Oh, for a breeze. Or better still, rain. But neither was due for another month. He had heard that when the summer monsoon started blowing from the southwest in July there would be plenty of rain. Until then, he and his men would have to fry.

It could be worse.

He could have been sent with the others to retake Meerut and Delhi from the rebels… forced marches along the Ganges basin in full uniform and kit, rushing to face hordes of crazed Sepoys waving their bloody talwars and shouting “Din! Din! Din!”

He shuddered. Not for me, thank you very much.

Luckily, the rebellion had not spread this far east, at least not to any appreciable extent. That was fine with Westphalen. He intended to stay as far away from the pandies as he could. He knew from regimental records that there were a total of 20,000 British troops on the subcontinent. What if all of India’s untold millions decided to rise up and end the British Raj? It was a recurrent nightmare. There would be no more Raj.

And no more East India Company. Which, Westphalen knew, was the real reason the army was here—to protect “John Company’s” interests. He had sworn to fight for the Crown and he was willing—up to a point—to do that, but he’d be damned if he was going to die fighting for a bunch of tea traders. After all, he was a gentleman and had only accepted a commission out here to forestall the financial catastrophe threatening his estate. And perhaps to make some contacts during his term of service. He had arranged for a purely administrative job: no danger. All part of a simple plan to allow him time to find a way to recoup his considerable gambling losses—one might even say incredible losses for a man just forty years of age—and then go home and straighten out his debts. He grimaced at the enormous amount of money he had squandered since his father had died and the baronetcy had passed to him.

But his luck had run true here on the far side of the world—it stayed bad. There had been years of peace in India before he had come—a little trouble here and there, but nothing serious. The Raj had seemed totally secure. But now he knew that dissension and discontent among the native recruits had been bubbling beneath the surface, waiting, it seemed, for his arrival. He had been here not even a year, and what happened? The Sepoys go on a rampage!

It wasn’t fair.

But it could be worse, Albert, old boy, he told himself for the thousandth time that day. It could be worse.

And it most certainly could be far better. Better to be back in Calcutta at Fort William. Not much cooler, but closer to the sea there. If India explodes, it’s just a hop and a skip to a boat on the Hoogly River and then off to the safety of the Bay of Bengal.