The Gallant (43 page)

As they drew away, Jenny heard a prolonged burst of rifle fire, coming from the abandoned Residency, andwitha sinking heart glimpsed shadowy figures moving across the garden to its rear. Bent low, they were running toward the gatehouse and the wharf, clearly with the intention of cutting off the rear guard’s retreat. William had said that he and his companions had an oared boat tied up at the wharf, she remembered-the craft they had used to reach the magazine and in which they were planning to follow the larger, country boats. If the sepoys managed to cut them off from it … She bit back a sob. But then her attention was distracted by a violent jarring, which knocked her off her feet. When she picked herself up, she heard Major Lund cursing wrathfully and another voice, which reduced him to impotent silence, announcing ruefully that they had run aground on a sandbank.

It took the combined efforts of a dozen men, waist-deep in the water, to free the boat and set it once more in sluggish motion. Throughout the night, the same impediments slowed their progress. Without the influx of monsoon rain, even the mighty Ganges River was low, and the sandbanks gave no indication of their presence, so that it was impossible to steer clear of them. When the moon came out, to cast a faint, silvery radiance over the scene, the other boats, although some distance ahead, were observed to be in a predicament similar to their own.

Daylight brought a slight improvement, or else Captain May-hew had gained more proficiency with the sweep oar, and they came within hailing distance of Captain Sangster’s boat, only to be warned of a fresh peril.

“Don’t let your people drink the river water, Lund!” he shouted across the intervening space.

“It’s dangerously polluted.”

The warning came too late, Jenny thought bitterly, since virtually all those in Major Lund’s command had slaked their thirst with river water; and because the children had been so distressed, the adults had helped them to drink, leaning over the side of the boat to fill their cupped hands or soak kerchiefs and even their skirts with it. So far no one had shown any sign of ill effects, although Martha Lund had, it was true, complained of nausea after little Bella Gillespie had gone to great pains to assuage the older woman’s burning thirst by lowering her bonnet by its ribbons and bringing it up, in triumph, filled to the brim.

Bella exchanged a rueful glance with her, but neither she nor Jenny ventured to dispute the major’s contention; and as the sun rose and its blazing heat added to the general discomfort, more and more people had recourse to the river without a second thought, intent only on gaining relief from their torment.

By evening, the three boats had made some progress, but two wounded men and a Eurasian baby had died, and to Jenny’s distress, William and the rear guard had failed to join up with them. The night passed with still more delays caused by the sandbanks, and the children, fractious at first, had sunk into dulled apathy, huddling beside their mothers on the deck and refusing to respond to Mrs. Hall’s attempts to lead them in hymn singing. They roused themselves, however, shrieking with terror when the inhabitants of a riverside village opened fire on the boats with ancient matchlocks. Major Lund’s boat grounded within point-blank range, adding to the panic that seized them all, but the major endeavored to reason with the

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attackers, shouting out something in fluent Hindustani. Eventually the firing ceased, and the headman came sullenly to the water’s edge to confer in shrill, hostile tones, his long-barreled weapon held menacingly in front of him.

Major Lund asked for food, promising to pay highly for it, but his offer was curtly rejected, and the old man refused to aid in refloating the boat.

Jenny understood very little of the shouted exchange, but when they had once more hauled the cumbersome craft into midstream and the sail filled, Lund gathered the officers about him, evidently with the intention of discussing the intelligence he had gathered from his confrontation with the headman. The women were excluded, but Andy Melgund-whose Hindustani was also fluent-explained in a whisper what the old man had said.

“He claimed that the Company’s rule has ended, just as the omens predicted, one hundred years after the Battle of Plassey. He said that the shaitan ka hawa

comt means the devil’s wind comhad blown throughout Hindustan and all had answered its call to defend the faith. And-was The boy hesitated, his young face adult in its disillusionment. “Mrs. De Lancey, he said that the Nana Sahib will be crowned as Peishwa of the Mahrattas and that … that the Cawnpore garrison had been defeated and none are left alive, except a few women and children, who are now being held captive in the city.”

Jenny stared at him in stunned bewilderment.

“Oh, Andy, surely that cannot be true?”

“It was what he told Major Lund, Mrs.

De Lancey,” Andy said. “But-was His sharp ears had picked up an angry expostulation from the group of officers, and his expression relaxed. “Major Lund doesn’t believe a word of it, and Captain Sangster doesn’t either. They are going to consult with my father in the other boat, but they are agreed that we should go on. And I’m sure they are right, Mrs.

De Lancey,” he added earnestly. “General Wheeler has British troops in the Cawnpore garrison comthey’d never surrender to a fat old pig like the Nana. I saw him, you know, when I was in Lucknow with Papa, and that’s just what he is-a fat, pampered old pig! He fawned on General Outram, who was chief commissioner then, and kept paying him compliments . . dishe even paid my father a few, for good

measure.” Andy’s tone was scornful. “He’d never defeat a British garrison, if he lived to be a hundred!”

Jenny hoped fervently that he was right. She glanced at Bella Gillespie, who had heard the boy’s denunciation of the Nana of Bithur, and saw that she, too, found the headman’s claim hard to believe.

“Andy’s correct, Mrs. De Lancey,” she said. “General Wheeler has a company of the Queen’s Thirty-second and some of the Eighty-fourth-the Cawnpore garrison wasn’t entirely native, like ours. And the last news we had from Sir Henry Lawrence was that a relief force was on the way from Allahabad-a whole regiment!

They’d never surrender. Poor dear Arnold used to say that he wished

we

had been in Cawnpore.”

The consultation with Commissioner Melgund was brief and the decision to go on swiftly reached, but darkness fell shortly afterward, and as a precaution the three boats came to anchor, to enable them to defer their arrival in Cawnpore until daylight.

In common with the rest, Jenny lapsed into an exhausted sleep, her last thought the hope that, while they were halted, William and the men who had stayed with him might be able to catch up. But, with the dawn of the new day, they suffered a rude awakening. On the bank, a squadron of native cavalry sat their horses in silent, threatening array, while off to one side a pair of light field guns were trained on the anchored boats. Scarcely had the startled fugitives taken this in when a small flotilla of oared boats and canoes, packed with scarlet-coated sepoys, converged on them from all sides.

Resistance was futile, the danger to the women and children and the wounded crowding the decks too great to permit any attempt to ward off attack; and-effectively to discourage resistance-one of the field guns sent a round-shot across the bow of Major Lund’s boat.

Horror piled on horror, humiliation on humiliation as the sepoys swarmed on board, thrusting the women roughly aside, driving the men into line against the bulwarks with their hands raised, and scattering the frightened children with harsh words and blows from their musket butts. One of the cavalrymen, a bearded native officer with an evil, pockmarked face, was rowed out to Major Lund’s boat to demand his formal surrender.

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“I am Teeka Singh,” he announced, tapping a gold-headed cane on the leg of his boot, in a manner intended to parody a British officer addressing an underling. “Lately

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major in the Second Light Cavalry and now general of cavalry in the service of His Supreme Highness, the Peishwa of the Mahrattas and Maharajah of Bithur, the great and mighty Dundoo Punth.” He recited the string of titles with conscious pride, his expression contemptuous as he took in Marcus Lund’s filthy clothing and his unshaven cheeks. “You are from Ranpur, are you not?”

Major Lund controlled his bitter anger and, with what dignity he could muster, inclined his head.

“Yes, we are from Ranpur, and we are armed.

We-was

“Armed?” Teeka Singh challenged mockingly, gesturing to the line of officers, from whom the sepoys had now taken both rifles and pistols.

The major blustered. “You are in rebellion against the government and the Company, Teeka Singh, for which you may expect retribution. Her Majesty the Queen will not countenance treachery and rebellion, by the Nana or the King of Delhi or any other of her Indian subjects. British soldiers will be sent here swiftly, in their thousands, to exact vengeance for what you and others like you have dared to do-rest assured of that. Now call off your men and conduct us to General Wheeler Sahib at once!”

His tone was peremptory, his anger barely kept within bounds, and Jenny thought, watching him, that he had more courage even than she had earlier given him credit for. But Teeka Singh was unmoved by the threats. He threw back his turbaned head and laughed, then spat his contempt in Major Lund’s face.

“You talk with a loud mouth, Major, but you are but a windbag!” the onetime

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major accused. “The Company’s rule is overthrown-all Hindustan is restored to the people. Our king rules in Delhi, and here it is the Peishwa to whom we give allegiance. Muslim and Hindu speak with one voice! As to conducting you to General Wheeler, that is impossible-the garrison of General Wheeler perished at our hands two days ago, save for some females with their children, whom we hold

captive. The old white-beard general is dead, Major. His bones lie by the riverside, picked clean by the vultures, and yours will shortly join them there!”

Every vestige of color drained from Marcus Lund’s stubble-darkened cheeks as his worst fears were confirmed. Many of the women were sobbing; the men were as shocked and stunned as he, as the fact of their utter helplessness was borne home to them. Unarmed though they were, most of them, Jenny sensed, would gladly have turned on their captors, ready to sell their lives as dearly as they could rather than accept the humiliation of surrender and, it seemed from Teeka Singh’s last words, death at the hands of rebel soldiers whom they had once commanded.

One of the Rifles’ subalterns, who had manned the brass gun in the boat’s bow, took a pace toward the abandoned weapon, his intention plain, but Lund’s harsh voice halted him before he could reach it.

“What of our memsahibs and children, Teeka Singh?” Lund asked. “Do you intend to murder them also?”

“We do not make war on women and babies,” the cavalry commander answered. “They will be held captive with the females from the garrison, to await the Peishwa’s pleasure.” Tiring of baiting the unhappy Lund, he shouted an order to the sepoys who had first boarded the boat, at which they grinned broadly and started to strip their captives of everything of apparent value, handling roughly any who attempted to resist them.

Jenny stood dry-eyed but inwardly bitterly distressed as her wedding ring and a pretty ruby-and-diamond brooch William had given her vanished into the rapacious hands of a sepoy with the number fifty-three on his cap. The 53rd Native Infantry, she recalled, was the regiment commanded by Martha Lund’s brother, Colonel Wiggins, who had visited Ranpur with his wife and two pretty little daughters only a few weeks ago. were they too, she wondered, also dead, or were the children and their mother among those held captive, to await the Peishwa’s pleasure? She found herself praying silently once again, but this time her plea to her Maker was that William and the men who had stayed behind with him should on no account follow the William Stuart Long

boats in which she and the other fugitives had made their disastrous escape.

“Please God, of Thy infinite mercy and compassion, grant that they are given warning of what has happened here. Send them, O God, to Allahabad or Lucknow-anywhere but here!”

The looting over, Teeka Singlrwas rowed back to his cavalry bodyguard, and the boats again got under way, their sails hoisted and a sepoy manning each of the steering oars. Without warning, there was a brief commotion on board the leading boat, and a fusillade of shots rang out, coming from both boat and shore.

Beside her, Andy Melgund seized Jenny’s arm in small, fever-hot fingers, and he said, his voice shrill with mingled fear and excitement, “It’s Papa’s boat, Mrs. De Lancey! I-I think they’re trying to get away!”

It was a brave but hopeless attempt. Commissioner Melgund’s boat had contained the wounded men from the Residency, with a small armed guard, but no women. The commissioner, Jenny thought with a pang, and those who had accompanied him had decided to take the only alternative to ignominious capture left open to them-to escape or die in the attempt.

They did manage to turn their boat and head in the direction from which they had come, but their defiance was short-lived. Both field guns opened fire on them, grapeshot raking the deck, mowing them down.

Then the gunners loaded with round-shot, and the boat’s thin wooden hull was mercilessly pounded until, listing heavily, it filled with water and sank into the deep, midstream channel, only the tip of its mast marking the spot where it had gone down.

Andy Melgund hid his face against Jenny’s breast.

“I-I suppose,” he managed at last, his voice choked with sobs, “Mrs. De Lancey, I suppose my papa w-was a hero. He-he must’ve known that they didn’t have a chance. B-but he wouldn’t give in. Perhaps he was trying to set us an example-do you think that was it?”

“I think it was, Andy,” Jenny agreed, her own throat tight. She lifted the boy to his feet.

“Your mama will need you now. You’d better go to her and try to comfort her.”