The Passage to India

by Allan Mallinson

  He had upped the pace to Kushalnagar nevertheless. They camped the first night at Gaadi Palya – ‘the resting place of bullock carts’, aptly – an unremarkable but pleasant enough spot astride the Lakshmana Tirtha, a tributary of the Cauvery. The forest – good teak, said the rissaldar, for they were nearing Coorg, and Coorg had the finest trees in the Carnatic – skirted the village, close, and Acton asked if he might look for game. Two sowars went with him, and an hour later they returned with a brace of pig carried by village boys who’d trailed them in the hope of an anna or two.

  ‘Bura janwar,’ Hervey had said with relish. ‘Or what do they say here, Neale?’

  ‘The sowars would say handi, Colonel, and the villagers any number of things – mikka, jevadi; or kari-jati perhaps. At Madras they’d say pandi.’

  There was no conceit in it, as well as no hesitation. Hervey nodded approvingly.

  ‘But your sowars won’t eat it?’

  ‘No, Colonel, but they’ll barter it – and well.’

  Indeed, there was a good feast that evening, dragoons and lancers messing together easily. The sowars relished the fowls exchanged for one pig, while Hervey’s men ate the greater part of the other, though Neale too observed haram, and Hervey liked him the more for it.

  But for all the feasting and fellowship, they were away not long after dawn, reaching Kushalnagar late in the afternoon and making camp in a grove of plum trees just short of the Cauvery. Hervey wrote up his journal and a brief report for Fort St George, but then decided that ‘nothing to report’ was not worth the effort of transmission, trusting instead to Somervile’s (and indeed Kezia’s) assumption that unless there were contrary news, all was proceeding to plan.

  The political officer at Bangalore had told him what he could of Coorg, which was not much more than the political department at Fort St George had been able to tell him. The maps they’d been given at Madras were, as the chief engineer put it, somewhat conjectural, as no proper survey had ever been carried out. They were, he said, adequate enough for communicating with the rajah’s seat at Madkerry, which lay roughly in the centre of the princedom, but not for exploration. In this, however, the political officer had been able to help a little, for he’d several times taken leave there, the sport being plentiful, and, after the monsoon, the climate reviving. The roads converging on Madkerry from the four points of the compass formed four quadrants, he explained, which each had its own charm and vexation in roughly equal measure …

  Yet glad as he was to receive intelligence of the four quadrants, Hervey had a strong suspicion the political officer had every idea of his true mission. Any interest that he showed other than in the road directly from Kushalnagar to Madkerry might confirm that suspicion, and so he thought to make no notes or enquire too much. Indeed, he framed his questions in such a way as to suggest his only interest in the roads north and south from Madkerry was as an alternative if the Cauvery should be in flood and they could not therefore use the road west from Kushalnagar. The political officer doubted it would ever be necessary to seek an alternative route since although the Cauvery rose twenty or thirty feet when the rains came, there was a fine stone bridge that remained dry throughout.

  What Hervey did learn to his advantage – or believed he learned – was that there was no speedier approach to Madkerry than by the four roads, which in turn suggested that if the rajah were to flee, as opposed merely to hiding, he would have no real alternative but to do so by the same roads. Therefore, when it came to his arrest – the word that Somervile preferred – control of the four roads would be of the essence. Yet for all practical purposes, communication between them could only be through Madkerry itself – or else by considerable circumnavigation – unless by some remarkably good fortune they were able to find guides. On the other hand, the rajah’s men, if they were inclined to fight, would know the forest tracks and the mountain passes and be able to flit from one road to the other, and thereby able to concentrate a good deal more force locally than he himself would be likely to dispose. Both Madras and Bangalore reckoned the rajah could muster about five thousand, with a further three thousand from Mysore, fugitives from the late mutiny.

  He’d wanted to ask more, but decided it best to hope that the perpetual vice of intelligence officers – to suggest their importance by revealing what others did not know – would come to his aid. And to an extent it did: the Coorgs, he learned, held their land by military tenure. All able-bodied men, who were anyway from an active and warlike peasantry skilled with the firelock and the pichangatti, the cleaving knife, were at notice therefore to answer the call to arms. The standing element, the bodyguard – the chowdigars – consisted of a small permanent cadre augmented by levies called up for a period of fifteen days at a time. Without regular discipline and organization, though, the rest of the army, should it be embodied, would be no match in the open for seasoned troops. However, in their stockades and kadangas – war trenches – they would take some dislodging. The political officer told Hervey of how at one place, the Heggala pass in the Periambati Ghat on the road north from Malabar, they’d thrown back a whole division of Tippoo’s, who left twelve hundred dead and wounded choking the defiles.

  Hervey had then chanced to ask – in a voice of simple curiosity – if there were any open ground in Coorg, to which the political officer had smiled wryly and said, ‘Only upon reaching Madkerry.’

  But what of Kushalnagar? Was it a safe place to leave his baggage rather than proceed encumbered on the climb to Madkerry? (He was able to put it, he thought, as merely a question of immediate practicality.)

  At Kushalnagar, said the political officer, there was a customs post, as there was at the other three places of entry, at which he should expect the usual officials and a small detachment of chowdigars. Somervile’s missive, he said, had been forwarded by hircarrah three weeks before, and they had had confirmation of its receipt into the rajah’s hands. Hervey should therefore expect a conducting party at the frontier. As for their progress thence to Madkerry, it was but twenty miles, though the road was steep in places and it would therefore be the journey of a whole day. Nevertheless, when they reached Madkerry – for all the rajah’s recent insolence – they could expect to be received courteously enough. There was, he said, a comfortable guesthouse, which the rajah’s grandfather had built for the express purpose of entertaining his English visitors. They might even be invited to hunt – in which case, Hervey told himself, he would avail himself of every invitation, for the more he saw of the country the more he would be able to make plans.

  Their reception at the customs post next morning came therefore as a surprise. And, indeed, he cursed himself for failing to heed Somervile’s mantra ‘expect the unexpected’. They had stood to horse (and therefore, but less noticeably, to arms) just before dawn, and then when it was full light they’d breakfasted, breaking camp immediately afterwards and mustering at eight o’clock. Leaving just a ‘depot’ in the plum grove, they then proceeded in parade to the bridge, where to his surprise, Hervey found the Cauvery here was no more than the Severn at Shrewsbury on a fine day – broad and steady. But unlike at Shrewsbury, the river was low enough to reveal a string of rocky outcrops across which they might be able to scramble if the bridge were contested in either direction. He didn’t expect it, exactly – the political officer had given him no cause to; almost the opposite – but he could never ride a piece of country without wondering ‘What if?’

  He first suspected trouble when he saw the bullock carts drawn up on the eastern – Mysorean – side, though no sign of officials withholding their crossing. Hervey had made no secret of their camp the night before, and it was possible, he supposed, that the Coorgs were simply keeping the bridge clear to allow them passage. As he got close to the front of the queue of bullock carts, however, he saw at the far end, where began the Rajah of Coorg’s dominion, the line of red-coated chowdigars across the road.

  ‘A guard of honour, d’you think, gentlemen?’

 
St Alban deferred to Neale. ‘They certainly wish to receive us with some sort of ceremony, Colonel. Beyond that I can’t say until I speak with them.’

  ‘And elephants, mind.’ There were three drawn up behind the line of red. ‘Well, gentlemen, we shall see what we shall see.’

  They continued onto the bridge and across without let, but as they neared the further end, a tall, dignified man of middle years, in a kupya, the knee-length, half-sleeved coat with a broad red and gold sash, the chale, tied at the waist, distinctive to Coorgs of rank, advanced and bowed.

  ‘Welcome to Kodagu, Colonel Hervey, envoy of the Honourable Company of East India. I am Pemma Virappa, vakeel of His Highness the Rajah.’

  Despite the eccentric syntax characteristic of even the most fluent English speakers in India, the vakeel’s was a voice of some refinement, and of rank.

  Hervey returned the salute with equal formality. His instinct was to dismount, as courtesy would normally require, but Coorg, as Somervile had said repeatedly, was a dependent state, and he was the representative of the liege lord. So instead he spoke from the saddle, but in as modest a way as he could manage as envoy of the Company and atop such a fine mare.

  ‘I thank you for the honour of receiving me here. I should be equally honoured if you would ride with me to the rajah’s seat.’

  ‘I am honoured, likewise, by your gracious invitation, Colonel Hervey. All is honour with the Company indeed. But it will not be necessary. To spare you the rigours of a journey through our arduous but exceedingly beautiful country, the rajah presents his compliments, and these three elephants so that you may choose as tribute which would best please the Honourable Company of East India.’

  Hervey sighed inwardly. Why had he not anticipated such a ruse? His right hand desired the sword; for in his salad days he would have charged at once, no matter the odds. For that was the way of great captains – surprise. But in India, Machiavelli was as apt (‘The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves’).

  The affair before him now was of the fox not the wolf. ‘I have with me for His Highness presents from the Governor of the Presidency of Fort St George, which I am in honour bound to place into his own hands and those of no other. I accept on behalf of the Honourable Company the tribute of an elephant, and place the choice of which one in your esteemed hands.’

  The vakeel looked uncomfortable. Hervey could not be sure his discomfort was evidence of a trap – or rather, a ruse to keep him from Madkerry – for if this rajah were as capricious as accounts suggested, the vakeel would be understandably anxious at any departure from the master’s wishes; but it served to put him further on his guard.

  A long silence followed while the vakeel thought how to save face in front of the rajah’s men, and his own neck in Madkerry.

  At length he bowed. ‘It shall be as you wish, Colonel Hervey, although the rajah is not at his palace, and it is not known when he will return.’

  But this, Hervey had anticipated. It was no concern of his to meet the rajah, only to spy out the approaches and the place itself, although to see the man whom he might be sent to ‘arrest’ would be a fine thing. Once at Madkerry he would have to await the rajah’s return – which might be any number of days, weeks or even months – unless he could think of a plausible way of placing the presents in other hands without being in breach of his ‘honour bound’ and thereby raising suspicions. But he could think about that later.

  He bowed. ‘I should be obliged therefore if your lordship would choose the tributary elephant before we proceed.’

  After a deal of confusion, during which Hervey noted one of the vakeel’s men taking to the road (for it wouldn’t do to find the rajah ‘returned’ to Madkerry), the chowdigars stood to one side and a mahout brought forward the larger of the two females.

  ‘She is, in my considerable opinion, Colonel Hervey, the finest of these three fine animals.’

  Hervey’s mare was suddenly reluctant to stand her ground, though elephants had given them no trouble hitherto. Neale pressed his gelding forward, alongside, to settle her, and St Alban did the same on the near-side – when he’d settled his mare too.

  ‘I have with me mahouts, who will take the elephant to Bangalore,’ said Hervey, intent on pressing his advantage. ‘I would ask therefore that you permit us to ride on, so that we clear the bridge, that they may receive her.’

  The vakeel looked troubled again. ‘Colonel Hervey, for favour of your honourable consideration, I ask that your escort remains here. Your safe conduct is our responsibility. To ride with an escort of lances might be thought insulting to the people of Kodagu – though, of course, I myself understand, as I am sure would the rajah, that the escort is to do honour to Kodagu as much as to represent the dignity of the envoy of the Honourable Company of East India.’

  This was clever – an appeal to reason and propriety. Hervey almost smiled. ‘I understand. I will take with me in addition to my dragoons, just two sowars as orderlies, and the remainder shall await my return here.’

  He would be no more specific than that. He wanted Neale with him, and it was not a matter for negotiation.

  Honour seemingly satisfied, however – or as close as may be (for in truth the vakeel had no more cards to play) – the vakeel bowed, and Hervey told Neale to make the arrangements: if they did not return by this time in five days, or he received a message to the contrary, the rissaldar was to bring the troop to Madkerry with all haste.

  And so they began their climb to the rajah’s fastness – twenty miles of rutted red earth which twisted and turned through forest as green as any in Ireland, but cool and without the humidity the colour suggested.

  They marched dismounted for at least half the way. Corporal Hanks, one of the rough-riders, forgetting his riding-school voice would carry long on the wooded slopes, complained that ‘Nob’dy said we was goin’ up the fookin’ ’Imalaya.’ Serjeant Acton sent him sprawling with a kick to the backside. ‘Next time, Hanksy, Field Punishment Number One.’

  The sowars smiled at each other.

  St Alban made notes and drawings, which he was careful to show to the vakeel as if he were sketching in the manner of the grand tour. The vakeel himself, dressed more for ceremony than the field, impressed Hervey with his determination to walk at his side – whatever his motive – but as it was impossible therefore to say anything to St Alban without being overheard, their exchanges were in veiled speech, which St Alban hoped he’d be able to clarify when reading back his notes at the end of the day. The gist of Hervey’s observations, he believed, was that if a force had to march on Madkerry opposed, it had better have plenty of infantry, for the places to stockade were legion, and wherever the road was hewn away into some sort of cutting, the defiles were commanded from heights not easily scalable. In a fight, it was no place for cavalry. Though that wasn’t the same as saying it was no place for the horse, for the answer to stockades was artillery – and foot batteries would find the going a sore trial. That, at least, was what he understood Hervey to say.

  They stopped at midday by a waterfall. Johnson brewed tea, and they ate hard-boiled eggs and chuppattis, as the dragoons called them, made that morning in Kushalnagar, while the horses grazed on what looked like rye grass. The sowars chatted easily with the vakeel’s men, which Neale kept an ear to, though nothing came of it but that the rajah’s jailu was now so full that the excess prisoners – male and female – were being kept in a part of their own barracks.

  After an hour’s ease they resumed the march, and just after five o’clock, now mounted again, they reached the plateau of Madkerry.

  ‘What a handsome prospect,’ exclaimed St Alban, with as much exaggeration as he dare without inviting suspicion, taking out his sketch book again. The vakeel looked anxious, but evidently reckoned there was nothing he could do. Here, surely, was an Englishman, and they had their strange ways. Besides, who inde
ed would not wish to make a picture of this beautiful place? There was nothing in Mysore to compare, nor in Bombay, where he’d learned his English. The little hills that dotted the plateau, with their forts and pretty houses, their temples and their gardens; the river, the streams …

  ‘There, distant, Colonel Hervey, is the rajah’s guesthouse!’ He shouted it, almost, as if to distract all attention, pointing to an elegant white palazzo at the foot of the hill on which stood Madkerry’s principal fort. ‘There you will be made very comfortable, and your men may build their tents on the maidan beside. Here you may wait on the rajah for as long as you please.’

  ‘It is a fine prospect indeed, Pemma Virappa-sahib,’ replied Hervey, and with sincerity. He looked forward to its comfort.

  ‘But yet again I say, Colonel Hervey, there is no knowing when is the time of the rajah’s coming.’

  XIX

  Time Spent in Reconnaissance

  Madkerry, next day

  THEY WERE INDEED made comfortable. Baths, bedclothes, roast fowls, brandied figs, mangoes, wine – the rajah’s hospitality, if in absentia, was equal to any in Bengal.

  Hervey wished it hadn’t been. The hand that mingled in the meal / At midnight drew the felon steel, / And gave the host’s kind breast to feel / Meed for his hospitality! Well did he remember first reading those lines – On the Massacre of Glencoe – and his disgust. They were a standing caution to all who did the King’s business, as the Campbells merely claimed they did. The winter wind that whistled shrill, / The snows that night that cloaked the hill, / Though wild and pitiless, had still / Far more than Southern clemency.

  What might be the Coorgs’ reply, though, to the ‘felon steel’ and ‘Southern clemency’? Would India’s ‘startled Scotland’ demand ‘revenge for blood and treachery’?

  But that was not his business. Comprehending India was the business of a lifetime (and more). Besides, he’d no time for a ruler who schemed against the very power that had restored his own fortunes, nor one who abused his subjects the way he did. There was no need of scruple.