The Heroic Garrison Page 18

  He might, perhaps, put Man Singh’s loyalty to the test by requesting his aid for the fugitives, Alex thought wryly. Beyond that . . . dear God, he must delay his own escape no longer. If the Nana was, in fact, coming to Lucknow, it was on the cards that he would demand the execution of the unfortunates from Sitapur and . . . the old woman, clinging to his cheroot case as if it were a talisman, was on her feet, again begging Letty to hasten her departure and warning her of the consequences if she did not.

  “I will stay here no longer,” she chided. “If the daffadar should discover where you have been, little one, he will slit my throat and doubtless yours also! And the Rajah Sahib will be angry—” The girl cut her short.

  “All right, I am coming.” She looked up at Alex, hesitated, and then held out her hand. “We shall not see each other again, Colonel Sheridan, but I shall think of you and pray for you.”

  “And I for you, Letty,” Alex assured her. He took her hand in his and, disregarding the old woman’s outraged protests, bore it to his lips. “Khuda hafiz,” he added, using the old Muslim blessing. “Go with God, Auliah!”

  “I do not know any longer with which God,” Letty answered wretchedly.” But perhaps it does not matter.There is no God but God, I have been taught, and I shall try to believe that.”

  She slipped from the tent in the wake of her anxious attendant, and Alex was conscious of an overwhelming sadness as he watched the darkness swallow her up. In the circumstances, she had, he knew, made the only possible decision, but all the same it had been a heartbreaking one, both for her and for himself.

  Next morning, Subedar Kedar Nath told him that Mohammed Khan had departed at dawn with his wife; significantly, it was the first time the old man had referred to Letty as such—always previously he had called her “the daughter of General Wheeler.” Alex asked him about the newly arrived prisoners in the Kaiser Bagh, but he denied all knowledge of them and, to the request that an interview be arranged with Man Singh, he returned a blank, uncomprehending stare and then claimed unconvincingly that the Rajah had left the camp. Some hours later, however, the vakeel, Ananta Ram—who had evidently just returned from his mission to Cawnpore—presented himself in Alex’s tent and, after some politely meaningless inquiries as to his health and wellbeing, volunteered the information that his master had interceded on behalf of the British fugitives.

  “Are they to be brought here?” Alex asked eagerly, but the vakeel shook his head.

  “That will not be possible, Sheridan Sahib. My master endeavored, of course, to persuade the Begum to allow them to be placed under his protection, but the Moulvi raised strenuous objections . . . and the Begum alas, listens to no one else.” Ananta Ram shrugged his plump shoulders. “Nevertheless,” he qualified, sensing Alex’s dismayed reaction to this news, “they have been placed in the custody of Daroga Wajid Ali, who is a kindly, well-intentioned man and indebted to my master for many favors in the past. He will see to it that the sahib-log are not abused and that they are given food and water and changes of raiment.They are still held in the Kaiser Bagh, guarded by the Moulvi’s soldiers, but already Wajid Ali has caused their fetters to be removed and he has summoned a physician to attend them.”

  “Are they ill, Ananta Ram—or wounded?”

  “Regrettably it seems that all are sick, Sahib,” Ananta Ram admitted. “Lonee Singh is a cruel and treacherous man, who let them wander in the jungle and starve, after they fled from Sitapur to seek his protection—and it was he who betrayed them, being paid in gold by the Nana for his betrayal. My master intends to inform General Outram of this, so that just punishment may be meted out to Lonee Singh when the British Raj is restored.”

  “And to the Nana also,” Alex reminded him.

  “Most assuredly, Sahib,” the vakeel agreed hastily. He made no mention of the Nana’s impending visit and was, as usual, evasive when Alex brought up the subject of his own return to the Residency, but he seemed anxious to speak of his journey to Cawnpore, describing in enthusiastic detail the number of troops now gathered there in expectation of the arrival of the commander-in-chief. If he had learned nothing else during his enforced sojourn in Man Singh’s camp, he had at least learned patience, Alex thought ruefully; he hid his own anxiety and let the man talk, hearing much that was calculated to raise his spirits. Hope Grant’s column, it seemed, was continuing to carry all before it, and his cavalry had engaged and defeated a strong force of the Nana’s Irregulars, driving them once more across the river into Oudh.

  He listened for the most part in silence, only now and then interposing a question but had to suppress an exclamation of incredulity when the vakeel described the entry into Cawnpore of what appeared to be a naval advance party, with a battery of twenty-four-pounder guns, drawn by elephants, which he claimed had come up from Allahabad.

  “And they are saying that more sailors with heavy guns will come up by river, Sahib,” Ananta Ram confided, a broad grin curving his lips. “Bruce Sahib told me also that Delhi is again in British hands—he had received definite confirmation of this and I heard it, too, from sepoys I met on the road, who had themselves fled from there. The tide is turning at last—soon, surely, Lucknow will be liberated!”

  “Very soon, Ananta Ram,” Alex retorted crisply. “It would therefore be a wise move on your master’s part if he were to insist on the Sitapur prisoners’ release from the Kaiser Bagh. If they are brought here, they will be safe, and they can then return with me to the Residency as added proof of the Rajah Sahib’s loyalty and goodwill.”

  “My master has used his best endeavors, I assure you, Sheridan Sahib, but without success.The Moulvi will not let them go. As I told you, they are sick—too sick to be moved and—”

  “Have you seen them?” Alex interrupted.

  The plump Brahmin shook his head. “No, Sahib, it was not permitted. I am only just back from Cawnpore, but I went with all haste and—”

  “But Daroga Wajid Ali is in your master’s debt! Surely he will permit you to see them?”

  “I shall try a second time, Sheridan Sahib.”

  “Soon?” Alex persisted.

  “This evening, if it is possible,” Ananta Ram promised “Have you some message you wish me to deliver to them?”

  Alex pondered the question, frowning. A written message might be dangerous, both for himself and for the recipient, he knew, but a verbal one, offering encouragement to the fugitives, could do no harm. It was as much as Ananta Ram’s life was worth to disclose his presence in the Rajah’s camp to the Moulvi, so that obviously the vakeel would take every care in its delivery.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will send a message. Do you know who the prisoners are? Have you heard their names?”

  “Alas, I know little, Sheridan Sahib. But there are eight of them—four sahibs and two mems, with two small girl-children, I was told.” Ananta Ram hesitated, licking his lips uncertainly. “One name I did hear, Sahib . . . it was, I think, Jackson.”

  Mountstuart Jackson, Alex thought . . . eight of them, including the children.Oh, merciful heaven, were they the only survivors of the outbreak in Sitapur? He cast his mind back, having to make an effort to remember. Jackson’s two pretty young sisters —Madeline and . . . what had been the elder girl’s name? Mary . . . Margaret? He could not remember very much about them, except that they had stayed for a time in Lucknow with their uncle, Coverly Jackson—at that time chief commissioner of Oudh and, ironically, the man responsible for the abrupt termination of his own civil appointment in Adjodhabad. Well connected, young and fresh from England, both girls had been popular and very much part of the social scene in Lucknow—he had a vague recollection of having met them at a ball or dinner at the Residency, which he had attended when Emmy . . . he drew in his breath sharply. When Emmy had been alive . . .

  “I will find out the names for you, Sahib,” Ananta Ram offered. “Then you can compose the message I am to deliver to them.”

  He was as good as his word and, just after sunset, returned
with the names of the Kaiser Bagh captives. “The sahibs are Assistant Commissioner Mountstuart Jackson, Lieutenant Burns, Adjutant of the Tenth Oudh Irregular Infantry, and Sergeant Major Morton of the same regiment—who is an old man, Sheridan Sahib, and like to die from the sickness that possesses him. The fourth sahib is from Mohumdi, Captain Orr, with his memsahib and girl-child, and the other mem is the sister of Jackson Sahib. In addition, there is another small child, whose parents are dead—Sophie Christian.”

  So the kindly George Christian was dead and his wife with him, Alex thought bitterly—they and God knew how many more unfortunates, who had remained at their isolated stations without regard for their own safety, in the vain hope that, by their continued presence, they might stem the tide of revolt. Although always outnumbered by the sepoys and native police they commanded, the officers had stayed and most of their womenfolk also, aware that no help could reach them if their regiments mutinied, yet trusting in their loyalty until the last and paying with their lives when that trust was betrayed . . . all of them, for the women and children had not been spared.

  Young Mountstuart Jackson was without one of his sisters, Burns without his wife; the Orrs, seemingly, had contrived to keep together and somehow, between them, they had saved the Christians’ little daughter . . . Alex’s mouth tightened into a grim, hard line. Patrick Orr was from Mohumdi, where he had been assistant to the commissioner, John Thomason, he remembered. His brother Alexander, who had held a similar political appointment in Fyzabad, had also barely escaped with his life when the 17th Native Infantry had mutinied. He had joined Sir James Outram in Dinapore and—if he had survived the battle to enter Lucknow—was now in the Residency with the rest of the relief force. He . . .

  “Sahib . . .” Ananta Ram’s voice broke into his thoughts. “They sent a letter. I have it here.”

  “A letter? Then—you saw them?”

  “Ji-han, Sahib.” The vakeel produced two crumpled sheets of native-made paper from the concealment of his tightly wound cummerbund. “It is addressed to General Outram, but Orr Sahib said that any in the Rajah Sahib’s camp might read it if they wished. I shall prepare a translation for my master when he returns and later, no doubt, the letter will be delivered to the General Sahib by one of our most trusted cossids.”

  Alex spread out the crumpled sheets on the table in front of him and read the scrawled words in shocked and angry silence. Orr described the outbreak of mutiny at Shahjehanpur, listing those whom he knew to have escaped the massacre there.A handful of them had reached his own station of Mohumdi on June 1, where he and the Commissioner, Thomason, had been doing all in their power to pacify their own native troops and guard the Treasury, but, on the arrival of a detachment of fifty mutineers from Sitapur, his men had joined them.They had, however, sworn solemn oaths that if the treasure—amounting to over a lac of rupees—was given up to them, they would spare the lives of the European officers and their families.

  “We left Mohumdi at half-past five p.m. on Thursday,” Patrick Orr’s narrative continued. “After the men had secured the treasure and released the prisoners, I put as many ladies as I could into the buggy and others on the baggage-carts and we reached Burwar at 10:30 p.m. Next morning, Friday fifth, we marched toward Aurungabad and had gone about two koss when we saw a party following us.We pushed on with all our might, but when we were within a mile of Aurungabad, some of the sepoys rushed us. One snatched Key’s gun from him, another shot down poor old Sheils . . . and then the most fearful carnage began. We collected beneath a tree and endeavored to protect the ladies and children, but shots were being fired from all directions and soon most of the men were disabled. The poor ladies knelt in prayer, undauntedly awaiting their fate.

  “I rushed out toward the insurgents, thinking to end my life thus rather than be shot down, but one of my men, Goordhun of the 6th Company, called out to me to throw down my pistol and he would save me. I had sent Annie, my wife, to Mithowlee with our child and, thinking of them, I endeavored to save my life for their sakes. I yielded my pistol to Goordhun, and he and several others put themselves between me and the rest of the mutineers.

  “In about ten minutes more, while I was three hundred yards off, they completed their hellish work. The cowardly wretches would not go near the tree until they had shot poor Lysaght who, to the last, was attempting to defend the ladies. He fell and, rushing up, they killed the wounded and children, butchering them in the most cruel and savage manner, including poor, good Thomason . . . after which they denuded the bodies of their clothes, for the sake of plunder. Everyone on the attached list ...was killed, with the exception of the drummer boy, whom they took with them.”

  Alex studied the list with mounting dismay and then read the terrible account of what the fugitives had suffered at the hands of Rajah Lonee Singh, to whom Goordhun and a few faithful sepoys had finally delivered the man whose life they had saved. At Mithowlee, Orr had been reunited with his wife and child, and had joined Mountstuart Jackson, his sister Madeline, and Burns and Morton of the 10th Oudh Irregulars, whose escape from Sitapur had been no less remarkable than his own. One party, which had left Sitapur prior to the mutiny of the native troops, had reached Lucknow safely, escorted by thirty men of the 41st Native Infantry and met by a small detachment of Volunteer Horse whom Sir Henry Lawrence had sent to their aid. The others, who had waited too long, had been butchered as brutally as those from Mohumdi and Shahjehanpur, and the few who had managed to escape had divided into two parties—Burns, the two young Jacksons, and little Sophie Christian being, to the best of Orr’s knowledge, the only survivors.

  “We reached Mithowlee exhausted and in rags,” Patrick Orr’s letter went on. “The others had wandered for five days in the jungle . . . their feet were bare and lacerated, they were almost driven mad by thirst, and Lonee Singh lodged us in a cowshed, sending us on next day to a desolate, unfurnished fort at Katchiani. Subsequently, on the excuse that there were mutineers in the district and he could not shelter our whole party, the Rajah sent me out, with my wife and the child, into the jungle. We were there for a week, without food, having to burn fires at night to ward off prowling tigers and continually in dread of discovery by the rebels.

  “Finally, the mutineers having dispersed, Lonee Singh permitted us to return to the fort, in which wretched place we existed in helpless misery, for he supplied us with only sufficient food to ward off starvation. Such news as reached us from the outside world told of the sufferings of our countrymen and the triumphs of the mutineers, so that we were close to despair.Then, early in August, on the excuse that more bands of rebels were searching for us, the Rajah sent all of us forth into the jungle to hide as best we could from those who sought to destroy us. We hid ourselves successfully but at the cost of our health and strength, being in turn scorched by a pitiless sun and half-drowned by torrents of rain, from neither of which had we any shelter. All of us were attacked by fever; how we sustained life during those weeks I do not know.

  “Once a message reached us, to say that help would be sent from Lucknow and our hopes were revived, only to be dashed when no help came. Finally, Lonee Singh—evidently deciding that the British star had set—sent a large party of his retainers to search for us. On finding us, they put us into bullock carts, and the Rajah’s vakeel—a man who owed his advancement in Lonee Singh’s service to me—ordered us to be fettered, and thus we were brought to Lucknow. On reaching the city, they forced us to walk to the Kaiser Bagh, where we are now confined, and a mob collected to laugh and jeer at us. Poor George Burns went out of his mind and has not yet recovered his senses; Sergeant Major Morton collapsed in a convulsive fit, and when we gained our prison at last, Mountstuart Jackson and my dear wife fell down swooning from weakness. When I pleaded for water—for we were suffering agonies of thirst—it was brought to us, but in a vessel so foul that we could not bring ourselves to touch it.

  “Since our arrival, however, a man named Wajid Ali had done all in his power to lighten the burden
of our suffering. Even so, we are so sick and emaciated that I fear we shall not survive if help is not sent to us soon.”

  Alex set down the letter and turned to Ananta Ram, white to the lips with bitter, impotent fury.

  “Have you read this letter?” he demanded harshly.

  The stout Brahmin inclined his head, avoiding the Englishman’s accusing gaze. “I read it, Sheridan Sahib, and my heart bleeds for these poor people. But—”

  “It must be shown to your master at once. At once, do you hear? The Rajah Sahib must bring them to his camp, he—”

  “Truly, that is impossible, Sahib. I shall have the letter translated immediately, and I will myself bring it to my master’s attention, but more I cannot do. The Rajah will help them as much as lies in his power—he has caused Wajid Ali to be put in charge of them, Sahib, but he cannot bring them here without placing himself and his entire camp in great danger.The Moulvi has forbidden that they be moved and it is death to go against the Moulvi’s commands.”

  Conscious, as never before of his own helplessness, Alex made a effort to control the futile anger that swept over him. To rant and rail at Ananta Ram would do no good, he told himself, and might even antagonize the man who, after all, had done the best he could in the circumstances. He decided on an appeal. “Ask the Rajah Sahib to release me. I will take this letter to General Outram and—”

  “You would never reach the Residency, Sahib. Even our cossids have difficulty. They are only permitted to pass because it is believed that they are spying for the rebels. They—”