Patrick Mercer - Dust and Steel

Morgan watched Carmichael’s reaction. Full of bluster with just one opponent, when the pendulum swung against him, he instantly backed down – and what a damn nerve he had to talk about the quality of the soldiers: Carmichael, the officer who was always in an indecent rush to find himself a safe job on the staff, leaving the men and his regiment without a second thought.

‘Aye, well, we’ll soon see if we can trust the rascals or not, won’t we?’ Carmichael continued more quietly. ‘Now that you’re in the colonel’s pocket, Morgan, did he give you any idea where they might be sending us?’

‘No. There’s some talk amongst the Bombay officers that we’ll be sent up towards Delhi, but I think that’s just speculation.’

‘Oh, so nowhere near your old countryman Ensign James Keenan, and his peachy little wife, then?’ said Carmichael with a curl of his lip.

‘No…no, why should we?’ Morgan was instantly uncomfortable when Keenan’s name was mentioned. ‘The Keenans are up at Jhansi near Agra with the Twelfth BNI. Safe as houses, no hint of trouble – and there won’t be, if I know anything about the commandant, Colonel Kemp. He’ll keep ’em well and truly in line, so he will,’ he continued, keen to steer the talk away from his former sergeant and his wife.

‘Aye, just as well now that the Keenans have got a son and heir to look after.’ There was a troublesome note in Carmichael’s voice. ‘You remember Keenan, don’t you, Bazalgette?’

‘Of course I do; wounded at the Alma, wasn’t he, did a wonderful job at The Quarries and got commissioned in the field, sold out and then went off to an Indian regiment? Didn’t know you were still in touch with him, Morgan,’ Bazalgette answered.

‘Oh, I doubt if he is,’ Carmichael cut in before Morgan could answer, ‘but I guess he still corresponds with Mrs Keenan – much to discuss about life back in Cork, eh, Morgan?’

‘Haven’t had anything to do with either of ’em since they left Dublin last year,’ answered Morgan, a little too quickly,

‘No? Well, who knows when we’ll knock into them again.’ Carmichael drained his glass noisily and stood up. ‘That would be an interesting meeting for you, wouldn’t it? Right, must go – there’s any number of delightful loyal sepoys to re-train whom “we must learn to trust” – wasn’t that your phrase, Morgan?’ And he strode from the cool of the mess out into the heat of the early afternoon.

‘Christ, you’ve really got under his skin this time, ain’t you, Morgan?’ Bazalgette held his glass in both hands, sipping at the brandy. ‘Why’s he prosing on about Keenan, though? He’ll never be coming back to the Ninety-Fifth now that he’s taken John Company’s salt, and what’s the chance of seeing him again out here in India?’ Bazalgette watched Morgan carefully, much more interested in his friend’s impending answer than he was pretending to be.

Morgan hesitated; James Keenan had been his batman before winning laurels and a commission in the face of the enemy, whilst Mary, his wife, had been a chamber maid in Glassdrumman, the Morgan family home in Cork. The close relationship between the Protestant officer and the Catholic girl in the Crimea had caused rumour to swirl, particularly when Keenan, with a new and valuable commission in a Queen’s regiment and a heavily pregnant wife, had sold that same commission and scuttled off to India no sooner than the 95th had returned to Dublin eighteen months ago.

‘D’you really not know?’ Morgan asked quietly.

‘I’d sooner hear the truth from you, old lad,’ Bazalgette answered sympathetically.

‘Lord knows, it’s been a strain. The child – Samuel – is mine; he was conceived when Keenan was on trench duty and I was visiting the wounded just before we attacked The Quarries…I know, please don’t look at me like that.’ Bazalgette had heard the rumours, but it didn’t make the truth any less shocking. ‘So when the Keenans decamped to India I thought that that would be an end to the whole chapter.’

‘How much of this does Maude know?’ Bazalgette thought back to the Cork society wedding last year where the gallant Tony Morgan, hero and heir to a fair spread of pasture and farms on the Atlantic coast, had married Maude Hawtrey, judge’s daughter, so cementing the two families into one of the most influential Protestant enclaves in the county.

‘Nothing…nothing at all,’ Morgan answered, ‘and now she’s pregnant, so there’s to be another Morgan coming into the world, only this one shall be able to carry my name.’

‘Well, it’s a fine pickle, but as long as Keenan’s not hounding you, then I reckon that your usual streak of luck has seen you right.’ Bazalgette knew Morgan better than most of his friends, yet the subject had never even been hinted at before. ‘Why, there’s no reason to think that we’ll come across the twelfth BNI, nor that we’ll be sent up Jhansi way. I suspect that this is the last you’ve heard of it and, frankly, it’s not in Keenan’s interests to go blethering about his boy’s real father, is it?’

‘But that’s the whole goddamn point, Bazalgette,’ Morgan blurted, holding the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. ‘He’s my son – mine and Mary’s – not bloody Keenan’s. Jesus, the girl only married Keenan because she wanted to follow me, and now I’ve a son that I shall never see whilst I’m stuck with the driest, coldest creature in the whole of Cork, who can’t hold a candle to Mary. What a bloody pother.’

‘Come on, old feller, it may seem a mess to you, but it’ll have to wait until we’ve settled the Pandies’ hash.’ Bazalgette reached across and gripped his friend’s shoulder. ‘Now, there’s the bugle, the men will be waiting for us.’

‘Grenadier Company formed up and ready for demonstration, sir.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken’s hand came down smartly from the salute.

On the parched parade ground of the fort, the left wing of the 10th Bengal Native Infantry stood at ease in their cotton shirtsleeves, white trousers and round forage caps – almost four hundred of them – waiting for the skirmishing demonstration that Morgan’s company had been told to organise for them. The butts of their rifles rested in the dust, the weapons comfortably in the crooks of their elbows, their faces alert and apparently keen to learn.

Kneeling opposite them were Morgan’s men. Like the sepoys, they had been allowed to strip down to their shirts and now they kneeled in two, staggered ranks.

‘How are our boys, Colour-Sar’nt?’ asked Morgan quietly as his hand flicked casually to the peak of his cap, returning the salute.

‘They’ll do as they’re told, sir,’ McGucken replied equally quietly.

‘No, Colour-Sar’nt, that’s not what I’m asking,’ said Morgan. ‘How are they about it?’

‘They’re no’ very pleased, sir. They don’t understand why they’ve been detailed off to teach the sepoys how to be better soldiers when they might turn on us at any moment. That scunner Corporal Pegg asked if we shouldn’t be loaded with ball, “just in case”, but I told him to button his fuckin’ lip. They’ll do what you want them to, sir – and bloody like it.’

The 95th, with their recent battle experience, had learnt the value of skirmishing – the fire and manoeuvre by independent pairs – that was utterly unlike the formal old-fashioned drill movements by which the Indian regiments still moved in battle. Now the colonel had decided to teach the sepoys this tactic, not just as a battle-winning skill, but also as a device for his men to show their trust in their new comrades – a pair of whom they had just blown to infinity.

As Morgan arrived, the three British company commanders and their subadars came marching towards him and halted as one man, throwing up the dust of the barrack yard, before the senior captain took a pace forward and saluted.