Flashman In The Great Game fp-5

by George MacDonald Fraser

  He saw me ahead, and yelled with despair — of course, what he saw was a great hairy native villain blocking his way. He darted for a doorway, and stumbled, and in an instant they were on him, a clawing, animal mob, tearing at him while he lashed out, yelling obscenities. For an instant he broke free, blood pouring from a wound in his neck, and actually scrambled under my pony; the mob was round us in a trice, dragging him out bodily while I struggled to keep my seat — there was no question of helping him, even if I'd been fool enough to try. They bore him up, everyone shrieking like madmen, and smashed him down on the table of a pop-shop, holding his limbs while others broke the pop-bottles and slashed and stabbed at him with the shards.

  It was a nightmare. I could only clutch my reins and stare at that screaming, thrashing figure, half-covered in the pop foam, as those glittering glass knives rose and fell. In seconds he was just a hideous bloody shape, and then someone got a rope round him, and they swung him up to a beam, with his life pouring out of him.25 In panic I drove my heels into the pony, blundered to the corner, and rode for dear life.

  It was the shocking unexpectedness of it that had unmanned me — to see a white man torn to pieces by natives. Perhaps you can't imagine what that meant in India; it was something you could not believe, even when you saw it. For a few moments I must have ridden blind, for the next thing I knew I was reining up on the edge of the Grand Trunk where it comes north out of Meerut city, gazing at a huge rabble pouring up towards the British town; to my amazement half of them were sepoys, some of them just in their jackets, others in full fig down to the cross-belts, brandishing muskets and bayonets, and yelling in unison: "Mat Karo! Mat Karo!*(*"Kill!) Sipahi Jai!" and the like — slogans of death and rebellion. There was one rascal on a cart, brandishing ankle-irons above his head, and a heaving mass of sepoys and bazaar-wallahs pushing his vehicle along, yelling like drunkards.

  Beyond the road the native cavalry barracks were in full flame; even as I watched I saw one roof cave in with an explosion of sparks. Behind me there were buildings burning in the bazaar, and even as I turned to look I saw a gang of ruffians hurling an oil-lamp into a booth, while others were steadily thrashing with clubs at the fallen body of the owner; finally they picked him up and tossed him into the blaze, dancing and yelling as he tried vainly to struggle out; he was a human torch, his mouth opening and closing in unheard screams, and then he fell back in the burning ruin.

  I don't know how long I sat there, staring at these incredible things, but I know it was dark, with flames leaping up everywhere, and an acrid reek pervading the air, before I came to my senses enough to realise that the sooner I lit out the better — of course, I was safe enough in that I was to all outward appearance a native, and a big, ugly one at that, but it made no sense to linger; any moment there must be the sound of bugles up the road, heralding a British detachment, and I didn't want to be caught up in the ensuing brawl. So I put my pony's nose north, and trotted along the edge of the road, with that stream of mad humanity surging in the same direction at my elbow.

  Even then I hadn't determined what it all meant, but any doubts I might have had were resolved as I came level with the Jail, and there was a huge crowd, clamouring and applauding round a bonfire, and forming up, in their prison dhotis,*(*Loin-cloths.) but with their ankles freed, were some of the prisoners — I recognised Gobinda, and one or two others, and a sepoy whom I didn't know was standing on a cart, haranguing the mob, although you could hardly hear him for the din:

  "It is done! … Death to the gora-log!*(*British.) … sahibs are already running away … see the broken chains! … On, brothers, kill! kill! To the white town!"

  The whole mob screamed as one man, leaping up and down, and then bore the prisoners shoulder-high, streaming out on to the Grand Trunk towards the distant Mall — God, I could see flames up there already, out towards the eastern end. There must be bungalows burning on this side of the Mall, beyond the Nullah.

  There was only one way for me to go. Behind was Meerut city and the bazaar, which was being smashed up and looted by the sound of things; to my left lay the burning native barracks; ahead, between me and the British Town, the road was jammed with thousands of crazy fanatics, bent on blood and destruction. I waited till the press thinned a little, and swung right, heading for the Nullah north of the Jail; I would cross the east bridge, and make a long circle north past the Mall to come to the British camp lines.

  The first part was easy enough; I crossed the Nullah, and skirted the east end of the British Town, riding carefully in the half-dark, for the moon wasn't up yet. It was quiet here, in the groves of trees; the tumult was far off to my left, but now and then I saw little groups of natives — servant-women, probably, scurrying among the bushes, and one ominous sign that some of the killers had come this way — an old chowkidar, with his broken staff beside him, lying with his skull beaten in. Were they butchering anyone, then — even their own folk? Of course — any natives suspected of loyalty would be fair game — including the gora-colonel's lapdog, as Ram Mangal had charmingly called me. I pressed on quickly; not far behind me, I could hear chanting voices, and see torch-light among the trees. The sooner I …

  "Help! Help! In God's name, help us!"

  It came from my right; a little bungalow, behind a white gate, and as I stopped, uncertain, another voice (Tied:

  "Shut up, Tommy! God knows who it is … see the lights yonder!"

  "But Mary's dead!" cries the first voice, and it would have made your hair stand up. "She's dead, I tell you — they've —"

  They were English, anyway, and without thinking I slipped from the saddle, vaulted the gate, and cried: "It's a friend! Who are you?"

  "Oh, thank God!" cries the first voice. "Quickly — they've killed Mary … Mary!"

  I glanced back; the torches were still two hundred yards away among the trees. If I could get the occupants of the bungalow moving quickly, they might get away. I strode up the verandah steps, looked through the space where a chick had been torn down, and saw a wrecked room, with an oil-lamp burning feebly, and a white man, his left leg soaked in blood, lying against the wall, a sabre in his hand, staring at me with feverish eyes.

  "Are you .?" he began, and then yelled. "Christ — it's a mutineer — 3rd Cavalry! Jim!"

  And I hadn't got my mouth open when out of the shadows someone sprang; I had an instant's vision of a white face, red moustache, staring eyes, and whirling sabre, and then I was locked with him, crashing to the floor, while I yelled:

  "You bloody idiot! I'm English, damn you!"

  But he seemed to have gone mad; even as I wrestled his sabre from him and sprang away he yelled to his pal, who feebly shoved his sabre towards him; the next thing he was slashing at me, yelling curses, and I was guarding and trying to shout sense at him. I broke ground, fell over something soft, and realised as I struck the ground that it was a white woman, in evening dress — or rather it was her body, for she was lying in a pool of blood. I flung up my sabre to guard another maniac slash, but too late; I felt a fiery pain across my skull, just above the left ear, and the fellow on the floor screams:

  "Go it, Jim! Finish him, finish —"

  The crash of musketry filled the room; the fellow above me twisted grotesquely, dropping his sabre, and tumbled down across my legs; there were black faces grinning at the window above me through the powder smoke, and then they were in the room, yelling with triumph as they drove their bayonets into the wounded Tommy, hacking at him, smashing the furniture, and finally one of them was helping me up, shouting:

  "Just in time, brother! Thank the 11th N.I., sowar'

  Aieee! Three of the pigs! God be praised — have ye been at their goods, then?"

  I was dizzy with pain, so he dropped me, and while they ransacked the bungalow, growling like beasts, I crawled out on to the verandah and into the bushes. I lay there, staunching the blood that was running down my cheek; it wasn't a bad wound — no worse than the schlager cut beside it, which de Gautet had gi
ven me years ago. But I didn't come out, even after they'd gone, taking my pony with them; I was too shaken and scared — that idiot Jim had come within an ace of fmishing me — my God, it had been Jim Lewis, of course — the veterinary. I'd bowed him out of Mason's bungalow only a couple of nights before. And now, he was dead, and his wife Mary — and I was alive, saved by the mutineers who'd murdered them.

  I lay there, still half-dazed, trying to make sense of it. This was mutiny, no doubt of it, and on the grand scale — the 3rd Cavalry were out, of course, and I'd seen 20th N.I. men under arms on the Grand Trunk; the fellows who'd inadvertently saved me were 11th N.I., so that was the whole Indian garrison of Meerut. But where the devil were the two British regiments? — their lines weren't more than a half-mile from where I was lying, beyond the Mall, but although two or three hours must have passed since the rioting started, there wasn't a sign of any activity by the authorities. I lay listening to the crackle of firing, and the distant tumult of voices and wrecking and burning — there were no bugle calls, no sound of volleys, no shouted orders, no heavy gunfire amidst the confusion. Hewitt couldn't just be sitting doing nothing — a terrible thought struck me: they couldn't have been wiped out, surely? No, you can't beat two thousand disciplined soldiers with a mutinous mob — but what the hell was keeping 'em quiet, then?26

  In the long run I decided I'd have to make a break for at, up to the Mall and across towards the British infantry Imes; it would take me past Duff Mason's bungalow, and the MacDowalls', so I could see what was happening there, though no doubt the people would have withdrawn already to the safety of the British camps. Yes, I could see, when I stood up, that some of the bungalows south of the Mall were burning, and there was a hell of a din and shooting coming from the British Town farther west; I would have to keep well clear of that.

  I moved cautiously through the trees, and found the little drive that led up to the eastern end of the Mall. There was a bungalow burning like blazes a hundred yards ahead, and half a dozen sepoys standing by its fence, cursing and occasionally firing a shot into it; on the other side of the road, a crowd of servants were huddled under a tree, and as I stole quietly towards them in the shadows I could hear them wailing. That was Surgeon Dawson's bungalow; as I came level with it, I remembered that Dawson had been down with smallpox — he and his wife and children had all been confined to the house — and there was its roof caving in with a thunderous whoosh of sparks. I felt giddy and ill at the thought — and then hurried on, past that hellish scene; the drive ahead was deserted as far as I could see in the light of the rising moon.

  Our bungalow wasn't burning, anyway — but just before I reached it my eye was caught by something on the verandah of the Courtneys' place across the way. Some-thing was moving; it was a human figure, trying to crawl. I hesitated fearfully, and then slipped through the gate and up the path; the figure was wheezing horribly; it suddenly rolled over on its back, and I saw it was a native servant, with a bayonet buried in his chest. As I stood appalled his head rolled, and he saw me; he tried to lift a hand, pointing towards the house, and then he flopped back, groaning.

  For the life of me I can't think what made me go inside, and I wish I hadn't. Mrs Courtney was dead in her chair, shot and bayonetted, with her head buried in the cushions, and when I looked beyond I vomited on the spot — her three children were there as well. It was a sight to blast your eyes; the place was like a slaughter-house, stinking with blood — I turned and ran, retching, and didn't stop until I found myself stumbling on to Duff Mason's verandah.

  The place was still as death — but I had to go in, for I knew that in Duff Mason's bottom desk-drawer there was a Colt and a box of ammunition, and I wanted them both as I wanted my next breath. I glanced through the trees towards the Dawsons' burning home, but there was no sign of approaching mutineers, so I slipped through the chick-door into the hall. And there I fainted dead away — something I haven't done more than twice in my life.

  The reason I'll tell you quickly — Mrs Leslie's head was lying on the hall table. Her body, stripped naked — that same plump white body that I'd fondled only a few hours earlier, was lying a few feet beyond, unspeakably gashed. And in the doorway to the dining-room, Mrs Captain MacDowall was huddled grotesquely against the jamb, with a tulwar pinning her to the wall; clenched in one hand was a small vase, with the flowers it had held scattered on the boards — I realised that she must have snatched it up as a weapon.

  I don't remember getting Duff Mason's revolver, but I know that later I was standing in the hall, keeping my eyes away from those ghastly things on the floor, loading it with cartridges and weeping and cursing to myself together. Why — why the hell should they do this? — I found myself blubbering it aloud. I've seen death and horror more than most men, but this was worse than anything — it was beyond bestiality. Gobinda? Pir Ali? Old Sardul? Ram Mangal, even? They couldn't have done this -- they wouldn't have done it to the wives of their bitterest enemies. But it had been done — if not by them, then by men like them. It was mad, senseless, incredible — but it was there, and if I tell you of it now, it is not to horrify, but to let you understand what happened in India in '57, and how it was like nothing that any of us had ever seen before. And none of us — not even I — was ever the same again.

  You know me, and what a damned coward and scoundrel I am, and not much moved by anything — but I did an odd thing in that house. I couldn't bring myself to touch Mrs Leslie, or even to look again at that ghastly head, with its frizzy red hair and staring eyes — but before I left I went to Mrs Captain MacDowall, and forced the vase from her fingers, and I collected the flowers and put them in it. I was going to set it on the floor beside her, and then I remembered that carping Scotch voice, and her contemptuous sniff- so I set it on a little table instead, with a napkin under it, just so. I took one more look round — at the wreckage of the place that my bearers had made the finest house on the station; the polished wood scarred and broken, the ornaments smashed, the rug matted with blood, the fine chandelier that had been Miss Blanche's pride wantonly shattered in a corner — and I went out of that house with such hate in my heart as I've never felt before or since. There was something I wanted to do — and quickly; I had my chance in the next five minutes, as I slipped up to the corner of the drive, and looked westward along the Mall.

  The shots were still crackling in the British Town — were there any of our folk left alive down there, I wondered. How many bungalows, burned or whole, contained the same horrors that I'd found? I wasn't going to look — and I wasn't going a step farther, either. Burning buildings, screaming mobs, death and wreckage — they were all there, ahead of me; as I looked north through the trees I could see torchlight and hear yelling between me and the British lines. Whatever Hewitt and Carmichael-Smith and the rest of them were doing — supposing they were still alive — I'd now decided they could do without me: all I wanted was to get out of Meerut, and away from that hell, as fast as I could, and find peace and safety, and rest the hellish pain in my wounded head. But first I must do what I lusted above all things to do — and here came the chance, in the shape of a trooper, cantering along the Mall, swaying in his saddle, singing drunkenly to himself as he rode. Behind him, against the distant flames, there were a few parties of sepoys straggling on the Mall; eastward the road was quite empty.

  I stepped into the Mall as he rode up; he had a bloody tulwar in one hand, a foolish animal grin on his filthy black face, and the grey coat of the 3rd Cavalry on his back. Seeing me in the same rig he let out a whoop and reined in unsteadily.

  "Ram-ram, *(*Hello.) sowar," says I, and forced myself to leer at him. "Have you slain as many as I have, eh? And whose blood is that?" I pointed at his sword.

  "Hee-hee-hee-hee," giggles he, lurching in the saddle. "Is it blood? It is? Whose — why, maybe it is Carmik-al-Ismeet's?" He waved the blade, goggling drunkenly. "Or Hewitt Sahib's? Nay, nay, nay!"

  "Whose, then?" says I, genially, and laid a hand on his crupper
.

  "Ah, now," says he, studying the blade. "The Riding-Master Langley Sahib's — eh? That son of a stinking mangy pork-eating dog! Nay, nay, nay!" He leaned precariously from the saddle. "Not Langley. Hee-hee-hee-hee! He will have no grand-children by his daughter! Hee-hee-hee-hee!"

  And I'd chased her growling, off the verandah, just the previous night. I had to hold on to his leather to keep my balance, biting back the bile that came into my mouth. I took another quick glance along the Mall; the nearest sepoys were still some distance off.

  "Shabash!" says I. "That was a brave stroke." And as he leered and chortled I brought my hand up with the Colt in it, aimed carefully just above his groin, and fired.

  He reared up, and I clutched the bridle to steady the horse as he went flying from the saddle; a second and I had it managed, then I was up and in his place, and he was threshing on the ground, screaming in agony — with luck he would take days to die. I circled him once, snarling down at him, looked back along the Mall, at those distant black figures like Dante's demons against the burning inferno behind them, and then I was thundering eastward, past the last bungalows, and the sights and sounds of horror were fading behind me.27

  • • •

  God knows how far I rode that night — probably no great distance. I don't think I was quite right in the head, partly from the shock of what I'd seen, but much more from the pain of my wound, which began to act up most damnably. It felt as though my left temple was wide open, and white heat was getting into my brain; I could hardly see out of my left eye, and was haunted by the fear that the cut would send me blind. I had enough sense, though, to know which way I wanted to go — south by east at first to skirt Meerut city, and then south by west until I struck the Delhi road at a safe distance. Delhi meant the safety of a great British garrison (or so I thought), and since there were telegraph lines between it and Meerut I felt certain that I'd meet help coming along it. I wasn't to know that the fool Hewitt hadn't even sent a message to tell of the Meerut outbreak.