‘Yes. We should stay.’ She echoed the statement before reaching forward and taking his hands in her own. ‘We shall face our fate together.’
The roar was deafening.
It was the sound of an army releasing their tension and fear as they screwed their courage tight and began an assault. Jack had heard the sound before. He uttered the soldiers’ prayer under his breath, begging God to keep him safe, or at the very least to grant him a quick, clean death.
Willoughby looked across as if hearing Jack’s silent plea. The lieutenant was holding a thin, curved sabre. The blade looked cheap and Jack doubted the edge was anywhere near sharp enough to slice into flesh, but still he nodded in its direction. ‘A fine blade.’
The lieutenant smiled ruefully, like a schoolboy praised by a master for a peculiar arrangement of glue and paper. ‘I confess I have never had cause to use it, at least not in anger. I hope that it proves to be up to the job.’
Jack hid the shudder the revelation inspired. He was fighting with novices. ‘Don’t fence with them.’ He offered the advice in a quiet voice, but he could not help but notice that both Lieutenant Forrest and Willoughby’s other subordinate, Lieutenant Raynor, eased closer to listen to his words. ‘There are no points or prizes. Hit the bastards like you mean it. Especially with that.’
Willoughby flexed his blade, looking at it as if suddenly unsure it would be of any use.
‘When you stick them, shove it in their guts as hard as you can.’ Jack continued his lecture. He found nothing odd in having the three older officers pay him such rapt attention. He might have pretended to be a civilian, but they all recognised his familiarity with battle, his dramatic flight to the armoury proof of his skill.
He was forced to raise his voice as the noise outside doubled in intensity. The sound of hundreds of feet thumping hard into the dusty soil echoed around the quiet yard outside the main magazine store. The wild cheers and yells were loud enough to raise the dead, the inhuman sound of men unleashed to kill washing over the pitiful huddle of defenders.
‘Then you must twist your wrist,’ he went on, ignoring the ruckus. ‘Otherwise the blade will get stuck in the other bugger’s body, leaving you defenceless.’ He looked at each in turn, forcing home the point. He had seen men die because they had forgotten to do exactly that in the dreadful moment when they broke through a foe’s defences and landed a killing blow. ‘You pull it out with all your strength, and then you find another ugly bastard and kill him too. You keep going until they’ve all pissed off. Only then can you stop.’
He looked at them one last time before he pulled his revolver from its holster, hefting it into his right hand. The metal was hot, scorching his flesh, but he took a firm grip around the trigger nonetheless and readied himself to fight.
‘Deuced odd advice from a civilian.’ Willoughby offered the verdict from the side of his mouth. He turned and chuckled as Forrest and Raynor joined in his merriment. ‘What trade did you say you were in?’
Jack smiled as he replied. ‘I am currently unemployed.’
The three lieutenants laughed louder, earning them odd looks from the men serving the four cannons lined up behind them.
‘I must thank you for changing your mind.’ Willoughby was still chuckling as he gave Jack his thanks. ‘I am grateful that you are staying with us.’
Jack smiled in return. He had not intended to make this his fight. Yet he sensed a building camaraderie with the three mismatched officers. It was what he missed most about being a redcoat. The men might fight for their regiment, for the Queen or, in some rare cases, for their officers. But mainly they fought for their mates; for the other poor bastards who shared every misfortune that the army and an uncaring world threw at them.
The thump of ladders hitting the outside of the magazine’s walls ended the laughter.
‘To your places, gentlemen, please. Mr Lark, I rather think you can do as you please. Just keep out of the way of the cannon.’ Willoughby offered his final instructions, and the officers scattered, taking their places as they prepared to defend the magazine.
The first figures appeared on top of the wall. There were dozens of them. They flowed quickly over the top, their boots thumping down on to the wooden rampart that ran along its length.
Willoughby took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing as he tried to judge the moment to open fire.
The attackers were not hanging around. They moved fast, streaming along the rampart and heading for the towers housing the spiral stairs that would give them access to the courtyard and let them take their bayonets to the handful of firangi officers who stubbornly refused to surrender the magazine.
Willoughby coughed once before roaring his first order. ‘Number one and number three gun, prepare to fire.’
He paused as the two men standing ready pulled taut the lanyard that would fire the cannon. The sepoys were spreading out fast, making room for those climbing up behind them. Already the defenders were hopelessly outnumbered, and with every passing second still more men clambered over the wall.
‘Fire!’
The two guns roared in unison. Both had been double-shotted with two cases of canister rammed on top of a single charge of powder. They bucked as they fired, the canisters’ casing torn apart as they tore out of the barrel. Hundreds of musket balls shredded the men on the rampart, the deadly hail scouring it clear as it cut a deadly swathe through the fastest attackers. Those brave or foolish enough to have rushed to the fore were snatched away in a single explosion of bloody horror, the head of the assault torn apart.
The defence of Delhi’s magazine had begun.
‘Reload!’ Willoughby bellowed the command.
There were pitifully few gunners to obey the order. Two men were needed on each pair of cannon that guarded the two entrances to the magazine. That left Willoughby with just his two lieutenants and two men from the Ordnance Department to serve the four cannon positioned in the courtyard. The magazine’s servants stood in some semblance of a line to the left of the guns, but already they were shifting and fidgeting, their faces betraying their lack of enthusiasm for the doomed defence.
‘Ready on number two and number four gun.’ Willoughby was standing with the servants he had pressed into service. His head continually swivelled back and forth as he tried to watch the four sweating men reloading the cannon whilst surveying the walls for the next rush of attackers. For the moment, the first loads of canister seemed to have dampened the mutineers’ enthusiasm, but it wouldn’t be long before they tried again.
The sound of a cannon firing was swiftly followed by the crash of another. Clearly the attackers were not relying on their ladders alone, and already both of the magazine’s main entrances were under attack.
‘Native contingent! Prepare for volley fire.’ Willoughby twisted around and snapped the order at the half-dozen men armed with brand-new Enfield rifles.
Jack had watched the servants load their guns, going through the drill with little enthusiasm, especially when forced to bite open the cartridge, which was liberally coated in grease. Their reluctance had been roundly ignored, but it had still taken them several minutes to load even a single rifle, and that had been with Lieutenant Raynor standing over them and leading them through the convoluted process. There was no chance of them being able to reload in the stress of battle, so Willoughby had ordered dozens more rifles to be broken out of their storage crates and loaded. Each man would fight with at least six primed and ready weapons.
The servants looked at each other as they shuffled together, the mutterings of discontent rippling through the disordered single rank. They were not trained for this; they were dhobi-walas and syces, come to serve the men who worked in the magazine. They stood forlornly facing the walls, their heavy rifles held out with suspicion, as if they did not know what to expect when they pulled back on the trigger.
‘Quiet in the ranks! Stand together, goddammit. Prepare to fire.’ Willoughby’s face was puce, the stress and the heat alrea
dy wearing at his nerves.
‘Willoughby! Here they come.’ Forrest shouted a warning.
Willoughby’s head snapped round as the sound of the attack swelled once again. The first mutineers appeared atop the wall as the second wave of the assault raced up the ladders.
‘Two and four gun, ready!’
He bellowed the order and his two lieutenants raced to their positions, leaving their colleagues to finish reloading the guns already fired.
More and more men swarmed on to the wall. Most were dressed in the uniforms of the sepoys, the men trained by the British now plying their craft against their former masters. Jack spotted the bright facings of at least two different native infantry regiments in the horde rushing towards them.
The magazine’s servants grew more and more agitated. The mutterings turned into shouts, each man gesticulating wildly as they debated in their native tongue.
‘Silence in the ranks! Face front!’ bellowed Willoughby. But his attention was on the growing horde on the walls as still more sepoys piled on to the rampart. Already some were starting to rush along its length, seeking a way down into the magazine’s yard.
It was too much for the frightened servants. Their cries and wails reached a crescendo, and then they broke and ran. The precious new Enfields were dropped into the dust as the men raced away to the line of storage sheds close to the wall. Forrest was not alone in knowing that they offered the only escape route.
‘Stand your ground!’ Willoughby shouted in frustration.
‘Sir!’ Forrest yelled at his commander. The first sepoys had already made it down the stairs and were rushing into the yard. So far there were only four or five of them, but the rampart was smothered with fresh men, with dozens more scaling the ladders as they raced each other to get into the magazine and overwhelm the tiny garrison that had defied them.
Jack had stayed silent as he watched the chaos unfurl. He saw Willoughby’s confusion as he tried to do too many things at once. The danger was building now. Delay any longer and the cannon would be wasted, the enemy too scattered to be stopped even with the brutal power of the canister shot.
The lieutenant took a few impotent paces after his fleeing command, his mouth open wide as he roared at them to return. He was missing the threat to their front.
Jack made his decision. It might not be his fight, but he had said he would stay. Now it was time to take control.
‘Number two gun, prepare to fire.’ He snapped the order. ‘Fire!’
Forrest obeyed the command without question. The second gun in the line bucked as it discharged its double load of canister, which scythed through the horde on the wall, killing and maiming indiscriminately.
‘Reload!’ Jack paced forward. He switched his revolver into his left hand and drew his talwar with his right. He was scanning the enemy’s ranks, watching for the most pressing danger. In the corner of his eye he saw the magazine’s servants scrambling up the sides of the sheds. In minutes they would be gone, the paltry garrison halved by their desertion.
‘Number four gun, prepare to fire.’ His voice was loud but controlled. He gave the order clearly and without hesitation, expecting to be obeyed. ‘Fire!’
The last gun in the line roared out. Its load of tightly packed musket balls shattered the sepoys left on the wall, creating bloody ruin in their disordered ranks. The few men left turned and ran, scrambling back down the ladders and away from the dreadful cannon fire that had gutted the attack.
Jack ignored them. His attention was focused on the handful of sepoys who had made it down from the wall. There were not many of them, but they still outnumbered the men manning the magazine’s guns.
‘Reload!’ He snarled the command over his shoulder and began to run, his empty scabbard banging against his leg, his face running bathed in with sweat from the merciless sun. He advanced no more than a dozen paces before he stopped and raised his left hand.
He stood alone, one man against half a dozen. The sepoys saw him coming, and bared their teeth as they charged the lone firangi who stood against them.
Jack squinted over the top of the revolver’s barrel. He ignored the river of sweat stinging his eyes and the flash of pain in his left arm as the action pulled at the wound he had taken earlier that day. He felt none of the madness of the fight. He was numb, his emotions buried deep.
He opened fire. The first bullet took the face off the leading sepoy. The man was cut down in mid-stride and crumpled silently to the ground as if someone had tugged his legs from under him with an invisible rope.
Jack switched his point of aim and pulled the trigger for a second time. At such close range the revolver was a brutally effective weapon. The heavy bullet punched into the next sepoy’s chest. He saw the man’s red coat twitch before he fell away in a shower of blood.
Jack fired for a third and then a fourth time. He felt the cold nothingness of death at his shoulder as he gunned down another sepoy.
The fifth bullet was fired and Jack let the revolver fall from his hand. Three sepoys still stood, but their momentum had been halted, their courage melting away in the face of the storm of bullets. They raised their muskets, levelling them at the man who stood against them.
Jack charged. He released the madness, letting the reins of control fall away. The wild joy of battle seared through him and he roared his war cry. Nothing mattered now save the need to fight.
The first musket coughed. Jack felt the sting in the air as the missile snapped past inches away from his head. He laughed as he raced on, the wild, manic cackle startling the two sepoys who aimed their muskets at him. Two more shots rang out. One struck the ground at his feet, kicking up a small explosion of dust that beat against his leg. The other whistled past overhead, too far away for him even to be aware of its passing.
He fell on the surviving sepoys roaring like a madman. The joy was fierce as he battered aside the first man’s musket, following the blow with a hard lunge that drove the tip of his talwar into the sepoy’s heart. He ripped the sword away, twisting the steel out of the dying man’s flesh. His body thrilled with the delight of death. It was just as he remembered, and his soul flared as he returned to the place where he truly belonged.
The second sepoy lunged at him, stamping his foot forward just as he had been trained. Yet there was little power in the attack, the man’s fear leaving the blow half-hearted and weak. Jack laughed as he knocked the musket to one side. He was still laughing as he backhanded his sword, the sharp rear edge cutting through the gristle of the sepoy’s throat.
The last surviving attacker turned to run. He had seen three comrades gunned down, and now two more had fallen to the firangi’s sword. Any thoughts of glory had been washed away in the sea of blood that now stained the dust in the yard, and the rebel sepoy wanted nothing more than to escape.
Jack saw the man turn and howled in frustration. He cut at him as he started to run, the talwar keening as it sang through the air. But the blow missed, the sepoy moving too fast, and Jack could only hiss in impotent anger as he was denied his last target.
Then the man stumbled. The corpse of the first man Jack had shot tripped him and he fell, his musket thrown to the ground.
Jack was on him in a heartbeat. The sepoy scrabbled on the ground. In his desperation he writhed round, twisting on to his back, looking up as Jack loomed over him. His hands lifted as he made one last futile attempt to ward off the inevitable, crying out in terror as he saw his death approaching.
There was enough time for Jack to see the fear in the sepoy’s eyes, the horror of a man realising he was about to die. Without mercy he thrust the talwar down, past the wavering hands that clutched at the sharpened steel like claws. He drove the blade deep, pushing his weight down, tearing away another life without a qualm.
The sheer brutality of what he had done seared through him. He looked down at the staring eyes, the last light of life fleeing from the man’s terrified gaze. It was enough to end the madness, to send the soul-rending joy o
f the fight scuttling back into the darkest recesses of his mind.
He retrieved his blade and turned slowly on the spot, running his eyes over the men he had slain. He felt nothing as he surveyed the tattered flesh, the blood and the gore spread wide around him. His heartbeat slowed as he saw that the danger was past, that not one of the twisted corpses showed any sign of life.
He lifted his gaze and became aware of the scrutiny of those who had stood and watched as he charged the rebel sepoys. Willoughby, Forrest and Raynor were staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. He looked past the line of cannon and saw Aamira’s frightened face watching his every move.
He stalked back to the gun line, snatching up his fallen revolver as he went. The men watching him tore their eyes away, busying themselves with the task of reloading the cannon, suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of such a killer.
Aamira walked forward alone.
‘Are you all right?’ She spoke first, the look of horror still bright in the whites of her eyes.
Jack nodded. His mouth was dry and his throat was clenched tight.
‘You killed them all.’ Aamira shuddered, the memory of watching him fight haunting her.
‘I had no choice.’ Jack’s voice was cold. Despite the power of the relentless sun, he shivered.
Aamira nodded slowly before coming to his side and taking his arm, pressing herself close to him, warming him with her body. She led him away, taking him out of the sun and away from the stares. She leant her head against him as they walked.
‘I was so very frightened, Jack.’ She spoke in a whisper. She lifted her gaze, looking up at him, searching his face for a trace of the man she had become used to seeing.
‘That makes two of us.’ Jack wanted a drink, something to scour the bitter taste of blood and fear from his throat.
‘How do you manage?’ Aamira stumbled at his side and he forced his tired muscles to harden to keep her on her feet. ‘How do you go back to that?’
‘I’m used to it.’ He held fast to the words. ‘I’m a redcoat.’ His voice threatened to break. ‘It’s what we do.’
The Lone Warrior Page 10