Early in November 1857, Sir Colin Campbell, marching with a large army to the relief of Lucknow, got as far as the Alumbagh. To save the General from having to make the perilous passage through the narrow streets and lanes which had cost him so many men two months earlier, Outram by means of a native spy sent plans of the city and its approaches to Campbell, and suggested the best route to be followed. There was still the danger, however, of some dreadful blunder being committed, and Outram expressed a wish that he were able to send a competent guide.
This coming to Kavanagh’s ears, he promptly went to Outram’s Chief of Staff, Colonel Robert Napier,[2] and volunteered his services in this capacity. The colonel stared at him in blank astonishment, as well he might, for of all men in Lucknow Kavanagh looked to be the one least suited to play the rôle of spy. He was a tall, big-limbed man, with fair complexion, “aggressively red hair and beard, and uncompromisingly blue eyes.” To transform this healthy specimen of an Irishman into a native seemed an utter impossibility.
But Kavanagh persisted that he could get through to the British lines. He would be disguised, of course and his knowledge of Hindustani and local dialects was perfect. He persisted more strenuously still when, on his being ushered into Outram’s presence, the General refused point blank to consent to his going. After much arguing, he at length persuaded Outram to listen to his plan, and extorted a half-hearted permission to make the attempt. It remained for him to convince his chief of the impenetrability of his disguise.
Kavanagh has told us in his own account of the adventure, how the same evening (Nov. 9th), with face, neck, and arms blackened with lamp-black, his red hair hidden beneath a cream-coloured turban, and the rest of his person disguised in the silk trousers, yellow koortah, or jacket, white cummerbund, and chintz mantle of an irregular native soldier, he sauntered with sword and shield into Napier’s quarters.
The experiment was an immense success. Seeing what was evidently a budmash (a worthless fellow) thus insolently thrusting himself upon them, the officers present bade him begone, and a very pretty squabble in low-class Hindustani ensued. In the midst of it Sir James Outram entered the room, and having sufficiently tested his disguise Kavanagh made himself known. To his joy, no opposition was now raised to his plan.
Half an hour later, with the native spy Kunoujee Lal, who was returning to the Alumbagh with a letter from Outram, he bade good-bye to his friends, forded the river Goomtee, and started on his perilous mission.
“My courage failed me,” he confesses, “while in the water, and if my guide had been within my reach I should perhaps have pulled him back and abandoned the enterprise. But he waded quickly through the stream, and, reaching the opposite bank, went crouching up a ditch for three hundred yards to a grove of low trees on the edge of a pond, where we stopped to dress.”
His confidence having returned, Kavanagh went boldly forward, tulwar on shoulder, and even dared to accost a matchlock man near a hut with a remark that the night was cold. A little farther on they were pulled up by the officer of a native picket, and Kunoujee Lal, acting as spokesman, explained that they had come from Mundeon (“our old cantonment”) and were making their way to their homes in the city. This satisfied the sepoy officer, and they passed on with no little relief.
Recrossing the river by the iron bridge, they safely negotiated the streets of Lucknow, though the place swarmed with sentries and armed men, and issuing at last from the city on the other side, breathed more freely.
“I was in great spirits when we reached the green fields, into which I had not been for five months,” says Kavanagh. “Everything around us smelt sweet, and a carrot I took from the roadside was the most delicious I had ever tasted.”