The Road To Kandahar (Simon Fonthill Series)

by John Wilcox

  The British troops had retreated, not directly east towards Kabul, but more to the north, and as the two men followed, Simon realised that Roberts was trying to lure the Afghan army towards MacPherson’s force. Indeed, the four guns had been unlimbered and the six-pound shells began whistling over the heads of Simon and Jenkins as they galloped towards where Roberts’s small force had dismounted and been deployed, once more, behind the guns.

  But the route Roberts was following was taking them into ground which was much more broken and unsuitable for horses. Beyond their position, the ground was fissured by ditches and gullies leading to a small village fringed by low stone walls. Puffs of white smoke appeared from above the walls. The villagers were obviously determined to join in the fight against the foreign invader.

  To Simon’s left, as he and Jenkins rode back past the guns to Roberts’s position, the detachment of Lancers appeared, some of them double-mounted carrying wounded, also returning to join the main force. This now numbered about three hundred men, plus the four guns, a pathetically small contingent with which to delay the advance of Mohamed Jan’s army of twelve to fifteen thousand. In fact, the forward pair of guns was already in some difficulty, threatened by rifle fire from the forward line of the Afghan infantry, still advancing at a fast trot.

  Simon and Jenkins dismounted near to Roberts, who was coolly watching the Afghan advance through his field glasses. He looked up. ‘Glad to have you back, Fonthill,’ he murmured, then: ‘Massey, I feel we shall have to bring the guns back again. The enemy seems to be advancing rather quicker than I thought and our six-pounders aren’t doing quite enough to stop them, I fear.’ He spun on his heel and studied the village behind him. ‘That’s the place for ’em. Send a troop to clear out those snipers and put the guns behind those walls. Sharply now.’

  A rider galloped forward to take the order, and once again the guns limbered up, with an unthinking smoothness born of hundreds of parade-ground rehearsals, as the troop of 9th Lancers who had performed so well against the Afghan cavalry cantered back to deal with the sharpshooting villagers. As before, the sight of the guns retreating brought a cry of triumph from the advancing Afghans, who broke from their loping trot into a run to attack the two ranks of riflemen ahead.

  ‘Two volleys each rank, I think, Massey,’ murmured Roberts, ‘and then fall back on the guns. MacPherson should soon be here to take them in the flank and I’ve sent back to Sherpur for the 72nd Highlanders.’

  Simon, standing close by, could not but admire the sang-froid of the little ex-quartermaster, now commanding with quiet confidence this small group of soldiers in the field. Jenkins had heard too, and he nodded to Simon in approval. ‘But we’ve lost old Gracey,’ said the Welshman, looking around. ‘I suppose ’e’d say ’e was fieldin’ in the deep outfield or somethin’. Funny old bugger.’

  The guns swept by them with a clatter and a jingle and momentarily disappeared in a declivity in the ground, some two hundred yards away. After a brief pause, three of the carriage teams reappeared and continued their retreat towards the village, but of the fourth gun there was no sign.

  ‘Damn,’ said Roberts. ‘They’re probably stuck in that gully. Massey, send a troop to pull ’em out. Fonthill, go and lend a hand.’

  As the volleys rang out again - showing that the Afghans were within two hundred yards or so - Simon and Jenkins grabbed their horses, mounted, and rode as fast as the terrain would let them towards the gully. In fact, it proved to be no gully but a deep, dry ditch, all of twelve feet down, at the bottom of which the team of horses was vainly endeavouring to pull up the steep slope a cannon whose wheels were buried up to the axles in sand. The team had chosen a part of the ditch where the sand was deepest and the horses could get no purchase on the slope. Two gunners were vainly trying to manhandle the gun out, while a third whipped the horses, whose hoofs kept slipping in the deep sand.

  ‘That’s useless,’ cried Simon sliding off his horse. ‘Unlimber, put a rein round the muzzle and we’ll pull and manhandle the thing up.’ If the gunners were disconcerted to be given orders by a Pathan in tones of crisp, authoritative English, they showed no sign, but set about slipping the traces from the cannon. The horses, freed of the weight of the gun, quickly scrambled up the side of the ditch and stood panting at the top. Within seconds other troopers arrived and put their shoulders to the wheels, but the gun had become even further buried in the soft sand and refused to move. Simon, straining and pushing with Jenkins at the right-hand wheel, was aware of many horsemen sliding down the gully and mounting the facing slope as the retreat continued.

  A strong voice called out: ‘Spike the bloody thing and leave it. The enemy are close.’ Simon caught sight of the back of Brigadier Massey as he urged his horse up the steep slope.

  ‘Who’s got the spike?’ shouted Simon. He caught the frightened gaze of a gunner.

  ‘The Corporal, sir,’ said one. ‘He’s gone.’

  Simon became aware that only one artilleryman, Jenkins and he remained in the gully.

  ‘Come on, bach,’ said Jenkins. ‘We’re a three-man rearguard. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘No. We can’t leave the gun to be used against us. Quick,’ he turned to the gunner, ‘give me your lunger.’ He grabbed the long, triangular bayonet which hung at the man’s belt and thrust the point into the priming hole of the cannon. Then he banged it in firmly with the butt of his rifle, and wrenched at the hilt until the point, still firmly embedded in the hole, broke off.

  ‘Right.’ Simon turned back to the gunner. ‘Let’s go.’ But the man was standing, seemingly transfixed, and staring over Simon’s shoulder. Protruding from his breast was a long throwing spear. With a sigh, he slid slowly to the ground.

  Simon whirled around and heard Jenkins’s rifle crack at his side. One Afghan, with blood oozing from his stomach, his eyes wide as though questioning his fate, fell to the ground at the lip of the ditch and tumbled over. Two others then appeared and raised their jezails to shoot. Instinctively, Simon fired his Martini-Henry from the hip. The bullet flew wide, but the flash of the gun was enough to send both of the Afghans ducking back behind the edge of the ditch.

  ‘Run,’ shouted Jenkins. ‘Along the ditch.’

  The two ran for their lives along the sandy bottom of the ditch, which, luckily for them, twisted and turned so that momentarily they lost their attackers, who were uncertain as to which direction they had fled. Simon, whose light dressing under his pantaloon trousers had long since worn loose, now began to experience pain from his genitals, but he kept up with Jenkins until, rounding a bend in the gully, he crashed into the Welshman, who had pulled up short. ‘Oh shit!’ said Jenkins. They had rushed into the first line of the advancing Afghan infantry, which had slid down one side of the ditch and was now scrambling up the other. Immediately, black eyes turned to them.

  Simon waved his rifle in the direction of the British line and a flash of dialect came back to him from those training days at Gharghara. ‘Allah! Bismullah!’ he shouted. The Ghazni war cry brought an immediate response. ‘Allah! Bismullah!’ And Simon and Jenkins joined the first wave of the Afghan attack, climbing up the yielding slope, over the edge of the ditch and charging towards the stone wall of the village, some two hundred yards ahead, where khaki topis could be seen, lining the parapet.

  Running at Simon’s side, Jenkins turned an anguished face to Simon. ‘Fuck me, bach,’ he puffed. ‘We can’t attack the British Army, can we?’

  From the village, Simon heard the order: ‘Volley firing. Even numbers, first volley. Odd numbers, second. Pick your target. Take aim. F—’ Immediately, he grabbed Jenkins and swung him to the ground as the volley crashed out. All around them men fell, most silently, as the bullets of the carbines and, more lethally, the soft-nosed Martini-Henry slugs crashed into their bodies, killing them instantly. Others, wounded, shrieked and crumpled, to lie moaning. Simon, one hand pressing Jenkins’s back into the ground, the other still gripping his rifle, felt that awfu
l, tongue-swelling, mouth-drying fear. He was experiencing what it was like to be on the receiving end of disciplined volley firing from the most experienced and best-trained troops in the world. It was terrifying. How could anyone have the courage to charge into that wall of fire? He pressed his cheek into a tussock of coarse grass as the order rang out: ‘Odd numbers, fire,’ and heard the bullets sing above his head.

  He had no idea how long they lay there but he was conscious of Afghans running past him to the rear, one, indeed, treading on his back as he sprinted away from the dreadful firepower of the British behind the wall. Then the cry of ‘Cease firing!’ came, and Simon allowed himself to move his head very slowly towards Jenkins.

  ‘You all right, 352?’

  ‘Well,’ replied Jenkins, almost conversational in tone but without moving an inch, ‘I was just lyin’ ’ere askin’ myself whether the Afghanistanis give medals for brave attacks on the British Army. Do you think they do, then? And perhaps pensions, an’ all?’

  ‘Shut up. How the hell are we going to get out of this?’ Very, very slowly, Simon lifted his head to look towards the British lines. At first, all he could see were the bodies of Pathans, lying in the contortions of death. Then, raising his head further, there was the wall, about a hundred and fifty yards away, lined by a row of rifle barrels pointing towards him. Where were the Afghans? With equal care, he turned to look behind him. More bodies and, just out of rifle range, the mass of the enemy infantry regrouping for another charge. As he watched, he saw that the Afghans were moving out to each flank, obviously intending to take the village from the sides and rear. They had more than enough troops to surround the small British force.

  Then a cheer from the village made him turn his head again. From a break in the wall to the side, out rode an officer of the 9th Lancers, sitting as erect as his drawn sabre, the end of which rested on his right shoulder. He was followed by mounted troopers, until some hundred and fifty had assembled in a line, their lances erect. Then, to a command, their lances were lowered and they began trotting forward.

  ‘My God,’ said Simon, ‘they’re going to charge the whole Afghan army!’

  ‘And right over us, look you,’ said Jenkins, now staring in disbelief at the line of horsemen. ‘Here they come. Heads down and pray.’

  The two men, their eyes closed and cheeks pressed into the sand, dared not look at the charge, but they certainly heard it. The earth trembled as the Lancers broke into a gallop and thundered towards them. But it was far from ideal terrain for a cavalry charge. Apart from the broken nature of the ground, the Lancers had to pick their way over the dead and wounded lying in their path and the charge could not pick up the kind of speed and momentum demanded of mounted men attacking a mass of infantry. Simon and Jenkins, huddling close behind the dubious protection of two dead Afghans, put their hands over their heads and pressed into the sand and grass tussocks. They sensed rather than saw two horses leap over them, and then the thunder had passed. Turning, Simon saw the line of cavalry crash into the Afghans and disappear into the mass in a cloud of dust and flashing steel. The cannon and the carbines, of course, had stopped firing and, turning to the British position, Simon realised that the rifle muzzles and the artillery barrels had disappeared from the wall.

  ‘Of course!’ He grabbed Jenkins’s jacket. ‘We’re retiring to avoid being surrounded. The charge was to cover the retreat.’

  The two men stood and looked back at the Afghan lines. What real effect the heroic charge had had on the Afghan advance was difficult to see, but the flanking movement had stopped and the centre of the Afghan line was certainly in disarray, with men running to either side. As Simon and Jenkins watched, a number of Lancers began to re-appear and coolly trotted back towards the village. Perhaps half of the attackers seemed to have survived and they, with a number of riderless horses, began to canter back, seemingly impervious to the shots which came after them.

  ‘Oh no!’ Jenkins sat down again. ‘Now we’re goin’ to be stuck by our own blokes.’

  ‘No.’ Simon pushed him flat. ‘They won’t be bothered with us. Just lie still. Then we’ll run for it before the Afghans attack again.’

  But there was no need. A horseman suddenly emerged from the village and made towards them; a tall, bearded man in native dress who gave a smart salute to the cavalry leader as he rode by him and then came on directly to where Simon and Jenkins lay.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Jenkins, peering at the horseman from behind the dead Pathan, ‘it’s dear old Gracey.’

  ‘Sorry, lord,’ said the Sikh, reining in, ‘I could see where you were and what a bally predicament you were in, but was not allowed to come on to the outfield to get you till now.’

  ‘Bless you, W.G.,’ said Simon.

  ‘The enemy are coming again, lord. I could not find horses for you, so I think you had better hang on to my stirrups and you must run if you can. The General has ordered a retreat to the gorge of Deh-i-Mazand but that is three miles back and they will not wait for you.’ He looked towards the Afghans. ‘These people are coming now. We must go.’

  Simon’s heart sank at the thought of running, but he and Jenkins hung on grimly as W.G. turned his horse and began to trot back towards the now deserted village.

  They were overtaken by the survivors of the 9th Lancers’ charge, who seemed to find nothing unusual in two Pathans stumbling towards the retreating troops, clinging to the stirrups of a British cavalry horse ridden by a Sikh. Staring at them, Simon realised why. They all seemed in a state of shock. Closer examination revealed that many were wounded: congealed blood on tight blue trousers showed where spear thrusts had gone home; some clasped their sides over deep knife slashes; one man slumped over the mane of his mount, one hand loosely grasping the reins, the other hanging down from an arm connected to his body only by sinew. The horses were blown, their eyes still rolling and breath steaming from their nostrils. Some had empty saddles.

  They drew abreast of the officer who had led the charge. He was walking his horse and, though seemingly uninjured, he appeared to be dazed. His blood-stained sabre hung by a cord from his wrist and he stared straight ahead. Simon called to him. ‘Colonel. Fonthill and Jenkins of the Guides. May we take a couple of these horses? We can’t rejoin on foot.’

  At first, the colonel seemed not to hear. Then he looked down at Simon with a frown. ‘What? You’re what? Ah, yes. Yes. Help yourself. My poor chaps won’t be wanting ’em.’ He rode on unseeingly. The price paid to cover the retreat from the village had been a heavy one.

  Simon, Jenkins and W.G. rode back with the Lancers to ensure that they were not fired on by the British. The three remaining guns had now resumed their cannonade and the six-pound shells whooshed overhead as the sad party rejoined the British lines. Once again General Roberts was a centre of calm. The little man was perched upon his large grey, looking at a distance like a child sitting his first thoroughbred. The gallant charge of the 9th Lancers had enabled him not only to retreat from the village in good order but also to regroup his small force and ensure that the retreat was orderly. Under his direction, the three guns retired in rotation, so that continuous fire was directed. The cavalry was re-formed and fell back slowly by alternate squadrons.

  These tactics were sufficient to prevent the Afghans from making a full-scale attack, although they continued to advance in overwhelming numbers, firing as they came. On open ground, it would have been impossible for Roberts’s small force to have delayed Mohamed Jan’s advance on Kabul - there was still no sign of MacPherson’s column - but by retreating to the gorge of Deh-i-Mazand, through which wound the Kabul road, he was luring the Afghans towards a position from which he could make a stand, for the narrowness of the defile would negate the Pathans’ heavy superiority in numbers.

  Roberts had noticed Simon’s arrival. ‘What happened to the gun, Fonthill?’ he asked as he rode up.

  ‘Couldn’t get it out, sir. We were left with only three of us and the Afghans attacked. Had to spike it.’


  ‘Damn,’ said Roberts and pulled his moustache. He turned to the brigadier at his side. ‘Massey, if we get a chance, we must send a team back to get it. Can’t afford to lose it. Got few enough as it is. Carry on, Fonthill.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Roberts urged his horse forward, but Brigadier Massey lingered for a moment. ‘Get off those damned horses,’ he hissed at Simon. ‘They’re my Lancers’ mounts.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ Simon held the Brigadier’s gaze, but made no move to obey the order.

  ‘I said—’ began Massey.

  ‘For God’s sake, Massey,’ called Roberts, ‘do come on. We must fall back again.’

  ‘Coming, General,’ then, to Simon, ‘Get orf ’em, I said.’ And he turned his horse and cantered after Roberts.

  A hail of shots revealed that the Afghans were getting close again and Simon pulled on his rein and cantered towards the rear, Jenkins and W.G. behind him, but well away from the General’s party.

  ‘Let me ’ave a think for a minute, now,’ said Jenkins to the Sikh, loud enough for Simon to hear. ‘Already today we’ve pretended to be the General’s nephew, been very, very rude to a warrant officer of the Lancers, changed sides and attacked the British Army, and now we’ve stolen two ’orses belonging to the very fancy Lancers. Do you think we will be shot, Gracey?’

  ‘Oh, very likely, Sergeant bach.’ W.G. nodded his head. ‘It seems that you have had a very interesting day . . . er, isn’t it?’

  Ahead, Simon smiled, but only for a moment. His mind was considering Roberts’s position. It was clear that the General’s strategy had failed. Even if MacPherson had been able to halt the Kohistanis from the north, it was obvious that Baker had not been able to link up with him - Mohamed Jan’s force had been in the way. Without Baker, MacPherson had little cavalry. And without cavalry, the defeat of the Kohistanis could not be complete, for the remnants of the Afghan column could not be pursued. They would live to regroup and fight another day. As a result, the British had not been able to pick off the limbs of the Afghan army in sequence before they were able to coalesce into one mighty body. Once that body had formed, there was nothing to stop it advancing on and surrounding Kabul.