John forgot the heat and stench. He had only ten guineas left. He had reckoned on being commissioned straight away. Now it seemed he must find Lord Hastings as soon as possible.
‘If Lord Hastings isn’t here in Madras, sir, where is he?’ The urgency in his voice was all too obvious. ‘How can I reach him, sir? I have little fortune and no friends here.’ He thought of Miss Lanham, who he had glimpsed, surrounded by admiring young men on horseback, the previous day. But she would be in no position, he guessed, to help him.
With a sigh Colonel Monroe waddled over to the wall map of India and pointed a beringed finger at it. ‘He is here — at Musulipatan, some fifty miles north, just off the coast. He is visiting Mr Lanham, the Collector.’
John’s mind raced. Could he be related to his Miss Lanham?
‘A capital fellow,’ Monroe was saying, ‘though sorely tried by these demned raids. There are the bane of our life here in Madras. Hardly had we seen off the froggies than they started. I don’t doubt they’ll turn into a full-scale war before the year is out. That is why Lord Hastings had gone up country personally to assess the position.’ Monroe forced a smile, though his faded, red-rimmed eyes did not light up. ‘You are new to the country, my boy, and you come to us with an excellent reference from the great Duke, so let me tell you a few things that you fellahs from home will not know.’ He patted the map again. His rings sparkled with diamonds and John told himself that Colonel Monroe had obviously done well out of India. ‘We’ve been in India for over a hundred years now — the John Company, I mean — working mainly from our three ports of entry, Madras and Calcutta here and here. And Bombay — here — on the west coast.’
John listened attentively, for like most young men he knew nothing of England’s greatest possession save the tall tales he had heard from his father.
‘Over the years these three territories have expanded into the interior, by means of treaty — and occasionally war, that is why the Company keeps an army. We expanded thus because we needed a hinterland for trade, one ruled by princes friendly to the Company. It was strictly a matter of commerce.’ He raised his voice again: ‘Punkah wallah!’
In the closet the old man stirred and the fan began to move again as Colonel Monroe swept his hand across Central India. ‘Now, however, due in part to those demned froggies, a great confederation has been formed against us right across the country. They are a bunch of niggah princes who are too big for their boots. They bar our further progress north and undoubtedly they will have to be dealt with in due course. The Mahratta Confederacy they call themselves — the niggahs have a taste for grand-sounding titles.’ He sniffed and took a drink. John nodded his understanding.
‘As yet,’ Colonel Monroe continued, ‘the princes have not declared their hand. Our victory over Napoleon means we have more troops at our disposal and they have been impressed by it, too. But while we have been dealing with Old Boney they have been encouraging those demned cowardly black Pindarees to raid our territories, especially here in the east. Why, the demned fellahs are becoming more impertinent by the month!’ His fat cheeks flushed puce, as if he were personally insulted by whoever the Pindarees were.
‘May I ask who these raiders are, sir — an Indian tribe, perhaps?’
Monroe shook his head. ‘No, they are neither a race nor a caste. They are a collection of no-good bandits, footpads and cut-throats from all races and castes and demned religions, assimilated by one common pursuit — outrage and robbery! They aren’t encumbered by tents or baggage as are our troops,’ he continued. ‘Each one of the mounted cut-throats carries a few cakes of unleavened niggah bread for himself and his mount. For the rest, they live off the land. Each raiding party consists of one to three thousand chargers advancing across country some forty or fifty miles a day — much, much faster than we can do. They head straight for their target and make a sweep for all the property and booty they can find. Then they rape and pillage and then they’re off back to their mountain fortress before we can organize a force to tackle the rogues.
‘Three years ago they raided the Morzapur district in the area of Ganes which belongs to the Company. Last year they actually plundered part of the Madras Presidency and this year they’re up to their demned tricks again. Demnit, sir!’ he snorted, ‘we cannot allow this sort of thing to continue. We must finally bring stability to Central India. The people demand it from us. Stability!’
We must bring stability to Central India! How often in the years to come would John Bold hear that phrase. In due course ‘stability’ would be achieved, brought about by bribery or outright war, with the result that this or that part of India would be annexed to the British crown and the Company’s profits would grow.
But in the winter of 1815 John Bold was still young and naïve, and could share Monroe’s indignation. ‘But have they not a base camp?’ he asked.
‘No, that’s the demned trouble,’ Monroe answered, taking a sip from his Waterford glass. ‘Their booty and families are scattered over a wide area in the mountains or in fortresses peculiar to themselves, or those with whom they consort. And by that I mean those niggah princes, who supposedly are our friends!’ He snorted indignantly and yelled, ‘Punkah wallah!’
‘Nowhere do they present a firm front where we can attack and defeat them decisively. The defeat of a raiding party, the destruction of a cantonment or the temporary occupation of a mountain refuge produces no effect beyond the ruin of an individual freebooter.’
‘But do they not have a leader, sir?’
‘Oh, leaders enough they have,’ Monroe replied. ‘Lubbers they are called and their forays are called lubburiahs.’
Yet another new word, John told himself. For already he had come to realize that Company officers spoke their own language, heavily larded with Indian words. A gharri was a chaise, tats were horses, a bathroom was a ghustkana.
‘As far as we know they have no senior chief, though the bazaars do speak of such a man,’ he conceded slowly, ‘that is if one believes that kind of gup — gossip. They say there’s some sort of big niggah — Chuto or Cheetoo by name — who’s their great leader. There was some talk of him nine years back but none of our people ever saw him, if he actually existed.’
‘Strike off the head and the body dies of its own accord,’ John murmured, as if to himself.
‘What did you say, Bold?’
‘Nothing much, sir, just thinking out loud.’ He raised his voice and attempted to change the subject. ‘Now sir, if Lord Hastings is up country with Collector Lanham, when and how can I present my compliments to His Lordship, sir? My resources are strained, I do confess.’
Monroe eyed him sympathetically. ‘All our resources were strained when we came out here first as young men. Even Lord Hastings came to India in order to recoup his crippled finances — and he would be the first man to admit it. Money — or the lack of it — brought us here in the first place. Though in your case I don’t quite know.’
He frowned at the note the Duke of Wellington had given Bold, a little puzzled. Then: ‘All right, my boy,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning at first light, a convoy of daks and the like is setting off for Musulipatan. Its purpose is twofold. It will ensure that Miss Lanham reaches her father, the Collector, safely ... ’
John’s heart leapt.
‘The second reason is to ensure that a consignment of muskets and powder reaches the same place, equally safely. Lord Hastings is currently discussing with the Collector the possibility of raising another regiment of native infantry. Things are coming to a head and we must be prepared.’
‘And I, sir? Where am I to fit in?’
‘Oh, yes. There will be an escort under the command of Captain de Courcy of the Bengal Light Cavalry — a good fellah, though not given to a great deal of talk.’
Colonel Monroe waddled to his desk and scribbled a note which he gave to John. ‘A message to Captain de Courcy requesting him to loan you a horse and to have the goodness to take you with him as an extra rider.�
�� He beamed at a surprised John as the latter stuttered his thanks.
‘It is the least I can do for a protégé of the great Duke, my boy,’ he said heartily and then raising his voice, cried, ‘Syce, attend this gentleman at the door. You will take him to the Honourable Captain of the Bengal Light Cavalry, ek dum!’
An Indian in the livery of the East India Company and the strange baggy riding trousers called jodhpurs, appeared at the window.
‘My groom,’ Colonel Monroe explained, ‘lazy fellah like all the niggahs, but a damned good horseman. He’ll see that you get a good mount. Well, young Bold, no doubt in due course, if the pox or ague don’t get you first, we’ll make a Company general of ye yet!’
And with that he dismissed a somewhat startled John, who had not expected his fortune would take this surprising turn so suddenly.
The syce was leading the way to the barracks of the Bengal Light Cavalry when they heard a clatter of hooves and an instant later a mass of some twenty horses or more, packed tightly together, thundered round the corner.
They pressed against the wall as the riders swept by, each rider sitting in the saddle with a casual, expert ease that John could not hope to emulate in a million years.
It was the Frenchmen from the ship. As they scattered the Indians before them, not even deigning to notice the panicked rabble, John was quite sure that they had once ridden for Napoleon. There was no mistaking that bold French swagger. The question sprang to his mind: But for whom did they ride now?
At their head rode Nom de Dieu. He spotted John in the white dust raised by the thundering hooves and recognized him, but did not speak. The old soldier’s smile of their days on the ship was gone — replaced by a direct, challenging look, as if he were staring down at the new enemy.
THREE
Dawn.
From the sea a gentle cool breeze wafted inland and the palm fronds trembled. The only smells were of freshly brewed coffee and the sowars’ chapattis. In the horse lines of the Bengal Light Cavalry a boisterous horse snickered. All was calm and un-chaotic, that time before the teeming noisy crowds assembled, which John would come to love.
Captain de Courcy, a large, moustached young man with thinning hair, came out of the cantonment, leading his grey.
He nodded to the waiting civilian in his off-hand manner and twisting his cheroot to the side of his mouth, grunted, ‘Morning, Bold.’
‘Morning, Captain de Courcy,’ John replied, thinking that de Courcy was not the most ideal travelling companion, but he certainly looked like a good man to have at one’s side in time of trouble.
‘You armed, Bold?’
‘Yes, Captain.’
De Courcy nodded his approval. ‘Good, I’ve only got a native rissaldar with me. No white officers. You might come in useful.’
‘Do you think there might be trouble, Captain?’ John asked eagerly, with the enthusiasm of youth.
De Courcy looked at him coldly and shrugged. ‘Never can tell these days,’ he grunted. ‘Never stopped since the froggies started the whole damned thing.’ He ran his hand the length of his moustache, his face stony and revealing little. ‘The guns and powder,’ he said, indicating the donkeys which were beginning to emerge from the native barracks, urged on by their drivers, ‘will form up in the middle of the column. They’ll be best protected there.’
The rissaldar, a native officer, an old man with white hair, but with a tough lined face dominated by a great beak of a nose, pushed his way with his horse to where de Courcy was waiting, saluted and reported in his own tongue.
De Courcy returned the salute and said to John, ‘Miss Lanham’s palkee is on its way.’
As he spoke a strange boxlike contraption, looking like a seventeenth-century sedan chair and borne on the shoulders of four nearly naked natives, came swaying round the corner.
‘Funny-looking thing,’ John commented, his heart beating a little faster at her near-ness.
‘Damned nuisance!’ de Courcy cursed and flung his cheroot into the dust. ‘Far too slow. But that’s the way the memsahibs always travel around here. Can’t have them riding on horses showing all their underpinnings to the natives. So they travel like some niggah ranee, with a change of bearers every eight miles.’
‘I see,’ John replied, his gaze concentrated on the swaying carriage.
Suddenly, surprisingly, the taciturn Captain de Courcy said softly, ‘Who danced with whom and who is like to wed and who is hanged and who is brought to bed.’ His voice was full of malice and John, abruptly a little angry, felt sure the doggerel was aimed at the approaching Miss Lanham. He ought not to sneer at her in that manner. Surely she was not like one of the fishing fleet, ready to throw herself at anything in trousers and with money in the bank?
As she passed, her face pale and her beautiful eyes still heavy with sleep, he swept off his hat and bowed low. She deigned not to notice. He frowned and told himself it was too early in the morning. As the day progressed and she woke up, she would undoubtedly noticed him. Hadn’t she specifically asked him to call upon her?
De Courcy replaced his shako, saw the look on John’s face and said, the sneer vanished from his voice now, ‘A heart-breaker, Bold. Pay need to my words!’ Before John could speak he had spurred his horse away.
Two hours later they were on the march north, with the heat increasing by the moment. Strung out in a long slow column, with the sea to their right and the jungle to their left, they sweated through their uniforms.
There was no road, just a kind of broad sandy path, and the sound of hooves was deadened by the thick white dust which rose about them like a London fog. But the lush green jungle was loud with noise: the incessant, nerve-racking noise of the jungle. Monkeys gibbered crazily, animals roared and the copper bird kept up his dong-ding, dong-ding like the persistent blast of massed muskets.
Yet despite the heat and monotony the men were on their guard constantly. Every so often de Courcy would rise in his stirrups and rein in his horse in order to peer to the end of the column, as if he half expected some fiend to be creeping up on them.
John felt his gaze straying repeatedly to the curtained palanquin in the centre of the column, but all he saw was a shadowy outline behind the muslin.
Was she a tease, he considered? Like some of those well-born county girls he had known back in England, happy to play with an ensign of some looks, but intent on marrying some rich colonel with his own regiment in his pocket? And what had de Courcy meant by that little piece of bad verse?
They made their first halt when the sun was at its zenith. The sowars were too weary even to eat their chapattis, and contented themselves with hefty swigs from their water flasks and slumping in whatever shade they could find. De Courcy dismounted for a few moments only, before getting back into the saddle and scanning their surroundings, hand never far from his sabre. John saw the anxiety on his brick-red face and forced himself up to cross to where de Courcy kept solitary guard.
‘What worries you, Captain?’ he said directly.
‘The Pindarees attacked a village not ten miles from here last week,’ de Courcy answered grudgingly, as if he felt he was saying too much.
‘And you think — ’
‘I think nothing, Mr Bold,’ de Courcy cut him off sharply. ‘I just prepare.’
They were on the march again when, about three that terrible, long, burning afternoon, they spotted the black vultures hovering in the hard blue sky to their front. John urged his horse up to de Courcy. ‘Could they mean trouble?’
De Courcy shaded his eyes. ‘Possibly,’ he answered, and ordered the column to stop. Then together with John and his bugler-galloper, he went to the head of the column, where the rissaldar was waiting, his sabre already drawn, face fiercer than ever.
De Courcy nodded to him, as if in approval, and trotted on. Now they could see that the obscene, bald-headed birds were coming down. Out of the side of his mouth, gaze fixed firmly on his front, de Courcy said, ‘Looks as if they’ve spotted a meal. Fi
lthy brutes!’ His mount flared its nostrils and tossed its mane, obviously made uneasy by the birds.
‘Cruel country this, Bold,’ de Courcy rasped. ‘Vulture symbolizes it. The cruelty killings ... They’re the mehtars, you know, the sweepers of this whole blood-stained community.’ He frowned and spat in disdain. Next moment they rounded the bend and saw them.
The bugler waved and clapped loudly. The vultures rose lazily, flapping their huge wings, their beaks crimson with blood, and started to circle, cawing in hoarse protest.
John gasped and tugged at his reins, suddenly sick. Their prey was the remains of what had once been a woman. Her stomach had already gone, a gaping red cavern from which the entrails hung out like a grey-purple snake, and her neck had been pecked clean of flesh. The eyes had been ripped out, too. But a woman she was definitely. Hesitantly, but knowing he had to do it, he urged his shying horse up to where de Courcy and the bugler, who had gone a strange shade of green, was staring down at the remains.
‘Half breed,’ de Courcy pronounced. ‘Perhaps one of those French by-blows from the time when they occupied this part of the coast.’
John nodded numbly, unable to speak as he stared down aghast.
Both her breasts had been hacked off. Then she had been flayed by the steel-topped lathis, which John had already seen the Company’s police wielding on reluctant natives outside the compounds. Afterwards her legs had been prised open and she had been subjected to the final indignity before death had granted her the blessed boon of oblivion. Her murderers had stuffed a huge green plantain banana into her vagina, from which it now protruded with obscene cruelty.
John fought his nausea, forcing back the sour green bile which threatened to choke him. ‘Who ... in God’s name,’ he finally managed to gasp thickly, ‘could do such a thing?’
Bugles at Dawn Page 8
