‘I am a man under authority; I am not responsible for the orders given me.’
She sighed, and put a hand on his. ‘Oh, Matthew; of course you’re not responsible. But I don’t trust these Whigs. They make all sorts of mischief and absolve themselves because it serves a higher principle, they say. And Somervile will be of no help because he too will have gone.’
Kezia was beginning to sound like Henrietta: anxious for his reputation, ambitious for his advancement, mistrustful of any who might do him down – and he loved her even more for it.
But he smiled, intending to reassure her that she need have no fear in that regard. ‘You’ll recall that Bentinck’s a Whig himself. We might reasonably suppose continuity therefore.’
Kezia said nothing. She’d said enough. She knew her husband to be a reflective man. It was sufficient now to plant the question in his mind, for him to contemplate during quiet moments in the coming months, of which there must surely be some?
And there was the reassurance that Georgiana would be with him, a present reminder (and, of course, Annie must go with her). There was also the chance that St Alban would notice and reciprocate her admiration.
Part Two
* * *
THE NORTHERN CIRCARS
XI
Ghufoor Khan
The road to Chintalpore, eight weeks later
Fairbrother was not to be discouraged. In the course of November he’d tramped the road from Guntoor to Sthambadree, and beyond to the border with Chintal, then back again via Bezwada to the east, three times – seven hundred miles in all, perhaps, trailing his coat in the red earth, hazarding the ferries on the Krishna and a dozen other rivers of this vast plain in the hope of tempting thuggee. Not just any band, however: Sleeman’s intelligence was, if not precise, very definite. The man they sought was known to all as Arjan Brar, ‘the last of the Pindarees’, the freebooting horsemen of the Maratha wars, though Brar himself was reputed to be of a noble Jat family. But Sleeman said he’d welcome any encounter with thugs – of course – for there was always the possibility that one of the captives would turn approver, with information that would lead them to their prize. This was how he’d come to know of Arjan Brar in the first place, for four years ago he’d captured the infamous ‘Feringhee’ and turned him approver. It was, he said, like taking the plan of a maze: where before, all he’d seen as he tried to find the route to the middle were high hedges, with Feringhee’s collaboration he now knew his way about blindfold. But there was, he said, another maze – perhaps even two – connected in some way with the first, and for this, Feringhee had told him, he needed Arjan Brar. For Brar was key to the secrets of thuggee in Mysore.
At least the heat now was bearable, even at midday. Indeed, in another few weeks they’d need a blanket at night. But the country was without feature or charm – except the rivers – so that he spent as much time gazing at the sky as the ground. Such an abundance of avians there was too – gaudier than at the Cape or in Jamaica, or for that matter any other place he’d been. Bigger, too – the kites and crows, even; and the bustard. These were his consolations in the weeks of tramping the dusty roads. The collector at Guntoor, Somervile’s old post, had given him an excellent rahbar (guide), who knew also what the birds were, if not always their English names. It passed the hours pleasantly, and Fairbrother was ever curious. As long as none of the travellers they encountered heard them speaking English, there was no danger in it. They were in all other respects convincing enough, just ten of them, dressed respectably but not showily, walking by the bullock cart or riding ponies – exactly as the sahoukars did. Fairbrother called his party the live-bait troop.
Yet so far there’d not been a single bite. No other party of travellers had seemed in the least wanting to combine with them. None had even fallen in with them for a mile or two, though there were comings and goings enough. Each night, it was true, they’d put up at some resthouse, or even a corner of a village maidan – where a thug wouldn’t risk prying and where they could mount a good watch – but, he trusted, not so as to give away their game.
He’d certainly chosen his party with especial care. He was strange to the country and would not risk what he might at the Cape. He had with him as covermen two dragoons whom Armstrong had particularly recommended: good, active corporals whose complexion was sallow enough to escape interest, especially with a prodigious growth of beard. Sleeman had also sent him one of his best approvers, who could recognize fifty thugs known to be active in the Circars in the past five years. A ‘half-cast baboo’, one of Somervile’s best writers, was his interpreter. He it was who’d speak for ‘my master’ to any they encountered, a not-unusual practice, Sleeman said, despite the tendency for rank to count less on the road. His syce was industrious, a Tamul whom the RM had proposed (and Sammy had seconded), and the other servants had proved reliable, too, especially the langree. Half the reason, he was sure, was that money was no object, as Somervile had assured him. (The Secret Fund was, it seemed, almost infinite.)
Most industrious of all was his ‘bearer’ – Private Askew, whom St Alban had assigned to him in open arrest. With no ship bound for Australia in many months, Armstrong had said he was damned if he’d let a man idle away his time – even on constant fatigues – while others sweated in the field, and St Alban had agreed. Besides, there was just the possibility that Askew might further redeem himself, and the transportation be commuted therefore. ‘The performance of a duty of honour or of trust, after the knowledge of an offence committed by a soldier, ought to convey a pardon for the offence’, the Duke of Wellington had written, which, though he now held no official position, was good enough for any officer.
The sun stood a hand’s span above the horizon; it was time to make camp, although Fairbrother had hoped to reach Mattapallee that evening, five miles distant. Knowing the road as they did, however, it would be enough to find a place to bed down. In the next village there was more than one good billet, and he decided to send the baboo ahead with Corporal Smale to make arrangements. If there were any need to exchange words between now and reaching the village he’d rely on the approver or the rahbar. He didn’t entirely trust the approver – how could he? – but one false move and he’d put a bullet in him without hesitation, which he’d had the baboo tell him in no uncertain terms before they’d set a single foot on the road. And if for any reason he wasn’t able to keep his word, then Corporal Smale – or else Corporal Spence (another of the roughriders) – was to carry out the sentence. The approver – Banji Lal – had shown no terror at the threat, and Fairbrother had concluded that either he was a man of honour, if of a peculiar kind, or else wholly possessed of the Hindoo’s fatalism. Whatever it was, Banji Lal had so far been an exemplary support.
The baboo found them comfortable quarters in what until lately had been a police post but was now in the care of an enterprising old sipahi. They were in the Nizam’s territory, although there was no customs house until Mattapallee and the ferry on the Krishna, for the road from the border led only there. It made no difference to Fairbrother’s method, except that if they came to call on the police for help they would have to do so as travellers, and thereby take their luck, rather than within the presidency as agents of the government and therefore able to command assistance.
Not that he expected to have need. Indeed, he intended to rest himself and his party well here, for after crossing the Krishna they’d have to be doubly vigilant. It was a stretch of road that had apparently seen many murders, and if Sleeman and his predictive system was right, there must surely be one if not two thug bands active now between there and the crossing into Chintal.
And restful this place would certainly be for the night. Fairbrother even had his own room, with a door he could bar and a window likewise.
They’d not been long there, however, the sun not yet quite set, when they had a visitor – visitors. There were always visitors, as this evening, but always intent on selling them something. This particular one, olde
r than most and carrying just a basket of dried coconut, told the baboo when the other sellers were out of earshot that he wished to speak to the huzoor.
The baboo scolded him, telling him he’d get no more money for his coconut than offered, but the man spoke softly and said he wished to tell the huzoor something to his advantage: ‘I am a poor but honest farmer. I was one time a sipahi in the army of the Angreze.’
The baboo went to tell Fairbrother, finding him in the courtyard with Spence and Smale drinking boiled milk.
Two former sipahees – first their landlord and now this fruit-seller. Fairbrother was intrigued. This was good fortune, truly. Or did they all say they’d served when they thought they were in the presence of Company men?
‘Bring him here, baboo-sahib, but not a word of English, mind.’ He nodded to the corporals, who came and sat close.
The baboo brought the sometime sepoy to the presence. ‘Tell the huzoor what it is you have to say, sipahi.’
The man made namaskar. ‘Sahibs, you are sahoukars, I think, with much gold and rubies. I have seen you pass by three times since the last moon. Today I overhear bad men speak of robbing you. Sahibs, I am poor farmer, with much debt. I wish only to help. I wish that bad men be punished and honest men like you and me live in contentment.’
Fairbrother listened keenly. He understood just a few words, but his intention was to suggest the opposite. When the man finally stopped – he spoke for some time – the baboo looked at ‘the huzoor’ for a sign. Fairbrother nodded slowly, giving the impression he was weighing the words, then rose and went to a corner of the courtyard with the baboo.
‘He says a party claiming to be pilgrims intends joining with you tomorrow at the ferry, and accompanying you on the road to Chintal, and when it is night falling upon you to take the gold and jewels, and that there will by then be thirty of them, so that they will overwhelm you before you can defend yourselves. They will send lughaees ahead to dig a great pit into which they will cast the bodies, near a place they have used many times before for murder.’
‘Ripe intelligence, baboo-sahib. You trust him?’
‘I believe I do, Captain-sahib. How could his telling us help the thugs in any way? He says he knows where is their camp tonight, but says it would be unwise to move against them, for there will be little moon and the place is set about with bamboo.’
Fairbrother cursed. His instinct was to do just that – turn the tables on them before even the tables were laid, so to speak. That was certainly what his good friend – Hervey – would have done. But he didn’t underestimate the hazards, nor overestimate his advantage; to start with, this little purana sipahi might be cunning, tempting him to try by urging him not to.
‘Do we suppose that Banji Lal would recognize these men? We can’t presume to. We’ll need this old soldier to point them out at the ferry, shall we not, for each time we’ve crossed there’ve been many hundreds waiting. I’d want to take their leaders as soon as possible. Did he offer to identify them to us? Did he name his price?’
‘He asked for fifty sicca rupees, sahib.’
It was a monstrous sum: and sicca rupees – gold. It was more than he could possibly be in debt for, unless his standing was much greater than appeared.
Yet it was reasonable enough as a measure of a seth’s – a rich man’s – or a sahoukar’s life and the treasure they must be carrying. Besides, Fairbrother admired the man’s pluck, for one way or another it was his forfeit life that was the stake.
‘Very well. Tell him I’ll pay twenty at once, and the rest when he’s marked the ringleaders at Mattapallee. Have him come back when the sun’s up.’
Next morning the old sipahi rose with the larks, the chandools. They were in good voice, too, so that even in the village Fairbrother heard them. They sounded as they did at the Cape, and in Jamaica, and he wondered how it was that birds sang the same in places so far from each other, yet here a man might go a dozen miles and hear so many languages, each strange to the other. Would it even matter if anyone heard them speaking English; for would they recognize it as English? But their business was discipline, especially now that, at last, the mahseer seemed to be rising to the bait.
Breaking camp was by now a practised affair. They were up, breakfasted and on the move in an hour. They saw no one on the road but the odd bhisti carrying water to the fields for the ryots who’d been up since dawn to till the red earth in their unhurried way. It reminded him of the plantations at home, although here there was no overseer with them.
They reached Mattapallee in an hour and a half. It was not a large place by presidency standards, but because of the ferry there were many more people than its size suggested. On both sides of the river there was a crowd waiting to cross: a hundred, perhaps more, mainly men, and their impedimenta – bullock carts, packhorses and the like – and importuned by every sort of vendor. The Krishna here was three hundred yards wide, at least, but sluggish enough to permit a raft to be roped across by hand. How many could safely be taken aboard was a question Fairbrother had pondered the first time he came here, and was a question still. It looked haphazard in the extreme.
There was no order to the crowd – no system, no queue. He’d seen before how those with the means might be first rather than last. The baboo said there were men who earned a living by never themselves crossing but crowding the landing and taking baksheesh to make way for those willing to pay. But Fairbrother was in no hurry to cross. Rather, he was keen to see the men who would waylay him. So they bought fruit, found a little shade, and settled down to wait.
They were not long at rest when the old sipahi suddenly became agitated. ‘There, in yellow dhoti kurta: he is man who I hear say will rob sahoukars.’
The baboo whispered it in Fairbrother’s ear.
Fairbrother tried to take the measure of him, a man of his own height and build, perhaps even of his age, with the appearance of rank and respectability. He could certainly pass for a pilgrim, although the half-dozen or so with him were less refined looking.
What to do – wait for him to make his approach? What if his design, though, was to wait until they’d crossed, away from the police and customs men?
Suddenly, Banji Lal himself became animated. ‘Huzoor, that man, the one in yellow kurta, I know him. He is Ghufoor Khan. He is thug of great reputation. If he see me, all is lost.’
Fairbrother had always supposed this might happen, Banji Lal recognized and the game then up. His plan had been to have one of the corporals bundle him away until the threat was past or they’d made their move and taken the thug. Here, though, it would split their little party if he himself was then to cross the river (and he hadn’t the men to risk that). But he could hardly cast Banji Lal adrift. The approver was one of Sleeman’s best, and besides, he still couldn’t entirely trust him.
But he must act fast, both to preserve their disguise and to take their man. It wasn’t Arjan Brar, Sleeman’s prize, but Banji Lal made him sound almost as good as.
‘Tell him to get into the bullock cart and pretend a fever, baboo-sahib.’
He got hold of the corporals – Askew too – and pointed out Ghufoor Khan. ‘Pistols primed. We’re going to make our crossing, and if we’re followed we’ll move at once to take him. If luck goes with us, it may be the end of our work.’
The ferry was mid-stream. They hadn’t long to get through the press of people, therefore, but Fairbrother reckoned it might work to their advantage, for the hubbub would surely draw in the Khan. He paid off the old sipahi, then told the baboo to ease their way through the crowd with handsome quantities of coin, if necessary telling people of the fevered passenger in the bullock cart. (He reckoned, too, that Ghufoor Khan might think it a ruse to protect the gold and rubies they were carrying.)
Corporal Spence led the way, roughly pushing aside vendors, travellers and placeholders alike, for as soon as the baboo produced the coin, the press became greater. It worked though: by the time the ferry touched the bank they were at the rams
hackle pier, with no one in front of them. Close behind, however, and Fairbrother smiled to himself in satisfaction, was Ghufoor Khan.
But now he would have to separate him from the rest of his thugs. Thirty would be altogether too many to manage, even with a pistol at their leader’s head.
‘Tell the ferryman that only our party is to cross – tell him of the fever – and offer him gold enough that he doesn’t think twice about it.’
‘Accha, sahib.’
The ferry was heavy-laden. It would take many minutes for its cargo to shuffle off, and in that time the baboo ought to be able to complete the transaction. Fairbrother tried to see without looking how many were in Ghufoor Khan’s immediate party. He seemed to be talking to two, but in the press behind him there could be any number.
He’d have to be bold. When the Khan importuned the ferryman to let him on, he’d tell him he wanted no more than three, for the sake of his fevered brother.
As soon as the raft was lashed to the pier, baboo-sahib pushed aboard to harangue the ferryman. He asked how much he’d taken for the crossing from the other side. The man was reluctant to say – who knew whether he was indeed a traveller, or a tax inspector? – so the baboo tried the more costly tack: ‘The huzoor will double the sum!’
The ferryman thought for a moment, then came up with a patently inflated figure. There was no time to bargain, however; and besides, reckoned baboo-sahib, the man would be so surprised that he’d be even more eager (no small thing when the crowd were told they’d have to wait another hour and more).
The Tigress of Mysore Page 13