Sword of Fortune

by Christopher Nicole

  Richard opened his mouth, then changed his mind. On the march back to Bombay, he had seethed with indignation at Ford’s bestial behaviour, and had thought of denouncing Ford for using methods which could surely earn nothing but hatred for the English. But his resolution had weakened. Smythe’s approbation was no more than he had expected. And he had his own way to make.

  ‘Indeed sir,’ he agreed.

  Ford snorted. ‘The boy did not like my methods,’ he said.

  Smythe wagged a finger. ‘I do not wish to hear of them, lieutenant. Suffice it that you were given a task, and you carried it out successfully. Remember that, Mr Bryant. My thanks to you, Mr Ford.’

  ‘Remember that, Mr Bryant,’ Ford mimicked as they came out into the brilliant sunlight.

  ‘I intend to,’ Richard said drily.

  Ford glanced at him. ‘What I did is accepted Company practice, when dealing with recalcitrant females. It hits them where it hurts, in their pride.’

  ‘Was there any need to maim her?’

  ‘She’ll heal. And when it comes to maiming, you want to remember what those bitches can do to a white man whenever they lay their hands on one. They slice you bare, Richard my boy. Slowly. Slice by slice. And they smile while doing it.’

  ‘No doubt they have reason,’ was the best reply Richard could think of, as he walked away, distaste still rankling in him. Ford had been given a task, and he had carried it out. And his superiors tacitly condoned his brutality in doing so. Richard Bryant aspired to be a soldier, but he knew he would not have had the ruthlessness so to mistreat a woman, even a native. He wondered whether Ford would have so humiliated a white woman, whether any British officer would. He had been told of the deeds of Butcher Cumberland’s redcoats in Scotland after their victory at Culloden, only thirty-three years ago...

  Richard made his way through the bazaar to the bungalow he shared with Albert Forsythe, through the teeming masses of men and women he had been taught to regard as his inferiors. Even if this were true, he reflected, there were so many of them! The white men and the handful of women who had accompanied their husbands on the perilous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, or made the journey on their own in the certainty of finding matrimonial security amongst the wife-starved officers and merchants of Bombay, had but to look around them to see the extent to which they were outnumbered.

  The island belonged entirely to the Company, or so the Company said, and following the collapse of the Empire of the Great Mughal in this year of 1779, there was no one to dispute their claim. Anyone who lived on the island did so only with the permission of the Factor, and thousands did. Yet only a handful were British. The Indians were needed, as servants to take care of their white masters and mistresses, as merchants to supply food and materials, and most of all as soldiers. The Company had one or two entirely British battalions, but these were submerged among the several thousand sepoys who garrisoned the presidencies as well as the outlying posts, and who were also employed on tax gathering and punitive expeditions. Since developing from a small trading concern into the huge business that it had become, the Company had become a state within a state. To exist, it needed to create perimeters of control, and within those perimeters there were many, many people who needed to be governed. Government not only meant protection from marauding neighbours. It also meant laws to be enforced, and taxes to be collected.

  The natives accepted it all with amazing resignation, as they had accepted domination throughout their history. A thousand years before the birth of Christ the splendid natural harbour had been a base for trading with Persia, and a few hundred years later the great Ashoka had made the island part of his empire.

  Then in the fourteenth century they had surrendered to the Muslims, sweeping down from the north. Bombay had become the seaport for the kingdom of Gujarat.

  But soon others were casting envious eyes at that harbour. The Portuguese obtained possession of it in the early sixteenth century, and remained its rulers until 1661, when it formed part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to King Charles II of England. Seven years later the King granted the island to the East India Company as its headquarters; it was another hundred years before the centre of gravity shifted to Calcutta. Still Bombay remained the most important British-controlled port in the Far East.

  No one apparently either knew or cared what the Great Mughal thought of these developments on the fringes of his vast empire. Because that empire had fallen into chaos. But the Europeans had actually been in possession of Bombay before Babar had swept through the Khyber Pass. Bahadur Shah of Gujarat had ceded the Island to Portugal in the very year, 1526, that the Mughals had gained the decisive victory of Panipat and opened the road to Delhi. Gujarat itself was not conquered until the days of the greatest of the Mughals, Akbar, who in 1572 had personally led his cavalry, marching four hundred and fifty miles in eleven days, to reach the sea.

  No doubt the Great Mughal had been amused at the small settlement of white-skinned merchants with their prudery and quaint religious customs. He had not troubled them. Two years before his death in 1605 he had welcomed another white-skinned merchant, John Mildenhall, and granted him too trading concessions. What reason had Akbar to fear these representatives of a far distant people who sought only to trade?

  John Mildenhall’s portrait hung above the factor’s desk. He had been the true founder of the Company.

  *

  The Mughal Empire had continued to expand for a hundred years after Akbar’s death. Indeed his great-grandson, Aurangzib, had been the most formidable of all the Mughal warriors. But Aurangzib had also sewn the seeds of the collapse of the imperial edifice, by his religious intolerance, and by his pathological suspicion of all around him. With his death in 1707 decline had followed fast. Now, in 1779, Shah Alam II, great-great-grandson of Aurangzib, the ninth generation in a direct line of descent from Babar, might still rule in Delhi. But he no longer sat upon the Peacock Throne. That had been looted forty years before by the Persian adventurer Nadir Shah. Delhi itself had been reduced to a ghost-haunted village by the Persian massacre. The viceroys had ceased sending tribute, and had claimed their independence, while always paying lip service to the Mughal.

  Out of the chaos had arisen the great states of the Sifts and the Rajputs in the north, Hyderabad and its offshoots the Marathas in the south; out of the Maratha rebellion against the Nizam had come the no-less-powerful viceroyalties of Scindhia and Mysore. It had been a time for daring men to make their fortunes. Richard Bryant sighed as he kicked his way through the dust to the bachelor compound. Oh, to have been born only a generation ago!

  Robert Clive had travelled to India, like Richard himself, as no more than a Company clerk. But by the 1740’s the French had set up the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, and the most ancient of European rivalries was transferred several thousand miles to the steaming jungles of India.

  Both sides had sought alliances with native princes, seeking concessions, opportunities of expansion, and ways of restricting the other. In these little wars and battles, seldom involving more than a few thousand Europeans who, with their superior weaponry and discipline, had been enabled to play a role out of all proportion to their number, Clive had proved himself the master. His earlier campaigns in the Carnatic had guaranteed the safety of both Madras and Bombay, and his crowning achievement now was in Bengal, where his victory at Plassey in 1757 had made a British protectorate of the huge eastern state.

  The French had had enough. Twelve years later, in 1769, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales was dissolved, and the exploitation of the sub-continent was left entirely to the British.

  They had not been slow to benefit. Many had grown rich, to an extent that shocked their less fortunate compatriots at home. Merchants returning from the East became known as nabobs, rich enough to buy themselves vast country seats and places in Parliament. They had become the most potent force in Britain.

  It was this dream that still lured every young man of ambi
tion to Bombay. No matter that for every nabob who returned to England a millionaire a score of clerks died of fever or dysentery, still penniless. No matter that even for those who had climbed the heights life was not always a bed of roses. Only five years ago Clive himself had committed suicide. Perhaps he had always had a suicidal bent; it was said that he had more than once tried to blow out his brains as a young man, but that on each occasion the pistol had misfired. On the other hand, perhaps no one had taken so much wealth as well as fame out of India. When accused of peculation the great man had retorted that he stood amazed at his own moderation, yet continued criticism had driven him once again to put a pistol to his head, and this time it had exploded.

  It was not something he was likely to do, Richard thought bitterly, save from sheer boredom. India was considered the most exotic and exciting place in the world with its veiled women, armoured warriors, painted elephants, walled cities waiting to fall to the clash of arms, chests of gold into which one could thrust one’s arms to the elbows…how different was the reality. The age of Clive had died when the Company had announced that there were to be no more alliances and adventures with native princes. The French gone, the British were left with an empire on their hands, something the board of directors in London had never contemplated; their business was trade, not conquest. While they understood that they could hardly now withdraw from territories they had appropriated during the French wars, they were determined that there was to be no more expansion.

  Richard was rapidly convincing himself that he could only hope to win glory, if not riches as a soldier. Meanwhile, he must slave away as a humble clerk here in Bombay.

  The island was probably the most over-crowded place on earth. It seethed, and stank. Offices and warehouses jostled against Hindu temples and Muslim mosques. The factors’ houses were set apart, on the cool shore facing the Arabian Sea; the bungalows of the juniors huddled together on the hot side, close by the bazaar.

  Even as he looked, Richard could see an elephant at work. No romantic carrier of mailed warriors this, but a decrepit, mud-coloured beast, whose every moment disturbed layers of dust, goaded by a no-less-filthy mahout to carry timber into position for the building of yet another house.

  *

  Forsythe had not yet returned from the office, and Richard was greeted by his ‘boy’, Hanif, with an open bottle of wine. He felt he needed it after his trek through the bush.

  ‘You ready bath time, sahib?’ Hanif inquired, surveying his master’s jungle-stained and thorn-torn clothes.

  ‘When I have practised,’ Richard said.

  He was tired from the unusual exercise of the past three days, but his brain was teeming. He went through the bungalow, a one-storied building which contained only four rooms and a verandah, and out into the small back yard. Hanif hurried behind him with sword and pistols; he knew his master’s habits.

  Richard removed his coat and cravat, turned up his sleeves, and made several passes with the sword at the wooden target, carved by Hanif and representing a man’s body, that hung against the mango tree which dominated the small garden.

  As he cut and thrust, he had no idea if he was doing anything right. He wondered what it would be like to face an armed man—he had hoped to experience that on the tax detail, rather than torment a half-naked woman—but at least it made him familiar with the weight and feel of the weapon.

  The pistols had been a farewell gift from his father, who did not expect ever to see him again. Richard sheathed the sword, and took his place twenty paces away from the target, the pistol hanging at his side. He counted to five, and then raised the weapon, sighting and firing in virtually the same instant. A piece of wood flew from the target’s left side. Hanif hurried forward with the second pistol, and this time the bullet smashed into the very centre of the already pitted wooden frame.

  ‘You’re going to have to carve me another of those, Hanif,’ Richard said with some satisfaction. Practising every day for nearly a year had made him into an expert shot. Again, he had no idea what it would feel like actually to face a man, also armed, but he did not suppose that was ever likely to happen.

  While he soaked in his bath, Albert Forsythe came in. He was a short, slender, fair-haired man in his early twenties, with blue eyes and a sparkling smile. He did not suffer from inordinate ambition, nor did he appear to dream overmuch. He was a happy fellow, who took life exactly as it came.

  ‘Heard the shooting,’ he said. ‘Guessed you were back. Any excitement?’

  Richard told him of Ford’s treatment of the woman.

  ‘Vile. But I’ll wager Ford enjoyed it.’

  ‘He did,’ Richard said grimly. ‘Do you think Smythe knows what goes on? I wish I’d had the stomach to tell him.’

  ‘You can thank God you didn’t. Of course he knows. He’s probably torn a tit or two himself in his time.’

  ‘God, I hate this stinking place,’ Richard muttered, reaching for his towel as he stood up.

  Albert frowned at him. ‘Hate the Pagoda Tree? My dear fellow, what else is there? You need a drink.’

  He poured some wine.

  Richard dried himself. ‘You know what I have a mind to do? Enlist.’

  ‘You can’t just enlist. You have to be selected.’

  ‘I meant as a private soldier.’

  Albert drank. ‘Has the sun turned your mind?’

  ‘Anything is better than sitting in an office all day. Or watching women’s breasts being ripped off. There’d be some chance of advancement. Aren’t we campaigning against the Marathas?’

  ‘Not very effectively. Better than sitting in an office? Ever slept twenty in a small barracks in the heat? Ever been flogged?’

  ‘That won’t happen,’ Richard protested.

  ‘It happens too often. And you’d have vermin like Ford deciding when.’

  Richard had no answer to that. Albert changed the subject. ‘I heard today that the GG is paying us a visit.’

  ‘Hastings? Whatever for?’

  Albert shrugged. ‘I suppose he feels it necessary to visit the other presidencies from time to time. Why don’t you have a chat with him, see if he can give you a place in Calcutta? You might like it better there.’

  Richard scratched his nose. ‘You think he’d grant me an interview?’

  ‘Why not, if you put your name down right away? Mind you, Smythe won’t be pleased. Junior clerks only seek interviews with the Governor-General if they’re very unhappy about something.’

  ‘Smythe doesn’t like me anyway,’ Ricahrd told him. ‘So what have I to lose?’

  *

  Warren Hastings was forty-seven years old, a somewhat insignificant-looking man, with an almost bald head—it was too hot in India to wear a wig—a long nose, and a tight mouth and chin. As had General Clive, he had begun his adult life as a Company writer and, by sheer ability, had worked his way upwards until being appointed Governor-General of all the presidencies. The climb had not been an easy one. Hastings had made enemies by his high-handed methods and his habit of taking decisions without consulting his council as he was legally required to do. One quarrel had even resulted in a duel. With Philip Francis, in which fortunately neither man had been hurt. Francis had since returned to England, and it was rumoured that he was seeking to have the Governor-General charged with all manner of crimes and misdemeanours. No one supposed he would get very far, at least as long as Hastings kept vast profits steadily flowing into the bank accounts of the directors, but it was worrying to know that such machinations were being carried on behind one’s back. Such knowledge had eventually driven Clive to suicide.

  It was difficult to imagine Warren Hastings would ever allow himself to be so bedevilled; the long face was singularly unlined, and his hands rested calmly on Smythe’s desk as he surveyed the young man seated before him.

  ‘A soldier, eh? A hard life. Why should you wish to undertake it?’

  ‘I think it is one for which I am fitted, sir,’ Richard said carefully. ‘More
than for that of a clerk.’

  ‘I have heard of your efforts with a pistol and sword,’ Hastings agreed. ‘But there is more to soldiering than weaponry. There is the command of men.’

  ‘That would have to be put to the test, sir.’

  Hastings studied him. ‘You do not lack confidence, at any rate. What of money? Your father?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can expect no assistance from that quarter, sir.’ Hastings frowned. ‘A quarrel?’

  ‘No, sir. I mean simply that my father has nothing to spare.’

  ‘Bryant,’ Hastings said thoughtfully. ‘From Sussex?’

  ‘Kent, sir. The Sussex Bryants are distant cousins. But I was born in London. My father is a West Indian agent.’

  ‘An employment which usually yields handsome profits,’ Hastings suggested.

  ‘Not for my father, sir.’

  ‘An honest man? There’s a rarity. So you thought you’d come to India and make your fortune and his, eh? You’d have more chance as a factor than as a soldier.’ He gave a brief smile. ‘Or are you, too, an honest man, Mr Bryant? Life as an officer, without a private income, can be uncommon hard. Oh, you would be fed and clothed and armed. But officers cannot be paupers. Have you ponies?’

  ‘I have never played polo, sir.’

  ‘But you can sit a horse?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Hastings stroked his chin. ‘You have determination,’ he said. ‘Taken with your other assets, that suggests you could have a prosperous future here in the Company. Does it not seem senseless to throw all of that away to get your head blown off?’ He smiled. ‘Even if you survived, and rose to the rank of general, you would hardly do as well, financially, as if you achieved my position. And you could, you know.’

  ‘I doubt that, sir.’

  ‘Because you wish to soldier. Well, Mr Bryant, I am now awaiting instructions from London as to the disposition of our forces here.’

  ‘For the campaign against the Marathas?’ Richard asked eagerly.