Free Lance Page 25

  Marriott said stubbornly, ‘Vedvyas’s wings must be clipped.

  He is not reconciled to Company rule. In civil affairs beyond your knowledge, Hugo, he frequently in devious ways obstructs my edicts. I often regret you persuaded me to confirm his mirasdaree!’

  ‘When,’ said Amaury, intently examining his fingernails, ‘do you intend to execute your - um - confiscation?’

  ‘Sir John has consented to accompany me on a fleeting tour of near-by villages. I shall do so when we return.’

  Amaury stood and stretched his arms, a towering blond-haired beau sabreur, a formidably splendid vision limned by the candles’ glow. ‘I am vastly obliged to you, Charles,’ he said benevolently. ‘A famous notion! You have provided the answer to a problem that quite eluded my wits!’

  Sunlight pierced the windows and traced patterns on a tessellated floor. There were no chairs: gaudy cushions were heaped beside the tables which bore silver platters of sweetmeats haloed by flies. Vedvyas drew on the mouthpiece cupped between his palms, trickled smoke in thin blue threads. His eyes searched Amaury’s face, trying to probe the mind beneath.

  ‘That is the Collector Sahib’s intention,’ Amaury ended. ‘Your treasury will be looted, your soldiers dismissed like thievish servants.’ He reached for a sugared apricot on a plate beside his cushions, disturbed a buzzing swarm and dropped his hand. ‘Will you tamely submit, do nothing to prevent him? Or will you follow my suggestions, and save your hoard, your honour and your horsemen?’

  Vedvyas growled deep in his throat. ‘No choice exists. Am I a low-caste coolie, to fawn like a pariah dog while a Fringee strips me naked? If this be Jan Company’s justice I had best escape from his claws! Yes, Umree Sahib - you have prevailed. We must swiftly remove to Dharia. How long before the Collector strikes?’

  ‘When he returns from tour - a fortnight or less. Time enough. Tell me, sirdarjee, where are your women’s quarters?’

  Vedvyas lifted his eyebrows, pointed to a doorway. ‘Through there and beyond, abutting on a street. Do you lack a bibee, sahib? I can easily supply--’

  ‘You must house them elsewhere, and that directly. Listen carefully. This is what we have to do...’

  Amaury spoke for an hour, and made Vedvyas repeat his instructions until he was satisfied the mirasdar had mastered every detail. He then sauntered to the quarter guard, and suavely told the havildar he wished to inspect the guardrooms. The man did not demur: who would obstruct a Company officer uniformed and sashed? Amaury walked through an outer room where the soldiers ate and slept, and entered the bell of arms. Bayoneted muskets ranked against the walls, wooden cartridge boxes heaped the shelves above, flints in little deerskin bags dangled from rows of hooks.

  Amaury made a thorough inspection. ‘Rust flecks on this bayonet. Sand and grease it. Here is a dented ramrod pipe - send it to the armourer.’ He stooped beneath an archway into a small windowless room, almost dark. ‘The treasury, captain sahib,’ the havildar murmured. Eight leather boxes, strapped and shackled for camel packs, stood one upon the other in the centre. Amaury walked round them, measured with his eye the floor space adjoining the rearmost wall. ‘Excellent, havildar - Chandu Lai, is it not? A neat and orderly guardroom.’ The soldier smiled and saluted - how many sahibs remembered his name?

  Amaury strolled to the alley behind the guard house, and paced the width. ‘Four yards,’ he murmured, ‘Possibly three days’ work. And now to tackle Welladvice.’

  He returned to the palace, found his quarry in the audience hall doubtfully examining a goose quill. ‘Yer fills it wi’ mealed powder mixed stiff wi’ spirits o’ wine, sticks it in the vent, an’ touches the portfire. No loose powder eatin’ away the hole. Company gunners have used ’em fer years.’

  Amaury said without preamble, ‘Mr Welladvice, I intend transferring the gun company to Dharia - cannon, detachments, horses and all. They will never return here. As I am persuaded your direction is absolutely necessary for the artillery’s welfare and proficiency, I beg you will consider joining me.’

  Welladvice planted the quill in a filigreed table; struck flint on tinder, lit the end. The powder hissed and flashed, and charred the wood. He scraped a horny hand across the ashes. ‘Works trim enough,’ he muttered. ‘But I dunno - more gear fer them Moors ter lose...’ A dry humour kindled the slate-grey eyes that examined Amaury’s face. ‘Aye, sir. Didn’t know yer was goin’ ter Dharia, but I guessed at sump’n like this. Saw a kind o’ comin’-back look in yer eye when we left the place. In course I’ll come. Got fond o’ them guns, I have, and the dirty black heathens as mishandles ’em. When d’yer start?’

  ‘That I cannot say. You will have sufficient warning - but keep affairs arranged so that the guns may march at six hours’ notice. And, Mr Welladvice, I shall continue your captain’s pay the Company has hitherto found.’

  ‘Thank’ee, sir!’

  Amaury crossed the courtyard to Vedvyas’s wing. The mirasdar rose from his cushions and dismissed the servants. ‘I have cleared the zenana, Umree Sahib. Will you see?’

  Through a maze of cells and passages he led his visitor to a spacious room backing on the road outside. Amaury paced and measured, pointed at the floor. ‘Start digging here. Work only in the daytime, when people tramp the streets and the town is noisy. Not a move at night. Employ a dozen reliable men, no more; confine them here till the task is done. If the slightest hint should leak to anyone else...’

  ‘Have no fear, sahib. I shall choose Rohillas - those Pathans can steal the bed from under a sleeping man!’

  Not so easily concealed were preparations for the mercenaries’ departure; for this was more a migration than a military movement. Wives and families, grass-cutters, cooks, sices, barbers, water carriers, sweepers, sutlers and servants must accompany their masters. Bullocks, camels, carts and wagons had to be bought or hired. Destination and purpose could be kept secret; but the imminence of an exodus was impossible to hide. Rumour hummed in Hurrondah’s streets and buzzed in the buzars. Marriott’s hircarrahs - whose job it was to keep him informed - quickly brought the tattle to his ears. At once he questioned Amaury.

  ‘What does this activity signify, Hugo? Have you in mind to take your rascals on another expedition? Lacking my authority, such a notion is quite forbid!’

  ‘Nothing is further from my thoughts,’ Amaury said equably. ‘But they find your peaceful government incredibly tedious - and hellish unprofitable. They seek service under a warlike captain who will lead them to the fighting and the booty which they crave. They are mercenaries, remember! I protest you should not complain - do you not want to be rid of them?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Marriott bit his thumb, considering. ‘Then I see no harm. But on no account will the guns be carried off. They are Company property!’

  ‘Welladvice’s, or Vedvyas’s, I should say,’ Amaury answered. ‘Do not worry, Charles. Without he receives my permission nobody would venture to remove them.’

  Marriott’s grudging concession persuaded Amaury to hasten openly the families’ and followers’ emigration. Long disorderly convoys, herded by cavalry escorts, eddied from Hurrondah and vanished westwards in the heat haze shrouding the hills. Although the Rohillas’ families went, not a single gunner quitted the town: an incongruity Amaury hoped would pass unnoticed. It did not. A vigilant hircarrah promptly informed Marriott who, vague about the mercenaries’ organization, recognizing no difference between Rahtor cavalry and Rohilla gunners - all damnable scoundrels! - impatiently brushed the man aside.

  Next day he and Wrangham left on tour.

  That night Vedvyas emptied his vaults and loaded all his wealth - pagodas, rupees and mohurs, bullion, rubies and pearls - on bullock carts which trundled into the dark with his entire household retinue, guarded by a Rahtor troop and a trusted senior risaldar. Ensign Todd, roused by rumbling midnight wheels, fumbled into a bedgown and stumbled out to inquire. At the courtyard gate he collided with Amaury, fully dressed, returning from the streets.

&nbs
p; ‘A most singular commotion, Hugo, in the dead of night! What is happening?’

  ‘Exactly what I wondered,’ Amaury said silkily. ‘ ‘Tis nothing but a merchants’ caravan bound for the Carnatic. They travel by night to escape the daytime heat. Do not discompose yourself, Henry - come to bed!’

  The incident warned Amaury that wheels by night were dangerous. Hurriedly he recast his plans. Announcing casually at dinner his intention of exercising the mercenaries - those that were left - beyond Hurrondah’s purlieus, he added, ‘We shall march at dawn, practise gun drill and live firing, bivouac the night and return next day. Should you hear distant gunfire do not be alarmed.’ He smilingly evaded Anstruther’s proposal - surprisingly zealous - that his dragoons should share the exercise; and twinkled when Caroline remarked tartly that Captain Amaury’s surpassing military ardour prevented them making a four for whist. ‘Mr Beddoes and Mrs Bradly will not play, the chaplain is prevented by his ... conscience. Will you not reconsider, sir?’

  ‘Miss Wrangham,’ said Amaury gravely, ‘I regret my want of conduct. Pray accept my promise that in a little while I shall afford you all astonishing entertainment!’

  A mound of earth and rubble dominated the zenana’s floor. A yard-square hole plunged steeply into darkness, levelled eight feet down and tunnelled the wall. In daylong shifts Rohillas, stripped to loincloths, wielded picks and mattocks, hauled earth in sacks to the surface. When first they saw the trenching tools the men sulkily demurred, swearing this was coolies’ work, unseemly for high-caste warriors. Vedvyas impatiently distributed pagodas. Cupidity conquered scruples; the tunnel rapidly advanced. When Amaury reckoned they were underneath the guard house wall he forbade them using picks; laboriously, mattocks scraping, they delved, the last few feet and started digging upwards.

  Amaury emerged from the shaft, wiped soil from face and clothes. ‘Enough. A hand’s-length is left below the treasury floor - we can break to the surface in minutes. Let us check the preparations, sirdar sahib. All the soldiers’ families have gone?’

  ‘Indeed. The first that went reached Dharia two days since.’

  ‘Your own retinue and treasure?’

  ‘Safely on the way.’

  ‘The artillery are warned and waiting. How many cavalry left?’

  ‘Fifteen troopers - and these.’ Vedvyas indicated the earth-grimed workmen.

  Amaury shook sand from his hair. ‘You have taken the last six-pounder teams, and substituted bullocks?’

  ‘Yes. The horse teams and their carts are hidden in a village two miles north.’

  ‘And the camels?’

  ‘Six stabled in my compound.’

  ‘Very well. The guns march out at dawn tomorrow.’ He gave the Rohillas a cheerful grin. ‘One more night in here, my sons, a little heaving and pulling - and then we ride like the wind!’

  Gaiety bubbled and sparkled in Amaury’s mood at dinner. He breezily quizzed Beddoes, asking how much longer he proposed delaying his marriage, and eyed significantly the somnolent cleric. ‘If you procrastinate any further, sir, your chaplain will be pickled beyond his duties!’

  ‘I vow it will be a devilish close thing! Damned drunken dog! We await the general’s return, and trust ye will act as groomsman.’

  ‘An honour I regret I must despondently decline.’

  ‘Why, sir?’

  ‘ ‘Twould be most improper,’ Amaury chuckled, ‘since my heart eternally nestles in your betrothed’s tender hands!’

  ‘Fie, Captain Amaury!’ Amelia tittered. ‘I blush to hear you!’

  He drank little, refused a second glass of port - ‘For shame, sir !’ grumbled Beddoes. ‘Ye should always wet both eyes!’ - and soothed an incipient bicker between Anstruther and Todd, who argued which of the two, in General Wrangham’s absence, properly commanded the troops in Hurrondah. ‘My commission is dated September 1800,’ Todd asserted. ‘And yours?’

  Anstruther said coolly, ‘Your commissioning is quite a matter of indifference. King’s officers, no matter the rank, invariably take precedence above a Company man.’

  ‘Never since the Bengal mutiny in ’96!’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Amaury solemnly, ‘you forget my presence. I am not yet officially broke - and I am damned if I’ll yield to either of you! Pistols at dawn, then, is it?’

  The young men laughed, and drank his health. Of all the company at dinner only Caroline, persistently moulding pellets of bread on the cloth, seemed distant and a little withdrawn. From time to time she glanced at Amaury, and quickly looked away. Occasionally Amaury spoke to her - the amiably indifferent chatter of a gentleman of ton engaged in social conversation. She answered briefly and politely, and avoided his eyes.

  Before sunrise, Amaury in the van, six gun-teams jolted down the twisting path on Hurrondah’s hill. A sleepy Todd, shaving on his veranda, blearily watched them rumble across the parade ground. ‘Deucedly odd,’ he ruminated. ‘Bullock teams are drawing all the six-pounders. Thought Hugo prodigious keen on galloper guns. What has happened to his horses?’ The barber nicked his chin; Todd clouted the native’s head, and dabbed a towel on the gash. When he looked again the guns had disappeared beyond the grey draperies of dawn.

  Amaury halted three miles on at a fork in the wheel-trenched track. ‘Here we part company, Mr Welladvice. Take the left hand path; Vedvyas will guide you; the border into Berar is thirty miles ahead. Make what speed you may!’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir - I’ll clap on all plain sail!’

  Vedvyas clasped Amaury’s hand. ‘You thrust your head in a perilous noose, which may tighten at a whisper round your neck. Is not my treasure sufficient for our needs?’

  Amaury laughed. ‘A chap must pay his whack!’ he said in English. ‘Rest easy, Vedvyasjee, I shall not be caught! We meet again in Dharia!’

  Amaury waved an arm, wheeled Hannibal, and cantered into the trees. Keeping his direction from the sundawn’s flaming streamers he fetched a circuit round Hurrondah, emerged from a kukar grove on millet fields and a cactus hedge that ruffed a desolate hamlet. A Rohilla jemadar conducted him to a platform beneath a peepul tree: the immemorial venue for villagers’ councils. Gun teams harnessed to country carts waited in the square; gunners stood to their horses as Amaury approached. The village headman salaamed. Amaury placed a clinking bag in the old man’s palms.

  ‘Your reward for discretion, Ramdhone Ghose!’

  Swiftly he wrenched off regimentals, riding boots and spurs, wound a filthy turban round his head, donned loose trousers and a dirt-stained cotton robe, and draped a comer across his face. The jemadar examined him critically.

  ‘It is well enough. Go at a slouch, sahib - you walk far too tall!’

  He put a camel’s leading string in Amaury’s hand. ‘If you have, not returned by nightfall we run for Dharia as you have instructed.’

  Amaury left the village, the camel padding behind. Testing his disguise, he closed a well head’s windlass where three labourers drew water. They looked at him incuriously, called a salutation, inquired his destination. Amaury gestured to Hurrondah’s crag two miles in front. He followed a winding drove road used by villagers herding stock to market, met nobody else until he skirted the parade where sepoys drilled and strutted in sweeping scarlet lines. He glanced at the sun, an incandescent furnace blinding the horizon. The timing was about right, Amaury decided thankfully: Todd would soon dismiss his companies and march them back to barracks.

  Stooping like a cripple, the robe’s hem swathing his face, he tugged his lagging camel through crowded bustling streets - townsfolk doing their business before the day’s fierce heat. In Vedvyas’s compound he surrendered his charge to drovers sitting beside their camels, and entered the mirasdar’s palace, silent and deserted. The Rohillas in the zenana room grinned at the sahib’s appearance. Nevertheless, he sensed their nervousness. He took the houcca from a trooper’s hand, lounged against a rubble heap, cupped the mouthpiece. ‘No hurry, brothers. We wait until the sepoys have deposited their arms.
Ahmed Khaliq, go round and watch. When they leave the guard house come back and tell us.’

  Talking quietly, passing the houcca from hand to hand, he restored an atmosphere of calm. They heard, remotely, shouted commands and the tramp of marching feet. The watcher returned running. ‘The sepoys have left the quarter guard, sahib,’ he panted, ‘and dispersed to barracks or buzars!’

  ‘Peace, peace, Ahmed!’ Amaury smiled. ‘You flutter like a flustered hen! No haste, children, no confusion. Let all be tranquil as a eunuch’s prick! very well, we begin - and from now on nobody speaks!’

  Amaury grasped a mattock head, lowered himself into the hole, crawled along the shaft, crouched upright at the end and fingered in utter darkness the earthen roof above his head. Gently he started scraping. Soil pattered on his hair and stung his eyes. A sudden cataract of earth rattled to the bottom of the pit; he stopped and listened, taut as a bowstring, heard nothing but rapid breathing from the man who stooped behind him. Lightly as a butterfly’s wing he scratched away at the roof. A tiny luminous notch glimmered above his face. He touched the hole, crumpled away the edges with his fingers. Gingerly he inserted his head and, eyes level with the floor, scrutinized the guardhouse.

  The yakdans loomed like a catafalque; through the archway shards of sunlight gleamed on firelocks racked in rows. Beyond his sight lay the guardroom, fronted by a veranda. Avidly he listened. Voices on the veranda jabbered Hindi; faintly from the courtyard crunched the sentry’s measured tramp. Amaury lowered his head, and attacked the thin crust covering the pit.

  Minutes later he heaved himself from the hole, crept to the archway, padded barefoot through the bell of arms, and peeped into the guardroom. All the rooms were empty; the sepoys sat on the veranda, chattering loudly. Quickly he retreated, beckoned a Rohilla standing shoulders above the cavity. They lifted a yakdan, staggered under the weight. For a sickening instant Amaury fronted failure: the things were far too heavy. He braced his arms; together they supported the load a razor’s edge above the floor and tilted it into the pit, silently cursing the ripple of clinking coins. The handle slipped from his grasp, tore a ring from his finger; the thump as the box hit the ground seemed loud as a midday gun. Rohillas waiting in the tunnel dragged it away, the scrape and bump growing fainter as they went. They cleared the passage; another pair of helpers dived into the shaft and received the second chest.