Lily took his hand in hers and smiled up at him, a smile full of kindness and humour. ‘I didn’t “give my affections”, Joe. They were snatched! I fell for the man! And it hurts, it certainly hurts that he didn’t feel the same way. But I’ll tell you something – when I was little, ten years old I think, Father took me to the mountains one summer. One of the hands brought in a black bear cub, an orphan I guess. Have you ever seen a black bear cub, Joe?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but I can imagine the effect one would have on a ten-year-old girl!’

‘Yes. Well, this was a particularly lovable animal and I was a very susceptible little girl. I was allowed to keep him for the whole summer. But it came time to go back to Chicago and I had to send him back into the forest to take his chances. Nearly broke my heart. I cried for a week and made everyone’s life a misery. And perhaps that was a sort of… what do you call it?… an inoculation? It’s happened again but I’ll get over it. Strong heart, Joe!’

They trailed slowly on, each wrapped in thought, but suddenly Lily turned an anxious face to Joe. ‘Listen! The band!’

Joe grimaced. ‘“Bonnie Dundee”! Again! Must be the third time they’ve been through that tune! Surely they could stop now?’

Lily was pale and tense. She gripped his hand. ‘Not if no one told them to! They’re awaiting orders. They’re waiting for James to tell them to pack it in and fall out.’ And then, ‘Where is James? He’s not come in!’

For an agonizing moment Joe was fixed to the spot, cursing himself for having ignored his instincts. He turned and started to run back towards the gate.

‘Joe! Wait!’

He turned, angry at being delayed.

‘No gun! Here! Catch!’

In one swift movement Lily threw a small gun to him.

He reached the gate and looked about. The Afghan troopers were well on their way to the Khyber but James had disappeared and only the pipe band remained, sweating and puffing. He seized a Scout by the arm. ‘Major Lindsay?’ he yelled above the din. ‘Where is he?’

‘Gone to cemetery with Iskander Khan,’ he said pointing. ‘Say one last prayer for Zeman Khan, sahib.’

Two hundred yards away James was walking briskly with Iskander, their backs to Joe. Iskander was leading his horse. Desperately Joe shouted a warning but it was drowned by the opening chords of the fourth rendition of ‘Bonnie Dundee’. He set off to run, remembering at last the gun in his hand. He looked at it with dismay. Christ! What was this? Somebody must have put this in Lily’s Christmas stocking! Would it repeat or was it single shot? Was it even loaded? Would it stop a man? A determined man? Joe had his doubts. But still it might make a warning noise. He fired it into the air. The two figures walked on oblivious.

Joe ran faster, thoughts pounding in his head as the energy coursed through his body. Iskander had even warned them. ‘Always an Afridi,’ he had said. He had reminded them that he also lived by the Pathan code of pukhtunwali. It had no significance for him that Ramazad and the tribe had washed away their right to badal – Iskander never had! He wouldn’t be bought off. He had stayed true to his customs and to his friend. He loved Zeman and had taken it upon himself to exact retribution from whoever had killed him. Alexander and Hephaestion? That’s what poor Lily had run into, all unknowingly. And he had returned to the fort as he had told them clearly himself to identify the killer and had sat opposite James when he confessed to the killing. He wouldn’t kill James while he was under the shield of his hospitality but now, outside the walls of the fort in the Muslim cemetery, he was free to do so. And what better place than at Zeman’s grave?

Yes, that’s what he was planning to do! Leave James’s body on top of Zeman’s grave. The symbolism was obvious. A grave for two warriors! Joe could hardly breathe. The hot air was scorching his lungs and through cracked lips he gasped and heaved as he ran. Sweat ran down his face blinding him. He swept his eyes clear to see that the two men walking companionably together had arrived at the grave-side and Iskander had tethered his horse and taken up a position facing the fort. James, across the grave from him, still had his back to Joe and his head was bent in prayer. Joe screamed again and fired the gun. James almost turned around but Iskander spoke to him and reclaimed his attention. Iskander had spotted Joe.

He put his left hand into his tunic, drew something out and extended his right hand to James. James leaned nearer. The old Pathan trick! Grasping their target warmly by one hand they would use the other to stick a knife in his ribs.

‘James! No! The knife! James! Watch for the knife!’ Joe could hardly raise the breath to shout. Too late, Joe saw James turn towards him, hearing him at last but now, by the very act of turning, exposed and fatally distracted. Joe had played into Iskander’s hands. The deflection of James’s attention left him wide open to the inevitable quick lunge.

The crack of a rifle shot threw Joe automatically to the ground. He crashed down, raising a cloud of dust and sand that clogged his mouth and filled his eyes. Unbelieving, he raised his head and rubbed the grit from his eyes to see the body of James lying over the grave. Iskander, weaving from side to side, his left arm shattered and bloody, had been sent spinning back several yards by the force of the shot. As Joe watched he staggered back to the grave, stood for a moment and collapsed across James’s body.

Careless of further rifle fire, Joe surged to his feet and hurled himself forward, arriving, lungs bursting, to stand groaning helplessly over the two blood-drenched bodies.

‘Shit! God Almighty! Fucking hell!’

Joe sobbed with joy to hear a stream of curses such as he had not heard since he and James had shared a trench.

’Course I’m all right! When a bloody.303 bullet whizzes past your ear, you hit the ground! See you did too! How did you know, Joe? My God! Get this murderous bugger off me, will you? And who the hell fired that shot? Wasn’t you with that little pop gun!’

They looked back to the fort where for a second a blonde head bobbed between the battlements and disappeared.

‘Oh, my God! Annie Oakley!’ said James.

Together they raised Iskander’s body, from which the blood was pumping at an alarming rate. The left arm was a shredded mass of flesh and ribbons of khaki sleeve. But, ‘He’s alive!’ said Joe. ‘James, he’s still alive! Give me your lanyard and I’ll try to get a tourniquet on this.’

With practised hand, Joe worked swiftly to stop the blood flow. ‘Grace! Where are you?’ he groaned. ‘Half-way to bloody Kabul by now! Here, put a finger on this, James.’

As they worked on him a knife slipped from the shattered left sleeve and fell on to the blood-soaked earth. Rubies winked in the black jade hilt and Joe recoiled from it as from a rearing cobra. Iskander’s eyes flickered open for a moment and Joe caught a familiar green gleam of amusement.

‘God! That was meant for me!’ said James. And with relief of tension came a flood, a rush of confused words. ‘He asked me to come out here with him. To discuss the siting and wording of a headstone for Zeman… said he wanted to say one last prayer for him… thought it would be a good idea if I joined him. Least I could do, I thought. He was going to kill me,’ said James. ‘Wasn’t he, Joe? For Zeman. He was finishing the job for him. Look.’ He reached over, shuddering, and took something from Iskander’s right hand.

Joe peered at it. ‘It’s a crucifix,’ he said in puzzlement.

‘It’s my crucifix,’ said James. ‘I put it into the hand of Harry Holbrook seconds before I shot him. He was a good man. A man of God. I thought it might bring him some comfort at the last. He firmly believed that God was with him in these hills. Though the behaviour of those two bloodthirsty tormentors must have tested his faith to the limit… They were torturing him, Joe. The very worst they could think of… He could never have survived such treatment. He couldn’t ask me not to give Grace all the dreadful details – they’d torn out his tongue – but I knew what he wanted me to say when I got back and I said it. I’ve never told anyone the truth until now. But Zeman must have found the crucifix on the body and kept it all those years. A talisman? A reminder? A clue to the identity of the man who killed his brothers?’