not know your tales? What of the tiger with two heads you saw once in a tree? and the elephant that caught you up and put you on his head? and that time when you swallowed a cherry-stone, and leaves began to sprout among your hair? Wah! we know his stories, my children; we know how the lies flow out of his mouth like water from a spring.”
“Mashallah! Do I not speak truth?” cried the man indignantly. He was a by-word for romancing among his fellows, and, like all liars, resented any imputation on his veracity. “There is no wisdom in you. Many a great thing that I have told you you have believed: now when I tell you a little thing, you say ‘Wah! he is a liar.’”
“But it was a great thing you saw, Coja-ji—bigger than an eagle, said you, when we know there is nothing bigger than an eagle that flies. Wah! at least when you are on duty, you must resist these promptings of the Evil One, else it will end in Jehannum. And look you, Coja, when your turn for watching comes again, keep your eyes on the ground, my friend; do not look for the stars in daylight.”
Highly offended, the man walked away, descended the steps within the wall, and retired to sulk, like Achilles, in his tent.
About an hour later the dafadar and his men, who had scarcely changed their position, were again hailed from the roof.
“A speck on the track, dafadar,” cried the sentinel; “moving this way, like a fly crawling, very far off.”
“Hai! that is news,” said the dafadar, slowly rising to his feet. “A speck on the ground is worth looking at; in the sky it proceeds from overeating.” Raising his voice, he called to the sentinel: “Hai, Selim, I come to see.”
Followed by several of the troopers, he mounted to the roof, and taking the telescope from Selim’s hand, examined the track, tracing it back for miles until he discerned the moving object. So remote was it that even with the telescope he could distinguish it only as a human being: whether shepherd, mendicant, or fakir he could not tell, and a single pedestrian must, he thought, be one of these three.
“Perhaps he is a dak runner from Ennicott Sahib,” suggested one of the men. “The sahib went in that direction.”
“Wah! a dak runner would run, not crawl,” said another. “Let us look through the long glass, dafadar.”
The telescope was passed round. No one could as yet identify the figure. They were all keenly interested. For several days they had not seen a solitary man outside the walls, though they had kept unremitting watch, having been instructed to be on the alert to discover any movements of men in that region. The figure approached slowly—too slowly for their impatience. All eyes were riveted upon it, and when Selim with the telescope reported that it was completely clad in khaki uniform and not in shepherd’s choga, or the scanty tatters of a mendicant, the troopers’ excitement grew.
“Hai! he stops!” cried Selim presently. “He waves a white cloth. It is a signal, dafadar.”
Narrain Khan took the telescope and gazed at the figure. He felt a little perplexed as to what he ought to do. In time of peace he would not have hesitated to send out a couple of men to discover who the stranger was; but there were rumours of war, and the Captain Sahib had given orders that no man should be allowed to leave the post except under the gravest circumstances. He wondered whether the present case came within his licence. The man was clad in khaki: that was something in his favour. He was waving a white flag: that was reassuring. He had seated himself on a knoll beside the track: perhaps he wanted help.
The dafadar lowered the telescope and turned to his men.
“Go, you two,” he said, “ride out on your ponies and see who the stranger is, and what his business. Have a care, lest there are badmashes lurking near. The stranger may be a decoy. Have a care, I say, for when you have ridden down the slope we cannot protect you.”
The men descended through the tower, and were presently seen trotting down the track. Every yard of their progress was followed intently by the garrison. Their diminishing forms were lost to the watchers at intervals through the windings of the track and the inequalities of the ground. Presently they were seen, little more than dots, moving side by side along the straight stretch at the farther end of which the solitary stranger could still be discerned.
They approached him, came to a halt, and dismounted. After a minute or two the party separated. Two men proceeded northward along the track, one on horseback, the other on foot. The third man rode in the opposite direction towards the house.
The whole garrison of eighteen men were now mustered, some on the roof, some on the wall, silent, their eyes fixed on the slowly approaching horseman. By and by it was seen that he was not either of the two who had lately ridden down. Then the dafadar, who had the telescope at his eyes, suddenly exclaimed:
“Mashallah! It is Ennicott Sahib!”
Amid a chorus of ejaculations he hurried down to the courtyard, mounted his horse, and galloped down the track to meet the officer. The strangeness of that meeting formed the theme of a discourse to the men of the garrison later in the day.
“When I came near enough to see the face of the huzur,” said Narrain Khan, “I beheld that it was the face of a sick man. His left arm hung straight at his side like the broken leg of a sheep. I was on the point of invoking the mercy of Allah upon the huzur—is he not the light of our eyes?—when his great voice sounded in my ears like the voice of a trumpet, and before even I could make my salaam he cried—what think you were the words of the great one?”
“‘Water, for I am athirst,’” suggested one man.
“Wah! does the huzur think of himself? You speak as a witless babe.”
“‘Is all well?’” said another.
“Wah!” cried the dafadar with scorn and indignation. “Could the heaven-born ask so foolish a question knowing that I, Narrain Khan, am in charge of this house? No: the words of the huzur—and they were very strange—were these: ‘Hai, dafadar! have you got any paraffin?’”
“Inshallah! what is paraffin to the heaven-born? And what said you, dafadar?”
“I was so astonished that I could but speak out the simple truth. ‘Truly, sahib!’ said I, ‘we have some few tins with which to replenish our lamps.’ And then the huzur commanded me to send six men with one large tin, that one man might easily carry, along the track to the foot of the hills yonder, and give it to a sahib they would find reclining there.”
“Another sahib! Who is he?”
“And for what purpose the paraffin, dafadar?”
“That I know not. The huzur did not tell me that, but told me that he had already sent to the sahib those two young men I had ordered to meet him. And you saw how, when the huzur dismounted at the gate, he staggered, and caught me to prop him: and when I asked him to lie down and let us see to his hurt, he made that sound with the lips that the sahibs make when they are impatient, as if I had said some foolish thing, and bade me lead him straightway to the clicking-room, and there he is now: you can hear the clicking-devil, like little hammers tapping. Truly I begin to think there are many strange things to tell the Sirkar far away.”
“Hai! I did see a speck in the sky,” said Coja solemnly.
Major Endicott, though half fainting with pain and exhaustion, had gone straight to the room in which the telegraph instruments were kept, and shut himself in. For nearly an hour he worked at the keys with a rapidity acquired by much practice. Before he had finished, the second instrument at his side was mechanically recording the answers to his message. Having read these off, he staggered to the door and summoned the dafadar.
“Fenton Sahib will be here in three hours,” he said. “There will be also the sahib from the hills. Get some food and a bath ready for him, and tell Hosein to come and see to my arm.”
Some two hours later the Major was awakened from a profound sleep by a hubbub among the men on the wall. Going out to them, he found them excitedly watching an aeroplane soaring rapidly towards them from the hills. Coja was loudly proclaiming that the flying object proved his truthfulness: no one could any longer deny that he had seen a speck in the sky.
A few minutes after it had been sighted the aeroplane sank to rest on the open space in front of the tower. Loud cries of wonder broke from the men when there stepped out of it a young sahib, limping slightly, followed by one of the two sowars who had gone out to meet the major. The trooper greeted his comrades with an air of triumph, and swaggered up to them with an ineffable look of importance. They surrounded him, and listened with admiring envy while he detailed his first impressions of flight through the air.
Meanwhile the Major took Lawrence into the officers’ room, where he bathed, and ate the lunch Narrain Khan had provided. He had just finished when there was the clatter of hoofs outside, and in a few minutes entered Captain Fenton, who had ridden up with half a dozen sowars from the fort fifteen miles to the south.
“Hullo, major, you look pretty dicky!” said the newcomer, glancing curiously from the major’s bandaged arm to Lawrence.
“Yes, I’ve had a knock. Let me introduce you. Lawrence Appleton—you’ve heard of Harry Appleton—Captain Fenton.”
“I see they’ve sent us an aeroplane, Endicott,” said the captain, shaking hands with Lawrence. “An unexpected gift! I thought all the aeroplanes were scouting Kabul way—all there are; they’ve got a dozen or so, on paper, and a regiment of airmen, also on paper: most of us believed they weren’t born yet! Which way did you come, Mr. Appleton?”
“You’d better sit down and listen, Fenton,” the major interposed. “There’s a lot to say, and not much time to say it in. We’re in for the hottest time since the Mutiny—and if I’m not mistaken, hotter than the Mutiny at its worst: I mean generally, for there won’t be any Cawnpores or Lucknows, I hope. You know that the Afghans are up?”
“Yes: we’ve mobilized along the frontier: they won’t get across.”
The Major smiled grimly.
“After I’d wired you to come in,” he said, “I got into communication with the Chief at Peshawar and the Viceroy at Delhi. The Amir has just fled to Peshawar: Kabul’s in the hands of the Mongols.”
“By Jove!”
“The cat’s out of the bag at last. That huge concentration about Bokhara was not to be launched at Russia after all. I suppose we were too self-assured to twig it—just as in the Mutiny time. Plenty of information, little imagination. But we have it now. There are pretty nearly half a million of the fiercest ruffians in Central Asia marching down on us—almost all mounted, and they’re fellows who live on horseback, and are moving with amazing speed. They’ve cajoled or bought over the best part of the Afghans—silly fools, for if the Mongols beat us they’d swallow Afghanistan for dessert. There are a hundred thousand in and about Kabul.”
“It’s astonishing that they managed to keep things so quiet. They must have been intriguing and negotiating for months.”
“Again, just as in the Mutiny. I’ve not heard of chapattis passing round, but they’ve had their secret signs, without doubt. The one good thing about the present circumstances is that the Afghans are not actually on the march yet. They’re probably waiting to see how the cat jumps. Of course we’ve always relied on them more or less as a buffer against Russia, calculating that they’d hold up the invaders at Herat until we’d had time to line the frontier. Anyway, we can’t expect any help from them now, for if they’re not actually hand in glove with the Mongols they’re neutral, for a time. You said we’d mobilized, didn’t you? I’ve been away a fortnight.”
“Yes. With the most tremendous exertions we’ve got 100,000 men across the frontier, and they’re holding the passes. Only just in time, evidently. It ought to have been an easy job: and so it was—on paper. But it’s years since the paper scheme was drawn up, and they’ve been paring down in the usual British way—economizing, they call it. The result is that arrangements for transport and supplies are all at sixes and sevens. They’ve had to reduce the frontier garrisons to mere skeletons in order to make up the strength of the field army.”
“The Chief wired me just now that troops are being pushed up from all parts, but the railways are so horribly congested that it’ll be weeks before they’re on the spot. I fancy I made him jump with my news.”
“You’ve got something fresh then?”
“There are twenty thousand Kalmucks marching up the Nogi valley.”
“The Nogi valley! But I’ve always understood it’s impassable. Isn’t that where poor old Harry Appleton has his mine?... Beg pardon, I’m sure,” he added, turning to Lawrence. “I forgot he’s a relative of yours.”
“My uncle,” said Lawrence.
“I’m glad to think it is for the moment impassable,” said the major, “owing to the pluck and readiness of Appleton here and his brother. But the Kalmucks traded on our self-confidence. No one would have dreamed that any considerable force would try to push its way up that difficult track; they are trying it, and their object, without a doubt, is to cut the communications of the army operating in Afghanistan. If they penetrate to fifty miles this side of the Appleton mine nothing but a whole division can check them. The Chief wired that he can’t spare a man at the moment, and said the valley must be held at all costs for a week.”
“But man alive, that’s impossible! We haven’t three hundred men all told within a hundred miles of it. If we rushed them down for all we were worth three hundred couldn’t hold off twenty thousand.”
“Well no, and you’d never get there. But as it happens the Chief was only acting on something I had told him. It’s a long story, and must keep. But the short of it is that Harry Appleton’s two nephews—poor chap! he’s gone himself—brought out an aeroplane—the one you saw outside: you might be sure it wasn’t a service machine! By the merest accident they happened to see this Kalmuck force encamped, and after some pretty stirring passages which I’ll tell you some other time, they blocked up the track just below the mine; it will keep the enemy busy for a while.”
“Congratulate you,” said the captain to Lawrence. “Not in the service, are you?”
“No.”
“He is in training, Fenton,” said the major with a smile. “By the help of his aeroplane he got me out of a very tight place, and I went down to the mine to see for myself how the land lay. An accident to the aeroplane kept me there for a day. When it was repaired we made a reconnaissance down the river. Near the mine there was a striking force of about a thousand men—as many as could operate with any effect on so narrow a track. Some thirty miles farther down we saw a couple of field guns being dragged up; and the main body of the enemy was still encamped at the mouth of the valley, waiting for the way to be cleared. It was a masterly notion to dynamite the rock; indeed, as far as I could see, Bob Appleton had left nothing undone to secure his position. Of course it’s an uncommonly tight place; very likely nine fellows out of ten—or we’ll say eight!—wouldn’t have attempted to hold it: but you know the Appleton breed, Fenton: and if they can only stick it out for a week, as the Chief wishes, by George! the Government of India will have reason to say thank you.”
“Your arm’s paining you, I see,” said Captain Fenton, as the major winced.
“Nothing to speak of. It was a bit of rank bad luck. Of course, seeing what the game was, I felt I must wire the Chief at once, and Lawrence offered to bring me here in his aeroplane. We came along swimmingly until we had got about half way: saw nothing of the enemy: and then rather suddenly struck a rabble of about two thousand men marching southward. We came down rather too low, to get a good look at them. They opened fire, and one of their shots tore my arm from shoulder to elbow. If we had made a straight course we shouldn’t have met trouble: but naturally I wanted to pick up any information I could. Unluckily in going criss-cross we consumed a good deal of petrol, and when it became necessary to replenish the tank from the reserve cans, we found that they’d been bored with holes during our peppering; one was empty, in the other there were a few spoonfuls at the bottom below the level of the hole. This only lasted a few miles, and then we had to come down, in the hills yonder.”
“Rough luck!” said Captain Fenton, turning sympathetically to Lawrence. “You must have felt pretty mad. How did you bring the machine in?”
“I happened to mention when we were talking things over that paraffin would do at a pinch, and the major said he was pretty sure they would have some here, and insisted on tramping over to get some sent up.”
“Well, you see, he’s got a game foot,” said the major. “Sprained his ankle two days ago. My legs are sound, at any rate. But I was pretty dead beat before I got here, and was glad enough to borrow the mount of one of the men Narrain sent to meet me. He and the other fellow went on to keep Appleton company, and as soon as the paraffin was sent up, the aeroplane came flying in with the sowar on board as a passenger. He was bubbling with delight, and no doubt will be a hero among the men for the rest of his days.”
“Mr. Appleton wants to get back to the mine, of course,” said the captain.
“Yes: there’s enough paraffin for that. How are matters round the fort, Fenton?”
“The tribes are pretty quiet at present. They’ve held several jirgahs to discuss what line they shall take. That depends on who scores the first point. If we can only convince them that we’re not going to knuckle under, I daresay they’ll stick to us. But it wouldn’t take much to turn the scale on the other side. The crowd that fired at you are marching this way, you said?”
“They’ll be hereabouts some time to-morrow, and probably a lot more, for we caught sight of other parties, not so large, threading the valleys to the west. The whole country north-west of us is rising.”
“That’s bad. I can’t hope to keep the tribes about the fort quiet after these thousands come on the scene.”
“I must see what I can do.”
“You ought to be in hospital. If you had let me know you’d been hit I’d have brought the medico with me.”
“Good thing you didn’t. He’d have been so disappointed!”
“No operation required, you mean,” said Captain Fenton laughing. “He does love his knife.”
“And fork!” added the major drily. “He shall have a look at my arm to-morrow. I propose to return with you to the fort. We must blow this place up. You can hold your own there for some time against a good number, and reinforcements will be hurried up as rapidly as possible. Then I must try the velvet glove with the tribesmen. There won’t be much time to do anything with them before those men we saw get south; but if you discourage them with hot lead at the fort it will help.... This is all very hard on you, Appleton.”
“That’s all right,” said Lawrence. “I was only wishing I had brought more of our bombs with me. I might have checked those hillmen and given you more time.”
“But that would have involved your remaining in this neighbourhood, and you are wanted at the mine. A bomb or two dropped in flying over would have scattered them for the moment, but they’d have collected again as soon as you were past. I don’t know how much paraffin we’ve got to give you. No: there’s better work for you. You’ll convey the Chief’s message to your brother: hold the gorge for a week at all costs. I’ll do my best to get reinforcements through. It’s vitally important to keep those Kalmucks in check. The fate of India hangs in the balance.”
Preparations were made for the evacuation of the house on the following morning. Having taken on board more than enough paraffin to carry him back to the mine, together with a dozen rifles and several thousand rounds of ammunition, Lawrence bade the officers good-bye, and started immediately after breakfast. A few minutes after his departure a dull boom proclaimed that the tower had been blown up and the garrison was on the march for the south.
Major Endicott had advised him to fly high so as to avoid the risk of further accident if he should encounter the enemy. Some ten miles from the tower he caught sight of them: they appeared like an army of ants crawling on the ground. A few shots were fired at him, but he was far out of effective range, and in a few minutes disappeared from their view.
A little uneasy at first as to the staying power of the paraffin, he was soon reassured. In less than an hour he struck the western extremity of the valley, and he flew down it at full speed, maintaining a great altitude in case Nurla Bai and his party should be still on the track or in the hills above.
He had almost reached the mine when he heard sounds of rapid firing. The attack, then, had begun in earnest.