A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Lieutenant Colonel Howell heaved his bulk out of the chair and his officers rose to attention. “One last point, Gentlemen. Three steamers are coming up from Calcutta this evening to carry the Forty-Seventh on the first stage of their journey: as far upriver as possible before they take to the road.”

  *

  The morning passed in routine work with the company, but to Ramsey there was an air of sufferance, a sullen acceptance rather than keenness, in the manner in which the men went about their duties. The Colonel had spoken well on parade, firmly but reasonably. They knew him to be a fair man and Ramsey thought that they had believed the assurances he had given them; but as the hours wore on he began to have doubts.

  Normally his best times were spent on platoon training. He valued those periods for the comradeship they developed: always the most rewarding aspect of membership of any small unit. Today the company was at the firing range, which gave ample opportunity for competition and chaff between the three platoons and among individuals. As a rule the sepoys appreciated this exercise, which was less tedious than drill and less energetic than skirmishing or bayonet practice. It also gave everyone a chance to boast about the high score he was going to make; and, if he achieved it, to boast some more. Sher Mahommed Khan, with the Pathans’ disdain for the rest of the human race, was an incorrigible boaster: but then, he took it for granted that he could shoot, use a knife or bayonet, wrestle, sing, tell stories and pleasure more women more often in any given time, than any other soldier in the regiment: unless he happened to be a fellow-tribesman; in which event he might concede a tie in song and story.

  The sulky atmosphere seemed to act as a challenge to Lumsden. He was more active than ever. At one moment he would be at the left of the line of men at the firing point, the next, at the right. Each time one of his sepoys made a bad score he would take his rifle, aim at the same target and demonstrate how much better it could be done.

  Yeats, the married lieutenant, was a languid, freckled Irishman with private means and a rich wife. He was never much inclined for work and the troops’ lethargy today was an excuse for him to blame the excessive heat and humidity. It was pointless, he said, to expect anyone to be able to sight decently with the target jumping about in the heat haze like a leprechaun, the sweat filling your eyes and the sun frizzling your brain until you couldn’t think.

  Captain Verity, the company commander, also married, was interested only in returning to his bungalow. His wife was expecting their third child. The first had been a difficult delivery, the second had died at birth. The graveyards of India were full of young wives and small children. He kept looking at his watch.

  A fresh detail was filing onto the firing point, another going down to the butts to relieve the squad that signalled the shots and patched the targets. The four officers stood in a group.

  Lumsden mopped his face with a bandana handkerchief, flicked up the ends of his moustache and swivelled his prominent eyes at his companions.

  “Trouble is, everyone’s gone soft after a month in Calcutta. Not so sure that doesn’t include me! The men are feeble because they won’t leave their wives alone after a month’s celibacy.”

  Yeats laughed, preening his auburn whiskers. “Just because you’ve been up all night for a month, dancing every spin in Calcutta off her feet, Alec, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have. Does it, sir?”

  “What’s that?” Verity sounded and looked distracted. Yeats repeated what he had said. “Not me, anyway. Hardly set foot outside my quarters or the mess, off duty, the whole month.” Verity had thought of nothing but his wife during their separation, written to her daily, waited anxiously for her letters.

  Yeats rounded on Ramsey. “You’re keeping suspiciously quiet, Hugh. Three days we’ve been back and not a word from you about how you entertained yourself in Cal.”

  “Nor is there going to be, Patrick.” He thought about the ardent young grass widow whose administrator husband had conveniently been away up country; the pretty wife of the portly middle-aged merchant, who kept trysts with him in the summer house of their big garden on the quiet outskirts of the city; of the judge’s daughter who was impatient of the convention that expected a girl to marry a man before she granted him the favours they both wanted. There had been some delightful platonic friendships also, with dancing or dinner party partners and girls whom he had squired to the theatre and flirted with in their carriages as he rode of an evening on the maidan and the esplanade. But none of that was anybody else’s business.

  When the bugles sounded and the men were dismissed, Verity and Yeats hurried home. The two bachelors went to the mess for tiffin. Before the officers separated, Verity said “Things will turn out all right. You’ll see. It was different in 1806. I know, I had been out a year then. Matters were too much in the hands of the subadars and jemadars. That put us at too great a distance from the men. Besides, when the Forty-Seventh are seen to embark and go upstream, it’ll quash the absurd story about taking them by sea. Mark my words: that’ll put an end to that nonsense about the salt, too.”

  Yeats, the senior subaltern, nodded. “Sure, sir, I’m of the same opinion entirely. The sepoys won’t have the energy to make trouble in this weather, anyway.” He tried to treat the matter lightly and lift Verity out of his domestic gloom. “Everything is going to be all right. Sure, won’t we be wetting the baby’s head any day now. Tomorrow, maybe. That’ll give us all something else to think about and by the time we remember this seditious rubbish again we’ll have forgotten all about it.” He looked surprised when the others laughed at his inadvertent contradiction.

  Sprawling in deep cane armchairs under a pankha in the mess ante-room with their brandy and water, smoking cheroots, Ramsey and Lumsden stayed silent until they had emptied their glasses. Lumsden beckoned a bearer and told him to bring two more.

  “What d’you think, Hugh?”

  “I’m inclined to agree with the Colonel: we’re sitting on a powder keg, the fuse has been laid and it’s the sepoys who hold the tinder in their hands. Whether or not they ignite it isn’t just a matter of his word against the word of the agitators who are putting the rumours about. It’s not so simple, Alec. The Company may have had its charter since 1600, but it’s only since 1708 that it’s had any kind of stability in this country. And a hundred and sixteen years is nothing to the Hindus. Their religion goes back far earlier than Christianity. Or the Mahommedans, with a religion that came to this country in the Tenth Century. Whichever they are, Indians are still suspicious of us.”

  “I say, did you learn all that at Winchester? We were never taught anything like that at Rugby.”

  “What I know about India I learned mostly from my father and grandfather.” Ramsey looked amused. “I don’t think Verity’s right when he says our relationship with the Sepoys is better now than it was in nought-six. But I do agree with him that sending the Forty-Seventh upriver will scotch the yarn about their being forced to go across the Kala Pani. That’ll get rid of one lie, but it will also redouble the efforts of the seditionists to make the troops believe the other one. And I don’t see how anybody can prove that we haven’t tampered with the salt. Of course, I don’t see how anyone can prove that we have, either. So I’d say it’s about evens, with the balance depending on how well the sepoys regard the General and the individual regimental commandants; and on how well they understand the Indian mentality.”

  “Very learned, old fellow. Very profound. Tell you what I think: boils down to the spirit in each regiment. Our sepoys, officers and rank and file, trust us. They’ll listen to the Colonel.”

  After lunch they went to their quarters to sleep during the heat of the afternoon to the soporific susurrus of creaking pankhas in a somnolent silence that weighed on the whole of Barrackpore like a drug, unbroken even by the bark of the pai dogs which lay panting in the hot shade.

  *

  When it was cooler Ramsey went out with Lumsden and his brother officers, British and Indian, to practice tent pegging
: plucking a wooden tent peg from the ground with a lance at the gallop. It was the best form of practice for pig sticking, when wild boar were driven from cover and horsemen armed with a lance rode them down through undergrowth and rocks.

  Some officers walked and trotted their mounts along the roadsides with a child on a pony at the end of a leading rein or riding alongside. Others accompanied their wives and children in pony traps, phaetons and barouches to the maidan where the grass was turning yellow, to listen to one of the regimental bands.

  The assembly of carriages was an imitation of the fashionable daily gathering in Hyde Park. The ladies bowed and smiled under their parasols, the gentlemen doffed their hats, rode up to stop and offer compliments, cast their eyes over the young spinsters, accept invitations to dinner or Sunday tiffin, ask for dances at a forthcoming ball, make avuncular small talk with the youngsters. The smallest children played on the grass in the care of their ayahs and with frequent maternal injunctions not to get themselves dirty.

  Riding away from the field, Ramsey saw the Veritys with their five-year-old son in their phaeton and trotted over. Verity’s wife was in her early twenties, golden-haired, beautiful, gentle and delicate-looking. She had never looked less robust than she did now, wan, her eyes with dark shadows under them. Nervously she created a breeze to cool her face with an ivory fan. Her hands were so fragile that they looked almost transparent. She gave him a pleased smile as he drew rein beside the carriage.

  “You ride very well, Mr. Ramsey.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am, but none of us can ride like Patrick Yeats.”

  “Yes, he always rides with such dash, doesn’t he?”

  And with the most expensive horses in Bengal, thought Ramsey. Even a blind man could spear his peg or pig on any of them. I wish I had a string of pure Arabs instead of my two poor cross-bred tats.

  He smiled down at the boy, a rather solemn little character. “Well, Thomas, isn’t it about time we saw you in a ring saddle?”

  “I’m getting a pony for my birthday. And a saddle.”

  Ramsey laughed. “I’m glad your father isn’t going to start you off bare-back. When’s the great event?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “When is your birthday?”

  “On Monday.”

  “Is it, now? And how would you like to have a riding crop to go with your tack?”

  Thomas looked at his parents uncertainly. Verity said, with proper gravity, “I think a riding crop would be very well for later on, when you can spare a hand from the reins if your pony needs a gentle reminder.”

  Thomas beamed up at Ramsey. “Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Ramsey.”

  “It’s very kind of you. You’re a lucky boy, Thomas.” Mrs. Verity gave her son a look in which there was such a depth of love and pride that Ramsey, who had never thought of himself as a sentimental man, was surprised to find himself hoping fervently that all would go well for her and that the new child would survive to share in all that care and affection.

  Ramsey rode on to where he could see Lieutenant and Mrs. Yeats, he astride one of his fine Arab ponies, she side-saddle on a big black mare. Their two eldest children, a boy and girl, on ponies, were with them. The two younger were in the family barouche with their ayah. A groom was waiting to take Mrs. Yeats’ horse to the stable so that she could enjoy the rest of the music from the comfort of the carriage. Three other carriages were drawn up close to the Yeats family and half a dozen mounted officers pressed as close as they could. There was much laughter. Kitty Yeats was always the cynosure of both men’s and women’s attention. In part this was owed to the fact that she was a peer’s daughter: only an Irish peer and the youngest of four daughters and three sons, but the closest thing to a title on the station. Mostly she was popular and admired because she had flaming red hair, which, with her husband’s auburn, made them and their children the most conspicuous family in the whole Bengal Presidency; she rode recklessly with great style; she boldly drank brandy in preference to vermouth or sherry wine; she had eyes the colour of emeralds and a fine figure; she was, as Ashni Daphne said, funny as a fit. Although Colonel Howell and his lady were in one of the adjacent phaetons, it was Kitty Yeats who was holding court. Mrs. Howell was laughing as freely as the rest at some joke of hers and the Colonel wore a worshipping look.

  Ashni Daphne cast Ramsey a coy, slanted lingering glance that was meant to be demure for the benefit of those who intercepted it but was full of suggestiveness and auld lang syne. A fresh-faced young cornet was ranged on each side of her carriage.

  Mrs. Yeats smiled through her veil when she caught sight of Ramsey. “I’m sure you would have known the answer, Hugh.”

  “The answer to what, Kitty?”

  “My little riddle that floored all these fine, clever people. It’s you I had in mind when I thought it up. You’ll surely give me the right answer.”

  “None of your blarney, Kitty.”

  “Tell me, now, when is a dandy like a haunch of venison?”

  “You had me in mind when you thought of venison, Ma’am?”

  “Now don’t be giving us any of your false modesty, Hugh Ramsey: you, the Beau Brummel of Bengal.” It was true he was always smartly turned out and his figure set off his clothes to their best.

  “I’m sure I don’t know the answer to your riddle.”

  “When he’s a bit of a buck, dear boy.” She waited until the laughter quietened. “And here’s another; made for you, m’dear lady-killer: what is a sailor’s definition of a kiss?”

  A loud laugh went up at this boldness. Ramsey, who did not at all like being called a lady-killer in mixed company, felt his face grow hot.

  “Answer the lady, Ramsey,” the Colonel called.

  Ashni Daphne cooed something which was no doubt meant to be encouraging and pert but was lost in the ripple of amusement.

  “I give in, Kitty.”

  “A pleasure smack, of course.”

  The loud enjoyment of her witticism must have reached every corner of the maidan, Ramsey thought: the band was resting between tunes. He didn’t intend to take his leave of the company without scoring a point himself.

  “One for you, now, milady.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Of all lasses, which do you think I find the sweetest?”

  Mrs. Yeats rolled her eyes, lanced a swift, brief look in Ashni Daphne’s direction and then at each of the other women in the carriages around her. “I hope I’d find the answer if I looked in the looking-glass!”

  “At the risk of being ungallant, I must deny it. The answer is molasses.”

  Kitty Yeats gave him a friendly rap on the shoulder with her riding crop as the company, led by her husband, laughed heartily. “’Tis a chalak young buck you are, dear boy, and I’ll forgive you the lack of gallantry; but sure, I’ll never get over the disappointment!”

  Chalak meant artful and as Ramsey rode back to the bungalow with Lumsden he reflected that Kitty Yeats’ brogue added to the meaning in a way which his scrupulous pronunciation could not impart. He felt happy. If he was not entirely contented he at least had a lot for which to be grateful: loyal friends whom he esteemed, good company, a varied and interesting life, the spur and the flavour of danger every now and then which were essential to him.

  It was four months since he had last fought a skirmish: when he commanded the escort to a bullion cart taking a lakh of rupees to a detachment of half the regiment on duty up country. Dacoits had laid an ambush. Beaten off, they had tried again three nights later. After the second encounter they had not returned: there were few left to do so; the ground had been littered with their dead and he had lost only four of his men. It was seven months since his last pitched battle. Two regiments of foot and a battery of artillery had gone to a native state where the Rajah had rebelled against the alleged interference of the British Resident in the way he ran his kingdom. A lot of blood had been spilt. Ramsey had been wounded in the arm by a sabre. He could do without danger or adven
ture for a while and confine his excitement to tent pegging and pig sticking.

  In the dusk he felt the melancholy which assailed him momentarily every evening when he was in the countryside. The cooking fires had been lit and the aroma of wood smoke seeped into his nostrils, with the tang of hot ghee and spices; the pungent odour of the hide, the dung and the breath of the cows in their byres and the sacred Brahmini bulls that roved as they pleased, stealing fruit, vegetables and sweetmeats from bazaar stalls. These and the creak of saddlery, the clink of bit, the smell of leather and horsehide, were all part of the early Indian evening.

  He was saddened a little and briefly by the recollections they always brought him of his parents, who had been here until twelve months ago; and their pride in him and his keeping of a family tradition. It would be another four years before he could go home on leave and see them again. He thought of his younger brother and sister in England: the one a lawyer, the other betrothed to a King’s officer she had met in Calcutta and who had also gone home. He thought about his grandfather and the wonderful stories he had heard from him as a boy, when the elderly gentleman was still serving in Bengal as a major general: the tales which had first stirred him with the eagerness to come back to this land one day as a soldier in his turn; to fight for the King, to see the fabulous palaces, forts and jewels of the Rajas and Maharajas and Nawabs; to see their elephants, camels and gaudy raiment; to wrest a fortune from the country by dint of his own exertions, his own bravery, his own merit, his patriotism.

  He would never make that fortune now. Service with the Honourable Company’s Army had changed. But perhaps it was better to have dear friends and many of them, varied enjoyments, sound health and enough interests to occupy an active and by no means unintelligent mind. All that and stability and peace as well. It wasn’t often they had to go and fight a campaign or do battle with marauding bands. India was settling down, the independent native states were becoming increasingly quiescent.