VIII.
LUCKNOW.
A story is told of the behaviour of a company of Native Infantry on the establishment of a sister Presidency, which I may be pardoned for reproducing here, since it may be new to some of my readers.
The company in question was performing an uncommonly rapid movement to the rear, to get away from an undesirable neighbourhood, when a British officer, who tried to stop the stampede, roared after it Halt! Halt! Halt! At this a fat old Subadar, who was doing his best to keep up with his command, indignantly spluttered out as he scuttled along, puffing and blowing—"Kaun guddha halt bolta hai? Yih halt ka wakt nahin hai!" "What ass says halt! This is no time to halt." Down in Madras that story, if known, is doubtless put to the credit of a Bengal regiment, and probably with equal truth. Si non e vero e ben trovato—which must be my excuse for repeating it.
During this morning's work I happened to come across a British soldier—I think of the 9th Lancers—who had been wounded, but not very seriously, though sufficiently to cripple him. He was lying patiently under a tree waiting for the hospital establishment to come up and find him; and when I asked if I could do anything for him, he said he was suffering agonies from thirst, and would give anything for a drink of water. "Would you prefer beer?" I asked. "Oh, Sir," he replied, "don't make game of me." His face was delightful to see when I lugged out of one of my holsters a pint bottle of "Bass" which I had stowed in it according to my invariable practice, and knocked off its head by sliding my sword against it. The grateful fellow tried hard to make me drink half of it; but I could not resist the temptation of watching him swallow it to the last drop. When I presented him with a better Manilla cheroot than he had probably ever smoked in his life before, he began, I really believe, to think he was dreaming, and that such strange luck could not be real.
Before the evening of the next day a huge canvas city had sprung up in rear of the Dilkhoosha Palace. "The Cabul scale equipment" had not been invented in those days; and even subalterns luxuriated in large, old-fashioned hill tents, ten or twelve feet square, while the British soldiers were lodged in roomy-double-poled affairs; so that an encampment took up a deal more room than would now be required. No wonder that Sir Colin's army of fighting men was hampered by a much larger one of helpless camp-followers, of which Dr. Russell, the famous war correspondent, thus wrote:—"Who really can bring before his mind's eye a train of baggage animals twenty-five miles long, a string of sixteen thousand camels, a siege-train park covering a space of four hundred by four hundred yards, with twelve thousand oxen attached to it, and a following of sixty thousand non-combatants."
Sir Colin Campbell lost no time in pushing on the siege, for it practically began on the 2nd March, the day that he reached the Dilkhoosha. I well remember watching with admiration the brilliant performance of the Naval Brigade, the blue jackets of the Shannon, under the heroic Captain Peel, as they pushed forward to a position in front of the Palace, where, on the open ground sloping downwards towards the Martinière, without a vestige of cover, they planted their guns, and commenced a fierce reply to the cannonade of the rebels from the huge defensive earthworks which they had thrown up on the south-east of the City. Our gallant old Chief was far too wise, however, to throw his whole weight against these terrible lines of defence till he had discounted their value by the simple yet effective device of a turning movement, that old-established favourite with all great commanders. To carry out this design Sir James Outram was sent across the Goomti, near Bibiapore, on the 6th of March, with a very strong force of all arms, which fought its way up the left bank of the river, driving the enemy before it, till, on the 9th, it had reached a position whence it successfully enfiladed the rebel lines of defence.
Now was Sir Colin able to advance without the enormous sacrifice of life which otherwise would have been inevitable. That day the Black Watch stormed the Martinière at the point of the bayonet without firing a shot. The day after, "Banks' House" was seized and promptly fortified; and from this coign of vantage, step by step, deliberately and irresistibly, did our Engineers and Artillery sap and breach the way for our infantry through block after block of buildings, till by the 21st of March every palace, mosque and walled enclosure in Lucknow had been carried, and the entire City was in our hands.
While this was being accomplished, my regiment had formed part of a Brigade under Brigadier W. Campbell, which marched round the City, past the Alumbagh, to a position opposite the Moosabagh, with the view of cutting off the escape of the rebels when they should be driven out of the town by the bayonets of the Infantry. During this movement we met with desultory opposition, and lost several lives; but we came across no large masses of the enemy; and there can be no doubt that thousands of them slipped through our fingers and effected their escape, to re-unite later on and prolong into the rapidly approaching "hot weather" a struggle which, if we had been more fortunate, would have been ended there and then. At the same time, in justice to Brigadier Campbell, it must be remembered that the semi-circle traversed by him was of great extent—probably more than thirty miles—and it needs no great effort of imagination to conceive how difficult was the task of preventing, with a small Brigade of Cavalry and Horse Artillery, so long a line from being penetrated by bodies of fugitives at one point or another, even by day, still more under cover of night.
I was much struck during this march by an instance of heroism on the part of two village matchlockmen which deserves record, and which, if it had been performed by natives of a European country in defence of their homes, would have been sung by poets in patriotic ballads, and would have earned for the brave actors an immortality of applause.