Lieutenant of the Line

by Philip McCutchan

  Preston opened his eyes and said, ‘By God we won’t.’

  ‘By God we will! How dare you, Sir! Never in all my service…’ Fettleworth bounced on the balls of his feet; his obstinate face was as tight as a drum. ‘I am in command here, Brigadier-General Preston—not you.’

  ‘I don’t dispute that, Sir. But to form square—’.

  ‘Silence, Sir!’

  ‘I will not—’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Sir! I will not have this! I shall place you in arrest if you won’t be quiet.’

  The briefing proceeded in an angry atmosphere. As MacKinlay remarked later to Ogilvie, Bloody Francis was still chained to the Iron Duke.

  He said, ‘really, everyone was thoroughly embarrassed but no one except Preston had the guts to tell him what a bloody ass he was. It’s obvious enough what he ought to do—forget his trenches and his infernal squares and smash the tribesmen up with an artillery barrage first of all, then send in the cavalry with the infantry in support. But he’s too thick-headed to see that.’

  Before the word was passed to march Lord Dornoch walked along the battalion’s bivouacs with the Regimental Sergeant-Major, talking to the men as they waited to move out. He spoke with his usual cheery confidence and managed to impart some of it to the men, but his face was heavy and sombre and anxious as he walked away afterwards with Mr. Cunningham alongside him. The Warrant Officer, too, was looking immensely preoccupied.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts, Sarn’t-Major,’ Dornoch said with a smile as he eased the chinstrap of his helmet.

  ‘Sir! I was just thinking...I never did like the hours before action. There’s many men we’re not going to be seeing again, Sir.’

  ‘That’s usual.’ Dornoch’s voice was sad. ‘I regret it as much as you, Sarn’t-Major—but it’s usual.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. But this time more than usual.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, Cunningham.’

  ‘I would, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir.’ Bosom Cunningham heaved his big chest and squared his shoulders. ‘It’s going to be the worst action we’ll ever have fought, Sir. They do say the General will not be using the guns except as a last resort.’

  Dornoch gave a quiet laugh. ‘Is that what they’re saying, Sarn’t-Major?’

  ‘It is, Sir. And I’m not keen to see the regiment carved up by...well, I have to say it, Sir...by an act of folly. We’re a good regiment, Sir, the best, with a fine tradition, and a happy one too, thanks to you, Sir.’

  ‘It’s good of you to say that.’ There was emotion in the Colonel’s voice now. ‘Not only me, though. It’s the R.S.M. who sets the tone. Remember that. And remember that part about the tradition, Cunningham. It’s going to be important tomorrow. I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘Aye, Sir, I do that. We must carry out our orders, no matter how daft they are. Well, I’ll be doing that, of course, Sir.’

  ‘Of course, Sarn’t-Major.’

  ‘If you’re not requiring me anymore, Sir, I’ll be about my duty.’

  Dornoch smiled warmly. ‘Off you go, Sarn’t-Major. And good luck to you. Of all the faces in the regiment, yours, my dear Bosom, is the one I’ll most want to see again.’ He held out his hand, and Bosom Cunningham took it in a warm fierce grip and then turned about smartly, marching off with his pace-stick under his arm as though back on the windswept parade at the depot in Invermore. His eyes were a trifle moist. He and the Colonel...they had been good friends for many a long year, had almost grown up together with the Royal Strathspeys. Cunningham had followed his own father into the regiment at much the same time as Lord Dornoch had followed young Mr. Ogilvie’s father as a company commander. Years ago now...and all those years good ones, serving Her Majesty the Queen in the Empire’s cause along with fine comrades. The regiment was a family, The army was a very rewarding life when you had the good fortune to serve under good officers, and the 114th had mostly had good ones because their Colonels, which had included Sir Iain Ogilvie in his turn, and Sir Iain’s father before him, had always chosen well from the Gentlemen Cadets at Sandhurst.

  ***

  The regiments moved out in one column. The pipes and drums of the Royal Strathspeys led the Division still, behind a vanguard provided by the Bengal Lancers in their colourful uniforms and turbans and with the magnificent shabraques of their horses, and the pennons fluttering boldly from the lances. Bawdy song came from the Highland ranks when the pipes stopped, snatches of vulgarity to sear Hector’s soul, though he had passed almost beyond caring now.

  We’re the heroes o’ the night,

  For we’d sooner bed than fight—

  We’re the heroes o’ the Nightgown Fusiliers.

  Eyes right!

  Kilts up tight!

  Weapons to the fore!

  We’re the boys the deil deploys

  Whene’er he sights a whore…

  But the singing didn’t last long; the men were dog tired even after a night’s rest. They were shadowed along the way by distant tribesmen, visible as stark silhouettes out of rifle range against the skyline, men who sent the word ahead that the British soldiers were now approaching Fort Gazai. They were forced-marching now, with few halts, and those of the briefest duration only, and keeping up as smart a pace as the sergeants could induce. Overhead the loathsome vultures, the watchful birds of prey, hovered in their customary grisly fashion. The early part of the march was easy enough, in the day’s initial freshness; but when the sun was up the discomfort set in again and in spite of the lesser heat up here in the northern hills the men were soon soaked through with sweat that ran down into the Highland kilts so that they sagged damply against sunburned knees. From time to time the bands started up again, temporarily lifting men’s spirits; the sergeants and corporals were busy all that day, moving up and down the column, shouting, cajoling, harassing or encouraging according to their several natures; and all of them forcing the pace to the limit of endurance. Colour-Sergeant Barr snarled and barked at his Scots like an officious, surly-tempered sheepdog. Black was still being circumspect, and he kept away from B Company as much as possible, for which Ogilvie and MacKinlay were heartily thankful. Black, Ogilvie thought, must have some worries that he might be dispatched by one of B Company in the forthcoming battle. After a brief halt, chiefly to rest the animals, Ogilvie, keeping a watchful eye on his men, found that Sergeant Makepeace had once again been handcuffed. He found Colour-Sergeant Barr and drew him aside.

  He asked, ‘who gave orders for Makepeace to be handcuffed, Colour-Sarn’t?’

  ‘I took that upon myself, Mr. Ogilvie.’

  ‘Then rescind the order at once, if you please.’

  ‘Sir.’ It was not a response of obedience, but one of intent to argue. ‘With respect, Mr. Ogilvie. That man could be dangerous. We do not know where his loyalties lie for certain, but we know he is to face a Court Martial—if he remains with us.’

  ‘Are you refusing to obey an order, Colour-Sergeant Barr?’

  Barr snapped back. ‘No, I’m not. I’m doing no such thing, Mr. Ogilvie. I am merely pointing out the situation as I see it. It would be bloody daft to go into action with a possible enemy free to attack us from the rear as it were.’

  Ogilvie gave a snort. ‘An old man like Makepeace? What rubbish!’

  ‘Rubbish it may be. It’s my duty to put my point of view, Mr. Ogilvie. I do not wish to accept the responsibility of setting free a deserter who has already fired upon British troops and killed them.’ Barr’s face bristled with anger.

  ‘All right,’ Ogilvie said evenly. ‘I shall take the full responsibility. Release the prisoner, Colour-Sarn’t. That is an order.’

  Barr stood his ground still. ‘Sir. I wish to have that order repeated before a witness.’

  ‘Then you shall!’ Ogilvie snapped, getting hot under the collar now. He looked around, caught the eye of Bosom Cunningham. ‘A moment, if you please, Sarn’t-Major.’

  ‘Sir!’ Cunningham marched up and saluted, a cold eye running over Bar
r.

  ‘Mr. Cunningham, I’d like you to witness that I am ordering Colour-Sarn’t Barr to remove the handcuffs from Sergeant Makepeace.’

  Cunningham’s eyebrows lifted a little way and he gave Barr another sharp look. Then he said, ‘I understand, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir, but had I known the handcuffs were back on, I’d have taken the liberty of asking myself that they be taken off.’

  Barr snapped, ‘That’s all very well, Sarn’t-Major, but—’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Colour-Sarn’t. You have received an order from an officer. There are no buts. Obey that order at once, d’ye hear me, or so help me God, I’ll have you in the room of Sergeant Makepeace. Jump to it, man!’

  Barr started, paled, saluted, and turned about. He marched to the rear of B Company and began shouting at Makepeace’s escort. Ogilvie said, ‘Thank you, Sarn’t-Major.’

  ‘A pleasure, Mr. Ogilvie, Sir. I never heard of such a thing. That poor old man could not hurt a fly, nor would he want to. It’s a terrible story, a terrible story indeed.’

  ‘What d’you think will happen to him?’

  Cunningham hesitated. ‘The worst, Sir, I’m sorry to say. Discipline’s discipline.’

  ‘No points stretched?’

  ‘No points stretched, Mr. Ogilvie.’

  There was a pause. ‘When you said ‘the worst’, Sarn’t-Major, did you mean death?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, Sir. In view of his age, it might be life imprisonment. I’ve a strong feeling he’d prefer to die.’

  ‘I have the feeling too, Sarn’t-Major.’

  ‘Aye, Sir.’ Cunningham’s voice was sad and heavy. ‘He can’t be blamed for that. But if I may say so, Sir—neither can the army.’

  No, neither could the army. That was true. Makepeace had to be sacrificed on the traditional alter of ‘pour encourager les autres’.

  The march continued. Preston’s men were in a bad way, and though their wounded had now been spread out among the troops from Peshawar they tended to slow down the advance; and Fettleworth’s column was itself feeling the effects of the forced-marching after so many days on the move already. Men were falling out to be attended by the medical orderlies and either relegated to the pack animals for a spell or put unceremoniously back into the line of march. The column’s advance was the only thing that mattered now. Fort Gazai must not be allowed to fall whilst the British relief force was less than a day’s march away, and Fettleworth kept up the pace unrelentingly. That night there was just one brief halt, during which men fell exhausted to the bare ground, some of them finding instant sleep and others too tired even to find rest at all. The horses and mules were in a similar state, their eyes pathetic as they rolled on the earth with legs outstretched, tongues flicking out to lick at dust-dry lips and muzzles. They were given just one hour and then the bugles once again sounded the Advance as the order to move out came down the line from General Fettleworth. Sleeping men were roughly roused out and sent staggering with half-open eyes and rattling empty stomachs into the line to form column of route. Uniforms were awry and filthy, covered with layer upon layer of dust; the Wolseley helmets lay at all angles, the leather chinstraps held, in some cases, between clenched teeth. Boots pinched and hurt the grossly swollen feet. They marched, half asleep, into what was now, in this high ground, a bitter wind; and it was when bodies and spirits were at their lowest ebb of endurance that Shuja Khan mounted his attack in strength.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There was no warning, or very little: Ogilvie heard a curious high call, and then the native hordes came like devils out of the night, dropping down from the ridges, throwing themselves bodily on the British troops, attacking at the same time from ahead and in the rear. The column was a shambles of milling men and animals, of officers trying to sort out their companies and sections and to form them into some semblance of fighting order. There was no lack of individual bravery. Ogilvie saw, close to him, a bearded pioneer-sergeant bring his great axe down to cleave a tribesman in two, although mortally wounded himself from several knife thrusts, before succumbing to an attack from behind that broke his spine like a rotten stick. Ogilvie, feeling the bloodlust rising in him like a tide, fired point-blank into the Pathan who had killed the pioneer-sergeant, watched the man curl and die with a tremendous satisfaction. Then he found himself overtaken by a company of the 88th and, ahead, heard the skirl of the pipes from the 114th as Lord Dornoch rallied his Scots. In the darkness lit only by the flashes of fire from the rifles, it was almost impossible to tell friend from foe until one was at arm’s reach. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt powder and the ground slippery with blood. A squadron of cavalry, its trumpets sounding the charge, came riding fast through the lines of fighting men, the hooves of the horses impartial of race as they pounded the dead and dying into the ground. James Ogilvie’s last memory, as something took him hard on the back of the head, was of the screams as the cavalry rode by.

  He had not, he fancied, been unconscious for very long, but when he woke the main fighting seemed to have drawn ahead of him. Cautiously, as life and feeling and awareness returned, he lifted his head. He was surrounded with dead men—Scots, Irish, English, cavalrymen, Pathans. From somewhere in the distance he could still hear the pipes coming shrill and defiant through the sounds of the rifles.

  He struggled to a sitting position. Men and animals were still milling about around him, the rear of the column being pressed ahead by the attack from behind, evidently. Getting unsteadily to his feet, and then groping around for his revolver, he heard a voice calling out to him.

  ‘Mr. Ogilvie, Sir!’

  It was Sergeant Makepeace. He moved towards the sound of the voice and found the old man sitting on the ground next to one of the men, now dead, who had formed part of his escort. The others were nowhere to be seen. ‘Are you all right, Sergeant?’ Ogilvie asked, bending—and feeling as he did so the pain shooting through his head. ‘Are you hit?’

  ‘No, Mr. Ogilvie, by some miracle I am completely unhurt. I have been looking for a weapon. Any sort of weapon that I can use against these filthy scum, Sir.’ A deep cough racked him. ‘If only I could get to the guns, Sir. If only I could get to the guns!’

  ‘They wouldn’t be much use at the moment, Sergeant.’ Ogilvie stood up again and looked around in the enclosing dark. He had to re-join his regiment, that was the thought uppermost in his mind, but he was reluctant to leave old Makepeace defenceless. He was about to tell the old soldier to lie down and sham dead for the time being when he saw a kilted officer loom up and, in the light of some rifle fire from close by, he recognized Urquhart, a brother subaltern of the Royal Strathspeys.

  He called out to him. ‘Alec!’

  ‘Is that you, James?’

  ‘Yes. I got laid out for a while. How are things going with the regiment?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I got stopped as well, James.’ There was pain in the voice, pain that couldn’t be entirely overlaid by an obvious determination not to show it. ‘I’m going to try to reach the front. Come along with me—we’ll be needed pretty badly, I think.’

  Ogilvie nodded, and bent down to speak to Makepeace again, but just at that moment a horseman came down the line at the gallop. As a shaft of moonlight came suddenly down from the edge of heavy cloud, Ogilvie recognized that the rider was an officer from the General’s Staff. In the moment that he saw this, there was a flash of fire from the ridge on the flank and the officer slumped in his saddle and fell to the ground. For a moment his foot caught in the stirrup and he was dragged on by his horse from some yards before he fell free.

  Ogilvie ran over to him with Urquhart. The officer was Major Tom Archdale and Ogilvie could see that he was badly wounded, with blood welling from his chest. Ogilvie supported his head; the face was grey, and he was gasping for breath. Blood was bubbling from his mouth as he tried to speak. Ogilvie could just catch the words. ‘Orders, from the General. You, you must pass them now. The guns....are to be left—’

  The voice
stopped there, very suddenly. Archdale’s body fell slack in Ogilvie’s arms. That order would never be completed. Ogilvie felt urgently for the Staff Major’s heart beats, but could feel no life. He might still be alive, but currently there was nothing to be done for him except to send back a medical orderly if one could be found. Ogilvie looked up and saw Urquhart and Makepeace standing by. Urquhart asked, ‘What did he say, James?’

  ‘He had orders—orders to be passed to the guns. I don’t know what they were. He didn’t finish.’

  ‘How much did he say?’

  Ogilvie repeated Archdale’s few words. He added, ‘God knows what he meant, what was in the General’s mind. I suppose we’ll have to reach Division and find out.’

  ‘I would not do that, Sir,’ Makepeace said. There was a curious quality in his voice, a firmness and a kind of elation.

  Ogilvie asked, ‘what do you mean, Sergeant?’

  ‘What I say, Sir! With respect. Listen to me, Sir, I beg you!’ He was speaking with great urgency and emotion. ‘The guns are going to save Fort Gazai. That is the task of the column—the General’s objective, Sir. To save Fort Gazai, Sir, and the women and children. And I do not believe the General meant, by his order, to use the guns at this moment to fight off this present attack. The guns are to be left was what you said, Sir, is that not so?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Sir, my interpretation of that would be, that the General intends to use the gunners as support infantry, that he intends to make use of them without their guns! Gunners without their guns—without their colours! Sir, it’s a dreadful thought...when it is the guns that can relieve Fort Gazai if properly handled!’

  Ogilvie looked hard at the old man, then caught Urquhart’s eye. Urquhart was looking angry and impatient, and seemed about to speak his mind. Ogilvie laid a hand on his arm. ‘Wait,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s hear him out. Sergeant, I believe you have something else to say. Out with it—we’re all needed at the head of the column now and we haven’t much time.’