The Monsoon gave Dhoondiah the better chance of the victory he needed; the English artillery would find it impossible to march through the mudbaths of the tracks and their cavalry would be almost unable to cross the expanses of flooded field and rice-padi. Only the infantry had a chance of catching up with him, and he might be able to overwhelm an unsupported force.
The Brigadier was full of optimism – he could see an opportunity for his people to shine.
“You will take half of the battalion out to the village that Dhoondiah destroyed, Major Pearce. It has a wall that may still be standing. The despatch says that he attacked overnight, the gates opened to him by sympathisers, or by his own people who had infiltrated during the day. You will be observed and your numbers will be counted. You may assume that the word will be passed and that you will be assaulted within a short space of time. Our people will be watching and send to us and we shall bring mounted troops from the fort, which is some ten miles distant.”
If all went to plan then Dhoondiah would be caught between the manned wall and the oncoming cavalry. At minimum that could be expected to break most of his force; with luck it would kill him as well.
“Do we have an indication of his numbers, sir?”
“At most five thousand, Major Pearce.”
His five companies had been made up to a total of three hundred.
“Yes, sir. Three days march to the fort, I believe. Made road for the whole distance so it should not be too great a hardship and there are barracks huts maintained at each stopping point so the men can sleep dry. Then the ten miles to the village – three hours, commencing two hours before first light. Best done in the dry morning so that the men can march loaded.”
Colonel Horncastle was not happy with the orders he had been given; too much could go wrong. If they were caught in column on the road then defence might be impossible.
“Mules, sir, or bullock carts?”
“Carts, I fear, Major Pearce. The mules are kept up in the hills at this time of year – much healthier for them.”
Bullocks were much slower and would hold the whole column to their pace of two miles an hour, allowing for their frequent halts. They had the advantage that they could carry much more in the way of supplies; they were also far more useful for transporting the wounded and sick.
“What allowance do you propose, sir?”
“Five days of powder and ball per man, Major Pearce – three hundred rounds. Normal armourer’s stock. Rations for fourteen days. Surgeon in his cart as well.”
“Powder to be kept dry, of course, sir.”
“Oilskin wrapping to each barrel, a thick and new tarpaulin to the carts, Major Pearce.”
“More than that cannot be done, of course, sir. A pity we have none of the little four pounder galloper guns, sir. They could come in useful in these circumstances.”
“Requested more than once in the past, Major Pearce – but guns are the perquisite of the Artillery and are not to be placed in the hands of mere infantry of the line.”
Septimus called the company officers together, informed them of the orders and added his personal instructions.
“Sergeants to be strictly ordered to search packs for alcohol, as is normal practice. Water bottles to be checked. Boots to be examined as well – we want no flapping soles halfway through the march.”
The men would wear their boots long after they should have been replaced, not wishing to be charged for them if the Quartermaster felt they had not looked after them properly.
“Officers’ baggage to be kept to the bare minimum. If you possess a mule you may bring just one. Otherwise the same weight to the baggage carts. No mess accoutrements, at all!”
“But, sir, how are we to jolly well eat?”
“Ration beef and biscuit, Lieutenant Taft, may be eaten from a wooden platter, just as the men do. We expect to be no more than fourteen days out on this occasion and we may all survive two weeks of hard commons.”
“Tents, sir?”
“If you possess a tent, then you may bring it. The men will be using the barracks huts to be found on the road, and there will be one available to the officers.”
They paraded three hours before dawn, the five companies in their lines, officers mounted in front of them, baggage carts in an unruly mob to the rear, a mass of several hundreds of camp followers even further back.
Colonel Horncastle shook his head at Septimus.
“They cannot be stopped, Major Pearce. The hangers-on will always follow. Drive them away and they will merely tag on at a greater distance.”
“God damn it to Hell, sir! Will you look at D Company!”
Captain Maxwell sat his horse to the front, five mules and their Indian grooms behind him, loaded high with his personal comforts. He was outraged to be queried, in front of the men as well.
“I took it that your instructions applied to subalterns only, Major Pearce. One can hardly expect more senior officers to pig it like the rabble!”
“One mule only, Captain Maxwell. We march in five minutes, sir.”
“Ridiculous, man! You do not understand India, sir!”
“Colonel!”
Horncastle eased forward, unhappy that he must be seen to take action in front of half of the battalion. This sort of thing should be done behind closed doors.
“Captain Maxwell! You march three minutes from now, accompanied by a single mule. Failure to comply with this order will result in your arrest and a charge of mutiny in the field; I will testify before the court myself in that event. I would add that if your other mules are to be discovered in the baggage train tonight, then Major Pearce will have my absolute order to place you in irons and send you back to barracks.”
An officer charged with mutiny might well be shot, would certainly be broken; the testimony of his colonel would virtually guarantee a guilty verdict. Maxwell snapped the orders to his grooms, took position with his company followed by a single mule. He heard the whispers behind him, ignored his sergeants as they called for silence in the ranks. He knew they were laughing at him. He would make them regret it!
The march was a shambles. Septimus said as much to Carter, his senior captain, a man into his thirties and lacking the wherewithal to purchase a majority, as they ate their iron rations.
“Not at all, sir, with respect. The men are together and we had almost no straggling today. Fewer than a dozen put into the sick carts and them all found to be starting a fever. The companies marched in good order and could have formed square within a very few minutes if the need had arisen.”
“We would have lost the baggage carts if there had been an escalade, Captain Carter.”
“Probably, sir. The drivers have their old flintlocks and spears, could have defended themselves for a few minutes.”
“The followers would be butchered.”
“None of our business, sir. They take their lives in their own hands when they choose to tag along at the tail.”
Septimus had yet to comprehend the absolute lack of value of Indian lives – the ryots, the peasantry, existed in uncounted swarms and a few more or less mattered not at all in the eyes of all those more fortunately placed.
“What sort of order are the carts in, Captain Carter?”
“None, sir. The first man to wake up and start moving leads the procession, irrespective of his load.”
“Let us identify the carts carrying powder and ball and place them between C and D companies. I have no wish to lose those reserves.”
There was no attack made in their four days on the march and the general opinion was that the new major was a worrying old woman, looking for imaginary trouble.
They reached the raided and nearly deserted village and found more than enough of real problems to be solved.
The surviving inhabitants – whose number was not known – had fled, leaving the bodies of the unfortunate behind. They were ten days unburied when the troops arrived. The vultures and dogs and foxes and rats had mostly left, but the maggo
ts remained in their millions.
“Get a pit dug and the bodies dumped in it. We cannot stay in the village with them remaining.”
The camp followers would dig, but they refused to touch the bodies – they would pollute them. It was a matter of caste and could not be argued, nor could an extra wage buy them.
Each company was assigned a sector of the village and was ordered to clean it. There was no choice, the men accepting that they could not stay inside the walls otherwise and not wishing to camp exposed in the fields outside.
“Double rum rations tonight, Captain Carter. To be issued after the job is done.”
“What is to be done about the huts, sir?”
“Burn them. I have no wish to step inside them, have you?”
The wall was made of mud over a stone core. It was almost four feet thick and would stop a musket ball and, importantly, it was not flammable.
Most of the timber from the huts was rescued for camp fires, only the infested thatch being burned. There were a few bodies inside, but they were cremated by default.
“I want a firing step cut into the wall, Captain Carter, and loopholes by the gate.”
The men set to work, swinging the pickaxes and shovels carried on the ox carts.
The gate itself was another problem.
“Eighteen feet wide, sir, and made of old, flimsy, dry timbers. Get a dozen strong men together and they could blow the bloody thing down!”
The obvious solution was to dig a trench behind the gate and man it with half a company. The Monsoon had much to say about that answer.
“Dig a ditch across the gap, Captain Carter, throwing the earth up against the gate. The same outside. It will slow them at least. Breastworks inside, using some of the timber from the huts. Man them at all times.”
The village was not large, but it had three hundred yards of wall around it.
“Indefensible – too long for the men we have here, but we have no means of shortening it.”
Septimus paced the wall, discovered the village to be oval rather than round, narrowing at the slightly higher end, a matter of some ten feet up and about twelve yards less in breadth.
“Perhaps one hundred and fifty yards of wall and forty yards across, and high enough to drain away. A Company to cut a trench here, Captain Carter, leaving drains where necessary, and with a fire step and the earth banked over stakes. As deep and as high and wide as can be in the time given us. Oxen and carts inside this redoubt – as many as possible and all rations and reserves of powder and ball.”
Carter and all of the other officers thought it unnecessary, a waste of effort, but orders were to be obeyed, in the field especially.
By the time the rains came in the late afternoon they had the beginnings of a strongpoint and the men had cobbled together shelters for themselves, stretching tarpaulins between ox carts to make rough tents.
Septimus called the officers together before night fell.
“Each Company to sleep half and half, four hours on and off. Of the four platoons awake, two are to stand to the wall for two hours, two to sit about their fires, turn and turn about. Two officers to be awake at all times: captain and ensign together, lieutenants to form the other pair. The routine to be maintained in daylight hours until we are attacked or relieved from duty.”
“Damned nonsense, if you ask me, sir! There won’t be an attack, and if there was we can kill off a few darkies without any of this fuss!”
“Thank you for your opinion, Captain Maxwell. I am not, in fact, asking you anything, sir. I am telling you! Muskets will be loaded, as will your side-arms, gentlemen, or so I would recommend. Inspection tours will occur at intervals through the night. Thank you, gentlemen.”
The camp followers had crowded into the centre of the village and were making such shelters as they could and cooking the food they had brought with them.
“Who and what are they, Captain Carter?”
“Servants; washers and barbers for the men; whores and liquor-sellers; bum-boys for those who prefer them; petty thieves and assorted minor rogues and charlatans; native doctors; idlers and hangers-on. Many of them just happen to be there because they were walking this way and so were we. Camp followers just are, sir, a species unique to themselves.”
“You have learned all this in a year, Captain Carter?”
“No, sir. I did my seven with the Fusiliers and returned to England and then was able to buy my captaincy and chose the Hampshires because they were coming out, sir. As well, the commission sold at a discount – many officers unwilling to travel, sir.”
“Not lawful, surely, Captain Carter?”
“Few things are, sir, in my experience of the Army. I might well seek to transfer again, into the Company service when the Hampshires have done their seven.”
“It is a strange country, Captain Carter. I do not yet know whether I like it or hate it.”
“Neither do I, sir. I hope to find out one day.”
“Will they attack tonight, or at all, do you think?”
Carter shrugged; he had no crystal ball.
Dawn came and showed empty fields around them. A Company reported that they had heard horses during the night – possibly their slight elevation giving them an advantage in hearing. None of the others had anything to report.
Captain Maxwell made no attempt to hide his contempt – they were wasting their time, playing soldiers for the benefit of a wet-behind-the-ears young gentleman who thought he was another Marlborough. His comments were made loud enough to be heard, but not aimed directly at Septimus. Some of the officers looked uncomfortable; most sniggered.
There was a well in the village, and thanks to the Monsoon it contained water enough for them all, camp-followers included. The map, such as it was, showed a river two miles away in a broad, and probably flooded, valley.
Septimus could just see the trees that outlined the valley and were sufficient to hide a large force. He wanted to reconnoitre, dared not send a small party and would not risk a whole company.
Lieutenant Taft possessed a telescope, large and brass and more suited to the navy it was generally thought. He was a rich young man and owned many toys. He came to Septimus in the mid-afternoon heat and said he was sure he had picked up movement in the trees.
“Horses, sir, being led by syces, the local name for grooms, sir. Moved to another patch of grass, perhaps.”
“Thank you, Mr Taft. Keep a good look out, if you please. I must buy myself a telescope, it seems – a very useful accoutrement!”
Taft risked a smile – he was not used to praise.
“Pass the word, Mr Carter. If there is an enemy then he is delaying for the afternoon rains, I would imagine. If he has experienced our musketry in the past then he is waiting for reloading to become impossible in the downpour. Platoons will fire a single volley at thirty yards and then fix bayonets, readying themselves to retire to the strongpoint.”
“Camp-followers, sir?”
“Will not be permitted inside the strongpoint, Mr Carter. They would get in our way.”
It was the correct course, in military terms.
Carter walked the length of the wall, passed the word to each company commander. He had to wake Maxwell who was taking his habitual siesta and was more than normally ungracious at being stirred.
“More whining from the Old Woman? Tell the lieutenants, if you must, Carter!”
Maxwell’s senior sergeant was within hearing range and chose to walk round the whole company, warning them that if any fired at more than thirty paces without an order he would personally explain to him the error of his ways. He picked out his most reliable corporal, took him to one side.
“Pull your section back to the shelter by the cook fire and reload in the dry as soon as you have fired, Piper. If we run back to the cover of A Company then you hold back a bit, use the volley you’ve got where it’ll do some good.”
“I know where I’d use the bugger, Sarge!”
“So do I, but I don’t
want to know about it, or be told. Suppose you do, make good and sure nobody sees!”
The clouds built and men checked that they had oilskins over their priming, hoping it might give them a single shot.
“Movement, sir!”
Septimus looked across to the treeline, saw a swarm of men trotting forward, more and more appearing, a great mass, almost all on foot.
“Making the distance quickly while it’s still dry, I presume, Mr Carter. Easier than paddling through mud. They will wait just out of musket shot for the rain to give them cover.”
“And act as a threat the while, casting down the men’s spirits by their presence.”
They watched silently while the apparently disorganised mob formed a rough line at about a furlong from the wall.
“They don’t form up in ranks as we do, sir, but they can still fight. They are not simply casual brigands, sir. Each group is with a leader, like the old feudal barons was used to be, and fight at his order and for him. They will not run too easily.”
“Neither will we, Captain Carter.”
A band of rain swept across the field and the Indians shifted forward, the front ranks seeming reluctant, pushed by those behind them.
“They don’t fancy that first volley, sir. Can’t really blame ‘em, either!”
There was a shouted command and Maxwell brought his line to the ready.
“Hold fire!” Septimus bellowed. “Do not fire until they reach thirty yards.”
The rain grew heavier, the chance of a misfire growing with every second.
Septimus still held them, knowing that if only half of the muskets fired at thirty yards they would still do more damage than every one could at one hundred.
The Indians gave a great howl and ran at the wall. Maxwell ordered his men to shoot, far too early.
The other captains obeyed orders and held back while the attackers in front of Maxwell screeched their relief and increased the pace of their charge.
Raging Rajahs (Man of Conflict Series, Book 2) Page 10