'What a bore,' Elliot agreed. 'Serves you right for not looking after your men properly.' He waved his glass for a refill. 'I'd see you out if I could be bothered.'
'You should jump to attention and call me sir,' Jack stood up and handed his glass to the willing servant. 'Never mind, as soon as Queen Vic promotes you to general you can have me saluting you all day long.'
'All day and every day,' Elliot grinned. 'By God, I'll make you suffer.'
As always, Jack took a deep breath as soon as he stepped outside. He wished he had been gentler with the sherry. Still, it was too late now; he had to get back to his bungalow and get some sleep before taking his men on the route march.
'Be on guard, Captain.' The words came in a husky whisper from beyond the cactus.
'Is that you, Fraser?' Jack asked.
'Be on guard. The Scarlet Storm is coming.'
'Show yourself!' Jack's shout set a dog barking, with others joining in. 'If you want to play childish games, find somebody else,' Jack said. Turning around, he marched steadily to his bungalow.
His watchman was waiting outside, sitting on the steps of the veranda and carelessly tapping his staff on the ground.
'Make yourself useful,' Jack snapped. 'There is a fool out there in the dark talking about a scarlet storm. Go and chase him away. Don't hurt him, just chase him away.'
Pleased to have something to do, the watchman loped into the dark. Jack heard him shouting a challenge, and then he walked into his house. 'Wake me at two,' he said to the butler before undressing and collapsing on the bed. Immediately he did so, images of Helen came to his mind.
'Go away!' Pressing a pillow over his face, Jack tried to block out the pain. He imagined her laughing with William; he imagined her strolling up the serene heights of the Malvern Hills; he imagined her taking William's hand and pressing against him as they climbed the sweeping staircase to the front door of Wychwood Manor. He imagined William lifting her over the threshold and carrying her inside and up to their marriage bed. 'No; go away!' Screwing tight his eyes, he tried to sleep, and the dark tunnel returned, with all the horrors it contained. There were fear and hatred and those words: 'Jack Baird Windrush'.
There were names from his distant and near-forgotten past.
'Two o'clock, sahib.' The butler stood beside his rumpled and sweat-soaked bed.
'What?' Jack looked up, dazed from a night of disturbed sleep. 'Oh, thank you.' He staggered to his feet to find servants waiting to dress him. Somebody handed him his sword belt while capable hands buckled on his holstered revolver. Within half an hour Jack had breakfasted and was out of his bungalow in the early morning air.
He walked past the nearby servant's cottages and into the barracks where bored sentries slammed to attention on his approach.
Jack's Number Two Company was waiting for him to arrive. He stood thirty yards away, quietly proud of his position as commander of these men. They stood in a solid block in their white drill, traditional summer dress in India, black shakos polished and the Enfield rifles held in right hands. He scanned them, recognising the veterans from the Crimea and the few who he had known in Burma five years before.
'Right then, men. Fifteen miles out and we make camp. Tomorrow we'll cover twenty miles, and so on. It's a round trip, so we'll see a bit of the countryside.'
There was no response. Men who had endured the trenches outside Sebastopol and the hell of Inkerman would shrug off a peacetime Indian route-march while the new members of the regiment hoped to look and act as hard-bitten as the veterans.
'Stand to your front!' Jack ordered. 'Number Two Company; form fours!' He waited until they had completed the manoeuvre. 'Left! Right wheel!'
It felt good to be giving parade ground orders to a regiment in peace rather than ducking within a Crimean trench. 'Quick march!' The rhythmic crunch of iron-shot boots echoed from the single-storey bungalows and the tall, airy barracks where the men slept, ate and lives. Jack saw a group of wives watching, some holding small children despite the early hour. Charlotte Riley was in front, waving to Riley, who disregarded discipline for a second to lift his left hand in farewell.
'By the left … left wheel.' Jack glanced over his men; they were behaving impeccably, his company of the 113th Foot showing what a Queen's regiment could do, displaying the flag to the natives of British India. 'Forward march!'
The first few miles were along a pucka road, a metalled road laid by the British to improve communications. The boots rang on the hard surface as the men swung along, disposing of their tiredness in the rhythm of the march. After an hour Jack gave permission for them to march easy and the company relaxed and began to talk, with some lighting pipes, so the sweet smell of tobacco drifted behind them. One or two smoked cigarettes, a habit they had acquired in the Crimea.
'Is such laxness allowed, sir?' Ensign Shearer asked. 'We were taught to keep other ranks under discipline at all times.'
Jack nodded. 'You're just out of the Royal Military College, aren't you?'
'Yes, sir!' Shearer looked about eighteen with sweat already running down his sunburned face.
'You'll learn that what the college teaches and what happens in real life are two different things, Shearer. The men are not a different breed from us; we are all part of a whole, the regiment needs us all.' Jack remembered the attitudes he had as a young officer. Serving with the 113th had taught him humility as much as anything else.
'But, sir,' Shearer glanced behind him, where Coleman and Thorpe were joking together; the latter with a clay pipe hanging from his lower lip and his collar undone. Already the heat was increasing; within half an hour officers and men would be walking amidst a haze of dust that would stick to the sweat on their faces.
'Get back to your men, Shearer. They need to know their officer cares for them.' Jack listened to the murmur of conversation and the crunch of booted feet on the ground. He nodded in satisfaction; his men were all right.
They moved from the pucka road onto a cutcha road, new, unmade but still broad. Tree-lined and unmetalled, deep ruts on the surface made marching more difficult. The sun had risen now and struck a harsh glare from the surface into the slitted eyes of the men.
A bullock-cart jolted in front of them with a family perched on top of its load and a pencil-thin native walking alongside, tapping a long staff on the ground.
'Something's ahead, sir,' Shearer reported, self-importantly.
'Keep marching,' Jack ordered. 'They will move aside for us.'
Others were using the road, men herding goats, a gaggle of sari-clad women swaying under the burden of the water-jugs balanced on their heads, more bullock carts, a holy man with a long white beard and wise eyes, a plump merchant in a gharry. Some of the 113th called out raucous greetings, others waved or whistled. The natives stepped aside for this company of lalkurti - British soldiers. The griffins pointed excitedly when a small herd of cheetal - the common spotted deer - scampered across the road in front of them. Everything was as it should be, peaceful under the benign rule of the Company, idyllic except for the punishing sun.
By seven o'clock the men were feeling the heat and Jack had to run a hand around his collar to ease the friction. He savoured the fact he was in India, the land of his birth and his second home. It was strange, colourful, mysterious and often strikingly familiar.
When the heat became intolerable, Jack called a halt. 'This will do!'
Pleased to stop, the men slumped to the ground until Jack ordered them to set up camp. The sergeants translated Jack's orders into hectoring commands to create order out of chaos.
'The sergeants are our Godsend,' Jack said quietly to Shearer. 'Without them, this army would fall apart. They understand the men, and they know us. A good sergeant is worth his weight in rupees. A very good sergeant is worth ten griffs like you.' He smiled at Shearer's expression. 'It's all about experience, Shearer. I have no doubt you are as brave as a hundred lions, as patriotic as the Union flag, yet when the bugles call and the bayonets bloo
dy, sergeants are the backbone of any army.'
With the muggy heat increasing, Number Two Company settled down to endure the day. Rather than allow the men all afternoon in idleness, Jack had them drill and set out pickets to scour the countryside.
'Never let the men get too idle,' Jack advised. 'Idle soldiers sulk and plot mischief.'
'I thought there would be battles,' Shearer said. 'Peacetime soldiering is a bore; nothing but parades and mess-meetings and dinners.'
'If you are ever unfortunate enough to be involved in wartime soldiering,' Jack said soberly, 'you will long for the boredom of peace.' He looked away, remembering the sounds and smells and horror of Inkerman.
'We had a toast at the college,' Shearer said. 'Here's to a bloody war!' He looked quite proud of his desires. 'After all, fighting is our job.'
'It is,' Jack agreed. 'And sometimes it is a job I hate.'
Shearer stiffened. 'It is our duty to defend and expand the borders of Empire. As soldiers of the queen, we must fight her enemies, seek glory and honour the flag.'
Jack smiled. 'Just why did you choose the 113th, Shearer? If you are seeking glory and honour, there are regiments with a much longer and more illustrious history.' In the British Army, the rule-of-thumb was the lower the number, the more senior the regiment, so the First of Foot, the Royal Scots, was known as Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard because of its age. The 113th was one of the newest infantry regiment and the least considered. Its nickname of the Baby Butchers showed the near-contempt in which other units regarded it.
Shearer was silent for a moment. 'I heard the regiment fought well in the Crimea,' he said at length.
Jack nodded. 'I am glad we have done something to enhance our renown.' But was improving the reputation of a regiment worth the sacrifice of so many men?
Jack looked away. He had grown up knowing he would follow the family's military tradition. Ever since he had joined the 113th, he had tried to claw his way back into respectability by acts of bravery and by forcing the often-reluctant soldiers to become as professional as any regiment in the army.
'I don't know about glory,' Jack said slowly, 'but recently we've had more than our share of fighting.' He looked around. 'It will be good to have some peaceful days in cantonments to consolidate and allow the new men to settle in.' Was he saying too much to a griffin? Probably, but if Shearer was to be an efficient officer of the 113th Jack should include him in everything.
'The Crimean War ended last year,' Shearer said. 'Surely enough time to recover.'
In an instant, Jack was reliving the horror of Inkerman when his 113th built a wall of dead bodies as a barricade against the attacking Russians. He could see the frozen slush in the trenches outside Sebastopol. He could hear the roar of the Russian artillery and hear the screaming wounded outside the Redan.
'Too many men will never come back,' Jack spoke as if to himself. 'And the rest of us, those who survived whole in body, will carry the Crimea inside our heads forever.'
Shearer was too young to know when to withdraw. 'You did your duty,' he said.
'Now you do yours.' Jack said. 'Go and attend to your men.'
'Isn't that the sergeants' job?' '
Jack felt the anger surge through him. 'They're your men and your responsibility! Look after them, damn it! Move!' He pushed Shearer away.
He wanted to be alone with his memories and the residual guilt of the survivor. He thought of Helen and of the men he had lost and recalled the fear and horror. He wished the politicians who had caused these insane, bloody wars could campaign with the 113th for just one week before they made their fatal decisions. His men may be foul-mouthed; they may haunt brothels and be prone to brawl, they may prefer to drink themselves into a stupor rather than listening to opera or reading the classics, but when the call came, they were ready to put their lives on the line. Jack looked over the camp with some pride; the Duke of Wellington had called them the scum of the earth, but they never let down their comrades when it mattered. In Jack's opinion, they were better men than the vast majority of frock-coated politicians and lords who made the decisions that sent them to die.
He shook away the thoughts. This dreaming would never do. He had a company to command, men to feed and ensure they had a bed for the night and water to drink. If soldiering were only about fighting, his job would be so much easier.
They heard the drums as they marched along the broad road with the boots crashing in unison and the rifles slung at fifty different angles. Jack remembered books he had read as a child where soldiers sang as they marched. Whoever had written those books had never marched in India when dry weather brought throat-clogging clouds of dust.
'Sir!' Sergeant O'Neill marched at his side. 'Drums, sir.'
'I hear them, O'Neill.'
'Yes, sir. They've been sounding this last hour or so.'
'They're dhaks,' Jack said; the word sprang from nowhere into his mind. 'Traditional Bengali drums. I wonder what message they are sending.'
'It could just be some festival, sir,' O'Neill sounded doubtful.
'It could be,' Jack said. 'All the same, keep an eye out, O'Neill. There may be a rogue tiger or a group of dacoits or some badmash on the road.'
'I'll pass the word on, sir, although the boys are a bit wary already.'
They passed through an area of jungle, with long-tailed grey langur monkeys screeching at them from the trees and an explosion of brightly-coloured minivets far above. The drums continued, to stop abruptly with no warning leaving an unnerving silence.
'What's happened?' Thorpe asked.
'I dunno, Thorpey,' Coleman looked around. 'I think I prefer the drums.'
They marched onward past fields with isolated copses of trees until they arrived at a village, empty save for a single brass lota bowl that lay abandoned beside the well.
'Where are all the people?' Jack held up his hand, ordered a halt and looked around. He had been in a hundred native villages, and always there was bustle and confusion with men sitting under the shade trees and women with bundles on their heads and children around their feet. This village was eerily empty. There was only a single pi-dog sniffing hopefully around.
'Dacoits,' O'Neill said shortly. 'That's what the drums were saying. Remember we heard the like in Burma, sir?'
'I remember,' Jack agreed. 'Burma was a wild territory with a rogue king. India should be more settled; John Company is in command here, with the rule of Law and military garrisons to ensure order and stability. If the villagers are scared of dacoits, they should come to us. God knows we tax them high enough.'
'Maybe they're scared of us, sir?'
Jack raised his voice as he saw the 113th scatter all around the village. 'Keep together! We don't know what's happened here. O'Neill, send pickets to search the area; I want relays at the well to refill the water-bottles.'
There was no sign of disaster, no scatter of bodies, no blood; only houses that showed evidence of rapid evacuation with household goods lying on the floor, a small heap of clothes here, a bowl of uneaten food there.
Jack called over his lieutenants: 'Prentice, Fairgreave, Kent; ten minutes to fill the water-bottles at the well and then we are leaving. Something is very wrong here.' He looked over to a peepul tree. There should be a gathering of old men around the tree-trunk, passing the day in conversation as they watched village life. Instead, the branches were laden with watchful birds.
'This is sinister,' he said to O'Neill.
'Yes, sir. Our boys are ready.' O'Neill did not have to elaborate. They both knew O'Neill referred to the men who had been with him since Burma and those he had fought beside in the Crimea. Jack's promotion had done nothing to weaken the bonds formed in war.
'Keep them alert, O'Neill.'
'Sir!'
'Prentice, send a picket forward to check the road ahead; Kent, arrange for a ten-man rearguard.'
'Are you expecting trouble, sir?' Prentice spoke with an assumed drawl.
'Always,' Jack said.
'This is India, sir, not the Crimea. I've been out here since '54, and there hasn't been anything the Company's armies could not handle.'
'You recently transferred to the 113th didn't you, Prentice?' Jack did not like junior officers questioning his orders.
'Yes, sir.'
'From where? No, never mind. In this regiment, we obey orders without question. Get it done!'
'Yes, sir.' Shrugging, Prentice moved casually away.
'On the double!' Jack roared. He could feel O'Neill watching.
They left the village more warily than they entered, with the men watching the fields and copses of trees on either side.
'Shearer!' Jack called the ensign over. 'Take three men and liaise between the advance guard and rear guard. Inform me of any development. Got it?'
'Yes, sir.' Shearer nodded, eager to be involved. 'What is happening, sir?'
''Damned if I know, Shearer but something is not right.'
They marched on, boots crunching on the ground and the men edgy, watching their surroundings. Birds circled above, their calls somehow sinister in the punishing heat.
'We'll be in Gondabad soon,' Jack said quietly.
'Yes, sir,' Shearer agreed. 'The advance party reports all quiet ahead.'
'Good,' Jack had contemplated sending O'Neill up front with his veterans, but such a move may have undermined the authority of his officers. 'And the rear guard?'
'I'm going there now, sir.'
'Off you go then.' Jack lit a cheroot, more to show a lack of concern than out of any desire to smoke. Fine dust raised from the marching men descended in a cloud to cover them in a white film. Already the sun was reflecting off the road, increasing the heat, drawing sweat from officers and men.
The drums started again, sombre, insistent, disturbing.
'I'll be glad to get back to the cantonment.' The furrows on Lieutenant Kent's face made him look old.
'We'll be fine, Kent. Make sure your men are alert.'
'Yes, sir.' Kent was keeping to the centre of the road. 'What do you think is happening?'
'I don't know. How long have you been in India, Kent?'
Windrush: Cry Havelock (Jack Windrush Book 4) Page 5
