The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [619]
Ash, watching from his window, had glimpsed the five tiny figures, dwarfed by distance and trailing a white cloud of dust as they rode back at a gallop from Ben-i-Hissar, and guessed who they were. But he did not know why they had turned aside until he saw the first of the riff-raff from the city come pouring in from beyond the stables to his right, because the window-bars were set too close to allow him to lean out, so he could not see the Arsenal – or the Kulla-Fi-Arangi either: that empty enclosure on which Wally had hoped to build forage-sheds and servants' quarters so that he could prevent it being used as a way of entering the compound or, in the event of hostilities, occupied by an enemy.
66
Wally had been speaking to the sepoys on the barrack roof when the city budmarshes arrived to join the insurgents, and he had seen a number of mutineers, encouraged by these reinforcements, begin to run forward under cover of the fire from the Arsenal towards the Kulla-Fi-Arangi, from where – if they were allowed to occupy it – they would soon be able to make two thirds of the compound untenable. They would have to be dislodged and there was only one way to do it.
Making for the steps that led down in the thickness of the outer wall he pelted down them, raced across the lane into the Residency courtyard, and up to the Envoy's office where he found Cavagnari and William: the Envoy, with his head bandaged, firing through a slit made by breaking out a slat of the shutter, while his orderly acted as loader, taking the empty rifle and handing him a loaded one as fast as he fired, as methodically as though they had been on a duck shoot.
William was kneeling at one of the windows that faced inwards across the courtyard and returning the fire of a group of men on the roof of a house overlooking the barracks, and the room itself was littered with spent shells and full of the reek of black powder.
‘Sir,’ said Wally breathlessly, ‘they are trying to occupy that Kulla enclosure up on the left, and if they get a foothold there we're done. I believe we could drive them out if we made a charge, only we'll have to do it quickly. If William-’
But Cavagnari had tossed aside the rifle and was already half-way across the room. ‘Come on, William.’ He snatched up his sword and revolver and was down the stairs and shouting for Rosie, who was tending a wounded man. ‘Come on, Kelly, leave that fellow. We've got to chase those bastards out. No, not a rifle, your revolver. And a sword, man – a sword.’
Wally, racing ahead of him, collected Jemadar Mehtab Singh and twenty-five men, and explaining the position briefly, watched the sowars stack their carbines and draw their sabres while the sepoys fixed bayonets and two men ran to open the doors in the archway at the far end of the barrack courtyard. ‘Now we will show those sons of perdition how the Guides fight,’ said Wally joyously. ‘Argi, bhaian. Pah Makhe – Guides ki-jai!’*
Ash saw them stream across the lane and into the barracks, where the canvas awnings hid them from his view until they burst out through the archway and into the open, the four Englishmen, Wally leading, running ahead with the Guides racing behind them – the sepoys charging with the bayonet and the sowars with sabre and pistol.
They tore cheering across the bullet-swept compound, the sunlight flashing on their blades; and through all the din and tumult of shouting and rifle fire he could hear Wally singing at the top of his voice: ‘… “And hearts are brave again and arms are strong, Alleluia! – All-e-lu-ia!” ’
‘A day for singing hymns,’ thought Ash, remembering. ‘Oh God – a day for singing hymns…’
Two of the Guides fell before they reached the Cavalry lines, one of them pitching forward on his face as he ran, and recovering almost instantly, rolling aside to avoid being trodden on and limping painfully away to the shelter of the stables; the other checking, to sink slowly to his