by John Masters
After nearly twenty hours the train stopped in the middle of the night, in a town which Krishna never did learn the name of, and found Brigadier-General Rogers, who told them they were under his command and would remain so until Divisional Headquarters arrived from Marseilles, in a couple of days. The Lahore infantry Brigade had already left and the Ravi Lancers were to follow as soon as possible. Ten minutes after its last squadron had detrained the Ravi Lancers were on the march. That was twelve hours ago.
Krishna’s horse stopped and he realized he had almost ridden into the CO and Regimental Headquarters. Colonel Hanbury’s long face was weary and he sat stiffly upright as though he knew that if he relaxed he would fall from the saddle.
In front of him the mass of the 1/12th Gurkhas blocked the road. Krishna said, ‘Shall I go forward and see what’s the trouble, sir?’
‘Yes, please. We’re two hours behind the timetable already ... Don’t take all those men, Krishna, there’s no room--just your trumpeter to send back a message, if you have to.’
Krishna trotted forward, his trumpeter at his heels, along the verge of the road, or in the ditch, sometimes pausing to ask the Gurkhas to ease out of his way. This move was nothing like moves he had made in India, during manoeuvres. A dozen times since dawn the regiment had been stopped by columns of troops crossing the line of march. Once it was a brigade of British infantry, which no one had told anyone else about, but they were in a hurry and their brigadier-general was a choleric man who disregarded Colonel Hanbury’s protests, and marched his brigade firmly over the crossroad in column of route with sentries posted to prevent anyone breaking through their line of march.
This time Krishna found it was a battery of medium artillery, moving up the same road in the same direction. The teams of eight huge horses, straining at the harness, could move the 6o-pounders at only three-quarters of the marching pace of infantry. General Rogers was there, arguing with the battery commander as Krishna rode up. He heard the gunner major say, ‘You can put me under arrest, sir ... but I have the corps commander’s written order to get this battery to St. Marc by 1800 at all costs.’
‘Can’t you turn off the road for half an hour to let my brigade pass?’ the general said irritably.
‘No, sir ... but may I suggest that your men could march--or ride--round and past us?’
Brigadier-General Rogers looked up and saw Krishna. He put his monocle in his eye and said, ‘Your top button’s undone, Major Krishna Ram. I won’t tolerate slovenliness in officers.’ The colonel of the Fusiliers was there. Behind him the road was blocked by columns of infantry. ‘We can get the men past, sir,’ the colonel said, ‘but the GS wagons won’t be able to follow.’
The brigadier-general chewed the end of his leather-covered swagger stick and then snapped. ‘Very well.’ He turned to his brigade major, ‘Have the battalions march round the guns. GS wagons to rendezvous with us at St. Marc when they get there. Ravi Lancers to swing out wider and get ahead of the infantry on this same road.’
Krishna swung his horse and made his way back down the column. Twenty minutes later he was riding up out of the lane and trotting across the fields, his squadron following with a new sense of life as though leaving the overcrowded road had infused them with fresh energy.
An hour later it was all the same again ... This time a long column of transport carts moving against the flow of traffic. The regiment waited for half an hour while the carts were diverted into the fields; then on again. By now Krishna was swaying in the saddle, for they had had no proper rest, or food, for ten hours. Rissaldar Shamsher Singh rode up beside him, saluting. ‘The horses need to be watered, lord.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘The colonel knows too, but there is no water.’ The column stopped again. An aeroplane flew out of the lowering clouds, the pilot very clear sitting on his bench amid the ethereal-looking struts. It passed low overhead, its engine backfiring, and several horses bolted into the fields. Krishna heard Jemadar Ganpat Singh roaring at the men as dolts, incapable of controlling their mounts, worse than foot soldiers. The aeroplane engine noise increased as it turned, sinking lower over the field towards the column. Then it was bumping along the tussocky grass, and after thirty yards, came to a stop. The pilot unstrapped himself, climbed down, and ran towards the column, leaving his aircraft’s engine running and its propeller idling. He stopped at the edge of the road, and standing on top of the low bank, took off his flying helmet and goggles and cried aloud, ‘Oh my God! Indians!’ Krishna said, ‘I speak English.’
‘Oh.’ The pilot noticed the crown on Krishna’s sleeve and saluted uncertainly. ‘A message from the corps commander to Brigadier-General Rogers.’ He held out an envelope.
‘He’s a little farther ahead,’ Krishna said.
‘I can’t run and catch him. I’ve got to get back to my airfield and I’m short of petrol. Will you see that the message is delivered, sir? By the way, what is your name? I have to report who I gave the message to.’
‘Major Krishna Ram, Ravi Lancers.’
The pilot saluted and hurried back to his plane. As Krishna took the message to Colonel Hanbury the aeroplane engine roared louder, the machine lurched across the hummocks and cow pats and after a few yards rose quickly into the air. Colonel Hanbury sent off a galloper with the message, and Krishna rode on at his side, wondering: what next in this chaotic day?
Twenty minutes later the brigade major came riding back down the road. To Colonel Hanbury he said, ‘Orders have been changed, sir. The brigade is to go to La Chapelle St. Denis.’ He proffered a folded map. ‘Here, sir.’
The colonel bent over the map and said, ‘That’s twenty miles further than St. Marc. The men are exhausted, Temple. The horses need watering. We could just have reached St. Marc without a rest--but not another twenty miles.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. The corps commander’s orders give us no latitude.’ The column began to move again as the brigade major rode on down the road. Krishna turned off to watch his squadron go by. He spoke and made jokes to VCOs and sowars as they passed. When the tail came he walked along with Ishar Lall, telling him of the new orders.
Rissaldar Shamsher Singh joined them, ‘We must water the animals at the next farm we come to,’ he said.
‘We will not!’ Krishna said angrily. ‘That is an order. Hukm hai, do you understand?’
‘Jee-han, it is understood, prince,’ the old rissaldar grumbled, ‘but the horses will suffer.’
‘This is war! ‘ Krishna Ram exploded, but Ishar Lall said soothingly, ‘Come, rissaldar-sahib, ride here at the back with me for a while and tell me how you won the kabaddi prize from the rajah’s hands in 1884.’ He winked at Krishna, for everyone knew that the old VCO was an indomitable bore.
Krishna smiled at the boy. He was only nineteen and showed no sign of fatigue. He and his twin had caused an unbelievable amount of trouble on the troopship, but now he was showing his worth. Krishna trotted forward, as Ishar Lall burst into a bawdy love song, a favourite among the loose women of the Hira Mandi in Lahore. The faces of the weary sowars lightened and one or two of them began to sing with the young 2nd Lieutenant.
Krishna settled into his place at the head of the squadron, noticing that the colonel, up ahead, was sitting straighter than ever, but swaying in the saddle, like an ill-balanced stick. The sun was setting behind them. They still had five miles to go to St. Marc and another twenty beyond that. Nearly seven hours, if they weren’t delayed ... but they would be. The generals did not seem to be as good at moving troops here as they were on manoeuvres. He reproved himself. Real war was much harder; and there were the French refugees, spoiling all the plans.
Soon after dark it began to rain, rain with an edge of cold in it, harbinger of the northern winter. At first Krishna welcomed the rain, for it washed away the dust that was threatening to choke him, and cooled his hot, sweating face. But as it continued, and the weary horses and caped men kept plodding on into it through the darkness, it began to work through his
uniform, chill his skin, and gnaw steadily in towards his bones.
Eight o’clock ... nine o’clock ... an enforced halt in a nameless village, the two-storey houses curling round the side of a hill, small lights behind drawn curtains, something like a slag heap above. He ate curry puffs from his saddlebag, drank a little from his waterbottle. Three horses lame, one with a severe girth gall. Nothing to be done.
On ... ten o’clock ... eleven o’clock, and a long stand in open country, nothing to be seen in any direction in the rain, no lights, the wind whistling through unseen trees somewhere to the right, to the left a scene of desolation, of dead crops and land unseeded, the breath of war. And then, for the first time, he heard a low grumbling rumble, that seemed to come through the earth, not on the wind. He turned to ask the rissaldar what it was, but saw another shape, close. Peering, he recognized Warren Bateman, his dog Shikari on his saddle bow. He smiled through the cold and weariness, and said, ‘What’s that noise, sir? More thunder?’
‘It might be,’ the major said, ‘but it isn’t. It’s the guns.’
‘The guns!’ Krishna muttered, half to himself. For the first time he was hearing the sound of the guns, the authentic voice of war. It was to this that he had devoted his life until fate should call him to the gaddi of his state. He expected a thrill, but an uncontrollable shiver shook his body.
‘My burberry doesn’t seem to keep out the rain. It’s cold. I’m soaked through,’ he said, feeling that the major must have sensed that shudder.
‘Nothing will keep out rain that goes on this long,’ Warren said. ‘I’m on my way up to warn the colonel that we have about a dozen horses lame and unable to keep up. And we seem to have lost B Squadron.’
‘Altogether?’ Krishna said, amazed. ‘How on earth . . . ?’
‘It’s easy enough in the dark. Lose a little distance ... have a company of infantry or a gunner battery go through the column ... take the wrong road fork afterwards. They’ll find us sooner or later.’
‘When do you think we’ll get to La Chapelle, sir?’
‘Another four hours at this rate,’ the major urged his horse into a trot and disappeared towards regimental headquarters. Krishna settled back into his saddle. The rain ran down his back in a cold trickle. The horses were very tired, and the dust in the road had congealed to mud. The pace had slowed from the regulation four and a half miles per hour of cavalry at the walk to less than three.
To forget his hunger and misery he thought of the weekend at Shrewford Pennel. The cricket had been everything he had dreamed of and Mr. Fleming had told him about. All those people had their stations in life, but for the match it was only their stations on the cricket field that mattered. The churches, and houses, and barns, even the fields and the woods rising up to the great empty sweep of the Plain, seemed to be rooted in and protected by the people, rather than the other way around ... Warren Bateman’s wife was a strange lady. Seen walking at Ralph Harris’s side in the vegetable garden she looked like an apparition from another age, another planet ... The old lady, Warren’s mother, was rather like his own grandmother as he remembered her before her death two years back; a strong woman, born to distinction and never losing it. But most she reminded him of Rissaldar-Major Baldev Singh. Both were calm, yet firm, both convinced that everyone else--like themselves--was doing, and would always do, the best of which he or she was capable, and always in honesty of purpose. What was it that worried her and Diana, which Diana had not had time to tell him about?
And Diana herself ... she was specially English--or was it perhaps European? Such girls did not exist among Indians, that was certain, not with her innocence, the direct way she looked at you, mud on her face and dirty strong hands secure on the reins. She seemed to be unaware of the fact that he was an Indian. She had not asked him one question about himself as an Indian, only as a person, and a man. It was a shame she had not married the curate, now vicar--that very one who gave the sermon which sent Warren to sleep--and had some children of her own. Though she didn’t seem to miss all that, kept busy by the animals, helping her mother with the house and Joan with the children, when she was allowed to. No Indian parent would tolerate the way those children were being brought up, permitted, as they were, to do anything they chose, except when their wishes ran afoul of their grandmother’s. He had been interested to notice that it was the old lady’s company, with all its prohibitions and orders, that they sought before anyone else’s, including their mother’s.
The intermittent grumbling of the guns grew louder. At midnight by his watch he passed a battery of heavies in an orchard beside the road. One of the guns fired as the squadron rode by. An orange flash lit up the gleaming wet steel barrel, a man running, shells stacked beside a hayrick, four men crouched by the trail, other shining barrels, uptilted, beyond ... then it was dark again. It was lucky, he thought, that the horses were too tired to shy or there would have been broken ranks in the regiment; none had heard or seen so large an artillery piece firing before.
The guns fell back into the darkness. The Lancers trudged on, Krishna’s horse rolling like a weary sleep-walker below him now. At last the adjutant, Lieutenant Dayal Ram, loomed out of the dark and the rain, and said, ‘Bivouac here, sir. La Chapelle St. Denis is just ahead.’ Hurricane lanterns swung, showing a mass of mounted figures in dripping capes. Now his VCOs were coming up for orders. The squadron moved into a dark field, formed squadron column, and dismounted. One man, unable to keep his feet after twenty-two hours in the saddle, simply rolled on over as his left foot joined his right, and lay like a corpse where he fell. Krishna’s trumpeter held his horse, and he walked down the lines, trying to keep his eyes open and force his muscles to move one foot after the other. The ground underfoot was heavy and wet. Some of the horses had lain down. The men were tying their groundsheet-capes together to make bivouacs. Food . . . where were the field kitchens that should have been rolling along at the back of the regiment? Why had the orders been changed? What had the heavy artillery been firing at? Did anyone know anything, or were they just keeping it a secret from the regiment? It was four a.m., and this place smelled of pig manure.
Hanuman appeared, mug in hand. ‘Rum, lord. From the Topkhana gora log.’
Krishna took the mug, drank, and choked at the raw strength of the stuff burning down his throat. Trust British gunners to see that there was rum, even though there was no food or fodder. Warren Bateman appeared, flashing an electric torch, and said, ‘There are two big animal water troughs in the corner of the field. Water in order of squadrons. We don’t know when the rations will come up.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Orders at six a.m. Post lines-sentries and then get some sleep.’ The major rode away, and Krishna called up his VCOs. Ten minutes later Hanuman said, ‘Your bivouac, lord. I’ve borrowed another groundsheet so that you won’t be lying in the mud.’
He must have stolen it or told some sowar that the prince wanted it, Krishna thought. But he couldn’t bother about that now. He crawled into the bivouac, put his cap under his head, and went out like a blown light.
An enormous explosion awoke him so violently that he was out of the bivouac, a scream only half suppressed, before he knew what he was doing. He stood trembling in the darkness, listening. He realized that all the men were out, huddled down the line of bivouacs. What had happened? He didn’t know, but he knew the men must be reassured. ‘Stand easy,’ he said, as he walked down the ranks. ‘Stay by your bivouacs.’ At the end of the line he found the sentry, visibly shaking. He took the man’s arm. ‘What was it?’
‘A shell, lord. A huge shell. It fell over there! ‘Major Bateman appeared, on foot. A loud increasing whistle filled the air and a moment later there was another explosion. Mud hurled over him in a shower and someone nearby began to moan in pain.
‘We’re being shelled,’ Warren Bateman said, ‘heavy stuff. It seems to be burying itself in the mud before exploding or we’d be suffering more than we are.’
‘
Two horses killed in C Squadron, sahib,’ someone said, running up to join the group.
‘They can’t know that we’ve arrived,’ Warren said. ‘My God, I know what it is! There’s a pile of shell cases over beyond the water troughs. A battery must have been here before we moved in and the Huns think they are giving it harassing fire ... Dayal Ram, are you there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell all squadron commanders to prepare to move. I’ll speak to the CO and be back here in five minutes.’
‘The CO’s asleep, sir. I couldn’t awaken him. Nor has the shelling.’
Krishna gave the necessary orders, thinking that with Colonel Hanbury too tired to wake up, Warren would probably order a move on his own initiative. They wouldn’t have to go far. Meanwhile ... he walked up and down his lines in the eerie light. The men were standing at ease outside their dismantled bivouacs, facing the picketed horses. He felt their fear, for they had never been shelled before, but he knew they were not going to run away. They were afraid, but not nervous. These were his people, the men of Ravi, standing steady here in the darkness five thousand miles from their quiet fields on the slopes between the river and the eternal snows. ‘Well done,’ he said, ‘stand firm. We will be moving soon ... Are you wounded, there?’
‘No, lord. Only too stiff to stand.’
‘Good ... good ...’ Here he touched a shoulder, there a man dropped to one knee to lay his hand to Krishna’s knee. Another shell shrieked over and exploded deep in the shaking earth.
Dayal Ram appeared and said, ‘Squadrons on to the road and continue north--that’s to the right--through the village, sir. Major Bateman is selecting a bivouac site the other side of La Chapelle.’ Krishna mounted, fell in his squadron, and moved off in slackening rain. Half an hour later he was again asleep on the ground rolled in his blanket. At five-thirty the lines-sentry awakened him.