Bugles at Dawn

by Charles Whiting

  These Holkar Mahrattas now agreed to, and hastily concluded a Treaty of Peace, placing their territories under British Protection and surrendering in Perpetuity to the Company various Districts, Forts and Ghauts.

  It was here that the Times’ writer expressed some surprise at Lord Hastings’ next action:

  It is of some concern that the Governor General did not then proceed to invade further the Territory of these Mahratta Princelings so as to ensure that the newly concluded Treaty was accorded to. Instead, for reasons which are still not known here in the Capital, My Lord Hastings has now ventured into the mountain fastnesses of the tiny and remote state of Burrapore. New Intelligence from India will undoubtedly explain this startling and surprising new Manoeuvre in due course.

  By the time the news correspondent discovered the reasons for ‘this startling and surprising new Manoeuvre’, the state of Burrapore would have been long passed into British control.

  After his victory on the Sipra and the surrender of the Mahratta princes, Lord Hastings decided on a calculated risk. The monsoon period, which would hamper large-scale military operations, was not far off. Daily the air was stifling hot with never a wisp of breeze to stir the steamy air. In the grey sky the sun was a dull copper ball like a penny glimpsed at the bottom of a green-scummed village pond. These were the signs that the great rains were approaching.

  That was the first reason for his change of strategy. The second was the surprise appearance of a battered little dhow on the Sipra, its sail ragged with the holes made by hundreds of musket balls, carrying half a hundred people who had been long thought dead. John Bold and his party had finally reached the British lines; and with him he brought the news that there was a great chief of the Pindarees, thought to be still with the Ranee in the Fort of Burrapore.

  As an excited Lord Hastings told an emaciated, bronzed John on that first afternoon of his arrival, ‘If we can smash Cheethoo and his Pindarees now’ — his dark eyes gleamed in his monkeylike face — ‘we can deal with Central India at our leisure. The threat that the Pindarees pose to our flank and to the Presidency of Madras will be banished for ever!’

  Now, one week later, Hastings met together with his staff to finalize his plans for the surprise march on Burrapore. But first he met Captain John Bold (promoted on the spot for his bravery in rescuing the hostages), immaculate in a new uniform, the commander of a reconstituted Bold’s Horse which had been brought up to the strength of a full squadron with recruits from other native cavalry regiments. Hastings eyed the young captain and nodded his approval. Whatever puppy fat Bold had once possessed had vanished in those months of imprisonment. Now his face, burned almost black by a week’s voyage down the Burra, was lean and hard, the blue eyes seeming almost too large. Captain Bold looked like an officer who had gone through hell — and was prepared to do it again.

  ‘Bold,’ Hastings said, as outside the troops toiled by in the midday heat, sweating and cursing, and gallopers came and went bearing their dispatches, ‘I would dearly have loved to send you back to Madras for a rest. You richly deserve it. But your presence in the van of my army is vital to its success. Only you know the terrain, the conditions pertaining in the entourage of that she-devil in Burrapore. You understand?’ His simian features softened into a momentary smile.

  ‘I understand, sir,’ John replied dutifully, and dismissed his daydream of returning to Musulipatan to a hero’s welcome and Georgina’s arms. It would be many a weary month of campaigning before he could do that.

  Enthusiastically Hastings slammed his hairy fist down on the table. ‘If we can capture or kill this Cheethoo fellah of yours, then the power of the Pindaree is broken for good! And you, John Bold, will identify him for me. It is vital. Now, I have great matters of strategy to discuss and you must go.’

  Then, surprisingly, instead of accepting John’s salute, the Governor General shook his hand. ‘You will go far in the Company’s service, John Bold. Destiny has put its mark upon you. Disappointments,’ he added enigmatically, ‘you will undoubtedly suffer. But always remember, however much adversity attacks you, destiny has put its mark upon you!’

  With that John left, stepping out into the cloying heat of the pre-monsoon period, brow set in a puzzled frown. What had Lord Hastings meant?

  His bewilderment was compounded by Major Tomkins, who arrived in the middle of Hastings’ last conference, his horse lathered in sweat, he himself covered in white dust so that his red-rimmed eyes seemed to be peering out of a mask. John caught him after he had delivered his dispatches from the Presidency of Madras and asked, ‘Sir, did your route take you through Musulipatan, if I may ask?’

  Wearily Major Tomkins nodded. ‘Yes, it did, Bold.’

  ‘Sir, may I venture to ask if you saw the Collector and Miss Lanham?’ John hardly could contain himself.

  But Major Tomkins was oddly evasive and, later, when the great betrayal had taken place, John knew why. ‘I did chance upon him for a moment or two, Bold,’ he answered, avoiding John’s gaze. ‘I saw Miss Lanham, too, for an equally short period.’

  ‘And how was she, sir?’

  Tomkins waved his hands in an airy manner, trying to cover his embarrassment. ‘Oh well, I suppose, well ... And now, my dear Bold, you must excuse me. I must really try to get a bath and clear myself of this wretched dust.’ And he tugged at the head of his weary mount and departed, leaving John in even more bewilderment ...

  One day later the march on Burrapore commenced. Line after line of sepoys marched stolidly through the dust and heat, followed by six-pounders drawn by lumbering oxen; tongas jolted up and down in the ruts, laden with supplies; then came the rumbling, ponderous elephants weighted down with water; while to right and left flank the cavalry probed, sending picquets to every hilltop to warn against any surprise attack by the Pindarees.

  Mile after mile, hour after hour, the long columns plodded under the dull glare of a murderous sun, their agony broken only by a few minutes’ stop where they could seek the blessing of shade and the boon of a gulp of tepid water. Men cursed; men sobbed; men fell to their knees in ankle-deep white dust and sand and were beaten mercilessly to their feet by red-faced NCOs; men collapsed, as if poleaxed, from heat stroke, never to rise again; men went mad.

  At the end of each day the swaying columns moved at snail’s pace, each man’s mesmerized gaze on the feet of the man in front; and every night those who had survived the day’s terrible march collapsed on the unyielding earth, too tired even to eat, seeking only oblivious sleep before the march commenced again.

  It grew even hotter, the grass a parched yellow, the mangoes brown and dry of juice. The water in the wells of the abandoned villages was lukewarm and tasted of cinders.

  Now the wind burned. Men, even the sepoys, marched with rags wrapped round their scorched faces. The wind brought clouds of dust particles that stung faces like a myriad tiny cuts from a sharp razor. It coated everything with a fine white powder that burrowed into their throats, eyes, ears.

  When the winds eased, the coppery sun hovered, shimmering in an incandescent, merciless sky where vultures circled slowly, ominously, waiting ... There was prey enough for them now. Behind the toiling columns the trail was littered with men struck down by the cholera, dying in their own filth and muck and vomit; men felled by sun stroke, turning black within minutes; men stricken with a dozen different fevers, their faces moving writhing masks of loathsome blue-black flies. Lord Hastings was paying the price for his bold manoeuvre — one that could only be counted in blood.

  In the van, Bold’s Horse fared better than the rest. The sowars did not have to suffer dust raised by marchers in front. Too, they had the first pick of the water in the abandoned villages lining their route, gauging its suitability by its smell — and whether or not the fleeing villages had deposited dead dogs in it.

  Thus it was that while the rest of the invading army marched like automatons, John’s troopers kept alert, scouring the rugged, barren countryside for the first sig
n of Cheethoo’s followers. But there were none. In the whole of the first week, they saw not a single person. The whole of Burrapore seemed completely deserted.

  Sergeant Jones, the veteran of so many campaigns in India, was not fooled. ‘They’re there all right, sir,’ he remarked more than once, tapping the end of his long, peeling red nose sagely, ‘I can smell ‘em. They’re right on to us, never you do fear, sir.’

  Late in the afternoon on the eighth day the shrill tones of a bugler rang out a mil ahead of the main body of Bold’s Horse from a small forward patrol.

  Hastily John swung up his glass. Dark figures on the ridge to the right sprang into focus — riders, dressed in the native fashion. The enemy.

  ‘Pindarees, sir?’ Jones asked at his side.

  Suddenly there was the glint of silver accoutrements and John grunted, ‘No, their equipment is burnished. They’re European.’

  ‘The frog-eaters, sir?’ Jones ventured grimly as the distant watchers turned their mounts and disappeared down the far slope of the ridge.

  ‘Yes, it’s the French all right, Sergeant. Nom de Dieu’s hard-bitten professionals.’

  Now as they pushed ever further north, the heat easing a little as they entered the Burra mountains, the watchers appeared time and again. Like stark black phantoms they hovered on the high ground, their mounts motionless, observing the invaders. There was something eerie about their strange brooding observation. More than once red-faced staff officers exclaimed angrily, ‘Why don’t the damned froggies attack? ... What are they waiting for? ... It’s damned ungentlemanlike to stare at us like that!’

  Twice Bold was ordered by Hastings himself to send out a patrol to apprehend some of the French observers. The first patrol, commanded by a relatively inexperienced rissaldar, did not come within a mile before the French took to their heels and with their fine thoroughbred Arabs easily outdistanced the sowars.

  The second patrol at dawn next day was equally a failure, but a disastrous one. It was commanded by a sixteen-year-old cornet, a dark-eyed eager boy named da Costa, who said he was a Portuguese, but who John guessed was probably a half-breed. Like many of his kind, neither Indian nor European, he had volunteered for the Company’s services, John surmised, in order to find a place where he could belong.

  That dawn da Costa sallied forth in great style after a couple of riders were seen on a height about two miles away. This time the riders stood their ground and fired their carbines, though out of range, at the patrol.

  Da Costa’s enthusiasm at the prospect of action knew no bounds. He stood upright in his stirrups, dark eyes flashing, and waving his sword yelled, ‘Charge!’ Like a dark V, as John observed through his glass, the dozen riders shot forward, swords held straight out in front, carried away by the wild excitement of the charge — all flying hooves, wild yells, wind whistling by the face, the rattle of equipment.

  Exhilarated by the crazy primeval madness of the impending clash, the British did not see the large body of cavalry hiding in the nullah to the left of their quarry.

  ‘Look out!’ John cried as he spotted them in his glass.

  But da Costa and his men were too far away to hear. Too late they saw the trap as, with shouts of ‘Vive la France ... salauds … à l’attaque, mes braves’ the French horse surged out of the canyon, sabres flashing, knees and spurs digging deep into the flanks of their mounts.

  John’s men hadn’t a chance. Here and there swords clashed. For a moment or two the young sowars parried the brutal thrusts and slashes of Napoleon’s veterans. But only for a moment. They were cut down mercilessly, until finally the sorely wounded da Costa cried, ‘Withdraw ... withdraw immediately ... ’

  Ten minutes later as Cornet da Costa died in his arms, John Bold knew with the absolute certainty of a vision that the Ranee of Burrapore and Cheethoo, chief of the Pindarees, were going to make their stand at Burrapore. Lord Hastings had to be prepared for a prolonged siege of the Gibraltar of the East — and it was only a matter of days now before the monsoon broke.

  This cruel dawn, which had cost Bold’s Horse seven lives, Hastings’ strength had been tested and found wanting. Now with torrential rains due at any moment, rains that could bog down his whole army, Lord Hastings had to discover some stratagem to capture Burrapore swiftly. The alternative was a long siege, with the possibility that the Mahratta princes to his rear would revolt once more. It seemed that the she-devil of Burrapore had the upper hand once again ...

  SEVEN

  On the horizon lightning stabbed the grey brooding sky in jagged scarlet slashes. Thunder rumbled ominously. They waited, as if inside a bakehouse oven. The very air was heavy with the approaching storm.

  But the eyes of the watchers on the hilltop were fixed exclusively on what was happening to their front, before the fortress of Burrapore. Now as the massed bands of the army played ‘The Downfall of Paris’ and back and forth across the valley the bugles echoed and re-echoed their urgent warnings, a brigade of sepoys was advancing stolidly.

  They had abandoned their packs and other heavy equipment. Now in four lines, with their officers in front and the flags unfurled, they moved forward, bayonets fixed, keeping perfect step, moving in to the assault.

  Lord Hastings removed his hat and waving it three times about his head, cried, ‘Pray, let the artillery commence!’

  Swiftly his order was relayed and in a moment some sixty artillery pieces opened fire. Black balls of sudden death hurtled through the air as the sweating, half-naked gunners sponged, loaded and rammed, and those four lines of rigid infantry approached ever closer to the main gate of the lower fort.

  Standing on the hillock behind Lord Hastings, awaiting whatever orders might come, John felt a shiver run down his spine, and the hairs at the back of his skull stood erect.

  To his front the high walls of the fortress were already pockmarked and slashed by the British cannonade. Timber, splintered into matchwood, vomited upwards. Stone and smoking debris came slithering down as shot after shot slammed against the ram-parts. But not a single shot had yet been fired by the defenders.

  John strained his ears and just caught the urgent rattle of the brigade’s kettle drums. Faintly he heard the cries of its officers as they waved their swords, and the pace of the advancing men quickened noticeably. They were getting very close now. It would not be long before they charged, aiming to reach the dead ground immediately beneath those terrible high, crenellated walls.

  A rocket hissed spluttering, red and angry into the leaden sky. For a moment it hung there, colouring their upturned faces an unnatural hue, before hissing down spent. It was the signal to the horse artillery.

  There was a furious blare of trumpets. At the gallop, horses stretched unnaturally long in their traces, gunwheels bucking over the uneven ground, gunners on their caissons hanging on grimly, a battery of light guns raced after the infantry. They would give the final support for the assault.

  ‘Capital ... capital!’ Lord Hastings said in high delight, slapping his raised knee. ‘Did you ever see such a splendid sight? ... Capital!’

  Still not a single shot came from the fort. It was as if they had already abandoned it. But John had spied their heads behind the ramparts. They were waiting for the right moment.

  Thunder rumbled and echoed across the valley in ever-increasing strength. The storm would not be long coming now.

  To the front of the sepoy brigade their general raised himself high in his stirrups to take one last look at his men, stretched as far as the eye could see to left and right. He tugged at the bit and his beautiful white stallion reared up, pawing the air. It was sheer drama, like one of those portraits romanticizing the bloody reality of the Battle of Waterloo. The general called out, and with great deliberation pointed his sword at the fort. In a sudden flash of lightning the weapon gleamed bright silver. A great bass cheer rose from the sepoys and they surged forward in a kind of shambling run. The final assault had commenced!

  On the hilltop, Hastings’ sta
ff responded with a cheer of their own and again the Governor General slapped his knee exultantly. Everything was going according to plan. Victory over the she-devil of Burrapore was just around the corner.

  The defenders let them come on, pelting towards the great ditch which ran to the front of the lower fort. Now the covering artillery had ceased firing. It was too dangerous for their own men. Soon the sepoys would be down in the ditch. Sappers would be thrusting scaling ladders against the walls and the sepoys would be clambering up and over the top. John felt himself sweating with tension and praying fervently that they would make it.

  The defenders’ reaction came with startling abruptness. Little cheery-red lights winked suddenly the whole length of the ramparts. From inside the courtyard came the deep throaty thud-thud of mortars. Rockets shrilled over the walls, red, angry, vindictive.

  Suddenly great gaps appeared in the ranks of the attackers. Sepoys were going down everywhere, piling up in heaps as their officers and NCOs slashed furiously at them with the flats of their blades, urging them on. What now happened was no longer war, but mass murder. Caught out in the open, without artillery support, the sepoys were easy targets even for the worst marksmen. Cannonballs, grape and chain-shot hurtled into them. Within five minutes, it was calculated, the brigade lost half its effectives.

  But still the attackers did not break. The years of iron-hard brutal discipline, and loyalty to their officers and regiments, paid off. They stood their ground. But John, peering dismayed through his glass, could see that the steam had gone out of the attack. The men were milling, trying not to step on their dead and dying fellows who littered the shattered, steaming ground everywhere, obviously confused and knowing not what to do.