the deck of the third barge, leaving not a man standing for’ard. Sepoys on the fourth barge began a brisk return of fire, but to little effect, and Hervey ordered the jemadar to have the sowars direct their carbine fire at this and the following barges, which were much closer to the bank, to suppress the resistance until the galloper guns could play on them in turn.
The lead barge was now ablaze, the first gun having fired one of its precious fused shells into the shrouded cargo, and sepoys were soon jumping from the sides. Some could not swim: they thrashed wildly, calling upon Allah until the Godavari claimed them. Some struck for the distant bank, but a dozen sowars put their horses into the river after them. There could be no doubting who would win the race. Others, accepting their fate or hopeful of mercy, made for the nearer side. Sowars waded in to meet them, slinging lances over the shoulder to draw sabres instead, and the shallows soon ran red — brackish though the river was. Some of them, impatient of waiting for the remaining fugitives to leave the barge, swam their horses towards the craft to assail the would-be survivors with the steel point of the ten feet of bamboo. The second barge was now sinking, its gunwales below water, its sepoys, seeing the slaughter of the first, unable to commit themselves to the fate attending whichever course they chose. Those on the third made no attempt at resistance, climbing instead into the water on the cover-side, holding on desperately, doubtless hoping that the barge would somehow drift out of reach of the guns. But it edged instead into the second, which was wallowing midstream. Both guns now turned on it. The first round struck just below the waterline, and the barge’s fate was sealed, if slowly. But the other gun still had one fused shell, and it took only seconds to have the vessel ablaze, forcing the sepoys finally to choose their fate. However, none were to feel the sabre or the lance’s point, for before the most resolute had made a dozen strokes the barge blew up, sending a fountain of matchwood higher than the tallest mathi trees on either bank. On seeing this the sepoys on the fourth barge began throwing down their muskets and jumping into the water. Hervey guessed that the powder was carried on just two barges, this and the third, and he shouted for the galloper guns to play now on the last two, whose sepoys were returning fire briskly but with almost no effect from behind the cover of the gunwales.
The guns were now fiercely hot, despite vigorous sponging, yet still their sowars showed no fear in serving them. Indeed, the jemadar ordered double charges and canister, believing he could just reach the nearer barge. Two discharges put an end to the volleying from behind the gunwales, allowing the sowars to fire with more measure at the hull. The third shot, perhaps finding some weakened part of the clinker-built side, stove in a dozen feet of timber just on the waterline. The barge began to list at once. Those sepoys who had not been hit by canister sprang up in dismay from behind the gunwales, only to begin falling again to the sowars’ carbines. And then the barge, under the weight of the two giant cannon — now exposed as the canvas covers fell away — turned on its side like some great beast of the river, the cannon plunging free of their lashings into the Godavari, and then rolled over completely before disappearing. All attention now turned to the last barge, but Hervey wished to make it a prize: the nizam’s guns would be of incalculable value in the rajah’s service, and the sepoys would surely have intelligence of the nizam’s intentions. But before he could make his orders clear to the jemadar, the sepoys began trying to stave in the timbers, their officers having at least determined that the cannon should be denied to Chintal. Hervey ordered the galloper guns to reopen fire at once with canister, and the sowars with their carbines, to try to prevent the destruction. Guns and carbines worked terrible havoc — men fell almost continuously for a full five minutes — but still the sepoys hacked away with whatever they could find. In another five they were dead or dying to a man, sixty or more of them. But they had done their work, and the barge began to settle in the water. In five minutes it would be gone. Silence now returned to the Godavari. Hervey looked slowly from right to left, up and down the river, along its banks and its shallows. He had seen butchery of this kind before — but never so fervently and efficiently done.
XVII. GOOD AND EARLY INTELLIGENCE
Hervey threw up violently. The slaughter at the river had been no greater than at Waterloo or any number of affairs in the Peninsula, but he had never seen men so drunk on blood. When the sowars had killed every last one of the nizam’s gunners they had turned in their frenzy on those they had killed first, until there was scarcely a body that had not had a limb sliced away or been several times impaled. He had tried to stop it, but it was futile. Had he not, in truth, encouraged it? He had shouted ‘no quarter’ when they came on them, for he could spare no quarter until the last barge was destroyed. None of the nizam’s men had held up their hands — except to Allah — and none had called for mercy. War was fury, not sport — victory the only consideration, was it not?
He now sat under a tree scribbling a second note for Henry Locke, out of sight of the river carnage. The rissaldar marched up as if on parade. ‘Sahib! We have counted all bodies,’ he announced. ‘More than two hundred, sahib!’
Two hundred: what did it matter? It wasn’t as if they were British, or even French. Just a lot of heathen natives. He would have slaughtered a hundred more to bring Jessye back. How the soul grew cold, he mused, even in so hot a place as Chintal.
‘What is it, sahib? Is sahib unwell?’ The rissaldar bent to take his shoulder.
This was absurd. He couldn’t see the bodies now. Throwing up because he felt nothing? ‘No, Rissaldar sahib — I am just a little winded still from the ride.’
‘Brandy, sahib?’
‘Yes, brandy would do very well, Rissaldar sahib.’
He took the canteen — water and brandy mixed, as reviving as it was slaking.
‘Take it all, sahib — there is plenty more.’
He took it all. Then he threw up a second time.
The rajah, like the King of Spain in his chapel when the Armada sailed, would do nothing but pray. To the exasperation of those courtiers who had not fled or given way to a debilitating panic, he remained inaccessible, ministered to solely by a sadhu. Hervey, sick with killing, full of brandy but unquestionably triumphant, stormed into his apartments in fiery resolve.
The rajah stared at him, eyes fearful.
‘Your Highness, the guns are now at the bottom of the Godavari. I shall ride tonight for Jhansikote and I urge you to follow as soon as you’re able. Your sepoys must see you. We do not yet have complete victory.’
The rajah expressed every degree of relief, gratitude — obligation, even. But he was reluctant to leave his capital. Not for fear of the enemy on the plains but for fear of what might be done in Chintalpore were he now to quit it. ‘I am convinced of the need for me to remain, Captain Hervey. And of my prayers in this place.’
Hervey sighed. How he wished for less of the pious inactivity of the Spanish king, and more the spirit of the English queen rallying her sailors. But no amount of reasoning could change the rajah’s mind. ‘With your leave, then, sir,’ he said at length before retiring.
He left the rajah’s apartments unsteadily, taking deep breaths to force out the brandy’s ill effects. But the air was heavy and gave him no relief. More than once he turned the wrong way in the labyrinth of marble. Where in heaven’s name were Selden’s quarters? Instead he found a door opening into the courtyard, the sun strong in his eyes, an overpowering smell of horses, donkeys, mules, bullocks, elephants, sweating bearers — almost making him throw up again. And there was the raj kumari, and all about her treasures being loaded into hackeries and yakhdans.
She showed no surprise at seeing him. She already knew of the affair at the river. As soon as firing began she had galloped one of her Kehilans straight to the sound of the guns. He seized her roughly by the arm. ‘What—’
‘My father sends me away; that is all you need know.’ She struggled free.
‘The danger to the palace is gone, but beyond the walls—’
‘I have no care. I take what is mine and leave.’
‘For where?’
‘You need not know!’
He seized her arm again, then the other, pulling her round to face him. The jasmine scent of loose hair drew
