Dust and Steel. Patrick Mercer

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СКАЧАТЬ want us to do, sir?’

      ‘He’ll be leading us out to clear them.’ Happily, McGucken was there at Morgan’s elbow, as calm as if it were all a blankfiring exercise. ‘Won’t you, sir? Get yer spikes on, lads.’

      And whilst the clutch of men around them pulled the slender, eighteen-inch-long bayonets from their scabbards and slipped the sockets firmly over the end of their barrels, Morgan collected himself, dragging his blade from his belt and pushing his hand through the sword knot whilst his arse shrivelled tight in an all-too-familiar way. He licked his lips, held the gently curved steel out in front of him and stumbled forward over the greasy verge at the edge of the road and into the long grass beyond.

      ‘Come on, Grenadiers, follow me!’ Morgan’s words seemed to come from a stranger as the little crowd of men surged after him, weapons levelled, half cheering as they crashed over the broken ground.

      His mind raced back to the last time he’d been ambushed at night outside Sevastopol. Then it had been screaming Russians, banging rifles and popping flares. But the enemy was nowhere to be seen now, just the ominous, black tree line that got closer with each clumsy stride.

      ‘There’s the bastards…there. Fire, lads.’ Ormond’s breathless voice came from somewhere behind Morgan, as drab spectral figures paused, snatched at bowstrings and scrambled away into the depths of the forest before the troops could close with them.

      A covey of arrows flickered harmlessly around as a handful of rifles crashed, the yellow flashes instantly lighting up the night, giving just a glimpse of lithe, running shadows, one of which was flung onto its face as if by the swipe of a giant’s hand.

      ‘Got ’im,’ McGucken growled with satisfaction, the cloud of powder smoke hanging heavily amongst the leaves and branches. ‘Stop here, lads. Don’t chase ’em, they’re not for catching, now.’

      Morgan reached for a tree trunk for support as he sucked for breath, his sword suddenly leaden. ‘Get the men reloaded, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Experience had taught him that, at least.

      ‘Aye, sir,’ McGucken replied. ‘You heard the officer,’ even as he pushed around looking for his quarry in the undergrowth as a sportsman might search for a downed woodcock.

      ‘’Ere ’e is, Jock…bus.’ Sergeant Ormond had been in more bloody scrimmages with the colour-sergeant than either could count and was allowed such familiarity. Now he kneeled, parting the grass so that the moonlight might let him see just what the enemy looked like.

      ‘Skinny little runt,’ said Ormond as Morgan and McGucken clustered round. ‘Nice shot, though, right through the neck.’

      It was difficult for Morgan to see much in the dark; all he could make out was a man not much bigger than a child wearing a dirty grey dhoti from which stuck stick-thin legs and bare muddy feet. Stained teeth were visible under a wispy moustache, lank hair covered much of his face, whilst blood, black by the light of the moon, still pumped from a long gash that ran from under his left ear across to his windpipe.

      ‘Yon’s no sepoy, is ’e, sir?’ McGucken held up a slender curved bow that he’d pulled from the dead man’s hand.

      ‘Certainly doesn’t look like it, Colour-Sar’nt. He’s no uniform or belts on him. More like a common badmash, I’d say,’ replied Morgan.

      But before the professional debate began over exactly what sort of man it was that McGucken had reduced to cold meat, a gale of shouting and frightened trumpeting from the elephants that towed the heavy ammunition carts broke out from the column waiting on the road behind them.

      Morgan began to run through the brush, back towards the road, the noise of the elephants being joined by a strange, feral squealing.

      ‘Come on, then, get after the company commander.’ McGucken chivvied the troops into a stumbling run, away from the dead man at whom they had all been gawping. ‘Watch out for any of these rogues hidin’ in the grass.’

      But the danger came from quite a different source. When the column stopped, the elephants had jammed themselves tightly together at the rear of the line behind the guns and just in front of the spare oxen and some dhoolies carrying the sick. Here the track was deeply sunken, its banks reaching up five feet or more, effectively penning in the animals and their burdens.

      ‘Get out of the way!’ Morgan, at the head of his panting men, had been able to make out the forms of the six elephants wildly swaying about, trunks outstretched, trumpeting deafeningly in the night, stamping and stomping at something that shrieked beneath their feet. Now, one of the huge beasts came lumbering over the bank straight towards the group of soldiers, mighty ears flapping wildly, tusks thrashing left and right, its mahout clutching helplessly to its neck as its ammunition cart floundered after it. As the monstrous thing cut a swathe through the running troops so a wheel came off the caisson, which slewed round, spilling great, black, 24-pound howitzer rounds, which bounced through the grass.

      ‘Oh, ow…’ yelled Private James. ‘It’s broke me leg!’ as he was bowled over like a skittle by one of the iron shot, which knocked his feet from under him.

      ‘They’re pigs, sir.’ McGucken had dodged the blundering grey form and now stood on the edge of the bank just feet from the other plunging elephants, looking down at a dozen shrieking, darting forms, ghostly pale in the night. ‘The elephants are terrified of ’em – so’s the natives. Where the fuck have they come from?’

      He was right. Morgan saw how the squeals of the pigs were tormenting the elephants, who were trying to rid themselves of their attackers with tusks and vast stamping feet, which, in turn were making the pigs even more petrified and noisy. Meanwhile, the Hindu civilians and military drivers had gathered in an appalled huddle on the opposite side of the road, aghast and helpless as the unclean creatures ran amok.

      ‘God knows. Kill the bloody things, lads.’ Morgan leaped down amongst the huge, stamping, grey, leathery feet, immediately regretting his decision. ‘But don’t shoot, stab the sods.’

      This is no way to die, he thought as an enormous pad with nails the size of trowels thumped into the earth just inches from him, and just look at those nuts – as a scrotum the size of a bag of flour swung past his face. It’ll look just grand on the Court and Social page:…‘gallant fate at the head of his men; bashed to death by an elephant’s bollocks whilst trying to sabre a swine.’

      Eventually they finished the job. Private Saint had his foot run over by the wheel of the battery’s forge wagon, Sergeant Ormond was brushed sideways by an elephantine knee, but the pigs were finally subdued by the blades of the men and order restored to the terrified leviathans.

      ‘What d’you suppose that was about, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan sat on the bank by the track, as the first light of dawn turned the black sky to turtle-dove grey.

      ‘Oldest trick in the book, apparently, sir. One of the gunner naiks was tellin’ me that everyone knows that elephants and pigs are shit-scared of each other an’ if yous want to stampede the big buggers you just release a few wee porkers around their feet,’ answered McGucken.

      ‘Well, there we are; they didn’t teach us that back at the depot, did they, Colour-Sar’nt? Still, it shows the Pandies have got a deal of sense. If they could have knocked the guns out, or just destroyed the ammunition, we’d be in queer street,’ Morgan reasoned. ‘What damage is done?’

      ‘Not much, sir. A fodder camel’s down, some oxen have bolted an’ СКАЧАТЬ