Why me?
It was always worse at night when the images came to haunt him. Now he also had the knowledge that he was part Indian. All the taunts and insults he had heard his men address the natives also applied to him. The names circled through his mind: nigger, black, half-breed, half-caste. He could add them to the other names he carried with him: bastard, lower-class, born-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-blanket, unwanted.
He did not belong anywhere.
But there was also a not-yet-acknowledged pearl. He had discovered his true mother, and she cared for him more than his stepmother ever had. Did her place of birth and race matter? He twisted in mental agony as he wrestled with this new knowledge, so it was a relief when Elliot stood beside him.
'What is it?'
'There's something happening underground, sir.'
It was the news Jack least wished to hear. He reached for his borrowed pistol even as he stood. 'I'm coming.' He glanced upward as he staggered toward the cellars, thinking it ironic that now the better weather had come, he was working underground. This November morning was much more pleasant than summer had been, with the cool season on them and the nights sufficiently chill for a fire. Yet food was short and ammunition shorter for the besieged garrison within Lucknow. Sir Colin Campbell was coming with another relief force, but unless he arrived very soon, things would be unbearable for the besieged garrison.
O'Neill was at the mouth of the shaft with half a dozen men at his back. 'Williams thinks the pandies are up to something big, sir.'
'I'll go down, O'Neill.' Jack checked his revolver and descended the ladder. Once again he felt waves of panic flowing through him and stopped to control his breathing. His worst childhood nightmares had included being buried alive, alone in the dark. Now it might just become a reality. To die was part of the soldier's bargain, either in battle or because of disease; to be entombed in the ground was no way for a man to end his life. He took a deep breath. There was no choice; duty dictated he must continue.
'Sir,' Williams seemed not to have moved since Jack's previous visit except the space around him was larger, and Logan was at his side.
'What's happening, Williams?'
'The pandies are on the move, sir, and to judge by the sound, they're in force.'
Logan shifted over, allowing Jack to sit at his side. 'It's good down here, isn't it, sir?'
'You like it, Logan?' Only Logan could enjoy sitting in a dark tunnel scores of feet underground with the momentary possibility of an attack by an unknown number of Mutineers.
'Aye, sir. It's nice and quiet and out of the sun.'
'I suppose it is.' Jack said. 'So now if you are also nice and quiet we can listen for the pandies.' It was worse in the silence. Jack could hear Logan and Williams breathing as if the earth itself was alive and constricting all around him. The stench of men's bodily aromas filled the air.
'There, sir,' Williams said. 'Can you hear it?'
Jack nodded. There was a definite scraping sound, followed by a steady chunk, chunk of something digging into the earth.
'If you'll permit me sir; it's louder in the dark, somehow.'
Williams blew out the candle, and all Jack's fears returned. He controlled his breathing with an effort and tried to concentrate on listening. Williams was correct; things seemed louder in the dark. The noise of scraping appeared to come from all around, while the repetitive chunking was more immediate, more threatening.
'You, see, sir?' Williams' voice sounded. 'Shall I light the candle again?'
'I'd be obliged, Williams,' Jack hid his relief as the tiny flame bounced light around the tunnel.
'As you heard, sir,' Williams said, pointing to the wall in front of him. 'They have crossed our path here and are working over there.' He indicated his right. 'They're still working, but I'm a bit confused, sir.'
'What is confusing you, Williams?' Jack asked.
'Well sir, the purpose of a mine is to blow a charge of gunpowder under a section of the defender's wall, as you know.' Williams continued before Jack could say anything. 'There is no wall over there, sir. They are passing close to our defences, yet they're not under them.'
'Parallel to them?' Jack asked.
'No, sir, not really.' Williams struggled to disagree with an officer. 'They're moving further away sir, out toward the city if anything.'
'Why the devil would are they up to?' It seemed as if the Mutineers were hacking out a tunnel without any strategic purpose. 'Thank you, Williams,' Jack said. 'I'll pass this to higher command and see what they say.' He looked back at the dark tunnel to the world above. 'In the meantime, if anything alters, send me a message at once.'
'Yes, sir.'
'When do you get relieved?'
'Oh, we don't, sir.' Logan said. 'We're content down here. No guard duties and no Sergeant O'Neill screaming and yelling at us.' He grinned and leant back against the hacked out wall. 'This is the easiest posting I've ever had.'
'Even although the Mutineers are only a few feet away?' Jack indicated the crumbling dirt of the tunnel, barely a yard away. Logan's grin widened. 'Won't they be the sorry ones if they break through sir, to find Wills and me waiting for them?' He touched the bayoneted rifle at his side and the tulwar that leant against the wall. 'We'll slaughter them sir, the baby-murdering bastards.'
'Let me know if anything else happens.' Jack could not stay there longer. The walls were closing in on him, and his flesh itched and burned with the desire to run. He had to leave.
The room was crowded, with Havelock, looking drawn and sick, sitting at the table beside Outram and a gathering of other officers. As they listened to Jack's report, Outram drummed his fingers on the table.
'As you are aware, gentlemen,' he said, 'the siege is reaching a climax. We are in daily semaphore contact with Sir Colin Campbell's relief column, and we are also engaged in an underground war.' He consulted the paper that lay on the table in front of him. 'We have dug twenty-one shafts, and created 3,291 feet of gallery. The rebels have dug twenty mines against us, mainly against the outposts and palaces. They have exploded five; three caused loss of life among us, two did not. We have blown in seven of their mines and driven them out of seven, thanks to the efforts of our miners.' The officers listened as Outram listed the successes and setbacks of the siege. 'And now you tell me of this new mine.'
'Perhaps they have merely lost their way underground, sir?' A captain of the 32nd said.
'That is hardly likely,' Outram unfolded a plan of the defences. 'Now, Windrush, where exactly is your mine?'
Jack stabbed down with more force than he had intended.
'And in which direction was the enemy digging?' Outram placed a small cross where Jack had indicated.
'This way, sir, as far as we could judge.'
'We? Who else was there?' Outram wheezed the words as the dust within the besieged lines worsened his asthma.
'Private Williams, sir. He was a miner in Wales before he joined the army.'
'He would know then.' Outram traced a straight line from the cross out toward the town of Lucknow. 'There we are. If the rebels continue along their present route, they will come to the Shah Najaf Mosque.'
'Indeed, sir?' Jack said.
'Indeed, sir,' Outram confirmed. 'The mosque is some half a mile from our outer walls; far too far for miners to dig.'
The officers nodded, unsure where Outram was taking them.
'However,' Outram said, 'you will note this open space between the mosque and our defences. Sir Colin will have to bring his column across that to reach us.'
'He may choose the same route we did, sir,' somebody said.
'We lost hundreds of men in these narrow lanes,' Havelock's whisper revealed his fragile state of health. 'Sir Colin is a cautious commander. He will have taken note of our casualties and will act accordingly.'
'Exactly, Havelock,' Outram wheezed. 'And Nana Sahib knows that. He will try to stop Sir Colin with every means at his disposal; I suspect he will plant their explosives
under the open area and hope to catch Sir Colin's column as it crosses.' Outram looked up, gasping for breath. 'Windrush: I want you to stop the enemy's mine.'
Although Jack shuddered at the prospect of returning underground once more, he gave the only response he could. 'Yes, sir.' He remembered his dream, the combination of stifling dark underground and terrible danger and knew things were coming to a climax.
Chapter Nineteen
They waited in the semi-dark with flickering candles pooling light onto the rough walls and ceiling. For the fifth time, Jack checked his revolver and the bayonet he carried on his belt. He crouched behind Williams, who had cautiously scraped away the earth toward the Mutineer's tunnel. 'How far apart are we?' Jack asked.
'About a spade's length,' Williams whispered. 'I can break through in a minute.'
Jack wondered what was beyond the screen of soil; how many Mutineers there were, what they were planning and if they suspected that the British knew about them. He felt the cold sweat soaking through his shirt when he thought of the thousands of tonnes of soil and rock above his head. He did not want to die down here so far from the sun and the rain and the wind.
'Ready lads?' He looked at the crouching men with their tense faces, tight lips and bitter-hard eyes. Each man carried his rifle and bayonet and sixty rounds of ammunition. Most also carried a personal weapon for close combat, a weighted blackjack, a captured sword or whatever took their fancy. Three men grumbled under the weight of water-kegs.
He had a dozen veterans with him; good men to fight with and he would choose none better as companions if he were to die.
'Right, Williams; on you go.'
On Jack's last word, Williams lifted a short-hafted pick and attacked the wall with savage energy. 'We have to be quick, sir,' he gasped. 'They'll hear this right away.'
The wall crumbled, soil and rocks falling away under Williams pick. He grunted, altered the angle of his attack and hauled away a boulder. A small hole appeared.
Without hesitation, Jack thrust the barrel of his revolver through the gap and fired blindly. 'If there are any pandies there, then they'll know we mean business,' he said as Williams lifted his foot and kicked away a larger portion of the wall.
'Come on!' Jack yelled and pushed through the hole, pistol extended in front of him. With no idea what was ahead, he stumbled over the prone body of a bare-chested native carrying a barrel of something, recovered and looked up.
He was in a larger tunnel, not as dark as the one he had left, with torches flaring on brackets on the wall and scared looking men backing away. His picket erupted behind him, bayonets ready.
'O'Neill; take five men and form a barrier here. Don't let anybody past. The rest of you, follow me!' Jack turned to the right, where the mine continued into the flame-lit distance.
'The pandies have done a good job,' Williams gave grudging praise as they moved quickly up a broad, sloping tunnel. 'It's better than most pits I've worked in.'
After only a few moments the first shot crashed out behind them, followed by another, echoing terribly in the tunnel. 'O'Neill's in action,' Jack lengthened his stride. 'Come on men.'
Reaching the end of the mine took Jack longer than he had anticipated, and when he did, he stopped in astonishment. He had expected perhaps half a dozen barrels of gunpowder, rather than the fifty or so that were piled up in three explosive tiers.
'If they all went up there would be some bang,' Hutton said. 'Shall we start now, sir?'
Jack nodded. His plan had been to soak the gunpowder, but faced with so many barrels, his supply of water was utterly inadequate. The firing behind them increased, with yells in Irish and English as well as Logan's Glasgow Scots and a cacophony of Urdu.
'Get to the top,' Jack pointed upward. 'Try and spoil as many barrels as you can.' He cursed, wishing he had brought more men and more water. Too late now; he had to work with what he had.
Williams was first up, with Hutton and Armstrong seconds behind. Using his bayonet, Williams stabbed into the uppermost barrel and poured in water. 'That should do it, sir,' he said.
Jack made quick calculations in his head. 'You've each got a three-gallon keg, that's twenty-four pints per man, seventy-two pints in total, and there are fifty barrels of powder. Pour a pint and a half into each barrel.'
'How do we know what a pint and a half are, sir?' Hutton looked at his keg in dismay.
'Estimate,' Jack said. 'Think of a pint of beer.' Drawing his bayonet, he began to prise open the tops or hack through the wood to hasten the procedure. He did not know how long O'Neill could hold out, or how many Mutineers would come against him. Already this operation was taking longer than he had expected and they had hardly started to dampen the powder.
The gunfire was increasing, each report magnified by the close confinement of the mine and echoing two or three times along the tunnel. 'They're getting closer, sir,' Williams said.
'Hutton; get along to O'Neill and see what's happening. Leave your water.'
Grabbing Hutton's water, Jack frantically opened kegs of gunpowder and poured in water.
'They're coming, sir,' Hutton was back in moments. 'Hundreds of them! The sergeant's wounded and Charlton's dead.'
Jack swore. They had opened and dampened twenty-three barrels of powder, which meant there were twenty-seven remaining and the Mutineers were obviously pressing hard. There was a bend in the tunnel about ten yards away; he would try and hold them there. 'Williams; how far are we from the surface?'
The calmest man there, Williams screwed up his face as he looked upward. 'No distance at all, sir. There would be no point blowing this unless we were close.'
'Can you get us up there?'
'Yes, sir,' Williams replied at once.
'Do it then. Leave the powder.'
'Yes, sir.' Williams used his bayonet to hack at the roof of the tunnel as Jack loosened a barrel from the bottom layer and rolled it to the bend. O'Neill leant against the wall and fought one-handed with his rifle and bayonet while Logan and Thorpe slashed and hacked against a press of near naked Mutineers. Coleman stood slightly further back, reloading. He knelt and fired.
'Back here, lads!' Jack shouted.
They withdrew slowly, fighting every step as the Mutineers pushed at them.
'Sorry, sir. We couldn't hold them.' O'Neill had an ugly wound on his left arm, and blood dripped from his chin.
'No matter! Step aside.' Slicing a strip of linen from his shirt, Jack hacked a hole in the top of his powder –barrel and stuffed in the fabric. Fighting his shaking hands, he scraped a Lucifer and lit the makeshift fuse. The linen smouldered slowly, emitting smoke.
'Let's hope this does not bring the whole roof down,' he shouted and shoved the barrel toward the enemy. It rolled ponderously, weaving from side to side along the floor of the mine. At sight of the smoking barrel, most of the Mutineers turned and fled, pushing their comrades aside in their panic. One man jumped forward and grabbed hold of the fuse, pulling it out before the sputtering flame reached the contents. Jack swore.
'Shabash!' O'Neill shouted. 'You're a brave man, pandy. Shoot him, Coleman!'
'How are you doing, Williams?' Jack fired three rounds down the tunnel and reloaded hastily before the Mutineers could mount another attack. He ducked as a musket ball crashed into the wall behind him.
'There's a layer of rock, sir,' Williams replied. 'It's taking longer than I had thought.'
'Keep trying! Hutton! Give him a hand. Roll me down another barrel.'
The Mutineers must have doused the torches for the mine plunged into sudden darkness; Jack could not see what was happening. He fired his revolver again with the muzzle flash bringing sudden intense light. He blinked, unable to see anything at all, closed his eyes and fired two more rounds.
'They're crawling up!' O'Neill's voice sounded weak. 'Logan; Coleman, they're on the ground. Get the bastards.'
Jack opened his eyes as Thorpe managed to re-ignite one of the torches. The floor was a writhing mass of rebels c
rawling forward with knives in their hands. When the light flared, they jumped up and charged forward, screaming something that Jack could not make out. Coleman shot the first one without emotion and then thrust his bayonet through the next. 'There's done for you,' he gasped as Logan sliced sideways at the neck of another and kicked a fourth in the groin with his iron-studded boots.
'Come on then; you pandy bastards!' Logan was yelling obscenities, killing with blade and rifle butt. He staggered as a Mutineer slashed at his leg, and then head-butted the man, finishing him with a bayonet thrust to the belly. 'That's for the weans, you murdering bastard.'
Jack fired another round, heard the hammer of his revolver click on an empty chamber and used the barrel like a club to smash the next man on the head. He felt something slice across his ribs, knew he had been cut and kicked upward as hard as he could, grunting in satisfaction at the resulting squeal of pain.
'I'm through, sir!' Williams sounded relieved. 'We've reached the surface!'
'Is the hole wide enough to get through?' Jack stepped back to reload as Logan and Coleman pushed back the next wave of attackers.
'Yes, sir!'
'Pull back, lads,' Jack gasped. The new wound in his side was beginning to hurt as the initial shock wore off. He thrust in the sixth cartridge, closed the revolver and peered down the mine. Shapes were shifting in the shadows. He fired twice and withdrew, limping painfully.
Williams stood at the apex of the powder-kegs, still hacking upwards. 'We've got daylight, sir,' he said.
'Coleman, Logan: help O'Neill to the surface. Thorpe, I need your skills: where's Hutton?'
'Dead, sir.' Logan was limping, holding his leg. 'Some ugly black bastard done for him with a sword.'
'Right.' There was no time to mourn. There had been too many good men killed in this war. 'Thorpe, you and I are last out.'
'Yes, sir.' Thorpe was at his best when things were desperate. 'What do you want me to do?'
'Blow this lot up,' Jack said. 'We haven't time to wet the powder, so we'll get rid of it before Sir Colin's column arrives.'
Thorpe grinned. 'Oh yes, sir; I'm your man!'
Windrush: Cry Havelock (Jack Windrush Book 4) Page 25