Nizams Daughters

the strain. The gunhorse landed square but on its off-fore, throwing Hervey’s balance and almost tipping him out of the saddle. But he recovered just quickly enough to get both legs firm on as the gun bounced hard on the ground, the horse stumbling perilously for several strides, needing every bit of Hervey’s leg to pick him up. It was a full fifty yards before he was able to bring him to the halt.

The acclamation that followed was too loud for his liking, but Hervey was pleased enough with his success to let it pass. The dafadar proffered his embarrassed apologies but Hervey made light of it. ‘Only serve your gun bravely when the time comes,’ he replied — and the NCO returned a look that assured him that on that, at least, he could count.

The remainder now led their horses into the forest, round the tree, and remounted the other side. Hervey decided they must now walk rather than trot, for he could not risk the noise as they neared the objective. Nevertheless, it was not many minutes before they were at the forest edge a quarter of a mile from the walls of Jhansikote. They dismounted once more, and Hervey, Locke and the jemadar went forward. The moon seemed even stronger now, but there was concealment enough in the shadow-pools at the foot of the trees, and Hervey could soon see the white walls of the cantonment with perfect clarity through his telescope. They brought to mind the chalk cliffs that had welcomed him home, and the Sixth, two years before — and looked every bit as daunting to scale. Between the forest edge and the walls there was nothing: no scrub for cover, no nullah along which they might crawl. And this nothing was bathed in moonlight so bright that even a crouching figure would throw a shadow for any sharp-eyed sentry to see. Hervey was growing more dismayed, for the moon was still high and could not possibly set before dawn. ‘How might a frigate take on a first-rate? For that’s how it seems to me!’ he whispered to Locke.

Locke grimaced: it was unthinkable. ‘She would have to lay alongside her before the big ship’s guns were run out, that’s for sure. And I dare say she would have to board her before she could beat to quarters. But what ship- of-the-line would allow any other to do that? We need a ruse de guerre!’

‘Just so,’ sighed Hervey, trying hard, but in vain, to think by what subterfuge they could cross the ground unseen, let alone gain the walls. He peered through his telescope for some clue.

A minute or more later and he saw what first he had failed to. The merest glow, from a sentry’s fire at the foot of the walls, revealed it. He had located the great gates easily enough in his first sweep of the field glass — immense teak barricades solid enough to withstand a whole battery of galloper guns. They stood out in the solid whiteness of the walls — Nelson-style — like the gunports of a man-of-war. And he had supposed them closed. Why, indeed, would they not be? Yet, why should they be? After all, the mutineers had a picket out, and the only troops loyal to the rajah were days away across the Godavari. He cursed himself for not seeing before. As he peered ever more intently through his telescope his heart began to race, for as his eyes became accustomed to the pools of darkness, and he gained a more accurate sense of perspective, he saw that the sentry’s fire was inside the gates! He snapped his ’scope closed excitedly.

‘What is it?’ said Locke.

‘The gates are open: they are wide open!’ he replied, smiling broadly.

Locke was not immediately reassured that they were delivered of their difficulty. ‘And your plan, therefore?’

‘To attack — at once!’

‘You mean… to ride straight at the gates?’

‘Just so! Through the gates!’ said Hervey without hesitating.

‘Ride straight into the cantonment?’

‘Yes.’

Locke paused a moment, in case he had missed some obvious key to victory. ‘And when we are inside — what then?’

‘We fight.’

Locke made himself pause again, certain that some vital element had escaped his understanding. Soon he realized it had not. ‘Hervey, that’s beyond a forlorn hope. It’s suicide!’

Hervey smiled again. ‘Racker! Wollt du ewig leben?’

Locke began to laugh, and had to cover his mouth lest the noise carry. ‘Matthew Hervey, it is you who is the rascal! Frederick the Great indeed! He was cursing a whole regiment of guards — as well you know! You mean us to gallop into their lines and just fight?’

‘That’s what a boarding party would do, is it not? It would clamber aboard and fight. It wouldn’t have a plan!’

Henry Locke had to agree it was so.

‘Well then, I wish you to take charge of the gun. I’ll have the jemadar with me; he is not the stoutest of hearts but I believe he would wish to be one, and that in my experience is often good enough. The dafadar’s a good man, and there is Johnson.’

‘What have we to fear then?’ replied Locke, clapping Hervey on the shoulder.

‘And we shall have surprise,’ he added with uncommon assurance.

It did not take long for the jemadar to relay the orders, for there were few to relay. They consisted, in essence, of galloping straight for the gates (the risk that they might be swung shut at their approach meant speed took precedence over stealth). Then they would bring the gun into action against the armoury and magazine, and fire the barrack-houses. ‘We shall have to fight for our lives, Jemadar sahib,’ Hervey had warned, and the jemadar’s face had been filled with dread. Yet he spoke firmly to his men, referring several times to Hervey as ‘son of Wellesley-sahib’, and that they were about to relive the great deeds of Assaye. At the close of the peroration the dafadar raised a clenched fist and swore a chilling oath (there was no mistaking the meaning), and the sowars likewise.

Locke reported the gun primed, with a wad to keep the charge in place as they galloped; it would take but seconds to load the bagged grape, he said, adhering strictly to the naval term. ‘I’ll take at least a dozen of the murderous heathens with that first round — and we have nineteen more, and ten roundshot!’

Hervey, himself buoyed by the audacity, drew his sabre. He had already loaded both carbine and pistol, but it was with steel he expected they would first come to close quarters with the mutineers. When he had sheathed that same sword after Waterloo, he had somehow imagined that he might never again draw it on the battlefield — and, for sure, never in so distant a place. It had accounted for many men, had never let him down; Sheffield steel and always kept sharp. Before Waterloo they had all sharpened both edges, fearing that the cuirasses of the French heavies could only be run through with the point. He hadn’t liked it since it spoiled the sabre’s balance, and more than one trooper cut his horse’s ears, or even his own arm, recovering it from a slice. He had let the concave edge of his blunt as soon as he could; he had no doubts he could run his point through any mutineer this morning. In any case, pointing was what a lancer did. A light dragoon fought with cut and slice. He smiled to himself: his first time in action with the lance on his side. But he didn’t care to calculate the odds on being able to give an account of it later.

Johnson brought Jessye up. Hervey rubbed the little mare’s muzzle with the palm of his hand, blew into her nose — as he had done every time before mounting since he had first backed her a dozen or so years before — then sprang into the saddle with sword still in hand. The troop formed in column of twos, the galloper gun in the middle, and the jemadar, with his trumpeter, took post just to Hervey’s rear. Johnson closed to his side on his Arab (still napping as much as on the approach march), and for once Hervey did not order him to the rear, for he knew he would protest loudly — and ultimately disobey. He looked over his shoulder one more time, and then waved his sword aloft: ‘Charge!’ he shouted.

And the lieutenant of Marines said quietly, ‘Here goes the last of the Lockes of Locke-hall.’

They burst from the forest edge like jack snipe. Jessye was at full stretch within a dozen yards. The noise, as hooves and the gun wheels pounded across the hardbaked ground, seemed that of a whole squadron. Hervey fixed his eyes on the gates, expecting any moment to see them swung closed, and urged his little command forward with every word of Urdu he could recall. Still there was no sign of alarm at the walls. He glanced back: the jemadar was but five lengths behind, with the rest of the column close on his heels. Johnson was wrestling with the Arab mare intent on carting him off to a flank. At two hundred yards they could see clearly through the gates, but pounding hooves meant they could not hear the shouting. At a hundred they saw the picket running to the opening — then flashes, ragged shots. Seconds later Jessye flew through the gate arch, Hervey stretching low along her neck as the