William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

The Palamcottahs remained in their lighters for another five hours. Seventeen men in Gabriel’s company collapsed from exhaustion and chronic seasickness and had to be helped back on board the Homayun . It was about one o’clock in the morning when the lighter finally crunched into the sand about eighty yards offshore. It had turned into a brilliant moonlit night and the beach below the red house was thronged with dark figures.

“Right, Cobb,” Santoras said. “Get ‘A’ company ashore. Report to the beach officer for our assembly point.”

“Who’s the beach officer, sir?” Gabriel asked.

“Um, some major in the 51 stPioneers, I think,” Santoras said.

Gabriel and Gleeson, followed by their men, struggled to the bow of the lighter. Gleeson led the way. He jumped into the water and disappeared completely from view. He emerged, spluttering, a few seconds later. The water came up to his neck.

“Bloody deep,” he said cheerily. “Better warn the men.”

Gabriel jumped in. The water was deliciously warm. He was furious, though, to be completely soaked. He told Gleeson to see the rest of the company off and splashed his way slowly through the moderate surf on to the beach. With a pang of melancholy he recalled that the last time he’d been in the sea was at Trouville. Telling himself to concentrate he looked back and saw a line of his men, rifles held above their heads, following him ashore. He felt his sodden uniform cool in the breeze coming off the sea. The beach was crowded with disembarked men, some of whom were being marched up a gully that led up to the red house on the cliffs. Crowds of native porters and coolies shouted and milled aimlessly in large packs, waiting for the stores and ordnance to arrive.

When most of ‘A’ company was ashore a man with a torch stumped over and shone the beam in Gabriel’s face.

“And who in God’s name are you?” he was asked.

“‘A’ company, 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry,” Gabriel said.

“God Almighty!” the man swore. “You’re not meant to be landing until tomorrow morning.” He consulted the clip board he held. “Beach ‘C’. There’s no room here for another battalion. Stop! Stop!” he shouted as the remnants of ‘A’ company emerged dripping from the waves. Gleeson went splashing back to the lighters to pass on the beach officer’s instructions. A signalling lamp was set up and messages were exchanged with the Homayun . After an hour’s wait a tug appeared and towed the rest of the battalion away from the beach and back to the ship.

“What about us?” Gabriel said.

“Attach yourself to the Rajputs for the night. We’ll sort you out in the morning. See Lt Col. Codrington. He’s in the red house.”

Gabriel formed up his muttering and perplexed troop. Two men were missing, leaving seventy-six in all. They had either drowned or else had never left the lighter. ‘A’ company moved off the beach and up the gully to the cliff top. Here in the moonlight, Gabriel could see a great mass of men, many of them engaged in digging trenches. He stationed his men by a clump of palm trees, told Gleeson not to move, and went in search of Colonel Codrington. As he strode across to the red house he realized he was walking on dry land for the first time in a month. Other impressions added themselves to this: it was enemy soil too; out there were men he regarded as foe. And he was in Africa. The African night was cool, though that may have been due to his damp uniform, and he could hear all about him the strange persistent noise of the crickets and cicadas. He shivered with a kind of exhilaration, and stamped his feet as he walked, happy not to hear the hollow sound of wooden decks returned to him. The land around the red house seemed to have been cleared for cultivation, but beyond that was a darker, higher mass of what looked like thick forest. Everywhere he could see columns of men being marched to and fro, and others settling down as best as they could for the night. There were a great deal of shouted orders being exchanged and somewhere someone was blowing furiously on a whistle. It certainly didn’t look like an invasion force, and there was a complete absence of danger.

Gabriel passed unchallenged into the red house. Staff officers hurried to and fro with papers in their hands. Engineers were installing a telephone line which had been run up from the beach. Gabriel asked for Lt Col. Codrington and was directed upstairs. There he found a room filled with officers, most pressed around a table covered in maps. He saw Brigadier-General Pughe, a small man with a doleful, flushed expression. The force attacking Tanga had been divided into two brigades: on the left was Pughe’s, on the right was the one the Palamcottahs were attached to, commanded by Brigadier-General Wapshore.

Gabriel paused, suddenly feeling a bit foolish. What should he do? Inform Pughe that he was reporting for duty to the wrong brigade? In the meantime he saluted the row of backs that was presented to him. In one corner of the room a major was energetically cranking the handle of a field telephone and shouting ‘hello hello hello hello’ endlessly into the mouth-piece. Gabriel looked about him: there appeared to be half a dozen lieutenant-colonels in the room, all identically dressed in topees, khaki jackets, jodhpurs and knee-length brown leather boots. Then he saw the tall figure of Bilderbeck.

“Hello Bilderbeck,” Gabriel said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Cobb!” Bilderbeck said loudly. A few people looked round. “What are you doing here? You should be on Beach ‘C’.”

Gabriel explained about the wrong landing and his lost company of troops.

“God,” Bilderbeck said, dropping his voice. “Between you and me this is what I call a fiasco. I should sit tight till tomorrow, get some sleep and then wander over in the morning. Beach ‘C’ is only about a mile away.”

He walked back down the stairs with Gabriel. The scène of noisy disorder outside prompted a bark of ironic laughter. “Think the Huns know we’re here?” he asked rhetorically. He glanced up at the sky which was lightening perceptibly in the east, out over the ocean. He looked at his watch. “The Rajputs are advancing on the town in half an hour,” he said. “I’d better get back.” He grinned, his teeth gleaming in the strong moonlight. Gabriel smiled back uneasily.

“I’ll look by to see how you’re getting on later,” Bilderbeck said. “See if I can get a call through to Santoras. Let him know the score.”

“I say, thanks, Bilderbeck,” Gabriel said sincerely, but Bilderbeck was already striding back to the red house, which now had lights blazing from all its windows.

Gabriel wandered back through the columns of grunting coolies bringing up ammunition and supplies from the beach. He felt strangely depressed, not having had any instructions, and curiously impotent. ‘A’ company was not meant to be where it was, therefore the purposes of strategy and logistics declared it to be non-existent.

He found Gleeson leaning up against a palm tree looking out at the anchored convoy. The men were lying beneath their unrolled turbans and looked ominously like rows of sheeted dead. No rifles had been stacked, packs and provisions had been dropped anywhere.

“Any luck?” Gleeson asked.

Gabriel told him they’d have to wait until the morning.

“What’s going on?” Gleeson asked incuriously. “I saw machine guns being taken up to the perimeter.”

“The Rajputs are attacking Tanga,” Gabriel said listlessly.

“Rather them than me,” Gleeson said. “I’m shattered. Fancy some tea? I’ve got a flask here.”

Gabriel accepted. “How are the men?” he said, knowing he ought to be passing among them, issuing words of calm and comfort. But they weren’t like his company in the West Kents. They seemed total strangers. Gleeson seemed to have some sort of peculiar rapport with them, but that was because he spoke the language. Gabriel supposed he should at least let the Indian officers know what the latest news was, but they all seemed asleep. It wasn’t surprising, he reflected, after five hours in a tilting, swaying lighter.