Lieutenant of the Line Page 9

  The tribesmen would be back soon, but they hadn’t returned just yet. The small British patrol struggled on, along the parallel valley now, the valley that led south for a little way, according to the maps, the evidence of which was supported by Barr, and then took a turn to the south-eastward. It ran more or less parallel with the course of the Panjkora River to Abazai and Nowshera. When they reached Abazai, they would find safety and communication with Peshawar. If only, Ogilvie thought, some more of that money that cousin Hector was so niggardly about had been allocated by the Treasury to the army, more progress might have been made by now with the new wireless telegraphy, and then he could have been in communication throughout; the army’s current equipment, the cumbersome field telegraph, with its drums of insulated wire, was utterly unsuitable for maintaining communication whilst on extended patrol. It was all right for a straightforward line of march, or for use when in action to maintain touch with base, but that was all. And meanwhile, burdened as they were with the wounded, Abazai was, at a rough estimate, three days’ march away. On the face of it, it was a sheerly impossible task to reach that far. At best they faced a slow whittling away of their number until the last man fell. Responsibility lay heavily on Ogilvie’s shoulders; this was yet one more patrol messed up, though this time he felt it to be through no fault of his own. He had had no orders to refuse to return fire if attacked, and he had had no option but to pass the Black Fort if he were to advance at all in execution of his orders. But he wished, now, that he had returned to cantonments after passing through Dera...

  He wondered what he should do about the wounded; they were indisputably a drag on weary men and they were slowing the retreat disastrously. Ogilvie would have liked to discuss them with Colour-Sergeant Barr, but this he refused to do, knowing that he couldn’t shift the responsibility and knowing he would get little help from Barr in any case. If only he had old Bosom Cunningham, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, with him! Everything would have been quite different. None of the ultimate responsibility would have been shifted, but Cunningham, with his firm and kindly wisdom, would have eased the load tremendously. Cunning-ham was a fine soldier and a fine R.S.M., respected and liked throughout the regiment, with which he had his own family connections; a very different kettle of fish from Barr. And what would Cunningham have said about the wounded? That they were a threat to other men, a danger to life when their own lives were obviously worth nothing now unless they could be got to a doctor within hours, and that their sufferings were a misery to them anyway? Or that the wounded were a first charge and fit men had to bear the burden whatever happened?

  In any case, a British regiment still never left its wounded behind along the Frontier.

  That left only the merciful bullet, fired from a friendly hand close to the ear. Ogilvie’s problem was resolved. He knew he could never bring himself to dispatch the wounded, even if to be unable to do so was cowardice in a commander of men. The fit must simply carry their burdens and march.

  ***

  The next attack came within the hour, and this time it was a larger and much more co-ordinated manoeuvre. Tribesmen poured down the hillside on the flank of the re-treating men, and others came along the valley behind. With two men acting as rear-guard and keeping up the fire, Ogilvie and Barr shouted for all the speed they could produce in an attempt to get ahead of the descending tribesmen before the valley was cut in front of them. But very soon they all realized their situation was hopeless and that they would have to stand and fight it out. Inevitably, then, they would go down, and be written off the War Office lists as just another brave patrol that had joined the numbers of earlier Britons who had never come back from the North-West Frontier, who had fought and died but who, in dying, had held the line in the name of the Queen Empress and had planted the flag of Empire firmer yet.

  Ogilvie, his face white beneath its tan and a thick coating of dust, halted the patrol. He said, ‘this is it, men. We’ll get as many of them as we can, and God be with us all.’ That was when he noticed, as he looked round for the best position from which to fight, the fissure in the rocky face of the hill. It was half hidden with scrubby, parched growth. He said, ‘hold on a minute.’ He went and had a look and found that the fissure extended inwards some twenty feet. Running back towards the men he called, ‘over here...we’ll get inside and turn it into a strongpoint. We’ll see what they make of that!’

  There had been silence outside for a while but then the concealed soldiers heard weird, wailing cries as the tribesmen, widely dispersed, called out to their compatriots. Soon there was movement visible in the valley as the dark-skinned figures came down the opposite hillside.

  Ogilvie, thinking of the food and water, said, ‘we’re going to have to withstand a siege, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  ‘So it seems. I think we all expected no less, Mr. Ogilvie. Well—we have our provisions, which must be strictly rationed, and we have rifles and ammunition. We’ll give a good account of ourselves, Sir, and take plenty of those bastards with us before the end.’

  ‘We won’t think in terms of the end just yet, Colour-Sarn’t! We shall be noted as overdue in cantonments eventually.’

  ‘Eventually, Mr. Ogilvie, yes. But not inside six days. And action will not be taken right away, you may be sure. Barr eased the collar of his tunic; it was a band of sweat. ‘It’ll take time for a relief force to reach us, too. Added to which, they do not know where we are.’

  ‘Oh come! They know the area we’re operating in!’

  ‘But we’re off the track, Mr. Ogilvie, do you not see? Besides...they’ll not be wanting to light any more fuses along the Frontier just now, not until Division is ready for it.’

  ‘You mean you actually think they’ll leave us to it?’

  ‘I’d not be surprised ; not at all.’

  Ogilvie felt a surge of anger, but fought it down with an effort. All the time he had been talking to Barr he had been keeping a watchful eye on the tribesmen. The circle had halted some distance off, currently out of range of the rifles. There seemed to be a consultation in progress, so far as could be seen at such a distance, and soon after this the hill men melted away. Once again there was silence; it was unnerving while it lasted. Again Ogilvie saw the foul vultures hovering, descending now and again to sweep past the fissure’s entry as though impatient for their meal. Then the silence was shattered and the carrion birds rose, screaming hoarsely. Bullets smacked into the rock around Ogilvie, and he ducked, Barr doing likewise behind him and cursing viciously as he did so. No one had been hit. Ogilvie was ready with his revolver and when he saw a movement in some bushes close at hand he fired. There was no reaction. Tensely, he waited. For a while there was no further movement and then, as if from nowhere, three figures emerged into the open and rushed the entry, firing as they came. Bullets sang over Ogilvie’s head, and he squeezed the trigger of his revolver; at .the same moment two rifles crashed out from behind him. Two of the tribesmen fell, writhing in agony on the ground, and the third turned and fled. The rifles got him before he had gone a dozen feet and he, too, fell. Again the besieged men waited; within half an hour there was another attack, with a similar result, except that this time five tribesmen died together with one British soldier, shot clean through the heart right beside Ogilvie. By nightfall there were seventeen native bodies lying on the ground outside; Ogilvie had spent the remainder of the daylight hours watching them die, and during that time one more of his men had also died—one of the wounded, the man whose stomach had been so badly lacerated by the fall of shell from the artillery earlier. By now the vultures were at work, satisfying themselves on the corpses in the open. In the fading light Ogilvie had watched with revulsion as the sharp beaks tore and ripped at human flesh. By the time the light went the bones were mostly bare.

  During that night there were three more attacks, all of them repulsed with heavy losses to the enemy—and three more of the 114th dead, including the second of the badly wounded men.

  By daybreak Ogilvie’s
force consisted of nine fit men and one wounded, plus Colour-Sergeant Barr. At this rate, they could scarcely hold out for the full six days—five now—let alone until a relief force could march to their assistance and locate them. It helped them little that the enemy’s losses were greater; the Black Fort must obviously hold an overwhelmingly larger number. Nevertheless, the tribesmen didn’t appear anxious for any more losses, at any rate for the time being, for the morning passed without further attack, though Ogilvie could see that the fissure was under distant Observation throughout.

  Barr said, ‘they’ll hope to starve us out, Mr. Ogilvie.’

  ‘I doubt if they’ll let it go at that, Colour-Sarn’t.’ He rubbed at his eyes, which were red-rimmed now and filled with harsh dust. ‘They’ll have a relief force in mind, and they’ll know we’re provisioned for a long patrol.’

  ‘Aye, maybe, Sir, but t’e’ll bear in mind what I said about the unlikelihood of a relief.’

  Ogilvie shrugged. ‘Whether or not you’re right about that—and I don’t think you are—those natives won’t believe the Raj will leave us to be cut up! There’ll be another attack before much longer. We must keep on the alert, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  ‘I never suggested we shouldn’t be doing that, Mr. Ogilvie.’

  ‘Very well, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  They kept up the watch but in fact nothing happened all that day nor during the succeeding night. Men grew lethargic, even careless of the watch; Ogilvie had constantly to chase them. Hamish Barr seemed in a sardonic mood; his churlishness, his basic enmity, was increasing under stress. He and Ogilvie were taking turns at sleeping, one of them always on the alert, to watch and to supervise the niggardly rationing of their dwindling food and water—especially water. As Ogilvie relieved his Colour-Sergeant at the next dawn, Barr said, ‘I’ve been thinking, Mr. Ogilvie. It seems to me we should try to break out.’

  ‘No,’ Ogilvie said at once.

  ‘Why not, Mr. Ogilvie? It would be the way of the Seaforths, to do that.’

  Ogilvie compressed his lips; officers were not normally questioned as to their decisions by N.C.O.s or even by Warrant Officers such as the R.S.M., though in the present circumstances the query was possibly natural enough—would have been, in the case of Cunningham for instance. But Barr’s question had the ring of impertinence, which was a different thing; besides which, the Seaforths were beginning to irritate. However, Ogilvie answered the question. He said, ‘because the moment we show our noses outside, we’ll be mown down. That’s why, Colour-Sarn’t.’

  ‘Aye,’ Barr said in a considering way. ‘No one likes to be shot at.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Barr shrugged, and twirled his heavy moustache. ‘Oh, nothing at all. Only I’m willing to take a chance, myself, and see if the buggers’ll shoot—’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’

  Barr’s face was grim. ‘As you say, Mr. Ogilvie. But I’m informing you officially that the men are becoming restive and I’ll not be answering for what they may do.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m taking full responsibility. I’m as close to the men as you are, Colour-Sarn’t. I know as well as you how they’re feeling. The answer’s still no.’

  ‘Very good, Mr. Ogilvie. You’re the officer.’ Barr looked him up and down, insolently. ‘But you’ll be remembering I spoke, will you not?’

  ‘Of course I will!’ Ogilvie snapped.

  ‘Then that’s all right.’

  Ogilvie opened his mouth, then shut it again. He was trembling with anger and frustration, but knew that the worst possible thing for them all in this situation would be for open hostility to develop between the officer and the Colour-Sergeant; such could prove fatal. Ogilvie’s one duty was to bring the remnants of his command through this in as good order as lay within his capabilities; everything, all personal feeling, must be subordinated to that. He knew it would be suicide to attempt any dash into the open; quite clearly, though they could pinpoint no movement anywhere, they were still being very closely watched. After a while, however, Ogilvie heard some of the mutterings of the men. They were taking their tune from Hamish Barr, it seemed, and the officer’s stomach for a fight, for lead, was being called into question. His face burned but he could do nothing but pretend he hadn’t heard.

  Four days at the very least to go now. Ogilvie was wishing his life away, hard.

  He had half a mind, he told himself, to put an end once and for all to the whispers, and show Barr up before the men. It could be done easily enough; all he had to do was to walk out of the fissure, himself, alone, and draw the fire he knew would come. He might be lucky enough to get away with a whole skin, dash back in safety to the fissure, and look at Barr’s red face. That would cover Colour-Sergeant Barr in the greatest possible confusion! At the same time it would establish that he was no coward, which was important. But afterwards, if they got back safely to cantonments, he would incur official displeasure for having pointlessly risked his life knowing the odds against him; if he had been unable to assess those odds he would be adjudged unfit for leadership, and if he was known to have gone out regardless, he would be criticized for not having the strength of character to resist a display of useless personal bravery. That would be how the official mind would work—Black’s kind of mind, cousin Hector’s kind of mind. It was not unknown for Whitehall clerks to assess the field reports on officers whose military skills they knew nothing of, and then make their own reports thereon to higher authority. Ogilvie was beginning to learn that in the British Army two things counted above all: total success, which forgave everything; and enough luck to ensure that one’s errors of judgment remained undiscovered until one reached high rank, when one could do no wrong. Generals were allowed to make the most colossal blunders and get away with them. In this current situation there was another point to be considered: Ogilvie felt he had no right to risk leaving the men leaderless if he should be killed on some useless endeavour. Barr was an excellent soldier, a first rate N.C.O. on the parade, a faultless drill instructor, smart and loud-voiced and full of bounce. But out here on patrol, Ogilvie felt that such attributes were not of themselves enough and that Colour-Sergeant Barr lacked the capacity for real leadership and self-discipline. He would never make Regimental Sergeant-Major. And Ogilvie would never trust him to take the patrol back to Peshawar.

  ***

  Outside Peshawar Major-General Fettleworth’s gigantic show of strength had been held and Bloody Francis himself, with his Staff, had personally, pompously and with a protuberant eagle eye inspected every man, riding on . his charger along the endless lines of the great military review. As each colonel had attached himself to the procession on his regiment being reached, General Fettleworth had delivered a little homily.

  ‘Colonel, I trust I shall find your men fighting fit in every respect, ready for battle should they be required. We hold much in trust, much in trust for Her Majesty and the Empire. We must all carry that trust efficiently.’

  The colonels had mostly reacted as they were expected to react to General Fettleworth obsequiously. Lord Dornoch, however, had not. The noble Earl commanding the 114th. Highlanders was not an obsequious man; nor was he particularly good at pretence, even an expedient pretence, considering such to be beneath him. Polite, yes, deferential when he wished to be towards those for whom he had respect, but never obsequious. He had looked the Divisional Commander straight in the eye and said in a loud, clear voice, ‘Her Majesty’s 114th Regiment, Sir, carry everything efficiently.’

  General Fettleworth had already started to turn away, expecting no such speech. His face grew scarlet as he reined in his charger. He bared his teeth, giving his horse-like nervous grin. He turned to his Chief of Staff. ‘What did he say?’ he demanded.