Read Online The Lotus and the Wind by John Masters - Free Book Online Page A

he hadn’t got, the mysterious sense of clan. He had seen Gurkhas and Highlanders lying side by side on the hills, holding eager conversation, each in his own language.
    A private and a corporal of the MacDonalds burst over the low wall into the remains of the temple. In spite of the raw cold the sweat poured down their sunburned faces under the tall, conical topis. Robin sat up and said, ‘Are you looking for me?’
    The two bearded soldiers drew to attention, sloped arms, and at a muttered ‘Hup!’ from the corporal saluted together by slapping the butts of their rifles with the extended palms of their right hands. Robin saw at once that the private’s right hand, his saluting hand, was torn and bleeding. He said, ‘You’re wounded. Here, kneel down under cover. Let me look at it.’
    ‘I am only slightly wounded, sir,’ the private said in a sing-song voice. The corporal added, ‘We couldna kneel doon, sir. Yeerr Johnnies maucht think we were afrightit.’
    Well, aren’t you? Robin thought. You look like it. He saw the corporal’s lip twisted under his beard and believed for a moment that he was smiling at his own joke; then saw that he was not smiling but sneering, and knew at once why. Robin himself was well sheltered from the flying bullets by the inner wall. He could get up. Perhaps he ought to get up. But he was not afraid at all. As before, he was not even committed to this--this emotion, this violence.
    He did not get up. He said quietly, ‘What is it, then?’
    ‘Mr. Mclain sent us, sir, for to tell ye to come quick. We’re a’ but in the bottom doon yonder, an’ there’s a lashin’ of these paythans ever’ which wa’, shut’n’ at us. Ten, twenty, maybe. Mr. Mclain says, sir,’ the corporal went on doggedly, ‘an’ ye’ll excuse me, sir, he says ye shud’ve been doon there an ‘oor sin’, an’ will ye for the Lord’s sake hurry noo--sir!’ Robin wanted time to think it over. Someone had got his orders wrong probably. But who? It needed time to work out what was best to do. He could not think properly while the two soldiers stood there like ramrods, the mist droplets pearling their kilts. The guns began to fire steadily on the left. That sounded more like the beginning of something. They weren’t ranging now. No one could see far. He couldn’t get a message through in time. Mclain might get into a little trouble--but he, Robin, had a job to do here, and clear orders.
    He said, ‘Tell Mr. Mclain that we’ll come as soon as I’m sure that the main attack is being pressed home. Those are my orders, and I can’t disobey them.’
    ‘Ye’re no cornin’ right awa’ on the split double lak’ Mr. Mclain askit, sir?’
    ‘Not at once. I think it will be within half an hour, though.’
    ‘Verra gud’, sir. By the right, s’lut’!’ The hands slapped on the rifle butts. The Highlanders turned with a swing of kilts and stumbled away down the hill. Robin stood up slowly.
    The firing against his company’s position was dying down. From the valley the guns gave out a continuous thunder. Rifle fire snapped and crackled like erratic lightning along the hilltops. He heard the rapid pop-pop-pop-pop of a gatling, then a hiccup and silence. The rolling clouds now damped the sounds of battle, now drifted apart to give them redoubling echoes.
    He waited fifteen minutes. The guns stopped firing. He found Subadar Maniraj and said to him, ‘We’ll go on down now.’
    ‘It’s time,’ the old man muttered and dashed away around the hilltop in a wide circle, waving his sword and shouting, ‘Fall in! Extended order! By the centre! Hurry, hurry!’--mixed with streams of abuse and blows from the flat of his sword across the backs of the laggards. Robin called out, when they were ready, ‘Bugler, double bajao! ’
    The bugler blew the ‘Double,’ and the line of Gurkhas ran down the hill, packs and haversacks flapping, equipment creaking, boots scraping and striking sparks from the rock,