Nizams Daughters mh-2

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Tha knows best, Captain ’Ervey, sir,’ shrugged Johnson, taking a stable rubber to Jessye’s head. ‘But tha’s in a spot o’ bother right enough.’

  * * *

  The environs of Chintalpore were not the best hunting grounds, but a dozen or so miles to the north, across the Godavari river, at the jungle’s edge, there was game to be had in large numbers in the sandy undulating downs — the bourrh lands. Here, gaur (or bison, as some knew them) left the seclusion of the dense forest occasionally to graze. Muggurs sulked on the shoals, great gaggles of wild geese crossed the sky in one direction and then another, and the sorrowful cries of Brahminy ducks made the solitude yet more desolate. Hervey was captivated by its wild emptiness. The fardistant forest, the small scattered groves of mangoes, with here and there a lordly banyan rising unmistakably above the jhow, but above all the graceful palmyra palm, told him they were elsewhere than the Great Plain of his own county. But the emptiness of that wonderful downland came at once to mind, and his rides there with Daniel Coates. How he would love the talk of horses, of reading the country and the pursuit of so worthy an opponent as the boar.

  Selden closed up. His horse’s ears were pricked, nostrils flexing at what the country promised. ‘Agar firdos bah rue zameen ast, Hameen ast, wa hameen ast, wa hameen ast!‘

  Some of the words were familiar, and so sensuous that the English must surely be as arresting. ‘Meaning?’ enquired Hervey simply.

  The salutri smiled. ‘An old Persian couplet: “If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this!” ’ He smiled broadly. ‘Ride hard, Matthew Hervey!’

  The rajah was unusual in his pleasure in the chase, Selden had explained, for in his experience princely Indians had no great appetite for it — and those who had, confined themselves largely to the pursuit of tiger from the lofty vantage of the howdah. The rajah’s favourite hunting ground for pig was the Sukri kadir, where Hervey had first made his acquaintance with Chintal, but the bourrh lands were within a day’s ride and could provide sport for his lancer officers — although compared with the Sukri kadir the country was rather too treacherous for his liking. He explained that the rissalahs were soon to take to the field for their last drill before the onset of the hot season, and today was the rajah’s last opportunity to give them a run.

  The mounted party numbered near twenty, the rajah himself accompanied by a jemadar and an orderly. The raj kumari, who rode astride, as Selden had told him, was escorted by one of the shikaris as pilot — an express provision of the rajah rather than of her own choosing. She carried a jobbing spear, but only to gain first blood with, for to hold off a charging boar required every ounce of a man’s strength. Her pilot was therefore her covering-spear. Locke, Selden and Hervey were accompanied by six of the lancer officers, by any measure an intriguing group. The commandant (as in Chintal the commanding officer was called) was a Piedmontese, a minor member of the House of Savoy who, shamed at the surrender of Turin to Bonaparte seventeen years earlier, had come east. Hervey liked him from first meeting. Commandant Cadorna was about Joseph Edmonds’s age, and it was this connection, perhaps, as much as anything that accounted for the immediate affinity. Cadorna’s captain was German, a Württemberger who had likewise sought his fortune elsewhere once the Confederation of the Rhine had required him otherwise to take an oath of loyalty to his former enemy. Captain Steuben was not many years older than Hervey, but his face was lined and sun-dried, and unlike his commandant he spoke no English. Yet he seemed to have little regard for Hervey’s facility with his own language. Indeed, he seemed almost to resent it, displaying a distinct coldness from their first meeting at the rajah’s banquet. Hervey was doubly puzzled by this want of the fellowship of the ‘yellow circle’ — the universal spirit of the cavalry — but for the time being at least was content to let it pass. The third European officer was another Württemberger, but of a different stamp. A big, coarsefeatured man with a walrus moustache, he littered his speech — a blend of German, English and Urdu — with expletives in the fashion of the serjeant-major he had once been. Captain Bauer, Alter Fritz as this venerable old soldier, now the rissalah’s quartermaster, was known, had come to India not by choice but as a prisoner of the British. He had enlisted in a regiment of mercenary infantry for Dutch service and had been taken captive at the Cape twenty years ago, remaining a prisoner until the regiment was disbanded in Ceylon thirteen years later. But Alter Fritz bore the British no ill will. Besides his fair treatment, he explained, his incarceration had kept him from the campaign of 1812, which had seen a whole corps of Württembergers in Bonaparte’s service reduced to but a few dozen by the end of the winter’s march from Moscow. The three native officers were fine-looking men who sat their horses well. All of them — native and European — wore jacked boots, white breeches and green kurta, and the saffron sasa which was the distinctive headdress of the rajah’s cavalry. Commandant Cadorna, Selden explained, was not only commanding officer of the cavalry but in overall command of the little army of Chintal. His rissalahs, together with the infantry (commanded by two German officers and a Swede), were housed in cantonments built lately some ten miles east of Chintalpore, whence the officers had ridden that morning.

  It took but two hours to reach the place where the rajah hoped to give them their sport. He was at first discomposed by the sickness of the shikari who knew the lands best, but he was confident nevertheless they would be able to find game enough to give some memorable runs. For the finest sport they should have been here at dawn, said Selden, but the day was hastily arranged: a proper bandobast could not be improvised. The shikaris had been out the day before to reconnoitre, however, and to visit the villages to recruit the long line of beaters which he pointed out to their front. ‘They will be hidden from view in the jhow for most of the time, but you will always tell their whereabouts from the chief shikari on the big she-elephant in the middle of the line. He is the man on whom our sport depends.’

  Unlike a line beating onto guns, this line was silent, and the spears now quietly took up their places to the rear of the beaters at intervals of thirty yards. When all were in position, the rajah — with Hervey away to his right — nodded to the chief shikari. He in turn waved a white flag, signalling the line to begin its stealthy advance to take by surprise — they hoped — a lone boar. Hervey could scarcely bear the wait; like scouting, when at any second the hunter might become the hunted, with the numbing surprise of the ambuscade. He felt more alive than ever. He looked to his right, where the raj kumari stood with her pilot. He had never seen a woman ride astride, her legs covered for most of their sinuous length in silk, the sweat from her pony’s flanks ensuring the cloth traced their form faithfully. His thoughts were as primal as the chase itself.

  Suddenly there was pandemonium — grunting, squealing, shouting. A big sounder had burst, and everywhere was pig. But neither the rajah nor the raj kumari moved, for the line was the commandant’s and the officers’ on the right. They spurred headlong after the boar, crying ‘On! On! On!’ and Hervey was only able to contain Badshah with a struggle, anxious not to have him bolt in front of the rajah. The chase did not last long. Perhaps the boar was reluctant to leave the sounder, and hesitated just a fraction too late before making for the cover of some jhow, but Commandant Cadorna stopped him in his tracks by a deft thrust with a jobbing spear between the shoulders.

  ‘I don’t suppose there will be any pig left in miles of here now,’ sighed Hervey as Selden rode up.

  ‘Do not imagine it!’ replied the salutri, looking pleased there had been an early and successful run. ‘There will be pig aplenty, I assure you!’

  Bearers strung the boar to carrying poles and trotted back towards the rajah to display the first blood. He was big, though not quite as big as the one Hervey had sabred. The rajah was pleased and signalled for the beaters to form line again. Spears began taking post to the rear, as before. The raj kumari rode over and asked Hervey if the tushes he had presented her had been so q
uickly won, and he answered that they had not, confessing to the impasse of sabre and indestructible boar. She had not spoken much since the banquet, though he had sensed her surveillance as he walked each day in the water gardens. Selden’s warning had been prescient, for there was something in her manner which said she distrusted him. On the other hand, she had engaged Henry Locke in the most animated of conversation whenever she had seen him, even encouraging him in his fledgling dalliance with one of the nautch girls. Now the first sounder was burst, there was an easing, and she seemed more candid. Indeed, for a few minutes at least they spoke freely and agreeably of the natural history of the bourrh lands. But the potency of her allure was overmatched for just this. Her black hair fell about her shoulders, and there were flecks of red dust on her face, thrown up in the gallop to see the commandant’s kill. She had a look as wild as the Spanish women who rode with their guerrilla lovers. They were raw peasant girls, however — gypsies. Her allure was the more for its high-born underlay. Here was danger as exquisite as the cobra that had swayed this way and that at the rajah’s banquet. Hervey knew it, and was on his guard, but was fascinated nevertheless.

  Silence once more descended on the company as the white flag from the centre of the line signalled another drive. They advanced with scarcely a sound for almost two hundred yards, through grass so high in places that the beaters were entirely lost from sight. Ahead was a particularly dense patch of jhow — uncut tamarisk grown to about twenty feet, with prolific sideshoots difficult to ride through. Hervey knew there would be pig here; and it would be his line, too. His blood coursed twice as fast, energizing muscle and heightening the senses.

  Out burst another sounder — smaller, faster. On the rajah’s line, though, but giving Hervey a run as second. The rajah fixed on the boar at once; Hervey slapped Badshah’s quarters with the bamboo shaft of his spear and dug his spurs into his flanks. The gelding sprang forward like a leopard, flattening in a few strides to a gallop. ‘Keep behind and to the side and at a right angle to the boar’s line!’ He could hear Selden still. He made up ground with the rajah in under a minute, and when he was almost in line he hooked back just enough to keep in place, settling to a hand-gallop.

  He looked right. There was the raj kumari, pilot at her side. Her little Arab pony — the one he had sabred the Sukri pig from — raced head low through the long grass, and the raj kumari’s hair flew like streamers, her legs long in the stirrups but quite still, even at that taxing pace. Hervey looked ahead and to his left: the rajah was almost on the boar. Then it jinked right so quickly that he overshot it. It ran obliquely across Hervey’s front, thirty yards ahead. It couldn’t have been making for cover, for there was none in sight. He pressed Badshah to charge for what he was certain must be a kill. The gelding’s stride lengthened once more and in another hundred yards he had closed with it. Hervey stood in the stirrups and raised his spear to job well forward. The boar jinked left so sharply in front of his line that Badshah jumped to clear it. Hervey was astonished as he gathered back the reins, for the horse could have had no sight of the pig so close in and must have jumped by some instinct. Nor was it the end, for although they had overshot, the gelding had of his own made a flying change to the nearside leg and was already turning onto the pig’s new line. Hervey glanced right, left and behind. The raj kumari had likewise overshot. Behind him the rajah was circling and about to come onto the old line. The boar himself was well clear of their front and heading away on the left, putting the rajah’s jemadar now on his line. That officer lost no time spurring for his quarry and claiming it — ‘On! On! On!’ Hervey galloped after him, determined to be close enough to spear the boar when — as he expected — it jinked back right. Badshah needed no telling to keep the line, and he gave him all the rein he wanted. It was only the third time he had ridden him but he trusted him as much as Jessye. They covered the best part of a mile at a furious pace, the pig running straight and showing no sign of tiring, until Hervey was only thirty yards behind.

  Then suddenly the jemadar was gone — disappeared. A second later and Hervey almost went too. Badshah lost his footing, the near-fore slipping and throwing all Hervey’s weight to the left — when the horse needed all he could on the right. They were going in — into a chasm as black as Hades. A fraction of a second and every bone must be broken. And then somehow Hervey was on Badshah’s neck the other side. How in heaven’s name… he had cat-leapt, on three legs, at a gallop, with weight bearing on the wrong foot! ‘What a horse! What a horse!’ was all Hervey could say as they scrambled to recover. He turned at once, springing from the saddle when he reached the chasm’s edge. He looked down — into a well thirty feet across. And in the water, a full twelve feet below, his eye lighted on the astonishing sight of the jemadar, his horse and the boar, each desperately treading water.

  He raced down the steps still carrying his spear, relieved to find just enough space on the ledge to haul out the jemadar, whose shoulder was badly broken. The horse was frantic. Whereas Jessye might have swum placidly round and round, confident of her rider’s purpose, the jemadar’s desert-bred Arab was wild-eyed and squealing with fear. The boar, enraged or equally fearful of the water (though Selden had told him what prodigiously good swimmers pigs were), was squealing and grunting in equal measure. Hervey picked up his spear and edged to the other side where the animal tried to scramble out. He stabbed between its shoulders with all the force he could manage, the spear going in deep and the water at once turning red. The boar struggled furiously, but this time Hervey hadn’t the secure seat in which to brace himself until it collapsed. He lost his footing and fell headlong into the water. The boar turned on him. All he could do was use his feet to fend off the maddened creature. So ferociously did it attack that one of its tushes cut through the leather of his boots, deepening the red of the pool. But Hervey managed at least to grasp back the spear, and found just enough of a footing on the well’s edge to get a full purchase on the shaft, forcing the brute underwater. It seemed an age but eventually the boar ceased struggling, and his side of the well was at last calm.

  Now he could edge round the side to grasp the Arab’s reins, for mercifully the bridle was in place. The saddle had slipped full under her, adding to her distress, and he knew he would need to support her soon, for she could not tread water for ever. The girth strap would be the best point to secure her, but he judged it best to free her of the encumbering saddle, and this he managed eventually to do — though not without kicks and more than one ducking. At once she became less frantic, but she was exhausted.

  Hervey was still in the water when the others began arriving. First down the steps was Captain Steuben, who lapsed into a string of Rhenish expletives. Next came Locke and Selden, followed by the rajah and the raj kumari until there were more of the party below ground than above. Two shikaris carried the jemadar up the steps, his right arm hanging limply like a rag doll’s, but he made no sound other than alternate gratitude and apology.

  There was now just enough room for Locke and Steuben to pull Hervey out. ‘Does the bottom shelve?’ asked Locke. ‘Can she get a footing?’

  ‘I think not,’ replied Hervey, still holding the pony’s reins as she continued to tread water. ‘She’s been all around the edge and found nothing firm. We’ll have to haul her out. Fasten as many girth straps together as possible to make a sling: she’ll soon tire and go under if we can’t at least support her. And we must find some rope and a means to lift her.’

  Selden looked at a loss; Steuben likewise. The rajah, the raj kumari, the other officers, the shikaris — all seemed to find it beyond them. But Locke saw it at once. ‘Just like lifting a gun from the lower deck — pulleys and braces. Come!’ he cried to the idle hands as he ran up the steps. ‘We need twenty men, a dozen yards of timber, all the girths and thirty feet of rope. And an axle!’

  Hervey smiled ruefully at the rajah. ‘If we are without an engineer, Your Highness, a marine is not a bad standby! I doubt we shall be too long here.’r />
  It was near to dark as they rode back to Chintalpore. Hervey had managed to get the girth sling under the pony (not without difficulty, for even free from the slipped saddle her legs were extravagant) and they had thus been able, with reins and other leathers, to keep her afloat for the three hours it took for Locke to construct the derrick, with its axle pulley, attach the sling fashioned from the howdah trappings, and to marshal the thirty beaters to heave on the rope to hoist her out at last. And then they had done the same with the boar, for not only did they not wish to see the well — ancient and abandoned though it was — poisoned, but the beaters were to be rewarded by its meat, as the day’s rupees were customarily supplemented.

  Locke and Hervey were heroes once more, Hervey the greater for his having fought off the boar, suffering a wound in the process. He protested it was nothing, but it was as well that the veterinary chest provided Selden’s sworn-by iodine. Exhausting as the encounter and exertions in the water had been, however, and aching though his leg was, instead of being pulled down by the affair he was quickened by it. Indeed, the raj kumari’s attention excited him. It was attention not born of inclination to minister, as might be supposed of female instinct, but by the chase, the lusty killing of the boar — Hervey’s mastering of things. Selden, Locke and even the rajah rode apart from them.

  When they reached the palace, as the sun was almost gone in the hills beyond Chintalpore, Hervey’s exhilaration could increase no more. He spent but a moment with Badshah’s syce before seeking out the raj kumari in her mare’s stall, but she seemed anxious, glancing about her, and she dismissed him, awkwardly, saying she must hurry to her quarters. He made to follow, but the syces were watching. Instead he turned for his own.