‘As you’ve heard, we’re to form the third column, and it will be lead by the four companies of the Ninety-Fifth and followed by your four companies, gentlemen.’ Hume looked towards the officers of the Tenth. ‘Carmichael and Massey, your companies will form the main body.’ The two captains both nodded, though Morgan thought he detected a certain paleness around Richard Carmichael’s gills. ‘Bazalgette, I want your company to be prepared to act as an immediate reserve, with the two howitzers acting under your command. Your troops will move just behind the main body but I want you, Bazalgette, up on my elbow so that you’ll know exactly what to do once I deploy you as the fight develops, is that clear?’
‘Sir, very clear.’ Bazalgette replied, but there was something low, flat about the way that he said it, a tone that made Morgan look hard at his friend.
‘Now, the Grenadiers,’ Hume paused and looked Morgan directly in the eye, ‘as befits my senior company, you are to form the storming party.’
Morgan’s balls and guts tightened. It couldn’t be worse. Another dose of ‘honour’, he thought. How will I tell that to the men?
‘You’ll have both Sapper parties with you until we’ve broken out of the citadel; I want you to go hard for the initial enemy guns and barricades, seize and hold them. Then, when you give us the signal that routes of advance are clear, I’ll bundle Carmichael and Massey through you. I can’t tell you how important this first stage of the assault is, Morgan. If you run into really stiff resistance, I’ll put Bazalgette and his company under your command with both howitzers. Any questions?’
‘Sir, no questions except for the crossing of the river. The enemy guns that are downstream, firing from the outer part of Kotah, can easily rake the bend of the river where we are to cross. One or two canister rounds will tear us to shreds once they know we’re there.’ Morgan tried not to sound too worried, but he had to make sure that his seniors knew the dangers of what was about to be attempted.
‘Yes, I’ve looked over that piece of ground and river myself with the general, and that’s why we’re going to mount the crossing at night with no artillery bombardment that might put the enemy on the qui vivre. We’ll just have to use the cover of darkness and trust to John Pandy being asleep on sentry – nothing new there. Does that make it clear?’ Hume looked steadily at Morgan, his eyes betraying the danger of the task, but his voice as steady as if they were discussing horseflesh. Morgan could see that there was no room for further debate,
‘Very clear, sir.’ And it was clear, the Grenadiers and all his powers of leadership were to be very seriously tested: how honoured he felt.
‘Well, Morgan, our forefathers must have upset people thoroughly for their sins to be visited on us like this.’ Bazalgette and Morgan, now that Hume’s orders had finished, were taking one last look at Kotah’s walls and bristling batteries before they went back to give their orders to the men.
‘Aye, that bugger there could give us a problem if they tumble to the fact that we’re so close to them.’ Both officers had turned their binoculars onto the enemy battery that McGucken had identified during the earlier reconnaissance. ‘Lucky that we’ll have plenty of darkness, because it’s only about four hundred paces upstream,’ Morgan muttered, more to himself than to his brother officer.
‘I know, it could be dangerous if it sees us, but have you heard anything about the strength of the enemy inside the town?’ Bazalgette asked with none of his normal cheerfulness.
‘No. Well, nothing beyond what we’ve just been told: about seven thousand under this character Hira Singh, who’s already seen more blood-letting than he should. But the reports that the Rajah’s men have been passing back suggest that we’re going to have a right good shindy.’ Morgan tried to make light of his own dread.
‘Look, Morgan, please don’t think less of me…’
Bazalgette was behaving oddly, thought Morgan. Usually, before battle he was calm; indeed, he’d seen him more worried over a cricket match than going into action.
‘…but I’ve got the most awful feeling about this business. I just don’t think I’m going to pull through. I’m not an imaginative or religious man – you know I’m not – but you can call it a presentiment or whatever you like, but I believe that I shall be killed.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Bazalgette; why—’
‘No, please take me seriously. I’m not going to pass you a final letter or give you my watch – you’d only pawn it –’ Bazalgette tried valiantly to make a weak, little joke – ‘but if I’m right, please send my things to Miss Gabbett and tell her whatever sweet lies you think she’d like to hear.’
Morgan thought of the plain but lively girl that his friend had met in Dublin. Bazalgette had been particularly impressed by the way that she showed no revulsion at all to his scaly, wounded hand – something that so many other girls tried to avoid.
‘You’re talking utter rot, old sport,’ Morgan put his arm on his comrade’s shoulder and tried to reassure him, ‘but I’ll do whatever you want. You know, don’t you, that this time tomorrow we’ll look back on your “presentiment” and laugh? Now, come on, we’d better get back to the troops. Don’t you go being all morbid with them: save that for me.’
‘Why do we always have to be closest to the Pandies, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Lance-Corporal Pegg and his section of men were sitting uncomfortably on the boards of a raft that was now starting its voyage across the river Chumbul.
The craft was connected by stout ropes to another in front, which in turn was being towed by two rowing boats crewed by oarsmen from the Rajah’s forces. The whole of the Grenadier Company, thirty-five men on to each raft, crouched there, scarlet coats now faded, faces deeply tanned. The only things that shone in the dawn’s first rays were the well-oiled barrels of their Enfield rifles.
Downstream, to their right, were the other three companies, crossing on similar rafts, Carmichael’s Number One Company closest – about fifty yards away.
‘It’s an honour, that’s why, Corporal Pegg.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken had had much the same thought as Pegg. Captain Morgan had pointed out the enemy battery that would be most dangerous to the flotilla the evening before, saying that if they made too much noise, it might open fire, but the darkness should protect them: but that was before the delay. The crossing was meant to have started at three in the morning, but the Rajah’s men were late and now they were sitting in the early morning light like geese on the Clyde. ‘And anyway, them rebels will still be a-fairtin’ on their charpoys at this time o’ day.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, what’s caught our Paddy’s attention?’ Pegg could see how Morgan was hooked over in the leading raft, trying to steady his glasses, squinting hard at the far battery.
‘Probably spotted some bint washing her itcher in the shallows,’ McGucken’s joke relieved the tension a little, ‘and it’s Captain Morgan to you.’ But Corporal Pegg was right, the company commander was studying something, thought McGucken, and if he screwed his eyes up, he reckoned that he could just make out some movement in the nearest embrasure.
‘Now, Corporal Patsy Brick,’ the men on Morgan’s raft were just as tense as those behind him as the sun banished the sheltering dark, ‘d’you think your shooting’s as good as your singing?’ For the benefit of the men, Morgan tried to sound as light-hearted as possible, despite the shiver of fear he felt as he scanned the enemy battery.
‘It is, your honour. I guess you’d be wanting me to put a pellet or two at yonder Pandies.’ Brick, like everyone else afloat, had seen the danger, but, winner of the company musketry prize in Bombay, he was probably the only man who was capable of putting a round through an eighteen-inch-wide gun port at such a range. ‘I’d say it’s about four hundred, maybe a wee bit more. May I suggest you have a few bandooks ready, sir, then I can fire rapid, like.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Morgan immediately felt better once he was doing something useful. ‘Set your sights at four fifty and aim low; I’ll watch your fall of shot. You lot
, load your firelocks and be ready to pass them to Corp’l Brick once I give the word.’
The men scrambled around to make room for Brick who, having loaded, lay prone on the decking with Morgan next to him, his glasses trained on the bastion. Brick settled himself, carefully adjusted his iron ramp-sight and aimed it at the stonework at the bottom of the black oblong of shadow where, he guessed, the enemy gun must be.
‘Them rowers is jerking us a bit, sir.’ Brick’s face was twisted with concentration as the light improved with every passing second.
‘Aye, but you don’t want me to tell ’em to go any slower, do you?’ Morgan asked. They were about a quarter of the way across the river now, all the boats and rafts were beginning to feel the tug of the current when, clear in Morgan’s lens, he saw a smudge of great black crows rise from the walls, clawing up into the air, disturbed by some sudden movement.
‘I sin them birds, your honour: just give me the word,’ said Brick.
‘Steady, we’ll have to let them fire first,’ Morgan replied. His every instinct was to fire now before the enemy; but, despite the light, there was just a possibility that the mutineers hadn’t seen them and he dare not spoil any chance of surprise that might still exist.
Almost immediately, though, in the depths of that same dark shadow, there was a fizz of a spark, a pause and then the image in Morgan’s binoculars was full of silent smoke and flame.
‘Fire, Brick, fire!’ yelled Morgan as the report of the Pandy gun echoed across the water and off the walls of the fort, followed instantly by the bark of a rifle.
Gunners had often told Morgan that if you were sharp enough you could see a gunshot in flight along with the swirl of hot air that the ball left in its wake. He’d never seen it – not until now. He was concentrating as hard as he could on the embrasure, obscured as it was by smoke, to see where Brick’s bullet might land when the picture in his glasses was dominated by a black disc that grew by the second, followed by a mirage of contorted air. It looked to Morgan as if it were coming straight at him.
‘Dear God…’ Morgan only had time to lower his binoculars before the ball struck the water some twenty paces upstream of the raft, and skipped like a skimmed pebble low over the top of them. ‘Get down!’ But they couldn’t get any lower.
The round-shot hummed as it passed, lightly showering them with spray, but it missed by a mile compared with the narrow shave that Number One Company got. The ball could only have been a few feet from Carmichael’s raft, Morgan thought, as he twisted his head to watch. A great sheet of water was thrown over his neighbours, all of the troops shying away as if the iron had actually hit them. But one figure clung lower and harder to the planking, his eyes closed tighter, his knuckles whiter than anyone else’s – Captain Richard Carmichael.
‘Ay-up, sir, best get off an’ swim!’ A loutish voice was raised up from the craft behind Morgan – Pegg’s for sure.
But there was no time for any more distractions, as Corporal Brick needed his help.
‘Where was that one, sir?’ Brick had grabbed another rifle and fired again, but even his naked eyes could not see whether the lead had flown true or not: he needed Morgan to spot for him.
‘Sorry, missed it. Try again,’ Morgan apologised.
Brick took a cocked rifle and fired another shot; Morgan just saw the flash of the round in his glass before a puff of chippings was thrown up on the bottom sill of the embrasure.
‘’Bout two foot low and six inches left, Corp’l Brick.’ As Morgan said it, there was another cloud of smoke from the bastion and, almost immediately, a cracking boom.
‘Got it, sir. Gimme more rifles, yous ’en!’
Even as the shot bowled towards them, Brick was grabbing, aiming and firing, hurling lead back at the gunners as fast as the rest of the men on the raft could load.
Morgan crouched as low as he could, but the second round flew high and just behind them, throwing a great gout of spray between the two rafts.
He looked round to see McGucken grinning – quite unaffected – mouthing, ‘They should be using canister, sir. Them Pandies is useless without us to help ’em!’
But now Brick had found the range and Morgan guessed each round was humming squarely amongst the gun crew. Certainly, the enemy was silent whilst the rafts pulsed forward through the water with renewed energy as the oarsmen tried to get out of danger as fast as they could. But with only yards to go before they were under the cover of a rocky bank, the gun fired again. Morgan thought he could hear every man suck his breath in and hold it; certainly, as the ball yawed wide, skimming harmlessly over Bazalgette’s company away downstream, all seventy Grenadiers breathed out as one man.
‘Well done, Corporal Brick. Reckon you put a stop in a rebel or two there; good shooting.’ Morgan was both relieved and delighted as the Rajah’s men leapt from their cutter and pulled the rafts towards the shore.
‘Well, sir, not a bad morning’s work, even if I do say so meself.’ Brick was rubbing at his shoulder, which had been bruised by a rapid succession of recoils. ‘Might there be a drop o’ grog in it?’
The steps up to the citadel were steep and uneven; Morgan found himself panting as he led the company up and into the fort from the strip of shingle where they had landed.
‘Them rebel guns was a bit too close for comfort, wasn’t they, sir?’ Pegg rebuked Morgan as they toiled upwards, even as their own artillery started the preparatory bombardment.
‘You’re alive, ain’t you, Corp’l Pegg…’ Morgan was impatient with the NCO, due as much to his own relief at having got across the river without casualties as anything else, ‘…what more d’you want?’
‘Ten days’ leave and the thanks of Parliament would go some way to mekin’ me feel appreciated, sir,’ came the riposte.
‘Well, I wouldn’t put a sovereign on that, young ’un,’ was about all that Morgan could manage as they eventually reached the square at the centre of the fortress. Then Bazalgette and a bugler, who were moving ahead of the main body of his company, suddenly appeared next to them.
‘Now, how’s yerself?’ Morgan was trying to jolly Bazalgette out of his self-imposed misery. ‘That rebel gun was firing wide of the mark, was it not?’
‘It was, but it was close enough to wet our pants,’ replied Bazalgette flatly. ‘Good job they was boss-eyed.’
There seemed little that Morgan could do to cheer his friend, and before he could think of anything more to say, the Sappers had arrived, heavily laden with sacks of blasting powder, the Board of Ordnance arrow boldly stamped on the linen, intent on finding the best places to blow holes in the citadel’s walls. Morgan was only concerned with his own objective, however, and leaving the men under the care of Ensign Fawcett, he called for McGucken and an Engineer sergeant and set off to find the Kettonpore Gate.
‘Well, sir, the Rajah’s boys seem to have made a good job of it.’ McGucken was looking at the pile of stones and loose masonry that had been piled inside the vast oak gates and stone towers either side, which marked the limit of safety. ‘You’ll need a fair pinch of powder to shift that lot, Sar’nt Hamilton.’
‘I will, Colour-Sar’nt,’ replied the Sapper as he produced a dog-eared manual from within his haversack and started to look at a series of tables and charts that would tell him exactly what weight of charge he would need, ‘but I’ll want some of your lads to help me get the bangers in place.’
‘Fine, just tell us what you need,’ replied Morgan impatiently as the Sapper mumbled to himself and drew a dirty fingernail over his rubric.
‘Sir, I’ll need fifteen of your finest, please,’ and at this the trio traipsed back to the square and the waiting company.
‘That’s enough, ain’t it, Sar’nt?’ Corporal Pegg and his men had been told to help the Sappers with the preparation of the clearing charge. ‘There’s plenty of bang-stick in there now; it’ll get us to Aus-bleedin’-tralia.’ Pegg’s men had toiled with endless sacks of chemical-smelling powder, which, at half a hund
redweight apiece, had left them all pouring with sweat, their grey shirts now black with the effort.
‘Aye, that’ll do.’ But the Sapper was distracted from his task with tarred detonating cord and flash initiators by a gaggle of other Engineers, who were talking to him earnestly.
‘I need to speak to your officer, serious now. Where is he?’ Sergeant Hamilton was unhappy. The news from the other Sappers was not good: the citadel’s walls, which were due to be breached for Columns One and Two, were judged to be too thick and too well constructed for the amount of explosive that they had carried forward.
‘Sir, I don’t see owt else for it.’ Sergeant Hamilton stood stiff and tense in front of Colonel Hume, to whom Morgan had taken him when a change of plan had become necessary. ‘The Kettonpore Gate’s the only exit from the citadel that’s possible with the time and gear we’ve got. I’ve spoke to me troop officers an’ they’ve given us the go-ahead.’
It was difficult for infantry officers to understand the amount of authority that the Sappers placed in a mere sergeant, expert though he might be, although Hume had the experience to listen.
‘Very well, Sar’nt Hamilton, I’ll tell the brigade commander; I’m sure that he’ll have a view,’ said Hume.
‘Obliged to you, sir.’ Hamilton was relieved to find a foot-plodder, particularly a colonel covered in gongs, who was prepared to respect his expertise. ‘Just be aware, sir, a native came in whilst we was a-tinkerin’ with the charges an’ said that Pandy had already mined the gate – but from the outside. Just thought I ought to mention it.’
‘Very good, Hume…’ It was now about half-past ten, and the enemy guns had started a desultory fire on the citadel, having seen, Morgan was sure, the assault forces forming up inside. But Smith, the brigade commander, did not seem to be daunted by the changed circumstances that the Sappers had identified, ‘…the other two columns will follow your boys through the Kettonpore once it’s been blown. That means that the enemy will be able to concentrate solely on your leading company – bit of a challenge. Who’s in the van?’
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