‘Thank you,’ said Hervey, taking the papers. ‘It was my best assessment, given the intelligence at hand. There may of course be need of modification – augmentation – after I’ve seen the country for myself.’

‘Of course, though there mayn’t be much time. My presence here, however, ought to serve in that regard.’

Hervey smiled. ‘Assuredly.’

Somervile let him look over the papers for a minute or two.

‘By the bye, you’ll dine with me this evening?’

Hervey was amused that he phrased it as a question. But he supposed his old friend knew his days as governor were not long now. ‘Delighted, as ever.’

Somervile slapped his thigh. ‘Splendid! Do you have any sherbet?’

* * *

‘Good morning, Annie. Where is Georgiana?’

Hervey had left the governor to his secretary and the correspondence that now came and went daily by hircarrah. There was an hour or so before Sleeman was due with his ‘bill’ for the next few days – the final few days, he trusted – and he thought they might take a stroll in the Mogul gardens.

‘She has a headache, Colonel, and is resting. She said she wanted to be well for dinner this evening.’

‘Oh; is she afflicted by headaches often? I hadn’t …’

‘No, not as a rule.’

‘Has anything in particular occasioned it?’

He was anxious, as Annie saw perfectly well, though she wasn’t sure how to reassure him in the matter. ‘It is nothing to be disturbed about, Colonel Hervey. It happens … periodically.’

‘Oh, well, if it’s nothing more – not a sudden fever or some such, for they strike in this place with no notice – I’ll take no account of it.’

Only then did it occur to him what Annie might be saying. It wasn’t a matter that had crossed his mind before. There’d never been occasion. He tried not to look awkward. Annie herself had lowered her eyes.

‘Ah, yes, something that will please you much: your brother’s regiment, the Somersets – they may be coming here in a month or so … Yes, indeed they will be coming.’

Annie looked suddenly pained.

‘I’m sure there’ll be opportunity to see him.’

Tears came.

‘Why, Annie, whatever’s the matter?’

She told him, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief.

Hervey stood awkwardly. ‘I am so very sorry. But why did you not say before?’

‘Oh, sir, there wasn’t cause to trouble you in it, or Mrs Hervey. Miss Hervey knows because she saw me crying one day, but I begged she would say nothing.’

His instinct was to comfort her, in the way he would Georgiana if she were distressed, but instead kept his distance.

‘Please, sit down, Annie. I really am very sorry indeed, for I know you were a small family, and close. It is a perilous thing, soldiery, and the worst of it, often as not, isn’t the enemy but the country and its peculiar sickness. India’s a fierce and fickle place, as you’ve seen for yourself, and I shouldn’t in the least try to persuade you otherwise if you wished to return home now.’