The Ravi Lancers (5 page)

The Brahmins’ colonel pointed out the hillocks and explained that he was going to attack to clear them in twenty minutes’ time. The artillery was already ranging. Meanwhile they were under heavy and accurate fire from about a hundred rifles.

‘You, too, sir,’ George Johnson said to the general.

The general said coldly, ‘I’m the director of the exercise as well as commanding the troops. Don’t be impertinent. What’s the meaning of this, Bateman? How can any enemy have got there?’

‘They swam the Ravi twice and marched most of the night, sir,’ Warren said.

The general was peering through binoculars. ‘I don’t see anyone on the near hill.’

‘No, sir, I told Major Krishna Ram to keep his men off that because it is mostly covered by the grounds of that old Muslim tomb and shrine you can see from here.’

The general stared coldly at Warren. ‘What nonsense is this? Either they occupied the hill or they didn’t.’

‘In theory, sir, they ...’

‘I am not interested in your theories.’ He turned on the Brahmins’ colonel: ‘You attack right away.’ He looked at George Johnson. ‘They will succeed with no more casualties. And you--’ he glared at Bateman--’can tell your rag, tag and bobtail that they’ve lost twenty men from artillery fire. And the same number of horses.’

‘Sir,’ Warren said, ‘the horses are well down the reverse slope, and it’s a battery of 18-pounders in support of the Brahmins here.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Only howitzers can hit the horses, sir. The 18-pounders will either burst on the crest or go well over.’

‘Don’t try to tell me what the guns can do,’ the brigadier-general snapped, ‘get back up there and pass on my orders.
Orders
, Bateman!’

‘Very well, sir,’ Warren said, saluting. He mounted his horse and swung away at a canter. Damned old fool, he thought. He’s upset because he’s been outmanoeuvred, and because Major-General Glover was somewhere in the offing, inspecting the exercise. Still, the Yuvraj’s force had held up the British advance for over two hours, and if they didn’t waste time now they could still rejoin the rest of the regiment in time to attack and with luck wipe out the sole squadron of British cavalry, which was by now totally isolated from infantry and artillery support. He urged his horse fast up the slope. Krishna Ram was waiting for him over the crest of the hill, binoculars in his hand.

‘I think we have killed the general several times over,’ he said, grinning.

Warren found himself grinning back. ‘Yes, but he’s immortal for the duration of the exercise ... You’ve been under ranging artillery fire for ten minutes, and now they’re firing concentrations. You’ve lost twenty men and twenty horses.’

The young prince said, ‘And I can see the infantry coming out of the scrub jungle down there.’ He turned to his trumpeter. ‘Blow fire and retire.’

A ripple of blank rifle fire swept along the crest, then the cavalrymen ran down the back slope, swung up into the saddles of the patiently standing horses, took their lances out of the rifle buckets and slipped the rifles back in, then cantered away, led by the Yuvraj. By the time the leading infantry reached the hill tops they were a mile to the north, drawing rein on the far side of a squalid village.

‘That was a good gallop,’ Krishna cried.

‘For you,’ Warren panted. ‘All of us don’t have thoroughbred hunters.’

Major Bholanath cantered up and touched his fingers to his forehead. ‘Prince, it is unwise to halt here even for a moment. We are still in artillery range and the observers will be up on the hills back there by now. We are in full view.’

‘Extended order,’ the Yuvraj cried to his trumpeter. ‘Trot!’

The two squadrons shook out into a single long line, three files deep, and trotted on across the fields. Rainbow Rogers would say that the artillery was inflicting heavy casualties, if he could see this, Warren thought, but he can’t. Fifteen minutes later the squadrons reformed threes, still at the trot.

‘Captain Bateman ...’

He awoke from a reverie. The Yuvraj was saying. ‘We’re having a guest night in our mess tomorrow night. I’d be honoured if you’d come as my guest.’

Warren hesitated, trying to remember whether there was any function he ought to attend in his own regiment. The Yuvraj said quickly, ‘We eat Indian style, but there is always European food for Colonel Hanbury.’

Warren said, ‘Unless your
khansamah
’s a lot better than ours, I’d prefer Indian food. In any case, I accept with thanks.’

‘Oh, good! Of course, we don’t really have a mess when we are in Basohli, because nearly everyone is married and lives in his own house, with his family ... like the Guards in England, Mr. Fleming told me ... but on manoeuvres we have one, because my grandfather is very keen that we should be as much like a regular regiment as possible.’

Warren lit his pipe and the Yuvraj a scented Egyptian cigarette. They rode on side by side in companionable silence.

Warren heard the strains of
The Mikado
long before he reached the huge marquee which was the Ravi Lancers’ officers’ mess. He whistled softly under his breath, for only one regiment of the regular Indian cavalry had a band. These Ravi people not only had a band, it was playing the European music very well. He whistled again when he passed the last row of sowars’ tents and came in view of the open sward in front of the marquee, where the band was playing, for they were dressed in full dress of gold and white, their bandmaster wearing gold sash and gem-encrusted sabre. Deep armchairs of leather were scattered over the thin grass at the edge of the grove nearby, and a score of lanterns, hung from the boughs or set on standards, cast a golden glow on silver and crystal and the huge plastron badges of the dozen mess orderlies and a pair of lancers in full dress standing as sentries to either side of the marquee entrance and officers standing in little groups or sprawled back in the chairs, glasses in hand.

Corelli of the Brahmins came up alongside him and muttered, ‘Good God, how on earth did they bring all this stuff out here?’

‘You saw the elephants and the bullock carts,’ Warren said. ‘Are you a guest, too?’

‘Yes, Colonel Hanbury invited me. He’s a friend of my father’s.’ They went forward together. As they came out into the light the Yuvraj stepped forward, hand outstretched, followed by Colonel Hanbury. Warren briefly stood at attention and said, ‘Good evening, sir.’ He relaxed. ‘Evening, Yuvraj. You fellows know how to make yourselves comfortable, don’t you?’

‘What will you have?’ the prince asked.

‘Oh, a chota peg, please.’

The prince passed on the order in Hindi to a waiting orderly, ordering a lemon and soda for himself. They stood a moment, talking to Colonel Hanbury and Corelli. The drinks came and Warren sipped his as he glanced about him. Everyone except the band and the sentries was wearing blue patrols, the simple high-button tunic and tight trousers strapped over mess Wellingtons that were worn in the evenings in camp. All but Corelli, the infantryman, wore on each shoulder a large patch of chain mail, with coloured cloth backing--yellow for Ravi Lancers, scarlet in his own case. The Yuvraj wore heavy gold aiguillettes on the right shoulder and a miniature gold sunburst medal hanging from a yellow and white ribbon. Noticing Warren looking at them, he murmured apologetically, ‘I’m ADC to my grandfather. And this is the Royal Order of the Sun of Ravi. We’re supposed to be descended from the sun, you know. My grandfather insisted on giving it to me when I came of age ... I’d like you to meet some of our officers. Major Bholanath you know from the exercise.’

‘Yes,’ Warren said, with a smile, ‘and, to my cost, on the polo field.’

He shook hand after hand. The names were a blur to him. A few had characteristics already distinguishable to him. This one was Sher Singh, the pansy. This spectacled one, Himat Singh, let his VCOs argue over the allotment of tents. This fat one, looking more like a
babu
than an officer, was the quartermaster. They all spoke English, some not too well--notably old Bholanath, who mangled it terribly and interspersed it with Hindi and Pahari words. Then the band struck up a new tune and Colonel Hanbury guided Corelli into dinner, followed by the Yuvraj and Warren, the rest of the officers strolling behind, talking animatedly.

As he entered the marquee Warren suppressed another whistle. The mess table was polished mahogany, thirty feet long and groaning under such an array of silver and gold as he had never seen except once when dining in the mess of a very old and rich British battalion. He saw at first glance that the plate was not the accrual of decades and centuries, as in that case, but all given at once, probably by the Rajah, in order that his Lancers should not feel like poor relations. Down the centre of the table there were peacocks in silver, elephants in gold, several statuettes of lancers in full dress, a silver gun, goblets, chalices, bowls and vases. Corelli, sitting opposite, caught his eye and almost imperceptibly winked. They sat down.

While Colonel Hanbury and his guest ate through six European courses--soup, fish, entree, roast, sweet, and savoury--the rest were served with spicy tidbits of meat, egg, mountains of savoury rice, vegetables, curried chicken, and sweetmeats done up in silver foil. Sherry, white wine, red wine, champagne, port, madeira, and brandy followed each other in ritual procession. Some of the Ravi officers drank a great deal, some none at all. All ate with the fingers of their right hands, some gracefully and some coarsely. The band played European music on the grass outside. At one end of the marquee, behind the president’s chair, a pair of lances were crossed over a large photograph of the Rajah of Ravi, garishly hand-coloured and ornately framed. In the wrinkled old face, under the jewelled turban ornament, Warren recognized features similar to Krishna Ram’s--the same wide level eyes and hawk nose and firm chin.

Round the table the talk was in Hindi and English, animated in the former case, stilted and desultory in the latter.

After dinner, when toasts had been drunk to the Rajah and the King-Emperor, everyone straggled out on to the grass again. An elderly lieutenant, who bore the unmistakable stamp of having been a rissaldar of the regular service, belched appreciatively as he walked by. An hour later, after a couple of brandies and sodas, Warren said to his host, ‘I’d better be off to my charpoy now, Yuvraj. It’s been a delightful evening ... By the way, did you ever find that sowar, Mangla Ram?’

The Yuvraj nodded. ‘They found his body six miles downstream, this morning. I’m going to ask my grandfather to give his widow a pension.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t she get it anyway?’

‘We have no pension system. They are awarded as the Rajah thinks fit. It’s all rather
kachcha
, I know--’ he spread his hands deprecatingly--‘but it’s the old-fashioned way, and my grandfather won’t have anything else.’

‘You’re lucky,’ Warren said. ‘If Mangla Ram had been one of ours we’d be holding courts of inquiry from now till the rains to establish whether he died as a result of military service or not, and who should pay for the lost and damaged equipment ... Well, I hope we’ll see some more of you during the manoeuvres. You did Rainbow in the eye yesterday and he’ll be after your blood. Look out! ... Good night.’ He turned to Colonel Hanbury, sitting a few feet away with Bholanath and Corelli. ‘Good night, sir.’

‘Good night, Bateman.’

Warren walked away out of the circle of light. The band was playing Indian music and a drunken officer was dancing to it. The sowars were singing softly to the music in the lines, where regularly spaced hurricane lanterns marked the end of each row of tents. A dismounted lines-sentry brought his lance to the salute as he passed. It had been an interesting visit to another world, or rather, to an organism trying to belong to two worlds. He ought to invite the Yuvraj to his own mess for something--a drink at least. But Krishna didn’t drink. Dinner, perhaps--though there were those in the regiment who would not take kindly to seeing any Indian sit at table with them, prince or no. He’d have to think of something, because the Yuvraj seemed to realize that for Warren the goal was to have a fuller, deeper appreciation of India and Indians--not the other way round.

The lights were on in the 44th Lancers’ mess and he saw some figures through the opened flap of the marquee, but he turned aside, being in no mood for horseplay or horsetalk, went to his tent, where his orderly was waiting for him, undressed, and lay down on his camp bed. Another two-day exercise tomorrow. Then a short one. Then the ride back to Lahore. See the family off. Individual training. Stables. Furlough to England. Secunderabad. Squadron drills ... He fell asleep, yawning.

The road arrowed north between a double avenue of mango trees. Prince Krishna Ram forced the open car down it through mud and half-dried puddles as fast as the engine would take it. The steady screech of the klaxon, worked continuously by the orderly sitting beside him, made oxcart drivers turn round and stare, perched high on their carts, and hurrying women to step off under the mangoes, their necks supernaturally erect under the loads they carried on their heads. Far behind, journeymen and tinkers, harlots in curtained carts and loin-clothed men carrying a plough on their knotted shoulders, stepped back into the road and trudged on, the hurrying car already forgotten.

The sun was a glaring yellow disc to the left, sinking into the flat fields beyond the Ravi. It was the time of the monsoon and though it had not rained here for three days, heavy rain had fallen in the mountains and the river ran full and brown, swirling in its wide bed. Krishna looked at the gold watch on his wrist, as he had done every ten minutes for the past ten waking hours (for the watch was new), and saw that it was six o’clock. He should be in Basohli by seven. He trod harder on the accelerator. Then he’d have to change before he could present himself to his grandfather. Light grey trousers, a white shirt, tie, and jacket of the new sunproof material, were certainly much more workmanlike than Indian costume, but grandfather didn’t like it, and it also made one sweat more on a day like this--it must have been over 100 when he left Lahore, and though the passing of the hours had blunted the edge of the heat, he had sweated and mud had caked on him and he felt rumpled and unclean. ‘A good cold shower will make a new man of you,’ as Mr. Fleming used to say. He pressed the Daimler’s accelerator against the floor boards, and the speedometer crept up to sixty miles an hour. This is life, he exulted silently--speed, and the prospect of war!