Red Runs the Helmand. Patrick Mercer

down his beard when he thought he might have been unmannerly.

      ‘And this is where Ayoob Khan has the advantage.’ He told us again about Kandahar’s prosperity, how Ayoob Khan had been eyeing it up as his own for ages and how he’d managed to suborn the local forces with people from the Ghilzai tribes loyal to him but serving under the wali. ‘We’ve been hearing for months now that he and his people are likely to march out of Herat, and if that is the case, we must try to stop him before he gets anywhere near this city. But I worry about taking my troops into the field, General Morgan. As you will know, I’m sure, we have already had difficulties over pay – one of my cavalry regiments threw down their arms only last month when their officers tried to take them out of their lines for training. Now, if he were to come towards us, we should have to try and meet him somewhere here.’ The wali pointed to the Helmand river fords near Gereshk on a spanking new map that, I guessed, McGucken had given him.

      ‘Aye, sir, and that’s quite a way west over dry country.’ The map showed few water-courses and little but seventy or so miles of plains beset by steep heights.

      ‘Indeed so, but he and his elders know it well. And there are more complications.’ I heard him sigh when he said this, as if the very thought of what lay ahead sapped his energy and determination. ‘He will do his best to raise not just tribesmen along the way, but also the cursed Ghazis in the name of jihad. Have you been told about these creatures, General?’ I assured him that I had, and that Primrose and Brooke had given me a pretty fair idea of what they could do.

      ‘Ah, but, General, all you have seen of them is odd ones and twos. True, they make trouble in the town, they caused Stewart huzoor much pain, and they have started to gnaw at the ankles of General Primrose’s new division. But just imagine what such people could do if they were massed against you. That, no one has yet seen. If Ayoob Khan ever ventures out of the west, then be certain, my dear General, that those white-robed madmen will hover around him like wasps . . .’

      Two days after my meeting with the wali, I had been up at dawn, ridden out of the town with Heath and Trumpeter Lynch to the lower slopes of the Baba Wali Kotal – the high ground some three miles to the north-west – and made an assessment of where the enemy’s best viewpoint would be. Then I’d come back to the mess for a swift breakfast of steak and fruit, before heading to my headquarters. I was just settling down behind my folding desk, preparing to indulge Heath with the things he loved best – detailed accounts, returns and all manner of mind-numbing administration – when news began to filter in of an ugly incident involving the 66th Foot.

      The only British infantry that I had, the regiment had so far impressed me both times that I had seen them. But now there were reports that one of their patrols had killed a child right in the middle of Kandahar, then dispersed with great violence the angry crowd that gathered. Predictably, the first reports were vague and vastly unreliable, so once the dust had settled – literally – and the facts were clear, I had got back into the saddle and come to see the commanding officer, James Galbraith.

      It had been an uncomfortable couple of hours’ waiting for me, for Primrose had caught wind of it, as had some British journalists who were out and about in Kandahar, and he was pressing me for a full account before the editors in London learnt of it. But I had commanded a battalion – albeit nowhere more demanding than Pembroke Dock – and I knew how irritating pressure from above would be for the commanding officer. Once the matter was fully investigated, Lieutenant Colonel Galbraith had asked me to come into the cramped little hut that served as his office. He rose from behind a trestle table in his rumpled khaki and stood stiffly to attention, expecting the worst.

      ‘Sit down, sit down, please, Galbraith.’ Despite my attempts to put him at ease, Galbraith continued to stand. I threw myself into one of the collapsible leather-seated campaign chairs that were so popular at the time.

      ‘A cheroot?’ I flicked one of the little brown tubes towards him, but Galbraith shook his head without a word. ‘Tell me what happened.’

      The 66th had been in India for almost ten years now, stationed at Ahmednagar and Karachi, and I’d been pleased to see how many long-service men they still included. While the new regulations allowed men to enlist for shorter periods – which was reckoned by some to be good for recruiting – I always thought it took some time for a lad from the slums of England to acquire any sort of resistance to the heat and pestilence of India. It can’t have been a coincidence that the Second Battalion of the 8th Foot – almost all young, short-service lads – had been gutted by disease last year outside Kabul.

      ‘Well, General, we had a routine patrol in the central bazaar earlier this morning, an officer, sergeant and six men. They all said that the atmosphere was tense, with a lot of people and beasts bringing goods to market. Suddenly the crowd opened and a child rushed at them with a knife in his hand.’ Galbraith had been in command of the 66th for four years now and had a reputation for being as devoted to them as his men were to him. Another English-Paddy from Omagh up north, my father knew his family, but the slim, handsome man, whose heavy moustache and whiskers made him look older than his forty years, had never thought to presume upon this link.

      ‘A child, Galbraith? How old was he?’ I found it hard to believe that a fully armed patrol of British soldiers might be attacked by a boy. A strapping youth, perhaps, for many of the Ghazis, while fully grown, were said by those who had had to face them to be too young to have proper beards. But a mere boy behaving like that I found difficult to credit.

      ‘Well, I’m not exactly sure, General, but young enough for there to be an almighty bloody fuss kicked up by the mullahs to whom the press are listening with all their normal evenhandedness,’ replied Galbraith.

      ‘Are you sure that one of the lads didn’t fire his rifle by mistake, hit the boy and now he’s trying to cover it up just like the Fifty-Ninth did?’ I knew soldiers: they’d lie most imaginatively if they thought it would save their necks. The story was still circulating about a drunken spree by the 59th last Christmas. Two of the men had been drinking and tinkering about with their rifles when one had shot the other. They had made up some cock-and-bull story about a Ghazi entering their barracks and, in an attempt to shoot him down, one man had accidentally wounded his comrade.

      ‘Well, no, sir. The youth was killed with a sword and a number of bayonet thrusts quite deliberately. The men didn’t fire for fear of hitting one of the crowd.’ Galbraith looked indignant.

      ‘Oh, good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. So now we don’t just have a child being killed, the poor little bugger was hacked to pieces by your ruffians while half of Kandahar looked on. I really don’t like the sound of this at all. Who was in charge of this fiasco? I hope you’re not going to tell me it was a lad straight out of Sandhurst with some lance sergeant at his side?’ When I’d paid my first visit to the 66th a few days ago, I’d been pleased with the appearance of the men but I’d noticed how junior some of the NCOs were. Galbraith had explained that he’d had to leave a large number of sergeants behind in India, either sick or time-expired, and he’d been forced to promote fairly inexperienced corporals to fill the gaps.

      ‘No, sir. Sar’nt Kelly is one of my best substantive sergeants with almost sixteen years’ service. He’s due to get his colours at the next promotion board. That’s why I’ve put him with one of my new officers.’ Galbraith came back at me hot and strong. ‘If you’d prefer to hear it straight from those who were there, sir, I’ve got Kelly and his officer waiting outside.’

      ‘Yes, I bloody well would. Ask them to march in, please, Heath.’ My tosspot of a brigade major had been sitting in on the meeting with Galbraith, his expression increasingly disapproving, not a shred of sympathy showing for the men who had been faced with what sounded to me like a thoroughly nasty business.

      I saw the pair of them file in, smartly in step. Sergeant Kelly was five foot nine, heavily sunburnt, with a moustache trimmed to regulation length, and the ribbon of the rooti-gong above his left breast pocket. His puttees were wrapped just so, his khaki drill pressed as neatly as field conditions would allow, three red chevrons standing out starkly on his right sleeve and his brasswork polished for the occasion. He gave ‘Halt,’ then