Free The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk Page B

to the Khan of Puhra, who called upon his mirza, or clerk, to read it aloud. To Pottinger’s acute embarrassment, it expressed the writer’s suspicion that this holy man who was passing through their territories was really an individual of high birth, possibly a prince even, who had forsworn a life of privilege to become a humble holy man. That it had been written with the best of intentions, to ensure that he would be well received, Pottinger had no doubt. But it was to lead directly, and dramatically, to his being exposed not only as a bogus pilgrim – an infidel Christian, moreover – but also as an Englishman. And his exposure came from a totally unexpected quarter.
    After the Sirdar’s letter had been read out, the crowd of villagers surrounding Pottinger had looked at him with new interest. It was at this moment that a small boy aged 10 or 12 suddenly raised his voice. ‘If he hadn’t said that he was a holy man, I would swear that he is the brother of Grant, the European, who came to Bampur last year . . .’ The sharp-eyed youngster had come within an inch of the truth. The previous year Captain W. P. Grant of the Bengal Native Infantry had been sent to explore the coastline of the Makran to see whether a hostile army would be able to advance towards India by this route (he had reported that it would). During his reconnaissance he had journeyed some way inland to the town of Bampur, in eastern Persia, which Pottinger was now approaching. By sheer ill-chance, this boy – perhaps the only one present ever to have set eyes on a European – must have seen him and spotted some resemblance between the two men.
    Pottinger, badly shaken, tried to conceal his dismay. ‘I endeavoured to let the lad’s remark pass unnoticed,’ he wrote, ‘but the confusion of my looks betrayed me.’ Seeing this, the Khan asked him if it was true that he was really a European. To Pottinger’s relief, he went on to say that if he was he need not fear, for no harm would come to him. Realising that there was no point in further pretence, Pottinger confessed that he was indeed a European, but in the service of a rich Hindu merchant. Such a confession earlier in his journey would very likely have cost him his life, for it would immediately have been assumed that he was an English spy, but he was now quite close to the Persian frontier and consequently felt safer, although still not totally so. Moreover, his disguise had only been partially penetrated. His profession and the real purpose of his presence had not been detected.
    The Khan, fortunately, was amused by the subterfuge, finding no offence in an infidel posing as a Muslim holy man. But Pottinger’s guide, who had clearly been made a fool of, was incensed. At first he refused to accept Pottinger’s confession and regaled the Khan and the crowd with accounts of the theological debates he had engaged in with the holy man. The Khan laughed heartily when he described how Pottinger had even taken him to task over points of religion, a religion it now transpired that he did not believe in. The guide’s anger and discomfiture were exacerbated by the claim of another of Pottinger’s men that he had known all along that he was no holy man, although he had not suspected him of being a European.
    A furious argument now broke out, with the guide accusing the other man of being an accessory to Pottinger’s elaborate deception. In the end the good humour of the Khan, who pointed out that others including himself had also been deceived, saved the day, and by the time of their departure from the village forty-eight hours later Pottinger found that he had been forgiven by his guide. In the meantime he had become a celebrity, and his lodgings were besieged by what he described as ‘a concourse of idle and obstreperous Baluchis who harassed me with preposterous queries and remarks.’ That afternoon, however, a genuine holy man – this time a Hindu fakir – arrived, thus relieving Pottinger