Captains of adventure

by Roger Pocock

I

From earliest childhood Eldred Pottinger was out of place in crowded England. Gunpowder is good exciting stuff to play with, and there could be no objection to his blowing up himself and his little brother, because that was all in the family; but when he mined the garden wall and it fell on a couple of neighbors, they highly took offense; and when his finely invented bomb went off at Addiscombe College he rose to the level of a public nuisance. On the whole it must have been a relief to his friends when he went to India. There he had an uncle, the president in Scinde, a shrewd man who shipped young Pottinger to the greatest possible distance in the hinder parts of Afghanistan.

The political situation in Afghanistan was the usual howling chaos of oriental kingdoms, and the full particulars would bore the reader just as they bored me. It was Pottinger’s business to find out and report the exact state of affairs at a time when any white man visiting the country was guaranteed, if and when found, to have his throat cut. Being clever at native languages, with a very foxy shrewdness, the young spy set off, disguised as a native horse dealer, and reached Cabul, the Afghan capital.

The reigning ameer was Dost Mahomet, who was not on speaking terms with Kamran, king of Herat, and Pottinger’s job was to get through to Herat without being caught by Dost. The horse-copper disguise was useless now, so Pottinger became a Mahomedan syed, or professional holy man. He sent his attendants and horses ahead, slipped out of the capital on foot by night and made his way to his camp. So he reached the country of the Hazareh tribes where his whole expedition was captured by the principal robber Jakoob Beg, who did a fairly good business in selling travelers, as slaves, except when they paid blackmail. “The chief,” says Pottinger, “was the finest Hazareh I had seen, and appeared a well-meaning, sensible person. He, however, was quite in the hands of his cousin—an ill-favored, sullen and treacherous-looking rascal. I, by way of covering my silence, and to avoid much questioning, took to my beads and kept telling them with great perseverance, much to the increase of my reputation as a holy personage.”

The trouble was that Pottinger and his devout followers were of the Sounee faith, whereas the robber castle was of the Sheeah persuasion. The difference was something like that between our Catholics and Protestants, and Pottinger was like a Methodist minister trying to pass himself off for a cardinal without knowing the little points of etiquette. The prisoners prompted one another into all sorts of ridiculous blunders, so that the ill-favored cousin suspected Pottinger of being a fraud. “Why he may be a Feringhee himself,” said the cousin. “I have always heard that the Hindustanees are black, and this man is fairer than we are.” But then the Feringhees—the British—were supposed to be monsters, and Pottinger was in no way monstrous to look at, so that he managed to talk round the corner, and at the end of a week ransomed his party with the gift of a fine gun to the chief. They set off very blithely into the mountains, but had not gone far when the chief’s riders came romping in pursuit, and herded them back, presumably to have their throats cut according to local manners and customs. The chief, it turned out, had been unable to make the gun go off, but finding it worked all right if handled properly dismissed the spy with his blessing. Eighteen days’ journey brought him to Herat, where he felt perfectly safe, strolling unarmed in the country outside the walls, until a gang of slave catchers made him an easy prey. His follower, Synd Ahmed, scared them off by shouting to an imaginary escort.

Shah Kamran with his vizier Yar Mahomed had been out of town, but on their return to Herat, Pottinger introduced himself to the king as a British officer, and his gift of a brace of pistols was graciously accepted.

Not long afterward a Persian army came up against Herat, and with that force there were Russian officers. For once the Heratis could look for no help from Afghanistan; and for once this mighty fortress, the key to the gates of India, was guarded by a cur. If Herat fell the way was open for Russia, the ancient road to India of all the conquerors. There is the reason why the British had sent a spy to Herat.

The Heratis were quick to seek the advice of the British officer who organized the defense and in the end took charge, the one competent man in the garrison. Shah Kamran sent him with a flag of truce to the Persian army. The Persian soldiers hailed him with rapture, thinking they would soon get home to their wives and families; they patted his legs, they caressed his horse, they shouted “Bravo! Bravo! Welcome! The English were always friends of the king of kings!”

So Pottinger was brought before the shah of Persia, who would accept no terms except surrender, which the Englishman ridiculed. He went back to the city, and the siege went on for months.

A shell burst the house next door to his quarters, but he took no harm. One day he leaned against a loophole in the ramparts, watching a Persian attempt to spring a mine, and as he moved away his place was taken by a eunuch who at once got a ball in the lungs. He had narrow escapes without end.

At the end of six months, June twenty-fourth, 1838, the Persians tried to carry the place by assault. “At four points the assault was repulsed, but at the fifth point the storming column threw itself into the trench of the lower fausse-braye. The struggle was brief but bloody. The defenders fell at their posts to a man, and the work was carried by the besiegers. Encouraged by this first success, the storming party pushed on up the slope, but a galling fire from the garrison met them as they advanced. The officers and men of the column were mown down; there was a second brief and bloody struggle, and the upper fausse-braye was carried, while a few of the most daring of the assailants, pushing on in advance of their comrades, gained the head of the breach. But now Deen Mahomed came down with the Afghan reserve, and thus recruited the defenders gathered new heart, so that the Persians in the breach were driven back. Again and again with desperate courage they struggled to effect a lodgment, only to be repulsed and thrown back in confusion upon their comrades, who were pressing on behind. The conflict was fierce, the issue doubtful. Now the breach was well-nigh carried; and now the stormers, recoiling from the shock of the defense, fell back upon the exterior slope of the fausse-braye.

“Startled by the noise of the assault Yar Mahomed (the vizier) had risen up, left his quarters, and ridden down to the works. Pottinger went forth at the same time and on the same errand. Giving instructions to his dependents to be carried out in the event of his falling in the defense, he hastened to join the vizier.... As they neared the point of the attack the garrison were seen retreating by twos and threes; others were quitting the works on the pretext of carrying off the wounded.... Pottinger was eager to push on to the breach; Yar Mahomed sat himself down. The vizier had lost heart; his wonted high courage and collectedness had deserted him. Astonished and indignant ... the English officer called upon the vizier again and again to rouse himself. The Afghan chief rose up and advanced further into the works, and neared the breach where the conflict was raging.... Yar Mahomed called upon his men in God’s name to fight; but they wavered and stood still. Then his heart failed him again. He turned back, said he would go for aid.... Alarmed by the backwardness of their chief the men were now retreating in every direction.” Pottinger swore.

Yar roused himself, again advanced, but again wavered, and a third time Pottinger by word and deed put him to shame. “He reviled, he threatened, he seized him by the arm and dragged him forward to the breach.” Now comes the fun, and we can forsake the tedious language of the official version. Yar, hounded to desperation by Pottinger, seized a staff, rushed like a wildcat on the retreating soldiers, and so horrified them that they bolted back over the breach down the outside into the face of the Persians. And the Persians fled! Herat was saved.

An envoy came from the Persian army to explain that it was infamous of the Shah Kamran to have an infidel in charge of the defense. “Give him up,” said the Persians, “and we’ll raise the siege.” But the shah was not in a position to surrender Pottinger. That gentleman might take it into his head to surrender the shah of Herat.

Another six months of siege, with famine, mutiny and all the usual worries of beleaguered towns finished Pottinger’s work, the saving of Herat.