'Come on 113th!' Jack led his men in support, joined by Lieutenant McQueen and a squad of Sikhs from the 4th Punjab Infantry. He looked to the main gate, where Subadar Mukarab of the 4th Punjabis was struggling to get in. Mukarab shoved his left arm between the gate and gatepost and held on, despite the defenders' efforts to dislodge him.
'Shabash, Subadar!' Jack yelled and then he was through the gap and inside the garden.
Fighting Mutineers filled the place, some still wearing the scarlet jackets, dark trousers and tall shakos of the Company. With Colonel Ewart of the 93rd and McQueen of the 4th Punjabis in the van, the mixed regiments pushed toward the gate and took the defenders in the flank and rear. The pipes began again; with the 93rd's pipe major playing some stirring piece that Jack did not recognise.
'There we are,' one of the Highlanders said, 'the pipe's playing the Haughs of Cromdale for you.'
'It's no' Cromdale,' his companion said; 'you're deaf, man. It's On wi the Tartan.'
'Is it? I never knew one from the other. Here come the pandies, now.'
'There are thousands of them,' Coleman yelled as the Mutineers' volley bowled over some of the attackers. Without time to reload, some defenders threw their bayonetted rifles like lances. A Punjabi fell, speared through the throat. A Highlander looked down in astonishment as a defender lay prone and slashed at his legs with his tulwar until Logan rammed his bayonet into the Mutineer's back and twisted.
'And that's done for you, you murdering bastard.'
As the engineers enlarged the original breach more Highlanders and Sikhs rushed through together with men of the 53rd, the Madras Fusiliers and the 90th Foot. Jack saw a Highland lieutenant laying about him with his broadsword, matching the tulwars of the defender's stroke for stroke and cutting a Mutineer nearly in half.
'Leave some for us, McBean!' somebody shouted.
'Cawnpore, you bloody murderers,' the 93rd yelled, 'Cawnpore!'
'Havelock!' The 113th responded, 'let loose the dogs!'
The men next to Jack, a red-haired Highlander with a face-full of freckles, thrust his bayonet into a sepoy's stomach. 'There's a Cawnpore dinner for you,' he said, shoved the wounded man aside and moved on to the next. Gunpowder blackened the face of the attackers as they shot, stabbed and crushed with musket butt and boots. They fought without expecting or granting mercy, with the high wail of the pipes as a backdrop and the grunts, curses and screams of men rising to the hot sun above. Some Highlanders shouted the Gaelic slogans of the north, the ancient battle-cries that had sounded at Inverlochy and Red Harlaw while the 113th cursed with the fluency of a lifetime of practice.
Gradually the British and Punjabis forced the Mutineers back over the flower-beds and past the ornamental trees to the walled enclosure of a two-storied pavilion. 'Keep pushing them!' Jack shouted as McQueen led his Sikhs against the pavilion's two gates. They burst in, Highlanders, Punjabis and the 113th, and the desperate struggle continued, killing, maiming, wounding, swearing, gasping and killing again.
'No quarter!' Somebody shouted.
The Sikhs responded with their famous war cry: Bole Sohe Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!'
Knowing that after the massacre of women and children in Cawnpore, the British had suspended their proud civilisation and reverted to their savage past, the Mutineers did not try to surrender. While some tried to hide under the bodies in the courtyard, others climbed onto the roof.
'Shoot these murdering buggers!' Coleman yelled.
With nowhere to run, the rebels jumped off to die in a welter of smashed bones and broken bodies. Only when there were no more rebels to kill did the slaughter end.
Gasping, with his head screaming and the wound across his ribs stiffening, Jack reloaded his revolver and surveyed the shambles of the courtyard and garden. 'I've been in many fights,' he said, 'but never one like that.'
Coleman leant on his rifle. Dyed red with rebel blood, his bayonet was bent and twisted, and his left leg was bleeding from the slash of a tulwar. 'Nor me, sir. It was worse than Inkerman, if not as long-lasting.'
The pile of dead and wounded were as high as Jack's chin, moaning, pulsating, with the men on top still cursing the British and Sikhs who had defeated them. Others lay smouldering across their cooking fires.
'Didn't we get revenge?' A griffin officer shouted, bright-eyed and excited. 'That's the first good revenge I have seen.' He laughed, too high-pitched for sanity, and then his face crumpled, and he began to sob with reaction.
'They were brave men.' With the fury of the battle behind him, Jack had to find a cheroot to stop from trembling.
'Not only men, sir,' Coleman pointed to a woman who lay underneath a fig tree amidst a group of British and Punjabi dead. Dressed in a red coat and rose silk trousers, she clutched a heavy pistol in her hand. A handful of bullets had spilt onto the ground from the ammunition bag at her side.
'She was hiding in the tree and shooting our men, sir,' Coleman said, 'until one of the Highlanders brought her down.'
'I wonder who she was and what her story was.' Jack said. He looked around the courtyard and shivered.
Some of the Mutineer dead wore the medals of past campaigns; they were men of famous Company regiments who had fought alongside the British in the Punjab. Jack felt a stab of sympathy, wondering at the twisted politics that had turned friends into enemies and brave men into murderers. Nobody spoke much. There were few shouts of triumph, nothing but a weary acceptance of victory.
'Where next, sir?' Coleman asked.
Jack nodded to the plain between them and the Residency. 'There's that to cross, and then capture the mosque over there.'
'It never ends,' Elliot's voice trembled. 'It never ends.'
The men slumped down, gasping, bleeding, and looking over the field of slaughter. Some swore; others dashed tears of exhaustion from their eyes. 'Bloody pandies,' one youth said, again and again before he began to sob.
Elliot uncorked his silver flask and took a long swallow. 'Is this not just glorious?' He offered the drink to Jack.
Jack shook his head, wordless and reloaded his revolver. He thought of Mary and his mother, shook his head and instead contemplated the next stage in this campaign.
A patch of jungle shrouded the Shah Najaf mosque, while a few poor mud cottages sat under the trees. 'The mosque seems to be last Mutineer stronghold.' Intensely weary with killing and suffering, Jack knew he was not finished here. He had to face Sarvur Khan at some time. That was his destiny; he could not escape it, and the knowledge filled him with sick foreboding. He could not face Jane yet. It was better to immerse himself in his duty.
Oh God, what a mess my life is!
The blood had dried on Jack's wound, so pain accompanied every movement, and his side was stiff. This campaign seemed to be one battle after another and each one tougher than the last. 'After we take the mosque things should be easier.'
He was sick of soldiering, sick of blood and death and suffering, sick of killing strangers and trying not to let strangers kill him. He was tired of wondering what new horrors the next day would bring and of lying awake at night scared to sleep because then the dreams and memories came. He wanted out. After this war, he would hand in his papers and find some other occupation; he would find something that had nothing to do with destroying human life.
'Easier, sir?' Coleman spoke quietly. 'Is there anything easy in this bloody country?'
Jack shook his head. 'It doesn't seem so,' he said. 'We might get some rest now. I doubt Sir Colin will attack the mosque today.'
'Yes, sir.' Coleman said. He nodded to Logan who arrived with Thorpe and Williams. 'We lost Hutton today, sir, and the sergeant was wounded. There's not many of us left of the originals.'
'The originals?' Jack had never heard Coleman, or any other of his rankers, talk in such a manner.
'The old Burma men sir or the lads who stood at Inkerman. There are only you, me, Logie, Thorpey and the sergeant from Burma.' Coleman stuffed black tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. 'I
hope O'Neill pulls through, sir.'
'So do I, Coleman,' Jack said truthfully.
'We're like family, eh, sir?' Coleman looked weary. 'Even the sergeant.'
'Hello, sir.' Thorpe leant against the wall of the Sikandrabagh and slid down until he was sitting on the ground. He watched a dozen insects busy with an unidentified piece of human flesh. 'We're like a family aren't we?'
Jack glanced at Coleman, who gave a very slight nod.
'Yes, Thorpe, we're like a family,' Jack said.
'I never had a family before, sir,' Thorpe said.
'Never?'
'No, sir. They was burned in a fire, sir, when I was little. I got pulled out, and old Granny Lacy said that if I looked into fires I would see them and they would take care of me.' For one moment Thorpe looked lonely, like a small child who had lost everybody who was ever dear to him.
Coleman said nothing. He passed over a bottle of rum from his inside pocket.
Thorpe was staring into space, remembering. 'I never do see them though. I keep trying, keep trying, but Granny Lacey was wrong.'
'Was your grandmother not family, Thorpe?' Jack asked.
'Naw; she was everybody's granny. She was a witch; she helped women give birth and cured horses and stuff like that.' Thorpe put a calloused thumb on the feeding insects and pressed down, crushing them. 'It's good to have a family.' He looked at Coleman. 'You'd be my brother, Coley, and Captain Windrush would be my Da.'
Jack was not sure if he should smile or cry. 'I'm glad we feel like a family, Thorpey.' He closed his eyes. He hated the killing yet sometimes, in some rare, illuminating seconds, he could see something noble in the friendships military life spawned. Men like Thorpe, damaged at an early age, had nothing except the regiment. It gave him structure, friendship and a purpose; he was part of something until he was dead or too old or crippled to be of any use. Then he would be discarded to beg a living on some windy street corner, unwanted and uncared for by the people he gave his life to protect.
'Captain Windrush?' The ensign was very young, with wide eyes and a stutter.
'I'm Windrush,' Jack said.
'Sir Colin's compliments sir, and could your men join Brigadier Hope's advance on the Shah Najaf mosque. Sir Colin wishes it cleared before nightfall.'
Jack felt a feeling of sick dread wash over him. 'Thank you, ensign. Pray convey my compliments to Sir Colin and assure him we will be there directly.'
Oh dear God, here we go again. But if I the Mutineers kill me, at least my troubles will disappear.
Chapter Twenty
Captain Peel and his Royal Naval gunners had hammered at the defending walls of the Shah Najaf mosque for three hours, firing over the small houses that cowered under the evening heat. Now a mixed battalion of infantry advanced including the remnants of Jack's 113th. Alongside them were the ubiquitous kilted men of the 93rd, with their bayonets raised and minds full of the slaughter at Cawnpore.
'Oh, God, here we go again.' Elliot drained his hip flask. 'Dear Father, keep us safe in our time of tribulation.'
Jack took a deep breath. 'Come on lads; look out for one another.' He could say no more. He did not want to be here, yet the alternative of facing the turmoil of his thoughts was worse than fighting the enemy.
'Are you all right, sir?' Thorpe asked.
Jack forced a smile. 'You look after yourself, Thorpe.' He could say no more.
The fading light made the jungle's trees more sinister and the fires lit by the artillery only highlighted the gathering dark outside. 'I don't like this place,' Thorpe whispered, although his eyes were attracted to the flames as readily as any fluttering moth.
'It doesn't like us either,' Coleman ducked as something shrieked over his head. 'What the hell?'
Glancing behind him, Jack saw a long arrow crash into a Highlander's head, killing him instantly. 'Dear God in heaven; they're using bows and arrows,' he said.
'Jesus; they'll have knights in armour soon,' Coleman said. 'Robin Hood and bloody Ivanhoe.'
'I didn't know you were of a literary mind, Coleman.' Jack tried to hide his fears.
'My Ma used to read to us when I was little.'
'I never knew you had a Ma,' Thorpe said. 'You was lucky, Coley.'
'Quiet. Listen!' Jack said as the thin, insistent sound of a bugle split the night.
'The pandies is coming out to get us,' Thorpe said.
'God help them,' Jack looked to his right and left, where the 93rd Highlanders advanced through the trees toward the loop-holed wall surrounding the mosque.
One of the Highlanders gave a sudden shout, the high Gaelic slogan alien in this hot land, and the 93rd rushed forward, kilts flickering through the undergrowth and bayonets waiting to kill.
'Sir!' Whitelam had better night vision than anybody Jack had ever met. 'The Sawnies have found a breach in the wall.'
Remembering the recent slaughter in the Sikandrabagh, Jack took a deep breath and ran forward, surrounded by yelling Highlanders and his 113th. Bullets zipped past him, and an arrow plunged into the earth a yard from his feet. Although he was moving fast, his mind focussed on the arrow; he saw it quivering and imagined it in his throat, his chest or his stomach. 'Oh dear God protect me!' And then he was in the breach, and Coleman was pushing in front of him, shouting to Thorpe to be careful.
'Come on lads!' Jack threw himself forward and into the unknown beyond. The defending fire stopped. The defenders melted into the dark, and there was an eerie silence as men advanced with no opposition.
'They've run,' Coleman looked around, too experienced to drop his guard. 'It's a trick; remember the dacoits in Burma?'
'Keep alert.' All around Jack, Highlanders and the 113th peered into the gloom as they tested each step, watched the dim roofs and tree tops for marksmen and moved slowly toward the mosque. Flames flickered from the city beyond the walls, highlighting the mosque's tall minaret. Thorpe watched the orange glow, licking his lips.
'You stay with me, Thorpey,' Coleman said. 'We'll look after each other.'
Jack understood the sentiment. When they were fighting, the British soldiers had no time to think. When alone in these very alien buildings with unknown gods and exotic architecture, the more imaginative of them could feel their nerves stretching. Jack remembered one of the few pieces of advice his father had given him: 'don't interfere with native gods.' It was good advice that John Company seemed to have repudiated, which was a significant factor in the present chaotic situation.
'Keep moving,' Jack said. A stationary figure made a better target for a sniper.
Darkness stared at them from the windows of the mosque.
'Has anybody got a light?' Jack was not surprised when Thorpe obliged by scraping a Lucifer and putting the flame to a twist of linen. 'Come on,' he stepped slowly inside with the tiny light a haven amidst the terrible dark.
Despite the damage from artillery and musketry, there was no mistaking the beauty of this place. Jack moved slowly, revolver in hand and boots crunching on what seemed like a covering of coarse sand that got deeper the further into the mosque he ventured. He looked down and felt cold sweat on his back.
'Oh, good God in heaven.' He raised his voice and lifted the glowing linen high. 'Careful now, men. Don't run. Back out slowly and carefully. For God's sake don't make any sparks with your boots.'
What Jack had believed to be sand was loose gunpowder, inches deep; a single spark could destroy the mosque and every man of the 113th.
'Told you it was a trap,' Coleman was happier that he had been proved correct than afraid he could be blown to pieces any second.
'It was a trap,' Thorpe echoed him. 'You said it was a trap, Coley.'
They withdrew slowly step by step until they left the mosque and then ran to what they hoped was a safe distance. There was no explosion as the British threw themselves down, gasping with shock.
'There must have been about two tons of gunpowder there,' Jack said. 'If it had gone up when our men were there.' There was no need
to finish the sentence. 'If it wasn't a trap it was the rebel powder store. I doubt we'll ever know.'
'We'll never know,' Thorpe said solemnly. 'Eh, Coley? We'll never know.'
'You're right, Thorpey, boy.' Coleman gave him a twisted grin. 'You got it right.' He passed across his water-bottle. 'If we died, Thorpey, at least we'd go together eh? Like brothers should.'
Jack grunted. His head felt as if was ready to explode. 'Well said, Coleman.'
Thorpey took hold of Coleman's hand, and Jack was sure there were tears in his eyes. Coleman shook him off. 'Here, Thorpey, see if you can see any pandies over there.'
He looked around his men. Please, God, make sure I don't lose more men. The image of Sarvur Khan entered his head, but the face was weaker, the menace less. 'Come on lads; we're out of here.'
Sir Colin gathered his officers under the clouded dome of the Indian sky. 'Gentlemen,' the gruff Scottish voice was immensely reassuring amidst the backdrop of smoking buildings and shattered palaces. 'We have reached the Residency.'
Jack looked up. After days and weeks, the rumble and hammer of the guns had finally stopped. Guided by Sir Colin, the British had crushed one rebel stronghold after another, pushing to create a corridor between Campbell's small army and the defenders.
Is it finished? Have we won? Oh, dear God, do I have to face myself now?
Sir Colin continued. 'However, you will be aware that we lack the numbers to push out the rebels from Lucknow and hold it.'
Jack felt the agony of defeat. We have to beat them.
'My plan is to reach the defenders and evacuate.' Sir Colin said.
Jack closed his eyes. An evacuation suggested that the rebels were in too much strength for Sir Colin's army to repulse. This relief of Lucknow would only be a partial success, unlike the recapture of Delhi. The British had not yet won this war. On the other hand, getting the civilians to safety was vital.
Mary and Jane will be safe.
The thought came on a tidal wave of relief. The women's safety was more important than victory. Dear God! From where had that thought come? He was a soldier; it was his duty to fight for Queen, country and regiment. Duty was everything.
Cry Havelock Page 27
