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I could see Primrose scanning us all, challenging anyone to disagree with him, as the flies buzzed drowsily and the punkah creaked on its hinges above us. I have to say, it had all come as a bit of a surprise to me. I’d thought our division would be in Afghanistan just to see things quieten down, give a bit of bottom to the new wali and then be off back to India before the next winter. Now it seemed we might have a bit of a fight on our hands and – as Roberts, Browne and now Stewart had found out – these hillmen were not Zulus armed with spears whom we could mow down in their thousands. As well as regular troops and demented Ghazis, it now appeared that Ayoob Khan had guns directed by Russians. McGucken and I had had a bellyful of just such creatures a few years back.
‘Well, sir, may I suggest that there are three measures we could start with advantage right away?’ Harry Brooke spoke, clear and direct, taking Primrose’s challenge head on.
‘Please enlighten us, Brooke,’ Primrose replied, with a slight edge of sarcasm that caused McGucken to glance at me.
‘We must secure fresh and plentiful water supplies within the walls of the town before the weather gets really hot.’ Brooke paused to see how this would be received.
‘Yes, yes, of course – that’s just common sense,’ replied Primrose, so quickly that I suspected he’d never even con sidered such a thing. ‘Do go on.’
‘Well, sir, if we’re to face an enemy in the field, we’ll need every sabre and bayonet that we can find so we can’t be distracted by foes inside the town such as those you’ve just described. Should we not expel all Pathans of military age and pull down the shanties and lean-tos that have been built so close to the walls that they restrict any fields of fire? Can we not start to burn or dismantle them now, General?’
The punkah squaled again and I could see that the trouble with Harry Brooke, like all of us Anglo-Irish, was that he was too damn blunt. I’d had much the same thoughts about the clutter of plank and mud-built houses, shops and stalls as I’d ridden up from the cantonments towards the town walls and his comments about the tribesmen made a great deal of sense to me. But, judging by the way Primrose was hopping from foot to foot, Harry’s ideas hadn’t found much favour.
‘No, no, Brooke, that will never do. You must remember, all of you . . .’ Primrose treated us to another of his basilisk stares ‘. . . that we are not an army of occupation. We’re guests – pretty muscular guests, I grant you – of the wali under whose hand we lie. We can’t go knocking his people’s property about and chucking out those we haven’t taken a shine to. How on earth will we ever gain his or his subjects’ confidence if we behave like that? No, that will never do.’
What, I suspect, the little trimmer really meant was that sensible measures he wouldn’t have hesitated to use last year, while Disraeli’s crew held sway, simply wouldn’t answer now that Gladstone and his bunch of croakers were in charge. Primrose didn’t want to be seen by the new Whig regime as one of the same stamp of generals of whom the liberal press had been so critical for their heavy-handedness in Zululand and then for so-called ‘atrocities’ here in Afghanistan twelve months ago.
I could repeat, word perfect, Gladstone’s cant, which I’d read when I’d paused in Quetta three weeks ago, just before the election. It had caused near apoplexy at breakfast in the mess: ‘Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, amid the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eyes of Almighty God as your own,’ or some such rot. Disraeli had responded by calling his comments ‘rodomontade’ (which had us all stretching for the dictionaries) but there was no doubting the public mood that didn’t want to hear about British regulars being bested by natives and the murder of their envoys in far-away residences. They were heartily sick of highly coloured press accounts of shield-and-spear-armed Zulu impis being cut down by rifles and Gatling guns. If the new God-bothering government caught even a whiff of Primrose’s treating the tribesmen with anything other than kid gloves then his career was likely to be as successful as the Pope’s wedding night.
‘There it is, gentlemen. With a little good fortune, all this talk of Ayoob Khan descending on us like the wrath of God will prove to be just hot air and we can get on with an ordered life here, then make a measured move back to India later in the year.’
I looked round the room to judge people’s reaction to this last utterance from Primrose and there wasn’t a face – except, perhaps, Heath’s – that didn’t look horrified at such a pro spect. I, for one, had sat in Karachi whittling away over the last couple of campaign seasons while my friends and juniors gathered laurels innumerable, courtesy of the Afghans. And I’d had little expectation of any excitement when I’d been sent for a few weeks ago. But now our hopes had been raised. Perhaps we were to see deeds and glory. Maybe Nuttall, Brooke and I would not be bound for our pensions, Bath chairs and memories quite as soon as we had feared.
But not a bit of that from our divisional commander: he seemed to be longing for his villa in Cheltenham. ‘But if we are unlucky and all this trouble comes to pass, then we must be as ready as we can be. So, away to your commands, gentlemen. But not you, Morgan. May I detain you?’ All the others were gathering up their swords and sun-helmets, folding maps and despatches in a thoughtful silence, and I’d hoped that the general might have forgotten his summons to me – I wanted to spend some time with McGucken before events overtook us, but Primrose wasn’t having that. As I picked up my documents he said, ‘We need to discuss the state of your new brigade, don’t we, Morgan?’
‘What do we do, sir, when we meet a wali? I’ve never met one before,’ asked Heath, to whom I had been about to pose the same question.
‘How, in God’s name, should I know, Heath? I chose you to be my brigade major because you’re savvy with all this native stuff, ain’t you?’ All I got in reply from the great lummox was a sulky look. ‘We’ll just go in and salute, regimental-like, and let him do the talking. I hope his English is up to it.’
Primrose had been true to his word: the very next day I found myself bidden to Sher Ali Khan’s presence, the Wali of Kandahar. Now Heath and I were waiting in a stuffy little anteroom on the other side of the Citadel from where we’d met Primrose and all the others yesterday. At least the wali had tried to do the place up a little. I didn’t know where the furniture had come from – it looked French, with overstuffed satiny fabric and curly, carved legs – but there were some grand carpets on the floor and hanging on the walls. A couple of greasy-looking sentries had performed a poor imitation of presenting arms as we were escorted up to see His Nibs while a funny little chamberlain – or some such flunkey – had buzzed around us, talking such bad English that I saw little value in what was coming next beyond the call of protocol. But I was wrong.
‘My dear General!’ We’d been ushered into another, similar, room, performed our military rites and removed our helmets as the wali leapt off a low divan, a smile beaming through his beard and his hand outstretched. ‘How very good of you to make the time to see me.’
He looked much older than sixty-two. He was short, fat and yellow-toothed; he wore a sheepskin cap that, I guessed, hadn’t been removed since the winter; there was a distinct aroma of armpits about him and yet he was utterly, disarmingly, charming. He pumped our fins, sat us down, pressed thimble-sized cups of coffee on the pair of us and made me feel that his whole life had been a tedious interlude while he had waited to meet me.
‘No, really, it is very good of you.’ His English was accented, slightly sing-song, perhaps, but completely fluent. ‘I know what a trying journey you must have had up from India, but we do appreciate it. Now that General Stewart has gone, I’m so glad that you’ve brought another whole brigade to help General Primrose and me.’ The fellow made it sound as if I’d mustered my own personal vassals for this crusade as a favour to him. ‘Oh, we shall need them.’
I have to say, the next ten minutes were more useful than anything I’d heard from Primrose or would hear from him in the future. McGucken had, obviously, made a deep and favourable impression on the clever old boy, for he told me (and I don’t think it was just gammon) to seek him out if I hadn’t met him already. I forbore to mention how well I knew Jock, for I wanted to hear exactly what the wali himself had to tell me, especially about the threat from Ayoob Khan, which Primrose seemed to be playing down.
‘Well, yes, dear General, my prayers concentrate upon nothing at the moment but the intentions of that man. Your people don’t really understand what he wants and how determined he is to get it.’ Sher Ali trotted over the fact that he was a cousin of the amir and that he’d been installed as governor of the entire region in July last year in the clear expectation that he would be kept in post by force of British arms. ‘But then your government started to reduce the number of white and Indian soldiers here, and that was when the trouble started with my own men. You see, as far as most of them are concerned, I’m a British . . . a British . . . oh, what’s the word I want?’
‘Catspaw, sir?’ asked Heath, leaving all of us wondering what on earth he meant.
‘Eh? No, not an animal . . . puppet – that’s the word. Well, they hated that, but they had to put up with it, as long as there were enough British guns and bayonets to subdue them. My troops are not my tribesmen, General. They understand tribal authority more than any rank that is given or imposed – particularly by Feringhees. Oh, I do beg your forgiveness. I don’t wish to suggest that your presence is unwelcome!’ The old boy nearly poured his coffee down his beard when he thought he might have been unmannerly.
‘And this is where Ayoob Khan has the advantage.’ He told us again about Kandahar’s prosperity, how Ayoob Khan had been eyeing it up as his own for ages and how he’d managed to suborn the local forces with people from the Ghilzai tribes loyal to him but serving under the wali. ‘We’ve been hearing for months now that he and his people are likely to march out of Herat, and if that is the case, we must try to stop him before he gets anywhere near this city. But I worry about taking my troops into the field, General Morgan. As you will know, I’m sure, we have already had difficulties over pay – one of my cavalry regiments threw down their arms only last month when their officers tried to take them out of their lines for training. Now, if he were to come towards us, we should have to try and meet him somewhere here.’ The wali pointed to the Helmand river fords near Gereshk on a spanking new map that, I guessed, McGucken had given him.
‘Aye, sir, and that’s quite a way west over dry country.’ The map showed few water-courses and little but seventy or so miles of plains beset by steep heights.
‘Indeed so, but he and his elders know it well. And there are more complications.’ I heard him sigh when he said this, as if the very thought of what lay ahead sapped his energy and determination. ‘He will do his best to raise not just tribesmen along the way, but also the cursed Ghazis in the name of jihad. Have you been told about these creatures, General?’ I assured him that I had, and that Primrose and Brooke had given me a pretty fair idea of what they could do.
‘Ah, but, General, all you have seen of them is odd ones and twos. True, they make trouble in the town, they caused Stewart huzoor much pain, and they have started to gnaw at the ankles of General Primrose’s new division. But just imagine what such people could do if they were massed against you. That, no one has yet seen. If Ayoob Khan ever ventures out of the west, then be certain, my dear General, that those white-robed madmen will hover around him like wasps . . .’
Two days after my meeting with the wali, I had been up at dawn, ridden out of the town with Heath and Trumpeter Lynch to the lower slopes of the Baba Wali Kotal – the high ground some three miles to the north-west – and made an assessment of where the enemy’s best viewpoint would be. Then I’d come back to the mess for a swift breakfast of steak and fruit, before heading to my headquarters. I was just settling down behind my folding desk, preparing to indulge Heath with the things he loved best – detailed accounts, returns and all manner of mind-numbing administration – when news began to filter in of an ugly incident involving the 66th Foot.
The only British infantry that I had, the regiment had so far impressed me both times that I had seen them. But now there were reports that one of their patrols had killed a child right in the middle of Kandahar, then dispersed with great violence the angry crowd that gathered. Predictably, the first reports were vague and vastly unreliable, so once the dust had settled – literally – and the facts were clear, I had got back into the saddle and come to see the commanding officer, James Galbraith.
It had been an uncomfortable couple of hours’ waiting for me, for Primrose had caught wind of it, as had some British journalists who were out and about in Kandahar, and he was pressing me for a full account before the editors in London learnt of it. But I had commanded a battalion – albeit nowhere more demanding than Pembroke Dock – and I knew how irritating pressure from above would be for the commanding officer. Once the matter was fully investigated, Lieutenant Colonel Galbraith had asked me to come into the cramped little hut that served as his office. He rose from behind a trestle table in his rumpled khaki and stood stiffly to attention, expecting the worst.
‘Sit down, sit down, please, Galbraith.’ Despite my attempts to put him at ease, Galbraith continued to stand. I threw myself into one of the collapsible leather-seated campaign chairs that were so popular at the time.
‘A cheroot?’ I flicked one of the little brown tubes towards him, but Galbraith shook his head without a word. ‘Tell me what happened.’
The 66th had been in India for almost ten years now, stationed at Ahmednagar and Karachi, and I’d been pleased to see how many long-service men they still included. While the new regulations allowed men to enlist for shorter periods – which was reckoned by some to be good for recruiting – I always thought it took some time for a lad from the slums of England to acquire any sort of resistance to the heat and pestilence of India. It can’t have been a coincidence that the Second Battalion of the 8th Foot – almost all young, short-service lads – had been gutted by disease last year outside Kabul.
‘Well, General, we had a routine patrol in the central bazaar earlier this morning, an officer, sergeant and six men. They all said that the atmosphere was tense, with a lot of people and beasts bringing goods to market. Suddenly the crowd opened and a child rushed at them with a knife in his hand.’ Galbraith had been in command of the 66th for four years now and had a reputation for being as devoted to them as his men were to him. Another English-Paddy from Omagh up north, my father knew his family, but the slim, handsome man, whose heavy moustache and whiskers made him look older than his forty years, had never thought to presume upon this link.
‘A child, Galbraith? How old was he?’ I found it hard to believe that a fully armed patrol of British soldiers might be attacked by a boy. A strapping youth, perhaps, for many of the Ghazis, while fully grown, were said by those who had had to face them to be too young to have proper beards. But a mere boy behaving like that I found difficult to credit.
‘Well, I’m not exactly sure, General, but young enough for there to be an almighty bloody fuss kicked up by the mullahs to whom the press are listening with all their normal evenhandedness,’ replied Galbraith.
‘Are you sure that one of the lads didn’t fire his rifle by mistake, hit the boy and now he’s trying to cover it up just like the Fifty-Ninth did?’ I knew soldiers: they’d lie most imaginatively if they thought it would save their necks. The story was still circulating about a drunken spree by the 59th last Christmas. Two of the men had been drinking and tinkering about with their rifles when one had shot the other. They had made up some cock-and-bull story about a Ghazi entering their barracks and, in an attempt to shoot him down, one man had accidentally wounded his comrade.
‘Well, no, sir. The youth was killed with a sword and a number of bayonet thrusts quite deliberately. The men didn’t fire for fear of hitting one of the crowd.’ Galbraith looked indignant.
‘Oh, good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. So now we don’t just have a child being killed, the poor little bugger was hacked to pieces by your ruffians while half of Kandahar looked on. I really don’t like the sound of this at all. Who was in charge of this fiasco? I hope you’re not going to tell me it was a lad straight out of Sandhurst with some lance sergeant at his side?’ When I’d paid my first visit to the 66th a few days ago, I’d been pleased with the appearance of the men but I’d noticed how junior some of the NCOs were. Galbraith had explained that he’d had to leave a large number of sergeants behind in India, either sick or time-expired, and he’d been forced to promote fairly inexperienced corporals to fill the gaps.
‘No, sir. Sar’nt Kelly is one of my best substantive sergeants with almost sixteen years’ service. He’s due to get his colours at the next promotion board. That’s why I’ve put him with one of my new officers.’ Galbraith came back at me hot and strong. ‘If you’d prefer to hear it straight from those who were there, sir, I’ve got Kelly and his officer waiting outside.’
‘Yes, I bloody well would. Ask them to march in, please, Heath.’ My tosspot of a brigade major had been sitting in on the meeting with Galbraith, his expression increasingly disapproving, not a shred of sympathy showing for the men who had been faced with what sounded to me like a thoroughly nasty business.
I saw the pair of them file in, smartly in step. Sergeant Kelly was five foot nine, heavily sunburnt, with a moustache trimmed to regulation length, and the ribbon of the rooti-gong above his left breast pocket. His puttees were wrapped just so, his khaki drill pressed as neatly as field conditions would allow, three red chevrons standing out starkly on his right sleeve and his brasswork polished for the occasion. He gave ‘Halt,’ then ‘Up,’ sotto voce to his subaltern, both men stamping in time before their hands quivered to the peaks of their khaki-covered helmets. After a silent count of ‘Two, three,’ they snapped them down to their sides. The officer was taller but slighter than his sergeant. His fair hair curled just a little too fashionably almost to his collar, his skin was red with the early summer sun and his moustache still not fully grown. Holding his sword firmly back against his left hip, pistol to his right, the single brass stars of an ensign on either side of his collar, he was my younger son, William.
‘Well, Sar’nt Kelly, Mr Morgan, if I’m to put up a good case on your behalf and keep your names from being spread over the gutter press, you’d better tell me exactly what happened this morning.’ Galbraith had deliberately not mentioned that my son was the officer involved – wise man that he was.
Now Billy cleared his throat and raised his chin before he spoke, just like his late mother might have done. ‘Sir, with your leave, I’ll explain everything . . .’
Chapter Two - The Ghazi
It was hot, and as Ensign Billy Morgan looked up into the cloudless sky he could see a pair of hawks circling effortlessly on the burning air just above the walls of Kandahar. They reminded him of the sleek, lazy-winged buzzards back in Ireland, except that there the sun rarely shone. He wondered how the thermals would feel to the birds – would they sense the heat of the air under their feathers as they scanned the collection of humanity below? And would they have any sense of the tensions that pulsed through the city under them? Then, as he looked at the gang of khaki-clad lads in front of him, he realised just how ridiculous his musings were. The birds cared not a damn for him or his soldiers, or for any man or living beast, he thought. Their eyes and beaks roamed ceaselessly for dead or dying things, for carrion to feed their bellies. Of the feelings and concerns of the men in the dust and grit below them, they knew nothing.
‘Is that belt tight enough, Thompson?’ Morgan was checking the six soldiers who had been detailed off to patrol the centre of Kandahar. They knew it would be a tense and hostile time, as the villagers pressed into the bazaars for market day.
‘Sir,’ replied Thompson, flatly – the Army’s universal word of affirmation that could mean anything from enthusiastic agreement to outright insubordination. The big Cumberland farmer’s lad looked back at Morgan, his face trusting and open.
‘Well, make sure it is. I don’t want you having to bugger about with it once we’re among the crowds. Just check it, please, Sar’nt Kelly.’ Morgan hesitated to treat the men like children, but even in his few weeks with the regiment, he’d come to recognise that the ordinary soldiers, dependable, smart and keen most of the time, could be the most negligent of creatures once they put their minds to it.
‘Sir.’ Sergeant Kelly came back with the same stock response ‘Come on, Thompson, I can get this between your belt and that fat gut of yours – look.’ Kelly had stuck his clenched fist between the soldier’s belt, which had been scrubbed clean of pipe clay on active service, and his lean belly. ‘Take it in a couple of notches.’ Thompson moved his right foot to the rear of his left, rested his Martini-Henry rifle against his side and undid the dull brass belt buckle, inscribed with ‘66’ in the middle and ‘Berkshire Regiment’ round the outer part of the clasp.
Thompson was the last man to be inspected. Once his belt was back in place and he’d assumed the position of attention, Kelly stamped in the packed dust just outside the regimental guardroom where the patrol had assembled, slapped the sling of his rifle and repeated the well-worn formula, ‘Leave to carry on, sir, please?’
‘And is Bobby a vital member of the patrol, Sar’nt Kelly?’ The non-commissioned officer’s scruffy little terrier-cross, which had followed his master all the way from India, now sat on the ground, sweeping his remnant of a tail back and forth, looking imploringly up at Kelly. Morgan’s words provoked laughter from the file of men, and a grin from Sergeant Kelly, relieving the tension. When he had arrived with the 66th, Morgan had been surprised by the deference the soldiers had shown to him. Sandhurst had trained him to expect and, indeed, demand their instant obedience, but he hadn’t anticipated how concerned they would be by his inexperienced eye being run over them during an inspection. Now there was the added edge of danger, with the knowledge that previous regiments had suffered casualties among the Afghan mob, and the need for constant vigilance.
‘No, sir. Go on, pup, away wi’ you.’ Kelly’s voice was firm but kind as he pointed towards the guardroom while the dog continued to look at him and wag his tail with increased urgency. ‘Go on, Bobby, fuck off.’
‘One word off you, Sar’nt . . .’ Private Battle, the longest-serving soldier in the patrol, murmured, to the delight of the others, Kelly grinning broadly as well. Morgan knew that Battle could be a handful, often nicknamed ‘Bottle’ because he was fond of his grog – that was why he was still a private.
‘That’s enough from you, Private Edward bleedin’ Battle. Got enough trouble wi’ one mongrel that won’t obey me without another addin’ to me grief. Go on, Bobby, fuck off to the guardroom like a good dog.’ The patrol laughed again as the mutt slunk off towards the bell tent that served as the entrance to the 66th’s lines.
As the fun died down, Morgan continued, ‘Right, Sar’nt Kelly, no one’s loaded but ammunition’s ready, ain’t it?’ Kelly simply nodded in reply. Standing orders stated that no firearms should have a round in the breech during a patrol except on the instructions of an officer or an NCO, but that ammunition should be broken out of its paper parcels and ready for instant use in the men’s pouches. A number of natives had been wounded during scuffles with the previous regiments and Colonel Galbraith was keen that the 66th should not have the same problems. ‘Good. Loosen slings, fix bayonets and stand the men at ease, please.’
Kelly gave a few simple instructions, none of the parade-ground shouting that Morgan had seen with other sergeants, to which the men responded readily, slipping the long steel needles over the muzzles of their rifles before pushing the locking rings home with an oily scrape. Then the leather slings were slackened, weapons slung over shoulders, and they all looked at Morgan for his next word of command.
‘Right, lads, gather round and listen to me.’ The six men shuffled round Billy Morgan, Sergeant Kelly hanging back, slightly to the rear. Morgan looked at his command. He was the junior subaltern of H Company, charged with leading nearly forty men, mostly good fellows as far as he could see, and few of the sweepings of the gutter that the press would have you believe made up the Army. Morgan was twenty-two, about the same age as most of his men, but they looked older. The product of the new sprawling industrial towns, some from the plough and a few from Ireland, they had been used to a hard life even before they came into the 66th. Now, good food, drill and regular physical training had made them fit and lean, prime fighting material. ‘Most of you have been on town patrol before . . .’ This was only Morgan’s second outing. The first had passed in a blur of new sights, sounds and smells but otherwise had been uneventful. ‘We’re to make sure that the natives know we’re here and alert, and to take note of anything unusual.’
‘Like what, sir?’ Battle, the old soldier of six years’ Indian service, cut in, his brogue as thick as the day he had left Manorhamilton.
‘Well, large gatherings of young men, the sight of any modern weapons such as Sniders – to be frank, you’re all more experienced than I am and I hope that you’ve got a better nose for trouble than I have.’ Morgan looked around. This touch of humility seemed to have been well received by the men. ‘But remember, lads, be on the look-out for the least sign of danger. The Fifty-Ninth found that a mob would know if something was amiss and would thin out at the approach of a patrol.’ The only British infantry regiment that had been part of General Stewart’s division and had handed over to the 66th had shared all sorts of horror stories with their successors. They’d had a litany of minor casualties and two deaths while patrolling the Kandahar streets. ‘So, keep your eyes peeled and if you think we need to put a round up the spout, ask Sar’nt Kelly or me before you do so.’
‘But, sir, we’re meant to be here to support the wali, ain’t we, not to do his troops’ work for ’im? The Fore and Afts’ – Battle used the nickname of the 59th – ‘got right kicked about an’ was never allowed to shoot back. If the town’s so bleedin’ ’ostile, why can’t the wali’s men deal with it an’ save us for the proper jobs?’
There was a rumble of agreement from the other men and Morgan shot a look at Sergeant Kelly, whose level stare merely told him that he, too, expected an officer-type answer to a wholly reasonable question.
‘Good point, Battle.’ Morgan paused as he measured his reply. ‘It isn’t like the proper war that was being fought last year. We’re here, as you say, to help the wali, but his own troops are unreliable and the town is full of badmashes we need to know about, and then report back to the political officer. Now, if there are no more questions . . .’ Morgan was suddenly aware that he and his patrol had been hanging around for far too long.
‘Yessir. What do we do if we see a Ghazi, sir?’ Thompson, belt now tightened, chirped up.
‘Most unlikely, Thompson. They’ll melt away at the sight of us,’ replied Morgan.
Thompson wasn’t to be put off. ‘They didn’t with the Fifty-Ninth, sir, did they? Why—’
‘Yes, well, we’re not the Fifty-Ninth, are we? This lot have heard that the Sixty-sixth are here and they won’t want to take us on. Now, split into pairs, ten paces between each. Sar’nt Kelly, bring up the rear, please. Follow me.’ With that, Morgan’s little command stepped out of the tented lines of the 66th, through a gate in the barbed-wire perimeter and away up the gentle incline three-quarters of a mile towards the walls, shanties and sun-lit pall of woodsmoke that was Kandahar.
Morgan walked as casually as he could among his soldiers. The men were moving either side of the pot-holed road in what the Army liked to describe as ‘staggered file’ – odd numbers on the left and even numbers on the right, no two men in a line with each other. That, he thought, was meant to make a random jezail shot less likely to strike more than one man, but he could see how the troops tended to close in on each other for comfort and reassurance.
‘No, lads, keep spread out. Don’t bunch up, keep your distance,’ Morgan said, as lightly as he could, trying not to let his tension show in his voice. He looked at the men that some mistaken fate had placed under his command. They were all polite to him, almost painfully so, trusting him because of the stars he wore on his collar and his accent, more than any proof of competence he had so far shown. Yet he was surprised by how easy he found their company. Sandhurst had told him to expect the worst, that while most of his men would be good, trustworthy sorts, a few would be out to mock him and dun him of every penny he might be foolish enough to carry around. He had identified no one like that. True, Battle was a bit of a handful – he’d come the wiseacre a couple of times over the young officer’s Protestantism – but Morgan had managed to slap him down good-naturedly enough.
But, looking at Private Battle, Billy Morgan remembered how his father would tease the Catholics both back home in Cork and in his countless stories about the old Army. Yet, while he pretended to be suspicious of their religion, his obvious fondness for what he called his Paddies shone through. Now the new Army, Morgan thought, had fewer of those Irishmen who’d been driven to take the shilling by the potato blight back in the forties and fifties, but those who had enlisted were good enough and fitted in well with the sturdy English lads that the 66th recruited from around their depot in Reading. No, even in the short space of time he’d spent with H Company, Morgan was beginning to understand the men, to enjoy their ready, irreverent humour (how had they referred to General Roberts in his vast, non-regulation sun-helmet when they saw his picture in the paper? ‘That little arse in the fuck-off hat’, wasn’t it?) and understand their values. How, he wondered, would he have managed if he’d been commissioned into one of the native regiments, like his half-brother, Sam Keenan? Everything would have been so foreign – and even if he’d managed to learn the language well enough to do his job, it would never have been possible, surely, to become really close to an Indian.
But, thought Billy Morgan, that would never have been the case for he was only ever going to serve in a smart regiment – his father would hear of nothing else. As a little boy he’d accepted, without questioning, that he would always get the best of everything while Sam would have what was left over. He could still remember when he was five years old and how bitter the older, bigger Sam had been at having to accept the smaller of the two ponies their father had bought for them. It was the first time Billy had really noticed any difference, but as he matured, he had seen how Mary, his step-mother, had protected the way in which Sam had been brought up in her Catholic Church.
His father had made a joke of it, laughing when Mary elongated the word ‘maas’ and crossing himself in faux-respect whenever something Roman was mentioned. And as Father thought that County Cork was far too much under the sway of the Pope, he would brook no suggestion that Billy should be sent to one of the local schools. Oh, no, they were good enough for Sam, but for Billy there should be nothing but the best: he was to be educated in England, at Sandhurst and then a good line regiment, just like his father.
He and his brother had seen little of each other. Only when Billy returned to Glassdrumman in the school holidays would they meet – and clash. Billy knew that Sam resented him and the preferential treatment he received, and on the few occasions that they were together as boys, and then as young men, he wasn’t slow to show it. Everything became a contest – no fish could be pulled from a stream or bird shot from a rainy sky without its becoming a test of manhood. At first Billy was always bettered by his bigger brother, who would challenge him to runs over the heather or bogs or turn a fishing trip into a swimming challenge across an icy lough, which he always lost. But as Billy grew, he began to win, so Sam ensured that the contests became more intense.
It was just before Sam had gone off to the Bombay Army, Billy remembered, that things had come to a head. He was home from school and Sam was full of piss and vinegar about his new adventure, full of brag about the Indians he would soon command and the glamour of that country. Then Billy had made some disparaging comment about native troops and the great Mutiny and Sam had retorted with something snide about Maude, Billy’s dead Protestant mother. Billy knew he was being daft, for he’d never known his mother – she had died in childbirth, allowing his father to marry again – and he loved his step-mother, Mary, but the sneer was too much and he had flown at his brother just outside the tack-room.
There hadn’t been much to it, really. Both boys were scraped and bruised by Billy’s first onslaught – he could feel the granite of the stableyard setts even now – before Finn the groom was pulling them apart and promising ‘a damn good leatherin’ to the pair o’ ye if you don’t stop it, so’. But, Finn’s intercession lay at the root of the trouble even now. Billy knew that if they’d been allowed to fight on, for them both to get the bile out of their systems, there might have been some settlement. Instead Finn had made them shake hands and Sam was away too early the next day for there to be any further rapprochement.
They’d not seen each other since that drizzly afternoon in Cork four years ago, but now Billy found himself at the end of the sun-baked earth, yet within spitting distance of the brother he’d hoped never to see again. The brother, Billy thought, who’d chosen to keep his own father’s name – well, God rot Sam Keenan, and the unlucky sods he commands.
Morgan was pulled back from his thoughts by a trickle of tribesmen on their way to market. At first the soldiers passed one or two heavily laden donkeys swaying up the gritty main road towards the town, their loads of newly woven baskets towering above them. Their owners ignored Morgan’s and his men’s attempts at cheerful greetings, and as the traffic became denser the troops gave up any attempt to humour the population.
‘Close up at the rear, please, Sar’nt Kelly.’ Morgan had to yell down the street to be heard at the back of the patrol: the closer they got to the Bardurani Gate, the thicker the press of people and animals became.
‘Right, sir. Come on, you lot, shift yourselves,’ answered Kelly, provoking the last pair of soldiers to break into a shuffling run, their eyes wide at the medley of sights, colours and smells before them. Like his men, Morgan was fascinated by what he saw – camels carrying earthenware pots, herds of bleating goats and sheep, driven by boys with long, whippy sticks, mules and asses with rolled carpets and every manner of cheap, Birmingham-made pots and pans, even a dog pulling a crude cart that squeaked under a load of apricots. And the stink filled his nostrils. Animal piss and human sweat, aromatic smells from little charcoal braziers where urchin cooks touted fried meat and cheese, stale puddles and the universal scent of smoke and shit. The women, Morgan noticed, swivelled great kohl-dark eyes away from his gaze behind the slits of the black burkhas that hid them from head to toe. But that was more than he got from any of the men. Tall hillmen, Mohmands, Afridis and Wazirs, each one heavily armed, strode past on sandalled feet while stockmen with broad, flat, Mongol faces and men from the plains – Durrani Ghilzais, Yusufzais – looked straight through him. It was as if he and his troops didn’t exist, as if some unspoken agreement between all the men dictated that the Feringhee should be made to feel as invisible as possible.
The noise was vast. Tradesmen proclaiming their wares, the rattle of sheep and goats’ bells, the hammering of smiths and, above all else, the Babel of a dozen different tongues and dialects, all competing to be heard above the others. So vast, indeed, that Morgan didn’t hear his leading left-hand man’s initial shout of alarm; he didn’t hear the soldier’s cry, ‘You little sod!’ The first he knew of the attack was when Thompson yelled in pain, which jerked him from his reverie in time to see a blur of white robes and khaki drill, a thrashing bundle of boots and sandals in the nearby gutter, one of his soldiers falling, rifle clattering, helmet rolling, sprawling on what seemed to be a boy as steel flashed and jabbed.
Private Battle reacted faster than his officer. While Morgan groped to draw his sword and understand the sudden bedlam, the older soldier rushed to help his mate, saw the boy pinioned below a shrieking wounded Thompson and a six-inch blade poking time and again into his comrade’s side. As Morgan ran he watched Battle’s bayonet rise and fall, spitting the brown, writhing form of a boy who, he guessed, could be no more than twelve years old. Now it was the child’s turn to cry out as the lethally sharp metal punctured his right arm, then cracked through his shoulder blade before transfixing him to the ground.
‘You murdering little fucker!’ Battle was standing astride both Thompson and the boy, trying to shake the assassin loose from his jammed bayonet. ‘Get off, won’t you?’
As Morgan sprinted up to the tangled trio, he looked down into the lad’s face. It was twisted in a combination of hate and pain, teeth bared, not yet old enough to be yellowed by tobacco, his dirty white robes and turban stained with his own and Thompson’s blood. The more Battle tugged at his weapon, the more the child rose and sagged, firmly skewered on the steel; all three shouted in a rising cacophony.
Without a second’s hesitation, Billy Morgan drove his sword firmly into the boy’s chest, remembering at the last moment to twist his blade so that it might not stick in the child’s ribs. The point passed straight through his target’s heart and Morgan saw both dirty little fists grab at the steel before falling away, just as the lad’s eyes opened wide in a spasm of shock and his whiskerless jaw sagged open.
Now Battle finished a job that was already done. At last his blade came clear and, with a stream of filthy language, the burly soldier kicked and kicked at the youth’s face with iron-shod boots, then stamped down hard until bone crunched and blood oozed from blue-bruised lips and a splintered nose.
‘All right, Battle, that’s enough – that’s enough, d’you hear me?’ Sergeant Kelly was suddenly on the scene. ‘Help Thompson. The kid’s dead enough.’ There was something calming, soothing, in Kelly’s tone for, despite the gore and horror all around him, he had hardly raised his voice. ‘You all right, sir?’
Morgan was suddenly aware that Kelly had taken him by the elbow, that his sword was free of the corpse and that, somehow, a spray of someone’s blood was daubed across his trousers. ‘Yes, Sar’nt Kelly, I’m fine.’ Morgan looked at the attacker’s sightless eyes and realised he had killed this boy, but he felt none of the nausea that was supposed to accompany such things and no more regret at having taken such a young life than he would after shooting a snipe. ‘How badly hurt is Thompson?’
‘I’ve seen worse, sir.’ Kelly was stooping over the casualty, who clutched his left side where several rents in his khaki oozed red, blotching the cloth, his face screwed up in pain. ‘He’s got some puncture wounds, but none are deep. Come on, son, on yer feet,’ Sergeant Kelly helped Thompson – who let out a great hiss of pain – to stand up. ‘Get his rifle an’ headdress, Hyde.’
But as the wounded man leant against his sergeant for support, Morgan was suddenly aware that the bellowing throng had gone quiet. Where the people had pressed and crowded about their business, Morgan could now see nothing but a circle of hard, silent faces, only the children showing open-mouthed curiosity, everyone else staring with badly concealed hatred. As he looked at the people, though, the crowd parted and a tall, bearded man, armed with a knife, his black turban tied carelessly in a great, ragged ball, pushed his way to the front.
‘Who’s this bucko, Sar’nt Kelly?’ Morgan asked, distracting him from Thompson.
‘Buggered if I know, sir,’ Kelly noted the deference with which the people seemed to treat the man, ‘but these bastards all seem to know him.’
The lofty newcomer paused for a moment and took in the little knot of the 66th, who had now gathered round their stabbed comrade in a loose, defensive ring, their rifles and bayonets pointing at the crowd. Then he strode over to the boy’s corpse. Morgan had noticed that the child seemed to have shrunk in death; now he was just a tiny pile of stained and dust-soiled rags, whose beaten face lay in a rusty puddle. The tribesman crouched over the body and swiped away a cloud of flies. The mob was still hushed, but as the man stood and turned towards the troops, Morgan found himself gasping almost as audibly as the crowd. Three or four men, all similarly dressed and armed, had jostled to the front; they looked towards their tall leader, apparently waiting for him to give orders.
‘Seems to have brought his gang with him too, Sar’nt Kelly.’ Morgan found himself shuffling backwards towards the others. Now the patrol were practically back to back, facing the surrounding crowd, Thompson moaning softly in their midst.
‘Aye, sir, an’ ’e don’t look too pleased about that nipper we’ve just turned off. Should we load, sir?’ Kelly, so far, had been utterly in control, whether in routine barrack matters or on patrol, available to give sage and discreet advice to his young officer. But now, Morgan realised, as the officer he had to exercise total judgement and leadership. Despite his lack of experience, the men required him to fill the role that his brass stars and station in life suggested. He licked his lips and searched his mind for what Sandhurst might have taught him to do in such circumstances.
The answer was simple: nothing. They’d been told about conventional war, about victories over French and Russians; they’d been shown how to deal with howling masses of ‘savage’ spear-wielding natives, to read maps, to control artillery, and even how to sap and build bridges. But of operations among supposed friends who were actually foes, of how to deal with fanatical, murderous children in the middle of a crowd of civilians while a critical press corps hovered close by, not a thing had been said.
But Morgan was given no more time to ponder. The big warrior turned to his friends, broke the silence with a gabble of words, then dropped his hand to the bone hilt of his foot-long knife and began to draw it. Morgan didn’t even answer his sergeant’s question for he knew that if he was going to act he had to do something fast and decisive. Launching himself over the few yards that separated them, the young officer went as hard as he could for the tribesman, knowing he had one chance only to defeat the bigger man. Once that knife was clear of its sheath, his enemy would strike fast and hard – and that would not only be the signal for his henchmen to attack but for the rest of the crowd to swamp him and his men.
The hours of sword training that Morgan had received were ignored. Fencing at school, then cut and guard under the skill-at-arms instructor, even the first fatal thrust he’d just delivered, were instantly forgotten. Instead, visceral instincts took over and he smashed the hilt of his sword as hard as he could into his opponent’s face, catching him by surprise and sending him sprawling into the gutter next to the cooling child, a welter of limbs and flying robes. Unwittingly, Morgan had done just the right thing. A neat, deft blow might have dealt with his opponent, but he would have fallen with a dignity that inspired the others. This brawling assault made the tribesman look foolish; he dropped almost comically, which gave the patrol just enough time to seize the initiative.
‘Move, Sar’nt Kelly. I’ll hold ’em!’ But even before Morgan had said this, Kelly was leading the others hard into the throng, making for the gate, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, bayonets pricking those who were slow to move, while Thompson was half dragged, half carried with them.
The people were mercifully slow to react. Morgan’s impression as he dashed and turned, sweeping his sword blade from side to side to keep the Kandaharis at bay, was of a cowering bank of flesh and cloth that pressed itself against the town’s walls as he and his men scrambled down the street.
‘Let’s not wait, Sar’nt Kelly, they’re hard behind,’ gasped Morgan, as he caught up with his clutch of men, who had paused to get a better hold on the barely conscious Thompson.
