The General. Max Hastings

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СКАЧАТЬ a vicious and well-directed fire. The air was full of the sound of rifle bullets spitting and crackling past Curzon’s ears as he stood staring through the binoculars. Curzon had an uneasy feeling that they were coming from the flank as well as from the front, and in the absence of certain knowledge he was rapidly falling a prey to the fear that the wily Boers were creeping round to encircle him. A fortnight ago a whole squadron of Lancers – not of his regiment, thank God – had been cut off in that way and forced to surrender, with the result that that regiment was now known throughout South Africa as ‘Kruger’s Own’. Curzon sweated with fear at the thought of such a fate overtaking him. He would die rather than surrender, but – would his men? He looked anxiously along the straggling skirmishing line.

      Troop Sergeant-Major Brown came crawling to him on his hands and knees. Brown was a man of full body, and his face was normally brick-red, but this unwonted exertion under a scorching sun coloured his cheeks like a beetroot.

      ‘Ain’t no orders come for us, sir?’ asked Brown, peering up at him.

      ‘No,’ said Curzon sharply. ‘And stand up if you want to speak to me.’

      Brown stood up reluctantly amid the crackle of the bullets. After twenty years’ service, without having had a shot fired at him, and with his pension in sight, it went against his grain to make a target of himself for a lot of farmers whose idea of war was to lay ambushes behind rocks.

      ‘Come down ’ere, sir, please, sir,’ pleaded Brown in a fever of distress. ‘We don’t want to lose you, sir, too, sir.’

      The loss of the only officer the squadron had left would place Sergeant-Major Brown in command, and Brown was not at all desirous of such a responsibility. It was that consideration which caused Curzon to yield to his solicitations, and to step down into the comparative safety of the depression.

      ‘D’you fink we’re cut orf, sir?’ asked Brown, dropping his voice so as to be unheard by the trumpeters squatting on the rocks at the bottom of the dip.

      ‘No, of course not,’ said Curzon. ‘The infantry will be up in line with us soon.’

      ‘Ain’t no sign of them, is there, sir?’ complained Brown. ‘Expect the beggars are ’eld up somewhere, or lorst their way, or something.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ said Curzon. All his training, both military and social, had been directed against his showing any loss of composure before his inferiors in rank, even if those inferiors should actually be voicing his own fears. He stepped once more to the side of the hollow and stared out over the rolling plain. There was nothing to be seen except the white shrapnel bursts.

      ‘Our orders was to find their flank,’ said Brown, fidgeting with his sword hilt. ‘Looks to me more like as if they’ve found ours.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ repeated Curzon. But just exactly where the Boer firing-line was to be found was more than he could say. Those infernal kopjes all looked alike to him. He looked once more along the line of skirmishers crouching among the rocks, and as he looked he saw, here and there faces turned towards him. That was a bad sign, for men to be looking over their shoulders in the heat of action. The men must be getting anxious. He could hardly blame them, seeing that they had been trained for years to look upon a battle as a series of charges knee to knee and lance in hand against a serried enemy. This lying down to be shot at by hidden enemies a mile off was foreign to their nature. It was his duty to steady them.

      ‘Stay here, sergeant-major,’ he said. ‘You will take command if I’m hit.’

      He stepped out from the hollow, his sword at his side, his uniform spick and span, and walked in leisurely fashion along the firing-line. He spoke to the men by name, steadily and unemotionally, as he reached each in turn. He felt vaguely as he walked that a joke or two, something to raise a laugh, would be the most effective method of address, but he never was able to joke, and as it was his mere presence and unruffled demeanour acted as a tonic on the men. Twice he spoke harshly. Once was when he found Trooper Haynes cowering behind rocks without making any attempt to return the fire, and once was when he found Trooper Maguire drinking from his water-bottle. Water out here in the veldt was a most precious possession, to be hoarded like a miser’s gold, for when there was no more water there would be no fight left in the men.

      He walked down the line to one end; he walked back to the other. Sergeant-Major Brown, peeping out from his hollow, watched his officer’s fearless passage, and, with the contrariness of human nature, found himself wishing he was with him. Then, when Curzon was nearly back in safety again, Brown saw him suddenly swing right round. But next instant he was walking steadily down to the hollow, and only when he was out of sight of the men did he sit down sharply.

      ‘Are you hit, sir?’ asked Brown, all anxiety.

      ‘Yes. Don’t let the men know. I’m still in command.’

      Brown hastily called the squadron first-aid corporal with his haversack of dressings. They ripped open Curzon’s coat and bound up the entrance and exit wounds. The destiny which directs the course of bullets had sent this one clean through the fleshy part of the shoulder without touching bone or artery or nerve.

      ‘I’m all right,’ said Curzon manfully, getting to his feet and pulling his torn coat about him. The arrival of a crawling trooper interrupted Sergeant-Major Brown’s protests.

      ‘Message from Sergeant Hancock, sir,’ said the trooper. ‘Ammunition’s running short.’

      ‘Um,’ said Curzon thoughtfully, and a pause ensued while he digested the information.

      ‘There ain’t fifty rounds left in our troop, sir,’ supplemented the trooper, with the insistence of his class upon harrowing detail.

      ‘All right,’ blazed Curzon irritably. ‘All right. Get back to the line.’

      ‘’Ave to do somethink now, sir,’ said Sergeant-Major Brown as the trooper crawled away.

      ‘Shut up and be quiet,’ snapped Curzon.

      He was perfectly well aware that he must do something. As long as his men had cartridges to fire they would remain in good heart, but once ammunition failed he might expect any ugly incident to occur. There might be panic, or someone might show a white flag.

      ‘Trumpeter!’ called Curzon, and the trumpeter leaped up to attention to receive his orders.

      The squadron came trailing back to the gully where the horses were waiting. The wounded were being assisted by their friends, but they were all depressed and ominously quiet. A few were swearing, using words of meaningless filth, under their breath.

      ‘What about the dead, sir?’ asked Sergeant Hancock, saluting. ‘The captain, sir?’

      The regiment was still so unversed in war as to feel anxiety in the heat of action about the disposal of the dead – a reminiscence of the warfare against savage enemies which constituted the British Army’s sole recent experience. This new worry on top of all the others nearly broke Curzon down. He was on the point of blazing out with ‘Blast the dead,’ but he managed to check himself. Such a violation of the Army’s recent etiquette would mean trouble with the men.

      ‘I’ll see about that later. Get back into your place,’ he said. ‘Prepare to mount!’

      The squadron followed him down the ravine, the useless lances cocked up at each man’s elbow, amid a squeaking of leather and a clashing of iron hoofs on СКАЧАТЬ