Red Runs the Helmand

‘An’ it’s good to see you, General. There’s a deal o’ catching up to do – perhaps a swally or two might be in order?’ He was older, for sure, but that rasping accent took me back to good times and bad, triumphs and disappointments we had shared, scares and laughter too many to remember.

But our familiarity clearly irritated General Primrose, who rose on the balls of his feet, peering up at McGucken while shooting me a sideways look. ‘Indeed, gentlemen. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity for such niceties once my political officer has briefed us all on the possible difficulties we face.’ Primrose cut across McGucken’s and my obvious delight in each other’s company, reasserting his authority and returning the atmosphere to all the conviviality of a Methodist prayer meeting. ‘Let’s have no more delays. Proceed, please, Major McGucken.’

And with that stricture, McGucken moved across to a map that was pinned to the wall, shooed a couple of somnolent flies off its lacquered surface, cleared his throat and began.

‘Before I arrived, back in November last year, while General Stewart was handling his own political affairs, a rumour gathered strength over in Herat.’ McGucken pointed to the city, more than three hundred miles to the north and west of Kandahar. ‘Ayoob Khan is the governor there and he has designs on Kandahar – he’s already declared himself the real wali – and for those of you who don’t know, gentlmen, a wali’s a regional governor who, so long as he’s got the local tribes with him, is extremely powerful. And I can understand why he’s interested in Kandahar. It’s the most prosperous of the regions and our people in India hadn’t made it clear that there was likely to be a permanent British presence here. Anyway, General Stewart took the intelligence seriously enough to report it to the viceroy—’

‘But not seriously enough to do anything about preparing Kandahar for any sort of a fight,’ Primrose interrupted, bristling away and looking every bit the petulant little scrub I’d always thought him.

‘Aye, General, quite so.’ McGucken continued: ‘But, as you know, things quietened down after the end of the fighting last year and the rumour came to nothing. Some of you gentlemen have already met the Wali of Kandahar, Sher Ali—’

‘You haven’t had a chance to clap eyes on him yet, Morgan.’ I could see how irritated McGucken was becoming by Primrose’s constant interjections. ‘I’ll get you an appointment as soon as possible. He must be in his mid-sixties now, not well liked and without much influence among either the Pathans or the Douranis, but the viceroy decided that he was the man to rule Kandahar as a state that is semi-independent of the Kabul government, so support him we shall. Trouble is, his own troops – who are meant to be keeping the tribes in order hereabouts – are unreliable and we’ve had a number of minor mutinies already. But don’t let me interrupt, McGucken, do go on.’

I knew that look of McGucken’s. He’d never suffered fools gladly, not even when he was an NCO, and his expression, a mixture of contempt and impatience, told me all I needed to know about the interfering nature of our divisional commander.

‘Sir, thank you.’ McGucken’s accent disguised his exasperation – unless you knew the man as well as I did. ‘The situation is extremely ticklish. You all know about General Stewart’s victory at Ahmed Khel on the nineteenth of April. He was halfway to Kabul when he met a right set of rogues and gave all fifteen thousand of them a damn good towelling. But, despite what you might think, that has only made the local tribesmen bolder. Word has come down from the Ghilzais that they nearly beat Stewart’s force, and whether that’s right or wrong is unimportant for that’s what they want to believe, and over the last couple of weeks the locals have become decidedly gallus.’

I smiled as the others knitted their brows at McGucken’s vocabulary. His speech had acquired a veneer of gentility to go with his rank and appointment, but his orphan Glasgow background was still obvious if you knew what to look for. And I knew what he meant: the badmashes Heath had pointed out were certainly ‘gallus’ – far too confident for their own good.

‘There’s been trouble among the wali’s forces while our own troops have been pestered, harassed, attacked, even, by tribesmen here in the city—’

But McGucken wasn’t allowed to continue, for Primrose butted in again: ‘Yes, that’s right. Some of your fellows had a very ugly incident the other day, didn’t they, Brooke? Tell Morgan about it.’

‘Well, yes, sir.’ I could see that Harry Brooke, decent sort of man that he was, didn’t want to break into McGucken’s briefing, but Primrose was insistent. ‘Willis, one of the Gunner subalterns of my brigade, had gone down into the Charsoo – that’s the odd domed building at the crossroads in the centre of the town, Morgan, if you ain’t seen it already – where the normal gathering of villains was going on around the bazaar stalls. He’d got a couple of soldiers with him and was armed according to my orders, but in the crowd he got separated from his escort – quite deliberately, I’m sure – and a Ghazi came at him with an ordinary shoemaker’s awl . . .’

My face must have betrayed my horror at what I knew Brooke was about to say.

‘Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I asked to see the murder weapon after the whole beastly business was over. It was just one of those sharp little iron awls, no more than two and a bit inches long, I’m telling you. The lads who witnessed the attack reckoned that it was an unusually crowded day in the markets, and a lunatic waited till his confederates had distracted them both and then just ran at him and buried it in the poor fellow’s neck. The two soldiers saw the assassin running at their officer but had no idea what he was about to do. All they saw was a look of crazy hatred on the man’s face and something small glittering in his hand. They’d had all the lectures about what the Ghazis can do and been told about their penchant for cold steel, but the whole thing was such a surprise that Willis didn’t stand a chance.

‘Anyway, then the mob closed in and the wretched fellow bled to death before anyone could do anything for him. I think even the locals were shocked by the brutality, for intelligence started to come in at once and we arrested the culprit a couple of days later – the cheeky sod was still running his cobbler’s business, as cool as you like. We hanged him just yards away from where the murder had occurred – that served as a lesson for the natives – but at least this bit of nastiness has shown exactly what the Ghazis can do. Everyone is on the qui vive when they’re in and about the town and—’

‘Go on, McGucken.’ Primrose had cut right across Brooke.

‘Sir, as I was saying, we’ve now received further intelligence that Ayoob Khan is preparing to move out of Herat. He’s trying to get his troops – as many as nine thousand we’re told – into some sort of fettle, but that’s all we really know. It’s possible that he’s going to bypass Kandahar and move on Kabul, but that seems less likely now that Stewart’s force have moved up to Kabul to reinforce General Roberts’s troops.’ McGucken paused.

‘How long would it take a native army of that size to reach us from Herat, and what sort of troops are they?’ I asked.

‘Well, General, it’s hard to know exactly, but I guess it would take Ayoob Khan more than a month, so – if my people are worth their salt – we should get plenty of warning. But they’re better organised than you might think, General. He’s got regulars, including some of the Kabuli regiments who turned on Louis Cavagnari last year, armed with Enfields and a few Sniders and some guns with, we’re told, overseers from the Russian artillery. How many pieces, and of what calibre, we’re not yet sure.’

I could see that McGucken had plenty more to tell me but Primrose hadn’t yet heard enough of his own voice: ‘So, Morgan, gentlemen, there we are.’ He was up and down on his toes like some wretched ballet dancer – I knew he would be an awkward man to work under. ‘We’ve got local problems with the troublesome, headstrong folk here in the town and the odd murderous loon in the shape of the Ghazis. The wali’s troops are an unknown quantity but will, I suspect, come to heel once the wali takes them properly in hand . . .’ McGucken raised his eyebrows ‘. . . and now the rumour of Ayoob Khan is back with us. I think it’s time, gentlemen, to take the soldier-like precautions that General Stewart so signally failed to do. We must not only be ready to take the field at a moment’s notice, we must also be ready to defend Kandahar.’

I could see Primrose scanning us all, challenging anyone to disagree with him, as the flies buzzed drowsily and the punkah creaked on its hinges above us. I have to say, it had all come as a bit of a surprise to me. I’d thought our division would be in Afghanistan just to see things quieten down, give a bit of bottom to the new wali and then be off back to India before the next winter. Now it seemed we might have a bit of a fight on our hands and – as Roberts, Browne and now Stewart had found out – these hillmen were not Zulus armed with spears whom we could mow down in their thousands. As well as regular troops and demented Ghazis, it now appeared that Ayoob Khan had guns directed by Russians. McGucken and I had had a bellyful of just such creatures a few years back.

‘Well, sir, may I suggest that there are three measures we could start with advantage right away?’ Harry Brooke spoke, clear and direct, taking Primrose’s challenge head on.

‘Please enlighten us, Brooke,’ Primrose replied, with a slight edge of sarcasm that caused McGucken to glance at me.

‘We must secure fresh and plentiful water supplies within the walls of the town before the weather gets really hot.’ Brooke paused to see how this would be received.

‘Yes, yes, of course – that’s just common sense,’ replied Primrose, so quickly that I suspected he’d never even con sidered such a thing. ‘Do go on.’

‘Well, sir, if we’re to face an enemy in the field, we’ll need every sabre and bayonet that we can find so we can’t be distracted by foes inside the town such as those you’ve just described. Should we not expel all Pathans of military age and pull down the shanties and lean-tos that have been built so close to the walls that they restrict any fields of fire? Can we not start to burn or dismantle them now, General?’

The punkah squaled again and I could see that the trouble with Harry Brooke, like all of us Anglo-Irish, was that he was too damn blunt. I’d had much the same thoughts about the clutter of plank and mud-built houses, shops and stalls as I’d ridden up from the cantonments towards the town walls and his comments about the tribesmen made a great deal of sense to me. But, judging by the way Primrose was hopping from foot to foot, Harry’s ideas hadn’t found much favour.

‘No, no, Brooke, that will never do. You must remember, all of you . . .’ Primrose treated us to another of his basilisk stares ‘. . . that we are not an army of occupation. We’re guests – pretty muscular guests, I grant you – of the wali under whose hand we lie. We can’t go knocking his people’s property about and chucking out those we haven’t taken a shine to. How on earth will we ever gain his or his subjects’ confidence if we behave like that? No, that will never do.’

What, I suspect, the little trimmer really meant was that sensible measures he wouldn’t have hesitated to use last year, while Disraeli’s crew held sway, simply wouldn’t answer now that Gladstone and his bunch of croakers were in charge. Primrose didn’t want to be seen by the new Whig regime as one of the same stamp of generals of whom the liberal press had been so critical for their heavy-handedness in Zululand and then for so-called ‘atrocities’ here in Afghanistan twelve months ago.

I could repeat, word perfect, Gladstone’s cant, which I’d read when I’d paused in Quetta three weeks ago, just before the election. It had caused near apoplexy at breakfast in the mess: ‘Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, amid the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eyes of Almighty God as your own,’ or some such rot. Disraeli had responded by calling his comments ‘rodomontade’ (which had us all stretching for the dictionaries) but there was no doubting the public mood that didn’t want to hear about British regulars being bested by natives and the murder of their envoys in far-away residences. They were heartily sick of highly coloured press accounts of shield-and-spear-armed Zulu impis being cut down by rifles and Gatling guns. If the new God-bothering government caught even a whiff of Primrose’s treating the tribesmen with anything other than kid gloves then his career was likely to be as successful as the Pope’s wedding night.

‘There it is, gentlemen. With a little good fortune, all this talk of Ayoob Khan descending on us like the wrath of God will prove to be just hot air and we can get on with an ordered life here, then make a measured move back to India later in the year.’

I looked round the room to judge people’s reaction to this last utterance from Primrose and there wasn’t a face – except, perhaps, Heath’s – that didn’t look horrified at such a pro spect. I, for one, had sat in Karachi whittling away over the last couple of campaign seasons while my friends and juniors gathered laurels innumerable, courtesy of the Afghans. And I’d had little expectation of any excitement when I’d been sent for a few weeks ago. But now our hopes had been raised. Perhaps we were to see deeds and glory. Maybe Nuttall, Brooke and I would not be bound for our pensions, Bath chairs and memories quite as soon as we had feared.

But not a bit of that from our divisional commander: he seemed to be longing for his villa in Cheltenham. ‘But if we are unlucky and all this trouble comes to pass, then we must be as ready as we can be. So, away to your commands, gentlemen. But not you, Morgan. May I detain you?’ All the others were gathering up their swords and sun-helmets, folding maps and despatches in a thoughtful silence, and I’d hoped that the general might have forgotten his summons to me – I wanted to spend some time with McGucken before events overtook us, but Primrose wasn’t having that. As I picked up my documents he said, ‘We need to discuss the state of your new brigade, don’t we, Morgan?’

‘What do we do, sir, when we meet a wali? I’ve never met one before,’ asked Heath, to whom I had been about to pose the same question.

‘How, in God’s name, should I know, Heath? I chose you to be my brigade major because you’re savvy with all this native stuff, ain’t you?’ All I got in reply from the great lummox was a sulky look. ‘We’ll just go in and salute, regimental-like, and let him do the talking. I hope his English is up to it.’

Primrose had been true to his word: the very next day I found myself bidden to Sher Ali Khan’s presence, the Wali of Kandahar. Now Heath and I were waiting in a stuffy little anteroom on the other side of the Citadel from where we’d met Primrose and all the others yesterday. At least the wali had tried to do the place up a little. I didn’t know where the furniture had come from – it looked French, with overstuffed satiny fabric and curly, carved legs – but there were some grand carpets on the floor and hanging on the walls. A couple of greasy-looking sentries had performed a poor imitation of presenting arms as we were escorted up to see His Nibs while a funny little chamberlain – or some such flunkey – had buzzed around us, talking such bad English that I saw little value in what was coming next beyond the call of protocol. But I was wrong.

‘My dear General!’ We’d been ushered into another, similar, room, performed our military rites and removed our helmets as the wali leapt off a low divan, a smile beaming through his beard and his hand outstretched. ‘How very good of you to make the time to see me.’

He looked much older than sixty-two. He was short, fat and yellow-toothed; he wore a sheepskin cap that, I guessed, hadn’t been removed since the winter; there was a distinct aroma of armpits about him and yet he was utterly, disarmingly, charming. He pumped our fins, sat us down, pressed thimble-sized cups of coffee on the pair of us and made me feel that his whole life had been a tedious interlude while he had waited to meet me.

‘No, really, it is very good of you.’ His English was accented, slightly sing-song, perhaps, but completely fluent. ‘I know what a trying journey you must have had up from India, but we do appreciate it. Now that General Stewart has gone, I’m so glad that you’ve brought another whole brigade to help General Primrose and me.’ The fellow made it sound as if I’d mustered my own personal vassals for this crusade as a favour to him. ‘Oh, we shall need them.’

I have to say, the next ten minutes were more useful than anything I’d heard from Primrose or would hear from him in the future. McGucken had, obviously, made a deep and favourable impression on the clever old boy, for he told me (and I don’t think it was just gammon) to seek him out if I hadn’t met him already. I forbore to mention how well I knew Jock, for I wanted to hear exactly what the wali himself had to tell me, especially about the threat from Ayoob Khan, which Primrose seemed to be playing down.

‘Well, yes, dear General, my prayers concentrate upon nothing at the moment but the intentions of that man. Your people don’t really understand what he wants and how determined he is to get it.’ Sher Ali trotted over the fact that he was a cousin of the amir and that he’d been installed as governor of the entire region in July last year in the clear expectation that he would be kept in post by force of British arms. ‘But then your government started to reduce the number of white and Indian soldiers here, and that was when the trouble started with my own men. You see, as far as most of them are concerned, I’m a British . . . a British . . . oh, what’s the word I want?’

‘Catspaw, sir?’ asked Heath, leaving all of us wondering what on earth he meant.

‘Eh? No, not an animal . . . puppet – that’s the word. Well, they hated that, but they had to put up with it, as long as there were enough British guns and bayonets to subdue them. My troops are not my tribesmen, General. They understand tribal authority more than any rank that is given or imposed – particularly by Feringhees. Oh, I do beg your forgiveness. I don’t wish to suggest that your presence is unwelcome!’ The old boy nearly poured his coffee down his beard when he thought he might have been unmannerly.

‘And this is where Ayoob Khan has the advantage.’ He told us again about Kandahar’s prosperity, how Ayoob Khan had been eyeing it up as his own for ages and how he’d managed to suborn the local forces with people from the Ghilzai tribes loyal to him but serving under the wali. ‘We’ve been hearing for months now that he and his people are likely to march out of Herat, and if that is the case, we must try to stop him before he gets anywhere near this city. But I worry about taking my troops into the field, General Morgan. As you will know, I’m sure, we have already had difficulties over pay – one of my cavalry regiments threw down their arms only last month when their officers tried to take them out of their lines for training. Now, if he were to come towards us, we should have to try and meet him somewhere here.’ The wali pointed to the Helmand river fords near Gereshk on a spanking new map that, I guessed, McGucken had given him.

‘Aye, sir, and that’s quite a way west over dry country.’ The map showed few water-courses and little but seventy or so miles of plains beset by steep heights.

‘Indeed so, but he and his elders know it well. And there are more complications.’ I heard him sigh when he said this, as if the very thought of what lay ahead sapped his energy and determination. ‘He will do his best to raise not just tribesmen along the way, but also the cursed Ghazis in the name of jihad. Have you been told about these creatures, General?’ I assured him that I had, and that Primrose and Brooke had given me a pretty fair idea of what they could do.

‘Ah, but, General, all you have seen of them is odd ones and twos. True, they make trouble in the town, they caused Stewart huzoor much pain, and they have started to gnaw at the ankles of General Primrose’s new division. But just imagine what such people could do if they were massed against you. That, no one has yet seen. If Ayoob Khan ever ventures out of the west, then be certain, my dear General, that those white-robed madmen will hover around him like wasps . . .’

Two days after my meeting with the wali, I had been up at dawn, ridden out of the town with Heath and Trumpeter Lynch to the lower slopes of the Baba Wali Kotal – the high ground some three miles to the north-west – and made an assessment of where the enemy’s best viewpoint would be. Then I’d come back to the mess for a swift breakfast of steak and fruit, before heading to my headquarters. I was just settling down behind my folding desk, preparing to indulge Heath with the things he loved best – detailed accounts, returns and all manner of mind-numbing administration – when news began to filter in of an ugly incident involving the 66th Foot.

The only British infantry that I had, the regiment had so far impressed me both times that I had seen them. But now there were reports that one of their patrols had killed a child right in the middle of Kandahar, then dispersed with great violence the angry crowd that gathered. Predictably, the first reports were vague and vastly unreliable, so once the dust had settled – literally – and the facts were clear, I had got back into the saddle and come to see the commanding officer, James Galbraith.

It had been an uncomfortable couple of hours’ waiting for me, for Primrose had caught wind of it, as had some British journalists who were out and about in Kandahar, and he was pressing me for a full account before the editors in London learnt of it. But I had commanded a battalion – albeit nowhere more demanding than Pembroke Dock – and I knew how irritating pressure from above would be for the commanding officer. Once the matter was fully investigated, Lieutenant Colonel Galbraith had asked me to come into the cramped little hut that served as his office. He rose from behind a trestle table in his rumpled khaki and stood stiffly to attention, expecting the worst.

‘Sit down, sit down, please, Galbraith.’ Despite my attempts to put him at ease, Galbraith continued to stand. I threw myself into one of the collapsible leather-seated campaign chairs that were so popular at the time.

‘A cheroot?’ I flicked one of the little brown tubes towards him, but Galbraith shook his head without a word. ‘Tell me what happened.’

The 66th had been in India for almost ten years now, stationed at Ahmednagar and Karachi, and I’d been pleased to see how many long-service men they still included. While the new regulations allowed men to enlist for shorter periods – which was reckoned by some to be good for recruiting – I always thought it took some time for a lad from the slums of England to acquire any sort of resistance to the heat and pestilence of India. It can’t have been a coincidence that the Second Battalion of the 8th Foot – almost all young, short-service lads – had been gutted by disease last year outside Kabul.

‘Well, General, we had a routine patrol in the central bazaar earlier this morning, an officer, sergeant and six men. They all said that the atmosphere was tense, with a lot of people and beasts bringing goods to market. Suddenly the crowd opened and a child rushed at them with a knife in his hand.’ Galbraith had been in command of the 66th for four years now and had a reputation for being as devoted to them as his men were to him. Another English-Paddy from Omagh up north, my father knew his family, but the slim, handsome man, whose heavy moustache and whiskers made him look older than his forty years, had never thought to presume upon this link.

‘A child, Galbraith? How old was he?’ I found it hard to believe that a fully armed patrol of British soldiers might be attacked by a boy. A strapping youth, perhaps, for many of the Ghazis, while fully grown, were said by those who had had to face them to be too young to have proper beards. But a mere boy behaving like that I found difficult to credit.