Red Runs the Helmand. Patrick Mercer

The gentle breeze cleared some of the smoke, allowing Keenan to see where his men’s bullets had whipped and stung the enemy. Where, just seconds before, there had been a dense packet of defiant tribesmen, now wounded men were struggling on the ground and their chanting had been replaced by moans of pain.

      ‘Fire!’ Again, the carbines banged out, and the rifles of the 29th joined in from way over on his troop’s right. Behind the bank of muzzle smoke, Keenan could see the hundred and twenty lancers of the other two squadrons gathering speed as they trotted, then cantered up the gentle slope towards the village.

      ‘Engage by troops.’ Keenan wondered if this was the right thing to do or whether it would have been better to continue to volley fire.

      ‘Shabash, sahib.’ The daffadar beamed delightedly at his officer as he encouraged his soldiers’ frantic marksmanship. ‘See them run.’

      And, through the smoke, Keenan could see how the Durani formation was beginning to disintegrate. Lashed by bullets, with more and more warriors writhing on the ground, a steady trickle of men was edging away into the cover of the village. Then the remaining two Scinde Horse squadrons charged home. The buildings and walls took some of the momentum away from the assault, but as Keenan watched, and Miran capered with delight beside him, the cavalrymen began their lethal trade.

      Lances stabbed and curved steel hacked, poked and slashed; some tribesmen resisted bravely, trying to meet the terrible blades with shields and muskets, but most just melted away through the village, running for all they were worth into the hills beyond.

      ‘Fire at will!’ It was the last command that Keenan gave in his first action. As his men blazed at fleeing targets, he took his own carbine, which, until then, he hadn’t thought to fire, but now he found a mark. One Durani was moving well from cover to cover, firing a captured Snider at Malcolmson’s men as they hunted down the few who still resisted. Keenan watched his man shelter behind a bush, topple a trooper from his saddle with one shot, then rise and scuttle back to his next position. But as the man broke into a trot, Keenan put the metal V of his foresight on the knot of his target’s belt, aimed just a fraction more to the left to allow for the time of flight of the round and gently squeezed the trigger. The warrior dropped like a shot rabbit, falling towards Keenan as the lead ploughed through his flesh. There was not even a flicker of life in him: the half-inch lump of lead had ripped it from him.

      He’s trying to be as modest as he can be, but I know that Sam was in the thick of it – word soon got back to me, especially as he had ended up commanding a squadron when things got tight. Firing his carbine alongside the men . . . I did the same in my first action – well, almost. But I don’t see any of the self-doubt that beset me: there’s a poise about the lad that I never had and which I’ve never noticed in him before – must get it from his mother. I expect I’ve been blinded by setting Billy’s course for him, making sure that the Morgan name is held high. Well, much good may that do, for both my boys are out here in Afghanistan now – though I doubt that Billy will get the same chance to earn his spurs that Sam’s had. It’ll take Billy an age to live down that business in Kandahar with the child.

      ‘Well, anyway, Father, that was months ago. We’ve seen a little more skirmishing since then, but nothing to compare with Khusk-i-Nakud. D’you think there’s likely to be another campaign this season, or will we be going back to India?’ asked Sam.

      The boy even holds a glass like I do, both hands curled around the base,

      ‘I doubt there’ll be any more fighting, Sam. All the spunk’s gone out of things now that hand-wringing Gladstone has got in. Mark my words, if we don’t show the Afghans who’s in charge, the bloody Russians will be in Kabul, like rats up a gutter, and then we’ll see just how safe India’s borders are. But I expect we’ll sweat out the hot weather here and then take a gentlemanly trek back through the passes some time in late summer. I think you may have seen all the action you’re likely to get just for the moment, my lad. Just be glad your hide’s in one piece.’

      ‘Aye, Father, you’re right. A nice silver medal and a notch on my hilt are probably as much as I want. Some of the other officers are full of piss and vinegar – they can’t wait for the next round – but a little swordplay with an angry Durani goes a long way in my book.’

      I looked at my first son and liked what I saw. It would have been so easy to give his superior officer – and his father – some sort of devil-may-care, God-rot-Johnny-Afghan patter. But, no, he’d tasted blood and once was quite enough for him. I admired his frankness. Mind you, I wonder if I really did expect a quiet summer and a long walk, or was I just trying to calm the lad’s expectations? If I’d really thought that things in Afghanistan were all but over that spring, I was sorely disappointed.

      Chapter Four - The March

      I’d hung around in garrisons before, but nothing ever like this. In Dublin, Pembroke Dock, Bombay and Karachi, you could establish some sort of routine, some sort of rhythm, to your work and have as good a social life as the people, the shooting and the hunting would allow. Then, when man oeuvres, postings or even campaigns beckoned, you could gear yourself up, jildi the men, tighten belts and set about whatever it was that Horse Guards wanted with gusto.

      But Kandahar was debilitating. We weren’t at war yet we were; we were expecting trouble yet we weren’t. The rumours about a troublesome Ayoob Khan in Herat on the Persian border, which had held so much sway when I assumed command of the brigade in April, more than a month ago now, waxed and waned. Meanwhile, fighting was still going on in the north and the town was just as uneasy and bloody unpleasant as it had always been. Patrols continued to be knocked around, scuffles were frequent, and yet we had to pretend that everything was sweetness and light with the wali and his scabrous troops.

      At least the dithering gave me time to get to know the units in the brigade and to push them into some sort of shape. By early May I’d visited the two companies of the 66th who were detached to protect the lines of communication at Khelati-Ghilzai, eighty-five miles away on the Kabul road, and got a good idea of how the land lay to the north-east. More importantly, I’d come to realise how I would miss them in the event of a serious fight around Kandahar. Their detachment meant that Galbraith only had six companies under his command, and these four hundred and fifty men were the only European troops – other than the Gunners – that I had to my name.

      But the 66th were a good lot. Even though Galbraith had never seen active service before, he’d had a fair old time with the regiment and established a pretty firm grip on them. I’d already noticed how many long-service men they had with them and my son’s sergeant – Kelly – was typical of their senior NCOs. I was also impressed with Beresford-Pierce, Billy’s captain commanding H Company. He and his colour sergeant – James – seemed as close as McGucken and I had ever been in the old days, and it was this company that Galbraith chose to demonstrate to me the 66th’s skill at arms.

      The British battalion was the only unit to be armed with the Martini-Henry breech-loader; they’d had it for several years now and were thoroughly proficient with a weapon whose rate of fire could be devastating in the right hands. Galbraith and his musketry officer had trained the soldiers to fire eight volleys a minute; a high number of men were good enough shots to have qualified for the extra pay that a certified marksman received. As long as the weapon didn’t overheat and fail to eject a spent cartridge case, each rifleman would be crucial if the sort of fighting that Roberts’s troops had experienced up north came our way.

      The only fly in Galbraith’s ointment seemed to be his men’s thirst. The Temperance Movement had got a real grip in India with, in my experience, most British units having at least a hundred men or so who had forsworn the bottle. But there were many fewer in the 66th, and I noticed that the regimental prison was always full of lads doubling about in full kit in the heat of the day with an energetic provost corporal in close attendance. Still, there were worse problems, and while there continued to be clashes between the regiment and the toughs in town, there were no repeats of the incident in which Billy had been involved in April.

      But when I managed to get some time with my native battalions, I discovered how much work there was to do. The