The Commanding General rode forward several paces and raised his voice to address the parade in his fluent badly-pronounced Hindustani.
“The Forty-Seventh and Sixty-Ninth Regiments have been guilty of open and defiant mutiny.
“In return for its considerate treatment of your religious beliefs, the Government expects to receive the confidence of those who serve it. From its soldiers of every rank and race it will at all times and in all circumstances enforce unhesitating obedience. The Forty-Seventh have shown that they cannot be relied upon for such obedience. It is therefore the order of the Governor General in Council that the Forty-Seventh Regiment of Native Infantry be now disbanded.”
The general paused and a cry of consternation rose from the 47th’s ranks. He remained silent until the British officers had turned to face their men and restored silence.
“The Sixty-Ninth, in recognition of the fact that, although it took up arms against its lawful officers and their families and shed their blood, this vile crime was committed by only a minority and at no time was any order defied — such as to embark for transportation upriver — and in acknowledgment of its distinguished record in action, will by the grace of the Governor General be permitted to continue in existence.”
Colonel Howell stood in his stirrups, removed his head-dress and bellowed, “Sixty-Ninth Regiment, three cheers for the King of England, for the Governor General, the Commander-in-Chief and our General Officer Commanding.”
Ramsey joined in the fervent response like an automaton, hardly aware of what he was doing, dazed and astonished, taken by surprise by the general’s announcement but feeling no pity for the 47th and immense relief at the narrow escape of “Ours”.
But he recognised that, despite the reprieve, he had reached the end of a career which he had once expected to follow for another 20 years or more; but about which he had been growing increasingly disillusioned and reluctant in the past few months.
*
Colonel Howell’s dewlaps gave his fat face a hangdog air at any time, but this morning his mournful look was intensified by the hurt in his eyes. He was a religious man. It mortified him that he possessed such a quick temper: he wished that the Christian forbearance he strove to display were reflected in a more placid disposition. He had called his officers together to give them a calm appreciation of the regiment’s position and now felt himself once more assailed by a surge of anger which he struggled to sublimate by finding expression in his familiar rapping on the desk and tugging his moustache.
“I regret, Gentlemen, that it was not possible to inform you of the information given to me in confidence about the circulation of those blasphemous tracts, the fruit of perverted minds, a cynical misuse of Our Lord’s teachings. It is plain that the pagans who devised the plot to spread propaganda purporting to convert the sepoys to the Christian Faith sought to take advantage of the force with which I express my own beliefs. They supposed that the men, as well as everyone else on the station and even the Divisional Commander and the Governor General, would accept that it was I who was responsible. Fortunately we have officials on our side who have been able to establish that the pamphlets were printed in Calcutta by a firm which does such work for two of the missionary societies: but that it was ordered and paid for by a Bengali Brahmin. Firm proof of this will very soon be shown to the sepoys.
“The men who deserted have been discharged with ignominy in absentia and if any is ever apprehended he will face trial. They, and those who have been otherwise disposed of, will be replaced by new recruits and we shall undergo a long course of training which will include an extensive period of duty up country. This is to be regarded as a process of rehabilitation and the regiment is to be given the earliest possible opportunity to engage in active service and demonstrate its fidelity.
“We have had a hair’s-breadth escape from the same fate as the Forty-Seventh, thanks to God’s grace, and we shall not be allowed a second chance.
“It had already been decided, before recent events, that the Bengal Army would be reorganised and this will be implemented forthwith. In brief, the changes will be as follows...”
Colonel Howell droned on and when he had done, Ramsey was left with the realisation that henceforth a barrier would be placed between the sepoys and British officers which, although it would enhance the responsibility of the native officers, would reduce the formers’ opportunities for influence over, and friendship with, the troops. This was the final factor that confirmed the decision which was already half-resolved in his mind some weeks before the mutinies and had hardened, in the past days, into a resolution which he could no longer postpone.
When he returned to the Colonel’s office the next day, at his own request, Howell greeted him with the casual avuncular informality of a much older friend who had known him since childhood. In other circumstances he could have imagined himself treating Thomas Verity in the same manner 20 years hence. He knew that what he had to say would wound this kindly man; and that was one reason why he had remained irresolute for so long, for irresolution was not part of his character.
“I have come to tell you, sir, that after long reflection I have decided to send in my papers.”
I couldn’t have shaken him more if I had told him I had decided to convert to Islam or Buddhism, Ramsey reflected. Colonel Howell’s face, sun-darkened to a shade that was approximately chestnut, brick-reddened by high blood pressure, quickly became purple. To Ramsey’s alarm, a tear appeared in each eye. He wondered whether they were occasioned by grief or rage.
“Send... in... your... papers?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Why, my boy?”
“Because I no longer feel that I have a vocation for a military career.”
“A vocation? A vocation? You sound like some Papist in a monastery. Following a tradition established by your grandfather and respected by your father, my very dear old friend, is not a vocation, it is a duty. A duty. What would your father say if you did such a thing?”
“I fear it is a matter of what he will say, sir, for I intend to hold to my resolve.”
“But why, Hugh, why?”
“Because what has happened has destroyed my feelings for the sepoys. I cannot respect them and I cannot trust them. I make an exception only for the men under my immediate command. For the rest, whom I formerly held in great regard, I have only suspicion left.”
“You should know better than that. You are being unjust and hasty. What about Sher Mahommed Khan, who saved your life? And Karim Baksh, who was prepared to sacrifice his to save Lumsden’s?”
“They are among the exceptions, Colonel. I would give my life for Sher Mahommed Khan; I owe it to him. I would do the same for Karim Baksh, because Lumsden was my closest friend. That does not alter my decision to go.”
Howell tried to lean over his desk to get nearer to Ramsey, a difficult procedure with his huge belly.
“You have a fine career in front of you. Brilliant, even. You have many gifts. I regard you as my best junior officer and potentially the best officer in the regiment. Does that mean nothing to you, give you no sense of achievement and spur for the future?”
“I am very flattered, sir.”
They regarded each other in a long silence.
“So you will reconsider?”
There was only one way to end this and Ramsey was heavy-hearted at the bluntness to which he must have recourse. It would wound the old fellow and he would give almost anything to avoid it: almost, but not quite.
“Sir, I came to India intending to make my fortune. I see no opportunity to do so in the Bengal Army. That is another reason why, even if my feelings towards the sepoys had not changed, I would not wish to continue serving.”
The silence during which they stared at one another was longer this time. The Colonel’s colour, which had subsided, rose once more to puce.
“Very well, Ramsey, if you really have sunk to such a depth of cynicism, let me have your resignation immediately.”
“I have it here, sir. And there is one final point I must make. If the rumours that the Forty-Seventh would mutiny had been heeded, that mutiny could have been prevented. Then Ours would have had no bad example to emulate and the second mutiny would have been avoided.”
This time Ramsey thought the Old Man really would explode. Like those 38 sepoys had, roped with their backs arched across the cannons’ mouths’.
He placed his letter on the Colonel’s desk, saluted and marched out.
*
“It is a bitter day, Huzur, to learn this. How soon does Your Honour depart?”
“It will be another month yet before the formalities of my resignation are completed.”
This was not the sort of information an officer customarily confided in another rank, but Ramsey had a purpose.
“Would to Allah that I could accompany Your Honour.”
“If you wish that, Sher Mahommed Khan, I shall gladly purchase your discharge.”
“Allah is merciful and Your Honour is great and generous, as your honoured father before you.”
“Then I shall arrange for your discharge forthwith.”
“Karim Baksh will be released from hospital at the time when Your Honour and I depart.”
“Would he wish to take service with me as bearer?”
“With the sahib’s permission I shall visit him in his bed of sickness and enquire.”
“To a man who tried to save the life of Lumsden Sahib, I will go in person.”
The next day Ramsey arranged to buy both men out of the Service.
*
“Are you going to chuck it and go back to Ireland, Patrick?”
Yeats fiddled with the bandage over his eye. “Sure and what would be the point of that, running away from something that’s better faced like a man? The surgeons have offered to arrange my retirement on medical grounds, but I’m staying.”
“Do you think I am running away?”
“Not at all. Your situation is entirely different from mine. I have a comfortable fortune, even though I’ve added nothing to it out here. You intend to make yours. I’m not staying because I love these heathen spalpeens. I’ll bide my time until I can take my revenge one day. Mark my words, these black scoundrels will mutiny again someday, somewhere. And I intend to be there to annihilate a few score of them myself. They’ll never catch me by surprise again.”
*
When, a month later, Ramsey went to say goodbye to the Veritys, it was a more painful wrench than he had expected.
“Shall you come back and see us, Mr. Ramsey?”
“I hope so, Thomas. And when I do I hope to see you doing great equestrian things.”
“What is equestrian, sir?”
“It means I hope to see you a fine horseman: and I am sure I shall.”
Eleanor shed a tear. Her husband asked, “Have you any plans?”
“I shall go to Calcutta. I have many acquaintances among the merchants. I shall find employment: few commercial gentlemen write Hindustani as well as speak it fluently. That is bound to be to my advantage. That, and my family connections all over the country.”
“I didn’t know there were any gentlemen in commerce. You will be the first of whom I have ever heard.”
Colonel Howell did not relent when Ramsey formally took his leave. The mess had dined him out riotously the night before and he felt ragged and bilious when, in uniform for the last time, after a touching farewell from his sepoys on first parade, he presented himself to the commandant.
“I cannot condone your stubborn adherence to what is, in the opinions of the Commander-in-Chief and the Divisional General as well as myself, a mistaken decision. What is more, I shall write to your father, as is my duty, and tell him so. He will be sorely grieved. ‘Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me... I was bowed down at the hearing of it.’ Isaiah, chapter twenty-one, verse three. Have you stopped to think about that?”
Ramsey said nothing.
With impatience, Howell resumed. “What is more, commerce debases the soul; and is not, in any event, a proper occupation for a gentleman. Least of all for one who has had the honour to hold an officer’s commission. Nonetheless, Hugh, I wish you well, under God’s protection. And when you return to your senses, I assure you the Bengal Army will readily re-admit you: with some loss of seniority, of course.”
“Thank you, Colonel. I am greatly honoured. But my decision is irrevocable. I intend to ‘beat my sword into a ploughshare’... if I had a spear, I’d beat that ‘into a pruning-hook’. ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’ Isaiah, sir. Second chapter, if I remember aright. The precise verse escapes me for the moment.”
Howell gave him an outraged look, like a chess master checkmated by a novice. He shook Ramsey’s hand without another word but his own hand trembled with wrath, his cheeks had turned magenta and he was growling to himself under his breath when Ramsey saluted and turned about.
An hour later Ramsey and his two servants went aboard a country boat, a craft some 30 feet long and ten feet in the beam, with a bamboo cabin thatched with straw amidships. It had one mast and was propelled by oars and two sails. He slept most of the way and, going downstream, they arrived at Princeps Ghat on Strand Road in Calcutta in the late afternoon.
In a tikka gari, with the two bearers following with his luggage in another, he jolted and rattled along beside the river and by Red Road across the great expanse of the maidan, where the grass stood burned yellow by the sun and awaiting the monsoon showers to make it green again, towards the steaming, teeming city and the fine house on its outskirts where he was going to stay with Angus MacLean, who had been trading in India for a decade.
It was too early and too exciting for him to have any regrets. Ramsey wondered, as the ribby nag between the shafts bore him towards the next stage in whatever was his destiny, whether he would ever have any regrets. He knew nothing about business and he had saved very little money. He had just qualified for a pension equivalent to a cornet’s half-pay. MacLean was hardly more than an acquaintance. When Ramsey had written to him of his resignation and intention to earn his living as a merchant, he had been agreeably surprised by the reply. MacLean had invited him to come and stay and hinted that he might be able to help him.
His resources would not last long. He could barely subsist on his miniscule pension. He could not afford to take time over picking and choosing. The essential thing was to make a start at some livelihood and seek further opportunities when he had learned enough.
Economic necessity would keep his mind too busy to find room for regret at what he had done. On the other hand, it might be the very reason for the most wretched of regrets. One thing was certain: there was no turning back. Whatever the Colonel’s valedictory words, he had finished with the Army.
The realisation caused him no pain. If he did suffer any pangs, it would be on account of penury, not remorse.
Chapter Four
The vessel which had brought the Whittakers from Bombay, down the Malabar coast to Cape Comorin and up the coast of Coromandel, dropped anchor one morning in Balasore Roads at the mouth of the Hooghly.
They had risen early, eager for a sight of land that would herald release from shipboard confinement. Their week in Bombay had afforded too short a break in their long months of voyaging.
Standing together in the bows, they saw many large ships at anchor and several smaller ones, bearing the flag of the Honourable East India Company, to which Whittaker drew his wife’s and daughter’s attention.
“Those are the pilot cutters. The master was saying yesterday that navigation on the Hooghly is the most difficult in the world. The sandbanks shift almost daily.”
Presently one of the cutters came alongside and a pilot boarded, accompanied by a smartly uniformed personal servant.
The ships made sail, weighed anchor and the breeze bore them into the mouth of the broad, yellow river. The water was thick
with silt.
“The master said the river is so abrasive that it quickly scrapes the tar and paint off ships’ bottoms.”
Ruth had found the last four weeks most irksome.
“Maybe that will help us to slip through the water more quickly. This time we go ashore I hope we never have to sail the ocean again until we go home: and that will be the last time I want to set foot on board a ship.”
Constance patted her arm. “I know just how you feel, dear.”
Henry had been talking to the ship’s officers about overland travel in India. He had learned that the customary way was by river boat whenever possible. He decided to keep his own counsel for the time being.
For three days they made their way against the stream. When Calcutta came in sight, the Whittakers admired the fine white mansions along the river banks, the handsome bulk of Fort William, the beauty of the neatly kept grounds around the private residences. But when the anchor went down and the ship lay motionless, they felt the oppressive heat and humidity of Bengal like a poultice and caught the dank whiff of mud and the foul odours of a crowded, insanitary city which had turned their stomachs in Bombay.
Once ashore, they put the bad smells behind them as they were driven to a hotel in Garden Reach where most of the British lived in big houses, behind high walls, overlooking the water.
Brown’s Hotel stood in a large compound where a multitude of big earthenware pots, each with a carefully tended plant, took the place of flowerbeds.
As soon as he had settled his wife and daughter in their rooms, Whittaker arranged the hire of a phaeton with a driver.
A Good Soldier Page 6