Free Rogue Officer by Garry Douglas Kilworth

if you don’t get my boot up your backside, you little
kaffir
.’
    ‘You are a very ignorant man, sir. It is you who are the
kaffir
, not me. A
kaffir
is a Christian, which is you.’
    Wynter tried to rescue his self-esteem with a word he had heard that morning from an Irish corporal. ‘I meant to say
khalassi
.’
    Sajan laughed. ‘That means camp follower. Yes, that is precisely what I am, so it is no insult.’
    ‘Where’d you get that horse from, anyway? You shouldn’t be up here with the men. You should be back with the women in the baggage train. You should be in the nursery van.’
    ‘My father gave me this horse. The same man you insulted. It will be necessary for my honour to slit your throat while you are sleeping if you continue to abuse him. I was raised by the
Thagi.
They taught me how to kill a man who is sleeping soundly, as you did last night, when you were full of brandy.’ Sajan nodded his sage young head. ‘Think about that, sir, while you are snoring like a pig in your bed.’
    Wynter eyed the young Indian boy with some alarm. It was true he had to sleep within the vicinity of this child of Satan and he believed that kids out here did not give a damn for their masters and betters. He thought that Sajan would poison the hand that fed him if he felt he could get away with it.
    Wynter rode up to Gwilliams. ‘What’s a
Thagi
?’ he asked.
    ‘We call ’em thugs,’ replied Gwilliams. ‘They’re a roadside cult that prey on travellers. They throttle their victims or cut their throats. You don’t want to run into any of those bastards. They’ve got no respect for the likes of you or me. Cut you off in your prime, they will.’
    Wynter went back to Sajan. ‘Look, kid, you don’t understand. In the army it’s right and proper for a private to curse his sergeant. It’s accepted. That’s the way we let off steam, you see. Sergeants know this and they don’t take offence, unless it’s to their face, of course, then they call it insolence. I don’t mean no harm, really. It’s just the British way.’
    Sajan was having none of it. ‘Sahib, you are a stinking fish.’
    Wynter began to get angry. ‘Now, look . . .’
    ‘You will stay away from me,’ said Sajan, spurring his horse.
    The private was left to fume. He felt the whole world was against him. He could not even voice his disgust about sergeants now! That wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right. It was against tradition. It was almost enough to make a man go back to his regiment and do some proper soldiering. But then, when he thought about it, he liked being a member of a special group. He liked to feel important. And he was good at it. Hadn’t he saved the lieutenant’s life at least once back there in the Crimea? He was good at this job and he wasn’t going to be chased out of it by a ten-year-old punkah wallah. If King got killed, which he well might during this campaign, he would wallop that kid until he begged for mercy. But then Crossman and Gwilliams would have to be out of the way too, and that bloody Rajput, Raktambar. The whole world was against him, that was the fact of the matter.
    The combined force reached Faridpur on the fourth of May. Faridpur was only a day’s march from Bareilly. Here Campbell paused to take stock. Gwilliams and Jack rode out that evening to inspect the defences of the rather loosely built town. They found that Khan Bahadur Khan had set up solid defences outside the pale of the dwellings. The guns set up on the sandbanks were still in the same neat positions. The cavalry were in their place on the flanks, while the second line of infantry lay back in the protection of the building, within the suburbs of the scattered township. Jack returned to make his report and then prepared his own men for the coming fight.
    ‘This is not going to be easy,’ he told King, Gwilliams, Raktambar and Wynter. ‘I have General Campbell’s permission for us to remain on horseback, but we must stay out of the way