Red Runs the Helmand

‘I’ve seen worse, sir.’ Kelly was stooping over the casualty, who clutched his left side where several rents in his khaki oozed red, blotching the cloth, his face screwed up in pain. ‘He’s got some puncture wounds, but none are deep. Come on, son, on yer feet,’ Sergeant Kelly helped Thompson – who let out a great hiss of pain – to stand up. ‘Get his rifle an’ headdress, Hyde.’

But as the wounded man leant against his sergeant for support, Morgan was suddenly aware that the bellowing throng had gone quiet. Where the people had pressed and crowded about their business, Morgan could now see nothing but a circle of hard, silent faces, only the children showing open-mouthed curiosity, everyone else staring with badly concealed hatred. As he looked at the people, though, the crowd parted and a tall, bearded man, armed with a knife, his black turban tied carelessly in a great, ragged ball, pushed his way to the front.

‘Who’s this bucko, Sar’nt Kelly?’ Morgan asked, distracting him from Thompson.

‘Buggered if I know, sir,’ Kelly noted the deference with which the people seemed to treat the man, ‘but these bastards all seem to know him.’

The lofty newcomer paused for a moment and took in the little knot of the 66th, who had now gathered round their stabbed comrade in a loose, defensive ring, their rifles and bayonets pointing at the crowd. Then he strode over to the boy’s corpse. Morgan had noticed that the child seemed to have shrunk in death; now he was just a tiny pile of stained and dust-soiled rags, whose beaten face lay in a rusty puddle. The tribesman crouched over the body and swiped away a cloud of flies. The mob was still hushed, but as the man stood and turned towards the troops, Morgan found himself gasping almost as audibly as the crowd. Three or four men, all similarly dressed and armed, had jostled to the front; they looked towards their tall leader, apparently waiting for him to give orders.

‘Seems to have brought his gang with him too, Sar’nt Kelly.’ Morgan found himself shuffling backwards towards the others. Now the patrol were practically back to back, facing the surrounding crowd, Thompson moaning softly in their midst.

‘Aye, sir, an’ ’e don’t look too pleased about that nipper we’ve just turned off. Should we load, sir?’ Kelly, so far, had been utterly in control, whether in routine barrack matters or on patrol, available to give sage and discreet advice to his young officer. But now, Morgan realised, as the officer he had to exercise total judgement and leadership. Despite his lack of experience, the men required him to fill the role that his brass stars and station in life suggested. He licked his lips and searched his mind for what Sandhurst might have taught him to do in such circumstances.

The answer was simple: nothing. They’d been told about conventional war, about victories over French and Russians; they’d been shown how to deal with howling masses of ‘savage’ spear-wielding natives, to read maps, to control artillery, and even how to sap and build bridges. But of operations among supposed friends who were actually foes, of how to deal with fanatical, murderous children in the middle of a crowd of civilians while a critical press corps hovered close by, not a thing had been said.

But Morgan was given no more time to ponder. The big warrior turned to his friends, broke the silence with a gabble of words, then dropped his hand to the bone hilt of his foot-long knife and began to draw it. Morgan didn’t even answer his sergeant’s question for he knew that if he was going to act he had to do something fast and decisive. Launching himself over the few yards that separated them, the young officer went as hard as he could for the tribesman, knowing he had one chance only to defeat the bigger man. Once that knife was clear of its sheath, his enemy would strike fast and hard – and that would not only be the signal for his henchmen to attack but for the rest of the crowd to swamp him and his men.

The hours of sword training that Morgan had received were ignored. Fencing at school, then cut and guard under the skill-at-arms instructor, even the first fatal thrust he’d just delivered, were instantly forgotten. Instead, visceral instincts took over and he smashed the hilt of his sword as hard as he could into his opponent’s face, catching him by surprise and sending him sprawling into the gutter next to the cooling child, a welter of limbs and flying robes. Unwittingly, Morgan had done just the right thing. A neat, deft blow might have dealt with his opponent, but he would have fallen with a dignity that inspired the others. This brawling assault made the tribesman look foolish; he dropped almost comically, which gave the patrol just enough time to seize the initiative.

‘Move, Sar’nt Kelly. I’ll hold ’em!’ But even before Morgan had said this, Kelly was leading the others hard into the throng, making for the gate, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, bayonets pricking those who were slow to move, while Thompson was half dragged, half carried with them.

The people were mercifully slow to react. Morgan’s impression as he dashed and turned, sweeping his sword blade from side to side to keep the Kandaharis at bay, was of a cowering bank of flesh and cloth that pressed itself against the town’s walls as he and his men scrambled down the street.

‘Let’s not wait, Sar’nt Kelly, they’re hard behind,’ gasped Morgan, as he caught up with his clutch of men, who had paused to get a better hold on the barely conscious Thompson.

‘Aye, sir, I can see that . . .’ and, as if to reinforce what he knew already, a shower of stones, fruit and whatever else came to hand bounced around Kelly and Morgan as the mob surged up the street in pursuit.

‘So, hardly the most glorious start to an officer’s career, Mr Morgan?’ I knew that all four of those listening, Galbraith, Sergeant Kelly and Heath would be expecting me to show some sort of favouritism to my son. In truth, I’d have been a damn sight less hard on a young officer I didn’t know than I was going to have to be on Billy – if I’d been in that horrid situation, I suspect I’d have made a right bloody hash of things and got the whole patrol kicked and stabbed to death. What worried me, though, was how matter-of-fact Billy had been about killing a child.

‘No, sir, I know that, but I was fortunate to have a good set of men around me. If they’d got out of control or fired into the crowd, I suspect we wouldn’t be here now, sir,’ Billy answered confidently, Galbraith nodding his approval almost imperceptibly.

‘Quite so, young man. I gather that Private Thompson should recover, but you were lucky that the whole thing didn’t turn very nasty indeed. Who d’you suppose the maniac child was?’ I asked Billy, but Sergeant Kelly responded.

‘Ghazi, sir. Pretty young one, but a Ghazi beyond doubt,’ he said, with total conviction.

‘What – at twelve years of age? The only possible attraction I can see for being a bloody Ghazi is the dozens of virgins they’re promised in eternity if they butcher one of us. Can’t see how that would influence a twelve-year-old unless he’s a very early starter.’ The idea of using children as assassins was preposterous, wasn’t it? But, then, the very concept of committing certain suicide in the name of religion was also pretty odd – yet that was what was happening.

‘Well, sir, he was dressed all in white.’ Billy had taken up the narrative now. ‘Apparently he was yelling, “Din-din,” though I didn’t hear that myself. He was quite demented and went for Thompson with a knife rather than a firearm.’

‘Perhaps he couldn’t get a jezail or a pistol.’ I still found it hard to believe that anyone could bend a child’s mind to do such a thing.

‘Ten a penny in the metal-workers’ quarter, sir,’ Kelly added quietly.

‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I’d not yet been into the teeming bazaars of Kandahar, the same bazaars in which I was asking boys like Thompson to risk their lives. ‘Well, you two, it seems our enemies’ beastliness knows no bounds, yet you’ve come out of this remarkably unscathed. I have no doubt that the mullahs will get to the press vermin and that you’ll read all about your own atrocities, but let me handle that side of things.

‘Heath, I want a full account of this new tactic that the Ghazis are using sent to all commanding officers – and I’ll need to take a copy of it with me when I report to General Primrose, so don’t drag your heels.’ My brigade major adopted his customary harassed expression as he scratched in his notebook.

‘Have either of you anything more to say?’

Both Billy and his sergeant gave me a regulation ‘Nosir.’

‘Sar’nt Kelly, you should have known better than to let a patrol get into a mess like this and, Mr Morgan, if I hear about any more errors of judgement, then I’ll have your balls for bandoleers and you’ll be back to India before you know what’s hit you.’ I knew how lame this sounded and if it had been anyone but Billy standing in front of me, I would probably have given both him and his sergeant a cautious pat on the back – but I couldn’t, could I? ‘Well, think yourselves lucky. I’ll come and visit Private Thompson: now fall out, the pair of you.’ I’d tried to sound gruff and to conceal the fact that my son had got himself out of a nasty scrape without a mark on him, but as both officer and sergeant saluted, I caught a look in Billy’s eye that concerned me. He knew me – of course he did – and he would certainly know how much I sympathised with him and Kelly, whatever act I put on, but there was no self-doubt in that glance, apparently no residue of regret that the first person he’d had to kill had been just a child.

‘One more thing, Galbraith.’ I’d stood up, put on my helmet, settled my sword and was preparing to leave my son’s commanding officer. ‘You’ll need to be very careful of such tactics in the future. You’ll warn the men to be on the qui vive, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will, sir. In fact Taylor, whose company is just about to take over patrolling duties, is working up a series of instructions to help the men handle just such events in the future.’ He looked suitably pained that I should have asked such a question.

‘Quite so, quite so. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.’ I was trying my damnedest not to let my concern for Billy show, but I couldn’t quite stop myself. ‘I’ll smooth things over with General Primrose. And how’s young Mr Morgan settling in?’

‘He’s a most promising officer, sir, and while I know how ticklish things are in town, I think he conducted himself right well today.’ Galbraith stared straight back, making no reference to the boy’s relationship to me. But I wondered if he knew the question I really wanted to ask.

I wanted to ask him how he would have reacted to having to run his sword through a twelve-year-old’s chest. Would he have shown no remorse, like Billy? I knew that – no matter the circumstances – I would have reproached myself. I wanted to ask him if he’d noticed the cold glaze in my son’s eyes. But I didn’t – I couldn’t. I just nodded my understanding, flicked a salute out of courtesy and left the room.

Chapter Three - Khusk-i-Nakud

The 3rd Scinde Horse felt they were old hands, for they had been in Afghanistan more than a year and had a couple of successful skirmishes to their credit; now they were brimful of confidence. As the tribesmen seemed to have subsided into an uneasy truce, there was time for some sport in the hills and valleys around Kandahar: the commanding officer had asked some of the new arrivals from India to join him and his officers for what was insouciantly known as a ‘little spearing’.

It was widely accepted that Sam’s step-father, Brigadier General Anthony Morgan, regarded himself as a great shikari, so an invitation to ride out with a pig-spear, almost as soon as he’d wiped the dust of his travels off himself, had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Over the past two years, Sam had written and received a few stiff soldier-father-to-soldier-son letters from his step-father, but he hadn’t seen him until now. He was wondering how much the prospect of another campaign at this late stage of his career would please him. Then Malcolmson, the colonel, ambitious to the last and delighted that one of his people knew someone of influence, had introduced his officers – the handful of British and twice the number of Indians – to their guests. Keenan was amused to see that his father had changed into mufti while he and the other officers had been required to stay in uniform due, as the colonel stuffily put it, ‘to the omnipresent possibility of an enemy presence’.

They’d all been lined up outside the bungalow that served as the British officers’ mess, themselves drinking a fruit-punch stirrup cup and the Indian officers unadulterated fruit juice. Malcolmson, no doubt, wanted to give the new general an impression of relaxed élan, a study in dash and the spirit of irregular cavalry, but once the man himself and the other guests came cantering up, in an assortment of linen jackets, corduroy breeches and the most battered sun-helmets, the colonel’s efforts were made to look a little contrived. Had the officers of the Scinde Horse been similarly déshabillé then the ruse might have worked, but the polished boots, the native officers’ oh-so-carefully tied puggarees and everyone’s Sunday-best behaviour gave the game away.

As the general arrived, Sam realised he’d never seen him in circumstances like this before. At home in Ireland it was an open secret that Sam was the bastard son of Anthony and Mary, conceived in the Crimea while Mary was married to a sergeant in the company Sam’s father commanded. Everyone also knew that Sergeant James Keenan – a Corkman too – had perished in circumstances of great bravery in India under the mutineers’ knives a couple of years later. With the death in childbirth of Maude, Anthony’s first wife, the way was clear for the lovers to marry.

Sam, it was true, had stuck to the name Keenan and followed his mother’s wishes that he should be brought up a Catholic, but most people knew the truth. Anthony, whenever he was at home, had treated him like the son he was – well, he had treated him in the rather distant, muscular way that, Sam supposed, military fathers were meant to treat their boys, yet there had always been tension between himself and his younger half-brother, Billy. Sam had soon understood that, despite being older, he would always come off second best; not for him the name Morgan and an inheritance, not for him a scarlet coat. No, it was the Indian cavalry for the Catholic Sam Keenan and a life a long way from Dublin drawing rooms. If he thought about it too much it angered him, but just at the moment he couldn’t have given a hang, for he was in Afghanistan among people he liked and trusted, being paid to do a job that he would have cheerfully done for free.

Now here was the man who, while he might have made him play second fiddle at home, had given him the chance for this great adventure, a man who certainly had failings but was kind and brave, a man who preferred to ask rather than demand, and that same man had just made his own colonel look like the gauche little thruster he was.

The general had shaken every hand, admired the medals that hung from the native officers’ breasts, asked everyone about their home towns (and even looked as though he understood what the rissaldars were talking about) and made friends with them all. Sam wondered how he would greet him, but he needn’t have worried.

‘So, Colonel, you seem to have turned this gouger into more of a soldier than I ever could!’ There had been laughs from Sam’s contemporaries at this and a beam of pleasure from the commanding officer. ‘May I steal him away from you this evening? I need to learn a bit about fighting the Afghans.’

And so General Morgan won the confidence of the Scinde Horsemen, as Sam had seen him do so many times before with huntsmen, magistrates, police and tradesmen at home. It had never struck him before, but Sam now knew that there might be much to learn about leadership and raw soldiering from his father, whom he knew so slightly. But there were more surprises to come for, towards the end of a disappointing hunt, they flushed a panther from its hiding-place and chased it into a piece of rocky ground that was set about with tall grass, scrub and stunted trees. Long, low, dangerous growls could be heard, echoing from the slabs of rock about them. Then Sam watched his father ride into deep, thick cover after it, quite alone and armed only with a spear. It was in that instant that he saw where his own impulsiveness – his pig-headedness – came from.

Until an hour or so before, the spearmen had had a sparse day of it. There had been distant sightings of pig, excited cries from the native beaters and much galloping hither and yon to no effect whatsoever. But then Sam had been amazed to see a low, sleek, dark form come slinking from a rocky fissure; he had never seen such a beautiful creature before, her black coat groomed and glossy, her ears tipped back and her eyes alight with feral intelligence. The villagers had claimed that the great cat stalked the area, taking withered cows, chickens and goats, and causing mothers to watch their children closely, despite only rare sightings. The native beaters had fired the bush around an outcrop and the creature’s supposed lair, hoping to smoke her out. As Sam sat his pony, the short, seven-foot spear in his hand, and watched the grey-blue smoke billow with a bored detachment, he could not have been more surprised when the mythical quarry became reality.

‘Hey, goddamn – here, here.’ Sam found himself shouting inanities at the backs of the fire-raisers, behind whom the animal ambled, unseen. But as he shouted and dug his spurs into his pony, the panther broke into a gentle trot, dignifying him with a short, disdainful glance before she disappeared into a thicket of grass and scrubby bush.

Sam pushed his mount forward, hallooing as loudly as he could, but the tangle of branches and stalks, combined with the clouds of smoke, gave the advantage to the animal and by the time he’d extracted himself there had been another sighting and more excited cries further up the line of rocks. Galloping as hard as he could to catch the other horsemen, who were now much closer to the cat, he saw two riders hesitating over a body that lay still on the ground.

‘A beater, sahib.’ Rissaldar Singh, one of the Indian troop commanders in Keenan’s squadron, held his horse’s reins tightly, flicking his eyes from the inert pile of rags on the ground to the stand of long, coarse grass from which low growls could be heard. ‘I saw the cat on him but was too late: bus.’

‘Aye, and we’ll be too late if we fanny around here any longer,’ said the other horseman, his voice thick with excitement. ‘You two get up towards that gap in the brush just there.’ He pointed with his spear to a dark-shadowed, natural hollow in the grass about ten yards from where they all stood. ‘I’ll poke her up the arse and you two catch her as she bolts. Be sharp about it, though, for you’ll get no second chance.’ Before either of them could try to stop him, General Anthony Morgan was away into the brush by himself, crashing his horse through the low cover, yelling loudly and shouting, ‘Hi, hi, get on,’ with his stout little spear held low and ready.

There was to be no argument, that was clear, so Keenan and Singh dug their heels into their mounts, the dead beater forgotten, and in a few seconds were covering the indicated spot. There was just time for Keenan’s heart to beat a little less frantically, for the horses to settle, for the general’s shouts and thrashing to become less torrid and for them all to think that the panther had slipped away – when out she shot.

Keenan thought of the cats at home as they stalked sparrows around the stables, low on their haunches, all shoulder-blades, flicking tails and rapt concentration. The panther looked just like that as she emerged – but ten times the size and weight, her whiskers bristling and eyes narrowed, trying to weigh up whether to attack the two horsemen or bolt between them. In the fraction of a second that Keenan watched and mused, Singh acted, kicking his horse on, causing the panther to swerve, but still catching her with the point of his barbed pig-spear deep in the rump.

Again, Keenan was reminded of domestic cats, for the panther hissed and screamed in pain just as he had heard two toms do when they were contesting some bit of food thrown on to the kitchen waste. But this cat’s enemy was Singh’s spear, around which she curled her body, biting at the wooden shaft and clawing so powerfully at the ground that she almost pulled her antagonist from the saddle. Keenan found the writhing, kicking target hard to hit; he jostled his pony alongside Singh’s, missed with his first lunge and only managed to prod the panther in the ribs with his second attempt, infuriating the wounded animal even further.

As the horses wheeled and pecked, and the panther scrabbled at the ground to which she was pinned, the dust rose, along with the yells of the two cavalrymen. Then into this chaos panted a third man, a dismounted man, who loped forward with his spear held in front of him.

‘Let me in, goddamn you! Clear the way!’ rasped General Morgan, as he dodged among the hoofs and flying specks of blood. ‘Get your spike into that bloody cat, won’t you, son? Skewer it – hold the damn thing down while I finish the job!’

Keenan reached forward from the saddle and jabbed as hard as he could into the fine sable fur, thrusting the point of his spear so deeply that the steel drove through the flesh until it met the dirt beneath. Now, with two shafts holding the agonised beast, Keenan watched as his father closed in.

Although the panther was weak she was still dangerous, and Morgan had to wait for his moment. As the blood flowed from her wounds, so she became more desperate, and as she clawed at the stakes, she finally showed her soft belly and Morgan darted in. Keenan held on to his bucking shaft and watched as his father poked his own spear between a line of teats where the hair was thin and the white hide showed. The general, he saw, was skilful enough just to push a few inches of steel home and then pause until the blood flowed. Once he was sure that the point would find a vital organ, Morgan threw all his weight behind the weapon, thrusting the spear until the metal and wood were deep inside the creature’s lungs and heart. Then it was over. One final jab saw the end of the cat’s agony. With a twitch that shook the black body from the point of its tail to the tip of its nose, the panther at last lay still.

The horses snorted and shook their heads – almost like a last salute to their humbled foe, thought Keenan.

‘Well, damn your eyes, you two, that was a neat bit of work, so it was. The pelt will look grand on your veranda, Rissaldar sahib, well done, bahadur! And not a bad show from you, either, my lad.’ Keenan saw his father grinning up at both of them as he jerked his spear from the corpse. The general was dusty, spotted with the panther’s blood, exhilarated and, clearly, pleased with himself. Yet, Keenan realised, his father, who had taken most of the risk, wanted no credit for himself: how little he knew him.

The day’s chase had quite revived my spirits and I rounded things off by sending my clueless brigade major to check that the Horse Gunners had settled into their lines – that was far too grubby a task for a man of his fine habits. Now I could try to enjoy a supper with my elder son and, after today, I suspected that he’d matured into quite a different person from the lad I’d last known. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years – the last time we’d met passed through Bombay and Sam had invited me to a guest night with his new regiment, the 3rd Scinde Horse. I was just a full colonel on the staff then and he was a fresh-minted cornet, straight out of the factory, all new mess kit and sparkling spurs. But what a different sight he’d been when we were after that cat, and now here he was in the dusty courtyard of my living quarters in Kandahar – burnt as dark as any of his sowars, his tulwar swinging by his side, spiked helmet at a rakish angle and a look of such self-confidence in his brown eyes that it took me a second to realise he was my own flesh and blood.