Cawnpore

by George Otto Trevelyan

There was much to be done that night. On the one side preparations were on foot for a departure; on the other, measures were being taken that the departure should never be. Hoolas Sing, the magistrate of the city, sent for the principal persons who gained their living by letting boats on hire, and ordered them to provide conveyance for five hundred passengers. They declared themselves unable to fulfil his injunctions, a refusal on which, after the re-establishment of British rule, they insisted as an irrefragable proof of loyalty. It is more likely that they were influenced by a rational doubt as to whether they would ever see the colour of the Nana's money. Hoolas Sing, however, knew what he was about, as appears from the pathetic language of one of the sufferers. "I told him," says Buddhoo, aged forty years, "that, when I received orders from the Europeans to procure boats, I was advanced money, and allowed a month or fifteen days to collect the same, and that it was impossible to procure boats on so short a notice. On this he was much annoyed, and said I was only putting him off, and ordered his attendants to take me, give me a good beating, and make me get boats. They did as ordered, kept me there the whole night, beating me, and threatened to blow me from guns if I did not comply with their request. They continued threatening me till 12 A.M.: but I did not get them any boats." Buddhoo's companions had more regard for their skins; and, being not unaccustomed to this mode of carrying on a commercial transaction, after a due modicum of vapulation discovered that they could muster two dozen barges between them. These were punted down the river, and moored at the appointed spot. Presently a committee of English officers, riding upon elephants, and guarded by native troopers, arrived for the purpose of inspecting the proceedings and reporting progress. These gentlemen expressed great vexation at the dilapidated state of the little fleet. Four hundred workmen were at once engaged, and set to repair the thatch of the roofs, and construct a temporary flooring of bamboo. During the presence of our countrymen some provisions were brought along and placed on board, with a considerable show of assiduity: but they were not satisfied with all that they saw, and still less with what they seemed to hear. Some sepoys, idling on the bank, interspersed their talk with frequent repetitions of the word "kuttle," which, being interpreted, is "massacre."

And so the stage had been selected whereon to enact the tragedy. Hoolas Sing had furnished the properties; Azimoolah had composed the plot; and there lacked only a skilful manager, who should distribute the parts, instruct the actors, and dispose the supernumeraries. The Nana could discover many a one among his pimps and parasites suited to such a job as far as moral constitution was concerned. In his familiar circle there was no dearth of fellows by the hand of nature marked, quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame. But in that degenerate circle there was only a single courtier who had retained something of the old Mahratta dash and martial craft. Tantia Topee was destined ere long to demonstrate that he could run away every whit as successfully as those chieftains who more than half a century before wearied out the hot pursuit of Lake and Wellesley; and on this particular occasion he evinced qualities which might have secured to him a share of fame in a cause less detestable to God and man. Laurels were not to be reaped in that contest. The due meed for such victors was a wreath of cypress and a necklace of hemp. But the bad deed was right cleverly done. Among all the feats of arms performed by the rebel forces during the eighteen months which succeeded the explosion at Meerut, no operation was so perfect in all its parts, so able in design, and so prosperous in execution, as the memorable treachery of Cawnpore.

The Suttee Chowra Ghaut, or landing-place, lay a short mile to the north-west of our intrenchment. At this point a ravine runs into the Ganges, after crossing at a right angle the main road, which is distant three hundred yards from the river. During summer the bed of the stream is dry, and presents the appearance of a sandy lane of irregular width, uneven with frequent lumps of broken soil, and inclosed on either side within high banks crowned by decaying fences. Standing half way down this passage the tourist sees behind him a bridge which carries the highway across the defile, the rails of which, then as now coated with white paint, have little of an Oriental aspect, and remind him for an instant of a bit in a Surrey common. On reaching the shore he finds himself in an open space, some hundred and fifty yards long and a hundred deep, bounded in the rear by a precipitous rising ground surmounted with prickly pear, in front by the Ganges, and to the left by the ruins of what in 1857 was the village from which the Ghaut takes a name. On his right hand rises a picturesque temple, dedicated to the patron deity of fishermen, small but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as those summer-houses of a century back which at the corners of old gardens overhang Dutch canals and suburban English byways. Passing down the wall of this edifice a steep flight of steps terminates in the very water of the river, so that a man cannot round the corner without wading. This is the scene where the traveller experiences to the full the sentiment of the spirit of Cawnpore. In other quarters of the station there are objects which evoke no light and transient feelings. It is painful to trace the faint line of the fortifications, and recognise the site of the barrack which contained so much sorrow and agony. It is interesting to observe the neat garden that strives to beguile away the associations which haunt the well of evil fame, and to peruse the inscription indited by a vice-regal hand. It may gratify some minds, beneath the roof of a memorial church that is now building, to listen while Christian worship is performed above a spot which once resounded with ineffectual prayers and vain ejaculations addressed to quite other ears. But it is beside that little shrine on the brink of the yellow flood that none save they who live in the present alone can speak with unaltered voice, and gaze with undimmed eye. For that is the very place itself where the act was accomplished, not yet transformed by votive stone and marble. There, at least, in the November evening, an Englishman may stand with bare head, and, under the canopy of heaven, breathe a silent petition for grace to do in his generation some small thing towards the conciliation of races estranged by a terrible memory.

In the course of the Friday evening Tantia Topee was closeted with the Nana, and, on leaving, gave orders that five guns and as many hundred picked musketeers should be mustered at the landing-place two hours before daybreak. He likewise enjoined certain among the rebel nobles to be in attendance with their followers at the same rendezvous. The cavalry soldiers, to whom the design was imparted, exclaimed against such a dastardly breach of faith, and would not be convinced until the Maharaja himself took the trouble to assure them, on the authority of a royal Brahmin, that according to his creed it was permissible to forswear at such a juncture; and that, for his own part, when the object was to annihilate an enemy, he would not hesitate to take a false oath on burning oil or holy water.

At the prescribed time, Tantia Topee found his power assembled on the bank, and straightway proceeded to make his dispositions. One gun, under the charge of a detachment, was placed among the ruins of Mr. Christie's house, which, from a considerable height above the stream, commanded the whole line of boats. A strong body of sepoys took cover behind the village of Suttee Chowra. A squadron of troopers concealed themselves to the south of the Fisherman's Temple. A couple of sections were secreted in and about some timber, which lay ready to be shipped away; while a mixed party of horse and foot were told off to follow our garrison, with directions to form up on the wooden bridge as soon as the English rear-guard had entered the ravine, and thus cut off the single avenue of escape. A fieldpiece, protected by a company of infantry, was posted a quarter of a mile down the river: and at a somewhat wider interval was stationed a third gun and another company. On the opposite shore, directly facing the mouth of the lane, stood two cannon, guarded by an entire battalion of infantry and a regiment of cavalry, who had recently attached themselves to the insurrection.

The boats, some few excepted, had been hauled into the shallows, and were literally resting on the sand. They were of the ordinary country build, thirty feet from stem to stern, and twelve feet in the beam. They were covered in by a heavy roof of straw, with a space at either end left open for the steersman and the rowers. At a distance they had the air of floating haystacks, rather than of vessels; and, indeed, were not unlike the Noah's ark of our nurseries, both in their outlines and in the number of their crew. Tantia called the boatmen together, and bade them hold themselves prepared, at a given signal, to fire the thatch, and make for the shore; and then, secure of the issue, mounted the stairs of the little temple, there to await, amidst a crowd of armed retainers, the outcome of his able combinations. The men in ambush chattered, and shivered, and munched their cold rice, and shared the alternate pipe: and the Mussulmans in the various groups performed a leisurely obeisance towards the rising sun, not sorry when his rays broke through the chill mist of the morning; and the bargemen gathered round fires heaped with a larger supply of charcoal than the economic Hindoo is wont to expend upon the preparation of his frugal breakfast.

All was quiet in the intrenchment. Brigadier Jwala Pershad, with two companions, came over-night to Sir Hugh Wheeler, and announced that the trio were to remain until the embarkation as hostages for the good faith of the Peishwa. The plausible Hindoo made himself exceedingly agreeable to his host; condoled with the General upon the privations which he had undergone, so trying at that advanced age; and intimated his disapprobation of those ungrateful soldiers who had turned their arms against an old and indulgent commander. He promised that, as far as in him lay, he would take care that no harm should befall us; and he soon had occasion to submit to a test of his good intentions, for a rebel sentry in the outlying barracks dropped his musket, which exploded in the fall, an accident that called forth a rapid and wild discharge from all the hostile batteries. Jwala at once despatched to the head-quarters of the enemy a message explaining the cause of the commotion, and procured an immediate cessation of the bombardment. In spite of this interruption, the garrison, rendered by long suspense and wretchedness careless rather than unsuspicious of the future, held high festival upon a double ration of boiled lentils and meal-cake, washed down by copious draughts of water from the battered well clouded with brick-dust and powdered cement. Though many a wish was uttered for bread, and eggs, and milk-porridge, and curried fowls, no one dared beg or buy of the native sutlers. And so our people filled themselves with such food as they could get, and rested as men rest who have not slept for a great while, and know not when they may sleep again. There were those at hand who knew right well. Meanwhile, as an earnest of our defeat, a squad of mutineers stood guard over the shattered remains of the glorious guns which had done all that English iron could effect for the conservation of English honour and English lives.

On the morrow, at a very early hour, all Cawnpore was astir. The townspeople poured down to the landing-place by thousands; some desirous to catch one more glimpse of the kind-hearted strangers who had so long sojourned in their midst, and unfeignedly sorry to see the last of such easy customers and such open-handed masters; others, curious to observe whether the Sahibs were much changed by their hardships; others, again, drawn thither by a dim expectation that something might happen which it would be a pity to have missed. And the mutineers, and the matchlock-men, and the rabble of the revolt, swarmed forth from the various dens of debauchery, and slouched off, yawning and half-armed, to bear their part in whatever might be going on. And Azimoolah and the brothers of the Peishwa, accompanied by a host of nobles, mounted their horses, and joined Tantia Topee on the platform of the temple. And the Nana did not sleep late, if, indeed, he slept at all. When his courtiers had departed, he dismissed his attendants, and listened in solitude for the sounds which should announce that the supreme moment had arrived. His mind was not in tune for company.

And our countrymen awoke for the last time. There was a great deal to be thought and talked of, but not much to be done. The packing did not take long. Little had been brought into those hateful walls, and less yet remained worth removal when they came to break up their melancholy establishment. Some hid about their persons money, or jewellery, or fragments of plate. Others seemed to think that a bible or a book of prayers was a treasure more likely to be of service in the coming emergency than turquoises, and silver spoons, and gold sovereigns. The able-bodied folk, intent on the common safety, stuffed their hats and pockets with ball-cartridge; while a few, over whose hearts, softened by the influence of the occasion, affection and regret held exclusive sway, bestowed all their care upon tokens which the dying had put aside as a legacy for the bereaved in England. Many and strange were the relics that crossed the Indian Ocean in the homeward-bound packets of that autumn; locks of hair, and stained sleeves or collars, and notes scribbled on the fly-leaf of an orderly-book, and pistols, of which some of the barrels were still loaded, and others had been fired in vain. It was then much as it had been in the days of Troy, throughout the villages of ancient Achaia. "The household knew those whom it sent forth to the war; but, instead of the men, an urn and a poor handful of ashes alone returned."

And now began to make itself felt a strong disinclination to quit for ever the place where so much had been done and suffered; a frame of mind which afterwards was remarked among the besieged at Lucknow who outlived the relief of the Residency. Death, in one of the forms with which all had lately grown so conversant, and among associations that, if not dear, were at any rate familiar, seemed preferable to novel exertions and untried perils. More than one young subaltern who, a month previously, would have been ashamed to confess to an emotion, stole ten minutes to pay a farewell visit to the loophole at which, on the morning of the great assault, he had fought till his shoulder was blue, and his rifle clogged with lead; or to stand with wet cheeks in a nook of the hospital, sacred to his first great grief. Not a few peered down the well that lay outside the breastwork, with a tacit adieu to those whom they left behind, and a wish that it had pleased God to unite them, even there.