Windrush: Warriors Of God (Jack Windrush Book 6) - Malcolm Archibald

Historical War Fiction Set In 19th Century South Asia

Windrush: Warriors Of God (Jack Windrush Book 6) by Malcolm Archibald

Book excerpt

Peshawar. The last city before the Frontier and the final outpost of British rule; East of Peshawar stretched the hot Indian plains; West of Peshawar spread some of the most dangerous territory on the face of the Earth. The very name meant Frontier Town.

Jack reined up Colwall, his brown gelding, to survey the city. Allowing the dust of his passage to settle, he watched as a long caravan of camels plodded majestically out of the city gate. The caravan headed into India, with the camel bells tinkling, and the merchants eyeing Windrush with bold curiosity. If this had been India proper, Jack would have expected a salaam or two, an obsequious greeting. Here, so close to the Frontier, such things did not happen. These men were not inclined to be servile to anybody, much less a lone British officer travelling without a single servant.

As the caravan passed in choking dust, Windrush looked at Peshawar. Set in the fertile Vale of Peshawar with its orchards of plum, apple, peach and pear trees, its canals and its gardens, Peshawar had a wall some five miles long to protect it from the predators of the surrounding mountains. Jack was immediately aware of the aura of menace. Even the names were harsh. The range to the north was the Hindu Kush, the killer of Hindus, allegedly named for the thousands of Indians who had died on the passage west as captured slaves of Islamic conquerors. From Peshawar the road stretched westward to the Khyber Pass, built by the Mughal Babur, who had conquered northern India, updated only a few years previously by Lieutenant Alexander Taylor. That was the road of merchants, holy men, poets and conquerors. Beyond the Khyber was Kandahar, Kabul, and all of Afghanistan.

‘Let’s get on, boy,’ Jack whispered to Colwall. He passed through the Lahori Gate with the atmosphere closing about him and the heat punishing as it rebounded from the pukka-brick walls of the houses. Three storeys high, with the lowest storey used as a shop, the building created channels of streets crowded with traders and women, beggars and water carriers. Jack pushed through, noting everything he could. He saw tall, rangy hill men in hairy poshteens with long jezzails slung across their backs. He saw clean-shaven Hazaurehs with conical hats, a handful of burqa-clad women, and a single patrol of sweating British soldiers in red serge tunics and a more wary air than Jack had experienced since the end of the Mutiny.

Hailing the officer who commanded the patrol, Jack enquired for the address Hook had given him.

‘Just outside the Bala Hissar.’ The lieutenant’s eyes were never still, inspecting every man that passed. ‘There is a Guide on duty outside.’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’

‘Are you new to the Frontier, Captain?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Yes, Captain, with all due respect.’ The lieutenant glanced over his shoulder as somebody shouted. One of his men shifted his rifle to the ready position until the sergeant snarled at him. ‘British soldiers are not always made welcome here. Sometimes it’s not best to travel alone.’

‘I know India, if not the Frontier,’ Windrush said. ‘I am not a Griffin.’ A Griffin was a man new to the East.

‘Yes, Captain.’ The lieutenant did not press the subject. ‘Peshawar is not quite India, but the best of luck, Captain.’ The patrol walked warily, the rear marker turning every few steps to check behind him. Jack watched them for a moment and then walked deeper into the city.

Jack saw the sentry standing at attention. He wore the khaki uniform of the Guides, with a blue turban, and did not move when Jack approached.

‘I am Captain Jack Windrush. Is the sahib in?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes, sahib.’ The Guide remained at his post, his face impassive.

‘I wish to see him.’

‘Kerr sahib may not wish to see you.’ The Guide appeared less than impressed with Windrush’s travel-battered uniform.

‘Please tell him I am here.’

Without moving, the Guide bellowed something, and a young servant appeared at his elbow.

‘Please tell Kerr Sahib that a Captain Windrush sahib is here,’ Jack said.

Within a minute the young servant was back. He salaamed. ‘Kerr Sahib will see you, Captain Windrush, sahib.’

The Guide edged aside to allow Jack bare access to the two-storey house.

‘You made it then, Windrush?’ Major Kerr surveyed Windrush through the hardest eyes Jack had ever seen.

‘Yes, Major.’

‘Don’t Major me, off duty, Windrush. I’m Kerr.’ The handshake was firm as Kerr’s glance took in Windrush from his forage cap with the havelock to protect his neck to the dust on his boots. ‘My boys will take care of your horse. How do you like Peshawar?’

‘It’s unlike any other city I’ve been in,’ Jack said. ‘Your guard at the gate was not keen to let me in. I am used to having sepoys jump to attention at even the sight of me.’

Kerr nodded. ‘He is an Afridi, as different to the normal sepoy as a mountain is to a hill. You have to earn the respect of an Afridi. Have you had any dealings with them before?’

Jack thought of Batoor. ‘I knew one Afridi very well.’

Kerr’s level gaze did not falter. ‘In that case, you will know that they are not a people to take lightly.’

‘I found that out.’

‘Do you know why Colonel Hook sent you here?’ Kerr stood four-square in the centre of the room.

‘Gun running, Major.’ Jack did not remind Kerr he had been present at the interview.

‘That is part of it,’ Kerr said, ‘and only for the servants. Anything said in Gondabad will be repeated in Kabul before the echo dies, and probably St Petersburg and Washington I shouldn’t wonder.’

Jack waited.

‘This is the Frontier, Windrush; there is always trouble brewing here.’ Kerr walked to the window, which afforded him a fine view over Peshawar and to the west. ‘You’re going to be working for me out there.’ He nodded towards the hills. ‘I will warn you that it is the most dangerous posting in the British Empire. You will face extreme heat and chilling cold; you will be up against an enemy that can be your friend one minute and an enemy the next, with no thought of mercy or pity. If you are captured, they will certainly kill you and most probably torture you in ways so hideous even the thought will make your skin crawl.’

‘Yes, Major,’ Jack said.

‘Do you now wish you had remained with the 113th?’ Kerr asked.

Jack’s anger was beginning to rise at this bitter-eyed major. ‘Duty is duty, Kerr. Danger is part of the soldier’s bargain.’

Kerr grunted. ‘We will see if you still think that in six months if you are still alive.’

‘I’ll do my best to live,’ Jack said.

‘I have arranged for you to be temporarily transferred to the Guides.’ Kerr’s gaze never left Jack’s face. ‘If I feel, even for an instant, that you will disgrace the regiment or put any of my men in danger, I will send you back to Hook.’

‘As you wish.’ Jack was not offended at the suggested slight; he knew how protective good officers could be of their men.

‘Are you wishing you could strike me?’ Kerr’s question took Jack by surprise. ‘Come, man. Be honest! We have no room for fabrications in the Guides!’

‘You are my superior officer, Kerr,’ Jack said.

‘If I were not your superior officer?’ Kerr asked.

‘In that case, the situation would not have arisen.’

When Kerr stepped abruptly forward, Jack put himself in a position of defence.

‘Ah! So you are ready to fight me!’ Kerr’s grin further unbalanced Jack. ‘Can you shoe a horse?’

‘Major?’ Jack did not hide his confusion.

‘Can you shoe a horse? Come, man, it’s a simple enough question. Well?’

‘Yes, Kerr. I can,’ Jack said.

‘Good man. In the Guides, you will have to be more independent than in the Queen’s regiments.’ Kerr sat down, offering a cheroot. ‘That’s why I picked you. You have a reputation for operating with small, hard-hitting units. You are an unconventional officer, Windrush.’

‘Yes, Kerr. I had not realised that you picked me.’

‘I was looking for an officer who is not scared to operate outside the regimental system,’ Kerr said. ‘Colonel Hook made me aware of your exploits in the Crimea, and more recently in the Mutiny.’

‘What am I to do?’ Jack asked.

‘I’ll tell you en route to Hoti Mardan. I hope you are fit to travel. We don’t count much on weariness in the Guides.’ Kerr’s eyes were still basilisk, but there was an underlying humour that Jack had not noticed before. ‘Your horse has been fed and watered, so we will leave immediately.’

It was a forty-mile ride to Mardan, the headquarters of the Guides, with the sun hot above.

‘You see, Windrush.’ Kerr rode his horse as if he had been born to it, with an easy grace that ignored the miles. He spoke through the scarf that protected his mouth from the constant dust. ‘We think there is something serious brewing on the Frontier, something much more dangerous than the usual raiding and feuding.’

‘Why is that, Kerr?’

‘When you’ve been out here for a few years, you get a feeling for that sort of thing.’ Kerr lifted a hand to acknowledge two men with a string of camels. They met his eyes, tall, rangy men with twisted turbans on their heads. Both walked with long, lifting strides that covered the ground without apparent effort. One had a jezzail strapped across his back, the other a Minie rifle that could only have come from a British soldier, alive or dead.

‘Have you heard about the Hindustani Fanatics?’ Kerr asked.

‘Only vague rumours,’ Jack said.

‘Forget the rumours,’ Kerr said. ‘They are as desperate a threat as we have faced since the Mutiny. We know them as the Hindustani Fanatics, while the Muhammadans call them the Mujahidin, the Warriors of God.’

‘That’s an interesting name.’ Jack remembered that Hook had used the same phrase.

‘You might know them better as Ghazis.’

‘I’ve met them.’ Jack mentioned the fight outside Bareilly as Kerr listened, nodding.

‘Pray to the Lord you never meet them again,’ Kerr said. ‘Now imagine the Pashtuns joining the Ghazis. What a ferocious combination that would be.’

Jack watched a family group pass by. The men stared through kohl-rimmed eyes, each with a jezzail on his back and a ferocious Khyber knife at his belt. The women wore the long burqas that hid them entirely from view, except for a slit around the eyes. Only the young pre-pubescent female children had their faces uncovered. They watched the two British horsemen with curious eyes and big smiles.

‘I can see the dangers,’ Jack said.

‘I am going to give you a history lesson,’ Kerr said. ‘Listen carefully. Back in the 1820s, a Ghazi named Sayyid Ahmad visited Mecca; you are aware that visiting Mecca is one of the pillars of Islam.’

‘I am,’ Jack said.

‘Good. Inspired by his visit, Sayyid Ahmad came to Pakhtunkhwa with about a hundred followers and began preaching holy war, a jihad, to the Yusufzai.’ Kerr lifted his hand to a bullock cart before he continued. ‘In the 1820s, you will remember, the Sikhs controlled all this area. We were not involved. Sayyid Ahmad gathered thousands of Pashtun tribesmen to his standard. He was able to push back the Sikhs, besiege and capture Peshawar.’

Jack looked around. The mountains surrounded them, seeming to dominate everything. ‘The Sikhs would not be pleased.’

‘They were not,’ Kerr said. ‘Can you think of two more dangerous people to cross swords than the Sikhs and the Pashtuns? The Sikhs waited for a couple of years then sent an army from Lahore. They recaptured Peshawar, killed Sayyid Ahmad and a thousand or so of his Ghazis, and chased the rest into the hills.’

Jack nodded to show he was still listening.

‘Those Mujahidin that remained settled in a small village named Sitana, hard by the Mahabun Mountains, on the west bank of the Indus maybe seventy-five miles northwest of Peshawar.’

Kerr moved aside to allow a string of mules to file past, each one attached to the beast behind. The two mule drivers neither looked up nor acknowledged the British officers.

‘We’re not in the India I know now,’ Jack said.

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Malcolm Archibald

BOOK TITLE: Windrush: Warriors Of God (Jack Windrush Book 6)

GENRE: Historical Fiction

SUBGENRE: War & Military Fiction

PAGE COUNT: 312