‘Betty? She’s not coming up here, is she? Surely it’s against all the rules to have your wife on the station?’
‘Well, since everybody else seems only too happy to break the rules I don’t see why I shouldn’t! And she’s on her way. I shall be very happy to see her.’
‘Me too,’ said Joe who remembered Betty Lindsay very well. ‘I shall be delighted to see her . . . always provided she hasn’t got that wretched little dog with her! Did she bring it out to India? What was it called? Minto?’
James sighed. ‘Minto yes. Can’t promise you, Joe. I mean, after all, what would she do with him if she didn’t bring him with her? Can’t leave the little thug with anybody else. Bites like a baboon. Come on, Joe! Ten lengths – I’ll race you!’
They both smiled, happy with their shared memories. When they had found themselves going home on leave on the same boat after their first campaign together Joe had asked James where he was bound. A stiffness had descended on the lively features and he had confided that he was going to spend his precious fortnight with the only family he had in England – two elderly uncles in Camber-well. It had been easy for Joe to say, ‘Don’t do that. Come and finish this game of chess at home with me. At least not my home but my sister’s. She and her husband live in Surrey, place called Upfold House. There’s not a lot to do – tea on the lawn, bridge, going to church. Pretty boring really, and I’m beginning to be sorry I asked you, but you’d be very welcome.’
‘Heaven!’ James had said. ‘It sounds like heaven!’
And he had found his heaven, though not at Upfold House. Joe discovered that James’s constant visits to Upfold Rectory were prompted not by religious fervour but by a more particular interest (amounting perhaps to fervour) in the rector’s pretty daughter, Elizabeth. All James’s subsequent leaves, with or without Joe, were spent at Upfold and when the war ended he married Betty and took her back to India to resume his career. It had been decided that his military experience was exactly what was needed on the North-West Frontier, and Major and Mrs Lindsay were sent north to Peshawar.
To Joe’s irritation James Lindsay won their race by a wide margin. ‘I almost met myself coming back,’ James said with satisfaction. As they emerged from the tank and wrapped themselves in towels, a Scout havildar came efficiently to attention at James’s elbow with a written message in his hand. He spoke rapidly in Pushtu and James listened with close attention, interpolating a question or two from time to time. Finally he turned to Joe. ‘Message,’ he said, ‘by helio. From one of our pickets. A cavalry force, thirty strong they say, is coming in down the Khyber road. This must be Grace Holbrook’s Afghani escort. Typically twenty-four hours before I was expecting them! I think I’ll send some chaps to meet them. I like to retain the initiative. But, on second thoughts, perhaps I’ll go and meet them myself. Why don’t you come with me? Just give me time to get dressed and hand over to Eddy Fraser and we’ll go!’
He shouted down into the courtyard and at once horses were led out and mounted Scouts were forming up.
Twenty minutes later, Joe and James rode out through the main gate of the fort at the head of a small escorting group. ‘We won’t hurry,’ said James. ‘We’ll just amble out to greet them, looking at the view and chatting of this and that as we go. Don’t want to assume the character of an official delegation. This is just a private arrangement between Grace Holbrook and the Amir and we’re doing what we can to help them. No more than that.’
Squinting into the sun dipping behind the forbidding khaki bleakness of the Khyber, Joe took out a pair of binoculars and focused on the riders coming on towards them. They presented an alluring blend of banditry and military precision. They advanced under a haze of fluttering battle standards. They seemed to be a regular army force down to the waist but irregular frontier raiders below that. Chestnut silk turbans, loose khaki tunics, patch pockets, cross belts and aiguelettes with, below them, baggy trousers and tall boots. Many were armed with spears which, taken in conjunction with the fluttering flags, managed to give an air of a medieval force. All, Joe noticed, were equipped with bolt-action rifles as good as anything carried by the Scouts. Their air of efficiency and menace was not lost on Joe. This was no carnival army.
‘Friendly enemies, would you say? Or hostile allies?’ he murmured to James. ‘Are you sure we’re not still at war with these gentlemen?’
‘The third – but I suspect not the last – Afghan war was over three years ago and we signed a peace treaty with the Amir only last year.’ James paused for a moment and added, ‘But I’ll remind you of an old Pathan proverb shall I? “When the peace treaty’s signed – that’s when the war starts.” And I’ll tell you something else – they’re not coming into the fort! Plenty of them have got scores to settle with the Scouts and plenty of Scouts would welcome above all things an opportunity to have a go at them. They can camp on the football ground for tonight. We can board them but I’m damned if I’ll lodge them as well. Far too volatile! Hell’s bells! Shouldn’t have let this happen! But then what could I do? Could you get me a job in London, do you think, Joe? This is all getting a bit delicate for me!’