Doctor Watson's Casebook Page 4

  I was more than awed, I can tell you! I was bloody delighted even to be alive but more confused than ever, wondering who was more likely to do for us, the enemy or our own side.

  "Bloody hell, Bowler, that was a real feat of arms. Those brigands were just about to send us to hell, thank you!" I said, any pretence of officer-like sang-froid having disappeared long ago.

  "Aye, the buggers. An' what about that poor girl? The dirty sod, just like I always says, you can't trust these filthy natives, can you, sir? Give an inch an' they'll take every bloody liberty they can, you mark my words, sir. You take your eyes off of 'em for one minute and they're shagging anything that moves, threatening officers - just like they did at Lucknow and Cawnpore, sir, you remember. Dirty heathens - well not you, of course, Nakshbad, not you…you're one of us - almost," Bowler quickly rowed back as Khan crouched beside me with a look that was both relived and resigned. I didn't say anything, but Bowler had come a long way on the road of self-righteousness in a very short space of time!

  "'Ere, sir, I got a couple of canteens off of a pair of Bombay Sappers 'o won't be needing no more water…gently now," he held one of those oval, wooden water bottles to my lips, the ones the Indian troops carry. "I can't find no rearguard, sir. There's another track running parallel about quarter of a mile away an' most of the bearers an' bhisti wallahs is getting' along it towards Kandahar as fast as they can, sir, but I ain't found no formed bodies of troops an' Johnny Af's everywhere."

  ***

  The horses were a godsend. Nakshbad was a much better rider than I thought, and he swung up onto one of the tough little hill-nags and began whispering words in its lug that clearly soothed her, convincing the mare that the new man who didn't smell like her master meant her no harm. Bowler, meanwhile, pushed me up onto the neck of the other beast and clambered into the saddle behind me, saying, "You just 'hang on to her mane, sir, an' don't worry about nothing. I've got me rifle nice and 'andy, your banduk slung across me back an' I've given Nakshbad on of the Scindi's carbines, so we've got bit more metal if we gets into another scrape. An' the 'orses ain't too bad. They're a bit thirsty - I've used up the last of the water bladder that each of 'em was carryin', but we'll find more 'o the wet stuff as we get further towards Kandahar - you see'f we don't."

  This was a new form of Bowler - and a form that, frankly, surprised me. Gone was the perpetual moaner; he'd been replaced by a much more confident, optimistic fellow whom I could almost like. True, he'd never lose that pathological coarseness of his class - I wouldn't want to breed from him - and he persisted in pushing his spectacles up his nose in the most irritating of ways, but he was becoming quite a stout chap.

  "What of the woman?" I asked, conscious that I should at least try to act as if I were an officer and still in command. "Have you tied her onto the mule properly and got the animal on a leading rein?"

  "Naw, sir, she'll be alright like she is," I noticed a slight smile sneak below Bowler's sweaty moustache as he said this, "look there,"

  My shoulder made it agony to turn, but I looked behind as best I could, to see Alyisha trotting along on Madelaine just to the rear of our prad and Nakshbad's. She didn't appear to be bound and there was certainly no leading rein, she was just sitting there, bumping along on one of the dead troopers' blankets that Bowler had thought to rig as a saddle and looking as though she hadn't a care in the world.

  "She'll be off as soon as she can, you know Bowler. And then where will your and Nakshbad's ransom be - or whatever piece of extortion it is that you two are planning," I said, amazed to see how suddenly relaxed both of my companions had become about the foe in our midst.

  "I 'ave me doubts about that, sir. If she runs now, she's as likely to bump into some of our people as some of 'ers. Our lot'll probably serve her like those Horse lads was goin' to an' finish the job with a bit of steel or lead - she knows that. An' if she comes up against 'er own menfolk, she'll 'ave a whore of a job explaining why she's on a War Office mule all strapped about with 'er Majesty's leather work and medical stores. The mood this lot's in, I shouldn't wonder if she'll get harder knocks from that lot than for our lads and…" Bowler was interrupted by Nakshbad: "And she woman, sahib. These Pathan owl-shit will not know that she led the charge against our Brigade and that she only let the banner she was carrying fall when she was struck in the face, will they? And if she found by Ghazi, she will be food for their knives also. They are too full of bhang and madness to care; they will kill her for the mule and the sheer joy of seeing her blood."

  "What, she was actually in the battle," I asked, the tale was helping to take my mind off the pain in my shoulder and the dryness of my throat.

  "Oh aye, sir. Seems that her hubby - they'd only been married a matter of weeks, they got wed in some sort of special warrior's ceremony on the way from…where was it Nakshbad, mate?"

  "Herat, Bowler, sahib. Yes, she told me all about it, Watson sahib, when you were unconscious. She was married to some prince - she's from a great family, I've told you that already - whilst on the march. She had never met him before, but says he was a grand and noble man, but he encountered one of our rifle bullets during the fight at the ford…" Makshbad was referring to the skirmish at Gereshk which was only a few days ago, but seemed like a lifetime, "and she swore to carry a holy banner into battle, to lead his men and to avenge him."

  "Well, that only adds to my suspicions, you two. She'll bolt, you mark my words, probably knifing one or all of us in the process - then what will she be worth to you? Get a halter round her now, or you'll regret it," I answered, not really caring less. I hadn't wanted Bowler to shoot her and I hadn't wanted the Horsemen to ravish her, but now - even with fair horses under us - I knew that there were untold difficulties ahead and all I cared about was getting everyone back to safety (myself being the foremost candidate) and anything that made that more remote could, quite frankly, go hang. "Secure her or let her go, d'you hear me?"

  "I hear you, sir, but I very much regret to say that I'm not listening; yer delirious. She's fine, sir, look at 'er," said Bowler almost dreamily, "'sides, she's made her oath to me, she 'as," and I took the trouble to do just what the man who was meant to be my subordinate told me to. I looked, in fact I got an eyeful of a right little peach - a bit bruised and slightly bloody peach, I'll grant you - but a corker none-the-less. Despite everything, she was still sublime, sitting astride a smelly old issue mule like she was the Queen of Sheba and filling her sari in a way that, in less straitened circumstances, would have turned every red-blooded man's head from Kabul to Kensington. "An' I reckon she'll be worth more than any bleedin' bag of gold in the next couple of days. We're in for a tricky old time we are, sir, in case you 'adn't realised."

  I think I had realised. Even if the battle hadn't been bad enough, even if the encounter with the Ghazis and our own, renegade cavalry hadn't given me a clue, the remaining hours of daylight and then the interminable night brought the point home. The bandage had stopped my wound's bleeding, but we soon ran out of water. We took an almost full skin from a dead bearer, but the horses' and Madelaine's tongues were starting to swell and, as Bowler pointed out, 'we were about as much use as the Pope's cock' without them, so they got first go. But even when the sun had gone and darkness made things cooler, we had to keep moving rather than sit down and wait for the Afghan marauders whom we could hear harassing the stragglers who dotted the track along which we plodded.

  And what a pitiful sight they were. In those dreadful few hours, I barely saw a soldier - there were one or two wounded hobbling along and the odd, khaki corpse - but no formed units. Instead, we saw ones, twos and gaggles of native bearers, grass cutters, cooks, water-carriers, grooms, servants and their women without which a modern army in these parts cannot survive. I'd grown accustomed to a great comet trail of camp-followers shrieking and chattering after the army as it marched without ever really thinking about what would happen to them should misfortune overtake us. Well, now I was finding out. The poor wretches look
ed like nothing more than carrion for the tribal hawks who fell upon them at every opportunity. That night was frightful, not just because of my own pain and thirst, but for the screams that tore it, every howl making me shudder and reminding me of my own mortality.

  Finally, just as dawn was breaking, we were trudging along a cliff side around which the track bent, to find that the ground opened out into a sort of circus, surrounded on three sides by the rock face. I was hardly capable of noticing anything, as Bowler pulled our horse up with a low, "Bloody 'ell, sir…" just behind my ear, "there must be thirty o' the poor sods, all crowded together, like."

  All I could see were a series of dark lumps strewn about on the gritty floor in front of us, but if I had any doubt what they were, the smell soon told me.

  "Take the reins, sir, I'd best 'ave a look," Bowler dismounted, took his rifle, told the others - who seemed just as exhausted and inattentive as I was - to wait and picked his way carefully round the corpses in the gloom. "Bearers, syces an' bhisti wallahs from the look o' things sir. Handful o' women amongst them," his last phrase was less audible, though, for he had wrapped his neck-rag around his nose and mouth to keep the smell at bay. I don't know when this lot had been butchered, probably no more than a few hours past, but putrefaction had already started.

  "How have they died, Bowler?" I asked though I didn't care. The last day or so had shown me death in almost all its varieties - or so I thought.

  "All 'ad their gizzards slit, sir. An' the blokes got their knobs in their gobs for good measure." Well, this made an unwelcome addition to my pantheon of slaughter. As the light grew, I could see each corpse in a vast puddle of its own blood that had leaked from torn crotches and gashed intestines whilst all the men had their mouths filled in the vilest way possible. The women had been dealt with rather more quickly, but no less fatally and whilst I knew none of these wretched folk, I almost puked. There was something utterly repulsive in this form of humiliation and I now understood why the two Scinde Horsemen whom we had encountered yesterday had been so outraged.

  "But they've got food n' stuff on 'em sir," I don't know how Bowler could bare to touch the dead, let alone go through their clothes and baggage as he now was. "You just stay there, sir. Nakshbad, keep an eye on the road and just let fly if you sees anything bad. Alyisha, come and give us a hand, will you love?" he beckoned to the girl who immediately understood and, wrapping her sari round her face, she tied Madelaine to a thorn bush and set-to as if rifling the dead was the most normal thing in the world for her.

  "Any water, Bowler?" I asked. If I hadn't been so distracted with my own misfortunes, I would have found the reaction of my body to all the miseries of the recent past quite fascinating. I had no idea which privation would influence a desperate man most - pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue or fear. Now, I don't know if everybody reacts the same and I suppose it would depend on how bad one's wounds were, but in my case, thirst won by a long chalk. We all believe that we know what it's like to need water, but let me assure you that nothing that I've ever experienced can beat the utter craving for that vital fluid that hours in a burning sun with a dehydrating wound can give you. Sleep could wait and fear was forgotten in the all-consuming need to drink.

  "Only a bit, sir. We'll ration the out amongst us all - you'll get most 'cos of yer wound…" Bowler's logic was faultless, "but there's raisins, dates an' a bit o' bread here," both he and Alyisha were walking over towards me now with their booty and I was helped to the ground.

  "But the nags is desperate, sir. Look 'ere," and he held open the dry lips of the horse we'd both been riding, exposing a swollen tongue that was turning a strange, blueish colour.

  "There's no water for them at all an' only the mule will be able to go any further unless we can get a drop or two from somewhere. Nakshbad, ask Alyisha if she knows of anywhere, will you?" His voice echoed around the stone enclosure to the Sikh who was a few yards away.

  "You'll not see her again if you let her go, Bowler," the pair of them had eased me into the sitting position, propped with my good shoulder against a large stone. But he didn't even reply this; Nakshbad jabbered away to the girl who answered briefly, nodded, took an empty water skin from one of the dead and walked slowly away, exhaustion showing in her every step.

  "Now get a bit of this down yourself, sir…that's it, just a few sips and then have some dates. Feel better?" Bowler asked, and I did - almost immediately. The sensible fellow wouldn't let me overdo the liquids and forced me to take the sugary fruit, even when I thought I'd had enough, with the result that I fell into a twitchy sleep right where I sat, despite the increasing strength of the sun, the buzzing of the flies and the over-powering stink of my dead companions.

  ***

  The shot woke me immediately. I can't have been asleep for more than a few minutes, but I was trying to get to my feet and grope for my Snider almost before I was awake. My rifle was nowhere to be found, for the simple reason that Bowler still had it and I was greeted by the sight of him running as hard as his bandy little legs would carry him towards Nakshbad who was crouched behind some rocks, wreathed in gun smoke, scrabbling to reload his carbine.

  "What sodding now, is there no peace?" Private Bowler shouted. Then, "Dear Christ… cavalry!" I saw him raise his rifle to the aim as the thumping of hooves became audible then, quite suddenly, he threw down his Martini and stood up, both hands raised high in the air. I was just about to damn his eyes for a coward on the basis that it was only he and my orderly who stood between me and perdition, when the man shouted again, "You silly sod, Nakshbad, they're ours! Get your damned 'ands up sharpish now!" followed by even louder yells of, "No, no, we're English, 66th Foot…don't!" and a knot of khaki-clad troopers came flashing by, their sword arms dropping harmlessly to their sides just in time.

  Then, from the dust of stamping horses a new voice arose, a very proper voice, full of authority and righteous anger, "You're a half-wit, man! As if we haven't got dramas enough without you and this heathen taking goddamn'd pot-shots at us. D'you want to get yourself killed, because if you do, I'm sure any one of my men here will be happy to oblige! Who in God's creation are you?" I counted six mounted men of different units, some native cavalry and a couple of our Horse Gunners under the command of an officer - a very angry officer.

  "Sir, I am Private James Bowler, doctor's assistant, 66th Foot, sir! An' this 'ere's me officer, sir." Bowler was now standing to attention, both arms rigidly down his sides. Odd, wasn't it? In the last day this man had shown himself the master of every sort of danger, making decisions and using his wits to the full, but once the Army spoke, once rank and class showed their hand, he was helpless, incapacitated by the years of blind obedience that had been dinned into him. He immediately looked to his bullet-holed, woeful master to rescue him from nothing more deadly than wrath.

  I was standing now and looked up at a fortyish, muscular officer who wore the armband of the Staff and the crowns of a lieutenant-colonel on his collar. He still seemed to have all his equipment, he was as filthy and dusty as any of us, but well mounted on a young chestnut.

  "Sir, I am these men's officer; I'm Watson, Regimental Medical Officer of the 66th, sir…"

  "Well, if you're an officer - and you look like a damn rum 'un to me - get a grip of your bloody command, can't you? What the hell d'you think you're doing arming a bloody native civilian?" the Colonel cast a ferocious glance at poor Nakshbad who had the sense to hang his head.

  "Sir, I had little choice but to arm him, sir, for I'm as good as useless,"

  "Yes, I'm glad you recognise that," the man's anger had given way to a sneer. "Well, if you're medicos, can you look at my man's arm here?" and the next few minutes were spent with Nakshbad putting some sulphur ointment and a fresh dressing on a ugly sword cut that had dug deep into a young Gunner's forearm, whilst the Colonel never bothered to speak; he stayed in the saddle, staring at a map.

  "Well, is that fixed, now?" asked this loathsome creature as my orderly put a neat, fi
nal knot in a gauze binding.

  "Yes, sir, but he'll need a fresh dressing as soon as possible. How far do you believe it is to Kandahar and could you spare us some water for our horses, please?" I asked, having noticed that some of the men and the Colonel himself, had fairly full water skins behind their saddles.

  "Less than fifteen miles, Doctor, but I'm afraid I have no spare water, that's quite out of the question. We need every drop for ourselves and your horses look fine," he answered as he tugged his charger round towards the road. Now, if I have a fault, it's the fact that I'm too agreeable, I know that. But on this occasion, I surprised myself with my own anger, suddenly turning from a pathetic, used up shell of a man into a foaming fury.

  "Well God-rot you, you despicable man! I put my men at your convenience, mend your people's wounds and then when I ask for a little help you scorn me! Goddamit, if I had the strength I'd haul you down and horsewhip you for the blackguard you are!" His soldiers, Bowler and Nakshbad had the good grace to look embarrassed at two officers buckling-to, but the Colonel hardly turned a hair.

  "Horsewhip me, 'eh? We'll see about that once we're back in Kandahar - if you and your pair of washerwomen make it, that is. Watson did you say, 66th?"

  "Yes, indeed, John Watson, who has been very much at your service!"

  "Hmm…Watson, Doctor John Watson, I'll remember that. And if you find the courage to come and try to horsewhip me, you'll need to ask for Moriarty, Colonel George Moriarty of the 6th Dragoons. I'll bid you Godspeed," and with that the rogue put the spurs to his horse and led his men off towards safety.

  Chapter Five: Kandahar

  "See, sir, I told you she'd be back. You're a jewel, you are, love!" and, to my surprise, Bowler was right, for no sooner were Moriarty and his bunch safely on their way towards Kandahar, than the lass emerged from some bushes on the other side of the road, laden with a great skin of wet nectar, "Give it over an' we'll all take a bit of a pull before the nags."