Allan Mallinson: Nizams Daughters

She cast a brief backward glance as the duke said something to her, and then she smiled wide and adoringly at the great man as they retired to his quarters. The spaniel woke suddenly and looked up at Hervey with a puzzled expression before breaking wind at considerable length. Hervey sighed as long, and smiled. How the glamoury of aiglets could be so rudely abraded! And how trifling did the appointment of aide-de-camp seem to the great man himself. ‘Deuced tricky work’ — Hervey had never doubted it would be. He had no experience of staff work; neither did he possess the skills of the courtier, which seemed more necessary now than did any military prowess. But he could read and write French and German and converse in both with perfect fluency. If the duke had confidence in him, then why should not he himself? In any event, he had a shorter time to wait than he expected to find out how tricky was the work, for the corporal returned to announce that Colonel Grant would see him at once. Not the best of news, sighed Hervey, for when he had first met the duke’s chief of intelligence, a month ago, it had not been an especially cordial affair. Indeed, Grant had been decidedly livery.

Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun Grant of the 11th Foot (North Devon), ‘Grant el Bueno’ as the Spanish guerrillas had called him (to distinguish him from ‘Grant the Bad’), was an officer who had spent more time on active service behind the enemy’s lines than before them. He was impatient of formality, and this had, no doubt, been at the root of his abruptness at their first meeting. This morning, however, although he was brisk he was perfectly civil. Hervey might have appreciated the offer of coffee, but the absence of hospitality was not going to stand in the way of regard for the man whom many believed to be the duke’s most trusted adviser.

‘Sit down if you please, Captain Hervey,’ said Grant, indicating the largest gilded chair Hervey had ever seen, which made him feel that his levee dress was not so out of place after all. ‘I shall come at once to the point, sir: do you know anything of India?’

How might he begin to answer such a question? He had read and heard as much as any man in his position might, but he did not expect that it would amount to much for what must be Colonel Grant’s purposes. ‘A very little, sir — Clive and his campaigns for the most part,’ he replied frankly, racking his brains to think what could be the duke’s interest in India.

‘You know, of course, of the Duke of Wellington’s service in those lands — of his signal success in the Maratha war a decade ago?’

‘Yes, sir,’ smiled Hervey: he had read accounts, of Assaye especially.

‘Well, the duke expects to be appointed governor-general in Calcutta when his duties at the Congress in Vienna are concluded.’

Hervey was not altogether surprised, for the duke’s elder brother had occupied that office at the time of the Maratha war.

‘Just so, Captain Hervey, and it has been the reversal of Lord Wellesley’s policies these past ten years that has brought about the enfeeblement of the British interest in Hindoostan today.’ Colonel Grant paused before resuming, seeming to want to plant some notion in Hervey’s mind. ‘It is highly probable,’ he continued portentously, ‘that the Board of Control will soon relieve Lord Moira of his office and press the duke to accept it.’

‘And shall he?’ asked Hervey, unsure of the honour that such an office held for a man who was now, without dispute, the first soldier of Europe.

‘Yes,’ replied Grant emphatically, and then, a little less so, added that the duke would first wish to be assured of certain preconditions. ‘But I have no doubt that all these may be accommodated, and so we proceed on the assumption that the duke shall relieve Lord Moira in the new year.’

Hervey was uncertain, now, of his own tenure of appointment. ‘Shall the duke want me with his staff in India, sir?’

‘Indeed he will, Hervey; indeed he will. So much so that he wishes you to proceed there in advance of him. What say you to that?’

What might any officer say? India — the place that had made the young Arthur Wellesley’s reputation! He supposed he would soon tire of Paris in any case, for garrison duties were always irksome, even in aiglets. He presumed he would be given leave in a month or so to return to England to marry Henrietta, and they would have the best of the autumn together in this fair city before balmy days cruising in a comfortable East Indiaman. He would be some distance from his beloved regiment but… ‘I am all eagerness, sir, for I never supposed I should see Hindoostan. I imagine that the duke wishes me to arrange for his arrival in due course — is that so?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ replied Grant, glancing down again at the papers on his desk, seemingly unwilling to answer the question direct. ‘Tell me, Hervey — what do you know of the country powers in India?’

‘That they are very largely at odds with each other, and at various times with the East India Company too. Beyond that I have no especial knowledge.’

‘Have you heard, say, of the kingdom of Haidarabad?’

‘Of course, sir: the nizam, as I understand it, rendered the duke considerable service in the war against the Marathas.’

‘Just so, Hervey; just so,’ nodded Grant approvingly:

‘—our faithful ally.’

There was another period of silence, during which Hervey wondered if he were to be given any more tests of his scant knowledge of the subcontinent.

‘The point is,’ said Grant at length, seeming to search carefully for his words, ‘India is far from being in the condition now that it was when the duke and the Marquess Wellesley, his brother, left there ten years ago. There has been fearful mismanagement. Cornwallis, Lord Wellesley’s successor as governor-general, died within months of getting to Calcutta. His successor, Sir George Barlow, was nothing short of a booby, and thereafter it was Lord Minto — and he would do nothing that might result in any additional cost to the directors of the company. The Earl of Moira, who has been in Bengal for the best part of two years now, is, it seems too, a man in the same mould.’

‘And so the duke is chary of what he might find there,’ suggested Hervey.

‘Yes indeed. And he is firmly of the opinion that the predisposition of the nizam towards us is of the essence. And, too, the condition of his army. Our agents report variously on this latter.’

Our agents — Hervey could not but be impressed by the duke’s interest and reach.

‘Which is where, Captain Hervey, your immediate duties in respect of your appointment will lie.’ Grant was emphatic but still a shade elusive.

Hervey’s look conveyed both keenness and curiosity.

‘To put it baldly, Hervey, I wish you to go to Haidarabad and to make an assessment of the service-ableness of the nizam’s forces, paying especial attention to his cavalry and artillery. And if you are able to gauge anything of the nizam’s feelings towards us then such might be of inestimable value to the duke.’

If Matthew Hervey had had a moment’s disappointment when, earlier, the duke had seemed dismissive, his self-esteem was now wholly restored, and with interest, for here was a mission of substance, a pivot on which the duke’s entire policy in India might turn — and entrusted to him , a captain of but a few days. Heavens but there were rewards for Waterloo! He felt his cheeks aglow. He could hear his heart beating. He had a sense of floating, even. He began imagining how, with Henrietta, he might tour the kingdom of the nizam. They would see sights of which they would never dream — perhaps riding with the nizam’s cavalry, and hunting all manner of beasts.

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