A Call To Arms (48 page)

Two more fronts and they were close on the bridge, but Hervey saw to his dismay that the second gun was still not across. The sowars struggled desperately to remove the pin that held fast the barrel to the trail. Seton Canning looked hard at him. ‘What do we do, Hervey?’

Hervey was only certain of what he would
not
do. ‘I could never abandon a gun, Harry.’

He saw Corporal Ashbolt mount and gallop towards him.

‘That bridge won’t take any more horses, sir,’ called Ashbolt from a dozen yards. ‘The decking’s broken away and the supports are gone. The farrier’s breaking the pin on that gun now and we’ll have it across in a minute. The other can fire grape. I’d like to put my Burmans in the river if it’s all right with you, sir.’

Hervey looked back to where Ashbolt’s prisoners sat – more than a hundred of them, for the moment, quiet.

‘You would only be able to drive them in with the point, and there are too many for that. Are they bound?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then cover them with the other gun. And give no quarter if any try to break free!’

Ashbolt raced back to the bridge to drive the sweating sowars and dragoons across before setting to with the charges he had made – enough, he hoped, to destroy the centre of the span at least.

In two more minutes Hervey saw the Burman flanks turning to pen him up against the river, and behind the centre of the line a column of infantry coming on at the double. He glanced over his
shoulder again. The second gun had made the far bank: it was time for them to do the same. But how would he then check the Burmans, for they could surely swim the Karnaphuli as well as the troop could?

He glanced back again. Ashbolt had a dozen men along the bank, carbines ready, and the second gun would be in action soon. He wondered if one more sabre charge might demoralize the Burmans. It was not unknown in India. Indeed, it had been the sole tactic of many a campaign. He looked at the Burman line and then at his own. ‘Troop will retire!’ he called, as calmly as he might. He thanked God they had swum the Karnaphuli once before. At least he was asking nothing new of them now.

In they plunged, needing no urging. Ashbolt’s men began their covering fire, and then the gun thundered. Hervey heard the whistle of grape above his head, just like the night at Brighton, except that there it was so dark he had no idea how many or how close the enemy was. His mare jumped from the bank and struck out confidently. The current was stronger than the first time, but nothing to worry about. She swam freely, seeming to enjoy it. Not long now to the far bank, another ten yards at most. She gained a footing, lost it, then stumbled, almost throwing him. He looked right and left to see how the others were faring – well enough. Some were even ahead of him. He let her get her footing again – one more try and then he’d slip from the saddle. But she got all four feet firm and up the bank she struggled, until Hervey jumped off near the top to let her clamber up the overhang the easier. He turned about. Johnson was just behind him, almost out too, but his mare couldn’t get the measure of the overhang and Johnson was a fraction too slow in leaving the saddle. The mare fell on her side, pinning him under the water. She couldn’t shift, for all her flaying. And now shots were ringing out from the Burman bank, ragged at first, but close. Hervey scrambled back down the bank. The mare squealed as a musket ball struck her quarters, but still she lay thrashing. Shepherd Stent followed him down, and Storrs, and then Corporal McCarthy, last across the bridge with Private Mole’s body. The firing increased, though fortunately not its accuracy. Hervey would himself have put a bullet in the downed mare’s head had he not thought the dead weight
would impede them greater. But somehow, slipping and sliding, with ball flying about them and the frantic mare’s legs liable at any second to propel them into the river, they pulled Johnson free and dragged him up the bank. And there he lay, like Parkin before him, reliant on the skill of the surgeon.

The firing slackened and then stopped altogether. Hervey couldn’t for the life of him think why, for the Burmans now had every advantage. Perhaps they were gutless as well as artless after all. Then came the cheering behind him, loud and hearty.

‘
Himmat-I-Mardan!
’

And the gun sowars, faint by comparison, but full-throated: ‘
Madad-I-Khuda!
’

‘
Himmat-I-Mardan!
’

‘
Madad-I-Khuda!
’

Hervey stood up. The sight astonished him. The Skinner’s men debouched from the forest as if trotting to exercise. He lost count at fifty – there must be half that number again. Lance pennants fluttered, then out came the carbines as the sowars slung their lances over the shoulder. The line of yellow stretched the length of the bank. It was a sight he would never forget, like the solid walls of red at Waterloo. And all the time the cheering: ‘
Himmat-IMardan! Madad-I-Khuda!
’

Chittagong, two days later

Eyre Somervile stood by his desk in the lieutenant-governor’s new residency on the hill north and west of the Sadarghat. It was a fine building of white stone in the classical manner, the interior of which, though unfinished, spoke of the permanence of the Honourable East India Company’s investment in the country. Somervile wore a dark blue coat and a cream stock, and around his neck the order of Knight Companion of the Bath, a military honour of which he was at the same time both proud and abashed, for the circumstances of the honouring had been peculiar in the extreme. Nevertheless, for his coming encounter, to wear it this morning suited his purpose very well indeed.

As the clocks began striking eleven, his secretary entered and announced, ‘His Excellency Wundauk Maha Thilwa, envoy of the Viceroy of Arakan.’

Somervile turned to face the envoy and bowed. The Viceroy of Arakan was King Bagyidaw’s vassal; there was no doubting the reason for the envoy’s calling.

Wundauk Maha Thilwa bowed by return. He was an arresting
figure, if shorter than Somervile, clean-shaven and with searching eyes. He wore a long green robe fastened about the waist with a wide cummerbund, and carried an ornately carved ivory staff. He came alone, having no need of an interpreter.

‘To what do we owe this honour, Your Excellency?’ asked Somervile gravely.

Wundauk Maha Thilwa lifted his head so that his eyes could look down at his interlocutor rather than up. ‘I bring you an ultimatum from His Highness the Viceroy,’ he began, making a small bow at the mention of the rank. ‘For many months, now, the domains of His Majesty the King,’ he made another, deeper bow, ‘have been violated by fugitive subjects of His Majesty here in Chittagong. On numerous occasions His Highness the Viceroy has asked for the expulsion of the fugitives, for their return to face justice, but this has been refused.’ He paused for an effect of greater portent. ‘I am therefore commanded to inform your excellency that unless by the going down of the sun today I on His Highness’s behalf receive word that the fugitives will be delivered up to His Majesty’s justice, an immediate attack shall be made upon Chittagong and the territory annexed.’

Somervile did not flinch. Indeed, he would play the envoy for further intelligence. He made himself speak with an air of cool detachment. ‘Laying aside, for the moment, the propriety – some would say impudence,
infamy
even – of such a threat, how might you be able to execute it? There is a squadron of frigates in the bay, a brigade will arrive within the fortnight from Calcutta, and on the border with Arakan is a force of cavalry.’

Wundauk Maha Thilwa looked at him contemptuously. How could this high representative of the British be so dull-witted as to think that these were the only ways by which the superior troops of Ava could come? And how careless of his own secrets was this mere man of government!

Somervile was satisfied. Now was the time. ‘Your Excellency, I beg you would accept my compliments for your faultless command of English.’

Wundauk Maha Thilwa inclined his head, condescendingly. ‘The Avan court is superior in every respect to those of the outer world.’

‘Indeed. You would not say then – you will be familiar with the phrase – that you had burned your boats in coming here?’

Wundauk Maha Thilwa smiled like a jackal: how unfortunately apt was this …
functionary
’s choice of words. ‘No, Excellency,’ he replied, shaking his head pityingly. ‘We have by no means burned our boats!’

Somervile pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out a bundle of silk. He flung it down so that its royal emblem was at once apparent. ‘No, Your Excellency, but
we
have!’

At one o’clock, Eyre Somervile rode back to his bungalow in the civil lines and told Emma what had transpired with the Burman envoy.

‘I do wish you had let me observe, secretly,’ she said, pouring him a glass of claret. ‘Not so much to see the envoy but
you
!’

‘Oh, I was nothing, I assure you. I’ve played wilier fish on the Nagari! Anyway, the honour is all Hervey’s.’

Emma sighed. ‘I shall only be able to rest when we see him. What else did the serjeant say?’

‘Nothing more than you heard yourself at breakfast. Except that there was a man of his who had deserted before the action, and that he would not be surprised if Hervey didn’t want to hunt him down himself!’

‘Where is Serjeant Collins now? I should very much like to hear more of their time in the jungle.’

Somervile smiled. ‘Sleeping, I shouldn’t wonder. The poor devil had ridden day and night –
two
days and nights!’

‘Well, I shall send word for him to come here to bathe and take his ease the minute he wakes.’

‘I beg you would. But I also believe the native horse are due high honours. Captain Pollock emerges from this a considerably stouter man than I’d imagined.’

‘Oh … yes,’ said Emma, a little uncertainly. ‘I didn’t rightly understand the circumstances of their being at the river.’

‘It was deuced resourceful,’ pronounced Somervile, holding out his glass for Emma to refill. ‘All their orders said was for them to patrol the forest edge – nothing about the border. But Pollock, it seems, heard tell of the Chakma guides who’d arrived at the rendezvous with Hervey’s troop two days late. Well, not
late
; they’d got there as soon as they could. They just hadn’t received word in time. So Pollock took it upon himself to go with them
after Hervey, but he’d taken a more roundabout route, so they met only at the river. How in God’s name Pollock could make himself understood with the Chakma I cannot imagine.’ His glass was empty again.

Emma shook her head. ‘I think we’re bidden to luncheon.’

Somervile put his glass down. ‘I’d better summon a hircarrah and send off a despatch to Calcutta this afternoon. They can have a fuller one when Hervey returns. With any luck we’ll see him by tomorrow evening.’

Hervey angrily brushed away a barbed attap frond which hooked into the sleeve of his tunic. The jungle was becoming thicker. Did these Chakma guides really know where they were going? Yet for all the trouble he was having, they were making faster progress now than they had on the wide tracks at the start of the expedition. It was just one of those imponderables: six men and horses with tribal guides made quicker headway than forty on uncertain bearings, even on better going.

He wondered again about Johnson. Not a rib unbroken, said the surgeon. How could a man be half drowned and have every rib broken and the surgeon say he would live? He wished he had allowed some dhoolies to be brought. They had fashioned a decent makeshift one, but Johnson’s ride back to Chittagong could not be comfortable. But Ledley had said that he wouldn’t feel a thing – or
know
a thing – by the time he’d had the laudanum. It was just the worst time to leave him, that was the trouble. He had to recover French, though. But poor French might be dead. Would the surgeon’s orderly and Boy Porrit make their own way back, in that case? Then there was the girl …

Thank God – thank
all
their gods – that Pollock and his men had come when they had. He didn’t want to think what would have happened had they had to limp back, fighting all the way. A rearguard of Skinner’s Horse – he could scarcely have hoped! And not a shot after the first hour. The Burmans had undoubtedly given in. Seton Canning would have the troop back in Chittagong tomorrow night, and if these Chakma really knew their business he would not be long behind them. And then what a tamasha they’d have – a celebration with Skinner’s the like of which the Sixth hadn’t seen since they’d got to Paris!