William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

He heard the whine of a mosquito in his ear. His uniform was nearly dry now. He strolled to the edge of a knoll and looked down on the landing beach. The coolies and native bearers were still hard at work; they formed straggling lines, moving stores up from the beach to the cliff top. Further out the convoy of ships was silhouetted against the gash of grey and citron yellow that was the dawn sky. Gleeson’s tea had left a metallic taste in his mouth: cheap flask, he thought. He turned round and looked in the direction of Tanga. He heard a cock crow. Out there in the bush, he thought, there are columns of men ‘marching unto war’. He hummed a few bars of the hymn tune, trying to take his mind off the sudden pressures and cramps he was feeling in his bowels. He tapped the rhythm on his holster. “Onward Christian so-oh-oh-oldiers…” General Aitken expected no resistance…He laughed at himself. What was so wrong with needing to perform a natural function? He walked over to a clump of bushes, lowered his trousers and squatted down.

♦

Gleeson woke him up at six. He’d managed only to get a couple of hours sleep.

“The show seems to be on,” Gleeson said airily.

Gabriel looked around him at the unfamiliar scène. The early morning sun bounced off the red tiles on the roof of the red house. The terrain looked quite different in daylight. The patch of cleared ground was dusty and covered by straggling clumps of sun-bleached knee-high grass and low thorn bushes. Waist-deep trenches had been dug around the perimeter and from them Indian troops looked out into the comparative lushness of coconut groves and rubber plantations that lay between Ras Kasone and Tanga. By the red house three reserve companies of Pioneers were drawn up. Scattered everywhere were great mounds of boxes, crates and sacks. Gabriel saw brand new signalling equipment, bundies of stretchers and, to his alarm, ranks of coffins. There were also a dozen motorbikes.

From the direction of Tanga came the cracking and popping of rifles and machine guns. It sounded like a fire blazing in distant undergrowth.

“Good grief,” Gabriel said. “That’s damned heavy. I thought this landing was meant to be unopposed.” Everybody around the house had stopped what they were doing and were looking in the direction of Tanga.

“The Rajputs set off about an hour and a half ago,” Gleeson said. “They must be at the town by now. Probably a rearguard.”

But the noise of firing didn’t stop. Soon everyone went nervously back about their business, as if evidence of lack of concern might work some magic. Gleeson took some men down to the beach and came back with a box of ship’s biscuits and fresh water. Gabriel didn’t feel like eating but happily accepted a mug of warm water and rum. The alcohol made him relax.

From time to time, runners would appear from the forest of coconut trees and sprint into the red house. The noise of firing continued and Gabriel reflected that the ‘rearguard’ were certainly putting up something of a fight. He saw General Pughe himself come out of the house and order three reserve companies to march off in support of the Rajputs.

Gleeson went back to sleep, but Gabriel felt agitated. He wandered over to one of the perimeter trenches. The sepoys guarding it looked edgy and fearful. He noticed that there were no English officers. Suddenly about a dozen African potters bolted out of the trees and raced past the outpost guards, whimpering and gibbering with fear. Gabriel turned and watched them disappear over the rise and down on to the beach. Everyone looked at each other in astonishment, then a murmur of alarm spread through the men in the trenches. Some loud arguments ensued and Gabriel saw some native officers raising their swagger sticks to restore order.

“Who were those men running away?” Gabriel asked a jemadar with a fierce moustache.

“Machine-gun bearers, sir. From the Rajputs.”

Gabriel swallowed. Where were the machine guns in that case? A commotion further up the line attracted his attention. It was the first of the stretcher parties returning from the fighting. He ran over. There were four stretcher cases, all white men. Orderlies and doctors fussed over their bodies. Three of the men were very still, their mouths open and their eyes starting. The man on the fourth stretcher was groaning and trying to say something.

“My God,” Gabriel said to no one in particular. “They’re all officers.” He noticed that the groaning man was a Lt Colonel.

“Who’s that?” Gabriel asked one of the doctors leaning over him.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Codrington, 13th Rajputs.”

Gabriel turned away and walked back towards the red house. He felt alarmed and confused at the sight of the wounded men. What was going on? If Bilderbeck were here, he thought, he’d be able to tell me. He took away with him a jumbled hazy impression of the men on the stretchers: he hadn’t noticed any blood, he’d been looking at their faces, their bare heads with once neatly brushed hair now mussed and tousled.

Gabriel rejoined Gleeson and they watched another half battalion, fresh from the beach, march off at once into the coconut groves. Runners arrived at and departed from the red house in ever increasing numbers. A heliograph was set up and soon messages were being flashed from shore to ship.

It grew hotter. By nine a.m. the sun was sufficiently powerful to force Gabriel into the shade. He looked at his company of men, all of whom had now claimed their rifles and packs and were sitting in small silent groups in whatever patch of shade they could find. Gabriel wondered if he should have reported to Brigade HQ in the red house but decided that the last thing they’d want to deal with now was his errant company.

At about half past nine the report of heavy guns could be heard from somewhere in the bay. About six salvos were fired.

“Probably the Fox ,” Gleeson said, exposing his yellow teeth in a wide grin. “Shelling Tanga,” he said. “That’ll show ‘em.”

Shortly after, they heard bugle calls and a distant yelling. The sound of firing, which hadn’t stopped since Gleeson had woken him at six, seemed to be drawing closer.

“Are those our bugles?” Gabriel asked.

“Think so,” Gleeson said.

“They don’t sound like them, though.”

Gleeson cocked his head. “No they don’t, do they?”

A staff captain came out of the red house, looking around, and loped over.

“Are you ‘A’ company, 69th Palamcottahs?” he said languidly to Gabriel. Gabriel said they were. “Good. We’ve had a message about you. Seems you’re to stay put for the time being.”

“Stay put? What? Here?”

“That seems to be the idea.” The staff captain removed his sun helmet to reveal a bald and shiny pate which he mopped with a handkerchief. “Filthy hot,” he said.

“How are things?” Gabriel asked. “I mean, what’s the picture?” There were more bugle calls as he spoke.

“Stiffish resistance at the railway cutting,” the staff captain said. “We’re retiring. In good order,” he added hastily. “We’ll wait for the main landing today…Look, I must dash.”

Gabriel watched him bound back to the red house. He went back to Gleeson.

“They’ve had a message about us,” he said authoritatively. “Seems we’re to stay put.”

♦

Gabriel and Gleeson kept their distance as the Rajputs and Pioneers straggled back into camp. The men were either talking with hysterical excitement or else were cowed and dejected. They watched dozens of wounded being carried and helped down to the beach. Soon the area around the red house was thick with exhausted troops.

“Doesn’t look so good,” Gleeson said. “Does it?” At lunch time Gabriel went up to the red house to see if he could get any more information. It seemed that the landing of the main force on beaches ‘B’ and ‘C’ round the headland was proceeding as normal, but the beaches were so congested with men and equipment that the Palamcottahs were still on the Homayun and probably wouldn’t be disembarked until the next day.