CHAPTER XIX.
Our ignorance as to Mr. Quinton’s proceedings—News at last reach India and England—Take off my clothes for the first time for ten days—March to Lahkipur—The ladies of Cachar send clothes to me—Write home—Great kindness shown to me—My fears for my husband—The telegram arrives with fatal news—Major Grant’s narrative.
During the eventful days which had elapsed between March 23 and April 1, nothing definite had been known by the authorities in India as to Mr. Quinton’s proceedings and whereabouts. All that was certain was that he had arrived at Manipur, and had been unable to carry out his original plans for leaving again the day following his arrival, owing to the refusal of the Jubraj to obey the orders of Government; but the tidings of the fight which had followed had never been despatched to head-quarters, owing to the telegraph-wire having been cut immediately after the contest began.
That communication, in this manner, was interrupted was not as serious an omen as might have been supposed. Cutting the telegraph-wire was a favourite amusement of the Manipuris; and even during the small revolution in September, 1890, they had demolished the line in two or three directions.
But when several days went by, and still the wire remained broken, and no information of any kind as to what was going on in Manipur reached the authorities, people became alarmed.
Rumours came down through the natives that there was trouble up there; and a few of the traders found their way into Kohima with the news that all had been killed.
Then excitement rose high, and every day fresh rumours reached the frontier, some of which said that I and one or two others had escaped, but the rest were either killed or prisoners.
The first definite information came from our party. An officer was sent on by double marches on the 31st with the despatches, civil and military; and before another day had passed the whole of India knew the names of those who had escaped, as well as of those who were prisoners, and in a few hours the news had reached England.
To some, that news must have been snatched up with great relief; but there were many who read it with terrible misgivings in their hearts for the fate of those dear to them who were in captivity.
A person who does not know the sensation of never taking his or her clothes off for ten days can scarcely realize what my feelings were when, on arriving at the Jhiri rest-house, I found a bath and a furnished room. Nothing could ever equal the pleasure which I derived from that, my first tub for ten days. I felt as though I should like to remain in it for hours; and even though I had to array myself again afterwards in my travel-stained and ragged garments until I reached Lahkipur, the sensation of feeling clean once more was truly delightful.
I was covered with leech-bites, and found one or two of those creatures on me when I took off my clothes. They had been there three or four days, for we had fallen in with a swarm of them at one of the places where we had camped for the night during the march. It was near a river and very damp, and the leeches came out in crowds and attacked everybody. But the men were able to get rid of them better than I was, and I had to endure their attentions as best I might until we got to the Jhiri, and I could indulge in the luxury of taking off my clothes.
I slept on a bed that night, and was very loath to get up when the bugle awoke us all at the first streak of dawn.
We marched ten miles into a place called Lahkipur, where we found a number of troops already mustering to return to Manipur.
I found clothes and many other necessaries at Lahkipur, which had been sent out for me by the ladies of Cachar; and I blessed them for their thoughtfulness.
The luxury of getting into clean garments was enchanting; and though the clothes did not fit me with that grace and elegance that we womenkind as a rule aspire to, still, they seemed to me more beautiful than any garments I had ever possessed. They were clean; that was the greatest charm in my eyes.
Then came breakfast, such as we had not indulged in for a very long time, and everything seemed delicious.
Immediately after breakfast we all sat down to write home. It was hard work for me after all I had gone through, and with the keen anxiety I was still feeling about those left behind, to put the account of the terrible disaster into words; but I felt that if I did not write then, I should not have the strength to do so later on, and I managed to send a full account home by the next mail.
We halted at Lahkipur all that day, and we started to march our last fourteen miles into Cachar on the night of April 2, or, rather, the early morning of the 3rd. A number of the planters in the neighbourhood came in to Lahkipur to see us before we left, and hear from our own lips the narrative of our escape, and the news of it all got into Cachar long before we ourselves arrived.
Everyone seemed anxious to show us all kindness; but the efforts that were made to secure comforts for me in particular were innumerable as they were generous. When I eventually did arrive at Cachar, I found myself made quite a heroine of. There was not one who did not seem honestly and heartily glad to see me there again safe, and I shall never forget the kindness I received as long as I live.
But amongst them all, there were some old friends who received me into their house, putting themselves out in every possible way to add to my comfort, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude that I never can repay. It would not perhaps be quite agreeable to them if I wrote their names here; but when this record of my terrible adventure reaches them in their far-off Indian home, they will know that I have not missed the opportunity, which is given me in writing about it, of paying them a tribute of gratitude and affection for all their goodness to me in a time of great trouble.
It was delightful to have a woman to talk to again, although my companions on the march had one and all shown me how unselfish and kindhearted Englishmen can be when they are put to the test. They had never let me feel that I was a burden on them, and though often I felt very weak and cowardly, they quieted my misgivings, and praised me for anything I did, so that it gave me courage to go on and help to endure the horrors of that terrible retreat.
For a week I remained with my friends at Cachar, tormented by anxiety concerning my husband. The general opinion seemed to be that he and his companions would be perfectly safe, but I was full of terrible misgivings. I remembered stories of the Mutiny in bygone days, and had read how the prisoners then had often been murdered just at the moment when rescue was at hand.
I feared that when the troops should go back, the Jubraj would refuse to make terms with them, and would threaten to kill the prisoners if our troops came into the place, and I wondered what they would do in that case.
I sent two letters up by Manipuris to my husband, care of the regent, telling him of my escape. I was only allowed to write on condition that I said nothing of the preparations which were being made to rescue Mr. Quinton and his party. But it was a relief to me to be able to write a few lines, for my one idea was to spare my husband the awful anxiety which he would endure until he should hear of my safety.
I had been a week in Cachar when the news came which put an end alike to all hope and all fear. Troops had been hurrying back to Manipur, and the station was alive with Sepoys of all regiments. All the officers and men who had come down with me from Manipur had gone some way on the road back there. The wounded had been placed in the Cachar hospital, where I went to see them two or three times. Poor little fellows! they all seemed so glad to see me.
At last one evening, exactly a week after our arrival, a telegram arrived from Shillong to say that authentic news had come from the regent at Manipur to the effect that all the prisoners had been murdered. I saw the telegram arrive. I was in the deputy commissioner’s bungalow when it was handed to him, and made the remark that I disliked bright yellow telegrams, as they always meant bad news.
In India a very urgent message is always enclosed in a brilliant yellow envelope. But the officer said that he did not think anything of them, as he was receiving so many of them at all hours of the day, and for the time I thought no more about it.
Shortly afterwards I noticed that he had left the table. Then I went out too, and met my friend outside, who seemed rather upset about something, and told me she was going home at once. So we went together.
But as soon as we had got into the house she broke to me, as gently and mercifully as she could, the news that my husband had been killed. It was a hard task for her, and the tears stood in her eyes almost before she had summoned up the courage to tell me the worst. And when she had told me I could not understand. The blow was too heavy, and I felt stunned and wholly unable to realize what it all meant. I could not believe, either, that the news was true, for it seemed to me impossible that any authentic intelligence could have been received.
But after a night of misery, made almost heavier to bear by reason of the glimmer of hope which still remained that the news might be false, the morning brought particulars confirming the first message, and giving details which put an end to any uncertainty. The regent had sent a letter saying that the prisoners had been killed. I believe he stated they had fallen in the fight at first, but afterwards contradicted himself, and said they had been murdered by his brother, the Jubraj, without his knowledge or consent.
I cannot dwell on this part of the story. It is all too recent and painful as yet, and too vivid in my recollection. There are no words that can describe a tragedy such as this. Besides, the fate of those captives is no unknown story. All know that through treachery they found themselves suddenly surrounded by their enemies, with all hope of help gone, and without the means to defend themselves.
And the ending—how they were led out one by one in the moonlight to suffer execution, after having been obliged to endure the indignity of being fettered! How, of that small band, one had already fallen dead, speared by a man in the crowd; and one was so badly wounded that he had fallen, too, by the side of his dead friend, and had to be supported by his enemies when he went out, as the others had to go, to meet his fate.
And yet in all that terrible story there is one ray of comfort for me in the fact that my husband was spared the fate of the rest. I am glad to think that he did not suffer. He never heard those terrible guns booming out, proclaiming the work of destruction which was being wrought on the home he had loved. He did not see the cruel flames which reduced our pretty house to a heap of smoking ruins, and he did not know that I was flying for my life, enduring privations of every kind, lonely, wretched, and weary at the outset.
He was spared all this, and I am thankful that it was so. For before the guns commenced shelling us again on that dreadful night, the tragedy described had already taken place within the palace enclosure.
Well for me was it that I was ignorant of my husband’s fate. Had I known, when we left the Residency that night, that he and I were never to meet again on God’s earth, I could never have faced that march. It had been hard enough as it was to go and leave him behind me; but thinking that he was safe helped me in the endeavour to preserve my own life for his sake.
It is time to end this narrative of my own experiences, for all was changed for me from the day that brought the terrible news; but the account of the incidents of March, 1891, would scarcely be complete without my touching on some other events which were occurring in a different quarter in connection with the Manipur rebellion.
I allude to the noble part taken by Mr. Grant (whom I have referred to earlier in this volume) in the affair as soon as tidings of the disturbance reached him. To describe his share in my own words would scarcely be a satisfactory proceeding, so I have thought it better to add his letter, giving all the details of what occurred, to my own narrative.
The news first reached him on the morning of March 27, and in his letters home he describes the subsequent events as follows: