Free Lance Page 17

  Three weeks from the commencement his labourers dragged their handiwork into the camp.

  ‘There y'are,’ he said, strutting like a peacock. ‘Fine galloper guns an’ limbers. Beam trails - none o’yer clumsy double brackets - so a single gunner can traverse ’em wi’ a handspike through the loops.’ He twirled the spokes of a screw. ‘Elevates at a touch, see? Here's two ammunition wagons, fully charged: ninety roundshot and thirty case each gun. Been terrible thirsty work, sir - can yer spare a sip o’ rum?’

  ‘You can have a cask,’ said Marriott. ‘Will you test the pieces by firing?’

  ‘Surely, sir, surely.’ He yelled at his grinning workmen, who pulled and pushed the cannon beyond the abattis - they ran easily, Marriott noted: twenty men could move them at a trot. Welladvice rammed and loaded.

  ‘One-pound practice charge,’ he said. ‘One an’ a quarter fer battle, don’t forget. Now sir, what mark shall we use? That ole rock, I reckon, what yer horrible twelve-pounder tried to hit that day I touched her off. Range around four hundred, shouldn’t wonder.’

  Marriott was sure the home-made barrels would burst, and retreated to a respectable distance. Welladvice layed the guns carefully, lighted portfire from linstock, skipped from breech to breech and flicked the vents. The guns crashed in quick succession, rebounded on the trails. Marriott, when the smoke had cleared, saw that the rock had vanished.

  Beyond the broken fragments horsemen cantered from the trees. The leader flourished his arm and shouted.

  ‘God blast your bowels!’ Amaury called. ‘Must you try to shoot our heads off?’

  Marriott ran to meet him, clasped his hand. ‘By God, I am -happy to see you! I had almost believed you chained in Vedvyas’s dungeons, like the prisoners Tippoo took from General Medows!’ The fresh, high-coloured face was bronzed like weathered teak, dust rimed clothes and hair, the sproutings of a beard spun a halo round Amaury’s cheeks. ‘Not so, Charles. An arduous journey, I allow, but worth the toil. I have contrived a mesh of spies, and found a place--’ His gaze wandered over Marriott’s shoulder, and settled on the guns. ‘Jesus! What are these! I thought you had fired the rickety cannon we took!’

  He dismounted and walked to the guns, ran a hand along shining barrels, stroked the wheels, inspected trails, counted shot in caissons. Marriott, smiling, watched his amazement.

  ‘Surpassing marvellous!’ Amaury breathed. ‘Have you conjured gallopers from the air?’

  Marriott expounded the miracle, and presented Welladvice. Amaury scrutinized the sailor. ‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘you can cast pieces, build carriages, serve and fire the guns you have made. Positively a paragon of all artillery virtues - and just the man I want.’ He clapped Marriott on the back. ‘Charles, we must appoint him Commander of Artillery, drawing captain’s pay and allowances! Do you agree?’

  ‘Infernally irregular,’ Marriott said dubiously. ‘Lacking proper authority--’

  ‘I am persuaded it is positively essential, for Mr Welladvice must share in officers’ councils. He has presented us with guns - but has he trained the teams?’

  ‘Teams, sir? We ain’t got nothin' but bullocks.’

  ‘Bullocks for galloper guns? Horses, Mr Welladvice - we must have horses!’

  ‘I knows nowt about horses, nor bullocks neither. Beyond me shot, sir.’

  Amaury tugged his fledgling beard. ‘Bullocks are useless. When we move we must move in a flash. Time is the enemy. Time to train gunners and gun teams. Time to be warned when the enemy marches. Time before...’

  He swung on his heel and frowningly surveyed the hills that ringed the horizon. A cobweb haze like threadbare silk hung on the western peaks; long transparent streamers smeared a brassy sky. Amaury pointed.

  ‘The monsoon’s first outriders. All depends on Vedvyas moving before it breaks.’

  ‘You have a plan to beat him?’

  ‘We can pound his troops to powder.’ Amaury looked longingly at the serried tents behind the camp’s abattis, and sniffed the air. ‘I smell roast mutton. Dinner, Charles, and claret - the first I shall have tasted for twenty-five arid days.’

  Amaury bathed and shaved, and changed his stinking linen. He donned glittering regimentals - ‘there is soldier’s work to be done, and I am not yet formally broke’ - ate a massive meal and downed a bottle of wine. When coffee was served he sent the servants out, bade a sentry patrol the mess tent’s circuit - ‘natives understand more English than we think; none must get an inkling of our plans’ - lighted a cheroot and flattened a creased paper on the table.

  ‘I scribbled a map of my explorations. Gopalpore is here’ - a finger tapped the paper - ‘and there is Vedvyas’s Hurrondah stronghold, some sixty miles as the bullet goes. Between them, thirty miles from Hurrondah, thirty miles from us, lies a barrier of hills.’

  Amaury flicked ash from his cheroot. ‘Three separate tracks join Hurrondah to Gopalpore; all cross this range. The central road is the easiest; the others are difficult travelling and would add a day to the march. Vedvyas will move by the quickest route, which crosses the range through a narrow pass.

  ‘That is where we stop and defeat him.’

  Marriott peered at the wavering lines which threaded the map like a spider’s web. ‘You think we should march to the pass immediately, and there await Vedvyas’s coming?’

  Amaury swallowed brandy, smacked his lips. ‘ ‘Tis a famous good thing, Charles, that you joined the civilian service, not the military, else I fear your men would be sadly harassed.’ The smile in his eyes robbed the words of their sting. ‘For consider, if we do what you propose, Vedvyas, knowing that we waited at the defile, would take another route, turn our flanks and strike us in the rear.’

  Todd said weightily, ‘I am decidedly of opinion we should not march until the enemy has moved.’

  ‘You are exactly right, Henry. It is absolutely necessary for our strategy that Vedyvas be not apprised we march to meet him. Therefore, when he starts, we race to beat him to this defile - a race which we must win - so the enemy is unaware we hold it in his path.’

  Welladvice drained a beaker of rum like a desert absorbing rain. ‘Beggin’ pardon, sir, if yer don’t mean to start afore him, how will yer know when he’s heavin’ anchor?’

  ‘I have suborned with the Company’s gold’ - Amaury sent Marriott a sidelong glance - ‘three village headmen near Hurrondah, each situate on the routes the enemy might use. They have sworn, being promised yet greater rewards, to send me word by mounted messenger directly Vedyvas marches.’

  ‘You can trust them?’ Todd asked doubtfully. ,

  ‘Who can rely on a native’s word? I depend upon their avarice, which is utterly reliable. If they fail me, which I doubt, we fight at a lesser advantage.’ Amaury chuckled. ‘It is all very hazardous, Henry - but there is ever a risk in war! Pray pass the bottle, Charles - my thirst is quite intolerable.’

  Amaury crushed his cheroot, struck fire from a tinderbox and lighted another. Flies danced in a shaft of sunlight that splashed through the open tent flap; a havildar’s orders snapped like whips; a drover shrilly chased a lumbering bullock. He blew a cloud of smoke, and said, ‘Vedvyas will take two days to reach the pass. Henry, can your sepoys cover thirty miles in one?’

  ‘I shall use every endeavour--‘

  ‘They must. I do not know what grace we have - maybe a week or less. Quit your manual exercise and parade ground manoeuvres, Henry: exercise your men in fast long-distance marching. Horses must be trained to draw the guns: a task I shall undertake.’ Amaury splashed more brandy in his glass. ‘Tomorrow we start work.’

  Marriott looked at him curiously. ‘You have examined the defile you mean to block, and laid your plans?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Amaury belched, and sprawled lower in the canvas chair. ‘If all falls out as I intend we shall fight a remarkable battle.’

  Marriott pensively filled his glass; and wondered how, as Collector of Bahrampal, commander of all the Company’s forces, he would have con
ducted the little campaign without Amaury’s initiative and relentless roving energy. Depend on advice from Ensign Todd, his official military counsellor, a diligent, dutiful officer - and entirely lacking the flair for grasping fortune on the wing? Perhaps Amaury was overly rash and ran unwarrantable risks. How, he reflected, am I to judge - a quill-pushing Junior Merchant?

  He drank his port, and mentally toasted a court martial’s summary verdict.

  Amaury scoured the stables, chose the thirty strongest horses - and did not spare the mounts the Europeans owned. ‘I am excessively surprised you find Hannibal unsuitable,’ Marriott remarked acidly. Amaury grinned, and patted the stallion’s neck. ‘I fear, being thoroughbred, he would not take kindly to hauling guns.’ He put hircarrahs in charge, divided the horses in teams of six and practised drawing bullock carts. Few had been trained in draught; the results at the beginning were vividly exciting. Bouncing carts and wild-eyed teams raised dust-scarves over the countryside; traces snapped and horses galloped loose; saddlers laboured endlessly to repair the broken harness. From daylight until dusk the hircarrahs circled the camp, a man at each animal’s head. Amaury drove them remorselessly, weeding out the brutes that were quite intractable. Within a week two dozen amenable horses, wearied to exhaustion, plodded peaceably in front of the carts.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Amaury. ‘Now we will harness the guns.’

  The disparity was obvious at once. The heavy guns and limbers slowed the horses to a crawl. Amaury sent men running for saddles.

  ‘Here we go,’ he murmured. ‘Veritable horse artillery!’

  With a saddle clapped on every horse, the hircarrahs mounted. After a deal of plunging and bickering and blasphemy and oaths the teams strained against the traces and towed the cannon smoothly at a lively walking pace. Todd, an interested spectator of Amaury’s experiments, said perplexedly, ‘I cannot understand why they now draw the weights so smartly.’

  ‘Horses can exert more tractive effort when ridden than when free. I doubt the thing would work - horses usually need long training for being ridden while in draught. They are luckily so tired that they easily submit.’

  In two days more four six-horse teams - two for the limbered guns, two for ammunition wagons - ambled peaceably round the parade. Amaury confined their progress to a walk - ‘no galloping into action for Bahrampal’s horse artillery!’ He practised simple movements: action front, unlimber, limber up. Satisfied at last he joined the teams’ hicarrahs to Welladvice’s gunners. For here, as Amaury put it, was a damned confounded paradox: the hircarrahs, who trailed a faded shadow of military tradition, could not be persuaded to man the terrifying guns; whereas the sailor’s motley gangs, peaceful buzar craftsmen, displayed a vociferous pride in the weapons they had made and were eager to test the results. Whether they would themselves stand fire remained to be discovered.

  From this unlikely material Welladvice chose gun crews, seven to each gun - a commander, spongeman, loader, ventsman, firer and two ammunition numbers - whom he exercised assiduously until, in live firing practice, they could loose two shots a minute. He persuaded Marriott to pay them at Madras Artillery rates: a weekly sum exceeding by far any wage they had earned in their lives.

  No word came from Amaury’s spies. Stepping from his tent each dawn he anxiously scanned the skies. The haze that ruffed the western hills concealed the peaks, cloudy tendrils striped the sun, a sultry wind whirled dust in whorls at daybreak and at dusk.

  ‘It is going to be a damned close thing,’ he told Marriott. ‘When the monsoon breaks the tracks will be muddy quagmires: a hindrance to infantry, nigh impossible for guns.’

  He ordered five days’ rations issued, and grain for the horses in extra nosebags. Todd was told to find a mattock, spade or pick for every sepoy - a request which started the ensign grumbling: ‘a monstrous deal of weight!’

  ‘Henry,’ said Amaury mildly, ‘my position in this force is perfectly irregular; I have not the slightest authority to give you a single order. Would you rather refer to Charles, who is properly in command?’

  Todd flushed. Secretly the ensign hero-worshipped Amaury - to whom he owed his life. ‘I am sorry, Hugo. Of course I will do as you say.’

  Amaury strapped tarpaulins on Welladvice’s wagons, asked Todd to practise his men in securing firelocks - a motion which tucked lock beneath armpit, barrel pointing down, so keeping the cartridge and priming powder dry - and put the force on an hour’s warning to march. He purged his restless energy in fruitless rides on the paths from Hurrondah, hoping to meet his spies. There arrived instead, not the informers he expected, but Vedvyas’s envoy: a stout Hindoo on a rat-tailed pony, escorted by half a dozen lancers.

  Marriott, warned by the orderly havildar, hastily arranged a reception in front of the mess tent, engaging all the ceremony a travelling camp could muster: a table draped by a fringed green rug, camp chairs for the Europeans, a carpet underfoot and an immaculate sepoy guard. The envoy made a deep obeisance and presented a ribbon-bound scroll. Marriott surveyed inimically the fat round features, oilily bland, streaky yellow eyeballs and sag-jowled jaws. He looked at the Persian script, threw the missive to his banian, and heard in mounting anger the slow translation:

  The Honourable Company Sahib Bahadur.

  May God in his goodness grant you prosperity and eternal life. We cannot conceal from you our surprise that by force of arms you have imposed submission upon our town of-Gopalpore. We do not send to you in the rash heat of a day, demanding you return forthwith our property, nor indemnity for a most injurious action. Rather, lest a bitter memory sink into our mind, and a disgrace endure which we and our family of long standing as mirasdars must suffer from our possessions falling into alien hands, we will cede to you willingly Gopalpore and all villages in that district, provided you remit, as heretofore, one quarter of all the taxes. Thus you will secure advantages of revenue and commerce, and the Company and ourselves may exist in cordial amity. Can I say more?

  ‘The fellow sounds devilish sure of himself,’ Amaury drawled.

  ‘He deserves a proper thrashing!’ Todd spluttered.

  ‘Cocky as a sea-cook,’ Welladvice observed.

  Marriott, white about the lips, dictated a reply.

  Vedvyas Daulat Ram.

  The Company, by treaty, possesses all of Bahrampal and admits no rights to usurpers. Unless you surrender Hurrondah, and yield all other districts you illegally hold and tax, we shall be compelled to bring against you all the forces we can muster - those forces which have already beaten you once. The penalties of resistance will not be light; the consequence will rest upon your head. Can I say more?

  The envoy impassively read the script, tucked the paper in his sash and bowed. Marriott recalled his manners, offered refreshment. The man refused politely, mounted without another word, beckoned his little retinue and left the camp. Amaury, watching the trees enfold them, hardly noticed the ragged native prodded by a havildar's halberd to the table where the Europeans sat.

  ‘This person,’ the havildar said contemptuously, ‘declares he has a message for Umree Sahib. I have promised him a whipping if he lies.’

  The man, a youthful peasant, his body caked with the dust of travel, fumbled in his loin cloth and extracted a crumpled paper. Amaury frowningly deciphered the Hindi characters.

  ‘By God,’ he whispered, ‘those treacherous rogues! They send an embassy to treat with us at the very moment they march to war! Vedvyas’s army has already left Hurrondah!’

  Marriott stood creakily, stretched himself and yawned. ‘Thank heaven the waiting is over. Pray, Henry, beat to arms.’

  The column tramped a stony path beneath a louring sky. Amaury, with all the cavalry he could gather - twenty hircarrahs - rode in front and showed the way. Todd strode at the head of his companies; the gun teams rumbled behind, wheels bucking over boulders, horses straining at the traces. Welladvice loped beside his charges and lashed fiery invective on horses, riders and gunners. Not a single follower accomp
anied the force, not even an officer’s servant - a ban imposed by Amaury. ‘This is an approach march to an encounter battle,’ he said. ‘We will have no flotsam clogging the stream.’

  Clouds rolled across the sky and united in a steamy leaden pall.

  The air was damp and oppressive, swirled by puffs of wind which spattered occasional raindrops, warm as blood. Lightning flickered behind the hills and silhouetted the ridges blackly like stark gigantic battlements.

  Amaury scowled at the sky, and told Todd to quicken the step.

  Darkness snuffed the twilight’s lingering shreds. The column halted, loosened girths and swallowed a hasty meal. Then, in a night spasmodically flared by lightning, they plodded on.

  A drum tapped step for the marching files. Guns and limbers yawned and skidded, lurched in ruts and bounced on rocks. Riders, flailing whips, flogged the horses forward. Welladvice darted from team to team, supervised and swore and sent his gunners running to lever and haul and shove. Somehow they kept up with the sepoys’ steady pace, like the floundering tail of a snake whose back is broken in the middle.

  Marriott, after a fall, dismounted and led his horse. The ache in his thighs said the track was rising, a stealthy, wearing gradient cloaked in darkness. He heard in front the infantry’s grating tramp; the drummer's monotonous tapping beat like a pulse in his skull. Scraping hooves, crunching wheels, squeaking axles, Hindi curses, nautical oaths and the stench of dust and sweat. Amaury on his stallion, a phantom blacker than night, and a resonant voice that goaded, encouraged, advised.

  Marriott licked dry lips, and tasted salt on his tongue.

  They halted once again in that blistering march. Men dropped on the ground where they stood; the horses drooped their heads. Lightning sheeted behind the hills, a barrier looming closer, creeping furtively upon them during the night. There was a smell of rain in the air, and thunder rumbled remotely like the guns of a faraway battle.

  ‘Three miles to go,' said Amaury, ‘and the track henceforth is steep. Pray put your men on the drag ropes, Henry, forty to each team and two on every wheel. We shall haul up the guns and wagons in turn.’