‘As I’ve said, the Char Bagh wall was pierced in plenty of places and we slithered through the next gap we came to, fast as rabbits. I’d lost my bearings by now, as you tend to if you’re being pursued by a crowd with murderous intentions. In fact the only idea in my head, apart from not falling into the hands of the sepoys, was to get rid of the pouch containing the letters and maps which I could feel knocking against my own ribs as I ran. Before we knew it we’d reached the edge of the area that had been flooded by the damning of the canal. Unawares we’d turned back in a northerly direction, the opposite one to the Alum Bagh route. Too late now!
‘The water stretched in front of us for several hundred yards. By luck, there were no signs of sepoys on the far side of the floodwater, or at least no camp fires. Behind us were our pursuers, their torches like angry fireflies. We could hear them crashing through the grass and brush. There was a crack as one of them loosed off a rifle shot. We didn’t need any more encouragement to wade out into the floodwater. It was no more than knee-high at first and very spongy underfoot. Altogether I thought it would not prove much of a deterrent to those behind us.
‘But of course we were soon out of our depth. While we’d been wading in I unfastened my pouch and I half scattered, half thrust the documents into the water as soon as it got deep enough. I reckoned whatever was on ’em would soon be erased by the water – which by the way was turbid and foul-smelling. The sheets of paper floated away under the stars. But by that stage I had other things to worry about. Lal was floundering, his head bobbing on the surface. He couldn’t swim of course and he was in a muck-sweat. The only mercy was that our pursuers weren’t minded to follow us into the water. I could see them clustering on the edge. I’m no mean swimmer myself but it was a struggle to get hold of Lal and avoid being dragged down with him. I managed it, though, after swallowing and spluttering out mouthfuls of filthy water while I was ordering him to keep still and allow himself to be saved – if I could do it!
‘As long as we’d been in difficulties, the watchers on the bank had done nothing, neither shouted, nor loosed off any shots. Perhaps they could see the shape of our heads regularly dipping underneath the water and must have been expecting us not to reappear. But when I started to pull strongly with one arm, cradling Lal with the other, they realized we might get away. They began to shoot and run up and down, shouting to attract attention on the side we were heading for. It was our great good fortune that their shots went wide and that we were opposite a vacant stretch of ground. The only way across was to swim since the bridge at Char Bagh was impassable. Lal and I struggled out, dripping and exhausted, and crawled into the shelter of some trees.
‘We couldn’t stay there. It would be getting light in two or three hours. We retraced our steps although this time on the inner side of the flooded canal. Again we were lucky because it was that point in the night when everyone is least alert, even those who have been tasked with keeping watch. We reached the half submerged Dilksuka Bridge and then made a sweep north and west, skirting Lucknow. It might have been a dead city, there was no movement, no sound except for the barking of the pye-dogs. Just as the first streaks of light were creeping into the eastern sky, the two of us were also creeping under the steep embankment by Secunder Bagh, knowing that the sepoys had fortified that area.
‘We nearly got ourselves shot on the edge of the stronghold around the Residency. Each corner of the defended area had a battery dug-in. By now there was enough light for the guard to see two bedraggled figures in native costume staggering towards his battery. He raised his rifle and shouted out to his sleeping companions and if I hadn’t called out in English, giving my name and rank, we might have fallen to a bullet from our own side. Anyway we were welcomed back and were soon fed, washed and changed as best as our straitened circumstances would allow.
‘Our mission had been a failure, a complete failure. I must say that Inglis was very decent about it. He patted me on the back just as he’d done before I set out, and praised me for having the presence of mind to destroy the documents I was carrying. “No harm done,” he said. “No good either,” I might have replied. And within a day or so, a second volunteer did manage to reach Alum Bagh to guide in the next relief column. He was a civilian although a soldier’s son, a fellow by the name of Thomas Kavanagh. He received a medal for his achievement, and well deserved it was too. The relief column broke through to Lucknow under Campbell and then the Residency was finally abandoned.’
Here Major Marmont paused and his expression took on the introspective look of earlier. Tom wondered whether he was thinking that that medal might have been his, if the mission had turned out right. But there was something else on his mind.
‘Before any of this happened, the relief and so on, I was back on my feet and ready to do my part in defending the depleted population in the Residency. But Lal was not so fortunate. He was a fit young man but he must have picked up something in that filthy canal as we were floundering across it in our escape from Char Bagh. I went to see him in the makeshift infirmary on the first floor of the Residency. I felt an obligation to him – I might have saved his life in the water, even if only for a brief time, but he had preserved mine first of all by killing the sentry. It was the end of the day when I visited the infirmary and the sun was a great ball of red above the horizon. The light burned through the tattered muslin screen over the window which was meant to keep out the bugs.
‘Lal was lying on a narrow cot, shaking and sweating profusely. His skin was a queer greenish tint and his eyes were wild. The doctor shook his head at me as I looked towards him. The doctor was a civilian but could have passed for a soldier for he had a brisk, clipped manner and used as few words as possible. Mind you, we never said much to each other. This doctor was no friend of mine. I mentioned to you, Mr Ansell, that my wife Padma was Indian. She was the girl I met in Lucknow. The doctor fancied himself a rival to me for the hand of this beautiful girl. Padma means lotus flower, you know. Thank God, she chose me – but that was later.
‘Anyway, on this occasion the doctor didn’t have to speak. Anyone would have known what that head-shake meant. It might have been different in a well-appointed hospital but here we were, under siege, without medicines.
‘I bent over Lal to offer him some words of comfort. He didn’t recognize me at first but then he seized my wrist and gabbled some words I couldn’t understand. Eventually I made them out. “It is fate,” he was saying. “It is deserved.”
‘At the same time he was struggling to untie the cord which secured the sheath and dagger that still hung about his neck. It might seem strange that no one had removed – or stolen – the dagger with its strange ivory handle but it is a measure of those desperate days that we all had other more important things on our minds. He pressed sheath and dagger into my hand. I thought he wanted me to examine them again and reluctantly I withdrew the weapon from its sheath. It’s not fanciful to say that the blade seemed to gather to itself the furious red light of the setting sun, as if it was once more steeped in blood. I made to return it to Lal but, no, he wanted me to have the dagger. He pushed it back with all his strength. It was a gift, a dying gift if you like. He whispered, “It is yours. May it bring you better fortune, Lieutenant Marmont.”