Dust and Steel. Patrick Mercer

Hume, Forgett and Morgan looked at Brewill in shocked embarrassment.

      ‘Right, Morgan, Mr Forgett, leave us, please.’ Hume spoke quietly, soothingly, as Brewill mopped at his great red face with a silk square. ‘Wait outside, please. I will issue orders once the commandant and I have decided how to proceed.’

      Morgan stood on the veranda with Forgett outside the commandant’s office, the two colonels’ voices just audible within.

      ‘Dear God, Forgett, I didn’t mean to twist Colonel Brewill’s tail like that.’ Morgan ducked his head to accept the light for the cheroot that the policeman had given him, before blowing a cloud of blue smoke up into the air, outlining the dozen hawk buzzards that wheeled on the thermals above the barracks, waiting to swoop on any carrion.

      ‘Indeed, Morgan, but you did.’ Forgett paused and picked a piece of loose tobacco off his tongue. ‘You must understand that the unthinkable has happened here. There have been mutinies and trouble from time to time – you’ll have heard tell of the affair at Vellore in the year Six, and General Paget’s execution of a hundred lads from the Forty-Seventh back in Twenty-Four…’

      Morgan was loosely aware of troubles in the past in India, but tribulations in John Company’s forces hardly caused a ripple in the ordered world of British garrison life and he had never bothered to learn the details.

      ‘…but nothing on this scale. Our whole lives have been turned upside down, even here in Bombay where, DV, nothing will happen – so long as we act quickly.’

      Morgan thought back to all those discussion that he had had at home, Glassdrumman in County Cork. Finn, the family groom, had ridden knee to knee with Indian cavalry regiments against the Sikhs, whilst Dick Kemp, his father’s best friend, had not only led sepoys in war, he was even now in command of the 12th Bengal Native Infantry up in Jhansi. Morgan remembered the fondness and respect that both men had shown for the Bengali soldiers and how Kemp’s life was interwoven with the whole subcontinent, its culture and mystique. Now he had no idea if the great burly, cheerful man’s regiment had turned or not; whether Kemp was even alive.

      ‘And you’ve got to remember what sort of people we are, what sort of backgrounds we come from.’ Morgan shifted uncomfortably, recognising Forgett as one of those people who didn’t shy away from saying the unsayable, and made to interrupt. ‘No, hear me; most of us don’t come from money like most of you. Why, I wanted a commission in a sepoy regiment – it would have cost a fraction of what your people have to fork out – but still my family couldn’t afford it. So, I came into the police service; this post’s cost me not a penny and I have to live off my pay. My poor wife – when we met and she agreed to marry me, she thought that her life would just be England transposed, a dusty version of Knaresborough and how difficult she found the first couple of years – didn’t I catch it! Anyway, once the children began to arrive she took to it more and, I think it’s fair to say, we’ve made a go of it in our modest way. Now all that’s in peril, any chance to live like a gentleman and bring my children up respectably may just go up in smoke, so please be careful how you treat the things we hold dear.’

      Morgan thought of Glassdrumman and its acres. His family were certainly not especially rich, nor well connected, but they lived in a different sphere from those who would be referred to, he supposed, as the ‘ordinary’ classes. It made him ponder Brewill’s earlier comments.

      ‘But tell me, Forgett, how does this caste business really work? It seems mighty tricky for soldiers who are expected to act under one form of discipline to have another, unspoken, code that they’ve got to obey.’ Morgan suspected that Forgett’s explanation would be rather more incisive than Brewill’s earlier one.

      The policeman gave a short laugh. ‘Tricky…yes, that’s an understatement. You’ll mainly come across Hindus serving with the Bengal Army up north where you’re going, but don’t be surprised when you meet Musselmen and Sikhs. You won’t be able to tell the difference, but the Hindu troops will treat them as untouchables – Mleccha – just as they regard us so, despite our rank or influence.’

      ‘But you’re talking just about classes, aren’t you? What about this caste business?’ asked Morgan.

      ‘There are four classes in Hinduism…’ Forgett paused before continuing, ‘…they are a fundamental part of the religion, and grafted on top of them are a terribly complicated series of castes, or jati. The caste is based on a mixture of where a man comes from, his race and occupation, and is governed by local committees of elders. No good Hindu wants to offend them or be chucked out for mixing with those of a lower class or generally breaking the rules. That might result not just in his being expelled from his caste – his place in society – but also losing his peg in the cosmic order of things – his class.

      ‘Whilst all this might sound like mumbo jumbo to us, try to explain our social classes, or the difference between Methodism and Baptism to a native. And the whole damn thing has got to be made to work alongside the needs of the army or the police – as you rightly observe, Morgan. It’s not too bad down here in Bombay where the people are much more mixed, but in the Bengal Presidency, where most of the sepoys are of the higher classes cack-handed attempts to introduce the men to Christianity, or new regulations that troublemakers can interpret as attempts to defile the caste of a man, have been at the heart of the trouble. So, we may struggle with the differences in what sort of commission we hold or whether we’re Eton or Winchester types, but out here there’s a whole bucketload of further complications,’ said Forgett with a slight smile.

      Morgan was prevented from seeking further knowledge by the door of the office opening with a bang. Hume sauntered out onto the veranda, his eyes narrowed against the glare.

      ‘Ah, cheroots, what a grand idea.’

      Morgan had seen this act from Hume before – and each time it worked like a charm. As Forgett offered his leather case to Hume, then lit the cigar he’d chosen, Morgan remembered just such coolness as the bullets sang around Hume at the Alma and the splinters hummed at Inkermann. Whilst Brewill fussed over documents at the desk inside the office, Hume gave his orders.

      ‘Right, Morgan, be so kind as to send me an escort of a sergeant and ten. They’ll bring any sepoys whom I find guilty and condemn down to the Azad maidan, where the three Bombay regiments are, apparently, already.’ Hume took a long pull on his cheroot. ‘By now the other three companies of ours should be waiting outside the fort where we left your lot, and the troop of Horse Gunners should be there as well.’

      Morgan looked from the raised veranda towards the gate of the fort. The camels had now been cleared and knelt in an untidy row whilst the fodder was unloaded from their backs. He thought he could just see movement and hear the noise of horses outside the gates.

      ‘I want you to take command of the other companies until I get to you. Yes, I know,’ Hume waved Morgan’s embarrassment aside before he could even utter his objection. ‘Captain Carmichael will just have to take orders from a brevet major until I’m available.’

      Richard Carmichael was the senior captain in the Regiment, but he would have to bow to Morgan’s brevet rank and the imprimatur of the commanding officer.

      ‘The gunners will know what to do with any prisoners that have been condemned, but I’m much more worried about the native battalions. You’ll be guided down to the maidan by one of Brewill’s officers where you should find the Tenth, the Marines and the Sappers waiting for you – about eighteen hundred native troops all told. They’ll be carrying their weapons, but they’ve got no ammunition, so confidence and bottom will be everything. Make a judgement and load the guns with canister, and our men with ball if the sepoys look ugly, but whilst you have my complete authority to open fire if necessary, do be aware that it will be the sign not only for the sepoys to rise up – those that live – but also the mob that Brewill tells me are already gathering.’

      Morgan looked into Hume’s cool, blue eyes. He’d had plenty of responsibility thrust onto his young shoulders before and it was said by many that, had he been in a more fashionable regiment, his achievements before Sevastopol would have been