The Sabre's Edge (21 page)

There was a light in the bungalow next to his when, an hour after midnight, Hervey walked the cantonment road. He paused for a moment, then turned down the path to the door. The chowkidar, squatting on his haunches at the foot of the verandah steps, stood and made the exaggerated salute which native servants thought correct in acknowledging the soldier-sahibs.

'Good evening, chowkidar. Is the sahib returned home?' said Hervey in confident Bengali.

The chowkidar nodded his head vigorously, gesturing with his night stick towards the door.

Hervey ascended the three steps to the verandah and pulled at the bell rope.

The bearer came quickly, saluting as high as the chowkidar, and admitted him at once. 'Captain Barrow-sahib, Captain Hervey-sahib is come,' he called as he closed the mosquito door.

Barrow appeared in his shirtsleeves, glass in hand. 'What are you doing up and about at this time, Hervey? You're not captain of the week.'

Hervey smiled as best he could. 'I've been with Sledge. He had to cut up my mare.'

'Oh? What's her problem?' The voice of Birmingham was always that much more pronounced when Barrow had had a drink or two.

'The feltoric, he thinks.'

'Lord. Will you have a peg?'

'Yes; thank you - brandy.' Hervey hoped it would wash away the dispirits as effectively as it had the blood.

'Brandy-pani for Captain Hervey, Ranga.'

The bearer produced glass, decanter and bottle as Hervey settled himself into a chair, and began to pour.

'No, Ranga: chota brandy,' Hervey protested, although his instinct was to take a very large measure indeed.

'A good evening at mess, was it?'

'Yes, though we were few. Only Seton Canning of the captains.'

'I'm not long back from Calcutta - one of the Shitpoor road wallahs. Quite a tamasha, it was. Fine wine - hock and best burgundy. And women.'

Hervey nodded non-committally.

Barrow smiled. 'Or boys, for that matter, I suspect. You know these Bengalis.'

Hervey had been to tamashas at the merchants' houses, in the early days. They were lavish affairs, and the generosity of the hosts could indeed be great. Some of the merchants were undoubtedly men of culture and sensibility - and, he supposed, of honour - who merely enjoyed the company of the sahibs. But all the sahibs knew that the entertainment was in some expectation of pecuniary benefit. Barrow made no secret of his enjoying the hospitality, however much the 'proper' officers might disdain it. He was never entirely at home in the mess, and it was hardly surprising that he found his situation as guest of honour in a merchant's house so agreeable. In any case, it gave Hervey his pretext. 'Whose tamasha was it?'

'The man I bought my last lot of remounts from. And good they were too.'

'Nirmal Sen, is that?'

'You know 'im?'

Hervey thought it unworthy of their long acquaintance to dissemble. 'Barrow, I'm sorry to put this to you thus, but tomorrow Joynson will call Nirmal Sen to orderly room and question him about rumours of you and him dealing . . . improperly.'

Barrow looked stunned.

'I'm sorry. It seems the rumours are abroad so much that Joynson feels he has no alternative but to act . . . formally. I understand he will ask to speak with you first in case—'

'In case what?'

'In case, I imagine, that you wish first to say anything.'

Barrow drained his glass. 'And what might there be to say?'

Hervey saw a face he had never before seen. Barrow had looked death in the eye, and defiantly, many a time, yet now he had the look of a fearful man. The eyes spoke of losing all, not simply life. And for the first time Hervey imagined him guilty. What a wreckage he had wrought in but a few seconds. 'I don't know, Ezra. I truly don't.'

'Do you think me capable of a corrupt thing, Hervey? You know me better than most, and longer.'

What was the point in expounding on the doctrine of original sin at such a time? Loyalty demanded that Hervey support him now. 'To me it is inconceivable.'

Barrow stared at him, as if trying to judge his sincerity. 'And what do you suppose the others would answer - Rose and Seton Canning, and Strickland?'

'I cannot say.' He knew it to be false, at least in the one case. 'Why should they answer different from me?'

'You know why, Hervey. You know very well why.'

Barrow's bearer returned to refill their glasses. Hervey wanted no more, but it was not possible to refuse at such a moment.

Barrow drained his new glass at once and held it out again. 'Burra peg, Ranga. And leave the bottle and be off. And tomorrow morning, my best dress.'

'Acha, sahib.' He left, looking anxious.

'He
knows summat's up,' said Barrow, scarcely waiting for him to leave the room. 'Probably did before you said a word. Before you came, even. Whole cantonment's probably jawing me dead: "Ezra Barrow, on the
picaro
.
What d'ye expect from one as is no better than us?" - or
them
if it's Rose an' 'is like!'

'There's no cause to think that way.'

'Isn't there! Isn't there indeed! Hervey, you think me a fool. I wasn't wanted when Lord George brought me in, but I never flinched from doing what was right on account of popularity.'

'That might go for many a man brought in. But there aren't that many that get field promotion. What does that speak for the regard in which those who mattered held you -
hold
you, indeed?'

'Hervey, you've no idea what it's like to be despised from above
and
below.'

For all their years in arms together, Hervey had no wish to debate with a man in his cups. If he had made a mistake in coming here in the first place, there was little to be gained by staying. And if he had not, then Barrow needed not brandy and commiseration but sleep and a clear head to hold up high in the morning. He stood up. 'Forgive me, Barrow. It's been a long day.'

'Ay, that it has. Home then to your bibi, Captain Hervey. The colonel wouldn't like it, you being a proper officer and all, but it's nothing like the sin of being a ranker.'

Hervey picked up his forage cap. 'Good night, Barrow. I'll come tomorrow morning.'

★
★
*

An hour later, as Hervey lay beside his bibi in the moments before sleep, there was a shot. He knew its cause at once. And the stab in his gut was as if the ball had struck him too.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

HALLOWED GROUND

Three days later

T
he co
roner was disobliging. Although
Joyn
son and Hervey had gone to con
siderable trouble to sow doubt in the minds of the jury, that upright officer of the court had summed up in such a manner as to make that doubt seem unreasonable. Under oath, Hervey had been unable to give any indication that Barrow had wanted to clean his pistols at that time of night, and so the suggestion that he might have could be but speculation. And why, indeed, just the one pistol? It was the greatest pity that the inquest was not held under military jurisdiction. Accident or misadventure was not the probable cause, the jury decided, but death by the officer's own hand.

The verdict presented Joynson with several problems, the most pressing of which was Barrow's funeral and interment. The chaplain, who had turned a blind eye to the rubrics when Private Sisken had hanged himself aboard ship during the regiment's passage east, found himself in some

difficulty on this occasion, for the circumstances were known to the entire city, and episcopal supervision was very much closer at hand. However, when it had become known in the canteens that Barrow could not be buried in the consecrated ground that was the regiment's corner of the cantonment cemetery, a deputation had come to the RSM - NCOs and sweats mainly, but not exclusively, from Barrow's troop - to request in no uncertain terms that the captain be laid to rest 'alongside the other poor souls who've succumbed to this place'. Accordingly, and on the recommendation of the RSM, Joynson had summoned the chaplain, adding materially to his troubles by insisting it be done.

The chaplain was tolerated, respected even, to an unusual degree in the Sixth. It was well remembered that he had stood up to Lord Towcester in the matter of Private Hopwood's flogging, so far as he had been able, which was in truth not very far. And there had been Private Sisken's committal at sea, when all who heard his address had been much moved. Indeed, there had been many occasions since when the chaplain's funerary eloquence had been displayed - altogether too many occasions for so small a regiment. But in Barrow's case, the chaplain's solution was, the officers all agreed, worthy of a Jesuit. An hour before the funeral he conducted a ceremony of deconsecration, limited to the ground that had been prepared to receive the coffin, and had then read over Barrow's mortal remains, in the usual way, 'in the sure and certain hope' and all the other ringing phrases that somehow gave succour to usually godless men who stood in ranks fearful that the next time might be theirs.

There was no carouse afterwards, though. The canteen was a dull place that evening, and few officers were at mess. Hervey himself did not dine, an omission that made him feel uncomfortable, for he had berated poor Green for not having the pluck to return to the mess the night he had parted with the contents of his stomach. No one had so much as suggested it was unfortunate that he had called on Barrow that evening, for there was a supposition that the outcome was preordained. And, indeed, Barrow's act had spared the major and those about him the shame of an investigation. Above all, it had spared the regiment the dread board of officers from outside. Barrow's guilt was presumed by the very fact of his noble action, yet Hervey felt his own hand in the business, and he did not rest easy.

Joynson had asked him to be president of the board of adjustment, which would make an inventory of Barrow's possessions so that those of a personal nature might be sent to his next of kin - when that detail was discovered - and all else sold at regimental auction, as was customary. This Hervey had now done, by himself, and at the expense of dinner in the mess, for it had occupied the entire evening after stables. But that was no matter: it afforded him an alibi.

It had been a thoroughly melancholy job. So much more than he had imagined. Whatever his pleasures on the Chitpore road. Barrow's habits had been sober and moderate, his practice soldierly and prudent. His possessions were few and utilitarian; nothing out of the ordinary, and if he had gained pecuniary advantage in his dealings with Nirmal Sen there was no evidence of its enjoyment here. Barrow's papers were no more elaborate than his other possessions, but there was one letter that indicated to where Joynson might write his condolences - and, indeed, the trouble he would have composing them. The superscription, in a spidery hand, read 'The Almshouses, Yardley', and the signature 'Your ever proud father'.

When he had finished, close to midnight, Hervey bade the bearer secure the bungalow, and left trusting him to the job. What opportunity of thieving could there be, indeed, if he had a list of everything? Anyway, Ranga looked sad, and it could not have been for his own situation, for he had already been offered another. It pleased Hervey to think there was other than a father who had some attachment to Barrow, for although he himself had slowly come to respect the man's capability as a soldier, he had never been able to count him a boon companion.

He walked slowly to his own bungalow. It was a cold night for all that it was not long since the monsoon. The stars were as bright as in the Peninsula - those long, bitter-chill nights when he had learned so much about the heavens. And the air was sweet, perhaps with incense or spices;

he could not tell. A barn owl hooted. It seemed strange to think that Ezra Barrow was no longer on this earth when all else remained the same. But things had changed. Tonight would be the last time he enjoyed the companionship of his bibi here. Tomorrow he would set her up in a little haveli outside the cantonments, like so many others. And it really would not be the same.

Next day, the Sixth busied themselves more than usual. Things had to be brought back to good order, and quickly, and nothing helped so much as activity, especially when it was compelled by an RSM of Mr Lincoln's mettle. There were inspections all morning and drill all afternoon. And at colonel's rounds of evening stables, the major, though it was never his bent, made a very passable attempt at what the regiment knew as
jaldi
.
At any rate, he managed to roust about the more timid.