The Ravi Lancers (23 page)

At dusk the brigade-major came and told Warren they were to wait in position till further orders, but bivouacs could be made in the lines. The sowars unrolled their groundsheets, set up the little shelters, and crawled in. The rows of piled rifles stood like votive pyramids among the bivouacs. The hours passed in slow chill. The men ate the last of their rations. Towards the front star shells glowed in the white haze, and a change in the uncertain wind brought down the stammer of machine guns.

Warren dozed fitfully in his bivouac, awoke, walked the lines of his regiment, dozed again. The second dawn in the position came with continued snow, though still not heavy. An hour later a line of GS wagons rolled up the road from the south and in the fourth one Warren recognized the round, snow-draped figure of Sohan Singh the quartermaster. ‘Rations coming, sah!’ he cried, with a wide smile and a terrible salute somewhere behind his ear. Warren grinned back, out of his cold and hunger. Sohan Singh was no soldier but he was a gem. The quartermaster personally handed him a pair of tins, unlabelled, saying, ‘That is only rations available, sah.’ His voice sounded urgent and Warren looked up. The quartermaster was looking at him with a sort of dumb pleading.

It was on the tip of Warren’s tongue to ask, ‘What is it?’ Then he realized. The tins in his hand were without doubt bully beef. Someone, somewhere, had taken off the labels, which usually showed a bull. None of the men had ever eaten beef so they would not know what this was. But was it fair to cheat them? The rissaldar-major would take it as a personal betrayal, if ...

The quartermaster said, ‘Rissaldar-major sahib taking labels off personally, sah. He and me, together. No one else knowing. No other food, nothing! I searching high, low, every place, upside, downside, inside out.’

Warren nodded. ‘Very good.’

He opened one can of bully and ate slowly. Rissaldar-Major Baldev Singh was another gem, as unlike Sohan Singh as possible--but between them, invaluable.

Three more hours passed and he began to get irritated. His men had been kept in this bloody field for nearly twenty-eight hours now. He was striding off towards brigade headquarters when the brigade-major appeared from that direction, walking quickly through the churned snow. He said, ‘We’re going into billets here. Your regiment is allotted Triel village there, just up the road. It’s in ruins, of course; Brigade Headquarters will be in a farmhouse about a mile back. All regiments are to be at two hours’ notice to move.’

‘All right,’ Warren said, ‘but what’s happening? What’s happened to the attack the infantry were making? We were supposed to be breaking through before now, weren’t we?’

‘We have heard nothing more than that there’s been a change in plan.’

The BM rode off. A column of GS wagons came down the road, loaded with bandaged men lying under groundsheets. That was the cause--or the consequence--of the delay, Warren thought. He sent Dayal Ram to gather the officers for orders.

The next day he awoke in the second-least ruined house in Triel. The quartermaster had allotted the best to Captain Ramaswami for the Regimental Aid Post, as Warren’s standing order instructed him to do. Warren shaved while a steady drip of water from melting snow fell through a hole in the battered roof on to his head. He decided that the men must be properly exercised. The ground was in a bad state, and they would be filthy, but there was no help for it. As soon as they had eaten, he sent the squadrons out to practise extended order drill, at the double. For two hours they ran around the fields and heaps of rubble, and came back splashed from head to foot.

When Regimental Headquarters dismissed from its exercise Krishna Ram came up to him and said, ‘It’s durbar day, sir. May I suggest we make it at three o’clock. It’s dark later.’

Warren hesitated, then said, ‘Do you think it’s necessary to hold durbar in these conditions? I thought we might do without until we got back to a rest area.’

‘The men will miss it, sir,’ Krishna Ram said, his face troubled. Warren said, ‘I’m not sure that durbars are really advisable here. Circumstances are very different from peace time in India.’

Krishna Ram said respectfully, ‘I think that’s why it’s so important. When so much is strange to them durbar is something to hold on to.’

‘Oh, very well then,’ Warren said. ‘Three o’clock.’

At three the men were gathered, except for the billet sentries and the quarter guard, all standing, snow again falling on their turbans and great coats. Warren glanced around and saw that all the officers and VCOs were present except the rissaldar-major. The senior rissaldar, Ram Lall, said, ‘The rissaldar-major-sahib has gone back to visit two sowars in hospital, sir.’

Warren opened durbar. The first question was from a young sowar who wanted to know why there were so many changes of orders. ‘It was not like this in Basohli,’ he said seriously.

Warren answered, ‘I fear the Germans do not obey our orders, lad. War is not run on a timetable, like the te-rains’; but privately, he would have liked to ask the general the same question.

Next, a sowar said, ‘Yesterday the rations were of a strange food I have never seen in ten years of service. I ate, as we all did, for we were hungry and there was nothing else. But it is proper that a man know what he is eating. The rissaldar-major-sahib will perhaps tell us.’

Warren understood in a flash why the RM had taken himself off to the hospital. He had known that the meat was beef and had not eaten it; nor could he lie about it if asked a question. The sowars, on the other hand, who had not known, could not be held guilty of any serious sin.

The quartermaster raised his voice, ‘The food was sheep, broken up and boiled with salt and a little spice. It is called bully mutton.’

Warren took the next question, thinking, Sohan Singh, being a good bazaar merchant, would have no hesitation in lying ... which was a good thing in the circumstances.

A lance dafadar said, ‘Last week I bumped into Lieutenant Flaherty sahib by error. The lieutenant-sahib called me a black ape. It is not proper, I think, to speak so to a Dogra Rajput of the Kshatriya caste, especially ...’

Warren cut in quickly, for the man was clearly going to add, ‘especially for one who is as black himself. He said, ‘Mr. Flaherty, did you use those words to the lance-dafadar?’

The big man shuffled his feet and said, ‘I don’t remember. He wasn’t looking where he was going. I was tired, sir ... I may have.’ Warren said gently, ‘Tell him now that you were tired, and meant no offence ... Go on, man! ‘

He tightened his lips. Flaherty’s eyes dropped and he mumbled, ‘I apologize. It was a bad thing to say. I... I was tired.’

The NCO made
namasti
towards the lieutenant and there was a murmur from the six hundred men as though from a single throat. ‘Well spoken, sahib!’

Warren said in English, ‘You’ve done more for yourself by that little speech, Flaherty, than all your good work with the Signal Section.’

A youngish sowar whom Warren remembered as being in A Squadron--he thought he was trumpeter to No. 2 Troop--said, ‘Sahib, I am an ignorant black man--’ Warren almost smiled, thinking how typical it was for the sowars to call themselves ‘only natives’ or ‘black men’, but to object to anyone using the same words to them--’but it was said that this war was to save the Nazrani religion. Yet in every village we pass through, the church has been destroyed. It is said ... I have heard wise men in my village say it ... that the Nazranis do not believe it is right to kill. No man shall kill is an order of their god. It is also a command of their god, that if a man be hurt by another, then he who is hurt shall not smite him who hurts him, but turn the other cheek, to be again smitten. If this is truth, that I hear ... and as Vishnu knows, it may be no more than wind in the trees ... then my soul is troubled to know what this war is about. Why does one Nazrani kill another? Why do not the Fransezis and Germans each turn again to be smitten, rather than fight?’

Warren stared at the boy. Was he a barrack-room lawyer? Had some of those damned agitators got at him? He looked innocent enough, but that proved nothing. The question itself was impossible to answer, but he’d have to try. He wished he had a padre present to do it for him.

He said carefully, ‘As to the churches ... we Nazranis do not believe that God resides in them. It is a pity that they have to be destroyed, but our God is not there, he is in our hearts ... As to the other, it is true what you have heard, what is written in our Holy Book, but only certain holy men and saints can live by that word. For the rest of us, men and nations, when we are smitten, we smite back, only harder. Otherwise we would lose our honour, and our enemies would abuse our women before our eyes.’

The regiment murmured agreement, but the trumpeter’s face remained troubled, and Warren noticed that Krishna Ram was gazing at him thoughtfully.

‘Any more?’ he said. ‘Durbar is closed.’ He strode away and to his billet.

He was awakened in the middle of the night by a hand on his shoulder and his adjutant’s voice, ‘Sir ... sir ... orders.’

Warren sat up in bed, swearing under his breath. ‘What are they?’

‘The brigade is to go into the front line tomorrow. The divisional commander is reinforcing all the machine gun sections. We’re getting the 3rd Buffs machine gunners, under a sergeant ... We are to march at 0400 hours, sir.’

Warren sat with his stockinged feet on the cold floor, ‘Any other news?’

‘The galloper who brought the orders said he’d heard that the leading troops have been held up for days ... Would you like some tea, sir? I’ve told the mess dafadar to have it available in the mess from now on, and breakfast at three.’

‘Good man ... I’ll issue orders at two. Give the warning order right away. You get to the office. I’ll tell Krishna Ram and Sher Singh. They’re next door.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Warren did not feel sleepy, for the news had set his mind to racing. They were going into the trenches, for the first time. The frantic training of the past two weeks, the issuing of infantry arms and equipment, was now to reach its target--war, on foot. He pulled on his breeches and boots, rolled his puttees, slipped into his British warm, took his flashlight and went out into the moonlit snow-covered road.

He found Krishna Ram already up and said, ‘Come to the office with me ... Wait a minute. I said I’d awaken Sher Singh.’

He crossed the roofless hall, opened the door opposite and walked in, calling, ‘Sher Singh? CO here. We ...’

The searching beam of his flashlight shone on a head in the bed, then another. Sher Singh sat up with a convulsive jerk, his uncomprehending eyes full of sleep. He was naked under the blankets. A naked young man lay beside him, his brown arm thrown across the captain’s chest. He stirred in his sleep, as understanding came into Sher Singh’s face, and murmured in Hindi, ‘Oh, don’t move, you lovely one.’

Warren felt Krishna Ram at his elbow. He said, ‘Captain Sher Singh, you are under arrest. Major Krishna Ram, you are responsible for the prisoner. He is to accompany you until I give further orders. In uniform, without belt, sword, or revolver.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Warren could not tell from Krishna’s voice, or from the wooden expression on his face, half seen at the edge of the flashlight beam, what he was thinking. He went back to his own billet and sat down on his bed.

‘Is the sahib well?’ Narayan Singh inquired anxiously. ‘Is the presence sick?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Bring me tea from the mess. No, nothing to eat. I could not eat.’

His dog Shikari laid his head on his boots and Warren reached down to pat him, muttering, ‘Good dog ... You’re always with me, aren’t you?’ He had seen Sher Singh holding a sowar’s hand at the very beginning but he’d never dreamed that the perversion would be thrust in his face like this. An officer of his regiment lying there with a sowar, male chest to male chest. It was disgusting, disgraceful ... un-English. But the fellow wasn’t English. He was an Indian who’d been taught to use a knife and fork. How could they beat the Huns with animals like that? But what--was--he--to--do?

Warren Bateman stood in the bottom of the trench, his back to the forward wall, a copy of the orders in his hand. The officers of the Ravi Lancers crowded the trench on both sides of him. He had just finished giving out verbal orders for the attack due to take place at first light, 6.10 a.m., the next day. Beyond the officers, sowars filled the bottom of the trench, with every ten yards a sentry up on the firestep, his rifle beside him.

Warren said, ‘Now, take a look through the periscope here, in turn. Remember to make sure you identify Hill 73, that’s the low rise of land with a ruined barn on it, on the right of the field of view. Hill 73 is A Squadron’s objective tomorrow. And on the left the remains of Lestelle Wood, which is C Squadron’s objective. Then, right centre, about a hundred yards from here there is a wrecked German field gun. That is called Wrecked Gun, and is on the dividing line between A and C.’ He stepped to one side and said to the gunner subaltern, ‘You first, de Marquez.’

The gunner shook his head. ‘I’ve seen it.’

Warren nodded at Krishna Ram, who stooped to put his eye to the eyepiece. After a pair of long minutes he stepped down, saying, ‘There seem to be about three rows of barbed wire in front of the German trench.’

Warren said, ‘That’s what the Buffs’ patrol last night reported. More wire cutters are coming up this evening with the supplies.’ One by one the other officers went to the periscope. When the last had looked Warren said, ‘Any questions, then? The adjutant will send a correct watch round to all squadrons starting an hour before zero hour. Remember, the barrage begins at zero minus ten and at zero plus four lifts from the enemy front trench to his support trench. Our leading men must be at the enemy line when the barrage lifts, or the Huns will have time to come up out of their dugouts and man their machine guns.’

‘We’ll be there, sir,’ young Ishar Lall said cheerfully.

‘That’s all then. Krishna ...’ He beckoned his second-in-command. ‘Here’s Sergeant Durand, commanding the Buffs’ machine gun section. I’m going to put you in overall charge of the machine guns, Krishna.’ He turned to the sergeant, a deep-tanned, hardbitten, unmistakable regular. He said, ‘Have you ever served in India, sergeant?’