The Command

by Christopher Nicole

Murdoch’s eyes were now ageless — and were about to become more so.

  It was not a life-role he had ever questioned. He did not question it now. His name was Murdoch Mackinder, and he was the only son of Colonel Fergus Mackinder, who had died in India while commanding the Royal Western Dragoon Guards. Fergus Mackinder’s father, also named Murdoch, had also commanded the Royal Westerns, as had his father, Ian Mackinder, the man who had led the famous charge. Mackinders joined the army. More, they joined the Royal Western Dragoon Guards. More yet, they rose to command the regiment. When he went up to London today, for the first time wearing the badges of a lieutenant-colonel, and on his way to take up that command, he was but obeying the family tradition, fulfilling the family’s requirements. That on the way he had become the first Mackinder to achieve the Victoria Cross, for saving his commanding officer’s life in South Africa, and to this had added the Distinguished Service Order for his accomplishments in Somaliland, was a personal satisfaction.

  He would not have had it any differently. Yet he knew that it was different, for him. Not that he had married, and fathered a family. This too was a family requirement. He loved Lee, and he loved his children. He loved Broad Acres, and his dogs and horses. This was as it should be. If he was perhaps more torn between this domestic bliss and the requirements of his profession than were his ancestors, this was no doubt because general human attitudes were changing as the twentieth century sped on its ebullient, horrifying way.

  But there were other aspects of his life about which very few people were aware. George Reynolds, his batman during all his service life, was one of those few. George knew all about that mad adventure with Margriet Voorlandt which had all but cost his master his career. There were officers in the army who knew of that, too. But only George knew how they had together returned to the Transvaal in search of the girl, only to find her married —and a mother.

  Had Margriet waited, who could tell what might have happened to Murdoch’s famous career? Marylee Caspar from Baltimore, Maryland, had been no more than an acquaintance at that time.

  And thus George also knew, as did no one else in the world, that when Colonel Paul von Reger had struck down Major Murdoch Mackinder in the cavalry melee outside Le Cateau, there had been more than national rivalry involved.

  ‘The lads will be glad to see you, sir,’ Reynolds said, noting his colonel’s pensiveness.

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch said again.

  *

  Breakfast was a quiet affair. Even the children were subdued.

  Philippa tried to be her usual jolly self. ‘Do you think you’ll be home for Christmas?’ she asked. Two years older than Murdoch, she had never married, and never would now, he supposed. On the whole she preferred horses to humans.

  ‘I doubt it.’ He grinned at his sister. ‘I’ve had my leave for the year.’

  ‘I thought this war was going to be over by Christmas,’ Florence Mackinder complained. Mother was going to be sixty next year, and had survived the loss of her husband by twenty years.

  ‘That could happen,’ Murdoch agreed. ‘Well...’ He wiped his lips with his napkin and stood up.

  ‘Do write,’ his mother said, ‘whenever you have the time.’

  ‘I will do that.’ Murdoch stood above the children, who gazed at their father in awe; to them he remained a somewhat distant figure. Ian was five, Fergus four, and Helen only two. An entire generation of Mackinders, he thought, waiting to take their places. Helen would undoubtedly marry a soldier; his oldest sister, Rosemary, was married to a Guards officer.

  He kissed them in turn. ‘Be good.’

  ‘Bring us back a German, Daddy,’ Ian piped.

  ‘Whatever would you do with him?’ Murdoch chuckled.

  Lee waited by the door. She alone of the family would accompany him to London. She looked exquisite, as always, in her green and white horizontally-striped gown with its double tunic and its peg-top skirt revealing just a trace of white-stockinged ankle rising out of her black patent-leather shoes, her dark green velvet jacket, her green velvet hat with its black and white plume, her leather handbag and black umbrella. But clothes did no more than show off her own very real beauty: the cropped fair hair, the piquant features, the strong healthy body. She was a woman to come back to — which made her that much more difficult a woman to leave.

  As they stepped outside they were surrounded by barking Labradors, both black and yellow.

  ‘Good lads,’ Murdoch said. ‘Good lads.’

  The dogs followed him to the stables where he said farewell to Buccaneer: the faithful stallion that had carried him for nine years, and had survived the set-to at Le Cateau, but only just, and was clearly too old now for active service.

  ‘I wonder who they’ll have for me this time, old fellow,’ Murdoch asked the sad old eyes.

  The chauffeur had the Rolls purring, and Reynolds had already strapped the kitbags in place. Now he joined the chauffeur in the front, separated by a glass partition from the rear seats where Lee and Murdoch sat together. As the car moved down the drive, they waved at Florence and the children, gathered on the porch.

  ‘Your mother is a very brave woman,’ Lee observed.

  ‘A very experienced one at saying goodbye. When I come back, I think we should change cars. This is terribly old-fashioned.’

  ‘Mm. Did I tell you I’ve learned to drive?’

  ‘You?’ He turned his head in surprise.

  ‘Mm,’ she said again, and looked out the window as they passed the croquet lawn and tennis court. ‘Doesn’t it ever strike you as unutterably futile that you should own all this, and so seldom be here to enjoy it?’

  ‘I’ll enjoy it in my old age,’ he promised.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed. ‘Do hurry up and reach retirement, Murdoch.’

  *

  King George V was a short man, but looked very military in his uniform. Murdoch knew, of course, that he had actually served in the navy, but this was an army occasion.

  ‘I see you have one of these already, Colonel Mackinder,’ he observed, pinning the cross with the blue and red ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order on his breast, amidst the other decorations he wore, and eyeing the crimson ribbon which stood out beyond them all. ‘I congratulate you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Murdoch stepped back and saluted, then shook hands with Queen Mary while Lee was doing her curtseying. Lee had been with him before, as his fiancée, when he had received his first DSO from King Edward VII.

  They emerged into the pale autumn sunshine, posed for the cameras, chatted for a moment with ether recipients of honours, then they were by the car. ‘Well...’ she said. ‘I guess you have a lot to do.’

  They had enjoyed one last night together at the Savoy Hotel.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said. ‘I have to report to the War Office, and I have to make sure all our replacements have turned up — there’s a new lieutenant due, as well. And, believe it or not, Churchill wants to see me before I return to the front.’

  Lee giggled. ‘Maybe he wants you to transfer to the navy.’ Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty in the Liberal Government of Henry Asquith.

  ‘Wouldn’t work. I get seasick,’ he laughed.

  ‘So did Nelson...Murdoch, supposing you see Harry, give him my love.’ She knew her brother was somewhere in France, covering the war for his New York newspaper.

  Murdoch remembered how Harry Caspar had originally appeared to oversee the battle of Le Cateau. ‘I’ve an idea he’ll find me as soon as I get back,’ he said pensively.

  The she was serious again, clinging to his arm. ‘Oh, Murdoch...do come back. Soon,’ she added quickly, although her original meaning was clear.

  ‘Soon,’ he promised. ‘But we still have time for lunch before your train.’

  *

  Murdoch was always astonished at how young the First Lord of the Admiralty appeared. Churchill was actually only seven years his senior, but he did not think they looked even that far apart. They h
ad met several times previously, not least because they both had the distinction of having escaped from the Boers in South Africa. But they had never been more than acquaintances, and he was now intrigued by the First Lord’s invitation. So, apparently, were the various clerks and secretaries, who gazed at the unfamiliar khaki uniform with disapproval.

  ‘Mackinder.’ The First Lord shook his hand. ‘Another decoration. I read all about it. And now colonel of the regiment. You must be one of our most distinguished soldiers.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Murdoch said.

  ‘Now, let’s get out of here before Fisher finds out about it. Sir John is a dear old boy, but he regards the army as a nuisance. You have an hour to spare?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ Murdoch agreed, seeing no option as Churchill was already hurrying along the corridor and down the stairs. ‘May I ask where we’re going?’

  ‘For a ride in the country.’

  As they sat in the back of the official Daimler, alone except for the marine driver, Churchill turned to smile at him. ‘I imagine you’ll be glad to get back to France.’

  ‘To the regiment, yes.’

  ‘Things aren’t going so well, eh?’

  ‘We’re holding them. And the Marne was a victory. No one can argue against that.’

  ‘A victory of defence, Colonel. We stopped the Hun from taking Paris. We have not driven him back into Germany, forced him to his knees. Now he is entrenched across most of Belgium and the most valuable part of France. We can hardly regard that as a victorious situation for the Allies.’

  They were soon being whisked across the Thames and through south London, heading generally south-west.

  ‘We shall have to mount an offensive of our own,’ Murdoch suggested.

  ‘That’s being done at the moment. We are trying to cut him off from the sea — and we are not succeeding. The casualty lists are horrifying. One simply cannot launch flesh and blood against machine guns and barbed wire.’

  Murdoch refused to join the First Lord’s pessimistic mood. ‘Then we shall have to find a way round the obstacle.’

  ‘Now there’s a tall order, with one enemy flank resting on the Swiss border and the other on the North Sea. Mind you, Mackinder, you are absolutely right. We shall only beat the Germans by rolling up their flanks. The alternative is to starve them into surrender. That is the province of the navy, and I can tell you that we are prepared to carry out the task. But it may take a very long time. And, meanwhile, our men are dying at the rate of more than a hundred a day. Nor will they cease doing so. Even were we to discover a flank that can be turned, their armies will still have to be fixed by frontal attacks. I’m told you are a go-ahead soldier who is not afraid of the future.’

  The abrupt change of subject took Murdoch by surprise. ‘I like to think I am.’

  ‘Good. I have something to show you. I’d like your opinion.’

  They had left the houses behind by now and were approaching a village which was surrounded by several small farms.

  ‘If you think it’s worth having,’ Murdoch murmured. ‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have brought you here. Ever met Ernest Swinton?’

  ‘Swinton. Ah...yes, in South Africa.’

  ‘Royal Engineers. Brilliant mind.’ The car turned into one of the farmyards, which was devoid of animals although there were two tractors in the sheds. ‘This is a confidential visit, Mackinder. Captain Swinton is actually carrying out some research, using naval funds. He cannot obtain any support from the War Office. I would prefer no one to know that you have been here.’ He gave Murdoch a searching look. ‘No one.’

  Murdoch understood that he was referring to Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, who was Minister of War, and therefore the supreme soldier in Britain, especially since the death of Field Marshal Lord Roberts only a fortnight previously. Murdoch knew that Churchill and Kitchener saw eye to eye on very little. But he also knew that Churchill was aware that Kitchener and Murdoch himself were not the best of friends either. They had clashed in South Africa, and if Kitchener had been the man to save him from a court-martial, he had done it not out of regard but because he did not see how the army could award a man the Victoria Cross on one day and cashier him on the next without being made to appear very foolish. Since then he had regarded Murdoch Mackinder as a confounded nuisance — nor was their relationship improved by Kitchener’s awareness that Murdoch was a protégé of Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in France.

  ‘It shall be confidential,’ he promised.

  ‘We are not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes,’ Churchill assured him as the driver opened the door for them. ‘Should our hopes be justified, then the whole business will be handed over to the army. It is merely that the powers that be are so confoundedly conservative that anything new has to be displayed to them and proved to be successful before they’ll even think about it. The support of experienced officers will be very useful when the time comes.’

  Murdoch was pleasantly interested. He was about to be shown a secret weapon, but could not imagine what it was.

  It was certainly well guarded: there was an armed sentry on the door and more soldiers within. Swinton was waiting to greet them, and Murdoch was introduced to him.

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’ Swinton shook hands, and Murdoch felt somewhat embarrassed: Swinton, clearly much the older man, still held only the rank of captain, while he was already a lieutenant-colonel — that was the difference between serving in the Engineers, an essential part of the army but one in which there was little glory to be had, and serving in the cavalry.

  ‘Has the First Lord discussed the problem?’ Swinton inquired as he escorted them into an inner room.

  ‘In a general way.’ Murdoch looked at the large sand-table on which had been created a representation of a portion of the western front. The little villages and the roads, the lines of poplars and the canals, were very familiar. But the green of the earth had been scarred by a series of trenches cut into it, each several inches from the others — representing perhaps a hundred yards, he supposed. The trenches were filled with lead soldiers wearing German uniforms, and before each trench were extensive areas of miniature barbed wire.

  ‘I know it didn’t look like this at Le Cateau,’ Swinton hastened to say, ‘but I’m afraid that is how it is starting to look all over northern France and Belgium nowadays. The Germans have dug in. So have we, of course. But unless we intend to spend the rest of our lives just facing them, we have to devise some means of turfing them out. The High Command still feels that this can be done by frontal assault, but they are not succeeding.’

  ‘And our people are being massacred,’ Churchill growled.

  ‘The problem is simply this,’ Swinton said. He signalled an orderly, who immediately took out a box and began placing khaki-clad lead soldiers on the far edge of the table. ‘Our artillery bombards the enemy lines, and when it ceases, our men assault. All very classic. Unfortunately the damage done by the bombardment bears no proportion to the amount of shells delivered; the enemy merely retires into its dugouts until the guns stop.’

  ‘And I can tell you that right now we are using up shells faster than we can make them,’ Churchill put in.

  ‘The bombardment also has the drawback of advising the enemy that something is going to happen,’ Swinton went on. ‘They can afford to wait. It takes our men several minutes to cross a couple of hundred yards of open ground, especially where they have to cut their way through barbed wire; and long before they can reach the German trenches they are being cut to pieces by the enemy machine guns. You see how they’re sited...’ He indicated with his swagger-stick the toy machine gun nests, placed not to look straight ahead, but obliquely to each side. ‘You have a constant enfilading fire. Now, although it seems incredible, our chaps, and the French, have on occasion survived that and gained the first line of trenches. But then they are faced with another line, and then another. It is simply not possible for them to go on. And the moment they stop, they
are counter-attacked by the Germans and thrown out again.’

  ‘Couldn’t the cavalry be loosed the moment the first line is taken?’ Murdoch asked.

  ‘They’d be cut to ribbons by the machine guns behind,’ Churchill pointed out. ‘No, the answer is an old one, which has been somewhat neglected these last centuries. Armour!’

  Murdoch stared at him, half in amusement, half in dismay. ‘You’d have us back in armour? And the horses? But armour won’t keep out a bullet.’

  ‘Of course it won’t,’ Swinton agreed. ‘Not any armour a man or horse could wear and still stand up. But the question we face, Colonel, is not how an individual can be sent against a machine gun, but how a group of men can be delivered to the enemy lines, protected all the way.’

  ‘Of course,’ Murdoch said. ‘Armoured cars. They not only keep out bullets; they carry a machine gun. We’re already using those.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Swinton agreed. ‘But not very successfully. They’re badly designed. They’re too angular. Their armour may keep out most bullets, but not all. And they are very vulnerable to shell fire. But those things are irrelevant. They can be corrected by some streamlining and extra protection. The big problem with the armoured car is that it can only operate on a road or a smooth surface. Take it into a field and it bogs down. The only true answer to the problem of entrenchments lies in tracked vehicles.’

  He gave another signal, and the orderly reached beneath the table, brought out the model of a tractor, wound it up, and set it on the sand. The clockwork shirred, and the toy moved forward.

  Murdoch peered at it with interest. Although it had caterpillar wheels with endless tracks, it was more than just a tractor. It was longer and lower, shaped somewhat like an elongated matchbox with a frame on top, and out of that top there protruded what was obviously intended to be a machine gun.

  ‘The armour would of course have to be thick enough to stop a bullet,’ Swinton said. ‘And this would mean it would not travel very fast — perhaps two or three miles an hour. But it would be unstoppable.’

  ‘Watch,’ Churchill said.