The Regiment Page 2

‘Well, I apologise for that,’ Murdoch said.

  ‘Why should you? If my family virtually owned the regiment, I wouldn’t complain.’ Second Lieutenant Hobbs knocked on the inner door, waited a moment and then opened it. ‘Mackinder is here, sir.’

  ‘Mackinder?’ asked a voice from inside. ‘We weren’t expecting him until tomorrow.’

  Murdoch felt that his blood was about to crawl.

  ‘Well, he’s a keen type, sir,’ Hobbs explained. ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Oh, show him in.’

  Hobbs stepped aside and jerked his head towards the door.

  Murdoch replaced his helmet, adjusted the chin strap, stepped through, came to attention and saluted. ‘Second Lieutenant Murdoch Mackinder, sir, reporting for duty.’

  ‘Hm,’ remarked the man behind the desk. His moustache was bushy and wide and dark, and appeared to be his principal characteristic; now that he stood up he could be seen to be short and running to stomach. Like everyone else he wore the sky-blue uniform jacket of the regiment. ‘Yes, you’re Mackinder, all right. I knew your father.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Murdoch remained at attention; he knew he would have to accept this from virtually everyone he met.

  ‘At ease. Craufurd’s the name. Glad to have you with us, Mackinder.’

  Murdoch removed his helmet and shook hands with the major; Craufurd wore a crown on his shoulder straps. ‘Glad to be here, sir.’

  The adjutant looked him up and down. ‘The old man will see you in a minute. You knew we were under orders?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Murdoch was mystified, but at the same time immediately excited. ‘Are we being sent back to India?’

  ‘Hm,’ Craufurd said again, not replying. ‘How was Sandhurst?’

  ‘I enjoyed it, sir.’

  ‘I imagine you did. Sword of Honour, was it?’

  ‘I was lucky, sir.’

  Craufurd returned behind his desk, sat down and pointed. ‘We don’t believe in false modesty in this regiment, Mackinder.’ He tapped himself on the left breast, where he wore the ribbon of the Military Cross. ‘I won this for gallantry in the Khyber Pass. Under the command of your father, incidentally. If you won the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst, it was because you were the best damned officer in your class. Luck had nothing to do with it. And it is for that reason we are glad to have you here—not because your name happens to be Mackinder. Understood?’

  Murdoch returned to attention. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So come along and meet Colonel Edmonds.’

  Another inner door was opened, and Murdoch found himself in an altogether larger office. Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Edmonds was as tall and slim as himself, although a good deal older. His left arm was stiff, a relic of a spear-thrust in the Afghan wars, and he was quite bald, but he looked fit and vigorous, and his handshake was firm. ‘Murdoch Mackinder,’ he said. ‘Do you remember me?’

  ‘I think so, sir,’ Murdoch answered truthfully.

  ‘Twelve years,’ Edmonds said thoughtfully. ‘You would have been...?’

  ‘I was six years old, sir, when you visited Broad Acres. You were Father’s adjutant.’

  ‘Indeed I was.’ Edmonds looked him up and down. ‘You’ve grown even more than I expected. How is your mother?’

  ‘Well, sir. Lonely.’

  ‘Quite,’ Edmonds agreed. ‘And your sisters? Ah, Philippa and...?’

  ‘Rosemary, sir. Rosemary is engaged to be married.’

  ‘Of course she is, to Phillips of the Guards. I read it in The Times. Good fellow, Phillips. You must be pleased.’

  ‘I was not actually consulted, sir.’

  Edmonds raised his eyebrows. ‘Difficult, I imagine, discovering yourself the head of the family when your sisters are older than yourself.’

  ‘It can be, sir,’ Murdoch agreed.

  ‘Sit down. Cigarette?’

  ‘Thank you, no, sir.’ Murdoch carefully lowered himself into one of the straight chairs before the desk, his helmet on his knees. Major Craufurd had returned to the outer office.

  ‘I was with your father on the march to Kandahar,’ Edmonds said. ‘I remember Bobs shaking him by the hand and congratulating him on the charge we carried out before Kabul.’

  Murdoch waited. He could remember his father’s pride at having been so singled out by the immortal ‘Bobs’—Field Marshal Sir Frederick Roberts—now Lord Roberts—the idol of the British Army. But he knew what was coming next.

  ‘And then I was with him when he died,’ Edmonds said. ‘Had no idea I would eventually inherit the regiment, of course. Damned nasty business, enteric fever. I want you to know he died as a Mackinder should, without fear, without regret. Save at not seeing you and your mother and the girls again, of course.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Murdoch said.

  ‘Damned unfortunate,’ Edmonds went on. ‘Forty-six years old, his whole career in front of him...India is a curse.’

  He paused, and Murdoch waited. He had mixed emotions about his father’s death four years before, while he was still at Wellington College, only a few miles from where he now stood; until he went to Sandhurst he had spent almost his entire life in the broad acres of Somerset, after which, indeed, his family home was named.

  His father’s personality, and the fact that he belonged to the Mackinder family, overshadowed his every moment. It meant that from the day of his birth he had not only been destined for the Army, but for this particular regiment—a fact of which he had been made aware while still in the nursery. His boyhood had been spent surrounded by the relics of the Mackinders’ famous past: Grandfather Murdoch Mackinder’s sword and helmet, Great-grandfather Ian Mackinder’s medals for his Indian service, together with his sword and pistol and sky-blue jacket—the house had been like a museum. And of course there had been the famous prayer, which had been intoned on birthdays and other anniversaries. But Father himself, Lieutenant-Colonel Fergus Mackinder, had been a distant figure in every sense, most of the time with the regiment in India or Egypt or some other remote post of empire, only returning at long intervals to spend a few days with his family before setting off again. There had been little intimacy between father and son.

  His death had made more of an impact because of the awesome responsibility it thrust on Murdoch’s youthful shoulders. Immediately he had been reminded that he was the last male Mackinder, and that it was his duty to emulate and if possible surpass the great deeds of his ancestors. Driven by such a spur he had excelled himself at Sandhurst, gaining himself at the same time the reputation of being something of a loner who made friends with difficulty and preferred to work than to play. It was not a reputation that had concerned him. Play to Murdoch Mackinder had always been something to do in between periods of work, not the other way around. His sole aim had been to achieve his rightful place in the regiment; that his single-minded devotion to his study and his duty had gained him the highest honour open to a cadet had seemed largely irrelevant at the time. As it seemed irrelevant now, in the euphoria of having actually arrived at his goal.

  ‘You know we’ve been posted to the Cape?’ Edmonds was asking.

  ‘No, sir,’ Murdoch replied. ‘The Cape?’

  ‘Makes a change from India, eh? It appears the Boers are still up in arms, literally, over the Jameson Raid and may need overaweing, so an army corps is being got together for despatch to South Africa. An army corps! Do you know that Great Britain has never put an army corps into the field before in all her history? Not for the Peninsular, and not for the Crimea. We are talking about forty thousand men or more—horse, foot, guns, medical and commissariat units, all combined as a single force. Redvers Buller will command. And all to overawe a few Dutch farmers.’

  Murdoch made no comment. From what he knew of the subject, and it had been studied at Sandhurst, he considered that the Boers, the Dutch inhabitants of the South African republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, had every reason to be up in arms. The absurd invasion of the Transvaal by five hundred men in 1895, led
by Cecil Rhodes’ friend Leander Starr Jameson, had been an act of naked aggression designed to create rebellion amongst the ‘Uitlanders’, the non-Boer, and chiefly British, labour force which had flooded to Johannesburg in response to the discovery of gold there...no one could doubt that the eventual aim of the raid had been to foment a situation in which British interference on behalf of its nationals would have been justified, and annexation would have probably followed. That the rising had not materialised had proved what a haphazard and ill-considered venture the raid had been. The fact that the British Government, while officially condemning the act, had not actually punished the perpetrators must have increased the Boers’ suspicions. Nor did he feel that the Boers, after their amazing victory over a British force at Majuba Hill in 1881, could summarily be dismissed as mere farmers. But it was not his place to argue with his commanding officer.

  ‘We are the advance guard of Buller’s corps, you could say,’ Edmonds continued. ‘We sail in three weeks. I’m afraid it’s all been rather sudden. But I don’t imagine there will be much glory to be won marching across the veldt, while South Africa has just as much fever as India.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘If you would care to remain at the depot until you have found your feet, as it were, and come out with the first batch of replacements, I should regard that as a very wise decision.’ His embarrassment grew visibly. This was the only son of his oldest friend and much revered commander, whom he was desperate not to lead to his death. But who was also a Mackinder.

  ‘I would like to remain with the regiment, sir,’ Murdoch said. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘Oh, quite. I never doubted you would wish to be with us. Well, then.’ He became suddenly brisk and efficient. ‘Your first responsibility will be to get yourself fitted out with tropical kit. Then you will take command of B Troop of the second squadron. That is Tom Holt’s. He is an excellent man. And you’ll have Sergeant Bishop. Another excellent man. Troop B is composed almost entirely of India veterans. They all knew your father. Well, most of them.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Murdoch said, with just a trace of uneasiness. If he had known, and accepted, that he would have to exist in the shadow of a dead man for at least the first half of his career, this seemed to be rather forcing the issue.

  ‘You’ll be given leave before we sail to return to Broad Acres and say goodbye to your mother and your sisters, of course. Oh, and I should mention that the regimental dinner has been brought forward. As the junior subaltern you’ll have to make the toast. I suppose you do know the prayer?’

  *

  ‘“May the great God of battle,”’ Murdoch said, looking across the faces of past and present officers of the regiment seated in the mess, “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 slightly lowered his sword to point it at the picture hanging on the wall behind Colonel Edmonds’ head. “Gentlemen, there is your enemy.” ‘

  The swords were sheathed and the conversation became general. The evening was attended by a special air of conviviality because of the imminent departure of the regiment for service overseas.

  ‘I’ll wager you have repeated that prayer every day of your life,’ remarked Second Lieutenant Hobbs.

  ‘Why, yes, I have, almost,’ Murdoch agreed.

  ‘Which is why you were word perfect,’ said Lieutenant Fielder. ‘When I had to do it, my dear fellow, it was an absolute bloody shambles. Forgot the whole thing. Had to be prompted by the sergeant-major.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lieutenant Chapman said. ‘But your name wasn’t Mackinder, now was it?’

  ‘No such luck,’ Fielder agreed.

  ‘Now, I have a wizard idea for after dinner. We’re off in a week, right?’ Chapman looked around the wine-reddened faces. ‘I say, let’s pool all the funds we’ve got and go into Bath, and knock up Kitty and her girls. Take the whole place over and have the lot. Have a real smash send-off.’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ agreed Lieutenant Morton. ‘I had that in mind anyway. But it’ll be more fun in a group. How about it, Mackinder? Game for a quick in and out? You won’t see a white fanny again for a good while.’

  Morton was lieutenant in command of A Troop in Captain Holt’s squadron, and had therefore assumed a rather proprietorial air towards the junior subaltern. But at the same time, the two men had taken an instant dislike to each other. Morton, short and stocky and moustached, had been taken aback—as had all the junior officers—by Murdoch’s steely disinclination to accept any of the hazing usual when a subaltern joined .a regiment straight from military school; while Murdoch had quickly come to the conclusion that Morton did not take his duties seriously enough.

  Therefore Murdoch had no doubt that the invitation was in the nature of a snare to create a joke at the expense of his inexperience. So he said, ‘Thank you, no.’

  Morton raised his eyebrows and glanced at his fellows. ‘A cavalryman not interested in the fair sex?’

  Hobbs shrugged. He and Murdoch had adjoining rooms in the bachelor quarters. ‘He sits up most nights, reading.’

  ‘Not Sherlock Holmes, I bet,’ Chapman laughed.

  ‘A book on Africa!’ Hobbs said.

  ‘Good Lord!’ Fielder commented.

  ‘It happens to be where we are going,’ Murdoch pointed out. ‘Don’t you suppose it might be of some use to learn something about it?’

  ‘Just Boers and blackamoors, old boy,’ Chapman told him. ‘Boers and blackamoors.’

  ‘And bush and bugs,’ Morton put in.

  ‘But no bitches.’

  ‘Oh, black bitches, old boy. Black bitches.’

  ‘Have you ever had one?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘But you were with the regiment in India, Morton,’ Chapman said.

  ‘Oh, quite. But they were brown, old boy. Brown. Mind you, how they could move their little arses...

  ‘And they clapped you out,’ Fielder laughed.

  ‘Why, so they did. So they did. Which is why I’m for Kitty tonight. She’s never given anyone the clap. How about it, Mackinder?’

  ‘The answer is no,’ Murdoch said again.

  ‘Damn it, I do believe you’re a virgin.’

  ‘Is that criminal?’

  Morton stared at him for a moment, then changed the subject, and Murdoch was pointedly excluded from the conversation.

  This caused him less concern than might have been supposed. Quite apart from Johnnie Morton, he had not been very taken with any of his fellow officers during his three weeks at the depot—at least the junior ones. A good many of his fellow cadets at Sandhurst seemed not to have realised they were no longer schoolboys, and that there were more important things in life than cricket or beer or women. But he expected better of those who had actually begun their careers, and even more of men, like Morton, who had been overseas with the regiment and presumably seen action. Certainly Morton seemed an efficient soldier, rode well, had his troop well in hand—but yet appeared to regard the daily grind as no more than that, to be got through so that the evenings could be enjoyed with cards and beer—and whenever possible, a visit to Bath. But he, like every officer in the regiment, was a young man with a career to make. Since the Cardwell reforms of a generation earlier, which had transformed the British Army into a modern fighting force, the old, iniquitous system of purchasing commissions had been swept away. Although several of the officers had the benefit of a private income to supplement their service pay, promotion was nowadays only to be had by hard work and ability. Which was probably why Morton was still a lieutenant despite being several years older than his friends; if he had the ability, he was too lazy to make use of it. But perhaps he would reveal a differen
t, more positive side, once they were in the field.

  On the other hand, Murdoch had quickly become impressed by the men under his command. Most of them, as Colonel Edmonds had indicated, were veterans of India, and some had indeed served under Fergus Mackinder. Murdoch knew they had not yet accepted him, and that he would have a good deal of proving to do. He did not doubt he would succeed; he had total confidence in himself, in his horsemanship, and in his knowledge of the military art, which he had studied as a hobby all of his life.

  This understandably made him a dull boy to his fellows. He suspected he would be a dull boy to the famous Kitty as well, and knew he would probably have declined the invitation to visit the brothel even had he and Morton been the best of friends. His upbringing had been distinctly Achillean; while surrounded by warlike instruments and memories, his daily company had been entirely that of his mother and sisters. As a result he had conceived an idealistic view of the female sex. He was a virgin, and had never considered altering that status before his wedding night, which, under army regulations, could not take place—except in the most exceptional circumstances and with the permission of his commanding officer—until he was thirty years old. That was a long twelve years off; before then he intended to do a lot of soldiering, and not change his direction just for the sake of personal popularity.

  The dinner over, he began to walk back to the bachelor quarters, and suddenly found Colonel Edmonds beside him. ‘You said the prayer splendidly, Mackinder.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Mind you, I never doubted you would. And Holt seems pleased with you.’

  ‘Does he, sir?’ Murdoch was astonished. Captain Holt, a lean, saturnine man, had hardly addressed half a dozen words to him, except of command, during the three weeks he had been with the regiment.

  ‘Oh, indeed. You’re a soldier through and through. Well, you have to be; you’re a Mackinder. But you know, Murdoch...soldiering, well, it’s composed of camaraderie even more than discipline and ability and courage. When you’re surrounded by enemies, it’s reassuring to know that the chap standing next to you isn’t just wearing the same uniform, but that he’s also a friend who has shared your life at every level for the past few years. That kind of shared background is necessary to command, too. It’s something none of us should ever forget. By the way, my wife would like you to come to tea tomorrow afternoon.’