Guns to the Far East (14 page)

“Where are they now?” Harriet had asked and, kicking his weary horse into motion, the Eurasian had waved vaguely behind him.

“They may come this way,” he had suggested and, buoyed up by the hope that he was right and she might sooner or later encounter them, she had struggled on, her first concern to find a safe hiding place where, with the children, she could wait and watch for their coming. But the way was rough, the path they followed—an animal track—frequently overgrown with thorny brushwood and their progress became slower with each passing hour. Finally, her hands and arms lacerated and bleeding and the two older children, parched and breathless, clinging to her skirts and pleading with her to let them rest, she had been compelled to halt in the clearing in which they now were. It was by no means the safe refuge she had been searching for but it was hemmed in by trees, the approaches to it used, as far as she could judge, only by animals and, as the moon rose, she realised that, crouched in the shadows, she and the children would probably not be seen by an intruder— or, if they were, not before that intruder had made his presence known to her, both by sight and sound. But there was no water, the trees were not of the fruit-bearing variety and, by daylight—whilst she might assuage the baby's hunger—Phillip and Augusta would be famished and she would have no means of satisfying either of them.

Water was a vital necessity for them all; they would have to find it or die, Harriet thought despairingly, which meant that they could not remain here after the new day dawned, in the hope that some of the other fugitives would catch up with them or that the people from Ayah's village would track them to their hiding place, bringing the help she had requested. She dared not count on either of these possibilities; the other fugitives might be dead or in the hands of mutineers and Ayah's people—
if
they came—would not attempt to search for her until it was light. With her children's lives in the balance, she had to depend on her own efforts and must plan accordingly. She … Somewhere, frighteningly near at hand, an animal squealed and went crashing through the underbrush, emitting grunts and more squeals. A wild pig, she decided, her heart thudding, one of the most dangerous animals in the jungle, Jemmy had told her which, if startled, would attack human beings on foot without provocation. Instinctively, she clasped the baby to her, and he wakened, whimpering plaintively. She rocked him to and fro, fearful lest Phillip and Augusta should waken also and be afraid but, to her relief, both slept on, and she glimpsed the pig—a formidablelooking boar—as it crossed the clearing and then vanished into the shadows at its far end.

With its going, Harriet's heart resumed its normal rhythm; the baby quietened and she laid him, very gently, on the ground beside her, cautiously stretching her cramped limbs. She must conserve her strength, she knew; must rest when she could—although she dared not sleep in this all-too vulnerable refuge—and, however desperate their need for water, she and the children must travel only in the cool of the early morning and late evening. To do as they had yesterday— attempt to fight their way through the jungle, blindly and without direction, in the full heat of the sun—was to dissipate what little stamina they possessed and to no purpose.

She would get her bearings from the sun and go south, making her first objective the river, which could not be more than a mile distant and, although all Indian rivers were contaminated and dangerous for Europeans to drink from, this was a chance that she and the children would have to take. Any water was preferable to the risk of dehydration, and the awful torment of unassuaged thirst, she decided, and the only alternative water supply was that to be found in village wells, to approach which, in her present circumstances, would be dangerous … the villagers could as well attack as give her aid. Besides, if any of the other fugitives had survived, they would undoubtedly make for Lucknow, as the wounded clerk had done, and her best chance of encountering them would be if she, too, attempted to head in that direction, with the river as guide. Lucknow lay forty daunting miles to the south but the Sureyan was a tributary of the River Goomtee, which flowed through the centre of Lucknow, passing within sight of Sir Henry Lawrence's Residency … Harriet sat up, conscious of renewed hope.

Why, she asked herself dazedly, had she not thought of the river before? If she could procure a boat and a native boatman willing to row herself and the children down river for the promise, on arrival in Lucknow, of a substantial reward, then the forty miles which now separated her from her goal need not be quite so daunting as she had initially supposed. The road was out of the question—it would be teeming with mutinous sepoys, the out-stations it served, Khyrabad and Muhona, probably in the same state of anarchy as Sitapur—and clearly to attempt to make the journey on foot through the jungle, with three helpless children, would be beyond her strength. But the river offered hope and … She caught her breath on a sob. In Lucknow, God willing, Lavinia and Tom would be waiting—anxiously, no doubt—for her arrival. She and the children would have a roof over their heads—the quarters Lavinia had invited her, weeks ago, to share—they would be with their own kith and kin, guarded by British soldiers of Tom's regiment, who would protect them, if the mutineers should grow bold enough to launch an attack on Lucknow itself. Sir Henry Lawrence, wise and farsighted man, had provisioned his Residency for a siege …

Almost with impatience, Harriet waited for the dawn. When it came, she roused the two older children and, promising that they should have the water they craved if they helped her to find the river, she set off, careful to keep the newly lighted eastern sky always to her left. At first, refreshed by their sleep, Phillip and Augusta ran ahead of her, the little boy manfully trying to open a path for her through the tangled undergrowth, but after an hour, both became weary and Augusta started to wail that she was thirsty and could go no further. Fearful that the child's loud sobs might lead to their discovery, Harriet chided her sharply, her own hopes sadly dashed and her energy flagging.

“Where
is
the river, Mamma?” Phillip asked. “Do you know where it is?”

“It's only a little further,” Harriet told him, without conviction. “Take Augusta's hand, darling, and help her along. We'll find it soon … you must be brave, both of you. It's just that it's difficult to see exactly where it is, with all these trees getting in the way.”

It was more than difficult, she thought grimly; not only did the trees obscure their view but there was a sameness about the whole landscape which rendered it well nigh impossible for her to be certain that they were going in the right direction. A huge, gnarled banyan tree, which she had taken as a landmark to gauge their progress, was echoed by one exactly similar in shape and size only twenty yards further on and she had to look back to the first before she could be sure that it was not the same. And the sun was rising higher, brazen and pitiless; soon, she knew, they would have to find shelter from its powerful rays and wait, still tormented by thirst, until it sank and permitted them to continue their search. If they did not find the river by nightfall, their chances of survival would be slight …

“Oh, God,” she prayed silently. “Help us … do not abandon us here. These are Thy children, Thine own little ones … didst Thou not say that Thou would'st answer prayers offered in their name?”

“Mamma …” Phillip said, his lower lip trembling, his small face bloated and blistered beneath the useless little sailor cap he wore, “Mamma, I'm so tired—please may I stop? Augusta won't walk, I have to drag her and one of her shoes has come off.”

He sounded so lost and defeated that Harriet's heart went out to him in helpless pity. “All right, darling,” she said, making a great effort to hide her own feelings, as she pointed to the nearer of the giant banyan trees. “Lie down there, under the roots of that tree, both of you. I'll go and look for Augusta's shoe.” As an afterthought, she laid the baby under the twisting roots between them, noticing with dismay as she did so that Augusta's shoeless foot was badly swollen, the child white with pain. “Tie her poor little foot in this,” she instructed, giving Phillip her scarf. “In case I can't find her shoe. And—look after Baby for me, won't you?”

Relieved of the baby's weight, she retraced her steps at a brisker pace than she had hitherto managed to keep up, and found the shoe beneath a clump of thorny brushwood about two hundred yards from where she had left the exhausted children. It was as she knelt to pick it up that she heard Ayah's voice, calling her by name, and stumbling to her feet with a strangled cry of thankfulness, saw the woman coming towards her. Ayah was not alone; there were three men with her, rough looking
ryots
in ragged cotton
dhotis,
one of whom was armed with a matchlock of ancient pattern, which he held somewhat uncertainly in front of him, its muzzle pointed towards herself. But Harriet had no eyes for his weapon; her gaze went to the earthenware
chatti
which Ayah bore on her shoulder and she said, making no attempt to disguise her relief and gratitude, “Oh, Ayah—you came! I cannot thank you enough, I …” She had spoken in English and then, seeing the look of suspicion in the face of the villager with the matchlock, repeated her greeting in fluent Hindustani. “Have you brought us water? The little ones are in sore need of it.”

“I have brought water,” Ayah confirmed. “Also
chapattis.
” She indicated a bundle, tied up in a dirty white cloth. This was welcome news but Harriet hesitated. There was an odd note in Ayah's voice, a subtle change in her manner which, if not insolent, was bordering on it … and she had not made the customary salaam.

“Is there anything wrong, Ayah?” she asked.

Ayah shook her head. “I came, as the Memsahib asked, bringing food and water. Where are the
baba-log?
”

“They are nearby resting.” Knowing with what joy the children would greet their Ayah, Harriet was about to lead her to their hiding place when one of the men said, in a harsh whisper, “Tell the Mem our price.”

“Your
price?
” Harriet echoed bitterly, scarcely able to believe the evidence of her own ears. “Is there a price for helping us, then?”

“We are poor people,” the man said sullenly. “And we take great risks to bring you this food. Our brothers of the Company Army would punish us if they knew. Our price is fifty rupees— give it to us and we will leave the food and water and return to our village.”

She had little more than the fifty rupees he had demanded on her, Harriet thought, and she had hoped to use most of the money as advance payment to a boatman, when they reached the river. Her heart sinking, she asked quietly, addressing her question to the Ayah, “Does this mean that you will not give us shelter in your village, as I had also asked?”

Ayah was silent, avoiding her gaze and the man with the matchlock said harshly, “We cannot—the risk is too great. The sepoys are everywhere, hunting for the
sahib-log—
they come from Khyrabad as well as from Sitapur, and the word is that they have risen also in Shahjehanpur, throwing off the Company's yoke and killing all,
mems
and
babas,
as well as the sahibs who commanded them. Soon they will rise in Cawnpore and even in Lucknow. The Company's
Raj
is ended, Memsahib.”

“No!” Harriet protested. “You are wrong—you listen to lies.”

The man smiled thinly. “We see what is happening with our own eyes. Today you beg us for help—yesterday you would have driven past us in your carriage without sparing us a glance, without observing that we are in rags and our children's bellies empty. Now
you
are in rags and it is
your
children who cry out for food and drink.” He spat his contempt in the dust at Harriet's feet. “Pay us and we will go. We will do you no harm … but the price is fifty rupees.”

“That is all the money I have with me.” Harriet told him. It went against the grain to plead with such a man but, for her children's sake, she knew that she had to try. “I had hoped to use the money for the hire of a boat to take us to Lucknow. I will give you ten—or fifty if you will shelter us and help us on our way to Lucknow.”

“You will not find a boatman willing to accept your hire,” the man retorted impatiently. “Nor a village where they will give you shelter … rather will any you approach betray you to the sepoys. But we will not betray you if you pay us what we ask.”

His words struck a chill to Harriet's heart. Were they, she wondered aghast, could they
possibly
be true? Her hands trembling, she felt for the small bag of money, which she had placed in the bosom of her tattered dress for safety on leaving the carriage. “I will pay you twenty-five. That is all I—”

“Fifty,” the
ryot
countered, his expression suddenly ugly. He motioned Ayah to set down her water
chatti
and, raising his matchlock to his shoulder, took aim at the
chatti.
“I will shoot if you do not pay, Memsahib, and then you will have no water for your little ones.”

Ayah muttered a protest, tears starting to her eyes but the man ignored her and Harriet reluctantly counted out fifty rupees into the outheld hands of one of the other men. The owner of the matchlock lowered his weapon and gave her a mock salaam. “Eat well, Memsahib,” he bade her cynically. “And drink your fill.” He signed to his companions to follow him but Ayah, moved to pity, lingered for a moment at Harriet's side.

“Take this, Memsahib,” she whispered. “For the boat.” The little pearl ring was restored to Harriet's finger. “The river is not in the direction you were going, it is behind you. Walk back—there is a cart-track not very far away, which will lead you to the river. Do not delay—go there as soon as you and the little ones have eaten. Seek an old man named Mahee Singe; he will help you. He—” One of the men called out to her to hurry and Ayah laid the cloth-covered bundle of
chapattis
at Harriet's feet and, without a backward glance, ran off to catch up with her companions.