The Maharajah's General (28 page)

The redcoats heard the enemy long before they could be seen. The Maharajah’s army advanced with raucous grandeur, the loud trumpeting and the crash of drums reaching the straining ears of the four hundred soldiers who waited in silence for them to arrive.

Then the horde appeared.

The redcoats stared at the enemy force as it swarmed into view, the dust kicked up by the hooves of the horses billowing down the valley to sting their eyes. There was no fanfare, the British drummers and buglers remaining silent, greeting the Maharajah’s host in the timeless manner of the redcoats: silent and stoical no matter what the provocation.

Horseman after horseman arrived, smothering the far end of the valley. Rank followed rank, the mounted warriors gathering, easing their tired horses to a stop as they spied the thin red line across their path. The sun flashed from thousands of pieces of armour and naked steel as the enemy pulled talwars from scabbards and prepared for the battle that was sure to come.

The redcoats watched wide-eyed as the enemy kept growing.

‘Fuck me.’ Jenkins spoke in an awestruck tone. ‘There’s hundreds of ’em.’

Jack saw the ghostly white pallor on the man’s face. ‘That’s just their cavalry. We haven’t seen their infantry yet.’

‘Well that’s just lovely, isn’t it now. I’m glad you’re with us, Mud. I wouldn’t want to have fought those buggers without knowing how many more of them are to come.’

The men around Jack chuckled, seizing on the weak jest to help force down their emotions. For fear fluttered in every man’s belly as the enemy horde swelled. The minutes stretched on, the redcoats forced to stand in impotent silence as the enemy gathered its strength. The leading horsemen were the warriors from the hills, the irregular troops that had assembled at their overlord’s command. There was no sign of the blue-coated lancers or any of the beautifully uniformed guardsmen that formed the elite of the Maharajah’s forces. Yet there were still enough men to outnumber the British by over two to one.

As the red-coated ranks stood baking in the increasing heat, the enemy cavalry studied the British line with wolfish fascination, sensing its fragility, the puny number of foot soldiers surely unable to withstand the power of the massed horsemen. They imagined an easy victory. If the thin red line were broken, then the way to the cantonment would be open. The bravest riders would have first pickings, the right to ransack the homes of the white-faced foreigners falling to those daring to be in the leading ranks of the attack.

The horsemen looked at the British line and thought of plunder.

‘Look, you! Look at that.’ Corporal Jones called for his mates’ attention as a lone horseman left the throng and rode steadily towards them.

Jack, like most of the redcoats around him, had been lost in his own thoughts. It had been a long night with little sleep as he provided Major Dutton with all the details of the Maharajah’s army. His body still ached from the beating Fenris had delivered, but the long wait in the harsh sun had dulled his senses so that he stood as if in a trance, awake yet far away. Lost in a world of painful memories.

The lone rider pulled up a hundred yards clear of the massed ranks of horsemen. He stood tall in his stirrups and raised his arms. In his left hand he held his naked talwar, the blade flashing bright in the sun. In this right he held a carbine that he shook in the air as he began to shout.

The redcoats were too far away to make out the words, but the message was clear. The rider was taunting the British soldiers, insulting their manhood and rousing his fellow warriors to action. He punched his weapons into the air as he challenged the British, daring them to react.

‘Steady in the ranks.’ Colour Sergeant Hughes began to prowl behind the 24th’s part of the line. His voice was calm, a balm to the fears of his soldiers, who were forced to endure the enemy soldier’s display in silence. Still the tension rippled through the tight ranks, the pressure building round them as they tasted the threat of violence in the dry, arid air.

More horsemen rode forward to join the first, pulling up alongside him and raising their own voices in a deep, visceral chant. The sound echoed down the valley, building steadily as other men came to join them, washing over the thin red line. Yet more riders made their way forward, swelling the lead rank, filling the width of the valley.

Along the line, the redcoats felt fear surge into their bellies, the icy rush of terror as they realised that the enemy was preparing to attack.

Major Dutton spurred his horse forward, then turned it around carefully, as if aligning himself on a marker.

‘Men!’ His voice was firm as he called for attention. ‘The enemy is near. It is time for us to defend our homes and the honour of our Queen. I expect you all to do your duty. Stand firm and shoot straight. Together we will be victorious. Together we will make our country proud.’

He looked along the line, his florid face flushed crimson with exertion. Satisfied with his speech, he nudged his horse back into the line, easing it around so that he once again stood alongside Major Proudfoot.

‘What a fucking idiot.’ Jenkins gave his judgement on the call to arms. ‘Together, my arse. First sign of trouble and I bet that fathead will be galloping back to the cantonment. I know I would if only those bastards would let me have a bloody horse.’

Jack chuckled at the damning verdict. He was glad he was not Jenkins’ officer.

Then the chanting stopped, and with a final deep-throated cheer, the mass of cavalry lurched into motion.

The battle for Bhundapur had begun.

‘At one hundred yards. Volley fire.’ Major Dutton shouted the command that was immediately picked up by the officers along the line.

The effects of the volley would be dreadful. Four hundred balls of lead would be spat at the charging horsemen. The leading riders and their mounts would be gutted, the massed volley capable of butchering the head of the enemy attack. Those struck down would immediately create a bloody obstacle that would disrupt anyone still trying to press home the charge. The single massive blow would spread chaos amongst the attackers with the same wanton cruelty as it would spread death.

The volley had to be timed to perfection. Fired too soon and it would lose most of its effect. The muskets were useless at much over one hundred yards. Dutton would have to let the enemy close on the line if he wanted the volley to destroy the leading ranks and ignore what would certainly be a burning desire to fire early. If he left it too late, then he would commit an even more fatal error. The volley would still smash the head of the charge to smithereens, the muskets capable of horrific damage at close range, yet the enemy’s momentum would drive them forward, man and horse turned into a projectile that would slam into the thin line and tear huge holes in its ordered ranks. The horsemen left intact would pour into the gaps, their naked talwars and sharpened spears capable of spreading havoc if they broke into the line. The redcoats would be easy targets and Dutton’s small command would be torn apart in a heartbeat.

It would take only one volley for the charge to be bludgeoned to a bloody halt. But it had to be timed to perfection.

‘Company! Prepare to fire!’

Kingsley had left the orders to his colour sergeant, deeming the act of shouting himself hoarse beneath the dignity of his rank.

The redcoats pulled their muskets to their shoulders, settling the heavy stocks so that they rested snugly. They peered down the simple sights, aiming the barrels so that they pointed at the throng that was speeding towards them. The staccato drumming of so many horses made the ground shudder under their feet. Along the line the muskets wavered, the redcoats feeling the weight pull at their arms as they waited for the command to fire.

The horsemen were covering the ground fast, the riders leaning forward in the saddle to urge their mounts to even greater efforts. This was no ordered attack, and some riders pulled ahead of their fellows so that the front of the charge bulged. With dreadful speed they tore over the dusty scrub, every heartbeat bringing them closer to the steady double line of men that stood silently in their path.

The enemy was close enough that the redcoats could see the snarls and twisted grimaces of hate on the faces of the wild horsemen thundering towards them. Every man felt the knot of terror deep in his gut, the fear twisting through his veins. The charge seemed unstoppable, its dreadful momentum sure to rip the frail line into bloody ruin.

At one hundred and fifty yards, Jack forced his aching muscles to harden, stilling the slight movement in the barrel of his musket, tensing his sinews as he prepared to fire. The horsemen were moving with mesmerising speed now, and his finger tightened on the trigger as he anticipated the order. The horsemen gouged their vicious spurs into the flanks of their tiring mounts, their soul-searing bellows of hate intensifying as they hurtled forward, the inevitable collision with the red-coated line coming closer with every bound.

Jack’s mind screamed the command to fire, sensing the moment for the deadly volley to be unleashed. Yet Dutton remained silent. Jack tore his eye from his musket. In desperation he looked across to where Dutton sat in the centre of the British line, staring rapt at the enemy charge that was bearing down on his small command with such dreadful purpose. Jack was close enough to see the throb of a vein in the major’s forehead, the tension in the man obvious even from fifty yards away.

A surge of horror seared through his body. Dutton was leaving the volley too late, the inexperienced officer failing to judge the distance correctly.

It was the worst mistake he could make.

‘Fire!’

Jack screamed the command. He did not care that he stood in the line of redcoats as a private soldier. He had to rectify Dutton’s dreadful error if they were to stand any chance of survival.

The men of the 24th looked up in surprise as the strange voice shouted the order.

‘Fire! Now!’ Jack twisted on the spot, bellowing the command for all he was worth.

He was roundly ignored.

He saw Dutton’s head snap around, a look of shocked surprise on his face as he heard Jack’s desperate order. For a fleeting moment he caught Jack’s eye, before turning back, his bottom lip reaching up to chew on his thick moustache.

Jack felt a hand clap hard on to his shoulder.

‘Shut your mouth.’ Corporal Jones had been ordered to stand watch over the charlatan in the ranks of the 24th. But there was little force in his warning to be silent. He too was staring in horror at the enemy horde racing towards them. Jack was not the only one sensing that the officers were about to commit a terrible mistake.

Jack shook off the warning hand. He pulled his musket back into his shoulder and squinted down the sight. The enemy horsemen were dreadfully close, surely no more than fifty yards away from the redcoats’ fragile formation, and closing fast.

There was no time left.

He pulled the trigger. He felt the kick of the musket as it fired, the stock punching hard into his shoulder.

‘Fire!’ He screamed the command as the crisp cough of his shot died away.

For a single, dreadful heartbeat there was silence.

‘Fuck it!’ Corporal Jones muttered the oath under his breath before sucking in a lungful of the scorching air. ‘Twenty-fourth! Fire!’

This time the redcoats responded. Jack caught a glimpse of the shock on Kingsley’s face as his command opened fire without orders, before the cloud of foul-smelling powder smoke rolled back over the line and hid him from view.

At such close range, the effect of the volley was terrible. Those enemy horsemen charging the 24th were scythed down, the head of the charge gutted by the deadly accurate musket fire. The heavy balls punched through the flesh of man and beast, killing and maiming indiscriminately. Men shrieked as they were torn apart, adding to the inhuman cries of the horses. More riders and horses went down as they collided with those struck by the close-range fire, the front half of the charging horde reduced to chaos in a heartbeat.

‘Reload!’ Colour Sergeant Hughes bellowed the command, taking over the orders that Kingsley should have been delivering. The 24th had taken the bit between the teeth, fighting and killing without command, saving themselves as their officers looked on.

Dutton nearly fell from the saddle when the 24th’s volley roared out.

‘Damn you! Not yet!’ The major pulled hard on his reins, wheeling his horse around as he shouted in anger.

Proudfoot kicked his own horse forward, his face twisted into a snarl of recrimination.

‘You fool! That was Lark!’ He snapped the words with anger.

But Dutton was no longer looking towards the 24th. Instead he was staring in horror at the horde of enemy horsemen thundering towards them.

‘Oh God!’ The colour fled from his florid face as the full weight of his error struck him.

Proudfoot looked aghast at the commander of his native troops before turning to see just what had caused the major such utter dismay.

The horde of horsemen was no more than twenty yards away. The speed of their advance was mesmerising. They were tearing across the ground, covering the dusty soil far faster than either man would have believed possible.

‘Fire!’ Dutton screamed the command to his own troops, his terror given voice.

The roar of the sepoys’ volley thundered out, the three hundred muskets firing in unison. The wave of sound slammed down the valley an instant after the storm of musket balls drove into the enemy horde.

The volley ripped the leading ranks apart. The riders at the front of the charging cavalry were butchered, the bodies of both man and horse torn apart at such close range. Yet the momentum of the charge was irresistible. Even as they died, the leading riders slammed into the sepoys’ ranks in the thin red line, tearing huge gaps all along its length.

Sepoys went down, limbs twisted and broken by the weight of the dead horses and riders, their terrified shouts cut off as they were struck to the ground. Behind the gutted ranks, dozens of the Maharajah’s irregular cavalry thundered into the dead and dying, their shouts of warning replacing the dreadful keening for blood. Many were thrown to the ground, unable to stop in time, adding to the chaos. Other riders, untouched by the volley, plunged into the maelstrom, forcing their terrified horses through the blood and the confusion. Free from the melee, they gouged their spurs back, throwing their mounts into the gaps that had been torn in the sepoys’ ranks, their talwars flashing bright in the harsh sunlight as they slashed at the heads of the stunned redcoats, who suddenly found themselves easy targets for the surviving horsemen.

Major Proudfoot watched in growing horror as he saw Dutton’s men reduced to a broken rabble in no more than a dozen heartbeats.

‘Arthur! With me!’ he shouted across to Lieutenant Fenris, who was staring in amazement as the British line was torn to shreds before his eyes. ‘Ride, man!’ He didn’t wait to see if his new aide-de-camp heard him. He put his spurs to his horse’s flanks, turning its head and urging it into a gallop.

He would not wait to bear witness to the destruction of his redcoats.

Jack flinched as the sepoys’ volley roared out. Ahead of him, the 24th’s own volley had bludgeoned the enemy horsemen to a halt, the power of their musket fire smashing the charge into bloody confusion. He could see riders trying to pick their way through the carnage, but it would take time for them to get past the gruesome obstacle. Around him the redcoats reloaded their weapons, their hands moving in haste as they strove to be ready before enough of the enemy riders could break free and once again threaten the frail line.

It had only been a matter of seconds between the 24th’s volley and that of the native soldiers in the 12th, but already the sepoys were broken. Those left standing huddled together, desperate to find safety with their fellows. The merciless horsemen swarmed around these small islands, leaning down from their saddles, slashing and thrusting their vicious sabres.

With their flank no longer protected, the 24th was in dreadful danger. They had butchered the riders who had sought to charge them, but if they stayed in line, they stood no hope.

‘Colour Sergeant Hughes!’ Jack’s voice was huge. ‘Form square!’

The tall colour sergeant heard the command. He glanced around for his captain, but Kingsley still stood mute on the company’s right flank, staring in rapt horror at the destruction Jack had ordered.

‘Now, dammit. Form square!’ Jack repeated his command.

This time the colour sergeant did not hesitate. ‘Company! Form square!’

The redcoats knew their business. The company would reform into square, each flank three ranks deep. The formation would bristle with bayonets, a wall of steel that no horse would be able to penetrate. If they could form it in time and if they remained steady, then they would be safe from the marauding cavalry.

Colour Sergeant Hughes’s command was still echoing around the confined valley when the men of the 24th started to move. With their corporals acting as marshals on the pivot points, the flanks of the square quickly started to form. Ignoring the chaos to their left, the 24th manoeuvred to save itself from destruction.

‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’ Jack’s shoulder was yanked backwards and he spun round on the spot to face a furious Captain Kingsley.

‘Saving your bloody command!’ Jack snapped back, his anger flaring. Around them the square was nearly fully formed, the sergeants and corporals bustling round, positioning their charges to ensure that each of the four flanks was properly aligned.

‘Fix bayonets!’ Colour Sergeant Hughes had moved to the centre of the square, taking command as his officer chose to confront the man who had just saved them from certain destruction.

‘You bastard.’ Spittle was flung from Kingsley’s lips as he damned Jack. ‘These are my men. Mine, do you hear me?’

Jack glanced through the side of the square nearest the slaughtered horsemen. Already many of the enemy had picked their way through the grotesque barrier and in moments the 24th would be under attack. There was no time to waste.

Jack did the only thing he could think of. He snapped his fist forward, punching Kingsley square on the point of his chin. The captain’s jaw shut with an audible snap, his head slammed back by the force of the blow. He fell to the ground with all the grace of a sack of horse shit.

Jack was turning away even before Kingsley’s body had stopped moving.

‘Corporal Jones. Make sure you drag this fool with us. Don’t leave him behind, however tempted you may be.’ Jack nodded as the one corporal he could name doubled over and took a firm grip on Kingsley’s collar.

‘Colour Sergeant Hughes!’

‘Sir!’ Hughes’s reaction was instinctive. Jack might have been dressed as a common redcoat, but there was no doubting who was in command.

‘We will make a fighting retreat to the cantonment.’

‘Sir.’ A flicker of concern appeared on the colour sergeant’s weather-beaten face. It was a daunting order. The 24th would have to make its way over half a mile of open terrain whilst remaining in square. To keep the ranks tight would have been a hard task even on the parade ground. To accomplish it whilst being harassed by hundreds of horsemen was going to take a Herculean effort.

‘Have the NCOs watch the files at all times.’ Jack gave his orders calmly, despite the peril of the situation. ‘If we leave a gap, you can bet those bastards will be in here in a flash. If that happens, then we are all dead men.’

‘Very good, sir!’ Hughes nodded his understanding.

The 24th were about to attempt the near impossible. If they failed, they faced being butchered by the merciless horsemen who would soon swarm around them.

Jack had saved them from the first dreadful moments of the enemy’s charge. Now he had to bring them to safety.