The Nizam's Daughters

by Mallinson, Allan

  ‘Are you telling me that the duke’s title to them is known of?’

  ‘Not, I suspect, in the bazaars, but the rajah knows – certainly.’

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Hervey, now even more anxious that his misjudgement would see his mission come to nought.

  ‘The jagirs are, indeed, something of an insurance to him.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The rajah has always supposed that as long as the Wellesley family held title to land in Chintal the country would be secure from predation by others.’

  ‘You mean he expects the Company would be prevailed on to come to his aid?’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘I’m astonished. It would be little better than—’

  ‘There you go again, Matthew Hervey: false civilization, still to be sweated out!’

  He frowned. ‘You will tell me next that the duke is somehow a party to this pretence!’

  ‘I would presume no such thing,’ replied Selden, a little archly. ‘But I tell you two things – or, rather, I ask you one thing first.’

  ‘Very well then,’ said Hervey, squarely.

  ‘Ask yourself why the duke has jagirs here in the first place.’

  ‘Is there reason why he should not? His family has wealth, and he was here a half-dozen years.’

  ‘Quite so,’ conceded Selden. ‘You have heard of Seringapatam?’

  ‘Of course: the Sixth still spoke of it when I joined.’

  ‘And well they might – the loot was prodigious!’

  ‘What has that to do with the duke? He put a stop to as much of it as he could, as is commonly known.’

  Selden looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘See here, Hervey: I have no wish to sully the name of a great man – and one you serve so admirably. But there are persistent stories in India that he sequestered some of the prize-money that should by rights have gone to General Baird, the man whom he superseded after the capture of the fortress, and it’s supposed that the Chintal jagirs are part of that . . . shall we say, artifice? Do you not suppose that that might account in some degree for the needy discretion in disposing of them?’

  Hervey protested that there were too many suppositions.

  ‘And I must further inform you,’ pressed Selden, ‘that the jagirs themselves have yielded meagre revenues these past years. The rajah supplements them handsomely.’

  Slowly it began to occur to him that he might have been kept in the dark by Colonel Grant for no better reason than to conceal something that was – at best – unbecoming. And then he tumbled to the notion – but prayed it was not true – that his mission to gauge the effectiveness of the nizam’s army was no more than a diversion. He sighed heavily. How clever of the duke’s chief of intelligence if it were so, for in conniving with him at the diversion of the lance, he diverted himself from the truth that the business of the jagirs was Grant’s real purpose – and an infamous one at that.

  Still he did not dare share this with Selden. Yet his look must have spoken of some sense of betrayal, for the salutri placed a hand on his shoulder and warned him of the consequences of judging things too keenly. ‘For I dare say the duke believed he did nothing dishonourable. He broke the Marathas at what might have been no little cost to his reputation, or even his life, had things not gone well. “To the victor the spoils”, Hervey!’

  It was all supposition in any case. And, indeed, Hervey could ill afford too many scruples in his position.

  Selden was prepared to agree with him – for the purposes, at least, of lifting his spirits for the time being. ‘Who, by the way, were you to meet with in Calcutta?’

  Hervey wondered if this were information he might not rightly divulge. ‘I think it better if—’

  ‘It wasn’t Bazzard, was it?’

  ‘Why do you name him?’

  Hervey’s surprise encouraged Selden to assume it was. ‘Because he is the writer who forwards the revenues to London.’

  ‘I should not say more.’

  ‘It makes no difference, my dear fellow,’ frowned Selden, ‘for Bazzard has been dead these past three months.’

  ‘Dead? You mean . . . killed?’

  ‘By the fever.’

  Hervey saw at once some mitigation of his misjudgement. Going to Calcutta would have proved fruitless after all. A pity he had written already to Grant telling him it was his own choice. But at the same time the death of Bazzard meant the loss of his best means of recovering the situation. A picket officer’s duty in the Paris garrison seemed suddenly attractive compared with aiglets. At length he steeled himself to his purpose in Chintalpore: ‘Do I assume from this you are unable, and unwilling, to help me dispose of the jagirs?’

  Selden let out a deep sigh. ‘Hervey, I’m not sure I would do this for anyone else. Let us not be too sentimental by recalling Androcles and the lion, but you were rare among your fellow officers in showing me more than sufferance. I have no notion how to begin the jagirs business, but begin I shall. It will take time, though. And meanwhile I advise you to be most attentive to the rajah, and not to give him any grounds to suspect you have come on business other than the lance. Play the simple soldier, in heaven’s name!’

  THE BOURRH LANDS

  A few days later

  ‘Choose which you would, Captain Hervey,’ said the rajah. ‘You will have an eye for quality, and Mr Selden has told you of the requirements for hunting the boar.’

  The rajah’s stables were indeed full of quality, and punkahs in each stall drove air over the fifty saddlehorses that were his pride. However, he had had all the stall-names covered for Hervey’s visit so that he might choose one horse above the rest without knowing anything of them (though since the Sanskrit names were written in the Devanagari script he could hardly have gained anything from seeing them).

  ‘A greater test than merely spearing the biggest boar,’ Selden had smiled as Hervey began to appraise each animal.

  Fifty horses and ponies, perhaps two minutes to run over each – there were two whole hours before them, unless he was to come across perfection before then. The trouble was that he knew little enough about the Arab, let alone the other breeds, to make a choice. What made one better than another? All he could do, therefore, was apply the trusted principle of eye, wind and limb. Wind would have to be judged by depth of chest alone. As for limb, the feet, and leg blemishes, seemed his safest indicators, since these were horses too superior to possess significant faults of conformation. Up and down the lines he went, into each stall – Arab, Turkoman, country-bred, Akhal Tekke (much prized for their legendary endurance) and the hardy Khatgani from Afghanistan. He looked at every eye. More, even, than with a man or a woman, it could tell so much. He glanced at the chest and ran a hand up and down the legs, then looked at each foot, lifting one here and there. It took him the best part of two hours, but noone – the rajah especially – showed the least concern, until at length he chose a jet-black Turkoman gelding, about fifteen and a half hands.

  ‘Why do you choose him?’ asked the rajah.

  ‘Your Highness,’ replied Hervey, his hesitation speaking of the difficulty he had, ‘I could say that it was his quarters, which seem especially powerful, and his legs, which look to me to have exactly the right amount of bone to make him at once both hardy and fleet. His chest is deep; I like his head, too, which is set on well, and gives him a most noble appearance. But above all, this horse has a look of intelligence. His eye says to me that he would see what I could not, and would take the right course in spite of my inaptness.’

  Selden had smiled broadly during the verdict, the reason apparent when the rajah clapped his hands together and made a little sound of delight. ‘Truly, Captain Hervey, I could not better have expressed why this gelding is my own favourite. And you shall ride him when we hunt the boar. His name is Badshah.’

  ‘ “The King”?’ replied Hervey; ‘Your Highness, I am greatly honoured.’

  Next day, Private Johnson arrived with Jessye and two bat-horses carrying the remain
der of Hervey’s baggage in yakhdans almost as big as the horses themselves. He had lost no time in setting out, but progress from Guntoor to Chintalpore – a full ninety miles – had been slow. As soon as Cornet Templer had returned with Hervey’s message to join him, Johnson had assembled his little equipage and demanded that one of the sepoys accompany him as guide. This brought no great advantage, however, for the Madrasi sepoy had no English – though even had he been able to speak it tolerably well he would have found that Johnson’s vowels and the truncation of his consonants rendered his speech incomprehensible. There was certainly little chance that Johnson himself had acquired any native words that might have aided discourse: four years in Spain had not seen him with more than a dozen, and these of a basic, alimentary, nature. And yet, as they arrived at the gates of the rajah’s palace, where Hervey was just returned from morning exercise with the lancers of the palace guard, Johnson and the sepoy, formerly a cinnamon-peeler from the southernmost part of the presidency, were enjoying some joke together.

  Later, as he and Hervey were sluicing a hot but still fresh-looking Jessye, with the aid of a chain of syces passing buckets from one of the running-tanks, Johnson at last spoke his mind. ‘Captain ’Ervey, sir, what are we doin’ ’ere? I thought we was gooin’ to Calcutta.’

  Hervey paused before answering, but he had already concluded that it was time to take his groom into his confidence. ‘See here, Johnson,’ he said at length. ‘I will tell you all we’re about, since I may have to rely on you to act independently, and you’ll be no earthly good if you don’t know everything.’

  Once in the seclusion of Jessye’s stall, Hervey began to explain his purpose, while Johnson continued with the sweat-scraper as if it were nothing of any moment. The best way to judge the nizam’s general disposition, suggested Hervey, was indirectly, by observing him during the coming visit to Chintalpore. And as for the business of expunging all trace of the jagirs – well, he would have to trust to Selden’s address. ‘And so, in the circumstances the very best thing is to remain here in Chintalpore for the time being. If I were to go directly to Haidarabad I don’t see that it could fail to arouse suspicion, both here and there.’

  ‘Tha knows best, Captain ’Ervey, sir,’ shrugged Johnson, taking a stable rubber to Jessye’s head. ‘But tha’s in a spot o’ bother right enough.’

  * * *

  The environs of Chintalpore were not the best hunting grounds, but a dozen or so miles to the north, across the Godavari river, at the jungle’s edge, there was game to be had in large numbers in the sandy undulating downs – the bourrh lands. Here, gaur (or bison, as some knew them) left the seclusion of the dense forest occasionally to graze. Muggurs sulked on the shoals, great gaggles of wild geese crossed the sky in one direction and then another, and the sorrowful cries of Brahminy ducks made the solitude yet more desolate. Hervey was captivated by its wild emptiness. The fardistant forest, the small scattered groves of mangoes, with here and there a lordly banyan rising unmistakably above the jhow, but above all the graceful palmyra palm, told him they were elsewhere than the Great Plain of his own county. But the emptiness of that wonderful downland came at once to mind, and his rides there with Daniel Coates. How he would love the talk of horses, of reading the country and the pursuit of so worthy an opponent as the boar.

  Selden closed up. His horse’s ears were pricked, nostrils flexing at what the country promised. ‘Agar firdos bah rue zameen ast, Hameen ast, wa hameen ast, wa hameen ast!‘

  Some of the words were familiar, and so sensuous that the English must surely be as arresting. ‘Meaning?’ enquired Hervey simply.

  The salutri smiled. ‘An old Persian couplet: “If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this!” ’ He smiled broadly. ‘Ride hard, Matthew Hervey!’

  The rajah was unusual in his pleasure in the chase, Selden had explained, for in his experience princely Indians had no great appetite for it – and those who had, confined themselves largely to the pursuit of tiger from the lofty vantage of the howdah. The rajah’s favourite hunting ground for pig was the Sukri kadir, where Hervey had first made his acquaintance with Chintal, but the bourrh lands were within a day’s ride and could provide sport for his lancer officers – although compared with the Sukri kadir the country was rather too treacherous for his liking. He explained that the rissalahs were soon to take to the field for their last drill before the onset of the hot season, and today was the rajah’s last opportunity to give them a run.

  The mounted party numbered near twenty, the rajah himself accompanied by a jemadar and an orderly. The raj kumari, who rode astride, as Selden had told him, was escorted by one of the shikaris as pilot – an express provision of the rajah rather than of her own choosing. She carried a jobbing spear, but only to gain first blood with, for to hold off a charging boar required every ounce of a man’s strength. Her pilot was therefore her covering-spear. Locke, Selden and Hervey were accompanied by six of the lancer officers, by any measure an intriguing group. The commandant (as in Chintal the commanding officer was called) was a Piedmontese, a minor member of the House of Savoy who, shamed at the surrender of Turin to Bonaparte seventeen years earlier, had come east. Hervey liked him from first meeting. Commandant Cadorna was about Joseph Edmonds’s age, and it was this connection, perhaps, as much as anything that accounted for the immediate affinity. Cadorna’s captain was German, a Württemberger who had likewise sought his fortune elsewhere once the Confederation of the Rhine had required him otherwise to take an oath of loyalty to his former enemy. Captain Steuben was not many years older than Hervey, but his face was lined and sun-dried, and unlike his commandant he spoke no English. Yet he seemed to have little regard for Hervey’s facility with his own language. Indeed, he seemed almost to resent it, displaying a distinct coldness from their first meeting at the rajah’s banquet. Hervey was doubly puzzled by this want of the fellowship of the ‘yellow circle’ – the universal spirit of the cavalry – but for the time being at least was content to let it pass. The third European officer was another Württemberger, but of a different stamp. A big, coarsefeatured man with a walrus moustache, he littered his speech – a blend of German, English and Urdu – with expletives in the fashion of the serjeant-major he had once been. Captain Bauer, Alter Fritz as this venerable old soldier, now the rissalah’s quartermaster, was known, had come to India not by choice but as a prisoner of the British. He had enlisted in a regiment of mercenary infantry for Dutch service and had been taken captive at the Cape twenty years ago, remaining a prisoner until the regiment was disbanded in Ceylon thirteen years later. But Alter Fritz bore the British no ill will. Besides his fair treatment, he explained, his incarceration had kept him from the campaign of 1812, which had seen a whole corps of Württembergers in Bonaparte’s service reduced to but a few dozen by the end of the winter’s march from Moscow. The three native officers were fine-looking men who sat their horses well. All of them – native and European – wore jacked boots, white breeches and green kurta, and the saffron sasa which was the distinctive headdress of the rajah’s cavalry. Commandant Cadorna, Selden explained, was not only commanding officer of the cavalry but in overall command of the little army of Chintal. His rissalahs, together with the infantry (commanded by two German officers and a Swede), were housed in cantonments built lately some ten miles east of Chintalpore, whence the officers had ridden that morning.

  It took but two hours to reach the place where the rajah hoped to give them their sport. He was at first discomposed by the sickness of the shikari who knew the lands best, but he was confident nevertheless they would be able to find game enough to give some memorable runs. For the finest sport they should have been here at dawn, said Selden, but the day was hastily arranged: a proper bandobast could not be improvised. The shikaris had been out the day before to reconnoitre, however, and to visit the villages to recruit the long line of beaters which he pointed out to their front. ‘They will be hidden from view in the jhow for most of the time, but yo
u will always tell their whereabouts from the chief shikari on the big she-elephant in the middle of the line. He is the man on whom our sport depends.’

  Unlike a line beating onto guns, this line was silent, and the spears now quietly took up their places to the rear of the beaters at intervals of thirty yards. When all were in position, the rajah – with Hervey away to his right – nodded to the chief shikari. He in turn waved a white flag, signalling the line to begin its stealthy advance to take by surprise – they hoped – a lone boar. Hervey could scarcely bear the wait; like scouting, when at any second the hunter might become the hunted, with the numbing surprise of the ambuscade. He felt more alive than ever. He looked to his right, where the raj kumari stood with her pilot. He had never seen a woman ride astride, her legs covered for most of their sinuous length in silk, the sweat from her pony’s flanks ensuring the cloth traced their form faithfully. His thoughts were as primal as the chase itself.

  Suddenly there was pandemonium – grunting, squealing, shouting. A big sounder had burst, and everywhere was pig. But neither the rajah nor the raj kumari moved, for the line was the commandant’s and the officers’ on the right. They spurred headlong after the boar, crying ‘On! On! On!’ and Hervey was only able to contain Badshah with a struggle, anxious not to have him bolt in front of the rajah. The chase did not last long. Perhaps the boar was reluctant to leave the sounder, and hesitated just a fraction too late before making for the cover of some jhow, but Commandant Cadorna stopped him in his tracks by a deft thrust with a jobbing spear between the shoulders.

  ‘I don’t suppose there will be any pig left in miles of here now,’ sighed Hervey as Selden rode up.

  ‘Do not imagine it!’ replied the salutri, looking pleased there had been an early and successful run. ‘There will be pig aplenty, I assure you!’

  Bearers strung the boar to carrying poles and trotted back towards the rajah to display the first blood. He was big, though not quite as big as the one Hervey had sabred. The rajah was pleased and signalled for the beaters to form line again. Spears began taking post to the rear, as before. The raj kumari rode over and asked Hervey if the tushes he had presented her had been so quickly won, and he answered that they had not, confessing to the impasse of sabre and indestructible boar. She had not spoken much since the banquet, though he had sensed her surveillance as he walked each day in the water gardens. Selden’s warning had been prescient, for there was something in her manner which said she distrusted him. On the other hand, she had engaged Henry Locke in the most animated of conversation whenever she had seen him, even encouraging him in his fledgling dalliance with one of the nautch girls. Now the first sounder was burst, there was an easing, and she seemed more candid. Indeed, for a few minutes at least they spoke freely and agreeably of the natural history of the bourrh lands. But the potency of her allure was overmatched for just this. Her black hair fell about her shoulders, and there were flecks of red dust on her face, thrown up in the gallop to see the commandant’s kill. She had a look as wild as the Spanish women who rode with their guerrilla lovers. They were raw peasant girls, however – gypsies. Her allure was the more for its high-born underlay. Here was danger as exquisite as the cobra that had swayed this way and that at the rajah’s banquet. Hervey knew it, and was on his guard, but was fascinated nevertheless.