The Cannons of Lucknow, page 8
That he had incurred Neill’s bitter enmity he could no longer doubt—the attack on him had been personal and it had not been made without premeditation, but, try as he would, he could think of no reason to account for it. Nothing that Charles Palliser had said, surely, could have aroused such deep, vindictive feeling in a man to whom he was a stranger? Unless … there was a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach. He had expressed himself freely—too freely, perhaps—on the subject of James Neill to Barrow on Sunday evening, as they had ridden back from Bithur with the Nana’s captured guns. Lousada Barrow would not have betrayed his confidence, of course, but there had been others riding fairly close behind them, who might have overheard more than he had realised. Dear heaven, if even part of that conversation had been repeated out of context to Neill, then his reaction was at least explicable. He was said to be sensitive to criticism, and criticism of his failure to relieve Cawnpore, particularly if it came from a survivor of the garrison, might well have struck him on the raw. As, evidently, General Havelock’s reception had also struck him …
“Alex—” Lousada Barrow touched his arm. “The general’s leaving.”
Alex looked up. General Havelock, he saw, had mounted his horse and, shoulders hunched against the rain, was moving slowly past the second batch of Highlanders, to whom he addressed some words of encouragement as they waited for the boats to return. They did not cheer him; sodden and dispirited, even his favourite regiment failed to respond to his overtures, and Neill said, raising his voice again in unconcealed rancour, “What’s Havelock done since he took command? Halted the advance column, disarmed Charlie Palliser’s sowars—who behaved in exemplary fashion when I was commanding them—appointed his son D.A.A.G. in Beatson’s place … my God, Tytler, there’s no damned end to it!”
Observing General Havelock’s departure, Fraser Tytler gave vent to an exasperated sigh. “Sir,” he began, “If I may suggest—”
Neill ignored the interruption. “And now,” he stated wrathfully, “he wants Victoria Crosses for his protégés, including one for the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Sheridan, whose brevet rank, devil take it, was given him for a command in Lucknow which—because his wife was here—he’s never actively held! I’m not satisfied with the account he’s given of his actions. I want to know a hell of a lot more than he’s seen fit to tell us. I want a full report and—”
Colonel Tytler managed at last to make himself heard. “As I endeavoured to point out to you some time ago, General Neill,” he said, with weary resignation, “this is neither the time nor the place to discuss such matters. Colonel Sheridan has been suffering from amnesia, as the surgeons will confirm, but I feel sure that he will submit a full report as soon as he able to. If you have any charges to bring against him, they can only properly be brought through official channels. Indeed, I think they will have to be the subject of an enquiry, in view of the fact that you have aired them publicly. I shall have to inform General Havelock of what has been said here, of course.”
“Don’t be such an infernal old woman, Tytler!” Neill snapped. “There’s no need to make an official matter of this or to bring General Havelock into it. He has enough on his plate—damn it, he has to relieve Lucknow! I’m not proposing to bring any charges—certainly not until I’ve seen Sheridan’s report, if and when he chooses to submit one. As to airing my opinions publicly, we’re all entitled to our opinions, for God’s sake, and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Sheridan has seen fit to air his opinion of me equally publicly, or so I’ve been informed. Well, we’re all officers and gentlemen here, are we not? The devil fly away with it, we can keep this matter between us, surely?”
There were eager nods and murmurs of acquiescence; for James Neill it was a climb down and they were all anxious, now, to escape from what had become an awkward and embarrassing situation. Several of them looked at Alex and Lousada Barrow said stiffly, “If Colonel Sheridan is satisfied—”
Unable to trust himself to speak, Alex inclined his head. The matter would not and could not end here, he thought wretchedly, but to attempt to prolong this bitter, humiliating scene would serve no useful purpose.
Neill’s powerful shoulders rose in an elaborate shrug and he gathered up his reins. Addressing himself to Alex again, he said curtly, “I take it you intend to make a full report to General Havelock?”
“I do, General Neill,” Alex managed, his voice devoid of expression.
“I shall read it with more than usual interest,” James Neill told him. “And if I am wrong about you, Sheridan, I shall make you a public apology.” He nodded and set spurs to his horse. Stephenson and the rest of his small staff rode after him; Palliser and Simpson, after a moment of indecision, followed in their wake.
“My God!” Tytler exclaimed, mopping at his streaming face. “My God!” He appeared otherwise bereft of words and Alex, miserably silent, was grateful that he asked no questions. Lousada Barrow swore, long and loudly.
“I think,” he said at last, “that we’d all be better to sleep on this. You in particular, Alex.”
“I have a report to write,” Alex reminded him wryly. “And a court martial to attend at eight-thirty. If you’ll forgive me—”
“Take all the time you need to write that report, old man,” Barrow exhorted him. “I’ll relieve you of your duties until it’s done. Use my tent; you’ll have no one to disturb you there. And you’ll find writing materials in my valise. And now you really ought to get some sleep. Work on the report in daylight, when your mind’s clear.” In Tytler’s presence, he said no more, but his sympathy, for all the gruff tone in which it was expressed, did much to raise Alex’s flagging spirits. He followed his commander’s sensible advice and slept until one of the mess servants wakened him, with chota hazri on a tray and the information that Captain Barrow wished to see him as soon as it was convenient.
When he reported to Barrow’s tent, he found its owner already booted and spurred and a servant busy packing his valise and sleeping bag. Writing materials had been set out on a folding camp table and, waving an inviting hand to these, Lousada Barrow said, “All yours, my dear Alex … the tent, too. I shan’t be needing it for some considerable time, alas!”
“You won’t be needing it … but—” Alex looked round at the preparations for departure. “Are you following the Highlanders then?”
“Yes—I’m taking all our original Volunteers. Orders came first thing this morning. The Highlanders have formed a bridgehead on the Oudh bank, but they are being harassed by rebel cavalry, so we’re to go across, together with a half-battery of guns.” Barrow went into brief details. “As soon as sufficient troops have crossed, we’re to move forward five or six miles to a walled village, Mungalwar, and establish our base there.”
“I see. And what orders have you for our recruits?”
Lousada Barrow gave a mirthless laugh. “Your week is cut to a mere five days, Alex. They’re to join us by Sunday evening at the latest, so you’ll have to perform miracles, I’m afraid.” He took his watch from his pocket. “Don’t worry about this morning—Bob Thompson can take care of the preparations and, as we’re not due to cross until three or four o’clock, I’ll take your recruits and have the Riding School cleared out for you as promised. The court martial has been postponed, which is a blessing—the new provost-marshal, Bruce, who came in with Neill, wants to interrogate the prisoner before he’s brought to trial. I suspect that’s Neill’s doing but”—he shrugged—“I may be wrong. Anyway, it’s a break for you. It gives you this morning to write your report. Can you do it in one morning?”
Alex smiled. “I have a very powerful incentive, haven’t I? My honour and possibly my future depend on it … yes, I damned well can do it, Lou.”
“The sooner the better,” Barrow advised him. “It must be in General Havelock’s hands before he crosses into Oudh. I don’t have to remind you that, when he leaves here, Neill will be in command.”
“No, you don’t have to remind me of that,” Alex agreed, with feeling.
“I’ve ordered your meals to be sent over from the mess. I thought it would be … that is, I—” the older man hesitated, reddening beneath his tan.
“You thought it would be better if I didn’t meet Palliser and Simpson until this matter’s cleared up,” Alex finished for him. “Is that it, Lou?”
Barrow’s flush deepened. “Something like that, Alex. It’s obvious that they talked out of turn to Neill. Anyway, I’m taking them both with me, and I’m afraid I’ll have to take young Fergusson as well. We’re few enough, heaven knows. I can leave you the Rissaldar, if that’s any help.”
“Yes, he’s good. So are some of the infantrymen, one in particular, a Tipperary man named Cullmane. Can I make any of them up to N.C.O.s?”
“They’re in your hands, my dear fellow; after this morning I shan’t set eyes on them. Just give me a troop of cavalry I can use.” Lousada Barrow buckled on his sword belt and reached into his hip pocket for the cheroot case he carried there. He selected a cheroot, rolled its brittle leaves between his two big palms and, making something of a ritual of lighting it, went on, avoiding Alex’s gaze, “What happened last night, Alex, I … oh, the hell with it! I was sickened, sickened and disgusted. And to have to sit there, not saying a word, when I knew what you’d been through—my God, I—”
“You don’t have to tell me, Lousada,” Alex assured him.
Barrow looked up, his expression relieved. “No, perhaps I don’t. But I’d like you to know that it was I who suggested that you should be recommended for a Victoria Cross and by heaven, Alex, I’m going to see you get it if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
Alex thanked him, his throat tight. When he had gone, a mess khitmatgar appeared with breakfast and he settled down at the camp table to collect his thoughts. Once he had started writing, he found the task less difficult than he had feared; describing incidents, he remembered names and faces, and his pen began to move across the paper with ever-increasing speed. Outside the tent the monsoon rain hurtled down, but he was oblivious to it; in memory he was back in the stifling heat of the entrenchment, his throat parched, his body tortured and dehydrated, his sight dimmed by the relentless glare, his nostrils filled with the terrible, unforgettable stench of human excreta and putrefying flesh.
But his must be a strictly factual report, he knew, giving details of each day’s happenings and accounting for each day’s toll of dead and wounded without emotion, expressed in stilted military terms. He shut his mind to the voices—and, in particular, to Emmy’s voice—which rang in his ears and wrote prosaically under the date:
The rebels established twenty-four-pounder gun batteries in the Church compound, to the east, and in the Riding School, to the north-west, with which they kept up a heavy fire throughout the hours of daylight but did not launch any direct attacks on our position. Considerable damage was caused to both the hospital and the flat-roofed building by round-shot and several women and children, sheltering in the former, were injured by falling masonry.
Five other ranks of H.M.’s 32nd died this day of heat apoplexy when serving the guns, and Lieutenant Dempster and a sergeant and two gunners of the 6th Battalion, Bengal Artillery, were killed by round shot. Colonel Williams, of the 56th Native Infantry, who had earlier suffered sunstroke, died of fever during the night …
It was odd how clearly he could remember those first few days of the siege. He had been fit then, alert and reasonably well fed, and the casualties, because they were the first and there had been comparatively few of them, stood out as individuals in his mind. He recalled the artillery sergeant’s name—Murlow—and added it to the report.
Another date, more names … dear God, what a ghastly catalogue of misfortune it seemed, told thus, without any mention of those human touches and acts of kindness and self-sacrifice which had made the siege endurable! Alex sighed as the memories came flooding back and let his pen fall, momentarily distracted from his task.
There were the women, who had crawled so bravely across the shell-craters—Emmy among them—to bring water to exhausted gunners and riflemen, after they had stood all day at their posts … water, in pitiful pannikins, often stained with the blood of those who had risked their lives to draw it from the well. Water they had denied themselves. There had been other women, too, who had crouched behind the mud wall, in the full glare of the sun, loading and reloading the muskets and Enfields with which their husbands had driven off yet another of the mutineers’ attacks, whilst their children lay, mute and apathetic, in holes scooped out of the bare ground beside them.
The women’s courage, their resilience and resourcefulness, was something he could never forget. At first many of them had been afraid, but the example of a few, their cheerfulness in the face of danger and deprivation, which had grown as each day passed, had wrought a miracle. The initially fainthearted had lost their fear, the fastidious had learned to live with heat and filth and flies, the gently born to undertake menial tasks, dress hideous wounds and yet retain their dignity. … His own beloved Emmy had been of that brave company but, even so, he could not write of them now. Neill wanted facts, Havelock dates and names. … Alex wiped the sweat from his brow and, the pen held awkwardly in the damp palm of his left hand, went on writing.
A sortie was made, under the command of Captain John Moore of H.M.’s 32nd, consisting of eight officers and six other ranks of this regiment and H.M.’s 84th, to clear the uncompleted barrack blocks to the north-west of the entrenchment of rebel snipers, who had the drinking well under musket fire. This mission was successfully accomplished, with the aid of covering fire from Number Four Barrack, commanded by Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, of the 53rd Native Infantry. Casualties were one officer, Lieutenant Wren of the 2nd Light Cavalry, and a private of H.M.’s 84th slightly wounded.
Those sorties had kept morale high; the Pandies had never stayed to contest the buildings they had occupied, however small the number of British soldiers who had left the entrenchment to attack and drive them out. John Moore had inspired, as well as led them; it had been his constantly reiterated wish, when the garrison’s resistance was nearing its end, to lead the few able-bodied men in one final attack on the rebel gun batteries which had held the entrenchment within a ring of steel. But the women and children and the wounded could not be left; Moore’s wish had not been fulfilled—instead, he had met his death at the Suttee Chowra Ghat, cut down, with the able-bodied men who had formed General Wheeler’s guard of honour, as they sought vainly to push the overcrowded boats to safety in deep water. He had had his hour of glory before that, though, when the hospital had been destroyed … The pen nib spluttered on the damp paper. Neill should have his facts, blast his eyes! He should have chapter and verse, so that at least he would know what it had been like to wait and pray for the help that never came … Under the date 13th June, Alex wrote:
A well-directed shot from one of the batteries opposing us struck the thatched roof of the hospital building and set it on fire. We subsequently learned from a prisoner that the missile was a carcass, prepared for this purpose by an invalid subedar of artillery, Riaz Ali, who received a reward of Rs. 90 from the Nana for his action. Forty-two of the wounded perished in the flames, rescue having, of necessity, to be delayed whilst an attack on our perimeter was beaten off. The breeze being strong, the flames swiftly spread. The enemy poured their grape upon the burning building and, as the women and children fled from it, a heavy fire of musketry from the cantonment trenches killed and wounded many of them. Rebel infantry advanced to within sixty yards of our perimeter during the confusion caused by the fire, with the intention of taking by storm one of the nine-pounder guns commanded by Lieutenant St. George Ashe, of the Oudh Artillery. Lieutenant Ashe opened on them with grape and they were repulsed, with heavy losses.
The surgeons’ store of instruments and medicines was destroyed, with the exception of one small box of drugs, and as a result, from this date, no amputations could be performed and many died from gangrenous infections of their wounds. Two hundred women and children were deprived of shelter, only a few of whom could be accommodated in other remaining buildings—the Quarter Guard, to which they were first directed, had subsequently to be taken over as a hospital for sick and wounded. The majority of the women, with their children, had to seek what protection they could behind the breastwork and in the trench behind it, over which canvas screens were erected. These were shot down or set on fire by enemy shells but, although left entirely without protection from the sun by day and the damp cold by night, the courage of the women never faltered. They handed round ammunition, encouraged the men to the uttermost, and attended to the wounded with tender solicitude.
Alex smiled as he read through what he had written. This small tribute, at least, he could pay, even in a factual military report, since the women had, after the burning down of their hospital, virtually joined the ranks of the defenders.
He started a fresh page.
The following died in the fire or subsequent to their removal from the burning building with their wounds imperfectly healed: Brigadier Alexander Jack; his brother, a civilian, after suffering amputation of one leg; Lieutenant R.O. Quin, 2nd Light Cavalry; Major W.R. Prout, 53rd Native Infantry, and his wife; Lieutenant N.J. Manderson and Sgt. Major Gladwin of the 2nd Light Cavalry; Mr. A. Miller, Railway Engineer …
He stopped, scowling at what he had written. The names eluded him. Emmy, he remembered, had spoken of them, had told him, her voice choked with tears, how many had died that night, and how many others, after lingering for a few tortured hours, had finally succumbed to shock and pain. She had named them—they had been among the patients she had helped to tend in the makeshift hospital in the Quarter Guard building—sick and desperately wounded men, who had been dragged from the blazing thatch-roofed hospital with a haste that, perforce, had taken scant heed of the agony even the smallest movement caused them. Women and children, babes in arms, like his own poor, sickly little son, whole families had been wiped out by the murderous fire of the mutineer gunners as they had fled from the flames, and then, next day, the charred bodies of those who had been unable to escape from the building had been brought out, to add to the butcher’s bill… . Alex crumpled the page and selected another. It was no use submitting an incomplete list, he decided; he would leave the dead simply as a number in his report and later, when perhaps he would have more time, he would endeavour to compile a full list. … and then add to it the name of his infant son.
