Free Lance

by George Shipway

  ‘Bah!’ Amaury strode to a window, stared at the hanging clouds. ‘Your infatuation for a callow youth is quite a matter of indifference. I am merely mortified you should be so lost to the proprieties that you tag his coat tails on a scandalous adventure! Your reputation, I opine, is perfectly in tatters! Let us, at least, attempt to patch the shreds remaining.’ He turned from the window, and gestured to her attire. ‘You have revealed your sex, and must by no means continue under the same roof as Henry, for that would indeed be shocking!’

  Caroline slanted wide green eyes. ‘You think it less improper I should come to live under yours?’

  Amaury surveyed her grimly, and said in icy tones, ‘I appreciate your offer, Miss Wrangham - but I already possess a harem: three strapping Maratha bibees.’

  Caroline looked as though a whip had slashed her eyes. She said in a brittle voice, ‘Your manners, like your morals, have gone native, sir. It would be profitless to continue our discussion. By your leave...’ She paused at the door, and added, ‘I shall not consider leaving Dharia until Mr Todd departs. Until then, Captain Amaury, I shall use every endeavour to avoid your brutish society.’

  Todd, waiting beyond the doorway, saw the tears in her eyes. He muttered an oath, and tried to enter the room. Caroline gripped his wrist, and pointed blindly to the stairs. Neither heard the commotion in the room they left, where Amaury prowled like a prisoned tiger, kicked stools and tables flying and cursed like a drunken trooper.

  He dropped into a chair, drummed fingers on the arm. ‘Confound the girl! Damn and blast her soul! God damn that puppy Todd! How she could squander herself...’

  Amaury hurled a cushion across the room.

  Throughout the monsoon’s storm-swept weeks Amaury exercised his troops, paraded them in rain and wind, brought them to perfection’s pitch in drill and the manual exercise, in musketry and manoeuvre. Mercenaries flocked to Dharia, seeking service under the notorious sahib who offered generous wages and led his men to treasure lodes of booty. From stray Maratha horsemen - scavengers little better than Pindaris - he enlisted two hundred hircarrahs: though valueless as cavalry they made observant scouts. He formed a najib battalion: nine hundred Afghans and Rohillas armed with shields, curved swords and matchlocks. Inherently too undisciplined for battlefield manoeuvre they were easily trained as skirmishers and were stubborn defensive fighters behind a wall or trench. Draining Welladvice’s arsenal he issued Short Land Pattern muskets - which English soldiers called Brown Bess - to replace their clumsy matchlocks, until the sailor called a halt. ‘I has ter keep a reserve, sir, besides restorin’ wastage in them Jat battalions’ firelocks.’

  Wastage and renewal in men and horses and weapons were incessant. Several Jats, pining for their villages in faraway Bhurtpore, sought discharge and went; Amaury enlisted Sikhs from the Indus plains. Only death or disease diminished his Rahtor squadron: they held themselves as a corps d’élite, the rajah’s personal bodyguard; and recruits were never wanting to keep them up to strength. The artillery had increased from six to sixteen guns, all but a couple six-pounders - four from Droog, others cast in Welladvice’s foundries. Amaury enrolled gunners from Mewaris and Rohillas and Marathas; and trained sufficient half-breeds from Dharia’s motley immigrants to command each gun detachment - the Portuguese were intelligent and clever at laying a gun. He kept both three-pounders horsed, and one six-pounder company; the rest were bullock drawn; neither he nor Welladvice, swamped by diverse duties, found time to train more horse teams.

  Welladvice’s foundries had expanded into an armaments industry employing four hundred men. The sailor established furnaces and forges in the blacksmiths’ quarter of the town: a clanging, smoky inferno, roaring day and night, that produced pieces and cannon shot, musket balls and firelocks. Where the woodworkers lived he built a gun-carriage factory which made limbers, wagons and musket stocks. The gunpowder factory was sited in a sparsely inhabited area near the western walls; here his craftsmen mingled sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre and filled flannel cartridges for guns, paper for the muskets.

  Amaury no longer left the brigade to Royds’ individual care. He attended parades, criticized and corrected - greatly to the brigadier’s annoyance - visited the sepoys off-duty in the barracks and entertained native officers with banquets in his quarters. Soon he greeted every man by name, knew their homes and backgrounds, won a respect they barely accorded Royds, and was very much better liked. Apart from Amaury’s aptitude for fostering human relations, and a conviction that battles were largely won from a mutual esteem between leader and led, this meddling was deliberate. Instinctively distrusting Royds - a man who knew no loyalties - he doubted the American’s readiness to hazard the brigade at need on a truly dangerous venture.

  He inveigled Todd, bored by an idle existence, into superintending a backward company’s drill, and thence invited him to command the battalion. ‘Purely a temporary measure,’ Amaury promised. ‘The Third is not up to snuff, and needs a taut hand in charge.’ Todd hemmed and hawed, debating the propriety of a Company officer’s directing mercenary troops. ‘Damme, Henry, why not?’ Amaury said cheerfully. ‘You are not going to fight the Company, and you will be doing me a service. While you are so engaged,’ he added lightly, ‘I shall be vastly obliged for your observations on that fellow Royds - a devilish queer fish despite his competence.’

  ‘A rapscallion gallant,’ Todd said balefully. ‘Since Caroline revealed her gender he loiters near her dwelling and accosts her in the street. I may have to call him out!’

  Amaury raised his eyebrows. ‘Indeed? Do not trouble yourself, Henry. I shall post a guard on the house, and ensure she is always escorted.’

  With Todd increasingly immersed in military duties Caroline led a solitary life. Rain or fine she rode at dawn, Rahtor troopers in her wake, and wandered the plain that girdled Dharia’s mount. At midday she inspected the buzar, made sundry domestic purchases and found, to her indignation, she was never allowed to pay - ‘hukm hai’ - it was Amaury Sahib’s order. She sent a furious missive to the citadel and was answered by Amaury in person. An awestruck banian announced the Lord Sahib desired admittance; Caroline kept him waiting while she changed her dress and received him, coldly formal, in the drawing-room.

  ‘I apprehend, Miss Wrangham, my instructions to the shopkeepers have given you offence.’ Amaury displayed her letter. ‘Please to remember you are my guest, and a host dislikes his visitors incurring expenses in his house.’

  ‘How very strange! I was not aware, Captain Amaury, you considered all the town your private property. Nevertheless I prefer not to be beholden to you in any way whatever. Therefore, kindly rescind your orders.’

  Amaury contemplated her tense expression, the slender body rigidly erect. His eyes softened. ‘I shall not. No, don’t be angry - pray permit this trivial token of my regard. I have come, in truth, to tender you my humblest apologies. I behaved like a loutish boor, and said things which I bitterly regret.’ A flush crept under the weather-bronzed skin. ‘I beseech your forgiveness and, if you will be so gracious, entreat that you accept all services I can render while you stay. With that, I offer my sincere friendship, now and hereafter.’

  Caroline’s lips parted; she swayed slightly on her feet. ‘I would be discourteous,’ she said in stifled tones, ‘to spurn your apology, sir. But friendship... how may I confide...’

  Amaury stepped forward and took her hand. ‘I have much to atone for, Miss Wrangham. Pray grant me the honour of your company so far as my duties permit. You live solitary and secluded: will you not at least allow me to escort you when you take the air at evening?’

  ‘I shall be happy, sir,’ said Caroline faintly. ‘Perhaps at five o’clock...’

  ‘I will be at your door.’ Amaury bowed, and looked sharply round the room. ‘A shoddy carpet, an indifferent escritoire, your chaise longue shabbily covered. My tradesmen have not served you well, I fear - they shall be reprimanded and told to bring their best. Good day, Miss Wrangham!’r />
  Caroline foundered on the disparaged couch and touched fingers to burning cheeks. A tarnished table mirror imaged the radiance in her eyes.

  Like a river flowing relentlessly to the walls of a narrow gorge all Caroline’s daytime thoughts tapered to the sunset rain-lulls when she strolled the ramparts’ circuit on Hugo Amaury’s arm, talking lightly of bygone days in Madras, discussing common acquaintances, laughing over drolleries that happened at routs and swarries - incidents remote as the light from distant stars. She kept her true emotions rigidly concealed, according him a cool but friendly politeness. Amaury soon discovered he anticipated keenly an engagement which had started as a penitential duty; he liked Caroline’s chatter and enjoyed her sparkling wit.

  ‘She is, after all, a very good kind of girl,’ he confided to Todd, who looked dubious. Caroline’s strictures on Amaury’s behaviour had previously blistered his ears; what the devil, he wondered, was the baggage up to now?

  The meetings were interrupted when Amaury led a column from the fortress - Todd’s battalion, the cavalry squadron, galloper guns and a stripped-down baggage train - and vanished in a rain haze shrouding the rim of hills. Todd, ignorant of Amaury’s objectives - kept severely to himself - rode at his battalion’s head in puzzled disapproval: conventional military doctrine proscribed rainy-season operations. Trickling streamlets brawled like counterfeit Godaveris, and roads dissolved in endless sucking quagmires. Amaury brought twenty basket boats: two coolies carried a bamboo skeleton, a third the hides stretched over it. Halting at unfordable torrents they assembled the boats in fifteen minutes, embarked twenty-five men or a cannon in each, horses swimming alongside, and were over in less than an hour.

  The column marched for seven days, and plunged deeply into Berar.

  Swerving from settlement to settlement Amaury took five villages. The attacks were almost bloodless: he promised quarter for quick surrender; and the headmen, who had heard of his previous raids, were ready to trust his word. He demanded heavy ransoms, loaded the spoil on captured carts and swiftly retraced his steps. During the homeward march he vanished for a day, completely unattended, on some mysterious mission; and returned with a satisfied smile on his lips and a cryptic remark about capital battlegrounds.

  Although too strict a soldier to rebel on active service Todd had watched the operations in horrified dismay. ‘ ‘Tis shameful, Hugo!’ he spluttered. ‘You have entangled me, a Company officer, in stark disgraceful brigandage!’

  ‘Which is how I scrape a living,’ Amaury grinned. ‘Why else do I keep a damned expensive army?’

  Todd’s recriminations were inoffensive badinage besides Royds’ explosive protests after they returned. Storming into Amaury’s room he shouted, ‘God’s blood, you took my battalion raiding inside Berar! Had you apprised me of your purpose I’d certainly have refused!’

  Amaury poured from a. bottle, and handed a glass to Todd. A servant pulled the rain-soaked coat from his shoulders. He shook himself like a wet retriever, squeezed moisture from his beard and said in lazy tones, ‘Refused? Pray permit me to remedy your error, Major Royds. The Jat brigade is mine, to do with as I will.’

  ‘For lunatic ventures? I protest you must be demented, sir! Will you provoke the Bhonsla to reprisals? Have you any idea of the forces he commands?’

  Amaury peeled his shirt and donned a quilted bedgown. ‘You become heated, Major Royds. The answer to both your questions is yes - I want the Bhonsla to retaliate, and I know his army’s strength. Sit down, sir; try my madeira - a passable wine, I assure you - and bear my explanation for a while.’

  Royds subsided muttering. Amaury unfolded his plans in terse, staccato phrases. The Bhonsla, he said, must eventually challenge Dharia - a festering sore on his kingdom’s hide. The sooner he came the better, for who could foretell what the future held? Dharia might be decimated by pestilence or famine, the revenues diminished on which the army’s pay depended. Mercenaries deserted when they felt the pinch of poverty. At the moment Amaury’s troops were up to strength, excellently trained and splendidly equipped. What more auspicious time to bring the enemy to battle and decide the issue finally? Hence the provocations, to prick the Bhonsla into action directly the monsoon ended.

  Royds listened with starting eyes. ‘I guess you’re goddam crazy! I served Raghujee - I have seen his army!’

  ‘Around forty thousand men - horse, foot and guns,’ said Amaury calmly.

  ‘And you reckon you’ll stand siege against ’em? The fortress is strong, I allow, but not impregnable!’

  ‘Who spoke of sieges? I shall crush Berar in open battle!’

  The American tried to speak, and choked. Todd said, ‘Hugo, you can muster twelve hundred regular infantry, a hundred cavalry, sixteen guns and a thousand irregulars. Surely you can’t be serious!’

  ‘Never more so in my life. Nor do I doubt the outcome. Remember St Thomé in ’46, when the French with less than a thousand men routed Anwar-ud-din’s ten thousand? Clive’s five hundred held Arcot against four thousand; and three thousand men at Plassey sent fifty thousand flying!’

  ‘European soldiers won those battles,’ Royds growled. ‘You have none!’

  ‘You mistake the matter, sir. ‘Twas discipline that prevailed - and ours will beat Berar.’

  Royds and Todd both started to speak together. Amaury held up his hands. ‘Peace, I pray you! I have taken every precaution to gain the advantage.’

  Raghujee, he asserted, could not mobilize an army overnight, nor was it possible to keep its purpose secret. Two reliable Marathas from Vedvyas’s entourage had gone to live in Nagpur, ready to send immediate news of any hostile move. There would be ample warning. Nor was Amaury’s intention tamely to await attack - ‘why fight battles on your own estate?’ - but to advance into Berar to a place he had reconnoitred, and there encounter the Bhonsla’s avenging horde.

  ‘So,’ Amaury concluded, ‘I grasp the initiative, and fight on ground of my own choosing.’

  ‘Where is this place?’ Royds demanded.

  ‘That,’ said Amaury blandly, ‘I prefer not to divulge. As a commander you will appreciate that secrecy is paramount.’

  Royds stared into his glass. ‘You are bent on suicide,’ he grated. ‘I vow I will have none of it. Destroy my battalions--’

  ‘If odds of twenty to one excessively daunt your spirit, sir, you may quit my service instantly.’ Amaury’s voice had an edge like whetted steel. ‘The Jats, I am sure, are less fainthearted - nor are they yours to command!’

  Royds’ thin grey lips shut tight as a trap; lines trenched the hollow cheeks from jaw to temple. He gave Amaury a hateful glare, swung on his heel and stamped from the room.

  Todd broodingly watched his departure. ‘I own I am very much to his way of thinking, Hugo - you venture a desperate throw. Royds, I feel, can no longer be depended on.’

  ‘He never was. Watch him, Henry, as you go about your duties. He will undoubtedly send to warn the Bhonsla - which does not matter - and will probably try to suborn the men, which does.’

  ‘The brigade will need a new commander. Whom will you appoint?’

  ‘Why, Henry,’ said Amaury in great surprise, ‘yourself. Who else?’

  Todd’s goblet dropped from his hand, and shattered on the floor.

  Amaury’s village spies informed him that four days’ marches away two sahibs - one old, one young - approached Dharia from the east. Were there soldiers in the party? None: only a peon escort - spears and matchlocks - and the usual caravan of carts and camels and servants. He ordered a house to be swept and garnished; and told Caroline, on the ramparts in the evening, that General Wrangham came to fetch her. The green eyes flashed, and a mutinous expression alighted on her face.

  ‘Retrieved like a straying dog! I have not the smallest disposition to remove from Dharia yet!’

  Amaury looked at the cloudy tendrils which webbed a saffron sky. ‘The last of the monsoon. The roads will soon be fit for travel. There are no grounds for your sta
ying, unless’ - he paused; and continued, strangely hesitant - ‘you insist on remaining with Henry.’

  ‘Henry? Why should I - Oh!’ Caroline flushed, and looked confused. ‘Of course. There can be no question of my going until he does!’

  Wavering spires of blue-grey smoke coiled from cooking fires in the town, cattle small as insects speckled the fields below, women’s voices cackled in a compound. Amaury sniffed the familiar scents of burning cowdung, spice and drains, and sighed.

  He studied intently a sunset star that hovered above the hill-dark skyline.

  ‘I have induced Henry to postpone his departure, so rendering me a priceless service. The singular occasion for that service makes imperative, Miss Wrangham, you leave Dharia before it happens.’

  ‘You talk in riddles, sir!’

  Amaury lost interest in the evening star. He pointed to rows of carts, resting on their shafts, which crowded an open space beside the gun park, and tarpaulin-covered mounds between the rows looming in the gathering dusk like tombstones in a graveyard. ‘Transport, supplies and baggage collected for a campaign. I shall shortly march from Dharia to stake my destiny on a battle against odds. I shall win, but’ - he shrugged - ‘nothing in war is certain. General Wrangham arrives at an opportune moment, because you must be gone before we march.’

  ‘Henry shares with you this hazard?’

  ‘It is very likely.’

  ‘You suggest I abandon him directly he goes to war?’ said Caroline indignantly. ‘I cannot bring my mind to entertain the thought! It would be horridly shameful!’

  ‘I can’t forcibly compel you.’ Amaury groped for words, and said in a rusty voice, ‘You are monstrously fond of Henry, are you not, Miss Wrangham?'

  Caroline’s hands reached out to him in an involuntary gesture instantly suppressed. She spoke in tones barely above a whisper. ‘Yes ... yes, I suppose I am ... most certainly so ...’ Anxiously her eyes searched Amaury’s face. A desolate look, grey and fleeting as a cloud, pinched the handsome features - or was it merely a trick of the fading light?