Tea was poured and I nibbled on one of the little triangular pastries. They were quite crunchy and initially all I could taste was vegetables but then a spiced heat built in my mouth.
“What took you to India?” I asked to make conversation.
“Well, I did not want to be a fur merchant like my father and so I joined the army when I was a young man, fighting for the French king in those days. I learned English then as there were regiments of Irish Catholics in the French army, and then I became a mercenary. First I fought in the Russian army of Catherine the Great against the Turks, but I was captured and was briefly a slave of the Turks. I was freed with the help of a British official, and hearing stories of the British in India, I decided to try my hand there. I was in the British East India Company Army for four years, but I was ambitious and so I decided to try my hand in the Mahratta states. Lots of British officers and other Europeans were doing the same thing and many were getting rich. The life was good: tiger hunting on elephants, servants to look after you and beautiful women – do you know that they even have temples dedicated to the art of making love?”
Well, I was not sure believed that last bit but India was sounding more attractive.
“And now you might fight again for the French?” enquired Wickham.
“Bonaparte has offered me the chance to be a colonel in his army, but I do not relish taking orders from some young pup general in his thirties who has been promoted more through luck than skill. I think it is retirement for me so that I can enjoy my wealth.”
“Yet you are willing to help France’s enemy? You must know that war will break out between Britain and France again soon.”
“I am glad you are talking frankly,” said de Boigne. “Let me return the compliment. What I want to talk to you about are things happening in India that have little to do with France. We all know that your British governor general is making threats towards the Mahratta states in India on the pretence of stopping French influence. We also know that France has very little influence in India. There are a few French officers there – I should know, I appointed most of them. But the majority are there to make money for themselves rather than as agents of France. Some are even royalists.”
“We found some French officers and soldiers in the southern Indian state of Mysore when we captured that territory,” said Wickham. “Who is to say that there are not more French troops in other states?”
“I am,” said de Boigne flatly. “You know my history and I am telling you that there are no French troops stationed with the Mahrattas in India. I admit the first consul would love to extend his empire to India. That was partly what the Egyptian expedition was about, to open a new route to India. But we all know that it ended in failure. He may look at India again in the future but there are no French troops there now.”
“Is that what this meeting is about?” asked Wickham. “To reassure us that there are no French troops in the Mahratta states? If so, I will be equally honest: I don’t think this reassurance will stop the governor general.”
“No, the meeting is about these,” said de Boigne, taking a small, black velvet bag from his pocket and emptying the contents onto the table. Two black stone-like items fell out but they were lighter than stones. I reached forward to pick one up. I turned it over in my fingers and then, realising what it was, I dropped it back on the table with disgust.
“They are mummified snake or lizard heads,” I said.
“Small cobra heads, to be precise,” said de Boigne. “They are the calling card of a skilful assassin who calls himself The Cobra. One serpent was sacrificed for an unsuccessful attempt on my life when I was trying to leave India and one was sacrificed for a successful attempt on the life of my former master.”
“What does that mean?” asked Wickham.
“I discovered whom The Cobra was working for when he tried to kill me,” replied de Boigne. “It was the Mahratta Prince Dowlat Rao Scindia, who had succeeded to the throne of my former master Mahadji Scindia. I left Dowlat Rao’s service because of his murders and intrigues, and when he wished me well, I half-expected him to make sure I did not work for someone else. I was staying in a guest-house halfway to Madras when one of my officers helped himself to a small jug of arrack that had been placed in my room.”
“What is arrack?” I asked.
“It is the local strong spirit,” de Boigne replied before continuing. “The poor man fell, gasping for breath. He died a few minutes later and we found one of those heads at the bottom of the jug.” De Boigne reached forward and picked up one of the heads and smelt it. “It was this one; it still smells of the spirit.
“As soon as I saw this head I remembered where I had seen one before and only then did I realise just how treacherous Dowlat Rao could be. He was already Mahadji’s heir but evidently he did not want to wait any longer to take power. The snake’s head had been found next to Mahadji’s body; he had been poisoned too. It is ironic really as he was already quite ill and would probably have died anyway. Only a handful of my officers know about the assassination of Mahadji. We put the word out that he died of his illness so that the killer did not get the credit for his dark deed.”
“So what does this have to do with us?” asked Wickham.
“Revenge. I want to help you destroy Dowlat Rao and I want to do it in a way that will avoid the British battling the army that I spent years creating. Mahadji was a greatly loved prince while Dowlat Rao rules through fear and intimidation. It will only take a spark to turn his people and his allies against him.”
He reached into a drawer and took out some letters and a ring. “What I have for you is a spark you can use. I am known in India as a loyal and trusted supporter of Mahadji. Here is an affidavit from me confirming my opinion that Dowlat Rao arranged the death of Mahadji. I am also giving you a ring I wore while in India that those close to me will remember, to prove the authenticity of the letter. I hear that the raja of Berar has joined forces with Dowlat Rao. If you can get the letter to him then he will make sure the contents reach those that count. He will see the opportunity to depose Dowlat Rao and lead the Mahratta confederation himself.”
“How will that help the British?” Wickham asked. “We are just replacing one ruler with another.”
“Berar has less influence with the other states and Scindia’s forces will be trying to agree on a new leader. They will be less aligned and more amenable to negotiate. But warn your British friends not to push them too far or that will bring them back together. You must understand that the army I built is strong. With good leadership it could sweep away the British East India Company forces. They have ten times the men, the guns and the cavalry than the Company can put in the field and they can match European weaponry and tactics.”
“You think the Mahratta forces can beat the British then?” I asked.
De Boigne smiled. “I know they can. I hear that the governor general has appointed his younger brother to command the Company forces. I know this young Arthur Wesley was involved in the capture of Mysore, but from what I heard the only fighting he personally commanded was a disastrous night action. He has no significant experience of battles or fighting in India. My army would take him apart.”
Wickham smiled back. “I understand that Lord Mornington, the governor general, has changed the family name to Wellesley now as it sounds more refined. So our young general is called Arthur Wellesley. He has proved a good governor of Mysore since we captured it.”
“Pah,” said de Boigne dismissively. “He should worry about his fighting abilities not his name, and being a governor of a captured state is a lot different to being a general and doing the capturing.”
“Didn’t you change your name to sound more refined too?” I asked mischievously.
De Boigne laughed. “Yes, I did, young man, and little good it did me. The Indians did not understand the significance of the change, and back in Europe it attracted the wrong sort of people.”
I thought he was referring to his new i
n-laws and so let the matter drop.
“So,” said de Boigne, becoming serious again, “will you take my message to India? Your governor will know people who can reach the raja of Berar. I just need someone who can put the letter safely in your governor’s hands.” He looked pointedly at me and added, “I imagine that the courier will be well rewarded for his work and India offers many rewards of its own.”
“We will certainly take it,” said Wickham. “But Mr Flashman has agreed just to take the letter to London. There another courier will be found to take it on to India.”
“Actually,” I said, “I have a mind to take it to India myself. I imagine that it will have more impact with the governor general if I can talk first-hand about what was said in this meeting.”
“It would. But are you sure, Flashman?” asked Wickham. “It is a four-month sail there and another four months back. You would be away for nearly a year. What about courting the lovely Louisa?”
“Duty first, old boy,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it.
But Wickham just looked at me with an arched eyebrow, doubtless remembering that the last time he had sent me abroad I had been hiding in a Turkish-themed brothel.
“Oh, all right,” I conceded. “The Berkeley situation has got a bit complicated. It would be best for me to be out of the country for a while.”
I had made up my mind during the earlier conversation. A short trip to India would give everyone a chance to calm down, and if Berkeley sent heavies or killers to hunt for me around London, well, he would be wasting his money because I would be on the other side of the world. The deciding factor was that I would not be required to deliver the letter to this Berar chap in what sounded like rebel territory. All I had to do was turn up and deliver my packet and then I could explore the delights of the safer parts of India for a few months before catching the next fleet home. I had heard stories of elephants, tigers, jungles and exotic palaces; this would be a great opportunity to see them. De Boigne had mentioned that there were beautiful women and temples to the art of lovemaking to explore too, which was the icing on the cake. I had visions of beautiful priestesses doing the dance of the seven veils while weaving through the congregation and wondered idly why the religious types in Britain thought it was necessary to send missionaries to India. Indians should be encouraged to send missionaries to us. The Church of England would not stand a chance with that kind of competition.
Map of India 1802
Chapter 6 – Indian Ocean off Madras, September 1802
It was hard to distinguish between the cloud on the horizon and the hazy blur of land underneath it, but the passengers on the East India Company ship crowded up on deck and forward to the rail as soon as word spread that land had been sighted. I had been on deck when the call came from the masthead and had already studied the strip through a telescope borrowed from an officer. At this distance little could be seen and so instead I watched the passengers. One of them was a thief, but during the time of the voyage I had not been able to discover who it was.
Over four months had passed since that meeting with de Boigne. I had returned swiftly from Paris to London and briefed Castlereagh on what was discussed. What had shocked me was the level of mistrust between the East India Company and the government. Castlereagh was convinced that the Company even had spies in his own office and warned me to keep the letter secret. The Company was determined to do all it could to stop the governor general’s plans to expand British influence and all agreed that the Wellesley brothers could not attack if the Mahratta stayed united. The Company would therefore try to stop anything with the potential of dividing them reaching the shores of the continent. The problem for me was that the only way to reach India was on an East India Company ship. They were called indiamen and they sailed in fleets for protection, with one fleet just about to depart.
I sent a cab to get the possessions I needed from my rooms and had them delivered to the Board of Trade offices. The driver reported seeing a group of heavies watching the building at either end of the street. Berkeley was not bluffing with his threats and so my final act before leaving was to send a letter to an American with the address of a Paris hotel that he might be interested in. My passage on one of the ships in the fleet was arranged by Castlereagh and within a week of arriving back in Britain I was on an indiaman as it sailed down the Thames, bound for the Orient.
Everything had changed three weeks into the voyage: the letter given to me by de Boigne was stolen from underneath my locked trunk. The captain had asked all passengers to hand over any valuables for him to keep in his strongbox. I had given him some gold and some other letters to look after but I did not trust him with de Boigne’s message. He kept pressing me for more as though he knew I had other things of value with me, and even mentioned documents specifically.
“The men smell valuables, sir, be they gold, jewels or even documents,” he told me one morning. “They are good men, sir, but I don’t want temptation put in their path. Even if they cannot read, sir, they knows that some letters will have value, and so I urge you to put anything you hold dear in my strongbox. They will be as safe as the ship in there.”
I was all too aware of the warnings I had been given in London about not letting the East India Company know what de Boigne had provided. As the Company owned the ship and the captain was their employee, there was no guarantee that either he or his clerk would not open the letter and copy its contents or steal it. I had to keep it to myself. I couldn’t keep the letter on me: in the tropics at sea we only wore shirts and breeches, no jackets. Keeping it in the large sea chest was too obvious; it would be the first place a thief would look. The mattress must have been used to hide things by a previous passenger as there was a strip of newer stitching along one of the seams and so evidently that was also a common hiding place. The trunk was held in place by large nails banged into the deck to stop the heavy casket moving in a rough sea and so I hauled up one end of it and slid the letter underneath. I then used a brass candlestick to bend a couple of the nails to make it hard to lift up again.
I thought I had been pretty clever until I entered my cabin on the third week of the voyage to discover it had been expertly searched. The trunk was locked as normal but when I opened the big chest I could see that things were not exactly as I had left them. To check whether someone had searched my possessions, I always left the buttons of a folded jacket exactly aligned with the buckles for some shoes. Now the buckles were a couple of inches out of alignment. There were other signs too: the layers of clothes underneath were if anything slightly neater than I had left them, and later I noticed that the newer stitching on the mattress and been unpicked and replaced. But of course the first things I looked at when I realised someone had been in my room were the nails in the floor. They were still bent over the foot of the trunk but they also looked slightly different. Without a hammer it took me nearly an hour to get the heavy nails bent back so that I could lift the trunk. I knew what I would find before I hauled the end of it up. The letter was gone.
I spent nearly three months trying to get it back. I learnt how to pick the cabin door locks by practising on my own door from the inside. Then, chatting to the passengers, I tried to draw up a list of likely suspects. Chief among these was the captain himself, and while I did manage to get into his cabin while he was holding a Sunday church service on deck, I found nothing apart from the locked strong box, which easily defied my new lock-picking skills. The captain was a dark, taciturn fellow who made no effort to get on well with his passengers. In fact the weekly church service was the only time you could guarantee he would be out of his cabin. The other officers were friendly, and when they discovered that I had been with Cochrane when he took the Gamo the previous year I was given a standing invitation to the wardroom, which was a more relaxing place than the saloon used by the other passengers.
One officer who went out of his way to be friendly was Lieutenant Harvey, the third officer. He was new in the ship too and confided that
the other officers were wary of him until he had proved himself. We spent a lot of time together, me relating my adventures with Cochrane and him talking about his voyages in other indiamen. Eventually I felt I could trust him and confided that my cabin had been searched and that an important document had been stolen. He was all interest of course, and particularly keen to know why the document was important, but I was a bit cagey there. He offered to help search some of the officers’ cabins as he knew when they would be on duty. Between us over the second half of the voyage we must have discreetly searched most of the ship, but not a trace of the letter was found. I still had de Boigne’s ring, which I wore on my finger, and I told nobody about that. I cursed myself for not keeping the letter on my person now. I had thought that four months of sweat stains and creasing would make it barely presentable to an Indian raja, but a stained and creased document was better than none at all.
Before I talk about arriving in India, I should mention briefly the near-four-month trip in an indiaman ship. There was a mixed group of passengers: a returning Company colonel and his wife; several single ladies looking for wealthy husbands in India – the colonel’s wife guarded them like a mother hen; some scientific fellow; and a couple of merchants. I recall one evening when the scientist had regaled us with stories of the mosquito and how it bit you in the night and sucked up your blood through its proboscis or nose. In truth he was quite an interesting chap with facts about cobras and how tigers do not climb trees, and later he brought out a picture book from his cabin. This was passed around until suddenly there was a scream and one of the young ladies fainted to the ground. When she came round she gasped that she had no idea mosquitoes were so big. Puzzled, we looked at the picture book and found she had been looking at a picture of an elephant!
The ladies were very mercenary in discussing their marital value; it was clear that love would play very little part in their liaisons. I recall the colonel’s wife insisting that in the army they should settle for nothing less than a major in rank, and then only from one of the better regiments. The sailors looked on in wry amusement and I asked one of them if de Boigne’s claim of temples to lovemaking were true. This they confirmed with relish, describing temples with wall paintings and carvings that would make eyes and other organs bulge.
Flashman and the Cobra Page 6