by V. A. Stuart
“Very good, sir,” Clark acknowledged. “Er … excuse me, sir, but is Captain Sheridan—”
“Colonel Sheridan has been posted to Lucknow on promotion. He’ll be leaving us on Monday or Tuesday and—” He was interrupted by the sudden, sharp crack of a rifle and he swore angrily, ducking his head as the bullet passed between Alex and himself to bury itself harmlessly in the wall behind them. “What the devil! Who the devil fired that shot?”
“It came from over there, sir,” Clark told him pointing. “I just glimpsed the flash—from behind B Troop office, I think.”
“Then after him, you young idiot! And turn out the guard. I want him caught, whoever he is! If he’s one of my men, I’ll hang him! The devil take it! Orderly, where’s my horse?”
Clark started to run, tugging at the pistol in his belt but Alex was before him. He too, had seen the flash of the rifle shot and he had seen something else as well: the dark silhouette of a big horse standing, with ears pricked and head lifted in alarm, beside a clump of mango trees on the road side of the parade ground.
There was no mistaking that noble head, even in the moonlight, and Alex’s heart leaped. “Turn out the guard. Don’t go after him yourself!” he shouted over his shoulder to the running Clark. “He’ll make for the race-course if he can. He’s left his horse there.”
He himself ran towards the tethered horse, calling softly and, to his joy, he heard the animal whinny in response, saw him tug at the head-rope that held him. He was still thirty yards from his objective when the rifle spoke again and he felt the smack of the bullet as it struck his boot heel, the impact bringing him to his knees. The thud of hooves and a yell from Colonel Smyth brought his head round and he saw, as he dragged himself up again, that the colonel, mounted now, was thundering towards him, Clark and five or six of the quarter-guard at his heels.
“There he is!” the colonel bawled. He emptied his pistol, aiming at some target beyond Alex’s line of vision and two of the guard knelt, carbines to their shoulders, ready to fire as soon as anything came into their sights. But nothing moved and Alex called back a warning of his own presence and ran on, relieved to find that he felt no pain in either foot.
He reached Sultan and bent to untie the head-rope when a dark body leaped on him without warning from the shadows and the moonlight glinted on naked steel. Ismail Khan, he realized, had not come alone. Unable to get to his pistol, he warded off the first blow with his upflung left arm and then attempted to grapple with his attacker, only to realize, to his dismay, that the man was naked, body and limbs smeared with oil, so that his groping fingers could not retain their grasp of his wrist. The menacing blade came nearer, aimed at his throat and he was compelled to give ground, thrusting out a foot over which, fortunately, his opponent tripped.
The man was up in an instant but now Sultan reared in alarm and Alex was able to put the plunging horse between himself and the would-be assassin for long enough to take his pistol from its holster. It was a six-shot Adams, which he had purchased recently in order to offset his difficulty in loading any weapon with one hand, and he brought it up with a brusque warning. His attacker let the knife fall and dived for the cover of the mango clump, the roar of the discharging pistol echoed by a volley from the guards’ carbines. Alex was still endeavouring to calm the excited Sultan when two of the sowars dragged a limp black body from beneath the trees and laid it, grinning triumphantly, at his feet.
“What of the other budmash?” he asked breathlessly. “Did you get him?”
The grins widened. “The Colonel Sahib has him. See, Sahib, behind you!”
Alex turned. Ismail Khan, also naked, was being driven across the dusty parade ground, hands held above his head in token of surrender, the colonel trotting after him, grim-faced and uncompromising. His temper was swiftly restored, however, when Alex identified the prisoner. “A horse thief, is he? Well, he can be sent to the civil jail, to rot until he’s brought to trial. Thank God it wasn’t one of my men. For a moment or two I was afraid it might be. You’ll forgive me, I trust, if I admit that I’m glad it was you he was after, Sheridan, and not myself. Whatever you may think, I don’t want my regiment to mutiny.” He smiled, the smile quite devoid of malice, as he looked at Sultan. “A fine piece of horseflesh. I don’t wonder the fellow was tempted. You’ll be delighted to get him back.”
“I am, sir,” Alex confessed. “More than delighted … and grateful to you for laying the thief by the heels. He has a couple of charges of murder to answer for, as well as the theft.”
“Don’t thank me; I rather enjoyed the hunt, once I realized he wasn’t one of ours. Well, I’ll have to get off to my dinner party. Pity you’re not coming too, when you’ve so much to celebrate. But the adjutant will look after you in my absence—eh, Clark? You’ll see that Colonel Sheridan is suitably entertained. Order champagne, my boy, and put it down to me.”
“Certainly, sir,” Melville Clark promised readily. “Only too happy, sir.”
Hugh Gough was in the anteroom when Alex entered the 3rd Light Cavalry mess, half an hour later, after seeing Sultan bedded down for the night, with both Partap Singh and the chokra, Sukh Lal, in beaming attendance. He felt tired but in better spirits than he had felt all day and even Gough’s apologetic announcement that he had “got no change out of General Wilson” failed to depress him as much as it might have done earlier.
“Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose,” he offered consolingly. “You did what you could. What reason did he give for not relieving the sepoy guard?”
Gough shrugged. “Oh, he said that the general was fully satisfied that they were carrying out their duties in exemplary fashion and that to relieve them now would make matters worse, because they’d think they weren’t trusted. Then he gave us both, Henry Craigie and me, a lecture on not believing everything we heard! I tell you, I felt about two inches high.” He stared moodily into his tankard of ale. “‘When you’ve served for as long as I have, gentlemen,’he said. ‘You’ll learn to distinguish between the threat of revolt and the real thing. This is all talk. It will all blow over. The Meerut garrison won’t mutiny and certainly your regiment will be the last to do so, in my considered opinion. They were taught a sharp lesson today and I’ll take my oath it’s one they won’t forget when the chips are down.’That was what he told us, sir, more or less word for word, and I suppose I must believe him. He’s got a lot more service than I have. Damn it, he must know what he’s talking about!”
It was to be hoped that he did, Alex thought. He was spared the necessity of a reply by the arrival of Melville Clark and half a dozen of the other officers, attended by two immaculately uniformed mess orderlies, bearing trays of brimming champagne glasses.
“Bubbly, gentlemen!” Clark announced. “By courtesy of the commanding officer, who regrets his inability to join us owing to a prior engagement. Help yourselves!”
Young Gough swore softly. “What are we celebrating?” he asked. “The fact that the regiment was taught a sharp lesson today? Or are we simply fiddling while Rome burns?”
“Don’t be an ass, Hugh,” Clark bade him. “Here”—he thrust a glass into his friend’s hand—“cheer up, for God’s sake! We’re celebrating a well-deserved promotion.” He met Alex’s eye and, ignoring his embarrassed headshake, raised his glass. “Your good health, Colonel Sheridan, sir! Speaking personally, I’m sorry that your association with this regiment is so soon to be terminated.”
They drank the toast and crowded around, offering congratulations, wringing his hand, asking eager questions and Alex thanked them, very red of face, wishing that he could tell them the real reason for his sudden elevation in rank. But they seemed pleased by it and the champagne helped to dispel the gloom that had haunted them since early morning. He ordered more and the tense, unhappy young faces relaxed, as the memory of the pain and humiliation they had endured on the Rifles’ parade ground was cast—temporarily, at least—into oblivion, and they laughed again, as few of them had hoped to laug
h when they had marched back with their regiment that morning.
“Come on, my bonnie boys!” Gough invited, when the mess bugle sounded and they prepared to troop into dinner. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow …” he broke off, grinning. “Oh, hell, no, that’s not right, is it? We aren’t going to die tomorrow, on the word of Brigadier-General Archdale Wilson, who knows the John Company sepoy so much better than we do! He says there’ll be no mutiny. D’you hear that, gentlemen?” He resisted Melville Clark’s attempt to restrain him. “You told me to cheer up, Nobby old son.”
“I didn’t tell you to get drunk, you idiot,” Clark reproached him. “And in the colonel’s presence, too!”
“I am not drunk,” Gough insisted. He bowed to Alex, the grin fading and a look of very adult disillusionment in his blue eyes. “No offense, Colonel Sheridan, sir, believe me. I’ll alter the end of that quotation, shall I? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we live. Not that it matters either way, for what have the Third Cavalry got to live for now? Eighty-five poor devils of sowars chained up in the jail and the rest of us going round with hangdog expressions, apologizing for them and expecting to be insulted! That’s not life, is it? Well is it, gentlemen?” No one answered him and he added, with a flash of anger, “Whatever Wilson thinks, I’d stake my oath on our sowars having the guts to try and free those poor sods in the jail. Dammit, for two pins I’d help ’em!”
There was a shocked silence and Gough, realizing that he had gone too far, rose from his seat at the long table, apologized to the mess president and excused himself.
Alex also took his leave soon after the meal was over, aware that in his new rank his presence was bound to inhibit them from indulging in the schoolboy horseplay that would act as a safety valve, and they insisted on chairing him to the door of the mess.
Not entirely to his surprise, a sober Gough joined him and together, on borrowed troop horses, they made a tour of the lines. All was quiet; they could detect no sign of tension or excitement and Alex returned to his quarters in an optimistic mood, which owed only a little to the champagne he had consumed. He wrote a report to Sir Henry Lawrence, sent Partap Singh to the dak with it and retired, his conscience a trifle eased by its confession of failure.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUNDAY, MAY 10th, dawned hot and overcast and all day the heat increased, with scarcely the hint of breeze to bring relief from it.
Alex attended early morning service in the garrison church, paid another visit to the lines with Gough, who was orderly officer and then, in common with most of the other Europeans and their families, he lay down on his bed and attempted to sleep through the long, sweltering afternoon. But sleep eluded him; despite the appearance of calm and the sight of the off-duty sowars, in their white, undress uniforms, squatting under the trees in the lines and passing the stems of their hubble-bubble pipes from hand to hand, he was uneasy. He felt instinctively that it was too quiet. The men talked in whispers, falling silent when anyone, even a servant, came within earshot, and the sullenness of yesterday had gone from their faces, replaced by a bright-eyed watchfulness which, of itself, was alarming.
Partap Singh, returning from the Sudder Bazaar just before five, reported that all the shops were open and plying their trade as usual.
“The white soldier-sahibs were there,” he said, in answer to Alex’s enquiry. “But they left before I did, Sahib. It seems they have a church parade, put back until the hour of six on account of the heat.” The Rifles, Alex thought, frowning. They would parade for church, according to hot weather custom, in white drill with sidearms only. Their Lee-Pritchetts would be left in the barrack-rooms, chained in their racks, and the ammunition for them locked up in the armory. Why, he wondered helplessly, hadn’t the darned church parade been cancelled and the regiment kept standing by, if only as a precaution? He sat up, with a smothered exclamation and Partap Singh, misunderstanding the reason for his sudden movement, pushed the tea tray closer to his hand.
“I noticed some budmashes, Sahib,” he volunteered. “Men from outside the city, a Bunnia told me, although he could not say what had brought them to the bazaar. And I heard a rumor that there had been some trouble in the Street of the Harlots.”
“Trouble?” Alex echoed. “What kind of trouble?”
The orderly shrugged. “The Sahib’s tea is getting cold,” he pointed out. “As to the nature of the trouble, I do not know exactly. It was said that the women offered taunts to some of the Light Cavalry sowars, accusing them of cowardice because they had come seeking pleasure while their comrades lie in chains, in the prison.”
Alex waited to hear no more. “Saddle my horse, Partap Singh,” he ordered urgently. “Jeldi … all right,” he said, as the man hesitated, “I can dress without your help. Get Sultan!”
He was buckling on his sabre when Partap Singh came rushing back to the shuttered room, his return heralded by a burst of musketry from somewhere alarmingly near at hand.
“Sahib, Sahib—the sowars have set fire to the lines and they are riding for the jail!”
So it had come, Alex told himself, feeling his stomach turn to water. What he had feared and dreaded was about to happen although, perhaps, it was not too late to ride after the sowars to the jail. If only the cavalry had broken they might, even now, listen to reason. He ran out on to the veranda, the acrid smell of smoke in his nostrils, to encounter Gough, with a rissaldar and two men, already mounted.
“My rissaldar says that the Native Infantry have risen too,” the orderly officer shouted breathlessly, as Alex grabbed Sultan’s rein from his waiting syce and flung himself into the saddle.
“Has Colonel Smyth been informed?” he asked.
Gough nodded. “I’ve just told him, sir. He’s Field Officer of the Week. He’s gone to General Wilson, to have the Rifles’ church parade cancelled. He told me to collect as many of our officers as I could and try to hold the men in the lines. I’ve sent for the others.”
“Then they can follow us,” Alex decided. “Come on!” He set spurs to Sultan, hearing, as Gough and his escort thundered after him, the faint, incongruous sound of the band in the Public Gardens, on the far side of The Mall, as it brought a brassy rendering of The Last Rose of Summer to a spirited crescendo. Praise be to heaven, he thought, most of the British wives and families would be there, in their carriages, listening to the evening concert, if they weren’t on their way to church. Both church and gardens were close to the European barracks; they could seek safety there, if they were attacked. Although surely there was no reason why the sepoys should attack them, when all they wanted was the release of the 85 mutineers from the jail?
“My God, sir,” Gough gasped, as they rounded the quarterguard building. “Look at them! Have they gone mad?”
His horror was understandable, Alex saw. The normally neat, well-ordered rows of barrack huts had become a shambles, with men running this way and that, hurling lighted brands on to the thatched roofs which—tinder dry—instantly burst into flames. The sowars had broken open the bells-of-arms, in which their carbines were stored and, leaping and whirling in a frenzied dance, were firing into the air, screaming at each other in blood-curdling abandon.
In the swiftly gathering darkness, blinded by the glare of the blazing huts, they did not, for a few minutes, notice the arrival of the two officers but when they did, a concerted howl went up and a score of men leapt for their horses, which were tethered but not yet saddled.
“Maro! Maro! Kill! kill the feringhi! For the Faith, brothers. Strike a blow for the Faith!”
Carbines were raised and a ragged but ill-aimed volley passed over their heads as Gough’s rissaldar, in a shaken voice, pleaded with them to flee. “Sahib, we must leave or we shall all be killed! I beg you, Sahib.”
Gough looked round uncertainly. The mounted men had halted, apparently lacking a leader and Alex said, “B Troop—come on, they haven’t set fire to their block yet. Let’s see if we can rally them.” They swung their horses right and, pu
rsued by a few random shots, made for the row of huts on the far side of the lines.
But even here, although there were no fires, there was ample evidence of mutiny. The magazine had been broken into and the men of B Troop were engaged in dragging out crates of ammunition, breaking them open and distributing cartridges to their comrades. Gough yelled at them to stop but the sowars ignored him, although they offered no violence and made no attempt to fire on any of the new arrivals. Alex, spotting a young trumpeter on the edge of the crowd, trotted forward and rode him off, driving him back to where Gough and his escort were waiting, a spurred boot pressed to the small of his back.
“Sound Assembly,” he ordered sternly and the youth, cringing from him in terror, put his instrument to his trembling lips and sounded the call. Half a dozen men, all N.C.O.s responded, amongst them the rissaldar who had sought his aid to present a petition to the commander-in-chief. He held a carbine in his left hand and there was a bulging cartridge pouch suspended from his sword belt; but he came to attention and saluted smartly.
“This is not the way, Rissaldar Sahib,” Alex told him, more shocked by the sight of his hitherto trustworthy native officer in such compromising circumstances than by anything that had gone before. “You, surely, are not a mutineer?”
