by V. A. Stuart
“Is Sita Ram coming with us, Mamma?” the little boy had asked, eyes bright with expectation. “Can’t we go soon?” And then, slipping easily into the vernacular, “May I ride with you, Sita Ram, on your horse, instead of in the buggy?”
Beaming, the orderly had hoisted him on to his shoulder, setting down the musket and then, just as she had been about to chide Phillip for his impatience, a terrible, ear-piercing scream had come from the Snell’s bungalow opposite, followed by a fusillade of shots and the sound of running feet. When she could nerve herself to go out on to the verandah, Harriet had seen smoke rising slowly from the rear of the Snell’s bungalow and the old bearer came, the breath rasping in his throat, to tell her brokenly that some sepoys had run amuck and she must go at once, whilst there was yet time to save herself and the baba-log.
“Snell Sahib is dead, his mem and the baba also. Delay no longer, Memsahib, for surely they will come here.”
“What Sepoys are they?” she had demanded, not realising the futility of her question until after she had asked it … or had she, perhaps, been as anxious as Jemmy to absolve his men from blame? Those men … oh, God!
The bearer had shaken his head helplessly and again begged her to flee her home, a note of panic in his quavering voice. When Sita Ram had made the same plea, she had agreed. With Ayah carrying the baby, she had taken Phillip and little Augusta each by the hand and led them, chattering excitedly in their innocence, out to the waiting carriage, Sita Ram bringing up the rear, his musket at the ready.
The coachman, standing by the horses’ heads, looked panic-stricken and ready to take to his heels but, forcing herself to speak calmly, she had ordered him to drive to the Commissioner Sahib’s bungalow and he had salaamed and climbed back on to his box. She had been in the act of entering the carriage, Harriet remembered, when the sound of galloping hooves had reached her, coming from the direction of the Lines. Turning her head swiftly, she had seen a horseman approaching, with four or five others some distance behind and it was a second or so before she recognised the leading rider as Jemmy—capless, his thick dark hair blowing wildly in the breeze—and realised, with an acute sense of shock, that those behind him were pursuing, not riding after him. From the rear of the Snells’ blazing bungalow a mob of men on foot emerged—some sepoys, in uniform, the rest townsfolk—and, in response to yells from Jemmy’s pursuers, half a dozen of the sepoys dashed out to spread themselves across the road and bar his way.
Shots were fired but the aim was poor and Jemmy came on, his right arm holding a drawn sword, which he was waving frantically above his head—waving to her to make her escape, she had sensed, although she could not hear, above the tumult of other voices, the words he was trying to say to her. And she had stood there, frozen, unable to bring herself to desert him in order to save her own life or even those of the children … She had stood there watching him, praying for him, willing him to reach the carriage so that they might escape together. Or die together … Harriet caught her breath on a sob.
He had so nearly succeeded in reaching her, scattering the sepoys on the road before most of them had had time to recharge their muskets, when a shot, fired by a bazaar budmash in a white robe, seemingly at random, brought his horse crashing to the ground. Jemmy was flung forward heavily, the animal rolled over, legs threshing, pinning him beneath its heaving body and he had scarcely struggled free of it when his pursuers were upon him. Harriet recognised all of them as native officers of his regiment, saw the stout Havildar-Major strike the first savage blow, his dark face contorted with hate as Jemmy parried his cut and ran him through the arm with his own weapon.
But they had been too many for him and when the sepoys from the road ran to join the mounted officers, Harriet had turned her head away, knowing that it was over. Even then she had made no attempt to escape. Numb with shock, she had simply stood beside the carriage, having in her immobility a dignity of which she had been quite unaware. The children were sobbing in Ayah’s arms but she was, in that moment, as deaf to their frightened cries as she was to Sita Ram’s pleas that she enter the carriage and seek safety in flight. Flight was, in any case, impossible—the road was the only way to the Commissioner’s bungalow and to reach it, the carriage would have to pass through the mob of sepoys and bazaar riff-raff gathering in search of plunder.
“Memsahib …” She had heard Sita Ram’s voice then, realised that he had come to stand at her side, ready to protect her. “Memsahib, they are coming.”
“Go,” she had bade him, with weary resignation. “Save yourself, Sita Ram—you have done all you can. They will kill you, too, if you remain. Take Ayah with you.”
“They bring the Colonel Sahib’s body, Memsahib,” the orderly had whispered. “That is all. They intend you no harm.”
Incredulously, her heart pounding in her breast, she had watched them approach, two of them bearing Jemmy’s lifeless body, Subedar Bihari Lal at their head. In silence they laid the bleeding, barely recognisable corpse of her husband at her feet and Bihari Lal had saluted, stony-faced, and told her that she was free to go, with her children.
“We will give you escort to the Lucknow road, Memsahib. The Colonel Sahib’s body shall be placed in his own house and we will set it on fire, so that his soul may find release.”
In vain she had protested, Harriet remembered, saying that she wished to go to the Residency but, pointing to a column of smoke drifting skywards beyond the trees to their left, the Subedar had told her that the Christians and those who had taken shelter with them were either dead or fleeing for their lives. “The Police sowars attacked them, Memsahib, vowing to show them no mercy. But we do not make war on mems and baba-log, as do those dogs of Muslims. We will set you on the road to Lucknow.”
She had been compelled to agree, since they had left her with no choice, and they had kept their word. An old havildar had taken the place of her terrified coachman on the box and, with Bihari Lal and a dozen others as escort, the buggy had been driven unmolested through the Lines and for over two miles along the Lucknow road. She had looked back only once, Harriet recalled bitterly, to see flames rising from the bungalow that had been her home and which, by some strange logic she did not understand, his sepoys had selected to serve as their Colonel’s funeral pyre.
“The Colonel Sahib was a good man,” Subedar Bihari Lal had told her, when they reached the parting of their ways and came to a halt in the shade of a roadside mango tope. “We besought him to remain as our Colonel and lead us to Delhi, forsaking the Company’s service. But he refused, so we were forced to put him to death. It was not the wish of all of us that he should die, Memsahib … least of all was it mine. But now”—he glanced unhappily at the Havildar-Major—“we serve new masters and must obey their commands.”
The stout Havildar-Major, unlike his military superior, was of Brahmin caste, Harriet knew; he had addressed no word to her and, with the memory still etched in her mind of the bitter hatred in his face as he had struck at Jemmy, she was thankful that he had not. Clearly, he was one of the ringleaders in the mutiny and, as such, even the Subedar feared him. And yet, only a few short weeks ago, at Jemmy’s instigation, he had begun to give little Phillip his first riding lessons, displaying a gentle patience towards the boy that had completely won her heart. Had it all been false, she wondered dully; had his protestations of affection for Phillip, his promises of loyalty to Jemmy been deliberately intended to deceive? She shivered again. If he had hated Jemmy, enough to override the other native officers and demand his death, why had he spared Jemmy’s children, his wife? Was it, perhaps, because he had condemned them to a slower but no less certain death in the jungle, unarmed and unprotected?
The answer to her unvoiced questions had not been long in coming. They had taken Sita Ram and the carriage with them when they left her at the roadside, with the warning, offered by the Subedar, that she should hide until the mutineers’ fury had abated and the regiments set off on the long march all were pledged to make, in order
to join forces with their comrades in Delhi.
Poor Sita Ram had wept when taking leave of her. “I am ordered to go with my paltan, Memsahib,” he had whispered brokenly. “And I dare not refuse. Seek shelter and concealment in the jungle when we have gone, you and the babas, for the sepoys of other paltans will hunt for you and kill you if they find you. I will come back if it is possible.”
She had clasped his hand, Harriet recalled, feeling it cold in hers, feeling it tremble. She had longed to reward his loyalty but knew that, if she were to give him money, he might be made to suffer for it—at best, the mutineers would take it from him. She had a ring on her finger—a single small pearl, set in chip diamonds—and, careful that none of the others saw her do so, she slipped it off and let it slide into the orderly’s brown palm. He bent over her hand, as if to touch his brow to it and said, very softly, “No, Memsahib, give that to Ayah. She may be trusted … send her to her village to ask for shelter. It is nearby—her people will help you.”
He had straightened to attention, leaving the ring in her hand, salaamed, and marched woodenly off with the others and that had been the last she had seen of them … and of Ayah. No sooner had she followed Sita Ram’s advice and given her the ring than the woman, thrusting the baby into her arms, had made off through the trees at a shambling run, calling out over her shoulder that the village was further away than the orderly had suggested and, if she were to reach it before nightfall, no time must be lost.
“You will come back!” Harriet had called after her, trying to keep the despair she felt from sounding in her voice. “Ayah, you will bring help—food for the little ones, if you can—and ask your headman to give us shelter!”
“Achcha, Memsahib.” The Ayah’s tone had been sullen, her acknowledgement automatic. It was possible that she would do as she had been asked but more likely, alas, that fear would hold her silent when she reached her village. She had been a good servant, devoted to all three children, and had entered Harriet’s service five years ago, when little Phillip was born. Five years of exemplary service was no guarantee of fidelity now, though, Harriet reflected wryly—and Ayah had been frightened out of her wits, cowering down in the carriage during the drive to the Lucknow road, in the evident hope that her presence would go unnoticed by the mutineers, until a chance of escape should present itself.
As … She bit back a sigh. As it had when the sepoys had abandoned them by the roadside. No doubt it had been a mistake to give her the ring there and then—she should have waited, should have promised the trinket as reward, when the woman had kept her part of the bargain and returned with help. As it was, they had agreed no rendezvous—Ayah, to whom this area was familiar, had offered no guidance, and yet must have overheard the Subedar’s injunction to her mistress to seek a temporary hiding place, even if she had not heard Sita Ram’s. Knowing the danger, would the badly frightened woman make any attempt to find her erstwhile charges, when to do so would bring her no further reward and might be to risk her life?
It was too much to expect, Harriet told herself despondently. To Ayah, that small ring would be riches; she would be tempted to keep it and say nothing, but even if she did deliver her message, rescue was still uncertain. It would depend on the goodwill of the headman and on the attitude of the villagers whether a party was sent to search for the fugitives or whether they were left to fend for themselves as best they might. So far, she had managed tolerably well. Despite the baby’s weight and the bemused state of shock to which their father’s murder had reduced her two elder children, she had led them to this clearing—which she judged to be at least two miles from the road—without mishap. But the heat had exacted a heavy toll of them all and it had taken them almost until nightfall to get here, resting at frequent intervals.
They had encountered only one other human being on their weary, difficult journey—a wounded Eurasian clerk on a jaded horse, who had paused only long enough to gasp out a horrifying account of the attack on the Residency and had then ridden on, refusing Harriet’s offer to attend to his wounds. The death of Colonel Birch—shot down with two of his officers by his own Treasury guard—had apparently been the signal for a general uprising. The clerk had witnessed this and had fled in terror to the Residency with the news. His account of subsequent events had confirmed, in blood-chilling detail, the Subedar’s claim that virtually all those who had taken shelter with the Christians had been killed and the bungalow burnt to the ground. The few who had escaped had done so by wading or swimming across the shallow river, as he himself had done, or on horseback from cantonments, braving vicious musketry fire. He had found the horse wandering loose in the jungle, the clerk had explained, its rider lying dead nearby, and had taken it, hoping that the animal would carry him to Lucknow.
“I will send back help to you when I get there,” he had promised but the promise had been half-hearted, his concern solely for himself, and Harriet had watched him go, neither believing that he would keep his word nor that he would reach his destination, for his wounds were severe and he was losing blood as he talked to her. But he had named several of those who had contrived to cross the river and her sad heart had lifted a little with the realisation that some, at least, of her friends might still be alive. Captain Hearsey, who had been saved but held prisoner for a time by his treacherous Police; Madelaine Jackson and her brother Mountstewart, the Assistant-Commissioner; Jemmy’s adjutant George Burns; and two other young women the clerk knew only by sight, one of whom had been carrying a little girl.
“Where are they now?” Harriet had asked and, kicking his weary horse into motion, the Eurasian had waved vaguely behind him.
“They may come this way,” he had suggested and, buoyed up by the hope that he was right and she might sooner or later encounter them, she had struggled on, her first concern to find a safe hiding place where, with the children, she could wait and watch for their coming. But the way was rough, the path they followed—an animal track—frequently overgrown with thorny brushwood and their progress became slower with each passing hour. Finally, her hands and arms lacerated and bleeding and the two older children, parched and breathless, clinging to her skirts and pleading with her to let them rest, she had been compelled to halt in the clearing in which they now were. It was by no means the safe refuge she had been searching for but it was hemmed in by trees, the approaches to it used, as far as she could judge, only by animals and, as the moon rose, she realised that, crouched in the shadows, she and the children would probably not be seen by an intruder— or, if they were, not before that intruder had made his presence known to her, both by sight and sound. But there was no water, the trees were not of the fruit-bearing variety and, by daylight—whilst she might assuage the baby’s hunger—Phillip and Augusta would be famished and she would have no means of satisfying either of them.
Water was a vital necessity for them all; they would have to find it or die, Harriet thought despairingly, which meant that they could not remain here after the new day dawned, in the hope that some of the other fugitives would catch up with them or that the people from Ayah’s village would track them to their hiding place, bringing the help she had requested. She dared not count on either of these possibilities; the other fugitives might be dead or in the hands of mutineers and Ayah’s people—if they came—would not attempt to search for her until it was light. With her children’s lives in the balance, she had to depend on her own efforts and must plan accordingly. She … Somewhere, frighteningly near at hand, an animal squealed and went crashing through the underbrush, emitting grunts and more squeals. A wild pig, she decided, her heart thudding, one of the most dangerous animals in the jungle, Jemmy had told her which, if startled, would attack human beings on foot without provocation. Instinctively, she clasped the baby to her, and he wakened, whimpering plaintively. She rocked him to and fro, fearful lest Phillip and Augusta should waken also and be afraid but, to her relief, both slept on, and she glimpsed the pig—a formidablelooking boar—as it crossed the clearing
and then vanished into the shadows at its far end.
With its going, Harriet’s heart resumed its normal rhythm; the baby quietened and she laid him, very gently, on the ground beside her, cautiously stretching her cramped limbs. She must conserve her strength, she knew; must rest when she could—although she dared not sleep in this all-too vulnerable refuge—and, however desperate their need for water, she and the children must travel only in the cool of the early morning and late evening. To do as they had yesterday— attempt to fight their way through the jungle, blindly and without direction, in the full heat of the sun—was to dissipate what little stamina they possessed and to no purpose.
She would get her bearings from the sun and go south, making her first objective the river, which could not be more than a mile distant and, although all Indian rivers were contaminated and dangerous for Europeans to drink from, this was a chance that she and the children would have to take. Any water was preferable to the risk of dehydration, and the awful torment of unassuaged thirst, she decided, and the only alternative water supply was that to be found in village wells, to approach which, in her present circumstances, would be dangerous … the villagers could as well attack as give her aid. Besides, if any of the other fugitives had survived, they would undoubtedly make for Lucknow, as the wounded clerk had done, and her best chance of encountering them would be if she, too, attempted to head in that direction, with the river as guide. Lucknow lay forty daunting miles to the south but the Sureyan was a tributary of the River Goomtee, which flowed through the centre of Lucknow, passing within sight of Sir Henry Lawrence’s Residency … Harriet sat up, conscious of renewed hope.
