by V. A. Stuart
Yusef Khan hesitated but, when Hosainee raised her voice in shrill protest, he silenced her with a contemptuous, “Your order will not be obeyed. Who are you to give orders? Bring me it in writing, under the Nana Sahib’s signature and seal!” She flung away from him and the Jemadar went on, lowering his voice, “Do not fear, Memsahibs, we will not harm you. But so as not to incur the Nana’s wrath, should the serving woman bring us a written order, we will fire through the windows into the walls and ceiling. If you lie down, our musket balls will not touch you.”
The prisoners thanked him tearfully but Hosainee had again vanished and, still apprehensive, at the suggestion of Mrs Tucker, the Colonel’s widow, they tore strips from their dresses and petticoats, with which they endeavoured to secure the door. Exhausted by their efforts, they sank down behind it to join once again in prayer, mothers clasping their children to them in nameless fear when, from somewhere close at hand, they heard the crackle of musketry. Fear became panic when Yusef Khan shouted through the window that their kindly little doctor and the sweepers who had served them had been shot, on Hosainee Khanum’s instructions.
“The woman comes back, Memsahibs!” he warned. “The time has come … lie down, that we may fire over your heads!”
In the gathering dusk, the terrified prisoners watched Hosainee’s approach. With her were five men, one wearing the scarlet uniform of the Nana’s bodyguard, the other four peasants of low caste, two, by their stained white robes, butchers from the Moslem bazaar. All were armed with hatchets and knives, the bodyguard with a tulwar, and they strode arrogantly past the sepoy guard who—having fired a ragged volley through the barred windows—stood helplessly by, as Hosainee waved a paper at the Jemadar.
“The order!” she sneered. “I bring the Nana Sahib’s sealed order, Yusef Khan. March your men from the compound if they fear to carry it out!”
Crouched behind the door, Lavinia heard its timbers crack as the men outside put their shoulders to it. Within the dirty, littered room that had been their prison, the poor hostages waited petrified, the children wailing as, one by one, pathetic wisps of cloth which held the door shut burst from its hinges.
Aware that her last hour had come, Lavinia dragged herself to her feet. The Bible which Tom had given her on their wedding day was in her hands. Trembling uncontrollably, her voice a tiny whisper of sound inaudible above the shrieks and sobs which filled the room, she placed herself in front of two cowering children and began to read from the 23rd Psalm …
It was dark when Hosainee Khanum’s butchers emerged from the Bibigarh and the heartrending cries which had issued from its shuttered windows faded at last to a deathly silence. Barely six miles away, the guns of General Havelock’s relief force continued to fire, as the streets of Cawnpore started to echo to the running feet of fleeing mutineers and the Nana Sahib—himself a fugitive from the battle—prepared to follow his retreating army.
CHAPTER FIVE
On 6th August the Shannon, in company with the corvette Pearl, arrived off the mouth of the Ganges. Soundings were taken, the ship put under easy sail, and a jack hoisted for a pilot. Under his guidance, the frigate steamed through the dull and muddy waters to the mouth of the Hoogly and then up river, with thick, luxuriant jungle on either bank, broken only by mud flats and innumerable small islands which, with their tangled vegetation and basking crocodiles, looked anything but inviting.
On nearing Calcutta, the east bank of the river—called Garden Reach—became more attractive, with its well-kept gardens and pleasure grounds and white painted bungalows and, passing beneath the gun batteries and green slopes of Fort William, the Shannon was enthusiastically cheered. At five o’clock on the evening of 8th August, she dropped anchor off the Esplanade, firing a 19-gun salute. Lord Elgin disembarked at once and was driven to Government House to consult with the Governor-General, Lord Canning, and Captain Peel accompanied him.
Phillip also went ashore, anxious to find his brother Graham, only to learn that the Lady Wellesley had sailed over a week before for Mauritius to pick up troops. He called at the shipping office, hoping that the letter he had posted to his brother before leaving Hong Kong might have reached him to find, to his chagrin, that the letter was amongst a batch addressed to Graham and Catriona which was being held in the office, pending their return. On his identifying himself, the clerk told him that his brother had taken the lease of a furnished bungalow at Garden Reach and had left instructions that this was to be placed at the disposal of any member of his family who might arrive in Calcutta in his absence.
“He has given me two names, Commander,” the clerk volunteered, leafing swiftly through the little pile of papers on his desk. “Yes, here they are … Mrs James Dorling and Mrs Thomas Hill. His—that is, your sisters, I presume, sir?”
Phillip nodded, tight-lipped. He cut short the clerk’s offer to give him the keys of Graham’s newly acquired residence and asked if there had been news of either of his sisters. “I was hoping that there might be a letter or letters, perhaps. They would be addressed to my brother, of course.”
The clerk hesitated, eyeing him uncertainly. He was a young man, well mannered and anxious to please but clearly he doubted his authority to hand over mail to anyone to whom it was not addressed. “Where would such a letter or letters be from, sir?” he enquired cautiously.
“From the Upper Provinces—Lucknow probably. Or Cawnpore.”
The clerk paled. “I trust not from Cawnpore, Commander. Have you not heard the news—the terrible news of what occurred there?”
Phillip shook his head. “I heard that it was under siege. There was a rumour in Singapore that terms for surrender had been asked for by General Wheeler and a wild tale of a massacre but neither had been confirmed when we sailed. We …” The expression on the young clerk’s face froze the words in his throat. “For God’s sake, man, surely it can’t be true?”
“Unhappily the tale of the massacre is only too true, sir. Everyone here is still sickened by it, sickened and angry.” In a few brief and bitter sentences, the boy described what had happened following the garrison’s surrender and went on, “The survivors of the ghastly slaughter in the boats numbered about a hundred and twenty women and children, and the Nana confined them, with other poor fugitives from Fategarh, in a small house known as the Bibigarh in the centre of the native city. General Havelock was aware of this, sir, when he left Allahabad with his relief force and he made the most strenuous efforts to save them. He had a very small force, fewer than a thousand European troops, and they marched a hundred and twenty-six miles in ten days, fighting four successful actions against the Nana’s army. The General re-captured Cawnpore on the sixteenth of July, sir, but that foul fiend, the Nana Sahib, had butchered our poor, defenceless countrywomen the day before, when he knew himself to be defeated. He fled the city, attempting to deceive his own people with a simulated suicide, but he is believed to be in alliance now with the rebels who are besieging Lucknow.”
Phillip expelled his breath in a long-drawn sigh, feeling his stomach churn. It was a ghastly story, worse than anything he had ever imagined and he listened, only half taking in the horror of what was happening in India, as the clerk went on to recount other stories of uprisings in isolated stations, his young voice harsh with disillusionment.
“Is Lucknow still holding out?” Phillip asked, when the boy came to the end of his recital.
“Yes, sir. Despite the tragic loss they suffered when Sir Henry Lawrence was killed.”
“Sir Henry Lawrence is dead?”
“Alas, sir, he is … he was killed at the beginning of the siege. News filters through, messages are carried by loyal native runners. We hear few details, just bare facts but it is believed that Sir Henry was killed when his room at the Residency was struck by a shell. General Havelock marched from Cawnpore on the twenty-eighth of last month to the relief of the Lucknow garrison. We heard that he had twice defeated the rebels and reached a town called Busseratgunj, thirty-six miles from
Lucknow, but that heavy casualties and losses from cholera among his British troops might compel him to retreat. It is to be hoped that’s not true.” The clerk sighed. “Many people here feel that had the command of the relief force been confided to Colonel Neill—the officer who saved Benares and Allahabad, sir—Lucknow would have been relieved by now. But Colonel Neill has been left to command the force holding Cawnpore …” He talked on, extolling the merits of Colonel Neill and Phillip, recovering himself, interrupted him.
“Forgive me but … I have been a long time without news. One of my sisters, Mrs Dorling, was in Sitapur, I believe—that’s an out-station, about forty miles north of Lucknow. Did you hear what happened there?”
“The native regiments mutinied in Sitapur, sir, as they did virtually everywhere else in Oudh. But”—the clerk frowned, in effort to remember—“I do recall hearing that a number of ladies from Sitapur managed to reach Lucknow. I very much hope that your sister was amongst them, I …” He hesitated, again leafing through the small pile of Graham’s mail. “There’s a note here, sir, addressed to Captain Hazard of the Lady Wellesley. I believe it came via Allahabad and is from Lucknow, smuggled out before the Residency was invested. In the circumstances, Captain Hazard surely would not object to my permitting you to read it, do you think, sir?”
“No, he would not.” The boy had the note in his hand, still hesitating, and Phillip leaned forward and took it from him. The writing, he saw, was Harriet’s and a wave of thankfulness swept over him when he opened it and read the heading and the date. On June 15th Harriet had been in the Residency at Lucknow, Harriet and … oh, heaven be thanked, her three children!
His throat ached as he read the rest of the note.
“We are permitted only a few lines,” Harriet had written. “My beloved Jemmy is dead, murdered by his own sepoys, but the children and I have come here safely and are lodged with other fugitives. There is no chance of our leaving until relief is sent. I have just been told that Lavinia and Tom are still in Cawnpore. Pray God they may be saved.”
“Is it—good news, Commander?” the clerk ventured.
For a moment, his thoughts with Lavinia, Phillip could not answer him. Then, controlling himself, he said flatly, “Yes, I thank you—my sister, Mrs Dorling, is in Lucknow.” He returned the letter and, requesting pen and paper, left a note of his own for Graham. “I can be contacted aboard the Shannon,” he told the clerk and was about to take his leave, after thanking the boy for his trouble, when a thought struck him. “Do you know whether any casualty lists have been published here?”
The clerk’s eyes held pity. “A number, yes, sir. They’re published each week. The Cawnpore casualty list isn’t complete—I mean, all the lists are being added to and occasionally some names are deleted. Usually the officers and their wives who are known to be at each station are listed and the newspapers state that their present whereabouts is subject to confirmation, I … there are copies in our files, sir. It would not take me very long to extract any copies you wished to see and bring them to you.”
“Thank you,” Phillip managed. “Then the Cawnpore list, if you please.”
He waited for twenty minutes, pacing restlessly up and down the office, watched curiously by its other occupants, and then the boy who had attended him returned and silently handed him copies of two Calcutta newspapers, folded open to reveal the list he had requested. He took them, his hands not quite steady and almost instantly the name he had been hoping not to see leapt out at him from the printed page. “Hill, Lieutenant and Mrs T. F., H.M.’s 32nd Regiment …” So Harriet’s information had been correct, he thought dully. Tom and Lavinia were both dead, both … murdered.
He returned to the ship like a man living a nightmare, savage anger in his heart. His mother and father would have to be told, of course, but he postponed writing to inform them, unable to bring himself to commit what he had learned to paper. As the clerk had said, the lists of casualties had to be confirmed—it was possible that, at the last minute, Tom had been transferred, sent to join his regiment in Lucknow, perhaps or … He lay down on his cot without undressing and remained there, not sleeping but staring into space, his thoughts unbearable torment.
Next day, Captain Peel announced to his assembled ship’s company that Lord Elgin had instructed him to place both Shannon and Pearl at the disposal of the Indian Government. “Arrangements are being made for the formation of a Naval Brigade to assist in quelling the mutiny, my lads,” he told them. “The first four hundred men will leave here for Allahabad within a week, all being well, under my command. We shall be taking some of the ship’s guns with us.” The men, who had heard the story of the Cawnpore massacre, cheered him until they were hoarse.
Events moved rapidly after that. On 10th August, the troops were disembarked; on the 11th, the three hundred marines from the Sanspareil marched ashore to do duty as garrison troops in Fort William, and the Pearl—held up in the river—made her appearance to disembark the two hundred men of the 90th Light Infantry to whom she had given passage from Singapore. Two other transports arrived, bringing a wing of the 5th Fusiliers and two companies of the 59th Regiment, all of whom were dispatched up country by rail and road.
Phillip’s hopes of a rapid journey to Allahabad by the same means were dashed when William Peel told him that it had been decided to send the Naval Brigade up by river, taking with them ten of the Shannon’s sixty-eight-pounder guns, with four hundred rounds of shot and shell for each gun, brass fieldpieces, a twenty-four-pounder howitzer and eight rocket-tubes. On 13th, a large flat-transport, the Gamma, came alongside and the guns were hoisted out and loaded aboard her, together with medical and clothing supplies, tents, haversacks, waterbottles, and boots furnished by the military authorities. The men were issued with waterproof capes and cotton covers and sun-curtains to attach to their straw hats, and Minié or Enfield rifles, bayonets, and ammunition.
At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 18th August, a ninety-horsepower steamer, the Chunar, was waiting in readiness for departure, with the straw-thatched flat in tow. Lord Elgin came on board the Shannon to address the men about to proceed on service and, an hour later, the first division of the Naval Brigade, three hundred and ninety strong, embarked in the steamer and the flat. As the Chunar got under way, those remaining aboard the Shannon and the entire company of the Pearl lined the decks or ascended the rigging to exchange cheers, the Pearl saluting with seven guns.
Progress was, however, extremely slow. The Chunar developed a faulty feed-pipe and, on 20th August, unable to make any headway against the current for lack of steam, she was compelled to anchor off Barrackpore and Peel wrathfully sent the cutter, with Lieutenant Hay, to demand that she be replaced.
“Damned ineffciency!” Peel complained, to Phillip. “Devil take their so-called engineers! I’m going to put young Bone to supervise the engine room, if and when they manage to rake up another steamer for us. We’re not having this again.”
The Chunar was replaced by the River Bird the following day but her Commander contrived to foul the flat when endeavouring to take her in tow. After this had been dealt with, Peel had fresh reason for annoyance when, due to an error, a double ration of grog was issued to the seamen and Marines aboard the flat, and none to those who had transferred to the newly arrived River Bird. Led by a petty officer named Oates, a number of men came aft to demand aggrievedly that they be issued with their ration and the young Swedish officer, Lind, who had the deck, perforce refused their request, since no supplies had yet been received from the Chunar. The man replied insolently; Peel, who had been within earshot, promptly placed him under arrest and next day disrated him to able-seaman, with the forfeiture of his two Good Conduct badges.
“We may have a month of this,” Peel said, when Oates and his escort had marched away. “The men have got to be made to work off their impatience—they’re all so damned keen to come to grips with the mutineers and avenge Cawnpore that any delay upsets them. Well, we’ll turn the inevitable delays to
our advantage.” He turned to Phillip, grinning boyishly. “I’ve been wondering what to do with you, Commander Hazard, but now, by heaven, I’ve got the answer! You shall take charge of training.”
“Certainly, sir,” Phillip agreed readily. “I take it you want your seamen transformed into soldiers?”
“Into good soldiers, Phillip. I want them to march and form square, exercise with the bayonet, learn to repel cavalry and to manhandle the guns, use the rifles effectively and, by God, drill like Marines! Above all, I want them to sweat, so that we’ll have no more trouble from lads like Oates, due to inaction and boredom. They’ll have to perform their routine duties, of course—hump stores, coal ship, and man the boats—this will be in addition. They shall have their grog all right but they’ll earn every last drop of it … will you see to it that they do?”
“I will, sir,” Phillip assured him. “Very gladly.” He, too, was anxious to be distracted from the torment of his own thoughts and to regain fully his physical fitness, and he found release and a considerable measure of satisfaction in the results of the training programme he organised.
Each day, at first light, as steamer and flat steamed slowly up the broad and, at times tempestuous River Ganges, he exercised the small-arms men in rifle and infantry drill, dividing them into sections. The deck of the broad-beamed flat provided sufficient space for most of the drills, and he encouraged friendly rivalry between the various sections and the 50-strong Royal Marine contingent, whose two officers ran an unofficial “book” aided by the seamen’s Divisional Officers, Edward Hay and Nowell Salmon.
During the heat of the day, lectures on military tactics occupied the men in batches, alternating with others covering such subjects as hygiene and first aid to the injured, given by the medical staff, and basic Hindustani and general talks on India and its people, contributed by one of the River Bird’s officers. At sunset, when both steamer and flat dropped anchor for the night, parties were landed to drill with field guns, practise infantry manoeuvres and make route marches and, before long, the Shannon’s “Jacks” became almost as competent in their military duties as they had previously been at sea.
