Drums Along the Khyber Read online

  “Who by, in the first place?”

  “Someone like me.” Harrington laughed; there was no malice in it at all. “They know what’s what and Freddie’d never expect marriage.”

  “Doesn’t seem right.” Moodily, Ogilvie thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and wandered across to the window. He could hear the horses’ hooves in Piccadilly, passing along the side of the park. “They all have feelings.”

  “I suppose they have,” Harrington said carelessly, “and perhaps it’s wrong, but it’s very highly natural all the same. Didn’t your father ever tell you?”

  Ogilvie turned from the window, frowning. “No,” he said seriously. “As a matter of fact he didn’t. I’ve not seen an awful lot of him—you know that. He’s had more than his share of foreign service—”

  “I learned quite a lot at school, Ogilvie. Tell you what: let me pass on my experience, old man! I’m the one to teach you, right enough! But don’t expect too much, will you? I mean...well, look here, Ogilvie, you’ll get a girl of your own before long, and I know damn well that’s what you want. Do you good, too. Women grow a man up. You’ll be all right—you’re not exactly repulsive to look at with that fine, tall body and intelligent patrician look! Women go for your sort of eyes, too. But you won’t find them as easy as I do, let me warn you. You’ve got a kind of pure look, you’re not an old reprobate like me, and girls who do what Freddie does, don’t go for innocence, believe me. It can lead to complications. I’ve already said they don’t necessarily want marriage or even to lose their freedom in over-involvement—and you’re the sort that goes for love and marriage, I’ll be bound. It’ll be an overwhelming passion when it comes! And as like as not, it’ll be the fair damsel from the manse or whatever it is you have in your native glens. A parson’s daughter, anyway, or something equally pure and modest.”

  Ogilvie laughed. “I don’t know that I’d want a parson’s daughter.”

  “Well, anyway,” Harrington said, “your time’ll come. Your lot’s under orders for India, and the wives don’t mind changing beds out there, so I’m told. Then there’s the chi-chis. I wouldn’t mind an exchange into the Bengal Lancers, myself. It’s a ratter’s paradise, dammit! Hot weather makes hot women and the moment they get east of Suez they throw the bedclothes right off. Just one word of warning: never, never sleep with your company commander’s wife unless he’s away on detached service. They’ll drum you out for less! You’ll find yourself in the Supply and Transport, or whatever fancy name they’ve given ’em these days.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped the gold case open. “Come on, Ogilvie; let’s walk along to the Berkeley grill. And don’t worry too much. As I said—your time will come, you mark my words!”

  Marking Harrington’s words failed to help during the rest of his leave, failed to quieten the emotions that tumulted through his mind and body. Ogilvie had not been unaware of women in more recent years, but never before had he been so close to a largely forbidden world, and the night Freddie had spent with Harrington had made an inordinately large impression on him. Just before his leave was up Harrington suggested he might have a word with Freddie and see if she could produce another girl, and he laughed when Ogilvie refused. “Why not?” he asked. “Afraid you mightn’t be able to perform?”

  Ogilvie flushed deeply. “Heavens, no,” he said quickly. “It’s...oh, really, I don’t know...it’s just that it makes it all sound so—cold-blooded, so mechanical.”

  Harrington just shrugged; he very clearly didn’t understand in the least. In due course James Ogilvie, still a virgin, but feeling he had learned a little about himself, caught the night express from King’s Cross to Edinburgh, arriving at Waverley at 7 a.m. From Edinburgh he entrained for Grantown-on-Spey, where he was met by regimental transport in the form of a brake that took him and his gear to Meerut Barracks in Invermore and his first induction as a member in his own right of the 114th Highlanders, the Queen’s Own Royal Strathspeys.

  Two

  As the regiment advanced in column along the Khyber Pass Ogilvie watched the austere figure of the Colonel as stiff and straight in the saddle as if he had been riding between the ranks on inspection back in Invermore. Lord Dornoch’s sharp gaze swept him but nothing was said; the reprimand would come later, and in private. The Colonel was a remote man in some ways, but a just one and friendly enough in the Mess. As a rattle of rifle fire came down from the hills, the sharpshooters returned it. Smoke drifted; some way ahead a robed figure toppled from a crest, and fell, his rifle falling with him. As if from nowhere, vultures appeared, big black scraggy brutes that hung and circled and waited. The pipes and drums moved on, now beating out a savage tune as wild as the land that had given it birth, as wild as the land through which the Royal Strathspeys were now advancing with the native support train, the bhistis, and the stretcher-bearers who were going to be much in demand before long.

  The day James Ogilvie had joined his regiment some months before he had, after reporting to the adjutant, been welcomed by Lord Dornoch over a glass of sherry in the Mess. Dornoch’s eyes, cold blue and very steady, had summed him up shrewdly and had looked pleased. “There is little I can tell you about us that you don’t know already for yourself, Ogilvie,” he’d said in a clear, incisive voice. “In a sense, you’ve been one of us from birth, haven’t you? I’ve watched you grow up, you know. I always knew you’d be joining us one day.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Well, I’m glad the day has come while I’m still with the regiment. I’m glad to have you—and proud to serve with another Ogilvie. I hope you’ll follow your family tradition, young man, and command the battalion in due course.” The Colonel’s eyes twinkled at Ogilvie. “That’s what your father hopes too, isn’t it?”

  Ogilvie smiled, and flushed a little. “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Well, I’m sure you won’t disappoint him,” Lord Dornoch said with hearty friendliness. He laid a hand on his arm. “You’ll already have met my adjutant, of course—Captain Black.” Ogilvie had; and had been aware at once that the stiff-faced adjutant was no lover of his fellow-men. “Let me introduce you to some of the others.”

  He did so. Ogilvie was introduced to the second-in-command, a tall, stooping man with a long face slashed by heavy eyebrows and a light brown moustache—Major Hay. He seemed, Ogilvie thought, a very pleasant officer, with a friendly if reserved smile; not a demonstrative man, but a genuine one. There were three captains present in the Mess that evening—Willington, Graham and MacKinlay, also the quartermaster, an old soldier named McCrum wearing the badges of a lieutenant on his mess uniform. There was a surgeon major of the Army Medical Staff, and four combatant subalterns. These were to be Ogilvie’s close associates for perhaps many years, the men with whom he would receive his first taste of foreign service, possibly his first experience of action. They would all, in varying degrees, affect his life and help to mould his character. That first night in the mess James Ogilvie held his tongue, spoke only when spoken to. This was due partly to a natural and inherent shyness and to good manners, but also partly to prudence. Time alone would reveal to him what these men’s interests were, how he should respond to each, how far he should go with each in revealing his own self. Friendships were not to be rushed into, they were the better for being slowly developed and thereafter prized and respected. This he had discovered for himself at the tutoring establishment and again later at Sandhurst; at neither place had he had many friends, but those he had were sincere, genuine, and the relationships had been deep and would last. That night he was too full of new impressions, too excited, to sleep much. After breakfast next morning, a silent meal at which, again, instinct told him not to open his mouth except quietly to give his order to the mess servants—it was a meal at which officers only grunted out good mornings—he reported again to the adjutant for instructions.

  Black sat coldly sallow-faced behind a bare table in his office. “You’ll be aware you have a lot to learn, Ogilvie,” he sai
d. “You haven’t started yet. Sandhurst’s just the kindergarten. Here is where you begin to learn how to be a soldier. Are you willing to learn?”

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “Then you shall start now. You should know that in the 114th all officers other than the Colonel are addressed by their christian names except when on parade. Mine is Andrew. You will use it. The regiment is a family and we are brothers.”

  Ogilvie merely nodded; he was well aware of the convention but had yet to forget Sandhurst, where Gentlemen Cadets did not use christian names to the instructors; besides, Captain Black, with that hard face beneath hair as black as his name, looked altogether too cold, too haughty, for anything but a very formal ‘sir’.

  Black went on, “You’ll be aware of the duties of a subaltern. In the field you will command a half-company. Your company will be B Company, under Captain MacKinlay. In quarters you also have the command of the half-company. Further, subalterns are detailed as signalling officers, transport officers and so on, and also to command the two machine-guns allocated to a battalion. Tell me now...James: what do we have in the way of transport and animals?”

  Ogilvie said at once, “Seventy-one horses, sixteen vehicles when mobilized—which is the strength we should be at now, since we’re under orders for service in India.”

  “Oh, very good, very good indeed,” Black said with a touch of sarcasm. “Now, a little more precisely, if you please.”

  Ogilvie said, “The vehicles include six small-arms ammunition carts, and wagons for tools and equipment and stores. There are eight pack animals for ammunition—one to each company—and another eight for stores.”

  Black nodded; there was a curious look in the man’s eyes. He said abruptly, “Don’t imagine you know it all, James. Now—for today you will be attached to me and will accompany me on my own duties—this may last for several days depending upon how you shape. In due course you’ll understudy the senior subalterns in their various responsibilities, until I decide what your particular function will be. Understood?”

  “Yes...Andrew.”

  Over the next few weeks James Ogilvie realized just how little he knew of soldiering, of the actual day-to-day routine and responsibilities of a junior officer of infantry. The days were long and active, there seemed always to be something to superintend, some exercise to take part in, and there were social duties too, obligatory attendances at dinners and balls in the Mess and in some of the great houses of the district—houses where the name of Ogilvie was already well known. He found this pleasant enough in a way, but was irked on occasions by the aspect of so much of it being ‘duty’ rather than pleasurable. It was scarcely soldiering and one could weary of dancing in a stately manner with the Speyside matrons. There would be plenty of that in India, too, of course, but he felt it would be different out there, and he looked forward to going. In point of fact he was to get his wish earlier than expected. One morning, after James Ogilvie had been six weeks in barracks at Invermore, a frock-coated major-general stood in the War Office, with an aide, in front of a large wall map of the Indian North-West Frontier district. The major-general was studying in particular the border with Afghanistan, and was drawing heavily on a cigar.

  He said throatily, “Damn natives. Far too uppish these days. Nothing’s been the same anywhere in the Empire since the confounded mutiny, of course—goes without saying. Well, we simply have to cope with the situation as it is—what?”

  “Exactly, sir. But frankly, I’m far from certain what the situation is, if—”

  “Well, then, listen,” the major-general said irritably, pulling at a white walrus moustache. “We all thought the whole frontier was settled by the Durand Mission, didn’t we—when they agreed to the Durand Line last year. Seems it isn’t! The Afghans still have their internal problems. There’s been a cable...from the Commander-in-Chief India. You’ll recall that one of the Pathan princelings rebelled and seized the town and fortress of Jalalabad a few weeks ago—”

  “Ahmed Khan, sir?”

  “Yes, that’s right. The Amir asked officially for British assistance in driving him out. Well, it appears things are going pretty badly—pretty badly!” The major-general gnawed anxiously at the trailing, yellowed ends of the moustache. “It’ll be in all the blasted papers by this evening, I shouldn’t wonder! We’ll have everyone screaming out for action. And Ahmed Khan won’t be easy to eject, I can tell you, from what I hear. Jalalabad’s not an easy town to defend, agreed, but the rebel has the superiority in manpower.” He blew exasperatedly and the moustache rose like leaves in a breeze. “Now, the problem seems to be this: the Peshawar garrison, as well as the Division before Jalalabad, is very badly depleted by sickness indeed that applies to the whole of the Northern Army command. They’re depleted by the leave situation too. Murree’s over-extended already.”

  “Can’t leave be cancelled?” the aide suggested.

  The major-general was doubtful. “Not very well. Dammit, it’s the leave season! You know how it is out there. So many social engagements in the calendar...Viceregal Lodge wouldn’t like it at all. Damn shame anyway...wives and that. Polo. One doesn’t like to interfere with a feller’s polo unnecessarily, I always say. Know I’d feel about it myself.” He reddened as he saw the pointed way his aide was looking at his stomach. “Oh, I’m past active riding myself, but that doesn’t alter the fact I can feel for those fellers out there.” He glared at the map for a while longer, then turned away towards the window. Then he said over his shoulder, as he stared out at the horse-drawn omnibuses and clasped fat hands over that vast midriff, “Of course the internal disposition of troops is entirely up to the Commander-in-Chief India and I’ve not a doubt he’ll move some men up from the Southern Command. But it still means they want us to speed up our drafts from home—and as it happens the blasted Amir especially wants as many British troops as possible rather than Indian units. It’s the old story, of course, at any rate on the Indian side of the border—we don’t conflict with their caste system. All castes and creeds’ll take from us what any one of them wouldn’t from another. Dammit, I suppose you can’t expect a prince to like being chased by an Untouchable or—or a Parsi! Ever served in India?” His eyes bulged at the aide.

  “No, sir—”

  “Don’t, then, if you can avoid it. Think yourself lucky! Smelly lot of buggers, all of them, even the maharajahs, and no morals at all. Still, they’re ours and they look to us and we have to take the rough with the smooth. Who’s next on the list for India, Soames?”

  Soames hastened the seal of James Ogilvie’s fate for years ahead. “The Royal Strathspeys, in depot at Invermore—”

  “Dammit, quote me numbers!” The major-general hadn’t quite taken in the reorganization.

  “The 114th, sir. Also, the 88th—”

  “Who’re they?” the general demanded contrarily. “The Connaught Rangers, sir. They’re at the Curragh.”

  “H’m. When are they due to go?”

  “Three weeks’ time, sir, to join Southern Army command.”

  “Hrrrmph.” The major-general swung round abruptly and released his waist-line. “They’ll do for a start. Damn fine regiments, both of them, excellent records. Fighters. I wonder...I think I’ll recommend they don’t join the Southern Army at all. I’m quite sure Sir George White’ll find them most useful to back up the Peshawar garrison direct—quite sure! Draft a telegram, Soames, to each of the colonels. Tell ’em to inform War Office soonest possible, how early their regiments can be fit to embark. Tell ’em it’s urgent. And in the meantime you can arrange for the Malabar to be brought forward to troop ’em to Bombay. She’ll be jam-packed but it can’t be helped.”

  *

  Next morning at Invermore, Daily Orders announced that the battalion was to be made ready to embark at Portsmouth Hard on the following Monday, and that they might be moving into action on the North-West Frontier a good deal sooner than normal after arrival at Bombay. From that time onward the tempo of life in barr
acks changed. James Ogilvie was projected into the colossal task of seeing to it that upwards of a thousand men and seventy horses and pack animals, with all their equipment, were made ready within a matter of days for a long spell of Indian service. Foreign service kit, already prepared in the quartermaster’s store, had to be issued and checked by sections, and the barracks themselves left in an orderly condition. Full medical inspections had to be carried out on both men and animals, all stores mustered and shortages made good, weapons inspected, domestic details settled, family problems that always arose when a regiment was ordered on foreign service unexpectedly or as in this case earlier than expected. There were the scrimshankers who pleaded special cases—very few of these—there were illegitimate babies, sick wives, expectant wives, the girls who wanted to become wives ‘on the strength’ so they could go out with their newly-acquired husbands. In the midst of all this activity, the normal training programme for recruits was proceeded with so far as possible. Ogilvie, so lacking in drill co-ordination at Sandhurst, had already found himself in the position of having to take charge on the parade-ground, and now, as a very junior subaltern, he was given the task of personally drilling the recruits’ squad so that the sergeants could be released for the more immediately important business of moving the regiment out. To his surprise, he found this a not too formidable task. Oddly enough, when watching other young men struggling with the very movements that he himself had found so hard to master, he suddenly realized how very simple it all was. Looking as it were from Olympian heights, the whole thing seemed to lose its mystery. He wondered why, and towards the end of that frantic week he believed he had arrived at the answer: at Sandhurst he had had no responsibility towards anyone but himself; and the enormity of his offences on the parade-ground, so often remarked upon by C.S.M. Apps, had filled his mind. Now, the single star he wore on each shoulder—and which he tried not to appear pridefully conscious of—made him responsible under Captain MacKinlay for almost every facet of the lives of his half-company, which was a responsibility he would not be taking lightly; and such things as drill movements had slotted into the correct order of priorities in his mind; and with the relaxation of concentration had come understanding. The fears had flown away. And now he managed very competently with the occasional discreetly whispered comment from his Colour-Sergeant, an N.C.O. named MacNaught. MacNaught encouraged. James Ogilvie a great deal but failed, it seemed, to prevent him incurring the displeasure of the adjutant.