Red Runs the Helmand

‘You say several thousand troops, McGucken. What does he actually have?’ Nuttall, the cavalry brigade commander, voiced my question.

‘Well, sir, we don’t know for sure and we won’t until he marches – and we don’t yet know if his mind’s fully made up. Anyway, the wali intends to send a body of his troops up here to the fords over the Helmand river.’ McGucken pointed on the map at an area that I could see was a natural convergence of several different roads near Khusk-i-Nakud, seventy-odd miles away, where Sam and the Scinde Horse had drawn first blood more than a year ago. ‘He’s still getting his own house in order and, as we all know to our cost, Kandahar will only become more volatile with a reduction in the wali’s garrison, while the troops themselves are not dependable. I have no doubt, General’ – I saw the flash of dislike in McGucken’s eyes as he turned to Primrose – ‘that he’ll ask for some of our regiments to accompany his forces to act as a stiffener.’

‘I’m sure he will, McGucken, and as you and I have discussed before, I’m reluctant to diminish what strength I have here in Kandahar for the reasons that you’ve just outlined. On top of that, I believe in concentration of force’ – sometimes Primrose talked like a field manual – ‘and I don’t want to split what few units I have. But I shall do what Simla tells me to as the picture becomes clearer. In the meantime, I want you all to be prepared to take the field for an indefinite period at twenty-four hours’ notice.’ He prosed on about musketry, skirmishing practice, preparation of the horses and their fodder, and a host of minor details that Harry Brooke, Nuttall and I had already been working on.

We scratched away in our notebooks to show willing while Primrose tried to tell us our jobs. What he didn’t cover, though, were the vital details that we all wanted to know. Eventually he ran out of steam and asked for any questions.

‘Yes, General. McGucken’s intelligence, understandably, is less than perfect.’ Harry Brooke, I knew, had become good friends with McGucken, admiring the Scotsman’s plain speaking and direct approach. ‘But what do we actually know about the forces that Ayoob Khan might have available to him?’

‘He’s got about eight thousand regular troops of which some two thousand are cavalry, and as many as six batteries of guns, many of which are rifled pieces, but we lack detail, Brooke.’ I could see why Primrose was reluctant to divide his already slender force.

‘Aye, General, but that’s only really half the story.’ This was McGucken at his best. He was by far the most junior in terms of both military and social rank yet the rest of us would hardly have dared to correct Primrose: we were too career-conscious, too much the victims of the Army’s strangling habit of unthinking obedience and uncritical respect. But not big Jock McGucken, who wore the DCM and knew that he had naught to fear from men like Primrose for there was nothing they could do for him. His reward was the knowledge that his children wouldn’t grow up in the Glasgow slum that had been his home, and the respect that all of us showed him. ‘The real question is how many irregulars, tribesmen and mad Ghazis he’ll be able to draw to his colours. If he’s a halfway decent commander, he could double the number of men he’s already got – and we’ve all seen what ugly buggers the Ghazis and their like can be.’

I was as stunned by McGucken’s monologue as the rest of them. Suddenly there was the prospect of the best part of fifteen thousand men with more guns than we had descending on our three untried and untested brigades in a town that had no serious defences and was riven by malcontents. On top of that, I remembered the wali’s words of caution about his own troops’ dependability and the dubious attractions of a swarm of Ghazis. Surely he would know better than any of us Feringhees what a ticklish spot we could be in.

‘General, I wonder if we shouldn’t prepare the town for defence.’ Harry Brooke, Nuttall and I had spent hours wondering why Primrose hadn’t done what should have been done an age ago by Stewart.

‘We’ve discussed this before, Morgan, but, I grant you, the situation has evolved so tell me what’s on your mind.’

I knew from the tone of Primrose’s voice that he wouldn’t relent. ‘Well, sir, should we not bring the troops within the walls of the town and establish a proper defensive routine rather than trying to live in the cantonments as if we were a peacetime garrison? We could then put the troops to work on improving the walls and preparing gun positions both there and in the Citadel. And we ought to start to clear the shanties and mud dwellings that deprive us of any fields of fire.’

‘Yes, and that’s exactly the point I’ve tried to make all of you understand.’ I’d annoyed Primrose – but Brooke had made a pretty good start on that with his earlier questions. Now the peppery little sod was about to go for all of us. ‘Right, everyone except the brigade commanders – you as well, McGucken – please leave us.’ The three brigade majors and Primrose’s own pair of lickspittles grabbed at their papers and maps and scuttled from the room, only too happy to leave their superiors to face the storm. ‘Can’t you see that we’ve got to make this whole situation look as normal as possible and that the least little thing we do’ – the man was getting redder and redder in the face as the discussion turned into a rant – ‘could upset the whole damned applecart and cause the wali’s troops to revolt?’

‘All the more reason to have us on top of them, surely. If we’re in the town then we can watch them more closely and act more quickly – it makes sense,’ McGucken was unable to conceal his irritation any longer, not even adding a per functory ‘sir’, treating Primrose like a particularly dim recruit.

‘And I’ll thank you not to interrupt, Major McGucken!’ The venom in the general’s hissed reply shocked me – and it seemed to have the same effect on the others, for there was a sudden silence. Even the flies stopped buzzing, so taken aback were they. ‘Do you really think that we could clear the mosques and other religious sites that teem just outside the walls?’ None of us replied. ‘Well, do you? You all seem to think that we can treat this place as we did Cawnpore or Peking twenty-odd years ago. But can’t you get it into your thick heads that this is a new kind of war where I’ve got newspapers and politicians looking over my shoulder . . .’ (I’d have loved to add, ‘and dictating our tactics and risking our men’s lives’, but he was vexed enough already) ‘. . . and that, no matter what’s happening elsewhere in the country, Kandahar is supposed to be the one place in which we’re succeeding? If we tear the scab off things here, then the government’s strategy to get us back to India without further bloodshed will be ruined.’

It was a shame that the little fellow had lost his rag for he’d just alienated the lot of us.

‘So, get back to your troops now, gentlemen, and let’s hear no more about ruining Kandahar. If the wali can’t deal with Ayoob Khan and we’re called upon to do the job, we’ll do it in the field as far from this town as we possibly can. That’s always supposing our intelligence gives us any warning at all.’ Primrose was speaking normally now, but he hadn’t grasped how much damage he had done to his standing in our eyes. He hadn’t even been able to resist that nasty little dig at McGucken, which I knew he would come to regret. I was on my feet and saluting almost as quickly as the other three, for none of us could bear the poisonous career-wallah for a second longer.

When Sam Keenan had moved up to Afghanistan with his regiment, he’d known that life wouldn’t all be gallant deeds and glory. He had vivid memories of Finn the groom yarning to Billy and himself back in the tack-room at home about India and the Sikh wars in the forties and much of that had revolved around heat and dust, flies and rotting food, good officers and bad. There had been little about blood and flame. Well, he thought, now it was his turn to experience the waiting and frustration of campaign life.

June was the hottest month in these latitudes and the temperature only made the smell of piss-damp straw all the more distinct. It wasn’t an aroma that any cavalryman could actually dislike, but in A Squadron’s horse lines, which had been established in an old Kandahari stable, it was almost overpowering. There were none of the drains and gutters to which the regiment had become used, and the windows were so narrow that a permanent gloom hung over the place. Now, as he waited for Rissaldar Singh to join him, he peered down the long line of feeding horses, the thin streams of sunlight thick with the dust that the hoofs of the tethered mounts threw up.

Almost eighty horses had been crushed into the stable, sixty or so the private property of each trooper, his pride and joy, and another twenty remounts provided by the government while on campaign. Keenan worried about this so-called sillidar system, which was the very definition of irregular cavalry. Each man would bring his own mount as a condition for enlistment – a very considerable investment for these mainly Pathani men who came from poor hilly country – and tend it. Horses became ill or were injured and had to be put down so they needed a cushion of extra animals. But now, as casualties had occurred, the men were being issued with whalers, like any common regular regiment, and Keenan was worried that they would not be cherished as much as a man’s own horse had been. The squadron leader had ordered extra veterinary inspections in the certain knowledge that the stabling and relatively little exercise might encourage certain maladies.

Now Keenan, who’d done his basic vet’s course at the cavalry school in Nasirabad, looked at his list of common diseases and symptoms as he waited for Singh by the wide doors of the building.

‘I’m sorry, sahib, am I late?’

Keenan looked up from his list towards the native officer as he stopped and saluted. ‘No, not at all, Rissaldar sahib. I’m early. I’ve been puzzling over these lists, I hope you know what we’re looking for,’ replied Keenan, deliberately flattering the man.

In the months that they’d been together in Afghanistan, the two had got to know each other as well as any native and British officer could. They’d ridden together in the Helmand valley last year and fought side by side at Khusk-i-Nakud, but still Keenan was uncomfortable with the relationship. Singh was over thirty, one of the new generation of native officers who had received a viceroy’s commission based on merit rather than age and length of service; he had a depth of experience far beyond the young Irishman’s. They wore the same badges of rank, were both addressed as ‘sahib’ and commanded troops of about twenty men. Yet they lived in different messes and Keenan was the senior, for he was a British officer, the most junior of whom was superior even to the rissaldar major, the most senior native officer in the regiment. His thoughts unaccountably flicked to his brother. Keenan smiled to himself and doubted that Billy would cope in his plodding, stiff old 66th with the extra layer of officers who were at the heart of the regiment yet weren’t really officers at all.

Singh spoke incomprehensibly to one of the four men on morning duty at the stables before turning to Keenan. ‘Butt Mohammed believes that one of the remounts may be developing surra, sahib, but we’ll soon see.’

Not only could Singh speak English a hundred times better than he could express himself in Pashto or Dari, Keenan marvelled, but he also had a practical knowledge of an ailment of which he himself had no experience whatsoever. But then, he supposed, that was what years in the 3rd Scinde Horse taught a man. As they walked briskly along the straw-strewn floor through the horsy fug, he consulted his Field Service Pocket Book (India) in its supposedly waterproof cover. ‘Isn’t that mainly a camel and donkey disease, sahib?’ he asked, freshly knowledgeable.

‘It is, sahib, but read on a bit further and you’ll see that it can affect horses too,’ answered Singh, with a smile.

With the trooper stroking the horse’s nose to calm it, both men looked for signs of ‘. . . repeated attacks of fever during which the animal is dull and off feed, gradually loses condition, gets swelling, spotted membranes, pot belly and finally dies’.

‘No, sahib, this is not surra. I have seen it before and it is dreadful. Horses cannot recover, and that is why the men are so worried about it, especially when their animals are around filthy camels and asses.’ Singh spoke again to Butt Mohammed before patting the horse gently on its admittedly bulbous belly. ‘I think it’s no more than a touch of colic.’ Keenan thought about that phrase and knew that he would be reduced to charades if he was trying to express such a thing to the men.

That was the only problem to worry any of the men, but the two officers continued their inspection, lifting mares’ tails to look for thrush, digging sawdust and muck out of hoofs to check for cracks and mud fever, peering up nostrils for a hint of glanders, and for sores around the saddle area that might indicate farcy.

‘What of Ayoob Khan, sahib?’ The rissaldar was smoothing down the hairs on a horse’s flank having examined an old ringworm site. ‘The soldiers say he is bound to march on Kandahar once the weather gets a little cooler.’

‘Perhaps, Rissaldar sahib. But I only know what the colonel sahib tells us and he tells you the same. Do any of the soldiers have any contact with Ayoob Khan’s people?’ Keenan asked.

‘Of course, sahib. Many are Pathans from the same tribes who soldier for Ayoob Khan and they have kinsmen here in Kandahar who travel far and wide. Indeed, a caravan arrived from Herat two days ago and brought family news to many of our jawans, and grand stories of the headman’s bragging about what he will do to any of “his” people who are taken in the service of the gora-log,’ answered Singh.

‘Does that worry them, sahib?’

‘No, Keenan sahib, they don’t give a donkey’s cock about such things. All that most want is a chance of more fighting and looting – you know our sowars,’ replied Singh, making Keenan wonder just how well he did know the men with whom he could hardly converse. ‘But, sahib, don’t run from this talk – you must know, for does your father, the general sahib, not tell you?’

‘No, of course not, Rissaldar sahib. He’s the chief and I’m nothing but a worm. Why should he tell me anything that he does not tell you?’ Keenan realised now that every last sowar must look at him as the receptacle of great knowledge and influence. If only that were true.

‘Because he is your father, sahib. He is a general, certainly, and that is why he has gathered both his sons about him to go to war and seek glory. Of course he will tell you and your brother his secrets,’ Singh answered evenly.

Keenan snorted with amusement at he idea of Billy and himself being summoned by his father for some sort of ramasammy. He had a picture of Father sitting cross-legged next to the wali, both men pulling at pipes while he and that pup Billy made deep salaams and prepared to advise the elders on what should happen next. But that was what Rissaldar Singh and all the others thought. He must seem horribly naïve in their eyes when he tried to grapple with their tribes, castes and religions.

‘And, why, sahib, does your father allow your poor brother to walk to war when he has given you horses and saddles and found you a place in a regiment like the Scinde Horse? Has your brother done something wrong? Has he displeased Morgan sahib yet still bears his name?’

Singh had never asked such questions before, thought Keenan. ‘No, Rissaldar sahib, my brother, my half-brother, can do no wrong in the general’s eyes and that is why he walks to war and I ride. You see, sahib, I have a horse or two, but that is all I will ever have from the general. I will never bear his name or inherit his house and fields . . . but enough of that! This creature has been rubbed a little by its heel rope, hasn’t it?’ The native officer had got quite close enough for now.

It’s always the way. Something happens or someone says something that causes a bit of heat at the time, but you soon forget it, only grasping its true significance later on. So it was with that conference two months ago – back in May. From that moment on neither the other two brigade commanders nor I had any faith in Primrose. True, he’d sent out the odd patrol, and we’d had some time to manoeuvre in the field – turned a lot of live ammunition into empty cases on the rifle range – and the guns had had some useful practice, but there had been no attempt to improve the town’s defences.

Worst of all, the distrust between Primrose and McGucken had become obvious to everyone. I was there four weeks ago in early June when the news reached divisional headquarters that the wali was so worried by intelligence he’d received that he was preparing to march out of Kandahar towards the fords on the Helmand. There the Wali, game old bugger that he was, intended to fight Ayoob Khan well forward, as far away from Kandahar and its skittish tribesmen as he could mange. Not surprisingly, he wanted some British troops to help him. Now, we’d all heard that Ayoob Khan had left Herat some weeks ago and was picking up volunteers from the tribes by the hatful as he headed our way, but Primrose seemed genuinely surprised by the sudden rush and fuss among the local troops as they prepared to take the field. It wasn’t as though it was difficult to see what was going to happen. A few days before the wali left, McGucken had given me a carefully translated copy of Ayoob’s proclamation, which was being distributed by his vanguard.

Then, after a month’s dithering by Primrose, we’d marched out of Kandahar in order to catch up with the Wali. Now, as I sat on Rainbow’s sweaty saddle, my brigade stretched about me in a fog of dust and grit, I got the proclamation out from my map case to reread it:

Soldiers of the true faith! We march to the conquest of our city of Kandahar, now in the possession of our bitter enemy the Feringhee, whom we will drive back with our steel and win back the capital of the south. The garrison is weak and we are strong; besides, we are fighting for our homes and native land and our foe is not prepared for us with either food or ammunition for a siege. The bazaars are full of British gold and this shall be the prize of the conquerors when we have chased away the invaders from our soil. Let us march on then, day by day, with the determination to conquer or to die.

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