Megiddo's Shadow (20 page)

“And what are you called?” Ranjeet asked.

“Edward Bathe.”

“Edward Bathe, it is a very great pleasure!” He grabbed my hand and shook it warmly. He did the same to Cheevers and Blackburn. “What wonderful luck it is to have some Christians among us.” He pointed at the gathered lancers. “We have good sowars here: Sikhs, Rajputs, Jats, and Hindustani Mussalmans. With you in our ranks, one can say with all honesty that God is truly on our side.”

Cheevers whooped. “You are a funny man, Ranjeet.”

“Ah, but you are being exceptionally kind, for I am not unaware of the tragedy of this situation. It must have been very difficult for you to leave your friends in the hospital and join us. We will put forth our greatest effort to live up to their heroism.” He offered us a cigarette. Cheevers accepted. Several minutes later the officers came out of the tents and roll call was sounded.

“We shall be seeing you very soon, I am quite sure of it,” Ranjeet said, and returned to his squadron.

Lieutenant Ranee began to bellow, “From here on m, boys, we are going to be D Squadron, part of a composite regiment. We'll keep our colors, of course. They wanted to Indianize us completely, including making us wear their headdress, but I said, ‘Lord, no! My Lincolnshire lads would never accept that.’ So we'll start training here immediately”

Over the next week we fell into place, though it was a struggle to learn the new signals. The Indians were excellent horsemen, and their war cries as they did a lance charge would curdle the blood of any Turks. Our own lances never did arrive, so we used our swords for mock charges. We didn't seem anywhere near as threatening.

Hargreaves had recommended Cheevers to the higher-ups, so he received a stripe, making him a lance corporal. He sewed a chevron on each sleeve himself, then strutted about the tent all evening. “Now I'll be tip-top with the ladies. They can't resist an NCO.”

“If you keep staring at your stripe like that you're going to get a kink in your neck,” Blackburn said.

“Ha! At least I've risen a peg. If you work hard, you could, too.”

Blackburn narrowed his eyes. “Well, look who's become Lord Muck.”

“Careful, Trooper. Insubordination could lead to field punishment.”

I wasn't sure if he was still kidding or not. “All you need is a parade to lead,” I said, trying to keep things jovial.

Cheevers laughed and said, “It's a grave responsibility, Bathe. When you have a stripe, you'll understand.”

At the end of the week we broke camp and rode close enough to the Mediterranean to catch the scent of the ocean. The land was growing flatter, and I found some relief in this. Having been raised on the prairie, I was never much for hills or mountains. We set up camp near the sea, but right after roll call the following morning we packed up and rode east again. It was as though Allenby didn't know exactly where he wanted us, and yet we knew we were close to a battle. We bivouacked halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho.

I was more than ready for it to end—all of it—so that my horse and I could go home.

We learned that our new major and new colonel had fallen sick. The command of the entire regiment now fell to Captain Davison from the Second Lancers.

“A
captain, leading a whole regiment!” Blackburn said in disbelief.

“Davison seems right enough in the head,” replied Cheevers, as though he had tea with Davison every day. “Don't worry, if he gets all gobsmacked, I'll straighten him out.” He brushed the stripe on his shoulder.

“Ah, now I feel much safer,” Blackburn said.

As the sun began to set, we were ordered to break camp and ride west, under the cover of night. The farther we traveled, the more congested the road became. We moved off to the side to let a row of trucks pulling howitzers rumble past, followed by Holt tractors hauling sixty-pounder guns, and artillery men marching in the rear.

If only we had one of those tractors on the ranch, harvest would be done lickety-split. I pictured Dad at the wheel, a big grin on his face. Right now Old Man Somners would probably be harvesting our fields. With any luck Dad would be out there, too. It had been over six months since Reverend Ashford had written. In the meantime, anything could've happened.

I hadn't thought about Dad much for quite a long time. What kind of son never thought of his father? And I hadn't thought very often about Hector, either. I was too tired to be angry at the Huns. I should have been struggling to remember every little detail about my brother. And about Emily, for that matter. But out here in Palestine there was nothing to
remind me of them or anything about my life as I'd once known it. The sun was burning away my memories.

We passed supply lines of pack-laden camels. There were more cavalry than I'd ever seen in one place. Horses whickered and stamped, but the men were mostly silent.

A crack of thunder echoed in the distance, and a second later came a reply. “Hear that?” Cheevers asked.

“We're near the front,” I said, and wiped sweat from my forehead.

We continued to ride through the night, not stopping for sleep. The moment daylight stretched across the hills, Captain Davison ordered us to make camp in a grove of orange trees, where the leaves and bush would hide us from enemy airplanes. Other troopers had picked the bottom branches clean of fruit, so Cheevers climbed to the top, clinging like a monkey. He tossed down several oranges, and laughed when he hit me square in the head with one.

“Don't waste good oranges!” I shouted, stuffing a few into my saddlebags. Then I devoured one; it tasted heavenly.

Because we traveled at night, to the Turks it would appear as though nothing had changed. We watered our horses in the irrigation channels, fed them, and then crawled into our tents. The road we camped along was quiet; only the occasional truck or armored car motored by. I closed my eyes, but sleep was impossible; I scratched and sweated and cursed the hard ground. Not one trooper was snoring. Soon we would attack the front line. I couldn't help thinking of other charges I'd heard about that had ended in massacres.

What would a bullet in the arm feel like? Or one tearing
through my leg? My head? At least I wouldn't feel anything with a bullet through the head. The day he woke up and went into battle, did Hector know that death was waiting for him?

Hector, why didn't you stay in the trench? You were sick that day, but you always had to do the right thing, no matter the price: taking on bulls, bullies, or the Huns. If you had stayed you might be alive today, and I would be at home right now reading your letters. Damn you
. Uncle Nix had said men had to be resolute, but our family had paid enough.

When night fell we were rousted out of our beds and set on the move again. There were even more cavalry now. The Dorset Yeomanry were to our left and the Thirty-eighth Central India Horse to our right, making up our brigade. With a simple wiggle of his pen, Allenby had set all this in motion.

But if we were all gathered here, then that could only mean that the rest of the front line stretching past Jerusalem and into the Jordan Valley was thin and weak. With any luck Lawrence and his Arabs were over to the east, swooping at the Turks like falcons. Keeping their attention from us.

When the sun rose, we camped under another grove of trees. I still couldn't sleep. The sun was too hot, the road too noisy with transport. Fear of the coming attack buzzed in my head like a trapped insect. I'd sleep for a minute, then wake, with a fading dream of home, a place where it rained and the grass grew.

“They're going to wear us out,” Blackburn said, his head leaning against a rolled blanket. “Three days without a decent sleep, then they'll throw us at the Turks.”

“That'll wake you up,” Cheevers said, eyes closed.

The ground rumbled as a distant field gun lobbed a shell into the air. There was no way of knowing which side had fired the shot. The next day, I could die. I was surprised to find myself thinking that death might not be such a bad thing. I was too tired to care what happened to me. Who would miss me when I was gone, anyway?

Dad. Dad would miss me. Despite everything. It had been nearly a year since I'd left home. I pictured him in his bed. I was beginning to understand him. Each death of someone you loved weighed you down. If I could have gone to bed right then, never to get up again, I would have. But they'd shoot me for it. In fact, Hargreaves would be grinning as he did the job.

I gathered what little will I had and wrote Dad a letter:

I paused. I wanted to tell him about Emily and that I now understood how terrible it must have been for him to lose Mother. But instead, I wrote,

W
hen night fell Lieutenant Ranee approached our squadron; he was little more than a shadow in the moonlight, but his voice cut through the night and all hundred or so of us listened carefully. “Drop all excess weight— bivvies, blankets, greatcoats, and line gear. Pack it up and put your name and number on it.” Bags of corn for the horses had been piled just outside the grove. “Each of you will carry one full bag and two nose bags. Put two blankets under the saddle. You'll need three days' rations including a day of iron rations.”

“You eat the iron rations if you're surrounded,” Cheevers said. “That'll finish you off.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Lance Corporal!” Ranee shouted, his eyes bulging with anger. Cheevers stiffened. “The next man who speaks out of line will find himself shackled to a gun wheel.” The tan piece of paper—our
orders—shook in his hand. It was seeing his hands tremble that woke the fear in me. “There are about five thousand entrenched Turks just over those hills. Zero hour for our artillery will be half past four hundred hours. There'll be a hell of a lot of banging; be ready for it. The infantry will then cut through the Turk lines and leave an opening for us. We're to proceed to the”—he consulted his paper—“brown line, our assembly point, by zero eight hundred hours. From there we'll be riding hard along the valley, maybe even as far as Bethlehem, to capture Turkish positions in the rear.” He forced a smile. “We might have time for tea; then we'll have to mount up. I know you'll all do your best to bring honor to our regiment.”

I packed my greatcoat and fingered my small bundle of letters, wishing I had time to read them all once more. I kept Emily's locket and mother's handkerchief in my breast pocket and placed all my other possessions in my haversack and left it in the pile behind us. It was only after I'd walked away that I realized I'd left my Bible in the bag. I considered going back, but I wouldn't need it where I was going.

I brushed Buke down, my hands shaking. “Good boy. You'll do well. Everything we've trained for, it's all going to happen now. I know you'll pull through.” I saddled him with two blankets; we were going to ride hard! I checked my feed bags and made sure the pockets of my bandolier had clips, fifty rounds of ball ammunition in total. There'd be fewer by the time I was done.

Or I could be hit without firing a shot.

My legs buckled and I leaned against Buke. “I'll always have you, won't I, pal?”

Hargreaves ordered us to mount and we rode toward the front line. Supply wagons and marching infantry jammed the roads. I couldn't imagine heading into battle without my horse. Several transport columns rolled by, but there was a sense of order.

We crested a hill and thousands of glinting lances, guns, and helmets filled my vision—Indians, British yeomanry, French spahis, and hordes of Australian Light Horsemen had gathered in the valley. Cheevers looked back at Blackburn and me. “If the Turks could see us now they'd shit their britches.”

Blackburn adjusted his sun helmet. “If they could see us now their field guns would grind us into mincemeat.”

The front line was quiet now, and so were we—playing a giant game of hide-and-seek. The Turks on the other side of that wire and trenches would have no idea how many lances and bayonets were aimed at them.

At half past four the sky was torn by the thunder of our field guns. Hundreds of shells a minute were being lobbed at the enemy; it sounded as though all the British artillery in Palestine had let loose. Buke stutter-stepped and a constant deafening rumble shook the ground and rattled my bones. Turkish alarm rockets streaked skyward, lighting up the tops of the dark hills.

Cheevers yelled something at me that I couldn't make out, but his smile told me he was making a joke. Lieutenant Ranee gave a hand signal and we broke into a canter.

“That way to the sausage machine!” Pitts shouted, his voice just penetrating the dm. I was glad to be on Buke; I
couldn't have walked on my own two legs toward the barrage.

We rode over the hill. Red artillery flares flashed and shells burst bright white in midair, spreading searing shrapnel across the Turks. Hundreds of them were trapped in their holes and getting hammered to pieces. Even God, if he'd wanted to, couldn't have stopped this battle.

We passed the lines of howitzers and sixty-pounder guns. Artillery men fed them, then jumped back as they roared. A haze of acrid smoke drifted over us, filling my lungs. The Turks didn't seem to have any guns left to make a reply: not one enemy shell landed among us.