After he had been at Chinsurah for four years the Government thought they could do without an adjutant, and thus save money. This fell hardly on Havelock, who was very poor, and when he went back to his regiment his wife and child had to live in two tiny rooms on the ramparts. Mrs. Havelock never complained, but in a hot climate like India plenty of space and air are necessary for health, and both father and mother were terrified lest the baby should suffer. However, very soon the new governor-general gave him the adjutancy of his own regiment, then at Agra, and things grew brighter. His days were passed in drilling and looking after his men, but he still took thought for their welfare in their spare hours, and managed to get some chapels put up for them, and to open a coffee-house, with games and books, which he hoped might keep them out of mischief.
Now at this date, and for many years after, it was the custom in the English army that the officers should buy their promotion, unless a vacancy occurred by death. Havelock was a poor man, and like many well-known Indian soldiers had to depend for luck on his 'steps,' or advancement. If, like Havelock, officers exchanged into other regiments, they were put back to the bottom of the list, and had to work their way up all over again.
Besides this there were two armies in India, one belonging to the English sovereign, and the other to the East India Company's Service, under which near a hundred years before Clive had won his battles. It was the officers serving under 'John Company,' as it was called, who had all the 'plums' of the profession; who governed large provinces, made treaties with the native princes, and gave orders even to the general himself. Outram, who afterwards entered Lucknow side by side with Havelock; sir Henry Lawrence, who died defending the city before Outram and Havelock fought their way in; John Nicholson, who was killed in the siege of Delhi, and hundreds of other well-known men, all wore the Company's colours and received rewards. For the officers of the royal army it was no uncommon thing for a man to wait fifty years before being made a general, as lord Roberts's father waited; so, although it was very disheartening for Havelock to see young men, with not half his brains but with ten times his income, become captains and majors and colonels over his head, he knew well what he had to expect, and also that he possessed thousands of companions in misfortune.
By-and-by the Company's army was done away with, and India is now ruled in an entirely different way.
It was in the autumn of 1836 that Havelock sent up his wife and little children for a change to a hill station called Landour. The cool air and quiet were very restful after the heat of the summer, and at last they were all able to sleep, instead of tossing to and fro through the dark hours, longing for the dawn.
One night the moon was shining brightly, and Mrs. Havelock had stepped out on her verandah before she went to bed, and thought how beautiful and peaceful everything looked. A few hours later she was awakened by a dense smoke, and jumping up found that the house was on fire all round her. She snatched up her baby and opened the door to get to the room where the two little boys were sleeping with their ayah, or nurse, but such a rush of flames met her that she staggered back and fell. In an instant her thin nightdress was on fire, and she was so blinded by the glare and the smoke that she did not know which way to turn. Happily one of the native servants heard the noise, and, wrapping a wet blanket about him which was too damp to burn, he managed to crawl over the floor and drag her through the verandah to a place of safety. He then ran back and succeeded in reaching the two boys and putting them beside their mother, but not before the eldest had been badly burnt.
He managed to crawl over the floor.