‘No sor,’ replied the sergeant. ‘It’s all a bit of fun, if you like.’
‘Fun? Then what’s that man doing amongst the pots?’
The sergeant grinned. ‘He’s a little worse for the drink, sor. Not drunk, you understand, but a little overheated. Just the daily grog. Fell over, he did, in the dark. We’ll put him to bed, sor, and no more rumpus. Roight!’ The sergeant became officious, addressing two of his comrades, ‘You twos, put Jacobs in his cot, on his belly so he don’t drown if he sicks. Jump to it then, whot are yous, princes or privates? I’ve given yous an order.’
There was a little alacrity in their response. They lifted the beaten man and dragged him inside, the victim still mumbling something about, ‘I’ll murder the bastard, so I will . . .’ the reply being, ‘Oh yes, you’ll murder him all right, Jacobs, once someone’s taught you to duck a wallop.’
‘That man has been fighting,’ said the major, firmly.
‘Respectfully, no he hasn’t, sor,’ replied the sergeant, with just as much firmness. ‘No witness, sor. None at all.’
‘What about you?’ snarled the major, turning on King. ‘What’s your story?’
‘Man came out of the tent,’ replied King, ‘stumbled against me. Tried to steady him, but the fresh air went to his head. Made him groggy I believe. Fell away from me as I tried to catch him.’ King looked the other sergeant directly in the eye. ‘Hope he’s all right by the morning.’
‘Oh, he’ll be roight as a biscuit, Sergeant, don’t yous worry.’
‘Good, well then, with your permission, sir,’ King saluted smartly, ‘I’ll be getting back to my tent.’
‘Cocky little man, aren’t you?’ said the major.
‘No, sir. I hope not, sir.’
Suddenly the major seemed to see Crossman, hovering in the shadows not far away.
‘You sir, did you see this fracus?’
‘Who, me? No, major, I don’t think so. I heard a commotion and came out of my tent to find a man battling energetically with some kettles and saucepans. I assumed it was some sort of game.’
‘Game?’ cried the furious major. ‘This is no game. This is war, man. Who are you?’
The reply was delivered in a cold and crisp manner.
‘Lieutenant Crossman of the 88th Connaught Rangers, on special duties with Colonel Hawke. And you sir, are . . .’
‘Never mind who I am!’ thundered the major, thoroughly put out. ‘I’m conducting this enquiry. I’ll tell you who I am when I’m good and ready.’
‘That’s a little discourteous, if I may say so.’
The major was about to be indiscreet. ‘You . . .’
‘Not,’ interrupted Crossman with sharpness, ‘in front of the men, if you please, Major. Have some decorum. We are officers of the Queen.’
The major seemed to realize he was about to overstep the mark. He struck his thigh with his palm, stood for a moment regarding King with blazing eyes, then strode off into the night. Sergeant Collins heaved a sigh of relief.
King said, ‘Sorry, for that. Didn’t intend the wrath of God to descend on you and yours, Sergeant.’
‘Arrgggh,’ the sergeant waved him away. ‘Never moind.’
King turned to Crossman and shrugged, as if to say, these things happen in the heat of the moment. Then he too left the scene.
Sergeant Collins, standing there in vest and trousers, finally saluted Crossman and said, ‘It wasn’t the criticism, sor, so much as the timing. He,’ there was nod towards his own tent, ‘lost his brother in Meerut.’
‘I understand, Sergeant. I’m sorry for it.’
The sergeant nodded and went to join his fellows.
23
Delhi Ridge, August 1857
When it arrived outside Delhi, the column from the Punjab was greeted by the foetid stink of an imbedded army and the noise of guns blasting. Some of the guns were on a length of high ground known as the Ridge, throwing shells and balls into Delhi. But there were over a hundred of them on the walls of the city, returning the fire. Only a thousand yards separated the two sides. The Kabul and Kashmir Gates were within musket range. Around the walls of Delhi, looking out towards the Ridge on which stood a tower known as Flagstaff, was a huge army of sepoys now fighting for their king. The last of the Mughal emperors had been dragged from retirement and was now the figurehead of the sepoy rebellion. He was eighty-two years old, his days as a warrior were over and he was now an artist and a writer, but the mutineers needed him to give their uprising some cohesion and centre. Forty thousand rebels had flocked to the city and, with gunpowder aplenty, they planned to fight to the death.
On the Ridge was the hastily formed and hotchpotch army of the British, consisting of Sikhs, Pathans, Gurkhas, Company European regiments, HM European regiments, Baluchis and others. Their numbers were at the moment Crossman arrived somewhere around seven or eight thousand combatants. The column in fact had almost doubled the number of men on the Ridge. Around the Ridge the forest had been devastated by gunfire and foraging for fuel. Conditions were appalling and disease was rife. This wallowing in unsanitary muck, with tainted water and a shortage of food was not new to Crossman and Gwilliams, nor even King, for they had been through it all before.
‘Well, here we are, Raktambar,’ said Crossman. ‘The sculleries of hell.’
Ishwar had never experienced anything like a siege before. He was utterly unused to such a filthy environment. He choked on the black smoke of gunpowder which perpetually hung in the air. He put his hands to his ears to block out the continual clapping of cannons as they punched their balls this way and that. He tasted the acrid fumes of war and could not but help smell its stink. The sights of death were in his eyes wherever he looked. Only his sense of touch remained unsullied by the destruction going on. A blue-jowled cholera victim, his eyes bugging, was gasping out his last breath not three yards away. The body of a headless Sikh lay propped against a wall, the raw neck covered in a black mass of flies. A dead bloated horse blocked a doorway, lodged there, immovable. Open graves shared a small stretch of ground to the rear with yawning latrine pits live with white worms.
‘This is indeed a hell,’ he said, staring at the chaos. ‘I wish . . .’
‘You wish you’d never come,’ finished Crossman. ‘It’s a club we all desire to belong to, the one that isn’t here.’
Out in the boggy marshlands, amongst the spear grass and cactus, lay the putrid bodies of young men. These were corpses of the dead enemy, out of reach for the time being. A lieutenant named Crawford, who, like many, had taken to wearing khaki-dyed cottons rather than his uniform, spent some time with Jack trying to convince him that the ‘Pandies’ were cowardly swines who were all much the same, yellow through and through.
‘They don’t much look like cowards to me,’ said Jack. ‘They attack on a daily basis, many of them are getting killed in brave if foolhardy attempts to overrun us. I really don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Oh, one of those are you? said Crawford, with a twist to his mouth. ‘Still, you’re new to India – you’ll change.’
‘I may do, but I doubt it.’
Crawford switched his subject to the generals.
‘The mismanagement here is worse than in Crimea, almost,’ complained Crawford. ‘Doddering old fools who can’t make a definite decision to save their lives. Sick bay’s full of cholera victims and getting worse every day. I tell you, if someone doesn’t give the order to go into Delhi soon, there won’t be any of us left to attack. We’ve bungled everything since we took over the Ridge, including command’s stupid idea to burn the huts as an act of defiance. Act of defiance my arse! There’s nowhere to shelter from the sun now. If I had my way . . .’
Although he was inclined to agree with Crawford about the command and staff, he was glad another attack cut short their conversation. Jack watched as the 60th Rifles and the Gurkhas repelled the attack. There were musket balls zipping everywhere, pinging from rock and brick, smacking into soft clay.
A servant carrying a drink to Lieutenant Crawford lost his head to a cannonball. The same undiscriminating ball went on to lift a British soldier off his feet and carry him headlong into a wall.
A pair of coolies ran to the spot and retrieved the ball, still burning hot and with blood-steam rising from its surface. British ammunition was short and there was a reward for the collection of enemy shot. The two men passed the ball back and forth between them, it being still too hot to hold for long. Eventually Jack saw them get to where a bored sergeant was waiting to give them their two annas, one for each of them.
Jack wondered if the fact that Crawford’s servant had been killed while discharging his duties would change the bigoted lieutenant’s mind about ‘Pandies’ but apparently not, for a second servant was instantly dispatched through the hail of fire to fetch another drink. Crawford, like many, had become inured to death, especially the death of Indians, and bitterness had eaten away his soul. He was not alone in his views, though indeed there were those who despised such opinions. Many British soldiers thought a great deal of the Gurkhas and the Sikhs, if they found it hard to think kindly of the sepoys, and fast friendships had been made on the Ridge. There were even those who considered the mutineers to be worthy adversaries, though in truth they might admire good gunnery while hating the gunners.
When the attack abated, Jack went looking for his men. He found them at a stall which had been set up by ‘Messrs Peake and Allen of Ambala’ which sold everything from tobacco and soap to bottled beer. King had purchased some tooth powder and Gwilliams several small rowels. Raktambar had increased his supply of tobacco, the constant use of which had given his magnificent dark moustaches a sort of ginger-stained fringe
‘Well, men – keeping trade going?’ said Crossman.
‘These ain’t fer me,’ replied Gwilliams, holding up the towels. ‘That there lady,’ he pointed with the stem of his pipe at a crouching woman nursing a baby, ‘just give birth to that infant on the back of that tumbril. I aim to give her these to help her by.’
‘Very noble of you, Gwilliams.’
‘Yeah, ain’t it?’ beamed the corporal. ‘Makes me feel kinda warm inside.’
He went off to offer his gift to the woman. Her husband had just arrived back from fighting with the 9th Lancers and he looked with great suspicion on this soldier giving his wife presents, but soon the pair were talking like old friends. Gwilliams was able to do that with other men, gain their confidence within moments, though he could turn mighty nasty if his overtures were rejected.
‘Well, Sergeant,’ said Crossman as he squatted down with the other two behind a short wall, ‘this is a pretty mess, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not what I thought it would be, when they told me I was going to India,’ agreed King. ‘I expected hard times, of course, but this place is beyond anything I could have imagined. Will we win, do you think? They seem fairly well imbedded in that city – it’s like a damn castle, isn’t it? – and we don’t appear to have the numbers to force them out.’
‘We don’t, at the moment. There’s a siege-train on its way. Once that arrives, I imagine we’ll have all we need to attack.’
‘Except numbers.’
‘Maybe not that, but you can’t have everything.’
Again another conversation was cut short when rebels from the city tried to storm past Hindu Rao’s House, a lone building directly in front of the British lines. This time Crossman, King and Gwilliams were directly involved in the fighting, having to defend a stretch of the wall first with small arms fire, then with swords. There was some desperate hand-to-hand combat going on for a while. Raktambar, after holding back for a while, suddenly flung himself into the battle and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack, defending the lieutenant’s left flank. It was baking hot under the midday sun and they were glad when it was over and the attack repulsed.
Jack immediately thanked the Rajput.
Ishwar shrugged. ‘You are weak on that side, having an empty sleeve flapping like a flag. I simply act as your left hand.’
‘You make an excellent left hand,’ said Crossman, smiling. ‘Better than my old one, bless its five fingers.’
‘In future, I am your left-hand man.’
Over the next few days fighting hardly stopped. Certainly the guns boomed out continually and there were many attacks coming from various areas even in darkness. Musket fire took its toll, along with shot and shell.
Water for the Ridge came from a canal at the back which was used for many purposes, including washing. After he had been drinking from this dubious source, King’s stomach decided to mutiny along with the sepoys. He began to shed weight rapidly, until Raktambar produced a powder. After he’d taken it, the sergeant began to produce solid stools again and his paleness retreated.
One evening Crossman was smoking his chibouque, now back in action after repairs, and a tall lone major strode past him. The man was dapper in appearance in comparison to many on the Ridge, and though he had a thick moustache his pale face was smooth and shiny. It was the hooded blue eyes which held his attention though as the major suddenly stopped, turned, and regarded him for a while.
‘Do I know you?’ asked Jack, removing the pipe from his mouth. ‘Or perhaps you know me?’
The man removed his cap and wiped his forehead, lank blond hair falling over his ears.
‘The latter, I think. I’m Hodson. You, I believe, are Crossman.’
Jack stood up. This was John Company’s head of intelligence gathering, Major William Hodson. Although they were of the same rank, Hodson’s authority was far greater than Nathan Lovelace’s. Hodson had followed Harry Lumsden as commander of the famous Corps of Guides and had just raised an irregular cavalry regiment, Hodson’s Horse. Hodson was a legend, not liked by many but admired for his horsemanship and his ability to organize spies. Hodson had already lived several lifetimes in India, had been accused of various crimes but never convicted, and was now an invaluable member of the force against the rebellion.
‘You’ve spoken with Colonel Hawke about me?’ asked Jack.
‘Yes, I believe we may have use for you soon. How do you feel about going into Delhi tomorrow night?’
‘That’s what I do best,’ said Jack, who had been into Sebastopol many times while it was under siege from the British in the Crimea. ‘Do I take any of my men with me?’
‘Who’ve you got?’
Jack told him.
‘The Rajput might be useful. Is he trustworthy?’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Excellent,’ replied Hodson. ‘As for the sergeant, you say he’s not had much experience at this sort of thing.’
‘None at all, yet – but he’s willing.’
‘Still, we’ll leave him and your corporal behind this time. Tomorrow morning at ten, if you wouldn’t mind coming to a planning meeting with Colonel Hawke? The hand give you any trouble?’
Jack looked at his empty cuff, surprised, as always, to see no appendage there.
‘Not yet.’
‘What about climbing walls?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Possibly, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want it to make any difference.’
‘Well, it’s your hide. If you get left behind . . .’
‘Then I must pay the consequences.’
‘Right.’ He began to walk away, then stopped and looked down at his left boot. It seemed there was a spur missing. ‘Damn Goojars,’ muttered Hodson. ‘Steal your boot off your foot while you’re riding past ’em.’
‘It’s there,’ said Jack, pointing. ‘In the mud. Fell off when you turned. I forgot to mention it. There, see?’
‘No left hand,’ Hodson said, stooping, ‘but nothing wrong with your eyes.’
‘Nothing at all. My vision’s very good.’
Hodson left Jack in a thoughtful mood. He had vouched for Ishwar Raktambar but was actually uncertain of his loyalty. Raktambar had given his word to Jack, personally, but did that word extend to the whole Br
itish army? Yet, a man’s word meant a great deal around here. One had to accept it with more confidence than the word of a Leather Lane market stall owner. If Crossman was there he was sure he could hold the Rajput to his promise. And if he was not, well then the world of the living would have to take care of its own, for he would be on his way to a better place.
‘Now,’ said Jack to himself, rising and tapping the bowl of his chibouque on the heel of his foot, ‘let’s go and see the sergeant.’
He found King washing his shirt in the canal and tackled him immediately.
‘You’re always talking about maps, Sergeant. Do you have any of this city?’
King looked up, quickly. ‘Delhi?’
‘I know of no other within musket range.’
The sergeant stood up and wrung his shirt as if he were strangling a live animal. ‘It just so happens, sir, that I drew a very accurate map of Delhi myself, when I was here as a young man. It’s eight years old, but even though I say so myself, it’s one of my better compositions.’ From the tone of his voice he might have been talking about a concerto. ‘Do the generals need a map? Haven’t they any of their own?’
‘You were in India?’ Crosssman was astounded by this news. ‘You never told me that.’
Sergeant King suddenly looked abashed. ‘Ah, no. But I was here, a very young man. The occasion to tell you never arose before.’
‘It’s arisen a thousand times,’ snorted Jack. ‘At any time on our journey you could have informed me.’
‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t see the need.’
‘Didn’t you, by God?’
‘You’re angry with me, sir, and I don’t blame you. Perhaps I should have said something, but there are some things which remain private. Things – things happened to me. I wasn’t here very long, but the experience was a telling one. When I went back to England I tried to forget, never realizing they would send me out again. I’m sorry, but there it is. There’s no harm done.’
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