Rogue Officer (4 page)

‘It were like this, sir. I was marching along as merry as can be with me comrades-in-arms, happy to be fightin’ for queen and country like, when I sees Colonel Hawke ridin’ by. Our Colonel Hawke. So that evenin’, I goes to his tent and asks to see ’im. I tells him who I am and lord ’elp us, the dear old colonel recognizes me. Naturally, bein’ as we got on so well together in the past, I asks him, is our Fancy Jack ’ere, fightin’ for the cause? And he tells me you are, so I asks to join you again. “Wynter,” he says, “the lieutenant can do with men like you, men he can trust, as he’s only got new coves who don’t know their arse from their elbow.” ’ Here the newcomer looked at King and seemed gratified to witness a twitch of anger. ‘“Good sir,” says I, “’cause I want to help. I’ve been trained up to do skulkin’ and blowing things to bits and that’s what I want to do.” And he says to me, “Consider it done.”’

Wynter stood there, still wearing that sly grin, waiting for a response. When there was none, he added, ‘So here I am, sir. By the by, Fancy Jack, how’s the missus?’

At these incredibly insubordinate words, Sergeant King, who had been sitting in his saddle transfixed by this grubby soldier, suddenly came to life with a burst of high energy. He dismounted to confront Wynter and stuck his jaw into the man’s face. Wynter lost his smile and stumbled backwards.

‘Private,’ barked the sergeant, making Sajan jump, ‘I don’t know who the hell you are, but when you approach an officer, the first thing I expect from you is a salute. Then you stand to attention and wait until you’re spoken to. Pick up that pack, put it on your back, straighten that forage cap, shoulder arms and stand ready for inspection!’

‘What?’ cried an affronted Wynter.

‘
YOU HEARD ME!
’

Wynter did as he was told, muttering under his breath all the time.

‘I don’t know what you’re chuntering at, soldier, but let me tell you this. I am the senior NCO here. I am the man who speaks with the officer in charge of this unit. If you have anything to say, you say it to me first, and if I think it’s important enough – and only then – I shall convey your remarks to the officer in an economic way, so’s not to waste his valuable time. You may or may not have served under this same commanding officer . . .’

‘Sergeant then.’

‘What?’ growled King.

The sullen Wynter repeated, ‘He was a sergeant then.’

King was silent for a moment, but unfazed. ‘And he’s a lieutenant now and will be given all due deference and respect deserving of that rank. You, sir, are
nothing.
A weevil in an army loaf of bread, nothing more. A slug. A dung beetle.’ He looked Wynter up and down. ‘In all my time in the army I have never seen a more slovenly soldier . . .’

‘Eh?’

Wynter looked round him. He felt justifiably aggrieved by this remark, since he was surrounded by troops who were in much the same condition and state of poor dress, having lost bits of their uniform over the past few months of bitter fighting, and having replaced official caps with turbans, and taken off coats to march in shirtsleeves. They were a motley-looking force of grubby worn-out warriors, not enhanced by the haphazard dress of the irregular forces who marched alongside them. Wynter was no more or less scruffy than the next man.

Indignantly, he said, ‘I just marched a thousand miles or more!’

‘And you’ll march back again if I have anything to do with it – you would give an army of cockroaches a bad name.’

Wynter stored this insult away to nurse in the future, when he was planning just what he would do to sergeants like King once he left the army.

‘Now, what have you to say to me, soldier?’ cried King.

‘Sergeant, Private Wynter reporting for duty with the spies and destructors as ordered,’ yelled Wynter.

‘Fall in, Wynter. We’re about to march,’ said King. ‘I shall speak with you again later, when there’s more time.’

‘I ain’t got no horse!’ Wynter pointed out.

‘Then you’ll have to walk until we get you one.’

Wynter glowered at King as the sergeant remounted, then the cheery grin returned to his face as he looked up and saw Gwilliams peering down on him. He fell in beside Gwilliams, taking hold of his mount’s bridle. They began to move forward and Wynter started chatting to the man he had served with in the Crimean campaign.

‘Hey, Yankee, you’re a corporal now! That’s good. I was a sergeant for a bit.’

‘Yeah?’ replied Gwilliams in an uninterested voice. ‘So, what happened?’

Wynter shambled forward with the rest of the column.

He shrugged. I got drunk.’

‘Surprise me,’ drawled Gwilliams.

Private Wynter had been with Jack throughout the Crimean War, from start to finish. Jack had been a sergeant in those days and Wynter had been a thorn in his side. Despite the fact that the pair of them were the only ones left serving out of the original peleton that had been formed by Major Lovelace as his intelligence gatherers, Jack and Wynter were as far apart as men could be. Jack despised Harry Wynter and Harry Wynter despised everyone but himself. Adversity normally forges friendships but not in this case. When Jack had been promoted to lieutenant, Wynter had somehow managed to get his sergeant stripes.

It seemed Wynter had not held on to his new rank for very long. Harry Wynter was from a large poor rural family, the product of having to fight for every scrap of food that passed his lips when he was a child, and had consequently developed into a conniving, sly adult who trusted no one, hated the world, and felt that property belonged to he who could wrest it from another, either by force or cunning. He was always on the lookout for those weaker than himself, so that he could crush them. This especially applied to native inhabitants of countries other than his own.

While these two were going on ahead, King rode forward to speak with his officer.

‘You have a history, sir, with that individual?’

‘Yes – I thank you for intervening.’

‘My job. Don’t forget, sir, you’re an officer now, not a sergeant. You don’t have to deal with the likes of him. That’s for NCOs. I’ll sort him out.’

‘I spent almost three years trying to – and failed.’

King said, ‘Well, perhaps you were born to be an officer and I was born to NCO rank, and so . . .’

‘So, you’ll make a better job of it?’

‘It’s a thought.’

‘I hope you may, sergeant. For my part I was weary of the man in the Crimea and I can’t see my attitude towards him changing. He’s trouble from helmet to boots. He whines constantly, he gets drunk at the slightest sniff of gut rot and he continually starts fist fights he never ever looks like winning. Wynter seems to have the capacity to absorb blows and misfortunes, both physical and mental, which would cripple any other man. Yet there he stands, my nemesis, haunting my every step in life.’

Wynter was not Lieutenant Fancy Jack’s only personnel problem. There were others.

For instance, he and Sergeant King himself did not always see eye to eye about things. King was far more interested in map-making than he was in spying or sabotage. He actually saw making maps as his prime duty. That was what he had been trained for and that was what excited him as a man. Jack, on the other hand, did not give an owl’s hoot for map-making and he
knew
that the purpose of his crew was intelligence gathering and sabotage. Thus the two men were often at loggerheads with each other, Jack usually winning but not always. King often took advantage of the times when Jack was ill or away to further his feverish desire to create maps.

King had been foisted on Jack just before the lieutenant left the shores of Britain for India. This time it had been Colonel Hawke who had insisted that Jack take on a new man. Although he and King had fought the Indian Mutiny campaign together, they too held views to which each could not reconcile himself. King was a blacksmith’s son, educated at a boarding school, and keen to raise himself above his origins. He had taken to map-making as eagles take to the air. He soared.

Sergeant King was unmarried but had been in India for a previous tour of duty. While there he had fallen in love with a village girl and had got her pregnant. His unit had taken him away from the village and when he returned she was gone, no one would tell him where. Later the girl’s family had tried to have him assassinated for violating their relative, but the assassin had failed, ending his life by being shot by Lieutenant Crossman in a coffee shop in the Punjab. Since that time Jack Crossman had taken a young Indian boy out of virtual slavery – the boy Sajan had been a punkah wallah – and King had decided he was his lost child. No one knew if this was true (it was highly likely it was false) but none wanted to prise the belief from the sergeant, who had adopted Sajan as his son. The boy now went everywhere with the group and proved to be very useful in certain circumstances. King was teaching him to make maps.

‘You leave Wynter to me, sir,’ said King. ‘I’m the man for him. If he wants to settle scores behind the trees with fists, I’ll accommodate him in that too.’

Farrier King had fists as big and hard as four-pound hammers.

Raktambar, while all this was going on around him, was happy to talk in Hindi to Sajan. The Rajput was ostensibly Jack Crossman’s bodyguard, but he resented the duty and only remained in the position out of loyalty to his master in Jaipur, and more recently out of respect for Lieutenant Jack Crossman. Gradually, as they had fought together against the rebels (another aspect of his duties which was not entirely in accord with Raktambar’s own principles) the pair had come to like and think highly of each other. The most important ideal to Raktambar, and many others from the Punjab and various areas of India, was honour. A man with his honour intact was a man to be respected. He and Jack were both of the opinion that a soldier without honour was not worth a crow’s droppings. The late General Nicholson’s entourage of Afghans and Punjabis – big, fierce men who fought to the death beside him – had been at his shoulder because of their regard for Nicholson as a man with great honour.

‘Who are we going to fight?’ asked young Sajan in his native language. ‘Is it the sepoys again?’

‘Now there are more than just mutinous sepoys and sowars,’ replied Raktambar. ‘There are the rajahs’ matchlock men, badmashes and Gujars, along with many ordinary civilians unhappy with the British. The sepoys are only a few now, at the heart of the rebellion. But that is not for you to take part in – you must stay out of the fighting.’

‘Who is their leader?’

‘Why, there are many hereabouts. I think this is one Nirpat Singh, but there is also Khan Bahadur Khan in Rohilkand. They say Khan has many followers, almost as many as the Maulvi. There will be many more battles before this is over, child. We must wait and see what happens.’

‘You think the British will not win?’

‘Who knows? There are valiant fighters out there, with Tantia Tope and the Rani of Jhansi. Men are willing to die. Perhaps it may yet turn against the British and they will be driven out?’

During their conversation they kept their opinions on the uprising neutral, both boy and man. In truth their loyalties were stretched; Raktambar’s more than the boy’s. A child who has been treated with much kindness, adopted by a British sergeant, and whose feelings have not yet hardened to granite, will rarely bite the hand that feeds him.

Raktambar though was resentful of the arrogance of the East India Company’s acquisitiveness. They had annexed provinces like Sind and Oudh and seemed determined to extend that annexation further. He saw people like himself hanged for no other crime than standing and watching. Yet there were thousands of others who still fought with the British and saw them as the main power in a vast land which had been held by conquerors for hundreds of years. In fact, Raktambar was secretly glad the decision to choose sides had been taken from him by his maharajah.

The column marched and camped for several days, so by the fifteenth of April they were some fifty miles south-east of Lucknow and just a few miles from the River Ganges. Brigadier Walpole was heading towards a fort named Ruya, which was occupied by a small force of rebels. When they arrived they found that thick bamboo forests went right up to two sides of the fort. Inside, at the head of the rebels, was their leader, Nirpat Singh. Raktambar and Sajan, posing as itinerant father and son, learned from a nearby village that there were little more than two hundred defenders in the fort. This was confirmed when Jack managed to speak with a native trooper of Hodson’s Horse, who had been a captive in the fort before escaping.

The information was conveyed to Brigadier Walpole. Unfortunately Walpole had a harsh opinion of ‘skulkers’. He thoroughly disliked spying and regarded all such gathered information as dubious. Instead, the brigadier made up his own mind that there were at least one-and-a-half thousand rebels in the fort. Nothing would budge him from this view. Moreover he forbade any further reconnaissance of the area, saying he could see for himself what was before him.

On his own initiative Jack decided to reconnoitre the area and discover for himself the fort’s strengths and weaknesses. He found that though it was protected by jungle north and east, there were little natural or man-made defences on the other two sides. There were shallow ditches and walls low enough to leap over should the British attack from the south or west. Jack went back with this information and tried to get past staff officers to see Brigadier Walpole, but he found himself barred.

‘The brigadier does not want any further reconnaissance of the fort,’ a young subaltern told him. ‘He prefers to go on advice given to him before he left Lucknow.’

‘Advice by whom?’ asked Jack. ‘After all, we are here now and can see for ourselves. Perhaps this advice was formed years ago?’

The young officer sighed. ‘Perhaps – but that’s how it stands. Look, who are you anyway?’

‘My commanding officer is Colonel Hawke. I’m with Major Lovelace. We’re an independent intelligence-gathering unit.’

Light came into the subaltern’s eyes. ‘Oh, I know you, you’re the fellah whom Deighnton talks about.’