Cry Havelock by Malcolm Archibald

Author:Malcolm Archibald [Archibald, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creativia
Published: 2017-09-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

There was an explosion from Cawnpore during the night as the men lay muttering and shaking with reaction on the damp ground. Some looked up from fitful sleep; others turned over and heard nothing.

'What the devil?' Jack jerked upright.

'I've no idea,' Elliot said.

The reflected glare faded slowly while a whiff of powder-smoke reached them from the city, some two miles away. 'Nana Sahib is saying goodbye,' Jack guessed. He lay down again, decided he could not sleep and rose to inspect his men. Most were asleep, with the pickets on watch leaning on their rifles and staring at Cawnpore or into the darkness around the camp. One of the 113th had died of dysentery during the night.

'There's pandy cavalry out there,' Coleman said. 'I can hear their hooves hammering.'

'If they get too close, Coleman, you have my permission to shoot them.'

'Oh, aye, sir; I'll do that all right.' Coleman sucked on an empty pipe. 'Did you hear the shave, sir?'

'Which one, Coleman?'

Coleman dropped his voice to a whisper. 'They say Nana Sahib murdered all the women and children, sir.'

Despite the humidity of the night, Jack felt a chill run down his spine. 'Oh, God I hope not. Best not let Riley hear that, Coleman. He is anxious about his wife.'

'I know, sir.' Coleman lifted his head. 'I hope it's only a lie.'

'So do I, Coleman, so do I.' Taking a deep breath, Jack continued his circuit of the British lines. The darkness of India seemed to become more intense, the heat more oppressive.

When rumour crystallised into fact, the mood of the British hardened.

'Not Charlotte,' Riley said, again and again. 'They can't have killed Charlotte.' He sat on the ground, head in his hands, with Logan at his side.

'It may not be true,' Logan said. 'Charlotte might have got away.' He looked up, face twisted in grief for his friend. 'Tell him, sir. Tell Riley that Charlotte could still be alive.'

'I wish I could, Logan,' Jack said truthfully. Riley was a friend as well as one of his men. They had gone through a lot together in the Crimea, and he was as close to him as to a brother; closer, Jack thought, remembering how his half-brother William had treated him.

'We'll be in Cawnpore today, Riley,' he tried to help. 'We don't know anything for sure until then.'

'We'll kill them all, Riley,' Logan responded in the only way he knew, the law of an eye for an eye he had learned in the horrendous slums of Glasgow. 'We'll kill every murdering black pandy bastard in India. Don't you worry, mate. We'll get them for you.'

Jack put a hand on Riley's shoulder and turned away. Nothing he said could help. He expected the tears in Riley's face; he was surprised at the raw emotion that Logan did not bother to hide. Iron-hard men such as Donnie Logan were not expected to show sympathy and grief.

This campaign was changing them all.

Jack had never experienced the atmosphere with which Havelock's column entered Cawnpore.

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