The Red Year: A Story of the Indian Mutiny

Thirty-five miles of excellent road now separated them from Lucknow. The hour was not late, about half past ten, so they had fully six hours of starlit obscurity in which to travel, because, though the month was June, India is not favored with the prolonged twilight of dawn and eve familiar to other latitudes.

They clattered through the outlying bazaar without disturbing a soul. Probably every man, woman and child able to walk was adding to the din in the great city beyond the river. Pariah dogs yelped at them, some heavy carts drawn across the road caused a momentary halt, and a herd of untended buffaloes lying patiently near their byre told the story of the excitement that had drawn their keeper across the bridge.

Soon they were in the open, and a fast canter became permissible. They passed by many a temple devoted to Kali or elephant-headed Buddha, by many a sacred mosque or tomb of Mohammedan saint, by many a holy tree decorated with ribbons in honor of its tutelary deity. Now they were flying between lanes of sugarcane or tall castor-oil plants, now traversing arid spaces where reh, the efflorescent salt of the earth, had killed all vegetation and reduced a once fertile land to a desert.

Five miles from Cawnpore they swept through the hamlet of Mungulwar. They saw no one, and no one seemed to see them, though it is hard to say in India what eyes may not be peering through wattle screen or heavy barred door. In the larger village of Onao they met a group of chowkidars, or watchmen, in the main street. These men salaamed to the sahib-log, probably on account of the stir created by the horses. Without drawing rein, they pushed on to Busseerutgunge, crossed the river Sai and neared the village of Bunnee.

If only men could read the future, how Malcolm’s soldier spirit would have kindled as Mayne told him the names of those squalid communities! Each yard of that road was destined to be sprinkled with British blood, while its ditches would be choked with the bodies of mutineers. But these things were behind the veil, and the one dominant thought possessing Malcolm now was that unless Winifred and her uncle obtained food of some sort they must fall from their saddles with sheer exhaustion. He and his servant had made a substantial meal early in the evening, but the others had eaten nothing owing to the alarm and confusion that reigned at Bithoor.

Winifred, indeed, in response to a question, said faintly that she thought she could keep going if she had a drink of milk. Such an admission, coming from her brave lips, warned Frank that he must call a halt regardless of loss of time. Assuredly, this was an occasion when the sacrifice of a few minutes might avoid the grave risk of a breakdown after daybreak. So when they entered Bunnee they pulled up, and discussed ways and means of getting something to eat.

It was then that Malcolm gave evidence that his devotion to the soldier’s art had not been practised in vain. Mr. Mayne thought they should rouse the household at the first reputable looking dwelling they found.

“No,” said Frank. “Mounted, and in motion, we have some chance of escape unless we fall in with hostile cavalry. On foot, we are at the mercy of any prowling rascals who may be on the warpath. Let us rather look out for a place somewhat removed from the main road. There we do not court observation, and we are sufficiently well armed to protect ourselves from any hostile move on the part of those we summon.”

The older man agreed. Rank and wealth count for little in the great crises of life. Here was a Judicial Commissioner of Oudh a fugitive in his own province, and ready to obey a subaltern’s slightest wish!

Chumru quickly picked out the house of a zemindar, or land-owner, which stood in its own walled enclosure behind a clump of trees. A rough track led to the gate, and Frank knocked loudly on an iron-studded door.

He used the butt end of a revolver, so his rat-tat was imperative enough, but the garden might have been a graveyard for all the notice that was taken by the inhabitants. He knocked again, with equal vehemence and with the same result. But he knew his zemindar, and after waiting a reasonable interval he said clearly:

“Unless the door is opened at once it will be forced. I am an officer of the Company, and I demand an entry.”

“Coming, sahib,” said an anxious voice. “We knew not who knocked, and there are many budmashes about these nights.”

The door yielded to the withdrawal of bolts, but it was still held on a chain. A man peeped out, satisfied himself that there really were sahib-log waiting at his gate, and then unfastened the chain, with apologies for his forgetfulness. Three men servants, armed with lathis, long sticks with heavy iron ferrules at both ends, stood behind him, and they all appeared to be exceedingly relieved when they heard that their midnight visitors only asked for water, milk, eggs, and chupatties, on the score that they were belated and had no food.

The zemindar civilly invited them to enter, but Frank as civilly declined, fearing that the smallness of their number, the absence of a retinue, and the cavalry accouterments of the horses, might arouse comment, if not suspicion.

Happily the owner of the house recognized Mr. Mayne, and then he bestirred himself. All they sought for, and more, was brought. Chairs were provided – rare luxuries in native dwellings at that date – and, this being a Mohammedan family, some excellent cooked meat was added to the feast. Before long Winifred was able to smile and say that she had not been so disgracefully hungry since she left school.

The zemindar courteously insisted that they should taste some mangoes on which he prided himself, and he also staged a quantity of lichis, a delicious fruit, closely resembling a plover’s egg in appearance, peculiar to India. Nor were the horses forgotten. They were watered and fed, and if by this time the nature of the cavalcade had been recognized, there was no change in the man’s hospitable demeanor.

Not for an instant did Frank’s watchful attitude relax. While Mr. Mayne and the zemindar discoursed on the disturbed state of the country he snatched the opportunity to exchange a few tender words with Winifred. But his eyes and ears were alert, and he was the first to hear the advent of a large body of horses along the main road.

He stood up instantly, blew out a lantern which was placed on the ground for the benefit of himself and the others, and said quietly:

“A regiment of cavalry is approaching. We do not wish to be seen by them. Let no man stir or show a light until they have gone.”

He had the military trick of putting an emphatic order in the fewest and simplest words. A threat was out of the question, after the manner in which the party had been received, but it is likely that each native present felt that his life would not be of great value if he attempted to draw the attention of the passers-by to the presence of Europeans at the door of that secluded zemindari.

The tramp of horses’ feet and the jingle of arms and trappings could now be distinguished plainly. At first Winifred feared that they were troops sent in pursuit of them by the Nana, and she whispered the question:

“Are they from Cawnpore, Frank?”

“No,” he answered, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I cannot see them, but their horses are walking, so they cannot have come our way. They are cavalry advancing from the direction of Lucknow.”

“Perhaps they are marching to the relief of Cawnpore?”

“Let us hope so. But we must not risk being seen.”

“Your words are despondent, dear. Do you think the whole native army is against us?”

“I scarcely know what to think, sweetheart. Things look black in so many directions. Once we are in Lucknow, and able to hear what has really happened elsewhere, we shall be better able to judge.”

The ghostly squadrons clanked past, unseen and unseeing. When the road was quiet again Winifred and her small bodyguard remounted. The zemindar was not a man who would accept payment, so Mr. Mayne gave his servants some money. It may be that this Mohammedan gentleman wondered if he had acted rightly when the emissaries of the Nana scoured the country next day for news of the miss-sahib and two sahibs who rode towards Lucknow in the small hours of the morning. Being a wise man he held his peace. He had cast his bread upon the waters, and did not regret it, though he little reckoned on the return it would make after many days.

Reinvigorated by the excellent meal, the travelers found that their horses had benefited as greatly as they themselves by the food and brief rest.

They had no more adventures on the way. Winifred did not object to riding astride while it was dark, but she did not like the experience in broad daylight, and when they met a Eurasian in a tikka-gharry, or hired conveyance, in the environs of Lucknow, she was almost as delighted to secure the vehicle as to learn that the city, though disturbed, was “quite safe from mutiny.”

That was the man’s phrase, and it was eloquent of faith in the genius of Henry Lawrence.

“Quite safe!” he assured them, though they had only escaped capture by a detachment of rebel cavalry by the merest fluke three hours earlier.

They were standing opposite the gate of a great walled enclosure known as the Alumbagh, a summer retreat built by an old nawab for a favorite wife. And that was in June! In six short months Havelock would be lying there in his grave, and men would be talking from pole to pole of the wondrous things done at Lucknow, both by those who held it and those who twice relieved it.

“Quite safe!”

It was high time men ceased to use that phrase in India.

CHAPTER VIII

WHEREIN A MOHAMMEDAN FRATERNIZES WITH

A BRAHMIN

“We seem to be attracting a fair share of attention,” said Malcolm, as they crossed a bridge over the canal 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 substitution of pig’s lard.

It is believed too, that the passing 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 “snowball” petition 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 Handscombe 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 passed 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 leadership, reached Lucknow with comparative ease. Poor little Sophy Christian, aged three, having lost her mother in the massacre 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 hardships 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 circumstances. 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 assault 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 Yorkshire Trenholme, and it is said on Hambledon Moor that there were Trenholmes in Yorkshire 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 passing, constituted their love idyll, for Lawrence fell ill and his aides were kept busy, day and night, in passing 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 massacre 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 harassed 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 cluster 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 breasts 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 masse. 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 assault of the victorious mutineers.