Chapter Two

  The Angel of Kanmak

  It was well before dawn when the guns thundered again. Women huddled, holding their children in the dark of the residency’s grand ballroom. Flashes of light from the musket fire flickered through the gaping windows that had long since been shot out by musket fire from the rebels. Julia woke from a fitful sleep at the first shots. She could hear men bellowing and screaming somewhere out there in the chaos of battle. Volley after volley roared outside the relative safety of the stone walls. The ballroom itself was packed, hundreds of women and children squeezed together into the largest and safest space within the walls of the residency. Women lay and sat as they could. Makeshift beds had been arranged in neat rows, and though it was crowded beyond bursting, the room was orderly enough. Colina, the wife of Brigadier Shelton, had taken charge and organised the women in the first days of the siege. Now she was sitting in the dark across from Julia, her chin up, attempting to mimic the stoicism of the men who were out there dying to protect them. Her eyes met Julia’s, and a sad look passed between them, illuminated by the flashes of light. They had not known one another well before the siege began, only in passing. To Julia, she felt a rare kind of woman. She was like a mother to the other women, a paragon of what a Vastrum woman ought to be.

  Somewhere in the great hall, a child’s cry echoed, awoken by the sudden violence outside. Distant screams cut through the dark. Soon enough, a clash of steel joined the din as the enemy charge reached the battlements, and the men were drawn into battle with sword and bayonet. Then a louder sound joined the din as a cannon roared to life, accompanied by a flash of brilliance and followed by a sound like hissing spray. Julia knew that sound for grapeshot. She had heard it many times now. Another shot of the same sounded a minute later. The sounds of battle soon faded away almost as quickly as they arrived as the enemy fell back from the wall, deterred by the raking death that was dealt by the big guns. A final volley burst forth from the muskets, a parting shot to the retreating enemy, a shot to make sure they did not come again immediately. She felt her hands unclench as silence returned, and she breathed again. Someone sighed with relief behind her. Someone else, further off, cried. Roxana sat silently, nursing her little princeling, Henry. The little boy looked out at the room with wide eyes. He did not cry at the sounds of battle. He had been conceived amidst battle, carried in his mother’s womb through captivity, and now suckled his mother, besieged by hateful traitors who wished to tear them limb from limb. His own land was gone, burned and wrecked beyond recognition. He was the princeling of a ruined place, heir to a desolate land of ashes. Would he ever grow to see it with his own eyes, the destruction wrought by Vastrum? Julia doubted it very much, but she would do anything to see that little boy grow into a man, to give him the chance to do it, or not if he chose. Roxana was, if not a good mother, then at least attentive to the baby’s needs. Henry was not the only little one there, though. There were women with children of all ages, and even a few children who had lost their parents in the mutiny. Julia had led a procession of many dozens of women, but she had not been the only one to come. By the end of the first few days, hundreds more had come from outlying colonies, most escorted there by soldiers who had survived and fought their way back to Kanmak. Nearly a thousand fighting men were defending the residency, and nearly that many women sought safety. The governor’s mansion and grounds were not small, but with so many who had sought refuge there, it was crammed beyond bursting.

  Once the fighting had ceased, Julia knew, there would be wounded to tend. She rose from her place and filed down the orderly aisle between the beds and out of the ballroom, down a hall, and into a room that served as an infirmary. She could smell the metallic stench of blood and hear the cries of the freshly wounded before she arrived. Every night, there were more wounded, and there were too few surgeons. Most of the proper medical staff, doctors, nurses, and even the native orderlies had been killed when the mutineers stormed the hospital. There were very few who had escaped that bloodshed. It was therefore up to the women to help. That was what Colina had said. So as each new wave of wounded arrived, women had gone to help. Some days, there were a few wounded in need of stitching and some comfort. Other days, there were many. This evening, the butcher’s bill was not so great. Still, there were more than a few wounds in need of stitching. Khukuris, the recurved knives of the natives, inflicted brutal gashes that did not heal quickly, and the enemy could throw them to shocking effect, not to speak of the standard musket and bayonet wounds.

  A nurse stopped her as she entered the infirmary, “Take this, ma’am. Stitch that lad up,” The older half-native woman who performed triage, Julia did not know her name as there had never been time for a proper introduction, gave her a needle and some thread and pointed to an unconscious man who lay on a nearby cot.

  Julia stepped towards the wounded soldier and, with a start, realised she recognised him well. It was the young batman of Lieutenant Albans. His name was Will, she knew. He lay prone, a deep cut under his eye that oozed blood. Whatever had given him the wound, he had narrowly avoided being blinded or worse. He did not move as she drew near and looked him over. He was a young man, her own age, and handsome, with light brown hair. He was not dressed in his soldier’s uniform. His right arm was made of metal, a prosthetic he had been given to replace his arm that had been taken by a cannonball in battle. She leaned over to look at the cut. As she did so, he jerked awake, his eyes fixing on hers, only inches away. His mouth opened in surprise, and his eyes were half-glazed over. He licked his dry lips.

  “Are you an angel?” He said dumbly.

  “Pardon me,” She said, laughing and backing away, “Oh, you’re serious. I’m only a nurse, not even that really. You were wounded on the cheek. I was tending to it.”

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  “Oh,” He said again, quite stupidly.

  She held up the needle and thread, “I’m sorry, I’ve nothing for the pain.”

  The young soldier gulped and nodded, “You may proceed.”

  She leaned back in, trying to see her work in the dim lamplight of the infirmary. All the noise and chaos seemed to disappear while she went to her sewing. The young man winced at the first needle poke, but then she set into a rhythm, and he stopped wincing.

  “What gave you the wound?” She asked idly as she stitched him.

  “A musket ball grazed me, I think. I didn’t notice it.”

  “And knocked you unconscious?” She asked, smirking at him.

  “No, I fainted,” He admitted a moment later.

  She raised an eyebrow and put in the next stitch. He did not wince again. “I’d have thought you were made of sterner stuff, Mr?”

  “Mr. Cooper, ma’am. Will Cooper. May I call you Mrs. Dryden?” He asked tentatively.

  “Julia. Call me Julia.”

  “You would honour me if you called me Will,” He told her.

  “I shall do so,” She said, her heart fluttering as she did. She finished her last stitch, cut the thread, “I am finished.”

  He sat up, “Thank you, Julia. Please don’t tell the lads I fainted at my own blood.”

  She laughed almost like a schoolgirl. It felt good to laugh. It had been so long, “I will not,” She assured him.

  “If you’re finished,” The nurse returned abruptly, “I have some bedpans for you to empty, young lady.”

  Julia frowned. It was Will’s turn to chuckle.

  The nurse shot him a withering look, “Quiet, you budmash! If you’re well enough to laugh, you’re well enough to get out of my bloody infirmary. Stop distracting my assistants.”

  He nodded at Julia, smirked, said nothing else, and left quickly.

  “And you, what are you doing flirting with that boy like you’re in the school yard?” The nurse said, glaring at her through dark eyes.

  “I wasn’t…” Julia tried to protest.

  “Get to the bed pans, young lady!” The woman nearly shouted at her.

  Julia grimaced but obeyed. When she was done, she was tasked with stitching other wounds, all worse than Will’s. Then she went around collecting old bandages to clean, mopped the blood from the floor of the surgeon’s room, and finally returned, exhausted and numb, to the great ballroom of the residency. By the time her work was done, it was near noon. She knew there would be more work the next night, and the next after that. She mechanically ate lunch consisting of porridge, a small portion of preserved beef, and a tin cup of water that was passed out. At first, the women had been offered more food, but Colina Shelton had insisted on the same low rations as the men, and the rest of the women had followed suit. There was little enough food and even less water. It was a great tragedy that no cistern or well existed within the grounds of the residency. There were only barrels of water stacked up and several small ponds in the garden grounds. They had been boiling the water before drinking it. The shortages of food were a problem, but unless the siege was relieved, they would surely all die of thirst before they risked dying of hunger. She knew Lieutenant Albans and the soldiers were working to fix the problem of their water supply, but it was something that simmered quietly in the background. None of the women spoke of it. They all took Colina’s lead and kept their chins up. All they could do now, they felt, was to support the men, and be as little a burden as they could. The longer they held out, the more hope of rescue they had, the more time for Haddock and his armies to reach them and sweep away the mutineers like so much dust.

  The enemy came again an hour before sunset. The cannon shots rattled the broken glass windows, shaking down shards that clung to their frames. Volleys rolled like thunder outside the ballroom. Screams sounded, and swords clashed in the fading light. Julia took comfort in looking out and seeing the banners of Vastrum waving on the makeshift rampart, the sun hitting the tattered red-and-gold battle standard. It waved in the air defiantly, daring the mutineers to take it. It waved in the breeze, shot through by muskets and whipped by the hot wind of Ayodh through the fight. Julia and the rest of the women and children hunkered down. When the light faded and night fell, the enemy finally retreated from another failed attack. Julia rose with the other volunteers and returned to their work in the gloom of the infirmary, tending the men who had sacrificed so much to keep them safe. Even as she went to the frightful work of mending wounds and caring for men who would never again be whole, she wondered if there was more she ought to be doing. They were giving their lives. Surely she should not be relegated to this. The next morning, she marched outside and promptly found Lieutenant Albans.

  The lieutenant looked haggard. He hobbled along on his wooden leg, leaning heavily on his cane. He looked as though he had aged a dozen years in these few weeks. He stopped and raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say, “This is no place for a lady,” but he did not say that. Instead, he said simply and hoarsely, “What can I do for you, Lady Dryden?”

  “Let me load the muskets, sir,” She said.

  She had his full attention at the request, “Pardon?” He asked.

  “Sir, I would load muskets at the wall. We have more guns than men, yes?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Let me load the guns, sir.”

  “I cannot…”

  “I would ask to fight, sir, if I thought you would permit it. I know your honour would never allow that. So, I will load the muskets.”

  “If you wish to help, I understand that some of the women are volunteering in the infirmary…”

  She cut him off, “I have done that. It is too much to see boys shot down in their prime, sir…”

  He interrupted her in return, “Do you even know how to load a musket, ma’am?” His dark eyes seemed to search her as he asked his question.

  She stuck her chin up and answered, “My father, Colonel Gorst, taught me. Yes. I know how,” She did not add that it had been many years since she had last done it. The motions would come back to her once she had done it a few times, she knew.

  Albans licked his lips and glanced towards some soldiers who were nearby listening to their conversation. “Mrs Dryden, I cannot in good conscience…”

  “I am not asking. I am telling you what I am going to do, sir. If you try to stop me, so help me, I shall make such a scene.”

  Albans smirked slightly at her, as though he were greatly impressed by her determination, “If the wife of Major Dryden has made up her mind to do such a thing. Who am I to stop her? Very well. When the next fight comes, load muskets up on the rooftop terrace. It is safer there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” She said, turned on her heel and walked back towards the great hall, a smile playing on her face. By the time she had returned, though, her hands had begun to shake slightly, and she began to regret her impulsiveness. She ate a small ration at supper. A stew of salt beef in porridge, as before, and a cup of water. She did her best to sleep. She was awoken by the cries of sentries in the small hours of the morning before dawn. The enemy was coming at them again. She stood, calmed herself, climbed the stairs to the roof, and went to do her duty.