He looked at the ground as they made their way towards the nearest shade. He had said enough. His country had taken him in. It had dressed him in the uniform of the Queen and had taught him how to kill. It had made him what he was, and nothing and nobody could ever change that.
The rebels had not come again.
The cannon were reloaded with canister, ready to greet the next assault that they all knew would surely come. But for now the defenders had been left alone and the handful of exhausted men had slumped down in any shade they could find, using the reprieve to recover their strength as best they could.
Jack sat with Forrest, Raynor and Willoughby in the shade of the single tree, close to the main ammunition store. The trail of powder lay within arm’s length, its presence hanging over the group like a shadow. Only Jack seemed able to ignore it. The three lieutenants would occasionally look across, their eyes coming to rest on the fuse that would, if fired, likely destroy everything within half a mile, including all who stubbornly defended the magazine.
‘So, will you tell us who you are now, Jack?’ Lieutenant Forrest asked the question. He was gnawing on some dried beef, his jaws moving in a constant motion. He gave no sign of enjoying what he was eating, the action mechanical.
‘I’m a redcoat. Or I was. I fought in the Crimea, then again not far from here, and last year in Persia. I was discharged. That’s it.’ Jack kept his tale simple.
‘That’s all you are telling us.’ Forrest snorted as he greeted Jack’s terse explanation. ‘There has to be more to you than that.’
Jack shook his head. ‘That’s it.’
The old lieutenant wouldn’t let it go. ‘No redcoat fights with a sword, especially not one as fine as yours. You were no ordinary soldier.’
Jack felt the three sets of eyes resting on him. He sensed the other officers’ fear sitting amongst them, the near certainty of their deaths resting heavily on their spirit. ‘You want the truth?’
Forrest shrugged. ‘I’d like to know. I do not think I will live to recount your tale, so whatever it may be, I fancy it is safe with us.’
Jack grunted. He glanced at each man in turn. Forrest was correct. He could say what he liked. He looked down and opened the part of himself that he kept locked as securely as the defenders had barred the gates of the magazine.
‘I am an impostor. A charlatan, if you prefer.’ He kept his eyes low, his fingers reaching forward to trace a pattern in the dust beneath his legs. ‘I started out as an officer’s orderly. Nothing more than a servant.’ His memory prickled at his choice of words. He had once been proud of the distinction, rebuking the girl he wanted to marry when she had talked of him being nothing more than a servant. But she had died, and such differences were no more important than the dust under his fingers. ‘We were on our way to join a new regiment when my officer died. I was left alone. I had nothing. So I put on his uniform and went to the new battalion anyway.’
He looked up. The three officers were captivated, his story weaving a spell around them. They no longer thought of the danger, or that the span of their lives would now be measured in minutes and hours rather than years. Jack smiled. The reaction was just as he had intended. He did not care that he was revealing his crimes. For the first time, it no longer mattered.
‘No one stopped me or asked who I was. I was dressed correctly and behaved quite as an officer should, so not one person questioned my right to be there. We went to the Crimea and I was no longer a redcoat. I was an officer, and I commanded a company.’
He fell silent. His mouth was dry and he felt like a fool. It was a sorry tale. He had once thought of it with pride, his daring and his guile something that set him apart. He had learnt that such vanity meant nothing. In battle, the only thing that mattered was the will to endure and the ability to fight. He had discovered he could do both.
Lieutenant Raynor spoke for the first time. Like Forrest, he was old for such a junior rank. His beard was completely grey, with no legacy of its former colour left. ‘So you are a damned felon?’ he snorted, his opinion of Jack’s revelation clear. ‘We should clap you in irons.’
Jack could have laughed aloud. It was the response he had expected from a certain type of British officer. He held out his arms, his wrists touching. ‘Be my guest.’ He stared at Raynor. ‘You want to try?’
‘Enough.’ Willoughby snapped the word. He might not have looked the part, but there was authority in the command and it was enough to silence Raynor. ‘This is neither the time nor the place. Mr Lark has demonstrated his willingness to fight at our side and I see no reason to be anything but thankful in that regard.’
He reached across and tapped Jack’s leg. ‘Do go on,’ he urged. ‘You cannot stop now.’ His face betrayed no disapproval. ‘It is a great tale. I would know more if you would be happy to share it.’
Jack glared at Raynor, then resumed his idle tracing in the dust. ‘I fought at the Alma.’ He shivered at the memory. ‘We were with the Light Division and we led the assault on the Russian redoubt. We lost a lot of men.’ He looked at Willoughby, staring hard into the officer’s eyes. ‘The Russians did not want to give up their guns. But we took them anyway.’ His mind was replaying the dreadful assault. The Russian gunners had flayed the redcoats’ ranks, knocking the men down like skittles at the fair. But the British infantrymen had endured, advancing no matter how many of their mates were cut down, and they had butchered the Russian gunners. He had a vague memory of a young Russian artillery officer standing against him. It was the first time he had fought someone face to face. He closed his eyes as the memory of the man’s death rushed into his mind and he felt the darkness start to encroach.
He opened his eyes, letting the midday sunshine dispel the memories. The three officers had looked away, his long pause unsettling. ‘After the Crimea, I came here, to India. I had stolen another identity, thinking it would be just as easy the second time. I was wrong. They discovered the truth before I’d been with my new command for even a week. So I ran away.’
‘On your own?’ Willoughby asked the question as Jack paused.
Jack offered a rueful smile. ‘No. I was with a girl.’ He thought of the young woman who had rescued him, gambling her respectable future on a worthless felon. ‘We went to the local maharajah and he took us in. He even gave me this.’ He patted the talwar at his side, his hand stroking the battered sharkskin grip. ‘But the local political officer wanted to annex the maharajah’s kingdom, so there was a fight.’
‘You fought against us?’ Forrest interjected, his brow furrowing at the notion.
Jack snorted at the question. ‘Maybe I should’ve done, but no, I did not. We returned to warn of the maharajah’s plans to attack, and then I stayed and fought.’
‘What happened to the girl?’ Willoughby was leaning forward, eager to hear more of the tale.
‘I left her behind.’ Jack’s voice hardened. ‘She did not need to be with someone like me. I could offer her nothing.’ He still felt the shame. He owed his life to Isabel Youngsummers, yet he had come to frighten her, his bitter talent for battle hardly a skill on which they could build a life together. She had returned to England with her father, and Jack had been left alone once again. He knew nothing about what had happened to her. But she had reached out and saved him once more, her account of the battle against the maharajah finding its way into the hands of a British intelligence officer, who had discovered Jack’s true identity.
‘Where did you go next?’ Willoughby sounded sympathetic, but his words barely reached Jack. He was thinking on what might have been. He owed Isabel a great deal. It was a debt he would happily repay.
‘Jack?’ Willoughby pushed for an answer.
‘Persia.’ Jack forced the memories away. ‘I fought at the Battle of Khoosh-ab.’ His voice was terse, almost tetchy. He wanted to be done. He had talked enough of the past. ‘I earned a set of discharge papers, then I went back to Bombay and took a steamer to Calcutta. I was going home.’
‘So why are you here in Delhi?’ Forrest asked the question.
Jack shifted on his backside. He was uncomfortable. He had let some of his memories out of the darkness and they frightened him. He pushed the thoughts away, carefully rebuilding the barriers that protected him from his past.
‘You saw her. She’s the reason.’
The three men smiled at his glib reply. Aamira had excused herself and disappeared into Willoughby’s office. Jack had been sorry to see her go, but he reckoned she needed to be alone. He had forgotten how complicated life became when he was not by himself. It was almost enough for him to wish he had never met her. Almost.
‘A fair enough reason, I would say,’ Willoughby replied.
Jack heard the longing in the man’s voice and understood it at once. It was not an uncommon problem. Career officers in the East India Company found the matter of securing a wife rather difficult. The well-heeled relied on going back to England on furlough, returning both refreshed and either betrothed or with a spouse in tow. For those without the means to pay for the long voyage home, it meant a life alone with only other such officers for company.
He took a pull on the canteen of brandy that he had been given by Willoughby. There was no shortage of supplies. They had enough to fill the bellies and quench the thirst of a hundred men, as well as sufficient rifles and ammunition to equip a full division. They had thousands of pounds’ worth of powder and weaponry, but they lacked an army’s most valuable commodity: men.
‘Did you see the facings on those bastards on the wall?’ Raynor sounded bitter as he spoke. The Company officers’ disbelief at seeing their native soldiers mutiny had been quickly replaced by anger. Jack had previously heard some officers refer to the native soldiers as their children; that such men should betray them was unthinkable. Yet somehow it had happened, and it had unleashed a hatred of unparalleled intensity.
Forrest spat out a nugget of fat before he answered. ‘I saw both the 11th and the 20th up there. God alone knows what happened to their officers.’
‘What on earth made them do it?’ Raynor spoke in the hushed tones of a man unable to understand a world that was moving too fast. ‘There have been rumblings, but the men always have something to moan about. I cannot believe it has led to this.’
Willoughby sighed. He was the youngest of the three officers, but his two subalterns turned to look at him, expecting him to provide an answer.
‘I think it’s this cartridge issue.’ He began slowly, voicing his opinion for the first time. ‘Those fools at Dumdum smothered the first batch with so much damn grease that the things were more wax than bloody cartridge. It tasted utterly foul when you bit open the cartridge, but the men actually believed it contained animal fat. It didn’t take long for the damn rabble-rousers – and we all know how many there are of those in a native regiment – to convince the Hindus that it contained pig fat, whilst others swore it contained cow fat to turn the Muslims against us. Once they got it into their heads that we were deliberately trying to break their castes and make them unclean then we were in trouble. To either a Hindu or a Muslim, that is utterly unthinkable.’
Raynor’s face betrayed his contempt. ‘The whole bloody army mutinied because they didn’t like the taste of some damn wax? I don’t buy that. I know they are touchy about their religion, but surely that would not be enough to send them on the road to murder!’
Jack watched the officers closely as they struggled to understand what had happened. He had fought with the East India Company’s troops on the battlefield. They were good men, and certainly tough enough to endure the worst the enemy could throw at them. Yet he did not feel the same shock as the three lieutenants. Perhaps he had not been in the country long enough, or maybe his own background in the ranks coloured his opinion. He had seen how some white officers treated the native soldiers, and he had been ashamed of his own kind. He had stolen a rank and a position far above the one allotted to him partly to prove that those without money or breeding could lead men in battle just as well as those born with a silver spoon in their muzzle. He could understand what it was to be commanded by men who thought of you as nothing but the scum of the earth.
‘I think the problem lies deeper.’ Forrest spoke quietly. He was clearly a mild man, a thinker rather than a warrior. ‘Ever since we annexed Oudh and Sawadh, the men have been different. To my mind it is no small wonder that they look at us and start to wonder what the hell we are up to. From their point of view we have been pissing on their boots for years, eroding their traditional way of life at every turn. Our new technology is everywhere. First there was the telegraph, then steamships and new roads. Now we have even started building railways, and God alone knows where that will end.’
Jack had started at the mention of Sawadh. He had witnessed at first hand the heavy-handed approach to diplomacy taken by the British political agent stationed there. He had seen the calamitous reaction of the local ruler and his people to the seemingly insatiably desire of the British to force more territories to fall under their direct control. Hundreds had died to further a political agenda, their lives sacrificed to ambition and greed.
Raynor coughed before answering his fellow lieutenant, his discomfort obvious. ‘That is all so much bunkum, Forrest. We are improving the damn place. The buggers should be grateful!’
‘Would you be?’ Jack joined the new conversation for the first time. ‘How would you feel if some maharajah stomped through Kent changing your laws and ignoring your traditions? How would you react if he demanded you stop believing in your false god and ordered you to worship Allah?’
Raynor coloured. ‘I don’t like your tone, young man. That could never happen and it never shall.’
Jack shook his head. ‘We are changing their lives. We ban suttee and swamp them with missionaries. We fill the army with anyone able to buy, beg or steal a commission and then we permit them to lord it over the native officers who have been leading their men for decades. We take away the men’s allowances and force them to serve overseas and we don’t give a shit when they come to us and tell us of their grievances. Is it any wonder they are not exactly happy?’
‘Nonsense.’ Raynor spluttered as he coloured with temper. ‘Is suttee a good thing, then? Should we let all the poor widows be killed when their husbands die?’
‘Of course not.’ Willoughby intervened. ‘Jack is merely saying that we should see it from their point of view, is that not right?’ He looked to Jack for reassurance.
Jack was tiring of the conversation but he nodded his agreement. He had wasted too much breath on crass officers like Raynor to be willing to carry on with the pointless argument.
‘We have seen some of what he says here,’ Willoughby continued. ‘The local regiments have been stripped of so many good officers so that they can be employed elsewhere that there are barely any left to actually command the men. Then there was that rumour about bone dust being ground up into the flour to break the men’s caste. It does not matter if it is true or not. If the men believe we are acting in bad faith then it is no wonder they have acted as they have. We have been sitting on this powder keg for years. It only took a single spark to blow the whole lot sky-high.’
Forrest laughed out loud at the analogy. ‘A little like our own predicament here, then, sir?’
The weak jest was enough to quell the argument, Willoughby’s poorly chosen words a stark reminder of the situation they faced.
‘One thing is for certain.’ Jack spoke quietly. ‘I have learnt that very little makes sense in this country. What sends people here into an apoplectic fit will likely send others down in Bengal, or up in the Punjab, into raptures of delight. There is no simple answer, no trite explanation for this madness, and quite frankly, it doesn’t matter any more. What’s done is done. We just have to clean up the mess.’
Willoughby chortled. ‘Well said, that man. We can all agree on that at least.’
Raynor looked like he had just opened a sack of turds but he managed to nod in
some sort of agreement.
‘Good.’ Willoughby lumbered to his feet, dusting the seat of his breeches as he stood. ‘I think we should check the cannon. The rebels will be back soon. I wouldn’t want us not to be ready. Let us at least give a good account of ourselves here. We may be the villains of this piece or we may be the heroes, I confess I no longer know which. But I know where my duty lies, and that is in defending what is ours. I would like to trust that I can rely on you all to assist me with that.’
Forrest and Raynor mumbled their agreement. Jack said nothing. He got to his feet and looked Willoughby hard in the eye. He sensed the determination in the man, the courage that would keep him at his post no matter how bleak the future seemed.
He reached forward and clapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get this done.’
Jack turned away and went to find Aamira. He would try to see her to safety, but he knew he would stay and fight with Willoughby and his small command, no matter how it ended.
Aamira had been correct. His fate had found him.
‘Stand to! Here they come!’
Jack heard the shout come from the direction of the main entrance to the magazine. Willoughby had kept two of his men manning the pair of cannon that protected that point of entry and they were the first to warn of the fresh attack.
Aamira rose to her feet. With the officers busy with the cannon, she had slipped out to join Jack, sitting quietly beside him under the tree as they waited for the assault they both knew was inevitable. They had said nothing, each battling with their thoughts yet taking comfort from the presence of the other.
Jack got up and stood beside her. He flexed his hands, forcing away the stiffness before massaging the pit of his spine, easing the nagging backache. He felt the flutter of fear deep in his gut. The noise of the assault was building, the wild cries of men sent forward to attack the defiant defenders of the magazine. The rebel sepoys were shrieking their war cries to the heavens as they summoned the courage they would need to scale their ladders once again and take their bayonets against their enemy.
The Lone Warrior Page 11