Death on a Pale Horse - By Donald Thomas Page 0,19
mile after mile, day after day, night after night.
We spent Christmas Day near the equator. Early in January we dropped anchor with white buildings and the mountain behind Cape Town on our port beam. There was not much talk ashore of Afghanistan, which was still an ocean away from us. A number of regiments, including my own Northumberland Fusiliers, were rumoured to have advanced from India through the mountain passes into Afghan territory—but whether that was true, who could say? At the Cape, all the talk was of an invasion of Natal by the Zulu tribes to the north of us, under their King Cetewayo.
The drums were beating for war on both sides in Natal, and the newspapers were full of it. Cetewayo had told Sir Henry Bowler, “While wishing to be friends with the English, I do not agree to have my people governed by their laws.” It was a delicate balance. If there was war with the Zulus, what would prevent the Dutch settlers of the prosperous Transvaal stabbing us in the back by declaring independence from British rule? With one war on our hands, our resources would not permit us to fight on a second front.
My greatest fear was that I might get conscripted for this war in southern Africa and never see the wonders of India or the regiment I had been assigned to. It was not the life I had joined the Army for.
Under this gathering cloud, I met a young Army captain whose acquaintance I had made on board ship. He was now attached to Lord Chelmsford’s infantry column of some four thousand men which was about to confront Cetewayo.
“Hello, doc!” this young spark greeted me cheerily. “You coming to the picnic in Zululand with us?”
“Not if I know it!”
How fortunate I was. A few weeks later the bones of this poor young fellow and more than a thousand others were picked clean by vultures from the skies above Natal. I should almost certainly have been cut to pieces with Colonel Pulleine and the 24th Foot. As it was, I boarded the trooper Londonderry and reached Bombay before I heard of Isandhlwana.
On a hot and dusty morning, I reported to brigade headquarters in Bombay. There was utter confusion in the Movements Office as to what was going on in Afghanistan. I asked a transport officer how I might best catch up with the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. I understood that they might already be garrisoned in Kandahar, on the far side of the Khyber Pass. This chair-bound Irish major looked at me irritably. He spoke as though the pandemonium in his office was all my fault.
“Has no one told you, mister? Your travel order should make it clear. The Northumberlands no longer require an assistant surgeon. It is the Berkshires who are in need. Assistant Surgeon Mackintosh has been invalided back to the depot at Peshawar with dysentery. You will exchange into the Berkshires at your earliest convenience. Draw travel warrants and your pay draft here. The railway does not run as far as Peshawar. Requisition a seat as far as Lahore on tomorrow’s Delhi train. Make arrangements when you get there. Now, who’s the next man?”
Such was my welcome to active service. I set out the following morning on the first stage of my journey in a saloon coach of the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway. This was one of several coaches reserved for British officers. With wide windows, easy chairs, and clubroom tables, it was the type of train which, in England, carries young swells with their picnic hampers and servants to a fashionable race meeting.
From the pages of the newspaper behind which I retired, I gathered that the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated since the last news reached England. The rebel leader Ayub Khan had gained the upper hand, and our expeditionary force had been obliged to move forward with speed. A good many officers from all over India now filled the carriages of every train destined for the nearest junctions to the North-West Frontier. In those days, the line stopped short of the Khyber Pass. I should have to join a mounted column for the journey beyond Lahore. My imagination was full of the high snow-covered peaks of the pass and the white-walled city of my destination. Not so long ago, Kandahar had been the capital of Afghanistan.
As we travelled north, there was a curious interlude. I could not see that it concerned me at the time—so much the worse