Zemindar (116 page)

‘If you see him, will you tell him I was disappointed at having to leave without speaking to him, and ask him to come to us directly he reaches the Dilkusha. Please?’

‘Very well.
If
I see him.’

‘Do try to, Charles, for my sake. And keep an eye on him. He is not yet himself.’

‘Very well. Now look, we are moving again, and I can only come as far as the perimeter with you. They are going to move the sick tonight, and there’ll be a lot for every man-jack of us to do. You’ll be receiving precise orders soon, and for heaven’s sake obey them—exactly! Above all, you are to be quiet, absolutely quiet. It’s imperative. Not a word or a laugh or a cry, and keep Pearl still, Jessie. Feed her again if it is necessary. Everything depends on your silence, not only for each of you but for all the others. Understand?’

We promised in some bewilderment to do as he said. Why on earth should we be quiet? Who could hope to move such a disorganized body as we were in silence?

‘It will only be a couple of days before I join you,’ he went on. ‘You’ll be taken good care of, I’m sure, but if you should want for anything, enquire for Colonel Tucker. I have asked him to have a care for you. There’s no need to worry; the country is thick with our fellows now, but do be quiet until you reach the Sikander Bagh, where, by the way, you are to be fed.’

Our way through the palace gardens had taken us through several breached walls, and now we approached another. The delays we encountered had generally been due to the gaps being too narrow for a loaded cart or carriage, and once again we saw a bullock-cart before us being unloaded so that it could be passed through the breach on its side, while soldiers hastily attacked the wall with picks and bayonets to widen the opening for those yet to follow.

‘This is as far as I may come,’ said Charles as we halted. He was obviously nervous despite his reassuring words, so I felt my nervousness grow in response. What were we about to encounter in the hostile world beyond the wall? Behind us the column had stopped and, though we had set out with considerable intervals between each party, now the long, interrupted line had been concertinaed by the frequent delays, and had become a heaving
mêlée
of animals, carriages and people. Everyone grumbled, of course. Irate heads were poked out of carriage windows to protest, anxious mothers tried surreptitiously to edge themselves and their offspring further forward in the line, while harassed soldiers tried to keep the column from disintegrating, by insisting that drivers stay in their seats and coolies not dispose of their loads while waiting. No one paid much attention to the politely impatient commands; very soon the spreading lawns were peopled with skinny coolies pulling imperturbably on their
biris
as they took their ease, while horses edged their vehicles in all directions to take a nibble at camellia hedges and flowerbeds, their drivers having joined the coolies.

Finally the cart was manhandled through the gap in the wall, and we were ordered to move on. Charles kissed me on the cheek, clutched the baby’s hand in his for a moment, then stepped back to allow Rosinante to proceed.

On the far side of the wall, a small group of officers awaited us, stopping each party in turn to issue instructions. We were told that our route would now take us through the outskirts of the city, following the river for a considerable portion of the way, to the Sikander Bagh. There we would be fed and would rest until nightfall, and then move on to the Dilkusha Palace under cover of darkness. We would be covered every inch of the way as we went, but were to remember that the enemy would always be within a very short distance of us as we walked. The guns of the Residency, the
Shannon’s
guns at the Kaiser Bagh, and other artillery brought up by Sir Colin Campbell, were harrying the pandies at every point possible to deflect their attention from what was taking place under their noses, but we were never to forget that, though out of the Residency, we were still under fire—constantly. So far the pandies had no idea of the evacuation, and it was imperative that they remain in ignorance of it until our escape was complete—a matter of several hours at least. To this end, we were to be as silent as possible, obey all further instructions immediately and implicitly, and endeavour to keep with our own parties and in our proper place in the column. We would encounter several points on the route which were especially hazardous. At these, we must wait until signalled to proceed, dismounting, stooping or crawling as instructed. The officers wished us luck.

I was still bewildered. A straggling circus of excited women and overwrought children, coolies, animals, soldiers and conveyances could hardly remain hidden from the pandies in broad daylight for very long, particularly since the dust rising above us must indicate that some considerable body was in movement.

However, we fell into position and set off, I prodding Rosinante with Kate’s green-lined umbrella, for she was more than a little reluctant to put one foot before the other.

From the final breach in the perimeter onwards we continued our way, guarded by an extended picket of soldiers, weapons ready bayoneted, who stood within a few yards of each other in an unbroken line for the length of our route. On the flat roofs crowning the tall, blank-faced houses, crouched behind balustrades and chimneystacks, further uniformed figures glanced down at us briefly as we passed, while officers on horseback patrolled the road, motioning us forward, halting us, directing us and exhorting us to silence. Brightly plaided Highlanders, blue-smocked ‘Shannons’, tall, bearded Sikhs, stocky pug-nosed Irishmen, all alike in their tense alertness, as eyes moved watchfully over the rooftops, windows and balconies, and flicked only briefly over the bedraggled cavalcade they guarded.

We had entered a network of narrow roads and laneways cutting through the usual agglomeration of high native houses, walled courtyards and open-fronted shops, all cleared in the battles of the previous two days, but still ground of contention between the pandies and our own men. Rifle and musket fire was continuous and heavy, sometimes from only the breadth of a house away, while from over the river the enemy’s heavy guns belched their cargoes of death high over our heads towards the entrenchment. Often the high buildings petered out in low, thatched slum shacks, or were interrupted by the paved and guttered square of a deserted bazaar, leaving our route open to the river or the city. In such places screens of bamboo and sacking had been erected to foil hostile eyes, while in other sections trenches had been dug, along which we were required to walk or crawl, while baggage carts and animals took their chances above us.

It was an eerie sensation that beset us as we padded through those dusty streets deserted by all save ourselves and the soldiery. No sacred bulls nuzzled the choked gutters; no beggars cried for
baksheesh
at the corners; no poverty-marked crowds of tattered men and veiled women thronged and jostled; no naked children played among the heaps of refuse; only here and there a ring-tailed, yellow-eyed pi-dog sniffed suspiciously as we passed, then returned to the undisputed largesse of the garbage.

It was not hot, but in these enclosed lanes stinking of urine and excrement, the base of whose buildings were stained waist high with the vermilion saliva of betel-chewers, we were soon perspiring. The noise unnerved us. Musket and rifle fired so close that we could smell the cordite above the filth; shells burst noisily just out of sight and sometimes, more alarmingly, in the air above us, and heavy shot and ball cannonaded into buildings, filling the air with lime dust and particles of shattered masonry. Beyond the buildings that hedged our passage from the pandies’ sight, we could hear the enemy shouting directions and calling to each other, and once I clapped my hands over my ears to shut out the terrified shrieks of a wounded man.

Delays were constant and hazardous, each narrow section of street causing a bottleneck that rapidly backed up vehicles, animals and humans, all fretting with impatience and fear, but none daring to utter a word of protest. Baggage tumbled off carts and out of panniers and had to be replaced under the frenzied eyes of the owners, giving vent to their wrath in dumb-show. Once, a half-starved horse, pulling a landaulet just ahead of us, lay down with a grunt and died; coolies had to be found to take over the poor beast’s task. On three occasions, everyone was held up when Mrs Polehampton’s harmonium tumbled off the back of the camel that carried it. The harmonium had belonged to the Reverend Mr Polehampton, and his widow would not move a step until it was safely resecured atop the beast.

The tension of the humans communicated itself to the animals, who became difficult to control. Horses reared suddenly, pawing the air, always with some
syce
or soldier clinging to their muzzles to prevent them neighing. Bullocks grunted and stopped stock-still, heads low between their knobbled knees, red eyes rolling with terror; no amount of belabouring could move them. Only our Rosinante, imperturbable if lethargic, and the blinkered mules tightly muzzled with rope, seemed too foolish to catch the infection of fear and plodded quietly on through the noise.

Time and again a man of the picket line would leap from his place to fire at a head or an arm visible on a rooftop, and time and again I closed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the shout that would reveal our escaping presence and draw the enemy fire. But our luck held. We continued on our way, slowly, with many stumblings, delays and grumblings, but steadily.

The troops lining our way had yet to set foot in the Residency they had fought to free, having been moved up that day from the Martinière or Dilkusha where Sir Colin had left them on his final surge towards us. I noticed that they eyed us with frank curiosity, not untinged, I also noticed, with distaste, and smiled to myself when I realized what disappointment they must feel on finally coming face to face with the ‘Dear Creatures’ (as Sir Colin insisted on calling us) whom they had delivered. I could only guess the visions they had concocted of the frail and delicate females it had been their privilege to liberate. Frail most of us certainly were from lack of food, but those of us who had survived those 142 days and nights in Lucknow would never again be considered delicate.

What the wondering eyes of those stolid stalwarts beheld was a straggle of scrawny women and pale, big-eyed children, doggedly putting one foot before the other with total concentration on proceeding as fast as broken shoes and blisters would allow. Dressed in a wonderful assortment of shabby garments, usually bonnetless, generally cloakless, wrapped in finest Kashmir shawls from the palaces or in quilted cotton from the servants of the palaces, not a face was entirely clean, nor was there one that did not bear the marks of more years than its owner counted. There were, of course, a lucky few, like the Gubbinses and the Bonners, still adequately dressed and accoutred with the symbols of their state in life. But I speak of the majority of us: the wives of the soldiers of the 32nd, of the officers of mutinous native regiments, or widows and ‘unprotected females’ like Kate and myself. It was we whom the soldiers had the opportunity to examine, and tired, frightened and bedraggled as we were, we must have looked a graceless lot.

Once, having halted for some delay ahead, I heard a blue-uniformed ‘Shannon’ mutter to his mate, ‘Not what you’d call a likely bunch o’ lookers!’

His mate shrugged and replied, ‘Can’t even thank a fellow for ’elpin’ ’em over a wall, let alone out o’ Lucknow!’ Thereafter Kate and I were voluble in our whispered thanks for any proffered arm, and we were often in need of assistance.

Several times we were ordered to run, when the firing was particularly heavy; several times, too, Jessie was made to dismount and keep under cover of Rosinante when the bullets flew too close. We stooped as we walked; we ran; we crawled through muddy ditches and clambered over broken walls. We sheltered in a ruined house, holding our breath, while a party of pandies hauled a gun over the cobbles just on the other side of the flimsy wall, and halted again, and as nervously, while a battle on the roofs above us moved to a safer distance. We hauled Rosinante over yards of hoof-cutting debris; and pushed her through feet of evil-smelling water; we pulled her through humble courtyards still littered with the domestic remains of small lives; and puffed after her, waving the umbrella, when once a shell burst too close for the comfort of even her stolid mind.

So long unused to lengthy walking, our feet were soon sore, and I was nearly through the thin soles of my old shoes when, at about five in the evening, we at last reached the Sikander Bagh.

The buildings had been thinning out, giving way to orchards, groves and high-walled gardens, when, of a sudden, we found ourselves in the country. Rosinante came to a stop, and I looked up to see fields of sugar cane where partridge called, a jarmin avenue loud with monkeys quarrelling, and mango
topes
glistening in the late and slanting sun. I smelled the fresh and forgotten scent of green things growing in damp soil.

Jessie handed the baby down to Kate and slid wearily from the saddle, rubbing her rear. Kate held Pearl up to see the monkeys, and I bent down and pulled a handful of young grey-green gram leaves from the roadside and sniffed the tangy fragrance with closed eyes.

This was freedom. This was what life had been—before.

Quiet, gentle things; trees and birds, crops springing in the tended earth, and a wide horizon.

Unmindful of our wondering eyes, as we stood silently and watched them, a young boy in a loincloth and dirty muslin shirt, accompanied by a skinny yellow pi-dog, drove his family’s milch cow home through the sugar cane, playing a bamboo flute as he went. Further off, a couple of women walked towards the setting sun, tall earthen pots on their padded heads, full cotton skirts swinging rhythmically to their straight-backed graceful stride. An old man with another ring-tailed dog precisely like the first, paused and watched us, chewing betel-nut with toothless jaws. Beyond the cane fields, a smudge of grey smoke against the flushing sunset sky indicated some small hamlet pursuing its ancient humble ways within sound of the guns that had battered us for five gruesome months.