Bayonets Along the Border Read Online Free PDF

You’ve met him before, although a long time ago.’
    Simon looked again around the troop. All of the men were grinning at him again, their teeth cutting slashes of white in their black countenances. All, that is, except the
daffadar
, who sat ramrod-straight in the saddle holding the pennanted lance and frowning straight ahead of him. He was clearly much taller than the rest of the troop and,although bearded and dark-skinned like the others in this Pathan unit, Simon realised that he was a Sikh. But his appearance rang no bells with him. He exchanged puzzled glances with Alice and Jenkins, who shook their heads negatively.
    ‘Very well.’ Buckingham raised his voice. ‘
Daffadar!
’
    ‘Sahib.’ The Sikh gently heeled his horse forward, so that it was level with the quartet.
    ‘Captain Fonthill, Mrs Fonthill, Mr Jenkins,’ said Buckingham formally, ‘may I introduce you to just about the best soldier in the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides. This is Inderjit Singh,
daffadar
in my troop.’
    The tall Sikh immediately gave an impeccable salute and, for the first time, allowed himself to engage in eye contact with Simon. His handsome face slowly relaxed into a warm smile.
    ‘So glad to see you again, sahib, memsahib, sahib,’ he said to each in turn, in impeccable English, with only the trace of the Indian lilt to show that he was not some public schoolboy from Winchester or Harrow.
    Fonthill frowned and stared at him. ‘I am sorry,’ he began haltingly. ‘We have met before, have we?’
    ‘Oh yes, sahib, but only when I was a little boy. I am grateful to you, for you paid for my education at Amritsar. My mother, who is dead now, wanted to write to you to tell you I had joined the Guides but she did not know where to write. Now, when Buckingham Sahib tell me that you were coming, I was delighted and wondered if I could meet—’
    ‘Wait a minute.’ Fonthill’s frowned deepened. ‘You say
I
paid for your education?’
    ‘Yes, sahib. You see I am the son of my father, Inderjit Singh, once of the Guides. You knew him, I think, as W. G. Grace.’
    ‘What! You are the son of W.G.?’
    ‘Good Lord,’ cried Alice.
    ‘Bloody ’ell,’ crowed Jenkins.
    ‘Oh yes, sir.’ Singh was clearly delighted at the impression his father’s name had created. ‘His name is well known in the Guides – almost as famous as yours and Jenkins sahib, I think.’
    Buckingham intervened. ‘So glad you’ve resumed acquaintance,’ he said, ‘but I think we had better get moving.’ He nodded to his
daffadar
and spoke to him in Pushtu. Immediately, the Sikh lifted his arm, pointed ahead and fell back as the troop began to walk forward, three scouts thrown out far ahead, two at the rear and, in the middle, the wagon, with one trooper squatting on its seat, urging the mule forward.
    ‘Now,’ said the lieutenant, ‘I’ve heard a bit about the elder Inderjit Singh, but do tell me about your involvement with him.’
    But first Simon reached back and grasped the hand of the Sikh, who then, rather self-consciously, shook hands with Alice and Jenkins, before falling back again to take his place at the head of the troop. Then, Fonthill, with many an interjection from the other two, told of how Singh’s cricket-loving father – such an aficionado of the game that he had changed his name to that of the famous English batsman of the time – had guided the disguised Simon and Jenkins to Kabul and then up in the hills to gain information about the massing of the hill tribes in the Second Afghan War, eighteen years before. The trio – later joined by Alice after she had been refused permission by the authorities to report at first-hand on the conflict – had survived many a clash with the Afghans before reaching Kandahar in time to warn General Sir Frederick Roberts of the Afghan placements at that battle which had ended the war. The Sikh had died in a skirmish just before the battle and Fonthill, had, indeed, made provision for his son