Soldier of the Raj Page 7

  ‘Well, Mr. Wilshaw? What do we do now, eh?’

  Ogilvie thought fast. He believed the horsemen were closing them, that they were probably right in the line of advance. To stay would mean their arrest and the end of the mission for the time being; to move would lead to the same end, for they could obviously never outrun a military patrol. He asked, ‘How well do you know the lie of the land, Mr. Jones?’

  ‘Like the back of my hand.’

  ‘Is there anywhere we can pull off the track, and get lost?’

  ‘Maybe, but not just hereabouts.’

  ‘How far, then?’

  ‘Too far. Around a couple of miles ahead there’s a dry gully, off to the right — if we cross that there’s —’

  ‘As you said — too far. We’ll have to think of something else.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, why not stop and talk?’

  ‘I told you why not.’ Ogilvie scrambled down from the cart. ‘We’ll get out on the horse. It’ll carry us both.’

  ‘What, and leave my stock?’

  ‘Yes. It can’t be helped now.’

  ‘But it’s capital —’

  ‘Move, Mr. Jones! Come now — I’m in charge. You’ll obey my orders, and without question.’ He ran around to the back of the bullock-cart and untied the horse. Mr. Jones joined him. The harness-sounds from the rear had stopped now; perhaps, Ogilvie thought, their own sounds, quiet as he had tried to be, had been heard and the patrol had halted for a listening space. They would not have much longer, but Mr. Jones, though inclined to protest still, was amenable to orders. Ogilvie mounted, and the arms salesman climbed up behind him, puffing and blowing. Jones was hardly securely seated before Ogilvie sent the horse fast along the track. Stones flew from beneath it hooves. Jones gave a gasp and clung on tight around Ogilvie’s waist. Ogilvie at first heard no sounds of any pursuit, but a few seconds later there was a crackle of rifle fire. No bullets came near them, and quite soon the firing stopped.

  Jones panted, ‘They’ll have got to the cart. My bloody stock, Mr. Wilshaw.’

  ‘I hope it keeps them busy for a while, that’s all! Keep your eyes skinned, Mr. Jones. Tell me when to turn off.’ They rode like the wind, trusting to luck and the horse’s survival instinct to keep them clear of obstructions in their path — the darkness was thick and the sides of the track visible only as faintly lighter blurs against the deep black of the night. It was not long before the shooting started again, but their luck held and the bullets went as wide as before; and by the time the first of the pounding hooves was clearly heard coming up fast behind, Jones had found what he was looking for: a break in the high rock side of the track.

  ‘Pull off!’ he yelled into Ogilvie’s ear. ‘Down into the gully!’

  Ogilvie brought the horse up sharply, feet slithering on loose stones and small rocks. They turned to the right, and galloped on, starting the descent, a sharp one, into the dried-out gully. Ogilvie felt twigs and branches scrape across his face, and the horse slowed. They were coming into a certain amount of cover, which should be useful, but Ogilvie felt disinclined to linger in it.

  ‘Where to now?’ he asked.

  ‘Left a little way, Mr. Wilshaw. That is — south. After a while we’ll come to a break in the west bank. When we go through, we’ll come to a hillside with caves in it. A lot of caves, Mr. Wilshaw, all honeycombed inside.’

  ‘That could be a trap.’

  ‘It won’t. You wanted to get lost. We’ll get so lost we could stay there for ever.’

  Ogilvie urged the horse on through the scrubby growth in the gully. He heard sounds away to his left as he turned along the hard backed watercourse, sounds as if someone were riding along the bank, but there were as yet no more shots. He didn’t much like the idea of heading into a network of caves — his recollections of hiding out in a cave before the march on Fort Gazai were not happy ones — but recognized that currently such a course probably offered them the best hope of concealment. Now and again he heard voices, British voices. He had started to wonder if they were being chased, not by a British patrol, but by a band of tribesmen; but no doubts were left now. Probably, had their pursuers been natives familiar with the terrain, they would in any case have been caught up with by this time. Ogilvie thought with sympathy of the officer commanding that patrol, possibly some green young subaltern, such as he himself had been not so long ago, gaining experience of a night probe into what was virtually hostile territory. It was never a pleasant thing, to have to report failure to one’s Colonel; but Ogilvie, as Mr. Jones’s voice in his ear informed him that they were now coming up to the gap in the farther bank of the gully, prayed fervently for that patrol’s failure this time. Such were the ways of the army, he reflected, that the patrol’s success in apprehending them might in the circumstances rebound on the head of the unfortunate leader in any case.

  The horse scrambled up a steep bank, reached flat ground, and was directed left again. By the time they reached the hillside that Jones had spoken of, there was no sound of the patrol. Ogilvie pulled up the horse beside the first of the cave mouths, which yawned blackly, a darker patch in the faint lightening of the rock.

  He said, ‘We’ll dismount, Mr. Jones, and reconnoitre on foot.’

  Jones slid down over the animal’s rump and brought out his green handkerchief. He rubbed away at his sweaty face. ‘Let’s get inside quick,’ he urged. ‘No point in hanging around, is there?’

  ‘There’s the horse,’ Ogilvie pointed out impatiently. ‘We can’t leave him outside like a signpost.’

  ‘Never suggested we should, Mr. Wilshaw. Lead him in.’

  ‘I’ll check for headroom first. The horse can’t very well get down on hands and knees! We may have to go on farther.’ Ogilvie turned away and made for the indistinct loom of the cave’s mouth, bending and going a little way inside with his arms outstretched in front of him. There was width and height enough to accommodate the horse; it would do. He turned about and made his way back to the entry. When he reached it, Mr. Jones was no longer alone; he was surrounded by shadowy figures. They were not British soldiers; they were wild and ragged men carrying old-fashioned long-barrelled rifles, but Jones appeared happy enough. He was talking to them in Pushtu, urgently and rapidly, and Ogilvie realized that the fat little arms salesman had a far greater grasp of the dialect than he had himself. Ogilvie was able to make out that Jones was explaining their situation. All the time more and more hillmen seemed to be crowding in, emerging from out of the night. They had been, it seemed, bent on a probe against the British positions around Peshawar and had been attracted by the sound of the rifles earlier.

  Ogilvie reached Jones’s side and interrupted the flow of dialect. ‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we being indiscreet? We’d better do as you wanted and get hidden — the cave’s big enough to take the horse.’

  ‘The situation’s different now, Mr. Wilshaw.’

  ‘Oh? How? Who are these men — d’you know them?’

  ‘I know their malik. They’re from a khel that lives just over the Waziri border. I’ve done business with the malik before now. They’ll trust us, you needn’t worry.’ Jones’s voice was hoarse, and Ogilvie, close enough to him to make out the expression on his face, was alarmed by what he read in it. It was a kind of obstinate determination mixed with fear and, in spite of the keen chill of the wind off the far northern snows, beads of sweat were clustering on Jones’s forehead. ‘Just leave this to me, Mr. Wilshaw,’ he said. ‘All right?’

  ‘I told you before, I’m in command. Get rid of these men and join me in the cave, Mr. Jones. That’s an order — and just remember we haven’t all night. The British patrol will be here any minute.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr. Jones said. That was all. He stepped back a pace and the next Ogilvie knew was the feel of the arms salesman’s fist on the point of the jaw. His head rocked backwards and before he could make any recovery another fist had landed smack in his stomach; and as his body doubled up in agony a third bl
ow took him, again on the point of the jaw, and he went down flat on his back. Unconscious, he was dragged by two of the Pathans into the mouth of the cave, followed by Mr. Jones leading the horse. Half a dozen of the hillmen went inside with them, and the rest dispersed, fading into the night behind the jags of rock and skeleton-like trees.

  They did not go far away and that night there was a massacre in which an entire British patrol, provided by mounted, infantry of the King’s Regiment, was wiped out. Ogilvie, struggling through the mists after a while, heard the firing and guessed what was happening. When he moved his head a sharp point of steel pricked into his throat. Jones was kneeling beside him, holding a knife against his adam’s-apple. In a low voice Jones said, ‘Don’t open your mouth, Mr. Wilshaw, if you value your own life. I’ve sent the natives away, but they’re not right out of earshot.’ He lowered his voice still more. ‘I’m sorry about the patrol, believe me. But it was the only way, since you’d said you couldn’t explain matters to the officer if he caught us up. And it’s just as well you didn’t, seeing as how this bunch wasn’t far away. Now, don’t start shouting the odds — take it like a man! You don’t know it yet, Mr. Wilshaw, but this is what war is all about. If we’re going to win, we have to be as dirty as the bloody natives and that’s a fact of life out here. As it is, we’re on a very good wicket. We’ve proved we can be totally trusted —you as well as me, see. All you’ve got to do now is to convince yourself that you’re Mr. Ernest Wilshaw of Dilke-Braybrook-Chalmers, Birmingham...not an officer of Her Majesty’s bleeding army. All right?’

  Ogilvie didn’t answer. Jones went on, ‘You’ll see it my way when you think about it, son. God knows, I didn’t like doing it — that is, allowing it to happen. But you got to be convincing. From now on, it’s vital, Mr. Wilshaw. You simply mustn’t react like a soldier any more. That’s out — right out! Get me?’

  Ogilvie nodded an aching head, and swallowed. ‘Yes, I get you.’

  ‘It’s for the greater good of the greater number in the end, Mr. Wilshaw. Hold fast to that — and hold fast to your duty. To that extent, you can be a soldier still.’

  Ogilvie found he was shaking like a leaf. ‘How much do you really know about all this, Mr. Jones?’

  ‘About what?’ The knife was still at Ogilvie’s throat, and he could smell Jones’s rancid breath.

  ‘About — what my orders are’

  ‘I don’t, Mr. Wilshaw, I don’t. Why?’

  ‘You spoke about it being for the greater good in the end.’

  ‘Just an assumption, Mr. Wilshaw, that’s all. The nobs wouldn’t be sending you into Waziristan unless they had something big in mind, now would they?’

  ‘No. All right. I wish you’d take that knife away.’

  Jones said, ‘You won’t do anything foolish, Mr. Wilshaw?’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Have I your word on that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The knife was withdrawn from his throat. He sat up, feeling his jaw. It was stiff and felt bloody, and his whole stomach was rawly painful. The cave was beginning to take on shape now; there was a faint lightening outside. The firing had ceased, and the tribesmen from Waziristan were gathering again by the cave’s mouth. Jones got to his feet, and went to talk to them. After a moment he came back to Ogilvie. ‘We can go on now,’ he said. He met Ogilvie’s eye. ‘We’ll even have an escort into Waziristan. The auguries are good, Mr. Wilshaw. You’ve started on a very favourable footing.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Ogilvie said. He felt weak and sick, and not from physical causes. But he made an effort; he had a job to do and it hadn’t really begun yet. ‘You had to knock me out in order to get away with it, remember. Doesn’t that look odd, to the Pathans?’

  ‘Not so.’ Mr. Jones shook his head emphatically. ‘It was a private affair, just between you and me. You were trying to tell me what to do. You’re just my assistant and you got too saucy, Mr. Wilshaw. It’s not the first time, and I lost my temper.’

  ‘And they accepted that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jones was emphatic. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt to repeat it. Just for authenticity’s sake. I’ll give you the tip, when.’

  They got on the move as the day grew lighter under a blood-red orb of sun. The tribesmen brought up the bullock-cart, its contents opened but otherwise unmolested, to the farther bank of the gully. Tactfully Jones refrained from expressing any satisfaction at the recovery of his stock. He even helped Ogilvie in his self-appointed task of concealing the British dead beneath piles of stones against the attentions of the vultures, already circling bleakly overhead, foul black symbols against the rising sun. The Pathans understood the desirability for the British renegades of doing what was possible to erase the signs of battle; and also, as warrior themselves, possibly understood that even traitors were bound to have some feeling for their own compatriots. As they moved off, Ogilvie, back alongside Jones, who was once again driving, studied the escorting Pathans. They were a stiff-faced, self-contained lot, some fair, some dark, all with dirty tattered garments and shaggy hair, hard men who lived hard lives, men to whom death in the act of battle was a thing to be welcomed. They were as rock-hard indeed as their own terrain, a bleak land of hot sun and sand and dust and mountain crags. Jolting along the track for the Waziri border, Ogilvie was silent and preoccupied; Mr. Jones didn’t interrupt his thoughts, for which he was thankful. Had the man from Birmingham done so, he would have had his head snapped off. Ogilvie was feeling keenly to blame for what had happened to the men of the King’s Regiment. Possibly, after all, Mr. Jones had been right. Perhaps he should have regarded his orders with more elasticity, even though they had been perfectly clear and unequivocal: under no circumstances was he to tell anybody about his mission. Heavy-hearted, he knew that in fact there was no way around those orders and if he had disregarded them and revealed himself to the officer of the patrol, the result would very likely have been the same in any case. The act of telling would not have dispersed the tribal force, which vastly outnumbered the small patrol, and after the attack he, Ogilvie, would have suffered the added bitterness of self-blame for disobedience of orders. This appraisal of the situation, however, failed to bring him comfort. It merely pointed the basic unpleasantness of his task and he wondered how he had ever come to look upon the assignment with anticipation and zeal.

  However, no more trouble was encountered. At nightfall, close now to the border a little way south of Gumatti, they were joined by more tribesmen and shortly after this they crossed into the desolation of the Waziri hills.

  *

  Late that night Lieutenant-General Fettleworth’s Chief of Staff reported to the Divisional Commander that a patrol of the King’s Regiment had failed to return to cantonments in accordance with orders.

  ‘Why tell me?’ was the General’s snappish response. ‘Surely this is a matter initially for their Colonel, and after that, for Brigade?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Brigade, of course, is aware of the situation, but has made reference to Division. The reason for this, sir, is the special mission into Waziristan.’ The Chief of Staff, who had sins of apparent omission to confess on behalf of someone down the chain of command, looked worried. He gave a discreet cough and a gentle reminder. ‘Captain Ogilvie of the 114th Highlanders, sir, if you remember —’

  ‘Of course I remember!’ Fettleworth rustled angrily beneath his pyjamas. Sometimes, the Chief of Staff reflected, Bloody Francis seemed to break down into the role of a music-hall General, all bounce and bluster. But not for long this time. Collecting himself rapidly, Fettleworth sat up straight, meeting his informant’s eye. ‘Lakenham, where precisely was this patrol functioning?’

  ‘From Nowshera down to Bahodur Khel, sir, with, I gather, particular orders to clear the area of the Rawalpindi to Mianwali sector of the railway line of bandits.’

  ‘God damn!’ Fettleworth said explosively. He pushed his feet over the edge of his bed and thrust them into carpet-slippers. ‘Did I, or did I not, give perfectly c
lear orders that the whole blasted area was to be kept free of patrols until such time as the special mission had passed through? Don’t interrupt, sir! I expressed the opinion, which was never contested, that it would not do to maintain patrols and warn their officers about Ogilvie. Secrecy — I made the point quite plainly — is secrecy. One does not make broadsheets out of things like the special mission! I said all that.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Obviously, there has been a case of — of an error of judgment. I understand it was as a direct result of a request from the railway authorities —’

  ‘Error of judgment be damned, blasted disobedience more like! When the stationmaster at Rawalpindi takes over as Army Commander in Murree he will be able to supersede my orders. Not until. Damn it — someone’s going to pay for this, Lakenham!’ Fettleworth was furiously angry, but he was functioning. ‘But that’s for the future. What makes you think there’s been a clash with Ogilvie’s mission — hey?’

  ‘I don’t say there has been, sir. I simply suggest there may have been some incident — as a matter of fact the idea was Major O’Kelly’s. In the circumstances I feel it should be investigated.’

  ‘Hm. It’s a pretty long shot, Lakenham.’ Fettleworth gnawed for a moment at the drooping ends of his moustache. In bed, Lakenham thought with sudden irreverence, he resembled a walrus, a red and gingery-white one. ‘Any amount of ground out there, y’know, any amount! What?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I still think it should be looked into with half an eye on Captain Ogilvie.’

  ‘Hm, well, yes.’ Fettleworth stared blankly in the light from the guttering oil lamp carried by his Chief of Staff. ‘I’ve an idea you’re panicking over nothing...however, there’s no harm in a probe, I suppose, and the patrol will have to be looked for as a matter of routine. How long overdue are they?’