The Red Year Part 27

Nejdi, good horse as he was, wanted a rest; Chumru's steed was liable to break down any hour; and it was a sheer impossibility to obtain a remount in that wasted tract.

All things considered it was a wonderful achievement when, on the evening of the eleventh day, they began their last march.

They planned matters so that the Jumna lay between them and their goal.

When they left the tope of trees in which they had slept away the hot hours their ostensible aim was the bridge of boats which carried the Meerut road across the river into the imperial city.

That was their story if they fell in with company. In reality they meant to leave the dangerous locality with the best speed their horses were capable of. There could be no doubt that Delhi was the stronghold of the mutineers. Even discounting by ninety per cent the grandiloquent stories they heard, it was evident that the British still held the ridge, but were rather besieged than besiegers. For the rest, the natives were a.s.sured that the foreign rule had pa.s.sed forever. Their version of the position was that "great fighting took place daily and the Nazarenes were being slaughtered in hundreds."

The one statement nullified the other. Malcolm reasoned, correctly as it happened, that the British force was able to hold its own, but not strong enough to take the city; that the Punjab was quiet and that the general in command on the ridge was biding his time until re-enforcements arrived. Therefore if Chumru and he could strike the left bank of the Jumna, a few miles above Delhi, there should be no difficulty in crossing the stream and reaching the British camp.

For once, a well-laid scheme did not reveal unforeseen pitfalls. He had the good fortune to fall in with a corps of irregular horse scouting for a half-expected flank attack by the rebels, in the gray dawn of the morning of August 11. Chumru and he were nearly shot by mistake, but that is ever the risk of those who wear an enemy's uniform, and by this time, John Company's livery was quite discredited in the land which he, in his corporate capacity, had opened up to Europeans.

Moreover, between dirt and walnut-stain Malcolm was like an animated bronze statue, and it was good to see the incredulous expression on a brother officer's face when he rode up with the cheery cry:

"By Jove, old fellow, I am glad to see you. I am Malcolm of the 3d Cavalry, and I have brought news from General Havelock."

The leader of the scouting party, a stalwart subaltern of dragoons, thought that it was a piece of impudence on the part of this "dark"

stranger to address him so familiarly.

"I happen to be acquainted with Mr. Malcolm--" he began.

"Not so well as I know him, Saumarez," said Frank, laughing. He had not counted on his disguise being so complete. But the laugh proved his ident.i.ty, for there is more distinctive character in a man's mirth than in any other inflection of the voice.

Saumarez testified to an amazed recognition in the approved manner of a dragoon.

"Either you are Malcolm or I am bewitched," he cried. Then he looked at Chumru.

"This gentleman, no doubt, is at least a brigadier," he went on. "But, joking apart, have you really ridden from Allahabad?"

The question showed the lack of information of events farther south that obtained in the Punjab. By this time the sepoys had torn down the telegraph posts and cut the wires in all directions. Even between Cawnpore and Calcutta, whenever they crossed the Grand Trunk Road they destroyed the telegraph. As one of them said, looking up at a damaged pole which was about to serve as his gallows:

"Ah, you are able to hang me now because that cursed wire strangled all of us in our sleep."

His metaphor was correct enough. There is no telling what might have been the course of history in India if the sepoys had stopped telegraphic communication from the North to Calcutta early in May.

Malcolm gave Saumarez a summary of affairs in the Northwest Provinces as they rode on ahead of the troop.

"And now," he said, "how do matters stand here?"

"You have used the right word," said the other. "Stand! That is just what we are doing. We've had three commander-in-chiefs and each one is more timid than his predecessor. Thank goodness Nicholson arrived four days ago. Things will begin to move now."

"Is that the Peshawar Nicholson?" asked Frank, remembering that Hodson had spoken of a man of that name, a man who would "horse-whip into the saddle" a general who feared to a.s.sume responsibility.

"Yes. Haven't you seen him? By gad, he's a wonder. A giant of a fellow with an eye like a hawk and a big black beard that seems, somehow, to suggest a blacksmith. He turned up at our mess on the first evening he was in camp. Everybody was laughing and joking as usual and he never said a word. I didn't understand it at the time, but I noticed that Nicholson just glowered at each man who told a funny story, and, by degrees, we were all sitting like mutes at a funeral. Then he said, in a deep voice that made us jump: 'When some of you gentlemen can spare me a moment I shall be glad to hear what you have been doing here during the last ten weeks.' There was no sneer in his words. We have had fighting enough, Heaven knows, but we felt that by 'doing' he meant 'attacking,'

not 'defending.' Sure as death, he will create a stir. Indeed, the leaven is working already. He sent me out here this morning, as he has gone to meet the movable column from Lah.o.r.e, and there was a rumor of a sortie from Delhi to cut it off."

Malcolm fresh from a.s.sociation with Havelock realized that a grave and serious-minded soldier could ill brook the jests and idle talk that dominated the average military mess of the period.

"Nicholson sounds like the right man in the right place," he commented.

The dragoon vouched for it emphatically.

"He has put an end to pony-racing and quoits," said he, "and there is to be no more fighting in our s.h.i.+rt sleeves. Bear in mind, we have had a deuce of a time. I've been in twenty-one fights myself, and that is not all. The sepoys usually swarm out h.e.l.l-for-leather and we rush to meet them. There is a scrimmage for an hour or so, we shove 'em back, Hodson gets in a bit of saber-work, we pick up the wounded, tell off a burial party, and start a cricket match or a gymkhana. Of course the fighting is stiff while it lasts and my regiment has lost its two best bowlers, a really sound bat and a crack rider in the pony heats. Still if we don't lose any ground we gain none, and I can't help agreeing with Nicholson that war isn't a picnic."

Frank managed not to smile at the navete of his companion. Though Saumarez was nearly his own age he felt that their difference in rank was not nearly so great as the divergence in their conception of the magnitude of the task before Britain in India. Nevertheless Saumarez saw that Nicholson was a force, and that was something.

"Is the Hodson you mention the same man who rode from Kurnaul to Meerut before the affair of Ghazi-ud-din-Nuggur?" he asked.

"Yes, same chap. A regular firebrand and no mistake. He has gathered a crowd of dare-devils known as Hodson's Horse, and they go into action with a dash that I thought was only to be found in regular cavalry. But here we are at our ghat. That is a weedy-looking Arab you are riding--plenty of bone, though. Will he go aboard a budgerow without any fuss?"

"Oh, yes. He will do most things," was the quiet reply.

Malcolm dismounted and fondled Nejdi's black muzzle. How little the light-hearted dragoon guessed what those two had endured together! Nejdi as a weed was a new role. For an instant Frank thought of making a match with his friend's best charger after Nejdi had had a week's rest.

It was altogether a changed audience that Havelock's messenger secured that evening when Nicholson rode to the ridge with the troops sent from the north by Sir John Lawrence, Edwardes, and Montgomery, while the generosity of Bartle Frere in sending from Scinde regiments he could ill spare should be mentioned in the same breath.

Saumarez's "giant of a fellow" was there, and Archdale Wilson, the commander-in-chief, and Neville Chamberlain, and Baird-Smith, and Hervey Greathed. Inspired by the presence of such men Malcolm entered upon a full account of occurrences at Lucknow, Cawnpore and elsewhere during the preceding month. His hearers were aware of Henry Lawrence's death and the beginning of the siege of Lucknow. They had heard of Ma.s.sacre Ghat, the Well, and Havelock's advance, but they were dependent on native rumor and an occasional spy for their information, and Frank's epic narrative was the first complete and true history that had been given them.

He was seldom interrupted. Occasionally when he was tempted to slur over some of the dangers he had overcome personally, a question from one or other of the five would force him to be more explicit.

Naturally, he spoke freely of the magnificent exploits of Havelock's column and he saw Nicholson ticking off each engagement, each tremendous march, each fine display of strategic genius on the part of the general, with an approving nod and shake of his great beard.

"You have done well, young man," said General Wilson when Frank's long recital came to an end. "What rank did you hold on General Havelock's staff?"

"That of major, sir."

"You are confirmed in the same rank here. I have no doubt your services will be further recognized at the close of the campaign."

"If Havelock had the second thousand men he asked for he would now be marching here," growled Nicholson.

No one spoke for a little while. The under meaning of the giant's words was plain. Havelock had moved while they stood still. The criticism was a trifle unjust, perhaps, but men with Napoleonic ideas are impatient of the limitations that afflict their less powerful brethren. If India were governed exclusively by Nicholsons, Lawrences, Havelocks, Hodsons, and Neills, there would never have been a mutiny. It was Britain's rare good fortune that they existed at all and came to the front when the fiery breath of war had scorched and shriveled the nonent.i.ties who held power and place at the outbreak of hostilities.

Then some one pa.s.sed a remark on Frank's appearance. He was bareheaded.

The fair hair and blue eyes that had perplexed Chumru looked strangely out of keeping with his brown skin.

"How in the world did you manage to escape detection during your ride north?" he was asked.

He explained Chumru's device, and they laughed. Like Havelock, Baird-Smith thought the Mohammedan would make a good soldier.

"With all his pluck, sir, he is absolutely afraid of using a pistol,"

said Frank. "He was offered the highest rank as a native officer, but he refused it."

"Then, by gad, we must make him a zemindar. Tell him I said so and that we all agree on that point."

When Frank gave the message to Chumru it was received with a demoniac grin.

"By the Holy Kaaba," came the gleeful cry, "I told the Moulvie of Fyzabad that I was in the way of earning a jaghir, and behold, it is promised to me!"

Next day Malcolm, somewhat lighter in tint after a hot bath, made himself acquainted with the camp. Seldom has war brought together such a motley a.s.semblage of races as gathered on the Ridge during the siege of Delhi. The far-off isles of the sea were represented by men from every s.h.i.+re, and Britain's mixed heritage in the East sent a bewildering variety of types. Small, compactly built Ghoorkahs hobn.o.bbed with stalwart Highlanders; lively Irishmen made friends of gaunt, saturnine Pathans; bearded Sikhs extended grave courtesies to pert-nosed c.o.c.kneys; "gallant little Wales" might be seen tending the needs of wounded Mohammedans from the Punjab. The language bar proved no obstacle to the men of the rank and file. A British private would sit and smoke in solemn and friendly silence with a hook-nosed Afghan, and the two would rise cheerfully after an hour pa.s.sed in that fas.h.i.+on with nothing in common between them save the memory of some deadly thrust averted when they fought one day in the hollow below Hindu Rao's house, or a draught of water tendered when one or other lay gasping and almost done to death in a struggle for the village of Subsee Mundee.