Hervey sat silent, his admiration increasing with every word Selden spoke.
‘There is a hijda brotherhood which transcends other allegiances, and there are many hijdas in Haidarabad – perhaps more than anywhere in India. They have of late fallen prey to the nizam’s sons, whose greed has exacted too high a tax on their possessions. They have a means of communicating that would stand tolerable comparison with the Admiralty’s signal chain – though how it works I don’t know. Nor need I. Well, suffice it to say that the hijdas of Haidarabad have communicated with those of Chintalpore.’
‘And is there any more intelligence?’ asked Hervey, now so thoroughly bemused that nothing, it seemed, could come as a surprise. ‘Some plan of action to spike the nizam’s guns, perhaps? Some subterfuge or stratagem?’
Selden raised his eyebrows and furrowed his brow. ‘I am but a horse-doctor with a few friends who are – shall we say – demi-rep?’
Hervey had feared as much. Perhaps it was as well that the rajah was occupied with his prayers, for without any plan he might become wholly cast down. ‘Do we even know who it was that murdered Kunal Verma?’
‘And Steuben also.’
‘Steuben! He was murdered? I thought his death an accident.’
‘I don’t know for sure. There were no witnesses.’
‘Then do you know who murdered Kunal Verma?’
Selden thought for a while. ‘No.’
Hervey sighed.
‘What shall you do, now?’ asked Selden after a suitable pause.
‘What options do I have?’ smiled Hervey.
‘You ask a fevered horse-doctor for a military appreciation?’ said Selden, at last managing a smile himself.
‘Then I shall ask myself what the duke would do were he here!’
‘Hah!’ said Selden, managing another smile. ‘Is that entirely wise? I hazard a guess what the duke would do, for we had three years and more of it in the Peninsula!’
Hervey returned the smile faintly, expecting the worst.
‘He would find some bit of ground with a few bumps and hollows – would he not? – and then wait for the enemy to give battle. Scarcely an option in this case: the Pindarees would never be so obliging.’
Hervey frowned. ‘You forget the battle of Assaye,’ he countered. ‘The duke still thinks of it as the best fighting he has ever done.’
‘I do forget it. I never, indeed, knew much of it.’
He gave a little shrug. ‘Sindhia outnumbered him by so many – horse, foot and cannon – he appeared to have no option either.’
‘And?’ said Selden, still not conceding.
‘L’audace! He attacked. He simply attacked!’
XVIII
IN THE CANNON’S MOUTH
The plains of the lower Godavari, four days later
The rajah’s modest force at Jhansikote was better found than Hervey expected. It cheered him greatly, for though he had left Chintalpore with his head full of heroic thoughts of Assaye, he had almost become resigned to a hopeless outcome. Defeat for the rajah, confusion for the Company, was what any reasonable appreciation would suggest. And for himself . . . oblivion, at best. What a loathsome month it had been – a month like no other he had seen: not before Corunna, neither after Toulouse, nor even before or after Waterloo. Then there had been a discernible strand of purpose – some clarity, even – in their endeavours. However, the rajah’s two rissalahs of cavalry, albeit with remounts in want of schooling, and the three battalions of infantry had the stamp of a brigade drilled with purpose and infused with confidence. That much was obvious at once, testimony to Henry Locke’s aptitude and determination. How the marine had managed it Hervey could not imagine, for the sepoys spoke in so many different tongues and Locke had no Telugu or Urdu, nor even any German, and no others had any English beyond the here and now. It was all the greater surprise, therefore, when Hervey learned that the force was now under the command not of Locke, but of Alter Fritz.
Alter Fritz could not explain why Locke had taken leave of his command. The old Württemberger had even less English than the native officers, and Locke had not been able to convey his thoughts well, it seemed. He had therefore given the Rittmeister a letter for Hervey, but in a comedy of errors it had been rendered unreadable when the German’s sabretache had proved not to be waterproof. All that Hervey could now glean was that Locke had become cast down on receiving his note, learning that the nizam’s guns had slipped from their grasp at the border, and that he had left some hours before the news of the destruction on the river reached Jhansikote.
Hervey was now plunged into deep gloom. If he had ever truly thought there to be a chance of overcoming the Pindarees it was only with the resolute help of Henry Locke. What had made him discouraged – Locke, the staunchest of men, the doughtiest of fighters? It was inconceivable that he should take counsel of even his most deadly fears. And yet he was not at his post. Could the sodden letter have contained any explanation that might remove from Hervey’s reluctant thoughts the word ‘desertion’? Surely it must.
But what, now, was he to make of Selden’s fear that Alter Fritz might be implicated in the business of the batta? The officer’s very presence signalled the improbability of guilt – unless he were scheming to deliver the rajah’s lancers into the nizam’s hands. Hervey knew he must trust to his judgement in this. He had not in the beginning always judged men right, but years with the duke’s army had taught him well enough. Taking Alter Fritz to one side as they watched a procession of grass-cutters bearing their loads to the stables, he chose to confront him more or less directly, and in his own tongue. ‘Rittmeister Bauer, could the sepoys have been placed under stoppages without knowledge of their officers?’
Alter Fritz seemed surprised by the question – a not unreasonable reaction, thought Hervey, given their circumstances. ‘Not without the quartermaster knowing,’ he replied unflinchingly.
So plain an answer augured well. ‘And therefore the sepoys were cheated by a European officer?’
‘Yes, and he is dead, I am pleased to say.’
Hervey thought it base to continue in this way: he would speak openly. ‘Certain papers have been found in Chintalpore which suggest that more than one officer may have been guilty.’
‘They are all dead but me, and so you wish to know—’
Hervey, deeply embarrassed, made to stay his words.
‘No, Hervey. It is right that you should consider it – your duty as a soldier.’
Hervey’s look indicated his gratitude.
‘But there is nothing I can say. No papers will show any guilt of mine, yet I can do nothing to prove that I am without it.’
‘You are here: that is enough, perhaps?’
‘Ja, Hervey – I am here.’
Rani knew why Locke had been downcast. Rani, the hijda whom Hervey had asked to accompany him, knew everything about the gora log. Yes, Rani knew the reason Locke had gone, and now he spoke. There was only one person who knew in advance of Hervey’s intentions, he said in his squeaking Urdu. It was Locke. And Locke had told the nautch girl with whom he shared his bed. Pillow talk had given away the secret, said the hijda, running his tongue between his lips. And now Locke-sahib could not face the shame.
Hervey felt the shame strongly enough just hearing him speak of it.
But Rani knew not quite so much of the gora log as he supposed. An hour later, just as the little force was about to leave Jhansikote for the lower plains, Cornet Templer returned from his galloper duties and was able to disavow all thoughts of Locke’s perfidy – if not of his want of judgement. The dust of the cornet’s hard ride, turning his uniform to the colour of the earth, and caked hard to his hands and face by sweat and the baking heat, neither obscured his fine features nor shrouded his golden hair. Rani’s excitement was all too apparent, but Templer merely smiled where Hervey recoiled, for he had been in Hindoostan long enough.
‘Well, then, man!’ demanded Hervey, his frustration with everything and every
body getting the better of him. ‘What is it that Mr Locke thinks he is about?’
Templer smiled winningly. ‘I saw him on the road to Guntoor – or, rather, to Rajahmundry: the two are as one for much of the way—’
‘Yes, yes, Templer: let us have it directly!’
‘Well, he would not tell me what he was about, only that he would deal with the nizam’s guns in his own way. He said that he had written a full account for you, and had given it to Captain Bauer.’
Hervey could only raise his eyebrows. ‘The Godavari has claimed the account as well as the nizam’s daughters – some of them, at least.’
‘Sir?’
‘It is no matter – not at this time. Continue, if you please.’
‘That is it, sir. Except that Mr Locke said that he was having to work on the presumption that you might be dead!’
‘I could have no quarrel with the logic of that, be assured of it!’ laughed Hervey, pleased at least that Locke’s steadfastness could no longer be doubted.
‘And now, is the collector able to render us any assistance?’
‘Yes indeed, sir!’ beamed Templer. ‘Two rissalahs of Colonel Skinner’s irregulars!’
‘No artillery?’
‘Artillery? Yes, sir: a troop of the Gun Lascar Corps from Madras.’
Hervey looked at him despairingly. ‘Mr Templer, it is artillery which we have greatest need of; you might have told me of them first!’
Templer was unabashed. ‘You have not seen Colonel Skinner’s Horse, sir!’ he grinned.
Irrepressibility was not to be undervalued, Hervey told himself, however trying it might be. ‘Well done, sir!’ he acknowledged. ‘And when might we expect them?’
‘Gallopers were sent to Rajahmundry, where Colonel Skinner’s regiment have come from Calcutta. And the Gun Lascars have already set out from Guntoor. Their progress will not be rapid, for the artillery is hauled by bullocks. Two days, perhaps three?’
‘Oh,’ said Hervey; ‘not as felicitous as I was beginning to imagine.’ And then, as if he remembered an obligation to be at all times optimistic, he added: ‘But a great deal better than nothing.’
All that was a day and a half behind them. As, too, were sixty weary miles of marching, part by day and part by night, until they were come from Jhansikote to the plains of the lower Godavari, the plains where Hervey had first become acquainted with Chintal through the distress of the rajah’s favourite hunting elephant. Now it was so much hotter than then, and more parched, for the monsoon was a month at least in the coming – if, indeed, it came at all. Green was no longer a colour of any prominence on the plains, except in the jungle itself. It was but an hour after sunrise, and already the heat was distorting any image beyond a few hundred yards.
The rajah’s men were breaking camp after hazree – eggs, ghi, pulses, dakshini rice, dried fish, mutton, poori. It was a breakfast, said Alter Fritz – a quartermaster of very singular ability – that would send them into battle with not a doubt as to the rajah’s generosity (and, therefore, their loyalty). Mention of the rajah set Hervey brooding once more: if only he had insisted on his coming here, for sepoys and sowars alike would need more than a good meal to inspire them for what was to come. But they had at least slept well. He had estimated that the enemy would not risk an attack during the night. Why, indeed, should they? Their greatest strength (and, certainly, their superiority) lay in the guns which stood immobile in the redoubts half a league across the kadir. There was little point in attacking at night when that advantage would be at nought. Selden had said they would not attack at all. Pindarees never attacked: they awaited attack and, if it looked to be overwhelming, they simply fled. So Hervey had stood down all but a company of sepoys, and these in turn had been able to pass a restful night in surveillance of the approaches to the camp abetted by the fullest of moons.
But not all of the rajah’s men had passed the silent hours in sleep or on watch. Hervey himself had spent the early part of the night writing letters. He was not without hope for the outcome. Assaye had, after all, been a battle which by rights should not have gone to the duke. But he had much to explain – to Paris (he scarcely dare think of the duke as he wrote), to his family, and to Henrietta. Sleep, he knew, would not in any case come easily. And then when the moon rose, at a quarter to midnight, he had accompanied a little party of sepoy officers and NCOs to dig and set fougasses with the dafadars in charge of the galloper guns. There had been no shortage of powder in Jhansikote, but after the affair with the nizam’s guns at the river there was now an abundance, for several barrels had floated to the bank, their contents as dry as dust with the tar sealing, and one of the two powder barges had fallen into their hands intact. When first he had explained his intention the dafadars seemed incredulous. Indeed, Hervey himself had never actually seen a fougasse, nor even heard of its making – except that years before he had read some dusty tome in the library at Longleat about the ancient fougasse chambers along the Maltese coast. How strange, he thought as they dug, that a childhood foray among the marquess’s bookshelves should come to such a fruition. Templer had asked him why he made this effort, to which he had replied that since he could not increase his cannonading, explosive pits packed with stones and musket balls must suffice – ‘poor man’s artillery’ he said they were called. And, he declared, their value might be even greater than cannon in the complete surprise of the sudden eruptions.
The work took until after two, and by then a portion of the kadir forward of their right flank, which Hervey already intended to picket, and extending to two furlongs, was peppered with his medieval devices. He had resolved not to make his final appreciation, however, until first light. Then the kadir would be revealed by the sun’s searching power, rather than by the moon’s deceptive glow. And, perhaps even more important, he would have the results of the night’s reconnaissance, for since shortly after dusk his spies had moved freely about the Pindarees’ camp, and even among the nizam’s gunners in their bivouacs beside the cannon. Never could he recall hearing of so free a play of spies. But then the hijdas were no ordinary agents. Before they had left Jhansikote Rani had been joined by a half-dozen others from the Chintalpore hijron, and several more later from that at Polarvaram, and all night they had capered and debauched their way among the enemy’s campfires until the cockerel booty had warned them to leave. An hour before dawn they had slipped back into Hervey’s lines, waking a good number of sepoys by their squeals and laughter, and assembled outside his tent. Torches cast an unflattering light on their gaudy sarees, but, all revulsion at their ambiguity overcome (holding them in some affection, even), he had listened carefully to what they had discovered, only occasionally finding his Urdu insufficient. But their night’s work, though valiant, yielded nothing that provided the key to unlocking the great task before him. True, they had been able to confirm that there were eight guns, whose barrel length was that of the tallest of the hijdas (Hervey had tried not to squirm as that individual related in lewd detail how he had come to be able to judge the length so exactly), also that there were many horses, tethered properly, and arms piled in soldierly fashion in parts of the camp. Behind these disciplined lines, however, lay a host of camp followers, whose fires stretched so far that it was impossible to estimate their number or extent. The only opportunity which the hijdas’ intelligence brought was in this mass of camp followers – no doubt laden with the spoils of their past weeks’ depredations, as tight-packed and immobile as their reputation for intoxicated indolence promised. They might well impede the retreat of the fighting men, for there was the river on one side, and the forest on the other.
But how was Hervey to compel any retreat? The kadir between his lines and the Pindarees’ would be swept by the fire of those eight guns (by the hijdas’ description, the fearsome thirty-six-pounders, with a range of one mile). Equally, the forest and the river limited his chance of manoeuvre. Late in the afternoon of the day before, as they were about to set up camp, he had contemplated doing w
hat he had done the night they had galloped to Jhansikote and found the tree and the picket barring their way on the forest track. But that night they had traversed – what? – half a furlong of jungle? Not more than one and a half, certainly. And their progress had been slow, tiring and unsure. Here, at night, they would have to steal into the forest half a mile at least from the Pindaree lines. They could not reach the lines before dawn, and once the sun was up they would surely be detected if the enemy had taken the slightest precaution of posting sentinels. By day they would have to cover three times that distance, for there was no closer concealed entry to the jungle. They could, perhaps, make the best part of the distance before dark, leaving the last furlong or so to the night, but it would still be risky, and they would lose a whole day in which the Pindarees might even go onto the offensive. It was a doubtful option.
And so, with the sun’s growing heat threatening the most uncomfortable of fighting – but also beginning to put life back into the weariest of the sepoys – and with the cooking fires and spices already sweetening the habitually fetid air of a military camp, Hervey surveyed the kadir through his telescope. He made one resolution at least. He would not make the mistake of fighting when or whom there was no need. The guns were his objective: counter those and the day would be his. But although this helped concentrate his attention on that to which he must direct the principal effort of his force, it did not provide him with an answer to how he might achieve his object. How might he subdue the guns? How might he even reach them without challenging – head-on – the Pindaree cavalry? They greatly outnumbered his and would not be inclined to run, as usually they were expected to, while the guns covered them. What was his little force capable of? He could not consider what the promised augmentation from Guntoor might allow, for there was no knowing when they might arrive. He could dispose six companies of infantry which had been trained, during the past few days, to work as light troops capable of skirmishing and responding to the bugle rather than to fight as dense-packed bearers of volleyed musketry. Without the nizam’s guns to play upon them he was sure they could reach the Pindaree lines. If only there were not the guns! Every time it returned to that question. But just as bewilderment was turning to desperation a thought occurred to him. He reined about and trotted back towards his tent, jumping from the raj kumari’s handy second Kehilan – which she had insisted he take when finally they had parted at the palace – and shaking the sleeping hijda on the ground outside.
The Nizam's Daughters Page 37
