The Queen's Tiger

by Peter Watt

  About The Queen’s Tiger

  Peter Watt brings to the fore all the passion, adventure and white-knuckle battle scenes that made his beloved Duffy and Macintosh novels so popular.

  It is 1857. Colonial India is a simmering volcano of nationalism about to erupt. Army surgeon Peter Campbell and his wife Alice, in India on their honeymoon, have no idea that they are about to be swept up in the chaos.

  Ian Steele, known to all as Captain Samuel Forbes, is fighting for Queen and country in Persia. A world away, the real Samuel Forbes is planning to return to London – with potentially disastrous consequences for Samuel and Ian both.

  Then Ian is posted to India, but not before a brief return to England and a reunion with the woman he loves. In India he renews his friendship with Peter Campbell, and discovers that Alice has taken on a most unlikely role. Together they face the enemy and the terrible deprivations and savagery of war – and then Ian receives news from London that crushes all his hopes . . .

  ‘Watt once again takes the reader on a terrific character-driven adventure’ Canberra Weekly

  Contents

  About The Queen’s Tiger

  Title page

  Contents

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Epilogue

  Author Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About Peter Watt

  Also by Peter Watt

  Excerpts from emails sent to Peter Watt

  Digital imprint page

  For my wonderful wife, Naomi.

  Prologue

  The Bengali Dry Season

  India, 1857

  Mrs Alice Campbell, née Forbes, the bride of Dr Peter Campbell, Canadian citizen and former surgeon to the British army in the Crimean War, marvelled at the exotic lands she and her husband had passed through on their journey to visit Peter’s brother. They had arrived by ship in the Bay of Bengal and travelled up the River Ganges delta to Murshidabad in the Bengal Presidency of north-eastern India. Here Major Scott Campbell had a posting with British East India Company and, according to Peter, had become more British than Canadian.

  The British here certainly knew how to hold a ball, thought Alice, looking around her. She and Peter had only arrived in Bengal this morning and already they had found themselves invited to a magnificent ball held for the expatriates of the region – senior civil servants and officers of the East India Company. Great fans moved the hot evening air around the candle-lit ballroom, which was alive with the colourful uniforms of the officers and the glittering jewellery of their ladies. Scattered around the room were Indian servants wearing smart uniforms, and on a dais a regimental band played dance music.

  Peter wore a dinner suit and Alice an off-the-shoulder silk gown, although little in the way of jewellery. Major Scott Campbell was taller and more broad-shouldered than his surgeon brother and cut a dashing figure in his cavalry dress uniform. He strode towards them holding out two crystal coupes of champagne.

  ‘Here, Mrs Campbell. Old chap,’ he said, passing the champagne first to his sister-in-law and then to his brother. ‘Welcome to India.’

  Alice and Peter had met with him that morning when he had escorted them to quarters in his villa. The newlywed couple had been welcomed by a staff of Indian servants, both male and female, dressed in traditional clothing.

  ‘So, my little brother saw action in the Crimea,’ Scott said, taking a flute from a passing Indian servant circulating amongst the guests. ‘You will have to tell me all about your experiences. Damned long time since we fought a war with a European nation. Not since Napoleon.’

  ‘Not much to tell,’ Peter said, sipping the chilled champagne. ‘Just the usual – men dying in agony and calling out for their mothers as they did so.’ It was obvious that Peter did not wish to remember the horrors he had encountered on his operating table, usually an improvised kitchen tabletop.

  ‘I can see that you were able to marry the most beautiful woman in England,’ Scott said with a glint in his eye and a broad smile that made Alice feel as if his compliment was almost a challenge to his younger brother. Peter was nearing thirty and clean-shaven with short hair, whilst his brother, a couple of years older, had a thick black beard and moustache. Scott was single, but Alice guessed he could have any single – or married – woman in the room if he chose.

  ‘Thank you for the compliment, Major Campbell,’ Alice replied.

  ‘You must call me Scott – after all, we are family,’ he said, clinking his glass against hers.

  ‘Sir,’ a young officer interrupted, ‘I must apologise but the colonel wishes you to read this despatch from Berhampore barracks.’

  Scott took the sheet of paper and read it with a frown. He passed the communiqué back to the young officer.

  ‘You look concerned,’ Peter said.

  ‘It is nothing to be too worried about,’ Scott replied. ‘Just notice that our sepoys at the barracks have refused to attend musketry practice at the range there.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ Alice asked.

  ‘It is the new Enfield rifles,’ Scott replied. ‘The sepoys have to bite off the end of the paper cartridge case to load the powder into the barrel. There are wild rumours circulating that the paper is greased with pig fat, which is not acceptable to our Moslem soldiers, and Hindu soldiers have been told that the cartridges are covered in beef fat, and that is not acceptable to them. We suspect that the rumours are being circulated by nefarious types who would like to see a rebellion against us in order to seize power for themselves.’

  ‘Well, it is their country,’ Alice said, and both men looked at her as if she had suddenly used a profanity in the company of the Queen.

  ‘I am afraid that the Indians are like squabbling children,’ Scott said. ‘They are not a united people. The Moslems and Hindus will kill each other at the drop of a hat, and the Sikhs are no better. They need us to keep them from slaughtering each other. At least my men are loyal to Her Majesty the Queen and not to some foolish idea of independence.’

  ‘You might require the services of the British navy and army here,’ Peter said cautiously.

  ‘The East India Company has conquered and controlled this great subcontinent without any assistance from England,’ Scott said. ‘The matter at Berhampore will be rectified in due course and things will get back to normal.
By the way,’ he continued, changing the subject, ‘some of us from the regiment are planning a tiger hunt in a few days and I would like to invite you and Alice as my guests. We shoot from elephants.’

  ‘I would very much like to join the hunt,’ Alice said. ‘I think it would be thrilling to ride on the back of an elephant.’

  ‘Good show,’ Scott said without asking his brother’s opinion.

  The band struck up a waltz and Peter swept Alice onto the floor to join the swirl of sweating faces.

  But beyond the extravagance of colonial India and the ballroom, a simmering volcano of nationalism was about to erupt and swamp the Indian subcontinent in a fire from hell.

  Part One

  Persia and India, 1857

  One

  It was a typical day in the life of a soldier in Queen Victoria’s army.

  The rain pelted down as Ian Steele, known to all as Captain Samuel Forbes, led his company of riflemen through the mud and sand of the desolate lands of the ancient terrain of Persia.

  Ian bore a remarkable resemblance to the man whose identity he had assumed. In his early thirties, he was in fact more strongly built than the real Samuel Forbes – a legacy of his days as a blacksmith in the colony of New South Wales. The secret pact between English aristocrat, Forbes, and colonial blacksmith, Steele, had been forged for mutually beneficial reasons and had to be maintained for at least another seven years.

  Leading the force Ian was part of, which comprised five thousand British troops and artillery guns, was the competent English lieutenant-general, James Outram.

  The march had commenced in the filthy, disease-ridden Persian coastal town of Bushehr, captured the previous year by British forces. Their mission had been to attack the Persian army entrenched in its position forty-six miles from the ancient town of Bushehr, but the enemy had fled before the British artillery, rifled muskets and bayonets, leaving its military camp intact.

  It had been one of Captain Steele’s valued men, Corporal Owen Williams, who had discovered the small but valuable hoard of gold hidden under a carpet in a Persian commander’s tent. Without any of his fellow soldiers observing, he had pocketed the coins which would later be divided equally between himself, his commanding officer and his best friend, Sergeant Conan Curry.

  After a couple of days, everything else of worth from the captured Persian camp was packed for removal back to Bushehr, then enemy ammunition was destroyed in a massive explosion.

  The night was dark and bleak as the British force marched. Sergeant Conan Curry strode easily beside Captain Samuel Forbes. A special bond had been forged between officer and non-commissioned soldiers on the bloody battlefields of Crimea only months earlier, but there was more to this relationship than that. Sergeant Curry knew the real identity of his commanding officer and it was a secret Curry had sworn he’d keep till the grave. Strangely, Conan Curry had once been Ian’s best friend. They had grown up together in the shadow of the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, but their paths had separated when Conan had chosen an indolent life of easy money with a few of the bad apples of their village. They had come together again a world away, in England.

  Ian had been able to have Conan attached to his company as acting sergeant major, whilst the third member of their trio, Corporal Owen Williams, remained with a platoon commanded by the brother of a close friend, Captain Miles Sinclair, who had been killed in the Crimean campaign. The young platoon commander, Lieutenant Henry Sinclair, was barely seventeen years of age and this was his first taste of war. Ian had asked Owen to keep an eye on the young officer and quietly guide him in his role.

  ‘A bit bloody disappointing the Persians did not put up a reasonable fight,’ Conan growled.

  ‘They call themselves Iranians,’ Ian said. ‘Iran is the ancient name for this part of the Persian empire.’

  Conan accepted this correction without question as he knew how knowledgeable Ian was about history. However, he was less interested in the name of their enemy than in the reason for their flight. The new Enfield rifled musket he carried was changing the nature of battle. The Enfield had great range and accuracy, whilst the old muskets their enemy carried required close-range volley fire to be effective. No doubt knowing they were outgunned had factored into the Persians’ – Iranians’ – decision to flee rather than fight.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know why we are in this godforsaken Musulman country,’ Conan said as the rain drenched him to the bone.

  ‘The old story, Sergeant,’ Ian sighed. ‘We are here to keep the Muscovites from extending their influence into India. For years the Tsar has been encouraging the Persians against us. Now we are taking a stand.’

  Ian was about to give a short history to his acting sergeant major when shots interrupted him. The shots were coming out of the darkness at the rear of their column. The order to form a square was given and Ian ensured that his company fell in with the rest of the regiment. He was aware that two-thirds of his men were raw recruits out of the London barracks and hoped his veteran non-commissioned officers would steady them in the confusion of this unexpected event.

  Ian took up a position in the front ranks of his soldiers. He knew the primary role of the British officer was to lead his men by personal example. Ian was armed with a rifle like his men, but also carried two loaded heavy-calibre revolvers in his waistband. He had found them far more effective than the sword at his waist, which denoted his rank as an officer of Queen Victoria.

  Ian was crouched on one knee when he became aware that a man on a horse had just galloped past their front.

  ‘That’s the general!’ Conan exclaimed. ‘The silly bugger will get himself killed out there.’

  Ian agreed and wondered why General Outram would do such a foolish thing as to detach himself from the defensive square in the dark.

  ‘Mr Upton, you are to take command,’ Ian yelled to a nearby officer.

  He leapt to his feet and Conan followed him without question. They moved quickly in the direction the general had taken and eventually, somewhere ahead of them – Ian calculated it to be about a hundred yards away – they heard a horse whinny in pain.

  Both men raised their rifles, surging forward to a small clearing amongst the desert scrub to see the vague shape of a horse down, its rider trapped beneath.

  ‘I think it is the general,’ Conan whispered. Both men could barely make out the downed horse with their night vision at its most acute.

  ‘Over there!’ Ian hissed. ‘Figures moving around. They have to be Persians.’

  Conan raised his rifle, not bothering to make an attempt to sight but firing blindly in the direction of the moving men. Ian removed his pistols and delivered a withering volley that seemed to scatter whoever was trying to encircle the downed horse and rider. The Persian soldiers quickly disappeared, probably unaware of the importance of the man they had attempted to kill or capture.

  ‘Who is out there?’ General Outram called as he brought his downed horse to its feet and remounted.

  ‘Captain Forbes and Sergeant Curry, sir,’ Ian called back. ‘Are you injured?’

  ‘Just my pride,’ replied the English general, bringing his mount under control. ‘I thank you, Captain Forbes and Sergeant Curry.’ With that, he spurred his horse back to the British lines, leaving Ian and Conan to follow.

  Ian resumed command of his men. They waited out the night and when the sun rose on another day of miserable, sleeting rain, they saw the Shah’s Persian army formed into infantry squares to engage the Anglo-Indian force.

  Ian glanced up and down the front rank of his men and could see little fear in the faces of his new recruits, both young and old, as they gripped their Enfield rifled muskets. Ian sensed that they had confidence in their training and their modern weapons. He had issued orders to his platoon commanders to ensure that the powder for the rifles was not damp and the soldiers had recharged with fresh powder. The P
ersians were wary and remaining a safe distance from the deadly accurate long-range fire of the British rifles.

  ‘It’s going to be the job of the cavalry to break the Persian square,’ Conan said to Ian who was kneeling, using his rifle as a support.

  ‘Very impressive, Sergeant Curry,’ Ian grinned. ‘We will make a soldier of you yet.’

  Conan smiled. ‘But not an officer.’

  Even as they looked on they could hear the jangle of cavalry bridles, and Ian’s men raised a hoorah from the ranks when they observed the Bombay Light Cavalry form their squadrons to charge the Persian square. The cavalrymen broke into a canter, then a full gallop, charging the Persians to Ian’s company’s front. It was a thrilling sight emphasised by the thundering hooves of the warhorses. The Indian unit smashed into the Persian ranks, wielding heavy sabres, slashing and stabbing with the fury of men possessed. Dust rose in swirling clouds, partially obscuring the desperate clash, but within minutes the Indian horse soldiers rode out of the melee with uniforms covered in the blood of the Persians. It was all over in mere minutes. Seven hundred of the enemy lay dead, and Outram’s force was able to capture a hundred prisoners and two of the enemy’s guns. Ian could hear the disappointed grumbles of his own company, as they’d had little to do with the victory at what would later be called the Battle of Khushab. Still, he knew it would not be the last bloody engagement in this campaign.

  ‘The colonel wishes to see you, sir,’ said a junior staff officer from regimental headquarters.

  Ian followed the young officer back to the rear where he saw the man he most despised in the world, Colonel Clive Jenkins. His commanding officer had originally served as a lieutenant in Ian’s company before being rapidly promoted thanks to his highly placed social contacts and family fortune. Ian had witnessed Jenkins’ craven cowardice in the face of fire during the Crimean War and knew he was incompetent to lead soldiers. Jenkins hated Ian for this knowledge and had placed him in almost suicidal situations in Crimea.