women and kids back ashore — all the world knows what happened after that. But only a few things are clear about our trip down-river — Thomson has left a pretty full account of it, if you're interested. I remember Whiting dying — or rather I remember him being dead, looking very pale and small in the bows of the boat. I remember taking a turn at the rudder, and splashing and straining in the water when we grounded on a mudbank in the dark. I remember hearing drums beating on the bank, and Vibart biting on a leather strap as they set his broken arm, and the dull splashes as we put dead bodies over the side, and the musty taste of dry mealies which was all we had to eat — but the first time that memory becomes consecutive and coherent after East died was when a fire-arrow came winging out of the dark and thudded into the deck, and we were shooting away at dim figures on the nearest bank, and fire-arrows came down in a blazing rain as we hauled on the sweeps and forced the barge back into mid-stream out of range. We rowed like fury until the fiery pinpoints of light on the bank were far behind us, and the yelling and drumming of the niggers had died away, and then we flopped down exhausted and the current carried us and landed us high and dry on another mudbank just before dawn.
This time there was no shoving off; we were wedged tight in the mud, along a deserted jungly shore, with nothing to be heard but monkeys chattering and birds screeching in the dense undergrowth. The far bank was the same, a thick mass of green, with the brown oily river sliding slowly past. At least it looked peaceful, which was i pleasant change.
Vibart reckoned we must still be a hundred miles from Allahabad, and if the behaviour of the niggers who'd showered us with fire-arrows was anything to go by, we could count on hostile country most of the way. There were two dozen of us in the boat, perhaps half of whom were fit to stand; we were low on powder and ball, and desperately short of mealies, there were no medical supplies, and it was odds half the wounded would contract gangrene unless we reached safety quickly. Not a pleasant prospect, thinks I, as I looked round the squalid barge, with its dozen wounded groaning or listless on the planks, the stench of blood and death everywhere, and even the whole men looking emaciated and fit to croak. I was in better case than most -- I hadn't been through the whole siege — and it was crossing my mind that I might do worse than slip away on my own and trust to luck and judgement to get to Allahabad on foot; after all, I could always turn into a native again.
So when we held our little council, I prepared the way for decamping, in my own subtle style. The others, naturally, were all debating how we might get refloated again and press on to Allahabad; I shook them up by suddenly growling that I was in no hurry to get there.
'I agree we must get the barge refloated to take the wounded on,' says I. 'For the rest of us — well, for me, leastways, I'd sooner head back for Cawnpore.'
They gaped at me in disbelief. 'You're mad!' cries Delafosse.
'So I've been told,' says I. 'See here — while we had the women and children to think of, they were our first concern. That's the only reason we surrendered, isn't it? Well, now they're … either gone, or captives of those fiends — I don't much fancy running any longer.' I looked as belligerent as I knew how. 'There hasn't been much time to think things out these past hours — but now, well, I reckon I've a score to settle — and the only place I want to settle it is Cawnpore.'
'But … but …' says Thomson, 'we can't go back, man! It's certain death!'
'Maybe,' says I, very business-like. 'But I've seen my country's flag hauled down once — something I never thought to see — I've seen us betrayed, our … our loved ones ravished from us …' I managed a manly glisten about the eye. 'I don't like it above half! So — I'm going back, and I'm going to get a bullet into that black bastard's heart — I don't care how! And — that's that.'
'By God!' says Delafosse, taking fire, 'by God — I've half a mind to come with you!'
'You'll do no such thing!' This was Vibart; he was deathly pale, with both arms useless, but he was still in command. 'Our duty is to reach Allahabad — Colonel Flashman, I forbid you! I will not have your life flung away in … in this rash folly! You will carry out General Wheeler's orders -
'Look, old fellow,' says I. 'I was never one of General Wheeler's command, you recollect? I don't ask anyone to come with me — but I left a friend dead back there — a comrade from the old Afghan days — a salt man from the hills. Well, maybe I'm more of a salt man than a parade soldier myself — anyway, I know what I must do.' I gave him a quizzical little grin, and patted his foot. 'Anyway, Vibart, I'm senior to you, remember?'
At this they cried out together, telling me not to be a fool, and Vibart said I couldn't desert our wounded. He wanted to send a shore-party, to try to find friendly villagers who would tow us off; I was best fitted to lead it, he said, and my first duty was to carry out Wheeler's dying wishes, and get down-river. I seemed to hesitate, and finally said I would lead the shore-party —'but you'll be going to Allahabad without me in the end,' says I. 'All I'll need is a rifle and a knife — and a handshake from each one of you.'
So we set off, a dozen of us, to try to find a friendly village. If we found one, and the prospects of getting off for Allahabad seemed good, I'd allow myself to be persuaded, and go along with them. If we didn't — I'd slip away, and they could imagine I'd gone back to Cawnpore on my mission of vengeance. (That's one thing about having a reckless reputation: they'll believe anything of you, and shake their heads in admiration over your dare-devilry.)
We hadn't gone five minutes into the jungle before I was wishing to God I'd been able to stay in the boat. It wasn't very thick stuff, once we got away from the river, but eery and curiously quiet, with huge tall trees shadowing a forest-floor of creeper and swampy plants, like a great cathedral, and only the occasional tree-creature chirruping in the silence. We struck a little path, and followed it, and presently came on a tiny temple in a clearing, a lath-and-plaster thing that looked as though it hadn't been visited in years. I )clafossc and Sergeant Grady scouted it, and reported it empty, and I was just ordering up the others when we heard it — very low and far-off in the forest: the slow boom-boom of drums.
I don't know any sound like it for shivering the soul. I've heard it in Dahomey, when the Amazons were after us, and in South American backwaters, and on a night on the Papar River in Borneo when the Iban head-hunters took the warpath — the muted rumble of doom that conjures up spectres with painted faces creeping towards you through the dark. They're usually damned real spectres, too — as they were here, for I'd barely given my order when there was a whistle and a thud, and Grady, on the edge of the clearing, was staggering with an arrow in his brow, and with a chorus of blood-chilling screams they were on us — black, half-naked figures swarming out of the trees, yelling bloody murder. I snapped off one shot — God knows where it went — and then I was haring for the temple. I made it a split second ahead of two arrows which quivered in the doorpost, and then we were tumbling inside, with Delafosse and Thomson crouched in the doorway, blazing away as hard as they could.
They came storming up to the doorway in a great rabble, and for the next five minutes it was as bloody and desperate a melee as ever I've been in. We were so packed in the tiny space inside the building — it wasn't more than eight feet square, and about that number of us had got inside — that only two of us could fire through the door at once. Whoever the attackers were — half-human jungle people, apparently, infected by the general Mutiny madness — they didn't appear to have fire-arms, and the foremost of them were shot down before they could get close enough to use their spears and long swords. But their arrows buzzed in like hornets, and two of our fellows went down before the attack slackened off We were just getting our breath back, and I was helping Thomson push an arrow through and out of the fleshy part of Private Murphy's arm — and all the time we could hear our besiegers grunting and fumbling stealthily close under the temple wall — when Delafosse suddenly whoops out 'Fire, fire! They've set the place alight!'
Sure enough, a gust of smoke came billowing in the doorway, setting us coughing and stumbling; a fire-arrow came zipping in to bury itself in Private Ryan's side, and the yells of the niggers redoubled triumphantly. I staggered through the reek, and Thomson was clutching my arm, shouting:
'Must break out … two volleys straight in front … run for it…'
It was an affair of split seconds; there wasn't time to think or argue. He and Delafosse and two of the privates stumbled to the door, Thomson yells 'Fire!', they all let blast together, and then we put our heads down and went charging out of the temple, with the flames licking up behind us, and drove in a body across the clearing for the shelter of the jungle. The niggers shrieked at the sight of us, I saw the man before me tumble down with a spear in his back, I cannoned into a black figure and he fell away, and then we were haring through the trees, my musket was gone, and no thought but flight. Delafosse was in front of me; I followed him as he swerved on to the path, with the arrows whipping past us; booted feet were thumping behind me, and Thomson was shouting, 'On, on — we can distance 'em! — come on, Murphy, Sullivan — to the boat!'
How we broke clear, God knows — the very suddenness with which we'd rushed from the temple must have surprised them — but we could hear their yells in the jungle behind, and they weren't giving up the hunt, either. My
