The Triumph Read online

  The Triumph

  Christopher Nicole

  © Christopher Nicole 1989

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1989 by Century Hutchinson Ltd

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue - 1985

  Part One - Defeat

  1 - England, 1940

  2 - Egypt, 1940

  3 - The Desert, 1940-41

  4 - England, 1941

  5 - The Desert, 1941-42

  PART TWO - VICTORY

  6 - England, 1942

  7 - El Alamein, 1942

  8 - Yugoslavia, 1943

  9 - England, 1943

  10 - England, 1944

  PART THREE - TRIUMPH

  11 - Normandy, June 1944

  12 - Yugoslavia, 1944

  13 - France, 1944

  14 - Yugoslavia, 1944

  15 - The Ardennes, 1944

  Epilogue - 1985

  Prologue

  1985

  ‘Well, old boy, nervous?’ demanded Lieutenant Wilson.

  ‘No reason for him to be,’ remarked Lieutenant Manly-Smith.

  ‘No reason at all,’ agreed Lieutenant Murdoch Mackinder.

  Because there wasn’t. If he had only joined the Royal Western Dragoon Guards from Sandhurst a month previously, and was therefore by a long way the junior subaltern, Murdoch had still felt he was coming home when he had first put on his uniform. His father was actually colonel of the regiment. There had always been a Mackinder serving with the Westerns, for more than a hundred years. All his life he had known that he would one day take his place in this distinguished company; this night, his first regimental dinner, would merely establish that place for all to see.

  The banqueting room of the Savoy Hotel glowed with light, and gleamed with the regimental silver and crystal. There were four long tables: a head, and three legs leading away from it. The room was draped with flags and battle honours, and a huge replica of the regimental badge, a flash of yellow lightning against an azure sky, was mounted above the centre of the head table. Beneath the badge was a painting. Murdoch Mackinder had stared at its copy often enough; it hung in his great-grandfather’s study, in the family home of Broad Acres in Somerset. Now he gazed at it again, seeking inspiration for the evening: if there was no reason for a Mackinder to be nervous in these surroundings, it was difficult not to be, on such a night. The painting depicted a dusty plain on the Indian sub-continent, with a bright sun glaring from a blue sky. Milling around the edges of the picture were a vast number of turbaned warriors, armed with spears and muskets. Approaching them, at the gallop, were two squadrons of horsemen, dressed in sky-blue uniforms with burnished brass helmets; they charged sword in hand, although carbines hung from their saddle holsters: they were the Royal Western Dragoon Guards at the most famous moment in their history. It had happened in 1843, during the conquest of Sind by Sir Charles Napier, when a reconnoitring force of the dragoons, commanded by their adjutant, Major Ian Mackinder, had been led into a trap by their guides, and surrounded by a huge force of Baluchis. The dragoons had been summoned to surrender, but Major Mackinder had refused, and after leading the regiment in prayer, had charged right through the enemy ranks and made his escape with the loss of only thirty men.

  That Ian Mackinder had been his great-great-great-great-grandfather, Murdoch reflected, and from that moment the Royal Western Dragoons had become almost a family concern.

  There had been famous moments before 1843. And even more, since. The regiment had actually been raised in 1685 to combat Monmouth’s Rebellion. The Somerset landowner who had summoned his tenants to defend their king and country had been one Sir Thomas Lord, and thus the dragoons had early been known as the Lord’s Own. A hundred and twenty-five years of service later, when battle honours gained in North America and on the continent had earned them the crown on their badge, they had found themselves in the Iberian Peninsula, under Wellington. There, in the course of those to and fro campaigns, they had taken on their own unique personality.

  Hitherto, like nearly all British regiments, the dragoons had worn scarlet tunics. But over a year of toiling across the Spanish and Portuguese mountains without relief had reduced them to rags, and, there being insufficient scarlet cloth available to re-equip them, the then colonel had received permission from the great duke to use whatever could be obtained. Thus they had for the first time worn their famous sky-blue jackets with the yellow facings, and sky-blue britches with the yellow stripe, which they had retained ever since; their nickname had promptly been changed to Heaven’s Own, behind which sobriquet they had proudly charged their enemies on innumerable occasions.

  Usually with a Mackinder in front. If the regiment had missed the Crimea, it had won fresh laurels in India, in the Boer War, and in both the World Wars, as well as a host of minor campaigns in various parts of the far-flung Empire, as it had then been. The battle honours had become legion, and to Sedgemoor and Blenheim, Malplaquet and Dettingen, Vimiero and Vittoria, Hyderabad and Kabul, the Modder River and Mafeking, Le Cateau and Amiens, Kut and Waziristan, Alamein and Caen, had finally been added the Falklands. In the course of time khaki had replaced sky-blue, except on ceremonial occasions, steel helmets had replaced the brass, and finally, berets had replaced the steel as their horses had been replaced by tanks. But tonight history again strode the stage. The room was filling up now, with officers of every age and rank, many retired, veterans of the famous campaigns of the past — and every man wore sky-blue and had a sword at his side, while their burnished helmets accumulated on the table against the wall.

  And now, the moment of the evening was approaching. The regimental Sergeant-Major, standing by the open door leading into the vestibule, had come to attention. ‘Colonel Mackinder, sir! General Mackinder, sir!’ He drew a long breath. ‘General Mackinder, sir!’

  Every man present came to attention, to watch the three men entering the room. They too wore sky-blue uniforms. The first, tall and powerfully built, with the craggy features which Murdoch Mackinder had inherited, was Colonel Ian Mackinder, his father and the present commanding officer of the regiment. In his middle forties, he had in fact just been gazetted brigadier, but had not yet handed over his command. Once in the room, he paused, to allow his two companions to join him. The leader of these was a man of over seventy, but still standing as straight as anyone present, even if he moved slowly because of some arthritis. Major General (retired) Sir Fergus Mackinder, VC, KCMG, DSO, and a host of other decorations, had in his time been colonel of the regiment and led it to glory. There were many men here tonight who had actually served under him.

  But only Fergus himself had ever served under the third man who now entered the room, while there was an almost audible drawing of breath from the assembled company. For they were looking at the most famous Western Dragoon, and the most famous Mackinder, of them all, and realizing that Lieutenant-General (retired) Sir Murdoch Mackinder, VC, KCMG, DSO and bar, Legion d’honneur, whose campaign medals began with South Africa and went right through the Second World War, was now one hundred and four years old. Yet he had never missed a regimental dinner since his first, as an eighteen-year-old subaltern in 1899. And gazing at the tall, spare, upright figure it was difficult to feel he would ever do so. The blue eyes were as coolly piercing as at any time when they had gazed at an enemy, and if he moved as slowly as his son, he yet did so without the aid of any stick.

  Men hurried forward to be introduced, or remembered. Sir Murdoch Mackinder had a word and a smile for them all, as he gradually made his way to the head of the table: as colonel in chief
he occupied the seat of honour.

  Lieutenant Murdoch Mackinder waited for him, heart pounding. He had worshipped this old man, after whom he had been named, ever since he had been old enough to recognize him; it was not possible to imagine life, or the regiment, without him. He had listened to his great-grandfather’s reminiscences, dreamed of emulating him...of being given the opportunity, in this limited modern world. And now Sir Murdoch was smiling at him. ‘Murdoch,’ he said. ‘Proud. Proud.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Murdoch said. He had nearly called him ‘Grandpa’, and remembered just in time. He was in uniform.

  ‘Proud,’ Sir Murdoch said again, glancing at Ian Mackinder. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir,’ the Colonel agreed. ‘I think we should get started, Lieutenant Mackinder. The General mustn’t be late.’

  ‘Or all the nurses go into a tizzy,’ Sir Murdoch said with a smile. ‘I wish Lee were still here to tell them where to go. But your father’s right, boy. Let’s get started.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Murdoch withdrew to his seat at the foot of the centre leg, where he remained standing while all the officers took their places.

  The Sergeant-Major stood at Murdoch’s side, the regimental colour, furled, resting against his shoulder. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, when the rustling had ceased. ‘The regimental prayer.’

  Every officer stood to attention, and then, with a single movement, drew his sword and pointed it at the ceiling. There were a good seventy men present, and the gleaming blades held above the sky-blue jackets truly enabled Murdoch to take a glimpse back through history, as far even as that famous day in Pakistan, when the first Ian Mackinder had summoned his men to battle, in the words it was now his duty, as the junior subaltern, to repeat.

  ‘Mr Mackinder, sir,’ the Sergeant-Major said.

  Murdoch took a long breath, and spoke in a loud, clear voice: ‘May the great God of battle, who has guided the fate of this famous regiment on many a hard-fought field, and never failed to lead it to distinction, grant that on this day, faced as we are with a host of enemies of our Queen and our Country, every man will do his duty, so that should we fail in our ordained task, it will yet be said of us, they were the Royal Western Dragoon Guards, who fought and died according to the ancient valour of their regiment and their blood.’

  He paused for a moment, and then added, ‘Gentlemen, there is your enemy.’

  The swords were sheathed with a deafening rasp, and there was a burst of applause, as the Sergeant-Major saluted and withdrew, and orderlies moved forward to relieve the diners of their weapons and stack them against the wall. The officers then sat down, but Sir Murdoch Mackinder remained standing. ‘That was well said, Mr Mackinder. Well said. The regiment is proud of you.’

  He sat down in turn, and the waiters immediately began serving the soup. ‘A great day,’ Sir Murdoch remarked to Ian Mackinder, on his right. ‘The last of the brood, eh?’

  ‘Up to now,’ the Colonel grinned.

  ‘Oh, indeed, up to now,’ Sir Murdoch agreed. ‘We’ve only had our doubts about the continuation of the line once. Eh, Fergus?’

  The Major-General, on Sir Murdoch’s left, nodded. ‘Just once,’ he agreed. ‘Just once. But then, I think we had our doubts about the continuation of anything, even Britain, when we got back from Dunkirk.’

  Part One

  Defeat

  1

  England, 1940

  Rain swept across the Somerset moors, lashed into the houses of Bath, formed puddles in the arcades of the Crescent, pattered on the stained-glass windows of the Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul. The weather was unseasonable. Not only was it June, and the threshold of summer, but it had been one of the finest springs in living memory, and the weathermen were forecasting that the sunshine would last.

  That was a sombre thought to those who had been clawed back from the beaches of Dunkirk and death or captivity, and who knew that only a few miles across the English Channel a mighty, victorious army was poised to spring at the throats of an almost unarmed people.

  But the weather suited the occasion. For not every British soldier had been evacuated from the burning seaport. ‘Colonel Ian Mackinder died,’ the Bishop said, ‘as we would have expected a bearer of such a famous name to die. But more, he died as a British soldier. As we may all have to die, one of these fine days, in defending the world against a monstrous and hideous tyranny. His name will not be forgotten.’

  The memorial service closed with the singing of ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. As the stirring cadences of the hymn rose into the gothic arches above them, Lieutenant-General Sir Murdoch Mackinder, VC, KCMG, DSO and bar, Legion d’honneur, glanced to his left at what remained of his family; he had only been released from hospital the previous day, officially recovered from the wounds he had suffered at his son’s side as they had waited, waist deep in the sea, to be taken off. He had been the lucky one, and lucky not to know that Ian had been dying, as he had continued calmly to give orders and reassure his men. But then, he should not have been there at all. At fifty-nine he was considered too old for a field command. He had bent a few rules, and all but paid for it. Not for the first time, he thought. Nor, he told himself grimly, for the last, as long as he was even reasonably fit.

  His younger son, Captain Fergus Mackinder, at thirty a veteran of eleven years’ service which included action on the North West Frontier of India, had been even luckier, in that he had escaped without a scratch. Yet had they both watched their comrades, as well as their son and brother, die. Perhaps even worse, they had watched the regiment die, its tanks destroyed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Those were days they would not forget.

  Between them stood the Mackinder women.

  Lee Mackinder’s face was composed. It was a pertly pretty face, and if her short, slender body seemed dwarfed by the tall men and women to either side of her, she was yet well aware of being the link that kept them, she would say, civilized human beings. Lady Mackinder was in her middle fifties, and had been the wife of Murdoch Mackinder for more than thirty years. She had anticipated suffering bereavement too often to be overcome by it now, even if she could never have supposed the first member of her family she would mourn would be her eldest son. And, as an American, she was perhaps more aware of the futility of war than those whose passions were too closely caught up in the continuing rivalry between Britain and Germany.

  She had done her weeping in private. So had her daughter Helen, to whom Ian Mackinder had always been a dominating eldest brother. Helen’s eyes too were dry today. But Annaliese Mackinder wept openly and loudly. Her marriage to Ian had lasted, in real terms, only six days, before he had had to accompany the regiment to France. Just long enough for her to become pregnant. She had been giving birth, prematurely, at almost the precise moment that her husband had been dying, and in the month when her mother and father had also died. Annaliese, who had fled her native Germany to escape the Nazis, had fled her parents and family as well, as they had been staunch supporters of Adolf Hitler. Yet she could not help but mourn them, just as she could not help but be aware that her eldest brother, Paul von Reger, was a colonel in that tremendous force across the Channel. Her grief was perhaps accentuated by fear. All England would perish if the Germans successfully invaded. But those who had fled Germany would suffer most.

  Murdoch looked to his other side, at Retired Sergeant-Major Yeald and his two grandsons, standing on the far side of the aisle. Bert Yeald was an old friend as well as comrade in arms; they had first served together in South Africa as very young men, forty-one years before. But the two boys were even closer to the family, although the eldest, named Bert after his grandfather, wore the battledress of a corporal in the Royal Western Dragoon Guards. Their ill-fated parents had been more than friends to the Mackinders. And this memorial service was equally for Jennifer Manly-Smith, who had also died on active service. Carrying with her, Murdoch thought with a sigh, many secrets.

  Lee heard the check in h
is voice, and looked up at him, quickly and anxiously. He gave her a reassuring smile, and a moment later the hymn was finished.

  They shook hands with the Bishop, and hurried beneath umbrellas for the waiting cars. ‘You’ll come up and see us, Sergeant-Major,’ Murdoch said. ‘Bring the boys.’

  ‘Thank you, General.’

  ‘We need to talk, about things,’ Lee said.

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ Yeald agreed.

  Murdoch wondered what he was thinking. Certainly in part that the boys did present a problem. Ralph Manly-Smith had been in every way an officer and a gentleman, who had gone from Winchester to Sandhurst and thence into the regiment with an expectation of a long and famous career. That he had got the daughter of his own sergeant-major pregnant had been a disaster: that he had then insisted upon marrying Jennifer Yeald had at least proved him to be a man. Murdoch and Lee had supported that decision, and Murdoch had done everything in his power to smooth Ralph’s path, taking him to India as his ADC when he had been appointed to the command of the North West Frontier back in 1924. Ralph had reciprocated with the utmost loyalty — and that loyalty had cost him his life.

  By then, Jennifer Manly-Smith, whatever her back-ground, had become accepted as an officer’s wife. But on the death of her husband she had chosen to return to keep house for her widowed father, and become again a sergeant-major’s daughter. There had been no public school education for young Bert or little Joey. Nor had she been prepared to accept any help from the Mackinders. But her loyalty to the regiment had never faltered. Bert had joined it as a boy soldier, Joey would certainly follow him the moment he was old enough. As Jennifer herself had volunteered for the ATS the moment recruiting had begun. And followed her husband into a heroine’s grave.

  All of that would be going through Sergeant-Major Yeald’s mind. But they were his grandchildren. And he was unaware of the other, deeper ties, that might make Murdoch wish to take more of an interest in the two boys. Now he saluted, and hurried them off to his old Austin Seven, while the Mackinders squeezed into the Daimler. Murdoch drove himself, Lee beside him. Fergus, Helen and Annaliese sat in the back with Philippa Mackinder, Murdoch’s older sister, a large woman who even in her sixties exercised her horses every morning and was usually both loud and jolly.