Light Cavalry Action

by Max Hennessy

  Finch blinked. ‘No,’ he said in an unsteady voice. ‘I didn’t.’

  Moyalan nipped his papers. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Now about this departure for Khaskov – Colonel Prideaux had given a promise to certain Russian officers who had called on him, that he would stand in Nikolovssk and protect their rear…’

  ‘Yes, he had, but General Inde was sick.’

  ‘He was sick two or three days before, when you first received the information about his illness. But Colonel Prideaux had not considered it sufficiently important all that time to put off riding out with his regiment to Dankoi to meet Budenny, in the hope of gaining a little glory.’

  ‘No. But when we returned Inde was dying.’

  ‘But you didn’t discover that, did you, until you reached Khaskov and found him dead? And, surely, there were other British officers in Khaskov equal in experience to Colonel Prideaux – even if not equal in seniority? Could not they have attended to staff duties? Surely, it was Colonel Prideaux’s duty first of all – and I’m sure if he’d been fit he would have seen it – to extricate his troops from the dangerous position in which they had been placed as a result of his quest for glory at Dankoi?

  ‘He thought it was his duty to go to Khaskov.’

  ‘Then why did he not go on November 5th – before the fight at Dankoi – and why was it not your duty as his second-in-command to remain in Nikolovssk to do the things he had not time for, and let someone else of less seniority escort him south? Was it not because the decision to go was really yours and not Colonel Prideaux’s?’

  Finch’s eyes nickered uneasily. ‘It was Colonel Prideaux’s decision,’ he insisted in a low voice.

  ‘Very well!’ Moyalan stared at him, his eyes cold. ‘Let’s accept that for the moment. Let us say then that Colonel Prideaux felt it his duty to go to Khaskov. That being so, why did you, his second-in-command, go also? Surely you pointed out it was your duty to stay?’

  Finch’s fingers moved on the edge of the witness box, fluttering almost between a gesture and sheer nervousness. ‘There didn’t seem any sense in hanging on,’ he said. ‘We’d lost most of the strength of the regiment. Or so we thought at the time.’

  ‘But, in fact, more turned up later, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, I believe they did.’

  ‘But, by that time, you weren’t there to see, were you?’

  ‘No. But, you see, there didn’t seem to be enough men to warrant a colonel or even me being in command, and the Colonel felt our place was in Khaskov. Higgins could well look after things in Nikolovssk.’

  ‘Major Higgins hadn’t even returned when you left,’ Moyalan snapped. ‘You didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.’

  ‘Well, it was all a bit confused.’

  Moyalan paused. ‘How many men were there in Khaskov?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Forty or fifty, I should think.’

  ‘There were a hundred in Nikolovssk, weren’t there?’

  ‘We didn’t think so at the time. We thought there were less.’

  ‘Then how in the name of Heaven could you expect them to cover your retreat if there were so few?’ Moyalan snapped.

  Finch’s face looked pinched and old. The further Moyalan questioned him, the more doubtful his actions appeared, and it didn’t take much imagination to accept that it had been he who had been responsible for Prideaux’s precipitate departure for Khaskov.

  Moyalan’s contempt for him was icy and he went on with barely concealed disgust.

  ‘This message you received from Khaskov,’ he said. ‘The message informing you that General Inde was sick with typhus – how did you receive it? Was the telegraph line open and uncut? It was working?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘It had worked, in fact, without fail from your arrival in Nikolovssk earlier in the year?’

  Finch considered the question for a moment, his eyes down, looking for a trap, then he answered cautiously. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It had.’

  ‘You had arrived with Colonel Prideaux in April, I believe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How had Colonel Prideaux regarded his appointment in Nikolovssk?’

  Finch gestured, as though he felt on safer ground. ‘He was looking forward to it,’ he said. ‘He’d been a prisoner of war for a long time in Germany and he’d volunteered for Russia expecting to pick up a little of the promotion that had passed him by.’

  ‘And he ordered the charge at Dankoi, expecting it to succeed?’

  ‘Yes, I think he did.’

  ‘And, after the charge – how did Colonel Prideaux seem then? – apart from the wound, of course.’

  ‘Well, he seemed shocked. He hardly spoke on the way back.’

  ‘When he did, did he say something like “I can’t believe it” – something like that?’

  Finch hesitated, clearly considering how his answer would affect him personally. ‘Yes, I think he did,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Did he show any fear?’

  ‘No, no! Not fear!’

  ‘Just disbelief?’

  ‘Yes. That’s nearer the mark.’

  Moyalan glanced at his papers for a moment as the words sank in. The ex-officer on the jury leaned over to his neighbour and whispered something, and they both glanced keenly at Finch, as though trying to sum him up.

  Moyalan looked up at last. ‘In spite of this attitude he was showing,’ he said, ‘did Colonel Prideaux wish at this time to leave Nikolovssk?’

  ‘No. Not at first. He later decided to.’

  ‘After you had persuaded him?’

  ‘I didn’t persuade him.’

  ‘He was wounded, probably suffering from concussion, and in a dazed, shocked state of disbelief. Would not this condition have been a perfect breeding ground for any suggestion that might have been made to him? Any suggestion, for instance, that he should leave for Khaskov and that you should accompany him?’

  Finch’s mouth worked as Moyalan returned again to the subject of his influence over Prideaux, prodding at it as though jabbing at an open wound.

  ‘It could have been,’ he said uncertainly, ‘if a suggestion had been made. But it wasn’t.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? You were very keen to leave Nikolovssk, though, weren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why were you so eager to accompany Colonel Prideaux when someone else with less experience could have gone just as well in your place? Could it perhaps have been because you found it increasingly embarrassing to face Major Higgins?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Do you remember a young lady by the name of Katerina Vronskina?’

  ‘No.’ Finch’s frown seemed genuine and Moyalan hastened to enlighten him.

  ‘She was a young lady whose family owned the house in Nikolovssk that you took over for Colonel Prideaux’s headquarters. She was a very attractive young lady on whom you persisted in forcing your attentions. Major Higgins caught you at it one evening and you were knocked or pushed down the stairs. The resulting black eye was seen by everyone. Now do you remember?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ The frown seemed a little forced now.

  Moyalan jerked his papers and gestured across the well of the court. ‘If you glance round you, Colonel Finch,’ he suggested, ‘you’ll see the very lady. She later became the wife of Major Higgins and she is there, sitting next to him, now.’

  Finch’s mouth worked and his eyes rested on Katherine Higgins only for a second before flickering away again.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he muttered, and Moyalan allowed the question to be dropped.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘When you left Nikolovssk, was there any one else with you? – apart from the batman and Colonel Prideaux.’

  ‘Yes. Murray-Hughes, the correspondent.’

  ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about a lady known as the Countess Seinikina?’

  ‘She wasn’t with us.’

  ‘She left on the
same train, though, did she not?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Perhaps you also don’t remember that the batman, Freeman, was employed on your instructions in carrying her baggage to her compartment?’

  ‘He might have done.’ Finch didn’t meet Moyalan’s eyes. ‘I can’t say. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Very well. Never mind. Now – Mr. Murray-Hughes. During the journey south did you see him working on the story that was later published in his newspaper?’

  ‘Yes. He asked me to check the names of certain regiments which had been stationed at Nikolovssk.’ Moyalan paused.

  ‘This report,’ he said. ‘Substantially, it wasn’t quite correct, was it?’

  ‘Well – no.’ Finch licked his lips again.

  ‘How was it not correct?’

  ‘Well – in what he’d written about the charge, he’d mentioned the other regiments in the Slavska Barracks and in Nikolovssk. But this wasn’t fair, because the other regiments didn’t join us at Dankoi. We went out on our own.’

  ‘And when the action took place, of course, you even lost the two Russian squadrons of the Kouragines, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But the report gave the impression, didn’t it, that the charge at Dankoi was undertaken by a complete regiment with supporting Russian troops, as part of a major battle?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it did.’

  ‘It also seemed, did it not, to suggest that Mr. Murray-Hughes had taken part in the charge of his own free will and accord? Was that true?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. His horse ran away with him.’

  ‘But,’ Moyalan gestured with the faded copy of a newspaper, ‘from the report he wrote and his evidence in this court, the impression we have is that Mr. Murray-Hughes saw the chance of striking a blow for England, Home and Beauty, and rode into the charge with the best will in the world.’

  Finch managed a small, twisted smile. ‘That’s the way it looked to me when I read it.’

  ‘You mentioned this to him?’

  ‘Yes. But he said Russia was his first big assignment and he wasn’t going to waste it.’

  ‘What else?’

  Finch’s eyes flickered unhappily, as though he were looking round the courtroom for Murray-Hughes. ‘He said the story read better to make it bigger. He said that, after all, he had taken part in the charge and he couldn’t recall any case of a correspondent taking part in an action of war since Winston Churchill. He pointed out that he’d told no untruths and said that if people chose to get the wrong impression that was their affair.’

  ‘Indeed it was,’ Moyalan commented dryly. ‘What was your reaction to the report?’

  Finch licked his lips again. ‘My reaction?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel Finch, your reaction. We’ve heard witnesses in this court giving evidence of what happened on those slopes outside Dankoi, and it doesn’t coincide with what was written in this report. When you saw that, you saw at once that it was clearly an exaggeration. What did you feel about it?’

  ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  ‘If I had been you, Colonel Finch,’ Moyalan said icily, ‘it might have seemed to me that such a report would make a lot of difference to my position. Colonel Prideaux was clearly going to be in trouble for what he’d done at Dankoi, yet this report made it look as though, instead of making a bad blunder, he’d deliberately thrown away his regiment to cover the retreat of General Denikin’s army – a very gallant thing to do. Is that how the report seemed to you?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it was.’

  ‘But, in spite of these – shall we say, these exaggerations? – the report went through as it stood?’

  ‘It was none of my business.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? You had the power to make him correct it, hadn’t you? But you didn’t, did you, and it went through intact. Were you bearing in mind its effect on Colonel Prideaux’s career and, as a result, on your own?’

  Finch shook his head. ‘It never occurred to me,’ he said unconvincingly.

  Moyalan’s eyes flashed. ‘Did it not occur to you, Colonel Finch,’ he asked, ‘that if, as the report suggested, Colonel Prideaux had been injured leading a desperate and gallant charge, a lot of strange behaviour by him afterwards might be overlooked?’

  ‘It didn’t cross my mind.’

  Moyalan’s mouth twisted. ‘You had left Nikolovssk,’ he said. ‘In a hurry, I suggest, because you were appalled at the growing confusion and danger and the prospect of, at least, imprisonment. And now, after having had time to reflect and realise that what you had done was stupid and open to criticism, you decided that a gallant charge to save the army and the women and children at Nikolovssk – as the action at Dankoi had become in Mr. Murray-Hughes’ report – was a much better thing to have behind you than a dreary skirmish to reap a shred of glory that should never have taken place.’

  Finch said nothing and Moyalan pursued the story relentlessly. ‘By this time – when you had seen the report, I mean – you had reached Khaskov?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was the position in Khaskov when you arrived? What was the state of the town? Were there still shops open, for instance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cabarets?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Everything was fairly normal then?’

  ‘Yes. But they were a bit hysterical, because everybody knew it wouldn’t last long. And General Inde was dead by the time we arrived and his chief-of-staff had been taken to hospital. We had to take over.’

  ‘How long did it take Colonel Prideaux to decide there was nothing to be done in Khaskov?’

  ‘A few days. I can’t remember now.’

  ‘Do you remember November 12th, the day you left Khaskov?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘Around nine-thirty or ten, I think. We’d been able to raise no reinforcements for Nikolovssk because the whole front was crumbling and there was nothing we could do except organise the evacuation.’

  ‘A decision which had been reached by Colonel Prideaux and communicated to you on your birthday, the anniversary of Armistice Day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about the men left behind in Nikolovssk? In your somewhat precipitate departure from Khaskov, you remembered that they had been told to hang on? Did you send messages telling them to evacuate the place and make for the coast?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Moyalan nodded. ‘General Prideaux, in evidence, has already agreed that he caused these messages to be sent, although he admits that he has no knowledge of them arriving. He says he told you – you, personally – to see to them being sent.’

  Finch licked his lips again. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I waited at the station, I remember, until they’d been sent.’

  ‘Did you see them entered in the log book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the following day when you left Khaskov the telegraph office was closed down and evacuated, the signallers travelling south with you to Novorossiisk?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  ‘I see.’ Moyalan looked up at Finch for a moment, then he held out his hand to his junior who placed in it a very old and tattered book. ‘Colonel Finch,’ he went on. ‘It might interest you to know that I have here the log book from the telegraph office at Khaskov – the original book. This was the book which was kept by a British signaller especially for British signals – separate from any messages sent on Russian railway business. Have you seen it before?’

  Finch shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘This is the book, my lord,’ Moyalan went on to Godliman, ‘which that devoted man, Captain Barry, found in Khaskov and it has been produced by Alderman Hardacre only at this late date simply because after all these years he had forgotten it had come into his possession.’ He paused, weighing the book in his hand. ‘You will remember, my lord,’ he went o
n, ‘that Captain Barry went ahead of Major Higgins to prepare the way and discovered, on arrival at Khaskov, that the telegraph office there had been evacuated. Knowing Major Higgins to be behind him somewhere on his way south, he did not make sure of his own safety and continue his journey as he might have done, but re-opened the telegraph office with his signaller and kept in touch with Major Higgins as he proceeded, all the way to Khaskov. On the arrival of Major Higgins in Khaskov, he then joined his party, and accompanied him and the survivors of the Kouragine Hussars to the coast, contracting typhus on the way so that this book, which he had carried away from Khaskov with him, came into the possession of Alderman Hardacre.’

  Godliman inclined his head and Moyalan went on. ‘We have been unable to trace the signaller who re-opened the line and kept the log, my lord,’ he said. ‘And, unhappily, Captain Barry was killed in a motoring accident in 1927. However, I feel the book speaks for itself and, thanks to this gallant – and what even General Prideaux called “conscientious” – officer, we have written proof to bear out what witnesses have said.’