The Gallant (44 page)

He did as she bade him, walking across the deck to his mother’s side, his head held high, a thin little nine-year-old in torn trousers and a filthy shirt who had suddenly and hearteningly become a man.

Bella Gillespie stumbled over to Jenny’s side, her face swollen and blotched with tears.

She did not speak, and Jenny, finding no words, put an arm about her shoulders, and they stood together in silence, as the two remaining boats made their slow way, under sail, to the city of Cawnpore.

Soon there was terrible, heartbreaking evidence that Teeka Singh had told the truth concerning the fate of the British garrison. Passing a landing place on the city side of the river, they saw the charred shells of some score of country boats, similar to but somewhat smaller than their own. They floated in the muddy water or were held fast, as theirs had so often been, on a sandbank, the oars broken, the straw awnings and sails all but reduced to ashes.

But worse, by far, were the ghastly bloated bodies lying at the water’s edge-hundreds of them, it seemed, abandoned to the vultures and prowling jackals and to the human predators, who had evidently stripped them of everything of value-including their clothing. On the slope above the landing place and in front of a small stone temple at its summit, guns had been mounted, trained on the boats below; but now, like the boats and the bodies of the victims, they, too, were abandoned-mute and damning proof of the manner and purpose for which they had been used.

Major Lund buried his face in his hands and wept. He was the first to take in and understand the implications of what they were seeing, and the bitter pain and disillusionment, which came with understanding, were in his voice as he shouted in accusation, “This was betrayal-this was treachery of the basest kind! Don’t you see-was He appealed to those about him. “God in heaven, General Wheeler was defending an entrenchment over a mile from here, near the Allahabad Road! The garrison must

have surrendered, when they ran out of ammunition or food or when their casualties became too high.

They must have accepted terms and come here, believing they were to be given safe conduct to Allahabad. That is what the boats were

William Stuart Long

for. But instead-was His voice faltered and broke, and a sepoy said something to him in his own tongue that was clearly derisory and calculated to invoke anger.

Marcus Lund’s control snapped. With a strangled cry, he flung himself upon the man, hands reaching for his throat, but the sepoy stepped back, eluding his rush, and brought the butt of his musket down with sickening force on the Englishman’s Unprotected head. Lund fell, and two other sepoys joined the first, hacking and stabbing at him with their bayonets. After a brief scuffle, they picked up the limp and lifeless body between them and hurled it into the water, to add one more to the number already floating in the shallows, among the burnt-out boats.

Martha Lund screamed in grief-stricken protest, but the sepoys ignored her, barring the way when Captain Mayhew and one of the other officers tried to go to her.

A short time afterward, still numb with shock, Jenny found herself herded with the rest of the women and children into a bullock cart, which jolted its way through congested streets and jeering crowds, finally coming to a halt outside a small, yellow-painted building with a flat roof and shuttered windows, with a sepoy guard detachment in the walled courtyard surrounding it.

“Ar’jao

-

jeldi!”

one of the cavalry sowars who had escorted them through the town shouted at them impatiently. “Inside-go, go! All

mems,

all

baba log

inside!”

They obeyed him, too exhausted and demoralized to resist the harsh commands and the jabbing sabers. Amelia Hall tripped and would have fallen had not Jenny grasped her arm, and they stumbled inside, to halt in stunned dismay at the sight of what awaited them.

A small, dark, airless room, which might have held a dozen women in some discomfort, now accommodated five times that number. Mothers huddled with their children on a few wisps of filthy straw spread over a stone floor. Others crouched in corners or lay, with closed eyes, indifferent to what went on about them. Many were wounded, their wounds uncovered and suppurating, hideous beyond belief.

One woman, in a torn and bloodstained white dress, who had been reading to a group of older children from a prayer book,

paused in her reading to study the new arrivals with unhappy eyes.

“We are the survivors of the Cawnpore garrison,” she said, in an expressionless voice.

“All who are left out of almost a thousand souls. And this place is known as the Bibigarh-the House of Women. I cannot say welcome to it, for it is unsanitary and desperately overcrowded; but at least it is a slight improvement on the Savada Koti, where we were first imprisoned, and they have at last given us the services of a doctor. Of which,”

she added, a sudden bitter edge to her voice, “as you can see, we have been most sorely in need. Are you also victims of the Nana’s treachery?”

“We are from Ranpur,” Amelia Hall told her. “The mutineers intercepted our boats and took us captive early this morning. I am Amelia Hall, widow of the late Mr. Swinton Hall, who was a member of the Honorable Company’s Court of Directors.” She paused, clearly expecting some response; but receiving none, she went on, her voice shrill with indignation, “They murdered my brother, Major Lund of the Fifth Oudh Lancers, on the way here. His poor wife, who is shortly to be delivered of a child, is now a widow, and-was

“We are all widows here, Mrs. Hall,” the woman in the white dress told her, quite gently.

“I am Caroline Moore, widow of Captain John Moore, of Her Majesty’s

Thirty-second Regiment. Please-was She waved a limp hand to the dim recesses of the crowded, darkly shadowed room. “Please-find what comfort you can.” Picking up her prayer book, she went on reading as if there had been no interruption. was “Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto Thee and were delivered; they trusted in Thee and were not confounded…

.””

A child broke into sobs, but the quiet, level voice read on.

Was she, too, a widow now? Jenny wondered despairingly. She bent her head, and the prayer she whispered came from her heart.

“Dear merciful Father, keep William safe, whatever fate may befall me. I count not my life beside his and would gladly die that he might live.”

William Stuart Long

Andy Meldrum tugged at her hand.

“I’ve found a place where you and Rosie can lie down,” he said. “There’s some straw there, and I’ll guard you and my mama, Mrs. De Lancey.”

William first became conscious of a pungent smell of rotting vegetation and then of the jarring motion of whatever vehicle was carrying him-a bullock cart, he decided, judging by its slow, plodding progress and lack of springs. His head was aching severely, and his whole body felt as if it were on fire, while his right leg seemed to be paralyzed, refusing to respond to his attempts to move himself into a more comfortable position.

It took all his flagging strength to raise himself on his good elbow; and when at last, with infinite effort, he managed to sit up, it was to find himself in semidarkness, with an inert body lying full length on the floor of the cart beside him, its weightI imprisoning his leg. The body appeared to be in military uniform; he could feel the rough texture of the braid on the coat … and a sword belt, lacking the weapon it normally held, girt about the man’s waist.

Whoever it was, he was unconscious, as William himself had been a few minutes before, and both of them were covered by a thick layer of the vegetation, whose strong odor had been the first thing he had noticed on his return to consciousness. William identified it, after a cursory examination, as damp straw, tied into bundles to serve as protection for a load of overripe melons, some of which had burst out of their skins. Faintly sickened by the stench, he managed to free his leg and peer out from beneath the top layer of straw, to discern two shadowy forms, in native robes, huddled together at the front of the cart.

William Stuart Long

Both were dozing, in the time-honored fashion of bullock cart drivers throughout India, leaving their animals to pick their own way along the rutted road.

Puzzled, William studied their hunched backs for a few moments and then let himself fall back.

What, he asked himself, was he-he and the unknown soldier beside him-doing in the cart? Search his memory as he might, he had no recollection of how he had got there or for how long he had lain beneath the malodorous covering in the jolting wagon .

. . and still less idea of where it might be bound. He was tempted to call out to the two natives, to ask them for an explanation, but then thought better of it, instinct warning him that he might alarm them. They-or possibly others-had gone to some trouble to conceal the presence of the cart’s human cargo, which suggested danger or an attempt to remove him and his companion from a dangerous situation, and … Oh, dear God, of course there had been a hideously dangerous situation! The native garrison of Ranpur had broken out in mutiny-his

regiment, the Fifth Lancers, had joined the Rifles and the Sixteenth Infantry in anarchy and rebellion, and the Rifles had murdered their commanding officer, Jeremy Roach, when he had sought to hold them to their allegiance!

Slowly, painfully, memory returned, and with it the recollection of the officers’ bungalows in the Ranpur cantonments going up in flames, of lawless crowds from the native city looting and killing, while the Lancers had roared their war cry, “Din, Din!”

and chanted the message the holy men had spread so assiduously:

“Sub lal hojega!”

comeverything will be red with blood… .

William put a hand to his throbbing head, realizing that it was roughly bandaged. He shuddered, as incidents he had wanted to forget now came flooding back into his mind. He and the other officers, abruptly aroused from sleep, had done all in their power to stem the ghastly tide of slaughter, but it had been hopeless from the outset. They had managed to get most of the British women and children into the dubious safety of the ill-prepared Residency, but that was all.

Jenny-thanks be to God, Jenny had been saved from the terrible scenes he had been compelled to witness; at least he had managed to spare her that, although conditions in the Residency had been terrible enough. He had sent her there with young Millbank at first light, before the outbreak had properly begun, since-like poor old Roach-he had seen it as his duty to try to keep his men in hand for as long as he could.

And then-William drew in his breath sharply. Then the

rissaldar

major, Akbar Khan, had invited him to lead the regiment to Delhi, as its colonel-an offer made with dignified gravity and intended to merit his serious consideration.

“This is the end of the Company’s road ,

Colonel sahib,” he had said. “The end of the Army of Bengal after a hundred years of loyal service to John Company. But my regiment was greatly honored by the appointment of such an officer as you as its commander-an officer who took part in the immortal charge at Balaclava, to whom the great Queen over the sea awarded the highest decoration for gallantry, the Victoria Cross. We will serve you faithfully, sahib, if you will continue to command us. It is the wish of all ranks that I, as their spokesman, beg that you will accept.”

Such a strange speech the fine old Indian officer had made, in perfect, almost pedantic English, which he must have practiced for hours and learned by heart, since his English was poor. Of course he had had to refuse, William reflected; but nonetheless he had been at once moved and humbled by the request. And even after his refusal, Akbar Khan and a heartening number of the other NCO’S had done their best to ensure that none of their officers were harmed. True, some of the younger rank and file had not concurred with their rissaldar

major’s action; they had shouted in protest when the escort had formed up to take the British officers to the Residency, but they had offered no violence and had not attempted to stop them. Only Marcus Lund had been subjected to verbal abuse, when he had tried to harangue them and remind them of their duty, accusing them bitterly of betrayal. But . .

.

Drops of rain touched his face, and in minutes it became a downpour. William gratefully accepted the chance to cool his fever-hot body and slake his thirst. The bullock cart drivers gathered their thin white

chuddars

about them but did not seek shelter or look round.

William Stuart Long

Apparently roused by the lashing rain, the man who had lain unconscious beside him stirred uneasily and murmured something unintelligible. Fearing that he might be too badly wounded to be able to move, William put a restraining arm about his shoulders and whispered to him to lie still. In the all-prevailing darkness and the obscuring rain, he could not see his companion’s face clearly, but he recognized the voice as that of the Lancers’ senior subaltern, Harry Cook. Cook had been with him when they had blown up the stored ammunition in the magazine, and he had also volunteered to join the rear guard, William recalled. And he had been there when, the boats safely away, they had made their last stand in the gatehouse, their own way of escape to the wharf cut off by … oh, God, by some of their own men, some of the Lancers!

“It’s all right, Harry,” he said softly.

“Don’t try to move.” Holding out his cap, he managed to gather sufficient rainwater to enable Cook to drink, and the younger man gulped it down gratefully.

“Colonel-is it you, sir? Colonel De Lancey?” His voice was weak, but his eyes, William saw, were open, peering up at him uncertainly.

“Yes, it’s me. How badly are you hurt, Harry? Can you sit up?”

“I think so, I-Lord, I’m as weak as a kitten! If you could just give me a hand, sir, I … That’s better.” Cook sat up, to look about him in bewilderment. “Where the devil are we?”