Free Lance

by George Shipway

  Todd felt in a pocket, hesitated, shut his fingers on a trinket he withdrew. ‘Will you promise to keep secret what I say?’

  ‘Faithfully, I promise.’

  Todd opened his hand, disclosed a ring. ‘This belonged - belongs - to Hugo. I apprehend he is still alive.’

  Caroline half rose from the chair, and fell back fighting for breath. Todd, alarmed, ran to her room and found a bottle of smelling salts. She thrust the phial away.

  ‘Mr Todd . . . Henry ... for the love of God, tell me at once why you think it so!’

  Todd resumed his seat on the steps, described the guard house robbery and finding the ring in the tunnel. ‘Proof, to my mind, that Hugo took part. And if he was there he led the thieves. Can you conceive him subordinate in a venture so horridly hazardous?’

  ‘But why?’ said Caroline wildly. ‘Why should Captain Amaury conduct himself so shockingly?’

  Laughter bellowed distantly, glasses clinked, Anstruther’s tenor voice carrolled ‘Kate of Aberdeen’. The chaplain reeled from a doorway, pitched headlong from the veranda. Todd screwed his mouth in disgust.

  ‘I believe,’ he said stonily, ‘Hugo is persuaded that in English eyes he has no character left to lose. Nor was he ever a man who respected the world’s opinion. Old Beddoes was right: he has gone for a soldier of fortune, a free lance roving India.’

  Caroline’s eyes were misty. She clasped her hands and kneaded intertwined fingers. ‘If only your surmise is true ... if he lives! Nothing else matters, nothing at all!’

  ‘If he lives. That I must first determine. I shall then try to persuade him to return.’

  ‘You will follow him into Berar?’

  ‘My arrangements for the journey are in train.’

  Caroline leaned forward, green-gold eyes ablaze. She reached her hands to Todd. ‘Henry, take me with you!’

  The ensign’s mouth dropped open. ‘Take you--! ‘Tis fantastically impossible! Miss Wrangham, you are not yourself! Your indisposition, the heat…’ He jumped to his feet. ‘Pray permit me to fetch a cordial, a little brandy and water--’

  Caroline gripped his arm, and said fiercely, ‘Henry, why are you set on finding Captain Amaury?’

  Todd answered slowly, ‘He saved my life. I must try to save the ruin of his own. Besides, I...I admire him... he is my friend...’

  ‘Spillikins! You adore the man! And so,’ she said exultantly, ‘do I! There, I have confessed it, shameless and impenitent! Positively, Henry, we must search for Hugo together!’

  The chaplain, face down in the dust, was noisily sick.

  The labourers sent to Dharia at Amaury’s insistence repaired the fortifications - his first priority - and helped restore the houses his people lived in. While he was contemplating rebuilding the remainder, still in a ruinous state, he found the work was taken from his hands. Word of the savage reprisal inflicted on the Pindaris travelled like forest fire; a strong hand, rumour reported, had gripped a lawless land and squeezed the anarchy out. From faraway provinces - Oudh and Orissa, Bundelkhand and Mewar - people scourged by wars and pillage fled to safety and security in Amaury’s distant fief. Parties of natives, large and small, began filtering into the jagir. Some settled in villages, and worked as labourers on the land; others, mostly traders and craftsmen - tailors, shoemakers, potters and metal-workers - settled in Dharia itself and started shops and manufactories.

  Aided by his spies Amaury kept close watch on the immigrants, encouraged those who came to restore their fortunes, enlisted wandering mercenaries seeking new employment, and promptly hanged the thugs and thieves, publishing their transgressions far and wide. From dawn till dusk he was never at rest, rode miles from village to village, dispensed justice, settled petty disputes; and increased productive tillage by granting the newcomers land.

  In Dharia fiscal matters took nearly all his time. He mastered a new currency: in central and northern India rupees generally replaced the pagodas of the south. By amiable arrangement with Vedvyas, Amaury from his own resources paid the troops, awarded pensions for wounds or death - three Rahtors had died in the Pindari clash - and provided cash for army craftsmen to buy their trade materials. He sent barterers to Bikaneer for sulphur and saltpetre; from Gwalior he bought iron, and copper from mines in Mysore. Few itinerant metal-workers escaped Welladvice’s clutches; hauled into a foundry he established they started casting guns, making musket locks and barrels. Vedvyas paid civilian labour and met the subsidies Amaury promised for restoring derelict fields. The arrangement worked well; Vedvyas’s banian and treasury scribes, on whom he kept a stringent eye, handled the accounting, entered everything in cash books and presented them for audit to their master and to Amaury.

  ‘A sound business partnership,’ Vedvyas observed, watching Amaury totting figures. ‘We haggle like a brace of fat Bengalee usurers!’

  The mercenaries Amaury enlisted were a motley bunch: Musulman najibs, Marathas, Jats and Mewaris, thirty or so all told. He summarily dismounted the few horsemen they included, and formed an infantry nucleus. Recruiting officers sent to Mewar collected fifty najibs carrying matchlocks and ancient wheel-locks. He told Welladvice to concentrate on manufacturing firelocks; and instructed his recruits in infantry drill and manoeuvre - a task, which, imposed on his other labours, stretched even his relentless energy almost to snapping point.

  Amaury was aware his force was badly unbalanced: lacking infantry support it could not win major battles. Moreover, he foresaw that the Bhonsla’s man at Droog, sixty miles away, must soon bestir himself against the impertinent little army which had dared to occupy Dharia and presumed to rule its jagir. He hated waiting to be attacked; all his instincts urged a forestalling strike. Logical military insight bridled his impatience:.cavalry and guns alone could hardly storm a fort.

  During this interval, with the monsoon fast approaching, spies from the western villages hurried into Dharia. Contradictory and confused reports implied Droog’s garrison was marching; but Amaury could make no sense from stories of a different force advancing in the van. Estimates of numbers varied by the thousand. Concluding that a sizeable army rapidly approached his stronghold, and cursing the prudence which had fed his foes the initiative, he mounted every trooper capable of riding, harnessed all his guns, mustered eighty half-trained infantry and marched to meet them.

  Twenty miles from Dharia he heard a cannon’s thump, and musket volleys stuttering like a crackle of burning twigs. Thoroughly perplexed - who were the enemy fighting? - he stopped and surveyed the ground. A cart track inches deep in dust scarred a mile-broad plain, splotched by cactus thorn and tamarisk, which climbed on either hand to jagged tree-thronged ridges. Dust whorls capered like drunken dancers, the burning dome of the sky clamped furnace heat on the land. Scorched and lifeless, brittle as old bones, grass and bushes and trees craved the monsoon’s healing rain. The glare seared Amaury’s eyes, and his body crawled with sweat.

  ‘Halt here,’ he told Vedvyas. ‘I’ll take a couple of men and reconnoitre forward.’

  Amaury cantered the trackway threading the vale, saw a frothing of dust in the distance and spurred smartly towards the forested slope which climbed like a wall on his left. The firing rattled louder; he cocked an ear to the volleys. Successive disciplined crashes rolled as one. ‘Sounds like Company sepoys,’ he muttered, coaxing Hannibal across a ravine. ‘File or platoon firing.’

  He climbed the spine of a ridge, and saw the battlefield below.

  Blue-uniformed native infantry - uniformed! Amaury exclaimed - marched three battalions abreast in columns of platoons. Enclosed between the columns were followers and transport - carts and laden animals, men and women and children - all protected by a rearguard ranked in line. Two cannon flanked the rearguard; another division, bullock-harnessed, trundled among the columns. The rearguard, six companies strong, employed the chequered retreat in line, retiring in alternate threes which halted and formed front two hundred paces in rear. A horseman flitting from line to line directed a
withdrawal which was governed by disciplined coolness and a steady parade-ground order. The battalions, Amaury judged, screwing spyglass into eye, were organized like King’s regiments, eight fifty-man companies each. A brigade twelve hundred strong conducted a fighting retreat.

  Where the devil had they sprung from?

  He swivelled his glass and inspected the opposition. Five hundred more or less. Horsemen in disorderly groups trotted cautiously within musket shot, recoiled and scattered when the volleys crackled. Spearmen pranced and shouted. Matchlockmen ran forward, shot random balls and hastily withdrew to a long-drawn-out reloading, loose powder poured in barrels, dribbled into pans, bullet and wad stuffed down; while the slow-match was blown on to keep it alight and held away from the powder - an operation demanding agile hands.

  A more regulated band in rear carried on their shoulders lengthy iron cylinders tied to bamboo poles which they planted in the ground. Signalled by a red-turbaned leader they touched matches to the fuses. Rockets snaked in looping arcs, burst harmlessly in the air, careered crazily in unforeseen directions, thudded unexploded in the dust. A few were less inaccurate: the ranks of a company wavered when a rocket ripped into the line. Their range being twice effective musket shot the volleys could not reach the rocketeers. Cannon searched them out, bowled roundshot and dispersed them, limbered up and went.

  The companies reloaded, turned about and retired.

  Amaury paced the retreat, keeping under cover on the ridge. The brigade was in no great danger; the pursuers were not pressing hard and showed no wish to close. Only the rockets did damage; and from time to time a body in blue dropped squirming to the ground.

  The horseman, conspicuous on a skewbald charger, vigilantly saw his casualties collected and carried to the rear. Damn my blood, said Amaury, focusing his glass, the fellow’s a European! Tricorne hat, hair clubbed and ribboned, face alabaster-pale. Who the hell--! Coming to a decision, he returned clattering and sliding along the hill track he had followed, dropped into the vale when the columns were out of sight and galloped hard to his tiny army halted on the plain.

  ‘Mr Welladvice, advance your guns in line until you see the enemy’s dust; then drop trails and load. Sirdar sahib, rank the najibs in single line between the guns, show all the front you can. On no account open fire unless you are attacked. Squadron, mount! Threes left! Canter - march!’

  Amaury scrambled the cavalry over the ridge, sent them serving and ducking tree-boughs along the farther side, hidden from the plain; and rode the crest himself until he saw the running fight. He passed the brigade’s marching columns, halted level with the rearguard, called risaldars and jemadars to his observation post and pointed to the medley of horse and foot harassing the blue-uniformed infantry.

  ‘Behold your enemy, brothers, like sheep unaware that the wolfpack is near! We will descend the hill in line, keeping what order we may, halt at the foot and dress. Then we attack!’

  Surprise was complete, shattering in its impact, striking suddenly from a flank on a disordered rabble whose eyes were riveted on the brigade they were attacking. The squadron charged straight through, sabreing as they rode. Amaury halted Hannibal on his hocks, whirled sabre round his head. They wheeled about by troops, formed line and charged again, and broke into fugitive splinters the last unyielding knots. Rallying at Amaury’s call the squadron split in troops and hunted those who fled.

  Corpses littered the ground; the wounded crawled and moaned; men on their knees lifted hands to the sky and howled for quarter.

  The trumpeter blew Assembly. Amaury watched approvingly his troopers end the pursuit, re-form, canter to the call and dress in line.

  ‘Bravo, children!’ he said. ‘I’ll make soldiers of you yet! Risaldar Bhagwan Ram, your troop will round up prisoners.’

  A musket shot away an astonished rearguard watched the rout, while the columns they protected marched steadily on. Amaury tied a handkerchief to the tip of his crimsoned sabre and walked Hannibal forward. The man on the skewbald charger rode to meet him. A brown frieze coat draped his lanky frame; he carried a cocked pistol, barrel resting on his thigh. Bloodshot, flint-grey eyes dilated in surprise.

  ‘By God!’ he said. ‘A Fringee! From your dress I thought you a Moorman. Major Royds, sir, late of the Bhonsla’s army. And who the devil are you?’

  A nasal intonation twanged his voice, the accent strange to Amaury’s ears. ‘Hugo Amaury of Dharia. Having delivered you from destruction, sir, may I ask the favour of a parley?’

  A sneer curled the thin clay-coloured lips. ‘Destruction? Nonsense! A cursed nuisance, nothing more. One troop of horse - which I haven’t got - would have sent ’em rightabout smartly. Parley, you say? No time for chatter. I’m bound for the Company’s Circars, and I’m going there goddam fast!’

  The Rahtor squadron dismounted, made much of the horses, and cheerfully insulted the prisoners they collected. Leaning on their muskets, the rearguard watched them warily. From the coverlet of sepia dust that blanketed the columns a clamorous confusion brayed remotely. Bullock carts and baggage animals juddered to a stop; sunlight splintered diamonds from bayonets sharply unscabbarded. A blue-uniformed subhadar arrived at a run.

  ‘Infantry and guns drawn across our front, sahib! I have halted the companies. Shall we deploy in line?’

  His commander’s gaunt grey features hardened in bitter lines. He gave Amaury a hostile look. ‘Yours, sir?’

  A mortally wounded matchlockman, entrails spilled by a musket ball, squirmed at Hannibal’s feet, and bit the ground and tore at the grass with his hands. Amaury contemplated him thoughtfully. ‘Indeed. Six guns and,’ he lied smoothly, ‘five hundred firelocks. You are held in front and rear, and can neither advance nor retreat. Unless you want a fight we had better talk.’ The pistol lifted and levelled. Amaury smiled, and held the red-veined eyes. Royds cursed beneath his breath, carefully lowered the cock and rammed the weapon in a saddle-holster. ‘I guess you win - for a time:. Allow me to inform you why I cannot tolerate delay.’

  Amaury dismounted, drew a pistol from his sash, Royds flinched, and groped for his sword hilt. Amaury threw him a sardonic grin, walked to the wounded matchlockman, rested muzzle on skull and pulled the trigger. He flicked a pulpy gobbet from his boot, sat cross-legged on the ground, reclined against a boulder and reloaded.

  ‘I am most anxious to hear your story,’ he said politely.

  Royds strode to and fro, and described in pungent sentences his dangerous situation. A wandering adventurer, he had entered the Bhonsla’s service and rose to command a battalion which skilfully turned the Nizam’s flank at Kharda. Raghujee, as a reward, disbursed fifty thousand rupees and told him to raise a brigade. ‘I went to Bhurtpore and recruited Jats. Damned good soldiers.’ He climbed high in the Bhonsla’s favour, held a powerful post in his army, and inevitably incurred the jealousy of rival chieftains who whispered in the rajah’s ear that Royds and his alien Jats plotted a coup d'état.

  Unable to foil the intrigues, Royds finally learned that Raghujee, persuaded by his generals, had resolved to disband his battalions and expel him from the state. ‘Good as a death warrant - directly my Jats had gone those damned Maratha courtiers would have sliced my liver and lights!’ He warned his men of the fate impending, swore the Company’s service was a lucrative exchange, and marched secretly by night from cantonments near Nagpur. A half-hearted pursuit soon petered out: the Bhonsla, happily relieved of a force he considered a menace, let him go virtually unharassed. Royds travelled by forced marches into Dharia and, while passing Droog, was fastened on by the garrison, which badgered him for three successive days. ‘Can’t think why. Possibly the Bhonsla told them to spur my departure. That is all, sir. Now will you clear my way?’

  Amaury listened to the nasal drawl, and said, ‘You are not, I think, an Englishman?’

  ‘American, sir. My family fought loyalist in the Independence War, and after the rebels whipped Cornwallis shipped to England. Nothing for a youngster there. Wa
s articled to an attorney in Bombay.’ A scowl furrowed the emaciated face. ‘Met trouble - cards, debts, duels - crossed into native territory and the Bhonsla’s service.’

  A freebooter like himself, Amaury mused, unscrupulous and pitiless. He disbelieved Royds’ reason for his parting with the Bhonsla: a native ruler constantly at war would not willingly surrender a highly trained brigade unless he had very good cause. Royds had probably plotted for power or money or both, and come off worst. Clearly an able soldier, but shifty, a man to be watched.

  ‘What induces you to think,’ Amaury inquired gently, ‘the Company will accept your brigade?’

  ‘Mercenaries have served it in the past.’

  ‘Indeed - in the distant past. But only officers, never private men. The Company enlists from certain classes, and seldom recruits beyond. There is not a Jat, for instance, serving in their armies.’

  ‘Excellent fighting material! I reckon when I show ’em to the generals in Madras--’

  Amaury shook his head. ‘You won’t get beyond the Circars. Clive will treat your force as hostile, and send a corps to destroy you.’

  ‘You are mighty cocksure!’ Royds said angrily. ‘Who the hell are you? From Dharia, you say? By God!’ His eyes widened. ‘In Nagpur I heard rumours of your doings! A lawless scoundrel the Bhonsla said, who presumed to seize his jagir. Are you the one they call Umree Sahib?’

  Amaury inclined his head. ‘ ‘Till recently an officer of Madras cavalry, and perfectly acquainted with the Company’s military policies. I repeat, sir, your brigade will not be allowed to enter the Carnatic.’

  ‘We shall see,’ Royds growled. He added uncertainly, ‘No other course remains. We cannot wander like a Jewish tribe across the breadth of Hindostan, peddling our services to every petty chieftain.’