“Mr Taft, I propose to give you command of the fortress with two platoons of your company and the lightly wounded as garrison. I would advise you to emplace the two guns taken and keep the doors well shut at night!”
Taft had grown up, it seemed. He accepted the command with thanks and said that he would endeavour to seek out any Indian medical men there might be. At minimum they could make the wounded a little more comfortable.
“I am told that their bhang, a traditional herbal remedy, will remove much of pain from the suffering, sir. They may at least die more easily!”
“Mr Grundy will remain as your second – you need another officer to share duty with you.”
Taft made his thanks again, said that he was quite confident that between them they would hold the place as a secure base for the colonel. He did not say that it would provide a safe place to retreat to if he made another set of mistakes; he implied it rather unsubtly, however.
“One hundred and seventy men remaining, gentlemen, more or less. Between you I would be obliged if you would transfer platoons as appropriate to make the four companies of similar size, each of forty to fifty men. Apparently there are three or perhaps four more of these villages to take. I suspect they may fall more easily than this. There were too many men here, I think.”
There were at most four hundred of houses and huts in the village; too few to have produced the number of young men under arms who had stood against them.
“We have counted nearly three hundred of bodies and have collected up some five hundred of flintlocks, presumably the extras dropped by wounded and fleeing men. I imagine that the better part of a thousand stood against us today. I believe that many of the wounded may have been bayoneted as they lay – you know what it is like when a fortified place is secured! But we must assume that a hundred or more of those who ran were carrying some degree of damage. At most there will be four hundred fit and armed, and very many of those will still be running and will not stop until they get home!”
They agreed with the colonel’s summation and added that they had killed all of the senior officers, or so they believed. The army that had opposed them could reasonably be said no longer to exist.
“We march, not tomorrow but the day after, with the guns and hopefully will take the remaining villages within three days – the Rajah said the furthest to be no more than thirty miles away. If we find them to be pacified already then we shall leave no garrison in them and return before the end of one week, Mr Taft. You may wish to recruit a runner or two from the local young men – if any remain – and send a despatch to the Brigadier for me. I shall write it tomorrow.”
Septimus took over a room in the fortress for the next two nights. The previous occupant had enjoyed his luxury – it was richly furnished and had a very comfortable bed. Every cupboard had been forced open and the drawers pulled out – the room had been well looted, but it was still far better than a tent.
He took to his bed in pensive mood – it had been a bad day, and it need not have been so bloody. The colonel had shown himself incompetent in the field – he had killed many of his own men through a simple mistake that should never have been made. It occurred to him as well that the men would have been kept in hand if the colonel had done the job properly, and their uncontrolled behaviour had been utterly vicious. They had murdered wounded men with a casual brutality, in some cases he suspected with pleasure, enjoying the deaths they meted out. They had committed rape with no concern for the women or girls they had harmed; again he suspected that more than a few had enjoyed the pain they had caused. He had no doubt that if they were to investigate they would discover a few, possibly a substantial number, of little girls, far too young, who had sated the lusts of the perverted.
The army recruited far too many of the criminal classes. Men who should have hanged became soldiers instead. And he commanded them, and enjoyed the life!
He liked to fight. He was good at it. Was that reason sufficient to become a part of, an accessory to the crimes he had seen this day? The temptation to send in his papers was almost overwhelming; he was a man, not a perverted dog!
Against that, he was a soldier with the beginnings of a name, of a career. He had a son, heir to eight hundred acres and an income of two or three hundred from the Funds; a very small squire if that was to be his all. Twenty more years of the Army and he would have far more to leave his boy, quite possibly a title as well. And there would be other children in all probabilities.
He must not give up his career, unless he could discover another – and he knew there was nothing else for him.
All he could do was to remain a soldier, and possibly improve things a little. When he had his own battalion he would be able, perhaps, to change some of the ways things were done and introduce something of decency among his people. He could try.
He dropped off to sleep aware that it was not good enough, but it was all he could do.
The morning found him in a more cheerful frame of mind.
He breakfasted in their makeshift mess in the fortress, enjoyed his food.
“Fresh fruit! Where is it from?”
“Brought down the river from the hills, sir, where it grows season round because they are wet all year. The fish as well, sir, of course, caught from a few miles down, closer to the sea.”
Cooper reported to him later in the morning as he walked the bivouacs where the men sat and polished their gear and worked on their muskets and bayonets, cleaning away powder residues that could corrode and the blood that was even more harmful to the metal.
“Beg pardon, sir. Can we talk in the office, like, sir? Out of the way a bit?”
The colonel was pacing the village with Captain Carter, deep in discussion of some important matter. Septimus took Cooper to the top floor of the fortress where the colonel had taken a room for his office; he had complete trust in Cooper – if he wanted privacy then he would get it.
“That Indian bloke what got the big place we got into, sir. Left a bit of stuff ‘anging about, sir, what I got me ‘ands on. Rich old bugger, that ‘e was, sir. Likes they old gold chains, sir, or ‘e used to any road – ‘e don’t like anything now, out of course, sir! Anyways, sir, I got me ‘ands on a good bit of the yellow stuff and I picked up a few stones what ‘e’d got as well. You knows ‘ow it goes, sir – as ‘ow I can’t do nothing with them but the missus do like to wear pretty stuff, so I picked ‘em up for ‘er, like.”
Cooper pulled out a leather purse as big as his clenched fist, undid the drawstring for Septimus to glance inside.
“Christ, Cooper! There’s a fortune in there!”
“Not for me, sir. There ain’t no way I could sell one of them in Bombay or at ‘ome in Winchester without the Law being on me back inside the bloody hour! Anyways, sir, we’re all in it together – you and me and the missus, sir.”
That was true – Cooper was part of the clan, would be till all of them had died.
“I’ll put ‘em away with your stuff, sir.”
“If you please, Cooper. Thank you!”
They marched out next morning, officers on horseback, the men relaxed, knowing that they were reduced to the pace of the bullock carts and aware that the hard work was probably done. None of the men would have said the words aloud, but they knew as well, deep inside them, that the dying was over and been done by others – they were lucky, they were alive and likely to stay that way for a while longer. They were sorry, on one level, for their mates who had died, but they were far more glad that they were alive.
They came to the next village a bare five miles upriver. It was walled but had no fortalice. It was also wide open. The gates had actually been torn down, to prove that they would not, could not offer any resistance, then or ever.
A deputation waited very nervously outside the walls – six men, four in merchants’ rich robes, two dressed as soldiers. They made deep obeisance as Colonel Horncastle and Septimus rode up to them.
The soldiers dismounted, as much for ease of t
alking as for courtesy.
One of the merchants announced himself to be spokesman, not because he was senior – it was far from him to arrogate authority to himself, he said – but because he spoke English, having traded with the Honourable Company over a number of years. He wished to assure them that there was no hostility in the small village that lay open to them.
“Nurgaon is yours, sahib. There were soldiers who fled here from the great defeat inflicted upon them, but they have been sent on their way as not being wanted, sahib. Except that is for some fifty or so who were taken by force from us to join the armies only last year. They have begged to return to their families, sahib, but we shall kill them or expel them if that is your wish.”
The colonel raised an eyebrow to Septimus, uncertain of the best response.
“Let them return to their families. They were forced to pick up a musket. Let them put it down of their own free will and go back to a proper life. What of your own soldiers, who I see beside you? Do they need men?”
They were not soldiers, it seemed; their job was to keep the peace, and occasionally to raise a force of men to put down gangs of badmashes that ventured to prey upon the peaceful villages.
“Then they should continue to do their work, I think, Colonel Horncastle.”
The colonel agreed.
“Do you know anything of the muskets the soldiers were carrying? Many of them were new.”
“The Sikhs, sahib. They are very willing indeed to aid any who wish to fight the Company and keep it away from them. They will give muskets and powder, sahib, so that they do not have to fight and bleed themselves. Not because they are fearful, sahib, not that! But while the Company fights us then it is not fighting them for another year. I suspect that Sikh guns and powder will be found in many hands outside of their own lands, sahib.”
The colonel was surprised and disapproving – the Sikhs had no business interfering in the affairs of the British, he thought. He knew as well that they would be a very hard enemy to defeat – all that was said of them was of a warrior nation and well governed by Indian terms.
Septimus was quite happy for the Sikhs to arm other peoples – it took more than a gun to make a soldier.
“They make very good muskets. The ones we took yesterday are of high quality.”
“Yes, sahib, they are made in the same foundries as the Company purchases from. They sell to any man who comes with money in his hand.”
That was a message that would be taken to the Governor-General. Those foundries must be brought under proper control.
Two more days of short marches and the third and fourth villages announced their willing surrender to the proper authority of their Rajah, apologising profusely that they should have been forced to bow down to a wicked usurper of his power.
The village leaders were instructed to send a boat directly to the garrison at Nurgaon if they came under attack from dacoits or badmashes or Sikhs or Pindaris or any of the other roaming bands of villains that afflicted India. They might not receive assistance in time to defend them, but John Company would make most certain that they were avenged.
The soldiers marched slowly back to join up with Taft and his garrison.
Captain Taft reported that he had sent his messages off but had received no reply and they settled down to wait, duty done and not going out of their way to find any other task.
Two weeks passed in idleness, much appreciated by the lightly wounded who were able to take their time in returning to duty. Then a despatch came to them, a regiment of Company cavalry escorting the messenger.
The colonel called his officers together, as was his habit.
Septimus had accepted the old boy’s way of doing things without question. It was wise to be sure that every officer knew what was happening; it was also weak, he now realised, a way of passing responsibility down the ladder to junior officers. If anything went wrong then the colonel could say that his people had all agreed that he had done the right thing; he might even imply that they had overborne him.
“We are to return to Bombay, gentlemen, just as soon as a battalion of sepoys reaches us. The village here is to be heavily garrisoned, a cavalry regiment to make frequent patrols of the whole area until it is certainly pacified. The Brigadier mentions an intention to place a small sailing barge on the river with a pair of guns to control all passage between the coast and inland. We are commended on our efficient execution of our orders, gentlemen.”
The Brigadier was pleased with the colonel and the colonel thought the Brigadier to be a wonderful man! They would write their reports which would eventually cross the Governor-General’s table and then finally reach England and all would be happily convinced that everything in their little garden smelt of roses. There might well be a knighthood or the Order of the Bath to be awarded to such deserving gentlemen.
Septimus shrugged and climbed lazily aboard his charger, tapping the precious lump in his saddlebag. He would be happy to get home and then to risk opening the purse and tipping its contents out onto a table to be examined and listed before he sent them home to brother George to dispose of for him. He might well specify some of the stones to be made up rather than sold off.
The battalion was reunited with Reynolds and his five companies, fat from idleness in their garrison. They paraded together – five almost full companies next to five who were very thin indeed.
“’Pharaoh’s kine’, Major Pearce!”
Septimus had not the least idea what the colonel was talking of, stared blankly.
“Not to worry, Major Pearce. An idle conceit, I fear!”
“Yes, sir.”
They marched, slightly faster on the way back than they had managed going out.
Man of Conflict Series
BOOK TWO
Chapter Seven
“Less than two months, husband! A short campaign. Jonathan is crawling now, my love!”
Septimus was properly admiring of his precocious son, was glad to see that his nursemaid was never away from his side – he would not crawl into the path of a snake or any other menace.
“Letters from England, sir. You will remember that Mrs Lucasta Pearce had found herself in a promising condition? She has been brought to bed of a little girl, much to her pleasure and that of her doting husband!”
Septimus took pains to share the family’s delight; he wished he knew the exact date of the little one’s birth – it could be enlightening.
“My parents are well and are pleased to be told of Jonathan. They much regret not being able to see him as a baby.”
A year from sending a letter to receiving a reply meant that it was difficult to hold a conversation with the family at home. Because of the huge distance they would not see Jonathan until he was a little boy, would know nothing of his early progress.
“I am glad they are well, my dear, though your father is barely fifty years of age, I believe. You must expect to see both again.”
“In four more years, husband.”
“The time will pass, my dear, and ‘seven years’ is often no more than the greatest expectation. It is not uncommon for a battalion to be called home early by a twelvemonth or so.”
A battalion that had been badly thinned by casualties or fever might well be replaced by a newly raised unit from Home, sent out to India to learn its trade in the garrisons there while the veterans made up their numbers at their depot in England.
It was a hopeful thought.
“For the meanwhile, my dear, we had a stroke of luck, Cooper and I, while we were out.”
Septimus pulled out the purse and tipped it carefully out on the dining table.
“Ooh!”
They spent an agreeable half an hour sorting the stones into little heaps, grouping them together by like. Rubies sat next to garnets; sapphires were accompanied by lesser semi-precious green and blue stones, not all of which they recognised by name; nearly twenty of thumbnail sized, richly lavender amethysts were placed next to much darker northern lapis lazu
li while egg-shell blue turquoises sat on their own. They glinted in the afternoon sun, rich and beautiful.
“They are not the biggest of stones, and I cannot estimate their quality, my dear – but I suspect they will purchase a field or two!”
She agreed, eyes gleaming to match the stones; she so loved gems!
“What is to be done with them, Septimus?”
“Make a list of them and put them into a well wrapped and sealed parcel and that inside its own little wooden box and send them off to George to take to Mr Abrams in Winchester. Which shall we have made up for you, my dear?”
They spent an enjoyable hour deciding on the merits of brooches and rings and necklaces and picking out stones for them.
The Brigadier was more than satisfied with the Hampshires and said so in his report, which was much to the pleasure of the colonel.
“I could well be made a Brigadier myself, you know, Major Pearce!”
Brigadier was an appointment rather than a rank, most brigadiers being substantive lieutenant-colonels, but there was nothing apparently in the regulations to say that they must be, though it was more-or-less agreed that a Major-General could not be a brigadier, although he might be put in a command of no more than three battalions, which a brigadier would normally take. It was all rather complicated and it was easier to ignore the problems rather than attempt to resolve them.
“Yes, sir – victory in the field may often lead to that honour, I understand.”
Colonel Horncastle did not notice a lack of enthusiasm in Septimus’ reply.
“There will be a major campaign next year, I would imagine – the Wellesleys must have their successes, you know!”
Raging Rajahs (Man of Conflict Series, Book 2) Page 17