by Max Hennessy
‘Haig here says there are Fuzzy-Wuzzies in a khor out there, sir.’
‘And what are the Lancers intending?’
‘It’s hard to tell, sir.’ Ellesmere lifted his glasses. ‘I think the Fuzzy-Wuzzies are there to check any further advance. They’re drawn up in line in front of them egging them on.’ Ellesmere paused and his voice rose. ‘Sir, I think the Lancers are going to charge them!’
‘By God, they’d better not!’ Robert’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted as his father swung round on him. ‘Did you tell them, sir, that I wished them to exercise caution?’
Robert’s face changed and the old man knew he’d forgotten in the irritation of the dispute between them. Directing a glare at his son, he turned to stare to his front.
‘I can see a flag beyond them, Ned,’ he said. ‘No, dammit, two! Jesus Christ and all His pink angels, Haig’s right! There is a ditch there and it’s full of Fuzzy-Wuzzies. God damn it—’ the General’s face was furious ‘—it’s the oldest trick in the repertoire!’
The men of the Lancers’ leading squadron had begun to wheel slowly and, breaking into a trot, were crossing the Dervish front in column of troops. Yelling and howling, waving swords and banners, the Dervishes were a mere three hundred yards away now and the blue-clad men were dropping to their knees to fire a ragged volley. Horses and men fell. A riderless animal bolted across the plain, its tail up like a flag, and a man struggled from under his dead mount and began to stumble back the way he had come. Bullets cracked and whined about Dabney’s head.
‘Left wheel into line!’
As the trumpet sounded above the noise of musketry, the sixteen troops swung and locked at once, without orders, into a long line. There was no hesitation. They were all eager and it seemed that no one waited for the trumpeter who was still blowing as he found himself at the gallop. As they thundered forward, the firing increased and the bullets started up sand and gravel. Feeling it sting his cheeks, Dabney bowed his head to shield his face.
The dark-clad men were still firing in a cloud of light-blue smoke, but the pace was fast and the sound of rifles was drowned by the thunder of hooves on the hard sand, so that it seemed the horsemen would sweep over the line without effort. Dabney had ridden in dozens of point-to-points and this felt exactly the same, with the line of Dervishes in front apparently no more dangerous than the last fence. In a surge of exhilaration, he clapped spurs to his horse and, lifting his sword, pointed forward. Behind him, the line of lances lowered to the Engage.
Then someone near him shouted and he saw they had blundered into a trap. Across their front a dry watercourse had appeared beyond a slight lift in the ground where the plain had seemed smooth and level, and rising from it, coming up like the devil in the pantomimes he had seen as a boy, was a densely-packed mass of white-clad men giving tongue in a high-pitched yell.
Suddenly he remembered what his father had said of the fighting in Zululand – how a fold of the ground had sometimes held a whole impi of warriors. The Dervishes, it seemed, were no less cunning. They were twelve-deep and stretched from one end of the regiment’s front almost to the other. There was no chance to check the charge as horsemen and flags appeared and warriors with spears sprang forward to form a cheval-de-frise.
It was Dabney’s first time in action and the excitement of the moment carried him forward. Spurring his mount savagely to force from it the momentum to take him across the ditch and out at the other side before he could be stopped, he assumed that, like all infantry before cavalry, the Dervishes would break and run at the last moment.
As the luckless men who had acted as bait were flung backwards by the shoulders of the galloping horses on to the heads of their comrades in the ditch, he found himself in mid-air and looking down on the black faces below. The Lancers went into the ditch like the breaking of a huge wave, and as the riflemen were swept away, the cavalrymen struck the mass of waiting Dervishes with a tremendous crash. Horses were bowled over under the shock and for a whole half-minute no one was concerned with killing, only with escaping from the tangle of struggling men and animals. Terrified chargers kicked and fought their way free. Shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggled to their feet, and several unseated riders even had time to remount as the impetus of the rest of the cavalry carried them forward. But their pace had been reduced suddenly to a walk and as they scrambled out of the watercourse on the other side, dragging with them a mass of yelling infuriated Dervishes, they left a score of struggling figures behind, and as the mob of men and animals crumbled and separated the killing began.
It broke all the rules of scientific combat. An officer, his helmet crooked, his sword stained, dust on his features, was going for one of the emirs, a tall man in a black-patched jellaba. Riding at a canter, he came to the Engage, his sword outstretched before him, horse and rider in eager anticipation. The Dervish came quickly towards him, swinging a curved sabre. The blades met, the Englishman’s sword grinding on the Dervish’s handguard, but, as it did so, a yellow-faced man with peppercorn hair rose alongside and, thrusting upwards with a long-bladed spear, took the Englishman under the ribs. The yell of pain faded to a sigh and the British officer rolled from the saddle, to be immediately pounced on by yelling, hacking warriors.
Men who had been flung aside, screaming, impaling themselves on each other’s weapons, had now picked themselves up and, reaching for their weapons, began to hit back. A rifle exploded in Dabney’s face, so close he felt the heat of the muzzle flash, and he heard a scream on his left and caught a glimpse of a man falling from the saddle. A heavy spear jabbed at him, tearing his sleeve but doing no other damage, then all round him he saw black-faced men in white, patched robes, swinging with huge curved swords at legs and arms and horses’ bellies. A bay charger, thrust through with a huge broad-bladed spear, stopped dead half-out of the ditch, trembling, its eyes rolling, an agonised squeal coming from its open mouth, its bowels emptying as it stood legs astraddle, and immediately half a dozen Dervishes were dragging at the rider.
As he went down under a pile of white-robed figures, Dabney desperately discharged his revolver into the struggling mass, but the heavy bullets seemed to have no effect and, as the Dervishes separated, he saw what was left of the horseman in the bottom of the ditch, torn and covered with blood. As the Dervishes turned on Dabney, he dropped the empty pistol and began to fight with his sword. A spearman came at him and, slashing with all his strength, he saw the Arab drop the weapon and stare blankly at the stump of a wrist. Despite the din, there seemed to be no sound. He could see mouths open, yelling, revolvers and ancient muskets going off all round him, wounded horses screaming, and sword beating on sword, but, concentrating on getting clear, his mind would absorb nothing else.
As his horse headed for the opposite side of the ditch a small white donkey appeared in front of him. It was bowled over by the bigger animal but the horse pecked so that he was almost thrown. Immediately there was a yell of triumph but, his heart in his mouth, he managed to drag the animal’s head up and scramble clear. Just to his right, several men had entered the ditch at a point where they were faced with a high bank of boulders they couldn’t climb and they were wheeling their horses looking for other exits. One of the riders set his mount to scramble up the bank but it fell backwards on to him and both man and beast were immediately covered by yelling stabbing figures in white. An officer – he couldn’t tell who it was – scrambled to his feet, the back of his tunic soaked in blood, and began to stumble towards a horse that stood quivering in the ditch, its reins hanging down, severed by a sword stroke. As he ran, a spear took him in the back and he, too, went down. Another officer turned to help but, as he dismounted, he was lost himself in the screaming horde and two troopers had to go to his help as his charger bolted.
As he finally fought free from the ditch, Dabney saw the regiment trying to form up some distance away. An officer, half-fainting with his wounds, was
stumbling towards them and, as a group of Dervishes began to follow, a trooper with a clay pipe in his mouth drove across their front, knocking two of them over with his horse and swinging at the others with his lance so that the injured officer managed to reach safety. As Dabney pulled up his panting mount, he realised for the first time that his sword was bent like a question mark.
Other men were cantering up now, their horses blown, but Martin, the Colonel, his revolver and sword untouched, looked as fresh as he had at the moment of setting off.
‘I killed a fucking emir!’ An excited soldier, his lance bloodied, was yelling. ‘I got the bugger straight in the throat!’
The men were rallying quickly to the uplifted swords, pushing through each other to their proper places. Dabney’s sergeant, his face hideously slashed with sword strokes so that his nose and cheeks seemed to be flapping loose, was trying through the blood pouring into his mouth, to rally his troop. ‘Rally, Number Two,’ he was choking. ‘Rally on me!’
The ditch seemed to be full of dead and wounded, with far more khaki-dun figures among them than shapes in white robes. Churchill came past with his troop, wild with excitement.
‘We should charge back at once,’ he shouted at Dabney. ‘My people will follow me anywhere!’
The men behind him didn’t seem so sure, and as the regiment, cut off by the Dervishes from the rest of the army, faced about and rallied for a second charge, the general battle was forgotten. Riderless horses galloped across the plain and khaki-clad men, their helmets carved through and blinded by wounds, rolled helplessly about, clinging to their saddles. Horses, streaming from tremendous gashes, limped and staggered with their riders, and there seemed to be blood everywhere.
As the Dervish line began to reform, shaking themselves into order ready for another attack, Martin, seeing the damage that had been done, settled for a dismounted action. Drawn up with three squadrons in line and the fourth in column, the Lancers wheeled to the right, galloped round the Dervishes’ flank, dismounted and began to open fire with their carbines. Immediately changing front, the Dervishes began to advance, but they had been shaken by the charge and, instead of pressing their attack, they turned again, still in good order, and began to retreat towards the Jebel Surgham.
‘Leaves us in possession of the field,’ Churchill said.
‘And thank God for that,’ Dabney breathed.
As General Goff watched the fight disintegrate, Ellesmere came galloping up.
‘The Lancers have caught it hot, sir,’ he said.
Kitchener was livid. The Lancers had been so concerned with getting into action they had forgotten to warn of the existence of an army behind the Jebel Surgham and as this new horde poured down against the regiments now moving out of the zariba for the advance on Omdurman it was clear the mistake was going to cause difficulties.
‘The stupid swabs haven’t achieved a damn thing!’ he snarled. ‘They didn’t do what we wanted and they brought no information. They haven’t even stopped them attacking MacDonald. What the devil happened? Why did Martin charge?’
‘God knows,’ General Goff growled. ‘They were under fire in column of troops so they ought to have suspected something.’
‘Result?’
‘It could have been worse. The two flank squadrons didn’t suffer much but two troops in the centre were virtually wiped out.’
‘Go on.’ Kitchener was ominously quiet.
‘Enemy casualties trivial. Ned Ellesmere reckons fourteen or fifteen at the most.’
‘Good God!’ Kitchener’s beefy face was purple with fury. ‘It’s reports I want, not heroes.’
The General frowned. ‘It’s heroes you’re going to get all the same,’ he said. ‘The great sporting public at home much prefer a cavalry charge to an infantry advance. Reads better in the papers.’
Kitchener’s reply was abrupt. He was watching the new attack developing on his flank and his mind was occupied elsewhere. ‘What do you know of this damned man, Martin?’ he snapped. ‘He’s obviously no tactician?’
‘He doesn’t seem to be a very good disciplinarian either,’ the General said dryly. ‘I doubt if he’s even a good stud groom. The Promotion Board doesn’t seem to appreciate the responsibility that rests on them when they put duffers in command.’
‘Who’s his senior major? Is he any good? If he is, remove him! I’m damned if I’ll have people running my army who’re more concerned with regimental pride than with beating the Wogs. Send him home!’
As Kitchener swung away, the General turned to Ellesmere. ‘Got the butcher’s bill, Ned?’
‘They think five officers and sixty-six men killed or wounded. One hundred and nineteen horses.’
‘Out of less than four hundred?’ The General frowned. ‘What about my son?’
‘He’s safe, sir. I’ve seen him.’
‘My family seems to have a penchant for coming unscathed through half-baked charges. They’d have done better if they’d made sure the Khalifa didn’t escape. I expect he has, hasn’t he?’
Ellesmere nodded. ‘I gather he was seen riding towards the city.’
The General scowled. A pity he hadn’t had with him a few of Beauty Stuart’s young officers from Virginia, he thought. Or that madman, Custer; perhaps a few of the Prussian Uhlans who’d done so much damage to the French in 1870. Even his North Cape Horse in Zululand – Irregulars every one of them – had learned the essentials of cavalry fighting, which were not to get themselves killed for the benefit of the newspaper-reading public at home.
As the Lancers came cantering back, they looked tattered and exhausted, men who were lurching helplessly in the saddle held upright by their friends, the blood from their wounds drenching their clothes and streaming down their horses’ flanks. For a minute or two of glory, their charge had been very expensive in lives.
Churchill appeared alongside him. ‘What did you think of the Lancers’ charge, sir?’ he asked. ‘It was exciting while it lasted.’
‘Not for the men who didn’t come out of it!’
Churchill’s face grew sombre. ‘No, sir. Grenfell’s dead, by the way. It takes the joy out of the triumph.’
‘There never was much joy in war, boy,’ the General growled. ‘As I’m sure your great ancestor, Marlborough, would have been the first to tell you. Disguise it how you like, it’s a shoddy business which only a fool would play at. And only fools do.’ He paused. ‘Think on that,’ he ended. ‘It might help you in your career.’
Three
Yorkshire was having an off day when Dabney reached home. The clouds were heavy over the hills and the Brack had a leaden look. But Brackdale still managed to look incredibly beautiful, the greenery of the trees mingling with the dry-stone walls that were faintly lavender in the pale light coming over the hills. After the desert it seemed full of colour.
As the trap clattered up to the gates of Braxby Manor, Dabney heaved a deep sigh. It had been his home throughout all his life and every journey away seemed like a sortie from a secure fortress so that he never failed to feel happiness and relief when he returned home.
‘Country looks good,’ he said.
The groom, an Ackroyd inevitably, clad in tweeds and flat cap, turned his head and grinned. ‘That it do, Mr Dabney.’
‘How’s your Uncle Tyas?’
‘Gettin’ old, sir. Says his rheumatism plays up.’
Dabney leaned back. It was like rejoining the Regiment to find himself surrounded by Ackroyds again. The whole valley was full of them, sturdy figures all of them, the men stooped from following the plough or straight-backed from following one of the Goffs into the army. At least, thank God, they’d never had to go into the Regiment because of poverty, because this was a prosperous valley where farming was good and his family had always accepted responsibility for their workpeople.
The
house came into view at last. As the wheels crunched on the gravel of the drive, he saw his mother appear from the stables. She was wearing a grey habit and she hurried towards him, smiling. As he climbed out of the trap, Tyas Ackroyd appeared in the doorway to take his bag. He was wearing black with a striped apron and gloves, as if he’d been giving a hand with the silver. His long lugubrious face split into a grin.
‘Hello, Tyas. How’s the leg?’
‘It’s the bullet I got at Balaclava, Mr Dabney.’
They both laughed. The phrase was one young subalterns sometimes used in the mess after a heavy night, and they considered it funny because Ackroyd’s limp really had come from the bullet he’d got at Balaclava.
‘Family, Tyas?’
‘The wife’s the same, Mr Dab. Gettin’ older. Yorkshire weather don’t help. Jenny’s married now. Hill farmer out Ripon way. Ellis you know about, sir. Emmott’s an engineer on the railway.’
‘Driving a train?’
‘Lord, no, sir. Telling others ’ow to drive ’em. He’s in charge of the works at Doncaster. Ellis’ boy, Tom, talks of bein’ an engineer, too. Only ’e fancies these new-fangled motor cars.’
His mother touched Dabney’s hand and glanced at Ackroyd. ‘Better bring some drinks in, Tyas,’ she said.
They walked through the house, Dabney, as he always did, breathing its air, his eyes searching for the familiar spots of damp. His arm tightened round his mother’s waist. She could never realise just how good it felt, he thought. Omdurman had been a horrible sight when they had swept into the city. There had been a great paying-off of old scores following the Khalifa’s defeat, and the bodies of butchered men and women had lain about the streets and narrow alleys. The Mahdi’s tomb had been damaged by the shelling and Kitchener, in a rage of vengeance for Gordon, had had the Mahdi’s corpse decapitated, and for a while, Dabney had heard, had even talked of having the skull mounted.