Chapter Two.
The entire force withdrew behind the hills and began to set up camp. In the face of an enemy that now seemed far more formidable the troops began to dig trenches and pile up sand banks around the edges of the camp. Lines of tents sprang up, neat and organised for the regular soldiers, a ragged jumble for the levies and the bearers. Guards were set and picket lines established both around the camp and at a distance to keep watch for any attack.
A field kitchen set up and began to prepare the evening meal for hundreds of men.
The sound of banging came from the naval encampment as the engineers began to work on yet another fault with the drive systems on the Greyhound. Sand and dust constantly clogged the gears and got into every moving part, each evening would begin with a now familiar few hours of maintenance and hammering.
It was at this point the problems began.
~
“Mr Simmons sir, sorry to bother you but we have a problem.”
John Radley Simmons was a quartermaster sergeant and normally worked under the orders of the battalion quartermaster. But with a force of this size he found himself the senior representative of the logistics corp and therefore in charge of a force of almost 200 civilians and army logistics staff. Primarily he dealt with stores and the small logistic detachment and left the civilians to run themselves but there were times when they could not sort themselves out and then they came to him.
Such as now.
“Cook, what is it this time?”
“Mr Simmons, it’s the fire wood, for the cooking fires. We need wood.”
Simmons sighed, considered telling the overly effete cook just where he could go for his firewood then remembered that the cook technically outranked him.
“The hills are full of wood cook, I can see bushes everywhere. Send some of the bearers out to cut it down.”
“That’s just it Mr Simmons, they won’t go. They say this is an evil place and they want guards before they leave the camp.”
“Do ruddy what, well shout up some of the levy and get them to guard the lazy buggers.”
“But Mr Simmons, the levy won’t go either, they say they are afraid.”
Cursing mightily Quartermaster Sergeant Simmons stomped off to sort the matter out himself.
~
“Captain Greyling Sir, have you noticed the horses. Ours are a bit nervous but the draft horses are acting like there were wolves or some such about”.
The Captain had left his men to set up camp and had been on his way to an officers meeting so he had, in fact, not noticed. But as the horse line was on his way he changed his course to see what the problem was. To the lancers their horses were their lives and no true lancer would ignore something that could attack the horses.
The horse lines had been strung on the far side of the camp, away from any attack coming from the direction of the rebel town and fort.
The Lancers well trained horses were on the inner line and while clearly alert did not seem afraid. The draft horses on the outer line however were a different matter, eyes rolling, foam flecking from their mouths and many covered in a sheen of sweat. They were tugging at the lines and the posts that held those lines, as the lancers arrived one post was beginning to shift in the ground.
“You there, catch that line. You get a hammer and put that post in properly. You three don’t just stand there, start calming these horses down.”
Lancers and drovers jumped to obey the shouted commands.
~
“Here Jonesey, how deep are we digging these trenches?”
“Well boyo the corporal he said deep enough so we don’t get our fool heads blown off.”
Eric Smith, second platoon, first company, first battalion, 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot looked down at the three foot deep hole he was standing in and began to shovel more sand out onto the surrounding area.
“Here Jonesey, how come a Welsh lad like you is in a Shropshire regiment anyway, bit far from home aint it?”
“Jonesey?”
Smith looked up to see the man next to him, Jones was staring down into the sand he had been digging, staring at the jumble of human bones he had just discovered as he lifted his last shovel full of sand.
~
General Summerby was becoming a little impatient, he had called his officers to a meeting to discuss the situation and half of them had not arrived yet.
Then he looked up as he heard the guards at his tent come to attention and Captain Charterhouse of the First Company walked into the tent.
“Sorry I’m late sir, been sorting out all sorts of problems.”
Then Captain Greyling arrived and entered. “Apologies general, problems with the picket lines.”
Not a minute later Quatermaster Sergeant Simmons arrived, attending as acting quartermaster for the force.
“Apologies sir, I was delayed dealing with the civilians and bearers.”
When Lieutenant Digby, commander of the attached native levy walked into the tent not a minute after that and offered his apologies he wondered why every man in the tent was staring at him.
“So let me get this straight gentlemen. The bearers refused to cut firewood unless they had guards, the levy refused to guard them unless they had guards so we now have two squads of riflemen guarding the levy who are guarding the wood cutters. The horse lines are now right behind the tents because the horses were afraid to be at the edge of the camp. The trench line furthest from the road is dug into a graveyard. We have had to post guards facing out to watch for enemies and guards facing inward to watch for the natives deserting.”
He looked at each of the officers in turn. “Have I missed anything?”
Then Lieutenant Houseman, royal navy, detached, walked in, said sorry for being late and reported that the Grey hound had sand in the gearbox and would be unable to move tomorrow.
The meeting did not go well.
~
Two hours later and the general was taking a few minutes of peace to write a letter to his granddaughter. He wrote every day and then sent them all together whenever he was able. He thought it a little silly but Abigail insisted he do it and if he were honest with himself he found it cleared his mind to detail each day’s events in a letter.
Then his train of thought was shattered by the sound of a gunshot, the heavy crack of a Martin Henri by the sound of it which meant one of his men. Then a second shot rang out and the general, revolver in hand, was outside his tent and looking for the source of the shooting.
The guard outside his tent was looking to the west. “It came from over there sir.”
Soldiers were spilling out of their tents, sergeants were shouting orders, organised chaos among the regulars, just chaos amongst the levy and civilians.
“You, with me.” The general ordered and set off towards the western end of the camp where the shots had come from.
~
The officer of the watch was third platoons lieutenant Fowler, of the Hampshire fowlers don’t ya know. Recently joined the garrison and never seen action. Widely regarded as a stuck up incompetent amongst his fellow officers and called far worse behind his back by the ranks.
The general, guard in tow and revolver in hand arrived and demanded a report from the lieutenant and the two soldiers standing next to him.
“Yes sir, I was just, that is to say these men fired at a shadow sir. Nothing there. I’ll have them disciplined for incompetence.”
“Begin ya pardon general but we saw im, we both saw him and we shot im. Standin right there plain as day. By that bush.”
“General there is no way they could have seen someone that close, there is no cover. If there had been someone there where did he go?”
The general looked from the two soldiers to the lieutenant and back to the soldiers.
“Let’s have a sweep out there, two squads. Look for tracks in the sand.”
The closest sergeant quickly organised a skirmish line that moved out from the camp and began to search for the intruder.
Several minutes later a corporal came back to the general from the searchers. “General we found something, not rightly sure what. Too dark to see much.”
General Summerby called for a lantern and without checking that his order was carried out he waved the corporal to lead him out of the camp. The guard from his tent close behind.
They walked no more than ten yards and stopped by a patch of shrub, too short to have been cut down by the fire wood gatherers. The General looked but could see no more than some sort of hollow behind the bush.
Then an oil lamp arrived, the general looked up to order whoever was carrying it closer when he was struck silent by surprise. The man carrying the lantern was clearly a native, one of the levy perhaps. A hard looking man, weathered by years under the harsh sun.
“Bring it closer, over here.”
With the lamp close by the hollow could be seen, several feet across and a good two feet deep, the darker sand piled around it was from deep within the ground where the heat of the day had not dried it. Almost as if something had pushed up from below rather than dug down from the top. One set of foot prints led away from the hole, one foot bare, one with a sandal. The tracks vanished after no more than a few paces.
One thing was clear, there were no tracks leading to the hole.
The general looked up at the Arab who held the lamp. “Who might you be?”
“Abdul Rashid.”
“Your fellows seem afraid to come out here, are you not?”
“God is with me.”
The general grunted at that.
“Well let us hope he is with us all. Back to the camp. All guards to be checked every half hour. Oh and Fowler, these men saw an enemy sneaking up to the camp and responded correctly. Am I understood.”
The yes sir was quiet but clear.
~
The remainder of the night passed without any further alerts but more than a few among the guards would say they felt as if eyes were upon them. Not a man amongst them saw anything, they just felt as if someone was out there, in the darkness, watching.
With the dawn the outer pickets and the guards at the trenches were waiting, first platoon who were breaking their fast by the cook fires before taking up the guard. Corporals and sergeants walked the pickets and checked the trenches to make sure that every man was awake and diligent. Fowler was regarded as a proper bastard of an officer and flogging or worse would be the fate of any man caught slacking. Not much risk of that today though, with shots fired at an intruder last night there was not a single man who felt safe to doze on watch.
Corporal Jack Mackey of third platoon came running from the picket lines, past the men at the trench and into the camp, shouted questions following him all the way. He was looking for his lieutenant and found him talking with Lieutenant Ambrose of first platoon. The two officers turned to look as he slowed to a walk and approached them.
“Begin ya pardon sirs, Lieutenant Fowler sir, we found something, a body, out on the picket line.”
With the corporal leading and both officers following they walked past the edge of the camp and out into the desert where the outlying pickets had been stationed. Two soldiers stood post beside a large clump of the local shrub, both keeping the eyes outward but somehow managing to seem extremely interested in the bushes.
“Over here sirs, we found it in the bushes here at first light.”
The corporal hung back a little but both officers stepped up to the edge of the bushes and looked down at the shape that was lying within, a human shape, a man. Ambrose turned to Fowler, “Looks like those lads of yours bagged this one, look at that hole in his chest.”
“Look at his face, this fellow was dead long before last night.” Fowler pointed.
Ambrose looked and a curse passed his lips, he bent down for a closer look. The face was old and shrunken, the skin like leather, the eyes long since dried away. The teeth bared by a riotous grin as the lips had dried and pulled back. The clothing was stained with damp sand and age. The wound on the chest had not bled, the skin showing at the neck and wrist was as shrunken and leathery as the face.
“Some locals idea of a jape perhaps, stand this fellow where the guards could see it.”
“Beg pardon sirs.” The corporal was a godly man but it was not fear of anything from the good book that chilled him under the bright sun. “We found tracks leading here, just one set, one foot bare, the other with a sandal. No tracks leading away.”
Both officers looked at the feet of the dead body, one with a sandal of old cracked leather, the other bare.
~
Captain Charterhouse, officer commanding first company, first battalion, 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot, stood looking down at the dead body.,Both lieutenants stood a short distance away. Doctor Adler, the surgeon for the expeditionary force, was kneeling beside the body probing the chest wound with a scalpel.
“Dead at least a month, or more most likely given the amount of mummification. Though this hole in the chest is much fresher, hours maybe judging by the lack of maggots round it. Odd thing, the sand on the feet, almost as if this thing had walked here rather than been carried,”
The doctor normally served in the garrison and was hardly happy to have been dragged out into the dust on this errand. He should have been treating the generous patients of the city not a mob of soldiers. He looked up to see all three officers exchanging looks that he could not read.
“Corporal, gather brush and burn that thing.”
“Right you are captain.” The corporal ordered the closest soldier to return to the camp and fetch an axe; the bushes were much too tough to be cut with bayonets. The three officers walked back to the camp talking among themselves in voices too quiet to be overheard.
“Ere corporal you recon that dead un was walking around last night afore he got shot like that?”
The corporal turned and gave the glare he was practicing for the day he was promoted to sergeant. “The dead don’t walk around, they stay in the ground. You remember than and keep your damn fool mouth shut. Get me?”
The soldier nodded and the two waited for the third to return with an axe then set to work making a fire. The brush was oily and burned hot, the corpse burned down to no more than ash and bones while the three men stood and watched. The fire staining the sky with grey smoke that seemed to glow like fresh spilt blood in the light of the morning sun.
The entire force withdrew behind the hills and began to set up camp. In the face of an enemy that now seemed far more formidable the troops began to dig trenches and pile up sand banks around the edges of the camp. Lines of tents sprang up, neat and organised for the regular soldiers, a ragged jumble for the levies and the bearers. Guards were set and picket lines established both around the camp and at a distance to keep watch for any attack.
A field kitchen set up and began to prepare the evening meal for hundreds of men.
The sound of banging came from the naval encampment as the engineers began to work on yet another fault with the drive systems on the Greyhound. Sand and dust constantly clogged the gears and got into every moving part, each evening would begin with a now familiar few hours of maintenance and hammering.
It was at this point the problems began.
~
“Mr Simmons sir, sorry to bother you but we have a problem.”
John Radley Simmons was a quartermaster sergeant and normally worked under the orders of the battalion quartermaster. But with a force of this size he found himself the senior representative of the logistics corp and therefore in charge of a force of almost 200 civilians and army logistics staff. Primarily he dealt with stores and the small logistic detachment and left the civilians to run themselves but there were times when they could not sort themselves out and then they came to him.
Such as now.
“Cook, what is it this time?”
“Mr Simmons, it’s the fire wood, for the cooking fires. We need wood.”
Simmons sighed, considered telling the overly effete cook just where he could go for his firewood then remembered that the cook technically outranked him.
“The hills are full of wood cook, I can see bushes everywhere. Send some of the bearers out to cut it down.”
“That’s just it Mr Simmons, they won’t go. They say this is an evil place and they want guards before they leave the camp.”
“Do ruddy what, well shout up some of the levy and get them to guard the lazy buggers.”
“But Mr Simmons, the levy won’t go either, they say they are afraid.”
Cursing mightily Quartermaster Sergeant Simmons stomped off to sort the matter out himself.
~
“Captain Greyling Sir, have you noticed the horses. Ours are a bit nervous but the draft horses are acting like there were wolves or some such about”.
The Captain had left his men to set up camp and had been on his way to an officers meeting so he had, in fact, not noticed. But as the horse line was on his way he changed his course to see what the problem was. To the lancers their horses were their lives and no true lancer would ignore something that could attack the horses.
The horse lines had been strung on the far side of the camp, away from any attack coming from the direction of the rebel town and fort.
The Lancers well trained horses were on the inner line and while clearly alert did not seem afraid. The draft horses on the outer line however were a different matter, eyes rolling, foam flecking from their mouths and many covered in a sheen of sweat. They were tugging at the lines and the posts that held those lines, as the lancers arrived one post was beginning to shift in the ground.
“You there, catch that line. You get a hammer and put that post in properly. You three don’t just stand there, start calming these horses down.”
Lancers and drovers jumped to obey the shouted commands.
~
“Here Jonesey, how deep are we digging these trenches?”
“Well boyo the corporal he said deep enough so we don’t get our fool heads blown off.”
Eric Smith, second platoon, first company, first battalion, 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot looked down at the three foot deep hole he was standing in and began to shovel more sand out onto the surrounding area.
“Here Jonesey, how come a Welsh lad like you is in a Shropshire regiment anyway, bit far from home aint it?”
“Jonesey?”
Smith looked up to see the man next to him, Jones was staring down into the sand he had been digging, staring at the jumble of human bones he had just discovered as he lifted his last shovel full of sand.
~
General Summerby was becoming a little impatient, he had called his officers to a meeting to discuss the situation and half of them had not arrived yet.
Then he looked up as he heard the guards at his tent come to attention and Captain Charterhouse of the First Company walked into the tent.
“Sorry I’m late sir, been sorting out all sorts of problems.”
Then Captain Greyling arrived and entered. “Apologies general, problems with the picket lines.”
Not a minute later Quatermaster Sergeant Simmons arrived, attending as acting quartermaster for the force.
“Apologies sir, I was delayed dealing with the civilians and bearers.”
When Lieutenant Digby, commander of the attached native levy walked into the tent not a minute after that and offered his apologies he wondered why every man in the tent was staring at him.
“So let me get this straight gentlemen. The bearers refused to cut firewood unless they had guards, the levy refused to guard them unless they had guards so we now have two squads of riflemen guarding the levy who are guarding the wood cutters. The horse lines are now right behind the tents because the horses were afraid to be at the edge of the camp. The trench line furthest from the road is dug into a graveyard. We have had to post guards facing out to watch for enemies and guards facing inward to watch for the natives deserting.”
He looked at each of the officers in turn. “Have I missed anything?”
Then Lieutenant Houseman, royal navy, detached, walked in, said sorry for being late and reported that the Grey hound had sand in the gearbox and would be unable to move tomorrow.
The meeting did not go well.
~
Two hours later and the general was taking a few minutes of peace to write a letter to his granddaughter. He wrote every day and then sent them all together whenever he was able. He thought it a little silly but Abigail insisted he do it and if he were honest with himself he found it cleared his mind to detail each day’s events in a letter.
Then his train of thought was shattered by the sound of a gunshot, the heavy crack of a Martin Henri by the sound of it which meant one of his men. Then a second shot rang out and the general, revolver in hand, was outside his tent and looking for the source of the shooting.
The guard outside his tent was looking to the west. “It came from over there sir.”
Soldiers were spilling out of their tents, sergeants were shouting orders, organised chaos among the regulars, just chaos amongst the levy and civilians.
“You, with me.” The general ordered and set off towards the western end of the camp where the shots had come from.
~
The officer of the watch was third platoons lieutenant Fowler, of the Hampshire fowlers don’t ya know. Recently joined the garrison and never seen action. Widely regarded as a stuck up incompetent amongst his fellow officers and called far worse behind his back by the ranks.
The general, guard in tow and revolver in hand arrived and demanded a report from the lieutenant and the two soldiers standing next to him.
“Yes sir, I was just, that is to say these men fired at a shadow sir. Nothing there. I’ll have them disciplined for incompetence.”
“Begin ya pardon general but we saw im, we both saw him and we shot im. Standin right there plain as day. By that bush.”
“General there is no way they could have seen someone that close, there is no cover. If there had been someone there where did he go?”
The general looked from the two soldiers to the lieutenant and back to the soldiers.
“Let’s have a sweep out there, two squads. Look for tracks in the sand.”
The closest sergeant quickly organised a skirmish line that moved out from the camp and began to search for the intruder.
Several minutes later a corporal came back to the general from the searchers. “General we found something, not rightly sure what. Too dark to see much.”
General Summerby called for a lantern and without checking that his order was carried out he waved the corporal to lead him out of the camp. The guard from his tent close behind.
They walked no more than ten yards and stopped by a patch of shrub, too short to have been cut down by the fire wood gatherers. The General looked but could see no more than some sort of hollow behind the bush.
Then an oil lamp arrived, the general looked up to order whoever was carrying it closer when he was struck silent by surprise. The man carrying the lantern was clearly a native, one of the levy perhaps. A hard looking man, weathered by years under the harsh sun.
“Bring it closer, over here.”
With the lamp close by the hollow could be seen, several feet across and a good two feet deep, the darker sand piled around it was from deep within the ground where the heat of the day had not dried it. Almost as if something had pushed up from below rather than dug down from the top. One set of foot prints led away from the hole, one foot bare, one with a sandal. The tracks vanished after no more than a few paces.
One thing was clear, there were no tracks leading to the hole.
The general looked up at the Arab who held the lamp. “Who might you be?”
“Abdul Rashid.”
“Your fellows seem afraid to come out here, are you not?”
“God is with me.”
The general grunted at that.
“Well let us hope he is with us all. Back to the camp. All guards to be checked every half hour. Oh and Fowler, these men saw an enemy sneaking up to the camp and responded correctly. Am I understood.”
The yes sir was quiet but clear.
~
The remainder of the night passed without any further alerts but more than a few among the guards would say they felt as if eyes were upon them. Not a man amongst them saw anything, they just felt as if someone was out there, in the darkness, watching.
With the dawn the outer pickets and the guards at the trenches were waiting, first platoon who were breaking their fast by the cook fires before taking up the guard. Corporals and sergeants walked the pickets and checked the trenches to make sure that every man was awake and diligent. Fowler was regarded as a proper bastard of an officer and flogging or worse would be the fate of any man caught slacking. Not much risk of that today though, with shots fired at an intruder last night there was not a single man who felt safe to doze on watch.
Corporal Jack Mackey of third platoon came running from the picket lines, past the men at the trench and into the camp, shouted questions following him all the way. He was looking for his lieutenant and found him talking with Lieutenant Ambrose of first platoon. The two officers turned to look as he slowed to a walk and approached them.
“Begin ya pardon sirs, Lieutenant Fowler sir, we found something, a body, out on the picket line.”
With the corporal leading and both officers following they walked past the edge of the camp and out into the desert where the outlying pickets had been stationed. Two soldiers stood post beside a large clump of the local shrub, both keeping the eyes outward but somehow managing to seem extremely interested in the bushes.
“Over here sirs, we found it in the bushes here at first light.”
The corporal hung back a little but both officers stepped up to the edge of the bushes and looked down at the shape that was lying within, a human shape, a man. Ambrose turned to Fowler, “Looks like those lads of yours bagged this one, look at that hole in his chest.”
“Look at his face, this fellow was dead long before last night.” Fowler pointed.
Ambrose looked and a curse passed his lips, he bent down for a closer look. The face was old and shrunken, the skin like leather, the eyes long since dried away. The teeth bared by a riotous grin as the lips had dried and pulled back. The clothing was stained with damp sand and age. The wound on the chest had not bled, the skin showing at the neck and wrist was as shrunken and leathery as the face.
“Some locals idea of a jape perhaps, stand this fellow where the guards could see it.”
“Beg pardon sirs.” The corporal was a godly man but it was not fear of anything from the good book that chilled him under the bright sun. “We found tracks leading here, just one set, one foot bare, the other with a sandal. No tracks leading away.”
Both officers looked at the feet of the dead body, one with a sandal of old cracked leather, the other bare.
~
Captain Charterhouse, officer commanding first company, first battalion, 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot, stood looking down at the dead body.,Both lieutenants stood a short distance away. Doctor Adler, the surgeon for the expeditionary force, was kneeling beside the body probing the chest wound with a scalpel.
“Dead at least a month, or more most likely given the amount of mummification. Though this hole in the chest is much fresher, hours maybe judging by the lack of maggots round it. Odd thing, the sand on the feet, almost as if this thing had walked here rather than been carried,”
The doctor normally served in the garrison and was hardly happy to have been dragged out into the dust on this errand. He should have been treating the generous patients of the city not a mob of soldiers. He looked up to see all three officers exchanging looks that he could not read.
“Corporal, gather brush and burn that thing.”
“Right you are captain.” The corporal ordered the closest soldier to return to the camp and fetch an axe; the bushes were much too tough to be cut with bayonets. The three officers walked back to the camp talking among themselves in voices too quiet to be overheard.
“Ere corporal you recon that dead un was walking around last night afore he got shot like that?”
The corporal turned and gave the glare he was practicing for the day he was promoted to sergeant. “The dead don’t walk around, they stay in the ground. You remember than and keep your damn fool mouth shut. Get me?”
The soldier nodded and the two waited for the third to return with an axe then set to work making a fire. The brush was oily and burned hot, the corpse burned down to no more than ash and bones while the three men stood and watched. The fire staining the sky with grey smoke that seemed to glow like fresh spilt blood in the light of the morning sun.