CHAPTER XVIII.
PLUCK AND LUCK.
NEARLY a month after the battle of Mahighar part of the load was lifted from Sir Henry’s burdened mind by the Governor-General’s ordering the annexation of Khemistan and the deportation of the Khans to Bombay. Lord Maryport had not yet heard of the battle, but the shuffling of the Khans over the treaty, and the attack on the Agency, had convinced him that further delay was useless, and his action came in time to diminish the General’s anxieties by allowing him to get rid of his prisoners without fulfilling his threat to put them in irons. There was a slight difference of opinion over their departure. The Khans declared loudly that the Governor-General’s permission to take with them into exile their families and servants included the thousands of women for whom it had not been possible to find room in the garden-palace. The ladies, on the other hand, having enquired whether it was true that slavery was abolished under British rule, flatly refused to go, and the General declined to compel them. Eveleen triumphed ungenerously over Richard on the occasion.
“Didn’t I tell you the creatures were carried away to the Fort against their wills? and you declaring they liked it, and were provided for for life!”
“You forget, my dear, the conditions are altered. In the old days they would have settled down happily, and never have dreamt of leaving the palace.”
“As if that made it any better! If they were Arabit women ’twould be different—they’d have a right to go where their lords went. But these poor Hindu and Khemi girls, stolen away against their wills and shut up in the Fort, forbidden to see even their parents again on pain of death—would you so much as wish them to be happy?”
“I fear my wishes would have precious little weight with ’em, my dear—as sometimes happens with another lady. But ain’t you satisfied now they are all at liberty to return to the parental roof? and I trust they’ll enjoy the change!”
“And why wouldn’t they? when each has got her little property to keep her till she can make her arrangements? I’m glad Sir Harry saw to it they wouldn’t be left destitute.”
“That they certainly were not, but I admire your unselfishness, since their gains have all come out of the prize-money we ought to have had.”
“Ah, y’old money-grubber!” said Eveleen affectionately. “It’s as bad as the General y’are, when he says he don’t mind how long Kamal-ud-din hangs off and on without attacking, because he’s spending all his money feeding his followers, and when it’s gone they’ll forsake him.”
“Precisely the sort of thing the General would say to you.”
The hint of superiority was intolerable. “And pray what does he say to you, Major Ambrose, that y’are so high and mighty about it?”
“Accept my apologies, my dear. I assure you I was not alluding to any confidential information imparted to me.”
“Then what were y’alluding to?”
“Mrs Ambrose, cross-examiner! Simply to the fact which the General is kind enough to leave out of sight when he seeks to raise your spirits, that though a certain amount of delay on Kamal-ud-din’s part may be of service to us in allowing our reinforcements to come up, yet too much of it will bring into the field against us an enemy far more deadly than any of the Khans—the hot weather.”
“But sure Sir Harry was counting up all the reasons he has for being thankful for the delay!”
“To reassure you, as I say. But believe me, the thought of the hot weather harasses him day and night. What could we do here, unable to march, with the river in flood, and the prevalence of sickness usual at that season? He has succeeded to a marvel in alluring the enemy from his fastnesses, whither we could not pursue him, and in keeping him amused in the prospect of overcoming our weakness with ease as soon as he tires of playing with us as a cat plays with a mouse. But that ain’t success as the people of this country understand it. They may hate Kamal-ud-din, with his horde of plundering Arabits sweeping off their cattle, and his design of re-establishing the late tyranny with himself as sole tyrant, but their main concern is to preserve their own lives and as much of their property as they can. They have hailed us as liberators, but when they see Kamal-ud-din’s rascals, encamped only five miles from our entrenchments, driving off our camels as they graze, while we don’t raise a finger to prevent ’em, it’s enough to set ’em thinking whether it ain’t time to turn against us.”
“And if they do?”
“Then it will be Ethiopia over again.”
“My dear Ambrose, d’ye think the General don’t know that as well as you do?”
Richard spoke rather stiffly. “I am sure of it. Possibly I may have wished to know whether you realised the situation.”
“I’m greatly obliged to you! Why not say at once you wanted to make my flesh creep? You forget, sir, y’are speaking to a female that had the honour of being present at the battle of Mahighar, when the Arabit chivalry, springing from its lair armed to the teeth, was hurled back in reluctant defeat by the might of British courage and endurance.” Her husband’s lips relaxed in an unwilling smile, for she was imitating the General in those moments when he indulged in what people of his day called admiringly “elevated language.” The present degenerate age would stigmatise it as “hot air” or “gas,” and ask kindly whether the poor old man was feeling quite well.
“Present in spirit, certainly. Yes, I had forgotten I was speaking to such a heroine. Renewed apologies!”
“Ah now, don’t tease! Just tell me, then, what’s the worst you expect?”
“The worst that might happen?” Eveleen’s eyes danced as she noticed that he altered the wording of her question. “All the spies tell us Kamal-ud-din’s design is to attack the Fort in such strength that the General must leave his camp undefended in order to succour the garrison, and thus lose the hospitals and baggage, even if he beats off the assault.”
“Well, then, you won’t make me believe Sir Harry is going to walk into that trap! Tell me something worse.”
“If Kamal-ud-din is anything of a commander, and seriously desires to embarrass us, he has only to fall on Rickmer marching from Sahar. The General must endeavour to relieve him, and the farther off the action takes place the more unprotected he must leave things here—absolutely open to an attack from a second Arabit force. Why the Khan hasn’t attacked Rickmer already is a thing that puzzles me. One might almost believe he had little stomach for the fight. How is it he don’t see he’s playing the General’s game?”
“So there’s more method in Sir Harry’s madness than you’d allow just now? Sure you’ve forgot which side y’are arguing on! But I hear the horses coming round. Have you time to ride with me this evening?”
“If I may have the honour.”
“Ah, then, don’t be making fun of your old wife!” and Eveleen pulled his hair as she passed him. He looked after her with resigned amusement. She was like an indiarubber ball; nothing would crush her. Well, at any rate no one could say she was not happy. He had done his duty by her, in spite of those two or three embarrassing outbursts when her loudly asserted misery had made him doubt the wisdom of his action. For all her years, she was a child still, with a child’s sudden and unreasoning joy and sorrow, and a child she would remain. Now that he realised this, he knew what his own part must be—always a satisfaction to a man of his orderly, steady-going type of mind. Yes, that must be why he had found the path of duty easier to tread of late than when he had first brought his wife to Khemistan—he was getting used to it.
As they rode down to the flats by the river, they were joined by Brian—now released from his hated attendance on the Khans, who had been put in charge of a senior officer for their voyage to Bab-us-Sahel and thence to Bombay. He was bubbling over with delight.
“This is grand!” he cried. “Come with me and we’ll follow in the General’s footsteps. If we haunt the old boy faithfully, I’ll show you something worth seeing.”
“Anything new?” asked Richard.
“Rayther! Vakils with a letter from Kamal-ud-din—what d’ye think of that? They were fools enough to let it be known they were come to offer us terms of surrender, and when they arrived the General was ‘not at home.’ He had started on his evening ride, but if you’ll believe me—’twas a curious thing—he left word he’d be passing the Headquarters Mess about sunset. So they are to meet him there, and if we happen to find ourselves in the neighbourhood about the same time—well, the old lad has a tasty way of staging his scenes sometimes.”
Such an intimation was not to be disregarded, and by a pure coincidence the General had an audience of some size when he came suddenly upon the waiting ambassadors, and learned their errand. Receiving the letter at their hands, he gave it to Richard to read, remarking that it was convenient he should happen to be there. “Aloud, if you please,” he added.
The messengers clustered together a little more closely, as though for mutual support, as Richard ran his eye over the elaborate and inevitable compliments occupying the first part of the epistle. There was a look about them as of naughty boys—bold yet frightened—as he reached the business part. “I am to read his Highness’s letter aloud, sir?” he asked. “Then this is what he suggests—you are to be free to quit Khemistan with you troops and baggage, on condition of liberating the Khans now in captivity, and restoring the occupied territory and towns, and all spoil of every kind.”
A murmur of indignation rose and swelled among the European part of the group, but the General held up his hand for silence. Into the silence there came the heavy boom of the evening gun from the Fort. Sir Harry laughed. “There! d’ye hear that?” he said. “That’s my answer. Be off with it to your master!” and off the messengers went, hardly waiting for the words to be translated into Persian.
“Now Rickmer will have to look out for himself; or rather, we must look out for him,” said the General. “Kamal-ud-din has had a nasty snub, and in his naughty pride he will do his best to pay me back. Methinks it will cool his hot blood a little if we explore towards him to-morrow, and display an impolite curiosity as to the disposition of his forces.”
The “exploration”—which would now be called a reconnaissance in force—was carried out on three successive days, the General moving out with cavalry and guns in such warlike array that any young commander might have been excused for expecting an immediate assault. It was clear that Kamal-ud-din thought so, for he acted according to his lights in calling in his stragglers and raiding parties and waiting to be attacked. He was not attacked, but the General was able to get a very fair idea of the strong positions he had prepared. The secondary object of tempting him out into the open in order to ascertain his strength was not attained, but a far more important one was. It was three days before Kamal-ud-din realised that he had been kept so busy and so much interested in front that Colonel Rickmer and the Sahar column had got up behind him within two or three marches of the General. Thereupon he decided to treat frontal demonstrations with contempt in future, and take strong measures on his own account in his rear.
On the evening of the day of the third reconnaissance, the General was giving a dinner-party. It was clear by this time that Kamal-ud-din had perceived the real nature of the entertainment devised for his benefit, for the spies brought word that a large body of his men had marched into the desert in a north-easterly direction, evidently with the intention of making a circuit and falling upon Colonel Rickmer’s column from an unexpected quarter. It was an anxious moment for Sir Harry—not merely on the column’s account, but on his own. Until Colonel Rickmer arrived, he had merely the less than three thousand men of Mahighar—their numbers now sadly diminished by casualties and sickness, as well as by the necessity of furnishing a garrison for the Fort and guards for the camp and for the Khans on their voyage. True, victory was possible even with this remnant—he would have knocked any man down for denying it,—but the prudence which was so curiously blended with his rashness made him loath to contemplate fighting without the help of the northern column. The other reinforcements coming by water might almost safely be discounted, for they could not be expected for five days or even a week. Therefore the situation was critical in the extreme, and because the General knew it, and knew that his army knew it, and knew that the enemy must at least guess it, he invited his officers to dinner to celebrate one of the Duke of Wellington’s victories in the Peninsular War. He remembered and observed them all religiously, as he did everything connected with his old chief, but otherwise it is to be feared that few in camp could have told when or where the battle of Tarbes was fought. The increasing heat of the weather had obliged Sir Harry to give up his favourite habit of eating and doing business in the open air, and the burra khana took place in a large double tent, its magnificent lining of brocaded silk showing that it was part of the spoil taken from the Khans. The table furniture was unchanged, however, consisting of contributions from the Headquarters Mess and the canteens of the staff. Above the General’s place simpered the portrait of the girl Queen which had once hung in the reception-room in the Fort. By day it was covered with a curtain—because, said Sir Harry, servants and common people must not look upon the royal features—and exhibited only as a high honour to loyal chiefs.
Eveleen, as the only lady present, was handed gallantly to the seat on the General’s right, and the meal had not been long in progress before she saw Richard, who was nearly opposite, receive a whispered message from his servant and leave the table quietly. It was his duty to translate or decode any messages that might arrive, and she was not surprised when presently he reappeared at Sir Harry’s elbow, and handed him a small piece of tissue paper, creased as though it had been rolled up lengthways very small. As the General took it up, she saw that there were two of these pieces of paper, both covered with writing.
“From Colonel Rickmer, General, brought in a quill by a cossid of Colonel Welborne’s,” murmured Richard. Colonel Welborne was in modern phrase Director of Intelligence, organising the elaborate system of espionage and counter-espionage on which so much depended.
“And enclosing a message from Welborne, I see. Why, what’s this?” Sir Harry’s growl of rage startled the table, and the diners who had been politely pretending not to notice what was passing looked at him quickly. He pulled himself together in an instant, and laughed harshly.
“See here, gentlemen; this is good, ain’t it? Poor Rickmer desires me to tell him what on earth he is to do, for Welborne sends him word, ‘For God’s sake, halt! You will be attacked to-morrow by forty thousand men at least. Entrench yourself until the General can arrive to your relief.’ Is he to halt or not, he asks me, since I have sent him no orders to that effect. Here’s my answer—a pencil, Ambrose.” He turned the note over and wrote in his sprawling characters on the back, “‘Welborne’s men are all in buckram. Come on.’ Be good enough to have that sent off at once. How does it strike you, gentlemen?”
A roar of laughter went round the table, and if the General had wished to punish Colonel Welborne for his hesitancy in charging at Mahighar, he must have felt that he was avenged when he heard the jokes and quips levelled at the unfortunate man throughout the rest of the meal. Moreover, every man present would impart the jest to others, and the camp as well as the tent would quickly be ringing with the news of Welborne’s nervousness and the General’s drastic treatment of it. But though he laughed with the rest, he found a moment to growl to Eveleen under cover of the talk—
“By no means sure Welborne ain’t correct. But he had no business to tell Rickmer. I’m looking after him—watching Kamal-ud-din as a cat watches a mouse. What reason has he for funk? Long before the Arabits could walk over him I should be upon their rear.”
That he meant what he said was clear the next morning, when Captain Stewart rode out with a squadron of native cavalry, under orders to skirt round the enemy’s position and join Colonel Rickmer. If the enemy came out in force to prevent him, he was to send back a message at once, when the General would march to his assistance with horse, foot, and guns. In any case Colonel Rickmer was to be informed that Sir Henry would meet him on the morrow on the field of Mahighar—where nothing would induce the Arabits to tempt fortune a second time—and escort him into camp.
To every one’s astonishment this promise was kept to the letter, though—as Brian told his sister—the column commander had lost his head to such an extent that he might have been asking to be annihilated. Probably Colonel Welborne’s message persisted in recurring to his mind, despite the General’s cavalier comment, for his one idea seemed to be to get into safety with a run. He had brought with him from Sahar the women and children of his brigade, and a mass of baggage that would have made Sir Harry tear his hair, and how they had managed to get so far was a mystery.
“Stewart says the fellow might have intended all the time making a present of ’em to Kamal-ud-din,” said Brian—“like the Russian chap that dropped his children out of the sledge to divert the attention of the wolves from himself. There was the whole caravan strung out over the desert, straggling at its own sweet will, and Rickmer miles away in front, swearing at his drivers to hurry, for all the world as though he had been badly beat and was trying to get his guns off the field. Happily the enemy was a good match to him for foolishness, for one detachment only—just one—of Arabits turned up and began to be nasty when Stewart was trying to get the stragglers into line and protect their rear. When they opened a matchlock fire on the women and baggage, he thought it was getting beyond a joke, and sent an express to beg Rickmer to detach a troop for the rear. He had only six sowars with him—the rest were guarding the flanks,—but he charged with ’em and drove off the Arabits. Of course they came back when they saw they had him unsupported, and ’twas near an hour before the cavalry he had asked for turned up, bringing the cheerful news that Rickmer was still pushing hard for Qadirabad—he’d cot sight of the tower of the Fort, and it drew him like a magnet, you might say,—leaving the baggage and the non-combatants to look after themselves. Stewart’s blood was up—d’ye wonder?—and he told his horsemen to do their best while he went hell-for-leather after Rickmer, and found him uncommonly busy and excited getting his guns over a nullah. There was some plain speaking, I gather—I wonder now was there just a scrap or two of language unbecoming in a junior officer to his superior in rank?—and Stewart got two field-pieces, and galloped back with ’em helter-skelter. A few shots drove off the Arabits, and what was better, the sound reached the General and brought us all out to the rescue; we met Rickmer’s galloper on the way with the news he was attacked—but if Kamal-ud-din and his chiefs were not the most incapable set of muffs that ever had the cheek to stand up to a British army, Rickmer would be eternally disgraced—and rightly.”
Kamal-ud-din’s extraordinary failure to seize his opportunity was the talk of the camp that evening. The general opinion was that the young Khan shared the weakness of his elders for intoxicating drugs, and was incapable of giving orders at the moment, whilst his subordinates durst not act without them; but Sir Harry had found an explanation far more to his taste.
“It was chivalry—pure chivalry!” he told Eveleen, in all seriousness. “The spies tell me that as soon as he heard there were European women and children with the column he called off his troops and countermanded the attack which had been ordered. He said the Bahadar Jang had treated the Khans’ women with consideration, and he would treat the Feringhee women the same.”
“But sure he did attack,” objected Eveleen.
“That was a body of horse that had already started—not his fault. A fine fellow that—a young man after my own heart. It does one good to be able to respect one’s enemy—as we did in the Peninsula, where the British soldier thought far more of his French opponents than of his bloodthirsty and treacherous allies.”
“And did the Spaniards know what you thought of them?” It seemed to Eveleen that this attitude must have led to difficulties.
“They couldn’t very well help it. We had trouble with ’em now and then. But how did it matter what they thought? We turned Napoleon out for ’em, worse luck!”
“I wonder are all allies so trying to the people that are helping them?” Eveleen spoke feelingly, for she had been doing her best to help the ladies from Sahar to settle down after their long march and final exciting experience, and they did not seem to her to be properly grateful. She did not realise that it was highly disconcerting to ladies of higher military rank to find “that Mrs Ambrose” established in the best set of rooms in the Residency—their wrath was not mollified by the explanation that it had been her home when her husband was Assistant to Colonel Bayard,—while they were relegated to less imposing apartments, or quartered in the garden-palace lately vacated by the Khans. Everything was in such a bad state of repair, too—with shot-holes in the walls very imperfectly patched up, and roofs far from water-tight,—and there were no European comforts to be had. It seemed to Eveleen that these good ladies thought considerably more about their furniture and food than about the impending crisis, and they declared that no one but a wild Irishwoman could have expected them to settle down contentedly amid such surroundings. To crown their misdeeds, they observed sympathetically, one after the other, that Richard was not looking at all well, and that men of his complexion were always the first to be affected by the sun. They followed this up by a recital of the precautions with which they pursued their own husbands—with the obvious implication that Mrs Ambrose was sadly lacking in this respect,—and when Eveleen replied with a furious denunciation of coddling, they shook their heads with a pleased solemnity that could only mean, “Just as I thought!” She relinquished her self-imposed duty at last in a huff, and during the evening—with natural inconsistency—tormented Richard, who had work to do, with sudden enquiries whether he was certain he really felt quite well.
In the morning she had forgotten her anxieties, and when Richard returned from office, was far more concerned to know whether the General was intending to review the newly arrived troops—which he could not tell her. They were breakfasting on the verandah, and as Eveleen expressed somewhat vigorously her opinion of people who could hear and remember everything but what was interesting, there came from the big shamiana opposite such a shout as made them both jump up and run to the steps. The General and his aides were rushing out—one man had still his fork in his hand,—snatching up any hats or caps available, and making for the cliff overlooking the river. Brian had the grace to tarry long enough to call out “Boats!” and Eveleen, always ready for any excitement, whether she understood its nature or not, promptly ran down after them. Richard came after her, and presented her reprovingly with her sun-hat, which she accepted without gratitude, since his forethought obliged her to stop and put it on. Arriving panting at the head of the path, she looked down the river, like all the rest. There was still a broad expanse of dry sandy ground below, but the channel was a little wider than on the day when the Asteroid and the Nebula had carried the besieged garrison into safety, for the snows were just beginning to melt on the Roof of the World. Up the channel from the direction of Bab-us-Sahel boats were coming, one after the other, their gunwales lined with scarlet-coated men who waved their caps and cheered as they saw the figures on the cliff. The General and his staff responded as joyfully as boys.
“The boats! the boats! the reinforcements from Bombay!” everybody called out to everybody else, and people began to run together from all parts of the camp. But while nearly all eyes were fixed on the boats coming up from the left hand, Frederick Lennox was looking fixedly in exactly the opposite direction, over the scrubby jungle which covered the low-lying land on the right.
“Hillo!” he said presently, then touched his uncle on the arm. “D’ye see those masts, sir? What can they be?”
The General looked and looked again, unable to believe his eyes. “As I’m a sinful man, the reinforcements by water from Sahar!” he cried. “Was ever anything so neat? ’Pon my honour, I’d march against Napoleon and the Grand Army now!”
“Really the old boy’s luck is positively amazing!” said Brian, as Sir Harry went a little way down the path to feast his eyes on the approaching craft. “Give you my word, he was in the very act of saying, ‘Now if only my reinforcements from Bombay and Sahar would come in! But that can’t be for a week at least, and I won’t let this chap bully me within five miles of my camp all that time, so Rickmer’s brigade must do my business.’ The words would hardly be out of his mouth when Stewart, who was sitting where he could see out of the tent door, called out, ‘There are boats—look!’ and we all tore out of the place as you saw us. Sure the General will be as happy now as the day is long—only the day won’t be half long enough for all he’ll want to be doing.”
Never, surely, had even Sir Harry, that champion hustler, put in such a day’s work. The new troops were out of their boats before they knew they had arrived, and the General was inspecting them and gloating over the howitzers and other war material they brought with them. A host of coolies was at work pitching their tents while they enjoyed an afternoon’s rest under the trees of the Khans’ garden, and then came combined manœuvres, in which the new arrivals and Colonel Rickmer’s force were brigaded with the General’s original troops, and ordered about and handled by the redoubtable veteran until they began to know their places and his methods. When they were at last dismissed to their well-earned repose, the General’s day was not done. Vakils had again arrived from Kamal-ud-din, and at his command been given a place whence they could see all the movements of the troops, then taken up and down the lines and bidden look well at everything, and finally dismissed with the order to go and tell their master all they had seen. But they were reluctant to depart, and reinforced by the young Khan’s Diwan or Chief Minister, who arrived late at night, they sat on the ground in Sir Harry’s tent, and talked and talked. This time it was his turn to offer Kamal-ud-din his life, and his chiefs their possessions, if they surrendered unconditionally on the morrow, but they were no more prepared to accept such terms than he had been. It was obvious they were trying to find out all they could, for they stayed on though there was nothing more to say, and started fresh quibbles whenever they were given leave to depart, until the General, his Munshi, and Richard Ambrose were all worn out with parrying their various questions. It was two in the morning before Sir Harry succeeded in inducing them to accept his dismissal as genuine, and they were ceremoniously escorted out. The General was wrapping his old cloak about him as Richard returned.
“I suppose they thought they would finish me with fatigue,” he grumbled. “This sort of thing tells on a man of sixty-one. Two hours’ sleep, Ambrose. Lie down anywhere and don’t waste any of it. We march at four.”