The plains of the lower Godavari, four days later
The rajah’s modest force at Jhansikote was better found than Hervey expected. It cheered him greatly, for though he had left Chintalpore with his head full of heroic thoughts of Assaye, he had almost become resigned to a hopeless outcome. Defeat for the rajah, confusion for the Company, was what any reasonable appreciation would suggest. And for himself… oblivion, at best. What a loathsome month it had been — a month like no other he had seen: not before Corunna, neither after Toulouse, nor even before or after Waterloo. Then there had been a discernible strand of purpose — some clarity, even — in their endeavours. However, the rajah’s two rissalahs of cavalry, albeit with remounts in want of schooling, and the three battalions of infantry had the stamp of a brigade drilled with purpose and infused with confidence. That much was obvious at once, testimony to Henry Locke’s aptitude and determination. How the marine had managed it Hervey could not imagine, for the sepoys spoke in so many different tongues and Locke had no Telugu or Urdu, nor even any German, and no others had any English beyond the here and now. It was all the greater surprise, therefore, when Hervey learned that the force was now under the command not of Locke, but of Alter Fritz.
Alter Fritz could not explain why Locke had taken leave of his command. The old Württemberger had even less English than the native officers, and Locke had not been able to convey his thoughts well, it seemed. He had therefore given the Rittmeister a letter for Hervey, but in a comedy of errors it had been rendered unreadable when the German’s sabretache had proved not to be waterproof. All that Hervey could now glean was that Locke had become cast down on receiving his note, learning that the nizam’s guns had slipped from their grasp at the border, and that he had left some hours before the news of the destruction on the river reached Jhansikote.
Hervey was now plunged into deep gloom. If he had ever truly thought there to be a chance of overcoming the Pindarees it was only with the resolute help of Henry Locke. What had made him discouraged — Locke, the staunchest of men, the doughtiest of fighters? It was inconceivable that he should take counsel of even his most deadly fears. And yet he was not at his post. Could the sodden letter have contained any explanation that might remove from Hervey’s reluctant thoughts the word ‘desertion’? Surely it must.
But what, now, was he to make of Selden’s fear that Alter Fritz might be implicated in the business of the batta? The officer’s very presence signalled the improbability of guilt — unless he were scheming to deliver the rajah’s lancers into the nizam’s hands. Hervey knew he must trust to his judgement in this. He had not in the beginning always judged men right, but years with the duke’s army had taught him well enough. Taking Alter Fritz to one side as they watched a procession of grass-cutters bearing their loads to the stables, he chose to confront him more or less directly, and in his own tongue. ‘Rittmeister Bauer, could the sepoys have been placed under stoppages without knowledge of their officers?’
Alter Fritz seemed surprised by the question — a not unreasonable reaction, thought Hervey, given their circumstances. ‘Not without the quartermaster knowing,’ he replied unflinchingly.
So plain an answer augured well. ‘And therefore the sepoys were cheated by a European officer?’
‘Yes, and he is dead, I am pleased to say.’
Hervey thought it base to continue in this way: he would speak openly. ‘Certain papers have been found in Chintalpore which suggest that more than one officer may have been guilty.’
‘They are all dead but me, and so you wish to know—’
Hervey, deeply embarrassed, made to stay his words.
‘No, Hervey. It is right that you should consider it — your duty as a soldier.’
Hervey’s look indicated his gratitude.
‘But there is nothing I can say. No papers will show any guilt of mine, yet I can do nothing to prove that I am without it.’
‘You are here: that is enough, perhaps?’
‘Ja, Hervey — I am here.’
Rani knew why Locke had been downcast. Rani, the hijda whom Hervey had asked to accompany him, knew everything about the gora log. Yes, Rani knew the reason Locke had gone, and now he spoke. There was only one person who knew in advance of Hervey’s intentions, he said in his squeaking Urdu. It was Locke. And Locke had told the nautch girl with whom he shared his bed. Pillow talk had given away the secret, said the hijda, running his tongue between his lips. And now Locke-sahib could not face the shame.
Hervey felt the shame strongly enough just hearing him speak of it.
But Rani knew not quite so much of the gora log as he supposed. An hour later, just as the little force was about to leave Jhansikote for the lower plains, Cornet Templer returned from his galloper duties and was able to disavow all thoughts of Locke’s perfidy — if not of his want of judgement. The dust of the cornet’s hard ride, turning his uniform to the colour of the earth, and caked hard to his hands and face by sweat and the baking heat, neither obscured his fine features nor shrouded his golden hair. Rani’s excitement was all too apparent, but Templer merely smiled where Hervey recoiled, for he had been in Hindoostan long enough.
‘Well, then, man!’ demanded Hervey, his frustration with everything and everybody getting the better of him. ‘What is it that Mr Locke thinks he is about?’
Templer smiled winningly. ‘I saw him on the road to Guntoor — or, rather, to Rajahmundry: the two are as one for much of the way—’
‘Yes, yes, Templer: let us have it directly!’
‘Well, he would not tell me what he was about, only that he would deal with the nizam’s guns in his own way. He said that he had written a full account for you, and had given it to Captain Bauer.’
Hervey could only raise his eyebrows. ‘The Godavari has claimed the account as well as the nizam’s daughters — some of them, at least.’
‘Sir?’
‘It is no matter — not at this time. Continue, if you please.’
‘That is it, sir. Except that Mr Locke said that he was having to work on the presumption that you might be dead!’
‘I could have no quarrel with the logic of that, be assured of it!’ laughed Hervey, pleased at least that Locke’s steadfastness could no longer be doubted.
‘And now, is the collector able to render us any assistance?’
‘Yes indeed, sir!’ beamed Templer. ‘Two rissalahs of Colonel Skinner’s irregulars!’
‘No artillery?’
‘Artillery? Yes, sir: a troop of the Gun Lascar Corps from Madras.’
Hervey looked at him despairingly. ‘Mr Templer, it is artillery which we have greatest need of; you might have told me of them first!’
Templer was unabashed. ‘You have not seen Colonel Skinner’s Horse, sir!’ he grinned.
Irrepressibility was not to be undervalued, Hervey told himself, however trying it might be. ‘Well done, sir!’ he acknowledged. ‘And when might we expect them?’
‘Gallopers were sent to Rajahmundry, where Colonel Skinner’s regiment have come from Calcutta. And the Gun Lascars have already set out from Guntoor. Their progress will not be rapid, for the artillery is hauled by bullocks. Two days, perhaps three?’
‘Oh,’ said Hervey; ‘not as felicitous as I was beginning to imagine.’ And then, as if he remembered an obligation to be at all times optimistic, he added: ‘But a great deal better than nothing.’
All that was a day and a half behind them. As, too, were sixty weary miles of marching, part by day and part by night, until they were come from Jhansikote to the plains of the lower Godavari, the plains where Hervey had first become acquainted with Chintal through the distress of the rajah’s favourite hunting elephant. Now it was so much hotter than then, and more parched, for the monsoon was a month at least in the coming — if, indeed, it came at all. Green was no longer a colour of any prominence on the plains, except in the jungle itself. It was but an hour after sunrise, and already the heat was distorting any image beyond a few hundred yards.
The rajah’s men were breaking camp after hazree — eggs, ghi, pulses, dakshini rice, dried fish, mutton, poori. It was a breakfast, said Alter Fritz — a quartermaster of very singular ability — that would send them into battle with not a doubt as to the rajah’s generosity (and, therefore, their loyalty). Mention of the rajah set Hervey brooding once more: if only he had insisted on his coming here, for sepoys and sowars alike would need more than a good meal to inspire them for what was to come. But they had at least slept well. He had estimated that the enemy would not risk an attack during the night. Why, indeed, should they? Their greatest strength (and, certainly, their superiority) lay in the guns which stood immobile in the redoubts half a league across the kadir. There was little point in attacking at night when that advantage would be at nought. Selden had said they would not attack at all. Pindarees never attacked: they awaited attack and, if it looked to be overwhelming, they simply fled. So Hervey had stood down all but a company of sepoys, and these in turn had been able to pass a restful night in surveillance of the approaches to the camp abetted by the fullest of moons.
But not all of the rajah’s men had passed the silent hours in sleep or on watch. Hervey himself had spent the early part of the night writing letters. He was not without hope for the outcome. Assaye had, after all, been a battle which by rights should not have gone to the duke. But he had much to explain — to Paris (he scarcely dare think of the duke as he wrote), to his family, and to Henrietta. Sleep, he knew, would not in any case come easily. And then when the moon rose, at a quarter to midnight, he had accompanied a little party of sepoy officers and NCOs to dig and set fougasses with the dafadars in charge of the galloper guns. There had been no shortage of powder in Jhansikote, but after the affair with the nizam’s guns at the river there was now an abundance, for several barrels had floated to the bank, their contents as dry as dust with the tar sealing, and one of the two powder barges had fallen into their hands intact. When first he had explained his intention the dafadars seemed incredulous. Indeed, Hervey himself had never actually seen a fougasse, nor even heard of its making — except that years before he had read some dusty tome in the library at Longleat about the ancient fougasse chambers along the Maltese coast. How strange, he thought as they dug, that a childhood foray among the marquess’s bookshelves should come to such a fruition. Templer had asked him why he made this effort, to which he had replied that since he could not increase his cannonading, explosive pits packed with stones and musket balls must suffice — ‘poor man’s artillery’ he said they were called. And, he declared, their value might be even greater than cannon in the complete surprise of the sudden eruptions.
The work took until after two, and by then a portion of the kadir forward of their right flank, which Hervey already intended to picket, and extending to two furlongs, was peppered with his medieval devices. He had resolved not to make his final appreciation, however, until first light. Then the kadir would be revealed by the sun’s searching power, rather than by the moon’s deceptive glow. And, perhaps even more important, he would have the results of the night’s reconnaissance, for since shortly after dusk his spies had moved freely about the Pindarees’ camp, and even among the nizam’s gunners in their bivouacs beside the cannon. Never could he recall hearing of so free a play of spies. But then the hijdas were no ordinary agents. Before they had left Jhansikote Rani had been joined by a half-dozen others from the Chintalpore hijron, and several more later from that at Polarvaram, and all night they had capered and debauched their way among the enemy’s campfires until the cockerel booty had warned them to leave. An hour before dawn they had slipped back into Hervey’s lines, waking a good number of sepoys by their squeals and laughter, and assembled outside his tent. Torches cast an unflattering light on their gaudy sarees, but, all revulsion at their ambiguity overcome (holding them in some affection, even), he had listened carefully to what they had discovered, only occasionally finding his Urdu insufficient. But their night’s work, though valiant, yielded nothing that provided the key to unlocking the great task before him. True, they had been able to confirm that there were eight guns, whose barrel length was that of the tallest of the hijdas (Hervey had tried not to squirm as that individual related in lewd detail how he had come to be able to judge the length so exactly), also that there were many horses, tethered properly, and arms piled in soldierly fashion in parts of the camp. Behind these disciplined lines, however, lay a host of camp followers, whose fires stretched so far that it was impossible to estimate their number or extent. The only opportunity which the hijdas’ intelligence brought was in this mass of camp followers — no doubt laden with the spoils of their past weeks’ depredations, as tight-packed and immobile as their reputation for intoxicated indolence promised. They might well impede the retreat of the fighting men, for there was the river on one side, and the forest on the other.
But how was Hervey to compel any retreat? The kadir between his lines and the Pindarees’ would be swept by the fire of those eight guns (by the hijdas’ description, the fearsome thirty-six-pounders, with a range of one mile). Equally, the forest and the river limited his chance of manoeuvre. Late in the afternoon of the day before, as they were about to set up camp, he had contemplated doing what he had done the night they had galloped to Jhansikote and found the tree and the picket barring their way on the forest track. But that night they had traversed — what? — half a furlong of jungle? Not more than one and a half, certainly. And their progress had been slow, tiring and unsure. Here, at night, they would have to steal into the forest half a mile at least from the Pindaree lines. They could not reach the lines before dawn, and once the sun was up they would surely be detected if the enemy had taken the slightest precaution of posting sentinels. By day they would have to cover three times that distance, for there was no closer concealed entry to the jungle. They could, perhaps, make the best part of the distance before dark, leaving the last furlong or so to the night, but it would still be risky, and they would lose a whole day in which the Pindarees might even go onto the offensive. It was a doubtful option.
And so, with the sun’s growing heat threatening the most uncomfortable of fighting — but also beginning to put life back into the weariest of the sepoys — and with the cooking fires and spices already sweetening the habitually fetid air of a military camp, Hervey surveyed the kadir through his telescope. He made one resolution at least. He would not make the mistake of fighting when or whom there was no need. The guns were his objective: counter those and the day would be his. But although this helped concentrate his attention on that to which he must direct the principal effort of his force, it did not provide him with an answer to how he might achieve his object. How might he subdue the guns? How might he even reach them without challenging — head-on — the Pindaree cavalry? They greatly outnumbered his and would not be inclined to run, as usually they were expected to, while the guns covered them. What was his little force capable of? He could not consider what the promised augmentation from Guntoor might allow, for there was no knowing when they might arrive. He could dispose six companies of infantry which had been trained, during the past few days, to work as light troops capable of skirmishing and responding to the bugle rather than to fight as dense-packed bearers of volleyed musketry. Without the nizam’s guns to play upon them he was sure they could reach the Pindaree lines. If only there were not the guns! Every time it returned to that question. But just as bewilderment was turning to desperation a thought occurred to him. He reined about and trotted back towards his tent, jumping from the raj kumari’s handy second Kehilan — which she had insisted he take when finally they had parted at the palace — and shaking the sleeping hijda on the ground outside.
‘Yes, Captain sahib?’ he said, blinking.
Hervey did not even have to think of the Urdu. It came at once. ‘Rani, did you visit each of the guns last night?’
‘Yes, sahib, all of them.’
‘How strongly built were the redoubts — the little forts that the guns were in?’
‘Very strong, sahib.’
‘Not easily knocked away?’
‘No, sahib.’
To the hijda’s puzzlement, Hervey looked pleased. ‘And how narrow were the embrasures — the spaces through which the guns fired?’
‘Not more than a woman with voluptuous hips could pass, sahib,’ replied Rani, pouting and describing the shape with his hands.
The Urdu escaped him, but the hijda’s hands said enough. He smiled to himself. Could it be that the nizam’s men had made the mistake of doing what many an embattled gunner had done before, and sacrificed traversing for protection? Yes: this was their Achilles’ heel! This was where he would direct his lance!
He was already back in the saddle when he heard it. First a murmuring, then a buzzing, and then — if not cheering — sounds of distinct approbation. He turned to seek its cause, and there was a sight as glittering as that before Waterloo, when the Duke of Wellington and his staff had made their progress through the ranks. But, he smiled, what a contrast with the duke’s sombre, civilian attire that day was the court dress of the Rajah of Chintalpore!
‘Good morning, Your Highness,’ said Hervey, saluting. He could scarce believe the felicity of the timing. Five minutes before and the rajah would have found him with no plan, and each would have fuelled the other’s despair. Now, though, the rajah was inspired by Hervey’s sanguine air, and he likewise by the rajah’s substance and dignity.
‘Captain Hervey,’ he replied with a smile, ‘you see before you a very indifferent soldier but, I hope, one that may have some utility.’
‘Sir, your coming here now is most welcome to me, and I have no doubt it is everything to your sepoys,’ he replied, bowing.
‘Is there time for you to explain to me what is your design for battle?’
Hervey returned his smile willingly. ‘Indeed there is, sir. It is, in any case, a simple plan. First let me point out to you the ground — the sun is not too bright for you to make out the Pindaree lines in the distance?’
The rajah shaded his eyes and peered across the kadir. ‘Oh yes, Captain Hervey, I see them very well. And the guns like the walls of Jericho. How shall you tumble them?’
Hervey smiled again. ‘If I may first explain the ground, sir. See how on our right the Godavari constrains our manoeuvre — and that of the Pindarees too. It is too deep to cross in force: it cannot therefore be the means of outflanking the line of the guns.’
The rajah nodded in agreement.
‘On the left is the jungle. It constrains our manoeuvre as surely as the river, except that, for a short distance at least, it might afford cover. But progress on foot would be too slow, and with horses impossible.’
The rajah nodded again.
‘The distance to the guns is about one half-league, and the distance from the forest to the river, at its widest part, the same, though it narrows to no more than a mile where the guns are — as you may see.’
The rajah saw it all with perfect clarity.
‘There are eight guns, sir, and they command the approaches across both the kadir and the river—’
‘But how can we possibly advance in the face of such a cannonade?’ said the rajah, unable to contain himself.
Hervey nodded respectfully. ‘Ordinarily, Your Highness, we could not. But the embrasures in each redoubt are extremely narrow, which means that the guns are not able to traverse to their extreme left or right. Neither will they be able to depress far enough to sweep the final approaches. They are also strongly built—’
‘Then that is more ill news, is it not, Captain Hervey?’ the rajah protested.
‘Not really, sir. If they are strongly built then the gunners will not be able to break them down quickly when they discover their mistake. If we could capture just one of the redoubts and use powder to blow up a wall, we could enfilade each of the others, reducing them one by one.’
The rajah looked at him in dismay. ‘That is not possible, surely?’
‘It is an option of difficulties, certainly, sir — but what other do we have? Awaiting the collector’s reinforcements risks being overwhelmed in an attack once the Pindarees discover our strength — or rather the want of it.’
‘I see your reasoning well enough, Captain Hervey, but how do you intend capturing a redoubt?’
‘Quite simply, sir, I intend getting sepoys along the cover of the forest edge to a point where they may enfilade the Pindarees — and perhaps even the redoubt nearest the forest, for the flanks are not wholly walled.’
The rajah pondered the notion before nodding his head slowly. ‘But one more question, Captain Hervey: how have you discovered this critical information about the guns? Your telescope alone would not reveal it.’
‘No, indeed, sir. I sent spies into the Pindaree lines last night.’
The rajah eyed him sternly before nodding again, but this time with a smile. ‘As did Joshua?’
‘As did Joshua, Your Highness,’ said Hervey, smiling.
‘And is there a Rahab in the Pindaree lines?’
‘No, sir; merely some brave hijdas, now returned.’
‘Hijdas. Always hijdas,’ he tutted. ‘But now you have to be about your business?’
‘Yes, sir. I have my orders to give.’
His officers assembled in the lone shade of a flame tree in full bloom. Locke’s absence he now felt all the more as he looked into the faces of those on whom his plan depended. Templer, for all his youthful enthusiasm, was no substitute, and Alter Fritz was… old. The faces of the native officers revealed a mixture of eagerness and apprehension. Hervey explained his design to tolerable effect in a mixture of Urdu and German (which Alter Fritz then rendered in Telugu — and not once was the rajah’s facility called on). The sepoy officers, hearing the plan, now looked keen. The rissalah officers looked disappointed, however.
‘You want us only to make a demonstration, sahib?’ they said disconsolately.
‘Yes, to begin with. We must tempt their attention away from the companies as they advance along the forest edge on our left flank. We must therefore convince them that we intend moving along the river’s edge in strength. We might tempt their cavalry to a charge and lead them onto the fougasses.’
The cavalrymen looked a little happier.
Hervey turned back to the infantry. ‘When you sepoys reach your enfilade position I shall gallop our guns to join you, and bring them to bear at close range on the embrasures, or even on the flanks of the redoubts if we have got far enough round.’ He now turned to Alter Fritz: ‘Have you the taste for the sabre still, Captain Bauer? Shall you take command of the cavalry?’
Alter Fritz’s face lit up. ‘Hervey, with sword in hand I die here!’
Hervey smiled and clapped the old Württemberger on the shoulder. ‘Then let us begin, before the sun makes our work even hotter than will the nizam’s daughters! But first,’ he said, turning to the rajah, ‘Your Highness, do you wish to say anything?’
The rajah looked around benignly at the dozen or so officers crouching in the flame tree’s welcome shade. ‘Only this,’ he began in Telegu: ‘today I believe is a day when honour shall return to us all in full measure. May your god be with you.’
All stood. Alter Fritz saluted, his face still aglow, and the rajah walked with his officers towards where their bearers waited.
Turning to Templer, Hervey said simply, ‘Now you know what is my design. If I should fall then it is you who shall have to see it through. I want you to leave your horse and go with the sepoy companies.’
‘But—’
‘There can be no “but”. Alter Fritz is well able to see to the demonstration. The point of decision will be with the sepoys on the left. That is where I shall be as soon as the Pindaree cavalry is drawn across to the right and you have reached a position of enfilade on the left.’
And then they shook hands.
The sepoys’ blue coats stood a better chance of going unnoticed than the scarlet of the British infantry would have, but a diversion nevertheless seemed prudent. Hervey therefore ordered one rissalah to advance along the river bank with the galloper guns to draw fire — which he was confident would be opened prematurely by the nizam’s gunners in their eagerness to begin work. ‘Double your charges,’ he told the gunner jemadar. ‘Do not concern yourself with any effect but that on the enemy’s attention.’
Though he knew where he wanted to be, Hervey knew where necessity demanded he should be, and he now took post in the centre of his depleted brigade, drawn up with four companies in line and a halfrissalah on either flank. From here he would watch his design for battle unfold, and judge the moment when and how to make the dash to join the sepoys’ enfilade. And as he sat, keenly observing the flattest, emptiest arena on which he had ever faced battle, his thoughts turned not to home, as they had done before Waterloo, but to that very battle, with its many, many times greater numbers — horses, guns and men. Yet though the numbers were vastly greater at Waterloo, he fancied his situation now not entirely unlike the duke’s that day: at least, in the closing stages of the battle. He sat astride a horse not much bigger than a pony, in front of a body of men who, though stout-hearted enough, faced what must be overwhelming odds.
And yet there was one test they would not face — the test that had been Major Edmonds’s and then Captain Lankester’s as they had had to judge the effect of the enemy’s cannonading on their line. For this morning Hervey’s brigade was outside the guns’ range, and he intended that it remain so. Nevertheless, he knew that the smallest misjudgement would see them all perish.
Alter Fritz and his rissalah advanced in two ranks at the trot. The lance pennants, though there was no breeze, fluttered with the forward movement — a pretty sight, thought Hervey, and unusual for its not facing him. He watched through his telescope as they proceeded with admirable steadiness towards the Pindaree lines, Alter Fritz sitting erect in the saddle, as proud, no doubt, as when he had first been a trooper on parade for Duke Charles Eugene. When the rissalah was half-way to the lines, there was a long, rolling eruption of flame, smoke and then noise from the nizam’s guns. The range was extreme, yet Hervey held his breath as the rounds arched lazily towards the lancers in a graceful parabola: he could see each one of them quite clearly. All fell short of the rissalah by a furlong at least, one ball bouncing into the river, sending up a fountain of water and steam, followed by another and then another. Two balls bounced straight at the lancers, but with each bounce their velocity was diminished, and the ranks opened to allow them to pass through harmlessly. The three remaining shot were what interested Hervey most, for they were so wide of their mark (fired, he supposed, by the guns on the Pindarees’ left) that he knew their traverse must indeed be severely limited, with only the narrowest of arcs. Though the battery was able to sweep the whole of the kadir, and very effectively out to a quarter of a league, they were not able, it seemed, to concentrate on one target. It was exactly as he hoped. And then, a minute later, Alter Fritz having most daringly advanced a further hundred yards, the second salvo was fired (equally without damage) and Hervey realized the full import of the limited traverses: at half the distance between the cannons’ first graze and the muzzles themselves there would be a significant extent of frontage which the guns could not cover at all. He had never been especially good at geometry — and he would have wished now for paper and protractor — but, by his rapid calculation, at that distance half, indeed, of the front would be uncovered.
Now here was an opening. Between salvoes he could take the whole of the cavalry in a gallop from as close as where Alter Fritz and his rissalah stood presently in safety, and in the time before the gunners could fire another round they could be through the belt entirely swept by fire (he supposed the enemy must have explosive shells as well as roundshot) and into that where the arcs could not interlock. From then on the odds would change in their favour until, in the final furlong or so, the guns would scarcely be able to bear on more than a fraction of his front.
A frontal assault on any guns was, however, a calculated gamble, for there were bound to be casualties, especially close in when they began firing canister. It was, therefore, merely attrition — and a cynical attrition at that. Any cavalryman felt a deep repugnance towards confronting guns with nothing but the breasts of horses and brave men. And Hervey not least: he could not throw away the lives of any of his command in so premeditated a fashion. But the effort in this appreciation might not be wasted yet, for he saw clearly now that to disrupt the fire of the two guns on the Pindarees’ right was to open up an approach by which he could, perhaps, turn their flank.
Alter Fritz and his rissalah were doing sterling work drawing the guns’ fire — and, thereby, the Pindarees’ attention — to the right flank. The old quartermaster judged it prudent to advance no further except to send forward an open line of mounted skirmishers to try to draw the fire of the Pindaree cavalry mustered in a dense mass before the guns — by Hervey’s estimation, perhaps a thousand or more. And his stratagem was working, for all attention seemed fixed on the river flank. A calm settled once more on the kadir, as the gunners perceived their powder to be wasted at that extreme range, and all of Hervey’s force stood motionless in place. All, that is, but the two companies making their way on the left — still undetected — along the forest’s edge, and the mounted skirmishers advancing with deliberate slowness on the right.
It was now becoming uncomfortably hot: not yet the heat that seized the whole of the body in a vice, but fierce nevertheless, and salty beads of sweat were making their way down the back of Hervey’s neck. He took off his shako and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and rubbed dry the leather cap-band. He envied the sepoys at the forest edge who, though their brisk step would not have been without effort, at least had some shade. He replaced his shako, adjusted the neckflap, though the sun would not bear directly on it for several hours yet, and took a long drink from his water bottle. He had been worried about water. He had been worried that the Pindarees might have poisoned the wells near where they supposed he would make camp. He had been relieved, therefore, to see villagers using them as they approached, and Alter Fritz, whose proud boast was never to have had a moment’s gripe since coming to Chintalpore, had pronounced the water sweet. But how he wished for Private Johnson’s chirrupy humour at this moment — that and the brew of tea he would have had at daybreak, and no doubt another canteen for him now. In Johnson’s mind a brew of tea was a kind of military elixir during whose making and drinking all priorities were resolved and all possibilities became apparent.
But with thoughts of Johnson came thoughts of Jessye, and a moisture about the eyes that was not the fault of the heat. He had always known that Jessye must one day succumb to… any number of things. Such was their precarious profession. But he had always promised her that the final blow would, if need be, come from him, and that she should pass peacefully with him by her side. And this promise he had not kept. Had he truly believed him when the subedar said she felt no pain lying there full of the snake’s poison? That letting her slip away with the sun on her back, rather than with the crack of a pistol in her ear, was a truer kindness? Or had he simply not the courage to see the oldest friend he had in the service lifeless at his feet? It was a cruel and ignoble end for her, and he had not been there at the final moment. Yes, Johnson had been with her, the man who loved her almost as much as he did. But Johnson had not seen her slip wondrously in that soapy membrane from between the haunches of her dam ten years or so before, nor watched her instinctive struggling for her mother’s milk only minutes later, nor her clambering to her feet and her first, tentative steps not long afterwards. These were what bound a man more closely to his horse than anything might — even if the man might find admitting it beyond him.
For the first time since coming to India he felt alone, though the rajah was close beside him. Every time he had awaited battle he had been surrounded by faces he knew and voices he recognized, and they had talked incessantly. There was always something to talk about: if it was not the battle to come it was the battle that had been. And then there was the encouragement of juniors by seniors, and the reassurance by return. But he did not know these native officers, and the impassivity of the sepoys and sowars unnerved him somewhat. He thought of riding up and down the ranks to hail them with an appropriate word, but his grasp of Urdu was still precarious, and he had none of Telugu, so the enterprise might be worse than unproductive.
Suddenly they were all attention to the right flank, where Alter Fritz’s skirmishers had opened a brisk, if scarcely effective, fire on the Pindaree cavalry.
‘What do they do there?’ asked the rajah, a little shakily.
Hervey reassured him. But contrary to everything he had expected — or, indeed, could have hoped — half the Pindaree host now surged forward in a trot towards the skirmishers.
The rajah became anxious. ‘They come upon us!’ he called.
‘No, sir, I believe they mean only to overawe the rissalah. Your cavalry’ (he was most particular in his choice of adjective) ‘do great service there, drawing the enemy’s attention. See over on the left how your sepoys make progress towards the guns unnoticed.’
The rajah was further reassured.
But Hervey was surprised when he saw that the sowar-skirmishers did not turn about to rejoin the rissalah, but stood their ground and fired further volleys at close range — this time with lethal effect. It was, he told the rajah, as steady a conduct by cavalry as he had seen. And then, when another few seconds’ delay would have seen them overrun, they turned for safety and galloped back to where Alter Fritz and the rest of his men stood.
Again, he expected that the Pindarees would not press their advance — certainly not beyond supporting range of the guns. But they did — perhaps five hundred of them. What, indeed, could they fear? Alter Fritz’s one hundred could not withstand them, for sure. Would he charge them, as was the practice? The seconds passed, the rajah growing more anxious with each (and, indeed, Hervey too — though not as conspicuously). Another ten might spell disaster. Then Alter Fritz’s front rank fired their carbines, turned about and retired at a steady trot, leaving the second rank to send their volley into the mass of horsemen. The effect was not, perhaps, as devastating as the smoke and noise portended, but a good many men and horses were tumbled nevertheless.
Still the Pindarees did not check. If anything they increased their pace. The rissalah was now in a gallop — and in the highly irregular order of two columns. Hervey was full of admiration for their drill, if perplexed by the formation. Until, that is, he saw that the columns were making for the two clear paths through the fougasses. ‘Great heavens!’ he exclaimed, alarming the rajah even more.
‘What is it, Captain Hervey?’
‘Your Highness, you will see in a short while. I believe that the Pindarees are about to receive a very great shock. They are about to have a taste of what is sometimes known as — if you will excuse my saying so — “poor man’s artillery”!’
The rissalah columns wheeled left and right into line, fronting fifty yards to the rear of the fougasses, the galloper guns unhitching and making ready before even the last of the lancers had taken post. Alter Fritz galloped along the line shouting orders to the NCOs who had been lying concealed with their slow matches at the end of each powder trail. Before he reached the flank they fired the first of the fougasses, followed immediately by another, and then more. The ground heaved, great fountains of earth spouted high, and those rocks which had not been projected forward rained down on the Pindaree rear ranks. Horses and men tumbled in their dozens as shot, nails and pebbles swept like a scythe into the packed lines. Hervey counted fourteen or fifteen explosions. No more than five or six must have misfired — not a bad rate of success.
The rajah was at first speechless. And then overjoyed. And then sickened.
But Hervey scarcely heard him, intent as he was on observing what the Pindarees would do next, for they still had more horsemen than stood with Alter Fritz. However, the old Württemberger was even wilier than he had supposed. The Pindaree host had been checked: it stood motionless in a sort of collective contemplation. All it would take was resolute action by their commander to renew the attack, but doubt was evidently creeping into their minds. This was the time that Alter Fritz chose to make up their minds for them. He fired two more of the fougasses, and then another two, and then the galloper guns opened up with explosive shell. His trumpeter sounded the advance, and the rissalah lowered its line of lances and began to march forward.
It was enough. The front ranks of the Pindarees turned. But their way back was blocked by the rear ranks, who were thrown into confusion by the retrograde movement. There was panic, suddenly, and many of the horsemen turned to the river for escape, followed by many more in the rear who must instinctively have believed that water rather than their own lines would be their salvation. Alter Fritz put his left wing into a canter to envelop their right. When they saw what was to come, all order among the Pindarees disintegrated and there was a headlong dash for the river.
The rajah, roused from his sombre thoughts, grabbed Hervey by the arm. ‘Why do you not send the rest of my lancers to assist their comrades? We can surely finish those devils in the river?’
Nothing would have given Hervey greater pleasure — or, at least, satisfaction. It was just what a cavalryman should do, for this was the moment when, if he threw in even half his remaining rissalah, the Pindarees who had advanced would be destroyed to a man. ‘Your Highness, my object must remain the guns: it is not necessary that we finish those at the river. And there is, I must point out, at least their number again still at the redoubts. If they were to attack then we should be deuced hard-pressed to withstand them.’
The rajah sighed. ‘Captain Hervey, forgive me for seeming to doubt you. What now is your intention?’
Hervey took in the whole of the kadir at a glance. It was not difficult to do so, for the attention of the enemy seemed entirely focused on the slaughter at the river, the nizam’s guns keeping up a furious but ineffective fire, shot falling wide or well short of the press of horsemen. The rajah’s sowars had slung their lances to set about the fleeing Pindarees with their tulwars, and still those Pindarees by the guns made no move to their comrades’ relief. Perhaps they were wise not to do so, thought Hervey, as those at Waterloo who had gone to the aid of the Heavies — himself included — might have been wiser to stand their ground. But it was alien to every instinct of a soldier to stand by while a comrade was in trouble. If only the sepoys on the left were closer to the Pindaree lines: now would be the perfect opportunity to take the remaining rissalah to the enfilade. ‘Your Highness, I had wished that we might tempt the rest of the Pindaree cavalry to advance, to tie them to a fight on our right so that — as I earlier explained — we might then advance to the guns on the other flank. But they will not be tempted. Though I hope that is more by lack of courage than judgement.’
‘And so, Captain Hervey?’
‘And so, sir, I must chance to gallop for the flank and hope that your sepoys are able to come to our relief before too long!’
The rajah looked alarmed.
‘Do not concern yourself, sir. I cannot suppose that the enemy has much appetite left after seeing what has just befallen those at the river. And they are not to know that we have expended all our fougasses. Nor, I suspect, do they truly know what they are.’
But Hervey had judged it wrong. He galloped the halfrissalah and his two guns (he would have taken the other half had he not needed to leave it as the rajah’s lifeguard) along the edge of the jungle without hindrance from either cannon or horsemen, and they were even able to dismount and take cover just inside the forest not fifty yards from the nearest redoubt. But two things stood against him then. First, the side of the redoubt was protected, contrary to what the hijdas believed (though he could see now that the sides of the others were not). They would not be able to enfilade it to any effect, for his galloper guns would make little impression on the revetted walls. Second, and more pressing, the Pindarees made immediately to counterattack. This move was halted by brisk flanking fire from the sepoy companies who had begun doubling forward as soon as Hervey had overtaken them — but not before Cornet Templer had been hit twice in the legs by musketry. He made not a sound as he fell, and would have lain there as if in cover had not one of the sowars seen him hit. Hervey crawled back to him and managed, with the sowar’s help, to staunch the bleeding. But the cornet was no longer for the fight — despite his pleading to be left to work his carbine — and Hervey called to two others to drag him back into the shade of the forest.
There was now, therefore, impasse — a bristling triangle, no side of which could move without drawing withering fire from another. Hervey knew that the initiative was not his, however, for the Pindarees could — if they were both resolute and skilful — outflank his two sides of the triangle, though he was not strong enough to do so with theirs. Now, perhaps, was his aptness for command to be most truly tested. He had already first unnerved and then impressed the rajah by his bold insistence on not throwing all his men into the fight against the Pindarees at the river. Now he would retain the same single-mindedness in pursuing his objective. He would not try to fight the Pindarees pressing upon him: he would strike at the guns.
It was as well that he did not attempt to explain his plan, for it was essentially inexplicable. He threw off his shako, threw down his pistols, gave his carbine and cartridges to the sowar who stood temporarily in Johnson’s place, and ran forward with no encumbrance but his sabre in one hand and a length of tethering rope in the other. A furious musketry opened again from the Pindarees, but, being aimed shots, they were all wide of their fast-sprinting mark — and indeed of the sowar who, without bidding, ran at his side. They threw themselves to the ground at the foot of the redoubt. It was so much bigger now they were close — half the size of a windmill, and much the same shape. Hervey expected at any minute that fire would come at them from above. But they were unseen by the gunners. The cannon overhead — a good ten feet above where he crouched — was silent, though run out and therefore, he supposed, shotted. The instant it fired, the recoil would take it back inside the embrasure, and he thus risked all even if he were able to do what was in his mind. But had he any option now?
The gun projected as proudly as if it had been one of Nisus’s main battery. Hervey made a running loop of the rope and stood to cast it over the barrel. His first attempt failed, and he froze for several seconds, expecting it to have been seen. He cast again. This time the rope looped the muzzle and he pulled the end tight closed. He waited a few seconds — again, noone had seen — then began to pull himself up, his feet scrambling for footholds on the rough face of the revetments. How many gunners did he expect to find inside? Better not to think. Even his rifled carbine would have been too slow. The sabre hanging from his wrist by its sling was his only chance. He swung his leg over the barrel and pulled himself upright, straining every muscle to do so, expecting the gun to explode at any moment or a pistol or musket to fire point-blank. And then he was through the embrasure and in among the gunners like a terrier among rats — except that these rats did not fight.
They squealed, though. Squealed and squealed and squealed as the sabre slashed and cut and thrust — without anything stronger than a raised arm to parry it. Two gunners escaped its work by diving headlong from the redoubt, but five more soon lay still or dying at Hervey’s feet. He rushed to the embrasure to call for support, and at that instant a huge roundshot crashed into the redoubt furthest from him. He saw it strike — carrying away the earthwork and dismounting the gun. He saw a second, ploughing into the debris wrought by the first, sending earth and brickwork skywards. He was dumbstruck. What? Where? How? He peered out further, towards the Godavari whence only the fire could have come… and there were the ensigns, unmistakable! And then another ‘broadside’ of such regularity that before it could strike, the nizam’s gunners were pouring from the redoubts like rats fleeing before a flood. ‘Great God!’ he gasped. ‘A fathom of water! A fathom of water and there’ll you’ll find them!’
But the Pindaree horsemen stood firm. Hervey saw with alarm that all they needed to do was assail the half-dozen budgerows on the river, from which the Nisus’s quarterdeck twelve-pounders enfiladed them, and with a modicum of resolution they might yet carry the day: the Godavari was shallow enough at the edge, and not all would have fallen to grape as they charged. Alter Fritz was engaged with the remnants of those that had earlier attacked him, and evidently did not see the danger, and all Hervey’s halfrissalah were dismounted and their horses with holders inside the forest. He looked back towards his night camp and the lancers with the rajah — and to his great relief saw them advancing at a canter.
But the Royal Navy was not yet done with its fighting. A thin line of red was also advancing, muskets at the high port, as steady as if on parade at Portsmouth. And there, in front, was Henry Locke, sword held high. The Pindarees seemed rooted to the spot, incapable even of dealing with two dozen marines. Never had Hervey seen cavalry so supine — as feeble as Sackville at Minden. And then, at fifty yards, Locke lowered his sword to the engage, the marines put their bayonets to ‘On guard’, and they began to double. At thirty Hervey distinctly heard him shout ‘Charge!’ and the Pindarees — hundreds upon hundreds — turned and broke. But a handful first discharged their firearms — perhaps more for safety as they retired — and a ball struck Locke in the throat.
Hervey rushed to where he fell, through ranks of horsemen who wanted nothing but to be away. Locke’s serjeant was already trying to staunch the bleeding as he reached him, but so much blood was there that the end could not have been in doubt. His eyes were open and something of a smile came to them as he saw Hervey. He gripped the soldier’s wrist, squeezing with that strength which Hervey had so admired, trying thereby to tell him something.
Hervey smiled back. ‘Thank you, my dear, dear friend. Without you it could not have been done!’
Locke’s eyes smiled even stronger, his breathing like the raj kumari’s mare when the incision was made. His other hand reached for his gorget and pulled it from his neck, snapping the chain. He held it out to Hervey, his eyes somehow managing to tell him why.
‘For your…’ he cursed himself that he did not know her name.
Locke nodded his head.
‘I will see she is well provided for,’ he said, tears now running down both cheeks.
And then Locke’s eyes closed, and his head rolled gently to one side in his serjeant’s arms.
Hervey swallowed very hard. ‘Samson hath quit himself like Samson,’ he stammered.