by V. A. Stuart
“Wait!” Alex kneed his horse across the intervening space. “When strikes the hour, Ahmad Ullah? On the anniversary of Plassey, perhaps, as I have heard—or is that also vainglorious boasting, intended only to seduce the Company’s soldiers from their duty?”
The Moulvi, his good humor apparently restored, met his gaze with an enigmatic smile, ignoring the challenge. “No man can know the exact hour of his death,” he returned. “But I will tell you this, Sheridan Sahib—you will be dead within a few hours of the dawn of that day, and any of the sahib-log who are not dead will be in mortal terror, seeking in vain for a hiding place!” He drew the curtain across, as the doolie-bearers took up their poles and, at a word from him, they set off down the slope towards the bridge of boats spanning the river.
Alex nodded to Partap Singh, put Sultan into a canter and, with his orderly and the two baggage animals at his heels, swept past the doolie to cross the bridge some fifty yards ahead of it. The sky overhead was tinged with pink by the time he reached the opposite bank. Lucknow lay just over forty miles to the northeast and he set a brisk pace along the flat, dusty road, anxious to cover as many miles as he could before the sun rose to its full height and compelled him to call a halt until the heat became once more endurable.
He thought of Emmy as he rode, the pain of their parting still fresh in his mind. She, at least, would be safe in Calcutta, he told himself, sustained by this hope—whatever happened in Oudh or elsewhere in Northern India, she and her child would surely be safe. Then, recalling the Moulvi’s threatening words, he shivered, conscious of a hideous presentiment of what was to come.
He had heard such words before, of course, but always they had been whispered, vague warnings and promises, passed in secret from man to man and not intended for his ears. He had read them in letters smuggled into the native lines, when he had sought evidence with which to convince old Colonel Chalmers of the danger of sedition among the sowars of his regiment; and he had discerned the echo of those same words in the mysterious chappaties passed from village to village under cover of darkness, with the cryptic message which had accompanied each batch but … Alex drew in his breath sharply. Never, until today, had he heard the threat of an uprising openly and fearlessly expressed, as the Moulvi of Fyzabad had expressed it, and if he had ever doubted the truth, he could no longer do so.
But how many others would believe it? How many of the grey-beards—who, as the Moulvi had mockingly claimed, commanded the Company’s regiments and garrisons—how many of them would take the threat seriously or act in time and with sufficient vigor to stave off the consequences of their own blindness? A few, no doubt, of the caliber of Sir Henry Lawrence and his brother John, chief commissioner of the Punjab, and the men they had worked with and trained—Edwardes, Chamberlain and Nicholson—and some of the younger regimental officers, whose urgent pleas for decisive action had, like his own, gone unheeded. But they would have to carry the deadweight of the others, the Chalmers and the General Wheelers, who could not bring themselves to question the loyalty of regiments they had first led into battle forty or fifty years ago. … It was there that the awful danger lay. To shake their trust in the sepoys who were, even now, plotting to murder them, would take time and there was so little time left.
Indeed, if the Moulvi of Fyzabad were to be believed, there were only a few short weeks, for had he not hinted that the signal for a general uprising might come before the anniversary of Plassey on the twenty-third of June? Had he not implied that it would all be over when that day dawned?
“Aista, Sahib,” Partap Singh warned, gesturing to where the road ahead was blocked by a long line of straggling bullock carts, most of whose drivers—after the habit of such men—had been lulled to sleep by the swaying of their slow, ponderous vehicles.
Alex drew rein, turning in his saddle to look back across the flat expanse of cultivated land to Cawnpore. The sun rose in a blaze of glory and the scene spread out before him was one of tranquil beauty, at once familiar and reassuring. Most of the city was shrouded in shadow, the labyrinth of narrow streets, the crowded dwelling places and the teeming thousands who inhabited them hidden from view, but here a tall white temple on the skyline took on the colour of the sunrise and there, above a fringe of trees, the dome of a mosque was turned to molten bronze as a ray of sunlight reached slowly out to touch it.
Sounds of returning life reached him, borne on the soft morning breeze. Temple bells set up a musical clangor, the voice of the muezzin, muted by distance, called the faithful to prayer. The clear, shrill notes of a British bugle sounded Assembly, the call taken up and echoed by others in cantonments and native lines. Alex was turning away when suddenly, almost as if the bugle call had been a signal, a great flock of vultures rose on flapping wings from walls and trees and from the burning ghauts beside the river, to hover, like harbingers of doom, above the huddled rooftops of the newly awakened city, their bodies ominous black specks against the blood-red brilliance of the eastern sky.
There were so many of them that he could not suppress an involuntary shudder.
“A-jao!” he bade Partap Singh thickly and, choking in the dust which hung in the wake of the plodding bullock carts, forced an impatient way past the strung-out line and continued on his journey to Lucknow, driven by a sense of urgency that would brook no delay.
From the concealment of a clump of trees by the roadside, their horses tethered nearby, a group of well-armed riders watched him pass.
They were cavalrymen of the now disbanded army of the King of Oudh, most of whom had been forced, since the termination of their royal employment, to eke out a precarious living as robbers and freebooters. This group, however, under the command of a wealthy talukdar, were in the service of the Moulvi of Fyzabad and it needed only a word from their leader to silence the murmur that went up when they glimpsed the two laden baggage ponies, cantering past their hiding place at the heels of a sahib on a black horse.
“I could have picked the sahib off with ease,” one of the men said regretfully, fingering his matchlock. “That is a fine horse he rides, better than this jade of mine. And doubtless his baggage contains much of value.”
“We are not here to rob sahibs,” the talukdar reminded him harshly. “Thou art a fool, Ismail Khan! Have patience, for when the time comes, thou shalt have thy choice of fine horses and plunder beyond thy dreams. Only wait for the word.”
“I grow weary waiting, huzoor,” the soldier grumbled and one or two of his companions nodded agreement.
“Rapacious curs! Mindless sons of misbegotten bitches!” Their leader cursed them roundly. “Canst thou not understand that all will be lost, unless we strike as one man throughout the length and breadth of Hind? To rise prematurely, in small, isolated groups, is to invite failure and defeat. The Company is weaker than of yore but it still has many white soldiers to fight in its defense. Not until every Indian paltan has given its promise to join us can we be certain of victory. The time is not yet, there are still preparations to be made—but it will not be long in coming. And no doubt Ahmad Ullah, the Wise One, will bring us good news of his visit to the rissala in Cawnpore.”
The grumbling ceased and when, twenty minutes later, the doolie of Ahmad Ullah was seen approaching along the straight, dust-shrouded road, the men’s excitement mounted. The weary bearers set down their burden with relief and the Moulvi emerged, mopping his brow, to be surrounded by eager questioners.
“Yes, yes, my brothers, the men of the Second Rissala are with us,” he answered. “They have taken the oath. So, too, have the sepoys of the 1st and the 56th Paltans, but those of the 53rd still waver. They—!”
“They are dogs of Hindus!” Ismail Khan exclaimed wrathfully. “What else is to be expected of them?”
“They are of Hind,” the Moulvi said reprovingly. “United with us in the struggle against the Company. Religious differences must be forgotten until victory is won. After that …” he smiled, looking from one to another of the fierce bearded faces p
ressing about him. “It will be as Allah wills, my brothers! Remember that this is the Year of the Prophecy, the last of the Hundred Years of Subjection, when it is written that we, the Faithful, shall overthrow the infidel tyrants and restore to Hind the great and powerful Empire of the Moguls. What matters it if, for a time, our allies are not True Believers? What matters it even should one, who calls himself the Peishwa, seek to regain his throne as reward for aiding us? We need his aid against the common foe.”
The men eyed him doubtfully but their leader, spitting his contempt for such addle-pated fools, endorsed his words.
“My horse,” the Moulvi ordered, washing his hands of them. “I go now to Lucknow, to speak with the sowars of the 7th Irregulars.” He hesitated, frowning. “Saw you a sahib ride past some distance ahead of me? A sahib with an empty sleeve, riding a black horse?”
There was an eager chorus of assent and Ismail Khan volunteered, “I had my rifle sighted on his back, Wise One, but the Lord Akbar forbade me to fire.”
“The Lord Akbar is right—we want no trouble yet and I have told the Company soldiers that they must continue to obey all the orders of their officers. But”—again the Moulvi hesitated and then, evidently reaching a decision, laid a hand on Ismail Khan’s shoulder—“the sahib of whom I speak is Sheridan Sahib, he who lately governed in Adjodhabad. He is a danger to our cause, for he is not blind, like so many—he watches and listens and takes heed. Go thou after him to Lucknow, Ismail, whither he goes to seek audience with the Lord Lawrence Sahib. If Lawrence Sahib should send him back to Adjodhabad, let him go, for he can do little there to harm our cause—all the paltans are with us. But if he leaves for Meerut, as his orders from the Company require, then see to it that he never reaches his destination. Dost thou understand?”
“I understand, Moulvi Sahib.” Ismail Khan darted a triumphant glance at his leader but then his face fell. “How shall I know the destination of the sahib? It is not easy for a man such as myself to learn these things. The servants will not talk and—”
“Take service with him, fool,” the talukdar advised. “He has but three men—a dog of a Sikh and two syces. If one of them should be found with his throat cut or a knife in his back, Sheridan Sahib will seek another in his place.”
Ismail bowed his head. “May I keep his horse when the deed is done, huzoor? The fine black horse he rides?”
The talukdar laughed. “The horse shall be thine, grasping one, and mayest thou have joy of it! Now go and do what thou hast been charged to do.” He was engaged in low-voiced conversation with the Moulvi as Ismail Khan swung himself into the saddle of the bony country-bred he despised and set off at a shambling canter in pursuit of his quarry.
“Can he be trusted?” the Moulvi asked uncertainly. “Matters advance in Meerut, I am told.”
“Thy trust is better reposed in him than in any treacherous Mahratta, be he or be he not the Peishwa,” the talukdar answered, with a hint of sullenness. “Besides, he desires the horse.”
“Good.” The Moulvi nodded, satisfied. “Thy fears concerning the Nana are groundless, brother. True, he is a Mahratta but he occupies a privileged position—all the officers of the garrison are his friends and the old general confides in him and seeks his advice. It is even said that he will call upon the Bithur bodyguard, under Tantia Topi, to take over the Treasury and Magazine guards, should his own sepoys prove unreliable!” He threw back his head and laughed, with cynical amusement. “The general grows soft in the head with his great age and plays into our hands, Akbar Mohammed! But so also does the Nana. He thinks to vacillate, keeping a foot in both camps lest all we have planned should come to naught but, when the time comes, he will have no choice save to throw in his lot with us.”
“How so, Wise One?” Akbar Mohammed enquired, eyeing him with new respect.
“Oh, come! Has he not one of us at his right hand?”
“Azimullah? Meanest thou Azimullah Khan?”
“Who else, brother?” The Moulvi laughed again, softly this time. “Azimullah is the Nana’s chief adviser but the advice he gives to his master comes from me!” He mounted his horse, still chuckling to himself and, accompanied by the Oudh cavalrymen, set off in the direction of Lucknow by a cross-country route which avoided the road.
CHAPTER TWO
ALEX reached Lucknow just before nightfall. He was expected and a room had been prepared for him at the Residency, to which Captain Thomas Wilson, Sir Henry’s aide, escorted him.
They exchanged news as Alex washed the stains of travel from his person. “The situation here might be worse,” Wilson told him. “In Oudh itself, Sir Henry has wrought a minor miracle. In a few weeks, he has made friends with some of the most influential of the talukdars and done more than anyone believed possible to alleviate the discontent, not merely by devising conciliatory measures but also by making the chief sufferers believe that he feels deeply for their sufferings. Given time, I am convinced that his wise counsel would prevail, because he’s winning the same trust here that he enjoyed in the Punjab. But he fears that he will not be given time.”
“The sepoys?” Alex suggested wryly.
The aide-de-camp inclined his head. “The sepoys,” he confirmed. “They seem to be too deeply infected by the taint of disloyalty to be reached by any cure and they are constantly being inflamed by religious leaders, who tell them that it is the Company’s irrevocable intention to convert them forcibly to Christianity. The high-caste Hindus are especially ready to believe these lies—small wonder, I suppose, when one realizes what loss of caste can mean to a Brahmin and how easy it is to lose caste.”
“Yes.” Alex toweled himself briskly. “I saw a fire just after I crossed the Dilkusha Bridge. One of the bungalows was well alight but it was being dealt with very efficiently by servants and some men of the 32nd.”
“Doctor Wells’ bungalow,” Thomas Wilson supplied. “And do you know why? Young Wells is surgeon to the 48th and a couple of days ago, feeling unwell, he went to the hospital for some medicine. He’s not been out here long and, quite forgetting that he’d be polluting it in the eyes of his Hindu patients, he put the bottle to his lips and swallowed a draught. There was a shocking outcry and, even when the colonel had the bottle smashed in their presence, the sepoys weren’t satisfied.” He spread his hands helplessly. “And so it goes on—trifling incidents are constantly being magnified out of all proportion to their importance, and this business over the cartridges is the most pernicious of the lot! You know, I imagine that Sir Henry is taking steps to provision and defend the Residency, in case the worst comes to the worst?”
“I had heard he was, yes.” Alex looked a question and the aide-de-camp sighed. “Oh, being Sir Henry, of course he’s doing all in his power to avoid trouble. He’s called a durbar in the Residency garden on the twelfth, to be attended by fifty native officers and men from each of the sepoy regiments, and he intends to appeal to their loyalty and good sense … always supposing they’ve got any!”
“He might succeed. They hold him in great esteem.”
“And so they should!” Wilson said vehemently. “He’s working himself to death in his efforts to find a solution to their problems—problems that were never of his making and many of which have arisen because his advice was ignored. He really cares, you know.” He rose as Alex, his toilet completed, reached for the mess jacket which had been laid out for him and with a quick, “Here, let me,” assisted him to don it. “Well, if you’re ready, we’ll go and look for him, shall we? Er—how long is it since you’ve seen him?”
Alex stared at him, puzzled by the question. “Not since he left Ajmeer. But—”
“He’s aged almost out of recognition,” Lawrence’s aide-decamp warned. “I think by ten years since he came here. He’s lost without his wife, of course—I don’t think a day passes that he doesn’t tell me how little his life means to him, now that she has gone. And his domestic arrangements are chaotic at times, without a woman’s hand to smoothe them over. He’s alway
s inviting dozens of people to dine and then forgetting to tell either George Cooper or myself that he’s done so. This evening we’re to be a party of nineteen or twenty, I’m not sure which, and Sir Henry informed me an hour ago! However”—he smiled, his good-looking young face losing its habitual gravity for a moment—“the ladies of the garrison are very good. They send their khansamas over with food from their own tables and so we manage.”
Alex was conscious of a feeling of keen disappointment at this final item of news. With the limited time at his disposal, he had hoped for the opportunity of an hour or so in private with his old chief, but this, he thought glumly, would hardly be possible if Sir Henry were occupied in playing host to a large party of dinner guests.
Sensing his chagrin, Thomas Wilson said consolingly, “He didn’t forget that he was expecting you, Sheridan, and I know he wants to talk to you. The guests won’t stay very late, so I’m sure that he’ll make time for you before he retires. He’ll probably invite you to smoke a cigar on the roof with him, when the others have gone.”
They found Sir Henry Lawrence in the drawing room, which was already crowded with ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, all of whom seemed in good spirits. Among them, Alex recognized Doctor and Mrs Fayrer; the financial commissioner, Mr Martin Gubbins; Colonel Inglis, commanding officer of Lucknow’s only European regiment, the 32nd Queen’s; the chief engineer, Major Anderson with his attractive wife, and the commissioner of the Lucknow Division, Major Bankes. He responded automatically to those who greeted him but he had eyes only for Sir Henry and, in spite of young Wilson’s warning, was profoundly shocked, when his host shook him warmly by the hand, to see the change a few short weeks had wrought in him.