Windrush (Jack Windrush Book 1) Read online

  Windrush

  Jack Windrush Series – Book I

  Malcolm Archibald

  Copyright (C) 2016 Malcolm Archibald

  Layout Copyright (C) 2016 by Creativia

  Published 2016 by Creativia

  eBook design by Creativia (www.creativia.org)

  Cover art by http://www.thecovercollection.com/

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  Prelude

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  About the Author

  Also by Malcolm Archibald

  Prelude

  Chillianwalla, River Jhelum, India, 14 January 1849

  'Are your men ready, Sir John?'

  'All ready, Sir Hugh.' Colonel Murphy scanned the ranks of the 113th. They stood at attention along the fringes of the scrubby jungle, listened to the batter and howl of the artillery and tried not to flinch as the occasional Sikh round-shot landed in front of their position.

  'It's their first action isn't it?' General Sir Hugh Gough glanced to his right and left, where his army was preparing for the battle ahead. He had 12,000 men, tired after a three day march through the Punjab heat, while Shere Singh commanded at least 32,000 Sikhs, well dug in and supported by sixty-two pieces of artillery.

  'Yes, sir; we are a new regiment, and this is our first time outside England.' Murphy felt that familiar flutter of excitement as a bugle called far to his right. He hid his smile.

  'Not your first though, eh?' Gough controlled his skittish horse as the Sikh artillery probed for the range. 'You knew the Peninsula I believe.'

  'Yes, Sir Hugh; Talavera and Salamanca, and Kabul in Afghanistan more recently.'

  Gough nodded, 'well good luck Sir John; blood the men well and bring honour to the flag.' With his white fighting coat distinctive in that array of scarlet British and Indian soldiers set against the dark green and dun of India, Gough kicked in his heels and moved to speak to the colonel of the 24th Foot. A score of vultures circled above them, waiting to feast on the carnage to come.

  'Blasted birds always know when there is to be a battle,' Major Snodgrass grumbled. 'They are a harbinger of death.' He withdrew a silver flask from inside his jacket and sipped at the contents. 'I hate them.'

  'Put the spirits away, Snodgrass,' Murphy ordered. 'The men will be nervous enough without seeing their officers tippling.'

  'The brandy helps,' Snodgrass took another pull before he obeyed. 'Here we go then.'

  The 113th was in three lines, eight hundred fighting men in formation with their sergeants placed with each section and the officers leading from the front. In the centre, hanging limply in the appalling heat, the Queen's Colours and the Regimental Colours acted as a talisman and rallying point, as British colours had done in a hundred battles in India in the past and would in a hundred battles in the future. A puff of air as hot as any blast furnace ruffled the regimental colour, so the number '113' was partially displayed against a virgin yellow-buff field.

  'Time to put a battle honour on our colours,' Murphy roared out to his regiment. 'Heads up lads: the Sikh Khalsa has a reputation for being brave and resourceful warriors, but he has never met us before! Keep together, keep in step, never mind the noise and win glory for yourselves, the regiment and the queen. Come on the 113th!'

  Most of the men looked to their front, as required by discipline and tradition. Others slid their eyes sideways to their colonel; some swallowed hard, a few chewed tobacco or sucked on a stone to combat the ever-present thirst of India. One man was praying, the words a low mutter underneath the grumble and roar of the guns.

  In front, the 24th marched bravely forward, flanked on one side by the sepoys of the 25th Native Infantry and on the other by their colleagues of the 45th. The mid afternoon sun was like brass above, bringing thick beads of sweat to faces not yet accustomed to the Indian heat. The red coats vanished into the scrubby jungle.

  'Keep the distance!' Murphy roared; he looked along the ranks of his regiment, 'show them your Colours, 113th!'

  'Only the bayonet!' the words were passed from senior officer to junior officer and along the ranks of the private soldiers, 'General Gough's orders are no firing; only use the bayonet.'

  Murphy looked at Major Snodgrass and raised bushy eyebrows. He made no adverse comment about his senior officer, but he looked at his inexperienced infantry and wondered how they would cope. The Sikhs had proved to be the toughest enemy the British had ever faced in India, and General Gough had now further handicapped the already outnumbered and tired British soldiers.

  The nearest men to Murphy were marching steadily with their muskets at the correct angle and boots thumping on the brick hard ground. Sweat glistened on red faces that peeled with sunburn, while their uniforms constricted their bodies in tight swathes of red serge. They looked uncomfortable, hot and nervous as they marched forward to face the enemies of the Honourable East India Company and, by association, enemies of the Queen.

  'Will the Sikhs fight?' Snodgrass asked. He reached for his flask again but withdrew his hand as Murphy frowned. 'We've fought and beat them so often that surely they must know they haven't a chance.'

  'They are the Khalsa,' Murphy paused, nodded approval as a sergeant roared to get his section to straighten the line. 'The Sikh Army is the finest native fighting force in India, tough professionals with European training, artillery as good as ours and a history of victory. They also outnumber us and are in a strong defensive position. Yes, they will fight.'

  As they entered the jungle, the British had to break their formation to negotiate tangled bush and dense thickets of trees and undergrowth. From ahead there was a sharp outburst of musketry and again the deeper, savage boom of artillery.

  'It's begun,' Murphy said. 'Steady the 113th! Onward to victory!'

  There was a surge of cheering as the British made contact with the enemy, and the cannonade increased. The acrid smell of powder smoke drifted through the scrub, faint but stronger with each step they took.

  'That's the Sikh infantry firing on the 24th,' Snodgrass said. 'The 24th might need our support soon.'

  'Quicken the pace, boys!' Murphy ordered. 'We don't want to meet the Khalsa in penny packets.' He looked right and left. In the confines of the scrub, he could only see a fraction of his regiment at any one time, but it appeared to be steady enough, although some sections were dropping back as they became entangled in the undergrowth.

  The cheering from the right and ahead mingled with screaming, and still, the Sikh artillery roared. There was regular volley fire from the Sikh muskets, a sure sign of well-disciplined infantry.

  'The 24th is getting a pounding, 'Murphy said and nodded as a glistening-faced messenger approached.

  'Gener
al Gough's compliment's sir, and could you move the 113th to support the 24th as quickly as the occasion permits.'

  Murphy nodded. 'Thank you, my boy, and please tell the general that the 113th will be in support directly. He has my word on it.' He watched as the ensign turned about and vanished into the bush. The boy could not be more than seventeen, the same age as Murphy had been when he first went to war forty years ago.

  'Come on men! The 24th need us!' Dismounting, Murphy ran forward to lead his regiment. He drew his sword and lifted it high in the air, then swung it in the direction of the enemy. 'Quick march the 113th!'

  He heard movement behind him as he strode toward the Sikh lines. His men were following; one of the only two regiments in the British Army that had no battle honours on its colours, the hundred and thirteen virgins, the Baby Butchers, his men, the 113th Foot was advancing into battle.

  Murphy hacked at an overhanging creeper and emerged in a large sun dappled clearing. He saw uniformed men ahead, drawn up in a tight formation. They wore the yellow turbans of Sikh gunners, and they stood behind a row of cannon. As the 113th emerged from the jungle in dribs and drabs, a section here and a company there, the Sikh officers barked orders, and the gunners crouched to their cannon.

  A shiver ran through the scattered 113th; men stared at the wicked mouths of the waiting artillery in alarm or glanced over turned shoulders at the concealment of the jungle.

  'Forward lads!' Murphy encouraged. 'There's no going back now; take the bayonets to them, capture these guns!' He led the charge, knowing his regiment supported him, knowing that British infantry always reacted best when the danger was at its height.

  The clearing, the maidan, stretched before him, with the Sikhs waiting in disciplined lines, matches smoking at the locks of their cannon, bearded faces smudged in the late afternoon sun. Murphy brandished his sword and ran into the heat. He no longer shouted; he had not the energy or the breath.

  The Sikh officers waited until they had a sufficiently large target before they gave the order to fire. Their line exploded in a succession of orange muzzle flares, and gushing white smoke followed instantaneously by a volley of twelve and eighteen- pound cannon balls that raced toward the disorganised 113th. Men fell in ones and twos and entire sections, but Murphy was untouched.

  He took a deep breath of smoke tainted air. 'Take the bayonet to them, men!'

  The Sikhs fired again, grapeshot and canister this time; lead balls that spread and butchered men by the dozen. Murphy felt a feather tickle his left arm. He shouted again: 'charge!' and stepped forward, but his legs would not answer.

  He looked down; the ground was rising to meet him as he fell. It was soft beneath his face. He turned to watch his men win their glory. 'Come on the 113th' he tried to shout, but the words emerged as a meaningless ramble. 'Where are my men? Where is my regiment? Where are my darling boys?'

  He saw only bodies on the ground and the screaming, writhing wounded; that and the backs of the 113th as they turned and ran back into the jungle. He saw Snodgrass standing with tears pouring down his crumpled face and the brandy flask held in a trembling hand.

  'My regiment,' Murphy said. 'My brave boys, my 113th,' and then there was only blackness.

  Chapter One

  Malvern Hills, England, Winter 1851

  Smeared across the sky, grey clouds bellied downward, depressing the already sombre mood of the funeral procession that wound in the shadow of the hills. Black horses walked slowly, heads bowed and plumes nodding as they dragged the hearse along the bumpy, rutted road. A procession of mourners followed; some in black draped carriages, most on foot and only the occasional scarlet uniform added a splash of colour. In front, walking with head bared and shoulders hunched, a drummer tapped a beat slow to accompany the steady tramp of two hundred feet.

  Nobody spoke. Nobody heeded the thin rain that descended, damp and insidiously miserable, to seep through woollen cloaks and turn the road into a ribbon of sticky mud under the surrounding wooded slopes. Nobody sobbed or wept as the long column eased between leaning lichen-stained gate posts and entered a graveyard where grey tombstones sheltered beneath weeping trees. Bare branches thrust to the sky as if clutching forgiveness from an uncompromising God.

  With a creak that sounded like a cry of despair, the hearse stopped. The horses stood silently in their traces, and the mourners shuffled to a halt, standing unmoving under the steadily increasing rain. Only the drummer continued with his repetitive, unending tap.

  A man emerged from the hearse, his face set into professional solemnity as rain dripped from his tall black hat. Stepping slowly to the rear of the carriage, he called for the pall bearers to step forward.

  'That's us,' Jack whispered to his brothers, aware that every eye was on him. Taking his place, he slipped his shoulder under the coffin and took the strain. His brothers filed into place behind him, silent save for the slush of boots through muddy grass. There were six pall bearers; the three sons of General William Windrush and three officers of his regiment. They moved forward in unison as the drummer continued his slow, rhythmic tapping and the priest, erect and slim with his black cloak sweeping the ground, held his Bible as if his soul depended on it.

  As they manoeuvred around a dismal yew tree, Jack looked at his surroundings, from the mist that dragged across the long ridge of the Malvern Hills to the ancient graveyard centred on a church whose walls were slowly crumbling back into the soil. Gravestones protruded from the ground like despairing hands, some decorated with skulls and bones, others surmounted by weeping angels, but most indecipherable as years and weather removed all traces of the names and pious statements that long-dead hands had carved there. In such an intense parish as this, there were only a handful of names, but none of the stones bore the name Windrush. The masters of the land had their own crypt, and it was to this that the mourners made their slow way.

  Windrush: the name erupted from the marble slab that surmounted the pillars at the entrance. The letters were bold, uncompromising and when the iron gates between the pillars opened, lamplight highlighted seven steps leading downward into chilling darkness. Unhesitating, Jack moved on, unheeding of the weight of the coffin that dug into his right shoulder.

  Beyond the steps, the ground was stone flagged, the air chill and damp. The light cast weird shadows, highlighting a host of names. Unconsciously he repeated them to himself:

  Colonel William Windrush killed at Malplaquet. Major Adam Windrush died of wounds in Germany. General Adam Windrush died of fever in India. Colonel William Windrush lost at sea.

  Nearly every Christian name was William or Adam. Jack wondered as he had often before, why he had been named differently, breaking centuries of tradition. Ever since the Glorious Revolution, the oldest son had always been William, with any succeeding male being Adam, and then George. His name was an anomaly, but his mother had ignored any questions he had asked.

  The stone lid was open, the tomb waiting to enclose the latest Windrush to die for the Regiment and in the service of the country. The dark space was friendly somehow, welcoming a Windrush home rather than confining him to eternity. This crypt was where every male Windrush hoped to repose; this was where Jack would end in ten, twenty if he were lucky maybe thirty years' time. With hardly a pause, he helped ease the coffin down as the mourners filed inside, their numbers crowding the crypt, their breathing echoing from the stones, their feet shuffling in soft harmony.

  At a signal from the priest, the drummer lifted his drumsticks and stood at attention. Silence crushed them like a thick blanket. Jack fidgeted, looking to his brothers; William ignored him as usual, but Adam gave a nervous half grin and mouthed something until the priest began the service. The sonorous words growled around the crypt, penetrating into each corner, rebounding from the hard stone, reaching every silent mourner with their reminder of inevitable mortality. Jack listened unmoved. He knew his destiny; he would follow his father into the Regiment and die in the service of his country. Every first born
Windrush male joined the Regiment and very few retired back home; he would be no different. That was what Windrushes did; it was as fixed as the stars in the filament, as unchanging as the tides; it was the destiny for which he had prepared since he was old enough to walk.

  At last, the priest stopped speaking, and one by one the Windrush males moved forward to give their final farewell.

  'Well, father,' Jack looked down at the lid of the coffin, already closed and screwed down. 'I hardly met you, but now I must take your place. I would have liked to have served under you, but that was not to be. I'll carry the family name and honour forward as you would have wished.'

  There was no more to say. Jack's father had done his duty, and he would do his.

  His brothers came next, murmuring their good byes to a man they had never known, and then the officers of the Regiment filtered forward. The brave scarlet uniforms contrasted with the grey stone and the black of mourning, as the officers spoke crisply, following their duty to a man of their regiment, their caste and their breed. There was no emotion.

  'Well young Windrush,' Major Welland stood erect, balancing his sword against his hip as he held Jack' eye. 'Are you ready to join the regiment?'

  'I am, sir.' Only the solemnity of the occasion prevented Jack from smiling. 'I've waited all my life to be a Royal.'

  'Good; it's a fine career and the best regiment in the British Army.' Welland nodded. 'We'll speak again later, once you have attended to the formalities.' He paused and added as an afterthought: 'Oh, I'm sorry about your father. He was a fine man.'

  'So I've been told, sir.' Jack agreed. 'He insisted I complete my education before I joined.' He hesitated for a second, 'there was mention of Sandhurst, sir.'

  'No need for that, young Windrush. The Regiment will teach you all you need to know.' Welland nodded. 'Well, we'll be seeing you in the Mess shortly, and you'd better not be long. The Royals are not the same without a Windrush.' Tall and dark haired, Welland's face was weathered, with only the tracing of a white scar spoiling his regular features.