The Cannons of Lucknow Page 4

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Birch acknowledged, crestfallen. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “We’re going to bivouac here and push on at first light,” Barrow told him. “So cut along, like a good fellow, and see that my horse and Colonel Sheridan’s are fed and watered with your own, would you? Captain Thompson is detailing a night guard—report to him.”

  “Very good, sir.” Thankfully, the boy made his escape. When he had gone, Lousada Barrow made a brief and impersonal inspection of the sepoys’ bodies and said ruefully, as he led the way outside,” That poor devil’s dead, Alex, the one who tried to escape from them. My boys are digging a grave for him now. He was an Englishman, but God knows who he was; perhaps you’d better see if you can identify him before we put him under. He might have been from the entrenchment, though I doubt it—he was too well fed. He’s not a pretty sight … nose, hands, and tongue removed expertly and fairly recently. He tried to talk but I couldn’t understand what he wanted to tell me. Something about a well, I think. That was the only word I could make out.”

  The burial party was at work under a clump of trees. Alex knelt beside the mutilated body, but was forced to shake his head. “To the best of my recollection I’ve never set eyes on him before, Lou.” He rose, brushing the earth from his knees. “Have you tried the prisoner?”

  “No, but we can do that now. Swanston offered to interrogate him. They’re somewhere near—yes, over there, d’you see? We’ll have a word with him.” They walked across side by side. In the fading light, it was difficult to make out the prisoner’s expression, but he seemed frightened and ill at ease and his interrogator, Lieutenant Oliver Swanston, greeted them with barely suppressed excitement. He had been Barrow’s Assistant Commissioner in Salone and was a brilliant linguist.

  “I believe we’re on to something, Lou,” he said. “This chap’s a subedar of the 17th—Ramsay says he knows him well. His name is Bhandoo Singh and he was one of the ringleaders when the regiment mutinied at Azimgurh. I gather that he was the instigator of the theft of seven and a half lacs of treasure, which was being taken to Benares by a troop of Oudh irregular cavalry.”

  Barrow’s bristling brows rose. “Was he now! Then he’s quite a prize, is he not? What happened to the treasure?”

  Oliver Swanston laughed without amusement. “The subedar says they handed it over to the Nana Sahib.”

  “Is that the truth, Bhandoo Singh?” the cavalry commander demanded, addressing the man in his own language. “Did you yield up the treasure your regiment stole to the Nana?”

  The prisoner inclined his head in sullen acquiescence.

  “The Maharajah Bahadur insisted on it, Sahib, before he would permit the men of my paltan to serve under his command. One Azimullah Khan, the dog of a Moslem who stands at the Maharajah’s right hand, took our treasure from us.”

  The three British officers exchanged glances and Swanston suggested cynically, “And did the Maharajah’s vakeel use your treasure in order to pay his troops?”

  “Nay, Sahib, he did not. His troops were not paid, save in promises.” The man faced them indignantly, fear giving place to defiance. “Nevertheless, his soldiers fight for him, for the greater glory of Hind. They fight without pay, if need be, that they may rid this land of its oppressors; there are other leaders to whom promises are sacred. In Fyzabad there was such a one.”

  “In Fyzabad?” Alex’s interest quickened, and he took up the questioning. “Went you to Fyzabad then?”

  The subedar’s dark eyes flashed. “Ji-han. From Azimgurh, we marched to Fyzabad, where the sowars of the Oudh cavalry told us that their leader, Ahmad Ullah, the Moulvi, had been seized and was held in prison, under sentence of death. The sowars of the Barlow ki Paltan, the Irregulars, together with our brothers of the 22nd, rose when we were yet a day’s march from them, at Begumgunj, and broke into the jail. They released the Moulvi and other prisoners and sent word to us that their officers, with the Commissioner Sahib and some mems, would be seeking to make their escape by river. They besought us to intercept and stop them.” He paused and all three officers, who were listening with growing dismay to his recital, again exchanged glances.

  “The commissioner, Colonel Goldney, was at Fyzabad,” Lousada Barrow supplied, his tone clipped. “He had left his wife and some of the other ladies at Sultanpore, believing that they would be safer there. They reached Allahabad with Grant, the assistant commissioner, before we left, having got away just before Colonel Fisher’s troops rebelled. Fisher and several of his officers were killed, but Mrs. Goldney had had no news of her husband.” He jerked the subedar round to face him and asked harshly,” What of the Commissioner Sahib and his party, Bhandoo Singh? Did you and your men molest them?”

  Alex waited tensely for the reply to this question; old Colonel Goldney had been well known to him and he had been on terms of friendship with several of the Fyzabad officers, both civil and military. His heart sank when he saw Bhandoo Singh bow his head and he listened, barely able to restrain himself, as the man described, seemingly without contrition, how his regiment had met the four boatloads of fugitives with a hail of grape and musketry. One party had escaped, the subedar admitted; they had lain prone in the bottom of their boat and, unseen by the mutineers, had been rowed by their native boatmen downriver to Goruckpore. The rest had been murdered.

  “The Commissioner Sahib stood trial before a court of our native officers. He was sentenced to death and shot. Others drowned, seeking to escape our attack.”

  “Poor old Goldney,” Lousada Barrow said, his voice suddenly devoid of expression. No one else spoke and the prisoner continued his story, now boastfully, as if aware of the pain he had caused his captors.

  After their ambush of the boats, the 17th Native Infantry had marched to Fyzabad. They had two guns with them, but their ammunition tumbrils contained only treasure, so they had been anxious to replace the powder and shot they had expended at the behest of the 22nd. Their fellow mutineers, however, had demanded a share of the treasure before complying with their request and, after considerable wrangling, the two regiments had parted company—the 17th with their spent ammunition replaced at the cost of Rs. 160,000. They had joined the Nana’s forces at Cawnpore. The subedar was unable to give the exact date of their arrival but, pressed by Alex, finally admitted that it had been before the garrison had surrendered, on the Nana’s promise of safe conduct to Allahabad by boat.

  “I believe,” Alex said, “That it was this regiment which pursued us along the Oudh bank. They had two light-calibre guns and it was they who prevented our escape. We could have held off the matchlock men and the sepoys with muskets; those two guns were our undoing. We weren’t expecting them and we allowed ourselves to drift too close to the Oudh shore.” He fired a spate of brusque questions at the prisoner, and the man lost his truculence as he attempted to evade them.

  “I know nothing, Sahib. We obeyed only the commands of the Sirkar, the Maharajah Bahadur. True, we were on the Oudh shore, waiting to cross the river but—”

  “But you knew of the British garrison’s surrender?”

  “We heard of it, but it was not our affair.”

  “You heard, no doubt, that your Maharajah Bahadur had sworn, on his most sacred oath, that if the soldiers of General Wheeler Sahib agreed to vacate their entrenchment, they should be permitted to march out under arms and be accorded safe passage to Allahabad?”

  “There were many rumours, Sahib. We knew not which of many to believe.” Bhandoo Singh was perspiring freely and Alex, feeling the familiar cold anger well up inside him when he remembered the Nana’s betrayal, followed up his advantage.

  “You lie, Bhandoo Singh! You and all the other rebel soldiers knew that the garrison was not defeated. They surrendered the entrenchment only on the Maharajah’s promise that they should leave Cawnpore unmolested. You saw the boats being made ready at the Suttee Chowra Ghat, did you not?”

  “True, Sahib. But we knew not for whom, we—”

  “Did you not see them being roofed with straw, in order to accommodate mem-sahibs and baba-log? Four hundred coolies worked on them all through the night; were you then blind, that you saw them not?”

  There were great beads of perspiration now on the subedar’s dark brow. “We saw them but we did not understand their significance.”

  “Yet, next day, when the sahib-log embarked upon those boats you and the sepoys of your paltan opened fire on them with your guns—just as you had done on the boats from Fyzabad? That is so, is it not?”

  “Steady, Alex,” Lousada Barrow warned, a restraining hand on his shoulder. “The fellow will be tried. He—”

  “Give me five minutes more,” Alex pleaded. His savage anger faded. It was all past history, he told himself; the massacre, Emmy’s death—nothing could undo it. This man’s guilt was no greater than that of thousands of others like him. The Nana, Azimullah, the Moulvi of Fyzabad, and the infamous Bala Bhat, the Nana’s brother … they were the guilty ones, they the betrayers. Bhandoo Singh had simply carried out the orders he had been given, but … damn it, he had been waiting, with his guns shotted and the port fires lit, in the concealment of a mango tope on the Oudh bank. Memory returned in all its hideous clarity and he saw again Emmy’s face, the blood welling from her breast, and heard her voice, frightened and despairing, as she called his name before slipping from his grasp into the muddy waters of the Ganges.

  “What orders had you from the Nana, Bhandoo Singh?” he asked, with icy calm. Although he had spoken quietly, something in his voice evidently struck terror into the prisoner. The last vestige of his earlier arrogance vanished. Wide-eyed and apprehensive, he stared at his interrogator, and then, the movement taking Alex by surprise, his pinioned hands fumbled with the cummerbund at his waist
. From beneath it he drew out a rolled sheet of paper which he held out as if even to himself it was a noisome thing.

  “These were the orders I received from the hand of Azimullah Khan,” he confessed. “The paper bears the Nana’s seal, as you will see, Sahib.”

  “Do you mind, Lou?” Alex took the small roll and, receiving Barrow’s nodded assent, carried it over to one of the bivouac fires. Squatting on his heels beside it, he unrolled the paper and read the instructions it contained, the neatly penned Urdu script blurring before his eyes as smoke from the fire stung them.

  The letter began with the customary Oriental greeting.* Health and prosperity to Bhandoo Singh, subedar of Barker ki Paltan. Your petition regarding your arrival with treasure, and your plan for the seizure of certain sepoys who have absconded, has been received and read …

  Alex skimmed through the next few lines, and he drew in his breath sharply as he deciphered them.

  At this time there are no English troops remaining here; they sought protection from the Sirkar and said, ‘Allow us to get into boats and go away.’Therefore the Sirkar has made arrangements for their going and, by ten o’clock tomorrow, these people will have entered boats and started on the river.

  The river at this side is shallow and on the other side deep. The boats will keep to the other side and go along for three or four koss. Arrangements for the destruction of these English may not be made here; but as these people will keep near the bank on the other side of the river, it is necessary that you should be prepared and make a place to kill them, and destroy them on that side of the river and, having obtained a victory, come here.

  As Bhandoo Singh had claimed, the Nana had appended his hand and seal to the foot of the page. Alex stared down at it numbly as, one by one, the memories came flooding back.

  Lousada Barrow joined him by the fire a few minutes later. “The man they were holding—that poor sod of an Englishman—was Carter, the lodge-keeper at Bithur, Alex. It was his wife we found in the zenana.”

  Alex scarcely heard him. Holding out the thin sheet of paper he had taken from their prisoner, his voice choked, he said, “Read this, Lou. Azimullah wrote it but it bears the Nana’s seal and signature. It’s proof that he betrayed us.”

  Barrow studied the damning document in silence. “Yes,” he agreed heavily, when he had digested its contents. “It would certainly seem to be. The general will be interested to read this, I fancy.”

  * Among correspondence quoted by General Neill when he took command of the reoccupied city of Cawnpore.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE COLUMN resumed its march at dawn next morning. As they rode toward Cawnpore, Lousada Barrow waved to Alex to join him at the head of the slow-moving train.

  “I never managed to broach the subject I intended to discuss with you yesterday, Alex,” he said. “And the interruption put it out of my head. You know, of course, that the general is anxious to increase our number for the advance on Lucknow? He’s been hampered a great deal by lack of cavalry, since Palliser’s Irregulars proved unreliable.”

  Alex nodded. The Volunteers had lost a man in the final battle for Cawnpore and now numbered, with Barrow and himself, a mere eighteen sabres. The loss of Palliser’s fifty sowars, who had refused to charge the rebels at Fatepur, had been a serious one. Without cavalry, the victories so hardly won by Havelock’s infantry and guns could not be followed up or the fleeing enemy harassed by pursuit. Mounted patrols, essential during the advance, were also hazardous for so small a number and the Volunteers ran the risk of being cut off or ambushed each time they scouted ahead of the main body.

  “Are you proposing to enlist more recruits?” he asked, frowning. “From whence, pray, will you get them?”

  “From the infantry,” Barrow answered. “I’ve been offered fifty or so who say they can ride. Mostly from Her Majesty’s Sixty-Fourth and Neill’s Blue Caps.”

  “I admire their spirit, Lou. But they’ll require horses, won’t they, and at least some training?”

  “We’re to take over all Palliser’s horses—and he, incidentally, is to join us, with his Rissaldar, who has remained staunchly loyal. In addition, we’re to have all the horses which can be found or requisitioned in Cawnpore. Their mounts present less of a problem than the men themselves, Alex. They, as you rightly suggest, will need training, intensive and expert training, and we’ll probably have less than a week in which to lick them into shape.” Barrow paused, a faint smile playing about his bearded lips. “As I told you yesterday, the general intends to cross into Oudh as soon as Neill gets here, and he’s expected today or tomorrow … which doesn’t leave us much leeway, does it?”

  Alex waited, voicing no opinion. He knew Lousada Barrow of old, knew that faint smile of his and what it portended. The Volunteers’ commandant had made up his mind, decided what would have to be done and, like the general himself, to tell him that what he proposed was impossible served only to make him the more determined to prove that it was not. All the same, the prospect of welding some fifty raw recruits into an efficient and disciplined cavalry troop was a daunting one. The Volunteers, despite the fact that there were less than a score of them, had been welded into such a force, but they were all officers or officer material, good horsemen, and experienced campaigners, whose courage and discipline left little to be desired. During the advance to Cawnpore, they had proved their worth on countless occasions and more than once had charged and routed large bodies of rebel cavalry, who had shown a craven reluctance to stand up to resolute attack by even so small a force of Europeans.

  “Alex,” Barrow said, breaking the brief silence that had fallen between them. “How much cavalry drill do you suppose you could teach fifty infantrymen in a week?”

  “Do you mean—” Alex stared at him. “You want me to undertake their training?”

  “Yes, that’s precisely what I want. You are the most experienced cavalry officer we have. You served in the Crimea, you handled Bashi Bazouk troops at Silestria, and you received your early training with the Eleventh Hussars. Not only that, but you served throughout the Punjab campaign and were in action at Chilianwala, were you not? For God’s sake, old man”—he cut short Alex’s attempted interruption—“no one else can do it. I certainly couldn’t—I’ve spent the past four years in the Political Service and before that I was in staff jobs. I’ve never commanded troops in action and I’ve forgotten all I ever knew about cavalry training and tactics.”

  “You’ve done pretty well in command of the Volunteers Lousada. You—”

  “And why do you imagine I was given the command?” Lousada Barrow threw back his head and laughed with genuine amusement. “Why, for the simple reason that, apart from young Cornet Fergusson, I was the only volunteer officer who had ever served with cavalry before! My grey hairs dictated the choice. I’d hand over my command to you were I at liberty to do so, believe me. Damn it all, my dear fellow, you outrank me with that brevet of yours! Even if the general keeps his promise and gives me promotion to major, you’ll still outrank me and—”

  “And what of my physical defects?” Alex put in wryly, indicating his empty sleeve. “They outweigh the brevet, I fancy.”

  “Did Sir Henry Lawrence—God rest his soul! Did he concern himself with the fact that you had lost an arm when he appointed you to the command of his Volunteer Cavalry?” his companion countered. He did not wait for an answer but went on briskly, “I confess that when you first joined us, Alex, I doubted whether you would recover sufficiently, after all you had endured in Wheeler’s infernal entrenchment, to be capable of assuming any command or post of responsibility for a very long while … and I told General Havelock as much. You were lost in a world of your own and you spoke to no one—you just sat that broken-down country-bred of yours and waited for orders. Frankly, there were times when I wondered if you’d find the strength to do even that for much longer.”