The Rape of Venice (43 page)

The General kept him waiting for half an hour but then, having met him at numerous bachelor evening parties, greeted him as an old friend. Having read Sir John Shore's letter he exclaimed, ‘Drat me! What can have come over that moribundcuss
that, for once, he's willin' to let us chastise one of these insolent coffee-coloured gentry?'

Tactfully, Sir Alured refrained from enquiring about Clarissa, so Roger did not use her situation to urge the necessity for acting with speed. Instead, feeling that he had let the Governor down lightly, he did not scruple to imply that if matters were delayed Sir John might change his mind; as he knew very well that the soldier would go to any lengths rather than lose this unexpected chance to re-establish British prestige. He learned, though, to his dismay, that this question of speed raised a new and tricky problem.

Sir Alured had far fewer troops than he really needed to ‘show the flag' and, if need be, help to defend the Indian States on which, since Clive's day, the Company had imposed a vague overlordship embodied in some form of alliance. Most of these, too, were stationed up in Oudh, or in the distant Carnatic, and recently he had had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for troops to make up Colonel Wesley's force that was mustering at Madras for the expedition to Manila. The only unit he could offer, which could be on the way in forty-eight hours, was a squadron of hussars from the Headquarter's garrison. Neither artillery nor British infantry could be made available under a fornight, as both would have to be composite units formed from details got together in the depots.

Roger's choice, therefore, lay in either taking the cavalry only, with which he could rejoin Gunston in a week, or waiting for at least a fortnight, then making a slower march at the pace of the infantry, which meant that the best part of a month must elapse before he could hope to rescue Clarissa. As cavalry was the arm Gunston had said he needed above all else, and Roger still had faith in Rai-ul-daula bringing the greater part of the Bahna army over to them as soon as the British appeared in front of the city, he hesitated hardly a moment before deciding to make do with the hussars.

Knowing that Calcutta must by now be humming with the news of his return and a fresh wave of speculation about Clarissa's disappearance, he felt it would be highly embarrassing to meet their acquaintances; so he made only one visit, which was to his old friends the Beaumonts, and poured his woes into their sympathetic ears. Moreover, the idea of returning for two nights to his own house, where he had known so much joy with Clarissa, was intolerable to him; so he rode out there only to give Chudda Gya a month's wages for the servants,
then went to cover for the rest of the time in the mansion of the ever-hospitable Hickey.

Early on the Wednesday, still a prey to great anxiety about Clarissa, but physically again in good shape after his two days of recuperation, he set off with the squadron of hussars. They were commanded by a Captain of near his own age, named Philip Laker; a short, dark, good-looking young man, with the typical slightly bow-legged swagger of a cavalry officer. From the start they took a liking to one another and, as Roger trotted once more across the long dusty plain, with its endless vistas of ryots cultivating their fields, humped oxen drawing high-wheeled carts and women with bundles on their heads, he told Laker the whole story of his involvement with the abominable Malderini.

As the pace had to be kept down to one which would not tire unduly the least good mounts of the squadron, instead of making the journey, as Roger had, in little over two days, it took four; so it was in the mid-morning of Sunday that they came in sight of the camp outside Bamanghati. Much to Roger's surprise, he saw that only a remnant of it remained, and it was obvious that the greater part of Gunston's force had vacated it. A quarter of an hour later, an Ensign who had been left in charge of the sick and stores told him that the Colonel had received an urgent despatch on Thursday evening and set off in the direction of Bahna early on Friday morning.

Roger had known that Gunston would receive his new orders from Sir John Shore several days before he could rejoin him, but had not expected him to move off before he had received his reinforcements. However, that he had done so now appeared all to the good, as Laker's hussars could make the march through the hills much faster than Gunston's sepoys and artillery; so, by the latter having moved up to an advance base, a day would be gained.

As the midday heats were now increasing with the advance of spring, the track through the mountains would from ten o'clock onwards be sizzling with heat, and the glare on the bare rocks most tiring to the men; so Roger and Laker decided to rest the squadron at Gunston's old camp that afternoon, then break the back of the thirty miles they had to go by a night march. By dawn on Monday they reached the lower slopes on the far side of the range, but were much surprised to find no signs of Gunston's advance base there.

After a two-hour halt for the men to have a meal, they
moved on down into the plain. Three miles farther on they got their first distant sight of the city; but they had to ride another two before they came upon one of Gunston's pickets. A sepoy then led them along a track through a wood to a great sprawling collection of buildings the size of a hamlet, but in one irregular mass, instead of being dotted about. It was a typical dwelling under the Indian patriarchal system, by which one family, often of as many as a hundred people, all lived and farmed together.

The sound of hoof-beats brought Gunston out from the doorway of one of the larger buildings and, with a wave to Roger, he cried, ‘Well, I never expected to see you back so soon; but I suppose you were too impatient to wait for infantry and guns.'

‘That's so,' Roger replied, dismounting; and, after he had introduced Laker, he went on, ‘For my part I never expected to find that you had left your camp; much less that you would have advanced so near the city. They can't possibly fail to know you are here, and that will have given them time to prepare to resist us.'

Gunston shrugged. ‘Of course they know. Old man Shore's despatch was perfectly clear. I was ordered to demand payment of the money and the return of Mrs. Brook, coupled with the threat that in the event of a refusal I would come and get them. As the Rajah had already refused to pay up when I sent to demand the money three weeks or more ago, the only chance of making him change his mind was by a display of force. It has not come off, though. I sent Captain Jeckles in yesterday morning. All he got was a flat refusal, and not long after his return the Rajah's army began to pour out of the city in battle array. Naturally I made no move to attack, and nor did they. But they have come out again this morning. Come up to the roof and have a look at them.'

Much perturbed, Roger followed Gunston inside, up a rickety stairway and out onto the flat roof. The sight that met his eyes shook him badly. On the far side of a shallow stream, not much more than a mile away, the Bahna army had taken up its battle positions. Gunston had placed its strength at four thousand, and it certainly could not have been less. Great groups of white-clad figures, their spears and scimitars glinting in the sun, sat cross-legged on the ground. In the centre were a score of elephants, the howdahs on them full of men with long-barrelled muskets. On each wing there were bodies of several
hundred horsemen, and with them were war chariots mounting pennants that fluttered in the breeze.

‘Fine spectacle, isn't it?' remarked Gunston. ‘And one can't doubt that the Rajah is spoiling for a fight.'

‘It certainly looks like it,' Roger agreed glumly. ‘However, I have faith in Rai-ul-daula. I am certain he means to bring the bulk of the army over to us.'

Gunston shook his head. ‘No; there's now no hope of that. I sent him a letter by Jeckles; and it seems the result was unfortunate.'

‘What's that you say?' Roger exclaimed. ‘D'you mean you compromised him?'

‘Well, perhaps. I don't really know. My letter may have had nothing to do with it. But last night we captured a merchant who was leaving the city. On questioning him we learned that, soon after Jeckles had left, the Wazier was relieved of his office and Malderini appointed in his place.'

‘Oh why, in God's name, did you…' Roger broke off with a groan. ‘Still, it's no good crying over spilt milk. Our best plan now, then, is an attempt to surprise them by a night attack.'

‘That's it,' Gunston agreed. ‘When do you expect your infantry and the guns to come up?'

Roger turned to stare at him. ‘I … I thought … surely I made it clear that the squadron was the only reinforcement immediately available, and you said you needed cavalry above all else. To wait while other troops were mustered in the depots would have meant that we could do nothing for the best part of a month.'

Gunston returned his stare with an angry frown. ‘Then you've made a mess of things. You've lost us three or four days while I send back to the General asking him to put the muster in hand after all.'

‘D'you mean that you'll not attack without more troops?'

‘Have some sense, man!' Gunston snapped, pointing at the Bahna host. ‘I'll not see my men massacred, and I've no mind to commit suicide myself. All we can do now is to retire on the camp at Bamanghati and wait there till Sir Alured has sent up the guns and men for which I asked.'

Roger felt a sudden wave of physical sickness rising in him. It was as though he had received a blow in the stomach; hot saliva welled up in his mouth. He turned his face away to hide the shattering effect that Gunston's words had had upon him. ‘A month,' he was thinking. ‘A month. By the end of it either Clarissa will be dead or her mind unhinged.'

He had never dabbled in magic, but he knew enough of it from hearsay to be aware that magicians regarded certain phases of the moon as more favourable than others for their conjurations, and particularly the full moon. It was eleven nights since he had escaped from Bahna, and the moon had then been in her last quarter. The dark period was now over and the light of the new sickle had silvered the rocky track during part of his ride the previous night; so there was at least a week to go before it would reach full. He tried to force from his mind the sickening possibility that Malderini might consider the dark period more suitable for his dark ceremony, and so have already performed it. The dreadful fact with which he was now faced was that in the next twenty-eight days the moon would have passed through all her phases; so by refusing to act for a month Gunston was, in effect, declaring that Clarissa must be sacrificed.

For a moment he considered accusing Gunston of cowardice and calling him out. But Gunston, as the commander of a force in the field, could quite properly refuse to fight a duel until the campaign was over. If he waived that right, did fight and was killed, that would bring the rescue of Clarissa no nearer. Besides, it was not cowardice to refuse to pit his troops against such greatly superior forces now that there was no longer any
possibility of Rai-ul-daula's bringing over a great part of the enemy.

It was on that, above all, that Roger had been counting. Fighting down his sick anger and striving to keep his voice steady, he asked: ‘What on earth possessed you to send a letter to the Wazier?'

Gunston looked at him in surprise. ‘You told me he was for us; so I was hoping to get speech with him. If he had slipped out of the city and come here last night, we could have concocted a plan. Given a definite assurance of his help, I would have attacked this morning, and…'

‘But damn it, man! When I implored you ten days ago to bring your force up to Bahna, you said you'd not undertake an attack without reinforcements.'

‘You forget that I was then under orders not to attack in any circumstances. Old Shore's new instructions; created a very different situation. If, having talked with the Wazier personally, I'd felt I could trust him, I'd have gone ahead, and might by this morning be in Bahna.'

‘What did you put in your letter to him?'

‘Seeing that he is your friend, I made use of your name. I said only that you were in a great state of anxiety about Mrs. Brook and, should His Highness not see his way to handing her over immediately, I'd count it a civil act if he'd send someone here to report on her state of health to you personally—hoping, of course, that he'd take the hint and come himself.'

‘And he was given this at the same time as the Rajah was handed your ultimatum?'

‘Why, yes. Jeckles had no opportunity of seeing him alone. His sudden downfall may have been from some quite other cause. I only suspect the letter because Jeckles told me later that no sooner had he given it to him than the Venetian demanded a sight of it; then the two of them began to yammer at one another in some heathen tongue. Yet there was nought in it that could fairly be said to compromise him.'

‘Not in so many words, perhaps; but Malderini possesses psychic qualities that render him doubly dangerous. I would to God you had left well alone and awaited my return.'

Gunston gave an abrupt, unpleasant laugh. ‘I see now how the land lies. You'd rather have your wife left longer than need be in the clutches of these devils than be deprived of the credit of rescuing her yourself.'

‘Longer than need be!' Roger took him up with sudden fury.

‘That comes well from you, who declare that she must be left to her fate for another month.'

‘Had you brought me the redcoats and the guns…'

‘Had you not bungled our present chances…'

‘I acted for the best!'

‘You acted like a fool!'

‘By God, I've a mind to call you out for that!'

‘At your service! Any time you wish!'

All memory that they had buried the hatchet only ten days before now gone from their minds, the two old enemies stood glaring at one another. But, after a moment, Roger gave a weary shrug.