Lieutenant of the Line

by Philip McCutchan

  An aide-de-camp answered his question : ‘I haven’t seen Major Archdale, Sir.’

  ‘Use your eyes, then, and go and get him.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ The A.D.C. turned his horse and rode off. Ten minutes later he returned with Major Archdale. Fettleworth stared with his protuberant blue eyes and said, ‘ah, Archdale. I’m bothered.’

  ‘Really, Sir?’

  ‘Yes. Can’t for the life of me understand why we’ve had no damn opposition so far. Not like the tribes, you know. I’m told you have some knowledge of this district. What d’you think—hey?’

  Archdale considered the point, pulling at his thick moustache. After a moment he suggested, ‘they may be heading us into a trap, Sir.’

  ‘Ha—that’s what I think, damn it! Crafty so-and-so’s, y’know, Major—crafty so-and-so’s. Artful as a cartload of monkeys.’ Up went the glasses again. ‘Can’t see anything, though.’

  Archdale coughed. ‘They would keep concealed, Sir.’

  ‘Yes.’ The General blew through his moustache. ‘Don’t like fighting in this sort of country. No good for forming square, that’s the long and short of it, Archdale. Can’t have a square up a damn hill! Not a steep one, I mean. If only there was a Plain, I’d bring the enemy to battle—damned if I wouldn’t!’

  ‘The Swat valley has flat ground, Sir.’

  ‘Ah, so had Waterloo,’ Major-General Fettleworth said sagely. ‘But like Waterloo, Swat is inaccessible from here! That’s to say, it’s on the other side of the pass. I don’t mean to say we won’t reach it.’ Baulked of his pitched battle for the time being. Fettleworth frowned and puffed out his cheeks. ‘D’you know, Archdale, my dear fellow—there are people who say the British square has had its day?’

  ‘Really, Sir?’ Archdale gnawed anxiously at his upper lip; of course he knew. He fully agreed, privately, but had never dared to say so to Major-General Fettleworth. In Fettleworth’s view the British square was sacrosanct, was still even in the mid-nineties the basis of all his military thinking, strategy and tactics. In this he was not entirely alone, as it happened. The square had proved itself time and time again throughout its long and honourable history as the British Empire’s most publicized secret weapon. Archdale said diplomatically, ‘one wonders what the devil they’d propose to put in its place...’

  ‘Artillery, shouldn’t wonder,’ Fettleworth grumbled. He walked his horse around in a circle, followed punctiliously by his Staff Officers until the latter realized their lord and master was not going anywhere in particular. ‘Well, well!’ Fettleworth cried. ‘This will never do. We must get on, gentlemen, on to Fort Gazai.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We must remember the women and helpless children threatened by the heathen. We must remember them—and Her Majesty.’

  He nodded at his Chief of Staff, who nodded down the line of command until the last nod reached the A.D.C. The A.D.C. sent his right hand swinging against his helmet in a salute, wheeled his horse and called for a bugler; and within the next few minutes the Division was once again on the move, its bands playing stirring tunes, its colours and standards and guidons flying bravely and its poor despised guns trundling over the horrible ground behind the elephant-drawn limbers. It was an inspiriting sight, a great colossus moving from Armageddon, a monstrous sprawling of arms geared to the whim of Major-General Francis Fettleworth, marching into the jaws of hell to form square on the fertile Plains of Swat, with Major Archdale’s field lavatory, the mobile commode that had been so offensive to Sir Iain Ogilvie, trundling incongruously on a gun-limber behind a glittering and purely fortuitous escort of the Bengal Lancers.

  ‘I only hope to very God,’ Lord Dornoch said fretfully, ‘that he does know what the devil he’s doing! That’s all.’ Dornoch had temporarily handed his horse over to a groom and it was being led by the bridle while the Colonel and Major Hay picked their way, stumbling over the thickly-strewn boulders, half sliding down the hillside into the deep canyon that lay to the left of the track taken by the column of advance. The 114th had been ordered to the head of the Division to act as vanguard and to provide the advanced scouting parties. Lord Dornoch’s uniform was torn and dirty and he was covered, as they all were, by thickly clinging dust that body-sweat had turned rapidly into a sticky film of yellow mull that soiled tunics and accoutrements. They were tired and footsore and hungry—their rations were meagre and unappetizing, and were very rigidly measured out by the quartermasters as they were brought up on the backs of the native bearers from the supply train for distribution. They had had to bring all the basic essentials with them; here in this desolate, sun-dried land under brazen skies, there was little hope of being able to live off the country, though the wild berries, scavenged on the march by ravenous men, brought a small bonus to the daily issue. The thirst was far worse than the hunger, and the water-containers were guarded every minute of the days and nights. Behind Lord Dornoch came the main body of the regiment, followed in a long straggled line by the remainder of the troops, interspersed at intervals by the ponies and mules and camels labouring with the commissariat and ammunition, all the impedimenta of even a lightly-provisioned column on the march. The entry to the pass seemed alive with those pack animals and their native tenders, stumbling, in constant danger of slithering over sheer drops into seemingly bottomless gorges, bleating, breaking legs and having to be shot...the regimental veterinaries were having a field day. So were the farrier-sergeants, and the quartermasters who had to supervise the transfer of valuable stores to other, already overburdened, animals. The air was filled with hoarse shouts, orders, curses, argument. Tor want of a nail...’ Dornoch quoted, shading his eyes to stare back along the moving line of khaki enlivened by the kilts of the Highlandmen, and, then ahead again along the pass. ‘I don’t like this,’ he remarked to Hay. ‘For one thing, we’re far too spread out, in my opinion. The tail of the column isn’t even in sight yet. That’s no way to go through a hostile pass, John. God help us all, if the enemy decide to mount a full-scale attack now!’ He added, flinging sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, ‘I could have wished Black and Ogilvie to have re-joined before we reached the Malakand. If they miss us, and try to come through on their own....’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘I’d not worry, Colonel. I doubt if they would do that. My guess is, they’ll have returned to cantonments, maybe on account of wounded men, or—’

  ‘Possibly—assuming Black did find the patrol, and he may not have done, John. But I don’t believe I really agree with you in any case.’ He smiled momentarily, and put an affectionate hand on the shoulder of his second-in-command. John Hay was a quiet, shy man, undemonstrative, not perhaps a man of great personality, but there was no one Lord Dornoch would rather see take over the battalion when his own time was done. Hay was a good man, and kindly, and a methodical, efficient soldier. Dornoch said, ‘you’ve too much faith in human nature, John. Too inclined to think everyone has your own view of life!’

  Hay looked across at him, half smiling, as they stumbled past the strewn boulders. ‘I don’t follow, Colonel.’

  ‘You don’t? Well—never mind, John, never mind.’ Dornoch moved on. He was more worried than he had shown, as to the fate of the patrol. Things could have gone badly wrong with Ogilvie, and so they could with Black and his half-company. But Dornoch certainly didn’t see Black missing any action by, for instance, taking his wounded back to Peshawar; ambitious officers did not miss action, and Black was a very ambitious officer indeed. There was almost no promotion without a war, and it was always better to have taken part in the action personally, when the names came up for captaincies and majorities and so on in the room of the men who had fallen. No one wished anybody else dead, of course, but it was said to be a subaltern’s and a captain’s prayer that God should send them a nice, bloody war! It was natural enough; in Dornoch’s view the old men clung on too long to high command, long after they should have retired to make way for younger, more able, more resilient-minded, more physically fit men
. The old fellows—why, look at Fettleworth, Dornoch thought. A fine case in point! Lionhearted—dashingly brave as a young officer by all accounts—he had epitomized the old army, the days when war was more of a gentleman’s game than it was becoming now. In his day Fettleworth had won many battles, for then his mind had been in tune with his times. But now that mind was about as resilient as a piece of cast iron—and you could scarcely blame Fettleworth for that, it was part and parcel of his weighty years. And take the poor old Duke of Cambridge : seventy-six years of age—and only now had it been decided he should finally be prised loose from the Horse Guards and his office of Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in favour of Lord Wolseley.

  Dornoch scrambled on ahead of the 114th. Looking round soon after, he caught the eye of the Regimental Sergeant-Major, heaving his vast chest and tattered, muddy tunic out from behind a boulder. Dornoch wriggled his fingers in front of his lips, miming the fingering of the pipes. Cunningham understood. He called out to Pipe-Major Ross, who was coming into view behind him. Ross gave a thumbs-up to his fellow Warrant Officer and a few moments later the pipes blared out, stirring the hearts of the Highlanders. Arms swung more proudly, shoulders, bent by sheer weariness and hunger, straightened; the battalion came on as though swinging down through the Pass of Drumochter on a long route march for the depot at Invermore. They were an Army yet, Dornoch thought with swelling pride in his men. Nothing would ever beat the British soldier, in the long run.

  ***

  It was little over an hour later that Captain MacKinlay, in the lead of his company, saw, just for a moment, the shape of a man on one of the peaks far ahead to the right of the column. Just for an instant, and then it was gone as though it had never been there at all. The great jags of rock seemed totally empty beneath that brassy sky, and there was no movement visible anywhere. MacKinlay put on such speed as he could, making towards the Colonel.

  He saluted, breathlessly.

  ‘Hullo there, Rob. How goes it?’ Dornoch shaded his eyes with a hand.

  ‘Colonel, I saw a man ahead, a tribesman.’ MacKinlay reported in detail.

  Dornoch asked, ‘what d’you make of it, Rob?’ Then, before the other could answer, he said, ‘no, don’t bother. It’s clearly an ambush—if you’re sure of what you saw.’

  ‘I’m positive, Colonel.’

  ‘Very well. In that case, I’m afraid they’ll have got our scouts. There’s been nothing from the heliograph. No shooting either.’

  ‘Thuggeee?’ Hay suggested.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. It lingers still.’

  ‘Will you inform the General?’

  Dornoch gave a short, hard laugh. ‘I will—but first gentlemen, I shall halt the column. The General won’t like it, but I’m afraid he’ll have to lump it.’ He held up a hand, shouted along the pass for the R.S.M. ‘Bugles to sound the halt,’ he called. ‘I want a subaltern to act as runner back to Division.’

  In the still air, the 114th bugles sounded out loud and clear and melancholy, echoing stridently across the desolate hills of Malakand, beating back from the tall jags of rock.

  The column came slowly to a halt.

  In the centre, Fettleworth looked astonished, even shocked. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘What the devil!’ he said. Breath hissed through his teeth as he dismounted from his horse to stretch his legs while he awaited some word of explanation. This came when a young subaltern of the Royal Strathspeys dashed up, red in the face and steaming like a kettle.

  Identifying his General, seated by this time on a tartan rug and surrounded by the deferential and dismounted Staff, the subaltern saluted. ‘Sir, I am—’

  ‘Regiment, young man?’

  The subaltern stared; his kilt, he fancied, should have spoken for him. He answered breathlessly, ‘The Queen’s Own 114th Highlanders, Sir. I—’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Urquhart, Sir—’

  ‘Very well, Mr. Urquhart, now that we are decently introduced, you may proceed. Tell me—what has happened in the van?’

  ‘Sir, my Colonel—’

  ‘Who is he, pray?’

  ‘The Earl of Dornoch, Sir—’

  ‘Ah, yes, yes.’ The argumentative man, Fettleworth remembered. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My Colonel has sighted a tribesman on a peak—’

  ‘Indeed. Really, my dear young man, I find this not so very surprising. Surely not of enough importance to halt my Division without reference to me? This is tribal territory, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, Sir! But my Colonel believes the man may be a hostile sentry, a lookout, and that we may be heading into a trap, Sir.’

  ‘An ambush?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Very possibly.’ An obstinate look spread across Fettleworth’s face. ‘Very possibly, indeed. However, I happen to be under orders to advance into Chitral, and really I cannot allow the whole Division to be brought to a standstill every time a man is seen upon some peak or other! We are here to fight, not to run away—and fight we shall, whenever necessary. What, pray, do the scouts report?’

  ‘There has been no report from the scouts, Sir.’

  ‘Well! That speaks for itself.’ Fettleworth pursed his lips and brought out a handkerchief with which he mopped at his cheeks. ‘No, no. My compliments to your Colonel, Mr Urquhart. I am much obliged for his intelligence and have taken due note of this. But the Division will advance nonetheless. Archdale.’

  ‘Sir!’ Major Archdale stepped forward and seized hold of Fettleworth’s right arm. Grunting, the Divisional Commander was hoisted to his feet. Leaning, until he got his full balance, for the ground was uneven, upon Major Archdale, he said, ‘thank you, thank you. Yes. Now then, Chief of Staff, kindly sound the Advance. Young man, go back to your Colonel quickly.’

  Once again the bugles sounded, sending out their contradiction, once again the regiments got on the move as the calls were repeated down the line.

  Some seven miles in rear of Major-General Fettleworth’s physical presence, Ogilvie and Black caught the faint echoes of those bugle calls. ‘British troops,’ Black said. ‘It will be the column, God willing!’

  Ogilvie had given an involuntary sigh of sheer relief ; glad to be about to re-join his regiment, he would be doubly glad to be relieved of the current situation. Hector didn’t seem quite so joyful; to him, joining up with Division meant only closer proximity to war, with the last chance gone of being able to make for safety in Peshawar. But he uttered no protests; he was too far gone in weariness by this time. Black snapped his orders to the escorting half-company; Ogilvie followed suit with his patrol. The pace of the small force quickened. Men threw off their tiredness now; heartened by the prospect of re-joining their comrades and perhaps getting a little more food and water as a result, they found the soreness of their tortured feet vanishing miraculously, found they could march on beneath the cruel rays of the sun and no longer notice them so much. It was not long before they heard the distant sounds of a large troop concentration on the move, and soon after that they saw the native-led pack animals and the native troops, the rear of the column toiling up into the Malakand Pass far behind the vanguard, and then, later, as they began to overtake, they saw the khaki-drill tunics of the British regiments.

  It was a happy moment. Even though home was on the move in hostile country, this was, indeed, home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brushing stinging insects from his face Major Hay reported, ‘Colonel, Captain Black is re-joining with the patrol. Word has come through from the rear of the column, via Division.’

  Dornoch was greatly relieved to hear this. ‘That’s good news, at all events. Any casualties?’

  Hay said, ‘I’m afraid so, Colonel. Eleven men killed or died of wounds, and one man wounded, though not seriously. Corporal Phillips is among the dead.’ He added, sounding puzzled, ‘We have actually been reinforced, I gather, by one man recovered from the enemy—a sergeant, a gunner sergeant named Makepeace.’

  ‘Oh?
’ Dornoch raised his eyebrows. ‘Sounds odd.’

  ‘Yes, Colonel. I haven’t the full details yet.’

  ‘Very well, John. Send word down the column will you, to Black and Ogilvie—I want them to try to reach us as soon as they can move up to overtake. And inform the General accordingly, please, John.’

  ‘Very good, Colonel.’

  The second-in-command turned away. He dispatched a runner to the rear and then re-joined his Colonel. The regiment proceeded towards a bend in the pass, closing the region where the man had been so distantly glimpsed on the peak. There was no attempt being made to conceal their approach; this would have been an impossibility in any case. So all along the column the bands were playing and the 114th were moving on behind their pipes and drums. There was as yet no sign of the enemy in all the surrounding wildness of the hills; as they approached the bend, and rounded it, the pass seemed clear ahead. Dornoch wondered if the alarm had been a false one after all, though on the face of things it could be considered highly unlikely that the tribes would allow a strong force to pass through without hindrance. When that hindrance came, the defence of the long column was going to be extremely difficult, especially since there was not physically room for the whole force to fight and manoeuvre between the great jagged peaks that hemmed them in. Dornoch’s mind dwelt on the new rifle that had recently been issued to the 114th for trial under action conditions—the Long Lee Enfield. Great things had been said of it, and it would very likely replace the Snider and the Martini-Henry as issued to other regiments. Soon now it might prove its worth—or not. Meanwhile, Dornoch strongly mistrusted the silence, the brooding quiet and the total lack of activity ahead of the column pressing on into the pass. He was right to do so. The van of the advance had just spotted the bodies of the scouts, lying with bloated faces and thin cords drawn tightly about their necks, when that peculiar silence was broken, shatteringly. The hillside ahead seemed to come alive within a second as hordes of armed tribesmen materialized with a terrifying suddenness from behind the boulders and scrub and came yelling and screaming into the open. A murderous rifle fire swept down upon the British column, volley after volley coming from the ragged but well-disciplined hill men.