Sword of Fortune

by Christopher Nicole

  Its companion also bared its teeth, but backed away from the reeking blade. Richard grabbed the largest pot, which had cooled off since the meal, and turned to find Hanif, who had secured another chicken.

  By now the people were awake, and stumbling from their houses, shouting.

  ‘Away, sahib!’ Hanif shouted, running for the trees.

  Richard took to his heels, and was seen in the gloom. There was a concerted shout this time, and people surged behind him.

  ‘You must stop them, sahib,’ Hanif called; he had already reached the trees.

  Richard stopped. The people were very close, no more than twenty yards away. It was difficult to be certain in the darkness, but he reckoned there had to be about a score of them, men and boys, waving sticks and knives.

  He placed the pot on the ground, drew his first pistol, sighted into the centre of the running mass, and fired. There was a cry and a man fell. Richard thrust the pistol into his belt, drew his second, and fired again.

  Another man went down, and the rest of them began to fall back, checked, but still yelling and shouting, and certainly ready to take up the chase again the moment he turned away. Richard replaced the second pistol in his belt, took his claymore in his right hand, and uttered the loudest shout he could summon, then ran at them, sword high.

  They shrieked and ran. Only two bolder spirits endeavoured to stand their ground, waving their knives. He sent one tumbling with a cut and the other fell to a thrust. He did not suppose they were dead, from the way they continued to wail and howl, but the pursuit was finished.

  Panting, Richard ran back to the trees, pausing to pick up his cooking pot.

  ‘That was well done, Richard sahib,’ Hanif told him. ‘They will not even follow us after such an exploit.’

  ‘They were virtually unarmed,’ Richard protested.

  ‘They were armed enough. Had you not terrified them, they would have torn you limb from limb, sahib. Come, let us make haste away from this place. There is food here for several days.’

  So, Richard thought in addition to being a murderer, a cad, and a would-be traitor, I am now a cut-throat robber.

  All because of a woman!

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 19 January 1780

  The Indiaman from Calcutta has left for England, with Mrs Holder on board!

  One has to feel sorry for the poor woman, but truly she brought her woes on herself.

  Richard is the deepest-dyed scoundrel who ever walked the face of the earth. Surely a gentleman would have allowed himself to be hanged rather than treat a lady as he treated Mrs Holder!

  Nothing else is talked of in the presidency. But then, nothing else but Richard and his trial was talked of all over Christmas. It was a miserable Christmas!

  And New Year’s Eve was as bad, with the trial due to start in three days’ time.

  Now the wretch is gone!

  To think that he was carrying on with Mrs Holder, while toying with my affections! I thought I would have died with shame when I heard the news. The disgusting woman denied it, of course. She claimed she visited him out of the goodness of her heart to bring him some Christian solace during his vile confinement. Christian solace! Vile confinement! The gaoler records that she wished to be left alone with the prisoner for an hour!

  He has been thoroughly flogged and dismissed his position.

  Oh, how I wish this dreadful rain would stop. It makes it quite impossible to think.

  I am to be married, and soon. But to whom? Nobody knows. It is merely a pronunciamento by Uncle Jonathan. There can be no doubt he suspects. He has forbidden me to go riding in the mornings. He says it is until the monsoon is over. We shall have to see.

  Whom does he have in mind? No clerk, that is certain. And no officer under the rank of Captain. They are all so dull!

  The Indiaman from England is expected within a fortnight, and she is bringing replacement officers.

  Oh, that one of them should be handsome and dashing, and meet with Uncle Jonathan’s approval. Then I would never have to go to the beach again! I should have my very own lover at home whenever I wished!

  How I wish it could have been Richard. But the wretch is dead. Uncle Jonathan says none of the search parties found any trace of him. He says that no white man could possibly survive, alone in the jungle, with just a single servant.

  Uncle Jonathan does not like Richard and says it is the best thing that could possibly have happened to him.

  Oh dear! He is a wretch and a murderer!

  But he was a marvellous lover.

  4: The Begum Sombre

  Richard lost track of time as they made their way north, lashed by rain, scorched by the sun. Eventually the monsoon ended. Just in time, for more than once they had come close to drowning when rivers had unexpectedly broken their banks.

  He was aware that they were climbing, steadily. Before too long they left the thick forest behind them. Then the going became more dangerous; not only was there less concealment, but they were in the land of the Marathas. More than once they had to lie hidden for a whole day while the savage horsemen passed close by. But once they had to spend a whole day concealed because there was a column of red-coated cavalry in sight.

  Clearly the campaign dragged on. Richard had a wild idea that he might be able to pull off some military coup, guide a British force to a spectacular victory, and gain total forgiveness and reinstatement. But it remained only one of his dreams. They saw no other Company soldiers, and as they carefully avoided the Marathas they learned nothing of their dispositions.

  To obtain food, they had to carry out several raids on lonely villages, always successfully. Indeed the villagers in the hills were more easily subdued than those on the plain; they were raided regularly enough by the Marathas.

  Their clothes fell into rags, so much so that on one of their midnight raids they stole clothing as well as food. With his nether regions wrapped up in a dhoti and a turban wound around his head, and with his skin rapidly becoming burned as dark as Hanif’s, Richard even looked like an Indian. Only the sword and pistols thrust through the leather belt he retained marked him as a man apart.

  Bare-footed now, they had their share of ailments, from simple cuts and scratches, through burrowing insects which lodged in their toes and had to be dug out by Hanif’s knife, to attacks of ague, carried by the swarms of mosquitoes. Once Richard was so ill they had to remain in one place for several days. Fortunately they had just carried out a raid and had sufficient food, while no nurse could have been more painstaking than Hanif.

  And they got to know each other in a way that had been impossible in Bombay.

  Hanif was a Muslim. He could read, and in his satchel there was a battered edition of the Koran, some verses of which he read every night, putting Richard, who had not thought to take a Bible with him, quite to shame.

  But he would not have taken a Bible anyway, because he felt that he had stepped outside Christianity. Hanif could not believe this. There was nothing in the Koran about mildness and turning the other cheek. A true man lived by the sword. Richard was the truest man he had ever encountered.

  ‘But you are even now breaking the rule of Mahomet,’ Richard pointed out. ‘Does he not say that it is your duty to wage eternal war against the infidels?’

  Hanif smiled. ‘Except when it is expedient to be allied with them, sahib.’

  ‘And you still reckon this is expedient? To live as an outlaw, without a future, never knowing which day will be your last?’

  ‘Throughout life, sahib, no man knows for certain that tomorrow will not be his last on earth, no matter how great or how powerful or how wealthy he may be. As for the future, I believe you have a future, and I will also, at your side.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Your sword. I have never seen one like it. It is a sword which will carry you to fortune, sahib. This I know.’

  Richard gazed at the claymore. It had certainly stood him in good stead over the past weeks.
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  And who was to say which was right, the Bible or the Koran?

  *

  Hanif was an orphan, a fact that had played its part in his dreams of abandoning everything and taking to the jungle. He could not remember his mother, and his father had hired him out to work from an early age. He did not love his father, had not grieved when he had also died.

  ‘Have you no sisters and brothers?’

  ‘None true. My mother was my father’s favourite wife, but she bore only me. The others have no love for me.’

  ‘Did you ever have a woman of your own?’

  ‘I am a poor man, sahib. Who would sell me a woman?’

  ‘Ah,’ Richard said thinking of Smythe’s plans for the fair Barbara, ‘I have suffered the same lack.’

  Hanif grinned. ‘But together we will gain money, sahib. And then we will buy the most beautiful women in the world.’

  ‘Is that what you desire most?’

  ‘What else should a man desire, sahib? Fame is good. To be feared is good. To be comfortable is good. To eat fine food is good. To have money is best, because it enables a man to buy fine things. But what can he possess of more comfort to him than a beautiful woman?’

  Richard considered. But there really wasn’t anything the matter with that philosophy. Except...

  ‘Then what should a woman desire most in the world?’

  Hanif laughed. ‘Why, to be bought by a handsome and virile man, sahib. And become his favourite wife, and bear him strong sons.’

  For the first time in weeks, Richard laughed out loud.

  *

  Hanif kept a careful tally of the distance they travelled each day—about ten miles, he reckoned—and five weeks after leaving Bombay they found themselves descending from the hills into the valley of the River Narmada, a wide, hostile-looking stretch of brown water.

  ‘It is quite deep,’ Hanif said. ‘Can you swim, sahib?’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard told him. ‘But what about crocodiles?’

  Hanif shrugged. ‘We have to cross the river; they must be chanced. We will enter together, and strike out boldly. If it is our Kismet to survive, why, then we will survive. If it is not, then we will die even sitting here on this bank.’

  It was a satisfyingly simple point of view. Richard accepted that the powder would have to get wet, waded into the water and, as Hanif had recommended, struck out boldly, refusing to consider what might at any moment tug at his legs.

  But they saw none of the huge reptiles, and gained the northern bank safely enough, some quarter of a mile downstream from where they had entered.

  Richard put his powder in the sun to dry, while Hanif looked pleased. Now the most dangerous part of our journey has been completed,’ he declared. ‘We are in the land ruled by Scindhia. We will cross this, and come to Hariana.’

  ‘And suppose we encounter Scindhia soldiers?’

  ‘Why, then, sahib, you will offer them your sword.’

  And what will happen if de Boigne does not accept it? Richard wondered.

  ‘But in any event we must now look for people,’ Hanif said. ‘There is no more food.’

  *

  But once they actually began to seek people, there were none to be found. The land to the north of the river climbed even more steeply than that to the south, and that night they shivered before a brisk, chill wind. Next day they saw smoke, and hurried towards it, only to find that the village was itself still smouldering, having been utterly devastated. The houses had been largely destroyed before being fired; there were dead bodies, of women and children and dogs as well as men, scattered in the fields where they had attempted to flee. All the livestock had been driven off, but some of the vegetables were left, and some dead chickens.

  ‘And you were concerned about our puny robberies, sahib?’ Hanif asked sombrely, surveying the scene.

  ‘But who would have done this?’ Richard asked. ‘The Marathas?’

  ‘It is possible. But I would have supposed them too occupied in fighting the Company to be raiding north of the river. It is very strange. We must go on.’

  They climbed even higher, before descending into a sudden, but still high, valley. This was the pattern of the next few days, and game again became very scarce, while the vegetables they had taken from the village also became exhausted.

  Then they came upon another village, similarly destroyed. The vultures had only just commenced their work.

  ‘There is some large force at work here,’ Hanif observed. ‘This was recently done.’

  Richard gazed at the hills to every side. ‘Where are they, do you suppose?’

  Hanif was inspecting the ground. ‘They left in the direction of the north-east,’ he said.

  ‘Then we shall follow.’

  ‘These men? They can hardly he serving Scindhia, sahib.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But we have no choice. If we fall in with any of Scindhia’s people, close by a burning village, they will kill us out of hand. We must discover who has committed these crimes and, if possible, where they are going, so that we may at least offer that information to our captors.’

  Hanif scratched his nose, but understood the reasoning behind the plan.

  ‘Then let us make haste,’ he decided. ‘They are mounted, but they have slaves, and goats, and are moving slowly.’

  The trail became easier to follow, with cast-away bones and the remains of camp fires.

  Hanif pointed at the hoofmarks.

  ‘Many horses,’ he said. ‘At least fifty.’

  The following night the tang of spicy cooking drifted to them on the northerly breeze. Now they moved more cautiously, seeking ravines and gullies for concealment, aware that they were very close to the marauders. And that evening they came upon the camp, pitched in a valley below them.

  They gazed at some three score horses, neatly hobbled in rows, as if they were a European cavalry squadron. Close by, manacled and huddled together under guard, was a group of slaves, all women and children. The tents, too, were pitched in neat rows, and the men moving to and fro between them wore pale blue uniform jackets, over red vests and white breeches, with tall black grenadier caps. There were two flags flying in the centre of the encampment. One, red and black striped, Richard did not recognise. But the other was unmistakeably the fleur-de-lys.

  ‘Those are Frenchmen,’ he said.

  ‘But whose Frenchmen, sahib? They cannot fight for de Boigne, as they are undoubtedly responsible for those destroyed villages.’

  ‘Nonetheless, that is a French camp. Does it matter who they fight for? Does it matter who we fight for now as long as it is someone who will feed and clothe us?’ Seeing the camp had made him realise how tired he was of living like an animal.

  Hanif looked sceptical. ‘They are the men who destroyed those villages, sahib.’

  ‘Does that make them different from other men?’ Richard asked, remembering Ford and his piece of bamboo. ‘No doubt they are at war with Scindhia. That will make them the more likely to accept us. They may well even be from this place Hariana.’

  Hanif considered, and then shrugged. ‘As you say, sahib, we must offer ourselves to someone.’ He grinned. ‘And my belly is uncomfortably empty.’ He stood up. ‘Shall we deliver ourselves to these people?’

  *

  Richard led the way down the slope, his claymore slapping his thigh, his pistols pressing against his groin; they were charged and primed. He was taking an even a bigger gamble here than when escaping from the Bombay gaol. But it was a gamble which had to be taken at some stage.

  Horses neighed, someone shouted, and he heard the click of a musket being primed.

  ‘We are friends,’ he called in Hindustani.

  Men came from the tents to stare at him. Several of them, although their complexions were burned as brown as his own, were clearly European. Quite a few, however, although they wore French uniform, were equally obviously Indian.

  They gazed at Richard’s sword and pistols; Hanif had fallen a few paces behind
, ready to resume being nothing more than a servant.

  ‘You are not Indian,’ declared the sergeant.

  ‘I have the honour to be an Englishman,’ Richard told him. ‘English?’

  There was another ripple of preparation.

  ‘An Englishman who has turned his back on the Honourable East India Company,’ Richard declared, ‘and who would serve a more suitable master.’

  The Frenchmen exchanged glances, and then parted to let their captain through. He was a relatively young man, with a small moustache. Of medium height, he was broad-shouldered and athletic in appearance, and smoked a pipe. He did not look hostile, although certainly interested in this well-armed apparition.

  ‘Where have you come from?’ he asked.

  ‘From Bombay.’

  The captain looked past the two men, seeking horses. ‘You have walked from Bombay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That is impossible.’

  ‘I had a good guide.’

  ‘But how did you live?’

  ‘The same way that you have been living, it would seem, these past few days,’ Richard said.

  The captain gazed at him. ‘What is your name.’

  ‘Richard Bryant.’

  ‘And you say you have fled from the East India Company? Why?’

  ‘I killed a man.’

  The captain nodded, as though he had expected as much. ‘Then you know the use of that sword and those pistols. Obviously, or you would not have survived so long a march.’

  ‘I am also very hungry,’ Richard said. ‘As is my servant.’

  ‘Then you shall be fed.’ The captain held out his hand. ‘Jacques Peyraud.’

  Richard clasped his fingers, while relief flooded through his system. Could he really have fallen on his feet? He found that difficult to believe. Yet Peyraud was charm itself, took Richard to his own tent, saw that he was given both food and wine. He had not tasted wine for five months.

  ‘Your purpose, I presume, is to seek service with a Free Company,’ Peyraud observed, while Richard ate and drank.