The Tigress of Mysore

by Allan Mallinson

  Armstrong, his serjeant when Collins was still a corporal, spoke first – just a simple ‘Colonel, General’ to accompany the salute.

  Hervey’s face softened.

  ‘For Captain Worsley’s troop, Colonel,’ said Collins, indicating the boxes separated from the rest. ‘They’re marching at three.’

  Hervey nodded in satisfaction. Worsley must have sent word at once. But then, they’d been in the field a good many weeks now; no one wasted any time.

  ‘How much corn are they taking?’

  ‘Captain Worsley wants a day’s worth on the saddle, and two on packs, Colonel.’

  Hervey nodded again. Supply would be the deciding factor after a couple of days. The Sixth of late months had lost fewer horses than usual. Since returning from Coorg they’d cast forty-six and received by return sixty-five from the remount depot, all of them New South Walers.

  ‘All but a dozen passed fit this morning by the vet’nary, Colonel,’ said Armstrong.

  There was plenty of grass where they were going, but even Walers, the best of doers, needed hard feed for real work. As for his soldiers and sepoys, he’d ordered the whole field force onto biscuit for the first three days, for he didn’t want the advance tied to the pace of the commissary waggon. They’d have plenty of meat tonight, and bacon tomorrow morning, and they’d be at Chintalpore in two days if they marched fast and long and slept out, making no camp (and if they met no opposition) – and then the baggage trains could catch up. And there’d be plenty of good victuals in the city too.

  If they met no opposition: it was a bold assumption. He knew he was trusting to a lot, not just his waggoners. But he’d supposed the insurgents’ instinct would be to defend Chintalpore close rather than hazard a battle at arm’s length as a seasoned soldier would. Besides, he still didn’t know how strong Ashok Acharya’s army really was. His ‘Prussian mentor’, as he called the manuscript – the thoughts on war of one of Prince Blücher’s generals, which for the past three years he’d laboured in translating – held that men were always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy’s strength too high than too low. And yet he also knew it to be a sin to underestimate the enemy. Once, in the Peninsula when he’d been a galloper, his general concluded that the enemy had but two options, and had disposed his regiments accordingly; but the enemy had taken a third, and the brigade had been sorely pressed.

  Here in India, though, there’d long been a saying that war was made with bullocks and gold. Before leaving Chintalpore, he’d told Bell and Fairbrother that if it came to a fight they could offer what inducement they thought best – gold, amnesty or both – to suborn any commander they thought fit. There was money enough in the mines in Chintal, as well as coin at Fort William, to buy off any mercenary army.

  He chatted for a moment or two more with Collins about this and that – nothing of true consequence: the benefits of the supplementary dried pork, the additional rum ration, what and where they might spend the batta, the field allowance – and then took Armstrong aside.

  ‘Is all well, Sar’nt-Major?’

  He didn’t need to elaborate. Their long association meant that the enquiry gave Armstrong licence to say whatever he wanted.

  ‘There’s not a thing to be troubling over, Colonel. I gave the SMs a rousting the other day, just in case.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ But Hervey narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ll allow the SMs their share of shot and shell, then, Sar’nt-Major – not try to take it from them?’

  Armstrong smiled knowingly. ‘I reckon I’ve had my fair share, Colonel.’

  ‘Indeed you have.’

  And that was that. He’d said what he needed to, and Armstrong had answered favourably. But when the time came …?

  It was useless to think on it. They’d (both) do their duty as they saw need. There was no other way.

  Hervey and Major Parry worked long into the night, having sent immediately to Fort William a copy of Fairbrother’s despatch. Hervey was determined to lay before the governor-general as complete a submission as possible before they set out, signing the covering letter in the small hours.

  Sthambadree

  February 1st, 1835

  The Governor-General and Commander-in-chief

  At Fort William

  My Lord,

  I am this day commencing operations in Chintal with the object of restoring good order to the country. I judge that I must do so without delay in order that the insurgents are given no time to consolidate their position, thus occasioning greater loss to my command, and also to take advantage of the favourable moon.

  My method shall be to relieve the royal palace at Chintalpore presently invested by the insurgent force of the chief minister, and in which the Ranee of Chintal has taken refuge. Upon liberation of the Ranee, I shall take such steps to disband the present forces of Chintal as may be expedient, and to enter upon a provisional treaty with Her Highness for the establishment of a subsidiary force.

  The troops available to me at the present time, and which comprise what Your Lordship was earlier pleased to designate the Chintal Field Force, are as follows:

  Artillery

  Four batteries of howitzers and cannon (32 pieces)

  Three troops Horse Artillery (24 pieces)

  Sappers

  200

  His Majesty’s Cavalry

  6th Light Dragoons (400 sabres)

  13th Light Dragoons (300 sabres)

  Native Horse (brigaded under Sir John Gordon)

  Squadron 3rd Madras Light Cavalry (100 sabres)

  4th Cavalry (Gordon’s Horse), Haidarabad Contingent (400 sabres)

  5th Cavalry, Haidarabad Contingent (300 sabres)

  1st Brigade (Col Lindesay)

  13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry

  39th (Dorsetshire) Foot

  2nd Brigade (Col Craigie)

  55th (Westmoreland) Foot

  3rd Madras Native Infantry

  My intention is as follows:

  Exploring Force (13 Lt Drgns, & Sqdn 6 Lt Drgns) to discover strength and disposition of insurgent forces on roads west to Chintalpore, and situation in city.

  1st Brigade to advance on northern road, 2nd Brigade on southern, covered each by sqn 6 Lt Drgns.

  Reserve (Native Cavalry Brigade) on southern road. Sqdn Madras Light Cavalry to maintain communications with Sthambadree. It is my intention to keep the Nizam’s contingent from the fighting to the greatest extent possible so as not to excite stronger resistance than may be.

  Your Lordship will understand that such intelligence that I possess at this time is very little, and that I can only state broadly a plan of deployment. Your Lordship will further understand that the troops available to me are considerably fewer than those for which I had at first made plan, and that if it becomes necessary for prolonged siege operations I shall rely on the timely arrival of such other troops as have been promised from both Madras and Agra. I shall of course endeavour to inform Your Lordship of the progress of operations so far as is practicable.

  I am Your Lordship’s Obedient Servant, &c &c

  M. P. Hervey, Brevet Col & Local Maj-Gen

  Your Lordship will understand … Hervey had written more in hope than certainty, for Lord William Bentinck had assumed – appropriated, some held – the appointment of commander-in-chief when Sir Edward Barnes returned home unexpectedly a year ago. He’d no quarrel with Bentinck as governor-general, largely for the reason that Somervile hadn’t, but he’d no great regard for his ability as a soldier. Indeed, as far as he could see, Bentinck could present no evidence of ever having been a soldier, in any sense that another soldier would recognize. ‘Your Lordship will understand’ was, indeed, forceful military judgement courteously expressed. His plan de déploiement was no more than he need explain, no more than military propriety and prudence required. If he were to fall in the course of the campaign, the design would bear witness enough to his military judgement.

  XXII

  A Few Honest Men<
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  The Forest of Chintal, next day

  Shots – not a volley or a fusillade, but more, for sure, than a brace of pistols. Difficult to be certain in the jungle.

  For two hours they’d trodden the green road – wide enough for a waggon, and sometimes two – and for three hours before that they’d walked and occasionally trotted through open country with scarcely a soul to be seen save those too weak to run and hide. Soldiers: there was no knowing what they’d do. How might a poor ryot distinguish King’s and Company’s from less well-regulated corps? It had been the same when he’d taken the northern route three weeks before – sullenness. He was still uncertain whether it presaged good or ill.

  ‘A mile, I think,’ said Hervey. ‘A hill makes no end of difference.’

  ‘Hunters, perhaps?’ said Parry.

  Hervey looked doubtful. It was perfect country for advancing unseen, as he trusted that Worsley, and the Thirteenth, were, but damnable once discovered – the enemy concealed, movement difficult, order and control nigh impossible. Coorg had been much worse, of course: the hills there were petites montagnes – but in Coorg, time had been on his side. ‘The commander’s talents are given greatest scope in rough hilly country’ said his Prussian mentor; and Hervey had smiled at it, for only a Prussian could treat with war as if it were a game. But as for jungle, it was true: it tested mettle like no other.

  Colonel Maclean, at his side, spurred into a fast trot. No point waiting for the relays to report. But Hervey stood fast. They’d reach a fork, a track connecting with the northern road. If there was need to switch the effort from the southern, here was as good a place as any to begin. He’d not crowd Maclean and his squadrons.

  Yet his every instinct was to ride forward. He got down from the saddle and spread the map on the ground – if ‘map’ it could be called. (What cartographical benefits would flow from a subsidiary alliance!) There was a road of some sort not far ahead that branched south towards the flood plain of the Nerbudda, but it wasn’t clear whether it went as far as the plain or petered out in the forest. He wondered if he might get the Thirteenth to send a troop …

  Half an hour passed, and still no word from Maclean. Nor any sound but avian and the odd monkey. That indeed was the jungle, which the Prussian couldn’t know from experience: a commander knew nothing but what was told him, and if he tried to see for himself he only confounded things the more.

  ‘The forest teems with life,’ said Hervey suddenly to the baboo, ‘yet it shuts up like a clam when anyone intrudes.’

  ‘It is so, sahib, but it takes no side.’

  Hervey nodded, and with a resigned smile. It was true – how could it not be? – but at times it felt entirely other.

  He admired the baboo more with each day. He wanted him close during the march, for although he was confident enough that his Hindoostanee would get him by when it came to words of command, if it came to writing … (and there was bound to be writing when they made Chintalpore).

  He began to chafe. Still nothing from the Thirteenth, and the covering squadron of the 2nd Brigade would be closing up behind them soon. He’d four gallopers and two orderlies. He supposed he could send one of them forward, but …

  ‘Hurroo!’

  A cornet at speed.

  Parry spurred to halt him.

  ‘Message for the general, sir!’

  The covermen re-sheathed their sabres.

  Hervey beckoned him forward.

  ‘General,’ he said eagerly as he saluted; ‘Colonel Maclean’s compliments, and the road is clear. There was a vidette a mile west. They fired in the air when our scouts approached and then tried to gallop back, but they – the scouts – ran them down. The colonel’s questioning them now, two sowars, irregulars judging from their appearance.’

  Hervey wondered. He’d expected something or nothing, not a brace of partisans. ‘If there was a vidette there must be a fair body of troops beyond, within hearing, the shots to sound alarm; how far have you explored?’

  ‘The forward detachment galloped three miles, General, but saw nothing at all.’

  That was decidedly odd. Why post a vidette – or why its shots? Hervey thanked him nevertheless. There was only so much a galloper could suppose.

  Time to see for himself – and for Minnie to have a gallop.

  Ten minutes later they came on the Thirteenth’s pennant, and with some surprise. Colonel Maclean was at his ease in an old nipa palm shelter chatting amiably in Hindoostanee with the captives, and his covering serjeant pouring them rum.

  Hervey got down, returning the salute and the smile.

  ‘Well, General, it appears I’ll be able to take these fellows on strength. I’ve never known looser tongues – and I can’t think they’ve any cause to be laying a false trail.’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘They’re Jats, silladars. Someone knew we were coming, evidently, for they were posted only last night.’

  Hervey nodded. Silladars – yeomanry, but even more independent-minded than the English variety. Just the men for vidette duty, but perilous since they owed no allegiance.

  ‘And the main force?’

  ‘About ten miles, as far as I can calculate – you know how variable is the kos – where the road crosses a fair-sized stream they say. Might be this here.’

  He pointed on his map with the leaflet of a palm frond.

  ‘The forest’s burned out there, they say. They reckon a thousand foot, and guns, but I doubt they know exactly.’

  Hervey beckoned the baboo to come closer. He wanted to question them for himself, if only to gauge their manner. Both were clean-shaven but for a day’s growth, tall, clear-eyed and active looking. A good stamp of soldier.

  ‘What was your purpose in firing the shots?’

  ‘Huzoor, they were my orders.’

  ‘Who would hear the shots if the river is so far away?’

  ‘Huzoor, the vidette behind me, one whole kos.’

  Hervey frowned. Kos – a mile, two miles, three? But it scarcely mattered. It was obvious there was a relay of some sort. He told Maclean to have one of them taken aside, out of earshot, and then he’d question each in turn.

  ‘How many cannon?’

  This took a little more time, for Indians could be equally loose with terminology as distance, inclined to lump all shot together as ‘artillery’, whether top (cannon), bundook (musket), or anything else for that matter.

  But in questioning them separately he managed to establish that there might be some twenty guns covering the crossing – ‘wheel to wheel’. Even if there were half that number it was bad enough.

  Did they know if there were troops on the other road, though, the northern?

  It was a tall order. Why would two such Jats know the plan of battle?

  But Hervey persisted: had they seen others marching in a different direction? Did they think the force at the river was the major part of the army? And so on.

  Eventually he was satisfied there was no more to be had save the odd detail that might be useful as they closed up to the river – but that was for Maclean. The true import of the intelligence was that Ashok Acharya, or whoever was his field commander, intended confining them in the forest rather than defeating them in the open. If it were so, it were poor strategy, simply one of inflicting casualties, delay and discouragement. Did he not know His Majesty’s troops better than that?

  But, he’d concede, from a purely tactical point of view the river sounded like a well-calculated position. It was just about the furthest march from the frontier that could be had in a day, so that then the invader would be halted, there being no possibility of taking the position at night, and would spend half the following morning in preparation, and if checked in his first assault – as he surely would be by so many guns, whether twenty or half the number – and with no room to manoeuvre, night would come again with the defenders still in possession of the ground, and the invader exhausted. If they were then able to bring up new troops in the night – which
ought to be possible – it would be the same the next day, and the next, and …

  Yes, he could see that a man schooled in sieges and the like would think in such terms, but suppose the invader decided not to oblige him by continuing to batter his head against the wall?

  The question Hervey now needed answer to was whether it was Acharya’s ‘strategy’ on the northern road too, for so far he’d had no report from that line of advance.

  Then it occurred to him: did not the strategy present him with an opportunity? If Ashok Acharya expected to compel the field force to make assaults, why not appear to oblige him? They could turn the tables, so to speak, pinning him in the forest – drawing in more and more of his men. It wasn’t necessary to take the position, only to continue to threaten to. How he then took advantage of that depended on what he learned from Worsley, and from Maclean’s squadron on the northern road. It would be well, too, and soon, to learn where Acharya actually was, and of course the Ranee.

  But if he couldn’t consider all of what his options might be, he could at least explore those that he recognized.

  ‘Colonel,’ he began, plucking a nipa frond to point with, ‘you’ll see by your map there’s a road of sorts here that runs off to the south-west seemingly into nowhere. It may well continue to the banks of the Nerbudda, or it may be that the forest’s passable on foot – you know how little’s the undergrowth when there’s been no fall of timber – and if that’s so, I’m minded to try it. It can only be a mile ahead at most.’

  ‘Yes, I see. I’ll send a patrol.’ He nodded to his adjutant. ‘Mr Tysseu please.’

  Then Hervey sat him down and explained his thinking about the ‘demonstrations’. It was the very devil to risk men’s lives trying to take a position of which there was no need, a feigned attack, a ruse de guerre, but the alternative could be even bloodier.