WHY MALCOLM DID NOT WRITE
It was the saddest hour in Havelock's life when he decided that his
Invincibles must retreat. Yet, after another week's fighting, that
course was forced on him.
On July 25 he plunged fearlessly into Oudh, leaving a wide and rapid
river in his rear, with other rivers, canals, and fortified towns and
villages in front, on three sides swarms of determined enemies gathered
under the standards of Nana Sahib and the Oudh Taluqdars, and everywhere
a hostile if not actually mutinous peasantry.
With his usual daring, trusting to the unsurpassed elan of his troops,
he fought battles at Onao and Busseerutgunge. Then when the thunder of
the fighting was faintly heard by listeners in the Residency, Havelock
took thought and regretted that he had ventured to leave Cawnpore.
His force numbered about half the men who marched out of Allahabad on
the 7th. Cholera had broken out; stores were scanty; there was not a
single litter for another wounded man; and, worst of all, ammunition was
failing. To advance farther meant the total destruction of his little
army, the sure and instant fall of the Residency, and the disappearance
of the British flag from an enormous territory.
Yet he hesitated before he gave the final order. He fell back a couple
of marches and wrote to Neill on the 31st that he could "do nothing for
the relief of Lucknow," until he received a re-enforcement of a thousand
men and a new battery.
Neill, who was holding Cawnpore with three hundred rifles, returned the
most amazing reply that ever a subordinate officer addressed to his
chief.
"The natives don't believe you have won any real victories," he wrote,
in effect. "Your retreat has destroyed the prestige of England. While
you are waiting for re-enforcements that cannot arrive Lucknow will be
lost. You must advance again and not halt until you have rescued the
garrison. Then return here sharp, as there is much to be done between
this and Agra and Delhi."
Neill's zeal outran his discretion. Havelock told him in plain language
his opinion of this curious epistle.
"Your letter is the most extraordinary I have ever perused," he said....
"Consideration of the obstruction which would arise in the public
service alone prevents me from placing you under immediate arrest. You
now stand warned. Attempt no further dictation."
Yet Neill's advice rankled and there were men on Havelock's staff who
agreed with the outspoken Irishman. Neill, however, coolly bottled his
wrath and sent on a company of the 84th and three guns.
They brought despatches from Sir Patrick Grant, Commander-in-Chief at
Calcutta, telling Havelock that the troops sent from the capital had
been turned aside to deal with mutineers in Behar.
The gallant Crimean veteran therefore hardened his heart, set out once
more for Lucknow and fought another most successful battle at
Busseerutgunge. There could be no questioning either the victory or its
cost. Another such success and his column would not number a half
battalion.
That night he watched the weary soldiers digging graves for their fallen
comrades, and, while his brain was torn with conflicting problems, a spy
brought news that the powerful Gwalior Contingent was marching to seize
Cawnpore. He hesitated no longer. As a general he had no right to be
swayed by emotion. He must protect Cawnpore as a base and trust to the
fortune of war that Lucknow might keep the flag flying.
Malcolm was with him when he formed this resolution. Outwardly cold, Sir
Henry seemed to his youthful observer, who now knew him better, to
resemble a volcano coated with ice.
"Major," he said, "the column will retreat at daybreak. But I will get
my other aides to make arrangements. Are you quite recovered from your
wound? Are you capable of undergoing somewhat severe exertion, I mean?"
Frank answered modestly that he thought he had never been better in
health or strength, though he wondered inwardly what sort of exertion
could be more "severe" than his experiences of the preceding three
weeks.
But Havelock knew what he was talking about, as shall be seen.
"I want you to make the best of your way to Delhi," he said in his
unbending way. "I leave details to you, except that I would like you to
start to-night if possible. Of course any kind of escort that is
available would be fatal to your success, but, if I remember his record
rightly, that servant of yours may be useful. I do not propose to give
you any despatches. If you get through tell the Commander-in-Chief in
the Punjab exactly how we are situated here. Tell him Lucknow will not
be relieved for nearly two months, but that I will hold Cawnpore till
the last man falls. I hope and trust you may be spared to make the
journey in safety. If you succeed you will receive a gratuity and a step
in rank. Good-by!"
He held out his hand, and his calm eyes kindled for a moment. Then Frank
found himself walking to his tent and reviewing all that this meant to
Winifred and himself. He was none the less a brave man if his lips
trembled somewhat and there came a tightening of the throat that
suspiciously resembled a sob.
Two months! Could a delicate girl live so long in another such Inferno
at Lucknow as he had seen in Wheeler's abandoned entrenchment at
Cawnpore?
"God help us both!" he murmured bitterly, passing a hand involuntarily
over his misty eyes. With the action he brushed away doubt and fears. He
was a soldier again, one to whom hearing and obedience were identical.
"Chumru," he said, when he found his domestic scratching mud off a coat
with his nails for lack of a clothes-brush, "we set out for Delhi
to-night, you and I."
"All right, sahib," was the unexpected parry to this astounding thrust,
and Chumru kept on with his task.
"It is a true thing," said Malcolm, who knew full well that the
Mohammedan understood the extraordinary difficulty of such a mission.
"It is the General-sahib's order, and he wishes you to go with me. Will
you come?"
"Huzoor, have you ever gone anywhere without me since you came to my hut
that night when I was stricken with smallpox--"
"Only once, you rascal, and then you came after me to my great good
fortune. Very well, then; that is settled. Stop raising dust and listen.
We ride to-night. Let us discuss the manner of our traveling, for 'tis a
long road and full of mischief."
Chumru laid aside the garment and tickled his wiry hair underneath his
turban.
"By the Kaaba," he growled, "such roads lead to Jehannum more easily
than to Delhi. Do you go to the Princess Roshinara, sahib?"
Malcolm's overwrought feelings found vent in a hearty laugh.
"What fiend tempted thee to think of her, owl?" he cried.
"Nay, sahib, no fiend other than a woman. What else would bring your
honor to Delhi? Is there not occupation here in plenty?"
"I tell thee, image, that the General-sahib hath ordered it. And I am
making for the British camp on the Ridge, not for the city."
Chumru dismissed the point. He was a fatalist and he probably reserved
his opinion. Malcolm had beguiled the long night after they left Rai
Bareilly with the story of his strange meetings with the King's
daughter. To the Eastern mind there was Kismet in such happenings.
"I would you had not lost Bahadur Shah's pass, huzoor," he said. "That
would be worth a bagful of gold mohurs on the north road now. But, as
matters stand, we must fall back on walnut juice. You have blue eyes and
fair hair, alack, yet must we--"
"What! Wouldst thou make me a brother of thine?" demanded Malcolm,
understanding that the walnut juice was intended to darken his skin.
"There is no other way, huzoor. This is no ride of a night. We shall be
seven days, let us go at the best, and meeting budmashes at every mile.
If you did not talk Urdu like one of us, sahib, I should bid you die
here in peace rather than fall in the first village. Still, we may have
luck, and you can bandage your hair and forehead and swear that those
cursed Feringhis nearly cut your scalp off. But you must be rubbed all
over, sahib, until you are the color of brown leather, for we can have
no patches of white skin showing where, perchance, your garments are
rent."
Malcolm saw the wisdom of the suggestion and fell in with it. While
Chumru went to compound walnut juice in the nearest bazaar, he, in
pursuance of the plan they had concocted together, got a native writer
to compile a letter which purported to emanate from Nana Sahib, and was
addressed to Bahadur Shah. It was a very convincing document. Malcolm
contributed a garbled history of recent events, and one of the Brahmin's
seals, which came into Havelock's possession when Cawnpore was occupied,
lent verisimilitude to the script.
Then the Englishman covered himself with an oily compound that Chumru
assured him would darken his skin effectually before morning, though the
present effect was more obvious to the nose than to the eye. Chumru
donned his rissaldar Brahmin's uniform and Malcolm secured a similar
outfit from a native officer on the staff. Well-armed and well-mounted
the pair crossed the Ganges north of Bithoor, gained the Grand Trunk
Road and were far from the British column when they drew rein for their
first halt of more than an hour's duration.
They had adventures galore on the road to Delhi, but Chumru's repertory
of oaths anent the Nazarenes, and Malcolm's dignified hauteur as a
messenger of the man who ranked higher in the native world than the
octogenarian king, carried them through without grave risk. True, they
had a close shave or two.
Once a suspicious sepoy who knew every native officer in the 7th
Cavalry, to which corps "Rissaldar Ali Khan" was supposed to belong, had
to be quietly choked to death within earshot of a score of his own
comrades who were marching to the Mogul capital. On another occasion, a
moulvie, or Mohammedan priest, was nearly the cause of their undoing.
Malcolm was not sufficiently expert in the ritual of the Reka and this
shortcoming aroused the devotee's ire, but he was calmed by Chumru's
assurance that his excellent friend, Laiq Ahmed, was still suffering
from the wound inflicted by the condemned Giaours, and the storm blew
over.
These incidents simply served to enliven a tedious journey. Its main
features were climatic discomfort and positive starvation. Rain storms,
hot winds, sweltering intervals of intolerable heat--these were vagaries
of nature and might be endured. But the absence of food was a more
serious matter. The passage to and fro of rebel detachments had
converted the Grand Trunk Road into a wilderness. The sepoys paid for
nothing and looted Mohammedans and Hindus alike. After two months of
constant pilfering the unhappy ryots had little left. For the most part
they deserted their hovels, gathered such few valuables as had escaped
the human locusts who devoured their substance, and either retreated to
remote villages or boldly sought a living in some other province.
Indeed, it may be said in all candor that the Mutiny caused far more
misery to the great mass of the people than to the foreign rulers
against whom it was supposed to be directed. The sufferings of the
English residents in India were terrible and the treatment meted out to
them was unspeakably vile, but for one English life sacrificed during
the country's red year there were five hundred natives killed by the
very men who professed to defend their interests.
Malcolm and Chumru were given proof in plenty of this fact as they rode
along. Generations of local feuds had taught the villagers to construct
their rude shanties in such wise that any place of fairly large
population formed a strong fort. Where the ryots were collected in
sufficient numbers to render such a proceeding possible, they armed
themselves not only against the British but against all the world.
Many times the travelers were fired at by men who took them for sepoys,
and they often found active hostilities in progress between a party of
desperate rebels who wanted food and a horde of sturdy villagers who
refused to treat with men in any sort of uniform.
Still, they managed to live. In the fields they found ripening grain and
an abundance of that small millet or pulse-pea known as gram, which is
the staple food of horses in India. Occasionally Malcolm shot a peacock,
but shooting birds with a revolver is a difficult sport and wasteful of
ammunition. Where hares were plentiful Chumru seldom failed to snare one
during the night. These were feast days. At other times they chewed
millet and were thankful for small mercies.
The journey occupied nearly twice the time of their original estimate.
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
assured that the foreign rule had passed 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
identity, 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 assume 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 Lahore, and there was a rumor of a
sortie from Delhi to cut it off."
Malcolm fresh from association 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 shirt 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 hell-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 naivete 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 Massacre
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 nonentities who held
power and place at the outbreak of hostilities.
Then some one passed 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 assemblage 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 shire, and Britain's mixed heritage in the East sent a bewildering
variety of types. Small, compactly built Ghoorkahs hobnobbed with
stalwart Highlanders; lively Irishmen made friends of gaunt, saturnine
Pathans; bearded Sikhs extended grave courtesies to pert-nosed Cockneys;
"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 passed in that fashion 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.
The British soldier, who has fought and bled in so many lands, showed
his remarkable adaptability to circumstances by the way in which he made
himself at home on the reverse slope of the Ridge. A compact town had
sprung up there with its orderly lines of huts and tents, its long rows
of picketed horses, commissariat bullocks and elephants, its churches,
hospitals, playgrounds, race-course and cemetery.
Malcolm took in the general scheme of things while he walked along the
Ridge towards the most advanced picket at Hindu Rao's House. On the left
front lay Delhi, beautiful as a dream in the brilliant sunshine. The
intervening valley was scarred and riven with water-courses, strewn with
rocks, covered with ruined mosques, temples, tombs, and houses, and
smothered in an overgrowth of trees, shrubs, and long grasses. Roads
were few, but tortuous paths ran everywhere, and it was easy to see how
the rebels could steal out unobserved during the night and creep close
up to the pickets before they revealed their whereabouts by a burst of
musketry. Happily they never learnt to reserve their fire. Every man
would blaze away at the first alarm, and then, of course, in those days
of muzzle-loaders, the more resolute British troops could get to close
quarters without serious loss. Still the men who held the Ridge had many
casualties, and until Nicholson came the rebel artillery was infinitely
more powerful than the British. Behind his movable column, however,
marched a strong siege train. When that arrived the gunners could make
their presence felt. Thus far not one of the enemy's guns had been
dismounted.
Frank had ocular proof of their strength in this arm before he
reached Hindu Rao's house. The Guides, picturesque in their loose,
gray-colored shirts and big turbans, sent one of their cavalry squadrons
over the Ridge on some errand. They moved at a sharp canter, but the
Delhi gunners had got the range and were ready, and half a dozen
eighteen-pound balls crashed into the trees and rocks almost in the
exact line of advance. A couple of guns on the British right took up the
challenge, and the duel went on long after the Guides were swallowed up
in the green depths of the valley.
At last Malcolm stood in the shelter-trench of the picket and gazed at
the city which was the hub of the Mutiny. Beyond the high, red-brick
walls he saw the graceful dome and minarets of the Jumma Musjid, while
to the left towered the frowning battlements of the King's palace. To
the left again, and nearer, was the small dome of St. James's Church
with its lead roof riddled then, as it remains to this day, with the
bullets fired by the rebels in the effort to dislodge the ball and cross
which surmounted it. For the rest his eyes wandered over a noble array
of mosques and temples, flat-roofed houses of nobles of the court and
residences of the wealthy merchants who dwelt in the imperial city.
The far-flung panorama behind the walls had a curiously peaceful aspect.
Even the puffs of white smoke from the guns, curling upwards like tiny
clouds in the lazy air, had no tremors until a heavy shot hurtled
overhead or struck a resounding blow at the already ruined walls of the
big house near the post.
The 61st were on picket that day and one of the men, speaking with a
strong Gloucestershire accent, said to Malcolm:
"Well, zur, they zay we'll be a-lootin' there zoon."
"I hope so," was the reply, but the phrase set him a-thinking.
Within that shining palace most probably was a woman to whom he owed his
life. In another palace, many a hundred miles away, was another woman
for whom he would willingly risk that life if only he could save her
from the fate that the private of the 61st was gloating over in
anticipation.
What a mad jumble of opposites was this useless and horrible war! At any
rate why could not women be kept out of it and let men adjust their
quarrel with the stern arbitrament of sword and gun!
Then he recalled Chumru's words anent the Princess Roshinara, and the
fancy seized him that if he were destined to enter Delhi with the
besiegers he would surely strive to repay the service she had rendered
Winifred and Mayne and himself at Bithoor.
That is the way man proposes and that is why the gods smile when they
dispose of man's affairs.