The rajah’s apartments, that evening
As Hervey entered, his host held out his hand. They were to dine alone, and all but the khansamah had been dismissed. ‘Captain Hervey,’ began the rajah, his face not as grave as in the morning, ‘I have here a letter for you, just come — brought this day from the Collector of Guntoor by dak. And with uncommon velocity, I might say.’
Hervey wondered on what matter the collector might write to him, and took the letter curiously. Then he saw the hand.
‘It is not inclement news, I trust?’ asked the rajah solicitously.
‘I do not suppose it to be, Your Highness. It is a letter from the lady I am to marry. I… I am astonished that it should find me here!’
‘Do not be, Captain Hervey: we are hardly a primitive tribe of Africa here in Chintal.’
Hervey was discomfited by the rebuke. ‘Sir, I did not mean… it is just that she had every reason to suppose me in Calcutta or even Haidarabad.’
‘And how was the letter addressed?’ he asked, still kindly.
Hervey glanced at it again. ‘Captain M. P. Hervey, Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Wellington, India.’
‘In which case there can be no surprise, for such a letter, were it to be misdirected or delayed, would bring severe opprobrium on the official concerned. This is India, Captain Hervey: the duke’s name still inspires a respect verging on reverence.’
Hervey nodded, gladly acknowledging his error.
‘And now you would wish to read it in some privacy, of course. I shall retire for one half-hour and then, if it is agreeable to you, we shall resume our intercourse.’
When the rajah was gone, Hervey opened the letter. But he did so hesitantly, taking care to preserve as much of Henrietta’s seal as he could. He unfolded the single sheet; only the one — not a propitious sign. He began to read, with every shade of feeling from trepidation to joy — and guilt, for the forest was all about him in one sense still. It was addressed from Paris not five days after his leaving.
My dearest Matthew (a good beginning — as affectionate as ever he had seen),
Your letter from Paris was given to me upon arrival at Calais by the admirable Corporal Collins who was at once all solicitude, explaining that he had waited there for three days in vain, and feared that you would by then have sailed for the Indies. We set out at once, however, for Le Havre — a pleasant town where I learn that your name is now well known to the authorities for so fearlessly opposing the enemies of the King. Alas, I also learn that your ship has sailed two days before, and I am unable to find any which admits to the possibility of overtaking a frigate of the Royal Navy, and, in any case, Corporal Collins is insistent that your express wishes are that I should remain in France or England until such time as it is expedient for you to return or for me to follow you. And now I am in Paris at the house of Lady George, whose husband shows me every kindness and understanding — as, I may say, does your Serjeant Armstrong in equal measure. Tomorrow I shall call on the duke and make all our arrangements known — if, that is, he be in any doubt of them at this time — and thereafter shall return to Longleat with a heavy heart, though not so heavy as upon first hearing of your mission. Be assured, dearest Matthew, that I understand perfectly the duty to which you have submitted. I beg you do not have any concern that might stand in the way of affairs in India. I pray only that, in the fullness of God’s time, we may be restored to one another and that thereafter there should be no unwonted putting asunder.
Your affectionate — nay, adoring — Henrietta.
He was at once overcome by two wholly different responses. First, great relief at learning of Henrietta’s constancy. Second, shame at how close he had come in the forest to losing any honourable claim to it. He resolved in that instant to be done with intrigue in Chintal — for it had been that, he imagined, which had predisposed him to such conduct — and to press Selden for a speedy resolution of the matter of the jagirs. Then he might proceed with the business of Haidarabad. And when this was done he might return to Horningsham, or have Henrietta join him in Calcutta when the duke came there. By the time the rajah returned, he had steeled himself to his new course; gathering up the reins, so to speak, with a view to driving forward at last with some impulsion.
His face must have reflected this change, for the rajah felt obliged to remark on it. ‘Is everything well, Captain Hervey? You look a little agitated.’
‘Thank you, Your Highness; everything is well. There is not the slightest cause for concern.’
‘I am very glad to hear it,’ said the rajah somewhat heavily, ‘for I wish to speak with you of certain matters, and it would not do for you to be distracted. I believe I may confide in you things that I scarcely dare think to myself, for to place trust in anyone in these lands is almost always folly.’ There was sadness in his voice, but a note of optimism, too: ‘You are an honourable man. That, or I am no judge of men at all.’
If the hamadryads had not so savagely ended their own coupling, might he still have been worthy of that esteem? What might have been standing now between him and Henrietta, between him and God — and between him and the rajah? He could not blame any great primeval power, as the raj kumari might, or Selden even. If there was nothing, in one sense, beyond a fervid embrace, there was much else in his heart that called for the most abject contrition. ‘India will sweat the false civilization out of you,’ Selden had told him. And he had not believed it for one instant. To his sins, therefore, he must also add pride. ‘Sir,’ he began hesitantly, ‘I fear that I, as most men, have feet of clay.’
The rajah frowned. ‘Englishmen are inordinately fond of their Bible.’
Hervey looked surprised.
‘You think that I should not be acquainted with your good book? I have read the Bible many times from beginning to end. I read it every day. I would speak with you of it at some time. But I confess I do not remember with any precision whence come these feet of clay.’
‘The Book of Daniel,’ sighed Hervey. The knife — for such was the rajah’s undeserved admiration — was going deep.
‘Ah, yes — Daniel. Remind me of Daniel, if you please.’
Though bemused by the rajah’s diversion, Hervey needed little time for recollection, for it was one of the regular stories of his boyhood. ‘Daniel, you will recall, sir, was a Hebrew slave in Babylon, but he had become something of a favourite of King Nebuchadnezzar.’
‘I trust you see no more than a superficial correspondence with your own situation here in Chintal, Captain Hervey?’ smiled the rajah.
Hervey smiled too. ‘No, indeed not, sir.’
The rajah rose from his cushion to take a book from a recess in the marbled wall. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out the black leather volume, ‘here is your Bible. Read to me where is this allusion to feet of clay. I am much intrigued by Nebuchadnezzar and his slave.’
Hervey could not sense whether there was any design in the rajah’s meanderings, but he opened the bible a little after the middle and turned the pages until he found the Book of Daniel. ‘I think it must be in chapter two, or possibly three,’ he said, searching. ‘Yes, I have it — chapter two. The king has a dream, sir, a dream in which there is a graven image. I will read from verse thirty-two: “This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.” ’
‘Read on, if you please, Captain Hervey,’ said the rajah, sitting down by a window and gazing out into his gardens.
‘ “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” ’
The rajah remained silent for a moment. ‘And what is its meaning?’
Hervey paused a moment too. ‘Nebuchadnezzar was a great king. He is the head of gold, but the kingdoms that follow his shall be in turn weaker, until at last one — represented by the feet of clay — shall be shattered, and a greater one — ordained by God — shall take its place. It is a prophecy of the coming of the Hebrew state, sir.’
‘And what said the king to this?’ asked the rajah intently.
‘He revered Daniel thereafter, sir.’
‘Read it to me please, Captain Hervey. I wish to know exactly what is written.’
Hervey was growing uneasy, sensing now some purpose in the rajah which might run counter to his resolve over the jagirs. ‘ “Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.” ’
There was a long silence. At length the rajah sighed. ‘Captain Hervey, your father is a priest.’
Hervey confirmed, again, that it was so.
‘And it is evident that you have much learning in these matters, too.’
‘Sir, I cannot call it learning, only long exposure to scripture.’
The rajah nodded. ‘I wanted first to speak with you of the nizam, for his coming to Chintal is exercising me greatly. But now I am minded to ask you more of scripture. Captain Hervey, I tell you things that I scarce dare think. Our sacred faith is become mere superstition here in Chintal, a constant endeavour to propitiate so many gods that may do us mischief. And some gods do each other mischief so that we do not know, in appeasing one, whether we anger another.’
‘The Bible, sir, is not without its contradictions too.’ He felt reasonably sure this did not go beyond the bounds of orthodoxy.
‘Which is more than the nizam’s religion would admit to,’ said the rajah ruefully.
‘And yet he is tolerant of faiths other than his own, is he not?’ There were no rumours of conversions by the sword.
‘Who knows what is the nizam’s mind?’ sighed the rajah. ‘The best that may be said is that he despises tolerantly. Though he would not do even thus were there a Christian realm on his borders.’
‘That is hardly likely, sir, from all I have heard. The missioners make few converts, even where they are active.’
The rajah frowned. ‘Captain Hervey, the missioners would need to make only one convert in a Hindoo dominion.’
Hervey was incredulous. ‘You mean, sir, that all a prince’s subjects would be baptized with him?’
The rajah nodded. ‘Indeed, yes — all save his Mussulmen, no doubt. So you see, Captain Hervey, it would take a ruler as great as the Emperor Constantine to adopt that alien faith.’ And he smiled benevolently.
Hervey smiled too, for he knew well enough that Constantine’s conversion had as much to do with the promise of victory as anything else.
As indeed did the rajah. ‘His triumph over his fellow Caesar brought the Christians freedom to worship — yes. But I do believe his own conversion, a little later, was rather more profound.’
‘On this, who could argue?’ replied Hervey, ‘for a man’s heart — as the nizam’s bears witness — is in the end impossible to know.’
The rajah was much intrigued. ‘Mr Selden will never talk of that faith. He refers me only to the creeds.What is your opinion in this?’
Rarely did Hervey feel less adequate for a task. ‘Mr Selden,’ he began, confident that here at least he was on ground of which he could be moderately certain, ‘does not believe. That is to say, he does not believe yet. For the rest, I fear that I could give you but an unsatisfactory answer. The Nicene creed is — by my understanding — a sufficient account.’
‘You could not account more sufficiently for your own faith, Captain Hervey? I would be astonished if this were so.’
The challenge was as fair as it was difficult, he conceded.
‘Perhaps, therefore, you may ponder on it until this time tomorrow, and then we may resume. I do so feel the want of scholarship here in Chintalpore in these times.’
Hervey agreed readily enough, pleased the rajah did not press him now. To what purpose this exchange was directed, he had not the slightest idea; nor why, indeed, the rajah should at this moment feel so driven to introduce it when so much else demanded his attention. How he wished himself free of intrigue. It was uncommonly difficult to share a man’s table while at the same time being a deceiver.
Such escape was a vain hope, though. There was no dismissal in the rajah’s invitation to ponder on the creed. Instead, his aspect became grave once more as he took the bible from Hervey and placed it back in the recess. ‘Now I wish to consider with you the great danger that Chintal finds herself in,’ he said, walking to the window and glancing with more than a suggestion of anxiety towards the city. ‘I have today received intelligence that the nizam’s artillery is being assembled close to our border.’
Hervey could scarce believe it. Only a moment before, the rajah was speaking of receiving the nizam here in Chintalpore.
‘The nizam has very great artillery, Captain Hervey: he has pieces so big that the walls of any fortress would be quickly reduced.’
The exact import of the rajah’s intelligence was beyond Hervey at that moment, but the movement of artillery was a usual presage of hostilities. ‘I have heard of the formidable power of these batteries, of course, Your Highness — the nizam’s beautiful daughters?’
‘Just so — the nizam’s daughters. The daughters of Eve no less, for such power tempts a man to more than might be his due. The nizam has three sons, also — the basest of men. They have often boasted what they would do with these guns. The nizam himself at one time I called a friend, but he is become enfeebled. His sons will not be satisfied until they have disseised me of Chintal. I know they have exacted plunder from the Pindarees, and encouraged them — and aided them — in ravaging us, but the gold which my Gond subjects extract from the rivers and hills, with all the skill of their ancestors, is what their minds are set on. Captain Hervey, would you consider it possible to fight the nizam when we have but a half-dozen light pieces?’
The prospect was absurd. Had not Bonaparte himself said that it was with artillery that war was made? ‘Your Highness, I hardly know the particulars… And you have Colonel Cadorna to give you this advice, a man of greater experience than me.’
‘But he is not with me at this moment, Captain Hervey — and you are one of the Duke of Wellington’s own officers.’
It seemed pointless confessing his own narrow regimental seasoning. He wondered if the rajah somehow hinted obliquely at the obligation of the jagirs, as explained by Selden. Was this why the rajah had mentioned the duke’s name? ‘Your Highness, I am a mere staff captain. You ask me things which are of sovereign importance to Chintal—’
‘I do, Captain Hervey,’ said the rajah, softly but resolutely.
Hervey had now to think, as it were, on two tracks — as a horse responding to contrary aids. The rajah wished for his strategical opinion: that itself required the very greatest address. But he also had to consider what effect his opinion might have on the outcome of his mission, for whatever the true importance of the jagirs, his mission as stated demanded an estimate of Haidarabad’s fighting capacity. And implicit in their speaking now was Hervey’s acceptance of the nizam as the enemy — the nizam, ‘our faithful ally’ as Colonel Grant had called him. How he wished he had gone to Calcutta in the first instance. Yet how might the duke’s greater purpose be served if a man as good as the rajah were crushed? Nor was it merely a question of the worthiness of men: the independence of Chintal — the collector had made it clear — was a pressing matter to the Company. And was it not the nizam’s sons who were the enemy rather than the nizam himself? In any event, the rajah expected an answer. ‘Your Highness, if the precepts on which war is made are universal, then I fear that I have no counsel but to seek terms. But something Mr Selden has said to me may indicate that in India it may not be quite so: bullocks, money and faithful spies are the sinews of war here.’
The rajah looked encouraged.
Indeed, Selden’s words seemed to gain in substance even as Hervey spoke them. Peto’s treatise on the art of manoeuvring, which had been his constant companion these past weeks, was coming alive at last as he began to imagine the rudiments of a strategy — a strategy, indeed, not without precedent. ‘Sir,’ he resumed, and rather more resolutely, ‘the Duke of Marlborough, who mastered the French a century ago, used to say that no war can be conducted without good and early intelligence. I believe, therefore, that it is of the first importance that you should know everything there is to be known of the nizam’s intentions, and in the case of your own intentions you must dissemble to the utmost.’ He took another breath, half-surprised by his own authority. ‘You have two able rissalahs of cavalry. They should be your eyes and ears on the borders with Haidarabad; they should deceive his spies as to your strength and intentions; and, perhaps above all, they should attack at once wherever it appears the nizam’s forces are assembling, for though their material success might be limited, the moral effect would be incalculable.’
It was a faint hope, a very faint hope; scarcely grand strategy. But Hervey said it with enough resolve for the rajah to be encouraged. ‘I am indeed fortunate to have two matchless rissalahs,’ he agreed. ‘But now, Captain Hervey, let us eat — and perhaps you might begin to elaborate on your plan.’
The sudden commotion outside made the rajah start. Hervey sprang up as, seconds later, the doors flew open and in stumbled a sepoy officer smeared in blood glistening still in its freshness. Hervey lunged towards him but saw at once he could be no threat to the rajah’s safety.
The rajah’s look of anguish turned to utter dismay. ‘Subedar sahib, what has happened?’
Subedar Mhisailkar, a thickset Maratha officer who had served the rajah for thirty years, was crying like a child. ‘Sahib, sahib,’ he wailed, ‘the sepoys are killing their officers!’
His Urdu was garbled but plain enough. The rajah was unable to speak. ‘Call the jemadar,’ Hervey shouted to a bearer ‘—and Locke-sahib and Seldensahib!’
The rajah, recovering somewhat, sent for his physician and sat the old soldier down on cushions, bringing him lime-water and dabbing at the blood about his eyes with a silk square. ‘My old friend,’ he cried, ‘how could my sepoys do this to you, of all people?’
Hervey’s admiration was now as great as his pity, for here was no native despot of popular imagination, no brutal prince who would bait tigers with village boys. Whatever had brought the sepoys at Jhansikote to this, it could not have been the rajah’s tyranny.
The jemadar of the guard came running. He looked frightened. And then Selden, and Henry Locke.
‘Remember what they say,’ warned Locke; ‘the first news of battle is brought by him that runs away the soonest.’
Hervey nodded. ‘Yet I’m not inclined to believe it so in this case.’
Little by little, with many questions and diversions into Marathi, they were able to gain a picture of what had passed at the cantonments. Soon after dark, it seemed, the sepoys, led by some of their native officers, had broken into the armoury and the quarters of Colonel Cadorna and the battalion commanders, who, with their families, were the only white faces in the absence of the cavalry. All were now dead, said the subedar: wives, children, servants — everyone.
‘They waited for the rissalahs to leave,’ said the rajah, shaking his head.
‘How long will it take for them to return?’ asked Hervey.
The rajah smiled ironically. ‘They are beyond the Godavari. It would take two days to get them back this side. These sepoy leaders have been clever. I see the hand of the nizam in this — or of his sons.’
One of the rajah’s physicians had begun to examine the subedar’s wounds, and the rajah himself made to assist despite the entreaties from both.
Selden took Hervey to one side. ‘You must leave here at once.’
Hervey was taken aback by his insistence. ‘Don’t talk so: how can I walk away at this moment? In any case, you’re assuming the worst.’
‘There’s nothing else to assume!’
‘And you would leave, too?’
‘Hervey, I have never had what would pass in the Sixth for courage; but there comes a time—’
‘And this same time is the time for me to walk Spanish?’
‘Matthew Hervey, you have duties elsewhere but to the rajah.’
He thought for a moment — not long. A look came to his eyes which Selden had not seen before: a cold, mercenary look, a grim smile almost. ‘I shall stay. The rajah has no-one else—’
‘That’s all very noble but—’
‘Not noble,’ said Hervey, his brow furrowing, ‘not at all noble.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The price is those jagirs.’
‘For heaven’s sake, man! You would throw your own life away to pull the duke’s fat out of the fire?’
Hervey frowned again. ‘I don’t have any option. I’ve hazarded my mission by going against orders.’
Selden simply stared at him.
‘There’s only one means of redemption in the military,’ he smiled ruefully. ‘I want that page from the land registry.’
The raj kumari came, her face as angry as the jemadar’s had been afraid. ‘Father, have the rissalahs been summoned?’
They had not. The rajah looked at Hervey.
He ignored the question. ‘What do you believe the sepoys will do now, Subedar sahib?’ he asked instead, and then repeated himself as best he could in Urdu.
The subedar said they would wait for first light and then march on Chintalpore.
‘And they would be here within three hours,’ said Selden.
Locke was silent; so were the raj kumari and the jemadar.
Hervey looked back at Selden, whose nod sealed the bargain. ‘Then we have until dawn,’ he said gravely.
‘No,’ said Selden, ‘until three hours after dawn — eight o’clock.’
Hervey shook his head emphatically. ‘No: we have only until dawn. If upwards of two thousand sepoys fall upon the palace it will be but a matter of time before it is taken — less time than there is for the rissalahs to return. We have to stop them leaving their cantonments.’
The rajah looked as astonished as Selden. ‘How?’ they asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied calmly. ‘I cannot know until I get there. How many sowars do you have, Jemadar sahib?’
The jemadar looked even more worried: ‘Only twenty, sahib!’
Hervey fixed him with a look he hoped would pass for steel. ‘Do not say only twenty: say twenty!’
‘Yes, sahib — twenty, sahib!’
‘And galloper guns?’
‘Yes, sahib — one, sahib!’ The resolution, insane though first it seemed, was growing.
‘Locke — lieutenant of Marines — you are with me?’ said Hervey, turning square to him.
‘Hervey, I shan’t shrink from a fight, but is this one we are meant to be about?’
Locke’s prudence did him credit, Hervey knew full well. If they were elsewhere now but in Chintalpore there would be no question… ‘I could not in honour stand aside. I can say no more.’
A grim smile came over Locke’s face, for it did not augur well for the return of Locke-hall to its rightful owner. But fighting was what he did best above all things. ‘I say “Ay, ay”, then!’
‘Selden — will you stay to guard the rajah with your syces?’
‘What choice do I have, Matthew Hervey?’ The suspicion of a smile crossed his lips too.
‘Sir,’ said Hervey then, turning to the rajah, ‘is there any safer place for you or the raj kumari than here? The forest perhaps?’
The raj kumari answered in his place, a note of defiance in her voice — resentment, even. ‘We shall remain here, Captain ’Ervey. Shiva shall be our guard!’
There was a knock at the open door, an incongruous sound in the turmoil. ‘Captain ’Ervey, sir, is everything all right?’
Now at last Hervey could permit himself a true smile, for Johnson’s blitheness, his imperviousness to all beyond what intruded on the next minute, allowed nothing other.
* * *
When all but he and Selden had left the chamber, the rajah asked if what Hervey proposed had the slightest chance of success. Whether, indeed, it made the least amount of sense.
‘The answer to both, sir,’ sighed Selden, ‘in terms that would be understood by me, or most men for that matter, is no. But, as says the Bible, the battle is not always to the strong. Matthew Hervey is a brave man, believe me.’
The rajah looked thoughtful. ‘Where exactly in the Bible does it say that the battle is not to the strong?’
Selden was abashed. ‘I am very much afraid, sir, that I do not have the slightest idea.’
There was, thankfully, a moon; enough to permit Hervey’s little force to leave Chintalpore along the road to Jhansikote at a brisk trot. Four kos — nearly ten miles: they could be there by midnight. And then what? Three hours or so to think of something.
At the front of the column rode Hervey and Locke, the jemadar and two sowars riding point half a furlong ahead. Behind Hervey were six paired ranks of lancers, then the galloper gun, and then four more pairs. And at the rear was Johnson, his carbine primed and ready to fire at the slightest sign of riot (Selden had said that the sowars could be trusted, but Johnson was there to reinforce that trust). Hervey was content he could at least rely on his mount, for Jessye had more spring in her trot than he had felt in many weeks. How quickly she had regained her strength — faithful, honest mare! And he had his rifled carbine, the percussion-lock which had saved his life at Waterloo — probably the only one at the battle, and the only one in India, for sure.
They hardly spoke, for Locke had no idea how they might subdue Jhansikote’s sepoys, and Hervey was absorbed in that very question. He could find no practical help in what he had said earlier to the rajah, that nothing could be done without good and early intelligence, and that it was with artillery that war was made. All he had by way of intelligence was that there were two thousand armed, mutinous sepoys readying to march at dawn. As for artillery, his amounted to one galloper gun that could throw a four-pound shot perhaps a thousand yards. Bold action in all circumstances, demanded Peto’s thesis — the moral effect of surprise. Surprise, indeed, was the only thing they might have in this affair.
They made good progress to begin with, but the jemadar warned them that a mile or so before Jhansikote the road narrowed and passed through thick jungle. Here would be a picket, for certain. But the picket evidently was expecting no trouble since a fire gave away both its presence and disposition — fortified as it was by a tree felled across the road. Hervey’s troop stopped well short. Hervey himself dismounted and advanced cautiously until he could hear the fire crackling, peering through the darkness with his telescope — as much an aid at night to seeing near to as it was to seeing distantly by day. He could detect no-one his side of the tree. It was impossible to know how many were on the other, but he didn’t imagine there would be many, since all they would be expected to do was raise the alarm rather than fight any lengthy action. However, they were less than a mile from Jhansikote, and shots would carry that far, even muffled by the forest. He could not risk an assault head-on. Back he stalked to the troop to tell Locke and the jemadar that they would have to approach through the forest and take the picket from a flank with the sword.
The jemadar looked alarmed. ‘Sowars not like go in forest, sahib,’ he stammered.
He knew some English: that much would be useful. Hervey might have owned to a dislike for the forest too, but instead he spoke briskly in Urdu.
‘Sahib!’ snapped the jemadar when he was done, saluting and turning back to look for his dafadar.
‘What did you say to him?’ asked Locke.
‘I told him they would have more to fear from me than the jungle.’
Locke sighed. ‘They’re more likely to die with you, that’s for sure! Shall we go left or right?’
‘It seems the same to me. Shall we toss a rupee for it?’ he replied lightly.
‘For heaven’s sake, man!’
‘Very well. Which side is the moon?’
Locke glanced skywards. ‘The left.’
‘In that case we attack from the right,’ said Hervey.
Locke said nothing for a moment, and then he could conceal his puzzlement no longer. ‘Why then from the right?’
‘Because as Hindoos they will sleep facing the moon, and we shall therefore have the advantage of them.’
Locke could not but admire Hervey’s acquisition of such apt knowledge in the short time they had been in the country. ‘Very well, then,’ he whispered, ‘right it is!’
The jemadar returned with his sowars, leaving but five as horseholders. The dafadar looked a good man, a Rajpoot thought Hervey — the high cheekbones and supreme confidence. Private Johnson came up, but Hervey said he was to stay to keep an eye on the horseholders. Johnson took Jessye from him and started for the rear, for once without protest, though the muttering beneath his breath was all that Hervey needed to be reassured that his groom had not lost any of his former spirit. The remainder drew their sabres silently, and then, in single file, they slipped into the forest.
The moon was still good to them. They were able to see the road — now little more than a track — and keep parallel with it as they edged cautiously through the unearthly darkness, Hervey leading. There was more undergrowth than where he had spent the earlier part of the day, for the road allowed in light, and with that came growth on the forest floor. It was not enough to slow their progress, however. Anxiety to keep silence was what checked them. That and the dread of what lurked in the blackness. He shivered at the thought of the hamadryads.
It took more than a half-hour to cover the three hundred yards to where the tree lay across the road. They had slowed to the snail’s pace as they neared it, for although the fire was an excellent beacon, and they were able to align themselves well, the undergrowth, the dead leaves on the forest floor especially, made for noise. Hervey stopped as he came level with the picket, only twenty yards into the jungle, and motioned half a dozen of the sowars to pass him so that he would be in the centre of the line as they broke from the forest edge. Five more minutes and they were ready. Something rustled on the ground not a yard in front. He froze, expecting any second to feel the creature’s strike, or to hear a sowar shriek — or the picket to sound alarm. But there was nothing. Only the heavy silence of the jungle. He waited a full five minutes more and then motioned the line to advance. His heart pounded so hard he swore he could hear it.
The sepoy sentry at the tree, seeing them rush in, had only a second’s horror before the dafadar’s tulwar cut his head clean from his shoulders. After that it was easy. Simply a business of despatching the remainder in their sleep — eleven in all. Not one let out so much as a cry. It was a brisk, bloody business, over in less than a minute.
As they searched the dead, Hervey looked into the faces of the men who had just slaughtered their fellows. Whatever he saw he could not fathom, but one thing at least — they were more determined faces than before. Even the jemadar looked more resolute. ‘Good work!’ said Hervey. ‘Well done, Jemadar sahib; well done!’
The jemadar’s self-esteem grew visibly. It was good work: swift death to the enemy and no blood of their own shed.
‘More men are flattered into courage than are bullied out of cowardice,’ said Hervey to Locke as they sheathed their swords.
Locke seemed pensive. ‘Hervey, you said they would be sleeping with their faces to the moon. They were sleeping the other way.’
Hervey smiled. ‘I don’t play brag, my dear Locke; perhaps I should! How in heaven’s name was I to know which way they would be sleeping?’ He turned to the jemadar: ‘And now we must get that gun over this tree, Jemadar sahib!’
Locke was still shaking his head even as Hervey gave the orders for the gun-dafadar.
The jemadar assembled his NCOs, and there were words, increasingly heated, none of which Hervey could understand. In their haste to be away, the dafadar had not brought the tools to disassemble the piece and lift it — barrel, trail and wheels.
‘Jesus, nothing’s easy!’ swore Locke. ‘We could build a ramp and then haul it over, I suppose.’
‘It would take too long,’ said Hervey. ‘Jemadar sahib, the dafadar will have to jump with the gun.’
The jemadar relayed the instruction but the dafadar replied with much shaking of the head. ‘He says the horse does not jump, sahib.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Hervey. ‘All horses jump — perfectly naturally!’
‘I do not think the dafadar will be able to do so, sahib,’ he replied sceptically.
Hervey sighed. ‘Very well, let me try.’
Locke voiced his disquiet too, but what was the alternative, said Hervey. ‘We can’t take all night building a ramp. The worst that can happen is that we’ll end up with the horse and gun straddling the tree, and then we shall just have to cut it from between the shafts.’ He chose not to speak of the ruinous crash they might have at any point of the leap. ‘There is at least plenty of moon!’
He walked up to the gunhorse defiantly. ‘He pulls to the left always, sahib,’ said the dafadar, helping Hervey to shorten the stirrup leathers when he had mounted.
That was more the pity, thought Hervey, for he would need his right arm to drive the horse at the tree with the flat of his sword. All he could do was put him at his fence with so much speed that he would have no time to think about running out. The animal was a big country-bred; Hervey thought it strange the dafadar had never jumped him. Was it really possible that he could not jump?
‘Does tha want me to give thee a lead, sir?’ chirped Johnson out of the gloom.
That was exactly what Hervey was about to ask the jemadar to do. But Johnson he could wholly rely on. And Jessye — the ‘covert-hack’ so much derided by his fellow officers when he had first joined the Sixth. ‘Take her, then,’ he said. ‘Keep me close up behind, but we’ve got to hit the tree at a pace!’
A minute or so later they were ready, and he signalled the off. Johnson put Jessye into a canter in a few strides and Hervey was surprised by how the gunhorse was able to match her. He didn’t need his sword until they were a dozen strides from the tree, and even then it looked unnecessary, for the gelding was chasing Jessye strongly. The teak barrier was plain to see in the moonlight — that much was a mercy — and Jessye cleared it easily. Hervey gave the gunhorse its head and slapped its quarters with the flat of his sword for all he was worth, feeling the beginning of a pull to the left.
He jumped. He jumped big! Hervey felt the gun lift behind him, praying that the shafts wouldn’t break with the strain. The gunhorse landed square but on its off-fore, throwing Hervey’s balance and almost tipping him out of the saddle. But he recovered just quickly enough to get both legs firm on as the gun bounced hard on the ground, the horse stumbling perilously for several strides, needing every bit of Hervey’s leg to pick him up. It was a full fifty yards before he was able to bring him to the halt.
The acclamation that followed was too loud for his liking, but Hervey was pleased enough with his success to let it pass. The dafadar proffered his embarrassed apologies but Hervey made light of it. ‘Only serve your gun bravely when the time comes,’ he replied — and the NCO returned a look that assured him that on that, at least, he could count.
The remainder now led their horses into the forest, round the tree, and remounted the other side. Hervey decided they must now walk rather than trot, for he could not risk the noise as they neared the objective. Nevertheless, it was not many minutes before they were at the forest edge a quarter of a mile from the walls of Jhansikote. They dismounted once more, and Hervey, Locke and the jemadar went forward. The moon seemed even stronger now, but there was concealment enough in the shadow-pools at the foot of the trees, and Hervey could soon see the white walls of the cantonment with perfect clarity through his telescope. They brought to mind the chalk cliffs that had welcomed him home, and the Sixth, two years before — and looked every bit as daunting to scale. Between the forest edge and the walls there was nothing: no scrub for cover, no nullah along which they might crawl. And this nothing was bathed in moonlight so bright that even a crouching figure would throw a shadow for any sharp-eyed sentry to see. Hervey was growing more dismayed, for the moon was still high and could not possibly set before dawn. ‘How might a frigate take on a first-rate? For that’s how it seems to me!’ he whispered to Locke.
Locke grimaced: it was unthinkable. ‘She would have to lay alongside her before the big ship’s guns were run out, that’s for sure. And I dare say she would have to board her before she could beat to quarters. But what ship-of-the-line would allow any other to do that? We need a ruse de guerre!’
‘Just so,’ sighed Hervey, trying hard, but in vain, to think by what subterfuge they could cross the ground unseen, let alone gain the walls. He peered through his telescope for some clue.
A minute or more later and he saw what first he had failed to. The merest glow, from a sentry’s fire at the foot of the walls, revealed it. He had located the great gates easily enough in his first sweep of the field glass — immense teak barricades solid enough to withstand a whole battery of galloper guns. They stood out in the solid whiteness of the walls — Nelson-style — like the gunports of a man-of-war. And he had supposed them closed. Why, indeed, would they not be? Yet, why should they be? After all, the mutineers had a picket out, and the only troops loyal to the rajah were days away across the Godavari. He cursed himself for not seeing before. As he peered ever more intently through his telescope his heart began to race, for as his eyes became accustomed to the pools of darkness, and he gained a more accurate sense of perspective, he saw that the sentry’s fire was inside the gates! He snapped his ’scope closed excitedly.
‘What is it?’ said Locke.
‘The gates are open: they are wide open!’ he replied, smiling broadly.
Locke was not immediately reassured that they were delivered of their difficulty. ‘And your plan, therefore?’
‘To attack — at once!’
‘You mean… to ride straight at the gates?’
‘Just so! Through the gates!’ said Hervey without hesitating.
‘Ride straight into the cantonment?’
‘Yes.’
Locke paused a moment, in case he had missed some obvious key to victory. ‘And when we are inside — what then?’
‘We fight.’
Locke made himself pause again, certain that some vital element had escaped his understanding. Soon he realized it had not. ‘Hervey, that’s beyond a forlorn hope. It’s suicide!’
Hervey smiled again. ‘Racker! Wollt du ewig leben?’
Locke began to laugh, and had to cover his mouth lest the noise carry. ‘Matthew Hervey, it is you who is the rascal! Frederick the Great indeed! He was cursing a whole regiment of guards — as well you know! You mean us to gallop into their lines and just fight?’
‘That’s what a boarding party would do, is it not? It would clamber aboard and fight. It wouldn’t have a plan!’
Henry Locke had to agree it was so.
‘Well then, I wish you to take charge of the gun. I’ll have the jemadar with me; he is not the stoutest of hearts but I believe he would wish to be one, and that in my experience is often good enough. The dafadar’s a good man, and there is Johnson.’
‘What have we to fear then?’ replied Locke, clapping Hervey on the shoulder.
‘And we shall have surprise,’ he added with uncommon assurance.
It did not take long for the jemadar to relay the orders, for there were few to relay. They consisted, in essence, of galloping straight for the gates (the risk that they might be swung shut at their approach meant speed took precedence over stealth). Then they would bring the gun into action against the armoury and magazine, and fire the barrack-houses. ‘We shall have to fight for our lives, Jemadar sahib,’ Hervey had warned, and the jemadar’s face had been filled with dread. Yet he spoke firmly to his men, referring several times to Hervey as ‘son of Wellesley-sahib’, and that they were about to relive the great deeds of Assaye. At the close of the peroration the dafadar raised a clenched fist and swore a chilling oath (there was no mistaking the meaning), and the sowars likewise.
Locke reported the gun primed, with a wad to keep the charge in place as they galloped; it would take but seconds to load the bagged grape, he said, adhering strictly to the naval term. ‘I’ll take at least a dozen of the murderous heathens with that first round — and we have nineteen more, and ten roundshot!’
Hervey, himself buoyed by the audacity, drew his sabre. He had already loaded both carbine and pistol, but it was with steel he expected they would first come to close quarters with the mutineers. When he had sheathed that same sword after Waterloo, he had somehow imagined that he might never again draw it on the battlefield — and, for sure, never in so distant a place. It had accounted for many men, had never let him down; Sheffield steel and always kept sharp. Before Waterloo they had all sharpened both edges, fearing that the cuirasses of the French heavies could only be run through with the point. He hadn’t liked it since it spoiled the sabre’s balance, and more than one trooper cut his horse’s ears, or even his own arm, recovering it from a slice. He had let the concave edge of his blunt as soon as he could; he had no doubts he could run his point through any mutineer this morning. In any case, pointing was what a lancer did. A light dragoon fought with cut and slice. He smiled to himself: his first time in action with the lance on his side. But he didn’t care to calculate the odds on being able to give an account of it later.
Johnson brought Jessye up. Hervey rubbed the little mare’s muzzle with the palm of his hand, blew into her nose — as he had done every time before mounting since he had first backed her a dozen or so years before — then sprang into the saddle with sword still in hand. The troop formed in column of twos, the galloper gun in the middle, and the jemadar, with his trumpeter, took post just to Hervey’s rear. Johnson closed to his side on his Arab (still napping as much as on the approach march), and for once Hervey did not order him to the rear, for he knew he would protest loudly — and ultimately disobey. He looked over his shoulder one more time, and then waved his sword aloft: ‘Charge!’ he shouted.
And the lieutenant of Marines said quietly, ‘Here goes the last of the Lockes of Locke-hall.’
They burst from the forest edge like jack snipe. Jessye was at full stretch within a dozen yards. The noise, as hooves and the gun wheels pounded across the hardbaked ground, seemed that of a whole squadron. Hervey fixed his eyes on the gates, expecting any moment to see them swung closed, and urged his little command forward with every word of Urdu he could recall. Still there was no sign of alarm at the walls. He glanced back: the jemadar was but five lengths behind, with the rest of the column close on his heels. Johnson was wrestling with the Arab mare intent on carting him off to a flank. At two hundred yards they could see clearly through the gates, but pounding hooves meant they could not hear the shouting. At a hundred they saw the picket running to the opening — then flashes, ragged shots. Seconds later Jessye flew through the gate arch, Hervey stretching low along her neck as the picket parted before him. Johnson and the jemadar raced likewise between the still-open gates, pushing the two wings of the picket closer to the walls. But the sowars behind had lowered their lances and took the sepoys effortlessly by the point as they galloped through. Those behind found quarry too, and tossed them here and there like bags of flour, fearful screams echoing in the gate arch and the inner walls. Hervey could see others on the walls, running — but away from the gates, not towards. Locke dashed through with the galloper gun, springing from the saddle to help the dafadar and his loader bring it into action. In less than half a minute he had the grape loaded and tamped, but to his dismay there was no rush of mutineers against which to discharge it. ‘Come on,’ he shouted to the NCO, ‘wheel it over there!’ pointing to the nearest barrack-house, a long, low wooden structure with a thatch roof. They strained every muscle to pull it the thirty yards to the corner of the building, swinging the trail round to aim obliquely along its front, point-blank. Locke seized the portfire from a sowar and put it to the touch-hole. The gun went off with a terrific roar, made all the greater by echoing from the walls. The devastation astonished them: the whole of the front — doors, slatted windows, joists, everything — was stove in, and bits of burning wadding set light to the thatch. Sepoys began tumbling out, yelling, screaming, to be caught in another enfilade by Locke’s gun, reloaded with impressive address. Sowars cantered about the maidan, taking sepoy after hapless sepoy on the point of the lance. Scarcely a shot was fired in return, and none with any aim or success. But Hervey knew well enough this was but the crust with which they were engaged: there were hundreds — perhaps twenty hundred — mutineers in the lines beyond, and these must soon rally. He ran across to Locke. ‘There’s the armoury and the magazine,’ he shouted, pointing to where the jemadar had told him.
They were more solid affairs than the barrackblocks, brick-built, with tiled roofs. Nevertheless, the galloper gun’s roundshot managed to dislodge many of the tiles, though it could make no impression on the doors. ‘Jemadar sahib,’ called Hervey, ‘we must get through the roof.’
The notion of climbing to the roof now seemed no more impetuous to the jemadar than anything else he had found the courage to do that night, and he answered Hervey’s imperative with equal eagerness.
The troop dafadar had rallied the rest of the sowars by the gun, keeping half mounted and half ready with their carbines. Hervey thought it unwise yet to take the assault deeper into the cantonment, for he could have little control once they were in more confined quarters. In any event, burning thatch had blown aloft from the barrack-house and set other roofs alight. He was well satisfied with the confusion as he and the jemadar now climbed through the smashed tiling into the eaves of the armoury. Private Johnson had detached himself from the fray, as so often in the past. His speciality was progging — with nothing express in mind, but with the happy knack of recognizing the potential in any removable device, solid or liquid. A building near the magazine, equally strongly built, looked promising. It had double doors, like a barn. Indeed, it looked as if it were just that. The doors were secured only by a padlock, and padlocks had never proved more than a fleeting hindrance to his work. A hoof-pick became a lock-pick, and in no time the doors were swinging open to reveal the spoils.
The stench sent him reeling, and before he was recovered a press of sepoys loomed. He drew his sabre — a magnificent gesture of defiance in the face of scores of mutineers. But it checked their egress nonetheless, and for what seemed an age Johnson stood with his sword arm extended, holding at bay what he now supposed to be a whole company. At length, one of them stepped forward and bowed, making namaste. Johnson sensed a trick. Then another did the same, and another, and then more shuffled out, all silently making namaste. Private Johnson saw he had a company of sepoys his prisoner, but what he might do with them was not so obvious. Would they return to their quarters with as much docility as they had emerged? He took a step forward and gestured with his sabre for them to go back inside, but the leader bowed once more, held out his hands and spoke with sufficient entreaty in his voice for Johnson to know that something was not as he supposed. Why, after all, had there been a padlock on the outside? Was this the guardhouse? Were they defaulters? Surely not so many? He cursed them roundly for having no English.
The same instinct for the potential in any booty now told him that these sepoys might be of use to his officer, for they appeared to have no weapons and seemed willing to obey his gestured commands — except, that is, to return to their stinking confines. ‘Coom on, then,’ he bellowed in his most stentorian Sheffield. They did. They formed fours and marched in step behind him out onto the maidan and towards where Locke and the gun stood steady as a Waterloo square. ‘Mr Locke, sir, I think these men want to be us friends,’ he called.
The dafadar shot to attention and brought his tulwar to the carry. ‘Subedar sahib!’ he snapped.
The sepoy who had been first to make namaste returned the salute with his hand. He said something unintelligible to either Locke or Johnson, but the dafadar relaxed and sloped his sword.
Locke was quick enough to surmise these were no ordinary mutineers, but he swung the gun round at them nevertheless. The column gasped, and the sepoys began to waver, but their leader calmly made namaste again. ‘We are your prisoners, sahib; we are innocent of any offence,’ he protested in Urdu.
‘Go and get Captain Hervey from that building yonder,’ said Locke, indicating the roofless armoury.
Johnson doubled across the maidan just as the armoury doors flew open to reveal Hervey and the jemadar about to torch a mound of kindling. ‘Sir,’ he shouted, quick to the mark, ‘there’s some ’Indoos as can use them muskets on our side!’ pointing out the piled arms.
Hervey looked unconvinced, or at least puzzled.
‘Sir,’ insisted Johnson, ‘’ave found some prisoners! I don’t know what they’re saying but they seems to want to fight for us.’
The jemadar pushed past him, looked towards the gun and began nodding his head vigorously. It was so, he assured him. ‘They are Rajpoots, sahib! The rajah has one company from Mewar. Rajpoots would not have mutinied like the others!’
There was no time for Hervey to make sense of this difference of loyalties, only to exploit it. Neither was there time for any lengthy interrogation: he must either trust and arm them or fire the armoury at once — and, in any case, he could have no exact idea how many weapons were already in the hands of the mutineers.
‘Very well, Jemadar sahib, call them; let’s arm them and stand our ground in the maidan!’ He spoke, without thinking, in English, but the jemadar knew his thoughts by now, confident at last they could prevail.
The Rajpoots numbered a little short of sixty. At first they had looked a rabble, easily held at bay by Johnson’s sabre. But as soon as they had muskets in their hands they were transformed. They were tall, proud sepoys again, even without uniform (for none was clothed above the waist). Their subedar barked a series of commands, and from this unpromising mass of half-bare disorder three ranks of soldierly-looking musketeers formed before Hervey’s eyes. A company of Jessope’s own Coldstreamers could hardly have had a profounder effect at that moment. He nodded approvingly to the subedar and indicated the direction from which at any minute he expected the mutineers to come like a great wave. The subedar barked more orders — Left-form at the halt! The three ranks pivoted half-left with speed and precision, and now Hervey too believed that winning was no longer dependent on an act of God. Locke took the gun off to a flank, supported by half a dozen sowars, to be able to sweep the maidan with enfilading fire. The armoury blazed, though they had been unable to make any impression on the magazine. But for the time being they commanded its approaches.
Hervey himself stood, dismounted, with carbine and sabre, at last with a moment to contemplate their position. He soon wished he had not, for the odds against them were, perhaps, a little short of thirty to one.
They did not have long to wait. They heard the wave before they saw it: howling, shrieking, wailing — chilling the blood quicker than the drumfire at Waterloo. And when the wave came, it was more fearsome than anything he had seen. Hundreds upon hundreds of sepoys, like the wildest beasts of the jungle. Not in any order, like a regular wave, but as a great foaming breaker about to pound upon a beach. The old feeling clasped at his vitals — the mix of paralysing fear and energizing thrill that came when life or reputation faced extinction. He had never faced an assault dismounted before, never had to wait at the halt rather than drive forward to meet it. His throat dried like parchment, and he swallowed rapidly to slake it sufficiently to give the order. Locke discharged the galloper gun as the wave rolled over the maidan. He had double-shotted it, and the two four-pound iron balls scythed through the mass of sepoys with brutal destruction. The great human wave had no knowledge of the gun, though. They heard its report, even in their lust to be about the little force by the gates, and they could hear the screaming and see the limbless and disembowelled. But none seemed to see the cause. Was it a part of their madness? Did any in that primitive swarm have any consciousness? The flames from the buildings dazzled them rather than lit their way, yet they slowed not a bit. Then came a flash like lightning in the face of the wave, and another loud report which for the moment overcame the animal clamour. And more men were writhing in agony. Then the same again as the Rajpoots’ middle rank discharged its volley, and then the same once more from the rear rank. There were dead and dying mutineers where, only seconds before, their leaders would have promised them the blood of the intruders. Locke’s gun thundered again and yet more roundshot felled lines of men in ghastly disorder. Then came the bugle, and the jemadar charged with his dozen lancers into the dazed mass, for whom now there was no hope of resistance, only flight or death.
For many it was both. No matter which way they ran — forward, left or right — they were met with fire or the lance. Or, for those who tried to clamber back over the bodies of their fellows, strewn across the maidan like pebbles thrown about the sand, there were the multiple bags of grape which Locke was now firing with double charges that sent the gun jumping ten feet in its recoil. Those sepoys who, in this economical yet lethal crossfire, were able to recover their individual senses began to prostrate themselves in abject surrender. One way or another, in a few more minutes there was no-one left standing in the maidan.
Hervey knew what would happen next if he did not take action at once. The exhilaration — the relief — of being alive and in command of the battlefield would turn to a dangerous torpor. If he let go now he might never be able to rouse his eighty stout hearts again. They must not wait for the sun to rise, when those mutineers not prostrate before them would see just how few they were. He set about quartering and combing the maidan with the Rajpoots and corralling the surrendered in his new allies’ former prison, using the lancers as drovers — all the while covering the entrance with the galloper gun, though it had little ammunition left. As day broke — rapidly, as always — they had cleared the maidan of the living and halfdead, leaving the lifeless — already the object of swarms of ants and flies — to impede the next wave, and were braced for another attack. Of the infantry at Jhansikote, sixty stood with Hervey, three hundred were secured in the granary, and as many were lying in the maidan. There might be a thousand yet to account for. He knew he could not suppose his position as strong as before: the Rajpoots had plenty of ball cartridge, it was true, but the gun had next to nothing and they no longer had the advantage of night. Spirits were high, though: they had not lost a man. The mutineers had scarce fired a shot.
Only now did it occur to him: why had they not fired? Why, indeed, were there no skirmishers harrying them from the walls? He ran forward, cursing, to examine a musket lying on the ground. It wasn’t loaded, or even primed. He picked up another — the same. And another, and another — all without charge or ball! So their leaders were going to issue powder and shot only as they marched, said Hervey aloud; or perhaps only when they reached Chintalpore. Such was the insurance that perfidy required! ‘The race is to the swift,’ said Hervey aloud.
Johnson furrowed his brow. ‘Tha’s not quoting scripture again, sir?’
‘I am,’ replied Hervey. ‘Indeed I am challenging it — Ecclesiastes no less!’
His groom looked bemused.
‘Ecclesiastes — Solomon’s great work on the vanity of man: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong… but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Time and chance happeneth to all, Johnson!’
‘Very pretty, Captain ’Ervey, but where does it get us next?’
‘It takes us into the cantonment. It takes us right into their lines. And we shall not fire another round! Fetch Jessye and ask the jemadar and his troopers to assemble!’