Allan Mallinson - Nizams Daughters

They squealed, though. Squealed and squealed and squealed as the sabre slashed and cut and thrust — without anything stronger than a raised arm to parry it. Two gunners escaped its work by diving headlong from the redoubt, but five more soon lay still or dying at Hervey’s feet. He rushed to the embrasure to call for support, and at that instant a huge roundshot crashed into the redoubt furthest from him. He saw it strike — carrying away the earthwork and dismounting the gun. He saw a second, ploughing into the debris wrought by the first, sending earth and brickwork skywards. He was dumbstruck. What? Where? How? He peered out further, towards the Godavari whence only the fire could have come… and there were the ensigns, unmistakable! And then another ‘broadside’ of such regularity that before it could strike, the nizam’s gunners were pouring from the redoubts like rats fleeing before a flood. ‘Great God!’ he gasped. ‘A fathom of water! A fathom of water and there’ll you’ll find them!’

But the Pindaree horsemen stood firm. Hervey saw with alarm that all they needed to do was assail the half-dozen budgerows on the river, from which the Nisus ’s quarterdeck twelve-pounders enfiladed them, and with a modicum of resolution they might yet carry the day: the Godavari was shallow enough at the edge, and not all would have fallen to grape as they charged. Alter Fritz was engaged with the remnants of those that had earlier attacked him, and evidently did not see the danger, and all Hervey’s halfrissalah were dismounted and their horses with holders inside the forest. He looked back towards his night camp and the lancers with the rajah — and to his great relief saw them advancing at a canter.

But the Royal Navy was not yet done with its fighting. A thin line of red was also advancing, muskets at the high port, as steady as if on parade at Portsmouth. And there, in front, was Henry Locke, sword held high. The Pindarees seemed rooted to the spot, incapable even of dealing with two dozen marines. Never had Hervey seen cavalry so supine — as feeble as Sackville at Minden. And then, at fifty yards, Locke lowered his sword to the engage, the marines put their bayonets to ‘On guard’, and they began to double. At thirty Hervey distinctly heard him shout ‘ Charge! ’ and the Pindarees — hundreds upon hundreds — turned and broke. But a handful first discharged their firearms — perhaps more for safety as they retired — and a ball struck Locke in the throat.

Hervey rushed to where he fell, through ranks of horsemen who wanted nothing but to be away. Locke’s serjeant was already trying to staunch the bleeding as he reached him, but so much blood was there that the end could not have been in doubt. His eyes were open and something of a smile came to them as he saw Hervey. He gripped the soldier’s wrist, squeezing with that strength which Hervey had so admired, trying thereby to tell him something.

Hervey smiled back. ‘Thank you, my dear, dear friend. Without you it could not have been done!’

Locke’s eyes smiled even stronger, his breathing like the raj kumari’s mare when the incision was made. His other hand reached for his gorget and pulled it from his neck, snapping the chain. He held it out to Hervey, his eyes somehow managing to tell him why.

‘For your…’ he cursed himself that he did not know her name.

Locke nodded his head.

‘I will see she is well provided for,’ he said, tears now running down both cheeks.

And then Locke’s eyes closed, and his head rolled gently to one side in his serjeant’s arms.

Hervey swallowed very hard. ‘Samson hath quit himself like Samson,’ he stammered.

Chintalpore, two weeks later

Jessye nuzzled him, searching his pockets for some favour. Hervey put his nose to hers so that their breathing spoke secretly for them, as it always had. He rubbed her muzzle with his palm. The pinpricks, through which the krait’s venom had spurted to mix with her blood and scheme its way to her vitals, were now healed, her body purged of all poison. He found her a piece of candied fruit and she took it gently from his hand, not greedily as would the Kehilans in the stalls either side of her. Tomorrow he might take her out — an easy ride, a walk only — in the cool of the morning, to coax her back to the hale condition in which she had been before the snake’s assault.

‘Mr Somervile is greatly interested in village medicine,’ said Emma Lucie, watching from a discreet few paces.

Hervey nodded. ‘Would that I had had greater faith, too. The subedar begged me to let him go to find a sadhu, but I couldn’t bear to have a stranger dancing round her, throwing ash about and blowing on a pipe.’

‘And it was a Brahman who came, you say?’

‘So Johnson says. He gave her a potion, though I can’t imagine how she could have been induced to take anything, prostrate and her heart failing. It was mungo root, apparently a native cure for snakebite.’

‘Ah yes, indeed: Ophiorrhiza mungos is its botanical name. I was reading of it in my natural history only yesterday.’

‘Oh — so it is more than village magic?’

‘I believe so. It is a well-known antidote with grasscutters, but I have never heard of its use with equines.’

‘You are very ingenious, Miss Lucie. You have extensive learning, and are yet open to all you see in this country.’

‘It might very well be fatal not to be,’ she said, smiling.

‘In its most literal sense, too,’ he conceded. ‘For the snakebite I should, myself, have trusted to potash, but that would have been of little account had it not been used at once. And I had none.’

Hervey pulled Jessye’s ears again, and gave her another piece of candied fruit. ‘I’ve sent Johnson with a purse of silver. I should have liked to go myself but time is pressing.’

‘How long do you have remaining?’

‘I can’t delay beyond tomorrow.’

‘Philip will be sorry he shan’t see you before you go.’

‘And I him. Not least to be able to tell him in person all you have done.’

‘Not all , I should suggest!’

He looked away sheepishly. ‘I cannot thank you enough. When did you make the discovery?’

‘Soon after the rajah had set off to join you. It was the only ledger I had not looked at.’

‘And you read through every page?’

‘That was my intention, but it was there on the third — very plain.’

‘Even so, its significance might not have—’

‘Captain Hervey!’ she scolded. ‘I cannot think that anyone would not connect the Duke of Wellington’s name in a land register and the presence of one of his ADCs! I wonder, though, that you did not give me any more direct indication of your mission.’

He glanced around awkwardly, but there was no-one else about. ‘Perhaps so, madam. I’m obliged none the less. And the evidence?’

‘The ledgers are wholly beyond redemption: they were sodden by the time they were recovered from the well. It has saved you and me a difficult choice.’

‘I have thought a great deal about that, I may say, Miss Lucie.’

She simply smiled and shook her head.

‘And still there is no idea who might be the culprit?’ he asked, leaving the trickier matter.

‘It would seem not. All the ledgers and documents were taken from my room while I was with the rajah and thrown down the same well in which Kunal Verma perished. But the rajah is sure that his spies will soon begin to speak now that his position is more secure.’

‘As you say, their taking removed a fearful temptation. And so now the disposal of the jagirs is a simple matter for the duke’s new agent in Calcutta. How very fortunate things have turned out, when only days ago all seemed lost.’