CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
The Spoilers Spoiled
"Give the word, you heathen son of a washer-woman," said a rough Englishvoice, the owner of which had his hands on Ahmed's throat. "Give theword; jaldi karo."
"What have you got there, Tom?" said another voice.
"Blowed if it ain't a Pandy or some other drowned rat by the feel ofhim. What do you mean, you suar ka bachcha, by treading on the toes of aBritish rifleman? Hilo mat, you bloomin' reptile, or I'll stick mybay'net in your gala."
"Take me to Hodson Sahib," said Ahmed in halting English, as soon as hegot his breath.
"Hodson Sahib be jiggered! We ain't khaki, as you might see with yourcat's eyes; we're green, we are. You've come to the wrong shop for thoseeverlasting Guides, if that's what you want. You've got gentlemen of the60th Royal Rifles to deal with, let me tell you. He ain't got no rifle,mates, so there ain't no harm in him. What are you a-doing of here, andwhat was that there noise we heard just now?"
"Take me to Hodson Sahib," Ahmed repeated.
"Perhaps he's one of Hodson's spies, Tom," said a third man. "Bettersend him along to the Colonel."
"We can't send him, not having no conveniences for such. He'll just haveto wait until we're relieved."
"But s'pose he's got news of an attack? There'd be a bit of a dust-up ifthe General didn't get warning in time."
"And there'd be another dust-up if an inspection-officer come along andfound me absent from my juty. Rum thing, juty, you nigger; and thesooner you learn it the better. My juty says one thing, your juty,--ifso be you _are_ one of Hodson's spies--says another. If two juties pullsin hopposite directions, the thing that wants doing don't get done, andthe consekinces is accordin'."
"Y' ought to bin a parson, Tom. Blest if ever I knowed such a chap forargyfying."
"Argyfy! I never do it. I only talk sense. That's what my mother used tosay to the old man when they was talkin' over some little bit o'difference between 'em. 'Woman,' says he, 'your argyment's ridik'lous.Women ain't got no power of reasonin'.' 'And a good thing for you,Jimmy,' say she. 'Women ha' got sense.' And then they'd begin overagain, and me eatin' bread and butter listenin' to 'em. 'The amount o'rubbidge that there poor boy do have to listen to from one as ought tobring him up proper!' says my father. 'True,' says she, 'and if hedidn't take after me 'twould turn his little stomick, poor lamb!' Andthen he'd argyfy that too much butter warn't good for a boy's innards,and she'd listen and say nothing till the next slice was cut, and blestif he didn't lay it on thicker than her. Argyfyin' ain't in it againstsense."
Ahmed was growing impatient under the rifleman's garrulity, though hetook a certain pleasure in hearing his mother tongue again. The name"Jimmy" had caught his ear, and he remembered that he had himself beencalled by that name in those distant years of childhood that seemed likeexistence in another world. But meanwhile the night was passing; hisnews was yet untold; and he was meditating a flight from these Englishsoldiers when he heard the tread of men marching, and in a few momentsthere came up a lieutenant going the rounds with a squad to see that themen of the outposts and pickets were attending to their duty.
"Who's this, sergeant?" said the lieutenant, observing Ahmed. "You knowthe rules: no visitors allowed?"
"Yes, sir, and he ain't exactly a visitor, that is we didn't invite himand didn't know he was coming; in fact, he came on us all of a heaplike, and nearly knocked the breath out o' my body by falling right ontop of me, sir. He asked for Hodson Sahib, sir, and I was justexplaining that he'd come to the wrong shop."
"Brought khabar, eh?" said the lieutenant. "Take him to Mr. Hodson," headded, turning to one of his men, and Ahmed was forthwith conveyed alongthe Ridge until he reached his commander's tent. Hodson was in bed, buton hearing that a native had asked for him, he had Ahmed brought intothe tent.
"Who are you?" he said, not recognizing his trooper in the bearded manbefore him.
"I am Ahmed Khan, sahib, and I come from Delhi with news."
"By Jove!" cried Hodson, "your get-up is first-rate." Then he laughed."You are no doubt the man Fazl Hak wrote about; a simple trader, hesaid, who was no good at all for our job. Well, what have you got tosay?"
He listened attentively as Ahmed told his story.
As his manner was, he questioned and cross-questioned him searchingly;it was no easy matter, as a rule, to sift out the bare truth from thenatives' reports; but Ahmed's account was so simple and direct that hewas speedily satisfied, and then he got up, and flinging on a longmilitary cloak, went off to tell General Barnard in person what he hadlearnt.
"You are wet through," he said before he went, noticing Ahmed'sbedraggled appearance. "My servant will give you some dry things. Go andget some sleep, and come to me in the morning."
"If there is to be fighting, and the hazur pleases," said Ahmed, "Ishould like to go with the Guides."
"Very well," said Hodson, giving him a keen look; "but don't put on theuniform. You are going to be useful, I think, and the secret had betterbe kept a little longer."
It was half-past two in the morning when a little force, consisting ofthree hundred and fifty men of the 61st Regiment, Hodson with thecavalry of the Guides, and Major Coke with some batteries of horseartillery, left camp to do battle with the mutineers and prevent ifpossible the attack on Alipur; if not, to intercept the rebels on theirreturn. The force was under the command of Coke, of the Panjab IrregularCavalry, who had arrived on the Ridge a few days before. He was agallant officer, with a great reputation for his achievements in borderwarfare; no better man could have been chosen for the work in hand.
Alipur was eight miles distant on the Karnal Road. While LieutenantFrederick Roberts with the infantry felt for the enemy along the road,Hodson with the Guides and Coke with the guns marched along the rightbank of the Jumna Canal. Fortunately the rain had ceased, but the groundhad been turned into a quagmire; the horses trod over their fetlocks inmud, and the progress of the column was slow. It was soon clear that allhope must be abandoned of saving the village and the little Sikh postguarding it. Still, the rebels must return to Delhi, and it was possibleto relieve them of any plunder they had gained and to teach them alesson.
The Guides marched on in the darkness. Ahmed had as yet attracted noattention among the troopers. Hodson's servant had rummaged out an oldscarf which rolled up into a quite respectable turban, and a discardedgreat-coat which was not unlike the chogah he had left on the groundwhen escaping from the rebels. It was impossible to distinguish hisdress in the night, and if anything strange had been noticed about hisappearance, the fact that many had had to change their drenched garmentsmight have sufficiently explained it. He took care to keep out ofSherdil's way; Sherdil was the most likely man to see through hisdisguise, and while his mission in Delhi was yet unfulfilled in itsentirety, it was advisable to keep the secret.
Soon after daybreak the patrols came in sight of the enemy returning intriumph from Alipur. They had fallen on the village, slain the Sikhs toa man, burnt the place to the ground, and carried off a quantity ofplunder, including an ammunition wagon and several camel-loads ofsmall-arm cartridges.
At the sight of the rebel infantry in their red coats, Major Cokeunlimbered the guns and brought them into action. They were only lightfield-pieces, and did little execution among the enemy, who, instead ofstanding their ground and making use of their overwhelming numbers, fellinto a panic when the guns came within six hundred yards of them, andbolted, flinging away their shoes, belts and other impedimenta, in theirmad haste to get away.
Then Hodson gave his eager men the word to charge. They swept down uponthe disordered ranks of the rebels, and were soon engaged hand to handwith their cavalry. Shouting their war-cry "Wah-hah!" the Guides cuttheir way through them, smiting right and left with their swords.
Hodson himself was in the thick of the fray, and escaped hurt as by amiracle. His gallant horse, Feroza, was slashed with sabre cuts; hisbridle was severed, and a piece of his glove was shorn off. The men wereno
whit behind their leader. Ahmed unhorsed one man with his lance, andrecovered from the stroke just in time to ward off a desperate thrustfrom a sabre. The trooper at his side fell from his horse with a mortalwound in his neck; several of the horses were so badly wounded that theyhad to be killed. But the enemy would not stand, and the Guides' losseswere only the one man killed and six wounded.
So desperate was the rebels' flight that they left behind them all theirbaggage and the spoil of their night's work at Alipur. Hodson would fainhave pursued them to the very walls of Delhi, but the horses were sofatigued by their march over the heavy ground that they were incapableof further efforts. Major Coke's guns, moreover, sank so deep into themud that they could scarcely be moved. The rebels were on higher ground,and the Guides howled with disappointment when they saw them drawingtheir guns away in safety. They came up with the tail-end of theinfantry ere the morning was past, and inflicted heavy loss upon them,so that Bakht Khan, who had led the column in person, had littlesatisfaction in his night's adventure. All that his five thousand menhad accomplished was the destruction of a small village, and the captureof plunder which they were now forced to leave behind them on the field.
The encounter with the enemy having taken place between the road and thecanal, the British infantry could not come up in time to take part init. But they were so much exhausted by the scorching heat of the day,following their march over the swamps, that many of the 61st sank downbeneath trees as they returned to camp, and remained there untilelephants were sent to bring them in.
As the Guides marched back to camp, Ahmed became the object of muchcurious speculation on the part of his comrades. Many had noticed thedoughty way in which he had conducted himself during the briefencounter, and wondered who this bearded warrior was who fought amongthem in a garb so strange. He rode on gravely, not turning his head, nortaking part in the talk of the others. They questioned one another inlow tones about him.
"Who is this stranger, and when did he come among us?" asked Rasul Khan,of Sherdil, son of Assad, as they rode a little behind him.
"Allah knows," replied Sherdil. "I know him not. I spoke of him toHodson Sahib, and the sahib glared at me out of his blue eyes--eyes likea hawk's, Rasul--and asked me whether he was not a good fighter andworthy of the Guides. 'Verily he is, sahib,' I said, 'but we know himnot.' '_I_ know him, is not that enough?' says the sahib. Peradventurehe is a new recruit, Rasul, or a candidate, and there being no time forthe tests the sahib bade him come with us and show what he could do. Icare not, so that he does not become a dafadar before me."
"I will even ask his name," returned Rasul, riding his horse besideAhmed's. "Thou of the black beard, what is thy name?"
"I am of the Guides," said Ahmed simply. "If thou desirest to know more,ask of the sahib."
Whereupon Rasul fell back and told Sherdil that the black-bearded onewas either a very surly fellow or one of the sahibs in disguise. "For hespake to me in the tone the sahibs have when they bid us do things andwe obey even as children. Of a truth he is a sahib, or at the very leasta sowar from one of the English regiments. That is it, he is an Englishsowar, one of Blunt Sahib's men, perhaps, and his own clothes being wethe put on those of a banijara. If that be not the truth, Sherdil, weshall without doubt learn the truth when we come to camp. He is a goodfighter, that is sure."
That evening Hodson sent for Ahmed, who in common with all the membersof Coke's wearied force had slept through the day, and kept him for along time. Ahmed felt afterwards as if he had been turned inside out. Herelated all that had happened to him since his departure from the Ridge;his fight with the lathi-wallahs, his interview with Fazl Hak (at whichHodson chuckled), his eavesdropping in Minghal Khan's house, the failureof all his attempts hitherto to discover anything about Dr. Craddock. Hementioned casually how he had seen the khansaman disappear through ahole in the wall.
"The rascal!" said Hodson. "Without doubt he has some little hoard ofhis own by which he sleeps. And you say that he talks foully about thesahibs?"
"True, hazur."
"I hope the villain will get his deserts some day. Craddock Sahib willwithout doubt be found--if he is yet alive--in some quiet garden or onsome roof-top. You will go back into the city. I am pleased with you.You will find out all you can that will help us when the assaultcomes--the numbers of rebels at the various gates, the haunts of theringleaders, the secret ways by which they may try to escape. And if youcan discover anything of their plans again, as you have done, you mustlet me know. Have you money?"
"Enough, sahib, and I have still some goods to sell."
"Ah, I had forgotten your goods. I doubt whether you will find them asyou left them."
"Then the bhatiyara will suffer many pangs," said Ahmed simply, andHodson laughed.
It was many days, however, before Ahmed returned to Delhi. His exposureon the night of his escape, followed by the march and fighting, and thefatigues of returning in the heat, had brought on a slight fever. He layup in the quarters of the camp-followers, trusting to Nature for hiscure. And during these days he heard much talk of the incidents of thecamp. Cholera had broken out; General Barnard himself died of it after afew hours' illness on the day after the sortie to Alipur. His successor,General Reed, was in ill-health, and officers and men were discussingwho would really lead them. Many of the natives complained bitterly oftheir treatment by the British soldiers. The cook-boys, who carriedtheir food, often had to dodge round shot from the city, and had becomeexpert at it, dropping down on their knees when they saw the shotcoming. And when they rose and went on with their pots and tins the menwould jeer at them, and curse them for being late with the food. Ahmed,as he heard things like this, wondered whether all the sahibs had suchcontempt for their poor native servants.
Between nine and ten one morning the bugles sounded the alarm, andAhmed, having recovered sufficiently to leave his charpoy, went out tosee what was happening. He had heard the sounds of firing so often whilelying sick that he would hardly have noticed it now but that it seemedso much nearer than ever before.
In the drizzling rain a party of cavalry was seen approaching a batterynear the churchyard. One of the gunners had a portfire lighted inreadiness for firing his gun, but Lieutenant Hills ordered him torefrain, judging from the horsemen's movements that they were a picketof the 9th Irregular Native Cavalry. All at once, however, it struck himthat the picket was unusually large, and being now a little suspicious,he ordered his men to unlimber and open upon the horsemen. Before thiscould be done some fifteen or twenty of the enemy dashed over the canalbridge into the camp and rode straight for the guns.
Lieutenant Hills--he was a second lieutenant and a little fellow--sawthat time must be gained for his men if the guns were to be saved.Without a moment's hesitation he charged the rebels single-handed, cutdown the first man he met, and had just flung his pistol at a secondwhen two sowars dashed upon him. Their horses collided with his in aterrific shock; the horse was rolled over, and Hills sent flying to theground, thus escaping the swords of the enemy, one of which, however,shore a slice off his jacket. Half stunned, he lay still, and the rebelsowars left him for dead.
But Hills was not dead; in a minute or two he rose to his feet andlooked about for his sword. There it was, on the ground about ten yardsaway. No sooner was it in his hand than three of the enemy returned--twoon horseback, the third on foot. One of the horsemen charged him, but heleapt aside and dealt the man a blow that toppled him wounded from thesaddle. The second man made full at him with his lance. Hills parriedthe thrust with a quick movement, and wounded the sowar in the head.Then up came the third man--a young, limber fellow. Hills was pantingfor breath after the violence of his exertions. In his fierce and rapidmovements his cloak had in some way wound itself about his throat, sothat he was almost suffocated. But after dealing with the horseman hestood to meet the last of his opponents, and as he came within reachaimed a shrewd blow at him with his sword. The new-comer was fresh andunwearied. He turned the stroke, seized Hills' sword by t
he hilt andwrenched it from his grasp. Thus left weaponless, a man might not beblamed if he took to flight. Not so Hills. He had neither sword norpistol, but he had his fists, and he set upon the rebel with ardour,punching his head and face with such swift and vigorous blows that theman was quite unable to use his sword, and gave back. Unluckily, Hillsslipped over his cloak on the sodden ground and fell flat. The rebel hadjust lifted his sword to cleave the fallen man's skull, when up gallopedMajor Tombs, his troop-captain, who had heard of the rebels' attack froma trooper of the Irregular Cavalry. In an instant he saw Hills' danger.He was still some thirty paces away, and before he could reach the spotthe fatal blow would have been struck. Checking his horse, he rested hisrevolver on his left arm and took aim at the mutineer, shooting himthrough the body.
Major Tombs and the Lieutenant returned to their men, who had chased therebels some little distance past the guns. Coming back by and by tosecure the unlimbered gun, they saw another mutineer coolly walking offwith the pistol which Hills had hurled at a rebel's head early in thefight. Hills closed with him: the man was a clever swordsman, and for atime it was a fencing-match between them. Then Hills rushed in with athrust; the rebel jumped aside and dealt Hills a cut on the head thatstretched him on the ground. Once more Major Tombs came to the rescue,and ended the matter with his sword.
This incident was the talk of the camp, and Ahmed, who had seen it all,learnt by and by that the officers were to be recommended for theVictoria Cross. He had never heard of this, and inquired what it was.
"Oh," said the bhisti to whom he put the question, "'tis a little browncross that the great Memsahib over the black water pins to the dhoti ofa soldier who is very brave."
"And is it given only to the sahibs, or to us folks of the country aswell?"
"That I know not. I never heard of any one but a Feringhi getting it.But why dost ask! Dost think that thou, who art but a banijara, artbrave enough to please the great Memsahib?"
"What I think matters nothing, O bhisti. But there are brave meneverywhere, even among bhistis."
And Ahmed had now a new goal at which to aim.