‘And it’s because of the Rhani’s pivotal influence, and the fact that you know what she looks like, that I’m asking you to go after her,’ said Smith. ‘It’s vital to remember, Kemp, that the whole moving spirit of the mutiny in and around Jhansi stands or falls with the wretched woman. If she’s destroyed I guess that the wind will go out of many of the rebels’ sails, so no playing the gentleman. Find the traitorous drab and kill her.’
‘The pleasure will be all mine, sir,’ replied Kemp, a vulpine smile on his lips.
‘Very good, sir,’ McGucken greeted the news woodenly.
‘What d’you mean, “Very good, sir”? It’s very fucking bad news indeed,’ retorted Morgan, at bursting point with his colour-sergeant’s insouciance.
‘Very good, sir,’ the Scot repeated as they stood in the doorway of the house in Kinaree that they were using as their company headquarters. ‘You’ve given your orders an’ I’ll obey them as best I know how.’
‘I’m sure you will, Colour-Sar’nt, but it’s Captain bloody Carmichael who’s to take over; half the men in the company served under him out East and loathe the sod. Quite apart from which, he left you for dead at Inkermann and I have no doubt that he’ll find every excuse to misuse any Grenadier that he can,’ Morgan blurted, guilty that he was abandoning both McGucken and his own troops.
‘Very good, sir,’ was all that McGucken replied.
‘Will you stop repeating that goddamn nonsense, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan was yelling loud enough now for the sentry on the roadblock close to where they stood to move away to a distance that looked as though he could no longer hear his superiors arguing, whilst straining his ears for every syllable. ‘You’ll be run ragged by the bastard.’
McGucken took Morgan by the arm – a thing unheard of between officer and NCO – and almost dragged him into the shabby house, telling their soldier-servants to make themselves scarce as he did so.
‘All right, sir, so you want me to be honest with yer?’ This was as close as McGucken was going to get to informality, Morgan realised. All the months of heat and danger here in India, on top of the horrors of the Crimea, had forged a friendship between the two men that nothing could dent, yet the gulf of rank between the two of them still yawned. Besides, McGucken was what he was – a Glasgow keelie who owed his life and wellbeing to the army and its creed – and if that meant exchanging the finest officer he’d ever met for the worst in the regiment, well, that’s the way it would have to be.
‘I dinna want to lose you as my company commander when we’ve barely started taking this sharny place back from the Pandies; I dinna want to have that fucker in command of me again after what happened in Russia; I dinna want to have to watch Mr Fawcett doing the company commander’s job for him – for we both know he’ll have to; and I dinna want to watch you going off on some arse-bag job having to look after crazy Colonel Kemp.’ McGucken paused to see what effect this burst of undisciplined candour was having on his officer. ‘But I understand that you want to get to Jhansi and find Mrs Keenan and your lad. So, I’ll just carry on and it’ll be, “Yes, Captain Carmichael; just as you wish, Captain Carmichael”, an’ not a mention will be made of all the swerving that has gone on; no, sir, it’ll just be, “Leave to carry on, sir; salute and turn to the right”, and hope to God that not too many of the boys catch it along the way.’
It had been an impressive speech: McGucken at his long-serving, regimental best, but it gave Morgan no comfort. A few words of cheerful resilience would have done perfectly; it would have allowed him to go off with Kemp with his conscience slightly more at ease, but that wasn’t what McGucken had wanted. His next comments made things no easier.
‘And don’t you go getting yourself kilt, neither, sir. Yon Kemp ain’t got nothing to live for – you’ve seen how he serves the prisoners an’ how he’s always at the front of the fighting: that’s not bravery, sir, it’s just desperation. No, sir, just give him as wide a berth as you can when you’re up Pandy way. Mark my words, for he’s a billet looking for a bullet, so he is.’
Morgan had noticed Kemp’s blood lust, not just during the execution of prisoners, but in every action and skirmish in which they had been involved. Whether mounted or on foot, Kemp could be relied upon to be everywhere when metal was flying, yet Morgan had just assumed that it was gallant zeal. But Bazalgette – God rest him – Hume and now McGucken had all seen something that he had missed: a misery that was driving Kemp to self-destruction.
‘Anyway, sir, you’ve made yer bed so you’ll have to lie in it. I’ve told yer servant to get both your charger and your pony ready, saddlebags packed, and I’ve robbed one of them cavalry carbines for ye with a hundred rounds. Oh, and yer escort was only too keen to volunteer for the adventure, sir.’ McGucken smiled slightly.
‘Good, thank you very much, Colour-Sar’nt; I’m sorry to leave you at such a time as this, but I’ve no choice, really,’ Morgan lied. ‘Who’s coming with me?’
‘Why, Lance-Corporal Pegg, sir,’ McGucken’s face now split into a broad grin. ‘He’s a good enough horseman, sir, and, besides, he needs to get some rest; the bint he’s got never lets him get a minute’s sleep.’
‘Lance-Corporal Pegg; thank you, Colour-Sar’nt. I can’t thank you enough,’ Morgan replied, divining the subtlest form of revenge in McGucken’s choice of escort.
‘It’s not that I mind coming, sir, it’s just ’oo’s going to look after the ram and ’elp Cap’n Carmichael when ’e teks over, sir?’ Pegg was unhappily hacking along on a quartermaster’s whaler that he’d been told to sign for that morning. Now his kit, water chatties and rifle banged about untidily around him.
‘Well, you’ve changed your tune, Corp’l Pegg.’ Morgan was rising and falling easily in his saddle as his heavily laden mare, Emerald, trotted along the dirt track outside Kotah towards Kemp’s horse lines. ‘You couldn’t stand the thought of the man when you last served under him out East. In fact, I have a memory of you gobbing on the man’s boot at Inkermann.’
‘Aye, sir, but that’s a long time ago an’ someone will need to be around to ’elp the sprogs, won’t they?’ Pegg wasn’t going to give up easily. He’d detected that the regiment was in for a long period of idleness – safe idleness, when no one was going to shoot at him – and he wanted some of that. Besides, there was Cissy to look after.
‘Well, I think you can leave all that in the safe hands of Colour-Sar’nt McGucken, who, you might recall, is more than aware of Cap’n Carmichael’s foibles.’
‘Foibles, sir, what’s them?’ Pegg replied, mystified.
‘It doesn’t matter, Corp’l Pegg. Just sit up in the saddle and try to look soldierly.’
Morgan had seen one of Kemp’s sentries, evidently a long-serving daffadar from one of the mutinous Bengal light cavalry units who had decided to stay true to his salt. His turban was wrapped exactly, his moustaches and beard as freshly oiled as the carbine that sat easily in the crook of his arm. Even the standard challenge was well delivered in fluent English as the stumpy smooth-bore was brought to the ready’. Behind him milled twenty or so British hussars, all trying to stow fodder and shot on mounts that were already overloaded.
‘Captain Morgan and one, detached from HM Ninety-Fifth Foot, looking for the commandant, Daffadar.’
The cavalryman drew back, pulling his feet together – now in sandals where once there would have been good, solid boots – and saluted before pointing mutely further down the road. As the two infantrymen trotted past, Morgan swore that the Indian’s lip curled as Pegg bumped and wheezed in the saddle.
They pushed through what seemed like half a troop of the 8th Hussars, once smart in blue shell jackets, tight overalls and white cap covers, but now dusty and blinking as they stamped musty hay into nets and strung it across saddles and bat-ponies.
‘Mr Morgan, sir…Mr Morgan…well, I never,’ a raucous female voice called from the press of horses, men and weapons.
Morgan looked down towards the noise, but
all he could see at first was a farrier-corporal strapped about with sword and pouches, his carbine hanging down by his side from its cross-belt and hook. The horse-soldier sweated as he struggled with a girth strap, his tanned face slightly familiar. But beyond him peeped a great, chubby, ruddy face of a woman who looked as though she could be in her forties but, in reality, had yet to see thirty. A floral cotton dress clung to her, wide stains of sweat making the armpits black, her bun in disarray as her mousy locks broke loose. But even as she pushed the hair back with a damp wrist, Morgan was still at a loss.
‘Oh, sorry, Captain Morgan.’ The woman had spotted the stars and crowns on Morgan’s collar. ‘It’s me, Betty Martin – our Tom’s missus.’
The hussar stiffened and saluted.
‘You know, sir, Mary Keenan’s pal. We was at Ballyklavy together. You must remember when our Tom got sliced by them Russians an’ Mary helped our surgeon.’ But Morgan was still struggling. ‘You must remember, sir. We was always up at your camp with Mary – saw you there more times than I can think.’
Morgan looked round guiltily, but he needn’t have worried for no one here was aware of his and Mary’s secret – or if they were they had better things to think about. He studied her again.
Of course, you’re that nosy little hussy that was always hanging about Mary’s neat warm hut, just when we wanted a bit of privacy, he thought.
‘Yes, of course, Mrs Martin, how could I forget? What a delight,’ said Morgan. ‘But you’re not coming with us on this little sally, are you?’
‘Oh, no, sir…’ Corporal Martin was impatiently showing his wife where to hold open a saddlebag, whilst all Betty wanted to do was to gossip with the ‘quality’. ‘…I’m just mekin’ sure our Tom’s got enough comforts before he sets off on his latest adventure.’
‘Well, Corp’l Martin, if the ride ahead of us is as hard as I reckon it’s going to be, I expect we’ll need a farrier above all else; have you seen Commandant Kemp?’
Morgan now remembered the man. He’d visited him in hospital whilst on a spurious trip with Mary down to Balaklava. He could just see the curling, shiny scar that reached down below a clipped ear lobe where a Russian sabre had gouged Martin so deeply.
‘And don’t be taken in by the bitch if you get close to her.’ Kemp trotted along easily next to Morgan, his khaki pyjamas and light cork helmet a contrast to Morgan’s dusty scarlet and worn blue overalls. ‘I tell you, if you get near her she’ll be all sweet reason and, “I was forced to fight the British because of my precious Jhansi and boy,” but that’s just balls.’
They were two days into the journey now, riding through the heat of the day as well as the cool of the night. Only when the mounts needed rest, water or food did they pause, the thirty or so men having to shift their needs and fatigue to suit the animals.
‘Well, what is the truth exactly, Commandant, about the Rhani and why she turned on us?’ Morgan was just starting to feel saddle sore after almost thirty-five miles of jolting, choking roads, thrown shoes and lame baggage ponies. All the frustrations of moving horse soldiers fast over a long distance had come to the fore, but they were still making remarkably good time. ‘The papers have made her sound like the worst sort of she-devil.’
‘Aye, lad, and that’s not too far off the mark. There’s some,’ Kemp replied, ‘who still believe that the whole thing’s our fault, but I know Lakshmi Bai better than most and she was always a conniving, scheming little quim. The fact is that despite nearly fucking her ancient husband, Raja Gangadhar Rao, to death, they couldn’t have any kids – his pencil had run out of lead. So they adopted a boy from a good family, Damodar Rao, but when the old boy chucked in the towel in late ’fifty-three, the authorities fell back on the rule that says that any rajah here in the Agency that dies without an heir, forfeits the land to British rule. Now, our Rhani seemed to accept all this with a good grace at first. Retires to her little palace in the middle of Jhansi rather than the fort and makes out that she’s the model of loyalty.’
‘Do you know her well, Commandant?’ asked Morgan, intrigued by the prospect of this big, horse-smelly man hobnobbing with the elegant, duplicitous princess.
‘As I say, I knew her well enough for her to unburden herself of all her grievances – not that she was ever too direct about it all, mark you. She’d insinuate herself with me and Skene, try to weave her charms about the injustice of things and how, with her properly at the helm she would turn Jhansi into some sort of beacon for loyal co-operation with John Company. But if you want to know the Rhani really well, talk to your sweet little cushion, Mary Keenan.’ Kemp cast a sideways glance at his companion as he came out with this, but Morgan didn’t rise. ‘Now she got to know her in detail. Two clever, lonely women, one with a young ’un, the other with a babe-in-arms – they spent a lot of time together, Mary learning the lingo and Lakshmi Bai getting to trust her more and more as an amateur quack. The Rhani had all sorts of problems with her itcher – probably needed a trip to the armourers for a rebore, I’d guess – and Mary was frightfully good at all that sort of fanny-doctor stuff, so the memsahibs tell me.’
‘And you’re sure that the European garrison was butchered on her say-so, are you, sir?’ Morgan watched Kemp as the older man thought carefully.
‘I’m not convinced,’ Kemp eventually replied, ‘because the whole affair lacked any sort of finesse and was just a blood bath. I’m not going to go into all that horror again – I told you all the details weeks ago. But, case in point was the way that Lakshmi Bai made sure that Mary and Samuel were spared – but I really don’t care. She’s so damn clever, so damn persuasive, that the rest of the princelings will do as she says. That’s why the whole area remained loyal for as long as it did – on her orders. And that’s why, if we want to kick the wind out of the rebellion in these parts, we’ve got to destroy her; and that’s why I’m telling you not to let her persuade you otherwise – was you to get into a position where that might be possible.’
Morgan nodded his understanding, not liking the idea, but seeing both its logic and the gleam of vengeful hatred in Kemp’s eyes.
‘She’ll not be good and Christian with your two, neither. If Mary’s outlived her usefulness, or she can use her as a shield, as sure as the Pope’s in Rome, she will.
‘Now listen, boy, when did you last hear from your father?’ Kemp changed tack.
‘Just a few days back. I got a long-delayed letter from him about Maude’s death and the birth of my son – we discussed it.’ Morgan had sought some comfort from Kemp when the news had arrived, not really expecting much, but just needing to share the contents of the letter with someone who knew the people and Glassdrumman. In fact, Kemp had been remarkably sympathetic in a rough, soldierly way.
‘As I thought. I got a letter from Billy just before we set out, dated two weeks ago. It said some pretty bald things. He knows about James Keenan’s death and assumes that Mary and Sam are alive; he also assumes that you’ll seek ’em out and do your duty by them. But he wants you to be under no illusion about the reception that’ll be waiting back home if you turn up with a papist lass on your arm and a fatherless child, particularly now that you have a legitimate son and heir. He’s asked me to reason with you because of my own circumstances – well, my former circumstances.’
Morgan rode on besides Kemp, silently furious that his father would choose to communicate with him over such matters via someone else – but he might have expected as much.
‘Point is, I chose to marry a Eurasian girl because I loved her – I still do, and I’ll make those heathens weep for what they did to Neeta and my family. Anyway, I knew that marriage to a native girl would make it impossible for us to make our way back home in Ireland, and that’s why I always came home by myself. Now that was my choice – and it was a hard one – but at least I could look to India as an alternative place to raise a family where few people would cock an eyebrow at us and at our children – and those that took exception could go hang. But it ai
n’t going to be like that for you back in Cork, married to a Taegue. Most will assume your bastard son really is a Keenan and he will have to be raised Roman whilst your own boy will be one of us. Mark my words, lad, it won’t work. The bloody lot of you will be miserable and – unlike me – you’ll have nowhere to run. If you can’t resist the lass – an’ God knows I can see she’s prime – set her up on the estate somewhere and be discreet. Skibbereen ain’t London, nor Dublin, even; just don’t lay yourself and Mary open to sadness that can be avoided.’
Morgan was at a loss. Kemp was his father’s oldest friend – that he understood – but how dare the old man delegate such a discussion to an outsider? Why couldn’t he put all this in a letter to him, his only son?
Dust and Steel Page 24