Lord Canning’s health, as it happened, was excellent; but he was having a troublesome time. He had hoped for a quiet term in office in succession to the dynamic Dalhousie whose reforms were said to have launched India on an era of enlightenment and progress, but India was proving a bed of thorns rather than roses.
The new Governor-General, a remarkably handsome man in his early forties with a noble brow and a somewhat womanish mouth, had taken over the reins from Lord Dalhousie less than eight months previously, and had early discovered that his predecessor’s confident prediction that all was well with India was unfounded. Dalhousie had enlarged the bounds of Empire to a previously unthinkable degree, but there had been no corresponding enlargement of the number of Company’s men needed to control and administer it. The Bengal Army had been stripped of officers, who had been sent on special service to administer newly acquired districts, act as judges, build roads and bridges or pacify revolting populations, and efficiency in the regiments had suffered in consequence. A situation to which the new Governor-General was not blind, but which he found himself unable to rectify.
The annexation of Oudh had been one of the last acts of Lord Dalhousie’s reign, but the settling of the province had fallen to Lord Canning, whose appointment of Mr Coverley Jackson as Chief Commissioner of this newest of the Company’s possessions had not proved a happy one. Mr Jackson appeared to be more interested in conducting a lively paper war with his subordinates, Gubbins and Ommaney, than in the affairs of Oudh. Mr Gubbins, equally irascible, had entered with enthusiasm into the combat, and the hapless province - the main recruiting ground for the Company’s Sepoy Army - was left to limp along in chaos while its chief British administrators expended a large part of their time and energy in mutual recrimination and in formulating charges and counter-charges which they dispatched almost daily to Calcutta.
To add to Lord Canning’s worries war clouds were massing over Persia, and he knew that if war were to be declared he would be required to send troops from India which could be ill spared. There was also the problem of Wajid Ali, the deposed King of Oudh, who had settled in Calcutta, bringing with him a large following of relatives and retainers who lived a life of idleness and occupied themselves with intrigue and the formulation of endless complaints against the British officers in Lucknow who, they alleged, were inflicting disgraceful suffering and indignities upon the dispossessed nobles of the state, plundering their possessions, turning their women into the streets, and using their palaces to house horses and dogs.
The Marquis of Dalhousie, sailing away from India towards an early death, imagined that he had left behind him peaceful agricultural acres reclaimed, in effect, from the savage forests of medievalism and barbarity. But the dragon’s teeth that had been sown in them were springing up under the feet of his successor, and Lord Canning watched his carefree guests dancing the waltz in the ballroom of Government House with an abstracted eye and a mind that was on other matters.
Colonel Abuthnot, who was no dancer, left his wife to gossip among the older women and keep a watchful eye upon Lottie, Sophie and Winter, and removed himself to the more congenial company of several like-minded gentlemen who were smoking a quiet cigar in an ante-room some distance from the ballroom. His appearance was hailed by a portly civilian whose high stock seemed to be in some danger of choking him:
‘Hullo, Abuthnot - you’re just the man I wanted to see. Fallon here has been talkin’ a lot of twaddle about disaffection among some of the regiments around Delhi way. That’s your part of the world, ain’t it? I’ve told him that he’s too credulous by half. The Army’s as sound as a bell!’
‘Well … there have been rumours of course,’ admitted Colonel Abuthnot cautiously, ‘but I have certainly had no trouble with my own men. ‘Evening, General. ‘Evening, Fallon.’
‘Pah - rumours!’ snorted the stout civilian scornfully. ‘There are always rumours. Wouldn’t be India without ’em. But it’s only the alarmists who go quackin’ about, takin’ them seriously.’
Colonel Fallon’s bronzed countenance took on a distinct tinge of purple. ‘I resent that aspersion, sir! I am no alarmist. But neither am I a Government ostrich burying my head in the sands of complacency. I tell you that there are dangerous ideas stirring among the sepoys. Ideas that we have fostered ourselves - or done nothing to prevent. Grievances that we have given insufficient attention to.’
‘Such as what, sir?’ demanded the first speaker bristling. ‘The sepoy is better fed, better treated and better paid than ever before.’
‘Ah, that’s the trouble,’ cut in an elderly man with fierce white moustaches, who wore the uniform of a famous Bengal infantry regiment. ‘They used to be as tough as hickory sticks in my young days; but nowadays we pamper ’em. Yes, by God! we pamper and pet ’em as though we were running a demned girls’ school instead of an army. The whole thing’s going soft.’
‘Not soft,’ snapped Colonel Fallon. ‘Rotten. Rotten from top to bottom. Half the younger officers don’t even know their men, and the rest of them are for ever being removed from regimental duty on special appointment to civil posts - or the staff. Then there’s all this damned Brahminism. We should have done something to limit it.’
A tall handsome man with cold eyes and a marked air of fashion added a languid voice to the discussion: ‘Brahminism? Pray enlighten an ignorant globe-trotter, Colonel Fallon. I was not aware that there were political parties in this country.’
‘It is not a political party, Lord Carlyon; it is an aspect of Hinduism. The Brahmins - the twice born - are the priestly caste of the Hindus and as such are held in great reverence by all other castes. There was at one time an attempt to limit the employment of Brahmins in the ranks, but they have enlisted as Rajpoots and Chutreeahs, yet kept their sacred rights and privileges - to the grave detriment of discipline.’
‘How sir? Do you mean to tell me that the Company enlists priests as fighting men?’
‘They are not priests in the ordinary sense,’ explained Mr Halliwell, the portly civilian. ‘They are the hereditary members of the highest of all castes. One can only be born a Brahmin, not become one. And no Hindu of a lower caste dare offend them, for fear of the fearful penalties that would fall upon him not only in this world but the next.’
‘Which leads to endless trouble in the ranks,’ put in Colonel Fallon, ‘because they hang together like members of a secret society. One Brahmin will not report another, and it is no uncommon thing to see an Indian officer of a lower caste grovelling to a mere sepoy who happens to be a Brahmin. It rots discipline, and we should have put a stop to it long ago; clapped a limit onto the number we recruited, and kept the whole Army on a lower caste level. It is the Brahmins who are at the back of all this present trouble.’
‘What trouble, sir?’ inquired Lord Carlyon in a bored voice. ‘I understood Mr Halliwell here to say that reports of trouble were entirely without foundation.’
‘So they are,’ snorted Mr Halliwell. ‘No foundation. Lot of chicken-hearted flap-doodle.’
‘Henry Lawrence ain’t exactly my notion of a chicken-heart,’ murmured a thin man with a brown, nutcracker face who wore the blue and silver of a Punjab cavalry regiment.
Mr Halliwell swung round on the speaker, his face above the high stock becoming dangerously empurpled: ‘I have every respect for Sir Henry’s capabilities as an administrator,’ he said angrily, ‘but the man’s a demned nigger-lover! He was against the Oudh annexation, and made such a devil of a nuisance of himself that Dal’ had to put him in his place pretty sharply.’
‘Sir Henry was not the only one whom his Lordship put in his place,’ said the thin man drily. ‘Seem to remember him doin’ the same to Napier in ‘50 - and for much the same reason.’
‘Two of a kind,’ retorted Mr Halliwell. ‘Alarmists, both of ’em. Sir Charles would have it that the Bengal Army was on the verge of mutiny and the Empire in danger. Quite fantastic - and he was proved wrong!’
‘If you mean that t
he danger was temporarily averted owing to the prompt action taken by Sir Charles, yes,’ said Colonel Fallon with a snap. ‘But the fact remains that the whole Army noted and discussed the disagreement between their Commander-in-Chief and the Governor-General. The matter became common talk in every bazaar, and did us a great disservice, for the men not only saw their Commander-in-Chief forced to resign, but realized that their conquerors were divided in their councils. They also learned something far more dangerous. I think that you must have forgotten, sir, that the disaffection that Sir Charles Napier feared might lead to mutiny arose out of disappointment over pay and allowances, which he attempted to remedy himself.’
‘And wrongly! And wrongly!’ blared Mr Halliwell. ‘It is not the province of the Army to decide such matters. That rests upon the decision of the Civil Government, who—’
‘Who do not know the mind of the sepoy!’ countered Colonel Fallon angrily. ‘Are we never to learn by our mistakes?’
He was interrupted by a large blond gentleman whose countenance was adorned by a magnificent set of Dundreary whiskers and whose manner suggested - correctly - the House of Commons. Mr Joseph Leger-Green, who had lost his seat in the last election, was but newly arrived in Calcutta. He intended to make a short stay in the Orient with the object of writing a book on the subject of ‘Our Colonial Possessions’, and had already compiled an impressive collection of notes. He turned now on Colonel Fallon and fixed him with a glittering eye:
‘May I ask what mistakes you refer to, Colonel? I confess to being at sea.’
‘I am sorry, sir,’ apologized Colonel Fallon. ‘This must be an exceedingly tedious discussion for you. Let us abandon it.’
‘On the contrary, Colonel. I am intensely interested. I intend,’ said Mr Leger-Green impressively, ‘to study the whole question of our foreign possessions during my tour. What question of pay and allowances do you refer to?’
The Colonel took another deep draught from the glass in his hand and regarded his interlocutor critically. Like most of his kind he had little use for visiting writers and politicos who arrived in Calcutta for a brief stay in the cold weather and returned to pose as experts on all Eastern questions, but the subject under discussion was one on which he felt strongly. He said:
‘The sepoys, sir, were granted special allowances for service outside British-held territory. We have used them to conquer vast new provinces which, once annexed, we have pronounced British and thereafter, with shortsighted parsimony, cancelled the “foreign” allowance of all sepoys serving there. The sepoys resent annexation at the best of times, but when it is followed by loss of allowances, that resentment is gravely aggravated. They resented it in Sind and later in the Punjab, and finally resorted to mutiny. The mutinies were put down. But concessions were made; and because they were made as the result of mutiny the sepoy gained the impression that they were made from fear, which has given him a sense of power …
‘The disasters of the Afghan War shook his belief in the infallibility of the British, the open quarrel between the Commander-in-Chief and the Governor-General showed him that his British rulers were divided against each other, and the concessions that followed the outbreaks of ‘49 and ‘50 have fostered the belief that we fear his strength. Lord Dalhousie, in common with many others, imagined that because the surface appeared calm there were no strong or treacherous currents beneath it. But I venture to think that his Lordship had a less intimate knowledge of the sepoy than Sir Charles Napier - and less understanding of the Eastern mind than Sir Henry Lawrence!’
‘Pshaw!’ exclaimed Mr Halliwell vigorously. ‘As Governor-General his Lordship had the benefit of the best-informed opinions in India. Besides, everyone knows that Sir Henry is a dreamer and an impractical idealist. His brother John is worth a dozen of him - more sense and less sentimentality. These people don’t appreciate sentimentality. They take it for weakness, and by George, they’re right. The strong hand, that’s what they need.’
‘Oh, I agree with you, sir,’ said Colonel Fallon. ‘The worst turn anyone ever did the Army was Bentinck’s folly in abolishing corporal punishment. If anything encouraged weakened discipline, it was that. Our Indian officers were the strongest against it. I had a deputation of ’em who told me that if we abolished corporal punishment the bad elements in the Army would cease to fear and would one day turn upon us. Yet we continue to flog British troops, and what is more we permit our sepoy soldiers to witness such floggings. We must be mad. And now there is this final folly of Oudh—’
‘Sir!’ began Mr Halliwell hotly, but was unable to continue, for once again the smooth tones of Mr Leger-Green intervened:
‘I am greatly interested in this question of Oudh,’ said Mr Leger-Green. ‘I have had several interviews with the ex-King. Pray, why do you consider it a folly? Taking the humanitarian view—’
‘I was speaking from a purely military one,’ said Colonel Fallon impatiently. ‘We recruit the bulk of our sepoys from Oudh, and they had certain privileges in the state as servants of the Company. One of which was the right of appeal in cases of law to the British Resident, so that an Indian judge, if a sepoy was up before him, knew that, theoretically at least, the Resident was that sepoy’s advocate, and therefore walked warily. This privilege was so prized that almost every family in Oudh had at least one member serving in the Bengal Army. But now that every citizen of Oudh is equally under the Company’s law, that privilege has gone, with many others, and there is no longer any special advantage in being in the service of the Company.’
Colonel Abuthnot, who had so far taken no part in the discussion, coughed gently and remarked in a diffident voice: ‘I agree that the recent annexation has caused a good deal of ill-feeling, yet in my opinion it is this matter of foreign service and the General Services Enlistment Act that has given rise to any uneasiness that may prevail in some regiments. It will pass, of course. But they are bound to regard it with some suspicion to begin with.’
Mr Leger-Green turned to the speaker and produced a small notebook in which he jotted down a hurried line of script: ‘The General Services Enlistment Act, did you say? And what is that?’
‘Service overseas, sir. The Bengal sepoy enlisted on the understanding that he should not be required to cross the sea.’
‘Caste again,’ interpolated Colonel Fallon. ‘The men believe that crossing the sea would deprive them of their caste, and they would have to pay heavily to the priests on their return to be cleansed of the defilement. But the Governor-General, with the approval of Mr Halliwell here and his friends in the Council, recently issued a General Order to the effect that no recruit would in future be accepted who would not undertake to go wherever his services might be required. And that means Burma, sir! - or Persia - or China. Is it not understandable that a caste-ridden, bigoted and superstitious people are willing to believe any agitator who whispers that the British plan to destroy their caste so that they may become willing tools of the Company, prepared to go anywhere and do anything we tell them in order to gratify our lust for conquest?’
‘Rubbish!’ exploded Mr Halliwell. ‘You exaggerate grossly, Colonel.’
‘I think not, sir. I think I may claim to have met and conversed with more of the people of this country than you gentlemen in Calcutta. Mohammedans and Hindus alike have regarded the advent of railways and telegraphs with the gravest suspicion, and when we permit the Missionary Societies to publish a manifesto to the effect that our trains and steamships, by facilitating the material union of all races of men, are to be the instruments for bringing about their spiritual union under one Faith - ours! - it is not to be wondered at that the wildest rumours are given credence.’
‘Am I to take it, Colonel Fallon,’ said Mr Halliwell contemptuously, ‘that you consider your own Regiment to be a hotbed of sedition and unrest?’
A dark spot of colour burned beneath the brick-red of Colonel Fallon’s sun-burnt cheeks and his hand made a small instinctive gesture towards his dress-sword, and fell agai
n. He said hotly: ‘No, sir. I thank God that my own men are loyal! But I am not blind to the attacks that are being made upon both their loyalty and their credulity by agitators and trouble-makers. Neither am I blind to the fact that we have done our best to give the sepoy an overweening sense of his own importance, while at the same time reducing his respect for authority. The commanding officer of his regiment, who should be the final arbiter of his fate, may neither reward nor punish him according to his deserts. I and my fellow colonels are reduced to impotence by red tape, and our decisions overruled by Headquarters. The only advancement an Indian may obtain is by seniority. Merit is apparently of no importance, and—’
A tall man with a thin grey beard and wearing the insignia of a Brigadier General said coldly: ‘You forget yourself, Colonel.’
Colonel Fallon turned quickly and the flush faded from his cheeks as he became aware that he had permitted his temper to lead him into openly expressed criticism of military policy, but his indignation was supported by the wine he had drunk and he was in any event no coward. He returned the Brigadier’s cold gaze with composure and said hardily: ‘Perhaps, sir. But I do not forget that our native troops number two hundred and thirty-three thousand men, while the European soldiery totals barely more than forty-five thousand of all arms. Those are sobering figures, sir.’
‘I do not find them so,’ declared Mr Halliwell. ‘It is well known that one Britisher is a match for fifty Asiatics any day. Are you not agreed, gentlemen?’
There was a chorus of assent and Colonel Fallon said sharply: ‘That, if I may say so, is a remark that could only be made by a civilian and a politician! I will bid you good evening, sir.’ He bowed stiffly and walked angrily away.