The Sabre's Edge

theirs, as it had been small compared with that of Ibrahim Lodi in Punjab, but Babur knew how to manoeuvre them to advantage. The martial Rajpoots, two hundred thousand and more, learned defeat at Kanwaha near Fatehpur Sikri, where Babur's grandson, Akbar the Great, would in time build a new Mughal capital. After the battle, Babur, rejoicing at becoming a ghazi, a killer of infidels, had made great mounds of the bodies of the slain, and pillars of their heads -models to be copied at Bhurtpore centuries later with Lord Lake's men.

Lord Combermere's army knew its history. The sepoys spoke among themselves of the Futtah Bourge, the 'bastion of victory', the great tower of skulls that stood as affront to both their caste and their calling. The private men of the King's regiments, their information learned more recently but with no less indignation, likewise spoke of the insult to be effaced - and, it must be certain, the retribution to be exacted on the defenders of Bhurtpore. That the Jhauts who now stood defiantly on the walls of the city were not the same enemy as Lord Lake's was of no moment. They were of the same country, and they dared to oppose John Company and the King.

Red was the colour that predominated in the camps, but a vivid red, scarlet, the colour of blood, not the mellow red of the great sandstone fort nearby, nor the rich deep red of the silks that clothed men and women alike in the chaupars and bazaars of this old imperial city. The Company's native infantry regiments were as regular in their appearance as Lord Combermere had known the duke's in Spain, save that the sepoys' legs were bare. The cavalry, too, had all the appearance of his own command at that time, except that in the hands of some was a weapon that hitherto he had seen only in the hands of the enemy - the lance, its pennants now fluttering in the ranks of His Majesty's Sixteenth Lancers, who aped their models in this part by wearing the schapska of Bonaparte's Polish lancers instead of the shako. Hervey could not look at their scarlet bibs without a fraction of distaste, for blue had been the colour of all who did not fight in lines, and he thought it needless show. Show in both senses, for scouting and outpost work was hard enough at the best of times without robin-redbreast display.

Hervey had been busy on his own account with matters of uniform. For some time now he had become convinced that for field service their own coats should be modified in the same way as had their horses' bridles. Early on in the Peninsula the regiment had doubled the leather browband with chain so that a sword could not cut it and make the bridle fall from the animal's head. He had listened to accounts of Maratha and Rajpoot swordsmanship and learned that a favoured device was the passing cut at the shoulder, and he had concluded that chain on the shoulder - as of old - would serve them well. Major Joynson had been persuaded, and the metalworkers of Calcutta had been engaged to fashion six inches of mail, three inches wide, for each dragoon's shoulder. Lord Combermere saw it when he inspected his troops at Agra, and much approved. And when, three days later, he went by dawk upstream to Muttra to inspect the other half of his army, and there found Hervey and his troop, he remarked on it favourably, so that Hervey was in no doubt that Lord Combermere's estimation of him was truly of the highest order.

'I intend beginning a general advance on Bhurtpore three days hence, on the ninth,' the commander-in-chief told him as he turned his horse away. 'I shall make all appearances of wanting to parley, so that they do not take steps to inundate the defences, but I shall want you to break from the force at last light and move to seize the bund. Then at dawn next day I shall send with all despatch a force to relieve you.'

It was exactly as Hervey had urged at Fort William. 'Very good, General.'

'Two squadrons, you said.'

'Yes, sir. One of the Eleventh's, and a rissalah from Skinner's Horse, they with their galloper guns. The horse artillery would only impede us.'

Combermere nodded, but slowly, as if considering. 'The Eleventh, yes - and your own troop, I should suppose.'

Hervey nodded his confirmation.

'But the irregular horse . . . are they to be so relied upon?'

Hervey smiled assuringly. 'I may say with utter certainty, your lordship, that one could do no better in trusting them with one's very life. Three years ago, in Burma, I had proof of it myself.'

Combermere nodded again, this time more definitely. 'Very well, then, I shall have Colonel Watson write the orders at once. Is there any more you would have me do?'

'No, sir. Except, of course, that our orders should not be made general.'

'Of course.'

Hervey knew he had suggested the obvious, but he had his reasons. Combermere rode high in his estimation from all that had gone before in Portugal and Spain, but this was India.

'Cap'n 'Ervey, sir, if yon farrier's sick another day I'm gooin' to 'ave to ask one 'o' t'Eleventh's to do Gilbert. Them corns are gettin' bad.'

Gilbert's shoes were a problem that Hervey could do without. It wasn't just Gilbert, either, for although Corporal Brennan's assistants were capable of admirable cold-shoeing by replacing worn iron with the stock shoes carried by each dragoon, they were not yet proficient enough to make a therapeutic set, and there were half a dozen troopers needing that attention. 'I'll speak to their colonel, then,' replied Hervey, still wondering when he might have the orders which would give him authority to address his mission.

Johnson was content. 'Lord Combermere looked 'appy enough this mornin'. I were tellin' all them green'eads that fancies themselves as dragoons, about 'im at T'loose.'

Hervey looked pained. 'Not anything in connection with General Slade, I hope.'

'Of course it were about Slade. That were t'story!'

Indeed it was a story. Lord Combermere's timely appearance at Toulouse had made General Slade drop his prey - and Hervey had raced back to the regiment a free man again. But Combermere, as far as Hervey could tell, had never known how providential had been his arrival. He had known only the eagerness of the wounded cornet to be back in action. There was a time, however - and certainly at Toulouse - when Hervey would have been truly perturbed, believing that the disparaging of a senior officer, even one such as Slade, would have been inimical to discipline. Now he cared not at all. The canteen was entitled to its views, as long as it held them in private, so to speak. And if they could disparage Slade they could extol Combermere, as it seemed they might. Johnson did the commander-in-chief a service therefore; Hervey ought to commend him, indeed. There were always difficulties attendant on commending Johnson, though. 'That reminds me—'

But Johnson was not finished. 'Word is in t'can-teen that them walls is fifty feet thick, and made of bones and solid rock.'

Hervey raised an eyebrow. 'How do the intelligence agents of the canteen believe solid rock and bones are mixed together?'

Johnson did not consider it an impossible notion. 'They didn't say, only that the walls is so thick it'd take a month o' Sundays just to scratch 'em.'

Hervey frowned. 'They're thick, Johnson, I grant you that, but not fifty feet, and not solid rock. They'll withstand some battering, but they're bound to be breached at some point, and then it will be the bayonet in the old way.'

'Let's 'ope so, sir,' said Johnson matter-of-factly, taking the reins of Hervey's second charger as Hervey himself began picking up each of the little Marwari's feet to check for stones. 'Ave yer 'eard there've been some deserters an' all?'

'There are always deserters, Johnson,' replied Hervey, just as matter-of-fact, picking out a pebble from the off-fore.

'Ay, but they reckon these've gone over to t' Jhauts.'

'Who reckons? How do they know?'

'Corporal McCarthy 'eard. 'E always 'ears everything if they're Irish.'

Hervey continued checking his mare's feet (they looked in good shape). 'And who are they from, these men?'

'T' artillery.'

Hervey looked up. 'The artillery!'

'Ay, and supposed to be good gunners an' all.'

Hervey tutted. He was not disposed to think that they could have gone over to the enemy, for he could see no inducement . . . except that as experienced gunners their services would be keenly sought, and therefore, he supposed, well rewarded. But surely they would not—'