CHAPTER XV

THE BATTLE OF KHOOSH-AB.

"I say, Gillian, old fellow," said Colin MacKenzie, with a waggish expression in his eyes, as the troops began their forward march again; "who is Dove--Dove, yes, that is the name?"

"Dove Gainswood!" said Gillian, in a breathless voice, the tossing plumes of his bonnet failing to hide or shade the flush that crossed his face.

"You mention that name now with surprise; when last you muttered it, it was lingeringly done, as if sweet to your memory."

"When?"

"Last night, as you lay near me asleep on the turf, ere that confounded shindy began."

"Ask me not about her," said Gillian, sadly and petulantly.

"Why? She is some girl you have loved and lost, I suppose."

"Yes--loved and lost," muttered Gillian, through his firmly set teeth.

"Well--I have had my turn of that, too--so we shall say no more about it; we've other things to think of now."

That the Persians should have a knowledge of our bugle-calls surprised the troops, very few of whom, if any perhaps, were aware that European discipline had first been introduced into the Persian army by two Scottish soldiers of fortune--Major Christie and Lieutenant Lindesay--while a third Scot--Doctor Campbell--organised their medical staff, such as it was, under Prince Abbas Mirza, when his army was encamped on the plain of Yam.

As our troops advanced early on the morning of the 8th of February, the mist that had overhung the plain drew up skyward like a mighty curtain, and then the Persian army, about 7,000 strong, led by Shooja-ool-Moolk, were seen in position with eighteen pieces of cannon, some of which were of very heavy calibre.

Among these troops, the flower of the Persian serlaz, or infantry, were the Shah's own guards, the regiments of Shiraz, Tabriz, and Kaskai, with the Eilkhanee cavalry. All were uniformly clad in dark blue, with white cross-belts and conical caps of black lambs-wool. Their ridgy lines of bayonets and their crooked sabres shone brightly in the sun, and at the usual intervals were seen their colours, with the Persian Lion, floating in the wind.

Their right flank rested on a village, Khoosh-ab, which gave its name to the battle that ensued. Along their front were several dry water-courses, which were lined with skirmishers in a very orthodox manner; and, as our troops deployed and advanced in line against the position, a cannonade from the flanks of each army preluded the closer strife; but the resolute Outram advanced with such steady rapidity, that our losses, as yet, were small.

"One steady volley, Sir James," said Colonel Hamilton; "and then we shall get at them with the bayonet--we can face the world--do everything with the bayonet!"

"Except sit upon it, as old Nap said," replied Outram, laughing. But next moment a cry escaped him. Struck by a Persian ball, his horse fell under him, and he was stunned, as he tells us in his despatch, "at the commencement of the contest, recovering only in time to resume my place at the head of the army shortly before the close of the action."

Of the latter, Gillian, now for the second time under fire, could see little but what occurred in his own immediate vicinity. The first thrill at facing death or mutilation, the first long-drawn breath and sensation of tightness about the chest as the balls whizzed past--one tearing away a plume of his bonnet and another grazing his hand, a third killing the man on his left--passed away, and he heard the voice of Captain MacAra above the fast-gathering and deepening roar of the musketry.

"Old Roderick," as the soldiers called him, was a grim and sun-burnt warrior, who had served in the Afghan campaign, and with the army in Kohistan; he had lost an ear in the Pisheen Valley, his left hand in the Khyber Pass; he led the stormers at Ghuznee, and, covered with wounds, had been carried away for dead at Candahar.

"We are now in action," he cried, brandishing his claymore; "men, be steady--none must fall out to look after the wounded; they must lie with the dead, and remember, lads, it is as natural to die as to be born!"

"The very words of Jeremy Taylor," said Colin MacKenzie; "but who'd have thought, Gillian, of hearing them here in Persia, and from the lips of old Roderick MacAra!"

Another moment, and the gallant MacAra was lying prone on his face with a bullet in his heart; but coolly, as if upon parade, the lieutenant assumed the command of the company as the lines went on.

The attack was, in reality, made by our artillery and cavalry, supported by two lines of infantry. The cavalry, like the rush of a mighty wind, charged twice with splendid success and gallantry, the Poonah Horse burst into a square of the Kaskai regiment as if it had been but a field of wheat, and captured its colours, while the 3rd Light Cavalry, by sheer dint of the sword, nearly annihilated the entire battalion; but Captain Forbes, their leader, fell wounded, and Lieutenant Frankland, of the 2nd Europeans, acting as Brigade Major, was killed. In this charge, Lieutenant A. Moor won the Victoria Cross. "He was the first man within the square of infantry. His horse was shot under him and he was on the point of being bayoneted, when Lieutenant John Grant Malcomson, of the same regiment, rode to his assistance, cut down the Persians on the right and left, and, by dragging him out of the enemy's square, also won the much-prized Order of Valour."

Our first line of infantry rushed on; the foe were soon so close that Gillian could see the dark faces, the darker gleaming eyes of the fur-capped Persians, and the flashing of their muzzles seemed terribly near, when, with a dreadful crash, the bayonets were brought to the charge, and their whole line gave way about ten in the morning.

They fell back in a state of utter disorder, and seemed to bear away with them some of MacAra's company, who had got mingled with them in the wild _mêlée_, and among these was Colin MacKenzie.

As the regiment halted for a minute to re-form and close in, out of the hurley-burley and the smoke that whirled and eddied in front, where the Persians were crowding together in yelling herds and casting away their arms, there came the stately figure of a Highland soldier.

It was MacKenzie, who came staggering back towards the British line; save one, all the black feathers of his bonnet were shred away, his white belts were spotted with blood, one bare knee was all bloody too, like his hands and his bayonet, which was now bent and twisted. He had a fierce, dazed aspect, as if yet hand-to-hand with the Persians; his tartans were torn and his red jacket was rent under the arms. His keen eyes were dilated and his teeth were set; but a cry of "_Cuidich'n Rhi!_" ending in a low wail of agony escaped him, as he fell on his face dying.

Darting from the ranks, Gillian rushed towards him, though some Persian horsemen were riding at the fallen man with their lances. Gillian shot down the foremost, unhorsed the next with his musket, which he slung over his shoulder, and, by the fierce excitement of the moment, endowed with a strength that was far beyond what he usually possessed, he raised Colin from the ground and hurried with him to the rear.

The whole regiment applauded the action; but a ball had pierced MacKenzie--who had many wounds--in the region of the heart; and now all that was mortal on earth of the poor fellow was in the arms of Gillian Lamond, who deposited the body under a date-tree, and resumed his place in the ranks, weary, panting, breathless, and sad.

Among those who complimented him, the most flattering and not the last, was the old colonel, who served on the staff of his friend Outram as a volunteer, out of sheer love of fighting.

By this time the whole Persian army had melted away, and the field was strewed with their arms and the _débris_ of their commissariat; while nothing but the smallness of our cavalry force saved them from total destruction and the loss of all their guns. The number of their killed and wounded was never ascertained. It was only known to be very great; while on our side, the grand total of casualties of every kind amounted to only seventy-seven of all ranks.

For the remainder of the day, the troops bivouacked close to the battle-field. Along the plain were sad groups of the maimed and the bleeding, of those who were spent with exhaustion, and of others stretched on the earth, whose life was ebbing, or had already ebbed away, and who would never march again; mingled side by side with the effeminate Persians were the pale and stiffening bodies of those British soldiers,--the sturdy Saxons of the "64th," or Staffordshire, and the hardy Gaels of the Ross-shire Buffs ("that beautiful regiment," as Napier was wont to call it), who had marched to battle, reckless, defiant, full of fighting and genuine pluck,--that majesty of bravery so peculiar to our troops.

The loss of his merry, bright-eyed comrade, ever so cheery and kind, with his songs, stories, and even the endless pibrochs he was wont to lilt and whistle, was keenly felt by Gillian, and, as yet, he cared not to have another in Colin's place.

"It was formerly thought effeminate not to hunt Jews," says Leigh Hunt; "then not to roast heretics; then not to bait bears and bulls; then not to fight cocks and throw sticks at them. All these evidences of manhood became generally looked upon as no such evidences at all, but things only fit for manhood to renounce; yet the battles of Waterloo and Sobraon have been won, and Britons are not a jot less brave all over the world. Probably they are braver--that is to say, more deliberately brave--more serenely valiant; also more merciful to the helpless, and that is the crown of valour."

And in this spirit of tenderness and generosity the wounded Persians were cared for as rigidly and as kindly as our own.

For their marked bravery in this field, the 78th Highlanders were ordered to inscribe "Khoosh-ab" on their colours with "Persia."

There is always a great revulsion of the spirits after the fierce excitement of a battle, and when men have been face to face with death. Gillian felt this emotion keenly, and overcome by the whole events of the morning, lay on the ground, striving, but in vain, to sleep. He thought of yellow fields of waving grain, of revolving wheels, of anything that would induce a doze; and so he had to lie there, thinking, thinking, thinking as only the sorrowful and the desperate can do, of his dream over-night, and the death of his comrade Colin; and he envied the calm of his present companion, a little boy, who nestled asleep within his great-coat, and all unconscious that his father was lying on the adjacent field, cold and stark, with his unclosed eyes staring up to Heaven, for Gillian had promised him to carry the child safely to the rear.

Ere long the serjeant-major came to seek him, and say that the colonel had appointed him a lance-corporal for what he had done that day. To Gillian it seemed that he had done nothing; but this first step of the long ladder gave him no satisfaction; yet that solitary stripe of lace was to lead to the elucidation of much ere long.

With nightfall the army began its march of twenty miles over a country rendered all but impassable by the torrents of rain that fell, and amid a tempest reached Bushire. In some places the mud or mire was so deep that it reached the kilts of the Highlanders, and with the hail came biting winds that swept over the almost treeless waste; and yet this was in Shiraz, which the Persians say is so famous for the richness of its fruits and wine, and the beauty of its women, that had Mahomet been sensible of its many pleasures, he would have begged God to make him immortal there.

Without the loss of a straggler our troops came into Bushire, bringing with them all the wounded, and even the dead, whom the gentle and chivalrous Outram buried within our lines with all the solemn honours due to British soldiers; three volleys were fired over the great ghastly trench where they lay, and the "Point of war" was beaten beside it by the drummers.

For many days the rain fell at Bushire, as if once again the windows of Heaven had opened, and the Union Jack on the ramparts flapped heavily in the sea breeze above the Lion of Persia; and it was during these days that Henry Havelock, of noble and immortal memory, arrived from India to assume the command of his division.

About the same time there came tidings that the unhappy Mrs. Hartley was alive, but destined for the zenana of Shooja-ool-Molk, the defeated Persian general.