Jack Windrush Collection - Books 9-12

Chapter 11-1

The snow began again, descending in furious flurries that impeded visibility. Jack cursed. “Are you sure this is the right way, Awalmir? I can"t see a damned thing.”

“Yes, Major.”

They moved deeper into the pine forest, with the snow muffling their footsteps and already forming drifts in the hollows underfoot.

“I didn"t see anything,” Jack said.

“A man was signalling to you, Major,” Awalmir said.

Jack swore as a gust of wind knocked loose snow from a tree branch onto his head. The mountains rose around them, with mist shrouding their peaks and snow filling the deep gullies along the flanks. “I think we"ll call it a day, Awalmir. You must have imagined it.”

“After every darkness is light, Major Windrush,” Awalmir quoted an Afghan proverb.

Jack grunted. Ever since Hook"s visit, he had taken to riding in the surrounding hills, seeking information from the villagers and herdsmen. The few who spoke to him claimed no knowledge of any Russians, although Jack"s mention of Bacha Khan invoked some smiles.

Now Awalmir had told Jack that a lone horseman had waved to him from the fringe of trees.

“No, Major Windrush, I did not imagine anything,” Awalmir said. “The man stood here, on his horse, and raised his arm.”

Jack nodded. Intelligence gathering was always dangerous in Afghanistan. He had to travel alone except for Awalmir, for an escort of British soldiers or sepoys would immediately deter any Pashtun from helping.

“There he is again!” Awalmir pointed ahead.

The man waited beside a ravine, his bearded face intent. He lifted a hand in Jack"s direction and gestured him onward.

Checking his revolver was loose in its holster, Jack rode toward the man. “Who are you?”

“A friend.” The voice came from behind Jack as a dozen Afghans emerged from the trees, three of them pointing pistols. “Go back home, Major Windrush. Go back home to Gondabad and Mary.”

“How do you know about Mary?”

The Afghans remained at the fringe of trees, half-seen in the whirling snow. “We are the messengers, Major Windrush. Go home to your wife.”

“Who the devil are you?” Jack asked.

“A friend!” the man shouted.

“Are you Bacha Khan?”

The man turned his horse and vanished into the trees, with the others following. Jack killed his desire to spur forward, knowing that the Pashtuns could easily lure him into their hills.

“What was all that about, Awalmir?”

“I think it was a warning, Major Windrush.”

“I"m damned if I"ll take heed of it,” Jack said. All the same, the words worried him. He did not like the Afghans knowing about Mary. When he wrote a letter to his wife that night, he was aware that it might be the last words of his she saw, he put his feelings onto the paper. If he died out here, at least Mary would know of his love.

* * *

In late February, Jack marched his men to join Roberts in the Kurram Valley. As he had anticipated, the presence of British troops stirred the local tribes to hostility, and every British supply convoy and patrol was in danger of attack. The Pashtun gathered on the ridges and hill-slopes, watching everything the invaders did, looking for soft targets.

“Things are hotting up, Donnelly,” Jack said.

“Yes, sir,” Donnelly agreed as he cleaned Jack"s boots. “The boys can feel the change. They expect the Afghans to rise in the spring.”

Jack nodded. “They could well be correct,” he said.

At the end of March, Elliot brought the remainder of the 113th into the Kurram Valley. Better weather ensured that Jack was hectic with escort duty, plus taking part in punitive expeditions against the local tribes, the Mohmands and Shinwaris. An attack on a baggage train left Captain Good of the 72nd mortally wounded, and others injured and proved that the tribes were not afraid to attack even heavily escorted convoys.

“We are not in a conquered country,” Elliot spoke through a haze of tobacco smoke. “We only control the ground on which we stand.”

Jack remembered saying something similar during the Ashanti War. Whatever the politicians believed, and whatever colour cartographers painted their maps, British control was fragile over much of its empire. Only the presence of the underpaid men in shabby khaki kept the pink tint across the globe.

“Double the pickets,” Elliot ordered. “Jack, I want you to take out mobile patrols over our perimeter. Get the lads used to the terrain and the enemy, rotate the men, so everybody gets some experience, especially the officers and NCOs. We have to learn fast out here.”

Jack had known Elliot for twenty-five years, but this was the first time he had seen him as colonel of the regiment in a war situation. Jack watched as Elliot worked, planning each operation with a meticulousness that drove his junior officers to despair. Elliot studied every detail, from the terrain to the make-up of the patrols or convoys, walked or rode over the ground and scanned with his binoculars everything he could not reach. Planning was everything with Elliot, with long reconnaissance patrols across the area that his battalion would later traverse.

“There"s the colonel,” the men would say, “he bears a charmed life, that one.”

Jack realised that the men were correct. Elliot had been with Jack through the Crimea and the Mutiny and had only once been wounded, compared to the collection of scars that seamed Jack"s body and limbs.

The campaign wore on, with minor skirmishes and patrols that became routine with constant repetition. Awalmir proved a useful bridge between Jack and the local tribesmen, as the 113th gradually adapted to local conditions. Jack saw the young soldiers mature before his eyes and boys who had hardly begun to shave assumed the swagger of veterans.

“Hey, Johnny Raw! Clean these!” Hancock threw his boots at Morriston.

“Clean them yourself, Hancock, you lazy bastard.”

A few months before, Morriston would have meekly obliged, now he threw them back.

“You"ll get the toe of my boot, boy!” Hancock threatened.

“And you"ll get my fist in your teeth!”

Jack grunted and walked on. His recruits were becoming soldiers. Only Lawrence worried him, with his constant search for medals.

“Keep an eye on Lawrence, Peebles,” Jack warned.

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Peebles said. “I fear it"s my fault, sir. I tried to encourage him back in Worcester, and he clung to my words.”

Every day, when his administrative duties were complete, Jack sent out messages asking about Bacha Khan and General Skobelev. The Pashtun agreed they had heard about Bacha Khan but denied any knowledge of Skobelev. Jack believed them, and although he probed, nobody volunteered information about Bacha Khan.

“Give me that Paythan fellow Awalmir for half an hour,” Donnelly said. “I"ll get him to tell me.”

Jack glanced at Awalmir. “I"m sure you could, Donnelly,” he said, “but Awalmir"s an asset to the regiment. If you mistreat him, he might turn against us, and so might Bacha Khan.”

Donnelly saw the logic and nodded. “Yes, sir. Maybe.” He threw Awalmir a sidelong look. “I"m telling you, sir, you can"t trust that man.”

“He"s been valuable more than once, Donnelly,” Jack said. “I"m sure he will be valuable again.”

“Yes, sir,” Donnelly said and slipped away when Elliot stepped into Jack"s tent.

“Praise God for peace and keep your powder dry,” Elliot said at once. “Cromwell said something like that. I have more news for you, Jack. You"d better get yourself a drink first, and pour one for me, too.”

“That sounds ominous.” Jack poured two large whiskies.

“We are being brigaded with the Royal Malverns again,” Elliot said.

Jack knocked back his whisky. “That is not good news,” he agreed. The last thing he needed was trouble from his half-brother.

* * *

Despite unease in Westminster and even in the hierarchy of the Church of England, the British drew up a treaty that Yakub Khan agreed.

“It"s peace!” Elliot said as he passed on the news to his officers.

“Peace?” Jack repeated.

“Peace,” Elliot confirmed. “You sound surprised, Jack.”

“I am surprised,” Jack said. “And a little sceptical. I can"t see the Afghans caving in so easily. Do you remember 1841?”

“I do,” Elliot said. “We thought we had won the war and then the Afghans rose and destroyed our army.”

“I prefer open warfare to a strained peace,” Jack said. “It"s more honest.”

* * *

The Royal Malverns marched into the Kurram valley in column of four, with their band playing and the bright scarlet uniforms showing they were new to the campaign. Reckoning themselves as veterans, the 113th watched the Royals with some disdain.

“b****y Pall Mall soldiers.” Ahern spat on the ground. “They come when the fighting is over, full of pomp and pride.”

Hancock grunted. “We"ll see if they"re so pretty when the Paythans get them. That"ll learn them.”

Jack said nothing. He saw Crimea Windrush marching beside his men, looking very dignified and martial, wondered why William made his men wear scarlet when most other British units had adopted the more practical khaki and dismissed the thought. William could do as he wished with his regiment. Jack turned away and stepped into the tent that the 113th used as an Officer"s Mess.

“Watching the show, Jack?” Elliot asked.

Jack nodded. “Watching the show and wondering at the news. Only two battles and the Afghans give up? I find that hard to believe.”

“It is true, oh, cynical one,” Elliot said. “You always look on the dark side, Jack. I"m sure you were not always like that.”

“I didn"t know the world so well when I was younger,” Jack said.

Elliot poured out two whiskies, held the glasses up to judge the contents and handed the smaller to Jack.

“Maybe the world is not as black as you think it is,” Elliot said. “You have a good wife, a sturdy son and the respect of your peers. What more do you wish?”

Jack leaned back in the wickerwork chair and contemplated the white sheet that hung under the ceiling. Back in Gondabad, he would expect a snake to make its home on that, but here in Afghanistan, the rats had free reign.

“What more do you wish?” Elliot repeated.

Jack sipped his whisky and changed the subject. “I wish that people would treat Mary with more respect,” he said. “Every day she was out in England, people stared at her because she is Eurasian. And when we have formal dinners, especially with officers of another regiment present, Mary has to endure veiled insults and snubs from so-called gentlemen.”

Elliot raised his eyebrows and swirled the whisky in his glass. “You"re lucky to have Mary,” he said. “She"s head and shoulders above any other officer"s wife in the regiment, or any other regiment.” He smiled. “I"d take her off your hands like a shot, Jack if she"d have me.”

“Every day,” Jack ignored Elliot"s words, “every time a woman whisks her skirt aside from Mary"s path or snubs her, I want to slap the b***h, and every time an officer makes a nasty remark, I find myself reaching for my sword.”