Hervey sighed, then smiled. ‘Very well, if you’re certain of it. I’ll have Garratt do duty instead. It’s a small matter. And is that all?’

‘It is all, Colonel, yes.’

He made to leave.

‘Kezia will be at hand, of course.’

‘Yes; it will be a great comfort for Dorothea, and for me to know.’

It had been the other way round in London, at the concert, when Kezia had had her ‘seizure’, as Milne called it, the culmination of what he diagnosed as ‘chronic puerperal melancholy’; and what the less clinically practised called derangement. (Without Dorothea Worsley there, he was sure they’d have been in a greater lather – without Dorothea and Milne, that is.) He supposed that giving birth in India was not greatly different from in England, but Kezia having now done so – and a fine, healthy infant he was – he imagined she must be some support.

He saw Worsley off with a word or two about Chintal, how it was quite impossible to say how these things would go, but that he hoped he might bring it off without a shot. ‘I was there fifteen years ago. Queer place. If it comes to a fight, though, I’ll certainly need your troop.’

They shook hands. It was unusual, but it passed for many more words. They’d spoken of matters that men as a rule didn’t speak of; a handshake said it was all done – hukum hai, ‘the matter is closed’, the way the silladar regiments ended things at durbar.

Hervey returned to his Mail.

Ten minutes later, Serjeant Stray reappeared.

‘Beggin’ yer pardon, Colonel … Dr Milne.’

He ushered in the surgeon – and much less stiffly. Milne was a regular visitor, and always gave his report after seeing Kezia if Hervey was at home.

‘Good evening, Colonel.’

Hervey poured him whiskey. ‘Nothing amiss, I trust?’

‘No, not in the least. I’ve just paid a call on Dorothea Worsley, and before that, Serjeant Twentyman’s wife – she carries her fourth, and well.’

‘Kezia’s not yet returned from Government House.’

‘No, I’d not thought to see her today. No need. I thought not to trouble you at office, though.’

Hervey looked at him quizzically. ‘Proceed.’

‘I thought to say that if you wished it, I could arrange for the surgeon of the Fifty-seventh to do duty, and I his.’

Hervey nodded appreciatively. It was delicately done. He knew Milne’s mind exactly. Milne, his senior in age by some ten years, was already much respected in the Sixth. Few regiments could boast a physician as their surgeon, and fewer still, if any, Medicinae Doctor Aberdonensis. But, he knew – else Milne would never have suggested it – the Fifty-seventh’s man must be every bit as capable, and perhaps even more so with the knife, for Milne always protested that he disliked cutting, let alone cutting deep (although he’d saved Collins’s life in the Belgian skirmish by amputating). Nor did Milne lack stomach for the fight, as the late business in Coorg had shown.