The Nizam's Daughters

by Mallinson, Allan

  She did not reply, merely raising an eyebrow instead.

  Jessye was contentedly chewing the best hay that could be had in Chintalpore – though that was no better than Daniel Coates would feed his sheep in winter. He patted her neck. ‘I wish Selden could have seen her recovered,’ he sighed. ‘His was a tortured life, I think. I pray his soul finds more rest.’

  Emma Lucie said not a word.

  ‘I am sure that nothing will ever be found to implicate him in the batta fraud.’

  ‘Let us hope not,’ she replied.

  Silence descended on the stables once more, broken only by the slow grinding of hay. Hervey seemed perfectly content to watch his mare restored to her proper appetite, content with no more thoughts, let alone words, of the perfidy that had sapped Chintal in the late months.

  It was Emma Lucie who chose to speak first. ‘I have been reading some of the most sublime verse from the rajah’s shelves.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Hervey, imagining it – without very great enthusiasm – to be some profound native poetry.

  ‘You have read Herbert?’

  She surprised him. Herbert on the rajah’s shelves? ‘George Herbert – yes. I have more often sung it, though.’

  ‘And I,’ she smiled. ‘It makes fine hymnody.’

  ‘I believe I can say that my father has never coveted anything so much as Herbert’s former living. His parish lay a little further down the valley. I was thinking about those parts as you came into the stable. You must visit with my family in England, Miss Lucie. I think that Henrietta would very much like to see you again too.’

  ‘Yes, I should like that; but you distract me,’ she chided, smiling. ‘I found a poem which seemed most apt for you and Captain Peto.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes,’ she continued, smiling more, ‘called simply “Discipline”.’

  ‘I do not know it,’ he replied, shaking his head.

  ‘ “Love is swift of foot; Love’s a man of war, And can shoot, And can hit from afar.” There, Captain Hervey: do you not think that apt?’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘I think Captain Peto would heartily approve. All his philosophy seems but one vast naval allegory!’

  ‘Just so,’ she nodded. ‘And in speaking of shooting from afar, would you tell me what really happened in your battle?’

  ‘Well, madam,’ he began, thoughtfully, ‘we are obliged as always to the Royal Navy. It seems that Bonaparte once lamented that wherever there was a fathom of water, there you would find the British. When Mr Locke heard that the guns were gone from the border with Haidarabad he assumed at once that it was he who had betrayed our stratagem through careless talk with his . . . ahm—’

  ‘Paramour?’

  ‘Er, just so. Well, it seems that he thought the only recourse was to enlist the firepower of the Nisus standing off Guntoor. Perhaps there is not a single frigate captain in the Royal Navy who could then have resisted the challenge, but Peto of all men would have been determined to demonstrate the truth of Bonaparte’s lament. He took Nisus up the Godavari as far as he could, and when he could go no further he had six cannon dismounted and transferred to budgerows, and these he was able to bring into very timely action.’

  ‘But it was not Mr Locke’s fault that the stratagem was out?’

  ‘No, his . . . the native lady had said not a word, for she was given so big a draught of laudanum when he left that she lay insensate for two days. No, it seems that as soon as the nizam’s men heard that all the rajah’s forces were marching upon the border – as we had intended they should hear – they put their guns on the river. We do not know why – yet. Indeed, it may never be known. Everything in India seems unfathomable!’

  ‘Unfathomable? Perhaps. And how did Mr Locke die?’

  Hervey fell silent. At length he sighed and raised his eyebrows slowly. ‘Bravely – though that hardly needs saying. He advanced with twenty marines, in their scarlet, against hundreds of the enemy, as steady as if on parade. A ball struck him in the throat, and he died almost at once. I cannot say more.’

  Emma Lucie saw the moisture in his eye and turned towards Jessye, giving her another of the favours she had brought. A pair of hoopoes in the eaves was all there was to be heard: ‘Poo, poo, poo,’ called the male, his crest lowered. His mate answered – ‘Scharr.’ Hervey looked up; for an instant he was a boy in Horningsham again, stalking the jays in the churchyard.

  The silence stretched a full five minutes. ‘There was much to admire in Mr Locke,’ said Emma Lucie softly. ‘His fortitude, his . . . simplesse.’

  ‘Indeed,’ coughed Hervey, wiping an eye.

  She let him be for a while again. ‘But we may thank God that Cornet Templer is set fair for a full recovery.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes indeed,’ said Hervey, now recovering himself too. ‘He is the very best of fellows. And he loves India.’

  After a few minutes more she asked what were his thoughts on being recalled.

  He answered readily. ‘I must confess that, anxious though I am to return to England, I am myself more than a little intrigued by these lands.’

  ‘You are relieved, nevertheless, by your letter of recall? It does – does it not – permit a reunion with all whom you love?’

  There could be no other conclusion, he replied, knowing he would have six full months to contemplate it. ‘We shall say farewell tomorrow, Miss Lucie. But let me say again how greatly in your debt I am. You have been kind beyond words.’

  ‘Let us just say that my brother – and Henrietta – would have had it no other way.’

  ‘So, Captain Hervey, you are to leave us – never, I suppose, to return to Chintal, or even to India, again?’ The rajah was disappointed but philosophical.

  ‘Your Highness will understand where my duty lies.’

  ‘And your heart.’

  ‘I am engaged to be married, sir, yes.’

  ‘We in India never see a British grey hair!’

  Hervey smiled. ‘Oh, I think that Mr Somervile’s head will become white in these climes, sir. His will be a lengthy residency, I feel sure.’

  ‘I trust so, very much. And, I had hoped, Mr Locke’s too. The grant of jagirs on the plains would, I think, have been eminently to his liking. They shall, at least, provide some comfort for the Maharashtri dancer.’

  ‘I was not aware that you knew of the liaison, sir,’ replied Hervey with some embarrassment.

  The rajah smiled. ‘Captain Hervey, this is my dominion.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he nodded sheepishly. ‘The Fates dealt ill with Mr Locke, Your Highness. I pray that they are not cruel to his memory now.’

  ‘Most delicately put, Captain Hervey. But the Fates?’ he smiled. ‘And you a Christian officer of most exemplary practice!’

  Hervey smiled again. ‘I believe you know that I was speaking figuratively, sir.’

  ‘Just so, just so. And your own jagirs: you are content for them to rest in Mr Somervile’s stewardship?’

  ‘I am, sir. You have been more generous than could be imagined. There was no need, as I have already said: I could have done no other but what I did.’

  ‘And now you will return to your Duke of Wellington and continue upon advancement to high rank.’

  ‘That is every soldier’s intent, sir; though not all are permitted to achieve it.’

  ‘Just so, just so. And I have been unable to persuade you to remain in Chintal for a colonelcy and command of all my sepoys and sowars.’

  ‘I am a King’s officer, Your Highness. And your princely state is now secured by the subsidiary force – and an admirable officer in Colonel Bell.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ smiled the rajah, ‘though I can understand but little of what he says. He speaks very ill – Scotch, you say?’

  ‘Your Highness, I happen to know that his Urdu is faultless!’

  ‘Urdu? Yes, though I had rather wished we might discourse in English – read poetry, scripture and the like – as you and I have, Captain Hervey.’
/>   The Englishman bowed, acknowledging the compliment.

  ‘Well, I take my leave of you for the time being,’ said the rajah. ‘Do you have further business today, or may we have the pleasure of your company once more this evening?’

  ‘I shall do my utmost to be there, Your Highness, but first I must seek Captain Peto. He, too, has letters of recall, but he cannot wait and we must make our arrangements directly.’

  The rajah nodded; he understood. ‘ “And the gilded car of day, His glowing axle doth allay, In the steep Atlantic stream.” ’

  ‘You quote one of my favourite works, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I know it – the masque at Ludlow Castle. Near Shrewsbury, is it not?’

  Hervey smiled even wider: truly this rajah was a man of uncommon learning and sensibility. ‘I hope, one day, you will visit England, sir. It cannot compare with Italy in the magnificence of its past beauty, but I believe you would be excessively diverted.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Hervey. Let us pray that it may come about. Now to one last matter – the raj kumari. It is, perhaps, not possible for you to judge anything but the gravest ill of her. What she did, however, was for no baser reason than out of love for me and for Chintal. In time she will return to the palace, but not yet, not yet.’

  Hervey shifted awkwardly. There was immense sadness in the rajah’s voice.

  ‘You know all, I suppose?’

  ‘I cannot tell, sir,’ he replied, for how much there was in this most convoluted of stories he could not hazard.

  ‘This land is made of spies, Captain Hervey. It was perhaps destined that one day the secret I have borne for many years – my Christian baptism in the place that St Peter himself was most cruelly put to death – should be discovered, and traded for the highest price. Kunal Verma learned of it, skulking in shadows, and, like Judas, traded his secret for silver – two and more lakhs of it. The raj kumari and some loyal but misguided courtiers connived at his extortion – the batta fraud – but when silver was no longer to be had, and he threatened to travel to Haidarabad, my daughter ordered him killed.’

  ‘And Captain Steuben, sir?’

  ‘An entirely innocent victim, I fear.’

  Hervey sighed. One day he might reconcile the raj kumari’s actions with the necessities of war, but for now that prospect looked distant. ‘Must you still hold your secret, Your Highness?’ he asked, his voice hushed.

  ‘For the moment,’ replied the rajah. ‘Perhaps for ever. There is room within the Hindoo religion. You cannot understand, for I believe truly that it must come with birth alone.’

  ‘I hope you will visit with us in England, sir,’ said Hervey once more.

  The rajah smiled again.

  Hervey hoped fervently that the raj kumari might somehow appear, her exile more figurative than real. Too much had passed between them for there to be no leave-taking, for their association to be just fractured in this way. But she did not come. Deep in the forest of the Gonds, with but a few attendants, she listened all day to the sadhu and served out her penance. The rajah did not know whether he himself would ever see her again, for her restoration was given entirely into the hands of the holy men.

  Captain Laughton Peto was pacing the terrace of the water garden as he would his own quarterdeck. Hervey almost saluted as he came up the steps.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he huffed, ‘I hear those despatches included your letter of recall.’

  ‘Yes, the duke is not after all to come to India. He’s to be appointed to the cabinet.’

  ‘Deuced lucky for you in the circumstances, I should say – eh, Hervey?’

  ‘Yes, I should say it was.’ He tried to keep his reply free of the relief he had felt on first receiving the order.

  ‘Am I to suppose, therefore, that you now seek passage to England?’

  ‘If that is in order, sir,’ replied Hervey, maintaining all due ceremony.

  ‘And, of course, for your groom?’

  ‘I would be obliged.’

  There followed a purposeful silence, but Hervey saw no obligation to hasten its end.

  Peto could no longer contain himself. ‘And I suppose you wish a berth for your horse!’

  ‘I am ever in your debt, sir.’

  ‘Great heavens, Captain Hervey, my ship is become nothing more than a packet! But I suppose I should count myself lucky the rajah has not presented you with a deuced elephant!’

  Hervey smiled sheepishly.

  ‘What!’ exploded Peto.

  ‘Not an elephant but a Kehilan. Let me explain . . .’

  THE END

  THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S CAVALRY

  AN EXPLANATORY NOTE

  Here is a picture – a very incomplete one – of the cavalry in the Duke of Wellington’s day. The picture remained the same, with but minor changes, until after the Crimean War nearly half a century later.

  Like the infantry, the cavalry was organized in regiments. Each had a colonel as titular head, usually a very senior officer (in the case of the 10th Light Dragoons, for instance, it was the Prince of Wales; in the case of the fictional 6th Light Dragoons it was first the Earl of Sussex and then Lord George Irvine, both lieutenant generals) who kept a fatherly if distant eye on things, in particular the appointment of officers. The actual command of the regiment was exercised by a lieutenant-colonel. He had a major as his second in command (or ‘senior major’ as he was known in the Sixth and other regiments), an adjutant who was usually commissioned from the ranks, a regimental serjeant-major (RSM) and various other ‘specialist’ staff.

  A cavalry regiment comprised a number of troops identified by a letter (A Troop, B Troop, etc.), each of a hundred or so men commanded by a captain, though in practice the troops were usually under strength. The number of troops in a regiment varied depending on where it was stationed; in Spain, for instance, at the height of the war, there were eight.

  The captain was assisted by two or three subaltern officers – lieutenants and cornets (second-lieutenants) – and a troop serjeant-major, who before 1811 was known as a quartermaster (QM). After 1811 a regimental quartermaster was established to supervise supply and quartering (accommodation) for the regiment as a whole – men and horses. There was also a riding-master (RM), like the QM usually commissioned from the ranks (‘the ranks’ referred to everyone who was not a commissioned officer, in other words RSM and below). With his staff of rough-riders (a rough was an unbroken remount, a replacement horse) the RM was responsible for training recruits both human and equine.

  Troops were sometimes paired in squadrons, numbered First, Second, Third (and occasionally Fourth). On grand reviews in the eighteenth century the colonel would command the first squadron, the lieutenant-colonel the second, and the major the third, each squadron bearing an identifying guidon, a silk banner – similar to the infantry battalion’s colours. By the time of the Peninsular War, however, guidons were no longer carried mounted in the field, and the squadron was commanded by the senior of the two troop leaders (captains).

  A troop or squadron leader, as well indeed as the commanding officer, would give his orders in the field by voice and through his trumpeter. His words of command were either carried along the line by the sheer power of his voice, or were repeated by the troop officers, or in the case of the commanding officer were relayed by the adjutant (‘gallopers’ and aides-de-camp performed the same function for general officers). The trumpet was often used for repeating an order and to recall or signal scattered troops. The commanding officer and each captain had his own trumpeter, who was traditionally mounted on a grey, and they were trained by the trumpet-major (who, incidentally, was traditionally responsible for administering floggings).

  The lowest rank was private man. In a muster roll, for instance, he was entered as ‘Private John Smith’; he was addressed by all ranks, however, simply as ‘Smith’. In the Sixth and regiments like them he would be referred to as a dragoon. The practice of referring to him as a trooper came much later; the cavalry rank ‘troop
er’ only replaced ‘private’ officially after the First World War. In Wellington’s day, a trooper was the man’s horse – troop horse; an officer’s horse was known as a charger (which he had to buy for himself – two of them at least – along with all his uniform and equipment).

  A dragoon, a private soldier, would hope in time to be promoted corporal, and he would then be addressed as, say, ‘Corporal Smith’ by all ranks. The rank of lance-corporal, or in some regiments ‘chosen man’, was not yet properly established, though it was used unofficially. In due course a corporal might be promoted sergeant (with a ‘j’ in the Sixth and other regiments) and perhaps serjeant-major. The best of these noncommissioned officers (NCOs – every rank from corporal to RSM, i.e. between private and cornet, since warrant rank was not yet properly established), if he survived long enough, would hope to be promoted RSM, and would then be addressed by the officers as ‘Mr Smith’ (like the subaltern officers), or by subordinates as ‘Sir’. In time the RSM might be commissioned as a lieutenant to be adjutant, QM or RM.

  All ranks (i.e. private men, NCOs and officers) were armed with a sword, called in the cavalry a sabre (the lance was not introduced until after Waterloo), and in the early years of the Napoleonic wars with two pistols. Other ranks (all ranks less the officers) also carried a carbine, which was a short musket, handier for mounted work.

  And of course there were the horses. The purchase of these was a regimental responsibility, unless on active service, and the quality varied with the depth of the lieutenant-colonel’s pockets. Each troop had a farrier, trained by the farrier-major, responsible to the captain for the shoeing of every horse in the troop, and to the veterinary surgeon for the troop horses’ health. Hard feed (oats, barley, etc.) and forage (hay, or cut grass – ‘green forage’) were the serjeant-major’s responsibility along with other practical details such as the condition of saddlery, allocation of routine duties and, par excellence, discipline.