Dust and Steel

by Patrick Mercer

  Afterwards, all Morgan could remember was his shouting, ‘Leave the bloody thing, General: for the love of God, just get on the horse!’

  Then the thunder of another artillery salvo, a spatter of shots from the Pandies in the bushes, a hussar shrieking as he was thrown over the back of his horse by a musket ball, and a deep, distant voice bawling, ‘No, you bastards, get back and earn your pay. Come on, you fuckers, get amongst ’em…’ And then Kemp was pushing and barging a knot of bemused cavalrymen back onto the bridge, his great beefy face red both with fury and the joy of battle.

  The commandant mastered the confusion just as Morgan had seen him do a dozen times before.

  ‘NCOs, get a grip of your men – what’s got into you Balaklava wallahs?’ His chaffing was enough to return some normality to the uproar. ‘Form line behind me, draw swords.’ His sonorous voice calmed the corporals and steadied the dozen or so privates; and it was as well that it did, for with all eyes on the ambush, the drumming of hoofs, a drift of dust, and the flash of steel was only noticed when a fistful of horsemen were suddenly within a hundred paces of them, charging at their right flank out of the rising sun.

  Morgan watched the crisis unfold, powerless to do anything except send his brigade commander to a point that was slightly less dangerous. No sooner had Smith thrown his leg across Emerald’s back than Morgan smacked her rump, setting her off like a bung from a barrel towards the bridge, just as Kemp made the only decision he could. With invisible enemy in the bushes to his left and a cloud of howling devils bearing down hard on his right, Kemp chose the course that Morgan knew he would – he attacked.

  ‘Right marker, stand firm, right wheel…’ Kemp’s voice galvanised the hussars, who reacted as the hours of drill and sword exercise had taught them to do: their line swung like a gate and as it at last faced the enemy, he commanded, ‘…charge…come on, my boys, charge the heathen sods!’

  The earth flew as British hoofs dug at the ground, launching themselves into a desperate attempt not to be thrown into ruin by the momentum of the mutineers’ assault. Morgan was between the two bodies of horsemen, so he pulled his sword from its scabbard and sank to the ground, knowing that he was going to be overrun by the enemy before his own troops could possibly reach him.

  How do I get myself into scrapes like this? he wondered as the faces of the charging Indians became clearly visible…My only hope is to lie doggo – I’ll be too low for a sword thrust but the bloody horses are even more dangerous. And he dropped into a dusty rut, trying to make the smallest target of himself that he could whilst gripping his hilt with one hand and the blade of his sword with the other, just a few inches below the point.

  On came the enemy, shouting for all they were worth, curved steel outstretched, some with shields, some with helmets, a red coat here and there amongst the flying cotton robes, all bent upon hewing the hated Feringhee. Then the rider on the outside of the group seemed to notice Morgan and jerked his rein to give him a little more space from the next sowar, drawing his tulwar across his left shoulder and sitting up in the saddle ready for a low slash at his victim, who was so close to the ground.

  If I can just keep clear of his cut, and then jab upwards…But Morgan had no more time to think, for his attacker was upon him, slicing the air, snarling through greasy beard and betel-nut-stained teeth, but too high to kill his man. Then, as the honed steel arced harmlessly above him, Morgan thrust home. He pushed the tip of his sabre into the soft, balding belly of the horse, the point entering the animal’s flesh just behind the last rib, carving a scarlet furrow as the creature ran onto the blade, and exiting just below a muscular thigh. Blood fountained, the horse screamed and veered hard into its comrades, knocking another down and crushing its rider as it rolled over him, its legs still pumping even as it died.

  Shaken, and flecked with horse blood, Morgan twisted and watched the two groups meet. Kemp’s men were one or two stronger than the enemy, but the mutineers had the advantage of speed and surprise, and, he realised with a start, they were led by a slight, helmeted figure in a shirt of mail.

  ‘The Rhani!’ Even above the clash of steel meeting steel, of snorting, frightened mounts and the clatter of iron shoes, even above the leather-lunged commands of NCOs and howled Hindustani, Kemp’s voice boomed clear and loud. ‘Kill the bitch!’

  Morgan ran into the mêlée just as the heavier men and mounts of the hussars began to push the native horses back. Since Balaklava he’d heard nothing like these grunts and ring of tempered steel, the jangle of harnesses and moans of pain, the bangs of pistols and the feral noises of men butchering each other. Now the same troops practised their lethal trade, hacking and jabbing, kicking and punching with the determination that he’d seen on the faces of the 8th Hussars almost four years before. He saw one trooper dig his blade too deep into the ribs of a mutineer and hang, inextricably linked to his victim, whilst another sowar cut deep into the soldier’s neck with his tulwar. A mutineer plunged to the ground as his horse was shot quite deliberately behind the ear by one of the soldiers who had jibbed at the bridge earlier that morning, forcing Morgan to skip to one side as the animal’s legs cartwheeled just in front of him.

  Morgan finished the stunned sowar with a quick poke of his sword into his vulnerable armpit, then he danced and dodged through the press of horse legs and withers, looking for another mark. As he crouched and skittered on the edge of the fight, he heard Kemp’s voice again.

  ‘Dunniah, you treacherous rogue!’ And he watched as the murderer of the commandant’s wife and family parried first a slash and then a drill-book thrust from his former master.

  He’s not himself, thought Morgan, who would have expected a blow from the enraged Kemp to carry all before it, his wounds have left him weak. And as Dunniah collected himself in the saddle and pulled his sword back to riposte, straining at the seams of his scarlet coat, Morgan intervened. Cutting down with all his strength, he sliced into the leg sinews of Dunniah’s horse, the steel grating on bone and hamstringing the animal so effectively that it collapsed at Morgan’s feet, slamming the angry rebel into the dust.

  ‘Handsomely done, Morgan,’ Kemp boomed. ‘Now finish the job.’ But there was no need, for the sepoy lay still, caught below the thrashing, squealing body of his crippled horse.

  Pulling a service pistol from Dunniah’s saddle holsters, Morgan scrambled out of the mayhem, just in time to see the hussars complete the work that Kemp had started weeks before. In her mail and helmet, the Rhani had been bruised but safe from the thrusts of the Eighth, giving better than she got with neat, controlled strokes of both her sword and dagger. But one powerful swipe from Private Hoyle had numbed her sword arm and now, as the hussars pressed hard against her bodyguard, she was surrounded by three, sweaty men, hacking and slicing at her.

  The last blow was less than elegant, though. Morgan watched as the iron links stopped first a cut to the Rhani’s ribs, then a second to her forearm, but there was a distinct crack, her painful flinch announcing that bones had been snapped. Now she was easy meat.

  ‘That’s for Cawnpore!’ grunted Farrier-Corporal Tom Martin as he pulled his right fist back to his shoulder and punched her as hard as he could on her nose-guard with the iron basket of his sword. Never taught by the instructors and never practised except in battle, Morgan had just seen the favourite blow of the British cavalryman.

  The Rhani’s head snapped back, she folded over her horse’s tail and slumped to the ground, one foot dragging at her reins and stirrup.

  ‘Get on, Sable, get on!’ Then Corporal Martin and the other men delivered a brutish coup de grâce. The horses didn’t like it, but with tight reins and steady spurs, the hussars forced their chargers to trample the slender body with iron shoes, each hoof crushing and kicking the life from the fallen queen.

  ‘Have you found her, Corp’l Pegg?’

  Morgan, exhausted by the ambush and amazed to find a shot-hole in his cap cover, had flogged back to the company on a borrowed horse a
nd just had time to give quick orders to the officers and NCOs before moving off to assault the gun battery. Brigadier-General Smith, very spry considering his fall and narrow escape, had been intrigued to hear of the Rhani’s death (recounted in gory delight by Kemp), but was still not convinced that she was no more. Now, streaming with sweat, the infantry had advanced, unseen by the guns, over the very ground that Morgan had just ridden and as they shook out to attack, there was one, grisly task that had been insisted on by Smith.

  ‘Aye, sir, I think so.’ Pegg, rifle and fixed bayonet in one hand, great circles of sweat staining the khaki of his smock at neck and armpits, pulled at the corpse. ‘It’s a tart anyway, but she’s in a bit of a mess, she is.’

  Colour-Sergeants McGucken and Whaley were chivvying the men into an extended line, trying to be as quiet as possible as they approached the screened guns, with the usual advice just before they moved into the assault: ‘Check your caps, lads. Spare rounds handy – you’ll need ’em in a minute. Keep the line good an’ straight when the officer gives the word,’ and the normal miscreants being cajoled and gripped: ‘Get a hold o’ that damned weapon, Price; you look like a duchess holding a copper’s cock.’

  As the men milled and scrambled about them, Morgan and Pegg crouched next to the stiffening body.

  Tart? thought Morgan. I don’t think so. Bloody brave girl, I’d say…He swiped at a cloud of flies that rose from the coffee-coloured skin of her bruised and scraped face.

  ‘Bet that stung a bit.’ Pegg looked at the bloody lips, the swollen, closed eyes still with traces of kohl, and the surface of her cheek where a broken sinus bone poked through. ‘Got ’er kipper stamped on, by the look of things, but that wouldn’t ’ave finished ’er, sir, would it?’ Pegg glanced at Morgan with not a trace of sympathy, just professional interest. ‘That would, though.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right.’ Morgan saw how her shirt was red with blood at the waist, how the iron links of mail below it were ripped and distorted. ‘A bloody great cavalry whaler pounding up and down on your guts will do the job.’ Morgan could imagine the queen’s last moments as the metal shoes crushed the life out of her.

  ‘Corp’l Pegg, do you have to? Have you no respect?’

  The young NCO had pushed his finger through a delicate gold hoop that pierced the Rhani’s left nostril. His first attempt to rip it clear had failed, so he’d tried again using a little more force, tearing the skin – yet no blood came from a heart that had long ceased to beat.

  ‘Well, Her bleedin’ Majesty don’t need it, does she?’ Pegg looked up, genuinely perplexed by his officer’s sensitivities. ‘Do you want the earrings – ’ere, tek ’em?’ Two smaller gold rings with tiny stones had been snatched from the Rhani’s lobes even as Morgan objected.

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Morgan shook slightly at the sight of the body. ‘No thank you.’ There was something desperately repellent in the sight of such bravery, such nobility being reduced to offal.

  But there was no more time to reflect. General Smith had been insistent that the Rhani’s death should be confirmed, reasoning that once the rebels came to hear of it, much of the will to resist would desert them. Morgan understood that and he could see why Damodar’s fate needed to be known as well, for if the Pandies had a prince to replace a queen, they might still be inspired to fight. What he hadn’t expected to see, though was the captive sepoy Dunniah being systematically tortured by one of Kemp’s daffadars right under Smith’s allegedly civilised nose, just before they set off to attack the guns.

  I never thought I’d see a so-called Christian gentleman do that, I thought Morgan. I know that Dunniah’s a murderer, but taking the arm that he’d broken in the skirmish and twisting it until you could hear the bones crunching – in between the poor creature’s screams – was enough to turn the stomach. Still, I suppose it got the answers we needed – Morgan’s heart had leapt when the intelligence was passed to him – and now we know that Mary’s safe, treating the wounded rebels up in the fort with Sam and Damodar alongside her. But where does her heart lie? Is she still with us or, as Kemp says, has she turned? Morgan sagged at the thought of Mary having gone over to the enemy. And now a sun-addled army, bent on hatred and revenge, is about to storm the very place where she is, led by Kemp, the maddest of the mad. Unless I’m hard up alongside him, she’ll be given no quarter; she’ll be treated the same as the mutineers treated the commandant’s wife and his family.

  ‘Right, sir, all’s set.’ McGucken, somehow less hot and sweaty than anyone else seemed to be, reported to Morgan. ‘Spare ammunition to hand: when you’re ready, sir.’

  Morgan looked left and right at his command. More than a hundred sleepless, heat-dazed men poised in two lines on either side of him, every fold of their smocks and caps dusty and stained, nothing bright or glittering except their steel and their eyes.

  ‘Any sign of the cavalry yet, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan had little fear of the enemy’s infantry, but he knew how quick and aggressive their horsemen could be and how well they used the ground – he’d seen just that in the ambush earlier that morning. Now he was acutely conscious of his vulnerable flanks.

  ‘Aye, sir, they’re just a-coming up to our rear.’ McGucken had spotted the leading files of the 8th Hussars some couple of hundred paces away.

  ‘Good,’ said Morgan, though he knew it wasn’t. He was about to commit his men yet again to a deeply perilous task from which not all of them would return – including himself, perhaps – and he was both sorry for it and frightened at the same time. ‘We’ve got some spiking nails to hand, ain’t we?’

  ‘Yes, sir, you know we have.’ After countless fights and skirmishes, McGucken knew his officer well enough to expect this sort of fussing from him. He understood that it helped him to calm himself in the doubting, dry-mouthed moments before the fight started. ‘An’ we learnt the boys how to use them after Kotah, sir, so dinna worry.’

  ‘Aye, Colour-Sar’nt, you’re right.’ Morgan looked at the plain over which they were going to attack. One hundred and fifty paces to their front, across hard-baked, cracked earth lay the clutch of buildings behind which the Pandies had built their battery. A dry nullah scored the ground obliquely just in front of the closest, mud walls. ‘Call the subalterns to me, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’

  And with that, McGucken, rather than use the customary bugle call, sent two runners dashing away to collect the young gentlemen. Both of them had been expecting such last-minute instructions and arrived – Wilkinson neat and quiet, Fawcett ruddy and clearly very excited – holding tight to their sword scabbards rather than trip in front of the men.

  ‘On my word, Mr Wilkinson, you go first and lead Number One just to the right of the temple. I want you to provide volley fire from there for the Grenadiers’ assault on the battery from the left of the buildings. As soon as you’re ready, let me know and I’ll signal with a flag to tell Fawcett to move up: are you clear?’

  Wilkinson gave a silent nod in reply.

  ‘Mr Fawcett, when we see my signal, be up and off without any delay. Watch that nullah to your front – that’ll foul the men’s dressing – and I want you ready to assault by echelon as soon as I give Wilkinson the order to open fire. Any questions?’

  Fawcett licked his lips, blinked, then asked, ‘Sir, where will you be moving, please?’

  ‘Between the two companies with Colour-Sar’nts Whaley and McGucken,’ replied Morgan. ‘I’ll start off just to Wilkinson’s left and rear. Once Number One’s opened fire, you move up with the Grenadiers, then I shall be with you in the assault. Are you both content?’

  Content…content? thought Morgan. How can any sane man be content at a moment like this? These youngsters will think the bloody sun’s got to me.

  But the only reply was, ‘Sir,’ from both ensigns who, thought Morgan, might have been slaughtering rebels since they left their mothers’ tits.

  ‘Well, good luck, then,’ said Morgan, remembering just such a parting with his company comma
nder when he first tasted battle at the river Alma. Then Eddington had clasped his hand and been dead within minutes, his head taken off by a Russian thirty-two-pounder. He shivered at the thought.

  But neither lad replied. They both looked him hard in the eye and then they were away, leaving him to sweat and worry, to play with his sword knot and, for the hundredth time, to check the priming in his revolver.

  ‘Sweetham, have you got that flag to hand?’ Morgan asked his bugler. When silent signals were thought necessary, the buglers relied upon white flags set with a blue line; now the eighteen-year-old pointed to the short stick tightly furled in cloth.

  ‘Aye, sir, ready when you are,’ replied the lad, who’d joined straight from the slums of Leicester.

  ‘Stay close…come on then,’ and as Wilkinson leapt up in front of his men and beckoned them to follow with the blade of his sword, Morgan followed, just a few paces behind the billowing line of men and outstretched steel.

  ‘They don’t know we’re coming, sir.’ Just as McGucken spoke, the enemy guns fired again, neatly in unison, great plumes of smoke jetting out from beyond the buildings, but firing at the brigade that was holding their attention, and not aimed at the 95th who were stalking them. ‘They’ve forgotten all we’ve taught ’em, daft buggers. There’s not a sentry to be seen on this flank, is there, sir?’

  And he seemed to be right, for the line swept on, Morgan and both colour-sergeants trailing a few paces behind on their extreme left, keeping as straight and regular as the grass and dry fissures would allow. A covey of partridge hummed away from the soldiers’ boots, one gamekeeper’s son raising his rifle and pretending to fire two barrels at their tails, but no shot came, none of the shrieking metal that Morgan hated so much. Then, with a spasm of relief, he saw how Number One Company broke into a trot, filed into a wooden-railinged sheep byre and was deployed by their subaltern in such a way, he hoped, that the enemy battery could be taken in enfilade.