The Regiment

by Christopher Nicole

  To the eternal discredit of the British Army, Murdoch thought.

  *

  ‘The troop will fall in at three ack emma tomorrow morning,’ Murdoch told Sergeant Bishop. ‘A Troop reported seeing a Boer commando in the vicinity of Block-house Thirty-Five last evening, and the colonel has instructed us to discover their track and follow it at first light.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Bishop looked very unhappy and seemed to find it difficult to remain at attention.

  ‘At ease, sergeant,’ Murdoch said. ‘Tell me what is on your mind.’

  ‘Sir... the men don’t like it. They’re soldiers, sir. Show them an enemy with a gun in his hand and they’ll follow you right up to him. You know that, sir. But this making war on women and children...’

  ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, sergeant,’ Murdoch told him. ‘But it is a necessary policy if we are going to end this war before we are all grandfathers.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Still Bishop hesitated. ‘Do you approve of what we are doing, sir?’ he asked, with the boldness of intimacy; they had now lived and fought together for nearly two years.

  Murdoch looked at him. ‘No, sergeant,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t. I also thought I had joined the Army to fight against armed men. But I also joined the Army on the clear understanding that I would carry out the orders of my superiors without question, and took an oath to that effect. As did you, and every man in the troop. So there it is. If we are fortunate, tomorrow we will make contact with the commando before it goes to ground, and have a real fight on our hands. In any event, the troop will move out at three ack emma. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Bishop saluted and withdrew, and Murdoch was able to look at his letters again. A whole batch had arrived with the last mail train. Several were from his mother and sisters. They were alarmed to hear that he had been wounded, reassured when he had returned to duty, but were now querulous that he was still in South Africa, carrying out what appeared to them to be police duties—no word of Kitchener’s ‘concentration camps’ had of course been allowed to leak back to England. Rosemary was especially querulous as her engagement had now lasted more than two years and she was still waiting for her Captain Phillips to return. Murdoch had only seen his future brother-in-law on a couple of occasions during the long struggle, but he knew Phillips was as fed up as everyone else, even if, as a guardsman, he was spared the seek-and-destroy missions on which the cavalry were engaged and was instead confined to permanent garrison duty.

  Then there was a letter from Harry Caspar, asking if the rumours he was hearing from other correspondents were true, that the British were burning the Boer farms. That was a letter he dared not answer.

  And then there were three letters from Rosetta Dredge. She seemed to write him every week, but her letters always arrived in batches, each batch more difficult to accept than the last. While in hospital he had written her and suggested that, in all the circumstances, she should find someone else; her reply to that had been sizzling with accusations of dishonour and ungentlemanly conduct, and he had never dared suggest it again. But as he had no intention of ever finding himself married to Rosetta Dredge, it was a situation which was going to have to be faced one day, and probably soon. Thus the thought of returning to Cape Town was just about as forbidding as the thought of continuing with this dishonourable and ungentlemanly campaigning up in the Transvaal.

  He put them all aside. They could wait until he returned from tomorrow’s unpleasant duty. He slept soundly, as he always did, was awakened by Reynolds at a quarter to three with a cup of tea, shaved and washed and put on his uniform and stepped outside into the crisp predawn blackness. It was always cool at this height above sea level until about ten in the morning, when the sun would be high.

  ‘B Troop ready for patrol, sir,’ reported Sergeant Bishop, who appeared to have regained some of his spirits.

  ‘Thank you, sergeant. We should be back by this evening, Reynolds,’ he told the batman.

  ‘I’ll have a hot bath waiting, sir,’ Reynolds promised.

  Murdoch inspected the troop, commanded them to mount and walked them out of camp, saluting the sentries as he passed the pickets. Then they followed the beaten-earth roadway to the blockhouse, some ten miles distant, from where Prendergast had sighted the commando the previous day. Dawn broke just before they got there to see the Union Jack fluttering proudly in the breeze.

  ‘Lieutenant Mackinder,’ said Captain Blewitt of the Northampton, looking down on him from the crenelated roof. ‘Thought you’d never arrive. Those fellows came back last night and exchanged fire.’

  ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘No. It was long-range stuff. The odd thing was that there weren’t many of them—only about twenty, I would estimate. Certainly not enough to have any chance of successfully attacking this fort—I have forty men here, apart from the Maxim gun. It seemed almost a sort of demonstration. Anyway, they abandoned it about two. They’ll be well away by now.’

  ‘Those tracks look clear enough,’ Murdoch told him. ‘We’ll take a look.’

  Blewitt nodded. ‘Good hunting. Hard to decide what they were after, really.’

  ‘Twenty men,’ Murdoch said. ‘Good day to you.’

  The tracks were certainly well marked, leading in a north-easterly direction towards some distant kopjes about twelve miles from the blockhouse.

  ‘We’ve been out here before, sir,’ Sergeant Bishop commented. ‘I’m sure just beyond those hills is that village we burned last month.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch agreed thoughtfully. Twenty men, demonstrating against a well-fortified position. That was utterly pointless. And now making for a deserted village. ‘There may be more to this than meets the eye, sergeant. We’ll have an advanced guard and flankers, if you please.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said enthusiastically. He also had been in South Africa long enough to be wary of apparently simple situations. The orders were given and the advance guard of six men under Corporal Yeald moved up, while three flankers went out to either side. But the morning remained quiet as the troop trotted up to the hummocks and rocks. The advance guard disappeared into them and the main body followed a few minutes later. The tracks led right through the first kopje, to emerge into the small valley they knew lay on the farther side, where the burnt-out stumps of the Boer village remained, a scar on the brown earth. Here the advance party drew rein, while Corporal Yeald dismounted to peer at the ground and Murdoch led the rest of the troop up to them, gazing down at the earth as well, and the still clearly visible hoof marks, now greatly increased in number.

  ‘There have been more than twenty horses here, sir,’ Corporal Yeald said. He had become quite an expert tracker during the last couple of years. ‘And quite recently.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch agreed. He raised his head, looked at the kopjes which surrounded the valley and felt his skin crawl. Of course it was only a matter of time before the Boers determined to strike back at the men who were looting their homes. ‘We’ll withdraw the troop, sergeant,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Take up your position on that high ground over there, call in your flankers and erect the heliograph equipment. Signal the blockhouse to signal the camp that we have made contact with a large Boer commando and need reinforcements. At least another troop out here, on the double, and a battery of artillery.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bishop agreed. ‘Follow me, lads,’ he said. ‘Easy, now.’

  The troop wheeled to the left, the advance guard falling back into line. Murdoch waited as they passed him. His hair still seemed to be standing on end. He knew he was in the presence of a large number of men, but where they were he could not tell. Until the first bullet flew, followed by a hail of others, as the Boers realised that the troop was not, after all, going to ride into their trap.

  Several men were hit, but all managed to keep their saddles. ‘Ride,’ Murdoch shouted, and the rest galloped for the high ground he had chosen as a defensive position. He turned Lucifer to follow them, and felt th
e deadening thump he had known once before, when Edward IV was shot from under him. The horse dropped like a stone, but he was more prepared for it this time; he landed on his feet and kept on running, drawing his revolver as he did so and glancing to his left, where the troop was disappearing, and then to his right, where several mounted men were riding at him. He brought up the revolver, fired and saw one of the Boers tumble backwards out of the saddle. Then the rest were upon him, clearly intent upon taking him prisoner, as they held their fire. The shoulder of a horse cannoned into him and he was thrown headlong, the revolver flying from his grasp. He sat up, gasping for breath, searching from left to right for the gun, then found himself looking into several rifle muzzles.

  ‘Easy, now, lieutenant,’ said one of the men. ‘Easy. Make a wrong move and you’re a dead man.’

  Murdoch hesitated, then heard another voice. ‘By God,’ it said. ‘Murdoch Mackinder, by God.’

  He raised his head in consternation, gazed at Paul Reger.

  5 – The Transvaal, 1901

  Murdoch was taken utterly by surprise. He had inquired after Reger when the British occupied Johannesburg, and was told the young German had gone away—and presumed he had returned to Germany. Now he gave him an astonished look, then glanced at the kopje, but his men had retired out of sight, on his orders. And there were a very large number of Boer riflemen close at hand and on the rocks above him.

  ‘You are our prisoner,’ Reger said. He then spoke in Dutch, and a horse was brought forward. Murdoch accepted the inevitable and had his wrists tied to the reins, which were then secured with a loose line to the bridle of Reger’s horse. ‘Mount up,’ Reger commanded.

  Murdoch swung into the saddle. ‘What do you hope to achieve?’ he asked. ‘The war is lost for you. You can only get yourself killed.’

  ‘We can take some of your British with us,’ Reger said. ‘Let’s go.’ He swung the horses, and the riflemen formed an escort around them.

  ‘With us?’ Murdoch demanded. ‘You’re not even a Boer.’

  ‘I have chosen to fight with them,’ Reger said. ‘They have found my military training very useful. I am deputy field cornet of our commando.’

  The horsemen were now filing out of the western side of the valley, leaving the regiment behind. And what do you mean to do with me?’ Murdoch asked.

  ‘Why, as you are the first officer we have captured, we intend to exchange you for some of our womenfolk who were taken when you burned our village a fortnight ago and have been locked up in those death camps of yours. I will confess that I am delighted; we had of course hoped to capture a British officer by luring you into our little trap, but I never dreamed it would be you.’

  ‘What difference does it make who it is? Kitchener will never agree to an exchange.’

  Reger grinned. ‘Then you will spend a long time in our company, Murdoch. We must hope that your General Kitchener is a sensible man. I think he will be, where you are concerned.’

  They were now on the plain beyond the kopjes, and looking back, could see the flashes of light in the sky. ‘They are sending for reinforcements,’ Reger said. Murdoch nodded. ‘On my orders.’

  ‘But when they get here, there will be nobody to find.’

  The horses were kicked into a canter, and the commando, which numbered nearly a hundred men—as opposed to the twenty who had demonstrated against the blockhouse—made off to the north-west. Murdoch was aware of feeling more angry than alarmed at his situation. He had, after all, ridden into a trap. He had even known instinctively it was a trap, and had yet reacted too slowly. At least he was the only positive casualty. But he had lost another good horse, and he was a prisoner. For the sake of his reputation and his honour, and his peace of mind, he had to escape. But that was not practical at the moment, with his horse secured to Reger’s, and surrounded by Boer sharpshooters. He would have to practise patience for a while.

  Three hours of hard riding brought them to the laager, two dozen wagons tucked away out of sight in a ravine, where anyone might have ridden by a dozen times and never known they were there, save for the wisps of smoke from the cooking pots; but the place was surrounded by sentries on the high ground.

  Murdoch realised that the war had taken on yet another new dimension, one as yet unknown to Kitchener; now that their homes could no longer be used for shelter, the Boers had reverted to the social structure that obtained in the days of the Great Trek, and were moving as a tribe, with their cattle and their families. Here there were women and children as well as men, and they surrounded Murdoch’s horse, reaching up to drag him from the saddle. With his hands bound and secured to the reins, he could not defend himself; he had to submit to being manhandled while people spat and cursed at him in Dutch. For a moment he thought he was about to be lynched, but Reger and the other men drove the angry women away and released him from the reins, although his wrists were left bound. He managed to straighten his tunic, which had been torn open by the clawing fingers of the women.

  ‘You’ll observe that you are not very popular here,’ Reger said.

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch gasped, reaching for breath.

  ‘Can you blame them, when they hear of what is going on in those camps?’ He pushed Murdoch through the throng, to face a tall, thickset and heavily bearded man. ‘Cornet Voorlandt speaks English.’

  ‘You have secured an officer,’ Voorlandt remarked. ‘That is good. How many of the bastards did you kill?’

  ‘Only a couple were hit; I do not think any were killed. We did not fight a battle. It was the officer I wanted,’ Reger told him. ‘I know this man. He comes from a famous family and is very well thought of in his regiment. They will be anxious to have him back.’

  Murdoch opened his mouth to correct Reger’s mistaken impression of the situation, based obviously on having known him as a friend of Holt’s, and overvaluing the Mackinder name—at least as applied to this last member of the family, who had already blotted his copy-book too often—but then changed his mind. It was no part of his business to point out his enemy’s misapprehensions, and Reger had to be considered an enemy, now.

  ‘You will arrange for a flag of truce,’ Voorlandt said. ‘Meanwhile, tie him to a wagon wheel and let him stew a while.’

  ‘No,’ Reger objected. ‘With respect, cornet, he was my friend—and he is too valuable to be ill treated. I will place him in our wagon. Margriet can feed him. And guard him, too.’

  ‘English scum,’ Voorlandt growled. ‘How could you make a friend of such a man?’

  ‘That was before the war,’ Reger reminded him, and escorted Murdoch to one of the wagons.

  ‘I suppose I should thank you for that,’ Murdoch said.

  ‘Indeed you should,’ Reger agreed. ‘Were you confined in the open, those women would have your eyes—if they did not leave you an eunuch.’ There were steps at the rear of the wagon and he helped Murdoch up. ‘If you were to give me your word as an officer and a gentleman that you would not try to attempt to escape, I would untie you.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I cannot do that,’ Murdoch said.

  Reger shrugged. ‘Then you will have to be uncomfortable. But the choice is yours. Sit.’

  Murdoch sat on the floor of the wagon. Here there were mattresses and cooking pots and stores of grain and sides of beef, as well as a large assortment of weapons and ammunition—and three women, who came closer to stare at him. One of them was quite elderly, and he assumed she was the wife of the cornet. The other was younger, although still much older than himself, Murdoch estimated, and looked very like her companion. The third was only a girl, not yet twenty, Murdoch decided, very Dutch in appearance, with her long, thick yellow hair, and large, solemn features—but it was a handsome face. She was taller than the other two, very nearly as tall as Reger, in fact, and he suspected she would have a decidedly athletic body beneath her somewhat shapeless gown.

  Reger spoke to them in Dutch, and then beckoned the girl forward. ‘This is Margriet Voorlandt,’ he explaine
d. ‘Field Cornet Voorlandt’s daughter. She speaks English.’

  ‘Juffrouw,’ Murdoch said. ‘I wish I could say it is a pleasure to meet you.’

  Margriet Voorlandt gazed at him. She had large pale blue eyes. ‘You are an English scum,’ she said. But he had the feeling she didn’t really mean it and might even feel sorry for him.

  Reger grinned. ‘Margriet is my fiancée,’ he said, and Murdoch saw the ring on her finger. ‘Another reason for identifying with these people, eh? You will take care of Lieutenant Mackinder,’ he told the girl. ‘I wish him to be well fed and not ill treated in any way.’

  ‘Well fed,’ Margriet Voorlandt remarked. She sat opposite Murdoch, still gazing at him. ‘It is not dinner time yet.’

  Reger grinned again, picked up a rifle and handed it to her; she placed it across her knees. ‘She can use it, too,’ he told Murdoch. ‘But as long as you behave yourself, she will not harm you.’ He spoke again to the other women and then swung himself from the back of the wagon and returned to where the field cornet and the other senior members of the commando were waiting for him.

  Margriet’s mother and aunt, as Murdoch presumed them to be, also came back to sit and stare at him, and talk to each other—about him, he supposed, but he knew very little Dutch. After Reger’s remarks about what the Boer women might wish to do to him, he felt distinctly uneasy at the thought of being at the mercy of these three harpies with his hands bound together—even if to call the girl Margriet a harpy was hardly to do her justice. But she was an enemy, and he had to remember that. On the other hand, if she was to be his gaoler, she was also his only hope of escape.

  The thought came quite suddenly, partly because of that earlier feeling that she might not hate him quite as much as she pretended, and partly because it was apparent that the other women knew no English. Thus Reger might well have made a mistake, because in his absence, Murdoch and the girl would enjoy a very private world. Of course, he would have to be careful. If he offended her in any way, or said anything that she might choose to repeat to her fiancé, he might find himself in even greater discomfort. But she was his only prospect, and he could not help remembering how Rosetta Dredge had found him more attractive than Reger.