Zemindar

Home > Other > Zemindar > Page 94
Zemindar Page 94

by Valerie Fitzgerald


  The first day’s march was only fifteen miles, and, since the column was almost twelve miles in length, the vanguard had encamped very shortly after the rearguard had begun to march. Two or three hours after our departure, when one of the unexplained halts found our carriage on a sweep of curving road crowning a fair eminence in the flat countryside, we were afforded a view of the progress of the column both before and behind us, and could form an appreciation of what it must have looked like to the vultures hovering hopefully in the cool blue above.

  On either side of the road swampy grassland had disintegrated into a morass of mud, through which struggled the infantry: the Scots, with their white spats now as brown as the mud they marched through; the 32nd (‘Our Men’ as we always considered them) hardly better clothed than when they left the Residency, but no less dogged; the loyal sepoys of the Old Garrison, mingling in their rags with the smartly uniformed natives of the relief; the sailors of the Shannon, easily discernible in their blue and white, swinging smartly through the mud, to show themselves more capable of soldierly endurance than any mere soldier. Flanking the infantry on both sides of the road, the cavalry cantered, whirled and trotted in the first energy of a short march, lances gleaming, pennons fluttering, horses frisking.

  Thus guarded and guided, the cause of all the martial concern crept along the broken road, mile upon slow mile in an unending stream of carriages, carts, landaus and broughams, of bullock-wagons, ammunition tumbrils and guns, of doolies, palanquins and red-curtained ambulances, of oxen and elephants, camels, mules and donkeys, of goats, sheep and pariah dogs and the gaudily curtained litters and carts that housed, so Jessie told me, the compliant females of the bazaar.

  Coolies, cooks, grooms, ayahs and grass-cutters trotted between the wheels and the hooves; vendors appeared miraculously from the fields with fresh milk, eggs, sweetmeats, embroidered slippers and glass bangles for sale. Whenever the column halted, from the carts of the bazaar artisans came the peaceful, domestic sounds of the tinsmith’s hammer, the carpenter’s saw or the cobbler’s mallet on the last. I gathered that nor war nor tumult could turn the Indian craftsman from his trade.

  That night we slept uncomfortably in the carriage, no attempt being made to pitch a camp, and were on the move again by seven the next morning.

  The atmosphere in which the column moved that second day, both physical and emotional, was very different to the almost joyous release with which it had progressed on the first day. To begin with, we set out with the disquieting intelligence that we had over forty miles to cover, for Cawnpore must be within sight when we halted.

  The cavalry no longer cavorted in the springing fields, nor left the line to take a pot shot at a partridge or a hare. The infantry hugged the road more closely, many of the Old Garrison limping now in unbroken boots, and the grass-cutters, plying their scythes for animal fodder as they moved, kept carefully within range of a dash to the road and safety.

  By noon we were again within the sound of gunfire, and the dull far roar, still unexplained, filled us anew with anxiety. During the many protracted halts, we left the carriage and tried to discover what was taking place ahead of us, but were met only with rumours and counter-rumours. There was talk of despatches arriving from Cawnpore, appealing for help as so often not long before we had ourselves appealed for help. The small force left to hold the city until our coming was said to be besieged by Tantia Topee, the Nana Sahib’s chief lieutenant; the bridge of boats, our sole approach to the city, was under attack … had been cut … been set on fire … totally destroyed. We would have to turn back; we would have to take another road; we were to be attacked at nightfall … no, we were to return to the Alum Bagh.

  But we did not turn back nor take another route. Neither were we attacked.

  Hour after hour through the slow miles, the incredible caravan moved stolidly onward. Now we were choked with the dust of our own passage. Every eye smarted, every voice was hoarse, every throat constricted and raw. Above us a great cloud of sunfilled motes obscured the sky and, for a mile on either side of the road, the green of field, cane-brake and copse was yellowed by the fine dry powder. In the carriage we muffled our faces in scarves and shawls, but nothing kept out the dust. We had prayed that the rain would keep off for the sake of the men marching beside us; now we prayed for its falling—and for the same reason.

  I could not be surprised that Toddy-Bob had not managed to find me and deliver Oliver’s next letter, and in a way I was glad that he had not done so. I had something to look forward to when we reached Cawnpore; meanwhile, the discomforts and anxieties of the journey were rendered bearable by anticipation.

  Very late that night we at last halted, having covered thirty-eight exhausting miles. Cawnpore, so they told us, lay several miles further on. Through the hours of darkness, the guns pounded and thundered in familiar concatenation. Sometimes a rocket soared into the murky heights of the night or for a brief moment a bursting shell would illuminate the strange landscape. Movement and noise, the shuffle and stir of thousands of men and animals continued until dawn. We were too tired, too dry, dusty and uncomfortable to do more than doze for a few moments at a time. Only Pearl, most blessedly imperturbable of children, slept on Jessie’s knees, her small face streaked with dust, her hair dark with its dirt.

  Morning, when at last it came, was again dulled by the haze of dust, which still hovered above us despite the heavy dew of the night.

  We set off again, I ill-tempered through cramp, fatigue and inactivity. I would have walked beside the carriage for a while to exercise my limbs and soothe my mind, but the condition of the roadway and the verges, after the passage of so many animals and men, was foul beyond belief.

  The day dragged by, more wearisome than the last, as we again experienced the lengthy halts, the noise, the dust and the flies.

  Every bone ached, every muscle protested, and the skin of our backs was raw from the ceaseless rub against the hard leather upholstery. To grumble at our lot would have been a welcome and understandable relief, but that day we travelled in company with a horsedrawn ambulance. The sight of the bloodily bandaged stumps protruding from the curtain, the sound of the groans that met us as we halted, forced us to long-suffering silence. We were too jaded to want to eat and by midday had finished the last of the flasks of water with which we had set out.

  ‘Only a few more miles,’ we had been assured, yet the nightmare progression continued until five o’clock that evening. At that hour, suddenly, the Ganges lay before us—a brown stream, wide and slow, spanned by a bridge of wooden boats tied close together and covered by planks joining a rough roadway. Beyond the river, almost invisible for dust, lay Cawnpore. Smoke mingled thickly with the dust above low and clustered buildings, through which now and then a burst of orange flame thrust from some fired house. There was little we could make out with any precision, but there was little we needed to see to know ourselves again in the heart of war.

  Shortly after our first sight of the river, we halted again. An officer came to the carriage to tell us that it would be hours before we crossed the bridge, and to snatch what rest we could while we were stationary. Sir Colin, he said, was already within the entrenchment …

  ‘Entrenchment?’ queried Kate in alarm. ‘But why? What entrenchment?’

  ‘It’s unfortunate, ma’am, but the firing … that was Tantia Topee and his lads. They attacked General Windham two days ago. Yesterday the General was forced to retire into his entrenchment and the town, or most of it, is now held by the rebels. They tried to cut the bridge of boats, too, but thank God without success. However, we may be fired upon as we cross, so be prepared.’

  ‘But … do you mean we will not be able to get on? To leave Cawnpore?’

  ‘Not at all, ma’am! No need for alarm. Early this morning our troops crossed over the river and, with the help of our heavy artillery—which is what you are now hearing—have forced the pandies back. They’ll soon be cleared out, never fear, and you’ll be on your wa
y to safety and Allahabad as soon as it can be arranged.’

  ‘Good loving Lord, deliver us!’ groaned Kate, sinking back to her seat as the officer moved on down the line of carriages.

  ‘So near and yet so far,’ I murmured, while Jessie unbuttoned her dress for Pearl, which we had learned was her way of indicating some severe but inexpressible emotion.

  All in all it required thirty hours for that mammoth column to cross the gently swaying bridge of boats into Cawnpore.

  The moon had been up some hours when our wheels rattled carefully across the first rutted boards, and behind us for miles a snake of yellow light—carriage lamps, lanterns, and torches—winked through the dirty darkness, telling us that more than half the column had yet to reach the bridge. The nearby fire of heavy guns accompanied us as we slowly inched our way over the heaving planks. Rockets and shells lit the dark waters with their incandescence and showed us the ominous glower of flaming rafts drifting slowly downstream towards the wooden boats that formed the foundation of our ephemeral highway. Seldom have any prayers of mine been as sincere or as heartfelt as those I prayed during the tremulous half-hour required to cross the bridge. Next morning we were to learn that Dr Brydon had delivered a baby during the crossing, its first infant wails drowned in the crash of exploding grapeshot. Many a man had been wounded and some had died.

  There came then, as the hollow reverberations of the bridge under our wheels gave way to the solid crunch of gravel, an eerie drive through a landscape of burned bungalows, shell-torn trees and huge clumps of spiky cactus laced together with spider webs, all bathed in silver moonlight. Nothing was discernible now of the pleasant and conventional Cawnpore of Kate’s memories. Gone were the pleasant gardens and gaieties of only twelve months before. What remained were ruins and terrible memories, the scent of cordite and, in the shadows, armed men once again protecting us in an extended picket as we made our way to shelter.

  The following days were spent in a battered, whitewashed barrack, and mostly in longed-for sleep, as the battle continued for the town, and Sir Colin and his staff made arrangements for the departure of dependants and the sick to Allahabad.

  Late on the afternoon of our arrival in Cawnpore, I awoke to find a letter from Oliver placed beside my head on the canvas cot. On the cover he had scrawled: ‘Written on 28th November, but though Toddy has been absent most of the afternoon, he cannot locate you. Sorry, O.’

  I allowed a few moments to myself for the joys of anticipation, then opened the letter.

  My dearest,

  Here I lounge in the comfort of a tent, pitched and prepared long before my arrival, yet they tell me that ‘the ladies’ are required to spend the night in their conveyances! I am glad to know from Tod that your carriage is at least adequate for your requirements during the day’s travel, but wish there were some way I could see you more comfortably settled for the night. What a perversion of human energy and sense a war is, is it not?

  Since I have received no letter from you in answer to mine, I lack a hint of your present mood, a nuance to guide me now. After I had despatched that last note, I fell into a despondency, thinking it too negative, concerned as it was with all those many things I cannot do, cannot be, even for you, Laura.

  I spoke only the truth—yet perhaps not enough of it. Were it only my own inclinations I had to put away on your behalf, perhaps I could manage it; I would, at least, be free to try. But there are also my responsibilities, and these, whatever the present state of Oudh and Hassanganj, I cannot dispense with at pleasure. A great many people depend on me in one way or another; when this madness is over, they will look to me for help, for encouragement and advice. The villages of Hassanganj, unlike those of the neighbouring talukhdars, have been untroubled by any serious strife for many years—until now. Rightly or wrongly, they attribute their comparatively peaceful life to the attitude and endeavours of my family and myself. When peace returns, it is to me that they will look for leadership and counsel—not to any government.

  I am being tedious, I suppose, in listing my responsibilities but I want to show you why, even for you, I cannot desert them. They did not come to an end when the house was burned.

  But after all, all explanations and justifications aside, can you really imagine me sitting behind a desk from 10 to 4 each day, existing only from shooting season to shooting season?

  I do not ask your agreement or approval, but read, if you will, between these lines and try to understand.

  Lovingly, Oliver

  My dearest,

  I could not write on the journey—we had no ink! The wretched bottle was broken in the upheaval of our departure, and oh, how much I wanted to fill the many weary hours of delays and waiting with writing to you! I could not expect Toddy, even the ever-resourceful Toddy, to find us in that incredible confusion, which, of course, did not prevent me from hoping that he would.

  But now, can you guess how many times I have read and reread your last two letters? Can you begin to imagine the comfort that just holding them in my hands can bring me? To feel that at last we are talking to each other, inadequately but honestly, again?

  Oh, my dear, there is so much to say that cannot be said in a letter, and even in a letter—where am I to begin? It is night now, a very dark night, and tomorrow I shall go in search of Llew to deliver this to you, but in the meantime I must find something to say among all the things I want to say. I suppose I am tired, but a strange constraint has hold of me. Will it do, for the moment, if I just say ‘Yes! I do understand’?

  I have captured a lamp to myself, borrowed some ink and am sitting on my cot trying to think and write, while down the length of the barrack my ‘sisters in misfortune’ gossip and grumble and smack their children; and the children rush in cohorts through the serried beds, screaming with joy or bawling in well-deserved pain. I realize all at once that I have not spent a single night by myself in all the nights since we left Hassanganj. I have forgotten the sensation of privacy, but not the advantages, and now I wish I were alone, and quiet in a quiet place, and able to tell you something of all that is in my heart. All that comes to mind in this infernal din, however, is an honest answer to the last question in your letter.

  No, definitely not! I cannot imagine you spending your days behind a desk in some grimy London office.

  I do not want to imagine it, Oliver. I no longer need to imagine it, Oliver. Oliver, do you understand?

  Now you must read between these lines; and if you do so correctly, spare me the embarrassment of explicitation. I have schooled myself to honourable surrender.

  Lovingly, Laura

  Laura,

  Am I right? Is India acceptable to you? Are you really learning to forget already? Can you truly forgive what India has done to you?

  My God, woman! I begged for a mood to follow, a nuance to guide me. Not a thunderbolt!

  For weeks I have tortured my simple masculine mind in an endeavour to understand your loathing of India, until that loathing became almost more real to me than my own affection for the country. Now you have destroyed the work of all my earnest striving by indicating that you no longer hate the country. Yet, you were once so vehement, so certain. Nothing could ever make you live in India.

  To say that I am flattered that my suit should be sufficient to overcome your most understandable aversion to this country is to understate the fact. Yet it also frightens me. Have you forgotten the marital doldrums of which we have already spoken? Think well, my dear, think well! Can you be certain that a man such as I, selfish, as you have often pointed out, spoilt, too set in my ways, unable to bend, balky of temperament, and too sure I am right, can you be quite sure that such a man can make up to you for the sins and sufferings of your experience of India?

  Have you really begun to forget? Can you ever forgive?

  Oliver

  To which I replied:

  No, Oliver. I have not yet forgotten, cannot yet forgive.

  But I am willing to learn, to be taught—by you
in your arms.

  And if that is not a damnable capitulation you have forced me to, I don’t know what is!

  Laura

  In the evening of the day on which the foregoing exchange took place, I accompanied Kate, Jessie and a party of other ladies from the barrack to General Wheeler’s entrenchment.

  Wheeler’s travesty of an entrenchment was but a walk away from where we were lodged. In the distance, yet still within the town, the inescapable gunfire continued, but within the low-walled enclosure silence was almost palpable. There were many others making the pilgrimage with us: small groups moving in shocked quiet about the ruined rectangle, gazing at the burned-out barrack where so many had died so terribly, wondering that the wreck of the second long building should ever have been considered shelter. Some of those present now knew that this was where their wives or husbands or fathers had died, and hardly an eye was dry.

  Returned to our quarters, I again borrowed the ink and wrote my final despatch from Cawnpore. We were to set out for Allahabad on the following day.

  Oh Oliver! I have been to Wheeler’s entrenchment, and walked, with your living ghost ever present beside me, the entire circumference of those pathetic walls.

  I have measured, almost with a hop, skip and jump, the distance between you and the guns of the enemy, and have gazed with horror on the undefended emplacements of your artillery.

 

‹ Prev