A Call to Arms

‘We have two weeks.’

Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘It can’t be done!’

Lankester eyed him warily but was not inclined to take his dissent to task. ‘The entire brigade’s to turn out — a sort of mock battle. The Governor-General intends it to be a great tamasha, as he puts it. Last one before the rains come. You need have no worry, though. As soon as the brigadier makes his intention known I shall arrange for your troop to be put in a place whence it doesn’t have to manoeuvre.’

‘Colonel, I fear even that is asking too much. See this ride — and they’re by no means the worst. If we had schoolmasters it would not be so bad, but these have no manners whatever.’

Sir Ivo looked again at the ride. There was not a horse on the bit. ‘Very well, Hervey,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘We must think of something that keeps them out of things altogether. Meanwhile, keep at riding school. You may have all the rough-riders, too. And there are more remounts arriving in a day or so. You shall have first choice.’

‘I’m obliged, Colonel,’ said Hervey. He would have done all in his power to accommodate Sir Ivo, a man of such evident integrity and so wholly lacking in vanity, but he would have been true to no one — not least to Sir Ivo himself — if he had simply said ‘yes’ to an infeasible task.

But for all his disappointment, Sir Ivo seemed in excellent spirits. He turned to Armstrong. ‘Good morning, Serjeant-Major. How is Mrs Armstrong? I have not seen her since we disembarked.’

‘She is very well, thank you, Colonel.’

‘And busy, I hear?’

‘She has the wives combining every morning, Colonel.’

‘I’m grateful to her. The quarters are better than I dared hope, but the better still for some organization. What say you, Mr Lincoln?’

‘I have never seen their like in all my service, Colonel,’ declared the RSM. ‘I might wish we had come here years ago.’

Only the adjutant knew to what lengths the commanding officer had gone to secure habitable married quarters. Lankester had written to the Court of Directors and then to Mr Canning, President of the Board of Control, and had forced their hand ultimately by pledging a sizeable sum of his own to the provision of separate lines — twice the number normally allowed. And as soon as he had become aware of how many more wives there were beyond even that number, he had sent by the express route a further requisition. The meanest dragoon and his wife had a room of their own in consequence.

‘Quite a turnabout, isn’t it?’ said Armstrong when Lankester had gone.

‘It is,’ agreed Hervey, but he was disinclined to dwell on it; the memory of Lord Towcester was made all the worse by comparison with such a man as Sir Ivo.

‘Well, either way, the RM’s going to have a hell of a job getting yon clodhoppers to pass out of riding school this side of the monsoon. I reckon our best bet might be the leading rein for this do of the general’s.’

Hervey nodded. ‘It may yet come to it. And what a sight we shall then look, eh?’

The cavalry lines stood on the northern edge of the city, so that dry fodder could be had in plenty from the plain beyond, and so that horse and rider would have easy access to exercise ground. However, in the years since the building of the lines there had been a steady encroachment of squattings, the dwelling places of the little army of syces, bhistis, bearers and sweepers, and all the other ‘untouchables’ who eased the labour of the cavalrymen or who provided them and their officers with comforts. Their ramshackle huts stood in singular contrast to the whitened stone of the cavalry lines — the verandahed barrack-houses, offices, stores and stables — just as their occupants in their drab homespun stood in contrast to the dragoons in their blue, yellow, silver and gold. In the case of the females, on the other hand, the bright colours of the native women easily eclipsed those of the gora log, whose quality preferred white or pastels, and whose others still wore the dark cloth of the tenement or the cottage.

When the lines had been extended in anticipation of the Sixth’s posting, many of the squattings had been dismantled and moved half a mile further onto the plain, or had simply been swept away. However, they had still increased in number as the agents began engaging labour for the new regiment; so that almost immediately on leaving the lines — and even, for that matter, the officers’ lines, where stood the officers’ house and its surrounding bungalows, and the married officers’ quarters — the rider was presented with the sights and sounds, the tastes and smells of native India. This morning, the sun just up, the air still fresh, and the cooking fires making yet only a little smoke, Hervey was content. His gelding was getting back to hale condition, summer coat through and shining, muscle regenerate. Gilbert had endured the voyage as well as Jessye had three years before. His mouth was as soft as when the bridoon had been taken off at Tilbury, and his manners had deteriorated not a jot. But that was nothing compared with Private Johnson’s delight, his roan mare. The atrophy of the muscles over her near scapula had been truly alarming, but it had disappeared quite spontaneously — almost overnight, indeed. The veterinary surgeon had predicted that it could, but no one had had any expectation of it, for the ridge on the shoulder blade had been so prominent that it suggested some malignant growth rather than muscle damage.

‘What did tha say it were called, sir?’

‘Sweeny. That’s what the Americans call it — at least, the ones we met in Michigan. Don’t you remember that admirable farrier in Detroit who treated the serjeant-major’s mare?’

Johnson did. ‘Well, I can’t wait to get my old girl out for a walk — that’s all I’ll say. T’vetinary’s seeing ’er this afternoon. I reckon ’e’ll pass ’er fit.’

‘Let’s hope so. But it was a very nasty fall.’

Nellie had fallen in a squall off Madagascar and evidently taken her whole weight on her shoulder, for the damage had been massive.

‘The veterinarian believes it may be something to do with the nerve in that part, rather than the tissue,’ said Hervey.

‘Is that why it’s come all right?’

‘He says that nerves can become snared, and just as suddenly they’re released.’

‘It’d be a real shame if they didn’t. She’s t’best trooper I’ve ’ad.’ Hervey did not doubt it. But this was India. ‘What’s wrong with the one you’re riding?’

Johnson looked surprised. ‘What, this? I’ve seen bigger pit ponies.’

‘She’s going forward nicely.’

‘Ay, but …’

‘Well, what else do you want?’

Johnson looked indignant. ‘Well, I’d like summat wi’ a bit of reach.’

‘That I grant you. But I’ll warrant that pony will carry you a deal further in this country than your Irish mare. And I think I’d trade a hand or two for that.’

Johnson was doubtful.

‘The first remounts arrive this afternoon,’ continued Hervey, brushing a particularly large horsefly from Gilbert’s neck. ‘I shall look them over with Mr Sledge and choose thirty at once. The sooner those recruits are in the saddle as one body the better.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I ought to stop calling them recruits, I suppose.’

Johnson agreed. ‘I wonder ’ow many dragoons ’as spent as long in t’ranks wi’out an ’orse afore!’

Hervey smiled. ‘You’re right. We must be the footiest dragoons in the line. But their musketry’s good, mind — being so long cooped up. You didn’t see Harkness bring down that goose at the Cape.’

‘ ’E’s all right, is ’Arkness, sir. Y’know French ’as taught ’im to read proper and write.’

‘Has he indeed? Harkness as well as Mole. Then French has doubly earned his pay.’

‘Y’know ’is father’s a parson, an’ all, sir?’

The short a in Johnson’s father still took Hervey by surprise from time to time. His ear for the peculiarities of Sheffield vowels — indeed, for the whole structure of the speech of those parts — was now finely attuned, but father always sounded peculiarly alien. Alien and rather cold, especially compared with the gentle fayther of Caithlin Armstrong’s Cork — and Private McCarthy’s, for that matter. ‘Yes, I do know, but he seemed disinclined to speak of his family when first I broached it, so I didn’t press him to details.’

‘Somewe’er in Wales, ’e said. An’ ’e said that folks there used to say them as were on t’parish were as poor as church mice, but not as poor as t’parson.’

Hervey could believe it. His own father’s living may have been a poor one, but by the standards of the Welsh