The Ravi Lancers (3 page)

‘I’ll exercise him, Warrie.’

‘Good. He’s a nice little dog, but ... well, I don’t think a manoeuvre camp is the place for dogs. Except retrievers, perhaps.’

‘Ooh ... darling ... aaah!’ Warren groaned in Joan’s ear, his weight bearing rhythmically down on her. Her legs were twined round his back, her head twisted, the fair hair a cloud on the moonlit pillow. The bed creaked faster. Her teeth met gently, then suddenly sharp, in his ear. She began to moan, muffling the sounds against his throat.

Afterwards, he went to the bathroom and disposed of the contraceptive which she always insisted that he used. The damned thing turned the act of love into something vaguely unnatural and degrading, and it didn’t feel so good, physically; but that wasn’t of much importance compared to Joan’s peace of mind; and they certainly should not have another child, partly because of the expense and partly because she had had such a bad time giving birth to Rodney three and a half years ago.

He lay down again beside her, and she curled up in his arms. ‘I wish you were coming back to England with us,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ he said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think you’d miss the manoeuvres, the parades, the sowars.’

He said thoughtfully, ‘Yes, I would, but I shall miss you more. One can’t have everything in this world.’

She lay silent against him for a while, then said, ‘I wish your family lived in London.’

‘H’m,’ he said noncommittally. He liked London well enough, to visit as a young man, or on leave, but--to live in the Smoke, as the cockneys called it? What was it that woman said in the Shaw play?
Not bloody likely!
And it was no use pretending to Joan about it.

‘I’m starving for art,’ she said, ‘theatre, music, people who
think
and
talk
instead of clumping about on stupid great horses. People with their brains in their heads not in their behinds.’

‘You could spend some nights in Uncle Rodney’s flat--he has a spare room, I know--and do some things from there ... as much as we can afford.’

‘It’s difficult for a woman alone,’ Joan said. ‘She gets stared at, which I don’t mind. And pestered, which I do ... Oh, well, you’ll be back in August, and perhaps I can persuade Ralph to take me up once or twice.’

Warren kissed her and turned over sleepily. ‘Yes, that’s an idea. You may be able to bring him out of his shell ... persuade him the world isn’t all against him.’

Warren and his brother officer, George Johnson, walked slowly round the Ratanwala
jheel
, the village headman beside them. ‘I should think four guns is the maximum here,’ Warren said. ‘We could have a shoot tomorrow, unless old Rainbow’s got something planned for us.’

Johnson shook his head. ‘No, there’s nothing till the day after. Some of the infantry have to march out into position, that’s all.’ Warren said, ‘All right.’ He told the headman what he wanted done about the snipe shoot. The headman said, ‘It will be done, sahib,’ salaamed twice and walked away across the fields to his village. Warren and Johnson set off down the road to the camp, both smoking pipes as they strolled along. It was four o’clock on another perfect cold weather afternoon in the northern Punjab. The tents of the Lahore Brigade stood in long rows among mango and oak trees on a gentle slope ahead, the mud-walled village of Ratanwala to the north, the shallow lake, Ratanwala Jheel, reputed to provide some of the best snipe shooting in India, in a depression to the east.

At the entrance to the camp, they met a group of officers all of whom Warren knew from the club and previous manoeuvres--Upchurch of the Oxford Fusiliers, Moore of the Gurkhas, and Corelli of the 8th Brahmins, keen shooters all. Upchurch said, ‘Been arranging that shoot we were talking about, Bateman?’

Warren nodded, ‘Yes. It’s all fixed. Four guns. Let’s draw lots for the places this evening, and then another four can take the
jheel
on Sunday.’

‘Good enough,’ Captain Corelli said. He looked up the road, ‘Here, what’s this? I thought your lot were the only cavalry going to grace these manoeuvres with your presence.’

Warren, looking along the dusty road which bordered the camp, saw the glitter of lance points to the north. ‘It’ll be the Ravi Lancers,’ he said. ‘They’re going to act as enemy.’

‘Indian States Forces?’ Moore said. ‘That ought to provide some comic relief.’

‘I’ve heard this lot are good,’ Warren said. ‘They have a damned good polo team, anyway.’

The lances were advancing. Ahead of them rode a tall thin man in a heavy pith helmet. ‘A British officer?’ Corelli muttered.

Warren said, ‘Yes. Colonel Hanbury. He was Central India Horse, re-employed by the Rajah.’

The column came on, the thin colonel at the head sitting stooped in the saddle, looking neither to right nor left. The watching officers, all in mufti, raised pith helmets or battered felt hats as he passed. He glanced at them then, and touched his right hand to the peak of his topi. A trumpeter rode to his left rear and a sowar bearing a yellow guidon to his right. Now he was reining in his charger, halting, turning round so that he was stopped at the side of the road, his back to Warren and the others. The leading squadron, led by an Indian wearing a khaki turban, wheeled left into the camp. A fat Indian captain, riding like a sack of potatoes, trotted out of the camp, turned his horse alongside the leading squadron commander, and began pointing and gesticulating. Now came the sowars ... horses well groomed, coats healthy in spite of the dust covering all of them, Warren noted. In the rifle buckets they were carrying the old carbine, but the buckets were well dubbined, everything tight fastened, nothing flapping, girths tight, no horse lame or pecking ... they were better looked after than the men. Not that the men were badly turned out, but they lacked the polish and expert management obvious in the horses: their turbans were not all equally well tied, nor their puttees well fastened, and they didn’t sit alike--this man proud and erect, that one like a stuffed doll in the saddle. The lances were slung, where most regiments rode into camp at attention, but the men looked alert, untired, and cheerful. There was some laughing in the ranks, and Upchurch muttered, ‘Lots of talky-talky, eh?’

Corelli exclaimed, ‘Look!’ Warren stared. Elephants, by God! Down the road came a string of twenty elephants loaded with tentage. They entered the camp. Small parties of men cantered up from the rear of the column, and an old Indian with fiercely upturned white moustaches, who had ridden up to sit easily beside the British colonel, gave them orders. Warren recognized him as Bholanath, the polo player. As the elephants shambled across the area allotted to the Ravi Lancers for their camp, every few yards a man on top would throw down a rolled tent. Oxcarts came now, gaily decorated, with un-uniformed men, ordinary peasants, naked but for loin cloths, perched on the yoke.

‘I’ll bet those carts are normally full of women,’ Moore muttered.

‘Of course,’ Upchurch said, ‘can’t expect those fellows to do without their home comforts.’

The carts wheeled into the camp, axles screaming. That was good management, very good, Warren thought, for oxcarts moved at barely two miles an hour, less than half the rate of cavalry, and to have both arrive in camp together was a feat of timing. Also, the carts must have started out very early.

Another squadron arrived, headed by two men riding side by side. One of them was a captain, the other a sowar, carrying a lance. As they passed Corelli stifled a guffaw and Upchurch said--not very softly--’Good God, bloody Wog pansies?’ Warren saw that the officer and sowar were holding hands as their horses walked together.

‘That explains why they haven’t brought any women,’ Moore of the Gurkhas said. ‘They don’t need them.’

Warren stared after the couple, not sure whether to smile or frown. He knew that there was homosexuality among many Indians, as Oscar Wilde’s trial had shown that there was among Englishmen. He knew it was more prevalent among some Indian peoples than others. An officer commanding Sikhs would be more aware of it than one commanding Dogras or Rajputs, such as these men; and an officer commanding Pathans would have to develop a broad tolerance and follow certain well-defined rules, for among them it was almost universal. But in the Indian Army it would never be flaunted on parade, nor would such a relationship be accepted between an officer and a sowar or sepoy. Colonel Hanbury must have seen, but had said nothing. Well, this was the Ravi Lancers, not the Central India Horse or the 44th of the old Bengal Line.

The other watching British officers drifted away. Warren and Johnson headed for their mess. As they walked, a squadron of Ravi Lancers wheeled into a column of troops directly in front of them, and its captain called out in Hindi, ‘This is our place, rissaldar-sahib. Allot the tents.’

Nothing happened. The squadron commander wore spectacles and did not sit his horse well. He was now fidgeting about, looking right and left, while a rissaldar and two jemadars had a heated argument nearby. One of them called, ‘There are not enough tents for my troop, captain-sahib! ‘

‘Yes, there are!’ the rissaldar snapped.

The captain spurred forward, saying, ‘Don’t argue, please! Come. Gather here.’

Warren thought, there’s a man with no confidence in himself. If the rest of the officers were like that, the regiment wouldn’t be much use. George Johnson relit his pipe, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘How would you like to command that lot, Bateman?’

Warren said, ‘Not a bit ... but there’d be compensations.’

‘Women,’ Johnson said, grinning. ‘Baksheesh. Perks. Five rupees for every promotion to lance dafadar, twenty to dafadar, and as for jemadar ...’

Warren said seriously, ‘I meant, one would be part of an India that only exists in the Native States nowadays--the India that our forefathers knew.’

‘You can have it,’ Johnson said. ‘Y’know, I believe I’m on to a better way to treating bog-spavin in the early stages. What I say is ...’

They walked on towards the mess tent and the immaculate mess dafadar saluting outside. Warren remembered that he hadn’t seen the Yuvraj of Ravi arrive with his regiment. Well, you couldn’t expect a prince to suffer the boredom of a route march, could you?

As his horse trotted in under the shade of the trees by the well, Warren eased it back to a walk, then to a halt. George Johnson was already there, sitting on the brick surround of the well munching on a sandwich, his orderly holding the two horses, watched by a knot of naked children. Warren slipped to the ground, gave his reins to his orderly, Narayan Singh, and sat down at Johnson’s side. He pulled out his own sandwich, peered into it, muttered, ‘Cold mutton. Can’t that bloody
khansamah
think of anything else? ... They’ve got quite a bold plan, George. It could end in a disaster--a real one--but that’s their business.’

‘What are they going to do?’ Johnson asked, his mouth full.

‘Send two squadrons to swim the Ravi behind your right rear and probe in from that side, while the other two squadrons hold you in front.’

Johnson munched, shaking his head. ‘That’ll give Rainbow fits. He thinks the river is protecting his flank.’

Warren passed on more details of the Ravi Lancers’ plan as they ate. Round the right sleeves of their khaki drill tunics both men were wearing the white armband of an umpire. Johnson was the chief umpire with the infantry brigade which, with one squadron of cavalry, was advancing into ‘enemy’ territory in a small exercise; the Ravi Lancers were the ‘enemy’ who were trying to stop them. The village well at this tiny hamlet ten miles north of Ratanwala Camp was the prearranged rendezvous where the umpires met and exchanged plans so that each would know where to place himself and what information to give the commanders as the action unfolded.

An hour later Warren rejoined the Ravi Lancers in their bivouac to the north, arriving at the same time as a large open car, covered with dust, drove in from the opposite direction. As he dismounted near where Colonel Hanbury was sitting on a folding camp chair, the Yuvraj Krishna Ram leaped out of the car, saluted the colonel, and said, ‘I’m sorry I’m late, sir, but the Privy Council wasn’t held till this morning. Have I missed anything?’ He was wearing a perfectly cut drill uniform with a single long yellow and white medal ribbon on his left breast, and immaculate field boots, gleaming like the sun. He noticed Warren then, and saluted again with a smile, ‘Hullo, sir.’

Colonel Hanbury said, ‘You haven’t missed anything, but you’re just in time for an interesting job which I was going to give to Major Bholanath ... if you feel up to some swimming.’ He smiled a frosty little smile at Warren--’I am putting the Yuvraj in command of the flanking force.’

The prince saluted and turned to hurry off, but the colonel said, ‘Wait a minute. You’re not moving off for two hours yet. Get something to eat and then come back here and I’ll give you the details ... Would you care for a bottle of beer, Bateman?’

‘No, thanks, sir. I think I’ll have a nap, though.’

Two hours later the flanking force set out. The two squadrons allotted for the task were C and D. Old Major Bholanath, the polo player, who was a younger brother of the Rajah, commanded C, and a fair-skinned, handsome Captain Sher Singh--the one holding hands with a sowar as they rode into camp--commanded D. The two hundred lancers headed south-east towards the Ravi River across a scrub-covered plain dotted with patches of cultivation, dun-coloured villages, and isolated trees. A column of dust traced their movement as they marched at the alternating walk then trot, walk then trot, of cavalry. Warren wondered whether the British force would see the dust and note its direction. But they were at least ten miles away, and the air was thick from the steady cold weather wind blowing off the thin topsoil. They would see nothing.

An hour before dark the force reached the right bank of the Ravi. The river was half a mile wide, flowing in two or three channels: it was hard to tell whether there were one or two long, low sand islands in the middle of the river. The near bank was a steep sand slope, the far one a low beach littered with bushes and tree trunks stranded from the floods of last monsoon. The squadron commanders gathered round the prince, and he said, speaking in Hindi, ‘Let us cross at once. You go first, uncle. I’ll follow with Sher Singh.’