Afghan Winter.
Nigel Slater
Published by Nigel Slater at Smashwords.
Copyright Nigel Slater 2011
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An Agent of the King
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With infinite slowness the sun rose between the distant peaks of the jagged, snow-capped mountains. The air was crystal clear, free of the customary dust that hung in the air through the short daylight hours. Cornet William Dexter sat astride a small cairn and watched in awe the arrival of a new day. It was dawn on the 13th December 1879 and the war in Afghanistan had begun to turn very bloody.
Dexter was just twenty-six years of age and two days ago had been convinced he would not see another dawn. The regiment had been in Afghanistan for nearly a year now and Dexter had barely fired a shot in anger. That had all changed forty-eight hours earlier when less than two hundred cavalrymen had been ordered to charge nearly ten thousand tribesmen. The steeply rising terrain, cut into agricultural terraces had slowed the horses to a stumbling trot. After two fruitless charges the cavalrymen had fallen back to their lines leaving eighteen men dead on the dusty ground. Fuelled by the adrenaline coursing through their veins, the cavalrymen, alongside Bengali riders, had fearlessly ridden into the hail of rifle fire laid down by the concealed tribesmen. Even while retreating badly mauled, the wild ride had been exhilarating, that is until one of the last shots fired, split Cornet Henry Clegg’s head apart, spraying Dexter with gore and chips of bone. With an anguished cry, Dexter had managed to grab the dead man’s horse and together they made the sanctuary of the fortified encampment at Sherpur.
Through tear filled eyes, Dexter watched the long shadows shorten over the harsh landscape. He shivered despite being swathed in a thick woollen blanket, the temperature was several degrees below zero and despite the clear, azure blue sky, snow was expected any day. He looked up to the heavens and felt his heart break in two. Henry had been his best friend at Eton and they had stayed inseparable whilst at university, until by sheer coincidence their paths had crossed once more when they were commissioned into the same regiment. Dexter had truly loved soldiering up to this point but now he just felt a dreadful homesickness and a sense of being very alone in a terrible cruel world. He stood stiffly, stretched and began to walk back to his billet, desperately tired he knew today would be a long day and first the regiment had to bury its dead.
The regiment was turned out in splendid order by eight o’clock in the morning, accompanied by officers and men of the Bengal Cavalry. Eighteen canvas wrapped corpses had been placed into shallow graves scraped into the frigid earth. The padre had pronounced his conviction that these men had gone on to a better place. Dexter sniffed in the cold air; he held all religions in contempt, a man of science and learning he was convinced that the universe was wondrous enough without the hand of a malicious God interfering. He looked around at the frenetic activity taking place at the cavalry’s lines and noted two figures running towards the burial party.
The bugler had just raised his instrument to his chapped lips when the booming voice of Staff Corporal Williams cut across the dusty ground.
‘Sir, begging your pardon Captain Butson but the Colonel needs the squadron to turn out right away,’ he bellowed somewhat breathlessly.
‘God Lord, right now man?’ the red faced officer spat back. ‘What is it that cannot wait until these poor souls are interred?’
‘There’s ‘undreds of Afghans been driven off the Tahkt-i-Shar and we can get ‘em in the open if we ‘urry, Sir’ the NCO replied confidently.
‘That may well be Corporal but we will finish here and damn the Colonel’s eyes,’ Butson replied evenly, his eyes boring into the diminutive Corporal. ‘Continue with the ceremony,’ he barked in the direction of the bugler.
As the last post swirled on the breeze, it was all Dexter could do to maintain his composure. Fighting back the tears he let his mind drift back in time, imagining how his grandfather had buried so many good friends through wars around the world. As a young boy he had hung on every word as the old man had regaled him with exploits and tales of derring do, never once thinking the stories unsuitable for a boy so young.
As the last notes died away and the parade came to rigid attention, grief gave way to anger, hot and deep-seated, burning in his chest as he saluted, then turned and ran with the others towards the squadron’s horses, already prepared for combat.
Within minutes Dexter was aboard his faithful charger Agamemnon and forming up with the squadron, ready to ride out across the plain where they hoped to catch a large force of tribesmen out in the exposed wilderness. Dexter checked his Martini Henry carbine one more time and then moved to the head of his troop. Somewhere off to his left a trumpet sounded and together with a full squadron of Bengal cavalry they set out, weaving their way through the defences of the cantonment, passing gangs of men labouring to shore up the inadequate defences before the anticipated attack by the hordes of tribesmen gathering in the surrounding mountains.
After little over an hour in the saddle, the men and their steeds were coated in the fine dust that only the coming winter snows would suppress. Riding alongside Dexter was Cornet Peter Smith, who at eighteen was the youngest officer in the squadron.
‘This is it I reckon, this is the big attack and we aren’t ready for them are we?’ he asked, a nervous tremor cracking his voice.
‘No, believe me, this most certainly isn’t it,’ Dexter re-assured him with false confidence. ‘This mob will just be one of the forward parties trying to get over the mountains to join up with Mahomad Jan. Just be grateful the Highlanders have flushed them out for us.’
‘We’ll avenge our friends today eh Dexter?’ the young man shouted, his face flushed with youthful exuberance. ‘Bloody savages, I’m going to kill them all,’ he cried, grinning which gave him a somewhat demented appearance.
‘Yes that we certainly will,’ Dexter replied, just a hint of sadness in his voice, knowing full well that all today would bring was another burial ceremony tomorrow.
Dexter was snapped from his reverie by the trumpeter sounding the advance. As a single unit the cavalry picked up the pace into a fast trot and through the dust kicked up by the lead units he could see swarms of running men, fleeing before the racing horses. The tribesmen had lost all discipline at the sight of the cavalrymen and rather than forming defensive formations they were inviting slaughter by scattering. The trumpet sounded once more and the charge began.
Dexter clipped his horse into a steady gallop, trying to stay close to the inexperienced young officer but the thrill of the charge had gripped him and he was spurring his horse on ever faster and pulling away. Bullets began to crack through the air as small groups of tribesmen realising that flight was futile began to form into little huddles and lay down deadly accurate fire. Two troopers immediately in front of Dexter pitched backwards from their mounts, blood flowing through rips in their khaki tunics. The resistance though was short lived and ineffective as the first troopers reached their enemy and a general melee ensued.
Dexter saw two more troopers knocked from their horses before the lances of their comrades massacred the small group of resisting Afghans. Time and again the long lances sliced into the torsos of the helpless tribesmen. Only the occasional shot was fired by the fleeing men but one of those rounds hit Cornet Smith and unseated him. Before Dexter could rein Agamemnon in, a horde of wild eyed Afghans had surrounded the fallen man. Captain Butson raced to the fallen man’s aid, his sword held out straight ahead and a wild cry of encouragement sounding clear above the battle’s clamour.
Trying desperately to stand, Cornet Smith parried a thrust from an Afghan wielding a rusty bayonet just before his attacker was impaled clean through by a trooper’s lance. Two Afghans opened fire at point blank range and Captain Butson flew backwards from his horse, bright arterial blood spraying across the ground. Seconds later the Afghans died screaming as lances pierced their bodies. Yet another tribesman, wild eyed and spitting curses swung a long curved sword down toward Smith’s neck only to be felled by a single shot from Captain Butson’s trumpeter.