The Sabre's Edge

by Allan Mallinson

  'Amherst's no fool. He knows well enough that in repudiating Ochterlony's proclamation he as good as put a bullet in his head. He was decidedly ill at ease in council today, and he railed against me beforehand as if the affair was somehow of my making. He's afeard that this will play ill in London.'

  'What's to be done. Eyre?' Emma had enquired in the simple certainty that her husband would know.

  And, indeed, he had already weighed the options. His position in council was sometimes tenuous, but he had no desire to hold on to it through mere compliance. 'Metcalfe's here tomorrow from Haidarabad. I doubt he'll need much persuading, and Amherst'll be too fearful of going against his advice, for his stock has always stood high with the directors.'

  Though Somervile would scarce admit it, Emma knew that none but her husband's stock might stand so high in council if only he would take pains to promote it a little more. She knew his manner was not best calculated to win their affection, but not a member could be in doubt of his understanding. The Governor-General had readily taken his counsel in the appointment of a successor at Dehli: as soon as Sir David Ochterlony had tendered his resignation Somervile had pressed on Lord Amherst the claims of Sir Charles Metcalfe, though perhaps that was an easy victory, for Metcalfe had held the appointment until five years before, and his judgement had been amply tested of late as resident in the nizam's capital.

  And so, next morning, he had called on Sir Charles before there was opportunity for subornation at Fort William. 'You have got to make Amherst see sense in this matter, Metcalfe. Had that place been reduced twenty years ago—'

  'You forget I was Lord Lake's political officer at that time,' Sir Charles had replied, frowning. 'It is a great wonder his army achieved half of what it did. Bhurtpore was never within his grasp.'

  'Let us not debate it. Now the whole of India will believe it without our grasp.'

  'It may be so. It may well be without our grasp. In which case we ought not to make it an objective to grasp it.'

  Somervile had relied on cool relentless logic, however. 'Nothing that is made beyond the Company's territories ought to be without the Company's grasp. It is surely the knowledge that, were the Company to will it, any country power might be subdued that secures our peace. And occasionally that will must, most regrettably, be put to the test.'

  'But what say the soldiers, Somervile? What was Paget's opinion?'

  'We shall never rightly know, for he's been gone these several months. All we may now do is wait on Lord Combermere. He's due here ere too long. Meanwhile I should as soon ask his deputy to play the violin as ask his opinion on the matter. The man is an ass.'

  'That is a very decided opinion, Somervile. Is it much shared?'

  Somervile had looked astonished. 'I have never thought to enquire! I come to my own judgement in such matters.'

  Sir Charles Metcalfe had shaken his head slowly from side to side. 'Then the Governor-General, and by extension you, are without sound military counsel?'

  Again, Somervile had looked surprised. ‘I am not. I have had very good counsel, and from the seat of the trouble.'

  'Indeed? And are we to know whose is this counsel?'

  'A dragoon captain formerly on Ochterlony's staff.'

  Sir Charles Metcalfe had looked dismayed. 'A captain? Are you quite well, Somervile? There are generals and colonels here, and you put your trust in a captain of dragoons!'

  'I do.' The tone had been less defiant than emphatic, as though he would have put his judgement in this against all comers.

  Sir Charles had laughed. 'Then I should very much like to see this man.'

  'You shall, you shall. And in the breaches of that place, I hope. He's studied the Bhurtpore defences and drawn plans.'

  Somervile now had the khitmagar open a second bottle. 'So you see, Hervey, Sir Charles was apprised of your observations, and I might say that they materially informed his judgement.'

  Hervey raised an eyebrow. 'And what transpired?'

  'What transpired is that Sir Charles studied the question for a full week and then gave his opinion in council.'

  Emma smiled. 'And it was, Matthew, the most eloquent opinion you might ever hear. Even Eyre was much moved.'

  Her husband nodded. 'I confess I was, my dear. I can read it aloud, too, for I have all the proceedings here at hand.'

  Hervey did not object.

  Somervile rummaged among some papers on a side table, then returned to his chair with a look of triumph. 'Hear this, Hervey:

  'Your lordship, Gentlemen, we have by degrees become the paramount state of India. Although we exercised the powers of this supremacy in many instances before 1817, we have used and asserted them more generally since the existence of our influence by the events of that and the following year.'

  He glanced first at Hervey and then at Emma at the mention of 1817. They had each been so embroiled in events leading to the Pindaree war, a war which, as Sir Charles Metcalfe here made clear, had changed for ever the Company's status both north and south of the Sutlej.

  'It then became an established principle of our policy to maintain tranquillity among all the states of India, and to prevent the anarchy and misrule which were likely to disturb the general peace. Sir John Malcolm's proceedings in Malwa were governed by this principle, as well as those of Sir David Ochterlony. In the case of succession to a principality, it seems clearly incumbent upon us, with reference to that principle, to refuse to acknowledge any but the lawful successor, as otherwise we should throw the weight of our power into the scale of usurpation and injustice. Our influence is too pervading to admit of neutrality, and sufferance could operate as support. We are bound not by any positive engagement to the Bhurtpoor state, nor by any claim on her part, but by our duty as supreme guardians of general tranquillity, law, and right, to maintain the right of Rajah Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpore, and we cannot acknowledge any other pretender.

  ‘This duty seems to me to be so imperative that I do not attach any peculiar importance to the late investiture of the young rajah in the presence of Sir David Ochterlony. We should have been equally bound without that ceremony, which, if we had not been under a pre-existing obligation to maintain the rightful succession, would not have pledged us to anything beyond acknowledgement. With regard to the brothers Durjan Sal and Madhoo Sing, the competing claimants for the office of regent, I am not of the opinion that any final decision is yet required, but my present conviction is as follows. We are not called upon to support either brother; and if we must act by force it would seem to be desirable to banish both.

  'Negotiation might yet prove effectual, but if recourse to arms should become necessary, there would not be wanting of sources of consolation, since I am convinced that a display and rigorous exercise of our power, if rendered necessary, would be likely to bring back men's minds in that quarter to a proper tone, and the capture of Bhurtpoor, if effected in a glorious manner, would do us more honour throughout India, by the removal of the hitherto unfaded impressions caused by our former failure, than any other event that can be conceived.

  'And then Sir Charles bowed and sat down,' said Somervile. 'And many were the sheepish looks about the place, and the oyster eyes at the memory of Ochterlony's ill-treatment.'

  'In a glorious manner!' Hervey nodded, content.

  'Eyre?'

  'My dear?'

  'You must tell what was Lord Amherst's reply.'

  'Ah, yes, indeed.' He rifled through the papers in his lap. 'Here I have it - it is but brief, and rather a handsome testimony I do think. Hear this, Hervey:

  'I have hitherto entertained the opinion that our interference with other states should be limited to cases of positive injury to the honourable Company, or of immediate danger thereof. In that opinion I have reason to believe that I am not supported by the servants of the honourable Company most competent to judge of its interests, and best acquainted with the circumstances of this country. I should therefore have hesitated in acting upon my own judgement in
opposition to others; but I am further free to confess that my own opinion has undergone some change, and that I am disposed to think that a system of non-interference, which appears to have been tried and to have failed in 1806, would be tried with less probability of success, and would be exposed to more signal failure, after the events which have occurred, and the policy which has been pursued during the last nineteen or twenty years. A much greater degree of interference than was formerly called for, appears to have resulted from the situation in which we were placed by the pacification of 1818. It might be a hazardous experiment to relax in the exercise of that paramount authority which our extended influence in Malwah and Rajpootana specially has imposed upon us. Applying these general principles to the particular cases before us, and believing that without direct interference on our part, there is a probability of very extended disturbances in the Upper provinces, I am prepared, in the first place, to maintain, by force of arms if necessary, the succession of Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpoor.

  'And so decided did the opinion sound that the chamber was silent for a full minute,' added Somervile, putting the papers back in order. 'And then Amherst said simply, "I perceive that no one would gainsay. I shall today cause instructions to be drawn up for the commander-in-chief to begin preparations to restore Balwant Sing to the raj of Bhurtpore.'"

  'In a glorious manner,' said Hervey again, shaking his head and smiling grimly. 'We must hope for more glory than Rangoon has seen. What a prospect - war on two fronts when we can scarce make war on one!'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IN A GLORIOUS MANNER

  Agra, 1 December

  N

  ot since the first Mughal emperor, Zahir ud din Mohamed - Babur (the tiger) -had Agra seen such a host of men under arms. Three hundred years ago almost to the day, having taken Punjab with great but economical bloodshed, Babur had come down the Jumna from his new capital at Delhi to confront the Rajpoot federation. His army had been small by comparison with theirs, as it had been small compared with that of Ibrahim Lodi in Punjab, but Babur knew how to manoeuvre them to advantage. The martial Rajpoots, two hundred thousand and more, learned defeat at Kanwaha near Fatehpur Sikri, where Babur's grandson, Akbar the Great, would in time build a new Mughal capital. After the battle, Babur, rejoicing at becoming a ghazi, a killer of infidels, had made great mounds of the bodies of the slain, and pillars of their heads -models to be copied at Bhurtpore centuries later with Lord Lake's men.

  Lord Combermere's army knew its history. The sepoys spoke among themselves of the Futtah Bourge, the 'bastion of victory', the great tower of skulls that stood as affront to both their caste and their calling. The private men of the King's regiments, their information learned more recently but with no less indignation, likewise spoke of the insult to be effaced - and, it must be certain, the retribution to be exacted on the defenders of Bhurtpore. That the Jhauts who now stood defiantly on the walls of the city were not the same enemy as Lord Lake's was of no moment. They were of the same country, and they dared to oppose John Company and the King.

  Red was the colour that predominated in the camps, but a vivid red, scarlet, the colour of blood, not the mellow red of the great sandstone fort nearby, nor the rich deep red of the silks that clothed men and women alike in the chaupars and bazaars of this old imperial city. The Company's native infantry regiments were as regular in their appearance as Lord Combermere had known the duke's in Spain, save that the sepoys' legs were bare. The cavalry, too, had all the appearance of his own command at that time, except that in the hands of some was a weapon that hitherto he had seen only in the hands of the enemy - the lance, its pennants now fluttering in the ranks of His Majesty's Sixteenth Lancers, who aped their models in this part by wearing the schapska of Bonaparte's Polish lancers instead of the shako. Hervey could not look at their scarlet bibs without a fraction of distaste, for blue had been the colour of all who did not fight in lines, and he thought it needless show. Show in both senses, for scouting and outpost work was hard enough at the best of times without robin-redbreast display.

  Hervey had been busy on his own account with matters of uniform. For some time now he had become convinced that for field service their own coats should be modified in the same way as had their horses' bridles. Early on in the Peninsula the regiment had doubled the leather browband with chain so that a sword could not cut it and make the bridle fall from the animal's head. He had listened to accounts of Maratha and Rajpoot swordsmanship and learned that a favoured device was the passing cut at the shoulder, and he had concluded that chain on the shoulder - as of old - would serve them well. Major Joynson had been persuaded, and the metalworkers of Calcutta had been engaged to fashion six inches of mail, three inches wide, for each dragoon's shoulder. Lord Combermere saw it when he inspected his troops at Agra, and much approved. And when, three days later, he went by dawk upstream to Muttra to inspect the other half of his army, and there found Hervey and his troop, he remarked on it favourably, so that Hervey was in no doubt that Lord Combermere's estimation of him was truly of the highest order.

  'I intend beginning a general advance on Bhurtpore three days hence, on the ninth,' the commander-in-chief told him as he turned his horse away. 'I shall make all appearances of wanting to parley, so that they do not take steps to inundate the defences, but I shall want you to break from the force at last light and move to seize the bund. Then at dawn next day I shall send with all despatch a force to relieve you.'

  It was exactly as Hervey had urged at Fort William. 'Very good, General.'

  'Two squadrons, you said.'

  'Yes, sir. One of the Eleventh's, and a rissalah from Skinner's Horse, they with their galloper guns. The horse artillery would only impede us.'

  Combermere nodded, but slowly, as if considering. 'The Eleventh, yes - and your own troop, I should suppose.'

  Hervey nodded his confirmation.

  'But the irregular horse . . . are they to be so relied upon?'

  Hervey smiled assuringly. 'I may say with utter certainty, your lordship, that one could do no better in trusting them with one's very life. Three years ago, in Burma, I had proof of it myself.'

  Combermere nodded again, this time more definitely. 'Very well, then, I shall have Colonel Watson write the orders at once. Is there any more you would have me do?'

  'No, sir. Except, of course, that our orders should not be made general.'

  'Of course.'

  Hervey knew he had suggested the obvious, but he had his reasons. Combermere rode high in his estimation from all that had gone before in Portugal and Spain, but this was India.

  'Cap'n 'Ervey, sir, if yon farrier's sick another day I'm gooin' to 'ave to ask one 'o' t'Eleventh's to do Gilbert. Them corns are gettin' bad.'

  Gilbert's shoes were a problem that Hervey could do without. It wasn't just Gilbert, either, for although Corporal Brennan's assistants were capable of admirable cold-shoeing by replacing worn iron with the stock shoes carried by each dragoon, they were not yet proficient enough to make a therapeutic set, and there were half a dozen troopers needing that attention. 'I'll speak to their colonel, then,' replied Hervey, still wondering when he might have the orders which would give him authority to address his mission.

  Johnson was content. 'Lord Combermere looked 'appy enough this mornin'. I were tellin' all them green'eads that fancies themselves as dragoons, about 'im at T'loose.'

  Hervey looked pained. 'Not anything in connection with General Slade, I hope.'

  'Of course it were about Slade. That were t'story!'

  Indeed it was a story. Lord Combermere's timely appearance at Toulouse had made General Slade drop his prey - and Hervey had raced back to the regiment a free man again. But Combermere, as far as Hervey could tell, had never known how providential had been his arrival. He had known only the eagerness of the wounded cornet to be back in action. There was a time, however - and certainly at Toulouse - when Hervey would have been truly perturbed, believing that the disparaging of a senior
officer, even one such as Slade, would have been inimical to discipline. Now he cared not at all. The canteen was entitled to its views, as long as it held them in private, so to speak. And if they could disparage Slade they could extol Combermere, as it seemed they might. Johnson did the commander-in-chief a service therefore; Hervey ought to commend him, indeed. There were always difficulties attendant on commending Johnson, though. 'That reminds me—'

  But Johnson was not finished. 'Word is in t'can-teen that them walls is fifty feet thick, and made of bones and solid rock.'

  Hervey raised an eyebrow. 'How do the intelligence agents of the canteen believe solid rock and bones are mixed together?'

  Johnson did not consider it an impossible notion. 'They didn't say, only that the walls is so thick it'd take a month o' Sundays just to scratch 'em.'

  Hervey frowned. 'They're thick, Johnson, I grant you that, but not fifty feet, and not solid rock. They'll withstand some battering, but they're bound to be breached at some point, and then it will be the bayonet in the old way.'