Brothers of the Blade Read online

  A dray being pulled by a slow, plodding horse took an age to get out of his way as the lieutenant tried to recross the road. He went behind the waggon, avoiding stepping in a steaming pile of dung. A soldier in infantry corporal’s uniform was signalling him from the corner of the street and he made his way to him.

  ‘Gwilliams? I thought I said I’d see you at the inn.’

  ‘Yeah I know, sir,’ said the corporal in an accent he had brought with him from North America, ‘but I couldn’t wait to hear.’

  ‘We’re leaving on the twelth of January,’ Crossman told him. ‘Does that satisfy your curiosity? We have passage on a clipper ship.’ Jack frowned as he remembered another detail from his meeting with Mr Cadwaller, a director of the Honourable East India Company whom he had met at their offices in Leadenhall Street. ‘There’s another man coming with us, a Sergeant King. Queen’s army, of course. He’s on his way into London now.’

  ‘What? I thought we was on our own on this one?’

  Gwillams glanced down at his arm, at the chevrons there. Crossman knew what he was thinking. Gwilliams had only recently joined the British army and had been made a corporal immediately at the insistence of Colonel Hawke as well as Crossman. Gwilliams had been one of Crossman’s band of spies and saboteurs in the Crimea and had earned his stripes. But now the new corporal was thinking that here was some jumped-up sergeant coming into the new clique, without a by-your-leave. Had it been a private it would not have troubled either man, but a sergeant meant Gwilliams was being pushed further down the pecking order and Crossman was having to deal with an NCO whom he knew nothing about.

  ‘Well, he’s a mapmaker, apparently. His main duty will be to draw maps of some of the places we pass through. It seems he has a talent for it. God knows why they aren’t already mapped – or perhaps they are but for some reason not too accurately. I wasn’t told. But the fact remains, we will gather information while mapping the topography. We may even go into Chinese Tibet, though that’s not official. It’s something I had from Major Lovelace, earlier.’

  ‘I’m not looking after this King fellah too!’ insisted Gwilliams. ‘I don’t mind watching your back for you, sir, you being my commanding officer, but this Sergeant King can look after hisself.’

  ‘It’s not expected, Gwilliams. Not in the British army.’

  ‘Nor in the American, neither, so that’s flat. Did you need a massage, sir? You look a bit achy to me.’

  Gwillams had learned the art of massage from a tribe of Huron he had lived with in Canada. Crossman did indeed feel somewhat weary to the core of his bones, and Gwilliams had the hands to put that right. But as a reserved British gentleman he was uncomfortable enough as it was having the corporal put his hands, and sometimes his feet, on his body. He was certainly not going to take Corporal Gwilliams home with him to do it there in front of his housekeeper and her husband.

  ‘It can wait,’ he said. ‘There’ll be plenty of time on the ship.’

  Gwilliams shrugged. ‘Suit yerself, sir.’

  Now that Gwilliams had been appraised of the situation he took his leave of Crossman. The corporal made his way to the Cock Inn, where he had a room, and the officer to his family house. There he was met at the door by Betty, the housekeeper, whose husband Tom Hodges took care of the garden and the maintenance. It was not a large house and two people could manage it well enough, especially as it was rarely used these days.

  Betty told him there was a meal ‘on the go’ and she would serve it in the dining room in half-an-hour if it pleased him.

  ‘I’ll have it in the kitchen, Betty – if you don’t mind.’

  The middle-aged woman looked shocked. ‘In the kitchen, sir?’

  ‘It’s warmer there. The dining room is freezing, even with that fire going. I much prefer the kitchen. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Betty, I had a thousand times worse than your kitchen when I was in the Crimea . . .’

  ‘If I hear those words when I was in the Crimea one more time, Master Alexander,’ she said, using his old name, ‘I swear I’ll take a ladle to your backside.’

  He laughed. ‘You can’t do that any more, Betty. Not that you ever did anyway. You’re all puff. You used to threaten, but your threats were empty. However, I grant there’s nothing worse than a soldier back from a campaign who keeps repeating when I was in wherever. It must grate on the nerves. I promise I won’t say it again. Not in front of you, anyway. Now Tom enjoys hearing about my exploits in the Crimea. So if you hear me saying it to him you’ll just have to block your ears.’

  As she took his shako and sword from him the scabbard of his weapon knocked against his left hand with a wooden sound. Betty stared at him. He shrugged and smiled.

  ‘No pitying looks, Betty,’ he warned. ‘We talked about that, remember?’

  She nodded, then sailed away with his shako and sword at arm’s length, as if they carried some sort of plague. With his one good hand Crossman undid his coatee with its 88th Connaught Rangers’ yellow facings on the collar and cuffs, struggled out of it and went upstairs to change into something more comfortable. Later he went down dressed in a civilian suit and sat on one of the high stools at the old oak table. The iron kitchen range was glowing red hot. Obviously Betty had taken him seriously, when he said he was cold, and was in no way going to be responsible for any chills in her kitchen.

  He ate the soup with more appearance of relish than he actually felt because he knew it took Betty several days to make a consommé, since it had to be strained and left to settle several times. The meat stew afterwards was more to his liking, though he still had to be careful he did not overeat. The many months in the Crimea, without adequate or proper food, had done something to his digestion which was taking time to mend. It was as if his stomach had shrunk and it certainly rejected rich offerings. Little food and often seemed to be the best for him, though it had hurt both Jane and Betty to see him push away his plate and announce he was satisfied after what appeared to them to be enough only to feed a mouse.

  ‘Thank you, Betty,’ he said, afterwards. ‘Where’s Tom?’

  ‘He’s gone visiting his brother Edward, just for an hour, if it doesn’t matter, sir.’

  ‘No, no. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m sure he works hard enough to earn an hour or two off when he can take it. I just wondered if he would give me a hand tomorrow morning in my workshop? There’s one or two things he could help me with.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be happy, sir.’

  ‘Thank you. And one more thing. I’ve been curious ever since arriving. The first room on the landing appears to be locked. I wonder, do you have the key? I just want to check there are no rotting corpses in there, or mad relations chained to the wall. You read of such things these days in novels and it does make you wonder. Not that I read novels, you understand, Betty. It’s simply that I can’t bear dark secrets.’

  Again, Betty rewarded his frivolity with a shocked look.

  ‘That was your father’s room, sir. He called it his studio, whatever that means. It’s where he did his painting. There are no dead bodies in there, sir, nor no one else to my knowledge.’

  ‘Oh? Well, may I see it sometime?’

  ‘You can see it now, sir, if you wish. I’ll just get the key . . .’

  3

  The next day, very early, the party set out for Burhanpur which sat in the pass to the west of the distant Gawilgarh Hills. Sergeant King was feeling disgruntled. There were two more Indians with the lieutenant when he had joined the party that morning. On enquiry King had found out that they were guides.

  ‘What do we need guides for?’ he had said. ‘I have very adequate maps, sir. I can find the way.’

  ‘This is a not a game, Sergeant,’ was the reply. ‘I need to get to the North-West Frontier as quickly as possible. These men know the country and its foibles. We have no need to turn this into a scouting expedition. It is almost a thousand miles to the Punjab.’

  ‘Ordinary miles, sir? Or geographical mile
s?’

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed and he reacted as King had expected he would.

  ‘There’s a difference? What the devil are geographical miles?’

  ‘The same as nautical miles only they’re on dry land, not on water.’ He could see Crossman losing patience with him, so he had added very quickly, ‘A geographical mile is one minute of latitude measured along the equator.’

  ‘That means about as much to me as the consistency of a bowl of maize porridge.’

  ‘Well, sir, a British mile is 5,280 feet, whereas a geographical mile is 6,082.66 feet.’

  ‘We’ll pace it out, shall we, as we go along? Then we’ll discover what scale of measurement we ought to have used.’

  King laughed at the ludicrous image this brought to mind. So did Crossman. For a minute or two their spirits met in humour. Then Crossman walked off to mount his horse. King did the same. A short while afterwards they were on their way, weaving through a market where a handful of beans displayed on a blanket was often the sum total of a seller’s stock.

  So King was not going to be permitted to show his officer how excellent were the maps of his colleagues. He had hoped to prove something to Lieutenant Crossman but was not going to be allowed to do it. He spoke to Gwilliams about it.

  ‘Corporal, you’ve been with the lieutenant for a while now.’

  ‘Less than a year,’ replied Gwilliams, ‘including Thanksgiving and weekends.’

  Gwilliams was a little too facetious about most things, which irritated King a little, but he persisted with his questioning.

  ‘What kind of man would you say he was?’

  ‘Well, he’s a Christian soul, even though he don’t go to church.’

  ‘Is he a Quaker then?’

  Gwilliams shook his head. ‘Why would you say that, Sergeant?’

  ‘Well, you said he was Christian yet did not attend church. I assumed you meant he attended some other establishment. Quakers go to Meeting Houses. Is that what you meant?’

  ‘Nope. I mean he holds to the Christian ideals but he don’t worship much. I mean if you want someone you can trust when you’re in a tight hole, he’s a good man to have by your side. What is he really like?’ Gwilliams sighed. ‘I guess he’s loyal and mostly courteous to his men and hell with the ladies – or was, until he got wed. It’ll be interestin’ to see how he is here amongst these lovely ladies with their big brown eyes and nekkid middles. I never seen such flesh myself, King. How about you?’

  King did not want to talk about women, he wanted to know about his commander.

  ‘Did the lieutenant see much action in the Crimea?’

  ‘More than enough to last any man a lifetime.’

  ‘I know he lost his hand there – but someone told me that it was an accident – that a ladder fell on it.’

  ‘The lieutenant, or sergeant as he was then, was shot, stabbed and pummelled more times than you’ve put your butt on a horse. That ladder was a siege ladder, which took ten to twelve men to carry. Moreover, the air was thicker’n a hailstorm with bullets, shells and balls flying this way an’ that, and a forest of bayonets was waitin’ for those in front. It was hell, fire and damnation in the thick of that battle, and he walked out of it, so don’t you go belittlin’ Fancy Jack’s war for him. I seen it happen.’

  King snatched at one word. ‘He was a sergeant?’

  ‘Promoted due to his courage under fire – and some other stuff which I ain’t supposed to talk about.’

  This was news to Farrier King. From the accent, from the demeanour of his commanding officer, from what he had heard of his family background which admittedly had come only from Gwilliams, he had expected that Lieutenant Crossman had purchased his commission. What was the story here, then? A man of a good family, a noble family, who had been a sergeant in the ranks? No doubt the family was very poor, shabby genteel as they said, and could not afford to buy commissions. King mentioned this to Gwilliams.

  ‘You couldn’t be more wrong, sergeant,’ replied the corporal. ‘His pa was a major and his brother an officer too, in the 93rd. Both bought into the regiment. Rich Scotch family. And the pa of that new wife of his is drownin’ in money. It was a choice. The lieutenant joined as a common soldier and worked his way through to his present status. He’s as stubborn as a jackass, that man, and don’t like the easy routes to the top.’

  ‘Thank you, Gwilliams. I see him in a new light.’

  King said this, but felt that Gwilliams had probably missed some family skeletons in the cupboard. It had to be more than just someone out to build themselves up from nothing. There was more to it than that. And the ‘Fancy Jack’ nickname. Where had that come from? From being hell with the ladies?

  Now, however, he needed to turn his attention to his camel carts. They were moving very slowly and the lieutenant, far ahead, kept looking back with a frown on his face. If they did not keep in touch with the commanding officer, King would be getting a tongue lashing about time-keeping. However, to King’s surprise, the camels could be encouraged to increase their pace, and did so, responding to their driver’s urgent shouts. He had imagined they had one speed and worked to this internal pace rigidly.

  Once he got them to move faster, King was able to study the hills through which they were passing. Brown hills, with scattered green trees, bushes and patches of grass amongst them. He looked for the spots where he would have set up his heliograph for triangulation. There, or perhaps there. The haze was a factor of course. It would distort vision through a telescope. Having studied the charts he was carrying, King would have liked to do some elevation measuring in these hills. He knew the current figures were based on barometric levelling, a method which was quick and easy in rugged territory but not very accurate. Differential levelling, with a telescopic spirit level and a levelling rod would give better readings. But he knew it would be hopeless to ask Crossman to allow him such a leisure so soon after their journey had begun. It was more prudent to bide his time until they came across an area which was crying out for accurate readings.

  He trotted his mare alongside the first camel wagon. Ibhanan looked up at him and smiled. King was experiencing the beginnings of a friendship with the older man. They seemed to have an affinity with one another which of course had to come out of their mutual love of surveying.

  ‘Ibhanan,’ said King. ‘Do names mean anything, here in India? I expect they must, since they do in most places.’

  ‘Yes, sahib – Hindu names do.’

  ‘And what does your name, Ibhanan, mean?’

  His features were expressionless when the Indian explained that it meant elephant face.

  ‘Elephant face,’ murmured King, savouring the words.

  Ibhanan said, ‘You do not laugh, sahib. Mostly Englishmen laugh when they hear what my name means.’

  ‘Well, I imagine your parents did not name you in order for others to ridicule you, so I supposed it was not meant to be amusing.’

  ‘No, sahib, it is not. Ganesha is the elephant-headed god of wisdom and success and it is he who I have been named for. But one corporal tell me I should be named horse bum.’

  ‘Then he was an ignorant man. Do you know what my name means? Farrier King?’

  Ibhanan’s face wrinkled again. ‘I know what is a king – a maharajah.’

  ‘Yes, and a farrier is a man who makes horseshoes and nails them to the horses.’

  ‘Kings and horses – the most noble of both races.’

  King did not correct Ibhanan’s error. Instead he looked keenly at the man. ‘Ibhanan, would you teach me Hindi?’ he asked. ‘My lieutenant has studied Hindi and some Afghan tongue. I, on the other hand, speak nothing but my native English. I should like to learn another language.’

  ‘Most decidedly, sahib. If you will teach me how to draw maps.’

  ‘But you were with George Everest!’

  ‘Yes, but I was only a young man. My interest was in other things and I was a simple porter, though I could do some things wi
th the instruments. But I would like to know all.’

  ‘You wish to become a surveyor?’

  ‘Yes, sahib, if it possible.’

  ‘Agreed,’ King shook hands with him. ‘You shall teach me Hindi and I shall teach you to make maps.’

  4

  The trek to Burhanpur was reasonably easy. They kept clear of villages since Crossman preferred to camp in the wilderness. He, King and Gwilliams travelled more or less in uniform, though they often shed their coatees and rolled up their shirt sleeves. Local dignitaries, seeing redcoats in the area, occasionally invited them to share hospitality, but Crossman usually refused. He preferred to be in the open where he and his men were not so much at risk. He actually enjoyed the outdoor life, a night under a sky encrusted with stars, or inside a tope grove – a mango orchard – this new and unusual fruit to hand. It was pleasant being woken in the morning by a softly spoken, ‘Chai, sahib,’ and finding the cup of steaming hot tea by his straw pillow. He was beginning to enjoy the food, especially the different breads and roasted goat meat, but even that was better outside, cooked on an open fire, the smoke filtered by a canopy.

  One thing troubled Crossman deeply. He could not shake off the feeling that they were being followed. Once or twice he had looked back along the trail to see a dark figure in the distance. But the shape was distorted by the natural haze created by the heat and dust. Sometimes Jack stood watching intently, hoping the figure would only come a little closer so that he might be able to see this mysterious hanger-on, but whoever it was managed to move only within the warping heat waves. Then at other times Jack thought that perhaps his imagination was running away with him, in this land where the real and unreal mingled under the sun.