The Ravi Lancers

by John Masters

  From the next bay he heard Pahlwan Ram talking to Krishna Ram and Bruington.

  ‘Why were you firing at me, Sher Singh?’ he said.

  The man’s handsome face was grey under the brown skin. From a sudden uncontrollable movement of his body Warren thought bowels and bladder had emptied, from fear.

  ‘I... I...’

  ‘Why?’ Warren turned to the VCOs.

  ‘He told us you had gone mad and were going to get us all killed, sahib,’ the jemadar said.

  A stench of diarrhoea filled the trench. Warren, aiming at Sher Singh’s stomach, pulled the trigger. ‘You fucking sodomite,’ he said. The heavy bullet blasted the officer against the back wall of the trench. He clasped his hands to his belly, swung slowly, and fell, screaming as he rolled on to his face. Someone shouted in the next bay and men appeared, rifles ready. The scream ended in a bubbling gasp.

  Warren said, ‘Rissaldar Chuni Ram ... Jemadar Dial Chand ... You knew he was shooting at me?’ His arm ached steadily.

  ‘No, sahib,’ one said, but the other said, ‘Yes, I knew. I thought he was right... That you had gone insane.’

  Warren fired again, aiming at the speaker’s heart. The rissaldar fell without a sound.

  ‘Sir! What...?’

  Warren ignored Krishna, beside him now, and said, ‘You jemadar-sahib, are reduced to sowar. Go and tell Major Himat Singh that. And why.’

  The jemadar said, ‘Major Himat Singh is dying. The rissaldar-sahib had just taken over command of the squadron.’

  ‘Where’s Himat?’ Warren demanded.

  ‘In the next bay but one,’ Krishna said. ‘A shell burst in the trench close to him ... But you’re wounded, sir.’

  Warren ran along the trench, returning his revolver to its holster as he ran, misery in his heart. Himat gone, the only one he could trust. He found the major lying on a German stretcher, a ground-sheet over his body, an orderly at his head. Warren dropped to one knee beside him. ‘Himat ... where are you hit?’

  ‘Stomach, sir. I’m going.’

  ‘No, no!’ Warren cried fiercely. ‘Don’t leave me! You’ll be all right! ‘

  ‘Dying,’ Himat said. He coughed feebly. Blood trickled down his chin and on to the ribbon and rosette of the DSO.

  His hand reached up and Warren, turning, found Krishna Ram at his elbow, kneeling beside him. The dying man took the prince’s hand and held it tight. ‘You were right, lord,’ he gasped. ‘We should have stayed ... in India ... I’m sorry ... I betrayed you, lord ... Forgive me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Krishna said. ‘Lie still.’

  ‘Take ... the regiment... home! ‘

  ‘You, too?’ Warren cried, wounded to the depths.

  ‘Yes, sir ... All we have learned is strength ... and ugliness ... not virtue.’

  The major’s other hand was gripping him like a claw. Warren tried to free himself but could not. A rattle began in Himat Singh’s throat. In a moment he was dead.

  Warren stayed a long minute, kneeling. Then he stood up. He said, ‘Krishna, I’m going to attack again as soon as we can arrange the fire support.’ He reached his headquarters in the next bay.

  ‘The jawans are exhausted,’ Krishna said. ‘They’re at the end of their tether.’ His voice rose. ‘Do you think this would have happened’--he pointed at the corpse of Rissaldar Chuni Ram, now on the parapet--’unless they were stretched beyond reason? Do you know how many casualties we have had? We’ve taken half our objective, which is more than anyone else did ... more than anyone would have believed possible this morning.’

  ‘It’s not enough,’ Warren said. ‘If we don’t attack, the Germans will. And if this regiment doesn’t go forward, it’ll go back. That’s the state of its morale, thanks to you. Jawan, give me that telephone.’

  He sat down on a pile of sandbags. ‘Put me through to brigade headquarters,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no communication beyond our rear headquarters, sahib,’ the young signaller said.

  ‘There hasn’t been for quarter of an hour,’ Krishna said. ‘The rissaldar-major said he thought the Germans had counter-attacked on both flanks and were in behind us.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ Warren said.

  ‘Yes, sir. And Ramaswami, with the advanced aid post he’d brought up to rear HQ. And the Pandit-ji. The quartermaster’s there, too. He’d come up with the extra ammunition and seems to have been trapped ... stretcher bearer, here, help me put the colonel sahib’s arm in a splint.’

  Warren waited, sitting still, his head nodding, while they cut off the sleeve of his tunic and made the splint out of a stick of wood found in a dugout, bandaged it, and put his arm in a sling. ‘Take some morphine, sir,’ Krishna said.

  He shook his head. ‘We’re going to attack again. If you can drown a sowar in peacetime, just to make a good show on manoeuvres, it shouldn’t bother you to lose every man in the regiment in a real decisive battle ... Is there no way you can get through to the guns, Bruington?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  Krishna Ram said, ‘It isn’t necessary. We are not going to attack.’

  For a moment Warren did not understand what was being said. Then he started forward, his hand going to his hip, but as he looked up he realized he was staring down the muzzle of Krishna’s revolver. Krishna said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you are relieved of your command. Pahlwan, cover Lieutenant Bruington. Take his revolver. Hanuman, cover the artillery signallers...’

  The young gunner subaltern quavered, ‘My God, sir, what are you doing?’

  The trench reeked of fear and urine and wet wool and death.

  ‘Colonel Bateman is temporarily insane, because of his wound,’ Krishna said. ‘I am assuming command ... Don’t worry, I’ll tell the general as soon as I can get through to him.’

  Warren experienced a slowly spreading emptiness in the pit of his stomach, half agony, half ecstasy. It was exactly the same sensation as had come over him when he saw Ralph’s buttocks thrusting between the spread thighs of his wife. He turned slowly on the prince. Krishna was pale, his face splashed with mud, the wet tunic clinging to him. The rain continued to fall without cease. Warren said, ‘I am in full possession of my senses. You are fomenting a mutiny.’

  ‘I say you are insane, sir. But not only you. Everyone fighting here in France. We are getting out.’ He took the revolver from Warren’s holster and reached out to hand it to a trumpeter. Warren leaped at it, but as his hand touched it Hanuman’s rifle jerked down. The butt smashed against Warren’s wrist, knocking the revolver out of his hand. He stood swaying, the wrist hanging in throbbing agony. ‘Are you going to obey my orders, sir?’ Krishna said.

  ‘No, you treacherous swine! ‘

  ‘Guard the colonel-sahib, Hanuman. See that he does not get possession of any weapon.’

  ‘Jee hart huzoor.’

  ‘Signaller, tell the quartermaster-sahib and the rissaldar-major-sahib to come here at once. Pahlwan, take command of B Squadron ... But first order all squadron commanders to send out patrols to establish the present position of the Germans in front and to the flanks ... and, from B and D Squadrons, to the rear ... Stretcher bearer, give the colonel-sahib morphine. Hold him, Hanuman. I’ll help. There ... Lie still, sir.’

  October 1915

  Sunset was invisible in the rain, the yellowish tinge subtly leaving the light and then the light itself, grey-green, fading slowly into darkness. It stopped raining. Artillery grumbled from in front and behind, flashes lit the horizon all round, growing brighter as night advanced. The earth trembled continually but no shells fell among the trenches held by Krishna’s men.

  Krishna, in a German dugout which faced the wrong way, its door protected by the original gas curtain, studied a trench map spread on a crude table. The Ravi Lancers were surrounded. If the Germans knew that they had a pocket of British troops between their advanced and rear elements they had done nothing about it. A few German carrying parties had tried to use the communication t
renches but had been beaten off without difficulty. Their artillery had made no attempt to fire and no patrols seemed to have been sent to find out the situation. The Ravi Lancers remained in a sort of hollow square--A and D Squadrons forward in old German reserve trenches; in the centre, Regimental HQ and the machine guns in German front line trenches; to the rear, B and C Squadrons in what had been the British front line.

  This state of affairs could not last long, Krishna knew. Either the British would launch a counter-offensive to regain what had been lost, or the Germans would attack to wipe out the lodgment.

  ‘Galloper,’ he said, ‘I am going to hold a panchayat here at eight o’clock. Tell Captain Ramaswami, the quartermaster-sahib, Rissaldar Ram Lall, and the Pandit-ji to attend ... Rissaldar-major-sahib, will you take part?’

  The rissaldar-major said, ‘It would be improper for me to do so, Yuvraj.’ He was sitting on one of the bunks against the back wall, his hands bound behind his back with field telephone cable, for Krishna had placed him under arrest as soon as he came up from the rear, knowing that his duty would compel him to support Warren Bateman. Also, in arrest and bound, no British authority could later accuse him of complicity in anything that happened in the regiment. On the next bunk Warren Bateman was propped up with sandbags, his face greasy-white even in the yellow light from candles stuck in bottles.

  ‘You don’t even have the guts to give orders, but call a panchayat,’ he muttered weakly. ‘You claim you’re commanding, don’t you?’

  ‘This isn’t a matter for a command decision, sir,’ Krishna said. ‘I shall hold the panchayat here. You are welcome to give your opinions during it.’

  He went out into the trench. His bodyguards, squatting outside the gas curtain, rose and made namasti as he appeared. Was there a moon trying to rise? It might be important later, but not now. Later, too, he’d look at the squadrons. A machine gun was in position above, the gunner hunched in silhouette behind the thick barrel. ‘Sab thik hai, jawan?’ He spoke to the dim shape.

  ‘Thik hai, huzoor.’

  To the right was a stretch of trench where the Germans must have once had a battalion headquarters at the least. It contained several big dugouts, which Krishna had ordered taken over for the Aid Post. He ducked under the tarpaulin covering the entrance to the centre one, and paused, chilled by the sight. The colour was red-brown, mixed of earth and blood. The floor was densely covered with men, blood seeping through bandages and from open wounds. Blood ran from the table where Captain Ramaswami, shirt-sleeved in the chill night, operated fast. Legs and arms piled up in the far corner and even as Krishna watched a sowar staggered by with a load of them bloody in his arms, to take them outside. Orderlies removed the man Ramaswami had been operating on and carried him out to one of the other dugouts. Another man was lifted on to the table. Ramaswami cut his tunic, looked at the mess of entrails revealed, and shook his head. The orderlies took the man out.

  The doctor looked up and saw Krishna. Sweat ran down his dark coarse skin and his eyes were bloodshot. He said, ‘Dussehra, prince! See how your goddess Kali shows her love for her children! ‘

  ‘This isn’t the work of Kali,’ Krishna said bitterly. ‘She is human, this is the work of a factory ... Is the CO going to lose his arm?’

  The doctor shook his head. He was making long slits in a man’s forearm as he spoke, the man grey of face, staring with wide open eyes at the hurricane lantern swinging from a stick over his head. ‘It’s a simple fracture of the humerus. The arm may heal a little short, as the bullet blew a piece of the bone clean out.’ He wiped cloth and mud out of the strongly bleeding wound under his hands. ‘Iodine and bandage! ‘ he called. ‘Next! ... I hear we’re surrounded. Why don’t we surrender?’

  Krishna said, ‘That’s what we’re going to discuss at the panchayat. You can come, can’t you?’

  The doctor gestured at the patiently waiting wounded. Krishna said, ‘I think it’s important. Please come.’

  The doctor said, ‘You’re exhausted. Get some sleep.’

  Krishna went up the dugout steps into the trench, breathing deeply of the damp air. Yes, he was tired; but there was not much more to endure. He returned to his own dugout and lay down. ‘Wake me when the members of the panchayat come,’ he said, and closed his eyes.

  He had thought, as soon as he shut out the scene actually before him, that visions of the Aid Post and its mangled humanity would come, or memories of the broken bodies he had seen above ground, churned into the mud of Artois; but what came to him were visions of Diana Bateman ... smiling at him as they walked on the Plain ... tossing her head, her short curls shaking in the wind ... talking of what they would do together in Ravi when he became the Rajah. She was so innocent, not of sexuality or sin, but of other values than the ones she had been brought up to. She was innocent of doubt. He wondered how she would have fared if circumstances had forced her into the same self examinations and re-evaluations that had faced Warren since he joined the Ravi Lancers. Then he saw her naked, her arms up, and he thought, she may be carrying my child, a son of the Sun. Surely she would have told him somehow if she was. There was nothing about that in the letters that Warren had given back to him. But perhaps she was sure, from his actions in Paris, that he wanted a child, and would only write if to say that, alas, she was not pregnant.

  He was sure, suddenly, that she was pregnant. She thought that he wanted the child, and would be delighted by the revelation, which she wanted to make to him from her own lips--for it was to be a moment of joy for both of them.

  He turned over, opening his eyes. What would he really think, if that was the truth? What would he say? What he actually did was the least important, for what would matter in any future life he might live with Diana, would be the inwardness of his feelings ... and that he didn’t know.

  One by one the members of the panchayat came down the steps. One by one they squatted round the walls. Krishna, squatting in the centre, looked at them, one by one--fat Sohan Singh, his jowls trembling--but from what? He wasn’t physically frightened. The doctor, black, dead weary, bloodstains on his sleeve, officially a Christian, really almost an atheist, and mentally farther from Krishna’s Rajput Hinduism than Warren Bateman lying on the German blanket there. The Brahmin, also trembling a little, but because he was physically afraid; he had put a caste mark and rice on his forehead. Rissaldar Ram Lall, clean shaven, tall, his Sam Browne gleaming, the belt buckle like the sun, the ribbon of the IOM red and blue on his chest. Himself ... he looked in the broken piece of mirror some German had hung from a roof beam, and saw a haggard unshaven man, dark eyes fiery in a dirty face, hair long and black hanging down under the mud-stained turban. He said, ‘Pandit-ji, say a prayer for us.’

  The Brahmin joined his palms and intoned in Sanskrit, praying, ‘O Lord Vishnu, whom we worship, and Lord Krishna, his avatar, give guidance to our prince here, earthly presence of Krishna, Son of the Sun, and to us, his subjects and servants, in our present difficulty.’

  Krishna raised his head and put his palms flat on the ground in front of his knees. He said, ‘You know the situation. What are we to do? Let the Brahmin speak first, concerning how the holy books and ancient custom might guide us.’

  The woordie-major stuck his head round the gas curtain at the top of the steps. ‘Prince, a German officer came into A Squadron under a white flag. They have sent him here. He refuses to speak to anyone but the commander.’

  ‘Bring him in.’

  The German officer who came down the steps was young and blond and held his head arrogantly. He said in clipped English,

  ‘Who is the commander here?’

  ‘I am. Major Krishna Ram.’

  The German clicked his heels and bowed. He said, ‘I am authorized by Colonel von Stalwitz, commanding the Imperial German troops in the immediate vicinity, to accept your surrender. You will be permitted the honours of war.’

  Krishna found a smile. ‘You mean, we can keep our sabres and rifles?’

  �
��The honours of war means that you may march to the rear carrying your arms. In a safe area you will pass before a saluting guard of honour of not less than one full platoon commanded by an officer, with guidon. Once you have marched past, you will surrender your arms, of course.’

  ‘That is the correct way, is it?’

  ‘Yes, major.’

  Krishna said, ‘We have not yet decided what to do. I was just about to discuss it with these gentlemen.’

  The German’s wondering eyes took in Sohan Singh’s flabby jowels, the Brahmin looking like a beggar on a cold day, Krishna’s own unkemptness. He said insolently, ‘I thought you were the commanding officer. Is it a Workers’ Council that I am negotiating with?’

  Krishna said patiently, ‘No. Now you may go.’

  ‘But what answer ... ?’

  ‘None, yet.’

  ‘Never surrender,’ Warren Bateman’s voice was a croak from the corner. ‘Tell him to go to hell.’

  The German said, ‘Colonel von Stalwitz will feel free to begin action against you immediately after my return.’

  Krishna said, ‘Very well, though, as I said, we have not yet decided. Until we do, we shall defend ourselves, and you will lose many men ... That is all,’ he added peremptorily.

  The German, after another hesitation, again bowed, clicked his heels and went up the steps and out.