N. Francis Xavier, Part IV (Continued from last week)
Col. Cadell’s anger rose as each boat returned empty handed.
Portman returned at two in the morning with the cutter. He found it difficult to control the boat in the heavy seas or find a place to anchor. The Sikh oarsmen were near exhaustion as they pulled alongside Ross jetty.
Same was the story with the steam barge that was sent under the charge of a police inspector. Cadell berated him openly and even mentioned his name in his report to the Government, accusing him of gross inefficiency on earlier occasions also.
Cadell toyed with the idea of sending his personal racing yacht The Greyhound, which was the fastest in the islands and won the annual regatta every year. There were two things the colonel was particularly proud of: his regiment of Sikh Military Police and the Greyhound. But, sending the boat out in this weather might be dangerous.
Constance returned after cruising in the archipelago for three days. The monsoon winds buffeted her all along. Her size and lack of steam power did not permit her to enter the creeks and inlets. Cadell knew that every day was important. But the weather was not in his favour.
A big gale sprung up on 13th July making it impossible even to ply the ferry between Ross and Aberdeen. Cadell’s only hope was the SS Satara, the mail steamer, due to arrive on 14th. He would cancel her onward voyage to Kamorta and send her back to Rangoon with the dispatches so that the authorities in Burma could be alerted to look out for the runaways. She would also keep a sharp look out for the whaler on the return voyage.
Cadell sat at his huge ornate desk in the Government House on Ross, pen in hand, pondering what to write to the Viceroy.
“I have the honour to report, for the information of the Government of India, that a well-planned, daring, and, I regret to say, successful boat escape was made by eleven life convicts on the evening of the 9th instant…” he wrote, starting his long report to the Governor General, putting the blame on the sentry system, lack of communication between Viper and Ross and inefficient officers.
It was the lack of communications with Calcutta that troubled him the most. The only way was the mail steamer whose schedules were erratic. His proposal to connect Port Blair with Diamond Harbourvia an under-sea telegraphic cable had been turned down by the government as ‘too expensive’. Had it been in place he would have alerted all the coastal areas of India and Burma to look out for the fugitives.
The escape was a great embarrassment for him, coming within months after his taking over charge as Chief Commissioner.
Colonel Cadell was not liked by many officers in the settlement. A widower, he had mercurial temperament and a bad tongue.Several opted for transfer as soon as he took over, preferring the perilous Afghan frontier to working under him.
His reputation preceded him wherever he went. As a young Lieutenant in the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers he was at the Ridge and won his VC during the siege of Delhi. He was best known for his hangings of the natives during the Mutiny. He won the Victoria Cross for his valour.
It was his deep hatred of Indians that made him the best choice to be sent to the Andamans as Chief Commissioner. He preferred to call them ‘Niggers’, in spite of his uncle George reprimanding him for using the word.
In a letter he wrote to his father he described how his men bayoneted even the wounded mutineers, and how they in turn cut up the British with their deadly ‘tulwars’.
Hanging people gave him immense satisfaction.
That was what he did on the very first day he took over as Chief Commissioner.
He hanged Tokha, the ‘chain gang’ convict who attacked MV Portman on Viper Island.
Cadell hanged him without waiting for permission from the Government. This eagerness to hang convicts at the slightest pretext had invited a reprimand from the Government.
“I will catch the bloody niggers and hang them all, after flogging them publicly in Aberdeen,” swore Cadell, as he sealed the letter to the Governor General. (to be continued -)
