Life in an Indian Outpost

by Gordon Casserly

I took a couple of armed men with me and commenced to search the empty buildings of the fort. One of the native officers came running to me and called out:

"Sahib, the outer door of my room, which I left open, is now closed and bolted from the inside. Farid Khan must be within."

I went to the room, which was in the same single-storied building as the barrack-room in which the crime had been committed. I tried the door. It was fastened at the bottom. Bidding the sepoys with me load their rifles, I endeavoured to push the door in, sincerely hoping that if I succeeded I would not be received by a bullet. The door resisted, then gave way so suddenly that I fell inside head foremost. I sprang up hurriedly with the uncomfortable feeling that at any moment I might have the murderer's bayonet in me. I groped round the room in the darkness, then lit a match and found the place empty. The door must have swung to in the wind and the bolt fallen down and been caught in the socket. Annoyed at having the scare for nothing I turned to walk out and found myself confronted by the muzzles of my men's rifles, for they could not see who was emerging from the dark interior. Having no desire to be shot by mistake, I quickly let them know who I was. As I came out into the open air, a voice cried:

"Sahib, Sahib! He has escaped. He has left the fort"; and a native follower rushed up breathlessly to say that he had just been passed by a flying figure which had climbed over the back gate.

Calling to my two sepoys to follow me, I ran to this gate and struggled with the stiff bolts. With difficulty we dragged open the heavy iron leaves which grated noisily on their hinges. Outside lay a strip of grass dotted with trees and a few wooden sheds. It ran the length of the back wall but was only forty yards wide, ending on the edge of the precipice which fell sheer for three hundred feet. Down the steep face a zigzag path was cut leading to the hill on which the segregation hospital, burned in the forest fires, had stood. I searched around and inside the sheds and moved cautiously over the grassy shelf, keeping carefully away from the brink of the cliff. I was not carrying a weapon myself; for the night was so dark that the murderer, if he stood motionless, would see us first and could get in the first shot. If he missed I preferred trying to close with him at once, and not engaging in a duel with rifles with him. Should I succeed in grappling with him, the bayonets of my two men would soon end the struggle.

Where the back wall terminated the side walls joined it at right angles; and here our task became doubly dangerous, for they were built almost on the edge of the precipice; and we had to move along in single file, keeping one hand on the wall, for a false step meant a fall on to the rocks far below. I groped cautiously along in the utter darkness, feeling much more afraid of tumbling over the cliffs than I was of the chance of meeting with the murderer. But, though I did not know it at the time, we had already passed him; for he was standing motionless behind one of the trees near the back wall, watching us as we went by, ready to fire at us if we saw and tried to catch him.

Then, when we had gone by, he stole silently down the zigzag path and climbed the opposite hill, intending to descend on the other side and gain the mountain road leading down to Santrabari.

But when I had completely circled the outer walls I entered the fort by the front gate and at once sent off a party of men under my old Rajput Subhedar, Sohanpal Singh, to go down to Santrabari and hide in the elephant stables. I gave them orders that, if the fugitive came by, they were to cover him with their rifles, call on him to surrender and shoot him down if he attempted to resist. The murderer, crouching on the hill above, heard them passing on the road below him, and turned off in another direction.

Having sent off another party along the mountain-track to Chunabatti, I fell out the detachment and entered the orderly-room to hold an inquiry into the case. The story of the crime was soon told. In the barrack-room there were thirty-three beds, all occupied except the one exactly opposite Shaikh Bakur's. This belonged to the missing sentry, Farid Khan, who was on guard for the night. The men had been awakened by the deafening report of a rifle fired in the room. Although, when they had gone to sleep, the big wall-lanterns had been extinguished and the room was in darkness, there was now a small lamp burning beside Farid Khan's bed. By its light some of the sepoys saw a figure rush out through the open door and heard the clatter of heavy nailed boots on the stone-paved veranda outside. The colour-havildar had shrieked out: "I am shot! I am shot!"

Suddenly the small lamp was extinguished; and the darkness increased the confusion of the room. The men nearest Shaikh Bakur rushed to his bedside, others called out to him to ask what was the matter; some cried out for the lamps to be lit; and others, not realising what had happened, shouted inquiries. At last a lantern was lighted and revealed the unfortunate man writhing in agony on his bed. Meanwhile the sentry on the quarter guard not fifty yards away, hearing the shot and the consequent uproar, awoke the havildar in charge of the guard. He ordered the bugler to sound the "alarm." The guard having fallen in, the naik (or corporal) went to the magazine close by and found that the sentry over it, whom he had visited fifteen minutes before, was missing from his post. On the "alarm" being sounded, the sepoys rushed out of their barrack-rooms with their rifles and accoutrements and fell in on parade. Still the magazine sentry did not appear, and his absence aroused suspicion. It was remembered that he was a young Mussulman called Farid Khan whom I had checked on parade that morning for carelessness in drill and who had been previously reprimanded by Shaikh Bakur for not having his accoutrements clean.