Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  But someone had made a silly mistake. There was no relief in sight, and dejection supplanted the enthusiastic cheers as we crept back to our rooms and the men turned once more to their guns. Excitement had not been unreasonable, however, for it was over a week since we had received word that the relieving force could be expected in ‘five or six days’, and it could not possibly be delayed more than a few days longer.

  A few days more and it would all be over. I would be free to go home, free to walk on fresh green grass and breathe pure air; free to wear new clothes and eat good food; free, at last, to make plans.

  But what plans were worth the making now? What was there left for me to do, but go back to Mount Bellew for a time, and then start work in some strange household, giving lessons to spoiled children? Yet, for the days between the first assault and Ungud’s first visit, I had felt that all the best of life was mine for the grasping. Now Oliver was dead, and with him my moment of hope and happiness. Long ago on the ship Mr Roberts had commended my resignation as philosophy. But he had been wrong. I had never allowed myself to expect much from life because I was frightened of what would happen to me if my expectations were unfulfilled. But no amount of careful self-deception can protect one from experience. I had found myself and the promise of joy in the strangest quarter and had known that promise voided in the cruellest pain. Sometime, somewhere, a long way from here, the pain would ease, but never again would I experience the ecstasy of those few days when I had realized, and been prepared to admit, my love for Oliver Erskine. I was no longer a girl; I was dowerless, sharp-tongued and plain. And even had I not been all those things, there was only one Oliver Erskine. I would never know his like again. The thought of Charles never crossed my mind.

  As I sat there, Mr Harris, the young chaplain, staggered out of the dusk towards me with a handkerchief pressed to his mouth, and subsided on the steps of the verandah, shivering with suppressed nausea. Mr Polehampton, the assistant chaplain, had been dead a fortnight, so now Mr Harris was forced to carry out all the duties of his office alone. It was not the first time I had seen him in this condition; the stench in the graveyard was now so unbearable that every evening poor Mr Harris was rendered violently ill by the time he had finished reading the burial service over those who had died during the day, and people said that often he would get back to his quarters and vomit for a couple of hours at a stretch. I ran into our kitchen and brought him out a mug of water.

  He sipped it slowly with his eyes closed, mopping the cold perspiration from his brow, and shuddering as though in ague.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, putting down the mug. ‘Thank you, Miss Hewitt. I can never get used to it down there. It is truly terrible!’

  I nodded sympathetically, and when he made to get up, restrained him with my hand.

  ‘Sit still a while,’ I begged. ‘A little rest will do you good. Your wife must get so worried seeing you like this. Recover a little first.’

  He allowed me to persuade him. ‘Yes. I must say it is pleasant to sit still. I never realize, though, how tired I am until I do sit down, so I try to keep on my feet as a. rule. There is so much to do. I must not stay long; the men in the hospital are expecting me, though with the light gone there is not much I can do for them. Not many of them want to pray!’

  ‘Well then, to wait won’t hurt them, will it?’ I assured him. He was a fussy, anxious man, but he was doing his best to carry the double load, and I respected him for it.

  ‘There is more to do than ever now, in the hospital I mean, since the doctors decided that it was no longer proper for the ladies to be there. Letter-writing and so on, which the ladies used to do, falls to my lot now, and with everything else as well …’

  ‘Letter-writing? But what on earth for, when they can’t be delivered?’

  ‘Ah, well, the wounded, the dying rather, are sure that we will soon be relieved, and they want their people at home to have a last word from them. It’s natural. Poor fellows, they always want to sound brave and cheerful, so that their families won’t know how bad things have been with us.’

  Three widows, one of them Mrs Polehampton, had volunteered to help in the hospital, and had been given a room in the building to save them the risk of crossing the open ground between their quarters and the hospital. Now, so Mr Harris said, the conditions were such that no ladies could be expected to endure them; and, though Mrs Polehampton and her friends had protested, for the last ten days they had been lodged in the Begum Kothi and forbidden to go to the hospital.

  ‘None of them is strong, you see,’ he said, ‘and two of them are elderly. But they were a help—a great help!’ He sighed resignedly.

  As he spoke, an idea came to me—an idea which had been presenting itself half consciously to my mind since I had heard of Oliver’s death. I needed occupation and I had to learn to think of something other than my own heart’s emptiness. Surprising myself almost as much as I surprised Mr Harris, I seized time by the forelock and blurted out, ‘Will they let me do it, Mr Harris, what the other ladies did? I’m young and healthy and have no responsibilities—no ties either,’ I added quickly as he began to expostulate.

  ‘Oh, my dear young lady!’ Mr Harris was thoroughly shocked. ‘Certainly not! The authorities would never hear of it, and rightly too. After all, the other ladies were much older than you, and experienced. Married, and … and so on. Why, it would be most improper for a young girl …’

  ‘But, Mr Harris, I am not a young girl! I am twenty-four years old. Certainly I am not married, but I can’t help that. And I have done quite a lot of nursing. I looked after my father for two years before he died, and here, when my cousin got cholera, I nursed her too. Oh, Mr Harris, it would be the saving of me if I could do something useful. You have no idea of the boredom and inertia we suffer cooped up with absolutely nothing to do.’

  ‘I understand, Miss Hewitt, and I must commend your wish to help others, but really, you have no idea … This is no well-ordered, adequately provisioned hospital that we have here. We lack everything, medicines, bedding—even clothes for the wounded. No, no, Miss Hewitt! You must put it out of your head.’

  I could have shaken the silly man. He thought I would have the vapours at the sight of a naked male. Perhaps I would indeed—the first time. But I would recover myself and get used to it.

  ‘Now listen, Mr Harris, please,’ I begged, ‘I’m a practical sort of person, and reasonably steady. Honestly I am. I know what you are thinking—that I will be shocked. But I won’t! I’ve seen many worse things than naked bodies, or even wounded ones …’

  ‘Indeed she has, Mr Harris,’ Kate said calmly, as she seated herself beside us. ‘She has even killed a man. I’d take her if I were you. She don’t weaken easily and I’ll be glad to come along with her.’

  ‘Mrs Barry, Mrs Barry, I would have expected you to support me, and here you are in collusion with the young lady! But surely you see the impropriety of even suggesting it?’

  ‘Well now, Mr Harris, and I’m not sure that I do. But I can see a lot of impropriety in allowing men to die without even the small amount of comfort we two could bring ’em. No, Mr Harris. Divil take it, but I can see no impropriety at all in Laura’s suggestion.’

  ‘Well … I …’ By this time Mr Harris had forgotten his nausea under the concerted attack of two determined females.

  ‘And anyway, Mr Harris, what about the Birch girls? I know they are still doing their mite in the hospital. No one can keep them away, isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes … but well, they are a special case, after all; their own brother, and the fact that they have lost so much—their father and so on, and as you say—well, they can’t be kept away. In any event, they do not come regularly.’ As though this was a mitigating circumstance.

  ‘But they do go to the hospital?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘They do.’

  ‘Hm! Well then, there is a precedent to be followed. We will follow it!’

  ‘It is a waste of y
our time, Mrs Barry. The authorities will never hear of a single young lady helping in the place. You have no idea what it is like, or you would not even think of it. I can understand Miss Hewitt’s being carried away, but you, well, you know something of what is involved.’

  ‘Only too well, Mr Harris, only too well. But now, tell me, if by any chance we did get permission to help the sick, you would not really object to our presence, would you?’

  ‘If you mean, would I help you to get permission—I would not!’

  ‘But you won’t stand in our way if we do?’

  ‘The matter will not arise!’ said Mr Harris in a pontifical tone, and got to his feet. ‘A kind thought; indeed a noble thought, Miss Hewitt. But unfortunately, quite impracticable.’ And having raised his sweat-stained hat, he hurried away.

  ‘Hm! We’ll see about that!’ said Kate as we watched him go. ‘Now why ever didn’t I think of it earlier? Woman dear, you’re a genius!’

  It took her several days to accomplish her purpose. She lobbied them all: Brigadier Inglis (now Officer Commanding the garrison), Father Adeodatus, the doctors, even Mr Gubbins. She wrote letters and waylaid the great as they hurried past our verandah, and at length she got her way. I never knew how she finally prevailed, but I imagine the doctors, harassed beyond conventions by the number and state of the wounded, were the first to succumb to her blandishments. However it was done, eventually the authorities relented so far as to allow the two of us to visit the hospital for one hour per diem in order to write letters and read prayers to the wounded. Nothing else was to be allowed us, and no more time. We were to go immediately after the midday meal, when the firing usually slackened a little while the pandies attended to their cooking, and should we be killed in the discharge of these trivial duties, no one would be held accountable but ourselves.

  ‘We can start tomorrow,’ Kate said joyfully when she had imparted these directions. ‘And now we must get Toddy to “come by” paper, pen and ink.’

  CHAPTER 13

  When I had gone to the Resident’s House with Charles to find Jessie MacGregor on the day of the first assault, the sight of the tall building had recalled to my mind a happier occasion and I had been able to compare its condition with the way I remembered it nine months before. No such sentimental ruminations were possible as Kate and I approached the Banqueting Hall, which now housed the hospital, on that August afternoon; we were in too great a hurry to reach its shelter to waste time in reflecting on its past.

  In the elegant colonnaded building, I had once waited for Captain Fanning to bring me iced champagne, and, while waiting, had heard a stranger’s voice enunciating unwelcome sentiments about the women who thronged its rooms. ‘Women mean emotion,’ that voice had said, and the equation I now knew was valid. Without women, Cawnpore would have been merely one more inglorious episode in a long history of martial ineptitude and civil ignorance. But because women had died there, every white woman in India, including ourselves, was potential victim, martyr and burden all in one. Had there been no women in Lucknow, the city would have been evacuated; no entrenchment would have been necessary, no leaguer possible. Men who were dead would be living, men dying would be well, men maimed would be whole.

  I did not formulate these thoughts as Kate and I sped sweating through the heat, starting involuntarily at every shot which rang out as we went. The men were inured now to fire and never ducked, and even we, when we were in our rooms, noticed none but the closest explosions. But neither of us had ever been under fire in the open before. That night, however, safe again in my bed, I reflected on what I had seen and remembered Oliver’s words; and then, though I could grant the justice of his sentiment, I could have no inkling of the depth of indignation which would be fired in every English-speaking country and in Europe by the murder of a few score white women and children in a dusty Indian town. I could not know of the great endeavour being made on our behalf, or the frantic haste with which that endeavour was being turned to action. Who could have guessed then at the torrent of rage, revenge and bitterness that had its fount in the well at Cawnpore? But I had learned during that single hour in the hospital the extent of the sacrifice and suffering which our presence demanded from our men.

  The long ground floor room which constituted the whole of the hospital since, for safety’s sake, the upper storey had been evacuated, was so dark that we had to pause at the door to allow our eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom. We knew that, in order to induce the pandies to spare the hospital, prisoners, including a couple of the Princes of Oudh, had been lodged in rooms in the north wing of the building; but, though the enemy was aware of the fact, the building was under constant attack. Every window and door was barricaded, a fact which banished light and raised the temperature, but had not prevented one man from being shot dead through the head, and several others from being wounded as they lay on their beds.

  The room was crowded to suffocation with iron bedsteads, string cots, mattresses laid on the bare floor, and rush mats lacking even a mattress—all so close together there was barely room to pass between.

  The air was appalling. The heat of the shuttered room served to accentuate the myriad horrid odours resulting from tropical diseases and the sweetness of gangrened limbs. The punkahs moved but could not freshen the evil effluvia, and the men lay sweating, gasping for breath, unwashed and unshaven, many still wearing the clothes in which they had been wounded. There were no sheets, no pillows, and the blankets on which they lay were stiff with filth. Bluebottles buzzed over pools of vomit and excrement on the floor; over plates of uneaten food, medicine glasses, mugs of tepid water and the tins in which leeches disgorged the blood of the wounded.

  Perhaps, had we been able to discern all this as we entered, we would have turned back then and there. Our eyes, however, were slow to mark details, though our ears were immediately assailed by moans and sighs, the delirious ravings and unconscious mutterings which were to become the invariable accompaniment of our efforts.

  Dr Darby looked up from a man he was attending as we entered.

  ‘Ha, Mrs Barry, you’re here,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t know that you should be, but I suppose I can’t keep you away now. Like those Birch girls. This is no place for women, but I can’t say I’m sorry to see you all the same. Mind, no meddling with the nursing. Write their letters, fan ’em, keep the flies off, give ’em water, and tidy up the mess, if you can face it. But nothing more. And don’t pester the poor devils with prayers. Save those for yourself. Who is this with you?’

  ‘Miss Hewitt,’ answered Kate serenely.

  ‘Well, mind you do as I say, young woman!’ he admonished me. ‘And keep away from this section. Not fit for you. Over there are some of the convalescents. See what you can do for them. Now be off, keep quiet and stay out of my way. And if you intend to faint, do it outside and don’t come back again. Haven’t time to bother with sensitive females.’

  He turned back to his patient, and we picked a path towards the men he had indicated. Dr Darby’s pregnant wife had been in Wheeler’s entrenchment in Cawnpore, and it was not difficult to forgive him his brusqueness.

  Most of the men were too ill and miserable to do more than regard us dully as we passed them, but one or two smiled and one waved a bandaged hand at us cheerfully. ‘What, no broth nor jelly?’ he enquired sarcastically as we passed.

  We did not accomplish very much that afternoon. Only two men wanted letters written, and I believe they were accommodating us. The one I wrote went something like this:

  Dear Nell,

  The pandies got me in the left foot, but it is mended. If you ever get this, I wish you to know as how I often think of you and Ma and Pa. We have fought them off till now, and otherwise I am well and happy as I hope this finds you.

  I looked up, expecting more, but the lad (he was no more) asked me to sign his name. ‘Can’t say much to ’em, can we, miss? Wouldn’t want them to worry. Anyway, where could we start?’

  For the rest of the
time, I moved among the beds with dippers of water, which I fetched from a bucket just inside the door. I felt self-conscious and responded shyly to the calls of ‘Water, ma’am!’ or ‘Please, miss, water ’ere,’ taking care to keep my eyes averted from the bare limbs and scantily bandaged wounds of even these so-called convalescents. More than once, only a quick drink from the communal dipper kept me from an ignominious retreat outside. An elderly man, who saw me pause before taking water to a man who had asked for it, gave me a smile and a wink. ‘You feels it more’n we do, miss,’ he whispered. ‘We got used to the smell, and it’s better’n bein’ dead after all! Don’t take on, miss. There’s worse things than this.’ I wondered if there were.

  Kate did better than I. She knew many of the men, and could talk to them about their families as she fanned them. Her manner was forthright and easy, but pity and embarrassment constrained me to silence.

  There were several doctors in the entrenchment, but too few medical orderlies. The few men who were on their feet did what they could for the others, and the smaller boys of the Martinière School pulled the punkahs, fetched food and water, swatted flies and fanned. Other help there was none—either for doctor or patient.

  After a bare hour, we walked out into the sunlight in silence, too preoccupied with our impressions to bother about the bullets.

  The next day we returned. And the next.

  Gradually, the regulation hour became two, and we did more than keep the flies off and pass the dipper round. Soon we were washing the patients and feeding them. Then, emboldened by the Birch girls’ example, we watched the doctors dress wounds so that we could do the same. Before long, we were dressing wounds ourselves.