The Mukta Mutiny - Betraying the Queen's salt

Lt-Colonel Fettishaw-Freak was never going to be a popular leader. One of the last officers to purchase his commission, his virtues were limited to a loud voice, devout Christian faith and unwavering conviction of the righteousness of the British cause. He would spend his afternoons flogging his men, his evenings drinking himself insensible and his mornings sleeping it off. The only exception was Sundays when everyone had to fall in for a two-hour sermon in the heat of the midday sun.

The only reason the 43^rd Madras Foot Regiment was able to maintain any discipline at all was mainly thanks to Fettishaw-Freak’s second in command, Major Able, a talented, but impoverished officer, who appreciated a post where he could spend his time with his men and not playing polo. Unfortunately, the good major was just too good, and so was seconded to General Browne’s staff in Afghanistan, leaving Fettishaw-Freak to run the 43^rd on his own.

He was posted to the town of Mukta mainly to keep him out of the way of serious soldiers. The town itself was a rundown affair, where it was very hard to point to too many benefits of British rule. The small European contingent mainly kept themselves to themselves, except for the missionaries who preached in the streets, in ways that were now frowned upon by the Indian Civil Service in other places.

Towering over Mukta, literally and metaphorically, was the independent kingdom of Rajya, where the Maharaja Ranjit Sasaka was proud of his independence. He would entertain the official envoy courteously once a week, but it was rumoured other, more secret visitors, would come and go as well. Some say that he recently entertained a fakir from the north, a man with suspiciously blue eyes and a taste for a colourless, alcoholic beverage.

The 43^rd was not asked to join the war on the frontier, but news of the war was everywhere. Fettishaw-Freak would lecture the sepoys on magnificent British victories against terrible odds, whilst the gossip in the marketplace was of ignoble defeats and the humiliation of the red soldiers.

The situation came to a head on Sunday 9 February. As the Colonel marched out to give his weekly sermon, he found himself facing 600 levelled Snider-Enfields. The mutineers locked him in the guardhouse whilst they worked out what to do with him.

The news of the mutiny soon spread and there was massed celebration, coupled with not a little looting and general anarchy. The houses of the Europeans were soon burning merrily, but fortunately their occupants were all by the river enjoying a regatta. Under the leadership of one of Major Able’s protégés, Lieutenant Smythe, they were all shepherded downstream to safety.

The next day, when the fires had burnt themselves out and the mutineers had drunk the last of the Colonel’s gin, the people of the town saw a strange sight approaching. Mounted on his war elephant the Maharaja entered the town at the head of his own private army, whilst behind them more elephants pulled ‘The Rani’, a huge smooth bore cannon which, he claimed, had been used against Wellington by his grandfather. Proclaiming himself the new Moghul Emperor, Sasaka set himself up in the government offices and awaited the conflagration that he was sure was about to engulf India.

Alas for Sasaka, apart from a slight increase in banditry on the roads, his fellow countrymen by and large ignore his call to revolt. The Raj, meanwhile, didn’t. Trains are soon moving troops into position. The empire is preparing to strike back.