straggling hair upon the upper lip in conjunction with the blue eyes at once revealed the true nativity of his caste. I addressed him without hesitation as a European deserter from the Horse Artillery at Mut’hra, of whom I had already read a description at Loodiana.’ Charles Masson attempted a bluff, ‘asserting that he belonged to Bombay and was merely travelling for amusement in this direction with the intention of proceeding home over land’. The performance was undermined by Masson’s demeanour, for he was visibly petrified, convinced that Harlan was a Company officer about to arrest him. ‘Perceiving his extremely uncomfortable position by the tremor of his voice and personal demonstrations of alarm, I quieted his terror with the assurance that I was not an Englishman and had no connection with the British government and consequently neither interest nor duty could induce me to betray him now or hereafter.’ A relieved Masson gave up the pretence and admitted that he and his ‘chum’, who was too weak to walk, were indeed fugitives from the British army. He himself had suffered from fever but had now recovered, and was desperate to get away from Bahawalpur.
Recognising a kindred spirit, Harlan made Masson an offer, even though by aiding deserters he was putting his own tenuous relationship with the British in jeopardy. He provided him and Potter with medicines and promised them horses and subsistence if they agreed to accompany him to Kabul. Masson accepted with alacrity and gratitude, and the following day the two Englishmen were installed as Harlan’s mounted orderlies. They had retained their artillery uniforms and broadswords, and Harlan remarked to himself that the addition of two officers in Western dress would add to the military panache of the outfit. Moreover, he believed he now had companions he could trust. ‘I reflected that I should be provided with at least two confidential retainers of interests identical with my own in case of personal danger arising from my peculiarly insulated situation.’
Harlan and Masson swiftly discovered their shared interests, and the American was delighted to have some educated company after so many weeks with no one to talk to (or rather, listen to) but Gul Khan. Masson and Brown decided that a pretence of American citizenship would offer additional protection against exposure as deserters, and they studied Harlan closely to pick up the manners of the New World. Masson would henceforth claim to be from Kentucky, a deception so successful that long after his death he was still being described, quite erroneously, as an American. The two Englishmen would play important roles in Harlan’s life: one would become his friend, stand by him in bad times, and then vanish into obscurity; the other would become his enemy, blacken his name at every opportunity, and become more famous than Harlan ever did.
The long-awaited meeting with Bahawal Khan would require all the pomp and dignity Harlan could muster. In his opinion, at least, this was considerable. ‘All my military retainers, now amounting to about one hundred armed men, were drawn up before the gateway,’ he wrote with pride of this ‘military pageant’. Harlan, mounted on Flora and wearing his Company uniform, took his place at the head of the troops, flanked by Masson and Brown. ‘I mounted, the bugle sounded, arms were presented,’ and with jangling spurs and clanking muskets, and some appreciative shouting from spectators, the American and his private army set off to meet the prince. Amirullah led the way on foot, carrying the silver mace like a club, while Gul Khan followed with the rest of the troops: first the sepoys, marching in time, then the Rohillahs, with rather less discipline, and finally a score of what Harlan euphemistically called ‘irregulars’ who did not march at all, but clattered along behind in a disorganised and enthusiastic mob.
Bahawal Khan was not going to be out-pomped, and had put on his own show of military force, assembling ‘his elite battalion of Seapoys armed in the European fashion and dressed in red jackets’. At least a thousand of these troops lined both sides of the town’s main street, and as the cortege passed, each saluted by putting his right hand in front of his forehead – a gesture which, Harlan observed, ‘appears extremely awkward with shouldered arms’. Behind the uniformed ranks milled an array of ‘irregular cavalry and dismounted cavaliers’, while the terraces of the houses on either side were packed with spectators craning for a look at the feringhee and his soldiers.
The nawab had set up a large pavilion about ten yards square in the middle of the town to receive his guest, but ‘so settled were his apprehensions of violence or sinister design’ that he had packed it with his own guards, leaving little room for the visitors. Harlan strode confidently into the enclosure in his most grand manner, and was unceremoniously mobbed. ‘The moment I entered, the Nawab’s confidential servants, armed to the teeth with every variety of weapons – spears, matchlocks, pistols, blunderbusses, swords, daggers, shields au bras – pressed around me and rather bore me up to the seat near the Nawab scarcely admitting the use of my legs!’
Gul Khan managed to squeeze in behind Harlan’s chair, ready to act as interpreter. Harlan studied Bahawal Khan closely: ‘He was a young man, apparently about twenty five years old, of middle stature and delicate form.’ The ‘unassuming deportment’ and ‘subdued bearing’ of the chief, who welcomed the visitor while ‘scarcely raising his eyes from the ground’, masked a man who was canny, ruthless and convinced that this tall stranger had come to depose or kill him.
Harlan beckoned Amirullah forward and presented the prince with a pair of valuable English pistols. Bahawal Khan examined the gift with undisguised admiration, remarking on the craftsmanship. The ice broken, Harlan instructed Gul Khan to tell the prince that he had ‘a confidential communication for the Nawab’s private ear’. Reassured that he was not about to be assassinated, the nawab ordered his bodyguards to draw back, and Harlan broached the subject of his mission, asking what treatment Shah Shujah might expect when he passed through his jurisdiction. The nawab’s reply was cautious: his house had always been faithful to the ex-king, he said, but then pointedly added that his country was a poor one. The hint was clear: if Shah Shujah wanted to be restored, he would have to pay for it. As Harlan rose to depart, the nawab’s vizier moved forward, bearing in his arms an exquisite tribal outfit which included a turban of gold brocade. This was a ‘dress of honour’, the first of many that would be presented to him over the coming years, a formal gift that, as Harlan elegantly put it, formed part of a ‘system of diplomatic language throughout the east’. With elaborate expressions of mutual regard, the meeting ended and Harlan rode back to his encampment, convinced that his first diplomatic foray on behalf of the exiled king had been a resounding success.
On 10 December Harlan and his troops marched out of Ahmadpur, leaving the Sutlej and heading west across country towards the river Indus. Harlan was in pensive mood, and with every step towards Afghanistan his past life seemed to grow more distant and irretrievable. ‘Heretofore I had not thoroughly divested myself of the familiar feeling one cherishes for the gradually receding associations of departing relations,’ he wrote, in an oblique reference to Eliza Swaim. The pain of that episode was slowly ebbing, for Harlan had little time for emotional reflection. ‘These scenes, a strange country, an unknown people and these objects in varied and diurnal recurrence filled up the tablets of observation.’ Finally, he was on the trail of Alexander the Great. ‘My mind was now full with the contemplation of the past,’ he wrote. ‘I was about to enter the country and become familiar with objects which have been made conspicuous to the world as the arena and subject of Alexander’s exploits.’
In these deserts, in 325 BC, Alexander had battled the warlike Indian tribe of the Malloi. Besieging the fortress of Multan to the north, the great Macedonian general had led the charge, receiving an arrow in the chest that nearly killed him. While his troops slaughtered the inhabitants of Multan, the wounded Alexander was carried away on the shield of Achilles. An attendant quoted Homer: ‘The man of action is the debtor to suffering and pain.’ Harlan would have reason to recall the motto
