Poor young Nowell Salmon, Phillip thought, recalling the action which had resulted in his being hit twice in the thigh, during the battle for the Shah Nujeef at Lucknow. Peel had fought his guns right up against the formidable walls of the mosque and the Naval Brigade had suffered its worst casualties in consequence. But they had breached the wall, although this fact had not been discovered until a sergeant of the 93rd Highlanders had crept up to it, in darkness, seeking a way in.
“Sir …” Acting-Mate Garvey was at his elbow. “Shall I permit the spare guns’ crews to break their fast?”
Phillip nodded. It was a timely suggestion; the men had dry haversack rations with them and the grog cask, in the charge of a quartermaster, had accompanied them, made fast to a limber. With two crews on each gun, they could eat in relays. “Very well,” he assented. “Carry on, Mr Garvey—and make sure you take something yourself.” But the boy still looked concerned and he asked, smiling, “Is anything worrying you?”
Garvey reddened. “We haven’t shaved, sir,” he said apologetically, rubbing the soft stubble on his smoke-blackened chin. “And if the Captain’s due here at sunrise, I thought—”
“I don’t imagine,” Phillip told him gently, “that the Captain’s own party will have had time to shave this morning, Mr Garvey, so I fancy that on this occasion he’ll overlook it.”
The men had barely consumed their meagre fare when one of Sir Colin Campbell’s aides rode down with an order for the Shannon detachment’s two guns to take up a new position on the Oudh bank, preparatory to a full scale bombardment. Brigadier Hope Grant’s advance guard made its appearance while this move was still in progress and, with it, Captain Travers’s heavy battery, which unlimbered to the left of the bridgehead and began at once to exchange fire with those of the rebels on the Cawnpore side of the river. With dawn now grey in the sky, the arrival of a large body of guns and horsemen had not passed unnoticed by the enemy and, as the leading squadron of cavalry descended the slight slope to the bridgehead and dismounted, they redoubled their efforts to dispute the passage. Roundshot plunged into the river on both sides of the swaying boats, and shells screeched overhead but—miraculously—the bridge remained undamaged. When, punctually at sunrise, William Peel trotted up at the head of the Shannon’s siege-train, Sir Colin Campbell waited with illconcealed impatience until he had brought his guns into action and then ordered the cavalry and horsed guns to advance.
Brigadier Hope Grant, a wiry, be-whiskered man in a sand-coloured cotton dress uniform and the faded blue Lancer’s forage cap he always wore, led the way across. The head of the column gained the Cawnpore bridgehead, to be met by a galling fire of musketry from the burnt-out buildings and overgrown garden enclosures bordering the canal but, preceded by dismounted cavalry skirmishers and two troops of courageously handled Horse Artillery, they drove the rebels back, gunners and riflemen in the entrenchment giving them telling support.
Standing to the rear of his belching gun, Phillip watched, glass to his eye, as the Lancers remounted their horses and, led by a squadron of scarlet-turbanned Sikh cavalry sowars, the column reformed and passed in front of the entrenchment to the accompaniment of prolonged cheering from its defenders. After a brief cannonade, they crossed the canal and then, in open order, swung right-handed to make for the flat plain to the south of the city. There he lost sight of them but he knew, from the ADC from whom he had earlier received his orders, that they would take up a position facing the city, their right resting near to the entrenchment, their left on the Old Dragoon Lines, close to the Grand Trunk Road.
There was still a good deal of firing on the Cawnpore side but Sir Colin Campbell, fuming with impatience, galloped over the bridge with his staff to establish his battle headquarters in the fort. The rebel batteries on the Bithur road side of the fort continued their efforts to destroy the bridge and impede the crossing of reinforcements but now they, in turn, were out-gunned and by mid-afternoon all had been silenced or withdrawn out of range, battered into temporary submission, at least, by the sheer weight and accuracy of the British bombardment.
At a little after 4 p.m., Captain Peel ordered the Shannon’s guns to cease fire and the men, worn out by their exertions, obeyed the order thankfully. Too exhausted to eat, most of them gulped down their evening grog ration and lay down on the churned-up ground beside their guns, to snatch what sleep they could before being called on to return to duty. Fighting off an almost overwhelming desire to follow their example, Phillip was standing with William Peel at the road verge when word came that the main body of the Lucknow convoy had left the Mungalwar campsite to begin the crossing.
“Thank God!” Peel said, his voice unexpectedly charged with emotion. “I must confess, Phillip, that there have been moments during the past two days when I began to fear that we had rescued the Residency garrison, only to bring an infinitely worse fate upon them!”
“I too,” Phillip admitted gravely. “If those Pandy gunners over there had worked their guns even half as well as our men did, I shudder to think what might have happened, sir. And if General Windham hadn’t defended the entrenchment so gallantly …” He thought of Harriet and her two small, helpless children and felt his stomach churn.
At half-past five, as the sun was sinking in a blaze of glory, a procession almost six miles in length started to wind its way along the dusty, rutted road towards the bridge—escorting infantry, bullock-drawn guns, women, children, and the sick and wounded, borne in country carts, carriages, on ammunition tumbrils, or in palanquins and doolies. A number of the women trudged bravely on foot, clutching their children by the hand, and behind them streamed the camp followers and native servants, the laden elephants and camels, spare teams of gun-cattle and horses, and yet more waggons, piled high with the paraphernalia of an army on the march.
They came slowly and wearily past the now silent guns, a motley crowd of soldiers in faded uniforms and civilians in tattered clothing, armed with a variety of weapons from sporting rifles and old fashioned Brown Bess muskets to the latest pattern Enfields. Only the men of the Relief Force looked like soldiers, the 93rd Highlanders—Sir Colin Campbell’s favourite regiment—in tartan and feather bonnets, stepped out proudly behind their pipers, matched by the tall, bearded men of the Punjab Infantry and the scarlet-clad 53rd, whose fifes and drums were playing them in. But the clouds of dust stirred up by their passing were so thick that it was well nigh impossible to recognise individual faces among the crowd, and Phillip watched in vain for a glimpse of Harriet, his throat tight as the groans and shrieks of the wounded rose above the steady tramp of marching feet and the rat-tat-tat of the drums.
Moved to pity by their plight, the Shannon seamen roused themselves and, with Peel’s permission, went among the doolies, handing out plugs of chewing tobacco and even precious pipes and cigars, recklessly parting with what remained of their rations to the sorely tried sufferers in their jolting, airless conveyances. All through the night, the passage of the convoy continued, the bridge bathed in moonlight; next day, so congested had the route become, that thousands were still waiting to step on to the floating roadway which would lead them into Cawnpore and it was not until six o’clock on the evening of the 30th November that the last baggage waggon and the rearguard reached the opposite bank of the river.
Garvey’s two guns returned to the entrenchment during the morning but Phillip remained with the siege-train and made the crossing late that evening, riding with William Peel at its head, to take up their position facing the south side of the city, in support of Greathed’s Brigade, which had occupied the Generalgunj. The women and children, who had reached Cawnpore at midnight on the 29th, had originally been accommodated in the Old Dragoon Lines but had come under fire from a strong force of the Nana’s levies, which had compelled a move to the safer surroundings of an infantry barrack nearer to the entrenchment. Here a forest of tents was rapidly set up and, despite the melancholy spectacle of ruined cantonment buildings, devastated gardens, and the st
ark remains of General Wheeler’s ill-fated entrenchment close by, the children, at any rate, were soon romping merrily, their ordeal— if not forgotten—at least in temporary abeyance.
Phillip found his sister, at last, on the morning of the 1st December, sharing her tent with two other women and a sickly baby, but she was in good heart and full of praise for the efforts made to lessen their discomfort.
“We are given three good meals a day, Phillip,” she told him. “Tea with milk and sugar, fresh bread … if you only knew what that means to us, after the Residency fare!” Tears shone in her eyes but she brushed them away. “We are accustomed to being fired on, so attacks on the camp do not alarm us as they might have done six months ago … and we are well guarded. Our own men of the 32nd are entrusted with our safety and the Cavalry are on constant patrol. Besides, there are your guns. It was largely thanks to them and to your gallant seamen that the bridge was preserved, I was told.” She laid her hand on his and Phillip looked down at it, shocked to see how thin it was. Harriet, smiling, denied that she or her children were in need of anything.
“Dear Phillip—we have our lives, have we not? I have lost my beloved husband, and the children their father, and poor little Baby is among Lucknow’s dead … but we are here, we are safe! What more could I ask? True, the journey here was exhausting and fraught with anxiety, but we accomplished it without suffering any hardship. And, since our arrival here, we have been shown nothing but kindness. The soldiers come and take the children to play—they make them presents and there is promise of a band concert before we leave. The officers shower us with the most generous hospitality. We are fortunate, Phillip, compared with many others.”
Her courage was magnificent, Phillip thought, humbled by it. She had endured so much, yet she was undefeated, determined to make light of her hardships.
“Have you heard,” he asked her, “for how long you will stay here?”
She shook her head, with its cropped hair—now, to his distress, touched with grey. “Not definitely, no. But until we are safely on our way to Allahabad, Sir Colin Campbell cannot attack the rebels and drive them from the city, can he? So obviously he will want to be rid of us as soon as he can. I have heard a rumour that we shall set off in two or three days.”
“You’ll go to Calcutta, to Graham and Catriona?” Phillip urged. “They have a house there and they will, I know, welcome you with open arms.”
“Oh, yes,” Harriet agreed. “I’ve written to Graham—mail, I believe, is to go out before we do. It’s odd, is it not, that it has taken a mutiny and a war to enable me to see both my brothers after so many years? How I wish that …” she broke off, biting her lower lip in a vain attempt to still its sudden trembling and Phillip knew that she was thinking of their younger sister, Lavinia, whom neither of them would see again.
“Graham’s agent has keys to his house,” he began. “If he should be at sea when you reach Calcutta, you—”
She seemed not to have heard him. In a low, controlled voice, she said, “I went to see the—the place General Wheeler’s garrison defended and I was … oh, Phillip, I was utterly appalled! What could have possessed an experienced officer of his repute to attempt to defend such a place? The buildings were riddled with shot, much worse than any in the Residency, and they say the walls—before they collapsed—were built of mud and only four feet high. There was no shade and the hospital was a burnt-out shell … and they say that almost four hundred women and children were besieged there. Women and children, Phillip—and they held out for three weeks! I … it breaks my heart to think what they must have suffered, and poor darling little Lavinia among them.”
“It breaks my heart also,” Phillip professed.
“Did you—did you see the house they call the Bibigarh?” Harriet asked. “The one where they were murdered?”
He inclined his head reluctantly. “Yes, I saw it. I wish I had not. I don’t advise you to go there. You—”
Harriet shivered. “Don’t worry, I shall not. Seeing that ghastly entrenchment was enough. But we could not avoid seeing it—they brought us right past it, after we crossed the river, and in the moonlight it … it was a shock, when I realised what it was. It made us all thoroughly miserable.”
“I’m sure it must have,” Phillip agreed, tight-lipped. Hoping to distract her thoughts, he talked of the future, questioning her as to her immediate plans. “You’ll go home, will you not, Harriet, you and the children? You’ll be given passage from Calcutta, I imagine, but if there should be any delay, Graham could arrange matters for you. Catriona’s guardian is a ship owner.”
“There will be nothing for us to stay here for now,” Harriet said. “Yes, we shall go home. It will be good to see England again and darling Mamma and Papa—better for the children, too, than this climate. I believe we are to stay in Allahabad for a week or two, to enable us to—to recover. Perhaps you will be able to take a few days’ leave, to visit us there?”
“I’ll see what can be done,” Phillip promised. “Now about money, Harriet—will you permit me to give you what you need?”
She smiled and patted his hand. “Dear Phillip, that is kind of you. We have nothing, of course, the children and I, save the clothes we stand up in and even those are gifts. We lost everything in Sitapur, when poor darling Jemmy’s regiment mutinied.” She had never spoken of Sitapur or of her husband’s death but now, in a few brief and heartbroken words, she told him what had happened and Phillip listened, sick with pity. “They hacked him to death in front of me—Jemmy’s own men, his trusted Havildar-Major among them! But then, almost as if they were ashamed and regretted what they had done, they promised that they would take me and the children to safety … and they kept their word. They protected us and took us to the Lucknow road in the carriage, with the Ayah and Sita Ram, Jemmy’s orderly. But there they had a change of heart and they abandoned us, without food or water. They took the carriage and they made poor, loyal Sita Ram go with them. Ayah was afraid and she fled to her village but she found us again when we were nearly mad with thirst and the people of her village sold us water. We wandered about for hours in the jungle, searching for the river … it was barely half a mile away but we did not find it for hours, Phillip. I don’t know why.”
“It’s very easy to lose your bearings in jungle,” Phillip consoled her.
“I felt so helpless,” Harriet said brokenly. “The children were depending on me but I could do nothing, nothing. Sometime during the following morning, we met a wounded Eurasian clerk, on a horse. He was making for Lucknow and he told us that almost all the rest of our people in Sitapur had been murdered—or had fled, like we had, blindly into the jungle. He said we would probably encounter some of them but we didn’t. The only ones I … found were dead, they had been tortured and murdered. People I knew well, a young couple I had taken tea with only a few days before. Their bodies were left near a village and at first I thought the villagers had murdered them, until the headmen gave them decent burial and took us in. Without thought of reward, Phillip, that good old man and his people cared for us and kept us hidden and, when the sepoys had left the area—on their way to Delhi, I suppose —the headman took us to Lucknow by boat. Not only us but others, who were in hiding nearby … and he risked his life to smuggle us through the city to the Residency. And Jemmy’s faithful orderly, Sita Ram, came with us. He served in the garrison and he’s with us now, still trying to care for us, because he says he gave Jemmy his word that he would do so.”
Harriet looked up, her eyes bright with tears but this time she made no attempt to brush them away. “They are a strange race, Phillip—they can breed men like Sita Ram and that old headman, Mahee Singh, and a woman like Ayah, who was terrified, yet gave me back a ring I’d given her, so that I could hire a boat to take us to Lucknow. And … all the rest, the betrayers, the murderers, treacherous deceivers like the Nana. I’ve lived out here for almost twelve years, yet I don’t feel that I know or understand them—least of all the sepoys. Jemm
y’s men loved him and he loved them—there was trust and respect between them.”
“There was in many of the sepoy regiments, Harriet,” Phillip said, his tone carefully neutral, lest he hurt her. “Officers trusted their men and were betrayed.”
“As Jemmy was,” Harriet conceded sadly. “And yet, you know, after they had murdered him, the native officers carried his … his poor, broken body into our bungalow and set it on fire. The Subadar told me that it was to be his funeral pyre, so that his … his soul might find release and he said— with genuine feeling, Phillip—‘The Colonel Sahib was a good man. Had he been willing to lead us to Delhi, we would have followed him gladly.’ Do you wonder I find them hard to understand?”
“No, my dear, I don’t.” Phillip took his watch from his pocket, studied it and sighed. “I’m sorry, Harriet, but I shall have to go. I’d hoped to see the children, though. Are they likely to be long?”
“I don’t know,” Harriet answered regretfully. “They went, with about twenty others, to a picnic some of the attached Native Infantry officers got up for them. It’s not very far away —as you know, we’re restricted to the camp area. I let them go because, poor little souls, it’s been so long since they had any fun. If only I’d known you were likely to visit us, I’d have kept them here. They’re both longing to see and talk to their Uncle Phillip. We could go and look for them, if you like.” She hesitated. “What is the time?”
“Eleven-thirty. But I—”
“Couldn’t you stay?” Harriet pleaded. “Colonel Cockayne promised he would bring them back before noon.”
Escape from Hell Page 6