The Cannons of Lucknow Read Online Free PDF Page B

face.
    Barrow pulled up beside him and dismounted, jerking his horse round in front of him to serve as temporary protection for both himself and the wounded man. “I’ll take care of this poor devil, Alex,” he grunted breathlessly. “You go on and tell Birch and Stewart not to shoot those rebels if they can help it. I want the swine alive!”
    Alex did his best to carry out these instructions, but by the time he reached the hut from which the shots had been fired, the two young Volunteers who had given the alarm were inside and he heard the roar of pistols being discharged at close range as he tethered his horse beside theirs and dashed in after them. Graham Birch turned, grinning, a smoking Colt in his hand, to point to the three bodies lying at his feet.
    â€œThose devils won’t fire on an unarmed Englishman again, sir,” he announced triumphantly. “As for this cringing cur …” he spun the chamber of his Colt and levelled the weapon at the last remaining mutineer, who was crouching in a corner of the room, gibbering with fear, his empty musket held uselessly across his chest. “I have one round left that has his name on it!”
    â€œNo, hold your fire,” Alex bade him. “Captain Barrow wanted them all taken alive, but since this man is the only one left, he’ll have to do. Disarm and tie him up and then bring him outside, if you please.”
    Lieutenant Birch obediently lowered the Colt. He was a tall, good-looking boy, who had served for less than a year with his regiment, the 1st Bengal Light Cavalry. Like his comrade in arms, Ensign Stewart of the 17th Native Infantry, and a number of others—including Lousada Barrow himself—he had made a perilous journey through hostile country to Allahabad in order to serve with Havelock’s Force and in the ranks of the Volunteer Cavalry. Death was no stranger to either of them now, but they exchanged wry glances as they pinioned the surviving sepoy’s wrists and helped him, none too gently, to his feet.
    Stewart ventured diffidently, “I’m sorry if we were a bit too impulsive, Colonel Sheridan, but they did open fire on us and … did you see that poor wretch they were holding prisoner? They’d inflicted the most ghastly injuries on him, sir, and I’m afraid it made me see red.”
    â€œI very much doubt whether the sepoys were responsible for the prisoner’s injuries,” Alex told him. “That kind of torture smacks rather of the Nana’s executioners.”
    â€œYou mean he was punished for some reason?” Birch suggested.
    â€œOr silenced. It won’t surprise me to find that his tongue has been cut out as well.”
    â€œHis tongue? ” Stewart passed his own tongue nervously over his lips. “I … see. The unfortunate fellow was making an odd sort of noise, as if he was trying to yell out and couldn’t.” His expression hardened. “The general says that we’re not to match barbarism with barbarism, but after what I’ve seen here, I … damn it all, sir, I don’t see what else we can do. They’ve betrayed us, they’ve murdered our women and children, they …” Birch silenced him with a sharp jab of the elbow. He jerked his head in Alex’s direction with a warning scowl and the youngster reddened. “I’m very sorry, sir. I forgot that you—that is, I—”
    â€œYou forgot that I was in the Seige?” Alex finished for him. “And that most of the women and children who died in the Bibigarh were known to me? Well, continue to forget it, my young friend, because it’s something that I’d give my immortal soul to forget. The general is absolutely right, you know. If we’re to win back India, if we’re to regain the trust of the ordinary people who have had no part in this mutiny, it will not be by meeting barbarism with barbarism.”
    â€œYes, sir, of