by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER VI
THE WELL
Not until many months later did Malcolm learn the true cause ofRoshinara Begum's anxiety that he and his friends should hasten toMeerut, and let it be known on the way that they came from Cawnpore. Yetthere were those in Bithoor that night who fully appreciated thetremendous influence on the course of political events that thedirection of Winifred's flight might exercise. The girl herself littledreamed she was such an important personage. But that is often the casewith those who are destined to make history. In this instance, thebalking of a Brahmin prince's passions was destined to change the wholetrend of affairs in northern India.
Nana Sahib escorted Mayne from Meerut to Cawnpore because thesafeguarding of the Judicial Commissioner of Oudh was a strong card toplay in that parlous game of empire. As he traveled south reportsreached him on every hand that nothing could now stop the spread of theMutiny, and, with greater certainty in his plans came a project that hewould not have dared to harbor even a week earlier.
Winifred, naturally a high-spirited and lively girl, soon recoveredfrom the fright of that fateful Sunday evening. She had seen little ofthe tragedy enacted in Meerut; she knew less of its real horrors.Notwithstanding the intense heat the open-air life of the march washealthy, and, in many respects, agreeable. The Nana was a courteous andconsiderate host. He took good care that his secret intelligence ofoccurrences at Delhi and other stations should remain hidden from Mayne,and, while his ambitions mounted each hour, he cast many a veiled glanceat the graceful beauty of the fair English girl who moved like a sylphamong the brown-skinned satyrs surrounding her.
Once the party had reached Bithoor the Nana's tone changed. Instead ofsending his European guests into Cawnpore, whence safe transit toCalcutta was still practicable, he kept them in his palace, on thepretext that the roads were disturbed. He contrived, at first, tohoodwink Mr. Mayne by giving him genuine news of the wholesale outbreakin the North-West, and by adding wholly false tidings of massacres atAllahabad, Benares, and towns in Upper Bengal. At last, when Mayneinsisted on going into Cawnpore, the native threw aside pretense, saidhe could not "allow" him to depart, and virtually made uncle and nieceprisoners.
But he treated them well. A clear-headed Brahmin, to whom intrigue wasthe breath of life, was not likely to make the mistake of being tooprecipitate in his actions. The wave of religious fanaticism sweepingover the land might recede as rapidly as it had risen. Muslim and Hindu,Pathan and Brahmin, hereditary foes who fraternized to-day, might be ateach other's throats to-morrow. So the Nana was a courteous jailer.Beyond the loss of their liberty the captives had nothing to complainof, and he met Mayne's vehement reproaches with unmoved good humor,protesting all the while that he was acting for the best.
Winifred took fright, however. Her woman's intuition looked beneath themask. For her uncle's sake she kept her suspicions to herself, but shesuffered much in secret, and her distress might well have moved a man offiner character to sympathy. Each time she met the Nana he treated herwith more apparent friendliness. She recoiled from his advances as shemight shrink from a venomous snake.
Fortunately there were others in Bithoor who understood the Brahmin'smotives, and saw therein the germ of failure for their own plans. NanaSahib was an exceedingly important factor in the success of the schemethat meditated the re-establishment of the Mogul dynasty. Recognized bythe Mahrattas, the great warlike race of western India, as their leader,looked on as the pivot of Hindu support to the Mohammedan monarchy, itwas absolutely essential that he should captain the rebel garrison ofCawnpore in a triumphant march to Delhi. For that reason a marriagedistasteful to both had already been arranged between him and theRoshinara Begum. For that reason he had traveled to many centers ofdisaffection during the months of March and April, winning doubtfulHindu princes to the side of Bahadur Shah, by his tact and readydiplomacy. For that reason too, the native officers of the firstregiments in revolt at Cawnpore made him swear, even at the twelfthhour, that he would lead them to Delhi.
His unforeseen infatuation for an Englishwoman might upset thecarefully-laid plot. Under other conditions a dose of poison would haveremoved poor Winifred from the scene, but that simple expedient was notto be thought of, as the Nana's vengeful disposition was sufficientlywell known to his associates to make them fear the outcome. Thereforethey left nothing to chance, and actually brought the Princess Roshinarapost haste from the north, believing that her presence would insure theinconstant wooer's return with her at the right moment.
While the majority pulled in one way there was an active minority thatwished the Nana to set up an independent kingdom. His nephew and hisMohammedan friend, Azim-ullah, were convinced that their faction wouldlose all influence as soon as their chief was swallowed up in themaelstrom of the imperial court. If Winifred supplied the spell thatkept the Nana at Bithoor, they were quite content that it should beallowed to exercise its power.
Hence, Malcolm's arrival gave the Begum a chance that her quick witseized upon. Why not, she argued, connive at the Englishwoman's escape,and let it become known that she had fled back to Meerut? When the Nanareturned from Cawnpore, flushed with wine and conquest, this should bethe first news that greeted him, and his amorous rage would go hand inhand with the other considerations that urged his immediate departurefor the Mogul capital. That was not the device of a woman who loved--itsavored rather of the cool state-craft of a Lucrezia Borgia.
No more curious mixture of plot and counterplot than this minor chapterof the Bithoor romance came to light during that disastrous upheaval inIndia. Never did events of the utmost magnitude hinge on incidents sotrivial to the community at large. A truculent thief like Abdul Huq wasable to defeat the intent of a king's daughter, and a couple of alerttroopers, riding to a bluff overlooking the river, could report thatthey saw the budgerow on which the sahib-log escaped drifting downstream towards Cawnpore! Thus the intrigue miscarried twice. Winifredwas free; the clear inference to be drawn from the boat's course wasthat her uncle and Malcolm would bring her straight to the protection oftheir friends in the cantonment.
There was a scene of violence, nearly culminating in murder, when NanaSahib came to Bithoor at dawn. He met the scorn of Roshinara with afurious insolence that stopped short of bloodshed only on account of theprudence still governing most of his actions. Not yet was he drunk withpower. That madness was soon to obsess him. But he lent a willing ear tothe counsels of Rao Sahib and Azim-ullah. Soon after daybreak hegalloped to Kulianpur, on the road to Delhi, whither some thousands ofsepoys had already gone, and harangued them eloquently on the glory,not to speak of the loot, they would acquire by attacking the accursedEnglish at Cawnpore.
They were easily swayed. Acclaiming the Nana as a prince worthy ofobedience they marched after him, and thus sealed the doom of manyhundreds of unhappy beings who thought until that moment they would bespared the dreadful fate that had befallen other stations.
Oddly enough, the high-born Brahmin who now saw his hopes of regal powerin a fair way towards realization placed one act of soldierly courtesyto his credit before he made his name a synonym for all that is base anddespicable in the conduct of warfare. He wrote a letter to Sir HughWheeler warning the gallant old general that he might expect to beattacked forthwith. Perhaps it is straining a point to credit him withany sense of fair play. The letter may have been a last flicker ofrespect for the power of Britain, and inspired by a haunting fear of theconsequences if the Mutiny failed. It is probable he wished to providewritten proof of a plea that he was an unwilling agent in the clutch ofa mutinous army. However that may be, he wrote, and never did lettercarry more bitter disappointment to a Christian community.
Sir Hugh Wheeler having decided, most unfortunately as it happened,against occupying the strongly-built magazine on the river bank as arefuge, had constructed a flimsy entrenchment on a level plain close tothe native lines. He was sure the sepoys would revolt, but he believedthey would hurry off to Delhi, and he refused to give them an excuse forrebelli
on by seizing the magazine. Towards the end of May he wrote toHenry Lawrence at Lucknow for help, and Lawrence generously sent himfifty men of the 32d and half a battery of guns, though even this smallforce could ill be spared from the capital of Oudh. Sir Hugh made thefurther mistake of crediting Nana Sahib's professions of loyalty. Heactually entrusted the Treasury to the protection of the Nana'sretainers, in spite of Lawrence's plainly-worded warning that theBrahmin's recent movements placed him under grave suspicion.
Nevertheless, Wheeler acted with method. His judgment was clear, ifoccasionally mistaken, and he had every reason to believe that the onlyattacks he would be called on to repel would be made by the bazaar mob.
On the night of June 4th, the thousand men, women and children who hadgathered behind the four-foot mud wall that formed the entrenchment wereleft unmolested by the mutineers. During the 5th they watched thedestruction of their bungalows, and knew that the rebels were plunderingthe city, robbing rich native merchants quite as readily as they killedany Europeans who were not under Wheeler's charge. Late that day cameNana Sahib's letter. It was a bitter disappointment, but "the valiantnever taste death but once," and the Britons in Cawnpore resolved toteach the mutineers that the men who had conquered them many times inthe field could repeat the lesson again and again.
About ten o'clock on the morning of the 6th, flames rising from housesnear at hand gave evidence of the approach of the rebels. Irregularspurts of musketry heralded the appearance of confused masses of armedmen. A cannon-ball crashed through the mud wall and bounded across theenclosure. A bugle sounded shrilly and the defenders ran to their posts.The wailing of women and the cries of frightened children, helplesscreatures only half protected by two barracks situated in the southerncorner of the entrenchment, mingled with the din of the answering guns,and in that fatal hour the siege of Cawnpore began.
In the tear-stained story of humanity there has never been aught tosurpass the thrilling record of Cawnpore. It contains every element ofheroism and tragedy. Four hundred English soldiers, seventy of whom wereinvalids, with a few dozens of civilians and faithful sepoys--standingbehind a breast-high fortification that would not stop a bullet--exposedto the fierce rays of an Indian sun--ill-fed, almost waterless, anddriven to numb despair by the sufferings of their loved ones--these men,enduring all and daring all, held at bay four thousand well-armed,well-housed, and well-fed troops for twenty-one days.
Not for a moment was the strain relaxed. Day and night the rebels pouredinto the entrenchment a ceaseless hail of iron and lead. Cannon-balls,solid and red-hot, shells with carefully arranged time fuses, andbullets from those self-same cartridges that the superfine feelings ofBrahmin soldiers forbade them to touch, were hurled at the haplessgarrison from all quarters. In the first week every gunner in the placewas killed or wounded. Women and children were shot as though they werein the front line of the defense. No corner was safe from the enemy'sfire. Every human being behind that absurdly inadequate wall was exposedto constant and equal danger.
Here is an extract from Holmes's history:
"A private was walking with his wife when a single bullet killed him, broke both her arms, and wounded an infant she was carrying. An officer was talking with a comrade at the main guard when a musket-ball struck him; and, as he was limping painfully to the barracks to have his wound dressed, Lieutenant Mowbray-Thomson of the 56th, who was supporting him, was struck also, and both fell helplessly to the ground. Presently as Thomson lay wofully sick of his wound, another officer came to condole with him, and he too received a wound from which he died before the end of the siege. Young Godfrey Wheeler, a son of the General, was lying wounded in one of the barracks when a round shot crashed through the walls of the room and carried off his head in the sight of his mother and sisters. Little children, straggling outside the wall, were deliberately shot down."
On the night of June the 11th a red-hot cannon-ball set fire to one ofthe barracks which was used as a hospital. The flames inspired theenemy's gunners to fresh efforts and provided them with an excellenttarget, yet the garrison dared all perils of gun-fire and fallingrafters and masonry, while they rescued the inmates. It is on recordthat the gallant men of the 32d, when the flames had subsided, though aheavy fusillade was still kept up by the rebels, were seen raking theashes in order to find their lost medals, the medals they had won in thedeadly fighting that preceded the fall of Sevastopol.
On the next day the sepoy army, though so boastful and vainglorious,dared to make their first attempt to carry the entrenchment by assault.By one bold charge they must have crushed the defenders, if by sheerweight of numbers alone. They advanced, with fiendish yells and muchseeming confidence. But they could not face those stern warriors wholined the shattered wall. After a short but fierce struggle they fled,leaving the plain littered with corpses.
So the safer bombardment was renewed, its fury envenomed by theconscious disparity of the besiegers when they tried to press home theattack. Each day the garrison dwindled; each day the rebels receivedfresh accessions of strength. Of the few guns mounted in the Britishposition, one had lost its muzzle, another was thrown from its carriageand two were so battered by the enemy's artillery that they could not beused. The hospital fire had destroyed all the surgical instruments andmedical stores, so the wounded had to lie waiting for death, while thosewho still bore arms eked out existence on a daily dole of a handful offlour and a few ounces of split peas.
Yet the men of Cawnpore fought on, while their wives and sisters anddaughters helped uncomplainingly, making up packets of ammunition,loading rifles for the men to fire, and even giving their stockings tothe gunners to provide cases for grape-shot.
There was only one well inside the entrenchment. Knowing its paramountimportance, the rebels mounted guns in such wise that a constant firecould be kept up throughout the night on that special point. Yet therenever was lacking a volunteer, either man or woman, to go to that welland obtain the precious water. It remains to this day a mournful relicof the siege, with its broken gear and shattered circular wall, whilethe indentations made by such of the cannon-balls as failed to dislodgethe masonry are plain to be seen.
The sepoys spared none. Tiny children, tottering to the well in broaddaylight, were pelted with musketry. Conceivably that might be war. Whenbeleaguered people will not yield humanity must stand aside and weep.There was a deed to come that was not war, but the black horror ofabomination, worthy of the excesses of a man-eating tiger, though shornof the tiger's excuse that he kills in order that he may live. The wellin the entrenchment was the Well of Life. There was another well inCawnpore destined to be the Well of Death.
If proof were needed of the extraordinary condition of India during theearly period of the Mutiny, it was given by an incident that occurredsoon after the first assault was beaten off. In broad daylight, whilethe garrison were maintaining the unceasing duel of cannon and smallarms, they were astounded by the spectacle of a British officergalloping across the plain. He was fired at by the sepoys, of course,but horse and man escaped untouched and the low barrier was leapedwithout effort. The newcomer was Lieutenant Bolton of the 7th Cavalry.Sent out from Lucknow on district duty he was suddenly deserted by hismen, and he rode alone towards Cawnpore, the nearest British station.Unhappily the story of that adventurous ride is lost for ever. PoorBolton supplied Cawnpore's last re-enforcement.
Sir Hugh Wheeler, ably seconded in the defense by Captain Moore of the32d, sent out emissaries, Eurasians and natives, to seek aid fromLucknow and Allahabad, the one about thirty-five, the other a hundredmiles distant. Lawrence wrote "with a breaking heart" that he couldspare no troops from Lucknow. The messengers never even reachedAllahabad.
On June 23 the Nana's hosts again nerved themselves for a desperateattack, and again were they flung off from that tumble-down wall. Then,all their valor fled, they fell back on a foul device. A white woman,Mrs. Henry Jacobi, who had been taken prisoner early in the month,c
rossed the plain holding a white flag. Wheeler and Moore and othersenior officers went to meet her. She carried a letter from Nana Sahib,offering safe conduct to Allahabad for all the garrison "except thosewho were connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie."
Now Dalhousie resigned the vice-royalty in February, 1856. It was he whohad refused to continue to Nana Sahib the Peishwa's pension; assuredlythere was none in Cawnpore responsible for the acts of a former viceroy.At any rate, whatsoever that curious reservation meant, the majority ofthe staff were opposed to surrender. Unfortunately Captain Moore, whosebravery was in the mouths of all, who, though wounded and ill, had been"the life and soul of the defense," persuaded Sir Hugh Wheeler and theothers that an honorable capitulation was their sole resource. Succorcould not arrive, he argued, and they were in duty bound to save thesurviving civilians and the women and children.
So an armistice was agreed to on June 26, and representatives of bothsides met to discuss terms. It was arranged that the garrison shouldevacuate their position, surrender their guns and treasure, retain theirrifles and a quantity of ammunition, and be provided with rivertransport to Allahabad.
The Nana asked that the defenders should march out that night. Wheelerrefused.
"I shall renew the bombardment, and put every one of you to death in afew days," threatened the Brahmin.
"Try it," said the Englishman. "I still have enough powder left to blowboth armies into the air."
But the Nana meant to have no more fighting on equal terms. He signedthe treaty, the guns were given up, and, on the night of June 26th,peace reigned within the ruined entrenchment.
Next morning that glorious garrison quitted the shot-torn plain they hadhallowed by their deeds. And even the rebels pitied them. "As the wanand ragged column filed along the road, the women and children inbullock-carriages or on elephants, the wounded in palanquins, thefighting men on foot, sepoys came clustering round the officers they hadbetrayed, and talked in wonder and admiration of the surpassing heroismof the defense."
Those men of the rank and file at least were soldiers. They knew nothingof the awful project concocted by the Nana and his chief associates, RaoSahib, Tantia Topi, and Azim-ullah.
The procession made its way slowly towards the river, three quarters ofa mile to the east. No doubt there were joyful hearts even in thatsorrow-laden band. Men and women must have thought of far-off homes inEngland, and hoped that God would spare them to see their belovedcountry once more. Even the children, wide-eyed innocents, could notfail to be thankful that the noise of the guns had ceased, while thewounded were cheered by the belief that food and stores in plenty wouldsoon be available.
At the foot of a tree-clad ravine leading to the Ganges were stationed anumber of heavy native boats, with thatched roofs to shield theoccupants from the sun. They were partly drawn up on the mud at thewater's edge to render easy the work of embarkation. Without hurry orconfusion, the wounded, and the women and children, were placed onboard.
Then some one noticed that the thatch on one of the boats was smoking,and it was found that glowing charcoal had been thrust into the straw.About the same time it was discovered that the boats had neither oars,nor rudders, nor supplies of food. Before the dread significance ofthese things became clear, a bugle-call rang out. At once, both banks ofthe river became alive with armed sepoys, and a murderous rifle-fire wasopened on the crowded boats. Guns, hidden among the trees, belchedred-hot shot and grape at them, and the smoldering straw of the thatchedroofs burst into flames.
Awakened to the unspeakable treachery of their foe, officers and menrushed into the water and strove with might and main to shove the boatsinto deep water. They failed, for the unwieldy craft had been hauledpurposely too high.
Here Ashe and Moore, and Bolton, hero of that lonely ride through theenemy's country, fell. Here, too, men shot their own wives and childrenrather than permit them to fall into the hands of the fiends who hadplanned the massacre. Savage troopers urged their horses into the waterand slashed cowering women with their sabers. Infants were torn fromtheir mothers' arms, and tossed by sepoys from bayonet to bayonet. Thesick and wounded, lying helpless in the burning craft, died in the agonyof fire, and the few bold spirits who even in that ghastly hour tried tobeat off their cowardly assailants were surrounded and shot down byoverwhelming numbers.
One heavily-laden boat was dragged into the stream, and a few officersand men clambered on board. The voyage they made would supply materialfor an epic. They were followed along the banks and pursued by armedcraft on the river. They fought all day and throughout the night, and,when the ungoverned boat ran ashore during a wild squall of wind andrain at daybreak, the surviving soldiers, a sergeant and eleven men,headed by Mowbray-Thomson of the 56th, and Delafosse of the 53d, sprangout and charged some hundreds of sepoys and hostile villagers who hadgathered on the bank.
The craven-hearted gang yielded before the Englishmen's fierceonslaught. The tiny band turned to fight their way back, and found thatthe boat had drifted off again! Then they seized a Hindu temple on thebank and held it until the sepoys piled burning timber against the rearwalls and threw bags of powder on the fire!
Fixing bayonets and leaving the sergeant dead in the doorway, theycharged again into the mass of the enemy. Six fell. The remainderreached the river, threw aside their guns, and plunged boldly in. Twowere shot while swimming, and one man, unable to swim any distance,coolly made his way ashore again and faced his murderers until he sankbeneath their blows.
Mowbray-Thomson, Delafosse, and Privates Murphy and Sullivan, swam sixmiles with the stream, and were finally rescued and helped by a friendlynative.
Those four were all who came alive out of the Inferno of Cawnpore. Theboat, after clearing the shoal, was captured by the mutineers. MajorVibart of the 2d Cavalry, who was so severely wounded that he could notjoin in the earlier fighting, and some eighty helpless souls under hiscommand, were brought back to the city of death. There, by orders of theNana, the men were slain forthwith and the women and children were takento a building in which they found one hundred and twenty-five others,who had been spared for the Brahmin's own terrible purposes from thebutchery at Massacre Ghat on the 27th.
Returning to Bithoor the Nana was proclaimed Peishwa amid the booming ofcannon and the plaudits of his retainers. He passed a week in drunkenrevels and debauchery, and when, in ignorance of its fate, a smallcompany of European fugitives from Fategarh sought refuge at Cawnpore,he amused himself by having all the men but three killed in hispresence. These three and the women and children who accompanied them,were sent to a small house known as the Bibigarh, in which the whole ofthe captives, now numbering two hundred and eleven, were imprisoned.
Many died, and they were happiest. The survivors were subjected to everyindignity, given the coarsest food, and forced to grind corn for theirconqueror, who, early in July, took up his abode in a large building atCawnpore overlooking the house in which the unhappy people were penned.
But the period of their earthly sufferings was drawing to a close. Anavenging army was moving swiftly up the Grand Trunk Road from Allahabad.The Nana's nephew and two of his lieutenants, leading a large forceagainst the British, were badly defeated. On the 15th of July came thealarming tidings that the Feringhis were only a day's march from thecity.
The Furies must have chosen that date. The Nana, the man who thoughthimself fit to be a king, decided that Havelock would turn back if therewere no more English left in Cawnpore! So as a preliminary to thegreater tragedy, five men who had escaped death thus far--no one knowswhence two of them came--were brought forth and slaughtered at the feetof the renowned Peishwa. Then a squad of sepoys were told to "shoot allthe women and children in the Bibigarh through the windows of thehouse."
Poor wretches--they were afraid to refuse, yet their gorge rose at thedeed, and they fired at the ceiling!
Such weakness was annoying to the puissant Brahmin. He selected twoMohammedan butchers, an Afghan, and two out-caste Hindus, to do hisbidding. A
rmed with long knives these five fiends entered the shambles.Alas, how can the scene that followed be described!
Yet, not even then was the sacrifice complete. Some who were wounded butnot killed, a few children who crept under the garments of their deadmothers, lived until the morning. Not all the native soldiers were solost to human sympathies that they did not shudder at the groans andmuffled cries that came all night from the house of sorrow. Some of themhave left records of sights and sounds too horrible to translate fromtheir Eastern tongue.
But the rumble of distant guns told the destroyer that his short-livedhour of triumph was nearly sped. In a paroxysm of rage and fear, he gavethe final order, and the Well of Cawnpore thereby attained its ghastlyimmortality. By his command all that piteous company of women andchildren, the living and the dead together, were thrown into a deep wellthat stood in the garden of Bibigarh--the House of the Woman.
It was thus that Nana Sahib strove to cloak his crime. Yet never didfoul murderer flaunt deed more glaringly in the face of Heaven. Fiftyyears have passed, myriads of human beings have lived and died since thewell swallowed the Nana's victims, but the memory of those graciouswomen, of those golden-haired children, of those dear little infantsborn while the guns thundered around the entrenchment, shall endureforever. The Nana sought oblivion and forgetfulness for his sin. Heearned the anger of the gods and the malediction of the world, then andfor all time.
