Free Lance Page 4

  Amaury puffed smoke, and examined through the cloud the bedroom of his rented Garden House: Persian rugs on a floor chequered black and white, mirrors and engravings decorating whitewashed walls, mahogany wardrobes, chintz door hangings matching the bedspread, gauze mosquito curtains, glass-shaded candle brackets on the walls. A palace compared to his squalid room in barracks. He had the best, because the shadiest, of four more bedrooms occupying that floor; below were dining, breakfast and drawing rooms, and a billiards room with a table made by Seddons which had cost two hundred pagodas. Tolerably adequate for one of the smaller houses on Choultry Plain - but a cottage beside the mansions the wealthy nabobs built. This place, called Moubray’s Gardens from the original owner, had stood for ten years or less; and unlike older Garden Houses had escaped repeated plunderings by Haider Ali’s looties during earlier Mysore wars.

  Now that Haider and his ferocious son Tippoo Sultan were both dead, and their domains in the Company’s grip, it was hard to imagine the hordes of native horsemen who had ravaged the Plain, burned the artillery barracks on St Thomas’s Mount and ridden through the Black Town - that teeming warren, once entirely a native quarter, invaded over the years by Europeans who could not afford a Garden House on Choultry Plain or a business house in the Fort. Before his time, Amaury reflected; though often he had suffered, during dinners and assemblies, the maundering reminiscences of old men who had seen the terror. There was a patriarch living in the Vepery suburb, a bent and withered pensioner of Stringer Lawrence’s army, who was captured by the French when they took Madras in ’46 and afterwards marched with Robert Clive, the present Governor’s sire, to victory at Arcot’s leaguer.

  Those were the days: one could win power and riches by the sweep of a strong right arm, and carve a way to fortune with the edge of a ruthless sword. Like the free lances: Perron, for instance, and George Thomas who sliced for himself a kingdom in Hansee far to the north. No longer. If you were a Company servant petty rules and regulations, files and precedents and paper obstructed your advancement more thoroughly than Haider’s horsemen thirty years ago. A brevet for outstanding bravery was the most a man could hope for.

  He had that: the only captain on the rolls with less than five years’ service. Thank God for Seringapatam and his fortuitous appearance at the breach when Dunlop fell - he had taken command and led the forlorn hope. That storm brought more than a brevet: Amaury had sold to a millionaire nabob the diamond-studded armlets stolen from Tippoo’s palace, and invested the money in stocks which returned £1000 a year - five times as much as his niggardly army pay. The Carnatic Bank received in his name occasional drafts from England; by the standards of sepoy captains he was wealthy.

  England.

  Amaury moved restlessly in his chair. Best not recall the heritage he had lost. He scanned the sad dun plain where elephants dragged four-wheeled wagons - government supplies, he guessed, for the barracks at the Mount. Camels grazed on sparse brown grass by the river; a brigantine, white sails gleaming, perched on the horizon. The sun-bleached scene retreated from his vision; despite his resolution another picture took its place.

  May trees on the downlands, dancing in springtime winds, creamy blossoms scattering like snow, a pageantry of beeches cloaking a sheltered valley, a long grey building cradled in the folds, green scythe-shaven lawns unrolling to a brook. His father, tiring of the ancient timbered house, had raised a Palladian mansion on Plantagenet foundations. Mayne in Wiltshire, crown jewel in a diadem of thirty thousand acres, villages and woodlands, pastureland and fields. All his by hereditary right: he was Amaury of Mayne. All gone, remote as the farthest planet, lost in a moment’s passion.

  The houcca-bearer, crouched by his master’s side, blew on the charcoal, deftly renewed the rose water, and re-arranged the flexible piping which coiled from the houcca’s neck. Amaury coughed on the smoke and threw the mouthpiece down. A pained expression crossed the servant’s face: sahibs should not treat the precious instrument thus. Amaury extracted a cheroot from a silver box - a vulgar habit he secretly preferred. He rested his head on a cushion and stared at the ceiling; melancholy memories drifted on the smoke and writhed like snakes among the crudely plastered frescoes.

  Eton school, and then a cornetcy his father bought in the 14th Light Dragoons. Soldiering in England, stables and drills and field days from cavalry barracks at Hounslow, hunting in the Shires, shooting with brother officers in Mayne’s autumn-russet coverts. Theatres and balls and routs, curricles neck and neck on the Brighton road. An attractive little Cyprian secluded in Windmill Street - a demanding, passionate wench he had plucked from the Haymarket’s stage. Gambling at Brooks’s, wild suppers out at Richmond. Drinking after dinner in the mess, the covers drawn and the colonel gone, candles spitting stars from polished glass and silver, glowing on scarlet jackets and bullioned epaulettes.

  Too much drinking.

  Amaury could never remember the origin of the quarrel: some bicker, he heard long after, about precedence on parade - a wrangle utterly trivial, unworthy a moment’s thought. He had become truculent, his antagonist abusive. A challenge given and accepted brought five wine-shotten officers to a thicket on the Heath when a wintry dawn was burnishing the sky.

  Wretchedly he pictured the incidents that followed. The seconds, as in duty bound, urged their respective principals to overlook the offensive words, to shake hands and forget. Amaury sucked a dry, furred tongue, and said, ‘What words?’

  The second, a red-faced captain, blinked bloodshot eyes, ‘Why, sir,’ he stuttered, ‘the insult, naturally, which provoked this meeting.’

  ‘I recall none, Collins.’

  ‘But surely--!’ Captain Collins looked perplexed. ‘Upon my honour, nor do I! This is confoundedly odd! Perhaps Kincaid...’ He tottered to a major who was earnestly haranguing his charge, a pale-eyed, lanky cornet with a mean, bad-tempered mouth.

  ‘The provocation, sir - what exactly was it? And who was the challenger?’

  The major turned a plump and shaken countenance. ‘Damme, Collins - that’s the trouble! Neither Carnaval here nor I can call a single circumstance to mind! I fear we were all far too drunk!’

  Collins puffed his lips in relief. ‘No cause, then, for a meeting. Let us shake hands and depart!’

  Lord George Carnaval folded arms across his chest. ‘There must have been some affront, else we would not be here. I have no mind to drown my honour in apologies!’

  ‘How should you apologize for a trifling incivility - yours or your opponent’s - which we have all forgotten?’ the major spluttered. ‘I beg you, my lord...’

  Both seconds joined persuasions, speaking one against the other. Carnaval stared blankly above their heads, seemingly entranced by the rusty shield of dawnlight in the sky. Collins returned to Amaury, and waggled his hands.

  ‘Carnaval will not withdraw - he insists on exchanging fire. Will you, sir, offer amends?’

  ‘For some discourtesy which I may never have uttered?’ Amaury inquired coldly. ‘You ask a great deal, sir!’

  Collins hunched his shoulders. ‘Then this absurd business must go on!’ He returned to the major; the two conferred for a moment in lowered voices, opened a case and carefully loaded the pistols. Carnaval continued to inspect a sullen sunrise; Amaury chewed a grass stem, savouring the brittle sweetness. The seconds paced distances, crunching the frosted grass beneath their feet.

  Collins said, ‘The principals will stand back to back, take each six paces on the count, turn and fire!’

  Carnaval looked at their footmarks on the rime, and addressed his second. ‘You have measured twelve paces. My opponent’s reputation as a pistol shot is famous in the Regiment - my own unhandiness is equally notorious. I therefore propose an exchange at half the distance, provided Mr Amaury has the courtesy - and courage - to agree.’

  The insult and the sneering tone cut Amaury like a slash across the face. Anger stoked by a vicious headache mounted in his throat; a raging red transparency bathed the tree
s in crimson light. He whipped a kerchief from his pocket and threw it on the ground.

  ‘I am perfectly willing to accommodate my lord’s incompetence. I suggest we fire toe to toe across this mark. Give up the pistols!’

  Carnaval hesitantly advanced to the crumpled linen, a dingy streak on the frost. The seconds thrust between them, babbling in unison. Amaury seized the case which Collins carried, and, offered it to Carnaval.

  ‘Your choice of pistols, my lord!’

  ‘By God, I shall have nothing to do with this!’ the major shouted. ‘

  ‘Tis bloody murder! Come away, Collins - else we’ll both be swinging on a gibbet!’ He retreated to the trees at a stumbling run, dragging the captain with him. The regimental surgeon, a portly, balding man who waited bag in hand in the copse’s shadows, raised a protesting bleat which nobody heard.

  Amaury bowed. ‘It seems,’ he said curtly, ‘we must conduct our own affair. I propose we stand back to back and, on your giving the word, turn about and fire.’

  Carnaval nodded speechlessly. Amaury saw. the fear in his eyes, and smelt stale wine on his breath.

  ‘Then let us cock our pistols, my lord.’

  The clicks rang loud in the icy air. They faced about. Amaury lifted the pistol, barrel caressing his cheek.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Carnival’s voice was a croak.

  ‘I am ready.’

  ‘Fire!’

  Amaury swung on his heel, straightened his arm. The weapon kicked in his hand. Something ripped his coat sleeve. Smoke whorls curled on the wind.

  And that, he thought bleakly, flicking ash from his cheroot, was the end of Lord George Carnaval; and finished, too, his own career in His Majesty’s Military Forces. He fled to Hamburg; and inquests and Assizes bubbled among the debris of the most irregular duel that was ever fought. The courts eventually exonerated the seconds, and hovered on the brink of a murder warrant for himself, a verdict only prevented by his father’s intervention - Colonel Robert Amaury was friendly with Mr Pitt. He lived for months abroad, solitary and miserable, while his father haunted the India House in Leadenhall Street, wined and dined Directors and blandished politicians. He was nominated at last for a Company’s cadetship, and departed swiftly eastwards before the Directors changed their minds. Amaury travelled overland, his journey hastened by another corpse in Constantinople: a disrespectful Frenchman who had doubted English valour. His age - he was twenty-five - and soldiering experience secured a commission in the 7th Madras Cavalry.

  Exiled for life to this hateful, sun-scorched waste, a criminal charge awaiting should he ever set foot in England. Mayne was gone for ever, old Robert dead, his younger brother Adolphus had inherited the estate. A sober fellow, Adolphus, more cautious than himself - less likely to hazard a manor on the turn of a dice at White’s.

  Amaury fought the despair that clawed his heart, hurled the cheroot away and sprang to his feet. He crossed to the sabre dangling on a wall, whisked blade from scabbard and whirled the steel in an arc around his head. The houcca-bearer gathered his pipe and scuttled from the room: these dangerous bursts of energy often afflicted the sahib - but all Fringees were mad! Amaury straddled an imaginary saddle. ‘Cut two - guard right - recover!’ An arc like a shimmering rainbow gleamed and hissed. ‘Front give point - horse nearside protect - cut five - guard - recover!’ The sabre thrust and darted, the point like the fang of a venomous snake, the edge a cold blue flame. Moisture beaded his forehead and ran into his eyes. Faster, my good fellow - sweat the doleful devils from your system! ‘Cut - point - parry!’ Capital practice, this: the making of a swordsman. Only numbskulls never practised, then wondered why they died - that dragoon at Malavelly who brandished his blade like a bargepole till a scimitar took his head off. ‘Cut one - recover!’ Incessant repetition, a shield against death in the mellays, a weapon bringing victory in those hand-to-hand encounters the Mysore chieftains loved. He had cut down four in succession within a half day’s fighting. ‘Infantry point left-point right!’

  Amaury twirled the sabre to the ceiling and caught the hilt adroitly as it fell. His body ran with sweat, his shirt was soaked. He stripped and dipped a towel in a basin, and scrubbed himself from head to foot. Naked in front of the window, he stared across the scrubby plain to the sea. Beyond that sea lay all that he had lost: mellow summer sunlight gilding calm green meadows; a white wilderness of snow, and rooks circling the coronets of bare black, trees; cottage chimneys spiring smoke lance-straight in the evening air. Amaury bit his lip! Out with melancholia - this infernal country shall not grind me in her dust! He strode to the door and bellowed for his steward.

  ‘My salaams to the Bibee Sahib.’

  Amaury returned to the bed, lifted mosquito curtains and stretched himself on the hard reed matting. The door creaked. A small figure slipped into the room, brown eyes demurely downcast, a fold of the cotton that cowled her head drawn modestly across a pretty face.

  Amaury smiled, and opened his arms.

  ‘Come here, Kiraun.’

  Amaury and Marriott awaited their dinner guests on the veranda of Moubray’s Gardens. Both men wore formal dress: high-collared saxony coats, long embroidered waistcoats, knee breeches and ribbed China stockings. Marriott eased his cravat, gingerly touching the complex folds. ‘A devilish hot afternoon,’ he complained, ‘and the company comes late! What hour did you set?’

  ‘Four,’ said Amaury. ‘I thought it time we entertained - we have been a week and more without a randy.’ He scanned the stony path which threaded oleander bushes to the whitewashed gateposts. ‘Here comes the first: old Harley, if I am not mistaken - he always travels in resplendent state.’

  A steward bearing a silver mace headed a retinue of table servants in gaudy yellow liveries; a man nursing an enormous houcca trotted behind the Merchant’s palankeen. Harley’s full-skirted velvet coat, lightly .powdered hair, and a queue tied in black silk ribbon proclaimed his preference for the fashions of his youth. Marriott led him to a spacious drawing-room where a servant ladled arrack punch.

  ‘Your good health, Mr Marriott.’ Harley sipped critically. ‘Hum - a very tolerable brew! Tell me, did you dispose of your madeira pipes on advantageous terms?’

  ‘All twenty, sir. Captain Browning billed me ninety pagodas the pipe, landed at Madras; my banian Duleep Ram - a clever rogue - sold the entire stock at a hundred and fifty to a Hyderabadee merchant - and his the cost of carriage.’

  ‘Truly? That is - let me see - sixty per cent profit, and my own share a hundred and sixty pagodas. Very satisfactory!’ Marriott marvelled briefly at the Merchant’s swift arithmetic; and saw a twinkle in the deepset eyes. ‘Perhaps a part repayment of my loan would be in order - eh?’

  Marriott agreed; with a thousand guineas credit in the Carnatic Bank he could well afford it. Palankeens thronged the forecourt of Moubray’s Gardens: two cavalrymen from Amaury’s regiment; the captain of a frigate in the roads, spruce in blue and gold; a prosperous indigo planter from Red Rocks; the surgeon of H.M. 33rd, purple-faced and paunchy, cheeks suspending dewlaps; a colonel of sepoy infantry, yellow, gaunt and withered; and Cornet Anstruther, General Wrangham’s languid aide-de-camp whom Marriott had met on the Osterley East Indiaman, gorgeous now in a tight maroon coat, cut in the extremity of ton and lined with pale blue satin.

  They ringed the ebony table, drank thirstily and talked. Anstruther sipped the punch and made a face.

  ‘Arrack!’ Amaury said. ‘Soon you will grow accustomed. A regulation issue on campaign - the English soldier’s lifeblood in the field.’

  Todd and a red-haired, rosy young man hesitantly joined the crowd round the punchbowl. Both wore regimentals; the Company forbade cadets to appear outside their quarters in anything but uniform. Both looked hot and ruffled, neckcloths limp. Marriott said lightly, ‘I advise in future you draw your palankeen curtains against the sun.’

  ‘We walked,’ said Todd, ‘for want of exercise.’

  ‘Damn my soul! A three-mile walk from the F
ort! Nobody goes afoot in Madras! You will suffer an apoplexy!’

  Amaury ushered the company to the dining-room, where gilded cedarwood chairs surrounded a circular table, while candles behind paper-thin alabaster shades partially dispersed a shuttered dusk. A handsome centrepiece - an epergne festooned by hanging saucers and silver beads - ruled a retinue of cutlery and glasses. White-robed servants hovered behind each gentleman’s place; stewards tended the wine; banians hissed instructions. There were thirty or forty people in the room.

  Marriott carved mutton, Amaury a haunch of venison. Stewards filled the goblets and put bottles and decanters on the table. The surgeon lifted his glass.

  ‘Will you take wine with me, Captain Amaury?’

  ‘A pleasure, Captain Blore!’

  The surgeon drank, and smacked his fleshy lips. ‘A noble claret - none of your rot-gut Lisbon here!’

  Harley raised his glass to the light and spoke politely to his neighbour. ‘Well, Mr Todd, and how do you find Madras?’

  ‘At the-moment, sir, my life is all manual exercise and drill, and almost total confinement in St George. I was compelled to seek the Fort Major's very grudging permission to attend this entertainment.’

  ‘The Company looks after its budding officers - I would our young Writers were as carefully guarded.’

  ‘Tis a dreary existence, sir. A campaign would speed my commission - is there any hope of war this year or next?’

  Harley shook his head. ‘The Mysore dynasty is finished, Tippoo Sultan dead, his sons imprisoned in Vellore. Colonel Close is Resident in Mysore, and Wellesley chases Dhoondiah from the territory. No chance of resurgence there. However, Mr Todd, I venture to say that the Company must soon confront the Maratha hordes in the north, the wolf packs Holkar and Scindiah lead.’