Guns to the Far East (3 page)

“Look, Augusta—” the Admiral's voice broke into Lady Hazard's troubled thoughts. “There's a carriage stopping and … damme, if it's not Lord George Melgund of the Foreign Office! Haven't seen him for over a year—ran into him at the St James's the night Phillip's award of the Victoria Cross was gazetted and we had a glass of champagne together, to celebrate.”

“Lord George Melgund?” Lady Hazard echoed uncertainly. A footman had jumped down from the box to lower the steps of the carriage which had halted just in front of them and she studied the tall, good looking, grey-haired man who descended from it, top hat in hand. “I don't think I—”

“Nonsense, m'dear, of course you remember him,” her husband reproached her. “Gave him passage to Rio in the
Hogue,
when he was Third Secretary at our Embassy there. Told you all about him, I'm quite sure. He went back in '48, as Chargé d'Affaires under Howden. Phillip met him then, when the
Maeander
called at Rio, on passage to the East Indies.” He rose, smiling, to his feet, his own hat doffed, all trace of his earlier weariness gone. “Good day to you, Lord George!”

The newcomer extended his hand. “Admiral … I thought I recognised you! And Lady Hazard.” He bowed, and added, gesturing to the waiting carriage, “Permit me to offer you a lift.”

He ushered them into the luxuriously appointed vehicle, brushing aside the Admiral's protestations. “My dear sir, it is on my way, I assure you. And a coincidence I can't ignore, meeting you like this, on what must be a very proud day for you both. Your son was decorated by Her Majesty, was he not?”

“Unhappily, no,” the Admiral admitted with regret. The coachman whipped up his horses and, as they rejoined the procession, Lady Hazard gave a brief explanation of Phillip's absence.

Lord George Melgund listened sympathetically. “Back with Henry Keppel is he … and seemingly on his way to another war? I can understand how you must feel, dear lady—my heart goes out to you. I recall most vividly the occasion when
I
saw young Phillip off to the Crimea.”

“
You
saw him off?” the Admiral queried.

“Yes, indeed, Admiral. From Paddington Station, in March of '54. I handed over to his escort a member of the Russian Royal family, a charming young Archduchess, a niece of the Tsar, whose presence in this country had somehow been overlooked.” Lord George smiled reminiscently. “We had to send her back as fast as we could, before hostilities broke out, so she and her governess were given passage in the
Trojan.
She was finally delivered—by another ship, I believe—to Odessa, under a flag of truce, just before the declaration of war reached the Fleet.”

“Good Gad!” Admiral Hazard exclaimed. “The mysterious female passengers Phillip was waiting for when I dropped him off at Paddington! His ‘Mademoiselle Sophie,' Augusta … at first, he mentioned her often in his letters and then”—he shrugged—“not a word about her. Even when he came home on leave, he never spoke of her, did he?”

“No,” Augusta Hazard confirmed, her interest quickening. She had always wondered about Mademoiselle Sophie. Phillip was not, as a rule, secretive where his friends and acquaintances were concerned and his sudden silence had puzzled her. Socially, of course, a Russian Archduchess could scarcely be described as a friend but … She leaned forward in her seat. “Do you, by any chance, know what happened to the Archduchess, Lord George?”

Lord George Melgund smiled. “Oddly enough, I do, Lady Hazard. She married, soon after reaching Odessa. She had been betrothed in childhood to the Prince Andrei Narishkin but he was killed at Balaclava, I understand, and died in the British camp leaving Sophia Mihailovna tragically widowed. As possibly you are aware, I returned to St Petersburg with the Peace Mission last year and I saw her there. Only once and that almost by chance. The Princess told me that she had a son, born after her husband's death and she asked me, quite seriously, if—as a favour to her—I could arrange for the boy to enter the Royal Navy when he was old enough for a cadetship. Her voyage out in the
Trojan
must have impressed her very favourably, I can only suppose.”

“Best training in the world for any boy,” the Admiral said, with conviction. “Whoever he is … I trust you acceded to the lady's request, Melgund?”

“I told her I was sure that it could be arranged. There's time yet—the boy's only about two years old.”

“It was a strange request,” Lady Hazard said thoughtfully. “Strange for a niece of the Tsar to make. Russia has her own Navy and, after so bitter a war, one would hardly imagine …” Catching her husband's eye, she broke off and Lord George put in smoothly, “We are at peace with Russia under her new Tsar now, Lady Hazard, and pray God it will be a lasting peace. Not that
we'll
be allowed to enjoy it for very long, alas! Undeterred by Admiral Seymour's attack on Canton last November, Commissioner Yeh grows in insolence and appears to be spoiling for a fight with us.”

“Pah!” The Admiral snorted his contempt. “Junks and gingalls will be no match for our gunboats. They weren't in '42, as I know from firsthand experience. Once Lord Elgin gets to Hong Kong and starts things moving, Yeh will be kowtowing for all he's worth, mark my words.”

“True, Admiral … but the news from India is becoming increasingly grave, you know. The Governor-General, Lord Canning, is recalling troops from Burma and Persia and now he's requested that those on their way to China should be diverted to his aid in India.”

“Will he get them, d'you suppose?” the Admiral asked.

Melgund shrugged. “He will if Disraeli gets his way, certainly … and the House listens to him.
He
takes a graver view of the Indian crisis than the Government does and his last speech stirred up a good deal of feeling. John Russell really couldn't answer him. My own view is that Canning is yielding to panic. He's only just gone to India and …” He embarked on a lengthy dissertation on the possible consequences if troops were diverted from China, to which the Admiral offered well-informed comment and the assurance that, with or without additional troops, the Royal Navy could deal with Commissioner Yeh.

Their conversation involved strategic technicalities which had little meaning for Lady Hazard so, as the carriage turned into Kensington High Street and gathered speed, she leaned back against the well-padded upholstery, still giving the appearance of an attentive listener, but in fact, busy with her own thoughts. Her anxiety had been in no way allayed by Lord George Melgund's earlier observations. The situation in India must be very bad indeed, she reflected unhappily, for Lord Canning to request the diversion of troops intended for China. He, after all, was the man on the spot and as Governor-General, the one on whom the responsibility rested, and if the astute and far-seeing Benjamin Disraeli supported his request—even from the Opposition benches—the Prime Minister and his Colonial Secretary, Lord John Russell, would have to give it serious consideration.

The news that Delhi had been seized by mutinous sepoy regiments from Meerut, early in May, had only recently been received in detail and reported in the London newspapers. All England had been stunned and shocked when it was revealed that British civil and military officers of the East India Company—in many cases with their wives and children—had been savagely murdered in both cities and that, in Delhi, a wholesale massacre of native Christians had taken place as a ghastly prelude to the restoration of the King of Delhi to the throne of his Mogul ancestors.

Public opinion had been outraged as never before, even dignitaries of the Church joining in the demands for retribution and the severe punishment of the miscreants when letters, sent by overland mail, told of Christian places of worship desecrated and put to the torch in what, it seemed, the mutineers claimed was a holy war in defence of their own heathen beliefs. Moslem and Hindu, the enemies of centuries, had united together in the Bengal Presidency's Army with the avowed intent of ridding all India of her Christian rulers, and their initial success in taking Delhi—achieved by treachery— had dealt a very serious blow to British authority and prestige.

But that, the leader-writers insisted, was all the outbreak had done. Whilst not attempting to minimise the crime of mutiny, few of the influential journals had suggested that India was in serious danger of anarchy—many indeed, had criticised Disraeli for taking such a view, stating that he had no shadow of justification for so doing and even hinting that his motives were political. Delhi, the newspapers asserted, must at all costs be retaken and the self-styled Emperor deposed without delay. He was in his eighties, senile and almost certainly a puppet, who posed no real threat to the Company's rule. The Commander-in-Chief, General Anson, was reported by telegraph to be marching at the head of a European force for the purpose of driving the mutineers from Delhi. News of his death from cholera on 27th May had been followed by that of the appointment of General Barnard in his place and there was jubilation when it was learned that the new Commander-in-Chief had continued to march and, after defeating the rebels at the Hindan River, was now preparing to lay siege to Delhi.

Barnard was an experienced Crimean General; he would make short work of the siege, most of the newspapers agreed and, when Delhi was once again in British hands, the attempted mutiny would come to a swift and final end. It was the rebellion of a few disgruntled regiments, whose soldiers— drawn mainly from Oudh and resentful of the recent annexation of their corrupt and ill-governed kingdom—had stirred up trouble. An example would have to be made of them; innocent blood had been shed and mutiny was a crime punishable by death. It was even possible, one Whig newspaper declared, that the whole of the Bengal native army might have to be disbanded and … Augusta Hazard stifled a sigh. Until now she had believed all she had read on the leader-pages and in the news reports but now her faith was shaken, although … She glanced uneasily at Lord George Melgund and this time made no attempt to stifle her sigh. The most recent letters from her daughters had been calm and reassuring but they had been written almost six weeks ago and much could have happened in the interim.

The elder, Harriet, was in Sitapur—one of the Oudh out-stations some sixty miles north of Lucknow—where her husband was a regimental Commander and which, Lady Hazard knew, had an entirely native garrison. According to Harriet, all the native regiments were behaving perfectly and, although news of the Meerut outbreak and the loss of Delhi had reached the station, all the officers continued to repose complete confidence in the loyalty of their men. “
If the worst should happen, Sir Henry Lawrence has given instructions that we are to repair to Lucknow,”
Harriet had written.
“Of course, we are all horrified by what has happened in Delhi but here, I feel sure, all will be well …”
Please God she was right, her mother prayed silently. Please God that she and dear Jemmy and their three little ones would be safe …

She was no less anxious about her daughter Lavinia, who was married to an officer of the Queen's 32nd. The regiment had moved from Cawnpore to Lucknow and, although Lavinia's last letter had been written from Cawnpore, she wrote that she and her husband were expecting to follow the rest within a week or so. Tom had gone down with an attack of fever—not serious, she hastened to add, but somewhat debilitating—so they had remained with the regiment's invalids until he should recover sufficiently to return to duty.
“In any case, dearest Mamma”
the letter had ended,
“you need not worry about us. General Wheeler is making preparations for the defence of this station and two large buildings—one of them a hospital— are in readiness, with an entrenchment being constructed round them. They are close to the Allahabad road, and, should it become necessary, all the Europeans are to gather within the entrenchment, with our men and the gunners and reinforcements we are expecting from Allahabad to guard against a surprise attack. The Maharajah of Bithur, whose people call him the Nana Sahib (it means ‘grandfather')—a most civilised man and a close friend of General and Lady Wheeler—has promised the aid of his troops should the sepoys here become disaffected.

“So we are in no danger, even if we have to stay here—and Tom doesn't think we shall. Sir Henry Lawrence wants the whole regiment in Lucknow and I, of course, would like to be there in time for the happy event we are expecting at the end of July, especially if Harriet should decide to join us, as Jemmy is urging her to …”

Tom and Lavinia had, as yet, no children but Lavinia had mentioned—almost casually in an earlier letter—the “happy event” they were expecting and Augusta Hazard added a prayer for them on this account. Giving birth to a baby in India could be fraught with difficulties but both Cawnpore and Lucknow were large stations, with European hospitals staffed by experienced civil and military surgeons. It was foolish to worry. Lavinia had urged her not to; she was a strong and healthy girl and Tom, of course, was the most devoted of husbands and could be relied upon to look after her.

There had been telegraphic reports, received via Lucknow and Agra, that Cawnpore was under attack by mutineers but, as yet, no official confirmation and all the newspapers had stressed the speed with which reinforcements were being rushed up country by road, river, and the partially completed railway from Calcutta. One entire regiment of the Company's European Fusiliers had been sent to augment the Cawnpore garrison and—after what was described as “restoring order” in Benares—had already entered Allahabad. If what Lavinia had written about General Wheeler's preparations for the defence of the station were true, then surely they would have little difficulty in holding out until the Fusiliers reached them? In any case, both Lavinia and Harriet were probably in Lucknow by this time, Lady Hazard told herself—in Lucknow, with a British regiment and under the care of that wise and widely respected man, Sir Henry Lawrence. They … the Admiral gave vent to a smothered exclamation.