try a run for Lucknow with Ilderim (God knew what state it might be in when we got there). A rapid, fearful calculation convinced me that there wasn't a better bet than to stick with this little madman, and pray to God he knew what he was doing. After all, Wheeler was a good man — I'd known him in the Sikh war — and Rowbotham was positive he'd hold out easily and be relieved before long.
'And that will be the end of this wicked, abominable insurrection,' says he, when we made camp that night ten miles closer to Cawnpore, with the distant northern sky lighting to the flashes of gunfire, rumbling away unceasingly. 'We know that our people are already investing Delhi, and must soon break down the rebel defences and pull that unclean creature who calls himself King off his traitor's throne — that will be to root out the mischief at its heart. Then, when Lawrence moves south from Lucknow, and our other forces push up the river, this nest of rebels about Cawnpore will be trapped; destroy them, and the thing is done. Then it will only remain to restore order, and visit a merited punishment upon these scoundrels; they must be taught such a lesson as will never be forgotten — aye, if we have to destroy them by tens of thousands —' he was away again on that fine, rising bray which reminded me of the hangings that afternoon; his troopers, round the camp-fire, growled enthusiastically ' - hundreds ofthousands, even. Nothing less will serve ifthis foulness is to be crushed once for all. Mercy will be folly — it will be construed as mere weakness.'
This sermon provoked a happy little discussion on whether, when all the mutineers had been rounded up, they should be blown from guns, or hanged, or shot. Some favoured burning alive, and others flogging to death; the chap in the straw hat was strong for crucifixion, I remember, but another fellow thought that would be blasphemous. They got quite heated about it — and before you throw up your hands in pious horror, remember that many of them had seen their own families butchered in the kind of circumstances I'd witnessed myself at Meerut, and were thirsting to pay the pandies back with interest, which was reasonable enough. Also, they were convinced that if they didn't make a dreadful example, it would lead to more outbreaks, and the slaughter of every white person in India — the fear of that, and the knowledge of the kind of wantonly cruel foe they were up against, hardened them as nothing else could have done.
It was all one to me, I may say; I was too anxious about coming safe into Cawnpore to worry about how they disposed of the mutineers — it seemed a trifle premature to me. They were the rummest lot, though; when they'd tired of devising means of execution they got into a great argument about whether hacking and carrying should be allowed in football, and as I was an old Rugby boy my support was naturally enlisted by the hackers — it must have been the strangest sight, when I come to think of it, me in my garb of hairy Pathan with poshteen and puggaree, maintaining that if you did away with scrimmaging you'd be ruining the manliest game there was (not that I'd go near a scrimmage if you paid me), and the white-bearded wallah, with the blood splashes still on his coat, denouncing the handling game as a barbarism. Most of the others joined in, on one side or the other, but there were some who sat apart brooding, reading their Bibles, sharpening their weapons, or just muttering to themselves; it wasn't a canny company, and I can get the shivers thinking about them now.
They could soldier, though; how Rowbotham had licked them into shape in less than a month (and where he'd got the genius from) beat me altogether, but you never saw anything more workmanlike than the way they disposed their march next day, with flank riders and scouts, a twenty-pound forage bag behind each saddle, all their gear and arms padded with cloth so that they didn't jingle, and even leather night-shoes for the horses slung on their cruppers. Pencherjevsky's Cossacks and Custer's scalp-hunters couldn't have made a braver show than that motley gang of clerks and counter jumpers that followed Rowbotham to Cawnpore.
We were coming in from the east, and since the pandy army was all concentrated close to Wheeler's stronghold and in the city itself, we got within two or three miles before Rowbotham said we must lie up in a wood and wait for dark. Before then, by the way, we'd pounced on an outlying pandy picket in a grove and killed two of them, taking three more prisoner: they were strung up on the spot. Two more stragglers were caught farther on, and since there wasn't a tree handy Rowbotham and the Sikh rissaldar cut their heads off. The Sikh settled his man with one swipe, but Rowbotham took three; he wasn't much with a sabre. (Ninety-three not out, as Cheeseman put it.)
We lay up in the stuffy, sweltering heat of the wood all afternoon, listening to the incessant thunder of the cannonading; one consolation was the regular crash of the artillery salvoes, which indicated that Wheeler's gunners were making good practice, and must still be well stocked with powder and shot. Even after nightfall they still kept cracking away, and one of the Sikhs, who had wormed his way up to within a quarter-mile of the entrenchment, reported that he had heard Wheeler's sentries singing out 'All's well!' regular as clockwork.
About two in the morning Rowbotham called us together and gave his orders. 'There is a clear way to the Allahabad road,' says he, 'but before we reach it we must bear right to come in behind the rebel gun positions, no more than half a mile from the entrenchment. At precisely four o'clock I shall fire a rocket, on which we shall burst out of cover and ride for the entrenchment at our uttermost speed; the sentries, having seen our rocket, will pass us through. The word is ‘Britannia’. Now, remember, for your lives, that our goal lies to the left of the church, so keep that tower always to your right front. Our rush will take us past the racecourse and across the cricket pitch —'
'Oh, I say!' says someone. 'Mind the wicket, though.'
` — and then we must put our horses to the entrenchment bank, which is four feet high. Now, God bless us all, and let us meet again within the lines or in Heaven.'
That's just the kind of pious reminder of mortality I like, I must say; while the rest of'em were shaking hands in the dark I was carefully instructing Ilderim that at all costs he must stick by my shoulder. I was in my normal state of chattering funk, and my spirits weren't raised as we were filing out of the wood and I heard someone whisper:
'I say, Jinks, what's the time?'
'Ten past three,' says Jinks, 'on the bright summer morning of June the twenty-second — and let's hope to God we see the twenty-third.'
June twenty-third; I knew that date — and suddenly I was back in the big panelled room at Balmoral, and Pam was saying '… the Raj will come to an end a hundred years after the battle of Plassey … next June twenty- third.' By George, there was an omen for you! And now all round was the gloom, and the soft pad of the walking horses, and the reins sweating in my palms as we advanced interminably, my eyes glued to the faint dark shape of the rider ahead; there was a mutter of voices as we halted, and then we waited in the stifling dark between two rows of ruined houses — five minutes, ten, fifteen, and then a voice called 'Ready, all!' There was the flare of a match, a curse, then a brighter glare, and suddenly a rush of sparks and an orange rocket shot up into the purple night sky, weaving like a comet, and as it burst to a chorus of cries and yells from far ahead Rowbotham shouts 'Advance!' and we dug in our heels and fairly shot forward in a thundering mass.
There was a clear space ahead, and then a grove of trees, and beyond more level ground with dim shapes moving. As we bore down on them I realised that they must be pandies; we were charging the rear of their positions, and it was just light enough to make out the guns parked at intervals. There were shrieks of alarm and a crackle of shots, and then we were past, swerving between the gun-pits; there were horsemen ahead and either side and Ilderim crouched low in the saddle at my elbow. He yelled something and pointed right, and I saw an irregular tumbled outline which must be the church; to its left, directly ahead, little sparks of light were flashing in the distance — the entrenchment defenders were firing to cover us.
Someone sang out: 'Bravo, boys!' and then all hell burst loose behind us; there was a crashing salvo of cannon, the earth ahead rose up in fountains of dust, and shot was whistling over our heads. A horse screamed, and I missed by a whisker a thrashing tangle of man and mount which I passed so close that a lashing limb caught me smack on the knee. Voices were roaring in the dark, I heard Rowbotham's frantic 'Close up! Ride for it!' A dismounted man plunged across my path and was hurled aside by my beast; behind me I heard the shriek of some-one mortally hit, and a riderless horse came neighing and stretching frantically against my left side. Another shattering volley burst from the guns in our rear, and that hellish storm swept through us — it was Balaclava all over again, and in the dark, to boot. Suddenly my pony stumbled, and I knew from the way he came up that he was hit; a stinging cloud of earth and gravel struck me across the face, a shot howled overhead, and Ilderim was sweeping past ahead of me.
'Stop!' I bawled. 'My screw's foundered! Stop, blast you — give me a hand!'
I saw his shadowy form check, and his horse rear; he swung round, and as my horse sank under me his arm swept me out of the saddle — by God, he was strong, that one. My feet hit the ground, but I had hold of his bridle, and for a few yards I was literally dragged along, with Ilderim above hauling to get me across the crupper. Someone
