The Heroic Garrison Page 5

  “The result of years of practice,” Alex told him. He handed over his Adams, and Andrew Becher dealt with it deftly. Returning it to him, the Native Infantry officer said quietly, “We’re in rather a tight corner, aren’t we, Colonel?”

  It was a statement, rather than a question, and Alex did not attempt to deny it. “Tight enough,” he admitted. “But if we can hold out here until nightfall, I’d give us a better than even chance of getting out of it.

  “With—what? Five of us incapacitated?” Becher objected. “I can’t walk and as for poor young Swanson—”

  “We shan’t leave any of you,” Alex assured him.

  “You may have to, Colonel. For God’s sake, there’s little chance of aid being sent to us before nightfall, isn’t there? The rear-guard won’t attempt to break out of the Moti Mahal until then, and in the Residency they’ll have no means of knowing that any of us are still alive, so we can’t count on earlier help from that quarter. Colonel Napier’s reinforcements will go straight to the Moti Mahal—they’ll almost certainly have to fight their way there. So . . .” Andrew Becher shrugged. “If it becomes a question of you or us, you must leave us to fend for ourselves, and escape with the able-bodied men. There’s no sense in all of us getting killed.”

  He had assessed the situation accurately, Alex thought. He slid the Adams back into its holster, leaving it unfastened and smiled down at the injured staff officer. “We’re surrounded, my friend,” he pointed out. “Our best chance is to stay together and defend ourselves. This is a good, solid building, with only one door— the one at the back is plastered over—and I see no reason why we shouldn’t do so successfully. The men have full ammunition pouches and, in any case,” he jerked his head toward the square, “there are a number of wounded still alive in the abandoned doolies out there. So long as we stay here and our ammunition lasts, we can give them covering fire and prevent them from being butchered. If an opportunity arises, we might be able to bring some of them in here and—”

  “Sir!” Fusilier McManus called urgently from the doorway. “I think they’re going tae try and rush us!”

  “Then let’s give them a warm reception!” Alex was beside him, the Adams in his hand, searching the sunlit square with narrowed, watchful eyes.The barricade—flimsier than he would have liked—was all but completed and, without waiting for orders, two other able-bodied men flung themselves down behind it, rifles at the ready. The rest fixed bayonets and waited tensely.

  The attackers came forward in a tightly packed bunch, led by a white-bearded Rissaldar of the Irregular Cavalry, a red cummerbund girded about his waist, who was armed with a curved tulwar and a metal-bound shield.

  “Cowards! Dogs of unbelievers! Why do you not come out into the street and fight us like soldiers?” the old cavalryman challenged shrilly. “You skulk behind walls, like the curs you are!”

  Fusilier McManus fixed him in the sights of his Enfield but, before he could fire, the wily old Rissaldar moved aside, taking up a position close to the wall, where he was beyond the defenders’ line of vision. From comparative safety, he urged his motley band of sepoys and townsfolk to attack the accursed feringhis. Those who did so paid with their lives for their temerity and, when the whole mob retreated, still yelling abuse, they left seven or eight of their number lying dead in front of the door. The bodies afforded the defenders some additional protection, and one of the slightly wounded men, a Fusilier of the escort, crawled close enough to them to strip two of them of their waistcloths.

  “Sandbags, sir,” he said laconically, in answer to Alex’s puzzled question. “There’s enough dirt and dust in here to fill half a dozen.” He proved his point, a few minutes later, adding his improvised sandbags to their flimsy barricade and then crawling out again to obtain another waistcloth. His action was seen by the rebels, but a second rush, aimed at removing their dead, resulted only in adding three more to the number of bodies, and even the old Rissaldar could not persuade his followers to launch a third attack. Instead, as Alex had feared they would, some of them attempted to cross the square to take vengeance on the wounded in the abandoned doolies, bent low in the hope of avoiding discovery. To stop them, they had to leave the shelter of the barricaded doorway and open fire from just outside it.With Hollowell and McManus, Alex leaped the barricade and, to his intense relief, a single shot from each of them sufficed to scatter the would-be butchers, who retreated with yells of fury to the loopholed buildings they had vacated and from there poured volley after volley into the walls and roof of the British-held house.

  The brave McManus was hit in the left foot as he tried to reload in order to take another shot, but he limped back without assistance and returned to his post behind the pillar, insisting that his wound was no more than a scratch. The old Rissaldar, beside himself with rage, shouted taunts at his own men, reviling them as contemptuously as he had earlier reviled the British party.

  “There are but three of the accursed lal-kotes . . . hast thou not seen how few they are with thine own eyes? Attack them, I say—kill them! Din, din . . . for the faith, my brothers! Art thou lacking in faith as well as courage, thou misbegotten sons of bitches?”

  He was close enough for his words to be heard inside the room he was so eager to invade, and Alex replied to him in the vernacular, his tone derisive; then, turning to the men about him, he invited them to give the lie to the old man’s estimate of their number. “Come on, my boys . . . let’s have three rousing British cheers from you! If they think there are more than three of us, they won’t be in any hurry to attack again, so make it good. Hip, hip ...”

  The response almost deafened him, wounded and all joining in and Private Hollowell observed, with a grin, “Och, that’s put the wind up the sods! Now they’ll be thinking we’ve a whole regiment here, and they’ll be feared as hell tae come near us. ’Tis a gey pity we havena the pipe major wi’ us, for tae mak’ them believe the 78th are after their black hides!”

  The cheers were succeeded by laughter. Morale was high, Alex told himself; with men of this caliber, defeat was by no means inevitable, however long the odds against them.

  “Sir . . .” There was a movement behind him and he turned, recognizing the bony-faced young Blue Cap with the bandaged head, whom he had last seen when he had stopped to speak to the wounded Arnold, as the procession of doolies neared the Chutter Munzil.

  “Your name’s Ryan, isn’t it?” he asked, in some surprise. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

  The boy faced him, his expression woebegone. “I was ordered to the front of the escort, sir,” he explained unhappily. “I’d promised Lieutenant Arnold that I’d stay with him and see he was all right, and then some sod of an—beg pardon, sir, meaning no disrespect—but an officer on horseback sent me forward, so I had to go—I had to leave him. And he’s out there, sir, Mr. Arnold is, in one of them doolies. I caught a glimpse of him just now, when you went out of the door. He’s alive, I seen him moving. With your permission, sir, I’d like to fetch him in here with us.”

  “You’ll be risking your life if you try,” Alex warned him. “And you won’t be able to move that doolie by yourself.”

  “I don’t mind risking my life for him, sir,” Ryan answered without hesitation. “I can’t stand by and see him cut to pieces by them bloody black bastards, not after I give him my word, sir. And I daresay one of our chaps’ll volunteer to lend me a hand with the doolie.” He glanced round expectantly and Fusilier McManus answered his appeal.

  “I’ll gang wi’ him, sir. It’s no distance and, if we tak’ it at a run, we’ll manage the doolie between us.” Sensing Alex’s reluctance to give his assent, he added persuasively, “It’ll no’ tak’ us long. We’ll be away and back before you’ve missed us, sir.”

  Their position was desperate enough as it was, Alex thought grimly. If they lost these two—and McManus, the champion shot in particular—it would be infinitely worse but . . . he looked into Ryan’s anxious young face and knew that he could not
refuse. In the entrenchment at Cawnpore, they had frequently had to take such risks and, almost always, the risk had been justified.A bold and sudden move, which took the sepoys by surprise, was usually successful. . . . He sighed.

  “Can you run with that foot of yours, McManus?”

  “Aye, sir. ’Tis only a scratch, it’ll no’ hinder me.” McManus hesitated. “Can we go, sir?”

  “All right,” Alex agreed, still with some reluctance. “But we’ll choose our moment, when they’re not prepared for it or when their attention is distracted. We can’t knock loopholes in that wall, it’s too thick, so we’ll have to shift our barricade over to the left a bit, to enable us to give you covering fire.You take over McManus’s post behind the pillar, Hollowell, when he goes—and we’ll need two good shots behind the barricade. What about it, my boys . . . which of you shall it be?”

  Two men, who had been moving the barricade into its new position, offered their services.They were oddly alike, although of different regiments, both in their early thirties, blue-eyed and brown-bearded, quiet, steady men, who had seen service in Persia.

  “Webb, sir, 64th,” the shorter of the two stated.

  “And Dugald Cameron, of the 78th.”

  “A Jock and a Geordie,” the irrepressible Hollowell put in, grinning. “That’s no’ a bad combination, is it, sir?”

  The sharp crack of McManus’s rifle cut short the guffaws. In the square outside, a man who had been crawling stealthily toward the rear of the doolies suddenly lay very still and, with shrill cries of terror, those following his example were on their feet and dashing wildly for cover. Not to be outdone, Hollowell winged one of them and, in the momentary confusion, Alex ordered the barricade to be pulled aside.

  “Off you go, you two!” he said urgently. “As fast as you know how and keep right-handed!”

  Ryan needed no second bidding. Unarmed, he tore across the intervening space, and McManus, pausing only to grab his spare rifle from the loader, was after him a moment later. The unexpectedness of their appearance took the rebels completely by surprise, and they both reached the scattered doolies without a shot being fired at them, but as they bent together over Arnold’s litter, striving to lift it, a hail of musket-balls spattered the ground about them.

  From every rooftop and loophole, it seemed, men were firing on the two shirt-sleeved soldiers as they struggled with the heavy doolie. Hollowell, Webb, and Cameron kept up a steady answering fire, aiming at any target that presented itself, but the terrible fusillade continued, seeming to double in volume when finally— unable to lift the doolie—Ryan and McManus dragged Arnold out of it.The occupant of one of the other doolies scrambled out, both hands outheld but before he had taken two steps, he was shot down. McManus, who had gone back to meet him, took one look at his shattered body and went to rejoin Ryan. Carrying the wounded officer between them, they ran back across the square, reaching the barricaded doorway miraculously unhurt, and willing hands relieved them of their burden.

  Poor Arnold was gasping with pain and shock, his face drained of every vestige of color, and he was bleeding copiously from a fresh wound in the thigh. But, when Surgeon Home staunched the flow and laid him gently in a corner of the room, he managed to thank his rescuers in a voice so faint and choked with emotion that they could barely hear it. Ryan knelt beside him, holding his own half-empty water bottle to his officer’s lips, the tears coursing unashamedly down his unshaven cheeks as he relieved his pent-up feelings in a torrent of blasphemy.

  “He was hit again, sir,” he told Home, becoming a little calmer. “The bleeding perishers aimed at him deliberately . . . as if he hadn’t had enough. Oh. Gawd, look at his legs . . . just look at them! But you’ll be able to save him, won’t you, Doctor? You’ll try to save him?”

  Dr. Home had already examined Arnold’s legs. Meeting Alex’s mutely questioning gaze, he gave a brief, regretful headshake but replied to Ryan’s frantic questions with guarded cheerfulness and an optimism it was evident he did not feel.

  “If only we could’ve carried him in the doolie,” the young Blue Cap reproached himself. “Maybe he’d have had a better chance. But we couldn’t lift the sodding thing—and they aimed at him deliberately, make no mistake about that. Just as they aimed at the poor sod of a Jock who tried to run after us—he didn’t get two yards before they’d put fifty balls in him, not two yards. But if we’d left Mr. Arnold in his doolie, he might have been all right. That’s what’s worrying me, sir.”

  “You’ve given him the best possible chance, lad,” the surgeon said kindly. “By getting him in here, where at least he’s out of the sun, poor fellow. Now leave him to me, will you? I’ll do all in my power for him, I promise you.”

  Private Ryan rose obediently to his feet, and Alex set him to the task of repairing their barricade, in readiness to repel any renewed attack. “Were there many others left alive in the doolies?” he asked McManus, lowering his voice so that the others did not hear. He wanted no useless heroism, inspired by their rescue of Arnold; McManus was an intelligent man—if the full danger of their situation were explained to him, he could probably be counted on to discourage it, at all events until the right opportunity occurred. If it occurred . . . Alex sighed.

  “Aye, there were quite a few, sir,” the Fusilier answered. “Mind, I didna hae time tae count them, but at a guess I’d say most o’ them are alive.One puir devil,” he shuddered involuntarily, “asked me tae pit a bullet through his heid, but I couldna bring ma’sel’ tae do that. I mean, sir, there’s a chance that aid will be sent tae us, is there no’?”

  “There’s a chance,” Alex said flatly. “If we can hang on until the rear-guard evacuates the Moti Mahal. I doubt if they’ll attempt to do so before dark.”

  McManus nodded soberly. “’Twas what I was thinking, sir.” He hesitated, eyes searching Alex’s face, and then offered quietly, “I’ll gang across tae the doolies again, if you wish, sir. But I doubt we’ll only mak’ it worse for the puir fellows if we try tae bring them in the way we brought in Ryan’s Mr. Arnold. Yon doolies are awful cumbersome things, and they’re too heavy for just twa men tae carry.” Again he hesitated, as if reluctant to put his thoughts into words.

  “Well?” Alex prompted.

  “Well, sir,” McManus said, “We canna afford tae risk mair than a couple o’ our men, can we—not if we’re tae have a chance of getting out of here?”

  “No,” Alex confirmed. “We can’t. But at least we can keep the Pandies from getting near those doolies. So long as we’re here, covering them, the wounded will be safe. See that the other men understand that, will you? It may come better from you than from me.”

  McManus nodded his understanding. He returned to his post and, a few minutes later, the rebels renewed their attack, urged on by the old Rissaldar in the red cummerbund, who had exchanged his shield and tulwar for a musket. Showing more courage than he had in the previous attacks, the old man came forward at a shambling run, to discharge his piece within a few feet of the barricade.The ball struck Webb in the right shoulder, and he rolled over, cursing, his rifle falling at his feet. Alex and Hollowell fired together, and the Rissaldar went down, his turbaned bead caught and held between two up-ended planks on top of the barricade, a slow trickle of blood staining the long white beard. Even as he died, he mouthed obscenities at them, and Private Cameron, overcome by revulsion, thrust the butt of his rifle into the contorted face and heaved the body out of sight.

  The attackers withdrew, but, from the rear of the house there came the sound of splintering wood, followed by the pad of bare feet approaching the wall with the plastered-up door. The surgeon shouted a warning as several shots struck the plaster, tearing a jagged hole in the framework of the door. A spent ball struck Alex in the calf of his right leg as he moved to meet this new danger; it dropped him to his knees, but Home was up in an instant, the Colt in his hand. He fired it through the hole in the plaster, emitting a yell of triumph as the hubbub subsided and the rebels withdrew; H
ollowell, coming swiftly to his side, picked off a straggler and turned, grinning, to greet Alex with the news that the rear room was once again deserted.

  “There’s another door at the far end, sir,” he added. “This yin’s nae use onymore. Maybe we should break through and set up a barricade by the far door.” He tested the thin plaster with the butt of his rifle; it flaked off, revealing nothing more substantial than a crisscross screen of wooden laths. “This’ll not hold them out. Will I break through, sir? The other door looks solid enough and ‘twill gie us mair room.”

  Alex limped over to inspect the room beyond. Hollowell was right, he thought, and it would be no more difficult to hold two rooms than it had been to hold one. They would have more space to move about in, more air for the wounded and—if they had to make a run for it—an alternative to crossing the square.

  The smoking revolver still in his hand, Surgeon Home peered through the hole in the plaster. “I think it would be a wise move, Colonel,” he said. “It’s stifling in here.”

  Alex nodded. “I agree, Doctor. Right, Hollowell, take your rifle to that plaster, lad. We’ll go in together and make straight for the door, just in case there are any of them lying in wait for us.”

  “Let me go,” the surgeon pleaded. “You’ve been hit.”

  Alex looked down at the congealing blood on his trouser leg and said, smiling, “In the words of our friend McManus, ’tis only a scratch. And you’ve got work to do, Doctor—Webb has more than a scratch, I fear. Don’t worry, we’ll be back before you’ve finished attending to him.” He raised his voice, “McManus, Cameron—watch the other door. Don’t let any of those swine get near the doolies.”