Cry Havelock Read online

  Once more the trumpet clangs to war! That blast is widely heard!

  And from its brief repose in peace is the martial spirit stirred

  The British soldier hears the sound and rises in his might;

  The sepoy feels the thrill of joy and girds him for the fight!'

  Officers of both Queen's and Company regiments cheered, and a Company officer jumped up with a song of his own. Jack listened to the words.

  The valour of our Sepoy sires lives in us o'er again

  The British banner in our keep has never met with stain!'

  There were other songs, some familiar, others locally composed but all dealt with a similar theme, the valour of British soldiers and sepoys fighting side by side. After half an hour or so Colonel Jeffreys ordered:

  'There is a tradition in many regiments for officers to play games; as of this moment it is also the tradition in the 113th.' He looked down the length of the table. 'Young gentlemen of the Company regiments are of course welcome to participate. Officers of more seniority are invited to repair to the ante-room with me.'

  'It has never been a tradition in the 113th.' Snodgrass murmured and raised his voice. 'I think it is a first-class idea, sir. 'We will start with High Cockalorum, gentlemen, and then try some wall racing. Servants: clear the table; jildi!'

  As the servants moved smoothly to obey, Elliot winked at Jack. 'You will enjoy yourselves by order,' he whispered.

  'What the devil's High Cockalorum?' Jack asked.

  'We'll soon find out.'

  High Cockalorum proved to be a military variation of a children's game where the officers climbed on each other's backs to create the largest possible human pyramid.

  'Come on Jack, don't be shy!' Elliot threw himself into the game with such enthusiasm that Jack had to join in.

  As the drink flowed, the men grew more daring, until at one point Jack was at the apex of a pyramid that pressed him against the underside of the ceiling. At another, he was struggling under the weight of a dozen men with a lieutenant's boot in his ear and Ensign Shearer's knee heavy on his shoulder.

  When the pyramids collapsed with shouts and laughter, the officers began wall-racing.

  'What's the deuce is wall racing?'

  'Watch and learn, young man,' Elliot slurred his words. 'Watch and learn.'

  For a moment Jack watched as young officers launching themselves at the wall at great speed and ran as far as possible in a nearly horizontal position. A few minutes later he was balancing along the wall and whooping with the best of them. When he landed heavily on the floor, he came to his senses and regarded his antics with a mixture of disgust and embarrassment.

  'These are the antics of school-boys,' he said and withdrew to the more tranquil atmosphere of the ante-room.

  'It was a bad move, taking over Oudh,' Irvine, a Company captain in his late thirties was saying as he nursed a brandy glass. 'Nevertheless, we have now the opportunity to extend the blessings of British rule, tranquillity and security to the people, but the sepoys resent it.'

  'I can see nothing wrong in taking over Oudh.' Snodgrass said.

  'Many natives can,' Irvine explained. 'They believe we are appropriating all of India. In the last ten years we – the Company – have followed the Doctrine of Lapse, so if the ruler of a state dies without leaving a direct male heir, the Company has the right to take it. In local custom, you see, an adopted heir can rule.'

  'Damned good thing if you ask me,' Snodgrass said, glancing at Jeffreys to ensure he agreed. 'We're far better than the perverted and dissipated creatures that rule these blessed places.'

  'That may well be so,' Irvine sipped carefully at his brandy, 'but they were native states governed by the indigenous peoples according to their local customs and practises.' He twirled the brandy around his glass. 'In the last decade, we have taken over by one method or another Jhansi, the Punjab, Satara, Nagpur and Sambalpur, and now Oudh. The Indian princes must be uneasy; they are our allies and our friends, and must feel we threaten their security.'

  'There's not much they can do about it,' Snodgrass was drinking whisky at a rate that would put Elliot to shame. 'If these damned black princes start trouble the Company will just smash them.'

  Irvine raised bushy eyebrows. 'As I said, Major Snodgrass, they are our friends. We have neither desire nor intention to smash them, as you put it. Anyway, it's not only the rulers who suffer. When we took over Oudh, or Awadh, to use its real name, we put thousands of men out of work. There were two hundred thousand men in the army alone and Lord alone knows how many in the royal household, plus thousands of armourers.' He shrugged.

  'Two hundred thousand men!' Snodgrass marvelled. 'That is a large army to have on our border.'

  'Yes I realise the numbers may sound threatening, but Awadh was friendly and also our biggest recruitment area. Now, thanks to the Doctrine of Lapse, we have tens of thousands of disaffected men there, within our borders.'

  'Are they so disaffected?' Jack felt himself rapidly sober.

  'There is a new feeling of unease in the land,' Irvine said. 'Things are happening that I for one don't understand and I have been in the Company's service for over twenty years.'

  'What sort of things?' Jeffreys asked.

  Irvine put his glass on a table and shook his head when the imperturbable Pathan servant offered a refill. 'There are silly, inconsequential things that individually make no sense at all, but when put together indicate an unhappy country. For example, down in Baroda some men are taking a pariah dog around the villages and feeding all the local dogs.'

  'Why?' Jack asked.

  'Only they know.' Irvine shrugged. 'The Maratha god of the sword is a dog, so it could mean there is violence imminent. Or it could mean the natives fear the Company will end all forms of caste; everyone sharing the same food, don't you know?'

  'I don't know at all,' Snodgrass said.

  'Nor do I, frankly,' Irvine admitted. 'Then there are the chapattis.'

  'What the devil?'

  'Small cakes…' Irvine began.

  'I know what a chapatti is, for God's sake,' Snodgrass said. 'I want to know how they are suddenly famous.'

  'I don't know why.' Irvine said. 'It's something I have never come across before. A stranger will appear in a village with four chapattis. He gives them to the chowkidar, the watchman, and asks him to bake another four and take them to the next village along.'

  'Why?' Jack asked.

  'Nobody knows,' Irvine said. 'I doubt even the villagers understand, yet it is undoubtedly a message.' He grinned. 'India is a strange place, full of intrigue, mystery and danger, which is why I love it so much. I intend to settle here when my time is up.'

  'Don't you wish to go home?' Snodgrass ran a hand through his luxuriant whiskers.

  'This is my home,' Irvine said. 'I am what is known as a 'serious' officer. I think it my Christian duty to teach these misguided souls about our Lord. We have to use kindness and slow the process of taking over their lands and decreasing their pay as we do. The more of India we annexe, the more my sepoys lose their batta – the money we pay them for serving beyond the Company's borders.' He smiled. 'No soldier likes to lose part of his wages.'

  The tall servant moved slightly, spilling a single drop of wine onto Irvine's shoulder.

  'Be careful, blast it!' Irvine shouted as the man salaamed in apology.

  'I am no expert,' Jack waited until the servant withdrew a pace. 'But interfering with people's religion is pretty fundamental is it not?'

  'We must spread the truth,' Irvine said. 'We must hasten the time when the people throw off the dark cloud of idolatry and superstition which has hung for ages over this land – our land and our responsibility.'

  Jack shifted uneasily. 'You know them better than I do,' he said, 'so I must bow to your experience. I do know England has failed to persuade most of Ireland to convert from Catholicism to the Church of England despite centuries of attempts.'

  'These are both branches of Christianity
,' Irvine pointed out.

  'Opposing branches,' Jack said, 'And when King Charles the First tried to impose Episcopalianism on Scotland he ended up on the losing side in a bloody war.'

  Irvine laughed. 'There will be no bloody war in Bengal,' he said. 'Our sepoys are the match for any native army; no, they are the match for any ten native armies combined. And as we now possess the Punjab, we will have the magnificent Khalsa as well. That's the Sikh army, don't you know?'

  'But the sepoys themselves?' Jeffreys asked. 'Are they to be trusted? There have been cases when they have disobeyed, even mutinied.'

  Irvine shook his head. 'These were isolated misunderstandings, sir. The sepoys are the most loyal men and the best soldiers in the world,' he said. 'I would stake my life on their fidelity.'

  Jeffreys lifted his glass. 'I am glad to hear it,' he said. 'If ever we have another set-to with the Russians we may need your sepoys. There was hard fighting at Sebastopol God knows, and we needed more men than we had.'

  'My sepoys would have shone,' Irvine said stoutly.

  'Now you, Windrush; go back and join your colleagues,' Jeffrey's ordered. You are a young man still, far too junior in years to be jawing shop with us oldsters. Go and enjoy yourself.'

  'Yes, sir.' Jack had no alternative but to obey orders, although he wished to learn more about the current situation in India.

  The evening ended in raucous laughter and singing as one by one the officers decided to return home. The older married men were first, and then the older single men as the younger became rowdier without their elders' moderating influence.

  'Come on, Arthur,' Jack took the glass from Elliot's hand. 'It's time you were getting to bed.'

  'I'm not ready yet,' Elliot tried to snatch his drink back. 'I'm not leaving until I'm ready.'

  'Come on.' Handing the glass to an expressionless servant, Jack took Elliot's arm. 'Time to go.'

  'You're not my father!' Elliot's words slurred as he shouted. 'You can't order me around as he does!'

  'No, but I can,' Colonel Jeffreys must have drunk equal to any man in the room yet he was as precise of speech and stance as if he had not touched a drop. 'Get back to your quarters, Elliot! You're a disgrace.'

  'He had a bad time in the Crimea, sir,' Jack defended Elliot.

  'We all had a bad time in the Crimea. If he cannot handle his drink, then there is no place for him in a regiment of British infantry.'

  'eHeHe He'll be all right, sir. I'll take care of him.' Sliding an arm around Elliot's back, Jack supported him. 'Come along Arthur.'

  Jack supported Elliot outside the mess and along the path with wan moonlight as a lantern. Jeffreys watched for a moment, turned around, slammed his boot on the ground like a sentry and marched away.

  'It's not fair,' Elliot slurred. 'It's not fair.'

  'No, it's not,' Jack knew there was no point trying to get any sense from Elliot when he was drunk. 'Come on, Arthur. We're nearly home.' A jackal howled beyond the cantonment; the sound of India.

  'I've to be a general,' Elliot staggered sideways, nearly pushing Jack into the prickly hedge that bordered the path. 'My father expects me to be a general and I'm only a lieutenant.'

  'You're only twenty-two,' Jack said. 'Nobody can be a general at twenty-two.' He tightened his hold as Elliot's feet slipped from under him. 'Not even the Duke of Wellington was a general when he was twenty-two.'

  'I'm only a lieutenant. You're a captain, and I'm as good an officer as you are.'

  'Better, probably,' Jack murmured. He heard something moving outside the cactus and wondered if it was one of the servants or if there was some wild animal on the prowl. 'Come along, Arthur.' He adjusted his grip on Elliot and inhaled deeply of the hot night air, momentarily wishing he had brought his revolver.

  'Here we are.' Jack stopped where the mohur tree marked the driveway to Elliot's bungalow. Half-seen by starlight, the lawn was close-cropped, and the sound of insects and frogs filled the air. 'Come along home.'

  As an unmarried Lieutenant, Elliot occupied one of the smaller bungalows, but it was palatial by the standards he could have expected back in Britain. Hardly seen in the dark, brilliant purple bougainvillaea coiled around the colonnaded porch which protected the front door from the scorching sun of the day.

  With the alcohol still coursing through his system, Jack was uncaring of the neighbours. He raised his voice. 'Awake inside there!'

  The response was immediate as lights flared behind the windows and Indian voices came in reply. The watchman stormed out first with his iron-tipped staff ready to repel any threat to his master's house.

  'Rambir!' Jack shouted, 'help me with the sahib here!'

  More servants scurried out, some stopping to salaam with both hands to their forehead as they recognised that a British officer was making all the fuss, others concentrating on Elliot, who was now breaking into song:

  In Nottingham, there lives a jolly tanner

  With a hey down, down, a down, down.

  His name is Arthur-a-Bland,

  There is never a squire in Nottinghamshire

  Dare bid bold Arthur stand.

  Jack grinned. Despite their years of campaigning together, he had never heard Elliot sing that particular song before. 'You're out of tune Arthur. Come on, and these nice people will help you to bed.'

  Elliot turned aside and grinned vacantly. 'Bed? I know a song about beds,' he said and began to sing.

  There was a monk of great renown

  There was a monk of great renown

  There was a monk of great renown

  He fu…'

  'Enough,' Jack slipped a hand over Elliot's mouth. 'There are women and children around. I don't know what your mother would say.'

  Rambir and the butler took hold of Elliot, faces impassive. They had seen drunken British soldiers before.

  'We'll take care of the sahib,' Ramdass the butler salaamed to Jack.

  'All right, Ramdass,' Jack had found it surprisingly easy to pick up some Urdu phrases. He watched as the servants gently and expertly eased Elliot up the stairs and through the large front door of the bungalow. Trying to imagine how British servants would have coped, Jack shook his head and turned away. Elliot was in good hands. He would wake up washed and shaved in his bed without knowing a thing about it.

  As Jack followed the path around the cantonment, a pale moon gleamed above the surrounding palms, and small bats were flitting around feasting on the plentiful insect life. He knew if he returned to his bungalow he would not sleep. There was too much in his mind for rest and the night's mixture of formality, conversation and stupidity had only acted as a reprieve from his thoughts.

  Extracting a cheroot from his inside pocket, Jack lit up and inhaled the sweet smoke. He looked around; he was in India, in effect ruled by the Honourable East India Company and the spiritual and actual second home of the British Army. India was the jewel of the Empire and the landmass from which Britain drew much of her wealth, power and prestige. And for the next ten years or so this would again be his home.

  He began a slow walk around the British cantonment, listening to the regular fall of his feet on the ground and the sounds of the Eastern night all around. Tall palms thrust upward among the dark foliage outside the camp, where sentries patrolled in bored routine, swearing under their breath as British soldiers always did and always would do. The world would be a strange place if British soldiers ever stopped grousing, swearing and complaining.

  Jack stopped at the edge of the broad road that separated the officers' bungalows from the barracks of the other ranks. His men were over there: Riley, Thorpe, Logan, Coleman, Whitelam and the rest. These were the men he had fought and suffered beside throughout the Burmese War and the horrors of the Crimea. Men who had stood at his side at Inkerman and the Redan, who had crouched under the parapet of the Sebastopol trenches; companions, comrades and, he liked to think, friends.

  Under the old commander, Colonel Maxwell, such bonds of friendship were cherished and val
ued. He could have slipped over the road to pass an hour with the sentries, shared a pipe of tobacco and a joke and spoken of old times along the Woronzoff Road or how the new Enfield rifle compared to the Minie that had done such sterling work in the Crimea. However, Colonel Jeffreys had stopped such friendly intercourse.

  'Officers and men live different lives,' Jeffreys had announced on his first day on taking over command. 'It is your duty to lead and theirs to obey.'

  'My men saved my life more than once,' Jack began, only for Jeffreys to cut him short.

  'They were doing their duty for an officer's life is worth more than theirs.' Jeffreys said. 'There will be no more mixing with the other ranks unless duty compels it. We must maintain a proper and respectful distance and speak to the men only through the agencies of the sergeants. That is what sergeants are for: to relay and translate our orders into language the troops can understand.'

  Drawing on his cheroot, Jack peered across the road, wondering how his men were coping with this new regime. After the ordeal of the Crimea, to be shipped to India must have come as something of a shock to them.

  For a moment Jack contemplated breaking the Colonel's rules, crossing the road and talking to his men. Then he shook his head; they were soldiers. They knew rules and regulations governed the lives of the officers every bit as much as they did other ranks. Instead, he watched as the sentries marched on their pre-ordained routes and tossed away his half-finished cheroot, so the glowing end arced into the dark. Sighing, he followed the road to where the flagpole soared upright toward the sky. At the base of the pole was a granite slab, inscribed with the names of all the British regiments that had garrisoned Gondabad in the previous thirty years. Jack stopped and waited until a cloud eased away from the moon, so the light returned.

  A bat fluttered past, its shadow a strange reminder of his nightmare. Jack fought his shudder. His gaze passed over the famous regimental names and numbers on the slab. He recalled the legends attached to the men who had garrisoned Tangiers, the bloodied battalions at Quatre Bras, the stubborn soldiers who faced the Sikhs and the unfortunate 44th cut down to the last man at Gandamack. And there, near the bottom of the list, was the Royal Malverns. Jack felt his hand shaking as he produced another cheroot and scratched a light.