Nizams Daughters

The jemadar of the guard came running. He looked frightened. And then Selden, and Henry Locke.

‘Remember what they say,’ warned Locke; ‘the first news of battle is brought by him that runs away the soonest.’

Hervey nodded. ‘Yet I’m not inclined to believe it so in this case.’

Little by little, with many questions and diversions into Marathi, they were able to gain a picture of what had passed at the cantonments. Soon after dark, it seemed, the sepoys, led by some of their native officers, had broken into the armoury and the quarters of Colonel Cadorna and the battalion commanders, who, with their families, were the only white faces in the absence of the cavalry. All were now dead, said the subedar: wives, children, servants — everyone.

‘They waited for the rissalahs to leave,’ said the rajah, shaking his head.

‘How long will it take for them to return?’ asked Hervey.

The rajah smiled ironically. ‘They are beyond the Godavari. It would take two days to get them back this side. These sepoy leaders have been clever. I see the hand of the nizam in this — or of his sons.’

One of the rajah’s physicians had begun to examine the subedar’s wounds, and the rajah himself made to assist despite the entreaties from both.

Selden took Hervey to one side. ‘You must leave here at once.’

Hervey was taken aback by his insistence. ‘Don’t talk so: how can I walk away at this moment? In any case, you’re assuming the worst.’

‘There’s nothing else to assume!’

‘And you would leave, too?’

‘Hervey, I have never had what would pass in the Sixth for courage; but there comes a time—’

‘And this same time is the time for me to walk Spanish?’

‘Matthew Hervey, you have duties elsewhere but to the rajah.’

He thought for a moment — not long. A look came to his eyes which Selden had not seen before: a cold, mercenary look, a grim smile almost. ‘I shall stay. The rajah has no-one else—’

‘That’s all very noble but—’

‘Not noble,’ said Hervey, his brow furrowing, ‘not at all noble.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The price is those jagirs.’

‘For heaven’s sake, man! You would throw your own life away to pull the duke’s fat out of the fire?’

Hervey frowned again. ‘I don’t have any option. I’ve hazarded my mission by going against orders.’

Selden simply stared at him.

‘There’s only one means of redemption in the military,’ he smiled ruefully. ‘I want that page from the land registry.’

The raj kumari came, her face as angry as the jemadar’s had been afraid. ‘Father, have the rissalahs been summoned?’

They had not. The rajah looked at Hervey.

He ignored the question. ‘What do you believe the sepoys will do now, Subedar sahib?’ he asked instead, and then repeated himself as best he could in Urdu.

The subedar said they would wait for first light and then march on Chintalpore.

‘And they would be here within three hours,’ said Selden.

Locke was silent; so were the raj kumari and the jemadar.

Hervey looked back at Selden, whose nod sealed the bargain. ‘Then we have until dawn,’ he said gravely.

‘No,’ said Selden, ‘until three hours after dawn — eight o’clock.’

Hervey shook his head emphatically. ‘No: we have only until dawn. If upwards of two thousand sepoys fall upon the palace it will be but a matter of time before it is taken — less time than there is for the rissalahs to return. We have to stop them leaving their cantonments.’

The rajah looked as astonished as Selden. ‘How?’ they asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied calmly. ‘I cannot know until I get there. How many sowars do you have, Jemadar sahib?’

The jemadar looked even more worried: ‘Only twenty, sahib!’

Hervey fixed him with a look he hoped would pass for steel. ‘Do not say only twenty: say twenty!’

‘Yes, sahib — twenty, sahib!’

‘And galloper guns?’

‘Yes, sahib — one, sahib!’ The resolution, insane though first it seemed, was growing.

‘Locke — lieutenant of Marines — you are with me?’ said Hervey, turning square to him.

‘Hervey, I shan’t shrink from a fight, but is this one we are meant to be about?’

Locke’s prudence did him credit, Hervey knew full well. If they were elsewhere now but in Chintalpore there would be no question… ‘I could not in honour stand aside. I can say no more.’

A grim smile came over Locke’s face, for it did not augur well for the return of Locke-hall to its rightful owner. But fighting was what he did best above all things. ‘I say “Ay, ay”, then!’

‘Selden — will you stay to guard the rajah with your syces?’

‘What choice do I have, Matthew Hervey?’ The suspicion of a smile crossed his lips too.

‘Sir,’ said Hervey then, turning to the rajah, ‘is there any safer place for you or the raj kumari than here? The forest perhaps?’

The raj kumari answered in his place, a note of defiance in her voice — resentment, even. ‘We shall remain here, Captain ’Ervey. Shiva shall be our guard!’

There was a knock at the open door, an incongruous sound in the turmoil. ‘Captain ’Ervey, sir, is everything all right?’

Now at last Hervey could permit himself a true smile, for Johnson’s blitheness, his imperviousness to all beyond what intruded on the next minute, allowed nothing other.

* * *

When all but he and Selden had left the chamber, the rajah asked if what Hervey proposed had the slightest chance of success. Whether, indeed, it made the least amount of sense.

‘The answer to both, sir,’ sighed Selden, ‘in terms that would be understood by me, or most men for that matter, is no. But, as says the Bible, the battle is not always to the strong. Matthew Hervey is a brave man, believe me.’

The rajah looked thoughtful. ‘Where exactly in the Bible does it say that the battle is not to the strong?’

Selden was abashed. ‘I am very much afraid, sir, that I do not have the slightest idea.’

There was, thankfully, a moon; enough to permit Hervey’s little force to leave Chintalpore along the road to Jhansikote at a brisk trot. Four kos — nearly ten miles: they could be there by midnight. And then what? Three hours or so to think of something.

At the front of the column rode Hervey and Locke, the jemadar and two sowars riding point half a furlong ahead. Behind Hervey were six paired ranks of lancers, then the galloper gun, and then four more pairs. And at the rear was Johnson, his carbine primed and ready to fire at the slightest sign of riot (Selden had said that the sowars could be trusted, but Johnson was there to reinforce that trust). Hervey was content he could at least rely on his mount, for Jessye had more spring in her trot than he had felt in many weeks. How quickly she had regained her strength — faithful, honest mare! And he had his rifled carbine, the percussion-lock which had saved his life at Waterloo — probably the only one at the battle, and the only one in India, for sure.

They hardly spoke, for Locke had no idea how they might subdue Jhansikote’s sepoys, and Hervey was absorbed in that very question. He could find no practical help in what he had said earlier to the rajah, that nothing could be done without good and early intelligence, and that it was with artillery that war was made. All he had by way of intelligence was that there were two thousand armed, mutinous sepoys readying to march at dawn. As for artillery, his amounted to one galloper gun that could throw a four-pound shot perhaps a thousand yards. Bold action in all circumstances, demanded Peto’s thesis — the moral effect of surprise. Surprise, indeed, was the only thing they might have in this affair.