Isabella Rockwell's War

by Hannah Parry

  The moon shone on the ground as she tiptoed from the porch, a breeze lifting the dark shadows of the trees surrounding the camp. In the corral, the horses stood snoozing, head to tail. Bumblebee whickered when he saw her, eyes bright and ears forward. She rubbed his ears.

  “We’re going to find Papa and you must help me.” Bumblebee rubbed against her, as she saddled him, and led him out across the sandy parade ground onto the long lane which connected the camp to the main Rawalpindi Road. All the bungalows were dark, the night watchmen asleep on the porches. Her gaze fell on her own home, warmly lit with moths dancing at the lamps.

  What about Abhaya?

  Shouldn’t she have left a note? Something loving or at least reassuring? Well, it was too late now. Abhaya would understand. She always did.

  Isabella decided she would follow the road north. She had a good idea of where he might be. His cavalry were always fighting in the foothills north of Rawalpindi, which lay next to Afghanistan. She was sure this was to where he’d been sent. There was no thought in her head other than to find her father, or her father’s body, whichever came first. She would beg for food and water along the way, and her father had always told her she had an excellent sense of direction, so she had no need of a map or a compass. All that kit the soldiers took with them, why did they need it?

  After all, look at her; she was going to be fine.

  The night wind blew against her face, bringing her abruptly back to the present and the vultures’ harsh croak echoed in her ears. Her eyelids felt full of grit as she dragged them open and her mouth, now hours after her last drink was bone dry; her stomach cramped like a vice, unused to the nearly raw meat she’d eaten earlier. The night was closing in and a jackal barked in the hills high above her. Raising herself painfully, she poked the fire. She had one round of ammunition left, which might see her through the night. She didn’t dare think about tomorrow.

  Had she really thought she could find her father so ill-prepared?

  No water, no ammunition and not the faintest idea of where she was? He would be ashamed of her.

  A flat grey plain lay in front of her, sharp with stones, which cut through the soles of her boots. Whatever lay beyond was impossible for her to see as the horizon merged with a shimmer into a blue nothingness. Still, she had better not stay here. Putting one foot in front of the other, she continued her journey; grateful at least Bumblebee wasn’t here with her, and that in freeing him a week earlier, she’d saved his life.

  All through that dark night she walked with no moon to guide her. Sometimes she felt she might be asleep and dreaming, her footfalls occasionally echoing off the stone. Whenever her thirst became too much to bear, she forced herself to think of her loveliest memories; riding with her father, baking with Abhaya, swimming in the creek behind the camp, Abhaya calling her in for supper….

  When the sun rose, it surprised her.

  Isabella stopped and watched it first touch the mighty mountaintops of the Hindu Kush turning them from grey to purple, then to scarlet. She watched as it chased the blue shadows from the scrubby hillsides and she watched as it crept across the plain, driving the darkness away before, finally, arriving in a burning yellow stream at her feet. The sudden light showed nothing, except the same grey

  plain stretched before and behind her. She’d travelled all night long and nothing had changed; for all she knew, she could have been walking around in circles.

  Utterly defeated, she sank to her knees. There were no trees or even scrubby bushes for her to curl up beneath. There was nothing but rock and stony heat and hard blue sky. It was all over. Not only had she failed her father and the regiment, she’d failed Abhaya, and she’d failed herself.

  Wrapping her hands around her legs, she laid her burning head on her knees. She was crying, but produced no tears. As her consciousness faded, she imagined she could see her father and Josha Bilram, their scarlet and gold uniforms a brilliant splash against the grey. She smiled in greeting, and one of them raised his arm. Then all went dark.

  Did clocks tick in heaven? Isabella thought not. She opened her eyes, and a brown room swam into view. The walls were beige and the furniture, though plain, was of heavy mahogany. The room smelt of camphor, and wooden shutters blocked the light from outside.

  She was at the British High Commission in Rawalpindi and, judging by her toes moving beneath the grey wool blanket, she was alive. She swung her legs from the bed and found, though her soles were bruised, she could stand. She peered at herself in the mirror, and saw her sun-darkened skin had blistered and peeled on her nose and forehead. Her dark hair was a matted tangle. How Abhaya would ring her hands in horror at the sight of it.

  Isabella smiled, remembering the pleasure Abhaya took from brushing it. Poor Abhaya – what must she have put her through?

  Leaning into the mirror she licked a finger and removed some dirt from her cheek. That she was lucky to be alive was an understatement. She sat back down on the bed. What had happened to her? The door opening made her jump. A ginger-haired soldier put his head around the door.

  “Ah good, you’re up. I’ll send someone to help you change. Colonel Hearthogg wants to see you.”

  An hour later, clean and fed, Isabella knocked on the Colonel’s door. This wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was best to get it over with. Then she could start the three-day journey home to Abhaya, who she was missing terribly. How Isabella wished Abhaya were here now, so she could tell her how sorry she was for running away in such a manner.

  “Come in,” slurred a voice. The Colonel’s office was thick with dark furniture. Shelves bulged with books, that Isabella would have laid money on he’d never read. On one wall were maps of the known world, the British Empire marked out in pink, and his mahogany desk was strewn with paper scrolls, magnifying glasses and the racing pages of the newspaper. There was also an overwhelming smell of brandy.

  “Ah, yes. You’re the Rockwell girl are you not?”

  “Isabella. Isabella Rockwell,” she replied.

  “Yes. Yes of course, Isabella.” He swept a chair clear of papers and then settled his bulk in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. In front of her sat the man who would dictate her fate: her father’s commanding officer, who was responsible not only for the men under his command, but for their families too. If ‘responsibility’ were what you’d call it. Isabella and her father had a quiet agreement to not discuss the Colonel, whom they both disliked intensely. The Colonel’s rheumy eyes flicked over her, his expression cold.

  “You don’t need me to tell you how stupid you’ve been.” Isabella shook her head. “Two of my best men risked their lives to bring you back, god knows why. I’d have left you to meet your maker, as that was so clearly what you wanted.” She nodded again and the colonel sighed. “Still, it was their choice. He’s a popular man, your father, no doubt about it. He is deeply mourned.”

  A hot tear rolled unchecked down her cheek and her voice was quiet.

  “There is no more news then?

  “No.” He sloshed some more brandy into his glass. “Well there is news, Isabella, but it’s not about your father.” She looked at him, startled by his harsh tone. A sudden thin shoelace of fear tightened around her chest.

  “It’s the Sahiba Abhaya. She’s dead.”

  To Isabella his words came from down a faraway tunnel, and she gripped the chair in front of her until her knuckles turned white. He’d made a mistake, surely? He couldn’t mean her Abhaya. The Abhaya who’d raised her; who was waiting for her back at the camp with a warm embrace and words of comfort; the Abhaya who loved her despite everything…?

  The colonel watched her over the steeple of his fingers.

  “It was cholera; totally unexpected. They evacuated and many were saved…”

  “But Abhaya wasn’t?”

  The colonel paused.

  “Abhaya didn’t evacuate with everyone else.”

  Isabella was disbelieving. Everyone knew the minute the cholera arrived, y
ou ran for your life. The only hope of avoiding the deadly disease was putting as much distance as possible between yourself and the outbreak.

  “But…but why not?”

  In that moment realisation poured over her like a shower of ice. She clutched at her mouth as her stomach disappeared. The colonel opened his mouth to speak, but she was too quick for him.

  “She was waiting for me, wasn’t she?” The colonel nodded. Isabella closed her eyes.

  So this was to be her punishment.

  Nothing she could have ever imagined for herself, could hurt as much as this.

  “Would you like to sit down?” She shook her head. “Are you sure, you’ve gone quite white.” Still she clung to the back of the chair, surprised the floor was still beneath her feet. “Very well then, but we must now discuss your future.” She nodded. What was he talking about? His mouth was moving but she was having difficulty understanding what he was saying.

  “Sadly your father left no provision should something happen to Abhaya. He would have expected you to have stayed with her, and his war pension be paid to her for your upkeep. Now this is not possible, his pension will come to you, but you can’t have it until you are sixteen. How old are you now?

  “I’m nearly thirteen.”

  He nodded.

  “Very well. In the meantime a household has been found for you in which you will learn a trade, such as parlour maid, or even housekeeper, if you work hard. When you’re sixteen, you will be given your father’s pension and be free to return to India.”

  Isabella started.

  “Return to India? Sorry sir, I don’t think I…”

  “No, no me dear. I didn’t quite explain meself well enough. Normally we’d send you to the orphanage at Howrah Junction, but it’s full to bursting. So, our orphans are being sent home to be cared for there, until they are of age.”

  “Sent home? But this is my home?”

  The colonel snorted.

  “No, no, no. England, Isabella. Your new position is in England, in London, to be precise.” He raised his heavy brows and continued. “It’ll do you good to go back to the old country, get some of those corners rubbed off. After all, though it’s hard to tell at times, you are English.”

  Isabella sat down hard on the chair she’d avoided for so long. She could hear someone’s breathing coming in harsh gasps. It was a moment before she realised it was her own.

  There was a knock at the door and the colonel stood up adjusting his belt and sabre. He lifted a leather satchel and placed it on the desk before her. The smell of sand and long distances rose from it.

  “It appeared the Sahiba Abhaya had been keeping it for you, so I had it mended once you’d been found. There’s not much in it. A few papers, a likeness of you and your mother and the Sahiba’s medicine pouch.” Isabella lifted the bag into her lap and clung to it, the last remaining link with the two people she loved.

  The colonel clanked over to the door.

  “Isabella, just one more thing.” She dragged her unseeing eyes to where he stood. “Don’t think for one moment of running away, otherwise you’ll forfeit your father’s money and I won’t waste any more resources on trying to find you. You’ve already paid a heavy price for one episode of stupidity. Let’s not make it two.”

  The door slammed behind him leaving Isabella alone with the maps and the brandy, and the impossible weight of her grief.

  Chapter 2:

  Journey

  When she looked back on her voyage to England, Isabella found she could remember little, if any, of it. The journey had taken eight long weeks as the ship travelled though the Indian Ocean, down to the tip of Africa, and into the chilly Atlantic.

  Indeed, one of her only memories was of the shortening days and the increasing cold and how, worryingly, the stars by which she had travelled all her life started to change. The constellations, once so clear and familiar, shifted position and some even disappeared, leaving her lost and disorientated. It was still shock she supposed; shock of losing Abhaya, her father and her home all at once, which made her feel as if there was a thick, see-through bubble between herself and the rest of the world.

  She’d been entrusted to Mrs Trotter, an excitable elderly sergeant’s wife on her way back to England for the birth of her second grandchild. Mrs Trotter had spent most of the journey so far knitting fluffy white bootees and talking to her travelling companions Lady Molesey and Lady Molesey’s daughter, Eloise. Isabella had taken one look at Eloise’s vacant china-doll face and known her hopes for an entertaining travelling companion were to be short-lived. Eloise only wanted to talk about dresses and hair fashions, and certainly did not want to sit outside and pretend to shoot partridge. Isabella quickly left her to it.

  One evening towards the end of their journey, Isabella and Mrs Trotter sat in the steerage class dining room. A smell of boiled cabbage drifted up Isabella’s nose. There were no windows, as the steerage class dining room was below the water line, the same as their cabin.

  “Why don’t we ever spend the day down here, Mrs Trotter? I’m sure there are some nice ladies who’d be happy to have your acquaintance. What about Mrs Jolyon over there? She seems nice,” said Isabella liking Mrs Jolyon’s twinkling brown eyes and shiny hair.

  Mrs Trotter wrinkled her nose.

  “Well…” she paused “Well, I’m sure there are. It’s just I’ve already made acquaintances on this journey. I’m not sure I really need to make anymore… though I’m sure they are perfectly nice.” The woman was such a snob, Isabella couldn’t resist a little teasing.

  “So it’s nothing to do with the first class lounges being prettier, with lovely views and nice cakes for tea…? Not to mention all those titles wandering around – Lady This, the Duchess of That – I don’t know how you keep track of them all.” Mrs Trotter’s knitting needles were clacking much more quickly, and her mouth had disappeared into her chubby cheeks. She changed the subject.

  “Do eat up, dear. Thousands starving you know….”

  Isabella stared at the congealing mass on the plate in front of her.

  “Thousands starving on this ship,” she muttered under her breath. Was this really what passed for food in the west? She peered at it, poking it with a fork.

  “Isabella, do stop it and sit up and, for heavens sake, take off your cape. You are in the dining cabin….”

  “But it’s so cold, Mrs Trotter.” All day long the temperature had been dropping as the boat headed north, and Isabella pulled her cape close for comfort.

  “What rubbish you do talk Isabella. You really are the most ungrateful child.” Mrs Trotter stood up, swaying. “I’m going upstairs to play bridge with Lady Molesey. Make sure your clothes are packed, there’s a rumour we might see land soon.”

  Isabella watched Mrs Trotter leave. A layer of darkness settled around her heart and her face hardened.

  How she wished she were anywhere else but here.

  She reached into her bag. Three nutmeg shells fell from their tissue wrapping onto the table. Her fingers moved with ease, sliding the black pomegranate seed under one of the shells. Mindlessly she pushed them this way and that, around and around. Her mind was soothed by the action, the roughness of the shells beneath her fingers and the familiar rhythm.

  It was a moment before she realised a little girl stood at her elbow.

  “Can I have a go?” Isabella shrugged and showed the child where the bean was and then moved the shells around lethargically.

  “That one!” The child pointed at the middle shell once they’d come to rest.

  Isabella lifted the shell.

  “No.”

  “That one,” the child swooped on another shell, her face dropping with disappointment when it revealed only the wood of the tabletop. Isabella lifted the third cup to show the errant bean. The child’s eyes filled with tears. “You tricked me.”

  Isabella shrugged again.

  “It is a trick. You should have been watching more carefully.” Fat tears rolled
down the child’s face.

  A bell rang; it was the purser calling for silence.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain is glad to report we shall arrive within sight of land in eight hours. Please have your belongings ready for eight hundred hours. You shall be given instructions as to when you may disembark.”

  A great cheer went up.

  Isabella watched the child thread her way back to her mother, who gathered the child onto her lap and gently wiped her face. Then Isabella got to her feet and made her way to the tiny cabin and lay down on her bunk, steeling herself against the homesickness, which washed over her in never-ending waves.

  The next morning, Isabella woke with a start as the ship lurched, and she was forced up against the wall of her bunk. Dressing swiftly, careful not to wake the snoring Mrs Trotter, Isabella hurried to the dining room for breakfast. Though she’d felt miserable the day before, there was a part of her that was excited to see England. At home it was talked of with such fondness and longing by the British soldiers, and held in such awe by the Indian soldiers. It must be the most wonderful place. In her mind it would be a country of gentle sunlight and softly falling rain and misty green hills rolling off in every direction. The black sky presently overhead must just be a passing storm; by the time they reached England surely the clouds would roll back, and there would be the old country, green and welcoming in the morning sun.

  She was therefore unprepared for the rain-lashed deck and buffeting November winds when she and Mrs Trotter were finally called to disembark, almost eight weeks to the day after leaving India.

  Was this it? Was this really Great Britain? This cold damp place; so dark despite it being mid-morning. Isabella grimaced.

  All around her stood people with their bags packed, holding onto each other as the ship pitched from side to side, leaning over the wooden rail their faces excitedly turned up-river, desperate for the first glimpses of London. It had taken all of that day for the ship to travel up from where the mouth of the Thames met the English Channel, and then a further night whilst they waited for the tide to turn. Finally, with great sails snapping and billowing, the Hugh Lindsay could pull into her berth at the East India Company docks just south of London Bridge.