Shadow of the Moon

by M. M. Kaye

  ‘I agree. I entirely agree,’ said Colonel Packer. ‘To show panic may precipitate the very crisis we seek to avoid. We must place our trust in the Lord. His rod and His staff shall not fail us.’

  ‘Possibly not, sir,’ said Alex drily. ‘But will the sepoys? Are we to take it that the sight of our women and children being sent to safety will unsettle the regiments to the extent of driving them to mutiny? I had understood that you believed them to be loyal?’

  ‘The loyalty of my Regiment,’ said Colonel Gardener-Smith quietly, ‘has never yet been called in question, and to send my wife and daughter away would amount to a public declaration that I had lost confidence in their loyalty. That I will not do. At this time it is doubly necessary not only to show confidence, but to avoid any action that can be construed as alarm.’

  ‘Which means,’ said Alex with shut teeth, ‘that no precautionary measures whatever can be taken, for fear that any change in the present routine may be translated as panic.’

  ‘You exaggerate, Captain Randall,’ said Colonel Gardener-Smith coldly. ‘Reasonable precautions will of course be taken.’

  ‘Will you name one, sir?’ demanded Alex harshly.

  There was a sudden silence about the table. It was broken by Colonel Packer, who remarked pontifically that those who put their trust in the Lord needed no other armour.

  ‘Nonsense!’ snapped Colonel Gardener-Smith. ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves, Packer. But at the present juncture I maintain that all that is necessary is to remain calm. There must be no appearance of alarm or any alteration of our normal practices that might be likely to call forth comment and arouse uneasiness. For which reason I myself am against sending the women and children away. What do you say, Barton?’

  ‘Qui’ ri’,’ said Mr Barton. ‘Mush keep calm. ‘Ssential to keep calm. Where’s the brandy?’

  Alex came to his feet and leaned on the table, his hands gripping the edge. ‘May I beg you to reconsider, sir? I am well aware that it will give rise to panic if we send them away. Good God, I am not entirely—’ He controlled himself with an effort and continued more quietly: ‘But I feel that it should be possible to explain to the regiments, through the medium of their Indian officers, that the families are only being sent away because the services of every officer and every sepoy may be needed for action, and not for being kept hamstrung in cantonments protecting a parcel of women.’

  ‘I reshent that,’ said the Commissioner with dignity. ‘Wha’ d’yer mean, “parcel o’ women"? Sweet creatures! … Privilege to protect ’em!’

  Alex ignored the interruption: ‘I beg of you to send them away while there is still time. It is the lesser of the two evils, and our paramount duty at this time is surely not their protection, but the saving of the country. The maximum efficiency cannot be obtained while the garrison is hampered by a horde of women whose personal safety will be placed above military expediency …’

  The memory of his own fatuous action of the previous day, when he had followed his chief’s wife into the city against all reason and judgement, caught in his throat and seemed to choke him, and he struck the table with the flat of his hand: ‘Can you not see that if they remain here they will hamper and handicap us into virtual uselessness? How can any man make a cool-headed decision which he knows may involve grave risk, while he is thinking that to take that risk may mean the murder and mutilation of his wife and child? There are a hundred chances that we would all cheerfully take without them, yet would hesitate to take while we have their safety to consider.’

  He looked about the table at the circle of grim, drawn faces and saw hesitation and doubt; and, for a moment only, he was hopeful. Then Colonel Moulson spoke:

  ‘My dear Captain Randall,’ he drawled. ‘You allow your fears to run away with you. It is my opinion that the news from Delhi will be found to be greatly exaggerated. And in any case the Meerut Brigade will have moved by now, and Delhi has almost certainly been recaptured. But even if that were not so, I would like to point out that we have three Infantry Regiments here as well as half a Regiment of Military Police, and if we had only one - my own - I would still engage to keep the city in order and protect double the number of women and children without the smallest difficulty. The rabble are notoriously chicken-hearted, and a dose of grape will be quite enough to cool their tempers should they show any signs of violence. I advocated such a course only yesterday, but I understand that it was you who preferred the more cautious method of putting the city out of bounds? A pity. Now, I should have marched my men through the streets and shot down every black bastard who raised his voice. That would have ended any nonsense quickly enough!’

  ‘Hear! Hear!’ interjected Major Mottisham.

  ‘So you must really not expect us,’ concluded Colonel Moulson, ‘to make a public exhibition of ourselves by ordering a panic-stricken exodus of all the women and children, just because you yourself feel nervous.’

  Alex said softly: ‘I can only say, sir, that in the event of my timorous fears proving justified, I hope that you will obtain some comfort from the realization that you will have sacrificed the lives of these women, and jeopardized the safety of the Company’s possessions, in order to demonstrate a confidence in the fidelity of your sepoys which you do not wholly possess.’

  Colonel Moulson’s face was suddenly scarlet with rage and he half rose from his chair. ‘You are impertinent, Captain Randall! Must I again remind you that you are a junior officer - and can be disciplined?’

  ‘Because I speak the truth, sir?’ Alex’s precarious hold on his temper had departed and his voice was raw-edged with a rage that matched Colonel Moulson’s. ‘You all have your doubts! Every one of you! But not one of you will admit it. You will not even institute a few inquiries because to do so would be tantamount to an admission that disloyalty among your men might be possible, and so you prefer to shut your eyes rather than cast what you consider to be a slur on the good name of your regiments. All very laudable. But in the present crisis, you will give me leave to say that it is hardly practical.’

  ‘In the present crisis,’ said Colonel Moulson furiously, ‘it is the panic-mongers that we have to fear! If we could rid ourselves of them we should be a deal better off! There is no lack of confidence here, I assure you. But as you yourself feel so insecure, I can only suggest that you should apply for sick-leave and set off immediately for Naini Tal!’

  Alex’s right hand that lay flat upon the table clenched slowly into a fist - and as slowly relaxed again. It was no use. They were courageous enough, but they did not even now realize the magnitude of this thing that was overtaking them. They had refused to take any precautions while the emergency was far away, and now that it was upon them they would take none - for fear of showing fear. They had done nothing while they could, and dared do nothing when they would.

  ‘Qui’ ri’,’ repeated the Commissioner with a hiccough, ‘’tirely agree. Mush keep calm!’

  Alex sat down without further words and did not speak again while the conference dragged to its inconclusive close. But when it was over he dispatched a telegram to the Governor-General, in the name of the Commissioner of Lunjore, requesting plenary military powers. The nearest telegraph post had until recently been seventy-five miles away in Suthragunj, but it was not twenty by the Hazrat Bagh route, and Alex reflected grimly that Kishan Prasad’s road was proving its usefulness in a way that had not been foreseen by those who made it.

  That night the first of the fires started in Lunjore, and the surgeon of the 105th N.I., Colonel Packer’s Regiment, had his bungalow burnt to the ground. It had been a thatched bungalow and an arrow wrapped in blazing, oil-soaked rags had been fired into the roof shortly before midnight.

  Less than fifty miles to the south-west, Lottie and her companions, though suffering tortures from the heat in the closely curtained ekka, were still safe in the charge of its kindly driver and drawing hourly nearer to Lunjore. But behind them, scattered over the sun-scorched countrysi
de that surrounded the captured city of the Moguls, the majority of the fugitives from Delhi hid and starved and died.

  Men, women and children crouched all day in ditches and cane-brakes, gasping in the relentless heat: stripping themselves of uniforms and crinolines, wading rivers, crawling through dying grass, skulking in the jungle. Scratching shallow graves with their bare hands in the hot, iron-hard earth to cover the corpse of a child, and leaving the bodies of the adult dead to the vultures and the jackal-packs. Robbed, stripped, insulted; hunted through the crop-lands and murdered for sport. Lured by promises of protection into villages whose inhabitants gathered to watch them die and laughed as the naked, blood-stained bodies were flung on the village dung-heaps.

  A few - a very few - fell into the hands of kindly people who gave them food and shelter and risked their own lives, and the lives of all their families, in order to save a hunted, helpless fellow-creature. And within the walls of Delhi, in a stifling, windowless dungeon below the Palace of the aged, timorous Bahadur Shah, newly proclaimed King of all Hindustan, fifty prisoners - the last of the British and the Christians left in Delhi - had still two days to live.

  39

  Niaz had reappeared in public and was once again to be seen riding with Captain Randall through the villages.

  They were in the saddle for the greater part of every day, for Alex returned each night to Lunjore. He heard cases and gave judgements, sitting on horseback in the shade of a tree throughout the long, blazing days: seeing in the faces of the villagers the ominous signs of the sickness that was sweeping through India; the open insolence and hostility that must be stared down or disregarded; the quick-leaping panic that must be allayed.

  The quiet countryside was alive with rumours. ‘The Shah of Persia has sent an army to the help of Bahadur Shah, who is now King of all Hind, and that army is already in Delhi!’… ‘There are but a handful of feringhis left in the land, and the defeated remnants of the Angrezi regiments have been forced back and back until they drowned in the sea!’ …

  There were stories and more stories, but no proof. Until one day three men arrived in a village not ten miles from Lunjore city and brought the proof with them, in the form of two flounced muslin dresses, a sword, and a long tress of silky blonde hair. The soft muslin of the flounces and the soft gold of the hair were stiffened and patched with the ugly brown stains of dried blood, and there was blood too on the blade of the sword that had once belonged to a British officer.

  ‘We found them hiding in a ditch by the roadside,’ boasted one of the men. ‘Two memsahibs and a sahib, five koss from Delhi. There was a child also, whose crying betrayed them. The sahib was sore wounded, but when Abdullah here ran his tulwar through the child he struck at him with this sword. But his arm had no strength and I took it from him and slew him with it, and the young woman also. Arré - how she shrieked! Like a peacock. I caught her by the hair - see, here is the lock. All the Hell-born are dead, and—’

  ‘Not all,’ said a hard clear voice behind him, and the gaping villagers drew back hastily.

  Alex rode forward, Niaz at his elbow, and looked long and steadily at the three men, and no one spoke. Then he crooked his finger without turning his head and said softly: ‘Kotwal-ji, bind me those men.’

  The headman flinched and hesitated, and suddenly there was a revolver in Alex’s hand and another in Niaz’s.

  ‘Be swift, my father,’ said Niaz pleasantly. ‘Do not keep the Huzoor waiting - or Hell either, which languishes to receive these three.’

  There was a stir and a babble among the crowd and Alex raised his voice. ‘Chup! Be still! The first who moves without an order will go quickly to his account. And if it be a woman who moves, then her man will pay in her stead. Use thy puggari, O Kotwal; it will serve if thou canst not find a rope. That is better! Mohammed Latif, and thou, Duar Chand, bind me these other two.’

  The three men looked wildly about them, jaws dropped and eyes starting in disbelief; but the village had known Alex for several years, and the habit of obedience, backed by the threat of firearms, was strong. If he had looked away or hesitated they would have broken and run, and guns and knives and lathis would have appeared as though by magic, and stones would have been thrown. But he did not look away and his eyes were cold and unpleasant. As unpleasant as Niaz’s narrow-lipped grin.

  One of the three men turned suddenly and ran, and Niaz fired. The man tripped and fell face downwards in the dust, twitched once and was still. ‘That was too good a death for such carrion,’ said Niaz cheerfully, controlling his horse more by the pressure of his knees than by the reins in his left hand.

  The Eagle flung up his head and backed a pace, but he had been trained to stand the sound of a shot and he gave no trouble. When the two remaining murderers dangled at a rope’s end, Alex gestured at the third body on the ground: ‘Hang him beside his friends, so that all may see.’

  They strung up the corpse without a word and Niaz took up the sword, the stained clothing and the lock of yellow hair, and tying them swiftly into a bundle, fastened it to his saddle. Alex surveyed the shivering Kotwal and the silent villagers and said: ‘If any others come saying that all the sahibs be slain, show them these three. And tell any who ask, that though every sahib now in Hind were slain, a hundred thousand more - and ten times a hundred thousand - would come from Belait to exact vengeance for the slaying of their women and their babes. For the blood of such helpless ones is as seed which, falling to the ground, springs up in the likeness of armed men.’

  He rode on out of the village without a backward look. ‘Ho!’ said Niaz, putting up a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, ‘I did not think to leave that place alive. It needed but one among them to show his teeth and they would have been at our throats like wolves. Wast thou not afraid?’

  Alex gave a short laugh and held out one hand, palm downwards, by way of answer. It was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘Mine also!’ said Niaz. ‘I counted each breath as though it were my last. Is it true then that thy people are hunted through Hind?’

  ‘It is true. But the end is not yet. In the end there will be a vengeance which will be as harsh, or harsher, than the offence. That is the evil that springs from such killing.’

  Alex’s voice was suddenly rough with anger and despair, and Niaz said quietly: ‘It is none of thy doing, brother. What is written is written.’

  ‘That is taught by thy Prophet, not mine,’ said Alex bitterly. ‘Mine would have me be my brother’s keeper. Here - take the gun.’

  He sent in a brief report of the incident to the Commissioner and was sent for to explain himself. ‘You had no authority to do such a thing!’ fumed the Commissioner. ‘Disgraceful! Supposing it should come to the ears of the Authorities that men had been hung in my district without trial? Why, I might be— Upon my word, Randall, you take too much upon yourself! The men should have been brought back here to stand their trial by the processes of the law and—’

  ‘And been turned into heroes and martyrs,’ interrupted Alex bluntly. ‘This is war, sir! What do these people know of Western laws, which are not even their own? Those men were boasting to the villagers of murdering women and children and a wounded man. They had the evidence in their hands - you’ve seen it yourself. Do you suppose that if I had brought them back here it would have had a fraction of the effect on the village that seeing immediate justice done to them will have had? They understand justice - not law! And if I had taken those men into custody they might have been rescued ten times over on the way here, while if they had stood trial, half the city and possibly half the troops would have acclaimed them as heroes who had struck a blow against the British. We can afford no trials of that description, sir.’

  ‘It will create a bad impression in the district,’ said the Commissioner, with less certainty.

  ‘On the contrary, it will create a very good one,’ said Alex shortly. He forced his voice to a more conciliatory tone and said: ‘If you will allow me unfettered act
ion, sir, I can maintain order in the district as long as the regiments in Lunjore remain quiet. At the moment the sepoys are quiet, but if they should revolt it would be a different matter, and I would again urge you most strongly to impress upon their commanding officers the advisability of disarming them while there is still time.’

  ‘I shall do no such thing!’ snapped the Commissioner, his pallid face becoming dangerously suffused. ‘What would happen if they did? Why - we’d be left with no defenders and no defence at all! Disarm the sepoys, and we’d be at the mercy of the scum of the city and every villager who could carry a rifle or a lathi!’

  ‘It is not they whom we have to fear,’ said Alex, and went out into the furnace glare of the noonday sun. That same sun that was even now blazing down on an open courtyard in the purlieus of the palace of the King of Delhi, where there stood a little cistern shaded by a peepul tree …

  There were some fifty dazed and terrified people herded together like sheep in that hot courtyard, of whom all but six were women or children. The last of the Europeans and Christians left alive in Delhi, dragged up from the heat and stench and darkness of the dungeon in which they had spent five days, to be butchered in the harsh sunlight by men whom the sight and scent of blood had turned into beasts: men who cut and slashed and howled in frenzy until the last scream and the last moan was silenced, and who drew back then, shuddering, from the shambles and the stench of fresh-spilled blood and brains and entrails that steamed up from the pile of the newly dead.

  Now at last there were no more feringhis in Delhi! Now at last the reluctant, trembling old King and every man, woman and child in the city was committed irretrievably to the path that had been chosen. There could be no drawing back now, for the massacre of the women and children whose mutilated bodies strewed the courtyard and whose blood soaked into the silent stones and curled and dried in the searing heat, had sealed them to their path. This was irrevocable. The die had been cast.