Patrick Mercer - Dust and Steel

As the troops of both regiments – the 10th noisy in victory, the 95th sullen in defeat – wandered off towards the smell of cooking, Commandant Brewill bore down on the knot of officers. ‘Well, gentlemen that was a treat, even if it was rather brief. Thought you said Lawler had done a bit of this sort of thing before, Hume?’

It was the first time since the arrival of the British troops, three days before, that the sepoys had done anything to restore their honour; now Brewill was going to make the most of it.

‘Aye, he’s been tidy in all the bouts that he’s had in the Regiment,’ Hume replied modestly. ‘There’s no question, though, that Nirav beat him squarely.’

‘But he’s hardly got used to the heat or the water yet, Colonel.’ Carmichael sprang to Lawler’s defence. ‘Once he’s into his swing I’ll back him against anyone. Why, you remember him at Aldershot, don’t you, Colonel?’

‘I do, Carmichael, and he did well then, but the commandant’s feller showed him a trick or two this time and he won handsomely.’ Hume’s tone brooked no further intrusion from Carmichael, his humility causing Brewill to beam with pleasure.

‘Well, let’s get some drinks and toast our partnership against the bloody Pandies, shall we?’ Brewill led the way up the steps of the officers’ mess, the great wooden doors of which were opened silently by waiters as the officers approached.

Caps and swords were passed to servants, Hume pointedly unhooking his pistol from his belt as well. Carmichael was the only officer not to follow Hume’s lead and remove his revolver.

‘Don’t forget to leave your splendid pistol, Captain Carmichael. You won’t need it in this mess any more than you would in ours.’

‘But, Colonel, in Meerut…’ Carmichael’s voice trailed off as Hume stared hard at him.

‘We’ve got some more guests, ain’t we, McGowan?’ Brewill appeared not to notice this little scene, hesitating before leading the party into the anteroom.

‘Yes, Commandant,’ Brewill’s adjutant replied. ‘A Captain Skene, the political officer from Jhansi, and an escorting officer from the Twelfth Bengalis.’

Morgan’s ears pricked up; guests from Jhansi – the station not only where his father’s friend Colonel Kemp commanded the 12th but, much more importantly, the godforsaken place where Mary Keenan was.

‘No matter, but you have told Forgett that they’re here, haven’t you? Our policeman is bound to want a discreet word with the political, won’t he?’

Morgan noticed how much more relaxed Brewill was once he was back in control of events.

‘I have sent word to his bungalow, sir,’ McGowan replied. ‘I’m sure he’ll be with us directly.’

After the court martial in which the police officer had been the principal witness for the fatal prosecution, it had been thought wise to move Forgett, his wife and daughter into the fort until tempers had cooled.

The officers strode into the anteroom, where the curtains had been pulled against the night that would suddenly rush upon them. Where it had been cool and shaded earlier, it was now stuffy, the tables alive with candles, their light flickering off crystal bowls of punch and glasses that lined the sideboards, ready for the press of thirsty guests. There were some modest pieces of silver in the corners of the long, low room, but the décor relied mainly on countless heads of stuffed animals, skins of tigers and leopards, and a vast pair of elephant tusks from which hung a brass gong.

‘Christ, I hadn’t noticed earlier – the place looks more like a bloody zoo than officers’ quarters.’

Hume frowned to silence Carmichael but it was true, Morgan thought: there was little of the grace or taste of a British regiment’s mess, but then wasn’t that exactly the point that Forgett had made to him a couple of days ago? What had he said – something about ‘most of us don’t come from money like most of you’?

As the waiters fussed around the guests, Morgan noticed two figures at the far end of the room; they rose respectfully as the senior officers came in. One was small and dark, his well-tanned face set with heavy whiskers below carefully combed, wavy black hair. He was dressed in a simple blue frock coat, and his long riding boots were still dusty. On the table beside him was a thin leather document wallet.

‘Hello, sir…gentlemen…I’m Skene, Political Officer from up-country in Jhansi.’ Five foot seven of nervous energy pushed into the gaggle of new arrivals, all of whom were trying to get at the drink, returning Skene’s greeting only perfunctorily.

At first, Morgan scarcely noticed the other figure, hovering in the background; he was concentrating too hard on the servant’s brimming punch ladle and his own empty glass. But there was something about the way that Hume looked up, his face breaking into the widest grin, his drink forgotten, that caused Morgan to pause.

‘Well, I’ll be damned, this gouger needs no introduction, Brewill!’ Hume pushed his outstretched palm out to the other man, who practically ran down the room to shake it.

Almost six foot of handsome, hay-rick-headed, scarlet-coated ensign of Bengal infantry pumped the hands of the 95th officers with glee.

‘You know all this lot, don’t you?’ Hume continued delightedly. ‘Bazalgette, Massey, Carmichael…’

‘I do, Colonel Hume, I do,’ said the ensign, greeting them ecstatically.

‘And your old friend Morgan, of course,’ Hume added.

‘Indeed, sir.’ The ensign’s grin suddenly faded. ‘Brevet Major Anthony Morgan; how could I ever forget?’

Morgan shook the hand of his old sergeant, the husband of his lover, the man he’d never expected to see again, James Keenan.

Christ, this is ghastly, thought Morgan as he shifted on the horsehair-covered mess chair. How, in the name of all that’s holy, in a country the size of India, have I knocked up against James bloody Keenan again?

Keenan sat opposite Morgan, looking fixedly at Skene as he explained the situation in Jhansi to the assembled officers.

‘You all know what’s happened in the north and around Delhi, and the telegraph reports this morning that General Wheeler and a small force of mixed white and native troops have been besieged in Cawnpore which – as I am sure you all know – is about seven hundred miles north-east of us here in Bombay.’ Skene pulled at his drink whilst the audience – most of them, at least – listened intently to his assessment.

‘There’ll be Queen’s troops from Malta and elsewhere along shortly to swell our forces, and I believe that so long as the mutinies don’t spread to the Madras and Bombay Presidencies – and may I congratulate you, Commandant, on the way that things have been handled here in the city – the main centres of rebellion, including Delhi, should soon be under control. But, there’s a lot of countryside and difficult terrain that’s less easy to dominate, and it’s crucial that we must keep the native princes and lesser rulers loyal.’

Brewill was genuinely pleased to be praised by a ‘political’, but he hissed to his adjutant, ‘Where’s bloody Forgett? He ought to be here.’

‘I don’t know, sir. I’ll go and find him, shall I?’ McGowan replied.

‘No,’ the commandant muttered. ‘You need to hear this as well; sit still.’

‘And around the Gwalior area in southern Bengal, ten days’ hard riding up-country from here, things are particularly difficult to gauge. Now, gentlemen, I need your complete discretion concerning what I’m about to say…’ Skene looked around the dozen or so officers in his audience, Brewill and Hume, the company commanders of the 10th and the 95th and a clutch of subalterns. ‘The whole area is dominated by a series of princelings and maharajahs who are overseen to varying extents by British agents and political officers like me, and referred to as the Central India Agency. Now, I know that sounds untidy and unsatisfactory to the military mind – and it is – but it works, or it has done so far. Despite persistent rumours, there have been no uprisings amongst these states. But much hangs on how the Rhani of Jhansi now reacts to changing events. Her little fiefdom is wealthy and well organised and she pulls the strings at the centre of the spider’s web. She may be a woman, but her intelligence, family connections and strength of character make her damned influential. The others will probably follow her lead, and between them they have about twenty thousand irregulars and household troops – pretty mixed quality, mark you, but fine horsemen and a fair amount of artillery – who’ll be worth their weight in gold against the mutineers, not due so much to their fighting quality but because of the powerful influence that they’ll send to their rebellious “brothers”.’