Sword of Fortune Read online

  Sword Of Fortune

  Christopher Nicole

  © Christopher Nicole 1990

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in the U.K. in 1990 by Random Century Group.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd

  Table of Contents

  Part One: The Outcast

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 26 June 1779

  1: Under the Pagoda Tree

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 5 September 1779

  2: The Fatal Bullet

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 2 October 1779

  3: The Fugitive

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 19 January 1780

  4: The Begum Sombre

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 26 March 1780

  5: The Fighting Irishman

  Part Two: The Sword

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 3 February 1781

  6: The Mercenaries

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 7 April 1781

  7: George the Victorious

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 7 July 1781

  8: Ship Sahib

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 3 May 1787

  9: The Prodigal

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 4 September 1787

  10: The Ambassador

  Part Three: The Fortune

  Diary of Mrs Alistair Lamont, 12 December 1787

  11: The Summons

  Diary of the Mistress of General Richard Bryant, September 1794

  12: The Rescue

  Diary Of The Mistress Of General Richard Bryant, 12 December 1794

  13: Wellesley

  Diary of Mrs Richard Bryant, 1 March 1799

  14: Seringapatam

  Diary of Mrs Richard Bryant, 6 April 1799

  15: The Legend

  Diary of Mrs Richard Bryant, 5 June 1802

  Epilogue

  Diary of Mrs William Howard, 4 April 1810

  Extract from The Command by Christopher Nicole

  Part One: The Outcast

  Diary of Miss Barbara Smythe, 26 June 1779

  The ropes have been cast away, the sails are filling; the whole ship has suddenly become filled with life.

  She is an East Indiaman, and her name is James Turner. I always thought ships were named after women!

  Ahead of us lies the English Channel, then the Bay of Biscay, then the Atlantic, and then the Cape of Good Hope and the Arabian Sea, before we reach Bombay. Captain Reid says the voyage is ten thousand miles!

  My heart flutters; so does my stomach. Will I be seasick? Mrs Crosbie says it is no uncommon thing.

  But perhaps it’s merely that my stays are laced too tight. Mrs Crosbie says they do not wear stays in Bombay!!!!

  The shore is receding now. Shall I ever see England again, or shall I spend the rest of my life ‘under the Pagoda Tree’, as Uncle Jonathan so quaintly puts it.

  I have never heard of the pagoda tree. I must ask Uncle Jonathan to point it out to me.

  Do I grieve for Papa? To have sat for a week holding his poor hand as he lay dying is an experience I shall not readily forget. But, since my thoughts are my own, I cannot pretend not to be excited.

  Uncle Jonathan is a powerful man in Bombay, a senior factor in the East India Company, and I am his heiress. How can I not be excited?

  Bombay! India! Uncle Jonathan writes that it is the most exciting place on earth, and I believe him. He says it is a place of palaces and temples such as I shall never have seen before, indeed not imagined. And there are elephants! And tigers!

  And young men! Uncle Jonathan writes that I shall soon make a suitable marriage, that as an heiress, I shall be the cynosure of all ambitions! How I do adore handsome men in uniform! Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Lucy are to hold a great ball for me, he says. I do love balls! Uncle Jonathan writes ‘morals in Bombay are, thank God, on an altogether higher plane than in London.’ What does an old man know of morals? How old is Uncle Jonathan? At least forty, I am sure.

  Although I have noticed several passable-looking young men, I suspect that opportunities for privacy on board this ship will be very limited. And there is always Mrs Crosbie!

  I must make every effort to practise the art of flirting before we—

  Oh dear! I am definitely going to be sick!

  1: Under the Pagoda Tree

  The village lay in a large cleared area, some hundred yards from the surrounding forest. The cleared area was for protection, from marauding tigers not less than marauding men. The village, shaded only by a few huge mango trees, shimmered in the fierce heat of South India.

  It consisted of some two dozen houses, mean, shambling affairs with thatched roofs and beaten earth floors. Several women clustered round the communal fire over which various iron pots were suspended from a spit; the still air was heavy with the scent of turmeric and coriander, cardamom and garlic.

  Naked children played in the dust among a sorry-looking scatter of goats and chickens. Some of the cleared land was under cultivation, painfully irrigated by a shallow stream of mud that meandered across the clearing.

  There were no men to be seen.

  ‘Damnation,’ growled Ford. ‘They knew we were coming.’

  Richard Bryant reached for the flap of white cloth which hung from his hat to protect his neck, and wiped away the sweat. Even in the shade it was very hot, and the still, humid air clung around the trees and the cloying undergrowth like warm water.

  There were twenty men in the party. Eighteen of them were Indians: fifteen sepoys of the Company’s army, two naiks, or corporals, and a havildar, or sergeant. And there were two white men. Lieutenant Ford wore, like his men, a red jacket and white trousers; a white kepi with its sun flap, and black boots, now stained dust-coloured after the march from Bombay. A sword hung at his side, and he also carried a pistol.

  Richard Bryant, being a clerk—or writer, as it was known in the Company—wore a black suit, with a white stock and shirt, now sadly sweat-stained, and incongruous beneath a straw hat. He carried no sword, but had been given a pistol, together with a warning not to use it save in the last extremity, for fear he might do himself an injury. The fools had no idea that he could have shot the eye out of any one of them at twenty paces. To think that he had always envied the soldiers, dreamed of being one of them, of wearing a smart uniform, carrying gleaming weapons! Until, that is, he had actually accompanied them into the field, watched and heard them tramp through the jungle like a herd of elephants.

  ‘There can’t be an Indian within fifty miles that doesn’t know we’re here,’ he remarked.

  Ford snorted. Civilian clerks were a necessary evil on a tax detail. But they were expected to know their place. This abrasive newcomer was too cocky by half; in the three days they had been away from Bombay he had questioned every decision, criticised every disposition.

  Richard had only been in India a year, and at nineteen was still very much a junior clerk. He had had to lobby like the devil for weeks before obtaining permission to accompany a tax-gathering detail, not only to break the unutterable monotony of life in Bombay but also to obtain his first glimpse of the hinterland which lay across the harbour, beyond Elephanta Island.

  ‘What do you intend to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘Collect taxes,’ Ford said curtly.

  ‘But there are only women…’

  ‘Oh, we shall play them at their own game,’ Ford said. ‘By God we will.’

  Ford was a chunky young man in his mid-twenties. His face was brick-red, due as much to the amount of port he drank each night as to exposure to the sun. He sweated even more than his men; his red jacket was stained mar
oon at the armpits and down the back.

  But he considered himself superior to most men, certainly superior to Richard Bryant, who despised him. As a junior clerk, Richard was almost beneath notice. He resented this, when on every side he could see the incompetence of such men as Lieutenant Ford.

  Richard was tall and muscularly slender, his hair black, heavy and straight. His face was long and thin, but the set of the jaw and firmness of the mouth indicated a man who knew his own mind. Too much so, perhaps, for his age. His eyes were amber, and thoughtful. He had been fortunate enough thus far to escape the malaria which wasted so many once-powerful bodies. He was contemptuously determined, too, to resist the temptation to drink himself insensible every night, though there was little else to do with one’s evenings, unless one happened to be married. That was not something for a penniless writer to contemplate.

  Ford was giving muttered instructions to his havildar. Richard was still in the process of learning Hindustani, but he gathered the lieutenant was sending half of his men to the far side of the village to prevent anyone running away. Richard thought this ridiculous: every woman and every child in the village knew they were there, and would have run away long ago had they chosen to.

  But he decided against arguing on this occasion, for Ford had been on several of these details and knew what had to be done. Eight of the sepoys made their way through the bushes, somewhat noisily, to their new positions.

  A dog barked, and then another. The women ignored the sound, and studiously continued to stir their pots. The odours were now quite mouth-watering.

  ‘Time,’ Ford said, and stood up. He did not draw his sword, and his men left their muskets slung, but they moved forward smartly.

  Richard marched beside them, his satchel banging his thigh, feeling distinctly foolish.

  The dogs snarled at them, and were driven away with kicks. The children shouted and ran to the village, brown bodies flashing in the fierce sunshine.

  The women turned from their pots to gaze at the invaders. There were perhaps twenty of them. They wore brightly-coloured cotton saris, and were barefoot. Their braided hair was black and heavy, their features were boldly handsome, their complexions a very dark brown, their eyes a liquid black. Richard had become used to Indian woman during his year in Bombay. He had been obliged to follow fashion and bed the one procured for him by his seniors, and had not enjoyed the damage done to his pride: he had been a virgin and she had known everything there was to know about the art of love. If he had from time to time repeated the experience, it was only because he was a man and there was no white woman available to him. He had come to regard all women with vague distrust, and Indian women, who knew things to which his imagination could not yet aspire, most of all.

  But there was something different about these women; their faces seemed curiously exposed. For a moment he could not determine why, then Ford snapped his fingers.

  ‘The bitches,’ he growled. ‘They’ve hidden their gold.’

  An Indian woman normally carried all of her wealth on her person at all times, usually in the form of gold bangles on arms or ankles, and every married Indian woman wore a gold ring in her nose.

  These women’s arms and legs were quite unadorned, and there were no nose rings to be seen.

  ‘I’ll deal with these doxies as they deserve,’ Ford said, and strode towards the fire. The women drew together protectively, their children clustered against them.

  ‘Where are your men?’ Ford demanded in Hindustani.

  ‘They have gone to chase the tiger, sahib,’ one of the women replied.

  ‘The tiger? There has been a tiger here?’

  ‘It was here,’ the woman asserted.

  ‘We have seen no spoor.’

  ‘It was here,’ the woman repeated. ‘It stole a young goat. Our men have gone after it.’

  ‘All of the men? They have left you here, unprotected?’

  ‘What have we to fear, with the John Company soldiers to defend us?’ The woman looked from the white man to the sepoys. Her lip curled.

  ‘You are lying,’ Ford told her, pointing. ‘This village has not paid its tax. Your men have fled into the jungle so as not to have to pay.’

  ‘They have gone after the tiger, sahib,’ the woman said.

  ‘Then they have left you the tax money?’

  ‘I know nothing of tax money,’ the woman said. ‘When our men return, I will tell them you have been here, and they will bring the money to the island.’

  Ford glared at her, but she did not lower her eyes. She was not the oldest of the women—a couple of them had white hair—but she was certainly in her thirties, handsome and strongly built, and possessed a subtle arrogance. Richard guessed she was the wife of the headman. Clearly she was not afraid of the Company’s men.

  ‘My soldiers are hungry,’ Ford said.

  ‘There is food,’ the woman agreed.

  Ford summoned the havildar and his men from the edge of the clearing, and they sat down. The women served them. The food was good, if scorching to the tongue. The women did not speak. They were carrying out a well rehearsed manoeuvre.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Richard asked again.

  ‘We are going to collect what is owed to the Company,’ Ford said. ‘That is what we were sent here to do.’

  ‘But the men have run off. They won’t come back until we leave.’

  ‘We will leave this afternoon,’ Ford said. ‘With the money. Or payment in kind.’ He blew his nose, and Richard followed his example. The spices were very hot.

  ‘Why have you no gold?’ Ford asked the woman.

  ‘We do not wear gold when we are alone in the village.’

  ‘But it is in the village.’

  ‘We know where it is, sahib.’

  ‘Go and fetch it. I will take from your gold what is owed to the East India Company.’

  The woman gazed at him imperturbably. ‘You cannot take our gold. That is our personal possession.’

  ‘The taxes must be paid,’ Ford told her. ‘If your men will not pay, then you must pay.’ He grinned. ‘You will have to make your men buy you new gold.’

  ‘That is not right,’ the woman declared, her face angry now.

  ‘Your men are cheating the Company. I will not allow this. Now fetch your gold.’

  Still the woman stared at him, but insolently. ‘I have forgotten where it is.’

  ‘Do not lie to me, woman. Fetch your gold, or tell us where to look.’

  ‘I have forgotten,’ she said again.

  ‘If you do not remember, now, you will suffer.’

  Richard licked his lips; suddenly the air was filled with tension.

  ‘I have forgotten,’ the woman repeated, stubbornly.

  Ford stood up, and signalled to the sepoys. The other women shrieked, siezed their children, and ran for the houses. The chickens squawked and scattered, the dogs slunk away.

  The sepoys surrounded the woman. Ford stepped up close to her.

  ‘I’m not going to harm your people,’ Ford said. ‘But I will harm you, if you do not tell me where the gold is.’

  The woman’s breath hissed. ‘I will speak of this to my husband.’

  ‘And he will lodge a complaint with the factor. To do that he must come to the island. We shall be glad to see him there.’

  The woman’s breath hissed again.

  ‘The gold,’ Ford said.

  The woman made no reply.

  The tension had now spread to the sepoys, who shuffled and looked uneasy; Richard was sweating harder than ever. He had no idea what Ford had in mind. But he had been on tax gathering expeditions before, and knew what had to be achieved.

  Ford snapped his fingers, and two of the sepoys grasped the woman’s arms. She made no attempt to defend herself.

  Ford reached into his haversack, and from it took a piece of bamboo, some eighteen inches long. He held it in both hands before the woman’s eyes, and very slowly pulled the upper part into two; the bam
boo had been carefully split with a knife for the top six inches of its length. Ford pulled it apart to about an inch, then let it snap back together again.

  ‘Where is the gold hidden?’ he asked.

  The woman stared at him.

  Ford thrust the length of bamboo through his belt, then seized the woman’s sari and tore it away to expose her breasts. Richard caught his breath in dismay. He knew that the Hindus resented sexual mistreatment as much as anyone. And public exposure of a woman was a most grievous insult.

  The woman also gasped, but kept her unwavering gaze fixed on her tormentor.

  ‘Tell me where the gold is hidden,’ Ford said.

  ‘I have forgotten,’ she sneered.

  Ford pulled the bamboo from his belt. With his right hand he teased the woman’s left nipple erect. She had splendid breasts, large and full with only the slightest sag, which swelled as she panted.

  Ford was enjoying himself. Richard licked his lips apprehensively as he watched.

  Ford released the distended nipple, took the bamboo and pulled the split end apart. Carefully he slid the two halves over the nipple, then released them.

  The woman gasped, as the tight jaws of the bamboo closed on her flesh. Richard could not imagine the pain of it. He wanted to protest, but did not.

  ‘Tell me where you have hidden the gold,’ Ford repeated.

  The woman searched her mouth, and spat. Ford moved his head to avoid the spittle, and at the same time jerked on the bamboo. Blood spurted, and the woman uttered a low wail, sagging into the arms of the sepoys.

  ‘Hold her up,’ Ford snapped. Blood was dribbling down on to her stomach, soaking the sari.

  Ford grinned at her, and began to play with the right nipple. ‘Tell me where the gold is,’ he commanded.

  *

  ‘Payment in gold!’ The eyes of Jonathan Smythe, the senior factor, gleamed. ‘You are to be commended, sir. You met with no resistance, I hope?’

  ‘None, sir. The men had run off rather than pay their dues. So we collected from the women.’

  ‘Admirable, admirable. You are learning from a good master, eh, Mr Bryant?’