Iskander raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘These are hand-picked warriors as I’m sure you have noticed – a corps d’élite. They do not sit about quietly contemplating the sudden death of their commander. If they had some new activity, a competitive game to master, I think it would take their minds off the present sadness. And never forget, Major, that funeral games have a very long tradition! When our ancestor, Alexander the Great, passed through these hills two thousand years ago, his Greek soldiers would have done exactly the same to honour the dead.’
Joe was both impressed and amused by Iskander’s practical approach to leadership and settled down on the walls with Lily to watch the entertainment. They were joined by Eddy Fraser.
‘Not playing, Eddy?’ Joe enquired and Eddy held up a bandaged hand.
‘Stopped a lustful on-drive at short leg,’ he replied. ‘Are you interested in cricket, Miss Coblenz?’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Lily. ‘Never watched it in my life, though I have a dim memory that it has to do with the winning of the Battle of Waterloo – or have I got it wrong?’
‘It’s taken very seriously in these parts,’ said Eddy, not at all taken in by her sly humour. ‘We recruit from the Afridi and the Mahsuds who do most things in friendly, well fairly friendly, rivalry and here they are confronting each other on the cricket field. I would have cancelled this but James’s orders are “business as usual”. It generates a great deal of heat between the two tribes.’
‘Here we are,’ said Joe, ‘in the middle of nowhere and two cricket teams turn out who might be playing in England to all appearances!’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Eddy. ‘This is serious stuff! Everybody in whites, everybody in cricket boots, stripy silk scarves round their waists! We have a little recreation fund which we milked to provide everybody with the appropriate kit. If you get into the eleven, you get the clothes to go with it. Bobby Carstairs – there he is – captains one side and Mike Burgoyne the other. I play when I can, so does James. I made forty last week but the men are developing at such a pace that I’m far from confident of my place in the side.’
‘I’m shaking with excitement,’ said Lily, drily. ‘Can’t you see? But you’ll have to explain to me what’s happening. It’s kind of like baseball, I expect, but I don’t know anything about baseball either.’
‘No reason why you should,’ said Eddy. ‘Both English games.’
‘My!’ said Lily. ‘Both English games! I don’t believe anybody in the States knows that.’
‘Probably wouldn’t believe you if you told them,’ said Eddy.
A Pathan and a Scouts officer tossed a coin together and took opposite ends as umpires. The opening pair made their way to the crease and the game began.
‘If I shut my eyes,’ Joe thought, ‘this could almost be any English village green on a Sunday afternoon. If I open my eyes, on the other hand, what do I see? A pitiless blue sky, sun shining down that would fry an egg, the boundary line packed with vociferous turbaned figures, wild applause and even a blast on the bagpipes after every ball!’
With shrill applause in which Lily joined, the game wound its way onwards. The Afridis were all out for ninety-eight and Bobby Carstairs hit a winning six amid boos and hisses from half the spectators and cheers from the other half. The Afghanis invaded the pitch. They’d evidently decided amongst themselves to take a ball each and pass the bat from hand to hand with the applause and encouragement of the watching Scouts.
‘They are damned odd,’ said Eddy. ‘Just watching them you’d say – natural cricketers. They’ve been doing this for all of ten minutes and they’re showing more skill than your average county side!’
‘Politically,’ said Joe, ‘it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they carried this back to Kabul but I’m not sure that Afghans would qualify either by birth or residence to play for All India.’
‘Oh, I expect we could fiddle our way round that. Fiddle your way round anything if you want to.’ And Eddy shouted encouragement in Pushtu to the perspiring Afghan batsmen as they stood queuing to play. ‘Of course, the game could have been invented for these chaps. Brilliant hand and eye co-ordination but something else as well – patience and planning. They’ll wait for days, months, years even to get something right. Clever tacticians. I wonder what we’ve started?’
‘There’s Iskander lining up at the wicket. Obviously, he’s played the game before,’ said Joe as a mighty sweep of the bat sent the ball winging over the boundary to deafening applause from his men.
They went down together to welcome in the players. Lily, Joe noticed, went straight to Iskander to congratulate him on his men’s showing and his own sparkling performance.
‘Good Lord! The girl thinks she’s at some awful American shindig! Handing out the rosettes and the silver cup.’ The disapproving drawl came from Edwin Burroughs. ‘Can’t you keep that filly on a tighter rein, Sandilands? She’s doing her kind no credit, you know. She’s doing us no credit.’
Joe felt it would have taken up an hour of his time to challenge Burroughs’ views. Instead he hurried forward to add his own warm comments on the game. Though Iskander and Lily were standing a good four feet away from each other Joe had, and not for the first time, the uncomfortable feeling that if he walked between them he would trip on some unseen connecting thread. Perhaps he ought to ask her to take her suspect surveillance a little less seriously? Iskander, Joe thought, was for the moment treating her interest as sympathetic concern and natural high spirits but if she were not more careful he might become suspicious.
‘Hey! Why don’t you all stay another day?’ she was saying. ‘Then your men could take on the Scouts and have a proper game. That would be good, Joe, wouldn’t it?’
‘Lily, I really don’t think it’s up to us to rearrange the Amir’s timetable for him,’ Joe started to say but to his surprise he was interrupted by Iskander.
‘That is a very tempting suggestion, Miss Coblenz! Nothing would please my men more than to give a thrashing to the Scouts. If Major Lindsay were willing to extend his already generous hospitality for a further day it would delight us all. Our schedule is not so tight that we would be unable to stay for one more day. I will speak to Commander Lindsay.’
The blossoming of Iskander, as Joe thought of the change that had come over the young man since the loss of his commanding officer, continued through the day. Over the dinner table he entertained everyone with stories of the frontier and answered questions, however silly, on the Pathan way of life with patience and humour. Joe was intrigued to find that he had been educated not in England as had Zeman Khan but at the college in Peshawar. An orphan from an early age, he belonged to the same clan as Zeman and the two boys had been childhood friends. Joe could only begin to guess at the raw sorrow that he must be feeling at the loss of his friend. Unless, of course, he was himself responsible for Zeman’s death. The thought would not go away. If James had died Joe wondered if he would have been able to face a dinner party and do more than hold his own in a foreign language. He found his respect for Iskander continued to grow.
But, equally, his concern for Lily, with her obvious interest in the man, grew. At the end of the meal when all got up to leave the table Joe saw Lord Rathmore hurry to position himself by the door. As Lily passed in front of him he bent his head and whispered something to her which was evidently not to her liking. Before Lily had a chance to reply, Iskander had stepped between them and engaged Rathmore in conversation, allowing Lily to go on her way, evading Rathmore’s detaining arm. Protective? Proprietorial? Or something more sinister? The gesture disturbed Joe.
As Joe caught up with his charge he asked, ‘All well, Lily?’