“had to appear at the Orderly Room of the Royal Irish detachment. It was a little room in a small teak-built hut, and there Colonel Grattan, C.B., of that historic regiment, daily dispensed justice to his young recruits. He was an old and amusing Irishman, full of quaint stories, and a very pleasant companion. Taken prisoner in the China War, he had been carried about in a cage as a show for the amusement of millions who had never before seen a European. His smiling face and grotesque grimaces always obtained for him a favourable reception. He greeted me pleasantly when I entered the orderly room, where—I may explain for Civilian readers—the Commanding Officer of every regiment and battalion in the Army holds a daily court to administer justice all round. Three prisoners from Tipperary were marched in bare-headed, and were drawn up facing the Colonel, who sat, pen in hand, behind a little table which separated them from him. A Corporal and a file of the guard, with drawn bayonets, stood beside the culprits, an acting Sergeant-Major, standing as all the others were, at ‘Attention’, made up the stage. A solemn silence that somewhat awed me pervaded the scene, and my shyness became greater when the funny-looking colonel addressing me, asked me sternly what complaint I had to make against the prisoners. I told my story as best I could, being extremely impressed by what I believed to be the gravity of the offence. My military reading and study of the Mutiny Act and Articles of War had led me to believe that, next to striking an officer or running away in battle, these prisoners had committed the most heinous offence in absolutely refusing to obey a lawful command when on outpost duty before the enemy. I expected they would be at once sent to trial before a general court martial, and either sentenced to death, or if their lives were spared in consideration of their youth and entire ignorance of a soldier’s duty, they would at least be transported.
“When I had finished my awful indictment, the Colonel with his funny little grey eyes, frowned from under his long grey eyebrows, first at me and then in sternness at the boy prisoners before him. There was an awful pause; you could have heard a pin drop if any one there had had such an evidence of civilization ready for the occasion. I held my breath, not knowing what was coming. I looked at the Sergeant-Major; his face was wooden and devoid of all expression as he stolidly looked straight before him into nothing. In a moment a volley of oaths from the Colonel removed the atmospheric pressure. He called the prisoners ‘limbs of Satan,’ and choking, partly at least I should say because his vituperative vocabulary had come to an end, he jumped to his feet, upsetting the table, with its ink bottle, papers, etc., and rushed upon the prisoners, kicking hard at the nearest, and crying aloud: ‘Get out, ye blackguards; never let me see you again.’ Whether it was that the prisoners were accustomed to this mode of justice and, being frightened, were anxious to avoid the toes of their Colonel’s boots as he lashed out at them or not, they turned round and ran for their lives, the Sergeant-Major after them, with their caps, which he had been holding—according to regulation—whilst this strangely scenic trial was being enacted.
“I was in dismay, and for a moment thought of running too, but seeing the old Colonel burst out laughing, I tried to smile, but it was an unhealthy attempt at hilarity on my part. However, being assured the men would never forget the scene or misbehave again, I went away feeling rather that I had been the culprit, and had only escaped condign punishment through consideration of my youth and complete ignorance of all military customs and laws. I don’t know whether these three boys from Tipperary retained a lasting remembrance—as I did—of the curious mode of administering justice, but I am sure their Colonel’s conduct was far more in consonance with their views of propriety, and far better suited to the case, than any sentence of imprisonment and trial by court martial would have been. I laugh now as I think of the whole scene, and as I do so, I feel all the more how necessary it is that Irish soldiers should have Irish officers over them, who understand their curiously Eastern character, and who are consequently better able to deal with them than strangers can.”[154]
Until the middle of February, 1853, the headquarter companies at Prome had a weary time. Sickness was rampant; in a letter written at the end of November, 1852, an officer of the XVIIIth mentions that the regiment could only turn out 350 men fit to take the field. Ninety men had been buried at Rangoon, where cholera broke out a few hours after the capture of the great Pagoda; for a month the Royal Irish had been dying at the rate of almost one a day; 137 were in hospital; large numbers had broken down and been invalided out of the country. The other regiments were equally unhealthy, and out of the whole garrison of Prome the General could only count on some 900 effectives, whose numbers were daily reduced by the ravages of climate and by the strain of the guards and piquets, which, though cut down as low as safety permitted, told severely upon the troops who remained at duty. The only break in this harassing and monotonous existence was afforded by occasional reconnaissances and night attacks, in which the enemy showed themselves more anxious to murder and decapitate individual men than to close with any formed body of soldiers. Suddenly four companies of the Royal Irish were warned for an expedition to clear the line of communication, which was harassed by Myat Toon, a robber chieftain, who from his lair near Donobyu attacked the native boats in our employ on their way up the Irrawaddy with provisions for the front. The village of Donobyu was about fifty miles above Rangoon; it was connected with the Irrawaddy by a network of creeks, and surrounded by dense jungle, almost impassable from deep nullahs full of water, which cut up the ground in every direction. In this jungle Myat Toon had fortified many positions, formidable in themselves, and most difficult of access to Europeans. The sailors had made several spirited attempts to penetrate into this labyrinth, but their boats were unable to pass the barricades of logs and forest trees with which the waterways had been obstructed; and a combined force of bluejackets and soldiers, acting on land under a post-captain in the navy, was surprised and defeated with the loss of two guns. The army was now to take in hand the punishment of the seven or eight thousand guerillas who followed the fortunes of Myat Toon, and General Godwin selected Sir John Cheape to lead the avenging force, composed of a small body of Irregular Native cavalry, detachments of Madras Sappers and Madras and Bengal Artillery with one 24-pr. howitzer and a 9-pr. field-gun, two hundred of the XVIIIth under Captain A. W. F. S. Armstrong,[155] two hundred of the 51st, two hundred Sikhs, and the 67th Bengal Native Infantry regiment. Major F. Wigston, XVIIIth, was in charge of the right wing of the column, with Lieutenant F. Eteson, XVIIIth, as his staff-officer. Descending the river to within thirty-five miles of Donobyu, Cheape disembarked at Henzada, a village where a number of country bullock-carts awaited him. As he was led to believe that three or four days’ march would bring him to Myat Toon’s stockades, he decided to fill up his transport with seven or eight days’ rations, dash on his enemy, defeat him, and then hasten back to the steamers. Leaving behind him the sick, who, though it was barely a week since he left Prome, were already numerous, he plunged into an unknown country, where his guides proved useless, his information defective and misleading. He could not find the main body of Myat Toon’s men, though skirmishing dacoits hung on his flanks, and in four days he was obliged to fall back to the river for supplies. He now transferred his base to Donobyu, which was known to have been evacuated by the enemy, and sending his empty carts there by land under escort of a party of the XVIIIth, he re-embarked with the remainder of his troops for Donobyu, where he remained till the 7th of March, when the native regiment joined him, and with it a draft of recruits for the 80th and a large supply of commissariat stores. After providing for the safety of his base and of another batch of sick men, General Cheape started on his second hunt for Myat Toon, whose entrenchments he was again assured could be reached in three days. Now began a campaign, short in duration, but harassing beyond measure to the troops engaged in it. The soldiers had to feel their way along narrow paths, often obstructed by trees cut down across the track by foes, who rarely showed themselves by day, though they disturbed the bivouac by sniping shots at night. To bridge the nullahs took much time and labour; the burden of guarding the transport carts was heavy; the heat was steamy, exhausting, and depressing; fog hung over the face of the land until several hours after sunrise; the water was tainted, and cholera broke out among the men. Then rations began to run short, and the column was obliged to halt four days in this pestilential forest while a convoy brought up fresh supplies from Donobyu. After forming an advance base for his spare stores and the sick and wounded, Cheape once more pushed forward, and on the 17th the right wing came upon traces of the enemy, who had blocked the track with a series of abattis and recently felled trees. The Royal Irish were leading, for Wigston, remembering that it was St Patrick’s Day and anxious to do honour to the occasion, had detailed them as advance-guard to give them every chance of a fight, if the Burmese would so far oblige them. After they had turned these obstacles, or cut their way through them, they ran against a stockade held by Myat Toon’s followers, and with a wild yell dashed at the work, which with the help of the Sikhs they carried “most gallantly” at the point of the bayonet.[156] The defenders did not wait for the cold steel, but after firing up to the last moment bolted into the jungle. One man, however, lingered too long over his parting shot, and was pursued by two subalterns, Hewitt and Eteson, who gave chase down the bed of a dry watercourse. Hewitt slipped and fell; Eteson succeeded in running his quarry down, and was rewarded by obtaining from his prisoner much useful information about the enemy’s main position. In this little affair Lieutenant Woodwright and five rank and file were wounded. Next day there was sharp skirmishing before the approach of darkness forced Cheape to halt on a narrow path, leading towards the village reported to be the headquarters of Myat Toon. Very soon after the piquets had been posted and the bivouac formed, the fog fell so heavily as to render reconnaissance very difficult, but when the outposts reported that the enemy was busy felling trees and completing the defences of his position, Lieutenant Eteson, three officers of the Sikhs, and three Sepoys stole forward, ascertained where the enemy was at work, and then returning to the General, described the place with sufficient accuracy to enable the gunners to fire rockets at it with some effect.
At the first glimmer of dawn on the 19th of March, our scouts began to grope their way down a wet nullah close to the bivouac, and followed it to its junction with a large creek, where the sound of voices warned them that the Burmese were at hand. Creeping from tree to tree, the reconnoitrers reached the edge of the creek, and peering through the gloom dimly discerned Myat Toon’s works on the farther bank. The position was a strong one: the creek served as a moat to a line of cleverly built breastworks, well loopholed, and protected by abattis; the left rested on an impassable swamp; the right ended in a dense thicket. As far as the scouts could see, the enemy’s front was about a quarter of a mile long; but its prolongations into the jungle really gave it a length of twelve hundred yards. Cheape would gladly have turned the enemy’s right by a flank march; but to do so he would have had to cut a road through thick jungle, and the condition of the troops precluded his imposing so heavy a task upon them, for though their spirit was high, their bodies were enfeebled by the effect of scanty food and bad water, while their numbers had been much reduced by the ravages of dysentery and cholera. There was nothing for it but a frontal attack; slowly and in silence he moved towards the creek, and then under cover of the fog marched along its bank within a hundred yards of the Burmese stockades. For a time this processional movement was not discovered, for Myat Toon, convinced that the British would not leave their bivouac till the sun had dispelled the fog, had taken no precautions against surprise; then suddenly a rolling fire burst from the whole face of the works; to meet it, the Sikhs were extended along our bank of the nullah, while the remainder of the troops fell back into the jungle to form for battle. Thus began an engagement as confused as the ground on which it was fought. At first a musketry duel raged across the creek; then scouting parties, or, as we should now call them, battle patrols, ascertained that opposite the enemy’s right of the line of stockades the creek ran dry, and was crossed by a track, which proved to have been prepared for defence: large forest trees had been felled across it; it was swept with grape from the two guns captured from the navy, flanked by a detached work, and pitted with trous-de-loup. A storming party was hastily organised; and the detachment of the 80th attempted to force its way across to the other side of the creek, but being inadequately supported, failed in its object. Then the Royal Irish and the Sikhs tried to push through the dense belt of jungle on the right of the Burmese line, but could not pass the abattis and detached breastworks hidden in its thickets. Finally, the General decided that at all costs the track must be won and the stockades near it carried at the point of the bayonet. The troops, as may well be imagined, were by this time greatly scattered, and while the buglers were rallying the infantry, the Bengal artillerymen, with the help of stragglers from the British detachments, dragged their 24-pr. howitzer into action only twenty-five yards from the enemy, and covered the concentration of the foot soldiers by a destructive storm of canister. In this episode Private —— Connors, Royal Irish, greatly distinguished himself. Early in the fight a Burmese bullet had broken his left arm; he made his way to the doctor, had the broken limb temporarily bound up, and then under heavy fire helped to run the howitzer up to the front, tugging at the spokes of a wheel with his right arm. At length a number of men from the XVIIIth, 51st, and 80th were collected, and, guided by Ensign Wolseley, charged down the track yelling at their enemies, who manned the parapets and shouted defiantly, “Come on, Come on!” to them in Burmese. This is not the place to describe how Wolseley led his mixed command, nor how he was struck down, hard hit, at the moment of victory; his personal adventures in this charge, the second he led during the engagement, are narrated in the first volume of his Autobiography. It is enough to say that the troops advanced with determination, swept over the works, and killed and wounded large numbers of the four thousand men opposed to them. Those of the Royal Irish who took part in the final rush were well to the front: Lieutenant W. P. Cockburn fell desperately wounded as he scaled a stockade; Lieutenant Eteson was one of the first into the main work; and a party, led by Lieutenant Woodwright, recaptured the two naval guns, and marked the number of the regiment upon them with a rusty nail.
Cheape’s success would have been complete if he had been able to secure Myat Toon; but the Chief escaped with his life, though with little else, for he was compelled to abandon all his supplies and munitions of war. To follow him farther into the jungle was impossible, for the health of the column was so bad that the General was obliged to return to Donobyu, and thence to Prome where his steamers anchored on April 2. The operations against Myat Toon had been costly; the losses in action were one hundred and thirty, while cholera alone caused more than a hundred deaths. Most of the casualties occurred on the 19th of March, when eleven men were killed and eighty-four officers and men wounded. In the Royal Irish regiment Lieutenant W. F. Cockburn died of his injuries; Major F. Wigston was severely wounded; a corporal and eight men were killed; a sergeant and twenty-six men wounded; three colour-sergeants and eleven men died of cholera;[157] and the health of the whole detachment was so much affected that on landing at Prome only twenty-two officers and men remained fit for duty. Major F. Wigston, Captain A. W. F. S. Armstrong, and Captain W. T. Bruce were mentioned in despatches.
The regiment was not again in action during the Burmese war, as negotiations for peace put a stop to all further operations in the field. The province of Pegu was annexed to England, and as soon as the new territory settled down, the XVIIIth was ordered to Calcutta, arrived there at the end of November 1853, and a few weeks later embarked for home.
MAP No. 4. MAP No. 5.
