Lieutenant of the Line

by Philip McCutchan

  Without waiting for the Chief of Staff, Dornoch repeated his words.

  ‘Oh. Oh, very well,’ Fettleworth said distantly, making a mental note that the Colonel of the 114th was a talkative and upstartish fellow like so many of the damn clansmen. Disagreeably, he rode down the line of the 114th Highlanders. He spoke to none of them; he was too put out. He glared at the Scots. Kilts and sporrans and skean dhus, coloured wool stockings when ordinary soldiers wore trousers—ridiculous! Messy and fussy. Fettleworth found fault endlessly, addressing not the Colonel or his adjutant, but his own Chief of Staff, with his querulous complaints. These complaints, which Lord Dornoch had heard perfectly well, would now be passed time-wastingly down the chain of command until they reached him once again in very official form. Dornoch smiled to himself ; they would not be acted upon. None of them were genuine and he had much more weighty matters on his mind. He could easily put General Fettleworth in his place at some suitable time; there were solid advantages in having a seat in the House of Lords, and Dornoch, who would never in fact have dreamed of abusing his privileges to the extent of using them for his own ends, was regretful that the army was moving away from aristocracy. He saw many dangers ahead; when Colonels of regiments were no longer men of private wealth or import, they would need to be much more attentive to the whims of men like Fettleworth. Dornoch, proud of his regiment as he was, was not dependent on the army for his livelihood; in that lay much strength, and the strength was used on behalf of his men. He was a very effective buffer between them and the more peculiar manifestations of incompetence in the high command. Dornoch’s mind went back to those more weighty matters that were absorbing his attention. Trouble was undoubtedly stirring along the Frontier. His own Munshi Sahib had spoken to him privately, indicating that not all was well with the British Raj, and mourning the almost unmentionable fact that his own youngest son was one of those who wished to see the end come for British India. That had shaken Lord Dornoch considerably. If the venerable old regimental Munshi was unable to impart his loyalty to his own son, then things were coming to a sorry state indeed. And reports had reached Murree, as it now appeared, that some threat was developing to Fort Gazai near Chitral city—a threat which not even the astute and devious Political Officers fully understood the reasons for. There were British women and children in Fort Gazai and only a comparatively small garrison; and it seemed likely that the 114th would soon find themselves marching north to their relief, along with most of the Peshawar garrison (and on that march it would matter to no one except, presumably, General Fettleworth if a sporran was hanging crooked here, or a kilt-pin was wrongly angled there, or a highlander’s buttocks leered at the man behind him because of an overshort kilt). It might be some while before this present spectacle of military power would be repeated in the formal surroundings of Peshawar; Peshawar could soon be an empty place, with all its sons away. Dornoch, moving slowly on his horse behind General Fettleworth, looked out at the regimental colours with their battle honours, at the guidons of the cavalry squadrons fluttering from the lances above the gilded uniforms and the magnificent shabraques of the horses, at the massed guns of the artillery, the colourful native troops, the support corps—Engineers, medical columns, S. and T. Signals. It was really a most imposing array, but privately Lord Dornoch doubted if it would deter the Empire’s foes from their set courses. The tribes were not like that, in his experience. They already knew the strength of British India; they were not fools! They did not back down under such arrogant displays of the mailed fist. Their leaders worked in other ways—largely with talk, talk that inflamed the warriors and emboldened them. No, they were not fools...thinking of fools, Dornoch thought again of the thick-backed figure in front of him, dumped solid on his horse as though nothing would prise him loose. Fettleworth was a fool, all right. Brave enough—he’d fought in the Ambela campaign of ‘63 as an ensign, and with distinction so it was said. He. had been among the earliest officers to be awarded the Distinguished Service Order on its institution in 1886. And in today’s army there were not so many men left with, for instance, the Abyssinia 1867-8 Medal. The holders were either dead, or retired into a doddery old age—or, of course, were generals...a clean sweep was needed. Fettleworth was years and years out of date, even stood out among his contemporaries on that score, which was a feat in itself. Fettleworth had a fetish, not entirely uncommon among the senior officers of his younger days : infantry and cavalry won all the battles, all on their own. Guns were an interruption—like surgery to the physician, they were a last resort and their indiscriminate use reflected upon the tactical skill of the General Officer Commanding. Dornoch had no quarrel with Fettleworth’s love of infantry, of course; but he did feel a shade more confident of winning his battles if the artillery were somewhere at hand, even though they undeniably had an unnerving propensity on occasions to lay their guns on the wrong target—which was one of the points Fettleworth was in the habit of making, Dornoch remembered. By the same token, however, it had not been unknown for a battalion of infantry to be directed by the high command to attack the wrong hill, or fort, or troop concentration...Dornoch hoped that day, as finally he saluted his Divisional Commander’s frosty face when the procession left the Highland ranks, that not too many mistakes would be made in the campaign that he felt certain lay before them. When the whole review was over and the men had marched proudly and with a crash of martial music back to cantonments, Dornoch called a conference of his company commanders. Major Hay, second-in-command, and Black, were also present, as were Surgeon Major Gorton and the Quartermaster, Lieutenant MacCrum, along with Mr. Cunningham, Regimental Sergeant-Major.

  ‘I think it all went off well enough,’ Dornoch said with a touch of weariness.

  ‘Apart from the complaints, Colonel.’

  Dornoch glanced at the speaker, who was Black. ‘Oh, I’ll not let the complaints worry me,’ he said. ‘I had none! The turn-out of the men was a credit to all of you, gentlemen.’

  There was a murmur of thanks. Dornoch went on, ‘I’ve called you here to tell you one thing: I want the battalion brought to instant readiness to march.’

  Black lifted an eyebrow. ‘This is the General’s wish, Colonel?’

  ‘No, it isn’t, Andrew, it’s mine.’ Dornoch’s tone was brisk. ‘But it’ll very soon be followed up by our General’s wish as well, believe me. The Frontier’s not healthy—we all know that. Without any positive order having been received, or even a hint of an order, I’m expecting to be told to march quite soon, gentlemen. Call it intuition...no, it’s more than that. If I may say so, it’s an intelligent appraisal of a fairly obvious situation.’

  ‘In that case,’ the adjutant observed, ‘I’m really somewhat surprised the General has not already given the necessary order.’

  Dornoch lifted an eyebrow. ‘Are you?’ he asked innocently. ‘I really can’t say I am.’ He turned away towards a window overlooking the Royal Strathspeys’ parade ground. Orders were being shouted; a defaulters’ squad was being put through it by a drill-sergeant. Full kit, full packs, under a blinding sun. There was something childish about it. Dornoch turned away again, and faced his officers. ‘I want full sick and light duty lists,’ he said. ‘I want to be informed each time the lists alter—at once. I want all stores, weapons, ammunition, horses and pack animals made ready as soon as possible, boots inspected, active service kit brought up to date—but you all know what you have to do without my telling you, gentlemen. Tomorrow morning a full training programme will be put into effect, and it’s the details of that I want to discuss with you. You especially, of course, Andrew, and you, Sarn’t-Major. There’s one other thing. Social life will have to go hang for the time being. I think you’ll all understand. All officers will be required for duty continuously until further orders. Andrew, when is young Ogilvie due back from patrol?’

  Black screwed up his face in thought. ‘In four days’ time, Colonel, at the latest.’

  ‘I-I’m…’ Dornoch frowned. ‘I hope h
e gets back before things blow up in our faces, Andrew. If the Frontier rises, he’s not going to be at all well placed…’

  ***

  In the fissure, Ogilvie’s nerves were at full stretch ; Barr seemed to have forgotten his wish to break out by now, but Ogilvie found him of little help, and was angered by the way his Colour-Sergeant spoke to the men. Blasphemies were always on his lips, and every man in his turn became a bloody bastard. If this went on, someone was going to be goaded into answering back, possibly even into striking Barr; upon which it would be Ogilvie’s duty to have the man concerned put on a charge as soon as they reached cantonments. And then, if Black had anything to do with it, the extenuating circumstances which Ogilvie would plead on the man’s behalf would have but little effect upon the punishment. Discipline, especially in the field, must be upheld. This was true, and proper enough also. Ogilvie felt his own shortcomings keenly; he should be able to deal effectively with. Barr. The trouble was, he couldn’t do so in the men’s hearing, and was physically prevented from doing so out of it. But an officer should by his bearing and his tone and the exercise of his personality be able to control an N.C.O. The impossibility of the situation weighed upon him, the more so in the tenseness of waiting for the enemy to strike again. His thoughts were turning in upon themselves.

  In the end he was driven to some sort of remonstrance, after Barr, currently off watch duty, had lost his temper with a private named Rennie and had called him, in insulting tones, a bitch’s whelp. Rennie, his face white, had clenched his fists; for a moment there was murder in his eyes, but he controlled himself; Ogilvie didn’t know how he’d done it, but was thoroughly relieved. And he realized the time had come for a heart-to-heart talk with Barr.

  From his place at the entry to the fissure he said quietly, ‘a word in your ear, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  ‘What is it, Mr. Ogilvie?’

  ‘Come to the entry, please, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  Slowly, watched by interested faces, Barr lounged across. In a low voice Ogilvie said, ‘I heard that, Colour-Sarn’t. That man very nearly struck you. I suppose you realize that?’

  ‘I realize that, yes. Thank you for your concern, Mr. Ogilvie.’

  Ogilvie disregarded the last sentence. He said, ‘then you must also realize the implications.’

  ‘That’s a long word, Mr. Ogilvie.’ Barr paused, then, with his hands on his hips and the smell of rum on his breath, he said insolently, ‘I realize the consequences to Private Rennie if he should strike a superior officer.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking so much of that, although it would be damned unfair, but of the consequences to yourself, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  ‘To me? Were you now? That’s very kind, Mr. Ogilvie. Very kind indeed.’ Barr’s tongue came out and he licked his lips. ‘Now, what would be the consequences to me, may I ask?’

  ‘Serious, Colour-Sarn’t. I would report on our return that you had deliberately provoked Rennie and that he had every moral justification for striking you.’

  ‘Moral!’ Barr sneered openly now, but pulled himself together as he saw the look on Ogilvie’s face. ‘Who would you make this report to, Mr. Ogilvie? To the adjutant?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Ogilvie answered. ‘Direct to the Colonel, Colour-Sarn’t. And if necessary—which it wouldn’t be—to Brigade.’

  There was a silence; the two men’s eyes held each other’s for the best part of a minute. It was a strain, but it was Barr who looked away first. He muttered, ‘So be it, then. Oh, I’ll do my best not to sully the dainty ears of these gentlemen with barrack-room talk! But they’re no’ men, if they can’t take that. It was different, in the Seaforths.’

  It was victory, and Ogilvie let the insolence pass. There was quite enough trouble around already; all he could do now was to watch Barr as carefully as he watched for the enemy, and try to stop anything else developing. And in the meantime he hoped the men, who must have taken in the sense of all he had been saying even if they hadn’t caught all the words, would have the common sense not to show any consequent disrespect towards the Colour-Sergeant. Apart from the immediate difficulties that would ensue from that, it would lead, as so many things could, to a black mark for an officer who had reprimanded a senior N.C.O. in the men’s presence. There was no end to the permutations of error. But soon after this episode domestic details passed right out of Ogilvie’s mind, for, at long last, the enemy showed himself.

  The first intimation came with a strange, still distant sound, as of enormous feet trampling on undergrowth and stunted trees, and then the rattle of equipment and the squeal of what sounded like oil-starved wheels. Ogilvie, on watch still, hastily awoke such men as were sleeping and called Barr to his side. ‘What is it?’ Barr asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Just listen.’

  Both men listened. Barr said, ‘elephants.’

  Then, a few minutes later, they were able to see that he was right. Some two hundred yards away and coming along the valley from the right, was an elephant. As the animal plodded on, they saw the gun coming on behind. Beside the animal, a small crowd of tribesmen came along warily while a mahout sat behind the elephant’s ears.

  ‘So that’s it!’ Barr said. ‘I told you, you should have got us out before this. Man, they’re going to send a shell into the fissure and we’ll all be roasted!’

  Ogilvie didn’t answer; he called to the men to stand ready with their rifles. As the elephant turned a broad bottom towards the fissure, and, behind it, the gun began to turn on to the bearing, he ordered the rifles to fire. There was a series of cracks and the natives dodged behind the gun shield; the elephant angrily waved its tail. Then Ogilvie saw the tall, white-haired figure in its dark blue artillery tunic. Barr saw him as well and let out a string of oaths. Instinctively, as the old man bent towards the gun, he and Ogilvie pressed back from the entry; men fell away behind them. Then a surprising thing happened. They heard an explosion some little way off—a big one, but no shell-burst followed it. Ogilvie turned back to the entry and looked out; he saw the hill men running in disorder and the shattered remains of the gun trundling away down the valley in rear of the terrified elephant, which was squealing like a stuck pig, trumpeting madly with its trunk lifted high above its ears; and, coming towards the fissure at a speed dangerous for his age, the white-haired old man.

  Barr spoke from behind Ogilvie. ‘I’m going to get the bugger,’ he said, and lifted his rifle.

  Ogilvie snapped, ‘leave him—can’t you see, he’s coming to join us?’

  ‘The bugger’s going to get a bullet smack between the eyes no matter what you—’ Barr broke off; he was livid. Ogilvie had knocked his rifle up with a sudden movement of his fist. As the bullet whistled away into emptiness the old man reached the fissure. He pushed his way inside, panting and almost spent. But with a colossal effort he dragged himself upright, slammed a veined hand to the salute, and said, ‘Sir! Sergeant Makepeace, Royal Regiment of Artillery...reporting after twenty-eight years’ absence from duty. Sir!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The old sergeant had set a charge and, as he put it himself, ‘blown up the bloody gun, praise God’. They got his story later. Sergeant Makepeace had been captured twenty-eight years before, along with his wife Ellen and their three young children, two girls and a boy, during a raid on Peshawar itself. The family had been carried off into the hills and thence through the Bolan Pass into Afghanistan and incarcerated in the fort at Kabul. It appeared that one of the objectives of the raid had been Makepeace himself, who had had a brilliant reputation as an artilleryman and gunlayer. He’d had no equal, it had been said, in all the army in India in those days, and the hill tribes had known of this reputation and wanted him so that he could lay their guns for them, against the British.

  Stoutly enough, naturally enough, Makepeace had refused.

  He had gone on refusing, (he said) even when they threatened to murder his wife and children. He had even refused when first of all they flogged himself, and then his wife. �
��Ellen died under the lash, Sir,’ he said simply. ‘They flogged her naked, Sir, before a crowd of filthy natives, Sir, and then, praise be to God, she died. And after that, Sir, I still refused, and I went on refusing, although they flogged me again and again—me, a sergeant in Her Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Artillery—and I refused until they took my son and spitted him upon a lance, and let him die slowly in the sun. To my shame, Sir, I could take no more, and knew I must now consider my young daughters. So I laid the guns, Sir, upon a British column under General Horace Fisher...the column consisting of the 32nd and 46th Foot, the 9th Lancers, and the 33rd Bengal Infantry as I recall. Sir, I laid the guns badly, though such went against my nature, and the shells landed very far behind the column. So they pegged my younger daughter out in the courtyard with tent pegs, and they smothered her body with honey, and they allowed the ants to consume her flesh. She died in torment, Sir, as I was made to watch. When next called upon to fire, Sir, I fired, and I fired truly. After that, they kept my elder girl alive to encourage me...until she died of the cholera, and I was spared, though I wished every moment to die too.’

  Ogilvie found he was trembling as this terrible story was told. In a hushed voice he asked, ‘and after that?’

  Sergeant Makepeace said, ‘I have continued to fire when ordered, Sir, though hoping always to be able to re-join my comrades. That is why I always wear my uniform, Sir. I hoped always to be seen, and rescued, though I knew what must happen when I re-joined my battery. I fooled the natives, Sir. They are simple enough. I gave them to understand, Sir, that I was lost without my tunic...that I must always wear it in action. But until now, no one has noticed my presence, either in Afghanistan or in India. I have only recently been brought back into India,’ he added.