The Ravi Lancers

by John Masters

  The sowars laughed in appreciation as they stood. Krishna thought, it will be more efficient this way, but even so thoughtful an Englishman as Warren Bateman did not understand what it meant to these men to be able to talk to their rulers, for as long as they wanted.

  The CO said, ‘Durbar is open. Let any who wish speak without fear of what is in his heart ... You. Paraschand, is it not, C Squadron?’

  ’Yes, sahib ... Sahib, it is in my mind that these Fransezi cultivate their land in a manner different from ours. Yet their cattle are fatter than ours and give more milk. I milked some cows for a Fransezi the other day and as God hears me each cow gave six seers of milk, not watery or blue, but full of cream. The wheat is gathered for the year and the barns are full. It is hard to understand the Fransezi when they say how many bighas of land were ploughed and sown in order to gather in that wheat ... but the wheat itself is good, the kernels firm and large, the ears heavy and thick, and altogether good. It is in my mind that we could learn something from these Fransezi farmers that would benefit us at home. But how can it be done in a thorough manner? For we will not learn all that is necessary, nor will we understand much that we see, by merely milking a cow here or helping with a plough there ... as I hear that one of our brothers did last week ... to his sorrow, it is said.’

  The sowars shouted and banged their thighs with laughter, for all had long since heard of Manraj’s mishap with the woman in Longmont. Catching sight of Manraj’s face among the crowd, Krishna saw that he was laughing with the rest.

  Rissaldar-Major Baldev Singh said, ‘Much could be learned by a man willing to spend his leave working for a Fransezi farmer, it being understood by the Fransezi that the wages of the man are not in money but in being taught. But I cannot arrange it, for I speak no Fransezi.’’

  ‘I will look into it,’ Major Bateman said, ‘but remember that we are here to fight, not to plough fields.’

  Krishna Ram could see by the faces nearby him that to the sowars there was no distinction, or exclusion; the land was under foot, a part of you.

  An old lance-dafadar said, ‘With respect to all, I think we should be careful of what we learn from these Fransezi. The cows are fat, yes ... but the children are thin. On the edge of a town ten miles beyond Longmont there is a big house. Know you what they keep in that house? Orphans! As though they had done some crime, to be shut up, instead of cared for by every man and woman eager to please the gods ... for the lord Krishna was once a helpless babe.’

  ‘Well spoken, well spoken,’ a dozen voices murmured.

  Warren said, ‘Next ...’

  A sowar of A Squadron spoke up: ‘During the action at Poucelle, we left ten of our brothers dead on the field. From each a finger was taken that it might be properly burned, which was done, as I saw with these eyes. But ... it is in my mind that a man will not fight so bravely for the honour of our sovereign and our regiment if he feels that his body may be left for dogs and rats to feed upon. Or for the Germans, who do not know our rites, to bury under this distant earth. Or is it that the Germans have Brahmins also as we do, to perform the sacred duties?’

  Major Bateman said, ‘The Germans have no Brahmins, for they are Christians, like us Angrezi ... It is impossible in a real war to bring back the bodies of our dead unless they fall in our own place. And it is only necessary when we are fighting against such savages as the tribesmen of the Afghan frontier, who will mutilate the dead and shame the living. I was with the squadrons at Poucelle. It was I who ordered them back, and to leave our dead upon the field, for the enemy artillery was ranging on us, and we would have suffered much in men and horses.’

  ‘Sahib, we are willing to suffer that our dead may pass to rest in the manner required.’

  The CO said, ‘I know ... but you have seen only a hundredth part of the power of weapons today. You should spend a week with the infantry, as I have. If we tried to bring back our dead after a big action, there would be no regiment left. So, except where an officer thinks the dead can be brought back with no loss to the living, it is forbidden. Hukm hai, it is an order,’ he said with a snap, using the phrase that puts an end to discussion. After a pause he said, ‘You may be learning the wisdom of this order soon. The infantry battalions go up the line in their turns. We spend our days and most of our nights on fatigues for them, because we are cavalry. I have asked the general to include us in the normal roster for spells in the front line. He was doubtful--because we have no bayonets, for instance--but he said he would think it over.’

  The men stirred and whispered among themselves, and Warren Bateman said, ‘Next ... You, Bahar Singh.’

  The rations were short, the sowar said: ‘Why?’

  Sohan Singh the fat quartermaster blandly explained that no rations had come up for two days after the last move, and the men had nearly starved--was it not so? A chorus of yeses agreed. So, he said, he was building up a little reserve of food for another such emergency. It was forbidden by regulations, but the colonel-sahib had given his permission and until it was done, everyone would receive only three-quarters of his proper ration.

  Caste marks again; and the CO again saying they were forbidden. He did not, Krishna noted, bring in General Glover to shoulder the blame for an unpopular move, but took it on himself. Yet the men would know who was responsible. They were simple, but they were shrewd.

  The festival of Dewali was due in a week’s time. Would there be proper nautches, feasts and prayers, as was customary?

  Warren hesitated a moment before answering. The big Dussehra celebrations soon after the battle of Poucelle had gone off very well from one point of view, but they had emphasized the men’s far origin and foreign faith, and brought crowds of British troops and French civilians to stare at the prayers and garlands and sacrificial ceremonies. It had made Warren feel, he said, that he was commanding a mob of circus freaks, or beings from another planet. His officers’ carefully applied Englishness had temporarily evaporated, like a thin layer of wax burned away by the Brahmin’s prayers; and he had had to demote a lance-dafadar to the ranks for wearing a caste mark in defiance of orders.

  But, there was no help for it--not yet. Unless the regiment was sent up the line, he’d have to allow the men to celebrate Dewali in the usual way. He answered the question. ‘Yes, if we are not in the line. I shall tell the Quartermaster-sahib he can spend 300 rupees out of the regimental fund. As you know, he has some costumes. There will be a great tamasha.’

  The men clapped and cheered. Then, after a few more minor points, as full darkness fell, and rain began to drip from the beech boughs, Warren Bateman said, ‘Anything more? Very well. Durbar is ended. The next durbar will be one month from now.’

  He turned on his heel and left, as the officers saluted and the rissaldar-major bellowed, ‘Ravi Lancers--’ten ... shun! ‘

  Krishna walked slowly to his billet. An interesting durbar. Perhaps they should be held more often than once a month. In conditions as strange as these in France were to them, the men needed a safety valve.

  An hour later he was still sitting in his billet, a bottle of vin ordinaire on the bare table and a candle guttering in the neck of another bottle. The house, part of a long row of brick houses which faced a similar row across the only street of the little hamlet, rumbled to the passage of guns towards the front. Other guns muttered and grumbled indistinctly, for the wind was in the north, and a chilling draught blew through the cracked windows and fluttered the worn curtains. The owners had fled, God knows where, and Krishna occupied one downstairs room among a welter of disregarded fragments of their lives. There was a picture of a solemn wedding couple on the mantelpiece, a crucifix and a large stain on one wall, and on another a discoloured patch where a picture had been taken away or stolen, and on the chest of drawers a basket containing the knicknacks of a woman’s sewing. The bed he had had brought in from another house. He looked at his wristwatch--more and more officers were wearing them nowadays, but he had been the first. Still nearly an hour to din
ner.

  Hanuman came in saying, ‘Captain Sher Singh, lord.’

  ‘Come in,’ Krishna called as his orderly went out. Sher Singh entered, his palms joined, the neck of a bottle sticking out of the pocket of his British warm. ‘Don’t make namasti to me,’ Krishna said irritably. ‘Salute, man.’

  The captain saluted hastily, and straightened his back from the ritual half bow that had gone with the namasti. ‘I found a bottle of vintage wine, and as I don’t drink ...’

  ‘Some of your men found it, you mean,’ Krishna said, reaching out his hand. The dusty label hardly decipherable, read Vosne Romanée 1904. He didn’t know anything about vintages beyond a few tips Warren Bateman had given him since he started to drink, but this was obviously too good to keep to himself. He’d take it to Warren’s billet one evening and they’d demolish it over a chat. Sher Singh was hanging around, as though waiting to be invited in. Krishna did not like him, but felt suddenly lonely for company and said, ‘Andar aiye, bhai ... Come in. Sit down.’

  The captain sat down with alacrity and, at Krishna’s command, lit a cigarette. ‘How does the CO think we’re doing, sir?’ he asked, leaning forward with a frank, open expression on his face.

  ‘All right,’ Krishna replied. ‘Our march discipline used to be bad, but the night drills the CO has ordered, and being harder on the VCOs, has had a good effect. Of course we haven’t seen any action since Poucelle.’

  ‘He’s a very good trainer,’ Sher Singh said enthusiastically. ‘My God, I think we are lucky to have a sahib like Major Bateman! It is fortunate, really, that Colonel Hanbury died.’

  ‘I suppose so. He was an honest gentleman,’ Krishna said, ‘but...’ he shrugged.

  ‘Too old,’ Sher Singh finished for him. ‘But Major Bateman is a very strong man, he rides like, like ... one of these half-horse men ... like our own Indra-ji! He is ...’

  The orderly appeared again: ‘Captain Doctor Sahib, lord.’ Ramaswami’s lantern-jawed black face appeared round the door under the battered and dirty military cap with the badge of the Indian Medical Service on awry. He did not salute but said, ‘Major Krishna Ram, I would like to speak to you.’

  ‘Come in. Sit down. Anything private?’

  ‘No.’ The doctor sat down waving away the wine Krishna offered him. ‘I don’t care who knows what I think. If they don’t like it they can only send me back to Madras and my gynaecological research and there’s nothing I would like more ... Something must be done about getting women and entertainment for the men here. It is not as though we were in the front line.’

  ‘God knows whether we ever will be, unless the general lets us go up as infantry,’ Krishna said. ‘This doesn’t seem to be a cavalry war. That charge at Poucelle succeeded because the front was fluid and because we took the Germans by surprise. Really I don’t think horsemen stand a chance against machine guns, and the number of machine guns being used is increasing as fast as they can be manufactured. And more barbed wire, which is fatal to cavalry ... So you advise, what?’

  ‘My medical advice is--start a regimental brothel somewhere close to the billet area.’

  ‘We always used to have one on manoeuvres,’ Sher Singh said. ‘You know that, we’d take out a dozen girls from Basohli. In the old days, before the British, we took girls along, too, when we were fighting Kangra or Chamba.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Krishna Ram said. ‘Have you spoken to the CO about this?’

  The doctor said, ‘No. He wouldn’t permit it, because the women would have to be white.’

  ‘He’s not like that,’ Krishna said.

  The doctor said, ‘Perhaps he was not, once. But he is becoming so now.’

  Krishna shook his head uneasily. This sort of talk among the Indian officers, behind the CO’s back, was not quite cricket, though not actually disloyal. Yet he ought to hear what the doctor had to say. He poured himself another glass of wine.

  Ramaswami said, ‘That’s all. If something isn’t done about it soon--in a month or so--you may have serious trouble of some kind. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘If anyone can get the CO to agree, the prince can,’ Sher Singh said sententiously.

  The doctor rose. He had kept his hat on all the time, and now gave an ungainly salute. ‘You have always taken alcohol?’

  Krishna shook his head. The doctor said, ‘You’re drinking more than you should.’

  ‘I like the taste of it,’ Krishna said defensively, ‘and it does make me feel good, just a couple of drinks.’

  ‘You’re taking much more than a couple of drinks,’ the doctor said. ‘Liquor also serves to help a man push out of his mind something that is worrying him.’

  He saluted again and was gone. ‘He has a nerve,’ Sher Singh said, indignantly, ‘speaking to you like that, highness! I mean--sir!’ Krishna drained his glass, ‘Oh, what the bloody hell does it matter? He is only a black Madrassi yoni doctor, a peerer-up of cunts.’ He poured himself another drink.

  Next morning he awoke to a fuzzed head and a furred tongue, but after he had stripped and washed from head to toe in the ice cold water of a bucket, standing in the tiny back yard among derelict pea and tomato plants, he felt better. He dressed with care, praising Hanuman for the glasslike polish on his belt and riding boots and the chinstrap of his peaked cap. After examining his charger and its saddlery he went to the CO’s office, where he had been bidden to meet the acting divisional commander an hour before the King was due to arrive. The CO was already there and a few minutes later Brigadier-General ‘Rainbow’ Rogers rode up accompanied by a General Staff officer.

  When he had dismounted he said, ‘Let’s go into your office a moment, Bateman. There are some matters I’d like to discuss before the King arrives. You come too, Krishna Ram.’ Warren Bateman led the way into his office. Warren said, ‘Congratulations, sir.’

  The general looked down at the double row of medal ribbons on his left breast. ‘Oh, yes, it was in Divisional orders wasn’t it, about the Cross of Serbia, 5th Class. Pretty ribbon, isn’t it?’

  ’What are the rest, sir?’ Warren Bateman asked, with every appearance of enthusiastic interest. ‘I never had a chance to ask you on the Nerbudda.’ Krishna looked at his CO with veiled suspicion. Major Bateman was buttering the general up; for on the ship he had said more than once that Rogers was the only man in the army who had managed to amass even one row of ribbons without including a single campaign medal or decoration. And now he had reached two full rows--ten medals, and still not one for battle!

  ‘This is the MVO, of course,’ the general said, craning his neck eagerly at his own ribbons. ‘And this is the Legion d’Honneur. This is the Belgian Order of St. Leopold. This one’s Russian. This is an Italian order. I was Military Attaché in Rome in 1907. This one ...’--he went hurriedly on to the next, missing one--’This is the Order of Manoel. I had the honour of acting as Aide de Camp to His Majesty the King of Portugal when he came grouse shooting in Scotland in 1905.’ He straightened his back where he sat on the edge of the CO’s table, while the other two stood. ‘Talking of medals, your fellow who led the charge against the German guns at Poucelle is getting a DSO. Can’t remember these Indian names for the life of me.’

  ‘Captain Himat Singh,’ Major Bateman said. ‘That’s very good news, sir. Our first decoration.’

  ‘That’s the fellow. And some Indian medal for a few NCOs and troopers. The GSO has the names and details. His Majesty is going to present them this morning. I’m not getting anything, though the Corps Commander said in his dispatch that my plan was of great boldness ... How are you getting on, turning these Indians into officers and gentlemen, Bateman?’

  ‘Pretty well, I think, sir.’

  ‘Good. Everyone know how to use a WC decently now?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Krishna cut in, ‘Though we have found that a good many of the French WCs are like the ones used in India.’ Warren looked at him sharply, and he was silent. He had, after all, not
been asked for his opinion.

  ‘So they are,’ the general said. ‘Damned Frogs are as bad as Wogs! Ha ha ... Got rather a tricky situation in Longmont. I wish I could leave it till General Glover gets back--he ought to be fit again in another week--but I can’t. A couple of brothels have sprung up there, and we don’t want the sepoys and sowars going to them and getting ideas. I’ve told the Gurkhas, who are nearest, to put strong regimental police patrols into the place. You’d better do the same.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Warren said.

  ‘And the Fusiliers, sir?’ Krishna asked. ‘They’re closer than either us or the Gurkhas.’

  The general looked at him in astonishment. ‘They’re British,’ he said. ‘No reason they shouldn’t patronize Frog whores. As long as we inspect the women regularly, which the RMO of the Fusiliers is doing ...’ He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour to go. We’d better get ready.’

  Major Bateman turned to Krishna as the general left, and snapped, ‘Find out who’s getting decorated. Have them lined up in front of the regiment, directly behind me, unless the GSO 1 orders it done some other way ... And if I want you to give your opinions to the general, I’ll ask you to.’ He strode out, his spurs clashing on the stone floor, before Krishna could speak.

  For a moment he experienced an emotion new to him--a generalized anger which he could not point at any one person or thing. But, before it could build up, he was involved in the mounting splendour of an imperial review of a regiment of lancers. There was not the yellow and white of a parade at Basohli, nor the scarlet and blue and gold he had seen when the regulars marched past at Lahore, for the regiment was wearing khaki; but the leather belts and bandeliers winked in the winter sun, and the horses’ coats shone and the heads tossed and the bits jingled while the band played the march, and His Majesty smiled at him. Soon the white and gold enamel cross of the Distinguished Service Order gleamed on Himat Singh’s tunic, and Himat Singh stood a foot taller and rode like Arjun in the skies at the head of B Squadron; and Sowar Ajit Ram and Rissaldar Ram Lall wore the Indian Order of Merit, and half a dozen more the Indian Distinguished Service Medal.