‘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.’