The Sepoy Mutiny

by V. A. Stuart

  The 85 convicted sowars were confined apart from the other inmates, crowded into two dark, foul-smelling enclosures at the front of the jail, which clearly had been intended to accommodate half their number. The charpoys normally provided had been removed in order to make more room, the jailer explained apologetically, as he unlocked an iron-bound door between the two enclosures and stood aside to permit the visitors to enter. Craigie, looking about him distastefully, sent him for straw with which to cover the damp, uneven mud floor and at the sound of his familiar voice, the fettered prisoners roused themselves from their apathy and came swarming round him, begging eagerly for news.

  “Captain Sahib—Allah be praised, I had not thought to see the Sahib’s face again! Is there word for us?”

  “Are we to be shown mercy? Have our pleas been heard?”

  “Captain Sahib, will the General Sahib release us? Will he grant us forgiveness?”

  The questions came thick and fast, but when the troop commander was compelled to shake his head, there was a stunned silence. Some of the men turned away, weeping; others sank to their knees, manacled hands grasping at Henry Craigie’s boots, beseeching him to help them and a few turned their backs, muttering angrily. Gough and Mackenzie were also surrounded by men of their troops and Alex, taking advantage of the fact that he was a stranger to them, went in search of the old daffadar, whom he found in the further room, his face buried in his hands, weeping silently and alone.

  “Ghulam Rasul!” he called softly and when the old man looked up, startled, he took the medals from his pocket and held them out to him. “These are yours, are they not?”

  “Once I wore them, Sahib,” the daffadar admitted. “But no longer. Did you not see the white soldiers tear them from my breast?”

  “I saw, daffadar-ji. But they are yours, the reward of valor and loyal service. I thought to restore them to you.” Alex thrust the medals towards him.

  “The thought was generous, huzoor. But …” the bloodshot eyes searched his face, went to his empty sleeve and then their gaze rested once more on the two silver medals on his palm. “I will take them, to keep hidden during my exile … for it will be thus, Sahib, will it not? There is to be no pardon for us. We are to be sent into servitude?”

  “I fear so,” Alex said. “But we shall try to help you, if we can. Captain Craigie, Lieutenant Gough and the Adjutant Sahib, we shall all do what we can, Ghulam Rasul.”

  The old daffadar bowed his white head. He hesitated for a long moment, deep in thought and then, as if suddenly reaching a decision, leaned closer and said in a whisper, his lips to Alex’s ear, “Bad things will happen, Sahib, if our pleas for mercy are ignored. Take warning, I beg you.”

  “Bad things, daffadar-ji? What manner of bad things?”

  Ghulam Rasul turned away. “I cannot tell you, Sahib, for I do not know. I know only that our comrades will not desert us—the sepoys, as well as those of our own Faith and paltan—they will not see us suffer this injustice. There are those in the bazaars, holy men, moulvis and priests, who whisper that the John Company Raj will be ended very soon. We are the Company’s men, Sahib, we have taken the Company’s salt and its pay but they tell us that this is over—that we must end it, for our Faith. If we do not, then we shall see our Faith destroyed. These men speak of killing the sahib-log.” The daffadar’s gnarled brown hand, already sore and chafed by the raw iron of the fetters, came out to touch Alex’s empty sleeve. “You, too, have fought the Company’s battles, Sahib,” he added softly. “And I would not see them kill you. Take heed.”

  Alex was thoughtful when he left the old man, every instinct crying out to him that what he had said was the truth. He went through the motions of paying off the men of his troop, obtaining their marks on the discharge papers and arranging that pitifully few coins to which each man was entitled should be paid to his dependents. When it was over and he and the other officers were on their way back to the lines, he repeated the daffadar’s warning and Hugh Gough put in anxiously, “I was told much the same by my rissaldar-major, sir. Only he put it even more plainly. He came to my quarters, just before we set out for the jail, with some excuse about the troop accounts. The troop accounts, on a Saturday evening!”

  “What did he say, Hugh?” Henry Craigie demanded.

  “Well, he hinted that the troops would mutiny tomorrow—all of them, the Native Infantry regiments as well as ours. ‘They will rise as one man,’ he said, ‘and free their comrades from the jail or die in the attempt.’”

  “Why keep it to yourself?” Craigie reproached him. “You never mentioned anything to us and it could be damned serious, you know, if it’s only half true.”

  “I went to the C.O., sir,” Gough defended. “But he told me it was all nonsense and that I should be ashamed of myself for listening to such idle threats. He told me not to repeat it to anyone, but in view of what Captain Sheridan’s just heard from the daffadar, I thought I’d better speak up. For one thing, there’s a native guard on the jail and—”

  “Quite so,” Craigie agreed grimly. He heaved a sigh. “We’ll go along to the Club, both of us, Hugh. And you too, Sheridan, if you’re in agreement with the idea. General Wilson’s usually there for a drink before dinner. We’ll tell him. As station commander, he ought to know and at least, if he does nothing else, he might replace the jail guard with a detachment from the Rifles as a precaution. My wife is going to be annoyed—we have a dinner party this evening—but it can’t be helped, this is too urgent to leave till after dinner. Alfred,” he turned to the youthful Mackenzie, “be a good chap and ride over to my bungalow now, would you please? Say I’ve been unavoidably detained and hold the fort for me.”

  The boy obediently trotted off and Craigie glanced enquiringly at Alex. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Certainly, if you think it will help. That guard must be changed.”

  “Don’t be too optimistic,” Craigie warned dryly. “Wilson probably ordered a sepoy guard, to show how implicitly he trusts them! Or possibly it was the G.O.C.’s idea, to demonstrate how effectively they’ve absorbed this morning’s lesson that mutiny does not pay.” He turned to head across the canal into Hill Street when someone called out to him and a horseman, a dim outline in the gathering darkness, came cantering to meet them. “It’s Clark,” he said. “What the devil! He seems in a hurry.”

  The adjutant drew rein beside them. “I’m glad I caught you,” he exclaimed breathlessly. “I was just going to the jail, thinking you’d still be there. Captain Sheridan, the colonel wishes to see you,” he told Alex.

  “Trouble?” Craigie asked, frowning. “Oh, well, you’d better leave General Wilson to us, Sheridan. Don’t worry. We’ll make certain he hears the whole story. And perhaps you may succeed in convincing the colonel, where Hugh failed. Because I don’t believe that these are all idle threats. I wish to heaven I did!” He and Gough rode on and Melville Clark glanced at Alex uncertainly.

  “More of these rumors of mutiny, sir?” he suggested.

  “I fear that they are more than rumors,” Alex said, his tone bleak. He repeated what the old daffadar had told him and then Gough’s account of the warning his rissaldar-major had brought, an hour or so earlier. “The colonel ridiculed Gough’s warning,” he added. “And told him to say nothing about it to anyone else. But he and Craigie have gone to the Club, hoping to speak to General Wilson, and I’d intended to go with them. Someone in authority must be persuaded to take action before it’s too late, for God’s sake!”

  “The colonel won’t,” Clark asserted with unhappy conviction. “He insists that it’s all talk. He’s in a towering rage, I’m afraid—partly on your account, sir, but—”

  “On my account? Why on my account, by all that’s wonderful?”

  “I believe he’s had a message concerning you, by the electric telegraph from Lucknow,” the adjutant explained. “I have not seen it, of course, but I gather it displeased him. I was ordered to find you at once and not to show my face in the Ord
erly Room again until I had!”

  Sir Henry Lawrence’s promised summons, Alex thought, and bit back a sigh. Last night he would have welcomed his recall but now, with this appalling crisis looming in Meerut, he wished that it could have been postponed for a few more days, until the threat of a mutiny of the native regiments had been averted. Until it was, General Hewitt could not be expected to send any of his British troops to Delhi. In fact, even if General Graves asked for them, he would have every justification in refusing the request.

  His sigh must have been audible, he realized, when Melville Clark, evidently misunderstanding the reason for it, offered sympathetically, “I’m very sorry, sir. I’d have made a point of not finding you if I had dared to but when the C.O.’s in a mood like this … well, I’ve learned from painful experience that it’s a mistake to try and cross him. It simply makes him worse and he doesn’t forget, either.” He hesitated, reining his horse to a trot as they crossed the cavalry parade ground. “Forgive my asking but … he doesn’t like you, does he, sir? Didn’t you serve with him before, in the Punjab?”

  “Yes,” Alex confirmed, “I did … and we got on quite well, I assure you. But …” he shrugged, remembering the cool reception accorded to him the previous evening. “He probably doesn’t welcome ex-political officers back into the regimental fold. Few regimental commanders do, you know.” They halted in front of the Orderly Room. “He’s in here, not in the mess?”

  Clark nodded, taking the rein as Alex dismounted from his horse. “He said he wanted to speak to you in private. I’ll wait in the clerk’s office, in case I’m wanted.”

  Colonel Carmichael Smyth was seated behind his desk when Alex tapped on the door of the inner office and, receiving permission, went in.

  “You sent for me, sir?” he asked formally. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting. I went to the jail to—”

  “To commiserate with the mutineers, who have been justly condemned and punished?” the colonel accused. He spoke without heat but a small pulse at the angle of his lean jaw was beating furiously.

  “No, sir,” Alex answered, taken by surprise. “To pay off those who were in my troop, as—”

  “Not to organize a petition to the commander-in-chief, appealing for a new trial? I was told that this was your intention. My God, Sheridan, if it was—if you went behind my back to those men, I’ll have you up before the general if it’s the last thing I do!” All pretense of calm vanished; he was beside himself with rage, Alex realized. Of course, the rissaldar must have told him about the proposed petition; goaded or frightened by the threat of mutiny, probably, the native officer had claimed that an appeal for clemency was being organized, on the mutineers’ behalf, by his new troop commander and the colonel had believed him, without attempting to verify his claim. He could hardly blame the unfortunate man, in the circumstances; it was a tense and difficult situation, following on the heartbreaking scene on the parade ground that morning.

  “Permit me to explain, sir,” he began. “I assure you, I—” but he was cut short.

  “Explain?” Colonel Smyth flung at him. “What explanation is there for such conduct? Damn you, Sheridan, you’ve only been here for 24 hours and already you’ve started taking the law into your own hands, trying to teach me my business! Last night it was those infernal letters for which, perhaps, there was some excuse, since you brought the blasted things here. But today it’s over a matter that is no concern of yours. This is my regiment and the miserable scum in the jail are—or were, until they proved themselves unworthy to be called soldiers—my men, and I shall deal with them as they deserve. Over my dead body will any sniveling petition be sent to the commander-in-chief, by you or anyone else, is that clear?”

  “No petition has been organized to the best of my belief, sir,” Alex told him, when the tirade came at last to an end. “Unless by the men themselves or by their comrades in the regiment. They—”

  “Do you deny that it was for the purpose of organizing a petition that you went to the jail? Devil take you, Sheridan, I want the truth!”

  Alex faced him, tight-lipped. “I was requested by my rissaldar to go there for that purpose, sir, but I made it very clear to him that there was little reason to hope that a petition would be permitted to leave here or that it would be heeded, if it were. Those, as I recollect, were my exact words to him. I did, however, offer to intercede with you, on behalf of the condemned men, if they asked me to and—”

  “The devil you did! Intercede with me, for God’s sake!” The colonel’s voice shook. “The matter’s out of my hands. I did not sentence them. They were tried and condemned by a properly constituted court martial, composed of their own countrymen. There’s nothing I can do now.” He rose and started to pace the room. “Did they ask you to intercede with me?”

  Alex remained facing the desk. “Yes, sir, they did. On their knees, weeping. They begged for mercy, sir.” He hesitated and, when the colonel said nothing, he repeated Daffadar Ghulam Rasul’s warning. “I believe that Lieutenant Gough was given a similar warning, sir, which he reported to you?”

  Carmichael Smyth drew in his breath sharply. “He did and I told him he was a damned young fool. These are just threats, calculated to force my hand. I’m not yielding to threats from my own sowars.”

  “Ghulam Rasul wasn’t making any threats, Colonel. He was a good soldier and he’s afraid. He doesn’t want the regiment to mutiny but he believes that they will raid the jail in an attempt to free those who are imprisoned with him. If they do, it will be mutiny. If the infantry rise with them, there will be hell to pay.”

  “The infantry regiments won’t rise with them. They’re Hindus, why should they? In any case, if they should, we have enough British troops here to teach them a lesson.” The colonel moved to the window, to stand looking out, jingling the coins in his pocket. He sounded less angry now and almost aggressively confident. “General Wilson isn’t worried and he has his finger on the pulse of things. He’s convinced that the worst is over. Look out there”—his gesture took in the rows of white painted mud huts, now visible in the light of the rising moon—“it’s peaceful enough. No fires, no excited voices. If they really meant business, they’d be milling about out there, yelling and shouting.”

  “Gough’s rissaldar told him that it would be tomorrow,” Alex pointed out. He tried a final appeal. “Isn’t it possible to show those prisoners a small measure of clemency, sir? I truly believe that if they were allowed to appeal to General Hewitt, all danger of mutiny would be averted.”

  “The general wouldn’t listen to an appeal, any more than I would, in these circumstances. It’s too late, in any case. He can’t overrule the verdict of a court martial.”

  “Then may I suggest, sir, that a British guard is placed on the jail?” Alex said wearily. “At present the 20th are on guard there.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Sheridan!” The colonel turned irritably from the window. “It’s up to the station commander whether the jail guard is British or native. I have no damned say in it. And whether we have a mutiny here or not is no concern of yours. I was forgetting I’d received a telegraphic message for you, from Lucknow. It’s here somewhere.” He made a pretense of searching among the papers on his desk and, watching him, Alex sensed that he had neither forgotten the telegram nor mislaid it. For reasons of his own, he had chosen to question him on the subject of the petition before making any mention of Sir Henry Lawrence’s message. “Yes, here it is. You are recalled to Lucknow, by authority of the commander-in-chief to whom, it would appear, your friend and patron, Sir Henry Lawrence, has made an urgent request for your services. To command his cavalry, no less and,” Smyth’s tone was derisive, “with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. Damn, I wish I had your influence!”

  The reason for the delay in acquainting him with the news contained in the telegram now became clear but, for the second time during their brief interview, Alex was taken by surprise. Sir Henry had promised him a step in rank, it was true,
but he had expected it to be a local and acting rank, not a brevet authorized by the commander-in-chief, and his conscience pricked him. The promotion had been made now and in this manner to enable him to approach General Hewitt, of course.

  “Since there is no room for two lieutenant-colonels in the Third Light Cavalry,” Carmichael Smyth went on, “I take it you’ll be leaving for Lucknow pretty well at once, Colonel Sheridan?”

  Alex recovered himself. “I have to see General Hewitt before I can leave. Was he shown the Delhi letters, do you know?”

  “Yes, he was shown them. Archdale Wilson went round with them before tiffin. The general did what we both knew he would. He sent them to Graves in Delhi, where they should have gone in the first place.” There was a certain malicious satisfaction in the announcement and Smyth added, smiling, “If you must see him, then you must. But take my advice and request permission to call on him tomorrow; about midday is his best time. No, wait—tomorrow’s Sunday, is it not? Make your request on Monday. The general likes to preserve the sanctity of the Sabbath Day, with Church Parade for the British regiments and all that, and tomorrow will be no different. Unless, of course, your gloomy forecasts come true and we have a mutiny on our hands. If you’re wrong, at least you’ll have a better chance of persuading the general to send a British detachment to Delhi, I imagine. I’ll send a chitti to his house, if you wish, asking for an appointment for you on Monday.”

  Alex bowed, careful not to show his feelings. “Thank you, Colonel, I’d be obliged if you would.”

  His late commanding officer rose to his feet, still smiling. “Your promotion calls for a drink, but that will have to be postponed too, I’m afraid, because I’m dining out. Still, there’ll be time enough for it tomorrow and naturally the hospitality of my mess is yours, for as long as you remain here. You’ll be relieved of your duties with my regiment, of course. Gough can take over command of B Troop.” He shouted for his horse and led the way out of the office, cramming on his shako, and Alex went after him, joined by Melville Clark a moment or so later. The adjutant glanced from one to the other of them nervously and, as they stood together on the steps of the Orderly Room waiting for their horses, Colonel Smyth said crisply, “Oh, Clark—post Lieutenant Gough to command of B Troop on Monday, will you? He’ll have to act until Major Harlow returns from Simla.”