The Far Pavilions (151 page)

The rear wall was only too easy to breach as it was woefully thin, and the men who filled the narrow street behind it were hacking at it in perfect safety, for they could not be fired on except from the roofs of the Residency houses – which entailed standing up on the curtain wall of the Envoy's House or the extreme edge of the Mess House, and aiming directly downwards: and since the first three jawans to attempt this were killed instantly by enemy marksmen crouching behind the parapets of rooftops on the opposite side of the street, it was not tried again.

The sappers below had been at work for some time before the danger was spotted, for the continuous crackle of firing, allied to the roar of a mob whose rage against the Infidel and inbred lust for fighting had been inflamed by the long fast of Ramadan, had masked the sounds of pick-axes from the men inside the Residency. The existence of this new and deadly threat had only been realized when a group of servants, crouching in a ground-floor room of the Envoy's House, saw a hole appear near the skirting. One of them had rushed upstairs to give the alarm, and implored the Envoy to leave his office and go over to the other house.

‘
Huzoor,
if these
shaitans
break through below, you will be trapped. And then what shall become of us? You are our father and our mother, and if we lose you, we are lost – we are all lost!’ yammered the terrified man, beating his head against the floor.

‘
Be-wakufi
!’ snapped Cavagnari angrily. ‘Stand up, thou. Weeping will not save your lives, but work may do so. Come on, William – and you others too – they'll need help down there.’

He made for the stairs, followed by William and the two jawans who had been firing through loopholes in the shutters, the wailing servant bringing up the rear. But Wally, appraising his Chief's grey face and unfocused eyes and realizing that this time he could not refuse his help, managed to persuade him that he would be far better employed as a sniper on the top floor of the Mess House, firing through a loophole at the mob surrounding the Arsenal to discourage them from invading the compound again.

Cavagnari had not demurred. He was beginning to suffer from the effects of concussion, and he did not suspect that Lieutenant Hamilton's real reason for asking him to man that particular position was that the top floor of the Mess House seemed to Wally a far safer place than the crowded courtyard, and he meant to ensure that his wounded chief ran no unnecessary risks.

As though to prove that his caution was justified, he had no sooner escorted Sir Louis from the courtyard than a musket ball was fired into it from close range and at knee level. The shot had wounded two men, and created considerable confusion among the remainder as it appeared to have come from inside the tent that had contained the ammunition; and it was only when a second and third shot followed that the garrison realized that the enemy's sappers must have broken through the wall behind the empty tent, and were firing at them blindly from the street behind the Residency. The courtyard cleared with magical swiftness, and William detailed Naik Mehr Dil and sepoys Hassan Gul and Udin Singh to block the hole, which could not be reached until the tent came down.

The three jawans had managed to dismantle it and push the heavy folds of canvas into the breach with the aid of tent poles, after which they had reinforced this inadequate barricade with a large tin-lined box containing their Commanding Officer's winter underwear and sheepskin poshteen, and a massive wood and leather screen from the dining-room. But in the process the Naik was shot in the arm, so as soon as the work was finished Hassan Gul took the wounded man into the Mess House to find the Doctor-Sahib, for Mehr Dil's arm hung useless, and blood was pouring from under the waist-cloth that he had tied above the wound as a tourniquet in the hope of checking the flow.

They found the ground-floor rooms full of dead, wounded and dying men, but there was no sign of the Doctor-Sahib, and his exhausted hospital assistant, Rahman Baksh, looking up briefly from tying a pad made from a towel over a hole in a sepoy's thigh, said that the Sahib had been called upstairs and that Hassan Gul had better take the Naik up there – there was no room down here for any more wounded.

The two jawans climbed the stairs in search of the doctor, and peering in through an open doorway saw him leaning over Sir Louis, who was lying on a bed with his knees drawn up and one hand to his head. The sight did not dismay them, since everyone knew that the ‘Burra-Sahib’ had been wounded in the head early on in the siege; and supposing him to be suffering from the after-effects of that wound (and being unwilling to call the doctor away from such an exalted patient) they turned back and went below again to wait until he should come down.

But Sir Louis had not collapsed from concussion. He had been hit again: this time in the stomach and by a bullet that had smashed through the wooden shutter into the room in which he had been standing, a bullet fired from one of the English-made rifles that a previous Viceroy, Lord Mayo, had presented to Yakoub Khan's father, Shere Ali, as a good-will gift from the British Government…

Sir Louis had managed to reach the bed, and the sowar who had been firing through a loophole to one side of the window had run down to fetch Surgeon-Major Kelly. But there was nothing that Rosie could do beyond giving him water to drink – for he was very thirsty – and something to deaden the pain. And hoping that the end would come quickly.

He could not even stay with him, for there were too many others who needed his help, some of whom could be patched up sufficiently to continue fighting. Nor was there any point in letting it be known that Cavagnari-Sahib was mortally wounded, since such news could only serve to take the heart out of everyone in the garrison, and the assault upon their spirits was already severe enough without that, the rabble in the street and on the house-tops immediately behind it having begun to call upon their fellow-Mussulmans to join them, exhorting them to slay the four Sahibs and help themselves to the treasure in the Residency…

‘Kill the Unbelievers and join us!’ urged the stentorian voices of unseen men who were sapping the flimsy, mud-brick wall. ‘We have no quarrel with you. You are our brothers and we wish you no harm. Only give up the
Angrezis
to us and you will all go free. Join us – join us!’

‘Thank God for young Wally,’ thought Rosie, listening to that continual stream of exhortations. ‘If it wasn't for him, some of our fellows might be tempted to do just that and save their own skins.’ But Wally seemed to know just how to counter those shouted lures and keep up the spirits of the garrison, not only of his own jawans but of the countless non-combatants who had taken refuge in the Residency, both servants and clerical staff. He also appeared to have mastered the art of being in half-a-dozen places at once – one moment on the roof of one or other of the two houses, the next over at the barracks or in the courtyard, and the third in the rooms in which the wounded and dying lay – praising, encouraging, comforting; rallying the fainthearted, cracking jokes, singing as he raced up the stairs to hearten the dwindling band of Guides who held out on the roof, or over to the barracks to encourage those who knelt firing at the insurgents from behind the inadequate shelter of the parapets.

Rosie looked down at the dying Envoy on the bed, and thought: ‘When he is gone, the whole responsibility for the defence of this rat-trap is going to fall on young Wally's shoulders… it's there now. Well, it couldn't be on better ones.’ He turned and went out, shutting the door behind him and calling one of the servants to sit in front of it and allow no one in to the room, as the Burra-Sahib's head was paining him and he must be allowed to rest.

The room was an inner one and comparatively cool, but as Rosie left it the heat and stench outside met him like a blow, for by now the sun was overhead and there was little shade to be found in the enclosed courtyard… and none at all for the Guides on the rooftops. The freshness of the early morning had vanished long ago, and now the hot air reeked of sulphur and black powder, while from the ground-floor rooms of both houses rose the sickening, all-pervading stench of spilt blood and iodoform – and other, uglier smells that Rosie knew would get worse as the day advanced.

‘We shall be out of drugs soon,’ he thought, ‘and bandages and lint. And men…’ He glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door behind him and lifting his hand in a half-unconscious gesture of salute, turned and went back down the stairs to the stifling heat and stench of the rooms below, where buzzing clouds of flies added to the torments of the uncomplaining wounded.

Many of the mutineers had already crept back to the compound to take cover again in the stables, and behind the numerous mud walls in which they were now hacking loopholes so that they could fire at the barracks and the Residency, but Wally no longer had enough men to attempt another sortie against them. Between the enemy in the compound and the ever-increasing numbers on the surrounding house-tops, his inadequate defences were subjected to such a blizzard of fire that it was a wonder to him that anyone in the garrison still survived. Yet survive they did, though their numbers were shrinking rapidly. The fact that the enemy had suffered even more severely gave him no consolation, knowing as he did that they had inexhaustible reserves to draw on, and that however many times the Guides drove them back and however many they killed, a hundred others would spring up like the dragon's teeth to replace them. But there was no replacement for the dead and wounded in the Residency. And still no word from the palace, or any sign of help…

He had been organizing counter-measures against the sappers on the far side of the courtyard wall, when a breathless sowar ran down the three flights of stairs from the Mess House roof and panted out that the mob in the street had fetched ladders and were thrusting them out laterally from the houses on the far side, to form bridges across which they were clambering like monkeys. Some had already reached the roof and what were the defenders to do? They could not hold out against the numbers that were getting across.

‘Tell them to retreat down the stairs,’ directed Wally urgently – ‘but slowly, so that the Afghans will follow.’ The man fled back, and Wally sent a similar message to the Guides on the roof of the Envoy's House, and calling to Jemadar Mehtab Singh to follow him with every jawan who could be spared, ran for the roof.

The Guides had managed to thrust off the first two ladders and send them hurtling down on the heads of the crowd below. But there had been others – half-a-dozen at least – and though the first Afghans to reach the roof had fallen, shot at point blank range, it had been impossible to stem the tide of those who scrambled across behind them, and the survivors of the little band of Guides retreated to the stairwell and descended, a step at a time.

Wally met them on the top landing with reinforcements at his back, and though he held a loaded revolver he did not fire it, but waved them on downward, issuing terse instructions that were barely audible above the yells of the Afghans, who, seeing them in retreat, tore after them and came leaping down the stairs brandishing their tulwars and jostling each other in their haste. And still the Guides retreated, stumbling ahead of them in apparent disorder and looking back over their shoulders as they went…

‘Now!’ yelled Wally, leaping onto a cane stool that stood outside his bedroom door. ‘
Maro
!’ And as the Guides turned in the narrow hallway and fell upon the leading Afghans, he fired over their heads at those who were crowding down behind them and who could not turn because of the pressure of others treading on their heels.

Even a poor shot would have found it difficult to miss his mark at that range, and Wally was anything but a poor shot. Within six seconds half-a-dozen Afghans on the steep flight of stairs dropped forward with a bullet in their brains, and as many fell headlong over the bodies and came cascading down like a flock of sheep at a bank, to be cut down by the sabres and bayonets of the Guides.

Ambrose Kelly had heard the noise of the fighting, and realizing that the enemy must have broken into the Mess House, he abandoned his scalpel in favour of a revolver and dashed upstairs – only to be swept backwards by a mass of struggling men who stabbed and hacked and wrestled with each other (there was little room for sword-play) or used their carbines and rifles as clubs, there being no time to reload or, for that matter, for anyone in Rosie's position to use a revolver. But Wally, standing head and shoulders above the scrum, caught sight of him, and realizing that he dare not risk a shot into the demented mêlée, took a flying leap from the stool, snatched the weapon from him, and regaining his vantage point, used it himself to excellent effect.

The fusillade of shots, the shambles on the stair and the uproar and confusion of the fight below made the rear ranks of the invaders suddenly aware that disaster had overtaken their leaders. They checked at the top of the stairs and some of them, losing their heads, fired wildly down at the murderous scrimmage below while others scrambled back and made no further attempt to invade the Residency from above. But of their comrades who had rushed so boldly down the steep stairway, not one came back.

‘Come on, Rosie,’ shouted Wally breathlessly, tossing back the empty revolver and hurriedly re-loading his own: ‘they're bolting. Now's our chance to clear ‘em off the roof.’

He turned to Hassan Gul, who leant against the wall of the landing panting from his exertions, and told him to call the others together and they would charge up the stairs and clear the roof. But the sepoy only shook his head and said hoarsely: ‘We cannot do it, Sahib. There are too few of us… Jemadar Mehtab Singh is dead, and Havildar Karak Singh also… they were killed in the fighting on the stairs… And of those who were on the roof, only two remain. I do not know how many there may still be in the other house, but here there are only seven left…’

Seven. Only seven left to hold the three floors of that tall, mud and plaster rat-trap that was pock-marked with bullet holes and crammed with wounded men.