Free Lance Page 11

  The scandal blew a gale across the Presidency’s cantonments; and alarmed commanding officers feverishly hunted recruits to fill the tell-tale gaps on their rolls. The Commissions had been curiously remiss in failing to make simultaneous investigations in every regiment: perhaps, Amaury concluded sardonically, the colonels on the Boards were not all entirely innocent - those who probed too deep in dunghills might themselves be choked by the stench.

  Meanwhile, Amaury purged his energy by sabre drill, played backgammon against Amelia, and ensured with Kiraun’s help that he slept like a log at night. He was strolling in the compound after breakfast when a gig discharged an officer at the gates: a major of the King’s 80th Foot, stiff in scarlet regimentals, sashed, gold-epauletted, sword dangling at his side. He crunched along the gravelled path and bowed.

  ‘Captain Amaury?’

  ‘At your service, sir.’

  ‘My name is Dawson. I come on General Sir John Wrangham’s behalf to demand an apology for the injury he has suffered at your hands.’ He coughed, and looked embarrassed. ‘It is with infinite pain, sir, I wait upon you on so unpleasant an occasion, but I have undertaken the ungracious office from a hope of being able to accommodate matters without proceeding to extremities.’

  Amaury flicked his cane, and neatly decapitated a blown flower-head. ‘I do not apologize.’

  Dawson fumbled his sword knot, and shed his pedantic manner. ‘I beg you, sir, to consider a little! My principal, although an officer of rank, does not pretend to your skill as a shot. Would you have an old man’s blood on your hands? The outcome is inevitable!’

  Amaury plucked a rosebud and delicately sniffed the scent.

  ‘He should have balanced that disadvantage against his hunger for an apology. Provided you withdraw your demand I am perfectly prepared to let the matter drop.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Dawson drew his heels together and stood at attention. ‘I regret deeply my failure to resolve the affair peaceably. Since General Wrangham insists on satisfaction, pray have the goodness to afford me your second’s direction.’

  ‘I have none.’ Amaury intently studied a crow flying overhead, carrying away his honour, he thought, on tattered sable wings. ‘I will not fight your principal.’

  ‘Will not . . .’ Dawson stammered, completely at a loss, his rugged sun-bronzed face a mask of consternation. ‘Then I may convey your apology?’

  Amaury regarded him sternly. ‘Neither apology nor satisfaction do I offer General Wrangham. Make of it what you will.’ Seeing the other’s bewilderment, his features relaxed in a smile, ‘Before returning with so distressing a message, may I offer you refreshment, perhaps some cold champagne?’

  Amaury informed nobody, not even Marriott. Dawson, less discreet, and quite confounded by a notorious duellist’s refusal to stand shot, discussed it with all his cronies. The story crackled through Madras like fire in dry driftwood, through taverns and messes and routs. Opinions varied widely, as gentlemen sought vainly to explain the inexplicable.

  ‘Amaury must be waiting until the inquiry is over - probably thinks one row at a time enough.’

  ‘Maybe a fellow under arrest is forbid to fight.’

  ‘Could he have turned craven? Remember Bagot!’ (The speaker referred to a sepoy captain, noted for his gallantry, who during the Mysore war had unaccountably panicked and fled, and was afterwards broken for cowardice in action.)

  ‘Infernally odd behaviour - most improper!’

  Marriott, hearing the gossip, forcibly told his friend he must either apologize at once or stand the general’s fire. ‘I never apologize,’ Amaury answered curtly. Marriott declared that garbled versions were passing from mouth to mouth, the insult he had given becoming much exaggerated, and Wrangham left no choice but a challenge to clear his name.

  ‘You know the vow I have made,’ Amaury returned coldly. ‘I kill no more men in duels.’

  ‘Why fire to kill? You are proficient enough to inflict a trivial hurt before Wrangham can lift his pistol!’

  ‘And risk the wound mortifying, as commonly happens, and an agonized death?’

  ‘Then you should desist from provocation,’ Marriott said sourly, ‘else your honour - already tarnished - will be gone beyond redemption.’

  ‘I lost my temper. Now I pay the penalty. It does not signify, Charles. I know myself for what I am; the public judgement frets me not at all.’

  Opinion gradually hardened against Amaury. The stream of visitors who came consolingly to Moubray’s Gardens ebbed to the merest trickle. Gentlemen he encountered when riding to the Fort became absorbed in conversation or looked the other way. No one ventured on reproof: it might still be dangerous, people thought, to test too far the shackles girding Amaury’s strange constraint.

  A notice at the Sea Gate provided the exception. On a board beneath the archway it was customary to advertise events currently affecting the community; auctions selling dead men’s chattels, Indiamen’s arrivals and departures, changes in excise duties, subscription balls at the Assembly Rooms. Everyone with business in the Fort sauntered there to read the latest news. Marriott, forcing his way through a buzzing crowd, read a notice nailed upon the board.

  To the Gentlemen of this Settlement:

  This is to notify that Captain Hugo Amaury, 7th Madras Cavalry, has behaved himself as an infamous Coward and Detestable Scoundrel in his Late transaction with Sir John Wrangham.

  Thomas Rumbold, Lieutenant-Colonel,

  13th Native Infantry

  Marriott thrust fuming from the throng. Who the devil was Rumbold? Raking his memory, he recalled the priggish, meticulous death’s-head who had forced a duel on Anstruther and Todd. Had the blockhead appointed himself custodian at large of gentlemanly conduct? By God, he would answer for this unwarranted interference! Marriott stormed to his office and said to a startled Fane, ‘William, I beg you convey my compliments to Colonel Rumbold, inform him on my behalf he is liar and rascal both, and request the favour of a meeting whenever he finds convenient.’

  He explained the circumstances, overcame Fane’s reluctance - bleating his inexperience in affairs of honour - and despatched him on his way. The Writer returned with an icy response: Colonel Rumbold had no quarrel with Mr Marriott, but if Mr Marriott could exercise an interest with his cowardly friend he would be happy to meet Amaury with any weapons he chose. Marriott, spluttering in rage, strode to the sepoy barracks, his chatta-bearer panting behind, and found the colonel inspecting a bell of arms.

  ‘Sir,’ he gritted without preamble, ‘I demand satisfaction!’ Rumbold coolly examined a flint. ‘This is badly chapped,’ he told a wondering ensign. ‘Have it replaced. No, Mr Marriott,’ he continued, ‘I have no dispute with you.’

  ‘By God, sir, must I strike you?’

  ‘Pray control yourself. This is hardly the place . . .’ He beckoned Marriott outside. ‘Now, sir, I approve the loyalty that compels your challenge, but whatever you say I have not the smallest intention of fighting you. My purpose is to draw your dastardly friend from hiding and bring him to pistol point. I cannot contain the disgrace he has inflicted on my profession!’ Marriott hit him in the face.

  ‘That,’ said Rumbold, staunching his lip, ‘was more than I bargained for. Very well, sir. If you send your second again I shall accommodate you. This evening, if you please.’

  They fought on the beach in a secluded cove. At the first exchange both missed; Marriott, in a blend of fright and fury, brushed aside the seconds’ remonstrances and insisted on a second fire. Again the balls went awry. Marriott observed the colonel’s stem composure and suspected, raging, he deliberately shot wide. He demanded a third return: both seconds protested honour perfectly satisfied, and vowed to leave the field before another exchange.

  ‘So, Mr Marriott,’ Rumbold observed, ‘if either of us died it would be murder. We have done, I think, enough.’ He relinquished the pistol, donned his hat and walked unhurriedly to his chaise.

  Travelling to Kiraun through the warr
ens of native rumour, word of the duel reached Amaury, who was acidly furious. ‘I will thank you, Charles, not to fight my battles. Especially,’ he went on cuttingly, ‘as you are such a horridly indifferent shot! Nor, when you are killed, shall I have time to follow your funeral, because the Commissions have published their findings and discovered evidence enough to convene courts martial. I foresee myself fully engaged.’

  ‘Then you had better meet Wrangham quickly and blow his head off. He will be chief witness against you.’

  ‘Charles, I protest you are as worthy a fellow as ever lived - and also the damnedest ass in existence.’ Amaury’s voice softened. ‘I appreciate your efforts to protect my name - a task beyond accomplishment - and demand you end them. Will you swear?’

  ‘Why not? Otherwise,’ said Marriott bitterly, ‘I am positively bound to fight every rascal in Madras!’

  Amaury drearily regarded the body sprawled on rumpled bedclothes. Blood and splintered bone and slimy pink-grey pulp spattered sheets and walls, an eyeball glared obscenely from the floor. The head was a mangled horror, a torn and shredded mess alive with flies. A pistol drooped in a skeletal hand; the taint of powder lingered in the room. An empty arrack bottle stood on a bedside table; another, fallen sideways, dripped liquor in the blood. Torn and crumpled paper littered the floor; Amaury flattened a page and read the superscription.

  ‘Summary of Evidence for a Court Martial to be Convened on...’

  He covered with a sheet the remains of Colonel Loxford.

  The suicide stirred Headquarters, fearful lest their second quarry escape, to send a galloper to Arcot ordering Potton’s close confinement. He arrived too late. The summary’s damning evidence roused the 4th Cavalry’s commander from his customary indolence: slipping quietly from the fort he rode hard to Pondicherry and shipped thence in a barque for Selangor. A frustrated General Wrangham chewed his nails and perused again the Commission’s detailed findings. With the major villains beyond his reach, was there evidence sufficient to prosecute the lesser; two quartermasters, an adjutant - and Amaury? Reluctantly he concluded there was not; an attorney who read the papers supported his opinion.

  ‘Although Loxford made damaging admissions during the inquiry they cannot be used as sworn testimony before a court. Potton confessed nothing. For the rest, sir, you depend on hearsay and native witnesses; and courts martial put little faith in evidence from blacks.’

  ‘I can try Amaury for insubordination and disobedience.’

  ‘That, Sir John, is a purely military issue which I cannot take upon myself to determine.’ The attorney gathered his papers and rose. ‘But I apprehend the sentence must be light, and hardly worth your trouble.’

  The general brooded. Genuinely anxious to eradicate the scandalous corruption disclosed in the corps he commanded, he had no personal animosity against the erring officers concerned. Wrangham was not a vindictive man. Even Amaury, whom he disliked, was not a target for his spite. He was secretly relieved - and thoroughly mystified - by Amaury’s refusal of his challenge: Wrangham was no craven, but even the bravest paladins preferred to stay alive. As for the fraudulent muster-rolls, the chief culprits were dead or fled; other knavish colonels, shaking in their shoes, had rapidly recruited men to fill the incriminating gaps - the affair would keep the army on full establishment for years. Best let it slide.

  Wrangham sighed; and wrote an order releasing Amaury from arrest.

  There, but for Colonel Rumbold, it would have ended. That zealous officer, aghast at the prospect of a cowardly rogue escaping quite unscathed, cried infamy to heaven. Was it right, he demanded at large, that a fellow who called himself a gentleman, and moreover held the Company’s commission, should insult a brother officer, cringe from the result, and not be punished? He visited swarries and messes, hammered dinner tables, protested the army’s credit utterly degraded. He sent Amaury a challenge - contemptuously refused - and loudly cited this repulse as further proof.

  Opinion in the messes was divided. Amaury’s comrades of the wars, who had seen his reckless courage in the face of impossible odds, could not believe he flinched from a simple duel, and hinted he probably wanted to spare the colonel’s life. Nevertheless Rumbold was far from alone in his condemnations: there were people like Major Delderfield, who suspected with excellent reason that Amaury had planted horns on his head; and conventional elderly officers who loathed his rakehell ways. Eventually the colonel induced a coterie of senior officers to persuade Wrangham the offence deserved court martial.

  The general at first refused. This was a personal matter, he protested, an affair of honour affecting Amaury and himself alone. The challenge had vindicated his own repute; if Amaury declined, that was his concern; for himself, he was content to let it rest.

  ‘We are perfectly satisfied, sir,’ Rumbold declared impatiently, ‘your honour remains unstained. But Amaury’s disgusting behaviour has most shockingly hurt the army’s reputation; only a public trial will cleanse the slur.’

  Faced by similar arguments from the rest of Rumbold’s deputation the general unwillingly yielded, cancelled Amaury’s freedom and signed convening orders. Madras society, robbed of a succulent scandal when the trial for fraud collapsed, hummed in anticipation and rubbed collective hands. And Wrangham found surprising opposition in his household.

  Caroline said, ‘Must you pursue the unfortunate man like a hunted fox, papa? I vow your conduct shockingly disgraceful?’

  ‘ ‘Tis no concern of yours, nor any woman’s,’ Wrangham growled. ‘I command you, miss, to keep a still tongue in your head!’

  ‘But don’t you perceive,’ Caroline stormed, ‘the reproach upon yourself? Your prosecution failed; hence in sheer malevolence you set another trap. Are these the liberal sentiments that should dignify a gentleman?’

  ‘My friends, I trust, will not impute to me such infamous motives, whatever my daughter may. Enough, you hussy! I am bound by codes and regulations of which you have no slightest knowledge. Nor,’ he added sternly, ‘was I aware you held Amaury in so high an esteem that you have to advocate his cause.’

  Caroline flushed crimson. ‘Arrant fudge! Captain Amaury has no place in my regard - ’tis your own behaviour gives me cause for disquiet!’

  She flung from the room, leaving her father worriedly scratching his head. Lady Wrangham, who had listened to the quarrel in growing distress, murmured soothingly, ‘The girl, Sir John, is not herself. I believe her moonstruck, half in love - she favours Mr Marriott; and Captain Amaury, you recollect, is Marriott’s friend. I believe he has presented her a biased aspect of the case.’ Marriott, in fact, had barely mentioned Amaury’s troubles, discouraged by the ferocious hostility Caroline accorded one of her riding escorts when he ventured a sarcastic comment. Thereafter, chastened and subdued, they ceased mentioning in her presence an affair which enthralled the whole of Madras. Caroline’s sunny gaiety had gone; she wore an air of smouldering resentment which confounded both her parents and her swains.

  Amaury seemed quietly resigned. He whiled the days away in Moubray’s Gardens, reading Henry Fielding’s novels - ‘he has a pretty eye for a trollop’; or Humphrey Bland’s Treatise of Military Discipline - ‘hard going, by God!’ Of the ordeal that impended he said, ‘I shall be broken. They have no choice.’

  Marriott answered indignantly, ‘Military ethics are beyond my understanding. Last year Ensign Vigors was arraigned and reprimanded for maiming his man in a duel; you are now condemned for refusing to shoot your general! Where is the sense?’

  ‘ ‘Tis entirely logical, Charles Wounding is merely an offence in law, but cowardice reigns as the most abominable crime a gentleman can commit!’

  A general Court Martial assembled in the Council Chamber, a large octagonal room attached to Government House. At a heavy mahogany table on a dais, a colonel, three majors and a captain sweated in the heat and skin-tight regimentals, eased high black stocks, rattled scabbards and sabretaches whenever they stretched their legs. Servants behind t
hem fanned the air, an intermittent to-and-fro distracting to the eye. The prosecuting officer sorted papers on a table; at another the Judge Advocate, a lieutenant of artillery enjoying a transient consequence, arrayed his legal tomes and whispered to native clerks. The bar, a boxlike stall, contained chairs for prisoner and escort. Officers packed the well of the court, a gilded scarlet blaze - the whole garrison seemed to have come. Voices buzzed, the temperature soared, and surreptitious fingers loosened coat and waistcoat buttons.

  The president’s hammer sharply quelled the chatter. ‘March in the accused.’

  Followed by the Field Officer of the Month, Amaury stalked in, a commanding, handsome presence in scarlet regimentals, silver lace and high black riding boots, a plumed and gold-strapped helmet balanced on his arm. He bowed to the court and listened impassively to the charge the Judge Advocate read.

  ‘Captain Hugo Montfort Amaury, you are arraigned under Article Thirteen, Section Eight, of the Articles of War with conduct unbefitting an officer and gentleman, inasmuch as on the Third day of February, 1801, at Fort St George, Madras, you did insult a brother officer, on parade, and publicly accused him of unbecoming conduct, and refused thereafter either to afford him satisfaction or withdraw your accusation. How say you, sir: are you guilty or not guilty?’

  Amaury lifted his head. ‘I plead not guilty to cowardice, upon my honour.’

  A rustle stirred the room. The president whispered to his: majors, and fixed cold grey eyes on Amaury.

  ‘Such an accusation, sir, is not contained in the indictment. Pray answer the charge as read.’

  ‘The indictment, sir, impeaches me as a coward. I will not alter my plea.’

  More whispering on the dais, more murmuring in the crowd. The president glowered and testily rapped his hammer. ‘I demand, gentlemen, you contain yourselves, or I will clear the court. I shall accept a plea of Not Guilty to the charge.’ He said to the Judge Advocate, ‘Let the proceedings continue. Summon the first witness.’