Sahib (36 page)

These horses all had to be bought and paid for. The hard-up Henry Havelock wrote in 1846 of a veterinary disaster: ‘I have lost, by rupture of the intestines, my ever to be lamented horse … for whom I gave 1,400 rupees last year on the banks of the Sutledge, and his place has to be supplied, where, I know not.’
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Walter Campbell’s brother gave him the Arab colt ‘Turquoise’, and the creature was so precious that when no cover was available:

I have allowed him to take shelter in my tent and in return, he lends me his rug to sleep on. The tent being small there is not much room to spare, but he is the most discreet of horses, never thinks of turning or kicking his legs at night; and so we sleep side by side as comfortable as possible … He is as good as a watch-dog, allowing no one to enter the tent without my leave and always wakens me in the morning by pushing me with his nose the moment he hears the bugle sound.
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A few officers even indulged in buying elephants – £300 each in 1755 – though they could be hired for a modest 8 shillings a day; but, as John Corneille observed, ‘none but men of the first rank and fortune can afford to keep them’.
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In 1808, one subaltern told another that he was certain that a captain was indeed ‘sallying forth like Don Quixote to prostrate himself at the feet of his Dulcinea’, for he was selling off his ‘hunting apparatus … even the elephant is for sale at the reduced price of rupees 400’.
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We can only guess at how Surgeon Fayrer bore the cost of his sagacious pachyderm at Lucknow in the spring of 1857:

Dr F’s elephant is always brought in the evening to the verandah to have his dinner. We are generally all sitting there – he has sixteen seers of
attah
made into immense
chupattees
– this evening he performed all kinds of feats – took the Mahout up on his back by his trunk, then put out his fore-paw and the Mahout climbed up that way, roared whenever he was told to speak and at length salaamed and went off.
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With debt amongst junior officers so common, detached commands, or appointments which brought extra pay were particularly welcome. Henry Daly was delighted to be posted as adjutant to an irregular battalion soon after commissioning, as it brought his pay up from 200 rupees to 500 rupees a month. A whole forest of financial regulations could be felled to produce cash. Senior commanders were entitled to a table allowance on the presumption, sometimes fulfilled, that they would spend it entertaining as befitted their rank. There was a horse allowance, by 1911, of 30 rupees per month per horse, with the most senior officers entitled to four horses and the most junior staff officer to two. Cash payments were made for passing language exams, from 80 rupees for success at the elementary level, rupees 800 for the higher level, to a gratifying 4,000 rupees for a diploma of honour.

The most important allowance,
batta,
was paid to all troops, British and Indian, who gained entitlement to it by serving on campaign or in parts of India where it applied. British troops qualified for ‘country
batta’
simply by being there. Although
batta
was originally intended as an allowance designed to defray expenses genuinely incurred, it soon became a pay increment which the Company’s officers took for granted. It could be substantial, and was generally very high in relation to basic pay. In 1766, for instance, a lieutenant colonel in the Company’s service received 248 rupees per month, with an extra 620 rupees for single
batta
and 1,240 rupees for double
batta.
In 1809 a captain might receive 120 rupees pay each month with 180 rupees as
batta,
36 rupees as gratuity, a lodging allowance of 75 rupees and 45 rupees for commanding a company. Even by the time of the Second Afghan War, when things had been put on a more businesslike footing, six months’ field
batta
amounted to 700 rupees for a subaltern, 1,100 for a captain, 2,700 for a major and 3,600 for a lieutenant colonel.

Attacks on batta were mounted by successive governments anxious to economise, and were met by what it is not unfair to term mutiny. In 1766 Robert Clive was ordered to do away with double
batta,
only to be rewarded by the mass resignations of many junior officers who had the support of their superiors. There was a dangerous stand-off between two loyal sepoy battalions and a mutinous European battalion,
and eventually the conspiracy crumbled with the most inflammatory firebrands being cashiered. Another serious mutiny over
batta
occurred in Bengal in 1796, and a third, very nearly as bad as the 1766 outbreak, at Madras in 1809.

We cannot be sure just how much the example of officers who gave vent to their discontent over the reduction of
batta
affected the sepoys, but it was certainly unhelpful. In 1824, 47th BNI was ordered to Burma: there was a general climate of unhappiness based on rumours that the Burmese had magical powers and tortured prisoners, and that there would be a shortage of bullocks to carry the men’s private possessions; the men demanded double
batta
and mutinied. Twelve mutineers were executed and the regiment was disbanded. In 1844 there was a mutiny in 64th BNI when it was sent to Sind without the
batta
it expected. The case was mishandled by the commanding officer, who was later cashiered, but six soldiers in what had previously been a well-regarded regiment were executed, and the 64th was duly disbanded.

The most dramatic mutiny of the period occurred at Vellore in 1806. It stemmed from attempts to make the sepoys wear round hats and leather stocks, and to forbid them from wearing marks painted on their faces and gold and silver ‘joys’, such as earrings and necklaces. Facial marks and jewellery often had religious significance, and there was a growing concern amongst many Indians that it was all part of an attempt to Christianise the army. A large proportion of three battalions of Madras native infantry mutinied, killing fourteen British officers, and 115 men of HM’s 69th Foot who were in garrison at the fort. The rebellion was quickly quashed by Colonel Rollo Gillespie of the 19th Light Dragoons, who galloped to Vellore as soon as he heard the news. His light galloper guns blew open the main gate, and the fort was promptly retaken, with about 350 of the mutineers being killed in the process. There were numerous executions afterwards and, predictably, the three battalions were disbanded.

Although
batta
was not the key issue at Vellore, the concept of fair dealing certainly was, and deep within both the European and Indian elements of the Company’s army was this fundamental notion, or in this case its reverse,
ghadr,
faithlessness or ingratitude.
¹⁷⁹
Soldiers
were indeed
soldati,
paid men, with a contract that took them to the very doors of death, and it was often the belief that their employer was tinkering unilaterally with the bargain that bought them, that made British or Indian soldiers mutiny. It was an element in all these episodes, in the great Mutiny of 1857, and of the ‘White Mutiny’ that followed it.

In one sense, though, pay and
batta
were only the start – the ordinary income which British and Indian soldiers could expect. In wartime it was enhanced by extraordinary income, by prize money and loot, the former legal and the latter as illegal as it was inevitable. Although we often tend to think of prize money as being confined to naval operations in the Napoleonic Wars, it was available in land warfare too. In India, hoarded bullion, often in the form of gold
mohurs,
and women’s jewellery – both a symbol of a family’s status and the repository of its wealth – were alike important. There were often large quantities of gold not far below the surface in many Indian communities, some of which could legitimately be regarded as prize money. And some of it was obtained without any legal niceties: it is no accident that the word loot, which entered the English language in 1788, stems from the Hindustani
lut
for robbery or plunder. In 1762 Colonel Rennell declared that India ‘is a fine country for a young gentleman to improve a small fortune’. However, as time went on it would become harder to shake the golden fruit from the pagoda tree; by 1877,
Blackwood’s Magazine
would be lamenting that: ‘India has been transformed from the regions of romance to the realms of fact … and the pagoda tree has been stripped of all its golden fruit’.
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Broadly, after a victory the enemy’s public property, as opposed to the private belongings of individual combatants, was sold and the money thus raised was distributed, on an elaborate scale governed by rank, from the commander in chief to the most junior private soldier. The sums involved might be huge: the Army of the Deccan divided £353,608 4 shillings and 8 pence for its campaign in 1817–18, and the capture of Lucknow (much-looted though it was even before prize money was assessed) brought in well over £1 million.

The arrangements for Plassey were characteristically complex. One-eighth of the entire haul went to Robert Clive, Commander in Chief, India, who kept two-thirds of it himself and gave one-third to Major James Kilpatrick (Kilpatrick died soon afterwards worth £60,000, a sum John Corneille thought ‘much inferior to what many others had collected on this occasion’
¹⁸¹
). Four-fifths went to captains, subalterns and staff officers, and was divided up to ensure that captains got twice a subaltern’s share. More than half the remainder, just over one-eighth of the total, went to the European element of the army, with some Indian specialist artillerymen included. It was divided up to ensure that surgeon’s mates, gentleman volunteers and sergeant majors received three times a European private’s share, and corporals half as much again as a private. Sepoys received the remaining money, about one-eighth of the whole sum, leaving them rewarded in roughly the inverse of their proportion of the whole force.

In April 1756, James Wood and his comrades received the first share of their prize money for operations against the Maratha leader Anghria. This ‘was to each Captain 2,806 rupees, to each Lieutenant 1,007, NCOs 320, Privates 56. Black soldiers received 20 rupees.’
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After the fall of Seringapatam a colonel received £297, a subaltern £52 and a British private £3 15 shillings and 9 pence. Albert Hervey wrote that after the Coorg war:

The prize money divided came to something very handsome. A subaltern’s share being about three hundred pounds, and that of a private soldier three pounds ten shillings, one of the best dividends ever known in India. Many of the officers however despaired of ever receiving their prize-money; and certain of them being badly off for cash sold their shares for what they could get, some for so little as sixty or seventy pounds.

There were several persons in the country who purchased up a great number of shares, so that when the prize-money was distributed, which was very soon after, they reaped a plentiful harvest, and made an excellent business of the transaction. How disgusted must those officers have been who had sold their shares when they found that they might have had such
large sums of money, had they but exercised a little patience! Our troops were of course delighted at what they got, and wished for another war, where they might obtain similar sums with similar ease.
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Some officers were elected by their comrades to act as prize agents for their own element of the army. Lieutenant John Pester, appointed prize agent for the native infantry in the Second Maratha War, admitted:

I never experienced an anxiety equal to what I felt on this occasion, for I considered that to be chosen by a majority of officers of the army was an honour that any man might be proud of and would be a most convincing proof that one’s conduct had gained their notice and approbation. I had the satisfaction of seeing many an officer’s name down for me to whom I had considered I was a perfect stranger.
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After the capture of Khelat, Major John Pennycuick was nominated as prize agent by his own commanding officer, who:

secured the votes of the officers, and recommended me to canvas in the Queen’s. I did so and got their votes as unanimously as our own officers – several Officers of the Staff, and Officers of the Artillery tendered me their votes unsolicited, so I carried my election in great style.

However, his was no easy task, and, he declared, ‘I have had a busy time since … and will for some months … ’.
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The defeated enemy’s public property was stockpiled under the supervision of the prize agents, who then arranged for it to be auctioned. In India a good deal of it consisted of coinage or precious metals in any case, so disposal was relatively easy. The system of dividing up the proceeds ensured that senior officers could make fortunes overnight. Sometimes they were reluctant to take what was due to them, in case it might be said that they had championed expansionist policies in order to make money: Lord Cornwallis turned down £47,000 after the Third Mysore War and Lord Wellesley refused £100,000 after the Fourth. But Lord Lake received £38,000 from the capture of Agra, and Lieutenant Colonel Deacon took the commander’s share – £12,000 – of the £100,000 unleashed when
the Raja of Kittur’s little fortress fell in 1824, even though he had only just arrived at the place. The second siege of Bhurtpore brought Lord Combermere almost £60,000, his generals £6,000 and subalterns £238; British privates received £4 and sepoys just over half as much; a
jemadar
got £12 and a
subadar
£28. Although these were substantial sums by Indian standards: ‘a
subadar
of forty years’ service can hardly have felt it right that a lieutenant less than half his age should have eight times his share’.
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Prize money was looked upon with suspicion by many British soldiers, firstly because of the inequitable way in which it was apportioned, and secondly because the whole process might take years. It took Cornet Thomas Pearson of the 11th Light Dragoons ten years to receive the £218 and 16 shillings due to him from the fall of Bhurtpore, and the widow and son of Private Bennett of HM’s 39th waited twenty years for his £4 and 9 shillings from the Coorg campaign of 1834. Gunner Richard Hardcastle, writing home from Oudh in July 1858 and longing for ‘one Gill of real stout such as I have tasted in Bradford’, thought that: