The Cannons of Lucknow (25 page)

“We could end the custom of having the Last Post sounded at funerals, sir,” Harry suggested practically. “Constant repetition becomes somewhat depressing. And how about General Neill's reprisals at the Bibigarh? From what I can gather they, too, are constantly repeated and they're not doing us much good in the eyes of the native population.”

A steely glint lit General Havelock's grey eyes. “Yes, indeed—those are most timely suggestions. Perhaps, dear boy, you would be so good as to send General Neill a request that he present himself here at his earliest convenience?”

“With great pleasure, sir,” Harry Havelock acknowledged. “And by the way, my cousin Charley writes that he and Johnson have 40 loyal cavalry sowars, who aided their escape to Benares when the rest of the regiment mutinied. Their behaviour has been exemplary and Charley is most anxious to offer you their services, sir, with his own. Shall I tell him they may join us?”

General Havelock's hesitation was brief. “By all means, Harry. But to be honest, when I mentioned more cavalry I had Europeans in mind … men of the calibre of Barrow's Volunteers and those infantrymen Sheridan trained so well. We could give him another forty or fifty, perhaps. On every occasion, I have felt the lack of cavalry. We beat the enemy in the field but are never able to follow up our victories by determined pursuit, and we shall require to do so, if we are to relieve Lucknow. Ask Captain Barrow and Colonel Sheridan to come and see me also, would you please?”

“Sheridan was very frustrated yesterday evening at Bithur,” Harry said, “because we failed to lay the Nana by the heels, and I'm damned if I blame him, in the circumstances. We
ought
to have had the fellow.”

“We never had a chance of taking him,” Havelock said, with asperity. “He took to his heels soon after we fired our first shot. I'm thankful, though, that he went into Oudh. I was very much afraid he might go to Calpi, in the hope of urging the Gwalior Contingent to launch an attack on us here. So far they appear not to have committed themselves, but if they
do
come here—”

“It will be an end to the Cawnpore Horse Races,” Harry finished for him, his tone flippant. “And the band concerts and the rest for our men.”

“It might well be an end to Cawnpore,” the general returned sharply. He bent again over his papers and Harry went in search of William Hargood, whom he despatched to summon General Neill.

For Alex Sheridan, the respite which followed the return of the column from Bithur came none too soon. A heavy downpour had succeeded Sunday's blazing heat, and man after man had fallen out during the march back, gripped by dysentery or shaking with fever. By the exercise of all the will power he possessed, Alex contrived to sit his horse, head down against the driving rain, but when he dismounted outside the tent he shared with Lousada Barrow, he found it impossible to stand upright.

Barrow and his old bearer, Mohammed Bux, assisted him into the tent and he collapsed on the bed, shivering uncontrollably. “Lou,” he urged, through chattering teeth. “I may have the cholera and I don't want to infect you with it, for God's sake! Have me moved, will you please?”

“I'll get one of the surgeons to have a look at you,” Barrow evaded. “Just lie where you are, Alex, there's a good fellow. Time enough to worry about me when we find out what's wrong with you. In any case, I'm immune to infection now—I must be, I've been exposed to it so often.”

When Dr. Irvine, the Artillery's surgeon, appeared some two hours later, Alex was barely conscious. The doctor's examination was brief.

“It's not cholera … yet,” he said, his voice harsh with weariness. “But it could turn to that all too easily. My diagnosis is exhaustion, coupled with exposure and malnutrition—and what everyone in this force is suffering from, chronic dysentery. I'd have Colonel Sheridan moved to the Hotel, where we've set up an officers' hospital, but it's overcrowded and his resistance is so low that he would almost certainly catch the infection if I did. He'd be better off here, quite honestly, Captain Barrow, if he can be looked after.”

“He can be looked after, Doctor,” Barrow assured him.

“Then I'll leave you some medicine for him,” Irvine promised. “What he needs is rest, as much nourishing gruel as he can swallow, a dry bed, and no exertion. If you can see that he has these, then he should pull through. I can't guarantee it, though; he's in a pretty weak state. The after-effects of the siege, undoubtedly, have caught up with him.” He rose and stood for a moment looking down at his new patient with eyes red-rimmed and swollen from lack of sleep. “I wish to God there were more we could do for poor fellows like this, but damn it, there isn't. We lost another of the survivors of General Wheeler's garrison last night—the gunner, Sullivan. He put up quite a fight, but the shock of having his leg taken off proved too much for him. I'm sorry; he was a brave man.” He added some more instructions for Alex's care and then said grimly, studying his scarred face, “What astounds me, Barrow, is that he kept going for so long. Look at that head wound, for heaven's sake! It would have killed most men, but Sheridan's been campaigning with it and it's healed perfectly. You wonder, sometimes—especially in my profession—what makes some men survive and others die.”

“Will power?” Lousada Barrow suggested, smiling. “Mind over matter? Or are these just other words for courage?”

“I don't know,” Dr. Irvine confessed. “All I can tell you is that the majority of the fellows we're losing from cholera and other sicknesses are the young and seemingly healthy, who arrive with fresh drafts from Calcutta. They go down like ninepins, almost as soon as they get here, and they're dead in a few hours. But the seasoned campaigners, the veterans, pull through … and, so far as the cholera is concerned, there are more cases in camp than you had during your fortnight in Oudh, without tents and on reduced rations—taking total numbers into consideration, that's to say.”

“The ground between the lines in camp is being fouled,” Barrow said. He frowned. “Perhaps if the whole camp were moved to fresh ground it might reduce the spread of infection.”

“They tried that in the Crimea,” Dr. Irvine answered, “without conspicuous success, but … we're requesting that it be considered and we're increasing the number of latrines in the hope that the dysentery cases will use them. Another possibility is that water can be infected and we're trying to ensure that all drinking water, at least, is boiled. Try it with Colonel Sheridan … he's going to need a lot of fluids and it just might help.”

Alex's fever continued for the next week, and he lay, frequently delirious and sometimes deeply unconscious, on Lousada Barrow's camp bed, cared for by the faithful Mohammed Bux and, when he was free of his duties, by Barrow himself. He was dimly aware of them by his bedside, but it was not until his fever abated and consciousness returned that he began to realise how much he owed to them both. His old bearer's anxious, bearded face was the first he recognised, as the servant knelt beside him, holding a cup to his lips; later, when Barrow came in, tired and soaked to the skin, he, too—before changing his clothes—enquired as to Alex's welfare and opened a bottle of champagne which he instructed Mohammed Bux to give him, drop by drop.

Alex greeted both of them by name the following morning; by evening, as his temperature sank, he was able to raise his head from the pillow and hold a glass for himself. He improved steadily after that but, although his mind was now clear, physically he was as weak as a child and Dr. Irvine, calling to ascertain how he was progressing, found him making his first shaky attempt to walk and ordered him sternly to return to his bed.

“You've made a remarkable recovery, Colonel Sheridan,” he said. “But it's taken more out of you than you realise. We must concentrate on building up your strength. If you'll take my advice, you'll stay where you are for at least another week—then we can think about getting you on your feet again.”

Alex, perforce, obeyed these instructions, but the days of inactivity began increasingly to irk him and Lousada Barrow, sensing the reason underlying his impatience, told him consolingly that he was missing little of importance.

“You chose a good time to be ill, my dear Alex. Lucknow continues to hold out, thank God, and although we're making preparations, no reinforcements have yet reached us, nor has Sir James Outram. There can be no advance into Oudh until both arrive … but he and the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Colin Campbell, are not letting the grass grow under their feet. General Outram is already on his way to Benares, old Lloyd has been relieved of the Dinapore command, and both the Dinapore Queen's regiments are to be sent to us, almost certainly by mid-September. Also Major Eyre's battery and some loyal native cavalry—40 of them, I'm told, under General Havelock's nephew.”

“Sir James Outram—Sir Colin Campbell?” Alex stared at him, mystified. “I thought Outram was in Persia and Sir Colin, surely, is retired and in England?”

Patiently, Barrow explained the circumstances which had dictated both appointments. “Sir Colin Campbell has come overland—he reached Calcutta last week. You should be pleased … damn it, he was one of your best Crimean generals, wasn't he? And you know his reputation here.”

“I'm more than pleased, Lou,” Alex assured him. “But General Outram's appointment to a combined Division is less easy to understand. If he commands Cawnpore as well as Dinapore, what of General Havelock? Surely
he's
not being relieved, is he?”

Again Barrow explained, and added, smiling, “Harry Havelock showed me the telegraph his father received from General Outram this evening. I can't quote it verbatim, but he told Havelock that he was expecting both the 5th Fusiliers and the 90th to reach Benares sometime today and that he intended to push on with them to Allahabad. Then he stated that he would leave ‘the honour of relieving Lucknow' to General Havelock and would accompany him in his Civil capacity as Commissioner, serving under him as a volunteer. The dear Old Gentleman was moved to tears, Harry said … not that he doesn't deserve it. But Outram is making a considerable sacrifice, you know he's not a rich man and, if Lucknow is relieved, and the twenty-three
lacs
of rupees in the Treasury are saved, the general in actual command of the relieving force stands to gain a fortune in prize money. Apart from that, if Outram were commanding, he could expect a baronetcy, since he's already a K.C.B. But as a civilian volunteer, he'll get little or nothing. Less, even”—Lousada Barrow gave vent to his booming laugh—” than I shall!”

Alex listened in astonishment. He knew General Outram by repute and had met him once at a dinner in Lucknow, when—newly promoted—he had been British Resident in Oudh. He remembered the general as a small, black-bearded man, with a deceptively hesitant manner and an addiction to Manilla cheroots, which he had puffed at continuously throughout the evening. As a young captain, he had served with distinction on Sir John Keane's staff in the Afghan war and, after reaching Cabul with Pollock's avenging army, had then served under Sir Charles Napier in the Scinde campaign. Napier, who was not given to paying fulsome compliments to junior officers, had called him “the Bayard of India”—
chevalier sans peur et sans reproche
—a title which had stuck to him ever since. Although senior to Havelock, whose lack of money and influence had retarded his promotion, Outram was eight or nine years younger, but they had, Alex recalled, served together in the recent Persian campaign and were said to be close friends.

“Who was it that first called him the Bayard of India, Alex?” Barrow asked, as if reading his thoughts. “Sir Charles Napier, wasn't it, at a farewell dinner at Sakhar, when Outram was leaving his command?”

Alex nodded. “Yes, if my memory serves me aright, it was. He seems to be living up to it, does he not? How many people in his position would make such an extraordinarily chivalrous gesture to a subordinate? I'm not surprised that our little general was moved to tears by that message.”

“No, nor am I. Indeed, I …” Barrow broke off, as old Mohammed Bux came in with a bottle of champagne and glasses on a tray. “What's this, Bearer—more of General Neill Sahib's
bubble-pani?
”

“Neill's
bubble-pani
, Lou!” Alex exclaimed. “Don't tell me that General Neill sent this?”

“Not only this, my dear Alex, but most of the other bottles we've spooned into you to aid your recovery.” Lousada Barrow poured out two brimming glasses and offered one to his patient with an amused grin. “You've had numerous visitors and a great many gifts and enquiries concerning your health. Neill came in person one evening while you were still semiconscious, to advise champagne as the best cure for you. And your two fellow-survivors, Thomson and Delafosse, came several times. So did Charlie Palliser and Willie Hargood, on behalf of the Chief. Well …” he raised his glass. “Here's to your very good health, Alex, my friend—may your shadow never grow less!”

Alex thanked him warmly as he drank the toast. “If it hadn't been for you, I doubt if I should have remained a survivor, Lou. I owe you more than I can ever repay and—”

“Nonsense, my dear fellow!” Barrow brushed his thanks aside. “In the words of General Havelock, when the men cheered him after Bithur—‘Don't cheer me, my men, you did it all yourselves!' And talking of men, Alex, the lads you trained have besieged me with enquiries about you. One in particular—your ex-whipperin from Tipperary, Cullmane—asked me to tell you that he'd vowed on his mother's grave not to touch a drop of liquor until your return to the troop.”

“Then I'd better delay my return, if it'll make a reformed character out of Cullmane,” Alex said, laughing.