‘God preserve us from corporals with good ideas?’

Hervey frowned again. ‘I can’t regret having men who are willing to think and act – even if at times they do so to unfortunate effect. Some need driving, most need encouraging, few need restraining.’

Somervile smiled. ‘I believe I’ve heard you say so before, but it’s no less compelling for repetition.’ He refilled his glass and took an ostentatiously modest sip. ‘You know the most grieving clause in the new India Act? That neither Bombay nor I can make laws without the consent of Calcutta. It’s of no moment to the case of your dragoon – the death penalty’s an altogether different matter – but I would have abolished flogging as soon as Bentinck abolished it in the native army. Indeed, I would have done so before, had I had the unequivocal support of the commander-in-chief.’

Hervey looked at him sombrely. ‘I’ve never heard you speak thus … Oh, forgive me; I don’t mean to suggest you never thought thus.’

Somervile put down his glass. ‘Some years ago, Hervey, before you first came to India, when I was in Guntoor, I had occasion to speak on the subject with a man raised from the ranks into a regiment of cavalry – King’s cavalry – and which I never forgot. He told me that from his observation of its effect on others, he could most solemnly affirm that flogging was, and always will be, the best, the quickest, and most certain method yet devised to eradicate from the bosom of a British soldier his most loyal and laudable feelings.’

Hervey was about to speak, but Somervile’s expression became even more earnest.

‘He told me that during the whole of his service, which included a period of upwards of thirty years, he never knew but one solitary instance in which a man recovered his self-respect and general reputation after having been tortured and degraded by the punishment of flogging – and this isolated case was of a private soldier, who had, on previous occasions, received altogether some thousands of lashes. Since his first flogging his name had been constantly in the guard reports, and he’d scarcely ever done a day’s duty. His offence on the most recent occasion was being drunk on guard, and his sentence was three hundred lashes. His regiment was paraded for the purpose of seeing punishment inflicted and the court-martial findings were read, but even before it was finished, said the officer, the man began to undress with apparent – indeed sullen – apathy. He knew the heinousness of his offence and was well aware of its certain consequences. When he was stripped and tied, however, his naked back presented so frightful a spectacle that his commanding officer, kind-hearted as evidently he was, turned his head from the sight and stood absorbed in thought, as though reluctant to look on it again. When the adjutant informed him that all was ready, the colonel seemed to start, and then walked slowly up to the prisoner and stared even more closely at his lacerated back – on which there were, apparently, the most visible large lumps of thick and callous flesh, and weals distressing to behold. The colonel contemplated the wounds for some moments, unknown to the delinquent, and, when at length the man turned round (more from surprise that the flogging didn’t commence than from any other motive), his colonel addressed him along these lines: “Clarke,” or whatever was his name, “you are now tied up to receive the just reward of your total disregard and defiance of all order and discipline. Your back presents an awful spectacle to your surrounding comrades, and, for my own part, I would willingly withdraw it from their sight, but I fear that your heart is as hard as your back, and that I have no alternative but to see that justice administered which the service requires. What possible benefit can you expect to derive from this continual disobedience of orders, and disregard of the regulations of the service?”’