A Far Horizon (23 page)

She searched for Parvati, expecting to see her still running arthritically upon her thin legs. She began to call her name, turning right then left. No answer came and she was forced to inspect the mess of broken bodies. At last she found the ayah, face down on the parade ground, part of her skull blasted away, her lifeless limbs flung about at odd angles. Fear passed through Emily like the wash of cool water as she had entered the river. She knew they faced not only the enemy but also the workings of their own destiny. Parvati’s urgency only moments before welled up before her once more.

She began to run again towards Governor’s House, and when she entered, sped two at a time up the stairs. In her room the wet nurse crouched in a corner, almost hidden behind Harry’s cradle.

She ran to the cradle, her breath sounding unevenly. Bending over the crib, she took Harry’s small cold hand in her fingers.

‘He will not wake now,’ the woman whispered, looking up with a wide-eyed stare.

She saw then that Harry’s silence was complete. In her absence he had been drawn at last across a waiting boundary. Before her the wet nurse still squatted beside the cradle, staring vacantly, her eyes fixed at a point beyond Emily’s shoulder.

I
n the darkness of early morning, the Chief Magistrate mounted a horse at Fort William’s gates and rode towards the newly erected defence. As commander of the militia, he could not shirk his duty at the East Battery, which now effectively blocked the enemy’s advance on the garrison.

As he passed out of the gates of Fort William, the smell of the river filled his head. From the parade ground the wailing of a child could be heard. He turned his horse down The Avenue and its hooves echoed in the empty road.

Although, as he passed the cemetery, he could see no more from his horse than the tops of some trees, the Chief Magistrate observed the fireflies spreading a net of eerie light over the vegetation. The ponderous shapes of the mausoleums crouched in the dark like fantastical animals waiting to spring on the unwary. The moon was absent from the sky. It had begun its solitary journey of incubation and would return again reborn. The Chief Magistrate looked up at the heavens in trepidation. Although the moon’s mysteries evaded him, one thought persisted: would he be there to see its new beginning? Perhaps a similar perilous passage of transformation awaited him with the morning light? For the first time the thought of death afflicted him and would not go away.

A further missive had gone out to Rai Durlabh, and the same bland plea for patience had been received. Now, as gunfire spluttered in his ears, the Chief Magistrate had been forced to conclude that Rai Durlabh might have led Fort William into a trap. Only the thought of the treasure, ready to be ferried to the Chief Magistrate’s own boat, gave some satisfaction. He kicked his horse, and the animal started forward.

The East Battery now blocked off half The Avenue. The Courthouse made up its left side while on the right the wall of The Park supported it. Its earthen breastwork was several feet thick and a wide trench had been dug before it. Sandbags lined the three sides of the enclosure, which was open at the back to The Avenue and Fort William, a quarter of a mile away. Beyond the battery The Avenue continued for another five hundred yards to the crossroads and the jail, the last building in White Town.

The Chief Magistrate arrived at the East Battery to learn from Captain Clayton that Lieutenant Lebeaume and a small force of men had barricaded themselves into the jail in the hope of surprising the enemy. The Chief Magistrate announced his amazement at such a daring enterprise, but was also relieved. He looked up at the sky, suddenly hopeful of seeing the end of the day; the enemy might yet be routed. Small slits for muskets had been let into the breastwork of the battery and it was through these spy holes that the Chief Magistrate now observed the world. At the end of The Avenue the first faint light revealed the outline of the jail. The ragged silhouette of trees could just be seen, behind which waited the enemy. Unsettling noises carried to the East Battery, determining the enemy’s presence, although little could yet be seen. Then came the soft, rhythmic pounding of feet as platoons of men took up their positions. These reverberations unnerved the Chief Magistrate just as they unnerved Captain Clayton, who, although a military man, had fought no more battles than Holwell.

Musket in hand, the Chief Magistrate peered out again through the spy hole. The shapes of trees and houses were now emerging
progressively from the darkness. A pink glow suffused the sky, growing stronger by the moment. A sudden bustle of animal noises rose about the battery: the first jabs of birdsong, the cries of monkeys and the bark of jackals as they slunk back into the jungle. Light streaked the sky. Then, from the enemy camp, came the unearthly beauty of the muezzin’s cry, a signal for the start of battle. The cry lodged deep within the Chief Magistrate, pulling at his gut. At such moments he could not deny an attachment to this lush and predatory land. It was like a woman he desired who constantly rejected him. He looked up again at the sky, and saw the stars were already fading.

He was so absorbed in the moment that when the jail was lit up in a flash of red light, he thought Siraj Uddaulah had attacked. The muezzin’s call broke off abruptly. The Chief Magistrate saw that Lebeaume had sent a hail of red-hot grapeshot over the trees to shower the enemy before the sun could give them an advantage. The Chief Magistrate crouched down, realising the battle had begun. Almost at once there was a response from Siraj Uddaulah’s men. A cannon ball shot out of the jungle and tore through the walls of the jail.

Soon the shadows disappeared and the sun beat down in full force on The Avenue. From then on the temperature rose rapidly, as did the pace of battle. The Chief Magistrate, behind the East Battery, felt trapped. He had not to fire a single shot and was in no immediate danger, as the battle still centred upon the jail, yet the constant proximity to death had a powerful effect on him, leaving him in a strange state of limbo. The Avenue might still lie deserted, but Lebeaume, only five hundred yards away, was taking a ferocious beating. Great bursts of light and sound came from a distance. From the safety of his position the Chief Magistrate watched the hypnotic dance of battle. The fiery movement swayed backwards and forwards as the enemy reached the jail and were driven off time after time.

The hours wore on but the sound of battle still spluttered fiercely. From the battery, the Chief Magistrate stared out at the machinery of
death reaping its harvest at the end of the road, and for the first time realised the danger of the charade he had helped construct. About him men fought bravely, prepared to throw their lives away for something he had actively engineered. If it were not for the treasure and the benefits he conspired to gain, or for his secret involvement with the Young Begum’s faction in Murshidabad, this battle would not be happening. The guilt of it overcame him. Several times the Chief Magistrate suggested Lebeaume be called back to safety, but a messenger, when sent to the jail, returned to report the Lieutenant’s wish to fight on. Eventually the Chief Magistrate’s guilt changed to annoyance at such foolhardy bravery. He could not accept
responsibility
for men who refused to be saved. He sat down behind the sandbags, the heat savaging his head.

The continuous crackle and boom from the jail now took on a monotonous pattern. The men of the East Battery lay slumped in the heat. At times the Chief Magistrate was ashamed to detect the pricking of boredom within himself. At other times he imagined himself within the jail, where, whatever the danger, there would at least be some shade. As the heat beat down on him, strange thoughts entered his mind. He fought them off as he would a mosquito, but they persisted. Rosemary loomed prominently in his vision, as did the child he had barely seen. He found nothing kindly in their presence; he had lost his place with them. He floated forever beyond their reach, dead while still alive. Rosemary might wait dutifully, but her dreams of him had scattered on hard ground. He too thought only occasionally of his wife, and always with resentment. He saw her amongst green fields, cool skies, plump sofas and the banked-up fires of winter. About her snow fell silently, filling the house with a clear white light. She lived where the wheat sank wet in the fields at a bad harvest, where summers were of a delicate weight.

He saw suddenly now that the inadequate shape of each individual life did not matter; its paltry content was of little importance. How a man embedded himself in his life was all that mattered. A person might flourish in the poorest of soil if his soul was properly
nourished. But a man who could not see the richness of life would not grow in any soil, whatever the yearnings of his spirit. The Chief Magistrate was unprepared for such ponderous thoughts in so benighted a place. He considered himself as settled in India as it was possible to be in an alien land. In every way, to the best of his ability, he had recreated a familiar world. Yet whenever he sat upon his veranda, the sight of the Maratha Ditch and the sounds and odours that floated across it reminded him not only of the unreality of his life but of the fragility of its base. A sense of belonging evaded him. It was only in moments such as this, when his very existence was threatened, that he saw, as if looking into an abyss, the terrible truth of things. Exile and the gaudy splendour of his life in India made him a displaced person at home. And in spite of long residence, he would never be more than a transient creature in India. An inexplicable sadness filled him.

The morning wore on and the sun rose higher. Behind the protection of the East Battery men shaded themselves with whatever they could. Some, in desperation, sat with sandbags balanced on helmets or hats, the weight pressing their heads down into their shoulders, causing headaches. Hunger and thirst afflicted them badly; nothing had been forthcoming from Fort William but a bag of biscuits crawling with weevils. Time, in the mind of the Chief Magistrate, had now become elastic. It stretched then shrank according to his thoughts. Heat and tension seemed to compress his brain so that thoughts slipped about in a crazy fashion. Old memories were squeezed out of hiding places and the rational conclusions of the day were tossed carelessly aside. The sun was now high in the sky. At the jail the ferocity of the Indian onslaught appeared uncontainable.

Through the musket slits of the battery, the Chief Magistrate’s view of the world was narrowed. He looked down The Avenue as if he looked down the barrel of a gun; at its end was the obstruction of Siraj Uddaulah. If he could be got rid of then not only the battle but the constant menace from Murshidabad would be gone forever. The
Chief Magistrate stood up, his destiny clear to him now. He must find a way to thwart the nawab and his plans. Nobody else could do it.

‘Sit down. You’ll get yourself killed,’ Captain Clayton shouted.

The Chief Magistrate raised an eyebrow. ‘I will not be killed. I have work to do. One way or another, we must hold the jail. The nawab must be shown he cannot do as he pleases. He must be stopped.’

‘I fear that will be impossible. Soon Lebeaume must retreat,’ Captain Clayton replied.

‘If we allow Siraj Uddaulah to take the jail he can then infiltrate the town. Let me make an assessment first. Perhaps we should send a relief party,’ the Chief Magistrate suggested as he mounted a horse. Ignoring Clayton’s protests, he steered the animal on to The Avenue. He had the sudden conviction that if he transferred his energy to the besieged jail, the battle would turn and the nawab would retreat before the sheer force of his will.

His head throbbed from the hours of sun as he rode towards the fiery activity ahead. The din and flaming showers of grapeshot, arrows and musket fire falling about the jail appeared like some form of biblical wrath. Holwell swallowed his fear and willed himself to continue. At last he approached the back of the jail and dismounted. As he tied up his horse a sudden silence fell; the battle appeared to have stopped. The Chief Magistrate was taken by surprise and looked about in confusion. His first thought was that at word of his arrival the nawab had quickly retreated.

He strode into the jail, his pulse pounding, and was immediately appalled by what he saw. The dead lay everywhere. There had been no time in the height of battle to clear away a single body, and the stench was thick about them. The Chief Magistrate was relieved to see that Lebeaume and the Fort William men were all unharmed, there were casualties only amongst the sepoys.

The unnatural silence continued. Not a musket fired, not a cannon boomed. The walls of the jail were badly strafed, their soft brick riddled with holes. Holwell looked about, taking an inventory of the
disaster, then peered at the nawab’s front line. He was shocked to see a long file of Indians sneaking stealthily around the jail towards the large houses of Rope Walk. He turned at once to Lebeaume with the suggestion that he retire and a relief party take over.

‘We cannot lose the jail. I will order reinforcements,’ the Chief Magistrate urged. Before him the nawab’s troops continued to openly enter White Town.

For the first time the possibility of the nawab actually taking the fort began to grow in the Chief Magistrate’s mind. The besieged and crumbling jail, the heap of dead bodies and the ghastly stench forced him to face the uncertainty of the situation. As his thoughts careered wildly, the unnerving silence was abruptly broken. A cannon ball landed beside the jail, shaking the ground he stood upon, throwing up clods of earth. Holwell fell to his knees in terror, pressing himself against a wall.

As soon as he could, the Chief Magistrate made his escape. His knees were shaking to such a degree that he found it difficult to mount his horse. Once up on the creature, he turned to gallop along The Avenue, distancing himself as quickly as possible from the fury about the jail. Soon he reached the East Battery and entered another world. Men still lounged about concerned with questions of shade and how to while their time away. There were constant grumbles about the heat and the unavailability of food.

Eventually reinforcements arrived at the battery and began the march to the jail. As the Chief Magistrate set off to take news of the battle to Fort William, a house on Rope Walk was seized by the enemy. The nawab’s flag was suddenly seen to fly from the roof of Lady Russell’s mansion. As Rope Walk flanked the walls of the East Battery, Captain Clayton was forced to take his first action of the day. The Chief Magistrate turned in his saddle in time to see Clayton, with the zeal that comes after hours of boredom, train his
eighteen-pounder
on Lady Russell’s home and blow off the first storey with a resounding roar.

Holwell urged his horse on towards the gates of Fort William and
tried to remember The Avenue as it had been before the nawab’s onslaught. He remembered the cool waters of the Tank beneath the shade of trees and the peace of the early mornings, when he had walked to the Courthouse, or the coolness of the evening, when he had taken a round of The Park with Bellamy. He wondered if Calcutta would ever be the same again.

Although the Chief Magistrate had been absent from Fort William for no more than a few hours, he returned to news that Mrs Mapletoft, the wife of the Chaplain’s assistant, had given birth to a baby girl. Although conditions in the birthing room were wretched and Sarah Mapletoft was as badly plagued by the swarms of flies settling upon her as by the pains of labour, the child was a fine healthy girl. Mrs Bellamy and her daughter Anna had attended her as best they could. Anna had used her own underskirt as a blanket and Dorothy Bellamy had delivered the baby upon it. The child had been called Constantia. Although as yet no clear future could be seen for the baby, her cries of new life before the thunder of death had greatly cheered Fort William.