Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  My embarrassment soon disappeared; we were in no position to value false modesty, and, though the doctors still protected us from the worst of the sights, nothing could guard us, or the other patients, from the sounds a man made as he underwent amputation. What was even more horrifying than the victim’s agony was the knowledge that it was useless. No man ever recovered from losing a limb.

  Often, in the evenings, I stumbled back to our rooms nauseated and trembling, and swore that I would never set foot in the place again. Night after night, I left my food untouched and went to bed to sweat in anguish at remembered scenes. Then my mind would grow cruelly calm, and the worst scene, the one I feared most and fought most strenuously to forget, would crowd into my thoughts: Oliver cut down by a trooper’s tulwar, drowning in that river of blood. By morning, I was always ready to escape from it back to the hospital. I could forget him there—sometimes.

  So the month of August wore on. It rained, and when the rain stopped we sweltered in the steamy heat. Our rations were cut; the tea was finished. The men were without tobacco or sugar. No one had seen white bread for nearly three months, and the atta (coarse wholemeal flour, ground in hand mills) with which we made our chapattis, induced an irritation of the bowels and consequent diarrhoea.

  Twice in a fortnight the wall was breached, and twice we beat off the insurgents, but the danger that had at first seemed a joke, mining, had become a major preoccupation.

  Evening after evening, the lookouts watched for the sudden flare of a rocket that would tell us General Havelock was really coming. But night after night, they watched in vain.

  It would be fatuous to pretend that we became accustomed to the conditions of our life: rather we became, to some extent, inured to them. We could not disregard the heat, the boils, the noise, the lack of food, the evil smell and the fatigue. But we learned to minimize them in order to cope with the more acute distresses. Men got drunk, despite the fact that there was no longer a ration of liquor; they fought their friends, stole each other’s paltry possessions, went whoring when the opportunity offered, and cursed their fate with colourful energy. And they fought. Women wept and worked, nagged and bickered, gossiped and lied, and sighed for better days. And they suffered. The cohesion of interest and endeavour produced by the first fear fragmented as we became accustomed to living in it; we became again, but less pleasantly, our true, individual human selves.

  To all this, the petty selfishness no less than the hidden heroism, I became a party now that I was free to move around the entrenchment. The men became accustomed to seeing the Birch ladies, Kate and myself running between our quarters and the hospital, and almost always we found ourselves accompanied for protection. What good our protectors could have done against a pandy’s stray bullet was beyond my comprehension, and certainly no one but the enemy would have harmed us. I had soon realized that it was easier to face the enemy’s fire for two brief periods a day than to endure the anxious monotony which was the lot of the other women, but the men insisted on treating us as privileged beings. Presents came our way, pathetic little wisps of paper containing a crumbled biscuit, or a little sugar; once, three buttons on a card! I think the fact that we were willing to talk to the men in the hospital did more for them than any of our other amateur ministrations. We heard many an unhappy story of unfaithful wives, dead children or anxiety for parents left alone in some small out-station overrun by the mutineers. We could do nothing, but we were willing to listen; and the look of relief that came into a man’s eyes when he had given verbal form to his sorrows and worries was worth all the time we spent in this way.

  We made friends, too, and chief among these was Llewellyn Cadwallader, one of the Martinière schoolboys who helped at the hospital.

  Llewellyn was perhaps twelve years old, though the tired eyes in his wan, coffee-coloured face belied his youth. The son of a Welsh road inspector, his mother had been a Eurasian girl who died giving birth to Llewellyn’s young brother, Sonny. The two little boys had been placed in the Martinière at an early age, and the school was almost all the home they had ever known. When the trouble broke out, they had been brought into the Residency with their comrades, but of their father, who had been pursuing his work somewhere in the district, nothing had been heard.

  ‘It is not, miss, that he is dead,’ Llewellyn assured me stoutly, ‘only far away.’ I hoped very much that he was right. He was a quiet child, with an elderly manner and a resigned outlook on life. One day, shortly after starting work in the hospital, I had rewarded him for some service with a little sugar given me by one of the wounded.

  ‘It is a very good thing, sugar,’ he announced solemnly when I told him what the paper contained. ‘Very strengthening! I will give it to Sonny. He is very small, you see, miss.’

  He placed it for safe keeping in his pocket, and after that, as soon as I appeared in the hospital, he was by my side and never left me till I went. Though he spoke seldom, I soon realized that he heard everything (including a great deal that he shouldn’t have) and was a walking encyclopedia not only on the conduct of the siege, but also of the besieged. Being bilingual, and in addition free to move where he wished, his information, if not always accurate, was extremely varied.

  It was he who told me of the prevalence of ‘light infantry’, as the more delicate females termed head lice.

  ‘They’ve all got it now,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Not only us boys and the soldiers, but the officers and even the ladies. They’ve been going to bed with their heads tied up in scarves, but it didn’t work.’

  ‘Surely not, Llew!’ I stopped. Why should we ladies not have them? We had known for weeks that the men were plagued with the wretched things, and everyone realized they were catching. Immediately, my scalp began to crawl.

  When I got back to the Gaol that night, I got out Emily’s little nail scissors, which I used to shred the meat, and went straight into the bedroom. There was little light and no mirror, and my hair was thick and heavy, but I hacked away and soon my hair, my best feature, was lying in red-brown coils on the earth floor. Having satisfied myself that the worst of the job was done, I went into the kitchen to ask Kate to trim the ragged ends.

  ‘Lord have mercy on us!’ cried Kate.

  ‘Och now, Miss Laura!’ said Jess.

  And Toddy-Bob, who had been sitting on the floor in a doze, leapt to his feet, and then broke into a guffaw of rude laughter at the sight of my shorn head.

  I explained the purpose of my desperate deed amongst mingled laughter and recriminations.

  ‘Frightened of a louse!’ exclaimed Toddy in disbelief, while Jess announced that I looked ‘for a’ the world lak’ a bonnie wee boy, but I doubt ye’ll find a husband lookin’ that way.’

  They would not allow me to view myself in the square of spotted mirror which we kept above the table, until Kate and Jess between them, aided by advice and comment from Toddy, had brought some neatness to the edges of my locks. What I then saw was sufficiently depressing to make me wonder what I had looked like to begin with.

  Just at that moment Mrs Bonner chose to look in on us.

  ‘But, my dear, of course you’ll have to wear a cap now,’ she said, having taken me in with pursed lips.

  ‘I haven’t one,’ I answered shortly.

  ‘No cap? But surely, at least a bed-cap? You must have a bed-cap?’

  I shook my head, impatience mounting. I had brought one with me from Hassanganj, true enough, but now perhaps one of Wajid Khan’s servants was wearing it.

  ‘How … singular,’ breathed Mrs Bonner. ‘I can’t think how you manage. I confess that I could not bear my cruel lot so well if I didn’t see the necessity of retaining as much as possible of my former ways. I try to keep to a timetable you know, very much like the one I pursued in Kaliaganj. One must discipline oneself, even in moments of extremis.’

  ‘Must one?’ I asked sourly. ‘I haven’t enough time to think of a timetable.’

  ‘No? Well, I’m sure the hospital must t
ake up a great deal of your attention, of course, and I’m sure it is very noble of you to work there as you do.’ She stopped, reflectively, and then went on. ‘My Minnie had some fanciful notion of joining you, but, of course, I put a stop to that immediately. She has such a generous nature, gets quite carried away by her own good-heartedness. But, as I said to her, “Well, Minnie, my dear, that sort of thing just doesn’t become women like us. We must be content to give dear Papa all the comfort and support he needs when he comes home. That is a truly ladylike vocation, and it is always well to know the bounds beyond which the genteel cannot go.” She’s so young and enthusiastic.’

  ‘Quite!’ said Kate decisively. ‘And when her poor papa is carried into the hospital some fine day, missing an arm or a leg, it will be a comfort to him to know how properly she is being reared.’

  ‘Quite,’ agreed Mrs Bonner complacently. And then in another tone of voice. ‘Quite!’ She left soon after.

  When the others had gone to bed, I sat for a time in the kitchen, fingering my short hair sadly. I had propped the door open for the sake of air, and could hear the rain splashing on the verandah and the bass chorus of the toads.

  After a time I picked up the tallow dip and went to the mirror. I scarcely recognized myself, and looked with curiosity at the stranger’s face—thin and pale, with deep shadows under the eyes, and cheekbones oddly protruberant—in the guttering light of the little wick. I had never been blessed with beauty, but now I was worse than plain. I was ugly. My mouth was wide; I had liked to think it indicated humour, but now there was a new set to the lips, firmer, but also bitter. In two and a half months I had aged out of my own recognition. The short hair looked horrible. I looked at my reflection for a long time, trying to remember myself as I had been, but the tired eyes, sad mouth and cropped hair made my task impossible. Two tears of nostalgia for my lost youth slid down my thin cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry! Oh, Laura, don’t cry!’

  Unknown to me, Charles had entered the room, and my eyes met his as he looked over my shoulder, his face very near mine.

  ‘Please don’t cry, my dear—not you,’ he whispered, and then he smiled. ‘Oh, your hair. I see what is the matter now. But … it looks quite charming, honestly!’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘No, honestly! But you’ve got so thin. I hadn’t noticed before.’

  ‘So have we all … and hard and old.’

  ‘Hard? You? What nonsense! You’ve always had more heart than was good for you. Or me, come to that!’

  He put his hands on my shoulders, and we regarded each other in the mirror. He was thin, too, and his moustache was badly trimmed. I tried to smile but, for a moment, emotion, and even more pure fatigue, overcame me, and more tears came, so that I turned and buried my face in the open collar of his shirt. I wanted to tell him, to tell someone. I wanted to say, ‘Oh, comfort me now for my love’s lack, as once I wished to comfort you for yours. Console me for my mistake, as once I would have consoled you for yours.’ If I could, I would have wrung sympathy from him, and understanding and strength. But I knew it was no good. In that moment, when we had looked at each other in the mirror, I had not really seen him. I had looked behind him for that pair of eyes that once in Hassanganj I had found beyond his in the mirror, and known as I met them that they had seen more than I had seen myself.

  ‘Laura? What is it? These tears are not for your hair? Oh, my dear, you must not cry. What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I drew away, and took out my handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry, Charles. It’s just that I am so tired, and nothing seems to get any better, ever. I … I’m just tired. That’s all.’

  He took my chin in his hand and tilted my face upwards into the light of the dip.

  ‘Yes, you’re tired. But that’s not all, is it? What is it, Laura? Let me help you. You know how I … But something’s changed you, hasn’t it? You’re not the same, not the same at all; though you try to be. Is it fear?’

  ‘We’ve all changed. We must all change to survive. Don’t be silly, Charles. Everything changes all the time—people, events, everything. It’s only right that they should.’

  ‘Is it? But I haven’t. Not that much anyway. You know that, Laura, don’t you?’

  I nodded. It was the only thing to do. I had thought of him so little over the past weeks that perhaps what he said of himself was true. But I didn’t know.

  ‘It can’t go on much longer. The relief is bound to arrive soon, and then … well … then we’ll be all right again, Laura, and there’ll be so much more to look forward to than before. We’ll know so much better how lucky we are, because of all that we have lost and learned here. I expect, in that sense, you are right, and even I have changed. Don’t let go yet, my dear. Hold on a bit longer, only a little longer. Things will soon be better.’

  I nodded again, the picture of female docility, knowing that for me nothing could ever be really better. I was relieved when he turned and went out of the door, shutting it after him. And then, as soon as he was gone, I wished that I had had the courage to tell him what had changed me. Once again I was too late.

  CHAPTER 14

  Incessant hunger and inescapable fatigue: those are among the evils that I recall most clearly about the siege. We never had enough to eat, and we never had a night’s unbroken rest. Even if the enemy were relatively quiet, there would be something else to disturb us: Charles clattering in after a long spell in the mines, longing for food; a bereaved woman bewailing her loss further down the verandah; a drunken soldier creating a fracas on his way to his billet. Only the sound of the rain drubbing heavily on the flat roof was comfortable and familiar. Often we would go the night through without ever really sleeping, one ear open for the too-often heard cry of ‘Stand to your arms!’ the other alerted for the sound of picks and shovels in the earth beneath us. There was no telling where the next mine would be sprung, or at what hour. So far, we had been lucky and the enemy’s tunnels had been misdirected. But the next time? Captain Fulton of the Engineers had discovered, in the ranks of the 32nd, a number of Cornish ex-miners. With their help our countermining had become more efficient, but we all were aware of the exhaustless supply of men the pandies could draw on; while as our numbers dwindled daily so did our duties increase.

  No doubt Mrs Bonner retired with all decorum, but Kate, Jessie and I never troubled to undress at night. We took off our shoes, unlaced our stays, opened buttons at throat and wrists and lay down fully clothed. Our defences having twice been breached, fear and insecurity were intensified, particularly among the women, who spent much time and thought deciding what they should do should the enemy finally force their way in. Wherever three or four women gathered in the perennial dusk of shuttered rooms, the conversation was bound to turn to this sombre subject.

  Listening to their chatter, half-besotted as I was with lack of sleep, I came to the conclusion that every woman in the entrenchment knew someone who had known someone else who had been violated, ravished and slain with unspeakable refinements of torture. The curious thing was that no one who, like ourselves, had managed to reach the Residency, had even been threatened with what was generally termed ‘the worst imaginable’.

  True, some had lost their menfolk from illness or accident on the way; some had seen husbands and fathers murdered by their own sepoys. Women too, like Mrs Wilkins and Elvira, had met violent deaths, but I could find no basis at all for the ladies’ declared belief that the rebel sepoy’s sole aim in life was the rape of a white woman. However, every female in the place declared that she would sooner die than submit to ‘it’, and to this end some had armed themselves with poison, others carried loaded pistols, and the more hysterical declared that they had arranged with a husband or friend to put an end to them with a bullet, as a last act, before shooting themselves. Only a very few, like Mrs Polehampton, had the strength of mind to leave their fate in the hands of their Maker.

  I listened to these discussions in silence, remembering the night when Oliver had
taught me to handle a pistol. How he had laughed on discovering that I intended to use the weapon to defend my life rather than my virtue! ‘It’s your life they’ll want—not your person,’ he had said. ‘And whatever your own opinion of your attractions, they would consider any—er—commerce with a white woman a defilement. So you’re safe enough there!’

  I put forward this view on one occasion, but was met with such a mixture of blank disbelief and outright hostility that I decided to keep my own counsel in future.

  ‘Erskine, did you say? Not Oliver Erskine? The man they call the Brahmin?’

  Mrs Bonner had been telling us how Major Bonner had arranged with no less than three of his dearest friends to take over his duty of shooting his wife and daughter should he have met his end before the pandies entered the entrenchment.

  ‘The same,’ I answered coldly. It was almost the first time I had heard his name spoken since the news of the massacre at the river, and Mrs Bonner’s use of the present tense wrung my heart.

  ‘Oh, well! I can understand how he came by such peculiar notions. After all, it is well known that he is little better than a native himself, in his habits at least.’

  ‘Indeed?’ I said icily. I knew Mrs Bonner would never, in any circumstances, have been sufficiently intimate with Oliver to use his Christian name so carelessly, and obviously she did not know that he had been our host. She spent so much time dwelling on her own past grandeurs, that we had never had the opportunity to recount our histories.

  ‘So you know him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, not well! A most peculiar man he is. Not at all comme il faut, and my husband never cared to develop the acquaintance, though of course, in his position, Edgar never needed to be short of friends, and I have no doubt but that Erskine would have welcomed the association. But no, I cannot say I know him well; Edgar would not permit it!’