Lieutenant of the Line

by Philip McCutchan

  LIEUTENANT OF THE LINE

  Philip McCutchan

  © Philip McCutchan 2014

  Philip McCutchan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition published in 1973 by Hodder and Stoughton

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Extract from In the Line of Fire by Philip McCutchan

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the parade men from B Company had been busy all morning erecting the gallows. Now the pipes and drums of the battalion were rehearsing, beating out a slow march ahead of two exercising companies, a mournful highland dirge that drifted towards the distant foothills of Himalaya and which would be a fitting tribute to the terrible solemnity of the next day’s ceremonial. Looking out of a window of the Officers’ Mess ante-room across the parade and the cantonments, watching the Highlanders move through the clouds of dust that hung in the air beneath a high, hot sun, James Ogilvie thought with dread of that next day. It was a side of army life that frankly sickened him. He knew by now that he would never be entirely happy away from the barrack sights and sounds—the sounds of the military music, the bugles that signposted every one of his days, the hoof beats of horses, the jingle of harness, the metallic banging from the farrier-sergeant and his men, the loud voices of the drill-sergeants…and also the glitter of British uniforms that held the Raj in fee and kept the Empire set astride the gorgeous East, finest jewel in the crown of the Queen Empress. Ogilvie had by now been long enough on Indian service to see quite clearly that initially he had had a romanticized view of the British Army and of the North-West Frontier wars in particular, a view that was not always borne out by the facts; he had no complaints that his eyes had been opened to reality. But everything inside him revolted against next day’s ceremony. Already there had been talk of more unrest along the Frontier, of warriors coming in from Afghanistan to lead the men of the hills against the Queen’s soldiers. There would be enough of death to come, without adding to the toll in hidebound ceremonial.

  ***

  Ogilvie turned away from the window, caught a glimpse, through the door into the Mess, of the white jackets of the servants preparing for luncheon, of the magnificent regimental silver on the long table. He paused, momentarily. There was history on that table; silver that had been with the regiment since the days when his father, and before him his grandfather, had commanded. Before that, even. It was something to think about. History and tradition had not been built up the easy way.

  Leaving the ante-room, he was hailed by one of his brother subalterns. ‘Time for a drink, old man?’

  Ogilvie shook his head. ‘I’m due out there.’ He gave a jerk of his head towards the parade and its wreathing dust, its rising, choking heat.

  ‘Don’t like it, do you, James?’ The speaker grinned, rested his kilted rump on the arm of a vast leather chair. ‘Can’t be too damned squeamish, you know. India’s no damn kindergarten, old man.’

  Ogilvie flushed, seemed about to say something in reply, but thought better of it and swung away angrily. As he left the ante-room and marched down the passage buckling on his Sam Browne belt, the subaltern smirked and said to no one in particular, ‘touchy so-and-so at times, what? Takes himself too damn seriously, if you ask me.’

  Next morning James Ogilvie’s servant stood back, looking critically at his handiwork. His officer’s scarlet tunic was beautifully brushed and pressed, the set of the kilt was just right; the belt buckles, the hilt of the broadsword, the badges of rank on, either shoulder—all shone as befitted a lieutenant of the 114th Highlanders, the Queen’s Own Royal Strathspeys. The skean dhu was pushed to precisely the right depth into the stocking and the white spats gleamed.

  ‘You’ll do, Sir,’ the man said.

  Ogilvie nodded. His face was white and set and he was unable to keep the shake from his fingers. As a solitary bugle sounded from the parade ground he took a deep breath and reached for his white pipe clayed helmet. The foreign service full-dress headgear was as immaculate as the rest of his accoutrements, with the bright, blue-green flash of the Royal Strathspey—counterpart of the heckle worn with the home service highland bonnet—set into the dip of the puggaree above the regimental badge. Ogilvie turned to his servant, who was also, that morning, dressed in what amounted to review order—though, by God, Ogilvie thought, it was no review that was to take place within the next half hour!

  ‘All right, Garrett,’ he said:

  Private Garrett slammed to attention. ‘Sir! Then I’ll be getting on parade.’ He hesitated for a moment, scanning his officer’s face. He was a much older man than James Ogilvie and had seen almost twenty years’ service with the regiment, at home, in Africa, the West Indies, in Gibraltar, as well as here on the North-West Frontier of India. He said, ‘begging your pardon, Sir. You’ll do well not to take it too hard, Sir. It’s the military life when all’s said and done and the General had no choice in the matter. You’ll know that, Sir.’

  Again Ogilvie nodded. ‘Tell me, Garrett…have you ever had to see anything like this before?’

  Garrett shook his head. ‘Never, Sir. It’s a terrible thing for the regiment. I wish I’d not to see it now and that’s God’s truth, Sir, but what’s to be, must be.’

  He turned away and left the room; more bugles sounded, stridently calling, and Ogilvie heard the noise from outside, the shouted orders of the drill-sergeants, the tramp of men being moved into their positions. He lingered a while longer, as though steeling himself, guiltily leaving as much as he decently could to Colour-Sergeant Barr, who had been the replacement for Colour-Sergeant MacNaught killed almost a year before during the assault on the peaks beyond Jalalabad. Barr was an efficient soldier, though often enough Ogilvie regretted that the man ruled B Company through ruthlessness and fear. Ogilvie suffered from a nagging knowledge that had it not been for Colour-Sergeant Barr this morning’s grim parade would never have taken place at all.

  Glancing in the looking-glass on his chest-of-drawers, he adjusted the trim of his helmet and the set of the chinstrap. Then, feeling his hands sticky with sweat, he poured a little water from the jug on the wash-stand into the basin, and rinsed his fingers. He dried them, and left the room. In the bare, green painted passage outside he was joined by Crampton, one of the new subalterns, a second lieutenant fresh from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Crampton was due for a shattering introduction to the regiment and Indian service life. Abruptly Ogilvie said, ‘better cut along, Malcolm. Don’t risk being late on parade today or Black’ll have your guts.’

  ‘Right you are, James.’ Tight-faced, the young officer, too thin in the legs to carry a kilt decently, marched ahead of Ogilvie. Following on behind into the bright sunshine Ogilvie came into the claustrophobic sound of the drumbeats echoing off the buildings, saw the men of the battalion being marched by companies to form up ceremonially. Only the 114th were on parade today; this was to be a strictly domestic occasion. Though naturally this day’s work had been, and for some while would continue to be, the talk of the whole garrison at Peshawar, the actual execution was not to be the occasion for any public washing of dirty linen. Today the ranks would be metaphorically closed against all outsiders and although the ceremony was being held on the main garrison parade ground and officially in publ
ic there were to be no pure sightseers, no peering ghouls. But for the 114th it was a case of attendance by every man with the sole exceptions of the quarter guard and, of course, the native domestics.

  Beneath the early morning sun, now sending streaks of gold and green and crimson across the sky above the far off snow-topped mountains of the Hindu Kush to the north, and Outer Himalaya to the east, James Ogilvie marched towards his company, trying not to look at the gallows. MacKinlay, his company commander, was already present and was lifting his aristocratic head a little and looking down his nose as Ogilvie came up.

  ‘Good morning, James,’ he said. ‘Better late than never.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Ogilvie said. ‘What’s more, I’ve no excuse.’

  ‘That’s honest enough. Just dragging your feet, what?’

  Ogilvie smiled briefly. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I can’t say I blame you, James. None of us likes it. I can’t deny, there’s something bloody barbarous about the army at times—’ ‘He broke off as Colour-Sergeant Barr approached and slammed to the salute, a hammy brown hand crashing down on the butt of his sloped rifle.

  ‘Yes, Colour-Sarn’t?’

  ‘Sir! B Company present and correct, paraded for inspection. Sir!’

  ‘Thank you, Colour-Sarn’t. Carry on, please.’

  ‘Sir!’ With another crash on the rifle butt and a slam of boots Barr turned about, swinging his kilt around massive thighs, smart, efficient and ebullient. Ogilvie hoped the man wasn’t enjoying himself, but he had his doubts. Barr marched away, halted, stood the men at ease, brought them to attention again, turned and faced Captain MacKinlay and his senior subaltern, waiting for them to move across to inspect the ranks. As they approached he fell in behind them. MacKinlay moved along, slowly, hawk-eyed as usual, drawing attention to a badly set helmet, badges that might have been a trifle more shining, boots with traces of parade ground dust on them. Unlike the Brigade of Guards the Royal Strathspeys did not go to the length of having their men carried on to parade and set down in place so that dust did not settle on them; but they had their standards nevertheless. Colour-Sergeant Barr officiously repeated each admonishment in a loud voice, taking due note of the miscreant’s name. At the end of the front rank he halted, took a pace backward, and shouted, ‘front rank, one pace forward—march!’ The officers moved along the second rank and then along the others. When the inspection was complete the ranks were closed again and Colour-Sergeant Barr marched to the right, took up his dressing with such smartness that Ogilvie could almost fancy he could hear the click of the eyeballs, then stood himself and his men at ease. Ogilvie marched to a central position before the front rank, halted, turned right, and stood at ease himself. All around the parade ground, similar movements were taking place in the other seven companies. On a horse in the centre of the parade, near the gallows, sat Captain Andrew Black, tall, dark, dour, brooding, but with sharp eyes that swept the whole battalion bare. One by one, the company commanders called their companies to attention and made their reports to the adjutant, reports which Black acknowledged with wordless salutes. When all reports were in, Black turned his horse and rode towards Major John Hay, second in command, to whom he in turn reported. Hay rode sedately off parade. He came back within the minute, ahead of a cavalcade of four mounted officers: Ogilvie’s father, Lieutenant-General Sir Iain Ogilvie, now appointed General Officer Commanding the Northern Army at Murree; the Divisional Commander, Major-General Francis Fettleworth, D.S.O., riding his charger like a sack of porridge; Colonel Lord Dornoch, commanding the 114th; and Major Morrissey, Brigade Major of the brigade formed by the Royal Strathspeys and the Connaught Rangers, the 88th Foot.

  There were more salutes, and more orders passed. Ogilvie, rigid at attention now in front of his company, a little way in rear of Rob MacKinlay, felt the increased beat of his heart, a painful thump in his chest that threatened to choke him. A moment later he heard the solemn beat of crepe-muffled drums accompanied by the thin, sad wail of the pipes. He looked straight ahead as the sounds came nearer, approaching from the left where a gap had been left in the hollow square of soldiers. Behind him he heard a low murmur from the men, an involuntary ripple of horror. Black heard it, too; there was a shout, a scream almost, from the adjutant: ‘Silence in the ranks!’

  There was a sudden crash as a rifle fell, a sound that made Ogilvie start; he didn’t look round, and no one else moved. No doubt the man who had fainted would be properly dealt with when all this was over—put on a charge for falling out without permission. The army was a machine and sometimes a soulless one; its parts must be kept working. The muffled drums beat closer and soon Ogilvie could no longer escape the sight of the small, slow-moving procession, except by closing his eyes. He did close them, but because he found his body swaying, he was forced to open them again. He saw Corporal Nichol, or Private Nichol to be precise, since the man had been stripped of his rank by the Court Martial. Nichol, without a helmet, badges and buttons but otherwise decently and smartly turned out and shaved, was marching along ahead of an escort and the drums and pipes, with his wrists handcuffed behind his body; and in rear of the escort came the padre and Surgeon Major Corton, and then six men bearing an empty coffin, Nichol’s coffin.

  The procession moved on, marched right around the lines of men, turned, and halted in front of the group of mounted officers. Regimental Sergeant-Major Cunningham, behind the coffin, his pace-stick wedged firmly into his armpit, turned them into line with something less than his normal authoritative bellow, and then reported to the Colonel.

  ‘Sir! Prisoner and escort present and correct, Sir!’

  Lord Dornoch nodded. He took the sheet of paper handed to him by Black and started reading. He read in a loud, clear, carrying voice, a cool and apparently emotionless voice. The words of the charge, the sentence of the Court Martial, echoed across the otherwise silent parade. Ogilvie heard them only dimly and patchily, through the drumming of the blood in his ears. ‘…It having been represented...by Lieutenant James Iain Conal MacGregor Ogilvie of Her Majesty’s 114th Regiment, and by Hamish Barr, Colour-Sergeant...that on the 17th day of May 1895, John Edward Nichol, Corporal...did kill by shooting Second Lieutenant Philip Harold Westover Adams…’

  Ogilvie shivered.

  Yes, Nichol was a murderer all right, and a looter and a raper too. Short of desertion in the face of the enemy, or treason, he had committed the most heinous three crimes in the British Army’s book. Killing an officer was a deed that simply had to shake the whole foundation of militarism, all the way from Calcutta to Whitehall and back again; no one was going to quarrel with the G.O.C.’s personal decision to mount a public execution. The army had to know what happened when an officer was murdered—fair enough! But Ogilvie knew that Nichol had never meant to kill that officer. He had aimed at Colour-Sergeant Barr. Barr the bully, Barr the man with the build and mentality of a prize fighter, Barr the loud-mouthed persecutor of everyone below him. Poor Adams had got in the way, as poor Adams had had a habit of doing ever since he’d arrived from Sandhurst. And Ogilvie was convinced that Nichol would never have used his rifle at all if Colour-Sergeant Barr hadn’t asked for trouble by his ranting behaviour ever since he’d got his promotion. Not, of course, that that was any excuse; but it did constitute a reason. Nevertheless, the facts had been all too Plain, and Ogilvie had naturally had no option but to back his Colour-Sergeant and make his report accordingly as soon as he had brought his patrol back to cantonments. It had been a simple probe, that patrol, against a village where some Afridi tribesmen, on a sortie from Afghanistan, had been believed, erroneously as it had turned out, to be in hiding; but things had gone wrong, tempers had flared on both sides, Barr himself being far from blameless in this respect, and there had been bloody fighting. In the middle of all this, Corporal Nichol had decided to go on the rampage. He had gone on a looting expedition and had been caught by Adams and Barr in the act of raping a young Shinwari girl and he had used his rifle.

  It had been sord
id enough and of course Nichol had to die. It was the ceremonial that appalled. This, after all, was the mid-nineties, not pre-Mutiny days.

  ‘...Found guilty by General Court Martial and sentenced to die by hanging,’ came the Colonel’s steady voice, breaking once again into Ogilvie’s consciousness. Ogilvie watched as Dornoch folded the sheet of paper and handed it to Black, who saluted punctiliously, his face stiff and formal and solemn. Dornoch went on, ‘this sentence has been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief, India, and by His Excellency the Viceroy and will now be carried out.’ He glanced at the Regimental Sergeant-Major. ‘Carry on, please, Sarn’t-Major.’

  ‘Sir!’ Again a salute, and the awesome process, as Cunningham turned about, moved into its final phase. ‘Prisoner and escort, into line, left turn. Slow...march. Left...right left,’ The drums beat out the time. Slow, Ogilvie thought. It was horrible. But it had to be protracted, it had to be given its due weight since a man was going to die within the next few minutes. The small procession wheeled; Ogilvie watched Nichol’s face as he passed by B Company. It was dead white and the lips were trembling, but the man seemed composed, dazed perhaps, and was marching smartly, keeping time to the crepe-draped drums, reacting automatically to his training. It was grotesque. Ogilvie had a feeling that if he were in a similar predicament he would go to his death cursing the army, and the Colonel, and the General, the lot of them. He licked at dust-dry lips, felt a cold sweat pour down inside his tunic. Across the parade ground, in E company’s ranks, two more men had fainted and lay stretched out beneath the sun, their rifles lying in the dust.

  Cunningham halted the procession in the shadow of the gallows. With Surgeon Major Gorton and the padre, Nichol climbed the steps to the platform. He was still handcuffed. He looked down at the motionless escort, at his coffin lying open, ready on the ground beside the gallows. Impossible at this stage to guess his thoughts; but Ogilvie saw the eyes widen as the hangman placed the noose around his neck and adjusted the sliding knot. There was a brief and completely pointless examination by Corton, and then the padre began reading his office, very quietly, very privately and personally. Both Corton and the padre looked white and sick. Ogilvie closed his eyes again, and this time kept them closed. He was not looking when the end came for Nichol. He was aware of an utterly indescribable mechanical sound, and then it was all over and done with. He heard orders being shouted in unnatural voices and then he opened his eyes the body was swinging from the rope. There were more orders and the pipes and drums beat strongly to life; the battalion was manoeuvred into column and the scarlet-clad ranks marched around the parade and away, to a lively quick-step, past the dangling corpse on the gallows, back to the cantonments.