He could do nothing against such power, and he was forced forward, his boots sliding along the ground no matter how hard he tried to hold his place.
He was about to die.
In desperation he threw away his sabre and went for his revolver. He jerked back hard into the bodies behind him, giving himself enough space to free the handgun from its holster. The gun lifted and he pulled the trigger, a bellow of sudden fear escaping his lips as he saw a bayonet coming straight for his throat.
The heavy bullet hit the man between the eyes. The bayonet fell away and Jack roared in triumph. He changed his point of aim and fired at the next man in the line. He saw the bullet thump into the rebel’s chest before he was propelled forward, helpless against the power of the men pushing up behind him. He fired again, even as he staggered over the bodies of those he had killed, cutting down more men in the wall, creating a gap in the line.
The attackers went into the bloody opening in a heartbeat. They were merciless, surging past Jack, lunging at the flanks of the gap, going for the rebels who still faced forward. Attacked from the side, these men were defenceless, and the British soldiers cut them down then stepped over the corpses and rammed their bayonets forward again, killing without pause.
The enemy line broke. With a huge hole torn in its centre, the rebels could not stand, and they ran, their defiant defence ending in screams of terror.
Jack snatched up the sword he had thrown down, before bending double and sucking in huge lungfuls of air, fighting off the wave of terror that had surged through him as the fight ended. He had come so close to death. Yet somehow he had survived. The column had broken into the city.
‘Move on! Don’t stop! Attack!’
A huge voice urged the men on. Jack lifted his head and saw Nicholson striding through the bodies that littered the ground behind the gabion barricade.
‘Jack! Don’t damned well stand there lollygagging! To the ramparts, man!’ The general roared past, leaving Jack staring at his back.
The column had taken the breach. But they were still well short of their objectives. The fighting had barely begun.
Jack led the closest men on to the ramparts, following the path taken by many of the retreating rebels. He did not know where Nicholson had gone, but he knew enough of the plan to be aware that the first column had to fight their way along the ramparts and take the remains of the Mori Bastion before moving on to assault the Kabul Gate. He heard the roar of fighting as the other columns made their attacks, but he had little sense of anything outside his own small world.
He turned and saw a few dozen men from the 1st Bengal Fusiliers trailing in his wake, following his lead. Many were bloodied, their bayonets covered with gore. But their faces betrayed their determination to get the job done. Jack might not have known the names of any of the men who followed him, but he was certain they would not let him down.
‘Follow me!’ He thrust his empty revolver into his holster as he began to run. He felt the madness of the fight begin to take hold of his soul. He savoured the joy of leading men into battle, the familiar sensation building deep in his guts and forcing away his fear.
The ramparts twisted and turned as they followed the shape of the wall. Every few yards there was an embrasure for a cannon. Each position was a natural barricade, and Jack knew that he had to keep his men moving and chasing hard after the enemy, never giving them a moment to turn and fight.
‘On! On!’ His breath rasped as he urged the grey-coated men from the 1st Bengal Fusiliers to greater speed. They raced along the wall, bounding past a dozen embrasures, the enemy sprinting ahead. Jack saw many of the rebels glancing over their shoulders, tantalising glimpses of faces that looked back in fear at the white-faced firangi who charged after them.
‘Come on!’ He scrambled past yet another cannon. The enemy appeared to be getting further away, their fear spurring them on. Jack’s men were tiring, the hard yards they had already covered sapping their strength. Despite his best efforts, they were slowing, the attack losing its precious momentum.
Then the enemy turned.
With a great roar, the rebels faced the on-rushing attackers. They had no time to reload, but they lined the rampart, thrusting their bayonets out, their voices raised in desperate anger as they found the courage to stand and fight.
‘Kill them!’ Jack roared the order, and the men behind him cheered as they charged at the handful of rebels who dared to face them.
Jack did not pause. He threw himself at the enemy, leading the rush, his sword raised high above his head as he bellowed his challenge at the gods. The distance closed in a heartbeat, the wild madness of the fight spurring him on. Then he hit the line.
A dark face beneath a sky-blue pagdi screamed at him as he punched the man’s bayonet aside. The scream turned to a shriek as Jack drove the tip of his sword forward, gouging through the man’s neck and tearing away his throat. The man fell, and Jack kicked him to one side without compassion, his only thought to clear a path for his men.
The fusiliers he had led forward piled into the melee. Their bayonets worked furiously to clear the rampart, the wicked steel brutally effective at such close quarters.
A man wearing a white kurta came at Jack with a talwar. He had time to see the rust on the ancient blade before he battered it to one side. The weapon fell away and Jack stepped forward, slashing his sword upwards in a rising blow that cut up through the rebel’s face. The man reeled away, the useless weapon falling to the ground. A fusilier finished him with a bayonet to the heart.
‘Come on!’ Jack was clear of the fight and he roared at the men to follow him. He had to keep them moving.
‘Forward!’ Another voice joined his, and he spied Lieutenant Lang, the engineer officer who had so bravely measured the breach. He had no idea what the officer was doing in the lead ranks of the assault, but there was no time to dwell on it. ‘Move!’ Jack felt the madness taking control. It was the same soul-tearing fury that had driven him into so many fights. He was a god, a killer of men, and he ran forward, no longer caring whether the men followed or stayed behind. All that mattered was the urge to fight, to find more victims for his willing blade.
He stormed along the rampart, Lieutenant Lang and the others trailing in his wake. Men from the other battalions in the first column had joined the fusiliers on the wall. Nicholson’s precious orders for the assault had been left behind in the slaughter in the breach.
The men clung to whoever was closest, responding to the orders of whichever officer they could hear. Many followed the khaki-clad lieutenant who fought at their head, his right to command never doubted for a second.
Jack flinched as a storm of musket balls seared through the air around him. He roared his war cry, the banshee wail released as he ran, the madness driving him into the vicious fire without thought. He hurtled around a bend in the rampart and saw the enemy ahead. They milled at the base of the next defensive tower, some frantically trying to reload, others taking up a position where they could form another wall of bayonets.
A burst of canister smashed into the parapet in front of him. The enemy guns on the far walls were being turned to face the rush of British soldiers, and Jack could do nothing save run through the dreadful fire, trusting to fate to keep him alive.
He rushed on, certain that he would be hit, his flesh clenched tight as he expected to feel the vicious kick of a ball finding its mark. The enemy poured on the fire. He heard the screams as men behind him were cut down, their dreadful cries cut short as their mates trampled over them, not one man stopping to offer aid.
He felt the snap in the air as a musket ball scorched past his face. Another plucked at the side of his jacket, missing his chest by a fraction of an inch. He began to shout with rage, the lunacy of the charge across the ramparts consuming his soul.
He hit the wall of bayonets like a madman and cut past the bared steel, his sword bludgeoning a way into the makeshift line. He killed without hesitation, hacking at the nearest defender
s like a berserker of old. A man fell away, his head half severed by Jack’s first blow. Another followed within the space of a single heartbeat, his face a mask of blood from where Jack had cut away his eyes.
A rebel sepoy thrust a bayonet at Jack’s guts, his teeth bared as he tried to ram the steel hard into the firangi’s flesh. Jack laughed as he battered the blade aside before stepping forward and slamming his head into the sepoy’s face, butting the man to the ground.
The line was backing away as the ragtag band that followed Jack charged into them. The fight was short and bloody. Men fell from both sides, their screams loud in the cramped confines of the rampart. Jack hacked another rebel down, his sword used with all the finesse of a butcher’s cleaver as he beat his foe into bloody submission.
Then there was no one left to fight.
There were no cheers. The men who fought with Jack were exhausted. Yet there could be no rest.
The moment the enemy broke, their fellows opened fire once more. A grey-coated soldier from the 1st Bengal Fusiliers spun around in front of Jack, his face shattered by a well-aimed musket ball. Jack heard the cries as more men were hit, the victors of the squalid melee beginning to fall all around him.
‘Follow me!’ There was nowhere else to go but forward. So he pressed on, his lungs straining with the effort. He forced away the hurt and thought only of the next fight, and the next man he would kill.
Yet even the sustaining rage of battle was flagging. Another burst of canister smashed into the parapet a few yards behind him, snatching half a dozen men into oblivion. Their bodies were torn apart by the close-range fire, the stone of the rampart slick with their blood.
Still Jack pounded forward, even though he had no notion of where he was. He dashed through a deserted tower and then on, out of its shade and back into the glare of the sun. Bullets snapped all around him, eroding his courage and driving away the last of the madness. Yet he could not turn. He could only run along the rampart, his terror building with every step, the icy wash of fear quenching the flame of madness that had driven him into the fight.
He rounded another bend and nearly collided with a wounded sepoy. The man was trying to flee, but he had taken a bayonet thrust to the neck and he was slow. Blood flowed freely over the fingers of the hand that was pressed into the gaping hole in his flesh.
Jack felt nothing as he saw the dreadful wound. The man turned, and there was time enough for Jack to see the spasm of fear surge across his face before he chopped down his sabre, cutting it hard into the joint of neck and shoulder. The man cried out and fell to his knees, his bloodied face lifting to stare back at Jack with accusing eyes. Jack lashed out, callous in his shame, his boot driving into the man’s side and knocking him to the ground. It cleared the way forward, and he stepped over the thrashing body and forced himself back into a trot.
But the collision had scoured the very last of the madness from his soul. The sight of the man’s fear had fuelled Jack’s own. He wanted to drop to the ground, to curl into a ball and hide, to do anything that would get him out of the dreadful fire that flensed the walls. He felt alone. He turned his head and looked for the men who followed. They seemed far away, and his pace slowed to a walk. He was watching them as a burst of canister found its mark. The men leading the rush were scythed down, a bright spray of blood thrown high into the air, their deaths brutal and sudden. Others still came on, rushing through the slaughter, keeping going no matter how many fell.
Jack turned away. His legs trembled and threatened to send him tumbling to the ground, but he forced them to carry him. He focused his gaze on the next tower, and on the rebels who were hastily forming yet another line to block his path. He demanded that his body obey and fought away the fear that threatened to unman him.
He wanted to cry out, as the storm of fire seemed to increase. He had never known a fear like it. Yet still his boots pounded into the stone of the ramparts, his eyes fixed on the enemy.
He saw the bayonets waver. He cried out as a musket ball ricocheted off the stone and flew up past his face. Then he hit them. The madness was gone and he flailed his sword, trying not to die. He parried a bayonet thrust at his groin before twisting and battering away another coming for his throat. He keened as he fought, his desire to live surging up like blood from a slit throat. The emotions he had denied since he had lost Aamira swept through him, and he wept, his tears carving channels through the sweat and grime and blood on his face.
The men who had followed him ploughed into the enemy. Somehow they were finding the strength to fight on, their battle rage sustaining them past the point of exhaustion. The enemy could not stand against them, and they ran, barely half those who had stood in the line able to escape.
Jack staggered to one side. He was utterly spent.
‘Forward, men!’
He heard the fresh voice and saw the bright face of Lieutenant Lang going past, specks of blood like engorged freckles on the young officer’s face.
Jack looked back, trying to understand how far they had come. He could barely credit what he saw. The men on the ramparts had done so much more than had been expected of them. The Kabul Gate, their original objective, lay behind them, a bullet-holed Union Jack now flying from its top. Ahead lay the Lahore Gate and the bastion that protected it. He saw the guns that now pointed towards the ramparts, and he understood where the brutal artillery fire had come from.
The enemy were turning the Lahore Bastion into a fortress. They had thrown a hasty barricade across the rampart, and realigned a cannon so that its gaping maw pointed towards the British infantrymen rushing towards them. Behind them the enemy formed ranks, a double line of muskets ready to blast a volley at any enemy soldiers foolish enough to attack.
As Jack watched, they opened fire. The cannon fired first. It was loaded with canister and it swept away the leading ranks of the rampaging British. The first musket volley followed within moments, striking into the battered ranks of those attackers left standing. Men crumpled, dozens struck down by the close-range fire. The assault died in the passage of no more than three heartbeats, the bodies of the fallen creating a bloody obstacle to those trying to follow.
Jack watched Lieutenant Lang. The young officer kept going, doing his best to pick his way through the tattered flesh that lined the rampart. But there was hardly a soul left to follow him, and he advanced alone.
‘Pull back!’ Jack’s voice was huge. He strode forward, summoning the strength from he knew not where. ‘Pull back!’
He bellowed the order, waving his arm to emphasise the bitter command. The few men left standing needed no urging. They came back at a rush, their faces white with terror.
Jack forced himself to stand still. He waited, resisting the urge to join the retreat to the Kabul Gate and the sanctuary of the bastion’s thick stone walls.
‘Lang! Pull back!’ He roared the order and saw the look of confusion on the young officer’s face. Then the enemy cannon fired again.
Jack saw Lang’s uniform twitch around his thin body as the storm of shot seared past him. It was as if he stood in a gale, but somehow the tempest passed and he was still standing, his body unscathed.
‘Come on!’ Jack yelled in encouragement. He started to move, taking the first hesitant steps backwards but with his body still inclined towards Lang. Bullets spat into the ground around the engineer officer’s feet, sending up puffs of dust as they smacked into the stone, but he was leading a charmed life and he bounded forward, somehow staying alive.
‘Go! Go!’ Jack only started to run as the lieutenant reached him, and they fell back side by side. The air was alive with the snap and crack of passing bullets, yet they were a fair distance away, and getting further with every step as the two men made for the safety of the Kabul Bastion.
They threw themselves to the ground the moment they reached the cover of the bastion’s walls. Jack slid to a halt, his body shuddering with fear and with the effort of making his escape. Lang lay at his side, panting and shocked,
his face ashen.
A voice shouted from behind. ‘What the hell is happening here?’
Jack lifted his head and looked at the flushed and florid face of an officer wearing the insignia of a brigadier. He spat, clearing his throat of dust and the sour taste of fear.
‘They hold the Lahore Gate.’ He forced out the words, levering himself to his feet. Men crouched all around him, the remnants of the bloody assault along the ramparts hiding in any cover they could find. Their wild attack was over.
‘Reload!’ Jack snapped the order. The men were exhausted and frightened, and he knew they needed to be taken in hand. He saw them reach for their ammunition pouches, the instinct to obey driven deep. He looked back at the brigadier. ‘Orders, sir?’
The officer looked hard at Jack before nodding in approval. ‘Hold here, Lieutenant . . .’
‘Lark.’ Jack turned and spat once more before wiping his hand across his face, smearing away the blood, the sweat and the tears. ‘My name is Jack Lark.’
‘Then hold here, Mr Lark. I’ll send you orders just as soon as I can.’ The brigadier said nothing more before he left at a trot.
Jack grunted, then turned to face his bloodied command. The men were sucking on the soda-water bottles that many carried in place of regular canteens. Their eyes showed bright against their filth-encrusted faces, reflecting the wild stares of men in battle. Jack felt a fierce pride at what they had achieved. They might have been beaten back, but he knew Nicholson would be proud of their efforts.
They had secured the column’s objective. The Kabul Gate was theirs.
‘Sir! Mr Lark?’
Jack started as he heard his name. He had been leaning against a wall. The stone was cold on his cheek, the sensation a delight as the heat of the day began to build. He looked at the young ensign who had come to deliver fresh orders. The boy could not have been more than sixteen years old.
The Lone Warrior Page 31