The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [621]
Another and larger group on the roof of the Mess House opposite had turned their attention to the buildings that lay immediately behind the Residency, and Wally, running up to see how they were getting on and to take stock of the situation, saw from that vantage point that his recent estimate of fifteen minutes had erred on the side of generosity. The mutineers were already creeping back again into the Kulla-Fi-Arangi, and there was nothing for it but to launch a second sortie and clear them out again.
Pelting back down the stairs he collected a fresh party of Guides, snatched Rosie away from setting Paras Ram's shattered leg – apologizing in the same breath to the wounded man and assuring him that he would not keep the Doctor-Sahib long – and turned and ran across the courtyard and up the Envoy's staircase to fetch William and Cavagnari. But the sight of the older man's face made him change his mind.
Wally had lost none of his old admiration for his Chief, but he was a soldier first and foremost, and he had no intention of jeopardizing his men unnecessarily. He needed William, but he refused point-blank to allow Cavagnari to accompany them: ‘No, I'm sorry, sir, but any fool can see you ain't fit and I can't take the risk,’ said Wally brutally. ‘If you collapsed we'd only have to stop and pick you up, and that could mean throwing away the lives of several valuable men. Besides, it wouldn't do 'em any good to see you fall. Come on, William, we haven't got all day…’
Ash and Nakshband Khan, together with several hundred of the enemy, witnessed that second sortie, and seeing that only three of the four Sahibs took part in it, drew their own conclusions. The enemy, being convinced that one of the Sahibs had been slain, were greatly heartened, while Ash and the Sirdar (who had noted the bandage about Cavagnari's head and realized that he had been wounded) were correspondingly dismayed, because they knew that if he were to die it could have a serious effect on the spirits of the beleaguered garrison.
Once again the firing had of necessity slackened off, and once again the waste ground had been cleared. But this time at the cost of two lives and another four men wounded, two of them severely.
‘We can't go on like this, Wally,’ gasped Rosie, wiping the sweat out of his eyes as he directed the stretcher-bearers to carry the injured men into the rooms that he had set aside as hospital wards. ‘Do you realize that as well as these we've already had over a dozen men killed and God knows how many wounded?’
‘ I know. But then we've accounted for at least ten of their men to every one of ours – if that's any comfort to you.’
‘It's none at all – when I'm knowing that those divils out there outnumber us by twenty to one, and that as soon as the lot that left for their cantonments get back here, it'll be nearer fifty or a hundred to one… Accha, Rahman Baksh, mai aunga (all right, I'm coming) – Look, Wally, isn't it time we tried another letter to that scutt of an Amir?… Accha, accha. Abbi arter (I'm coming now).’
The doctor hurried away, and Wally handed his sabre to his bearer Pir Buksh, and taking the Havildar with him went over to the barracks to see how things were with the sepoys who were firing from the shelter of the parapets, and if anything could be done to improve the defences of that building against the mass attack that would surely come if the Amir failed to send help. There had still been no reply to the letter that had been taken out by the chupprassi Ghulam Nabi, and now Sir Louis wrote another