The Lone Warrior

by Paul Fraser Collard

  And then he saw her.

  She lay flat on her back. The pagdi she had used to hide her face was half unravelled, the beauty that had captivated him from the moment he had clapped eyes on her all those weeks ago in Calcutta now revealed. Her hair billowed free, the dark mass suddenly released from the folds of the cloth, her identity exposed.

  The mutineer who had stuck Briggs down roared as he saw her. Aamira screamed as he jumped from the saddle, his face twisted in a triumphant sneer.

  Jack spun round, looking for a way out. He could see nothing save the next group of horsemen that rode towards him, their sabres keening for his blood. There was no way for him to reach her.

  Aamira scrambled to her feet. She was still screaming as she clawed at the man who came to lay claim to her. He laughed as he battered her courage away, slapping her hard around the face, punching her to the ground.

  Jack roared with impotent fury, a wild rage that scoured every emotion from his mind. Then he fell silent, his soul emptied. Without another sound, he turned and threw himself back into the fight, desperate to bury his sword in enemy flesh, his need to kill overriding any desire to live.

  He reached the nearest enemy rider before the man could force his horse into motion. The rebel cut down at him, but Jack simply ducked under the slashing sabre and thrust his own sword upwards, driving the blade deep into the horseman’s belly. The man shrieked in agony as Jack pushed up with his full strength, forcing him backwards, tumbling him from the saddle, the fall pulling the half-buried blade from his guts.

  Jack saw his chance and reached up to grab the horse’s reins. The beast tossed its head and fought to get away, but his foot was already in the stirrup and he launched himself into the saddle. His weight came down and he yelled with bitter delight as he found his balance. With a loud cry he kicked his stolen mount hard in the flank. The horse leapt forward, its teeth bared as it was forced to obey.

  Another of the rebels tried to ride him down. Jack cut hard with his sword as he lurched away. He saw the look of shock on the man’s face as the blade thumped across his chest and cut a deep crevice in his flesh; then he was away and moving, his legs working hard to force his stolen mount into motion. He looked for Aamira and spotted her instantly. She was bundled across the saddle of the rider who had discovered her and who now fled from the field, whooping in victory at having secured such treasure.

  Jack rode towards her without thought. He rushed past another enemy rider without a sound, not even wasting a second to launch a blow. His eyes never left Aamira. His mind raced, calculating distances, planning the path he would have to take if he were to save her.

  The enemy were backing away. Too many of their number lay on the ground for any to be willing to carry on the fight. The easy victory had been snatched from them, the firangi fighting harder than they could ever have imagined.

  Jack kicked his stolen mount again. Its hooves thumped into the hard soil, its sinews stretching as it raced away. He ignored the enemy riders, sensing that the desire to fight had left them, and concentrated his attention on Aamira, bending low over the neck of his horse as he begged it to find more speed.

  The men from the Bengal Lights were led by a veteran rissaldar who had served the British for nigh on twenty years. He had fought the enemies of the great white queen, but he had never known a fight as bitter as the one that swirled around him now. He drew the revolver that he had taken from the dead body of his squadron commander the day his regiment had mutinied and lifted it, filling the simple sight with the face of the firangi who fought like a devil. Then he pulled the trigger, seeking to end the squalid skirmish before any more of his men had to die.

  Jack never saw the man who fired the bullet that hit him. He was looking ahead, his soul leaping with joy as he realised he was closing the distance on the man who had stolen Aamira away, when the ball tore into the flesh beneath his armpit. He could do nothing as the agony scored through him. The force of the blow twisted him round and his weight shifted. His stolen horse sensed the movement and slewed to a halt before it reared, its hooves lashing at the air and throwing him backwards. He tried to cling on with his legs, but his body was no longer answering his commands and he slid back over the horse’s rear before landing with a thump on the ground.

  He heard the cries of joy as he fell, the watching rebels on the battlements baying their approval. He tried to get back to his feet, fighting against the dreadful agony that seared through him. But the enemy had seen him go down, and they pounced on him like a pack of ravening wolves. He howled as they came for him, and struggled to his knees, fighting the wave of despair as he realised he had failed.

  A sabre cut hard at his face, the tip scoring through the soft flesh of his cheek and throwing his head backwards. He felt the rush of hot blood on his skin. A second sabre slashed through the air and he raised his arm, flinging it into the path of the blade in a futile gesture of defiance. The edge sliced through the muscle of his shoulder, cutting through to the bone. He rolled away, his blood staining the dust, his shriek of pain ringing in his head and drowning out the sounds of the men trying to kill him.

  A roar of rifle fire crashed out. Jack lay in the dirt, his world reduced to little more than the bloodstained soil in which he lay. He had no sense of time or place. He did not know if he would live or die; nor did he care which it would be. More and more shots cracked through the air, the sounds of a skirmish line going into action barely piercing the fog that smothered his mind.

  He forced his head up, his eyes searching the field of battle. He saw the bodies of the slain and the churned-up ground where he had fought. He saw the rebels from the Bengal Lights riding hard for the walls, their pursuit ended by the appearance of a force of British infantry.

  And he saw Aamira disappearing through the open gates.

  Delhi Ridge, August 1857

  Jack stood on the ridge and stared at the city. It was little changed by the siege that was now two months old. The walls closest to the ridge bore the scars of the British bombardment, but the cracks and fissures in the thick stonework were the only tangible result of the cannonade, proof that the power of the British gunners was as nothing against the might of the city’s defences. For all the damage they had done, they might have been children thinking to destroy a wooden fort with a catapult and tiny pebbles. The buildings closest to the Kabul Gate at least showed signs of damage, with dozens of roofs holed. But to Jack’s eye the siege appeared little advanced, the long weeks he had lain with the sick and the dying taking the British no closer to launching a successful assault on the city they had been ordered to recapture.

  He had seen enough. He turned away and began the long walk back to the British lines. The walks had become a part of his daily routine, both to force the strength to return to his body and as a respite from the squalid hospital where the men who had rescued him had left him. It was there that he had recovered from the wounds he had taken at the hands of the Bengal Lights. He could not recall anything of the first two weeks following his wounding. He only knew that he owed his life to the timely arrival of the 60th Rifles, the lead battalion in the assault column that had advanced but had never launched the attack that had been planned. He still did not know what had happened on that fateful day. He had shied away from all conversation, hiding away in the bowels of the former sepoy hospital, concentrating on repairing his ruined flesh, spurred on by the need to get into the city.

  It had been a slow and painful process, but somehow his body had healed. As the weeks passed, he had risen from his stinking charpoy, dressed in the uniform he had worn on the day he nearly died, and forced himself into action, demanding that his body obey him. At first he could go barely a dozen paces, but each day he walked further, strengthening his wasted muscles, forcing the health and vitality back into his body no matter how much it protested.

  As he walked now, he lifted his left arm, easing the stiffness that plagued him whenever he let the limb rest for too long. The slope on the r
everse of the ridge steepened and he was forced to pause, giving himself a moment to allow the worst of the trembling in his legs to fade. He slowed his breathing, looking over the ruined British cantonment as he brought his body back under control.

  Despite all the hardships, the sickness and the constant presence of death, Jack had been astonished to discover how ordered life on the ridge had become. Neat lines of threadbare tents were surrounded by rows of horses and a precisely laid-out artillery park. Messes for the officers had been set up, and a pair of merchants called Peake and Allen had established a small shop in the ruins of the cantonment. In the midst of the savage fighting, men and officers off duty could buy all manner of goods, from paper and ink to tobacco, soap and tooth powder. Jack could not believe there had ever been a battle where an officer could come out of the front line having just spent hours repulsing a rebel attack and then spend an afternoon at leisure doing a little shopping before joining his fellows at a hand of cards or engaging them in a gentle pony race to the river or to the plain on its far side where the huge herds of supply camels and bullocks were kept. Despite everything, the British had created a civilised haven no more than a few hundred yards away from the front line.

  The same could not be said of the defensive position they still occupied on the ridge. The rebel sepoys had attacked most days, forcing the British soldiers into a long and bitter defence. The slope that led to the ridge was liberally carpeted with dead sepoys. The corpses were bloated, blackening and rotting in the heat. The stench was vile. Jack had lived with it every moment that he lay in his charpoy and had heard it was pervading the surrounding countryside, the handful of reinforcements that had made their way to the British lines claiming to be able to smell the acrid reek miles before they sighted the city itself. The stench sat on the ridge like a rancid cloud, so thick that not even the daily downpours could wash it away.

  The first rains had come at the end of June. Even a feverish Jack had been aware of their arrival. Many of the soiled canvas tents that passed for a hospital had leaked, adding more misery to the existence of the hundreds of wounded who lay and suffered in the fetid atmosphere, their wounds putrefying and stinking in the damp and cloying air. The days of torrential downpours had turned the ridge into little more than a swamp, a foul, steaming bog that made every journey, no matter how short, into a misery. The rains had driven hundreds of snakes from their holes and the hospital had been plagued by scores of huge scorpions like so many black lobsters that scurried across the bodies of the wounded.

  The rains made everything damp. Guns had to be cleaned daily, those soldiers still fit for duty forced into a never-ending battle against rust and decay. Uniforms rotted, the lack of any replacements forcing the denizens of the ridge to patch and stitch what they wore so that the remains of the proud battalions quickly began to resemble a ragged patchwork army.

  Yet the rain was as nothing when compared to the greatest misery of life on the ridge. Whether sick or able-bodied, officer or ranker, every man was plagued by the vast multitude of flies that thrived in the conditions the army was forced to endure. The worst of the wounded lay under great layers of tiny bodies, the overworked orderlies spending as much time trying to force away the foul creatures as they did tending to the wounded. Jack had lain in his stinking charpoy and watched each day as one of the orderlies laid a trail of gunpowder across the floor and into a pool of sugar water. The flies would swarm down, a great dense cloud of throbbing black bodies smothering the sweet puddle. When enough had congregated, the orderly would stand back and light the fuse. The explosion would always be greeted with a cheer from his watching patients, who applauded as a few thousand flies were blown to kingdom come. It did little to reduce their numbers, but the small victory over the noisome creatures gave some heart to the men forced to suffer their constant attendance.

  At least the army had gunpowder to waste. The ridge enjoyed an open supply line to the Grand Trunk Road and on to Ambala, the nearest town still under the Crown’s control. What supplies could be found were brought in daily, huge trains of bullock carts ferrying in the crucial arms, ammunition and food the defenders needed to maintain their grand claim of having the city under siege. But not everything was in plentiful supply. The men’s uniforms rotted faster than they could be replaced, and many a man on the ridge would risk his life to retrieve a fallen comrade’s boots.

  Fresh water was ever scarcer. The defenders had access to both the Najafgarh canal and the Jumna river, which was no more than a mile to the rear of the ridge. But the water was foul, with the colour and consistency of pea soup. It kept them alive, for the moment at least, but few could choke down more than a mouthful or two of the evil-smelling liquid.

  With a sigh, Jack forced his body back into motion and began to pick his way slowly down the steep slope at the rear of the ridge. He stopped almost immediately and stood to one side as a single line of soldiers came the other way, the men moving up to take their positions on the ridge with all the enthusiasm of prisoners walking to the gallows. There were few men left to hold the defensive positions, and even fewer officers to command them. General Barnard had died on 5 July from the cholera that continued to ravage the defenders’ ranks, killing more than even the regular rebel attacks. Command had passed to General Sir Thomas Reid, but he had lasted barely two weeks before he too fell sick and was packed off to recover at Simla. That had left Brigadier Wilson as the senior officer on the ridge, and he had assumed command, receiving a rapid promotion to the rank of major general in the process. His was not a popular leadership. Jack had listened to other sick and wounded officers croaking about Wilson’s indecisive manner. Many had asked how the army would ever get into the city with such a choice collection of muffs at their head.

  The last of the men slogging their way up the slope passed by and Jack carried on his way. That morning he had walked to the top of the ridge, going further than any previous day. He knew he would not return to the hospital. It was time to rejoin the world of the living.

  It was time to find Aamira.

  ‘Jack? I say, is that really you?’

  Jack looked up sharply as his quiet walk was interrupted by a loud voice that he recognised in an instant. Lieutenant William Hodson, his erstwhile commander, was coming towards him.

  ‘It is you.’ Hodson sounded genuinely pleased to see him. ‘I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you back on your feet. You have had the very devil of a time. To see you hale and hearty again is truly just the sort of fillip a man needs.’ He walked closer as he spoke, removing his tinted spectacles, his eyes narrowing as he squinted at Jack. ‘I say, that’s a blighter of a scar.’ He winced, sucking the air over his teeth as he saw the puckered skin on Jack’s left cheek. ‘Still, the ladies should like it, what? They do so like a wounded hero.’ He prattled on, incapable of recognising the hurt his words might convey.

  Jack’s hand instinctively reached up to touch the thick ridge of flesh on his face. He did not know how he looked. He had not bothered to find a mirror, to discover whether the wound disfigured him. He traced out the line of the scar before dropping his hand, suddenly self-conscious in front of Hodson’s scrutiny.

  ‘It was the most damnable affair.’ Hodson carried on talking. ‘Barnard, God rest his soul, was committed to the plan. But there was the devil of a mix-up and it all went to hell in a basket before we could launch the assault. Still, we must not lay the blame at the good general’s door. Not with him being dead and buried now. He wasn’t as lucky as you. Old Wilson is in command now, although he shows no inclination to change anything.’

  Jack said nothing. He knew he was staring at Hodson but he did not care if it made his officer uncomfortable. The anger simmered inside him, bubbling away beneath the surface. It would not take much for it to be released, to spew forth like vomit from a drunk.

  ‘I cannot tell you how sorry I was when I heard you were injured. You and poor Sergeant Briggs were the only casualties, thank God. It could have been so much
worse.’

  ‘There was another.’ Jack choked on the words but held fast against the blackness that dwelt in the ruined core of his soul, tethering himself to the cold, remorseless desire to reach her, no matter what had happened.

  ‘My God, I had no idea. Who do you mean?’

  ‘My . . .’ Jack’s words tailed off. How could he describe the woman he had come to love? ‘Where were you?’ His voice hardened as he snapped the bitter question. ‘Where was the damned assault?’

  ‘I told you. There was a mix-up.’ Hodson’s voice took on a wheedling tone as he faced Jack’s righteous anger. ‘Brigadier Graves intervened when he saw too many troops leaving the line. He delayed the column. It would not have been ready until after dawn, and so the attack simply had to be postponed. The first attacking column had advanced and was ready for the off. The 60th Rifles were in the van. It was lucky for you that they had advanced far enough to drive off those enemy horsemen. They were the ones who brought you back.’

  ‘So I was lucky.’ Jack was bitter. He looked at Hodson, remembering his dislike for the odd officer. He fought the anger, biting off the accusation of abandonment that was on the tip of his tongue. He no longer cared that Hodson was cruel, cowardly even. He needed him. He would tether his soul to the devil if it meant he could be in the first wave of the assault on the city.

  ‘I would say so.’ Hodson smiled. ‘Now, we need to get you back into the saddle. If you are well enough?’

  Jack nodded, not trusting his voice.

  Hodson reached out, patting Jack on the shoulder. ‘Good show, old man. You will be pleased with how we are getting on. I have two hundred and thirty of my own fellows now. They are good men, too. I’d like you to continue as my second, if you are willing.’