Arthur Lionheart's uncompromising order—"Everyone will be saved within a month"—shook the colonial administration in Calcutta to its foundation.
In private drawing rooms and smoky clubs, the senior officers muttered with a blend of disbelief and venom.
"He's lost all sense! Does he think war is a dinner engagement?"
"He's pouring our last reserves into that Afghan abyss!"
"Just wait. In a month he'll have saved no one—and then he'll have to face Her Majesty with empty hands."
The whispers multiplied, some gleeful, some fearful.
Arthur ignored every one of them.
He shut himself inside the Governor's House war-room and began what would later be known as the most unorthodox rescue operation ever undertaken by a British commander.
The first step stunned all conventional military thinkers.
He did not dispatch reinforcements blindly into the slaughterhouse of the Khyber Pass.
Instead, he summoned a dozen merchants, caravan-brokers, and border intermediaries—men who had trafficked in Afghan–Persian grey markets for decades and knew every influential chief between Herat and the Hindu Kush.
Arthur sat at the head of the table and went directly to the point.
"Gentlemen. You know Afghanistan's tribal chieftains more intimately than any government clerk in Calcutta. I require a service. Or rather… I require you to deliver a most generous 'gift.'"
He clapped once.
Several massive wooden chests were carried in and unlatched.
A blinding brilliance spilled across the room.
Inside lay mountains of sovereigns and silver—poured and polished until they gleamed like captured sunlight.
"Fifty thousand pounds," Arthur said, as though announcing the price of a loaf of bread. "You will take this money to the tribes that have not yet joined the siege of our forces. The Ghilzai to the south, the Durrani to the west—men who still posture as 'neutral.'"
He leaned back, expression unreadable.
"You shall inform their chiefs that His Highness of Britain holds their prudence in high regard. And that the Crown is eager to befriend such… sensible leaders."
"These fifty thousand pounds are a token of goodwill. If they agree to guarantee safe passage for our retreating soldiers—water, shelter, provisions—then upon the army's safe arrival, I shall provide another sum ten times as large."
He clapped again.
This time, soldiers brought in crates of newly forged weaponry—glittering metal fresh from the workshops of the Future Industries Group: advanced breech-loading rifles, revolvers, ammunition.
"These are the first gifts," Arthur continued.
"Not merely gold. Weapons. Influence. Opportunity."
"Tell them that with Britain's friendship, they may become the next great powers of Afghanistan—free to settle their personal feuds with those tribes currently assailing us."
A stunned silence filled the chamber.
The merchants stared at Arthur as though beholding something both magnificent and terrifying.
This was no naive prince.
This was a strategist of chilling clarity.
He didn't intend to battle the Afghan coalition—
He intended to buy half of it,
arm it,
and let it devour the other half.
Divide the alliance, fracture it, and let ambition do the rest.
A masterpiece of imperial realpolitik.
And every man in the room knew that no Afghan chief alive could resist such intoxicating wealth and firepower.
Once the "financial envoys" departed with their golden tribute, Arthur turned to Phase Two.
He convened the scientists and engineers who had accompanied him from London.
"Gentlemen," Arthur began, "you recall the balloon project we were developing in the London laboratory?"
One engineer nodded. "Yes, Your Highness. The prototype carried two observers to an altitude of roughly three hundred metres."
"Good." Arthur paced before them. "Using every yard of silk available in Calcutta, and our most advanced gas generators, I require at least ten full-sized balloons constructed—immediately."
He withdrew a set of schematics from his coat.
"And each balloon will be fitted with a high-powered telescope, fabricated from our best optical glass, according to these designs."
The engineers exchanged baffled looks.
"Your Highness… may we ask the purpose?"
Arthur's eyes glinted with something between brilliance and audacity.
"I intend to build an Eye in the Sky."
He continued, voice sharpening.
"Afghan mountain guerrilla tactics are devastating because they strike from unseen ridges and vanish into invisible passes."
"But if we can ascend above the battlefield—if we observe from the heavens—then their shadows will betray them. Every ambush site, every goat path, every hidden stronghold becomes visible."
"From three hundred metres in the air, the battlefield becomes transparent."
"And with the new wired telegraph, reconnaissance can be transmitted instantly to the retreating columns."
He turned to face them fully.
"This shall not be a chaotic flight from Kabul."
"This shall be the world's first coordinated, three-dimensional, information-driven military operation."
"Money will clear the path…
Technology will conquer the unknown."
When Major General Cotton—appointed field commander of the Kabul Relief Operation—received the two directives, he remained frozen at his desk for nearly an hour.
First: the audacious, meticulously structured "Tribal Negotiation Brief."
Then: the revolutionary "Aerial Reconnaissance Proposal."
A veteran of dozens of campaigns, hardened by unforgiving frontiers, Cotton found himself exhaling a long, involuntary breath.
It was a sound of awe—
and of hope he had not felt in decades.