The Ravi Lancers Read Online Free PDF Page A

small exercise; the Ravi Lancers were the ‘enemy’ who were trying to stop them. The village well at this tiny hamlet ten miles north of Ratanwala Camp was the prearranged rendezvous where the umpires met and exchanged plans so that each would know where to place himself and what information to give the commanders as the action unfolded.
    An hour later Warren rejoined the Ravi Lancers in their bivouac to the north, arriving at the same time as a large open car, covered with dust, drove in from the opposite direction. As he dismounted near where Colonel Hanbury was sitting on a folding camp chair, the Yuvraj Krishna Ram leaped out of the car, saluted the colonel, and said, ‘I’m sorry I’m late, sir, but the Privy Council wasn’t held till this morning. Have I missed anything?’ He was wearing a perfectly cut drill uniform with a single long yellow and white medal ribbon on his left breast, and immaculate field boots, gleaming like the sun. He noticed Warren then, and saluted again with a smile, ‘Hullo, sir.’
    Colonel Hanbury said, ‘You haven’t missed anything, but you’re just in time for an interesting job which I was going to give to Major Bholanath ... if you feel up to some swimming.’ He smiled a frosty little smile at Warren--’I am putting the Yuvraj in command of the flanking force.’
    The prince saluted and turned to hurry off, but the colonel said, ‘Wait a minute. You’re not moving off for two hours yet. Get something to eat and then come back here and I’ll give you the details ... Would you care for a bottle of beer, Bateman?’
    ‘No, thanks, sir. I think I’ll have a nap, though.’
    Two hours later the flanking force set out. The two squadrons allotted for the task were C and D. Old Major Bholanath, the polo player, who was a younger brother of the Rajah, commanded C, and a fair-skinned, handsome Captain Sher Singh--the one holding hands with a sowar as they rode into camp--commanded D. The two hundred lancers headed south-east towards the Ravi River across a scrub-covered plain dotted with patches of cultivation, dun-coloured villages, and isolated trees. A column of dust traced their movement as they marched at the alternating walk then trot, walk then trot, of cavalry. Warren wondered whether the British force would see the dust and note its direction. But they were at least ten miles away, and the air was thick from the steady cold weather wind blowing off the thin topsoil. They would see nothing.
    An hour before dark the force reached the right bank of the Ravi. The river was half a mile wide, flowing in two or three channels: it was hard to tell whether there were one or two long, low sand islands in the middle of the river. The near bank was a steep sand slope, the far one a low beach littered with bushes and tree trunks stranded from the floods of last monsoon. The squadron commanders gathered round the prince, and he said, speaking in Hindi, ‘Let us cross at once. You go first, uncle. I’ll follow with Sher Singh.’
    Major Bholanath said, ‘It would be best to give men and horses a little breathing space, Highness. And to look to the girths.’
    ‘Very well, uncle,’ the Yuvraj said, ‘fifteen minutes.’
    Warren dismounted and walked to the bank. The horses would enter the river almost at a jump, the bank was so steep, though barely six feet high. The water swirled deep and fast here. Anyone who was unseated in that first scramble might be swept away and drowned. It was the sort of risk that would obviously be taken in war, but in peace time manoeuvres? ... A British officer commanding regular troops would think twice in this situation. Was it worth the risk to men’s lives? And, if anything happened, he might be reprimanded, or worse. Obviously such considerations didn’t worry Krishna Ram or the two squadron commanders. They might drown twenty men, and their Rajah wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
    When C squadron entered the old major went first, easing his horse