by Ruskin Bond
Strange Men Strange Places
Copyright © Ruskin Bond 1992
First in Rupa Paperback 1992
Seventh Impression 2010
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To the memory of my father
who, when I was a small boy, led me by the
hand up the steps of old forts and palaces,
these memorials of forgotten
men and places
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The chapters on Gardner, Skinner and de Boigne first appeared as articles the author wrote for The Illustrated Weekly of India. Most of the material in the other chapters has been used by him in articles for The Hindu, The Hindustan Times, Hindusthan Standard, The Statesman, The Tribune, The Deccan Herald, and The Mirror.
The author is grateful to the editors of these publications for first printing these articles.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Preface
Pistols at Twenty Paces : A Duel at Poona
Colonel Gardner and the Princess of Cambay
The Lady of Sardhana
A Gentle Adventurer
The Company's Wines
Skinner and His Yellow Boys
The Story of "Bombay Church"
A Great Soldier : Benoit de Boigne
The Romance of the Mail Runner
Zoffany's Last Supper
Claude Mai tine : A Frenchman at the Court of Oudh
The Story of a Hill Station
A Hill Station's Vintage Murders
The Tomb and City of Tughlaq Shah
The Story of Karnal
An English Jester at the Moghul Court
Gems from a Bygone Age
Glories of the Hookah
Grandfather's Earthquake
Kipling's Simla
Bibliography
PREFACE
Professional historians will, I hope, forgive this intrusion into their domain by a mere story-teller. But so little has been written in recent times about those odd, colourful (and admittedly not very "great") soldiers of fortune — mostly European — who strutted across the Indian subcontinent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that I felt a sort of compulsion to resurrect and retell some of their more glorious (or inglorious) exploits — not so much because their lives throw some light on the times they lived in, and help us to understand manners, morals and values of Europeans and Asians during a period of colonial expansion.
Whatever else they may have been, these adventurers were individualists. They were not fighting for their country, or the East India Company, or even their paymasters — at least, not for long. They were fighting for their own hand, for their own enrichment, for their own greater glory — and sometimes, simply because they liked fighting.
Most of these chapters, together with the few pieces of more general interest, have appeared before — usually in a more condensed form — as articles in various newspapers and periodicals, including The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Sunday Standard, Hindusthan Standard, The Statesman and The Mirror.
The Bibliography at the end gives a list of books I have consulted. Most of these are rare and out of print, and I found many of them not in public libraries, but during diligent searching in secondhand bookshops and private libraries in India.
I have visited most of the places described in this book, and have gone out of my way to see the smaller towns like Sardhana, Karnal, Aligarh and Bharatpur. History is best enjoyed in this way, by visiting the scene of actual events, and allowing one's imagination to roam backwards and forwards in time.
I am grateful to Kewlian Sio for writing to inform me, during the printing of this book, that on a corridor wall of St. Xavier's College in Bombay there is a water colour captioned 'Fr. Wendell receives a purse of money from Reinhard Sumro for enlarging the Jesuit church of Agra in 1772.' This must certainly be Sombre, alias Walter Reinhardt, the husband of Begum Samru.
RB
PISTOLS AT TWENTY PACES:
A DUEL AT POONA
UELS AMONG British officers serving in India were fairly common in the early part of the nineteenth century, but we do not come across many accounts of them, as the penalties for duelling were severe. Such incidents were usually hushed up. And many of the "resignations" and sudden deaths from "cholera" were, in fact, the result of duels.
Perhaps the most tragic of these was the duel that was fought at Poona in June 1842. In that year the 27th Foot (Inniskillings), a North of Ireland regiment, whose officers were all Irish Protestants, was quartered at Poona. It had been some three months since an Irishman named Sarsfield, a mere boy of nineteen, belonging to an old and distinguished Catholic family, had been posted to the regiment. One of his ancestors had been James II's General at the Siege of Londonderry, and such ancestry and religion told against him in a Protestant regiment. His advent was looked upon as an insult to the regiment, and it was decided to make his life so intolerable that he would either resign or ask for a transfer to another regiment.
One night, at the mess, Sarsfield, who had been drinking with the others, questioned a statement made by another officer, and, on being asked by the latter if he thought it was a lie, replied that he did. Immediately the other officer rose, bowed ceremoniously to Sarsfield, and left the mess-room in company with the paymaster. The others followed, leaving Sarsfield, who had a few more drinks before leaving and going home to bed.
At about four in the morning he was aroused by the paymaster, who brought him a challenge, or a demand for an apology. Not realising what he was doing, the young man dazedly signed the document the paymaster gave him, which was an abject apology. The next morning at six he appeared on parade, and, having but the faintest recollection of what had happened, walked up to the group of officers waiting for the parade to be formed. To his cheery good morning they returned a blank and contemptuous stare, and then, each turning on his heel, walked away. To give an apology was considered a most cowardly action.
For the next three months Sarsfield's life was miserable, for he was cut dead by everyone in the garrison. None spoke to him except on a matter of duty, and when he entered the mess, a dead silence fell over the company. The end came after three months, and there can be no doubt that the unfortunate young man was by now half demented.
One night he entered the mess-room, and, as usual, conversation ceased abruptly. There was a vacant seat immediately opposite the paymaster, and this Sarsfield took. By this time the conversation had been resumed, not the slightest notice being taken of him either by word or glance. He was waited upon by the servants just as the others were, and it was only as the table was being cleared for the second course that Sarsfield spoke.
"Will you take wine with me?" he said to the paymaster.
"I do not take wine with a coward,
" was the blunt reply.
"But you will take this?" was Sarsfield's rejoinder, as he dashed his wine-glass and its contents into the paymaster's face.
In a moment all were on their feet, and amidst a roar of voices Sarsfield was pulled out of the mess-room by the doctor.
"You will have to fight now, my boy," said the doctor, more sorrowfully than might have been expected.
"I know," said Sarsfield. "I came for that purpose."
The whole party now proceeded to a garden on the outskirts of the cantonment where such affairs were usually settled. All the preliminaries were quickly arranged, the captain acting as Sarsfield's second. It was a bright moonlit night, and the result was never for a moment in doubt, for the paymaster, at the first exchange of shots, put a bullet through Sarsfield's heart. Sarsfield did not fire. He had made no attempt to discharge his pistol.
The next issue of the Poona Gazette contained the following announcement:
"Suddenly, of cholera, in the officers' line of Her Majesty's 27th Foot, Ensign J.S. Sarsfield."
When an account of the circumstances reached Sarsfield's friends and relatives, a brother arrived at Poona and tried to ascertain the truth. But he could gain nothing more than what the doctor's certificate stated — "death by cholera" — for there was a mutual conspiracy of silence.
COLONEL GARDNER AND
THE PRINCESS OF CAMBAY
F THE MANY diverse Europeans who served in the armies of the Marathas, Colonel William Linnaeus Gardner was perhaps the most romantic and the most likeable. As a soldier he did not lack any of the dash or courage of George Thomas and James Skinner; but he was less flamboyant, a man of education and good taste, and if his life had its dramatic moments it was in spite of, rather than because of, his friendly disposition. His marriage to an Indian princess, though unusual and unorthodox, was an unqualified success.
The Victorian novelist Thackeray used the incidents of Gardner's life in sketching the career of his fictitious Major Gahagan, a swashbuckling character who was given to boasting about his exploits in India. The comparison was unfair, because there was no resemblance in character between the adventurer of fiction and the real man. But novelists are often very cruel, and will sometimes pillory their best friends if it enhances the interest of their work.
William Linnaeus Gardner, born in 1770, was a great-grandson of William Gardner of Coleraine, and a nephew of Alan, first Baron Gardner, an Irish peer and a distinguished Admiral in the British Navy. The boy was educated in France, and at the age of eighteen joined the British Army. In 1796 he landed at Calcutta with a company of the 30th Foot.
After an uneventful six months Gardner resigned his commission. At the time there was a certain amount of discontent among the English officers, some of whom resigned and entered the employment of Indian princes; but with Gardner it was probably just restlessness. He entered the service of Jaswant Rao Holkar, the great Maratha chief, and was one of the few officers who remained faithful to Holkar after the chief had lost his capital of Indore to his rival, Daulat Rao Sindhia. Holkar, finding it politic to come to terms with the British, against whom he had been intriguing for some time, sent Gardner as an emissary to Lord Lake. This was to be the beginning of a hair-raising adventure for Gardner. Many years later, relating his experiences to that indefatigable traveller and diarist, Lady Fanny Parkes, he said:
"One evening, when in Holkar's service, I was employed as an envoy to the Company's forces, with instructions to return within a certain time. My family remained in camp. Suspicion of treachery was caused by my lengthened absence, and accusations were brought forth against me at the durbar held by Holkar on the third day following that on which my presence was expected. I rejoined the camp while the durbar was in progress. On my entrance the Maharajah, in an angry tone, demanded the reason of my delay, which I gave, pointing out the impossibility of a speedier return. Whereupon Holkar exclaimed, in great anger, 'Had you not returned this day I would have levelled the khanats of your tent.' I drew my sword instantly and endeavoured to cut His Highness down, but was prevented by tnose around him; and before they had recovered from the amazement and confusion caused by the attempt, I rushed from the camp, sprang upon my horse, and was soon beyond the reach of recall."
The khanats, which caused so much indignation, were the canvas walls of Gardner's tent, which sheltered his newly-wedded wife, a Mohammedan princess of Cambay. Gardner was obviously head over heels in love with her. The threat of violating her privacy by pulling down her tent was taken by him as a mortal insult, and spurred the impulsive young officer to violent action. Fortunately for Gardner, his friends at the camp enabled his wife to join him afterwards. And Jaswant Rao did not prevent her from going after him: a strange act of generosity on his part, for he was soon afterwards to have all his European officers executed for suspected treachery; but the ways of a powerful Indian prince were unpredictable.
Gardner's marriage must have been one of the most romantic of his times. The marriage was conducted by Mohammedan rites. The lady was a thirteen-year-old princess of the house of Cambay, a state on the western seaboard of India. That engaging nosey-parker, Lady Fanny Parkes, elicited from Gardner this delightful account of his romantic union:
"When a young man, I was entrusted to negotiate a treaty with one of the native princes of Cambay. Durbars and consultations were continually held. During one of the former at which I was present, a curtain near me was gently pulled aside, and I saw, as I thought, the most beautiful black eyes in the world. It was impossible to think of the treaty: those bright and piercing glances, those beautiful dark eyes completely bewildered me.
"I felt flattered that a creature so lovely as she of those deep black, loving eyes should venture to gaze upon me. To what danger might not the veiled beauty be exposed should the movement of the purdah be seen by any of those present at the durbar? On quitting the assembly I discovered that the bright-eyed beauty was the daughter of the prince. At the next durbar my agitation and anxiety were extreme to again behold the bright eyes that haunted my dreams and my thoughts by day. The curtain was again gently waved, and my fate was decided.
"I demanded the princess in marriage. Her relations were at first indignant, and positively refused my proposal. However, on mature deliberation, the ambassador was considered too influential a person to have a request denied, and the hand of the young princess was promised. The preparations for the marriage were carried forward. 'Remember,' said I, 'it will be useless to deceive me. I shall know those eyes again, nor will I marry any other!'
"On the day of the marriage I raised the veil from the countenance of the bride, and in the mirror that was placed between us, in accordance with the Mohammedan wedding ceremony, I beheld the bright eyes that bewildered me. I smiled. The young Begum smiled too."
Gardner was sixty, and his wife living with him, when he gave this account to Lady Fanny; but his romantic ardour and love for his wife had not dimmed with the years. Few husbands, after forty years of marriage, would be as tender.
Gardner's adventures did not end when he fled from Holkar's camp. In his flight he fell into the hands of Amrit Rao, the Peshwa's intriguing brother, who suggested that Gardner enter his service to fight against the British in the Deccan. On Gardner's replying that he was not interested, he was tied to a cot, ready for execution; but as soon as he was unbound and marched off with his guard, he managed to make his escape, and threw himself off a cliff into a stream below, a drop of some fifty feet. He swam downstream until his guard had been eluded, disguised himself as a grass-cutter, and finally — after further wanderings — arrived at the British camp.
General Lake, who was soon to break the Maratha power near Delhi in 1803, gave Gardner a kind reception. Gardner's value and talents were obvious to him, and rather than lose him to another Indian chief, asked him to raise a corps of cavalry under the Company's flag. For its maintenance he was given the estate of Khasganj, in the Etah District of what is now Uttar Pradesh. His corps achie
ved a high reputation and became famous as "Gardner's Horse"; and Khasganj was to become the "country seat" of the heirs to an English Baronetcy.
It was at Khasganj that Gardner was joined by his wife after she left Holkar's camp. It was to be her home for the rest of her life; and in Khasganj — today a small, dusty, undistinguished village — both she and her husband were to die within a few months of each other.
But before retiring into the life of the "country gentleman" on his Khasganj estate, Gardner was to prove more than useful to the British. He had adopted an Indian way of life, he mixed freely with all kinds of Indians from princes and zamindars to poor farmers, soldiers and artisans, and his knowledge and understanding of the Indian character went deeper than any other Englishman's. The British were sensible enough to know the value of such a man; and Gardner was equally at ease in both worlds, and was popular with other British officers. Englishmen had not yet developed that social and moral priggishness which was to become characteristic of the Victorian era. Marrying a Moslem lady did not involve any social taboos, as it would have done fifty years later.
Unfortunately, Hindustan (as northern India was then known) was seething with anarchy: a condition which was "one of the main apologies for the appearance of British aggressiveness in the Indian peninsula". In Central India the Pindari freebooters were causing havoc; Rajputana was being bled to death by the Marathas; Oudh was a comic-opera scene of misgovernment and insecurity.
The beginning of 1814 saw Gardner preparing to enter Nepalese territory "in the peaceful capacity of a hunter and fisher, on a sporting expedition to the Dehra Dun", then held by the Nepalese. Here Gardner found himself in hot water. The Gurkhas had overrun most of Garhwal and Kumaon, including Dehra, and they were naturally resentful of the Englishman's intrusion. Had they been able to get hold of him, he would have been shot as a spy; but the Mahant — the religious leader of a splinter Sikh community — sheltered him and helped him out of the valley.