'He will be the guest of my daffadars.'
When dinner was finished, more hours later than Hervey had thought possible, Colonel Skinner accompanied him to the picket to see him on his way. It was a fresh night, not cold, with a full moon. Torches blazed about the camp, and beyond in the city and the many other camps about it. As they came upon the picket, Corporal Wainwright led up Gilbert. Beside him, a naik led another horse, smaller but with twice the blood.
'Marwari, Major Hervey, of very choice breeding and schooled in our classical manner. I hope you will accept him.'
Hervey was all but dumbstruck. In hand was as fine a stallion as he had seen in Hindoostan - black, with a white face and massive neck. 'Sir, I . . .'
'He is called Chetak. Do you know the legend of Chetak, Major Hervey?'
'Indeed I do, Colonel. I know it was Chetak's leap that let the Maharana Pratap kill Man Singh's mahout.'
'And much more, Major Hervey.'
'Indeed, Colonel. Much more.'
'But the Maharana's Chetak was a grey, Major Hervey. And I would not have you ride two greys. So we make you a gift of one of our best bloods, and one, needless to say, who is well schooled in the Rajpoot airs.'
Hervey was a long time in his leave-taking. He had met a man among men, and he had known the regal hospitality of the Rajpoots. These things were to be savoured and honoured, even at times like this. Especially at times like this. There was no place for a stallion in his troop, but what a saddle-horse he would make when they were returned to Calcutta. And what a sire, too.
That night, though very late, he wrote to Somervile:
I am very glad of your letter (numbered 7), and especially its intelligence of Peto. How pleased he will be to slip anchor and be up the Irawadi at last! Let us hope, as you say the gossip has it, that a treaty is near.
What a camp this is! How I wish you could see it! Each fighting man with us has more than one follower, and a large bazaar accompanies the camp besides. We carry the men's tents on elephants, and each elephant has two men, four bhistis to each troop, a cook to every 16 men, every horse has a man to cut grass for him, the men have six camels and two men per troop to carry their beds. Then come the gram grinders, tailors, bakers, butchers, calasseys, or men for pitching tents, and many others. Each hospital has six men, and of these there are 40, making 240, and there are 50 dhoolies for a regiment. I should say that for 560 officers and men we must have 5,600 followers, this counting in the bazaar and officers' servants. I have in my own service 14 men, 5 camels, and a hackery, five horses and two ponies, and this for a mere captain of dragoons. Although this night I have received the gift of a magnificent Marwari stallion of Colonel Skinner of the Native Horse. It is tempting to ponder on the nature of the battle to come, and whether we shall see the single combat again that was the purpose of these great brutes. I trust not. I think there is a more glorious manner in which to take Bhurtpore, and it must be with art and powder in very large measure rather than with the breasts of brave men and horses . . .
Hervey completed another page of observations, then laid down his pen. He knew full well that many a brave man's breast would be torn open, sepoy's and King's man's alike. And he trusted it would be sepoy and King's man in fair measure, since it did not do for the King's men to be preserved, like Bonaparte's Garde, while the legionary Company regiments were expended. But he knew, also, that the butcher's bill would be determined in large measure by his own aptness - and audacity - in executing the special order. The affair of the jheels would be decided by a few, but the price of failure paid by the many.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
L'AUDACE!
The early hours of 10 December
The order had come by semaphore from Agra at first light the day before. The divisions were to advance on Bhurtpore before dawn on the 10th, the cavalry brigades leading. It was not a difficult movement. Bhurtpore, Agra and Muttra formed an almost equal-sided triangle, with Muttra at the apex, and the object of operations at the base, left. The roads, the sides of the triangle (although the base itself was not straight) were good and wide, permitting easy movement of formed bodies of men. The rains had gone and there was no rutting to speak of. The country either side was more flat than not, and not too jungled, so that if the divisions found the roads blocked it would be no very great impediment to progress, even for wheels. Not that opposition was expected. Each day the divisional commanders had sent patrols as far as three or four leagues, without sign of a Jhaut picket, and a cloud of spies, in exchange for quite modest amounts of silver, had daily brought assurances that the roads beyond, all the way to the walls of the city itself, were open and empty of troops. Indeed, the only obstacle to movement would be the sacred cows that ambled with perfect liberty along the old Mughal highways, for Krishna himself had been born in Muttra, and so the sacred cows wandered on sacred ground.
The distance they had to march was no great trial to either shoe or boot - or even to the bare feet of the sepoy. From Muttra it was but eight leagues, at a cavalry trot no more than three hours. Even at the sepoys' steady rate of three miles an hour it was only a matter of eight -an easy day's business. The light companies of King's regiments could do it by forced march in a morning (the road from Agra was a little longer, winding through Fatehpur Sikri and the battlefield of Kanwaha, but not by much more than two hours or so). And Lord Combermere's orders were clear in respect of not encumbering the columns with excess baggage, so that by Hervey's estimation there could be no doubting their relief at the jheels by last light. His only worry was the reliefs finding him. The jheels were not especially difficult to find, but they lay to the north-west of the fortress, and were therefore masked to the advance. There was always the chance that the Jhauts would cut the road nearest the fortress once the game was up, and so the relief force would have to be strong enough to force the road or else find the long way round via the south-west, through waterlogged pasture. Hervey, conferring with Brigadier-General Sleigh, had therefore decided to send back guides as soon as he had taken the bund.
The previous day had been all bustle throughout the camps at Muttra and, he imagined, at Agra too. His own troop, forewarned, had had an easier time of it, and the unprotesting Corporal Stray had received a steady flow of camp comforts into his makeshift depot. In the afternoon, Hervey had received orders by hand of one of Lord Combermere's aides-de-camp that he was to seize the bund as soon as was possible after dawn the following morning, with the limitation that he must not leave Muttra before midnight. He had at once sent word to the Eleventh and to Skinner's Horse, and their two squadrons had assembled at the Krishna Ghat a little before midnight, their captains - or jemadar in the case of the Skinner's rissalah - having spent an hour and more with him beforehand to agree the conduct of the affair.
‘What is the parole, Johnson?' he asked, as he took Gilbert's reins from him. He had not asked him that in ten years. It had been their ritual -their game, almost - before any affair began. It had started in Spain when his groom had drawn the fire of the regiment's outlying picket early one morning having searched all night like the good shepherd himself, but to bring in a lost horse. His habitual reply to any sentry's challenge to state the password was 'Sheffield', to which the equally invariable response was not Tass, friend' but Tass, Johnson.' Except that that night in Spain he had stumbled on the horse-artillery picket, and since then Johnson had had a healthy respect for the daily parole.
'Dehli,' he replied, a trifle gruffly, feeling the effects of a long day. 'What a lark this is. Do we get t'first pick o' t'pudding?'