The rajah became anxious. ‘They come upon us!’ he called.
‘No, sir, I believe they mean only to overawe the rissalah. Your cavalry’ (he was most particular in his choice of adjective) ‘do great service there, drawing the enemy’s attention. See over on the left how your sepoys make progress towards the guns unnoticed.’
The rajah was further reassured.
But Hervey was surprised when he saw that the sowar-skirmishers did not turn about to rejoin the rissalah, but stood their ground and fired further volleys at close range – this time with lethal effect. It was, he told the rajah, as steady a conduct by cavalry as he had seen. And then, when another few seconds’ delay would have seen them overrun, they turned for safety and galloped back to where Alter Fritz and the rest of his men stood.
Again, he expected that the Pindarees would not press their advance – certainly not beyond supporting range of the guns. But they did – perhaps five hundred of them. What, indeed, could they fear? Alter Fritz’s one hundred could not withstand them, for sure. Would he charge them, as was the practice? The seconds passed, the rajah growing more anxious with each (and, indeed, Hervey too – though not as conspicuously). Another ten might spell disaster. Then Alter Fritz’s front rank fired their carbines, turned about and retired at a steady trot, leaving the second rank to send their volley into the mass of horsemen. The effect was not, perhaps, as devastating as the smoke and noise portended, but a good many men and horses were tumbled nevertheless.
Still the Pindarees did not check. If anything they increased their pace. The rissalah was now in a gallop – and in the highly irregular order of two columns. Hervey was full of admiration for their drill, if perplexed by the formation. Until, that is, he saw that the columns were making for the two clear paths through the fougasses. ‘Great heavens!’ he exclaimed, alarming the rajah even more.
‘What is it, Captain Hervey?’
‘Your Highness, you will see in a short while. I believe that the Pindarees are about to receive a very great shock. They are about to have a taste of what is sometimes known as – if you will excuse my saying so – “poor man’s artillery”!’
The rissalah columns wheeled left and right into line, fronting fifty yards to the rear of the fougasses, the galloper guns unhitching and making ready before even the last of the lancers had taken post. Alter Fritz galloped along the line shouting orders to the NCOs who had been lying concealed with their slow matches at the end of each powder trail. Before he reached the flank they fired the first of the fougasses, followed immediately by another, and then more. The ground heaved, great fountains of earth spouted high, and those rocks which had not been projected forward rained down on the Pindaree rear ranks. Horses and men tumbled in their dozens as shot, nails and pebbles swept like a scythe into the packed lines. Hervey counted fourteen or fifteen explosions. No more than five or six must have misfired – not a bad rate of success.
The rajah was at first speechless. And then overjoyed. And then sickened.
But Hervey scarcely heard him, intent as he was on observing what the Pindarees would do next, for they still had more horsemen than stood with Alter Fritz. However, the old Württemberger was even wilier than he had supposed. The Pindaree host had been checked: it stood motionless in a sort of collective contemplation. All it would take was resolute action by their commander to renew the attack, but doubt was evidently creeping into their minds. This was the time that Alter Fritz chose to make up their minds for them. He fired two more of the fougasses, and then another two, and then the galloper guns opened up with explosive shell. His trumpeter sounded the advance, and the rissalah lowered its line of lances and began to march forward.
It was enough. The front ranks of the Pindarees turned. But their way back was blocked by the rear ranks, who were thrown into confusion by the retrograde movement. There was panic, suddenly, and many of the horsemen turned to the river for escape, followed by many more in the rear who must instinctively have believed that water rather than their own lines would be their salvation. Alter Fritz put his left wing into a canter to envelop their right. When they saw what was to come, all order among the Pindarees disintegrated and there was a headlong dash for the river.
The rajah, roused from his sombre thoughts, grabbed Hervey by the arm. ‘Why do you not send the rest of my lancers to assist their comrades? We can surely finish those devils in the river?’
Nothing would have given Hervey greater pleasure – or, at least, satisfaction. It was just what a cavalryman should do, for this was the moment when, if he threw in even half his remaining rissalah, the Pindarees who had advanced would be destroyed to a man. ‘Your Highness, my object must remain the guns: it is not necessary that we finish those at the river. And there is, I must point out, at least their number again still at the redoubts. If they were to attack then we should be deuced hard-pressed to withstand them.’
The rajah sighed. ‘Captain Hervey, forgive me for seeming to doubt you. What now is your intention?’
Hervey took in the whole of the kadir at a glance. It was not difficult to do so, for the attention of the enemy seemed entirely focused on the slaughter at the river, the nizam’s guns keeping up a furious but ineffective fire, shot falling wide or well short of the press of horsemen. The rajah’s sowars had slung their lances to set about the fleeing Pindarees with their tulwars, and still those Pindarees by the guns made no move to their comrades’ relief. Perhaps they were wise not to do so, thought Hervey, as those at Waterloo who had gone to the aid of the Heavies – himself included – might have been wiser to stand their ground. But it was alien to every instinct of a soldier to stand by while a comrade was in trouble. If only the sepoys on the left were closer to the Pindaree lines: now would be the perfect opportunity to take the remaining rissalah to the enfilade. ‘Your Highness, I had wished that we might tempt the rest of the Pindaree cavalry to advance, to tie them to a fight on our right so that – as I earlier explained – we might then advance to the guns on the other flank. But they will not be tempted. Though I hope that is more by lack of courage than judgement.’
‘And so, Captain Hervey?’
‘And so, sir, I must chance to gallop for the flank and hope that your sepoys are able to come to our relief before too long!’
The rajah looked alarmed.
‘Do not concern yourself, sir. I cannot suppose that the enemy has much appetite left after seeing what has just befallen those at the river. And they are not to know that we have expended all our fougasses. Nor, I suspect, do they truly know what they are.’
But Hervey had judged it wrong. He galloped the halfrissalah and his two guns (he would have taken the other half had he not needed to leave it as the rajah’s lifeguard) along the edge of the jungle without hindrance from either cannon or horsemen, and they were even able to dismount and take cover just inside the forest not fifty yards from the nearest redoubt. But two things stood against him then. First, the side of the redoubt was protected, contrary to what the hijdas believed (though he could see now that the sides of the others were not). They would not be able to enfilade it to any effect, for his galloper guns would make little impression on the revetted walls. Second, and more pressing, the Pindarees made immediately to counterattack. This move was halted by brisk flanking fire from the sepoy companies who had begun doubling forward as soon as Hervey had overtaken them – but not before Cornet Templer had been hit twice in the legs by musketry. He made not a sound as he fell, and would have lain there as if in cover had not one of the sowars seen him hit. Hervey crawled back to him and managed, with the sowar’s help, to staunch the bleeding. But the cornet was no longer for the fight – despite his pleading to be left to work his carbine – and Hervey called to two others to drag him back into the shade of the forest.
There was now, therefore, impasse – a bristling triangle, no side of which could move without drawing withering fire from another. Hervey knew that the initiative was not his, however, for the Pindarees could �
�� if they were both resolute and skilful – outflank his two sides of the triangle, though he was not strong enough to do so with theirs. Now, perhaps, was his aptness for command to be most truly tested. He had already first unnerved and then impressed the rajah by his bold insistence on not throwing all his men into the fight against the Pindarees at the river. Now he would retain the same single-mindedness in pursuing his objective. He would not try to fight the Pindarees pressing upon him: he would strike at the guns.
It was as well that he did not attempt to explain his plan, for it was essentially inexplicable. He threw off his shako, threw down his pistols, gave his carbine and cartridges to the sowar who stood temporarily in Johnson’s place, and ran forward with no encumbrance but his sabre in one hand and a length of tethering rope in the other. A furious musketry opened again from the Pindarees, but, being aimed shots, they were all wide of their fast-sprinting mark – and indeed of the sowar who, without bidding, ran at his side. They threw themselves to the ground at the foot of the redoubt. It was so much bigger now they were close – half the size of a windmill, and much the same shape. Hervey expected at any minute that fire would come at them from above. But they were unseen by the gunners. The cannon overhead – a good ten feet above where he crouched – was silent, though run out and therefore, he supposed, shotted. The instant it fired, the recoil would take it back inside the embrasure, and he thus risked all even if he were able to do what was in his mind. But had he any option now?
The gun projected as proudly as if it had been one of Nisus’s main battery. Hervey made a running loop of the rope and stood to cast it over the barrel. His first attempt failed, and he froze for several seconds, expecting it to have been seen. He cast again. This time the rope looped the muzzle and he pulled the end tight closed. He waited a few seconds – again, noone had seen – then began to pull himself up, his feet scrambling for footholds on the rough face of the revetments. How many gunners did he expect to find inside? Better not to think. Even his rifled carbine would have been too slow. The sabre hanging from his wrist by its sling was his only chance. He swung his leg over the barrel and pulled himself upright, straining every muscle to do so, expecting the gun to explode at any moment or a pistol or musket to fire point-blank. And then he was through the embrasure and in among the gunners like a terrier among rats – except that these rats did not fight.
They squealed, though. Squealed and squealed and squealed as the sabre slashed and cut and thrust – without anything stronger than a raised arm to parry it. Two gunners escaped its work by diving headlong from the redoubt, but five more soon lay still or dying at Hervey’s feet. He rushed to the embrasure to call for support, and at that instant a huge roundshot crashed into the redoubt furthest from him. He saw it strike – carrying away the earthwork and dismounting the gun. He saw a second, ploughing into the debris wrought by the first, sending earth and brickwork skywards. He was dumbstruck. What? Where? How? He peered out further, towards the Godavari whence only the fire could have come . . . and there were the ensigns, unmistakable! And then another ‘broadside’ of such regularity that before it could strike, the nizam’s gunners were pouring from the redoubts like rats fleeing before a flood. ‘Great God!’ he gasped. ‘A fathom of water! A fathom of water and there’ll you’ll find them!’
But the Pindaree horsemen stood firm. Hervey saw with alarm that all they needed to do was assail the half-dozen budgerows on the river, from which the Nisus’s quarterdeck twelve-pounders enfiladed them, and with a modicum of resolution they might yet carry the day: the Godavari was shallow enough at the edge, and not all would have fallen to grape as they charged. Alter Fritz was engaged with the remnants of those that had earlier attacked him, and evidently did not see the danger, and all Hervey’s half-rissalah were dismounted and their horses with holders inside the forest. He looked back towards his night camp and the lancers with the rajah – and to his great relief saw them advancing at a canter.
But the Royal Navy was not yet done with its fighting. A thin line of red was also advancing, muskets at the high port, as steady as if on parade at Portsmouth. And there, in front, was Henry Locke, sword held high. The Pindarees seemed rooted to the spot, incapable even of dealing with two dozen marines. Never had Hervey seen cavalry so supine – as feeble as Sackville at Minden. And then, at fifty yards, Locke lowered his sword to the engage, the marines put their bayonets to ‘On guard’, and they began to double. At thirty Hervey distinctly heard him shout ‘Charge!’ and the Pindarees – hundreds upon hundreds – turned and broke. But a handful first discharged their firearms – perhaps more for safety as they retired – and a ball struck Locke in the throat.
Hervey rushed to where he fell, through ranks of horsemen who wanted nothing but to be away. Locke’s serjeant was already trying to staunch the bleeding as he reached him, but so much blood was there that the end could not have been in doubt. His eyes were open and something of a smile came to them as he saw Hervey. He gripped the soldier’s wrist, squeezing with that strength which Hervey had so admired, trying thereby to tell him something.
Hervey smiled back. ‘Thank you, my dear, dear friend. Without you it could not have been done!’
Locke’s eyes smiled even stronger, his breathing like the raj kumari’s mare when the incision was made. His other hand reached for his gorget and pulled it from his neck, snapping the chain. He held it out to Hervey, his eyes somehow managing to tell him why.
‘For your . . .’ he cursed himself that he did not know her name.
Locke nodded his head.
‘I will see she is well provided for,’ he said, tears now running down both cheeks.
And then Locke’s eyes closed, and his head rolled gently to one side in his serjeant’s arms.
Hervey swallowed very hard. ‘Samson hath quit himself like Samson,’ he stammered.
XIX
RECALL
Chintalpore, two weeks later
Jessye nuzzled him, searching his pockets for some favour. Hervey put his nose to hers so that their breathing spoke secretly for them, as it always had. He rubbed her muzzle with his palm. The pinpricks, through which the krait’s venom had spurted to mix with her blood and scheme its way to her vitals, were now healed, her body purged of all poison. He found her a piece of candied fruit and she took it gently from his hand, not greedily as would the Kehilans in the stalls either side of her. Tomorrow he might take her out – an easy ride, a walk only – in the cool of the morning, to coax her back to the hale condition in which she had been before the snake’s assault.
‘Mr Somervile is greatly interested in village medicine,’ said Emma Lucie, watching from a discreet few paces.
Hervey nodded. ‘Would that I had had greater faith, too. The subedar begged me to let him go to find a sadhu, but I couldn’t bear to have a stranger dancing round her, throwing ash about and blowing on a pipe.’
‘And it was a Brahman who came, you say?’
‘So Johnson says. He gave her a potion, though I can’t imagine how she could have been induced to take anything, prostrate and her heart failing. It was mungo root, apparently a native cure for snakebite.’
‘Ah yes, indeed: Ophiorrhiza mungos is its botanical name. I was reading of it in my natural history only yesterday.’
‘Oh – so it is more than village magic?’
‘I believe so. It is a well-known antidote with grasscutters, but I have never heard of its use with equines.’
‘You are very ingenious, Miss Lucie. You have extensive learning, and are yet open to all you see in this country.’
‘It might very well be fatal not to be,’ she said, smiling.
‘In its most literal sense, too,’ he conceded. ‘For the snakebite I should, myself, have trusted to potash, but that would have been of little account had it not been used at once. And I had none.’
Hervey pulled Jessye’s ears again, and gave her another piece of candied fruit. ‘I’ve sent Johnson with a purse of silver. I should have lik
ed to go myself but time is pressing.’
‘How long do you have remaining?’
‘I can’t delay beyond tomorrow.’
‘Philip will be sorry he shan’t see you before you go.’
‘And I him. Not least to be able to tell him in person all you have done.’
‘Not all, I should suggest!’
He looked away sheepishly. ‘I cannot thank you enough. When did you make the discovery?’
‘Soon after the rajah had set off to join you. It was the only ledger I had not looked at.’
‘And you read through every page?’
‘That was my intention, but it was there on the third – very plain.’
‘Even so, its significance might not have—’
‘Captain Hervey!’ she scolded. ‘I cannot think that anyone would not connect the Duke of Wellington’s name in a land register and the presence of one of his ADCs! I wonder, though, that you did not give me any more direct indication of your mission.’
He glanced around awkwardly, but there was no-one else about. ‘Perhaps so, madam. I’m obliged none the less. And the evidence?’
‘The ledgers are wholly beyond redemption: they were sodden by the time they were recovered from the well. It has saved you and me a difficult choice.’
‘I have thought a great deal about that, I may say, Miss Lucie.’
She simply smiled and shook her head.
‘And still there is no idea who might be the culprit?’ he asked, leaving the trickier matter.
‘It would seem not. All the ledgers and documents were taken from my room while I was with the rajah and thrown down the same well in which Kunal Verma perished. But the rajah is sure that his spies will soon begin to speak now that his position is more secure.’
‘As you say, their taking removed a fearful temptation. And so now the disposal of the jagirs is a simple matter for the duke’s new agent in Calcutta. How very fortunate things have turned out, when only days ago all seemed lost.’
The Nizam's Daughters Page 39
