Jack Windrush Collection - Books 5-8

Prelude-2

"Good man, Green." Jack rolled away, aimed and fired. The bullet smashed into the warrior"s chest, knocking him backwards.

"Thank you, sir." Green looked shocked at the c*****e around him.

"Come on, ensign!" Jack saw Elliot exchanging sword strokes with a long-bearded Rajput as the Sikhs surged onward to his right and the 10th Foot charged at a second defensive line.

"To me, 113th!" Jack ran on. "Don"t let the Poachers get in front of us!"

Mutineer infantry clustered around a small battery of artillery, firing muskets in support of the six-pounders. A sudden roar from the rear alerted Jack, and he saw the Sikhs burst open an arched gate and charge into the enclosure. A slender, active man rallied the defenders with shouts in a high, if muffled, voice. Rough grey cloth covered the lower half of his face, while he had pulled a black turban low over his forehead, emphasising the intensity of his eyes.

"That man looks dangerous," Elliot gasped. "He might be Nana Sahib"s bodyguard that Colonel Grey told us to look for."

"In that case, he should be with Nana Sahib." Jack levelled his revolver, fired and missed. "Damn the man."

The man in the black turban lifted his tulwar high and shouted something Jack couldn"t understand. The mutineers gathered around him, facing the advancing British, panting, some yelling, bayonets and swords held ready.

Something plucked at Jack"s sleeve as he looked around for his men. They followed Ensign Green with the Colours, khaki-clothed, sweat-stained and swearing.

"Come to me and keep your discipline, lads!" Jack roared. "We"ll hit them together, not as a mob of individuals."

The 113th stopped for a moment to dress their lines and pushed on, bayonets levelled.

The man in the black turban brandished his tulwar. "Maro Firinghi Soor" – “kill the foreign pigs”, and his followers repeated his words.

Maro Firinghi Soor""Maro Firinghi Soor!"

Maro Firinghi Soor"Remember Cawnpore!" the British replied.

"Bole so nihal Sat siri Akaal" – “The one who believes in the truth of God is immortal” the Sikhs shouted as they rushed forward.

Bole so nihal Sat siri Akaal"The defenders were fighting hard, with warriors clashing swords against the bayonets of the 10th and 113th Foot, firing their clumsy matchlocks while the mutineers, the men who had recently been sepoys in the Honourable East India Company"s Bengal Army, fired and withdrew in sullen discipline. Jack saw the man in the black turban lead a counter-attack to check the advance of the 10th Foot.

Jack lunged forward, only for a surge of desperate warriors to halt him. "Get that fellow!" He pointed to Black Turban. "He"s rallying the enemy."

"Yes, sir!" Green shouted.

"Logan! Riley – go with the ensign!" Jack motioned two of his veterans forward.

The fighting intensified as the mutineers once more rallied behind the man with the black turban. Jack levelled his revolver and fired, missing again. "Damn this thing!" Running closer, he saw Logan shoot at a mutineer and then lunge forward with the bayonet as Riley knelt and aimed at a desperate farmer armed with a crude hoe.

The man in the black turban man swapped his tulwar from his right hand to his left and slashed sideways. One of the British replacements fell, staring as his intestines tumbled out in a pink and white coil. He opened his mouth in a silent scream, trying to replace his insides as the man in the black turban parried the swing of a Sikh sword, disarmed his adversary with a twist of the wrist and decapitated the man. The Sikh"s head lifted on a jet of blood and landed on the ground.

"Jesus, that fellow is good," Jack said.

"I"ll get him, sir!" Holding the Colours as a lance, Green charged forward.

"No, Green!" Jack knew the youngster would have little chance against a man who was so expert. Aiming his revolver, Jack fired again, to see his target immediately duck. Who the devil are you?

Who the devil are you?"Green! Come back!"

The man in the black turban man straightened up, saw Green with the Colours and stepped forward. As if in slow motion, Jack saw Green swing the staff, miss, and Black Turban slice forward with his tulwar. The blade took Green across the face. He screamed shrilly as a child and fell, dropping the Colours.

"Save the Colours!" Jack yelled, jumping forward. The Colours were the soul of the regiment and to lose them was a major disgrace. He felt sympathy for Green, but the lad had signed on as a soldier and had to take his chance.

Black Turban shouted something, and a rush of mixed warriors and mutineers charged between the 113th and the Colours. One lifted the staff and held it high, with the yellow-buff fly crushed and stained with Green"s blood. A surge of mutineers came to help, cheering at their psychological triumph.

"Come on, lads!" Logan led the counter-charge, sliding under a mutineer"s bayonet to gut him, roll across the ground and rise in the middle of the enemy ranks. When Riley followed, with Coleman and Thorpe at his back, all the fight left the mutineers, and they fled in disorder. The warriors remained, standing around their leader, clashing their tulwars on round shields and flaunting their prize. The man in the black turban stepped to their front, lithe, slim and undoubtedly in command.

Jack aimed at Black Turban and fired his final round, cursed as he hit a retreating mutineer, holstered his pistol and drew his sword. "You and me, Black-hat!"

Black Turban waited for him, tossing his tulwar from hand-to-hand, his eyes focused on Jack. The sun glinted blood red on a ruby ring on the index finger of his left hand.

Sergeant Greaves was at the forefront of the charge that smashed into the warriors" flank, and a melee began, bayonet and rifle butt against sword and shield. The force of the 113th pushed the enemy back, and the wiry man holding the Colours staggered as Logan smashed his rifle butt into his face.

"Sir!" Jack didn"t see who shouted, he remained intent on facing Black-Turban. "The Sikhs are in the Kaisarbagh!"

The man in the black turban glanced down at the writhing Green and slid his tulwar into the ensign"s groin, twisted and stepped back into the mass of the warriors as a corporal lifted the Colours.

"You monster!" Jack roared as Green"s screams redoubled. "I"ll find you!"

A bank of powder smoke momentarily obscured the enemy as Jack knelt beside the writhing ensign.

"Let"s have a look at you," Jack said and flinched. The tulwar had destroyed Green"s face, splitting one eye, cutting off his nose and leaving a bleeding gash across his mouth. No girl would look at him again. Jack only glanced at the bloody horror of Green"s groin and looked away quickly. "It"s not too bad," he said. "The surgeons will soon put you right."

Patting Green"s shoulder, Jack stood up. In the few seconds he"d spent with Green, the battle had moved on. The 113th was roaring over the walls of the Kaisarbagh, in company with the 10th and the Sikhs.

Without time to reload his revolver, Jack drew his sword and ran, jumping over the dead and wounded of both sides. He had two objectives in his head: lead his men to victory and find the man in the black turban.

Once over the Kaisarbagh wall, he found himself in a series of magnificent gardens with fruit trees and marble arbours, sparkling canals and tinkling fountains.

"We"re in paradise." The sheer beauty of his surroundings forced Elliot to stop in admiration. The whine of a bullet passing close by brought him back to reality.

"Keep after the pandies," Jack ordered, "there will be time for sight-seeing later." He ran into a sequence of courtyards overlooked by Venetian windows and with mutineers appearing on the roof above to fire and then disappear.

"Stand and fight!" Jack yelled.

"Maro Firinghi Soor! somebody shouted with another voice adding,"Allah Akbar! Angrez kaffirs!"

Maro Firinghi SoorAllah Akbar! Angrez kaffirsJack stepped sideways as a tall, shaven-headed Pathan appeared in a doorway and fired a jezzail. The Pathan shouted something, half drew the long cleaver known as a Khyber knife, held Jack"s gaze for an instant and then slid away.

jezzail"Stand and fight!" Jack slashed uselessly with his sword and ran on, with a press of the 113th and Sikhs at his back. The Pathan vanished into the maze of courtyards and gardens, and Jack tried to follow, brandishing his sword as he burst into the palace itself. Men of the 113th were behind him, exclaiming at the treasures that surrounded them. There was more wealth in one room than they would ever see in ten lifetimes.

"This is more like it!" Private Armstrong, saturnine and predatory, said. "Bugger the pandies."

"Leave the loot!" Jack warned. "There are still mutineers around!"

Soft carpets deadened the sound of their feet; silk hangings decorated the walls, mirrors reflected their images so for a second Jack prepared to strike at a wild-eyed swordsman before he realised it was himself.

"They"re running!" Elliot sounded amazed. He stood with his pistol in his left hand and his sword in his right, panting as the mutineers and warriors began a fighting withdrawal from the Kaisarbagh.

"Stand and fight, you pandy bastards!" Logan waved his rifle at them; blood dripped from the bayonet. "Remember Cawnpore!"

After the massacres at Cawnpore and Meerut, the British had no mercy. They killed anybody who did not immediately surrender. Jack watched without emotion. The penalty for mutiny and treason had always been death, and the mutineers had murdered British women and children. In this war, there was little mercy on either side.

"Loot!" somebody else shouted, and the cry spread among the British and Sikhs. As the enemy fled, the attackers realised that they were safe and within a selection of buildings that held immense wealth. "Loot, boys, gold and jewels for us all!"

With those words, the drive eased from the attack as men turned their attention to rapaciousness rather than soldiering. What they couldn"t steal, they destroyed, so in minutes the Kaisarbagh became an orgy of pointless vandalism and theft.

"Stick together, 113th!"

Men ignored Jack"s shout as they delved into rooms to see what loot they could find.

"113th! To me!" Jack roared. He didn"t want his men scattered around the Kaisarbagh where they could be vulnerable to enemy ambush. Capturing a town or palace was the most testing time for any military unit. Regiments held together in battle or on the parade ground, but British soldiers were prone to the temptations of loot or drink.

"Sir!" Riley ran up with small, ugly Logan at his side.

"I thought you"d be first at the looting, Riley." Jack knew that Riley had been a cracksman, a professional thief before he joined the army.

Riley shrugged. "There"s as much smashing as stealing, sir. These lads have got no idea."

Jack glanced around. Most of the veterans were with him, together with some of the replacements, the Johnny Raws who hadn"t yet recovered from their first sunburn. Armstrong was missing, which didn"t surprise him. "Well done, lads."

The black-turbaned leader appeared from behind a fountain. He looked directly at Jack, raised his tulwar in salute and vanished. Jack did not see where.

"Who was that sir?" Logan was on one knee, aiming his rifle. "I cannae see the bastard."

"I don"t know who he was," Jack said, "but I think we will see him again." He replaced his sword in its scabbard. And when we do, I will kill him.

And when we do, I will kill him.