The Far Pavilions (130 page)

They raced on for five hundred yards, and then, pulling up, unlimbered the guns and opened fire at extreme range on the serried masses of the enemy on the heights.

The brilliance of the afternoon sunlight dimmed the flash of the explosions to no more than a fractional glitter, but in that hot stillness the smoke formed a wall that looked as white and as solid as cotton wool, and the bare hillsides threw back the sudden crash of sound and sent it reverberating round the valley until the very air seemed to shudder to it. Wally's charger, Mushki, threw up her head and backed a little, snorting. But the tribesmen on the heights jeered as the shells fell short, and fired their muskets in reply, while some, on the right, advanced boldly under cover of a ridge, bearing the red standard with them.

Seeing them move, the gunners instantly limbered up and galloped back to their original position, and the whole line, cavalry and artillery together, retreated a few hundred yards down the slope. It was enough. As the General had surmised, the sight of the small British force in apparent retreat proved too tempting for the undisciplined tribesmen.

Convinced that the sight of their own immensely superior numbers had struck terror into the hearts of this foolhardy handful of
Kafirs,
and seeing both gun-teams and cavalry running away, they threw all caution to the winds, and shouting exultantly, poured out from behind their entrenchments to race down the slope in an enormous, savage tidal wave of yelling humanity, brandishing banners, muskets and tulwars as they came.

Below them a second trumpet-call cut shrilly through the thunder of retreating hoof beats and the triumphant shouts of the racing thousands, and hearing it, the cavalry pulled up and wheeled to face the enemy, while the guns unlimbered again and sprayed the converging hordes with grape-shot.

A moment later a distant rattle of musketry on the far left told that the toiling infantry had reached their objective unseen, and were attacking the enemy's flank. But the yelling Khugianis did not hear it; nor did they slow their pace, though by now they were within range of the guns. Crazed with the lust for battle – or the prospect of Paradise, which is assured to all those who slay an infidel – they paid no heed to grape-shot or carbine bullets, but came on as though each man ran a race with his neighbour for the honour of getting first at the foe.

‘
Whoa
, girl!’ exhorted Wally softly, steadying the mare and breathing short as he peered ahead through the dust and smoke, eyes narrowed against the glare, at that awe-inspiring torrent of fierce, eager fighting-men rushing towards the guns. He found himself mentally counting the distance: six hundred yards… five hundred…four…

The sun was fire-hot on his shoulders and he could feel the sweat crawling down his face from under his pith helmet, but an ice-cold shiver tingled down his spine, and the joy of a born fighter burned in his eyes as he began to sing under his breath. ‘Forward into battle, see our banners go!’ crooned Wally joyously.

He glanced away from the on-coming multitude and saw the officer in command of the artillery turn and cup his hands about his mouth to shout to the waiting cavalry: ‘This is my last round at them,’ yelled Major Stewart, ‘and then it's your turn.’

Wigram Battye, who had been sitting relaxed and motionless in the saddle, out in front of his command, transferred the reins to his left hand and laid his right upon the hilt of his sabre. He did so without haste, and his Guides smiled grimly as they followed their Commanding Officer's example, and braced themselves, waiting.

The guns fired again. This time with deadly effect as the shrapnel tore great swathes through the close-packed masses of the enemy. And as the sound died, Wigram's right arm jerked upward, and from the waiting lines behind him came the answering rasp and glitter of steel as his two hundred men drew their sabres. He barked a command, and with a deafening cheer the cavalry charged…

They came at the enemy with the impetus of a four-hundred-yard gallop. Knee to knee, the sunlight flashing on their sabres. And now at last the triumphant Khugianis checked and looked back over their shoulders at the entrenchments behind and above them, realizing too late that it had been a fatal mistake to leave their defences on the plateau and allow themselves to be caught out in the open, since being on foot they had no hope of regaining the safety of their entrenchments before the cavalry overtook them. There was nothing for it but to stay and fight. And they did so: standing fast and firing again and again into the charging phalanx of horsemen.

In every battle the chances are that those most closely involved see only a small part of the whole; and as far as Wally was concerned, this one was no exception.

He knew that somewhere ahead and out of sight the infantry must be in action, for he had heard them firing; and also that the 10th Hussars would have charged at the same moment as the Guides. But the Hussars were on the right of the line, beyond the Horse Artillery; and as he had neither the time nor the attention to spare for anything beyond his own squadron and the enemy ahead, for him the battle, from first to last, was confined to what he himself saw – which in turn was restricted by the dust and the confusion of fighting, struggling, yelling men.

The charge had carried the Guides to within a hundred and fifty yards of the enemy when he heard the vicious crackle of muskets and felt the wind of bullets that sang past him like a swarm of angry bees: and saw his Commanding Officer's charger, stretched at full gallop, come crashing down, shot through the heart.

Wigram pitched over its head, rolled clear and was on his feet in an instant. Only to stumble and fall again as a second musket ball smashed into his thigh.

Instinctively, seeing their leader fall, the Sikhs gave the wailing cry of their race and pulled up, and Wally too reined in savagely, his face suddenly white.

‘What the hell are you stopping for?’ blazed Wigram furiously, struggling to rise. ‘I'm all right. I'll come on directly. Take ‘em on, Walter! – don't mind me.
Take ‘em on, boy
!’

Wally did not pause to argue. He turned in the saddle, and shouting to the squadrons to follow him, flourished his sabre about his head, and with a wild Irish yell spurred forward up the slope towards the waiting enemy, the Guides thundering at his heels and shouting as they rode. The next minute, with the shock of wave meeting wave in a tide-race, the two forces crashed together in a pandemonium of dust and din, and Wally found himself in the thick of the smother, hacking left and right with his sabre as wild-eyed men rushed at him howling war-cries and curses and swinging great curved swords.

He sent one down with half his face cut away, and as the mare stumbled over the fallen body, heard the man's skull crack like an egg-shell; and wrenching Mushki to her feet, urged her forward, singing at the top of his voice and laying about him the while in the manner of a huntsman whipping off hounds. All around him men were shouting and cursing in a fog of dust and smoke that stank of sulphur and sweat and black powder and the cloying scent of fresh blood. Knives and sabres flashed and fell and men fell with them, while wounded horses reared up with flailing hooves, neighing with rage and terror, or bolted riderless through the mêlée, trampling down all who stood in their way.

The solid mass of the enemy had been shattered into fragments by the impact of the cavalry charging headlong into it, and now the Khugianis were fighting in small groups, clinging tenaciously to the grassy, stone-strewn slope and standing their ground with fanatical courage. Wally caught a brief glimpse of Zarin, teeth clenched in a ferocious grin as he drove the point of his sabre into the throat of a shrieking
ghazi,
and of Risaldar Mahmud Khan – his right arm hanging useless and his sabre gone, holding his carbine left-handed and wielding it like a club.

Here and there in the press small whirlpools formed about an unhorsed sowar, defending himself with all the ferocity of a wounded boar against the tribesmen who circled about him, waiting for an opportunity to slash at him with knife or tulwar. One such, Sowar Dowlat Ram, had become entangled with his fallen charger, and the three Khugianis who had brought the horse down rushed in to kill its rider as he struggled to free himself from the dying animal. But Wally had seen him fall and now he charged to the rescue, whirling his blood-stained sabre and shouting ‘
Daro mut
, Dowlat Ram!
Tagra ho jao,
jawan!
Shabash
!’
*

The three Khugianis turned as one to meet the yelling thunderbolt that fell upon them. But Wally had the advantage of being mounted, and he was the better swordsman. His sabre took one man across the eyes and swept on and down to shear through the sword arm of the second; and as the first fell backward, blind and screaming, Dowlat Ram, still trapped by one foot, reached out and caught him by the throat, while Wally parried a wild blow from the third, and with a swift backhand cut, sliced through the man's neck, all but severing it from the crouching body.

‘
Shabash,
Sahib!’ applauded Dowlat Ram, freeing himself with a last frantic kick and scrambling to his feet. ‘That was well done indeed. But for you I would now be a dead man.’ He lifted his hand in salute and Wally said breathlessly: ‘You will be yet, if you aren't careful. Get back to the rear.’

He jerked his revolver from its holster and put a bullet through the head of the thrashing horse, and wheeling Mushki, plunged back into the fray, using the maddened waler as a battering ram and shouting encouragement to his jawans, calling on them to avenge the wounding of Battye-Sahib and dispatch these sons of noseless mothers to Jehanum (hell).

The Khugianis were still holding their ground and fighting fiercely, but there was little shooting now; after the first volley few found time to reload, and in the frenzy and turmoil of battle, firearms had become a liability as it was not possible to ensure that a bullet intended for an enemy would not bring down a friend. Many were using their muskets as clubs, but one man at least, a Khugiani Chief, had taken time to reload.

Wally saw the musket aimed at him and flung himself to one side: and as the bullet whipped past him, he put spurs to Mushki and rode at the man with his dripping sabre. But this time he had met his match. The Khugiani Chief was a skilled fighter and far quicker on his feet than the three tribesmen who had brought down Dowlat Ram. Unable to reload, he stood his ground, ducked the sabre stroke by dropping to his knees, and as the mare plunged past, struck upwards with a long Afghan knife.

The razor-sharp blade sliced through Wally's riding boot, but barely scratched his skin, and he dragged the mare back on her haunches and wheeled to attack again; the same fierce joy of battle in his young face as on the eager bearded one of the hardened fighter who crouched, white teeth showing in a tigerish grin, waiting for him. Once again the Chief dropped to avoid the blow, and as it missed him he sprang to his feet like a coiled spring released and ran in, the knife in one hand and a wicked curved tulwar in the other.

Wally only just managed to swing the mare round in time to parry the attack, and the Chief leapt back and stood ready, poised on his toes, his knees .a little bent and his sinewy body swaying as a king cobra sways before it strikes, alert to duck again, and holding his weapons low so that when his adversary spurred forward he could strike at the easier target of the waler's legs or belly and bring down horse and rider both.

By now the duel had drawn a circle of watching tribesmen who, momentarily forgetting the larger issues, stood back, knives in hand, waiting to see their champion slay the
feringhi.
But the Chief made the mistake of repeating a successful manoeuvre once too often, and this time when Wally attacked he made allowance for it: he too aimed lower, striking at the body instead of the head. And when once again the Chief dropped to his knees to avoid the blow, the edge of the heavy cavalry sabre sheared through his left temple and he fell sideways, his bearded face a mask of blood. His tulwar scratched the mare's flank as he fell, and when Mushki reared up, screaming, the tribesmen who had rushed in as they saw him fall – and who would not have given way before that dripping sabre – scattered in the face of those murderous hooves and let horse and rider through.

Minutes later, and without warning, the tide turned.

The massed ranks of the enemy broke and scores of Khugianis turned and ran, racing desperately for the safety of their entrenchments on the plateau. And as the cavalry plunged forward, cutting and slashing as they went, the scores became hundreds, and then thousands: and the battle turned into a rout…

‘Gone away –!’ yelled Wally, hatless and triumphant: ‘
Shabash,
jawans!
Maro
!
Maro
!
Khalsa-ji ki jai
!’ And gathering the scattered squadrons together, he stood up in his stirrups and gave the order: ‘Gallop! –
Hamla Karo
!’

The Guides obeyed, spurring recklessly forward up the long sweep of broken ground, until suddenly Wally saw for the first time something that had been hidden from him by the rise of the ground. And seeing it his heart seemed to stop.

Between the base of the steeper ground that fell sharply away below the rim of the plateau and the spot where the slope began to level out lay a natural obstacle that presented a far worse hazard than the man-made breastworks of loose rock and stone above: a deep gash in the hillside, running parallel to the rim, cut long ago by some mountain torrent that had dried up and left behind a welter of stones at the bottom of a sheer drop of eight or nine feet. On its far side the hill rose steeply, and along the crest stood the entrenchments – now filling again with wild-eyed tribesmen who turned to howl defiance and fire down into the pursuing cavalry.

It was a sight calculated to daunt many a better and more experienced soldier than young Lieutenant Hamilton. But Wally was drunk with the intoxicating frenzy of battle and he did not hesitate. He used his spur on Mushki, who leapt down into the gulf and bounded across the stones. And behind him, in a wild, slithering, shouting confusion, poured the Guides.