Bellary Fort.
There are few hotter places, and few more unhealthy ones, among our Indian up-country stations than Bellary, in the Madras Presidency, garrisoned in the year 1856 by Her Majesty’s 150th Regiment of Infantry. Let the reader imagine the lines of a fort drawn round a bare sugar-loaf hill, on which an Indian sun pours its rays for months. Thoroughly heated by this process of roasting, the arid rock gives out all night the caloric absorbed during the day, and a three years’ residence in the Fort of Bellary, such as had been passed by the officers and men of the 150th Regiment, was about equivalent to the same period in a baker’s oven. Years passed, and the English Government had at last perceived that it was madness to keep troops within the lines of the old fort when a rich and well-timbered plain lay around it. Barracks had been built outside; and about three-quarters of a mile distant from the main gate of Bellary, white bungalows, with their green verandahs and their well-kept compounds, lay scattered here and there among the trees, while far away, under the moon’s rays, on the night when our tale opens, a beautiful one in December, stretched the rich plain, with its piles of rock rising like huge black molehills here and there, giving welcome shelter to the wild-cats, jackals, and hyenas, whose cries might be heard from time to time ringing over the plain. The mess-house of the regiment consisted of the usual large commodious building, with its many outhouses or godowns, the whole surrounded by a low wall, and that again protected by a strong hedge of the prickly pear. A broad verandah ran round the main building, and a flight of steps led up to the house, where some half-dozen of the officers of the corps, dressed in white, with nothing to distinguish them except the forage-cap bearing the number of the regiment, were seated, chatting and smoking. The day had been very hot, but a pleasant breeze was blowing over the plain; the click of the billiard-balls was heard from an adjoining room, whose windows, thrown wide open, cast a stream of light into the compound, and the hum of voices from the messroom told of the dinner only just finished, and of the party of seasoned old soldiers who were even then loth to quit the pleasures of the table and the bottle of Madeira which had crossed the line four times, and for which particular wine the 150th had long been justly famous.
“I am half sorry that my leave has arrived, just as we are expecting the route,” said an officer, puffing out a long spiral wreath of smoke as he spoke, and reaching out his hand towards the tumbler of weak brandy pawnee standing on a small table by his side.
“Hear him, the impostor!” laughed a second. “Two years of leave, after nearly nine of foreign service, and he talks of regret.”
The first speaker was rather a slight figure, but withal strongly built; thin and wiry, he showed no superfluous flesh. The rather prominent forehead was tanned to a deep brown, save where the line of the forage-cap showed the white skin of the European; the cheeks were sunken, and bore the sallow tinge of sickness, while the aquiline nose, the well-cut mouth, and the rather heavy under jaw, spoke of determination and vigour of character. Nearly six feet in height, he lay languidly back in his chair, the dark masses of hair curling under the forage-cap, and the large black eyes giving a still more marked appearance of illness to his features.
“If I could shake off this feeling of illness, Harris,” he replied, “get rid of this terrible Bellary fever, you may depend upon it. I would throw up my leave. One’s regiment becomes one’s family after nearly twelve years’ service, nine of which have been passed in India.”
“And you are only captain,” replied the other. “A pretty look-out for me, an ensign yet. You had better stop and give me a lift, by making a death vacancy. Do, Hughes, there’s a good fellow.”
Captain Hughes laughed.
“We shall have the route to-morrow; and if the march to Secunderabad be anything like what ours was from Madras, you won’t want for death vacancies.”
“Was it such a terrible one?” asked the other, in a serious tone.