Hawke's Tor (17 page)

L
OCKED IN A darkened cell, Horace Morgan
did
think about India, even though he had spent some four years trying unsuccessfully to put that country, as he had known it, out of his mind. He wrestled with his unhappy thoughts in the darkness until the early hours of the morning, then, falling into an exhausted sleep, he began to dream of all he wished to forget … and the dream became a nightmare.

 

In common with most other European residents in the Indian city of Cawnpore, Horace Morgan was living in a state of nervous apprehension. It was May, 1857 and rumours were filtering through to the isolated garrison town of growing discontent among the sepoys of the Honourable East India Company's native regiments in various areas of India.

There were a number of reasons given for their restlessness, much of it due to a lack of understanding, or a disregard of Indian ways, on the part of those who ruled the company from England and many of those who carried out their orders in India. The latest and most serious blunder was the issue of a new type of cartridge for the rifles being brought into use for the army, which required the sepoy using it to bite the end off the cartridge
to expose the gunpowder before ramming it down the barrel of his gun.

The cartridge was greased in order to make its passage down the barrel easier. Now there was a strong and justifiable suspicion that the grease contained animal fat, something which was abhorrent to both Hindu and Muslim sepoys.

Until now it had been taken for granted that the Indian population accepted its enforced status as being subservient to the European overlords – mainly the British – who ruled vast swathes of the great sub-continent and who lived in a style formerly known only to those who occupied the great houses of their homeland.

It was felt that the natives ‘knew their place', despite being treated in a manner that ranged from patronizing to blatant brutality.

Cawnpore itself was a large and sprawling garrison city on the banks of the River Ganges with many thousands of residents, of whom the Europeans formed only a tiny minority.

In the garrison itself, too, Europeans were greatly outnumbered, 3,500 sepoys and
sowars
– native cavalrymen – being officered by less than a hundred Europeans. Although there were also some British troops in the garrison, they were outnumbered by fourteen-to-one by their Indian counterparts and at any one time a great number of them were suffering from some illness or another, brought about by the conditions of the country in which they were serving.

These figures began to take on a menacing aspect as rumours of unrest elsewhere continued to grow and Morgan and his fellow employees of the East India Company became aware that the sepoys and the company's employees were becoming increasingly sullen, and occasionally insolent.

All the signs of insurrection were in evidence but 67-year-old Major-General Sir Hugh Wheeler, officer in command of the garrison, dismissed any suggestion that the Indian sepoys –
his
soldiers – would ever contemplate mutiny against him.

If any officer should have understood the men he commanded, it was General Wheeler. He had served in India for fifty-four years, was married to an Anglo-Indian woman and they had a family here in Cawnpore, but Wheeler was to be proved tragically wrong, his faith in the sepoys who had served with him for so many years disastrously misplaced.

Tension mounted in Cawnpore when a telegraph was received at the Commissariat, where Horace Morgan had his office, that the sepoys at Meerut, 250 miles to the north-west had mutinied, mercilessly killing all the Europeans they could find, men, women and children, and setting fire to their homes.

This accomplished, the sepoys marched on Delhi, their numbers being swelled along the way by malcontents and criminal elements and carrying out an orgy of looting, arson and the murder of every European they encountered, regardless of age or gender.

When news of this latest outbreak of violence was conveyed to Wheeler, together with a rumour that the mutineers intended marching on Cawnpore when they had killed all the Europeans in Delhi, the general belatedly agreed to take measures to protect his countrymen in and around Cawnpore, while still insisting that it would prove to be unnecessary.

Because of this firmly held belief he went about the task in a half-hearted manner. It was assumed by those about him that he would fortify The Magazine, a spacious building within a high-walled compound built on the banks of the Ganges River about five miles to the north-west. Here were plentiful supplies of
guns, ammunition and other items which would prove invaluable in a siege.

Instead, Wheeler ordered that an entrenchment be dug in the hard, parched ground around the army barracks which was situated on the very edge of Cawnpore. It was a decision which was strongly criticized by both his fellow officers and the civilians of the company, all of whom declared it to be virtually indefensible.

Horace Morgan was one of those who voiced this opinion, whilst at the same time hoping the general's optimism would prove to be well founded. Morgan was married to a Hindu woman, Shabnam, daughter of a wealthy family whose home was hundreds of miles to the north and they had two young children, a boy and a girl.

While the entrenchment was being dug with considerable difficulty in the rock-hard ground about the barracks, rumours abounded that the growing unrest was advancing down the River Ganges, moving ever closer to Cawnpore.

Then one day there was an inexplicable panic among the European community in the city, causing many of the families and their servants to flee from their homes to the dubious security of Wheeler's entrenchment.

The sheer panic of their hitherto arrogant and seemingly omnipotent overlords astounded those Indians who witnessed it … and, suddenly, a
successful
uprising no longer seemed merely a pipe-dream. The realization brought about an undercurrent of excitement in the ranks of the sepoys that even the hitherto complacent General Wheeler could not ignore and when the telegraph wires linking Cawnpore to the outside world were cut, he too moved his family into the compound – and the die was cast.

Horace Morgan who occupied a fine bungalow bordering the river on the edge of town would have sent his family downriver to the perceived safety of Allahabad, another garrison town more than a hundred miles away but, unfortunately, the summer rains had not yet arrived and the River Ganges was as low as anyone had ever known it to be, the river's course interrupted for as far as could be seen by sandbanks which expanded with each passing day. The edge of the water which in other seasons lapped against the embankment at the end of the Morgans' bungalow was now little more than a trickle far away beyond litter-strewn mudflats.

Reluctantly, Horace Morgan decided it would be too risky for his family to attempt the long journey to safety via the river. A boat large enough to carry passengers in any degree of comfort would be forever grounding in the shallow water and, given the uncertain allegiances of those living along the banks of the great river and with bands of murderous mutineers roaming the countryside, he felt he had no alternative but to put his trust in General Wheeler. After all, he too had a family to protect and his knowledge of the sepoy temperament was superior to that of anyone else in Cawnpore … possibly in the whole of India!

So Horace Morgan moved his small family into the entrenchment, but it was not a happy move. Shabnam was dark-skinned, as were their two children and despite the present abnormal circumstances, the family found they were no more acceptable to the Europeans with whom they would be sharing the scant accommodation available in the barracks compound than they had been outside in more normal times.

Every room within the alarmingly overcrowded entrenchment was self-allocated according to rank. Officers and their families took over the permanent barrack accommodation; European
wives and families of non-commissioned officers together with the families of Cawnpore merchants came next; Eurasian families followed and the few Indian wives and families were bottom of the social scale, taking whatever space they could, often in the open.

Horace Morgan was far from satisfied with the arrangement but there was nothing he could do about it, at least they had the protection of the few soldiers whose task it was to defend the entrenchment and this became increasingly important as days passed and stragglers late reaching Cawnpore spoke of hair-raising escapes from hitherto law-abiding villagers who were roaming the countryside in the company of dissident sepoys, killing and looting. It became increasingly apparent that it was only a matter of time before Cawnpore itself came under attack.

In spite of this threat Horace Morgan went to work each day in the Commissariat office in the heart of Cawnpore, even though only a small number of European staff was there to share the work of the East India Company agency and there was virtually no Indian staff to carry out menial work or operate the
punkahs
– primitive wood-framed canvas fans – each connected to a long cord which in normal times was operated by a native servant, hidden from view in a nearby cramped cubby-hole.

By the first week in June the situation in Cawnpore was exacerbated by even higher temperatures than was normal for the time of year and the Europeans in the heavily overcrowded entrenchment were tired and bad-tempered while many were in ill-health due to the unsanitary conditions.

One morning Horace Morgan went to work after a night
during which sleep had been made difficult by a great deal of unusual noise going on outside the makeshift fortification. Nevertheless, as the senior member of his particular department he felt it was his duty to be seen to be present in his office.

One reason was that he was compiling a long report to the East India Company's regional office in Calcutta, detailing what was happening in Cawnpore and the difficulties encountered by him and his staff in attempting to carry out their normal duties. When the report was completed he intended giving it to a particularly dark-skinned Eurasian member of his staff, disguising him as an Indian labourer and providing him with enough money to take it to Allahabad and forward it to the East India Company's Calcutta office.

Seated in his office and perspiring heavily, despite the early hour, he was suddenly disturbed by the most junior member of his staff, a young clerk who had arrived in India from England less than three months before.

Bursting into the office, the young man cried, ‘We need to get out and go to the entrenchment right away, Mr Morgan!'

Alarmed, but trying to appear calm before the shaking clerk, Morgan said, ‘Compose yourself, Robert. What are you talking about? Who says we have to go back to the entrenchment – and why?'

‘One of the cleaners just came in to warn us! The sepoys have mutinied up at the barracks and killed many of their officers. General Wheeler has fired on them with cannon but they have run into town and with some of the townspeople are looting the bazaar. The cleaner said Nana Sahib and his army have joined them.'

Horace Morgan knew that if this information was true the situation was indeed extremely serious. Nana Sahib, the adopted
son of the late deposed ruler of the area was a very influential man. He lived in great style and had always been regarded as a friend to the British despite their refusal to allow him to use the title ‘Maharajah'. If he had now thrown his considerable influence and resources behind the mutineers then General Wheeler's own status would count for nothing…!

Just then another of the clerks called to Morgan from the doorway. ‘Come quickly, the mutineers are setting fire to our bungalows. You can see the smoke from the windows.'

Looking out of the open office window Morgan could see in the distance above the rooftops of the nearby buildings, plumes of smoke rising into the air to join the dark pall of smoke already gathering above the enclave where he and other Europeans had their homes.

‘Tell everyone to leave the building immediately and hurry to the entrenchment. They are to take anything of value with them – but don't waste time.'

The two clerks fled from the office and Morgan began stuffing papers from his desk into the office safe … then he became aware of a growing noise outside the building. It was the tumultuous sound of a frenzied mob interspersed with piercing screams of terror.

Running to a passageway window that overlooked the open square outside the Commissariat's front entrance, Horace Morgan looked out upon a scene that filled him with horror.

There was a huge crowd in the square, gathered like vultures around a number of circles of frenzied men wielding swords, bayonets, clubs and native knives, the weapons rising and falling frantically. As he watched, one of the groups erupted as a bloodied and severely wounded giant of a Scotsman, whom Morgan recognized as being one of the commissariat staff, momentarily
rose to his feet before being overwhelmed once more beneath the mêlée of flailing blades.

Horace Morgan realized he was witnessing the murder of the men he had just sent from the building.

There would be no escape through the front entrance and hurrying back to his office, Morgan hurriedly removed a fully loaded Colt revolver from the safe and stuffed the various accoutrements for reloading it into his pockets. As an afterthought, he packed a number of bags of rupees into a satchel and with this over his shoulder and revolver in hand, he ran along the passageway to a set of stairs which led to the back door, putting the Commissariat between himself and the crazed mob.

At the doorway he collided with an Indian and was about to raise his gun to fire at him when the man said, ‘Sahib Morgan … you must come with me quickly, there is a madness in the people and they are killing all who have fed and taken care of them.'

Morgan recognized the man as Jumna, an old East India Company servant who was in charge of the large force of commissariat gardeners. He was someone Morgan had always regarded as perfectly trustworthy … but now?

‘Where do you want to take me?'

‘You must come to my home,
sahib
.'

‘I want to go to the barracks, where the other Europeans and my wife and children are.'

‘There is no way you can get there now, Sahib Morgan. It is surrounded by sepoys and Nana Sahib's men … those who are not stealing everything from the bazaar. Your friends who were trying to reach the barracks were caught and are being killed. It is good for you that you came out through the back door. Come with me quickly, but say nothing in case you are heard. If we meet anyone you must try to hide, but we are not likely to meet
many people along the way. The bad men are either stealing or killing and those who are not bad have shut themselves inside their houses.'

Horace Morgan was not happy at being dictated to by this low caste Indian, but he had no alternative but to trust him. The man proved himself loyal on three separate occasions on the way to his home. Twice when they met up with excited mutineers Morgan was forced to hide in deep doorways while Jumna distracted them and on a third occasion he hid in a hole in a broken wall while the aged gardener stood in front of it, hiding him with the folds of his robe.

Only Jumna's obvious advanced years and feigned infirmity prevented the rioters from insisting that he prove his allegiance to their cause by joining them. When they had gone out of sight Jumna led Morgan the remaining distance to the small home he shared with his equally aged wife.

The house was one of many built by the East India Company for its semi-senior employees many years before. It had fallen into disrepair but it had a small, low roof-space and it was here that Horace Morgan was hidden, safely out of sight.