What did they want? She could hear their feet on the stairs now. Somewhere close by, the Princess began to cry, in short, breathless gasps. Augusta thrust the baby into her arms – here, Dolly, here, take her, she won’t stop. The baby was screaming, flailing her fists. Dolly had to turn her face away to keep from being struck.
An officer had stepped into the guard-post; he was holding his sheathed sword in front of him, in both hands, like a sceptre. He was saying something to the Queen, motioning to her to leave the cabin, to go down the stairs into the palace.
‘Are we prisoners then?’ The Queen’s face was twisted with fury. ‘Who has sent you here?’
‘Our orders came from the Taingda Mingyi,’ the officer said. ‘For your safety Mebya.’
‘Our safety?’
The guard-post was full of soldiers and they were herding the girls towards the steps. Dolly glanced down: the flight of stairs was very steep. Her head began to spin.
‘I can’t,’ she cried. ‘I can’t.’ She would fall, she knew it. The Princess was too heavy for her; the stairs were too high; she would need a free hand to hold on, to keep her balance.
‘Move.’
‘I can’t.’ She could hardly hear herself over the child’s cries. She stood still, refusing to budge.
‘Quickly, quickly.’ There was a soldier behind her; he was prodding her with the cold hilt of his sword. She felt her eyes brimming over, tears flooding down her face. Couldn’t they see she would fall, that the Princess would tumble out of her grip? Why would no one help?
‘Quick.’
She turned to look into the soldier’s unsmiling face. ‘I can’t. I have the Princess in my arms and she’s too heavy for me. Can’t you see?’ No one seemed to be able to hear her above the Princess’s wails.
‘What’s the matter with you, girl? Why’re you standing there? Move.’
She shut her eyes and took a step. And then, just as her legs were starting to give way she heard the Queen’s voice. ‘Dolly! Stop!’
‘It’s not my fault.’ She began to sob, her eyes pressed tightly shut. Someone snatched the Princess from her arms. ‘It’s not my fault. I tried to tell them; they wouldn’t listen.’
‘It’s all right.’ The Queen’s voice was sharp but not unkind. ‘Come on down now. Be careful.’
Weeping in relief, Dolly stumbled down the steps and across the courtyard. She felt the other girls’ hands on her back, leading her down a corridor.
Most of the buildings in the palace complex were low, wooden structures, linked by long corridors. The palace was of relatively recent construction, just thirty years old. It was closely modelled on the royal residences of earlier Burmese capitals, at Ava and Amarapura. Parts of the royal apartments had been transported whole after the founding of Mandalay, but many of the smaller outlying buildings were unfinished and still unknown, even to the palace’s inhabitants. Dolly had never before been in the room she was led to now. It was dark, with damp, plastered walls and heavy doors.
‘Bring the Taingda Mingyi to me,’ the Queen was screaming at the guards. ‘I will not be kept prisoner. Bring him to me. Right now.’
An hour or two went slowly by; the girls could tell from the direction of the shadows under the door that morning had changed into afternoon. The little Princess cried herself out and fell asleep across Dolly’s crossed legs.
The doors were thrown open and the Taingda Mingyi came puffing in.
‘Where is the King?’
‘He is safe, Mebya.’
He was a stout man with oily skin. In the past, he’d always been ready with advice but now the Queen could not get a single clear answer out of him.
‘The King is safe. You should not worry.’ The long, drooping hairs that sprouted from his moles shook gently as he smiled and showed his teeth.
He produced a telegram. ‘The Hlethin Atwinwun has won a famous victory at Myingan.’
‘But those were not our guns I heard this morning.’
‘The foreigners have been halted. The King has dispatched a medal, and decorations for the men.’ He handed her a sheet of paper.
She didn’t bother to look at it. She had seen many telegrams over the last ten days, all filled with news of famous victories. But the guns she’d heard that morning were not Burmese, of this she had no doubt. ‘Those were English guns,’ she said. ‘I know they were. Don’t lie to me. How close are they? When do you think they will reach Mandalay?’
He wouldn’t look at her. ‘Mebya’s condition is delicate. She should rest now. I will return later.’
‘Rest?’ The Queen pointed to her maids, sitting on the floor. ‘The girls are exhausted. Look.’ She pointed to Dolly’s red eyes and tear-streaked face. ‘Where are my other servants? Send them to me. I need them.’
The Taingda Mingyi hesitated, and then bowed. ‘Mebya. They will be here.’
The other maids arrived an hour later. Their faces were sombre. The Queen said nothing until the guards had shut the doors. Then everyone clustered tightly around the new arrivals. Dolly had to crane her head to catch what they were saying.
This was what they said: the British had destroyed the fort at Myingan with immaculate precision, using their cannon, without losing a single soldier of their own. The Hlethin Atwinwun had surrendered. The army had disintegrated; the soldiers had fled into the mountains with their guns. The Kinwun Mingyi and the Taingda Mingyi had dispatched emissaries to the British. The two ministers were now competing with one another to keep the Royal Family under guard. They knew the British would be grateful to whoever handed over the royal couple; there would be rich rewards. The foreigners were expected to come to Mandalay very soon to take the King and Queen into captivity.
The invasion proceeded so smoothly as to surprise even its planners. The imperial fleet crossed the border on 14 November, 1885.
Two days later, after a few hours of shelling, British soldiers took possession of the Burmese outposts of Nyaungbinmaw and Singbaungwe. The next day, at Minhla, the fleet came under heavy fire. The Burmese garrison at Minhla was a small one, but it resisted with unexpected tenacity.
The British forces were armed with the latest breech-loading rifles. Their artillery support consisted of twenty-seven rapid-firing machine guns, more than had ever before been assembled on the continent of Asia. The Burmese could not match this firepower. After an exchange of fire that lasted several hours, the British infantry was sent ashore.
There were some ten thousand soldiers in the British invasion force and of these the great majority – about two-thirds – were Indian sepoys. Among the units deployed at Minhla there were three battalions of sepoys. They were from the Hazara Regiment and the 1st Madras Pioneers. The Indians were seasoned, battle-hardened troops. The Hazaras, recruited from the Afghan border, had proved their worth to the British over decades of warfare, in India and abroad. The 1st Madras Pioneers were among the most loyal of Britain’s foot soldiers. They had
