The Path to Honour

The time was towards the close of the 'forties of the nineteenth century, and the place the city of Ranjitgarh, capital of the great native state of Granthistan, which was not yet a British possession, but well on the way to becoming one. This ultimate destiny was entirely undesired by the powers that were, who had just appointed Colonel Edmund Antony—a fanatical upholder of native rights, according to his enemies—as British Resident and protector of the infant prince occupying the uneasy throne. The task of regenerating Granthi society from the top, much against its will, and welding its discordant elements into a peaceful, prosperous, and contented buffer state (the thing was known, though not as yet the name) against encroaching Ethiopia on the north, promised to be no easy one, but Colonel Antony was undertaking it confidently, with the support of two or three of his brothers and a picked band of assistants drawn from the army and Civil Service. That moral suasion might be duly backed up by physical force, ten thousand British and Indian troops, under the command of a Peninsular veteran, General Sir Arthur Cinnamond, were garrisoning the citadel of Ranjitgarh and holding the lines of Tej Singh in the suburbs. The city thus overawed Colonel Antony was wont to call the wickedest place in Asia, in blissful ignorance of the sins not only of distant Gamara, but of towns much nearer home. Its streets were filled with a swaggering disbanded soldiery that had faced the might of England and the Company in four pitched battles during the last decade, shameless women peered from its every lattice, and its defence of religion took the form of frequent bloodthirsty "cow rows," but he saw in its wickedness no insuperable bar to the success of his policy. In twelve years or so the British would retire, leaving a reformed nation to govern itself. Meanwhile, in order to emphasise the transient nature of the occupation, a Mohammedan tomb served as the English church, and a single house of moderate size was made to accommodate the Resident and all his assistants, becoming the scene of as much hard work and high endeavour as might have sufficed to redeem an empire.

On an inner courtyard of the Residency there looked out a number of small rooms, each of which was shared by two young men, who had much ado to bestow themselves and their possessions in the limited space and the section of verandah that appertained to it. One room was much like another, with its camp-beds and table, and its miscellaneous assortment of camel-trunks and tin cases piled up at the back or serving as seats; and each verandah was graced by two long chairs, usually to be found in sociable proximity, with a view to the better enjoyment of the occupants' brief periods of leisure. On one particular verandah, however, the chairs were placed as far apart as space would permit, and turned away from each other, so that Lieutenant Robert Charteris and Lieutenant Henry Gerrard, of the Bengal Fusiliers and the Company's Engineers respectively, might each delude himself into the thought that he was alone in his glory. This arrangement was of the newest, but it was already causing keen delight in the circles which had known the two young men as inseparable friends. Born no farther apart than the Rectory and Hall of a country village, they had learnt together under Gerrard's father, the Rector, entered Addiscombe together, and passed out at the same time, Gerrard with an array of medals which secured him one of the coveted commissions in the Engineers, and Charteris, undistinguished save by proficiency in games and universal popularity, slipping contentedly into the Infantry. Appointed to the same station, they had seen a certain amount of active service in company, and continuing to gain the good opinion of those in high places, Gerrard as a promising scientific soldier and Charteris as a born leader of men, had both enjoyed the distinction of being selected by Colonel Antony as his assistants at Ranjitgarh. But here discord stepped between them in the fair form of Miss Honour Cinnamond, the youngest daughter of the General commanding the Division, and after edifying the station for some time by their ardent rivalry, Charteris and Gerrard were no longer on speaking terms. The station regarded it as an excellent joke, but to Colonel Antony, who took life seriously, it was a scandal and a sin, to be ended at once and peremptorily. Knowing his man, he had on this particular day announced his ultimatum to Gerrard.