leaving for Rangoon; Ledley, the regimental surgeon, had at last pronounced him fit (Hervey had pronounced himself fit more than a week ago). It was near six o'clock and his bearer would soon be here to supervise the team of bhistis who filled his bath with hot water. The surgeon had been most explicit in his warning against any chill, for he was advised that the fever was born of the malaria of the Rangoon marshes and could recur at any time, perhaps even in severer form. Hervey took care to put on a good lawn shirt when he had bathed, and a linen coat, for as soon as the sun set he would otherwise feel the cool of the evening keenly. He took up his brushes and smiled as he picked the strands of black hair from them. One evening soon he would dine with his bibi here – whatever the rules said. But she dared not return this evening. He would go instead to her at the bibi khana beyond the civil lines towards the Chitpore road, where the rich Bengali merchants lived. It was a comfortable and private place. He liked it there. He was pleased he kept her properly. Emma Somervile greeted him with a kiss to the lips. 'I never doubted you would be restored,' she said, smiling. 'But it has been many weeks, and you looked so fevered when last we visited.'
Hervey took a glass of champagne from the khitmagar and sat, as she bade him, beside her.
'Eyre will be here presently. There is an express boy come.'
'He is much occupied, I think. It must be the hardest thing to be so at odds with the Governor-General.'
Emma raised an eyebrow. 'It wears him more than I could have imagined. Oh, I do not mean the disagreements themselves, but the dismay at seeing so much going wrong when he had counselled against it from the start. And still Lord Amherst is not inclined to listen.'
Hervey frowned. 'There's a certain sort of man who would rather exhaust all his stock than admit to a wrong course and take a new one at half the cost. I fear there's many a grave that will be testimony to our Governor- General's obduracy. I'm only glad there are men such as Eyre who will expose the folly of it.'
Moments later Eyre Somervile entered the room with a look half triumphant and half exasperated. He dispensed with formal greetings. 'This is just as I had expected – worse.' He waved a letter at them. 'Maha Bundula is now in Ava. Bagyidaw's recalled Prince Tharrawaddy and Bundula is to have command of the army they've been assembling these past three months.'
'Do you have any notion how large?' asked Hervey.
'Thirty thousand – over and above the same number back from Arakan.' Somervile consulted the letter again. 'Also, three hundred jingals, the Cassay Horse from Manipur – about a thousand of them – artillery on elephant- back…' 'What is a jingal?' asked Emma.
'A gun,' replied Hervey, turning to her. 'Very light – the ball weighs less than a pound – but they tote them anywhere. And very destructive they are too.'
'Campbell will be thrown out of Rangoon in very short order indeed,' added her husband. 'How do you come by the intelligence, Eyre?' Somervile seemed rapt in thought. 'Eyre?'
'I'm sorry, my dear. I was thinking how much time we had, for the report says that Bundula boasted to Tharrawaddy he would feast in Rangoon in eight days. He could not, of course – not from the time of making the boast. The distance is too great in the best of weather. I suspect he meant eight days after once besieging the place.' Emma stayed her questions for the time being.
Hervey looked uncertain. 'Unless, that is, Bundula were to engage Campbell piecemeal.' 'That is against the best precepts, is it not?'
'As a rule, but there would be advantage in bringing pressure to bear gently on Rangoon, for Campbell's so weakened that he might seek terms-'
Emma looked shocked. 'Do you mean to say that General Campbell could surrender?'
Hervey shook his head. 'I think it the last thing he would do. But Maha Bundula might not. The Burmans do not have a very high opinion of the Company.'
'Well' said Somervile, making to turn. 'I must send to the commander-in-chief and to Amherst. They will surely now wish to reinforce Campbell's garrison. That, or order its withdrawal. You will excuse me for the moment.'
Hervey sat down again, taking a second glass of champagne.
'Do you know the source of his intelligence, Matthew?' asked Emma. 'Is it the same as before?'
'I imagine so,' he replied, cautiously. Somervile's best intelligence had come thence, and he knew of no other capable of yielding such precise and valuable information. Not the girl herself – she had merely been the cause for the boundless gratitude of a father whose abducted daughter had been returned unsullied, an unexpected prize from Hervey's action against the war boats on the Chittagong three years before. But Somervile had played up Hervey's chivalry in the jungled hill tracts to great purpose – like Rama and Sita, he had described her rescue. Indeed, he considered himself to be an intriguer of the first water on account of it. And so a favourite of King Bagyidaw's had become a most willing collaborator with the Company. 'And very good intelligence it is, too. Though I fear that neither Campbell nor the commander-in-chief can make the best of it.' 'How do you mean?'
'I don't know what plans Paget has in hand to reinforce Rangoon, but if there are none it is almost certainly too late to do so. And what will Campbell do when he learns that an army twenty times his strength is bearing down on him? He has the flotilla's guns, of course, but they might not be in a position to intervene decisively. If he is so reduced in numbers through sickness as we hear, then he would be best advised to quit the place, to use the ships to take off his force before it is utterly destroyed.'
'He is not likely to do that, surely? You yourself said as much.'
'I said he would not surrender. But he was with Moore at Corunna. And so was Paget for that matter. He has seen good precedent, therefore.'
Emma suddenly looked worried. 'Matthew, what if the intelligence is false?'
Hervey raised his eyebrows, and nodded. 'Just so. It is highly favourable to the Burmans, that is for sure. And for that reason it must be regarded circumspectly. Campbell's quitting Rangoon on a false report would be a most sorry business indeed.' 'You will warn Eyre of this, Matthew?'
'He will not need my warning, but, yes, I will speak my mind.'
Emma was relieved. She had felt the perturbation of the past year very keenly. Lord Amherst had set his face very decidedly against her husband's opinion. Somervile was a relatively junior member of the presidency council, although he was the acknowledged authority on the country powers and their neighbours. But he was an interventionist. Or rather, he advocated military action to obtain conditions favourable to the Company; the action itself – as in the case of Ava – did not have to take the form of an offensive. And so he found himself frequently in contention with the Governor-General, who thought him contrary, one minute seeming to urge boldness in meddling in native affairs, and in the next seeming to recoil from it. Somervile confided much in his wife, but she knew he did not tell all. That was too often apparent in his countenance and disposition.
'What about the regiment, Matthew,' said Emma abruptly, if brightly. Tve not seen much of them since Sir Ivo left for England.'
Hervey was pleased to oblige her, for although he could not give the best of reports, or the fullest, he would rather be speaking of the regiment now than contemplating the mournful situation in Rangoon. 'I think they are well. But there's little for them to do save guards and drill, says Serjeant-Major Armstrong. And I'm not sure Eustace Joynson is happy with the regiment's reins entirely in his hands.' 'How long shall he have them?'
'A full twelve months, less the two already gone.'
'I do wish it were not so long. We are in need of society here, and Lady Lankester will be a welcome increase. Do you know anything of her?'
'Her people are from Hertfordshire, Lankester's seat. Her father is Sir Delaval Rumsey. I have not met her but it is said she is a very handsome woman.'
'I knew Sir Delaval at one time,' said Emma, just as brightly as before. 'Rather, I knew Lady Rumsey. She was a kindly woman, and herself quite a beauty, and a wit too.'
'Then we should all be content. Did I say that poor Joynson is having trouble with his daughter again?' 'Indeed?'
'According to my lieutenant. Seems she's been a deal too wayward since first we arrived. The attentions of so many officers have sorely tested her senses, it would seem. I'm sure Joynson would wish you would take her in hand.'
Emma raised her eyebrows. 'I should not say it, but I have observed many times how it is the plainer girls whose senses are the least apt for testing.'
Hervey frowned again, but more playfully. 'Frances Joynson is not so very plain, Emma.'
Emma frowned, but more determinedly. 'I rather fancy that that is an acclimated opinion, Matthew.'
