67. As Eagles Fly

Chapter One-1

Chapter OneThe cavalcade wound round the steep side of a mountain.

The horses were picking their way on so narrow a rocky path that one slip and they and their riders would have been dashed to death in the valley thousands of feet below.

Led by the Murids, the fighting men with their black banners and black tcherkesshas, they were a colourful band in contrast with the clear brilliance of the deep snow.

Besides the Caucasians there were fifteen mounted servants with pack horses whom Lord Athelstan had brought with him on the journey.

It had been a long one as he had come to the Caucasus from Persia, where he had stayed with the Shah, and before that from India.

Riding at the head of his own staff and behind the Caucasians who were leading the way, Lord Athelstan looked like a Knight of old going into battle.

He was, perhaps, the one man from the Western world who did not by contrast look insignificant beside the Dhighits or Caucasian braves – the dashing young mountaineers who were considered the world’s most handsome people.

Tall, dark, eagle-faced, with narrow waists and elegant hands and feet, they had an indefinable air of breeding, while their physique and stamina were the envy of their inveterate enemies – the Russians.

Lord Athelstan was heavier of build but he was outstandingly good-looking and his breeding proclaimed itself in the way he carried himself proudly, seeming to ignore the perilous path they were travelling along.

There was in fact something so detached and reserved about him that it was almost as if he disdained to notice any physical perils and was completely concentrated on his thoughts.

“There are those who criticise his Lordship for his aloofness,” the Foreign Secretary told the Queen, “but no one can deny his reputation as a brilliant diplomat.”

He did not add that some women complained Lord Athelstan was cold, but they were the women who tried in vain to entice him with their lips and with their bodies.

He could, if he wished, exert a charm that was irresistible. And there was no doubt that much of his diplomatic success was due to the manner in which Sultans, Shahs and Rulers of all sorts could be persuaded to agree with him.

Even when, as a diplomat remarked,

“It seemed impossible for them ever to find a mutual ground for negotiation!”

It seemed extraordinary that Lord Athelstan should already be so outstanding at the age of thirty-five and have risen so quickly to the almost unique position he now held. But it was all actually done by tremendous will power, a ‘one-point’ concentration on his objective and a ruthless determination to let nothing stand in his way.

“Send for Athelstan” had become a familiar formula in the Foreign Office in London, but, moving along the side of this mountain, Lord Athelstan asked himself,

‘Has any man ever had such a strange commission as my present one?’

He had been leaving India when he had received an urgent communication marked ‘Secret and Confidential’ ordering him to proceed to the Caucasus.

There he was told to interview Shamyl, Imam of Daghestan, the legendary leader who alone had prevented the Russians from dominating the last stronghold bordering their far-flung Empire.

It was a source of grave anxiety to England that Russia had expanded until she was now firmly established South to the Crimea, West to the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and North and East to the boundaries of China.

“Only the Caucasus,” Lord Athelstan had said in London, “with the impassable mountains of Daghestan, remains unconquered.”

For the last twenty years, with enormous loss of life, the Russians had pitted their forces against one man.

That they had not been victorious with their superior weapons, their endless supply of recruits and the best brains in the Russian Army, was due to the fact that they were not fighting an ordinary war.

“Shamyl, the Avar, the Imam of Daghestan, leads his men in a dedicated religious movement,” Lord Athelstan was told. “Every man is a militant fanatic, who resists the enemy, not only with fire and sword but with his very soul.”

The legends about Shamyl had grown up until he had become a mythical figure worshipped by those who followed him as the true representative of Allah, admired by the outside world and even by the Russians themselves.

Lord Athelstan knew that one of the reasons for his being sent to interview Shamyl was to ascertain how long he could hold out against the continual onslaught of the Imperial Russian armies.

“It has become,” the Dutch Ambassador to Teheran told him, “an obsession with the Czar, Nicholas I, to destroy Shamyl and take the Caucasus.”

From England’s point of view the Caucasus was a bastion to protect the gateway to India.

The English were already having a great deal of trouble in Afghanistan, most of it incited by the Russians, who infiltrated amongst the tribesmen and caused continuous and bloody fighting on the North-West frontier.

“While Czar Nicholas prays,” the Ambassador continued, “That the Cross supersedes the Crescent and Jerusalem be restored to Christian hands, the English cannot believe that he has no designs on India.”

It was therefore obviously in the British interests to foster resistance to Russia and to encourage the continuance of the Caucasus war.

“At the same time we have done very little to help them,” Lord Athelstan remarked.

“The Caucasians have received nine cannon with thirty thousand rounds, one hundred and fifty revolvers and three thousand four hundred rifles,” the Ambassador said.

“Hardly enough materiel to wage a major war with,” Lord Athelstan replied cynically.

The British Ambassador sighed.

“Had England sent an Army into the Caucasus to reinforce him then, we could have made Shamyl our ally.”

“That was certainly a missed opportunity,” Lord Athelstan agreed.

He thought now that it was unlikely that he would be able to do anything to assist the Imam. Equally he had an insatiable curiosity about the man concerning whom there were so many fantastic legends.

The legends had started when in 1832 the Russians had made a desperate effort to wipe out the Caucasian resistance once and for all.

At the battle of Grimri, sappers had blasted a foothold for the guns and the Russians had dragged their heavy artillery into range.

These then demolished the walls of the fort where Shamyl and five hundred of his men had held out against ten thousand Russians.

The Murids had known they must surrender when finally the crumbling, burning walls collapsed around them, but they died fighting.

They came out to meet their enemy singly or in pairs, stepping forward slowly.

Then suddenly at close quarters they slashed out violently with their swords, each killing two or three Russians before being overpowered.

But one escaped – Shamyl.

With the spring of a wild beast, he leapt clear over the heads of the Russian soldiers about to fire on him. Landing behind them, he cut down three of them and was bayoneted by a fourth, the steel plunging deeply into his chest.

He seized the steel, pulled it out, cut down the man who had wounded him and with another superhuman leap cleared a wall and vanished into the darkness.

The Russians were astounded, but they were sure that he must die of his wounds.

“The fight is over,” they told themselves. “The Caucasus is won!”

It was in fact to resist for another twenty-five years under the leadership of Allah’s chosen mouthpiece on earth – his prophet Shamyl.

*

The Caucasians, leading the way, were now plunging down the side of what appeared to be a precipice without any footholds.

Yet the little Tchetchen horses seemed to move like flies over the rocky black surface.

“No one could behold the Caucasus,” someone had said to Lord Athelstan before he left India, “and not feel the spirit of its sublime solitude aweing his soul.”

‘It is certainly awe-inspiring,’ he thought now.

The sombre gloomy abysses, the wreaths of mist writhing serpent-like among the crevasses and gullies of the rocks, made it easy to believe that the Caucasian Djinns dwelt in these secret places.

Local legends were full of Djinns and Firies who lived high among the peaks, devil-like fierce creatures who held mysterious revels that resulted in sudden terrible storms and rushing winds.

But even without the legends there was a mystery and a magic about the landscape.

High above everything towered the mountains, their sharp white peaks silhouetted against the sky. Now when the winter was nearly past, the first sign of spring was showing itself among clumps of giant plane trees and the reddish cliffs.

It had a beauty Lord Athelstan had never seen before in all his travels.

The heavy clouds clinging to the mountains seemed at times to close in on them in a menacing and possessive manner, at others to lift the mind to the sky so that it was hard to return to the slit defiles that revealed, five thousand feet below, torrents of crystal water raging over the rocks.

Sometimes he would see a tree-shrine clinging to a cliff face – a stunted thorn bush where the Friars had attached a rag from their clothing to represent a prayer that would go on fluttering in the wind long after they had passed by.

They climbed and descended and climbed again until it seemed as if they moved in a world without time, without beginning or ending.

Then suddenly ahead of them Lord Athelstan saw Dargo-Vedin, which was Shamyl’s headquarters, the refuge he returned to between his battles.

He had chosen it because it was an almost inaccessible retreat, which, as Lord Athelstan had already found, could only be reached by a terrifying journey along precipitous mountain paths.

The people spoke of it as the ‘Great Aôul’ and, as he had the first glimpse of the fortress surrounded by a stockade, a cavalcade of wild horsemen streamed out to meet him, their black banners flowing in the wind.

Behind Dargo-Vedin lay densely wooded slopes. In front of it there was a terrible ravine where, far below, an unbridged river raged across great boulders.

The horsemen, riding superbly, appeared to charge straight at Lord Athelstan, then reined in their horses at the last moment, which was in itself a salute of welcome.

They surrounded him and his party and led them with an air of triumph towards their fortress.

There was only one entrance to it, defended by blockhouses and a watchtower from which there was a view over the whole countryside.

Looking round, Lord Athelstan could see one large gun of European make, a powder magazine and what was obviously a storehouse.

Beside it was a large water tank, fed by a mountain stream, which had been diverted to fill the immense stone pool where, he was to learn later, both men and horses bathed.

He was, however, not allowed to stop, but was led even further into Dargo-Vedin until he saw the Imam’s own house built in the middle of an inner fortress. It was guarded by his Murids with drawn swords.

Lord Athelstan dismounted and found a handsome, gaunt man, black-eyed and black-bearded, bowing before him.

“I am Hadjio, Your Excellency, Steward of the Imam. In his name I welcome you to Dargo-Vedin.”

Lord Athelstan returned his greeting and was led into the house.

He noticed at once that it was very sparsely and austerely furnished. Then he was taken into the presence of the great Shamyl himself.

Seated on a plain wooden chair as if it was a throne, flanked by his Murids with drawn swords and an interpreter, he was an extremely impressive figure.

Over six feet three inches tall, he had fine, chiselled features that proclaimed his noble descent. And it was believed locally that he was the son of a Georgian Prince.

With his henna-red beard, his strangely penetrating eyes under heavy eyebrows, he was the very embodiment of the mythical hero who would stir the imagination and arouse the adoration of his followers.

He always wore black and white, the dashing classic clothes of the Caucasus.

His tcherkessha, a full-skirted, long, tight-waisted tunic, was barred across the chest with double rows of silver cartridge cases.

Ordinary Caucasians wore a heavy lambskin hat, but Shamyl’s papakh was a gigantic red-tasselled turban edged with black lambswool.

His thin elegant feet were encased in supple black leather boots, which were moulded to the ankle.