Drums Along the Khyber

by Philip McCutchan

  Once it was full dark, with so far little moonlight, the brigade moved off. They moved with the pipes and drums silent, in as much anonymity as was possible for a brigade on the march, with its attendant train, and they moved on foot—no horses now, not even for the Brigade Commander, Brigadier-General Hewlett. There were no pack animals either, and the assault artillery, which would be waiting for them nearer the end of the march, at the extremity of the British lines, would be drawn on by manpower. They stole through the night, away from H.Q., pressing on fast and without talking, making around the circle for the peaks, moving behind the sickness-depleted siege units spread out so pitifully thinly along the perimeter. Later the moon came out from its cloud cover, high and bright, sending shafts of silver across the Ningrahar plain and the snows of the Sufaid Koh behind. The bayonets were scabbarded, rifles held low so as to reflect no light. As usual Black was in evidence for a good deal of the time, making his way up and down the Royal Strathspeys’ column, criticizing, cursing, exhorting. Occasionally he was accompanied by the Brigade Major, and once Ogilvie heard them talking together, discussing Peshawar—and, in the course of this, Mary Archdale very briefly.

  “Girl has a damn dull time of it, I sometimes think, when I’m away from the station,” the Brigade Major said, but he spoke off-handedly, as though he didn’t really worry about it much. Then they moved on, and Black didn’t answer—at any rate not in Ogilvie’s hearing. Mary Archdale was, in fact, much on his mind as he went forward through the night. He admitted the shock he’d felt when she had said Archdale had no interest in, or ability for, sex; it was not quite the way to speak. Women—ladies, rather—were not supposed to enjoy the act of sex in any case. Nevertheless he wanted to see Mary again, though he realized there could be no future in such a relationship. Indeed, though he had no intention of being unduly inhibited by Andrew Black’s tirade en route, he knew that it could become impossible to meet her except in the course of the formal social round. He would not be returning to Peshawar until Jalalabad was taken, and when that happened and the battalion marched east again into India, the whole force would presumably return with them, and after that Major Tom Archdale would also be in Peshawar. Life in cantonments would become a strain. No doubt Black had been right and he’d been remarkably foolish. The girl had been a ship passing in the night, and he should leave it at that.

  He made an effort to force Mary Archdale out of his mind, but he succeeded only when some while later there was a sudden diversion: a heavy sliding sound came from somewhere off the track, followed by a spatter of falling stones and simultaneously with the latter a human cry, a cry of terror, fairly near at hand at first, then very quickly becoming fainter.

  Ogilvie halted his men. He drew his revolver. Behind him—he had given no order as perhaps he should have done—he heard the sound of rifle bolts being worked. Urgently he called, “No firing!”

  “What is it, sir?” a hoarse voice—MacNaught’s—asked.

  He said, “I don’t know. Stay where you are, all of you. I’m going ahead for a look.”

  Keeping low, with his revolver ready, Ogilvie crept forward towards where he fancied the sounds had come from, moving off the track to the left. There was still that cry of fear, strangely muted now, seeming to come from quite a long way off. The company ahead, not hearing it apparently, had gone on unheeding. Ogilvie made for that cry. He stopped suddenly when he reached a crevice in the dried earth of the plain, a crevice some twenty feet off the track and invisible until a man stumbled right on it. Then he heard the cry again and realized it was coming from the crack in the earth and that a man was trapped there.

  He slid forward on his stomach and put his head down. He called, “Who’s there?”

  A cry of stark terror came up. “I’m trapped, Ogilvie, I’m trapped and I can’t move anything except my arms. James...for God’s sake...get me out!”

  Ogilvie lifted his head, then stayed motionless. It was Black’s voice. He sweated with a curious fear of his own, a fear of his own weakness. They were alone; no one else knew what had happened. In all sorts of little ways Andrew Black had done his very best to make his life a misery, would continue to do so until one or other of them left the regiment, presumably. One day Black might well be his Colonel if he remained on, and one day too Black might carry out his threat in regard to Mary Archdale. And now all he had to do to settle the thing for good and all would be to crawl back to his company and report that he had found nothing. Black’s voice wasn’t carrying back anything like that far now, and it would grow weaker if he, Ogilvie, wandered around a while to waste a little time, and when the adjutant’s absence was eventually noted it would be much too late to find that crevice. But Ogilvie was horrified that he could ever have been visited by such a thought and in fact the hideous idea of murder held lodgement in his brain for no more than a fleeting second of time.

  Badly shaken now, he called down, “Hold on—don’t move—I’ll be back with help as fast as I can.”

  He dragged himself backwards, then got to his feet and ran back to the waiting men, gasped out what he had found. A ragged laugh, quickly suppressed by the N.C.O.’s before Ogilvie could himself react, went up from the men and a private muttered, “Leave the bastard where he is, why not!”

  “Get a rope!” Ogilvie snapped.

  “I doubt if there’ll be such a thing in the whole column,” MacNaught said briskly, “that is, not until we join up with the mountain batteries. How far down is he, Mr. Ogilvie, and what state’s he in?”

  “I don’t know,” Ogilvie answered, his voice shaking.

  “Then we’ll go and find out, sir,” MacNaught said. He rounded on the men. “You and you and you. Come with the officer and me. The rest of you, stay right where you are and keep your eyes skinned. You,” he jabbed a finger at a fourth man, “you’ll act as runner, Mathieson. Report to Captain MacKinlay what’s happened, and the Brigade Major if you meet him on the way. Now, Mr. Ogilvie.”

  The men detailed followed Ogilvie to the deep earth crack. As they came up they could hear the adjutant still calling out for help, his voice high and panic-stricken. Colour-Sergeant MacNaught crawled to the edge and looked down. He called,

  “D’you know how far you fell, sir?”

  “No, damn you, how can I tell that! Get me out!”

  “We’ll be doing our best to do that, sir,” MacNaught answered, then got to his feet. He said, dusting himself down, “I have the idea he’s not all that deep, Mr. Ogilvie, and he’s not in such a desperate situation as he seems to be thinking. I believe we can raise him by a human chain. It’ll be necessary for a man to go down head first, with his feet held from up here, and grip the Captain’s hands. With luck—if his feet are not caught—a strong pull should lift the both of them clear. Shall I call for a volunteer, sir?”

  Ogilvie shook his head. “No, Colour-Sarn’t, I’m not asking any man to go down there.”

  “But it’s not—”

  “I’ll go myself.” He spoke abruptly. He had had those terrible thoughts and they had to be expiated. He was the man for the job from another point of view as well: he was the tallest available, and he was as slim as Andrew Black. Another man might stick fast too. He it was who would have the best chance. He said as much

  “Are you sure that’s wise, Mr. Ogilvie?” MacNaught’s voice was oddly urgent.

  “What d’you mean by that, Colour-Sarn’t?”

  MacNaught hesitated and when he answered Ogilvie had the feeling he wasn’t speaking what was really in his mind. The Colour-Sergeant said, “An officer’s life is reckoned to be of greater value than that of a private soldier, Mr. Ogilvie, and we are marching into action. I know well what the Colonel would say, sir.”

  “The Colonel isn’t here,” Ogilvie said. He looked around at the others. “I’m going down now. Stand by to grab my legs and for God’s sake don’t let go.”

  He got down again on his stomach at the lip of the crevice. Black’s weak voice came up to him, beseec
hing now, whining. He called, “It’s all right, I’m coming down to you. Reach up as far as you can and take my hands the moment they touch yours.” He edged forward, head down into the bare, open earth. Stones fell around him, spattered down on Black’s head. The adjutant gave another terrified cry. Ogilvie himself felt the fear of the unknown as his body slid down faster. For one horrible moment he felt himself fall free, and then he felt the grip tighten around both his ankles, felt his body lifted clear of the sides and held vertical.

  Down he went, slowly now, grabbing at the sides as he was lowered. He could almost smell the animal fear emanating from the trapped adjutant. Blood filled his head till he felt something must surely give. He heard the heavy breathing of the men above, the men holding him, heard the sobbing cry from below—and now something else: the sound of turbulently rushing water a long, long way down, a subterranean torrent, tearing along somewhere beneath Black’s body.

  A hoarse voice reached him from the top: “We’re at full stretch now, sir. Can you make it?”

  He groped around. He knew Black couldn’t be far beneath him now. He called, “Try to come down a little more if you can, up there.” His voice sounded muffled in his own ears, muffled by that pounding blood. He felt his body ease downward a few more inches and then one of his hands contacted Black’s outstretched fingers. At once that hand was gripped as if by a vice. Wincing, he reached around with the other until that, too, was gripped hard. Black was never going to let go now. The adjutant was whimpering out a mixture of obscenities and drooling gratitude.

  “You’re a good fellow, Ogilvie—James. I’ve often said as much to the Colonel. I’ll be a good friend to you. You’re going to get me out...oh God, please, I beg of you, James, don’t let me go now! I’ll be your lifelong friend. God, man, James, you can’t let me die in this dreadful pit...”

  He was babbling.

  “Shut up,” Ogilvie said distinctly and with a touch of venom. “Shut up—and push with your feet!”

  But the terrible babble went on. Ogilvie called desperately, “Heave away up top, there! I have him now.”

  The men on the surface wasted no time after that. Ogilvie felt the tug on his ankles, on his arms. Black didn’t move. Ogilvie’s body stretched as though on a rack, he felt that his limbs were being drawn from their sockets. Black was babbling still and a moment later began crying like a baby. Ogilvie felt a furious loathing of the man he had come to rescue, but he couldn’t have let go now if he had intended to, for Black’s grip would never be shifted. The adjutant would drag him down to join him in his death before he would let go of his only lifeline.

  Ogilvie began cursing—cursing Black, cursing the men who were doing their best. Dimly through the pounding blood he heard MacNaught shouting, probably calling up more men to tail on to the others and heave. The pull increased and he felt every sinew come to full agonizing stretch. Then he felt a movement, and heard loose earth dropping, and Black moved a fraction. After that it was all over very quickly. Another strong pull from above freed the adjutant completely and as the resistance stopped both men came up with a rush and a jerk. Soon Ogilvie felt the fresh air reaching his face and felt the hands of the soldiers on his body as he was brought up and then guided to the ground and set on his stomach. Men tried to free his hands from Black’s grip, but failed. Black, his uniform filthy, his contorted, staring face muddied with tears and earth, was still holding tight to salvation. Twisting his body and looking into that broken face in the light from a shaded lantern, Ogilvie realized that the adjutant had passed out. Colour-Sergeant MacNaught, his face expressionless, lifted his heavy boot and crashed it down on the adjutant’s left wrist, a few inches from where Ogilvie’s hand was gripped. The fingers opened on a kind of reflex action and MacNaught repeated the process on Black’s other wrist.

  Ogilvie got unsteadily to his feet as three medical orderlies came up.

  MacNaught said evenly, “I’d be obliged if you’d not say a word to anyone as to how you were released from yon bloody yellow-belly, Mr. Ogilvie, sir. Never in all my service have I had to be a witness to such a terrible exhibition from an officer.”

  Ogilvie didn’t answer. He felt a rush of faintness, and he staggered a little, but was all right when he sat down for a spell, and he needed no attention from the medical orderlies beyond a welcome swig at a brandy bottle. Ten minutes later the march was resumed, with Captain Andrew Black being borne along by cursing stretcher-bearers.

  Soon after this episode the column was halted as the first streaks of the dawn came across the eastern sky, and they bivouacked out of sight from the rebel fort, behind the siege lines, had a welcome meal, then slept. When they resumed the march at full dark that night Black walked down the line for a word with Ogilvie and his half-company—or those of them who had assisted in the rescue operation. He seemed to have recovered his equilibrium, though he was still deathly pale and his wrists were bandaged. Stiffly he said, “Thank you all. You did well. As you can see, I’m little the worse. It was a small enough affair, of course.”

  Then he turned away. But before he went Ogilvie saw his face and read the truth in it plain—and realized, in a flash of understanding, just what it was MacNaught had tried to warn him of the night before. Captain Andrew Black, adjutant of the 114th Highlanders, The Queen’s Own Royal Strathspeys, had been seen by a subaltern as it were with his pants down around his ankles, having given way to abject panic and crying like a two-year-old. And for that he would never forgive James Ogilvie. It would be a long-term affair and he would bide his time, but there would come a day when he would even the score. For, as his face was now proclaiming, he had a very twisted mind.

  *

  When the brigade halted on the second dawn a curious incident took place that brought a welcome touch of lightness to such of the men as witnessed it. Major Archdale, with much distant hauteur, was seen by Ogilvie to march off the track into some handy scrub preceded by his irreverently named bum-havildar bearing in his arms the Brigade Major’s field lavatory. The procession vanished from sight and a few moments later the native sergeant retired to a respectful distance and waited. After some ten minutes there was a splintering sound, followed by a sharp cry and an oath; the havildar sprang into action with a look of great concern. He disappeared again, then returned with the Brigade Major, who was scarlet in the face and blowing out his moustache angrily, and the field lavatory, now broken. As a British subaltern of the 96th Mahrattas later said to Ogilvie, now the Brigade Major had bust his apparatus, he would probably cement right up.

  Five

  By two o’clock in the morning following the third leg of the march, the brigade was in position for the assault, having now been joined by its attack artillery drawn by sepoys. So far, all had gone entirely to plan. Ahmed Khan’s men appeared to have no knowledge at all of the movements that had been taking place. And now every man was watching for the signal from the supporting column, the brigade that was to attack the peak on the farther side of the valley’s entrance.

  The 114th Highlanders were spread out around the lower slopes leading to the point of attack, hidden in clefts and gullies and behind boulders, with the screw-guns of the mountain batteries in rear of them. James Ogilvie lay at full stretch on the bare earth, his revolver in his hand. He was aware of the heavy breathing of his men behind him, of the tension as they waited for the word to go. Though close to him, he could scarcely see their faces when he looked round, except as vague whitish blurs in the darkness. The brigade’s advance had melted into a sector of the hills where they were right out of the moon’s light; but when the assault itself began they would be moving right through that moonlight and would be as nakedly visible as in daylight. It was bad luck but was just something they had to put up with.

  Ogilvie was looking for what he guessed must be the hundredth time at his watch when a rocket streaked up from the far side of the defile, trailing stars of red and green and white. Ogilvie noted the time precisely as 2.43 a.m. and felt his stom
ach loosen. Close upon the first rocket another went up from their own side and at the same instant the batteries behind them went into action. Shells whistled like express trains over the heads of the Royal Strathspeys and the Mahrattas, who were spread out in front of the Highland line. A similar artillery action had started on the other side of the valley. Bursts of light appeared around the peaks ahead, the whole air seemed to fill with vibrancy from the din of the double bombardment. Fragments of rock and shrapnel flew—but there was no return fire. Thirty-five minutes precisely after its commencement, the artillery barrage was lifted from both sides and Ogilvie, his head reeling from the racket, heard the orders being passed to the Mahratta regiments to get up and charge with bayonets fixed. Ahead of him a long, triple line of native soldiers scrambled to their feet and ran forward, belting up the hill, holding their fire until the orders came to shoot. The Indians were yelling like devils as they charged up the difficult, rock-strewn terrain. The moon made them fully visible now from the British ranks behind, and they must have been equally so from above, but there was no firing as yet, and no sign of the defenders either. Ogilvie felt a sense of alarm; there was the smell of a trap about this. But he had only just formulated this thought when the defenders came suddenly and dramatically to life. Heads appeared over boulders, over redoubts farther up the hillside, over the ridges at the summit of the peak itself. A withering rain of fire came down from the long-barrelled muskets, a fire that was supported by a simultaneous barrage from the rebel artillery, now at last in action. Once again the British artillery started up. The Mahrattas went down like skittles in all directions, rolling in their blood. For a while the advance was sustained; then it wavered, and finally halted, stunned by the murderous gunfire. As the artillery shells burst before and behind him, Ogilvie heard the cries from the 114th’s ranks. Then, as some of the Mahrattas took shelter behind the boulders, others broke and began streaming to the rear, running in panic down the slope again as the rebel bullets and shells smashed into them.