Selden frowned. ‘Hervey, as I remember, you once professed to having little facility with women – though I believed I had observed otherwise. Do not suppose that you will find any woman in India fathomable, not least one belonging to the nizam!’
Hervey blushed.
‘But why, in any case, should you be so interested in these details?’
There was nothing in Selden’s tone to cause him alarm, but he thought nevertheless to dismiss the matter with a certain lightness. ‘You once chided me, too, for being excessively interested in my profession – and that it would do me no good if I wished to be advanced!’
Selden smiled. ‘That I did! Though I did say, also, that the Honourable Company would take a different view of your aptness, did I not? I even urged – as I recall – that you throw in with the Company and see that aptness rewarded!’
Hervey was content that his diversion had worked, even if at some cost to his pride. Locke made a loud snorting sound, then whimpered, like an old dog dreaming of rabbit-chasing, and slid even further into his chair.
‘It is the custom of the Hindoo to take to his charpoy for an hour or so after such a meal,’ said Selden, looking with some amusement towards the lieutenant. ‘Your friend will be honoured by the khansamah and his staff for so doing. Do you wish to do likewise?’
‘Not especially,’ replied Hervey, looking about him; ‘I am not in the least tired and there is so much of interest hereabouts that I should very much like to see more.’
‘In that case,’ said Selden, sitting bolt upright and with a glint in his eye, ‘let us ride out across the kadir– the river plain. We shall very probably see pig, and you’ll be able to observe from how they run what manner of sport I speak of. I tell you, Hervey, there’s nothing of its like. Chasing the fox is for dullards when you’ve run after pig!’
Hervey was all attention.
‘And, then, perhaps, before too long, we might get you to carry a spear.’
Now he was all eagerness.
After a half-hour’s respite – so that, in Selden’s words, they would not get the colic – he went to make the arrangements. Hervey watched him stride purposefully across the maidan towards where the syces were taking their ease in the shade of a huge palmyra. That he seemed so well in both body and spirits was a happy thing indeed. In Spain and France he had never looked more than well enough, and there had been times when he was far short of that – Toulouse, notably, after the battle, when the hot and cold remittent fevers, his malaria, from years in the Indies, rendered his diagnoses so unreliable that more than one troop-horse escaped destruction only by the hand of Providence (or, in one case, by Hervey’s own). He was at times the very model of black bile. Yet here in Chintal his humours seemed wholly restored. The irony – that India had been the cause of his original ill humour, and was now the restorative – seemed apt. Concerning the manner of his leaving the Sixth, details of which Hervey knew only through Private Johnson (for no one in the mess seemingly had much stomach for them), he was content to let things lie. It was a pity that Selden’s proclivities in that direction had been further complicated by a specific taste, and it was a cruel temptation, therefore, that in the regiment’s band there should have been a cymbalist from the Ivory Coast who, had he been in skirts, would have passed pleasingly for a young woman. In these parts it was of no particular matter, however: there were no interests of discipline to be attentive to, nor even propriety, and Hervey could simply enjoy the company of a man whose fellowship had sometimes been disdained by the mess but whose knowledge of horses he greatly admired.
Selden returned with two Arab ponies, and two of the same breed built bigger. Hervey had never ridden a pure-bred Arab, though he had ridden many a horse that had profited by Arab blood in its lines. Jessye, indeed, Welsh crossed with thoroughbred, had in consequence such blood on both sides. All the rajah’s hog-hunters were Arabs or Turkomans, explained Selden. The Chintal kadirs were trappy country compared with those in the north, and with a jinking pig, as long as the cover was not too heavy, a pony was a better bet, though if it came to a straight gallop then the pony would naturally lose. Those who could ride under twelve stone, said Selden, were therefore at an advantage, and it was ever to his consternation that the rajah, who rode considerably in excess of that, should find himself so often defeated by even an elderly boar.
Hervey tried one of the two ponies, a flea-bitten grey about thirteen hands and three inches. The saddle was English, as he would have chosen for the hunting field at home, yet never had he felt less secure as he cantered her in a large circle, for even with Jessye he was used to having shoulders in front of him. This little mare – Gita – seemed unusually high on the leg, and narrowchested. But he could feel the power beneath him. She had a good length of rein and her mouth was a deal less hard than he expected: he managed to turn her so sharply at one stage that he was almost parted from her. He expressed much satisfaction, and Selden said he should be pleased with his choice for that was the rajah’s favourite, which no-one as a rule but his own daughter – the raj kumari – rode. Hervey voiced surprise, and then admiration, that the rajah’s daughter should trust so active a horse with a side-saddle. And he admitted even greater surprise when Selden told him she rode astride.
Selden himself rode at a little over thirteen stone, and took the reins of a fiery-looking Turkoman bay almost two full hands higher. He explained that, since he was not hunting, he would prefer the extra height to observe. His own preference with a spear was the other gelding – at fifteen hands, a near-perfect mount for this kadir.
‘He looks uncommonly like an English blood,’ said Hervey, admiringly.
‘The Turkoman’s breeding has much, I think, in common with the thoroughbred,’ Selden conceded. ‘Without doubt, there’s much Arab in him. And I’m convinced that the Byerly Turk – on which you know that much of the thoroughbred’s blood is founded – is in fact from Turkomania. You have only to look close at the paintings of him to see the similarity – the head, principally.’
‘And is he as fast?’
‘Not, perhaps, over so short a distance as would a blood usually race. But I’ll warrant that I could gallop this one most of the day and he would stand it well. Especially since he’s been fed on nahari for over a year.’
‘Nahari?’ asked Hervey.
‘Flour and fat: it means “never get weary”. Now,’ he began, as they left the camp, ‘the first thing on which we must be clear is that we hunt only the boar.’
‘How do I tell him?’
‘Both he and the sow have tushes, so the only way to be sure are his testises – they’ll be prominent enough beneath his tail. Now, a hog will lie concealed until he’s beaten out, and then he’ll run fast for the nearest cover – and I truly mean fast. He can go at a gallop, and you’ll need to go flat out to stay with him. That’s why you must have a horse you can trust, for you yourself will have no time to help it out of trouble. I have had some crashing falls: it’s all part of the sport. And the faster I’ve been going as we tumbled, the less damage has been done.’
Hervey nodded, accepting the proposition, illogical as it might at first have seemed, for it was indeed better sometimes to be put on the ground with no time to flinch than struggling to save oneself.
‘Remember,’ continued Selden, ‘a horse can go where a pig goes. And in this country there’s so much grass and dhak in the season that unless you stay right up with him you’ll lose him as soon as he makes his first cover, and in any case the pig will make a good pilot. Now, if you do lose him the golden rule is to cast well for’ard: do not look for him at the point you lost him. Cast for’ard a mile or so on the line he was running, for believe me, the pig will soon cover that distance. And then find a hillock, or a nullah, or some such feature, and wait for him to break.’
The camp was now a mile or more behind them. In the heat of the afternoon, though Selden warned him that it was not a fraction of what was to come in July just before the monsoon
broke, Hervey felt the curious sensation of coming alive, like the basking lizard which manages, just, to crawl onto its warming stone and then, after sunning itself for an hour or so, is suddenly disposed to scuttle off at great speed. And though this heat was not enervating, as sometimes he had found it in Spain, neither was it a burning heat, from which, instinctively, all tried to shelter. It was an invigorating warmth, annealing the muscles of his arms and legs, and he had not felt its like before. Perhaps, he mused, this was the beginning of what Selden had said so often in France – that India sweated out the false civilization in a man (though there was as yet scarce a bead of sweat on his brow).
They picked their way through a patch of untended sugar cane, Selden falling silent and crouching low in the saddle to peer between the dhak for a sight of his quarry. ‘If you come out for pig on your own – “gooming”, we call it, as opposed to on a big hunt – it’s best to try to get on top of him before he breaks, rather than beating him out, otherwise he may get too great a start on you. Beware, mind: you’ll likely enough find a leopard in these places, and that can be tricky.’
Hervey was more and more intrigued by Selden’s transfiguration from the fever-ridden cynic he had known in the regiment. ‘And tiger?’ he asked. ‘Do you find tiger in such patches as these?’
‘Be assured, Hervey,’ said Selden half laughing, ‘if I suspected tiger were here then I should not come within a mile. You may take your chance with a leopard in thick country, but you have none with a tiger. Leopard’s not so intent on killing, merely escaping. Whereas tiger – man-eater or no – is so prodigiously strong that it makes no odds why he attacks, for he’ll crush you instantly.’
Hervey had entertained a notion of killing his own tiger and sending the skin home to Horningsham – just as he had pictured Midshipman Nelson battling with the polar bear so as to send the skin to his father at Burnham Thorpe.
‘If I were you, Hervey,’ said Selden on hearing this, ‘I should put the notion from your mind. I have been on perhaps a dozen tiger hunts and only once did the enterprise come off without mishap. The rajah was almost killed last year when his most practised elephant went must. Now, let us return to the king of sports. If you are gooming, then it does not matter so much, but if you are hunting hog properly then there are certain observances. First, we don’t as a rule hunt pig that is not full-grown – two feet at the shoulder at least – unless the villagers say their crops are being sorely ravaged.’
‘How big can pig grow?’ asked Hervey, already surprised by the idea of one standing even two feet at the shoulder.
‘I have killed one that measured forty inches.’
Hervey made a rapid calculation, and concluded that such a pig, if it were to charge him on this pony, would gore him in his thigh, and almost certainly would be heavy enough to bowl them both over.
‘The biggest pig in India are to be found in these parts, although Nagpore has recorded the largest – forty-four inches, I believe it was.’
Hervey wished he had his carbine with him. He did not suppose the sabre at his side would make much of an impression on a boar that size.
‘Once a pig is flushed then the nearest man must get onto his line at once and press him for all he’s worth. If he gets his wind he’ll take you a long way, and you’ll need to settle down to his pace and keep close. You’ve got to see the ground – waving grass, dust and the like – to keep you on his line. Believe me, it’s a lot more than merely chasing like a lunatic.’
‘And how is the lance used?’
‘It’s not a lance, rather a spear. And different ways are favoured depending on what country you’re hunting in. A decade or so ago you would only see throwing-spears, but now it’s the practice to close with the hog and spear him from the saddle. In Chintal, for the most part, a short spear is carried, and used overhand for jobbing. There’s much thick cover, and it’s generally preferred if a pig charges. In open country, such as that in the Bombay presidency and in the north, the long spear, couched, is better. In Chintal we usually have a couple of long spears out, too, for they can be handy when a boar is running away in the open.’
‘I imagine that one can carry through the weight of the horse’s speed better in the long spear,’ suggested Hervey.
‘Ah, but it’s a mistake to think that brute strength is all. With a jobbing spear it should be more the rapier than the bludgeon. The merest touch through the heart or the lungs – or, indeed, the spine – ought to be sufficient. But more of spears anon. I want only today to show you how a sounder breaks and how to get onto the line of a good-size boar.’
As they came through to the far edge of the sugar cane, Selden had just embarked on an explanation of riding second in the hunt. He was intent on emphasizing the sovereign importance, in awkward ground or thick cover, of riding wide or behind the spear who was on the pig to give him all the time he needed. ‘But as soon as the pig’s into easier country you must challenge the man who is “on” at once. Make the pace as hot as you can! You may override the odd young boar who doesn’t know when to make for cover, but you’ll kill more pig that way than by trying to wear him down.’
‘I cannot wait!’ declared Hervey, wishing they were carrying spears now.
So intent on his instruction was Selden that what happened next took him wholly by surprise. A big old boar – Hervey’s weight and then half again – burst from the cane to their left and took off across the kadir like a greyhound on a hare. Hervey (or perhaps it was his pony) did not hesitate for a second, and they were at full stretch in less than a dozen strides. Selden was close behind, however, shouting for him to ride on a loose rein. He had, in any case, instinctively begun to do so, for even in the relatively open country into which the pig was heading there was little he could see of the ground as it came at him.
After half a mile the boar ran into a cotton-field. Hervey checked for an instant to be sure of its line, for he could not see any of the grass moving. Then he saw the merest, but tell-tale, waving ahead and to his right, and he spurred his pony to flatten out once more, leaning so far forward himself as to be almost head to head with it. Out onto the plain rushed the boar again. Hervey began to make up ground but there was another patch of dhak ahead and off to the right. He saw the boar check, as if trying to decide whether to turn for it. The instinct was too strong merely to continue chasing, and he reached for his sabre. The pig’s momentary hesitation cost it the distance over his pursuer, and as it jinked right for the dhak Hervey managed to give him the point of his sword in the loins.
‘Spear well forward next, Hervey!’ shouted Selden, close up behind and already turning for the dhak. ‘He’ll crouch in that cover. Go through and wait for him to break the other side. I’ll wait to see if he doubles back.’
Hervey galloped round the dhak to take post in a nullah beyond. His pony was blowing, but still, he sensed, she had plenty in reserve. He had yet to accustom himself to her lack of shoulder, though, and he scolded himself for misjudging his sabring, for he had put his leg on precisely at the moment of driving home the thrust, and the mare had not responded as would Jessye. He would have liked to dismount to give her a little respite, but he knew enough not to. He was not there more than a minute when the boar, squatting close by but unobserved, jumped up and charged. Though Selden had not got so far in his instruction as to explain how to take a charging pig, Hervey swung round instinctively to meet it at an angle rather than head-on, and dug his spurs hard into his pony’s flanks. Even though her momentum would have been nothing to that of Selden’s Turkoman, the sabre went deep into the boar’s shoulder. But still it fought, and he had to struggle for all he was worth to keep his leg on, pressing the pony up close to use the weight to hold off the furious animal.
The struggle seemed to last an age, with no sign of the boar’s weakening. Until Selden galloped up and gave him a thrust with his own sabre. The pig staggered and then fell dead with Hervey’s sword still deep in his shoulder. Indeed, when Hervey dismounted and p
ulled it out there was more than a foot of grease on the blade.
‘Hervey, let that be a lesson to you. I wonder that your sword didn’t break. Mine has not been out of its scabbard except to salute since coming here, and I shouldn’t have wished to trust to its tensility!’
Hervey smiled sheepishly.
‘But by heavens, what a run you gave him! He’s no squeaker, and he had a lifetime of rancour in him – of that there’s no doubt. I’ll be able to tell the rajah that you tackled a boar without benefit of a spear. He’ll be mightily stirred if I am not much mistaken. And his daughter, the raj kumari – she’ll be gratified her best pony rode so faithfully.’
Hervey looked pleased. ‘And what do we now do with our quarry?’
Selden pointed to the village a quarter of a mile away. ‘They shall have pig for the rest of the week. Come, let’s go and tell them. We shall drink their rus while they bear him in, and wait for them to cut and boil out the tushes. See, I reckon those will be all of nine inches. The raj kumari will be much favoured by them.’ And then another thought occurred to him: ‘Hervey, why don’t you return with me to Chintalpore to make these presents in person? The place will quite beguile you!’
VIII
DESPATCHES
To Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun
Grant at The Embassy of His
Britannic Majesty
Paris
c/o Fort George
Madras
28 February 1816
Sir,
I have the honour to report my arrival in India. My ship had perforce to put into Madras for repairs and during her inactivity I availed myself of a most opportune re-acquaintance which has placed me within the state of Chintal very considerably earlier than might otherwise have been arranged.
The Nizam's Daughters Page 18
