The Maclarens (The Regiment Family Saga Book 1)

by CL Skelton

  Havelock’s voice was toneless, the voice of a man of iron control fighting back his emotions. ‘You can take a squad and carry on searching the town. If you find any Sepoys, shoot them. I want to be sure that there is not a single one of them left alive when we move out.’

  Andrew left the group and started out across the square to seek out some men to come with him. Released from the gaze of his superiors, he became aware of his own weariness. His shoulders slumped; how he envied those men who lay asleep in the patches of shade, who had not had to see what he had seen. But for Andrew there was no rest. He held the Queen’s commission and he was under orders; he had a job to do. Never in his life had he felt so weary, so sick at heart. He had to rest, if only for a moment. Exhausted, he leaned on his broadsword. He felt that he could stand no more. That was when the corporal came. That was when the tears came.

  He looked blankly at the pathetic little bundle that only a couple of days ago might have been lisping out its first words to its mother, that mother who now lay in a festering, fly-covered heap at the well.

  ‘Take it to the waterhole and lay it with the others.’

  ‘Them’s rotten bastards, sir.’

  ‘What’s your name, corporal?’

  ‘Jones, sir, eighteen years with the colours, sir, and I ain’t never seed anything like this.’

  ‘None of us have, corporal, but you must do as I say.’

  Andrew had neither the wish nor the energy to continue the conversation.

  ‘Yessir.’

  The corporal left him and still he did not move. He stood there sweating in the silence, his eyes beginning to droop. There were limits. Suddenly a cannon boomed, jerking him back to consciousness. He straightened up, grasping firmly on his sword, and then he realized what was happening. Barrington was blowing the prisoners from the mouths of their own guns. He looked across the square at the retreating figure of Corporal Jones, thought of the baby, and allowed himself a grim smile. According to the Sepoy’s religion, if his body was dispersed, his future state of existence was in jeopardy. They would not die happy.

  Andrew had a job to do. He walked over to where a small group of men were relaxing in the shade.

  ‘Not more bloody fighting, sir,’ said one of them, a grizzled old veteran with a sabre slash down his right cheek. ‘We’ve only just got stood easy.’

  They were English and the speaker viewed the young Scot with an experienced eye. He reckoned he could smell out a soft officer a mile off. ‘Look, sir, can’t you get some from the 78th? They’ve been fell out longer than us.’

  Andrew drew a deep breath. He did not like pulling rank. It always made him feel inadequate.

  ‘You’re coming with me, rifles loaded and bayonets fixed. Who’s the senior man?’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said the first speaker.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Smithers.’

  ‘Sir!’ snapped Andrew.

  ‘Smithers, sir.’ He got to his feet. He had been beaten, but only just, and he bore no grudge. ‘Orlright, you lot, you heard what the officer said. What’s the job, sir?’

  ‘We’re going to look for survivors. If we meet up with any Sepoys, we have orders to shoot them on sight.’

  ‘Too good for them buggers, sir,’ said a lean youth with a Yorkshire accent.

  ‘Leave your equipment here,’ said Andrew as one of them started to struggle into his fifty-pound pack. ‘Smithers, detail one of them to stay and guard your gear.’

  While the men loaded their Enfields, Andrew heaved out his Colt and carefully measured the powder into each chamber, pushing in the wad and ramming home the bullet. Then he gently fitted the percussion caps to the nipples at the rear of the cylinder and reholstered it. The six weary men got to their feet and he led them through the main street and towards the European quarter.

  To Andrew, it was all so incomprehensible. They were searching through a part of town that had been touched by neither shot nor shell. Yet the buildings, homes, and gardens had been burned and wrecked. He could have understood an enemy that had taken over the town and held it, using what facilities were left intact for their own use. But this wanton destruction seemed so useless. It gave him a vision of the expression of anger and hatred of the mob which must have surged through, bent only on destroying for destruction’s sake. Many of the houses were just ashes lying in smouldering heaps among scorched lawns. Others, those which had not been burned, had verandahs smashed, verandahs where ladies and gentlemen had gathered after dinner dressed in cool white linen, and sipped cold drinks before retiring, safe and comfortable under the protection of the East India Company. Doors and windows ripped out, roofs at drunken angles where a gable end had been hammered to matchwood, and personal belongings, toys, and furniture heaped in broken mounds of rubbish over the lawns. He could see no reason for it. Anything they could go into, they entered, and found nothing but destruction. He could envisage them all as they had been, neat, white-painted, and smart with evenly cropped, well-watered lawns, children’s playthings, swings, and sandpits. How delightful they must have been before all this.

  The house they were approaching was not all that different, except that it did not seem to have been quite so vandalized. The line of the roof was straight, there was the inevitable litter of furniture and personal possessions around the lawn which had a series of massive fig trees creating shady oases. The house itself had had its pale-grey wooden verandah splintered, and the mosquito screens torn and ripped. Two pairs of large French windows which had opened on to the verandah had been half torn from their hinges and swayed drunkenly outward. It was obvious from its style and layout that it had been the home of a fairly well-to-do European family.

  ‘Haven’t we done enough?’ said Smithers. ‘We’re not going to find anybody.’

  Andrew was sure the man was right and was very tempted to agree with him. All of their fruitless searching was not going to help morale any, but he had his orders.

  ‘We’ll go in and look,’ he said.

  Smithers compressed his lips and for a moment was inclined to carry on the argument. He looked at the others, who seemed to be in a state of bored resignation. Right little bastard, he thought. Still, he’d try again at the next one.

  Rifles at the port, they went in through one of the pairs of French windows. They were in what had been the dining room. The heap of scarred mahogany had once been a carefully polished dining table. Broken glass was everywhere; some of it had been fine crystal, some frames which had held the daguerreotypes that littered the floor. With little more than a glance, they moved on through the house. They had done it all a couple of dozen times in the last three hours. They had been tired when they started, now they were tired and bored and hungry. They trod over the remains of lace curtains, picked their way through broken furniture until they came to what had been the withdrawing room. An engraving of the Queen lay on the floor, glass smashed and stinking with human excrement which smeared it. The room was dominated with the remains of a grand piano, battered and broken and tipped against the wall.

  ‘There’s another door there, sir,’ said one of them. ‘Behind the piano.’

  ‘Shut yer gob, Wilson,’ hissed Smithers.

  If Smithers had not spoken, Andrew might have ignored it. But the uncertainty of his own authority made him act. ‘We’ll look,’ he said. ‘Get that piano shifted.’

  They heaved it away from the wall, and Wilson, proud of his discovery, tested the door.

  ‘It’s locked, sir. I think it’s bolted from the inside.’

  Their interest quickened; even the reluctant Smithers wanted to know. He swung back the butt of his Enfield. ‘Shall I, sir?’

  ‘Yes, break it down,’ said Andrew.

  It was a heavy door, panelled and strong, the sort of door one found at home, not like the flimsy structures that had been smashed throughout the rest of the house. They stood back as Smithers thumped a hole through the panel and put his hand through.

  ‘Wilson�
��s right, sir, it’s bolted from the inside.’

  ‘Open it and stand back,’ said Andrew. ‘There’s just a chance that there’s somebody in there. I’m going in. Cover me.’

  With the chance of some action, the lethargy had gone. The men stood at the door, tense, their rifles primed and loaded. Andrew drew his revolver and cocked it. Then he walked silently through the open door.

  It was dark inside, dark and cool. He waited just inside the door for a full minute to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. He could hear nothing but the breathing of the men grouped behind him. He felt forward with his foot and found a step down. He tapped it; it was stone. Beyond it was another, and another. He reached out with his hand and found a wooden rail. It must be a cellar. As he cautiously descended, vague shapes started to appear, a couple of long, shadowy shelves. A wine cellar? As if in confirmation, as he reached the bottom he kicked against something which tinkled away with the unmistakable sound of glass on stone.

  In the silence he held his breath. He was sure that he could hear the sound of heavy breathing, and it was not coming from the men at the top of the stairs. He paused, trying to locate the sound. It appeared to be coming from the farthest corner, beyond the rows of shelves. He stopped again, feeling forward with his left hand. He touched the racks and felt the cool dusty neck of a bottle. It was certainly the wine cellar. He stood silent; yes, he was not alone down there.

  ‘Come out,’ he called. ‘I know you’re there, whoever you are. Come out and show yourself.’

  There was a gasp. A quick frightened intake of breath. There was no reply.

  ‘I am a British soldier, and there are six men at the top of the stairs, all armed. If you do not show yourself, I shall open fire.’

  ‘Have pity!’

  It was a small frightened voice. A woman’s voice. Then there was a long silence, punctuated only by the sound of her breathing. Slowly Andrew discerned a shadowy figure emerging from behind the wine rack. It stopped.

  ‘Are you British?’ It was barely a whisper, but it was a cultured English voice. It did not have the clipped accent of the English-speaking native.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Oh, thank God, thank God.’

  He caught up the dim figure as she started to fall, fainting into his arms.

  He picked her up, amazed at the lightness and softness of her body. He carried her back up the stone steps and into the light, where the men moved silently aside to let him pass. Without pause, he walked straight out of the house on to the road and towards the square.

  His lips compressed and with an illogical feeling of embarrassment, he looked down at his burden, a woman, little more than a girl. She was wearing a torn, once white linen skirt and a silk blouse which had ripped under her arm, revealing the smooth white flesh beneath. She had no shoes, and her stockings peeping out from beneath were worn and dirty. Her eyes were open, large and blue, but not seeing. Her long blonde hair was matted and filthy. Through the rips in her skirt and on her legs there were smears of blood. As they left the house, one of the soldiers, a burly Scot, grabbed one of the discarded curtains. He ran to Andrew’s side and covered her with it.

  ‘Ye canna tak the lassie oot like that,’ he said.

  Andrew looked at the man’s honest, grimy face. ‘Thanks, Jock,’ he said.

  Andrew had never held a woman before. To him they were strange and mysterious creatures. Almost another species. He felt this strangeness in the soft thighs which lay across his right arm, and the thin gentleness of the arms and shoulders against his left.

  As they walked, a silent little procession grouped around him. Andrew kept glancing down at her face. Her eyes flickered and blinked. For a moment they were still, and then they focused on him, and suddenly she started to scream and struggle. He held her easily; there was little strength in that small body. But before her eyes closed and she lapsed again into unconsciousness, he noticed that they were terrified.

  As they neared the square, about a mile and a half from where they had found the woman, they heard the rattling and rumbling of the guns arriving, the teams of mules straining under the load of the twelve- and eight-pounder field pieces and their ammunition limbers. With them came the baggage mules carrying loaded packs or hauling wooden-wheeled carts piled high with stores of food and ammunition, tents, and all the impedimenta of war; the clatter of the cannon and the mule train, the cursing of the muleteers, the clouds of yellow dust, all bringing the dead city to life.

  Andrew was barely aware of the commotion as he carried his burden across the square. He called to a passing N.C.O.

  ‘Where will I find the surgeon, sergeant?’

  ‘Over there on the other side,’ said the sergeant, pointing to a large ridged marquee of grey canvas with a white flag flying from its front pole, from which men were emerging bandaged and limping, and one, his eyes covered with a dressing, being led across the square by a comrade.

  He carried the girl over and found the surgeon sitting on a three-legged stool outside the tent, shoulders slumped in utter exhaustion, trying unsuccessfully to light his pipe and flicking flakes of tobacco off his blood-spattered rubber apron.

  Captain Higgins was not a young man and he had never been a successful doctor. He had spent the first part of his practising life in the poorer quarters of Liverpool and then he had joined the army. He had seen it all before in the Crimea, and seven years in India; until now it was all just another job. As Andrew approached, he raised his greying head and drew the back of his hand across his brow, where the sweat was pouring into his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Not another one,’ he said wearily. And then looking again, ‘What the devil have you got there?’

  ‘It’s a woman,’ said Andrew.

  Captain Higgins took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Good God!’ he said in astonishment. ‘Where in the blazes did you find her? No, don’t tell me, it’s none of my bloody business. Better take her in.’

  Wearily the surgeon heaved himself to his feet and followed Andrew into the tent. Andrew picked his way carefully through the two lines of seriously wounded lying on straw paillasses. There must have been over fifty of them there, and they were only the worst cases. He came to a table, a few planks spread across a couple of rude trestles and stained with blood, some of it not yet dry. Next to it were Captain Higgins’s instruments ‒ saws, scissors, chisels and knives, needles and thread. It looked like a carpenter’s shop which had got itself mixed up with a seamstress.

  ‘Stick her on there,’ said the surgeon.

  ‘Haven’t you got anything to cover it with?’ Andrew was shocked.

  ‘No, I haven’t, unless I take a blanket from one of them,’ was the reply. ‘And I’m buggered if I’m going to do that. Put her down.’

  Andrew did as he was bid. ‘I’d better report to the general,’ he said.

  Higgins was looking at her; he looked up and smiled. It was a nice smile, revealing a row of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Come back when you can. I don’t think there’s much wrong with her, and she is your prisoner.’

  Andrew left them, found Major Barrington, and was taken immediately to General Havelock.

  ‘Woman?’ said Havelock after Andrew explained. ‘That’s deuced awkward. Still, we had better go and take a look at her.’

  Andrew led his commanding officer across the square in the direction of the hospital tent. It was quieter now, the guns having gone through, headed for the banks of the Ganges where they would camp for the night. Still the bustle of activity was there, quartermasters checking and rechecking stores. Marquees in various stages of erection, and men carrying loads of ammunition to points where it was being issued to queues of troops. Havelock was anxious to move to Lucknow, fifty miles away, at the earliest possible moment. As they arrived at the tent, the surgeon led her out. She was wrapped in a grey army blanket.

  She stopped as they approached, tugging the blanket around her, her arms crossed and her hands holding the edges of the blanket pr
essed tight against her shoulders. She stood motionless, like some stone statue over which someone had thrown an old rag. Captain Higgins was a man of average height, and she was nearly as tall as him. Andrew saw again the long fair hair falling below her shoulders, the finely drawn features, tight clear skin over the high cheekbones, the blue eyes set wide apart, staring but not looking, and he realized that beneath the grime and the unkempt hair, she was beautiful. He looked straight at her, wishing that her eyes would answer his glance, but they looked straight through him with no sign of recognition.

  Havelock looked at her and pursed his lips. He glanced at the surgeon, who nodded slightly and took his pipe out of his mouth as if in deference to his general. Then he stepped aside and allowed Havelock to approach.

  ‘Good day to ye, ma’am,’ said Havelock.

  The girl started, and it seemed to Andrew that she tightened her grip on the blanket, trying to draw it together around her body. But she looked straight past both of them.

  The general continued, ‘I must apologize that there is so little that we have to offer. We’ll do what we can, though. Mr Maclaren will arrange some sort of a bathhouse for you, and I’ll send some of the men through the houses to see what they can find in the way of clothes.’ He paused, but there was no reply. ‘Hrrumph. Perhaps we might have the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight?’

  ‘You are very kind.’

  It sounded so ridiculous. The tone of her cultured voice was abnormally normal. A formal invitation formally accepted in a voice that was low and calm.

  Havelock grunted. He felt that there was more that he should say, but for the life of him he could not think what. Finally he grunted again and turned to leave. The girl still had not moved.

  ‘What happened to her?’ asked Andrew of the surgeon who was now by his side.

  ‘Shock mostly. Physically, as far as I can tell, she seems to be all right, but she’s had a damned rough time.’ He was trying to get his pipe going again.

  ‘You’ll join us this evening,’ Havelock spoke to Andrew as he passed.