Massacre at Cawnpore Read online

  MASSACRE AT CAWNPORE

  Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour this Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay OR

  The Naval Officer

  The King’s Own

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster OR

  The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow OR

  The Dog Fiend

  The Privateersman

  The Phantom Ship

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  BY IRV C. ROGERS

  Motoo Eetee

  BY NICHOLAS NICASTRO

  The Eighteenth Captain

  BY C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  BY W. CLARK RUSSELL

  Wreck of the Grosvenor

  Yarn of Old Harbour Town

  BY RAFAEL SABATINI

  Captain Blood

  BY MICHAEL SCOTT

  Tom Cringle’s Log

  BY A.D. HOWDEN SMITH

  Porto Bello Gold

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  Massacre

  at

  Cawnpore

  V. A. STUART

  The Alexander Sheridan Adventures, No. 3

  MCBOOKS PRESS

  ITHACA, NEW YORK

  Published by McBooks Press 2002

  Copyright © 1973 by V. A. Stuart

  First published in Great Britain by Robert Hale Limited, London 1974

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or

  any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or

  mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Requests for such permissions should be addressed to

  McBooks Press, 120 West State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting: Chandahar: The 92nd Highlanders and the 2nd Gurkas Stroming

  Gaudi Mullah Sahibdad by Richard Caton Woodville (1825–56).

  Courtesy of UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

  Map page 22 from Gardiner’s School Atlas of English History,

  London, 1891.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stuart, V.A.

  Massacre at Cawnpore / by V. A. Stuart.

  p. cm. — (Alexander Sheridan adventures ; no. 3)

  ISBN 1-59013-019-7 (alk. paper)

  1. India—History—Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858—Fiction.

  2. Kaanpur (India)—History—Seige, 1957—Fiction. 3. British— India—Fiction. 4. Massacres—Fiction. 5. Seiges—Fiction. I. Title

  PR6063.A38 M37 2002

  823’.914—dc21

  2002000158

  All McBooks Press publications can be ordered by calling

  toll-free 1-888-BOOKS11 (1-888-266-5711).

  Please call to request a free catalog.

  Visit the McBooks Press website at www.mcbooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For John Hayward …

  in token of my gratitude for the use of his library

  and the loan of numerous rare books and records,

  without which this novel could not have been written.

  Weep not … they died as heroes die,

  The death permitted to the brave.

  Mourn not … they lie where soldiers lie,

  And valour envies such a grave.

  CONTEMPORARY POEM

  INSPIRED BY THE CAWNPORE MASSACRE

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Historical Notes

  Glossary of Indian Terms

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  BASED ON subsequently published accounts by survivors of the siege of the Cawnpore entrenchments, everything recounted in this novel actually happened.

  The only fictitious characters are Alex Sheridan and his wife Emmy; all others mentioned—with the sole exception of Lucy Chalmers—are called by their correct names, and their actions are on historical record although, of course, their conversations with the fictitious characters are imagined.

  Accounts by survivors are by Commissariat Officer J.W. Shepherd and by Lieutenants Mowbray Thomson* and Henry Delafosse of the 53rd Native Infantry, Bengal Army. Maps, researched by Grace Lewis, are taken from the published account by J. W. Shepherd, kindly lent by John Hayward. Other books consulted include: The History of the Indian Mutiny—Charles Ball (London Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd., circa 1860). T. Rice Holmes’s book with the same title (Macmillan 1898). Malleson and Mac-Munn’s The History of India—James Grant (Cassell, circa 1888). History of the British Empire in India—Dr E. H. Nolan (Virtue & Co., circa 1860). Battles of the Indian Mutiny—Michael Edwardes (Batsford 1963). Addiscombe: Its Heroes and Men of Note—Col. H. M. Vibart (Constable 1894). The Tale of the Great Mutiny—W. H. Fitchett (Smith, Elder & Co. 1909). Way to Glory—Life of Havelock of Lucknow—J. C. Pollock (John Murray 1957). The Sound of Fury—Richard Collier (Collins 1963). Government of India State Papers (Lucknow and Cawnpore)—Calcutta Military Department Press (1902) edited G.W. Forrest, C.I.E. The Sepoy War—General Sir Hope Grant, G.C.B., and Captain Henry Knollys, R.A. (Blackwood 1873).

  *Mowbray Thomson numbers defended (unfinished) barracks as 2 and 4, but numbers them 1-8 on his sketch map. On the map used (Shepherd’s) they are shown as 4 and 6.

  PROLOGUE

  BY MID-AFTERNOON on Friday, 5th June, 1857, the last of the sepoy corp
s to join in the mutiny of the Cawnpore Brigade— the 56th Bengal Native Infantry—formed up in readiness to follow the rest of the brigade on the long march to Delhi.

  The 56th had hesitated, mindful of their long tradition of service to the Company and reluctant to betray the trust reposed in them by their British officers. Some of their number had fought to defend the Magazine, when the sowars of the 2nd Native Cavalry—dogs of Muslims—had endeavoured to plunder it of its weapons of war. They, with a section of the 53rd, had held off the men of the Nana Sahib’s bodyguard, to whom responsibility for the safety of both Magazine and Treasury had been confided, refusing to believe the arrogant claim—made by Azimullah Khan, the Nana’s Mohammedan vakil—that the sun had set on the British Raj and on the great John Company, which had ruled all Hind for a hundred years. Yet the General Sahib, to whom their native officers had gone to offer assurances that the regiment would remain loyal, had ordered a cannon to open fire on them, as they waited in their Lines, and this inexplicable act of hostility had broken the ties which bound them to their allegiance.

  With the exception of a handful of older men—who, despite the shower of grapeshot which had rained down on them, had elected to join the British in their entrenchment—the 56th Regiment had now thrown in their lot with the mutineers and they were in good heart as they swung along the dusty road which led to Kalianpore, where it had been agreed that the brigade would bivouac for the night. The drums and fifes were playing a familiar British march, “Over the hills and far away,” and without any conscious sense of irony, the sepoys kept to the lively air. In their scarlet tunics and white crossbelts, with muskets shouldered and shakoed heads held high, they looked the picture of a well-disciplined corps as they marched, four abreast, out of Cawnpore, the cheers of an excited crowd from the native city ringing in their ears.

  Behind them, to mark their passing, pillaged buildings—once a symbol of British power—smouldered into extinction, and a few pathetic corpses, already bloated by the heat of the sun, lay unburied and unmourned. The heavy, iron-bound door of the Treasury sagged drunkenly on shattered hinges; the jail and the courthouse were in flames and the Magazine had been systematically denuded of military stores. A part of its outer wall had been blown in and reduced to a heap of rubble, in order to facilitate the passage of the field guns and ammunition tumbrils which the mutineers had seized and which, harnessed to bullock teams and elephants, were now heading towards Kalianpore, as the sepoys were, on the first stage of their 270 mile journey. Every man knew that there could be no turning back—the die was cast, the mutiny of the Sepoy Army of Bengal no longer a pipe-dream but stern reality. Victory would mean freedom but defeat, they were well aware, would mean death for those who had betrayed their salt … the British would not forgive what had been done here this day, any more than they would forget what had been done— almost a month before—in Meerut and Delhi.

  They had everything to gain and nothing to lose, their native officers told them, and there was no reason to linger here when their comrades were awaiting them in Delhi, so they stepped out smartly, booted feet kicking up the dust, as the cheers grew fainter and finally faded into silence.

  A mob from the bazaar, composed of unruly elements, had been hovering on the fringe of the crowd, cheering as lustily as the rest but, as if the sepoys departure were a signal for which they had been waiting, they now separated from it and spread out, bent on turning the situation to their own advantage. This was an opportunity to pay off old scores and to take possession of the plunder the sepoys had left—too good an opportunity to be missed. The mutineers had burdened themselves with guns, they had not touched the cantonment bungalows or those in the Civil Lines … running swiftly, the rioters made for the walled enclosures at the river’s edge and derisive shouts greeted the leaping flames as they set torches to the thatched roofs and sun-dried timbers.

  Uniformed police mingled with newly released convicts and with the city riff-raff, making no attempt to deter them from their purpose and turning a blind eye to looters and fire-raisers alike. Even when the hapless family of a railway engineer was discovered, hiding in a godown, the police were deaf to their cries. Thus encouraged, the hate-crazed mob hacked the unfortunate mother to pieces and, flinging the children from one to another, disposed of them as mercilessly, finally letting the tiny bodies fall into the trampled mud at their feet as if they were broken toys.

  Sitting his horse a short distance away, the Nana Sahib—Dundoo Punth, self-styled Maharajah of Bithur—watched them, his round, plump face devoid of expression. His thoughts were of the meeting he had just had with a deputation of native officers from the four mutinous regiments and of the promises he had made to them when he accepted an invitation to become their leader. His acceptance had, of course, been conditional on the mutineers’ return to Cawnpore … he had no intention of leading them to Delhi to support the cause of the Mogul Emperor when, with their swords at his back, there was a kingdom here which could be had for the taking, once the British had been driven out. His kingdom, long promised to him by his adoptive father, Baji Rao, last of the great Mahratta Peishwas—his kingdom which, with Baji Rao’s pension, the British had denied him, despite all his efforts to show himself as their friend and ally … his dark, curving brows met in a scowl.

  How he had worked to cultivate good relations with the British! He had entertained the Cawnpore garrison lavishly, had given dinners in their honour, organised picnics and hunting parties for them, making expensive gifts to their whey-faced womenfolk, enduring the boredom of their company and of their conversation—in a language he neither spoke nor understood— for hour after endless hour. And all to no avail, although time and again old General Wheeler had assured him that he would make representations on his behalf to the Court of Governors of the Company, and the general’s wife, who was of his own caste and creed, had begged him to be patient. He had been patient, the Nana told himself. He had waited, whilst his coffers emptied and he had been compelled to call on the money-lenders to supply him, at exorbitant rates of interest, with the means to live in the manner to which his position entitled him, and to support the thousands of retainers who were dependent on him … fifteen thousand of them, the majority useless old men, responsibility for whom had been bequeathed to him by Baji Rao.

  Yet nothing had been done. He had sent his young aide, Azimullah Khan, to London at great expense, to put his case to the governors of the Company and they had rejected his claim, refusing to recognise the Hindu ceremony of adoption which, under ancient Indian Law, gave him the same rights as a natural-born son of the Peishwa would have enjoyed. He had been permitted to inherit Baji Rao’s private fortune and his palace at Bithur, with his debts and his retainers, but that was all. The Peishwa’s generous pension was deemed to have died with him and his private fortune—never as large as the British chose to believe—had long since been dissipated.

  He had had no choice, the Nana Sahib reflected bitterly, no choice at all in the circumstances but to embrace the mutineers’ cause. He was in much the same position as they were, with little to lose and everything to gain by severing his ties with the British. Crippled by debt, continually hounded by rapacious money-lenders, in what other way could he hope to recoup his fortune or regain his lost throne? He had for a time, it was true, toyed with the idea of ranging himself so staunchly on the side of the British, when the sepoys rose, that the Company would be in honour bound to reward his loyalty by recognising the justice of his claim and paying him the pension they had for so long refused. But the success of this manoeuvre would depend on the British emerging victorious from the struggle, and events in Meerut and Delhi had convinced him that it was unlikely—a conviction to which General Wheeler’s ludicrously inadequate preparations for the defence of Cawnpore had added weight. Wheeler, for all his glowing record, was proving as unfitted for command as Hewitt had proved in Meerut.

  Had the old general decided to defend the Magazine, it might have been different, but as
matters stood … the Nana Sahib smiled to himself. Most of the Company’s generals were too old and Wheeler was in his dotage—he had refused to listen to advice, had rejected all attempts to persuade him to move his troops into the Magazine for fear of showing mistrust of the sepoys which, he had insisted, might offer them an excuse to mutiny. Obstinate to the last, he had built what he was pleased to call an entrenchment out on the open plain that was, in fact, nothing more than a death-trap for the nine hundred souls he had herded into its confines … and the sepoys, neither waiting for nor requiring an excuse, had mutinied just the same.

  Clearly Wheeler was mad or too senile to understand the gravity of the situation. Of those sheltering now in the entrenchment, close on four hundred were women and children. Burdened by these and by non-combatant civilians, railway engineers and a horde of frightened Eurasian Christians, with a scant two hundred trained British soldiers, a handful of British and native officers and a few loyal sepoys to defend them, what chance did the old man imagine he had, behind his crumbling mud walls? The British, admittedly, fought best when the odds were against them, but this time surely the odds were too long … with the sun beating down on them and some four thousand sepoys, with heavy guns, attacking them day and night, how could any of the motley garrison hope to survive?

  The Nana’s smile faded, as he considered the odds. The hot weather had begun and with each day the temperature would soar. The recently built barrack and the new European hospital block, on which the defenders were depending for shelter, were of flimsy construction and would not long withstand the pounding of shot and shell … and the hospital was roofed only with thatch. The barracks were overlooked by other as yet unfinished new blocks from which the sepoys could fire down with impunity; the old general had not laid in adequate stocks of food or of ammunition for his eight light field guns and there was only one well within the whole of the four-acre entrenchment. A few marksmen, carefully positioned, should be able to keep the well under continuous fire during the hours of daylight and, deprived of water at the height of the Indian summer, not even the British could hold out for more than a few days. A week, perhaps, at most and if he offered a reward to any man who succeeded in setting the hospital roof ablaze, then … the Nana Sahib’s smile returned.