The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (40 page)

Armed with the general’s bleak prognosis, Macnaghten sat down to write an urgent dispatch to Lord Auckland describing their grave situation, and placing responsibility for it squarely on the shoulders of the military, whom he accused of being ill-led and cowardly. ‘Our provisions will be out in two or three days, and the military authorities have strongly urged me to capitulate,’ he wrote, adding smugly: ‘This I will not do, till the last moment.’ He was still convinced that he could outwit the Afghans by exploiting divisions which he knew to exist among their leaders. In response to their offer of a truce, therefore, he invited them to send a deputation to discuss terms. While the negotiations were proceeding, extraordinary scenes took place in the British lines, as crowds of Afghans, all armed to the teeth, swarmed across the low perimeter walls and began fraternising with the British and Indian troops. Many of them carried fresh vegetables which they pressed on those they had been trying to kill only hours before. At first it was feared that these might have been ‘spiked’ in some way, or even poisoned, but careful examination showed this suspicion to be groundless.

For a start the Afghan negotiators wanted Shah Shujah, still reasonably secure behind the massive walls and ramparts of the Bala Hissar, to be handed over to them. They would guarantee his life (although it was whispered that they intended to put out his eyes so that he could never again be a threat). Next they demanded that all British troops in Afghanistan, after first surrendering their arms, should leave at once for India, and that at the same time Dost Mohammed should be returned to them. And to make quite sure that they were not double-crossed, they intended to hold British officers and their families as hostages until all the troops had left the country, and Dost Mohammed was safely back in Kabul. Needless to say, these demands were totally unacceptable to Macnaghten. The euphoria and fraternising came to an abrupt end as the talks broke up with both sides vowing angrily to go to war again.

In the event this did not happen. Instead, a few days later, a second meeting was arranged, this time on the banks of the Kabul river, a mile from the cantonments. Akbar himself led the Afghan delegation, which consisted of most of the leading tribal chiefs. Macnaghten now put forward his own proposals. ‘Whereas’, he began, reading in Persian from a prepared statement, ‘it has become apparent from recent events that the continuance of the British Army in Afghanistan for the support of Shah Shujah is displeasing to the great majority of the Afghan nation, and whereas the British Government had no other object in sending troops to this country than the integrity, happiness and welfare of the Afghans, it can have no wish to remain when that object is defeated by its presence.’ The British, therefore, would withdraw all their troops, provided the Afghans would guarantee their safe passage to the frontier. Shah Shujah (who appears not to have been consulted) would give up his throne and return with the British to India. Akbar himself would accompany them to the frontier, and be personally responsible for their safety, while four British officers, but no families, would remain behind in Kabul as hostages. On the safe arrival of the British garrison in India, Dost Mohammed would be free to proceed to Kabul and the British officers to return home. Finally, despite recent events, it was to be hoped that the two nations would remain friends, and in return for British assistance if they ever needed it, the Afghans would agree not to enter into an alliance with any other foreign power.

This was not quite the capitulation that it appeared. Macnaghten, an intriguer to his very fingertips, was taking one last desperate gamble. He had learned from Mohan Lai that some of the more powerful chiefs privately feared the return of Dost Mohammed, a tough and masterful ruler, and actually preferred the weaker, more compliant Shujah. Nor were they in such a hurry as Akbar to see the British, with their generous largesse, depart. After discussing Macnaghten’s proposals among themselves, the Afghans, seemingly unanimous, agreed to them in principle. Preparations began at once for the evacuation of the garrison, and the implementation of the other parts of the agreement, before the winter made this impossible. But faced by the reality of Shujah’s imminent departure, those who were apprehensive about Dost Mohammed’s return began to have second thoughts, as Macnaghten had anticipated. Using Mohan Lai once again as his go-between, and with tempting promises of gold to come, Macnaghten set about trying to widen the divide in the Afghan ranks. ‘If any portion of the Afghans wish our troops to remain in the country,’ he told his Kashmiri agent, ‘I shall think myself at liberty to break the engagement which I have made to go away, which was made believing it to be in accordance with the wishes of the Afghan nation.’

During the next few days the tireless Mohan Lai was kept feverishly busy endeavouring to spread strife among the Afghan leaders, and to turn as many as possible against Akbar. Macnaghten, wrote Kaye, was aware that there was no real unity between the Afghans, merely temporary alliances where it suited the respective parties. ‘It is not easy’, Kaye adds, ‘to group into one lucid and intelligible whole all the many shifting schemes and devices which distracted the last days of the Envoy . . . He appears to have turned first to one party, then to another, eagerly grasping at every new combination that seemed to promise more hope than the last.’ Nor did he have to wait too long for signs that his strategy seemed to be working, and that Akbar and his supporters were finding themselves under powerful pressure from within.

On the evening of December 22, Akbar sent a secret emissary to the British lines to tell Macnaghten that he had an entirely new proposal to put to him. Its terms were startling, to say the least. Shah Shujah would be allowed to remain on the throne after all, but with Akbar as his Vizier. The British would stay in Afghanistan until the spring, whereupon they would leave, as though by their own choice, thereby saving face. At the same time, the individual known to be behind the assassination of Sir Alexander Burnes would be seized and handed over to the British for punishment. In return for all this, Akbar was to receive a lump sum of £300,000 and an annuity of £40,000, plus the help of the British against certain of his rivals.

Clearly, or so it seemed to Macnaghten, Akbar had been forced into this compromise by those parties whom he, with the aid of Mohan Lai and the promise of British gold, had won over to Shah Shujah’s cause. Macnaghten was triumphant. He had saved the British from humiliation, the garrison from massacre, Shujah from abdication and his own career from ruination. A rendezvous was arranged for the following morning at which, amid great secrecy, the two would finalise the agreement. That night Macnaghten scribbled a note to Elphinstone saying that he had struck a deal with Akbar which would bring all their anxieties to an end.

The next day, accompanied by three of his political officers, Macnaghten set out for the spot where he and Akbar had agreed to meet. To Elphinstone, who had asked whether it might not be a trap, he answered sharply: ‘Leave it all to me. I understand these things better than you.’ Similar fears were expressed by one of the officers chosen to go with him, as well as by his own wife. Mohan Lai, too, had warned him that Akbar was not a man to be trusted. But Macnaghten, whom no one could accuse of lacking courage, refused to heed them. ‘Treachery,’ he declared, ‘of course there is.’ Success, however, would retrieve their honour, and more than make up for the danger. ‘Rather than be disgraced,’ he added, ‘I would risk a thousand deaths.’

Akbar and his party were waiting for them on a snow-covered hillside overlooking the Kabul river, 600 yards from the south-eastern corner of the cantonments. ‘Peace be with you!’, the Afghans greeted the Englishmen as they rode up. Servants had spread horse-cloths on the ground, and after both sides had saluted from the saddle Akbar suggested that Macnaghten and his companions dismount and seat themselves. Captain Kenneth Mackenzie, one of the officers, wrote afterwards: ‘Men talk of presentiment. I suppose that something of the kind came over me, for I could-scarcely prevail upon myself to quit my horse. I did so, however, and was invited to sit down among the
sirdars.’
When everyone was seated and quiet, Akbar turned to Macnaghten with a smile and asked him whether he accepted the proposal which had been put to him the previous evening. ‘Why not?’ replied Macnaghten. Those two short words were to seal not only his own fate but also that of the entire British garrison.

Unknown to Macnaghten, Akbar had learned of his duplicity and had decided to turn it to his own advantage. He warned the other chiefs of Macnaghten’s willingness to cut them out and do a secret deal with him behind their backs. And now – for it appears that some of them were present – they had heard the Englishman’s treachery with their own ears. Akbar had never intended to let either the British or Shujah stay on. His offer was designed solely to trap Macnaghten, and regain the allegiance of those whom Macnaghten had sought to turn against him. He had merely answered treachery with treachery, and had come off best.

Still suspecting nothing, Macnaghten enquired who the several strangers present were. Akbar told him not to be alarmed, then added: ‘We are all in the secret.’ No sooner had he uttered that, according to Captain Mackenzie, than he suddenly screamed to his men:
‘Begeer! Begeer!’,
meaning ‘Seize! Seize!’ At once Mackenzie and his two colleagues found themselves pinioned from behind, while Akbar himself, together with another chief, held Macnaghten. On Akbar’s face, Mackenzie remembered, was an expression ‘of the most diabolical ferocity’. As Macnaghten was dragged out of sight down the hill, Mackenzie got a brief glimpse of his face too. ‘It was’, he wrote afterwards, ‘full of horror and astonishment.’ He also heard him cry:
‘Az barae Khooda’,
which means ‘For God’s sake’. His immediate concern, however, was over his own fate, for some of the more fanatical of the Afghans were demanding his blood and that of his two fellow officers. But Akbar, it seems, had given orders that they were to be taken alive. Stripped of their weapons, they were ordered at gunpoint to mount the horses of three of his men, and ride behind them in the saddle. Then, hotly pursued by those who still wanted to kill them, they were swept away to the safety of a nearby fort where they were thrown into a dank cell. By ill luck, one of their number, Captain Trevor, either fell or was dragged from his mount during the chase, and was brutally hacked to death in the snow.

Precisely how Macnaghten died will never be known. His murderers apart, there were no witnesses to what happened to him after he was dragged, struggling, down the hill. Akbar himself swore later that he had intended to hold the Englishman hostage against his father’s safe return, but that the captive had fought so fiercely that they had been forced to kill him lest he broke free and escaped to the British lines. Another version, however, maintains that Akbar, who blamed Macnaghten personally for his father’s overthrow, shot him dead in a blind rage, using one of an ornate pair of pistols which Macnaghten had earlier presented to him, and even shown him how to load.

Meanwhile, realising that something was amiss, look-outs in the cantonments had reported this to General Elphinstone. But once again incompetence, irresolution and plain cowardice prevailed, for no move was made to try to save Macnaghten and his companions, although they were less than half a mile away from the cantonments. Macnaghten had asked Elphinstone to have troops standing by in case anything went wrong, but even this he had failed to do. The excuse given afterwards for this inaction was that Macnaghten and his three fellow officers were thought to have ridden off with Akbar to finalise the deal elsewhere. It was not until later, when they failed to return, that the appalling truth became known. That night reports reached the horrified garrison that Macnaghten’s corpse, minus its head, arms and legs, could be seen suspended from a pole in the bazaar, while his bloodstained limbs were being passed round the town in triumph.

·20·
Massacre in the Passes

The Afghans now braced themselves for the vengeance they expected from the British, the destructive power of whose artillery they still greatly feared. Even Akbar wondered whether he had not gone too far, hastily denying responsibility for Macnaghten’s death and expressing his regret over it. After all, only three years earlier, when they had easily routed his father’s forces, he had seen the effectiveness of British troops properly led. And while he held British hostages, they had the ultimate hostage, his father.