The Command

by Christopher Nicole

  Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig became Earl Haig, and Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces in Great Britain. Murdoch wondered what he thought of a situation where all his wartime commanders had been scattered to the corners of the earth.

  *

  For Murdoch, the greatest day of 1920 was the return of the Royal Western Dragoon Guards. They had had the thankless task of remaining in Mesopotamia to protect British interests there while the peace was being sorted out.

  Murdoch went down to Plymouth to greet them, shook hands with Billy Prendergast, who had after all been confirmed in command. But Billy looked even less confident than when last they had seen each other.

  ‘God,’ he said, ‘am I glad to be home. We have had one hell of a time.’

  Looking over the disembarking men, Murdoch could believe it. They were haggard and worn, and a large number were clearly unwell.

  ‘We had a lot of cholera,’ Peter Ramage explained. ‘And some fever. It’s still about.’

  He himself looked as fit as ever. ‘Congratulations,’ Murdoch said, looking at the crown on his shoulder strap. ‘Major Ramage.’

  Peter grinned. ‘Everything comes to he who waits, they say.’

  Murdoch shook hands with Lowndes, looked for Hunter.

  ‘He’s buried outside Baghdad,’ Ramage told him. ‘Cholera.’

  The men had lost comrades too. But Yeald was there, saluting as smartly as ever. ‘General Mackinder, sir! It’s good to be home.’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Sergeant-Major.’ Yeald was obviously determined to ignore the change of rank; once a general, always a general.

  He spotted Destry, and Bryan, but not Collier, who had also died of cholera. And then Ralph Manly-Smith. ‘Captain Manly-Smith,’ he said. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘I took over Hunter’s squadron,’ Manly-Smith explained. ‘It’s good to see you again, sir.’ He had never forgotten that his would have been a short war had Murdoch not carried him back from the gas-filled trench.

  ‘What are your plans?’ Murdoch asked. He knew Manly-Smith was a product of Sandhurst, like himself, but after six years he might have had enough of the army.

  ‘Oh, I hope to make a career of it, sir. Will I be allowed to do that?’

  ‘I hope so, Ralph,’ Murdoch said.

  *

  The Westerns returned to their old headquarters outside Bath, marching proudly through the streets of the city behind their colours, which had been kept in storage throughout the war, with the regimental band blaring forth. Sir John French was unable to attend because of ill health, and so Murdoch himself took the salute. He was delighted to have them once again under his wing, for he had been confirmed as Colonel-Commandant of the Light Cavalry, and all four regiments were stationed down in the west country, where they could exercise their peculiar talents on the moors and take part in general manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain with the rest of the army.

  When there were general manoeuvres. Anti-militarism and economy were in the air. The Royal Air Force was nearly phased out of existence. In 1922 the Royal Navy accepted terms at the Washington Conference which limited them to thirty-five-thousand-ton battleships and only a specific number of ships as well; the great days when Britain operated the two-power standard, which meant that the Royal Navy was always to be as strong as any other two fleets added together, were gone forever. For the army there was no new recruitment and precious little new equipment. Even the development of the tank seemed to have been put into a permanent hold position.

  ‘Money, or lack of it,’ Sir John said, when Murdoch visited him. The old gentleman was now seventy, and very much the senior soldier in the army. ‘And a naive belief that a European war can never happen again. But it will, Murdoch.’

  Murdoch grinned. Not before I retire as well, Sir John. Last birthday I was forty. I reckon I’ve seen my career out.’

  ‘Don’t believe it,’ French said. ‘When I was forty the Boer War was still seven years in the future. We hadn’t even retaken the Sudan. And if anyone had told me then that twenty-two years later I would command the greatest army Britain has ever put into the field, against the Germans, of all people, I’d have laughed in his face.’ He brooded for a few moments. ‘Wish I’d made a better job of it.’

  ‘You made as good a job of it as anyone else,’ Murdoch insisted. And he meant it. Haig had done nothing French hadn’t. If French had been accused of too much caution in 1914 and 1915, Haig could have been accused of far too blatant a waste of life in the following years. He had won because the nation had become geared to total war — which it had not been in 1914 — and because it had been led by a man, Lloyd George, dedicated to total war — which Asquith certainly had not been — and because of the development of things like the tank and the aeroplane...things his successor in the next war might well have to do without, if the craze for economy continued.

  Winston Churchill, who was now Secretary of State for the Colonies, agreed with him. ‘But money has to come first, Murdoch,’ he said, when they lunched together at the Cafe Royal. ‘Financial stability is the essential for military strength. We have got to get the load of debt we have incurred fighting the war off our backs, get back on the gold standard, let the world see that Britain is again great, again the absolute rock of security she has been for the past hundred and fifty years — then we can start thinking about the next war. Oh, French is quite right. There will be another. I would be a brave man were Ito name with whom. It would be Germany, of course, were they ever able to re-arm; they hate our guts for 1914-18. But as they can’t re-arm...I brood more on Soviet Russia.’

  Murdoch frowned. ‘Aren’t they in the middle of a huge civil war?’

  ‘It’s just about over. Again, indecision and lack of funds on our part. We haven’t supported the Whites as we should have, and there’s no doubt now that Trotsky and Lenin and that whole murderous crew are going to come out on top. Men who can execute their royal family are capable of anything.’

  ‘We executed our king, once,’ Murdoch could not help putting in. ‘And Cromwell did wonders for the army.’

  ‘Cromwell executed a king,’ Churchill corrected him. ‘He left the queen and her children alone.’

  ‘Perhaps because he couldn’t get hold of them.’

  ‘I hardly believe he would have had them murdered in cold blood. No, no, Murdoch. Watch Russia. You may have to lead your men in a charge across the steppes yet.’

  *

  Murdoch did not believe him. If Great Britain was all but bankrupt, the rest of the world, saving only the United States - which was the world’s creditor - was in an even worse state. And Russia was in the worst state of all, if only a tenth of the tales coming out of that distraught land were to be believed. There were reports of ten million deaths in the civil war, most of them from starvation, and the concept that the bear could ever threaten the lion again in his lifetime was absurd.

  He visited his eldest sister, Rosemary Phillips, when he was in London; they had not seen each other for nine years, since the last pre-war party at Broad Acres.

  ‘It is all a mess, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘Geoffrey’s getting out.’

  ‘Seriously?’ His brother-in-law, several years his elder, had come out of the war a colonel in the Guards.

  ‘Well, what’s there to stay in for? He didn’t quite make brigadier. No, I think he’s right. He’s coming out and is going into politics.’

  Murdoch grinned. ‘As a Tory, I presume.’

  ‘Well, of course. It’s time we got rid of these mealy-mouthed Liberals once and for all. You know, it might be an idea for you, Murdoch.’

  ‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘I’m a soldier. My ambition is to die with my boots on, even in bed.’

  He concentrated on training the light cavalry in all the concepts he had built up during twenty-odd years of soldiering, in speed of manoeuvre and use of weapons. He did not know if cavalry would ever be used on a battlefield again, but they would have to be if there were no tanks a
vailable.

  He also enjoyed becoming the father figure of the young men who followed him, and who clearly worshipped the ground on which he walked. Billy Prendergast retired from the army in 1923. He had found, as Murdoch suspected, the wholesale slaughter of the war, the idea that one wrong decision could cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, too much to bear. He came up to Broad Acres on a Sunday afternoon to say goodbye; one of the great joys of being stationed in the west country as a senior officer was that Murdoch could, for the first time in his life, get home almost every night, and certainly spend every weekend with his family.

  ‘I suppose you feel I’m letting the regiment down,’ Billy said. ‘But the fact is, I’m thirty-seven, and I doubt I will ever get another promotion, and there’s this good job being offered...’

  ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing, Billy,’ Murdoch said. ‘Promotion has got to be slow in peacetime, with not a lot happening.’

  ‘Of course, if there was a chance of us being sent overseas, India...’ Prendergast peered at him, seeking any knowledge the Colonel-Commandant might have which had not yet been passed on.

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t, so far as I know,’ Murdoch told him. ‘Things seem to have settled down over there. The Russians are too caught up in their own problems to be troubling Afghanistan, and this fellow Gandhi seems to be going in for peaceful protests. Even if his followers occasionally get out of hand, there seems to be nothing the police can’t handle.’ He didn’t even know if Shere Khan was alive or dead.

  ‘Yes,’ Prendergast brooded, as unsure as ever. ‘And Peter will make a good CO.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Murdoch agreed. Peter Ramage would have been his choice for colonel of the regiment from the beginning.

  ‘Shame he never married,’ Lee observed when Prendergast left.

  ‘Makes a man, does it?’

  ‘Teaches him decision. I mean, surely, getting married at all is a decision.’

  ‘Often taken by the female,’ Murdoch pointed out, and ducked the pillow which came his way.

  Peter Ramage was married, to a dark-haired debutante named Linda whom he had met at a ball in Bath immediately after returning from Mesopotamia. The wedding had been a great affair, and Murdoch had had the pleasure of making the toast to the bride and groom. Linda Ramage was some fifteen years younger than Lee, but the two women got on very well.

  Murdoch duly recommended Peter for the necessary promotion, and it was confirmed by the War Office.

  ‘Do you know,’ Peter confessed, ‘I have waited for this for sixteen years, ever since I came down from Sandhurst. God Almighty, how long ago that seems. Do you remember it, Murdoch?’

  ‘Yes. We were about to leave for Somaliland.’

  ‘With Knox. Poor Knox.’ He gave a guilty gulp. Murdoch had killed Tommy Knox himself, to save him from being further tortured by the Somali women. ‘And now...I feel very humble. And very unsure of myself.’

  ‘You’ll grow into it,’ Murdoch assured him.

  ‘Do you really think so? When I think of the decisions you have had to make...’

  He was again thinking of the Knox incident, Murdoch knew; Knox had been Ramage’s best friend. ‘Making decisions can become a habit,’ he said. ‘It’s one worth cultivating. While you pray they are always the right ones. Incidentally, they aren’t always the right ones, Peter.’

  He had no doubt that Peter was going to make an excellent colonel. Nor did he have any doubt that the next colonel of the regiment was already to hand. Ralph Manly-Smith was proving a splendid soldier. He had come out of the war with a Military Cross, and tremendous energy and determination.

  Energetic men as a rule have an excess of energetic hormones, however, and Murdoch was a little taken aback when Ralph came up to see him one day in his office. ‘Permission for a private chat, sir.’

  ‘Of course. Sit down.’ Murdoch waited.

  Ralph hesitated for some seconds, then he said, ‘I would like to get married, sir.’

  ‘Good heavens! Anyone I know?’

  ‘Ah, well...I don’t think so, sir.’ The young man was clearly embarrassed.

  Murdoch frowned at him. He had at least a nodding acquaintance with most of the girls who were trotted out for regimental dances. ‘Then perhaps you’ll tell me her name.’

  Ralph licked his lips. ‘Her name is...Jennifer, sir.’

  ‘Jennifer. That’s a nice name. Does she have a surname?’

  ‘Ah...Yeald, sir.’

  Murdoch stared at him. ‘You’d better say that again.’

  ‘She is RSM Yeald’s daughter, sir.’

  ‘I thought she might be. Does he know of your desire?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Colonel Ramage?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  ‘But you have spoken to Miss Yeald, I take it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And she, I imagine, is in favour of the idea.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘How old are you, Ralph?’

  ‘Twenty-five, sir.’

  ‘Well, then, it’s a matter for Colonel Ramage. As you’re not yet thirty you cannot get married without his permission.

  ‘I know that, sir. It’s just that I thought, if you were to put in a word...’

  ‘Why should I do that, Ralph?’

  ‘Well, sir...I love Jennie. I really do. I...’

  ‘You are being a God damned young fool,’ Murdoch told him in measured tones.

  ‘Sir...’

  ‘I know this is the age of democracy. But there is still your career to be considered. You are a highly thought of young officer. I can tell you that you have a brilliant career ahead of you, even in peacetime. Colonel of the regiment, certainly. Very probably field rank afterwards. If nothing untoward occurs. Retirement from field rank can mean a colonial governorship, or even more. But none of those things are likely to happen if you marry the daughter of your own sergeant-major. I’m not being a snob, believe me. I’m presenting the facts of life as they are. You will wind up being retired at thirty-five as a major, with not a lot to look forward to.’

  ‘I accept that, sir.’

  ‘But you’re determined to go ahead with it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She must be a most lovely young woman,’ Murdoch remarked, thinking of Yeald’s somewhat craggy features. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Eighteen, sir. And she is, a most lovely young woman. But that’s not the reason.’

  Murdoch frowned at him. ‘For God’s sake, you’re not going to tell me she’s pregnant?’

  ‘She is, sir.’

  ‘Holy Jesus Christ! How? I mean,’ he added hastily, ‘how did you get to know her so well?’

  ‘We met at a non-commissioned officers party, sir. The officers were invited, as usual, and I went along. Well, sir, you always insisted that we shared our men’s activities.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch said grimly. Not their daughters.’

  ‘Well, sir...Jennie was there. She really is a most lovely girl, sir. And we got talking, and found that we had quite a lot in common, and...well, we sort of agreed to meet again.’

  ‘And you did meet again. A lot in common. What are you, Harrow and Sandhurst?’

  ‘No, sir. Winchester and Sandhurst.’

  ‘And what is she, Bath Grammar?’

  ‘No, sir. Jennie did not attend the grammar school.’

  ‘You are not improving the situation. What does your father do?’

  ‘He is chairman of a company in the city, sir.’

  ‘Does he know any sergeant-majors? Do any of them belong to his club?’

  ‘Well, no, sir.’

  ‘So what is he going to say when he finds out? I don’t suppose you’ve told him yet, either.’

  ‘No, sir, I haven’t. He will flip his lid.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘But I must do it, sir. I want to do it. And I will do it,’ Manly-Smith said. ‘Even if I have to quit
the army, now.’

  *

  ‘I suppose it’s quite a compliment, that he should have come to me before anyone else,’ Murdoch said, sitting up in bed with an unread book on his lap.

  ‘Of course,’ Lee agreed. ‘Everyone who has ever served with you worships the ground you walk on.’

  ‘I hadn’t ever expected to play nursemaid to any of them. What the hell am I to do? I mean, how can anyone have been so God damned foolish?’

  ‘I would say he was more unlucky than foolish. Anyway, I seem to remember hearing once about a young lieutenant who fell madly in love with a quite unsuitable young woman. As I recall, he was Wellington and Sandhurst — not quite Winchester, but not far off — and she was from the veldt and...did Margriet ever go to school at all?’

  He glared at her. ‘All right, so you have me across a barrel. I didn’t marry her.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you have, if they hadn’t sent you home pretty damn quick?’

  He sighed, and subsided down the bed. ‘Of course I would have.’

  ‘Even before you knew she was pregnant.’

  ‘Yes. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I would have been a God damned fool, and would have ruined my career, to have done so. And I wouldn’t have married you.’

  ‘You count that as a good thing?’ She smiled.

  ‘I have just been God damned lucky all of my life. Now, how the hell are we going to stop Ralph Manly-Smith from being God damned unlucky?’

  Lee closed her own book, and put it on the bedside table. ‘Times have changed a little, since 1900.’

  He frowned at her. ‘You’re not suggesting I back him?’

  ‘I’m suggesting we meet Jennie Yeald.’

  *

  Ralph Manly-Smith brought Jennifer Yeald to tea at Broad Acres the following Sunday afternoon. He wore mufti, blazer and flannels, and she wore a dress obviously bought for the occasion, in yellow voile with a hemline rather lower than was becoming fashionable; her brown suede shoes were just visible. It was easy to see she had a very good figure. Her hat was a huge straw, which threw one side of her face into shade; this was a pity, because she was also an extremely attractive girl, with somewhat clipped features and very dark brown hair. This, as was the trend, had been cropped and only just covered her ears; it was straight, with a slight wave.