Dust and Steel. Patrick Mercer

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СКАЧАТЬ Pandies. An’ the natives reckon that judging by the archer we got, the whole thing was probably the work o’ rebels from one of the maharajah’s armies up north, not reg’lar sepoys.’

      ‘So, irregular rebels, not regular rebels…Hmm, this is going to be even more confusing than I thought. Anyway, let’s get moving once that wheel’s fixed. We’ll find some water up ahead, get everything square and bed down for the day.’ Morgan tapped his pipe out on the heel of his muddy boot. ‘But we’ll have to be more alert in close country if we don’t want to get caught like that again.’

      ‘You all right, Pete, Jono?’ Lance-Corporal Pegg pushed through the brush into the small clearing where Privates Sharrock and Beeston were sitting behind a modest ant hill as sentries for the column that rested in the midday heat behind them.

      ‘Aye, we’re sound as a bell, Corp’l. Too much bloody staggin’, though,’ Beeston replied dolefully.

      Since the ambush the day before, Morgan had ordered that the sentries should be doubled, so cutting by half the small amount of sleep that the men were getting during the day.

      ‘Well, I’ve got Jimmy here to replace you, Jono, so you’ll soon be rolled up snug; mek the most on it.’ The men were posted for two-hour shifts, a fresh sentry being brought forward by a junior NCO every hour to replace one of them, so minimising the likelihood, at least in theory, that a pair of sentries would fall asleep at the same time. The burden, though, fell heavily upon the lance-corporals and corporals, who got little rest.

      ‘If I’m on me chin-strap, I bet you’re half dead, ain’t you, Corp’l?’ The new sentry posted, Beeston and Pegg were walking back to the column down a narrow track.

      ‘Well, I’ve ’ad more restful times, but double sentries is always a pain in the ring, ain’t it?’ Pegg replied.

      ‘Wasn’t the sentries I were thinking about, Corp’l.’ Beeston’s darkly tanned face lit into a smile. ‘It was that dhobi bint that you’re a-poking.’

      ‘Less o’ that, you cheeky sod.’ Though only twenty, Pegg was more than capable of pulling rank with older, more experienced men when it suited him. ‘Anyway, she’s not just a bint, she’s—’

      ‘Hush, Corp’l, what’s that noise?’ Beeston cut across Pegg’s retort, freezing in his steps and pulling the hammer back on his rifle, raising the butt to the shoulder.

      Pegg must have missed the low gurgling snuffle amongst the hum and click of insects as he’d walked up the track with the new sentry a few minutes before. But now, as both men listened intently, the noise came again.

      ‘What d’you reckon it is, Jono?’ asked Pegg, as he too brought his weapon up to the shoulder.

      ‘Dunno. Sounds like a man, though, Corp’l,’ answered Beeston. ‘There, it’s coming from over there.’

      Slowly, hesitantly, the two soldiers crept forward off the track and into the thicket as the rasping moan came again.

      ‘Bloody hell, they’ve made a job on him, ain’t they?’ Jono Beeston murmured as they both looked at the torn form of a man who was tied to a tree trunk. His naked feet stuck out below his crumpled knees; the only clothes he now wore were the blood-stained overalls of the Bombay Horse Artillery, whilst from his shoulders great strips of flesh had been flayed away from the purply muscle and fatty tissue that lie below the skin. His head lolled on his slashed chest, his topknot was now undone and the hair hung down in a curtain around his face.

      ‘’E’s not long for this world, poor owd lad.’ Pegg gently lifted the Indian gunner’s chin and pulled one eyelid open. ‘Let’s get ’im cut down an’ carried back.’

      The pair of them slung their rifles and lifted the man by armpits and knees, the way they’d carried a hundred casualties in the past, trudging back down the uneven path.

      ‘Bring him here, lads.’ McGucken had been about to visit the sentries himself when he saw Pegg and Beeston with their load. ‘Who is he?’

      ‘One of the artillery drivers, Colour-Sar’nt,’ Pegg puffed as they lay him on the ground as gently as possible. ‘Found ’im tied to a tree over yonder.’

      ‘Aye, he must be the boy who disappeared yesterday.’ McGucken bent down, pulled a tiny round shaving mirror from his haversack and held it against the man’s lips. ‘No, he’s bus. Well done for bringing him in though, lads. Nip over an’ tell the gunners, will you, Beeston.’ McGucken was matter-of-fact; he’d seen too many dead men to be affected by another. ‘They’ll want to get ’im burnt before we move on; poor sod.’

      ‘Mek’s you wonder though, Colour-Sar’nt, what this is all about, don’t it?’ Pegg and McGucken stared down at the grisly sight; the blood on the man’s shoulders where the flesh had been stripped away had started to congeal as death arrived, whilst flies crawled thickly over his eyes, lips and nostrils.

      ‘All that stuff about God’s mercy from Mr Canning that the officers lectured us about on the ship – ’as anyone told the fuckin’ Pandies to behave like Christians?’ Pegg asked.

      ‘Doesn’t seem like Christmas, does it, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan tramped alongside McGucken, the whining of the bullock-cart wheels deadened only by the incessant buzz of flies.

      ‘No, sir, it doesna,’ replied McGucken, routinely swiping at the insects. ‘They’ll be punishin’ the grog back home, just gettin’ the measure o’ things for Hogmanay. What’ll be happenin’ back in Cork?’

      What indeed? wondered Morgan. He remembered his mother’s excitement when he was a boy whilst they covered Glassdrumman – the ‘big house’, as the servants would have it – in holly and pine cones; how she’d insisted on following the latest fashion from London by bringing an eight-foot fir tree into the hall and covering it with glass balls (to be greeted by, ‘Balls, indeed’, from his scowling father) bought at vast expense from Dublin. What would Maude (how pregnant would she be now?) be doing tonight, and how would Mary be spending the season of goodwill up in Jhansi – assuming she and Sam (what did the lad look like, was he sturdy, like him, or willowy like his mother?) were as safe as Keenan had assured him they would be?

      ‘Will you listen to that, sir!’ McGucken interrupted his thoughts with a delighted laugh.

      Just in sight, a mile away, rose the mud and brick fort of Deesa, the only European station for miles around, which it had taken them over four weeks of blistering, tedious marching to reach. Their only excitement had been the botched ambush two weeks before; now, as the heat started to make the dawn light wobble and the horizon to dip and rise, as the kites wheeled above them and the camels hawked and farted, the sound of a brass band came wafting down the breeze.

      ‘Ha…damn me, it’s “Good King Wenceslas”, ain’t it?’ Morgan smiled.

      ‘Aye, sir, “…where the snow lay round about, Deep an’ crisp an’ even,” – some bugger’s got a sense o’ humour.’

      And so they had. The artillery and its escort of the 95th was the last part of the column to reach Deesa, and as they approached they could see the white-jacketed musicians of the 86th under their German bandmaster, and a neat quarter guard in scarlet presenting arms whilst the guns, carts and limbers rumbled and groaned through the gates.

      ‘Makes you realise just how bloody scruffy we’ve СКАЧАТЬ