Josiah the Great: The True Story of The Man Who Would Be King. Ben Macintyre

should allay the storm rising around me, threatening to involve in its turmoil the personal security of our party’. Once more he wondered whether to lead an attack on Tak with his remaining forces, but that, he reflected, would be a huge and unnecessary gamble. ‘I was restrained from doing so only by the extravagance and desperation of the enterprise. My resources were numerous and my prospects sufficiently encouraging to forbid placing all my aspirations upon the result of a forlorn hope. Had I been desperate, the affair of Tak would have been a final determination, and must have decided my fortunes either to sink or swim, but there remained many other ways of accomplishing my designs more feasible, if not less dangerous.’ The idea of retreat was anathema. He would push on, whatever the danger. ‘From the latter it will appear I never shrank,’ he later wrote. ‘Indeed, incidents of that nature accrued during my intrigues at Kabul in 1828 surpassing all my previous conceptions.’

       5 THE DERVISH FROM CHESTER COUNTY

      Harlan’s first priority was to get away from Dera Ismail Khan as fast as possible. The deserters had surely by now confirmed what the nawab already suspected: that the feringhee was no amateur traveller. More worrying yet was the general atmosphere of insubordination emanating from his remaining troops, and from Gul Khan in particular. The once-cheery Rohillah now exuded an ‘air of disappointment and coldness’. Plainly, Harlan decided, the man was planning some sort of vile treachery, and perhaps already ‘gloating over the prospect of a golden prize in the plunder of my establishment’. He must get rid of his dwindling army before it tried to get rid of him. ‘Not one individual could be relied on, with the exception of the remaining European who, as he had already declined accompanying his chum, appeared to have preferred attaching himself to my fortunes.’

      Harlan was now working on a different plan. Instead of establishing a beachhead by force, he would head on into the Afghan interior in disguise with just a handful of attendants. Every item of non-essential baggage would be abandoned. ‘I brought myself to the condition of primitive simplicity,’ he wrote, ‘thus conforming to the order and example of Alexander to his victorious followers after the conquest of Persia, which was to burn their baggage, inferring that new victories and extended acquisitions of empire would accumulate plunder.’

      Harlan handpicked twelve men to accompany him, carefully avoiding any who volunteered. The five loyal sepoys were dismissed, with a gift of two months’ pay and letters of recommendation to the French officers in Ranjit’s service. Harlan’s carefully chosen companions included the Englishman John Brown, Sayyid Mohammed, ‘a man of respectable character’, and an Afghan named Bairam Khan. The latter had been involved in negotiations with the faint-hearted mutineers of Tak, and though Harlan suspected him of dishonesty he was an enterprising individual, too useful to be left behind. Amirullah, the Afghan mace-bearer, was also selected to join the little party. Loquacious and pompous, he was ‘one of the most declamatory vociferators of services promised or performed’, wrote Harlan, but his command of Persian and Pushtu made him useful. The party would consist of the mace-bearer on foot, five horsemen and six men on foot, who when they were tired could ride on one of the six camels.

      As the preparations were made, the restive Rohillahs became positively threatening. ‘Expedition on my part became every moment more urgent,’ wrote Harlan. Each man was paid his wages a month in advance, and while the money was being doled out Harlan summoned Gul Khan and delivered a very public speech, emphasising that the Rohillah was now guardian of his possessions: ‘You have all my camp equipage, my trunks and baggage to acquire your attention, and in this position you must be vigilant.’ What Gul Khan did not know was that the contents of the trunks were almost worthless. ‘All the valuables of my establishment I had secretly packed away in ordinary loads which were ready to be placed on the camels, trusting nothing to the Rohillahs but the camp equipage and trunks of books.’ Henceforth Harlan would carry only what was absolutely necessary for his campaign, most importantly a fortune in silver and gold coinage stuffed into two pairs of large leather hampers. He finished by telling Gul Khan he would send further instructions when he reached Peshawar. The old rascal did not disguise his disappointment and distrust, but this was nothing compared to the frustration he would suffer when he duly ransacked Harlan’s baggage, to find it contained nothing but worthless books and bedding.

      Fearing Gul Khan might try to prevent him leaving, Harlan ordered his men to prepare to march at dawn the next day. That night in his tent he climbed into his disguise, consisting of a long flowing robe and a large white turban: ‘I was now to personate the character of a Saheb Zader, returning home from a pilgrimage to Mecca,’ he wrote. ‘A Saheb Zader is a holy man to whom is ascribed supernatural powers and revered as instructive in religion.’ Dressing as a Muslim divine, or dervish, was a typical Harlan gamble, and an extraordinarily risky one. Any stranger ran the risk of being attacked, and it was marginally safer to be recognised as a foreign infidel than mistaken for a local one. Masson, for example, once ‘encountered a man, who drew his sword, and was about to sacrifice me as an infidel Sikh. I had barely the time to apprise him that I was a Feringhi, when he instantly sheathed his weapon and, placing his arm around my waist in a friendly mode, conducted me to a village near at hand, where I was hospitably entertained.’