“The poor sepoy was really killed?” in horror.
“Not quite, but no thanks to the cranny. [Krani=writer.] And he shall pay for it—needn’t think he’s going to get off. But this ain’t ladies’ conversation, is it?” pulling himself up suddenly. “Fact is, ma’am, this cantonment has to be got into order, and it don’t like it. It ain’t altogether the officers’ fault—there are some magnificent youngsters among ’em—but they have had no one to command ’em, simply a lot of suggestors suggesting that they should do this or that, and it’s gone far to ruin ’em. There they go muddling themselves with beer all day long, but when the private soldiers get drunk on country spirits, it’s ‘Nasty drunken wretches! why can’t they keep sober?’ As if there was a chance of their keeping sober in barrack-rooms not fit for swine! How is a soldier to have confidence in his officer in war if he has shown no concern for his welfare in peace? It’s the same all round. There are the black artillery drivers with eight rupees a month of pay, no lodging-money, and no warm clothing. Of course in Ethiopia they deserted wholesale, and took their horses with ’em. But while I command here we ain’t going to risk having our batteries crippled at the critical moment just to save the Directors the price of a suit of clothes. That matter’s set right, at any rate.”
“Sure you talk as though you expected war, Sir Harry.”
“Then I don’t, ma’am, but I mean to be prepared for it.”
“I wonder don’t you rather look forward to it really?”
“Look forward to it? Well, a man who has never commanded a brigade in action may be excused for feeling some desire to know how he would acquit himself at the head of an army. Not that I confess to much doubt on the matter. One who has served under Wellington—you might almost say under Napoleon, so closely have I studied him, though we were on opposite sides, worse luck!—has little to do but put in practice his master’s lessons. Yet I admit there’s an attraction in the thought of handling in earnest a magnificent force such as I have here, massing it against the foe, flinging it hither and thither, leading it to victory—— Ah, but then! Heaven forgive me! do I desire to appear before my Maker—as must happen before long—with my hands imbrued in the blood of my kind, of those very troops whose proud bearing and lofty confidence fills me with elation? No, a thousand times no!”
He spoke aloud, but as though to himself, with eyes fixed on the distant horizon, and Eveleen was awed. “But there won’t likely be war at all?” she asked, almost timidly.
“How can I say? Is there any knowing what might suffice to stir to a murderous resolution these poor foolish princes, who are drunk with bhang every day after three o’clock, and peevish all the morning till they can get drunk again? They are at the mercy of a moment’s impulse, if the heads of their army had the strength of mind to take a decisive step when ordered, without waiting for the inevitable reversal.”
“The younger Khans might do so, Ambrose thinks,” she suggested—“especially Kamal-ud-din.”
“True, but would he find a sufficient following when old Gul Ali says in open audience that if the British will only take money to go away he’ll sell all his wives’ jewels to satisfy ’em? Then the next thing one hears he and the rest have sent their women away into the desert, and swear they will cut all their throats to prove to us they are in a desperate determination to resist. Well, do it, my good princes, do it! and I swear by all that’s holy I’ll cut yours, to the last man of you! When it comes to throat-cutting, you’ll find me a good deal apter than in chopping words with your Vakils.”