The Ravi Lancers (25 page)

Round a traverse he found Rissaldar Shamsher Singh and, lying in the bottom of the trench, 2nd Lieutenant Ishar Lall. The boy was very pale, only his face showing above and his boots below a German greatcoat that had been spread over him.

‘Hullo, sir,’ he said feebly. ‘We took it.’

‘Yes. Well done ... Where are you hit?’

‘Right shoulder gone, sir. Such a mess I didn’t want the jawans to see it, but ...’ The voice trailed away, the brown eyes closed.

The rissaldar said, ‘Half his chest is gone too, sahib. He is not long for this world.’

‘Have you given him morphia yet? Well, do it now. You were taught last month how to do it ... There ... You’ll be all right soon, Ishar. We’ll have you back to hospital in a jiffy.’

‘Don’t send me back, sir ... I shall not live long. I’d rather stay with my squadron.’

‘You’ve got to go back,’ Warren said, ‘the doctors can save you. Lie still. Rest ... Come down the trench with me, rissaldar-sahib ... Now, where are these enemy massing?’

‘There is movement. A sentry reported it.’

‘And where’s the severe fire?’

‘It was heavy, sahib. It has stopped now.’

Warren said, ‘I’m sending 2nd Lieutenant Puran Lall up to take over command.’

‘Thanks be to God,’ the rissaldar murmured.

‘But until he arrives, you are in command. Have you blocked and guarded all German communication trenches? Why aren’t half your men digging out a firestep on that side? They can’t fire towards the Germans until they do.’

‘We have only ten entrenching tools, sahib.’

‘My God, I know that! But dead Germans have them. There are picks and shovels in these dugouts. I’ll be back in an hour and your sector must be in perfect shape to repel a counterattack by then.’

He turned back. Ishar Lall’s eyes were closed and his breathing fast and shallow. No use to wake him, even if it were possible. He hurried back to RHQ and found a message from brigade that the 71st Punjabis were going to move through in an hour to capture the German second and third lines, ‘taking advantage of German demoralization and disorganization’.

He climbed up on to the parados again, and crouched awkwardly under the lip. He could detect no demoralization or disorganization. There weren’t enough German bodies in this trench to account for the men who must originally have been manning it. They had left only a few men in it, with orders to pull back in face of any serious attack. Why?

The answer came in a whistling scream that pierced his head and then a gigantic explosion fifty yards behind him. Eight more big shells burst simultaneously up and down the line of the trench. There was lighter field artillery bursting all over the ground that had once been No Man’s Land. Warren slid down into the trench. There was no barbed wire towards the enemy. The Punjabis would be passing through later--perhaps--but the crisis would come before that. This bombardment was so intense that it could not go on for long. There must be at least eight heavy and medium batteries and four field batteries engaging just this short sector of trench. He noticed that most of the fire was landing on A Squadron to the right. At that moment a flying figure landed head first into the trench beside him. It was Puran Lall, scrambling to his feet, scraping mud off his face.

‘You came through that?’ Warren shouted.

‘Yes, sir. How’s my brother?’

‘Bad, I’m afraid. Get him back as soon as this bombardment lifts. I don’t know whether there’s any hope, but we’ve got to try.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Puran Lall’s jaw was set and his face seemed thinner and older than when Warren had last seen him barely an hour ago, waiting with B Squadron.

The young man hurried off along the trench. Now Warren saw that the sowars in the trench were all crouched against the forward wall, like terrified animals. The whites of their eyes were staring, they looked from one to another, seeming to ask, what is this, what is this diabolical blasting of steel? How can human beings create such a sound, such horror? He saw that they were nervous. It was their first time under heavy bombardment. He must do something to steady them. There was Pahlwan, his eyes closed, trembling: no help there. Dayal Ram was writing out a message. Flaherty was on the parados, peering out. He called up, ‘Come along with me, Flaherty. We must steady the sowars. You smoke cigarettes, don’t you? Well, light one ... Come on, then. Come on, Shikari.’ He set off along the trench towards C Squadron. There was no doubt the men were jumpy. They lay against the shaking wall of mud and earth, tree roots sticking out, and here and there bricks and stones, unable to see the enemy who was pounding them thus. In places the walls of the trench were collapsing under the bombardment. A man got a shell splinter in the side as they passed, and began to shriek with uncontrollable pain.

‘Well done, lad,’ Warren said. ‘Well done. Keep close to the forward wall. Stand up, lad! Where’s your rifle? Well done. Where’s the sentry here? Get up, lad. You can’t see the Germans from down there. Dafadar, see that your sentries keep their posts. Are you hurt, lad? Ah, that’s just a scratch. You can show that to the girls in Basohli and say a German bit you ... Hullo, Bholanath.’

The old major hurried round a traverse, and Warren saw that he was on the same errand as himself, steadying the men under the bombardment. ‘How is it?’ Warren asked in a low voice.

‘All right, sahib,’ Bholanath said, ‘as long as it doesn’t go on too long.’ His white moustaches swept up as fiercely as ever.

‘I don’t think it will,’ Warren said.

‘I was going to see Ishar Lall. I heard he was wounded.’

‘He is. But get back to your squadron. I think the Germans will attack soon.’

‘I ought to see him,’ the old man said doubtfully.

‘Get back to your squadron! ‘ Warren snapped. ‘And hold tight! ‘

He hurried back towards RHQ. As he passed behind one of the sentries on the parados he heard the man gasp,
‘Dushman a-rahe!’

He scrambled up and saw a dense grey-green mass advancing from the north. The enemy artillery fire had lifted and was now falling on the original British front trench, behind him. He dropped down, blew his whistle and shouted, ‘Enemy coming! Fire! Fire! ‘

Then as the sowars jumped into position and a sporadic rifle fire broke out he ran with all his might to reach RHQ. The guns ought to be firing their defensive tasks ... even as he thought it, the whistling crack of the 18-pounders burst overhead, quickly increasing in volume. He reached RHQ and ran up to the little firestep they had dug out while he was away. The Germans were still coming, and now barely a hundred yards off.

From the left fire from four machine guns raked the Germans and men began to fall.

Warren exulted as the German mass wavered, began to break up, eddied to and fro, a fury of British artillery shells bursting among them. The Germans disappeared into holes and craters and trenches. A few minutes later their artillery opened up again, as heavy as before on the front line, and with a couple of extra batteries of mediums searching the left flank for the machine guns which had held up their assault. The smoke and lyddite fumes made him choke. A direct hit on the trench to his right hurled half a dozen broken bodies of A Squadron twenty feet into the air. The shelling grew insanely furious. At his feet Shikari began to whine and fidget. Crouched on the firestep, looking towards the enemy, Warren caught movement from the corner of his eye. Turning his head he saw a handful of men--sowars of the regiment--appear on the rear edge of A Squadron’s trench and begin running to the rear. One threw away his rifle as an encumbrance in his flight even as Warren watched. A moment later a huge shell burst, hiding the runners from sight. When the smoke cleared there was only one man running.

‘Bloody fools,’ Warren muttered. ‘They’re safer in the trench.’

He jumped down, drew his revolver and called to Flaherty, ‘Come with me! Use your revolver if you have to.’

‘Very good, sir,’ the big lieutenant said, drawing his revolver.

The German shelling stopped suddenly. Most of the men of A Squadron were huddled in the bottom of the trench, wide-eyed and dumb. ‘Up on the firestep,’ Warren shouted, ‘up, up!’ Behind him he heard Flaherty’s curt, ‘Get up, you,’ and the thud of kicks. The sowars began to shake their heads like men recovering from a nightmare. Some got up on to the step.

Round a traverse he came upon half a dozen men climbing out in the other direction, among them Rissaldar Shamsher Singh.

‘Stop, rissaldar-sahib! ‘ he yelled. The old rissaldar looked at him with blank eyes and continued trying to get out of the trench and away. Warren thrust his revolver forward, shouting again, ‘Stop!’ The bloody old fool was not really scared, just numbed, shocked. He changed the grip on his pistol, meaning to knock the man out, but Flaherty stepped close, and his revolver was up. ‘Don’t...’ Warren cried, but it was too late. The Webley exploded heavily by his ear. Rissaldar Shamsher Singh’s face broke up, blood spurting from the eye and the mouth and the jaw falling to pieces. He fell, rolling back into the trench. But more men were scrambling out of the trench behind Warren, and more in front. To the left, he saw that C Squadron were out too, and streaming to the rear like a football crowd at the end of a match. Krishna Ram’s machine guns which had begun to fire again, had had to stop for fear of hitting the fleeing men.

Now he saw Dayal Ram and the RHQ start back, for their lives, followed by de Marquez and his gunner signal group. He was alone in the once-captured trench with his orderly, his trumpeter, Lieutenant Flaherty, and Shikari. The Germans were advancing again.

‘We’d better get back, sir,’ Flaherty said, ‘our Indians have run and left us.’

The four men scrambled out and ran, the dog racing away ahead as though he knew the danger as clearly as they. Bullets whistled and cracked about them. Once Warren glanced over his shoulder and saw that the Germans were not stopping at their old trench but were still coming on, at a steady walk, bayonets glistening under the cloud wrack. The artillery on both sides had lifted their fire off the immediate battlefield, though gouts of earth and the continuous thunder of explosions showed that they were firing on the flanks and rear areas to prevent the movement of reserves.

Now, Warren thought, it all depends on Himat Singh and B and D Squadrons. He dropped into the trench which he had left nearly three hours earlier. At once a withering fire broke out all along the line. Himat Singh was there, but gave no more than a word. ‘All right, sir? ... Fire, B Squadron, fire! ‘ He and his rissaldar ran up and down the trench like sheep dogs, calling, ‘Fire! ... Aim and fire as fast as you can! They shall not come!
Ahne mat do!’

The Germans were wavering once more, the mass stopping, the men lying down. The four machine guns opened fire from the left again. A little to his right Warren saw Captain Himat Singh emerge from the trench, drawn sabre waving, at the head of a dozen men with fixed bayonets. They charged, firing and throwing jampot bombs as they went and attacked a group of Germans in a shell hole barely twenty yards from the trench. Three minutes later they returned, bayonets and sabre dripping red.

De Marquez got a message through to his 18-pounders and the whipcrack of the light shells bursting in No Man’s Land finished the job. The remaining Germans started back for their own trenches. Almost at once the German heavies opened on the British lines and a few minutes later the scene was almost as it had been before zero hour--heavy shelling, the Ravi Lancers in this trench, the Germans in that. But it was not the same. Nothing ever would be again, Warren knew. The Ravi Lancers had faced war, and been found out.

He turned to the adjutant and snapped, ‘Tell Bholanath to re-form and take over the left section of the front line, where they were this morning. D Squadron into reserve when it’s done.’

‘You’re wounded, sir. In the head.’

Warren touched his head and felt a sharp stab of pain. There was blood on his hand. ‘It’s nothing ... a splinter. I suppose ... Send for Mr. Puran Lall.’

‘Yes, sir ... Rissaldar Ram Lall here reports that Major Krishna Ram is missing.’

Warren said, ‘Speak, rissaldar-sahib.’

The rissaldar’s uniform was torn and covered in mud. He said, ‘We were firing while the enemy was shelling, sahib. But the prince said we would not be able to fire on the enemy properly if they advanced past their old front line. He went alone, with his trumpeter, to look for a better place. Then there was heavy shelling upon us. He did not come back. Just as I started to go and look for him, the enemy attacked, and the squadrons began to retreat.’

‘To run away, you should say,’ Warren snapped.

‘We had to save our machine guns, sahib. I stayed till the Germans were so close I was throwing bombs at them.’

‘So the major’s out there, somewhere near where the machine guns were, and you don’t know whether he’s dead or alive? ... Dayal Ram, tell Major Bholanath to send out a strong patrol as soon as it’s dark, to look for the major or his body.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Warren sat down wearily on an ammunition box. Lieutenant Flaherty handed him a tin mug, saying, ‘Here, sir. Tea. The gunners have been brewing it ...’ and, as Warren took the tea, ‘I’m sorry about Rissaldar Shamsher Singh, sir. I thought you meant me to shoot ...’

‘I did,’ Warren said, ‘but when I saw the numb look in the old man’s eyes, I realized ... It doesn’t matter. You were right. We can’t afford any softness in this kind of war. You did well, Flaherty.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ The lieutenant flushed with pleasure.

Warren sipped wearily. What a debacle. He needed more British officers. Even more Flahertys. Flaherty was a good deal senior to Puran Lall. Perhaps he would resent Puran being given A Squadron. He said, ‘I know you’re fit to command a squadron, but for the moment I’d rather keep you near me in RHQ. Besides you understand signals better than anyone else could.’

‘I understand, sir,’ Flaherty said; but did he, Warren wondered? He leaned down and patted Shikari’s head. ‘You didn’t like it out there, did you?’ he said, fondling the dog’s ears. ‘Well, no more did I, but we have to do our job, don’t we?’