The Ravi Lancers (56 page)

‘The enemy wire, sir?’ Himat Singh said.

‘It’s there and pretty thick,’ Warren said. ‘Concentrate your wire-cutting teams. Remember you’ll be in smoke ... Pahlwan, go and explain the orders to Major Bholanath, in person. Go on, for God’s sake! Just run from shell hole to shell hole. They’re not going to waste ammunition on one running man.’

‘The shelling .... ’

Pahlwan stopped. Warren realized he was glaring at the lieutenant like a wild animal, teeth bared. Pahlwan scrambled up the side of the shell hole and vanished. Sher Singh was looking at Warren as though a fiend of his nightmares had taken shape beside him. Was he imagining it or were the others in the crater huddling farther away from him, as though he was marked by an infectious disease. Even Bruington was looking at him with ... what? Fear, compassion, hatred? What else was there to do? What else could he have done with the wretched dog?

The minutes passed slowly. The only voice was Bruington’s, shouting into the telephone. Finally Bruington looked at his watch and scrambled up the front wall of the crater. ‘C Squadron’s moving, sir,’ he called down.

Warren struggled up to join him, and peered to the left. Lines of sowars were emerging like burrowing animals from the waste of mud. They moved heavily forward. After a long slow count of twenty the German machine guns opened fire. Men fell, to vanish into the earth, but the uneven lines kept moving forward. A gleam of steel flashing in the gloom must be old Bholanath leading them with drawn sabre, as he always did. Men were going down faster now. Warren ground his teeth in anxiety. He should have allowed them less time to advance without smoke cover; the object of drawing fire was already achieved.

Shells whistled low overhead and burst with peculiar hollow puffs. ‘The smoke, sir,’ Bruington said.

The white cloud thickened rapidly. C Squadron sank into the mud. The German machine gun fire slackened as their targets began to be hidden from them. To the right B Squadron rose from the earth and moved briskly forward, sharply silhouetted against the white smoke. Bayonets pointed forward, the burdened figures began to run. They disappeared into the smoke.

There was a pause of two, three minutes. Suddenly in the smoke, a tongue of orange flame licked out forty feet along the ground; and another to the right of it. Flames grew and spread like blossoms in the rainy morning. Dim on the light wind, above the syncopated crashes of the German artillery, Warren heard an unearthly scream. A whole patch of earth over there seemed to be on fire. Flames glowed again in the smoke, accompanied now by a frantic crescendo of bomb blasts and the staccato bark of rifles and light machine guns. Three, four minutes passed.

‘Smoke screen ending now, sir,’ Bruington shouted. The shells ceased to whistle overhead.

Out of the thinning smoke cloud on the right rose a red point of light. It burst into a red star, followed five seconds later by another.

‘The success signal!’ Warren yelled. He blew a series of sharp blasts on his whistle. To right and left the Ravi Lancers were out in the open, advancing steadily. B Squadron was past the machine guns, C again moving on the left. Here was the wire, and nothing more than desultory rifle fire from straight in front. The Germans had relied too much on those machine guns, keeping everyone else out of the front lines, which must now be almost unoccupied. The wire cutters went click, snip, the wire sprang back. The trenches which were the first objective loomed ahead. Warren jumped down in as Narayan Singh behind him shot a German soldier as he was aiming at Warren.

Warren shouted, ‘Fire the DF tasks without further orders if they counter-attack, Bruington. I’m going to see the squadrons.’ To his signaller he said, ‘Tell A and D Squadrons to come up ... commanders here. Pahlwan, come with me.’

Then, his orderly at his heels and the Intelligence Officer lagging behind, he ran to the left along the trench, his revolver drawn. There was no one in the first bay, two dead Germans in the second, and in the third, sowars of the regiment, led by Major Bholanath, advancing towards him.

He shoved his revolver back in its holster. ‘Well done, Bholanath! We have the whole of our first objective now. I’m going to see if we can get forward to the second objective before the Huns have recovered. Get a telephone line strung along this trench to RHQ as soon as you can.’

He hurried back, past his own headquarters, and on towards B Squadron. He soon met men of the squadron, and a little farther, Himat Singh. He found him leaning against the sandbagged parapet of the trench, retching and vomiting. From somewhere close by there was continuous shrieking, without cease but with no other pattern, crawling up and down the scale, now wailing soft now piercing loud. Two sowars were also vomiting in the trench, a flame thrower pack thrown down beside them.

‘What’s happened?’ Warren said.

Himat Singh motioned up with one hand. ‘One of the flame thrower men, the dafadar, hit by a bullet ... It exploded on his back ... that’s him, dying.’

Warren climbed up and saw, twenty feet away, a man, or what had been one. He was wearing boots, puttees, and trousers from the knees to near the crotch. Above that the clothes had been burned off him, revealing a blackened piece of smoking steak. The head was grotesque, like a chestnut left too long in the fire.

The flames had burned through the wall of his stomach, revealing long stripes of blue and red entrails steaming in the fire that still licked all over him. The shell of the flame thrower canister rolled and clanked on top of the sizzling meat as it jerked, giving out continuous shrieks.

‘This is not to be borne,’ one of the vomiting sowars in the trench cried in Hindi. He climbed up beside Warren, levelled his rifle at the screeching horror, muttered, ‘May God forgive us,’ and fired. His hand was shaking so much that he had to fire three times, the meat jerking to each impact, before it fell silent.

Himat Singh gasped, ‘Krishna was right, sir ... Oh my God, you should see the German machine gunners ... they’re all like that. Out there, in the gun pits …. ‘

Warren said, ‘Pull yourself together, Himat ... We’re going to advance to the final objective as soon as I can arrange supporting fire. Get a line to me and stand by to advance.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Himat said dully.

Warren hurried back to his RHQ. The field telephone line had been brought forward and was working. He got Brigadier-General Rogers on the line. ‘We’re on our first objective now, sir,’ he said, ‘and we’re going forward to the final objective as soon as I’ve fixed the supporting fire. But, sir...’

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘We won’t take the objective without more casualties. The regiment will be very weak. We must have a battalion, at least, come up to take over the position, if it is to be held against counterattacks.’

‘The cavalry will pass through you,’ the general said.

‘Not if the Germans counter-attack, sir,’ Warren insisted.

‘There are no more troops in hand,’ the general said. ‘You must hold the objective yourselves. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Warren said. Gently he put the handset back in its cradle, his teeth grating.

Soon Dayal Ram and Puran Lall arrived, their squadrons spread out along the trenches to right and left. By then Warren was ready. He gave out his orders, to some of the commanders in person, huddled in the trench at his headquarters, and to some by the field telephone. At nine o’clock the Ravi Lancers advanced again, this time with A and D Squadrons leading, B and C in reserve.

Twenty seconds after A and D Squadrons moved out behind a creeping barrage of howitzer shells, Warren knew that the attack would not reach its objective. Once again, machine guns were stopping the advance. As he leaned on the parapet, his binoculars to his eyes, he saw the sowars moving very slowly over the torn waste between the German front and support trenches, where the heaviest of the preparation fire had landed; then, out of the cratered landscape came the unseen streams of machine gun bullets. Men went down ... he saw Puran Lall running on for a time alone on the right, his revolver drawn, firing. Then he too dropped--no, jumped, and vanished. Both squadrons sank into the earth. The only advantage of the state of the ground was that men could find cover almost anywhere, in the innumerable pits and holes and craters.

With his binoculars Warren searched for the German machine guns. They were somewhere in the rubble of bricks, barely three feet high, that had been Fosse-Garde--somewhere, but where exactly? It had to be exact, or even heavy artillery could not knock them out. The flame throwers were used up and no more available. Gas? The wind was wrong. The machine guns had to be knocked out. If not one way, another. There could be no advance without that.

He said, ‘Sher Singh, I’m going forward to A Squadron. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found out where the Hun machine guns are.’

Doubled up, he ran forward until he reached the place where he had seen Puran Lall disappear, and slipped down beside him.

‘We’ve got to get those machine guns,’ he said.

Lieutenant Puran Lall said, ‘I’m going to try now.’ His level eyes were hard as agate, deep rings under them, his mouth thin and bitter. He looked about forty instead of barely twenty; and a murderer, instead of a gay young blade.

‘Where are they?’ Warren said.

‘I’ve located two. The right corner of the rubble. Right, two degrees. Something dark. They’re beside that, in some sort of a pit, covered over. I can see the flicker of the nozzle flames when they fire. In the binoculars you can see the water jumping in the puddle just in front of them, to the muzzle blast.’

Warren peered at the dark spot. It was about a hundred yards away, and the guns firing in enfilade. The bullets kicked up water and mud in a long line across his front. A hundred yards--in this soil--would take two minutes even for a man charging light...Before he could stop him Puran Lall was out of the shell hole, running hard, revolver in one hand, a grenade in the other. The machine guns continued to fire in enfilade. They would be on fixed lines, ready for British use of smoke. It would take the gunners a few seconds to loosen the clamps for a swinging traverse. He grabbed the rifle from a sowar beside him, aimed carefully at the spot where he thought the machine guns were, and fired. Puran Lall ran on. After a pause the guns began to fire directly at him. Warren fired again. Puran Lall, still thirty yards from the guns, threw his grenade as he ran, with all the strength of his arm. He ran on, now firing his revolver. As the grenade burst the guns stopped firing. Rissaldar Chaman Lall, beside Warren, shouted, ‘Lieutenant-sahib
pahunch-gaya!
Advance,
jaivan!
’ He stood up and all round the sowars crawled out of their holes and continued their advance.

A new storm of machine guns opened up from the left, at least four guns. Chaman Lall doubled, coughed, and fell before he had gone ten paces. Man after man went down, silently, or with a groan, to lie crumpled and still, or twist and writhe, crawling towards shelter. Puran Lall came running back. As the last effort to advance died Puran Lall fell into the shell hole he had left barely two minutes earlier.

‘I’ll get them,’ he shouted. He began to run out of the crater towards the new threat. Warren caught him--’Come back! You don’t know where they are, or anything. You’ve got no covering fire! And they’re farther off ... behind the next German trench, I think.’

‘I’m going, I’m going,’ Puran Lall screamed.

Warren held him tight. ‘You’re trying to get yourself killed!’

‘Why not?’ the young man shouted. ‘My brother dead, for what? So you can blow down your own churches ... slaughter children in ships ... burn the living as though they were ... aiiih.’ He put his head in his hands and sank down, weeping.

Warren waited. He could not get back to his HQ until the machine gun fire slackened. He felt numb and tired. Puran going, Himat weakening. Krishna was winning, his presence steadily undermining all that had been built.

Half an hour later he touched Puran Lall on the shoulder, as he sat staring across the crater, his revolver in his hands, and said, ‘Hold tight, Puran. I’ll get D Squadron on to those machine guns.

Look out for German counter-attacks. Do you hear?’ He shook the lieutenant lightly.

Puran Lall said, ‘I hear.’

Warren started back, walking fast from shell hole to shell hole. Bullets clacked around him but they were not aimed at him, rather it was the firing of German gunners sweeping No Man’s Land from positions well behind, not seeing their targets. Then one bullet came very close, and it was isolated, not one of a stream. He flung himself flat.

The next bullet hit him in the upper left arm, striking with the force of a sledge-hammer and jerking him round where he lay. Then, through a shock of pain that seemed like an electric flash in the centre of his brain, he saw the firer ... an Indian, turbaned, aiming at him from his own trench, the face hidden behind the cuddled rifle butt. A communication trench ran past a few feet to his left and Warren jumped down into it in a long stumbling leap, as the marksman fired again. He fell against the back wall of the trench with another grating of pain. His left arm hung loose, the bone broken. He drew his revolver, ran down the trench, turned the corner and looked up. There, sprawled on the old parados, was Captain Sher Singh, still peering down the sights of a rifle. Two VCOs were in the trench watching the captain. Warren glared at them, his revolver jerking. Slowly they raised their hands. Sher Singh on the parapet looked round then, saying something in Hindi. He saw Warren and started convulsively. Warren said, ‘Come down. Leave the rifle.’

From the next bay he heard Pahlwan Ram talking to Krishna Ram and Bruington.

‘Why were you firing at me, Sher Singh?’ he said.

The man’s handsome face was grey under the brown skin. From a sudden uncontrollable movement of his body Warren thought bowels and bladder had emptied, from fear.

‘I... I...’

‘Why?’ Warren turned to the VCOs.

‘He told us you had gone mad and were going to get us all killed, sahib,’ the jemadar said.

A stench of diarrhoea filled the trench. Warren, aiming at Sher Singh’s stomach, pulled the trigger. ‘You fucking sodomite,’ he said. The heavy bullet blasted the officer against the back wall of the trench. He clasped his hands to his belly, swung slowly, and fell, screaming as he rolled on to his face. Someone shouted in the next bay and men appeared, rifles ready. The scream ended in a bubbling gasp.