I, Ripper

“I mean him no disrespect. I do not suspect him.” How easily I had come to the lie, which was another reason to get quit of journalism before it debased me too much. “I hope by this means to exclude him from any suspicion.”

“All right,” he said. “I have purloined two handwritten pages from his report on events at Maiwand on July 27, 1880. I will give you ten minutes with them. You will understand immediately why he never made brigadier. He writes too well. He lacks that turgid coroner’s sensibility and always takes responsibility. The brilliant staff officers who rise have the gift of evading consequences and covering themselves not in glory but in a fog of innocence. They are never responsible for any balls-up. With pen in hand, they produce a cold porridge of bromide, vagueness, flattery, and evasion. Thus Burrows, with experience at nothing but boot licking and arse caressing, is the top boy, and a hero like the then-captain is off on a flank, stuck in the muck of battle. This is why we just barely win our wars.”

“I see.”

“As you join the colonel, you will understand immediately that you could not have come at a worse moment. His regiment was located as anchor at the bottom of a loop the idiot Burrows had put out, against which Ayub Khan was supposed to dash his advance units and be scattered. Alas, the Khan had arrived with his main force, twenty-five thousand strong, many of them mounted, and they had the advantage of numbers as well as ammunition, rations, water, artillery, and familiarity with the territory. As for Burrows, it was his first battle, and it was enough to get him permanent placement in the British army hall of dunces, along with Cardigan at Balaclava and Chelmsford at Isandlwana.”

When the snatch of report that the colonel had removed for me begins, Colonel – then Captain – Woodruff has noted with alarm that the “loop” is collapsing and that men, both British and Indian, are fleeing, many having dropped their arms. He realizes his company, E of the 66th Foot, must stand strong to cover the retreaters, else they’ll be slashed down by the Khan’s cavalry before they make it a fiftieth of the way back to Kandahar. This he does until in danger of being overrun, and when no more retreaters can be seen, he orders a fighting withdrawal to the village of Khig, where better cover may be found. His surviving troops take up position to repel the charging Afghans, and although I can’t quote an extended passage from memory all these years later, I remember the extreme vividness with which the then-captain expressed himself, mostly its coolly precise language, so perfect for evoking a desolate and brutal day of death and slaughter in the baking sun and swirling dust of a far-off place not worth a tuppence and a crust of bread on any street corner in London. I think it went something like this, only much better:

I noted that Khig was overlooked by a hill immediately to its southern extreme, flanking our lines. Fearing the enemy in such placement would have angle advantage to bring fire, I determined to send a small unit to secure and then defend the hill until out of ammunition. I chose Color Sergeant Matthews to lead, not merely because he was sound and salty but because among my senior noncommissioned officers, he alone was ambulatory. He had only been wounded twice. He was also one of those hearty lads who enjoys a good brawl, and the more desperate the circumstances the more fun it is for him. He took twelve equally hearty lads and made his way to the top of what I privately christened “Little Round Top,” to make his stand, exactly as Chamberlain had done at Gettysburg, though I doubt the pious Chamberlain could fathom Mattuwes’s exquisite gift for expressive profanity, so common among the better class of our magnificent cockney warriors.

While we on the low ground turned back multiple direct charges until our Martini-Henrys were near to glow with the heat of the firing, and at one point were firing at ghosts so shrouded in dust you could only know a hit when you heard the slap of lead on meat, I noted much churn and drama atop Little Round Top. Fearing the loss of so many men and realizing that were they left up there as we retreated, they were doomed, I decided to withdraw them. I looked for an orderly to bear the message, but all were either dead or absorbed in bayonet work. I assigned myself to the task.