Brothers of the Blade

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  Out on one of the flanks, there was a private duel going on. Nicholson had a motley band of tribesmen on wiry horses who followed him wherever he went: a large gathering of volunteer bodyguards. It seemed that two of these dedicated horsemen had challenged a duo of sowars from the mutineers to single combat. These four men rode at each other, two against two, the sowars with their swords straight out in front of them pointing like lances, the Pathans swishing the air with tulwars, ready to slice. At the last minute before any of them struck, the Pathans appeared to vanish, the sowars’ swords passing over empty saddles. Then the Pathans suddenly reappeared from under the bellies of their mounts and swept around, beheading the passing Bengali cavalrymen each with a single stroke.

  Crossman, Raktambar and Gwilliams had witnessed this startling duel and its astonishing outcome.

  ‘I seen Injuns do that,’ muttered Gwilliams. Then looking at Raktambar, added, ‘Other Injuns, o’ course, with bows.’

  Down by the river the mopping-up was in progress. The remnants of the mutineers’ army had retreated to a thicket-covered island, where they were trapped, the river flowing too fast on the other side. Those who tried to cross it were swept away and drowned. Those who remained hidden on the island had nothing left to give. Crossman saw that General Nicholson was not inclined at this time attack them. Instead, he posted troops along the bank, ready to shoot any who tried to escape from their hiding places. No British had been killed in the battle, just a half-dozen wounded.

  A jubilant Sergeant King returned in a state of high elation.

  ‘That was a glorious charge,’ he said. ‘I never knew battle could be so exciting.’

  ‘How many did you kill?’ asked Raktambar.

  The sergeant was crestfallen for a minute.

  ‘Well, I don’t think it matters. What it was, was the ride. The gallop. By the time I reached the river they had all crossed to the island. I hadn’t any chance of using my blade. If it had been needed . . .’

  The lieutenant said, ‘You charged, that was the main thing. It’s quite an experience, so I’ve been told.’

  King said, surprised, ‘You’ve never charged?’

  ‘On foot, yes, but not on horseback of course. I’m from a foot regiment, not cavalry. I believe an infantry charge is far less intoxicating. I remember feeling nothing except fear, my legs shaking so much I wondered how they managed to keep me upright. It’s really not so much a charge as a stumbling run, trying not to trip over. You’re aware of men being blown away on either side of you, the gaps appearing in the line, having more time to observe what’s going on around you. But I imagine that on the back of horse, waving a sabre, it would be a different experience.’

  ‘Oh, yes it is,’ said King. ‘Very different.’

  Crossman decided that since he was exhausted now, so were the others, and ordered his little group back to Amritsar, where Nicholson’s Movable Column was waiting to march on Delhi. General Nicholson and his troops remained in the battle area and the word was that few of those mutineers on the island would escape the general’s wrath. General John Nicholson, it seemed, was not much interested in taking prisoners. He had decreed that ‘the penalty for mutiny is death’ and that’s what he intended to mete out to any rebels who came within reach of his fury.

  Back in Amritsar, Crossman bathed and let Gwilliams attack his face. Once he was clean and shaved, he put on his uniform and went off to find Calcutta Hawke. The colonel was in conference at that time, so Crossman waited outside his quarters until he was free. He was called in just an hour afterwards.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Lieutenant,’ said Hawke, gesturing to a bamboo chair. ‘A rider from Delhi arrived just before you.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. Good news?’

  ‘Not especially. There’s news from further abroad – General Havelock’s force is advancing from Allahabad hoping to relieve Cawnpore. Apparently they’re having a pretty savage time of it down there. The ridge is holding at Delhi, but making no great strides. More and more mutinies in more and more places. Not all of them significant, but the pot is boiling merrily now.’

  ‘Who’s to blame for all this, sir?’

  ‘Blame?’ Hawke watched a moth batting its wings against the glass of his hot lamp. ‘Do we have to apportion blame? I suppose we do. The blame must lie with those who’re responsible for the running of things here – the senior officers of the East India Company. If they had been a little more circumspect we might not have this mess, for mess it definitely is. A little less arrogance wouldn’t have gone amiss, I tend to feel. The Company is a large body, larger than the governments of many countries, and such bodies often lack foresight and sensitivity.’ He sighed. ‘Well, we’re in it now and we have to extricate ourselves with the minimum of destruction. Has General Nicholson returned yet?’

  ‘No sir, he remained with his troops to mop up.’

  ‘The tone of your voice suggests you do not approve of the methods being used, Lieutenant.’

  Crossman hadn’t realized he was injecting any feeling into his words at all, but he replied, ‘It’s not for me to approve or disapprove.’

  ‘You think, though, that the general is too ruthless.’

  ‘I believe he thinks he’s right in his actions, but perhaps a little mercy might go a long way. This country’s vast but word travels quickly. What we do today sets the rules for tomorrow’s engagements.’

  ‘Well, when all’s said and done, this isn’t our show, Jack. It belongs to John Company, though how long they will remain the power here, after this, is anyone’s guess. I believe Her Majesty’s government will think twice before leaving them with their autonomy once it’s all over. If things continue the way they have been doing, there won’t be a British India to fight over. We’ll all be shipped somewhere else to begin again.’

  ‘What now, sir?’ asked Crossman. ‘Any special duties?’

  ‘I think we’ll stick with the column for the time being. Once the general has finished his mopping up, we’ll be on our way to Delhi. At least this victory has offset the thrashing at Chinhut. As you say, word will spread, and this will be a great boost to our troops, small as it is.’

  Jack went to the billets to make sure that King and Gwilliams were comfortable and found them both fast asleep on their cots. Ishwar Raktambar was waiting for him near the compound. Jack told the Rajput to find himself a bed and then went looking for one himself. He found an empty bungalow which had obviously belonged to a European family. There was a portrait on the living-room wall of an elderly-looking man in civilian clothes sitting in a high-backed chair. A woman – no doubt his wife – stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders. At his feet were two pretty-looking maidens, daughters, in puff-sleeved frocks and ribbons.

  The door to the bungalow had been broken off and lay out in the yard. Someone had forced an entrance, but whether the family had remained in residence Jack had no idea. Nothing else seemed disturbed: ornaments were still on sideboards and clothes in wardrobes. There was a letter lying on a coffee table in a language other than English. It appeared to be Swedish or perhaps Norwegian: somewhere in those regions. Jack was not familiar with Scandinavian tongues. Some businessman or other who had come to India to make his fortune under the umbrella of the Company.

  Jack fell, fully clothed, on one of the beds and opened the first of his letters, one from Jane, but he had only got as far as My Dearest Husband before he was fast asleep.

  In a few days they were on the march again, heading towards Amballa. Crossman and his men were asked to ride on ahead, to act as scouts in fact, though there were already plenty out there. They came across many Sikhs, who stood by the roadside asking when ‘Sahib Nicholson’ was going to pass by. Jack felt that all that was needed were palms to lay on the road. It was here, on this very road, that Crossman once again had the eerie feeling of being watched and followed. He thought he glimpsed a familiar face amongst a crowd of villagers, but on riding over the man quickly disappeared in
to the rainforest behind the huts. Why would someone run from him? It was a most uncomfortable feeling, a mystical experience he could do without. There was enough going on without being spooked by a stalking man.

  As they were ahead of the column, they encountered many disturbing sights. On riding through a village one day they were accosted by an elderly Indian woman who gripped King’s trousers with claw-like fingers and led him on his horse to the doorway of a hut. When he entered, King found a British woman and her child cringing in the corner, half-hidden in the dimness of the interior. She was in a filthy dishevelled state and even when he identified himself as an Englishman, she remained cowed and whimpering. Her child, sucking its thumb, stared wide-eyed at King when he offered her some water.

  Going outside he asked the old woman, ‘Is that your memsahib in there?’

  She shook her head and on being questioned by Crossman they found she was the owner of the hovel. The white woman had come wandering into the camp one night with a baby and a child. The baby turned out to be dead and the old woman had buried it behind the house. She had then given the white lady some peppery soup and water, and left her to sleep. The visitor and her child had not spoken since entering the village.

  The lieutenant thanked the local woman for her kindness and followed King into the hovel to speak with the one she had rescued. With coaxing the white woman told them her name was Susan Fletcher and that her husband had been a clerk for the Company. Their house had been attacked and burned, but the mob had only driven them away, without harming them. Her husband had secured a horse and had told her he was riding for help. When he did not return she followed in the same direction and found him bleeding to death, torn to pieces it seemed by thorn bushes through which his horse had dragged him. He was still attached to the grazing mare, his ankle caught in a stirrup, his life draining away from him.

  ‘Where’s my baby?’ she asked. ‘Is it outside?’

  ‘I’m afraid your youngest child is dead,’ King replied, stroking her head as he would an anxious horse about to be shoed by his father. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She turned to the wall. ‘We had no water.’

  Crossman said, ‘Your daughter is well enough, though.’

  The two men comforted her as well as they could.

  Gwilliams took the woman and child back to the column and then rejoined the other three later that night.

  They also saw and heard, of British revenge, with makeshift gallows decorating the landscape and stories of rebels being shot from cannons. It was, as Hawke had said, a great mess. A mess which grew bloodier and less savoury by the day. Yet even here, in such circumstances, there were stories of great courage and tales of great kindnesses, from both sides of the conflict. There were also, incredible as it seemed to those who experienced it, some lighter moments.

  Several days after the discovery of the woman and her child Crossman and his men were four abreast, walking their horses down a long and dusty road which seemed to stretch for ever. Suddenly, out of the haze ahead, a swaying elephant with a howdah appeared, shimmering in the heat haze. The closer they came to the rolling beast, the more they were impressed, it being highly decorated with designs painted on its hide. The howdah itself was richly ornate, a four-poster, the spiral supports covered in gold-leaf, the roof stretched over with a satin cloth that had been bleached somewhat by exposure to the weather. Curtains hung from the rim of the roof and shielded whoever was inside from direct sunlight.

  The mahout was naked to the waist but wore an enormous red turban on his head and yellow silk pantaloons with fringes at the ankles. Hooped brass earrings the size of soup plates hung from his lobes and sparkled in the light.

  The mahout forced the horses to the edge of the road, two on either side: he and his elephant walked imperiously between.

  ‘Hold hard,’ cried Gwilliams, annoyed at being treated in such a peremptory fashion. ‘Who’s the captain of this rig?’

  The mahout seemed not to hear until he was aware of the barrel of Gwilliam’s carbine pointing at his chest. He halted his elephant but remained staring ahead of him.

  From inside the howdah came a high-pitched shriek in Hindi.

  ‘Go on! Go on!’

  ‘You stay where you are,’ growled Gwilliams, who now knew enough Hindi to understand the order. ‘Who’s in there?’

  ‘It is a powerful nawab, sahib. Please do not make him angry.’

  ‘A nawab? Of where?’

  The mahout looked very unhappy and confused. ‘I do not know, sahib. He did not tell me. He gave me money for the hire of my elephant and for the use of the clothings which my uncle keeps for festivals and weddings.’

  King took his mount alongside the elephant and then stood on the saddle to reach up and pull back the curtains. By now Crossman had come round to their side of the elephant and witnessed the unveiling. Sitting on a stool in the howdah was a fat man dressed indeed like royalty. He stared out from a brown face with wide pale eyes ringed with black paint. His lips were rouged, which made his teeth seem very white. Then, on seeing that they were British soldiers who had stopped his elephant, he threw up two chubby hands covered in jewelled rings. His jowls quivered, revealing it seemed, his immense relief at discovering they were not bandits or rebels.

  ‘Oh, I am saved. Thank the Lord for His deliverance. Lieutenant, thou art my saviour. God has been kind to his loyal servant . . .’

  Crossman peered at the man. ‘Reverend Stillwell? Is that you under all that cocoa powder and rouge?’

  ‘It is indeed, Lieutenant. I have been through great trials, but I have overcome. I am overcome, now being under thy protection.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Mr Stillwell, you will need to go further before you find the protection you require. We are merely the advance scouts for a column led by General Nicholson. If I were you I would divest myself of the fine garb, wash my face, and prepare to meet the column with dignity. There will be life after the mutiny and you might not wish to be the butt of subsequent humiliating stories.’

  ‘A wash, yes.’ The reverend licked his finger and ran it down his cheek, leaving a white mark. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And get shot of those garments.’

  ‘You’re right, Lieutenant.’

  They left the reverend clambering down from a kneeling elephant, anxious to find a well in which to wash. King, Gwilliams and Raktambar were roaring with laughter as they trotted their horses down the road. It was not something they could control. Crossman tried not to smile but he couldn’t hold back either, though he knew that Stillwell was in earshot. The image of the reverend would stay with them for some time, they knew, a little ray of humour in the murky atmospheres of an India in turmoil.

  Jack’s letters had been a blessing. He had now read all of them several times over, mostly by poor lamplight at night. Britain was a whole world away from insect-plagued India. His brother James had written that the estates in Scotland were beginning to repay their debts. Management of them had been poor during their father’s time, he being more interested in hunting (and other manly pastimes) than talking with tenant farmers. Caleb McNiece, their father’s servant, had toned down his aggression towards James, but still lurked like a dark phantom around their senile father. Their mother was well and in good spirits, though she was concerned by news from India.

  Jane’s letters had very little substantial news in them whatsoever. They were mostly full of descriptions of the countryside as spring had come upon them. Jane was a painter with words, rather than informative, and her prose was almost poetry. They were light and airy and he could hear her laughing as she penned some incident or other. There was one describing a walk she had taken along a country road, when she had come across what she thought was a cat attacking a shrew. Having a stick she shooed the cat away, whereupon the shrew began attacking her foot. It now occurred to her that the tiny hedgerow mammal had been bothering the cat and not the other way around. Shrews are known as aggressive creatures, she had written, and I s
hould have guessed by the indignant attitude of the cat.

  She had ended the letter pleading to be allowed to come to India, whatever the state of affairs there, to be at least in the same country as my husband, even if we meet only occasionally.

  Jack sighed. It was impossible at the moment of course. And even if this unpalatable war were to end tomorrow, there would still be simmering pockets of resistance. Not that any of that would worry Jane, who had been with him in the Crimea as a guest of her friend Lavinia Durham, a captain’s lady with a romantic history linked to Jack’s, making it an uncomfortable trio for him. Jane had seen war close hand and though she did not relish it – unlike friend Lavinia who saw in war only the greater glory and élan of dashing men – it did not deter her from her purpose. Jane believed her place was beside her husband, wherever he was, for had they not promised one another to be in that place, until death do them part?

  The dust rose from the road as their horses walked on.

  ‘King,’ asked Crossman, ‘you had one or two letters I noticed.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ replied the sergeant. ‘From my father. All’s well, I’m glad to say. Business is brisk. He made a set of gates for the new manor house which has given – which will give him – a considerable income. The squire hasn’t paid him yet, of course,’ a glowering look, ‘but my father usually gets his money in the end. The squire will need more wrought ironwork soon and my father’s the best in the county at his trade. Bills are paid one behind. Father gets the money for the last job when a new one comes along. It’s how things work amongst the rich, isn’t it?’