The Sepoy Mutiny

by V. A. Stuart

  Never robust, Lawrence now looked alarmingly frail, his tall body thin to the point of emaciation. Haggard and careworn, his wasted cheeks were deeply lined, and his eyes, beneath their massive, craggy brows, had sunk far into his head, bloodshot and fever-bright, as if he had been for too long without sufficient sleep. His thinning hair and the small, untidy chin-beard he wore had both turned from grey to white, making him appear much older than his 53 years—an impression enhanced by the careless shabbiness of his ill-fitting evening suit, which hung on him as though it had been tailored, a long time ago, for someone else.

  He could still radiate much of his old charm, however, and over dinner—a badly cooked and somewhat muddled meal—he set himself to put his guests’ fears at rest and to inspire them, instead, with his own confidence and faith in the future. Talk was inevitably of the signs and symptoms of impending trouble but Sir Henry, always a brilliant conversationalist, while neither evading nor making light of the issue, contrived to introduce a note of optimism and soon smiling faces surrounded him and laughter rang out across the long, candlelit table.

  “Our preparations are well advanced,” he reminded his listeners. “And they are being made without the knowledge of the sepoys whose loyalty, until the last, I shall do all that is humanly possible to ensure. I shall not provoke them, and—unless I receive clear proof that they intend to break out in open mutiny—I shall neither disarm nor disband their regiments, thus offering them no excuse for betrayal. If, despite every endeavour, a situation should develop when we must defend ourselves against them, then trusting in God’s infinite mercy, we shall do so. All the women, the children and the sick will be moved into the Residency, in which provisions for up to a three months’ siege have been stored. We have an adequate store of arms and ammunition—including cannon—a good supply of drinking water and medical necessities, and work on fortified positions is fast approaching completion. We also have a well-trained Queen’s regiment, under Colonel Inglis, to man our defenses. So until reinforcements are sent to us—which surely will be only a matter of weeks—I am satisfied that we can more than hold our own with, perhaps, some slight discomfort for you ladies, but without serious danger to our lives.”

  Murmurs of approval and relief greeted his brief speech, although one or two of the officers, Alex noticed, were frowning and the financial commissioner, Martin Gubbins, looked as if he were about to challenge at least one of the chief commissioner’s statements. He was a clever, forceful man, who held strong opinions and who had frequently engaged in acrimonious differences with Lawrence’s predecessor, Mr Coverley Jackson. But when Sir Henry turned the warmth of his smile on him, Gubbins shrugged and remained silent. The conversation, adroitly steered into less controversial channels by their host, became general and, when the ladies rose to leave the gentlemen to their port, the mood of the whole party was one of mutual goodwill and considerable cheerfulness.

  “We must not linger for too long, gentlemen,” Sir Henry announced, as the port decanter began its round. “Miss Arbuthnot has promised to sing for us and that is a pleasure I’m looking forward to—the young lady has a glorious voice.”

  Martin Gubbins gave vent to an audible sighl. “I appreciate the efforts you are making to put the ladies in good heart, Sir Henry,” he said impatiently. “You succeeded most admirably this evening. But we are men and we should face up to the ugly truth … which is that there’s not a single one of the sepoy regiments in this garrison we dare trust. The 7th Irregulars are talking quite openly of murdering their officers—the only thing they haven’t said is when! And the rest are almost as bad. The officers who are required to sleep in the lines are taking their lives in their hands night after night, and they’re too far away for help to reach them in time if they need it. Come to that, of course, so are we, with your regiment billeted a mile and a half away. Damn it, we’re at the mercy of the native guard this very minute!”

  “The 13th Native Infantry have shown no sign of disaffection to my knowledge,” Sir Henry answered mildly. “I prefer to complete my preparations quietly, and offer no provocation which might precipitate a mutiny.”

  “Suppose we’re attacked without warning? We could quite easily be and—”

  “No, Martin,” the chief commissioner asserted, with calm conviction. “We shall be given ample warning—I’ve made sure of that. Come now, my dear fellow”—he pushed a silver cigar box across the table—“light one of these and let us try to relax and enjoy ourselves. I can arrange a table of whist, if you would prefer that to listening to Miss Arbuthnot.”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement but Martin Gubbins refused to be placated. “I cannot relax and I most certainly cannot enjoy myself with disaster staring me in the face,” he protested. “More especially when there is a means by which the danger could be averted—a simple, perfectly straightforward solution to our problem, if only I could persuade you to agree to it, Sir Henry.”

  “And what is your solution, sir?” one of the Native Infantry officers asked, before Sir Henry could intervene.

  “Why, to disarm every sepoy regiment in the garrison or, better still, disband the lot of them and send the men back to their villages! We’ve got a British regiment and enough artillery to enable us to do it, haven’t we?” Gubbins glared at Colonel Inglis. “That’s if your regiment is here for our protection which, at times, I take leave to doubt.” His tone was deliberately offensive and Alex, seated opposite Colonel Inglis, saw him flush angrily.

  “I assure you it is, sir,” he began stiffly. “But if you doubt my word, then I—”

  “Gentlemen!” Sir Henry did not raise his voice. “Have done, I beg you. You know quite well, Martin, that the colonel is acting in accordance with the policy I have advocated. It is not one I advocate from choice, believe me.”

  “Then in God’s name, sir, why adhere to it?” Gubbins demanded aggressively.

  “Because,” Sir Henry told him, still in the same quiet, courteous tone, “as you may have forgotten, I am chief commissioner not merely for Lucknow but for the whole of Oudh, in which capacity I am responsible for every district and out-station throughout the area. In none of these are there British troops—only a handful of civil and military officers, with their wives and families. They cannot disarm the native troops in their garrisons—their very lives depend on keeping their men pacified. It is my considered view that were news to reach these isolated stations that, here in Lucknow, we had disbanded our native regiments, nothing is more certain than that every sepoy in the Province would rise in open and murderous revolt. The alternative, which is to bring in the officers and their families, is at once impossible and unthinkable at the present time. I have no force available to send out to guard their retreat—unless I denude Lucknow. In any event, my dear Martin, to recall them from their posts now would be to abandon Oudh to anarchy and chaos, which none of us would survive.”

  A shocked silence followed this stark and realistic assessment of the situation. The officers glanced at one another through the smoke of their cigars and then away, none able to challenge the unpleasant conclusions Lawrence had drawn, but all finding them unpalatable. Even Martin Gubbins appeared deflated and, after a few moments’ hesitation, he mumbled an apology.

  Sir Henry accepted it graciously. “I think,” he said, “that it may well be necessary to disarm the 7th Irregulars. To do so may serve as a warning to the others—I hope it will.” He turned to Alex and added unexpectedly, “Captain Sheridan has this day come from Cawnpore. Tell us, my dear boy, what Sir Hugh Wheeler has decided to do? He is, of course—like those in the out-stations—in no position to disarm his sepoy regiments, for he is heavily outnumbered. He has, I think, fewer than two hundred European soldiers in his garrison, of whom a number are invalids.”

  Alex nodded in tight-lipped confirmation. “He has also a large number of women and children, sir. But he told me that he has sent urgently for reinforcements and that he expects them to reach him fairly soon.”
>
  “He has an excellent defensive position in the Cawnpore magazine,” Major Bankes pointed out. “Better by far than any building we have here. Nearly three acres, enclosed by strong walls, with the river guarding one front, a good well and, of course, a more than adequate supply of guns and munitions. If he provisions the magazine and removes his entire white garrison—including the women and children—within its walls, he should be able to hold out indefinitely should the need arise.”

  Alex hesitated. General Wheeler had talked of building an entrenchment on the open plain, outside the city and on its southeast side, where he would be close to the road by which his expected reinforcements would come. But his senior officers had, almost without exception, urged him to reconsider, most of them subscribing to the view just expressed by Major Bankes—if it came to a siege, the magazine would be the best place in which to make a stand.

  “When I parted with the general last night, sir,” he said, “no decision had been reached, except that …”

  Meeting Sir Henry’s gaze and being given an almost imperceptible headshake, he broke off but Martin Gubbins finished the sentence for him. “Except that, in the event of trouble from the sepoys, Wheeler intends to call upon his trusted friend the Nana Sahib for aid—isn’t that what he’s decided? Come, Sheridan, you’re not always so careful what you say!”

  Alex reddened, as Colonel Inglis had done, affronted by the financial commissioner’s hectoring tone but before he could reply to the taunt, Sir Henry got to his feet.

  “Let us join the ladies,” he suggested firmly. “We have already kept them waiting far too long for their evening’s entertainment.”

  It was a little after midnight when his guests departed and, as his A. D. C. had predicted, Alex was invited to smoke a final cigar with him on the roof of the Residency. There, leaning against the Italian balustrade which surrounded it and looking out over the moonlit city, Sir Henry listened in pensive silence to his report.

  “Things are worse in Adjodhabad since you left, Alex,” his old chief told him sadly. “From what I hear Colonel Chalmers’ Irregular Horse are indulging in arson almost nightly. Like the 7th, they ought to be disarmed but ...” He sighed despondently. “You told Tom Wilson that you encountered the Moulvi of Fyzabad on your way here, I believe. Did you speak to him?”

  “Yes, I did, sir, at some length.” Alex repeated the gist of their conversation and saw a glint of anger in his host’s tired eyes.

  “And he told you he was coming here? That is a pity; he’s a dangerous agitator—I would as soon harbor a man-eating tiger! But I fear it’s no use attempting to arrest him … disarming the 7th would cause less provocation than putting that man in jail, as matters stand at present. We shall simply have to do our best to counter his lies. My durbar may help in that direction, although I dare entertain no serious hope that it will.” Sir Henry started to pace slowly up and down. “I suppose,” he said, reverting to Martin Gubbins’ earlier remarks at dinner, “Mr Gubbins was right concerning Sir Hugh Wheeler? He does continue to place his trust in the Nana? And he is still determined to call on the Bithur troops to guard his magazine, instead of provisioning it for defense by the garrison?”

  “That was the impression I received, sir,” Alex confessed. He described General Wheeler’s projected entrenchment. “His officers are against the plan and, as I said at table, the general has not yet reached a decision.”

  “I have urged him repeatedly not to rely on the Nana,” Sir Henry said. “And so, even more forcibly, has Mr Gubbins! I did not want to add fuel to the flames of his indignation this evening, Alex, that was why I stopped you in mid-sentence. But I admit that I am anxious. Wheeler is not under my command, so I cannot order him to reject the Nana’s overtures. Neither can I insist that he should make use of the magazine as a citadel, although I would consider it infinitely safer than hastily constructed earthworks on flat ground, exposed to the full heat of the sun, with—what? A few brick barrack blocks, thatched with straw, affording the only shelter for upwards of five hundred Europeans, many of them women! Dear heaven! Let us pray that he never has to resort to it, that’s all I can say. If reinforcements reach him within the next few weeks, all should be well. You say he’s confident that they will?”

  “He appeared to be, sir. He said they had been promised.”

  “H’m. And you have left your wife there, have you not?”

  “Temporarily, sir, that’s all,” Alex said. “She is to leave for Calcutta in a day or two, with her sister, who is the wife of young Harry Stirling. He has been appointed to the Governor-General’s Bodyguard and is awaiting orders to proceed to Calcutta. I felt it wiser, in view of Emmy’s condition—the baby is due in a couple of months, sir—to persuade her to go with the Stirlings. She was exceedingly reluctant, of course, but as I told you in my letter, I am ordered to Meerut and—”

  “Ah, yes!” Sir Henry crushed out his cigar and came to lean once more on the balustrade, staring with furrowed brows to where, behind the imposing bulk of the Machi Bhawan, the River Gumti flowed placidly beneath the two bridges which spanned it on either side of the palace wall. In the distance, from the Mariaon Cantonments, three miles north of the river, a thin, flame-tinged cloud of smoke rose skywards, to be followed swiftly by a second and a third. “Arson,” the chief commissioner observed wearily. “I shall have to consider moving a detachment of the 32nd Foot into the Machi Bhawan, I suppose, to discourage such demonstrations here.” He sighed. “Where were we, Alex?”

  “I told you that I have been ordered to Meerut, sir.”

  “And you would like me to have those orders revoked, I imagine. You would like me to send you back to Adjodhabad—from whence, needless to say, I should never have removed you! Is that right, Alex?”

  “I hoped it might be for some such reason that you sent for me, sir,” Alex answered truthfully. “But if there is any other way in which you require me to serve you, I am yours to command.”

  Sir Henry’s lined face relaxed in a smile of singular warmth and affection. “Thank you, my dear boy—that’s what I expected you to say. Perhaps, had you been permitted to remain in charge at Adjodhabad, you might have saved something from the wreckage but now, I fear, there would be little you could do. Your friend Colonel Chalmers has had the bit between his teeth for too long! Adjodhabad is one of the isolated stations of which we spoke at dinner, where every European is in danger now. I’ll send you back, if you wish, but I should in all probability be sending you to your death … and I could make better use of you here.” He laid a thin hand on Alex’s braided sleeve. “As a cavalry commander, I should count myself fortunate to have the services of a veteran of Balaclava, Alex.”

  “I’d be honored to serve under you, sir,” Alex assured him eagerly. “But—”

  “You are wondering what cavalry I shall have for you to command, no doubt,” Sir Henry put in ruefully. “Well, it will have to be a scratch force, composed of civilian volunteers, unemployed officers and those native officers and men whose loyalty is beyond question … and I do not propose to begin recruiting them yet, for various reasons. Mainly because I believe we have a little time still—a few weeks, at worst.”

  His own view coincided with this and Alex nodded. “Do you think that they will wait for the anniversary of Plassey, sir?” he asked. “For a general uprising, I mean?”

  Sir Henry Lawrence resumed his slow, measured pacing. “I think that is the plan. The reports I have had from spies seem to confirm it but there are signs—too numerous to be discounted—that there may be spontaneous outbreaks before then. Where provocation is offered, I’m convinced that we must expect trouble.” He went into detail and then said, his smile returning, “I have every confidence that the Sikhs will support us, and my brother—who is in a better position to judge—has assured me that they will. There’s no love lost between those who fought in the Khalsa Army and the high-caste Hindu sepoys, who have treated them so arrogantly during the time they have garrisoned the Pun
jab.” Again he gave details, to which Alex listened with rising spirits, never for a moment doubting the validity of his reasoning. No one knew the Punjab better than Henry Lawrence, who had been its first chief commissioner, and no one—not even his brother John, who was its present ruler—had a more profound knowledge of the Sikh character.

  “It would be ironic, sir,” Alex suggested, when the tired old voice lapsed into silence, “if we were to find ourselves recruiting an army from the Punjab for the purpose of putting down a mutiny in that of Bengal!”

  “Ironic, perhaps, but a strong probability nonetheless,” Sir Henry asserted. “Indeed, it may well be that the Punjab will save India for us. I think that …” he broke off, as a fit of coughing seized him and Alex was shocked to see, when the spasm passed, that the handkerchief he had been holding to his lips was heavily stained with blood. “You did not know?” his old chief asked gently, meeting his alarmed gaze.

  “No, sir. I thought you looked ill but—”

  “I am sick unto death, my dear Alex. But I hope that, by God’s mercy, I may live long enough to see an end to this terrible threat which is hanging over our heads.”

  “Amen to that, sir,” Alex said, a catch in his voice and his heart suddenly heavy.

  “I am tired,” Henry Lawrence confessed. “Were it not for the present crisis I should ask nothing more of my Maker than to be allowed to join my beloved Honoria. But as it is …” he passed a hand through his sparse white locks. “There is much to be done before I can find the eternal rest I long for. Don’t mention the state of my health to anyone, Alex. Those who have a right to know have been informed, of course.”