Red Runs the Helmand. Patrick Mercer

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СКАЧАТЬ into line. ‘Halt . . . dismount. Prepare to skirmish.’ None of the words of command came as a surprise as the five dozen cavalrymen dropped from saddle to ground, secured their lances, passed their reins to every fourth man – the horse holders – and pulled their Sniders from the long leather buckets strapped to the saddle beside their stirrup leathers. But a covey of shots whacked through the leafless branches above Keenan’s head, just as his first foot touched the ground, showering him with chips of bark and wood.

      ‘Ah, sahib, it is you the Duranis want – they have heard the great shikari has come for them at last!’ Of all the native NCOs, only Daffadar Sayed Miran had the confidence and fluency to mock a British officer – however gently. The whole troop had watched Keenan fail to knock down a single duck when they’d been encamped by a lake two weeks ago, although he’d expended much powder and shot. So his reputation as a great hunter – or shikari – had been stillborn, and the troops chuckled at the jest.

      ‘That’s as maybe, Daffadar sahib, but I want the boys to line that bank yonder, load and make ready.’ Keenan was more interested in having his men in place and looking for targets before either of the other two troops than in his sergeant’s humour. He was gratified to see how easily the men moved, sheathed sabres pulled back in their left hands, carbines at the trail in their right, each man looking for a good position from which to reply to those who had dared to fire at their sahib.

      ‘Where d’you think that fire came from, Daffadar sahib?’ Keenan had thrown himself down on a dusty bank topped with coarse grass that was deep in the shadow of the trees. He and his men would be difficult to see in cover like this and he pulled his binoculars from the pouch on his belt to scan the ground in front of him.

      ‘I don’t know yet, sahib – but our infantry are moving up on something.’ Miran pointed slowly so as not to draw the enemy’s eye with any sudden movement, indicating twenty or so khaki-clad men from the 29th who were making their way along the muddy banks of a stream about three hundred paces in front of the squadron.

      Keenan admired the way that Captain Reynolds had interpreted the colonel’s orders for the rearguard. Where he’d chosen to dismount his men allowed him not just a covered position, but a dominating view over the rest of the shallow valley below them. A stand of high trees surrounded a scatter of ruined, weather-beaten buildings at the edge of some unusually verdant fields just to their front, before the valley rose grandly to their south against a powder-blue sky into a series of jagged foothills that dominated the far horizon. If nothing else, the last three months in the field had taught Keenan how to read the ground. Now he could see that while the slope below looked smooth and ideal for mounted work, shadowy folds could easily hide ditches or even wide nullahs that could protect them from any enemy horse, but also make a quick descent to the lower ground very difficult.

      ‘There, sahib, look.’ Miran had spoken even before the reports of several rifle shots reached their ears. He’d seen the billows of smoke of the enemy riflemen who had fired at them a few minutes before from the cover to their front, as the next volley sang harmlessly around their heads. ‘The infantry wallahs have found them – see.’

      ‘Yes, the Twenty-ninth are on to it, and the Duranis ain’t seen them yet.’ The winter sun caught the long, thin blades as the turbaned Beloochi infantrymen fixed bayonets, invisible to their enemies in the brush on the bank above them.

      ‘Three fifty, aim at the muzzle smoke.’ Captain Reynolds gave the range to the squadron. ‘Volley on my order, then fire by troop sequence.’

      Keenan knew that sixty rounds all at once from the short Snider carbines should throw the enemy into disarray. Then a steady ripple of rounds would allow the infantry to close in without taking casualties, although, at this range, none of the fire would be precise.

      The breech-traps of the Sniders snapped closed. The men fiddled with the iron ramp sights, then cuddled the butts against the shoulder and settled into their firing positions. Keenan watched as the khaki dolls began to clamber out of the ditch before Reynolds gave the order, ‘Fire!’ and every man bucked to the kick of his weapon. Dust flew; twigs and dry leaves were thrown about as the volley struck home.

      ‘Two Troop, reload, three fifty, await my order,’ Keenan yelled, just as if he were at the butts. This was the first time he’d given orders designed to kill other human beings, but he was at such a distance from the damage he was trying to inflict that it all felt remarkably innocent, really no different from an exercise. ‘Wait for One Troop, lads.’ Keenan didn’t want any of his men from 2 Troop to fire prematurely – they would be a laughing-stock if that happened. But as the men to his left fired, so the 29th rushed forward, weapons outstretched. Suddenly his men’s sights were full of their own people, charging home amid the thicket.

      ‘Wait, Two Troop!’ One or two of his men looked up from the aim towards him, uncertain whether they had understood the English orders. ‘Switch right . . . fire!’ Much to his relief, every round flew to the flank of the attacking infantry, scything through the brush where further enemy could be sheltering.

      ‘Stop . . . Cease fire. Reload, One and Two Troops. Prepare for new targets.’ Reynolds and all of them could hear the 29th’s rifles popping in the thicket and see their figures darting about, bayonets rising and falling.

      After the crashing noise all about him, Keenan noticed the sudden quiet. Odd shouts and NCOs’ brass-lung commands could still be heard on the cool air, but his first taste of action had been disappointingly ordinary.

      ‘Check ammunition, Daffadar sahib,’ Keenan ordered needlessly, for the experienced Miran was already overseeing his lance daffadars doing just that. But as the scene of military domesticity took shape around him, men reaching into pouches, oily rags being drawn over breeches and hammers, a strange sing-song shout echoed up from the low ground in front of them.

      ‘Dear God . . .’ said Reynolds, as every man in the squadron saw what he had seen. ‘Trumpeter, blow “horses forward, prepare to mount”.’ Less than half a mile to their front, a great swarm of tribesmen, dirty blue and brown turbans and kurtas, some armed with rifles, all with swords and miniature round shields, crowded out of a courtyard where they had been lying hidden and rushed towards the platoon of the 29th, who were distracted by the Afghans with whom they were already toe-to-toe.

      ‘How many of those bastards are there, Daffadar sahib?’ Keenan asked. He knew that the bugle call was as much about warning the commanding officer, who was at least a mile away, of Reynolds’s intentions as it was about getting the squadron ready to attack.

      ‘Bastards, sahib? Do you know these Duranis’ mothers?’ Keenan marvelled at the daffadar’s ability to joke at a time like this. ‘About five hundred – Reynolds sahib is going to charge them, is he not?’

      His daffadar had obviously read the battle much better than he had, thought Keenan. A charge – the horse soldier’s raison d’être – in this his first taste of action? Yes, he could see it now. If his squadron was swift and sure-footed, and the commanding officer had the rest of the regiment trimmed and ready to support them, even sixty of them could cut up the tribesmen from a vantage-point like this. Scrambling over the dust and grit, Keenan was pleased to see his syce first at the rear of the little wood, holding his stirrup ready for him to mount even before the rest of the troop’s horses began to arrive.

      ‘Troop, form column,’ Keenan used the orders straight from the manual that he knew his men understood, as 1 and 3 Troops went through exactly the same evolutions on either side of his men. His command, ‘NCOs, dress them off,’ saw much snapping and biting from the two daffadars and Miran, but his troopers were almost ready to move before the squadron leader and his trumpeter had come trotting breathlessly through the brush.

      Captain СКАЧАТЬ