Guns to the Far East (15 page)

Her fifty rupees seemed to Harriet well spent when she rejoined the children with the provisions they had bought. The water, stale and luke warm though it was, tasted like nectar to her parched lips; Phillip and Augusta took on a fresh lease of life when, at last, their thirst abated. They fell upon the
chapattis
with exclamations of delight and the baby lay gurgling on her lap after she had fed him and sponged his tortured little body with a handkerchief, wrung out in a little of the precious liquid. They set off for the river, finding the cart-track Ayah had indicated with little difficulty but the sun was now almost at its zenith and, remembering the toll it had taken of them the previous day, Harriet stifled her impatience and deliberately set a slow pace, pausing every fifteen or twenty minutes to rest. It was afternoon when suddenly, to her heartfelt joy, she glimpsed the sun-bright water of her goal a hundred yards or so ahead of them, at a bend in the track. There was a village, many of the houses built on stilts over the water, about the same distance to her right, she saw, and she halted, bidding the two older children keep out of sight until she could reconnoitre it.

Leaving them to crouch obediently in the shade of a clump of trees, she moved forward with the caution which bitter experience had taught her, and subjected the village to a careful scrutiny, shading her eyes with her free hand. There were boats drawn up on the muddy bank, some fashioned from hollowed-out tree trunks, the rest of more conventional construction and one—a squat, high-prowed sailing vessel, ideal for the purpose she had in mind—lay anchored in shallow water on the far side of a line of rush-thatched houses. Apart from half a dozen women, spreading their washing on the ground for the sun to bleach, she could detect no signs of undue activity and, after a while, she saw the women, their task completed, make a leisurely return to the village, whose other occupants were seemingly following the usual village practice and sleeping through the heat of the day.

It looked safe enough, Harriett thought, yet still she hesitated, remembering what the
ryot
with the matchlock rifle had said earlier that day.
“You will not find a boatman willing to accept your hire nor a village where they will give you shelter. Rather will any you approach betray you to the sepoys …”
Dear heaven, was he right, she wondered, could people like these change overnight from docile peasants to enemies, ready to betray and steal, perhaps even to kill those who had previously been their rulers? Or were the people of Ayah's village the exception, motivated more by fear than by hatred?

Ayah had returned her ring, it was true, but in pity, not in gratitude or love and she had gone without even a farewell to the white children to whom, it had always seemed, she was devoted … Harriet bit back a sigh. There was no understanding what had happened, no reason within her comprehension which could explain why Jemmy's sepoys had murdered him in front of his wife and children.

She moved forward slowly, tears blinding her. She would go to this village, would ask for Mahee Singe; even if they refused to allow her to stay, at least they would direct her to the man she sought—the old man whom Ayah said she could depend on for help. He might be in the village, a fisherman, perhaps, or—since Ayah had seemed confident of his loyalty— a Government pensioner. Regretting now that she had not asked Ayah for more precise details concerning Mahee Singe, she stumbled on, her baby on her hip, the tears flowing unchecked down her flushed and dusty cheeks.

She was almost within hailing distance of the village when she saw the bodies and halted, numb with shock. There were four of them—three men and a woman, all of whom were known to her—and there was a dead horse lying nearby. All had been shot and … She turned her head away, fighting down nausea. All had been hideously mutilated, the woman with such bestial savagery that Harriet could not bring herself to look a second time. Less than a week ago, she thought, her mind rebelling against the memory, Mrs Gowan and her husband—the Commanding Officer of the 9th Oudh Irregulars— had dined with Jemmy and herself. So, too, had the young Assistant-Surgeon, John Hill, and Lieutenant Greene and his wife. Now four of their five guests lay …
there,
unburied, exposed for any passing
ryot
to gloat over, until the jungle scavangers should complete the work they had already begun. And she, fool that she was,
she
had been about to enter the village to plead for help … Choking uncontrollably, Harriet began to run, the baby almost falling from her arms and setting up a thin, protesting wail which she was forced to stifle, a hand over his mouth.

“Dear God,” she prayed. “Oh merciful Father in Heaven … don't let them find us! Don't let them hear!”

She regained the track, her heart pounding, and paused there for a moment to get her breath, listening fearfully, every sense alert, for sounds of pursuit. None came and she staggered on towards the clump of trees where she had left Phillip and Augusta, the baby's weight almost more than she could sustain. And then she saw them coming to meet her, two small, wobegone figures in their filthy, tattered clothes, each holding the hand of a white-bearded old native. They were chattering to him trustingly in their fluent, chirping Hindustani, and he was answering them, laughing with them, encouraging them to go with him to … what? To the death meted out to the Gowans and poor young Greene and the doctor? Oh, God in Heaven, not to that, not to … The river was preferable. It was near enough. If she called to them and they ran, all three of them together … God would give her strength to carry her baby those last few desperate yards and …

Harriet's lips moved but no sound came from them. The children saw her and called out to her joyfully. She took two swaying paces towards them and then the bright sunlight faded and she was in darkness, falling into a deep abyss to which, it seemed, there was no bottom and no end …

When she recovered consciousness, the white-bearded old man was kneeling beside her, holding a cup of water to her lips and little Phillip clumsily dabbed at her face with a cloth wrung out in water, calling to her anxiously, begging her to wake up.

“Do not be afraid, Memsahib,” the old native bade her gently in English. “We will not harm you or your little ones. We are friends here.”

“Friends?” Harriet echoed bitterly. “Are those—are the bodies of my people evidence of your friendship?” She sat up, horrifled to see that a crowd of villagers had gathered about herself and her children, hemming them in, cutting off their escape to the river.

“You saw them?” the old man said. “I am sorry that you did. But we did not kill them, I swear to you, Memsahib. That was the work of the sepoys who betrayed their allegiance— we were powerless to prevent it. The sepoys commanded us to leave the bodies exposed but when the sun goes down, we will bury them—as Christians are buried, with a cross above each one.”

His tone, as much as his words, carried conviction and Harriet's fears began at last to fade. One of the women, she saw, was nursing the baby, cradling him in her arms and crooning to him softly; another had little Augusta on her knee—they would not do that, she thought thankfully, if there were murder in their hearts. Feeling tears of relief in her eyes, she looked up into the old man's dark lined face and asked hesitantly, “Are you … are you Mahee Singe?”

He smiled. “
Ji-han,
Memsahib, that is my name. Your Ayah, Sunda Dass, sent word to me that you were in need of help and I went in search of you, finding the two little ones before I saw you.”

“Why should you help us?” Harriet questioned. “When others refuse?”

“For seventeen years I served as
chuprassi
to the British Resident at the Court of the King of Oudh,” Mahee Singe told her proudly. “When Outram Sahib left, he rewarded me with the
tessaildarship
of two villages—this and another—and I live here in retirement. I will not betray my salt, Memsahib, nor will my people. Trust us—we will protect you and, if need be, hide you from the treacherous dogs of sepoys, who rebel against the Company's
Raj.
” He sighed. “When the other
sahiblog
came, with the sepoy curs howling at their heels, we were unprepared, taken by surprise, and we could not save them. But now we are armed and ready. We will give you food and shelter and, when it is safe to do so, we will take you to Lucknow.”

Harriet wept as she thanked him. For the next ten days, she and the children stayed in the village, treated with respect and touching kindness by Mahee Singe and his people. On several occasions, marauding sepoys entered the area but no word of the presence of the fugitives was allowed to reach their ears and, true to his promise, the old
tessaildar
had the bodies of their murdered victims buried a little distance away, with a roughly fashioned wooden cross to mark each grave. On the evening of the ninth day, to Harriet's joy, some fishermen brought Sita Ram to the village. The orderly was in peasant dress, his uniform discarded; he had managed to desert from his regiment, he said, on the eve of its departure with several others for Delhi and, on his advice, it was decided to make an attempt to reach Lucknow under his escort the following day.

They left at dawn by boat, dressed in native clothing— Mahee Singe and some of the village boatmen volunteering to accompany them—and a little while before their departure, a Eurasian clerk named Dudman—who, with his wife and two children, had been sheltering in a neighbouring village—came to join them in their flight. The river was low, their progress tedious, but they were unmolested and, despite the heat and the somewhat overcrowded conditions caused by the arrival of the four Dudmans, they suffered only minor discomfort. On the outskirts of Lucknow, Mahee Singe hired bullock carts to which, under cover of darkness, all the fugitives were transferred, together with the sacks of grain and baskets of dried fish that had formed the boat's cargo.

With the white-bearded
tessaildar
acting as driver of the leading cart and Sita Ram crouched beside the pile of sacks which gave them concealment, Harriet and her children completed their long journey, to receive a warm welcome from the people in the Residency, and the offer of hospitality from Mr Martin Gubbins, the Financial Commissioner. In his large, two-storey house—which formed part of the newly completed defensive perimeter south-west of the Residency—she found Colonel Birch's widow and only daughter, and Mrs Apthorp and her three children, who had been escorted in by a company of the 41st Native Infantry, commanded by Major Apthorp, before the outbreak of the Mutiny in Sitapur. The entire party was safe, Mrs Apthorp told her, the other ladies being accommodated in the house of the Judicial Commissioner, Mr Ommaney, but her husband's company had since left Lucknow, with the avowed intention of joining their comrades in the mutiny.

“And that, after being rewarded most lavishly for having saved our lives!” Mary Apthorp said bitterly. “There is no understanding them, is there?” She drew Harriet aside and lowered her voice, so that the other occupants of the room might not overhear. “Poor dear Mrs Birch is quite heartbroken by her husband's death … as, indeed, you must be, Mrs Dorling. We heard the terrible news of what happened in Sitapur, after our departure, from Lieutenant Lester, who managed to reach here about a week ago. Like you and your sweet, brave children, he was helped and given shelter by friendly villagers but many others, alas, were not so fortunate.”

Thinking of the four crudely marked graves she had left behind her at the river's edge, forty miles away, Harriet's throat ached with tears, but she said nothing. Only to Martin Gubbins did she reveal the fate of those who now rested beneath the small wooden crosses and he, patting her hand sympathetically, advised silence. “There is enough sadness and anxiety here already, my dear lady, and—as no doubt you will have observed—our turn is coming. We shall defend ourselves, of course, have no fear of that. Our preparations to do so are almost completed.”

He was kindness itself, advancing Harriet a loan to enable her to give a generous reward to Mahee Singe before he returned to his village, and sending a servant with a note to the quarters of Colonel Inglis, the Commanding Officer of the Queen's 32nd Regiment, asking him to inform her sister and brother-in-law of her safe arrival.

“I believe they are here,” Harriet said, gratefully sipping a glass of sherry which, when the note had been dispatched, her kindly host had poured for her. “The last time I heard from my sister, they were both in Cawnpore but expecting to remove here as soon as Tom—my brother-in-law, Tom Hill—had recovered from a bout of fever. My sister is expecting to be delivered of her first child …” She hesitated, seeing a frown crease Martin Gubbins's smooth brow, and then asked, filled with sudden fear, “Mr Gubbins, is it true that Cawnpore is under siege?”

He nodded, his frown deepening, “Yes, it's true, I'm sorry to say. The garrison was attacked on the sixth of June by mutinous native troops, commanded by the one man in whom poor old General Wheeler reposed implicit trust … the Nana of Bithur. They have held out with great gallantry in a mudwalled entrenchment—scarcely worthy of the name—on the south side of the city, the sole advantage of which appears to be that it is situated close to the Allahabad road. Pray God they will continue to hold out!”

“Don't you think they will?” Harriet asked. Again the Financial Commissioner hesitated, as if reluctant to distress her, and she said quietly, “Nothing can shock me now, Mr Gubbins, and I should be grateful if you would tell me the truth.”

He sighed. “The latest news—a message from General Wheeler, delivered by
cossid
yesterday—warned that their losses have been heavy and cruel. The General has begged us for aid which, alas, Sir Henry Lawrence feels he dare not give, lest he weaken our own position irreparably. I, on the other hand, would send aid, no matter what the cost but … I am not in command. So I can only pray that the relief column from Calcutta will reach them in time. A column is on its way, commanded by Colonel Neill, but it consists of a single European regiment—the Madras Fusiliers—and it has been held up by outbreaks in Benares and Allahabad, according to the news we've had by electric telegraph. That is the truth, Mrs Dorling.” He shrugged disconsolately. “If that column doesn't get through, the consequences—both to General Wheeler's garrison and ourselves—don't bear thinking about …” He talked on, at times more to himself than to her, and Harriet finally left him with a heavy heart, to dress in a borrowed gown for a dinner, served in incongruous state, for which she had no appetite.