Windrush- Jayanti's Pawns

by Malcolm Archibald

  'One would think that,' Jack agreed cautiously. 'Religion is a strange thing.'

  Elliot sighed. 'I once believed that the Indians liked us because we bring fair justice and some security. If even the untouchables don't want us, perhaps I was wrong.'

  Jack nodded. 'I thought that we belonged here. I was born here, after all. People always say that as India was never a single nation, there are no foreigners and we, the British, are viewed as just another caste by the Hindus.' He shrugged. 'Now, with this rebellion, I'm not sure.'

  'I don't know anymore,' Elliot said. 'Then you think of our Indian allies, Gurkhas, Sikhs and the camp followers, and you remember the loyal sepoys of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies. These men fight beside us and share all the danger we face. If they ever combined against us, they would so vastly outnumber us that we couldn't hope to stand against them.'

  'Let's pray that doesn't happen,' Jack said.

  They sat in silence for a moment as the heat built up and the regular batter of the eighteen-pounders reminded them that the battle for Fort Ruhya continued on the other side of the belt of jungle.

  'I used to think that we had more morality than the native peoples,' Jack said at last. 'After we hanged hundreds or thousands of people on our rampages through the countryside, I'm not sure that we are superior.'

  Elliot grunted. 'I wonder how things will be after this war.' He looked sideways at Jack. 'I don't know if I should ask this again, Jack.'

  'Ask,' Jack said. 'We've been friends long enough.'

  'Mary,' Elliot said. 'And Jane. How do you feel about things?'

  Jack took Elliot's hip flask without asking and drank deeply. 'If you ever send in your papers, Arthur, don't consider a career in the diplomatic corps.'

  'Sorry, Jack.'

  'How do I feel about being a quarter Indian, my father having an affair with a Eurasian woman and my liking for another Eurasian?' Jack handed back the flask. 'That's a lot to ask in one sentence, Arthur.'

  'I know,' Elliot said.

  'I am glad to have friends who are still my friends despite my mixed blood,' Jack admitted. 'And that is not to say that I'm ashamed of my mother and her line.'

  'Jane was a fine woman,' Elliot agreed, 'a true Christian and one of the best.'

  Jack thrust an unlit cheroot into his mouth. He could talk to Elliot about such matters. There was nobody else on Earth, except perhaps Mary, in whom he would confide. 'As soon as I arrived in India, I felt as if I belonged,' he said. 'That feeling hasn't disappeared. The pandies, the massacres and the battles haven't altered anything. Sometimes I hate the heat and the poverty, the flies and the disease, and other times I love the colour and the friendliness, the generosity and the beauty, but I never feel like a stranger here, as I did in Burma or the Crimea, or Malta even.'

  'I hate the place,' Elliot admitted. 'I hate the cruelty and the poverty and the heathen gods. I'm counting the days until I leave.' He nursed his flask. 'And now the big question, Jack. Again: what about Mary?'

  'I wish I knew the answer to that,' Jack decided to light his cheroot. His hand was still shaking. I don't want to go into battle again.

  Chapter Three

  When the 42nd Highlanders, the Black Watch, learned that some of their wounded remained in front of Fort Ruhya, Quarter-Master Sergeant John Simpson led a patrol of four volunteers who returned carrying severely injured men. Simpson won the Victoria Cross for rescuing men under heavy fire. The eighteen-pounders continued their pounding as the infantry wondered why Walpole had so casually put these men's lives at risk.

  With his memories unsettling him, Jack patrolled the lines, speaking quietly to those men who acknowledged him and allowing the others to relax.

  'Good lads, the Sawnies,' Riley said. 'They'll hate being stopped by the pandies.'

  Logan gave a sour grin. 'Dinnae worry about the Forty-Twa. They'll get their ain' back, and God help any pandy that gets in their way. There'll be bloody bayonets before this campaign is over.'Leaning back on the ground, he pushed a short pipe into his mouth. 'You and me though, Riles, we've got plans, eh?'

  Riley saw Jack passing. 'So we have, Logie, and we'll keep them to ourselves.'

  'That we will,' Logan said. He unsheathed his bayonet and began to sharpen it. 'Nae bastard will stop us, eh?'

  Did Logan intend that last phrase as a threat to me? Jack wondered. Although he and Logan had fought through two wars together, he knew that the little Glaswegian had his own unique code of morality. If Logan took a dislike to him, Jack knew he would have to watch his back, officer or not. The threat of hanging wouldn't deter Logan if he believed somebody had wronged him.

  That night's camp was dismal with dispirited men slumped in the heat.

  'I heard why the pandies beat us,' Elliot said.

  'Why was that?' Jack was still wondering what Logan and Riley had been discussing.

  'We were meant to have supports,' Elliot said. 'They never came, and the reserves went to the wrong place completely.' He shook his head. 'We took Havelock and old Sir Colin for granted. If either of them had been here, we would be inside that fort now.'

  'The Sawnies are cursing,' Lieutenant Bryce said. 'They're calling Walpole for everything under the sun. It's the first defeat they've experienced since Culloden. What a blasted shambles.' Bryce was in his thirties and had transferred to the 113th in the hope of action and promotion.

  'Enough of that croaking,' Jack said. 'Even Wellington had the occasional reverse. We dust ourselves down and carry on.'

  'Defeated by the pandies over a blasted mud-walled fort.' Lieutenant Bryce ignored Jack. 'And the 113th was involved again. It's like Chillianwala, all over again.'

  'Nobody will even notice we were there.' Elliot calmed Bryce down. 'The Highland Brigade will get all the attention.'

  'As you choose not to take my orders, Lieutenant Bryce, you can take a patrol out to the fort.' Jack kept his voice level. 'See what's happening and report back.'

  'Sir.' Bryce gave a formal salute to show his displeasure.

  Jack watched him march stiffly away. 'He'll learn,' he said. 'I just hope he learns quickly and doesn't lose any of my men in the process.'

  'I remember hearing about a keen young ensign disobeying orders to attack a Burmese stockade,' Elliot said.

  'He was a bloody fool.' Jack looked back at his younger self without pleasure.

  When Bryce reported that the rebels had abandoned the fort, the column marched on in sullen anger, stamping their feet on the hard ground and glowering forward. At that moment, Jack thought, the infantry hated General Walpole more than they hated the enemy.

  'I hope the pandies make a stand,' Logan said. 'Then we can smash them.'

  'I hope they don't,' Armstrong grumbled. 'Bloody Walpole will get us all killed for nothing again.'

  On the 22nd April, Logan had his wish as the rebels' halted their retreat at a small village called Sirsa.

  Jack scanned the enemy positions with his binoculars. 'Cavalry, infantry and artillery,' he reported. 'Nirpat Singh is going to fight.'

  'Come on, boys!' Logan hefted his rifle.

  'Not this time,' Riley said. 'Walpole's discovered he has guns. He won't need us.'

  'Does Walpole even know what infantry are for?' Logan asked as the British artillery pounded the enemy camp.

  'If he doesn't use us, Logie, then we've more chance of surviving,' Riley said. 'And we've something to live for, remember?'

  'Aye.' Logan sounded surly. 'I still wanted to fight them.'

  Jack noted snatches of the conversations between the crashes as Walpole's artillery pounded the enemy. Only when the guns had weakened the defences did Walpole send in the cavalry. After a brief, if bloody skirmish, the rebels ran, abandoning their artillery and, more important, leaving the bridge over the River Rāmgangā intact.

  'Well,' Jack said, 'Walpole won that battle efficiently enough.'

  'There's no glory for us in this campaign,' Lieutenant Bryce said.

  'If you're
looking for glory, Lieutenant, you've come to the wrong regiment. In the 113th, we don't look for glory. We do our duty. Now check your men.' Jack turned away, aware he sounded pompous.

  Walpole's column marched on, until twelve days after the affair at Fort Ruhya, they merged with Sir Colin Campbell's main army and continued towards Bareilly. With elephants and camels, hordes of camp followers and thousands of men in the reinforced column, Jack guessed that only a significant rebel army would face them and any possibility of gathering intelligence was limited.

  'I wish I spoke the language better,' Jack said after a fruitless day asking the pickets if they had any sign of men or women in black turbans and dropped the name Jayanti among the scurrying servants with no success at all.

  'Yes.' Elliot pulled at a cheroot. 'I think all officers in India should learn at least one of the languages. Especially us, with the strange assignments we get.' He gave a twisted grin. 'Or at least Hooky could have provided us with a translator. Mary, perhaps.'

  'That's enough,' Jack said. 'We're not discussing Mary again, and I'm not putting her in any danger. We had enough of that in the last campaign.'

  'Yes, sir,' Elliot said. 'I won't mention Mary again.'

  'Best not, Lieutenant Elliot.' Jack adopted his captain's tone.

  At the beginning of May, Brigadier Penny's column reinforced Campbell's force. They marched relentlessly onward along a raised roadway with the ground on either side flat and featureless, dotted with topes of trees and the occasional village. As they neared the old British cantonments at Bareilly, the terrain altered, with a small river hiding within a deep bed and a hundred nullahs in which the rebels could hide, to pounce on any part of the unwieldy British column.

  As always, Sir Colin Campbell made detailed preparations, so the army was ready for the final march and the capture of Bareilly. With unknown numbers of rebel cavalry on the prowl, Sir Colin ordered a strong guard for the straggling supplies and ensured the sick in their doolies were on the right side of the column, where the enemy was least likely to attack.

  'Sir Colin's doing his best,' Elliot said.

  'He's very slow,' Bryce complained. 'He should leave the sick and supplies behind and attack with the fighting men.'

  'If he did,' Elliot murmured, 'the rebels would have a soft target, and then the army would lack food, tents and ammunition.'

  On the 5th May, they left camp as dawn splintered the horizon and the heat of the day was already mounting.

  'When do the rains come?' A replacement asked as he staggered under the force of the sun.

  'Not yet,' Coleman said. 'It's maybe a month until the monsoon. You'll notice when the rain starts.'

  'I hope they come before that.' The man wiped a hand across his forehead.

  'I don't care about the heat,' Logan said. 'I wish we could march without all these bloody halts to allow the artillery and baggage to catch us. Havelock didn't need all that rubbish.'

  'Havelock lost more men through heat exhaustion,' Coleman said. 'I'll have old Sir Colin any time.'

  'I'd have old Sir Colin any time,' Thorpe echoed.

  Riley gave Coleman a searching look. 'You're not as stupid as you look, Coley. Bonaparte had the right idea planting trees for shade. We've nothing here except some scrub.'

  The British moved on in a jolting procession, half-blinded by the dust and with uncountable flies tormenting them, seeking moisture in eyes and mouths and nostrils. The sound of boots on the road was a monotonous drumbeat, augmenting the thunder of elephants and occasional snort of camels.

  'It's like travelling with a circus,' Riley said.

  'You would know about that.' Armstrong said and spat a mouthful of dust-filled phlegm on the ground. 'You and that actress woman you call a wife.'

  Jack intervened before Logan retaliated for Charlotte's honour.

  The landscape altered as they came closer to Bareilly. The open country gave way to small but thick woods of peepul and mango trees, with the occasional straggling village or lonely house, mostly abandoned in the face of the squabbling armies.

  A sweating cornet reined in his horse beside Jack. '113th to go to the front!'

  'Give me a proper report, Cornet!' Jack snapped.

  The cornet took a deep breath. 'Sorry, sir. Sir Colin sends his respects, sir, and could the 113th take up a position at the front of the infantry.'

  'That's better, Cornet. Please convey my respects to Sir Colin and inform him that we will be there directly.'

  It was good to have the men stretch their legs and march past the other regiments, good to hear the shouted insults and catcalls of the Black Watch as they gave ribald encouragement.

  'Go on, the 113th; soften them up for the real soldiers!'

  'Away, you teuchter bastards,' Logan replied in uncompromising Glaswegian. 'Make way for the 113th.' He grinned. 'That told them, eh, Riley?'

  'Aye, Logie, you told them,' Riley said. 'Remember to keep your head down.'

  There was marginally less dust at the front of the column, with only the cavalry screen between the 113th and any possible enemy. Jack revelled in the relative freedom. Here we are, the once-despised 113th, leading Sir Colin Campbell's army against the rebels. Much as I hate the bloodshed and agony of war, this is the reason I became a soldier, and for the minute there is nowhere in the world I would rather be. Here our peers accept us as soldiers and men; here we matter.

  The cannon broke Jack's reverie, and the solid iron shot bounded past the cavalry screen to roll along the pukka road.

  'Ready boys.' Jack knew that his veterans would be alert. The replacements might need some encouragement.

  'It's mid-day,' Riley said. 'That's the pandy's dinner gong.'

  'Is that what it was?' Thorpe said. 'I thought they were firing at us.'

  'Nah, they wouldn't do that, Thorpey,' Coleman said. 'They're going to welcome us with beer and cheese.'

  'Are they?' Thorpe thought for a moment. 'I don't think they will, Coley. I think they were firing at us.'

  Whitelam pointed ahead. 'You're right, Thorpe. There's a pandy gun on the road, and it's firing at us.'

  Jack lifted his binoculars. The rebels had built a small earthwork beside the road, with the muzzle of a single cannon protruding through an embrasure. 'One cannon won't halt the army,' Jack said. 'The best it can do is delay us a little.'

  'Here's Sir Colin's reply.' Elliot brushed a questing fly from his eyebrow.

  Two pieces of artillery galloped past with the gunners whipping the horses and laughing at the prospect of action. 'Make way for the guns, 113th!' They unlimbered two hundred yards in front and fired a few rounds at the enemy emplacement.

  When the British cannonballs bounced around them, the rebels abandoned their cannon and fled in apparent panic.

  'They didn't stand for long,' Elliot said. 'What are they planning, I wonder?'

  'They weren't in sufficient force to halt us,' Jack said. 'I think they fell out with Nana Sahib and he ordered them here as punishment. I can't think of any other reason.' Unless they're trying to entice us into a trap. Jack scanned the surroundings with the binoculars, searching for anything that might indicate an enemy ambush. He saw nothing except drifting dust and a heat haze.

  Jack lowered the binoculars. 'The pandies have to make a stand at Bareilly, or they're admitting defeat. Their little victory at Fort Ruhra will have heartened them, and they'll think they have our measure.'

  'Thank God that Sir Colin's in command again and not that fool, Walpole,' Elliot said. 'I hear that Khan Bahadar Khan is in charge at Bareilly.'

  Jack looked at his men. It didn't matter to them who led the enemy. They were marching through the dust, staggering under the heat and cursing fluently. Good. If British soldiers ever stopped swearing, he would know something was seriously wrong. 'Who is this Khan Bahadur Khan fellow, Arthur?'

  'The descendant of a long line of Rajput rulers,' Elliot said. 'He's the grandson of Hafiz Rahmat Khan if that helps.'

  'Not in the sli
ghtest,' Jack confessed.

  Elliot smiled. 'Well, I only know the name. Khan Bahadur Khan took over Bareilly when the Mutiny began. He is about thirty-five, a bearded, dignified fellow. I don't know how good he is as a soldier.'

  'We'll find out soon enough,' Jack said.

  As they marched, Jack surveyed his surroundings. Bareilly was not as exotic as Lucknow, as evocative as Cawnpore or as politically vital as Delhi, yet it was significant in its own right as the capital of Rohilkhand. The city sat on the level, with a gentle slope toward the south, from where Campbell led the British army. Bareilly was straggling rather than compact, with groves of trees scattered over a plain intersected by gulleys and a few defensible streams. Jack lifted his binoculars again, searching for enemy cavalry.

  'Bareilly's rather beautiful,' Elliot said. 'Why do we have to destroy it?'

  'Ask this Khan Bahadur Khan fellow.' Jack continued to eye the terrain. The atmosphere was tense, as if the land was waiting for something. 'Or ask Jayanti and her young warriors. All the pandies have to do is stop fighting, and we can all have peace again.'

  Elliot nodded. 'The rebels might view it differently. They might say that all we have to do is leave India and they can live without us. They might prefer their heathen gods, their wife-burning suttee, their thugee, their castes and all the rest.'

  'Once we've defeated them, we can ask.' Jack lifted his binoculars. 'There go the cavalry.' He watched as the Company sowars cantered forward to investigate the plain.

  'The shave says Khan Bahadur has 30,000 infantry in Bareilly,' Elliot said, 'with 6,000 cavalry and forty guns.'

  'Is that what the shave says?' Jack watched the Company cavalry spread out across the plain. 'Where did he get that many men? We've smashed the main rebel armies and broken the mutineers. Cut the figures in half, and we'd be more accurate.'

  Elliot grunted. 'There'll still be plenty of them.'

  'We won't argue with that,' Jack said. He saw the Company sowars congregate around a ford of one of the rivers. There was a jet of white smoke and sowars reined back. 'It looks as if we've made contact with the enemy. That was cannon fire.'