by CL Skelton
When they arrived at Lahore and made their way to the cantonments where the regiment was housed, a message was awaiting Andrew to report to Colonel Macmillan.
‘Well, Andrew,’ said the colonel as Andrew came to attention in front of the desk. ‘You’d better sit down. Glad to see you back. Didn’t want to interfere with your holiday, but I’ve got some news for you.’
‘Good news, sir, I hope.’
‘You’re the C.O. You will be tomorrow morning, anyhow.’
Andrew did not reply, but he could scarcely conceal his satisfaction at hearing the news. Emma had hinted at it in Simla, and he had known that it would come eventually. But it was nice to realize that he was at last in a position of real power.
‘Yes, you’ve got your regiment,’ the colonel continued. ‘I’ve been transferred to the Viceroy’s staff in Delhi. That’ll be a bore. The news came through from London a week ago that you have been gazetted lieutenant colonel and commanding officer of the 148th Foot. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t bother about thanks. It wasn’t my doing. I’ve taken a room in the mess and had all my stuff moved out of the C.O.’s house. You and your wife will want to move in there right away.’
‘But, sir ‒’
‘In any case, I’m only here for another couple of days, and then I shall be off.’
‘It’s very kind of you, sir,’ said Andrew. ‘I can’t say that I’m not delighted to hear this.’
‘Well, you know,’ said Macmillan, studying Andrew intently; there was a weakness there but he couldn’t pin it down. ‘It’s more your regiment than it is mine. The Maclarens started it, and anyone other than a Maclaren in command is little more than a stopgap, don’cher think?’
‘No one would ever consider you a stopgap, sir,’ said Andrew, though he knew that his statement was not true and that he had had his sights firmly fixed on that chair opposite ever since his father had retired. ‘You’ve been a fine commanding officer,’ he continued. ‘I’m sure that I am voicing the opinion of every man in the regiment when I say that we shall be jolly sorry to lose you. I only hope that I can be as good.’
‘Well, that’s kind of you, Andrew. Where’s your wife? You’ll want to tell her.’
‘I’m afraid that she’s not with me,’ said Andrew.
‘Not with you? But ‒’
‘She’s going direct to England. A baby.’
‘Oh, well, that’s something else for you to celebrate, isn’t it, eh? How many have you got? One? One, that’s right, Ian. Well, I hope you get another boy, we could do with some more recruits.’
‘Time will tell, sir,’ said Andrew, a little embarrassed at discussing the subject.
‘Good. Good. Well, Andrew, you might as well move into the house, anyway. Not a good idea for the C.O. to live in single officers’ quarters. You see too much that you’re not supposed to see. By the bye, I’ve engaged an ayah, temporary, of course, for Mrs Maclaren. But, er, you must do as you think best.’
‘I shall let her stay,’ said Andrew. ‘Is she a good woman?’
‘Young, you know, all right; as good as they come, I should imagine.’
‘In that case,’ replied Andrew, ‘I’m sure that we’ll be able to find something for her to do around the house.’
‘Good. We’ll have a parade tomorrow and I’ll formally hand over command of the battalion. We’ll break out the colours, have a bottle of champagne, and then I’ll be on me way. You don’t want ex-C.O.s hanging around the place. They’re a bit of an embarrassment.’
‘I’m sure that you’d never be that, sir.’
‘Maybe not. But I suppose that I’m a bit old-fashioned, really. I shall be retiring soon probably, the best thing I can do. Well, Andrew, this is your office from tomorrow, but today it’s still mine. Good luck.’
Andrew accepted the note of dismissal in the colonel’s voice and left.
Macmillan looked long and hard at the closed door after Andrew had gone, and spoke quietly to himself. Not platitudes this time, but the things he ought to have said to Andrew.
‘Well, I wonder what sort of a job you’re going to do? I’ve known you for a long time, Andrew, ever since I joined the regiment. You were just a little boy, then. I can remember you when you used to play soldiers with Willie Bruce on the hill behind your home. I remember those games well. You were always the C.O., but it was Willie who took the decisions. You were a good subaltern, but command is something different. You’re alone now and I wonder how you’ll manage. You were never really quite sure of yourself, were you? You took a long time to grow up. Sometimes I wonder if you ever have.
‘I served with your father since he was a subaltern, and he was a fine soldier. He could command. Can you? He could command because he liked power, and knew how to use it without fear or favour. He always enjoyed pulling the strings and he pulled them hard enough if he thought that the regiment would benefit. Looks as if he’s still doing it. I have just been kicked upstairs, shunted off to Delhi, because he wants you to have the regiment. Nepotism can go too far sometimes, though I would never have thought it of him. He never showed it when he was serving. It’s strange.’
He paused for a moment, scratching his chin, and picked up an old daguerreotype. It was of a group of officers in statuesque poses. He looked at it and shook his head sadly. ‘They were great days. There have been many great days. But this is not like Sir Henry, because I don’t think you are ready. Your private life might have something to do with it. I hope that it improves. I’ve watched you carrying your marriage troubles on to the parade ground. You married well, though. No soldier could wish for a more suitable bride.’ He smiled, a wry smile. ‘If you did nothing else,’ he repeated, ‘you certainly married well.’
He looked up at the door again. ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do with the regiment, but the army’s changing, and I suppose that the regiment will have to change with it. It’s becoming a different world. All of these newfangled things, machine guns, all for what? The men are better off, too. At least they get paid regularly now. But when you get right down to it, it will always be the infantry. It’ll be a man in possession of a bit of ground; that’s what’ll matter.
‘Well, Andrew, good luck to you. Though I doubt that you’ll ever be either the man or the soldier that your father was.’ He sighed. ‘Ah, well, that’s all water under the bridge, now.’
He picked up a leather attaché case from the floor and put it on top of his desk. He opened it and placed the daguerreotype inside. He picked up his pipe-rack and its three battered briars, and put them carefully in. And then the paperweight which had been a present from Sir Henry when he got his first company. It was silver, and in the shape of the regimental crest. He held it in his hand and looked at it for a moment. ‘A little of the wildcat in your blood wouldn’t hurt you, Andrew.’
He snapped the case shut, took a long, last look around the office. ‘What’s left, you can have, boy,’ he said, squared his shoulders, and walked out.
Andrew’s feelings were hard to describe. He had known that this would happen eventually, though he had not expected it so soon, in spite of what Emma had said to him at Simla. He wanted command and all the little perquisites and privileges which went with it. Never a very social creature, he would not miss the hurly-burly of life in the mess. They would all call him ‘sir’ now, and treat him with rigid formality, and hope that he would go away.
They would do this because he was the one who would make the decisions by which their lives were ruled. He would decide which troops would storm the breach, now that he had power. It was power of life and death over a thousand men.
His first instinct was to rush off and tell Maud, but there are some things that even a commanding officer cannot do, and that was one of them. In any case, he had to wait. Wait until after the parade tomorrow morning when he would address the men, call for three cheers for Colonel Macmillan, and formally take over.
Of cours
e, these new-found powers carried with them responsibilities. As commander of the battalion which garrisoned Lahore, it was now his duty to see that the peace was kept throughout the Punjab and within the city itself. Lahore was many centuries old, containing many landmarks recalling the past glories of the Mogul Empire. The population was mainly Sikh, and many of their picturesque shrines were dotted around inside the walls of the ancient city. The European quarter and the cantonments were outside the walls; they had been founded about a quarter of a century ago and had suffered little during the mutiny, as the Sikh population had remained loyal and in 1868 it was all pretty quiet.
But it was beyond the city in the Punjab itself that Andrew’s main responsibility lay. There his thin red line would be expected to keep the Queen’s peace. The Punjab, that great province of northwest India, with over twenty million inhabitants, stretched from the foothills of the Himalayas down to the vast level plain which is traversed by the Indus and its tributaries, the Jhelam, Chenab, Ravi, and Ghara. The weather was excessively hot and dry for more than half the year and, between April and September, all government business was transacted at Simla. In the winter it was cool, almost pleasantly so sometimes. At night there was even a frost. The soil itself was highly fertile, especially those parts which bordered the Indus and its tributaries. Away from the rivers, water was always a problem, and it was water which would create most of the problems with which Andrew would have to cope until his turn came around for another stint on the frontier.
Down to the south, of course, the land was little but barren desert, but where water could be got, cotton was being grown in vast quantities and shipped to the mills of Lancashire. It was rather strange to think that here Andrew would be guarding the raw materials which provided, through their investments, a fair proportion of the wealth of his own family. But for most of the area, with only a few inches of rain coming in the June monsoon, it was a pitifully hard life. Wherever water could be got, there a community sprang up, and the waterwheel was kept constantly turning by relays of village inhabitants from the age of about six upwards. Should the wheel ever stop, that village and all who lived there would die.
Outside of Lahore itself, most of the population were Muslims, but a good third were Hindus, living by their rigid caste system which no amount of cajoling by the authorities could persuade them to break. And here and there throughout the province, you could come across scattered settlements of Pathans, little different from their warlike brethren to the north and west ‒ groups of men who, whenever authority turned its back, would make a living by pillage.
Andrew would be constantly liable to be called out for that task most odious to the soldier, of aiding the civil power which was represented by the British Resident. He might at any time during their tour of duty have to dispatch troops to distant parts of the Punjab, should the Queen’s peace seem likely to be threatened. This was not too likely, however. The Punjab had been quiet for some time. The real trouble was much further west in the passes, and it would be six months before they would be due to move out and take up station once again on the frontier.
Andrew walked across the parade ground and headed for the officers’ mess. As he was about to enter, he met Willie Bruce.
‘Good morning, Major Bruce,’ he said formally.
‘Major Maclaren.’
‘Colonel.’
‘Colonel? Congratulations, sir.’
‘I take over command from Colonel Macmillan tomorrow morning.’
‘I see ‒ sir,’ replied Willie, his face expressionless. ‘I must awa’ and tell ma wife; I’m sure that she will be delighted.’
Andrew brushed past Willie and went on into the mess. Damn the man, he thought. Why did he always feel guilty when they met? But he knew the answer and that made it worse.
Willie watched him go with an amused smile. He did not resent Andrew’s promotion; he knew that it had to come. But like Macmillan and Andrew himself, Willie thought it was a bit early. Well, in so far as the regiment was concerned, he could count on Willie’s support in everything. He would go and see him tomorrow and see if it was not possible to break down the barrier that had arisen between them. After all, a man cannot help his emotions, and as far as their private affairs were concerned, Willie held that Maud was more to blame than Andrew. And private affairs were, in Willie Bruce’s mind, private, and had nothing to do with the regiment. He already regretted mentioning Maud when Andrew had given him the news.
He made his way over to his quarters. They had been allocated a pleasant little bungalow within the camp bounds. He had told Maud that he would take tiffin with her, that light lunch of salad and fresh fruit which was about all that one could eat in this climate at midday. When he arrived at the bungalow, there it was all waiting for him as he had known it would be, for Maud was more than dutiful in her tasks about the house. Every morning after breakfast, after Willie had left to go to H.Q., she would spend a full hour with Gunda Singh, her head boy. With him, she would carefully discuss the meals that they would be taking for the next twenty-four hours. Food was brought in fresh daily just before luncheon, and prepared by Maria, her Christian ayah, in their spotless kitchen. Of course, Maud did no physical work herself, but she allowed nothing to pass by. Every detail was supervised down to the last piece of linen, and she personally inspected the mosquito nets under which they slept each day. She hoped within herself that this would in some way make up for her infidelity.
‘Well,’ said Willie breezily as he went in, ‘we’ve got a new C.O. Drink?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Maud as Willie poured himself a large peg. ‘A new C.O.? Who?’
‘Andrew. It was to be expected. Why don’t you way over and congratulate him?’
‘Willie,’ said Maud solemnly, ‘I wish you wouldn’t mock me. I don’t like this state of affairs any more than you do.’
‘Aye,’ said Willie. ‘I ken that. But it’ll be like this as long as you’re in love wi’ him.’
‘I’m in love with you, too, Willie. If only you’d let me show it. Let me show it to you, Willie, now.’
‘No,’ said Willie, ‘I’ll share ye wi’ no man. I love you, Maud. I’ve loved you since that first time you put your wee hand in mine on the steamer on Loch Ness, and I shall always love you. But I want all of you. I can wait.’
‘But,’ she said, ‘you don’t have to wait. I want you, Willie.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That’s the trouble, isn’t it? You want us both. Well, you canna have both of us.’
‘Please, Willie.’
‘I havena got the time. I need a quick bite and then I’m awa’ to the range to try out that bloody Gatling gun.’
She did not reply, and they ate their meal in silence.
On the day that Andrew assumed command of the regiment, back in Scotland, his sister Margaret was at last married to Richard Simpson. It was a quiet affair. For years now, it had been inevitable, and for years the family had raised no objections. They were married in the little church at Struy, spent a week in Edinburgh, and hurried back to Strathglass. They knew that the estate would never be their own, but they also knew that as long as the regiment existed, it was as good as theirs. So they were happy in a quiet, peaceful, unemotional sort of way.
Some six weeks earlier, Sir Henry had received a great fillip to his own personal crusade. For years, he had been devoting his leisure time to the betterment of army medicine and hospital conditions. It appalled him the way that doctors who joined the army were treated. The classier the regiment, the worse the treatment. They were blackballed from fashionable clubs, and even the Highland Club did not number an army surgeon among its members. The result of all this was that it was only a poor quality of doctor who even considered the army as a career. There were, of course, exceptions, but that was the rule.
Sir Henry had written numerous letters to The Times and other reputable journals, some of which were published. It was with some surprise, however, that he received a royal command to visit
the Prince of Wales at Balmoral that August. It was not without a feeling of trepidation that he sat back in his brougham as it negotiated the long drive from the road near the river Dee to the front entrance of the castle. When he alighted, he was met by a ghillie in kilt of Hunting Stuart, and after a very short wait was ushered into the presence.
‘Sir Henry Maclaren, sir,’ said the ghillie, and withdrew.
‘The doctor’s man, eh?’ said the slightly German-accented voice of the big man also in Hunting Stuart kilt, with a sporran made from the pelt of a wildcat. ‘Welcome to you, Sir Henry. Come and take a chair. I want to talk to you.’
‘Your royal highness,’ said Sir Henry, bowing as he took the Prince’s hand. He was pleased at the firmness of the grasp. ‘It is a great honour to be received by you. Might I ask why?’
‘Indeed you may. I am interested in your work. I have heard of you as a soldier, but it is about your single-handed fight for the doctors that I wanted to talk to you.’ The Prince spoke gruffly.
‘Do you object, sir?’
‘Object be damned, Sir Henry. I want you to know that I am one hundred per cent behind you in this. We’ll never get decent doctors in the army until we start treating them as gentlemen, and I want you to know that I have been following your attempts with a great personal interest. For reasons which I cannot explain, it would be difficult for me to take an active part in your campaign. However, I want to hear all about it, and I want you to write me occasionally and let me know how things are going. Anything I can do to help, I shall; though for the moment, at any rate, it will have to be anonymous.’