As it happened, King was sick with dysentery and unable to join them, but whether the sergeant would have gone anyway was a moot point. Jack was glad he had not had to order his presence. Sergeant King was a small thorn in the lieutenant’s side, it was true. King had gone more than willingly with the engineers, had worked heroically under intense fire, and indeed had carried out his duties impeccably. But still one could not allow one’s NCO to dictate when and where he would go into battle. If one was ordered to go, one went, whether one had got out of bed that day feeling like it or not. Jack hoped King would not put him to the test in the future. The sergeant could not win such a contest. Men had tried to take on the army before now, and had always lost.
Weakly, from his bed, King called to Crossman as they parted, ‘Look to Sajan, sir – don’t let them kill him.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I have to find him,’ muttered the sergeant, somewhat enigmatically. ‘He’s my own flesh and blood.’
Jack was somewhat puzzled by this parting sentence, but he had no time to question the sergeant further, and put it down to delirium.
Just before sunset on the evening of the assault, in that enchanting hour known as hawa khana, Crossman and Gwilliams had crept up to the third battery and had viewed the ground before them. This was the area over which the attack would take place. It looked very exposed. No doubt those in the city were ready with itching fingers to fire upon their attackers: they obviously knew what was coming and also knew their lives would be forfeit should they fail to prevent the storming of their fortifications.
‘This is goin’ to be one hell of a fight,’ muttered Gwilliams. ‘How many in there, you say?’
‘Estimates are around forty thousand rebels, but I’m sure a few ordinary citizens might join in if it goes against us.’
‘Ten to one. Pretty good odds, I’d say.’
‘You don’t even need to be here, Corporal. You could be in some cabin out in the backwoods of Oregon or Quebec or whatever. You’re a North American.’
Gwilliams shrugged and stroked his auburn beard. ‘Man gets washed up on beaches he never heard of,’ he said, ‘among people he never thought he’d talk with. Who knows how it happens?’
‘You sure you’re not running from a rope?’ asked Crossman, who had long thought that Gwilliams was probably a fugitive. ‘You can tell me now. You’ll probably be dead in the morning.’
‘Cheerful bastard, ain’t you, sir? Well, I guess I’m goin’ to have to stay a puzzle to you. I ain’t about to reveal secrets now on account of how I usually come out of these things with a whole skin. If you think I can’t go back home ’cause I’m some kind of malefactor, you could be right. Then again, it could be I’m just the roving kind, happy to find my adventures where they lay. I’m a blamed mystery to myself, let alone to my officer. Here I am, a good republican, fightin’ for an imperial cause. You couldn’t get more contrary if you tried, now could you, sir?’
Crossman grinned at this.
He said, ‘What makes you think North Americans are not imperialists? Just because you’ve formed your own governments? There were people there before you arrived, Gwilliams.’
‘Don’t get me arguing with you on politics. I’ve read every man from Plato to Machiavelli and I’ll make mincemeat of you, sir.’
You could not help but shake your head at Gwilliams and wonder if he was some kind of throwback from Xenophon’s army of Ten Thousand, who wandered Asia Minor in the days of Ancient Greece. He was flotsam and jetsam. He was driftwood. Jack had not wanted him in the beginning, Gwilliams being one of Major Lovelace’s discoveries, but now he was quite glad of the man.
The pair went back to load their weapons and fill their flasks. Crossman noted with a nervous memory-reflex that ladders were being prepared. It recalled for him how he had lost his hand when storming the Redan outside Sebastopol. Both he and Gwilliams wound turbans around their heads, hoping the thick cloth might protect them from a sword stroke. Jack fitted his mechanical hand, in which he hoped to grasp a dagger. In the still air, from various corners of the Ridge, came the sound of ramrods scraping down barrels, or the testing of hammers after being oiled. Low murmurs were drifting back and forth: men leaving instructions with their friends, should they fall in the battle. Somewhere a fife was playing a lament: a Celtic tune by the sound of it, but it might well have been Old English.
To Jack’s surprise and under Gwilliams’ silent disapproval, the lieutenant was visited by Geraldine Stanton.
‘I wanted to wish you God speed, Lieutenant,’ she said, standing on the far side of the fire from him, so that they looked at each over the flames. ‘May you return safely.’
‘Thank you, Miss Stanton. I shall endeavour to do so . . .’
‘. . . for the sake of his wife,’ interrupted Gwilliams, quietly.
‘I am aware the lieutenant is married, but these are unusual times, Corporal,’ came the tart reply. ‘One is permitted to wish a friend well – Lieutenant Crossman has shown himself to be such.’
Geraldine departed without waiting to hear any reply. Gwilliams grunted and went back to cleaning his carbine. Jack did not admonish Gwilliams. He might have done, but something held him back.
At midnight they received their orders: any man who fell was to be left where he lay; there was to be no looting; the men were to do their utmost not to harm women and children. After these instructions the British were visited by one or two churchmen, to offer prayers for the battle. Among them Jack noticed the Methodist minister Reverend Stillwell, who asked God to give his side in the war a great victory. Since the rebel priests were probably doing much the same thing, Jack thought, God and gods had a dilemma.
On September fourteenth, just before cock crow, the storming of the city of Delhi began. General Nicholson led the 60th Rifles up the glacis before the damaged walls. Seconds later Crossman and Gwilliams were sweeping forward with the second column towards the Water Bastion. Once more Jack found himself in a plague of flying locusts, which hummed and whirred around him. Soldiers were going down all along the line. On the fortifications the rebels were shrieking curses, daring the attackers to take them on. They did. Despite the fallen, they rushed forward, their own yells penetrating the shocked dawn. Both the leading columns now poured into the area between the Kashmir Gate and the church, elated by their early success. Indian and British sappers with explosives moved forward, placed their charges, blew the gate. A bugle sounded, commanders were crying, ‘Charge!’ and waving their swords, urging their men forward.
Through the gaps went the columns.
The enemy was thick upon the ground. Jack’s sword arm went left and right, hewing a path through the screaming rebels. The faces before him were twisted into gargoyles of malice. There was fury in the expressions of his enemies and fierce hatred in the eyes of his friends. No quarter was to be given here. Too much had happened between the warring parties. Terrible deeds on both sides, which only the letting of more blood would settle.
A shot hummed by Crossman’s ear. Sheathing his sword he took out his revolver, firing into the wall of men before him, but soon the firearm was empty. He stuck it in a pocket and drew his sword again. A wave of sepoys came forward, only to be beaten back by the British.
Grunts and yells as men exerted themselves at close quarter fighting. They were nose to nose now, breath to breath. Shrieks as men were wounded, some mortally. It was a heaving mass of struggling warriors, arms and legs entangled, heads butted. A great snarling knot of desperate men which moved one way and then the other, like a mindless but single living entity. Walls and buildings hemmed in the battle, contained it, held it knotted together. Then the edges began to fray and pieces broke away, as sepoys on the fringe gave up the present fight and sought refuge in the radiating streets and alleys. Some went up on the rooftops and began firing down into the writhing mass, careless of hitting friend as well as foe. Others appeared at windows only to be blown away. By now the two armies were so inter
mingled it was impossible to use firearms without endangering one’s own. Yet the matchlocks and handguns continued to crack.
A pistol went off near Crossman’s ear, deafening him. When his hearing returned the sound of clashing blades was tremendous. The first waves of frenzy gradually subsided into a determined vehemence on both sides. Crossman cut a man across the shoulder in front of him. The sepoy went down, yelling curses in his face. As he sank to the floor his victim buried his teeth into Crossman’s knee and a wave of pain washed up. Crossman stabbed him in the neck with horrible ferocity. The pain abated but the biter had gone through his trousers, taken flesh, and had exposed the cartilage. Then someone took hold of the lieutenant’s dagger hand and wrenched hard, trying to break the wrist. His attacker was more surprised than him when the hand came away, the straps cutting into the lieutenant’s shoulder before they snapped under the fearsome tugging. Crossman sliced with his sword again, missing this time, the sepoy squeezing away through the mass triumphantly waving a metal fist holding a dagger.
A Sikh soldier went down under a sepoy’s tulwar to the right of Jack. He tried to punish the aggressor, but his elbow was knocked and the blade swished over the rebel’s head. Jack let out a yell of frustration. The sepoy gave him a wicked grin and melted away. Over a sea of bare and turbaned heads, Jack saw the same rebel strike a British soldier on the head, splitting his forage cap in two. Men were going down on both sides. It was impossible to gauge the numbers. The British columns could not afford to trade man for man, being outnumbered at least ten to one. Yet it seemed that for every Bengali who went down one of the assault force followed him.
‘I hope they’re running at the back,’ Crossman muttered through gritted teeth. ‘That’s our only chance.’
‘You all right, sir?’
Gwilliams was by his side.
‘Yes – how about you?’
‘Pricked me in the arm, but I killed him dead. I don’t mind shooting a few of these bastards. I don’t mind at all.’
They stood shoulder to shoulder, the pair of them, and hacked their way through the volcanic mob. They were stepping on bodies now: friend or enemy? Who knew? There was no time for fear. This was not the same as walking across a killing ground through a storm of musket balls and grapeshot. In that situation there was time to reflect, space in which to turn and run if the fear became overwhelming. Here one was hemmed in by sword-wielding fanatics, by sheer grappling numbers. Muskets, elbows, knees, heads, all dug into Crossman’s ribs and back. Some men were pressed so close to their enemy that they could do nothing but stare hatred into each other’s eyes, their arms pinned to their sides, their hot stinking breath going up each other’s nostrils. They remained so until the pressure was relieved: then the first man up with his weapon won the right to live.
When Crossman looked back, once, he saw that the British cavalry were engaged outside the walls, charging into the mutineers that had poured from the city to attack the camp to the column’s rear. Guns were blasting into mutineers who were taking their toll on the British. Men were dying on both sides, though it was still impossible to tell who was winning.
Cannons were firing grapeshot along the streets now, shredding British soldiers who chased running foe. Heavy fire came from the houses, raining on the assault force as they tried to establish themselves in the streets. The bastions had to be taken. To reach the bastions they had to go through avenues of fire, enfilading fire, coming from the ends of streets, from the rooftops and from the windows and doorways. Gradually, however, the attackers gained control of certain streets. Units were posted at each end to protect them. The rebels began to retire behind sandbagged positions: mosques and other buildings which had been bricked up and were defended by artillery. After several hours an impasse had been reached, though it appeared the British were not in the best of positions.
Jack heard that General Nicholson had fallen, leading his troops down a street beyond the Kabul Gate. The rumour was that he had been cut down by grapeshot. The wounds were said to be fatal. He had been at the head of the 1st Fusiliers and attempting an impossible charge down a road covered by the brass cannons of the enemy, along a street where every parapet, window and rooftop bristled with enemy muskets. The charge had failed and the British lost eight officers and fifty men in the attempt.
A period of relative quiet ensued. Crossman and his comrades dug in and held the ground they had gained. They were there the whole next day, when they were ordered to smash hundreds of bottles of brandy and wine in case the British troops were tempted to drink it. Of course the beleaguered soldiers were tempted: the majority of them considered it a crying shame to destroy the liberated liquor. But under duress they followed General Wilsons orders. The streets now ran, not with blood, but with alcohol, a liquid some of them considered more precious than blood.
Five days later the troops were still annoyed at the destruction of their spoils, and some had refused to advance further into the city, but eventually their officers regained control. They went deeper inside. One by one the bastions began to fall. Rebels fled the city in great numbers. It was part of the British strategy. Nicholson had ensured there was an escape route over a bridge of boats for the enemy to retreat, so that the mutineers with their vast numbers were not forced to fight to the death. The general had wanted no Pyrrhic victory. The streets were still very dangerous, with gangs of mutineers still lodged in alleys and cul-de-sacs, but after another two days the city was formally in the hands of the assault forces.
The old Mughal king surrendered to Major Hodson on the promise that his life would be spared. His three grown sons were tracked to Humayun’s tomb, where they were hiding, and Jack heard that Hodson had executed them without orders or instructions from his superiors, on the pretext that he was being attacked by a mob who wished to free them.
Crossman and Gwilliams relaxed. Their uniforms stiff with dried sweat, yet wet again with more sweat under the armpits, they slept with their dirt on them. They were sitting with their backs to the walls of the great palace when Sergeant King found them, snoring gently. He woke them, gave them some water, and asked them how it had been.
‘Bloody,’ replied Gwilliams. ‘Bloody as hell.’
‘Well, we beat them,’ King said, defensively. ‘I’ve been doing my share of the fighting too, on the other flank. It had to be every man in there and I’m sorry I wasn’t with you two.’ He looked around him. ‘A lot of men have died. Over a thousand lost.’
‘Just that?’ said Crossman, surprised. ‘I would have said more.’
‘I don’t think so. Those are the numbers they’re giving out. Brigadier-General Nicholson’s dying. I suppose you heard that. Might even be dead by now, for all I know. He was a hard man, wasn’t he? But he got us our victory.’
Crossman answered this with, ‘Here – but what about Lucknow and Cawnpore? There are still armies of them out there. We’re not out of it yet, Sergeant.’
‘No, but a victory of this size will hurt them, won’t it?’
‘Yes – yes it will, I suppose.’
King cleared his throat. ‘Have – have you found Raktambar – or Sajan?’
‘Nope,’ replied Gwilliams. ‘Not yet. Raktambar’ll find us, when he wants to. If’n he didn’t get killed in the attack. Who knows, mebbe we’ll find him face down in some back street yet? As to the boy, forget him. He’s lost to us. You know how many boys there are in this city? And who knows he didn’t go with them mutineers, out the back door? You can kiss your sun compass goodbye, Sarge. You ain’t seeing that again.’
‘You think I’m worried about the bloody compass?’ cried King, furiously. ‘I want to find the boy. I don’t give a dog’s shit about the compass.’
The other two men were astonished by the ferocity of the sergeant’s reply and stared at him in surprise.
King looked at them, his eyes filling with tears.
‘He’s my son,’ he said. ‘My own son.’
‘Jesus Christ in heaven,’ cried Gwill
iams, and looked away from the weeping man.
Crossman was silent for a few minutes, then he asked in a very quiet but firm tone, ‘Do you mind telling me how you know this?’
‘You can see he’s an Anglo-Indian,’ cried the sergeant. ‘Look at the colour of his skin.’
‘Perhaps. I’m not so sure. But even if he is?’
‘I told you I was in India at seventeen. I met a girl – an Indian girl – in that village we camped in, near the rajah’s hunting lodge. We – made love. Three months later I had to march away from her. She told me she was having our baby. I – I tried to take her with me, but they wouldn’t let me. I was only seventeen. I hadn’t a man’s authority. She didn’t try to follow – at least, I don’t think so.’ King’s expression hardened. ‘That boy is mine. You can see it in him. He looks a lot like me, doesn’t he?’
‘Nope,’ replied Gwilliams, bluntly. ‘He don’t.’
‘He does, you damned liar. He’s my boy. Anyone can see that.’
Again Crossman tried reason. ‘I was the one who found the boy, waving a fan in the rajah’s lodge. He was a slave. He could have come from anywhere, King. The chances of me walking into camp with your son, out of all the children in this vast land, are infinite. In any case, I don’t think he has British blood in him. His paleness is prison pallor – he’s been a punkah-wallah since he was old enough to hold a piece of string. In a dark cool bedroom, out of the glare of the sun. Sajan worked indoors his whole life, until I found him, that’s why he’s light skinned.’
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