Part 15 (2/2)
She ducked her head to hide the tears gathering in her eyes. Please let nothing ill happen to them now....
Followed by a train of laden donkeys, they pushed their way through the gate in the rampart wall that divided the Residence compound from the military cantonment.
Looking about her, Mariana saw that everything had changed.
When she had last seen it, the open parade ground had been occupied by groups of red-coated soldiers practicing intricate drills. It was now home to rows of tents, piles of cannonb.a.l.l.s, and sprawling heaps of baggage. The sounds of thudding hammers and rasping saws came from what remained of the parade ground's open s.p.a.ce.
A white blur of distant tents had appeared along the cantonment's southern rampart. The native bazaar, it seemed, had been brought inside the cantonment's protective walls.
An excited crowd of Indian men, women, and children milled about near the barracks. As Mariana watched, several British officers appeared and herded them out of the way.
Near the gate, red-coated infantrymen climbed ladders to the parapet, to stand guard behind its toothlike fortifications.
When one of them pointed south, toward the city, Mariana noticed a rent beneath the arm of his coat.
Were all the soldiers as unkempt as that man? She frowned as half a dozen native lancers rode past her. They were indeed, she concluded, observing their patched trousers and threadbare coats. They must not have been issued new uniforms for a year at least.
Accompanied by heavily bearded Indian gunners, a team of horses pulled an artillery piece toward the main gate, its long barrel pointing backward, while a mounted British officer barked orders beside them.
No one had taken any notice of Mariana and her family.
”Why are we stopping? Why are they putting me down?” cried Aunt Claire from her palanquin when Mariana and her uncle reined in their horses, looking for someone to show them their new quarters.
”I think,” Uncle Adrian said, pointing toward a walled compound just visible past the tents and baggage, ”it would be wise to go to Lady Sale's house for now, until things are calmer here.”
Half an hour later, they, Lady Sale, and a subdued Lady Macnaghten sat on high-backed chairs in the Sales' spartan drawing room, while bustling footfalls overhead told them of the continuing effort to care for the wounded Captain Sturt.
Attending all night to her son-in-law had done nothing to reduce Lady Sale's accustomed forcefulness. ”This insurrection has been mismanaged from the beginning,” she said bluntly, as she took a gla.s.s of sherry from a tray. ”We have only the supineness of our own command, and their silly fantasy of our security to blame for these attacks.”
”Exactly.” Mariana opened her hands, delighted to find someone who agreed with her. ”And I cannot imagine why we have not avenged Sir Alexander's murder. After all, it was four days ago. If we were Afghans-”
”Murder? Four days ago?” Lady Sale's rangy body came to immediate, stiff attention. ”How Lady Sale's rangy body came to immediate, stiff attention. ”How dare dare you say such a horrible thing? And who are you say such a horrible thing? And who are you you to claim knowledge of Sir Alexander's fate?” to claim knowledge of Sir Alexander's fate?”
Mariana shrank into her chair, her heart thudding. Although the room was cold, she felt hot moisture seeping down her back. She did not dare look at her uncle.
”But we all know he has taken refuge with friends in the city!” Lady Macnaghten's hand trembled as she reached for her sherry. Her hair, Mariana now noticed, was the tiniest bit untidy, and her gown less than perfectly ironed. ”We all know he has only a minor leg wound.”
”Miss Givens is only guessing,” Uncle Adrian a.s.sured her. ”My niece is a very very foolish young lady,” he added, glaring at Mariana. foolish young lady,” he added, glaring at Mariana.
”And a disrespectful one at that,” Lady Sale added nastily. ”She has no right to remark upon the policies of Her Majesty's appointed officials. If there is anything I cannot abide,” she sniffed, ”it is a croaker. croaker.
”We have no more than three days' worth of food within the cantonment walls,” she went on, exempting herself from any such charge. ”All the rest of our stores are in the commissariat fort. If we lose it, we shall have lost more than the vital food and medical stores inside it. The insurgents will also have gained control of the Kohistan Road, and cut our contact with the city.”
”The city?” Aunt Claire frowned. ”But why should we want contact with Kabul? Is it not full of Afghans?”
Lady Sale stared at her. ”The city, my dear lady,” she said loudly and slowly, as if to an imbecile, ”is where everything is.” everything is.”
”I am sure,” Lady Macnaghten put in with forced brightness, ”we shall all manage somehow. My husband is very skilled at talking to the Afghans. He speaks Persian, you know....”
Her voice faded. Mariana tried to catch her eye, but she looked away.
Uncle Adrian cleared his throat. ”Let us talk of something else,” he said firmly. ”I understand, Lady Sale, that Captain Sturt is now able to speak. You must be very relieved.”
”I am indeed.” Lady Sale offered him a narrow-lipped smile. ”He appeared to have been dreadfully wounded at first, but he is now sitting up and asking for soup.”
UNCLE ADRIAN and his family had been a.s.signed the shared quarters of three junior officers: three cupboardlike bedrooms and an ill-furnished sitting room with a fireplace and two windows looking toward the infantry barracks. As soon as they arrived at the low, ugly building, Mariana shut herself into her room, a tiny, ice-cold chamber that seemed, from articles that still remained, to have belonged to a Lieutenant Cowperthwaite.
She would listen to her aunt's complaints later.
Where was Fitzgerald? She opened her large trunk and surveyed its contents, hoping he was not out in the open, being shot at by Afghans. But he must be, for he had not sent them so much as a single message.
It was no use wondering what had become of Ha.s.san.
”It is all your your fault that we have not been invited to dine with Lady Sale,” Aunt Claire trumpeted accusingly from her palanquin that evening, as they wove their way across the dark parade ground on their way to dinner. fault that we have not been invited to dine with Lady Sale,” Aunt Claire trumpeted accusingly from her palanquin that evening, as they wove their way across the dark parade ground on their way to dinner.
She was, of course, correct. And as a worried-looking subaltern showed them to a makes.h.i.+ft table in a corner of the British cavalry officers' mess, Mariana saw that as disagreeable as dinner at Lady Sale's might have been, this one promised to be even worse.
They were not alone. Sharing their table were two silent officers' wives and their seven collective children, all of whom seemed too dispirited to eat. But worse than their lackl.u.s.ter companions, and Mariana's feeling of being an interloper in that martial setting, was the general atmosphere of the dining room.
The officers at their long table were festively enough dressed, in elaborate mess kits covered in gold braid and epaulettes, and the room was candlelit and full of regimental silver, but the conversation was subdued, and the faces around the table, young and old, fresh and weather-beaten, looked sullen and angry.
The food, when it came, consisted of soggy rice and stringy boiled chicken. As she pushed it about her plate, Mariana listened to the sounds around her-the hushed voices of the children, the sc.r.a.pe of knives and forks against china, and an occasional, barked order for more wine.
There was no laughter, no joy in that room.
It was no wonder, Mariana thought, that the officers preferred drinking to talking. It was widely known that two thousand gunmen could be seen waiting on the nearby hills, but for all that and for all the reports of a steady stream of armed villagers heading for the city, no orders had come from General Elphinstone to launch a proper attack.
”May I trouble you for the salt?” whispered one of the wives.
Mariana could offer the woman only a half-smile.
”Only time will tell what lies ahead,” her uncle said glumly, as they braved the cold walk back to their quarters, with Aunt Claire's palanquin bearers puffing behind them.
Half an hour later, someone knocked at Mariana's door.
”It is Charles Mott, Miss Givens,” said a m.u.f.fled voice. ”May I speak to you for a moment?”
He wore no coat. He s.h.i.+vered in the narrow pa.s.sageway, his top hat in his hands. ”I apologize for intruding at this late hour,” he said rapidly, ”but I fear greatly for your safety. I know that Mr. Lamb will never desert his post, but I feel I must tell you that there is a way for you and Mrs. Lamb to get away from here before it is too late.”
”Too late?” She frowned into his earnest face.
”Yes.” He glanced over his shoulder. ”I cannot go into it, but you must go to one of the Afghan chiefs and ask him for asylum for yourself and your aunt.
”Asylum is an unwritten law of the Pushtuns,” he added. ”You will be perfectly safe in their custody. Of course Mr. Lamb would never avail himself-”
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