The Sabre's Edge

by Allan Mallinson

  Five more he gave himself to see what had once been the proud Mughal capital, Agra. On the last evening he sat beside the hearth in a comfortable haveli which Jaswant Sing had arranged for him, below the red walls of the great sandstone fort. The place was strangely peaceful for so teeming a city, and he contemplated its lessons. He laid down his glass of arrack - he had come to rely on it as a faithful aid to digestion, no matter how tempestuous the dinner served him - leaned back in his chair and drew long on the mildest of cheroots. The tobacco smoke mixed agreeably with that of the sandalwood burning in the grate, and he closed his eyes for a moment the better to hear the nightjar - stranger, as a rule, to the haunts of men.

  In a while he opened them again, and picked up his journal from the table next to him. It had commanded more time than usual of an evening, for it was his sole entry at Agra:

  12th November 1824

  The work at Bhurtpore being done - and greatly more of it than I had ever imagined, so immense a place is it - I travelled thence to the Jumna again, under the admirable arrangements of Jaswant Sing, and reposed two nights at the ancient capital of the Moguls. The palace called the Taje Mahl, which means crown palace, is spoken of throughout India as one of unsurpassed beauty, the place of burial of the wife of a great emperor to whom it was erected in praise. I visited it the first day on arriving and was not disappointed. While it is visible in whole from the river, approached from the south through the main gate only its dome and the four minarets, at each corner, of white marble, are to be seen above the circumadjacent trees of a Persian garden, in the way that the dome of the Pope's basilica in Rome can be seen above the crowding buildings of the Borgo. Only when, like the basilica, one comes right upon it can its entire beauty be imagined. I have attempted to sketch it, but it is wholly beyond my skill to render it any justice, and I have instead resolved to find an artist hereabout who will make me a fair likeness. Last night I visited the gardens opposed to it on the other bank of the Jumna, which are in very great disrepair, yet which are called the Moonlight Gardens for here is where, legend has it, the emperor would come at the full moon each month to recall his lost love. It was planted with all manner of herbage that gave off sweet scent by night, and there is still too a night scent, though the place is very jungled . . .

  Hervey's journal pretended to nothing more than being well-kept. For the most part it was in note form, serving as a memorandum of movement, acquisition, accomplishment; or occasionally of intention, hindrance or opinion. But never of emotion, not even anger. Had it been his practice to include such feelings he would have filled pages since coming to Agra, for in that moonlight garden he had for a time begun to question the true intensity of his former love. It had been Emma Somervile's suggestion - insistence, indeed - that he visit Agra. There, she said, he would see the perfect expression of a grieving man's love. It had been no mawkish sentiment, for he had spoken with her of raising some memorial to Henrietta, and had done so with perfect calm. Henrietta was not yet dismissed habitually from his mind - thoughts of her, especially of their moments of intimacy, came on him still, and often - but he could now think of her with reason and cool judgement, quite unlike before. And Emma's suggestion had been far from unwelcome, for he had read and heard much of the white marble shrine: it would surely be instructive to see how a man who had grieved and had the means to memorialize that grieving had done so. However, the palace had seemed more and more a rebuke to him. Here stood a memorial as much to the constancy of an emperor's love as to the empress herself. Where was the evidence of his own constancy? In truth, the evidence was to the contrary - his bibi, the letters to and from Lady Katherine Greville, more sportive with each return.

  Only later, on leaving Agra, as he read fitfully on the budgerow plying upstream for Dehli, did he learn that in time the emperor had abandoned the city and set up his court in the old Mughal capital - just as he, Hervey, had abandoned England and set up his domain in India. But Mumtaz Mahal had begged her husband not to pine for her, and to remarry. Hervey could not slough off his guilt so easily. And in any case his sins were mingled. He no longer honoured his wife's memory with his body, but neither did he say his prayers with system or regularity, let alone conviction. And he might as well have forgotten the offspring of their union. Somervile had been wont to say that many a man had lost his reason in India as well as his soul. But such men, Hervey supposed, had sought consolation in drink or some other opiate. He relied only on activity. No, he had no fear of losing his reason. But in India colours were brighter and shadows darker. It was not always so easy to judge things faithfully.

  A noisy skein of bar-headed geese recalled him to the present. He turned up his collar against the freshening Jumna breeze, and picked up his volume on the Maratha wars again. How had Lord Lake miscalculated so? The walls of Bhurtpore had stood then as they did now. What had been the cause of so fatal a misjudgement?

  He must have it. And he knew he must then pray that in all his forgetting activity he could himself keep a right judgement in things, civil or military.

  PART THREE

  THE PRIDE OF HINDOOSTAN

  GENERAL ORDER

  Fort William 28 July 1825’ The Right Hon. The Governor-General has learned with great sorrow the demise of Major-General Sir David Ochterlony, resident in Malwa and Rajpootana. This melancholy event took place on the morning of the 1’th inst. at Meerut, whither he had proceeded for the benefit of change of air. On the eminent military services of Major-General Sir David Ochterlony, it would be superfluous to dilate; they have been acknowledged in terms of the highest praise by successive Governments; they justly earned a special and substantial reward from the Hon. East India Company; they have been recognised with expressions of admiration and applause by the British Parliament; and they have been honoured with signal marks of the approbation of his Sovereign . . .

  . . . The confidence which the government reposed in an individual gifted with such rare

  endowments, was evinced by the high and responsible situations which he successively filled, and the duties which he discharged with eminent ability and advantage to the Public Interests. As an especial testimony of the high respect in which the character and services of Major-General Sir D. Ochterlony are held, and as a public demonstration of sorrow for his demise, the Governor-General in Council is pleased to direct that minute guns to the number of sixty-eight, corresponding with his age, be fired this evening at sunset, from the ramparts of Fort William.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MINUTE GUNS

  Calcutta, October 182’

  His Excellency General the Right Hon. Stapleton Lord Combermere, GCB, GCH &c, Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces in India, as he was styled, received Hervey warmly but without the same careless ease of their previous acquaintances. They had first met eleven years ago in the field at Toulouse, as Hervey lay painfully under the ministration of a surgeon. The commander of Wellington's cavalry had been all praise and warm regards then for Hervey in that culminating battle of the campaign, in his despatches writing that 'by his bold and independent action he averted what might at the very least have been an embarrassment for the mounted arm'. They had met on three occasions since then, the last being that most diverting evening at Apsley House before Hervey had come out to India, when he had met Lady Katherine Greville.

  'I fancy you might care for some coffee, Hervey? It's a damnably cold morning.'

  The invitation was to help himself from a pot on a table covered with maps and sketches, at which stood Colonel Macleod, who was to be brigadier of artillery, and Colonel Anburey, who was to be the same of engineers. Hervey acknowledged them both with a brisk bow of the head before pouring some of the strong black liquid into a big cup and adding a good measure of sugar.

  'You set us nicely in apposition, Captain Hervey,' said Colonel Anburey, nodding with a grim, if perhaps wry, sort of smile at Colonel Macleod.

  Hervey knew exactly what he meant. 'I fear the sappers will have little chance of
doing their work without the support of the guns, Colonel, for the approaches to the walls are coverless. And yet the walls are so solid and thick that the guns shall have to come in close, and that can only be done by sapping from outside the range of the fort. Indeed, I wonder that it will not be better to mine one or two of the bastions, for a breach will otherwise be devilish hard.'

  Colonel Anburey shook his head. 'I read your opinion, Hervey, but it is out of the question if the country lies as you have drawn it.'

  'Too far to tunnel,' explained Lord Combermere.

  Hervey looked puzzled.

  Colonel Anburey supplied the detail. 'The greatest distance a gallery may be driven is two hundred yards. Beyond that there is insufficient air for a man to breathe, and indeed for the explosive to operate efficiently.'

  Hervey was confident he had surveyed the defences accurately. 'That is indeed a pity. Colonel. It will be an affair of heavy pounding therefore.’

  And it need not have been, he said to himself later. Six months ago Ochterlony might well have carried the day at a stroke, with that never-failing ally surprise had the Governor-General allowed him to try - even with half the number of men with which Lord Lake had failed. At least he might by now be keeper of the gates in those great walls, thereby shutting out every freebooting Jhaut and brigand who at this very moment was flocking to Durjan Sal’s banner.

  But the Governor-General had dithered, fatally. Eyre Somervile had told Hervey of how he had gone to Lord Amherst's office the morning Ochterlony’s despatch had arrived from Dehli. Amherst had looked alarmed: there was ill news enough already from the east without more from the west.

  'You read my earlier minute on the situation in Bhurtpore, Excellency?’ Somervile had asked, careful to observe the punctilio of address for once.

  Lord Amherst had looked uncertain.

  'Three months ago the Rajah of Bhurtpore died, and his infant son succeeded him under the guardianship of his uncle.’

  Lord Amherst's face had shown a flicker of recall.

  'However, for reasons that should not detain us, the late rajah's nephew, Durjan Sal, has laid claim to the succession.'

  'Why do you say they should not detain us, Mr Somervile?' Lord Amherst had demanded, his brow furrowed anxiously. 'We are, by your tone, very evidently to be detained by one claim or the other.'

  'Durjan Sal disputes the legitimacy of the rightful heir, Balwant Sing. But by all the evidence hitherto before us this is a most villainous claim.'

  'Before us? I have not heard anything of it!'

  'No, my lord. Matters in this regard have fallen entirely to the resident in Dehli.'

  'Ochterlony? Good God: what has he been about?'

  Although Somervile shared the general opinion of Sir David Ochterlony - that his best days were long past - he had sufficient regard for his judgement in the rights of things, if not in their consequences. 'Sir David recognized the rightful claim of Balwant Sing twelve months ago by vesting him in a khelat—'

  'What in heaven's name was he doing? Such a thing is not done without presumptions of obligation. What is Bhurtpore to us? I consider it very rash.'

  Somervile had sighed to himself. 'The fact is, my lord, that Sir David has bestowed the Company's recognition on Balwant Sing and—'

  'Well, he had better renounce it. We have trouble enough in Ava. Campbell's still stuck in the mud at Rangoon, and his ships gathering weed.' The Governor-General had waved his hand as if the matter was done with.

  At whose door might blame lie in that regard, Somervile had been minded to ask. 'I'm afraid it is too late. It seems Durjan Sal moved against Balwant Sing's guardian some weeks ago - and very bloodily - and has proclaimed himself regent—'

  'So?'

  Somervile had tried hard to hide his irritation at the Governor-General's disregard of the dangers the country powers might pose. 'Sir David has already denounced Durjan Sal as an usurper of supreme authority, by which he means, of course, the Company—'

  'I am perfectly well aware what he means, Somervile! He must be told at once to moderate his demands and conclude the affair by diplomacy.'

  'I fear it is too late for that. He has called on the Jhauts to rally to him and announced that he will appear at the head of a British force to restore Balwant Sing!'

  Lord Amherst had then, by Somervile's account, looked like a man winded by a body blow. His brow had furrowed even more, signalling his utter incomprehension. 'Where is this force to come from, Somervile?'

  Somervile had raised his eyebrows. 'By all reckoning he might muster ten thousand men at most, scarcely a thousand of them white.'

  Lord Amherst had fallen silent. 'Would that be enough? Sir David was - may yet be - a fine general . . .'

  Somervile had put on a most determined expression. 'Opinions vary and differ. The commander-in-chief's is as yet unsettled. His deputy is of the opinion that it would be very far from sufficient. Bhurtpore, you may recall, is the fortress that defied Lord Lake more than twenty years ago, and nothing, I understand, has rendered it any less formidable since then.'

  The remaining colour had disappeared from Lord Amherst's face. 'Then the consequences will be very grave. I cannot suffer humiliation in the west, at this time especially.'

  Somervile had been much perturbed by the Governor-General's alarm. 'But, Lord Amherst, I understand that the commander-in-chief's opinion tends to reinforcement. If we at once send word to Bombay, and to Madras, we may assemble full three times Sir David's present number, and a proper siege train, and that shall surely be enough to subdue Bhurtpore!'

  'No, no, no! We want no second campaign while Ava is undecided. It is quite impossible!'

  Somervile had been taken aback. 'But Lord Amherst, the ultimatum has been given. We cannot withdraw now. The Company would suffer an irreparable humiliation. Every native power the length of India would look at once to take his opportunity. I—'

  'Impossible, I say! I cannot be mired in by Ochterlony's intemperate declarations. The only alternative is to let him try with his ten thousand.’

  'But Hervey’s view is that victory cannot be guaranteed thereby. There must be reinforcements to carry the day if audacity fails!’

  'Hervey? Hervey? Who is he?’

  Somervile had at once regretted his lapse. 'The captain of Sir David's escort, Lord Amherst. He—’

  'Captain of the escort! Great heavens, man, have you lost your senses? No, no, it will not serve. Sir David's offensive would be a gamble on his reputation for success. Yes, that is the way it shall be done. I shall send word at once for Ochterlony to withdraw. Indeed, I shall issue immediate orders for the recall of Sir David Ochterlony to an appointment of greater prominence here!'

  Somervile had felt obliged to concede defeat. 'Very good, Lord Amherst. But with respect I must give my opinion that none shall see such a recall as anything but the most peremptory reprimand for the resident. Including Sir David himself.'

  Colonel Anburey, the engineer, now looked pained at the thought of the heavy pounding that lay ahead, though the same thought seemed to please Colonel Macleod, the gunner. 'You give your opinion very decidedly, sir,' said the former.

  'I endeavour always to speak as I find, Colonel,' replied Hervey, with absolute certainty.

  'Well, so be it, gentlemen,' said Lord Comber-mere briskly. 'I shall, of course, make my own reconnaissance, but for the time being I intend proceeding upon Captain Hervey's admirable appreciation. The question then turns on when is launched the - as Hervey has it - coup de main. I am prepared to order affairs a great deal in favour of its success. However, there is no profit in seizing these dams if they are only to be recaptured before I am able to send a reinforcement. Quite the opposite, indeed, for the enemy would be at once alerted to our intention and would instantly open the sluice-gates. And yet, if I delay too long we shall anyway have full moats to cross instead of dry ditches.'

  The colonels of engineers and artillery looked somehow relieved that their own decisions tur
ned only on what was technically feasible rather than fine judgements of this order.

  It was left to Hervey to speak to the commander-in-chief's dilemma. 'I have been considering this, General. The flooding of all the moats would be a great inconvenience to the population. Durjan Sal would not order the dams open until it were strict necessity. We must therefore be circumspect in our concentration. I believe that your lordship would wish to assemble his forces at Agra - and I truly cannot conceive of a better place - but any advance west of there would unquestionably signal to the Jhauts our intention to invest the city, for it is a march of but a few days, and if my own intelligence of the time it would take to inundate the defences is correct, the enemy would be obliged to cut open the bund at once.'

  Lord Combermere nodded.