The Broken Road | Page 4

second force would be surely advancing from Nowshera, probably
short of rations, certainly short of baggage, that it might march the
lighter. When one of those two forces deployed across the valley and

the gates of the fort were again thrown open to the air the weeks of
endurance would exact their toll. But that time was not yet come.
Meanwhile the six men held on cheerily, inspiring the garrison with
their own confidence, while day after day a province in arms flung
itself in vain against their blood-stained walls. Luffe, indeed, the
Political Officer, fought with disease as well as with the insurgents of
Chiltistan; and though he remained the master-mind of the defence, the
Doctor never passed him without an anxious glance. For there were the
signs of death upon his face.
"The fourth week!" said Lynes. "Is it, by George? Well, the siege won't
last much longer now. The Sirkar don't leave its servants in the lurch.
That's what these hill-tribes never seem to understand. How is
Travers?" he asked of the Doctor.
Travers, a subaltern of the North Surrey Light Infantry, had been shot
through the thigh in the covered waterway to the river that morning.
"He's going on all right," replied the Doctor. "Travers had bad luck. It
must have been a stray bullet which slipped through that chink in the
stones. For he could not have been seen--"
As he spoke a cry rang clearly out. All six men looked upwards through
the open roof to the clear dark sky, where the stars shone frostily bright.
"What was that?" asked one of the six.
"Hush," said Luffe, and for a moment they all listened in silence, with
expectant faces and their bodies alert to spring from their chairs. Then
the cry was heard again. It was a wail more than a cry, and it sounded
strangely solitary, strangely sad, as it floated through the still air. There
was the East in that cry trembling out of the infinite darkness above
their heads. But the six men relaxed their limbs. They had expected the
loud note of the Pathan war-cry to swell sonorously, and with intervals
shorter and shorter until it became one menacing and continuous roar.
"It is someone close under the walls," said Luffe, and as he ended a
Sikh orderly appeared at the entrance of a passage into the courtyard,

and, advancing to the table, saluted.
"Sahib, there is a man who claims that he comes with a message from
Wafadar Nazim."
"Tell him that we receive no messages at night, as Wafadar Nazim
knows well. Let him come in the morning and he shall be admitted.
Tell him that if he does not go back at once the sentinels will fire." And
Luffe nodded to one of the younger officers. "Do you see to it,
Haslewood."
Haslewood rose and went out from the courtyard with the orderly. He
returned in a few minutes, saying that the man had returned to Wafadar
Nazim's camp. The six men resumed their meal, and just as they ended
it a Pathan glided in white flowing garments into the courtyard and
bowed low.
"Huzoor," he said, "His Highness the Khan sends you greeting. God
has been very good to him. A son has been born to him this day, and he
sends you this present, knowing that you will value it more than all that
he has"; and carefully unfolding a napkin, he laid with reverence upon
the table a little red cardboard box. The mere look of the box told the
six men what the present was even before Luffe lifted the lid. It was a
box of fifty gold-tipped cigarettes, and applause greeted their
appearance.
"If he could only have a son every day," said Lynes, and in the laugh
which followed upon the words Luffe alone did not join. He leaned his
forehead upon his hand and sat in a moody silence. Then he turned
towards the servant and bade him thank his master.
"I will come myself to offer our congratulations after dinner if his
Highness will receive me," said Luffe.
The box of cigarettes went round the table. Each man took one, lighted
it, and inhaled the smoke silently and very slowly. The garrison had run
out of tobacco a week before. Now it had come to them welcome as a
gift from Heaven. The moment was one of which the perfect enjoyment

was not to be marred by any speech. Only a grunt of satisfaction or a
deep sigh of pleasure was now and then to be heard, as the smoke
curled upwards from the little paper sticks. Each man competed with
his neighbour in the slowness of his respiration, each man wanted to be
the last to lay down his cigarette and