The Sabre's Edge (50 page)

Emma nodded to the khansamah for the soup to be brought.

'Now,' continued Somervile, draining his first glass of hock faster than Emma's glance suggested approval of. 'Laying this matter to one side for the moment, what have you decided about the appointment to Combermere's staff?'

Hervey raised his eyebrows. 'I am offered a brevet - a lieutenant-colonel's brevet, I mean. I can hardly decline the promotion.'

'Excellent!'

Emma smiled too. 'And my congratulations, Matthew! Lieutenant-colonel - it sounds exactly
comme il
faut
,
and very deserving, I'm sure.'

'Thank you. Thank you both,' said Hervey smiling, but not as fully.

'You have some reservations?' asked Emma.

He did not answer. Indeed he did have reservations, though they were not easily put. He was thirty-five years old (his birthday had been but a few days ago, unobserved except in the bibi khana, to where he had escaped for a few hours of forgetfulness) and the proprietor of a troop. Who would salute his prospects if he did not take the brevet? And yet . . .

'Matthew?'

'Oh, I . . . the regiment is recalled to England, don't you know. We learned it only today.'

'Ah, I see.' Emma glanced at her husband. The news seemed not to disappoint them both as much as it might.

'I, too,' replied Somervile, half-emptying his refilled glass. 'Not recalled as such . . .'

'Eyre has been invited to join the Court of Directors,' Emma explained.

Hervey did now smile without reserve. 'That is capital news, is it not? My congratulations to you too!'

Somervile nodded. 'Capital indeed. And yet I am in two minds. I have spent so long in the Indies.'

'I think, Matthew,' said Emma, glancing at her husband again, 'that Eyre believes that if you take the position here with Lord Combermere, his own choice will be the easier.'

Somervile said nothing.

'A really very agreeable thought,' replied Hervey, much heartened. 'Though I fail to see how my being Lord Combermere's military secretary should facilitate your business with the Governor-General and the council.'

Hervey's reply presumed which decision it would be, but Somervile was not minded to observe on it. 'Just wait until you have seen the workings of Fort William, my good friend. Then you will understand.'

The prospect sounded not altogether inviting.

'So you see, Matthew,' said Emma, laying a hand on his. 'You shall make the choice between you.'

Next day at ten o'clock, Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Joynson, Brevet-Major Hervey and Captains Strickland and Rose stepped down from the regimental caleche at the residence of the Governor-General. They wore levee dress and together presented a picture of the utmost smartness, as was their intention in order to display their greatest respects.

Lord Amherst's major-domo showed them into a sitting room hung with bright Indian silks, and Sir Ivo's widow entered soon afterwards with a female companion some years her senior. The officers bowed, as one, and Lady Lankester curtsied.

'Permit me to introduce myself, Lady Lankester,' said Joynson stepping forward. 'I am Eustace Joynson, your late husband's major. May I present, also, Major Hervey, Captains Strickland and Rose.'

Each nodded in turn.

'Gentlemen,' she said by reply, softly.

Hervey observed a beautiful woman, for all her mourning weeds. Neither did the pain of her loss line her face excessively, so that she appeared no older than the twenty-five years which Emma Somervile had asserted. But the reason for her delaying passage home was easily apparent. To a skilled observer her complexion told, and to one less so the swelling at her skirts. Hervey had known of it, through Emma, and had told the others. Nevertheless, the appearance of widow with child was more a trial than any of them had expected. Lady Lankester was now, if not before, 'on the strength'.

Three weeks later, on a bright, hopeful spring morning, Emma Somervile walked the Sixth's lines with Hervey, probing him for some intimation of his decision on the appointment to Combermere's staff.

'I think Joynson is of a mind to q
uit India sooner than I thought’
he said at length, as if it had some special bearing.

'I believe I may know why.'

^‘
Oh?'

Trances. I spoke with Eyre about her only a little time before you all returned. I do believe she will very soon make a spectacle of herself.
More
,
for she has in truth made herself so on several occasions. It was a blessing when the army left for Bhurtpore.'

'I feel very sorry for him. There's no word yet from the Horse Guards about whether the regiment can be his.'

'And your own decision will be consequent on learning it?'

'I'm bound to say that it could. I'm being pressed almost daily by Lord Combermere's military secretary for an answer.'

'You surely cannot turn down promotion, Matthew?'

He smiled. 'Do you want me to say "yes" so that Eyre might take his post in London with ease?'

Emma squeezed his arm. 'I confess I do not know what would be the right course for Eyre. I myself have no very great inclination to return to England, and Eyre is so very suffused by all that there is in this land that I fear he might decline in spirits. You know, Matthew, he prizes your society greatly. I do believe that whatever your decision now, his would be to do likewise.' She laid a hand to his arm. 'And I should be very happy too if that were so.'

Hervey was greatly touched by the continuing evidence of his friends' affection. But he was as yet unable to give any undertaking. 'Well, I may tell you that I must give an answer to the military secretary within the week. But I tell you, Emma, I have scarcely ever found a decision so troublesome.'

Emma simply raised an eyebrow and inclined her head, a gesture to say she understood perfectly but could be of no help.

'But how is Somervile today?' asked Hervey, determined now to be bright. 'In good spirits, I trust. Shall he dine with us in mess, as we arranged?'

Emma brightened too. 'Oh, he is in excellent spirits, though he is angered by the commander-in-chief.'

'Combermere? How so?'

'He had a letter this morning from Sir Charles Metcalfe, who complains that the prize agents are appropriating property by rights the rajah's. He says it's little better than outright theft.'

Hervey sighed. He had imagined it might be so, though he supposed it was nothing entirely new. 'And the bulk of it, I fear, will find its way down the throat, though the widows will be glad of their share.'

Serjeant-Major Armstrong stepped from the forage store as they drew parallel. He saluted and hailed them in a model combination of propriety and familiarity.

'Mr Armstrong, I am sorry we have not met since your return,' said Emma, beaming wide. 'Let me shake your hand. I am all admiration for your exploits. The whole of Calcutta is!'

Armstrong glanced at Hervey, who nodded. 'Ah,
them
exploits, ma'am!'

'I believe Mrs Armstrong may have told me of the others, Serjeant-Major,' replied Emma, with just the right note of mystery.

'Well, ma'am, it felt queer to be on me hands and knees again after all these years, but it worked in the end.'

'And I hope it is rightly esteemed.' Emma looked at Hervey.

Armstrong had no doubt of it, however. 'It is indeed, ma'am. Advanced in seniority and service by three years no less. As I was saying to Mr Hairsine, I'm only a molehill from being RSM.'

Emma smiled again, and turned to her companion. 'Are there moles in India, do you know, Major Hervey?'

On the Saturday morning following, after the customary weekly parade, Hervey sat down at his desk in regimental headquarters and began at last to compose his letter to Lord Combermere's military secretary: 'Sir, I have the honour to . . .'

The clerk had lit a fire, but Hervey did not expect the letter would take him many minutes to draft.

He was scarcely begun when a red-faced Joynson marched in and began angrily waving a sheet of paper in front of him.
^‘
Look! Unspeakable! Infamous!'

Hervey could not suppose what on earth might bring so equable a man to such a rage. He stood up, took the sheet and began to read. There were a good many words, and figures, before he came to the offending ones. 'I cannot believe it!'

'Hah! My thoughts too. Read on!'

Hervey continued to the second page. 'I am astonished. Wholly dismayed,' he said, shaking his head, still half incredulous.

'Is this what we were about at Bhurtpore, then?' Joynson sounded like a man betrayed.
^c
Is this what Armstrong risked making a widow with three orphans for? And Lankester?'

On the other side of the door to the orderly room, Private Johnson's ear was pressed as close to the keyhole as it could get. 'What's it about, Smithy?' he said quietly, turning to the clerk behind him.

The clerk frowned. 'It's about the prize money. An order's come. It says what the Company will pay us.'

"Ow much do we get?'

'You and me get forty siccas.'

'It's better than nowt. What's wrong wi' Major 'Ervey and t'colonel?'

'I think it's because it says Lord Combermere's going to take all his share.'

'That's not right. Everybody knows that's not right! 'E ought to give 'alf of it to us!'

Private Johnson pressed his ear to the door again, straining hard to make out what else was to come.

Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Joynson took up the order and began looking at the figures again. 'It's plunder, Hervey - plunder, pure and simple. As I recall, Cornwallis gave away half his share after Seringapatam. That's the
way.
^’

'
All
of it,' Hervey corrected. 'He gave away every last rupee.'

Joynson threw down the orders contemptuously. 'I have a mind to make protest. Do you suppose there is anyone with honour left in Calcutta to take note?'

Hervey shook his head slowly, without a word. Then he picked up his sheet of writing paper and tore it in half. 'Eustace, my mind is now made up. I stay with the regiment.'

THE END

HISTORICAL AFTERNOTE

T
he Burme
se war dragged on until the end
of Febru
ary 1826, with Campbell's force
getting within fifty miles of Ava before King Bagyidaw conceded defeat. Of the 3,
5
00 British troops who originally landed at Rangoon, only a couple of hundred survived the campaign. All but 1
’
0 or so died from disease and sickness rather than by the enemy's hand. The sepoys fared little better, twelve thousand of the twenty-seven thousand who eventually landed at Rangoon failing to return. It was, simply, the worst-managed campaign in the long history of the British army.

Maha Bundula deserves further mention. He was, even allowing for the generally atrocious quality of his peers, a very fine commander. His feats of forced marching through jungle and swamp in the midst of the monsoon were remarkable. He had a shrewd mind too. He early came to the conclusion that the British could not be beaten: they could deploy more troops in both Arakan and Burma itself then he could possibly counter, and he

was quick to recognize their technical superiority as well. On first encountering the explosive shell he is said to have gone into deep meditation for a whole day. When he realized that Bagyidaw would not sue for peace, he put himself in the front line and openly courted death. He was killed by a rocket in April 182
5
, and from then on both Bagyidaw's and the army's spirit seem to have ebbed.

The controversy over the Bhurtpore prize money was very real. Lord Combermere was held in high regard for his Peninsular record and for his determined conduct of the siege - he had to be physically restrained from taking part in the final assault - but there was first a widespread belief that the army had looted Bhurtpore rather than merely taking the legitimate spoils of war. And then the news that Combermere would retain all his share - close on £60,000 - provoked almost universal disgust when a private soldier received £4 and a sepoy half of that.