by John Masters
This was Alan Mclain of the Highlanders, a tall, brick-complexioned subaltern of Robin’s own age, with fierce golden moustaches and bright blue eyes and the badge of the MacDonald Highlanders, a raven on a rock, on the left side of his khaki topi. He slowed his pony to a walk beside Robin. ‘Do you think we’ll get to Kabul to-morrow?’
‘I don’t know.’ After a pause Robin forced himself to add, ‘What do you think?’
‘Bad business if we don’t, I think. Old Alma’s so damned cautious. With General Bobs besieged we ought to be going hell for leather and devil take the hindmost. These bamshoots can’t stop us.’
‘No.’
‘I suppose it was difficult for him when he had conflicting orders, but when he made up his mind to disobey General Bright and go to Kabul I should have thought he’d move faster. ‘Tisn’t as if we’d had any fighting to do, worse luck.’
‘Worse luck,’ Robin repeated mechanically. He had not seen action yet. Everyone else in the force seemed to be itching to shoot, shell, stab, kill. They oiled their rifles ceaselessly and stared hungrily at the empty countryside, hoping and longing, in much the same way that they longed for girls and dances. He didn’t know what battle would be like. It would come. He wasn’t afraid. This was the profession that he had been born to, even as he had been born to his masculinity, to love someone like Anne. It would be exciting, but--but--
‘But we will!’ Mclain went on cheerfully. ‘We will!’
‘Will what?’
‘Have some fighting.’ The young man raised his voice still higher. ‘The Ghilzais are gathering, I hear. And of course there are forty thousand of them besieging Bobs. I hope the Russkis poke their noses in.’
Robin was silent. Outside the thin, straggling column, Afghanistan stretched away, as empty as the Antarctic. Yet Russians and Indians and Englishmen struggled and manoeuvred for these barren rocks. He resented all of them--including the Afghans, including himself--and wished he were somewhere else, away from all their strife.
Mclain yelled, ‘I hear it was a Russian in disguise who actually murdered Cavagnari. Why don’t they have the guts to come out and fight instead of this dirty underhand--What? What’s that?’
Faintly from ahead Robin heard the crackling of intermittent small-arms fire. Mclain shouted, ‘There! What did I tell you? I’m off... a shame you . . . stay . . The words came indistinctly as the young Highlander settled down in the saddle, tucked in his kilts, and spurred the pony forward. ‘It’s a shame . . .’
The pony sprang into a gallop, and stones flew past Robin’s head. Robin raised his hand in a gesture of goodbye and settled down to the line of march. It might be nothing.
A voice at his left ear said, ‘Huzoor, Naik Dhanbahadur ay o’
‘Oh, yes, Dhanbahadur. Do you see that little rocky hill there? I want you to . . .’
When he had given his orders he drew off the track to watch the baggage column pass. The firing was louder now. Scattered shots sounded from a wide area to the front and left of the line of advance. He listened with part of his mind, the rest of him intently absorbed in watching the faces of the men who passed him. He tried to read something even in the noses of the camel-drivers, which showed out of the blankets they wore. He thought : Perhaps inside the blankets they don’t hear the shooting. But he asked one, and the man mumbled, ‘Yes, I hear.’ They were so many pawns. They were unarmed. If the wild men swooped down from the hill and rushed among the camels, stabbing and shooting, the drivers would hide until it was over--or submit to death if it came to them.
The Gurkhas trotted by like squat hounds, heads lifted and wide nostrils sniffing the air. Robin’s second-in-command, Subadar Maniraj, marched creakily at the tail of the baggage column. Somewhere behind, out of sight, there was a battalion of the Punjab Frontier Force, forming the brigade rearguard.
The subadar said, ‘Shooting, sahib. Any news?’
‘No, Subadar-sahib.’
Robin fell into step beside the old man. After half an hour, when it was mid-morning, a galloper came down the column. He stopped opposite Robin, wheeled his horse around, and leaned down with a note. Robin unfolded it and read. He said, ‘We’re wanted forward, Subadar-sahib.’
‘The whole company?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s going to take over baggage escort?’
‘We’re to go without relief.’ He thought of the helpless camel-drivers and added, ‘Some of these poor devils will be killed if the Ghilzais get in among them, I’m afraid.’
‘We’ll lose our tentage, and it’s going to snow,’ the old subadar said gloomily.
‘Yes. Sais!’ Robin struggled into the saddle of his charger. ‘Collect the company and bring it forward, Subadar-sahib.’
He cantered up the trail, Jagbir and the groom running together behind him but slowly losing distance. As he rode he saw that the force had concertinad to a halt among a tangle of low hills. Many camels of the baggage train had already squatted down to rest; most of the pack mules were searching for grass in the rocky soil. The men of the fighting arms scurried about and shouted to each other. He saw the giant mules of a screw-gun battery trot out from the column ahead of him, and heard the jingling crash of load and harness as they went into action. Even as he drew level with them they began to fire. A shell droned out over the valley and burst with an echoing crrrump on the hills to the left of the trail. A small mushroom of earth-laden smoke erupted on the hillside and hung there for a long time in the thick air.
He found his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin, in a group gathered around the bulky figure of the brigadier-general, the man they nicknamed Old Alma. The rest of Robin’s battalion, the 13th Gurkhas, were scattered like dark-green bushes on the hills flanking the trail ahead, and among the rocks in the valley. To-day, except for the company on baggage-escort duty, they had been the brigade advance guard. The MacDonald Highlanders stood at ease in solid ranks of four; nearly every one of them wore a heavy beard, and many were smoking pipes while leaning nonchalantly on their rifles.
Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin said, ‘Ah, Savage, we have a job for you, an important one.’ He smiled anxiously. Robin smiled back, not because there was an important job but because he liked Colonel Franklin and had known him off and on since he himself was a baby. The lieutenant-colonel said, ‘The general will explain it to you himself. Here, my groom will hold your horse until--Where’s your company?’
‘Coming up--Here, sir!’ He broke off to answer the brigadier-general’s summons.
‘Mr. Savage, how do you do?’ Old Alma shook hands formally with him. ‘We have not been introduced, I believe?’
‘No, sir.’
The general stroked his thick, mutton-chop whiskers. ‘I have had the honour of knowing your father very well for a number of years. You have every reason to be proud of your birth, young man. He is still on the staff of the Southern Force?’
‘As far as I know, sir,’ Robin answered coldly. Everyone knew his father and regarded him as a great hero. Perhaps he was, after all, but--
The general continued, frowning slightly at the tone of Robin’s voice. ‘Now, Savage, you are to have an opportunity to live up to him. You have been in action before?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ah, H’m. Well, we all have to begin once. This is important, perhaps vital. We may safely rely on this young officer’s breeding to overcome his inexperience, I think, don’t you, Franklin?’
‘Yes, sir, yes, sir,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin agreed hurriedly.
‘Very well. Listen, Savage. Our scouts, supported by the word of an agent who came into the column this morning, inform me that. .
Robin listened and watched the general’s face. Old Alma had a small wart on his upper lip, near the nose. He was big and blustery and was said not to know what fear was. He had a Victoria Cross; but he seemed to relish the fact that a nice man like Colonel Franklin was afraid of him. There were a lot of V.Cs about among senior officers, mostly
won in the Crimea or the Mutiny. His stepmother had told him once that they’d put his father in for a V.C. back in those days, but he hadn’t got it in the end; he must have been disappointed.
The situation seemed quite clear. Several hundred Ghilzais had gathered with the object of blocking the brigade’s advance to the relief of Kabul, where a still larger enemy army was besieging Sir Frederick Roberts and his men on the northern outskirts of the city. Old Alma intended to push an attack straight at the Ghilzais ahead of him, first sending Robin’s company around the right flank to seize a hill which ought to overlook the Ghilzais’ line of retreat; and another company, of Highlanders, still farther around on Robin’s right. When the main attack began to drive home among the enemy, Robin’s company and the Highland company were to move down and attack the Ghilzais in flank and rear.
‘Very good, sir,’ he said quietly when the general had finished.
‘You don’t seem excited? No, well, a cool head and hot blood--This is very important, Mr. Savage. I rely on you. I would like to be able to send more men on that flank with you, but I fear I shall not dislodge the enemy from their positions on the hills directly in front unless I use all my remaining force. You may go as soon as you are ready. Wait! Major Brown will explain about your artillery support.’
Robin saluted and turned to talk with the gunner major, while Colonel Franklin fussed around him like an old hen over a favourite chick.
‘You’re sure you have it quite clear, Savage? We don’t want anything to go wrong when we are acting in concert with the Highlanders.’ He dropped his voice. ‘I’ve heard some of them, officers too, doubting aloud whether native troops are to be relied on in a rough spot. It’s the Mutiny, I suppose.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Robin had not heard much about the Great Mutiny of 1857, except what he’d been taught in school in England. The new Bengal Army, of which he was an officer, was anxious to forget the tragic end of the old army. His father had fought all through the Mutiny but never mentioned it. Only his father’s bearer, old Lachman, would talk about it; and Lachman’s tales were not of battles or loyalties but of the horrors in Bhowani the night the Mutiny began, of how the great Colonel Savage-sahib-bahadur saved his, Robin’s, life--by putting him in a sack and throwing him down a well, or something. But the great colonel hadn’t rescued his wife, Robin’s mother. Robin carried a picture of her in a golden locket under his tunic. She had been really beautiful.
Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin rattled on. ‘That hill there, the one with the ruins or something on top--what is it, an old graveyard? Can’t I see some prayer flags? It may be anything, an old mosque perhaps. The Highlanders--the captain’s sick, and Mclain’s got the company--are going on to the next hill on your right. That one. Then, when our attack here reaches its objectives, you are to advance, keeping close touch with Mclain. You’re sure you understand, Robin?’
‘Yes, sir, I understand,’ he repeated for the fifth time, and saluted and went to find his company.
Quietly he made his preparations. Tom Bolton, the adjutant, came over and asked him soberly whether all was well, then went across to joke with Mclain. The snub-nosed howitzers barked slowly, ranging in on their targets. Unseen enemy began a heavy sniping fire against the Gurkhas on the ridge in front. Overs smacked by among the general’s staff. The general took no notice, though the horses tossed their heads and one or two officers began, out of the corners of their eyes, to search for cover.
At a shouted command from Subadar Maniraj, Robin’s company shook out into open order. With the little green-clad men to right and left of him, and his scouts moving out through the rocks ahead, Robin waved to Colonel Franklin and set off.
For the first quarter of a mile nothing happened. The riflemen advanced in open order at the steady pace they had practised so often on the parade ground back in the regiment’s home in Manali. Jagbir walked by Robin’s left heel, his rifle at the trail. The company bugler, who was also the company wag, walked three paces to Robin’s right rear, his bugle slung and his rifle at the trail. Robin glanced around, and the bugler grinned and said, ‘Rum ration to-night, sahib!’ Robin smiled and answered, ‘Only half a tot for buglers.’ He could smile more easily at the Gurkhas’ little platitudes than at his fellow Englishmen’s. That was because he felt that the Gurkhas were trying to put him at ease, while the English were trying to put themselves at ease. Also the Gurkhas did not try to pretend that he was really just like the other officers, because they knew that he was not. They acknowledged his difference but accepted him because his father had raised this regiment in 1858. There were men in it still who had come to it then as its first soldiers--Subadar Maniraj, for one.
A single shot rang out on the hill, still five hundred yards away, which was the company’s objective. The Gurkhas’ pace quickened perceptibly. The bullet split the air above Robin’s head with a decisive clap. He looked up instinctively, trying to gauge how far off it had been. At five hundred yards it was good shooting, anyway.
Laconically the bugler said, ‘Miss.’ Robin knew that the enemy on the hill had picked him out because of his height and his sword and had tried to kill him. He wondered what the man looked like. He would have a beard and read the Koran--or, more probably, have it read to him. He would have courage and faith in his God--but where would be his joy? Was it devotion that caused him to fight, or love of this country, or joy of fighting?
A small wind blew on his cheek, and a long, musical drone passed down the hill behind him. He walked on, trying to hold the pace steady. They’d all be tired when they got to the top if they kept going faster and faster like this. He was worried about Subadar Maniraj’s heart. The old man ought to have been pensioned off years ago, but Colonel Franklin couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Keeping his pace, he saw the company drawing away from him. He motioned to the bugler to come up to his side. He would have the ‘Quick Time’ blown. Subadar Maniraj forged ahead on the left flank. The enemy’s fire increased. There were seven or eight men shooting now, all of them invisible on the hill crest. The bugler had his bugle ready and said, ‘What call, sahib?’
He changed his mind. ‘Nothing.’ The enemy showed themselves for the first time. Five figures leaped up and danced grotesquely on the skyline, their ragged robes whirling out from their bodies. Individual Gurkhas paused in their advance, fired, moved on. Two of the dancing men pirouetted to the ground and out of sight. A Gurkha fell on the left, close to Maniraj. The subadar motioned economically with his drawn sword, and two men dropped back to stay with their wounded comrade. On and beyond the North West Frontier of India neither the wounded nor the dead were ever left alone.
All the time the pace quickened. Robin glanced to right and left and saw with astonishment that the Gurkhas’ legs had taken control of their bodies and their brains. Naik Dhanbahadur there--he was trying to keep a steady parade-ground pace, but he couldn’t. He’d walk, then his strong legs would drive him into a run; after a few steps he’d drop back to a walk; five seconds later he’d begin to run again. The intervals of walking grew shorter and less frequent. The enemy’s fire kept on increasing.
Subadar Maniraj was yelling something to Robin from across the hill. With surprise he noted that he could not hear because of the noise of the battle. Howitzer shells rumbled overhead like lazy trains on an iron bridge, the bursts reverberating among the hills. Bullets clattered, and the Ghilzais screamed.
Suddenly there was silence. The company reached the shelter of the last convexity of the hill’s slope. Here the Ghilzais on the crest could not see them. This time Robin plainly heard the old subadar’s yell. ‘Fix bayonets and charge, sahib!’
The bugler did not wait. He whipped the bugle to his lips and blew the calls. The green men slammed their bayonets home on the bosses, lifted their rifles, and surged forward. ‘Ayo Gurkhali!’
The bayonets glittered on the crest, piercing the lowering snow clouds. Robin began to run. Battle was as exciting and as awful as he had expected;
but he was only observing it. He had not committed any of his heart to it, and little of his mind.
A Ghilzai popped up like a jack-in-the-box from the ground fifteen feet off and ran forward with a yell. Robin stood still and watched the man coming on, his knife raised. In that fraction of a second he saw the passion in the dark eyes and then a flicker of something else. Doubt? Why? . . . The man had a beard. Surely this was he who had fired at Robin down the hill. Then the eyes and the thing in the eyes faded, and the eyes dipped and the top of the head dipped. At Robin’s elbow the smoke wisped from Jagbir’s rifle. Standing motionless still, Robin watched Jagbir draw his kukri, grab the wounded Ghilzai’s hair, tug his head back, and with a single sweeping stroke decapitate him. Then Jagbir, laughing, threw the head across at the bugler and said, ‘Catch?’
Robin drew out his binoculars and searched the hillcrest and the barren terrain around it. Ahead, the hill bent down to a fairly wide, mist-wreathed valley. That was the valley which, according to the general, lay across the rear of the enemy facing the main body of the brigade. Close to his right was the hill which was Mclain’s first objective. Looking back, he could see the Highlanders fanning out at its base in preparation for the assault.
Subadar Maniraj was at his elbow, his face grey-green and the whites of his eyes red. Those red eyes--you read about them, but Gurkhas’ eyes actually went watery red in battle. And with women?
The subadar said, ‘We’ve got five of their bodies up here. The rest ran away. Riflemen Narbir and Tulbahadur killed, seven wounded, none seriously. And’--the old man’s voice grew angry--’why didn’t you draw your sword, your pistol, sahib? You might have been killed. I saw. What would your father say to me?’