by CL Skelton
‘Battalion will advance in columns of fours. By the right, quick march.’
And so, with pipes playing and colours flying, they swung off the parade ground and on out of the cantonments and down the dusty road to where the troop train would be waiting in a siding to take them on the first stage of their journey.
Emma watched them go. She stood with her hands pressed to her bulging womb while, beneath them, the child soon to be born moved fitfully, as if it, too, was aware of the drama of the occasion.
There was little joy in Emma’s heart as she watched them go. She had played her ace and lost. Sir Henry’s letter had told her that there was no point in continuing the fight. No point in contacting her own father; he would unquestionably have gone straight to Sir Henry for confirmation. She knew that Sir Henry knew that she had lied, and that the matter would never be mentioned again if she allowed it to die. She was alone to salvage what she could of her marriage. Without the army she was nothing. A soldier’s daughter, a soldier’s wife, and her destiny was to breed soldiers. That, to Emma, was the whole purpose of her existence. Emma, for the first time, was afraid. The smooth, rigid pattern upon which her life had been based was threatening to fall apart. She was unaware of what had happened at Culbrech House. She did not know what Sir Henry had found out, but the firm tone of his letter had been sufficient. She knew that she had lost.
She knew that she existed only within the context of the regiment, and that without the regiment she had no existence; she was a nobody. Never had she even attempted to be anything other than what she was, an army wife. She was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Maclaren’s wife, and that was the beginning and the end of it. She could not carry the battle further. If she did, God alone knew what Andrew would do. He might leave her. He might run off with that woman, but in any case, whatever he did, her whole world would disappear.
Now they were going away, they were going for active service on the frontier. The whole business was no longer within her control, if indeed it ever had been.
Again she felt the child move within her and her uneasiness grew greater. She felt so vulnerable. ‘Who am I?’ she asked herself. ‘What is it I really want from life?’
She did not know the answers, or perhaps the answers were too frightening to listen to. Briefly during her pregnancy, she had hoped that the old magic of creation might have worked and drawn Andrew to her. Not as the woman he loved; that she could not hope for. But as the mother who was bearing his child. Slowly and sadly, she turned back into her house.
Maud too watched them go, and Maud too was alone. In her own way she was more alone than Emma. She had barely spoken to Andrew since the day that Emma had burned the bed, and as for Willie, he had hardly come near her since they had arrived in India. What was it? These two men. She had emerged from the cellar at Cawnpore as a child from a womb, knowing nothing. She had turned to Andrew for strength and support, and had not received it. She had needed Andrew, and she had discovered that it was he who needed her, that she must be the one to give, though he would not take.
She thought that she understood Andrew ‒ Andrew the gentleman, fashioned from the class of society to which she herself had been born. Andrew of the impeccable manners. Andrew who never forgot who he was, or what he was. He was gentle and submissive when they made love. That was important to Maud. She had always been afraid to submit herself until that day in Cluny Cottage when Willie had torn the clothes from her. That was different. She had revelled in his passion and his domination of her. Willie had demanded submission. He would not dance backward as Andrew had done. He had to lead.
The real problem was that Maud could not understand herself. To her, Andrew represented the old way, the way that she had been brought up to accept as life. But it was not life, not for her, not anymore. She was a workingman’s wife even though he wore a major’s crown on his shoulders, and with this she could not come to terms. When the Maclarens had spurned her as a daughter-in-law, something inside of her had rebelled, and though she would never have admitted it, even to herself, she wanted revenge on them and their class. So she attacked them where they were most vulnerable, through Andrew.
Andrew’s hands were soft and well cared for, Willie’s hard and calloused. Did she regret marrying Willie? What else had there been for her? Andrew had submitted to the wishes of his family and asked for the hand of another woman, and Willie had been there, a rock that she could fall back upon. Willie had been kind, and Willie had understood.
She watched them marching out, looking so tiny and insignificant against the vastness of the India beyond. They were going to war ‒ not a big war, just a small war, a little war that went on all the time. But war just the same. War in which some of those men now in her vision would die and not return. Not many of them; most of them would come back, but some would not. Supposing that one who did not come back was ‒?
What was she thinking? These were terrible thoughts. She felt the guilt of them welling up within her. How could she even contemplate such a solution?
Anyhow, Willie Bruce would come back. Willie was permanent, as permanent as the regiment he served. A man of iron, and indestructible. Or was he? Was anyone permanent in these campaigns that never rated more than a couple of sentences tucked away in the newspapers at home? These little wars that went on all the time. All it needed was one ragged brown man with a gun. It happened. It had happened to so many of them. Lieutenant Farquhar’s cousin, Ensign Farquhar, he had gone. Private Doig, the big, bearded pioneer who got a bullet in the back. Wee Alex, a piece of falling rock. And so on, and so on. Even Regimental Sergeant Major Mackintosh; they used to say about him what they said about Willie today.
She remembered well hearing how he died. He was walking over an open stretch of ground. There was no firing. Then one volley, and Sergeant Major Mackintosh had gone. It had not been much of a campaign, hardly worthy of the name. But one round leaden ball had destroyed the indestructible.
Suppose Willie did not come back? What was life without Willie going to be? Now she realized the security that Willie had given her. The big quiet Highlander, his patience, his parents in their stone croft, and himself with her in their own little house by the side of the Glass. These things which were so much a part of her life that they became almost unnoticed while she dreamed of a pale, white-skinned boy who had lain beside her and shuddered at the sound of her cries of passion, fearful lest anyone should hear.
Maud knew that somewhere deep down inside her there was a woman trying to get out. A woman who had borne children. A mother who longed for the touch of her beautiful daughter’s hand, the child who should not have been and whom she loved. And her little boys. Donald and Gordon, growing up in Scotland with Maggie serving in her place.
She saw them again in her mind with Willie, the father, one in each arm and Naomi sitting on his knee, accepting and loving the beautiful bastard child that Andrew shrank from and could only regard as a thing.
Life was so cruel in so many ways, that life which took her away from those small people whom she loved so much and placed her on another continent with the confusion of the two men in her life.
In her mind she was married to Andrew; she had consciously given to him her soul. And now she felt another guilt: she was abandoning him, abandoning her own dreams and longings, for her husband.
The tail of the column was leaving the cantonments. Both of her men were already out of sight. Were they men? Willie was. Andrew? She was not sure, for was he not just another child? Only last night Willie had told her again that he loved her. He had told her, ‘For the last time,’ he’d said, that he was not prepared to share her. For the sake of the children, he would continue the pretence of marriage. He had told her that, too. And he had told her that when he came back from the frontier she would have to make her decision, final and irrevocable. Was she going to be his wife? Or was she going to be a stranger living in his house?
Willie came from a different world. A world where people worked with th
eir hands and grew old and bent with their labours. That had never been Maud’s world. Hers was the world that Andrew lived in; that was where she was at home. It was full of soft furnishings, silken gowns, and gay conversation. But was it real?
For the first time she began to see clearly that the world, the circumstances, the environment did not matter. It was Willie who mattered, Willie Bruce was her man and she loved him.
It was as if a great burden had been lifted from her. She started to run across the parade ground towards where the column had just disappeared from sight. She was going to tell him of her love so that he would be sure to come back safe in the knowledge that she would be there waiting for him.
She stopped.
She knew that she could not do this. Not there, not surrounded by the regiment. It would shame him. She could not shame the man she loved. She would have to wait and pray, because now they were gone.
As Emma turned back towards her house, Maud too turned away, and her cheeks were wet.
Chapter Twenty-one
Private the Hon. James Albert Fitzgerald-Grant, known to the army in general and the 148th Foot in particular as Private Jamie Patterson, was lying down beside a clump of scrub which was struggling for existence from the base of a rocky outcrop. It was night. The moon was in its first quarter and the black lines of the mountains which rose away from him on three sides were clearly delineated. He was not resting. You did not rest in the Khyber. Even if there was not the ever-present danger of a surprise raid, there was still the dusty earth to contend with, and the cold. It was bitter once the sun went down. Jamie thought to himself that it must have been rather like hell, burning all day and freezing all night. But Jamie was a seasoned soldier by now, and he was very much alert. He lay approximately halfway between the inner and outer lines of pickets around the camp. He was supposed to be manning one of the forward posts, but his post was in open country with no cover. Private Patterson had, in the manner of the old soldier he was, moved back from his position to where there was reasonable cover, as soon as the orderly officer’s rounds had been completed. He intended to stay here in the comparative safety of his rock until just before the orderly sergeant was due to arrive with his relief.
The Pathans were active; not that you saw anything of them. It was just a feeling in the gut. They were after the new Snider rifles and would take any risk to lay their hands on one. These guns, the old Enfield newly modified with the Snider breech, increased a man’s firepower fivefold without any loss of accuracy.
Jamie clutched his weapon to him, his finger through the trigger guard, as he lay there listening to the silence. Silence usually meant that the Pathans were around and moving. There were none of the little animal noises which normally filled the night. He took a swig from his canteen and wished it was beer. He thought about that night ten days ago when he had got drunk at the colonel’s expense. That was the night that the news reached them that Colonel Maclaren had another son. He thought of that evening and wished that it had been twins.
They had been on the frontier for four weeks. In another eight weeks, they would be back in the comparative safety of Lahore. They had been vigilant and to date had suffered no casualties. Things had been quiet, too quiet. That in itself was worrying.
Tonight there was a heaviness in the air and it was not the atmosphere. Private Patterson was nervous. He was not afraid, but he was edgy. It was just the sort of feeling you got when something was going to happen but you didn’t know what. God, but he wanted a smoke. Dare he? He was really gasping for one. If he was caught at it, he knew that he would be wheeled up in front of Major Bruce the following morning and end up with seven days defaulters and extra guard duties. But he would get that anyway for being back from his post. It was worth the risk. He reckoned he was pretty safe where he was and the sergeant would not be around for another hour or more. He laid his rifle down and fumbled in his sporran for his packet of Woodbines.
Mohammed Dowah watched Private Patterson put his rifle down and saw his hand go into his sporran. He had waited for half an hour within a few feet of the soldier, waited for that moment when his hands were away from his weapon and he would have a split second in which to strike.
Private Patterson never got his smoke. His hand was still inside his sporran when Mohammed Dowah slit his throat, grabbed the precious rifle, and slid silently away into the inky blackness of the night.
While Private Patterson was occupied having his throat slit, the commanding officer’s orderly was running through the darkness, buckling up his kilt, in the direction of Major Bruce’s tent.
‘Major Bruce, sorr, major, sorr!’ he called.
‘What the hell’s a’ that noise aboot?’ cried a sleepy voice from within.
‘Please, sorr, it’s the colonel, sorr, he says you’s to come over to his bivvie noo sorr, at once.’
‘Oh, to hell! All right, orderly. Do you ha’ any idea what it’s aboot?’
‘I don’t think it’s aboot anything, sorr.’
‘You mean that the colonel wants to see me in the middle of the night aboot nothing?’
‘Please, sorr, I shouldna say this but ‒ ye’ll no tell him I told you ‒ but the colonel’s a’ready near through a bottle of whisky.’
‘All right, soldier,’ replied Willie. ‘Tell the colonel I’ll be over in a minute, as soon as I’m dressed.’
Willie put his clothes on and crawled out of his bivouac cursing the fact that the fort they were building was still not habitable, and they were still under canvas. He went over to Andrew’s tent.
He found Andrew sitting on his cot with an almost empty whisky bottle in front of him. He seemed to be swaying slowly from side to side.
‘Come in, Willie, ol’ boy, ol’ boy,’ he said. ‘Come in and sit down and have a drink.’ He pushed the bottle towards Willie.
‘Thank you, sir, I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’
‘Come and have a drink, man. Don’t be so stuffy.’
‘I believe that the colonel wanted to see me, sir?’ said Willie formally.
‘No, Willie, the colonel didn’t want to see you. The colonel didn’t want to see anybody. The colonel wishes that he was dead.’
Andrew looked up at Willie with eyes red-rimmed in the candlelight. ‘Willie, you haven’t heard what’s happened? No, of course you haven’t. Sit down and have a drink. Don’t bloody well stand there staring at me. Sit down and I’ll tell you what’s happened. Thassa order, sit down and have a drink.’
Willie didn’t want to start an argument with Andrew, especially in that befuddled state, so he sat down and emptied the bottle into a tin mug.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Andrew. ‘Take it all, plenty more bottles where that one came from.’
‘Slainte,’ said Willie, drinking. ‘You were going to tell me what has happened, sir.’
‘Yes ‒ yes ‒ wash happened. Cholera. Tha’s what’s happened, cholera.’
‘Cholera, sir, where?’
‘Cholera in Lahore. Lieutenant Murray rode in tonight. Rode all the way from Rawlpindi to tell me. Good chap, Murray. Don’t look worried. Don’t look worried, Willie, Maud’s all right.’
‘Then?’
‘Emma’s dead. Emma is dead, Willie. What a bloody awful way to go.’
‘Is that true?’
It was true all right. A couple of hours ago, a dusty and exhausted Lieutenant Murray had ridden into camp to give Andrew the news. Andrew had taken it poker-faced and outwardly unmoved. He had gone back to his tent and kicked his orderly out and sat on his cot gazing into the flickering light of the candle. A great feeling of guilt had welled up within him. She had gone without him ever having the chance to tell her that he was sorry, and knowing that if the chance were to arise, even now, if her spirit were to confront him, he would still be unable to say the words.
It was hard to imagine her no more. She was so strong, so self-reliant, so much all of the things that he was not. And now she was dead and buried. And it was h
is weakness that had finally destroyed her strength and removed from her all comfort in her final agony. She must have had very little chance, so soon after the birth of her child. She would have been very weak, and when the disease struck there could have been very little hope. If only things had been different. She would have been safe in England now, and not dead in this God-forsaken hole. It was on this thought that he got out the bottle.
‘Gonna have another drink?’
Willie watched him, not knowing what to say.
‘Gonna drink to Emma,’ said Andrew, pulling out another bottle from under his cot. ‘I’m gonna drink to her because I treated her like an animal and she’s a better man than I am.’
Andrew staggered to his feet and raised his glass. ‘Come on, Willie, stand up. Here’s to you, Emma, wherever you are.’
He drained the glass and fell across the wooden table, knocking over the bottle that he had just opened.
Willie stood looking at Andrew for a moment. He put his mug down, then struggled to pick the other man up. No easy task; Andrew was big, as big as Willie. He staggered over to the cot with him and laid him down on it. Andrew never stirred, and Willie shook his head sadly.
‘Aye, laddie,’ he said. ‘The drink is no cure for what you’ve got. It’s true, you did no treat her well, but then we all become a wee bit like animals where the lassies are concerned. Dinna worry aboot me, I’ll no let you doon. You’re a Maclaren. I canna even hate you for what you and ma wife have been. If it had been any other man, I’d ha’ killed him; but not you. Not a Maclaren. Och, all men are weak when they’re up against a woman’s strength, for love is a kind of madness that no man living can cure.’
He picked up a blanket from where it had fallen in a crumpled heap on the floor and gently, almost tenderly, laid it over the unconscious Andrew. And just as he did this, there was a crackle of rifle fire and the alarm sounded.
The Pathans had infiltrated past the outer line of pickets, through the gap left by the unfortunate Private Patterson. They had been close to the inner pickets, when one sharp-eyed sentry had spotted something moving and opened fire.