During a battle, the Shadows were issued with both silver bayonets and silver-coated ammunition. Such equipment was ruinously expensive, and therefore in very limited supply, but Wellesley considered the financial cost to be more than offset by the tactical flexibility that he had gained through their use. Vampires shrugged off ordinary musket balls without so much as flinching, unless they happened to be shot in the head or heart, in which case there would perhaps be some minor inconvenience involved; but the enemy officer who was taken unawares by a Shadow was going to find himself suddenly having a very, very miserable time indeed. Silver was one of the few utterly certain methods of permanently destroying a vampire, of ending them for all time. It had to hit home centrally - between the head and the middle of the chest - but when silver weapons were properly targeted, their effects were devastating.
While some of the Shadow Company mess-servants worked painstakingly in order to set the dining table for their vampire masters, a second team went about the task of rousing those same masters from their long day’s sleep. At the tent’s easternmost inner edge, they had already broken ground with the tips of their long-handled shovels. The men worked diligently and methodically, seemingly mindless of the early-evening heat, heaping shovelfuls of earth one atop the other until several small mounds had accumulated at their feet. The Shadows maintained a respectful silence as their work progressed. Having finally reached a depth of some five or six feet, they unearthed the first in a row of elaborately-carved wooden coffins.
As with everything else in the British Army, rank hath its privileges, reflected Company Sergeant-Major Daniel Nichols as he labored and sweated in silence along with the rest of his men. You didn’t chatter while you were waking the officers; they didn’t much care for it, and anything that the officers didn’t care for usually ended up in tears for the poor bastards involved if they weren’t very, very careful.
Each officer reposed in a coffin whose appearance and gaudiness befitted his rank, and the first to be carefully extricated from the depths of the dry Indian ground was that of General Harris himself. Four golden ropes were coiled up on top of each coffin lid. The far end of each rope had been tied securely to a brass handle, which was in turn screwed securely into the coffin’s side wall. A Shadow took up a firm grip on one rope apiece. These men were no milquetoasts; each had been selected for his physical robustness and outstanding soldiering skills, in addition to his capacity to be trained in the social arts and graces. Although they were not (nor ever were likely to be) commissioned officers, their colonel liked to think of them as something along the lines of apprentice warrior-gentlemen, and therefore set high standards of behavior to match his lofty expectations.
Once the lid of General Harris’s coffin had been removed, Dan quickly slipped across to the mess table and poured out a goblet of human blood from an etched silver decanter. The blood was still warm. The army’s quartermaster had come to an arrangement with the local merchants and traders to exchange human blood for either coin or trade goods. A not-insignificant portion of the army’s baggage train was comprised of somewhere around a hundred living, breathing, walking blood supplies, typically poor young men who were deliberately kept in as healthy and well-nourished a condition as possible by their handlers.
General George Harris sat up carefully and opened his eyes, blinking several times as they adjusted to the candlelight. He reached out and accepted the proffered goblet from Dan without the slightest suggestion of gratitude, just a simple nod of acknowledgment. The general drained the contents in a single draught, and handed the empty goblet back to him with a curt “CSM Nichols.”
One by one, each coffin was hoisted slowly and carefully out of its hole. They were then laid aside in descending order of rank, and Dan set about helping his men remove the lids from the coffins of the 33rd’s colonel, Arthur Wellesley, and his second-in-command, Major John Shee.
Now there was an interesting one, our Colonel Wellesley, Nichols reflected. He watched the young officer climb gracefully out of his coffin, his long limbs seeming to naturally unfold as he did so. The colonel was impeccably dressed, despite having lain in a closed wooden box below ground for the greater part of the day. His close-cropped dark hair remained neatly in place, with not a rogue strand to be seen anywhere. Wellesley’s hair had not grown one iota since the night he had been turned as a younger man, and besides, it would soon be replaced with the white wig that he favored. The tips of his ears were slightly pointed, as were those of all vampires. Beneath finely-arched dark eyebrows, a pair of calculating, steely cold eyes gazed out at the world. The source of Wellesley’s nickname, “Nosey,” came from the prominently aquiline nose, which somehow managed to appear more distinguished than ridiculous. Were it not for his deathly pale marble skin and the tracery of blue veins which appeared just barely visible underneath its surface, one might find it easy to forget for a moment that the man was in fact not a man after all.
“Company Sergeant-Major Nichols,” Wellesley said, affecting an air of warmth and conviviality that he did not really feel. He accepted a goblet from the Shadow private and took a single sip. The cooks had warmed it, he noted with approval. Cold blood was tolerable to a vampire, in much the same way that cold tea was tolerable to a mortal human. One could live on it, but why would one ever want to?
“Did you sleep well, Colonel Wellesley?” enquired the irascible Major Shee, as he stretched his back and massaged the lumbar spine.
“Tolerably well, thank you, John.” Wellesley looked down the line of holes that had been dug in the earth by his men. The Shadows had already finished excavating the coffins containing those who held the intermediate ranks of colonel, major, and captain, and had now moved on to freeing the lieutenants, of which there were just a few. Only the most senior and politically-connected lieutenants would be offered the Dark Gift. After all, somebody has to stay awake during the daytime to oversee the business of the army, Wellesley thought drily. That was the main purpose of the flesh-and-blood officers; to a vampire, they were barely one step above the rest of the cannon fodder.
In order to actually get anywhere within the British Army, one had to purchase a commission and the multitude of expensive extras that came along with it. Deep pockets and a certain degree of good breeding were therefore a given when it came to the process of officer selection. Only a true gentleman would be permitted to hold the King’s commission, with the exception of those few rankers who managed to gain a field commission on the back of some suicidally-brave exploit. Such men were few and far between, and tended not to rise much higher than the rank of captain.
The vampire had invaded the British aristocracy countless hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Good King George and practically every significant member of the royal household were also vampires (though there were a few notable holdouts and exceptions), along with most of the lords, ladies, and the otherwise high-born gentry throughout the British Isles.
Many came to the army having already been turned, and such men held a distinct advantage over their warm-blooded competitors; but for those families who, while being admittedly well-to-do, were not quite to the point at which they were considered a suitable proposition for receiving the Dark Gift, their sons had little option but to seek the commission of an ensign or a midshipman in the army or the navy, and then go on to prove themselves as a proficient “daylight officer” before they would ever be permitted to take the next step: accepting the Dark Gift of immortality.
Such a system may not be fair, but one could not argue the fact that it not only worked, but actually worked rather well. Arthur Wellesley himself had come from an old and noble Irish family, but their lineage had not been quite elevated enough to have drawn them into the same social circles which the vampires frequented. It had taken the ambitious young officer several years of hard and often tedious work in order to climb the army ladder, beginning with a commission purchased in the 73rd Regiment of Foot. He had since served in several other infantry regiment
s, and had even spent a brief spell as a dragoon, before being entrusted with the much-coveted colonelcy of the 33rd.
Having seen the face of battle in Flanders can’t have hurt my prospects either, Arthur mused, taking another sip of blood from the goblet, though I would sooner forget that particular experience. Flanders had taught him how not to lead troops, which in itself was a valuable lesson, but had been sorely earned at the cost of many British lives.
He had been only a humble major back then, and had learned the hard way of the perils that might befall good soldiers who were entrusted into the care of a bad general. Arthur Wellesley had vowed never to make the same mistakes when it became his turn to command an army, a day which would not be long in coming, or so it seemed to him now.
The sickly-sweet warmth of the blood burned his throat on the way down, and he fought the briefest of urges to close his eyes and utter a small sigh of contentment. Such fancies did not befit an officer of good breeding, after all.
As it was, he had the command of a full brigade of infantry, one that was firmly anchored to the stone foundation of his precious 33rd. John Shee was something of a weak point, Wellesley thought ruefully, but there was little to be done about that now. The man had liked his drink far too much during his natural lifetime, and while he no longer ran the risk of alcohol intoxication as a vampire, Shee had carried over that rash, impetuous nature which was common to so many drunkards when he had been blessed with the Dark Gift. Nonetheless, seniority was seniority, and Wellesley had no real choice but to permit Shee to retain at least partial command of the 33rd, while he himself oversaw the larger formation in person. He would just have to do his best to keep Shee on the straight and narrow.
A darkly-tanned young officer ducked in through the tent doorway, tucking a cocked hat beneath his left arm as he came. Arthur recognized him as Lieutenant Clarence Blythe, who had been designated trainee officer of the watch during the daylight hours today. Under the tutelage of a more experienced man (usually a captain) he would be expected to learn the ins and outs of commanding an army encampment while its senior officers slept. Blythe could have been no more than seventeen years old, if he was a day.
“My compliments, and I beg your leave to report, General Harris, sir.” Blythe delivered a parade ground-quality salute, braced stiffly to attention before the senior commanding officer. The young officer’s heavily-powdered salt-and-pepper hair was straggly, matted with a mixture of sweat, sand, and dust from the heat of the day.
General Harris, by contrast, was impeccably turned out. He swept Blythe with a discerning, inquisitive gaze that seemed to imply some unspecified criticism of his appearance, although this was achieved without actually saying a word. A single upraised eyebrow conveyed Harris’s point perfectly: next time, smarten yourself up before you report to your betters, young man.
“Mister Blythe.” Harris returned the salute. “What word of the day’s events, sir? Come, I pray you, tell us all.”
The General indicated one of the high-backed wooden chairs that he had insisted accompany the officers’ mess on campaign. Blythe gratefully sat down and interlaced his hands nervously on the tabletop before him. They were trembling slightly.
The poor young fellow must be parched, Wellesley thought sympathetically. He snapped his fingers, indicating the young officer with an outstretched hand. One of the mess-servants immediately brought over some heavily watered wine, which he poured into a goblet and served to Blythe. The lieutenant drank it slowly, obviously thirsty but mindful of the company in which he now sat.
Needing no prompting, the cluster of senior officers that had all been freed from their graves, crowded in to hear the news for themselves. Each took a chair around the long table, upon which Lieutenant Blythe had now unrolled a hand-drawn map of the local terrain. The corners were variously weighted down with an inkwell, a ledger, and a brace of unloaded pistols.
“It has been a fairly unremarkable day, sir.” Blythe addressed himself specifically to General Harris, who nodded at the young man to continue. “Captain Ponsonby sends his respects, sir, and begs leave to report that there have been no significant enemy sightings entered into the daily log. One or two minor skirmishes between our outlying screen and small bands of the Tipu’s horsemen occurred throughout the day, but we took no losses, sir.”
Wellesley felt his lip curl back in irritation. Ponsonby commanded his Seventh Company, and Arthur had never liked the man. Old for the rank of captain, Arthur had soon discovered the reason why shortly after he had first assumed command of the 33rd, for rarely had he seen a more lazy, indolent excuse for an officer, whether in the British Army or any of its allies. It was unfortunate indeed that this was the man who had been appointed to educate young Blythe in the arts of officering today, Arthur mused bleakly. He would have to see what he could do about that. Doubtless the man had his feet up already, and had sent the lieutenant to make his report to General Harris under the guise of ‘field training.’
“There is just one item of note, sir,” Blythe continued, clearing his throat. “Our scouts did observe quite a large cloud of dust, somewhere to the north of this village.” He indicated a spot on the map that turned out on closer inspection to be a small, finely-scripted marking. Harris leaned closer and read its name aloud.
“Mallavelly.”
“Quite so, sir. A relatively small and unremarkable place, from what we can see. It is of no real strategic value, except perhaps as a source of fresh water.”
“This cloud of dust – it was sighted when?” Wellesley wanted to know. Blythe turned to face him, trying hard not to betray his unease.
“Perhaps half an hour ago, sir.”
“And this was seen by…?”
“Native scouts, sir. A troop of the Nizam’s cavalry.” Blythe licked his dry lips, thought to take another sip from his goblet.
“Why did they not investigate further?” Wellesley probed, his irritation beginning to show. Was the boy merely inept, or simply being deliberately obtuse?
“A band of the Sultan’s horsemen intercepted our scouts before they could reach the village, sir. Our cavalry exchanged fire with the enemy, but neither side wished to press the engagement, what with the daylight starting to go.”
What he really means is that our men – the Nizam’s men, Arthur corrected himself silently – allowed themselves to be chased off by a bunch of bloody ragamuffins. So much for the quality of our native ‘allies.’
Wellesley was only too aware that there were precious few natural causes of significant dust clouds out on the open plains. Assuming for a moment that the scouts hadn’t simply observed a sizable dust storm, only a large body of troops on the move made any sense as an explanation to him. Has the Tipu just shown his hand, I wonder?
When it finally went into battle, the flags streaming above the heads of General Harris’s army would be those of Great Britain; but in truth, there were very few white faces amongst the ranks of that great military machine. Although there was a respectable mix of British artillery, cavalry, and line infantry units, the vast bulk of it was comprised of native Indian regiments supplied by both the Nizam of Hyderabad, with whom the British had struck up an alliance of mutual interest, and the Honorable East India Company, a private commercial enterprise which nonetheless held most of the wealth of India within its increasingly greedy hands.
The army that had been placed under the command of General Harris required such an outrageous amount of pack animals in order to move from one place to another that they often ate the already sparse Indian landscape bare of whatever plant-based nourishment grew there.
“What other news from our cavalry screen?” Major Shee leaned forward, hands resting casually on the tabletop. He gestured for another cup of blood. “You said, ‘one or two minor skirmishes.’ Please elaborate, if you would be so kind.”
“The Sultan appears determined to impede our advance, sir, but without directly challenging us.” Blythe pointed to a spot on the plains located to
the west of Mallavelly. “Our cavalry patrols investigated several smaller columns of smoke in this area, no more than two or three hours ago. Somebody – we can only assume that the Tipu’s men are to blame – has begun firing what appears to be every last tree and shrub along our anticipated route of march.”
“Bugger wants to starve us out,” growled the huge figure seated at Harris’ right hand. All eyes turned towards Major-General David Baird, who bared his prominent fangs in disgust. The tall, muscular Scot had no love for the Tipu Sultan, or indeed for most of the ‘bloody foreigners’ that he had encountered during his years in India. “He’s too much the bloody coward to face us in open battle, so he seeks instead to grind our advance to a halt by striking at our bellies.”
“Too cowardly, or too canny?” Wellesley wondered softly.
“Hmmm?” Baird demanded. No fan of Wellesley’s, he sounded irritated at the younger man having intruded on the conversation. “Speak up there, Wellesley. What have you to say?”
Arthur narrowed his eyes in annoyance, glanced crosswise at the towering Scotsman. Baird is an excellent fighting man, that much I cannot deny. A true soldier’s soldier…but if only his talents in the social graces and the realm of politics were but the slightest fraction of those he has for soldiering, the man would be leading this campaign instead of Harris. Wellesley had precious little time for fools and the ignorant, a trait which he and Baird both shared, but Baird was his superior at the end of the day. At the end of the day…how ironic. I have not seen the end of a day these past few years, and yet still the turn of phrase has remained with me.
The Beast of Mysore (Wellington Undead Book 1) Page 3
