spend hours in the bazaar talking to travelers, equipping themselves. And then, one morning in April 1908, they gear themselves up, hobnailed boots and puttees, tweed jodhpurs, sheepskin coats, turbans, rucksacks, revolvers. Two old colonels off on a final great adventure. Quetta has seen this kind of thing before. Howard’s Tibetan servant Huang-li waves them off He’s been with Howard over the years, since Howard was taken as a boy to a refuge in Tibet during the Indian Mutiny. Huang-li is never seen again either. The two colonels march off toward the Bolan Pass into Afghanistan, and disappear into the great cleft in the mountains. That’s the last anyone hears of them.”
“That’s so cool,” Rebecca said. “Its just like The Man Who Would Be King, Kipling’s story. Now I know why you put that on the top of the pile for me to read on Seaquest II, Dad. Two British soldiers disappearing into the mountains, in search of treasure.”
“Treasure?” Costas said.
“I think Rebecca’s one step ahead,” Jack murmured.
“Chip off the old block,” Pradesh said, grinning.
“So what’s the pull for these guys, of Afghanistan?” Costas said.
“Adventure. War.” Pradesh clicked open a small case on his lap. Inside was a row of eight medals-three elaborate stars on the left and three service medals on the right, two of them with multiple campaign clasps over the ribbons. “These are Wauchope’s medals. Before disappearing he bequeathed all of his military possessions to the Regimental Mess of the Madras Sappers, with instructions that they should be auctioned among the officers and the proceeds distributed to famine relief charities. As a young officer before Rampa he had been in Madras during the terrible famine of 1877, and it affected him deeply. But by the time an inquest was held in 1924 into the disappearance and the two men were declared dead, there was little interest in the medals. They’ve been languishing in the museum storeroom at Bangalore ever since. I felt that they should be in the old headquarters of the Survey of India, where they’d be displayed alongside the memorabilia of the other pioneers. These men are remembered for committing their lives to mapping India and improving the welfare of the people. They are remembered by their Indian and Pakistani successors with pride and affection.”
“Isn’t the northwest frontier headquarters in what’s now Pakistan?” Costas said.
“That’s another reason why I’m coming with you to Kyrgyzstan,” Pradesh replied cheerfully. “There’s a Pakistani sapper contingent attached to the coalition base at Bishkek. I purchased the medals myself under the terms of Wauchope’s will, and saw that the money went to charity. I’m going to pass them to the commanding officer of the Pakistani sappers and he’ll see them safely to the museum.”
“I thought you guys were at war,” Costas said.
“Only our countries. Major Singh and I are close friends. We were both seconded at the same time to instruct in jungle survey at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham. That’s how I knew something of Howard and Wauchope’s later careers, from the records there. When Jack first told me about his interest in the Rampa Rebellion, I was stunned. I had no idea he was from the same Howard family.”
Costas peered at the medals. “Those two on the right, with the clasps. Different campaigns?”
Pradesh nodded. “Those are the Indian General Service Medals, with clasps for Hazara, Waziristan, Tirah. As a survey officer, Wauchope was involved in almost all of the Afghan frontier expeditions of the 1880s and 1890s.”
“But no clasp for Rampa,” Jack said.
Pradesh shook his head. “The government considered the rebellion a civil disturbance. It was a matter of politics, keeping it hush-hush. Nobody wanted internal unrest to be advertised in the wake of the Indian Mutiny. They agreed to consider it as active service in the soldiers’ records, but no medal was given.”
“And this one?” Costas pointed at the third campaign medal.
“The Afghan War of 1878 to 1880. Wauchope was there, as assistant engineer in the Bazar Valley Field Force, before being deployed to Rampa.” He lifted the medal up and turned it over.
Costas’ eyes lit up. “An elephant!”
Jack grinned at Pradesh. “I have to apologize for my friend. He has an elephant fixation. We found some underwater off Egypt.”
“Underwater?” Pradesh looked incredulous. “Did I hear you right? You found elephants underwater?”
“Later.”
Rebecca leaned across and touched the medal. “It looks just like Hannibal in the Alps,” she murmured. “My mother told me about that once when we met, and I did a drawing of it. So they used elephants in Afghanistan too. That’s so cool.” Jack smiled at her, and looked over. It was a beautiful medal, hanging from a red and green ribbon. On the obverse was Queen Victoria, Empress of India. On the reverse was a column on the march, with cavalry and infantry, dominated by an elephant carrying dismantled field guns on its back. Behind it was a towering mountain range, and in the exergue the word Afghanistan and the dates 1878-79-80. It was the medal John Howard would have received had he joined the Khyber Field Force after the jungle, as he was slated to do. Had the Rampa Rebellion not strung on for months longer than expected. Had he not been the only officer to withstand the fever. Had his son Edward not become ill, and had another officer not offered to take his place in Afghanistan, to allow him to be closer to his family. It was a gesture of kindness that made no difference at all, as Edward had died so quickly while Howard was still in the jungle. To Jack the medal seemed to represent all the odd quirks of fate, and the anguish of loss. Plenty of sapper officers had died in Afghanistan. Had Howard gone there, it was possible that Jack would not have been here today.
Costas suddenly saw something, and pressed his nose against the window. “Holy cow. What was that?”
They followed his gaze. A line of red flashes punctuated the darkness far below. “Airstrike against a mountain ridge,” Pradesh murmured. “American or British warplanes, maybe Pakistani, low-flying. We’re over the Taliban heartland now. Bandit country.”
“Do we have any countermeasures? The chaff dispensers?” Costas said, looking at Jack anxiously.
“We’re flying high, over forty thousand feet. The Taliban have nothing that can get us. The Americans didn’t supply the mujahedin in the 1980s with anything bigger than the Stinger, and those are mostly gone.”
“Right,” Costas said. “I forgot. We armed these guys.”
“Before the Russians arrived, the Afghans mainly had old British weapons, hangovers from the Great Game,” Pradesh said. “Lee-Enfield rifles, Martini-Henrys, even Snider-Enfields from the 1860s. They made their own imitations, the so-called Khyber Pass rifles. These weapons are still around today and not to be underestimated. The Afghans were brilliant marksmen with their own homegrown guns, the matchlock jezails. With British rifles they were superb. This is sniper country, huge vistas with lots of upland vantage points. The traditional Afghan marksman despises the Taliban recruit who sprays the air with his Kalashnikov while shouting jihadist slogans. He despises him for his poor marksmanship as much as for his Wahabist fanaticism. Afghan society is one where violent death is omnipresent, but within an honorable tradition. No Afghan warrior wants to die. He’s contemptuous of the suicide bomber. He loathes fundamentalism. The martyr mentality and the Kalashnikov, those are the two weak points in the Taliban armor.”
“Sounds like this war should be won for us by the Afghans,” Costas said.
“A few hundred Afghan mountain men armed with sniper rifles could cripple the Taliban. The Afghans just have to be persuaded that the Taliban are their worst enemy. And they need to know that the coalition will stay on afterward to rebuild the country.”
“A lot of work for sappers,” Costas said.
“We’re all ready for it,” Pradesh replied enthusiastically. “My fellow officers and I have pored over all the archives from the 1878 war, when the Madras Sappers built bridges in the Khyber Pass. We could do it again.” They looked up as the copilot came down the aisle, gesturing at Pradesh. “My turn to fly,” Pradesh said, getting up. “I need to get my fixed-wing log up to date. See you later.”
“Dad.” Rebecca was looking at the book on her lap again. “I’ve just noticed. There’s something in pencil, in the margin. I can barely read it.”
“What’s the book?” Costas asked.
“Wood’s Source of the River Oxus,” Jack said. “From my cabin. Howard’s own copy. I showed it to you earlier.”
“Oh, yeah. Fascinating stuff on mining.”
“While you were all snoring away, I got to the part where he discovers the lapis lazuli mines,” Rebecca said. “It’s incredibly exciting. It’s like an adventure novel. He says there were three grades of lapis.” She read out a
