Drums Along the Khyber

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Drums Along the Khyber Page 9

by Philip McCutchan


  *

  A strong guard had been mounted to keep watch throughout the night all around the perimeter of the bivouacs. The men forming the guard—twenty rank and file, two corporals, a sergeant and a subaltern—were relieved at two-hourly intervals and at five minutes to two a.m. James Ogilvie was roused out by the sergeant of the off-going guard.

  “Time for your watch, sir.”

  Ogilvie struggled through clouds of weariness. In due course he would learn to wake at the slightest touch, the slightest sound—but not now. Patiently the sergeant waited till he was fully awake, then said, “Mr. Syme is away at the western end, sir. He says to tell you he’s bloody tired and cold and ready to drop down where he stands, sir.”

  Ogilvie yawned, tried to smile. “Is everything quiet, Sergeant?”

  “Everything’s quiet, sir.” The sergeant hesitated. “Begging your pardon, sir. The R.S.M. told me to say when I woke you, he’d be much obliged if you’d call him if you’re at all worried about anything.”

  “That’s very kind of Mr. Cunningham,” Ogilvie said cautiously, “and I’ll keep it in mind.”

  The sergeant straightened, took a pace backward, and came briefly to attention. Then he turned about and marched off with his rifle at the short trail. Ogilvie got to his feet. He felt a twinge of annoyance with the R.S.M. Bosom Cunningham was treating him like a child, didn’t want to risk having the whole battalion roused out by any alarm to arms as a result of a green subaltern misinterpreting the sound of a night bird’s cry. Nevertheless the R.S.M. meant well and was a sure shield against a young officer making too great a laughing-stock of himself when there was an element of doubt in a situation. Ogilvie went off in a westerly direction to take over from Second-Lieutenant Syme, picking his way with a certain amount of difficulty between the strewn boulders casting their shadows grotesquely beneath a high, bright moon. The air now was crisp, really cold, and Ogilvie needed the blue patrol jacket his servant had got out for him from his baggage. When handing over the guard, Syme repeated the sergeant’s earlier summary: “Nothing doing, old boy. It’s everywhere as quiet as a church.”

  “And damn cold.” Ogilvie shivered.

  “You should be wearing trews.” Syme himself was. “When the wind blows up your kilt, you’ll get a touch of the brass monkeys. Want to go and change? I’ll wait.”

  “No, it’s all right, thank you, I’ll manage.” Ogilvie hesitated. “By the way, where’s Bosom sleeping?”

  Syme laughed. “See that boulder over there—the big one between the two little ’uns? Cunningham’s in its shadow. You can’t see him, but now and again you’ll hear a snore if you listen for it.” Syme pulled off his glengarry and ran a hand through thick fair hair that gleamed in the moonlight like gold. “Did you have a message from him, too?”

  “Did you, then?” Ogilvie asked in surprise. He’d always regarded Syme as one of the more knowledgeable subalterns.

  “I did indeed—don’t worry, you’re not the only one! Bosom loves us like a father, and trusts us just about as far too! And if I were you, James, I’d take his advice—that is, if you’re not at the other end of the perimeter when things start going bump in the night.”

  As it happened Ogilvie was in the precise spot at which he had taken over from Syme when he heard the eerie whistling note but it was so similar to the cry of that hypothetical night bird he’d had in mind that he didn’t react until it was almost too late. It was a mysterious and frightening sound in the night, a high warbling note three times repeated. It came from rising ground away to the right and some distance ahead of them where the rocky sides of the pass tended to fall away. Ogilvie stood listening, waiting for a repetition. The sergeant, standing by his side with a bugler, was as puzzled as he.

  “I don’t know what to make of it, sir,” he said. “It sounded like a bird of some sort...and yet at the same time it didn’t, sir.”

  There was no other sound. Ogilvie said uncertainly, “It may have been meant to sound like a bird. I’m going to rouse out the R.S.M. and—”

  “Already roused. Sir!”

  Ogilvie and the sergeant swung round, startled. The R.S.M., approaching fast from the rear, hadn’t made any sound. He said, “I heard a noise I did not like at all, Mr. Ogilvie. If I was you, sir, I’d sound the alert and quickly.”

  “But—”

  “Quickly, Mr. Ogilvie. Look ahead there. Man, the pass is alive and is moving!”

  Ogilvie looked. It was a brief look but enough. All of a sudden there was a curious flowing of the surface, like the living quality seen on water under a moon. As the R.S.M. had said, the very ground seemed to be alive—alive with squirming, wormlike bodies. Ogilvie addressed the bugler sharply. “Sound the alert,” he ordered.

  The harsh notes cut through the night. Behind the group of men soldiers and officers came rudely awake, reached out for rifles and revolvers, manned the ten-pounders and the Maxims. There was a clatter of equipment. At the same time the pattern ahead changed as the native force, realizing now that they had been spotted, got up from their stomachs and came on at the run. As the Maxims went stuttering into action, Ogilvie ran towards the Colonel to make his report.

  “A force of native infantry, Colonel,” he said breathlessly, “attacking from ahead.”

  “Yes, I see them. Thank you, James.” The Colonel’s voice rose. “Spread the men out on a wide front,” he called. “All rifles will hold their fire till ordered otherwise.”

  More orders were called as the company commanders took over, spreading out their men across the pass and up the hillsides, using what little time they had to get into position as the old-fashioned muskets of the attackers opened up. Ogilvie, his responsibilities as guard commander now ended, was running to join his company when he heard the order passed for the rifles to open and join the fire of the Maxims. The leading natives were only thirty yards away when the rifles of the battalion smashed the first volley into them. Wave after wave came on, disregarding the steady fire. There seemed to be no end to them; as fast as men went down, more took their places, materializing from out of the night along the pass to the westward, their naked bodies, oiled for slipperiness, gleaming in the moonlight. They cut through the front rank of the British soldiers, plunged into the centre, cut the battalion in half. The men swung their rifles, firing point-blank into the attackers’ flanks. Already one of the Maxims had jammed and was silent. Then, from the rear, the mountain battery opened up in smoke and flame and fury, cleaving into the rear of the advance, which began to waver. The effect was like the blowing of a bridge, cutting off the native support. At the same time the British front rank was ordered to close across the line, which they did; part of the native force, caught in the centre now and surrounded, was cut up by a murderous short-range fire from the rifles and, once again, by both the Maxims. With the artillery still depositing shells between the British and the attacking force, the natives beyond the shell-bursts began to scatter to north and south, and then Ogilvie heard the British bugles sounding the cease fire. Hard upon this came a shout from the Colonel: “Fix bayonets and charge!”

  As the order was repeated by company commanders and platoon sergeants, Dornoch, mounted now, spurred his horse towards the running men, trampling over bodies, and swept down on their rear with his broadsword lifted. With wild yells and cries the Royal Strathspeys charged behind their gleaming bayonets. Ogilvie, attempting to lead his half-company, was overtaken by the rush of men and practically trampled underfoot. Bemused and uncertain, but feeling in himself a strange lust for battle now, he disengaged himself from the men as best he could and stormed along the pass with his sword in his hand, running like a deer. In point of fact most of the natives, unencumbered by heavy equipment and knowing their terrain, got clear away; but the Royal Strathspeys overtook some of the stragglers and at one point Ogilvie saw a bloodstained, bulky figure ahead of him lift a Highland broadsword, fitted with a cross-bar guard, above his head with both .hands and bring it down with a vicious side
ways slash at a running Afghan. The sword flashed in the moonlight and took the man’s neck, and the head jerked a little in the air and then fell to the ground and rolled horribly. For a few seconds the legs kept on running, the body stayed upright, and then it crumpled and fell and as the portly victor of that particular duel puffed on for another kill, James Ogilvie recognized his father. He knew in that instant that his father had done something for which he would long be remembered and honoured, that the men would mightily approve of the General Officer Commanding the Division being in the thick of the fighting; but he felt, also that it was an alarming and appalling thing to see one’s father in the act of slicing off a man’s head.

  The dawn came up soon after and showed the full extent of the British casualties: fourteen men, three N.C.O.’s, one subaltern—Syme—dead; fifty-eight assorted wounded, some serious, others slight. Four more men died of their wounds whilst the cooks were preparing breakfast. The bhisties, the water-carriers, were kept busy, as were the medical orderlies under Surgeon Major Corton, who was himself wearing a bloodstained head bandage. But the enemy had gone, the pass was clear, and once again they were able to bury their dead in peace. Ogilvie saw his father talking to the Colonel; Sir Iain’s right arm was bandaged and in a sling, with his sleeve cut away, but he looked calm and serene enough, and confident too. He was laughing at his servant brushed down his uniform and then clipped carefully at the ends of his moustache and brushed again. The night’s events, it seemed, hadn’t disturbed him in the least. Ogilvie wondered how many years of service he would need to see before the same would be true of himself. Possibly such detachment would never come to him. Possibly there was too much of his mother in him.

  Breakfast over, Lord Dornoch had the men fall in along the pass, then called his officers and senior N.C.O.’s together. He said, “We mustn’t discount the possibility of further attacks, gentlemen, but we have only one more day’s march on our own. If the situation has not changed for the worse outside Jalalabad since the last reports via the field telegraph, I expect to be met at dusk by scouts from the main body of the Division. When they meet us, at least we’ll have established contact. From then on we’ll be in direct touch with Division and on the assumption the lines of communication are secure, I expect little more trouble. You’ll pass the word of this to the men.” He nodded at Hay. “That’s all, Major. Report when ready to march, if you please.”

  Briskly he returned the salutes. Ogilvie saw him staring sombrely along the pass towards the cairns where the dead lay buried. There was a sadness in his face, a reluctance to march away and leave them. Ten minutes later the battalion was once more on the move behind the pipes and drums, which beat bravely into the still, clear day. The men marched now even more wearily than before, more sadly for their numbers were depleted, more soberly because they had had a taste of real action and were beginning to realize what the north-west frontier was all about.

  One of the men who had died was Private Storr—Jamie, whose girl had come to Portsmouth so many weeks before to try to stop him sailing in the Malabar. Jamie Storr’s company commander in life had been Captain Graham. Ogilvie wondered what Graham would find to say when he wrote that difficult letter to Jamie’s girl, or Jamie’s parents. Something about his having died well for the Queen-Empress and the Empire? Or to the greater glory of the 114th Highlanders? It wasn’t going to help Jamie’s family very much, though no doubt, like everyone else, they revered the old Queen in Windsor Castle and might be proud to feel Jamie had died to help keep her there. But if Private Jamie Storr had died sheltering in fear behind a boulder—which for all anyone knew, he might have—the flow of tears would be exactly the same back in Invermore.

  Black came riding down the line, eyes roving, seeking out faults. “Mr. Ogilvie!”

  It was all formality now. “Sir?”

  “Your men are shambling along—not marching. Mr. Ogilvie, this is the 114th Highlanders, not a supply and transport column.”

  “Yes, sir.” Better, perhaps, to have taken the bull by the horns and answered: “This is the Khyber Pass, not the parade at Invermore,” but Ogilvie couldn’t quite get around to that today. And really there was no point in giving the adjutant any openings. One of the difficulties of the situation was that the men of his half-company were going to be made to suffer for his sins vis-a-vis Mary Archdale. Ogilvie sighed and turned to the platoon sergeant behind him. “Smarten the men up, if you please, Sergeant.”

  “Sir!” The sergeant stepped out of the line, marched backwards, brought his rifle to the slope, slammed his right hand in to his side, and roared out mechanically, “Snap oot o’ it, lads, swing those arms, lift yer feet don’t drag ’em...look like soldiers of Her Majesty, not railway guards!” Plainly, the sergeant didn’t approve; you didn’t drill men through Khyber, you let them march at ease if you had enough sense to fit into a cat’s navel, and you helped them along. Not that young Mr. Ogilvie could help it, of course. It was that bastard, Black, and he alone. Sweating in the day’s mounting heat, the sergeant turned and, doubling ahead, resumed his place in the column. Ogilvie heard Black chivvying the following companies along as well. When the adjutant had trotted back up the line again, some singing came from the rear. It had an ironic sound about it. Back came Black, his face crimson and furious. “Stop that damned devil’s orchestra!” he shouted. “We’re in the Khyber Pass, not on a route march through the Speyside villages.” Black was strong on comparisons. He wheeled away again as the singing died and soon after that Ogilvie saw the Colonel talking to him, quietly enough, but Black wasn’t looking happy. The singing started again after a twenty-minute halt when the battalion fell out for a rest, and this time Black kept well up in front of the column and pretended he hadn’t heard.

  It was a little before dusk when the section that was scouting ahead sent a man back to report that troops, believed to be British, had been spotted. The pace of the column quickened in anticipation but the sharpshooters became even more alert and the word was passed from Lord Dornoch to be ready for action if the newcomers should turn out to be unfriendly, unlikely though this in fact was. And within the next half-hour their friendliness was proved when two British officers, one of them from the General’s staff, rode up with a headquarters detail to make contact with Lord Dornoch and the newly-appointed Divisional Commander. Later that evening they were joined by the main body of the contacting force and that night the battalion made camp along with the 96th Mahratta Light Infantry in company with another battery of mountain guns. The presence of those extra guns were comforting; all night their muzzles stared out along what was left of the Khyber Pass and over the next two days trundled comfortingly along with the Royal Strathspeys, clear of the pass now and across the plains of Ningrahar, to join up with the Division laying siege to the town of Jalalabad by the Kabul River, near the junction of the Kunar flowing from Chitral.

  One of the officers who had been sent out to meet the Divisional Commander turned out to be none other than the Brigade Major of the Mahrattas—Major Archdale, Mary’s husband. He was a whiskered, tubby, red-faced man with grey hair and protuberant blue eyes, a fussy, self-important manner and a loudly demanding voice. When he knew this man’s identity, James Ogilvie studied him with some considerable interest. He didn’t look like the killer his wife had said he was; more a buffoon. But in any case he and Mary Archdale seemed poles apart. The Brigade Major was accompanied by a curious item of equipment. It was an article of furniture, apparently, and looked like a commode, but an exceptionally large commode of unusual construction. It intrigued Ogilvie; and evidently it intrigued Sir Iain as well, for next morning, in James Ogilvie’s hearing as it happened, the General mentioned the article to Lord Dornoch.

  “What the devil’s that feller got with him?” he demanded. Dornoch said, “It’s his field lavatory, sir.”

  “Field what?” Though in fact the General was no stranger to commodes accompanying the more fastidious officers on active service, he was in a difficult
and fractious mood. “What did you say, Dornoch?”

  “Lavatory.”

  Sir Iain exploded. “Well, I’ll be damned. Field lavatory! As if we hadn’t enough clutter already to haul to Jalalabad! Can’t he manage the same as the rest of us?”

  Dornoch said tactfully, “I’m told not, sir. He suffers from chronic constipation, and—well, the situation is, he generally needs this specially constructed—er—apparatus. I gather it’s a case of comfort. He can’t be parted from his own field lavatory, it appears.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “A British officer of the 96th M.L.I.” Dornoch coughed, kept a straight face but didn’t meet the General’s eye. “The apparatus is attended by a havildar of the 96th...a man referred to, I’m told, as the Brigade Major’s bum-havildar.”

  “God give me strength,” the General said.

  *

  If the cantonments at Peshawar had been very different from the barracks at Invermore, the encampment outside Jalalabad was also very different from peaceful Peshawar. Here the whole Division apart from the many sick was at its war station and urgency was in the air, all fit personnel were on a continual semi-alert in case of attack, with details standing-to all along the perimeter, and there was an expectancy of a foray in every moment of time. The British were drawn in their circular formation on the plain and around the hills overlooking the town; Ogilvie could stare down on the fortress occupied by Ahmed Khan, its gaunt towers reaching up like lances threatening the very sky. North of that fortress lay the Kafiristan mountains and west lay the gap in the British circle, the gap that was heavily defended on the hilltops at either side by the rebels, the gap that kept the fortress and town supplied—the gap that the Royal Strathspeys had to close and then to hold; and once that had been done the grand assault on the fort itself would be mounted. The 114th’s lines were next to those of the Mahratta Brigade, so Ogilvie wasn’t far from Major Archdale, a fact which he found kept bringing Mary into sharp focus in his mind’s eye. Shortly after the battalion had made camp, all the officers were called together by the Mahrattas’ Brigadier-General to be given a summary of the current situation. The Brigadier-General came straight to the point. “You’ll all be well enough aware,” he said, “of the overall position. Ahmed Khan is very strongly entrenched in his fortress. We have to eject him. It sounds simple. If we had the necessary superiority in numbers, it would be. But we haven’t. Nevertheless, we shall achieve our objective, of course. It won’t be the first time British troops have won the day against seemingly insuperable odds. We all know that.” He paused for effect. He was a small, perky man like a belligerent sparrow, and he stood with his hands held tightly behind his back and his shoulders drawn very far backwards. He went on, “The 114th is to be brigaded with us, so you have now come under my orders, gentlemen. I may say I’m glad and proud to be associated with you. I much admire the Scots regiments, and their aggressive fighting spirit. There’s nothing like them anywhere.” Ogilvie glanced at his Colonel; Dornoch’s eyes were downcast, his mouth slightly pinched as though he felt the Brigadier was laying it on a shade too thick. “I think you already know that our special task—what you have joined us for—is the closing of the gap—the supply line from the Hindu Kush which is still open to Ahmed Khan.” He turned and pointed with his stick, using the terrain itself as his blackboard. He indicated two high craggy peaks in the foothills to the west, some twenty miles away as the crow flies and directly beyond Jalalabad. The peaks, which were both south of the Kabul River, were very clear in the still air, clear and brooding and dangerous. The Brigadier said, “Between those peaks there is a wide defile, the entrance to a valley running through to the Hindu Kush—where Ahmed Khan has a powerful following and an equally powerful arsenal, also a more than adequate supply of food, crops, and so forth, to enable him to withstand a siege of almost any length—so long as that route remains open. We face defeat,” he added, in contradiction to his earlier words of patriotism, “if it does remain open.” He looked up intently into the officers’ faces, his eyes beady and bright and earnest. “To close the rebel’s supply route, gentlemen, is going to be a devilish tricky business—devilish tricky, let me tell you! You see the peaks. Both have excellent lines of communication to Jalalabad, both are well defended with the rebel artillery. Our task in the Brigade is to take the southern one. At the same time as our attack is mounted, the northern peak will be assaulted by another infantry brigade, all home troops, from the lines on the far side of the perimeter—over there.” Again the stick was brought into play and waved towards the other side of Jalalabad. “Once we have both those peaks in our hands, we shall then command the defile. This may in itself be enough to prevent the passage of any supplies or reinforcements. But, in order to ensure the complete closure of the route, I have been ordered to extend across the defile and hold the line there, being joined by the northern brigade of course. After that, the whole Division will close in in preparation for the kill. The kill will come once the rebel is reduced for lack of supplies. It is our hope that this will be done before this terrible curse of sickness cuts our own strength further. Now: intelligence reports reaching us in the last few days from political officers operating between here and the Hindu Kush indicate that a supply column—ammunition, men, foodstuffs—is expected to reach the defile within the next twelve days from now. It is vital—quite vital that the closure is most fully effective by then, for the safe arrival of the column at Jalalabad will be most serious, gentlemen—I stress this again. It is also important that we mount our attack with the element of surprise in our favour. Thus, we shall advance around the perimeter only during the hours of darkness, and keep in cover, and rest, throughout the day. Three nights will be allowed for the two brigades to complete their march. That should be more than enough and is, indeed, generous. You will have tonight only, gentlemen, to rest before that march begins. I suggest you and your men take the very fullest advantage of this. There will be no guard or picket duties required of the 114th or their attached artillery in the meantime. Incidentally, you will leave your own artillery behind to reinforce this end of the line and will pick up the assault batteries en route. That is all for now, gentlemen. Detailed orders will be issued tomorrow, together with maps of the southern peak and the entry to the valley.”

 

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