Escape from Hell

by Stuart, V. A.

  “Mr Highgate!” Phillip called and, when the boy answered, he gestured to the rocket-tube. “You have my permission to fire a couple of rockets—but into the air, if you please, as a recall signal to Colonel Cockayne. Repeat the signal in five minutes.”

  “Do you suppose that will bring him back, Commander Hazard?” Grayson asked, doubtfully.

  Phillip sighed. “It might. At least it will indicate our presence here. But if there’s no response …” He hesitated, frowning. “I’ll ride after him. Dammit, we’ve got to get the column back! We—”

  “You’d be too late,” Arbor asserted with conviction. “Colonel Cockayne won’t return until he’s burnt Ghorabad to the ground. That’s what he came to do, isn’t it? Nothing you could say or do would stop him now, Commander.” He shrugged, as the first of the two rockets Phillip had ordered hissed skywards in a shower of brilliant sparks. “But it shouldn’t take him long— he’s evidently not meeting with much opposition. The ladies were right. The Newab has fled the city with his troops. The trouble will come when he returns, I very much fear.”

  “Unless,” Phillip began, “we—” he broke off, hearing a strangled cry from the darkness behind him. None of them had realised that Colonel Cockayne’s daughter was within earshot until she spoke, her voice a thin, unhappy whisper of sound as she asked, “Are you saying that my father is alive? That he’s there”—her gesture took in the blazing city of Ghorabad—“and that he’s responsible for … for that?”

  All three officers regarded her with dismay and Phillip, recognising her anguish, took her small, trembling hand in his. “Your father is alive and he is in command of this column, Miss Cockayne. I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s come as a shock to you, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes,” she agreed faintly. “It is … rather a shock. I thought all the officers of the garrison had been killed—executed by the Newab—and my father with them, you see. But you couldn’t have known, Commander Hazard, and … there has been very little time for … for explanations. I—” She turned away, her face deathly pale in the moonlight and Phillip, cursing his own tactlessness, released her hand.

  “I’m firing the second signal, sir!” Highgate called out.

  “And there’ll be no response to that either,” Phillip said bitterly. “For God’s sake, I’ll have to ride after Cockayne. He’s got to be stopped.”

  Captain Grayson laid a hand on his arm. “John Arbor’s assessment of the situation is correct, Hazard: the harm is done. It’s too late to try and stop it now and the Colonel won’t linger, once he’s done what he set out to do. In half an hour, there’ll be precious little of the town left standing and even Cockayne will have to accept that justice has been done.”

  “Justice?” Phillip challenged.

  “For want of a better word,” Grayson conceded. “The column will be back here by first light. If it’s not, then it will be up to us to get the women and children back to Cawnpore, and we shall have to leave Cockayne to fight a rearguard action, if the Newab pursues us. I think,” he added cynically, “he owes that to his daughter, do you not? In the meantime, there are the dead to bury and our own column to prepare for the road.”

  Phillip felt the anger drain out of him. “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “Let’s make a start, then.”

  By dawn, the last of the bodies they had brought back had been lowered into its shallow grave, each with a roughly fashioned wooden cross to mark it and each with a few words of the Burial Service read over it. Phillip had performed this melancholy service at sea in the Crimea, but he found himself choking over the simple words as he watched the burial party shovel sand on to George Crawford’s white, shuttered face and then on to the charred body of a child—one of three who had breathed their last during the night.

  The rest, the surgeon had told him—with the exception of two of the women—would stand a reasonable chance of reaching Cawnpore alive, provided their return was not long delayed.

  “They’ve all suffered some burning,” the young doctor explained gravely. “In most cases, thank God, it’s fairly superficial: hands and feet. They weren’t wearing shoes, you see. But all of them have been badly treated and are half-starved, and they have little resistance. They will have to be carried in doolies, even the comparatively healthy. And I’m afraid four or five of your rescue party will be unable to handle their rifles. Mr Highgate’s hands are in a particularly bad way …” He went into details, his voice brittle with weariness, ending regretfully, “I have done my best for the two seriously injured ladies but, alas, I can hold out very little hope for them in these circumstances.”

  He had thanked the exhausted young man, Phillip recalled, and had submitted to having his own right arm dressed and bandaged, although conscious of no pain. No pain, save that of the heart.

  “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live … he is cut down, like a flower … in the midst of life we are in death …“ The words were coming more easily to his tongue now; they were familiar, he no longer had to think of them, but they were deeply moving nonetheless … and not only to himself. Benjamin Highgate, he saw, both hands swathed in wadding, was weeping unashamedly as two men of his regiment laid the emaciated body of a fair-haired woman beside that of a tiny, wizened child, born, he could only suppose, during the mother’s captivity. As his sister Lavinia’s baby had also been born and died, un-mourned by its dying mother. “We commit their bodies to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust …“ in alien soil, killed by an alien foe—innocents, caught up in a battle that was not of their making. Phillip caught his breath. The prayer book he was using had been Lavinia’s, found in the shambles of the Bibigarh in Cawnpore and given to him by Midshipman Edward Daniels … the page was blurred as he looked down at it but he read on, from memory: “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ …”

  He turned away and saw John Arbor running to meet him. “The column,” he said breathlessly. “It’s coming back, Hazard— your guns and the infantry, but I can’t see the Colonel or any of his cavalry.”

  It was Lightfoot who explained the reason for Colonel Cockayne’s absence. “There was no opposition, sir—the Newab and whatever troops he had were long gone when we entered the city. But the Colonel ordered us to set it on fire and we crossed over to the east bank by a bridge in the centre. He went on, sir, in pursuit of the Newab, taking the Sikhs with him. He said he hoped to be back within 24 hours and sent us out to await his return.”

  “I fear we shall not be able to wait that long,” Phillip told him bleakly, “since the lives of the unfortunate survivors of the garrison may well depend on the speed with which we can get them to Cawnpore. See that your men break their fast, Mr Lightfoot, without delay. I anticipate that the column will move out within the hour.”

  Grayson, Arbor, and the recently returned Alan Williams, when he sought their opinion, gave their unanimous agreement to his proposal to set out immediately for Cawnpore.

  “As senior ranking officer, Commander Hazard,” Grayson suggested formally, “I take it that you will assume temporary command of the column?”

  “And the responsibility for its premature departure, Captain Grayson,” Phillip answered, with a wry smile. “Supposing that is ever questioned.”

  Grayson shook his head. “No,” he asserted. “The decision is a joint one; we all share the responsibility, Hazard, my friend.” He glanced at the others for confirmation and both gravely inclined their heads.

  “In the column commander’s defence, sir,” Alan Williams offered diffidently, “I have to say that he was not aware of your successful rescue of those ladies being held hostage by the Newab. Had he been, I feel sure he would have returned with us to the rendezvous.”

  For a moment, no one spoke; then John Arbor shrugged disgustedly. “As it is, gentlemen—and since I take it we are speaking freely—I can only pray that, having raised a hornet’s nest about us, the column command
er will himself meet any threat this may pose.”

  “What on earth do you mean, John?” Williams questioned. “I don’t think I follow you.”

  Arbor laid a hand lightly on his arm. “I’m an old soldier, Alan, grown grey in the Company’s service, which inclines me to pessimism, perhaps. But we’ve nearly sixty miles to cover and, with no cavalry to act as our eyes and ears, I cannot feel entirely at ease. Provided Colonel Cockayne’s pursuit of the Newab is successful, we’ve probably very little to fear. But if it’s not, if he fails to make contact, then the fact that he’s razed Ghorabad to the ground may bring the Newab after us. And we have the lives of twenty poor, brave ladies to protect, and those of their children. After what they have endured, it would be little short of a tragedy if we were unable to deliver them safely to Cawnpore, would it not?”

  Young Alan Williams hesitated, torn between loyalty to his commander and his own feelings; finally he said, with evident reluctance, “You’re absolutely right, of course, John, and I agree wholeheartedly with the decision to start on our way without waiting for Colonel Cockayne. But I wish we could get a message to him, to tell him that the survivors of his garrison are here—including his daughter. Because truly he has no idea and—”

  “I’m going to give the old vakeel his freedom,” Phillip put in, reaching a swift decision. “He can take the body of his son and I will ask him to despatch a messenger. A British soldier would have no chance of finding the Colonel but a native might manage to get through to him. That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Williams acknowledged. “I’m grateful. It will bring him back at once, I feel certain.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Phillip was less hopeful and, when the Colonel’s daughter sought him out just before the column moved off, he was compelled to answer her question concerning her father’s whereabouts with a regretful headshake.

  “I don’t know, Miss Cockayne. I was told by a member of his staff that he has gone, with the Sikh cavalry, in pursuit of the Newab. I’ve sent a messenger after him, but, for the sake of the ladies who shared your captivity, we cannot delay our return to Cawnpore in order to wait for him to rejoin us.”

  She did not dispute his statement, accepting its harsh necessity and he added, smiling at her reassuringly, “I don’t anticipate that we shall be able to cover more than ten or twelve miles a day, if the injured are to travel in anything approaching comfort, so the Colonel should have no trouble in catching up with us. You’ll be reunited with him very soon, Miss Cockayne.”

  “Thank you,” Andrea Cockayne acknowledged. In daylight, she looked even more frail than Phillip had imagined and his heart went out to her in helpless pity. Both her feet and hands were bandaged and her fair hair was cropped short, like a boy’s so that, in the ragged native robe she wore, she made an oddly incongruous figure, robbed of femininity and charm, yet possessed of a natural dignity that at once impressed and moved him.

  “They’ve found a dhoolie for you?” he asked anxiously.

  She gave him a quick amused smile. “Oh, yes, Commander Hazard—I shall travel in comfort, don’t worry. I’ve promised to take care of Mrs Lennard’s baby, so that she may have a chance to rest; poor soul, she is worn out.”

  “That will not be very comfortable for you,” Phillip demurred. “I’m sure if I asked the surgeon he would arrange something for the baby.”

  “Do not concern yourself, please,” the girl begged. “Your surgeon has been wonderful to us. He’s never spared himself all night.”

  “Yes, but—” Phillip began.

  Smiling, she cut him short. “Commander Hazard, to be carried, instead of walking barefoot, and to eat and drink in a civilised manner … you can have no idea what that means to us. To be treated with kindness and respect, instead of being subjected to constant humiliation, to be once again addressed by our names, why …” Her smile faded and he saw that her lower lip was trembling. But the blue eyes met his, bright with courage, as she confided, “I keep having to pinch myself to make certain I am not dreaming! You cannot know from what torment and despair you have saved us or how grateful we are—you cannot possibly know.”

  Phillip looked down at her small, pinched face, his throat aching and at a loss for words. He resisted the impulse to take her in his arms as, following her escape from the burning godown, he had taken her, sensing that her pain was too intense for tears to bring relief. Poor, tortured child, he thought bitterly, what must she have suffered during the four endless months of her captivity—she and the others who had been confined with her? He found himself silently cursing Colonel Cockayne. Damn the man … why hadn’t he waited until the return of the boats, instead of indulging his own savage desire for revenge? And why, devil take him, after reducing Ghorabad to a smouldering ruin, had he gone off with the cavalry on what might well prove to be a wild goose chase, when the safety of the column—and of the pathetic survivors of his garrison—was thereby jeopardised?

  As if she had read his thoughts, Andrea Cockayne said quietly, “You have made the right decision, I am sure, Commander Hazard—not to wait for my father, I mean.”

  “Have I, Miss Cockayne?”

  “Yes, you have. Some of the poor children and several mothers are gravely ill … and it’s not only from their burns. Dr Milton told me that if they are to have even a small chance of recovery, they must be taken away from here, right away, to where they can be cared for and can forget. This place …” She shivered. “It holds so many terrible memories, such terror, even for the children. None of us can sleep, as long as we remain here, the—the nightmare is still with us, you see. And now that my father has destroyed the city, I … but he did not know, did he? He did not know that any of us were left alive.”

  “No,” Phillip said thickly. “He did not know that, Miss Cockayne.” He offered her his arm. “I’ll escort you to your dhoolie.”

  “Thank you,” the girl acknowledged and laid her hand on his.

  The column moved off, the small procession of dhoolies in the centre and infantry detachments, in skirmishing order, in place of the cavalry at front and rear. Apart from a few peasants working in the fields—who fled at the column’s approach —they encountered no one. The men were tired but cheerful and Phillip gave permission to march at ease and sing on the march, partly to keep up morale but mainly in the hope of giving the sick and frightened women a feeling of security. A two-hour halt at midday further raised spirits and when the march was resumed, the young soldiers sang lustily, led by the 88th’s two fifers and Oates’s fiddle, regimental marching songs alternating with hymns and the occasional lewd chorus, which shocked NCOs hastily silenced.

  Dusk found them almost twelve miles on their way and, when camp was made and bivouac fires lighted, all but the most seriously ill of the rescued hostages left their dhoolies and ate their meal with the men, in what became almost a picnic atmosphere, sailors and soldiers vying with each other to pet the thin, grave-faced children and clowning for their benefit.

  Phillip, after conferring anxiously with Grayson and Arbor —his advance and rearguard commanders—joined in the picnic atmosphere and presented a smiling face to those gathered about the cooking fires. But when it was over and the camp wrapped in sleep, he answered Surgeon Milton’s summons to bury one of the two badly burnt women and spent the night wakefully with Grayson’s outlying piquet. Returning at dawn from his vigil, the surgeon again summoned him and he found Andrea Cockayne kneeling, in tearful prayer, beside the small, still body of a flaxen-haired child.

  “He was only five,” she whispered, in answer to his shocked question. “And his name was Christopher—Christopher Hardacre. His father was the Assistant-Commissioner and they murdered him when the Residency was over-run and taken by the sepoys. I—I was there. I saw what they did … how they killed him. And … you buried his mother last night. Now there are none of them left. The other two children died whilst we were prisoners.”

  Phillip did his best
to comfort her. Meeting Dr Milton’s gaze over her bent head, as she wept in his arms, he saw the young man’s lips frame a single word and his heart sank. Cholera was the one enemy no army could defeat and five-year-old Christopher Hardacre had—if the surgeon’s diagnosis was correct—died of that dread disease. And the other women, the children, perhaps even the girl whose tear-stained face was pressed against his shoulder, might be infected by it. He had seen the terrible ravages of cholera in the Crimea and it had struck down more than a score of the Shannon’s seamen on the journey by river steamer from Calcutta to Allahabad, he recalled, killing half of them and severely incapacitating the rest … men in the peak of physical condition.

  He was suddenly afraid, as he visualised the possible consequences should the infection spread among his small force now, with nearly fifty miles of hostile country still to be crossed and only one comparatively inexperienced young medical officer to cope with the crisis. The prospect did not bear thinking about but … he continued to hold the frail, grief-stricken girl in his arms, murmuring futile words of comfort and stroking her lank fair hair with fingers whose trembling he was unable to control. Looking back, a long time afterwards, he decided that this must have been the moment when he had fallen in love with her. Then, he did not recognise his feelings for what they were, believing them to be engendered by pity but certainly from then on, Colonel Cockayne’s daughter was seldom absent from his thoughts or from his prayers, and he knew no peace when the demands of duty kept him from her. And always, for her sake, he was afraid …

  The march was resumed in the same order as before, delayed only for long enough to enable the body of the poor little cholera victim to be laid to rest beside that of his mother. The men continued to march to the tunes played by the fifers or tapped out by the drums, joining in the more popular choruses; when they halted, just after sunrise, to break their fast, all of them made an effort to recapture the picnic gaiety of the previous night but the word had leaked out, the shadow was there and with it the fear, to which only the less sensitive were immune.