‘And what’s taken yous so long, Tony Morgan?’ The carbine now hung down at the woman’s side; dressed in a filthy sari and a bloodied, make-shift apron, she pushed locks of shining black hair out of her eyes with her other wrist. ‘It was four months ago that we saw each other that night in Kotah; couldn’t you have be-stirred yourself a bit quicker?’
‘Mary, darling girl…’ Morgan stumbled over a wounded man, any doubts about his lover vanishing immediately.
Ungrateful as she sounds, she’s still one of us; how could I ever have thought anything else? Morgan marvelled at the girl’s shining hair and peach-soft skin. Mark you, it’s a bloody good job she recognised me, or I’d have measured my length by now.
But there was no time for Morgan to voice any such thoughts, for Mary had guessed how dangerous the situ ation was.
‘I’ve got Damodar and our Sam tucked up safe behind me, and no bloody mutineer’s going to get their hands on either. How far away are the rest of our lads and how many of you are there Tony, my jewel?’
‘It’s just a handful of us, Mary. We’ve come to stop Damodar being put onto Jhansi’s throne in place of his mother.’
‘Are the rumours true then, Tony? Is the Rhani actually dead?’
Mary took her lover’s hand and led him into a much larger chamber in which a trestle had been set up and used as an operating table. Candles gave more light to this room than any other that Morgan had seen since they broke into the fort and it was clear from the gore, the pile of severed limbs that lay to one side and the bundle of filthy bandages, that the surgery had seen much trade.
‘Aye, she’s dead, God rest the wicked creature—’ Morgan started, only to be cut off by Mary.
‘No, that’s not true. She was a good, brave woman who had no part in the betrayal of the garrison, nor anything to do with the murders of my James, Captain Skene or any of the others. If only the British had listened to what she was trying to tell them, instead of making her turn against them—’
‘It’s of no matter now, my love.’ It was Morgan’s turn to interrupt. ‘Take me to Damodar. We’ve got to get him away safely,’ and with no more discussion Mary led Morgan to a screened-off section at the very end of the room.
There he found two lads sprawled on cushions in infant sleep that was as oblivious to gunshots as it was to the shouting and mayhem around them. The eight-year-old prince was simply dressed in tunic and tight-legged satin trousers, with clean slippers on his feet. Laid to one side of him was a miniature tulwar, around which was coiled the boy’s arm. Next to him was a two-year-old with raven, curly hair and the longest lashes that Morgan had ever seen. He, too, was in remarkably clean native dress, but the pale, translucent skin was in marked contrast to Damodar’s.
‘Why…’ stuttered Morgan, ‘…that’s Samuel, our beautiful boy.’ He reached down and lifted the sleeping child into his arms.
‘It is, Tony Morgan,’ said Mary delightedly. ‘Our very own lad and a damn fine horseman he’s had to become over the last few weeks.’
The couple stole the moment. In a filthy, rebel hospital that echoed to the shouts of the outraged wounded, whilst artillery fire still cut the air above the roof, they stood and shared the delight of parenthood.
‘Morgan…Morgan, where the hell have you got to?’ A booming, impatient voice came from the corridor behind them.
‘God, that’s…that’s Dick Kemp, ain’t it?’ said Mary, shocked. ‘I thought I saw him riding hard behind us after Kotah.’
‘In here, Commandant. I’ve got Damodar and Mrs Keenan.’
‘Capital!’ was Kemp’s reply as he pushed Dunniah in front of him into the room. The sepoy was so weakened by his injuries that he staggered and fell over one of the wounded, only to be lifted to his feet by Kemp’s grabbing him by the hair and tugging him upright. Morgan saw the pain and despair in the Indian’s face as he recognised Mary.
‘Dunniah…’ Mary, was clearly shocked by the state of a man who, however much she might have disliked it, had protected not just the young prince but her son as well, ‘…Mother of God, but you’re in a desperate state.’ She made a move towards him, but was brought up short by the commandant’s sneer.
‘Ah, Mrs Keenan, what a delight. I’m glad to see you in such fine form.’ He dipped his head in faux courtesy. ‘Please don’t worry yourself about your friend here. I can assure you that he’s in rude good health, aren’t you, you cur,’ Kemp shook Dunniah by his topknot, making him shriek with pain, ‘and clearly pleased to see you. Anyway, enough of such courtesies. Did I hear you say that you’ve found the young gentleman, Morgan? Be so kind as to take me to him.’
There was something different about Kemp’s voice, thought Morgan. He’d seen him in countless tight corners and scrapes over the past few months – usually the result of the senior man’s recklessness and hate-fuelled determination – but there was always an underlying sense of judgement there. Now he seemed to have lost all balance; all that Morgan could see in his eyes was an implacable loathing for everything and everyone around him.
‘I will, Commandant.’ Morgan passed Sam to Mary, and pulled the screen to one side, waking Damodar in the process. ‘He’s here, look.’ The child sat up and yawned, opening his mouth hugely and screwing up his eyes without any of the inhibitions of adulthood. Then he sat and blinked at the people around him, his lips slightly apart in wonder.
‘Yes, you black-hearted bastard, there’s your king, there’s the only person who can salvage your mutinous cause.’ Kemp had pushed Dunniah forward so that he could look once again at the child he knew so well, twisting his hand viciously in the sepoy’s hair. ‘Well, take one last good look, just like you gave my darling Neeta one last look.’ And before Morgan realised what was about to happen, Kemp pulled a knife from his belt and drew its gleaming steel across Dunniah’s throat.
Morgan watched as Mary groaned in horror. The sepoy’s eyes never left the boy as Kemp’s knife flickered over his windpipe, the thin scratch of blood quickly turning into a torrent that soaked the front of the man’s dhoti.
‘Yes, you scum, take your time.’ As Kemp held Dunniah’s feeble body erect and the blood leaked out of him, Morgan saw how his knees buckled and his whole frame sagged. ‘I’m going to sow your corpse into a pigskin bag, you heathen, and you’ll have eternity to ponder what you did to my sweet girl.’ Kemp finally let Dunniah crumple onto the floor as death took charge.
Whilst Morgan and Mary stood frozen, watching Dunniah’s body twitch and jerk in the rusty puddle that now surrounded him, Kemp strode forward towards the sleepy Damodar, his knife held low and threatening.
He’s going to knife the boy as well, thought Morgan, rooted to the spot with horror. That’ll kick the heart out of any further uprising – but it can’t be right; surely Kemp can’t do that to a child.
‘And as for you, my lad…’ the commandant was just paces from the defenceless boy when Mary threw herself in front of him. She clutched Sam, her own child, to her chest and swung to confront Kemp, her face pale with anger.
‘Get away from that wee boy, you pig!’ Mary stumbled backwards, her left arm held out protectively, screening Damodar with her body.
‘So, now we see you in your true colours, do we, Mrs turncoat Keenan? Get out of my goddamn way or I’ll give you the same treatment as that bloody child’s going to get.’ Kemp brought the knife back slowly, preparing to strike.
There was no time to think. Morgan hurled himself at Kemp, hoping that the stout, older man’s reaction would have been slowed by the fatigue and strain of the last few hours: he was wrong. Quick as a cat, the commandant twisted and caught Morgan with a perfect, straight, left jab on the bridge of the nose that sent him sprawling to the floor.
He lay in a torpor of pain and numbness whilst Mary’s screams, children’s wails and Kemp’s angry shouts bludgeoned his consciousness. It felt just like the knockdowns that he had experienced so often in the boxing ring, he thought, yet this time there was no one counti
ng down the seconds. But the urgency to get back on his feet was even stronger, for Mary’s yells had ceased abruptly.
Morgan forced himself to stand, clutching at the table for support, wiping a fist across his nose and mouth and, through blurred eyes, realised that his hand was red with blood. Then, as his vision cleared, he grasped why Mary was silent: Kemp had her by the throat. Whilst Damodar shrank in a corner and Sam cried and rolled about the floor, two powerful, lethal hands dug into the woman’s neck. Morgan noticed scratches on Kemp’s cheeks, but as the officer’s fingers tightened so Mary’s strength ebbed, her slaps and swipes becoming more and more feeble, her face bright red as she fought for breath.
‘You like hitting your betters, don’t you, you whoring, traitorous, little Catholic drab?’ Kemp muttered as he wrung the life out of the girl.
Get close, stick the muzzle in their face if you can and don’t waste a shot. Morgan remembered Kemp’s own advice to him as he pulled his heavy revolver from his waistband, thrust it so hard against the commandant’s jawbone that it dented the skin…and pulled the trigger.
The first shot deafened them all, splashed blood and bits of flesh on the wall opposite and sent Kemp staggering away from Mary. The second thumped into his neck just above his khaki collar, even before the body had time to hit the floor. The third was entirely unnecessary as it smashed into his already dead lungs and there would have been a fourth, a fifth and probably a sixth until all the pistol’s chambers were empty – but then Kemp’s voice echoed again in Morgan’s aching head:…don’t waste a shot.
Mary picked up Sam, put an arm around the terrified Damodar and pushed herself hard against Morgan. They stood there in the candlelight that shone through the powder smoke, ears ringing, looking down at the commandant as his fingers twitched and a spur rasped the stone-flagged floor.
‘Bloody ’ell, sir,’ a coarse voice disturbed the tableau, ‘you all right? Is the commandant badly ’it?’
‘I think he’s dead, Corp’l Pegg,’ replied Morgan quietly as Pegg took in the scene.
‘Bloody ’ell, sir…’ Pegg quickly laid his rifle down and crouched over the corpse, scanning the ragged wound in his head and feeling for a pulse, ‘…’e is…’e’s dead,’ a look of disbelief spreading over the corporal’s face.
‘Yes, I believe so,’ answered Morgan, his arm tight around Mary,
‘Well, ’e won’t be needing this, will ’e?’ asked Pegg as he pulled a gold Dublin watch and chain from the dead man’s pocket and slipped it into his own.
Glossary
Adjutant: the commanding officer’s principal staff officer, usually a captain
Aliwal: British victory in January 1846 during the First Sikh War
Angrez: the English
Ayah: native nurse or nanny
Babu: a clerk or teacher
Badmash: a ne’er-do-well
Bandook: a rifle or musket
Barnshoot: English corruption of the Hindi for the female genitals
Bat: the native language, so for British soldiers to ‘sling the bat’ suggested some fluency, even if it was only in barrack pidgin
Bat-ponies: baggage animals
Battalion: an infantry unit of seven to eight hundred men
Bhang: hashish
Bint: a girl, used pejoratively by the British
Bishti: a water carrier
Blown for: army expression relating to bugle calls. To be ‘blown for’ suggests one of the musical signals designed to summon designated groups (e.g., all colour-sergeants) or individuals to receive orders
Boots and Saddles: cavalry trumpet call indicating that troops should prepare to move
Bore: the inside of a weapon’s barrel
Brahmin: the highest Hindu class
Brevet: an honorary rank given as a reward that carried extra pay but no authority other than in exceptional circumstances
Bund: an earthen bank
Bus: finished or dead
Caisson: a wheeled, horse-drawn wagon that carried artillery ammunition
Canister: bullets contained in a cloth bag used by artillery at short range against personnel
Carbine: a short musket or rifle carried by artillery and cavalry
Catch a Tartar, to: slang expression to describe a heavy defeat or beating
Charpoy: light, wood-framed bed
Chota-peg: small drink, usually brandy or whiskey
Colours: the pair of flags carried by each infantry battalion
Colt: an American make of revolving pistol
Commandant: the term by which the commanding officer of many of the HEIC’s regiments was known. He could equally well be addressed as ‘Colonel’
Company: the smallest tactical unit in the British Army, about eighty strong, usually commanded by a captain. In 1857 there were ten companies in a battalion, two of which remained at home as an administrative depot, one of which was styled ‘Grenadier’ and another ‘Light’, both titles being superseded in January 1858. At the time of the Mutiny, ‘double companies’ were often formed, i.e., two compan ies under the command of one captain
Cornet: cavalry rank equivalent of ensign in the infantry – later changed to second-lieutenant
Crow/red-arse/sprog: all British Army terms of contempt for newcomers or recruits
Daffadar: corporal in an Indian cavalry regiment
Dak: a bungalow or low building
Defilade: to sight weapons in such a way that they can engage a target from front to back
Dhoolie: an animal-drawn stretcher
Durbar: a meeting. In HEIC regiments, a formal durbar was held regularly where only the commandant and the subadar-major were present with the sepoys and junior NCOs, the idea being that any grievances could be aired publicly
Echelon: the arrangement of bodies of troops so that they might attack or manoeuvre in successive waves
Embrasure: narrow slot cut in the wall of an earthwork from which artillery could be fired
Enfield: the .577inch Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifled Musket was the standard rifle of the Queen’s regiments during the Mutiny. Issued from early 1857 to the Indian regiments, its greased cartridge was one of the factors behind the start of the Mutiny
Enfilade: fire that sweeps a target from the flank
Ensign: most junior commissioned rank in the infantry, later changed to second-lieutenant
Farrier: specialist cavalryman who dealt with horseshoes and harnesses
Field officers: the mounted officers of an infantry battalion, viz. the commanding officer, the senior and junior major and the adjutant
Firelock: generic term for a small-arm
Full screw: slang for a corporal
Gabion: a basketwork piece of defensive equipment designed to be stood on its end and filled with earth
Gouger: Irish slang for a ne’er-do-well
Guff: Scottish slang for a smell
Havildar: equivalent of sergeant in the HEICs armies
Jawan: a native boy or lad; the word became synonymous with sepoy
Jemadar: most junior officer in the Indian Army
Jildi-rao: get a move on
Jobby: Scottish slang for excrement
John Company: slang for the Honourable East India Company, HEIC
Kila: a fort
Lay of metal: the process by which an artillery piece was aimed by looking over the barrel and adjusting the carriage and elevation wheel
Lost his flint: lost the powers of reason
Mahout: an elephant’s driver
Maidan: a plain or exercise area
Mask the guns: when infantry or cavalry move into a position that prevents the artillery from firing without risk to their own troops, they ‘mask the guns’
Memsahib: a woman in authority, usually the wife of an officer
Mither: English slang: to pester or annoy
Mohur: gold or cash
Musket: a smooth-bored firearm
Nabob: slang for white grandees serving in India
Naik: equivalent of infantry corporal in the Indian armies
Nails: the old Crimean nickname for the 95th Foot, said to originate from the admiring comment, ‘There may be few of ’em but where you put ’em they stick like nails’
Namskaar…kahaang hai…?: Listen…where is…?
Nullah: a dried-up river or stream bed
Out East: slang for the Crimea
Peeler: slang for policeman
Piece: technically the barrel of an artillery gun, but often used to mean the entire gun
Presidency: the HEIC governed India via three Presidencies: Bombay, Madras and Bengal, each of which maintained its own army. The bulk of the mutinies occurred in the Bengal Presidency, but there were always concerns about the loyalty of all native troops, with the exception of the Sikhs and the Gurkhas
’Pol: soldiers’ abbrevation for Sevastopol
Portfire: the burning fuse by which an artillery piece was caused to fire
Puggaree: turban
Pultan: a regiment
Punkah: reed or grass panels hinged to ceilings and swung as fans
Queen’s regiments: those that were in the Crown’s service rather than HEIC’s
Ramasammy: a meeting or discussion
Redoubt: an earthwork usually armed with guns
Ring: anus
Rook jao-hat jao: pay attention
Sabretache: leather wallet that hung next to a mounted officer’s sword; used for carrying messages and documents
Sepoy: Indian infantry private
Shamrock: Irish slang for a prod with a bayonet
Sharney: Scots slang for dirty
Dust and Steel Page 38