Bagh was another walled-off area. That part of northern India is full of gardens and secluded areas. This one, though, was in a dilapidated state, its walls broken down in places because of the fighting which had already occurred there.
‘Lal and I had been on the move for about three hours now and I suppose we were growing a little tired and careless. Because we had so far encountered no trouble, we’d forgotten that we were crossing what was literally enemy territory. I was even regretting that I hadn’t had anything to eat before we started. I spotted a gap in a wall and, with gestures, indicated that we might rest up for a few moments. I scrambled through the gap. Lal followed, only more quietly. I walked forward and stepped on something soft, something that squealed. At first I thought it was an animal but the squeals were soon followed by curses and a man rose up before us in the open space beyond the wall. He must have been sleeping and was as surprised to see us as we were to see him.
‘I was frozen not with fear exactly but with uncertainty. I did not know what to do next. But Lal did. The moment he heard the noises he’d started to circle round the man and was now on his far side. The man opened his mouth — he was about to shout, to scream, to call for help — I could distinctly see the black hole of his mouth and a raggedy circle of teeth, dark as it was. He was about to shout, I say, and bring down ruin on both of us, when Lal clapped one hand over his gaping mouth and with the other seemed to punch the unfortunate fellow between the ribs. The man arched forward and toppled on to the ground, and Lal almost fell on top of him. He continued to strike at him and I realized that he was using not his fists but the dagger. The dagger with the ivory handle.
‘After a time the man lay still and Lal scrambled to his feet, though not before he’d wiped the blade on the dry grass. He was panting hard and muttering some words I couldn’t make out. I sensed rather than saw the fresh blood on his garments. We looked down at the prone body. I said something like “Well done.” He said that he had not meant to kill the man but that the dagger had a mind of its own. That’s how he expressed it, a mind of its own.
‘I glanced at the corpse. It crossed my mind that this might have been not one of the rebel sepoys neglecting his duties as a sentry but an innocent who’d lain down to sleep in the wrong place — a peasant or what they call a ryot over there.
‘But he was no innocent. From the far side of the wall there came cries of alarm and within moments we saw shapes on the other side of the gap. Lal and I took to our heels, dodging among the trees and looking for another way out of this enclosure. I risked a glance back and saw a few of them, now equipped with flaming torches, gathered about the fallen body of the sentry. There was a collective cry of rage and grief. We knew that if we were taken by the sepoys they’d show no mercy, particularly as my companion, a fellow Indian, was covered in the blood of the one he’d killed.
‘As I’ve said, the Char Bagh wall was pierced in plenty of places and we slithered through the next gap we came to, fast as rabbits. I’d lost my bearings by now, as you tend to if you’re being pursued by a crowd with murderous intentions. In fact the only idea in my head, apart from not falling into the hands of the sepoys, was to get rid of the pouch containing the letters and maps which I could feel knocking against my own ribs as I ran. Before we knew it we’d reached the edge of the area that had been flooded by the damning of the canal. Unawares we’d turned back in a northerly direction, the opposite one to the Alum Bagh route. Too late now!
‘The water stretched in front of us for several hundred yards. By luck, there were no signs of sepoys on the far side of the floodwater, or at least no camp fires. Behind us were our pursuers, their torches like angry fireflies. We could hear them crashing through the grass and brush. There was a crack as one of them loosed off a rifle shot. We didn’t need any more encouragement to wade out into the floodwater. It was no more than knee-high at first and very spongy underfoot. Altogether I thought it would not prove much of a deterrent to those behind us.
‘But of course we were soon out of our depth. While we’d been wading in I unfastened my pouch and I half scattered, half thrust the documents into the water as soon as it got deep enough. I reckoned whatever was on ’em would soon be erased by the water — which by the way was turbid and foul-smelling. The sheets of paper floated away under the stars. But by that stage I had other things to worry about. Lal was floundering, his head bobbing on the surface. He couldn’t swim of course and he was in a muck-sweat. The only mercy was that our pursuers weren’t minded to follow us into the water. I could see them clustering on the edge. I’m no mean swimmer myself but it was a struggle to get hold of Lal and avoid being dragged down with him. I managed it, though, after swallowing and spluttering out mouthfuls of filthy water while I was ordering him to keep still and allow himself to be saved — if I could do it!
‘As long as we’d been in difficulties, the watchers on the bank had done nothing, neither shouted, nor loosed off any shots. Perhaps they could see the shape of our heads regularly dipping underneath the water and must have been expecting us not to reappear. But when I started to pull strongly with one arm, cradling Lal with the other, they realized we might get away. They began to shoot and run up and down, shouting to attract attention on the side we were heading for. It was our great good fortune that their shots went wide and that we were opposite a vacant stretch of ground. The only way across was to swim since the bridge at Char Bagh was impassable. Lal and I struggled out, dripping and exhausted, and crawled into the shelter of some trees.
‘We couldn’t stay there. It would be getting light in two or three hours. We retraced our steps although this time on the inner side of the flooded canal. Again we were lucky because it was that point in the night when everyone is least alert, even those who have been tasked with keeping watch. We reached the half submerged Dilksuka Bridge and then made a sweep north and west, skirting Lucknow. It might have been a dead city, there was no movement, no sound except for the barking of the pye-dogs. Just as the first streaks of light were creeping into the eastern sky, the two of us were also creeping under the steep embankment by Secunder Bagh, knowing that the sepoys had fortified that area.
‘We nearly got ourselves shot on the edge of the stronghold around the Residency. Each corner of the defended area had a battery dug-in. By now there was enough light for the guard to see two bedraggled figures in native costume staggering towards his battery. He raised his rifle and shouted out to his sleeping companions and if I hadn’t called out in English, giving my name and rank, we might have fallen to a bullet from our own side. Anyway we were welcomed back and were soon fed, washed and changed as best as our straitened circumstances would allow.
‘Our mission had been a failure, a complete failure. I must say that Inglis was very decent about it. He patted me on the back just as he’d done before I set out, and praised me for having the presence of mind to destroy the documents I was carrying. “No harm done,” he said. “No good either,” I might have replied. And within a day or so, a second volunteer did manage to reach Alum Bagh to guide in the next relief column. He was a civilian although a soldier’s son, a fellow by the name of Thomas Kavanagh. He received a medal for his achievement, and well deserved it was too. The relief column broke through to Lucknow under Campbell and then the Residency was finally abandoned.’
Here Major Marmont paused and his expression took on the introspective look of earlier. Tom wondered whether he was thinking that that medal might have been his, if the mission had turned out right. But there was something else on his mind.
‘Before any of this happened, the relief and so on, I was back on my feet and ready to do my part in defending the depleted population in the Residency. But Lal was not so fortunate. He was a fit young man but he must have picked up something in that filthy canal as we were floundering across it in our escape from Char Bagh. I went to see him in the makeshift infirmary on the first floor of the Residency. I felt an obligation to him — I might have saved his life in the water, even if only for a brief time, but he had preserved mine first of all by killing the sentry. It was the end of the day when I visited the infirmary and the sun was a great ball of red above the horizon. The light burned through the tattered muslin screen over the window which was meant to keep out the bugs.
‘Lal was lying on a narrow cot, shaking and sweating profusely. His skin was a queer greenish tint and his eyes were wild. The doctor shook his head at me as I looked towards him. The doctor was a civilian but could have passed for a soldier for he had a brisk, clipped manner and used as few words as possible. Mind you, we never said much to each other. This doctor was no friend of mine. I mentioned to you, Mr Ansell, that my wife Padma was Indian. She was the girl I met in Lucknow. The doctor fancied himself a rival to me for the hand of this beautiful girl. Padma means lotus flower, you know. Thank God, she chose me — but that was later.
‘Anyway, on this occasion the doctor didn’t have to speak. Anyone would have known what that head-shake meant. It might have been different in a well-appointed hospital but here we were, under siege, without medicines.
‘I bent over Lal to offer him some words of comfort. He didn’t recognize me at first but then he seized my wrist and gabbled some words I couldn’t understand. Eventually I made them out. “It is fate,” he was saying. “It is
