Chapter 23
Arthur
Calcutta, February 1797
From the quarterdeck of the Queen Charlotte, anchored half a mile from the shore, the stench of human ordure was overpowering. The sides of the Indiaman were crowded with soldiers curious to have their first sight of the colony. Their excited chatter filled the air and competed with the cries of the beggars swimming in the water around the newly arrived ship. Amongst them, rowing with little regard for the people in the water, were scores of boats offering their services to anyone on board who needed to be transferred to the shore.
On the quarterdeck of the ship stood the paying passengers, equally curious about the new land that lay on either bank of the Hoogley. The river itself was broad and brown and scattered with flotsam, the odd bloated carcass of an animal, and the occasional human. Despite having read as much as he could about India during the six-month voyage round the southern cape, Arthur was shocked by the evident squalor on his first encounter with Calcutta. And he had not even set foot ashore, he reflected grimly. His first instinct was that he should have insisted on a different posting for his regiment. Most of the men of the 33rd Foot had been fed a diet of the most fanciful stories and legends about India. While it was true that a man from even the most humble origins could make a fortune - and a few did - in the employ of the East India Company or in the service of one of the numerous princes who ruled huge swathes of the subcontinent as absolutely as any Caesar, the chances of a man’s surviving the climate and the other risks to health were one in two. Odds that Arthur did not find wholly encouraging, and he was resolved to do his utmost to see that he, and the men of his regiment, looked after their health as diligently as possible.
Six months at sea with little opportunity for exercise had already taken its toll on the fitness of the men of the 33rd, and the poor diet and copious drinking had made many of them stout and red-faced. As soon as he had them on dry land that would have to be remedied, Arthur decided. He turned to beckon to his adjutant, Captain Fitzroy, who was talking animatedly with one of the few female passengers who had been so much the centre of attention in the small closed world of the better class of passenger during the voyage. Fitzroy noticed his superior’s summons on the second attempt. He graciously made his excuses to the lady and hurried across the deck to Arthur. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘I’d be obliged if you secured the services of one of those boatmen. I wish to pay my compliments to the Governor General as soon as possible.’ He indicated the grey granite-like mass of Fort William standing on the eastern shore of the Hoogley. ‘In the meantime, I want our men ashore as quickly as possible.They are to be quartered in the fort.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And do make sure that you negotiate a good price with the boatman,’ Arthur continued. ‘His Majesty’s funds are not infinite.’
Captain Fitzroy grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’
Arthur lowered his voice.‘I’d be obliged if you did not arrange any commission for yourself in the process.We’re here to improve the lot of these people, and to serve our country, not just ourselves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Fitzroy’s disappointment was evident in his tone and Arthur rather regretted that there was not a hint of shame there. ‘Very well, Fitzroy. Carry on.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The adjutant saluted and strode off to carry out his orders.
Arthur could not help feeling a surge of irritation over the man’s attitude. He was also worried about the magnitude of the task facing him, given his ambitions for India. Already he had written to Richard and gently suggested that he might put himself forward for the appointment of Governor General of India, and that Henry might be persuaded to join them. India might well be the making of the three brothers, if they could meet the challenges facing them. As far as the East India Company was concerned, their purpose was to make money out of the subcontinent. But now that war was being waged between the powers of Europe, it was vital for Britain’s trade that the Company’s possessions were given military protection. It was already clear that one day the Indian colonies would be run by the Crown, rather than private entrepreneurs, just as it was clear to Arthur that it was in the interests of the peoples of the subcontinent that England put an end to their endless wars and brigandage and bring peace and effective governance to India. That was his great ambition, and one he hoped to share with Richard and Henry if they decided to join him. But he was well aware that there were many obstacles between him and the achievement of his aim.
From the copious background reading Arthur had done, it was clear that corruption was rife amongst the Englishmen who served in the three presidencies that belonged to the East India Company at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. It was hardly surprising given that they were only answerable to Parliament and the stockholders of the East India Company thousands of miles away in London.Any message sent from India took the best part of a year to elicit a reply from London and that meant that the local officials were left fairly much to their own devices. In such circumstances a culture where bribes were offered and readily accepted thrived in a way it did in no other place in the world. No man was immune from temptation. A King’s officer might earn three hundred pounds a year at home in England. Here in India he might earn as much as ten thousand pounds a year through bribes or ‘gifts’ offered by the native princes and merchants in exchange for lucrative army contracts, or forcefully settling disputes between the patchwork of little states that dotted the continent.
While that remained the case, Arthur reflected, the British presence in India would never amount to much more than a distasteful leeching operation. If it was allowed to continue, then he firmly believed that Britain’s greatest ever opportunity for enrichment and international prestige would be lost. With scrupulous governance, and an ethic of service to the people, India could be the brightest gem in any nation’s crown.
Such had been his thinking on the long voyage out from England. But now that he was here, the raw truth of India made him lose hope. The view of Calcutta from the deck of the Indiaman was as nothing compared to the assault on the senses that greeted Arthur as he stepped out of the small boat on to the roughly constructed quay. Every kind of filth was impacted on the ground and at the entrance to the nearest street lay a dead dog, crushed by a cart so that its entrails had burst from its belly and were now covered in a dark droning cloud of flies.
‘Salaam, sahib!’ A thin native in a loincloth scurried up and struck his forehead as he bowed to Arthur. Bright white teeth flashed in a smile. ‘I take your bags, sahib.’
‘I don’t have any,’ Arthur replied. ‘They’re on the ship.’
The porter glanced over the English officer for anything else that might need carrying, but Arthur waved him aside.
‘Out of my way, please.’
‘Acha, sahib!’ The porter bowed and hopped to one side as Arthur started along the quay towards the distant mass of Fort William. The squalor of the rapidly expanding town sprawled back from the banks of the river along filthy thoroughfares that Arthur glanced down as he made his way through the crowd of porters, beggars and merchants. The sounds of their cries, alien and shrill, the strangeness of their clothes and rags and the colour of their skins made Arthur keenly aware of how out of place he must seem. Indeed, as he glanced round, he realised that he was almost the only white man visible on the quay.
At length the quay gave way to a patch of mud at the river’s edge where children were playing in the water, splashing each other in silvery spray that reminded Arthur how hot he was. He wore the uniform in which he had set off from England, made from a heavy wool that might be sensible for this time of year back in Europe but was a positive torment here in Calcutta. He resolved to find himself a good local tailor as soon as possible to have some uniforms cut from a lighter material. It would be good if the men of the 33rd could be similarly dressed, or a hard march and a fight in this climate might well finish them.
Arthur entered Fort William and made
his way to the elegant whitewashed headquarters, surrounded by a wide walkway which was raised above the ground and shaded by an overhanging roof. Several officers were sitting on cane chairs round a low table, talking quietly as they drank. Behind them squatted a small figure in a linen robe operating a large canvas screen that fanned the officers as they sat. They stood up as Arthur approached, one or two of them unsteadily, and exchanged a salute with him.
‘Good day, gentlemen. Colonel Arthur Wesley at your service. Is the Governor General at headquarters today?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the senior officer, an India Company major, replied. ‘Sir John is in his office. Do you wish me to show the way?’
Arthur nodded. ‘I’d be obliged. Might I know your name?’
‘Harry Ball, sir.’ He smiled readily.‘A regular, before I took the John Company bounty, and I ain’t looked back since. If you’d follow me?’
He led the way inside the headquarters and Arthur took the chance to examine the man. So this was one of the East India Company officers. At first glance there was only the uniform to distinguish Ball from the officers in His Majesty’s service. Ball seemed to be in his mid-forties, grey hair cropped short above a creased and tanned face. He looked competent enough, Arthur decided, hoping that he was typical of his kind. There were few enough King’s regiments in India as it was. Without the white-officered Company units the lands held by the three presidencies could be swallowed up by any maharaja, nawab or nizam whose greed and ambition got the better of him.
Major Ball led Arthur up a wide flight of steps to the offices on the second floor. The corridors and rooms of the building were airy and spacious and the Europeans who worked there were bent over their desks, cooled by one of the ubiquitous fans worked by the silent figures squatting discreetly at the side of each room. The Governor General’s office was on the corner of the building, looking out over the ramparts to the broad expanse of the river beyond where the Queen Charlotte lay peacefully at anchor amid the other shipping. A man dressed in a loose shirt was reading some papers that lay on top of an enormous desk of solid design. His plain coat rested on the back of his chair.
Ball tapped on the doorframe. ‘Sir?’
The Governor General looked up and Arthur saw that he was an older man, in his fifties with a kindly face and keen eyes. He smiled. ‘I assume you are off the ships that arrived this morning.’
‘Yes, sir. Colonel Arthur Wesley. Officer commanding the 33rd Foot.’
‘The 33rd?’ Sir John Shore leaned back and scratched his chin. ‘We were expecting you a bit earlier. By the new year at any rate. Your regiment set sail in June, did it not?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Slow going, Wesley,’ he said in a vaguely irritated tone.
Arthur felt unfairly slighted. It was hardly his fault if the vagaries of wind and sea had delayed the arrival of his regiment. But there was little point in making an issue about it the moment he met his new superior.
‘Yes, sir. I thought so. But I’m sure the captains of the Company ships were doing their best to make the swiftest possible passage.’
‘I suppose so.’ Sir John waved him towards one of the chairs arranged on the far side of his desk. ‘Thank you, Ball. You may go.’
Major Ball nodded and turned away, his footsteps echoing along the corridor as he strode off to rejoin his comrades on the veranda.
‘Good man, that.’ Sir John nodded after him. ‘Knows the country well, and his men even better. Wish there were more officers like him in the Company’s battalions. They have caused me quite a bit of trouble since I was appointed. Some of the blackguards even had the audacity to threaten mutiny last January. Threatened to take charge of India and run it for themselves unless I turned a blind eye to their peculations, and pressed the Company to increase their pay.’ Sir John shrugged the matter aside. ‘Anyway, Colonel Wesley, I expect you didn’t report to me just to hear about the grumbles of our discontented Company officers, eh?’
Arthur smiled. ‘No, sir. But it is as well to garner any information that may be of use later on.’
‘Yes, I believe so. Anyway, I imagine you would like to be briefed on the situation here, before we attend to the more mundane matters concerning the billeting of your men.’
‘I should be grateful for that, sir.’
Sir John nodded. ‘Very well, then. First, you will not be aware of it, but Spain has allied itself with France.We had the news from an overland dispatch that reached Calcutta last week.’
Arthur raised his eyebrows in surprise. The odds against England winning the present war had lengthened considerably.
‘When was the alliance made?’
‘Back in October. And for all we know it has already crumbled. That is the burden of living so far from London, I’m afraid.We are never less than several months behind events taking place in Europe, but we must operate on the basis of the last official dispatch from England.To that end we now find ourselves at war with three out of the four major powers who have influence in the far east, France, Holland and Spain. We are not at war with Portugal. Not yet. Not as far as I am aware, at least. Of course, the biggest threat to English interests in India comes from the French.We saw off the Compagnie des Indes some years back, but since the revolution they have been doing their best to stir up discontent in the subcontinent. That’s one of the reasons for the 33rd’s being sent out here.’
‘Is there trouble brewing?’
‘There’s always trouble on one front or another,’ Sir John replied wearily. ‘The presidency of Calcutta is an area somewhat bigger than England, controlled by perhaps no more than two thousand of our people. If the natives ever took it into their heads to unite and crush us it could be done in an instant.’ He stared at the new arrival.‘I tell you,Wesley, our remit here is a very delicate affair. We rule because we have what the locals call iqbal.’
‘That’s their word for good luck, or good fortune, isn’t it?’
Sir John smiled with surprise and nodded. ‘I’m impressed. Where did you learn that?’
‘I had plenty of time to read about my new posting on the voyage over, sir,’ Arthur explained. ‘I have even made a little progress in one of the local tongues, though of course I will need some further tutoring.’
Sir John laughed. ‘That’s the damnedest thing I ever heard! I doubt that one in a hundred of my staff here can claim more than a few words of Hindoostani.What on earth did you do that for?’
Arthur shrugged. ‘It seemed the sensible thing to do, sir. If a man is to serve to best effect he must be familiar with the geography and people amongst whom he is required to campaign.’>
‘That’s a bloody odd notion,Wesley. But if you think it serves a purpose then stick with it.’
‘I intend to, sir.’
‘Ah . . . where was I?’
‘Iqbal, sir.You said we ruled here because the locals believed in our good fortune.’
‘Yes, that’s it.That’s the most important thing for you to learn while you are here, Wesley. Whatever else you do, you will be judged by the good fortune that attends you.Therefore it is vital that you suffer no reverses, that you build on a reputation for success. That means that you must plan for every eventuality, consider every detail of your operations so that they progress as if blessed by fate, rather than as a result of tireless staff work.You follow me?’
Arthur nodded.
‘Good. Because you will need all the luck you can get to meet the challenges facing us here in India. Bombay, Madras and Calcutta are surrounded by the territories of powerful nations. Some of them are bitterly opposed to us. Take that fellow Tipoo Sahib, the Sultan of Mysore. Caused no end of trouble to my predecessor, Lord Cornwallis. We’ve had an uneasy peace with Mysore since then, but now I hear from my spies that Tipoo is negotiating with France to enter into some kind of alliance. Worse still, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the rulers of the Mahratta confederation are employing a large number of French officers to train and command their armies. Of
course, we have had a number of English officers in the employ of such states, but lately they have been having their contracts cancelled and finding themselves thrown out by their former employers, and always replaced by a Frenchman. For now we have peace, but the French will be using their influence to do whatever they can to defeat us in India.’
‘I imagine they would, sir,’Arthur responded.‘While the Navy keeps them from the shores of England, all the French can do is attack our trade. The loss of India would cost England dear.’
‘Then make sure that your brother realises that as well as you do.’ Sir John nodded. ‘That’s right, I’ve done a little research on you too, Colonel. Your brother Richard has been on the Board of Control for a few years now, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, sir, that’s right.’
‘Then I urge you to make him aware of the dangers facing us here. God knows I have tried my best to wake London up to the situation, but perhaps a family connection might make a difference.’
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