The Sabre's Edge (26 page)

Hervey closed his eyes. There was not a sound but for a hoopoe and its mate in the garden beyond his shuttered window. They brought to mind Chintalpore again. How long ago it seemed. Was it seven, eight years? He remembered telling the rajah how he wished one day to entertain him in England. Had he really imagined that he might? Or was it that everything was lived so intensely in India? Could he go back there? It would be easy enough - one of the Calcutta coasters down to the Godavari, thence by budgerow as far as he might up that disobliging river, and on to Chintalpore. Godaji Rao Sundur, Rajah of Chintalpore - Hervey was, after all, one of his
jagirdars
,
and his jagir returned a respectable income each year, not all of which was covenanted to the widows of those desperate days' fighting the nizam's guns and the Pindarees. Would the raj kumari be purged of her crimes? Would her father have recalled her from deep in the forest of the Gonds? Or did she scheme and plot still - so reckless a daughter of so sensible a man? Did he really want to see her again? In one respect at least he had no doubt, for even as he lay, her allure had its effect.

At seven, the sun on the horizon and the heat of the afternoon given way to a balmy dusk, Hervey put on the green robe that the bearer had brought him and joined Sir David Ochterlony in his Mughal courtyard. With the resident was a tall, well-made native man, clean-shaven, with sleek hair drawn back and held with a clip. He wore a loose-fitting kurta, white trousers and embroidered slippers, and he spoke freely and easily.

'Hervey, this is Jaswant Sing, my master of horse. And this,' said Sir David, turning to the man, 'is Captain Hervey of His Majesty's Sixth Light Dragoons, who, as of this afternoon, is captain of my escort.'

They both bowed.

'What are your horses, Captain Hervey?' asked Jaswant Sing, with a warm aspect.

'Marwaris, for the most part.'

Jaswant Sing inclined his head in a way that signified approval. 'And you yourself ride the Marwari?'

'I have a charger brought with me from England, but my second is a Marwari, though she is not with me for the present, having been sick.'

'And the Marwari pleases you, Captain Hervey?'

'Oh yes. Yes indeed. I have never seen a better doer' (Hervey checked himself), 'that is, I have never seen a horse that subsisted on so little, and is yet so handy and obliging.' It was too early to volunteer information about the Marwari's endurance in his jungle raid, however.

'The Marwari is from Rajpootana, Captain Hervey, which is my home. If your duties are allowing, I should be very pleased to show you the breeding horses there.'

'If my duties were to allow it, Jaswant Sing-sahib, I should like that very much.' He would leave it at that, for he did not imagine Sir David would be inclined to spare him too soon, if at all.

Sir David
was attentive, however. 'One of
Rajpootana's neighbours gives me considerable cause for worry, Hervey. I am frankly fearful of a struggle over the succession in Bhurtpore.'

Hervey was surprised by such frankness in their present company.

'You will not know of it, I dare say?'

'I know but a very little, Sir David.'

'Nothing much troubles Fort William but the war with Ava, I suppose. Well, the Rajah of Bhurtpore, Baldeo Sing, has long honoured the treaty of friendship with the Company. He is now becoming frail, and his son Balwant is but a boy, and the rajah is fearful that his nephew Durjan Sal has designs on the succession. The old rajah asked that I invest the boy with a
khelat
- a sort of honorary dress - as a sign of our recognition of his rightful claim, and this I did in the early part of the year.'

Sir David beckoned his khansamah and told him that he wished to eat at once.

Hervey decided he would not wait on Sir David's pace. 'And I presume therefore, sir, that you have intelligence that this action has not entirely dissuaded Durjan Sal from his designs?'

'Just so, Hervey,' replied the resident, in an approving tone. 'And everything that we know of him says he is without scruple.'

'Jhauts,' said Jaswant Sing, shaking his head. 'They are stubborn beggars.'

Sir David nodded. 'But when they're not being stubborn, Hervey, they're the most courageous men. In our service they would make fine
sipahis
.
I had a mind to visit the rajah now that the cooler season will soon be upon us, for I was not able to invest the
khelat
in person. I judged it appropriate to go with an escort of King's cavalry rather than native, for Durjan Sal would no doubt believe it possible to buy off any native troops, and it would be well to remind him that not all of the Company's forces are engaged with the King of Ava.'

'You mean as a portent, Sir David? I have but fifty dragoons.'

'Yes, just so. Now, let us eat.'

Two weeks passed, during which Hervey saw little of Sir David but much of Jaswant Sing. The resident was sick for several days - he ascribed it to the change of season - and then when he was recovered enough to attend to his papers, was much occupied with the estimates which were overdue for submission to Calcutta. So Hervey found time aplenty to learn the Rajpoot way of horsemanship, and his neglect of the troop - or rather his delegation of day-to-day command to his lieutenant - he was able to justify by these equestrian studies.

'That 'orse got ginger up its backside, sir?' called Private Johnson, standing at the edge of the maidan one morning.

Hervey sat astride a Marwari stallion which was pirouetting and leaping as if being backed for the first time. He managed to collect it, after a fashion, and walked him over to his groom. 'I'll have you know that this animal is trained for war, Johnson. For combat with war elephants indeed!' 'Oh ay, sir?'

'Yes. And very handy he is too, for all the fire you saw in him.' Hervey made to stretch his shoulder, to relieve the ache that had been growing since he took the reins, but he stopped short. He would give no sign, even to Johnson, that he could feel the musket ball's force still.

'And 'ow's 'e fight an elephant then, sir? 'E'd not stand as 'igh as its ear.'

'
He
doesn't do the fighting; the rider does. He gets the horse to leap up and takes the mahout in the flank with his lance. Then he can deal with the howdah.'

Johnson looked sceptical.

'I'll show you what he can do.' Hervey gathered up the reins again, though nothing like as taut as he would normally for proper collection.

Indeed, the reins themselves were unusual. They were stitched double towards the end, and Hervey held this doubled length, close to its fork, in his bridle hand and almost to his chest. It showed a long and graceful length such that his childhood riding master would have admired. But that old
rittmeister
would also have been intrigued, for Hervey was not wearing spurs, nor was he carrying a whip. Johnson could scarcely believe it either.

'The weight of the reins collects him onto the bit,' explained Hervey. 'I don't know how or why, for I've never heard of an animal trained so. In truth, I'd not have been inclined to believe it.'

After circling two or three times at a canter, he put the stallion into a pirouette, then into a reversed pirouette, then into what he knew as
'
voltes
on a small compass', stopping on the hocks and turning on them, and from that he had the horse jump into the gallop. Finally, and still at the gallop, he made the animal move obliquely, as Peto would have made headway with a weather helm.

Johnson stood silent but impressed. These were 'tricks' of self-evident utility in the field. It was not difficult to imagine the lance held across the body or out wide, the horse passaging left or right to take the enemy in the flank.

But Hervey had not finished. There were what his old
rittmeister
called the airs above ground. Jaswant Sing had shown him how to perform them, though in truth, as well Hervey knew, all he had done was show him how to sit a horse that knew its airs.

First a
levade
,
the horse rising on its hind legs, hocks almost on the ground. Then forward from the levade a
courbette,
with three distinct leaps -or was it four? And finally the
capriole
,
the stallion leaping into the air and kicking out long with its hind legs. Jaswant Sing had called it
udaang
- flying.

'You see?' called Hervey, panting almost as much as the horse as he walked him over to where Johnson stood - and rubbing his shoulder now, and more confidently, for he knew that to work like that meant he was all but whole again. 'You see how useful
that
could be!'

There was no doubting it. 'That were a vicious kick all right,' said his groom, shaking his head. 'I've never seen owt like it.'

'You see now how useful for elephant-fighting?'

'Oh ay, sir. Yon 'orse looked as if it would've scrambled up its 'ead.'

'That was the idea,' said Hervey, slipping from the saddle and loosening the girth. 'But all that's over with - elephants and the like. Just a pretty display now. Think how you might turn heads with it in England though, eh?'

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

TOWERS OF SILENCE

Bhurtpore, a month later

H

ervey sat on the crumbling wall of an old well, in a large straw hat and very unmilitary clothes, sketching. 'Sir David Ochterlony makes but one stipulation,' he had written to Emma's husband, before leaving Dehli:

He would have me do more than merely gawp at the walls of Bhurtpore; he would have me bring back a thorough knowledge of all its defences. And all this, of course, I am to accomplish without for a moment giving cause for anyone to know what I do in that city. To what end this spying may be directed I can little imagine, except that Sir David speaks darkly of the need, perhaps, of such information in years soon to come. At first I imagined him to mean that he himself, Sir David Ochterlony, might have to do what Lord Lake had been unable to accomplish. But although I believe Sir David to be game for the hardiest adventure still, I am certain he understands the circumstances would be no more favourable now than they were for Lord Lake. I have read much of his lordship's siege, and I cannot imagine that success could be accomplished with fewer men and guns, and Sir David does not have one half of Lord Lake's force at his own disposal. I believe, therefore, that Sir David would put before the Council in Calcutta a proposal for the stronger reinforcement of his command were it ever to come to a fight, and that meanwhile he is taking all prudent steps to acquire intelligence of any nature. He does not confirm me in this opinion when I ask him, but he does not oppose it either . . .

Hervey was not by any reckoning an artist, but he had been taught to draw, and his practice in field sketching in the Peninsula had made him proficient in the reproduction of landscape with correct proportion and perspective. For several days he had wandered about the city drawing anything he could see which was of no military significance in order to establish his credentials as a travelling antiquarian. No one had shown the slightest interest in him, but he had wanted an alibi - a portfolio of architectural drawings that would serve as evidence of his innocent intent when he began work on the defences.

One sketch he had been especially minded to hide, however. Its subject appalled him - sickened him indeed. He had scarcely been able to keep down his gorge as he drew. And it took him longer to complete than some of the more elaborate works of decorative detail, for he had wanted as faithful an impression as possible; one that might have the same effect on a viewer that the archetype had on him. It had been a repetitive work, a business of drawing skull after skull. He had tried to estimate how many there were: the column was as tall as Trajan's in Rome, and his guide had said it was neither hollow nor filled with sand. Here was no bas-relief of bones, but a solid pillar of Lord Lake's dead. No Christian burial or cremation according to native rites for these men - King's and sepoys alike. The gamekeepers at Longleat would string up their trophies to discourage predators and to impress by their zeal. The Futtah Bourge, the 'bastion of victory', was but the same. How loathsome it stood by comparison with that eloquent commemoration of Trajan's victory, an affront to every decent instinct of a Christian-raised man, and a gesture of contempt for the customs of war. Peaceful Hindoostan might be, but a sight such as this said that peace was an unnatural thing. Hervey considered it well that he concealed his sketch, and thought it best that he hide it from view of his fellows too.

This next stage of his work occupied him a full week. 'The fortress of Bhurtpore is without doubt the largest I have ever seen,' he wrote to Eyre Somervile towards the end of October: