Allan Mallinson - A Call to Arms

Hervey raised his eyebrows. ‘It can feel devilish hot even in the middle of a troop affair!’

‘Yes, yes, Hervey, I know,’ said Somervile, waving his hand. ‘Don’t let’s confuse matters!’

Hervey smiled. ‘Perhaps just a very little champagne before I ride?’

Hervey took off Gilbert’s saddle and handed it to Private Hicks. Then he unfastened the headstall and slipped the reins over the gelding’s ears, taking off the bridle and putting on the halter in one movement. ‘I’ll rub him down, Hicks. Bring his flysheet if you will. And Hicks …’

‘Sir?’

‘You made a good job of looking after him. Thank you.’

‘Thank you , sir.’

In the adjacent stall Emma Somervile attempted the same with her mount but met with a firm refusal. ‘No, ma’am. She can be a mite rancorous.’ Lingard’s words carried conviction, and though Emma would count herself a proficient, sidesaddle and astride, she readily deferred this evening.

‘She can indeed,’ Hervey affirmed, going hard at Gilbert’s saddle mark with the curry comb. ‘But she’s been as handy as Jessye, almost, these last weeks.’

‘High praise indeed,’ smiled Emma.

‘But you thought her worthy of it, did you not?’

‘Of course. I said so before. I don’t think my mare would jump ditches so freely.’

Hervey stood aside to let Hicks put on the flysheet. ‘Thank you for riding with me. It would have been a dull affair otherwise.’

‘It was good for me too. I haven’t been able to tempt Eyre to ride out in weeks.’

Hervey nodded to Hicks to say he was finished, then turned to Emma again. ‘Come, or we shall be late for the lieutenantgovernor. Dinner as well as luncheon — I am excessively honoured.’

She smiled again. ‘And he is excessively proud of you. I read his despatch to Calcutta.’

‘But to him is due the real honour. To decide to act was the truly courageous thing. Any soldier should have been able to do what I did.’

Emma’s smile half-turned to frown. ‘Matthew Hervey, can you possibly believe your conduct was commonplace?’

He would not answer at first. They walked a little way. ‘Parkin’s death goes heavier for not being the Burmans’ doing, you know.’

She took his arm.

‘Drowning’s so casual a thing, and played out before your eyes in spite of every exertion. And, likely as not, he was unfit to be at duty.’

Emma gripped his arm a little tighter. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—’

‘No, of course not,’ said Hervey, touching her hand in return. ‘I’m being recalcitrant, as my sister would say. The truth is, it could so easily have been three to the river.’

Emma nodded. ‘Private Johnson was in cordial spirits this morning. I came across him watching the parade. He kept calling me “miss”.’

That was what Johnson always called Henrietta, thought Hervey, but he wouldn’t mention it today. ‘The surgeon says he’ll be at light duties within the month. But he swallowed so much of that foul river that I should have thought it weeks before he was purged.’

Emma nodded again. ‘He said it was nothing. At least, that is what I think he said.’

Hervey smiled. ‘Oh indeed, indeed. Johnson would be the first to tell you it’s nothing compared with what he suffered in the workhouse. There’s bound to be a river in Sheffield at least twice as noxious as the Karnaphuli!’

‘You are very fortunate to have such men as he and your serjeants, so devoted.’

Hervey knew it, though devotion would not have been his word. ‘That is why I’m anxious to return to Calcutta. A troop doesn’t fare well on its own for too long, although they’re mightily pleased with themselves at present — and with very just cause.’

‘And your regiment will be equally anxious to welcome you there, too. That was a very handsome letter from your colonel.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Hervey, a little bashfully.

They walked on a few paces in silence. It was Emma who broke it, and with a change in her tone to something less assured. ‘You are content to be in these parts, then, Matthew? I mean in the Company’s domain?’

Hervey sighed to himself. Was it possible to give a complete answer to such a question? ‘ You are the Sunday-school teacher, Emma — or were, in Madras. You should know there cannot be perfect contentment here on earth!’

‘But I know we must strive for it: we cannot be content until the kingdom of God is come on earth.’ She hesitated again. ‘And shall you find here, do you think, the … complete society for contentment?’

Hervey smiled, a little indulgently. ‘My dear Emma, I am a soldier. The past ten years have set their seal on things. I have ever found the centurion’s a sure voice, though.’

‘ “For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers.” ’

‘Yes. And each element derives from the other. You told me how it cheered you so much when Serjeant Collins reported that I had gone back to search for those dragoons. But I could not imagine it any other way. Don’t mistake me. I have no excess of sentiment in this. Had he lived, I would have had that dragoon who deserted brought to the regiment and hanged. And just as surely, I will never be a slave to authority.’

So powerful a testament required a respectful silence, at least for a while. But when they reached the point where the path divided, one way to his quarters, the other to hers, Emma put her hand on his arm again. ‘Matthew, you will ever have loving friends in Eyre and me, and we shall resume our intimacy at Calcutta soon. You will be fêted for your feats of arms — and rightly so. But do have a care, for not everything in India can fit so exacting a pattern as yours.’

He smiled again. How well did she understand him.

A trumpet sounded in the lines beyond, at once commanding his attention.

Emma looked dismayed. ‘A trumpet, and at once you forget where you are. How do you know it sounds for you and not the native horse?’

Hervey smiled the more. ‘Madam, every dragoon recognizes his regimental call!’

THE END

The Burmese were not to be deterred. In 1822 they reduced the kingdom of Assam and the principality of Muneepore. The following year they demanded the surrender of the island of Shaporooree in the estuary of the Teek Naaf, which formed the boundary between Chittagong and Arakan (incidentally, the Karnaphuli, known more usually at this time as the Chittagong river, follows a very different course today). The new Governor-General, Lord Amherst, sent troops to dislodge them, but also a letter to the King of Ava which convinced the Burmese court that the British had no stomach for a fight. The Burmese general and national hero, Mahâ Bundoola, was despatched with a large army to Arakan with orders to drive the British from the whole of Bengal. Lord Amherst found himself with no alternative but to declare war on the king in February 1824.

The commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Paget, had profound misgivings about offensive operations, for in Burma, he said, ‘we should find nothing but jungle, pestilence and famine.’ He therefore favoured a maritime and riverine strategy, and accordingly a combined naval and military expedition was assembled in the Andaman Islands under command of another Peninsular veteran, Major-General Archibald Campbell. To the inexpressible surprise of the Burmese, the flotilla arrived off the great port of Rangoon on 12 May. Thereafter, the expeditionary force, ill-prepared in so many ways, was to discover the truth of the commander-in-chief’s foreboding …

Skinner’s Horse, the regiment of irregular cavalry founded by James Skinner, the son of a Scotch officer in the Honourable East India Company and a Rajput woman of rank, is today second only to the President’s Bodyguard in seniority in the army of India. Skinner’s Horse wear the yellow kurta still, the colour chosen by Colonel Skinner from Rajput legend. A Rajput prince, riding out to fight, would vow that if he could not win he would die. His men, accepting the commitment, put saffron on their faces and a yellow cloak over their armour. These were called the clothes of the dead, and the warriors were known as the ‘Yellow Men’, who would not return from battle unless victorious — they were ‘sworn to die’.