Nizams Daughters

believe we were within half a day’s ride of them as they fled into Nagpore.’

Emma Lucie seemed surprised. ‘Why no, Captain Hervey: there have been more incursions into the Circars since then. There was terrible murder and rapine. They came within the civil station at Guntoor, even, and almost as far as Rajahmundry. There was great alarm.’

‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc?’

‘In what connection?’

‘Earlier you said something about one misfortune following another. I have been at pains to understand events here. I was wondering if there might be some connection between what happened at Jhansikote and the Pindaree depredations.’

Emma Lucie nodded. ‘Another thing I have observed in this country,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘is that everything is perceived to be a consequence of human intrigue or the malevolence of the gods, no matter how apparent to us might its accidental nature be. If there is no connection between the events to which you refer, there will indeed be a connection in the minds of those who contemplate them, and there will therefore, in time, become a real connection in practice.’

‘In that case, Miss Lucie,’ said Hervey, with some foreboding, ‘the situation here may be graver than I feared. But that cannot be a concern of mine — or, I venture, yours.’

‘And there is not a frigate of the Royal Navy at hand,’ she replied opaquely.

He did not catch her meaning. ‘Madam?’

‘Captain Peto and the Nisus are at present stationed at the mouth of the Godavari.’

‘Then I am pleased for Mr Somervile. I trust that Captain Peto has been able to effect all the repairs he wished for?’

‘I know not,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Nisus was just come one morning — in some show of force, I believe. She was a most welcome sight.’

‘A fathom of water,’ smiled Hervey.

‘I do not understand you, sir.’

‘Something Bonaparte once lamented: wherever you find a fathom of water, there you will find the Royal Navy.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Johnson, can’t you stop that horse from doing that?’

‘No, it’s ’ad ginger up its arse since I first took it out!’

‘I had hoped for an easy ride this afternoon, and Jessye’s in a muck sweat already.’

‘D’ye remember that big geldin’ that Captain Jessope ’ad afore Waterloo? I reckon that ’ad been figged right ’n proper when ’e bought it!’

‘Enough about figging, Johnson. If you kept your backside a little stiller you might have more success.’

‘Does tha want to change ’orses, sir?’

Hervey laughed. ‘No!’

‘Then we’ll ’ave to make t’best of it. Like life.’

This was one of the rare deeper revelations of Johnson’s philosophy, a unique distillation of barrackroom wisdom and the residual scripture of his poorhouse upbringing. Johnson saw little point in contemplation. Once, in Spain at the height of the campaign, he had modified the chaplain’s rendering of the Gospel, and ‘sufficient unto the parade is the evil thereof’ had become for a time the axiom of the grooms. Johnson saw no difference in a parade in peace or in war, for each required strenuous preparation, each required him to follow precisely the commands given by word of mouth or the trumpet, and each ended when an officer decided that it should. The interim — whether bloody or not — scarcely mattered. Indeed, Johnson believed that he was alive because there was war, not in spite of it: it would otherwise have been the pit or the foundry for him had not the recruiting party happened his way ten years before (few orphans who found their way into those nether worlds saw more than a quarter of what scripture promised was their span of life).

‘Johnson, are you content here?’ asked Hervey, trying once more to urge Jessye onto the bit to stop the jog- trotting to which she had recently become inclined.

Private Johnson, whose Arab mare had done nothing but jog-trot since they had left the stables a half-hour before, was taken aback by the solicitude.

‘Me? Ay, I’m content enough.’

Hervey knew this to be an expression of considerable satisfaction. ‘You are not overly vexed that we might have been killed at Jhansikote?’ he smiled.

‘If it’s all right by thee…’ was all that came by reply.

‘Johnson, do you ever think that it might be more prudent to follow some other line, perhaps a—’

‘No.’

‘So you are not illdisposed to the country?’ he pressed.

Johnson would have sighed had even he not thought it disrespectful. ‘Captain ’Ervey, sir, I’ve ’ad more square meals ’ere than I can remember, and they cost next to nowt. Why is tha concerned abaht me all of a sudden?’

Now it was Hervey’s turn to feel offended. ‘I have never knowingly been unconcerned! It’s just that you’re far from home, and there’s no knowing when you’ll see it again.’

‘Captain ’Ervey, ’ow many times ’ave I told thee I don’t ’ave a ’ome as I calls one!’

‘No, forgive me. Perhaps what I meant is being among your own people — being with the regiment, even.’

‘Ah well, that’s another matter, but there’s nowt I can do about it so… an’ I tell thee, I’ve never eaten as well as ’ere.’

Hervey smiled again. For an enlisted man food was usually the criterion. ‘And I have observed that you are popular with the rajah’s establishment.’

‘If tha means that lass whose father’s one of t’rajah’s fart-catchers — ay.’

Hervey was now smiling broadly.

‘They must ’ave seen Englishmen afore, since they know a few words. But I can’t make ’em understand much.’

Hervey shook his head, still smiling. ‘Private Johnson, I am of the opinion that you lay on your diabolical Yorkshire speech deliberately to confuse!’

‘It doesn’t take much to confuse some officers!’

Hervey laughed outright. ‘And how much of this lady do you see?’

‘Tha means ’ow often?’ he replied, with a wry smile.

‘Johnson!’

‘I eat with ’em most nights.’

‘And native fare is to your liking?’

‘I ’ad the shits all last week, but it weren’t so bad.’

‘There’s good food enough,’ Hervey conceded, ‘though I confess to a pining for beef!’

‘An’ the women is friendly. Even Mr Locke seems to ’ave ’is feet under t’table with one of them naught girls.’

‘Nautch girls, Johnson, nautch: there is nothing naught about them. They’re respectable dancers. Their dance is a very ancient one.’

‘Oh ay, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘I bet Miss Lindsay wouldn’t approve.’

Hervey felt chastened, even though he did not fancy it true.

‘I reckon one of them girls would do Mr Selden a power of good, though,’ he added mischievously.

‘Now that’s enough! There’s to be no talk of those matters concerning Mr Selden — anywhere.’

‘Well, my lass’s family seem to know about it.’

‘I thought you said they couldn’t understand English?’

‘We get along with signs and things,’ said Johnson, matter-of-fact.