Dust and Steel

by Patrick Mercer

  He had no need to bother. The mule bucked and reared with fright, depositing a fat, pyjama-clad native with a solid thump into the centre of the track.

  ‘Keep still, you Pandy sod.’ Pegg had thumbed back the hammer of his rifle and, jumping forward, pointed its muzzle just inches from the Indian’s face whilst Surpuray fought to control the mule, which now circled and tossed its head against the tension of the harness. ‘Or you’ll get a Cawnpore dinner, yer will.’

  This was how Pegg liked his enemies. The mutinous sepoy – for that’s what his broad leather cross-belts and brass regimental plate in the centre of his chest declared him to be – was bulbous and over forty, as many chins quivering below his luxuriant moustache as there were fingers on the hand he held out in supplication. The fall had winded him; now he sprawled amongst two great kettles of spilled rice, which the mule had thrown at the same time.

  ‘’E’s no solja, ’e’s too bleedin’ fat – some sort of cook.’

  But the man’s lack of martial appearance was no reason for mercy in Pegg’s eyes. ‘Stop yer mithering, shall yer?’

  Despite the fat mutineer’s terrified jibbering and his begging hands, the NCO reversed his rifle and caught him such a blow over the right eye with the heavy butt-plate that the man slumped to the ground unconscious.

  ‘Get that bloody moke under control, can’t you?’ Pegg endeavoured to take command, but Surpuray was already master of the situation. He’d pinched the mule’s nostrils together, both to stop it from braying and to make it more compliant. Now, with a resigned reluctance, the ass was pulled and dragged into the concealing brush, whilst the Surpuray did his best to make Pegg do the same with his corpulent prize.

  ‘Coom on then, Pandy.’ Pegg hauled at his victim’s ankles. ‘By, I should o’ kept you awake. The exercise might ’ave got some of that blubber off you.’ If there were jokes being made about fatness, Pegg was usually the subject, but now he’d found someone that he could mock, even if the sepoy was deaf to his taunts. But then, even as the mutineer’s eye swelled to the size of a small, bruised tangerine, he began to murmur and regain his reason.

  Didn’t do much of a job there; I’ll hit the next ’un a damn sight harder, Pegg thought.

  Soon they were back in the clearing, the horses snuffing interestedly at the mule, flicking their tails with curiosity. Surpuray soaked a rag, which he took from his saddlebag, in water and pressed it against the cook’s wound, slipping his hand under the brass cross-belt plate on the man’s chest and holding it and the belts up for Pegg’s inspection.

  ‘Aye, son.’ The Englishman couldn’t understand a word of Surpuray’s excited chatter. ‘’E’s from the Twenty-fifth BNI.’ The brass plate had a well-polished ‘25’ raised on it. ‘They stationed hereabouts?’

  But before they could continue the uneven debate any further, there came the noise of several stealthy people approaching from the very direction that Pegg was meant to be covering as sentry. Abandoning his human trophy, the NCO leapt to his post, rifle at the ready, more worried that Morgan would find him absent from his place of duty than frightened of an enemy.

  ‘Who comes there?’ challenged Pegg.

  ‘Friend,’ came the answer in a familiar accent. ‘Captain Morgan and two, as you know fine well, Corporal Pegg.’

  It’s all right for Paddy Morgan to be all relaxed about the sentries, thought Pegg, but just let me drop me guard for one second an’ wouldn’t I catch it?

  ‘Well, what have you got here, you two?’ Morgan led in the rest of the reconnaissance party, wet from the dewy grass. They clustered round the captive in what was now almost full daylight.

  ‘Cook wallah on his way to the village, I reckon, sir,’ said Pegg as Supuray made his report in Hindi to Captain McGowan. ‘’Eard ’im comin’ a mile off, I did; didn’t put up much of a fight.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Morgan was genuinely impressed by Pegg’s initiative. ‘He’ll be able to give us some valuable intelligence about the garrison of Rowa – if you haven’t bashed the sense out of him, that is.’

  ‘Yes, well done, Pegg,’ McGowan added.

  ‘Corporal Pegg, if you don’t mind, sir.’

  ‘Supuray tells me that he couldn’t have managed without you,’ said McGowan.

  The prisoner, now quite conscious, was bound by his ankles under the belly of the mule before the party mounted and trotted off as quietly as possible down the track and back to camp, Pegg muttering reproachfully and Morgan smiling to himself.

  ‘No, sahib, that wallah is a high-caste Brahmin; most of the Twenty-Fifth are like him, but those who prepare the food are from the highest castes.’ Rissaldar Batuk pointed towards the prisoner, who was jogging unhappily along lashed to the saddle of his mule in company with McGowan, Pegg and Surpuray.

  The rissaldar had insisted that he and Morgan should hang back rather than give an ambusher the gift of the whole reconnaissance party. Now they trotted stirrup to stirrup.

  ‘Light cavalry regiments, like mine, were recruited from all different castes, as skill with horses comes from many backgrounds.’ Morgan had noticed that Batuk’s English was much more fluent than that of most other Indians of his rank.

  ‘But how do your officers get to understand all the differences and religious needs of the men?’ asked Morgan, intrigued by a system with which he was only beginning to grapple.

  ‘Officers, sahib? I am an officer,’ Batuk replied coolly.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, I do beg your pardon. I meant the British officers who come out here barely understanding your language and certainly not your class and caste system,’ answered Morgan, embarrassed by his slip.

  ‘No, sahib, it is difficult to understand and easy to get wrong. That is why in John Company’s regiments there are native officers who serve to explain the British officers’ orders to the jawans and the soldiers’ wishes to the white men. In the past it has worked well; our Bengal regiments fought alongside yours in the great battles against the Sikhs.’ Batuk pushed out his chest slightly as he said this, making sure that Morgan had seen his campaign medal. ‘And the regiments that did best were those whose British officers learnt the men’s language and got to know them like a father would his son.’

  Morgan had already seen how close to the sepoys the British officers in the 10th Bengalis seemed to be. Those who had mastered the local languages enjoyed a simple intimacy with the Indian troops that would have been difficult to copy in the stiffer atmosphere of one of Her Majesty’s regiments.

  ‘But the problems started when the sahib officers were taken away from the regiments for staff and political jobs. That only happened after the Sikhs were beaten. Then there were the soft officers; they seemed to be the ones who were always talking about their own Hebrew God and spending as much time in their temples as they did with the men. Some Brahmins in the infantry regiments took them for fools and began to make free with discipline and custom that would never have been tolerated in my pultan. But the damage was done during your war with the Russians – were you there, sahib?’ asked Batuk with a slight smile.

  ‘Yes…yes, of course I was. The whole regiment was there; first in, last out.’ It was Morgan’s turn to show off his ribbons.

  ‘Ah yes, sahib, I am blind. But that war caused too many of your regiments to be sent there and not here; Victoria bahadur should never have trusted these people, they need to have the heel of your boot on their necks, sahib. The badmashes had a wonderful time of it with your news papers, reading of the mistakes and all the problems with supply and reinforcements, and when your men were forced back from before the great Russian city.’

  ‘Not my regiment, Rissaldar,’ Morgan interrupted a little too quickly.

  ‘No, sahib, I am sure of that, but it showed your enemies that the gora-log could be beaten and all the hotheads and malcontents in my regiment drank it up like sherbert. So, when the rumour spread that British rule would last only one hundred years, people began to say that the sahibs would force us to a
ccept their religion and that’s why some of those Hindu fools believed all that dung about the new Enfield cartridges being greased with pig fat. Most of us Muslims could see that was just nonsense,’ Batuk continued.

  ‘But if there were right-thinking men in the ranks of experienced, steady regiments, Rissaldar, why did the mutinies happen at all?’ asked Morgan.

  ‘Sahib, it was like a madness. Take Kemp Bahadur; he was seen as a man-god in the Twelth – they worshipped him. But even there the disease took hold. That monkey Mangal Pandy of the Thirty-Fourth became some sort of hero and the fools just lost control of themselves. Why, I saw our own officers ride smiling, unarmed into a crowd of men whom I would have counted as brothers, and be cut down whilst scarcely able to believe what was happening.’ Batuk shook his head sadly.

  ‘And what are we to expect of our enemies, Rissaldar? Plainly, there are good soldiers amongst the mutineers, and we can’t hope that every fort and town will be guarded by sleeping sentries like the ones we have just seen,’ Morgan replied.

  ‘You are right, sahib, but I find it hard to answer your question for I have never seen our regiments fight without their British officers. If some great leader springs up who can fan the flames of doubt in the rebels’ bellies and unite Muslims and Hindus in their hatred of the English, then we will have a stiff fight. That is what we must watch for – someone of strength and vision who understands the soldiers’ weaknesses.’ Batuk spurred his pony on gently as the gap with the rest of the group along the jungle track had widened.

  ‘And is there such a man, Rissaldar?’ Morgan put his heels to his own horse’s flanks.

  ‘Such a man, sahib, or perhaps such a woman. We shall see.’

  ‘So, Hume, where are you going to site the guns?’ Brigadier-General Smith had Colonel Hume and all the officers involved in the next morning’s attack on Rowa clustered round a map outside his bungalow at Muddar.

  ‘Well, sir, we’ll have them here on the left flank, firing between the two infantry parties.’ Hume pointed with a pencil to a rise in the ground identified by Morgan and McGowan during the reconnaissance. ‘There should be enough elevation from there to allow our nine-pounders to rake the parapet and keep the enemy’s pieces quiet.’

  ‘Quite so, but how will the guns get into position without being fired on by the Pandies?’ Smith asked irritably, his brow wrinkled tightly. Although Smith wasn’t going to command the four companies and troops of guns involved, this was the first action in which part of his column was to be involved and he wanted it to go well.

  ‘The two Ninety-Fifth companies,’ Hume pointed to Carmichael and Morgan, ‘will give covering rifle-fire from here…’ Hume pointed to the wood line directly in front of the village’s walls, ‘…whilst the guns take post and McGowan’s double company of the Tenth hook round to the left flank.’

  ‘But the point you’ve selected for the Ninety-Fifth is exactly where the enemy will expect the attack to come from,’ Smith said impatiently.

  ‘Yes, sir. The idea is to hold his attention – especially the guns’ – before launching a surprise assault from the left, supported by our artillery,’ Hume continued matter-of-factly. ‘Then, once the Tenth have drawn off any reserve that he might have—’

  ‘And do we know how many men he’s got or, indeed, whether he has a reserve?’

  Smith was clearly unimpressed with the scheme, thought Morgan, standing close to him where the smell of stale tobacco was almost overpowering.

  ‘Well, yes, we think he’s got about two hundred men under arms, and there are about the same number of women, children and old men in the village,’ Hume replied. ‘It seems as though about half a company are kept here in the central building under the hand of the Pandy commander.’

  ‘And this intelligence has come from where?’ asked Smith, doubtfully.

  ‘A prisoner that the reconnaissance party took, sir,’ Hume said flatly.

  ‘And how reliable is this man, pray? I hope you’re not basing the entire plan on information from one fellow who could, after all, be gammoning you?’

  ‘Sir, the man was questioned most carefully—’ There was just a hint of impatience in Hume’s voice now.

  ‘With your leave, Colonel,’ Morgan cut in, ‘I was there when the man was taken; he couldn’t have been planted by the enemy, and the questioning was conducted by Rissaldar Batuk, one of Commandant Kemp’s scouts who knows the lie of the land well.’

  Kemp looked up appreciatively at the sound of his name.

  ‘Oh, really…Morgan, ain’t it?’ Smith took the cigar from his mouth and sneered. ‘So you used one of Kemp’s irregulars, did you, not one of your drunkards then?’

  There was an embarrassed silence from the meeting except for one amused snort from Captain Carmichael.

  ‘Sir, I—’ Morgan began stiffly.

  ‘Enough, Morgan,’ Hume stopped him. ‘General, the information’s better than anything we had in the Crimea when we were mounting attacks.’ Hume paused for effect, knowing full well that Smith had seen no action during that campaign: and it seemed to work.

  Smith sniffed hard and puffed his cigar. ‘This isn’t the damn Crimea, is it? Now listen, all of you.’ He turned to the officers. ‘I expect you to do your utmost in this attack – no hanging back.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, General, but there’ll be none of that from either the Ninety-Fifth or the Tenth, of that I can assure you,’ said Hume, his beard jutting out with irritation.

  ‘I’ll want to know the answer if there is, Hume.’ Smith caught up his slung sword and turned to leave, the audience jumping to their feet. ‘Carry on!’

  The rangy, peppery man stumped away with an aide, his spurs jangling, trailing an acrid cloud of tobacco smoke.

  ‘So, Morgan, there’s to be no hanging back.’ For a second Carmichael seemed to be almost comradely until: ‘Not even by your crapulous crew!’

  ‘Devil take you, Carmichael,’ Morgan spat back, cursing himself, even as he said it, for giving his brother officer exactly the sort of reaction that he’d wanted to provoke.

  But Carmichael’s reply was just a raucous laugh.

  No matter how many times he led columns of men at night, Morgan never managed to slow his pace to a crawl. Now the approach march to Rowa a couple of hours before dawn through the black, humid jungle was just the same. The attacking column had ridden out of camp well before midnight in bullock carts, jerked and plodded in relative discomfort for ten miles or so before dismounting, shaking out into their constituent parts before Carmichael and Morgan’s companies plunged into the jungle. At the same time, the guns and McGowan’s two companies sloped off as quietly as possible to the west of the village.

  Then it was all: ‘’Ang on, sir, Captain Carmichael’s lot’s got held up,’ and, ‘Hold hard, sir, we’ve lost the back half of our boys.’ The native guide from Kemp’s irregulars, a particularly emaciated man of uncertain age, wearing nothing but a loincloth and singlet, and carrying a bow with a quiver full of viciously barbed arrows, had to be held back by Morgan.

  Eventually, they met another group of Kemp’s archers, this time under one of his rissaldars, who were to guide them to the point in the jungle from which the attack would start. All the while, Morgan had tried to check on the guide by using the compass that he’d bought so expensively in Dublin before they embarked, but the luminous paint on the dial was no match for the inky darkness.

  We’re making a hell of a noise, thought Morgan, as the column banged and swore through the catching, thorny brush. Those sentries will have to be only half alert – then we’ll catch a packet as soon as they can see us.

  But as the first glimmer of dawn became visible through the tangle of branches above them, Morgan realised that the noisiest time of the day in the forest was just before the sun came over the horizon, as the insects’ day shift took over from the night shift and, for twenty minutes or so, there was double the din.

  I suppose that’s why they get us to assault at t
his time of day, he thought as he placed each of his men down into a kneeling position and then showed Carmichael where to spread his company out to the right of the Grenadiers.

  Eventually, all the men were placed.

  ‘Right, Colour-Sar’nt, load, please.’

  Every soldier set about the smooth task of loading and ramming. Morgan saw how each man’s face, battle-hardened or not, was strained with fear and anticipation. He’d read some rot in the papers suggesting that the noise of the ramrods would send ‘a thrill of warlike delight through the ranks’ – there was no thrill for him, just an instant churning of his guts.

  ‘Yous all right, sir?’ McGucken was at his elbow, just where he should be.

  ‘Fine, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan realised that he was clumsily fumbling his revolver. ‘We’ll be firing a good few volleys whilst the guns get into position – have the men untied enough shot?’

  ‘Aye, sir, you know they have,’ McGucken replied. ‘You told me to check it – an’ I did.’

  Morgan’s knew that he’d ordered a full twenty rounds to be unwrapped from their wax-paper packets in which they were carried, despite the damp of the jungle. He also knew that he’d told the big Scotsman to check, but it settled his nerves a little to go over things again.

  ‘Those savages should beckon us forward once they’ve found a good enough place for us to open fire at the edge of the trees.’ Morgan nodded towards Kemp’s men, who were now loping off through the brush, chattering unintelligibly.

  ‘Sir: then we wait for the colonel’s signal to fire, don’t we?’ McGucken answered. ‘Two green rockets, ain’t it?’

  Morgan whirled on the colour-sergeant. ‘No, you know it ain’t; it’s green over yellow!’

  But then the officer saw that McGucken was grinning widely, deliberately trying to distract Morgan during the tensest part of any battle, the moments before fire was opened and all the relief that that would bring.

  ‘Look yon, sir,’ said McGucken. Whilst they’d been talking, the rissaldar had come back through the trees and was now beckoning to Morgan for the men to advance to the jungle’s edge.