The Ravi Lancers

by John Masters

  He waited. His men crouched ready, three at each traverse. Once they had the men they wanted between two traverses, they’d block off a bay by killing the men front and back, then drop into the bay to get the ones in the trap.

  A minute passed. Two. The Germans usually sent their reinforcements forward within half a minute of the ending of the barrage, as the British had discovered, time and again, to their cost.

  Three minutes. Four. In the name of God, he could wait no longer. His plan was a precise thing, not a matter of waiting for something to happen. Thank God for the rain and circling thunder. What in hell had happened? The Germans always sent up reinforcements ... To the north-west, about where the next communication trench was, he thought he saw the gleam of a bayonet tip ... and another ... several, in line. A solution struck him and he almost laughed. Too late to do anything about it now. He signalled his men in and they began the return. This time they found two German soldiers patrolling the piece of front-line trench they had to cross to get back to No Man’s Land. Krishna signalled two sowars up close. He whispered to them, ‘Next time, bayonet! ‘

  The two Germans reached the far traverse, and turned. One began to climb up on to the firestep to look towards the British lines, and Krishna gave his two men a shove. They sprang, rifles and fixed bayonets lunging. The bayonets thrust home with a thud and one of the Germans screamed a terrible cut-off, choking, bubbling scream. By then the rest of the patrol were jumping the trench. Krishna reached down to help up the two men. Another German appeared round the traverse, and a sowar behind Krishna fired but missed. The German whipped up his rifle and fired twice. The two sowars in the trench fell dead. The sowar behind Krishna fired again and the German fell. A grenade flew over the traverse and burst in the trench. Orders were being shouted close by in German. The dafadar of the patrol said, ‘Come, lord.’

  Nothing could be done for the dead. Krishna turned, ran to the wire, crawled under and set off at a trot back across No Man’s Land, his patrol spread out on either side of him--all but the two sowars left in the trench.

  He dropped into the Ravi front line and Warren Bateman caught him. ‘Well, did you get them?’

  Krishna shook his head, ‘No, sir ... We were waiting by the communication trench between Sectors 77 and 78.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

  ‘The German reinforcements went up the one between Sectors 76 and 77, two hundred yards to the north-west. I believe they have a one-way system, one communication trench only for forward traffic, the next only for rearward traffic. No one passed in ours.’

  Warren said, ‘You might be right ... but the reinforcements would eventually have gone back to the rear, down your trench.’

  ‘Perhaps, sir, but probably not until daylight,’ Krishna said briefly. He was very tired and suddenly wanted nothing more but to get to bed. He’d lost two men, his faithful servants, for what?

  Warren Bateman said, ‘Did you hear that, Puran Lall?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the young man said.

  ‘You follow Major Krishna Ram’s plan tomorrow ... They didn’t see you on the communication trench, did they?’

  ‘No, sir. And we killed the only two in the front line, who might have seen us coming from that direction, from the rear. But...’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ Warren Bateman said, taking the words out of Krishna’s mouth. ‘Give them, say two days, to forget all this. The third night from now, Puran.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the young man said. His voice was without any emotion, either of love or hate, fear or exaltation.

  Krishna went to his dugout and said to Hanuman, ‘Well, we live, see?’ The letter felt warm in his pocket, as though it were her breast pressing into him. He said, ‘Tell the quartermaster sahib I want to see him.’

  The fat captain came hurrying as the first light spread. Krishna handed him the letter.

  August 1915

  Ready then?’ Warren Bateman asked as he finished buckling on his Sam Browne belt and sabre. ‘Let’s start.’

  He turned to climb the steps out of the dugout, colliding with a sowar carrying a couple of letters. ‘Christ! ‘ he snarled in English--then, in Hindi--’Can’t you look where you’re going, you clumsy idiot?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sahib,’ the sowar said. ‘Mail.’ He handed one letter to Warren Bateman, the other to Krishna Ram. Krishna’s heart bumped and his hand shook with a sudden spasm so that his letter almost fell from it. It was from Diana. He glanced quickly at Warren to see whether he too had recognized the handwriting, but the CO was stuffing his own letter into his pocket with a muttered, ‘Bloody tailor. Come on.’

  Krishna put his letter into the left breast pocket of his tunic, buttoned it down, and followed Warren Bateman up the steps into the open air. The CO was muttering to himself or to Shikari all along the trench to the rear, and still talking when they stepped out into the open at the rear of the trench system half a mile farther back. It was July 28th, 1915, a brilliant sun shining and the wheat heavy in the fields, that began here and stretched away to the west, only lightly touched by the war.

  The regiment’s first line transport was drawn up for inspection, headed by Rissaldar Ram Lall.

  Ram Lall saluted as the CO walked up, and reported the parade state. Warren Bateman glared at him and said, ‘Who are you? You’re not the rissaldar-major. I distinctly said that the RM was to...’

  Ram Lall looked from the CO to Krishna Ram, then said woodenly, ‘I am the acting rissaldar-major, sahib. Rissaldar-Major Baldev Singh became ill and was sent on sick leave a week ago.’

  Warren shook his head as though to shake off water then muttered, ‘Oh, yes. Of course...’

  He began the inspection. Krishna, walking close behind him, thought that he was like an engine missing fire on one or two of its cylinders. Sometimes you would never guess anything was wrong. His eye would pick up the general condition of a GS wagon, and the fact that it had a rusty split pin in the rear axle-housing, all in a single sweep, but at the next wagon the horse had an obvious girth gall as big as a saucer, and he didn’t see it. His manner, too, altered without apparent reason. At one moment he was cracking a Hindi joke with a young sowar who had done nothing--neither right nor wrong--but stand there stiffly at attention; five minutes later he was viciously castigating a dafadar who had also, apparently, done nothing. ‘Take his name!’ he snapped.

  ‘Jee huzoor,’ the acting RM said and wrote it down in his well-thumbed notebook, with a painstaking hand.

  That part of the inspection ended, Warren stopped and said, ‘Well, time for a beer in the mess.’

  Krishna Ram said, ‘Yes, sir ... Captain Ramaswami is expecting us at the RAP in ten minutes.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Warren muttered. He put a hand to his eyes and said, ‘It’s damned bright today. Like Jacobabad in May. Were you ever in Jacobabad?’

  ‘No, sir ... Shall I take the inspection for you, sir?’

  ‘No! Who the hell do you think you are? I’m the CO of this regiment and I’d thank you to remember it. The men will not wear caste marks while I’m CO ... not in Europe. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir ... Turn left here, sir.’

  They started back up the trench system towards the Regimental Aid Post. The regiment was in brigade reserve, occupying trenches half a mile behind the front, but connected to the front by numerous communication trenches. The RAP was in deep cellars of several houses that had once formed a hamlet here and of which no trace remained but piles of rubble and armies of grey rats. The bricks and stones of the shattered houses had gone to the revetting and reinforcing of such places as the RAP, the ammunition store, the quarter-guard, and, a couple of hundred yards away, the whole brigade headquarters complex.

  Captain Ramaswami was waiting at the entrance to the cellars. He saluted and Krishna thought, inwardly smiling, that his saluting was getting worse, not better. Warren Bateman returned the greeting smartly, then began his inspection. It was the same as at the transport lines, an
affair of fits and starts, of long silences while the CO stood at the foot of a table and stared at the waiting medical orderly, saying nothing; of sudden outbursts. One of these, directed at the dispenser who was showing him how the reserve of morphine was stored, caused the doctor to break into the CO’s flooding wrath with a curt, ‘It is not his fault. I ordered that.’

  Warren Bateman turned on the doctor and for a moment Krishna thought he was going to lose his temper, but instead he suddenly collapsed, growing visibly smaller, like a pricked balloon ... no, like a man turning into a youth, an unsure youth. ‘Oh,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Did you? ... Good, good.’ He went on to the next ward, where there were six beds, all that the RAP had, for most sick and wounded were sent back to the first place really organized for dealing with lying patients, the Casualty Clearing Station seven miles to the rear, outside field artillery range.

  The CO walked jerkily into the ward and made a joke with the first man. The young sowar’s face lit up as Warren talked to him about his home, the fishing, the crops, the animal fair. After five minutes Warren nodded and moved on. He stared at the next man. He turned slowly, looking dumbly at Krishna. His mouth formed words, but none came out. His eyes took on a hunted look. Krishna tried to read what was being said, but he could get no meaning from it. Captain Ramaswami stepped forward, and took the CO’s arm. ‘This way, sir,’ he said gently. ‘I have something I must show you.’ Aside to his dafadar he said, ‘Clear my bed ... This way. Let’s have the sleeve up a bit.’

  Warren said, ‘You know that fourth ribbon of Rainbow’s, Krishna?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Krishna said; he couldn’t remember which it was at all, but thought he had better humour Warren for the moment, while Ramaswami was dabbing his arm with cotton soaked in alcohol.

  ‘Do you remember once he was telling us what all the ribbons were, but skipped over that one? Well, I’ve discovered what it is--Austrian. He’s wearing an enemy decoration! And he knows it! Ha, ha!’

  ‘Ha, ha!’

  ‘Ow, what the hell? ... Have I been wounded? Is that a tetanus injection?’ Shikari crouched on the floor, whining.

  ‘A touch of fever. We’ll have you right in no time. Lie down here.’

  ‘We can use that to blackmail him, eh, Krishna? If he refuses to send us up the line ... keeps us in reserve instead of leading the assault... eh?’

  ‘Take his boots off. Undo his tie. He’ll be asleep in a couple of minutes.’

  They stood over the foot of the bed in the tiny cubby hole which was Ramaswami’s own billet at the end of the RAP and watched Warren Bateman sinking into unconsciousness. The dog Shikari looked on anxiously. The doctor’s face was dark and stern as usual, but there was a softening at the corners of the thick lips.

  He turned to Krishna. ‘Overwork. He was unconscious on his feet. He’s got to have a couple of weeks off ... ten days at least.’

  ‘He’ll never go,’ Krishna said.

  ‘No. He’s the white god, the white father. Without him we black men will go to pieces. Besides, he has to punish us ... He’ll wake up tomorrow feeling much better. Then he’ll start again, twenty hours a day, driving us hard, himself harder. Two or three days later he’ll be back here like this--but worse. There’s no knowing what he might do in this state. Shoot a man for having a boot-lace undone. Burst into tears on parade.’

  ‘The men would understand,’ Krishna said.

  ‘Yes. But Rainbow Rogers wouldn’t... I think you should go to the general. Give him this report’--he was scribbling on a message form--’and tell him that Colonel Bateman needs two weeks’ leave at home.’

  ‘Baldev Singh’s there,’ Krishna remembered suddenly. ‘He’ll never allow himself to be away at the same time as the RM.’

  ‘He won’t know,’ the doctor said. ‘If we act quickly he’ll be well on his way before he wakes up. Orderly, fetch the CO’s orderly to take his dog away and look after it ... Here’s my note to the general. Tell him I’ll come and give my opinion in person if he wants me to, but it’s all there.’

  Krishna nodded and set off down the remains of the street, between the non-existent buildings, to Brigade Headquarters. When the staff captain took him into the general’s presence Rainbow greeted him jovially. He had apparently come off some sort of a ceremonial parade, for the collar of the CMG hung gaudily round his neck under the lapels of his tunic. He read the doctor’s letter with small clucking noises and said finally, ‘H’m ... There’s going to be another big offensive soon ... but you handled the regiment well enough last time, when he was wounded ... All right. Send him off on two weeks’ leave ... two weeks in England that is. You assume command, effective at once. Publish that, John.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Krishna headed back to the regiment’s lines. At the RAP he told the doctor to get Warren Bateman off, under escort, with his leave warrant. Then he wrote a note of explanation, to be given to him when he awoke, stressing that the general had ordered him to take two weeks’ rest at home. Then he returned to his own billet, the letter from Diana suddenly burning in his pocket. He had forgotten it in the tension of Warren’s breakdown, but now it was like a fire against his skin.

  Alone in the midday dusk of the dugout, candle lit, he opened the letter.

  Dearest Krishna, Oh, how wonderful! I will be there. Nothing will stop me. I will arrive in Paris at the Gare St. Lazare, at 4.23 p.m. on Tuesday August 3rd. No one will know I am not still working at the factory. All my love my darling--Diana.

  And a dozen Xs. What did that mean? Was it some Christian sign? But the Xs were made that way, not vertically like the cross of the religion of Christ. Tuesday, August 3rd, the day he’d told her his leave would begin, now just four days away. He sank on to his camp bed. He could see her as clearly as though she were standing there in the dugout. She was here, the candlelight glowing in her hair. Now she was sitting opposite him in the train as it left Paddington, after the great day at the Oval, the platform lights passing, at first slowly, then faster, flashing in her face--flash, one eye, the one nearest the platform gleaming, suddenly a red glow in the pupil...

  The letter fell from his hand. He was the Commanding Officer. He could not be away from the regiment for 72 minutes, let alone 72 hours. He ground his teeth with despair. That madman, that assassin Warren Bateman had arranged this, pretending to have a breakdown, just so that he could not take the leave that had been promised! He had done it because he knew that Diana was going to join him in Paris. Krishna’s hands clenched until the nails bit into the palms.

  He relaxed, his head sinking. Of course Warren had not done it on purpose, of course Warren knew nothing. Nevertheless, there it was. He ought to send a telegram off at once telling Diana he could not get away. He could word it so as not to compromise her or let anyone else guess the truth. He ought to warn her that her brother was on his way back to England. Warren was very fond of her. He might go up to London to see her, or ask her to come down to Shrewford Pennel for the weekend; and she would not be there ... But she would, because he must tell her the meeting in Paris was impossible. He must, he must...

  He must go, he must stay ... the words ran like a refrain in his mind, as they had done for three days, hammering behind his words of command, the orders and instructions he gave by day, dripping like a tap when he lay down at night, ceaseless. He must stay, he must go ... but suppose the CO came back suddenly? But there would never be another chance like this. And who could guarantee his surviving the next spell in the front line? He loved her. She was risking so much for him. If he didn’t go, she would be alone in Paris...

  The dafadar instructor barked, ‘Gun stops, one ... Hand flat on the cocking hammer, check its position ... No, owl, flat, like this ... Position one! ‘

  The four men sitting behind the four Vickers guns wrenched open the top cover of the breech, revealing the lock.

  ‘Lock, position two, unfired round in the top, round in the bottom,’ the dafadar cried. The four sowars shouted toge
ther, ‘Misfire!’ They pushed the lock back into place, slapped the covers down, jerked the cocking hammer twice, bent down to look through the sights, sat up, and pressed the thumbpieces.

  ‘Sit up, sit up!’ the dafadar yelled. ‘Observe the strike! Gun firing all right ... Gun stops, two ... Hand flat on the cocking hammer--flat, flat, you idiot ... Cocking hammer, position three! ‘

  Diana’s boat would sail from Southampton. She would be coming via Le Havre as there was no civilian traffic through Boulogne or Calais. Allow eight hours for the crossing, she would be leaving Woolwich ... in the next hour. If he ran off the practice ground here behind the trenches, ran to brigade headquarters, told the brigade major he had a most immediate message for the CO ... he might be able to get a telephone connection through to London in time.

  ‘Round jammed in breech!’

  Back and forward, back and forward flew the cocking hammers with clack of steel on steel.

  ‘Round won’t extract! ‘

  ‘Broken extractor claw! ‘ the men behind the guns shouted. The men lying beside them searched frantically in the metal boxes for the replacement parts and handed them up. ‘Slow!’ the dafadar yelled. ‘The Germans would have reached Bombay by now.’ The men replaced the claws. ‘Change!’ the instructor yelled. The men who had been sitting behind the guns struggled to their feet and ran to the rear. The men who had been lying beside the guns took their places at the triggers, four more men doubled up from the row awaiting in rear to take the places of the No. 2s.