Windrush- Jayanti's Pawns

by Malcolm Archibald

  'I am protesting about British injustice,' Nana Sahib said.

  Jack nodded. Do you mean British injustice to those who would like to rule or British injustice to those who the old rulers oppressed? Do you mean the injustice of suppressing suttee and of ending thugee, the injustice of not accepting bribes and of one law for rich and poor?' Jack knew he was playing with fire.

  Nana Sahib sat down. 'Your family connections led me to believe there was hope for you, Captain Windrush. I see I was wrong.' He grasped the hourglass just as the top section emptied. 'Take him away!'

  What family connections? Jack was about to speak when three Rajput guards entered the room and hustled him away into the corridor outside.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jack tried to follow their route as the Rajputs dragged him out of the chamber and down a flight of stairs. The walls were bare of decoration, the steps worn by the passage of many feet and the air progressively fouler. They stopped at a long corridor poorly lit by torches, barged through a narrow door and plunged downward again to a vast area with what seemed a score of open arches. One of the guards had taken a torch from the wall, and its flickering light illuminated a series of stone chambers, some large, some small.

  The guards moved in silence, not responding to Jack's demands that they release him until they arrived at a weighty, iron-studded door. One Rajput turned the key in the lock, and the others dragged him inside. The guards shoved Jack against a granite wall and fastened manacles around his ankles and wrists. Checking his chains to ensure they were secure, the Rajputs left, slamming the door. Jack heard the key rasp in the lock.

  Oh, dear God, what happens now?

  Jack lay against the wall, hearing something rustle in his dungeon, a rat or insect maybe, and closed his eyes. A few hours ago, he had woken in a luxurious apartment with a gentle doctor treating his injuries. Since then he had met a Rajah and a Rani and then, one of the deadliest enemies of British India. Now his enemies had entombed him in a filthy dungeon. Had they tested him in some way? If so, he must have failed.

  The mysteries remained. Jack wondered how the rebels knew his name and so much about him. Why had they singled out him for attention? There were many far more distinguished officers than him, men who had made their name in half a dozen campaigns, men who were famous far outside the often-claustrophobic confines of the British Army. Why had the rebels not captured one of them? Was he merely more vulnerable because he led a small party? Jack shook his head. By walking into Gondabad he had virtually placed himself into their hands, and now – he rattled the chains in futility – he must pay the price.

  I wonder what fate they have in mind for me. Will they have elephants trample me to death? Will I be tortured with tiger-claws and blinded?

  Jack took a deep breath. Whatever happened, he had tried to do his duty. That was his only consolation for an abortive campaign to remove Jayanti, and his failure to care for Mary.

  The rustling continued, and something ran over his legs. Jack started and jerked aside. The creature fled with sharp claws scraping him. Jack closed his eyes, trying to garner strength through sleep.

  He didn't know how much time had elapsed before another three Rajput guards arrived with a torch. While one man held the torch high, another released Jack from his chains. The second Rajput grunted and pointed to Jack, indicating that he should follow them.

  'By God,' Jack said. 'Not until you tell me where we are going.'

  The Rajputs said nothing, merely prodded at Jack with the point of a tulwar, which was a sufficiently strong hint to follow. 'I am a British officer,' he said. His guards didn't look impressed as they shoved him toward the door, helping him along with repeated jabs with the tulwar.

  After what seemed an interminable journey along dark passages and up flights of stone steps, the Rajputs stopped at a heavily studded door, outside which stood one of Jayanti's female warriors. Jack eyed her, noting the black turban and the veil across the lower part of her face. She scrutinised him in return, touching the tulwar she wore at her waist. When Jack saw that she didn't wear a ruby ring on her left hand, he lost interest.

  The Rajputs stepped aside, and the female warrior rapped on the door and pushed it open.

  Jack stepped inside, into a different world.

  He didn't know what he'd expected, either a torture chamber or a military barracks. Instead, he entered a light and airy room where birds flew around a tracery of foliage and sunlight dappled the Persian carpet on the floor. A mirror on one wall enhanced the size of the room, while the crystal chandelier hung like draping diamonds from the high ceiling.

  Two more female guards stood against a wall of light bamboo, and directly opposite him, sitting at a beautifully carved ivory table, Jayanti sat on an armed chair, with her veil in place and her turban pulled low over her forehead.

  'Welcome, Captain Windrush.' She indicated a chair on the other side of the table. 'Please join me. Would you care for a drink? I can offer you wine, whisky, rum, nimbu pani, aam pani, coconut water, toddy or water.'

  Jack became aware of his thirst, and for some reason, he wished he'd washed and shaved before meeting Jayanti. 'Just water, please.' He watched as Jayanti clapped her hands and gave quiet instructions to a smooth-faced servant, who returned in a few moments with a brass jug and two small brass cups. Jayanti filled both cups with water.

  'Take one,' she invited, 'and I will drink the other.'

  Jack selected one at random. 'I doubt you have brought me here only to poison me,' he said. 'You could have killed me at any time from the moment you had me kidnapped.'

  Jayanti lifted her veil sufficiently to drink.

  The water was sweet, cool and very welcome. 'Is Mary safe?' Jack asked.

  'I do not know,' Jayanti said. The veil muffled her voice slightly.

  'You kidnapped her,' Jack accused.

  'I did not,' Jayanti responded.

  'Why have you brought me here?'

  Jayanti eyed Jack across the table. 'Have you heard of the game of chess, Captain Windrush?'

  'I have,' Jack responded.

  'Have you ever played chess, Captain Windrush?'

  'I played chess when I was at school,' Jack said. Those days seem so far away.

  'We shall play.' Jayanti clapped her hands, and two female servants carried in a low marble table and a yellow ivory box. As Jack watched, one servant placed the table on the ground. Skilled hands had carved the ivory into the familiar black-and-white squares of a chessboard. The second servant opened the box and set up pieces that resembled the chess with which Jack was familiar, except that a chariot replaced the rook and an elephant the bishop. Small rubies adorned the crown of the king and queen; tiny emeralds shone for the elephant's eyes.

  Jayanti walked across with her trousers rustling and a long dagger in a jewelled sheath at her waist. 'Did you know that chess was invented in Northern India, twelve hundred years ago?'

  'I didn't know that,' Jack admitted.

  'It spread to Persia and then when the Muslims overran the Persian Empire, they carried the game all over the Islamic world and into Europe.' Jayanti nearly whispered the explanation as she lifted the carved ivory pieces, one by one. 'The rules and the names and function of the pieces have altered through time.' She looked up. 'We will play with Indian pieces, but European rules.'

  'I have no desire to play chess,' Jack said.

  Jayanti lifted the king. 'This piece was known as the rajah; you know him as the king. In chess, captain, the object is to capture the king. He is the figurehead, while the most powerful player is the queen.' She held the queen in her left hand. 'In the original game, there was no queen, and the equivalent piece was called the mantri, or minister. In this case, the Europeans may have improved matters. Ministers, like other politicians, cause trouble while a queen will make a better ruler than any rajah.'

  'Gondabad has a Rajah and a Rani,' Jack pointed out.

  'I know,' Jayanti said. 'You will sit opposite me, captain, and we w
ill play. Chess is like war, a contest of manoeuvre, nerve and skill, with casualties when one player makes a mistake or a successful gambit.' She sat down gracefully. 'We called chess chaturaṅga, which means four divisions, infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry.'

  Jack eyed the pieces. Despite the Indian shapes, he could recognise their function. 'Thank you for the history lesson. I have not played for a long time.'

  'Think of it as a battlefield, Captain Windrush,' Jayanti said. 'Now step with me to the window.'

  The window overlooked a courtyard where a fountain tinkled, and tamarisk trees provided shade from the sun. Jayanti clapped her hands. 'Bring them in.'

  Two lithe female warriors entered, followed by a tall, muscular man grotesquely dressed in what seemed like medieval armour, covered in metal spikes. He balanced a massive curved sword on his right shoulder.

  'The man with the sword is my executioner,' Jayanti said casually.

  Jack heard the rattle of chains, and then a procession of sixteen tattered men came in, all wearing the scarlet uniforms of British soldiers. He stiffened as more female warriors marched at the rear, pushing at the prisoners until they were all within the courtyard.

  'Do you recognise them?' Jayanti asked.

  Jack shook his head. 'I can see that they are British soldiers,' he said. 'I expect they are survivors of some garrison the mutineers overran.'

  'Look closer, captain.'

  Jack frowned, hoping that they weren't the men he'd led this far. He started when he saw the familiar yellow facings. 'They are from the 113th,' he said.

  'These are the men from your missing Number One Company,' Jayanti confirmed. 'These are the proud British soldiers of the Queen. They are not proud now, are they? They are not proud after a few months' captivity. Not proud when they surrendered to the pandies that they despised so much.' Her bitterness was evident.

  'The British are trying to bring peace to this land.' Even as Jack spoke, he knew it was a lie. He remembered Hook's words about money and power and saw the East India Company in another light, a place for faceless men in London to grow wealthy while British and Indians sweated and suffered and died fighting each other in wars that neither side understood.

  'The British.' Jayanti injected scorn into the name. 'I will tell you what it means to live under British rule. It is to eat cows and drink wine. It is to bite greased cartridges and to mix pig's fat with sweetmeats. It is to destroy Hindu and Moslem temples on the pretence of making roads, to build churches and to send clergymen into the streets to preach the Christian religion. It is to institute English schools, and pay people a monthly stipend for learning the English sciences.' She stopped. 'These are not my words, but I believe them to be true.'

  Jack nodded. 'I do not believe that the British plan to destroy the native religions of India.'

  'Do you not?' Jayanti turned on him. 'And do you believe in British justice?' She nodded to the shackled British soldiers. 'Your generals hanged any prisoners they captured, or blew them from the muzzle of a cannon. As you see, we kept our prisoners alive. Who is the more civilised, Captain Windrush?'

  Jack pursed his lips.

  'You say nothing, I see.' Jayanti smiled. 'Then let us play, captain. She sat cross-legged at the table, and Jack copied her position.

  The board sat between them, with the sun easing through the windows into the pleasant room, and the British prisoners standing in the baking heat of the courtyard, round-shouldered and bareheaded.

  'I have not played for years,' Jack said.

  'You may start,' Jayanti offered.

  'Why are we playing chess?'

  'Play,' Jayanti ordered.

  Jack moved forward the pawn diagonally to the left of the queen, intending to free her to act as a mobile strike force, rather like the 113th.

  Jayanti moved her queen's knight, taking a quick offensive. 'You are cautious, captain, like your commander-in-chief.'

  'I hope I am as successful in defeating the enemy.' Jack moved the queen three spaces.

  'Yet you are my prisoner, captain.' Jayanti moved her king's knight.

  'Temporarily, in a war you have already lost.' Jack moved his king's pawn one space.

  'The war is not over.' Jayanti moved her king's knight's pawn.

  'Hugh Rose and Colin Campbell will finish it shortly.' Jack moved his king's pawn one space.

  Jayanti's smile was as sincere as a hunting cat. She moved another pawn. 'Your British army sneers at General Colin Campbell, saying he is too slow, too cautious.'

  Jack frowned. 'He has never lost a battle.' He moved his queen's knight.

  'He allowed our men to escape from Lucknow and Bareilly.' Jayanti held Jack's eye and deftly captured a pawn. 'That is one pawn you have lost.' She held it up. 'The first casualty of our little campaign.' Standing up, Jayanti walked to the window. 'Join me, captain.'

  Jack didn't see the two warrior-women move. One stood on his right, the other behind him, with a knife pressed against his spine.

  The prisoners still stood in the broiling sun.

  Jayanti leant out of the window. 'One pawn.'

  The women in the courtyard shifted slightly. One lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

  'Choose a private, captain,' Jayanti said and only then did Jack realise that the body of men below were divided into two halves. Eight were privates, and eight were NCOs and junior officers.

  'Why?'

  'You have lost a pawn,' Jayanti said patiently. 'Which private will you take out of the sun?'

  'Oh.' Jack pointed to a man at random. 'That fair-haired fellow.'

  Jayanti shouted something, and two of her warriors released the fair-haired private to a small space, away from the others. Without a word, they forced him to his knees.

  'What the devil…' Jack said, as the executioner stepped forward with his sword still balanced on his shoulder. 'You murdering bitch, Jayanti!'

  With a supreme effort, the private jerked to his feet. He saw the executioner approach with the gigantic sword, waited and spat straight in the man's face. Chained hand and foot, he could manage no other gesture of defiance. The executioner waited as two more female warriors helped drag the soldier down to a kneeling position. One woman grabbed the soldier's hair with both hands and pulled his head forward, and another tore back his uniform, exposing the neck.

  Jack watched, feeling sick as the executioner rested the blade of his sword on the soldier's neck, swung the weapon back, braced himself and sliced down. The soldier's head sprung clear from his body and blood jetted from his neck.

  'And you lose a pawn,' Jayanti said. 'Shall we return to the game?'

  Shaken, Jack sat back down. 'Was that murder necessary?'

  'We are both soldiers, as was that private. He knew that a soldier's life ends in death. What difference is it, if he dies in glorious battle or at the edge of an executioner's sword? All our decisions have consequences, Captain Windrush. If you play badly, then you lose a man.'

  'And if I play well? Do I watch your chief murderer decapitate one of your warriors?'

  Jayanti shook her head. 'No, Captain Windrush. If you capture one of my pieces, I free one of your men from today's possibility of death.'

  Jack nodded. 'I see. And if I win the game?'

  'If you defeat me, all your surviving men return to their cell for today. It is quite simple.' Jayanti's smile was calm. 'And tomorrow we start again, with the same rules.'

  'You're a murdering, evil blackguard,' Jack said.

  'Perhaps. Even so, I give your men a chance. Your army executes their prisoners, innocent or not. It is your move, I believe.'

  After another three moves, it was evident that Jayanti was the better player. Jack sat in a fever of anxiety as he tried to block her attacks, watched her effortlessly blunt his offensives and hoped desperately to capture some of her pieces to save at least a few of the prisoners.

  'Another pawn.' Jayanti lifted the piece in triumph. 'Would you like to accompany me, captain?'

&
nbsp; 'I would not,' Jack said.

  'Then my soldiers will persuade you.'

  Sword in hand, the two female warriors closed around Jack, and he rose and stepped to the window. The procedure was the same as before, except that the private seemed resigned to his death as the women forced him to kneel. The executioner used the same apparently casual swing, and the man's head rolled on the stone-flagged floor. The tinkling cheerfulness of the fountain was almost an insult to the men who remained.

  Jack made two more trips to the window before he saw an opening and managed to capture one of Jayanti's pawns.

  'Well played, captain.' Jayanti applauded with a soft handclap. 'Now choose which man will live for another day.'

  It was as hard to select a man to live, as it was to point to a man for the executioner to kill. 'Oh, God forgive me,' Jack breathed as he chose a red-haired, snub-nosed youngster. 'That fellow there,' he said.

  Thinking he was about to be executed, the man struggled desperately as two women grabbed him. Jack could not watch as the women dragged him away.

  'Now, shall we continue?' Jayanti sounded nonchalant.

  Knowing Jayanti outmatched him, Jack dispensed with caution and threw himself recklessly into the attack. By a minor miracle, he managed to capture Jayanti's queen's knight.

  'You have my knight,' Jayanti said. 'That will save the life of a sergeant.'

  Jack captured two more pawns and the king's rook before Jayanti put him into checkmate.

  'I am sure you will try to improve by tomorrow.' When Jayanti clapped her hands, a servant tidied away the chess pieces. 'Or you will lose more of your men.' She looked up, her eyes gleaming. 'We will raise the stakes tomorrow, I think. Your Major Snodgrass will act as king.'

  Jack said nothing. The thought of the slaughter in the courtyard sickened him. 'Now I can understand Hussaini Begum,' he said. 'Before I met you, I wondered how a woman could order the murder of innocents, could allow children to be dismembered and stuffed into a well. Now, having seen the cold-blooded manner in which you ordered the murder of these men, I understand. You are devoid of humanity.'