Guns to the Far East Read Online Free Page B

that we are to repair to Lucknow,” Harriet had written. “Of course, we are all horrified by what has happened in Delhi but here, I feel sure, all will be well …” Please God she was right, her mother prayed silently. Please God that she and dear Jemmy and their three little ones would be safe …
    She was no less anxious about her daughter Lavinia, who was married to an officer of the Queen’s 32nd. The regiment had moved from Cawnpore to Lucknow and, although Lavinia’s last letter had been written from Cawnpore, she wrote that she and her husband were expecting to follow the rest within a week or so. Tom had gone down with an attack of fever—not serious, she hastened to add, but somewhat debilitating—so they had remained with the regiment’s invalids until he should recover sufficiently to return to duty. “In any case, dearest Mamma” the letter had ended, “you need not worry about us. General Wheeler is making preparations for the defence of this station and two large buildings—one of them a hospital— are in readiness, with an entrenchment being constructed round them. They are close to the Allahabad road, and, should it become necessary, all the Europeans are to gather within the entrenchment, with our men and the gunners and reinforcements we are expecting from Allahabad to guard against a surprise attack. The Maharajah of Bithur, whose people call him the Nana Sahib (it means ‘grandfather’)—a most civilised man and a close friend of General and Lady Wheeler—has promised the aid of his troops should the sepoys here become disaffected.
    â€œSo we are in no danger, even if we have to stay here—and Tom doesn’t think we shall. Sir Henry Lawrence wants the whole regiment in Lucknow and I, of course, would like to be there in time for the happy event we are expecting at the end of July, especially if Harriet should decide to join us, as Jemmy is urging her to …”
    Tom and Lavinia had, as yet, no children but Lavinia had mentioned—almost casually in an earlier letter—the “happy event” they were expecting and Augusta Hazard added a prayer for them on this account. Giving birth to a baby in India could be fraught with difficulties but both Cawnpore and Lucknow were large stations, with European hospitals staffed by experienced civil and military surgeons. It was foolish to worry. Lavinia had urged her not to; she was a strong and healthy girl and Tom, of course, was the most devoted of husbands and could be relied upon to look after her.
    There had been telegraphic reports, received via Lucknow and Agra, that Cawnpore was under attack by mutineers but, as yet, no official confirmation and all the newspapers had stressed the speed with which reinforcements were being rushed up country by road, river, and the partially completed railway from Calcutta. One entire regiment of the Company’s European Fusiliers had been sent to augment the Cawnpore garrison and—after what was described as “restoring order” in Benares—had already entered Allahabad. If what Lavinia had written about General Wheeler’s preparations for the defence of the station were true, then surely they would have little difficulty in holding out until the Fusiliers reached them? In any case, both Lavinia and Harriet were probably in Lucknow by this time, Lady Hazard told herself—in Lucknow, with a British regiment and under the care of that wise and widely respected man, Sir Henry Lawrence. They … the Admiral gave vent to a smothered exclamation.
    â€œGood Gad! Held up in Allahabad, you say? Held up by what, for heaven’s sake?”
    Startled out of her reverie, his wife turned to look at him in mute question, the colour draining from her cheeks as Lord George Melgund answered, in a flat, expressionless voice, “By cholera and another threatened mutiny, I understand. But Colonel Neill and his