by Val Wood
His captors bandaged his arm, and he knew that even if he didn’t die of blood poisoning or gangrene he wouldn’t be able to straighten his elbow again. He made a play of firing with his left hand which the sepoys seemed to find amusing, and they fired a succession of rifle shots in the air with both their right and their left hands just to show him how superior they were.
Some of the sepoys spoke English and Lal, who bandaged him, said, ‘There will be another war. Then you can go home. You are of no use to the army any more.’
‘Why not let me go now?’ he asked. ‘I’ll put in a good word for you.’
He grinned as he said it, but the man only shook his head and said, ‘We might need you.’
‘For what? There won’t be another war,’ he said. ‘The British have won.’
‘The British have won this time because we have been betrayed by our commanders,’ the sepoy said fiercely. ‘Not because the Sikhs can’t fight. We are the best fighters in the world!’
Johnny hastily agreed that they were. The ground he was on was far too shaky for him to disagree. Besides, he had a sneaking regard for their cause. Britain was seeking to rule the world and impose its influence on countries it considered inferior, and to his way of thinking that wasn’t right.
They were moved from place to place as the rebel Sikhs continued their skirmishes. Johnny considered how laughable it was that his army could be picked out so easily in their reds or blues, whilst the Sikh dissenters blended into the mountains in their camouflaged rags. He made himself useful to them, never giving them any trouble, whilst his sullen companion Blake plotted their escape.
‘We’ll never get out alive,’ Johnny told him. ‘Even if we escaped this camp we’d never find our way back to the regiment. We’ve no idea where we are. If another war starts, as they seem to think it will, they’ll move nearer to the river crossing, which is where the army will come to capture the ground there; then we’ll try to make our escape.’
But the war was a long time coming and they spent twelve months hiding out in the mountains with the guerrillas as they made their spasmodic attacks; the first winter he was sure he would die of the freezing cold and the following summer he thought he would succumb to the fierce heat; the next winter, when he was becoming acclimatized and the group trusted him enough to use him as a lookout with one of their men, he alerted them to a movement down the mountain. It was a rebel from another group coming to tell them that a second war was about to begin.
Blake stole out of the camp that night. They slept in the same cave as their captors and hadn’t been tied up for some months as the Sikhs were now so used to their presence. Blake shook Johnny’s shoulder to wake him, and indicated with a toss of his head that he was leaving.
‘No,’ Johnny whispered. ‘Wait until we see some troop movement. Besides, they’ll be able to follow your tracks in the snow.’
But Blake didn’t want to wait. He crept out and Johnny lay awake listening for any sign that he had been recaptured. Twenty minutes or so passed and then he heard a shot. He heaved a sigh and, feigning sleep, waited to be hauled out of the cave at gun point. He held his left arm high in surrender as he was dragged out and his right up to his chest. He had some movement back in his arm but he wasn’t going to show his captors that.
Blake knelt on the ground with his arms tied behind his back and blood oozing from his mangled leg. ‘For God’s sake get on with it,’ he growled at the men standing over him. And they did. With a bright moon lighting the scene and one swift stroke of a sword before he could even blink, he was beheaded.
Johnny drew in a whistling breath as Blake’s head rolled down the hillside and came to rest against a boulder. The man who had executed the deed put the bloody tip of his sword against Johnny’s chest. Johnny gave a shrug of his shoulders in resignation and lifted his damaged arm to show them how handicapped and disadvantaged he was. To his amazement one of them, the one who had bandaged his arm, said something he didn’t understand and the others all burst out laughing.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What did he say?’
‘You are sad about your friend?’ the leader, Teg, asked.
‘He wasn’t my friend,’ Johnny answered; in truth he hadn’t much liked Blake. ‘He was a soldier like me. But it seems a waste of a life.’
‘Lal says just now that as the second war has started we should let you go before you get killed. That’s why we laugh. He says that he told you this.’
‘He did. But why’ve you kept me? Nobody would be bothered. My regiment won’t even know that I’m missing. They probably think that I’m dead.’
‘We kept you because we could!’ Teg growled. ‘But now you must do something for us in exchange for your life. You will take a message back to the British that will tell them that this time they will not win.’
Johnny nodded. ‘All right. Fair enough. When shall I go?’
‘Tonight, after dark.’ He gave a sly grin, but without humour. ‘Don’t think that you can tell them where we are, for we will have moved on.’
Johnny frowned. ‘I won’t do that. You have my word.’
One of the other sepoys grunted. ‘The word of the British means nothing. They are liars and usurpers.’
‘Some of them are,’ Johnny agreed. ‘Up at ’top they are. But I’m just an ordinary foot soldier. I’ll give you my word as a Yorkshireman that I won’t tell ’em where you are.’
‘What is this Yorkshireman?’ Teg asked.
Johnny stood up straight. ‘It’s where I hail from. Best place in ’world. After ’Punjab, of course!’
They’d tied both his arms to his sides with a rope. They would have tied them behind his back but he couldn’t move his right arm so far, and he considered that they were not completely without feeling, as they could have forced it back if they’d wanted to. They stuck a stave of wood into his trouser waistband and tied a piece of white rag on to it.
‘We don’t want you to get shot by the British,’ they joked, and then tied a bloody sack round his waist containing something which bumped against his legs as he moved. ‘Give that to the officer in charge when you meet up with a regiment.’
He’d staggered down the mountain, often knee deep in snow, falling and crashing down the rough terrain as he had no means of balancing himself; as he’d reached the river a silver dawn was breaking.
He walked all day without seeing any other sign of life; he was desperate for water and dipped his head into pockets of snow to take a mouthful. When he reached a stream which ran into the river, he fell to his knees and lying prostrate on the frozen ground managed to put his head into the water and take a drink. He rolled over and sat up, his bloodstained bundle rolling with him. He had a horrible suspicion that he knew what was inside it.
As night began to fall and he was considering climbing up to higher ground and finding shelter from the cold, he heard the rhythmic drum of horses’ hooves and saw in the distance a platoon of British cavalry riding towards him.
It’s been a long journey home, he thought, as he got off the train in Hull railway station. I was beginning to think I’d never get here. The nerves in his arm were shattered, the army doctor had said, and the commander of the regiment he had reported to had opened the sack in Johnny’s presence, looked in at Blake’s mouldering head and asked, ‘Who’s this?’
‘His name was Blake, sir,’ Johnny said, and the commander had tossed the sack aside and said that if it was meant as a warning it hadn’t succeeded. He told Johnny he was of no use to him if he couldn’t hold a rifle, but that if he could find his own unit perhaps they’d have him back.
He had given some thought to this as he’d wandered about the camp and talked to the other soldiers as they’d queued for food at the canteen. He had been captured south of Ferozepur and gathered that his regiment was in the Multan area where there was heavy fighting. He asked an officer if he might look at a map in order to make his way there; he had seen one on the commander’s table when he had reported to him.
Having looked at it, he decided that the war could continue without him and he would take a risk and head south instead, following the Sutlej River to Hyderabad and the Arabian Sea, where he would hope to take a ship home to England.
Throughout that winter and the following spring he travelled on foot, by bullock cart and finally on horseback when he found a horse roaming free with the body of a cavalryman hanging from the saddle. He’d lifted the soldier down and placed him near a rocky outcrop with his hands folded over his bloody chest. ‘Rest easy, lad,’ he’d said, before mounting the horse and continuing his journey.
His period with the warriors had taught him how to hide in the mountains and survive on little food; he had stolen extra rations from the army canteen. Each time he saw a division of British soldiers in the distance, he took off up the hillside in case he was ordered to join them, for he knew in his head and heart that he had had quite enough of fighting in a foreign land and was ready to go home.
Following the river, he finally arrived at Hyderabad and reported to a British mission that he had been captured by the enemy, and that not only had he lost his papers in a skirmish, but he had become lost and disorientated and didn’t know where he was. By this time his clothes were in rags and his hair, beneath a turban, was long; he was emaciated and footsore and he walked with a limp. His arm he allowed to hang uselessly by his side, though in fact it had strengthened on the journey.
He was directed to a civil servant who, astonished that he had travelled all the way from the Punjab, told him that the second Anglo-Sikh war was practically over and the British were once more the victors. Rather than send Johnny back to his regiment, he signed papers for his passage and directed him to a ship which was leaving for England within the next few days, with the directive that he should report to his regimental office as soon as he arrived.
He went on board, hid out of sight in case anyone should change their minds and order him onshore again, and emerged two days later when the ship was out at sea. He reported to his regiment as suggested when he landed in England and heard the news that the war was indeed finally over. The Sikh army had surrendered at Rawalpindi.
There was a further wait as the regimental clerk checked with his superiors, as the records showed that Johnny had been reported missing and possibly killed in action. During questioning he gave again the story of his capture and after some deliberation was discharged on medical grounds. A week later he was on a train and heading for home.
He looked round him as he stood on the Hull railway concourse, and wondered what was the quickest way to get to Holderness. Having walked across India he didn’t find the small detail of walking a distance of twenty-five miles or so in the least daunting. He just wanted to get there as quickly as possible. All I want is to see my Lily again. I want to put my arms round her, feel her soft warm body next to mine and look into her eyes. He smiled to himself. Those beautiful amber-coloured eyes which turned green when she was passionate or angry; the colour of brandy when she was loving and tender.
He put his hand in his pocket to stroke a piece of amber, one of several which he’d found on his journey through the mountains; these were the colour of honey or the sap they had once been, with pollen and seeds trapped inside. He’d visited a jeweller in London before he caught the train and saw the man’s eyes widen, though he’d tried to disguise his pleasure and greed. Johnny had refused his first offer and wrapped the stones up again, only opening the package once more when the jeweller doubled his price. ‘For one,’ Johnny had said firmly, and then offered a second stone for a slightly smaller sum.
This will see us all right for a bit, he thought. We can set up in a little business. The bairns can help us when they’re old enough. And it was this thought which reminded him of how long he had been away. It took him aback. They’ll be – how old will Ted be? And the little bairn – Daisy? He took a deep breath as he worked it out. And Lily? Will she still be at home in Hollym? How has she managed all these years without any money?
He began to be depressed and agitated. What if something had happened to her? Suppose she and the bairns had been turned out of the house? What if they were in the workhouse? He hoisted his pack more securely, rubbed his painful elbow, turned his back on the station and headed off in the direction of the Humber, to follow the road to Holderness and home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘Daisy! Daisy, come here,’ Mrs Walker called down the stairs.
‘Yes, Mrs Walker.’ Daisy ran up to her employer’s room. ‘Sorry, I was about to go in ’shop to help Oliver.’
‘Where is Mr Walker?’
‘Gone on an errand, I think. Would you like me to brush your hair, ma’am?’
Mrs Walker was sitting in front of her dressing mirror. ‘No. I want to tell you something, Daisy. We’re going to have a different carry-on.’ She smiled at her. ‘It’s a sort of secret between us, so I don’t want you to tell Mr Walker or Oliver either. Not just yet, anyway.’
Daisy’s mouth turned into a round O. Mrs Walker had been hinting at secrets for a few days but they hadn’t amounted to much so far.
‘You’ve enjoyed being here, haven’t you, my dear? Feel comfortable, don’t you?’
Daisy hesitated for a second. She did, though Mrs Walker could be very fussy and demanding, and sometimes so clinging and emotional, wanting to know where Daisy was every minute of the day, that she felt suffocated.
She had grown up as a child in Hollym with a certain amount of independence; she was expected to help in the house but her mother had trusted her to do what was right without constantly badgering her. Now, the thrill of being a lady’s maid and of constantly having to dance attendance on her mistress was beginning to pall. Besides, she missed her mother.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said meekly, for she knew that was what Mrs Walker expected her to say. ‘Of course. I hope I’ve pleased you.’
‘Oh, you have indeed!’ Mrs Walker was effusive. ‘So much so that I’m going to elevate you.’
Daisy’s eyes grew wide. What did that mean? She already slept on the top floor.
‘Come here.’ Mrs Walker reached out to bring her closer, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘How would you like it if we adopted you, Daisy? If you came here to live as our daughter?’ Mrs Walker nodded her head in a mysterious fashion. ‘I’ve been thinking of it for some time.’
‘Oh, but – what would my ma say? I don’t think she’d like it.’
‘I don’t think she’d mind much. I’ve mentioned it to her already. She didn’t make any objections.’
‘You’ve seen my ma, Mrs Walker? When? Did she come here?’ Daisy couldn’t believe that her mother would have come without asking to see her.
‘She’s been having a bit of bother,’ Mrs Walker said soothingly. ‘She came to ask my advice.’
‘What kind o’ bother, Mrs Walker?’ Daisy asked anxiously. ‘She’s not ill or lost her job or anything?’
‘No. But her prospects are uncertain. That’s when I mentioned about you becoming part of our family.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘I do believe she thought it a good idea. It would take a weight off her mind, knowing you’d be well looked after.’
Daisy blinked. Surely her mother wouldn’t give her up? ‘Wouldn’t Mr Walker have to agree to it?’ she asked, trying to think of an excuse. ‘He might not want to. He said I was very useful to him in ’shop, but …’ her voice trailed away. Mr Walker had said that after Oliver had gone away to medical school she could do more to help in the shop if she would like to, and she had thought that she would prefer that to being at Mrs Walker’s beck and call. But if they adopted her, what would happen then? Mrs Walker would probably want her with her all the time.
‘He’ll agree eventually,’ Mrs Walker said softly. ‘I know how to persuade him. But, for now, just be thinking about it and how your life would change for ’better. Now,’ she said, ‘I thought that you and I’d go out and have a little walk round town. See who’s about, you
know.’
Daisy sighed. This meant trailing after Mrs Walker as she looked in the shops but never bought anything. It meant going into coffee shops and sitting watching other people while Mrs Walker whispered that they were not as prim and proper as they made out. That she could tell a tale or two about them.
‘Shall I tell Oliver that I can’t help him after all?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Walker said firmly. ‘Tell him that I need you.’
Daisy suddenly felt very wise. She could see that if her mother agreed to hand her over to the Walkers, she wouldn’t have any kind of life of her own. Not even when she was grown up. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll get your coat, Mrs Walker.’
Mrs Walker smiled. ‘And soon you can start thinking of me as Mama,’ she said. ‘Won’t that be nice?’
Daisy dashed downstairs into the shop. ‘Oliver, I’m sorry, I can’t help you after all. I have to go out with Mrs Walker.’
‘You’re always in demand, aren’t you, Daisy?’ He seemed concerned. ‘Daisy come here, Daisy go there! Never mind, you can help later if Mother doesn’t need you.’
‘Oliver,’ she said appealingly. ‘Do you know where my mother is? I really need to ask her something.’
‘Mmm, no, I don’t.’ His brows knitted together in a frown. ‘But I’m sure my father does. He brought her here to see my mother.’
‘Did he? Where was I, Oliver? I didn’t see her.’
‘You’d gone off on an errand, I believe. Do you want to see her urgently? I can ask my father when he comes in. Or you can ask him yourself.’
‘Would you ask him for me, please?’ she asked. ‘Seeing as I have to go out. And – and perhaps you’d tell me later.’ She gazed up at him. ‘I’m very worried about her,’ she said pleadingly. ‘I really do need to see her soon.’
Oliver asked his father about Daisy’s mother as soon as he came back. ‘She’s so young,’ he said, referring to Daisy. ‘I think she’s really missing her.’
