One of them had straggled so far behind that the horses were almost on top of him. The syce trotted up and gave him a push and a sharp word. The man clasped his hands together and began jabbering, but quietly.
‘Memsahib,’ called the syce.
St Alban nodded, and Georgiana rode forward.
‘Kya baat hai, syce-sahib?’
The syce told her what he’d said.
She looked uneasy suddenly. St Alban saw and came up alongside her.
‘What is it?’
‘This man says he’s a thug, that all in the band are thugs, not one a pilgrim. And there is one of them of very high rank, who’s not one of their band but who hides within.’
‘His name?’
Georgiana asked the man himself rather than through the syce. He in turn apologized but said he didn’t know, only that they addressed him as ‘Guru’.
‘Why does he tell us this?’ asked St Alban.
Georgiana put it to him.
The man looked directly at St Alban as he answered. ‘Huzoor …’
Georgiana listened, asked another question, then thought for a moment. ‘He says if you will promise him protection and pardon, he will show where are all the beles … the places where they bury their victims hereabouts. And he will tell the names of every thug here, and of their village, for he no longer has confidence in the jemadar, the leader.’
St Alban frowned. ‘Tell him, please, that I cannot give him that assurance, but that I will speak on his behalf to the wakeel.’
Georgiana told the man firmly, yet with just enough of a note of sympathy to reassure him.
‘Accha, memsahib, accha.’
It was two hours more before they reached the village. The bullock carts had creaked along at the pace of a lame horse, and St Alban had begun to think he might have to detach them, except that that would probably give the game away, for if the pilgrims were to be searched for contraband, how could the inspector-sahib let the better part of their baggage go? They’d guess that it was they themselves he wanted at the village, not contraband, and then all hell would be stirred.
But what to do now? How was he to detain them till help came from Sthambadree? All he could think of was making them turn out their baggage for inspection, and telling them the customs men would soon be here – delaying, equivocating, humbugging. But how long would they fall for it? What if there was no relief till nightfall? What if there was no relief at all? That wasn’t possible. Acton of all men wouldn’t fail. But wouldn’t it be better to take prisoner now the leader, and this ‘Guru’? The others would scatter, no doubt, but did it matter if he had these two? But what if there were concealed weapons and they tried to stop them taking the ‘Guru’? They could, he supposed, barricade themselves in a house to wait for relief, but – in truth – two dozen armed thugs might prevail against them even then.
No, all he could do was keep Georgiana and Annie at a safe distance so they could make away fast if the tables turned. It was all a gamble; of course it was. Yet Hervey himself always said ‘First reckon, then risk’, and this he had. But he’d risked a great deal more than he ought, had he not?
The village had seemed empty enough when they’d first passed through. Now it looked deserted, with no sign even of the sweet-lime-seller. (Doubtless there were lookouts at even the meanest of places, and a returning dust-cloud spelled trouble.) Whether the villagers would have been help or hindrance was a moot point, but a deserted place might easily unnerve the thugs.
He made his decision. As soon as they got to the little maidan where they’d stopped and bought the sweet limes, he’d order them to lay out their baggage and unload the carts, while he and the others stayed mounted. At the first hint of trouble he and Johnson would loose off their pistols, charge and set about them with the sabre. It would be furious, bloody slaughter and they’d take down a dozen maybe. The rest would flee. That was the rule in India: when confronted by a superior host, charge without hesitation. But for the moment, it was shepherd work, and the flock was biddable.
As they reached the maidan, though, the ‘sheep’ suddenly became restless.
‘Johnson!’ he barked.
But before the pistols were out, the wolf was on the fold. Or rather, the wolves – Armstrong and his men – and circling it.
‘Mr St Alban, sir!’
‘Sar’nt-Major!’
Sabres sealed the exits. The maidan was now a pen; there was no escape.
‘Mr St Alban, sir, a word if you please …’
XIV
Prudential Judgement
Sthambadree, a week later
‘Arjan Brar taken by ruse – the nicest work you’d imagine. And all accomplished without my knowing a thing; indeed, while I took my ease here with a month’s worth of the Gazette.’ Hervey smiled at the thought of it.
Somervile sipped his coffee with a look of satisfaction. His arrival, though causing something of a stir – the Governor’s Bodyguard was no less splendid a sight for being ten days on the road – had come as little surprise, for Hervey’s old friend could never quite resist seeing things for himself. It was a weakness, if weakness it was, that had nearly cost him his life at the Cape. Besides, when they’d first met, Somervile had been at Guntoor. The Northern Circars he regarded still as his. It was entirely proper, he said, that he should make a personal visit, as he did to many of the districts. A single visit saved a hundred letters.
‘So you’ve commended St Alban or reprimanded him?’
Hervey smiled again. ‘My informants told me that Armstrong left no words unsaid in the latter regard. And Georgiana certainly didn’t in the former.’
‘I am glad to hear it. Audaces fortuna juvat. I look forward to hearing what Sleeman has to say.’
‘He’s wholly delighted. Brar is, was, the pivot of the system throughout the Circars – through Chintal and beyond to the headwaters of the Godavari indeed. I have to say that Sleeman judged it perfectly: he said that Brar’d be forced to try to spring his wife and all, and that’s what he’d been about when they passed through the village – a reconnaissance of the fort. Really, it was quite astonishing, though, how he’d been able to go about the place without discovery. Sleeman says he doesn’t know if it was by disguise or the fear of people to expose him. But that’s by the bye now, since he’s joined his club of approvers, and with a will.’
‘And no doubt it will encourage others.’
‘Really, Somervile, it’s quite extraordinary to me how some of these fellows go to their deaths so readily – putting the nooses round their own necks on the gallows even – and yet others will turn coat and denounce men who’d hitherto been bosom associates.’
‘I have observed that every man wishes to go to heaven, but in truth that few wish to die in order to do so.’
Hervey nodded grimly. ‘Fairbrother, I might add, was first to gain the advantage. It was his address that led ultimately to Brar’s capture. I’ve mentioned his services in a despatch to Bentinck – through Sleeman, who has his ear. I trust you’ll not object.’
‘Not in the least.’
‘And the troops themselves have taken many thugs and common dacoits, some from information that Sleeman got, but a good many others by opportunity. The captains have done sterling work.’
‘I didn’t doubt they would. But this additional intelligence of Chintal, it is thoroughly opportune.’
‘In what sense exactly?’
‘Her Highness’s complicity in all this. Don’t misunderstand, me, Hervey. The charge of “Lapse” is irrefutable – her scheming in Mysore alone’s sufficient, and the provocations with Haidarabad – but scheming with thugs is simple, base law-breaking. And, I have it on good authority, she puts to the sword any who disoblige her – and summarily. In the past months, several of her household have been impaled alive, barbarously mutilated, on account of their not wholeheartedly throwing in with her schemes. It seems as if she’s determined to be the tigress in Chintal no less than she would be of Mys
ore.’
There was no gainsaying it. Hervey had not been in India so long as to believe, like the cynic, that intrigue was the natural condition of life; but then, nor was tranquillity. And the female of the species must surely be on especial guard, in a way quite different from the male. The tigress, it was said, had first to protect her cubs from the tiger.
‘The problem is, Hervey, the seclusion in which the Hindoostanee woman’s obliged to live isn’t favourable to the development of the female character, nor does it tend to soften and improve the heart.’
Hervey raised his eyebrows, conceding. ‘You, of course, know the country far better than do I.’
But, the Ranee – wayward, yes; cunning, certainly; but corrupt, cruel … evil?
And yet one of her bands of thugs, said the approvers, had been Ghufoor Khan’s, and, as Fairbrother had discovered – with his own hands, digging out the grave (if the pit of putrefying corpses might be dignified thus) – it was Khan who’d murdered the moonshee and his family. (The child’s remains had sealed the testimony.) Their blood was upon her.
If, that is, the approvers spoke – or really knew – the truth.
‘I have to say that Sleeman and I are in dispute. The thug who murdered my moonshee may be a most valuable informer, but it can’t expiate his sin. I’d have him hanged before the entire brigade. Indeed, I can’t but think of it as a question of honour.’
‘Ah,’ said Somervile, with the air of a world-weary philosopher: ‘we are here in the realm of judgement, are we not? Judgement as opposed to merely judging. “Prudence is right reason in action”, you’ll recall.’
‘Aquinas? I wonder what he’d have made of India. The Gospel appears to make little headway here.’
‘Aquinas was merely echoing Aristotle: Prudentia auriga virtutum.’
Hervey frowned. Somervile was first, foremost, a scholar. But he’d always liked that image – Prudence, the charioteer of the virtues, the one that guided the others – though chariot-racing was a ferocious sport, was it not? ‘Frankly, I’m of a mind that Courage is above all things, since without it there’s no guarantee of the others.’
‘And I myself could not gainsay it.’
‘The fact is, this Ghufoor Khan, who’s murdered heaven knows how many, is to profit from his evil, whereas I am obliged to punish each and every offence against the Mutiny Act. How is discipline to be served when the regiment learns that the man who butchered Bunda Ali – who was practically on the strength – and his wife and bairns, shall walk free?’
‘Ah,’ replied Somervile, with the air of a man who knew he was about to preach a doctrine he didn’t entirely believe: ‘their reward shall be in the next world, whereas this Ghufoor Khan faces sterner judgement.’
Hervey frowned again.
‘Besides, it is cruel necessity.’
‘On that, perhaps, we may agree. But I shall continue to press Sleeman nevertheless to find a means of satisfying regimental honour on this account.’
Somervile smiled wryly. ‘I wish you well. Now, supposing that your work in suppression of this thuggee is coming to an end, may we talk about Chintal? I have a mind to go there myself.’
Hervey groaned. ‘With respect, I can’t see how that would serve.’
‘It would serve to assure me on certain matters.’
‘On what matters?’
‘Hervey, it may surprise you, but I do myself have misgivings about the new India Act. I see in it the seeds of alienation. I don’t doubt – indeed, I know – there was corruption in the old system, the Company chiefly engaged in trading, but traders are by the nature of things dealers with people, the native people. Now that we’re to be just governors and tax collectors and magistrates, there’ll be a tendency to draw apart, and if we do so we’ll lose the approval of the country, on which the whole accidental enterprise rests. This new place in Hertfordshire – Haileybury: they’ll come here with high Platonic ideals as a class apart, minded to keep their virtue by distance from the “producers”.’
Hervey inclined his head in a gesture of sympathy.
Somervile looked wistful suddenly. ‘I suppose not the juniors, for once the smell of canvas and smoky fires gets in their nostrils, and a horse got between the knees on a dewy morning, or a walk home in the darkness and rich scent of a regular native village … Well, then they’ll understand it’s impossible to think of the Hindoo in deprecatory terms. I have, perhaps, only a few months here still, but I intend to have the smell of canvas and dew and native village in my nostrils once more, else I can’t be sure of my own judgement in what we’re to be about.’
‘I understand, perfectly. But if you’re to go, how shall I be able to make my own reconnaissance?’
‘I don’t propose to interfere with that.’
‘My preoccupation will be your safety!’
‘Hervey, what do you suppose the Bodyguard is about?’
‘They would fight to the last man, I’m sure – like the Swiss Guard for the Pope. But I as the senior officer would not be at liberty to cede responsibility to them. You must see that.’
Somervile scowled. ‘Yes, of course I see that. I merely supposed you’d find a way.’
‘No,’ said Hervey, shaking his head determinedly; ‘I can’t. It would be different if we were invading. Besides, what are these things on which you seek assurance? Why can’t I answer for them? Why can’t the agent?’
‘The agent’s dead.’
‘Indeed? I’d not heard of it. How so?’
‘That, I don’t know either. The news isn’t abroad yet. It may not even have reached Fort William. It came to the collector at Guntoor yesterday, the exchange point for Calcutta. Seems he succumbed to a fever.’
‘And you suspect foul play?’
‘I don’t discount it.’
‘Mm. But it’s not, I submit, a matter requiring your personal attention.’
‘I can’t deny it.’
‘I must say, unhappy as is the agent’s death, it gives me more ostensible cause for visiting. And – how can I put this? – you didn’t find me wanting in political matters in Coorg.’
‘On the contrary.’
‘Then I fail to see how Chintal is in any way different. Except, perhaps, the close attention of Fort William.’
Somervile narrowed his eyes. ‘You think me fearful of Bentinck?’
‘Forgive me. I know you to fear no one. But I know you to have a nose for trouble, if I may put it crudely.’
Somervile took some time to reply. ‘There is, I concede, no compelling reason for my coming with you to Chintalpore. And also that to do so would place too great a burden on you, and to the detriment of your mission.’
‘Then may we discuss my exploration on that presumption?’
Somervile smiled at last. ‘We may.’
Hervey sighed with much relief. ‘I’d value your opinion. I’ve had no opportunity to consider things further than when we last spoke in Madras.’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Somervile brightly, suddenly his old self and reaching for his case of papers. ‘I ought to have said: here’s the composition of the field force. It is, I’m assured – indeed, I’ve proved that it is so myself – substantially as you requested. Bengal’s sending two battalions, as it’s best we keep some strength at Bangalore, in light of the uncertainty in Mysore – and, until time satisfies that it is otherwise, Coorg too.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hervey, taking the papers. ‘It was my best assessment, given the intelligence at hand. There may of course be need of modification – augmentation – after I’ve seen the country for myself.’
‘Of course, though there mayn’t be much time. My presence here, however, ought to serve in that regard.’
Hervey smiled. ‘Assuredly.’
Somervile let him look over the papers for a minute or two.
‘By the bye, you’ll dine with me this evening?’
Hervey was amused that he phrased it as a question. But he supposed his old friend knew his
days as governor were not long now. ‘Delighted, as ever.’
Somervile slapped his thigh. ‘Splendid! Do you have any sherbet?’
* * *
‘Good morning, Annie. Where is Georgiana?’
Hervey had left the governor to his secretary and the correspondence that now came and went daily by hircarrah. There was an hour or so before Sleeman was due with his ‘bill’ for the next few days – the final few days, he trusted – and he thought they might take a stroll in the Mogul gardens.
‘She has a headache, Colonel, and is resting. She said she wanted to be well for dinner this evening.’
‘Oh; is she afflicted by headaches often? I hadn’t …’
‘No, not as a rule.’
‘Has anything in particular occasioned it?’
He was anxious, as Annie saw perfectly well, though she wasn’t sure how to reassure him in the matter. ‘It is nothing to be disturbed about, Colonel Hervey. It happens … periodically.’
‘Oh, well, if it’s nothing more – not a sudden fever or some such, for they strike in this place with no notice – I’ll take no account of it.’
Only then did it occur to him what Annie might be saying. It wasn’t a matter that had crossed his mind before. There’d never been occasion. He tried not to look awkward. Annie herself had lowered her eyes.
‘Ah, yes, something that will please you much: your brother’s regiment, the Somersets – they may be coming here in a month or so … Yes, indeed they will be coming.’
Annie looked suddenly pained.
‘I’m sure there’ll be opportunity to see him.’
Tears came.
‘Why, Annie, whatever’s the matter?’
The Tigress of Mysore Page 17
