The Regiment

by Christopher Nicole

  In fact, he had only been in hospital a month when a northbound ship was signalled, and he and the others were transferred, together with Reynolds and Buccaneer. Ramage accompanied him on board and took his farewell after he had been carried to his cabin. ‘I’ll bring the squadron home, sir, safe and sound,’ he promised. ‘Actually, now that we’ve smashed the Mullah, it’s going to be dead boring out here.’

  ‘We haven’t smashed the Mullah, Peter,’ Murdoch told him. ‘Not in his eyes, and not in the eyes of his people. Keep your eyes open.’

  He was right. Before the ship reached England, Muhammad ibn Abd Allah was invading Italian Somaliland and causing all kinds of trouble, and it was obvious that he was going to maintain himself for a long time yet. But by the time the ship docked, the Mullah and Somaliland seemed a very long way away. Wireless messages had been flashed ahead, and there was an ambulance waiting for Murdoch—which was very necessary, for although the sea air had done him a world of good he was still unable to walk; he was by far the most seriously of the wounded. Gordon Rodgers was there to greet him, as well as Mother and Philippa and Rosemary, who was now a mother herself—which made him an uncle, of a pretty little niece he had never seen.

  ‘I’ll bet you didn’t expect to see me back this soon,’ Murdoch told them; it was still only the end of March, and bitterly cold.

  ‘Oh, Murdoch,’ Mother wept, holding him against her breast and looking past him to clasp Reynolds’ hands. ‘Oh, corporal, what have they done to him this time?’

  ‘Nothing the captain cannot take, ma’am,’ Reynolds declared.

  ‘Even Father never managed to get shot as often as you do,’ Philippa said.

  But she smiled, and hugged him too, into her large, soft bosom. Like her sister, she was made for motherhood, and Murdoch wondered when she was going to get married, if ever. She was handsome enough. But she was also a very earthy person, more interested in her horses and dogs than in what she should be wearing to Ascot. It was something to think about, he decided, as he had to have something to occupy his mind for the next few months or so.

  Lord Roberts, now seventy-five years old and decidedly frail, came up from the Isle of Wight to see him and congratulate him on the handling of the squadron. Brigadier-General Hardie’s full despatches had by now reached London, and had been released to the press, and the public was thrilled with the idea of an old-fashioned cavalry charge again carrying the day.

  Sir John French, recently promoted to full general and clearly designated as Lord Kitchener’s successor, also came to visit. ‘It was a brilliant action,’ he remarked. ‘And combined with everything else, well, there has been some talk about recommending you for a bar to your VC, for attempting to save poor Knox’s life. But frankly, I’m against that. It would set a precedent, for one thing, and for another, it was a most flagrant disobedience of express orders. It would be bad for discipline.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Murdoch agreed, by now used to French’s somewhat direct way of putting things.

  ‘So instead we have recommended you for the Distinguished Service Order, and His Majesty has been pleased to agree. You will attend the first investiture at Buckingham Palace after you are fit to leave this place.’ He cocked his head. ‘The DSO is the highest award that can be given for behaviour in the field where absolute heroism above and beyond the call of duty cannot be proven. You might at least look pleased.’

  ‘Oh, I am, sir. Pleased and flattered. Although I cannot help but feel that the entire squadron should receive a medal. After all, they followed me in the charge.’

  ‘Don’t sell yourself, or any commanding officer, short, Mackinder. It’s those in command who take the decisions and lead, and either get shot first or torn to shreds by the critics when they make a mistake. The rank and file follow. It is the quality of leadership that counts: a good officer makes good soldiers behind him; a poor officer makes poor soldiers. Now tell me what is really on your mind. Knox’s death?’

  ‘I killed him,’ Murdoch said. ‘Do you realise that, sir? I rode up to him and shot him. And you are giving me a medal.’

  ‘Everyone who was there, or has read Brigadier-General Hardie’s report, knows that you shot Knox, Murdoch. He was found with his head blown away by a Smith and Wesson bullet. But in killing him, you were obeying orders not to allow any prisoners to fall into Somali hands, even if you were disobeying orders by going back to do so. And if it’s any consolation to you, he would have died anyway, according to Dr Grayson, even if you had managed to carry him back to your squadron; his entire crotch was torn out.’

  ‘But...the waste of it,’ Murdoch said. ‘I mean, sir, what were we doing there, anyway?’

  French frowned at him.

  ‘Perhaps you did not know, sir,’ Murdoch went on, ‘but I spoke with the Mullah himself.’

  ‘Did you? No, I did not know that. You mean he spoke English?’

  ‘Very well. And I should think one or two other languages as well. Oh, his people are barbaric, nasty fighters, and he does nothing to restrain them. He talked about there being religious reasons for mutilating their prisoners, but I suspect it is mainly motivated by the object of creating terror in the minds of those who would oppose him. It was something else he told me that made me think.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, sir, it is his land, as he sees it. We have taken it from him. Why?’

  ‘Well, we couldn’t let the Italians nab the entire Red Sea coast, could we?’

  ‘But what are the Italians doing there, sir? It is just empty desert, most of it. It’s not even a coaling station. It’s a complete waste of time. And we have introduced ourselves, and our diseases, and our machine guns, just so another little piece of the map can be painted red.’

  French gazed at him for several seconds. Then he said, ‘You know, Murdoch, for all your background, and your gallantry, and your very real tactical ability as a commander of horse, I don’t feel you are cut out to be a soldier. You think too much. Soldiers should never think, except about the immediate task they have been given. Not even generals. Our masters in Whitehall, who change direction with such regularity, tell us what they want done; and we, having accepted the King’s shilling, go out and do it—every so often dying in the process. I am quite sure that Mr Campbell-Bannerman and Mr Asquith would both be aghast if they ever saw what could be done to a man by a machine gun or a lyddite shell—or, I should think, a Somali knife. They would be appalled if they awoke any morning and were told there would be no warm water for shaving or, indeed, no water at all; that for their next drink they would have to walk twenty miles through the desert beneath a burning sun with an enemy sniping at them the whole way. But perhaps that is a necessary state of affairs. If we all understood the truth about soldiering instead, as you say, of sitting in a comfortable office and deciding which parts of the map we will draw red this morning, there would never have been any progress at all. Certainly there would never have been a British empire.’

  ‘Should there have been a British empire, sir?’ Murdoch asked.

  French regarded him for several seconds. Then he said, ‘You are in an odd mood, young man. I think the best thing you can do is get well again, just as rapidly as possible. You are either going to go very far in the Army, or you are going to wind up being cashiered. But you have to get out of bed to achieve either of those aims.’ He stood up and went to the door, then turned to look back. ‘Try thinking about something more positive. And remember: you did your duty. No man can be asked to do more than that.’

  *

  Murdoch supposed he was right. The strange thing was that he had never, except when in the throes of his desperate passion for Margriet Voorlandt, contemplated not being a soldier; the tradition was too deeply embedded in his being. Besides, now, at the age of twenty-six, he knew no other profession. More important, he enjoyed soldiering. He enjoyed even the dull daily grind of peacetime spit and polish, and as for active service, if he had had more than his share of wounds, h
e yet believed, every time he went into action, that he would come through unscathed—and he certainly had no doubt that he would survive.

  Yet he must now live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he had executed a fellow officer, and a friend, because it had been his duty to do so. He supposed he would grow grey before he expiated that particular guilt.

  And the Mullah would be defeated, of course. There was no native power could stand up against the might of the British Empire, not when its forces were led by men like Captain Murdoch Mackinder, VC, he thought with a wry smile, recalling one of the more sensational newspaper headlines.

  His shoulder took a long time to heal. In fact, Sister Anderson, in whose care he again found himself, confessed that the medical staff had not been at all sure the shattered bone would ever knit sufficiently for him to manage a horse or fire a revolver or wield a sword, or even salute properly—in effect, for him to resume his career. And for all of the healing process he was confined in the most rigid of splints—which held his arm away from the body and made it impossible for him to move—to prevent the slightest risk of upsetting the delicate knitting process. But it was at least happening, he was told. All he now needed was patience, which was the hardest thing of all to cultivate.

  Letters arrived regularly from India, full of congratulations—the regiment was, as usual, inordinately proud that their VC should have added another laurel to their brow, as it were—but also full of tales of what they were up to. Colonel Walters wrote of the difficulties of maintaining a proper showing in the extreme conditions to which they were so often exposed; Chapman related the various actions they were fighting with the Pathans and the Afghans; Billy Hobbs described the heat and the flies of summer, and the cold and the winds of winter; and Johnnie Morton, naturally, detailed the delights of the bazaars of Peshawar, the glories of the ‘bints’. ‘Shame you were wounded before you had the opportunity to get together with one of those Somali girls,’ Morton wrote. ‘I had been looking forward to comparing notes.’

  Little did he suspect what sort of notes they would have to compare, Murdoch thought.

  There was even a letter from Rosetta Morris, for the reports of the charge in the Togdheer had reached the Cape Town newspapers. ‘I look forward to following your career with great interest,’ she wrote. ‘As you may perhaps be interested in my own progress.’ Whereupon she proceeded to tell him, at great length, how well her husband was doing, of the beautiful house she had, of her three lovely children...whatever her motives in writing, he was merely pleased that she did not appear to bear any ill will for their abortive romance.

  From the Transvaal there were of course no letters.

  But they came regularly enough from Ramage, sadly recounting the utter boredom which had set in since the battle in the Togdheer. Brigadier-General Hardie had certainly ‘given the Mullah a bloody nose’, and the Somali leader was apparently continuing to concentrate his efforts against the Italians in the south of the country, with the result that there was very little for the British troops to do except play cricket and polo and get sick. Ramage also dreamed of being with the regiment in India. He was, however, pleased to report that he had been confirmed as captain of the squadron—and granted the Military Cross for his charge in support of the Lancashires—two new replacement lieutenants having been sent out from the depot.

  Murdoch hastily wrote back a letter of congratulations, with his left hand, but could not help but wonder, as he lay awake that night counting the throbs from his shoulder, where that left him. Back to the depot to raise a reserve squadron? But as the regiment already had three almost full-strength squadrons on active service, while not actually fighting a war; training duties promised to be just that, with no end in sight.

  ‘Oh, they’ll think of something,’ Gordon Rodgers told him, on one of his weekly visits. ‘They always do. You haven’t blotted your copybook, like me. And besides, your name’s Mackinder.’

  Murdoch could not blame him for being bitter.

  ‘In fact,’ Rodgers said, ‘you can have my job. I’m thinking of getting out. I’m going to be married next year.’

  ‘Are you?’ Murdoch asked. ‘Congratulations. I had no idea.’

  ‘Well, I only popped the question last Saturday night. Dorinda Hazelton. You must have met her.’

  ‘Of course,’ Murdoch agreed, not altogether remembering Miss Hazelton out of the horde of eager young women who had from time to time attended regimental dances.

  ‘Well, her father just about owns a brewery, and is looking for a good man to run his workforce. Sort of adjutant, I suppose you’d call it. Just up my street.’

  ‘You, in a brewery?’

  ‘There are worse places to wind up.’

  ‘But...leaving the Army?’

  Rodgers shook his head. ‘The Army left me, remember, two years ago. I don’t owe them a damn thing. So as I say, there’ll be a job going spare any day now.’

  ‘Thanks, but no,’ Murdoch said. ‘Not even if it means promotion to major.’ Which was in any event unlikely at his age.

  He couldn’t really argue against Rodgers’ attitude, however much he regretted his decision—and the waste of a good officer. But the fact that changes were taking place made him all the more anxious to regain his health and the regiment, and made the endless waiting all the more wearisome. His only real pleasure lay in the visits of Philippa, who came every other day, and was willing to sit with him for hours, playing chess or two-handed whist. She was a great favourite of Reynolds, who by this time had managed to have himself installed in the hospital so that he could look after his beloved captain—an irregularity which Sister Anderson was pleased to overlook.

  But there arrived the day when Philippa did not come alone.

  *

  ‘Hi,’ said Marylee Caspar. ‘I guess you don’t remember me.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Murdoch insisted, rising slowly to his feet and extending his left hand; this had become second nature now, although his right shoulder was nearly mended.

  How could I forget? he wondered. She was, if anything, more attractive than the last time he had seen her, two years before. Her figure had filled out, even if she did not appear to have grown any taller and still did not quite reach his chin with the top of her head. She still wore her hair unusually short, and still dressed as if she were preparing to go for a bicycle ride rather than serve tea to the vicar’s wife, with a close-fitting felt hat to match her braided green costume—but she was not the less attractive for that.

  He was staring at her, and she blushed. ‘It seems that I only ever see you in pyjamas,’ she remarked.

  ‘You don’t want to let the newspapers get hold of that,’ Philippa told her. ‘Lee is over here on a visit,’ she explained; she was given to the non sequitur.

  ‘I would never have guessed,’ Murdoch teased. ‘Lee?’

  ‘That’s what my friends call me,’ Marylee explained.

  And Philippa was very obviously a friend. ‘Is Harry with you?’

  ‘Harry has gone off to North Africa,’ she said. ‘Some place called Algeciras. That’s in North Africa, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s in Spain, actually.’

  ‘Well, he seems to think there could be a war starting up down there. Between Germany and France.’

  ‘That’ll be the day. European wars are passé.’ Now he discovered he was still holding her hand, which she was making no effort to free. Hastily he released it. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. Won’t you please sit down?’

  She did so, and they chatted, aimlessly enough, about what she had been doing since last they met, and about what he had been doing too, although he soon got them off that subject. Both girls had things on their minds, that was quite obvious; what bothered Murdoch was that it might be the same idea—he had thought of getting Philippa married off; it had not occurred to him that she might have the same idea about him.

  It was preposterous, surely. He hardly knew Marylee—or Lee, which he much preferred
. Of course, getting to know her would be a pleasure, but was he interested in getting to know any young woman, however pretty and intelligent and attractive—or recommended by his sister? Besides, could he ever dare to allow himself to be interested in a woman, now? Apart from the memory of his desperate pursuit of Margriet, of the lingering shock with which he had uncovered her true nature, there was the even more pressing memory of having killed a woman virtually with his bare hands, of the feeling of savage joy he had experienced when he had put his boot on Mulein’s shoulder and pressed down to free his sword. More important, he did not know if he could ever hold a woman in his arms again without seeing Tommy Knox’s naked body writhing on the ground, hearing his screams drifting up the hillside: the two were synonymous.

  But Philippa definitely had matchmaking in prospect. From then on, every visit she made to the hospital was in company with Lee, who was staying at Broad Acres—‘my favourite place in all the world,’ she confessed—indefinitely until Harry Caspar came to England to collect her, having either started a war or decided there was no hope of one. And with every visit, Murdoch became more attracted to the American girl and looked forward more to the next. He even found himself dreaming of her, which was not altogether surprising—it was a very long time since he had had sex.

  The situation was not lost on Sister Anderson. ‘Next week is der Tag,’ she announced with her usual brightness; she would have made a marvellous latterday Florence Nightingale, Murdoch thought. ‘You’ll be pleased to be getting home, Captain Mackinder.’

  ‘Um,’ Murdoch replied. He wasn’t sure about that, because what he had most feared had actually happened. Gordon Rodgers had resigned and the War Office had appointed him as officer commanding the depot—pending the return of the regiment from India.

  This was a blow, especially as he had learned that Tony Chapman had been shot through the head and killed by a Pathan sniper, and a new commander was required for his squadron. The fact of Tony’s death came as quite a shock, but while desperately sorry about it, Murdoch could not help but feel that it had happened at a most opportune moment for him, as he had been pronounced fit.