Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..

by Taylor, Winchcombe

  George Wade's left eye closed in a prodigious wink at his fellow warriors. "Gentlemen, the secretary will see every jack of ye today. Aye, and I'll be honored with your company at my Piccadilly house." To emphasize the sword's superiority over the pen he put on his hat, tapped it firmly in position, swept past Secretary of War Pelham and went in.

  Delighted laughter went up, followed by many voices. "I served with him in Spain!" "I was in his company in '02!" And an Irish accent proclaimed: "I went to school with him in Kilavelly, County Kildare, back when God was young!"

  And Ram was not left out. Others there remembered Dick. "A

  rare hand with bottle and dice," one recalled. "How do ye, Captain, and Where's old Dick now?" So he had to tell of Belgrade, though he avoided the truth, since it brought back memory of a deadly Irishman and a drunken man murdered.

  When Wade came out, he pointed at Major Copeland. "You're first, and stand no backchat. The Secretary's vowed to do his best for you gentlemen. Good day to ye." He swaggered out amid a chorus of thanks.

  Two hours more and Ram's turn came. When he entered the holy of holies, he was received with courtesy. Not mentioning Isabella, Ram came straight to the point.

  "I fear 'tis impossible on the English establishment," Pelham said, frowning. "Did ye know Government could obtain funds for only seventeen thousand men this year, despite our commitments in Gibraltar, the plantations and so on? No, Captain, I fear your only chance is the Irish establishment, which doesn't come under me."

  Ram ignored the rebuff. "I'm ready to raise, equip and train a dragoon regiment at my own cost, sir, providing I'm named its colonel. Ye see, I've ideas about dragoons that've never been tried in our army or the Austrian either—"

  "I'm no soldier, Captain," Pelham broke in. "Such things are beyond me. Best discuss them with General Wade. He'll doubtless find them of interest." He stood up. "Servant, sir."

  Ram went home where, as he expected, Tapley and others awaited him, drinking his choice sherry and casting dice.

  "Old Wade's no fool," Harry advised, "but if ye wish to gain his ear, attend his card route. He loves gaming and winning more than life, so be sure ye lose to him."

  Ram did call upon the general and found him at basset. Taking a hand, he scrupulously lost whenever pitted against Wade, though sometimes won against others, since by now he was a good player. As Ram's guineas became his, Wade intimated that so fine a young soldier should be serving actively and that he himself could often gain the King's ear whenever the granting of commissions came up.

  He accepted an invitation to play at Ram's house. The latter set the stage by providing Tapley, Courtnaye and others with fifty guineas apiece to lose, and intended to lose more himself. Wade came;

  won. His pockets sagging, he was in high good humor; so it was easy to draw him into another room, ply him with choice Oporto and speak of new dragoon tactics.

  But he was not impressed. "Horse, sir, are shock troops, not to be wasted as foot. Crush their foot by the charge, sir."

  "But dragoons, General, can charge like Horse or fight afoot, supported by their own guns."

  "Pah, cannon can never keep up with 'em."

  "Mine did, sir, in Hindustan. I used as many as twelve six-pounders with my dragoons, and every man was trained to fire them, fight afoot or charge mounted. Once I made an eighty-mile march through an Indian summer's heat to elude pursuit. It was a complete success."

  "Eighty miles? Impossible! All your cattle would have been dead."

  " 'Twas by a trick I learned from the Marathas. Each trooper fed his horse a little opium. It gives them unimagined endurance."

  Clearly Wade didn't believe this. As clearly, he was charmed by one who lost to him so freely, so Ram was invited back to get his revenge.

  Among the onlookers was one of the half-pay officers who haunted Pelham's anteroom. A place being vacant, he slid into it and asked the honor of staking a few shillings. Wade agreed good-naturedly, but the heutenant soon lost, excused himself and became a spectator again, standing behind Wade's chair.

  It became a duel between Ram and the general. Ram won a coup or so and Wade, annoyed, forced up the betting. "Damme, sir, I'll have your skin!" he growled, feeling for his snuffbox. Frowning, he made a bet, then searched each of his waistcoat pockets. "Damme, where's my box? Had it in my hands not five minutes since. Wouldn't lose it for the world. Gift from a most ravishing—well, no matter. But it's worth a hundred if a penny."

  "Perhaps you dropped it under the table," Ram suggested.

  Wade bent and groped, then sat up. "Gentlemen, this is cursedly humiliating, but it's gone!"

  "Sir," an elderly major demanded, "this puts us all under suspicion. I insist someone search me here and now."

  "And I!" another declared.

  "Someone has it," Wade snorted.

  Ram rose, slipped off his coat and turned to his neighbor. "Do me the honor to search this, sir, and then my person." Tenseness grew as the gentleman felt in Ram's pockets. He stiffened incredulously and held up a snuffbox. "Sir, 'tis here!" All stared horrified at Ram, who in turn was too stunned to move.

  "That's not mine!" Wade bellowed at last. "That's got diamonds on the lid, mine has pearls."

  "Then the rest of us must still be searched." Somberly the major took off his coat and bowed to the old lieutenant. "Sir, be good enough to examine me. Then I will do the same for you."

  "Never}" The lieutenant had turned ashen. "On my honor as a soldier I know nothing of the box. But not all the powers on earth shall subject me to searching!"

  "B'God, I'll have your blood!" Wade's hand went to his sword.

  The other whipped out his own blade. "Zounds, no man can accuse me of theft and live! Sir, en gardel"

  The general's hand froze on his hilt. Slowly he pressed his wrist against his left hip; as slowly he drew up his fingers, then plunged them into the left fob of his breeches and brought out the missing box.

  A collective sigh of relief went up.

  "Sir! Sir, 'pon honor, I most humbly crave pardon. I, I—" Tears blurred Wade's eyes. "Gentlemen, be good enough to leave us. We'll resume play later, if you still deem me worthy of your company."

  The guests trooped into the next room, where a footman brought drinks. "Why did the old fool refuse to be searched?" a captain pondered. "Ecod, 'twas cursed degrading, but if all submitted . . . ?"

  "Proud as Lucifer," another explained. "Always was. Served in my company till put out on half pay. Half a crown a day's poor recompense to one who's suffered three wounds."

  Wade appeared alone. "The gentleman most graciously forgives me," he said dully. "But perhaps we should defer play till tomorrow." As the guests began to leave, he called Ram by name. "Sir, I owe ye almost as deep an apology as I did the lieutenant. Only in time did I see your box wasn't mine."

  "It startled me too," Ram admitted. "I'd forgotten I had it with me. I rarely take snuff and carry it only to be in the mode."

  "Suppose I'd been overhasty and called you a thief?"

  "I'd have had the honor of burying my sword in your heart."

  "Ecod! I beheve ye would, though I'm no poor hand with a blade. Ye're a chip off the old block, for poor Dick would have done the same. Come, a bumper to wash the bad taste from our mouths."

  "But what of the heutenant?" Ram felt privileged to ask.

  "Pride." Wade filled two glasses. "Poor man, he confessed poverty makes him scrimp every penny. He wished to risk a few shillings here at play but knew if he lost he'd go dinnerless tomorrow. He dined today in an eating house on a fowl; so he wrapped a leg and a wing and a crust in a napkin and bought them away with him. Said he'd rather have fought the whole room than let anyone know his straits. Damme, if I don't get him an active captain's commission, I'll make up his pay myself!"

  Which you won't have to! Ram thought, and looked at him inquiringly.

  "Not colonels' commissions. Even I can't do that," Wade growled. "But I'll keep my eyes open. I'm too old for such
newfangled ideas, but doubtless there's some who'd like to know how ye can march eighty miles and win battles all in one day."

  Isabella said it would be diverting to attend a masquerade at the Opera House in the Haymarket, so Ram sent Young Joe for tickets and pondered what costume to wear. Isabella refused to say what hers would be, nor would his other guests, Harry, Courtnaye and Sparrow.

  "Not till time comes to unmask," she smiled archily. "La, it's even been known for a husband to have kissed his own wife!"

  He knew now that she lived by her wits, having only her dower rights. Word in the coffeehouses was that Lord Martham had believed she'd cuckolded him; and there were those who thought his fatal fall downstairs had not been unassisted. As for Tapley, he too was a parasite, while Courtna}'e was a card cheat who was presently bleeding young Sparrow dry. Ram was ready to break with them whenever they no longer amused him.

  On the night of the masquerade he felt nostalgic as he darkened his face, chest, hands and ankles and put on the rich Hindu costume he had once worn so often. His turban glittered with a diamond spray and strings of pearls were around his neck. He wore his gold-

  hiked tulwar and even carried the twin gem-encrusted pistols thrust in his cummerbund. He rode in his coach to the Haymarket, where fantastically garbed throngs were pouring into the Opera House.

  Masking, he presented his ticket and entered the large theater, from which the pit seats had been removed. An orchestra played and footmen were serving refreshments as he worked his way through a laughing, dancing mass of devils, friars, shepherdesses, Roman slaves, senators, beggars, kings and queens, toward the rendezvous beside the stage he had agreed upon with Harry. A hand gripped him and a laughing cavalier whose curves, however, were far from masculine, demanded if he were a Salee pirate.

  "Aye, Sir Cavalier, and I'd gladly take your craft by the board," he laughed, "but, alas, the poor infidel quails before your Christian courage." Other hands clutched and one woman wanted to know if his jewels were real. Realizing half the pickpockets in town might be here, he thrust his purse deeper in his cummerbund and looked for his friends. That must be Isabella in the high-steeple headdress and gown of a medieval lady. The country swain would be Sparrow, not much out of his true character, in a smock and with hay stuck in his tangled hair. Courtnaye, as a magician, needed no discovering, for his mask had fallen off and he was retying it. Harry must be the Roman centurion.

  Sure they had recognized him in turn by his Hindu costume, he moved away. What adventure might not lurk behind a mask?

  "Sir Turk, lead me out on the floor," a shepherdess demanded, eyes sparkling from behind her mask, her lips a challenging rosebud. Though he didn't dance, he would have held those pretty eyes in play, but their owner was pushed aside by a Queen Elizabeth, for surely the sandy-red hair, the enormous farthingaled petticoat and the mass of jewelry could only represent Good Queen Bess!

  Amazingly, she spoke in Hindustani. "Does my lord his slave remember not?"

  He could scarcely breathe. Hindustani and that hair—Annie!

  "How did you know I was here?" His heart pounded painfully.

  "Come." She drew him behind some refreshment tables, where they were out of the crowd. "I knew ye were in England, but not where to find ye. Ram, Major Rale's back too, him of the John

  Company, remember? He knows you're home and he's sworn to ruin ye. But, oh lad, my heart's afire at seeing ye again!"

  "Where's Fred?" he managed,

  "Him! Away in Wales, building the big house he's dreamed of, and thinking I'll rot my life away there, bearing his bairns and his savagery too! Ah, why wasn't it ye who married me?" Her fingers clutched his arm. "I've been in town two weeks, and I'll do all I've dreamed of. Will ye not help me? Fred won't be back for months, for I've bribed him so's I don't have to bear longer wi' his drunken nastiness. Are ye married too?"

  "No." Suddenly he was glad he wasn't. "Annie, I'm here with friends. Come, let's join them." And aware it would impress her: "One's a widowed lady of title. She may be of service to you."

  "Has she been so to you?" Her jealousy flared.

  "Not in that way," he laughed. But upon leaving their shelter they at once became separated by the crowd.

  "La, 'tis an Indoo king!" A witch took his arm and swung around to stare up, laughing, into his face. "Come, dance!"

  "No!" He was looking around for Annie. He felt someone pressing against him from behind and, reflexes swift, he pivoted and jammed one of his pistols so hard in a man's stomach that its owner let out a loud "Oof!"

  "I like not such intimacy, sir!" he warned harshly. The man was a Robin Hood who, still gasping, backed quickly away. But as he did, Ram felt an arm brush upward past his eyes. There was a slight tug at his turban, and the woman beside him vanished.

  His diamond spray! He was tempted to cry thief, but how to identify one witch among so many? Realizing that he was still gripping the loaded pistol, he uncocked it gently. The girl's pimp hadn't known how near death he'd been.

  Isabella was beside him. "Come, time for unmasking draws near. Do we gather at your house afterward or mine?"

  "Not mine, I fear. But first I beg the honor of presenting a Queen Elizabeth to you, when I find her again."

  "A lady ye met in the mob?" she asked disdainfully.

  "Aye, one I knew in India, as well as her husband and father. She's new come to town and knows no one, despite her great wealth."

  As he expected, at mention of wealth she melted. "La, another

  nabob? Indeed, the town grows full of you. Can I be of service, pray call on me."

  Asking her to wait at the rendezvous, he plunged again into the crowd and, sighting Annie at last, bore down upon her.

  "I thought Vd never find ye again!" she cried with relief. "Canna we go away and talk? I've rooms up a pair of stairs in Covent Garden, near the Shakespeare Tavern. They're no great shakes, but suffice for me now."

  'Tirst meet my friends. Lady Isabella Martham will be charmed to introduce you to the town, and Sir Harry Tapley's a rare hand at squiring ladies."

  "I want only you for squire. But I'll not keep ye from your friends," she added with challenging abnegation. 'Til go home by chair and ye can call upon me at your leisure."

  "You couldn't travel the streets unescorted so late." He drew her forward. "Here's Lady Martham and there's Harry, the noble Roman,"

  After introductions, he told Tapley about the theft of his spray.

  "Bah, these masques become a nest for Newgate bait!" The baronet scowled. "Have ye no idea of the slut's looks?"

  "A witch. Dark skin, wide mouth and black hair," he recalled. "The bauble's of no great worth, but her cully was nearer a ball in his belly than he knew."

  "Nabob," Isabella smiled, "Mrs. Morgan's devastated, but a migraine forces her to return to her lodgings and so miss our later gathering. But she permits me to visit her when she recovers."

  The honey-mouthed schemer! Well, tonight she could take the crew home with her and they could lose at play among themselves.

  "I'll escort her to her chair," he said coldly. "But I fear I'll be unable to play tonight. Your ladyship will forgive me?"

  Her cloying smile didn't fade. After all, if this fish was escaping at last, surely wealthy Mrs. Morgan was already in the net.

  Adieus made, Ram guided Annie outside. Shouts for Captain An-struther's coach brought Young Joe, who led them to it.

  "Shakespeare Tavern," Ram ordered and they rolled away.

  "Ah, 'tis a dream!" Annie snuggled close, childlike in her enthusiasm. "Oh, the years I've waited for this; London, the bon ton— and ye wi' me! How poor Bea would ha' loved it."

  "How is she?" Ram, too, was enjoying himself.

  "Dead! Aye, wi' her husband, and Mother too! Cholera."

  "When?" It didn't seem possible that life-loving Bea was gone.

  "A year since. I was upcountry wi' Fred or perhaps ye'd not be seeing me now. Father made Fred resign and bring me home. But he'll never come
himself, even though the company's almost finished. 'Twas only a ramp of Prince Eugene to anger England and the Dutch, and when they made him political concessions, he withdrew the charter."

  "What of Rale?" Ram asked. "You say he's in town?"

  "Aye." She shivered. "And Fred's made his peace wi' the H.E.I.C. for deserting by promising he'll bear witness against ye whenever Rale wants. He's a poor creature, my husband."

  "Bah, what can Rale do?" But he remembered the kidnaping of Rajah Prasad that Baja had tricked him into, remembered Rale's cowardice, his threats. And the John Company never forgot an injury.

  The coach stopped outside the tavern and Annie had to direct it a few doors farther along, where Ram walked with her to a dark entry.

  "May I call at your convenience, ma'am?" he asked formally, aware that his people could overhear.

  "Lud, my convenience is now, sir," she giggled. "D'ye expect me to mount dark stairs alone? And may I not offer an old friend a glass of wine?" When he bade the coach wait, she shivered. "Poor lads, they'll be mortal cold. Can't a hackney take ye home later?"

  "I'll need you no more tonight," he told Williams. "Young Joe, wait up for me." Following her within, they mounted to her rooms.

  "Martha!" she called. "La, the chit's likely slipped out to some lad, thinking I'd not be back yet." She brought a decanter and as she poured wine gestured to a settee. He smiled inwardly, sure the maid had been sent away for the night. And as Annie couldn't have known he'd be at the masque, clearly she was prepared to bring home some other man—any man—who might strike her fancy. He drank his wine quickly.

  She eyed him as she refilled his glass. "Ram, can ye think what like it is to have the juice of life within ye and only a sot for company?" Her lips parted and her breath came fast. Her hand caught his. "Ram! Oh, Ram!"

  His glass crashed on the floor as time swept back to a Bankipur bungalow. God! Her kisses were maddeningly familar yet fascinatingly new. Scratched by her antique dress, he swore under his breath.

  Laughing unsteadily, she led him into her bedchamber. "I fear, sir, ye'll have to maid me. Martha trussed me in so's I'll never escape but wi' aid." Together they began to unlace the bodice; then the gem-studded stomacher and the billowing skirt with its wide-spreading hoops, from which she stepped.