William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

After the rubber plantation came more thick forest with high grass, creepers and bushes at ground level and their progress slowed again. Gabriel tried to visualize the advance as if from a bird’s-eye view — three thousand men moving on Tanga — but found it impossible. By now he was dripping with sweat. His leggings and trousers were thick with dust and torn from the many thorn hearing plants he’d had to push his way through. He took off his sun helmet and wiped his forehead with a palm. His hair was wet through: as if he’d just plunged it in a basin of warm salty water.

The thought of a basin of water, even warm and salty, reminded him that he was extremely thirsty. He was about to call for a water-chaggal when he realized the company didn’t have any, as the water-carriers had not been landed with them. He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. They’d been struggling through the bush for nearly two hours. He had no idea how far away they were from Tanga. It struck him that ordering the attack during the hottest time of the day wasn’t the brightest of ideas. Gleeson came up to report that the company was maintaining some sort of order. Five men had collapsed from heat exhaustion and he’d sent them back. He saw Gabriel had his revolver in his hand and took out his own.

“Think it’ll go off all right?” he asked with a nervous smile. “The attack, I mean, not my gun.”

Gabriel realized that Gleeson, like himself, had never seen active service. This was their first fight. He was pleased to note in himself no sensations of fear. He glanced at the men on either side of him. They looked tense, but that was scarcely surprising. They held their rifles loosely across their chests, the fixed bayonets flashing in the odd beam of sun that came through the canopy of leaves.

Suddenly they heard the sound of firing from up ahead and a confused shouting and cheering broke out. At this point Gabriel’s company was forcing its way through particularly dense bush and no view of what was going on could be gained.

He could hear sniggering bursts of fire from machine guns, more regular and controlled than the indiscriminate popping sound of the rifles.

“Over here,” Gleeson shouted. “There’s a sort of track.”

“This way,” Gabriel called to the native officers. He waded through thick grass to the track. As he stepped on to it he heard a crashing and trampling noise, the sound of men running. Suddenly, round the corner came a great mob of Indian soldiers, dozens it seemed, running at full speed away from the firing. Gabriel spun round. All at once, everywhere, he could make out figures struggling to escape through the under-growth, darting beneath the trees, flashing through the clearings of sunlight and dappled patches of shade. To his horror he saw some of his own men join the stampede, pausing only to ding away their rifles.

He crouched down behind a tree and aimed his revolver up the track expecting a charge of German askaris to be hard on the fleeing men’s heels. The firing up ahead continued with the same intensity but there seemed to be no pursuit. He stood up. He and Gleeson exchanged mystified glances. What was going on? They gathered the remaining men together and advanced on up the track. Soon the trees began to thin. The track ended at a large field of fully-grown maize which looked as if it had been smashed and trampled on by a giant pair of feet. Here they saw their first dead bodies, which set up a chatter of alarm amongst ‘A’ company’s remaining sepoys.

Enough of the maize stalks were still standing to obscure their view. Gabriel looked to his right. The Kashmir Rifles should be there. On the left were the Loyal North Lancs. Where were the Rajputs? Surely they couldn’t all have run away? He wondered if they’d wandered off course in the coconut plantations. But what lay beyond the maize field? Gabriel waved his men down into a crouch and got out his map. It made no sense at all. He looked aimlessly about him, trying not to let his gaze rest on the numerous dead bodies. Firing was continuing to his right and left but all seemed quiet up ahead.

Gleeson crawled up behind him. “Runner from head-quarters,” he said. Gabriel thought Gleeson didn’t look very well. The runner handed over the note. It was from Brigadier-General Wapshore. It said, “Your men should bring their left shoulders up and march towards this point so as to envelop the enemy’s right.” What point? Gabriel asked himself. He raised his left shoulder experimentally but it seemed no clearer. He turned the note over and saw a crude map with a bold arrow on it. There was no addressee. Surely the note couldn’t be meant for him? He turned round to question the runner but found that the man had gone.

There was nothing for it but to advance. Waving the men forward, Gabriel, followed by ‘A’ company, moved cautiously through the maize field. It seemed to be well provided with a harvest of corpses and the thought crossed Gabriel’s mind that machine guns must have been previously sighted and fixed on this point. At the edge of the field he fell flat on his belly and peered out at the view ahead. The land was clear: dried grass dotted with a few acacia trees and completely flat. Fifty yards ahead he could see the ditch, fringed with greener grass and straggling bushes, and beyond that the railway cutting. To his right was a slight rise and he saw some British troops there, and a machine-gun section firing short bursts in the direction of the town. Beyond the railway cutting the neat white buildings of the town were visible between trees. He could see the sea, away to the right, and two of the transports standing offshore. His view to the left was obscured by a plantation of young rubber trees. But a great deal of firing was coming from that direction. The North Lancs, he guessed, in the thick of things.

“What do you think?” he said to Gleeson who’d snaked up to join him.

“The Rajputs seem to have cleared out completely,” Gleeson said. “Bad show.”

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. He wondered what they should do. “I suppose we should press on into the town. They must have fired on the Rajputs. Why aren’t they firing on us?”

“Good question,” said Gleeson with a shaky smile.

“Let’s go,” Gabriel said and stood up. He gave a long single blast on his whistle. “Come on!” he shouted to his men.

He set off running in a half crouch towards the ditch, not making the best of progress through the knee-high grass. He dodged round a spindly acacia tree. He thought he saw puffs of smoke beyond the railway cutting. He was being shot at! Suddenly to his utter astonishment the air was ‘thick with bullets’. Unconsciously the expression leapt into his mind. It was a cliché, he was aware, but he never expected it to be literally true: black dots and specks, whizzing erratically through the air. He felt a sudden burning pain in his neck. He was hit! Oh God, he thought, not in the neck. He stumbled, but ran on, clapping a hand to his wound to staunch the blood, bullets buzzing and darting past. But wait, he thought, they weren’t bullets, they were bees! He stopped and turned round. His men were leaping about or writhing on the ground like epileptics as the swarming myriads of bees attacked. He saw Gleeson frantically swatting the air with his sun helmet. The atmosphere shimmered and danced with the irate black objects. With dismay he saw the demoralized remnants of his troops pick themselves up and run hell for leather back to the maize field. Gabriel inflated his lungs and blew the longest shrillest blasts he could on his whistle, in an attempt to check the rout, but they were gone, pursued by the furious bees.

“My God,” Gleeson whimpered as he staggered over. “I’ve been practically stung to death!” The backs of his hands looked lumpy and swollen, his cheeks and neck seemed thickened with incipient carbuncles making him look stupid and loutish. “Look,” Gleeson pointed up. In the acacia tree Gabriel saw what looked like several slim elongated barrels. A few bees still hovered around them. “Bloody native beehives,” Gleeson wept, holding his puffy hands in front of him like a lap dog. They were swelling up at an alarming rate.