The Ravi Lancers (16 page)

Then it was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and sherry trifle. Bees hummed in the flowers and a robin chirped on the sill of the open window. He thought he would find a comfortable chair in the sun, and doze.

Diana said, ‘We ought to take a walk after eating all that. Warren?’

‘Sorry, Di, I have accounts to go through with Mother.’

‘Ralph?’

‘You know I think exercise is for barbarians. Cricket hardly counts as exercise, does it?’

She looked at Krishna and he leaped to his feet. ‘Certainly, Miss Bateman.’

She led off at a brisk pace down the road, the spaniel Fudge trotting at heel, his leash swinging unused in her hand.

‘How did you like the church service?’ she said.

‘Oh, very nice,’ he said. She walked with an athletic swing and a long stride, but she was not mannish. She wore a thin grey sweater with a single string of pearls, and a tweed skirt half way down her calves. Her hair glistened in the sun, for she wore no hat.

‘I was engaged to the vicar, once,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he said, not knowing quite what tone to put into it.

‘I thought Warrie must have told you. Years ago, when he was curate. Father was vicar here, you know ... This is the edge of Pennel land, the hedge here. Old Marsh is the Pennels’ gamekeeper. Don’t you think Sam should be in the army--Young Marsh?’

‘Well . . .’

‘I think he’s a slacker, but Warren says it’s Ralph’s fault. Ralph puts the ideas into his head, Warren thinks.’

‘Oh.’

They walked up a long slope, thorn hedges thick on either side, the view slowly widening behind them. Thrushes sang in the hedges and larks climbed singing to the skies out of the short grass behind. At the top she turned and said, ‘There it is. Pewsey Vale.’

Krishna gazed out over the green land. A small river wound between water meadows. The patchwork of the fields was dotted with copses and barns and farms. One or two roads showed white between the hedges. Five miles north the hills rose again.

‘This’--she was pointing the other way--’is Salisbury Plain.’

In that direction the grass reached to an empty horizon doubly strange after the denseness of cultivation and habitation in the valley. The wind blew across the grass from a great distance, and there were no hedges, no cattle, no roads, only a few stark thorn trees, far apart.

She walked out on to the Plain where the lane and the hedges ended, saying, ‘Come on! This is the best air in the world.’

For an hour they strode side by side southward into the teeth of the wind, before turning at an ancient milestone half buried in the grass and heading back to the brow of the escarpment. They had talked of cattle and cricket, of churches and gardens, of the regiment and the war. Standing at the edge of the Plain she said, sighing, ‘Warrie’s the best man in the world. We just don’t see enough of him at home.’

‘He’s marvellous,’ Krishna said fervently. She was marvellous herself, he thought: so open, looking you straight in the face, speaking directly without women’s deceptions and circumventions. Such men as Warren Bateman had made the English rulers of the world, and women like Diana had supported them as no other women could have.

They started back down a shallow lane towards the valley. Diana broke a long silence when she said abruptly, ‘Mother’s upset because Ralph gave up the job she’d got for him in Edinburgh.’

‘I think he said he was sacked--dismissed,’ Krishna said.

‘Oh, he did it on purpose, I’m sure ... Joan’s pleased ... I wish Warren could get a job at the War Office or something.’

‘He wouldn’t take it!’ Krishna said, shocked. ‘Not with the regiment going on active service.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But... you like Warrie, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Well, Mother and I are worried because ...’ She stopped, looking down the lane. A horseman was spurring up towards them, urging his horse. It was Young Marsh. As he rode up he leaned down from the saddle. ‘There’s a telegram calling ‘ee and the major to France at once,’ he said. ‘The major said for ‘ee to take the horse and ride back as fast as ‘ee can, and the both of ‘ee’ll loikely catch the 5.26 from Woodborough.’

He swung down from the saddle and Krishna turned to Diana. ‘I suppose I must... Goodbye, Miss Bateman,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I can’t tell you how much . . .’

‘Oh, call me Diana,’ she said. She did not hold out her hand. Krishna swung up into the saddle.

‘Good luck. Come back to see us again.’

He jabbed his heels into the gelding’s side and at length urged it into an ungainly lurching gallop.

Clouds covered the sky, but heat permeated the air with a heavy dampness that reminded Krishna of days late in the rains at home. The dust hung higher than the riders’ heads and most of the men, riding slumped in the saddle, had covered their mouths with handkerchiefs or the ends of their turbans. Every now and then French refugee families would pass, squeezed into the ditch by the river of horsemen riding in the opposite direction.

Krishna turned in the saddle, as he did every fifteen minutes, and looked back down his squadron. There was his trumpeter at one quarter of his horse, Hanuman at the other and the two bodyguards behind them. Sweat ran down all their faces, making channels of mud in the caked dust. Behind them rode Rissaldar Shamsher Singh at the head of 1 Troop, and then the khaki column, black sweat staining all the heavy tunics. The lance points glittered back down the road--no red and white pennants now to relieve the cold glint of steel--and at the back two peaked caps, where young Ishar Lall, his own 2nd-in-command, was riding with the commander of the next squadron, Himat Singh.

All looked well, though the horses’ heads were hanging and some of the sowars were tired. It was noon and the regiment had been on the move for forty-two hours, first marching from their camp outside Marseilles to a railhead twelve miles away, and then by train. Entraining had taken a considerable time because of a confusion over the loading of the wagons. Colonel Hanbury explained that the markings
Hommes 40, Chevaux 8
on the sides of the wagons meant forty Men, eight Horses. Soon the VCOs responsible for the actual loading came to complain that it was almost impossible. After investigation, Warren Bateman and a wildly gesticulating French movement control officer had to explain that the sign meant that either forty men or eight horses were to be fitted into each truck, not both. Krishna heard Warren’s chuckling remark to Colonel Hanbury about it. ‘Only the Indian Army would have tried to fit both in ... but you know, sir, they were actually getting it done!’

After nearly twenty hours the train stopped in the middle of the night, in a town which Krishna never did learn the name of, and found Brigadier-General Rogers, who told them they were under his command and would remain so until Divisional Headquarters arrived from Marseilles, in a couple of days. The Lahore infantry Brigade had already left and the Ravi Lancers were to follow as soon as possible. Ten minutes after its last squadron had detrained the Ravi Lancers were on the march. That was twelve hours ago.

Krishna’s horse stopped and he realized he had almost ridden into the CO and Regimental Headquarters. Colonel Hanbury’s long face was weary and he sat stiffly upright as though he knew that if he relaxed he would fall from the saddle.

In front of him the mass of the 1/12th Gurkhas blocked the road. Krishna said, ‘Shall I go forward and see what’s the trouble, sir?’

‘Yes, please. We’re two hours behind the timetable already ... Don’t take all those men, Krishna, there’s no room--just your trumpeter to send back a message, if you have to.’

Krishna trotted forward, his trumpeter at his heels, along the verge of the road, or in the ditch, sometimes pausing to ask the Gurkhas to ease out of his way. This move was nothing like moves he had made in India, during manoeuvres. A dozen times since dawn the regiment had been stopped by columns of troops crossing the line of march. Once it was a brigade of British infantry, which no one had told anyone else about, but they were in a hurry and their brigadier-general was a choleric man who disregarded Colonel Hanbury’s protests, and marched his brigade firmly over the crossroad in column of route with sentries posted to prevent anyone breaking through their line of march.

This time Krishna found it was a battery of medium artillery, moving up the same road in the same direction. The teams of eight huge horses, straining at the harness, could move the 6o-pounders at only three-quarters of the marching pace of infantry. General Rogers was there, arguing with the battery commander as Krishna rode up. He heard the gunner major say, ‘You can put me under arrest, sir ... but I have the corps commander’s written order to get this battery to St. Marc by 1800 at all costs.’

‘Can’t you turn off the road for half an hour to let my brigade pass?’ the general said irritably.

‘No, sir ... but may I suggest that your men could march--or ride--round and past us?’

Brigadier-General Rogers looked up and saw Krishna. He put his monocle in his eye and said, ‘Your top button’s undone, Major Krishna Ram. I won’t tolerate slovenliness in officers.’ The colonel of the Fusiliers was there. Behind him the road was blocked by columns of infantry. ‘We can get the men past, sir,’ the colonel said, ‘but the GS wagons won’t be able to follow.’

The brigadier-general chewed the end of his leather-covered swagger stick and then snapped. ‘Very well.’ He turned to his brigade major, ‘Have the battalions march round the guns. GS wagons to rendezvous with us at St. Marc when they get there. Ravi Lancers to swing out wider and get ahead of the infantry on this same road.’

Krishna swung his horse and made his way back down the column. Twenty minutes later he was riding up out of the lane and trotting across the fields, his squadron following with a new sense of life as though leaving the overcrowded road had infused them with fresh energy.

An hour later it was all the same again ... This time a long column of transport carts moving against the flow of traffic. The regiment waited for half an hour while the carts were diverted into the fields; then on again. By now Krishna was swaying in the saddle, for they had had no proper rest, or food, for ten hours. Rissaldar Shamsher Singh rode up beside him, saluting. ‘The horses need to be watered, lord.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘The colonel knows too, but there is no water.’ The column stopped again. An aeroplane flew out of the lowering clouds, the pilot very clear sitting on his bench amid the ethereal-looking struts. It passed low overhead, its engine backfiring, and several horses bolted into the fields. Krishna heard Jemadar Ganpat Singh roaring at the men as dolts, incapable of controlling their mounts, worse than foot soldiers. The aeroplane engine noise increased as it turned, sinking lower over the field towards the column. Then it was bumping along the tussocky grass, and after thirty yards, came to a stop. The pilot unstrapped himself, climbed down, and ran towards the column, leaving his aircraft’s engine running and its propeller idling. He stopped at the edge of the road, and standing on top of the low bank, took off his flying helmet and goggles and cried aloud, ‘Oh my God! Indians!’ Krishna said, ‘I speak English.’

‘Oh.’ The pilot noticed the crown on Krishna’s sleeve and saluted uncertainly. ‘A message from the corps commander to Brigadier-General Rogers.’ He held out an envelope.

‘He’s a little farther ahead,’ Krishna said.

‘I can’t run and catch him. I’ve got to get back to my airfield and I’m short of petrol. Will you see that the message is delivered, sir? By the way, what is your name? I have to report who I gave the message to.’

‘Major Krishna Ram, Ravi Lancers.’

The pilot saluted and hurried back to his plane. As Krishna took the message to Colonel Hanbury the aeroplane engine roared louder, the machine lurched across the hummocks and cow pats and after a few yards rose quickly into the air. Colonel Hanbury sent off a galloper with the message, and Krishna rode on at his side, wondering: what next in this chaotic day?

Twenty minutes later the brigade major came riding back down the road. To Colonel Hanbury he said, ‘Orders have been changed, sir. The brigade is to go to La Chapelle St. Denis.’ He proffered a folded map. ‘Here, sir.’

The colonel bent over the map and said, ‘That’s twenty miles further than St. Marc. The men are exhausted, Temple. The horses need watering. We could just have reached St. Marc without a rest--but not another twenty miles.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. The corps commander’s orders give us no latitude.’ The column began to move again as the brigade major rode on down the road. Krishna turned off to watch his squadron go by. He spoke and made jokes to VCOs and sowars as they passed. When the tail came he walked along with Ishar Lall, telling him of the new orders.

Rissaldar Shamsher Singh joined them, ‘We must water the animals at the next farm we come to,’ he said.

‘We will not!’ Krishna said angrily. ‘That is an order.
Hukm hai
, do you understand?’

‘
Jee-han
, it is understood, prince,’ the old rissaldar grumbled, ‘but the horses will suffer.’

‘This is war! ‘ Krishna Ram exploded, but Ishar Lall said soothingly, ‘Come, rissaldar-sahib, ride here at the back with me for a while and tell me how you won the kabaddi prize from the rajah’s hands in 1884.’ He winked at Krishna, for everyone knew that the old VCO was an indomitable bore.

Krishna smiled at the boy. He was only nineteen and showed no sign of fatigue. He and his twin had caused an unbelievable amount of trouble on the troopship, but now he was showing his worth. Krishna trotted forward, as Ishar Lall burst into a bawdy love song, a favourite among the loose women of the Hira Mandi in Lahore. The faces of the weary sowars lightened and one or two of them began to sing with the young 2nd Lieutenant.

Krishna settled into his place at the head of the squadron, noticing that the colonel, up ahead, was sitting straighter than ever, but swaying in the saddle, like an ill-balanced stick. The sun was setting behind them. They still had five miles to go to St. Marc and another twenty beyond that. Nearly seven hours, if they weren’t delayed ... but they would be. The generals did not seem to be as good at moving troops here as they were on manoeuvres. He reproved himself. Real war was much harder; and there were the French refugees, spoiling all the plans.