Some Famous Women

by Louise Creighton

The Gateway of the Residency, Lucknow, showing marks of Shot and Shell on the Brickwork.

At night the firing grew less, and Colonel Inglis came in to take them over to a room he had prepared for them in a building which had been the gaol, and which was fairly safe. It was only 12 ft. by 6, and there she and her children stayed with Mrs. Case and her sister. They were all so worn out with wretchedness that they slept that night. Next day they did what they could to make their room comfortable. It had neither doors nor windows, only open arches, and they hung up curtains to make some sort of privacy. Though the smallpox was then at its height, Mrs. Inglis suffered no harm from the anxieties of that terrible day; but she was alarmed lest her children should catch the disease, as she could not keep them from her bed. But fortunately they did not take any harm, and she seems to have recovered quickly. There were two wells in their courtyard, so that they had a plentiful supply of water, and for the moment there was plenty of food.

The next day another terrible attack was made by the rebels. As they sat trembling in the midst of the heavy cannonading, feeling sure that the enemy must get in, Mrs. Case proposed that they should say the litany, which they did, she and her sister kneeling by Mrs. Inglis’s bed. Mrs. Inglis writes that the soothing effect was marvellous; they grew calm in spite of their alarm. Next morning Sir Henry Lawrence was wounded by a shell that burst into his room. There was no hope of his recovery, and after three days of awful suffering, nobly borne, he died, leaving the entire command to Colonel Inglis. Day after day one or other of the little garrison or of the women were hit by shells. The chaplain was shot whilst shaving one morning. Mrs. Inglis watched anxiously over her children, who grew pale and thin from the confinement and the terrible heat. July 16th, was her little boy’s birthday, and she thought sadly of the other children of his father’s regiment who on that day used to have a dinner and a dance in his honour. She did not know that on that very day those other poor children were murdered by the rebels at Cawnpore.

Every day the anxiety grew. They had hoped before this to hear of English troops coming to relieve them, but no news came. There was nothing to be done but to wait and try to keep back the rebels, whose attacks were constant. Death was always near. One evening Mrs. Inglis was standing outside the door with her baby in her arms when she heard something whiz past her ears. She rushed inside, and afterwards found a piece of shell buried in the ground just where she had been standing. Her children were her greatest comfort, and as she had them to amuse and look after she never had an idle moment. Sometimes she tried to read aloud, but it was impossible for them to fix their minds on a book. In their games the children would imitate what was going on around them. They made balls of earth and threw them against the wall saying that they were shells bursting. Johnny, the eldest boy, would hear where a bullet fell and run and pick it up whilst it was still warm. They slept through all the firing and never seemed frightened.

Sunday services were regularly held, and again and again at the worst moments prayer was their only support. Mrs. Inglis used to visit the other ladies as much as she could; and, being of a hopeful nature herself, managed to raise their spirits. Her own best moment in the day was in the early morning, when her husband used to come to see her and sit outside her door drinking his tea. One day a shell burst in their own courtyard; the children were playing about and for a moment her anxiety was intense, till she saw that they were all safe. Tales of hairbreadth escapes were heard daily; one doctor had his pillow under his head shot without his being hurt. But there were many who did not escape and the condition of the wounded in the heat and the crowded hospital left little hope of recovery. Anxiety and constant work turned Colonel Inglis’s hair grey during the long suspense. Their position was growing desperate. He knew that General Havelock was trying to fight his way through the rebels and come to their help, for a native spy carried letters between the two commanders, written in Greek characters and rolled up and hidden in a quill. General Havelock wished Colonel Inglis to be ready to help his approach by an attack from inside, but Colonel Inglis was obliged to write on August 16th, after more than six weeks of siege, that this was impossible, owing to the weak condition of his shattered force. Food was growing scarce, and there was much sickness. On one evening five babies were buried.

It was not till near the end of September that the sound of distant guns struck Mrs. Inglis’s ear one day and told her that relief was near. Each boom seemed to her to say, “We are coming to save you.” Five days afterwards, on September 25th, at six in the evening, she heard tremendous cheering and knew that the relief had come. She was standing outside her door, when a soldier came rushing up to fetch the Colonel’s sword, which he had not worn since the siege began. A few minutes afterwards the Colonel himself entered, bringing with him Colonel Havelock, a short grey-haired man. He had fought his way in with the relief force. He shook hands with Mrs. Inglis, saying that he feared she had suffered a great deal. She could hardly speak to answer him, and only longed to be alone with her husband. Colonel Inglis felt the same, and after taking Havelock out, returned in a few minutes, and, kissing her, exclaimed, “Thank God for this.” For a brief moment there was unmixed happiness. Then the thought rushed into her mind of all the others whose lot was so different from hers and whose dear ones had perished in the siege.

A moment later a messenger came asking if they had any cold meat for starving officers, and very soon Mrs. Inglis learnt how severely those who had come to their rescue had suffered as they fought their way in through the narrow streets of the town. She also heard of the wonderful scene when they at last got in and met the besieged. On all sides were hand-shakings and warm greetings, the relieving soldiers lifting the children of the besieged in their arms and kissing them. But little by little Mrs. Inglis realised that, though relieved, they were not rescued. The soldiers who had fought their way in under Outram and Havelock were not enough to drive back the enemy or even to take the women and children safely out of Lucknow. They were only able to help them to resist the besiegers, and their presence increased the anxiety about the supply of food, which was getting very low and had to be used with the greatest care. The number of wounded was also terribly increased, and the state of the overcrowded hospital and the want of all the things needed for the care and comfort of the patients added greatly to their suffering. The only chance now was to hold out till the coming of Sir Colin Campbell with more troops, and meanwhile the attacks of the enemy increased in fury; there was constant firing and no place was really safe, so that Mrs. Inglis was never easy if her children were out of her sight.

During the siege, Mrs. Inglis had found a little white hen which used to stay about their room and be fed by her children. When food grew scarce they decided to kill and eat it; but that very morning Johnny ran in exclaiming, “O, mamma, the white hen has laid an egg.” One of the officers, whose leg had been cut off, was very ill and weak, and Mrs. Inglis at once took the egg, a great luxury in those days, to him. The hen laid an egg for him every day till he died and then ceased for the rest of the siege, but they would not kill it after that.

It was not till the middle of November, seven weeks after the coming of Havelock, that they knew that Sir Colin Campbell was near. It was Colonel Inglis’s birthday, and they invited another officer to dinner, and actually had a fruit tart for dinner, a luxury which Mrs. Inglis would not have dreamt of had not her hope of relief been high. Little Johnny ran out to call their guest, screaming at the top of his voice, “Come to dinner; we’ve got a pudding.”

It was November 17th, a most anxious, exciting day, when Sir Colin Campbell at last reached Lucknow. He did not come inside the entrenchments, and when Colonel Inglis arrived very late to dinner it was with the bad news that they were all to leave the Residency the next evening. Sir Colin did not think he was strong enough to recapture the town, and felt that the utmost he could do was to carry off in safety the garrison and the women and children. It was a bitter blow to Colonel Inglis to be told that he must leave in the hands of the enemy the place which he had so long defended at such terrible loss. He offered to stay and hold it if 1000 men could be left to him and the women and children removed; but it was not allowed, and there was nothing to do but to obey. There was a hurried packing of all such things as could be taken with them. The women and children started, late on the afternoon of November 19th, to leave the place where they had been closely besieged for nearly five months. The road by which they were led out of the town was considered safe, except in three places on which the enemy were firing at intervals. There an officer carried the children and they all ran as fast as they could, but Mrs. Inglis did not feel in the least afraid. In a large garden in the outskirts of the town they found the other women and children, and the officers of Sir Colin Campbell’s force, who were all most kind, and feasted them with tea and bread and butter, which were great luxuries. Sir Colin came and talked to Mrs. Inglis for some time and was most attentive, but she said that all the while she knew that he was wishing them very far away, and no wonder, for without the women and children to take care of, he would have been free to attack the enemy. It was ten at night before they started on their journey with an escort of soldiers. Mrs. Inglis with her three children and three other ladies and another child were squeezed tightly together in one bullock waggon. She had only just got her baby to sleep when the word halt was called, silence was ordered, and all lights were put out. Clearly an attack was feared, and she was terrified lest her baby should begin crying again and betray where they were. After waiting in absolute silence for a quarter of an hour, the order was given to move on, and in two hours they reached a camp where tents had been got ready for them and food prepared and they could lie down and sleep. Next morning some of the officers invited Mrs. Inglis and her friends to breakfast, and she writes that, though she hopes she was not very greedy, she much appreciated the good things with which their table was loaded. The next day she had the great joy of receiving the home letters from her mother and friends in England which had been accumulating for five months, and she was able to write home herself.