Massacre at Cawnpore

by V. A. Stuart

  “I’m sorry those blasted budmashes were let in,” Alex apologised. “I did manage to put a guard on the entrance—sepoys—but they are very much out of hand and their own officers can’t control them.”

  “Their discipline is appalling,” Delafosse agreed. He grinned at Murphy. “Glad to be getting out of here, Dennis my boy?”

  “Oi am that, sorr,” the youngster assured him. “Niver so glad to get out of anywhere in me whole loife! All the same, though, ’twas a grand night we had the last time we wuz here, was it not, sorr?” They were passing the Garrison Church, still some way behind the last doolie, and Murphy gestured to the compound where their raiding party had spiked the rebel 24-pounder almost a fortnight before. “We fairly caught the bastards that night, sleeping at their guns and …” he broke off and said, a puzzled note in his voice, “What’s that now, for ony sake? Over there, sorr, do you see, at the back of the compound?”

  They halted, following the direction in which the Irishman was pointing and a vulture rose, on flapping wings, to make an ungainly flight to the compound wall.

  “It’s just a vulture,” Henry Delafosse began. “There’s plenty of work for them here, the filthy—”

  “Indians remove their bodies,” Alex reminded him, suddenly and instinctively alarmed. “Cut across the compound, Murphy, like a good lad, and see what it is.”

  Murphy obediently clambered over the low wall and vanished behind the burnt-out ruin of the church. He returned, a few minutes later, retching violently.

  “Well?” Delafosse demanded impatiently. “What was it?”

  Murphy made an effort to control himself. “Colonel Ewart, sorr,” he managed, “and his lady. They—”he could not go on.

  “I’d better go,” Alex said. “Colonel Ewart was badly wounded. I saw him into a doolie myself—the last one. His wife went with him on foot. They may need help and—”

  “There’s nothing you can do to help them, sorr,” Murphy whispered fiercely. “And if I was you, I wouldn’t look. They’re both dead—hacked to pieces, sorr, and the poor lady … Mother of God! ’Twas fiends out of hell killed her, sorr, and that’s the truth.”

  Fiends out of hell or sepoys, Alex asked himself bitterly, as he and Delafosse, after a shocked inspection of the two bodies, resumed their interrupted journey. The white-haired colonel of the 1st Native Infantry had been unarmed, disabled by a wound in the stomach and in so much pain that it had taken a long time to move him from the entrenchment and into the doolie. Some sepoys of his regiment had volunteered to carry him, Alex recalled, promising that they would take better care of him than the coolies and Ewart, moved by their solicitude, had thanked them with tears in his eyes.

  He mentioned this to Delafosse, who shrugged helplessly. “He wasn’t too popular with his men, you know. Bit of a martinet, by all accounts, poor old devil.”

  “Then you think it was an isolated incident? They were paying off old scores?”

  “God, I don’t know, Alex! I suppose so. They were carrying him and none of the coolies were armed. We checked to make sure.”

  “Nevertheless, I think we’d better catch up with the rest of the column. There are a number of women who set off to walk and may have dropped behind,” Alex said grimly. “If they intend treachery, we’d better find out before anyone boards those boats.” There were armed men marching at intervals beside the column, but he was worried. He had told Emmy to board as soon as she reached the ghat … he broke into a shambling run and the other two followed him. Winded and sweating profusely, they drew level with a group of women, plodding wearily along, their feet shuffling in the dust; but Ashe and two young ensigns were with them and the artillery officer assured them cheerfully that all was well.

  “They promised they’d send one of the bullock carts back for us and they’ve kept their word. Look”—he pointed—“It’s coming now.” He brought his party to a halt and the women thankfully sat down at the road verge to await the cart’s arrival. Alex gave them his water-bottle and then, drawing Ashe aside, told him of Colonel Ewart’s murder.

  “An isolated incident—Henry’s right. The poor fellow wasn’t popular with his men, particularly the Moslems.” Ashe shrugged, mopping his heated face with the sleeve of his shirt. “As far as I can see, they’re all keeping to the letter of the agreement—even exceeding it. I asked for water a little while ago and the bhistis were sent back at once. Truly, Colonel, I don’t believe they intend to betray us, I mean, they could have slaughtered the lot of us in the entrenchment last night, if they had any such intention— once we’d surrendered our guns, we couldn’t have done much to prevent them, could we? Besides, why go to all the trouble of procuring forty-odd boats, roofing and victualling them, if they don’t mean to let us go? Rather an elaborate and costly farce, surely, sir?”

  It was a logical argument, Alex was forced to concede. “We should have taken quite a few of them with us, Georgie,” he pointed out. “If they had attacked us last night.”

  “And so we shall at the ghat,” Ashe asserted confidently. “We’re all armed, we’ll give a good account of ourselves and they damned well know it … they won’t try anything.”

  “Scattered, divided among forty-odd boats—with the women and children unprotected?”

  “Even so.” Ashe patted the stock of his Minié. “Anyway, there’s nowhere to go but forward now, is there? We’ve got to trust them. But if you’ve any serious doubts, sir, why not mention them to the general? He’s just ahead—in that palanquin over there, do you see? And Lady Wheeler and the two girls are with him, on the Nana’s elephant.”

  Alex sighed. The boy was right about one thing though, he thought unhappily—there was nowhere to go but forward. On to the Suttee Chowra Ghat, where the boats were waiting … he glanced behind him. Francis Whiting and their small rearguard were now in sight; Vibart, with his wife and two children, was seated in a bullock cart, surrounded by about a dozen of his sowars and Mowbray Thomson was marching with the sepoy guard which was bringing up the rear. He was talking to his men and, as Alex watched, he saw two of them lift him on to their shoulders and start to carry him, laughing like children, as they pretended to stagger under his weight. For heaven’s sake, he chided himself, they could not behave like that if they were contem plating betrayal! The bond between a good officer and his men had always been a strong one, in the old days, and here, surely, was proof that it still existed? Poor Ewart’s murder had been an isolated incident, a crime perpetrated by a few men who bore him a personal grudge; the 1st Native Infantry had a high proportion of Oudh men in its ranks—Moslems, who had served the deposed King, Wajid Ali. They had joined the Company’s army as the alternative to penury and had never been noted for their loyalty to their new masters.

  The bullock cart creaked to a standstill and, as Ashe and the two ensigns went to help the women climb into it, Henry Delafosse asked, frowning, “Are you going to speak to the general, Alex?”

  Alex shook his head. “It would be to no avail now, Henry. As Georgie Ashe says—we’ve nowhere to go but forward.”

  “They’ll need guns, if they attack us on the ghat … and there were none there when we made our inspection yesterday evening.” Delafosse forced a smile. “We made a very thorough inspection, I give you my word. Well …shall we press on? There will be wounded to load into the boats.”

  They walked on briskly, passing the lumbering, gaudily painted elephant, from whose howdah Amelia Wheeler waved in friendly greeting. Crossing the bridge over the ravine, Alex paused to look down to the landing stage, three hundred yards below him. He could see nothing, at that distance, to excite suspicion. Fewer than twenty boats had been brought to the bank and these were in shallow water, but, in the absence of the rains, the river level was exceptionally low and it had obviously been necessary to bring them as close as possible to the bank, in order to embark the wounded. Each boat had a crew of nine or ten; the boatmen were in their places, offering no more help with the loading of their craf
t than the sullen palanquin coolies had offered earlier. But they were there, he saw, as he started to descend at a jog-trot to the ghat, ready to take up their oars when the loading should be completed.

  There were no gangplanks, which was clearly making the embarkation of the sick and wounded difficult, but most of the women and children appeared to be wading out and a number of men—Moore’s advance guard, presumably—were standing waist-deep in the muddy water, giving what assistance they could. Others clambered into the boats and, as the wounded were carried across—or still lying on their mattresses, were passed from man to man—they were hoisted aboard, the inevitable rough handling wringing cries of anguish from even the most stoical.

  The first ten boats were loaded—overloaded, Alex decided, studying them anxiously—their keels resting perilously close to the sandy bottom, which meant that they would have to be manhandled into deeper water. At the previous night’s conference, it had been decided that no boat should move off until all were embarked and that no particular order should be observed in loading, save that each must carry a complement of armed men for protection during the voyage down-river. Edward Vibart was to command the leading boat and give the signal to cast off, when all were to make for the Oudh shore with all possible speed. Emmy was presumably in one of the first four or five boats, since she and her cargo of wounded had been among the first to leave the entrenchment, but the boats were so crowded that it was impossible to pick out individual faces and, more anxious than ever now to find her, Alex broke into a run.

  “I’m going to look for my wife,” he told Delafosse. “I’ll be near the loaded boats if I’m needed.”

  “I’ll come with you,” the younger man said. “Because it looks as though all those first boats will require to be pushed out into the stream.” He gestured to the now half-empty ghat and to the throng of townsfolk gathered at vantage points on the high ground to witness their departure. “Not many of the Nana’s troops in evidence, are there? That’s all to the good. But they’ve posted a hell of a strong guard on the bridge, d’you see?”

  Alex glanced back over his shoulder. The Nana’s elephant and the palanquin bearing the general had just completed their descent from the road, with Ashe’s bullock cart just behind and, forming up to their rear—on the bridge, as Delafosse had said—and for some distance below it, were about a hundred sepoys, with more marching down from the road to join them. Those on the bridge were holding back a mob of curious sightseers—the same mob, probably, which had invaded the entrenchment in search of plunder—and he was not sorry to see the sepoys dealing firmly with them at last.

  Edward Vibart came running along the ghat, his escort of sowars at his heels, their horses reined back so as to keep pace with him as he made for the leading boat. Two of them carried his two little daughters on their saddle-bows and his wife was mounted behind a bearded rissaldar, who lifted her down, with striking gentleness, when they drew level with the boat. Taking a child by each hand, she started to wade out to it and Alex glimpsed Emmy at last, beneath the thatched awning, as he went into the water to help Mrs Vibart climb on to the canting deck. The boat was so full that there was barely room for the new arrivals but two officers—John Saunders of the 84th and Ensign Henderson —yielded their places to her and she and the children scrambled on board, followed by Vibart himself.

  “Better find a boat, Alex,” the cavalry major called to him. “Some of those behind us aren’t full. Don’t worry about your wife—we’ll look after her and we can sort ourselves out when we reach the Lucknow bank.”

  “We’ll push you off,” Alex offered. “You’re well and truly aground at the moment.” He moved closer to the boat and heard Emmy’s voice, vibrant with relief, calling his name. He put out his hand to her but, before she could grasp it, the rissaldar who had dealt so gently with the wife of his one-time commander, shouted something he could not catch and, as if this had been the signal for which they had been waiting, the boatmen dropped their oars and dived into the water. They had barely reached the ghat when the first shot rang out and turning, in swift alarm, Alex saw that every boat in the long line had been deserted by its crew. He saw also, with a sinking heart, that there were sepoys behind each rock and bush on the slope above them. More appeared among the ruins of a deserted village on the edge of the ravine, and the rearguard posted at the bridge were running down the steep slope, their muskets no longer levelled at the mob from the bazaar but at those they had purported to protect … and the mob came howling at their heels.

  Above the frightened cries of the women and a ragged volley from the men in the boats—aimed, for the most part, at their fleeing crews—a bugle shrilled, loud and clear, from the small white temple overlooking the landing stage, in which the Nana and his staff were seated. This, too, Alex’s dazed mind registered, must have been a signal for the hidden guns to be run out, since it was followed, seconds later, by a burst of cannon-fire. A savage hail of canister and flaming carcasses descended on the helpless line of moored boats. Several of the straw-thatched awnings were already on fire and that covering Vibart’s boat was set alight by one of the carcasses; tinder dry, it blazed up, filling the boat with a cloud of thick, suffocating smoke.

  Frantic with anxiety for Emmy, Alex floundered through the water and, finding Delafosse and the two officers who had given up their places to Mrs Vibart and her children, he yelled to them to help him push the boat off. They did so, heedless of their own safety and, with their combined efforts, managed to get the ungainly craft out into midstream, while some of those aboard it tore at the blazing thatch with their bare hands. But volley after volley of musketry was taking its toll of them and, to his horror, Alex saw Emmy fling herself into the water in a desperate bid either to escape the flames or reunite herself with him—he could not be certain which until, managing at last to reach her, he felt her arms close convulsively about his neck.

  “Alex … oh, Alex, my dearest love …” Her small, thin face, drained of the last vestige of colour, blurred in the reflected glare from the water. “Alex, I …” The shouts and screams and the incessant musketry fire swallowed up her words. Her lips moved soundlessly, but the love she bore him was in the dark, pain-filled eyes she raised to his; her heartbroken regret was there, plain for him to read, even in that moment of terrible pandemonium and blind, unreasoning slaughter. He did not realise that this was to be their parting, this the end for them until, dragging his gaze from hers, he saw that her life’s blood was draining away into the muddy, churned-up waters of the Ganges. There was a hideous, gaping wound in her breast, just below the heart, through which an artery was pumping a pulsating stream of scarlet. Like a man demented, he crushed her to him with his single arm but she did not speak again, although the blood went on flowing, resisting the frantic efforts he made to staunch it and he knew, suddenly, that she was dead when her arms relaxed their hold and he felt her go limp against him.

  Then the hidden guns ranged on a target further afield and some of the sowars of Vibart’s regiment spurred their horses into the shallows, cutting and hacking with their sabres at any threshing bodies within their reach. One of them lunged at Emmy’s lifeless body and Alex turned, forced to release her, recognising the bearded rissaldar behind whom Vibart’s wife had ridden down to the ghat. A savage fury filled him, lending him maniac strength as the rissaldar came at him, sabre flashing above his turbaned head. He stepped aside, avoiding the upraised blade and, as it descended, he wrenched the weapon from the rissaldar’s grasp with such force that the fellow was unseated. He fell into the water and Alex, without compunction, took his head from his shoulders with the razor-sharp blade. Two others rode at him; he used the riderless horse as a shield and, abandoning the sabre, took the rissaldar’s pistol from the saddle holster and emptied it into the face of the first of them. The second backed away, jerking brutally at his horse’s head; the animal reared and he, too, slithered into the water, to be trampled senseless by its iron-shod hooves.

  Someone
, he had no idea who, yelled his name and Alex saw that there was a boat, miraculously floating free on the sluggish current only twenty yards from him. He struck out for it instinctively and several hands came out to drag him aboard. He lay for a moment, gasping, among the wounded in the bottom of the boat, hearing bullets whining overhead like angry hornets and then, from beside him, an Enfield spoke and Henry Delafosse said, with cold satisfaction, “Got you, you miserable soor ka bacha!”

  “Henry …” his voice was a harsh croak, unrecognisable even to his own ears. Delafosse did not hear him and raising his head, Alex saw that he was reloading his rifle, squatting on the deck a foot or so from him. Edward Vibart was just beyond, with Francis Wren and two of the 84th, also returning the enemy’s fire, and in the stern Sergeant Grady and the Irish lad, Murphy, were working the sweep in a frantic effort to propel their clumsy craft towards the mud flats of the Oudh shore. They were making some progress but the boat was so low in the water that it frequently grounded on sandbanks and the men lining the deck had to drop their rifles and fend it off with poles wrenched from the burnt-out awning. Two other boats were astern of them, experiencing similar difficulties but the steady and accurate fire which they contrived, between them, to maintain kept the rebel marksmen on the Cawnpore bank at a respectful distance.

  In midstream, at last, with the river widening, the musket fire from the shore—although it continued unabated—became less deadly. Alex checked his Adams and, with the aid of a wounded man lying close by, who offered his assistance, he dried out and reloaded it. A pistol was useless at this range, of course, but he felt happier when he knew that the weapon was again in working order and tucked into the waistband of his tattered overalls. If he had been able to use it when Emmy … he felt his throat tighten as he remembered and, in sick despair, stumbled to the stern of the boat to take a turn at the sweep, in the hope of distracting his thoughts.

  The sun blazed down, reflected back by the water, and he was soon drenched with sweat and almost blinded by the glare. When, after thirty minutes of back-breaking toil, a big gunner of the Bengal Artillery volunteered to relieve him, Alex accepted the offer thankfully and slumped down beside Vibart, who said wretchedly, “Out of 24 loaded boats, it looks as if only three got away from the ghat—three, Alex, including ours! I daren’t let myself think about what is happening back there, to the ones who did not get away. They were sabring the children— little innocent children, imagine it. And my sowars were at the forefront of the massacre, when only this morning …”Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Dear God in heaven, only this morning when we left the entrenchment, they—”