I can see it now as vividly as I saw it then – the dark hawk-face silhouetted against the temple wall that glowed ruddy in the firelight, and the bright stream of a tear on his cheek. You don’t often see a Pathan cry, but Ilderim Khan cried as he told me what had happened at Jhansi.
“When the news came of Meerut, that black Hindoo bitch who calls herself Maharani summoned Skene sahib, and says she needs must enlarge her bodyguard, for the safety of her person and the treasure in her palace. These being unquiet times. She spoke very sweetly, and Skene, being young and foolish, gave her what she wished – aye, he even said that we of the free cavalry might serve her, and Kala Khan (may he rot in hell) took her salt and her money, and two others with him. But most of her new guard were the scum of the bazaar – badmashes and klifti-wallahsa and street-corner ten-to-one assassins and the sweepings of the jail.
“Then, two weeks ago, there was stirring among the sepoys of the 12th N.I., and chapattis and lotus flowers passed, and some among them burned a bungalow by night. But the colonel sahib spoke with them, and all seemed well, and a day and a night passed. Then Faiz Ali and the false swine Kala Khan, with a great rabble of sepoys and these new heroes of the Rani’s guard, fell on the Star Fort, and made themselves masters of the guns and powder, and marched on the cantonment to put it to the fire, but Skene sahib had warning from a true sepoy, and while some dozen sahibs were caught and butchered by these vermin, the rest escaped into the little Town Fort, and the mem-sahibs and little ones with them, and made it good against the mutineers. And for five days they held it – do I not know? For I was there, with Rafik Tamwar and Shadman Khan and Muhammed Din, whom you see here. And I took this –” he touched his wounded arm “– the seventh time they tried to storm the wall.”
“They came like locusts,” growls one of the sowars round the fire. “And like locusts they were driven.”
“Then the food was gone, and the water, and no powder remained for the bundooks,”b says Ilderim. “And Skene sahib – have ye seen a young man grow old in a week, brother? – said we could hold no longer, for the children were like to die. So he sent three men, under a white flag, to the Rani, to beg her help. And she – she told them she had no concern for the English swine.”
“I don’t believe it,” says I.
“Listen, brother – and believe, for I was one of the three, and Muhammed Din here another, and we went with Murray sahib to her palace gate. Him only they admitted, and flung us two in a stinking pit, but they told us what passed afterwards – that she had spurned Murray sahib, and afterwards he was racked to pieces in her dungeon.” He turned to stare at me with blazing eyes. “I do not know – it is what I was told; only hear what followed, and then – judge thou.”
He stared into the fire, clenching and unclenching his fist, and then went on:
“When no word went back to Skene sahib, and seeing the townsfolk all comforting the mutineers, and jeering at his poor few, he offered to surrender. And Kala Khan agreed, and they opened the fort gates, and trusted to the mercy of the mutineers.”
It was then I saw the tear run down into his beard; he didn’t look at me, but just continued gazing at the flames and speaking very softly:
“They took them all – men, and women, and children – to the Jokan Bagh, and told them they must die. And the women wept, and threw themselves on their knees, and begged for the children’s lives – mem-sahibs, brother, you understand, such ladies as you know of, grovelled at the boots of the filth of the bazaar. I saw it!” He suddenly shouted. “And the untouchable scum – these high-caste worms who call themselves men, and will shudder away if a real man’s shadow falls across their chattis – these creatures laughed and mocked the mem-sahibs and kicked them aside.
“I saw it – I, and Muhammed Din here, for they brought us out to the Jokan Bagh saying, ‘See thy mighty sahibs; see thy proud mem-sahibs who looked on us as dirt; see them crawl to us before they die.’”
“There is a furnace thrice-heated waiting,” says one of the sowars. “Remember that, rissaldar sahib.”
“If they burn forever it will not be hot enough,” says Ilderim. “They killed the sahibs first – the Collector sahib, Andrews sahib – Gordon, Burgess, Taylor, Turnbull – all of them. They held them in a row, and chopped them down with cleavers. Skene sahib they slew last of all; he asked to embrace his wife, but they laughed at him and struck him, and bade him kneel for the knife. ‘I will die on my feet,’ says he, ‘with no regret save that I am polluted by the touch of dishonoured lice like you. Strike, coward – see, my hands are tied.’ And Bakshish Ali, the jail daroga, cut him down. And through all this they made the women and children watch, crying ‘See, thy husband’s blood! See, baby, it is thy father’s head – ask him to kiss thee, baby!’ And then they killed the mem-sahibs, in another row, while the townsfolk watched and cheered, and threw marigolds at the executioners. And Skene mem-sahib said to Faiz Ali, ‘If it pleases you, you may burn me alive, or do what you will, if you will spare the children.’ But they threw dirt in her face, and swore the children should die.”
One of the sowars says: “There will be a red thread round her wrist, as for a Ghazi.”
“And I,” says Ilderim, “fought like a tiger and foamed and swore as they held me. And I cried out: ‘Shabash, mem-sahib!’ and ‘Heep-heep-heep-hoora’, as the sahibs do, to comfort her. And they cut her down.” He was crying openly now, his mouth working. “And then they took the children – twenty of them – little children, that cried out and called for their dead mothers, and they cut them all in pieces, with axes and butchers’ knives. And there they left them all, in the Jokan Bagh, without burial.”28
Hearing something, however horrible, can never be as ghastly as seeing it; the mind may take it in, but mercifully the imagination can’t. Even while I shuddered and felt sickened, listening, I couldn’t conjure up the hideous scene he was describing – all I could think of was McEgan’s jolly red face as he told his awful jokes, and little Mrs Skene so anxious in case her dress was wrong for the Collector’s dinner, and Andrews talking about Keats’s poetry, and Skene saying it wasn’t a patch on Burns, and that dainty little Wilton girl singing “bobbity-bobbity-bob” along with me and laughing till she was breathless. It didn’t seem possible they were all dead – cut down like beasts in a slaughter-house. Yet what shocked me most, I think, was to see that great Gilzai warrior, whom you could have roasted alive and got nothing but taunts and curses, sobbing like a child. There was nothing to say; after a moment I asked him how he came to be still alive.
“They put Muhammed and me in the jail, with promises of death by torture, but these others of my troop broke us out at night, and we escaped. Until yesterday we hid in the woods, but then the mutineers departed, God knows whither, and we came here. Shadman and two others have gone for horses; we wait for them – and for thee, brother.” He wiped his face and forced a grin, and gripped me by the shoulder.
“God send that fair foulness a lover made of red-hot metal to bed her through eternity,” says he, and spat. “She is in her citadel yonder, while Kala Khan marshals her guard on the maidan – perchance ye heard his bugles? – and sends out for levies to raise her an army. For why? – hear this and laugh. Some of the mutineers chose Sadasheo Rao of Parola as their leader – he has taken Karera Fort, and calls himself Raja of Jhansi in defiance of her.” He laughed harshly. “They say she will crucify him with his own bayonets – God send she does. Then she will march against Kathe Khan and the Dewan of Orcha, to bring them under her pretty heel. Oh, an enterprising lady, this Rani, who knows how to take advantage of a world upside down – and meanwhile they say she sends messages to the British protesting her loyalty to the Sirkar – rot her for a lying, faithless, female pi-dog!”
“Maybe she is,” says I. “Loyal, I mean. Very well, I don’t doubt your story, or what you saw and were told – but, look here, Ilderim. I know something of her – and while I’ll allow she’s deep, I’ll not credit that she would have children slaughtered – it isn’t in her. Do you know for a fact that she joined the mutineers, or encouraged them – or could have prevented them?” The fact is, I didn’t want to believe she was an enemy, you see.
Ilderim glanced at me witheringly, and bit his nail in scorn.
“Bloody Lance,” says he, “ye may be the bravest rider in the British Army, and God knows thou art no fool – but with women thou art a witless infant. Thou has coupled this Hindoo slut, hast thou not?”
“Damn your impudence –”
“I thought as much. Tell me, blood-brother, how many women hast thou covered, in thy time?” And he winked at his mates.
“What the devil d’you mean?” I demanded.
“How many? Come, as a favour to thy old friend.”
“Eh? What’s it to you, dammit? Oh, well, let’s see … there’s the wife, and … er … and, ah –”
“Aye – ye have fornicated more times than I have passed water,” says this elegant fellow. “And just because they let thee have thy way, didst thou trust them therefore? Because they were beautiful or lecherous – wert thou fool enough to think it made them honest? Like enough. This Rani has beglamoured thee – well then, go thou up and knock on her palace gate tonight, and cry ‘Beloved, let me in.’ I shall stand under the wall to catch the pieces.”
When he put it that way, of course, it was ridiculous. Whether she was loyal or not – and I could hardly credit that she wasn’t – it didn’t seem quite the best time to test the matter, with her state running over at the edges with mutineers. Good God, was there nowhere safe in this bloody country? Delhi, Meerut, Jhansi – how many garrisons remained, I asked Ilderim, and told him the stories I’d heard, and the sights I’d seen, on my way south.
“No one knows,” says he grimly. “But be sure the sepoys have not won, as they would have the world believe. They have made the land between Ganges and Jumna a ruin of fire and blood, and gone undefeated – as yet. They range the country in strength – but already there is word that the British are marching on Delhi, and bands of sahibs who escaped when their garrisons were overthrown are riding abroad in growing numbers. Not only men who have lost their regiments, but civilian sahibs also. The Sirkar still has teeth – and there are garrisons that hold out in strength. Cawnpore for one – a bare four days’ ride from here. They say the old General Wheeler sahib is in great force there, and has shattered an army of sepoys and badmashes. When Shadman brings our horses, it is there we will ride.”
“Cawnpore?” I almost squeaked the word in consternation, for it was back in the dirty country with a vengeance. Having come out of that once, I’d no wish to venture in again.
“Where else?” says he. “There is no safer road from Jhansi. Farther south ye dare not go, for there are few sahib places, and no great garrisons. Nor are there to the west. Over the Jumna the country may be hot with mutineers, but it is where thine own folk are – and they are mine, too, and my lads’.”
I looked at the ugly villains round the fire, hard-bitten frontier rough-necks to a man in their dirty old poshteens and the big Khyber knives in their belts – by George, I’d be a sight safer going north again in their company than striking out anywhere else on my own. What Ilderim said was probably true, too; Cawnpore and the other river strongholds would be where our generals would concentrate – I could get back among my own kind, and shed this filthy beard and sepoy kit and feel civilised again. Wouldn’t have to spin any nonsense about why I’d disappeared from Jhansi, either, in supposed pursuit of Ignatieff – my God, I’d forgotten him entirely, and the Thugs, and all the rest. My mission to Jhansi – Pam and his cakes and warnings – it was all chaff in the wind now, forgotten in this colossal storm that was sweeping through India. No one was going to fret about where I’d sprung from, or what I’d been doing. I felt my spirits rising by the minute – when I thought of the escape I’d had, leaving Jhansi in the first place, I could say that even my horrible experience at Meerut had been worth while.
That’s another thing about being a windy beggar – if you scare easily, you usually cheer up just as fast when the danger is past. Well, not past yet, perhaps – but at least I was with friends again, and by what Ilderim said the Mutiny wasn’t by any means such a foregone thing as I’d imagined – why, once our people got their second wind, it would be the bloody rebels who’d be doing the running, no doubt, with Flashy roaring on the pursuit from a safe distance. And I might have been rotting out yonder with the others at Jokan Bagh – I shuddered at the ghastly memory of Ilderim’s story – or burned alive with the Dawsons at Meerut. By Jove, things weren’t so bad after all.
“Right,” says I. “Cawnpore let it be.” How was I to know I was almost speaking my own epitaph?
In the meantime, I had one good night’s sleep, feeling safe for the first time in weeks with Ilderim’s rascals around me, and next day we just lay up in the temple ruins while one sowar went to scout for Shadman Khan, who was meant to be out stealing horses for us. It was the rummest fix to be in, for all day we could hear the bugles tootling out on the plain where the Rani’s army was mustering for her own private little wars with Jhansi’s neighbours; Ilderim reported in the evening that she had assembled several hundred foot soldiers, and a few troops of Maharatta riders, as well as half a dozen guns – not a bad beginning, in a troubled time, but of course with a treasury like Jhansi’s she could promise regular pay for her soldiers, as well as the prospect of Orcha’s loot when she had dealt with the Dewan.
With the second dawn came Shadman himself, cackling at his own cleverness: he and his pals had laid hands on six horses already, they were snug in a thicket a couple of miles from the town, and he had devised a delightful plan for getting another half dozen mounts as well.
“The Hindoo bitch needs riders,” says he. “So I marched into her camp on the maidan this afternoon and offered my services. ‘I can find six old Company sowars who will ride round Jehannum and back for a rupee a day and whatever spoil the campaign promises,’ says I to the noseless pig who is master of her cavalry, ‘if ye have six good beasts to put under them.’ ‘We have horses and to spare,’ says he, ‘bring me your six sowars and they shall have five rupees a man down payment, and a carbine and embroidered saddle-cloth apiece.’ I beat him up to ten rupees each – so tomorrow let six of us join her cavalry, and at nightfall we shall unjoin, and meet thee, rissaldar, and all ride off rejoicing. Is it not a brave scheme – and will cost this slut of a Rani sixty rupees as well as her steeds and furniture?”
There’s nothing as gleeful as a Pathan when he’s doing the dirty; they slapped their knees in approval and five of them went off with him that afternoon. Ilderim and I and the remaining three waited until nightfall, and then set off on foot to the thicket where we were to rendezvous – there were the first six horses and a sowar waiting, and round about midnight Shadman and his companions came clattering out of the dark to join us, crowing with laughter. Not only had they lifted the six horses, they had cut the lines of a score more, slit the throat of the cavalry-master as he lay asleep, and set fire to the fodder-store, just to keep the Rani’s army happy.
“Well enough,” growls Ilderim, when he had snarled them to silence. “It will do – till we ride to Jhansi again, some day. There is a debt to pay, at the Jokan Bagh. Is there not, blood-brother?” He gripped my shoulder for a moment as we sat our mounts under the trees, and the others fell in two by two behind us. In the distance, very black against the starlit purple of the night sky, was the outline of the Jhansi fortress with the glow of the city beneath it; Ilderim was staring towards it bright-eyed – I remember that moment so clearly, with the warm gloom and the smell of Indian earth and horse-flesh, the creak of leather and the soft stamping of the beasts. I was thinking of the horror that lay in the Jokan Bagh – and of that lovely girl, in her mirrored palace yonder with its swing and soft carpets and luxurious furniture, and trying to make myself believe that they belonged in the same world.
“It will take more than one dead rebel and a few horses to settle the score for Skene sahib and the others,” says he. “Much more. So – to Cawnpore? Walk-march, trot!”
He had said it was a bare four days’ ride, but it took us that long to reach the Jumna above Haminpur, for on my advice we steered clear of the roads, and kept to the countryside, where we sighted nothing bigger than villages and poor farms. Even there, though, there was ample sign of the turbulence that was sweeping the land; we passed hamlets that were just smoking, blackened ruins, with buzzing carcases, human and animal, lying where they had been shot down, or strung up to branches; and several times we saw parties of mutineers on the march, all heading north-east like ourselves. That was enough to set me wondering if I wasn’t going in the wrong direction, but I consoled myself that there was safety in numbers – until the morning of the fourth day, when Ilderim aroused me in a swearing passion with the news that eight of our party had slipped off in the night, leaving only the two of us with Muhammed Din and Rafik Tamwar.
“That faithless thieving, reiving son of a Kabuli whore, Shadman Khan, has put them up to this!” He was livid with rage. “He and that other dung-beetle Asaf Yakub had the dawn watch – they have stolen off and left us, and taken the food and fodder with them!”
“You mean they’ve gone to join the mutineers?” I cried.
“Not they! We would never have woken again if that had been their aim. No – they will be off about their trade, which is loot and murder! I should have known! Did I not see Shadman licking his robber’s lips when we passed the sacked bungalows yesterday? He and the others see in this broken countryside a chance to fill their pockets, rather than do honest service according to their salt. They will live like the bandits they were before the Sirkar enlisted them in an evil hour, and when they have ravaged and raped their fill they will be off north to the frontier again. They have not even the stomach to be honest mutineers!” And he spat and stamped, raging.
“Never trust an Afridi,” says Tamwar philosophically. “I knew Shadman was a badmash the day he joined. At least they have left us our horses.”
That was little consolation to me as we saddled up; with eleven hardy riders round me I’d felt fairly secure, but now that they were reduced to three – and only one of those really trustworthy – I fairly had the shakes again. However, having come this far there was nothing for it but to push on; we weren’t more than a day’s ride from Cawnpore by my reckoning, and once we were behind Wheeler’s lines we would be safe enough. My chief anxiety was that the closer we got, the more likely we would be to find mutineers in strength, and this was confirmed when, a few hours after sun-up, we heard, very faint in the distance, the dull thump of gunfire. We had stopped to water our beasts at a tank beside the road, which at that point was enclosed by fairly thick forest either side; Ilderim’s head came up sharp at the sound.
“Cawnpore!” says he. “Now what shall that shooting mean? Can Wheeler sahib be under siege? Surely –”
Before I could reply there was a sudden drumming of hooves, and round a bend in the road not two hundred yards ahead came three horsemen, going like hell’s delight; I barely had time to identify them as native cavalrymen of some sort, and therefore probably mutineers, when into view came their pursuers – and I let out a yell of delight, for out in the van was an undoubted white officer, with his sabre out and view-hallooing like a good ’un. At his heels came a motley gang of riders, but I hadn’t time to examine them – I was crouched down at the roadside with my Colt out, drawing a bead on the foremost fugitive. I let blaze, and his horse gave a gigantic bound and crashed down, thrashing in the dust; his two companions swung off to take to the woods, but one of the mounts stumbled and threw its rider, and only the other won to the safety of the trees, with a group of the pursuers crashing after him.
The others pounced on the two who’d come to grief, while I ran towards them, yelling:
“Hurrah! Bravo, you fellows! It’s me, Flashman! Don’t shoot!”
I could see now that they were Sikh cavalry, mostly, although there were at least half a dozen white faces among them, staring at me as I came running up; suddenly one of them, with a cry of warning, whips out his revolver and covers me.
“Don’t move,” he bawls. “Drop that pistol – sharp, now!”
“No, no!” cries I. “You don’t understand! I’m a British officer! Colonel Flashman!”
“The devil you are!” He stared from me to Ilderim, who had come up behind me. “You look like it, don’t you? And who the hell is he – the Duke of Cambridge?”
“He’s a rissaldar of irregular cavalry. And I, old fellow, believe it or not, beneath this fine beard and homely native garb, am Colonel Harry Paget Flashman – of whom I dare say you’ve heard?” I was positively burbling with relief as I held out my hand to him.
“You look bloody like a pandyc to me,” says he. “Keep your distance!”
“Well, you don’t exactly look straight from Horse Guards yourself, you know,” says I, laughing. None of them did; apart from the Sikhs, who were a fairly wild-looking bunch, his white companions were the oddest crowd, in bits and pieces of uniform from half a dozen regiments, with their gear slung any old how. Some had puggarees, some helmets, and one fat chap with a white beard had a straw hat and frock coat; they were all dirty and unshaven after weeks in the saddle, and the only thing uniform about them was that they were fairly bristling with weapons – pistols, carbines, swords, knives in their belts, and one or two with pig spears.
“May I ask who I have the honour of addressing?” says I, as they crowded up. “And if you have a commanding officer, perhaps you might convey my compliments to him.”
That impressed him, although he still looked suspicious.
“Lieutenant Cheeseman, of Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers,” says he. “But if you’re one of us, what the dooce are you going about dressed as a nigger for?”
“You say you’re Flashman?” says another – he was wearing a pith helmet and spectacles, and what looked like old cricket flannels tucked into his top-boots. “Well, if you are – an’ I must say you don’t look a bit like him – you ought to know me. Because Harry Flashman stood godfather to my boy at Lahore in ’42 – what’s my name, eh?”
I had to close my eyes and think – it had been on my triumphal progress south after the Jalallabad business. An Irish name – yes, by God, it was unforgettable.
“O’Toole!” says I. “You did me the honour of having your youngster christened Flashman O’Toole – I trust he’s well?”
“By God I did!” says he, staring. “It must be him, Cheeseman! Here, where’s Colonel Rowbotham?”
I confess I was curious myself – Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers was a new one on me, and if their commander was anything like his followers he must be a remarkable chap. There was a great rumpus going on in the road behind the group who surrounded me, and I saw that one of the fugitives was being dragged up between two of the Sikhs, and thrown forward in the dust before one of the riders, who was leaning down from his saddle looking at the still form of the fellow whose horse I’d shot.
“Why, this one’s dead!” he exclaimed, peevishly. “Of all the confounded bad luck! Hold on to that other scoundrel, there! Here, Cheeseman, what have you got – is it some more of the villains?”
He rode over the dead man, glaring at me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an angrier-looking man in my life. Everything about him was raging – his round red face, his tufty brindle eyebrows, his bristling sandy whiskers, even the way he clenched his crop, and when he spoke his harsh, squeaky voice seemed to shake with suppressed wrath. He was short and stout, and sat his pony like a hog on a hurdle; his pith helmet was wrapped in a long puggaree, and he wore a most peculiar loose cape, like an American poncho, clasped round with a snake-clasp belt. Altogether a most ridiculous sight, but there was nothing funny about the pale, staring eyes, or the way his mouth worked as he considered me.
“Who’s this?” he barked, and when Cheeseman told him, and O’Toole, who had been eyeing me closely, said he believed I was Flashman after all, he growled suspiciously and demanded to know why I was skulking about dressed as a native, and where had I come from. So I told him, briefly, that I was a political, lately from Jhansi, where I and my three followers had escaped the massacre.
“What’s that you say?” cries he. “Massacre – at Jhansi?” And the others crowded their horses round, staring and exclaiming, while I reported what had happened to Skene and the rest – even as I told it, I was uncomfortably aware of something not quite canny in the way they listened: it was a shocking story enough, but there was an excitement about them, in the haggard faces and the bright eyes, as though they had some fever, that I couldn’t account for. Usually, when Englishmen listen to a dreadful tale, they do it silently, at most with signs of disgust or disbelief, but this crowd stirred restlessly in their saddles, muttering and exclaiming, and when I’d finished the little chap burst into tears, gritting his teeth and shaking his crop.
“God in Heaven!” cries he. “Will it never cease? How many innocents – twenty children, you say? And all the women? My God!” He rocked in his saddle, dashing the tears away, while his companions groaned and shook their fists – it was an astonishing sight, those dozen scarecrows who looked as though they’d fought a long campaign in fancy-dress costume, swearing and addressing heaven; it occurred to me that they weren’t quite right in the head. Presently the little chap regained his composure, and turned to me.
“Your pardon, colonel,” says he, and if his voice was low it was shaking with emotion. “This grievous news – this shocking intelligence – it makes me forget myself. Rowbotham, James Kane Rowbotham, at your service; these are my mosstroopers – my column of volunteer horse, sir, banded after the rebellion at Delhi, and myself commissioned by Governor Colvin at Agra.”
“Commissioned … by a civilian?” It sounded deuced odd, but then he and his gang looked odd. “I gather, sir, that you ain’t … er, Army?”
He flew up at that. “We are soldiers, sir, as much as you! A month ago I was a doctor, at Delhi …” His mouth worked again, and his tongue seemed to be impeding his speech. “My … my wife and son, sir … lost in the uprising … murdered. These gentlemen … volunteers, sir, from Agra and Delhi … merchants, lawyers, officials, people of all classes. Now we act as a mobile column, because there are no regular cavalry to be spared from the garrisons; we strive to keep the road open between Agra and Cawnpore, but since the mutineers are now before Cawnpore in force, we scour the country for news of their movements and fall on them when we can. Vermin!” He choked, glaring round, and his eye fell on the prisoner, prone in the dust with a Sikh keeping a foot on his neck. “Yes!” cries he, “we may not be soldiers, sir, in your eyes, but we have done some service in putting down this abomination! Oh, yes! You’ll see – you’ll see for yourself! Cheeseman! How many have we now?”
“Seven, sir, counting this one.” Cheeseman nodded at the prisoner. “Here comes Fields with the others now.”
What I took to be the rest of Rowbotham’s remarkable regiment was approaching down the road at a brisk trot, a dozen Sikhs and two Englishmen in the same kind of outlandish rig as the others. Running or staggering behind, their wrists tied to the Sikhs’ stirrup-leathers, were half a dozen niggers in the last stages of exhaustion; three or four of them were plainly native infantry-men, from their coats and breeches.
“Bring them up here!” cries Rowbotham violently, and when they had been untied and ranged in a straggled line in front of him, he pointed to the trees behind them. “Those will do excellently – get the ropes, Cheeseman! Untie their hands, and put them under the branches.” He was bouncing about in his saddle in excitement, and there were little flecks of spittle among the stubble of his chin. “You’ll see, sir,” says he to me. “You’ll see how we deal with these filthy butchers of women and children! It has been our custom to hang them in groups of thirteen, as an appropriate warning – but this news of Jhansi which you bring – this new horror – makes it necessary … makes it necessary …” He broke off incoherently, twisting the reins in his hands. “We must make an immediate example, sir! This cancer of mutiny … what? Let these serve as a sacrifice to those dead innocent spirits so cruelly released at Jhansi!”
He wasn’t mad, I’d decided; he was just an ordinary little man suddenly at war. I’ve seen it scores of times. He had reason, too; I, who had been at Meerut and Jhansi, was the last to deny that. His followers were the same; while the Sikhs threw lines over the branches, they sat and stared their hatred at the prisoners; I glanced along and noted the bright eyes, the clenched teeth, the tongues moistening the lips, and thought to myself, you’ve taken right smartly to nigger-killing, my boys. Well, good luck to you; you’ll make the pandies sorry they ever broke ranks before you’re done.
They didn’t look sorry at the moment, mind, just sullen as the Sikhs knotted the ropes round their necks – except for one of them, a fat scoundrel in a dhoti who shrieked and struggled and blubbered and even broke free for a moment and flung himself grovelling before Rowbotham until they dragged him back again. He collapsed in the dust, beating the earth with his hands and feet while the others stood resigned; Cheeseman says:
“Shall we put ’em on horses, sir – makes it quicker?”
“No!” cries Rowbotham. “How often must I tell you – I do not wish to make it quicker for these … these villains! They are being hanged as a punishment, Mr Cheeseman – it is not my design to make it easy for them! Let them suffer – and the longer the better! Will it atone for the atrocities they have wrought? No, not if they were flayed alive! You hear that, you rascals?” He shook his fist at them. “You know now the price of mutiny and murder – in a moment you shall pay it, and you may thank whatever false God you worship that you obtain a merciful death – you who did not scruple to torture and defile the innocent!” He was raving by now, with both hands in the air, and then he noticed again the dead fellow lying in the road, and roared to the Sikhs to string him up as well, so that they should all hang together as a token of justice. While they were manhandling the corpse he rode along behind the prisoners, examining each knot jealously, and then, so help me, he whipped off his hat and began to pray aloud, beseeching a Merciful God, as he put it, to witness what just retribution they were meting out in His name, and putting in a word for the condemned, although he managed to convey that a few thousand years in hell wouldn’t do them any harm.
Then he solemnly told the Sikhs to haul away, and they tailed on the ropes and swung the pandies into the air, the fat one screeching horribly. He wasn’t a mutineer, I was certain, but it probably wouldn’t have been tactful to mention that just then. The others gasped and thrashed about, clutching at their halters – now I saw why they hadn’t tied their hands, for three of them managed to clutch the ropes and haul themselves up, while the others choked and turned blue and presently hung there, twitching and swaying gently in the sunlight. Everyone was craning to watch the struggles of the three who had got their hands on the ropes, pulling themselves up to take the choking strain off their necks; they kicked and screamed now, swinging wildly to and fro; you could see their muscles quivering with the appalling strain.
“Five to one on the Rajput,” says O’Toole, fumbling in his pockets.
“Gammon,” says another. “He’s no stayer; I’ll give evens on the little ’un – less weight to support, you see.”
“Neither of ’em’s fit to swing alongside that artillery havildar we caught near Barthana,” says a third. “Remember, the one old J.K. found hiding under the old woman’s charpoy. I thought he’d hang on forever – how long was it, Cheese?”
“Six and a half minutes,” says Cheeseman. He had his foot cocked up on his saddle and was scribbling in a notebook. “That’s eighty-six, by the way, with today’s batch –” he nodded towards the struggling figures. “Counting the three shot last night, but not the ones we killed in the Mainpuri road ambush. Should knock up our century by tomorrow night, with luck.”
“I say, that’s not bad – hollo, O’Toole, there goes your Rajput! Bad luck, old son – five chips, what? Told you my bantam was the form horse, didn’t I?”
“Here – he’ll be loose in a moment, though! Look!” O’Toole pointed to the small sepoy, who had managed to pull himself well up his rope, getting his elbow in the bight of it, and was tugging at the noose with his other hand. One of the Sikhs sprang up to haul at his ankles, but Rowbotham barked an order and then, drawing his revolver, took careful aim and shot the sepoy through the body. The man jerked convulsively and then fell, his head snapping back as the rope tightened; someone laughed and sang out “Shame!” while another huzzaed, and then they all had their pistols out, banging away at the hanging figures which twitched and swung under the impact of the bullets.
“Take that, you bastard!” “There – that’s for little Jane! And that – and that!” “How d’ye like it now, you black pig of a mutineer? I wish you had fifty lives to blow away!” “Die, damn you – and roast in hell!” “That’s for Johnson – that’s for Mrs Fox – that, that, and that for the Prices!” They wheeled their mounts under the corpses, which were running with blood now, blasting at them point-blank.
“Too bloody good for ’em!” cries the white-bearded chap in the straw hat, as he fumbled feverishly to reload. “The colonel’s right – we ought to be flaying ’em alive, after what they’ve done! Take that, you devil! Or burning the brutes. I say, J.K., why ain’t we burnin’ ’em?”
They banged away, until Rowbotham called a halt, and their frenzy died down; the smoking pistols were put away, and the column fell in, with the flies buzzing thickly over the eight growing pools of blood beneath the bodies. I wasn’t surprised to see the riders suddenly quiet now, their excitement all spent; they sat heavy in their saddles, breathing deeply, while Cheeseman checked their dressing. It’s the usual way, with civilians suddenly plunged into war and given the chance to kill; for the first time, after years spent pushing pens and counting pennies, they’re suddenly free of all restraint, away from wives and families and responsibility, and able to indulge their animal instincts. They go a little crazy after a while, and if you can convince ’em they’re doing the Lord’s work, they soon start enjoying it. There’s nothing like a spirit of righteous retribution for kindling cruelty in a decent, kindly, God-fearing man – I, who am not one, and have never needed any virtuous excuse for my bestial indulgences, can tell you that. Now, having let off steam, they were sated, and some a little shocked at themselves, just as if they’d been whoring for the first time – which, of course, was something they’d never have dreamed of doing, proper little Christians that they were. If you ask me what I think of what I’d just witnessed – well, personally, I’d have backed O’Toole’s Rajput, and lost my money.
However, now that the bloody assizes was over, and Rowbotham and his merry men were ready to take the road again, I was able to get back to the business in hand, which was getting myself safely into Cawnpore. Fortunately they were headed that way themselves, since two weeks spent slaughtering pandies in the countryside had exhausted their forage and ammunition (the way they shot up corpses, I wasn’t surprised). But when, as we rode along, I questioned Rowbotham about how the land lay, and what the cannonading to the north signified, I was most disagreeably surprised by his answer; it couldn’t have been much worse news.
Cawnpore was under siege, right enough, and had been for two weeks. It seemed that Wheeler, unlike most commanders, had seen the trouble coming; he didn’t trust his sepoys a damned inch, and as soon as he heard of the Meerut rising he’d prepared a big new fortification in barracks on the eastern edge of Cawnpore city, with entrenchments and guns, so that if his four native regiments mutinied he could get inside it with every British civilian and loyal rifle in the place. He knew that the city itself, a great straggling place along the Ganges, was indefensible, and that he couldn’t have hoped to secure the great numbers of white civilians, women and children and all, unless he packed them into his new stronghold, which was by the racecourse, and had a good level field of fire all round.
So when the pandies did mutiny, there he was, all prepared, and for a fortnight he’d been giving them their bellyful, in spite of the fact that the mutineers had been reinforced by the local native prince, Nana Dondu Pant Sahib, who’d turned traitor at the last minute. Rowbotham hadn’t the least doubt that the place would hold; rumours had reached him that help was already on its way, from Lucknow, forty miles to the north, and from Allahabad, which lay farther off, east along the Ganges.
This was all very well, but we were going to have to run the gauntlet to get inside, as I pointed out; wouldn’t it be better to skirt the place and make for Lucknow, which by all accounts was still free from mutiny? He wouldn’t have that, though; his troops needed supplies badly, and in the uncertain state of the country he must make for the nearest British garrison. Besides, he anticipated no difficulty about getting in; his Sikhs had already scouted the pandy besiegers, and while they were in great strength there was no order about their lines, and plenty of places to slip through. He’d even got a message in to Wheeler, giving him a time and signal for our arrival, so that we could win to the entrenchment without any danger of being mistaken for the enemy.
For a sawbones he was a most complete little bandolero, I’ll say that for him, but what he said gave me the blue fits straight off. Plainly, I’d jumped from the Jhansi frying-pan into the Cawnpore fire, but what the devil could I do about it? From what Rowbotham said, there wasn’t a safe bolt-hole between Agra and Allahabad; no one knew how many garrisons were still holding, and those that were couldn’t offer any safer refuge than Cawnpore; I daren’t try a run for Lucknow with Ilderim (God knew what state it might be in when we got there). A rapid, fearful calculation convinced me that there wasn’t a better bet than to stick with this little madman, and pray to God he knew what he was doing. After all, Wheeler was a good man – I’d known him in the Sikh war – and Rowbotham was positive he’d hold out easily and be relieved before long.
“And that will be the end of this wicked, abominable insurrection,” says he, when we made camp that night ten miles closer to Cawnpore, with the distant northern sky lighting to the flashes of gunfire, rumbling away unceasingly. “We know that our people are already investing Delhi, and must soon break down the rebel defences and pull that unclean creature who calls himself King off his traitor’s throne – that will be to root out the mischief at its heart. Then, when Lawrence moves south from Lucknow, and our other forces push up the river, this nest of rebels about Cawnpore will be trapped; destroy them, and the thing is done. Then it will only remain to restore order, and visit a merited punishment upon these scoundrels; they must be taught such a lesson as will never be forgotten – aye, if we have to destroy them by tens of thousands –” he was away again on that fine, rising bray which reminded me of the hangings that afternoon; his troopers, round the camp-fire, growled enthusiastically “– hundreds of thousands, even. Nothing less will serve if this foulness is to be crushed once for all. Mercy will be folly – it will be construed as mere weakness.”
This sermon provoked a happy little discussion on whether, when all the mutineers had been rounded up, they should be blown from guns, or hanged, or shot. Some favoured burning alive, and others flogging to death; the chap in the straw hat was strong for crucifixion, I remember, but another fellow thought that would be blasphemous. They got quite heated about it – and before you throw up your hands in pious horror, remember that many of them had seen their own families butchered in the kind of circumstances I’d witnessed myself at Meerut, and were thirsting to pay the pandies back with interest, which was reasonable enough. Also, they were convinced that if they didn’t make a dreadful example, it would lead to more outbreaks, and the slaughter of every white person in India – the fear of that, and the knowledge of the kind of wantonly cruel foe they were up against, hardened them as nothing else could have done.
It was all one to me, I may say; I was too anxious about coming safe into Cawnpore to worry about how they disposed of the mutineers – it seemed a trifle premature to me. They were the rummest lot, though; when they’d tired of devising means of execution they got into a great argument about whether hacking and carrying should be allowed in football, and as I was an old Rugby boy my support was naturally enlisted by the hackers – it must have been the strangest sight, when I come to think of it, me in my garb of hairy Pathan with poshteen and puggaree, maintaining that if you did away with scrimmaging you’d be ruining the manliest game there was (not that I’d go near a scrimmage if you paid me), and the white-bearded wallah, with the blood splashes still on his coat, denouncing the handling game as a barbarism. Most of the others joined in, on one side or the other, but there were some who sat apart brooding, reading their Bibles, sharpening their weapons, or just muttering to themselves; it wasn’t a canny company, and I can get the shivers thinking about them now.
They could soldier, though; how Rowbotham had licked them into shape in less than a month (and where he’d got the genius from) beat me altogether, but you never saw anything more workmanlike than the way they disposed their march next day, with flank riders and scouts, a twenty-pound forage bag behind each saddle, all their gear and arms padded with cloth so that they didn’t jingle, and even leather night-shoes for the horses slung on their cruppers. Pencherjevsky’s Cossacks and Custer’s scalp-hunters couldn’t have made a braver show than that motley gang of clerks and counter-jumpers that followed Rowbotham to Cawnpore.
We were coming in from the east, and since the pandy army was all concentrated close to Wheeler’s stronghold and in the city itself, we got within two or three miles before Rowbotham said we must lie up in a wood and wait for dark. Before then, by the way, we’d pounced on an outlying pandy picket in a grove and killed two of them, taking three more prisoner: they were strung up on the spot. Two more stragglers were caught farther on, and since there wasn’t a tree handy Rowbotham and the Sikh rissaldar cut their heads off. The Sikh settled his man with one swipe, but Rowbotham took three; he wasn’t much with a sabre. (Ninety-three not out, as Cheeseman put it.)
We lay up in the stuffy, sweltering heat of the wood all afternoon, listening to the incessant thunder of the cannonading; one consolation was the regular crash of the artillery salvoes, which indicated that Wheeler’s gunners were making good practice, and must still be well stocked with powder and shot. Even after nightfall they still kept cracking away, and one of the Sikhs, who had wormed his way up to within a quarter-mile of the entrenchment, reported that he had heard Wheeler’s sentries singing out “All’s well!” regular as clockwork.
About two in the morning Rowbotham called us together and gave his orders. “There is a clear way to the Allahabad road,” says he, “but before we reach it we must bear right to come in behind the rebel gun positions, no more than half a mile from the entrenchment. At precisely four o’clock I shall fire a rocket, on which we shall burst out of cover and ride for the entrenchment at our uttermost speed; the sentries, having seen our rocket, will pass us through. The word is ‘Britannia’. Now, remember, for your lives, that our goal lies to the left of the church, so keep that tower always to your right front. Our rush will take us past the racecourse and across the cricket pitch –”
“Oh, I say!” says someone. “Mind the wicket, though.”
“– and then we must put our horses to the entrenchment bank, which is four feet high. Now, God bless us all, and let us meet again within the lines or in Heaven.”
That’s just the kind of pious reminder of mortality I like, I must say; while the rest of ’em were shaking hands in the dark I was carefully instructing Ilderim that at all costs he must stick by my shoulder. I was in my normal state of chattering funk, and my spirits weren’t raised as we were filing out of the wood and I heard someone whisper:
“I say, Jinks, what’s the time?”
“Ten past three,” says Jinks, “on the bright summer morning of June the twenty-second – and let’s hope to God we see the twenty-third.”
June twenty-third; I knew that date – and suddenly I was back in the big panelled room at Balmoral, and Pam was saying “… the Raj will come to an end a hundred years after the battle of Plassey … next June twenty-third.” By George, there was an omen for you! And now all round was the gloom, and the soft pad of the walking horses, and the reins sweating in my palms as we advanced interminably, my eyes glued to the faint dark shape of the rider ahead; there was a mutter of voices as we halted, and then we waited in the stifling dark between two rows of ruined houses – five minutes, ten, fifteen, and then a voice called “Ready, all!” There was the flare of a match, a curse, then a brighter glare, and suddenly a rush of sparks and an orange rocket shot up into the purple night sky, weaving like a comet, and as it burst to a chorus of cries and yells from far ahead Rowbotham shouts “Advance!” and we dug in our heels and fairly shot forward in a thundering mass.
There was a clear space ahead, and then a grove of trees, and beyond more level ground with dim shapes moving. As we bore down on them I realised that they must be pandies; we were charging the rear of their positions, and it was just light enough to make out the guns parked at intervals. There were shrieks of alarm and a crackle of shots, and then we were past, swerving between the gun-pits; there were horsemen ahead and either side and Ilderim crouched low in the saddle at my elbow. He yelled something and pointed right, and I saw an irregular tumbled outline which must be the church; to its left, directly ahead, little sparks of light were flashing in the distance – the entrenchment defenders were firing to cover us.
Someone sang out: “Bravo, boys!” and then all hell burst loose behind us; there was a crashing salvo of cannon, the earth ahead rose up in fountains of dust, and shot was whistling over our heads. A horse screamed, and I missed by a whisker a thrashing tangle of man and mount which I passed so close that a lashing limb caught me smack on the knee. Voices were roaring in the dark, I heard Rowbotham’s frantic “Close up! Ride for it!” A dismounted man plunged across my path and was hurled aside by my beast; behind me I heard the shriek of someone mortally hit, and a riderless horse came neighing and stretching frantically against my left side. Another shattering volley burst from the guns in our rear, and that hellish storm swept through us – it was Balaclava all over again, and in the dark, to boot. Suddenly my pony stumbled, and I knew from the way he came up that he was hit; a stinging cloud of earth and gravel struck me across the face, a shot howled overhead, and Ilderim was sweeping past ahead of me.
“Stop!” I bawled. “My screw’s foundered! Stop, blast you – give me a hand!”
I saw his shadowy form check, and his horse rear; he swung round, and as my horse sank under me his arm swept me out of the saddle – by God, he was strong, that one. My feet hit the ground, but I had hold of his bridle, and for a few yards I was literally dragged along, with Ilderim above hauling to get me across the crupper. Someone cannoned into us, and then as I pulled myself by main force across the crupper I felt a sudden shock, and Ilderim pitched over me and out of the saddle.
Even as I righted myself on the horse’s back the whole scene was suddenly bathed in glaring light – some swine had fired a flare, and its flickering illumination shone on a scene that looked like a mad artist’s hell. Men and horses seemed to be staggering and going down all round me under the hail of fire, throwing grotesque shadows as they fought and struggled. I saw Rowbotham pinned under a fallen horse only a few yards away; Cheeseman, his face a bloody mask, was stretched supine beside him, his limbs asprawl; Ilderim, with his left arm dangling, was half-up on one knee, clutching at my stirrup. A bare hundred yards ahead the entrenchment was in plain view, with the defenders’ heads visible, and some ass standing atop of it waving his hat; behind us, the red explosions of the cannon suddenly died, and to my horror I saw, pounding out under the umbrella of light cast by the flare, a straggling line of riders – sepoy cavalry with their sabres out, bearing down at the charge, and not more than a furlong away. Ilderim seized my stirrup and bawled:
“On, on! Ride, brother!”
I didn’t hesitate. He’d turned back to rescue me, and his noble sacrifice wasn’t going to be in vain if I could help it. That was certain death bearing down on us; I jammed in my heels, the horse leaped forward, and Ilderim was almost jerked off his feet. For perhaps five paces he kept up, with the yells and hoof-beats growing behind us, and then he stumbled and went down. I did my damnedest to shake him free, but in that instant the bloody bridle snapped, and I hurled out of the saddle and hit the ground with a smash that jarred every bone in my body. A shocking pain shot through my left ankle – Christ, it was caught in the stirrup, and the horse was tearing ahead, dragging me behind at the end of a tangle of leatherwork which somehow was still attached to its body.
If any of you young fellows ever find yourself in this predicament, where you’re dragged over rough, iron-hard ground, with or without a mob of yelling black fiends after you, take a word of advice from me. Keep your head up (screaming helps), and above all try to be dragged on your back – it will cost you a skinned arse, but that’s better than having your organs scraped off. Try, too, to arrange for some stout lads to pour rapid fire into your pursuers, and for a handy Gilzai friend to chase after you and slash the stirrup-leather free in the nick of time before your spine falls apart. I was half-conscious and virtually buttockless when Ilderim – God knows, wounded as he was, where he’d got the speed and strength – hauled me up below the entrenchment and pitched me almost bodily over the breastwork. I went over in a shocking tangle, roaring: “Britannia! Britannia, for Christ’s sake! I’m a friend!” and then a chap was catching me and lowering my battered carcase to earth and inquiring:
“Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?”
Then a musket was being pushed into my hand, and in shocked confusion I found myself at the rampart, banging away at red-coated figures who came out of the smoke and dust, and I know Ilderim was alongside me, relieving me of my revolver and loosing off shots into the brown. All round there was the crash of volleys, and a great bass voice was yelling. “Odds, fire! Reload! Evens, fire! Reload!” The pain from my ankle was surging up my leg, into my body, making me sick and dizzy, I was coughing with the reek of powder smoke, there was a bugle sounding, and a confused roar of cheering – and the next thing I remember I was lying in the half-light of dawn, with my back against a sand-bagged wall, staring at a big, shot-torn barrack building, while a tall, bald-headed cove with a pipe was getting my boot off, and applying a damp cloth to my swollen ankle.
There were a couple of chaps with muskets looking on, and Ilderim was having his arm bandaged by a fellow in a kepi and spectacles. There were others, moving about, carrying people towards the barrack, and along the parapet there were haggard-looking fellows, white and sepoy, with their pieces at the ready. A horrid smell seemed to hang over the place, and everything was filthy, with gear and litter all over the dusty ground, and the people seemed to be moving slowly. I was still feeling pretty dazed, but I guessed it must all be a dream anyway, for the chap third along the parapet to my left, with a handkerchief knotted round his head, was undoubtedly young Harry East. There couldn’t be two snub noses like that in the world, and since the last time I’d seen him I’d been pinned under a sledge in the snows of southern Russia, and he had been lighting out for safety, it didn’t seem reasonable that he should have turned up here.
a Thieves.
b Firearms.