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“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work next week.”

“Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you,” said Murdoch. “It isn’t so easy being a King as it looks. When we’ve got our Kingdom in going order we’ll let you know, and you can come up and help us to govern it.”

“Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that!” said Windsor, with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper on which was written the D-Notice. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity:—

This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God — Amen and so forth.

(One) That me and you will settle this matter together: i.e., to be Kings of Afghanistan.

(Two) That you and me will while this matter is being settled, look at any camera, or any newspaper black, white or red, so as to get mixed up with one or the other.

(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.
Henry Charles Albert David Windsor.
Rupert Murdoch.
Both Gentlemen at Large.

“There was no need for the last article,” said Windsor, blushing modestly; “but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers are — we are loafers, Rupe, until we get out of England — and do you think that we could sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest?”

“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don’t set the place on fire,” I said, “and go away before nine o’clock.”

“Good-by,” said Murdoch, giving me his hand cautiously. “It’s the last time we’ll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Windsor,” he cried.

Windsor shook hands. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. There was just the chance, therefore, that Windsor and Murdoch would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection.

…

The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. The nervous tension was stronger than it had been two months before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o’clock I turned to go, when there crept to my bar what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled, crying that he was come back.

“Can you give me a drink?” he whimpered. “For the Lord’s sake, give me a drink!”

I went back to the bar, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp.

“Don’t you know me?” he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of ginger hair, to the light.

“I don’t know you,” I said, handing him the Breezer. “What can I do for you?”

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat.

“I’ve come back,” he repeated; “and I was the King of Afghanistan — me and Murdoch — crowned Kings we was! In this nightclub we settled it — you serving there and giving us the looks. I am Harry — Harry Charles Albert David Windsor, and you’ve been serving here ever since — O Lord!”

“Take some more WKD and go on,” I said. “This was the first club you came into. How did you get to be King?”

“I wasn’t King,” said Carnehan. “Murdoch he was the King.”

“Murdoch damned them all round. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ he shouts, ‘Haven’t I put the shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?’ It was me really, but Murdoch was too angry to remember. ‘Who bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges?’

“I fired into the brown of ’em with an English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was full of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, ‘Not a god nor a devil but only a man!’. ‘Come away — for Gord’s sake come away!’ says Matty Drudge.

“My own notion is that Rupe began to go mad in his head from that hour. He stared up and down like a stuck pig. ‘An Emperor am I,’ says Rupert, ‘and next year I shall be a Knight of the Queen.’”

“‘All right, Rupe,’ says I, ‘but come along now while there’s time.’”

“‘It’s your fault,’ says he, ‘for not looking after your Army better. There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn’t know — you damned chauffeur-driven, sloane-laying, booze hound!’ He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought the smash.”

“But do you know what they did to Harry between two pine-trees? They interviewed him, sir, as Harry’s PR will show. They used cameras for his voice and his face; and he didn’t cry. He hung there and screamed, and they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he wasn’t dead. They took him down — poor old Harry that hadn’t done them any harm — that hadn’t done them any…”

He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes.

“Then they turned him out, and told him to go home, and Harry came home in about a day, begging along the roads quite safe; for Rupert Murdoch he walked before and said:— ‘Come along, Harry. It’s a big thing we’re doing.’”

“Let me take away the WKD, and give me a little money,” Windsor gasped. “I was a King once. No, thank you, I can’t wait till you get a carriage for me. I’ve urgent private affairs — in the south — at Boujis.”

He shambled out of the club and departed. That day at midnight I had occasion to go down the freezing cold Mall, and I saw a crooked man staggering along the black mud of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after the fashion of street-singers. There was not a soul in sight, and he was out of all possible earshot of the media. And he sang through his nose, turning his head from right to left:—

“The Son of Di goes forth to war,
A golden crown to gain;

His ginger-red barnet streams afar—
Hacks follow in his train”

I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and drove him off to the Palace for eventual transfer to Chelsy. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me whom he did not in the least recognize, and I left him singing to the Queen.

Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Secretary of the Palace.

“He was admitted suffering from Cheeky Vimto. He puked early yesterday morning,” said the Superintendent. “Is it true that he was half-cut bare-chested in the moon at midnight?”

“Yes,” said I.

And there the matter rests.

(Inspiration from Challinor, apologies to Kipling)

Posted on March 1st, 2008 at 9:58am under Afghanistan

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