“Fifteen of us in the platoon, and me. Eight and eight. Two platoons means four sentries, standing their posts, in pairs, not on your own. When I ain’t on duty, then some of the time, I’ll be sleeping. But not all of it. Sergeant Schultz won’t be sleeping – ‘e don’t know ‘ow to! No mercy for the man who puts all of our necks at risk. I means that!”
It could be a dangerous country; it could be the best place on Earth. Quite often, India was both.
In barracks the private soldier lived in luxury – compared to England, that was. The pay that was the merest pittance in England was four and five times as much as the typical Indian saw, and enabled them to buy drink and women, both of far higher quality than could be found in England. They could afford to buy a cotton shirt for their off-duty time, and to purchase fruit, if they were so strange as to want it. The food was edible – this curry stuff disguising even the taste of ration beef; there was rice and vegetables as well, for those who would chance such alien foods. Very often there was fresh goat or mutton; old and tough, but almost unknown to them in England.
They had servants who lived off the left-overs from their rations and kept up their uniforms and shaved them and provided them with fresh water and made their beds and washed their laundry. The soldiers had nothing to do, other than look after their muskets, which were forbidden to the servants.
Rarely, they had to fight – but not too often, and there was always the chance of loot then.
The other side of the coin was the fevers that were endemic. No man avoided the recurrent fever – that was almost an annual certainty. Occasionally, as they had just experienced, the cholera or the typhoid came through. Very rarely, the plague, the true Black Death, paid them a visit.
The recurrent fever only killed the drinkers and the very unlucky since the benefits of Peruvian Bark had been discovered; a few got a sudden blinding headache and dropped dead; more started pissing black, Blackwater Fever, and they always died, but the great bulk survived the bad airs and discovered that the second time was much less severe.
Both cholera and typhoid could be deadly. The plague wiped out whole battalions, not a man surviving, so they said.
But it was only the unlucky who went down. A typical regiment would bring eight hundred men to India and take six hundred home again, and some of those who stayed would have transferred to other battalions, or found a post with the East India Company – referred to informally as John Company - if they were sergeants or officers. Those who went back to England might have a few pounds tucked away in their knapsacks, if they had been lucky with loot and had not drunk it all away.
Billy had decided that he was going to be lucky; he had not wanted to join up, or ever to leave Bishop’s Waltham in all of his life, but now that he had, he might take some gain from it.
The first step was to live – and he had survived the cholera.
Next was to be known as a good soldier, and he was going to be the best corporal in the company, and eventually make sergeant, and then he would see what might happen next. Nothing was impossible, especially overseas and in time of war.
He stayed awake for half of every night on the march, getting a couple of hours of sleep in the afternoons. The men came to know that every night, unfailingly, he would appear at their sentry post, speak a quiet word and then wander off into the dark. Perhaps he would remain close to hand watching them, they thought, or he might simply check that the rest of the men were sleeping where they should be. It was often the case that when they were close to a village some of the men would slope off, looking for a drink or other entertainment. Billy’s platoon chose not to do that, once they realised that he was watching them.
On their fourth night on the road there was a commotion, screaming and then scattered musket shots from the rear of the battalion. Billy bellowed ‘Stand to’ and then put the platoon into a double rank and called the time as they loaded their Brown Besses. They were trained to load and fire blindfold, just as fast as in full daylight, and had no difficulty in making ready. It was a useful skill, because it meant that they did not have to look at what they were doing, could be alert and watching around them as they made the reload.
They waited and nothing happened. Ten minutes and Sergeant Schultz called them to make up their cooking fire, cast some light on their immediate area and make a bucket of tea while they were at it. An hour and the word was whispered down the line that bandits had got into E Company.
Next morning they halted after less than ten miles while Major Mandeville presided over a drumhead court-martial.
They paraded on three sides of a hollow square and listened to proceedings, heard that the company had only put out two sentries, one to either side, and that one had been killed while the other had been found by his sergeant rousing from sleep and smelling of arrack. The Company Commander, Lieutenant Woodforde, had been asleep as well, had had to be shaken awake when the screaming started. Eight men had been killed, throats slit, and a stand of muskets had been taken, none of them recovered. The sleeping sentry was on trial, was found guilty and was sentenced to hang on confirmation by the general. Sergeant Schultz listened and quietly commented that was unusual – a drumhead court could do without confirmation.
“Only reason for it is to get it on paper that Woodforde was too drunk to be useful while on active service. They’ll flog the sentry, but the General will break Woodforde. The Major has had enough of him, that’s what this is all about! He can’t organise a Court of Inquiry, so he’s used a court-martial instead. The result will be the same.”
Billy was pleased to have it explained to him. He had not fully understood the rigmarole and, like almost all the company, had expected to see the sentry dangling by now.
“What will they give him, the sentry, Sergeant Schultz?”
“Depends, Billy. They’ll have a quiet ferret about and try to find out exactly what was happening in the company. Might be he was a defaulter, put on sentry go every night until he was so tired he couldn’t stay on his feet. Might be he was slacking off because he knew Woodforde was on the bottle and wouldn’t ever catch him. But, and a very big but, he had been on the booze himself. Which, if it be so, leads a man to ask, where was the sergeant and his corporal, who cannot have seen or smelled him to be drinking at his post?”
“Good question. Where were they?”
“Not a word said, and on the quiet, Billy, they wasn’t there – they was in the village and getting their ends away!”
“They’ll break them for that, won’t they?”
“Just as soon as Major Mandeville finds out, they’ll be private soldiers, and with sore backs besides!”
That was inevitable, Billy thought, and not entirely a bad thing, either.
“Floggings all round as soon as we gets into garrison, I reckon, Sergeant Schultz.”
“So do I, Billy, so do I. So keep your nose clean and look after your platoon – because it can get catching – every company officer wanting to show they’re alert and awake and making examples out of nothing.”
Billy passed the word, explaining just what was about, and his platoon, already within reason smart, made a mental promise to improve standards, to protect themselves and him.
The word came to remain where they were, to get as much sleep as they could during the day.
They marched out that evening, reversing their course in the dark, ending up a mile outside the village where they had been attacked early in the morning.
“Sleep for two hours, odd men. Even numbers will stay awake and get some kip later this afternoon, if you’re lucky.”
They stood to, loaded in silence, listened to whispered orders and the Grenadier Company spread out into a thin line, in pairs, one platoon to loop round to the left of the village, Billy and his men to the right. Half an hour before dawn the battalion advanced on the village, as silently as more than two hundred and fifty men could manage.
Billy had brought his platoon almost to the rear of the village. A thorn enclo
sure where the goats and buffaloes were kept overnight prevented them from making a full encirclement, but equally would make flight from the village more difficult. There was a shallow, dry season river to their rear, no obstacle in itself but making an easy line to hold.
The first cooking fires were stirred up as the women woke and started their days, always busy before the men so as to provide morning food for their masters. They spotted the advancing battalion and began to scream. Men reacted, came running out of their huts. Some placed themselves in front of their womenfolk; more began to run; some dived back inside and came out carrying muskets and spears.
“Ready!” Billy called, cradling his own musket but not himself bringing it to the shoulder. “Pick out armed men.”
Five or six of the villagers had come together, started to run away from the village, towards the platoon, looking back at the advancing battalion. All were armed. Billy waited till they were about twenty yards distant.
“Fire!”
All five went down.
“Reload.”
He counted off twenty seconds.
“Fix bayonets.”
They waited a few minutes until dawn, the sun suddenly rising, an almost instantaneous transition from night to bright morning which was the way days started in India – very peculiar to a man used to the slow morning twilight of England.
Sergeant Schultz appeared at the edge of the village and waved them in.
Some of the huts were on fire.
“Found our muskets in them, and a few of others of our pattern. Major ordered them burned out, and the men are swinging already, look.”
There were trees to the other side of the village, decorated with hanging men, more wriggling figures being pulled up as Billy watched.
“That’ll teach the bastards not to cut our men’s throats in the night, Sergeant Schultz.”
“Maybe, Billy. I don’t reckon they’ll remember the lesson very long, though.”
Soldiers were still searching the remaining huts; there was the occasional stifled scream.
“None of our business, Billy. Keep out of it!”
Billy was fairly sure what was happening to the women in those huts; he did not want to know. The officers must be aware as well; he supposed they thought they were punishing the village.
The battalion’s camp followers came up. They had been ordered to stay clear until the village was taken. Major Mandeville’s bearer was running towards them, giving instructions to the more official servants in the baggage train. A few minutes and the goats and buffaloes from the paddock to the rear were brought out on tethers, added to the battalion’s train.
“That will hurt the men of the village a damned sight more, Billy! Most of them don’t care what happens to women – there’s always plenty more where they came from! But losing the animals will make them poor for the rest of their lives.”
“They ain’t going to like us for that, Sergeant Schultz.”
“Sod ‘em! They’ll think twice before cutting our men’s throats in the dark again.”
The camp followers scattered through the village, rousting out the hidden grain stores, concealed in large clay pots under the floors of the huts, knowing where to look, and stealing anything they fancied – though there was very little to take. Billy was fairly sure he saw children being dragged away from some of the huts, pointed them out to Sergeant Schultz.
“Cuts two ways, Billy. Some of them will be sold when we get back to Bombay. The brothels will always buy in apprentices, you might say. Some will end up as sons and, less likely, daughters to people who ain’t got little ‘uns of their own, especially since the cholera. Odds are, they’ll starve if they stays here. None of our business.”
“Is anything our business, Sergeant Schultz?”
“Nope! Soldiers keep their noses clean and their mouths shut, Billy. Maybe you don’t like what you see, but you don’t gob off about it. Not ever!”
Billy heard the unspoken words – silent soldiers kept their backs unscarred as well.
They remained at the village until it was time to march in the cooler hours before dawn. It was a poor place with very little in the way of alcohol and the battalion left in good order, content that they had pacified a little corner of rebellion.
New orders reached them and they turned off the tracks that led towards Poona and took a wide circle back towards the north and then west to Bombay, four weeks on the march and doing no more than show the flag in a dozen of large towns and hundreds of villages.
“The cholera ain’t killed us off, Billy. That’s all this is about. The Lieutenant said that the word had spread through the countryside that the cholera had been sent from the Heavens to destroy John Company and all of its soldiers. We’re just showing them they’re wrong – it’ll take more than some bloody pox to get us out of India!”
Back into their barracks and the delayed matter of discipline was attended to.
The sleeping sentry had marched under open arrest, his death sentence still suspended, as the merry joke ran. He was little more than a drooping, shambling wreck; waiting every day for a final decision had broken him.
Lieutenant Woodforde was in far better case; he had assumed that all was well, no formal action having been taken against him.
The battalion was called to parade and the General inspected them, congratulating them on their good order and making a very brief speech in which he assured them that the whole country was pacified, to a great part because of their quick and effective action against the rebels and bandits who had dared rise against their kindly masters. He then turned to the matter of the unfortunate misconduct of the few bad apples to be found in the ranks of even the very best of regiments.
“Private Blackthorpe, found drunk and sleeping on sentry-go, his negligence resulting in the deaths of eight of his comrades. I cannot find mercy for such an offence. Death by hanging is confirmed.”
The General waited while the battalion absorbed his statement; they had thought that after so long a delay a hanging was impossible, would be no more than cruelty.
“The Governor has, however, called for mercy, the sentence having been passed nearly five weeks ago. In such a circumstance, Private Blackthorpe will not hang. He will receive the lesser punishment of one hundred lashes.”
There was a just audible grunt of acceptance, not a comment – that would be unlawful – but a sound of agreement. They did not think that Blackthorpe would survive even a hundred in his state of decay, but that was his problem – they had no concern for a man who drank and let down his sleeping mates. It was simply a matter of what was, and was not, the right thing to do. One hundred lashes was, as well, a very lenient sentence – they had expected five, would not have been surprised at a thousand. All in all, they considered, Blackthorpe had, in some ways, been let off lightly.
The General nodded to Major Mandeville, who stepped forward and called an unusual command.
“Lieutenant Woodforde, front and centre!”
The Lieutenant looked about in puzzlement and then left his place with his company and marched to stand before the General. He wondered if he was to be promoted, made captain as he was commanding a company.
Major Mandeville returned to a position at the General’s shoulder, came to attention and spoke.
“Lieutenant Woodforde, sir.”
“Thank you, Major Mandeville. Lieutenant Woodforde, you were drunk on duty on the night of the attack upon your company. You set two sentries, singly, when the order had been given for two pairs. You permitted a sentry to drink and fall asleep at his post. You neglected your duty and set every officer and man at risk. You are dismissed the battalion, sir. You have the right to ask for court-martial, sir, and be sure that I shall grant it.”
The threat was obvious; a court-martial would hear capital charges, and very few officers would be inclined to go against the openly expressed opinion of their General. If Woodforde demanded a court, he would be calling for a firing-squad.
&
nbsp; Woodforde bowed his head, was left at a loss, did not know what he must do next.
Major Mandeville stood forward.
“Do you accept the General’s command, sir?”
Woodforde muttered that he did.
“Very good. You are dismissed and must leave this barracks immediately. Your servant will deliver your possessions to you outside the gate. Sergeant Schultz! A corporal and squad to escort this outsider from the camp.”
Sergeant Schultz stamped to attention, performed his duty, inventing it as he went along – good sergeants were never surprised.
“Corporal Bacon and four, stand forward!”
Billy quickly ordered the four nearest of his platoon to move, took a pace to his front and stamped to attention. ‘If in doubt, stand to attention’ – a rule that never failed.
Sergeant Schultz whispered, ‘follow me’, led them to the front.
“Corporal Bacon, escort the prisoner!”
One man to either side, two behind, Billy a pace in front.
“Prisoner and escort will march.”
Sergeant Schultz led them to the gate; a swift and almost unseen knee to the backside and Lieutenant Woodforde stumbled forward, made the pace and automatically did as he was told. They marched two paces out of the gate and stepped back, forming a line across it, symbolically banning him from entry; then they about-faced and left him.
An hour later and his servants came out and deposited his baggage at his feet and then returned to the camp, following instructions and the promise of work with another master.
Billy watched from the cover of a window in the barracks room.
“What do he do now, Sergeant Schultz?”
“Buggered if I know, Billy! I’ve never seen the like. It ain’t in the book! You can’t do it this way, but I ain’t going to tell the General that.”
Billy Bacon and the Soldier Slaves (Colonial Warrior Series, Book 1) Page 4