state depends on them! I must get across the river without delay—matters are at a most delicate stage, and my mess-ages —'
'Where are they?'
'Where? Eh? Oh, Lord above, they're not written. They're here!' I tapped my head, which you'll agree was an appropriate gesture.
'But you have some passport, surely?'
'No, no … I can't carry anything that might betray me. This is the most confidential affair, you see. Believe me, Sardul Singh, every moment is precious. I must cross secretly to —'
'A moment,' says he, and my heart sank, for while the fine young face wasn't suspicious, it was damned keen. 'If you must pass unseen, why have you come so close to our army? Why not by Hurree-ke, or south by Ferozepore?'
'Because Hardinge sahib is with the British army across from Sobraon! I had to come this way!'
'Yet you might have crossed beyond our patrols, and lost little time.' He considered me, frowning. 'Forgive me, but you might be a spy. There have been many, scouting our lines.'
'I give you my word of honour, I'm no spy. What I say is true … and if you hold me here, you may be dooming your army to death—and mine—and your country to ruin.'
By God, I was doing it purple, but my only hope was that, being a well-educated aristocrat, he must know the desperate intrigue and dealing that were woven into this war—and if he believed me, he'd be a damned bold subaltern to hamper a diplomatic courier on such a vital errand. Alas, though, subalterns' minds travel a fixed road, and his was no exception: faced with a momentous decision, my dashing escort of the Lahore road had turned into a Slave of Duty—and Safety.
'This is beyond me!' He shook his handsome head. 'It may be as you say … but I cannot let you go! I have not the authority. My colonel will have to decide —'
I made a last desperate cast. 'That would be fatal! If word of the negotiations gets out, they're bound to fail!'
'There is no fear of that—my colonel is a safe man. And he will know what to do.' Relief was in his voice at the thought of passing the parcel to higher authority. 'Yes, that will be best—I'll go to him myself, as soon as our watch is ended! You can stay here, so that if he decides to release you, it can be done without trouble, and you will have lost little time.'
I tried again, urging the necessity for speed, imploring him to trust me, but it was no go. The colonel must pronounce, and so while he trotted back to his squadron post in the village, I must wait under guard of the glowering daffadar and his mates, resigned to capture. Of all the infernal luck, at the last fence! For it mattered not a bean whether his colonel believed my cock-and-bull story or not—he'd never speed me on my way without going higher still, and God alone knew where that might end. They'd hardly dare mistreat me, in view of the tale I'd told; even if they disbelieved it, they'd not be mad enough to shoot me as a spy, at this stage of the war, surely … mind you, some of those Akali fanatics were bloodthirsty enough for anything …
On such jolly reflections I settled down to wait in that dripping little camp—for it was raining heavily again— and either the colonel had gone absent without leave or Sardul spent an unconscionable time gnawing his nails in indecision, for it must have been well into the small hours before he returned. By that time, worn out with wet and despair, He had sunk into a doze, and when I came to, with Sardul shaking my shoulder, I didn't know where I was for a moment.
'All is_ well!' cries he, and for a blessed second I thought he was going to speed me on my way. 'I have spoken with the colonel sahib, and told him … of your diplomatic duty.' He dropped his voice, glancing round in the firelight. 'The colonel sahib thinks it best that he should not see you himself.' Another reckless mutton-head ripe for Staff College, plainly. 'He says this is a high political matter … so I am to take you to Tej Singh. Come, I have a horse for you!'
If he'd told me they were going to send me on shooting leave to Ooti I'd have been less astonished, but his next words provided the explanation.
'The colonel sahib says that since Tej Singh is commander-in-chief, he will surely know of these secret negotiations, and can decide what should be done. And since he is in the camp below Sobraon, he will be able to send you to the Malki lat with all speed. Indeed, you will be there sooner than if I released you now.'
That was what I'd talked myself into … Sobraon, the very heart of the doomed Khalsa. Yet what else could I have done? When you've just been within an ace of being hanged out of hand, you're liable to say the first thing that comes to mind, and I'd had to tell Sardul something. Still, it could have been worse. At least with Tej I'd be safe, and he'd see me back to Hardinge fast enough … flag of truce, a quick trot across no man's land, and home in time for breakfast. Aye, provided the dogs of war didn't come howling out of the kennel in the meantime … what had Goolab said? 'A day or two at most' before Gough stormed the Khalsa lines in the last great battle …
'Well, let's be off, hey?' cries I, jumping up. 'The sooner the better, you know! How far is it—can we be there before first light?' He said it was only a few miles along the river bank, but since that way was heavy with military traffic, we would be best to take a detour round their positions (and prevent wicked Flashy from spying out the land, you understand). Still, we should be there soon after dawn.
We set off in the rainy dark, the whole troop of us—he was taking no chances on my slipping my cable, and my bridle was tied firmly to the daffadar's pommel. It was black as sin, and no hope of a moon in this weather, so we went at little better than a walk, and before long I had lost all sense of time and direction. It was my second night in the saddle, I was weary and sore and sodden and fearful, and every few moments I nodded off only to wake with a start, clutching at the mane to save myselffrom falling. How far we came before the teeming down- pourceased and the sky began to lighten, I can't tell, but presently we could see the doab about us, with wraiths of vapour hanging heavy over the scrub. Ahead a few lights were showing dimly, and Sardul reined up: 'Sobraon.'
But it was only the village of that name, which lies a mile or two north of the river, and when we reached it we must turn sharp right to come down to the Khalsa's reserve positions on the northern bank, beyond which the bridge of boats spanned the Sutlej to the main Sikh fortifications on the southern side, hemmed in by Gough's army. As we wheeled and approached the rear of the reserve lines, fires were flickering and massive shadows looming in the mist ahead, and now we could see the entrenchments on either flank, with heavy gun emplacements commanding the river, which was still out of sight to our front. As we trotted through a sea of churned mud to the lines, trumpets were blaring the stand-to, the Sikh drums were beginning to rattle, troops were swarming in the trenches, and from all about us came the clamour and bustle of an army stirring, like a giant rousing from sleep.
I didn't know, nor did they, as drum and trumpet called them, that the Khalsa was answering its last reveille. But even as we entered the rearmost line, from somewhere far beyond the grey blanket mantling the northern shore ahead of us, came another sound, stunning in its suddenness: the thunder of gunfire echoing along the Sutlej valley in a continuous roar of explosions, shaking the ground underfoot, reverberating through the mists of morning. Beyond our view, on the southern shore, an old Irishman in a white coat was beating his shillelagh on the Khalsa's door, and with a sinking heart I realised that I had come a hare hour too late. The battle of Sobraon had begun.
The best way to view a clash of armies is from a hot-air balloon, for not only can you see what's doing, you're safely out of the line of fire, I've done it once in Paraguay, and there's nothing to beat it, provided some jealous swine of a husband doesn't take a cleaver to the cable. The next best place is an eminence, like the Sapoune at Balaclava or the bluffs above Little Bighorn, and if I can speak with authority about both those engagements it's not so much because I was lashing about in the thick of them, as that I had the opportunity of overlooking the ground beforehand.
Sobraon was like that. The northern bank of the Sutlej at that point is higher than the southern, giving a sweeping view of the whole battlefield, and miles beyond. I wasn't to see it for another hour or so, for when the cannonade began Sardul called a halt, and left me in the care of his troop while he dashed off to see what was up. We waited in the clammy dawn, while the Sikh support troops stood to inspection in the trenches and gun emplacements about us and the gunners stripped the aprons from their heavy pieces, piling the cartridges and rolling the big 48-pound shot on to the stretchers, all ready to load. They were cool hands, those artillerymen, manning their positions quiet and orderly, the brown bearded faces staring ahead towards the battle of barrages hidden beyond the river mist.
