“They were on the calendar but they’ve been taken away.”
“Of course,” his father replied, “but that doesn’t make the sun rise and set any less does it?”
“No but . . .” Blushing, he felt the fog descending upon him before breaking off, embarrassed by the look of wonder on his father’s face. It had taken him another two days to sort the business out clearly in his mind, to his own satisfaction.
He was slow, and did not pick up received ideas as well as the cleverer boys, but the conclusions he slowly and clumsily reached were at least his own.
As for Jonathan, he had simply hoped that his son might do something to mend the family fortunes.
But he wanted to be a soldier. One day he would be a great commander like his hero Marlborough. For years, ever since the rising of ’45, he had dreamed of going to fight, of wearing a fine uniform with its bright red coat and broad lapels like those of the officers that he saw riding through the town from time to time.
There were so many places to fight.
And there was one great enemy: France.
Admittedly, England’s foreign policy in recent decades had not always been clear. There had been distractions, like the small war with Spain, who cast covetous eyes on Gibraltar. And the king had sometimes made alliances to protect his native Hanover, which were not even in England’s interest. But however the complex web of alliance, treachery, and diplomacy between the many states of Europe might change, one thing now seemed certain: the French meant to avenge their defeats by Marlborough and they would attack English possessions wherever they could.
If England intervened in the War of the Austrian Succession where Frederick the Great of Prussia was locked in combat with half Europe, it was only to weaken the French. If ships were sent to the West Indies, it was to protect her trade against the French; soldiers in America and in India were there to save her possessions and trade rights – always from the French. This was the single-minded strategy of that great man, loathed by the king but loved by the English people, William Pitt.
It was generally understood in 1753 that the French were about to attack English interests overseas again and that, whether he liked it or not, the king would have to call upon Pitt to direct the war.
This was the prospect that made young Adam Shockley’s eyes shine and his heart beat with excitement. Recently, the great Thomas Arne had composed two stirring anthems,
Rule Britannia
and
God Save the King
. He hummed them to himself continually.
And now he had begged his father:
“Get me a commission in a regiment that is going to India.”
“Which means I shall lose him,” Adam’s mother murmured sadly.
She had thought she might lose her only child the year before, when there was a brief outbreak of the dreaded smallpox in the town. On Jonathan’s suggestion, the whole family had taken the new vaccine of Dr Jenner, despite the warnings of all their friends. “Better to have the disease in the natural way,” Forest had told him. This departure from his normal conservatism had been successful: none of them had caught the disease. But there was no vaccine against the unhealthy climate of India; few of the young men who ventured out there in that century to earn their livings, let alone who went to fight, were ever seen by their families again.
Jonathan was looking at his son thoughtfully. It was so obvious that the fair, broad-faced young fellow had set his heart on the matter. He also realised that he had no idea what a difficult thing he had asked. Should he explain? Should he disappoint the boy? What else, in any case, would young Adam do?
“If you must go to India,” he suggested, “let me try to get you into John Company, where you might make your fortune. Forest has connections there and would help you.” The East India Company, affectionately known as John Company, concerned itself nowadays with administering the British trading colony in India; but it held out many opportunities for shrewd young men who wanted to make their fortune.
But Adam could think only of his uniform.
“Please father,” he begged again, “buy me a commission.”
“You know the expense of a commission is considerable,” Jonathan reminded him.
He saw the boy’s face fall. At the same time, he felt his wife’s hand squeeze his shoulder. He glanced up at her. Their eyes met.
“Very well,” he sighed. “We shall see what can be done.”
It was the next day that Adam was taken by his father to Avonsford Manor.
He had often visited the place in his childhood. He loved the handsome house, its pleasant park, and above all, the little church in the hamlet below, where he used to go to admire the stout, square, box pews that contained the worshippers like so many loose boxes. As a child he could hardly see over the edge unless he stood on the wooden bench inside. Then there were the hatchments – the big diamond-shaped wooden boards with the coats of arms of the departed members of the Forest family and their wives painted on them – that hung in cumbersome splendour from the tiny pillars. But best of all he liked to inspect the open fireplace in front of Sir George’s splendid pew, and the big brass poker he rattled when he thought the curate was preaching too long. Sir George was often away, but when he encountered the dark saturnine landowner, he was usually given a quiet nod which seemed to be approving.
His father did not tell him the object of his visit, but he realised it must have to do with his career and accordingly he was on his best behaviour.
The interview he was granted was brief.
While Jonathan explained his son’s desire to fight in India, he felt the baronet’s cold eyes resting upon him. But looking into Forest’s long, thin face, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
After a few questions, he was curtly dismissed, while his father remained with Forest for some time. When Jonathan reappeared, Adam thought that his father was looking tired.
“It’s arranged,” he said. “Forest has given me an introduction to a regiment, so I daresay we shall get you in.”
“He is kind,” Adam cried delightedly. And was so pleased that he hardly noticed that his father had pursed his lips.
In the early autumn of 1753, Jonathan Shockley and his son took a stage coach at the Black Horse Inn, the famous ‘flying machine’ that raced them up the turnpike roads to London in a single day. The adventure had begun.
Mr Adam Shockley, Ensign of the 39th Regiment of Foot. At last.
The uniform was the most handsome thing he had ever seen: a long scarlet coat, faced with green, ornamented with white lace; scarlet waistcoat and breeches, white gaiters, white cravat, buff belt.
He never forgot that first moment of joy, that pure thrill of excitement, when he saw himself in the glass of the London tailor where his father had proudly taken him.
He was a man. A dozen gold buttons gleamed down his chest. His hair was ‘clubbed’ – plaited, turned up and tied with ribbon.
His father watched him and then, unnoticed, turned away; he had just remembered that he would probably never see the boy again.
The days had fled by: from a tearful parting with his mother, to the journey up the broad new turnpike roads, the wondrous entry into the collection of scattered villages and elegant parks that made up all but the very centre of London, the finding of an inn and the series of meetings between his father and numerous gentlemen in crowded coffee houses. Joining a regiment, it seemed, involved long whispered conversations, negotiations he did not understand, as well as the delivery of the letters of introduction from Sir George Forest. It also required money.
For one did not become an officer without paying for the privilege: naturally.
To be an ensign in one of His Majesty’s Foot regiments cost £400. This was the humblest officer rank. To purchase a lieutenant’s commission cost £550; a full captain £1,500. For £3,500 a gentleman of means could buy a lieutenant colonelcy; and a young man of great family and fortune who was known to the king, might find himself a general in his twenties.
“Everything is paid for, in this world,” Jonathan said ruefully.
The £400 was paid to the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards.
For two days he and his father walked about London. He saw the noble old Abbey of Westminster, the hall where Parliament met, the royal palace of St James, and the bustling maze of city streets around the splendid dome of Wren’s St Paul’s.
But his mind was already far from the great city on the river Thames. The 39th was due to sail from its camp in Ireland to faraway Madras within weeks, and he was going to join them.
There was only one thing that his father had not told him.
1758
Adam Shockley sat in the little hut. Outside, on the square of the cantonment, the sun was no longer beating down so relentlessly.
Very soon he had an engagement that he was looking forward to. He was dining with Fiennes Wilson – and that was always a splendid business.
He half closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander over the events of the last few years.
What an extraordinary time it had been. What a triumph for English arms and the bold foreign policy of Pitt.
First the six month voyage to Madras; then the encounter with the massive, steaming Indian subcontinent: its exotic, dark-skinned people in their colourful dress, its dust, heat, monsoons – wild fluctuations of climate he had never imagined; in Sarum his eye had been used, day to day, to seeing the lush greens of the countryside, or the red brick and grey stone of the town. Here, life itself had a different hue – saffron, ochre, cinnamon met the eye, and as for the smells, they had assaulted him, rich and heady, as soon as he walked off the ship. How could he describe them: urine, jasmine, cowdung, he could pick out these strange and pungent aromas from the land, but they were mixed with so many others, the bitter-sweet scents of cooking that rose from every house, of spices, perfumes: no, he could not describe them. But he knew that he had a thrilling, tingling sense that he was more sharply alive than he had ever been before.
His life at first was pleasant. The little regimental canton was a modest collection of buildings, but there was so much to see, especially when one sauntered out into the warm evening after the relentless furnace of an Indian afternoon. There were amusements, like pig-sticking, or watching the native women in their subtle and exquisite dances. And, he knew, soon there would be action.
For several years the French government forces and the East India Company – independent but backed by British arms – had been manoeuvring for control of the huge Indian trade in tea, coffee, silks and spices. Up to 1756, their action had mostly been confined to alliances between different Indian princes and to occasional skirmishes.
But now the incipient war was coming out into the open. Pitt demanded action. At the time he arrived in Madras, the regiment knew it could not be long before there was action.
First, however, there was a brief wait.
It was during this period that Adam first met Fiennes Wilson.
Sir George Forest had supplied the letter of introduction. His father had handed it to him just as he was leaving, together with twenty pounds in gold; but he had not fully understood the value of the letter until one of the lieutenants who was well versed in India told him:
“Fiennes Wilson? He’s a friend of Warren Hastings, and the other young bloods of the East India Company here.”
He understood that Wilson, of the wealthy Christchurch family, was attached to the East India Company in some way, but he knew little of Hastings or other names the lieutenant mentioned.
“Those are the men in John Company that are going to build India,” his lieutenant told him. “And make fortunes for themselves,” he added.
The vast accumulations of capital the India merchants could make were well known. Men of moderate means when they left England might return years later, if they survived the climate, with tens of thousands of pounds – nabobs they were called – who bought estates and even titles for themselves back in England.
“An introduction to Fiennes Wilson and Warren Hastings is a valuable asset,” the lieutenant went on. “Make good use of it, young fellow. I envy you.”
Fiennes Wilson was a tall young man of twenty-five. His face was so finely drawn and perfectly proportioned that he seemed to have stepped out of the classical world. His black hair was thinning, giving his forehead a look of greater height than it actually had.
To Adam, within minutes of their first meeting, he seemed like a Greek god and a hero.
It was not surprising. Fiennes Wilson had all the charm and easy manners of a young aristocrat; his eyes were sympathetic; he laughed easily; and he had a great deal of money.
He took in the young fellow at a glance and welcomed him like an old friend of the family.
“This is Mr Adam Shockley,” he told his other guests at their first dinner, “a friend of Sir George Forest’s. You’re an old Sarum family, I believe, Mr Shockley.”