by V. A. Stuart
“Well, sir?” Whiting prompted wearily.
“I’m going to the general,” Alex told him. “To request him to rescind that order.”
“Now, sir? He may be asleep,” Ashe warned. “He—”
Alex smiled. “Not if he’s the man I think he is, Ashe.” He looked at Francis Whiting. “Are you with me?”
They both nodded. When they entered the headquarter block, they found John Moore and Mowbray Thomson already there and the general, fully dressed and wakeful, talking to them.
“You, I would suppose, have come on the same errand as these two gentlemen, Colonel Sheridan?” Sir Hugh Wheeler said resignedly but there was an approving gleam in his faded blue eyes as he added, “I applaud your zeal and, needless to tell you, I also appreciate the urgency of the matter to which you have drawn my attention. That block must be cleared of the enemy and, if we cannot destroy it, then we must occupy and defend it—if necessary at the expense of Number Five. Mr Heberden’s party can be transferred in daylight should this be deemed expedient and our out-pickets would then have to assume responsibility for Number Five. But that’s a decision you will have to make on the spot.” He sighed, meeting Alex’s mutely questioning gaze. “I’ve given permission, at the request of Captain Moore, for a small party of volunteers to go out now, under his orders, to endeavour to clear Number Four. I did, however, specify that the party should consist of unattached junior officers and men who can be spared from their posts. That excludes Mr Ashe, I fear, who must remain with his guns … and it should exclude you, Colonel Sheridan, should it not?”
“I’m unattached, sir,” Alex assured him. “And I have just been relieved of my post by Colonel Ewart. My rank is a brevet one only, sir, which I would willingly relinquish to serve under Captain Moore’s command.”
The general’s smile was rueful. “I wish I could relinquish mine, for the same purpose! Very well, Sheridan—I won’t deprive you of this opportunity to serve the garrison. May God go with you, gentlemen!”
The raid, skilfully planned by John Moore and gallantly carried out by his small party of volunteers, succeeded beyond even its leader’s expectations. Choosing their moment carefully, when the moon was obscured by cloud, fifteen officers and men slipped silently from behind the sheltering wall of Number Five Block and, as the defenders—augmented by volunteers—engaged the attention of the enemy, they made their way in twos and threes to the rear of their objective. Alex, with the red-bearded Mow-bray Thomson and a tough young private of the 32nd named Bannister, lobbed their grenades with fuses hissing through the open windows, and the sepoys fled in terror, few of them waiting to do battle with their unexpected assailants. Those who did attempt to stand their ground were driven out at the point of the bayonet by the main body of raiders, led by John Moore and Captain Jenkins of the Cavalry.
No attempt was made by the mutineers to recapture the disputed block and, after consulting with the big, cheerful Michael Heberden and his surviving railway engineers—who came across from their own stronghold in Number Six—it was decided to blow up as much of Block Five as possible. The raiding party accordingly placed kegs of powder under the roof supports and outer walls and, when the fuses had been lit under the expert supervision of Francis Whiting, the whole party withdrew, having suffered only a few minor casualties. On the credit side, six mutineers had been killed and an estimated ten or eleven wounded; Number Four Block had been garrisoned and made reasonably secure and, with gaping holes blown in its roof and outer wall, Number Five would, in the immediate future, offer no concealment worthy of the name to the enemy’s marksmen.
“’Twas a good night’s work, sir,” Corporal Henegan stated with satisfaction, as he wiped his blood-stained bayonet.
“It was,” Alex agreed. Elated but weary, he made his way to the hospital in search of Emmy. The veranda—on which she had slept since first taking up her abode in the entrenchment—had become untenable under the pounding of the rebel guns and he found her in a hot, airless room, so crowded with sobbing children and their helpless, terrified mothers that Alex recoiled from it in something akin to horror. Emmy, however, although she looked pale and tired, smilingly shook her head to his anxious enquiries.
“I’m quite all right, Alex … and William, too. Lucy—Lucy Chalmers, I mean—is helping me to look after him. She’s still terribly shocked, you know, and doesn’t speak … except to William. She speaks to him, even sings to him sometimes and I believe it is doing her good to have him with her. You see, I—”
“You are looking worn out, darling,” Alex put in, with concern. “For heaven’s sake take care of yourself.”
“We don’t get much sleep,” Emmy answered wryly. “And I’ve been helping Dr Harris and some of the others to care for the wounded. It’s best to keep busy, I’m sure—one has less time to worry and feel afraid. And it isn’t like Scutari”—her voice held no conscious irony—“the surgeons have their hands so full, they’re grateful for any assistance any of us can give them, despite the fact that we’re women. I told them I’d nursed cholera cases in the Crimea and worked under Miss Nightingale for a time and so they welcomed me … indeed, I hope I’ve been useful.” Her eyes were tender as they rested on his face. “Oh, Alex, my dearest love, it’s wonderful to see you … to know that you’re safe. I was worried about you, I … the mutineers attacked yesterday evening, did they not?”
“Yes,” he confirmed flatly. “But we repulsed them.”
“Will they attack again?” she asked.
“I don’t know, darling. I hardly think they’ll be in a hurry to—we gave them a much hotter reception than they’d bargained for.” He heard the guns open again and expelled his breath in a long-drawn sigh. “They have heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, so I’m afraid they’re likely to keep that up for most of the day. Is it very bad here, Emmy, when the guns are firing?”
“It is rather alarming,” Emmy admitted. “That’s why I prefer to have something to do. I couldn’t bear just to sit here and listen to the guns and to the children crying and asking questions—I should go out of my mind. I … oh, Alex, I’m thankful that William isn’t old enough to ask questions. How can you explain to a child what is happening? No British child can understand why the sepoys should want to kill them and I don’t suppose any of them have ever been under gunfire in their lives. They simply can’t be made to understand why no one must stir from the building or why, when they are thirsty, they must make do with only a few sips of water. Poor innocents, they—”
“Are you short of water?” Alex demanded sharply.
She shook her head. “No, not yet—but it’s rationed. Two men were killed drawing water from the well yesterday and five or six wounded last night. Now Mr McKillop, the deputy magistrate— you know, the one with the limp, Mr John McKillop—has taken charge of the well and has promised to see to it that we get a regular supply. Enough for us to drink, at any rate. But …” Emmy hesitated, brows furrowed. “Alex, it’s very serious, our situation here, is it not?”
“Serious but not hopeless, my love,” Alex answered.
She met his gaze gravely. “Not hopeless, Alex? I can—I can bear the truth, I promise. It’s not knowing that frightens me!”
He held her to him, regardless of their lack of privacy.
“Darling, the general is confident that reinforcements will reach us very soon. Colonel Neill is at Benares with a relief column. We may have to hold out here for a week or even two, perhaps, but”—Alex forced a cheerful note into his voice—“he’ll get to us, never fear. And there will be more troops on their way from Calcutta—they’re being brought back from Persia and Burma with all possible speed. Our plight is known and—” a round-shot struck the rear wall of the hospital, bringing down a choking shower of brick-dust on their heads and causing the whole building to shake. A woman screamed and went on screaming in mindless terror and the children’s shrill cries and shrieks were redoubled, sounding so unnaturally loud in that confined space that, for a
few moments, they blotted out the sound of the guns.
Alex felt his wife’s slim body tremble against him. She said, her voice not quite steady, “I’m not really afraid for myself, Alex. Only for you … and for William. He’s so small and weak, you see, and he feels the heat so badly. He’ll die if—if the relief column does not reach us soon.”
“Yes, my love, I know. But it will come—Neill won’t let anything stand in his way. He’ll get here as fast as he can and we will hold our own until he does, believe me.” He had no other comfort to offer and she lifted her head to smile up at him, although her eyes were filled with tears.
“I do believe you, Alex. It’s just that I … have a care, darling, for my sake. If anything happened to you, I—I couldn’t bear it. I should not want to go on, I—”
“We are all in God’s hands, Emmy,” he reminded her gently. “I’m in no more danger than anyone else.”
“No, you … of course not.” Bravely she bit back the tears. “But you look ready to drop. Can you stay here for a little while? There’s not much room but I could find you somewhere to rest.”
Alex shook his head, thankful that his duties afforded him an excuse not to stay. The open compound and the parapet were bad enough but this … the frightened, unwashed faces of the children, the continued, hysterical screams of the women and the noisome heat of the overcrowded room were suddenly more than he could stomach. Ashamed of his own weakness, he repeated his headshake. “No, dearest, I must snatch a bite to eat and then report to my post. Our mess is still functioning after a fashion, I’m told, but … Emmy, are you getting enough to eat? They feed you, don’t they?”
“Oh, yes!” she assured him. “And I have Mohammed Bux. Dear, loyal old man—he hasn’t run away, as so many of the other servants have, and he sees to it that I have more than enough. Truly I’m all right, Alex. You must not worry about me, you … only come back, whenever you can, my darling, even if it can be for just a few minutes.” She raised her lips to his and he kissed her hungrily, conscious of a pride and a pity no words could express. Emmy clung to him for a moment and then let him go, her face averted.
Reaching the door, he turned for a last glimpse of her before letting the curtain fall and saw that she had gone to kneel beside the woman who had been screaming. The screams ceased; Emmy waved her hand to him and smiled and, oddly moved by that smile, Alex went out into the pitiless sunlight of the entrenchment to begin another day.
It was Sunday but he did not realise this until the garrison chaplain, Edward Montcrieff, came bravely across the shell-torn compound, in cassock and surplice, bearing his Communion vessels. Aided by two native Christian boys from the Free School, he held his customary morning service of prayer with each group of men separately and it was well past noon before he had done. Even then, he had not finished—the women and the sick and wounded were waiting. Red of face, gasping from the heat, his surplice a limp, sweat-soaked rag, the Rev Edward Montcrieff stumbled wearily towards the hospital. A round-shot bounded towards him; he stepped aside and, without sparing it a second glance, continued on his way and the two boys at his heels tried manfully to emulate his calm confidence in the invulnerability conferred on him by his mission.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER SIX DAYS and nights of almost continuous bombardment, with the noon temperature rising to 130°, the defenders of the Cawnpore entrenchment still held out against every attack that was launched against them.
Death was no stranger to them now. To a few of the fighting men it came swiftly and cleanly at the parapet, but to most of the wounded and to all too many of the sick, it came slowly and without dignity, often as the only relief from unendurable pain. Men were blinded by shell-splinters, their rifles exploded in their faces from the heat, 24-pounder round-shot left them mangled and mutilated, yet still alive … and the surgeons were hard put to it to deal with the shattered limbs and the broken bodies which were brought to them, in increasing numbers, at all hours of the day and night.
In Number Four Barracks, after an heroic defence against night raids and incessant sniping, Michael Heberden and his railway plate-layers and engineers were all either disabled or killed. On the evening of the third day, Mowbray Thomson, with eight men of the Madras Fusiliers and four civilians, took over responsibility for the barracks, assisted by two young ensigns and Jenkins took command of Number Six. Heberden himself, shot through both thighs when drawing water from the drinking well, lay on his face in the hospital, mortally wounded.
John Moore, to Alex’s distress, took a musket-ball in the shoulder but, with his right arm in a sling, he carried on, making a wry joke of their two “useless members.” Sniping became almost as great a peril as the pounding of the big guns; the mutineers dug trenches among the ruined bungalows of the New Cantonment and in front of the burnt-out Garrison Church, from which their infantry kept up a ceaseless volley of musketry from a range of three hundred and fifty yards. They picked off so many of Ashe’s gunners that two out of three of his guns were manned solely by volunteer officers and convalescent men of the 32nd.
The dead posed an appalling problem for the living. During the hours of daylight, when seven batteries of guns and mortars and upwards of a thousand muskets subjected the entrenchment to a merciless hail of shot and shell, the bodies of the dead could not be taken for burial in the well outside the perimeter. They had to be left, mostly unshrouded, on the veranda in front of the hospital or where they had fallen behind the crumbling mud walls or in the compound. Sometimes a woman’s body or that of a little girl in crumpled muslin was laid beside the legless corpse of a soldier, his unshaven face burnt black by the sun, and those who must walk past them did so with averted eyes, steeling their hearts to pity.
At nightfall there was usually a two-hour respite from the firing, while the sepoys took their evening meal, and the dead were hurriedly dragged out of the entrenchment and lowered, without ceremony, into the dried-up well that was to be their last and only resting place. No mourners went with them—it was too dangerous, for the burial parties had frequently to ward off attacks by prowling sepoys, who slipped past Number Five Block in the darkness, hoping to take them unawares. But, even after the last body had gone, the awful stench of putrefaction lingered on in the nostrils of the weary defenders, mingled with other no less unpleasant odours from which—waking or sleeping—there was no escape.
Emmy’s hours of work in the wards increased, as casualties mounted and those who toiled with her collapsed under the strain. She saw little of Alex, who spent most of his waking hours at the parapet, or with John Moore and Mowbray Thomson, with whom he took part in numerous raids on the partially constructed barrack blocks to the north of Number Four. He visited her when he could but usually only for a few brief minutes and she could seldom rely on his coming at regular times. She worried about him constantly and sent their faithful old bearer, Mohammed Bux, to look after him, sacrificing his services gladly in return for the news he brought her of her husband’s continued safety.
By the end of the first week of the siege, life in the thatched-roof barrack had taken on a nightmare quality, of which Emmy— working to the point of exhaustion—was only dimly aware.
The women were silent now. They no longer cried out in terror when round-shot thudded against the frail walls of their refuge. Familiarity had dulled their fear and the whole façade of the building was so riddled with holes that none dared guess for how much longer it would afford them their precarious shelter. To cry out was to waste precious energy; instead they prayed, sometimes alone but more often together, in small groups and in whispers, so that the children might not hear and sense the growing despair with which they begged their God for deliverance.
The children, too, were unnaturally quiet. Sinking into apathy from the heat and discouraged by their elders’ manifest inability to make reply, most of them had long since ceased to ask questions or plead for permission to go out into the compound to play. They had seen death there and had lost t
he childish desire for play. Many were ill; dysentery or attacks of vomiting and fever struck them down and they lay in pitiful rows, on quilts or ragged scraps of carpet, too weak and disspirited even for tears. Their mothers tended them as best they could, until they themselves fell victims of the prevailing malaise and had, in turn, to be tended by others, who somehow remained immune to both infection and fatigue.
Ironically, it was often the strong and the apparently healthy who died, Emmy learnt, the weak and puny—her own tiny William—who miraculously survived. Lucy Chalmers, still too shocked by what she had experienced in Adjodhabad to be able to carry on a coherent conversation with anyone except her mother, nevertheless nursed William with devoted care, so as to leave Emmy free to work all day with the surgeons. It was she who kept vigil each night beside the child’s cot, insisting that Emmy must rest, and her mother, gaunt-faced and prematurely aged, took her place when even Lucy flagged.
As day followed day, social barriers which had, at first, been jealously preserved, became part of another, half-forgotten existence, shattered by the wretchedness that was common to all and by the enforced proximity of officers’ ladies to soldiers’ wives. Privacy, like sleep, had become a luxury enjoyed by few and there could, in any case, be little social distinction between the lowly and the gently born, when two privies had to meet the needs of everyone in the crowded building, and when sickness and diarrhoea afflicted them all with complete impartiality. Cleanliness was impossible, when a bucket of water might cost the man who drew it his life. Each night men did risk their lives to haul water from the well with block and tackle—some for money and others, like the deputy magistrate, John McKillop, out of selfless pity—but there was seldom enough for any of them to drink. Although many gave up their own small ration to a wounded husband or a sickly child, the ravages of thirst were added to the torment suffered by those lying helpless in the grip of fever or enduring the agony of a newly amputated limb.
