Free Hart of Empire by Saul David Page A

your loyalty.'
    Now it was Ilderim's turn to smile. 'It's not loyalty, huzoor . I'm doing it for the money.'
    'Spoken like a true Afghan!'
    'So where next, huzoor ?'
    'To Kabul. My only contact in the country is Pir Ali, a munshi in the employ of the British resident. He will have information about the cloak. I must also speak to Sir Louis Cavagnari himself, without revealing my true identity, and warn him of the impending mutiny. But it's a race against time. If the mutineers attack before we reach the Residency, and Pir Ali is killed, we have no hope of locating the cloak. So, let's not dawdle,' said George, and dug his heels into his horse's sides.
    An hour later, as they watered the animals in a shallow stream, George looked across at his companion. 'I confess, Ilderim, I never dreamt I'd spend my twentieth birthday here.'
    'So young, but why didn't you talk of this last night? My father would have given you two women to mark the occasion.'
    George laughed. 'One was quite enough!'

    It was late afternoon the following day when George and Ilderim came in sight of the walled city of Kabul. They had camped overnight at Gandamak, where the recent treaty had been signed. It had been the site, too, in 1842, of the British 44th Regiment of Foot's last stand. Riding in from the east, with the Siah Sang range of hills on his right, it seemed to George that the city occupied a near impregnable position: to the south and west it was protected by mountains, to the north by the Kabul river, while the east, directly ahead, was guarded by a wall, twenty feet high and twelve feet thick. Its south-eastern corner was commanded by a towering fortress, rising more than 150 feet above the plain.
    'That must be the Bala Hissar,' said George, pointing towards the fort. 'Now I know why the British were so criticised for relinquishing it in thirty-nine.'
    Ilderim nodded. 'We have a saying: "He who holds the Bala Hissar holds Kabul." By that we mean the upper fortress, or citadel, which contains the magazine and the dungeon known as the "Black Pit". The lower fortress, which you enter first, is not as formidable and houses the stables, barracks and royal residences.'
    'One of which, I'm told, Yakub has given to Cavagnari to use as his residency. Well, at this distance it looks quiet enough. I think we're in time.'
    They rode on through a richly cultivated valley of clover and lucerne, the crops' verdant green a relief from the general brownness of the land, and up a road lined on both sides with closely planted willow trees. Just short of the city walls they turned sharply to the left and began the climb to the fortress. Their first view was of a huge wall of crumbling masonry, twenty feet high but built on a rock of similar height so that a precipitous face of forty feet was presented to any attacker. Every hundred yards or so a bastion, bristling with cannon, jutted out from the main wall, and in the intervals between rose the high, flat-roofed buildings of the palaces. The road curved gently to the right and soon came to the main gatehouse, almost medieval in appearance, with its two round towers, vaulted archway and castellated top. It, too, had seen better days, the inner supports having crumbled away and the defensive position overhead lacking its protective parapets.
    As they approached, a big, bearded havildar, or sergeant, of the Afghan Army, with a Snider rifle on his shoulder, stepped forward.
    'I'm a British businessman,' said George in Pashto. 'I've come to speak to the resident.'
    The Afghan soldier spat pointedly on the ground and said something in a language George didn't understand.
    Ilderim shouted back at him in the same strange tongue and the soldier responded in kind. Worried that the argument was getting out of hand, George was about to tell Ilderim to calm down when the havildar, his face still defiant, waved them through the gateway.
    'What was that about? And what language was he speaking?' asked George, as they entered the