The Red Year Part 13

"We seem to be attracting a fair share of attention," said Malcolm, as they crossed a bridge over the ca.n.a.l that bounded Lucknow on the south and east.

"We look rather odd, don't we?" asked Winifred, cheerfully. "Three mounted men leading four horses, and a disheveled lady in a ramshackle vehicle like this, would draw the eyes of a mob anywhere. Thank goodness, though, the people appear to be quite peaceably inclined."

"Y-yes."

"Why do you agree so grudgingly?"

"Well, I have not been here before--are the streets usually so crowded at this hour?"

"Lucknow, like every other Indian city, is early astir. Perhaps they have heard of the fall of Cawnpore. It is one of the marvels of India how quickly news spreads. Isn't that so, uncle?"

"No man knows how rumor travels here," said Mr. Mayne. "It beats the telegraph at times. But the probability is that Lucknow has surprises in store for us. While we were bottled up in Bithoor things have been happening elsewhere."

His guess was only too accurate. Not only had Nana Sahib long been in treaty with the disaffected Oudh taluqdars, but Lucknow itself was writhing in the first stages of rebellion. Although by popular reckoning the mutiny broke out at Meerut on May 10, there was trouble in Lucknow in April with the 48th Infantry, and again on May 3, when Lawrence's firm measures alone prevented the 7th Oudh Irregulars from murdering their officers. There was little reason to hope that this, the third city in India, should not yield readily to sedition-mongers. The dethroned King of Oudh, with his courtiers and ministers, still maintained a sort of royal state in his residence at Calcutta, and his emissaries were active in the greased cartridge propaganda, telling Hindus that the paper wrappers were dipped in the fat of cows, while, for the benefit of Mohammedans, a variant of the story was supplied by the subst.i.tution of pig's lard.

It is believed too, that the pa.s.sing of a chupatty, or flat cake, from village to village in the Northwest Provinces early in January was set on foot by one of these agitators as a token that the Government was plotting to overthrow the religions of the people. The exact significance of that mysterious symbol has never been ascertained. Like the "s...o...b..ll" pet.i.tion of the West, once started, it soon lost its first meaning. Many natives regarded it merely as the fulfilment of a devotee's vow, but in the majority of instances it had an unsettling effect on the simple folk who received it, and this was precisely what its originator desired.

Lucknow was not only the natural pivot of a rich agricultural district, but it hummed with prosperous trade. Every type of Indian humanity gathered in its narrow streets and lofty houses, and excitement rose to fever heat when the local trouble with the sepoys was given force to by the isolation of the Meerut white garrison, the seizure of Delhi and the sacking of many European stations in the Northwest. On May 30, the 71st Native Infantry had the impudence to fire on the 32d Foot, and were severely mauled for their pains. They ran off, but not until they had murdered Brigadier-General Hands...o...b.. and Lieutenant Grant, one of their own officers. The standard of the Prophet was raised in the bazaar and a fanatical mob rallied round it. They killed a Mr. Menpes, who lived in the city, and were then dispersed by the police.

Unfortunately the 7th Cavalry deserted when Lawrence marched to the race-course next day to punish the mutinous sepoys who had gathered there. But despite the lack of a mounted force, a number of prisoners were taken and hanged in batches on a gallows erected on the Muchee Bhowun, a fortress palace situated near the Residency.

Thus Lawrence had scotched the snake, but like Wheeler at Cawnpore and many another in India at that time, he refused to kill it by disarming the native regiments under his command. Nevertheless they feared him.

They dared not show their fangs in Lucknow. They stole away in companies and squadrons, glutting their predatory instincts by slaughter and pillage elsewhere before they headed for Delhi or joined one of the numerous pretenders who sprang into being in emulation of Nana Sahib. It was one of these rebel detachments that pa.s.sed the four fugitives from Cawnpore on the outskirts of Bunnee. Scattered throughout the province they proved as merciless and terrible to wealthy natives as to the Europeans whom they met in flight along the main roads.

The chaos into which the whole country fell with such extraordinary swiftness is demonstrated by the varying treatment meted out to different people. Winifred and her uncle, under Malcolm's bold leaders.h.i.+p, reached Lucknow with comparative ease. Poor little Sophy Christian, aged three, having lost her mother in the ma.s.sacre of Sitapore, was taken off into the jungle by Sir Mountstuart Jackson, his sister Madeline, a young officer named Burnes, and Surgeon-Major Morton.

They fell in with Captain and Mrs. Philip Orr and their child, refugees from Aurungabad, and the whole party experienced almost incredible sufferings _during nine months_. Mrs. Orr, her little girl and Miss Jackson did not escape from their final prison at Lucknow until the end of March, 1858. Sophy Christian, who was always asking pathetically "why mummie didn't come," died of the hards.h.i.+ps she had to endure, while the men were shot in cold blood by the sepoys on November 16.

Yet in many instances the rebels either told their officers to go away or escorted them to the nearest European station, while the villagers, though usually hostile, sometimes treated the luckless sahib-log with genuine kindness and sympathy.

Mr. Mayne of course had his own house in the cantonment, which was situated north of the city, across the river Goomtee. Malcolm wished to see uncle and niece safely established in their bungalow before he reported himself at the Residency, but the older man thought they should all go straight to the Chief Commissioner and tell him what had happened at Cawnpore.

Threading the packed bazaar towards the Bailey Guard--that gate of the Residency which was destined to become for ever famous--they encountered Captain Gould Weston, the local Superintendent of Police, and his first words undeceived them as to the true position of affairs.

"You left Cawnpore last night!" he cried. "Then you were amazingly lucky. Wheeler has just telegraphed that he expects to be invested by the rebels to-day. Not that you will be much better off here in some respects, as we are all living in the Residency. I suppose you know your house has gone, Mayne?"

"Gone! Do you mean that it is destroyed?"

"Burnt to the ground. There is hardly a building left in the cantonment."

"But what were the troops doing? At any rate, you are not besieged here yet."

"We are on the verge of it. Unfortunately the Chief won't bring himself to disarm the sepoys, and the city is drifting into a worse condition daily. Half of the native corps have bolted, and the rest are ripe for trouble at the first opportunity. The fires are the work of incendiaries. We have caught and hanged a few, but they are swarming everywhere."

"You say Wheeler has been in communication with you this morning," said the perplexed civilian. "Are you sure? It is true we escaped in the first instance from Bithoor, but Cawnpore was in flames last night and the Magazine in possession of the mutineers."

"Oh, yes. We know that. The one thing these black rascals don't understand is the importance of cutting the telegraph wires. Wheeler has thrown up an entrenchment in the middle of a _maidan_. I am afraid he is in a tight place, as he is asking for help which we cannot send. Well, good-by! Hope to see you at tiffin. Miss Mayne must make herself as comfortable as she can in the women's quarters, and pray, like the rest of us, that this storm may soon blow over."

He rode off, followed by an escort of mounted police. Malcolm, who had taken no part in the conversation, listened to Weston's words with a sinking heart. He had failed doubly, then, in the mission entrusted to him by Colvin. Not only were his despatches lost, but he was mistaken in believing that the Cawnpore garrison was overpowered. He had turned back at a moment when he should have strained every nerve to reach his destination. That was intolerable. The memory of the hawk-nosed, steel-eyed officer who rode from Kurnaul to Meerut in twenty-four hours smote him like a whip. Would Hodson--the man who was prepared to cross the infernal regions if duty called--would _he_ have quitted Cawnpore without making sure that Sir Hugh Wheeler was dead or a prisoner?

The answer to that unspoken question brought such a look of pain to Frank's face that Winifred, watching him from the carriage window, wondered what was wrong. She, too, had heard the policeman's statement and was greatly relieved by it. Why should her lover be so perturbed, she wondered? Was it not good news that the English in Cawnpore were at least endeavoring to hold Nana Sahib at bay? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what sudden cloud had fallen on him when the carriage swung through a gateway and she found herself inside the Residency. The breathless greetings exchanged between herself and many of her friends among the ladies of the garrison drove from her mind the misery she had seen in Frank's stern-set features. But the thought recurred later and she spoke of it.

Now Malcolm had already visited Sir Henry Lawrence and told him the exact circ.u.mstances. The Chief Commissioner exonerated him from any blame and, as a temporary matter, appointed him an extra A.D.C. on his staff. But the sore rankled and it was destined in due time to affect the young officer's fortunes in the most unexpected way.

Above all else he did not want Winifred to know that solicitude in her behalf had drawn him from the path of duty. So he fenced with her sympathetic inquiries, and she, womanlike, began to search for some shortcoming on her own part to account for her lover's gloom. Thus, not a rift, but an absence of full and complete understanding, existed between them, and each was conscious of it, though Malcolm alone knew its cause.

But that little cloud only darkened their own small world. Around them was the clash of arms and the din of preparation for the "fortnight's siege" which Lawrence thought the Residency might withstand if held resolutely! In truth, there never was a fortification, with the exception of that four-foot mud wall at Cawnpore, less calculated to repel the a.s.sault of a determined foe than the ill-planned defenses which provided the last English refuge in Oudh.

Winifred soon proved that she was of good metal. The alarms and excursions of the past three weeks were naturally trying to a girl born and bred in a quiet Devon village. But heredity, mostly blamed for the transmission of bad qualities, supplies good ones, too, whether in man or maid. Descended on her father's side from a race of soldiers and diplomats, her mother was a Yorks.h.i.+re Trenholme, and it is said on Hambledon Moor that there were Trenholmes in Yorks.h.i.+re before there was a king in England. In spite of the terrific heat and the discomfort of her new surroundings she made light of difficulties, found solace herself by cheering others, and quickly attained a prominent place in that small band of devoted women whose names will live until the story of Lucknow is forgotten.

She met Frank only occasionally and by chance, their days being full of work and striving. A smile, a few tender words, perhaps nothing more than a hurried wave of the hand in pa.s.sing, const.i.tuted their love idyll, for Lawrence fell ill and his aides were kept busy, day and night, in pa.s.sing to and fro between the bedside of the stricken leader and the many posts where his counsel was sought or the hasty provision of defense lagged for his orders.

The Chief was so worn out with anxiety and sleepless labor that on June 9 he delegated his authority to a provisional council. Then the impetuous and chivalric Martin Gubbins, Financial Commissioner of Oudh, saw a means of attaining by compromise that which he had vainly urged on Lawrence--he persuaded the commanding officers of the native regiments in Lucknow to tell their men to go home on furlough until November.

This was actually done, but Lawrence was so indignant when he heard of it that he dissolved the council on June 12 and sent Malcolm and other officers to recall the sepoys. Five hundred came back, vowing that they would stand by "Lar-rence-sahib Bahadur" till the last. They kept their word; they shared the danger and glory of the siege with the 32d and the British Artillery.

Gubbins, a born firebrand, then pressed his superior to attack a rebel force that had gathered at the village of Chinhut, ten miles northeast of Lucknow. Unfortunately Lawrence yielded, marched out with seven hundred men, half of whom were Europeans, and was badly defeated, owing to the desertion of some native gunners at a critical moment.

A disastrous rout followed. Colonel Case of the 32d, trying vainly with his men to stop the native runaways, was shot dead. For three miles the enemy's horse artillery pelted the helpless troops with grape, and the ma.s.sacre of every man in the small column was prevented only by the bravery of a tiny squadron of volunteer cavalry, which held a bridge until the hara.s.sed infantry were able to cross.

Lawrence, when the day was lost, rode back to prepare the hapless Europeans in the city for the hazard that now threatened. The investment of the Residency could not be prevented. It was a question whether the mutineers would not surge over it in triumph within the hour.

From the windows of the lofty building which gave its name to the cl.u.s.ter of houses within the walls, the despairing women saw their exhausted fellow-countrymen fighting a dogged rear-guard action against twenty times as many rebels. Some poor creatures, straining their eyes to find in the ranks of the survivors the husband they would never see again, clasped their children to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shrieked in agony.

Others, like Lady Inglis, knelt and read the Litany. A few, and among them was Winifred, ran out with vessels full of water and tended the wants of the almost choking soldiers who were staggering to the shelter of the veranda.

She had seen Lawrence gallop to his quarters, and his drawn, haggard face told her the worst. He was accompanied by two staff officers, but Malcolm was not with him. The pandemonium that reigned everywhere for many minutes made it impossible that she should obtain any news of her lover's fate. While the soldiers were flocking through the narrow streets that flanked or enfiladed the walls, the native servants and coolies engaged on the defenses deserted _en ma.s.se_. The rebel artillery was beginning to batter the more exposed buildings; the British guns already in position took up the challenge; sepoys seized the adjoining houses and commenced a deadly musketry fire that was far more effective than the terrifying cannonade; and the men of the garrison who had not taken part in that fatal sortie rushed to their posts, determined to stem at all costs the imminent a.s.sault of the victorious mutineers.

An officer seeing Winifred carrying water to some men who were lying in a position that would soon be swept by two guns mounted near a bridge across the Goomtee, known as the Iron Bridge, ordered the soldiers to seek a safer refuge.

"And you, Miss Mayne, you must not remain here," he went on. "You will only lose your life, and we want brave women like you to live."

Winifred recognized him though his face was blackened with powder and grime. Her own wild imaginings made death seem preferable to the anguish of her belief that Frank had fallen.

"Oh, Captain Fulton," she said, "can you tell me what has become of--of Mr. Malcolm?"

"Yes," he said, summoning a gallant smile as an earnest of good news. "I heard the Chief tell him to make the best of his way to Allahabad. That is the only quarter from which help can be expected, and to-day's disaster renders help imperative. Now, my dear child, don't take it to heart in that way. Malcolm will win through, never fear! He is just the man for such a task, and each mile he covers means--" he paused; a round shot crashed against a gable and brought down a chimney with a loud rattle of falling bricks--"means so many minutes less of this sort of thing."

But Winifred neither saw nor heard. Her eyes were blinded with tears, her brain dazed by the knowledge that her lover had undertaken alone a journey declared impossible from the more favorably situated station of Cawnpore many days earlier.

She managed somehow to find her uncle. Perhaps Fulton spared a moment to take her to him. She never knew. When next her ordered mind appreciated her environment that last day of June, 1857, was drawing to its close and the glare of rebel watch fires, heightened by the constant flashes of an unceasing bombardment, told her that the siege of Lucknow had begun.

Then she remembered that Mr. Mayne had taken her to one of the cellars in the Residency in which the women and children were secure from the leaden hail that was beating on the walls. She had a vague notion that he carried a gun and a cartridge belt, and a new panic seized her lest the Moloch of war had devoured her only relative, for her father had been killed at the battle of Alma, and her mother's death, three years later, had led to her sailing for India to take charge of her uncle's household.

The women near at hand were too sorrow-laden to give any real information. They only knew that every man within the Residency walls, even the one-armed, one-legged, decrepit pensioners who had lost limbs or health in the service of the Company, were mustered behind the frail defenses.

To a girl of her temperament inaction was the least endurable of evils.

Now that the shock of Malcolm's departure had pa.s.sed she longed to seek oblivion in work, while existence in that stifling underground atmosphere, with its dense crowd of heart-broken women and complaining children, was almost intolerable.