The Sepoy Mutiny

by V. A. Stuart

  “Sukh Lal, Sahib.” The boy smiled. “I can ride, Sahib, and I should like to serve you.”

  “Have you the permission of your father to leave your village?”

  “I have no father, Sahib, and no work here, save when travelers come and then I help with their horses, for which sometimes they pay me a few pice. I am fifteen and,” the smile faded, “I am hungry, Sahib. But do not worry, I will earn my keep.”

  The last assertion was probably true, Alex thought pityingly, although he was certainly not fifteen. “Very well,” he said. “I will employ you. But only until we are able to find a man.”

  The boy grinned cheekily. “You will find no man to work better than I, Sahib, you will see. I shall be with you in Meerut. And I,” he darted a sidelong glance at Partap Singh, “I will not permit the Sahib’s horses to be stolen!”

  He made good his boast during the next week, cheerfully doing the work of two men. It was a weary but uneventful journey, the relentless heat compelling them to travel for the most part during the hours of darkness and in the early morning and to find what rest they could by day. They encountered no footpads or dacoit bands and, once the Oudh border was left behind, the risk of any such encounter appreciably lessened, but there was more traffic on the road and long trains of crawling bullock carts and grunting, overloaded camels constantly impeded their progress, even at night.

  Alex, stiff and saddle-sore, regretted the loss of the splendid Sultan with each mile he traveled. The hard-mouthed, evil-tempered animal Ismail Khan had abandoned was an uncomfortable ride, badly mannered and responsive only to the spur. There were times when he was tempted to accept Partap Singh’s offer to exchange mounts, if only in order to afford relief to his aching arm and leg muscles for a few hours. But he persisted obstinately, unwilling to be beaten, and the thin brown horse, partly as a result of better feeding and the care Sukh Lal lavished on him, began to improve and become more tractable.

  Alex had half-expected Ismail Khan to come in pursuit of him. It would not have been difficult for the man to learn of the mistake he had made, particularly if he had friends in the village near the dak bungalow, where the inhabitants would no doubt still be agog over the death of the ill-fated Bunnia. But when two days had passed with neither sight nor sound of a pursuer, he decided—almost regretfully—that this was the end of the matter, at least until he returned to Oudh.

  He had at first suspected an ulterior motive behind the murderous attack, but Ismail Khan, it seemed, had only wanted Sultan. No doubt he had cast covetous eyes on the horse when he had been in the Residency stables, and had wantonly killed two men in order to get what he wanted. Now that he had done so, it was evidently of no importance to him whether the owner of the horse were dead or alive. Had it been, he must surely have made some attempt to rectify his error. Instead, he had vanished, and Sultan with him, like any common thief … which, Alex told himself wryly, at least cleared the ex-sowar of complicity in some more sinister plot, aimed to prevent him from reaching Meerut with the letters Sir Henry Lawrence had charged him to deliver. Although these, heaven knew, would have provided motive enough for half a dozen hired assassins to follow his trail. George Cooper had not exaggerated when he had described them as dangerous documents, for they were that and more.

  At the first of their day-long halts, he had done as the secretary had advised and read the letters, both in the original and in translation. When he had recovered from his initial horror and dismay at the treachery they revealed, he resolved to take every precaution he could against a second attack or attempt at robbery. The plotters would undoubtedly have their spies and informers in Lucknow, as they had elsewhere and it would need only a whisper from some innocent-seeming clerk in George Cooper’s office, perhaps, or a hint from a house-servant with keen ears, to alert them to the danger and betray the real purpose for which Sir Henry had sent him to Meerut. Ismail Khan might have been careless and only out for his own gain, but there would be plenty of others on whom the plotters could call if they thought it expedient to relieve him of the package he was carrying.

  Alex worried over this possibility for a while, keeping a vigilant lookout when he was on the road, and sleeping with the precious package under his pillow. But no one attempted to molest him, and his anxiety gradually faded as day followed day in monotonous succession, with little to trouble his small party save the heat and dust of their seemingly endless journey. But even this came to an end at last; by dint of leaving two hours earlier than usual and covering the final twenty miles at a brisker pace than he had dared to set before, Meerut was sighted just before sunset on the evening of Friday, May 8th. They entered cantonments, on the north side of the city, and it was not quite dark when they halted outside the Orderly Room of the 3rd Light Cavalry and Alex slid thankfully from his horse.

  The acting adjutant, a dark-haired lieutenant named Melville Clark was, somewhat to his surprise, still working in the inner office. “You’ve chosen a bad moment to join us, sir,” he observed grimly, after Alex had introduced himself and Partap Singh had been directed to the vacant quarter which had been prepared for his occupation. “The regiment is, I regret to say, in disgrace, and General Hewitt has decided to complete the sorry story of its humiliation at a parade of the entire garrison tomorrow morning. That’s why I’m still here … I have to post the order for the parade in Regimental Orders.”

  He sounded bitter and dispirited and Alex offered sympathetically, “For a native regiment to be disbanded is no longer a unique disgrace. It will happen to many others, I fear.”

  “We are not to be disbanded,” Melville Clark corrected.

  “But your sowars have refused to accept the Lee-Enfield cartridges, have they not?”

  The adjutant nodded, tight-lipped. “Eighty-five of them refused to accept the old cartridges, the type they’ve been in the habit of using for years. The colonel returned from leave in Simla and had our skirmishers paraded—to test their reaction, he said—and five took the accursed cartridges. Five! The rest have all been convicted of mutiny by a district court martial, consisting of Indian officers of this and the Delhi garrison, half of them Muslims and the other half Hindu. The sentences are harsh—ten years deportation with hard labor for all except a dozen of the younger men, whose sentences have been halved. Perhaps they deserve it, I don’t know—their own countrymen awarded the sentences. But,” he sighed, in angry frustration, “the general is determined to make an example of them. A public example, in the hope that it may act as a deterrent to the other native regiments.”

  This was what Sir Henry Lawrence had been dreading, Alex remembered uneasily, and his heart sank as Lieutenant Clark went on, “They are to be paraded, under the guns of the Royal Artillery, marched in front of their comrades, stripped of their uniforms and then fettered, Captain Sheridan! That’s the general’s decision and he will not go back on it. What he can hope to achieve by such a spectacle God only knows! And if that sounds as mutinous as refusing those damned cartridges, I can only beg your indulgence.”

  “You do not think it will act as a deterrent to the other regiments, then?”

  The adjutant shook his head emphatically. “No, sir, I do not. Do you?”

  “To be honest,” Alex answered, “I doubt it. But I haven’t been with a regiment for three years, so I am not in a position to judge.”

  Melville Clark controlled himself with an almost visible effort. “Mutiny has to be punished, I realize that,” he said bleakly. “But these are good men, the best we have, believe me, sir. If they are to spend ten years in the Andaman Islands like common criminals, that is enough, in my opinion. They should not be degraded in front of their comrades. This is a fine regiment, as you do not need me to tell you, and I’ve been proud to serve in it. But I would rather see it disbanded than have to stand by and watch it publicly dishonored, as General Hewitt has commanded that it shall be tomorrow morning. I … I …” he shrugged helplessly and Alex saw that there were tears in his eyes. “The 19th Na
tive Infantry refused their cartridges but at least General Hearsey permitted them to end their service with dignity—He even thanked them for their past loyalty and valor before sending them back to their villages, did he not?”

  “Yes, I believe he did,” Alex answered. The valiant old Sir John Hearsey had behaved, as always, with firmness and courage but with an understanding of the sepoy mentality and the problems which faced them, and the men of the 19th Native Infantry, their arms obediently piled, had cheered him before departing for their homes. Even from the 34th—to which the now infamous Mungal Pandy had belonged—he had exacted no harsh penalties, such as General Hewitt apparently planned for the unfortunate 3rd Light Cavalry. He had tempered justice with mercy, although his own life had been in danger when Mungal Pandy had run amok; Pandy had been hanged, but the 34th had also been permitted to end their service with what young Clark described as “dignity.” But Hewitt, of course, wasn’t Hearsey. Alex got to his feet. “Is there any possibility of my being able to call on General Hewitt this evening?” he asked. “I’d make my request through the colonel, naturally, if you would be so kind as to inform him that I have arrived and ask him to receive me. It won’t take me long to remove the stains of travel from my person and change, so perhaps after dinner, you—”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the young adjutant put in. “The colonel will receive no one tonight and he won’t be dining in mess. None of us will, it’s … well, I suppose it is the only way in which we can show our feelings. I’ll arrange for a meal to be sent over to your quarters, of course, and you will be able to report to the colonel on parade tomorrow, and see him when it’s over. But as to calling on General Hewitt tonight, frankly, sir, I would not advise it. The general is … that is to say, he—”

  “I am acquainted with him,” Alex said flatly. “But my business is of some urgency. I’m acting as courier for Sir Henry Lawrence in Lucknow and it is just possible that the documents I have to show him may cause him to think again about the parade tomorrow. I cannot promise that it will but I believe there’s a chance of it.”

  Lieutenant Clark brightened perceptibly. “In that case,” he responded, “I’ll brave the C.O.’s wrath on your behalf, sir. I’ll send a chitti round to his bungalow now and, if he consents to receive you, I will pick you up later this evening and we’ll call on him together. Say about nine or nine-thirty, so as to give you time for a bath and a meal?”

  “Thank you, my dear chap,” Alex acknowledged. “I’m obliged to you.”

  The boy was as good as his word. He reappeared soon after nine with the news that Colonel Carmichael Smyth had agreed to his request. “He isn’t too pleased, I’m afraid,” Clark added apologetically. “But he told me to bring you over. It’s not far; we can stroll along now, if you’re ready, sir.”

  Alex nodded and fell into step beside him. The senior married officers’ bungalows were situated on the north side of the lines, with the garrison church and the European barracks beyond, in which the 60th Rifles and 6th Dragoon Guards were quartered. A wide ditch and the wilderness of the Sudder Bazaar, which extended southwards in the direction of the native city, separated the queen’s regiments from the Company’s two miles of narrow alleyways, flanked by flat-roofed houses, in which a variety of merchants and peddlers plied their trade, and where the Street of the Harlots was a nightly rendezvous for the soldiers of the garrison.

  It was, Alex thought, looking with narrowed eyes at the moonlit scene before him, a curious decision on the part of whoever had planned the original layout of the station, to have permitted this maze of dark and crowded streets to form a barrier between the European and native lines. Although no doubt, like so many of India’s other anomalies it had happened gradually and no one had noticed or worried about the potential danger the bazaar represented, until now. And now it was too late. He had never thought about such matters, when he had been here as a young officer years ago, he recalled, and let a sigh escape him.

  Following the direction of his gaze, Melville Clark observed, “The bazaar is a rabbit warren of a place, as they all are, of course. I fancy quite a few of the fakirs and so-called holy men, who have been visiting our fellows in order to stir up their religious scruples, have taken refuge there when we’ve tried to hunt them out. They’re the ones who are doing the harm; the sepoys are like children, they believe these infernal troublemakers and they are genuinely afraid that we’re out to destroy their religion, so that we can convert them to our own. It’s absurd though, isn’t it, sir, when you think that these priests are trying to stir up revolt in Meerut, which is the one station in the whole of northern India where the queen’s regiments are almost equal in strength to the Company’s? The Carabineers are admittedly only six hundred strong and most of them are recruits, only just drafted out here, who are still under instruction in the riding school, on partly trained horses. Yet for all that,” his voice had an angry edge to it, “I don’t imagine that old swine Hewitt would have been quite so keen to make a public example of our wretched, misguided sowars if he’d been commanding in Allahabad or Bareilly, do you, sir?”

  Or in Cawnpore, Alex told himself, where Sir Hugh Wheeler’s handful of British gunners, pensioners and invalids were outnumbered by something like fifteen to one. He thought, with a pang, of Emmy and then banished the thought and the fear that came with it. Emmy would be on her way to Calcutta by now—on her way or preparing to go; he need have no more anxiety on her account. And once she was safely delivered of her child …

  “Do you, sir?” Clark prompted.

  “No.” Recalling the question his companion had asked, Alex shook his head. “Probably not, since you invite my opinion. Speaking of opinions, though, I wouldn’t, if I were you, air your opinion of General Hewitt too freely. To say the least, it’s unwise, however strongly you may feel concerning tomorrow’s parade. The general is in command and, for all you or I know, he may have received orders from a higher authority to inflict the punishment you so deplore precisely because Meerut is the only station with parity in numbers, and it could not be carried out with impunity anywhere else. Don’t misunderstand me, Clark. I’ve come from an out-station with an entirely native garrison and I’m as convinced as you are that excessive harshness will precipitate trouble, rather than prevent it, particularly in the out-stations of Oudh. But a good many others hold the opposite view. Almost as many, indeed,” the memory of Colonel Chalmers returned fleetingly, “refuse to admit that any danger of mutiny exists at all! Official policy may have changed. If it has, then General Hewitt may have been left with no choice in the matter. Had you thought of that?”

  “No, I had not,” the adjutant admitted but his tone was unrepentant as he went on, “I don’t believe General Hewitt has received orders from a higher authority, honestly, sir. From the outset he’s talked of punishing our men with the utmost rigor of military law and I know, from one of his A. D. C.s that every detail of tomorrow’s ghastly procedure was drawn up according to his instructions. I have the order, under his signature, on my desk! And as to my opinion of him, it’s an opinion most of us hold and I … well, I was under the impression that you shared it. The man’s a—”

  “Lieutenant Clark!” Alex turned to look at him, suddenly suspicious. “Have you been drinking?” he demanded sternly.

  The boy flushed. “Hugh Gough and I shared a bottle of port in our quarters. We were trying to drown our sorrows. But I’m not drunk, sir. Damn it, I wish I were!” He shrugged angrily and pointed to the bungalow they were approaching. “That’s the colonel’s quarters, sir. Will you permit me to speak frankly before we go in?”

  “In vino veritas?” Alex suggested, again feeling a good deal of sympathy for him. He was very young, poor little devil, hurt and angry to the point of recklessness; it might be as well, for his sake, to let him speak his mind before he had to face his commanding officer. Colonel Carmichael Smyth was a cold, austere individual, he remembered, ambitious and a stickler for discipline, who would be unlikely to welcom
e either confidences or complaints from a junior officer, whose attempt to drown his sorrows had succeeded only in loosening his tongue.

  A chowkidar with a lantern came shambling towards the gate of the bungalow and Alex halted, the scent of roses wafted to him from the garden beyond. “Wait,” he bade the breathless old servant and turned enquiringly to Melville Clark. “What do you want to tell me?” he invited.

  “About the General—I wanted to warn you, really, because you haven’t seen him for some time, have you?”

  “Not for a couple of years, no. Has he changed?”

  “I imagine you’ll think so,” the adjutant said. “He weighs over twenty stone and can no longer sit a horse, so he comes on parade and makes his inspections in a buggy, into which his A. D. C.s have to lift him. He suffers from gout and by eight o’clock in the evening he’s got through a bottle of whisky and is incapable of standing up unaided. By this time he’s simply incapable—which was why I advised you not to try and see him until tomorrow morning. You’d do better to seek an interview with the station commander, Brigadier-General Wilson. Believe me, sir, you’ll get nowhere with General Hewitt, however urgent your despatches are. But if there’s anything in them which might cause this parade to be called off or postponed, General Wilson would listen. He’s about the only man who could persuade General Hewitt of the necessity to call it off.”

  “I see.” Alex was careful not to commit himself. Colonel Carmichael Smyth was now his commanding officer also; it would rest with him to decide to whom the Delhi letters and Sir Henry Lawrence’s advice should be delivered. “Thank you, my dear fellow,” he said. “I’m grateful for your advice and for all you’ve told me. Shall we go in?”

  Clark stood aside to let him pass. “I think,” he volunteered, with unexpected good sense, “that I’ll take my leave, if you don’t mind, sir. I have had rather a large dose of Dutch courage and I might be tempted to talk out of turn. But if you need me for anything, please don’t hesitate to send for me.”