Zemindar (118 page)

‘What else can be done?’ My answer was purely rhetorical, but Ungud treated it otherwise.

‘They are soldiers. They have fought well for many weeks. They could fight on for a few more. They
should
fight on!’ And he spat disgustedly into the fire.

‘When
Lat-sahib
Lawrence called out that the
Raj
was in need of its servants, what did I do?’

‘You went to him at once.’

‘Yes! I, and many more like me—more than he thought he needed, because many he sent back to their villages. And they that went back, told all in their villages that the
Raj
would conquer. We that remained and fought, we also said to ourselves that the
Raj
must conquer, for had we not ourselves given merit to the
Raj
in keeping our salt? And now … those are only boys that sling their pellets at the
Raj
, and ruffians from the bazaars, no more. It is not fitting that the
Raj
should leave its own place.’

‘Many of us feel the same,’ I told him, for his seamed face was bitter. ‘Do you return to Hassanganj now?’

‘No! Never until the
Raj
is once again the
Raj
. I will not be laughed at by the boys who tend the village herd, and the old women who paint the lucky patterns on the doorsteps. I will go where he goes.’

‘With Erskine
Sahib
?’

‘With the
Lat-sahib
. My
sirkar
!’

‘We all go to Cawnpore, then from Allahabad downriver to Calcutta.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said non-commitally, glancing at me sideways. ‘Who can be sure where any of us will end? But now I will wait for him until he comes. Tonight he will surely come.’

‘Stay then,’ I said. ‘Wait until he comes. Here is money for the horse’s food and for you also, for the
Lat-sahib
would not wish you to want for anything in his service.’

The previous day I had sold a pearl from the garter to a
bunnia
for a hundred rupees, and now I gave five of them to Ungud. I knew that the payment he had received for his three dangerous journeys to Cawnpore during the siege had made him considerably richer than I would ever be, but I guessed that he was probably as short of ready cash as most of us. He thanked me, salaamed again and moved away, with the mare following behind him.

As Ungud had said, that night the final withdrawal of the troops from the Residency took place, and next morning found Charles, weary and famished as we had been, sitting down to partake of Lieutenant James’s expanding hospitality. While he ate, wolfing the white bread and quaffing the hot tea in great draughts, he described for us the final withdrawal.

‘Such fools!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head as though he still could not believe what he had experienced. ‘Four thousand men, women and children brought out from under their very noses, and they haven’t tumbled to it yet! Listen! They are still firing into the old place, and there’s not been a soul left in it for hours. Not a solitary soul!’

He paused and we listened for a moment to the far-off dull roar of the cannon firing into the abandoned entrenchment, clearly audible over the myriad noises of the camp.

I shivered slightly, imagining how the Residency must look and feel now: the ruins deserted, silent, littered with the forsaken remnants of five months of troubled living and hard dying.

The same light wind that flicked the feathery neem leaves above me would be blowing down the desolate alleys of the enclave, stirring fitfully through torn books and old papers, fragments of clothing and broken toys, all the relinquished trivia of so many lives. Moving over the space of beaten yellow earth before the Resident’s House, it would perhaps raise dry leaves and twigs into a whirling Dust Devil, that would dance a swirling obeisance to the tattered flag still flying from the tower. This same watery winter sun would cast just such pale shadows from the walls still stained with the blood of our friends, over the once elegant buildings that had seen so much suffering and hidden so many tragedies. Squirrels, I fancied, must still play in the shattered tree in our courtyard, oblivious of our absence; monkeys, grown bold in solitude, would swing through open windows to explore empty rooms; when night fell, mynas and crows would chatter and squawk, never heeding that only their shrill cacophony broke the silence. Ruins, graves, dumb beasts and utter silence despite the guns.

‘Go on,
Baba-log
! Go on!’ Charles laughed, breaking my reverie as he waved his mug in the direction of the guns. ‘The more ball you waste, the better for the rest of us! Oh, it was magnificently done, magnificently, I tell you!’ He waited until Kate refilled his mug, then went on.

‘We started to pull out, you see, with the furthermost position of the old entrenchment—the garrison from Innes’s post. It was midnight, and cold and cloudy, not even a star to light the sky. But we’d left all the lights burning in the empty rooms, and more for good measure than we’d ever used ourselves, so that Pandy’d be deceived into thinking all was as usual, and all the time that we were creeping out, the
Shannon’s
guns were battering on like the very devil at the Kaiser Bagh, not only to cover our going but to heighten the illusion that we were staying.

‘Well, as soon as the lot from Innes’s post had marched through in broken step and reached the Baillie Guard, the men from the Redan followed, then the Slaughter-House post, then from Gubbins’s, then Ommaney’s and so on, until at last the few from the Treasury and ourselves from Fayrer’s post, being the closest to the gate, fell in and marched quietly down the slope behind them. All fourteen posts were abandoned, each retiring through its own supports, and at the last Outram and Bluff Jack, after jockeying around for a bit to see who would be the very last out, exited together arm in arm.

‘I can’t tell you how … how weird it was, watching the other garrisons softfoot it down the slope, leaving the old buildings all in silence, with their lights glowing. It was … eerie. Yes, that’s the word I want—eerie! And, well, somehow downright sad. There wasn’t a man among us who wanted to leave, of course, so we were a pretty glum collection as we went. Even the sepoys were down in the mouth and miserable. There’d been a party or two to finish off the liquor we’d found when we were clearing out the buildings for useful supplies, and some of the men were blubbering like babies. But most were just quiet … and, as I say, sad.

‘Well then, as soon as all the posts from the old entrenchment were out, the fellows from the extended perimeter fell in behind them: first the Tehri Kothi, then the Ferret Box, the Chathar and so on, right through to the newest positions at the Moti Mahal and the Mess House. It was like … well, like pulling out a pocket to empty it, d’you see? The deepest in were the first out.

‘When we got to the Sikander Bagh—and it took the devil’s own time to get there, believe me—Sir Colin was waiting for us, very anxiously, with infantry and artillery ready drawn up and portfires glowing like fireflies under the trees, ready to open up if the retreat was discovered. I still don’t know why it wasn’t. You know how we came; you’ve been over the same route. Of course we were damned quiet. But when you recollect that there were all the guns, and the mule trains of ammunition, and the wheat we discovered last week, all being fetched out on carts, as well as three thousand men …

‘We had a bad scare for a while, though. A sudden burst of firing; we all thought we’d been discovered and froze into the shadows or made for buildings; not that that would have been much good, seeing we had to leave the guns, carts and whatnots in the middle of those stinking alleys for anyone to see. Fortunately Peel and his “Shannons” were still pretty well in position, and they sent a few rockets into the Kaiser Bagh to dampen the
Baba-log’s
curiosity, and we got through. But all it needed was one pair of sharp eyes looking in the right direction and a shout, and it would have been all up with us.’

‘And no one was lost … no one?’ Kate asked.

Charles shook his head as he drank yet another mug of tea.

‘Not from enemy action! I believe many of the sick died on the way, but that had been expected, I suppose.’ He put down his mug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Will everyone have left the Sikander Bagh by now?’ I asked carefully.

‘Oh, must have. Some time ago, in fact. We made pretty smart going once past there, and the rest wouldn’t be long in following us, take it from me.’

‘Then Oliver should be here any minute. Did you see anything of him in these last few days, Charles?’

‘Not much; too busy. But if anything had happened to him, Toddy knew where to find me. He’s all right, Laura.’

He was trying to reassure me, and I appreciated his generosity, for the eyes that held mine betrayed hurt momentarily as clearly as his tone betrayed irritation.

Very soon I would see Oliver. There was no way, now, he could escape coming to us, and by nightfall, so I promised myself, I would have made everything right between us. Ungud would be searching the arriving throng with eagle eyes, waiting to lead him to us. If my foot had not been so painful, I would have wandered through the noisy crowds myself until I found him, but the least pressure on the sole made me wince, and I remained reluctantly seated when Charles, having finished his meal, crawled into Lieutenant James’s tent to sleep.

All round us the great park stirred like a hive of disturbed bees each time a fresh contingent from the Residency marched wearily in, as wives sought husbands, and relieved fathers clutched up the children they had not seen for three anxious days. Everywhere tired men, the dust and mud of the march still on them, sat under the trees, while the women vied with the servants in bringing them food and drink.

Morning became afternoon and afternoon waned to evening. When sunset merged the shadows of the trees to one continuous dusk, the lines of tents had grown far out into the countryside in the direction of the Alum Bagh and the camp had settled down into a tired, contented quiet of accomplishment. Night fell and exhaustion soon extinguished the campfires and the lanterns in the tents. But still Oliver had not come.

‘Well, woman dear,’ Kate said, as we prepared for sleep, ‘I always told you he was a contrary divil, but by all that’s holy, I only guessed the half of it! There is more here than meets my old eye, is there not? No orders now to keep him from you, nor any distance either. So it is disinclination—and you have quarrelled! Is it really such a bad quarrel?’

I shook my head hopelessly.

‘It is no quarrel. Only a misunderstanding. A silly, stupid, pointless misunderstanding. I could explain everything in a couple of minutes, if he’d let me. But what am I to do, if he won’t give me the opportunity?’

‘Well now, lass,’ Jessie said, peering at her well-darned stockings for new holes in the light of the lantern, ‘if opportunity is nae for the takin’, it is always for the makin’, is it no’?’

‘Hm!’ was Kate’s comment as she pulled her blanket over her. ‘’Tis difficult to handle that man, once his mind’s made up to anything. Rightly or wrongly; and being male, it will be wrongly as often as rightly. Sleep on it, Laura. Maybe something will occur to you in the night, and morning makes everything look brighter.’

We now occupied a more spacious tent pitched next to Lieutenant James’s, and were provided with canvas cots. I tossed and turned, arguing with Oliver in my thoughts, scolding him, explaining to him, and complaining of his heartlessness towards me. And then, suddenly recalling Jessie’s words, I realized a way was open to me to ‘mak” an opportunity. I fell into sleep like a snuffed candle.

The schoolboys of the Martinière were united in considering their new circumstances one joyous protracted picnic. Still in their tattered clothes, often barefoot, they were everywhere, examining the wonders of Sir Colin’s heavy artillery, riding the elephants, grooming the horses, pestering the cooks, and stealing sweetmeats from the vendors who, thanking all their gods for the fortunate chances of war, had flocked in from nearby villages to turn an honest penny. Accustomed to the ragged condition of the officers of the Old Garrison, the boys delighted in derisively mimicking the precise gait of a gloved and spurred cavalry officer, or the smartly-booted stride of an officer of the staff, tucking imaginary gauntlets into imaginary belts, adjusting non-existent helmets on their shaggy heads, or handing a figmentary female over the trodden grass.

They were the first at the tables at meals, and the last to leave, and in between harried the servants for tidbits until the next time they could sit down and stuff themselves legitimately. Young Llewellyn had very soon discovered where we were, and knowing I was bound to my chair, often left his younger brother Sonny with me, while he went off on some private gainful foray.

When the two of them arrived for a visit the following morning, I asked Llew whether he remembered my friend, Mr Erskine. He frowned doubtfully for a moment. Already there was colour in his sallow cheeks and his eyes were assuming a more normal size.

‘Erskine?’ He screwed up his face in concentration. ‘Oh, yes! I remember now. His friend was the very small man who walked like this …’ He hopped up and did a very fair imitation of Toddy’s bowlegged rolling gait.

‘That’s right, Mr Erskine. Have you seen him around? He got in yesterday. He’s probably with the men from the Ferret Box; do you know whereabouts they are camped?’

No, he had not seen Mr Erskine, nor the small man who was his friend.

‘Do you think you could find him for me? I want to send him a chit, and you are the only person I can think of to take it; these servants would not know what he looked like.’

‘Only one arm?’ He crossed his right arm, limp-wristed, across his chest.

‘Yes. Perhaps it is in a sling still, but I’m not sure.’

‘If you want him, then I can find him. If he is here, then there is only this place to look, isn’t it? But, it might take a very long time, and I might miss my
tiffin
 …!’