Dust and Steel Read online

  As he pulled the bit of clay from his mouth, Morgan noticed the claw that held it. Two canister shot had passed through that hand as Bazalgette led the advance on the bullet-swept slopes of the Alma almost three years ago; now it was permanently clenched into a pink, scaly comma that Bazalgette never bothered to hide.

  ‘You saw the three native battalions on the march, I gather. They’re armed but have no ammunition, just in case they decide to turn on us. Three men, one from each battalion, are currently being court-martialled by the colonel for attempted mutiny and it seems likely that some or all of them will be condemned to death.’ Morgan looked at the three faces that were gathered around him; he had their complete attention.

  ‘A troop of Bombay gunners should meet us at the Azad maidan. I’m sending an escort to the commanding officer to bring anyone that he condemns down to the execution site, and we’ll then have to blow the poor wretches from the muzzles of the guns whilst their comrades watch.’ Morgan looked at his brother officers. All of them had seen death before, but never an execution.

  ‘It’s crucial that we don’t give an inch in front of these people. Any hesitation, any sign of uncertainty, could be enough for them to rise, so we’ll put one gun between each of the companies, let the gunners load and allow the sepoys to chew on that for a while. Then, as the prisoners are tied to the muzzles by the gunners, I’ll give the order for us to load…’ Morgan paused to let this instruction sink in, ‘…and I want that good and clean, no dropping of cartridges or ramrods. Then, at my word, the front rank will kneel. Any sign of unrest and we’ll volley into the lot of ’em, but that will only happen on my or the commanding officer’s order, is that clear?’ Morgan looked hard and deliberately into Carmichael’s eyes.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bazalgette and Massey replied formally, whilst Carmichael just nodded.

  Morgan produced his watch from the breast of his shell jacket. ‘We’ll march at five-and-twenty past, at attention. No smoking, if you please. Any questions? None…right, carry on.’

  Only Carmichael failed to acknowledge Morgan’s new authority with a salute. He turned stiffly away from the group, striding off to his own command as quickly as he could, his whole beautifully tailored frame stiff with indignation, little puffs of dust spurting up from his boots where his angry heels met the ground.

  Belts were settled, haversacks pulled down on the men’s sweat-damp thighs and water bottles hung carefully in a vain attempt to cool the small of the back before rifles were sloped over the right shoulder and the whole wing, at Morgan’s word, turned to the right and swung off down the gently sloping packed-earth road towards their unwelcome task.

  ‘Goin’ to blow some poor bastards to kingdom come, ain’t they, Clem?’ Private Peter Sharrock, twenty-one and at five-foot nine an average height in the Grenadier Company, was the product of a Peterborough slum. Bored with milling powder for the Crimea, he’d enlisted, but too late for any fighting.

  Next to him marched Private Clem James, an old man at twenty-five, no stranger to hard knocks. ‘No, Peter, that’s the ’ole bleedin’ point.’ There was an almost theatrical impatience in James’s voice. ‘There’ll be no kingdom come for this lot if we blow ’em to bits. Buggers up their caste system, ’avin’ to ’ave all the little bits picked up by the sweepers – an’ they’re the lowest of the low – an’ means that they’ll never go to their ’eathen ’eaven. Punishes ’em twice, it does, first by killin’ them, then by condemnin’ ’em to eternal damnation or some such…’

  ‘Sharrock, James: shut yer grids!’ McGucken’s bellow silenced both men instantly. ‘Report to me for water detail once we stand down.’ Each night parties would be formed to find and collect water, a back-breaking task.

  The column tramped on with the sun beating on their backs. Morgan had been aware of a steady trickle of people loping down the road beside them, mainly men young and old, but a handful of women as well. As they came round a slight bend that was screened by low trees, he heard the same, discordant hum that had greeted them when their boats first touched Bombay’s quay. This time, though, it was lower, more of a subdued growl than the pulsating shriek that he’d heard before.

  About a quarter of a mile away, where the ground flattened out into a great featureless parched meadow, a multicoloured slab of humanity eddied and wobbled, hemmed in by a deep drainage ditch on one side and the road on the other. Opposite the crowd stood three long blocks of scarlet and white – the sepoy regiments waiting in the heat for whatever fate their British masters would hand down.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Colour-Sar’nt, how many people d’you reckon are in that crowd?’ Morgan knew that the sepoys would outnumber them, but he had not expected a crowd of this size.

  ‘Ye sound like a bloody papist sometimes, you do, sir.’ McGucken always mocked his officer when he used one of the Catholic men’s expressions. ‘Dunno, but let’s have a look.’ Now he sectioned the crowd off into eight imaginary blocks, just as he had been taught to do as a recruit and, as they drew nearer, tried to count the bare heads and turbans in one of them. ‘’Bout three-thousand, I’d say, what d’yous think, sir?’

  ‘Yes, that’s about right.’ Morgan tried not to let his concern show, but three sepoy battalions was quite enough for less than four hundred men of the 95th to deal with, let alone thousands of angry natives. What should he do? The colonel had told him that confidence was everything, but they would be swallowed up in an instant if the crowd turned. Should he halt and wait for orders? He found his pace getting involuntarily shorter and his bottom tightening with fear and indecision – but he was spared. Above the rhythmic thump of his men’s boots came the clatter of hoofs and wheels.

  ‘Not before time, sir…’ McGucken caught sight of the troop of horse gunners before Morgan could see them above their own, scarlet phalanx, ‘…just like when the guns came up at Balaklava, sir, d’ye ken?’

  Morgan did, indeed, ken. He remembered how nine-pounders like these had hammered at the Russian cavalry in that grape-laden valley three years before. Now the covered brass helmets and ruddy faces of the Bombay Horse Artillery bobbed above their cantering animals, the 95th biting off a ragged cheer as the horses, limbers and guns enveloped them in dust as they swept by.

  ‘Troop, halt!’ Three horses led the way: Bolton, the captain commanding, his troop staff-sergeant, and the trumpeter, who now repeated his officer’s order with a series of brazen notes. As the guns pulled up behind him, Bolton trotted forward to the still marching Morgan and McGucken.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ Bolton was thirty-five, short, chubby and clean shaven. Unlike his men, he wore a light, cork solar-topee to protect his head from the sun, but it appeared to have done little for his temper. Before either could answer Bolton repeated, ‘I said, who’s in charge here?’

  ‘Major Morgan of HM Ninety-Fifth, sir,’ McGucken snapped a salute whilst invoking Morgan’s brevet, before muttering, ‘Why are these damned nabobs always in such a pother, Sir?’

  ‘Dunno, Colour-Sar’nt; don’t suppose they’ve seen much action before.’ Morgan’s answer belied the relief he felt at the sight of the guns.

  As Bolton dismounted, both officer and colour-sergeant searched his chest for medals – but there was none.

  ‘Good day…sir.’ There was a slight question in Bolton’s voice for on Morgan’s collar there were only the star and crown of a captain. ‘Colonel Brewill has asked me to execute some rogue sepoys of his whilst you kindly protect my troop. Is that what you understand?’

  As the column of 95th continued to swing by, the trio stood in the shade of a leafy tree inhabited by a knot of silent monkeys, which looked quizzically down at them. Seeing that a conference was taking place, Captain Carmichael detached himself from the head of his company and strolled over towards them.

  ‘Something wrong, sir?’ asked McGucken breezily, turning and placing himself carefully between Carmichael and the other two officers.

  ‘No, Colour-Sar’nt, but I a
ssumed that Captain Morgan would need to speak to me.’ Carmichael was thoroughly out of sorts and McGucken’s reply only added to his agitation.

  ‘Aye, sir, I’m sure he will in his own good time. Please listen for the bugle, sir.’

  Seething, Carmichael turned away quickly whilst Bolton and Morgan completed their plans.

  ‘So, swing one gun between each of my companies, please, then I’ll halt the whole column in front of the crowd and opposite the sepoys yonder…’ Morgan looked towards the nearer flank of the 10th BNI, now only a few hundred paces away, ‘…and load with charges only. Have a canister round very obviously to hand by each of your six barrels, please, then make ready any guns that are spare when we know how many executions are to take place. Meanwhile, my men will load and take aim; if there’s trouble, prime as fast as you can, but fire only on my orders. I’ll leave all the execution side to you; I imagine that you’ve done it before?’

  ‘Well, no…actually this is the first time I’ve done anything like this.’ All Bolton’s initial bluster had gone. He’d taken a good look at the two infantrymen’s decorations and now he seemed glad to have someone else in charge.

  ‘Aye, sir, well dinna fret, there’s a first time for all of us, but the Old Nails’ll look after ye.’ McGucken used the nickname given to the 95th in the Crimea and it was hard to imagine that there had ever been a first time for a man like this. His lean frame and combed whiskers burst with confidence, yet his words were sensitive and immediately reassuring.

  With a cautious smile and a salute, Bolton turned back to give orders to his own men.

  ‘How does that work exactly, sir?’ McGucken asked Morgan. ‘Them gunners ain’t Queen’s troops, yet they’re mainly Europeans: how’s that?’

  ‘Well, John Company started to recruit some all-white regiments of its own after trouble with the sepoys years ago,’ Morgan explained. ‘All the artillery out in India is manned by European crews – and just at the moment I’m damn glad it is. I’m told they’re pretty sharp lads – not that it’s going to take any great skill to blow the lights out of some poor wretch strapped to the end of your barrel.’

  The sepoys stood taut and erect as the 95th marched along the road in front of them. As the British troops approached, the crowd’s murmur had turned to heckles and catcalls, even a few sods had been thrown and some rotten fruit, but as the pacing red column had neither checked nor hesitated, so the crowd drew back. Now the mob fidgeted and swayed as the two bodies of troops scanned each other. As the sepoys stiffened and stood more rigidly, more fixedly than any line-drawing from the drill manual, so the arms and legs of the 95th swung more regularly, more perfectly than they had ever done on an English barrack yard.

  ‘Right Wing, Ninety-Fifth Regiment, halt!’ The non-commissioned officers were waiting for Morgan’s word of command; once it came it was passed down the sweating ranks, bringing the scarlet and white-belted lines to a dusty stop.

  ‘The wing will advance…’ Morgan paused whilst the ranks tensed, ‘…left face.’ The British troops pivoted, backs now to the crowd, and stared at the native regiments, no more than thirty yards away from them across the road.

  Under Bolton’s words of command the guns wheeled into position between the slabs of infantry, the sparkling brass barrels being unhooked and thrown about to stare at the sepoys, bombardiers’ yells sending gunners scurrying to the ammunition limbers, ramrods whirling and thrusting as the charges were pushed home, the black, menacing muzzles silently challenging the native troops. The whole, slick process ended when by each gun a lance-bombardier stood hefting a linen bag of canister shot.

  ‘Wait a moment, sir, let the fuckers see what’s in store for ’em,’ McGucken growled quietly. ‘D’you want to untie ten now, sir?’

  ‘Yes, do that, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan knew that the sepoys were studying their every move, and as the men fiddled to take the string and greased paper from one little parcel of ten paper cartridges that sat in their pouches, he looked across at his targets.

  The sepoys swayed slightly in the heat, the odd tongue quickly licking dry lips, fingers flexing nervously on the stocks of the rifles that they all held by their sides, expressions fixed but difficult to read under the sweeping, exaggerated moustaches that all the jawans wore. Morgan saw the native officers, swords drawn, standing just behind the trembling ranks. They were all older men, most grey-haired, some wearing campaign medals. The subadar-majors waited at the centre of each battalion’s line, where the colour-parties would normally have been with long strings of ‘joys’, the religious beads that looked, to the British at least, so odd around the neck of a uniform coatee. To their rear were a handful of white faces, the European officers.

  ‘Right y’are, sir, let ’em see we mean business.’ Quietly, McGucken guided Morgan.

  ‘Right Wing, Ninety-Fifth Regiment…’ Morgan’s mind flew back to the first time that he had spoken the order that he was about to give, ‘…with ball cartridge…load’, it had been at the Alma. Despite the heat, Morgan shivered.

  Rifles were canted forward before each man reached to the black, leather pouch on the front of his belt and pulled out a single, paper tube. After a regulation pause, the tops were bitten off the cartridges before the powder was poured down the muzzle of every Enfield, then the steel ramrods were pulled from below the barrel of each weapon before the charge and lead bullet were rammed home. Another pause, then the rifles were lifted obliquely across the men’s bodies, left hands catching the stocks at the point of balance before each right hand thumbed back the steel hammers to half cock.

  Right down the line the sergeants craned their heads, making sure that all the troops were ready for the fiddly operation of fitting their percussion caps. The sergeants nodded to McGucken, now standing at the centre of the four companies beside Morgan.

  He quietly prompted, ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘Caps!’ Morgan’s word of command was repeated and four hundred right hands groped in the little leather pouches that sat just beside the brass buckles on their waist belts for the pea-sized, hollow copper percussion caps to fit over the nipples at each rifle’s breech. One or two men fluffed it, dropping the caps, the tense silence being broken with the customary sergeants’ cries of: ‘You wouldn’t drop it if it was wet and slippery, would you? Pick the fucker up!’ And the offenders, embarrassed at their own clumsiness, scrabbled in the dust.

  Then again came sergeants’ nods and McGucken’s, ‘Right, sir,’ before Morgan’s command, ‘Front rank…kneel.’ Half the men pushed their right feet back and then sank to their knees, the rank behind bringing their rifles level with their waists, pointing over the heads of those in front.

  ‘Ready.’ At Morgan’s order, each hammer was clicked to full cock, making every weapon ready to fire.

  ‘Right Wing…targets front, preee…sent!’ Morgan’s final word of command from the centre of the line brought all the rifles into the aim. As damp white faces squinted down the Enfields’ sights at the bellies of the sepoys no more than a handful of paces away, a gasp and an involuntary flinch swept down the Indian ranks. The native troops blinked, hardly believing their eyes. They were only too aware of the devastation that a rifle volley would cause at that range; they’d been shown when the Enfields were issued to them that the bullet would scythe down not just one man, but any who stood packed closely behind him as well.

  The crowd at the rear of the 95th had gone still and quiet, and Morgan believed that he could read the thoughts of the men in front of him. Their great brown eyes stared at his own men’s muzzles and it was if an unspoken belief in their innocence loomed over them. Morgan hoped he was right, for the time of reckoning was almost upon them.

  ‘Left, right, left, right…get ’ere, can’t you?’ A flat, Sheffield twang was clear on the hot air.

  ‘’Ere’s Sar’nt Ormond and the commanding officer, sir,’ said McGucken. ‘’Bout time, too.’

  The detachment of the Grenadier Company had formed a
hollow, marching square around the prisoners – Morgan couldn’t yet see how many – as they tramped down the slope towards the rest of the troops. Sergeant Ormond’s face was as expressionless now as it had been when he slashed Russians down at Sebastapol, thought Morgan, all stumpy, five-foot six of him, as dependable at issuing the bread ration as he would certainly prove to be at eviscerating Hindus.

  The detachment had their bayonets fixed and just beyond the bobbing points came a gaggle of horsemen, the commanding officers of the native battalions, a cloud of adjutants, and Colonel Hume, who’d been lent a cob of dubious age and wind that hardly did him justice. It was difficult to see exactly what was going on in the centre of the square, but Morgan could hear shouts in what he guessed was Hindi and, quite distinctly, in best Wirksworth, ‘Coom on, yer barnshoot, keep up with the sergeant.’ Predictably, Corporal Pegg had landed the job of escorting the prisoners. As they came closer, Morgan could see Pegg’s stubby arm thrusting first one and then the other of the two leading prisoners hard in the small of the back. Each time the yellow cuff shot forward, so the sepoys staggered and shouted; each time they shouted, so the piston-like wrist administered another shove.

  ‘Stow all that bollocks, you two; you can try to persuade Joe Gunner not to jerk ’is lanyard, if you like, but you’re wastin’ yer breath.’ Pegg was as sympathetic as Morgan had come to expect. ‘Stop draggin’ them chains in the dust, won’t you?’

  Morgan and McGucken marched forward to meet Hume and the party. They could see that the two prisoners who stumbled side by side were shackled ankle and wrist, they were barefoot and had exchanged their uniform trousers for shabby dhotis. Their swallow-tailed coatees hung open where the buttons had been cut away – on sentencing by the court martial, Morgan supposed. Despite Pegg’s attentions, both continued to yell, whilst the third man, who was bound only by rope at the wrists, was utterly silent.