The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [537]
‘This is it!’ cried Wally joyously, swinging himself into the saddle, and Zarin, to whom the words had been addressed, caught the import though he did not understand the language, and grinned in acknowledgement as the squadrons formed up four abreast and spurred forward into the shimmering heat of the stone-strewn valley.
They came up with the missing Staff Officers and their escort at a point where the road crossed the sloping ground below a plateau on which the Khugianis were gathering, and the two parties turned back together to join the General, who, hearing what they had to say, halted his infantry where they could not be seen by the enemy, and went forward to assess the position for himself. A brief survey had been enough; for as Wigram had said, Gough needed no one to teach him his business or advise him on how to deal with the situation.
The Khugianis had chosen a perfect defensive position. Their line spanned the rim of the plateau, and the hillside immediately below fell away steeply for a short distance before merging into the long, gentle slope that met the Gandamak road and the comparatively level ground on the far side. Both flanks of their line were protected by steep cliffs, while their front had been further reinforced by massive stone breastworks. Had they been able to mount guns, their position would have been virtually impregnable, and as it was, to attack it head-on would be suicidal, while to detach troops in an attempt to turn it would mean seriously weakening the small British force that was already out-numbered by five to one. The only hope, as Ash had said and the General now saw, was to lure the Khugianis out into the open.
‘We shall have to take a leaf out of William's book,’ observed the General thoughtfully. ‘Nothing else for it…’
‘William, sir?’ inquired a puzzled aide-de-camp blankly.
‘The Conqueror – see Battle of Hastings, 1066. By rights Harold and his Saxons should have come off the victors, and would have done, if William hadn't tempted them to leave their position on the higher ground in order to pursue his supposedly fleeing soldiery. We must do the same and try luring those fellows down. They won't have heard of that battle, and though they don't know the meaning of fear, they don't know the meaning of discipline either, and I think we can safely trade on that.’
Trading on it, he had sent the Guides, the 10th Hussars and the artillery forward with orders to advance to within three quarters of a mile of the enemy, where the cavalry would halt while the gunners would gallop ahead for a further five hundred yards or so, fire a few rounds, and at the first sign of an advance, fall back a short distance before stopping to open fire again.
In the General's opinion, no tribesman would be able to resist the sight of British troops in apparent retreat – any more than Harold's militia had been able to resist the sight of Norman infantry running away in feigned disorder – and it was his hope that the Khugianis would leave the protection of their breastworks and rush out to try to capture the guns of the retiring artillery. Then, if the same manoeuvre was repeated, it should be possible to entice the enemy far enough down the slope to enable the cavalry to charge them: catching them out in the open and with little chance of being able to scramble back into their entrenchments. In the meantime, while their attention was concentrated upon the pusillanimous antics of the artillery below their front, the infantry would be advancing swiftly up a nullah from where, with any luck, they would emerge, unseen and unsuspected, on the enemy's right flank.
‘Told you he wouldn't need any advice,’ grinned Wigram as the Guides moved off. ‘There are no flies on the General.’ He brushed the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand and said: ‘Phew!