Some of his news would be exaggerated bosh, of course, but I couldn’t judge how much, and I didn’t doubt his information about the local mutinies (which proved accurate enough, by the way: half the stations between Meerut and Cawnpore had been overrun by this time). Perhaps I was too ready to swallow his gammon about Afghan invasion and Bombay being in flames – but remember, I’d seen the stark, staring impossible happen at Meerut – after that, anything was credible. After all, there was only one British soldier in India for every fifty sepoys, to say nothing of banditti, frontiersmen, dacoits, bazaar ruffians and the like – dear God, if the thing spread there wasn’t an earthly damned reason why they shouldn’t swallow every British garrison, cantonment and residency from Khyber to Coromandel. And it would spread – I didn’t doubt it, as I sat numb and shaking on my charpai.
Coward’s reasoning, if you like, but I don’t know any other kind, thank heaven; at least it prepares you for the worst. And there couldn’t be much worse than my present situation, plumb in the eye of the storm – damnation, of all the places to hide in, what malign fate had taken me to Meerut? And how to get away? – my native disguise was sound enough, but I couldn’t skulk round India forever as a footloose nigger. I’d have to find a British garrison – a large, safe one … Cawnpore? Not by a mile – the whole Ganges valley seemed to be ablaze. North wasn’t any good, Delhi was gone and Agra on the brink … South? Gwalior? Jhansi? Indore? I found myself chattering the names aloud, and repeating one over and over – “Jhansi, Jhansi!”
Now, you must remember I was in my normal state of great pusillanimity, and half-barmy to boot, as a result of shock and the clout I’d taken. Otherwise I’d never have dreamed of Jhansi, two hundred and fifty miles away – but Ilderim was at Jhansi, and if there was one thing certain in this dreadful world, it was that he’d keep his tryst, and would either wait for me at Bull Temple as he’d promised, or leave word. And Jhansi must be safe – dammit, I’d spent weeks with its ruler, in civilised discussion and hectic banging; she was a lovely, wonderful girl, and would have her state well in hand, surely? Yes, Jhansi – it was madness, and I know it now, but in my weak, feverish state it seemed the only course at the time.
So south I went, talking to myself most of the time, and shying away from everyone and everything except the meanest villages, where I put in for provisions; I didn’t stand on ceremony, but just lurched in snarling and brandishing my Colt, kicking the cowed inhabitants aside, and lifting whatever I fancied – I’ve never been more grateful for my English public school upbringing than I was then. Whether I was unlucky or not I don’t know, but as I worked my way south past Khurjah and Hathras and Firozabad, over the river and down past Gohad to the Jhansi border, everything I saw confirmed my worst fears. I must have skulked in the brush a dozen times to avoid bands of sepoys – one of ’em a full regiment, blow me, with colours and band tootling away, but plainly mutineers from the din they made and the slovenly way they marched. I know now that there were British-held towns and stations along the way, and even bands of our cavalry scouring the country, but I never ran across them. What I did see was a sickening trail of death – burned-out bungalows, looted villages, bodies all swollen up and half-eaten by vultures and jackals. I remember one little garden, beside a pretty house, and three skeletons among the flowers – picked clean by ants, I daresay. Two were full-grown, and one was a baby. Now and then I would see smoke on the horizon, or over the trees, and crowds of villagers fleeing with their miserable belongings – it was like the end of the world to me, then, and if you’d known India you’d have thought the same – imagine it in Kent or Hampshire, for that’s how it seemed to us.
Fortunately, thanks to my curiously light-headed condition, my recollections of that wandering ride are not too clear; it wasn’t until the very morning that I came down out of the low hills to Jhansi city, and saw the distant fort-crowned rock above the town, that my mind seemed to give a little snap – I remember sitting my pony, with my brain clearing, understanding what I’d done, and why I was here, breaking out in a sweat at my own temerity, and then realising that I’d perhaps done the wise thing, after all. It all looked peaceful enough, although I was on the wrong side of the city to see the British cantonment; I decided to lie up during the afternoon, and then slip into Bull Temple, which was not far from the Jokan Bagh, a garden of little beehive temples not far outside the town. If Ilderim’s messenger wasn’t there by sundown, I’d scout the cantonment, and if all was well I’d ride in and report myself to Skene.
The sun was just slipping away and the shadows lengthening when I skirted the woods where Lakshmibai’s pavilion lay – who knows, thinks I, perhaps we’ll dance another Haymarket hornpipe before long – and came down to Bull Temple just after dusk. I didn’t see a soul as I came, but I was cheered by the sound of a bugle-call in the distance, and I was pressing ahead more boldly up towards the temple ruin when someone clicked his tongue in the shadows, and I reined up sharply.
“Who goes there?” says I, fingering the Colt, and a man lounged out, spreading his hands to show they were empty. He was a Pathan, skull-cap and pyjamys and all, and as he came to my horse’s head I recognised the sowar who’d given me his gear and pony when I’d left Jhansi – Rafik Tamwar.
“Flashman husoor,” says he, softly. “Ilderim said you would come.” And without another word he jerked his thumb towards the temple itself, put his hands to his mouth, and hooted softly like an owl; there was an answering hoot from the ruins, and Tamwar nodded to me to go ahead.
“Ilderim is yonder,” says he, and before I could ask him what the devil it meant, he had dissolved into the shadows and I was staring uneasily across the tangle of weeds and broken masonry that marked the old temple garden; there was a glare of fire-light from the doorway in the half-fallen shell of the dome, and a man was standing waiting – even at that distance I knew it was Ilderim Khan, and a moment later I was face to bearded grinning face with him, shaking with very relief as his one sound arm clasped me round the shoulders – the other was bound up in a sling – and he was chuckling in his throat and growling that I must have a pact with Shaitan since I was alive to keep the rendezvous.
“For we have heard of Meerut,” says he, as he drew me in to the fire, and the half-dozen sowars crouched round it made space for us. “And Delhi, Aligarh and the rest –”
“But what the blazes are you doing here?” says I. “Since when have irregular cavalry taken to bivouacking in ruins when they have their own quarters?”
He stared at me, stopping in the act of throwing a billet on the fire, and something in that look turned my blood to ice. They were all staring at me; I glanced from one grim bearded face to another, and in a voice suddenly hoarse I asked:
“What does it mean? Your officer – Henry sahib? Has anything –”
Ilderim threw the billet on the fire, and squatted down beside me. “Henry sahib is dead, brother,” says he quietly. “And Skene sahib. And the Collector sahib. And all their women, and their children also. They are all dead.”
* * *
a Child.
b “Kill!”
c Loin-cloths.
d British.
e Hello.
f Brother.
g These trifles will lead to grave evils.
h Pot, drinking cup.
Chapter 8
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 Kha
n (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.
“But the Rani, then?”
“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.”
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 273