God Is an Englishman (2 page)

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v i i i G O D I S A N E N G L I S H M A N

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Advance on Most Fronts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

5

Edith as Thief-taker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

PART FIVE
Towards the Weir: 1865–1866
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

1

Apogee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

2

Tumult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

3

Thaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

4

Conspiracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

5

Vicereine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

6

Petticoat Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

EPILOGUE
Re-Encounter: 1866
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Reading Group Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641

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man with a

casket: 1857–1858

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They stormed out of the dustcloud in a solid, scurrying mass, horse and foot in about equal proportions, but in no sort of formation; a mob of armed fugitives, with nothing in mind but to escape the hangman, or the bayonets of the Highlanders who had rushed the town at first light and had now fought their way as far as the Ranee’s palace.

Swann, sitting his horse a few lengths in front of the extended squadron, recognised the badges and uniforms of the foremost, men of the 12th Native Infantry and the 14th Irregular Cavalry, the murderers of women who had entertained him here when he had ridden over from Allahabad less than a year ago. But before he could use his spurs the leading mounted man was bearing down on him, and Swann noticed that he was encumbered by a curved-topped casket, balanced on the bow of his saddle.

The casket registered as an incongruity. It seemed ridiculous that a man flying for his life should encumber himself with luggage, but this man had, so much so that his tulwar swung loose from his wrist on its sword-knot, and before he could find its hilt, Swann had sent him tumbling from the saddle with a single, backhanded slash. The box went flying, and even in that terrible uproar Swann heard the splintering crack of shattered wood as it bounced across the ground.

Then he was engulfed, horse and foot streaming past him on either side, and his bay pivoted and was carried forward, gyrating and bucketing as her rider threw his weight this way and that parrying the random thrusts of sepoy bayonets and the sweep of the horsemen’s swords.

The tumult was like the onrush of a bursting dam, its fury stunning the senses, so that he was unaware of the agency that brought him down in the midst of the press or how, pitching on hands and knees with his face in the dirt, he avoided GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 1

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being ridden over by the cavalry or bayoneted by the infantry. His sabre and czapka had gone and he was unable to rise on account of a crushing weight on his right leg, thrusting him forward and downward, so that his mouth and nostrils were plugged with red, pungent dust. Then, like the long sigh of the wind crossing Shirley Hills when he and Roberts had ridden up there to course a hare on an autumn afternoon, the rout passed over him and went rippling away to the west. He had a single conscious thought. If this was death it was preferable to the tumult and discordancy of life.

When he opened his eyes the sun was at full strength and playing on his exposed neck like the steady lick of a torch. He found he could move his left arm, and pulled at the rucked up folds of his tunic in an attempt to ward off the glare, and it was whilst he was thus engaged that he noticed his nose was almost touching the splintered fragments of the casket the horseman had carried into battle on his saddle bow.

He isolated this one piece of debris from the litter surrounding him, noting the intricate filigree pattern of the gilded hoops half-enclosing the lid, and because his mind was searching for a focus he set himself to contemplate it, wondering what it was doing there among so much military clutter. It symbolised a different sphere, a place of patient craftsmanship and gracious living, shunning its bearded carrier now sprawled on his face a yard or so further on, and the carcase of his horse that held Swann pinned by the leg in what seemed to be a cleft separating two ridges of naked rock.

Beyond it the dead and dying sloped away in a series of colourful furrows, white and scarlet, blue and pale yellow, with the red dustcloud as their pall. The sour reek of blood and human sweat reached him so that nausea rose in his throat, but the spasm passed. He had seen many such fields, beginning with the Alma and ending, he supposed, here outside the walls of Jhansi in what would pass as a skirmish. Then the beat of an iron hammer began to fall on his temples like the long roll of Mahratta drums. He wondered how many wounds he had and where they were located. He felt no pain or distress other than the throb of his temples, and not a great deal of discomfort apart from the soft, immovable weight of the casket-carrier’s horse on his thigh. He could thus resign himself to awaiting the arrival of the ambulance unit or the burial party and the prospect brought peace rather than panic; peace and a kind of wonder that the ultimate found him so still and soundless.

He must have dozed for a time for when he stirred again his leg was numb and the scent of sandalwood came to him from the splintered box, a sharp, tantalising GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 2

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Man with a Casket: 1857–1858
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whiff probing through the miasma of death, dust and wounds, and it was then, shifting his head slightly in a second attempt to ward off the glare, that he noticed something bright and lustrous coiled in the comer of the broken casket He did not know what it was, but it suggested, at first glance, a handful of cobras’ eyes, sullen and full of menace and yet, as he braced himself to outface them, possessed of a terrible beauty. For a long time he lay there contemplating them and thinking of nothing else, watching them catch and toss back the refracted light of the sun, seeming almost to challenge him to reach out and touch them, and presently he did, lifting his hand very deliberately, as though to caress a nervous cat.

They did not shrink or bite, as he half-expected but slid softly and almost gratefully into his grasp. Then he saw that they were not cobras’ eyes but jewels strung on a common thread and arranged in order of importance, the largest of them placed farthest from the clasp, the others tapering away until they met in a rectangle of thin, gold filigree. Holding them, and watching the sun play upon the hundreds of facets, he felt comforted and as though fearing the source of repose would be taken from him he drew his arm slowly across his chest and down the length of his thigh, groping below his empty scabbard until his thumb made contact with the catch of his sabretache. There was no need to fumble with the flap for it had burst open and he dropped the necklace inside, thrusting it down into the stiff, leather folds. The effort, small as it was, exhausted him. His hand fell away, and in another moment he was still.

2

When he opened his eyes again he was trussed in a bed and facing a narrow, latticed window. It must have been towards evening for the shadows on the floor were long and steeply slanted. The room had whitewashed walls and very little furniture. Apart from the bed there was nothing but a stool and a bench, the latter encumbered with what looked like his valise and some of his blood-spattered accoutrements. He felt stiff and sore and at least two areas of his body were swathed in tight bandages, but he was not aware of a particular pain. The Mahratta drumbeat still throbbed in his head, but it was no more than an echo, the drums having moved a long way off. He was mildly astonished to find himself alive but was too drowsy to follow the thread of events beyond the point where he had seen the casket-carrier ride out of a red fog, and the memory of this caused him to turn his head towards the bench, his eyes searching his kit for the GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 3

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sabretache. He could not see it, but its absence caused him no particular concern.

Within seconds he was asleep again.

The intermittent roll of drums, punctuated by the isolated boom of cannon, awoke him a second time, and someone was holding a horn cup of lemonade to his lips. The drink had the qualities of nectar, and he drained the beaker dry without looking beyond the brown, freckled hand that held it. Then he heard and recognised the short barking laugh of Roberts and raised himself, the movement sending rivulets of pain into the bruised areas around his back and shoulders and relaying them to his bandaged leg. He said, surprised by the thin timbre of his voice, “How bad is it, Bobs? Where am I hit?”

Roberts withdrew the beaker and stared down at him, thumbs hooked in his belt, small head cocked to one side.

“You weren’t hit. Marryatt took a good look at you when he was here yesterday and I doubt if he’ll bother to come back. Heavy bruising, a cut or two, and a touch of the sun. By God, Swann, the devil must have a lease on you! One of the lucky thirty-four again, eh? Even that damned fool Cardigan couldn’t kill you.” He sat down on the stool, crossing his legs neatly and methodically, the way he did everything, the way Swann remembered from their Addiscombe days. A small, well-knit man, with skin the colour of newly tanned leather and sharp intelligent eyes that smiled when Swann threatened to quarrel with his diagnosis.

“Canvass your system as carefully as you please, Adam, you’ll find nothing to keep you here more than a day or two. ‘Circus’ Howard was killed, and about a dozen others. Your party had thirty-two casualties but most of them will live.

‘Circus’ was shot through the head when the first wave went in. That leaves just the two of us. It was hot for an hour or so before we blew in the gate, but once the Highlanders got a footing in the town it was over in minutes.”

“The squadron didn’t stand a chance,” Swann said, sullenly. “You told me I was to contain the stragglers. You didn’t say there would be an army of them.”

“I transmit orders, I don’t write them. Two regiments have gone in pursuit, the 17th and your lot. They won’t take prisoners. An hour or so after you were detached we found the mass grave of the garrison. It was Cawnpore over again, but no children, thank God.”

Adam made no comment. He and Roberts had helped to empty the well at Cawnpore in July. In common with every other European in Havelock’s relieving force they had since done what they could to seal the horror of the task in a remote attic of consciousness. Swann was surprised that Bobs should refer to it now.

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Roberts said, “This is the end, Adam. The rest is no more than a mop-up. It’s the end of something else, too. I missed watching the executions to come here and tell you.”

“Well?”

“The Company rule is over. From here on India is the Crown’s concern. It wasn’t a rumour, after all. The news came from Delhi yesterday, and Rose announced it as a near-certainty in the Mess. He wouldn’t have done that if there was any doubt.”

He waited and when Swann said nothing he looked vaguely irritated. “I don’t have to tell you what difference this will make to all of us. Promotion will be speeded up, irrespective of our casualties. You’re a fool if you don’t take advantage of it.” He paused, hopefully, looking directly at the bed.

Swann said, “I don’t give a damn for our prospects here. If I needed confirmation I got it in that order you brought me just before that mob came storming down on us. Eighty men, posted in the open, to ambush two thousand! I’m lucky, you tell me. Well, maybe I am, but not in the sense that you meant it. First Cardigan’s charge in the Crimea and now this. Nine solid months of senseless slaughter, encompassing the murder of God knows how many women and children. If I’m lucky it’s because my contract has expired, and for no other reason that I can think of.”

“It will be different now, Adam. Everything will change.”

“Soldiering won’t. Or your prospects either in the long run. You’ll die, like all the rest of the ’51 draft, shot down or speared in some Godforsaken village or river bottom with an unpronounceable name, and in what kind of cause, for God’s sake?”

“In my own, Adam.”

It was no more than a restatement of the old argument between them, an argument that would continue, if the paths ran parallel, for the rest of their lives. In a sense it crystallised their characters. Roberts, the dedicated careerist; Swann, the man who had taken a wrong turning but had never abandoned hope of finding his way out again. In the very early days of their association, when both were cadets, each had had a band of disciples. Roberts, starting out with many, had lost his one by one, a few from conviction but the majority by death and gangrened wounds. Swann’s converts had also gone and Roberts, the implacable, was not slow to remind him of the fate of two of them.

“There was Standford-Green and Badgery,” he said, “they threw up their commissions in order to go home and make fortunes and what happened to them?

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