Dust and Steel

by Patrick Mercer

  ‘All ready, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan looked in the dim light left and right of him as the men saw McGucken’s signal to stand; then they raised themselves, their rifle muzzles level in front of them.

  ‘As ready as they’ll ever be, sir – an’ Whaley’s getting Captain Carmichael’s lot on their feet.’ McGucken had made sure that his counterpart in the next company had seen the signal; he had, and now the entire line of about one hundred and forty men stood ready to move.

  With a wave of his hand Morgan indicated that the line should advance: then the red-coated troops stuttered forward in the undergrowth.

  It wasn’t far, but the jungle was thickest at its very edge where the sun could penetrate and cause the brush to grow even more densely. But as they pushed on, the forest ended abruptly, allowing the shallow grey of dawn to show them the mud walls of Rowa less than two hundred paces in front.

  ‘Right, get them down here.’ Morgan told McGucken to halt the line just inside the cover of the brush, where sleepy sentries shouldn’t have been able to see them. The NCOs repeated the hand signals, Morgan watching as young Ensign Fawcett placed his men individually at the far left end of the line.

  ‘Green over yellow, wasn’t it, sir?’ McGucken grinned at Morgan.

  Hume had said that he would fire the two signal rockets – the facing colours of the 10th and the 95th – himself when all was set, but now Morgan could see that the slightest delay with the guns or McGowan’s flanking move would mean that his men would have to remain undetected, close to the enemy, for an uncertain length of time, just hoping that the sentries on the walls in front of them were as slack as they had seemed during yesterday’s reconnaissance.

  ‘A-shoo…’ Private Sharrock sneezed mightily a few yards from Morgan. The men either side of him tensed, hoping that such a human noise would be covered by the whine of the insects. Seconds passed, nothing happened, except Sharrock’s rubbing at his nose with his cuff, energetically enough, Morgan felt sure, to alert every sentry in the whole town.

  Morgan knew that there was no room for this attack to go wrong. Quite apart from the danger and possible loss of life, it was the Regiment’s first, real taste of action on this campaign and he was under the scrutiny of Hume as well as his rival, Carmichael. On top of that, the brigadier-general seemed to have grave doubts about his and the company’s competence, not to mention their sobriety. He tried to hush Sharrock’s snuffling with sign language, ten yards away from him in the brush, but he was stolidly ignored.

  The most likely danger, Morgan thought, came from a turbaned sentry in an embrasure above them, just to their front. As the light improved, the man’s head could be seen bobbing gently, not alarmed but certainly alert. Then, as Morgan watched, he heard a clatter that came from the sentry position and the bulky head disappeared as a shower of arrows skidded off the packed mud wall around the gun port.

  ‘Where, in God’s name, did they come from, Colour-Sar’nt?’

  ‘There, sir, them damn savages, look,’ said McGucken as a clutch of Kemp’s native troops notched another cloud of arrows onto their bow strings, lifted the wooden arcs high in the air, paused for a fraction of a second to judge the range, then let another volley fly.

  The lethal, slender barbs winged over the wall this time, searching for targets sheltering behind it, but they were answered almost immediately by a couple of popping shots from the wall sentries’ muskets, then a flash and roar from the closest gun and a sheet of canister that shredded the canopy of leaves high over the Grenadier Company’s heads.

  ‘Grenadier Company, wall parapet, two hundred, aim low…’ The horrid lash of canister had almost driven Morgan to ground in the brush, but he had enough experience by now to realise that the crew of the gun in front of them would reload whilst the piece was at the full extent of its recoil, invisible to his men, then have to expose themselves once they ran it out to fire again. ‘Await my order.’

  Every man twitched at his sights and then cuddled the butt of his rifle hard against his shoulder, waiting in the brush for the company commander’s word.

  ‘Wait,’ yelled Morgan as his commands were repeated up and down the line by the corporals and sergeants. ‘Why did the irregulars let fly then, Colour-Sar’nt?’ he said quietly to McGucken.

  ‘Buggered if I know, sir,’ he replied conversationally. ‘Nae discipline.’

  ‘Indeed, but that’ll vex the colonel,’ said Morgan, ‘and we’ll use a whore of a lot of powder and shot now if the Tenth take their time about things.’

  ‘Aye, sir, but thank God we’ve got Captain Carmichael’s lot here to bail us oot.’ McGucken looked through the brush down the line of men towards the next company, where Richard Carmichael’s pale face could be seen bobbing around, looking worriedly towards them, silently asking why the plan had gone awry.

  Then three ragged heads were silhouetted by the early light against the top of the wall as the gun crew ran the fourpounder out.

  ‘Fire!’ bawled Morgan, and the jungle was suddenly full of billowing smoke as seventy Enfields bruised their owners’ shoulders and a curtain of soft .577-inch lead rounds smashed into the parapet, throwing clouds of dust and chippings up, whining off the stonework and swiping the gun crew away from the brass barrel before they had time to fire another shot.

  Ears rang, birds rose with alarmed shrieks and a troop of sleepy monkeys chattered off into the green depths of the forest, swinging from branch to branch as the men toiled rythmically with ramrods, caps and pouches, and the NCOs chanted the rubric that saw the company reload faster and more efficiently than any other infantry in the world.

  ‘Wait for Number One Company to fire now, lads,’ Morgan ordered, and heard it repeated by the NCOs, for that was the plan. Despite the premature fire that the irregulars had provoked, Morgan now expected Carmichael’s men to fire next, allowing his lads to reload and a constant fire to be kept up on the enemy, so drawing off the reserve and covering the movements of their own artillery – exactly as the colonel had ordered – but only silence and worried looks came from their right.

  ‘Why ain’t they firing, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan asked as his own men completed the reload and came back into the aim.

  ‘I don’t bloody know—’ but an uneven wall of lead cut McGucken off, fired by the garrison of Rowa from hard on the Grenadier Company’s left flank.

  Great sheets of orange flame and plumes of roiling smoke lined the bottom of the town’s protective wall, two hundred paces away from Morgan’s riflemen, exactly in the spot that should have been raked by their own guns – had they been in position. The undergrowth was shredded all around him, a pattern of leaves falling like a shower of rain, whilst Private Pritchard grasped his neck, spun around just yards from Morgan and fell with a muted curse to the jungle floor, blood spurting between his fingers.

  ‘Goddamn, they’re putting down fire from exactly the spot that we thought they might, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan and McGucken were now crouching low on the loamy floor of the forest. ‘They’re better troops than we’d hoped.’

  ‘Aye, sir, turned sepoys, sure enough, but may I suggest a wee volley to soften ’em, then, p’raps, at ’em with the steel?’ McGucken was thinking clear and straight, as usual.

  ‘Yes, Colour-Sar’nt,’ Morgan gulped. A volley might keep their heads down, but the only way to clear the flank would be with the bayonet – McGucken was right – yet he couldn’t expect raw Ensign Fawcett to do the job; he himself would have to. He felt for the hilt of his sword as his mouth became suddenly dry. ‘Get a dozen solid lads ready, please, from the right of our line: get them to fix bayonets and be prepared to move on my order.’

  If Morgan had expected any help from Carmichael’s company on his right, he was to be disappointed. Number One Company just knelt there, the men’s heads turning left and right, awaiting orders as the battle developed on their left, yet their commander was silently supine.

  ‘Grenadiers, half left, two hundred enemy infantry at ba
se of wall,’ Morgan bellowed, trying to make himself heard above the cries of the NCOs and the insects that were competing with the din of the fighting. ‘Ready…’ seventy hammers were pulled back from half to full cock, ‘…fire!’ as another jet of flame and smoke tore through the brush that surrounded them.

  But even as the echo of rifle-fire whipped through the trees and off the walls of the town opposite, McGucken had the attacking party ready.

  ‘Here, Sar’nt Ormond, here, on me!’ Crashing through the bushes came a sergeant and a dozen men, faces set, bayonets glittering at the high port, lips already grimed where they had quickly bitten off fresh cartridge papers before dashing to obey Morgan’s orders. They puffed into a line beside him, crouching down, ready and alert for whatever the officer would tell them to do and wherever he would lead.

  ‘Glad to have you with me, Ormond…’

  Jesus – Ormond, thank God, thought Morgan. That’s the same daft, bloody face that was with me at the Alma and that fucking massacre at Inkermann.

  ‘Right, lads, we’re going to scrape those bloody Pandies clean away from the bottom o’ that wall. Mr Fawcett will give us some fire as we hook round the left flank of our line.’

  I hope young Fawcett will have the common bloody sense to do just that without having it spelt out to him…Morgan fretted.

  ‘Right.’ He pushed his hand through the damp leather sword knot and pulled the long, curved steel blade from its scabbard, noting the dull orange sheen of rust that the dank jungle had already caused, despite last night’s coat of oil. ‘Follow me,’ as he plunged off with the line of men crouching and stumbling behind him.

  ‘There they are, sir…look there,’ Sergeant Ormond pointed excitedly to Morgan as the handful of his counterattack party emerged from the leafy dip in the land on the left flank of the 95th’s line. ‘There’s a damn sight more than I thought, though.’

  They’d run, pushing their way through the clinging branches around the back of Fawcett’s men with Morgan yelling, ‘We’re coming to your left, Fawcett. Give us covering fire,’ before they shook out into an assault line in a low piece of ground that was invisible to the enemy.

  Morgan was rather pleased with himself for having found this bit of ground – pleased until his boys surged forward, weapons ready, only to find that the Pandies were within touching distance in front of him and in much greater force than he’d imagined. Where he’d expected twenty there were now a hundred. He seemed to have succeeded admirably in drawing off the reserve that Hume had told him to, but he’d completely misjudged their numbers and he now had their furious attention all to himself and his dozen men.

  He’d heard the volley that Fawcett’s part of the line had fired just before his group emerged from the cover that the ground provided, and now the young officer and his NCOs were bawling out the orders to reload. In front of Morgan’s party, though, the mutineers had recovered their balance and were set upon driving the British back. There could be no hesitation; the only answer was to attack.

  ‘No, get on, lads, get on!’ Sergeant Ormond yelled to the attacking line as the men shied back when they saw the mass of Pandies so close in front of them.

  ‘Come on, boys, stay with me!’ bawled Morgan as his every bone, his every sinew tried to drag him down into the protection of the earth. But if they faltered now, he knew that they would be overrun – the great, ragbag crowd of mutineers would be on them, muskets banging, tulwars swinging, hacking and chopping them back into Fawcett’s men and rolling up the 95th’s line.

  Why ain’t Carmichael’s company firing? thought Morgan as he pushed himself at the Pandies, lungs bursting with the strange growl that seemed to come from someone other than himself. This will be all bayonet and butt work – I hope the lads have the pluck for it.

  But there was no time for any more self-doubt. Morgan was conscious of a spatter of shots from over his shoulder, then he was toe to toe with his enemies. Immediately in front of him was a stringy, skull-capped creature whose teeth stuck from his sallow face like yellow fangs. In a pyjama top and long dhoti, the man’s sword belt and whistle chain suggested that he was at least a subadar, whilst the way he waved his sabre and snarled at the others marked him as a leader. Now he whirled on Morgan, dropped the point of his sword low and pulled his elbow back to thrust in a practised, soldierly way.

  Not again. Morgan had never faced a swordsman before, but he’d seen more angry Russians in circumstances like this than he wanted to. Let him commit himself first.

  The lithe Pandy threw all his weight into the thrust, allowing Morgan to jink left, but as he did so, he barged into Lance-Corporal Pegg, who’d been making martial noises as he followed just a few safe paces behind his officer.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Pegg apologised too late, for the collision had spoilt Morgan’s riposte, allowing the mutineer to recover himself and to corkscrew back, his blade up and across his body, guarding himself against Morgan’s clumsy, weak little counterpoke. With almost no power behind the thrust, the Pandy knocked Morgan’s blade to one side in a classic, sweeping parry. Then, in just the same textbook way, the Indian swung his sabre cleanly over his shoulder, keeping his elbow tucked in tight against his chest to protect his vulnerable ribs and face, and pounced hard on his quarry.

  Instinct told Morgan not to respond in the way that the sergeant-instructor had taught them at the depot; the manual would have told him to fall back, parry and then reply with ‘Cut-Three’ – just what his opponent, schooled in the same way, would have expected. So he didn’t. Falling to one knee, Morgan grabbed the blade of his sword about six inches below the point with his left hand, ducked under the mutineer’s arcing hilt and let the man’s own weight carry him onto the curved steel like a spitted pig.

  With an explosive gasp and an expression of complete surprise on his face, the subadar slid down Morgan’s blade. As the Pandy lunged forward, so the steel jabbed easily below his sternum; as he staggered and wheezed, so the sabre made a tent of the back of the man’s shirt, before the bright metal emerged from the cloth, staining it red as it ripped through the grey cotton.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ Pegg kicked the cooling Pandy off Morgan before pulling the officer to his feet, whilst the rest of the men tore into the throng with shots, butts, kicks and punches even as the mass of mutineers lapped around and behind them, engulfing the red-coated British in a wave of slashing swords and smoking muskets.

  ‘I am, Pegg, but watch yourself!’ As Morgan was pulled to his feet, he saw a mutineer in cross-belts and issued cap come running at the NCO’s back with the point of his bayonet levelled at Pegg’s kidneys, his lips drawn back below his extravagant moustache.

  Morgan tried to push the lad aside, away from the long steel spike, but as the sepoy pounded forward, there was a familiar, shrieking thump and Pegg’s assailant was batted to the ground, his head horribly awry and a great, pulsing hole from which a bloody mass of tissue flopped, just below his right shoulder. The musket and bayonet clattered down, before the corpse flopped into the grass, its lifeless legs pumpings, sandalled feet catching at the soil.

  ‘Get down, lads…get down, for Christ’s sake,’ Morgan bellowed at his men, most of whom were following his orders even before he’d issued them. ‘Those are our own guns!’

  Nine-pound balls skipped and slapped amongst the mutineers, making what the gunners chose to call, ‘good practice’. Where bounding iron touched soft flesh it smashed and gouged it, turning vibrant men into bags of offal before their dead bodies hit the ground, whilst the rounds that missed threw showers of grit and spoil in their wake, scoring and pitting anyone that was close. The 95th hugged the earth, as the iron tore their enemies and sent them wailing for the cover of Rowa’s walls.

  The ground was littered with bags of coloured rags, some moving, some still, some moaning as the mass of Pandies crouched and dashed back through a sallyport in the walls of the fort that had been invisible to the reconnaissance, whilst the guns banged on. The troop of nine
-pounders continued to fire round-shot that pitched and leapt around the enemy’s artillery.

  ‘Fuckin’ good hit that, sir.’ Even whilst they were in grave danger from their own side, even as they clung for dear life to the shielding earth, Sergeant Ormond couldn’t help but admire his own gunners’ competence. As the iron rounds thumped into walls and soil, there was a sudden clang and human yells as a ball caught the muzzle of the enemy gun that was mounted in an embrasure close to where Morgan’s lads sheltered.

  ‘Aye, the thing’s got wings.’ Morgan looked in wonder as the heavy barrel spun off its carriage and whirled through the air and over the wall, landing in a spray of muddy clods.

  ‘Look there, sir, it’s a signal rocket.’ Even flat on his belly, Ormond saw the finger of smoke reaching high into the early morning sky. ‘Which one is it?’

  They had, obviously, missed the double rocket that was designed to launch the attack amidst the muddle of the advance – if it had been fired at all.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see the colour of the damn thing: the sun’s too bright.’ Morgan was squinting hard as the pyrotechnic burst above the distant tree line. ‘I guess it must be…yes, hark there, can you hear it?’

  For an instant the artillery had fallen silent, but even above the noise of rifle-fire a solid cheer came down the wind.

  ‘It’s Captain McGowan’s lot. That must have been their green rocket,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Aye, sir, an’ they’re heading into the whole mass of the mutineers – the fuckers are now all gathered at that end of the town.’ Ormond pointed to the west end of Rowa to where the enemy had obviously realised that the main attack was going to fall.

  ‘You’re right.’ Morgan licked his fear-dried lips. ‘We may have underestimated this bunch of Pandies. They must have worked out that we’ve tried to pin them from the front whilst a flanking move goes in and now they’re massing to resist Captain McGowan’s companies. This is a fucking shambles. The poor sods will be cut to ribbons unless we get into the town and behind the Pandies.’