Calcutta, October 182' His Excellency General the Right Hon. Stapleton Lord Combermere, GCB, GCH amp;c, Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces in India, as he was styled, received Hervey warmly but without the same careless ease of their previous acquaintances. They had first met eleven years ago in the field at Toulouse, as Hervey lay painfully under the ministration of a surgeon. The commander of Wellington's cavalry had been all praise and warm regards then for Hervey in that culminating battle of the campaign, in his despatches writing that 'by his bold and independent action he averted what might at the very least have been an embarrassment for the mounted arm'. They had met on three occasions since then, the last being that most diverting evening at Apsley House before Hervey had come out to India, when he had met Lady Katherine Greville.
'I fancy you might care for some coffee, Hervey? It's a damnably cold morning.' The invitation was to help himself from a pot on a table covered with maps and sketches, at which stood Colonel Macleod, who was to be brigadier of artillery, and Colonel Anburey, who was to be the same of engineers. Hervey acknowledged them both with a brisk bow of the head before pouring some of the strong black liquid into a big cup and adding a good measure of sugar.
'You set us nicely in apposition, Captain Hervey,' said Colonel Anburey, nodding with a grim, if perhaps wry, sort of smile at Colonel Macleod.
Hervey knew exactly what he meant. 'I fear the sappers will have little chance of doing their work without the support of the guns, Colonel, for the approaches to the walls are coverless. And yet the walls are so solid and thick that the guns shall have to come in close, and that can only be done by sapping from outside the range of the fort. Indeed, I wonder that it will not be better to mine one or two of the bastions, for a breach will otherwise be devilish hard.'
Colonel Anburey shook his head. 'I read your opinion, Hervey, but it is out of the question if the country lies as you have drawn it.' 'Too far to tunnel,' explained Lord Combermere. Hervey looked puzzled.
Colonel Anburey supplied the detail. 'The greatest distance a gallery may be driven is two hundred yards. Beyond that there is insufficient air for a man to breathe, and indeed for the explosive to operate efficiently.'
Hervey was confident he had surveyed the defences accurately. 'That is indeed a pity. Colonel. It will be an affair of heavy pounding therefore.' And it need not have been, he said to himself later. Six months ago Ochterlony might well have carried the day at a stroke, with that never-failing ally surprise had the Governor-General allowed him to try – even with half the number of men with which Lord Lake had failed. At least he might by now be keeper of the gates in those great walls, thereby shutting out every freebooting Jhaut and brigand who at this very moment was flocking to Durjan Sal's banner.
But the Governor-General had dithered, fatally. Eyre Somervile had told Hervey of how he had gone to Lord Amherst's office the morning Ochterlony's despatch had arrived from Dehli. Amherst had looked alarmed: there was ill news enough already from the east without more from the west.
'You read my earlier minute on the situation in Bhurtpore, Excellency?' Somervile had asked, careful to observe the punctilio of address for once. Lord Amherst had looked uncertain.
'Three months ago the Rajah of Bhurtpore died, and his infant son succeeded him under the guardianship of his uncle.'
Lord Amherst's face had shown a flicker of recall.
'However, for reasons that should not detain us, the late rajah's nephew, Durjan Sal, has laid claim to the succession.'
'Why do you say they should not detain us, Mr Somervile?' Lord Amherst had demanded, his brow furrowed anxiously. 'We are, by your tone, very evidently to be detained by one claim or the other.'
'Durjan Sal disputes the legitimacy of the rightful heir, Balwant Sing. But by all the evidence hitherto before us this is a most villainous claim.' 'Before us? I have not heard anything of it!'
'No, my lord. Matters in this regard have fallen entirely to the resident in Dehli.'
'Ochterlony? Good God: what has he been about?'
Although Somervile shared the general opinion of Sir David Ochterlony – that his best days were long past – he had sufficient regard for his judgement in the rights of things, if not in their consequences. 'Sir David recognized the rightful claim of Balwant Sing twelve months ago by vesting him in a khelat-'
'What in heaven's name was he doing? Such a thing is not done without presumptions of obligation. What is Bhurtpore to us? I consider it very rash.'
Somervile had sighed to himself. 'The fact is, my lord, that Sir David has bestowed the Company's recognition on Balwant Sing and-' 'Well, he had better renounce it. We have trouble enough in Ava. Campbell's still stuck in the mud at Rangoon, and his ships gathering weed.' The Governor-General had waved his hand as if the matter was done with.
At whose door might blame lie in that regard, Somervile had been minded to ask. 'I'm afraid it is too late. It seems Durjan Sal moved against Balwant Sing's guardian some weeks ago – and very bloodily – and has proclaimed himself regent-' 'So?'
Somervile had tried hard to hide his irritation at the Governor-General's disregard of the dangers the country powers might pose. 'Sir David has already denounced Durjan Sal as an usurper of supreme authority, by which he means, of course, the Company-'
'I am perfectly well aware what he means, Somervile! He must be told at once to moderate his demands and conclude the affair by diplomacy.'
'I fear it is too late for that. He has called on the Jhauts to rally to him and announced that he will appear at the head of a British force to restore Balwant Sing!'
Lord Amherst had then, by Somervile's account, looked like a man winded by a body blow. His brow had furrowed even more, signalling his utter incomprehension. 'Where is this force to come from, Somervile?'
Somervile had raised his eyebrows. 'By all reckoning he might muster ten thousand men at most, scarcely a thousand of them white.'
Lord Amherst had fallen silent. 'Would that be enough? Sir David was – may yet be – a fine general…'
Somervile had put on a most determined expression. 'Opinions vary and differ. The commander-in-chief's is as yet unsettled. His deputy is of the opinion that it would be very far from sufficient. Bhurtpore, you may recall, is the fortress that defied Lord Lake more than twenty years ago, and nothing, I understand, has rendered it any less formidable since then.'
The remaining colour had disappeared from Lord Amherst's face. 'Then the consequences will be very grave. I cannot suffer humiliation in the west, at this time especially.'
Somervile had been much perturbed by the Governor-General's alarm. 'But, Lord Amherst, I understand that the commander-in-chief's opinion tends to reinforcement. If we at once send word to Bombay, and to Madras, we may assemble full three times Sir David's present number, and a proper siege train, and that shall surely be enough to subdue Bhurtpore!'
'No, no, no! We want no second campaign while Ava is undecided. It is quite impossible!'
Somervile had been taken aback. 'But Lord Amherst, the ultimatum has been given. We cannot withdraw now. The Company would suffer an irreparable humiliation. Every native power the length of India would look at once to take his opportunity. I-'
'Impossible, I say! I cannot be mired in by Ochterlony's intemperate declarations. The only alternative is to let him try with his ten thousand.'
'But Hervey's view is that victory cannot be guaranteed thereby. There must be reinforcements to carry the day if audacity fails!' 'Hervey? Hervey? Who is he?'
Somervile had at once regretted his lapse. 'The captain of Sir David's escort, Lord Amherst. He-'
'Captain of the escort! Great heavens, man, have you lost your senses? No, no, it will not serve. Sir David's offensive would be a gamble on his reputation for success. Yes, that is the way it shall be done. I shall send word at once for Ochterlony to withdraw. Indeed, I shall issue immediate orders for the recall of Sir David Ochterlony to an appointment of greater prominence here!'
Somervile had felt obliged to concede defeat. 'Very good, Lord Amherst. But with respect I must give my opinion that none shall see such a recall as anything but the most peremptory reprimand for the resident. Including Sir David himself.' Colonel Anburey, the engineer, now looked pained at the thought of the heavy pounding that lay ahead, though the same thought seemed to please Colonel Macleod, the gunner. 'You give your opinion very decidedly, sir,' said the former.
'I endeavour always to speak as I find, Colonel,' replied Hervey, with absolute certainty.
'Well, so be it, gentlemen,' said Lord Comber-mere briskly. 'I shall, of course, make my own reconnaissance, but for the time being I intend proceeding upon Captain Hervey's admirable appreciation. The question then turns on when is launched the – as Hervey has it – coup de main. I am prepared to order affairs a great deal in favour of its success. However, there is no profit in seizing these dams if they are only to be recaptured before I am able to send a reinforcement. Quite the opposite, indeed, for the enemy would be at once alerted to our intention and would instantly open the sluice-gates. And yet, if I delay too long we shall anyway have full moats to cross instead of dry ditches.'
The colonels of engineers and artillery looked somehow relieved that their own decisions turned only on what was technically feasible rather than fine judgements of this order.
It was left to Hervey to speak to the commander-in-chief's dilemma. 'I have been considering this, General. The flooding of all the moats would be a great inconvenience to the population. Durjan Sal would not order the dams open until it were strict necessity. We must therefore be circumspect in our concentration. I believe that your lordship would wish to assemble his forces at Agra – and I truly cannot conceive of a better place – but any advance west of there would unquestionably signal to the Jhauts our intention to invest the city, for it is a march of but a few days, and if my own intelligence of the time it would take to inundate the defences is correct, the enemy would be obliged to cut open the bund at once.' Lord Combermere nodded.
'I fancy that two squadrons of light cavalry with galloper guns might dash from Agra to Bhurtpore in a night, before the garrison were properly alerted. They could seize the bund before dawn, until our engineers came up, and would have the advantage of daylight to beat off the immediate sallies.'
Lord Combermere at once saw the sequence perfectly. 'And the relief to attend on them by dusk.'
'It would be hazardous if they were not to be reinforced by then, General. If the enemy did not overwhelm them in the darkness, they would surely mass during the night and do so at first light.'
'Very well,' said Lord Combermere, nodding slowly, as if turning over the facts one more time.
Hervey judged that his services were now done with. He picked up his shako and began making to leave.
'Thank you, Captain Hervey,' said Lord Combermere, looking up. 'Your information has been most valuable. You shall have the honour of leading those two squadrons. And you had better have the rank for the affair, too, once we take to the field.'
Hervey left the commander-in-chief's office with the promise of a local majority. It would give him the authority he needed for his limited command, but in terms of seniority it meant even less than a brevet. He wondered when that recognition might come his way again, if ever. He wondered even more when the next regimental vacancy might occur, though he could not begin to contemplate how he might find the means to buy it. Advancement in times of peace and retrenchment was a snail's gallop – they all knew that – so he had better make the most of his temporary command. He would go at once to the adjutant-general's office to discover for himself the exact order of battle for this, Lord Combermere's first sovereign campaign.
There, he was at once astonished by the scale of the undertaking. The body of cavalry was the largest, it was certain, since Waterloo: a division of two brigades, each comprising a King's regiment, three of the Company's and two troops of horse artillery, the whole under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Sleigh of the 11th Light Dragoons in the rank of brigadier-general. Hervey was content enough with that; Sleigh he knew from Peninsula days, and considered him a good man. But it was the Devil's own luck that Sir Ivo Lankester should have prolonged his furlough, for his seniority would have given him a brigade. And the only reason Sir Ivo had prolonged his stay in England was to coax His Majesty into appointing a royal colonel-in-chief to the Sixth. An expensive adornment that would be, mused Hervey, if it cost Sir Ivo the opportunity of the sabre's edge at the head of his regiment.
And the two divisions of infantry were strong ones, too, each of three brigades, with two King's regiments – the 14th and '9th Foot – and the Company's 1st Bengal European Regiment. There were a good many troops of foot artillery, as well as the experimental brigade with their rockets, and strong detachments of the Bengal Sappers and Miners. The strength returns were not yet received in full, said the officiating adjutant-general, but his estimate was that the army would take to the field in excess of twenty thousand combatants.
Hervey scanned the order of battle keenly. The last regiment he came to gave him especial satisfaction, and did as much to assure him of victory as any other. Two rissalahs of Skinner's Irregular Horse would accompany the army, unbrigaded. He resolved at once to enlist them in his independent command. In the afternoon he sent Corporal Wainwright with a dozen sicca rupees to buy provisions for the budgerow which would – he hoped – soon be taking them back up the Ganges. 'Calcutta will be no place to be these next weeks,' he said, smiling wryly. 'Not for sabres, that's for sure. You haven't seen an army assembling for the field, Corporal Wainwright. It's a grand affair of adjutants and quartermasters and serjeant-majors. Parades, lists, inspections – no end of a business!'
Corporal Wainwright hid his partial disappointment. The oldest sweat in his barrack-room had told him many things when he had first joined, not least that a dragoon should never volunteer for anything. Yet Jobie Wainwright would have liked to see the serjeant-majors and the adjutants and the quartermasters about their business, for he himself wanted one day to fill their boots, and how was he to learn if he did not see? But he was his troop-leader's coverman – Major Hervey's coverman, indeed, though he did not yet know it -and he went only where he might parry the cut or the thrust directed at his officer. That next meant to Dehli, or perhaps straight to Agra.
But his officer had a prior duty, one that could not possibly be spoken of between them. When Wainwright left for the bazaar, Hervey went to the Chitpore road. The whole of native Calcutta, from nabob to bhisti, knew now that the army of Bengal was mobilizing. And every bibi knew likewise. They also knew that the army's object was what Lord Lake had failed to accomplish, and what had been the shaming cause of Sir David Ochterlony's death. Would John Company rise in triumph this time to the old taunt 'Go take Bhurtpore'? It was the talk of the princely palaces and the havelis of the Chitpore road, debated in the more modest dwellings of the Brahmins and around the bazaars. And in the bibi khanas; especially in the bibi khanas, for they knew all about Bhurtpore – 'the Pride of Hindoostan'. Was the fortress not impregnable? Did not the Futtah Bourge, the tower of skulls, stand as reminder to all who would forget it? No, it was impossible that a man should leave for Bhurtpore without visiting his bibi to bid her a proper goodbye, and to receive the soldier's farewell in return, and to assure her of the arrangements he had made for her well-being should he not come back.
Hervey now spoke the words that a bibi needed to hear, but they could never be enough. She loved him. She thought him the world itself. She also understood that in the army's hands lay the Company's honour and prestige, and it made her doubly fearful, for she knew what honour meant to her sahib, and the price he would be ready to pay if it were necessary. She would not say so -it would only distress him – but if his body were brought back to Calcutta she would throw herself into the flames of his funeral pyre in the duty of suttee. Except that for her it would not be a duty, rather an end to interminable grief.
She pleaded with her sahib to let her go with him to Bhurtpore; even to walk among the dhoolie-bearers and syces if she could not be with him. But tempted sorely as Hervey was, his soldier's duty stood all too clear: she was not welcome in the cantonment, and she could not be welcome on the campaign.
But leaving her was harder than he had supposed. He did not for one moment imagine he would not return (she would not tell him that she imagined only this) but the necessity of proceeding on that possibility gave their parting a fateful edge that all but overcame him. It was not possible for a man – a man with a soul – to see even native eyes which looked so loving, and not be touched deep. In truth, Hervey had come to love her, too, in a certain way. It was not a love which fulfilled all his needs; their minds, so differently schooled, could never wholly meet, but there was a tenderness that could make him content, for a time. He saw that period of contentment, however, only as time that stood still, not the sharing of life's time.
It was of no consequence, however. He had long known that he could only have shared life's time with Henrietta, and it mattered not how or with whom he shared time that stood still, for it was a wholly different property. As the sun began to sink in the direction to which his duty called, he rose from beside her to bathe. He was certain of one thing: he had not the will, and certainly not the heart, to sever himself from her now. It would take the lawful command of a superior to accomplish that – a return to England, alone or with the regiment. Yet did he have the desire and the will even to comply with such an order? Why should she not accompany him home?
That twisting ache which came in his vitals in such moments of apprehension hauled him back to the truth – that here in Hindoostan he might live largely as he pleased, but that in England (above all in Wiltshire) he must live as he was expected. All the Christian charity of his family combined could not accept an Indian paramour, let alone a wife. And beyond his immediate family – Henrietta's guardians and the gentry of those parts – such a thing could signal only that Hervey had announced his intention to withdraw from all society. He might even come to know what his late friend Shelley had called 'social hatred'.
Would that matter to him? As he lay in her arms he had imagined not. But now, as he sponged the cold water over his shoulders, he knew that he would always hark back – no matter how infrequently – to the earlier, sober days, and that it would begin eating at the heart of the arrangement. And his career? He would have to forgo it. Any arrangement with a native girl, except in a native station, was insupportable. Perhaps he might implicate Georgiana, to appoint his bibi as ayah to her? But what passed as a decent and honourable association in India would in England look no better than the slave-owner visiting the cabins of an evening.
As they embraced at their parting, Hervey was in more than half a mind to seek a commission in the Company's forces, to make his home here, to see how long he could make time stand still, until events resolved his troubles. In the army's hands lay the Company's honour and prestige. If Hervey's bibi understood this, how much more did Somervile. The King's honour, indeed, now rested in the balance at Bhurtpore, and there were some in the great houses of Calcutta – those connected with the native powers especially – who would say that the very presence of the British in India was at stake, that in Combermere's hands lay the course of history.
'There is much to speak of, Hervey,' said Somervile, welcoming him at the door of No. 3, Fort William. 'Send for all your necessaries and rest the night here. A good dinner's the very least the council might provide before you go and pay their rent for the next hundred years.'
Hervey needed no inducement to stay with the Somerviles, for besides the unflagging pleasure he took in their company he had no agreeable alternative. He could not return to the bibi khana having said his farewell, the officers' mess was at this moment being readied to lumber in a score of yakhdans and bullock carts in the direction of Agra, and his own bungalow was once again shuttered and draped with dust sheets.
Emma joined them, the ayah with her, babe in arms.
For a moment Hervey saw something – the timeless vision of mother and child, perhaps – that reached deep into his own void. And his godson – a contented baby, swaddled with affection, a child that would grow to manhood sure of its nurture. Mother and child seemed somehow to rebuke him. 'I had a mind to stay here when the Sixth is recalled,' he said, absently.
Emma read that mind, and thought better of questioning it.
Her husband was less nimble. 'Be sure to take six months' home leave beforehand, mark. It would be perilous to chance the marriage stakes on the angels who come out here.'
Serious advice, well-meant as ever – if blunt: Hervey could not take offence. 'Perhaps I shall,' he said, vaguely; and then, in a tone suggesting his true thoughts, 'and I should want to know how my own offspring fares.'
Emma sensed the danger. She nodded to her ayah. 'Mehrbani, Vaneeta.'
The ayah bowed and smiled back, and took the child to the nursery. 'When do you leave, Matthew?'
Hervey, whose eyes had followed the child from the room, turned attentively to his hostess. 'I, er… tomorrow. At first light. By budgerow as far as Agra. Johnson is there with the horses.'
Somervile uncorked a bottle of champagne noisily. 'Damned carriers! They must have trotted every case for a mile and more. I had a bottle blow up in my hand last week.'
Hervey smiled. 'A perilous position you occupy these days, Somervile!'
'I wouldn't trade it for a safer one, I assure you.'
Looking now at the third in council of the Bengal presidency, with his thinning hair and spreading paunch, it was difficult to imagine the defiant defender of the civil lines twenty years ago when the Madras army was in one of its periodic foments, or a decade later the angered collector going at the gallop, pistol in hand, for the Pindaree despoilers of one of 'his' villages. Hervey knew of the first by hearsay, but he had witnessed the latter himself, and he had not the slightest doubt that, after all due allowance for the increasing effects of gravity and claret, there was no one he would rather serve with on campaign than Eyre Somervile. The erstwhile collector looked an unlikely man of action, but man of action he was, at least in his counsels, as well as being a fine judge of men, of horses, of the country, and above all of its people. No, Eyre Somervile did not seek safe billets.
'I am of the opinion that it will not be a safe place inside Bhurtpore. There's a fair battering train and good many sepoys,' said Hervey airily.
'Tell me of it.' Somervile handed him a glass after Emma.
Hervey at once retailed the order of battle, including the line number of the Company's regiments. He had fixed them in his mind as if the printed orders were in front of him – a happy knack, and one he had found could endure indefinitely if he recollected the picture once or twice a day. Emma, by her eyes, expressed her admiration.
Hervey's exposition lasted the whole of Somervile's glass. 'There was a deal of speculation in the drawing rooms as to his capability when first the news of his appointment reached here' said the third in council when his friend had finished. 'You know it's tattled what passed when Wellington proposed it to the Duke of York? The grand old man's supposed to have protested Combermere was a fool, to which Wellington's supposed to have replied, "Yes, but he can still take Bhurtpore."' Hervey frowned.
'You're right, no doubt,' said Somervile, though by no means contrite. 'We all know the respect Combermere's held in from Peninsula days, but now he's no longer subordinate, and it is not for him only to implement the design of the commander-in-chief. The design must now be his own.' Hervey merely raised an eyebrow.
'So we must trust in Wellington's faith,' continued Somervile blithely. 'And I certainly take it as a mark of Combermere's capability that he should seek out the opinion of a junior officer. How was he, by the way?'
'Cool, thoughtful. He listens very attentively, and reads too, it would seem. He had read all there was about the last siege.'
Somervile nodded with satisfaction. He liked a thoughtful commander. He considered it the prime military as well as manly virtue. But he had his fears still. 'I would wish that he knew something of India, though. The bones of a host of Englishmen and sepoys are piled in those walls, and Lake was a general of much practice. They've stood as succour to every malcontent and freebooter who thought he could tweak the tail of the Company or chew off a bit of the bone – look at how the Jhauts have rallied to that murdering usurper just because he dares hoist his colours in the place! There must be no possibility of defeat this time, Hervey. If Combermere does not take Bhurtpore, then we may as well recall Campbell and his army from Ava and hand in the keys to Fort William!'
Hervey sipped at his champagne, judging that no answer was required.
'By my reckoning there are not so many engineers,' said Somervile suddenly, and looking puzzled. 'I should have thought the requirement in a siege was for more of these, even at the expense of your own gallant arm.'
Hervey sat up again. 'I had thought the same. But it seems the engineers can't drive tunnels far enough. And Durjan Sal will have a host of cavalry to hold at bay.'
'Has Combermere good interpreters? He must have someone who is fluent in Persian as well as others for the native languages.'
It was a detail Hervey had not missed, for the officer was an old friend. 'Captain Macan, from the Sixteenth Lancers. Do you know him?'
Somervile nodded contentedly. 'Yes indeed. A most able linguist.' 'Then I regret the position appears filled.' Somervile saw the tease. 'Believe me, Hervey, if I thought it was safe to leave Calcutta for one hour without Amherst changing his mind about this enterprise then I should take to the field at once. But you will see me there as soon as you take the place. After your gallant comrades have reduced Bhurtpore and put Durjan Sal in a cage there will be a good deal of political work to do, and quickly. The new resident will need all the help he can get in the first months, and I for one would not stand on ceremony on that account.'
Sir Charles Metcalfe's name – Ochterlony's successor – was rarely absent from any conversation in Calcutta these days. Hervey wondered he had never heard of him before, so prominent a place he now took in the counsels of state. 'I hope I shall meet him, then.'
'I think he would hope that too, for he knows your work.' 'How so?'
Somervile took the champagne bottle from its cooler and refilled their glasses. 'I shall tell you.' It had been in July, the evening of the Ochterlony minute guns, that Somervile had declared his opinion to Emma, who had understood him at once, as she always did. 'They would do better to take yonder guns and go finish what he began at Bhurtpore,' he rasped, flinging down a sheaf of his home papers. 'This defiance by the Jhauts cannot stand!' No one but Emma knew how much Somervile had striven those past months to conclude a satisfactory outcome to the usurpation. He had come to regard it as a rebellion against the Company rather than solely as a source of humiliation, and his object had been its crushing. 'What does Lord Amherst say? Does he feel Ochterlony's death in any measure?' Emma had asked.
'Amherst's no fool. He knows well enough that in repudiating Ochterlony's proclamation he as good as put a bullet in his head. He was decidedly ill at ease in council today, and he railed against me beforehand as if the affair was somehow of my making. He's afeard that this will play ill in London.'
'What's to be done. Eyre?' Emma had enquired in the simple certainty that her husband would know.
And, indeed, he had already weighed the options. His position in council was sometimes tenuous, but he had no desire to hold on to it through mere compliance. 'Metcalfe's here tomorrow from Haidarabad. I doubt he'll need much persuading, and Amherst'll be too fearful of going against his advice, for his stock has always stood high with the directors.'
Though Somervile would scarce admit it, Emma knew that none but her husband's stock might stand so high in council if only he would take pains to promote it a little more. She knew his manner was not best calculated to win their affection, but not a member could be in doubt of his understanding. The Governor-General had readily taken his counsel in the appointment of a successor at Dehli: as soon as Sir David Ochterlony had tendered his resignation Somervile had pressed on Lord Amherst the claims of Sir Charles Metcalfe, though perhaps that was an easy victory, for Metcalfe had held the appointment until five years before, and his judgement had been amply tested of late as resident in the nizam's capital.
And so, next morning, he had called on Sir Charles before there was opportunity for subornation at Fort William. 'You have got to make Amherst see sense in this matter, Metcalfe. Had that place been reduced twenty years ago-'
'You forget I was Lord Lake's political officer at that time,' Sir Charles had replied, frowning. 'It is a great wonder his army achieved half of what it did. Bhurtpore was never within his grasp.'
'Let us not debate it. Now the whole of India will believe it without our grasp.'
'It may be so. It may well be without our grasp. In which case we ought not to make it an objective to grasp it.'
Somervile had relied on cool relentless logic, however. 'Nothing that is made beyond the Company's territories ought to be without the Company's grasp. It is surely the knowledge that, were the Company to will it, any country power might be subdued that secures our peace. And occasionally that will must, most regrettably, be put to the test.'
'But what say the soldiers, Somervile? What was Paget's opinion?'
'We shall never rightly know, for he's been gone these several months. All we may now do is wait on Lord Combermere. He's due here ere too long. Meanwhile I should as soon ask his deputy to play the violin as ask his opinion on the matter. The man is an ass.'
'That is a very decided opinion, Somervile. Is it much shared?'
Somervile had looked astonished. 'I have never thought to enquire! I come to my own judgement in such matters.'
Sir Charles Metcalfe had shaken his head slowly from side to side. 'Then the Governor-General, and by extension you, are without sound military counsel?'
Again, Somervile had looked surprised. 'I am not. I have had very good counsel, and from the seat of the trouble.'
'Indeed? And are we to know whose is this counsel?'
'A dragoon captain formerly on Ochterlony's staff.'
Sir Charles Metcalfe had looked dismayed. 'A captain? Are you quite well, Somervile? There are generals and colonels here, and you put your trust in a captain of dragoons!'
'I do.' The tone had been less defiant than emphatic, as though he would have put his judgement in this against all comers.
Sir Charles had laughed. 'Then I should very much like to see this man.'
'You shall, you shall. And in the breaches of that place, I hope. He's studied the Bhurtpore defences and drawn plans.' Somervile now had the khitmagar open a second bottle. 'So you see, Hervey, Sir Charles was apprised of your observations, and I might say that they materially informed his judgement.'
Hervey raised an eyebrow. 'And what transpired?'
'What transpired is that Sir Charles studied the question for a full week and then gave his opinion in council.'
Emma smiled. 'And it was, Matthew, the most eloquent opinion you might ever hear. Even Eyre was much moved.'
Her husband nodded. 'I confess I was, my dear. I can read it aloud, too, for I have all the proceedings here at hand.' Hervey did not object.
Somervile rummaged among some papers on a side table, then returned to his chair with a look of triumph. 'Hear this, Hervey: 'Your lordship, Gentlemen, we have by degrees become the paramount state of India. Although we exercised the powers of this supremacy in many instances before 1817, we have used and asserted them more generally since the existence of our influence by the events of that and the following year.' He glanced first at Hervey and then at Emma at the mention of 1817. They had each been so embroiled in events leading to the Pindaree war, a war which, as Sir Charles Metcalfe here made clear, had changed for ever the Company's status both north and south of the Sutlej. 'It then became an established principle of our policy to maintain tranquillity among all the states of India, and to prevent the anarchy and misrule which were likely to disturb the general peace. Sir John Malcolm's proceedings in Malwa were governed by this principle, as well as those of Sir David Ochterlony. In the case of succession to a principality, it seems clearly incumbent upon us, with reference to that principle, to refuse to acknowledge any but the lawful successor, as otherwise we should throw the weight of our power into the scale of usurpation and injustice. Our influence is too pervading to admit of neutrality, and sufferance could operate as support. We are bound not by any positive engagement to the Bhurtpoor state, nor by any claim on her part, but by our duty as supreme guardians of general tranquillity, law, and right, to maintain the right of Rajah Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpore, and we cannot acknowledge any other pretender.
'This duty seems to me to be so imperative that I do not attach any peculiar importance to the late investiture of the young rajah in the presence of Sir David Ochterlony. We should have been equally bound without that ceremony, which, if we had not been under a pre-existing obligation to maintain the rightful succession, would not have pledged us to anything beyond acknowledgement. With regard to the brothers Durjan Sal and Madhoo Sing, the competing claimants for the office of regent, I am not of the opinion that any final decision is yet required, but my present conviction is as follows. We are not called upon to support either brother; and if we must act by force it would seem to be desirable to banish both.
'Negotiation might yet prove effectual, but if recourse to arms should become necessary, there would not be wanting of sources of consolation, since I am convinced that a display and rigorous exercise of our power, if rendered necessary, would be likely to bring back men's minds in that quarter to a proper tone, and the capture of Bhurtpoor, if effected in a glorious manner, would do us more honour throughout India, by the removal of the hitherto unfaded impressions caused by our former failure, than any other event that can be conceived. 'And then Sir Charles bowed and sat down,' said Somervile. 'And many were the sheepish looks about the place, and the oyster eyes at the memory of Ochterlony's ill-treatment.'
'In a glorious manner!' Hervey nodded, content. 'Eyre?' 'My dear?' 'You must tell what was Lord Amherst's reply.'
'Ah, yes, indeed.' He rifled through the papers in his lap. 'Here I have it – it is but brief, and rather a handsome testimony I do think. Hear this, Hervey: 'I have hitherto entertained the opinion that our interference with other states should be limited to cases of positive injury to the honourable Company, or of immediate danger thereof. In that opinion I have reason to believe that I am not supported by the servants of the honourable Company most competent to judge of its interests, and best acquainted with the circumstances of this country. I should therefore have hesitated in acting upon my own judgement in opposition to others; but I am further free to confess that my own opinion has undergone some change, and that I am disposed to think that a system of non-interference, which appears to have been tried and to have failed in 1806, would be tried with less probability of success, and would be exposed to more signal failure, after the events which have occurred, and the policy which has been pursued during the last nineteen or twenty years. A much greater degree of interference than was formerly called for, appears to have resulted from the situation in which we were placed by the pacification of 1818. It might be a hazardous experiment to relax in the exercise of that paramount authority which our extended influence in Malwah and Rajpootana specially has imposed upon us. Applying these general principles to the particular cases before us, and believing that without direct interference on our part, there is a probability of very extended disturbances in the Upper provinces, I am prepared, in the first place, to maintain, by force of arms if necessary, the succession of Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpoor. 'And so decided did the opinion sound that the chamber was silent for a full minute,' added Somervile, putting the papers back in order. 'And then Amherst said simply, "I perceive that no one would gainsay. I shall today cause instructions to be drawn up for the commander-in-chief to begin preparations to restore Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpore.'"
'In a glorious manner,' said Hervey again, shaking his head and smiling grimly. 'We must hope for more glory than Rangoon has seen. What a prospect – war on two fronts when we can scarce make war on one!'