Massacre at Cawnpore

by V. A. Stuart

  The old man was lying on a mattress in one corner of his small room, with Dr Harris, the civil surgeon, and Dr Boyes, surgeon to the 2nd Cavalry, attending him. He looked very ill but insisted that his injuries were slight and, when the surgeons had gone, he sat up and listened attentively to all that Alex had to say. His wife and two daughters, hovering anxiously in the background, listened also but did not speak until the general expressed reluctance to come to any decision without time to consider the implications of Alex’s proposals.

  “I cannot, in all conscience, pardon or reward sepoys who have been untrue to their salt, Sheridan,” he said uneasily. “Nor can I lightly send you to almost certain death. Truly I—”

  “Are we not all of us facing almost certain death, Papa?” his elder daughter put in harshly. “Unless Colonel Neill is informed of our plight and urged to relieve us with all possible speed?” She was a tall, thin girl of about eighteen who, Alex thought, seeing her consciously for the first time, must once have been handsome, even beautiful. Now, like all the rest on whom the long siege had set its mark, she was pale and gaunt, her long hair cropped, her face and hands begrimed with dirt. But her courage had not deserted her; she stood up to her father, arguing forcefully with him and ignoring her mother’s somewhat hesitant attempts to interrupt her.

  “I’d come with you, gladly, Colonel Sheridan,” she added. “If it would be of the smallest help … I, too, would pass as a native, I believe.” She smiled, her tone defiant. “As to whether you can reconcile your conscience to offering a pardon to mutineers, Papa, I do not think you have much choice. They could save us if they came to our aid—even one regiment of them—but they will not come unless they are promised pardon and a reward, will they?”

  “That’s enough, Amelia,” her mother chided. “This is a matter for your papa to decide. He is ill, he has been wounded … he needs time to think over what Colonel Sheridan has said and—”

  “But we haven’t got time, Mamma,” the girl retorted hotly. “We have no time left at all. To have survived all these—these horrors and then to die would be a bitter pill to swallow, would it not?”

  “Amelia is right,” the general said slowly. He held out his hand to her and she knelt at his side, instantly submissive and ready to apologise, but he waved her to silence. Turning to Alex, he went on with conviction. “And so are you, my young friend. Between you, you have resolved my doubts. I owe it to this noble garrison to do everything in my power to save them. Send the jemadar back to his regiment tonight. Tell him that I will give my word that a pardon shall be granted to every sepoy who returns to the Company’s service within the next 24 hours, and that I will use my best endeavours to see that they also receive a fitting reward— more I cannot promise.”

  “It might be advisable to extend the time limit for their return, sir,” Alex suggested. “The jemadar will have to make his offer cautiously—perhaps to a few individuals at a time. And he will have to bring us their answer, so that we can make arrangements to guard against the possibility of treachery.”

  “True. Then make what arrangements you see fit, Colonel Sheridan.”

  Alex bowed. “I will, sir—in consultation with Captain Moore, of course. And as to my other suggestion … may I have your permission to make the attempt to reach Allahabad?”

  “As to that …” the general hesitated, white brows coming together in an anxious pucker. “I must defer my decision. I am sorry, Sheridan—I appreciate your zeal and self-sacrifice, but you are needed here. We cannot spare officers of your experience from our defence.” Both Alex and Amelia started to speak but he shook his head and said, with something of his old decisiveness, “No, you cannot change my mind, either of you. We are not yet reduced to desperation—if we should be, then I’ll avail myself of your courageous offer, perhaps. Although I think that a native messenger would stand a better chance of getting through than any European …” again he hesitated, his frown deepening. “I intend to make one last appeal to Sir Henry Lawrence. The man who got through to Lucknow and returned with Sir Henry’s reply— Gillis—is here and he is willing to make a second journey. I have also received the offer of a volunteer—a man named Shepherd, a senior clerk in the Commissariat Office—who has said he will endeavour to make his way to the city here and bring back information as to the Nana’s intentions. He has a house in the General Gunj and knows the city well … and he will go in disguise, of course. I shall instruct him to contact the Nunneh Nawab— Mohammed Ali Khan—who is faithful to us and whom I trust. Let us see how he fares, shall we, Sheridan, before taking more desperate measures?”

  “Yes, sir, of course.” There was obviously nothing to be gained by further discussion and Alex prepared to take his leave. “Thank you for seeing me, sir. I trust your wound will soon heal and that you will not have to endure too much discomfort from it.”

  “I am in no pain,” the general assured him. “Tomorrow I shall prepare a letter for Sir Henry and give Shepherd his instructions. In the meantime …” he settled back on his mattress with a sigh. “We should get what rest we can. I don’t think we shall suffer any attacks this night but, in any case, most of us have learnt how to sleep through cannon-fire, if we’ve learnt nothing else.” He closed his eyes and was asleep before Alex left the room. Amelia Wheeler went with him to the door.

  “My father is worn out,” she said. “And in quite a lot of pain, although he won’t admit it. But he will do everything in his power, Colonel Sheridan, and I promise I won’t allow him to forget your offer.”

  Alex thanked her and returned to his post.

  At dusk, the guns ceased fire and a party of native officers, bearing a flag of truce, approached the entrenchment to request permission to remove their dead. This was granted and, after agreeing to a cease-fire, the native officers saluted and returned to their own lines. Burial parties from both besiegers and besieged went about their melancholy task uninterrupted, and the well outside the entrenchment opened to receive its 247th recorded victim.

  That night the guns were silent, and the absence of snipers and a short but heavy shower of rain enabled those within the entrenchment to drink their fill for the first time in almost three weeks. Many stripped to the skin during the downpour, letting the rain water cool their tortured bodies and wash some of the filth and dust from their skins and, when it was over, the men at the parapet—with the exception of the sentries, who were changed every hour—slept peacefully and well, undisturbed by the sudden alarms by which their sleep was usually broken.

  But, as always, when the new day dawned, it was heralded by the familiar thunder of the guns and, as the sun rose, the temperature rose with it and the brief lull was over. Once more musketry fire raked those who attempted to draw water from the well; shells screeched overhead and round-shot thudded against the tottering buildings and bounced their deadly way across the compound. Three children were hit by snipers and it was necessary to clear the unfinished barrack blocks of a horde of skulking intruders. The ghastly stench of putrefaction from dead horses and bullocks rotting on the plain added the fresh torment of a plague of flies, and Francis Whiting reported anxiously that the rain of the previous night had undermined the mud wall in places and flooded the old hospital drain.

  With two of Ashe’s three guns disabled and reserves of ammunition for the remaining seven all but exhausted, the position was critical.

  “We couldn’t hold off another attack like yesterday’s,” John Moore told Alex wretchedly. “The devils could walk in here, for all we could do to prevent them.” He moved his injured arm gingerly, ashen-faced and clearly in pain. He was closer to despair than Alex had ever seen him, even his faith and courage strained to the limit and beyond. “I’ve been the rounds, Alex,” he went on, brushing wearily at the flies which buzzed about them in a persistent cloud. “And, counting ourselves, we could raise about fifty reasonably fit men for a sortie, and they’re all willing to join us. It’s our last chance and I truly believe that it would succeed, if
only the general would give his consent to it … but he refuses. In God’s name, what are we to do?”

  “I think,” Alex said, “you should have that arm of yours dressed. You—”

  “Dressed?” Moore retorted irritably. “It should come off, my dear fellow, but the surgeons have no instruments with which to take it off … or had you forgotten that?”

  “No, I hadn’t forgotten,” Alex answered quietly. He offered his hand. “Come on—you’re going sick for 24 hours. You need sleep—unless you have it, you won’t be able to lead a sortie, John, you’ll collapse. The general will not refuse his consent when the time comes—he told me as much, when I spoke to him last night. When he accepts that our situation is hopeless, he’ll agree to whatever desperate measures any of us may propose.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Yes, I am. So for God’s sake be sensible—let me take you to the surgeons. At least they might be able to relieve your pain.”

  It was a measure of the gallant Moore’s despair that he offered no further objections and Alex left him in Emmy’s care in the quarter-guard building.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WRITING his final appeal for help to Sir Henry Lawrence, on the evening of 24th June, General Wheeler gave a brief and bitter account of his garrison’s brave resistance and the peril in which they now stood. Tears blurred the closely written lines as he read them through and then penned his last, accusing question: “Surely we are not to be left to die like rats in a cage without any attempt being made to bring us succour?”

  He could say no more. The decision must be left to Lawrence, but his heartbroken protest had to be committed to paper, so that—if the message reached Lucknow—posterity might know that his small, heroic garrison had fought and died in the best traditions of their service, defeated only because they had been abandoned to their fate by those on whom they had depended for aid.

  Surgeon Boyes, waiting at his commander’s elbow, took the small spill of paper from him. Having inserted it in Gillis’s right ear with a pair of rusting tweezers, he took the messenger to the field officer of the day, Captain Williamson, to be smuggled out of the entrenchment as soon as darkness fell.

  To his second messenger—the commissariat clerk Shepherd— the old general issued defiant instructions, staking his all on a gambler’s throw. He gave the names of several of Cawnpore’s influential citizens and ordered, “Go first to the Nunneh Nawab, Mr Shepherd. He is faithful to us and I trust him. Tell him to endeavour to cause a rupture among the rebels. Tell him also to spread the rumour abroad that we have ample provisions for another month at least, that we are in good heart and, above all, that we expect speedy help from Allahabad and Calcutta. If the Nawab—or any others who are well disposed to us—can cause the rebels to break off their attacks on our positions or go away from the station, you are authorised to promise them pensions for life and lavish rewards. The reward could be as high as a lac of rupees.”

  The clerk’s eye widened. He started to speak and then broke off and the general, guessing his thoughts, added pointedly, “You, too, will merit high reward if you come back to me with correct information as to the Nana’s intentions, Mr Shepherd … or with definite word as to the arrival of reinforcements from Allahabad or Lucknow. But if you should be taken by the Nana, be very careful that you do not let him know the true state of our defences, or that we are discouraged, you understand?”

  Shepherd assured him that he understood perfectly. “Have I your leave to go tonight, sir?”

  “Whenever you are ready with your disguise, Mr Shepherd. May God have you in His keeping!”

  When the dark-faced clerk left to make preparations for his departure, General Wheeler limped over to his mattress and sank down on to it wearily. The other occupants of the room—his wife and daughters and the wounded postmaster, Roache, to whom he had given his son’s charpoy—were sleeping and he yearned to follow their example, to find oblivion, to forget, even for a few hours, the troubles which beset him. The problems he could not solve, since they had no solution; the guilt he could not shake off, the responsibility for the garrison’s terrible losses, and his grief for those who had given their lives in the disastrous siege to which he had committed them. The loss of his son … oh, merciful God, how that loss haunted him! He would gladly have laid down his own life, if Godfrey’s could have been spared; he would willingly have submitted to any suffering if, by so doing, he could have saved his son.

  But Godfrey was dead, his poor young body one of hundreds rotting in the well outside the entrenchment, his life’s blood still staining the wall of this room, where his mother and sisters daily averted their eyes from it and where he … the old general tried vainly to fight down his rising nausea and the weakness it brought with it. He would have to relinquish his command, he told himself; he was too ill, too stricken with grief, too worn out to continue to make decisions and to shoulder responsibility for the lives and deaths of other men.

  He sat up, controlling his retching at last. Tonight he had taken two decisions—vital ones, perhaps, if Lawrence relented and sent him the two hundred European soldiers for whom he had pleaded, and if the Eurasian clerk, Shepherd, managed to persuade the Nawab to take the action he had outlined. If they did not, then he would have failed and would be in honour bound to hand over command, either to Moore or to Sheridan. Moore, of course, would lead the fit men of the garrison on a do-or-die sortie against the enemy guns if command were entrusted to him. It might succeed by its daring but how many of the half-starved spectres who manned the mud walls day and night would be fit to undertake such a sortie … and if they failed, what would happen to the women? No … he shuddered, feeling a cold sweat break out over his face and body. He could not give Moore his way although, in his heart, he understood and was deeply in sympathy with the motives which had caused him to propose a sortie—Moore wanted to die sword in hand, like a soldier. But so did they all, the wounded and the sick, and if they were left defenceless, the consequences were too hideous to contemplate.

  Besides, there were the women, the women and children—he looked across at the sleeping faces of his wife and daughters and knew that, whatever the pressure put upon him, he could not permit any action which might leave them to the Nana’s mercies. Since Gillis’s story of the slaughter of the Fategarh fugitives had been confirmed by other informants, he had known that he could never accede to Moore’s request.

  Sheridan, then? He was a brave man and a fine soldier, who had acquitted himself well throughout the siege but … Sheridan could not assume command and make the attempt to contact Neill in Allahabad. He had offered to go and the decision to accept his offer was the third vital decision which, as garrison commander, he would have to make. The general moved restlessly on his uncomfortable pallet. He had planned, however, to wait until the result of Shepherd’s mission was known—Shepherd’s and, of course, that of the jemadar, who had also been sent to cause disaffection among the Nana’s sepoy troops. One or other of them should report back to him within the next 24 hours; if they failed in their endeavours, then he would have to send Sheridan on the well-nigh impossible attempt to reach Allahabad. All the previous messengers he had despatched to contact Neill’s relief column had failed to get past the Nana’s patrols, and, from Blenman and his other informers, he had heard what their fate had been. For purely humanitarian reasons, he was reluctant to accept Sheridan’s offer or, indeed, to ask any of his British officers to go but … he sighed unhappily.

  As his daughter Amelia had argued so vehemently, they were all facing almost certain death … what was the death of another brave man on his conscience, when already there were so many? He …

  “General Wheeler!” The field officer of the day, Captain Williamson, was shaking his arm and he sat up, rubbing at his red-rimmed eyes.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed gruffly. “Have you sent Gillis and Shepherd on their way, Captain Williamson?”

  Williamson nodded, his mouth tight. “Yes, sir, they
’ve both gone. But the jemadar is back, sir—Ram Gupta. The rebels sent him back.”

  “The rebels sent him? What the devil do you mean?”

  Williamson shrugged despondently. “They must have learnt what he was doing, sir. The unfortunate fellow is barely alive and he can’t tell us anything—they cut his tongue out and blinded him, as well as hacking off both his hands. They delivered him to us under—under a flag of truce, sir.” He swallowed hard, obviously sickened by what he had seen. “I did not want to disturb you, sir, but I thought you would wish to know.”

  “Yes,” the general acknowledged. “I did, I … thank you.”

  When Williamson had gone, he lay back, closing his eyes again, but sleep continued to elude him, for now there was yet another brave man on his conscience … a sepoy, this time, and as a sepoy general he could not but be proud that it was so. The 53rd had been a good regiment, well officered and … he heard a faint rustling sound in the far corner of the room. His daughter Amelia tiptoed across and, dropping to her knees beside him, gently smoothed the sparse white hair from his forehead.

  “I thought you were sleeping, child,” he said reproachfully.

  The girl smiled down at him. “But you are not, dear Papa. Is your leg troubling you?”

  “No,” he denied. “It gives me no pain. Did you hear what Captain Williamson told me?”

  She bowed her head. “Yes, I heard. The poor jemadar! They are turned into fiends, the sepoys—and we always believed them so docile and trustworthy! Papa, you …” there was a catch in her voice, a sudden note of fear. “If … if the worst should happen, if we are defeated, you … you will not let us fall into their hands, will you?”

  His brave Amelia, the general thought, sick with pity; she had flinched from nothing throughout the past three weeks, but now, and with reason, she was afraid. God help her, God help all the women … his gnarled old hand tightened about her slim one. He could not answer her, but fumbling beneath his pillow, he found his Colt revolver and slipped it into the pocket of her dress. “Your mother,” he began. “Your mother and Charlotte … it has six shots and—”