The Sabre's Edge

by Allan Mallinson

  'Jaswant Sing tells me you have a promising seat. He says you were quick to the Rajpoot way of riding.'

  Hervey was gratified, and smiled obligingly, though puzzled that Skinner should know of it. 'But I fear I had the best of attention and horses. I could not imitate those airs when later I tried them on my own horses.'

  Colonel Skinner nodded slowly as if he understood. 'Woordi-major, you may go to your ledgers or you may stay and drink whisky, as you please. Which is it to be?'

  The woordi-major answered in English. 'Huzoor, I have many papers to return for the Lord Combermere.'

  'Very well, my friend. There will be time for us to drink whisky when we have taken Bhurtpore.'

  'Ji, huzoor,’ and he continued in Urdu, though too quickly for Hervey to catch more than the odd word.

  Colonel Skinner took it up, but Hervey managed to catch even less. They seemed to be turning over an idea - about horses, he thought, but the idiom was beyond him.

  When the woordi-major had gone, Colonel Skinner poured more whisky. 'Now, Major Hervey, what is it that His Excellency has in mind?'

  Hervey was surprised at the connection Colonel Skinner made, but he judged it of no matter; it was just the way of things in India. 'I beg you would read this, Colonel,' he said, handing him the order.

  Colonel Skinner took longer to read it than Hervey expected. At length, the commandant looked up and said, thoughtfully, 'The jheels?'

  Hervey saw little point in protesting. 'May I ask how you knew, Colonel?'

  'It is evident, from the size and composition of the party, that the object is detached from the fortress, for otherwise it would be futile. There can be but one such object if one has read the accounts of Lord Lake's endeavours.'

  'Do you know the bund, Colonel?'

  'Of course.'

  'I am of the opinion that such a force as mine could hold them until relieved - within the twenty-four hours following. We should rely greatly on your galloper guns, of course.'

  Colonel Skinner nodded. 'I am of this opinion, too. I cannot suppose the Jhauts will garrison the jheels until they perceive the army is moving on them. There is much industry in the Jhauts, but little imagination. They will work most fiercely to eject you once you have them, however. Who is to lead the relief?'

  'General Sleigh, or perhaps even General Reynell, as I understand.'

  'Good. Combermere sees its importance then.' The commandant drained his glass. 'You will stay and dine with us, Major Hervey?'

  Hervey saw his duty done. 'I thank you, yes. My corporal . . .'

  'He will be the guest of my daffadars.'

  When dinner was finished, more hours later than Hervey had thought possible, Colonel Skinner accompanied him to the picket to see him on his way. It was a fresh night, not cold, with a full moon. Torches blazed about the camp, and beyond in the city and the many other camps about it. As they came upon the picket, Corporal Wainwright led up Gilbert. Beside him, a naik led another horse, smaller but with twice the blood.

  'Marwari, Major Hervey, of very choice breeding and schooled in our classical manner. I hope you will accept him.'

  Hervey was all but dumbstruck. In hand was as fine a stallion as he had seen in Hindoostan - black, with a white face and massive neck. 'Sir, I . . .'

  'He is called Chetak. Do you know the legend of Chetak, Major Hervey?'

  'Indeed I do, Colonel. I know it was Chetak's leap that let the Maharana Pratap kill Man Singh's mahout.'

  'And much more, Major Hervey.'

  'Indeed, Colonel. Much more.'

  'But the Maharana's Chetak was a grey, Major Hervey. And I would not have you ride two greys. So we make you a gift of one of our best bloods, and one, needless to say, who is well schooled in the Rajpoot airs.'

  Hervey was a long time in his leave-taking. He had met a man among men, and he had known the regal hospitality of the Rajpoots. These things were to be savoured and honoured, even at times like this. Especially at times like this. There was no place for a stallion in his troop, but what a saddle-horse he would make when they were returned to Calcutta. And what a sire, too.

  That night, though very late, he wrote to Somervile:

  I am very glad of your letter (numbered 7), and especially its intelligence of Peto. How pleased he will be to slip anchor and be up the Irawadi at last! Let us hope, as you say the gossip has it, that a treaty is near.

  What a camp this is! How I wish you could see it! Each fighting man with us has more than one follower, and a large bazaar accompanies the camp besides. We carry the men's tents on elephants, and each elephant has two men, four bhistis to each troop, a cook to every 16 men, every horse has a man to cut grass for him, the men have six camels and two men per troop to carry their beds. Then come the gram grinders, tailors, bakers, butchers, calasseys, or men for pitching tents, and many others. Each hospital has six men, and of these there are 40, making 240, and there are 50 dhoolies for a regiment. I should say that for 560 officers and men we must have 5,600 followers, this counting in the bazaar and officers' servants. I have in my own service 14 men, 5 camels, and a hackery, five horses and two ponies, and this for a mere captain of dragoons. Although this night I have received the gift of a magnificent Marwari stallion of Colonel Skinner of the Native Horse. It is tempting to ponder on the nature of the battle to come, and whether we shall see the single combat again that was the purpose of these great brutes. I trust not. I think there is a more glorious manner in which to take Bhurtpore, and it must be with art and powder in very large measure rather than with the breasts of brave men and horses . . .

  Hervey completed another page of observations, then laid down his pen. He knew full well that many a brave man's breast would be torn open, sepoy's and King's man's alike. And he trusted it would be sepoy and King's man in fair measure, since it did not do for the King's men to be preserved, like Bonaparte's Garde, while the legionary Company regiments were expended. But he knew, also, that the butcher's bill would be determined in large measure by his own aptness - and audacity - in executing the special order. The affair of the jheels would be decided by a few, but the price of failure paid by the many.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  L'AUDACE!

  The early hours of 10 December

  The order had come by semaphore from Agra at first light the day before. The divisions were to advance on Bhurtpore before dawn on the 10th, the cavalry brigades leading. It was not a difficult movement. Bhurtpore, Agra and Muttra formed an almost equal-sided triangle, with Muttra at the apex, and the object of operations at the base, left. The roads, the sides of the triangle (although the base itself was not straight) were good and wide, permitting easy movement of formed bodies of men. The rains had gone and there was no rutting to speak of. The country either side was more flat than not, and not too jungled, so that if the divisions found the roads blocked it would be no very great impediment to progress, even for wheels. Not that opposition was expected. Each day the divisional commanders had sent patrols as far as three or four leagues, without sign of a Jhaut picket, and a cloud of spies, in exchange for quite modest amounts of silver, had daily brought assurances that the roads beyond, all the way to the walls of the city itself, were open and empty of troops. Indeed, the only obstacle to movement would be the sacred cows that ambled with perfect liberty along the old Mughal highways, for Krishna himself had been born in Muttra, and so the sacred cows wandered on sacred ground.

  The distance they had to march was no great trial to either shoe or boot - or even to the bare feet of the sepoy. From Muttra it was but eight leagues, at a cavalry trot no more than three hours. Even at the sepoys' steady rate of three miles an hour it was only a matter of eight -an easy day's business. The light companies of King's regiments could do it by forced march in a morning (the road from Agra was a little longer, winding through Fatehpur Sikri and the battlefield of Kanwaha, but not by much more than two hours or so). And Lord Combermere's orders were clear in respect of not encumbering the columns wit
h excess baggage, so that by Hervey's estimation there could be no doubting their relief at the jheels by last light. His only worry was the reliefs finding him. The jheels were not especially difficult to find, but they lay to the north-west of the fortress, and were therefore masked to the advance. There was always the chance that the Jhauts would cut the road nearest the fortress once the game was up, and so the relief force would have to be strong enough to force the road or else find the long way round via the south-west, through waterlogged pasture. Hervey, conferring with Brigadier-General Sleigh, had therefore decided to send back guides as soon as he had taken the bund.

  The previous day had been all bustle throughout the camps at Muttra and, he imagined, at Agra too. His own troop, forewarned, had had an easier time of it, and the unprotesting Corporal Stray had received a steady flow of camp comforts into his makeshift depot. In the afternoon, Hervey had received orders by hand of one of Lord Combermere's aides-de-camp that he was to seize the bund as soon as was possible after dawn the following morning, with the limitation that he must not leave Muttra before midnight. He had at once sent word to the Eleventh and to Skinner's Horse, and their two squadrons had assembled at the Krishna Ghat a little before midnight, their captains - or jemadar in the case of the Skinner's rissalah - having spent an hour and more with him beforehand to agree the conduct of the affair.

  ‘What is the parole, Johnson?' he asked, as he took Gilbert's reins from him. He had not asked him that in ten years. It had been their ritual -their game, almost - before any affair began. It had started in Spain when his groom had drawn the fire of the regiment's outlying picket early one morning having searched all night like the good shepherd himself, but to bring in a lost horse. His habitual reply to any sentry's challenge to state the password was 'Sheffield', to which the equally invariable response was not Tass, friend' but Tass, Johnson.' Except that that night in Spain he had stumbled on the horse-artillery picket, and since then Johnson had had a healthy respect for the daily parole.

  'Dehli,' he replied, a trifle gruffly, feeling the effects of a long day. 'What a lark this is. Do we get t'first pick o' t'pudding?'

  Even in India, where dragoons fed like princes compared with home, Johnson's metaphors were still principally of the table. Nevertheless, Hervey thought to continue with it for a while. 'There will be no pudding, certainly not one with plums. Lord Combermere made it clear: we are putting down rebels; the country is not the enemy. Durjan Sal will lose his possessions, as well as his head, but that's not likely to amount to more than a measure of grog for every sepoy.'

  Johnson muttered his disappointment. He would have to rely on his own resources rather than the prize agents'. So be it. He had always had a good nose. And he always knew how to draw the line between honest booty and plain loot. He had been as condemnatory as the officers when he heard of the Fifty-ninth's men in Agra stealing across the river in the night to prise gemstones from the walls of the Taje Mahale. No, Johnson's speciality was military, things that an officer might want for his own service or souvenir, or else liquids and perishables, which might sell at an inflated price before the sutlers arrived with their stocks.

  Hervey sprang into the saddle with almost the same ease as he had at first riding school. The thought pleased him, though he knew he favoured his left shoulder still, as much by instinct as real necessity; the twinges had now grown much less painful, and greatly fewer. He gathered up the reins and shortened his stirrups one hole - which vexed Johnson greatly, for he had ridden at that length since leaving Dehli. Hervey looked about him. The moon, the torches and the campfires lit up the ghat as if it were almost day. His only regret was that, in leaving so far in advance of the main body, he would not see the division drawn up, for this was an affair in the old way and he might not see its like in another ten years. He wondered for the moment if the prospect displeased him, but he could not dwell on it since he had a mind to be off at the very instant he had given his own orders to advance - as the minute hand of his watch reached twelve. They would have six more hours of pitch dark, then one of twilight until, at seven, there would be no more dark to conceal them within hearing distance of a sentry.

  The luminescent face of Daniel Coates's gift-hunter told him he had but four minutes to wait. There was light enough to see even the plain face of his own bought watch, but in a couple more hours, when the moon had set, he would be glad of Mr Prior's clever work. Four minutes only -perhaps he ought to make a start? They all knew Bonaparte's lament that anything could be bought but time. Very well. He would pay them back their four minutes when the Mo tee Bund was theirs. No trumpets, though. They were Lord Combermere's picked men; they had no need of fanfares. 'Column, walk-march!’

  He had thought very carefully about the order of march. It was not the first time he had ridden with lancers, but their handiness at night was uncertain. He would lead with his own men, therefore. The trouble was, he didn't have a cornet, for Green he considered not worthy of the name, and he wished now he had asked Eustace Joynson to find him some billet in Agra. He had even thought of leaving him with Corporal Stray, with the other useless baggage, except that it might have been an affront that demeaned the whole troop. So Serjeant Collins would command the advance guard, and command it well too. And Corporal McCarthy would take Collins’s place at the rear of the first division. Next would come the Eleventh, and then Skinner's with their two galloper guns. Riding with Hervey himself would be a galloper from each squadron, and a lieutenant of engineers. No man who had served in the Peninsula could have aught but regard for the sappers and pioneers. They had breached and mined, and built and bridged for the army from Lisbon to Toulouse, in baking sun and freezing rain, shot over as they worked, even as the line took cover. Hervey, for sure, had that regard in highest measure. If only they could ride, though. Then he would have been able to take a whole company of them instead of just their officer, relying on the unskilled labour of the dragoons.

  Eight leagues: they would cover them all mounted - no leading - as if it were just a long point in Leicestershire. They could trot for the first hour, for the Eleventh's patrols had had orders in the afternoon to picket that night at the two-league point. Thereafter they could proceed at a walk, which would give the advance guard time to scout properly. Hervey did not know how many of his command had ridden an Indian road by night. It was not so bad at this time of year, when days were cooler, but the traffic could be greater even than by day - mounted men and pedestrians alike escaping from the sun's heat, hackeries and elephants, palanquins and dongas. And always the sacred cow of the Hindoo, couching, utterly unmoved by all he heard and saw.

  But the country people of this corner of Rajpootana knew that John Company was about (they sold him all they could in Agra and Muttra), though at night they took care to keep themselves scarce, for no one knew what the sahibs would do when the time came, or even Durjan Sal and his Jhauts if they dared leave the fastness of Bhurtpore. And why, indeed, should the Jhauts do that? Bhurtpore had stood against the gora log before. Against Lord Lake, even - he who had dealt the mighty Marathas such a blow. Was not Bhurtpore impregnable? Let John Company try if he dare, they said among themselves - as he tried in vain at Rangoon - and here he would meet the same as there. Only let us not be about the roads when he does try, they said. Let us not run or ride to Bhurtpore to warn Durjan Sal. He has his own spies for that. Let us secure ourselves at night in our villages, with fires burning to ward off marauders, and trust in the boy Krishna, our neighbour from Muttra become a god - and all the other gods that would protect us poor country people from armies of any colour.

  They made the Eleventh's distant picket at ten minutes to two. Fires burned bright, but the two dozen dragoons were all alert and anxious for their own off. They even raised a cheer as Hervey led the column past at the walk.