The Sabre's Edge mh-5

by Allan Mallinson

  Rose now rejoined them. He agreed it was an affair of redcoats, with little they themselves could do. Instead they would explore: if the other breaches and escalades had been successful, there ought now to be attempts on the stronghold from a number of directions.

  'South, I think, towards the Agra gate,' said Hervey. 'That's where General Adams's brigade should enter.'

  Armstrong shouted for McCarthy and a couple of the volunteers from B Troop to join them, and they slipped away down one of the narrow streets running parallel to the citadel, not quite at the double, but breaking into a jog-trot here and there when it seemed right.

  They saw no one at first, either alive or dead. The havelis must be empty, thought Hervey - and thank God, too, knowing what might happen. And then, round a corner, they ran into the pitiful flotsam of any siege. Half a dozen women, children in hand, some with babes in arm, were evidently trying to flee the place that had sheltered them during the bombardment. They were young women - girls, some of them - handsome, dressed well. Their fate in even the best-regulated siege would be uncertain.

  'Christ!' spluttered Hervey. 'What in God's name do they think they're doing? Get inside!' he shouted, gesturing with his sword.

  They were now terror-struck.

  Armstrong and McCarthy ran forward, taking off their shakos and making a show of courtesy. It seemed to work. The party started back indoors. Armstrong made a sign to them to draw the bolts and hide themselves.

  Hervey saw their chowkidar trying to slink away, and tried to make the same reassuring gestures as Armstrong. Then he had a suspicion - just something in the man's look. He took a step towards him and the man turned to run. He followed - not long - and then it was out. There was the Khombeer gate, and before it was Durjan Sal - there could be no doubt. He had just paused long enough to collect his zenana, and now he would make his escape. Hervey could have spat with contempt as he thought of the men left to fight and die, ignorant of their prince's craven course.

  One of the spearmen turned his horse and ran at him. Hervey raised his pistol and waited for the certainty of hitting, but a shot from behind brought his adversary down instead. He glanced round, to see Corporal Wainwright already reloading his carbine. And there were Armstrong, McCarthy and the two B-Troop men.

  The carbines brought down three more before the gates swung open and Durjan Sal and his coterie - it looked like fifty - dashed for their freedom.

  Hervey rushed for the nearest horse, a stallion that defied its gender by standing still. He sheathed his sabre and vaulted into the saddle, turned quickly to see how many would be with him, then kicked hard, for he wore no spurs.

  The guards were too slow. They tried to close the gates and bring him down, but two well-aimed shots from the B-Troop men set them to ground, while Armstrong and Wainwright began a struggle to unseat two of the rearguard.

  Hervey met a ragged fusillade outside, which stopped as quickly as it began, and then cheering as the sepoy picket realized their mistake.

  He kicked on for all he was worth, the stallion flattening into an easy gallop.

  He glanced behind as he began to narrow the lead. Armstrong was following, half a furlong, and he guessed the other was Wainwright.

  He kicked and kicked. The stallion lengthened more and was fair eating the ground. Hervey's only thought now was to finish the business of Bhurtpore once and for all, to take the usurper himself and put an end to his insolence. But Durjan Sal had fifty horsemen about him - more, perhaps, for some were joining him from the little jungled patches that dotted this side of the plain. Hervey knew he could not overpower so many, even with Armstrong and Wainwright at his side. What could he do?

  Now they changed direction, to make for the scrubby dhak half a mile in front of the Anah gate.

  He would lose them there, and all hope of ending the affair decisively.

  The sepoy picket before the gate volleyed as best they could, but the target was hopelessly beyond range. Durjan Sal's ardour was checked, though. The party slowed just a little, seeming to hesitate over direction, before deciding to make for the dhak after all. But half a dozen of the escort now detached themselves to form front against their pursuer.

  Hervey saw he could not evade them. He glanced back again: Armstrong and Wainwright would be up with him in less than a minute. But he couldn't wait that long: Durjan Sal would escape into the dhak, and—

  Three of the Jhauts sprang to a gallop and made straight for him. He drew his sabre and brought it up to the guard: he wanted nothing so much as to get by them and on to the others - Armstrong and Wainwright could deal with them as they turned after him.

  As they closed, Hervey flattened, and screwed up his face waiting for the passing cut. The three Jhauts lost nerve, however, opened too far to let him through, and the nearest misjudged the timing of the backwards cut.

  Missed by a mile, thought Hervey. Would his luck hold?

  There were four now, barring his way. Another hundred yards - what would they do? Then he saw their pistols rise as one.

  At a dozen lengths they volleyed. He felt the ball strike. The stallion squealed but hardly checked before Hervey himself reined him in. He couldn't afford to stumble at that speed.

  Two tulwars met him, fearsome-looking blades and wielded skilfully, the other two fallen back in echelon behind. These were men who could fight as a team. Hervey knew he had but an instant to judge his manoeuvre.

  He put the stallion in a line for the further two, to pass just right of the nearer pair - a desperate evasion, since they would be on him at once from the rear as the second pair engaged him. But a few strides short he pulled the reins up and left, but loose, across the stallion's neck, in the Rajpoot manner, and pressed his right leg as firmly as he could behind the girth. The native saddle, with neither tree nor flaps, gave him more leg than usual, in closer contact with the horse's flank as if riding bareback, and the stallion responded at once, passaging left extravagantly to career into the closer Jhaut's nearside.

  The tulwar came too late into the guard, and instead the man took the point of Hervey's blade in the shoulder. The Jhaut's horse turned on its quarters in response to the unintentional rein and collided with the second horse, giving Hervey precious seconds to deal with the other pair.

  He loosed the reins and squeezed with his legs, and the stallion leapt forward like a cat to meet the first opponent on the nearside again, the other man masked on the off. The Jhaut, surprised by the length and direction of the leap, failed to get his guard in place quickly enough, and 'Cut One’ all but severed his bridle arm.

  Hervey pressed the stallion on, but the horse faltered, then stumbled, throwing him forward. He swung his sabre left and rear instinctively to 'Bridle Arm Protect’. The Jhaut cut too soon, and the tulwar struck the sabre with only a few inches of blade; but his horse had more impulsion, and the tulwar carried down from the sabre onto Hervey's shoulder. He felt the blow, but the mail stopped the blade, and he was able to slice the back of the Jhaut's neck with Cut Two as the man overran.

  Then his stallion stumbled a second time, the forelegs folding, and fell dead, throwing him hard to the ground, but clear. He heard a shot -Armstrong serving notice with his pistol at a hundred yards - and scrambled for the protection of his downed horse.

  He searched the distance for his real quarry, and cursed: now Durjan Sal would make good his escape. Where was the cavalry cordon?

  Armstrong and Wainwright were at last bearing down. One of the Jhauts had already made off, the two wounded had fallen from the saddle, and the fourth now threw down his tulwar. Corporal Wainwright, pulling up hard, undipped his carbine and began reloading calmly. Eight seconds - no more - and he raised it to the aim. The Jhaut was a hundred yards away, but the ball struck him square in the back and he fell dead before his horse could cover another ten. Hervey smiled grimly.

  But it made no difference, Durjan Sal would give them the slip and—

  'Why ay, sir, look at that!' called Armstrong sudd
enly, pointing. 'I thought those black buggers must be in their charpoys still. Why weren't they standing this side of the cover?'

  Hervey all but gasped. He could even see who they were - the 8th Light Cavalry; the blue and the white of their Company uniforms could have been the Sixth's own. More and more of them appeared from the dhak, extending line so rapidly that it was impossible to evade them.

  Durjan Sal saw it was thus, too. In a minute more the usurper of Bhurtpore, his most favoured wife and jewels, and his worst henchmen, would be prisoners.

  Hervey wished he had his telescope to see the moment. Durjan Sal was as good as bagged, though - that was what mattered.

  But Durjan Sal would not be put in a bag by brown faces from Calcutta! He was a Jhaut. He did not submit to effete Bengalis. He turned back and began trotting instead towards the King's men, sword held high in both hands as a gesture of submission.

  Hervey took the reins of the loose horse which Armstrong now led up, sheathed his sabre and sprang into the saddle. He would receive Durjan Sal's sword with proper ceremony. But he could not trust him, even now - even with two hundred of the Company's best cavalry trotting up fast behind. Wainwright took post left and rear, his carbine cradled, loaded ready. Armstrong drew and sloped his sabre, taking post on the right.

  Durjan Sal, his tulwar now sheathed, and those of his followers, brought his horse to the walk and then to a halt in front of them. He bowed his head - not submissively, but in acknowledgement that he was beaten - drew his sword again and held it out in both palms. Wainwright brought his carbine to the port, lest the usurper have second thoughts. Armstrong took the tulwar - a fine, jewelled piece -and handed it to Hervey. The two dozen followers could wait for the Eighth to close.

  Hervey looked Durjan Sal in the eye, searching for a clue. He saw only a mean-featured man, who could not hold a candle to those who had fought so senselessly for him on the maidan just now -and who were dying still, no doubt, in the citadel. He looked at his charger, a sleek Marwari stallion, blood about its mouth and flanks from its rider's hard hands and ruthless spurs. He would have this horse, in the old fashion. He would ride it, as victorious generals had their adversaries', and show the usurper what it was to defy the King's authority. He looked at the favourite wife, a beauty by more even than Jhaut measures. There was a time when she would have been his too, to submit like the charger to the victor's will. He had the urge to revive the custom now. He had the greatest urge to revive it.

  'Take the lady Durjan Sal into protection, Serjeant-Major,' he said. 'Corporal Wainwright, have the prisoner ride another, and take possession of his mount!'

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  REGIMENTAL MOURNING

  Three days later

  Despite the laurels that had daily come the regiment's way since the fall of the fortress, there was a distinct air of discouragement about the Sixth. The death of Sir Ivo Lankester had gone hard with all ranks. Not surprisingly though, for despite his absence of a year and more, and his return only very lately, there had been something about Sir Ivo that seemed to win the absolute trust of a subordinate. It was perhaps the same easy, patrician manner with which he went about his command - nothing in the least dilatory, yet breathing a calm assurance that said all would be well. Hervey thought him superior even to his brother, and Sir Edward Lankester had been a paragon. Sir Ivo, though he had come late to the regiment - direct to the lieutenant-colonelcy, indeed - had been an officer in the true Sixth mould nevertheless: he did not flog, he spent his money generously but unostentatiously, and he gave his time as unstintingly. He did not have to come to India in the first place. He was rich enough to have sold out and bought command of another regiment more agreeably posted, as many did. And he had died because he felt he had not shared enough of his regiment's perils.

  And to all this was added a curious and entirely illogical sense of failure: the regiment had lost its commanding officer - by some dereliction it had brought about his death. Even Joynson, who of all men knew the circumstances of Sir Ivo's being in the trenches, could not escape the mood.

  With Hervey discouragement was made worse by apprehensiveness. It was uncertain what the succession of command would be, and it seemed only yesterday, still, that the regiment was made unhappy by the imposition of an unworthy lieutenant-colonel. Combermere had been quick to give Joynson a brevet, but that would not do with the Horse Guards for long. But for now there was little business to be about but that of a garrison - and little enough of that, since the occupation was the business of the infantry.

  'I wish that budgerow could have been but half a mile faster in the hour,' said Eyre Somervile, picking his way carefully over the loose masonry of the citadel's walls. 'It's a poor business to hear accounts only.'

  Hervey unfastened his pelisse coat a little. The sun was warm, and the wind that had shaken the Sixth's camp so much the day before had gone.

  'And Amherst had particularly wanted that I accompany Sir Charles Metcalfe when he installed Bulwant Sing’ continued Somervile, himself wrapped in thick woollens.

  'Well’ said Hervey, sympathetically, 'I can see that he might have thought the siege would go longer. But you were right to be elsewhere in the hours after the citadel struck. I'm afraid it was the old rules of war for many, and the sepoys the worst. The officers were not nearly active enough. I do believe that many of them were so intent themselves on loot that - do you know I once had to put a bullet in a man in Spain? He was in such a craze of lust and murder. They get their blood heated in a storming, and it takes a time to cool, especially if it's full of drink. That's when an ensign shows his mettle, in my view.'

  'I heard something about men from the artillery, gone over to the Jhaut side.'

  'Oh, yes - two, and able gunners they were.'

  'They are to be executed, I imagine. Is their reason known?'

  Hervey smiled grimly. 'They were hanged at once for all to see - from the walls.'

  Somervile looked surprised. 'Was that lawful?'

  Hervey shrugged. 'I suppose it was justice. They danced a full two minutes.'

  They walked on in silence another fifty yards.

  'I should so much have liked to see the assault’ declared Somervile, now having come to terms with its aftermath. 'You know, Bhurtpore has been a name to me since first I came to India.'

  'Well, it is better that you come now than a month hence. The engineers say there'll be not a thing to see by February. They blew up the Futtah Bourge two days ago. You really should have seen it - the most monstrous heathen edifice! Though I'm half agreed with those who say we should erect one of our own.' He gestured to where the column had once stood. 'But what an affair it was. You know, we took the place in the end with remarkably little loss compared with these things in the Peninsula. It was all done very scientifically. I'm daily more of a mind that there's so much that could be done to better the business of campaigning. We went to this business, you know, with the same weapons of a hundred years ago.'

  Somervile nodded gravely. 'But in the end, it is the breasts of brave men that win the day, is it not?'

  'In the end, yes,' said Hervey, reluctantly. 'Though the end has too often been close to the beginning. And for want of imagination by those whose design the battle is. Of that we had ample evidence in Rangoon. But I'm glad to observe also that it was officers' breasts in higher proportion here. General Edwards is killed, and a good many brigadiers and field officers wounded.'

  'I am truly sorry in Lankester's regard,' said Somervile, stopping and shaking his head. 'You know I believed him a most admirable fellow.'

  'The best,' replied Hervey, simply.

  'And I'm sorry that events did not prove you wrong about your cornet.'

  'Green, yes. I confess I feel no remorse at having placed him in the position whence he met his death, but I heartily regret the circumstances, for his mettle was not truly determined. But then perhaps it was the best way. If he had dishonoured himself and the regiment, what would follow now? No
, it's better, surely, that the regiment believes he died doing his duty, having volunteered for the hottest place. And there's the letter, of course. I've no notion of Green's father, a tea merchant in Lincolnshire as I understand it, but he has lost a son, and it will doubtless go heavily with him.'

  ‘And I imagine,' said Somervile, helpfully, 'that having invested so much of his provincial fortune in making a gentleman of him, he would want to be able to tell his family and friends that he had died like one. It is ironic, is it not, that the profits of tea should send a man to die in the very place the profits originate?'

  Hervey sighed.

  'What of Rose, by the way? I did not see him this morning.'

  Hervey brightened. 'Oh, Rose. I confess I was wrong there. He's been the very best of troop-leaders. He was in the storming party. He fought like a wildcat. "Death, or honour restored" I think his motto was.'

  'I am pleased to hear it. A regiment cannot afford to cast aside a talent for battle at such times - even a flawed one as Rose's might be.'

  'No, indeed. And the further question in this regard is what shall be Armstrong's reward.'

  Somervile nodded. 'Ah yes. Just so. His doings are, by your account, wholly exceptional.'

  Hervey smiled. 'Not for Armstrong. But, yes, they are singular for a man whose schooling and obligation are so limited.'

  'Then I trust he shall have a prize.'

  Hervey frowned. 'Prizes. Now there is a matter for attention.' He reached inside his coat and took out a package of papers. 'General orders; listen: "Officers commanding Corps and Detachments, are directed to have it particularly explained to the men under their command, and also have it proclaimed in their Regimental Bazaars by beat of Tom Tom, that the Prize Property of every description, taken within the Walls of Bhurtpore, is immediately to be sent and delivered over to Lieut.-Col. The Hon. J. Finch, Prize Agent; and any person found secreting or detaining Prize Property, will be placed in confinement, and punished accordingly."'