Massacre at Cawnpore

by V. A. Stuart

  Azimullah, he recalled, had named the entrenchment “The Fort of Despair,” during the course of its construction, and thus it would prove, if the mutineers abandoned their foolish desire to go to Delhi and agreed, instead, to return to Cawnpore. Their leaders had assured him that they would; they had gone ahead of him, in order to inform the sepoys of the proposed change of plan and he was only waiting for a summons to ride out to Kalianpore and place himself at their head. With their aid, he would build up a great power for himself here, he would march, as a conqueror, down the valley of the Ganges and, as more regiments threw off the Company’s fetters and came flocking to his banner, he would fight a new Plassey. Above all, he told himself exultantly, he would teach these Christian dogs what it meant to flout a Mahratta. He …

  “Highness!” Azimullah Khan’s voice broke into the Nana’s thoughts. His handsome young Mohammedan aide had been deep in conversation with his elder brother, Bala Bhat, and with the Moulvi of Fyzabad, Ahmad Ullah, for the past twenty or thirty minutes, and the Nana studied him with suspicious eyes as he approached. The Moulvi was a teacher of the Islamic faith. He had been useful in sowing the seeds of sedition in the minds of the Light Cavalry, who were of his faith, and he had done good work in Lucknow and elsewhere in Oudh, but he was ambitious, a smooth-tongued rabble-rouser, on whom it might be wise not to place too much reliance. His previous service under the now-deposed King of Oudh had not been entirely satisfactory—there had been ugly rumours concerning him, even one or two hints that he had betrayed his old master to the British, in return for personal advancement.

  Nothing had been proved but … he had, of late, begun to exercise some influence over Azimullah and this the Nana was determined not to permit. Azimullah, although of humble origin and neither a Mahratta nor a Hindu, had become as indispensable to him as his own right hand and, at this critical juncture in his life, he had to have one man—apart from his two brothers— whose undivided loyalty was beyond doubt. There was Tantia Topi, of course, the commander of his bodyguard, who had always served him well, but Tantia was a soldier, with a soldier’s blunt honesty. He lacked Azimullah’s shrewd wits, his political cunning, his knowledge of the British—acquired at first-hand in London and in the Crimea, as well as here in Cawnpore, when he had acted as munshi to General Wheeler’s predecessor. Of the two perhaps, Tantia was more to be trusted, yes … the Nana Sahib sighed.

  “Well?” he challenged, as Azimullah reined in beside him. “What plots have you been hatching with the Moulvi?”

  “We hatch no plots, Nana Sahib.” The young man’s tone was reproachful. “The Moulvi seeks only to serve you—as do I—and he offers two suggestions for your consideration.”

  The Nana’s mouth tightened. His suspicions were far from being allayed; if anything they were increased. “And what, pray, does the fellow suggest?” he demanded coldly.

  Azimullah gestured to the mob of looters with a disdainful hand. “He asks, Highness, whether you would not be well advised to keep this plunder for the sepoys when they return? They have been promised pay and this must come from your purse if these scum are permitted to carry off everything of value from the dwellings of the British. Shall I send in the bodyguard to drive them off?”

  The Nana Sahib gave his assent a trifle sullenly, but the suggestion was a practical one which, had he not been so absorbed in thought, he might have considered without any prompting from the Moulvi. As his sowars went in with whoops of delight to wrest their prizes from the bazaar mob, he asked, still coldly, “And what is Ahmad Ullah’s second suggestion? You said he had two to offer, did you not?”

  Azimullah’s dark eyes lit with a fugitive gleam of resentment. He had for so long enjoyed his master’s favour that to be spoken to in this curt, disparaging manner roused him to indignation. His conscience was clear, Ullah knew; what he had planned with the Moulvi was more for the Nana’s gratification than his own, but the Moulvi had been most insistent that he should do all in his power to persuade his master to accede to the scheme, so he controlled himself.

  “I had said, Highness, that when the sepoys swear allegiance to you it should be as Peishwa—that you should be proclaimed in your august father’s title, with a 21-gun salute. Your brother and the Moulvi were in agreement with me, but the Moulvi is of the opinion that the proclamation should be made here, when you lead your army back to the city, rather than at Kalianpore, before a few villagers. Also, so as to make the oaths binding on the men of both religions, he advises that we should plant two banners—one of Islam, for the Light Cavalry, and one for those of your Highness’s faith, the banner of Hanuman. Thus it will be made clear to all who witness it that we are united in your service and that of Hind … and that the enemy we fight are the Christian British and their converts.” The Nana was beaming on him, Azimullah saw and, his temper swiftly restored, he went into details of the proposed ceremony and then, recalling the promise he had made to Bala Bhat, he added, “At the same time, your Highness’s brother, Bala Sahib, could be proclaimed governor and chief magistrate of Cawnpore, to ensure that law and order are preserved in the city.”

  “Good, good. It is agreed, Azimullah. Arrange it so, you and Ahmad Ullah.” The Nana laid a forgiving hand on his young aide’s shoulder. “I shall proclaim myself Peishwa here, in the city, tomorrow morning. When it is done, I shall send a formal declaration of war to General Wheeler and we will launch an attack on his Fort of Despair immediately.”

  “That place will not hold out until nightfall, Highness! The heavy guns from the Magazine will demolish it, brick by brick, in a few hours,” Azimullah declared scornfully. “You will not need to dismount from your horse before you ride in to accept the old general’s surrender!” He was smiling as he rode over to acquaint the Moulvi with his master’s decision.

  “Does he give his consent for the proclamation?” Ahmad Ullah asked, before he could speak.

  “Yes … with much pleasure.”

  “And also to the manner of the oath-taking?”

  “Also to that, Ahmad Ullah.” Azimullah’s smile widened. “Thou has set great store by the oath-taking, hast thou not?”

  The Moulvi did not smile but his dark, hawk-like face revealed his relief at this news. “It is important,” he answered gravely, “if we are to serve a Hindu prince—and a Mahratta—that the price of our subservience be settled in advance. We fight as equals and the rewards must be shared equally between us, with no discrimination against those of us who are true believers. Thy master shall swear to this tomorrow, Azimullah … and Bala Bhat also, before he is made governor.”

  “Yes, certainly,” Azimullah confirmed. “They will raise no objections—least of all the Nana Sahib.”

  “See to it that he does not,” the Moulvi ordered, his tone suddenly harsh. “They will raise now, throughout all Oudh and Northern India, the fighting men of the Bengal army—thy master will have a great host under his command. But if he should break the promises he will make to us, remember that Wajid Ali— he who was once King of Oudh and a believer—waits in enforced exile, eager to return.”

  “My master will keep his word,” the Nana’s young aide asserted stiffly.

  “He has yet to prove himself,” the Moulvi pointed out. “And the first thing he will have to prove is that he is no longer a friend of the British.”

  “Thou need’st have no fear on that account, Moulvi Sahib.” Azimullah spoke with conviction. “The Nana’s hatred for the British may have been hidden beneath the cloak of soft words in the past, but it is deeper than thine—and with reason. The British have humiliated him times without number. They have taken from him greedily and given him nothing in return, save insults which have wounded him deeply. You will see what will happen when he gives free rein to the anger which burns in his heart— he will spare none of those who now cower behind their mud walls out on the plain, not even the women or the babes that cling to them! He will be as a tiger, thirsting for blood.”

  “Good!” The Moulvi’s be
arded lips curved at last into a smile. “Thy words have the ring of truth, Azimullah. Thou are a worthy son of the Prophet and we understand each other well. Stand thou at thy master’s back and see to it always that he gives ear to thee for, when the winds of change blow, it is as easy to drag down a leader as it is to elevate him to leadership. The war we wage is a holy war and we shall be less tolerant than the British to any of our commanders who fail us.” He shrugged contemptuously. “The British are fools to put their trust in the Company’s grey-beard generals! Old General Hewitt, by his failure to act decisively in Meerut, has almost certainly lost India for them, but what do they do? Demand his head, hang him … oh, no! They leave him in command at Meerut and put General Wilson—who behaved no better than he did—in command of the troops they send to attack Delhi. True, there is talk of an enquiry but …” He broke off, with a pleased exclamation, to point to a horseman in the French grey and silver of the Native Cavalry full dress, approaching them at a headlong gallop. “Allah be praised! It is the messenger from Kalianpore at last, with a summons for the new Peishwa to take command of his army. The hour strikes for him and for us also, Azimullah … come, my brother, let neither of us shrink from his destiny!”

  “I shall glory in it.” Azimullah unsheathed his tulwar and raised it exultantly above his turbaned head as he rode forward to meet the messenger. “Before the sun sets tomorrow, my sword shall be red with the blood of the feringhi, I promise thee, Ahmad Ullah! I do not forget the haughty, high-born British ladies who received me in their London drawing rooms as if I were a lapdog … and laughed in my face when I sought to respond to their advances! I have waited a long time to take vengeance on them. As a boy, in their accursed Free School, I dreamed of slitting their white throats, even as I salaamed to them.”

  “I too.” A gleam of remembered anger flared in the Moulvi’s heavy-lidded eyes as he set spurs to his own horse. “There is one whom I would slay with my bare hands,” he confessed. “He with the empty sleeve, to whom Sir Henry Lawrence entrusted certain letters, which he took secretly to Meerut. Had the Company’s grey-beard generals listened to him, the rising there might well have failed … but happily they did not.”

  “Colonel Sheridan, dost thou mean?” Azimullah questioned in some surprise. “He who was lately commissioner in Adjodhabad and lost his sword arm in the Crimea? But he is in Lucknow, is he not, newly appointed to command of the Volunteer Cavalry?”

  “That is who I mean—and he is not in Lucknow.” The Moulvi laughed, in rare good humour. “Last night, to my joy, Allah delivered him into my hands. He rode across the Bridge of Boats from Lucknow and has remained in what you are pleased to call the Fort of Despair. His wife is here, I was told—doubtless it is on her account that he stayed.”

  “Yes, she is here—she gave birth to a child, a son, two weeks ago. And”—Azimullah chuckled maliciously—“the Nana Sahib, as was his custom, sent the child a silver loving cup. A loving cup! For all the good that whelp will have of it, he might have filled it with poison!”

  They were both laughing when, breathless, they drew rein beside the messenger from Kalianpore. “What news?” the Moulvi demanded sharply, his laughter fading.

  “It is as you wish, Moulvi Sahib,” the native officer answered. “We do not march to Delhi.”

  “Allah is good,” the Moulvi acknowledged softly. Raising his voice, he added, “Death to the feringhi! Not one shall escape from here!”

  For Historical Notes on the Mutiny, see page 229, and for a Glossary of Indian Terms see page 237.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SOON AFTER DAWN on 6th June, the four mutinous regiments of the Cawnpore Brigade marched back to the city, bringing their artillery train with them. Within an hour of their arrival, a mounted messenger from the Nana Sahib presented himself at the entrance to the British entrenchment to deliver a written communication from his master. This, couched in arrogant terms and addressed to General Sir Hugh Wheeler, announced the Nana’s intention to launch an attack on his position forthwith.

  Such treachery on the part of the one Indian, above all others, in whose friendship and goodwill he had believed implicitly, left the old general stunned and heartbroken. For a long time he sat with his head buried in his thin, blue-veined hands, unable to speak coherently. Finally, at the urgent request of his second-incommand, Brigadier-General Jack, he consented to call a conference of his officers and to permit the alarm bugle to be sounded, as a warning to any who had left the entrenchment to re-enter it at once.

  To the distant rumble of gunfire, the officers of the garrison made their way to the flat-roofed barrack block in which the general had set up his headquarters. All were aware of the significance of the gunfire and the sight of smoke and flames, once more ascending from the city and the civil and military cantonments, afforded proof—if proof were needed—of the return of the mutineers from their overnight camp on the Delhi road.

  To Alex Sheridan, abruptly roused from an exhausted sleep, the sepoys’ return came as no surprise. Since his meeting with the Moulvi of Fyzabad the previous morning, he had known in his heart what to expect. Despite the fact that one was a Mohammedan and the other a Hindu of Brahmin caste, an unholy alliance between Moulvi and Mahratta had always been in the cards. Both men were ambitious and hungry for power and, from the outset he was certain, both had been involved with the plotters of sedition in Delhi and elsewhere. There could be no doubt that the Moulvi had been one of the active instigators of mutiny in Oudh—although the Nana had vacillated, at pains to return on friendly terms with General Wheeler and his garrison lest, at the eleventh hour, the carefully planned sepoy rising should fail.

  Alex hunched his shoulders despondently as he glanced across to the European hospital block where, last night, he had been compelled to part with his wife and new-born son. A few women were moving listlessly about the veranda, even at this early hour, but he could see no sign of Emmy. He was turning away when a tall, fair-haired officer in the scarlet shell jacket of the Queen’s 32nd fell into step beside him and, following the direction of his gaze, observed wryly, “So near and yet so far, eh? I persuaded my wife to remove into that place, in the conviction that she and the children would be safer there than in a tent, and I’ve scarcely exchanged half a dozen words with her in private since her removal!”

  His voice, with its hint of an Irish brogue, sounded familiar and Alex turned to look at him more closely, certain that they had met before but unable at first to recall where. The newcomer’s insignia proclaimed him a captain; he was in his early thirties, tall and of powerful physique, with a humorous quirk to his mouth and the deeply tanned skin of one who evidently spent more time in the open than was usual for Queen’s officers in India. A gleam of amusement lit his very blue eyes as he asked, in mock reproach, “Don’t you remember me, Alex? Shame on you!”

  “Good Lord!” Alex exclaimed, with genuine pleasure. “John Moore, by all that’s wonderful! We last met at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, did we not? You were with the Turkish contingent and I—”

  “You were General Beatson’s second-in-command and you were with him in Silestria in ’54. I’m delighted to renew your acquaintance, my dear fellow.” They shook hands and Moore added, his smile fading, “Although I could wish that our reunion were taking place in happier circumstances. However …” he shrugged resignedly. “Surely you’re a fairly recent addition to the garrison? I don’t recall having seen you here before and I’ve been here for the past three months.”

  “I arrived yesterday morning from Lucknow—after the electric telegraph wires were cut—with a despatch from Sir Henry Lawrence,” Alex told him.

  Captain Moore’s fair brows rose in unconcealed astonishment. “And you stayed? Did you not realise the parlous state we’re in? You would have been better off in Lucknow, my dear Alex.”

  “My wife and infant son are here. The baby was born prematurely less than three weeks ago. For his sake I dared not risk the journey.”

  “Emmy
Sheridan—oh, yes, Caroline has spoken of her frequently. They’ve made friends but somehow I never connected her with you. Stupid of me but—I heard that you were seconded to the Political Service. Weren’t you commissioner for one of the Oudh districts?”

  Alex nodded. “I was, yes. For Adjodhabad—where both the irregular cavalry and the native infantry have just mutinied, murdering most of their officers. But I had been relieved of my civil appointment before that happened.” He did not go into details, and Moore, after a quick glance at his face, did not pursue the subject. “Why are you still here?” Alex asked curiously.

  “It’s not from choice, I assure you. I’m in command of our invalids—74 men, who weren’t fit to move with the regiment to Lucknow—and I’m responsible for the wives and families, who were also left behind.” John Moore spoke ruefully. “Would I were not! Frankly, Alex, I don’t much relish the prospect of trying to defend this place against four regiments of Pandies—I take it we’re about to be attacked by the mutineers, don’t you? They appear to have abandoned the idea of marching to Delhi, more’s the pity.”

  “Yes,” Alex agreed. “They do, alas.” They were passing one of the nine-pounder guns mounted on the north-western extremity of the entrenchment and he noticed, with shocked surprise, that no protection of any kind had been provided for either the gun or the team which manned it, apart from a few sandbags and a shallow trench which ran along inside the wall, and which appeared to be unfinished. No emplacement had been constructed and there was no shade; when the sun rose, the men would suffer acutely and only a few uncovered buckets of water had been provided, from which they could slake their thirst. Again following the direction of his gaze, John Moore gave vent to a sigh of frustration.