Bedford Square - Anne Perry [95]
“ ’Course I remember Colonel Balantyne,” he said with a lift of his chin, after Tellman had introduced himself. “It were ’im as led us w’en we rode inter Lucknow after the Mutiny. Never seen anyfink like it.” His face was set hard as he strove to control the anguish of memory that tore him even now. Tellman could not imagine what lay in his inward vision. He knew poverty, crime and disease; he knew the ravages of cholera in the slums, and freezing corpses of the beggars and the old and the children who lived in the streets. He knew all the agony inflicted by helplessness and indifference. But he had never seen war. Individual murders were one thing; the carnage of mass destruction was beyond his knowledge. He could only guess, and watch the sergeant’s face.
“You went in …” he prompted.
“Yeah.” Sturton was looking beyond him, his eyes misted over. “It was seein’ the women and children that got me. I’m used ter seein’ men cut ter pieces.”
“Colonel Balantyne,” Tellman said, forcing him back to the issue. He did not want to hear the other details. He had read about it, been told in school, enough to know he dreaded it.
A thread of breeze stirred the leaves, making a sound like waves on a shore. Away in the distance a woman laughed.
“Never forget the Colonel’s face.” Sturton was lost in the past. He was in India, not the milder heat of an English summer afternoon. “Looked like death ’isself, ’e did. Thought ’e were gonna fall orff ’is horse. Stumbled w’en ’e got orff. Knees fair wobbled w’en ’e walked over ter the first pile o’ corpses. ’E’d seen plenty o’ death on the battlefield, but this were different.”
In spite of himself, Tellman tried to imagine it, and felt sick. He wondered what Balantyne’s emotions had been, how deep? He looked like such a stiff, cold man now.
“What did he do?” he asked.
Sturton did not look at him. His mind was still in Lucknow thirty-four years before.
“We was all took bad at it,” he said quietly. “The Colonel took charge. ’e was white as death an “is voice were shakin’, but ’e told us all wot ter do, ’ow ter search the buildings ter make sure there weren’t no ambushes. Ter see if there were anyone ’iding, like.” There was fierce pride in his voice, faraway things remembered, and the fact that he had done his duty and survived into these softer times. “Secure the bounds, put a watch in case they returned,” he went on, not looking at Tellman beside him. “ ’e sent the youngest fer that … keep ’em out o’ the way o’ the dead. Some of us was took pretty ’ard by it. Like I said, it were the women, some of ’em wi’ babes even. ’e went ’round ’isself to see if any of ’em was still alive, like. Gawd knows ’ow ’e did it. I couldn’t a’. But then that’s w’y ’e’s a colonel an’ I in’t.”
“He was a colonel because his father bought his commission,” Tellman said, then instantly and without knowing why, wished he hadn’t.
Sturton looked at him with patient contempt. His face was eloquent that he considered Tellman beneath explaining to.
“You dunno nuffink about duty or loyalty or nuffink else, or yer wouldn’t say such a damn stupid thing,” he retorted. “Colonel Balantyne were the sort o’ man we’d a’ followed any place ’e’d a’ gorn, an’ proud ter do it. ’e ’elped us bury the dead, and stood over the graves and said the prayers for ’em. Even on ’ot nights if I shut me eyes I can still ’ear ’is voice sayin’ them words. Never wept, ’course ’e wouldn’t, but it were all there in his face, all that ’orror.” He sighed deeply and remained silent for several moments.
This time Tellman did not venture to interrupt. He was full of strange and troubling emotions. He tried to imagine the General as a younger man, a man with an inner life of emotions, anger, pain, pity, all masked with a mighty effort because it was his duty, and he must lead the men, never let them doubt him or see weakness, for their sakes. It was not the Balantyne he had believed he knew.