Sword of Fortune

by Christopher Nicole

  *

  This occurred far sooner than Richard had expected. Hardly had a week elapsed when Thomas galloped into the camp at the head of the valleys, accompanied by most of his twenty men, and also, to Richard’s amazement, by Multi and Tanna and Biriappa, together with their other servants.

  ‘Ye were right about Appa, and I was wrong, Dick me boy,’ Thomas confessed. ‘Listened to me he did, heaped praise upon me, held a feast in me honour, and then, when me belly was full, told his assassins to cut me down. Others were on their way here for you too, me boy. But I’ve seen to them.’

  Richard was aghast. ‘How did you get out?’

  ‘Thomas grinned. ‘Cut me way out, with the help of me untouchables here. Lost four good men. But here I am. And let Appa be damned.’ He raised the large bag he carried. ‘I cleaned his palace for him, too.’

  ‘So now we’ll ride for de Boigne and offer him our services?’ Richard could not help being pleased about that.

  ‘We will not. I’m done with servin’ others, Dick. Are ye not?’

  Richard reflected that he was certainly serving Thomas, at that moment.

  ‘You cannot merely serve yourself,’ he pointed out.

  ‘And why not? These brave lads’ll follow us anywhere. We’ll need women. But that’s soon settled by a raid or two. Then we take our own jaghir. Now, isn’t that a powerful appealing thought?’

  ‘Our own jaghir? By God, your imagination flies too far and too fast for me. Where are we to find land of our own?’

  Thomas pointed. ‘It’s just up there.’

  ‘Hariana? It’s naught but a jungle.’

  ‘Because it’s been sore neglected. It was fertile once. We’ll make it fertile again, Dick. We’ll carve our own little kingdom out of this jungle. And thumb our noses at the lot of the bastards.’

  *

  His enthusiasm was infectious. And Richard knew in his heart that de Boigne would probably never have agreed to sending forces against Sardhana.

  The only thing that dampened Richard’s high spirits was the thought that Caty was lost to him forever. And what of little Michael? Richard had no doubt that the Begum would manage to survive, no matter what happened. His only hope now was to follow Thomas, and create his own army, strong enough to undertake his own mission of revenge.

  The untouchables were in total support of their general’s plan. For untold centuries they had been the slaves of the warriors and the priests. Ship Sahib, as they called him since they could not pronounce his name, but knew he had come to India on a ship, had given them weapons and made them into men. Now he was offering them land and prosperity of their own, even slaves of their own. There was not a man among them who did not raise his arm in acclamation when the plan was put forward.

  What he himself lacked, Richard was coming to understand, in comparison with Thomas, was the total ruthlessness of the successful mercenary. Having determined on his course of action, Thomas hesitated not a moment in carrying his plans through.

  He commanded six hundred men, who at that moment were determined to follow him anywhere. But men needed women to keep them contented. That very night the brigade descended upon the village which had been supplying them with food, drove off the men, rounded up the women and young girls, and then moved out again, their captives carried on their saddles in front of them.

  For the most part the women were merely happy not to have had their throats cut.

  The same tactics were repeated time and again as the brigade marched north. Thomas had in fact declared war on both the Scindhia and Khunde, and was taking what he wanted from both before disappearing into the jungle. Each village yielded women and food, often on the hoof. By the time the brigade had covered a hundred miles they were a moving nation of some thousand souls.

  Their hands were well coated with blood, but this was the pattern of eighteenth-century India, Richard knew. It was no time to be faint-hearted.

  In fact, once he had quelled the pinpricks of conscience, Richard realised that he was unusually happy. He was part of an army campaigning on a vast scale, something he had always wanted. Then there was the comfort of Tanna. Tanna had no idea how old she was, but he did not suppose she was much over fourteen. She was gentle and loving, and while Richard would never love her as he had loved Caty, he felt affection for her and was glad of her care of him. Yet it was Caty who filled his dreams.

  Richard was happy, too, to be the trusted aide of a very unusual man. It was hard to credit that George Thomas had been, only two years before, an illiterate seaman. Where had he learned such ambition, and on so vast a scale?

  The man was a wonder to Richard. For George regularly drank himself to sleep, once he had checked all his sentries and made sure there were no enemies in the vicinity. Yet next morning he would be first in the saddle, urging his people onwards. He could hardly read a map, yet he had no doubt where he was going; he could read the stars.

  Nor could he have any doubt as to what he was leaving behind: an entire country in arms, and seeking vengeance. But first he had to be caught, and this was not possible, because he moved too quickly. His men grumbled, and his women, quickly reconciled to their new masters, equally. But they remained devoted to him, and in awe of him as well—not one of them had ever seen a man of such size and strength and such unremitting energy.

  A month after marching north from Khunde, they stood on the slopes of a hill and looked out at a seemingly unending stretch of jungle.

  ‘The Green Land,’ Hanif said wonderingly.

  *

  Thomas’s first ambition was to discover the abandoned city of Hansi. He divided his men into groups of twenty, each under an appointed commander, each with their allotment of women and cattle and goats and horses, and bade them advance into the jungle on a broad front, each of the thirty groups a mile apart; they covered a huge area.

  He gave each commander, including Richard and Hanif, a rudimentary lesson in the use of the sun and the stars for navigation, and told them, ‘Whoever finds the city is to light a great fire, which will be seen for many miles. Everyone who sees the fire will march towards it.’

  They saluted and marched off, afire with enthusiasm, convinced they had but a day’s journey in front of them.

  Thomas grinned at Richard. ‘I wonder how many of them we’ll ever see again. But you and I’ll make the rendezvous, Dick me boy. And there’s me hand on it.’

  Richard grasped the tremendous fingers. ‘Amen to that, George.’

  *

  He had thought the forest east of Bombay thick, Richard realised, as he and his twenty men, with their women, plunged into the jungle, but it had been a garden compared with this green hell. They descended some distance from the hills into a huge plain, and disappeared from human sight. Only the sound of the guns to either side, that Thomas had commanded each group to fire at dawn before setting out, and at sunset when camp was pitched, reassured them that there were actually other beings on this planet.

  But dawn and dusk were not the only times gunshots were heard. There was an abundance of game, as well as prowling tigers, and although Thomas had ordered that arrows were to be used wherever possible to preserve their store of powder and ball, a sepoy armed with a musket suddenly coming face to face with an animal was all too likely to loose off his piece without hesitation.

  There was also an abundance of elephant, gathering at the water holes at night to trumpet and play with each other, watched in awed silence by the sepoys.

  Here was ready-made labour, Richard reflected, if they ever had any use for it.

  Progress was slow and difficult. The jungle was like an oven from about ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, for there was no wind, only the trees and the cloying undergrowth. They could only be thankful that as yet there was no rain.

  They suffered privations. Their goats were killed or stolen by tigers and pythons, their other provisions ran low, and they had to depend on what they could snare or shoot. And they suffered casualties. T
igers could be driven off by noise, but it was different with the snakes and alligators, the ants and the scorpions. After the goats, the horses were most vulnerable in the thick forest, and one of Richard’s men was stung by a scorpion, and died despite their efforts.

  Only a few days later one of the women was seized by a crocodile when they were fording a river. They shouted and screamed and beat the water and fired their muskets, and Richard even discharged his pistols, but to no avail. The huge beast sought deeper water with his victim, and she was not seen again.

  They lost their direction, and encountered other parties, also veering to left and right. Having met, they veered off again, moving generally north.

  Yet their enthusiasm never truly slackened.

  ‘We are free, sahib,’ Tanna told him. ‘For the first time in any of our lives, we are free. Even those women…’ she spoke contemptuously, ‘are free. We pay no taxes, we own no lord save yourself and the Ship Sahib. Were ever people so blessed?’

  He understood that only an erstwhile slave could enjoy such feelings.

  And in the end it was all worthwhile. After they had been in the jungle a fortnight, they heard more musket shots than usual at dawn; the signal passed down the line. Richard sent one of his men up the tallest available tree.

  ‘Over there, Sahib!’ the man shouted in great excitement. ‘Over there! A column of smoke!’

  *

  They marched toward the smoke, but it took them another yet full day to hack their way to the lost city of Hansi, to pause in amazement when they got there.

  Richard’s platoon was amongst the last to arrive, and the others had already made camp in a cleared area to the south of the city, on the banks of a considerable stream.

  Before them indeed lay a city, a city of narrow streets overgrown with weeds, of crumbling roofless houses with huge flowering trees growing out of them, of breached walls, of ruin.

  As they made their way cautiously into the heart of the city, they found dried-up fountains, and long-abandoned temples dominated by the huge converted mosque in the centre.

  ‘I have heard it said that it was in Hariana that Rama gave the text of the Bhagavad-Gita to the Hindus,’ Hanif whispered, leading a fearful Biriappa by the hand.

  Thomas was more interested in the crumbling ruins of the fortress, north of the mosque. He and Richard climbed to the top of the highest scaleable tower, and gazed out at the jungle.

  ‘The Green Land,’ Thomas mused. ‘Our green land, Richard. But we shall make it both green and pleasant. Now let us put these fellows to work.’

  *

  After their exertions in the forest Thomas gave his men a few days off. He did not rest himself, nor did he expect Richard to. Instead they explored every last inch of the city, took measurements, and made plans.

  ‘We need a vastly increased population, of course. And we need cannon. And muskets and ball.’

  ‘Where will we obtain these things?’ Richard wondered.

  ‘Why, from all the places that will wish to trade with us, once we are known to be here.’

  *

  Once they had rested, Thomas put his people to work to clear as much of the city as they needed for themselves. He reminded them that they were not working as slaves, but as free men, to create their own homes and heritages.

  It was slow work; in addition to clearing the bush it was necessary to eat, and thus large parties had to be sent every day to seek game, which fortunately abounded, as well as wild cereals, which could be obtained in large quantities from the once-cultivated fields surrounding Hansi.

  Thomas as usual worked with indefatigable energy, the more surprisingly as there was not a drop of alcohol left from the supply he had brought from Khunde.

  ‘Ali, but there’ll be liquor when we’re settled,’ he declared.

  Meanwhile, his mind ranged ahead. He had had the foresight to bring paper and ink amongst the goods he had looted from the palace in Khunde, and within a week he and Richard were composing a letter for Richard to copy out in Hindustani.

  ‘Yell understand it were better coming from just the one of us, Dick me boy,’ he said, a trifle anxiously.

  ‘Oh, quite,’ Richard said. ‘This is, in any event, your project George.’

  ‘But we’ll stand together always, Dick. I could not have done it—I’ll not do it now—alone.’

  ‘I’ll always be here, George.’

  He had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Well then, write: To His Excellency, Shah Alam the Second, illustrious descendant of Aurangzeb and Jahangir, Akbar and Babar, ruler of all India…will he like that, d’ye think, Dick?’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’

  ‘From Sir George Thomas…’

  Richard raised his head.

  ‘Well, who’s to know?’ Thomas asked sheepishly.

  Richard wrote,

  ‘Sir George Thomas, Jowruj Jung, Sahib Bahadur, Jehazi Sahib, Victorious Ruler of Hariana…’

  Again Richard raised his head.

  ‘The more titles a fellow can slap on, the better,’ Thomas pointed out.

  ‘Then why not Ship Sahib, as well?’

  ‘That’s a nickname, Dick. This fellow Shah will know what a ship is. Write: know ye that I, by virtue of my military skill…ye’ve no objection to that, Dick?’

  ‘None at all,’ Richard assured him.

  ‘…and by my own endeavours and determination, have entered and reclaimed the Green Land, known also as Hariana, from the jungle, and from those enemies who sought to possess it. ‘This I have done in the name of, and for the honour of, His Excellency Shah Alam II, etc, etc.

  ‘Know ye then, Great Prince, that I, Sir George Thomas, do claim the viceroyalty of this land, and do beg of His Excellency, Shah Alam II, etc, etc, the title of Viceroy of Hariana. In anticipation of which I pledge myself and my army to the defence of Hariana, and to the development of its country and its people, to the greater glory of His Excellency, Shah Alam II, etc, etc.

  ‘Anticipating an early reply…’

  ‘No,’ Richard said.

  ‘Eh? Ye’d not have me polite?’

  ‘I think it rather lowers the tone.’

  ‘Oh, Ah. Sure, maybe it does. Very well, write: given under me hand and seal, this nineteenth day of May, 1783.’

  ‘Is it the 19th May?’

  ‘Sure, and it could be. It’s spring.’

  ‘Hm. There’s one thing…you don’t have a seal. Or any wax.’

  ‘Just write the letter, Dick me boy. I’ll think of a seal.’

  Richard obeyed, using the very best calligraphy with which he had once entered bills of lading in the Company’s books in Bombay. When he brought the letter back, Thomas without a moment’s hesitation used his knife to slice his thumb. The blood dripped on to the bottom of the paper and Thomas waited until it had formed a thick patch, whereupon he took the pistol from his belt, and used the muzzle to make an imprint on it.

  ‘Now write me name, Dick. Across the bottom there.’

  ‘Should you not write your own?’

  ‘Sure, and I would if I could. You do it, boy, with a right flourish.’

  Richard wrote, ‘George Thomas, Baronet’ as well as he was able.

  ‘What’s that?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘It’s an order of knighthood.’

  ‘Then that’s good enough for me. All we need now is a trustworthy messenger.’

  ‘Send me.’

  If he could not immediately set off to rescue Caty and Michael, he could at least explore some more of India.

  But Thomas shook his head.

  ‘I need ye here, Dick. And besides, it were better carried by an Indian, who’ll attract less attention getting to Delhi.’

  ‘He will have to be absolutely trustworthy. Nor can he be an untouchable.’

  ‘He cannot even be a Hindu, to my way of reckoning,’ Thomas pointed out. ‘The Mughal being a Muslim. But don’t we have the very fellow?’

  Richard was unhappy, but Hani
f was delighted. All of their clothes and equipment had suffered during the trek through the forest, but he was fitted out with the best they could find, and as Thomas had also left Khunde with a bag of gold he had taken from Appa, Hanif was supplied with sufficient money to procure himself an outfit as soon as he reached civilisation.

  With him went Biriappa and an escort of twenty armed sepoys.

  ‘You understand this is dangerous work, Hanif,’ Richard told him.

  ‘It is the best work that has ever befallen me, Richard Sahib, with respect. Am I not now an ambassador, for Ship Sahib, ruler of Hariana?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could put it that way.’ Richard clasped his hand. ‘Mind you come back.’

  ‘I shall do that, sahib,’ Hanif promised.

  *

  The rebuilding of Hansi went on as fast as Thomas could make his people work. He and Richard led the men into the fields to clear them and plant. He had his crops in the soil before the coming of the monsoon, and the following year they reaped their first harvest.

  To Thomas’s great delight this included some of the sugar cane they had found growing wild, and he was able to make some rather poor rum.

  ‘It’s not whisky,’ he declared. ‘But it slakes a man’s thirst, by God!’

  By then, too, the fort was in a good state of defence. They had added sun-baked bricks wherever necessary, and propped up the sagging floors with what timber they had been able to discover—as yet they had no saws or axes.

  The very fields had had to be harrowed with their knives.

  *

  Hanif returned that autumn, bearing the Great Mughal’s letter and seal of approval for his new Viceroy. He was enthusiastic about the wonders of Delhi, the splendour of the Mughal’s court.

  But Hanif had done more than merely act the ambassador. He had told merchants and traders of the fertility of Hariana, and the opportunities they would find in Hansi.

  ‘Now there’s a bright lad,’ Thomas told him.

  But Hanif was also an unhappy man: he had returned without Biriappa.

  ‘What happened to her?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I do not know, Richard Sahib.’ Hanif sat with hunched shoulders. ‘She disappeared one night.’