by Peter Watt
The march for Cawnpore was continued and when they reached the city, Ian turned to look down the straggling column of refugees in the knowledge that they had not lost a single man, woman or child on the march.
Thirty-five
At Cawnpore Ian and his company paraded with the rest of the regiment. Ian had lost two-thirds of his company to cholera, dysentery and enemy action, but none on the march to Cawnpore. Major Dawkins reviewed what was left of the regiment on a dusty improvised parade ground in a former park.
‘Men, you have acquitted yourselves in the finest traditions of the Queen’s army. Your courage and loyalty will not be forgotten, and I have good news. Tomorrow, we march out for our barracks in England.’ Ian could hear behind him a slight murmur of approval from the troops. ‘Silence!’ Conan growled, loud enough to dampen any further expression of joy.
‘In London we will need to recruit to re-establish our strength for future campaigns,’ Major Dawkins continued. He turned to his regimental sergeant major. ‘You can dismiss the men to their duties, Sarn’t Major,’ he said and a general salute was called before the commanding officer left the parade.
Ian raised his sword in salute, and the parade was given the order to fall out. As he turned to march off he reflected on the fact that he would be leaving India without seeing Alice and Peter again. He had heard nothing from them for months and could only pray that they had survived the fighting at Delhi, not to mention the spread of disease and the fury of the sun, and that he would be reunited with them in England.
Conan had already began organising the men of the company to pack, and Ian found his written orders for the march out of Cawnpore at his temporary office. He read that the civilian survivors of the Lucknow siege and his regiment were to be evacuated back to the port of Calcutta and from there they would ship out for England.
In the early hours of the next day the regiment assembled, and Ian’s company was given the honour of leading the soldiers from Cawnpore with the regimental colours unfurled.
Conan marched beside Ian at the head of the column as the sun rose over the Indian plains.
‘I hope that we never see this accursed place ever again,’ he muttered. And Ian could do nothing but agree.
*
In a village tavern nestled in the shadow of the Blue Mountains in the colony of New South Wales, a stranger sat at a sawn-log table with a tankard of ale before him. Across from him sat one of the workers from Wallaroo farm.
‘So you reckon that one of the men who arrived recently at the farm is Samuel Forbes?’ Harold Salt said, taking a swig from the warm ale. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I knew Mr Forbes before he left a few years ago,’ the farmhand said, enjoying the free ale the stranger had bought him.
‘Would you sign a paper swearing to that?’ Salt asked.
‘What’s in it for me?’ the farmhand countered.
‘A shilling – just to sign a piece of paper,’ Salt replied, thrusting a sheet of paper across the table with the shilling coin.
‘I can’t read or write,’ the farmhand said, staring at the paper.
‘Just give me your name and then you can put your cross next to it,’ Salt said. In anticipation Salt had already written a declaration that Samuel Forbes was currently residing at Wallaroo with Sir George Forbes. All he needed was a witness to the document.
The farmhand gave his name, residential address and occupation, which Salt wrote down, and then made a cross next to it.
‘What’s this all about?’ he asked as Salt neatly folded the paper and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Salt smiled, swigging down the rest of his ale.
Harold Salt departed the small village on his horse, taking the winding track back down to Sydney Town. He had not taken to the Australian countryside as he was a man who had lived his life in the smoggy confines of London and then Sydney, where he was at home amongst the alleys and mean streets, not the wide-open spaces and dense bushland.
*
Alice’s pregnancy was beginning to show, and Peter was worried about her. Alice had suffered one miscarriage already and he knew that she needed a specialist doctor to ensure that this pregnancy ran its full course. He had approached the military hierarchy in Delhi and put forward his case to return to England with his wife. Reluctant as they were to release their best army surgeon, they agreed, and another surgeon would be sent out from England to replace him.
Peter broke the good news to Alice in their quarters and was surprised at her reaction.
‘We have a place here,’ Alice said. ‘You have your surgery, and I know how much good you are doing – not only for the army but for the poor people of Delhi. I can have our baby here.’
‘I am not a missionary,’ Peter replied, rubbing his forehead in frustration. ‘My first concern is for your welfare in these difficult times. I insist that we return to London. As it is, my brother has been recalled by the East India Company to return to London to report on affairs here, so we would travel together.’
Alice sat down on a divan Peter had been able to purchase from a wealthy Indian merchant. ‘I suppose there is merit in what you argue,’ she sighed. ‘I must think of the welfare of our baby.’
Alice could not tell even her beloved husband that she feared her experiences in India had changed her forever. She had witnessed and experienced so much in this exotic and alien country, how would she be able to sit amongst her contemporaries in London’s lavish drawing rooms and feel anything in common with her cloistered, pampered friends? But she could see the deep concern in her husband’s face and knew that he, too, would miss the adventure of India – despite the fact he had also experienced so much death and destruction. She knew that India and the tiger would forever remain in her dreams – and sometimes in her nightmares.
‘We will return to London,’ she said finally.
*
Charles Forbes had hardly had a sound night’s sleep since the attempt on his life. He was haunted by a recurring nightmare that Jane Wilberforce had risen from the grave, armed with an Enfield rifled musket. Even those he knew from his club remarked on his health. He was losing weight and had the look of a haunted man.
Word had arrived that Samuel’s regiment was returning to England from India, and this added to his deep fears, as the man posing as his brother was a recognised war hero and dangerous enemy. Charles Forbes was a shadow of the arrogant and narcissistic man he had been.
It was over a hand of cards at his club that Charles confided to Clive Jenkins the attempt on his life weeks earlier.
‘Good God, man, you must report the matter to the police,’ Jenkins said.
‘I would rather leave the police out it for reasons of my own,’ Charles replied.
The news of the attempt on Charles’ life disturbed Jenkins because he was not responsible for it. As the two men played cards in the smoke-filled room, Jenkins found his mind reeling with one question. Who else wanted Charles Forbes dead?
*
In the far-flung colony of New South Wales, a horseman was riding towards Sydney to post a signed report to London. Harold Salt reckoned he was about halfway to Sydney and it was time to take a break and boil a billy of tea.
He tied his horse to a tree and went in search of small sticks to make his fire, and when he reached down to pick up some dry twigs beside a rotting log he felt something sharp strike his wrist. He stumbled back and intense pain set in almost immediately. He watched in horror as the big brown snake slithered over the rotting trunk of the fallen tree.
Holding his punctured wrist, he fell on his backside in terror. Harold knew why he hated the colonies of the Australian continent. Everything that crawled and slithered was deadly poisonous. He tried to rise to his feet but fell back, sweating profusely, weakened by panic and poison.
He lay on h
is back, gripping his wrist as the toxic venom surged through his body. He knew it was senseless to try to ride away. He would surely be dead before his horse had taken more than a few paces. He could hardly believe that he was going to die here, alone, surrounded by the damned eucalypts of this savage continent. He closed his eyes and dreamed of London, awaiting the inevitable.
Five days later, a traveller was drawn by the stench of rotting flesh to a blackened and bloated body. After taking anything of value and pulling a few personal papers from pockets, the traveller buried Harold Salt beside the track. He did not consider the papers to have any value, so he discarded them in the bush and then continued his journey to Sydney.
*
It was Christmas Day and the regiment began boarding their steamer at the busy Calcutta wharves. The atmosphere was euphoric amongst the battle-weary soldiers looking forward to being reunited with friends and family in London.
Ian and Conan stood on the dock supervising the company’s embarkation.
‘Festive greetings,’ Conan said. ‘Permission to have a smoke?’
‘Why not,’ Ian replied. ‘It’s Christmas Day, Sarn’t Major.’
Conan retrieved his battered pipe, plugged it with rough-cut tobacco and lit the bowl’s contents, puffing smoke into the humid breeze drifting across the waters.
‘When do we sail?’ Conan asked, gazing at the last of the red-coated soldiers climbing the gangplank.
‘As soon as we have taken aboard a party of civilians, I believe,’ Ian answered. ‘Then we depart for merry old England, but not in time for plum pudding and roast goose.’
‘In my opinion, the best Christmas gift is still being alive and getting out of here,’ Conan said. ‘But just as good would be sitting with Molly in the kitchen, sharing a port wine in front of the stove while the snow falls outside.’
‘I think you might still be in her bed if we were back in London,’ Ian grinned.
‘What about you, sir? What would you be doing if we were back in England?’ Conan asked, and the smile on Ian’s face faded.
‘No doubt I would be recovering from a heavy night of drinking and remembering the hot Christmas Days we spent back in New South Wales with my ma and da.’
‘There is no lady waiting for you when we return?’ Conan asked.
‘I am afraid not,’ Ian sighed. ‘No special gifts for Christmas this year.’
‘Ah, I see we may have company,’ Conan said, gazing at a small convoy of oxcarts arriving, and a carriage drawn by two Indian horses. Ian hardly took any notice, so deep was he in his melancholic thoughts.
‘Begorah!’ Conan exclaimed, catching Ian’s attention. ‘Sir, look who it is!’
Ian looked towards the carriage Conan was pointing to, and felt his heart almost stop beating in his chest. He gaped, blinking to make sure that he was seeing correctly.
The obviously pregnant woman was being helped from the carriage by a man Ian knew very well. Without hesitating, he strode up to the carriage.
‘Alice, Peter, how the devil are you?’ he asked, and saw Alice and Peter turn their heads towards him. Alice immediately burst into tears, and Peter quickly stepped forward, grasping Ian’s hand.
‘God almighty!’ Peter said, gripping Ian’s hand as if never to let it go. ‘Is it really you, old man?’
Alice pushed aside her husband to embrace Ian, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘Sam, I hardly dared believe we would meet again in this life,’ she sobbed. Ian noticed a tall and dashing major in Alice and Peter’s company.
‘My brother, Major Scott Campbell,’ Peter said. Ian saluted and Scott returned the salute before extending his hand. His other hand, Ian could see, was a wooden prosthesis.
‘Pleased to meet you, old chap,’ Scott said with a broad smile. ‘My brother has told me so many stories about you that I thought you might be his imaginary friend.’
‘Peter never told me about you,’ Ian grinned. ‘I suppose that is because you are obviously a cavalryman and not infantry.’
Christmas Day 1858, aboard the steamer departing Calcutta, turned out to be one of the happiest Ian could remember. They were even able to feast on a brace of roast duck, followed by tinned plum pudding and precious bottles of beer.
As the steamer plied the calm waters of the ocean late that night, Ian stood alone on the deck, leaning on the railing, smoking his last cigar. He gazed at the moon’s bright trail, reflecting on the importance of family and friends in his war-torn life. He knew what lay behind him, but he did not know what lay ahead. All he knew was that he was a commissioned officer in Queen Victoria’s army, destined to continue to fight her imperial wars until either he was killed in some backwater of the empire or completed his ten-year contract with the real Samuel Forbes.
*
It was cold. Snow fell gently onto the streets of London. The horse and coach came to a stop outside one of the tenements cloaked in the darkness of night. The appearance of such a grand coach in this part of London, where bank clerks, civil servants and moderately prosperous merchants lived, was a rare sight.
A young woman, swaddled in the warmth of expensive furs, stepped from the coach and went to the front door of the tenement while her coach driver waited atop his seat.
She glanced around before knocking on the door, which was opened by a burly man she knew well.
‘Miss Ella, come in,’ Egbert said, opening the door to her.
Ella stepped inside the warmth of the modest tenement house, shaking off the cold from outside.
‘Can the missus make you a cup of tea?’ Egbert asked politely.
‘Thank you, Bert,’ Ella replied, ‘but I must not be long away from home. I have come to see my baby.’
‘Just come with me,’ Egbert said, and Ella followed him into a small room where his wife sat by a baby’s cot. Meg was in her late thirties and still retained some of the beauty of her youth.
‘The little fellow is in fine health,’ she said, turning to Ella. ‘He is a bonny baby.’
Ella stepped forward to gaze down at the face of the baby in the cot and felt as if her heart would burst with the pain she was suffering for her loss. Without asking, Ella reached down to cradle the sleeping baby in her arms, tears welling in her eyes.
‘Does your father know you are here?’ Egbert asked nervously.
‘He does not,’ Ella replied, gazing into the face of the child she and Ian had created, and who had been taken from her in the first hour after his birth. Her father had bitterly suggested to her that the baby’s father was a man he knew as Ian Steele and, fearing Ikey’s reaction and the potential consequences for Ian, Ella had denied it. She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not.
Exhausted from the labour, Ella had asked to see her baby. Her memory of the moments after the birth were hazy but someone had taken the child from her and left her alone in the room with her father. Ikey told her that the baby had been weak and sickly and had stopped breathing suddenly. The doctor confirmed her father’s story and said that the tiny corpse had already been taken away. Ella instinctively knew that the two men were lying, but she was too weak to do anything about it. She wondered whether her father had smothered the infant, but prayed he would not commit such a crime. She had heard rumours that her father had ordered men killed, but she also knew he had a reputation for protecting women and children.
Within a couple of days Ella had recuperated enough to leave the bed and she played a hunch. Just after the birth of her baby she had noticed Egbert hovering in the background.
Ella had cornered the tough and burly employee and pleaded with him to tell her what had happened to her baby.
Egbert had always cared for Ella; he had witnessed her grow from a child to a beautiful young woman. He felt paternal towards her and could not bear to see her so distressed so he admitted that the baby boy was in the care of him and his wife, Meg. Eg
bert explained that her father had passed the baby to them as he knew Egbert and Meg did not have a child of their own, and he had promised he would provide financial support for the little family.
Egbert knew from his many years with Ikey that the big man had a soft heart – despite his fearsome exterior. He had agreed to include Ella in the infant’s world but had made her swear on pain of his own demise to keep their connection a secret. Ikey might have a soft heart but he did not stand for his orders being disobeyed.
Ella knew she could not oppose her powerful father and was content for the moment to be able to visit her baby. Now she crooned to the baby in her arms, wondering how the future would unfold for them both.
‘Have you given him a name?’ Ella asked.
‘No, not yet,’ Meg replied.
‘I would like him to be called Josiah,’ Ella said. ‘Like my baby’s father, Josiah was a great warrior.’
‘It is a fine name,’ Egbert said as Ella gently placed the swaddled baby back in the cot.
Ella stumbled from Egbert’s tenement, tears streaking her face. For Christians the following day would mark the birth of their prophet, Jesus. Ella wondered if the man she had loved and lost had survived his war in India. And if he had, how would he react to learning that he was a father? But Ella also knew there was little chance that the man she had loved would ever discover the truth.
Epilogue
1859
Spring had come to the fields and farms of England. Fruit trees were flowering and lambs were being born, but in the city of London the stench of industrialisation still lingered in the warm air.
Outside the great synagogue at Aldergate the small crowd did not allow the acrid smell to spoil their enjoyment of the occasion. Weddings always attracted a crowd, and this one was special as the daughter of a well-known and colourful businessman was marrying a handsome Russian count.
