UNDER A CLOUD. 165 



fully to carry through a task which at the outset he 

 did not greatly relish. Turner had gone to Bombay, 

 where he died in the following January. But Godby 

 was at hand to help Taylor in overhauling the regi- 

 mental books, and to point out the discrepancies, 

 blunders, and omissions which seemed to tell against 

 his former commandant. 



It was truly a tangled skein which Eeynell Taylor 

 essayed to unravel. Day after day, with Hodson 

 at one elbow and Godby at the other, he toiled 

 throuofh the chaotic mass of documents, Eng-lish and 

 Persian, which professed to show forth the sums 

 received and disbursed by Hodson himself from 

 month to month for nearly two years on account of 

 the Guide Corps. ^ The scrutiny which thus began 

 at Mardan in August 1855 ended only in the last 

 days of October. 



On November 2 Taylor wrote to inform the 

 military secretary that he had completed the 

 examination of the accounts. " Lieutenant Hodson 

 is very anxious, as his accounts have been publicly 

 challenged, that they should be finally examined 

 and reported on by an officially appointed court of 

 incjuiry, Najaf Ali to be present." This man was 

 a regimental munshi who bore Hodson a special 

 grudge, and had been one of his principal accusers. 

 " As some of Najaf All's assertions," continues 

 Taylor, " are capable of very clear disproof from the 

 retrenchment papers in the office, I do not think it 

 likely that his attendance will be procured without 

 the assistance of the civil authorities. ... I have, 



^ It was not till March 1853 that Hodson took over the sole 

 management of the accounts from his adjutant^ Lieutenant F. M'C. 

 Turner. 



