by M. M. Kaye
Hilary had been right. And so had Akbar Khan. There had been too many grievances that had been disregarded, too many injustices that had not been recognized and put right, and men would not endure such things for ever. The breaking point had been a petty one: a matter of greased cartridges that had been issued to the Bengal Army for use in the new rifles, of which the grease was suspected of being a mixture of cow and pig fat – the touch of the first destroying the caste of a Hindu and the latter defiling a Mohammedan. But it was an excuse only.
Ever since the day, half a century earlier, when mutiny and bloodshed had followed the Company's attempt to enforce the wearing of a leather stock and a new form of headdress on the troops at Vellore in Madras, the sepoys had suspected a plot aimed at depriving them of caste – that most cherished of all Hindu institutions. The mutiny of Vellore had been put down with swiftness and ferocity, as had other and similar insurrections in the years that followed. But the Company had failed to read the writing on the wall, and were indignant at the outcry against the greased cartridges.
In Barrackpore an angry sepoy, Mangal Pandy of the 34th Native Infantry, having urged his comrades to revolt, had fired at and wounded the British Adjutant. He had subsequently been hanged, while his fellow sepoys who had watched in silence had been deprived of their arms. The regiment itself had been disbanded, and faced with further dissatisfaction the Governor-General had at last issued an order withdrawing the new cartridge. But by that time it was too late, for the sepoys looked upon the order as proof that their suspicions had been correct, and far from easing the tension, it increased it to danger-point. Outbreaks of arson were reported from all over India, but in spite of the explosiveness of the situation and the fact that knowledgeable men were only too well aware of impending disaster, the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Cavalry, stationed at Meerut, had elected to teach his regiment a lesson by insisting that they use the disputed cartridges. Eighty-five of his sowars* having firmly, though courteously, refused to do so, they had been arrested, court-martialled and sentenced to hard-labour for life.
General Hewitt, obese, lethargic and rising seventy, had reluctantly ordered a parade of the entire Meerut Brigade at which the sentences were read aloud, and the eighty-five men publicly stripped of their uniforms and fitted with iron leg-shackles before being led away to life imprisonment. But that long-drawn, inglorious parade proved to be an even greater mistake than the harshness of the sentences, for the sympathy of the watching crowd had been aroused by the sight of the manacled sowars, and all that night men in the barracks and bazaars of Meerut seethed with shame and rage and plotted revenge. With the morning the storm that had threatened for so long broke at last: a mob of furious sepoys attacked the gaol, released the prisoners and turned on the British, and after a day of riot, murder and violence the sowars of the 3rd Cavalry had fired the looted bungalows and ridden to Delhi to raise the standard of revolt and place their sabres at the service of Bahadur Shah, titular King of Delhi and last of the Moguls. It was these men whom Sita had seen in the dawn, and recognized, with terror and foreboding, as the messengers of disaster.
The Mogul, it seemed, had not at first believed them, for there were many British regiments in Meerut, and he had hourly expected to see them hastening in pursuit of the mutineers. Only when none appeared did he become convinced that the troopers of the 3rd Cavalry had spoken no more than the truth when they asserted that all the Sahib-log in Meerut were dead; and this being so, word had gone out for a similar massacre of all Europeans in Delhi. Some of the Sahibs had shut themselves into the magazine, and when it became clear that they could no longer hold it, they had blown it up, and themselves with it. Others had been slaughtered by their troops, or by the mobs which had risen in support of the heroes of Meerut and were still hunting down stray Europeans in the streets of the city…
Listening to this tale of the day's doings, Sita had snatched the child away from the light of the flaring torches and dragged him into the shadows, terrified that he might be recognized as Angrezi (English) and cut down by the swords of the bridge guard. The roar of the mob and the crash and crackle of burning buildings carried a clearer warning than any words of the dangers to be encountered in the city, and turning from the Calcutta Gate she scurried away into the darkness in the direction of the Water Bastion, keeping to the narrow strip of waste ground that lay between the river and the walls of Delhi.
The ground was rough and strewn with rocks and other pitfalls, and Ash's short legs, trotting beside her, tired early. But by now the moon was up, and the reflected glare of burning houses filled the night with a sunset brightness. They had covered less than half a mile when they came across a strayed donkey wandering aimlessly among the boulders and the rubbish dumps, and appropriated it. Its owner was probably a dhobi or a grass-cutter who had tied it insecurely or, hastening to the city to take part in the looting of European-owned shops and houses, had temporarily forgotten it. But to Sita it was a gift from the gods and she accepted it as such. The little creature stood patiently while she placed Ash on its back and mounted behind him, and it had obviously been accustomed to far heavier loads, for at the touch of her heel it trotted briskly forward, keeping to some unseen track that wound between the rocks and scrub and rubbish on the glacis beyond the city ditch.
The donkey's hooves made very little noise on the sandy ground, and Sita's wine-coloured cotton sari was lost among the shadows; but there were men on the walls that night who were suspicious of any sound or movement, and twice harsh voices challenged them and shots ricochetted off the stones at their feet or whined viciously overhead to splash into the river. Then at last they were past the Water Bastion and the Counter-Scarp, and picking their way across the short stretch of open ground that separated the Kashmir Gate from the dark, friendly thickets of the Kudsia Bagh.
A final spatter of shots followed but did not harm them, and ten minutes later they were among trees, with Delhi left behind them – a black, uneven fringe of walls and battlements, rooftops and trees, spiked with the slim minarets of mosques and thrown into sharp silhouette by the glow of the fires. To the right lay the river, while ahead and to the left loomed the long dark line of the Ridge, a natural barrier of rock that lay between the cantonments and the city.
There were always lights in the cantonments, in bungalows, barracks and messes, and the quarters of the camp-followers. The glow they made in the night sky was a familiar sight, but tonight it was much brighter and less constant, waxing and waning as though there were fires there too. The Sahib-log, thought Sita, must have caused bonfires to be lighted around the cantonment area to prevent any attack being launched under cover of darkness, which seemed to her a sensible idea; though it was going to make her own progress more hazardous, for there were armed men on the road that linked the city to the Ridge and the cantonments, hurrying figures on foot and on horseback whom she suspected of being mutineers or looters. The sooner she got the child and herself to the safety of Abuthnot-Sahib's bungalow the better, but it might be wiser to wait here where the trees and thickets offered a hiding place, until there was less activity on the cantonment road.
The donkey jibbed suddenly, almost unseating her. It stood still, blowing loud snuffing breaths of alarm, and when she urged it forward with her heel, it backed instead, so that she was forced to dismount.
‘Dekho!’ (Look!) said Ash, whose eyesight in the dark was almost as good as the donkey's. ‘There is someone there in the bushes.’
His voice was interested rather than alarmed, and if he had not spoken before it was only because he had never been much given to talking, except, on occasions, to Akbar Khan. The shots and the shouting had excited him, but no more than that, for Uncle Akbar had taken him out shooting before he could walk, and the only alarming thing about the present situation was Sita's fear; and the fact that she either would not or could not explain their altered circumstances and why everyone he had known in all his short life, everyone but herself, had suddenly deserted h
im. But like most children the world over, he was resigned to the curious behaviour of grown-ups and accepted it as part of the scheme of things. He knew now that Sita was once again afraid, and this time of the person in the bushes: the donkey was too, and Ash patted the little animal's quivering back and said consolingly: ‘Daro mut,’ (Do not fear), ‘it is only a memsahib who is asleep.’
The woman in the bushes lay in a curious attitude, as though she had crawled through the tangled undergrowth on hands and knees and had fallen asleep, exhausted. The red light of burning buildings, glinting through the leaves, showed her to be an excessively stout lady wearing a whalebone crinoline and a number of petticoats under a voluminous dress of grey and white striped bombazine which made her appear even stouter. But she was not asleep. She was dead. She must, thought Sita, shrinking back from that vast, silent shape, be one of the Sahib-log who had attempted to escape the massacre in the city and had died of terror or heart-failure, for she bore no sign of any wound. Perhaps she too had been trying to reach the cantonments, and perhaps there were other English fugitives hiding in the shadows – or mutineers, hunting them down.
The latter thought was an alarming one, but a moment's consideration convinced Sita that any sounds of pursuit would be clearly audible among the thickets of the ruined garden, and that no search would be undertaken without torches to light the way. The night was quiet and the only movements she could hear came from the direction of the road. They could safely wait here.
Tethering the donkey so that it could not wander away, she made a nest among the grasses for the child, and having fed him with the last hoarded fragments of a chuppatti, lulled him to sleep with the whispered story of the valley among the mountains where they would one day live in that flat-roofed house among the fruit trees, and keep a goat and a cow, a puppy and a kitten… ‘And the donkey,’ said Ash drowsily. ‘We must take the donkey.’
‘Assuredly we will take the donkey, he shall help us carry water jars from the river; and wood for our fire, for when night falls it is cool in the high valleys – cool and pleasant, and the wind that blows through the forests smells of pine-cones and snow and makes a sound that says “Hush – Hush –Hush”…’ Ash sighed happily and was asleep.
Sita waited patiently hour after hour until the glow in the sky died down and the stars began to pale, and then smelling the approach of dawn, she roused the sleeping child and stole out of the Kudsia Bagh to complete the last lap of their long journey to the cantonments of Delhi.
There was no one on the road now. It lay grey and empty and deep in dust, and though the air was cool from the river and the long reaches of wet sand, it was tainted with the smell of smoke and a faint reek of corruption, while the silence magnified every small sound: the snap of a dead twig underfoot, the click of a stone struck by the donkey's hooves and Sita's own short uneven breathing. It seemed to her that their progress must be audible a mile away, and she began to urge the donkey to greater speed, kicking its furry sides with her bare heels and exhorting it in a breathless whisper to hurry – hurry.
The last time she and the child had come this way they had driven in a carriage and the distance between the Kashmir Gate and the cantonments had seemed a very short one; but now it seemed endless, and long before they reached the crest of the ridge the sky was grey with the first hint of morning, and the black, shapeless masses to the left and right of the road had resolved themselves into rocks and stunted thorn trees. It was easier once the road began to descend; they made better time on the downward slope, and the silence reassured Sita. If the inhabitants of the cantonment could sleep so peacefully there could be nothing wrong and the trouble must be over – or else it had never reached here.
There were no lights at this hour, and roads, bungalows and gardens lay quiet in the dawn. But the smell of burning was suddenly stronger, and it was not the familiar smell of charcoal or dung fires, but the harsher smell of smouldering beams and thatch, of scorched earth and brickwork.
It was still too dark to make out more than the outline of trees and bungalows, and though the tripping tap of the donkey's hooves was now clearly audible on the harder surface of a made road, no one challenged them, and it seemed that the sentries too were asleep.
The Abuthnots' bungalow lay on the near side of the cantonment in a quiet, tree-shaded road, and Sita found it without much difficulty. Dismounting at the gate she lifted the boy down and began to pull at the knots of her bundle.
‘What are you doing?’ inquired Ash, interested. He hoped that she meant to produce something for him to eat, for he was hungry. But Sita was unpacking the sailor suit that she had meant to put on him in the house of Daya Ram's cousin, the grain merchant. It was not fitting that the ‘Burra-Sahib's’ son should be presented to his father's people in the dusty, travel-stained garments of a street-arab, and at least she would see that he was properly clothed. The suit would be crumpled but it was clean, and the shoes well polished; and surely the Memsahib would understand and forgive the lack of pressing?
Ash sighed resignedly and allowed himself to be hurried into the hated sailor suit without protest. He seemed to have grown a lot since he last wore it, for it was uncomfortably tight, and when it came to putting on the strapped European shoes he found it impossible to force his feet into them.
‘You are not trying, piara (dear),’ scolded Sita, almost in tears between weariness and vexation. ‘Push hard – harder.’
But it was no use, and she had to let him tread down the heels and wear them as though they had been slippers. The white sailor hat with its wide blue ribbon had not been improved by its long sojourn in the bundle, but she straightened it with an anxious hand and carefully adjusted the elastic band under his chin.
‘Now you are altogether a Sahib, Heart-of-my-heart,’ whispered Sita, kissing him. She wiped away a tear with the corner of her sari, and tying up his discarded clothing in her bundle, came to her feet and led him up the drive towards the house.
The garden was already silver-grey in the first pale wash of the dawn, and the Abuthnots' bungalow stood out clear-cut and distinct – and quiet. So quiet that as they approached it they heard a quick patter of paws on matting as a dark shape appeared out of the blackness of an open doorway, and scuttling down the verandah, loped away across the lawn. It was not a Sahib's dog, or even one of the pariah-dogs that haunted the cantonment bazaars, but a hyena, its high, humped shoulders and grotesquely stunted hind-quarters unmistakable in the growing light…
Sita stood still, her heart once again racing in panic. She could hear the receding rustle of leaves as the hyena vanished among the bushes, and the steady munching of the donkey by the gate. But there was still no sound from the house, or from the servants' quarters behind it, where surely someone should be awake and stirring. Where was the chowkidar, the night watchman who should have been guarding the bungalow? Her eye was caught by a small white object that lay on the gravel almost at her feet, and she stooped slowly and picked it up. It was a high-heeled satin shoe such as she had seen the memsahibs wear in the evenings for balls or burra khanas,* an incongruous object to find lying discarded on the front drive at that hour – or any hour.
Sita's frightened gaze darted over the lawns and flower-beds and she saw for the first time that there were other objects littering the garden: books, pieces of broken china, torn fragments of clothing, a stocking… She dropped the satin slipper, and turning, ran back to the gate dragging Ash with her, and thrust him into the shadows of the pepper tree.
‘Stay there, piara,’ ordered Sita in a voice that Ash had never heard her use before. ‘Get back – get down into the shadows and do not make a noise. I will see first who is in the bungalow, and then I will come back for you. As you love me, make no sound.’
‘Will you bring something to eat?’ asked Ash, anxiously, adding with a sigh: ‘I'm so hungry.’
‘Yes, yes. I will find something. I promise you. Only stay quiet.’
Leaving him, she went across the gard
en, and gathering all her courage, stole up the verandah steps and into the silent house. There was no one there. The dark, empty rooms were littered with broken furniture and the debris left by men who had looted anything of value and wantonly destroyed anything and everything else. The servants' quarters too were deserted, and there had evidently been an attempt to set fire to the bungalow, but the flames had not caught, and behind the broken door of the larder there was still a quantity of food that no one had bothered to steal, perhaps because the caste of the looters prevented them from touching such stuff.
Under other circumstances Sita might have had similar qualms. But now she filled the torn half of a tablecloth with as much as she could conveniently carry. There was bread and cold curry, a bowl of dal and the remains of a rice pudding, some boiled potatoes and a quantity of fresh fruit, a jam tart and half a plum cake as well as several varieties of biscuits. There was also milk, but it was sour, and various tinned foods that were too heavy to carry. But among a welter of broken wine bottles was one that had escaped destruction, and though it was empty there were plenty of corks, and she filled it with cold water from an earthenware chatti outside the kitchen and hurried back to Ash.
The sky was growing lighter every minute and soon yesterday's looters, the budmarshes† from the bazaars, would wake after their night's rioting and come back to see if there was anything they had overlooked. It was unsafe to remain here a moment longer, but first she must strip off that betraying sailor suit; and she did so with hands that trembled with anxiety and haste.
