The Cannons of Lucknow, page 11
“Sir …” Mahoney was beside him. For the first time since he had joined the troop, the tall young sergeant looked flustered. He gestured behind him. “The general, sir—it’s General Neill with some of his officers and they’re coming this way.”
Recalling the last occasion when General Neill had seen his embryo cavalrymen, Alex smiled to himself. He called them to attention and formed them up in two impeccable lines, wheeled them round to face the approaching horsemen, and, when the new arrivals drew rein, brought them to the salute with drawn sabres.
Neill acknowledged the compliment, his face expressionless but a fugitive gleam of approval in his eyes.
“Something of a change, I perceive, Colonel Sheridan,” he said. “A rabble transformed into a very passable troop of cavalry in less than a week! That’s a remarkable achievement and I congratulate you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Alex answered, with wary formality.
Neill eyed him speculatively for a moment, as if to gauge his reaction, before requesting, his tone clipped, “Dismiss them, if you please. I have something I must say to you in confidence. Ride back to camp with me. My staff can precede us.”
Alex obeyed, and when his troop trotted off under Mahoney’s command, he returned to find the general waiting for him alone.
“I’ve read your report,” Neill told him. “And I owe you an apology, Colonel Sheridan. I offer it in all humility. I hope you’ll feel able to accept it?”
“Sir, I …” Alex hesitated, stony-faced. But it would be useless to bear a grudge, he decided, and he had no desire to make an enemy of General James Neill who had, in any case, honoured his promise and made a handsome apology. “Of course, sir, gladly.”
“I’ve written to the other officers who were present with us at the ghat on Monday night,” the general went on. “Those, that’s to say, who have already crossed with their regiments into Oudh, and I shall see Colonel Tytler at the first opportunity, in order to explain the position to him. He spends most of his time patching up the engines of that infernal steamer, which is why I haven’t managed to contact him before this. But rest assured that I shall.”
“Thank you, General.”
“I trust you will consider that I have done my best to set the record straight?” Neill sounded genuinely concerned and the question was asked without a hint of arrogance.
“Yes, I’m satisfied that you have, sir,” Alex said. It was not easy, he knew, for a man like James Neill to apologise. “Think no more about the matter. I shall not; I—”
“But I shall. I lost my temper. … A great many things had combined, that particular evening, to make me lose it, as I believe Major Stephenson explained to you. Even so, I had no right to vent my spleen on you, no right at all. Reading that report of yours, I … damme, Sheridan, I felt ashamed and that’s the truth. It was a story of extraordinary heroism—heroism on the part of the entire garrison—that brought tears to my eyes; I …” Recovering himself, he went on with an abrupt change of tone, “I intend to act on your recommendation, of course.”
“My recommendation, sir?”
“Yes, indeed. Your own escape was little short of miraculous—I’d have given odds of a thousand to one against it, my dear fellow, damme I would!” At his ease once more, General Neill appeared almost genial. “So we’ll send out patrols to see if there’s any trace of the officers and men you think may also have escaped. Those two subalterns—Mowbray Thomson and Henry Delafosse—before heaven, I’m not going to let them die of wounds or at the hands of hostile villagers if there’s any chance of finding them! Do you think there is?”
Alex sighed. “I pray there may be, sir. All I can tell you is that six or seven men did reach the river and Thomson was one of them. Two were definitely hit and I saw them go under, but the others I’m not sure about. They were strong swimmers, although, of course, they weren’t in good physical condition. There’s perhaps an outside chance that some of them survived.”
“Then we shall search for them and try to discover what fate befell them. One thing, though …” Neill paused, a thoughtful frown creasing his dark brows. “Captain Bruce, my Provost-Marshal, has been going through some of the documents in Bala Bhat’s office—his brother, the Nana, appointed him Governor of Cawnpore, as you probably know, and his babus kept conscientious records of his administration. They make incredible reading! But, more to the point, Sheridan, amongst the papers was the draft of a letter sent to Rajah Drigbiji Singh, demanding the return of some European captives he was holding at Moorar Mhow. There’s no record of Drigbiji Singh’s reply and no indication that the Europeans were from Cawnpore, but the Rajah has always been loyal and the letter to him was dated a few days after General Wheeler’s surrender. I think it’s worth investigating, don’t you?”
“I do indeed, sir,” Alex agreed eagerly. Slight though the hope might be, at least it was hope. Moorar Mhow was in Oudh and some distance from the river, but Drigbiji Singh’s territory included a number of river villages, all of which lay below the point where they had landed from Edward Vibart’s boat to make their last stand in the small, white temple at the river’s edge.
“That jemadar of the Seventeenth Native Infantry—what’s his name?” Neill snapped his fingers, as if impatient at his own failure to remember. “The one you and Barrow brought in from Bithur, who admitted that he fired on your boats from the Oudh shore?”
“Bhandoo Singh, sir,” Alex supplied.
“That’s the fellow, yes. He said at his trial that he’d heard rumours that five or six sahibs had escaped from one of the boats but he couldn’t tell us where they were.”
“His trial, sir?” Alex questioned, surprised. “Has he been tried?”
“Tried and condemned,” Neill returned, with a satisfaction he made no attempt to conceal. “I believe General Havelock suggested that you might be called to give evidence against him, did he not?”
“Yes, he did, sir. I understood that the trial had been postponed and I expected to be informed if—”
Neill brushed that aside. “My dear Sheridan, there was no need to call you. It would simply have been a waste of your time—time you’ve put to a much better use with those recruits of yours. The fellow admitted his guilt and there was the Nana’s letter to prove it. The whole affair took less than half an hour. The death sentence was pronounced on him and on five others this afternoon. They included a jullad, whom witnesses identified as being one of the carrion who took the bodies of our women and children from the Bibigarh and cast them into that ghastly well. I won’t revolt you with a full account of what they did. Suffice it to say that they first tortured and then brutally killed any of the pathetic creatures left alive by the Nana’s executioners … and there were a number, according to the witnesses. Children, Sheridan, whose mothers had tried to protect them with their own poor bodies, even as they died! One or two, rather than endure the torture, flung themselves, still living, into the well. But they shall not go unavenged, I swear to God they—shall not!” Neill’s eyes were blazing and his voice shook with the bitter intensity of his feelings. “I intend to make an example of that foul jackal and of the jemadar. Before heaven, it’s got to be done—and in the only way these heathen understand!”
Alex turned in his saddle to study him uneasily, conscious of the first instinctive pricklings of alarm, but in the fading light was unable to see his face clearly. Only Neill’s eyes blazed back at him, lit by some inner fire.
“Are the men not to be hanged, sir?” he asked. The old Mahratta custom of blowing men from guns had, he recalled, been resorted to in Allahabad—Stephenson had admitted as much —so that perhaps … he drew in his breath sharply.
“Yes, they’re to be hanged,” Neill returned harshly. As swiftly as it had arisen, his anger faded and his voice was coldly reasonable as he added, “I have ordered the gallows set up in the courtyard of the Bibigarh, and the executions will take place tomorrow, half an hour after noon. But these murderous traitors shall not go undefiled to their gods. They have innocent blood on their hands—blood that still lies, inches deep, on the floor of the Bibigarh. I intend to make them wipe it clean.”
“You intend to make them …” Alex’s mouth was suddenly dry. “To make them what, General?”
“Each man will be ordered, before going to his death, to cleanse one yard of that blood-smeared floor, Sheridan. And if he refuses, then by God, I’ll have the swine flogged until he does what he’s been ordered to do!”
“But Bhandoo Singh is a Brahmin—he’ll be breaking caste if he carries out such an order. And that means—”
“Devil take it, I know what it means! It’s easy for these men to die when they believe that their souls will be reincarnated into a higher sphere than the one they’re leaving.” James Neill’s lips parted in a mirthless smile. “But if, instead, they are hurtled into eternity believing themselves condemned to return as some noisome reptile or lower form of animal life, I fancy it will be a different matter, don’t you? They will be less stoical when they face the hangman. Damme, Sheridan, I saw the men we blew from guns in Allahabad go nonchalantly to their deaths, until we hit on the idea of having the faces of the Hindus first smeared with bullock’s blood, and those of the Moslems with pig fat. That changed their tune, I can tell you. And now, after they’ve been dispatched, the Moslem corpses are burnt and the Hindus buried.”
“But, sir …” Alex was profoundly shocked by this revelation and it took an effort of will not to reveal the revulsion he felt. “These men are soldiers. Their lives are forfeit as the penalty for mutiny, but haven’t they the right to die like soldiers?”
“They are soldiers who betrayed their salt,” Neill corrected. “In my view, they have merited such treatment. They have taken up arms against the lawful government, murdered their officers, as well as countless innocent women and defenceless children. What would you have me do—make heroes and martyrs of them, for God’s sake? That will not deter others from following their example, will it?”
“No, sir.” Alex had himself under rigid control now and his voice was flat and devoid of feeling. “But it won’t encourage any of those who might regret their action to return to their allegiance. Or, indeed, sir—”
Neill cut him short. “Damme, there speaks a typical Company officer! I had not expected you to hold such views, Sheridan. Have you been to the Bibigarh—have you seen what they did there? An eye for an eye, that’s the language they understand, and that’s what I intend to exact from them. They shed the blood—let them clean it up. I see the hand of God in all this. Believe me, after much prayer and meditation, my Christian conscience is clear. We are fighting for our faith as much as they are, and it was they who called their revolt a holy war, was it not? Did they give Christian burial to their unhappy victims in the Bibigarh—damme, Sheridan, did you look inside that well?”
Alex shook his head. “No, I did not.”
“Couldn’t stomach it, eh? I don’t blame you, many couldn’t … and the poor victims were known to you. It was a truly terrible sight.” Neill drew a deep breath and added, less harshly, “I’ve had both burial wells covered in now and I shall see to it personally that memorials are set up over them.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” Alex managed. They were in sight of the camp now and lights flickered in the darkness ahead as oil lanterns were lit and men moved about the forest of tents, seeking food and shelter and the chance to change into dry clothing. He hesitated, feeling sickened and wishing that Neill would dismiss him.
“Well, here’s where we part company,” Neill said, as if reading his thoughts. “But I trust with no ill feeling?”
No ill feeling … Alex bit back a sigh. “No, General Neill, none on—on my part, sir.”
“You’re a strange fellow, Sheridan,” the general observed thoughtfully. “Those poor dead creatures are crying out to be avenged and you worry about the Pandies’ souls. But …” he shrugged. “When does your troop cross into Oudh?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, sir. We are to start embarking the horses at four o’clock.”
“Then attend the executions and see for yourself how effective a deterrent they will prove. I shall count on your presence—half an hour after noon. That’s understood? Right—then I give you good evening, Colonel Sheridan.”
Phrased thus, the invitation was tantamount to an order, and, without waiting for a reply, Neill kicked his horse into a canter and went to join the members of his staff, riding thirty yards ahead of him.
Alex was depressed and anxious when he returned to his tent, but his depression lifted when he saw a familiar white-bearded figure awaiting him there. Flinging his reins to his syce, he ran the few yards which separated him from the entrance to the tent, and old Mohammed Bux salaamed, tears streaming down his lined brown cheeks.
“I had not thought to look upon your face again, huzoor,” the bearer said.
“Nor I on yours, my friend,” Alex told him, his own throat tight. “How came you here?”
The bearded lips curved into a smile. “Word reached my village that the sahibs were once more in Cawnpore and had driven the vile Mahratta into the jungle. So I returned, Sahib, without the hope that I might find you. All those who had defended the entrenchment had been slain, we were told, even the mems and the baba-sahibs. I had not waited—the sahib sent me, in the uniform of a sowar, to my village and I went, sahib, as you had commanded, casting off the uniform before I entered. But later I cursed myself because I had not waited.”
“You have nothing for which to curse yourself, Mohammed Bux,” Alex assured him. “When I sent you hence, it was in the belief that the Nana would honour the promise he had made to give us safe passage to Allahabad. He did not honour that promise.”
“So we heard, huzoor. And we heard also that the Nana vowed to take his own life, should he lose Cawnpore. That vow he also failed to honour. He is alive, Sahib, in Oudh, gathering a new army about him.” Graphically, the old man recounted the rumours that had reached his village concerning the Nana’s treachery as, resuming his accustomed role, he assisted Alex to pull off his boots and divest himself of his sodden, mud-spattered clothing. “When I came into the camp this morning, I questioned the other servants and from them I learned that you were alive, Sahib. At first I feared that they were lying. I could not believe what they told me, but one of them brought me to this tent and now I see, huzoor, that he spoke truly, praise be to Allah!” He broke off and, fetching a towel, knelt with it in his thin, work-worn hands. Looking up into his master’s face, he asked sadly, “Is it only you, Sahib, who is left? My memsahiba … the chota baba-sahib … have all gone from us?”
“Yes,” Alex confirmed bleakly. “All are dead, Mohammed Bux.” As he spoke of the manner of Emmy’s death, the faithful old servant wept without restraint. Until the last day of the siege, Mohammed Bux had been in the entrenchment, refusing to leave even when opportunity was afforded him, performing the most menial of tasks and silently enduring all hardships, he had continued, until the end, to serve. Looking down, at him now, Alex was deeply moved by his devotion. He had, at long last, obtained a draft from the Paymaster and had cashed it that morning; he got to his feet and took half the money from his valise.
“This is for you, Mohammed Bux. It is not adequate reward for what you did, but I shall seek you out when this war is over and give you then what you deserve. Take it and go back to your village. You are free of my service.”
“You are sending me away from you, Sahib?” The old man was bewildered. He frowned at the money in his hand and let it fall, uncounted, to the ground. “You are sending me, for the second time, to my village?”
“I go to war,” Alex explained gently “We are to fight our way, if we can, to Lucknow. Conditions will be hard, we take no tents. It will be no place for an old man, Mohammed Bux. You have earned—you have more than earned an honourable retirement and I would give it to you, as a measure of my gratitude for the long years of your service.”
“Nahin, Sahib, nahin! My parents are dead, my wives also, and my children grown to man and womanhood. In my village, I am as a stranger. I would stay with you.”
Subjecting the wizened dark face to a searching scrutiny, Alex saw that the old man was in earnest. “If that is your considered wish … have you thought well, Mohammed Bux?”
“Ji-han, Sahib,” the bearer assured him. “I have thought well and it is my wish to serve you.” He rose, with dignity, from his knees and, taking Alex’s hand, pressed it to his forehead in token of the bargain sealed between them. Then, bending down, he picked up the coins from the dhurry-covered floor of the tent, counted out ten of them, and laid the rest on the camp table. “I have taken the wage owed to me, Sahib,” he said, smiling. “I go now to prepare tea.”
The tent flap closed behind his retreating back and Alex, with a sigh of thankfulness, started to don the freshly laundered garments laid out for him on the bed.
Next day, after dismissing his recruits for their midday meal, he rode back across the canal and into the city, taking the road which skirted the Orderlies’ Bazaar and the burnt-out ruins of the medical depot. The Bibigarh was a small, single-story building, painted with fading yellow-ochre wash, which stood enclosed in its own walled compound, a mere thirty yards from the Old Cawnpore Hotel, in which the Nana had taken up residence at the conclusion of the siege.
The hotel, Alex saw, a trifle to his surprise, was back to its normal business—indeed, to exceptional business, judging by the number of officers now emerging from its portals and heading—with considerably less reluctance than himself—for the house in which the massacre had taken place. Outside the wall of the compound and lining the road leading to it, a large crowd had already gathered, held back from both road and gateway by a guard of the Fusiliers and the 84th. Leaving his horse in the hotel stable, he joined a group of young Fusilier officers and walked with them to the gateway. They had lunched well—at their commanding officer’s expense, it seemed—at the hotel and now, like schoolboys granted an unexpected holiday, they were in cheerfully festive mood, laughing and joking with each other. Their laughter faded, however, when they entered the precincts of the Bibigarh and Alex, who had been trying vainly to shut his ears to their ribaldry, was conscious of relief.
