Dust And Steel
Patrick Mercer

To my wife, Cait

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Maps

ONE Bombay

TWO Bombay Brothers

THREE Bombay to Deesa

FOUR The Battle of Rowa

FIVE Clemency

SIX The Relief of Kotah

SEVEN Presentiment

EIGHT Jhansi

NINE Pursuit

TEN Kotah-Ki-Serai

ELEVEN Gwalior

Glossary

Author’s Note

Historical Note

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Maps

ONE Bombay

‘Get into four ranks, yous.’ Six foot tall and completely poised, McGucken pushed and shoved the first couple of dozen men onto the jetty into a semblance of order. At thirty-two, the Glasgow man looked ten years older. A life spent outdoors had left a wind-tan and myriad wrinkles on his face that his whiskers couldn’t hide, whilst his Crimea medals – both British and Turkish – and the red-and-blue-ribboned Distinguished Conduct Medal spoke of his achievements and depth of experience.

‘They look quite grumpy, don’t they, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Captain Tony Morgan tried to make light of the situation. He, too, looked old for his years. He was shorter and slimmer than McGucken: school, much time in the saddle or chasing game, and Victoria’s enemies had left him with no spare flesh, whilst a Russian blade at Inkermann had given him the slightest of limps. He was twenty-seven and by girls in his native Ireland would be described as a ‘well-made man’, dark blond hair and moustaches bestowing a rakish air that he wished he deserved. On his chest bobbed just the two Crimea campaign medals but a brevet-majority – his reward for the capture of The Quarries outside Sevastopol two years before – was worth almost fifty pounds a year in additional pay.

‘Better load before they push those sailors out the way, don’t you think, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan watched as the mob surged forward. ‘Must be three hundred or more now.’

‘No, sir, them skinny lot’ll do us no harm. They’ve not got a firelock amongst ’em; they’re just piss an’ wind.’ McGucken had been at Morgan’s side through all the torments of the Crimea, watching his officer develop from callow boy from the bogs of Cork into as fine a leader as any he’d served under. Muscovite shells, and endless nights together on windswept hillsides or in water-logged trenches had forged a friendship that would be hard to dent, yet there remained a respectful distance between them. ‘Let’s save our lead for the mutineers. We’ll push this lot aside with butts and the toe of our boots, if needs be.’

Morgan knew McGucken was right, and as the next boatload of men shuffled their way into disciplined ranks, he reached down the ladder towards his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Hume. He was another old Crimea hand whose promotion and Companion of the Bath had come on the back of the efforts of some of the boys who now jostled in front of him in the heat of the Indian sun.

‘Right, Morgan, as soon as your men are ready, let’s get moving to the fort. The other companies will follow as soon as they’re ashore, but gather these sailors in as we go. They may be useful.’ Hume stood no more than five-foot seven and wore his hair and whiskers long. At thirty-eight, he was young to be in command of an infantry battalion.

Morgan looked quizzically towards the angry crowd.

‘Come on, we’ve got the Honourable East India Company to save. Then you’ll be wanting your dinner, won’t you, Corporal Pegg?’ chaffed Hume.

‘Nice quart o’ beer would suit me, sir,’ replied the chubby corporal. Pegg was twenty, a veteran who had been with the Grenadier Company for his entire service, first as a drummer and now with a chevron on his sleeve.

The piece of sang-froid worked. It was as if the crowd simply wasn’t there. Morgan had seen Hume do this before – he would defuse a crisis with a banality, speaking with an easy confidence that was infectious. Now all uncertainty vanished from the men and at McGucken’s word of command, the ninety-strong scarlet phalanx strode down the jetty and fanned out into column of platoons as they reached the road. As the dust rose from their boots, the crowd melted away in front of them, the cat-calling and jeers dying in the Indians’ throats as the muscle of a battle-ready company of British troops bore down upon them.

‘Morgan, this fellow, Jameson, here, knows the town and the way to the fort.’ Hume had grabbed one of the sailors who, along with the rest of his and two other civilian crews, had been the only armed and disciplined force available to help the slender British garrison of Bombay when the talk of mutiny had started.

‘I do, sir. Commanding officer of the Tenth is waiting for you there.’ Jameson had seen Colonel Brewill of the 10th Bombay Native Infantry just a couple of hours before, when he was sent to guide the new arrivals over the mile and a half from the docks up to the fort. ‘Mr Forgett as well, sir.’

‘Who’s he, Jameson?’ asked Hume.

‘Oh, sorry, sir, he’s the chief o’ police. Rare plucked, he is. Been scuttling about dressed like a native ever since we got ’ere, ’e as, spyin’ on the Pandies at their meetings an’ their secret oath ceremonies.’ The squat sailor’s eyes shone out of his tanned, bearded face. ‘Things was fairly calm till yesterday when he arrested three of the rogues, ’e did, an’ took ’em off to the fort. Then the crowds came out an’ the whole town’s got dead ugly.’

The company tramped on towards the fort, red dust rising in a cloud behind them, their rifles sloped on their right shoulders, left arms swinging across their bodies in an easy rhythm. They were an impressive sight. The Grenadier Company still had the biggest men of the Regiment in their ranks, and at least a third of them had seen fierce fighting before. At the very sight of such men even the parrots fled squawking on green and yellow wings from the thick brush that lined the road into the centre of Bombay.

‘Bugger off, you mangy get.’ Only a pye-dog with a patchy coat had chosen to stay and investigate the marching column, but with a shriek, and its tail curled tightly over its balls, the cur ran off towards a drainage ditch as the toe of Lance-Corporal Pegg’s boot met its rump.

‘Fuckin’ ’orrible, sir. Did you see all them sores on its back?’ Pegg was adept at casual violence, particularly when the recipient posed little threat to himself.

‘I did, Corporal Pegg, but I should save your energies for the mutineers, if I were you.’ Reluctantly, Morgan had grown to value Pegg, for whilst the young non-commissioned officer lacked initiative, he was always to hand in a crisis.

‘’Ave this lot of sepoys gone rotten then, sir, like that lot up by Delhi?’

On board ship news had been scarce. The first mutinies in the Bengal Presidency in Meerut, Delhi, Cawnpore and Lucknow had started in May, rumours of terrible battles and massacres filtering down to the British. Now, a month later, no one was sure whether the native troops across Madras and especially the three sepoy battalions here in Bombay were fully trustworthy or not. So news that the Polmaise had been diverted from her journey to the Cape, with half a battalion of experienced British troops aboard, had been extremely welcome.

‘I don’t know, Corporal Pegg, but we shall find out soon enough, if we can get past those things,’ replied Morgan, as the company approached the arched timber doors of the City Fort, where four camels and their loads of hay were jammed tightly together.

‘Com…paneee, halt!’ McGucken brought the men to a stamping stop that sent two great brown and black scavengers squawking out of the nearby peepul trees. ‘It’ll take a while to get this lot clear, sir.’ There was no sign that the camel drivers, despite liberal application of their sticks, were clearing the snorting creatures from the gateway. ‘Think this is deliberate, sir?’

‘What, to stop us getting into the fort, Colour-Sar’nt?’ The idea hadn’t occurred to Morgan, who had been too busy watching the strange swaying animals to think of any subterfuge.

Now he looked up above the gate to the crenellated sentry points where two sepoys gazed down at the new arrivals. Both had their rifles pointing over the walls over the heads of the British.

McGucken had noticed them as well. ‘Don’t like the look of that pair either, sir. Shall we load?’

But before Morgan could make a decision, pushing low beneath the bellies of the camels came a young Englishman in scarlet shell jacket and the white trousers, which instantly marked him out as an officer of one of the Bombay regiments. His shoulders brushed the camels’ underbellies, and as he straightened up he subjected the drivers to a stream of what sounded to the 95th, at least, as remarkably fluent Hindi. His comments were met with redoubled efforts with stick and slaps, followed by renewed complaints from the animals.

‘Where’s your company commander, you?’ the officer asked the nearest soldier. Unfortunately for him, it was Corporal Pegg, who studiously ignored him, preferring to stand at the regulation position of ‘at ease’, weapon tucked comfortably at his shoulder, left foot forward, hands clasped over his belly.

‘You, are you deaf? Where’s your company commander?’ the Bombay officer repeated in a impatient growl.

‘Oh, sorry, sir.’ Pegg suddenly came to life, his left thumb casually stroking the pair of Crimea medals on his chest. ‘Thought you must have been talking to some native. My name’s not “you”. I’m Corporal Pegg of Her Majesty’s Ninety-Fifth. Captain Morgan’s yonder, sir, with Colonel Hume…’ Pegg pointed over his shoulder to where both officers stood, before adding, very quietly, ‘…you cunt.’

With a sidelong glance the young officer passed down the ranks, before seeing Morgan and Hume and stamping to attention, his hand flying to the peak of his white-covered cap.

‘Sir, I’m Lieutenant Forbes McGowan, adjutant, Tenth Bombay Native Infantry. My commanding officer, Commandant Brewill, has asked me to bring you into the fort, but to keep the men outside.’

‘If that’s what your colonel wants, McGowan, of course I will.’ Hume immediately took charge, ‘But would it not be better to get my boys within the fort?’

‘The commandant doesn’t want anything too unusual at the moment, sir. Things are pretty tense, what with the arrests last night; the slightest little thing might set the sepoys off.’ As if to illustrate the young officer’s fears, a ripple of sharp cracks sounded from within the fort. The sentries on the walls whirled round, eyes wide with alarm, rifles brought to the aim in an instant. The British troops, too, started and tensed at the noise.

‘It’s all right, sir. It’s just the bloody workmen that are stripping planks off the old barrack roofs and chucking them to the ground. But you see what I mean…everyone’s as tight as whips at the moment. Can you just get your men to wait here, sir, brew tea or anything that looks normal? Please don’t do anything that might unsettle our people further; just act as if everything’s harmony and bloody light, please, sir.’

Leaving the men under McGucken’s charge, Hume and Morgan followed McGowan back under the bellies of the still wedged camels, just as one let go a great stream of steaming, yellow liquid, much to the delight of the waiting men,

‘Better to be pissed off than pissed on, ain’t it, sir?’ yelled Corporal Pegg as the officers crouched and scrambled into the fort’s interior.

Inside the high stone walls, the sun beat down on a deserted parade ground of packed, dusty soil. At the far side, some two hundred paces away, were two flagpoles, one naked whilst at the head of the other, motionless, hung the colours of the Honourable East India Company. Just beyond, were the main buildings of the fort, white-washed offices on two storeys set behind porched verandas. Two sentries mechanically paced their beats, slowly marching towards each other before facing about, perfectly in time, and strutting back to their grey-painted, wooden watch-boxes.

As the three officers approached, the sepoys halted and faced their fronts before bringing their rifles to a smart present.

‘They look trim enough, McGowan,’ Colonel Hume said quietly as he, as senior officer, returned their salute. ‘Why d’you think they might be wobbly?’

Certainly, there was nothing in the men’s bearing that suggested unrest. Both were clean and smart in white trousers and cross-belts over old-fashioned scarlet, swallow-tailed coatees. Their peakless shakos and sandals looked odd to the Western military eye, but the new Enfield rifles were well oiled, their fixed bayonets glittered in the sun, and both men – smaller than their typical British counterparts – looked alert and intelligent.

‘Aye, sir, they probably are…’ McGowan broke off, telling the sentries to order arms, ‘…the problem seems to be just amongst a few hotheads, but I’ll let Commandant Brewill tell you everything before the court martial starts.’

‘No, it’s not been like that here in Bombay.’ Colonel Brewill, commanding officer of the 10th, had been defensive with Hume and Morgan from the moment they had been ushered into his office.

On the upper floor of the fort, the room was spacious enough, though darkened by the slatted blinds at the windows, shut against the midday sun. Above their heads a four-by three-foot rush screen, or punkah, swung on hinges, flapping gently backwards and forwards on a string pulled by a boy who crouched on the veranda outside.

‘Our men are very different from those up in Bengal. I’ve always said that you mustn’t keep all your high-caste men together in one company or battalion. The Bengal officers have always had a wholly misplaced conceit – in my eyes at least – in the fact that all their people come from the higher castes and classes. That’s all very well, but some of those buggers are touchy as hell. Why, I’m told that some of the Brahmins regard their food as being defiled if one of us walks past and lets his shadow fall upon it whilst it’s being prepared. No, we recruit from across all castes, and whilst our fellows might not be as big and well set up as those northerners, they’re the better soldiers for it,’ Brewill continued.

‘Ain’t you got any high-caste men in your regiment, then, Brewill?’ Hume asked, genuinely trying to grasp the size of the problem.

‘Yes, but not as many as the Bengal regiments tend to have, and there’s always been a tradition of slackness and mollycoddling of the jawans up there that would never be tolerated in this Presidency,’ Brewill replied sniffily.

Despite a lack of solid news during the voyage, Hume had done his best to explain to the officers the situation that they were likely to face when dealing with the mutiny. They were fully aware that there were three Presidencies, through which ‘John’ Company ruled and administered British India. So far, the outbreak of trouble had been confined to only one of them – Bengal.

‘At the same time that the first mutinies started last month, we issued the latest Enfields and I expected drama when the troops had to draw new cartridges. The rumour in Bengal was that they were greased with pork or beef fat – both degrading to Musselmen and Hindus when the paper cartridge is torn open with the teeth – in a deliberate attempt to break the men’s caste before forcing them to adopt Christianity. That shave spread like wildfire with mysterious bloody chapattis being hawked around the place as some sort of mystical sign that British rule would come to an end one hundred years after it started.

‘The dates were right – it was the anniversary of Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757, but the rest was complete balls, of course, but in the light of all the trouble, we allowed our men to wax their own rounds with whatever they chose, and there were no difficulties. Then, a couple of weeks ago we got orders to start warlike preparations for operations against the mutineers around Delhi, and that’s when the boys got a bit moody. It was one thing for the men to be outraged by the news of the fighting, but quite another to be told that they were going to have to fight against their own people, no matter what their caste or background.’ Brewill was doing his best to present his own regiment’s conduct in the most benign light.

‘But we’ll need every armed and disciplined man in India, won’t we, sir, if we’re going to crush the mutinies?’ Morgan asked. He was trying to keep up with Brewill’s account, but was struggling to understand the niceties of caste and religion, of what was taboo and what was not. He thought they had difficulties with some of the papists in his own regiment, but clearly it was nothing compared to this. ‘So are all the native regiments here in Bombay suspect, sir?’

‘Well, the Tenth seem sound enough, but we’re less sure about the Marine battalion, and the Sappers and Miners…’ Brewill obviously hated to malign his command, but he knew friends of his and their families who had been murdered and hurt by their own men, apparently loyal and trusted sepoys alongside whom they had fought and campaigned for many years. Reluctantly he recognised that the same could happen in Bombay.

‘…but let Forgett here explain in more detail.’

A short, slight, sun-browned man in his early thirties, wearing dun native pyjamas had come quietly into the room. His black hair was slicked back, his moustache and beard worn a little too long in the native fashion, whilst around his waist was a broad, leather belt with a tulwar on his left hip and an Adams revolver clipped on his right. His bright, intelligent eyes flicked across all of them.

‘Gentlemen, allow me…I’m Forgett, thanadar of Bombay police. I’ve a little over three hundred native constables and sergeants at my hand, but they’re as good as useless whilst there’s unrest amongst the troops – they’re mostly low caste and in thrall to the sepoys.’ Forgett looked at Hume and Morgan to see if they were taking in what he was telling them. ‘But what they are good at is tittle-tattle. They let me know that a series of badmashes, from way up country around Cawnpore, were at work amongst our troops and by dint of good intelligence—’

‘What he means by that, gentlemen, is some of the most valorous work I’ve ever seen,’ Brewill cut in. ‘He disguised himself so that I would have taken him for a bishti an’ went poking around amongst the bloody Pandies—’

‘Forgive my ignorance, sir, but who or what is a Pandy?’ Morgan asked. ‘Everyone uses it about the mutineers, but no one can explain it.’

‘Oh, Sepoy Mangal Pandy of the 34th led the first uprising in Barrackpore in May; he was hanged in short order, but he’s become a hero to the mutineers, and they go into action yelling his name, I’m told.’ Forgett took up where he’d left off: ‘Anyway, we got to hear that our troops would reject the new cartridges the day after tomorrow when the first drafts are due to march from Bombay for Delhi, and refuse to serve against their “brothers” in Bengal.’

‘Aye, you could cut the atmosphere here with a rusty razor for the past couple of weeks,’ Brewill continued. ‘The men seemed detached enough from the mayhem of the last months in Bengal, but when we were told to prepare for operations, the lads got sulky. We knew you were on your way, but Forgett had to act yesterday and arrest the three ringleaders before you got here. Since then we’ve had mobs out on the streets, and if it hadn’t been for the merchant sailors, I suspect that there might have been outrages committed against some of the European wives and families already.’

‘How many Europeans are there here, Brewill?’ asked Hume.

‘There’s about three hundred women, nippers and some Eurasians in the cantonment below the fort; couple o’ hundred sailors, and Bolton’s troop of Bombay Horse Artillery – we’ll use them for the executions after the court martial.’

Hume and Morgan exchanged glances.

‘Yes, Hume, I know it’s a nasty business, but I’ll have to ask you to try the scum that we’ve caught and also to oversee the executions. Queen’s Regulations specify that trials and punishment should, as far as possible, be carried out by officers and men from other corps, as you know. The gunners will blow the rascals from the muzzles of their guns, but I shall have to ask your men to be ready to open fire, along with Bolton’s guns, if any of our men get ticklish.’

Both 95th officers were more than familiar with this grisly but traditional method of execution for disaffected, native troops. It had been used since Clive’s time a century before, borrowed from the Indians themselves by the British as a way of further defiling the victim in death.

‘Again, sir, please don’t think I’m trying to interfere, but if you’re preparing execution parties already, doesn’t that suggest that a decision on the men’s guilt has been arrived at even before they’ve stood trial?’ Morgan knew he was speaking for Hume.

Caustic smiles spread over the faces of Colonel Brewill and the policeman. ‘Fine words, young Morgan, but you’ve no idea what those brutes have done around Lucknow.’ So far, Brewill had been measured. Now his voice sank to a flat whisper. ‘Don’t you know what they did to General Handscome and half the European and Eurasian civilians up there, or their depravity in Bareilly? Why, Commandant Peters of the Third Light Cavalry had to watch whilst his wife and children were butchered in front of him before they roasted him to death over a fire – his own men, mark you. No, there’s no place for mercy here.’

‘Or justice, sir?’ Morgan couldn’t stop himself.

‘Justice, goddamn you?’ Brewill’s voice rose as all attempts to control himself disappeared. ‘What fucking justice did those poor souls get from the animals in Delhi last month? Have you read Mrs Aldwell’s account – how twenty or more European ladies and children were roped together like beasts of the field and then chopped to pieces by servants they thought they could trust? Don’t come the nob with me just because you chased a few Muscovites around the Crimea. No, heed my words: unless we show our people just who’s in charge, we’ll have the same problems here, and if you think that you can do without the help of the Bombay regiments to put those whoresons in Bengal back in their place then you’re very much mistaken. The only answer is to give them a sharp lesson, and if that means getting blood on your lilywhite Queen’s commission hands, then you’d best get used to it!’

The room was suddenly silent. The punkah squeaked and an insect chirruped from the rafters whilst Hume, Forgett and Morgan looked at Brewill in shocked embarrassment.

‘Right, Morgan, Mr Forgett, leave us, please.’ Hume spoke quietly, soothingly, as Brewill mopped at his great red face with a silk square. ‘Wait outside, please. I will issue orders once the commandant and I have decided how to proceed.’

Morgan stood on the veranda with Forgett outside the commandant’s office, the two colonels’ voices just audible within.

‘Dear God, Forgett, I didn’t mean to twist Colonel Brewill’s tail like that.’ Morgan ducked his head to accept the light for the cheroot that the policeman had given him, before blowing a cloud of blue smoke up into the air, outlining the dozen hawk buzzards that wheeled on the thermals above the barracks, waiting to swoop on any carrion.

‘Indeed, Morgan, but you did.’ Forgett paused and picked a piece of loose tobacco off his tongue. ‘You must understand that the unthinkable has happened here. There have been mutinies and trouble from time to time – you’ll have heard tell of the affair at Vellore in the year Six, and General Paget’s execution of a hundred lads from the Forty-Seventh back in Twenty-Four…’

Morgan was loosely aware of troubles in the past in India, but tribulations in John Company’s forces hardly caused a ripple in the ordered world of British garrison life and he had never bothered to learn the details.

‘…but nothing on this scale. Our whole lives have been turned upside down, even here in Bombay where, DV, nothing will happen – so long as we act quickly.’

Morgan thought back to all those discussion that he had had at home, Glassdrumman in County Cork. Finn, the family groom, had ridden knee to knee with Indian cavalry regiments against the Sikhs, whilst Dick Kemp, his father’s best friend, had not only led sepoys in war, he was even now in command of the 12th Bengal Native Infantry up in Jhansi. Morgan remembered the fondness and respect that both men had shown for the Bengali soldiers and how Kemp’s life was interwoven with the whole subcontinent, its culture and mystique. Now he had no idea if the great burly, cheerful man’s regiment had turned or not; whether Kemp was even alive.

‘And you’ve got to remember what sort of people we are, what sort of backgrounds we come from.’ Morgan shifted uncomfortably, recognising Forgett as one of those people who didn’t shy away from saying the unsayable, and made to interrupt. ‘No, hear me; most of us don’t come from money like most of you. Why, I wanted a commission in a sepoy regiment – it would have cost a fraction of what your people have to fork out – but still my family couldn’t afford it. So, I came into the police service; this post’s cost me not a penny and I have to live off my pay. My poor wife – when we met and she agreed to marry me, she thought that her life would just be England transposed, a dusty version of Knaresborough and how difficult she found the first couple of years – didn’t I catch it! Anyway, once the children began to arrive she took to it more and, I think it’s fair to say, we’ve made a go of it in our modest way. Now all that’s in peril, any chance to live like a gentleman and bring my children up respectably may just go up in smoke, so please be careful how you treat the things we hold dear.’

Morgan thought of Glassdrumman and its acres. His family were certainly not especially rich, nor well connected, but they lived in a different sphere from those who would be referred to, he supposed, as the ‘ordinary’ classes. It made him ponder Brewill’s earlier comments.

‘But tell me, Forgett, how does this caste business really work? It seems mighty tricky for soldiers who are expected to act under one form of discipline to have another, unspoken, code that they’ve got to obey.’ Morgan suspected that Forgett’s explanation would be rather more incisive than Brewill’s earlier one.

The policeman gave a short laugh. ‘Tricky…yes, that’s an understatement. You’ll mainly come across Hindus serving with the Bengal Army up north where you’re going, but don’t be surprised when you meet Musselmen and Sikhs. You won’t be able to tell the difference, but the Hindu troops will treat them as untouchables – Mleccha – just as they regard us so, despite our rank or influence.’

‘But you’re talking just about classes, aren’t you? What about this caste business?’ asked Morgan.

‘There are four classes in Hinduism…’ Forgett paused before continuing, ‘…they are a fundamental part of the religion, and grafted on top of them are a terribly complicated series of castes, or jati. The caste is based on a mixture of where a man comes from, his race and occupation, and is governed by local committees of elders. No good Hindu wants to offend them or be chucked out for mixing with those of a lower class or generally breaking the rules. That might result not just in his being expelled from his caste – his place in society – but also losing his peg in the cosmic order of things – his class.

‘Whilst all this might sound like mumbo jumbo to us, try to explain our social classes, or the difference between Methodism and Baptism to a native. And the whole damn thing has got to be made to work alongside the needs of the army or the police – as you rightly observe, Morgan. It’s not too bad down here in Bombay where the people are much more mixed, but in the Bengal Presidency, where most of the sepoys are of the higher classes cack-handed attempts to introduce the men to Christianity, or new regulations that troublemakers can interpret as attempts to defile the caste of a man, have been at the heart of the trouble. So, we may struggle with the differences in what sort of commission we hold or whether we’re Eton or Winchester types, but out here there’s a whole bucketload of further complications,’ said Forgett with a slight smile.

Morgan was prevented from seeking further knowledge by the door of the office opening with a bang. Hume sauntered out onto the veranda, his eyes narrowed against the glare.

‘Ah, cheroots, what a grand idea.’

Morgan had seen this act from Hume before – and each time it worked like a charm. As Forgett offered his leather case to Hume, then lit the cigar he’d chosen, Morgan remembered just such coolness as the bullets sang around Hume at the Alma and the splinters hummed at Inkermann. Whilst Brewill fussed over documents at the desk inside the office, Hume gave his orders.

‘Right, Morgan, be so kind as to send me an escort of a sergeant and ten. They’ll bring any sepoys whom I find guilty and condemn down to the Azad maidan, where the three Bombay regiments are, apparently, already.’ Hume took a long pull on his cheroot. ‘By now the other three companies of ours should be waiting outside the fort where we left your lot, and the troop of Horse Gunners should be there as well.’

Morgan looked from the raised veranda towards the gate of the fort. The camels had now been cleared and knelt in an untidy row whilst the fodder was unloaded from their backs. He thought he could just see movement and hear the noise of horses outside the gates.

‘I want you to take command of the other companies until I get to you. Yes, I know,’ Hume waved Morgan’s embarrassment aside before he could even utter his objection. ‘Captain Carmichael will just have to take orders from a brevet major until I’m available.’

Richard Carmichael was the senior captain in the Regiment, but he would have to bow to Morgan’s brevet rank and the imprimatur of the commanding officer.

‘The gunners will know what to do with any prisoners that have been condemned, but I’m much more worried about the native battalions. You’ll be guided down to the maidan by one of Brewill’s officers where you should find the Tenth, the Marines and the Sappers waiting for you – about eighteen hundred native troops all told. They’ll be carrying their weapons, but they’ve got no ammunition, so confidence and bottom will be everything. Make a judgement and load the guns with canister, and our men with ball if the sepoys look ugly, but whilst you have my complete authority to open fire if necessary, do be aware that it will be the sign not only for the sepoys to rise up – those that live – but also the mob that Brewill tells me are already gathering.’

Morgan looked into Hume’s cool, blue eyes. He’d had plenty of responsibility thrust onto his young shoulders before and it was said by many that, had he been in a more fashionable regiment, his achievements before Sevastopol would have been recognised with a Companion of the Bath or, failing that, one of the new Victoria Crosses, rather than a brevet, but this was a different sort of problem. Now he would be heavily outnumbered in a situation that he had barely grasped, where a misjudgement would be catastrophic. Barely four hundred British infantry and gunners would have to cow several thousand angry Indians and, if they failed, the mutiny would almost certainly spread right across the Bombay Presidency.

‘What in God’s name is going on, Morgan?’ As Morgan emerged from the now clear gate of the fort, he was hailed by Richard Carmichael, commander of Number One Company.

As usual, Carmichael was perfectly turned out. He’d been the very definition of irritation on the voyage out from Kingstown with an inflatable mattress, waxed-cotton waterproofs and all manner of gutta-percha luggage and opinions to match. Now he stood before Morgan in his scarlet shell jacket and snowy cap, pulling gently at a slim cigar whilst his company and the other two of this wing of the 95th trooped up to join Morgan’s own men.

‘What are the commanding officer’s orders; what does he want me to do?’

There was almost six foot of the dapper Harrovian, and whilst he wore the Crimea medals with aplomb, there wasn’t a man present who hadn’t heard the rumours of his ducking from the fight at Inkermann. ‘I’ll tell you as soon as the other companies are complete, Carmichael,’ Morgan replied as calmly as possible. ‘Bugler, blow “company commanders”, please.’

This was going to be difficult, thought Morgan. That prig Carmichael was senior to him by a long chalk; indeed, he’d served under him for three months in the Crimea until he was wounded – and he’d hated every minute of it. But his brevet rank of major now meant that he was the senior captain present in the field and, especially as Colonel Hume had given him his authority, he would take command of the four companies present – and Carmichael could go hang.

Now the bugle notes floated over the hot midday air, signalling the other captains commanding companies to gather together to receive orders. Carmichael’s company had arrived at the head of the marching dusty, sweating column, but as the bugle brayed its command, so Captains Bazalgette and Massey came trotting past their men, swords and haversacks bouncing, to be told what to do.

‘So, Morgan, tell me exactly what Hume wants, if you please, so that I can tell the other two.’ Carmichael stared hard at Morgan, who made no reply. ‘Come on, man. We’ve just passed three battalions of natives, who seem to be heading off to some parade yonder.’ Carmichael flicked a well-manicured hand towards the maidan, half a mile down a gentle slope below the fort. ‘This could turn damned sticky, so don’t waste time.’

When Carmichael wasn’t physically present, Morgan was fine. He knew how badly he’d behaved in the Crimea, how the men hated him and the other officers resented his arrogance and snobbery, yet in the flesh his supreme confidence and belief in his own rectitude was hard to overcome.

‘No…’ Morgan had to clear his throat, ‘…no, Carmichael, the commanding officer has asked me to take command whilst he’s conducting a court martial in the fort. I’ll just wait until Bazalgette and Massey join us.’

Carmichael was about to object when Colour-Sergeant McGucken came striding up to join them. With a stamp that raised a puff of dust, the Scot banged his boots together and slapped the sling of his rifle in a salute straight from the drill manual.

‘Well, sir, grand to see you.’ The irony in McGucken’s voice was hardly noticeable. He’d been Carmichael’s Colour-Sergeant until he was wounded at Inkermann – not that the cowardly bastard had dared to come to help him amongst the death, screams and yells that still haunted McGucken’s dreams. ‘Quite like old times, ain’t it, sir?’ With a hawk, the Glaswegian sent a green oyster of phlegm spinning into the dust.

‘You’ll be wanting the other companies to move off straight away, will you, sir?’ McGucken had read the situation perfectly. He wasn’t going to let the wretched Carmichael, senior captain or not, ruin his company commander’s chance to command a whole wing, particularly when it looked as though there was a sniff of trouble in the wind. ‘I’ll keep ’em in the same order of march, sir, whilst you brief the officers, with your leave. Is there time to loosen belts and light a pipe, sir?’ McGucken’s steady stream of common sense overwhelmed Carmichael.

‘Yes, Colour-Sar’nt, same order of march, but I’ll be no time at all with the captains, so just stand them easy, please,’ Morgan said, making no room for argument from Carmichael. ‘Then send a sergeant and ten up to the commanding officer in the fort. They’ll be used to escort any prisoners down to the execution site.’

‘Sir, I’ll send Sar’nt Ormond with Corporal Pegg an’ a peck o’ lads.’ Then, with a bellowed, ‘Colour-Sar’nts on me,’ McGucken took charge of the other companies whilst the three captains formed a knot round Morgan.

‘Gentlemen, Colonel Hume has asked me to move the wing down to the maidan for a slightly unpleasant task.’ Morgan kept his voice deliberately low so that the other captains had to give him every bit of their attention.

Commanding Number Three Company, Captain the Honourable Edward Massey, with a recently bought captaincy in the 95th from the 7th Fusiliers, had kept a friendly, if slightly aloof distance from his brother officers since he’d joined six months before. Bazalgette, commanding Number Two, was as different as possible – adored by his men and a great favourite in the mess. Below a thatch of hair his coarse features were split by a grin that was as open as a book; not even his sun-peeled nose, which stuck blotchily out from beneath the peak of his white-covered cap, could spoil the obvious pleasure that he had in being there amongst friends. Typically, he’d let his company smoke on the march up from the docks and now, out of respect for Morgan’s temporary authority, he held his own pipe discreetly out of sight behind his back.

As he pulled the bit of clay from his mouth, Morgan noticed the claw that held it. Two canister shot had passed through that hand as Bazalgette led the advance on the bullet-swept slopes of the Alma almost three years ago; now it was permanently clenched into a pink, scaly comma that Bazalgette never bothered to hide.

‘You saw the three native battalions on the march, I gather. They’re armed but have no ammunition, just in case they decide to turn on us. Three men, one from each battalion, are currently being court-martialled by the colonel for attempted mutiny and it seems likely that some or all of them will be condemned to death.’ Morgan looked at the three faces that were gathered around him; he had their complete attention.

‘A troop of Bombay gunners should meet us at the Azad maidan. I’m sending an escort to the commanding officer to bring anyone that he condemns down to the execution site, and we’ll then have to blow the poor wretches from the muzzles of the guns whilst their comrades watch.’ Morgan looked at his brother officers. All of them had seen death before, but never an execution.

‘It’s crucial that we don’t give an inch in front of these people. Any hesitation, any sign of uncertainty, could be enough for them to rise, so we’ll put one gun between each of the companies, let the gunners load and allow the sepoys to chew on that for a while. Then, as the prisoners are tied to the muzzles by the gunners, I’ll give the order for us to load…’ Morgan paused to let this instruction sink in, ‘…and I want that good and clean, no dropping of cartridges or ramrods. Then, at my word, the front rank will kneel. Any sign of unrest and we’ll volley into the lot of ’em, but that will only happen on my or the commanding officer’s order, is that clear?’ Morgan looked hard and deliberately into Carmichael’s eyes.

‘Yes, sir,’ Bazalgette and Massey replied formally, whilst Carmichael just nodded.

Morgan produced his watch from the breast of his shell jacket. ‘We’ll march at five-and-twenty past, at attention. No smoking, if you please. Any questions? None…right, carry on.’

Only Carmichael failed to acknowledge Morgan’s new authority with a salute. He turned stiffly away from the group, striding off to his own command as quickly as he could, his whole beautifully tailored frame stiff with indignation, little puffs of dust spurting up from his boots where his angry heels met the ground.

Belts were settled, haversacks pulled down on the men’s sweat-damp thighs and water bottles hung carefully in a vain attempt to cool the small of the back before rifles were sloped over the right shoulder and the whole wing, at Morgan’s word, turned to the right and swung off down the gently sloping packed-earth road towards their unwelcome task.

‘Goin’ to blow some poor bastards to kingdom come, ain’t they, Clem?’ Private Peter Sharrock, twenty-one and at five-foot nine an average height in the Grenadier Company, was the product of a Peterborough slum. Bored with milling powder for the Crimea, he’d enlisted, but too late for any fighting.

Next to him marched Private Clem James, an old man at twenty-five, no stranger to hard knocks. ‘No, Peter, that’s the ’ole bleedin’ point.’ There was an almost theatrical impatience in James’s voice. ‘There’ll be no kingdom come for this lot if we blow ’em to bits. Buggers up their caste system, ’avin’ to ’ave all the little bits picked up by the sweepers – an’ they’re the lowest of the low – an’ means that they’ll never go to their ’eathen ’eaven. Punishes ’em twice, it does, first by killin’ them, then by condemnin’ ’em to eternal damnation or some such…’

‘Sharrock, James: shut yer grids!’ McGucken’s bellow silenced both men instantly. ‘Report to me for water detail once we stand down.’ Each night parties would be formed to find and collect water, a back-breaking task.

The column tramped on with the sun beating on their backs. Morgan had been aware of a steady trickle of people loping down the road beside them, mainly men young and old, but a handful of women as well. As they came round a slight bend that was screened by low trees, he heard the same, discordant hum that had greeted them when their boats first touched Bombay’s quay. This time, though, it was lower, more of a subdued growl than the pulsating shriek that he’d heard before.

About a quarter of a mile away, where the ground flattened out into a great featureless parched meadow, a multicoloured slab of humanity eddied and wobbled, hemmed in by a deep drainage ditch on one side and the road on the other. Opposite the crowd stood three long blocks of scarlet and white – the sepoy regiments waiting in the heat for whatever fate their British masters would hand down.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Colour-Sar’nt, how many people d’you reckon are in that crowd?’ Morgan knew that the sepoys would outnumber them, but he had not expected a crowd of this size.

‘Ye sound like a bloody papist sometimes, you do, sir.’ McGucken always mocked his officer when he used one of the Catholic men’s expressions. ‘Dunno, but let’s have a look.’ Now he sectioned the crowd off into eight imaginary blocks, just as he had been taught to do as a recruit and, as they drew nearer, tried to count the bare heads and turbans in one of them. ‘’Bout three-thousand, I’d say, what d’yous think, sir?’

‘Yes, that’s about right.’ Morgan tried not to let his concern show, but three sepoy battalions was quite enough for less than four hundred men of the 95th to deal with, let alone thousands of angry natives. What should he do? The colonel had told him that confidence was everything, but they would be swallowed up in an instant if the crowd turned. Should he halt and wait for orders? He found his pace getting involuntarily shorter and his bottom tightening with fear and indecision – but he was spared. Above the rhythmic thump of his men’s boots came the clatter of hoofs and wheels.

‘Not before time, sir…’ McGucken caught sight of the troop of horse gunners before Morgan could see them above their own, scarlet phalanx, ‘…just like when the guns came up at Balaklava, sir, d’ye ken?’

Morgan did, indeed, ken. He remembered how nine-pounders like these had hammered at the Russian cavalry in that grape-laden valley three years before. Now the covered brass helmets and ruddy faces of the Bombay Horse Artillery bobbed above their cantering animals, the 95th biting off a ragged cheer as the horses, limbers and guns enveloped them in dust as they swept by.

‘Troop, halt!’ Three horses led the way: Bolton, the captain commanding, his troop staff-sergeant, and the trumpeter, who now repeated his officer’s order with a series of brazen notes. As the guns pulled up behind him, Bolton trotted forward to the still marching Morgan and McGucken.

‘Who’s in charge here?’ Bolton was thirty-five, short, chubby and clean shaven. Unlike his men, he wore a light, cork solar-topee to protect his head from the sun, but it appeared to have done little for his temper. Before either could answer Bolton repeated, ‘I said, who’s in charge here?’

‘Major Morgan of HM Ninety-Fifth, sir,’ McGucken snapped a salute whilst invoking Morgan’s brevet, before muttering, ‘Why are these damned nabobs always in such a pother, Sir?’

‘Dunno, Colour-Sar’nt; don’t suppose they’ve seen much action before.’ Morgan’s answer belied the relief he felt at the sight of the guns.

As Bolton dismounted, both officer and colour-sergeant searched his chest for medals – but there was none.

‘Good day…sir.’ There was a slight question in Bolton’s voice for on Morgan’s collar there were only the star and crown of a captain. ‘Colonel Brewill has asked me to execute some rogue sepoys of his whilst you kindly protect my troop. Is that what you understand?’

As the column of 95th continued to swing by, the trio stood in the shade of a leafy tree inhabited by a knot of silent monkeys, which looked quizzically down at them. Seeing that a conference was taking place, Captain Carmichael detached himself from the head of his company and strolled over towards them.

‘Something wrong, sir?’ asked McGucken breezily, turning and placing himself carefully between Carmichael and the other two officers.

‘No, Colour-Sar’nt, but I assumed that Captain Morgan would need to speak to me.’ Carmichael was thoroughly out of sorts and McGucken’s reply only added to his agitation.

‘Aye, sir, I’m sure he will in his own good time. Please listen for the bugle, sir.’

Seething, Carmichael turned away quickly whilst Bolton and Morgan completed their plans.

‘So, swing one gun between each of my companies, please, then I’ll halt the whole column in front of the crowd and opposite the sepoys yonder…’ Morgan looked towards the nearer flank of the 10th BNI, now only a few hundred paces away, ‘…and load with charges only. Have a canister round very obviously to hand by each of your six barrels, please, then make ready any guns that are spare when we know how many executions are to take place. Meanwhile, my men will load and take aim; if there’s trouble, prime as fast as you can, but fire only on my orders. I’ll leave all the execution side to you; I imagine that you’ve done it before?’

‘Well, no…actually this is the first time I’ve done anything like this.’ All Bolton’s initial bluster had gone. He’d taken a good look at the two infantrymen’s decorations and now he seemed glad to have someone else in charge.

‘Aye, sir, well dinna fret, there’s a first time for all of us, but the Old Nails’ll look after ye.’ McGucken used the nickname given to the 95th in the Crimea and it was hard to imagine that there had ever been a first time for a man like this. His lean frame and combed whiskers burst with confidence, yet his words were sensitive and immediately reassuring.

With a cautious smile and a salute, Bolton turned back to give orders to his own men.

‘How does that work exactly, sir?’ McGucken asked Morgan. ‘Them gunners ain’t Queen’s troops, yet they’re mainly Europeans: how’s that?’

‘Well, John Company started to recruit some all-white regiments of its own after trouble with the sepoys years ago,’ Morgan explained. ‘All the artillery out in India is manned by European crews – and just at the moment I’m damn glad it is. I’m told they’re pretty sharp lads – not that it’s going to take any great skill to blow the lights out of some poor wretch strapped to the end of your barrel.’

The sepoys stood taut and erect as the 95th marched along the road in front of them. As the British troops approached, the crowd’s murmur had turned to heckles and catcalls, even a few sods had been thrown and some rotten fruit, but as the pacing red column had neither checked nor hesitated, so the crowd drew back. Now the mob fidgeted and swayed as the two bodies of troops scanned each other. As the sepoys stiffened and stood more rigidly, more fixedly than any line-drawing from the drill manual, so the arms and legs of the 95th swung more regularly, more perfectly than they had ever done on an English barrack yard.

‘Right Wing, Ninety-Fifth Regiment, halt!’ The non-commissioned officers were waiting for Morgan’s word of command; once it came it was passed down the sweating ranks, bringing the scarlet and white-belted lines to a dusty stop.

‘The wing will advance…’ Morgan paused whilst the ranks tensed, ‘…left face.’ The British troops pivoted, backs now to the crowd, and stared at the native regiments, no more than thirty yards away from them across the road.

Under Bolton’s words of command the guns wheeled into position between the slabs of infantry, the sparkling brass barrels being unhooked and thrown about to stare at the sepoys, bombardiers’ yells sending gunners scurrying to the ammunition limbers, ramrods whirling and thrusting as the charges were pushed home, the black, menacing muzzles silently challenging the native troops. The whole, slick process ended when by each gun a lance-bombardier stood hefting a linen bag of canister shot.

‘Wait a moment, sir, let the fuckers see what’s in store for ’em,’ McGucken growled quietly. ‘D’you want to untie ten now, sir?’

‘Yes, do that, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan knew that the sepoys were studying their every move, and as the men fiddled to take the string and greased paper from one little parcel of ten paper cartridges that sat in their pouches, he looked across at his targets.

The sepoys swayed slightly in the heat, the odd tongue quickly licking dry lips, fingers flexing nervously on the stocks of the rifles that they all held by their sides, expressions fixed but difficult to read under the sweeping, exaggerated moustaches that all the jawans wore. Morgan saw the native officers, swords drawn, standing just behind the trembling ranks. They were all older men, most grey-haired, some wearing campaign medals. The subadar-majors waited at the centre of each battalion’s line, where the colour-parties would normally have been with long strings of ‘joys’, the religious beads that looked, to the British at least, so odd around the neck of a uniform coatee. To their rear were a handful of white faces, the European officers.

‘Right y’are, sir, let ’em see we mean business.’ Quietly, McGucken guided Morgan.

‘Right Wing, Ninety-Fifth Regiment…’ Morgan’s mind flew back to the first time that he had spoken the order that he was about to give, ‘…with ball cartridge…load’, it had been at the Alma. Despite the heat, Morgan shivered.

Rifles were canted forward before each man reached to the black, leather pouch on the front of his belt and pulled out a single, paper tube. After a regulation pause, the tops were bitten off the cartridges before the powder was poured down the muzzle of every Enfield, then the steel ramrods were pulled from below the barrel of each weapon before the charge and lead bullet were rammed home. Another pause, then the rifles were lifted obliquely across the men’s bodies, left hands catching the stocks at the point of balance before each right hand thumbed back the steel hammers to half cock.

Right down the line the sergeants craned their heads, making sure that all the troops were ready for the fiddly operation of fitting their percussion caps. The sergeants nodded to McGucken, now standing at the centre of the four companies beside Morgan.

He quietly prompted, ‘Right, sir.’

‘Caps!’ Morgan’s word of command was repeated and four hundred right hands groped in the little leather pouches that sat just beside the brass buckles on their waist belts for the pea-sized, hollow copper percussion caps to fit over the nipples at each rifle’s breech. One or two men fluffed it, dropping the caps, the tense silence being broken with the customary sergeants’ cries of: ‘You wouldn’t drop it if it was wet and slippery, would you? Pick the fucker up!’ And the offenders, embarrassed at their own clumsiness, scrabbled in the dust.

Then again came sergeants’ nods and McGucken’s, ‘Right, sir,’ before Morgan’s command, ‘Front rank…kneel.’ Half the men pushed their right feet back and then sank to their knees, the rank behind bringing their rifles level with their waists, pointing over the heads of those in front.

‘Ready.’ At Morgan’s order, each hammer was clicked to full cock, making every weapon ready to fire.

‘Right Wing…targets front, preee…sent!’ Morgan’s final word of command from the centre of the line brought all the rifles into the aim. As damp white faces squinted down the Enfields’ sights at the bellies of the sepoys no more than a handful of paces away, a gasp and an involuntary flinch swept down the Indian ranks. The native troops blinked, hardly believing their eyes. They were only too aware of the devastation that a rifle volley would cause at that range; they’d been shown when the Enfields were issued to them that the bullet would scythe down not just one man, but any who stood packed closely behind him as well.

The crowd at the rear of the 95th had gone still and quiet, and Morgan believed that he could read the thoughts of the men in front of him. Their great brown eyes stared at his own men’s muzzles and it was if an unspoken belief in their innocence loomed over them. Morgan hoped he was right, for the time of reckoning was almost upon them.

‘Left, right, left, right…get ’ere, can’t you?’ A flat, Sheffield twang was clear on the hot air.

‘’Ere’s Sar’nt Ormond and the commanding officer, sir,’ said McGucken. ‘’Bout time, too.’

The detachment of the Grenadier Company had formed a hollow, marching square around the prisoners – Morgan couldn’t yet see how many – as they tramped down the slope towards the rest of the troops. Sergeant Ormond’s face was as expressionless now as it had been when he slashed Russians down at Sebastapol, thought Morgan, all stumpy, five-foot six of him, as dependable at issuing the bread ration as he would certainly prove to be at eviscerating Hindus.

The detachment had their bayonets fixed and just beyond the bobbing points came a gaggle of horsemen, the commanding officers of the native battalions, a cloud of adjutants, and Colonel Hume, who’d been lent a cob of dubious age and wind that hardly did him justice. It was difficult to see exactly what was going on in the centre of the square, but Morgan could hear shouts in what he guessed was Hindi and, quite distinctly, in best Wirksworth, ‘Coom on, yer barnshoot, keep up with the sergeant.’ Predictably, Corporal Pegg had landed the job of escorting the prisoners. As they came closer, Morgan could see Pegg’s stubby arm thrusting first one and then the other of the two leading prisoners hard in the small of the back. Each time the yellow cuff shot forward, so the sepoys staggered and shouted; each time they shouted, so the piston-like wrist administered another shove.

‘Stow all that bollocks, you two; you can try to persuade Joe Gunner not to jerk ’is lanyard, if you like, but you’re wastin’ yer breath.’ Pegg was as sympathetic as Morgan had come to expect. ‘Stop draggin’ them chains in the dust, won’t you?’

Morgan and McGucken marched forward to meet Hume and the party. They could see that the two prisoners who stumbled side by side were shackled ankle and wrist, they were barefoot and had exchanged their uniform trousers for shabby dhotis. Their swallow-tailed coatees hung open where the buttons had been cut away – on sentencing by the court martial, Morgan supposed. Despite Pegg’s attentions, both continued to yell, whilst the third man, who was bound only by rope at the wrists, was utterly silent.

There were a few hisses and hoots from within the crowd and Morgan thought he could make out the words ‘Mungal Pandy’ being chanted by a handful, but for the most part the advancing party was surrounded by an awed silence.

‘Sir, the right wing and Captain Bolton’s troop deployed as you ordered.’ Morgan braced to attention and saluted with a graceful sweep of his drawn sword as Hume clattered up on his borrowed mount.

‘Stop, you damn screw, can’t you?’ Hume hauled on the reins of the scruffy cob, whilst the other mounted officers came to a more elegant halt. ‘Mouth like bloody iron,’ he muttered as the horse jerked its head round bad-temperedly. ‘Good, thank you, Morgan. I see you’ve got the men ready to fire. Any sign of trouble?’

‘No, sir, the poor lambs look quite wretched, but the crowd might give us a problem.’ Morgan looked round at the rabble, who were beginning to get a little bolder, advancing step by step closer to the backs of the 95th and Bolton’s men.

Hume quickly walked his horse to the centre of the 95th’s line, McGucken and Morgan scrambling to keep up. With hardly a pause, Hume pulled a sheet of paper from the breast of his jacket, cleared his throat and, in a high, clear voice, started to read, ‘Verdicts and sentences of a court martial convened at Fort George, Bombay on the second of June Eighteen Fifty-Seven under the presidency of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Hume, Companion of the Bath, Her Majesty’s Ninety-Fifth Regiment.’ Hume paused; every man, even those who didn’t understand a single syllable of what he was saying, were straining to hear him. ‘The three prisoners are charged with: having at a meeting made use of highly mutinous and seditious language, evincing a traitorous disposition towards the Government, tending to promote a rebellion against the State and to subvert the authority of the British Government. Private Shahgunge Singh, Bombay Sappers and Miners: guilty. Sentence: transportation for life.’

Morgan looked at the third prisoner, who was only lightly bound; he hung his head and trembled slightly, but he made no other outward sign of relief.

‘Drill-Havildar Din Syed Hussain, Bombay Marine Battalion: guilty. Private Mungal Guddrea, Tenth Bombay Native Infantry: guilty.’ Hume looked at the native troops who faced him. ‘Sentence: death by gunfire, to be carried out forthwith.’

The 95th, who could hear the details of what their commanding officer had said, shifted a little as they continued to point their weapons at the sepoys; there was a murmur of quiet satisfaction as they cuddled the butts of their rifles even closer.

No sooner had Hume pronounced sentence than Commandant Brewill spurred his horse slightly forward of the 95th and in slow, distinct Hindi repeated what Hume had said. A sigh swept up and down the waiting ranks of the sepoys, and a ripple of movement, almost as if the understanding of the news had slapped the Indian troops across the face. The drill-havildar tried to yell a desultory slogan or two, whilst his companion stood silent, his face lifted up towards the sun, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. The crowd had been listening intently too, one or two voices protested but most stood in awed silence.

‘I’ll have Bolton’s outer guns loaded, with your leave, sir?’ Morgan knew that two of the four guns would have to be used to execute the prisoners, but the pair pointing at either end of the sepoys’ ranks could do great damage, sweeping the lines of troops with an iron storm of canister, if things got out of hand.

‘Aye, do that, please, Morgan. Cant ’em in a bit so that they catch the rascals in enfilade, if needs be…’ Hume’s words sent Morgan off to speak to Bolton. Then, in a parade bellow the colonel added, ‘Sar’nt Ormond, carry on, please.’

‘Sir!’ Ormond, as calmly as if he were checking the men’s oil bottles, gave a few, quiet instructions that saw a pair of brawny, red-coated lads grab each prisoner by the elbows and hustle them towards the waiting guns.

‘Numbers One and Four guns, with case shot…load,’ Bolton, on Morgan’s instructions, gave the word of command to his outer guns, and the lance-bombardiers, who had been toying with the linen bags for the best part of an hour, slid the deadly projectiles into the barrels of the guns, followed by a well-practised push with a rammer from each waiting gun-numbers. Again, Morgan saw how the Indian line flinched as the yawning black muzzles were turned ready to rake them.

‘Don’t bloody struggle, Havildar; it won’t make a blind bit of difference.’ Lance-Corporal Pegg showed scant sympathy for his sweating prisoner. The non-commissioned officer seemed to have shrunk in his clothes – now his manacled wrists and ankles were as thin and bony as a famished child’s – as Pegg and Private Beeston dragged and pushed the prisoner towards the gun.

Any cockiness had quite gone from the native NCO. Morgan had thought how confident he’d looked as the party had approached down the hill, the havildar keeping up a stream of defiant yells, hoping, he supposed, that his friends would come to his rescue. But now the moment of reckoning was here and there was no sign of any action from the sepoys. Even the crowd had fallen quiet.

‘Excuse me, sir.’ McGucken stood to attention beside his commanding officer’s stirrup leather. ‘It’s no’ right to let this mutinous filth die in British red, is it, sir?’

Hume looked down from his saddle at the colour-sergeant, taken aback by the intensity of his words. McGucken, like most of the other long-serving NCOs who had seen more blood and killing than they cared to remember, was usually taciturn, passionless in circumstances that would have more callow men at fever pitch.

‘Aye, Colour-Sar’nt, you have a point. I don’t see why this scum should dishonour our uniforms.’ Hume paused for a second before adding, ‘Get those coatees off their backs if you’d be so kind, Sar’nt Ormond.’

Sepoy Guddrea already had both feet and one hand tied to the struts of the wheels of Number Two gun by stout, leather thongs. Lance-Corporal Abbott and Private Scriven were pulling his right arm back for the waiting gunner to complete the last set of bonds when they heard the order. So the coatee was dragged off Guddrea, the lining of one sleeve showing a greyish white as it was turned inside out. Rather than loosen the tethers on the prisoner’s other wrist, though, Scriven produced a clasp knife fron his haversack and the sleeve was briskly cut away.

‘Right, Havildar,’ sneered Pegg, ‘you won’t be needing this where you’re a-going,’ and he pulled the coatee roughly off the second, condemned man.

At the Indian’s feet two gunners kneeled, tying his ankles hard back against the gun’s wheels. As Pegg and Private Grimes held his arms for the gunners to complete the job, Morgan noticed his toes digging into the dust and the gun’s brass muzzle pushing the flesh at the base of the prisoner’s spine into a bulging, coffee-coloured collar.

‘Prime!’ At Bolton’s word of command, the bombardiers at both guns slid copper initiators the size of a pencil into the touchholes, before attaching lanyards to the twists of wire that emerged from their tops. Once the strings were jerked, the rough wire would rasp against the detonating compound in the tubes, producing a spark that would fire the charge.

The pair of sepoys were stretched like bows over the ends of the barrels, their limbs strained tight against the wheels of the guns by the leather straps, their chests – with the skin pulled tightly over their ribs – directly facing their comrades. They would have seen guns being loaded many times and now they must know exactly what was about to happen, thought Morgan, as he watched the havildar arch his head slowly back, eyes closed, the knot of hair on the top of his skull hanging loose, his mouth open below the drooping moustache, waiting for the last word that he would hear.

Both lanyards were drawn tight, the bombardiers looking towards Bolton, whose horse skittered and pawed the dust. The crowd remained quiet; even the crows in the trees seemed to be keeping a respectful silence, thought Morgan.

‘Ready, sir,’ Bolton reported.

‘Fire by single guns, if you please, Captain Bolton,’ said Hume, with exaggerated courtesy.

‘Sir.’ Bolton looked towards the crew to his left, making sure that they were quite ready before shouting, ‘Number Two gun…fire!’

The concussion thumped Morgan’s ears. The crows and scavengers rose from the trees in a black bruise, tattered wings beating in alarm, cawing and squawking, whilst the crowd gasped and the horses gibbed and pecked. Morgan expected the gun to recoil until he realised that, with only a blank charge, there was nothing to hurl it back on its wheels. Then, as the smoke hung around the muzzle in the still air, he saw the crew clawing at their faces.

Naked arms and legs were still attached to the nine-pounder’s wheels by their leather straps, raw chopped meat at the end of each buckled limb. But when the piece had fired, the vacuum created by the explosion had sucked a fine stew of blood and tissue back over the gunners. Their white, leather breeches were now pink with matter, their helmet covers a bloody smear, whilst their faces were flecked with the same gore. Each man wiped frantically at his eyes and cheeks in disgust.

But there was worse to come. As Morgan and all the others gawped, so a tousled football fell from the heavens and bounced towards the 10th Bengal Native Infantry, their ranks swerving and breaking to avoid Sepoy Gudderea’s bounding, blistered head. Ripped from its shoulders, the man’s skull had shot straight up into the sky before falling like a bloody stone to deliver the starkest, possible message to his living comrades.

‘Number Three gun…fire!’ Then Bolton’s command turned Drill-Havildar Din Hussain into carrion. Each face on the maidan turned upwards like a crowd at a firework party as, rising from the smoke, the black disc turned over and over, its mane of hair flailing around its scorched flesh, unseeing eyes staring wide in death. It rose to its zenith, every eye watching its plunge to earth then, with a thump and a couple of dusty bounces, Din Hussain’s head rolled towards his last tormentor.

‘Now that’ll teach you not to be a naughty little mutineer, won’t it?’ grinned Pegg at the lump of bone and blackened skin.

Morgan gagged as the hideous ball came to a halt in the dust.

TWO Bombay Brothers

‘Christ, I never want to see anything like that again.’ Morgan and Bazalgette were sitting in the shady anteroom of the officers’ mess in the fort, chota-pegs in hand, icecubes clinking, still dusty from the maidan.

‘Aye, I thought I’d seen some sights at Sevastopol, but nothing like that.’ Bazalgette’s forehead was cut across by sunburn, stark white above his peeling nose where the peak of his cap had kept the rays at bay. He pulled hard at his brandy. ‘It hardly made the right impression on the sepoys when Mabutt from my lot and that other lad from Carmichael’s company fainted dead away. We’re supposed to be the hand of a vengeful God, not a bunch of swooning tarts. I didn’t see a single sepoy drop out, did you, Morgan?’

‘No, I didn’t, and I agree that our men droopin’ around the place ain’t good, but the jawans did have Bolton’s guns to help ’em on their way, didn’t they?’

As the Bengal officers had bellowed the orders to the three native battalions that sent them marching back to their own cantonments, the Horse Gunners had hand-wheeled the two loaded guns behind them just to make sure that there were no second thoughts. It was as well they did, Morgan had thought, because the sepoys had missed the sight of the sweepers, the lowest of the professions, picking up the remnants of their comrades and untying their limbs from the wheels of the guns, so defiling their caste and punishing the victims after death.

Then, with a muted curse, brushing dust from the knees of his overalls, Captain Richard Carmichael came stamping into the mess.

‘Hey, chota-peg, jildi, boy.’

It hadn’t taken the big Harrovian long to pick up the arrogances of the worst type of white officers, thought Morgan. In their own mess in England or Ireland, the soldier servants would have been called by the discreet ringing of a bell, but here in India, the mess staff hovered just out of sight, instantly gliding to obey their officers’ wishes.

‘Can’t you keep the noise down, Carmichael? Haven’t you had enough din for one day?’ Morgan asked peevishly, tired of Carmichael’s boorishness.

‘Enough Din…I’ve just seen more than enough of Din, spread all over the maidan, poor bugger…ha!’ chortled Carmichael. Morgan immediately regretted feeding him the line. ‘And I don’t know who you think you are to be telling me what to do…you’ve let that brevet quite go to your head, ain’t you?’

The mess waiter had slid into the room, proffering a tiny silver tray to Carmichael on which sat a beaker of brandy and soda: it was snatched without a word or gesture of thanks.

Morgan said nothing, fearing that Carmichael had recognised his indecision as the wing had marched down to the execution site. Bazalgette, sensing the tension, leapt into the breach. ‘The lad of yours who measured his length, is he all right?’ Typically, Bazalgette asked an innocent question, not seeking to tease or mock; equally typically, Carmichael saw a barb where none existed.

‘What, that bloody fool Jervis? Aye, about as all right as that greenhorn o’ yours. Nothing that a dozen strokes with the cat wouldn’t put right. Not that Colonel-go-lightly bloody Hume would let us touch the men’s lilywhite skins, would he?’

Morgan wondered at this outburst. Carmichael was normally much more subtle in his disloyalty.

‘Aye, those two made us look right fools in front of that Bombay rubbish – and the bloody natives, come to that. No, you have to wonder what dross the Depot’s sending us these days and – mark my words – today was just a flea bite compared with what we’ll come up against later, see if it ain’t,’ Carmichael continued at full volume.

‘Please, Carmichael, I’d thank you to remember that we’re guests in the “Bombay rubbish’s” mess at the moment,’ Morgan tried to hush him, ‘and we’re going to have to learn to trust them, and them us, if we’re going into action shoulder to shoulder in Bengal. So it makes no sense to upset our hosts, does it?’

‘Aye, Carmichael, the white officers are going to have quite enough on their plates making sure that their own men stay loyal, without us sticking a burr under their saddle as well,’ Bazalgette added.

Morgan watched Carmichael’s reaction. Full of bluster with just one opponent, when the pendulum swung against him, he instantly backed down – and what a damn nerve he had to talk about the quality of the soldiers: Carmichael, the officer who was always in an indecent rush to find himself a safe job on the staff, leaving the men and his regiment without a second thought.

‘Aye, well, we’ll soon see if we can trust the rascals or not, won’t we?’ Carmichael continued more quietly. ‘Now that you’re in the colonel’s pocket, Morgan, did he give you any idea where they might be sending us?’

‘No. There’s some talk amongst the Bombay officers that we’ll be sent up towards Delhi, but I think that’s just speculation.’

‘Oh, so nowhere near your old countryman Ensign James Keenan, and his peachy little wife, then?’ said Carmichael with a curl of his lip.

‘No…no, why should we?’ Morgan was instantly uncomfortable when Keenan’s name was mentioned. ‘The Keenans are up at Jhansi near Agra with the Twelfth BNI. Safe as houses, no hint of trouble – and there won’t be, if I know anything about the commandant, Colonel Kemp. He’ll keep ’em well and truly in line, so he will,’ he continued, keen to steer the talk away from his former sergeant and his wife.

‘Aye, just as well now that the Keenans have got a son and heir to look after.’ There was a troublesome note in Carmichael’s voice. ‘You remember Keenan, don’t you, Bazalgette?’

‘Of course I do; wounded at the Alma, wasn’t he, did a wonderful job at The Quarries and got commissioned in the field, sold out and then went off to an Indian regiment? Didn’t know you were still in touch with him, Morgan,’ Bazalgette answered.

‘Oh, I doubt if he is,’ Carmichael cut in before Morgan could answer, ‘but I guess he still corresponds with Mrs Keenan – much to discuss about life back in Cork, eh, Morgan?’

‘Haven’t had anything to do with either of ’em since they left Dublin last year,’ answered Morgan, a little too quickly,

‘No? Well, who knows when we’ll knock into them again.’ Carmichael drained his glass noisily and stood up. ‘That would be an interesting meeting for you, wouldn’t it? Right, must go – there’s any number of delightful loyal sepoys to re-train whom “we must learn to trust” – wasn’t that your phrase, Morgan?’ And he strode from the cool of the mess out into the heat of the early afternoon.

‘Christ, you’ve really got under his skin this time, ain’t you, Morgan?’ Bazalgette held his glass in both hands, sipping at the brandy. ‘Why’s he prosing on about Keenan, though? He’ll never be coming back to the Ninety-Fifth now that he’s taken John Company’s salt, and what’s the chance of seeing him again out here in India?’ Bazalgette watched Morgan carefully, much more interested in his friend’s impending answer than he was pretending to be.

Morgan hesitated; James Keenan had been his batman before winning laurels and a commission in the face of the enemy, whilst Mary, his wife, had been a chamber maid in Glassdrumman, the Morgan family home in Cork. The close relationship between the Protestant officer and the Catholic girl in the Crimea had caused rumour to swirl, particularly when Keenan, with a new and valuable commission in a Queen’s regiment and a heavily pregnant wife, had sold that same commission and scuttled off to India no sooner than the 95th had returned to Dublin eighteen months ago.

‘D’you really not know?’ Morgan asked quietly.

‘I’d sooner hear the truth from you, old lad,’ Bazalgette answered sympathetically.

‘Lord knows, it’s been a strain. The child – Samuel – is mine; he was conceived when Keenan was on trench duty and I was visiting the wounded just before we attacked The Quarries…I know, please don’t look at me like that.’ Bazalgette had heard the rumours, but it didn’t make the truth any less shocking. ‘So when the Keenans decamped to India I thought that that would be an end to the whole chapter.’

‘How much of this does Maude know?’ Bazalgette thought back to the Cork society wedding last year where the gallant Tony Morgan, hero and heir to a fair spread of pasture and farms on the Atlantic coast, had married Maude Hawtrey, judge’s daughter, so cementing the two families into one of the most influential Protestant enclaves in the county.

‘Nothing…nothing at all,’ Morgan answered, ‘and now she’s pregnant, so there’s to be another Morgan coming into the world, only this one shall be able to carry my name.’

‘Well, it’s a fine pickle, but as long as Keenan’s not hounding you, then I reckon that your usual streak of luck has seen you right.’ Bazalgette knew Morgan better than most of his friends, yet the subject had never even been hinted at before. ‘Why, there’s no reason to think that we’ll come across the twelfth BNI, nor that we’ll be sent up Jhansi way. I suspect that this is the last you’ve heard of it and, frankly, it’s not in Keenan’s interests to go blethering about his boy’s real father, is it?’

‘But that’s the whole goddamn point, Bazalgette,’ Morgan blurted, holding the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. ‘He’s my son – mine and Mary’s – not bloody Keenan’s. Jesus, the girl only married Keenan because she wanted to follow me, and now I’ve a son that I shall never see whilst I’m stuck with the driest, coldest creature in the whole of Cork, who can’t hold a candle to Mary. What a bloody pother.’

‘Come on, old feller, it may seem a mess to you, but it’ll have to wait until we’ve settled the Pandies’ hash.’ Bazalgette reached across and gripped his friend’s shoulder. ‘Now, there’s the bugle, the men will be waiting for us.’

‘Grenadier Company formed up and ready for demonstration, sir.’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken’s hand came down smartly from the salute.

On the parched parade ground of the fort, the left wing of the 10th Bengal Native Infantry stood at ease in their cotton shirtsleeves, white trousers and round forage caps – almost four hundred of them – waiting for the skirmishing demonstration that Morgan’s company had been told to organise for them. The butts of their rifles rested in the dust, the weapons comfortably in the crooks of their elbows, their faces alert and apparently keen to learn.

Kneeling opposite them were Morgan’s men. Like the sepoys, they had been allowed to strip down to their shirts and now they kneeled in two, staggered ranks.

‘How are our boys, Colour-Sar’nt?’ asked Morgan quietly as his hand flicked casually to the peak of his cap, returning the salute.

‘They’ll do as they’re told, sir,’ McGucken replied equally quietly.

‘No, Colour-Sar’nt, that’s not what I’m asking,’ said Morgan. ‘How are they about it?’

‘They’re no’ very pleased, sir. They don’t understand why they’ve been detailed off to teach the sepoys how to be better soldiers when they might turn on us at any moment. That scunner Corporal Pegg asked if we shouldn’t be loaded with ball, “just in case”, but I told him to button his fuckin’ lip. They’ll do what you want them to, sir – and bloody like it.’

The 95th, with their recent battle experience, had learnt the value of skirmishing – the fire and manoeuvre by independent pairs – that was utterly unlike the formal old-fashioned drill movements by which the Indian regiments still moved in battle. Now the colonel had decided to teach the sepoys this tactic, not just as a battle-winning skill, but also as a device for his men to show their trust in their new comrades – a pair of whom they had just blown to infinity.

As Morgan arrived, the three British company commanders and their subadars came marching towards him and halted as one man, throwing up the dust of the barrack yard, before the senior captain took a pace forward and saluted.

‘Sir, Numbers Five, Six and Seven Companies paraded ready for training, sir.’ The captain remained at the salute, his right hand at the peak of his covered cap.

‘Right, Captain Mellish, I’m obliged to you,’ Morgan returned the salute, ‘but please drop all that parade-ground stuff. We’re here to learn to fight, not to play at guardsmen. How d’you suggest we tackle this?’

Morgan looked at the trio of Indian officers. Again, he was struck by their age – they were all at least forty – and their smartness. Even in shirtsleeves they were beautifully pressed and brushed, whilst their moustaches swept down and over their lips, a stark, dyed black compared with their greying hair. But it was their eyes that held his attention most. Did he detect humility there, a supplication that seemed to beg him not to compare them with their faithless comrades? It wasn‘t yet possible to know – but the next couple of hours of running and crouching in the heat would soon tell.

‘Well, sir,’ all the British and native officers of the 10th had relaxed at Morgan’s word, ‘if you would be good enough to pause in your demonstration every few minutes so that we can translate the instructions for the boys, they’ll soon cotton on. Then it’s up to us to drive home what you’ve taught us.’

‘Good. Form the companies in three sides of a square around my men, please, and we’ll try to show you what little we’ve picked up.’

Captain Mellish and the others smiled politely at Morgan’s self-deprecation, saluted and doubled off to the waiting sepoys.

‘They don’t look half bad, sir.’ McGucken cast an appreciative eye along the long, smart, lean ranks of the 10th.

‘Aye, Colour-Sar’nt, as long as they’re on our side I reckon they’ll do rightly,’ Morgan replied quietly, ‘but I can see why Pegg and the others have their doubts.’

The three companies of the 10th were quickly wheeled around the waiting ranks of the Grenadiers.

‘’Eathen sods…’ Lance-Corporal Pegg knelt in the dust at the far right of the company, rifle at his knee, with his skirmishing partner, Private Beeston, one pace to his left and rear in the same pose, ‘…bit too close for comfort, sez I.’

‘You’re right, Corp’l. If the bastards rush us now we’ll be fuckin’ lost,’ came the reply in dourest Nottingham.

‘Right: falling back. On sighting the enemy the even numbers fire without challenging on their own initiative,’ McGucken bellowed to the assembled multitude, slow and clear, before pausing and glancing at the subadar who stood alongside him.

‘Ee-nish-a-tif, sahib?’ The Indian looked puzzled.

‘Aye…’ McGucken was stumped for a moment, ‘…without needin’ no bloody orders.’

‘Ah…yes.’ The subadar grasped what was meant quickly enough before turning it into rapid Hindi.

‘Whilst the odd numbers prepare to cover them,’ the big Scot continued, ‘shouting, “Moving now” the evens fall back fifteen paces, turn to face the enemy and immediately reload.’ The subadar repeated everything he said. ‘Once they’ve reloaded, provided the enemy’s not pressing too hard, the evens shout, “Ready” allowing the odds to fire and fall back in exactly the same manner. Got it, Mister…er, Lal?’

Subadar Lal had indeed got it, translating fast and accurately.

‘Right, look in and you’ll receive a complete demonstration.’ There was no need to repeat these words. ‘Grenadier Company, skirmishing by numbers, falling back…one!’

On McGucken’s word of command, thirty or so weapons rose to the men’s shoulders, ‘Bang!’ was shouted the same number of times as the rifles’ hammers fell dully against leather-rimmed nipple guards, then, ‘Moving now’ was yelled as half the men darted back through the dust, a regulation fifteen paces.

To Morgan and McGucken’s bemusement, the three sepoy companies suddenly cawed with delight, hands clapping in appreciation, feet stamping in the dust in noisy admiration for the precision of the British troops.

‘What are those cunts laughing at?’ Pegg, already sweating hard and slightly out of breath after even a modest dash in the afternoon heat, went through the dry drill of reloading his rifle, steel ramrod rasping on the rifling of the barrel.

‘Ready,’ he and half the company bellowed.

‘Bang!’ boomed the other half before, ‘Moving now,’ to be greeted by more ecstatic applause and cries of admiration from the 10th.

‘Boggered if I know, Corp’l,’ panted Beeston as he sped past Pegg who, in time with the rest of the leading rank, was just bringing his rifle to the present. ‘Must think we’re fuckin’ off back to England,’ he added drily.

‘An’ so on until contact is broken with the enemy…’ McGucken’s voice brought the precisely regulated, darting ranks to a halt, all of them puffing with exertion as their equipment banged on their hips and the dust roiled around them in the heat of the day.

‘Now, the advance to the enemy…’ the colour-sergeant paused for translation, ‘…is exactly the same but the other way round.’ The subadar looked confused by that phrase. ‘Och, just watch,’ and with a few simple commands the skirmish line advanced back to the point from which it had started, as precisely as it had fallen back, to the intense and noisy pleasure of the audience.

‘Well, Mellish, I’m not quite sure why we’ve caused such a stir with your lads,’ Morgan said to the 10th’s senior captain, ‘but d’you think they’ve grasped the principle?’

‘Yes, of course. You don’t understand them yet, Morgan: they delight in anything new; they’re impressed by organisation and regulation. It’s what makes them such a pleasure to command but also leaves them so vulnerable to big-mouthed badmashes who can exploit their religious beliefs better than we can. Let’s see if they’ve hoisted the idea aboard, shall we?’

With remarkably little fuss, the British officers gathered the sepoys around them, talking to them in quiet Hindi almost as a schoolmaster might speak to his most promising pupils. The jemadars and subadars spoke rapidly to the havildars and naiks and in no time the ranks were numbered off, kneeling attentively and waiting for orders. There were a few hesitations and some mistakes, but very quickly the sepoys were trotting and crouching, loading almost as smoothly as the well-practised 95th.

‘Looks like this lot picks things up dead quick, don’t it, sir?’ Corporal Pegg and the rest of the company were standing on the edge of the yard in the shadow thrown by the white-washed buildings, sucking greedily at their big, blue-painted water bottles once the order had been given. All of their grey flannel shirts were stained wet at the armpits and down the spine, and they pulled at the damp crotches of their blue serge trousers.

‘They seem to have got the hang of things remarkably well, Corp’l Pegg. I imagine we’ll be glad of their help when we meet Pandy,’ Morgan replied.

‘Aye, an’ they’ve ’ardly broke into a sweat, ’ave they?’ Beeston said. ‘But what’s that noise they’re mekin’, Corp’l?’

‘It’s just the sound that these wallahs mek rather than “bang” like a good Christian would,’ Pegg explained as the sepoys smacked their lips to simulate the firing of their rifles. ‘All sorts of strange ’abits, these foreigners, you know, Jono.’

‘Aye, but the officer’s right: they’ll be ’andy to ’ave alongside when we get to Delhi,’ Beeston added, a note of grudging respect in his voice.

‘P’raps, but pound to pinch o’ shit they’ll be no bloody use at all when the lead begins to fly, you mark my words,’ added Pegg, his twenty years and single chevron weighing heavily.

‘So, who’s your man, Mellish?’ asked Morgan.

The afternoon’s exertions had left the sepoys excited and delighted by their new-found skills, and the 95th utterly exhausted. Now, as the next stage of bringing the two battalions together before they had to face the trials of battle, the 10th BNI had decided to entertain the British soldiers with some roasted goat and mutton, and a wrestling challenge. Colonel Hume, knowing the reputation of Private Lawler, a vast, Lincolnshire bruiser from Carmichael’s company, much loved and admired by the men, had accepted Commandant Brewill’s suggestion with alacrity, knowing that he was on a safe wicket.

‘Oh, Sepoy Ranjiv Nirav from our Light Bobs,’ Mellish answered casually. ‘There’s not much of the lad, but you’d be surprised at the speed and strength of some of the Brahmins who are bred to this sort of thing.’

‘Indeed I would,’ replied Morgan as the two antagonists strode to their respective corners of the ring, which had been marked by a rope pegged in the dirt.

‘Now, don’t sneer at our boy, Morgan.’ Forgett, the policeman, had come to watch the spectacle as well. ‘Just because he’s half the weight of your great monster, don’t underestimate him. Those who choose to wrestle spend hours perfecting their skills and I’ve got the marks to prove it. Soon after I arrived here in Bombay I decided to impress my command with my martial skills…’ Morgan saw how Mellish chortled at the memory of Forgett’s story, ‘…and that was a mistake, I can tell you. One of my lads – another of these full-time wrestlers – had me in the dirt in seconds; chucked me about like a child’s doll; had me begging for mercy and then stood over me and made the lowest namasti you’ve ever seen. I promoted him the next day – best thing I ever did. So, I’d be a bit cautious about putting too much money on Private Swede-basher over there.’

Private Lawler was broad and squat; wearing a pair of cotton drawers and canvas shoes, his milky white torso stood in almost painful contrast to his tanned face and lower arms where his uniform had left him exposed to the sun. Now he stretched his limbs, massaged his shoulders and rotated his head to ease the pressure in his neck, whilst another soldier stood ready with a bucket and towel.

Opposite was Sepoy Nirav. Barefoot and thin, Nirav was easily a stone and a half lighter than Lawler, narrow where the Englishman was broad, nimble where he was stolid. The sepoy, in nothing more than a loincloth, had coiled his long hair up into a knot on top of his head and now he stood on one leg, pulling at the toe of his other foot in a gesture that reminded Morgan more of Sadler’s Wells than the Fancy. Like his opponent, Nirav was attended by another soldier, an even shorter man, very dark-skinned, with drooping moustaches.

‘Ah don’t give much for that Pandy’s chances once Terry Lawler gets a grip on ’im, d’you, Corp’l?’ Beeston was sitting on a mat, cross-legged as he’d seen the natives do, nursing a china mug of rum and water in both hands.

‘Naw, our Terry’ll bloody murder ’im,’ Pegg replied. ‘’E won’t see the end of one round, ’e won’t.’

The officers were of much the same opinion. As Morgan, Forgett and Mellish studied the form, Carmichael sauntered up. ‘My feller was runner-up in Dublin last year.’ He was suddenly proprietarily interested in a soldier who might reflect well on him. ‘Saw off Shand from the Dragoon Guards. You’ll remember him – quite a celebrity in his day.’

‘Shand…yes, I do recall him; beat the Navy’s top boy in ’fifty-two, if I’m not wrong. But watch Nirav: he’s as fast as a snake,’ replied Mellish, sticking to his man.

It was all too much for Morgan’s sporting blood. ‘Twenty rupees says Lawler’ll best yours inside a round.’

Carmichael glanced disapprovingly at his vulgar brother officer, whilst Mellish pulled his hand from his pocket to shake Morgan’s with no hesitation at all. ‘Aye, make it forty, if you like,’ he said.

‘Forty rupees! Why, that would keep my family in clover for a month, that would,’ exclaimed Forgett.

‘Forty it is.’ Morgan shook Mellish’s hand as the two wrestlers moved to their corners.

One of the younger naiks was the referee. In excellent English, followed by Hindi, he explained the rudimentary rules to both contestants before, at a single blast from a bugle, he signalled the contestants forward.

Lawler dominated the centre of the ring, gently turning to keep his face towards Nirav who, crab-like, circled slowly round him.

‘Fuckin’ easy meat, this is,’ jeered Beeston from his ringside seat.

‘Aye, no bleedin’ contest. Just watch how Terry’ll—’ But Pegg didn’t finish his words, for Sepoy Nirav darted at Lawler’s vast, pale form, threw his wiry arms around his waist and drove him right back to the rope by sheer force of momentum.

Lawler scrabbled, almost lost his footing as he tried to stay upright, and caught hold of Nirav’s sweat-sheened shoulders more to steady himself than as a countermove. But as he was pushed further and further back, Lawler came to his senses and, with a series of crude double-handed blows to the back of Nirav’s neck, swatted his assailant away from him.

This one sally, though, had allowed Nirav to gauge Lawler’s lack of speed as well as his strength. As the sepoy massaged his neck but continued to circle, the crowd became increasingly vocal, the Indians cheering and stamping their feet in applause, just as they had done during the skirmishing demonstration earlier, the British whistling and catcalling.

‘Your boy doesn’t want to get in the way of another of Lawler’s roundhouses, does he, Mellish?’ Morgan was transfixed by the speed of the sepoy and suddenly worried about his stake.

‘True, but Nirav’s got the measure of Lawler now that—’

‘Oh, come now, Mellish,’ Carmichael butted in. ‘Your fellow’s just skin and bone, more used to snake-charming and rope tricks than wrestling, just watch how—’ Then it was Carmichael’s turn to be interrupted, for a great cry went up from the 10th as Nirav skimmed through the dust feet first at Lawler, striking the Englishman with both heels just below the left knee.

The bigger man crashed on his chest, whilst Nirav rolled skilfully to one side and leapt to his feet. A gasp came from the 95th.

‘Bloody hell, that’ll ’ave broke our Terry’s shinbone, that will.’ Beeston said what everyone was thinking, but whilst Nirav floated around the downed giant, Lawler dragged himself onto all fours, squatted momentarily whilst he pulled a paw across his eyes and then launched himself at Nirav with a low roar.

As Lawler charged like Goliath, the 10th’s David saw his chance. Falling almost flat on his face before scrabbling quickly forward through the grit, Nirav shot between Lawler’s pumping legs and whirled round behind him in a crouch; he seized the wrestler’s trailing ankle, then stood and lifted the flailing leg high in the air, all in one easy, fluid movement. Lawler’s weight and speed were skilfully used against him and for the second time in a few moments, the champion of the 95th thumped into the ground. This time, though, Lawler’s forehead was the first part of his body to meet the sun-hardened earth.

As Morgan heard the crunching impact, he knew that Lawler wouldn’t make the count. The referee counted down the seconds and the Scunthorpe champion lay in the dust, as cold as the setting sun was hot.

‘You see what I mean, gentlemen? Never underestimate these people. They’ll always surprise you,’ Forgett observed, as Sepoy Nirav grinned mightily, making namasti to all four corners.

‘There now, I said ’e was an ’andy little bugger, didn’t I?’ Pegg, by the side of the ring, pulled his clay pipe from his mouth and spat. ‘But let’s see how they take to powder an’ shot, shall we?’

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”.’

Again Skene paused. Even Morgan was concentrating now, and one or two of the subalterns’ jaws hung slack with suspense.

‘And talking of gold, India ain’t England: the Rhani runs on graft and geld, so Keenan and I are here to collect enough guineas to buy her loyalty. I’m confident, gentlemen, that if she and her upright supporters – and, gentlemen, if you’d met the lovely Rhani you’d be upright as well…’ Skene had woven his spell so well that this little joke was met with a positive storm of laughter, ‘…will fight alongside us and help to tumble the Pandies to ruin. I look forward to being at your elbow when the prize money for Delhi is decided upon.’

Aye, thought Morgan, spoken like a real tyro, my lad, those of us that are still alive. And you can bet your best hunter that it’ll be A Morgan and the rest of the Old Nails that’ll be sent in first whilst you and the other nabobs hang back, leaving bloody Keenan with the last laugh.

As Skene finished speaking and the officers rose to talk and drink before dinner, Morgan saw a servant quietly approach the group of officers he was with, bow slightly to McGowan to attract his attention and then whisper urgently in his ear. The adjutant’s face contorted, he said something in Hindi to the servant, who shook his head and pointed outside before moving back to the edge of the room, clearly agitated.

‘That’s bloody odd,’ McGowan said to the group in general. ‘Bin Lal has been to the bungalow where we’ve put Forgett and his family but the doors are locked, all the shutters are down and barred, and there are no lights showing.’

‘Well, didn’t your man just bang the door down, then?’ Carmichael, slightly belligerent with too much brandy and hopes of bloodless glory on an empty stomach, asked.

‘No, a sepoy wouldn’t do that,’ the adjutant replied. ‘They’ve too much respect for a sahib.’

‘What, like they had in Sitapur?’ muttered Carmichael acidly – the news had just reached them of wholesale massacres in the garrison north of Lucknow just days before.

‘Well, we’d better go and see what’s detained him, hadn’t we?’ said Morgan, seeing the perfect way of avoiding a deeply awkward conversation with James Keenan.

‘Yes, I’d be delighted to have you with me, Morgan,’ said McGowan, as the pair moved towards the entrance to the mess. ‘Better take our revolvers, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, aye, quite so,’ said Morgan, taking the proffered Tranter and clipping its reassuring weight to his belt.

‘I’ll come too, if I may,’ Carmichael interrupted. ‘Too much toad-eating that bloody political for my liking.’

Yes, you too want to avoid Keenan, don’t you? thought Morgan. Keenan had seen Carmichael at his cowardly worst in the Crimea, and a meeting between the two of them would be almost as difficult as the one he was trying to dodge.

‘Do: get your weapons,’ said McGowan as the three of them set off to Skene’s bungalow, which lay with a series of others some quarter of a mile from the mess, just within the walls of the sprawling fort.

‘You’re a bit jumpy, ain’t you, McGowan?’ The night air had cooled Carmichael’s brandy-warmed head. ‘Thought we had to act as normal as possible; sahib bristling with ironmongery ain’t exactly calming for John Sepoy, is it?’

‘P’raps not,’ McGowan answered, ‘but you never quite know with Forgett. He discovered the whole of the mutineers’ plot, you know, by skulking around dressed up like one of them, skin stained, sucking betel-nut – the complete damn charade – all by himself. Slings the bat like a bloody native, he does, and has now made more enemies than you can count. That’s why we’ve dragooned him and his family into the fort.’

‘Think this is it…should be number eight.’ It was tropically dark. McGowan lit a lucifer and searched round the front door frame until he found a small, brass plate engraved ‘Sobroan House’, below a figure eight painted in the 10th’s regimental green. ’Aye, we’re here.’

He rapped on the door. ‘Forgett…Mrs Forgett, are you in?’

‘Does it look as though they’re bloody in?’ Carmichael asked quietly. ‘Here, let’s see if we can’t…’ and he pushed at the front door, which gave as he shoved, but refused to open. ‘There’s something jammed against the door from the inside. Here, Morgan, lend a hand.’

The two captains applied their shoulders to the door, and each time they crashed home against the woodwork, it opened a little more, inching something heavy and awkward away into the darkened room until there was just enough space for one man to squeeze in.

Morgan drew his pistol, cocked it and thrust his shoulder and chest into the gap, squirming between the door and the jamb.

‘Can you get a lucifer lit, one of you? I can’t see a blind thing.’ Morgan had pushed inside but his eyes were unaccustomed to the dark, and as McGowan scrabbled with another match, he stumbled hard over something on the ground, crashing onto the wooden floor, sending his pistol flying.

‘Goddamn…what filthy mess is this?’ As Morgan pulled himself to his feet he was aware of something wet and gluey that had stuck to the palms when he’d broken his fall. The feel was horrid yet familiar, and as he held his hands up to his unseeing eyes, a match flared behind him, showing him that his fingers, forearms and knees were covered in blood. Indeed, he was standing in a puddle of it, which spread as far as the pool of match-light reached, blackly red.

‘Christ alive!’ Morgan was appalled. ‘Come in quick, you two.’ But as the others barged through the half-opened door, Morgan looked at the bundle on the floor over which he fallen. ‘Careful, there’s a body there…there, just where you’re standing.’ Carmichael had hung back and as McGowan pushed in, he almost tripped over the corpse, as Morgan had.

‘I’ll get the lights going.’ All the bungalows were designed in the same way, and on the wall McGowan quickly found an oil lamp, which he tried to fire. It guttered briefly, shrank from the match and then caught, revealing everything in the room. ‘There, that’s done.’

Other than the heavy chaise-longue that had been used to bar the door, and the lake of blood, things were remarkably orderly. There was no sign of a struggle, but lying just inside the entrance was the body of a young woman. Both arms were pierced with bone-handled carving knives, which pinned her to the floor, whilst a brown satin dress was pulled up around her waist, showing her underwear and a bush of pubic hair between the separate legs of muslin drawers. There was blood on her thighs whilst round her mouth and neck a towel had been wound. Her auburn hair was thrown into chaos, both blue eyes wide open but seeing nothing.

‘God, that’s Kathy Forgett.’ McGowan instantly leant down and pulled her dress back over her bloody knees and ankles, returning a little modesty to her in death.

‘Oh, no…’ Morgan had seen dead women before during the famines back in Skibberean – but those corpses were different – and more dead men killed on the field of battle than he wanted to remember, but nothing like this. He, like the other two, pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it against his nose and mouth, for there was the most ghastly, foetid stench of blood and abused femininity all about them.

‘If this is what they’ve done to Mrs Forgett, where’s the Thanadar?’ McGowan dreaded the answer to his question, but as the three officers moved from the tiny hall of the bungalow to the sitting room and lit the oil lamp there, the answer was apparent.

‘What the hell’s that in his mouth?’ asked Carmichael.

‘It’s a pig’s tail,’ answered McGowan matter-of-factly.

There was very little blood, for Forgett had been executed with a butcher’s axe. The policeman lay sprawled on the floor. One blow had fallen obliquely across his neck, severing, Morgan guessed, the spinal column and causing almost instant death, and then the horrid little iron spike that backed the axe’s blade had been buried deep in Forgett’s sternum. Lying on his back with his legs folded under him, the chief of police could almost have been laid out ceremonially, and the impression was only underlined by the pink, curly gristle that emerged from his mouth.

‘Aye, that’s what it is.’ Between finger and thumb Morgan delicately pulled the distasteful bit of pork from Forgett’s lolling lips. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, at a guess, it’s an allusion to the biting of pig-fat-greased cartridges,’ McGowan volunteered. ‘I told you that Forgett had enemies.’

‘Yes, and we need to get after them.’ Carmichael led the others back to the hall and gestured towards the open kitchen door and the yawning back door beyond, which showed as a black oblong of night air. ‘Look at the trail – that’s the way they’ve gone.’ He indicated some smears of blood on the floor, drew his revolver and led the others back to the hall and towards the open kitchen door.

‘Wait. What on earth’s this…oh!’ McGowan exclaimed, noticing a rolled bundle of curtain cloth close to the woman’s cadaver.

The mainly buff, floral-patterned cotton curtain had been pulled from the pole above the window, that much was obvious, and something wrapped within it had bled into the material, staining it a rusty red.

McGowan pulled the tight-wrapped fabric to one side, revealing a crushed baby’s head, blue and deep purple with bruises and contusions. ‘It’s baby Gwen. They’ve beaten the poor little mite to death.’

Morgan had seen plenty of starvation-dead babies back in Ireland, and one of the servants’ still-born children at Glassdrumman, but nothing like this. The toddler had been deliberately wrapped in the curtain to drown any noise, then, from the look of things, heels had stamped hard on the delicate bones of her head, thumping the skull almost flat, making the grey matter of the infant’s brain ooze from her nostrils and ears.

‘Dear Lord.’ Carmichael was genuinely appalled. ‘Come on, there’s not a second to lose.’

‘Yes, but they’re almost cold.’ McGowan was too squeamish to touch Gwen, but reached down to Kathy Forgett. ‘They’ve been dead for at least a couple of hours.’

But Carmichael wasn’t having any of it and went charging through the house, out of the back door and into the night, towards the sallyport of the fort.

‘Right, I’ve got you, you murderin’ Pandy, you.’ The officer commanding Number One Company had run two hundred yards down the cinder path that led from the married officers’ quarters to the back gate of the fort, and there seized a sentry from the 10th, thrusting his pistol against the forehead of a terrified sepoy.

One minute Sepoy Puran Gee had been quietly standing at ease, belching curried goat, guarding the least used gate of the fort and expecting an agreeably undemanding couple of hours, and the next an angry sahib had come running at him, thrown his rifle to the ground and pushed a steely-cold revolver hard against his head whilst yelling a stream of incomprehensible Angrezi at him. It was bad enough having the Feringees blow his friend Mungal Guddrea to dog meat, without this sort of indignity.

‘For heaven’s sake, Carmichael,’ McGowan exclaimed, running across after him. ‘He’s not your man!’

Carmichael had forced the sepoy to his knees, one hand twisting the soldier’s collar, the other ramming the barrel of the revolver into his temple, a series of jerks causing the man’s cap to fall off and his face to twist in a combination of fright and pain, whilst his hands shot out sideways to steady himself against the officer’s assault.

‘Forgett and his family must have been dead for hours.’ McGowan grabbed Carmichael’s wrist and pistol. ‘Puran came on guard, what…about an hour ago?’ He looked to the soldier for confirmation, but the man was too scared to follow the question in English. ‘Besides, that wasn’t the work of soldiers – not from the Tenth, anyway.’

Carmichael allowed McGowan to push the pistol away from the sentry’s head, and released the hold on Puran’s collar. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘It stands to reason: the Forgetts have been dead since this afternoon, when the whole battalion was being trained by you lot, every man jack accounted for. All ranks are under curfew, either here in the fort or down in the cantonment, and believe me, all the officers and NCOs are on a hair trigger. And anyway, those executions have put the fear of the Almighty into the lads; the mood’s not right for this sort of thing now. I’ve never seen the troops so obedient and keen to please,’ McGowan answered. ‘No, this has been done by bazaar wallahs or perhaps soldiers from another battalion, though I doubt that.’

‘Oh, I see, you’re probably right.’ Now the aggression had gone out of Carmichael, who lowered the pistol and even stooped to pick up Puran’s cap.

‘May I suggest an apology to the man, Carmichael?’ Morgan asked. He could see how this story would spread like plague back to the ranks of the 10th, the very men whose trust they were trying to restore.

‘Apologise to some damned…’ Carmichael blurted, whilst the Indian brushed the grit off his rifle and rubbed his bruised forehead with offended gusto.

‘Yes, Carmichael, apologise to a man you’ve wronged, even if he is a private soldier and a mere native.’ Morgan thought the apology just as important for McGowan to hear as for Puran.

Carmichael looked hard into Morgan’s steel-blue eyes, opened his mouth to object, but then changed his mind. ‘Er…I’m very sorry, my man.’ He was still holding Puran’s cap; now Carmichael brushed the dust off it before handing it back. ‘Hasty of me and needlessly rough.’ He thrust his hand out to the soldier whilst McGowan translated.

Puran looked perplexed at the big, pink mitt. McGowan uttered something more before the sepoy awkwardly put his rifle between his knees and made namasti, cocking his head to one side and grinning so widely that his teeth flashed below his moustache.

Carmichael was equally confused. Not to be outdone, he grasped both of Puran’s hands that were now pressed, palms together, in front of his face and gave them a vigorous waggle. ‘No hard feelings then, old boy,’ he said, just as he might have done after accidentally tripping a fellow team player at Harrow.

‘Right, thank you, Carmichael. I’m sure that’s soothed the poor fellow,’ McGowan said with a note of sarcasm. ‘I doubt that these troops have been involved in this outrage, but they may well have turned a blind eye to those who did. After all, whilst we accepted Forgett, he was a policeman; the executions were pretty well all his own work. The colonel will want this investigated.’

Women and babies getting torn to bits; what sort of a war is this? It’s going to be a nasty bloody bitter fight that’s not really any of our business. We should have left it to the John Company boys to sort out. After all, they got themselves into it…thought Morgan as the little group of officers trudged back to the mess, skirting the horror of the bungalow.

All eight hundred men of the 10th Bengal Native Infantry stood in two ranks arranged in three sides of a square whilst Commandant Brewill, the British officers and McGowan, the adjutant, stood in the middle of the fort’s parade ground in the early morning cool. The sun had hardly risen, the dust lay still, whilst the monkeys blinked sleepily from the branches of the trees that peeped from just beyond the high stone walls.

The men had breakfasted on dates and chapattis before parading by companies and filing down to the square under the voice of the subadar-major; now they waited for the word of their commanding officer.

‘Boys…’ Brewill’s Hindi was clear and firm, if not especially grammatical, for he had learnt it from the lips of the men with whom he’d served over the past thirty years rather than from any babu, ‘…yesterday Forgett sahib was murdered in his bungalow here inside the fort. Some baboon slew him with a butcher’s meat cleaver and left a pig’s tail in the dead man’s mouth.’ There was complete silence from the troops, not a flicker of emotion. ‘As if that’s not bad enough, memsahib Forgett was dishonoured and murdered as well; and there’s worse: their baby daughter was beaten to death by these same criminals.’

Where the chief of police’s death had caused no reaction, a quiet ripple of disgust and dismay came now from the throats of the 10th.

‘Men, you know how bad things are in this country and how many sins have already been committed, but the death of women and babes-in-arms is unforgivable, and I pray you to tell any details that you know,’ Brewill continued.

‘What the fuck’s ’e on about, Corp’l?’ Private Beeston and Lance-Corporal Pegg had made it their business to collect Captain Skene’s and Ensign Keenan’s chargers as well as the little bat-horse from the syce in the stables when the urgent message had come down to the Grenadier Company’s lines. The visitors were in a sudden hurry to return to Jhansi; their mounts needed full saddlebags and their pony had to be carrying enough fodder for three days’ march, whilst Pegg and Beeston wanted to see their old pal and boon companion – now a grand officer – James Keenan before he disappeared. Now they waited outside the officers’ mess, reins in hand, watching the 10th.

‘Dunno, Jono.’ Pegg could hear the passion in Brewill’s speech without understanding a word. ‘But ’e’s layin’ into ’em. It’s about that peeler’s murder, ain’t it?’

‘So they say. Them sods did it – revenge for the executions – but the wife and nipper as well…’ John Beeston could understand the desire to murder any officer of the law, but the death of white women and children was too much.

‘Aye, it’s out of order an’—’ Pegg was about to produce some solemn judgement when voices and clattering spurs came from within the dark entrance of the mess. ‘Stand up!’

Pegg brought Beeston to attention and saluted as Skene and Keenan came hurrying out.

‘Well, Charlie Pegg, ye fat wee sod, as I live an’ breathe; what about ye?’ Ensign James Keenan recognised his old friend instantly.

‘Doin’ rightly…’ Pegg did his best to imitate Keenan’s brogue, ‘…your honour!’ Pegg swept down from the salute and the two men clasped each other’s hands and slapped shoulders as if no chasm of rank now existed between them.

‘An’ Jono Beeston, heard you was both out here with the Old Nails.’ There was more delight from Beeston and Keenan. ‘Ain’t it just the devil’s own luck that I’ve not time for even a swally with ye?’

‘No, lads, I know how much you’d like to keep Mr Keenan here with you…’ Captain Skene was obviously eager to get moving, pushing one foot into the nearside stirrup of the horse that Beeston held and reaching up to the saddle’s pommel, ‘…and talk about old times, but the Twelfth have turned in Jhansi and it’s going to take us twelve days or more to get back; I knew we shouldn’t have left the garrison when things were so bloody touchy.’

‘What’s happened, sir?’ Pegg asked.

‘We don’t know, exactly, but the news came over the telegraph in the early hours and some clown of an operator didn’t want to disturb us too early, damn him,’ Skene continued. ‘A fire had been started near the royal palace. Most of the Europeans – and that’s not many – turned out to fight it, and whilst the officers were away, the sepoys stormed the armouries and marched on the Rhani’s quarters and the officers’ cantonment.’

‘Ain’t your missus there, Mr Keenan, sir?’ asked Beeston without an ounce of tact.

‘No, t’ank the Lord. She an’ the wee boy are up-country with some of the other ladies an’ a horde of the Rhani’s officers to look after them,’ Keenan replied calmly. ‘They’ll be fine. And anyway, with Commandant Kemp in charge, it’ll all be sorted out. He’ll cool any hotheads sooner than you can say jildi-rao, so he will.’

Keenan, too, swung up into the saddle. So intent had they all been in the conversation that the quiet arrival of two more figures on the veranda of the mess had gone unnoticed. Still buckling on their sword belts and settling their caps came Bazalgette and Morgan, on their way to the 95th’s lines for morning inspection. Both officers hesitated when they saw the group before them.

‘We got all that, Skene. Keenan, you’ll need every ounce of that gold to smooth things over, won’t you?’ said Bazalgette, full of earnest concern.

‘Aye, it should come in useful, provided we can get there fast enough,’ replied Skene.

But as the two officers spoke, Morgan’s eyes met Keenan’s. They both knew that they’d deliberately avoided conversing the night before in the mess, but now there was no choice. Morgan started towards Keenan, his mouth open, but no words coming, and as he did so the ensign walked his charger a few paces away from the mess, putting a little distance between himself and the others.

‘Hello, Keenan.’ Morgan stretched his hand up and gently laid hold of the horse’s bridle. ‘So Jhansi’s risen?’

‘It has, Captain Morgan, sir.’ Though Keenan’s voice was low and cool, it seemed to Morgan that the pair of them had never been parted. ‘It’ll be nothing that Commandant Kemp an’ us can’t cope wit’, though.’

‘No…no, I’m sure you’re right,’ Morgan stammered. ‘Have you heard of any casualties?’ He thought of dead, ripped Kathy Forgett.

‘No, sir, not yet,’ Keenan answered levelly. ‘But you can be sure of one t’ing: Mary. Keenan will always come through, just like she did with them Muscovites.’

Morgan blinked up at Keenan sitting high above him in the saddle, the sun turning him into a black sillhouette.

‘An’ there’s another t’ing you can be equally certain of.’ Keenan’s voice now held an edge of menace. ‘With the greatest of respect, sir, if ever you come near my Mary or our boy again, I’ll kill ye dead.’

THREE Bombay to Deesa

‘Stop yer fuckin’ swayin’ about, can’t you, Beeston?’ barked Colour-Sergeant McGucken, cheeks glowing with the salt air, his dun sea-smock such as all the troops wore to protect their scarlet shell jackets from the tar and omnipresent stains on board ship, as smart and soldierly as if it had been fitted in Savile Row. ‘Ye get more like a lassie with every tape ye get, ye bloody puddin”!’

The whole of the Grenadier Company had been paraded on the starboard deck of the Honourable East India Company’s steamer, Berenice, as much out of the sun as possible to be addressed by their company commander, Captain Anthony Morgan. As they’d left Bombay the swell had increased a little, reducing a good third of the company to mewling, puking hollows of themselves, fit only for sympathy – and that was in short supply. Now, four days into their six-day voyage north to the Gulf of Cutch and Mandavie, where the whole of the three hundred men of the left wing of the 95th were to disembark, most of the troops had recovered as the seas became more moderate.

Most of them, but not all. To his intense embarrassment, Private Beeston, veteran of more scrapes and skirmishes than he cared to remember, and the wearer of two good-conduct stripes, was amongst the worst affected, and only now was he beginning to stagger about, so pale that he made the ship’s canvas look positively ruddy.

‘Keep still, can’t you, Jono?’ Lance-Corporal Pegg muttered to his wobbly pal as the company, now drawn up in four ranks, obediently standing at ease on the rolling decks, waited for their officer. ‘Else Jock McGucken’ll bloody ’ave you.’

‘Aye, Corp’l,’ Beeston whispered back through the side of his mouth. ‘I’ll be fine.’ Drops of sweat were forming at the edges of his nostrils. ‘Where are they tekin’ us now, Corp’l?’

After four months’ enforced idleness in Bombay, alleviated only by swirling rumours and counterrumours that they were off to deal with first one hot spot and then another, which resulted in nothing more than early rises, kit inspections and then numbing waits in the heat, they had all been glad to embark on the Berenice – glad, that was, until the seasickness struck. Then the electric excitement of the news that they were going to crush the mutineers, of new adventures and, above all else, the prospect of loot, had been dampened under a blanket of vomit.

‘Dunno. That shave about Delhi was all bollocks,’ Corporal Pegg opined. ‘That’s safe back in our hands now, an’ you heard that Sir Colin took Looknow, couple o’ weeks back?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Beeston brightened a little. ‘That’s that Scottish bogger, Sir Colin Campbell, in’t it? Last saw ’im at Ballyklava, din’t we, with them Jocks ’oo couldn’t shoot.’

They both sniggered at the memory of the 93rd Highlanders’ appalling musketry all that time ago.

‘Aye, that’s the bloke,’ smiled Pegg. ‘Stuck it to the bleedin’ Pandies this time, though; killed thousands. No, I reckon it’s Cawnpore for us. Needs to be. I’m bored to the fuckin’ death of ’anging about whilst all the others get the loot an’ quim, not to mention—’

‘Listen in, yous.’ McGucken’s bass Scots halted Pegg’s philosophising. ‘Grenadier Company…Company, ’shun.’ At the word of command every man stiffened, pushing his clasped hands straight down in front of his bellybutton, hollowing the back and bracing his thighs before snapping the left heel back against the right, thumping his boot hard on the teak decks of the ship.

‘Sir, one officer and seventy-eight men on parade…’ McGucken made the little ritual a spectacle, ‘two detached on duty, one sick.’ His hand quivered at the salute as the company commander came on deck, the colour-sergeant’s great legs like some satyr, straining at the cloth of his blue-black trousers. ‘May I have your leave to stand the men at ease, sir, please?’ The crescendo of his words made two muscular lascars in the waist of the ship look up in startled admiration.

‘Please do, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Morgan returned the salute with a relaxed grace, standing out clear and sharp in his scarlet coat, for Colonel Hume had forbidden the officers to wear smocks. ‘An’ gather the lads in around me, please; I can’t be doing with any shouting.’

A few, good-humoured insults about the men’s parentage from McGucken soon had the Grenadiers shuffling into a crescent around Morgan, straining to hear what news he had to tell them.

‘You’ve put up with a great deal of boredom, lads, over the past few months, and behaved pretty well,’ Morgan started. ‘Fairly well, anyway.’

There was a great storm of laughter as Morgan looked pointedly at eighteen-year-old Private Pierce from Crewe, one of the new draft, who had been found wandering drunk and stark naked on the fort’s yard two weeks before, making the natives, according to Private O’Keefe, ‘…t ’ank God that it wasn’t a proper man from Lifford there in the nip – that would o’ caused another mutiny – but amidst the wimmin this time!’

‘But now we know where we’re bound.’ Morgan paused for effect. ‘It’s Cawnpore, lads, to right the wrongs that were done to General Wheeler and his people back in June.’

‘See, I told you so,’ crowed Pegg as a general mutter of satisfaction swept around the company.

‘Now, you’ll all have heard what happened there, how the general was gammoned by Tantya Tope into putting his people into boats on the Ganges, then torn to ribbons by the Pandies as they floated in the shallows.’ Morgan paused again, looking at the serious faces of his men. ‘And how the white women and children, not to mention the native Christians, were hacked into pieces with axes and thrown down the wells…and worse.’

None of the troops could have failed to know what had happened in Cawnpore. The newspapers that reached them from England had been outraged by the rapes and massacres, but long before they arrived rumour had swept from the bazaar to the barrack block, from the stables to the officers’ mess: tales of treachery and black betrayal, blood and mindless cruelty. Morgan remembered it as a particularly difficult time. The news of the massacres had come hard on the heels of the murder of the Forgetts, and it had been all that the officers and NCOs could do to stop the men from visiting a little rough justice on their new ‘comrades’ in the 10th BNI.

‘Well, it’s our chance now, lads, to take Cawnpore back and to even the score a bit.’ Morgan watched the men. About half of them had yet to see either their twentieth birthdays or any fighting, but the others knew what such glib phrases meant. They knew that ‘evening the score’ meant blood and wounds, danger and death for them as well as their enemies, but wherever Morgan looked he could see nothing but plain determination, men whose simple values had been rocked by the death of innocents.

‘We’re to disembark at Mandavie.’ The troops looked at Morgan, utterly blank. ‘Only another day on board and then we’ve a long march up-country to Deesa that’ll take us the best part of four weeks. We’ll rest there – it’s the depot of our Eighty-Sixth, and we should be there for Christmas Day – before another flog of about five hundred miles to Cawnpore.’ This was greeted by a little cheer. ‘But it’s the march that I need to tell you about. For the first time we’ll be in hostile country, but not so hostile that we can afford to treat every native the same. It’s hard to understand, lads, and it’s going to take every bit of wit and patience you’ve got to deal with the mutineers that we meet as the murdering, godless thugs that they are, yet handle the civilian population with respect – unless they betray us.’ Morgan looked at seventy-odd wrinkled brows, not at all convinced that one word that he said was being understood, but he pressed on. ‘Now you’ll have all heard of Lord Canning’s declaration back in June…’

‘Oo’s ’e, then?’ Beeston asked quietly.

‘You know, Jono, that cunt from London ’oo wants us to pray for the Pandies’ salvation.’ The Governor-General of India would probably not have been flattered by Pegg’s description of him.

‘He’s made it quite clear that British rule is under no serious threat and that once this little pother in Bengal’s been put down,’ Morgan let none of his reservations about the depth and severity of the uprising show, ‘Her Majesty’s power will be wider and stronger than ever before. And that means that we’ve got to leave the country in the best shape we can. It’s no good putting every man, woman and child to the sword one minute and then having to rebuild the place an’ pretend that it never happened. Now, you’ll come across all sorts of horrors an’ meet folk who’ve been outraged and seen things that they should never have had to see; there’s all sorts of irregulars roamin’ about the country – English an’ native, soldiers and civilians – who’ve taken the law into their own hands an’ are stringing people up from every tree.’ Morgan paused again to look at the men, every one of whom was listening intently to him. ‘And that’s fine for mutineers, but not every native is disloyal. Just look at the Tenth…’

‘You look at the murderin’ bastards if you want,’ whispered Beeston to whoever cared to listen.

‘…and we need the help of the civilian population, especially for the intelligence that they will give us about who is and who isn’t a mutineer, where the enemy is located, what his plans are, and a host of other details. Now, most of you have seen harder knocks than anything that this bunch of ragamuffins will be able to throw at us, and you always behaved yourselves.’ There was just a slight question mark in Morgan’s voice. ‘I expect the highest of standards from you: an’ Christ help anyone who steps out of line. Any questions?’ Morgan scanned the crowd of sun-burned faces. ‘No, right, Colour-Sar’nt.’

But before Morgan could hand over to McGucken, a boot stamped on the deck and a hand shot out, seeking permission to speak. ‘Sir,’ Pegg’s Wirksworth accent cut the sea air, ‘’ow d’we know ’oo is and isn’t a bleedin’ Pandy? The papers say they tek their uniforms off if it suits ’em an’ just bugger off into the villages and pretend to be ordinary folk.’

There was a hint of nodding heads from the other men at their self-appointed spokesman’s words.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, Corporal Pegg. These ain’t Muscovites fighting fair and even, but we can’t assume that everyone’s an enemy – it’s going to be difficult,’ Morgan answered firmly.

‘Aye, sir, but these bastards ’ave murdered women an’ nippers, an’ stabbed us in the back.’ Pegg wouldn’t be silenced. ‘It’s all right for some windbag politician to tell us to be Christian kind to the Pandies, sir, but they won’t ’ave to do the fighting, sir, will they?’

McGucken stepped forward to shut Pegg up, but Morgan stopped him as he saw a ripple of support and concern spread throughout the troops.

‘You’re right, Corporal Pegg.’ Pegg’s face relaxed at his officer’s tolerant reply. ‘But that’s our job; we’ve got to do the dirty work whilst shiny-arsed politicos blow words into the wind. So, we’ll just have to get on with it, won’t we; an’ if you find a bit of grog an’ gold in the process, the colour-sar’nt and me won’t be asking too many questions.’

It wasn’t much of a quip, but it worked well enough for Morgan as the men greeted it with a laugh until McGucken brought them to attention as he strode off.

As he groped for the rail that led him below decks, Morgan paused for a moment and stared at the shore, which was now quite distinct. White surf marked a strip of sand topped with dusty-green jungle, and he wondered just what danger and peril lay in front of them all.

‘No ’eathen mut’neers ’ere then, Corp’l?’ Beeston, footsore and bored after three hot, uneventful nights on the march said what everyone had been thinking.

‘No, not so far, Jono. Just these buggers an’ a stink o’ shit,’ Pegg replied disappointedly.

They had all got used to a cloud of Indian servants and bearers who had done the men’s every bidding for a daily pittance back in Bombay, but only a handful had greeted them at the desolate quayside at Mandavie, due, they all assumed, to the imminence of battle. But there had been no sign of the mutineers; indeed, there was little to be seen of anything as they marched in the cool of the night on the muddy tracks beside ditches and drains bordered by scrubby jungle.

‘We’ll be in Bhuj in a couple o’ hours, won’t we, Corp’l?’ Beeston asked, his voice flat with the tedium of marching and the lack of sleep snatched in the midday heat between double sentry duties as they waited for the attack that hadn’t materialised.

‘An’ d’you think they’ll let us put us smocks back on – this jacket’s so bloody ’ot,’ Beeston continued. The men had not been allowed to shed their red coats in favour of the much lighter canvas smocks for no good reason that the troops could see.

‘Naw, they’ll keep us dressed up like they did out East till someone saw some sense…Aye, we should be there soon,’ Pegg replied dully. ‘Hark at that lot. You’d think they were on bleedin’ furlough, you would.’

It was true: the four companies of the 10th Bengal Native Infantry, who had disembarked alongside the left wing of the 95th, had sung and chanted rhythmically from the first pace they’d taken. Whilst the 95th had started in fine form bellowing ‘Cheer, Boys, Cheer’, their own especially ribald versions of ‘The Derby Ram’ and countless, sentimental Irish ballads, they had soon lapsed into moody silence as the miles dragged slowly by in the dark nights. The sepoys, meanwhile, had maintained a simple enthusiasm, great gusts of laughter occasionally reaching the ears of the tramping British as some witticism was passed up and down their scarlet columns.

‘In fact, I reckon those are probably the lights of the town yonder.’ But no sooner had Pegg spotted a line of guttering lanterns in the distance than the cry went up from behind them that was repeated by McGucken and the other non-commissioned officers.

‘Get off the road, Grenadiers. Horse coming through!’

And as the foot soldiers took to the thorny banks of the road and leant on their rifles, easing the weight of their knapsacks, columns of bearded men in dark, loose-fitting kurtahs, brown leather belts and bandoliers, curved tulwars at their sides, carbines bouncing behind their saddles and deep red turbans on their heads, came trotting past.

‘’Oo’s that lot, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Pegg asked McGucken as they both stood and watched the horsemen jingling past.

‘Scinde ’Orse, Corp’l Pegg.’ McGucken pulled the short clay pipe from his mouth and rootled in the bowl with the tip of his little finger.

‘Right little tatts they’re on, ain’t they?’ Pegg ventured, stuffing a fresh quid of tobacco into his cheek.

‘Well, they’re not like our ’Eavies; more like scouts and reconnaissance troops on sort o’ polo ponies,’ McGucken answered, ‘but there’s two squadrons of ’em an’ they’ll be right ’andy against any rebel cavalry that we meet.’

As the last of the Indians clattered by, the NCOs had the men on the road again, plodding forward towards the lights of Bhuj, the vinegary smell of fresh horse dung now sharp in their nostrils.

‘I didn’t get a wink of sleep, did you, Morgan?’

When fatigue took some of the edge off him, Carmichael could be almost pleasant, thought Morgan.

‘A wee bit, but those Sappers made a God-awful din when they arrived, didn’t they?’ Morgan replied.

As the wing of the 95th had arrived at the little town of Bhuj some three hours before dawn and been shown to a mixture of reed-shelters and dak bungalows by staff officers, where they had sunk gratefully onto mats and charpoys, other troops had streamed in. The wing of the 10th BNI had been hard behind them, more than two hundred sabres of the Scinde Horse were already milling around in the dark, and then, just before dawn, Captain Cumberland’s Royal Engineers had come rumbling into camp on the squealing, solid wooden wheels of innumerable bullock carts.

‘They did,’ Bazalgette wiped at his plate of curried goat with a piece of rubbery chapatti, ‘but this has the makings of quite a formidable little column, don’t you think?’

‘No, gentlemen, don’t stand up, please.’ Colonel Hume was just too late to stop the group of captains and subalterns, all working hungrily at a tiffin of rice and meat, from dragging themselves to their feet. ‘Good to see a bit of civilisation again, ain’t it?’

Morgan marvelled at the man. It was all he himself could do to cast a rudimentary eye over the crude shelters allotted to his company when they’d arrived a few hours ago before a quick, ‘…Carry on, Colour-Sar’nt,’ as he scuttled off to the officers’ bungalow and stretched himself out to sleep. Not Hume, though. His red-rimmed eyes showed that he’d been far too conscientious for slumber whilst all the other units in the column had been arriving, and now he even had time to play down the wretchedness of the camp and its amenities.

‘You’ll all be pleased to hear – ah, thank you, shukria,’ Hume passed his sword belt, pistol and cap to a native servant – ‘that the artillery is on its way. Once the Second Field Battery of our friends the Bombay Artillery is with us, then we’ll be complete and Johnny bloody Sepoy will have to look to his laurels.’

There was a general mutter of agreement from the officers, although the younger subalterns, Morgan noticed, were much too engrossed in their food to give the Colonel the attention that the older officers thought he merited.

‘And on that subject…’ Hume gratefully accepted the quart pot of ale that a servant pressed into his hand as he settled into one of the cane chairs, ‘…how have the men accepted your pep talks on “Clemency Canning’s” dictat?’

‘Fine, sir,’ said Bazalgette, as the colonel’s gaze fell upon him, though he was far more interested in the contents of a tureen of fish soup.

‘And your lot, Massey?’

‘It took a bit of getting through to them at first that we can’t go around behaving like the mutineers themselves, but I think they took the point,’ Massey answered thoughtfully.

‘And Number One Company?’ Hume turned to Carmichael, who having been first to get at the food, was replete; now he was rubbing an oily cloth over his revolver, having first made a great show of drawing the six charges from the chambers.

‘They’re all right with things, Colonel, but I explained how we’d got to be careful not to cause more trouble than we solve, and how we mustn’t go around assuming everyone’s a bloody Pandy.’ Carmichael held the big pistol up to the light and nonchalantly squinted down the barrel.

‘And they understood that?’

Hume was checking more that his officers knew what was expected rather than just the soldiers, thought Morgan, listening intently.

‘Oh, yes, they seemed to,’ Carmichael answered rather too easily. ‘Anyway, sir, I told them that if all else failed, Mr Enfield and Mr Adams here would be able to provide the answers.’

‘Oh, so that’s one of the Adams revolvers, is it?’ Hume asked innocently, to Morgan’s delight.

Carmichael never ceased to brag about his expensive pistol and how it had saved his life in the Crimea more times than he could recall, but his casual answer had needled Hume, though Carmichael didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘I’ve noticed it before; may I have a look?’ the colonel continued.

Carmichael passed the big blued-steel weapon across to the commanding officer, presenting the handsome ivory grips first. He never lost an opportunity to show the weapon off; its smooth double action and the precision of its rifling served as an excuse for everyone to admire the inscriptions in the ivory – the monogrammed ‘R. L. M. C.’, as well as the battles at which its owner had been present.

‘Hmm…that balances well.’ Hume handled the weapon appreciatively. ‘And a craftsman’s been at work here.’ He studied the butt. ‘Alma, Balakava, Inkermann, Sevastopol. My word, you must have cared for this, Carmichael – it looks as if it’s never been out of its holster.’

Hume’s barb was lost on Carmichael, but not on Bazalgette and Morgan, who looked at each other and smiled.

‘I feel like bloody Noah, sir. Look at these rascals, will you?’ McGucken was rarely so voluble, but Morgan had to admit there was something biblical about the bullocks, camels, donkeys and even six vast grey elephants that swayed about the gun lines of Number Two Field Battery.

‘They give us some queer jobs, they do, but the commanding officer was most particular about the safety of the guns and the gunners, and I suppose it’s a compliment of sorts…oh, goddamit,’ Morgan cursed as he stepped in a giant dollop of what looked like horse manure.

‘Dunno whether standing in pachyderm shite’s lucky or not, sir, but I guess you’ll find out now,’ McGucken grinned as Morgan scraped the welt of his boot with a handful of coarse grass, ‘though I’d prefer to be with the rest of the column rather than hanging around wiping gunners’ arses. The fightin’ll probably be done by the time this menagerie catches up with ’em.’

‘I hear what you say, Colour-Sar’nt, but there’ll be no attempt at towns or cities without the guns, and if there are rebels about on the route to Deesa, they’ll want to knock out the artillery first,’ answered Morgan, almost convinced by his own line of reasoning.

‘An’ look at this lot, sir – what’ll we do wi’ them in the middle of a fight?’ asked McGucken as he stared at the crowd of civilan bearers, grass cutters, grooms, cooks, washerwomen and general servants whom the battery had brought with them.

‘D’you know, Colour-Sar’nt, I haven’t the least idea.’ The same thought had occurred to Morgan as swarms of civilians had appeared from nowhere once the troops had reached the relative civilisation of Bhuj and attached themselves to the company before they started the long march up-country. ‘I suppose they’ll make themselves scarce if the lead begins to fly. Anyway, are we ready to march once the sun’s down?’

‘Aye, sir, as ready as we’ll ever be, but I have me doots about yon cows.’ McGucken looked at the great, lazy-eyed oxen. One scratched its chin with a rear hoof, narrowly missing Private Swann as its horns flailed about, whilst its partner, shackled to it by a clumsy wooden yoke, flapped its ears incessantly at a cloud of flies.

‘Yes, not to mention the rest of God’s creatures that we seem to have inherited.’ Morgan looked with dismay as two camels wandered past, swamped by bundles of fodder almost as large as themselves. ‘Still, with such a lack of draught horses, I’d prefer to have this lot than try to pull the hardware ourselves.’

As the march started after sundown that night, Morgan regretted his words. The guns and their limbers behaved well enough – the Indian drivers keeping the horses well in hand – and the camels were aloof but quiescent, whilst their vast loads meant that no traffic could pass in the other direction. Then, after a great deal of trumpeting and general skittishness, the elephants that were pulling the extra ammunition caissons settled to their duty, plodding stolidly in the dark under the direction of their mahouts. But the bullocks: how right McGucken had been not to trust ‘yon cows’.

‘Get up, won’t you, you lazy son of a drab,’ one of the Bombay gunners, a grizzled Englishman wearing the Sutlej medal, kicked and slapped one such creature that had lain down directly in the centre of the narrow, muddy track, anchoring its yoked partner securely and blocking all the traffic that came behind it. ‘Get your fuckin’ arse movin’ before I take the steel to ye.’

To the 95th’s Grenadiers, who marched beside the column of nine-pounders, howitzers and their attendant traffic, ready to protect them from any interference by the enemy, such sights were a wonder.

‘Come on, you useless sod,’ the gunner continued, pulling his hanger from its scabbard and giving the animal such a poke that it leapt to its feet, bellowing forlornly and pulling its partner violently forward.

‘You’ll need to tend the wound you’ve given that beast,’ Morgan said, concerned not with any pain that the gunner had inflicted, but merely the continued efficiency of the ox, ‘or it’ll mortify in this climate, won’t it?’

‘Mortify, sir – I hope it bloody dies.’ The gunner had, quite clearly, reached the end of his patience with this particular animal. ‘But I doubt it; they’ve got hides thicker than a docker’s dick-skin, these bastards ’ave, sir.’

And after a brace of night marches and sleep-short days, Morgan came to agree with the gunner, for the tiresome cattle seemed to ignore hunger, thirst, threats or reason, suiting themselves entirely whether they wished to obey orders or not, and apparently impervious to all stimuli other than those that they imposed upon themselves.

The hours of darkness were hells of delay and infuriating petty problems – slipped saddles, shed shoes, broken spokes and binding axles – whilst the days provided little sleep at all as the sun beat down.

After almost two weeks of stuttering progress, McGucken was tramping alongside Morgan one night, reliving some story of his time with the 36th in Gibraltar when vivid flashes lit up the road at the front of the column.

‘What in God’s name’s that?’ asked Morgan, though he knew well enough as the flat bangs of musket-fire and the sweeping whistle of lead shook him from his reverie.

‘Bloody ambush, sir,’ yelled McGucken, already sprinting hard towards the trouble. ‘Come on, Captain Morgan, sir, you don’t want to miss the fun.’

Morgan’s belly was tight with fear, but he scrabbled after McGucken when more flashes reflected off the bushes and trees as a couple of British rifles returned fire.

The track was narrow and greasy, blocked by animals and drivers, shrieking women and cowering grooms. Worse still, as the pair ran forward, grabbing their own men as they went, so a stream of panic-filled bearers came bowling down the verges towards them, shouting, eyes wide with fright, barging and pushing their way to the rear. As the mob skittered past Morgan in the dark, one man fell under the feet of the others, pulling at something in his shoulder whilst a nearby camel suddenly sank to its knees, its breath soughing coarsely from its lips. As he jostled his way forward, Morgan was aware of something fast and menacing whispering through the night: flights of arrows were thumping into flesh and saddles and tack, or quivering in the mud around his ankles.

‘Jaysus, this is like the bloody crusades, sir,’ McGucken puffed as they ran up to the head of the column. ‘What else will the fuckers use, boiling oil?’

But before Morgan could reply, McGucken spotted two figures stumbling hard down the track on the other side of the camels and the frightened oxen, away from the noise of battle in front.

‘Corporal Pegg…’ even though the arrows continued to fly, McGucken’s barrack-yard yell brought the fugitive and his companion to a sudden halt, ‘…where d’ye think yer going?’

Despite the darkness, Morgan could see the guilt on Pegg’s face.

‘Er…nowhere, Colour Sar’nt,’ Pegg stammered. ‘I were just mekin’ sure that—’

‘Put that bint down, Corporal, and get back to your men.’

Even in this chaos, McGucken’s strength of character could galvanise others. It was what made him so indispensable, thought Morgan.

Pegg objected no further: the native girl whom he had been sheltering shrieked off into the night, clutching her sari about her, whilst he skulked his way back to the front of the column, trying to look as though he’d never been away.

‘What’s going on, Sarn’t Ormond?’ Morgan found the non-commissioned officer kneeling in the grass surrounded by a handful of his men. They stared hard at the fringe of jungly forest that loomed darkly fifty yards away from them, weapons ready, peering down the barrels, looking for a target.

‘Got shot at from over yonder, sir.’ Ormond pointed at the trees with a nod of his forehead, never taking his eyes off the source of danger nor his finger off his rifle’s trigger. ‘Couple of the lads fired back.’

But before Ormond could finish, another volley boomed out from the trees, the rounds whipping high overhead in the darkness. Though they were wide of their mark, Morgan found himself flat on his belly, pressing his body into the grit and mud of the track whilst a camel danced about him, the creature’s decorative bells jingling madly, more frightened of the human’s strange behaviour round his feet than the noise and uproar.

Christ, that was a mile off, thought Morgan. What am I doing down here on my belt buckle? What’ll the boys make of me? They’re not scrubbing around in the dirt, are they?

The crackle of shots from his own men helped to restore Morgan’s senses as Ormond turned to him, his face damp with sweat in the moonlight, and yelled, ‘What d’you want us to do, sir?’

‘He’ll be leading us out to clear them.’ Happily, McGucken was there at Morgan’s elbow, as calm as if it were all a blankfiring exercise. ‘Won’t you, sir? Get yer spikes on, lads.’

And whilst the clutch of men around them pulled the slender, eighteen-inch-long bayonets from their scabbards and slipped the sockets firmly over the end of their barrels, Morgan collected himself, dragging his blade from his belt and pushing his hand through the sword knot whilst his arse shrivelled tight in an all-too-familiar way. He licked his lips, held the gently curved steel out in front of him and stumbled forward over the greasy verge at the edge of the road and into the long grass beyond.

‘Come on, Grenadiers, follow me!’ Morgan’s words seemed to come from a stranger as the little crowd of men surged after him, weapons levelled, half cheering as they crashed over the broken ground.

His mind raced back to the last time he’d been ambushed at night outside Sevastopol. Then it had been screaming Russians, banging rifles and popping flares. But the enemy was nowhere to be seen now, just the ominous, black tree line that got closer with each clumsy stride.

‘There’s the bastards…there. Fire, lads.’ Ormond’s breathless voice came from somewhere behind Morgan, as drab spectral figures paused, snatched at bowstrings and scrambled away into the depths of the forest before the troops could close with them.

A covey of arrows flickered harmlessly around as a handful of rifles crashed, the yellow flashes instantly lighting up the night, giving just a glimpse of lithe, running shadows, one of which was flung onto its face as if by the swipe of a giant’s hand.

‘Got ’im,’ McGucken growled with satisfaction, the cloud of powder smoke hanging heavily amongst the leaves and branches. ‘Stop here, lads. Don’t chase ’em, they’re not for catching, now.’

Morgan reached for a tree trunk for support as he sucked for breath, his sword suddenly leaden. ‘Get the men reloaded, please, Colour-Sar’nt.’ Experience had taught him that, at least.

‘Aye, sir,’ McGucken replied. ‘You heard the officer,’ even as he pushed around looking for his quarry in the undergrowth as a sportsman might search for a downed woodcock.

‘’Ere ’e is, Jock…bus.’ Sergeant Ormond had been in more bloody scrimmages with the colour-sergeant than either could count and was allowed such familiarity. Now he kneeled, parting the grass so that the moonlight might let him see just what the enemy looked like.

‘Skinny little runt,’ said Ormond as Morgan and McGucken clustered round. ‘Nice shot, though, right through the neck.’

It was difficult for Morgan to see much in the dark; all he could make out was a man not much bigger than a child wearing a dirty grey dhoti from which stuck stick-thin legs and bare muddy feet. Stained teeth were visible under a wispy moustache, lank hair covered much of his face, whilst blood, black by the light of the moon, still pumped from a long gash that ran from under his left ear across to his windpipe.

‘Yon’s no sepoy, is ’e, sir?’ McGucken held up a slender curved bow that he’d pulled from the dead man’s hand.

‘Certainly doesn’t look like it, Colour-Sar’nt. He’s no uniform or belts on him. More like a common badmash, I’d say,’ replied Morgan.

But before the professional debate began over exactly what sort of man it was that McGucken had reduced to cold meat, a gale of shouting and frightened trumpeting from the elephants that towed the heavy ammunition carts broke out from the column waiting on the road behind them.

Morgan began to run through the brush, back towards the road, the noise of the elephants being joined by a strange, feral squealing.

‘Come on, then, get after the company commander.’ McGucken chivvied the troops into a stumbling run, away from the dead man at whom they had all been gawping. ‘Watch out for any of these rogues hidin’ in the grass.’

But the danger came from quite a different source. When the column stopped, the elephants had jammed themselves tightly together at the rear of the line behind the guns and just in front of the spare oxen and some dhoolies carrying the sick. Here the track was deeply sunken, its banks reaching up five feet or more, effectively penning in the animals and their burdens.

‘Get out of the way!’ Morgan, at the head of his panting men, had been able to make out the forms of the six elephants wildly swaying about, trunks outstretched, trumpeting deafeningly in the night, stamping and stomping at something that shrieked beneath their feet. Now, one of the huge beasts came lumbering over the bank straight towards the group of soldiers, mighty ears flapping wildly, tusks thrashing left and right, its mahout clutching helplessly to its neck as its ammunition cart floundered after it. As the monstrous thing cut a swathe through the running troops so a wheel came off the caisson, which slewed round, spilling great, black, 24-pound howitzer rounds, which bounced through the grass.

‘Oh, ow…’ yelled Private James. ‘It’s broke me leg!’ as he was bowled over like a skittle by one of the iron shot, which knocked his feet from under him.

‘They’re pigs, sir.’ McGucken had dodged the blundering grey form and now stood on the edge of the bank just feet from the other plunging elephants, looking down at a dozen shrieking, darting forms, ghostly pale in the night. ‘The elephants are terrified of ’em – so’s the natives. Where the fuck have they come from?’

He was right. Morgan saw how the squeals of the pigs were tormenting the elephants, who were trying to rid themselves of their attackers with tusks and vast stamping feet, which, in turn were making the pigs even more petrified and noisy. Meanwhile, the Hindu civilians and military drivers had gathered in an appalled huddle on the opposite side of the road, aghast and helpless as the unclean creatures ran amok.

‘God knows. Kill the bloody things, lads.’ Morgan leaped down amongst the huge, stamping, grey, leathery feet, immediately regretting his decision. ‘But don’t shoot, stab the sods.’

This is no way to die, he thought as an enormous pad with nails the size of trowels thumped into the earth just inches from him, and just look at those nuts – as a scrotum the size of a bag of flour swung past his face. It’ll look just grand on the Court and Social page:…‘gallant fate at the head of his men; bashed to death by an elephant’s bollocks whilst trying to sabre a swine.’

Eventually they finished the job. Private Saint had his foot run over by the wheel of the battery’s forge wagon, Sergeant Ormond was brushed sideways by an elephantine knee, but the pigs were finally subdued by the blades of the men and order restored to the terrified leviathans.

‘What d’you suppose that was about, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan sat on the bank by the track, as the first light of dawn turned the black sky to turtle-dove grey.

‘Oldest trick in the book, apparently, sir. One of the gunner naiks was tellin’ me that everyone knows that elephants and pigs are shit-scared of each other an’ if yous want to stampede the big buggers you just release a few wee porkers around their feet,’ answered McGucken.

‘Well, there we are; they didn’t teach us that back at the depot, did they, Colour-Sar’nt? Still, it shows the Pandies have got a deal of sense. If they could have knocked the guns out, or just destroyed the ammunition, we’d be in queer street,’ Morgan reasoned. ‘What damage is done?’

‘Not much, sir. A fodder camel’s down, some oxen have bolted an’ can’t be found yet, one bearer’s been wounded, Sar’nt Ormond an’ Saint are a bit knocked about, an’ the artillery lads are just getting a spare wheel back on that limber.’ McGucken checked a pencilled list on a scrap of paper. ‘Oh, aye, one of the Bombay gunners is unaccounted for; they think he might have gone off wi’ the Pandies. An’ the natives reckon that judging by the archer we got, the whole thing was probably the work o’ rebels from one of the maharajah’s armies up north, not reg’lar sepoys.’

‘So, irregular rebels, not regular rebels…Hmm, this is going to be even more confusing than I thought. Anyway, let’s get moving once that wheel’s fixed. We’ll find some water up ahead, get everything square and bed down for the day.’ Morgan tapped his pipe out on the heel of his muddy boot. ‘But we’ll have to be more alert in close country if we don’t want to get caught like that again.’

‘You all right, Pete, Jono?’ Lance-Corporal Pegg pushed through the brush into the small clearing where Privates Sharrock and Beeston were sitting behind a modest ant hill as sentries for the column that rested in the midday heat behind them.

‘Aye, we’re sound as a bell, Corp’l. Too much bloody staggin’, though,’ Beeston replied dolefully.

Since the ambush the day before, Morgan had ordered that the sentries should be doubled, so cutting by half the small amount of sleep that the men were getting during the day.

‘Well, I’ve got Jimmy here to replace you, Jono, so you’ll soon be rolled up snug; mek the most on it.’ The men were posted for two-hour shifts, a fresh sentry being brought forward by a junior NCO every hour to replace one of them, so minimising the likelihood, at least in theory, that a pair of sentries would fall asleep at the same time. The burden, though, fell heavily upon the lance-corporals and corporals, who got little rest.

‘If I’m on me chin-strap, I bet you’re half dead, ain’t you, Corp’l?’ The new sentry posted, Beeston and Pegg were walking back to the column down a narrow track.

‘Well, I’ve ’ad more restful times, but double sentries is always a pain in the ring, ain’t it?’ Pegg replied.

‘Wasn’t the sentries I were thinking about, Corp’l.’ Beeston’s darkly tanned face lit into a smile. ‘It was that dhobi bint that you’re a-poking.’

‘Less o’ that, you cheeky sod.’ Though only twenty, Pegg was more than capable of pulling rank with older, more experienced men when it suited him. ‘Anyway, she’s not just a bint, she’s—’

‘Hush, Corp’l, what’s that noise?’ Beeston cut across Pegg’s retort, freezing in his steps and pulling the hammer back on his rifle, raising the butt to the shoulder.

Pegg must have missed the low gurgling snuffle amongst the hum and click of insects as he’d walked up the track with the new sentry a few minutes before. But now, as both men listened intently, the noise came again.

‘What d’you reckon it is, Jono?’ asked Pegg, as he too brought his weapon up to the shoulder.

‘Dunno. Sounds like a man, though, Corp’l,’ answered Beeston. ‘There, it’s coming from over there.’

Slowly, hesitantly, the two soldiers crept forward off the track and into the thicket as the rasping moan came again.

‘Bloody hell, they’ve made a job on him, ain’t they?’ Jono Beeston murmured as they both looked at the torn form of a man who was tied to a tree trunk. His naked feet stuck out below his crumpled knees; the only clothes he now wore were the blood-stained overalls of the Bombay Horse Artillery, whilst from his shoulders great strips of flesh had been flayed away from the purply muscle and fatty tissue that lie below the skin. His head lolled on his slashed chest, his topknot was now undone and the hair hung down in a curtain around his face.

‘’E’s not long for this world, poor owd lad.’ Pegg gently lifted the Indian gunner’s chin and pulled one eyelid open. ‘Let’s get ’im cut down an’ carried back.’

The pair of them slung their rifles and lifted the man by armpits and knees, the way they’d carried a hundred casualties in the past, trudging back down the uneven path.

‘Bring him here, lads.’ McGucken had been about to visit the sentries himself when he saw Pegg and Beeston with their load. ‘Who is he?’

‘One of the artillery drivers, Colour-Sar’nt,’ Pegg puffed as they lay him on the ground as gently as possible. ‘Found ’im tied to a tree over yonder.’

‘Aye, he must be the boy who disappeared yesterday.’ McGucken bent down, pulled a tiny round shaving mirror from his haversack and held it against the man’s lips. ‘No, he’s bus. Well done for bringing him in though, lads. Nip over an’ tell the gunners, will you, Beeston.’ McGucken was matter-of-fact; he’d seen too many dead men to be affected by another. ‘They’ll want to get ’im burnt before we move on; poor sod.’

‘Mek’s you wonder though, Colour-Sar’nt, what this is all about, don’t it?’ Pegg and McGucken stared down at the grisly sight; the blood on the man’s shoulders where the flesh had been stripped away had started to congeal as death arrived, whilst flies crawled thickly over his eyes, lips and nostrils.

‘All that stuff about God’s mercy from Mr Canning that the officers lectured us about on the ship – ’as anyone told the fuckin’ Pandies to behave like Christians?’ Pegg asked.

‘Doesn’t seem like Christmas, does it, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan tramped alongside McGucken, the whining of the bullock-cart wheels deadened only by the incessant buzz of flies.

‘No, sir, it doesna,’ replied McGucken, routinely swiping at the insects. ‘They’ll be punishin’ the grog back home, just gettin’ the measure o’ things for Hogmanay. What’ll be happenin’ back in Cork?’

What indeed? wondered Morgan. He remembered his mother’s excitement when he was a boy whilst they covered Glassdrumman – the ‘big house’, as the servants would have it – in holly and pine cones; how she’d insisted on following the latest fashion from London by bringing an eight-foot fir tree into the hall and covering it with glass balls (to be greeted by, ‘Balls, indeed’, from his scowling father) bought at vast expense from Dublin. What would Maude (how pregnant would she be now?) be doing tonight, and how would Mary be spending the season of goodwill up in Jhansi – assuming she and Sam (what did the lad look like, was he sturdy, like him, or willowy like his mother?) were as safe as Keenan had assured him they would be?

‘Will you listen to that, sir!’ McGucken interrupted his thoughts with a delighted laugh.

Just in sight, a mile away, rose the mud and brick fort of Deesa, the only European station for miles around, which it had taken them over four weeks of blistering, tedious marching to reach. Their only excitement had been the botched ambush two weeks before; now, as the heat started to make the dawn light wobble and the horizon to dip and rise, as the kites wheeled above them and the camels hawked and farted, the sound of a brass band came wafting down the breeze.

‘Ha…damn me, it’s “Good King Wenceslas”, ain’t it?’ Morgan smiled.

‘Aye, sir, “…where the snow lay round about, Deep an’ crisp an’ even,” – some bugger’s got a sense o’ humour.’

And so they had. The artillery and its escort of the 95th was the last part of the column to reach Deesa, and as they approached they could see the white-jacketed musicians of the 86th under their German bandmaster, and a neat quarter guard in scarlet presenting arms whilst the guns, carts and limbers rumbled and groaned through the gates.

‘Makes you realise just how bloody scruffy we’ve become, Colour-Sar’nt, don’t it?’ Morgan returned the guard’s salute as they passed. The young subaltern in command, just shaved and freshly pressed, stood with his sword held gracefully akimbo.

‘Aye, sir, an’ here’s the commanding officer.’ McGucken had spotted some horsemen trotting slowly towards them. ‘March to attention, Grenadiers.’

The troops brought their rifles smartly to the shoulder, trying to make up for their dust-ingrained, sun-bleached appearance.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.