The Ravi Lancers (55 page)

At length Warren said grimly, ‘Tell the woordie-major to send a party to clean up this room now, and prepare a burial party for ten o’clock.’

The guns still shook the earth and sky. It was three in the morning, and someone had tried to murder him. Flaherty had had the room across the hall of the little house. Perhaps he, too, had been kept awake by the guns, and had seen someone creeping up the street, to drop a grenade through a broken window, or roll one in through the doorway.

On an impulse Warren pulled on his boots and greatcoat, crossed the street, and entered Krishna Ram’s billet. Hanuman lay sleeping across the door. He sat up, rifle in hand, when Warren stirred him, ordering, ‘Out of the way!’ He followed Warren as Warren entered Krishna’s room, where a hurricane lantern was burning. Krishna Ram was sitting crosslegged on the bed, his palms joined. He looked up, as Warren came in.

‘You keep late hours,’ Warren said.

‘I was meditating, sir.’

‘Did you hear an explosion just now?’

‘The guns?’

‘No. An attempt to murder me. A grenade in my room.’

Krishna Ram said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Flaherty’s dead, trying to save me.’

Krishna muttered, ‘
Dand
, just as the Rawal warned me.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Warren asked belligerently. ‘Something a Brahmin warned me about before I left India--that some of my people might resort to force before I felt compelled to do so myself ... This is what I was talking about in your office, sir. This, that has happened,
could
not have been done by anyone in the regiment a year ago. It--the seed or foetus of it--was not in them then. It has been put there. Please, sir, go to the general. It’s not too late.’

Warren said, ‘When we come back from the attack--if we do--you will find out who murdered Flaherty, and report to me. Meantime, I’m appointing Sher Singh as adjutant, and Dayal Ram to D Squadron.’ He swung out and back to his own room, where he watched a party with buckets and cloths clean up the floor.

Twenty-four hours later the Ravi Lancers were in the communication trenches, moving up. Warren, at the head of the regiment, had thought that surely a path would have been cleared in front of them; but in these first hours of Z Day the trenches seemed to be full of ammunition fatigues, sappers, signallers laying wire, gunner observation groups, and ration parties. He would shuffle twenty paces forward, then stop for ten minutes. Then on again. The rain fell steadily out of a dark and windy night. The bombardment, on which 890,000 shells had been expended so far, continued at the steady pace that had characterized it from its beginning a week ago. Perhaps this was the surprise which he had assured Krishna Ram that the Army Commander would have up his sleeve--to continue the bombardment, to which the Germans must by now have become numbingly accustomed, and attack out of it with no further warning.

The wind was in the south, and there would be no gas; but a group of his men were carrying, strapped to their backs, two of the three German flame throwers captured by Krishna’s last patrol. The third had been used up finding how they worked. He ought, as Flaherty had nervously reminded him, to have sent the weapons back to brigade; but he had said, ‘I’m damned if I will. It isn’t as though Intelligence didn’t know that the Germans had flame throwers. These we’ll keep, and use.’ That would give the enemy a surprise, all right; it might turn the tide in some critical situation.

He plodded forward. Who had tried to kill him that night? Not who had thrown the grenade--in dealing with Indians that was always unimportant--but who had told him, guided him, to do it? Not Krishna; he wanted to overcome Warren alive: triumph over a dead man would have no savour. Pahlwan Ram or Sher Singh, perhaps; they could summon the nerve to do it, if they thought it would save their skins; in the desperation of their funk they would not realize that it was too late for that, with the attack definite and the regiment committed to it. Of the VCOs and men ... very difficult to say. There were too many of them for him to be certain that none was harbouring some secret grudge or hate or fear.

Three o’clock and the attack due to begin at five. He inched forward again. An hour later a white face peered at him and a Canadian voice said, ‘Ravi Lancers? Where’s your CO? ... This way, sir.’ The soldier led him to the dugout of the CO of the battalion they were to pass through for the attack. The Canadian colonel was about the same age as himself. ‘Have a snort,’ he said. ‘Is this goddamn rain ever going to stop?’

He handed Warren a mug half full of whisky, adding, ‘I don’t envy you fellows.’

‘We’ll do it,’ Warren said confidently.

The other looked at him curiously. ‘You think so? I think the Limeys are putting you into the mincer ... Hell, of course you are a Limey. Well, drink that down and I’ll show you the ground.’

Three-quarters of an hour later Warren left the Canadian colonel and went to his command post. Sher Singh was nervous and forgetful as his adjutant, and he wished he could have appointed almost anyone else; but at a time like this the better an officer was, the more he was needed with a squadron.

Krishna Ram came up the communication trench that started immediately behind Warren’s position. ‘The regiment’s all up and ready, sir,’ he said.

‘Ten minutes to go,’ Warren said. The bombardment suddenly doubled, trebled, stepped up to a shattering intensity. The torrent of steel exploded close in front. Curtains of yellow and red flame shook and flashed along the German trenches. Steel splinters whined back overhead and the drone and roar of the incoming shells sounded like a hundred trains rushing simultaneously through an underground station. Shikari began to fidget and whimper at Warren’s feet.

‘This will tell them we’re coming,’ Krishna shouted.

‘Get to your post! ‘ Warren said.

Krishna Ram tramped away. He turned at a few paces, and said, ‘We’re all in the arms of Kali now. The feast of Dussehra has begun ... Good luck, sir.’

‘Good luck,’ Warren repeated automatically. He stooped down and cuffed his dog savagely. ‘Sit still! Quiet!’ Shikari whimpered more loudly, shaken uncontrollably by the thunder of the artillery fire.

Two minutes to zero. The trench was crowded with men, his own ready near the firestep, trench ladders in place, the Canadians pressed back against the parados. The flame thrower detachment was ready in the next bay to the right.

By the glare of the explosions he saw it was zero hour. He blew his whistle, picked up Shikari, lifted him on to the parapet and followed, running quickly up the trench ladder. As he stepped off on to the shattered earth beyond the parapet, Shikari turned and jumped back down into the trench.

‘Come here! ‘ Warren shouted. ‘Heel! Come here ... you bloody coward! ‘

The little dog cowered down, whining. Warren drew his revolver, his head bursting with anger. No one was going to escape, no one, no one. In a bright flash he aimed and pulled the trigger. The fox terrier’s head dissolved into a pulp. Warren turned and began to walk forward. His boot sank three inches into the mud at the first heavy step. A German machine gun began to fire.

The machine gun stopped after firing half a belt, and Warren plodded forward. The first wet streamers of light lining the darkness ahead silhouetted the bowed shapes of sowars trudging ahead of him, distorted pack animals with gas masks, packs, equipment, extra slung cotton ammunition belts, rifle, bayonet and entrenching tool. The ground became increasingly less solid as they entered the zone into which the British artillery had fired a million shells. The pace, instead of the one hundred yards in two and a half minutes which had been allowed for, slowed to a hundred yards in four minutes, or five. The creeping barrage of howitzer fire moved faster than the infantry, gradually outdistancing them. The advance was not at an even pace over the apparently level plain that had shown through the periscopes but a slipping and stumbling, now sliding ten feet into the bottom of huge craters, now splashing through two feet of water in the bottom, then struggling up the other side. Warren shouted at the gunner subaltern beside him, ‘Bring the barrage back closer, Bruington.’

‘I can’t, sir,’ Bruington said. ‘We’re going slowly here, but look...’ He pointed, and Warren saw that some of his men were far ahead on the right. He cursed, but there was no way of slowing them; nor were they doing anything wrong; somehow they alone had managed to keep to the ordained pace. Then, even as he watched, they went down to a man, as though a scythe had swept through long, waving grass. Star shells were bursting in the livid sky and clear ahead, close, Warren saw the gleam of barbed wire ... new, unrusted wire. The machine gun bullets clacked closer in double, quadruple, uncountable hammering streams. My God, he thought, there must be a score of guns firing, apparently untouched by the tremendous bombardment. His men were going down to right and left, either wounded or diving into shell craters or pressing themselves flat into the mud to seek shelter. The advance stopped.

The advance stopped all along the line. Warren went on a few more painful paces and then jumped down into a crater as machine gun fire slashed and spurted all round him. Geysers of muddy water shot up, soaking him to the skin and fouling his trench cap. Pahlwan Ram, Sher Singh, various orderlies and trumpeters and the gunner party followed him into the huge crater. ‘One of the trumpeters killed, sir,’ Pahlwan Ram said. He was trembling, his face pale and his eyes staring at a point past or through Warren; but there was nobody there.

‘Can we get through on the field telephone?’ Warren asked.

‘I’m trying, sir,’ Sher Singh muttered.

‘Our artillery line’s been cut,’ Lieutenant Bruington said. ‘They’re starting counter-battery and harassing fire.’

Then Warren realized that there was a continuous murmur and rustle of shells passing overhead, from the Germans towards the British. Faintly he heard the distant explosions in the British rear and gun areas.

‘Through to brigade,’ Sher Singh said. ‘The general’s on the line.’

Warren seized the headset. He was lying on his back against the steep slope of the crater, his back towards the German lines. The rain slanted into his face and the clouds were turning a darker violet as the light increased.

‘How are you doing?’ The general’s voice was tinny and hiccupy as though the wire was being rapidly broken and rejoined while they talked.

‘Held up, sir ... About two hundred yards short of our objective.’

‘Held up? How ... possible.’

That last word must have been ‘impossible’, Warren thought. He said, ‘Machine guns, not knocked out. Must be twenty firing at the regiment now. Uncut wire ahead.’

‘.. impossible! ... seven days ... heavies..

‘The wire’s there,’ Warren shouted. ‘I’ve seen it.’

‘What ... you ... do?’ the general said. He sounded desperate, as though it were he, not Warren, lying in a hole with machine guns sweeping the ground above as systematically as mowers on a lawn, and shells bursting all around.

‘Try to get forward,’ Warren said.

‘I’ll... heavy artillery support,’ the general said.

‘If they didn’t knock out the machine guns in seven days,’ Warren said, ‘they won’t do it in half an hour now.’ His eye swept the collection of filthy human beings crouched and lying in the crater, and fell on a dafadar with a heavy metal canister on his back. He said into the phone. ‘Wait a minute, please, sir ... Bruington, what direction is the wind?’

The artillery officer scrambled up the crater wall, put out a finger into the storm of steel, and said, ‘South.’

‘Can you put down smoke along the German front?’

‘For about ten minutes. We don’t carry much smoke shell.’ Warren returned to the telephone. ‘Sir, I’m going to attack the nearest machine gun posts in half an hour. We’ll need smoke. The artillery line is cut. Will you please put our FAO through to the gun position via your exchange?’

‘In a minute,’ the general said. ‘How many casualties have you had, Bateman?’

‘I don’t know. We’re all pinned down in shell holes or out in the open.’

‘This ... decisive battle,’ the general said, ‘.. cisive ... stand? All our futures...’

Warren said, ‘I understand, sir.’

He gave the handset to Bruington and sank back against the wall of the crater. He had a clear mental picture of No Man’s Land, the expanse of shell holes, the barbed wire gleaming in thick rows ahead, the humped ruins of Fosse-Garde. The enemy machine guns stopped, all at once. Shells continued to crump and burst all round. Krishna Ram came over the lip of the crater and slid down in. Warren looked at him speculatively. Perhaps the moment had come.

‘I’ve been to both forward squadron HQs,’ Krishna said. ‘They have each had about thirty casualties, nearly half killed. They won’t be able to advance until those machine guns are knocked out, sir.’

Warren nodded without speaking. The squadrons had lost about a third of their strength. He switched his mind back to No Man’s Land, the position of the squadrons, the positions of the Boche machine guns. Ten minutes later he said, ‘Galloper, bring Major Himat Singh here.’

‘I’ll get him,’ Krishna Ram said, ‘I know where he is.’

‘No. You stay here. Show the galloper.’

The galloper ran off, low crouched, and Warren returned to his planning. Soon Major Himat Singh tumbled into the shell hole. Warren said, ‘Himat, Krishna, Bruington--listen. Sher Singh, make notes so we can confirm details if necessary. Pahlwan, listen carefully ... We will knock out the German machine guns with flame throwers. At zero hour C Squadron on the left will advance. The purpose of this is to draw the German machine gun fire to that flank. At zero plus four the artillery will lay down a smoke screen just in front of the German lines in front of B Squadron. At zero plus six, when the smoke screen will be fully effective, B Squadron, with the flame throwers--all under command of Major Krishna Ram--will advance. Their task is to destroy the German machine gun posts. The smoke screen will end at zero plus fourteen, so the task must have been achieved by then ... The success signal for the wiping out of the machine guns will be red over red Very lights, to be fired by you personally, Krishna. On that signal C and the remainder of the regiment will again advance at the double to seize all original objectives. And, Bruington, please open up on the German support trenches with HE and shrapnel on the success signal. Zero hour will be ... 0730. The time now is ... 0705. Synchronize. My headquarters will remain here until we move forward to the captured enemy trench. Any questions?’