A Call To Arms

by Allan Mallinson

  Silence descended once more. Then the owl called again.

  ‘View-halloo!’ came Somervile’s voice from the house, imitating the bird. ‘A dozen paces to your right, second branch up!’

  There indeed it was. ‘How in heaven’s name did you spy him from there? I can see him only against the sky,’ exclaimed Hervey.

  ‘I couldn’t. That is where he always sits.’

  Hervey smiled. ‘Then I wish you had met the duke’s chief of intelligence. You would have had much to speak of in the question of humbug.’

  ‘You cannot be sure that I have not.’

  Hervey narrowed his eyes mockingly, but he was largely hoist on his own device, for secrecy in such matters was the very essence of intelligence work. ‘No, you are right. I cannot be sure.’

  ‘Calculation and just the right degree of humbug. That would be the essence of intelligence work, would it not?’

  ‘I suppose so. And am I to calculate now?’

  ‘There is nothing to calculate, Matthew,’ insisted Emma, turning to her husband. ‘Really, Eyre! I think there must be more to the skills required than being an ornithologer.’

  At dinner Hervey had noticed how much of a teasing dominance Emma had achieved. It appeared to be in direct proportion to Somervile’s own diminution in dispute, and left the impression of a thoroughly happy balance. Theirs was indeed an altogether admirable union.

  Two days later, Hervey was standing at the rails of the sandy arena which served as the summer riding school in the cavalry lines. In a couple of hours’ time, mid-morning, the place would be a great cloud of dust if so much as a single horse trotted its four corners. But the bhistis had been at work from soon after dawn, and would bring their watering cans in continuous relays to damp down the manège until the sun drove all to seek the shade. Hervey knew it would get hotter, too. This May heat was nothing compared with the heavy air that would settle on them before the monsoon broke, although, being close to the sea, their discomfort would be minor compared with the garrisons on the plain further west. It was difficult to imagine that the Calcutta garrison would have need of the big, whitewashed stone school which served all three regiments during the winter. Not that the regiment was labouring greatly in the heat, Hervey had been pleased to observe; the weeks coming up through the Indian Ocean had served to acclimate both men and horses well. He had five men sick this day, probably no more than would have been the case in Hounslow, although the surgeon’s prognosis in the case of Private Carrow was not good. Poor Carrow had not seen India other than the inside of the isolation hospital. He had been laid low with a fever since the transports had entered the Hooghly, and had been taken off by stretcher in a delirium as soon as anchor had been dropped. It was the last thing that Hervey had wanted, for the smiting of Carrow as soon as they had come within breath of the land had put a terrible fear into the troop. Even ‘Chokey’ Finch, old Indiaman that he was, had been unable to shake off the dread that they would all be taken by the Hooghly’s notorious miasma before laying a foot ashore.

  But Finch had rallied after a few days, and with Chokey Finch in decent spirits once more, the others had soon followed suit. Hervey congratulated himself on persuading B Troop’s captain to give him up to E, for an old sweat had good tricks to teach as well as questionable ones. Watching his troop at riding school, and with a heavy heart, Hervey wished he had a dozen more sweats. Before leaving Hounslow the new men had had a rude introduction to military equitation at the hands of the rough-riders, just enough to make them secure at the trot; but now they looked like raw recruits again.

  ‘Three months at least before a field day I reckon,’ opined Serjeant-Major Armstrong, taking off his watering cap and mopping his brow with his cuff. ‘But some of them have the makings, for sure. “Boiler” Smith can sit secure, as you’d expect. And Rudd has a good seat, and Wainwright too. And neither of them had been on a horse before. It was worth going to Wiltshire just for those two. And Shepherd Stent’s at home in the saddle, except that he won’t do as he’s told. Look at that leg!’

  It was not where it should be, that much was certain. Yet Hervey observed that he had his mount in hand.

  ‘Get them ’eels down, number three, and the leg where the girth is!’ bellowed Rough-Rider Serjeant Smollet. ‘This is His Majesty’s Light Dragoons, not a flock of sheep drovers!’

  ‘Six months was what the colonel said we could have. It certainly won’t be a handy troop inside of that.’

  ‘You just missed French. I’d be the first to say I judged him too hasty. That lad puts everything he has into it.’

  Hervey agreed. No one had worked harder than French on the voyage out. It could not have been easy for a youth of evident education to be below decks. ‘He seems very content in his lot. Yet I believe him to have ambition.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so, sir. Mind you, it’s your credit for things, getting him to teach the likes of Mole to write. Have you seen how they look at him? As if he’s a corporal already.’

  Hervey smiled a little with satisfaction. ‘But I was wrong about Sisken.’

  Armstrong sighed. ‘Ay, well … I could’ve insisted more.’

  They watched a while longer in silence.

  ‘Half the trouble is those remounts,’ said Hervey, after the second of the ‘Warminster pals’ had dismounted involuntarily. ‘They’re as green as the recruits.’

  ‘Well, I doubt we’ll see better this side of Christmas, no matter what the RM says. Them ’Indoo ’orse next door reckon they’ve scoured the country from here to Lucknow and still haven’t enough.’

  Without a doubt, thought Hervey, these were the poorestlooking troop-horses since the Peninsula – and very disobliging. ‘I don’t understand it. I saw more quality in the rajah’s stables in Chintal than I’ve seen in years.’

  ‘Word in the bazaars is that the agent’s got the option on every screw in Bengal.’

  Hervey sighed. ‘It’ll be a sorry affair if we have to go and find our own remounts as well as recruits.’

  They watched as the ride changed reins. A third ‘pal’ slid to the ground, bringing a welter of expletives from the rough-rider serjeant. The Sixth’s methods were thoroughly modern, but a dragoon who would not keep his horse between himself and the ground must be put in no doubt as to his delinquency.

  ‘You missed the best, sir.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘McCarthy. The footiest man on a horse you ever saw. But by God he’s determined. As soon as he’s proficient we should make him corporal. Collins says he’s like lightning with firearms.’

  ‘And Caithlin likes him.’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘I think it settled then,’ he said with a smile, but hardly surprised – that affair in France, the only cool head in the company. ‘I’d dearly like to know how he lost his rank.’

  ‘Fighting, for sure. Like every other Paddy. What I’d like to know is how “BC” lost his name. He’s kept his nose clean so far, I grant you.’

  As far as the barrack-room was concerned, Private Dodds might as well have been christened ‘BC’ as branded it.

  ‘Well, it will out sure enough, and probably soon. And you can tell me you warned as much.’

  Before Armstrong could protest, Hervey saw the commanding officer approaching, and with him the RSM.

  When the colonel had closed with them the officers exchanged salutes, and the serjeant-majors stood to attention as was the Sixth’s custom.

  ‘Some way to go, I think,’ said Colonel Lankester, with a bemused look.

  ‘I think so too, Colonel,’ replied Hervey, managing not to frown too much. ‘We shall need our six months.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Hervey looked at Lankester uneasily.

  ‘I shall need to “borrow” your troop, shall we say, somewhat earlier than that.’

  ‘Indeed, Colonel?’

  ‘Nothing too serious, Hervey. I shouldn’t worry about it. The Governor-General wants to stage a demonstration, as he puts
it. The last of the Pindaree forts was overcome last month and he wants to send a message to all the spies in the city.’

  ‘When, Colonel?’

  ‘We have two weeks.’

  Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘It can’t be done!’

  Lankester eyed him warily but was not inclined to take his dissent to task. ‘The entire brigade’s to turn out – a sort of mock battle. The Governor-General intends it to be a great tamasha, as he puts it. Last one before the rains come. You need have no worry, though. As soon as the brigadier makes his intention known I shall arrange for your troop to be put in a place whence it doesn’t have to manoeuvre.’

  ‘Colonel, I fear even that is asking too much. See this ride – and they’re by no means the worst. If we had schoolmasters it would not be so bad, but these have no manners whatever.’

  Sir Ivo looked again at the ride. There was not a horse on the bit. ‘Very well, Hervey,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘We must think of something that keeps them out of things altogether. Meanwhile, keep at riding school. You may have all the rough-riders, too. And there are more remounts arriving in a day or so. You shall have first choice.’

  ‘I’m obliged, Colonel,’ said Hervey. He would have done all in his power to accommodate Sir Ivo, a man of such evident integrity and so wholly lacking in vanity, but he would have been true to no one – not least to Sir Ivo himself – if he had simply said ‘yes’ to an infeasible task.

  But for all his disappointment, Sir Ivo seemed in excellent spirits. He turned to Armstrong. ‘Good morning, Serjeant-Major. How is Mrs Armstrong? I have not seen her since we disembarked.’

  ‘She is very well, thank you, Colonel.’

  ‘And busy, I hear?’

  ‘She has the wives combining every morning, Colonel.’

  ‘I’m grateful to her. The quarters are better than I dared hope, but the better still for some organization. What say you, Mr Lincoln?’

  ‘I have never seen their like in all my service, Colonel,’ declared the RSM. ‘I might wish we had come here years ago.’

  Only the adjutant knew to what lengths the commanding officer had gone to secure habitable married quarters. Lankester had written to the Court of Directors and then to Mr Canning, President of the Board of Control, and had forced their hand ultimately by pledging a sizeable sum of his own to the provision of separate lines – twice the number normally allowed. And as soon as he had become aware of how many more wives there were beyond even that number, he had sent by the express route a further requisition. The meanest dragoon and his wife had a room of their own in consequence.

  ‘Quite a turnabout, isn’t it?’ said Armstrong when Lankester had gone.

  ‘It is,’ agreed Hervey, but he was disinclined to dwell on it; the memory of Lord Towcester was made all the worse by comparison with such a man as Sir Ivo.

  ‘Well, either way, the RM’s going to have a hell of a job getting yon clodhoppers to pass out of riding school this side of the monsoon. I reckon our best bet might be the leading rein for this do of the general’s.’

  Hervey nodded. ‘It may yet come to it. And what a sight we shall then look, eh?’

  The cavalry lines stood on the northern edge of the city, so that dry fodder could be had in plenty from the plain beyond, and so that horse and rider would have easy access to exercise ground. However, in the years since the building of the lines there had been a steady encroachment of squattings, the dwelling places of the little army of syces, bhistis, bearers and sweepers, and all the other ‘untouchables’ who eased the labour of the cavalrymen or who provided them and their officers with comforts. Their ramshackle huts stood in singular contrast to the whitened stone of the cavalry lines – the verandahed barrack-houses, offices, stores and stables – just as their occupants in their drab homespun stood in contrast to the dragoons in their blue, yellow, silver and gold. In the case of the females, on the other hand, the bright colours of the native women easily eclipsed those of the gora log, whose quality preferred white or pastels, and whose others still wore the dark cloth of the tenement or the cottage.

  When the lines had been extended in anticipation of the Sixth’s posting, many of the squattings had been dismantled and moved half a mile further onto the plain, or had simply been swept away. However, they had still increased in number as the agents began engaging labour for the new regiment; so that almost immediately on leaving the lines – and even, for that matter, the officers’ lines, where stood the officers’ house and its surrounding bungalows, and the married officers’ quarters – the rider was presented with the sights and sounds, the tastes and smells of native India. This morning, the sun just up, the air still fresh, and the cooking fires making yet only a little smoke, Hervey was content. His gelding was getting back to hale condition, summer coat through and shining, muscle regenerate. Gilbert had endured the voyage as well as Jessye had three years before. His mouth was as soft as when the bridoon had been taken off at Tilbury, and his manners had deteriorated not a jot. But that was nothing compared with Private Johnson’s delight, his roan mare. The atrophy of the muscles over her near scapula had been truly alarming, but it had disappeared quite spontaneously – almost overnight, indeed. The veterinary surgeon had predicted that it could, but no one had had any expectation of it, for the ridge on the shoulder blade had been so prominent that it suggested some malignant growth rather than muscle damage.

  ‘What did tha say it were called, sir?’

  ‘Sweeny. That’s what the Americans call it – at least, the ones we met in Michigan. Don’t you remember that admirable farrier in Detroit who treated the serjeant-major’s mare?’

  Johnson did. ‘Well, I can’t wait to get my old girl out for a walk – that’s all I’ll say. T’vetinary’s seeing ’er this afternoon. I reckon ’e’ll pass ’er fit.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. But it was a very nasty fall.’

  Nellie had fallen in a squall off Madagascar and evidently taken her whole weight on her shoulder, for the damage had been massive.

  ‘The veterinarian believes it may be something to do with the nerve in that part, rather than the tissue,’ said Hervey.

  ‘Is that why it’s come all right?’

  ‘He says that nerves can become snared, and just as suddenly they’re released.’

  ‘It’d be a real shame if they didn’t. She’s t’best trooper I’ve ’ad.’ Hervey did not doubt it. But this was India. ‘What’s wrong with the one you’re riding?’

  Johnson looked surprised. ‘What, this? I’ve seen bigger pit ponies.’

  ‘She’s going forward nicely.’

  ‘Ay, but …’

  ‘Well, what else do you want?’

  Johnson looked indignant. ‘Well, I’d like summat wi’ a bit of reach.’

  ‘That I grant you. But I’ll warrant that pony will carry you a deal further in this country than your Irish mare. And I think I’d trade a hand or two for that.’

  Johnson was doubtful.

  ‘The first remounts arrive this afternoon,’ continued Hervey, brushing a particularly large horsefly from Gilbert’s neck. ‘I shall look them over with Mr Sledge and choose thirty at once. The sooner those recruits are in the saddle as one body the better.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I ought to stop calling them recruits, I suppose.’

  Johnson agreed. ‘I wonder ’ow many dragoons ’as spent as long in t’ranks wi’out an ’orse afore!’

  Hervey smiled. ‘You’re right. We must be the footiest dragoons in the line. But their musketry’s good, mind – being so long cooped up. You didn’t see Harkness bring down that goose at the Cape.’

  ‘ ’E’s all right, is ’Arkness, sir. Y’know French ’as taught ’im to read proper and write.’

  ‘Has he indeed? Harkness as well as Mole. Then French has doubly earned his pay.’

  ‘Y’know ’is father’s a parson, an’ all, sir?’

  The short a in Johnson’s father still took Hervey by surprise from time to time. His ear for
the peculiarities of Sheffield vowels – indeed, for the whole structure of the speech of those parts – was now finely attuned, but father always sounded peculiarly alien. Alien and rather cold, especially compared with the gentle fayther of Caithlin Armstrong’s Cork – and Private McCarthy’s, for that matter. ‘Yes, I do know, but he seemed disinclined to speak of his family when first I broached it, so I didn’t press him to details.’

  ‘Somewe’er in Wales, ’e said. An’ ’e said that folks there used to say them as were on t’parish were as poor as church mice, but not as poor as t’parson.’

  Hervey could believe it. His own father’s living may have been a poor one, but by the standards of the Welsh dioceses he knew it to be comfortable. ‘Is French liked by the others?’

  ‘Oh ay, sir. ’E used to write letters for their sweet’earts, in ’Ounslow. An’ ’e’s a God-fearing man an’ all. Most o’ t’troop respects ’im for that. But mind, ’e wouldn’t ’ave ’owt to do with Corporal Sandbache when ’e came round.’ Johnson lashed out at another of the early horseflies they had attracted.

  Hervey smiled at the thought of ‘Preacher’ Sandbache believing he had a ready-made accomplice in French. Sandbache did little enough harm; that was the general opinion. And from time to time it was acknowledged that he did good. At least, the chaplain had no complaints that a Wesleyan was at work in the ranks, for the chaplain was by any reckoning a good man, and the first to acknowledge that his ministry beyond the church parade was largely ineffective. French was evidently a man to watch, then. Hervey had thought as much from the beginning. But favouring a dragoon who might be a gentleman’s son would hardly have been a kindness, especially in the confines of a transport. Better then that he had left him as he had, to earn the trust of his comrades, for once French had won it, Hervey could use his talents keenly.

  ‘What do you think of McCarthy?’

  Johnson did not reply at once. It was not that he ever paused to think how best to express something – he spoke entirely as he found – rather that he had no perfect opinion of McCarthy. ‘’ E keeps ’imself to ’imself. T’others’ve been biding their time wi’ ’im, I think. But I’ll tell thee this, sir: I can’t see as ’e’ll ever be ’appy on an ’orse.’