The Sepoy Mutiny Read online

  THE SEPOY MUTINY

  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 R. F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  BY C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  BY V. A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  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 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

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  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 NICHOLAS NICASTRO

  The Eighteenth Captain

  The

  Sepoy

  Mutiny

  V. A. STUART

  The Alexander Sheridan Adventures, No. 2

  MCBOOKS PRESS

  ITHACA, NEW YORK

  Published by McBooks Press 2001

  Copyright © 1964 by V. A. Stuart

  First published as Mutiny in Meerat 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, 520 N. Meadow Street, Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting: Charge of the 16th Queen’s Own Lancers at the Battle of Aliwal, 1846 by Harry Martens. Courtesy of Musée des Beaux Arts, Caen, France;

  UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

  Frontispiece: from Gardiner’s School Atlas of English History, London, 1891.

  The paperback edition of this title was cataloged as:

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stuart, V.A.

  The Sepoy mutiny. / by V.A. Stuart.

  p. cm. —(Military Fiction Classics)

  ISBN 0-935526-99-4 (alk. paper)

  1. India—History—Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858—Fiction. 1. Great Britain—History, Military—19th century—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Victoria, 1837-1901—Fiction. I. Title

  PR6063.A38 S4 2001

  823’.914—dc21

  2001045239

  The e-book versions of this title have the following ISBNs:

  Kindle 978-1-59013-222-7, ePub 978-1-59013-336-1,

  and PDF 978-1-59013-425-2

  www.mcbooks.com

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  GLOSSARY OF INDIAN TERMS

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  PROLOGUE

  THE INDIAN LEADER spoke aloud, but Alex Sheridan had heard such words before, always whispered, passed in secret from man to man—not intended for English ears.

  “I tell you truly, Sheridan Sahib, the days of the Company are numbered. Is it not written that John Company will endure for only one hundred years after Plassey, due to fall next month? It is the will of Allah, that all the feringhi shall be ground into dust. None shall escape from the vengeful swords of the True Believers—men, women, even little children, all will die! In’sha Illah. …” Carried away by his own eloquence, the Moulvi talked on, his voice raised, careless of who might hear him.

  “The times change,” he went on. “Now it is our turn. We shall throw off the shackles of servitude and all Hind will follow our example, religious differences forgotten. When the hour comes, we shall kill for the Faith—we shall restore our king. You British are too few to stand in our way. No man can know the exact hour of his death. But I will tell you this, Sheridan Sahib—you will be dead within a few hours of the dawn of that day!”

  For a Glossary of Indian Terms see page 227, and for Historical Notes on the Mutiny,see page 230.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “SAHIB!” A hand grasped his shoulder, shaking it gently, and Alex Sheridan sat up, taut nerves jerking him to instant wakefulness. Then, remembering where he was, he let himself relax. “Is it time, Partap Singh?”

  “It wants an hour to dawn, Sahib,” his Sikh orderly told him in a sibilant whisper. “There is tea, as you commanded, awaiting you and shaving water also in the ghusl-khana.”

  He withdrew as silently as he had entered the bedroom and Alex rose, careful not to disturb his wife, still sleeping peacefully in the bed beside his own. Anxious to let her sleep for as long as possible and thus postpone—for her, at least—the agony of parting, he picked up the oil lamp his orderly had brought for him to dress by and carried it into the adjoining bathroom. He gulped down two cups of milkless tea as he shaved, finding the task as irksome and difficult with his left hand as he always did, yet persisting with it—again as he always did—obstinately determined to overcome the disability which had resulted from the loss of his right arm at the elbow.

  He had lost the arm two and a half years ago, in the Crimea, when a Cossack sabre had all but severed it in the shambles which had followed the Light Cavalry Brigade’s charge at Balaclava. He bared his teeth in a mirthless smile, mocking his image in the mirror propped up in front of him.

  Who was he to complain of the loss of an arm, when over two hundred and forty of the six hundred men who had charged the Russian guns with him had failed to return from what had since been called “The Valley of Death,” he asked himself grimly. For God’s sake, he was one of the fortunate few! In any case, he had learned to do most things with his left hand now and with reasonable efficiency—he could ride a horse, write a fair letter, fire a pistol, dress himself. Shaving was the on
ly task that caused him the slightest trouble and Emmy, bless her, aware of his difficulty, often performed it for him. No doubt she would reproach him, when she wakened, for not having called her so that she might do so today but … Alex swore softly, feeling the blade nick his cheek.

  There was a muffled sound from the room he had left and he heard Emmy call his name. Her voice held an underlying note of fear as if, glimpsing his empty bed, she sought to reassure herself that he was still there. Before he could call out to stop her, she came running to him in her bare feet, without waiting to don a dressing gown over her thin muslin nightdress.

  “Oh, Alex! I thought, I was afraid—”

  “That I would attempt to slip away without bidding you farewell?” he accused, setting down the bloodied razor.

  She clung to him, hiding her face against his chest.

  “Well, yes. To spare me the pain of watching you go.”

  He caught her to him hungrily, conscious of the swelling contours of her slim body as it pressed against his own. The child they both wanted so much was not due for another two months and he wondered how long it would be before he saw his firstborn. Certainly he would not be with her when her time came; if that which he feared happened and the Bengal army rose up in open mutiny, it might well be six months or a year before he could hope to make the journey to Calcutta to join her. But it was best that she should go there; she would be safe in Calcutta with her sister and brother-in-law.

  As if guessing his thoughts, Emmy raised her small, elfin face to his and asked, her tone flat and devoid of hope, “I suppose it is no use begging you to change your mind at this late hour?”

  Alex shook his head. “Darling, I dare not—for your sake and the child’s. You must go. Harry’s appointment to the Bodyguard will come through in a few days and he’ll have to go … I want you to travel with him, with Anne to look after you. It’s a devilishly trying journey at the best of times, as you very well know, but at least with them, you’ll travel in more comfort than I’d be able to provide.The steamer will take you to Benares and it will only be by dak from there to the railhead. You—”

  “I know, I know,” she interrupted, with weary impatience. “We’ve been through it all so many times. I know it is the sensible thing to do—but when was I ever sensible, Alex?”

  “Very seldom,” he agreed, laughing. “You have never grown up, my love, and I doubt if you ever will! Not that I would have you any different.” He smiled down at her tenderly and then spun her around, sending her from him with a playful but admonitory tap on her rounded, thinly clad rump. “Back to bed with you now and let me finish shaving. It’s bad for that child of yours to stand here without a wrap or slippers. There’s tea still left in the pot—I’ll carry the tray in for you.”

  Emmy did not respond to his attempt at jocularity, but she obediently went back to bed, carrying the tea-tray herself. When, booted and spurred but still in his shirtsleeves, Alex rejoined her, he saw with concern that the tea stood untouched and that she was weeping silently, her head buried in her two outstretched hands and her shoulders shaking.

  “Oh, come now, darling, this isn’t like you.” He went to her, smoothing the ruffled dark hair which cascaded over her face. “You mustn’t take it so hard. We’ve been parted before and I’ve always come back to you. I shan’t stay away an instant longer than I must, believe me, dearest, because this time it will not only be you I’ll be coming back to, it will be the child—our child—as well, Emmy. Don’t you realize that I—”

  She cut him short. “I think I almost hate the child,” she told him fiercely. “It is on the child’s account that I must leave you. If there had been no child you—”

  “Darling, I should still have jumped at the chance of your going to Calcutta with Anne and Harry,” Alex answered gravely. “This is a serious situation and, when it comes to a head—as I fear it must—it will be dangerous. I shudder to think how dangerous for those who cannot defend themselves.”

  “But you would have let me stay if you had still been in Adjodhabad,” Emmy persisted, her tear-bright eyes reproaching him.

  Perhaps he would, Alex thought, because in Adjodhabad he would have been in a position to take effective action to avert the danger. As district commissioner, he would have had the power to compel even men as blind and pig-headed as old Colonel Chalmers to disarm his recalcitrant sowars before the plots they were hatching had had time to come to fruition. But it had, of course, been on this account that he had been relieved of his post; “Bay” Chalmers had influence in high places and he had used it, in order to save his beloved regiment from what he conceived to be the ultimate dishonor. Even when offered proof that his men were intriguing with the fakirs who visited them secretly, Colonel Chalmers had refused to listen … and there were others like him. There were far too many others, in the Army of Bengal, for any attempt to be made to avert disaster until it was too late. He smothered a sigh as Emmy went on, “Other women aren’t being sent away. The wives here in Cawnpore are remaining with their husbands—even those who are pregnant and it’s the same in Lucknow and most of the other stations, I’ve been told. Very few have gone or are thinking of going and, naturally, they are keeping their children with them. They’re not afraid or—”

  “More’s the pity,” Alex said, with genuine regret. “Because if the sepoys rise, they may impede their husbands more than they will help them. No fighting man can give of his best when there are women and children to be considered—that has been proved, time and again.”

  “Perhaps so, but”—Emmy remained unconvinced—“you cannot be sure that the sepoys will rise.”

  “Every scrap of evidence points to it, Emmy.”

  “I know that some of the regiments are disaffected,” she conceded. “But only a few and surely they can be disbanded and sent back to their villages, like the 19th were? And if, as they say he has, Lord Canning has ordered those wretched greased cartridges to be withdrawn, what reason can the sepoys have to mutiny?”

  “Reasons for revolt are still not lacking,” Alex told her. “In any case, the cartridges were more a means to an end than a reason—an excuse to stir up trouble, their importance deliberately exaggerated by …” he broke off, reluctant to tell her too much, and reached for his jacket. “Time’s marching on, my love.”

  “But, Alex …” Emmy caught at his arm. “Every officer I’ve spoken to here has assured me that his men are loyal, and General Wheeler says that it is wrong to show mistrust or to—”

  “I heard what General Wheeler said,” Alex put in, an edge to his voice. “The general has a Hindu wife and a misguided trust in the friendship of the Nana Sahib. I spent most of the evening listening to his views and I can only tell you that I wish to heaven I could share his confidence. Alas, I cannot. The Nana has no love for us—he’s bitterly resentful because the Company refused him a pension when his adoptive father died.”

  “Why did they refuse him?”

  “Probably to save money, darling.” Alex spoke dryly. “The official reason is because Baji Rao had no legitimate son to succeed him. The Nana—his real name is Dundoo Punth—was adopted, and the Company lawyers decreed that he had no right to the pension which Baji Rao enjoyed or to the title of Peishwa.”

  “But he is a maharajah, is he not?” Emmy questioned uncertainly. “They speak of him as such.”

  Alex shrugged. Thinking to distract her from the grief of parting, he went into details. “Oh, he calls himself the Maharajah of Bithur but he has no legitimate claim to that title either, although he did inherit his adoptive father’s personal fortune—which was considerable—and the palace of Bithur. Rumor has it that he’s now heavily in debt and in the hands of the money-lenders. Small wonder, considering the state in which he lives, with his own army and some fifteen thousand retainers to support! And he entertains the garrison right royally, I’m told, giving dinners and hunting parties and picnics, as well as presents of silks and jewels to the officers’ ladies. The general is a
frequent guest at the palace and, as I said, trusts him implicitly.”

  “But surely he’s trying to be friendly,” Emmy defended. “Yet you condemn him for it. Would you rather he exhibited hostility towards the garrison?”

  “Yes, in his case, I think I would. The Nana is a Mahratta, you see, and—”

  “What difference does that make?”

  Alex completed the buttoning of his stable-jacket and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “All the Mahrattas, as Sir Henry Lawrence once said, are adept at deceit, my love. It’s part of their character and they are most to be feared when—like the Greeks—they come bearing gifts and professing friendship. Yet General Wheeler told me, quite seriously, last night that if his native regiments do give trouble, he intends to appeal to the Nana Sahib for aid. He intends to guard the Magazine and the Treasury with men of the Nana’s bodyguard and, if he deems it necessary, to confide the British women and children to his care at Bithur! If that is not an act of madness, then I do not know what is—as well let a pack of wolves into a sheepfold as place such an opportunity in the Nana’s reach!”

  “Not everyone thinks as you do, Alex,” his wife said, a catch in her voice. “You know what they called you in Adjodhabad, do you not?”

  “I could hardly help knowing, when I was called a fearmonger to my face!” Alex answered harshly. “I had hoped, though, that they might have spared you their opinion of me.” Seeing the pain in Emmy’s dark eyes, he took her hand in his and asked gently, “Which of them told you?”

  She looked down at their two linked hands, avoiding his gaze. “Most of the wives, at some time or other … and Colonel Chalmers lectured me once concerning your—your attitude to the tired and trusted sowars of his regiment. I suppose he hoped that I might try to change your attitude.”

  “But you didn’t try, did you?”

  “Since you never discussed it with me,” Emmy said, with a hint of bitterness, “I couldn’t, could I?”