The Maharajah's General

by Collard, Paul Fraser

‘Danbury! Catch!’ She drew back her arm, tossing the beleaguered captain a lifeline, praying that she had acted in time to save him.

  The silver metal of the revolver flashed once in the sun as Isabel’s throw sent it spinning through the air. Jack flung the stump of his broken sword towards the black-robed figure, freeing his hands of the now useless weapon. He snatched at the tiny revolver, snapping it from the air, the sharp metal stinging his hand. Without pause he brought his arm around, pointing the gun straight at the face of the man about to kill him. His thumb slid over the back of the finely crafted weapon, cocking the hammer, readying it to fire.

  The heavily bearded face loomed over the simple sight at the end of the revolver’s barrel. At such close range Jack knew he could not miss, and he felt a surge of savage joy as he pulled the trigger.

  Instead of the crash of gunpowder igniting, there was nothing but an impotent click. Isabel’s precious revolver had failed to fire.

  The black-robed figure sheathed his sword. He took a pace backwards before disdainfully turning away from the man who had come so close to killing him.

  Jack dropped the useless pistol, letting it fall from his hand as he felt defeat swamp him. He stood mute, watching the savage mob race down the slope towards him. The bandits circled around, their blades threatening, but none was willing to be the first to strike. Their leader flicked a gauntleted hand in Jack’s direction, a curt word of command putting an end to the impasse. A swarthy figure took a pace forward, hefting a heavy club. Without a word he slammed it into the back of Jack’s head, bludgeoning him to the ground.

  The darkness swallowed his soul. Jack felt its cold embrace, its touch as delicate and as jealous as a lover’s. He did not fight it as once he had. Instead he welcomed it, submitting to it with the grace of a maiden bride on her marriage bed. There was no fear in giving in. Just relief. He faced the blackness and willed it to take him.

  But the darkness rejected him, thrusting him away, throwing him towards the distant light. Jack screamed inwardly with frustration as he felt the icy tendrils release him, forcing him to return to the place that terrified him most.

  Jack opened his eyes. At first it was hard to tell if they were truly open or not. He could feel a hard stone floor under his body, its dampness soaking into his clothes. He could smell mould and decay, the stench of unwashed bodies and animal waste thick in his nostrils. He tasted the staleness of the air, the cold, dead flavour of the dark.

  ‘Danbury?’

  The voice startled him. His name was spoken in no more than a whisper but there was no mistaking its owner. Isabel Youngsummers had sensed him stirring and called to him, summoning him back to the world he had so dearly wished to leave.

  ‘Danbury, are you awake?’

  Jack’s cramped and aching muscles protested as he started to move. He forced himself to sit, finally coming truly alive, belatedly starting to take stock of his surroundings.

  There was little for his eyes to focus on. The room had been hacked into rock, the walls still bearing the marks of the simple tools that had been used to gouge and scrape the space from the hard ground. A single door was shut tight, the small window in its centre barred with thick metal columns, each crusted with rust. The window was the only source of light, a single torch that burnt just outside the door casting forbidding shadows into the depths of the fetid space.

  ‘Danbury! Thank God.’ Isabel’s relief was clear. ‘We thought you might be dead.’

  ‘You may soon wish that were the case.’

  Jack heard the second voice and turned his head, his neck complaining as it jarred with the movement. The Reverend Youngsummers sat slumped against the wall to his right.

  ‘It is good to see you, Danbury, but I fear you may have preferred it were you not to have woken.’ Youngsummers sobbed as he finished speaking, an anguished wail escaping his thick lips. ‘We are doomed.’

  ‘Papa!’ Isabel’s hands lifted to her face, hiding the sight of her father’s distress.

  ‘Dear God, why are you doing this to me?’ Youngsummers pushed himself forward and on to his knees. He raised his arms to the ceiling as he beseeched his God, lamenting his bitter fate. ‘Why submit me to this torture? Why have you forsaken your loyal servant? Why?’ He fell silent, his head bowed so that his thick chin rested on his chest, his corpulent frame rocking with the motion of his sobs.

  ‘What happened?’ Jack spoke for the first time, his voice thick with phlegm. He spat hard, careless of the look of disgust on the Reverend’s tear-streaked face.

  Youngsummers slumped back into his former position, exhausted by his pitiful plea.

  ‘They’ve kept us alive because of the colour of our skin.’ The clergyman spoke in the exhausted voice of a dying man. ‘So that they can torture us.’

  ‘Don’t be such a fool, Papa,’ Isabel snapped. Her eyes flashed with the same look of defiance Jack had seen when they were first ambushed. ‘They’ve kept us alive because they believe we have value. They will think to ransom us. We cannot lose hope.’

  ‘Hope!’ Youngsummers wailed the word. ‘Do you not see, daughter? God has forsaken me. He has given me up to the godless. He has abandoned me.’

  ‘Papa! Do not speak like that. We are alive.’

  ‘Isabel is right.’ Jack spoke, silencing father and daughter. They both turned to face him, looking to him for guidance. ‘They have kept us alive because we have value to them. What happened to the men?’

  ‘Dead. All dead. They butchered them.’ Youngsummers relished the words, finding strength in the suffering of others.

  ‘They died fighting,’ Isabel corrected her father. ‘They fought hard. As did you, Danbury.’

  Jack took no pleasure in hearing Isabel’s praise. ‘We lost. We should have fought harder.’

  ‘That is a foolish thing to say. Against so many there was nothing more you could do.’

  Jack’s brow furrowed as he looked at Isabel. ‘I am not so sure.’

  ‘So what will happen to us?’ asked Isabel, her voice timid. She sounded very much like the frightened little girl she really was.

  ‘They will kill us!’ Youngsummers interrupted. ‘These blackguards have no qualms. They are godless scum and they will slaughter us without a thought.’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Jack injected some snap into his tone. It was the voice of an officer, one that was used to being obeyed.

  Youngsummers opened his mouth to object before a look at the hard eyes of the British captain silenced him.

  ‘We are alive,’ Jack continued. ‘If they wanted us dead they would have killed us on the spot. I doubt these fellows know much of patience. Isabel is right. They will try to ransom us.’

  Isabel nodded as she listened intently to his words. Her father was not so calm.

  ‘You know nothing of these people, least of all what they will do to us.’ Youngsummers looked at his daughter, licking his lips nervously before leaning closer to Jack. ‘I fear for my daughter’s chastity.’ The words were said in a whisper, a furtive look on the Reverend’s face.

  ‘They will have to kill me first.’

  Youngsummers snorted his derision at Jack’s bold claim. ‘I am sure they would not find that so difficult, Danbury. How can you speak of fighting?’

  Jack grinned. ‘Because I’m redcoat. It’s what we do.’

  ‘Spoken like a fool.’ Youngsummers’ jowls creased in irritation.

  ‘Be careful who you call a fool, Reverend.’

  Youngsummers raised a trembling finger and pointed it towards Jack’s heart. ‘You, sir, you are a fool if you think your precious pride matters one bit. I call you a fool, for you speak foolish words.’

  Jack felt a spark of temper but he bit his tongue. He had learnt to curb his emotion when confronted by bombastic buffoons.

  The Reverend Yo
ungsummers knew no such forbearance. ‘You are the reason we are here! It is you who is to blame for our incarceration at the hands of those godless barbarians.’ His fear added fuel to his tongue. ‘You were ordered to protect us. And you failed, Danbury. You failed! I face a martyr’s death because you could not obey that simple instruction! It is your fault. Yours! You are a disgrace!’

  Youngsummers fell silent, his rage spent. His pudgy hands smothered his face as the tears came, his body rocking back and forth, his distress overwhelming him.

  Isabel had sat in shocked silence as her father broke down. Her whey-coloured face revealed her anguish, her self-control eroding when she heard the horror in her father’s voice, his certainty that they faced death taking a grip on her heart.

  Jack smiled as he looked at her, yet she simply stared back at him, her eyes wide with terror.

  ‘Your father is right. I am a disgrace.’ He spoke in the even tones of a father reading a night-time story to calm his child’s fear of the darkness, his words intended to calm and soothe. ‘But I meant what I said. I shall die trying to protect you. I promise.’

  He offered the promise willingly and he meant every word. He did not fear death. It was life that terrified him.

  ‘For the love of heaven. It has begun. They are coming for me!’ Reverend Youngsummers greeted the sudden burst of noise with horror.

  ‘Be quiet.’ Jack snapped the command as his ears strained to hear. It had been a long night, the silence that had lapsed over the prisoners wearing at Jack’s patience. He guessed that it was not yet dawn, but trapped in the gloomy prison he had no real notion of the passage of time. Now something had awoken to shatter the quiet, and Jack was in no mood to be gentle on the pessimistic doomsayer.

  He moved quickly so he could peer out of the door’s single window. His order had silenced Youngsummers, who fell back into morose silence, slumping against the wall in resignation.

  ‘What is it?’ Isabel had risen lithely to her feet and now she pressed against Jack’s shoulder as she tried to see movement outside their dank prison.

  The noise came again. It sounded like a child running a stick down a line of metal railings. It came in bursts, each louder than the previous, before dying out, the silence pressing back so that they felt they had surely been mistaken, that nothing stirred to disturb the black nothingness of the night.

  Then the shouting started, the frightened bellows of men waking to chaos, and the silence disappeared under a bewildering hubbub of sound as the rabble that had defeated the small band of British sepoys arose to confusion. The crackle of gunfire underscored the panic, its staccato rhythm increasing in tempo to match the bedlam it had created.

  Jack could feel Isabel’s breath on the nape of his neck, the warmth at once soothing and stimulating. He could sense her body trembling, her breathing quicker as she too heard the sudden bursts of gunfire, her fear and her hope rising in equal measure.

  ‘What is it?’ She raised her hand, placing it on Jack’s shoulder as she sought reassurance. ‘Is it a rescue?’

  Jack’s breath caught in his throat as he felt Isabel’s fingers press into the muscles of his shoulder. ‘It’s gunfire. But it’s not ours.’ Her hand felt as if it was on fire, her flesh burning into his skin even through the thick layers of his uniform.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘There are no regular volleys, and the firing is too erratic even for skirmishers.’ Jack turned his head so he could look at Isabel. He could smell the faded perfume she had applied the previous morning, the sweet aroma still intoxicating. ‘I don’t know who it is.’

  A sudden scrabble of footsteps saved Jack from further questioning. There were enough blazing torches rammed into ancient wall brackets to allow him to make out what has happening in the corridor outside. It bent to the right, so he could see no more than a few feet, but the noise was unmistakable. Someone was rushing towards the damp cell that had become their prison.

  He was certain that the sudden gunfire meant that the bandits’ camp was under attack. He was equally sure that someone would remember the hostages, even in the midst of the sudden melee. It would take but a quick word of command to dispatch a few men to quickly dispose of the three English prisoners, and he felt his heart lurch as he realised the danger that was surely hurtling towards them.

  He pushed Isabel to one side, thinking to shield her from the assault, taking up a position to block any intruder’s entrance to the room. The footsteps sounded loud in the corridor. More than one man was heading their way.

  Jack caught a glimpse of shadowy figures rushing down the corridor before the door was thumped hard. The sharp scrape of metal was loud in the small room, a rusty iron lock grating as it was wrenched open. He was tensing himself to fight when a desperate notion came to him. He spun on the spot, pushing Isabel in front of him and throwing himself towards the murkiest corner of the room, into what he hoped were the darkest of the shadows.

  Youngsummers lurched to his feet as he saw his daughter propelled towards mortal danger.

  ‘You blackguard!’ The protest burst out as the door was thrown open to crash back on its hinges.

  Isabel screamed at the sight of two armed men, their drawn swords flickering in the dull light that had belatedly reached the darkened room. Youngsummers blundered forward, reaching for his daughter’s arm, the rush of courage pitching him directly into the path of the men sent to kill them.

  The first man’s eyes darted around the room, searching for danger. He saw the thin young girl who shrieked as if the devil himself were arriving to claim her soul. He saw too the fat man who staggered into his path, his foreign words echoing loudly in the confined space. He did not see the third prisoner, the white-faced officer who had fought with such ferocity that afternoon.

  The second man held back, reluctant to enter the darkened room, using his companion’s body as a shield.

  Jack launched himself from the darkness, screaming like a banshee as he lashed out at the leading bandit. He smashed his fist into the centre of the man’s face before driving his left hand into the side of his head, cracking his fist against the hard skull.

  His victim crumpled, bludgeoned by the unexpected assault, his sword clattering to the ground as it fell from his nerveless grip. Jack bent and snatched up the fallen weapon, whipping the blade through the air, turning to face the second man.

  Isabel screamed at the sudden, shocking violence. Jack ignored her terror and slashed his stolen sword forward, forcing the second would-be killer to parry. He struck again, punching an opening in his opponent’s defence, a visceral shout of anger escaping his lips. As he prepared to thrust his blade home, Youngsummers rushed past, bellowing in fear and knocking against Jack’s arm, spoiling the killing stroke. The clumsy clergyman stumbled away, heedless of his actions, thinking of nothing more than reaching the darkest corner of the room.

  The bandit seized on the sudden reprieve and counterattacked, coming at Jack with a quick series of blows that drove him backwards. In the darkness it was hard to see the fast-moving blade, and Jack was reduced to a desperate defence as he tried to keep the enemy’s sword at bay.

  ‘Lord, save me!’ Youngsummers shrieked as the pair came close to his sanctuary. In his terror he lashed out with his feet, catching the bandit on the calf. The blow was no more powerful than a child’s but it made the would-be killer stumble. Jack saw the talwar drop and launched himself forward. His sword took the bandit in the throat. The blade drove deep, tearing away the man’s life in a rush of blood, killing him in a heartbeat.

  ‘Danbury, look out!’ Isabel screamed the warning as the first attacker stumbled to his feet, snatching a thin dagger from within the folds of his black robes.

  Jack threw himself around to face the new threat, ripping his sword free so that blood and scraps of flesh were torn from the wound and flung far into the room.
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  The surviving bandit was slow. Jack’s ferocious assault had left him dazed and hurting. Yet he saw the attack coming and lurched backwards so that Jack’s blade whirled past, the tip of the sword whispering no more than a hair’s breadth from his bloodied face. With an incoherent shriek he bounded forward, his wrist locked so that he could drive his dagger deep into his enemy.

  Jack saw the razor-sharp blade reaching for him. In desperation he flung his left hand forward, locking it tight on to the other man’s wrist. He could feel the muscles pulsing under his grasping fingers, the sinews in the flesh twisting as his opponent tried to free himself.

  The bandit slammed his free hand forward, smacking Jack hard on the side of the head, trying to knock him backwards. Jack’s head rang from the blow but somehow he held on, his fingers digging into the other man’s wrist. His sword arm was trapped between their two bodies, so he let his blade go and pulled his right hand free, bracing himself to strike back.

  He saw the man’s lip curl in a snarl of animal anger, his teeth stained red with his own blood. The bandit spat at Jack and used both hands to try to wrestle the dagger away from the man he had been sent to kill, cursing the firangi officer who refused to die.

  Jack felt the strength in the man’s arms as they fought for control of the blade. He knew he had only moments before he lost his hold on the dagger. But his right hand was now free and he thrust it forward and grabbed his attacker by the balls. The man screamed in agony as Jack took hold, twisting his hand, his fingers digging in like claws, the flesh tearing under his grip. The bandit let out an inhuman shriek and let go of the dagger, both his hands scrabbling to free himself from the agony.

  Jack snatched the dagger from the air. He had a moment to register the look of horror in his enemy’s eyes before he buried the sharpened blade deep into the man’s heart.

  The bandit looked down in astonishment to see his own knife sticking out of his chest, blood coursing down its length. His fingers clutched at the weapon, his face set in a look of astonishment and bitter reproach.