The Last Horseman (22 page)

Radcliffe was clear.

*

Lieutenant Baxter shouted his orders, picked up and carried by NCOs. ‘Advance!’ This was no time to attack in extended line. If he lived through this he’d take the consequences for disobeying the general’s order. ‘Come on the Irish!’ He was the first to rise up and run with Sergeant McCory at his shoulder.

Pierce watched the magnificent sight of hundreds of men rising from the ground and, like a great flock of birds, swooping forwards towards their enemy, bayonets glinting, a roar suddenly erupting from their chests.

Mulraney ran with them, muttering the prayer of contrition: ‘Forgive me my sins, O Lord, forgive me my sins...’ he repeated over and over until his words gave way to blasphemy with the urgency of the gunfire and their desperate attack. Battle instinct had taken over: field drills of moving forward in extended line were ignored; instead the men took lung-tearing short runs, kneeling to shoot, moving on under covering fire from the next man, gaining precious ground. They swarmed across the terraced boulders, edging their way into the kopje’s crevices and gullies. Soldiers still fell to Boer gunfire, but the artillery rounds that Pierce had laid on the hillside bought the Irish regiment a foothold where they could unleash their savage anger. Boers surrendered but were shot down or bayoneted and as the wounded died their cries quickly spread panic. The Irish pushed, shoved, clambered and clawed their way up slabs of rock that rose twenty feet, driven by the desire to kill those who’d had them at their mercy with their longsighted rifles and artillery.

Radcliffe saw the soldiers advance around the side of the slopes. He was sweeping around the assault’s flank and had not yet reached the place where the cavalry had been slaughtered on the reverse slopes, but it was obvious the enemy’s guns had been hauled away otherwise they would have bombarded the attack. Screams and full-throated curses filled the air as British and Boer locked in hand-to-hand fighting.

Men gouged and kicked, used their fists, rifle butts and bayonets amid the erratic staccato of gunfire. Entrails spilt from men’s bodies and the sickening, cloying taste of death clung to the back of men’s throats. Few men cried for mercy because they knew none would be given.

Radcliffe saw Boers beat a soldier to death with their empty rifles, the sound of his skull cracking like dried firewood being splintered, and then they were set upon by soldiers who stabbed and ripped at them repeatedly until the bloodied mass below their blades barely resembled that of a tattered carcass. He could ride no further. He pulled the carbine from its sleeve and ran along the edge of the tide of wild, cursing Irishmen, faces contorted in their own lust for life. He saw Lawrence Baxter in the fray as soldiers swept past him; the lieutenant was running forward, calling for the retreating Boers to surrender, but in their blind panic and determination to escape they fired at him. Radcliffe coolly shot three men and then saw two Boers dragging away a younger man who limped from a wound. His heart pounded. It was Edward. The lad had the same broad shoulders and shock of dark hair.

‘Edward!’ he yelled. But the three escaping men were swallowed by others swarming down the reverse slope of the hillside with the soldiers at their backs. The mêlée of men fighting hand-to-hand redoubled, as Irishman and Boer grappled each other to the ground. When weapons slid from bloodied hands men snatched at knives and bayonets, fought with fists and rocks, smashing relentlessly into their enemy until their opponent died. Radcliffe chased the three men, emptying his rifle at others who turned to face their attackers. Caught up in the tide of khaki he had to use the empty weapon as a club to ward off the Boers who begrudged every inch of their retreat.

He was closing on the men who carried his son.

One turned, raised a pistol and in that instant Radcliffe realized that Lawrence Baxter had turned his back to yell orders to his men. The Boer could not resist the opportunity to kill a British officer. Radcliffe shouted a warning and without aiming fired three shots from his revolver; he saw the impact of his bullets shatter the man’s head and chest. They had dropped Edward on to the ground. The second man snarled and swore in his own language and lunged, defenceless except for the knife in his hand. There was little to distinguish Radcliffe and the man who faced him; both were blood-splattered and caked with dirt, and each had the desperation to live etched on their faces. Radcliffe killed him at ten paces with two shots and ran forward oblivious to the threat from the random rifle fire that crackled around him. Trembling from exertion he bent over the boy, who lay face down.

‘Edward!’ he cried, easing the boy’s shoulder over.

The fist that held the rock caught Radcliffe a glancing blow. He fell back as the youth pressed his attack. The lad’s size and strength belied the youthfulness of his face. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old. The snarling boy could never have been Edward, who could never have been there in the first place. ‘My pa!’ he screamed. ‘My pa!’

In the seconds before the rock could slam into Radcliffe’s face he knew he had just killed the boy’s father who had been trying to save his son from the battlefield. That moment of realization seared through him as harshly as the sun blinded his eyes. He raised an arm, trying to protect himself. The boy grunted and Radcliffe heard the thwack of a bullet tearing into bone and heart as the youth spewed blood and fell back. Radcliffe kicked himself free of the shuddering body and rolled clear. Lawrence Baxter, as filthy as the men around him, stood several paces behind him, tunic unbuttoned, bareheaded, revolver in his hand. He allowed himself a nod to Radcliffe and then pursued his men downhill as they mopped up the last resistance.

Radcliffe cradled the boy, waiting for his pulse to finally cease. The young eyes gazed unblinking at the sky that he had known for only a few short years. How long had it been, Radcliffe wondered, since he worked his father’s farm, brought the cattle in from the veld and listened to the old men talking of war and their blood enemies and the planned resistance to British imperial ambitions? Young and old alike were fatally bound together in a common history.

He opened the boy’s jacket and saw the familiar label. The sight of the bloodied mess clinging to the wool fibres fed the fear that gripped him. There now seemed little doubt that Edward was either a prisoner or had been killed and his body stripped.

Gently, he closed the boy’s eyes, and turned him face down so the scavengers would not take them.

With a weariness that was due to more than his years, he walked to where the horse stood. The stallion, ears alert, raised its head and whinnied, stamping on the ground as if trumpeting a call of defiance to the other horses across the kopje.

The soldiers surrendered to the heat and their exhaustion. The day’s killing was over. They sat or sprawled among boulders and brush, slurping what water they had and wiping bayonets free of blood. Alongside them flies swarmed over the congealed wounds of the dead and wounded. Radcliffe picked his way down the re-entrant where the slain cavalry lay scattered. Most had been struck two or three times; some had gaping wounds, proof that some Boers had cut the tips off their bullets. Cruel hatred for a bitter enemy. Thankfully there was no sign of Edward among the fallen riders.

Radcliffe worked his way around the hillside, remembering what Sergeant McCory had told him about the initial attack. If Colonel Baxter had led men into that crossfire of hell he’d have skirted between the boulders and worked upwards for a better firing position. And that’s exactly what Colonel Baxter had done, trying to give his men a chance. The colonel had advanced further and higher with half a dozen men at his side even after the main attack had failed. The Irish had scrambled and fought, stabbing and wrestling their opponents into a macabre death embrace. Their colonel had managed to clamber another twenty feet beyond the men who lay dead behind him, and that’s where Radcliffe found him, his back against a blood-smeared boulder, one leg twisted underneath him, the empty revolver still gripped in his hand. His head was slumped on his chest. The single shot that had killed him had left a stain on the front of his khaki tunic. Radcliffe carefully straightened his friend’s body and sat with him for a moment, easing the pistol from his hand, allowing his fingers to linger on Baxter’s.

He rejoined the men on the hillside and told a bedraggled Lawrence Baxter where his father lay. The young man had aged, and his exhaustion was apparent. He appeared numb to the news of his father’s death, but nodded in gratitude.

‘I must attend to my duties,’ he said and turned away, perhaps, Radcliffe thought, to grieve privately or to let the loss of his father take its place amid the sorrow for all those others who had fallen.

Soldiers stirred themselves to gather their dead as the first of the hospital wagons from the railhead arrived. Someone whistled a familiar call. Radcliffe raised his hat and signalled to Pierce, who saw him and jumped down from the wagon.

‘Holy God,’ Pierce muttered when he saw the carnage. ‘Edward?’

‘Not here,’ Radcliffe told him as he took the offered canteen and spilled water into his hand for the horse, and then drank himself. He took Pierce to where the boy’s body still lay, flies buzzing in the bloodied mess of the exit wound. Before long the maggots would hatch and desecrate the boy further.

‘Boy had Edward’s jacket,’ Radcliffe said.

‘Then he’s a prisoner somewhere,’ said Pierce, knowing that there was also an alternative.

His gaze followed the contours of the hills where he had laid his shots. The shrapnel bursts had flayed the impact area and the torn shreds of men’s bodies smeared the boulders. Raptors were already pecking at the flesh. All the old memories of another war churned in his stomach. Radcliffe noticed the look of disgust on his friend’s face.

‘Let’s find Edward and go home,’ said Radcliffe.

Pierce nodded and the two old soldiers turned their back on the slaughterhouse.

*

Two hundred and thirty-six British soldiers lay dead on the ground, covered in ground sheets and laid out in neat rows as the regimental sergeant major had instructed. Even death needed to be handled in an orderly fashion. The rail stop seethed with activity as more troops arrived and the dead were taken away to be buried in one of the many war graves that would come to blight the countryside. Stretcher-bearers from the field hospital continued to carry men in from the battle, laying them down in whatever scrap of shade was available next to the open-air operating tables which often consisted of little more than the stretcher balanced across ammunition boxes. As soldiers staggered in, wretched from the fight, Indian water-carriers, turbaned and dressed in their dark blue serge jackets, their legs bound in puttees, carried
puckals
, the canvas bags that cooled water, slung across their shoulders. These
bheesties
were as regimented and disciplined as any soldier, and worked their way diligently through the thirsty men, portioning out a drink for each man desperate for the gut-wrenching cold water.

Radcliffe and Pierce sat hunched in the shade of a barn. The black horse, unsaddled and rubbed down with straw, munched from the nosebag Radcliffe had fastened across its head. Once the horse had been attended to he had squatted down with Pierce, who had cooked a one-pot meal. Pierce dipped the spoon into the meat stew and grimaced. ‘Horsemeat isn’t beef, that’s for sure, but it’s better than what most of these men have. Damned pen-pushing logistics can’t get field kitchens up here yet; most of the men have only biscuits and tinned meat.’

Radcliffe didn’t eat; he was squinting into the sun-baked distance at Lawrence Baxter, who walked towards them with a slovenly Mulraney trying to keep up and stay in step, skipping once or twice as he tried to match his officer’s footfall, and to stop his over-sized sun helmet from falling over his nose. Despite his vaguely comical appearance Mulraney’s tunic and hands were caked in dried blood, testament to the happy-go-lucky soldier’s fighting during the battle.

Radcliffe and Pierce got to their feet.

Lieutenant Baxter half raised a hand. ‘Gentlemen, please don’t get up. I didn’t mean to interrupt. God knows we all need food and rest after what we’ve been through.’

Neither Radcliffe nor Pierce sat down. Mulraney cast a mournful look at the pot of food. He licked his lips. ‘Poor bloody horses give their all. I’m surprised we don’t prise off their horseshoes and chuck them at the
boojers
. And they don’t smell like proper stew neither. Still –’

‘Shut up, Mulraney, no one asked for your opinion,’ said Baxter curtly.

Mulraney nodded and took a step back, behind the eyeline of his officer. ‘Stay where you are, for God’s sake,’ Baxter ordered him, the weariness as obvious as his change in character since fighting toe-to-toe with the enemy.

Radcliffe looked at the young man who only weeks earlier had yearned for the excitement of war.

‘I was sorry to hear about your father,’ Pierce said. ‘He extended me every courtesy.’

‘Thank you, Captain Pierce,’ Baxter said respectfully. ‘His body is being brought down with those of his men. He will be buried with them, as it should be.’ Baxter paused and addressed Radcliffe. ‘There is no sign of Edward on the battlefield. I personally went and checked the dead in the Boer positions. He was not among them. Thank God.’

‘Thank you. I’ll move up the line and keep looking,’ said Radcliffe.

Baxter hesitated, uncertain how best to continue. ‘I may have some news. There’s something you should know.’

Radcliffe involuntarily squared his shoulders, as if expecting a blow from an assailant. Baxter’s words were tinged with regret.

‘The man who had Edward’s knife was Private O’Mara. He’s since died of his wounds. I’ve questioned his friend Flynn and can confirm that there were no irregulars fighting near his position where he was wounded. Mulraney, tell Mr Radcliffe what you told me.’

The soldier took off his helmet, as if at a funeral. His sweat-matted hair clung to the white band of unburned skin on his forehead. ‘We was on a farm clearance a while back. Shifting a woman and her little ones off to one of the holding camps. There was a Boer who fired at us. Came at us full gallop from the foothills. He must’ve been the woman’s son or something. We put him down. Scouse O’Mara and another lad went out to scavenge, and by the time they got near him, there was a whole bloody horde of riders firing down at us. They was out of range, but we didn’t wait until they weren’t. We put the devil on our heels and went as fast as we could –’