Our object having been attained, we were all anxious to depart. The Chief Commissioner, however, was quite as anxious that we should remain; firmly believing that the Gwalior troops would reappear, he suggested that we should follow them up at least as far as Dholpur; but this proposal Greathed firmly refused to accede to. The orders he had received were to open up the [country][9] between the Jumna and the Ganges, and he had not forgotten the little note from Havelock discovered in the fakir's platter.
At last the column was allowed to leave. The evening before our departure Norman and I called on the Chief Commissioner to say good-bye. We found Colonel Fraser greatly depressed, and inclined to take a most gloomy view of the situation, evidently thinking the restoration of our rule extremely doubtful. His last words to us were, 'We shall never meet [again].'[10] He looked extremely ill, and his state of health probably accounted for his gloomy forebodings. We, on the contrary, were full of health and hope. Having assisted at the capture of Delhi, the dispersion of the enemy who had attempted to oppose us on our way through the Doab, and the troops we were serving with having recently achieved a decisive victory at Agra over a foe four times their number, we never doubted that success would attend us in the future as in the past, and we were now only anxious to join hands with Havelock, and assist in the relief of the sufferers besieged in Lucknow.
CHAPTER [XXII.]
1857
On the 14th October we moved camp to the left bank of the Jumna, where we were joined by a small party of Artillerymen with two 18-pounder guns, and some convalescents belonging to the regiments with us, who had been left behind at Delhi—300 in all. Our camp was pitched in a pretty garden called the Rambagh, only a short distance from Agra, where we gave a picnic to the ladies who had been so kind to our wounded men—a rough sort of entertainment, as may be imagined, but much enjoyed by the easily-pleased people who had been prisoners for so long, to whom the mere getting away from the fort for a few hours was a relief.
On the morning of the 15th we commenced our march towards Mainpuri, a small station seventy miles from Agra, which we reached on the 18th. While on our way there, Hope Grant, Colonel of the 9th Lancers, arrived in camp to take over the command of the column. He had remained at Delhi when superseded by Greathed, and being naturally indignant at the treatment he had received, he protested against it, and succeeded in getting the order appointing Greathed to the command cancelled.
Had an officer been specially selected on account of his possessing a more intimate acquaintance with Native soldiers and a longer experience of India, Hope Grant would no doubt have accepted the inevitable. But Greathed did not know as much of the country and Native troops as Hope Grant did; he had seen no service before he came to Delhi, and while there had no opportunity of showing that he possessed any particular qualification for command; he certainly did not exhibit any while in charge of the column, and everyone in the force was pleased to welcome Hope Grant as its leader.
The Raja of Mainpuri, who had openly joined the rebels, fled the day before we marched in, leaving behind him several guns and a quantity of powder. We halted on the 20th, blew up his fort and destroyed the powder. The European part of the station was in ruins, but a relation of the Raja had been able to prevent the Government treasury from being plundered, and he made over to us two and a half lakhs of rupees.
Advantage of Being a Good Horseman The civilians of the Mainpuri district were amongst the refugees at Agra, and took advantage of our escort to return to their station. We had also been joined by some officers whom the mutiny of their regiments had left without employment; they were a welcome addition to our Punjab regiments, as the limited number of British officers attached to these corps had been considerably reduced by the constantly recurring casualties. One of these officers was a Captain Carey, whose story, as he told it to me, of his escape from the massacre at Cawnpore and his subsequent experiences is, I think, worth repeating.