twenty-three

At about four o’ clock that afternoon, a bullock cart heavily laden with oats could be seen pulling up at the eastern gate of Fort William. The soldiers on duty waved it through. Ashutosh went straight to the stables as he always did. After unhitching his cart, he tipped it over into the trough that was provided for the oats before shutting the gate to the little enclosure and leaving. The stable hands would feed the horses the next morning.

Night fell over Fort William. The grey walls of the fort glowed in the light of the moon. Inside the fort, movement was minimal. There were two tiers on the ramparts, but only the first tier had any guards. A few guards were stationed around the governor’s mansion, which stood proudly on the west end of the fort, looking out on the Hoogly.

The clock-tower tolled the eleventh hour and as the echoes of the bell faded away into the night, the freshly delivered pile of oats within the stables seemed to acquire a life of its own. Moments later, Rama climbed out of the pile, followed by Mohan.

A horse nearby grunted in annoyance. Mohan looked towards the sound nervously and turned back to Rama. ‘We’d better keep quiet. There are probably guards outside.’

‘Stay here,’ Rama told him, as he dusted himself off. ‘I am going to check.’

There was a huge loft over the stable, the ladder to which was on the other side of the trough they had just climbed out of. The loft had a set of windows on all four sides and through these, Rama was able to see the layout of the fort and the brightly lit and well-guarded governor general’s mansion. There seemed to be four or five guards who constantly moved about. Right in front of him was a large building which looked like the soldiers’ quarters.

After staring at the governor general’s mansion for some more time, Rama realized that the perimeter was under constant surveillance. He slipped back down the ladder to where Mohan was waiting for him anxiously.

‘Well?’ he hissed, as Rama got closer. ‘How does it look?’

‘Pretty bad,’ Rama replied gravely. ‘The governor’s mansion is the large, well-lit building at the other end of the fort. The soldiers’ quarters are about forty yards from here; if we can break into the building, we can steal a couple of muskets. We’ll have the crossbows of course, and the swords and daggers.’

‘Sure, so we try to steal guns. Then what?’ Mohan asked.

‘Then, running as close as we can to the fort wall, we make it to the western side. We’ll have to choose a good spot when we get there, since I could not see too much from here.’

Mohan nodded.

‘From there, we get rid of the man guarding the door and make our way up the stairs and find the governor general’s room. It’s probably in the western wing of the building, overlooking the river. We enter his room, kill him, and get out as quietly as we can. We need to limit the casualties to avoid being noticed. All right, are you ready to go?’

‘Let’s go.’

They opened the sack and took out their weapons. Rama slung the crossbow across his back, tied the scabbard of the sword around his waist along with the quiver of arrows, and tucked the dagger carefully into his waistband. Mohan, as Rama had suggested, only took his sword and dagger, and hid the crossbow at the bottom of the pile of oats. Once they were armed, they opened the door to the stable carefully, and after a peek outside to ensure that there were no guards in the immediate vicinity, sprinted in the direction of the building that lay ahead.

There was a set of double doors on the side that was wide open, and it was through these that Rama and Mohan entered the building. As soon as they entered, Rama knew he had visualized the layout accurately; this was undoubtedly the soldiers’ quarters. They entered a long hallway with doors every fifteen yards or so. The doors had little windows in them, and Rama and Mohan peeped through each as they went by. The first five rooms were dormitories lined with beds on both sides. All of these beds were occupied by the sleeping soldiers.

The sixth door led to a larger room, with lockers lining all the walls. The next room was filled with cupboards instead of lockers. They entered quietly and closed the door behind them. There were six large wooden cupboards, three on each side and one smaller one next to each set of three. Rama went to one of the cupboards and opened it. Inside, twelve cleaned and loaded muskets were lined neatly against the back wall. They opened all the cupboards in turn. Two contained pistols, four contained muskets. One of the smaller cupboards had belts of musket cartridges, and the other contained bullets for the pistols.

‘Take two muskets and two pistols,’ Rama told Mohan. ‘Take whatever ammunition you need. Do you know how to use a pistol?’

‘Can’t be too different from a musket, right?’

‘Right. Make sure you unload all the guns that we don’t take. We’ll fill up one of the sacks they have used to line the cupboard with all the remaining ammunition and dump it somewhere.’

Mohan nodded in agreement.

Half an hour later, Rama cautiously peeked out of the room to ensure that the coast was clear before he proceeded down the hallway, followed by Mohan, both men armed to the teeth. Apart from their own weapons, each man carried two muskets—one slung across each shoulder—and a third in his hands, two pistols tucked into the waistband and a heavy sack of surplus ammunition. They exited the building quietly and ran for cover under the shadows of the fort walls. They found large drains at frequent intervals that seemed to lead to the moat outside, and it was into one of these that they stowed away the sacks.

At length they reached the western end of the fort and moved along the wall until they came to a projection, beyond which, on one end, was the northern face of the governor general’s mansion. As they stood behind this projection, Rama saw that about twenty yards straight ahead of him was another building that seemed to have a few lights on. Rama wondered what was in that building, but only for an instant. Midnight struck and brought him back to the task on hand.

He looked back at the governor general’s mansion just as a guard came into view. Mohan was right behind, and Rama signalled for his friend to come alongside him and take a look. Just as Mohan started to, Rama pushed him back against the wall. Two new guards had come into view and the four guards who had been patrolling walked towards them and started talking to them.

Rama looked at the western wall of the governor general’s mansion. Could he make a run for it? Rama had just reached the decision that it wasn’t worth the risk when the four guards who had been patrolling around the mansion walked away and the two new guards took up position. Rama’s mind was racing furiously. Could these guards be using the guns that they had unloaded? Probably not. They would have noticed that the ammunition was missing, and since no alarm had been raised as yet, it was unlikely.

After the two guards had been patrolling for about five minutes and Rama was sure the coast was clear, he signalled to Mohan to come to his side again. Rama whispered into his friend’s ear, ‘I’m going to shoot the next fellow who comes this side. Get ready to run across and pick up his body. I’ll be right by your side, and then you follow me into the mansion. All right?’

Mohan nodded in affirmation, and Rama took a bolt out of his quiver and fit it in the crossbow before putting it to his shoulder and waiting for the guard. It didn’t take too long. The guard turned the corner within moments, and he had taken barely six steps when Rama shot him in the throat, and he went down silently.

Mohan had the body in his arms, it seemed, even before it hit the ground, and Rama was by his side, quickly running in front of him towards the front door of the mansion, which was open.

As they ran, Rama looked to his left at the expanse of the fort. There was nobody in sight. So far they had been completely unseen. He was still running when he took another arrow out from his quiver and fit it in the furrow of his crossbow. The muskets made a clinking sound as they ran, and Rama was positive that the sound would wake up everyone in the mansion. Mohan deposited the guard’s body behind a pillar next to the door, and followed Rama inside.

The living room of the governor general’s mansion was split into a smaller section on one side, with low comfortable wooden chairs, and a larger section on the other with plush sofas. In the middle there was room to walk that led to a large staircase which branched halfway up to the first floor and led up to either side of the landing. A large double door stood in the middle of the landing; Rama had no doubt it opened into Hastings’ private chamber.

He turned to Mohan and put a finger to his lips before pointing to the room on the first floor. Mohan looked up, then back at Rama, and nodded his head in understanding. After one more wary look, the friends were on their way up the stairs as silently and noiselessly as they could till they heard the musket behind them. They dove for cover behind the banisters instantly. Rama was the first to look back. The other guard had noticed someone come inside and, on seeing two intruders, had shot at them excitedly, without aiming. Instinctively, Rama lifted his crossbow and shot him.

The arrow went into the guard’s stomach and he dropped his rifle as he was reloading it, but Rama was allowed no respite because two other guards who had been alerted by the sound of the gunshots came out of a room on the first floor and fired at them from above. Rama saw his friend go down from the corner of his eye, but didn’t allow that to distract him as he pulled two muskets around into his hands and fired. One of the guards fell over the balustrade and down to the floor below, but the other one continued to shoot, uninterrupted. Rama dropped the two guns in his hand and pulling around his last musket, took aim and fired.

The soldier had hardly touched the ground below when Rama was at Mohan’s side examining him. He had been hit in the stomach and was writhing in pain, but he was still alive. Rama quickly took the muskets off his friend’s back and threw them across his own shoulder before looking purposefully up at the door. Hastings now had one more thing to answer for.

‘Go on, Rama, finish it off,’ Mohan said to him.

‘You’re coming with me. We’re leaving together,’ Rama replied grimly as he got to his feet. He helped Mohan up and, supporting him on his shoulder, walked up the remaining steps to the first floor. Hastings hadn’t come out to investigate. He was probably cowering in his room like the coward he was, Rama thought to himself, as he made his way towards the door with Mohan by his side.

He reached the door and kicked it open.