Chapter Eleven.
The siege was terrible, one of the worst that had been set down in history, for both sides.
The English opened fire upon the palace and fort, only to be shocked by the intensity of the reply. The explosive mortar rounds were a huge surprise to the massed infantry ranks, but mercifully the rounds were exhausted, depleted by the attack only six months before but the cannon fire was maintained.
The Jhansi damage was greater, the calibre of the artillery was higher and the damage soon showed, with a section of the place wall being smashed and one dawn's light revealed a massed column marching to the breach and the defenders doing whatever they could to repel them. The fort had its own columns to defend against, so little support could be offered.
While the siege was lowered against the Jhansi people, the town was the scene of bitter and brutal street-by-street fighting. House by house, and street by street no one was spared.
No man, woman, or child.
In outlying villages, men and women were pressed into service, labourers, washerwomen and other services.
One fine morning, a squadron of dragoons rode in the village and gathered up twenty men and women, at the point of a bayonet. One such couple was Mara and Ghadnar Labbi Singh, simple farmers and potters enjoying their peaceful moment of happiness.
Now grime visaged war came to them again, only as victims of the armed. Being put into a cart, they were driven into the English camp and set to tasks. Ghadnar, being strong was to a work gang and Mara being pretty was found to work as a laundress.
Sergeant Mulal had spotted her quickly and had ensured that she was assigned to tend to his patron officers' laundry needs. The brothers were in desperate need of some diversion as the siege had been costly in manpower and the mess was in poor spirits. The junior officers had faired worse, with all but Carstairs still alive. Morale was at an all-time low, and then the news that a large army had been sighted to their rear brought further dismay.
"Gentlemen, an army under the command of Tatya Tope, the Indian mutiny leader has been seen some thirty miles away, that will give us only a day to meet him in the open field. Tomorrow, one-third of the army will intercept Tope, and prevent him from raising the siege. The remaining two-thirds will assault the palace and the fort, in turn. I will appoint officers by the evening mess, and issue written orders of engagement." The Governor did not brook comment, question or cheer. He marched out, amid a flurry of his staff with maps, lists and more administration of war.
The dawn would bring the upset of many a career, as they would be assigned and the mess buzzed with heady excitement and utter gloomy resolution of death. The juniors, especially fretted and spent their money on wine and heavy spirits to blot out what they expected to be their last days. Some more experienced officers sought other pleasures, to fill their time before climbing into the saddle and face a very uncertain future.
The Grey Brothers were already in dire need of distraction, and Mulal lining his pockets informed them of the laundress, with an excellent figure and a full bosom. The Greys were naturally intrigued, but unlike whores; wives had husbands and husbands were a problem. Mulal had guessed Ghadnar would refuse gold and so would need to be coerced in some other way or simply killed. In a land torn by war, one more death would go unnoticed.
Mulal nodded when the Greys suggested the casual murder; Mulal didn't care. He would have the pretty wife after the English and perhaps use her as his own whore and make more gold by selling to other men. He bowed and then made his way off into the camp, there was at least an hour of daylight, and despite the roar of cannon at the front line, his mission was set. The laundress would be at the village well and her husband still being forced on the escarpment ramp, filling in the stone and gravel ramp that would used by the column to storm the expected breach. The cannon fire split the air around the workers, sometimes they would need to duck out of the way from stone fragments, or stray musket balls fired from the defenders. Ghadnar, knowing the fort as he did, knew the ramp was being assembled in the wrong place but to say something would risk questions and questions might lead to the English finding out about his role in the fort's mutiny. The ghosts of his past were haunting him. He dare not risk Mara, or his newfound happiness away from the guns. As he sweated in the last hours of daylight, he found himself back in the Commander's house, abusing the white women he had tied up.
If Mara found out, she would leave him in a heartbeat. As he shovelled the gravel and stone fragments into useful-sized piles, he fought to ignore the wailing of the white woman, as he cut away the nubile daughter's dress and forced her onto the bed. His memory was raw now, being as close as he was to his crime, the flood of it was sickening to him now. He shovelled harder and harder, trying to scratch away the look of fear on the young woman's face as he forced her to open her mouth and accept his new erect prick. He had already despoiled her mother, now tied and gagged to the bedpost at the bottom of the bed, he was free to do what he wanted to the daughter, and what he wanted was to humiliate the young virgin. She had been so shocked at her mother's treatment but also how she had accommodated the dark prick in her mouth and her private parts. Ghadnar had delighted in ensuring that Lucy, the eighteen-year-old had had a good view of how his prick as split her mother open and saw that her mother was used to such treatment. Lucy had heard his father mount his mother in the quiet of the Indian night and had heard him grunt and she responded with whispers of equal intensity. She had even seen a man's prick, when a young soldier and her father's 'bat-man' had been washing her father's prize stallion down and decided to wash off the soap, thinking he was alone. She had marvelled at the shape and the length and pondered how such a thing would fit inside her. She also noted, how the look of the prick made her legs tremble, and her cunny grew tingly and wet. She had once plucked up the courage to ask her mother, just before her coming-out party at eighteen, when her father was away.
"Mother, as I am soon to be eighteen, I think I must also think of marrying as well, will I not?" She asked coyly.
"Soon, Lucy. Your father and I will talk about this soon enough," She replied, sipping tea from the fine China cup on the table on the veranda. Lucy pressed on,
"Will you talk to him in bed?" She asked, her face flushed.
