A Battle Piece

 Corporal O’Halloran checked his ammunition pouches automatically again. Two clips: ten rounds. There were ten more in the .303 Lee-Enfield’s magazine and one up the spout. No point in asking the others for more—they had little enough ammunition themselves. Anyway, they had done their job and their only task now was to get back to the British lines. 

Behind him was the noise of the river over the collapsed stonework of the bridge they had destroyed. That could hide the sound of enemy footsteps as well as of their own. Otherwise there was silence apart from a few distant bird-calls. He didn’t like it. To men like O’Halloran the phrase “too quiet” was far more than a cliché. There should be a few more carrion birds, at least. He had seen a few civilians that morning, camp followers heading west, but the last of them seemed long gone. God help any who lingered until the tribesmen arrived in strength, he thought.

Not for the first time he gave thanks that the men with him were Gurkhas. Like all his regiment he believed none could equal these Eastern hillmen in warcraft, and he knew how the Pathans dreaded the crescent blade of the Gurkha kukri. It was unusual to put a European NCO in charge of them without at least undergoing a special course, but too many of their own NCOs had died in the previous weeks of fighting. It was certainly an honour.

There were deserted buildings, not deserted long but already in many cases overgrown and falling towards ruin. The signs remaining on one proclaimed that it had been a fortune-teller’s booth: a particular target for the tribesmen. There was also a burnt-out Christian church. Such places were avoided by those who had any idea what they probably contained. The river was low, with broad stretches of mud. A paddle-wheel boat, broken and long neglected, was canted on one bank, spilling a black mass of coal from its shell-holed bunkers. Daylight shone through its planking, and it was obviously useless. There was still a broad, deep current in the centre, and the loss of the bridge would delay the tribesmen from crossing in force.

There were old statues or idols here, broken and beheaded. They had passed a statue of Queen Victoria earlier in the day, oddly undamaged. Something yellowish-white caught his eye. When they had passed that way in the morning he had noticed a pale, naked child rolling a skull in the gutter. Now the child, and presumably its parents, were gone, and there was only the skull.

There was a figure in turban and khaki pyjamas, moving towards the cover of a section of ruined wall. They fired almost together. O’Halloran felt the numbing shock and then the tearing pain of a bullet-wound in his upper arm. He dropped on one knee and fired. Missed. Rifleman Pun beside him fired at almost the same instant. No miss this time. The figure fell backwards and lay still, a rifle clattering to the ground beside it. No time to loot it. The tribesmen seldom forayed alone. Get to the British lines and hope the column had left a rear-guard. O’Halloran stopped only to collect the empty brass. Rifleman Pun bound up the wound in his arm with a scrap of his uniform. It was a flesh wound, and O’Halloran knew that of itself it was not dangerous, but it was bleeding profusely. The makeshift bandage reduced the bleeding, but did not stop it completely. The enemy might follow a blood trail, but there was little more that could be done about it.

O’Halloran felt very alone, and once again gave silent thanks for the company and indomitable spirits of the Gurkhas. Even now, as the muzzles of their rifles on first pressure swept to left and right they seemed to be looking for an excuse to grin. He forced himself to grin back at them, marvelling yet again at the fortitude and good spirits of the little men.

Sunlight ahead, gleaming on lines too straight to be natural, and, now he saw, the rims and spokes of wheels, all deliberately dulled to catch no ray of the afternoon sun—a pair of partly-masked cannon, unlimbered and ready for action. Another moment showed him the helmets and battered khaki uniforms of English soldiers. This was not an ideal siting for mountain guns but O’Halloran was glad to see them. The Gurkhas, without relaxing their vigilance for a moment, grinned again with delight.

A voice shouted in challenge. 

Partly hidden by an old half-collapsed wall was a pair of little screw-guns, newly-cast and gleaming, each with a small pile of ready-use shells, and their precious team of patient mules given some protection by a scanty revetment of rubble and sandbags. Small and locally-bred, he recognised. The big Missouri mules must be gone. Horses and mules were worth more than men and the enemy had always made them a special target. A score or so of soldiers were crouched behind a loop-holed wall of sandbags. A cart waited to collect the empty shell-cases, along with others for the wounded. A British flag flew on a low staff. Among the privates and the riflemen there was a little tobacco to be exchanged. Raw stuff, which the Gurkhas were welcome to, as far as O’Halloran was concerned. The young lieutenant in command waved them through at the sight of O’Halloran’s orders.

“Keep going west,” he told them, indicating the route on a tattered map. “Your lot pulled out about an hour ago. They can’t have got too far. Pity we can’t tell them you dropped the bridge.” The sun was in the wrong position for the heliograph to signal. “A few days earlier and it would have been more useful, though. There are plenty on this side already.” 

The wound in his arm, though now starting to be very painful, did not look too serious. O’Halloran wondered if they would have time to get the guns away should the tribesmen make a mass attack, but he had a task of his own—getting himself and his men back to his lines—and he was far too experienced a campaigner to worry about the problems of other men unless ordered to. He thought of asking for ammunition but could see the little half-battery’s ammunition boxes were themselves nearly empty. The sections of the screw-guns and their little shells accounted for most of the mules’ carrying capacity.

Further, there was a small worry at the back of his mind that the lieutenant might decide to conscript him and his little command into reinforcing the garrison for a last stand. They were going to need reinforcements, but, he swiftly decided, he would not be among them if he could help it. Gesturing to the others and with his few words of Gurkhali, he moved on to the west. They had not gone far when he heard the crack of the screw-guns behind them, and a series of volleys of rifle-fire. 

“Come on!” He increased their pace to a run, though he still moved as carefully and warily as he might. It was impossible to run quietly but he did his best, and further he did not want to collapse, winded, before the Gurkhas did.

Gurkhas. They had been recruited into the Honourable East India Company’s forces after originally fighting against the British in the approaches to Nepal. Their private soldiers had soon earned the proud title “Rifleman”. When many of the Indian regiments mutinied, they stood firm. Their toughness and skill, as well as their loyalty, were legendary. However badly things went, the Gurkha could be depended on. Even now, they were moving with astonishingly little noise.

Behind them, the guns had fallen silent. That could mean anything, but O’Halloran feared the worst. The British forces were short of both men and ammunition. He could hear voices but could not make out the words. There was a newish building ahead of them, a large mosque. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun illuminated its dome and the towers of the minarets. Nearby was another building, also once large and impressive, but now largely ruined. 

Behind them now he heard shod hooves on the road. Tribesmen’s horses or the gun-mules? He couldn’t tell. A gesture was enough. Silently the Gurkhas slipped into the large ruins and disappeared, blending themselves with uncanny skill into the shadows of arch and cornice. 

O’Halloran followed. This was the remains of a temple of considerable grandeur. There was a musty smell and a silence which he somehow knew had been long-brewed. Much of the roof had fallen in but there were still great idols standing about, and the shattered bust of an old man, itself also broken and weather-stained. There was the broken body of a tiger, and a scatter of dead and wrecked monkeys as well as some other creatures, but O’Halloran saw that these were all old stuffed trophies, nothing edible. There were the bones of some large animal in the doorway, also scattered and disarrayed, and the tusks of an elephant, which would have been worth much money once.

Disarrayed by dogs? O’Halloran shivered. To his party with their limited ammunition, a pack of dogs might well be at least as dangerous as men. Still, the ruins seemed silent at present. Gesturing to the others to follow him, he climbed a set of steps to an upper part of the building. Through one window he could see the road as the horsemen came into view. His fears had been justified. They were tribesmen, not British soldiers. Quite a large party, and followed by men on foot. No time to count them all, but he guessed at least fifty men. A couple were bending forward as they advanced, and he realised they were tracking his own party’s footprints in the dust. There might be blood, too.

The whole band had stopped now, weapons at the ready. Their gestures and attitudes made it obvious that they were about to enter the ruins. The Gurkhas had their rifles at the ready too, but he saw Rifleman Pun’s hand moving towards his kukri.

“Wishing us much good lucks!” The little man breathed in his ear. “We will take many of them with us!” Both had their rifles trained and were plainly awaiting the order to fire.

Perhaps, though, there was no need for a last stand yet. O’Halloran did not dare move. Any gesture on his part might be taken by his men as a signal to fire. But perhaps it need not come to that: these ruins were big. There were many places to hide.

The tribesmen passed into the ruins. O’Halloran raised a finger to his lips for silence, and removed his boots, the others copying him. They moved on, careful to leave no footprints in the dust.

Another passage, leading to another room. They were well inside the ruin now, and the roof here was intact, preserving the contents from the weather.

A large silvery structure dominated the centre of the room, the sinking sun through the window throwing a multitude of reflections. A pool of scummy water long-dripping from the roof flung up a pattern of rainbows on the silver. There were steps leading up to a door on the structure, and the unmoving figures of two strangely clad, faceless men—idols the tribesmen had not yet destroyed.

As a hiding place it had the disadvantage of being obvious, but there were many other hiding places equally obvious and the other door leading onwards was even more so. In any case, he could not run much further. Taking care to leave no blood trail he waved the others up into the central structure, which apparently contained a small room at the top of the steps, then followed, pulling the steps behind him and closing the door. 

The interior of the structure was cramped, but there were small windows high up. He thought he could see out without being seen.

A group of the Afghans burst into the room. Ghazis, from the look of them: foam on their beards and with yard-long knives. O’Halloran hoped they were too drugged to make a clear-headed search. They paused for a moment, then carried on into the next corridor. The sounds of them died away. The Gurkhas were grinning again, though Rifleman Pun looked a little disappointed that his kukri had remained in its sheath.

They waited a long time, as twilight slowly deepened. The air in the little chamber grew foul, and O’Halloran risked opening the door a crack. Presently they heard the sound of departing horses’ hooves from the street outside. The tribesmen, he decided, had come to the conclusion that they had either escaped or that they had never entered the building in the first place. Possibly, too, they wished to get back to the wreckage of the mule-battery with its loot. In any case, they had no idea of the size of O’Halloran’s party, and some cooler heads among them—if there were any such—might think it unwise to pursue an enemy force of unknown size by night through such a warren, apparently made for ambushes.

They discussed whether or not to remain where they were longer, perhaps overnight, but finally decided to move on. The sooner they moved, the better their chances were of overtaking the column. Let them hurry and encounter no more delays, and there was a chance that they might reach the British troops without having to attempt a nightmare passage in the dark. He wished they could refill their water-canteens but there was no clear water. What might once have been a drinking-fountain lay on its side, useless and shattered.

It occurred to O’Halloran that they might be asked later where they had hidden. Well, there was writing under a thick layer of dust that might tell their officer.

Like most NCO’s, O’Halloran could read a little, but the words meant nothing to him. However, to copy them would be evidence of conscientiousness in his report. There were not many words left:

APOLLO-11 MOON LANDING,

SEA OF TRANQUILITY, JULY, 1969,

THIS REPLICA WAS PRESENTED TO

THE BRITISH SCIENCE MUSEUM

BY

THE UNITED STATES’ NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE