‘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!'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IN A GLORIOUS MANNER
Agra, 1 December
Not since the first Mughal emperor, Zahir ud din Mohamed - Babur (the tiger) -had Agra seen such a host of men under arms. Three hundred years ago almost to the day, having taken Punjab with great but economical bloodshed, Babur had come down the Jumna from his new capital at Delhi to confront the Rajpoot federation. His army had been small by comparison with theirs, as it had been small compared with that of Ibrahim Lodi in Punjab, but Babur knew how to manoeuvre them to advantage. The martial Rajpoots, two hundred thousand and more, learned defeat at Kanwaha near Fatehpur Sikri, where Babur's grandson, Akbar the Great, would in time build a new Mughal capital. After the battle, Babur, rejoicing at becoming a ghazi, a killer of infidels, had made great mounds of the bodies of the slain, and pillars of their heads -models to be copied at Bhurtpore centuries later with Lord Lake's men.
Lord Combermere's army knew its history. The sepoys spoke among themselves of the Futtah Bourge, the 'bastion of victory', the great tower of skulls that stood as affront to both their caste and their calling. The private men of the King's regiments, their information learned more recently but with no less indignation, likewise spoke of the insult to be effaced - and, it must be certain, the retribution to be exacted on the defenders of Bhurtpore. That the Jhauts who now stood defiantly on the walls of the city were not the same enemy as Lord Lake's was of no moment. They were of the same country, and they dared to oppose John Company and the King.
Red was the colour that predominated in the camps, but a vivid red, scarlet, the colour of blood, not the mellow red of the great sandstone fort nearby, nor the rich deep red of the silks that clothed men and women alike in the chaupars and bazaars of this old imperial city. The Company's native infantry regiments were as regular in their appearance as Lord Combermere had known the duke's in Spain, save that the sepoys' legs were bare. The cavalry, too, had all the appearance of his own command at that time, except that in the hands of some was a weapon that hitherto he had seen only in the hands of the enemy - the lance, its pennants now fluttering in the ranks of His Majesty's Sixteenth Lancers, who aped their models in this part by wearing the schapska of Bonaparte's Polish lancers instead of the shako. Hervey could not look at their scarlet bibs without a fraction of distaste, for blue had been the colour of all who did not fight in lines, and he thought it needless show. Show in both senses, for scouting and outpost work was hard enough at the best of times without robin-redbreast display.
Hervey had been busy on his own account with matters of uniform. For some time now he had become convinced that for field service their own coats should be modified in the same way as had their horses' bridles. Early on in the Peninsula the regiment had doubled the leather browband with chain so that a sword could not cut it and make the bridle fall from the animal's head. He had listened to accounts of Maratha and Rajpoot swordsmanship and learned that a favoured device was the passing cut at the shoulder, and he had concluded that chain on the shoulder - as of old - would serve them well. Major Joynson had been persuaded, and the metalworkers of Calcutta had been engaged to fashion six inches of mail, three inches wide, for each dragoon's shoulder. Lord Combermere saw it when he inspected his troops at Agra, and much approved. And when, three days later, he went by dawk upstream to Muttra to inspect the other half of his army, and there found Hervey and his troop, he remarked on it favourably, so that Hervey was in no doubt that Lord Combermere's estimation of him was truly of the highest order.
'I intend beginning a general advance on Bhurtpore three days hence, on the ninth,' the commander-in-chief told him as he turned his horse away. 'I shall make all appearances of wanting to parley, so that they do not take steps to inundate the defences, but I shall want you to break from the force at last light and move to seize the bund. Then at dawn next day I shall send with all despatch a force to relieve you.'
It was exactly as Hervey had urged at Fort William. 'Very good, General.'
'Two squadrons, you said.'
'Yes, sir. One of the Eleventh's, and a rissalah from Skinner's Horse, they with their galloper guns. The horse artillery would only impede us.'
Combermere nodded, but slowly, as if considering. 'The Eleventh, yes - and your own troop, I should suppose.'
Hervey nodded his confirmation.
'But the irregular
horse . . . are they to be so relied upon?'
Hervey smiled assuringly. 'I may say with utter certainty, your lordship, that one could do no better in trusting them with one's very life. Three years ago, in Burma, I had proof of it myself.'
Combermere nodded again, this time more definitely. 'Very well, then, I shall have Colonel Watson write the orders at once. Is there any more you would have me do?'
'No, sir. Except, of course, that our orders should not be made general.'
'Of course.'
Hervey knew he had suggested the obvious, but he had his reasons. Combermere rode high in his estimation from all that had gone before in Portugal and Spain, but this was India.
'Cap'n 'Ervey, sir, if yon farrier's sick another day I'm gooin' to 'ave to ask one 'o' t'Eleventh's to do Gilbert. Them corns are gettin' bad.'
Gilbert's shoes were a problem that Hervey could do without. It wasn't just Gilbert, either, for although Corporal Brennan's assistants were capable of admirable cold-shoeing by replacing worn iron with the stock shoes carried by each dragoon, they were not yet proficient enough to make a therapeutic set, and there were half a dozen troopers needing that attention. 'I'll speak to their colonel, then,' replied Hervey, still wondering when he might have the orders which would give him authority to address his mission.
Johnson was content. 'Lord Combermere looked 'appy enough this mornin'. I were tellin' all them green'eads that fancies themselves as dragoons, about 'im at T'loose.'
Hervey looked pained. 'Not anything in connection with General Slade, I hope.'
'Of course it were about Slade. That were t'story!'
Indeed it was a story. Lord Combermere's timely appearance at Toulouse had made General Slade drop his prey - and Hervey had raced back to the regiment a free man again. But Combermere, as far as Hervey could tell, had never known how providential had been his arrival. He had known only the eagerness of the wounded cornet to be back in action. There was a time, however - and certainly at Toulouse - when Hervey would have been truly perturbed, believing that the disparaging of a senior officer, even one such as Slade, would have been inimical to discipline. Now he cared not at all. The canteen was entitled to its views, as long as it held them in private, so to speak. And if they could disparage Slade they could extol Combermere, as it seemed they might. Johnson did the commander-in-chief a service therefore; Hervey ought to commend him, indeed. There were always difficulties attendant on commending Johnson, though. 'That reminds me—'
But Johnson was not finished. 'Word is in t'can-teen that them walls is fifty feet thick, and made of bones and solid rock.'
Hervey raised an eyebrow. 'How do the intelligence agents of the canteen believe solid rock and bones are mixed together?'
Johnson did not consider it an impossible notion. 'They didn't say, only that the walls is so thick it'd take a month o' Sundays just to scratch 'em.'
Hervey frowned. 'They're thick, Johnson, I grant you that, but not fifty feet, and not solid rock. They'll withstand some battering, but they're bound to be breached at some point, and then it will be the bayonet in the old way.'
'Let's 'ope so, sir,' said Johnson matter-of-factly, taking the reins of Hervey's second charger as Hervey himself began picking up each of the little Marwari's feet to check for stones. "Ave yer 'eard there've been some deserters an' all?'
'There are always deserters, Johnson,' replied Hervey, just as matter-of-fact, picking out a pebble from the off-fore.
'Ay, but they reckon these've gone over to t' Jhauts.'
'Who reckons? How do they know?'
'Corporal McCarthy 'eard. 'E always 'ears everything if they're Irish.'
Hervey continued checking his mare's feet (they looked in good shape). 'And who are they from, these men?'
'T' artillery.'
Hervey looked up. 'The artillery!'
'Ay, and supposed to be good gunners an' all.'
Hervey tutted. He was not disposed to think that they could have gone over to the enemy, for he could see no inducement . . . except that as experienced gunners their services would be keenly sought, and therefore, he supposed, well rewarded. But surely they would not—'
'An' one of 'em was at Waterloo, even!'
That concluded it. 'Tattle, Johnson. I should sooner imagine the sar'nt-major a preacher!'
But Johnson was unmoved. 'Well, that's what they're saying, Cap'n 'Ervey. Is there owt else?'
Hervey shook his head. 'No, I believe we may offsaddle and give them some hay.' There was only grass, but hay was what they called it still. 'And we can take our ease too for an hour or so. Call me if Mr Sledge comes in. He said he might come up from Agra today. Oh, and . . . see if you can find out any more about these deserters, will you?'
There was much to do, even had he not had the assignment at the Bhurtpore jheels. The camp was beginning to look like a bestiary come alive, with every manner of creature to provide milk or flesh for the army, or muscle or a strong back. His own troop might occupy him every minute, though for the most part they were not without experience. It was strange that they had seen action - fierce action - but had not yet been 'shot over', as the saying went. The affair at the river three years before had turned them into veterans overnight, and it had been long enough past to give them the taste for more of it now. Yet there were things he must check for himself - the firelocks especially, since he expected that what would come first against them at the jheels was better seen off with the carbine than the sabre. It was not something he could leave to his subalterns. Or rather, would leave. It was out of the question in any case to give the duty to Green, still as ineffectual as ever. Indeed, he would not even have passed the duty to Seton Canning, had he been with him still, for certain things were properly his particular responsibility.
In the afternoon, he received copies of general and field general orders. He was keen to see the appointments to both the staff and to commands of brigades and divisions, for there had been endless speculation and not a little wagering, and he retired to the relative peace of his tent to peruse them with as much leisure as seemed apt:
GENERAL ORDERS
Head-Quarters, Agra, 3rd Dec. 1825
The following officers are appointed Brigadier-Generals from 1st inst., subject to the confirmation of the Right Hon. The Governor-General in Council:
Brevet-Col. J. M'Combe, 14th Foot. Brevet-Col. J. W. Sleigh, C. B. 11th Dragoons. Col. W. J. Edwards, 14th Foot. Lieut.-Col. Childers to be Brigadier.
Capt. Hervey to be Loc-Major. Lieut. Maxwell to be Aide-de-Camp to Brigadier-General Sleigh.
Division of Cavalry. - Brigadier-General J. W. Sleigh, C.B. to Command.
1st Cavalry Brigade. - Brigadier Murray, C. B. 16th Lancers, to Command. Capt. W. Harris, 16th Lancers, Major of Brigade. - To consist of H.M. 6th Lt. Dragoons, 16th Lancers, 6th, 8th, and 9th Regiments of Light Cavalry.
2nd Cavalry Brigade. - Brigadier M. Childers. 11th Dragoons, to Command. Lieutenant G. Williamson to be Major of Brigade. - To consist of H. M. 11th Dragoons, 3rd, 4th and 10th Regiments of Light Cavalry. - N.B.
The Brigade of Irregular Cavalry, consisting of the 1st Local Horse, under Col. James Skinner. Troop 6th Lt. Dragoons under Maj. M. P. Hervey. 1st Division of Infantry . . .
On went the list, specifying each and every non-permanent appointment. 'Baggage-Master of the Army’, as onerous a position as any might be, was to be filled by Lieut. J. M'Dermot, H.M. 14th Foot. And 'Brigadier-Gen. Sleigh, C.B., will be pleased to select, and send in the names of three smart, active, and intelligent Non-commissioned Officers of Dragoons, for appointments as Assistant Baggage Master of Divisions.' Hervey thought he had better have someone in mind lest the general devolve one of the number on his troop. Stray would be best, of course, except that he was not from his troop. Neither was he by any standard smart.
And then, enclosed with these orders, there were others - a long exhortation, and in a style he knew from many a time in the Peninsula and France. The duke's own, indeed:
FIELD GENERAL ORDERS
Head-Quarters, Camp, Agra, Dec. 2, 182’ The Army now assembling for Service on the Agra and Muttra Frontier, being about to advance, His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief requests, that Officers commanding Regiments will impress upon their Officers, &c. the imperious necessity which exists, for each individual reducing the number of his servants to the lowest scale, and taking the Field as little encumbered with Baggage as possible; and desires that they will use their utmost endeavours to prevent superfluous individuals following the Bazaars of their respective Corps. All superfluous Baggage will be left at Muttra and Agra respectively, in the first instance, by Divisions, on advancing.
The March about to commence being through the Territory of an Ally of the British Government, and not that of an enemy, His Excellency prohibits in the strictest manner, all marauding or plundering; and desires that Officers commanding Divisions and Brigades will cause it to be three times proclaimed to their respective Corps, that the Provost-Marshal has received peremptory orders to seize, and inflict summary punishment of Death, on any individual or individuals caught in the act of plundering. In thus publicly promulgating the decided measures to be resorted to in support of discipline, His Excellency feels assured, from the correct habits of the European and Native Troops under his command, that, as far as they are concerned, the warning above given is unnecessary; but as the followers of Bazaars of Corps might avail themselves of opportunities to plunder the inhabitants of the country and others, the Commander-in-Chief deems it necessary to promulgate thus publicly the retribution which will await such conduct.
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