The Ravi Lancers (17 page)

Soon after dark it began to rain, rain with an edge of cold in it, harbinger of the northern winter. At first Krishna welcomed the rain, for it washed away the dust that was threatening to choke him, and cooled his hot, sweating face. But as it continued, and the weary horses and caped men kept plodding on into it through the darkness, it began to work through his uniform, chill his skin, and gnaw steadily in towards his bones.

Eight o’clock ... nine o’clock ... an enforced halt in a nameless village, the two-storey houses curling round the side of a hill, small lights behind drawn curtains, something like a slag heap above. He ate curry puffs from his saddlebag, drank a little from his waterbottle. Three horses lame, one with a severe girth gall. Nothing to be done.

On ... ten o’clock ... eleven o’clock, and a long stand in open country, nothing to be seen in any direction in the rain, no lights, the wind whistling through unseen trees somewhere to the right, to the left a scene of desolation, of dead crops and land unseeded, the breath of war. And then, for the first time, he heard a low grumbling rumble, that seemed to come through the earth, not on the wind. He turned to ask the rissaldar what it was, but saw another shape, close. Peering, he recognized Warren Bateman, his dog Shikari on his saddle bow. He smiled through the cold and weariness, and said, ‘What’s that noise, sir? More thunder?’

‘It might be,’ the major said, ‘but it isn’t. It’s the guns.’

‘The guns!’ Krishna muttered, half to himself. For the first time he was hearing the sound of the guns, the authentic voice of war. It was to this that he had devoted his life until fate should call him to the
gaddi
of his state. He expected a thrill, but an uncontrollable shiver shook his body.

‘My burberry doesn’t seem to keep out the rain. It’s cold. I’m soaked through,’ he said, feeling that the major must have sensed that shudder.

‘Nothing will keep out rain that goes on this long,’ Warren said. ‘I’m on my way up to warn the colonel that we have about a dozen horses lame and unable to keep up. And we seem to have lost B Squadron.’

‘Altogether?’ Krishna said, amazed. ‘How on earth . . . ?’

‘It’s easy enough in the dark. Lose a little distance ... have a company of infantry or a gunner battery go through the column ... take the wrong road fork afterwards. They’ll find us sooner or later.’

‘When do you think we’ll get to La Chapelle, sir?’

‘Another four hours at this rate,’ the major urged his horse into a trot and disappeared towards regimental headquarters. Krishna settled back into his saddle. The rain ran down his back in a cold trickle. The horses were very tired, and the dust in the road had congealed to mud. The pace had slowed from the regulation four and a half miles per hour of cavalry at the walk to less than three.

To forget his hunger and misery he thought of the weekend at Shrewford Pennel. The cricket had been everything he had dreamed of and Mr. Fleming had told him about. All those people had their stations in life, but for the match it was only their stations on the cricket field that mattered. The churches, and houses, and barns, even the fields and the woods rising up to the great empty sweep of the Plain, seemed to be rooted in and protected by the people, rather than the other way around ... Warren Bateman’s wife was a strange lady. Seen walking at Ralph Harris’s side in the vegetable garden she looked like an apparition from another age, another planet ... The old lady, Warren’s mother, was rather like his own grandmother as he remembered her before her death two years back; a strong woman, born to distinction and never losing it. But most she reminded him of Rissaldar-Major Baldev Singh. Both were calm, yet firm, both convinced that everyone else--like themselves--was doing, and would always do, the best of which he or she was capable, and always in honesty of purpose. What was it that worried her and Diana, which Diana had not had time to tell him about?

And Diana herself ... she was specially English--or was it perhaps European? Such girls did not exist among Indians, that was certain, not with her innocence, the direct way she looked at you, mud on her face and dirty strong hands secure on the reins. She seemed to be unaware of the fact that he was an Indian. She had not asked him one question about himself as an Indian, only as a person, and a man. It was a shame she had not married the curate, now vicar--that very one who gave the sermon which sent Warren to sleep--and had some children of her own. Though she didn’t seem to miss all that, kept busy by the animals, helping her mother with the house and Joan with the children, when she was allowed to. No Indian parent would tolerate the way those children were being brought up, permitted, as they were, to do anything they chose, except when their wishes ran afoul of their grandmother’s. He had been interested to notice that it was the old lady’s company, with all its prohibitions and orders, that they sought before anyone else’s, including their mother’s.

The intermittent grumbling of the guns grew louder. At midnight by his watch he passed a battery of heavies in an orchard beside the road. One of the guns fired as the squadron rode by. An orange flash lit up the gleaming wet steel barrel, a man running, shells stacked beside a hayrick, four men crouched by the trail, other shining barrels, uptilted, beyond ... then it was dark again. It was lucky, he thought, that the horses were too tired to shy or there would have been broken ranks in the regiment; none had heard or seen so large an artillery piece firing before.

The guns fell back into the darkness. The Lancers trudged on, Krishna’s horse rolling like a weary sleep-walker below him now. At last the adjutant, Lieutenant Dayal Ram, loomed out of the dark and the rain, and said, ‘Bivouac here, sir. La Chapelle St. Denis is just ahead.’ Hurricane lanterns swung, showing a mass of mounted figures in dripping capes. Now his VCOs were coming up for orders. The squadron moved into a dark field, formed squadron column, and dismounted. One man, unable to keep his feet after twenty-two hours in the saddle, simply rolled on over as his left foot joined his right, and lay like a corpse where he fell. Krishna’s trumpeter held his horse, and he walked down the lines, trying to keep his eyes open and force his muscles to move one foot after the other. The ground underfoot was heavy and wet. Some of the horses had lain down. The men were tying their groundsheet-capes together to make bivouacs. Food . . . where were the field kitchens that should have been rolling along at the back of the regiment? Why had the orders been changed? What had the heavy artillery been firing at? Did anyone know anything, or were they just keeping it a secret from the regiment? It was four a.m., and this place smelled of pig manure.

Hanuman appeared, mug in hand. ‘Rum, lord. From the
Topkhana gora log
.’

Krishna took the mug, drank, and choked at the raw strength of the stuff burning down his throat. Trust British gunners to see that there was rum, even though there was no food or fodder. Warren Bateman appeared, flashing an electric torch, and said, ‘There are two big animal water troughs in the corner of the field. Water in order of squadrons. We don’t know when the rations will come up.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Orders at six a.m. Post lines-sentries and then get some sleep.’ The major rode away, and Krishna called up his VCOs. Ten minutes later Hanuman said, ‘Your bivouac, lord. I’ve borrowed another groundsheet so that you won’t be lying in the mud.’

He must have stolen it or told some sowar that the prince wanted it, Krishna thought. But he couldn’t bother about that now. He crawled into the bivouac, put his cap under his head, and went out like a blown light.

An enormous explosion awoke him so violently that he was out of the bivouac, a scream only half suppressed, before he knew what he was doing. He stood trembling in the darkness, listening. He realized that all the men were out, huddled down the line of bivouacs. What had happened? He didn’t know, but he knew the men must be reassured. ‘Stand easy,’ he said, as he walked down the ranks. ‘Stay by your bivouacs.’ At the end of the line he found the sentry, visibly shaking. He took the man’s arm. ‘What was it?’

‘A shell, lord. A huge shell. It fell over there! ‘Major Bateman appeared, on foot. A loud increasing whistle filled the air and a moment later there was another explosion. Mud hurled over him in a shower and someone nearby began to moan in pain.

‘We’re being shelled,’ Warren Bateman said, ‘heavy stuff. It seems to be burying itself in the mud before exploding or we’d be suffering more than we are.’

‘Two horses killed in C Squadron, sahib,’ someone said, running up to join the group.

‘They can’t know that we’ve arrived,’ Warren said. ‘My God, I know what it is! There’s a pile of shell cases over beyond the water troughs. A battery must have been here before we moved in and the Huns think they are giving it harassing fire ... Dayal Ram, are you there?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell all squadron commanders to prepare to move. I’ll speak to the CO and be back here in five minutes.’

‘The CO’s asleep, sir. I couldn’t awaken him. Nor has the shelling.’

Krishna gave the necessary orders, thinking that with Colonel Hanbury too tired to wake up, Warren would probably order a move on his own initiative. They wouldn’t have to go far. Meanwhile ... he walked up and down his lines in the eerie light. The men were standing at ease outside their dismantled bivouacs, facing the picketed horses. He felt their fear, for they had never been shelled before, but he knew they were not going to run away. They were afraid, but not nervous. These were his people, the men of Ravi, standing steady here in the darkness five thousand miles from their quiet fields on the slopes between the river and the eternal snows. ‘Well done,’ he said, ‘stand firm. We will be moving soon ... Are you wounded, there?’

‘No, lord. Only too stiff to stand.’

‘Good ... good ...’ Here he touched a shoulder, there a man dropped to one knee to lay his hand to Krishna’s knee. Another shell shrieked over and exploded deep in the shaking earth.

Dayal Ram appeared and said, ‘Squadrons on to the road and continue north--that’s to the right--through the village, sir. Major Bateman is selecting a bivouac site the other side of La Chapelle.’ Krishna mounted, fell in his squadron, and moved off in slackening rain. Half an hour later he was again asleep on the ground rolled in his blanket. At five-thirty the lines-sentry awakened him.

He struggled out, shivering, to a scene of desolation that he would not have credited even twenty-four hours ago. The regiment lay like debris all over the two ploughed fields. Some horses stood and some lay, and the bivouacs were dotted everywhere, with no visible order. Everything was a dull browny black, and everything coated with mud. Rain dripped from the trees around the field and smoke curled up from the chimneys of La Chapelle, two hundred yards away. A column of GS wagons and field kitchens was moving into the field out of the road, led by Captain Sohan Singh, the quartermaster. That was a most welcome sight, Krishna thought, though how Sohan Singh had managed to come up so soon, and find the regiment after the night’s chaos, was a mystery.

Dayal Ram arrived, saluting. He looked fit and cheerful in spite of everything, Krishna noted. He was a menace with the women and got himself and others into endless trouble over them--he remembered the camp at Kangrota, the afternoon the sowar ran amok and shot at Major Bateman--but he was a good officer, impossible to panic.

‘Orders in the estaminet this end of the village, sir, as soon as the CO comes back from brigade. He was sent for at 5 a.m.’

‘How is he?’

‘Tired.’ The adjutant made a very Indian gesture of sleeping, that contrasted comically with his clipped British moustache and cap.

Krishna walked stiffly across the field and into the village. The officers gathered in the estaminet, huddling into the small front room, which still showed traces of recent habitation by its rightful owners. Colonel Hanbury limped in and sat down heavily. His breathing was shallow and uneven, his skin was an unpleasant greenish colour in the grey light.

‘We are to march at 0700 hours,’ he said dully. ‘The Lahore Brigade, with ourselves in the lead and under command, is moving up on the left of VIII Corps ready to exploit a breakthrough hourly expected ... I told the general we must have time to feed men and horses, and get more rest, but the general said we must march. It is our first chance.’

And the general’s, Krishna thought: if all went well he might soon be Brigadier-General Rogers DSO, MVO.

‘The horses are bad, tired,’ Major Bholanath said. ‘They were good before, even in Marseilles. But this--spoiling them quickly.’

‘What about the men?’ The colonel looked at the black doctor. Captain Ramaswami spread his hands and said, ‘They’re tired. The squadron commanders can tell you. But they are young. They will be all right after a few hours’ rest. All except you,’ he added bluntly. ‘You are not at all fit.’

The old colonel said, ‘I did not ask your opinion on that, Captain Ramaswami.’ He turned to the quartermaster, ‘When and where are brigade opening a ration point, Sohan?’

‘I have three days’ food and fodder here, sah! ‘ the fat little man said rubbing his hands like a bazaar salesman. Krishna looked at him in astonishment.

‘Has the supply column come up, then?’

‘No, sah. But ... I am having rations! All for distribution now. With sahib’s permission I going now tell quartermaster dafadars to draw at once ...
Bahut mehrbhani
, sahib! ‘ He ducked out of the room before the colonel could say yes or no. Krishna thought that he must have ‘found’ the rations in the night when everyone else was sleeping; and he didn’t want to tell the CO any more.

‘What is the situation at the front, sir?’ Krishna asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Colonel Hanbury said. ‘As soon as I am told anything more, I shall pass it on.’

Krishna returned to find his squadron ravenously eating hot rice from the field kitchens, together with margarine from huge cans, jam, and chocolate, and the horses all had their noses deep into their feed bags. Then the sun began to dissolve the ground mist, the rain ended, and the trumpets were sounding
Mount
. A little later came the
Advance
. He led A Squadron on to the road, reflecting that B Squadron was still lost.