‘I’m obliged to you, old friend.’ Bazalgette grasped Morgan’s hand as they stood together in a smoky room full of dead and wounded rebels. ‘Did you hear that damn thing go off?’ The victory seemed to have restored Bazalgette’s verve. ‘We had just taken a bit of lead when they fired it, ’bout forty musket barrels all lashed together and fused to fire simultaneously. Poor George Green was killed outright, God rest him, another three wounded…’ Morgan saw how two of the soldiers crossed themselves at this news, ‘…and Green was right next to me. It all looked pretty tricky until we heard your attack go in.’ Then, more softly: ‘The boys just didn’t seem to have their normal stomach for the fight – until we heard you getting behind the bastards.’
But there’s nothing wrong with the boys. They was picking up that reluctance from you, Evelyn Bazalgette; I told you they would, thought Morgan.
‘Now what, in God’s name, is that?’ Bazalgette asked as the noise of brass instruments and drums suddenly became audible.
‘Why, it’s “Don’t You Remember Sweet Alice,” ain’t it?’ said Morgan as both officers moved to the window closest to where the music came from and looked out at a dusty square about one hundred and fifty yards away, deep in the rebel-held part of the town.
‘Sounds like it. Which regiment’s brought its band up with it? I’d have thought the bandsmen would have had their hands full acting as stretcher bearers, anyway,’ said Bazalgette. ‘But there’s your answer.’ A full forty bandsmen of one of the native regiments marched trimly across the square in front of them, their instruments harmonious, the drummers’ sticks rising and falling together.
‘Well, I’m damned if I know who they are, but—’ Morgan wasn’t allowed to finish.
‘They’re fuckin’ Pandies, sir, that’s who they are,’ said McGucken grimly at the officer’s elbow. ‘Look yon!’
Marching behind the band came file after file of infantry, keeping time with the music, in step, with their Colours flying bravely in the centre. But only a few red coats and shakos remained, and no British officers. Every man had retained his belts and haversack, but most had acquired swords or long daggers stuck untidily in their waistbands, giving them the air of brigands, despite their ranks and even step.
‘Fire, men, to your front, fire!’ Morgan and Bazalgette yelled together, and after a few uneven shots, the men of both companies lined every window and roof, firing, reloading and firing again with a steady rhythm whilst below them Hira Singh’s men fell like corn to the scythe.
‘Did you see that bugger on the bloody great ’orse, sir?’ Lance-Corporal Pegg was full of the battle. ‘Leapt right over the battlements, ’e did; dead as mutton, they were; waste o’a good nag, that – worth a few bob. Did you see it?’
‘Yes, Corporal Pegg, I saw it, thank you,’ Morgan replied quietly.
‘And don’t ever doubt that these Pandies can be first-class troops when they put their minds to it, young Pegg,’ McGucken reproved him. ‘May not be our way o’ doin’ things, but leapin’ to certain death rather than falling into the hands of us Feringees takes a bit o’ guts.’
McGucken’s right, it was brave, thought Morgan,…but I wish I hadn’t seen it.
As they’d volleyed into the enemy from the safety of their firing points, both companies of the 95th had watched as one of the mutineers’ leaders came galloping through the square into which they were shooting, leaping over the dead and injured, going hell for leather, crouched low in his saddle, towards one of the battlements of the Salumbah bastion, and leapt clean over it. They all assumed that the rider knew a safe route out, but once they moved forward into the square, an excited gaggle of the 10th BNI stood by the stone breastwork, some pointing downwards, whilst others took pot shots into the distance.
I saw that man and his chestnut all twisted up fifty feet below us, Morgan remembered. What can he have been thinking of? He must have known that that would be suicide. And I saw those poor devils on the island – nowhere to run, no cover from our bullets, but no sign of surrender, brave, stupid bastards.
Streams of mutineers had run past the muzzles of their rifles through the open expanse of the square, driven on by the bayonets of the other columns. The Grenadiers had shot more than he could count, firing and firing at an easy target for almost fifteen minutes until the men had complained about the heat of their barrels.
‘They may be good troops, Colour-Sar’nt, but not good enough to dodge an Enfield ball.’ Pegg rubbed ostentatiously at his blue-bruised shoulder.
Morgan continued to ponder the slaughter. Where did they think they was going to go once they’d got down the ropes? That island looked like a morgue once we’d finished with them…
On the other side of the battlement the mutineers had prepositioned long ropes down which those who escaped the British fire had slid – until too many got on at once and they broke – before splashing and wading out to an island in the middle of a wide ornamental lake. There was the Kishor Sagar – a miniature palace – in the middle of the island, but no other cover.
The battlement had been crowded with British and Bombay troops alike, shoulder to shoulder, firing as hard as they could into the defenceless sepoys at less than two hundred yards from their muzzles.
The men just wouldn’t stop firing. Morgan, appalled more by the sight of the dead horse than its rider, had just stood and watched as the men tore at the Pandies with round after round. If we hadn’t have run low on shot, the boys would be at it now, and the Tenth were just as wild.
The boys just tore in to them – even the wounded got shot at time and again until they stopped twitching. I should have put a stop to all that – it was no more or less than murder, and I’m no better than Kemp and his moss-troopers.
Now what remained of the mutineers were being pursued by the cavalry outside the walls of Kotah, whilst the infantry hunted down the last of Hira Singh’s men and set about the systematic destruction of the fortress. McGucken had ordered weapons to be cleaned, ammunition and water to be replenished and feeding to begin, conscious that the men were chafing to start the search for loot, yet at any time they could be ordered forward in pursuit. Leaving the NCOs in charge, though, he took a carrying party back to the Kettonpore Gate to collect the body of Private Spoor, for the medical orderlies had been unable to stop him from bleeding to death.
Morgan, sickened by the carnage and wanting to be away from the excited chatter of the newer men, had chosen to go with his colour-sergeant, knowing that Ensign Fawcett would soon send for him if new orders were received; he also wanted to see the gun that he had captured.
Now they walked back down the route their attack had taken, rebel bodies lying huddled against the shot-pocked walls, smoke drifting from the blazing roofs.
‘See what’s making that noise, will you, Sullivan?’ From the compound of a tiny battered temple came the bleating of what sounded to Morgan like a very hungry sheep.
Sullivan, five-foot nine of Tralee tough, a moan never far from his lips, but always on your elbow when the lead was flying or loot was to be had, doubled away immediately, only to emerge minutes later with a dirty, slightly emaciated ram trotting along behind him on the end of a rifle sling. Round the animal’s neck a brass bell, as big as a fist, tinkled forlornly.
‘He’s as friendly as you like, your honour,’ said Sullivan as Morgan bent to pat the animal’s lanolin-sticky fleece and looked into its strange, elliptical eyes.
‘That’ll make a grand mascot for the company, Sullivan.’ Morgan was comforted by the ram’s friendliness and simple trust. ‘Just like the Forty-First and that damn goat they took in Russia.’
‘Can it be ate, sir?’ asked Pegg, feeling the animal’s rump for meat.
So the dusty group wandered on, an officer, four battle-stained men and a shabby sheep, only McGucken giving them any sort of martial air.
‘Who’s that lot yonder, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan could see red coats milling around the debris near the Kettonpore Gate where their
lethal day had started.
‘Number One Company, sir.’ McGucken waved back to a familiar figure. ‘There’s Colour-Sar’nt Whaley.’
Whaley had been a sergeant in the Grenadier Company before being promoted and moved to be Richard Carmichael’s most senior non-commissioned officer. He’d shared danger and hardship with Morgan and McGucken, and remained a firm friend of both, not least because he now had to endure the misery of Carmichael’s leadership.
‘Hello, sir, Jock.’ Whaley saluted Morgan. ‘Good to see you. The Grenadiers have obviously been in the thick of things again. We’ve not fired a shot all day; been hanging around here in bloody reserve after Cap’n Carmichael misunderstood what the colonel wanted.’
‘Sure it was a mistake, Colour-Sar’nt Whaley?’ asked Morgan. McGucken had looked uncomfortable at Whaley’s outright disloyalty to his company commander in front of another officer, despite the bonds of shared experience, so Morgan had answered in the same style.
‘Well, you know how it is, sir; the lads are bloody seething at not having a go at the loot.’ Whaley shrugged. ‘Anyway, we looked after your boy for you.’
Private Spoor had been laid straight, arms folded across his breast, under his own grey blanket. Morgan stooped and pulled the cloth back to look at his face, whilst McGarry and Sullivan crossed themselves.
‘Did any of you know the lad at all well?’ Morgan asked the men whilst looking at the waxen face of the nineteen-year-old. The rebel’s slug had hit the boy in the lower throat, tearing one of the great arteries, Morgan guessed. Now the bandages and his collar were soaked through, a wide russet stain had spread on the earth below him and a long drop of black, coagulated blood hung from an ear lobe.
‘Aye, your honour, he was my messmate,’ Matthew McGarry said gravely. ‘The ink was ’ardly dry on his ’list-ment papers.’
‘Well, take a lock of hair for his mam, McGarry,’ said Morgan, dropping the blanket back into place and disturbing the cloud of flies that had rushed at the boy’s wounds.
‘Then put young Spoor into his blanket, boys, an’ let’s get him back home.’ McGucken was quietly matter-of-fact, knowing just how heavy the corpse would weigh on the mile or so back to his comrades.
‘Now, where’s that gun of ours?’ Morgan knew that he should have tried to be more sombre in the presence of the dead for, hardened to death as they had all become, the men still treated their own fallen with an almost exaggerated respect.
‘What gun’s that, sir?’ asked Whaley hesitantly.
Morgan smiled. ‘That brass bugger over there that we took this morning; don’t give me any more of that gammon.’
‘Ah, yes, sir,’ but Whaley really was embarrassed. ‘That’ll be Cap’n Carmichael’s gun, the one that he’s told me to guard with my life whilst he goes to register it with the prize agents – is that the one, sir?’
‘Carmichael’s gun my arse.’ Morgan still thought Whaley was fooling. ‘Why, McGucken spiked the thing and I scratched the regimental number on the carriage. Look here.’
But Whaley didn’t want to look ‘here’ or anywhere else, for as Morgan ran his fingers over the deeply etched ‘95’, he saw the initials, ‘RLMC’ emblazoned just as thoroughly above it.
‘Why, the scrub!’ Morgan exclaimed. ‘The useless knob, I’ve a mind to—’ But Morgan’s fury was interrupted by the racket of a knot of horsemen riding up.
McGucken and Whaley had been standing by, embarrassed by one of their officer’s anger at another. It was a relief for them to shout, ‘Stand up!’ and quiver to the salute as Brigadier-General Smith and his brigade-major, Charles Bainbrigge, approached.
‘Good day to you, gentlemen.’ The brigade commander looked down from his saddle, crisp in a blue linen frock coat, polished top boots and snowy white sun helmet. ‘It’s been a most satisfactory affair, has it not?’
How the devil would you know? You look as though you’ve not left your tent all day, said Morgan to himself.
‘Morgan, isn’t it?’ Smith suddenly recognised him. ‘You led the assault, my “forlorn hope”: how went it?’
‘It went rightly, sir, thank you.’ Morgan knew he had to sound cheerful. ‘We lost Private Spoor – here – and had a few men lightly singed and struck, but we took a gun or two and, just as you said, Pandy caught a Tartar.’ Morgan despised his own simpering tone, but there was a lot of ground to make up.
‘Musket-shot or gunfire?’ The brigadier general dismounted, his Turkish decorations catching the sun as he did so. He bent towards the dead man, but his horse shied at a distant explosion, pulling Smith slightly off balance as the reins tightened.
‘’Ere, McGarry, hold the general’s mount for him.’ After their last encounter, Pegg saw some strange bond of friendship between Smith and himself; now he was all solicitude.
‘No, not you McGarry,’ McGucken started, suddenly worried that there might be another bout of ventriloquism, but it was too late, the little Irish soldier had already taken the general’s reins and was soothing the sleek, black hunter.
‘Hit in the throat by one of their muskets, sir.’ Morgan and Smith now looked at the dead man. ‘Just nineteen, Warwickshire lad, sir; joined us in Dublin.’
‘Aye, well, Morgan, there’s no room for sentimentality in war, you know – an omelette can’t be made without breaking eggs. Collect his personal effects and make sure that you write and get one of his friends to write as well – try to find someone who can use a halfway decent pen – comforts the family, y’know.’
There was a mute loathing in the men’s faces as they listened to the brigadier-general – and profound shock. Morgan saw McGucken bite back a reply, swaying almost imperceptibly with the effort of self-control.
‘Sir,’ was all that Morgan could manage. Have I really just heard this swerver make light of a man’s death and try to teach us our duty at the same time?
‘And that’s a fair-looking gun. Did you spike it, Morgan?’ Smith ran his hand over the blocked touchhole.
‘Well, I took it, sir…’ he darted a look at Colour-Sergeant Whaley, who grinned back, ‘…but Colour-Sar’nt McGucken, here, actually nailed it.’
‘Hmm…’ Smith mused. ‘You might have been better to turn it on the rebels, don’t you think? D’you know how to handle artillery in such circumstances?’
‘I do, sir,’ McGucken replied quietly. ‘Cap’n Morgan here learnt us all that before Inkermann.’ His hand strayed, as he said it, to the Distinguished Conduct Medal that hung on his chest.
‘Did he, indeed?’ Smith saw the big Scot’s gesture but, Morgan guessed, missed his silent scorn. ‘Right, Bainbrigge, get a limber up here and take this gun back to headquarters, if you please.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The brigade-major, still in the saddle, dashed a note in a pad. ‘To battalion headquarters, Ninety-Fifth Foot?’ Bainbrigge, a fellow infantryman, had always been a particularly welcome guest in the Regiment’s mess.
‘No, dammit, my headquarters.’ Smith’s irritation boiled to the surface. ‘But you didn’t get very far once you were through the gate, Morgan, did you?’
‘Sir, yes, we did—’ Morgan spluttered, but wasn’t allowed to continue.
‘Well, I don’t call a hundred paces or so outside the Kettonpore very far.’
‘Sir, these men aren’t my company, they’re—’ but Morgan wasn’t being listened to.
‘In the attack, Morgan, you must show drive. You mustn’t allow yourself to stall when you take casualties. All very sad, I know, but the men will take on dreadfully if you let them. You have to push hard.’ Smith stuck his foot in the stirrup, took the reins from McGarry and swung up into the saddle. ‘It doesn’t do to hang back. The Pandies’ll fold if you just keep at ’em, you know.’
‘Sir, that’s not—’ But Morgan spoke to the brigadier general’s back: he was already engrossed in discussion with Bainbrigge.
He was engrossed until his horse began to jib and toss its head; he was engrossed until he had to turn
every bit of his attention to the horse’s sudden kicking and bucking, then he was engrossed in trying to stay in the saddle. Even the finest cavalryman would have been hard-pushed to curb the furious animal – and Smith wasn’t that. Despite much cursing, despite the application of spurs and crop, the general just couldn’t hold on: the big hunter sent him flying over its shoulder onto the packed and filthy earth of the lane along which he and his staff were trotting. There he was, sprawling in the dust, sword anyhow, pristine helmet rolling in the gutter.
Morgan’s party and the whole of Number One Company hooted and laughed out loud at their brigade commander; even the ram looked at him balefully and squeezed out a few dry pellets.
As the general picked himself up with the help of an aide, the laughter suddenly died away as the men quickly found themselves busy with weapons and chores.
Only McGucken saw the danger. ‘No, McGarry, not a word…not a word now!’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Colour-Sar’nt. I ain’t said a t’ing.’ And, indeed, McGarry had been unusually taciturn. ‘A wee bit of thorn under yer man’s saddle has spoke loud enough.’
SEVEN
Presentiment
‘Well, you old worry-guts,’ Morgan smiled at his friend Bazalgette, who was sitting scraping mud off his boots on the veranda of a shattered bungalow, ‘so you’re still with us. No more dreams of doom; no more gossiping with the Grim Reaper?’
Number Two, Bazalgette’s Company, had been told to pause on the riverbank a couple of miles outside Kotah and wait both for orders and for the Grenadier Company. There had been much moaning by the troops when they’d learnt that they would not be allowed to remain in the town and join in the orgy of looting. But, they were told, serious things were afoot, and serious things required serious troops.
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