Dust and Steel

by Patrick Mercer

  Sar’nt Ormond busied himself with knife and a coil of fuse, slicing little bits of tarred line against the gunner’s measuring board, whilst Morgan spoke to the men.

  ‘Right, six of you, once that hole’s clear, we’ll all light our fuses and then toss these bloody things into the third gun bay.’ He nodded to the next protective wall, about nine paces away from where they were sheltering. ‘Leave your weapons and each grab a cartridge.’

  Sergeant Ormond dished out improvised bombs into a half-dozen pairs of sweaty hands.

  ‘Corp’l Pegg,’ Morgan had decided to allow the NCO to reassert his authority, ‘I’ll need you to light the fuses; you’ve got lucifers, ain’t you?’

  Pegg nodded in reply, obviously pleased that Morgan seemed to have forgiven him.

  ‘Right, let’s be at ’em.’ Morgan led the way through the breach that the prisoners had torn, pressed his back to the next wall and gathered the men around him, all holding the stumpy bits of fuse together so that Corporal Pegg could light them.

  ‘Get a bit closer, can’t you, Fuller?’ Pegg had eventually managed to get one of the matches that all NCOs were required to carry – little green chemical tips dipped in candle-wax to resist the damp – to light whilst the bombers crowded round him. Three fuses fizzed immediately, crackling angrily, but the others were less keen to oblige.

  ‘Just chuck the wretched things, lit or not.’ Morgan instantly regretted being anywhere near such unpredictable horrors, and all six bags, some spitting, some not, were lofted high over the bank of sandbags, an invisible, native voice yelling in alarm. Even sheltered as they were by the wall, the three, almost simultaneous bangs shook the ground, or so it seemed to Morgan, as a shower of earth and debris pattered down around them.

  ‘Give ’em the bayonet, lads,’ bawled Sergeant Ormond as he led the rest of the platoon past the bombers, who were still crouching by the wall, and up and over the basketwork before the enemy had a chance to recover.

  By the time that Morgan had gathered his pummelled wits and scrambled after Ormond into the next gun bay, the job was finished. The home-made bombs had shattered not just one of the nine-pounder’s wheels, but also most of the dozen or so men who were crowded around it. Some bodies had been eviscerated by the blast and all were blackened – the horrid smell of burnt flesh and spilt bowels hung heavily – whilst any rebels who remained alive were dealt with by the rising and falling steel of Sergeant Ormond’s men.

  ‘Not a bad bit of work that, sir.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken poked his head round the rear of the position, whilst Morgan was still trying to take in the scene. ‘I’ve got the rest of the Grenadiers in cover around the other two gun positions, sir; Number One Company have ceased fire and are awaiting your orders – what d’you want them to do?’

  ‘Bring them forward, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan knew that he had to exploit this success, but the sheer noise and shock of the last few minutes, added to the fatigue of the day, had left him stunned. ‘And I’ll…I’ll…’

  ‘You’ll shake ’em out onto that next wee ridge-line ahead,’ McGucken pointed to a steep rise about five hundred paces in front of them, ‘from where we should get a good look at the plain in front of Gwalior, won’t you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what we’ll do. Please see to it, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan felt that all the energy had been drained from him. He searched for his water bottle but before he took a deep draught from it he asked, ‘Have we any casualties other than Mr Fawcett?’

  ‘Two wounded in the Grenadiers, sir; I don’t know about the other company yet – an’ we’ve already collected the ensign’s body.’ A pair of soldiers crossed themselves sombrely. ‘But it looks as though we’ve got visitors, sir.’

  ‘Fine work, Morgan.’ Brigadier-General Smith, his brigade-major, Richard Carmichael, Commandant Kemp and a trumpeter had trotted their horses around the temple and were now right behind the brigade’s leading infantry – Morgan’s men. ‘This battery is key. You’ve taken it and opened up the whole of this flank into Gwalior; well done. Hark at that.’ Morgan could hear a fitful roar of gunfire in the near distance, the other side of the great fortress. ‘That’s General Rose’s troops coming at the place from Morar on the other flank. We’ve just received a message from him that says that the garrison is running: they’ve lost their stomach for the fight. I imagine that they’ve got word of the Rhani’s death: you did find her body, didn‘t you?’

  ‘We did, sir,’ replied Morgan quietly.

  ‘Not too quick or easy an exit from this plain of tears, I trust?’ interrupted Kemp with a leer.

  ‘Cold as mutton, sir,’ answered Morgan, ‘killed clean; cut down, then trampled by the Eighth, by the look of her wounds.’

  Kemp seemed disappointed.

  And I’m damn glad she was, thought Morgan, otherwise you’d be toying with her just like you did Dunniah, wouldn’t you, you mad, cruel man?

  ‘If the mutineers are on the run then, General,’ Kemp continued, ‘it’s even more important that we get into Gwalior pretty sharp and prevent them from saving Damodar. If they can get that little sod onto his mother’s throne then the bastards might just recover some of their bottom and—’

  But Kemp never finished his discourse, for an artillery ball smacked into the earthen wall no more than a few paces from General Smith’s party, hurling sandbags around as if they were cushions, before bouncing and skipping over the heads of Number One Company, who had just started to move out of their positions by the temple.

  ‘Dear Christ, that was close!’ Carmichael’s utter terror communicated itself to his horse. As he huddled down in the saddle, the animal shivered and bucked.

  ‘Get a grip of that damned creature, can’t you, sir?’ said Smith with a curl of his lip as he, Kemp and the trumpeter sat studiedly still.

  What you really mean, General, my jewel, is, ‘Get a grip of yourself,’ don’t you? thought Morgan as he ran his eye over his brother officer. Carmichael’s clean linen and well-scrubbed face stood out starkly amongst the scruffy, dusty men who surrounded him. But even under his tan, he was as pale as milk, as white as the knuckles that held his reins.

  ‘And for God’s sake put that fancy contraption away, can’t you? What on earth do you intend to do with that against artillery? Save that for when we get up close to brother Pandy.’

  Carmichael had pulled his expensive Adams from its holster. Its carefully emblazoned grip had caught Smith’s attention some time ago and, judging by the general’s tone, annoyed him just as much as it had the officers of the 95th, thought Morgan.

  ‘Take this dispatch for de Salis.’ But, as Carmichael struggled to put his pistol away and to grapple with pencil and message pad, Morgan heard a bang and a muffled shout; there was a cloud of powder smoke around Carmichael’s waist and he doubled over in the saddle, clearly in great pain. The little group of horses jibbed and shied away from the noise in their midst.

  ‘Why, you’ve shot yourself, man,’ Smith said, more in exasperation than sympathy, as Carmichael, his face contorted and unable to speak, gripped at the two bloody holes in the top of his left thigh, which the revolver ball had torn.

  Morgan walked his horse over to Carmichael’s and felt in the wounded man’s hip pocket for the dressing that regimental orders required. Sure enough, the paper package was there, but not one of the common ones issued to the men; as Morgan tore at the wrappings with his teeth, spilling out the lint that would bind the pad against the wound, he noticed that this one had been bought on Oxford Street.

  ‘There, Carmichael, that’ll do for now.’ Morgan had deftly passed the bandage round Carmichael’s limb without getting the victim to dismount, and knotted the ends tightly. ‘’Tis a nice, even wound that’ll soon mend. Corp’l Pegg, lead Captain Carmichael to the rear. Make sure he goes to our own regimental surgeons, please; they’ll look after him.’

  ‘To the rear is it, sir.’ Pegg had been taking a lively interest in things from well within cover beh
ind the bank. ‘The nag won’t need to be led, it won’t: Cap’n Carmichael’s mount knows its own way to the rear well enough!’ There was a ripple of mirth at this from the Grenadiers, who were scattered around and who had not missed a syllable of the officers’ conversations, but Morgan could see no look of sympathy or compassion from the men, just indifference for an officer who had used them badly.

  So that’s the end of your glittering career, Richard bloody Carmichael, he thought. Your body will soon mend but your name will never recover. But even as Morgan watched Carmichael being led away and remembered all the insults, all the snobbery and the way in which he had abused the men over the past few years, he could feel nothing but pity for the man.

  ‘I seem to be getting through my brigade-majors rather faster than I’d expected,’ said Smith matter-of-factly.

  ‘Aye, General, but that one’s no loss. I had to pull him up by the reins at that little affair we had back on the bridge this morning; all that “fours about” nonsense. Why, if Rissaldar Batuk hadn’t gripped those hussars, your erstwhile brigade-major would have led them to Delhi by now. And as for that costermonger’s pistol of his, the only time he fired it near the enemy was to shoot himself! Good riddance to the scrub, says I,’ growled Kemp.

  ‘Aye, you’re probably right,’ said Smith, just as another ball whistled close overhead and drove any further talk of Carmichael away, ‘but we seem to have taught these badmashes a little too well, Morgan.’ Smith was inching his horse forward so that he could scan the higher ground that lay between themselves and Gwalior. ‘They’ve got a concealed battery up there, crafty sods. I’ll keep your flanks secure with the hussars.’ Then Smith did something of which Morgan had thought him simply incapable: he turned to a huddle of grimy, sweaty men and spoke directly to them: ‘But d’you think you could deal with them for me, my old Ninety-Fifth?’

  The Grenadiers goggled back with pleasure at being spoken to in such a familiar manner. Then, predictably, from the group to whom he spoke, out stepped Private Matthew McGarry – the freshly flogged, sharp-tongued Matthew McGarry. Morgan’s heart sank.

  ‘We will, yer honour. Don’t worry your head about it at all. The Owd Nails will do the job.’

  ‘D’you know, I believe you will,’ said Smith with, Morgan thought, an almost fond smile flitting about his lips.

  ‘Colour-Sar’nt,’ even as Morgan turned, McGucken was waiting at his elbow for the orders that he knew must follow, ‘get the prisoners back to the second gun bay and run that nine-pounder out into a position where we can engage that next battery.’ Morgan, his exhaustion suddenly gone, knew how risky manoeuvring the captured gun under the nose of the rebels would be, so the captives could do the job for him. ‘Send a runner to Mr Wilkinson and ask him to move his company back to the temple, but to be prepared to advance on my order.’ McGucken just nodded his understanding. ‘Then find me six lads who know how to handle a bit of ordnance – they’ll have to be old hands who were out East.’

  Of all the memories that stayed with Morgan into old age of that sun-baked, dust-coated, blood-red rebellion, the next few moments were, for some reason, the most vivid. The prisoners’ horrified looks as their own people bounced round-shot amongst them whilst they struggled with the wheels and trail of the heavy gun; his six volunteers who slaved with rammers, shot and cartridge, racing with the Pandies to be the first to load and find the range; but most of all, the fear that had clutched at his bowels but evaporated once he squinted down the long, brass barrel.

  ‘Left…left…left, steady, Corp’l Pegg.’ Morgan remembered how Pegg must have fought with his own sense of self-preservation in order to atone for earlier misdeeds, how the podgy little NCO had struggled to lift and shift the trail of the gun at Morgan’s command, fully expecting a rushing iron ball to end the whole matter for him there and then.

  He remembered how the men had fretted as he tinkered with the gun’s elevation wheel, hoping against hope that his aim was better than the Pandy gunner’s, who was certainly staring back at him and cursing his own crew’s cack-handedness; how he’d stood clear and jerked the lanyard to fire the piece, trying to look as nonchalant as possible; and how a great cheer had gone up from the men when a metallic clang announced that his very first round had knocked the enemy’s barrel clean off its carriage: it killed most of the crew as it spun amongst them like a mighty hammer.

  He remembered the brigade commander crowing with delight. ‘Ha! Bravo, Morgan. Damn fine shot; now get your lads up and at ’em,’ and the lung-bursting run up the half-mile slope with forty parched, sun-bleached crazies panting and yelling beside him. He remembered how the crew of the second gun had fired a mile wide over his head and then run for their lives; and he remembered how he and the men had flung themselves flat on the hot earth, looked down onto the plain below and seen ten thousand or more mutineers streaming away from Gwalior – broken men fleeing the Rhani’s broken cause.

  ELEVEN

  Gwalior

  ‘Well, damn me.’ Captain Forbes McGowan and his double company of the 10th Bombay Native Infantry were calling and pointing up into the branches of the trees. ‘Come to try your hand at a little crow shooting, Morgan?’

  It was almost midnight. Morgan had managed to get a couple of hours’ broken sleep up in the gun position that they had taken before the inevitable had happened. His men and the remainder of the 95th had been left in reserve whilst Smith had swept forward with the other regiments of the brigade to the very foot of Gwalior’s vast outcrop, the cavalry harassing the mutineers whilst the rest of the infantry mopped up those who couldn’t run fast enough. Then, whilst McGucken and the NCOs, dog tired though they were, went through all the checks that battle made necessary, the message had arrived: he and an escort were to make their way to Brigade Headquarters to receive orders. Morgan’s tired heart leapt, for he knew exactly what to expect: he was to be sent to help Kemp and his irregulars again.

  ‘McGowan, it’s good to see you.’ Morgan hadn’t seen the man since he was wounded at Rowa, three months or more ago. ‘I heard that you’d rejoined, but what’s this tomfoolery?’

  The 10th were aiming their rifles high and yelling upwards at the great limbs of the peepul trees below which they stood. Like the rest of the brigade, the sepoys’ smocks were filthy and most had wrapped towels around their caps, giving them an especially rakish look. A naik continued the angry, vertical monologue and even Morgan – to whom Hindustani remained a mystery – could tell that he was approaching the end of his patience.

  ‘This looks like capital sport.’ Kemp, now officially deputised by Smith to lead a small group up into the bowels of Gwalior’s fort, drew his pistol and stared heavenward. ‘Come on, Morgan, Pandy often does this: runs till he can run no more, then shins up a tree and lies still, thinking that we’re too daft to smoke him. I’ve seen squirrels do the same.’

  Then six or seven sepoys fired at their NCO’s word of command, to be rewarded with a crop of bodies falling to the ground with a thump, each set of lungs expelling a mighty wheeze as they hit the earth. But there was still one whimpering above them.

  You’ve only winged that rogue,’ said Kemp as he gripped his horse tightly with his knees, aimed his pistol carefully and sent a ball smacking into the wounded man. There was a pause, then the mutineer fell, narrowly missing Lance-Corporal Pegg, who dismounted with speed and began to harvest the clothes of the dead.

  ‘You told me you were too tired to ride a single furlong, Corp’l Pegg,’ mighty had been the moaning back at the gun line when Pegg was detailed by Morgan to accompany him, ‘but now you seem to have got your second wind.’

  ‘Aye, sir, Cap’n Carmichael’s bit of marksmanship bucked me up a bit, but ah’m shagged out now, sir.’ The sepoys looked at Pegg in admiration as the lad frisked each body – finding some valuable on each – in a matter of seconds. ‘But not so shagged that I’d miss a chance like this.’

  ‘So it would seem, Corporal Pegg.’ McGowan was as impress
ed with Pegg’s expertise as his men were. ‘I haven’t had a chance to thank you for what you did for me at Rowa.’

  Pegg, however, was engrossed in his task and hardly listening to the officer.

  Then McGowan’s eye was drawn towards two more mounted figures whose horses fidgeted in the shadows behind the others. ‘Who’ve you got here, Commandant?’ he asked Kemp.

  ‘You know Rissaldar Batuk, I guess, but I’d like to introduce you to the former Sepoy Loleman Dunniah, late of the Honourable John Company’s Twelfth Bengal Turncoats.’ Kemp sidled his horse over to the native’s, grabbed the man by his splinted, bandaged wrist and gave it a twist. Dunniah shrieked, sitting upright in his saddle and throwing his head back in pain. ‘Yes, you don’t like it when the boot’s on the other foot, do you, my lad? You see here, McGowan, a man that I enlisted, a man who ate my salt and whom I treated like a son; a man who spat it all back at me and the Regiment, mutinied and slaughtered my wife, my children and her family in front of each other.’

  Morgan watched the cameo, transfixed in his saddle.

  ‘Well, why not run the bastard up from this tree here and now? If he’s such a bloody—’ But Captain McGowan wasn’t allowed to finish.

  ‘Run him up?’ Kemp snarled. ‘That’s too good for the dog. If you’d seen the smile on the wretch’s face as he drew a razor across my Neeta’s throat then you’d have something altogether more artistic in mind for this jawan – once he’s served his purpose.’

  Artistic, thought Morgan with a shudder. He’ll be wanting to flay the man like that Bombay Gunner the Pandies caught and tied to a tree; I need to keep a bloody long way from you, Mad Dick Kemp.

  ‘And what possible use can a man like that be to you, Commandant,’ asked McGowan, ‘save as a billet for a lead ball?’

  ‘Well, you’d be surprised. Sepoy Dunniah here is not quite the bazaar badmash that he looks. He was well on the way to promotion in the Twelfth before they turned, and he’d already ingratiated himself with the Rhani…’ Kemp clasped his hands together theatrically, ‘…God rest the gracious lady’s soul. Then he became one of her praetorians with especial responsibility for Prince – or King, as I should now say – Damodar. But, a little gentle persuasion made Dunniah reveal that the young pretender is away on up in yonder fortress in the Pandies’ dressing station under the care of the good Mrs Keenan, who also has a few questions to answer for me.’