Gil the Gunner: The Youngest Officer in the East

by George Manville Fenn

It was a terrible experience—a walk or two I had about the town with Brace during that halt, one which was utilised for collecting an ample supply of provisions and recruiting followers for our little camp, and I remember asking Brace whether he thought it wise to trust the natives.

“Yes and no, Gil,” he said. “I am not blind; I can see that every one here in this place humbles himself to the dust before us as the conquerors, and is ready to obey our slightest command; but, if we met with a reverse, they would rise and trample on us to a man, and glory in murdering such a set of unclean, infidel dogs as we are. But it is a necessity, my lad. We want our lads to fight, and they must be always ready for action. We cannot have them exhausted in this terrible climate, carrying loads, cutting grass for the horses, foraging for the elephants, and cooking. We must have hewers of wood and drawers of water, my dear boy, and keep a strict watch over these modern children of Gibeon. We cannot trust them, but we must have their services.”

“Yes, I see,” I replied.

“And there is this advantage: we are journeying through a strange country, which they know. We must eat, so must they. We should not be able to forage; they are, and in finding food for themselves they are compelled to find it for us. No, we cannot trust them. Look here. For aught we know, the men who are bowing down before us, and calling us sahibs, had a hand in this.”

We had reached a large bungalow, which, we afterwards learned, had been the commissioner’s house, and as I went with my companion from room to room, which at one time must have been furnished in exquisite taste, there were traces of the wanton destruction of a savage mob. Furniture had been smashed, the floor was littered with the remains of mirrors and ornaments; curtains and carpets were torn to shreds, and everything that could be battered and destroyed was in pieces.

It was so in the next room, and we were about to pass on to others, with the picture rising to my mind of what this place must have been before the rising, when Brace suddenly stepped before me, swung me round hastily, and gave me a push.

“Here, let’s get out of the miserable place, Gil,” he said hastily.

“You were too late,” I said. “I saw it the same moment. It’s of no use; I may as well get accustomed to such things, even if I am a mere boy.”

For, in one corner of the once handsome room, there were spots and splashes on the white wall, and terrible stains on the floor. The plaster of the sides, too, was scarred and dotted with bullet holes, and we could grasp the terrible fact that some one, probably more than one, had made a desperate defence in that corner, for there was a sword, broken in two pieces, lying behind a shattered piano, in whose woodwork were dozens of cuts, such as might have been given by savage men trying to get at those behind who had made it their breastwork; and as I saw all this, I could not refrain from going close—Brace making no opposition now—to see other terrible traces of the desperate fight of which this place must have been the scene.

One of the first things I saw behind the broken piano was a white handkerchief, horribly stained. It had been apparently hastily folded into a bandage, and tied round some one’s head, the knots being still there, and the kerchief lying on the floor, forming a rough circle. Close by were pieces of a woman’s dress, one fragment being a sleeve, evidently torn off in a desperate struggle. But the most horrible traces were those which told in simple language the result of the desperate defence that must have taken place; for, at the far end of the piano, where it stood about three feet from the wall, there lay a double rifle, broken off at the stock, a bayonet snapped at the socket, and between them, marks which showed only too plainly that the defenders of that corner of the room had been dragged out by the feet, and out through a farther door.