The Empire Trilogy (104 page)

Mr Ford, as befitted an engineer, possessed a methodical nature; he made a careful scrutiny of the sepoy encampment and noted on an improvised map the location of various groups and regiments; he also came to deduce, by painstakingly observing the arrival and departure of ammunition carts, the position of the main sepoy magazine. This last piece of information was passed on to Harry Dunstaple, whose skill as a gunner was now celebrated throughout the enclave. But Harry was unable to use it. The magazine was out of his range.

On the afternoon of 12 September, a Saturday, Mr Ford sent an urgent message to the Collector...He had become certain by watching the preparations in the sepoy camp that they would make a major assault within the next few hours. The Collector had independently arrived at the same conclusion by watching the slope above the melon beds where the number of spectators was beginning to increase rapidly.

“Is there no way we could hit their magazine? That would give us a few extra days.”

“It's just out of range, Mr Hopkins. If we still had horses...”

The Collector smiled wanly. “If we still had horses we could eat them.”

Towards evening the Collector gave the order for everyone who could be spared from the ramparts to assemble in the hall, he wanted to say a few words to the garrison.

“I suppose he's going to tell us that gentlemen now abed in England will be sorry that they're not here,” remarked the Magistrate, but nobody was amused by this loathsome display of cynicism and the Magistrate was left to chortle grimly by himself, his soul pickled in vinegar.

“We've a lot of work to do tonight,” said the Collector when everyone had assembled in the hall. “It's almost certain that the enemy will attack the Residency from the north, very likely at dawn tomorrow. We shall do our best, of course, to hold the Residency against them, but the chances are that we are now too few to be able to do so...For this reason all the wounded, the ladies, and the children must be taken to the banqueting hall tonight, together with water, powder, cloth, and indeed every single object that might come to our assistance. Provided we take enough water with us there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to hold out for a considerable time in the banqueting hall, which is in a far better situation for defence...and let me remind you that with every passing day, relief comes nearer...perhaps as much as twenty miles nearer with every day's march...You must believe me when I tell you that they're out there on the plain somewhere and coming towards us. I know they are. Another week and we are saved.

“There's just one other matter which I mention only to set your minds at rest...We've decided to conserve sufficient powder in the banqueting hall to blow ourselves up if the worst comes to the worst. I think we're all agreed that it's better for us to die honourably together in this way than to risk a worse fate at the hands of the enemy.” A tremor went through the Collector's audience at these words. Vokins, in particular, could not see how this announcement was supposed to set his mind at rest. His enthusiasm was in no way aroused by the prospect of being blown up honourably with the ladies and gents. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the less appetite he found he had for it. Still, he thought with a shudder, perhaps it was better than falling into the hands of those Negroes out there!

When he had finished speaking the Collector hesitated for a moment on the stairs, looking down at the tired and gaunt faces below him. Earlier he had heard that a young clerk from the Post Office had shot himself while lying in bed...he had left a young widow, to whom he had been married in Calcutta during the previous cold season; this act of despair had moved him more than any other of the many deaths he had witnessed since the beginning of the siege; it was perhaps the fact that the young man had been lying in bed when he had shot himself that the Collector found so sad. Such hopelessness! It was terrifying. “It was my fault. I should have been able to give him something to hope for,” he thought with a sigh, as he descended the half dozen stairs and went to kneel beside Miriam on the stone flags.

“The Lord our God is one Lord: them that serve other gods, God shall judge.”

“Lord have mercy upon us,” muttered the congregation of skeletons.

“Idolaters and all them that worship God's creatures, God shall judge.”

“Amen. Lord have mercy upon us.”

“The Lord's day is holy; them that profane it, God shall judge.”

The Collectors lips moved but his mind had already wandered away, besieged by practical questions...how would they manage for privies with so many people in the banqueting hall, assuming that they were driven out of the Residency? Would there be enough water? He must try and have a moment alone with each of his children before tomorrow morning. It was his duty. Besides, he might have no other chance to tell them that he loved them; Miriam, too. He had grown fond of her in the last few days. He would have liked to have put a hand on her shoulder now to comfort her. But even as this thought entered his mind the Padre's voice came promptly to reprimand him: “Adulterers and fornicators and all unclean persons, God shall judge.”

“Amen. Lord have mercy upon us,” said the Collector heavily, making it sound more like a command than a supplication. But would it not have been better, he mused, to have left the banqueting hall and defended the Residency where there was a well? No, not so...he had taken the right decision. The Residency was vulnerable. Even if shot to pieces the commanding position of the banqueting hall would still make it defensible. And how were the sepoys faring? They must know by now whether a relief force was coming near. Perhaps that was why they were determined to attack now without further delay? What a shame it all is, even so! What a waste of all the good work that has been done in India! Still, there must be some way of destroying their magazine.

“Covetous persons and extortioners and them that grind the faces of the poor, God shall judge.”

“Amen. Lord have mercy upon us, and lay not these sins to our charge.”

The Padre had asked the Collector if he might preach a sermon. The Collector had agreed provided that it was brief, for there remained so much to be done before morning. As text the Padre had chosen: “I see that all things come to an end, but thy commandment is exceeding broad.” The Padre had become very weak since the end of the rains. His face had grown so thin that as he spoke you could plainly see the elaborate machinery of his jaw setting to work with all its strings, sockets and pulleys. Those at the back of the gathering now had to ask each other in whispers what the text had been, for they had been unable to hear it.

Once again the Padre urged his listeners to repent because now the most dangerous time of all was at hand, and he repeated the words he had read earlier: “His fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.” He urged the garrison to trust in God, and referred to David and Goliath, to Israel triumphing over that mighty host by the seashore, to Daniel in the den of lions. Then he fell silent for a little while, as if in meditation.

When he next spoke it was to ask the forgiveness of anyone present whom he had unwittingly wronged during his ministry in Krishnapur. Then, having asked the congregation to pray for him, he paused again...and this time it was evident that it was physical weakness that obliged him to rest. Once he had recovered a little strength he ended his address with a quotation from Archbishop Leighton: “‘How small a commotion, small in its beginning, may prove the overturning of the greatest kingdom! But the believer is heir to a kingdom that cannot be shaken...He who trusts in God looks death out of countenance; and over him the second death shall have no power,...“'

The gathering dispersed. The Collector went upstairs for his pistols. One of these, the Colt Patent Repeating Pistol, he had been in the habit of using throughout the siege and it was now stuck uncomfortably in the cummerbund he wore round his waist; he was anxious that the others should not fall into the hands of the sepoys if the Residency were lost. They lay in a glass case in his dressing-room, displayed, like Turtons' file, on a cushion of faded red velvet with the shadow of a pistol in darker red where until recently the Colt had been. This case of pistols was the last and longest-surviving of the Collector's many treasures from the Exhibition, and really, he thought, with the possible exception of the velocipede which had inspired the trace of fortifications, the only one to have been of any use; most of the others, of course, were now immovably set in the dried mud ramparts and could only have been recovered with a pick. The Collector selected just two more of these pistols, a small and reliable five-barrelled pistol by Lefaucheux of Paris, which he wanted to load and give to Miriam, and the English revolving pistol by Adams, which had caused such a stir at Woolwich by its lightness and by the rapidity with which it could be loaded and fired (up to ten times a minute had been claimed for it). The rest of the pistols he bundled into a towel and gave to one of his daughters to carry to the banqueting hall.

Before going down to the northern ramparts where the brunt of the attack was expected to fall, he took a last look round the room and saw Hari's phrenology book lying on the floor. He picked it up and opened it at random. It opened at “
Hope
.” “This organ is situated on each side of that of
Veneration
, and extends under part of the frontal and part of the parietal bones. It inspires with gay, fascinating, and delightful emotions, painting futurity as fair and smiling as the regions of primeval bliss. When too energetic and predominant, it disposes to
Credulity
, and in mercantile men, leads to rash and inconsiderate speculation. When the organ is very deficient, and that of
Cautiousness
large, a gloomy despondency is apt to invade the mind.”

Chuckling, the Collector went downstairs. On his way he spotted a large black beetle on the stairs; he caught it between finger and thumb and took it out with him to the ramparts. There he generously offered it to the Magistrate, who was busy carrying cartridges to the firing-step. The Magistrate hesitated.

“No thanks,” he said, though with a note of envy in his voice.

The Collector popped it into his mouth, let himself savour the sensation of it wriggling on his tongue for a moment, then crunched it with as much pleasure as if it had been a chocolate truffle.

Just before dawn the sound of a voice singing came over the darkened expanse of what had once been the Residency compound from the direction of what had once been the Cutcherry. It was a beautiful sound. It had a strange and thrilling resonance, as if the singer were standing in a large room or a courtyard built of stone in one of the ancient palaces left by the Mogul emperors further to the west. But, of course, there was no palace, nor even a large room, unless the Cutcherry cellar had somehow survived. It could only be some quality in the stillness of the air which made the voice carry so beautifully. Fleury asked Ram what the song was.

“It is the name of God, Sahib,” said Ram respectfully. As the old pensioner listened to the song, which was now accompanied by the ringing of bells, Fleury saw an expression of tender devotion come over his lined face, and he, too, thought, as the Collector had thought some weeks earlier in the tiger house, what a lot of Indian life was unavailable to the Englishman who came equipped with his own religion and habits. But of course, this was no time to start worrying about that sort of thing.

Instead, Fleury looked to his armament, which was impressive; it included a sabre, unbearably sharp, a couple of wavybladed daggers from Malaya, and another, Indian, dagger like one of those that Hari had shown him, with two blades and a handle for the whole fist, like that of a hand-saw. Lastly he had picked an immense, fifteen-barrelled pistol out of the pile rejected by the Collector. This pistol was so heavy that he could not, of course, stick it in his belt; it was all he could do to lift it with both hands. But he had been so enthusiastic about it that he had willingly gone through the laborious loading of its honeycomb of barrels, one after another, and now it was ready to wreak destruction. He already saw fifteen sepoys stretched on the ground and himself standing over them with this weapon smoking in his hand...or rather, in both hands.

As the sky slowly brightened and they waited, Fleury thought of how he and Harry had waited for the first attack of all at the beginning of June. How long ago that seemed! He remembered how innocently they had discussed which natives they would blow to smithereens and which they would grant a reprieve to. Now they were too weak to discuss anything.

In spite of his physical weakness Harry was busy. The balustrade beside him looked like the shelves of a hosiery shop: dozens of pairs of silk stockings hung from it or lay in piles on the flagstones beside the brass six-pounder. If you had lifted the dresses of the Krishnapur ladies on that morning of the last assault, you would have found them correspondingly bare-legged, for it was they who had donated their stockings to help solve Harry's difficulty with his brass cannon...Because, incredible though it may seem, he had fired so many round shot in the course of the siege that the muzzle had been hammered into an ellipse. Such was the distortion that the muzzle would no longer accept round shot; nor would it have accepted canister had not Harry had the idea of tapping the canisters and using silk stockings to contain the iron balls. Beside the brass six-pounder there stood another six-pounder, this one of iron with a longer chase. This cannon, too, had been fired a great deal and although its muzzle had shown no distortion Harry had an uneasy feeling that it might soon be about to burst.

The Collector had gone up to join Ford on the roof because he wanted to be in a position from which he could give the order to retreat at the right moment; in his own mind there was no doubt but that he would have to give it sooner or later. But the cannons on the north-facing ramparts had an essential function if the garrison was to survive the morning; these cannons must break the impetus of the first enemy attack. It was now just light enough on the roof for him to see to load his pistols. He sat cross-legged in the native fashion beside the parapet and listened to the flag stirring restlessly in the light airs above him. Scowling with concentration he began to load the six chambers of his Colt Patent Repeating Pistol with the lead which dragged down one pocket of his scarecrow's morning coat. One by one he filled each chamber with powder and then, without wadding or patch, placed a soft lead ball on its mouth and pulled the long lever beneath the barrel; this lever moved the rammer which forced the lead down into the chamber and sealed it so completely, the Collector had been assured that the powder would still fire even if you immersed your arm completely in water. When he had finished, and the Adams, too, had been loaded, the Collector settled down calmly to wait for the attack. He felt very weak, however, and every so often he retched convulsively, though without vomiting for he had consumed nothing except a little water in the past twenty-four hours. He was inclined to feel giddy, too, and was obliged to support himself against the parapet in order to steady his troubled vision.