On the afternoon of the 29th of January, the field-hospital, with the wounded men, was removed into Loodiana. I rode over to see a brother-officer who had been seriously wounded, and shall never forget the sad scene of human suffering presented to view. Outside the hospital tents were lain the bodies of those who had recently died; many in the contorted positions in which the rigid hand of death had fixed them; others, more resembling sleep than death, had calmly passed away, struck down in full vigour and robust bodily health, when the human frame, it was natural to suppose, would have struggled more fiercely with its arch enemy; but the groans of the sufferers undergoing painful surgical operations were more grievous to the senses than the sight of those who needed no mortal aid. Pain, in all its degrees and hideous varieties was forcibly portrayed on every square yard of earth which surrounded me; and, passing from sufferer to sufferer, I felt, or fancied I felt, each patient's eye following wistfully the movements of such fortunate visitants as were exempted from the services of the knife or lancet, and sometimes dwelling reproachfully on the useless spectator of their sufferings. I felt it was almost a sacrilege to remain in such a place without being useful; but the medical officers and hospital-assistants so zealously fulfilled every minute detail for the relief of their patients, that sympathy was the only offering we could present to our stricken comrades.
Whilst raising the canvas door of a dark tent which I was entering, I stumbled, and nearly fell over the leg of some one stretched across the entrance. When I turned to make apologies to the owner, I found it had none, but, on a pallet beside it, lay its former possessor, who had just undergone amputation; beyond him lay a dead artilleryman; and further on, amongst stumps of arms protruding from the pallets, lay my wounded brother-officer, who appeared to suffer much more from the surrounding objects than from his own severe personal injuries. But the attention bestowed on those wounded at Aliwal, differed much from a preceding occasion,[46] where the hospital stores and conveniencies had been so far outmarched, that only two rush-lights were procurable to illuminate the hospital.
In the course of the 29th, at Loodiana, better shelter was afforded; and its proximity to the sanatorium in the mountains gave a cheering prospect for the approaching hot season to those who were not qualified to become food for powder.
On the evening of the 29th, the remains of all the officers who had fallen in action were interred in front of the standard guards, and amongst them were many deeply regretted by their comrades. All were young, and most had fallen in their first field; but a soldier's grave has, from the earliest records of mankind, been deemed the most honourable, and often the most desirable passage from this scene of trial. No mourning group of relatives surround the couch of the attenuated sufferer, to aggravate the grief of parting—no lingering shaft of fate reduces the vigour of manhood to pitiful imbecility, but the winged messenger or the flashing steel summons the victim, and amidst the roar of battle's thunder, he bows to the destroying angel. The warrior's grave, dug on the field of strife, and his bier shrouded by the proud flag of his country, and surrounded by war-worn veterans and faithful comrades, are funeral obsequies befitting the close of the soldier's career. The hearse bedecked with lugubrious trappings and nodding plumes, which conveys the remnants of frail mortality to the sepulchre, the train of hired mourners, with their insignia of office and the pompous mockery of woe, have always been, to my mind, objects of peculiar disgust. Why should we seek to dress out death in such fantastic guise, when the ceremonial can only be calculated to harrow the feelings of suffering relatives by protracted mummery? The active scene of the undertaker's solemnities closes with the church portals upon the retiring crowd; but the mouldering corpse has yet to undergo the sculptor's operations; and the carved sarcophagus tells to posterity, as far as time will permit, how great and good a worm has crawled out its allotted course on this scene of trial; and wondering acquaintances are often astonished to read, after death, a catalogue of virtues which they had failed to discover during a life of apparent uselessness. I never could comprehend the object of these strange, but not uncommon, deceptions. Friends and acquaintances must have formed their own estimates before the closing scene, and can hardly be deceived by an epitaph; the opinion of strangers must be a matter of indifference; and the recommendations of a monument can hardly be expected to pass current as an introduction to the invisible world. I cannot think otherwise than that—
"Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent;
A man's good name is his best monument."
But the poet and the cynic appear to have railed at, and ridiculed the custom in vain, for the stone-mason continues to flourish with unabated vigour.
The operations of Sir Harry Smith's division of the army afford interesting matter for consideration, in a military point of view, both on account of the enemy's embarrassing manœuvres against the weakly-defended points on the upper line of the Sutlej, and also because the Sikhs ventured to fight for the first time on the open plain: the light entrenchments, thrown up to cover partially the working of their guns, will hardly obstruct the use of that term.
It will be remembered, that when Sir Harry Smith was first detached from Hureeka, the intention was merely to re-open the communication with Loodiana, brushing away such foraging or predatory bands as were supposed to infest the intervening country. Dhurrumkote, about twenty-six miles distant from army head-quarters, and an insignificant fort, had refused an entrance, but three or four shrapnel speedily induced the garrison to sue for terms, and a small detachment of native troops were established in the place, which was hastily put under repair.
In progress from that place, it was first ascertained that the enemy were in greater force than was before supposed; and no sooner did reinforcements move to join Sir Harry Smith, than a column of dust, extending from the Sikh camp up the river, announced a corresponding movement on the enemy's side, and the reports of our spies soon corroborated the supposition.[47]