by Ruskin Bond
War with Nepal came in November of the same year, and the Gurkhas' annexations proved to be their weakness rather than their strength. Gardner had pointed out that with an army of not more than 12,000 men the Gurkhas had to defend a frontier of 700 miles, stretching from Kathmandu, their capital, to Simla on the west. Between lay the beautiful sub-alpine region of Kumaon, its passes and glaciers themselves higher than any European mountains. The many rivers of Kumaon flow east and south until they join the Ganges, and the valleys form natural approaches to the region. On the fertile plateaux and uplands stood the principal Gurkha fort of Almora; but the garrison was weak, its troops were required elsewhere, and Gardner wrote to his superiors recommending its immediate occupation.
In the spring of 1815, while the British were still fumbling in the East and West, the Kumaon hills were invaded by a compact force of light infantry. At the head of his irregulars, Gardner attacked Almora and, though the Gurkhas defended resolutely, stormed the heights and carried the fort.
After more sporadic fighting, the Gurkhas evacuated Kumaon and later gave up their conquests west of the Jumna. After peace was made they became the most valued allies of the British and, together with the Sikhs, formed the hard fighting core of the Indian Army.
Gardner's brief campaign helped bring the Gurkha war to an early close; his conquest of Almora served to divide the Gurkha territories in two, and cut off their supply line. He was as good a negotiator as he was a soldier, and came to a quick understanding with his opponents once the fighting was over. It never took him very long to bridge the gulfs of race and religion.
His conquest of Almora also gave to India the first of her hill stations, where convalescent troops were sent, and civilians retreated to escape the heat of the plains. Later, Landour (Mussoorie), Ranikhet, Simla and Nain. Tal were established. Not only did they become popular health resorts, but they were the centres of government business during the summer months.
In 1817 Gardner's irregular corps was incorporated with the Company's cavalry; from "Gardner's Horse" the name was changed to the 2nd Bengal Cavalry; and it formed the nucleus of the famous Bengal Lancers.
The rest of his life was spent at Khasganj, only sixty miles from Agra. His Begum bore him two sons and a daughter. Each one made an interesting marriage. The eldest, James, married a niece of the Moghul Emperor, Akbar Shah. The younger son, Alan, was married to Bibi Sahiba Hinga, and left two daughters, Susan and Harmizi; the latter was married in 1836 to a relative, William Gardner, a nephew of the second Baron Gardner, and their son, Alan Hyde, succeeded to the title.
Nor did it end there. Alan Hyde Gardner, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, married Jane, daughter of Angam Shekoh, a converted princess of the House of Delhi, and had an heir, Alan Legge, born in 1881. To go any further into this interesting pedigree would only be inviting confusion; but Alan Legge never established his claim to the barony, and though today an heir must exist among the Gardners of Khasganj, the title has been allowed to lapse. Gardner's admirer, Lady Fanny Parkes, has given an interesting pedigree of the family up to 1850, showing the connection by intermarriage between the heirs and descendants of an English barony, the Imperial House of Taimur, the Kings of Oudh and the Princess of the Cambay.
THE LADY OF SARDHANA
HE BUS THAT TOOK US to Sardhana was prehistoric. I do believe it was kept from falling apart by a liberal use of sellotape. The noise and rattle made by its nuts and bolts and shaky chassis reminded me of Kipling's story "The Ship That Found Herself". Every part seemed alive and complaining. The bus conductor found the crank handle under somebody's seat, and, panting and sweating in the sun, kept turning it until, reluctantly, the engine spluttered into life. The bus moved off on its own volition, and the conductor just had time to get on and collect our tickets. Most of the passengers were rural folk, descendants of those Jats and Rohillas who made this fertile Doab region (the Doab is the area between the Ganges and the Jumna) one of the richest granaries of India, only to have it plundered by marauding Marathas, Sikhs and Afghans. They smoked bidis or chewed paan, shooting the coloured spittle out of the open windows; and, seeing my watch, asked me the time every few minutes.
The Sardhana bus stop, when we got to it, was the usual unexciting swamp of churned-up mud, with a tea stall, and several stray dogs and pigs nosing about in a garbage-heap. We hailed a cycle-rickshaw and told the man to take us to the church.
The Sardhana church was built at the expense of the Begum Samru by an Italian architect. Upon her husband's death she had become a devout Catholic, and earned from the Pope the tide of "Joanna Nobilis". The Emperor at Delhi, grateful to her for services rendered in the battle-field, gave her another title: Zeb-un-Nissa, the "Ornament of her Sex". Her life, until she reached old age, was a succession of love affairs, intrigue, and petty warfare. It was never a dull life. She had certain admirable qualities which made her attractive to men. As a young girl, she was beautiful; in middle age, rather plump. She was a courageous woman, and rode into battle at the head of her troops, something which few women have done before or since. But we must begin at the beginning, and in the beginning was Sombre, alias Samru, alias Walter Reinhardt. . . .
Sombre's real name was Walter Reinhardt, but due to a dusky complexion he acquired the name of Sombre, which in Hindustani was soon corrupted to Samru. He was perhaps the most notorious of foreign adventurers, and this notoriety was acquired when he was in the service of the Nawab of Bengal, Kassim Ali, who, warring with the English, had attacked and captured a large number of English residents at Patna, and ordered them to be executed.
None of Kassim's own native officers came forward to undertake this, but Sombre, wishing to ingratiate himself with his new employer, agreed to carry out the execution. Details of the murders are given in the Annual Register:
"Somers invited about forty officers and other gentlemen, who were amongst these unfortunate prisoners, to sup with him on the day he had fixed for the execudon, and when his guests were in full security, protected as they imagined by the laws of hospitality, as well as by the right of prisoners, he ordered the Indians under his command to fall upon them and cut their throats. Even these barbarous soldiers revolted at the orders of this savage European. They refused to obey, and desired that arms should be given to the English, and that they would then engage them. Somers, fixed in his villainy, compelled them with blows and threats to the accomplishment of that odious service. The unfortunate victims, though thus suddenly attacked and wholly unarmed, made a long and brave defence, and with their plates and bottles even killed some of their assailants, but in the end they were all slaughtered.... Proceeding then, with a file of sepoys, to the prison where a number of prisoners then remained, he directed the massacre, and with his own hands assisted in the inhuman slaughter of 148 defenceless Europeans confined within its walls — an appalling act of atrocity that has stamped his name with infamy for ever."
Sombre left Kassim Ali's service before an avenging British army could catch up with him, and by the end of his subsequent career he had served twelve to fourteen masters. He finally tendered his services to Shah Alam, the Emperor of Delhi, who agreed to pay him Rs. 65,000 for his services and those of his two battalions. He remained in the service of the Delhi Court and was assigned a rich jaghir, or estate, at Sardhana, a district forty miles north of the capital, where he built and fortified his headquarters and settled down. He had adopted native dress, and the custom of keeping a harem.
At Sardhana he fell in love with a very beautiful woman. One historian asserts that she was the daughter of a decadent Moghul nobleman, another that she was a Kashmiri dancing girl, and a third that she was a lineal descendant of the Prophet. In due course she became Sombre's Begum. He died at Agra on the fourth of May 1778, aged fifty-eight years; infamous, unloved even by his own followers, but successful to the end.
After his death the command of his troops, their pay and the jagir of Sardhana became the property of his Begum, who, on bei
ng baptized and received into the Roman Catholic faith, was christened "Joanna Nobilis". By means of rare ability and force of character, she proved equal to her responsibilities; but she was unfortunate in her officers. Only the most dissolute had cared to join Sombre, and their conduct often incited the troops to mutiny. She gave the command to a German named Pauly "perhaps because he was a countryman of her husband, but, it has been suggested, for more tender reasons"; Pauly was murdered "by a bloody process" in 1783; and those who succeeded him did not remain long in command.
It was at this time that George Thomas, the Irish freelance, rose to a position of some importance in the army of Begum Samru.
When the Begum saw Thomas, it did not take her long to decide to give him a command. He had the pleasing, honeyed speech of the Irishman; he was tall, handsome, virile; far more attractive physically than most of the Europeans in her service. How could the Begum resist him? For months he would remain her most trusted officer, her lover, and then, seeking some other novelty, she would transfer her affections to another, only appealing to Thomas for help in time of distress.
This arrangement suited Thomas. He was willing to make love to the Begum without making the mistake of falling in love with her. He used her as she used him; but he never betrayed her, as she was often to betray him.
Several years after Thomas had left her service and had established himself at Panipat and Karnal, the Begum Samru, faced with a mutiny, appealed to him for help. She must have known Thomas's character well, for she had only recently raided his territory; any other person would have shown retaliation instead of succour; but when beauty was in distress Thomas always forsook his own interests to become the gallant knight-errant.
The Begum was now forty-five, inclined to plumpness, but her skin was still very smooth and fair, and her eyes "black, large and animated". The trouble at Sardhana had arisen from her having taken a new husband, a Frenchman named Le Vassoult.
Le Vassoult was no friend of Thomas's and had in fact proposed marriage to the Begum earlier, in order to gain an advantage over the Irishman who was then in her service. He was well educated and from an aristocratic family, but aloof by nature and unpopular with his men. A free and easy roisterer like Thomas got more from his troops than the conventional disciplinarian. Both officers and troops resented the fact that Le Vassoult, after his marriage to the Begum, refused to eat with them or treat them as equals; they planned on deposing the Begum and transferring their allegiance to Balthazar Sombre, a debauched son of Sombre by his first wife. This first wife was still alive, and when she died in 1838 she must have been over a hundred years old. (The Sardhana cemetery contains the remains of many centenarians.)
Another officer named Legois, a friend of George Thomas, had tried to dissuade the Begum from raiding Thomas's territory in Hariana, and for this had been badly treated by Le Vassoult. The troops, who had served Legois for a long time, and obviously liked him, broke into mutiny, and the Begum and her husband had no alternative but to try and reach Anupshahr, then the last outpost of British territory in northern India.
The troops had sent for Balthazar Sombre from Delhi. Le Vassoult and the Begum slipped away, but were soon pursued and overtaken. The lovers had agreed that rather than fall into the hands of the mutineers they would first kill themselves. While Le Vassoult, an unimaginative man of honour, was quite serious about this pact, the Begum treated it lightly. On being surrounded, she drew a dagger and made a half-hearted attempt at stabbing herself; but all she did was nick her breast and bespatter her blouse with blood. Le Vassoult was more thorough. On hearing that the Begum was bleeding to death, he drew his pistol, put the muzzle to his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
"The ball passed through his brain, and he sprang from the saddle a full foot in the air, before he fell dead to the ground. His corpse was subjected to every indignity and insult that the gross and bestial imagination of his officers and men could conceive, and left to rot, unburied, on the ground."
However, the Begum did not get off too lightly. She was taken back to Sardhana and chained between two guns, occasionally being placed astride one of them at mid-day, when it was nearly red hot. The only food she received was smuggled to her by her maid-servants. This was the Begum's plight when Thomas, by forced marches, reached Sardhana and quelled the mutiny.
The command of the Begum's force was now given to Colonel Saleur (the only European who could write) and he and the others signed or affixed their seals to a document in which they swore allegiance to their mistress. This was drawn up by a Mohammedan scribe in Persian, and as his religion prevented him from acknowledging Christ as God, the document was superscribed: "In the name of God, and of His Majesty Christ!"
In 1803, after the British had defeated the Marathas, and established themselves in Hindustan (then the name for most of northern India) the Begum submitted to General Lake near Agra. James Skinner, the famous Eurasian adventurer, left a description of her meeting with the General: "When the Begum came in person to pay her respects to General Lake, an incident occurred of a curious and characteristic description. She arrived at headquarters just after dinner, and being carried in her palanquin at once to the reception tent, the General came out to meet and receive her. As the adhesion of every petty chieftain was, in those days, of consequence, Lord Lake was not a little pleased at the early demonstration of the Begum's loyalty, and being a little elevated by the wine which had just been drunk, he forgot the novel circumstance of its being a native female, instead of some well-bearded chief, so he gallantly advanced, and, to the utter dismay of her attendants, took her in his arms and kissed her. The mistake might have been awkward, but the lady's presence of mind put all right. Receiving courteously the proferred attention, she turned calmly around to her astonished attendants and observed, 'It is the salute of a priest to his daughter'."
When the Begum accepted British protection, her income increased, and she disbanded most of her troops. Bishop Heber saw her in 1825 and described her as a "very queer looking old woman, with brilliant but wicked eyes, and the remains of beauty in her features".
She became very rich and philanthropic. She sent the Pope at Rome Rs. 150,000, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rs. 50,000. She built a church at Meerut — less pretentious but more handsome than the one at Sardhana — where the Roman Catholic bishop was an Italian named Julius Caesar. At Meerut she often entertained Governors-General and Commanders-in-Chief, and when she died in 1836, at the age of ninety, she left behind a fortune of £700,000 and an immense army of pensioners.
The Sardhana church hasn't changed much over the years. The dome is nobly proportioned, but the twin spires on either side somehow spoil the effect. They are not spires actually, but pyramidal structures that serve no purpose, aesthetic or practical. The interior of the church is handsome, and has several new additions; but the centre of interest are the eleven life-size statues and three panels in bas-relief. This marble monument is the work of an Italian sculptor, Adamo Tadolini of Bologna. The Begum in her rich dress is seated on a chair of state holding in her right hand a folded scroll, the Emperor's firman conferring on her the Jagir of Sardhana. On her right stands Dyce Sombre, her step-son, and on her left Dewan Rae Singh, her Minister. Immediately behind are Bishop Julius Caesar and Innayat Ullah. her commandant of cavalry.
Of the three panels one represents an incident in the consecration of the church when she presented rich vestments to the Bishop (these are still in existence). The other panel shows the Begum holding a durbar, surrounded by European officers; and the third shows the Begum mounted on an elephant in triumphant procession.
We felt like intruders, our footsteps resounding in the silent church, and we did not stay long. There was nothing else to see except the Begum's palace, now a school, and a few old houses and graves. The spirit of the Begum's time has left Sardhana, and it is just another district town, hot and dusty and malarious. It is difficult to believe that there was drama here once, intrigue, battle and romance. The pla
ce is a backwater, cut off somehow from the mainstream of life. A few nuns pass through the church cloisters, and a bullock-cart trundles along the road. The fields are waterlogged.
We went away before sunset, afraid that if we stayed too long we might meet the ghost of a queer-looking old woman with brilliant and wicked eyes, lurking in the mango-grove near the church.
A GENTLE ADVENTURER
HE SECOND HALF of the eighteenth century in India was a period of anarchy and confusion. The Moghul Empire was rapidly disintegrating; the old and blind Emperor at Delhi owed his throne to the Marathas, who controlled most of northern India; the Sikhs and Rohillas worried Delhi from the north; and in the south and east the British were steadily expanding their territory. It was a period of lawlessness, when individual men rose to positions of great power, and freebooters and adventurers made themselves rich. There were many European adventurers who served Marathas or Jats or Moghuls. Most of them were deserters — crude, avaricious, without scruple; but there was one, forgotten today, who was not only a soldier but a gentle dreamer.
It is to Colonel Tod, author of The Annals of Rajasthan, that we owe what information we have about Thomas Legge. It was to Tod's tent in the Rajasthan desert that the tired, wounded adventurer found his way.
Legge was a native of northern Ireland. He was wild in his youth and, running away from home, joined the Swallow, a sloop of war bound for Madras. Arriving in India, he deserted his ship (this was the accepted procedure for a young man who sought his fortune abroad) and tramped all the way to Hyderabad, in Sind, a distance of some two thousand miles, supporting himself on the way by begging. This was about 1775.