Free Lance

by George Shipway

  Mirasdars and village headmen passed in procession before his chair; he greeted them in turn, promised to tour the jagir and visit every village. He caught apprehensive glances cast at Vedvyas’s towering form, resplendently silk robed, a jewelled spray in his turban. The bonds of fear were not entirely broken; nor could they understand the Fringee quirk which allowed a beaten enemy to keep his life and rank. An infernal pity, Marriott decided, that Amaury’s pistol missed its fire.

  He closed the durbar; and before the men went home spoke again with Gopal Rao.

  ‘Srinivas will not take kindly to deposition from his place, sirdarjee. Although you must, of course, allow him a voice in your councils how can you be sure he will not sway the elders’ influence against you?’

  The old mirasdar sent Marriott an unfathomable look. ‘Have no fears, sahib. My son, should he prove truculent, will be recalled sharply to his duty.’

  Srinivas was recalled further yet. Marriott heard, a few weeks later, that after overeating grossly at a feast in his father’s house he mysteriously fell sick and died in unimaginable pain.

  Marriott wrote to Fane, bidding him bring to Hurrondah the animals, baggage and followers left at Moolvaunee. He wrote lovingly to Amelia and officially to the Council, relating Vedvyas’s defeat and the measures he proposed for settling Bahrampal. He despatched a sepoy company to escort Fane’s convoy - although organized resistance had ended lawlessness was rife along the roads. Then he gave instructions for building the Collector’s house, and started organizing an extended tour of the territory.

  ‘You propose for yourself an excessively tedious journey,’ Amaury observed. ‘Travelling in the monsoon will be devilish disagreeable. Will you need my services?’

  ‘ ‘Tis better, Hugo, I should accustom myself, alone, to the complications of a Collector’s work - always, I am informed, a solitary task. It would be wrong to allow myself dependence on another’s counsel.’

  Amaury hid his surprise - Charles was becoming damnably conscientious. ‘I dare say you are right. Meanwhile I must contrive for myself an occupation to while away the time.’

  In fact Amaury had lost, in this hiatus, all sense of purpose. The furious energy sustaining him through the bloodless occupation of Gopalpore, the skirmish which repelled the besiegers, his long reconnaissance in the Bahrampal wilderness, and the ambush that destroyed Vedvyas’s ragged army, had drained like the lifeblood from a mortal wound. The driving force was gone. Whereas Marriott pored over revenue records and prepared his tour; and Todd conducted parades and drills and inspections; while Welladvice went to his foundry at dawn and never emerged till dusk, Amaury had no part to play in the District’s peaceful settlement.

  During one of his aimless wanderings through Hurrondah’s alleys, thronged by townsfolk, crowded by stalls and tradesmen’s booths, raucous with the clamour of shopkeepers shouting their wares, he halted at the doorway of a squat mud building which housed the foundry. He looked into a smoke-hazed room lighted by narrow windows and the furnace’s glare, crowded by brown sweat-slimed bodies, deafening with the clang of metal on metal, hot as an inferno deep in hell. The sailor, grimed and perspiring, saw him at the door.

  ‘What are you about, Mr Welladvice?’

  ‘Castin’ a brace o’ six-pounders, sir.’ He reached for a rum bottle strategically poised on a sill, tilted his head and swallowed, wiped his mouth. ‘Nearly done - be makin’ the carriages next. Then yer’ll have a proper artillery company - two divisions o’ two guns each.’

  Amaury smiled. ‘A dutiful accomplishment - which nobody has ordered. Why do you do it?’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s like this. I enjoys castin’ guns, was brought up to it, like - all them years at the Tower. Then these gunners we enlisted in Gopalpbre was loafin’ around, hankerin’ fer their proper work - which is makin’ things o’ metal - so I keeps ’em employed. An’ I reckons, in this God-forgotten place, black heathens aswarm like wasps, the more artillery you has the better.’

  Amaury flinched from the smoke which swirled through the doorway, coughed and pressed a handkerchief to his lips. ‘An uncommonly sound precaution, Mr Welladvice - but where will you find, and how train, the detachments to man your guns?’ Welladvice spat neatly, and swivelled his foot on the globule. ‘I makes ’em, sir - ’tis your job to find the crews. Then give me ’em to train.’ From the corner of his eye he detected an idling workman and retreated, blaspheming, into the gloom.

  Amaury sauntered away, strolled to the stables which sheltered Vedvyas’s bodyguard: the sole remnant of the mirasdar’s army and a bone of hot contention between Marriott and himself. Hurrondah’s artillerymen had been mostly killed when the powder wagon exploded; the surviving infantry and horsemen, levied in feudal fashion from tributary villages, had scuttled to their homes. Marriott had demanded that the mirasdar’s two hundred cavalrymen be dispersed. ‘A private militia,’ he stated flatly, ‘has no place in Company territory.’

  ‘In that circumstance I am entirely of your mind, Charles,’ Amaury said mildly, ‘but you will recollect that Vedvyas yielded on terms - his bodyguard was delivered to my charge. We must not damage our repute: the natives accord high credit to an Englishman’s pledge. Vedvyas would think me devoid of every proper feeling should I disband his valuable squadron.’

  ‘Valuable--! It is all very bad!’ Marriott fumed. ‘The troopers must presumably be paid, the horses fed. I assure you I shall by no means consider any disbursement from Company funds!’

  ‘I had not supposed you would. Vedvyas continues to pay them, or they would have slunk away long since. Consider a little, Charles. Although we have crushed the factions within Bahrampal our territory has restless neighbours. Marathas are not famous as a law-abiding race.’

  ‘They seldom troubled Vedvyas.’

  ‘He probably paid tribute. Bahrampal has a different master now; the bribery restraining them has ceased. Marathas are predatory horsemen, freebooters, raiders, quick to strike and run. Your plodding sepoys will neither stop nor catch them. Should we not keep the squadron that victory has dropped in our laps?’

  ‘Prodigious fudge! I warn you, Hugo: after returning from my travels I shall contrive a compromise that will both preserve your honour and disband your ragbag troopers!’

  Amaury, ambling through the horse lines, brooded briefly on the change that a few months’ hard responsibility had wrought in Marriott’s character: the frivolous sprig of Madras had been transformed to a forcible, forthright consul ruling a turbulent territory. He could not press Marriott; his own position was both ambiguous and unofficial.

  He scrutinized the troopers, stripped to the waist and grooming their horses. By Bahrampal’s standards Vedvyas’s bodyguard was a corps d’élite, mercenaries recruited from far beyond the borders: mostly Rajputs from Marwar - commonly known as Rahtors - and Rohillas from Rohilkhand: a professional cohort whose loyalty depended on generous pay and the promise of loot - a pledge Vedvyas had frequently redeemed. Their plundering days were gone; would they remain satisfied? Probably not, thought Amaury, scanning the eagle faces; they would seek fighting and fortune elsewhere. He looked at the horses, lean sinewy nags, little more than ponies, which could march fifty miles on a handful of peas and a bundle of brittle grass.

  A strange notion, vague and formless as a summer cloud, floated into Amaury’s mind and hovered for a moment like thistledown drifting in wind. He let it slide away; and sought Vedvyas in the palace.

  The mirasdar listened to the proposals in moody silence, tugged his moustache and said, ‘Do what you will, Umree Sahib - the squadron is yours. My consequence is gone - what need have I for a bodyguard? I had considered, with your permission, sending the men away: they are become a decoration, an expensive toy, no longer a weapon of war.’

  ‘Expensive indeed. Would you consider,’ Amaury said guardedly, ‘continuing their payment while I put my ideas into practice?’

  Vedvyas intently examined the Englishman’s face. ‘You strain my genero
sity, sahib. My revenues have dwindled - the Honourable Company’s talons ripped the bottoms from my coffers. Why should I lavish the remnant on a useless bauble?’

  Amaury calculated his deposits in the Carnatic Bank, considered the possibility, should the cavalry prove its worth, of persuading Marriott to take them on the Company’s strength, and dismissed the thought as fanciful. The bodyguard’s maintenance would cost at least four hundred pagodas a month.

  ‘For a period of three months, sirdarjee, I am prepared to shoulder a quarter of the cost myself.’

  ‘Your urge to impoverish yourself,’ said Vedvyas tartly, ‘is no good reason for my doing likewise.’ '

  Amaury settled down to prolonged persuasion. He fired arguments like roundshot:, Hurrondah still provided the mirasdar’s deflated revenue; the cavalry’s very existence discouraged raiders who might wreck the source; disbandment, under Company compulsion, would further damage his prestige; on the other hand the squadron’s proposed reorganization - cavalry with guns - would enhance his reputation. Vedvyas refuted each point in turn; then, in true Hindostanee fashion, began to bargain.

  Amaury knew he had won; all that remained were the terms. After an hour’s hard-fought chaffering he wiped his brow and said, ‘You drive a skinflint bargain, sirdar sahib. Very well. I shall pay half the cost myself: a contract limited to three months, then to be reconsidered.’

  ‘It is agreed.’ He eyed Amaury curiously. ‘I do not understand your purpose, Umree Sahib, in thus prolonging my squadron’s existence.’

  Amaury laughed. ‘I am a soldier lacking a command. It will give me something to do.’

  He strolled out to the courtyard. Clouds like threadbare rags, the monsoon’s flying rearguards, raced across the sky. Fleeting gouts of sunlight washed the mud-caked ground, puddles gleamed like scattered golden plates. That evanescent notion slipped again into his mind, less vague, firmer as it were around the edges. He halted, and fingered his chin.

  ‘Nonsensical,’ said Captain Amaury. ‘Completely impractical!’

  Marriott went on tour, trailing a half-mile train of bullocks, carts and servants guarded by a sepoy detachment which Amaury insisted he must take. ‘Quite superfluous!’ Marriott said. ‘Armed peons are sufficient. A military presence will indicate distrust.’

  ‘Better a suspicious Collector, alive,’ Amaury drawled, ‘than a gullible corpse in the jungle.’ Marriott departed grumbling, and consigned the sepoys to the rear, as far from his person as possible.

  Amaury’s lassitude vanished. He combed Vedvyas’s bodyguard, dividing them in two; half Rajputs, half Rohillas. Since every native mercenary owned his horse and saddle their horses went with the men. He assembled the squadron in a circle in front of the barrack huts and explained his intentions.

  ‘The men of Rajputana, valiant horsemen since their ancestors first held land, have known no other trade than soldiering in the saddle. As cavalry I intend they shall continue, but disciplined and drilled in Fringee fashion until no one - save the English - can withstand them.’

  ‘Often in battle we have sent the enemy flying,’ a Rajput risaldar objected. ‘There is nothing any foreigner can teach us!’ Amaury smiled benignly. ‘Doubtless you have thrashed the levies who rebelled against Lord Vedvyas. Have any among you encountered Fringee cavalry, sword to sword?’

  A scar-faced desperado lifted his arm. ‘I once served Tippoo Sultan, and fought at Malavelly.’

  ‘Congratulations, brother. So did I. How did you fare?’

  The Rahtor grinned crookedly. ‘A sepoy risala charged us. We never stopped running till we reached Seringapatam!’

  ‘Thus it has always been. Seldom do Hindostanee soldiers beat the Company’s troops in battle. In this there is no mystery, merely superior discipline - which I shall teach you.’

  He turned to the Rohillas, squatting cross-legged on the ground cradling their sabres. ‘You, my friends, have been the scourge of Hindostan since Pathans first looted Delhi. I propose to harness your skills - and teach you to use artillery.’

  Bearded faces sagged in consternation; a torrent of babbling voices broke the stupefied silence. Amaury raised both arms on high.

  ‘Why so astounded? Are guns an unclean weapon, alien to your race? There is no magic in artillery, brothers - a child, well- taught, could learn. Did not the Moghul armies use cannon by the hundred? Are not they who serve the guns enviously regarded and paid as craftsmen, more than common troopers?’

  Amaury clapped his hands together. ‘So shall you be paid. Every man whose diligence makes him worthy to serve in a gun crew will earn sixty fanams a month!’

  That offer turned the scale. Delighted grins split Rohilla beards; from the Rahtors came a discontented growl. Amaury pounced on the moment, swept a hand at the sullen faces. ‘And for you, my children of Rajasthan, a trooper’s monthly pay will rise to forty-five fanams, equalling a Company sepoy’s wage; a risaldar’s to fifteen pagodas; and other ranks in proportion!’ There was no more muttering. Amaury dismissed the men, all happy with a pay scale which doubled existing rates. Vedvyas’s reaction to the added financial burden would probably be explosive; but he was committed to the bargain - and pay had not been mentioned. He walked to the foundry, dragged Welladvice from his furnaces.

  ‘How does it go?’

  ‘Reg’lar, sir, reg’lar. The pieces are cast, the carriages a’most ready. Forgin’ tyres fer the wheels. Limbers an’ wagon next.’

  ‘Capital work, Mr Welladvice. I have found detachments for all our guns, and request that, as you promised, you will undertake their training.’ Succinctly he described the arrangements.

  Welladvice scraped a bristly paw. ‘Aye, sir - I seen them rascal Rohillas. I reckons they’ll make gunners, given time. Arter all, they bin ’oss soldiers, so half the training’s done.’ He made rapid calculations on his fingers, muttering between his teeth. ‘For a four-gun company yer’ll need all of a hundred men, an’ around ninety ’osses - not ter mention grasscutters and sices.’

  ‘Those I can enlist locally.’

  ‘Aye - one o’ each fer every ’oss.’ His stubble rasped like a rusty file. ‘What will yer do wi’ the crews from Gopalpore, an’ the hircarrahs as rides the gun teams?’

  ‘The hircarrahs revert to their proper duties as spies and scouts. God knows we need them. The gun crews are simple tradesmen working the weapons they made, unwarlike, probably unreliable under fire. They performed well in the battle and have served their turn; Already, far from home, they grow restless and unhappy. Keep them awhile, Mr Welladvice, for demonstrating gun drill to your new recruits. Afterwards they shall be well rewarded before returning to Gopalpore.’

  On the plain below Hurrondah’s crag Amaury started to break in his gun teams and drill his cavalry. He cajoled and blandished, encouraged and condemned, cracked bawdy jests and uttered fearsome oaths. By sheer power of personality he persuaded these headstrong warriors not only to accept the alien discipline they loathed but also to take a pride in its performance. He sorted out their armament - men and horses were festooned with scimitars, pistols, lances, daggers, throwing spears, even an occasional matchlock - and allowed a scimitar and brace of pistols apiece. ‘Unreliable weapons, lances - only Polish cavalry use ’em!’

  In the evenings Welladvice quitted his foundry and practised his novice gunners in the ritual of gun drill, prancing around his charges in irritable fury. ‘Advance . . . sponge! Sponge! Avast, yer black-faced loon - yer rams it home one-handed. Try again. Sponge! Aye, that’s it! Load . . . cartridge! Come on, Number Three, wake yerself up - push that cartridge into the muzzle! Ram . . . cartridge! I said ram, yer bloodstained heathen - yer not ticklin’ a doxy’s slit! Hey, you, Number Four - ventsman - keep yer bleedin’ thumb on the vent! Want yer spongeman blown ter blazes? Where’s yer pricker? Dropped it? Gawd strike me blind...’

  Somehow they understood him, enjoyed his antics, and learned remarkably quickly. For day after day the training went on, while the monsoon spattered
its last warm raindrops on a land that breathed damp heat. On the parade ground, pounded to a floury powder which hung suspended like a thick brown fog, the squadron cantered from column to line, wheeled on a pivot, changed front to a flank. Amaury called the troops to a halt, beckoned to his stirrup a sepoy bugler and ordered him to sound the Charge.

  ‘A call to fever the blood,’ he told the dust-grimed troopers, ‘and one you will never hear till you’re counting the enemy’s teeth. Then ride like the devil and charge right home - but keep your ears alert for a call which invariably follows.’

  The bugler blew Rally.

  ‘Engrave those notes on your memory, obey them as you would a summons from God. Cavalry have lost battles beyond counting in reckless pursuit of a foe they have smashed in a charge. For example...’

  A native riding a tottering pony stumbled across the parade ground. Dried lather streaked the animal’s hide, the rider clung two-handed to the mane, head bowed upon his chest. Dust crusted his body like grey scaled armour, a gash on his ribs oozed blood. He gestured weakly to the tree-smudged wilderness whence he had emerged, and whispered one faint word.

  ‘Pindaris!’

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he tumbled to the ground.

  ‘Pindaris! Who the devil are they?’

  Amaury checked his pistol’s priming, thrust the weapon in his sash. Vedvyas answered dourly, ‘Locusts. Pathan and Maratha freebooters, outlaws of all castes and classes. Savages spawned from anarchy, from suppurating rivalries that rend Maratha dynasties. Horsed raiders who live by the sword, homeless men in bands a thousand strong who scorch the land like flame, devour all they meet and are gone like a lightning flash. This village they have sacked is thirty miles away. You will never catch them.’

  ‘I intend to have a damned hard try.’ Amaury buckled his sword belt, strode from audience hall to courtyard. ‘Where is Welladvice? - ’tis time he showed! Ah, sir, there you are. Limber up, Mr Welladvice: one six-pounder and an ammunition wagon with the best teams in your stables. We march in thirty minutes!’