Light Cavalry Action

by Max Hennessy

‘What about the rest of the army?’ Higgins asked Hardacre. ‘Find out what happened to the Don Cossacks and the Kuban Cossacks.’

  The reply came in a welter of waving hands. The Cossacks were struggling towards Georgia and the Caucasus. There would be no more ships into Russian ports unless the country they belonged to acknowledged the Bolshevik government.

  Higgins’ face was grave as he turned to the door.

  ‘Come along, Hardacre,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for us here.’

  ‘What do we do now, sir?’

  Hardacre’s face was frightened and Higgins forced a smile. ‘We go a little further, Hardacre,’ he said quietly. ‘And if Budenny has got there ahead of us, then we go a little further still.’

  * * *

  They were silent as they drove out of the town. Nobody stopped them, though they saw plenty of Red troops in the distance. Back at Nikitapol, MacAdoo came forward to greet them as they climbed from the Rolls. His face was grey and grim in the poor light.

  ‘Your wife’s sick, Major,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid it’s typhus.’

  * * *

  There was a long pause as Higgins finished speaking. It seemed impossible that any one man could have borne so much.

  ‘What did you decide to do?’ Moyalan asked.

  Higgins gestured, as though his arm were heavy. ‘I decided to move on,’ he said. ‘I’d noticed that fresh air seemed to be better for typhus cases than hospital rooms, and it seemed wiser to keep going, taking our sick with us on stretchers.’

  ‘It was a terrible prospect, though, was it not? You had already struggled hundreds of miles to the coast under appalling conditions, and now you were proposing to struggle twice as far again under what would probably be worse conditions. Didn’t it dismay you?’

  ‘I tried not to think about it.’

  ‘Did you, in fact, succeed?’

  Higgins nodded. ‘We moved along the coast by way of Tuapse, where I was able, after a while, to get passages for us all in the hold of a coaster which took us to a point nearer the frontier. At the frontier, we had to disembark and walk again. We passed into Georgia, then took a train into Armenia. From there we took another train into Turkey, and finally picked up a Turkish ship on the shores of the Black Sea at Zonguldak.’

  ‘At what cost, Major Higgins?’

  ‘We set out about two hundred and twenty strong, of which one hundred and twelve were British survivors of the Kouragine Regiment. En route we lost twenty-two men from typhus or other diseases. The men were B1 grade and not the type for prolonged physical effort, and we could never stop because the Red cavalry was always at our heels. We had to abandon the Rolls for lack of petrol soon after Novorossiisk, and of our two hundred and twenty, we arrived only one hundred and forty-six strong, of which ninety were British soldiers. We left nobody alive or sick behind us.’

  ‘And you, yourself, Major? What was the cost to you? What about your wife?’

  Higgins’ face became bitter and his eyes flickered. ‘My wife recovered,’ he said. ‘We transported her by sledge and train and cart. She remained weak for a long time afterwards, of course.’

  ‘And what else, Major?’

  ‘At the beginning, in the mountains, we found she had frostbite in her right foot and right hand. It was bitterly cold, and in her delirium she had thrown off the blankets.’

  ‘What did you do, Major?’

  ‘We tried to treat it with goose-fat we got from a peasant but we were only partially successful. We had to remove two toes and two fingers and the thumb of her right hand.’ There was a gasp in the court, a definite rustle of almost articulate sympathy, and a woman in the gallery sobbed loudly, abruptly.

  ‘Who performed the operation, Major Higgins?’ Moyalan asked. ‘Was it Captain MacAdoo or Captain Potter?’

  ‘No.’ Higgins shook his head. ‘They felt they couldn’t do it and I felt I couldn’t ask them.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I did.’

  * * *

  Nobody moved in court as Higgins stopped speaking. The jury was still and there was no whispering among them now. Kirkham was frowning at his papers, as though he weren’t sure how he might cross-examine.

  Moyalan put down his brief. ‘When did you finally reach England, Major Higgins?’ he asked.

  ‘November 13th, 1920.’

  ‘Almost eight months after everyone else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Naturally, as soon as you landed you were met by a newspaperman. What about the stories that appeared in the papers?’

  Higgins frowned. ‘There weren’t many. There was a photograph. Of me and my people, and the civilians who remained with us. One headline I remember. “Last British Troops Out Of Russia”, it said.’

  Moyalan nodded and gestured. ‘When you reached Khaskov on your pilgrimage south, Major Higgins,’ he asked slowly, ‘was the telegraph staff still there?’

  ‘Only Captain Barry, who had waited with his signallers, as he promised. He had found the message log book and had reopened contact. From that time he and his men kept the watch. On my suggestion, he confiscated the log book.’

  ‘You arrived in England then,’ Moyalan went on. ‘The newspapers gave you a brief write-up and invariably concluded their report with a half-column recapitulation of the action at Dankoi, where your pilgrimage had started?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A fulsome description?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Chiefly featuring Colonel Prideaux and Mr. Murray-Hughes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you recognise it?’

  ‘No. It appeared to have been a big battle, involving a large number of troops. In fact, it was little more than a skirmish lasting only a matter of minutes.’

  ‘And it appeared that your former colonel had received promotion and a d.s.o. for the day’s work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you, Major Higgins – you and your people? Did any of you receive anything for your efforts?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘One last question, Major Higgins. At the beginning of your evidence, you said you resigned from the army because there seemed little prospect of promotion.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet you had had an excellent record – particularly in Russia. Why were your chances of promotion so poor?’

  Higgins considered. ‘To be fair,’ he said, ‘at that time all the armed forces were being reduced, but it’s also true that I understood I had received a bad report in my personal file for Russia. I had not got my men to the coast in time to be evacuated, you see.’

  ‘You saw that report?’

  ‘No. Never. But one has friends. I heard about it,’

  ‘Do you know who gave you this report?’

  ‘I know whose name was on it.’

  ‘Whose, Major Higgins?’

  ‘Major Finch’s.’

  Moyalan nodded. ‘Thank you, Major Higgins,’ he said quietly. ‘That will be all.’

  2

  Finch

  Kirkham seemed to rise with a rush to his cross-examination of Higgins next day. Here was the man around whom it all revolved, he seemed to be thinking, and he appeared to be looking forward to the chance at last of chasing someone down a few legal corridors until he could produce evidence of bitterness and jealousy.

  ‘You have told us here a long story of disaster,’ he said. ‘Why did you make no protest when you returned?’

  ‘I did,’ Higgins pointed out quietly. ‘But I was advised not to make it public. The government of the day wasn’t interested in disasters. They were already in grave trouble in Ireland, and for their intervention in Russia, and they wanted only to hear of success. I was advised they wouldn’t be prepared to listen to me.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you make a protest at the War Office?’

  ‘I wrote a report. I believe the Minister to whom it was shown decided it was wiser to take no further action.’

  Sensing that there
might be danger in pursuing the question any further, Kirkham didn’t persist and tried a new tack.

  ‘I find it very hard to understand why a man like Colonel Prideaux, who had an excellent reputation as a soldier, should simply turn his back on his men,’ he said. ‘Can you give us an explanation for it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it is hard to believe, is it not? People, whether they are wicked or otherwise, don’t normally act out of character and there is nothing about General Prideaux to suggest a reason for neglecting you and your men. We seem to be accepting that Colonel Prideaux – as he was – gave the order for the charge, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which has been given in evidence so far to explain why he simply turned his back on his command, and unless counsel for the defence can bring sound substantial proof that it did happen as you claim, I for one will refuse to believe that it did, and I trust the jury will do likewise. Without that proof, my client’s claim surely cannot fail.’

  Kirkham continued to bluster and fling questions at Higgins for some time. But he was dealing with a surprisingly cool individual who, for all his anonymity, was mentally tough and resilient. The same steadiness that had brought him and his party out of Russia enabled him to ride all Kirkham’s violence without being shaken in the slightest, and in the end Kirkham had to sit down, like the rest of them baffled by Higgins’ characterless purposefulness.

  As he slumped into his seat, Moyalan rose to re-examine.

  ‘We have been asked,’ he said, ‘why you didn’t persist with a protest after your return. What prompted this lack of persistence?’

  ‘My friends said that my statements seemed dangerous,’ Higgins pointed out. ‘They advised me to let the matter drop. They were afraid of being involved, I suspect.’

  ‘But later, when books and what you considered to be dubious histories began to appear you went to newspapers and publishers?’

  ‘Yes. But Colonel Prideaux was a household name by that time, and no one was prepared to hear anything against him that might be considered libellous. As time went on, they became less and less prepared to re-open the old wound of the British intervention in Russia.’

  Moyalan nodded and Higgins left the witness box, a strange blurred image of a man still, whom the reporters were finding difficulty in describing, and as he went, everybody stared after him, baffled and disturbed by him.

  Godliman stared after him also, a small perplexed frown on his face, then he turned and looked at Moyalan.

  ‘Mr. Moyalan,’ he said. ‘I would like to finish the evidence tonight. But it’s already getting late. Do you think it will be possible?’

  ‘I think so, my lord,’ Moyalan said. ‘I have one more witness. But I ought to warn the court that he has been brought here on subpoena.’

  ‘Very well.’ Godliman nodded. ‘Then we can have the weekend intervening, without interrupting the evidence. I propose to take the speeches to the jury tomorrow and the summing up next week. That will be for the best. Please call your witness.’

  Kirkham rose quickly to his feet, before Moyalan could begin. ‘Some very serious allegations of neglect have been made in this court against a very eminent man,’ he said sharply. ‘I trust the defence is able fully to corroborate them.’

  Moyalan gestured. ‘We are well able to do that,’ he said. ‘But first I should point out, of course, that this case is not unique. In the case of Cardigan versus Calthorpe in 1863, Major-General the Earl of Cardigan brought an action against a junior officer in similar circumstances over what he took to be an allegation concerning the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. That case rightly proved beyond question that Lord Cardigan had led that famous charge – a thing which people had begun to doubt – and the fact that he was non-suited on the ground that the action had been too long delayed was of no importance. It destroyed his reputation and, while the destruction of reputations has never been our wish in this case, the fact remains that whatever has been said about Colonel Prideaux’s success or non-success in launching and leading the charge at Dankoi, before – and after, and particularly after – for one reason or another, he was noticeably not present when he was wanted. Please call Colonel Charles Thomas Entwistle Finch.’

  * * *

  Finch approached the witness box warily, as though he didn’t expect to enjoy his role. All his bounce had gone and his eyes moved constantly about the court. To Potter he looked as though he’d had a bad night. He climbed the steps like an old man, plump, seedy-looking and weak, and hardly presenting the picture of rakish wickedness that had been painted of him in court during the last few days.

  Moyalan allowed the jury plenty of time to examine him, then, abruptly, when Finch was least ready for him, he looked up and spoke sharply.

  ‘Charles Thomas Entwistle Finch?’ he asked.

  Finch jumped. ‘Yes,’ he answered cautiously, but Moyalan seemed to be friendly and smiling at him.

  ‘You are a retired colonel of the British Army, your address at the moment being the Dover Arms, Eastbourne, Sussex, and you were born on November 23rd, 1887?’

  ‘November 11th, 1887,’ Finch corrected.

  Moyalan looked up. He appeared to be surprised. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘Your birthday was also Armistice Day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Moyalan smiled. ‘Sir Henry Prideaux,’ he said, ‘has also given evidence that November 11th, 1919, was the date when he decided there was no longer any point in remaining in Khaskov. I presume he informed you of this?’

  Finch nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He did inform me.’

  Moyalan smiled broadly. ‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that you must have had quite a lot to celebrate on that day.’ Finch smiled back at him, disarmed and thawing visibly. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose I had.’

  ‘Now – you were second-in-command to Colonel Prideaux in Nikolovssk in Russia in 1919, with the rank at the time of major?’

  ‘Yes.’ Finch shifted uneasily, his smile gone, as they began to get down to facts, as though he sensed that, in spite of Moyalan’s affability, he was attending his own crucifixion.

  ‘I am not going to question you on the subject of the charge at Dankoi,’ Moyalan said, ‘We have heard considerable evidence on that already and the defence feels that, like so many others, you were merely doing your duty there as ordered. I am interested instead in the “before” and the “after”. Well, we have dealt with the “before” and we have now come to the “after”. You were with Colonel Prideaux in Nikolovssk all the time. Did you consider him a good commander?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Conscientious and exacting in his duties and concerned for his men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Now, after the fight at Dankoi when you left Nikolovssk for Khaskov with Colonel Prideaux, was he at that time a sick man?’

  ‘Yes.’ Finch spoke thickly, almost as though he saw an opportunity to explain away things that had troubled him for a long time. ‘He didn’t seem to know entirely what was happening. He had received a heavy blow on the head.’

  Moyalan nodded. ‘It has been said in evidence,’ he went on, ‘that this blow had been aggravated by being in exactly the same spot as an earlier much more severe wound. How did it affect him?’

  ‘He seemed to be suffering from concussion.’

  ‘Was he in a fit state to make decisions?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Moyalan’s eyes gleamed. ‘Then, if he was in such a dazed concussed state,’ he asked quickly, ‘whose idea was it that this normally conscientious and exacting commander, who was always concerned for his men, should leave his shattered command as a hopeless rearguard in Nikolovssk and take over General Inde’s obviously safer task in Khaskov? Was it Colonel Prideaux’s? Or was it yours?’

  Finch saw at once the trap he had fallen into and tried to back out. He spoke quickly, gesturing nervously.

  ‘Well, it was in Colonel Prideaux’s mind, I know,’ he said.

/>   ‘Who actually made the suggestion?’ Moyalan demanded.

  Finch looked uneasy, his plump pink face moving from side to side as though he were looking for help. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said.

  Moyalan sighed and, as Finch seemed to relax thankfully, there was a restless movement of impatience in the court. ‘Very well, Colonel,’ Moyalan said. ‘Let’s leave that for the moment. You say Colonel Prideaux was suffering from a head wound, he was dazed, concussed and, according to a medical witness, suffering from a black-out and not in a state to know what was going on. Then what did he do when he returned from the action at Dankoi? Do you remember?’

  Finch licked his lips, immediately tense again. ‘He went to his room,’ he said. ‘Later someone came to attend to his wound.’

  ‘I see. Now, let us go back to the period immediately following the fight at Dankoi. You were in the office when Captain Potter returned, were you not? – after he had come back a second time to Nikolovssk after doing what he could to help Major Higgins who had remained behind as a rear-guard?’

  Finch nodded warily. ‘Yes, I think I was.’

  ‘And you showed him a message which had arrived before the regiment had left Nikolovssk to fight at Dankoi, a message which was sent to the barracks by Captain Barry, a message which indicated that General Inde at Khaskov was ill with typhus?’

  ‘Yes. I remember I did.’

  ‘Do you remember what you said at the time?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Did you say “There’ll be no medals given for Dankoi”?’

  ‘I might have.’

  ‘We have had evidence that you did. Is it not strange that Colonel Prideaux, in his dazed state, should repeat these exact words later – more than once? Could he have heard them from you?’

  ‘He might.’

  ‘If he had, it could account for his decision to leave, could it not?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Now – we all appreciate that part of Colonel Prideaux’s duty lay in Khaskov, but there are few officers – and, from your own evidence, I don’t think Colonel Prideaux was one – who would leave their command so hurriedly after a disaster such as had befallen the Kouragine Regiment at Dankoi. We have heard in evidence that within minutes it had been reduced by one reason or another from six hundred to one hundred men, and the one reliable unit between Budenny and Nikolovssk and the route to the south smashed in a somewhat futile attempt to show what could be done. Moreover – and again I’m quoting evidence given in this court – as the result of the departure of this regiment for the north, the Russian troops in the town who might have held firm with the example of discipline among them, had simply descended into mutiny, had murdered their officers and melted away, leaving the town unprotected save for the dazed survivors of this one sound regiment which had been pointlessly thrown away. Now – surely it’s hard to believe under those circumstances that a man like Colonel Prideaux – a regular soldier who, in spite of his mistake, was by no means unwilling to face the enemy and was well aware of his responsibilities to his men – that he would leave Nikolovssk without making arrangements for the stand he had ordered, or for the safety of his men, especially when some of their number had still not returned from the scene of action. Do you still suggest that you could not have put into the mind of this disappointed, stupefied and injured man the need to leave in such a hurry?’