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.
II
Now we take up the life of another spy, also an army officer, old Alexander Burnes. At eighteen he had been adjutant of his regiment and rose very steadily from rank to rank until he was sent as an envoy to Runjeet Singh, the ruler of Punjab, and to the ameers of Scinde. In those days Northwestern India was an unknown region and Burnes was pioneer of the British power.
In 1832 he set out on his second mission through Afghanistan, Bokhara and Persia. See how he wrote from Cabul: “I do not despair of reaching Istamboul (Constantinople) in safety. They may seize me and sell me for a slave, but no one will attack me for my riches.... I have no tent, no chair or table, no bed, and my clothes altogether amount to the value of one pound sterling. You would disown your son if you saw him. My dress is purely Asiatic, and since I came into Cabul has been changed to that of the lowest orders of the people. My head is shaved of its brown locks, and my beard dyed black grieves ... for the departed beauty of youth. I now eat my meals with my hands, and greasy digits they are, though I must say in justification, that I wash before and after meals.... I frequently sleep under a tree, but if a villager will take compassion on me I enter his house. I never conceal that I am a European, and I have as yet found the character advantageous to my comfort. The people know me by the name of Sekunder, which is the Persian for Alexander.... With all my assumed poverty I have a bag of ducats round my waist, and bills for as much money as I choose to draw.... When I go into company I put my hand on my heart, and say with all humility to the master of the house, ‘Peace be unto thee,’ according to custom, and then I squat myself down on the ground. This familiarity has given me an insight into the character of the people ... kind-hearted and hospitable, they have no prejudices against a Christian and none against our nation. When they ask me if I eat pork, I of course shudder, and say that it is only outcasts that commit such outrages. God forgive me! for I am very fond of bacon.... I am well mounted on a good horse in case I should find it necessary to take to my heels. My whole baggage on earth goes on one mule, which my servant sits supercargo.... I never was in better spirits.”
After his wonderful journey Burnes was sent to England to make his report to the government, and King William IV must needs hear the whole of the story at Brighton pavilion.
The third journey of this great spy was called the commercial mission to Cabul. There he learned that the Persian siege of Herat was being more or less conducted by Russian officers. Russians swarmed at the court of Dost Mahomed, and an ambassador from the czar was there trying to make a treaty.
Great was the indignation and alarm in British India, and for fear of a Russian invasion in panic haste the government made a big famous blunder, for without waiting to know how Dost was fooling the Russians, an army was sent through the terrible Bolan Pass. That sixty-mile abyss with hanging walls belongs to the Pathans, the fiercest and wildest of all the tribes of men. The army climbed through the death trap, marched, starving, on from Quetta to Candahar and then advanced on Cabul. But Dost’s son Akbar held the great fortress of Ghuznee, a quite impregnable place that had to be taken.
One night while a sham attack was made on the other side of the fortress, Captain Thomson placed nine hundred pounds of gunpowder at the foot of a walled-up gate, and then touched off the charge. The twenty-first light infantry climbed over the smoking ruins and at the head of his storming column Colonel Dennie, in three hours’ fighting, took the citadel. Dost Mahomed fled, and the British entered Cabul to put a puppet sovereign on the throne.