Light Cavalry Action

by Max Hennessy

  * * *

  ‘You found Major Higgins in the canteen that had been organised by the Vronskins, I believe?’ Moyalan said.

  ‘Yes.’ MacAdoo nodded. ‘He was talking with Katerina Vronskina, trying to work out how many Denikin roubles there were to a pound.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘“The new colonel’s come.” Something like that.’

  ‘And then?’

  MacAdoo smiled. ‘Higgins grabbed his cap and said he’d better be off.’

  ‘Was anything else said?’

  ‘Yeah. I said “I’ll take over here. You needn’t hurry back.”’

  There was a burst of laughter in which even Prideaux joined. MacAdoo grinned.

  ‘I thought there’d be quite enough people in the office without me for a while,’ he pointed out. ‘So I stayed on, talking. We were all a bit soft on Katerina Vronskina. After a while, I returned to the barracks.’

  * * *

  When MacAdoo arrived, Prideaux seemed to be at the stage of talking himself into office. He was walking up and down with his hands behind his back, holding a cigarette in an ivory holder, speaking cheerfully so that everyone was smiling. His cap lay on the table now and MacAdoo noticed a livid scar on his temple under his hair which he put down to a wound he’d received during the war with Germany. Finch sat at the desk and Potter and Higgins were standing by the door.

  ‘This is an important appointment for me,’ Prideaux was saying gaily, and MacAdoo decided impulsively that in spite of his high-gloss boots and spurs he was going to be all right. ‘Unlike you, Major Higgins, I saw no fighting in France after November, 1914. I spent the whole war in a prison camp. One of my fellow majors is now a brigadier, though unhappily for him he’s in Murmansk where the chances of fighting and further promotion are bound to be small. Here, in Nikolovssk, perhaps I shall have an opportunity of catching him up.’

  Nobody spoke and MacAdoo saw that Prideaux’s face seemed alight with ambition.

  ‘It’s important that I do catch him up,’ he ended firmly. ‘My qualifications are better.’

  Potter rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘Colonel,’ he pointed out cautiously, ‘we’re supposed to be here merely to train and advise.’

  Prideaux’s expression was a strange mixture of amiability and exaltation.

  ‘We shall see about that,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Here in South Russia it’s a cavalry war and I understand from General Inde in Khaskov that there’s plenty of fighting. Well, I’m fortunate enough to have an active command so perhaps an opportunity will arrive.’ He smiled broadly, conspiratorially, encouraging them to agree with him. ‘It may even be made to arrive.’

  Higgins made a faint gesture of embarrassment. ‘I hope you won’t set too much store by these men under your command, Colonel,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh!’ Prideaux turned quickly, his smile fading. ‘Why not?’

  ‘They have a lifetime of bad relations with their officers behind them. The town’s also full of Red propaganda which gets into their hands. I personally wouldn’t consider them reliable in battle.’

  Prideaux’s expression was a little damped, the exaltation dying. ‘There are three hundred British soldiers, aren’t there?’ he said.

  ‘Two hundred, Colonel. We’ve lost a lot to the railway and telegraph units.’

  ‘Two hundred then. What standard are they?’

  ‘They’re all B-one-ers, Colonel. They’re not the men you perhaps remember from the early days of the war.’

  Prideaux’s smile returned. ‘But you’ve been here since the beginning of the year, Major Higgins,’ he said encouragingly. ‘You’ve had time to train them.’

  Higgins seemed uncertain and, not knowing him, Prideaux leaned forward eagerly, almost as though he were pushing him into an opinion.

  ‘They are trained, Colonel,’ Higgins agreed. ‘They won’t let you down. Except perhaps if it comes to a prolonged physical effort. Otherwise, they’re all right on the whole.’

  ‘On the whole?’

  ‘There are one or two we know who’ve been touched by the revolutionary fever.’

  ‘British soldiers?’ Prideaux smiled unbelievingly. ‘Come!’

  Higgins spoke quietly. ‘Communism, Brotherhood and Comradeship, Colonel, are words that have been bandied around a great deal in the last four years.’

  Prideaux stared at Higgins for a moment, his face unexpectedly hard. ‘I’m fully aware of that,’ he said, ‘and I might as well say here and now that I don’t like Communists or Socialists or any other kind of “ists”. I saw what they did to the German Army and I’m very glad to have the opportunity to strike a blow against them. Have you any other fears, Major?’

  ‘These aren’t fears, sir,’ Higgins corrected him, his voice still quiet. ‘They’re cautions. I’d planned, if called upon, to use what I had to the best advantage, that’s all.’

  Prideaux stared at him for a long time, then he turned away and picked up his hat. ‘Well, it’s my responsibility to judge how to handle them from now on,’ he said lightly. ‘I’m sure we’ll manage. Now, I’d be glad if you’d show me to my quarters.’

  Higgins caught MacAdoo’s eye and the Canadian nodded. ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Talking cheerfully, he walked ahead of Prideaux down the corridor to the room they’d prepared in advance, the quietest and lightest in the building. As he opened the door, Prideaux stood in the entrance and stared round him, obviously unimpressed.

  ‘Better than prison camp,’ MacAdoo grinned.

  Prideaux frowned as though a bitter memory came to him and MacAdoo realised he’d not been exactly tactful.

  ‘I’d like to be called early tomorrow,’ Prideaux said shortly. ‘Please have my equipment sent up.’

  ‘O.K., sir.’

  Prideaux smiled, his frown gone again. ‘And please find someone to act as batman for me,’ he said. ‘I’d be quite happy to share him with Major Finch.’

  MacAdoo hesitated. ‘It’ll have to be a prisoner, sir,’ he pointed out uncomfortably.

  ‘Prisoner?’ Prideaux’s brows came down again at once.

  ‘Sure, sir. We’re a bit undermanned, and we use prisoners. German prisoners. Austrian prisoners. Red prisoners. There are plenty of ’em and they seem very willing.’

  Prideaux stared at MacAdoo, his expression cool again. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said deliberately, ‘I would like a British batman.’

  MacAdoo tried again. ‘We haven’t got many men to spare, sir. Everybody else uses the prisoners. Even General Inde in Khaskov.’

  ‘Captain MacAdoo,’ Prideaux’s expression was unexpectedly bitter, ‘I was a prisoner myself for four years. It was a distasteful experience. I do not want a prisoner.’

  * * *

  When MacAdoo returned to Higgins’ office, he was surprised to find Finch still in Higgins’ chair, his high laced field boots on the desk. Higgins was leaning on the door jamb with Potter.

  Finch seemed to be carrying on where Prideaux had left oh, his plump pink face urbane and smiling, and, in spite of his instinctive liking for Prideaux, MacAdoo found he had taken an instant dislike to his companion.

  ‘I expect we can get the Colonel fixed up in a hotel in the town eventually,’ Finch was saying. ‘Or perhaps we can take over a house somewhere in the vicinity.’

  ‘Uphill work,’ Potter advised amiably. ‘All jammed tight with refugees.’

  Finch waved the objection aside. ‘I expect we can get over that somehow,’ he said. ‘I’ll attend to it tomorrow.’

  He paused, offering a packet of Gold Flakes round, then he waved at the office.

  ‘I’ll be taking this place over, of course,’ he said casually. ‘Until we can get something better anyway. I’d be glad if you’d all get your things out of here.’

  Higgins spoke slowly. ‘This has always been the commanding officer’s place,’ he pointed out.

  ‘The commanding officer will be finding something a little more,
er,’ Finch’s nose wrinkled, politely but nonetheless contemptuously, ‘a little more salubrious, shall we say?’

  ‘Then I shall be needing it as my office.’

  Finch beamed. ‘I don’t think so, old boy,’ he said. ‘Unhappily, I happen to be senior to you. 1 was gazetted a month ahead of you. Rotten hard luck, of course, because I happen to know you held the rank of temporary lieutenant-colonel in France and had command of a battalion there, while I was doing a base job in Cheltenham. But there you are. Can’t get over the Army List, can you?’

  A small perplexed frown showed between Potter’s brows and MacAdoo knew that he, too, had taken an instinctive dislike to Finch.

  ‘Tomorrow, shall we say then, Major Higgins?’ Finch was suggesting calmly.

  Higgins nodded slowly. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Right. Sorry to be such a bore about this but I’m a firm believer in knowing where I stand in the promotion stakes. It’s a habit I’ve picked up from the Colonel. You’ll have noticed that he has the Army List off pat, too. He’s missed a lot of places in the last four years and he won’t be missing any opportunities to put himself back where he belongs. Now, as we came in, I noticed some motor cars in the yard by the entrance. The Colonel will be wanting one of those for his personal use.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ MacAdoo said at once.

  Finch lifted his head. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I said “Over my dead body.”’

  ‘I thought you did. What’s the objection? If we have the motors, old boy, why can’t we use ’em?’

  ‘They’re not motors,’ Higgins said. ‘They’re fighting vehicles.’

  Finch raised his eyebrows. ‘Fighting vehicles!’

  MacAdoo’s jaw thrust out. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  Finch’s nose wrinkled. ‘I’m a cavalryman,’ he said.

  ‘Then you’d better get used to motor cars,’ MacAdoo advised. ‘Because that’s what cavalry’ll be in ten years’ time.’

  Finch flicked a speck of dust from his uniform. ‘I’ll still put my faith in the old gees,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Let’s make it an order, shall we? We have four vehicles. I want one for the Colonel.’

  * * *

  ‘Did Colonel Prideaux get his car in the end?’ Moyalan asked.

  The court was silent. The story was beginning to take shape and no one wished to miss a single syllable.

  ‘Yeah,’ MacAdoo said contemptuously. ‘He got it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a long silence as Sir Gordon Kirkham rose. Prideaux was frowning suddenly and he made a note on a piece of paper and passed it to Kirkham. Kirkham glanced at it, flipped at his wig and jerked the papers in his hand.

  ‘These cars,’ he said at once. ‘In spite of objecting to Colonel Prideaux having the use of one of them, you were not against using them yourselves for pleasure, were you?’

  ‘We didn’t use ’em for pleasure!’

  ‘Mr. Murray-Hughes, an earlier witness, says you did.’

  ‘Then Mr. Murray-Hughes is talking through a hole in his head,’ MacAdoo said spiritedly.

  Kirkham waited impatiently for the laughter to die down. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We won’t argue about that just now. You remember the mutiny that broke out in the Slavska Barracks?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure do.’

  ‘On that occasion, you were not in the barracks?’

  ‘No. I was at the Vronskins’. All officers not on duty were there. It was a celebration.’

  ‘I’m sure it was,’ Kirkham said. ‘And we have evidence that you had taken the cars with you, too. Is that so?’

  ‘Yeah. Because…’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  ‘O.K. Yeah.’

  ‘How many of the cars?’

  ‘All of ’em. We had to, I guess. It was important because…’

  Kirkham affected not to hear. ‘Let’s go back,’ he interrupted. ‘To the Colonel’s arrival, and this question of him having a car. In the end who actually obtained this car for the Colonel from you? Was it the Colonel himself?’

  ‘No. He never said a word about it, as far as I know.’

  ‘Then it was Major Finch?’

  MacAdoo grinned. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘it was George Higgins.’

  Kirkham looked puzzled. ‘You mean, then, that he saw Major Finch’s point in the end?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I mean he offered one to Finch at the end of the argument and Finch accepted. I was good and mad about it and so was Willie Potter. I tackled him afterwards. I said “You can’t let that little gadget get away with that.”’

  ‘But he had, hadn’t he?’ Kirkham smiled.

  MacAdoo smiled back. ‘No,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He hadn’t. When Finch had gone, Higgins turned to us in that way he had. Quiet. Soothing. He never got fussed up. You hardly noticed he was around most of the time, he was so quiet. He said “I think we have a little trouble, gentlemen. It seems to me we have to be clever. We have no authority over Major Finch and as we have no telephone and the Colonel is probably entitled to transport, anyway, we’ll give him the Stutz. It never goes very well anyway, and we can arrange it so he has to give it back if we need it.”’

  Kirkham’s face fell a little. He held up his hand but MacAdoo was determined not to be stopped.

  ‘He said,’ he went on cheerfully, ‘he said “I expect we can find them a Russian to drive them about, too. And we’ll give them Freeman as a batman and Hardacre as a runner.”’

  Kirkham stared. ‘Why Freeman?’ he snapped. ‘And why Hardacre? Freeman was known to be stupid and Hardacre was known to be a barrack-room lawyer.’

  MacAdoo grinned. ‘Sure. But Major Higgins said “With a car that doesn’t go and a Russian driver who can’t drive properly, a batman who’ll lose things and a runner who’s a troublemaker, Mr. Finch should be fully occupied. It should keep him out of our way.”’

  There was a rumble of laughter in which even Prideaux joined. Kirkham flipped angrily at his wig.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘in fact, you were doing all you could to make things difficult for Colonel Prideaux?’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ MacAdoo admitted. ‘But Higgins wasn’t that crazy. I guess the Colonel was quite happy with the Stutz and Freeman turned out to be a good batman in the end. And it kept Hardacre quiet. He couldn’t get up to much under the commanding officer’s eye, see. It did him a lot of good.’

  ‘Is that what you call helping Colonel Prideaux then?’ MacAdoo smiled. ‘Well, Finch wanted a car. He got a car. But George Higgins also made a point of sending a signal off at once to General Inde in Khaskov, announcing that we’d formed an armoured car unit consisting of four vehicles, which he named carefully. He backdated it, too, so it made sure that the vehicles had become part of our outfit before Colonel Prideaux arrived.’

  Godliman leaned forward. ‘Why, Mr. MacAdoo? Why did he do that?’

  MacAdoo beamed at him. ‘Once they’d become a military fact, my lord,’ he said, ‘they couldn’t be pinched. It meant that Finch had temporary use of an armoured car, that’s all.’

  Godliman gave a thin smile. ‘Thank you, Mr. MacAdoo, I think I quite understand.’

  Kirkham clattered his papers, faintly irritated by the delay. ‘I’m sure Colonel Prideaux was pleased with this underhand dealing,’ he said sharply to MacAdoo as Godliman sank back behind his bench.

  MacAdoo shrugged. ‘He didn’t say anything,’ he answered. ‘In fact, he seemed pleased, because Brigadier Speed, General Inde’s deputy, send him a signal congratulating him on his initiative and telling him to use the cars as he saw fit. But Finch said plenty. I guess he was good and mad.’

  * * *

  As Kirkham sat down amid a titter of laughter, Moyalan rose again.

  ‘This Major Finch,’ he said. ‘What sort of man was he?’ MacAdoo pulled a face. ‘Liked soft living. Too fond of his whisky. Too fond of girls.’

  ‘Girls?’r />
  ‘Yeah. He spotted Katerina Vronskina straightaway, and was after her like a hound-dog after scent.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ Godliman leaned forward.

  ‘Just an expression,’ MacAdoo said. ‘He started hanging round her.’

  ‘You mean he showed an interest in the young lady?’

  MacAdoo shrugged. ‘I’d call it more than just “interest,” my lord,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t long before he was chasing lots of girls in Nikolovssk one way and another, and it wasn’t because he was “interested” in them.’

  There was a hoot of laughter from the gallery and Godliman looked up, frowning, so that it died away at once. Then he glanced at the jury.

  ‘It was like this, my lord,’ MacAdoo went on, but Godliman stopped him.

  ‘I think the jury have taken the point, Mr. MacAdoo,’ he said mildly.

  Moyalan waited blank-faced until the exchange was over then he turned to MacAdoo.

  ‘Mr. MacAdoo,’ he said. ‘We’ve heard reference to this incident when you took the cars – or rode in the cars, if my learned friend will permit me – to the home of the Vronskins for a celebration. What was this celebration?’

  ‘It was Katerina’s birthday.’

  ‘And why did you ride there in the cars when you had earlier objected to the Colonel having one?’

  MacAdoo frowned. ‘Because the fighting was catching up with us by then,’ he explained. ‘The Reds were getting closer and I guess we were expecting trouble. We wanted the cars where we could get at ’em quickly if necessary. As it happened, it was a good job we did, because it turned out we needed ’em.’

  3

  The search – 2

  While Moyalan was following the line of the story in court, Willie Potter was following round London the cold trail of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Thomas Entwistle Finch.

  When Meg Danielsson turned up at his office on the Monday morning, he was still reading the morning paper, his brows down, a look of rapt concentration on his face.

  ‘Lovely morning,’ she said cheerfully, opening windows.