The Sabre's Edge

Hervey nodded. 'Thank you, David.'

'Ay, sir. Thank you,' added Johnson, moving the lamps back to safety.

Sledge nodded, wiped his instruments clean with lint and arrack, put them in his valise and bid them both goodnight.

'I'll bed down 'ere, then, sir,' said Johnson when he was gone.

'Thank you, yes. I have some matters to attend to first, and then I'll come in the early hours and relieve you.'

'I'd rather tha didn't, sir. I wouldn't want it said I couldn't stag for a night.'

Hervey smiled. 'Very well. I'll come before muster, though. And if you have to send for Mr Sledge then send for me too.'

'Right, sir. 'E's good, Mr Sledge.'

'He is,' said Hervey, gently pulling the mare's ear. 'And as good a man too when not wielding a knife.'

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

The coroner was disobliging. Although Joynson and Hervey had gone to considerable 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.