The Mutiny

by Julian Rathbone

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

For its British population, the India that swelters in the late spring of 1857 is a place of amateur theatricals, horseracing and flirtations under the aegis of the omnipotent East India company. But a brutal awakening lies in store for the complacent British: one May night, after thirty years of abuse, the East India Company's native soldiers rise up against their British officers. Thus begins the most savage episode in our imperial history. Caught up in the violence is pretty Sophie Hardcastle, a young wife and mother newly arrived from England. As she searches for her infant son, missing in the chaos, Sophie finds herself bearing witness to atrocities on both sides.

Moving, sombre and thrilling, Rathbone's tale is told on a grand scale, ranging from the Cannings in Government House to the heroism of the humblest soldiers and peasants. It is as exhilarating as any Victorian adventure story, and yet, with its unflinching examination of religious fanaticism and the horrors of war, THE MUTINY also carries a powerful message for the modern world.

Release date: May 3, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 464

Sample

Simla, 12 May 1853

Sophie Hardcastle, eighteen years old, not yet used to being Mrs Hardcastle, still thinking of herself as Sophie Chapman, called goodbye to her husband Tom and closed the front door of their substantial bungalow. Shaking out and hoisting her parasol she crossed the small garden to the latched gate in the picket fence. A large and heavily mustachioed sepoy in white uniform with red facings and red turban came somewhat perfunctorily to attention and offered her an open smile.

Perhaps too open.

‘Mem!’ he said, and saluted – somewhat sloppily she thought.

He wasn’t armed and she didn’t see how he was much use, except to keep pedlars and beggars at bay. And that smile – not so much open as knowing. She allowed herself a slightly irritated shrug and set her face to the long gravelled ramp that would take her through a hairpin and on to the Upper Mall.

The hillside dropped steeply away beneath evergreen oaks, quite unlike any she had seen before, and the more elegantly horizontal fronds of the deodar cedars. These she liked. Though etiolated, they put her in mind of the big cedar on her father’s lawn, just in front of the ha-ha, back in Dorset. Crows, more obviously hooded than jackdaws, bustled busily through the spaces at her eye level, black kites swung above them, and an even higher buzzard rode the thermals with almost no movement at all. A red-faced monkey bared quite vicious looking canines in an unwelcoming snarl and swung into the first crotch of what it clearly believed was its personal tree. Beyond it all a spur of a real mountain, still clinging to the last rags of a snowy shawl, floated, sun-tinged with gold.

And this, she thought, is supposed to be the part of India that is most like England – outside the cantonments of Calcutta where they had stopped for a week before taking a steamer up the Ganges to Allahabad and then a smaller one to Cawnpore. After that it had been elephants, a novel and terrifying experience, especially on the narrow hairpinning track which had climbed the last twenty miles. She shrugged off a pang of cold loneliness that had become more familiar than she had thought likely during the three months since she had turned from her mother’s clinging embrace and allowed her new husband to hand her up into the coach that would take them to Plymouth.

The Upper Mall, divided between a gravelled path and a sandy track that echoed Hyde Park’s Rotten Row, was busy. Between her and the white-towered church nearly half a mile away, dedicated to the Christ and therefore called Christchurch, gentlemen in tall toppers, with ladies on their arms whose bulging dresses were supported inside by domes of crinoline, cruised like passing ships. They saluted each other with raised hats or inclinations of ringleted, bonneted heads, only occasionally heaving-to to exchange a greeting, gossip or news. Some rode, on lively chestnut Arabs for the most part, though a couple of swells from one of the Queen’s cavalry regiments made a race of it for a furlong or so, the hooves of their handsome black chargers throwing up the coarse sand and gravel.

Those who had been introduced to Sophie during the previous fortnight included her in these acknowledgements and perhaps their heads turned for a moment after she had passed. Again, this irritated her. She knew she was good-looking, had a good figure which fitted the hour-glass fashion without undue constriction, but she did not like to be in any way an object of more than perfunctory attention from slight acquaintances. Consequently she held her beaded reticule across her lower stomach at all times, though as yet there was nothing at all to be noticed.

It was a relief then to hear a quickened footstep behind, and sense before she saw the presence of Catherine Dixon, falling in somewhat breathlessly behind her.

‘Mrs Hardcastle? May I walk with you?’

‘Oh, please call me Sophie.’ She stopped and turned, waiting for her new acquaintance to catch up. ‘I am still quite likely to look around me for this Mrs Hardcastle person when she is addressed in my presence.’

‘Sophie, then, and you must call me Catherine. Mind your step – monkey poo, such a nuisance. If we get on I shall allow you Cathy.’ Mrs Dixon looked to be about twenty-five though her manner was of someone younger than that, while her figure was a touch more matronly. ‘You are on your way to Lady Blackstock’s?’

‘Yes. And you too?’

‘Of course. As you are no doubt aware we are the West Country–Meerut Contingent. The wives anyway. I expect you’ve realised that that’s the common factor. At the beginning of every summer, a week or so after we have gathered here again, she gets us together, those of us who have spent the cooler months in Meerut, or used the place as a staging post. And then we meet again in September before going back down again. It’s quite a jolly idea, really. Helps the new faces, like you – there are always some – to get to know us all, that sort of thing. And when we get in the dumps there’s always someone to talk to who knows Wells or Yeovil or Sherborne, whatever.’ All this said in a rush. Mrs Dixon always spoke in a rush not moderated by the roundness of her West Country vowels and the ripple of her ‘r’s. But even she had to take a breath and Sophie seized the moment.

‘I welcome her good intentions,’ she interjected. ‘But I confess I am somewhat in awe of Lady Blackstock.’

‘Oh, she’s a good stick, believe me. A bark yes, but no bite. And she stood by me when most thought I had behaved somewhat wantonly.’

Sophie reflected that ‘old stick’ would not have been her choice of words to describe Lady Blackstock. Massive, lightning-blasted oak, perhaps, and a very English one at that.

‘How was that then?’

‘Have you not heard? It was quite a subject of conversation and even judgement a year ago, but has blown over since then. One scandal drives out another, don’t you think? And there have been several since. There, on our right is the Gaiety,’ she indicated a building with a rococo frontage, set in the hillside just below the Mall, so it was actually below them though entered from where they were; ‘we have such fun with our productions. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is spoken of for this season and I shall read for the part of Hermia …’ she paused to glance up at Sophie. ‘You could be Helena, you know? I’m sure you’ll hear all about it sooner or later.’

They walked on past the church and the lending library into a more residential area where the houses were houses not bungalows, much like substantial suburban villas back home, with extensive lawns and gardens. Catherine guided them down a short drive planted with rhododendron, to a quite modern house, gabled, with a small tower at one end and a glazed lantern in the middle of the roof. She pulled the polished bell-knob while Sophie furled her parasol.

An elderly Sikh in a white turban, white single-breasted jacket buttoned at the neck, white pantaloons and black shoes that were ever so slightly curled at the toes, pushed open the double door from inside and stood aside for them to enter. She could not but notice that his left hand had suffered some accident – all but the two outside fingers were missing.

‘Mrs James Dixon,’ he murmured, ‘and …?’

‘Mrs … Hardcastle,’ Sophie muttered and then, aware of rising colour, said too loudly, ‘Mrs Sophie Hardcastle.’

The Sikh bowed very slightly and announced them in a quite gentle voice which yet had enough weight to be heard by anyone interested enough to pay attention.

‘You should say Mrs Tom Hardcastle, you know. Until you are a widow,’ Catherine murmured.

‘I am Sophie, not Tom,’ Sophie replied.

‘Of course.’

‘And I have no intention of being a widow.’

‘Indeed, I should hope not.’

This exchange was conducted sotto voce and with covert smiles as they progressed across a parquet floor beneath the large glass and wrought-iron lantern, set like a dome in the moulded ceiling, to the far end of the big room where Lady Blackstock held court. Behind her a huge heavy silk punkah was kept unnecessarily in motion by a young lad whose skin was exceedingly dark. Unnecessary because even in the last week of May the mountain air was cool enough – that was the point of being there, six thousand feet above the plains. The boy’s skin was much darker than the Sikh’s – virtually, Sophie thought, a nigger, though there was nothing Negroid about the cast of his features which were, to her Caucasian eye, attractive, with a well-shaped nose set between darkly luminous eyes.

But now Lady Blackstock was greeting her with a large, plump, gloved hand, whose plumper wrist disappeared first into a foam of lace and then a quite startling turquoise satin. Sophie took the hand briefly and contrived a motion of her body that was not quite obsequious enough to be taken for a curtsey, but was more than a mere bob. Truly she found her hostess overpowering. She was very big, with a huge embonpoint that provided a worthy cushion for a cascade of emeralds and diamonds. This flowed over her Rubenesque shoulders from under a lacy mobcap that sat on the back of her head, pinned to dyed black hair which tumbled about her cheeks in springy ringlets. Her face, which was broad and must once have been handsome, was rouged and powdered, the lips painted.

‘Such a pretty gel,’ she boomed. ‘Young Tom Hardcastle should be a very happy man. How did he find you?’

Young? But he was, at thirty-three, fifteen years older than Sophie. Not that she minded. As her mother had said, he could be expected, being a mild man as well as older, to treat her carefully, as something to be treasured. Older husbands were always so much more attentive than younger ones. She supposed though that it was all a matter of where you stood. Lady Blackstock was well into her fifties.

‘Tom’s father, and his father before him, have been our solicitors in Blandford Forum for a hundred years perhaps. Our marriage was the most natural thing in the world.’

‘Your family are litigious? Need the services of a lawyer awfen?’

‘Not at all, madam. The connection was far more social than professional, the professional side being confined to conveyancing when a property was bought or sold, setting up marriage settlements, executing wills. Nothing more exciting than that, I assure you.’

‘I meant no offence, dear. Now run along and enjoy yourself. The tea is Indian, of course, so much more robust than the China stuff I was brought up on, almond gaufres, some orange jelly I believe, and so forth.’ She turned to the older woman at her side but did not drop her voice. ‘She’s eating for two, you know. Married three or four months, healthy girl like that …’

With four older brothers who paid her little attention, Sophie had spent much of her pre-pubescent years in her father’s stables, where her companions had been grooms. Even now, occasionally, out of extreme provocation and never out loud, she resorted to the vocabulary she had picked up from them. ‘Bitch,’ she muttered.

Seeing that Catherine had turned to the left away from her ladyship, she turned right, not wishing to appear clinging to her only real acquaintance in the room. The room was nearly circular apart from the one straight side that housed the main entrance. There were five arched alcoves whose inner walls were filled with flush doors decorated with grisaille paintings depicting aspects of the sub-continent. The first she came to was of an almond-eyed rajah on an elephant. Meanwhile, a pretty Native girl in a yellow saree handed her a small teacup and saucer, blue and white with gold-leaf rims (which Sophie recognised was Spode willow pattern, like her grandmother’s back in Shaftesbury) and indicated a three-tiered cake stand set on a small table with a walnut veneer. Sophie took a bright yellow tart whose base was very flaky pastry; it was sweet and yet eggy too. She didn’t like it, but the tea was all right.

She continued to move clockwise round the room and was soon chatting with the other guests, all women, all married, and several of them not much older than she, about fifteen altogether. For the most part they had a lot in common. They were all from the West Country, occasionally shared acquaintances back home, and all, apart from Sophie herself, well acquainted with each other. What did become apparent though was that the reasons they, or rather their husbands, were in India covered a wide range of occupations. Sophie had expected that they would all be the wives of officers, but two were married respectively to a supervisory railway engineer and a surveyor for the telegraph; two had district magistrates for spouses and the husband of another, a Mr Andrews, was a deputy collector.

‘What of?’ Sophie asked, with enthusiasm. ‘Geological specimens? Native flora?’

‘Taxes,’ was Mrs Andrews’ answer. ‘What else? In a little principality a long way south from here, called Jhansi. We usually stop off at Meerut on the way out and on the way back, since we have a large acquaintance at the station there.’

But the husbands of most, and in one case a brother, were officers in one of the Queen’s regiments or one of those raised by the Company.

‘And what does your husband do?’ was the inevitable follow-up.

‘Tom is an assistant advocate general,’ she replied, and rather hoped that the matter would stop there. She really had very little idea of what his duties consisted, except that he seemed to spend a lot of time at his desk in his study, surrounded by shelves of leather-bound law books.

Presently one lady, a lean woman with a pointed nose, a white but freckled face and bright red hair, took her elbow and guided her back into one of the alcoves.

‘So you are young Tom Hardcastle’s wife,’ she began. Her voice was high, sharpish, but at this moment moderated to something like a whisper.

‘I am. But not for the first time surprised to hear him described as young. He is so much older than I am.’

‘Unattached gentlemen of whatever age are always young to the rest of us. In the hill stations at all events. Unless, my dear, they are evangelical Christians of whom we have recently had far too many. Evangelicals are almost always old far beyond their years, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t think my Tom is at all an evangelical.’

‘Indeed not. Serious, hard-working perhaps, but then, being not the brightest pin in the cushion, he has to keep on top of his job. So my husband says.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Of course, I must introduce myself. He is Captain Arthur Fetherstonhaugh and commands a troop in the Queen’s 9th Lancers. He comes from Frome in Somerset which is why I am a guest of Lady Blackstock, though I have never been to the place. I am from Waterford, my mother a Beresford.’ This was said with a touch of condescension and Sophie realised she was in the presence of a person with pretensions. Indeed the fact that she had made the point that the 9th Lancers were a British regiment, rather than a Native one with English officers, was already an indication.

Mrs Fetherstonhaugh went on, her voice even quieter than before. Without the acerbity of her usual speaking voice a trace of an Irish lilt was apparent but entirely of the Ascendancy, not a hint of your ordinary Irish person.

‘I could not help noticing that you arrived with Catherine Dixon. Is she a friend of yours?’

‘I hope she may be. But our acquaintance so far is limited to two rather formal meetings.’

‘You are not aware, then, of what she did a year or so ago?’

‘No, and if what you are about to say does her discredit, then I would prefer not to be.’

‘Hear of it you will, my dear, if not from me then from the next gossip you meet. However, it is a matter of personal judgement rather than a moral issue and I will leave you to come to your own conclusions. But I think it only fair that you should know before you get in too deep with her.’

Sophie was now torn between a desire to know more and a growing dislike for this lady from Ireland. At all events she allowed Mrs Fetherstonhaugh to put yet more pressure on her elbow and move her further into the alcove whose monochrome painting this time depicted a dancing god with a high crown that resembled the heaped-up pinnacles of a Hindu temple and whose performance was enhanced by the fact that he boasted six limbs rather than the usual four.

‘Mrs Dixon is in the grip of two passions which she indulges to excess and which occasionally come into conflict. The first is for her husband, the second for her four children, with a fifth on the way.’

‘These seem worthy feelings to me.’

‘So we all thought. Yet it was also supposed that when her eldest son reached the age of seven she would find it a relief to have him shipped back to England to the care of a grandmother and the ministrations of a good boarding school. The whole family went back to make the arrangements but when the time came to return here, Mrs Dixon refused to go. She said her place was with Adam, the seven-year-old son, and she would not part from him but arrange instead to remain in Dorchester—’

‘Sherborne.’

‘Wherever. Where she would see to his education while continuing to look after his three younger siblings, two of whom are girls. Poor Dixon was at his wits’ end but perforce had to return without her or resign his commission. This he could not do as he has very little money of his own and no talent beyond that of riding very fast over difficult ground and persuading others to follow him. So he came back on his own.’

‘And …?’ Sophie’s interest was now aroused. Would infidelity prove to be the climax of the story? But she had forgotten its beginning.

‘There followed a long and passionate correspondence between the two from which it became apparent that Mrs Dixon could no more support the absence of her husband that she could that of her eldest child. The consequence was that six months ago she brought them all back and vowed she and her children would remain at her husband’s side for ever.’

‘Is that so terrible? It seems natural, indeed admirable, to me.’

‘But it’s awful! How can you say such a thing? His colonel summed it up well enough. What would it be like if all the wives did the same? Imagine. A regiment with say forty officers, with forty wives, and maybe, in the due course of time, two hundred children? But there is nothing in the Company’s Regulations which expressly forbids the arrangement so there was nothing to be done. And anyway it was soon made clear to the senior officers that very few wives would countenance any such arrangement and that almost all of us are profoundly relieved to have our children off our hands once they are old enough to be a nuisance, that is once they are too old to be left solely in the care of a Native ayah. Indeed, it has become quite the thing to send them home at the age of five or younger. Pardon me, but I have just noticed Pamela Courteney is here and I must have a word with her about the evening at whist she is planning. She has to keep these evenings a secret from her husband who is a most evangelical sort of person and absolutely dead against card-playing.’

But really, Mrs Fetherstonhaugh had registered the approach of Catherine Dixon and clearly any further comment on the latter’s idiosyncracies would be out of place in her hearing.

‘I suppose that woman has been prattling about me?’

‘In a manner of speaking. But she said nothing about you that makes me think any the less of you. I find your regard for your children and your husband admirable and needing no defence.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Dixon’s blue eyes, suddenly dark with feeling, held hers for a moment. Then she smiled. ‘I can see we will get on. We must arrange for you to meet my brood as soon as possible. But now let me tell you about some of the others who are here. We all have our little peccadilloes, our oddities, but none, I assure you, of any great consequence; just enough to give us something to talk about behind each other’s backs. Now, without appearing to stare, take a look at the apparently Native lady who has just arrived, not, you will notice, by the outer door but from one of the inner rooms.’

The woman in question was, Sophie decided, a vision. Not above five feet in height but perfectly proportioned, she was wearing, but not so that it covered her head, a pale buttercup-yellow saree, shot with silver. Her long black hair was tied back with a matching silk scarf. Gold flashed on her dark fingers and bracelets chimed on her bare forearms. She had her palms together in the posture of the standard Native greeting which she repeated to the two ladies who had been standing in front of the door she had come through. In this case the grisaille depicted a prone female tiger, nursing her cubs. For all her poise and charm she was not, Sophie decided, more than sixteen years old, perhaps younger. Her skin was a shade darker than ‘wheaten’, the word the Natives used to describe the palest, most Aryan of their race.

‘Who is she?’ Sophie whispered. Then, ‘I think I can guess. I have been told about her if she is who I think she is.’

‘I’m sure you have. She is Uma Blackstock, Sir Charles’s daughter by his first marriage. Her mother was a cousin of the Ranee of Aligarh and a renowned beauty. Charles Blackstock fell for her when he was a subaltern and in hospital following a wound received on the north-west frontier. It was not at all uncommon in those days for officers to marry high-born Native women, though of course the reverse hardly ever happened. The arrival of us memsahibs put a stop to all that, but that did not get under way until a decade later …’ Catherine at last drew breath and Sophie, out of a desire to show polite interest rather than any real thirst for knowledge, managed to interrupt the flood with what she hoped might be a pertinent query.

‘And how do such alliances work out? Not well, one presumes. One has heard so much spoken against miscegenation.’ She faltered on the last word, wished she had said ‘marriages between whites and blacks’ instead.

‘Rubbish! All of it.’ Catherine lowered her voice. ‘The fact of it is that Native women are taught to be submissive and biddable everywhere except in the bedroom. There they have the reputation of possessing skills modesty must leave to your imagination. The combination is apparently irresistible.’ A quick glance directed beyond Sophie’s shoulder. ‘Parlons d’autres choses …’

Sophie ignored the warning note.

‘And the present Lady Blackstock? How did Sir Charles acquire her?’

A voice boomed in her ear.

‘Acquired her, my dear? I assure you I acquired him. At the Salisbury Races in ’45 to be precise. I am sure Mrs Dixon will be able to provide you with a garbled version.’ And the galleon, borne on lavender-scented zephyrs, passed on after tapping a small fan on Catherine’s shoulder in a gently reproving way.

‘Oh my gosh,’ murmured Catherine and steered Sophie away from her hostess.

‘Well?’ asked Sophie.

‘Well, what?’

‘The garbled version, if you please.’

‘Sir Charles, as he already was, having been honoured with the red ribbon for the way he led a division in the Battle of Chillianwallah in the Second Sikh War, his brigadier having lost his head to a two pound shot …’

‘Red ribbon?’

‘The Bath … and suffering from a recurrence of remittent jungle fever, resolved to spend a season at Cheltenham Spa and, by the way as it were, have himself invested with the insignia from the very hand of a grateful sovereign at Windsor. Having gone through with both of these he paid a visit to his elder brother, Lord Ludgershall, who entertained him by taking him to Salisbury Races. There, in the members’ enclosure, he met Mrs Betty Corbett, the extremely wealthy widow of a corn factor. In his estimation, and, I would add, in that of all of us who know her, her good humour, strength of character and robust health far outweigh her lack of social graces. She loves the life in India, and will not think of returning to Dorchester where she fears she will be ostracised both by the gentry and her former acquaintance. She considers herself a worthy stepmother to Uma, and she is a surrogate mother to us all.’ At last Catherine paused for breath then her shoulders drooped. ‘There,’ she sighed. ‘There we are. That’s Lady Blackstock for you.’

She lifted her head and her now slightly misted eyes seemed for a moment to lack focus. She shrugged, turned the restored sharpness of her gaze to meet Sophie’s.

‘I shall leave soon. I become fatigued quite easily.’ She glanced down at her stomach. ‘Dear Dixon. He is so in love with me. As I say, you must meet my brood. Do please call tomorrow, at eleven o’clock, say. Have tiffin with us? We are usually more or less visitable by then.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Certainly not. There are other ladies here as well as I whom you should meet. That is the purpose of our being here.’

And Catherine Dixon walked away from her towards the front door which the Sikh held open for her. Sophie could not help remarking that her gait now seemed weary, that of a woman much older. But at the door she straightened, looked around the room with a bright smile, and was gone.

That evening, after a light supper of rogan josh (Tom Hardcastle subscribed to one of several Simla mutton clubs whereby families bought the carcase of a sheep or two and divided them between them), dahl, chappatis, followed by the first of the season’s mangoes, they walked out on to the rear verandah of their small compound so that he could smoke his cheroot and she could watch the still fascinating, tiny fireflies.

‘There are so many more of them than when we came,’ she murmured.

‘They’ll be gone with the first night-time frost. And so shall we. But that’s a long way off yet. Five months.’ He squeezed her elbow affectionately, protectively, and then put his hand on her further shoulder. Tall though she was, he was taller by a head and, though thin, he sometimes felt frighteningly solid to her; at other times this solidity was a comfort. He worked hard, his eye sockets were often grey with tiredness and occasionally his work left ink stains on the inside of his right index finger. Although he was an officer attached to one of the Queen’s regiments of foot, he was a lawyer first, with divisional responsibilities. She admired him, felt as safe as she could in this strange and awful country with him at her side. Almost, she loved him, and, at this early moment in their marriage, was prepared to learn to.

A little light from the lamp inside fell across the yard but did not reach the three huts below them at the back of the property where most of their servants lived, but still the whitewashed cow-dung bricks caught a glow from the fading sky beneath the plate-like tiles which were made from the same ubiquitous material. Charcoal beneath the pots their meal had been cooked in glowed intermittently as a slight chill breeze caught it. A saffron saree seemed to float for a moment behind them, and a dark child in a white shirt ran across to it with a little subdued but cheerful cry. Below the rear fence the hillside dropped steeply beneath tall thin deodars to the hidden abyss beyond. An owl squawked and was answered from a distance.

‘They always seem to do that at this time of year.’

‘And not all through the winter?’ She was thinking of the woods that bordered the Stour near Blandford. ‘At least until Christmas?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Tom laughed. ‘I’ve never been here in the winter.’

‘Of course not. Silly me. But we come back every May?’

‘You do.’ He had explained this to her often but showed no irritation at having to do it again. He understood the insecurity she must feel. ‘Whether or not I do will depend on what is happening in the plains.’

‘I hope you do. I hope you do come back with me. I shall be awfully lonely without you.’

‘Believe me, you’ll fry if you don’t. Even by May it’s pretty unbearable. Not good for young ladies.’

Silence. He sensed there was something unsaid in the air. Then she took a very deep breath and squeezed his hand more tightly.

‘And not good either for very young babies,’ she said, and then was instantly embarrassed as he took both her hands in his and, kissing them, went down on his knees.

‘Oh thank you, my darling, thank you, thank you, thank you.’

Which surprised her, as she felt she had had very little to do with it.

Meerut. Last Sunday before Advent, November 1853

Meerut was a military station forty miles north-east of Delhi. It suffered somewhat by comparison with Umballa, which was further to the north, closer to the Himalayan foothills and much larger.

For Sophie, pregnant as she was, the less demanding atmosphere of Meerut was congenial enough. It was normally the base of two or three Native Infantry regiments and Native Cavalry, led from the rank of lieutenant and up by British officers trained at the Company’s establishment at Addiscombe near Croydon, with some British NCOs. Usually there were also units of the Queen’s Army, bringing the whole establishment up to the strength of a brigade.

Sophie calculated that she had conceived towards the end of March, on board ship from Aden to Madras, during a storm which had frightened her and led her to seek comfort in her husband’s bunk, a move which he had misconst