Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #12 March 2015 | Page 46

The bulk of the column had marched past while the
General sat deep in his thoughts. The clattering of the
supply wagons bought him back to the dry and dusty
wilderness and he turned his horse to trot back to the
head of the formation.
Not long after this a pair of lancers came into sight at
the trot. Any attempt to go faster threw up so much
dust that their position would be marked miles away,
so every rider and vehicle was keeping to a trot or
walk.
It was Captain Greyling and one of his lancers.
Captain Greyling commanded the detachment of
lancers that served as scouts for the small army. He
was old for his rank, but given his reputation, that was
not surprising. With his many achievements, he should
be a colonel by now commanding a cavalry unit in
Europe, but he had two problems.
General Summerby had looked into the records of every office under his command when he had taken over
the Cairo garrison. Greyling had been an odd one, his
record a long list of notable successes along with a
few crushing condemnations.

The other problem was that the man, while an extremely skilled soldier, was lacking in the diplomatic
and political skills required as an officer in Her Majesties Armed Forces.
Most recently he had publicly pointed out that his last
general’s tactics were inept and that his deployment of
troops failed to cover the obvious route by which he
would be outflanked.
As it turned out not an hour later, the general was outflanked in exactly that way and lost his camp, half his
baggage and supplies, and most of his native levy.
The general’s report afterwards placed the blame
squarely on Greyling’s head, for failure to scout the
enemy positions, for failure to protect the flanks, for
failure to protect the camp, and for failure to engage
the enemy in a timely enough fashion to prevent the
loss of the native levy.
The report hinted at cowardice without ever making
such a charge since a court martial would then allow
the captain to defend himself and bring witnesses who
were at the battle and had seen what happened.

The most recent, from the general who had returned to
Europe when Summerby had relieved him, had been
extremely damming. Having met the likeable and extremely efficient officer, the condemnations made no
sense so General Summerby had done a little digging.
The first problem was that Captain Greyling liked his
men to be well-trained, well-equipped, and as capable
as possible. This included a great deal of training that
certain more traditional senior officers found unnecessary for a lancer unit—training lancers to use rifles for
example, or as sharpshooters. Training them in infantry tactics. Equipping half the unit with carbines, and
the rest with at least one revolver each.

So the general had blamed the captain for his mistakes, then sailed home to England leaving a much
better soldier behind in Egypt trapped in the country
and denied well-deserved promotion.

Certain rather tradition-minded officers had objected
to all of this as being against rules and procedures.
Lancers were supposed to, well, supposed to lance.
Not ride around firing carbines and revolvers from
horseback or dismount and skirmish on foot like old
fashioned dragoons.

“General, the rebel town is just around this last hill.
The road turns to the east into a flat valley. The rebels
are about a mile across the valley. The town at the
foot of the hill, the other side and a small fort built on
thehill, the other side and a small fort built on the hill.
Walls, towers, exactly as the intelligence report stat-

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General Summerby bought the lancers directly into
his table of organisation and trained his infantry with
them. In the process, he gained a significant measure
of respect for the lancer captain, and when the orders
for this little expedition had arrived, Greyling had
been the natural choice to command the mounted unit.
Captain Greyling reigned in his horse and saluted.