The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [633]
Despite this knowledge, he had wasted a considerable amount of time and energy on burrowing through into the latter, in the hope that either the window-bars or the lock in the library might prove to be flimsier than his own. But when at last he managed to kick and hack and scrape a hole large enough to squeeze through, it was only to discover that the lock was of the same pattern, while the window (besides being as stoutly barred) was even smaller than the one in his own room.
Ash wriggled back again and resumed his vigil, watching and listening, hoping against hope, and praying for a miracle.
He had seen each of the four sorties, and though unlike the Sirdar he had not been able to see the first of the two charges that drove the mutineers out of the waste ground of the Kulla-Fi-Arangi, he had seen the whole of the third engagement. And it was while watching it that he had remembered belatedly that he not only carried a pistol, but had a service revolver and fifty rounds of ammunition hidden away in one of the numerous tin boxes that were stacked against the walls.
If he could not go down and fight with the Guides in the compound below, at least he could still do something to help them, and hastily removing the revolver from its hiding place, he levelled it from the window only to realize afresh why both sides had ceased firing. While the fight lasted and the protagonists were embroiled in a hand-to-hand struggle, no one could be certain whom a bullet or a musket ball might strike, and he too must hold his fire. Even when the enemy broke and ran, he resisted the temptation to speed them on their way because the range was too great to allow him to be certain of hitting his mark and his supply of ammunition was limited and too valuable to be wasted.
The twenty-three rounds he had subsequently expended during the course of that morning had certainly not been wasted, nor had there been any risk of the shots being traced to his window. There being too much lead flying round for anyone to be certain of such a thing. Five had accounted for as many enemy snipers, who had been firing from other and less closely barred windows lower down and further to the right and been incautious enough to lean well out in order to fire at the sepoys holding the barrack roof. A further fourteen had caused several deaths and considerable damage among the mob who had murdered the Hindu clerk, while the last four had disposed of four mutineers who during the sortie led by Jemadar Jiwand Singh had attempted, under cover of the fighting, to crawl towards the barracks in the lee of the low boundary wall that divided the Munshi's house from the British Mission's compound.
Koda Dad Khan would have approved his pupil's performance, for it had been good shooting. But as the range of a revolver is small, Ash's field of fire was very limited, and he knew that against the enormous numbers that the enemy were throwing against the Residency, any assistance that he could give was at best derisory.
The compound lay stretched out below him like a brightly lit stage seen from the royal box of a theatre, and had he been able to exchange the service revolver for a rifle, or even a shot-gun, he could have helped to reduce the fire that was being directed at the barracks and the Residency from every house-top within a radius of three or four hundred yards. But as it was he could do almost nothing. He could only watch in an agony of fear and frus-ration as the enemy bored loopholes in the compound wall