The Cannons of Lucknow, page 9
He picked up his pen once more and wrote on:
At midnight on Sunday, 14th June, after Divine Service had been conducted in the new hospital and with small groups of defenders at their posts, it was decided to mount a sortie to surprise and spike the enemy’s gun batteries to the north and north-east of our position. These guns had caused us much annoyance and it was felt by General Wheeler that a successful attack on them would raise morale, which had suffered as a result of the burning of the hospital.
Fifty officers and men of the garrison, under the command of Captain Moore, left the entrenchment. The advance party was led by Lieutenant Henry Delafosse, 53rd Native Infantry, and Lieutenant Godfrey Wheeler, 1st Native Infantry and A.D.C., the main body by Captain Moore and Lieutenant Saunders, of H.M.’s 84th, and I myself, assisted by Captain Francis Whiting, Bengal Engineers, commanded the rearguard.
The enemy were taken completely by surprise and two 18-pounder and two 24-pounder guns were put out of action and a considerable quantity of ammunition blown up. On the alarm being sounded, we began our withdrawal, having first deterred pursuit by attacking a party of sepoys in a nearby mess house. Our party returned safely to the entrenchment, with three of our number slightly wounded, including Lieutenant Wheeler, and Corporal Henegan, of H.M.’s 84th killed in a gallant single-handed attack with the bayonet, as he was covering the rearguard’s withdrawal.
Alex consulted his watch. It was ten-thirty; he had been working for over two hours. There was still a good deal to be added but … he rose and flexed his cramped limbs, then gathered the sheets of paper he had used and stacked them in a neat pile on the bed. He would have to go into very careful detail concerning the terms agreed upon by General Wheeler and the Nana’s representatives for the evacuation of the garrison, he reminded himself—for all their sakes but especially for that of John Moore, who had negotiated them with Azimullah. Moore had gone to such pains to ensure that there could be no betrayal; the Nana had sworn, on his most sacred oath, that no harm should come to any member of the British force. Boats had been promised, fully supplied with provisions and properly manned; they had been inspected the night before the evacuation and found satisfactory; the ghat had also been inspected and no sign of treachery seen … yet they had been betrayed. He suppressed a weary sigh and went back to the table, reaching for his pen.
First he must report the final attack on the entrenchment, launched on the 23rd June—the anniversary of Plassey—when the mutineers had thrown overwhelming numbers of infantry against them, supported by cavalry and guns. Between seven and eight thousand, they had estimated, and to oppose them fewer than fifty unwounded but starving British soldiers and civilians, a handful of the less severely disabled men, who had come stumbling from the dark confines of the overcrowded Quarter Guard Hospital into the pitiless sunlight, a few brave women, and eight worn-out 9-pounder guns. Alex frowned, remembering, and then settled down once more to write.
Our lookouts warned that large numbers of the enemy were massing for an attack, and a heavy cannonade was opened on our position from first light, which continued for two hours. The alarm was given and the breastwork manned, every available soldier and civilian, including a number who were wounded, answering the call to arms.
Whilst the cannonade was still in progress, a message was received from Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson to say that his outpost in Number Four Barrack was in danger of being overrun. A party of 25 officers and men, led by Captain Moore, went to his assistance and aided him in driving off his assailants, at a cost of three wounded, including Captain Moore, slightly. The rebels launched their attack soon afterwards, field guns, with a cavalry escort, advancing to within sixty yards of our perimeter. A large force of cavalry charged prematurely and was beaten off by our guns which, double-shotted, poured a hail of grape into their ranks. During this time a tumbril containing ammunition was set on fire by an enemy shell and Lieutenant Delafosse, commanding the two guns on the east side of the entrenchment, extinguished the flames, risking his life to do so.
Infantry skirmishers, under cover of bales of cotton, then came at us from all sides, followed by the main enemy force of at least four regiments, which advanced firing. The attack was led by the Subedar of the 1st Native Infantry, who displayed suicidal courage. It was pressed home with greater resolution than on any previous occasion and was eventually beaten off at midday, with heavy casualties on both sides, theirs being estimated at two hundred dead and probably at least this number wounded.
General Wheeler sustained a bullet wound in the leg when in the defensive post known as the Redan, commanded by Major Edward Vibart, 2nd Light Cavalry, which bore the brunt of the cavalry charge. We lost nineteen killed or mortally wounded, and one of Lieutenant Ashe’s guns was blown up. This loss, in addition to damage to two other guns, lack of ammunition and food, and the number of men incapacitated by wounds and sickness, brought us to the realisation that we could offer no further effectual resistance.
After a truce called by the rebels to enable them to remove their dead, hostilities were resumed at long range by the enemy batteries next morning. The first of the monsoon rain fell during the night, causing our breastwork to disintegrate in places.
On the evening of 24th June, General Wheeler sent an appeal to Lucknow for aid, stating that we could no longer hold out without it.
The poor old general, Alex thought, lying helpless and well-nigh speechless from the pain of his shattered leg …The admission of defeat had been wrung from him and he had wept as he wrote it, Surgeon Boyes had told him. “Surely,” his despairing message had ended, “we are not to be left to die like rats in a trap, without any attempt being made to bring us succour?”
There had been no answer to that appeal, but General Wheeler had known, as they had all known by then, that Sir Henry Lawrence could send them no aid without grave risk to his defence of Lucknow. He had only one European regiment, the 32nd, two river crossings stood between Lucknow and Cawnpore, he possessed no boats, and already the mutineers, in their thousands, were preparing to besiege his Residency.
Only General James Neill could have sent succour to the Cawnpore garrison and he, too, had failed to send it… . Alex returned, grim-faced, to his report.
On the morning of the 24th, a Eurasian woman, Mrs. Jacobi—one of the Nana’s captives—brought a letter, in the handwriting of Azimullah Khan, the Nana’s vakeel, offering terms for our surrender. This was addressed to: ‘The Subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria,’ and it invited ‘All those who are in no way connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie and are willing to lay down their arms’ to surrender and receive safe passage to Allahabad. It was rejected by General Wheeler, on the grounds that we had not been defeated and therefore would not lay down our arms. The general insisted that the Nana must himself sign the letter before he would treat with him. A temporary cease-fire was proposed and agreed to and that evening Mrs. Jacobi returned with a letter signed by the Nana. Negotiations for our surrender commenced between Azimullah Khan and Jwala Pershad, on the Nana’s behalf, and Captains Moore and Whiting on ours, with Mr. Roache, the Postmaster, on behalf of the civilians. This took place outside our entrenchment, in Number Four Barrack, and was conducted in the Hindustani language.
At no time, until these negotiations were concluded, were any of the Nana’s representatives or the rebel troops permitted to enter the entrenchment, it being feared that the sight of our depleted defences and starving condition might cause harsher conditions to be imposed upon us. General Wheeler, although unable to be present, was kept fully informed. The conditions to which both he and the Nana finally agreed and each signed and sealed, were as follows:
Alex paused, searching his memory, and then wrote on:
In return for the honourable surrender of our entrenchment, with the guns, ammunition, and treasure held therein, we were to be permitted free exit under arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition per man. Carriage was to be provided for the wounded, the women and children, and the sick, and boats, furnished with provisions, were to be waiting at the ghat, in which our safe passage to Allahabad was to be guaranteed under the Nana’s seal and signature and on his most solemn oath.
He paused again, reading through what he had written.
Now came the hardest, most heartrending part of his report and this, he knew, he could not write impersonally or without emotion. What he must say came from the depths of bitterness and despair and could not be expressed in military phraseology, with dates and a long list of the names and regiments of those who had been betrayed and slaughtered, without pity, by a ruthless foe. The boats, with their hastily thatched canopies of tinder-dry straw, had been ready at the Suttee Chowra Ghat, as the Nana had promised … but their boatmen had also been ready to set the canopies alight and then make their escape, wading through the shallows and leaving their craft to wallow, rudderless, in the muddy water, when the hidden guns opened up on them with grape and canister. Mounted sowars had been ready, too, to spur their horses into the water and, tulwars drawn, hack at any who attempted to follow the boatmen’s example and return to the bank, whilst behind them, crouched behind rocks and bushes on the slope, sepoy snipers had unleashed a hail of musket balls into the drifting boats.
Emmy had been one of the first to die in the smoke and confusion … Alex felt the hot sting of tears behind his lids, as a vision of her small, sweet face swam before his closed eyes. For a moment, he had held her to him, seeking vainly to staunch the blood which flowed from the wound in her breast, and then two of the sowars had ridden at him and he had been compelled to let her lifeless body slip from his grasp in order to defend himself against their assault. He had killed the rissaldar by dragging the man from his horse, emptied a pistol into the chest of another of his attackers at point-blank range and then—he could not remember how—he had reached Edward Vibart’s boat, someone had dragged him on board, and they had floated out into deeper water to begin the three-day bid to escape from a pursuit which never slackened.
He seized pen and paper again and started frantically to write, the words flowing so fast that they were beyond his power to control or to halt. He lost all consciousness of time and of his surroundings and when, nearly an hour later, Lousada Barrow came stumping into the tent, he looked up, dazed, as if into the face of a stranger.
“How’s it going, Alex? Have you nearly done?”
“I … yes, very nearly, I …” The past receded; Barrow’s familiar face came properly into focus and Alex leaned back on his stool, his whole body soaked in perspiration. “The report’s done, thanks to you—I just have a page or two to add covering my escape. Although I could probably describe that in a single line, since I remember very little about it. The rest, the siege, the massacre at the ghat, all that is absolutely clear in my mind and I’ve set it down as it happened. The names of casualties will take longer; they’ll have to be listed separately.”
Barrow glanced at the pile of papers on the bed. He took off his cloak, letting it fall in a sodden heap at his feet, and crossed to the bed. “May I read it?”
“Of course you may,” Alex agreed readily. “Indeed, I’d be grateful if you would, Lou, because I’m afraid I … that is, I may have put one or two points a bit too strongly.”
“Too strongly for whom, pray? For Neill, perhaps?”
“For anyone who wasn’t there.”
“Good! I’ll just dry myself off a bit and then read it. You carry on with whatever’s left to be done.” Lousada Barrow stripped off his jacket and shirt, towelled himself briskly, and, donning a dry shirt from his valise, picked up the pile of papers and went to lie full length on the bed.
“Those recruits are coming on quite well, Alex,” he observed. “And they’re keen, all of them. There’s a hell of a lot to be done with them yet but … your ridingschool’s ready for you. At least you’ll be able to keep them dry during some of their training.”
“Thanks, Lou. I’m grateful.”
“Consider it my contribution to your impossible task.” Lousada Barrow took out his cheroot case and offered it, smiling. “I’ve had to accede to a request from the Rissaldar, Nujeeb Khan, that he be permitted to accompany Charles Palliser. In the circumstances, I thought it politic to let him do so—Palliser’s his sahib and he and the other native officers did remain true to their salt. Also, I don’t want trouble with Palliser—he’s a first-rate officer, with a temporary chip on his shoulder.”
“Of course,” Alex conceded. He struck a lucifer and held it to the tip of Barrow’s cheroot. “What did you think of Cullmane?”
“A good man, handles horses well. Drink has been his trouble, I gather—he’s been broken from corporal twice. Still, he’ll get none here, if General Havelock can help it; all the liquor’s been brought in from the city, I understand, and the Commissariat have it under heavy guard. The general has repeated his order that any British soldier caught plundering is to be hanged, in his uniform.”
“Has he? Good God!” Alex was astonished. “Do you think he’ll carry out such a threat?”
Barrow’s broad shoulders rose in a shrug. “He’s capable of it. In Havelock’s eyes drunkenness is a crime, and there’s been a lot of looting, you know, despite the initial order … shops and derelict bungalows broken into in search of liquor, even one attempt to steal from the Commissariat train on the march. That was before you joined us, and the men who did it were driven nearly mad with thirst. They’d have stolen water, if there had been any to steal. Havelock had them flogged, as an example … the British soldiers, I mean.” He sighed. “The looters weren’t all British but, as you know, by a strange anomaly, British soldiers can be flogged for breaches of discipline but Indian soldiers cannot. The Indians were sent back to Allahabad—they were some of Palliser’s men and there was quite a bit of heartburning over the affair. Some heated words between our friend Charlie and one or two of the Queen’s officers, which continued when the Irregulars were eventually found wanting and disarmed.”
“Yes, I see.” Alex returned to the table.
“That’s all the news.” Lousada Barrow settled himself more comfortably on the bed and, puffing at his cheroot, started to read the closely written pages of the report.
Alex completed the account of his escape and began to list the names of those who had died in the boats, aware that the list must, of necessity, be incomplete. The faces were there, enshrined in his memory—the gaunt, unshaven faces of scarecrow soldiers in filthy, tattered uniforms, of sick old men and boys who had lost all semblance of youth, of terrified, uncomprehending children, and of women whom Cawnpore had robbed of beauty and femininity—but the names eluded him, as they had done before. There had been so many … 437 had left the entrenchment, to walk or be carried in carts and palanquins to the Suttee Chowra Ghat on the morning of 27th June, almost half wounded or sick. Better, perhaps, if he were to list those who, like himself, might by some miracle have escaped.
Included among the thirteen who left Major Vibart’s boat with me in an attempt to drive off our pursuers were the following,” he wrote. “Lieutenants Mowbray Thomson and Henry Delafosse, 53rd Native Infantry; Sergeant John Grady and Privates Ryan, McNamee, and Murphy of H.M.’s 84th; Gunners Corkill and Sullivan of the Bengal Artillery; Privates Bannister, Wellington, Wooley, and Drummer Wood of H.M.’s 32nd. Sergeant Grady was shot down before we reached the temple in which we finally took refuge, at Sheorajpore. Six or seven men reached the river after we were driven from the temple, which the rebels had set on fire, but two or three of these were shot in the water. I believe that the others, if they were uninjured, may have found shelter with friendly villagers and would request that search be made for them or enquiries set in train.”
Alex read through what he had written and smothered a sigh. Was there really any hope for those who had eluded the hail of musket balls from the shore or, he asked himself bitterly, had they found every man’s hand against them in the riverside villages when, spent from their exertions, they had attempted to drag themselves from the water? He reached for a fresh sheet of paper and started to list those who had been left—to die at the hands of the Nana’s executioners, it now seemed—in Edward Vibart’s leaking boat.
For the next half hour the silence was unbroken save for the drumming of rain on the tent’s tautly stretched canvas and the metallic scratching of his pen. Lousada Barrow read the report with complete absorption, his cheroot forgotten and burning to ash between his fingers. When at last he came to the final page, he jumped up from the bed in a sudden burst of energy and, crossing to Alex’s side, clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“Merciful heaven, Alex, this … this is the most moving and the most appalling document I’ve ever read in my life!” He sounded shaken and his eyes, Alex saw, held the glint of tears. Recovering himself, he gestured to the sheets scattered about the table. “What are these—casualty lists?”
“The start of them, yes. They’re not complete.”
“Never mind, just give me what you have. I’m taking this report to the general at once.”
