propriety had not the rumour gone abroad that the Regiment was to be
sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of
brevity, we will call 'The War of the Lost Tribes.'
The barracks had the rumour almost before the Mess-room, and of all
the nine hundred men in barracks not ten had seen a shot fired in
anger. The Colonel had, twenty years ago, assisted at a Frontier
expedition; one of the Majors had seen service at the Cape; a
confirmed deserter in E Company had helped to clear streets in
Ireland; but that was all. The Regiment had been put by for many
years. The overwhelming mass of its rank and file had from three to
four years' service; the non-commissioned officers were under thirty
years old; and men and sergeants alike had forgotten to speak of the
stories written in brief upon the Colours--the New Colours that had
been formally blessed by an Archbishop in England ere the Regiment
came away.
They wanted to go to the Front--they were enthusiastically anxious to
go--but they had no knowledge of what war meant, and there was none to
tell them. They were an educated regiment, the percentage of
school-certificates in their ranks was high, and most of the men could
do more than read and write. They had been recruited in loyal
observance of the territorial idea; but they themselves had no notion
of that idea. They were made up of drafts from an over-populated
manufacturing district. The system had put flesh and muscle upon their
small bones, but it could not put heart into the sons of those who for
generations had done overmuch work for over-scanty pay, had sweated in
drying-rooms, stooped over looms, coughed among white-lead, and
shivered on lime-barges. The men had found food and rest in the Army,
and now they were going to fight 'niggers'--people who ran away if you
shook a stick at them. Wherefore they cheered lustily when the rumour
ran, and the shrewd, clerkly non-commissioned officers speculated on
the chances of batta and of saving their pay. At Headquarters men
said: 'The Fore and Fit have never been under fire within the last
generation. Let us, therefore, break them in easily by setting them to
guard lines of communication.' And this would have been done but for
the fact that British Regiments were wanted--badly wanted--at the
Front, and there were doubtful Native Regiments that could fill the
minor duties. 'Brigade 'em with two strong Regiments,' said
Headquarters. 'They may be knocked about a bit, though they'll learn
their business before they come through. Nothing like a night-alarm
and a little cutting up of stragglers to make a Regiment smart in the
field. Wait till they've had half-a-dozen sentries' throats cut.'
The Colonel wrote with delight that the temper of his men was
excellent, that the Regiment was all that could be wished and as sound
as a bell. The Majors smiled with a sober joy, and the subalterns
waltzed in pairs down the Mess-room after dinner, and nearly shot
themselves at revolver-practice. But there was consternation in the
hearts of Jakin and Lew. What was to be done with the Drums? Would the
Band go to the Front? How many of the Drums would accompany the
Regiment?
They took counsel together, sitting in a tree and smoking.
'It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll leave us be'ind at the
Depot with the women. You'll like that,' said Jakin sarcastically.
''Cause o' Cris, y' mean? Wot's a woman, or a 'ole bloomin' depot o'
women, 'longside o' the chanst of field-service? You know I'm as keen
on goin' as you,' said Lew.
''Wish I was a bloomin' bugler,' said Jakin sadly. 'They'll take Tom
Kidd along, that I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not they won't
take us.'
'Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle no
more. You 'old 'is 'ands an' I'll kick him,' said Lew, wriggling on
the branch.
'That ain't no good neither. We ain't the sort o' characters to
presoom on our rep'tations--they're bad. If they leave the Band at the
Depot we don't go, and no error _there_. If they take the Band we may
get cast for medical unfitness. Are you medical fit, Piggy?' said
Jakin, digging Lew in the ribs with force.
'Yus,' said Lew with an oath. 'The Doctor says your 'eart's weak
through smokin' on an empty stummick. Throw a chest an' I'll try yer.'
Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote with all his might. Jakin
turned very pale, gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes, and
said--'That's all right.'
'You'll do,' said Lew. 'I've 'eard o' men dyin' when you 'it 'em fair
on the breastbone.'
'Don't bring us no nearer goin', though,' said Jakin. 'Do you know
where we're ordered?'
'Gawd knows, an' 'E won't split on a pal. Somewheres up to the Front
to kill Paythans--hairy big beggars that turn you inside out if they
get 'old o' you. They say their women are good-looking, too.'
'Any loot?' asked the abandoned Jakin.
'Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you dig up the ground an' see
what the niggers 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot.' Jakin stood upright on
the branch and gazed across the plain.
'Lew,' said he, 'there's the Colonel coming. 'Colonel's a good old
beggar. Let's go an' talk to 'im.'
Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audacity of the suggestion.
Like Jakin he feared not God, neither regarded he Man, but there are
limits even to the audacity of drummer-boy, and to speak to a Colonel
was----
But Jakin had slid down the trunk and doubled in the direction of the
Colonel. That officer was walking wrapped in thought and visions of a
C.B.--yes, even a K.C.B., for had he not at command one of the best
Regiments of the Line--the Fore and Fit? And he was aware of two small
boys charging down upon him. Once before it had been solemnly reported
to him that 'the Drums were in a state of mutiny,' Jakin and Lew being
the ringleaders. This looked like an organised conspiracy.
The boys halted at twenty yards, walked to the regulation four paces,
and saluted together, each as well-set-up as a ramrod and little
taller.
The Colonel was in a genial mood; the boys appeared very forlorn and
unprotected on the desolate plain, and one of them was handsome.
'Well!' said the Colonel, recognising them. 'Are you going to pull me
down in the open? I'm sure I never interfere with you, even
though'--he sniffed suspiciously--'you have been smoking.'
It was time to strike while the iron was hot. Their hearts beat
tumultuously.
'Beg y' pardon, Sir,' began Jakin. 'The Reg'ment's ordered on active
service, Sir?'
'So I believe,' said the Colonel courteously.
'Is the Band goin', Sir?' said both together. Then, without pause,
'We're goin', Sir, ain't we?'
'You!' said the Colonel, stepping back the more fully to take in the
two small figures. 'You! You'd die in the first march.'
'No, we wouldn't, Sir. We can march with the Reg'ment
anywheres--p'rade an' anywhere else,' said Jakin.
'If Tom Kidd goes 'e'll shut up like a clasp-knife,' said Lew. 'Tom
'as very-close veins in both 'is legs, Sir.'
'Very how much?'
'Very-close veins, Sir. That's why they swells after long p'rade,
Sir. If 'e can go, we can go, Sir.'
Again the Colonel looked at them long and intently.
'Yes, the Band is going,' he said as gravely as though he had been
addressing a brother officer. 'Have you any parents, either of you
two?'
'No, Sir,' rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. 'We're both orphans, Sir.
There's no one to be considered of on our account, Sir.'
'You poor little sprats, and you want to go up to the Front with the
Regiment, do you? Why?'
'I've wore the Queen's Uniform for two years,' said Jakin. 'It's very
'ard, Sir, that a man don't get no recompense for doin' of 'is dooty,
Sir.'
'An'--an' if I don't go, Sir,' interrupted Lew, 'the Bandmaster 'e
says 'e'll catch an' make a bloo--a blessed musician o' me, Sir.
Before I've seen any service, Sir.'
The Colonel made no answer for a long time. Then he said quietly: 'If
you're passed by the Doctor I daresay you can go. I shouldn't smoke if
I were you.'
The boys saluted and disappeared. The Colonel walked home and told the
story to his wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colonel was well
pleased. If that was the temper of the children, what would not the
men do?
Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack-room with great stateliness,
and refused to hold any conversation with their comrades for at least
ten minutes. Then, bursting with pride, Jakin drawled: 'I've bin
intervooin' the Colonel. Good old beggar is the Colonel. Says I to
'im, "Colonel," says I, "let me go to the Front, along o' the
Reg'ment."--"To the Front you shall go," says 'e, "an' I only wish
there was more like you among the dirty little devils that bang the
bloomin' drums." Kidd, if you throw your 'courtrements at me for
tellin' you the truth to your own advantage, your legs'll swell.'
None the less there was a Battle-Royal in the barrack-room, for the
boys were consumed with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor Lew
behaved in conciliatory wise.
'I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl,' said Lew, to cap the climax.
'Don't none o' you touch my kit because it's wanted for active
service; me bein' specially invited to go by the Colonel.'
He strolled forth and whistled in the clump of trees at the back of
the Married Quarters till Cris came to him, and, the preliminary
kisses being given and taken, Lew began to explain the situation.
'I'm goin' to the Front with the Reg'ment,' he said valiantly.
'Piggy, you're a little liar,' said Cris, but her heart misgave her,
for Lew was not in the habit of lying.
'Liar yourself, Cris,' said Lew, slipping an arm round her. 'I'm
goin'. When the Reg'ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, all
galliant and gay. Give us another kiss, Cris, on the strength of it.'
'If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depot--where you _ought_ to ha'
bin--you could get as many of 'em as--as you dam please,' whimpered
Cris, putting up her mouth.
'It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But what's a man to do? If
I'd a-stayed at the Depot, you wouldn't think anything of me.'
'Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me, Piggy. An' all the thinkin' in
the world isn't like kissin'.'
'An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 'avin' a medal to wear on
the front o' your coat.'
'_You_ won't get no medal.'
'Oh yus, I shall though. Me an' Jakin are the only acting-drummers
that'll be took along. All the rest is full men, an' we'll get our
medals with them.'
'They might ha' taken anybody but you, Piggy. You'll get
killed--you're so venturesome. Stay with me, Piggy darlin', down at
the Depot, an' I'll love you true for ever.'
'Ain't you goin' to do that _now_, Cris? You said you was.'
'O' course I am, but th' other's more comfortable. Wait till you've
growed a bit, Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now.'
[Illustration: Cris slid an arm round his neck.--P. 47.]
'I've bin in the Army for two years an' I'm not goin' to get out of a
chanst o' seein' service, an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll
come back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll marry you--marry you
when I'm a Lance.'
'Promise, Piggy?'
Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time
previously, but Cris's mouth was very near to his own.
'I promise, s'elp me Gawd!' said he.
Cris slid an arm round his neck.
'I won't 'old you back no more, Piggy. Go away an' get your medal, an'
I'll make you a new button-bag as nice as I know how,' she whispered.
'Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll keep it in my pocket so
long's I'm alive.'
Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended.
Public feeling among the drummer-boys rose to fever pitch and the
lives of Jakin and Lew became unenviable. Not only had they been
permitted to enlist two years before the regulation boy's
age--fourteen--but, by virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they
were allowed to go to the Front--which thing had not happened to
acting-drummers within the knowledge of boy. The Band which was to
accompany the Regiment had been cut down to the regulation twenty
men, the surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were attached
to the Band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred
being Company buglers.
''Don't matter much,' said Jakin after the medical inspection. 'Be
thankful that we're 'lowed to go at all. The Doctor 'e said that if we
could stand what we took from the Bazar-Sergeant's son we'd stand
pretty nigh anything.'
'Which we will,' said Lew, looking tenderly at the ragged and ill-made
housewife that Cris had given him, with a lock of her hair worked into
a sprawling 'L' upon the cover.
'It was the best I could,' she sobbed. 'I wouldn't let mother nor the
Sergeants' tailor 'elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an' remember I love
you true.'
They marched to the railway station, nine hundred and sixty strong,
and every soul in cantonments turned out to see them go. The drummers
gnashed their teeth at Jakin and Lew marching with the Band, the
married women wept upon the platform, and the Regiment cheered its
noble self black in the face.
'A nice level lot,' said the Colonel to the Second-in-Command as they
watched the first four companies entraining.
'Fit to do anything,' said the Second-in-Command enthusiastically.
'But it seems to me they're a thought too young and tender for the
work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the Front now.'
'They're sound enough,' said the Colonel. 'We must take our chance of
sick casualties.'
So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of
camels, armies of camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the
throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled up
at a hopelessly congested junction where six lines of temporary track
accommodated six forty-waggon trains; where whistles blew, Babus
sweated, and Commissariat officers swore from dawn till far into the
night amid the wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales and the lowing of
a thousand steers.
'Hurry up--you're badly wanted at the Front,' was the message that
greeted the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross carriages
told the same tale.
''Tisn't so much the bloomin' fightin',' gasped a headbound trooper of
Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. ''Tisn't so much the
bloomin' fightin', though there's enough o' that. It's the bloomin'
food an' the bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept when it hails,
and biling sun all day, and the water stinks fit to knock you down. I
got my 'ead chipped like a egg; I've got pneumonia too, an' my guts is
all out o' order. 'Tain't no bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can
tell you.'
'Wot are the niggers like?' demanded a private.
'There's some prisoners in that train yonder. Go an' look at 'em.
They're the aristocracy o' the country. The common folk are a dashed
sight uglier. If you want to know what they fight with, reach under my
seat an' pull out the long knife that's there.'
They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone-handled,
triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew.
'That's the thing to jint ye,' said the trooper feebly. 'It can take
off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy as slicing butter. I halved
the beggar that used that 'un, but there's more of his likes up above.
They don't understand thrustin', but they're devils to slice.'
The men strolled across the tracks to inspect the Afghan prisoners.
They were unlike any 'niggers' that the Fore and Aft had ever
met--these huge, black-haired, scowling sons of the Beni-Israel. As
the men stared the Afghans spat freely and muttered one to another
with lowered eyes.
'My eyes! Wot awful swine!' said Jakin, who was in the rear of the
procession. 'Say, old man, how you got _puckrowed_, eh? _Kiswasti_ you
wasn't hanged for your ugly face, hey?'
The tallest of the company turned, his leg-irons clanking at the
movement, and stared at the boy. 'See!' he cried to his fellows in
Pushto. 'They send children against us. What a people, and what
fools!'
[Illustration: The men strolled across the tracks to inspect
the Afghan prisoners.--P. 50.]
'_Hya!_' said Jakin, nodding his head cheerily. 'You go down-country.
_Khana_ get, _peenikapanee_ get--live like a bloomin' Raja _ke
marfik_. That's a better _bandobust_ than baynit get it in your
innards. Good-bye, ole man. Take care o' your beautiful figure-'ad,
an' try to look _kushy_.'
The men laughed and fell in for their first march, when they began to
realise that a soldier's life was not all beer and skittles. They were
much impressed with the size and bestial ferocity of the niggers whom
they had now learned to call 'Paythans,' and more with the exceeding
discomfort of their own surroundings. Twenty old soldiers in the corps
would have taught them how to make themselves moderately snug at
night, but they had no old soldiers, and, as the troops on the line of
march said, 'they lived like pigs.' They learned the heart-breaking
cussedness of camp-kitchens and camels and the depravity of an E.P.
tent and a wither-wrung mule. They studied animalculæ in water, and
developed a few cases of dysentery in their study.
At the end of their third march they were disagreeably surprised by
the arrival in their camp of a hammered iron slug which, fired from a
steady rest at seven hundred yards, flicked out the brains of a
private seated by the fire. This robbed them of their peace for a
night, and was the beginning of a long-range fire carefully calculated
to that end. In the daytime they saw nothing except an unpleasant puff
of smoke from a crag above the line of march. At night there were
distant spurts of flame and occasional casualties, which set the whole
camp blazing into the gloom and, occasionally, into opposite tents.
Then they swore vehemently and vowed that this was magnificent, but
not war.
Indeed it was not. The Regiment could not halt for reprisals against
the sharpshooters of the countryside. Its duty was to go forward and
make connection with the Scotch and Gurkha troops with which it was
brigaded. The Afghans knew this, and knew too, after their first
tentative shots, that they were dealing with a raw regiment.
Thereafter they devoted themselves to the task of keeping the Fore and
Aft on the strain. Not for anything would they have taken equal
liberties with a seasoned corps--with the wicked little Gurkhas, whose
delight it was to lie out in the open on a dark night and stalk their
stalkers--with the terrible, big men dressed in women's clothes, who
could be heard praying to their God in the night-watches, and whose
peace of mind no amount of 'sniping' could shake--or with those vile
Sikhs, who marched so ostentatiously unprepared and who dealt out such
grim reward to those who tried to profit by that unpreparedness. This
white regiment was different--quite different. It slept like a hog,
and, like a hog, charged in every direction when it was roused. Its
sentries walked with a footfall that could be heard for a quarter of a
mile, would fire at anything that moved--even a driven donkey--and
when they had once fired, could be scientifically 'rushed' and laid
out a horror and an offence against the morning sun. Then there were
camp-followers who straggled and could be cut up without fear. Their
shrieks would disturb the white boys, and the loss of their services
would inconvenience them sorely.
Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy became bolder and the regiment
writhed and twisted under attacks it could not avenge. The crowning
triumph was a sudden night-rush ending in the cutting of many
tent-ropes, the collapse of the sodden canvas, and a glorious knifing
of the men who struggled and kicked below. It was a great deed, neatly
carried out, and it shook the already shaken nerves of the Fore and
Aft. All the courage that they had been required to exercise up to
this point was the 'two o'clock in the morning courage'; and, so far,
they had only succeeded in shooting their comrades and losing their
sleep.
Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, with their uniforms dulled
and unclean, the Fore and Aft joined their Brigade.
'I hear you had a tough time of it coming up,' said the Brigadier. But
when he saw the hospital-sheets his face fell.
'This is bad,' said he to himself. 'They're as rotten as sheep.' And
aloud to the Colonel--'I'm afraid we can't spare you just yet. We want
all we have, else I should have given you ten days to recover in.'
The Colonel winced. 'On my honour, Sir,' he returned, 'there is not
the least necessity to think of sparing us. My men have been rather
mauled and upset without a fair return. They only want to go in
somewhere where they can see what's before them.'
'Can't say I think much of the Fore and Fit,' said the Brigadier in
confidence to his Brigade-Major. 'They've lost all their soldiering,
and, by the trim of them, might have marched through the country from
the other side. A more fagged-out set of men I never put eyes on.'
'Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on. The parade gloss has been
rubbed off a little, but they'll put on field polish before long,'
said the Brigade-Major. 'They've been mauled, and they don't quite
understand it.'
They did not. All the hitting was on one side, and it was cruelly hard
hitting with accessories that made them sick. There was also the real
sickness that laid hold of a strong man and dragged him howling to the
grave. Worst of all, their officers knew just as little of the country
as the men themselves, and looked as if they did. The Fore and Aft
were in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condition, but they believed that
all would be well if they could once get a fair go-in at the enemy.
Pot-shots up and down the valleys were unsatisfactory, and the bayonet
never seemed to get a chance. Perhaps it was as well, for a
long-limbed Afghan with a knife had a reach of eight feet, and could
carry away lead that would disable three Englishmen.
The Fore and Fit would like some rifle-practice at the enemy--all
seven hundred rifles blazing together. That wish showed the mood of
the men.
The Gurkhas walked into their camp, and in broken, barrack-room
English strove to fraternise with them; offered them pipes of tobacco
and stood them treat at the canteen. But the Fore and Aft, not knowing
much of the nature of the Gurkhas, treated them as they would treat
any other 'niggers,' and the little men in green trotted back to their
firm friends the Highlanders, and with many grins confided to them:
'That dam white regiment no dam use. Sulky--ugh! Dirty--ugh! Hya, any
tot for Johnny?' Whereat the Highlanders smote the Gurkhas as to the
head, and told them not to vilify a British Regiment, and the Gurkhas
grinned cavernously, for the Highlanders were their elder brothers and
entitled to the privileges of kinship. The common soldier who touches
a Gurkha is more than likely to have his head sliced open.
Three days later the Brigadier arranged a battle according to the
rules of war and the peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The enemy
were massing in inconvenient strength among the hills, and the moving
of many green standards warned him that the tribes were 'up' in aid of
the Afghan regular troops. A squadron and a half of Bengal Lancers
represented the available Cavalry, and two screw-guns borrowed from a
column thirty miles away the Artillery at the General's disposal.
'If they stand, as I've a very strong notion that they will, I fancy
we shall see an infantry fight that will be worth watching,' said the
Brigadier. 'We'll do it in style. Each regiment shall be played into
action by its Band, and we'll hold the Cavalry in reserve.'
'For _all_ the reserve?' somebody asked.
'For all the reserve; because we're going to crumple them up,' said
the Brigadier, who was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not believe
in the value of a reserve when dealing with Asiatics. Indeed, when
you come to think of it, had the British Army consistently waited for
reserves in all its little affairs, the boundaries of Our Empire would
have stopped at Brighton beach.
That battle was to be a glorious battle.