Patrick Mercer - Red Runs the Helmand

‘Anyway, then the mob closed in and the wretched fellow bled to death before anyone could do anything for him. I think even the locals were shocked by the brutality, for intelligence started to come in at once and we arrested the culprit a couple of days later – the cheeky sod was still running his cobbler’s business, as cool as you like. We hanged him just yards away from where the murder had occurred – that served as a lesson for the natives – but at least this bit of nastiness has shown exactly what the Ghazis can do. Everyone is on the qui vive when they’re in and about the town and—’

‘Go on, McGucken.’ Primrose had cut right across Brooke.

‘Sir, as I was saying, we’ve now received further intelligence that Ayoob Khan is preparing to move out of Herat. He’s trying to get his troops – as many as nine thousand we’re told – into some sort of fettle, but that’s all we really know. It’s possible that he’s going to bypass Kandahar and move on Kabul, but that seems less likely now that Stewart’s force have moved up to Kabul to reinforce General Roberts’s troops.’ McGucken paused.

‘How long would it take a native army of that size to reach us from Herat, and what sort of troops are they?’ I asked.

‘Well, General, it’s hard to know exactly, but I guess it would take Ayoob Khan more than a month, so – if my people are worth their salt – we should get plenty of warning. But they’re better organised than you might think, General. He’s got regulars, including some of the Kabuli regiments who turned on Louis Cavagnari last year, armed with Enfields and a few Sniders and some guns with, we’re told, overseers from the Russian artillery. How many pieces, and of what calibre, we’re not yet sure.’

I could see that McGucken had plenty more to tell me but Primrose hadn’t yet heard enough of his own voice: ‘So, Morgan, gentlemen, there we are.’ He was up and down on his toes like some wretched ballet dancer – I knew he would be an awkward man to work under. ‘We’ve got local problems with the troublesome, headstrong folk here in the town and the odd murderous loon in the shape of the Ghazis. The wali’s troops are an unknown quantity but will, I suspect, come to heel once the wali takes them properly in hand . . .’ McGucken raised his eyebrows ‘. . . and now the rumour of Ayoob Khan is back with us. I think it’s time, gentlemen, to take the soldier-like precautions that General Stewart so signally failed to do. We must not only be ready to take the field at a moment’s notice, we must also be ready to defend Kandahar.’

I could see Primrose scanning us all, challenging anyone to disagree with him, as the flies buzzed drowsily and the punkah creaked on its hinges above us. I have to say, it had all come as a bit of a surprise to me. I’d thought our division would be in Afghanistan just to see things quieten down, give a bit of bottom to the new wali and then be off back to India before the next winter. Now it seemed we might have a bit of a fight on our hands and – as Roberts, Browne and now Stewart had found out – these hillmen were not Zulus armed with spears whom we could mow down in their thousands. As well as regular troops and demented Ghazis, it now appeared that Ayoob Khan had guns directed by Russians. McGucken and I had had a bellyful of just such creatures a few years back.

‘Well, sir, may I suggest that there are three measures we could start with advantage right away?’ Harry Brooke spoke, clear and direct, taking Primrose’s challenge head on.

‘Please enlighten us, Brooke,’ Primrose replied, with a slight edge of sarcasm that caused McGucken to glance at me.

‘We must secure fresh and plentiful water supplies within the walls of the town before the weather gets really hot.’ Brooke paused to see how this would be received.

‘Yes, yes, of course – that’s just common sense,’ replied Primrose, so quickly that I suspected he’d never even con sidered such a thing. ‘Do go on.’

‘Well, sir, if we’re to face an enemy in the field, we’ll need every sabre and bayonet that we can find so we can’t be distracted by foes inside the town such as those you’ve just described. Should we not expel all Pathans of military age and pull down the shanties and lean-tos that have been built so close to the walls that they restrict any fields of fire? Can we not start to burn or dismantle them now, General?’

The punkah squaled again and I could see that the trouble with Harry Brooke, like all of us Anglo-Irish, was that he was too damn blunt. I’d had much the same thoughts about the clutter of plank and mud-built houses, shops and stalls as I’d ridden up from the cantonments towards the town walls and his comments about the tribesmen made a great deal of sense to me. But, judging by the way Primrose was hopping from foot to foot, Harry’s ideas hadn’t found much favour.

‘No, no, Brooke, that will never do. You must remember, all of you . . .’ Primrose treated us to another of his basilisk stares ‘. . . that we are not an army of occupation. We’re guests – pretty muscular guests, I grant you – of the wali under whose hand we lie. We can’t go knocking his people’s property about and chucking out those we haven’t taken a shine to. How on earth will we ever gain his or his subjects’ confidence if we behave like that? No, that will never do.’

What, I suspect, the little trimmer really meant was that sensible measures he wouldn’t have hesitated to use last year, while Disraeli’s crew held sway, simply wouldn’t answer now that Gladstone and his bunch of croakers were in charge. Primrose didn’t want to be seen by the new Whig regime as one of the same stamp of generals of whom the liberal press had been so critical for their heavy-handedness in Zululand and then for so-called ‘atrocities’ here in Afghanistan twelve months ago.

I could repeat, word perfect, Gladstone’s cant, which I’d read when I’d paused in Quetta three weeks ago, just before the election. It had caused near apoplexy at breakfast in the mess: ‘Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, amid the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eyes of Almighty God as your own,’ or some such rot. Disraeli had responded by calling his comments ‘rodomontade’ (which had us all stretching for the dictionaries) but there was no doubting the public mood that didn’t want to hear about British regulars being bested by natives and the murder of their envoys in far-away residences. They were heartily sick of highly coloured press accounts of shield-and-spear-armed Zulu impis being cut down by rifles and Gatling guns. If the new God-bothering government caught even a whiff of Primrose’s treating the tribesmen with anything other than kid gloves then his career was likely to be as successful as the Pope’s wedding night.

‘There it is, gentlemen. With a little good fortune, all this talk of Ayoob Khan descending on us like the wrath of God will prove to be just hot air and we can get on with an ordered life here, then make a measured move back to India later in the year.’

I looked round the room to judge people’s reaction to this last utterance from Primrose and there wasn’t a face – except, perhaps, Heath’s – that didn’t look horrified at such a pro spect. I, for one, had sat in Karachi whittling away over the last couple of campaign seasons while my friends and juniors gathered laurels innumerable, courtesy of the Afghans. And I’d had little expectation of any excitement when I’d been sent for a few weeks ago. But now our hopes had been raised. Perhaps we were to see deeds and glory. Maybe Nuttall, Brooke and I would not be bound for our pensions, Bath chairs and memories quite as soon as we had feared.