"You're a clumsy owl, Shilman…" mocked Nakshbad Singh, my senior orderly, "have you never heard a little gunfire before?" which was a typically daft thing of the old bugger to say for none of us had been under artillery fire until now - except Singh, of course, and I suppose that's why he said it. He could be a cussed creature could Nakshbad Singh. Older than all of us, he'd been a bearer with Napier at Magdala back in '68 and never let the rest of us forget it. He was clever, spoke good English and knew his medical onions, so to speak, but he was always bickering with Bowler - they were like cat and dog - and, frankly, it all got a bit wearing.
There must have been a pause for a few minutes, I suppose. I didn't notice, I was too busy looking to my lint, splints and bandages and listening to the noise of the guns when, all of a sudden there was a slithering crowd of men, sliding down the bank of the wadi just next to us and a voice yelling, "Where's the dressing station, where's the bloody doctor?" an alarmed, anxious, commanding voice.
"Over here, Sarn't Jackson, you've found the damn doctor!" I yelled back at the Band Sergeant who, along with some of his musicians, was carrying two stretchers with silent forms stretched out on top of them.
"Oh, sorry, sir. No disrespect meant. We've got two lads from Letter H Company for you - right nasty." Jackson was right about that. The first boy had been struck by a combination of iron splinters and flying grit that had peppered the side of his face and his shoulder badly and as Singh and Shilman started to clean the wound just like they'd been taught I asked:
"Why've you brought me this man, Sarn't Jackson? He's dead meat, you've wasted your men's time and brawn. You know you're supposed to mark the fallen and leave them where they are when battle's joined, don't you?" I was being needlessly harsh with the man, I knew, but then I was trying to cover my own dismay. It was another lad, no older than twenty at a guess, and the litter was quite asked with his gore that had leaked from several shrapnel wounds in his back, "Oh…oh, sorry, sir. I…we…"
“Go on, Jackson. Take the stretchers and get back to the Battalion. Go on, stop gawping and get away with you," and with that he and his seven men stumbled off. How I wish they had stayed.
Chapter Two: The Battle
I was completely absorbed with the wounded man, getting some of the little ether I still had left into him, cleaning the muck and cloth out of the lacerations and trying to staunch the bleeding, when a shot boomed close by, a ball smacked through the canvas of the awning and the breeze carried a cloud of powder smoke right round my little team.
"Bloody 'ell, bugger off you!" My senses were still numbed by the bang and, if I'm honest with myself, I was probably trying to absorb myself totally in the casualty and block out the distant din of the fighting - thank the Lord that Bowler had his wits about him. I was just aware that he was tinkering about getting more medical stores to a point of readiness, when the shot came and then he was down on one knee, swearing hard, his rifle - the very weapon with always seemed so unnatural in his hands - in his shoulder, bucking and spouting a great white finger of smoke. I heard more than saw the strike of his round, for I was still in a half crouch from the bullet that had narrowly missed me, but the sound of lead hitting flesh was unmistakable. And then a sigh and a body hitting the ground caused me to look over my shoulder at a wiry, bearded tribesman whose sandals were drumming a beat of death in the dust.
"Jesus, sir, there's more of the buggers!" said Bowler again, levering a spent cartridge from his rifle, slipping another half-inch round into the breech and sending another turbaned lout to meet the Prophet all in one, fluid move. And that's when I wished the bandsmen had stayed. They might only be musicians and the shock may well have ruined their violin playing forever, but at least I would have had someone to protect me. As it was, I was a good few strides behind Nakshbad Singh and the other two of my native bearers who, in a rare display of combined athleticism and savour faire had realised that a clutch of Ayoob's finest had not only infiltrated up the wadi, but had also got well into our rear. Then Nakshbad Singh and his folk - wise lads that they were - had made an instant decision to abandon their sahibs to whatever the fates had in store. Well, I can't say I'm proud of it, but I left the casualty for dead and was away up the wadi lip tearing off my apron and wishing that I'd had the forethought to keep my revolver on my belt.
"Run, Bowler, just run for Christ's sake man," I bawled as I scrabbled in the loose earth of the bank and it was only Madelaine, I guess, who saved the day - it certainly wasn't me. There must have been about half a dozen of the brutes within a few yards of my makeshift operating table now - I paused at the top of the stream bed - when Madelaine (we had to call her that - Madelaine the medical moke, you see) bolted right through the middle of them, braying like the self-opinionated harlot that she was, and giving Bowler the space he needed. Then it was, "Go on, sir, I'll hold 'em here, see'f you can't get 'old of the bloody nag," another cracking detonation from Bowler's rifle who was now beside me and I was haring off out of it, catching Madelaine's harness as I did so. The difficulty I found, though, was that I was now going forward towards the fighting, not backwards away from it, clinging to an animal that was only a fraction more in control of its senses than I was and neither of us with anything more offensive than a bag of mixed oats and bran. Thank God for Bowler and Nakshbad Singh.
***
I'd never really realised what that old expression, 'out of the skillet and into the fire', meant until I ran for my life, right slap-bang into the middle of the biggest, bloodiest brawl I've ever seen. I seemed to have found myself in the centre of Dante's Inferno what with drifting smoke, shrapnel rounds bursting within feet of my head, horses and their riders galloping crazily by with the guns that they towed bucking along behind them. They were joined by Madelaine braying like the clap of doom whilst Nakshbad Singh did his best to stop her stampeding along with the rest of her kind.
"Ere, sir, get 'old of this, will yer?" panted Bowler, pressing a dead sepoy's Snider into my hands and a pouch full of ammunition. "Look sharp, Nakshbad, me old mucker, let's get amongst our lot, quick now!" and the weight of the weapon and its rounds was suddenly welcome. But not as welcome as the press of khaki bodies just in front, "Make way for the Doc an' 'is mates, can't you, Letter H?" yelled Bowler as we found ourselves hard up against two ranks of about sixty men, wreathed in smoke and, from the look on their faces, completely oblivious to anything except the charging ranks of humanity whom they were scything down with each of their thumping volleys. Now, I’d always thought that H Company was a fine company in a splendid battalion, but the way that those boys were loading, aiming, firing, loading and firing again struck me as miraculous. Some of their rifles were so hot that they'd wrapped the yellow-waxed cartridge wrapping paper around the stocks, whist every man had dozens of empty cases strewn about his feet.
"Don't bother trying to say anything to this lot, Watson…" suddenly, Peirson-Gower, H Company's youthful and adored commander, was shouting in my ear, "they're all as deaf as posts! Good of you to join us this far forward…"
But before I could explain, PG was gently elbowing me to one side and snapping off two rounds from his Enfield revolver whilst the soldier in front of him struggled with a jammed cartridge.
"Damn those Bombay lads, Watson. We did our best to prop them up, but they just broke and ran; would you credit it?" Well, I wouldn't credit anything, for it was as much as I could do not to piss myself with fear. "But we'll hold this lot so long as our ammunition lasts and the guns…ah… ah, that isn't the best of omens." You'd have thought PG was talking about a lone magpie flapping past us on a country walk, so cool was he, not the sight of one of our nine-pounders appearing through the smoke and dust with its horses at full gallop, the limber covered in wounded and going like the clappers for the rear.
"Things will probably get a bit sporting now, Doctor. Might I encourage you to lend a hand with that splendid fowling piece of yours - like your man here - it is Bowler, ain't it - is doing?" I've never heard an
ything like it. The wretched, lovely, daft bugger might have been asking me to take tea with him so calm was he - but that, thank God, was the sort of officer you got in the 66th and I could no more have refused him than if he'd asked me to bat at number eleven.
"Pull your rear sight down and aim low, sir: lovely, bloody lovely!" Bowler encouraged me as I pointed the long, steel barrel of the Snider at a charging tribesman who was no more than thirty yards from me, squeezed the trigger rather than jerked it, I'm pleased to say, and saw the man throw up his arms, flung to the ground by my piece of lead. Not that I could see much through the muzzle smoke. There were a thick layer of bodies, all dressed in tatty, multi-coloured robes lying a little in front of us, set about by black flags, some fallen, some stuck in the earth whilst the wounded writhed amongst them. Then, no sooner had I fired than the chaos seemed to ease a little with the non-commissioned officers telling us to cease fire whilst the smoke cleared slightly in the breeze.
"There y'are, sir! First blood to you, bet that felt good, din't it?" Bowler, helmet gone and spectacles awry was grinning at me. The scruffy little clerk had transmogrified into a fighting devil - he was fanning the open breech of his Martini to try to cool it down, clearly having the time of his life. But I couldn't agree with him. I'd obviously felled and perhaps killed one of my fellow men for the first time and whilst I knew that, as an educated man I should experience some remorse, I felt nothing. Nothing more, that is, than a profound relief than my wobbling knees and overstretched bladder seemed to have left me. But before I could reply, brassy, corporal and sergeant-like voices were demanding, "How much ammunition 'ave you got lads?" and on most men shouting back that they had no more than a dozen rounds left, there came the answer, "Well, shoot straight boys 'cos there ain't no more just yet an' Johnny Af's not finished by a long chalk!"
The only effect this had on Bowler was to make him laugh, to exclaim, "Dear-oh-dear, whatever next?" and shake his head. For my part I was glad that I had a full pouch of the entirely different Snider rounds - strange, rough, half paper-covered things when you compared them with the neat Boxer cartridges that the Martinis fired - but the next order sent a shiver up my spine…
"Bugger me, sir, you'll 'ave to keep your eyes peeled for one knocking around on the ground," said Bowler as he pulled his own, fourteen inch bayonet from its scabbard and slotted it over the muzzle of his rifle, all the rest of the men doing the same. Clearly, PG was right, things were about to get very sporting and that's why he was ordering bayonets to be fixed. I just had time to glance at Nakshbad who was stroking Madelaine's ears and whispering what I hoped were re-assuring things to her slightly to our rear when the cry went up, "Here they come again, hold your fire!" and with a great cry of what sounded like, 'din-din!' a wall of charging, yowling bodies emerged from another wadi about two hundred and fifty paces to our front. Some were firing their rifles and jezrails as they came, making the air around us hum with lead, but most waved an assortment of cutlery, swords, spears, daggers and the like and many seemed to be completely clothed in dirty white robes.
"Ghazis, sir. Them bastards in white is bleedin' madmen; they'll stick you in the gizzard, they will, if you give them a chance. Just 'old yer fire, sir, wait for the order," said Bowler, telling me nothing that I didn't know already and hardly adding to my confidence. Yet he just stood there grinning along with the rest of the Company, his rifle held waist high, the bayonets pointing at the enemy like a great, menacing hedgehog. But now no guns were chopping at these lunatics, we were simply rooted there waiting for them - I fancied I could hear their feet drumming on the sand, even above their chanting until, "At one-hundred paces, preeeesent…" was shouted by the NCOs and every man's rifle rose together. The minutes passed, on came the wave of bodies, my own finger curled round my trigger, first pressure taken, wondering why we were waiting. Then, "fire!", the scene disappeared in rolling smoke and instantly, "reload," levers were pulled, empty case tinkled to the ground, and "fire!" then the whole process again, our world lost in roiling smoke, cursing men and the screams of the dead and dying mixed with that crazy, terrifying shrieking that came closer by the second, invisible through the white cloud in front of us, Bowler turning to me, leering as he groped for another round and asking, "You alright, sir? Ready for…" but he never finished as, like demons through the fog, a clutch of banshees fell upon our line, three or four of them emerging just yards to my left, bellowing and hacking, pulling one of the soldiers by his equipment straps forward onto their blades, his boy's face an image of surprise and offended dignity as he disappeared under a welter of flying robes and vulpine snarls.
The next few seconds - or they could have been hours for all I know - were a pastiche of blood and horror. The boys rallied to their friend, bayonets jabbing and butts flailing, frail flesh being smashed and stabbed, hot blood flicking and spraying about as the soldiers and tribesman vied with each other in lethal skill. I watched, helpless, transfixed until Nakshbad Singh brought me to my senses, "Sahib…sahib, there in front, shoot sahib!" and I flung my Snider to my shoulder as a great, bearded creature appeared before me, a hideous knife pulled back, ready to plunge into my vitals. I fired (what else could I do, I doubt he'd have waited for me to calm him with laudanum) and saw my ball hit him just below the eye, the back of his head spouting blood before he fell from my view.
Then bugles penetrated the noise, shouts that made no sense to me whilst Bowler dragged at my arm and howled at Nakshbad, Madelaine and all of us, "Come on, damn well fall back…" and as the khaki ranks lost order and turned into a scrambling, darting scrum, "just bloody run for it, sir…" and I did, conscious only of the fact that a little way ahead, apparently on the bank of another wadi, I could see the face of PG and his Colour Sergeant. They seemed to be surrounded by no more than a dozen of his men - now all bareheaded with their clothes and equipment anyhow, yet firing disciplined volleys into our pursuers, buying us vital time. As we came closer I could hear the same officer not shouting, but saying with an iron determination in his voice, "Steady men, steady. Rally here, my boys…" with, unbelievably, a lit cheroot between the fingers of his left hand and a hot revolver in the other. It can only have been this cameo that made me stop and goggle at him for then he said to me, "Ah, Watson, I'm so glad to see you…" Yes, really: I expected him to summon the mess waiter with the next breath! "The chaps really appreciate your being up with us, but might I detain you for a while?"
My legs, however, had other ideas. They wanted to carry me to what looked like salvation across the other side of the wadi into a group of buildings where I thought I could just make out flashing patches of green silk and the Union Jack - the Regimental Colours which promised Colonel Galbraith, the Sergeant Major and, I had no doubt, order, calm and above all safety. But, for at least the second time that day, I couldn't refuse a man who asked me - yes, asked not told me - to risk my skin, could I? So, Bowler, Nakshbad, a maddened mule and an equally demented doctor joined this happy band of suicides as the remnants of the Brigade streamed past with all the hounds of hell at their heels.
But, as I turned my appalled face from the bedlam around me to the berserkers in front of me and tried to get the breech trap of my Snider open, Pierson-Gower said, "It's alright, Watson, we'll do the ugly stuff. But, do you think you could take this young woman to somewhere a bit quieter? Heaven knows what she's doing here." It was the damnedest thing. Pierson-Gower was nodding towards a chit of a girl who lay almost at my feet, unnoticed in the chaos, in a dead faint with blood smeared across one of the most beautiful, captivating faces I've ever seen. The point was, I suppose, that you didn't get the chance to see what most of the native women looked like out here, for usually they were veiled. But, whatever it was that had wounded her had pulled the cloth away, revealing features and a figure which it would have been most ungentlemanly to ignore.
Chapter Three: The Retreat
It was only when we stopped in a pokey little hut beside which the remains of the old Regiment - alon
g with a handful of sepoys and their officers - was gathered, that I noticed how badly I still smelt of the spilt ether. It was almost strong enough to mask the stink of sweat - not ordinary, honest sweat, mark you - but the horrible, rank variety that the body excretes from every pore once you're utterly terrified. Even if the weather hadn't been unbearably hot, I know that my clothes would have been ringing wet with sweat, the stuff running down and dripping off my nose and onto the body of the girl at which both Nakshbad Singh and I were now looking. The two of us had lifted her off Madelaine the moment we thought there might be a pause, whilst I sent Bowler off to find out what was happening and at first things were reasonably quiet. Rifles still boomed, but it was calm enough for me to hear the NCOs and what few officers seemed to be alive redistributing ammunition and going about their khaki business.
"She very bad contused, sahib," Nakshbad was dabbing at a gash that ran up the girl's nose and into her left eyebrow that bled but didn't spoil her beauty. "Deep unconscious."
"She's certainly been knocked about by something nasty, Nakshbad. Let's try this," I fumbled around in one of the medical satchels that I had taken off Madelaine and in the depths of the big, leather bag I found some smelling salts. Turning the little bottle over in my hand, I was amazed at the lavender, civilian label, marvelling at the fact that it had probably been destined for some fashionable London or Dublin apothecary's before the War Office bought a case full. I held the glass container above my patient's lip, saw the head tip to one side, her nose wrinkle and then the eyes flicker just as we'd been told to expect at medical school. That certainly brought her round, but I guess it must have been the wet cloth that Nakshbad pressed between her lips that did the trick, for even in her fuddled state, she sucked the liquid, coughed, coughed again and then sat up in that reflex action that the body insists upon when an airway is blocked.
Doctor Watson's Casebook Page 2