Bugles at Dawn

by Charles Whiting

  TWO

  Sergeant Jones commenced with the remounts sent over to the new half squadron’s lines. The bandy-legged riding master, who could have been any age between forty and sixty, certainly knew his horseflesh. ‘You’ve got to watch ‘em all the time,’ he whispered to a half-amused John, nodding towards the sergeants who had brought the horses from the Remount Depot. ‘They’ll try to palm off any old nag on yer, if yer don’t. They’re corkscrews and screwdrivers the whole lot of ‘em!’ He indicated a big tough sergeant with the florid, good-humoured face of a drinking Irishman. ‘One-Eyed Reilly we call him.’

  ‘One-Eyed Reilly? But he’s got both his eyes!’

  ‘That he has. But once he palmed off a horse on a riding master which had one eye, riding it round and round the circle with its good eye showing. That’s the kind of men in that godless pack.’

  John grinned and told himself that the godless pack would have to get up very early in the morning to fool Sergeant Shadrach Elihu Jones; and he was right. Jones went to work with a will, despite the boiling morning. He examined the remounts’ teeth to detect their age, felt the carotid artery for the pulse rate, and vetted the legs for lumps and strains before riding each horse at a gallop, leaning far over the flying mane to listen for a whistle in the animal’s lungs or a roaring in the nostrils.

  In selecting the eighty-odd animals the new half squadron would need he rejected a good score of the remounts. Once he queried a mare, asking O’Reilly whether she was in foal.

  ‘On my honour as a free-born Irishman,’ One-Eyed Reilly boomed, ‘I do declare to God that that mare is a virgin, pure and wholesome as the driven snow, Sergeant Jones.’

  Jones tut-tutted at the use of God’s name but he accepted the big Irishman’s word, though the Welshman kept looking at the mare suspiciously as if he half expected one of the stallions might mount her the moment his back was turned.

  When they had the required number of horses John sent the sergeants on their way with a shilling to buy a pail of beer by way of a reward, leaving Jones, honour satisfied, but shaking his head at the thought of his fellow NCOs indulging in the demon drink. ‘Well, sir,’ he said finally, ‘we’ve got our remounts. Now we’d best be starting on the men.’

  They did so at dawn. John, Sergeant Jones and rissaldar Ram Gupta, a white-haired old cavalry veteran, trained their men in a fashion unheard of in India in those days. Ignoring the usual breaks for the midday heat, they kept at it, packing in a month’s training in a week.

  Jones in his shirtsleeves, cropped head bare despite the sun, stood for hours in the riding circle, exercising the budding cavalrymen and their mounts. With their feet tied under the slippery bellies of their horses and without saddles and reins, he rode the peasant boys — most of whom had never even seen a horse before they had enlisted — round and round until they began to feel confidence in their ability to master the strange animal. Then came the jumps, when they sprang over ever higher fences with their hands tied behind their backs, the reins hanging loose, using only their spurs to guide their mounts.

  John trained them in the elements of the manual of arms, using the ancient rissaldar to translate. He showed them how to use the straight British cavalry sword, making them grind the weapons to a razor sharp finish which was superior to the hatchet effect normally achieved by British cavalry. He spent hours training them in the use of the new Paget short carbine, which was again superior to the Eliott due to its small stock and the permanent, attached ramrod which could not be lost in the confusion of battle.

  As the days passed in hot succession, the three trainers packed in drill, the care of horses and a hundred and one other things that a cavalryman needed to know, making soldiers out of peasant boys who had fled the poverty of the villages for adventure — and loot!

  ‘Aye,’ Jones had commented one weary evening after they had finally stood down the exhausted men, ‘them black heathens are just as bad as our British soldiers when there’s a prospect of booty — especially when they have looked on the wine when it is red!’ He raised his grizzled head to the darkening sky, as if appealing to heaven itself. ‘What transgression has our poor Lord to suffer with his creation, mankind!’ Then he spotted one of his black recruits hurrying his sweating mount to the stable and roared in red-faced, artificial rage, ‘Will you walk that poor wet beast, you blistering black heathen! Samalo. Or I’ll take my whip to you, I swear I will, you Hindoo devil!’

  John grinned and Jones stumped back to his quarters calling down Welsh curses upon the head of the unfortunate trooper, the ‘poor Lord’ momentarily forgotten.

  But while he trained his new command, often falling into bed at night absolutely exhausted, John thought about Georgina. Since he had received his commission he had heard no more of her. Desperate for news of her, he managed to stay awake one evening and rode over to the Collector’s residence.

  But the majestic black butler said Georgina was not at home. Angry, John persisted until finally the Collector himself appeared at a window and frowned down at him in ponderous silence. Then John realized it was no use. No purpose would be served by irritating that important personage. He rode back to the fort, his mind in a whirl ...

  So the days and weeks passed in unrelenting work, with John being thrown more and more into the company of Rum and Fornication Jones. The sergeant was a mine of information on the Company’s soldiers and the handling of native troops.

  ‘You can’t flog one of them heathens, sir,’ he explained. ‘But yer white soldier, the John Company can sentence to a thousand lashes, if they like.’ And he pulled off his shirt to display his back.

  Next to the deep gouge made by some musket ball in a half-forgotten battle the skin was whipped into lumps of calloused flesh and hideous permanent weals. ‘There’s five hundred lashes, sir, there. But in them days, sir, I was full of the Devil, rum and the wenches. It was my downfall, the follies of youth. Now I am a reformed man.’ And he touched the Bible, which he kept by him the whole day. Sometimes John suspected that he slept with it in his hands.

  But despite his piety Sergeant Jones was a good man to have with him, John told himself. He was experienced, obviously brave and very definitely loyal, the kind of subordinate he needed for whatever was soon to come. For twice Major Tomkins had urged him to ever more speed with his training; Lord Hastings could not wait much longer for the intelligence on the Ranee of Burrapore. The war with the Mahrattas, according to Major Tomkins, was not very far off now.

  So was Christmas, and despite Lord Hastings’ pressure his European officers and soldiers were beginning to slacken the pace of training. Celebrations were in the air and there was much talk of the potage à la Julienne, the York hams, the special curries, the varied bordeaux and clarets that would be consumed on Christmas Day.

  John felt out of it. He sensed no special joy at the approach of the winter festival. Nor did he fancy the mess high finks which would undoubtedly go with it: the coarse jokes, the smashing of furniture and the usual drunken firing of pistols, often levelled at terrified green-faced bearers. Still he knew that he must give Sergeant Jones the day off and stand down the men.

  ‘We will have a parade that morning — their first parade. Then we’ll stand the men down,’ he told the sergeant.

  ‘Yessir. Heathen they are, but they deserve to have some benefit of the Christian faith.’

  Thus it was that at dawn on Christmas Day 1815, Sergeant Jones came bustling down the line of busy sowars, putting the finishing touches to their horses, crying, ‘Look to your girths and stirrups, lads! We want nobody falling off this day,’ while the troopers in high good humour at the prospect of a holiday yelled back, ‘Sab thik hai, sahib!’

  Listening to them, John smiled softly and felt pride in his own achievement. He was a soldier again with his own command, more than his poor dead father had ever achieved. Bugles at dawn! Well, there they were — the shrill sweetness sailing across the still cool air, summoning him. He pulled his sword belt a notc
h tighter, gave himself a quick look of appraisal in the mirror and stepped out into the open.

  The bearer in the livery of the Collector’s household waiting there salaamed and held out a note. Hurriedly John slipped a few pice into the outstretched palm and broke the seal, his heart pumping. Was it from Georgina at last? It wasn’t. The note, written in the green ink which the Collector affected and which no other Company person in his district was allowed to use, invited John to ‘attend this Christmas Day evening ... for Dinner and an Assembly’. John’s face lit up. He would see Georgina again after all. Whistling tonelessly, feeling strong, confident and happy, he strode to where the syce was holding his horse in readiness ...

  ‘The half squadron will march past!’ The ancient rissaldar’s reedy voice rapped out the commands in his strangely accented English. ‘Half squadron will advance in column from the right ... Walk — march!’

  Sitting proudly erect under the limp Union flag next to John, Sergeant Jones hissed out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Here they come, sir ... and they don’t look half bad.’

  John scrutinized his men. The troopers had filled out in the last weeks. The hollows had gone from their dark faces, and their shoulders, once bowed by the constant toil of the fields, were straight, erect and proud. Admittedly their dressing was not altogether perfect, but normally it took years to train a cavalryman.

  The rissaldar, bringing up his sword straight above his head, cried, ‘Half squadron — halt!’

  The eighty-odd riders reined their horses, dark faces expressionless, swords lodged across right shoulders.

  John looked along the length of their stern young faces, beneath dark grey turbans with a gold spray fan rising from the left side, which contrasted with the silver-grey of their uniforms. They looked a splendid sight. He nodded to the rissaldar.

  ‘Half squadron will march past!’

  John and Sergeant Jones tensed. The rissaldar came level. He circled his sword round and turning his head slowly and stiffly in John’s direction, cried, ‘Half Squadron, eyes — right!’

  As one they turned their heads like automatons, and John raised his hand to his turban in salute. He tried to impress each and every face on his mind’s eye, and then the rissaldar had finished counting off to ten and was commanding, ‘Half squadron, eyes — front! Trot!’

  John lowered his hand. It was already beginning to grow hot and he could smell his sweating armpit.

  For a space his half squadron trotted towards the stables before the rissaldar commanded, ‘Walk — march ... form troop column,’ and it was all over.

  Jones relaxed. ‘Well, sir, what do you think?’

  ‘You did a good job, Jones.’

  Jones admitted grudgingly, ‘Might not yet be good enough for Horse Guards Parade, but it’ll do — for the time being ... ’

  ‘But Sergeant Jones, we ought to have a name. Every other native formation has. We simply cannot remain a half squadron, Bengal Light Cavalry. That title has no ring about it.’

  ‘Agreed, sir,’ Jones said, black button eyes disappearing into his wrinkles as he considered. Then he smiled. ‘Sir, if I may be so bold — haw, haw — may I baptize the babbee for you?’

  ‘Please,’ John answered, wondering what was coming.

  ‘Bold they look — the men, I mean, sir — and Bold is the name of their commander, ain’t it, sir?’

  ‘Yes, go on.’

  ‘So why not, sir — Bold’s Horse?’

  Thus on the morning of Christmas Day 1815 on a deserted parade ground, a name was created which would go down in the history of British India — BOLD’S HORSE.

  THREE

  John Bold entered the central hall of the Collector’s house, handed his sword and turban to the large black butler and passed on inside, to where coloured paper loops hung from the walls in an attempt to give the big, typically bare Indian house some kind of festive appearance. He strolled on, feeling a little nervous at the sight of so many people eddying back and forth, while white-robed, red-sashed Indian servants glided in and out with their silver trays. He was a mere lieutenant of native cavalry, and they were important people, high Company officials and field-grade officers, together with their ladies dressed in the height of fashion.

  Major Tomkins nodded in a friendly manner, otherwise he recognized none of the guests. He watched the memsahibs and their menfolk dancing to the music of a half-breed band, mostly French by-blows by the look of them, scraping away at their fiddles. The dancers sweated prodigiously, the men carefully holding the naked shoulders of their partners with lace handkerchiefs — the sweat had already soaked through their white gloves. Others had already found the dancing too much of a strain and contented themselves with ‘making a leg’, as it was called, and carrying out lazy conversation with the local charmers.

  ‘Enjoying yourself, Lieutenant Bold?’ Lanham’s voice cut into his musings.

  He turned hurriedly. ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Lanham and by the way, many thanks for your kind invitation.’

  The Collector smiled coldly, his eyes as calculating as ever. ‘Not at all, dear boy.’ He waved a pudgy hand airily. ‘I thought that on your first Christmas away from home an invitation to the assembly might cheer you up.’

  ‘Oh yes, undoubtedly,’ John heard himself saying, though in truth he had never felt less cheered in all his life. If only he could talk to Georgina.

  ‘Besides rumour hath it that you will not tarry here much longer to enjoy whatever — er — fleshpots the garrison can offer.’ He touched his hand to his mouth, as if he had just uttered an obscenity.

  Fleshpots! John thought indignantly. Raddled, poxed old black whores — those were the garrison’s fleshpots.

  ‘How do you mean, sir?’

  ‘Well my boy, I must not give military secrets away, but the intelligence coming from Nagpore is not of the best, at least for the Company’s affairs. Mr Jenkins — the Resident up there, you remember — is reporting trouble with the local ruler.’ He tugged his pasty jowl. ‘There is bound to be trouble sooner or later.’

  ‘But pray, sir,’ John asked, ‘what concern of this is mine?’

  But before the Collector could answer, Georgina came into view, attended by the polite, slightly bored clapping of the guests. She was dancing with Major Rathbone, who wore his hair long and crimped in the French fashion and his sidechats long which gave his face a thin cruel look, which many women thought attractive.

  John frowned. Rathbone was of private means and didn’t give a damn about anything, save his own pleasure. Black or white, married or unmarried, he took women as it pleased him, and in the garrison it was rumoured that he had twice duelled with married men this year on ‘a matter of honour’, as it was put delicately behind a raised hand. In other words some poor cuckolded husband had been forced into a shooting match with the best pistol shot in the Army of the Deccan.

  But if John was worried the Collector seemed delighted. His face broke into a smile as the two of them swirled by, Georgina looked voluptuous in light green, her blonde ringlets flying. Evidently the Collector actually approved of this well-known skirt-chaser paying his attentions to Georgina.

  Suddenly John’s jaw jutted angrily and his eyes blazed. A look crossed his face — a legacy of his hot-tempered Gallic-Celtic ancestors — which, in years to come, would be feared by his enemies — and subordinates. You make your own destiny, John Bold, a hard voice inside him snapped. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, man. Just don’t accept tamely, react to events — act, man! He bowed to the Collector and said hurriedly, ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  Marching straight through the sweating dancers to where Major Rathbone and Georgina were politely applauding the orchestra, he said, ‘Good evening, Miss Lanham.’

  Her face flushed pleasantly, she answered, ‘Oh, good evening, Lieutenant Bold.’

  ‘Would you allow me, Major Rathbone, sir?’

  Rathbone looked at him with a kind of vague cynical amusement, though underneath it John could definitely
sense a moment of annoyance. ‘Nomen est omen, eh? Bold by name and bold by action,’ he said in the soft drawl which so many cuckolded husbands had underestimated the first time. He bowed and stepped back as the fiddlers started to scrape once more.

  Red-faced but determined, John took Georgina in his arms and steered her into the already whirling throng. She said nothing. There was a tiny curl of discontent on her pretty red lips, he noted, but still she smiled, as if she, too, was amused — or pleased — at his audacity.

  ‘Georgina,’ he said urgently, ‘why are you avoiding me again? Have I done anything to displease you?’

  ‘No, John,’ she answered, ‘and please keep your voice low. You don’t want the whole world to hear. There is enough tittle-tattle in this place.’

  ‘But why avoid me?’ he persisted.

  It’s my father.’

  ‘Your father again!’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes, again!’ Her cheeks flushed prettily with anger. ‘He can’t stay here much longer, he is far too old to risk his health in this deadly climate. And, well ... he wants to see me safely married before he hands in his resignation to the Company.’

  ‘Then marry me, damn you!’ he snarled. He had heard this argument before and it enraged him that she was placing her father before him once again.

  Abruptly tears glinted in her eyes. ‘I love you, John,’ she almost sobbed. ‘I sincerely do ... But I must think of dear Father, too ... and he would never allow me to marry a soldier of no fortune.’

  ‘And what of Major Rathbone?’

  She did not seem to hear, but said miserably, the tears brimming, ‘We must be sensible, John.’

  ‘Dammit, I don’t want to be sensible!’ He kept his voice low only with an effort of will. ‘One day, soldier or no, I shall be famous, important, perhaps even rich. What do I care about your father’s sensible marriage? That is only damned money-grubbing!’ He shook his head in irritation, and across the room Major Rathbone took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at him hard, the cynical amusement vanished from his eyes.