A Call to Arms

Arakanese know how to get there, and the Chakma guides know the border well, but I prefer to know where I’m about.’

‘It is … what, fourscore miles?’

‘Nearer the hundred, I should say. There’s a diversion of some dozen or more in order to avoid one of the settlements. I intend we march twenty this day, and then make camp, and then strike it well before dawn tomorrow so that we shake off any followers. There’s a good place for such a halt, your Arakanese say — just beyond a fording place on the Karnaphuli, on the Bandarban road. And thence it’s into the hill tracts.’

Somervile looked unsure. ‘I doubt you will find a ford so low on the Karnaphuli, even at this time of year.’

Hervey was not greatly perturbed. ‘The Arakanese said there might be a little way to swim, but this doesn’t trouble me. It’s a torpid stream and the horses will know what to do even if half the dragoons don’t. It will be good practice. I would have had them doing it in a month or so in any case had we not been stood-to to this. The Arakanese say it’s called the Bandarban ford, so the chance of our needing to swim seems very low.’

Somervile nodded. ‘So be it. And what are your intentions for the assault?’

‘That I can’t determine until I’ve seen for myself the assembly place. I’m trusting to the intelligence that there will be more boats than fighting men. I shall want to secure the site against surprise, and then set to with the breaking-up of the boats. I’m inclined to think we might fire them, except that I can’t risk setting alight the forest.’

‘No, that would be most hazardous,’ Somervile agreed, nodding with some disquiet. ‘But what shall you do if there are more men than the intelligence suggests?’

Hervey raised his eyebrows. ‘So much depends on their attitude. If they are without much discipline in their security we might yet be able to prevail over them. But if they’re alert we shall give them a fright and make good our escape. You would want me to make a demonstration, failing all else?’

‘Oh yes, indeed. It risks a casus belli, of course, but they are at any rate intent on an attack — of that we are quite sure — and a check such as that might unsteady them a considerable degree. But I do urge that you have a care. I should not ask you to throw away any man’s life in mere speculation, Hervey. I leave to you absolutely how intent you press your attack.’

‘Thank you, Somervile. You may be assured I have a proper regard for the dangers, but I’m grateful to have your trust reposed in such a manner.’ Hervey made to stand. ‘Now, let me show you the difficulties as far as I can discern from this map.’

‘Dodds is absent, Hervey,’ said Seton Canning as they walked to the stables before the two o’clock mustering.

Hervey stopped dead. ‘When? Where?’

‘He didn’t parade for boot and saddle.’

‘I’ll have Dodds hanged if we have to set off without him!’

No one could be sure if the threat were more than just exasperation, but the edge was such as to make Seton Canning start. ‘The sar’nt-major has sent people out looking for him, but he couldn’t spare too many.’

And doubtless Armstrong was not much grieved by the loss, thought Hervey — beyond the affront to discipline. ‘I suppose we must own that bad character will out,’ he hissed.

Seton Canning said not another word.

At the stables Johnson stood holding the little Marwari which his captain had taken as his second charger. Hervey took the reins and mounted at once. ‘Gilbert is seen to?’

‘Ay sir. I told yon cripple I’d lame ’im good an’ proper if there was as much as a stable mark on ’im when I got back.’ Private Hicks’s leg was all but mended after his fall a month before, but he had limped about the lines for so long that he could be sure ‘St Giles’ would remain his nickname for as long as he wore uniform.

Hervey frowned. ‘He’d better believe it,’ he rasped, leaning forward to pull up a keeper on the bridle. ‘And you told him, a pectoral morning and evening? That cold came on so quickly; I don’t want it turning to anything worse.’

‘I told ’im, sir.’

Hervey nodded grimly. ‘Where d’ye think Dodds is hiding, by the way?’

‘In t’rear rank if ’e’s any sense.’

Hervey looked at him, puzzled.

Then Johnson realized. ‘Tha doesn’t know ’e’s back then?’

‘No, I did not. How so?’

‘Corporal Mossop found ’im in a cunny-warren in t’town!’

A syce led out Johnson’s own horse, together with Hervey’s new second. Hervey frowned at his groom, wanting more from him.

‘ ’E were too fuzzed to stand, Mossop said.’ A hint of a smirk betrayed Johnson’s pleasure at the pun.

Hervey was not inclined to share it. ‘Johnson, you do realize he would have been hanged for his absence?’

‘Ay sir,’ replied his groom, the smile gone. ‘And to tell thee t’truth, there’d not be any as’d put in a good word for ’im.’

Hervey fumed, but at himself. It was he who had wanted to enlist Dodds, and since then he had seized on any sign of amends to his ‘bad character’, and in the face of Armstrong’s continuing doubts. For a moment the lash seemed appealing.

He tried to put it from his mind as he rode with Seton Canning to the maidan. He halted at the edge to let his lieutenant go forward to take over the parade from Armstrong, and then he in turn took command. As he rode along the front rank and then the rear, his humour was much restored by his dragoons’ appearance. Green his troop might be, but they looked likely enough this day. Just so long as they went to it with a will, and luck went with them, they would manage.

‘Dodds is with the bat-horses, sir, in open arrest,’ said Armstrong as they cleared the rear right marker. ‘For my part I’d have him nowhere near, except that he should stand his chances like the rest of them.’

Hervey could not help wondering, even now, if Dodds had truly intended to absent himself. ‘Are we sure he was at first parade? Unless he’d heard the warning for the field, he couldn’t very well be charged with desertion.’

Armstrong had not considered it. The troop had been reported present or else accounted for. ‘I’ll get ’is corporal to vouch, sir,’ he replied doubtfully.

Hervey checked in front of one of the Warminster pals. ‘Are you quite well, Parkin?’ he asked, seeing an unusual amount of perspiration about his face and neck.

‘Not feeling too good, sir. I expect it’ll pass though, sir.’ Hervey glanced at Private Wainwright next to him.

‘He were all right until last night, sir, but he didn’t want to report sick after what you said at first parade, sir.’

‘Report now to the surgeon, Parkin.’

Parkin saluted, a shade awkwardly thought Hervey, as if his arm were constrained, and fell out to his right. ‘You’ll find him with the bat-horses, lad,’ said Armstrong as he passed.

‘What did he have to eat last night, Wainwright?’ asked Hervey.

‘Mutton, sir, same as us.’

‘And drink?’

‘Just a measure of rum, sir. That’s all. He never has more, sir.’

Hervey pressed on down the line, looking into faces more intently now, determined on seeing any sign that Parkin’s ailment might not be entirely his own. But all looked none the worse than usual.

They rode round behind the rear rank to where the two galloper guns were, their teams — each of three sowars — sitting like ramrods in the saddle, the kurtas as vivid as sunflowers. Hervey had asked for a daffadar who could understand some English and the adjutant had assured him that he would oblige; but he tried a few words of his Urdu, if as no more than a courtesy.

The daffadar braced in acknowledgement: ‘Hazoor!’

There was a strange noise from beyond the guns, a bleating. Hervey peered between the sowars to see what was the cause.