Like Another Helen

by Sydney C. Grier

“But my beloved girl won’t press that promise to an extreme when she knows how much it would add to her Fraser’s anxiety? She’ll do him the favour to believe that ’tis only his concern for her makes him entreat her to remain here under good Dr Dacre’s care, and I think she’ll oblige him by consenting to stay behind.”

The tears were in my eyes. “Dear sir, how could I bring myself to refuse a request which you are good enough to express in such a charming style?”

“Nay, dearest madam, your complaisance in gratifying me would make me ashamed to ask a favour if I did not know that it caused you a pleasure to grant it,” said Mr Fraser, but perceiving that what he had said might be taken in two different styles, he came and embraced me kindly, begging me with the utmost earnestness to remain behind at Cutwah, where the sick were to be left under a small guard, and not to insist upon exposing myself in the neighbourhood of the battle. I could not refuse to oblige him, having once consented, and that’s the reason, Amelia, why I am writing to you from my tower in the fortress, instead of accompanying my spouse to the field.

At sunrise yesterday the army began crossing the river, but the transit was not accomplished until four in the afternoon. By this time Colonel Clive had received another reassuring letter from Meer Jaffier, stating that the Nabob was encamped with his army at a village called Muncarra, some little way to the north of Placis, and suggesting that the Colonel should march thither to attack him. The march was at once commenced, the boats carrying the camp equipage being towed against the stream, and the troops making their way along the bank, although, thanks to the inundation caused by the heavy rain, they were forced to plod through water up to their waists. The rain fell continuously almost the whole of the day, driving me from my station at the top of my tower, whence I had hoped to view a great part of the march, since it commands a vast extent of country, and I passed the weary hours in unravelling lint and sewing bandages for the surgeon here, although the damp weather has made my needles and scissors almost useless with rust. The need I felt of occupying my mind made me work so prodigiously hard that when I asked the doctor this morning whether he had anything more for me to do, he laughed, saying that he had already sufficient dressings to bandage the whole army from head to foot, and thus rejected, I fell back naturally into my old habit of making my Amelia the depositary of my anxieties. Indeed, my dear, I don’t know what can be better, in such a situation as mine, than a faithful friend like yourself, unless it be the practice I have always pursued of writing to her constantly.

But my dear girl must not imagine that I have been left to pine, uncheered by any scrap of news, since daybreak yesterday. My dear Mr Fraser was so good as to despatch me a billet this morning, wrote with infinite difficulty in the most unpropitious circumstances. Reassuring my anxious mind by declaring that he has suffered no inconvenience from the discomforts of the march, he says that a halt was called soon after midnight in a grove of mango-trees close to the Nabob’s seat of Placis, and that in this grove the troops encamped in the greatest comfort imaginable. (I fear this is only said to console me, Amelia, for you must remember the rain and the floods.) The sound of drums and other barbaric instruments was clearly to be heard from the enemy’s camp a mile distant (for on hearing of the Colonel’s advance from Cutwah, Surajah Dowlah had at once quitted Muncarra and marched to confront him), but this served rather to soothe than to disturb the grateful slumbers of our wearied army.

At daybreak the Nabob’s army moved out from its entrenchments and disposed itself in the form of a crescent, as though designing to enclose our troops altogether, with the aid of the river, while Meer Sinzaun (oh, my dear, think what it is to me to hear that dreadful name again!) with four guns and his forty vagabond Frenchmen took post on the lofty banks of earth surrounding a tank that commanded the mango-grove. In order to reply to their fire, Colonel Clive posted two hovitzes[02] and two field-pieces at some brick-kilns in advance of the grove, and lest the enemy should imagine him alarmed by their approach, brought his army out of its shelter, and drew it up in order of battle, his left resting on the Nabob’s hunting-lodge. The centre of the line was occupied by the European troops in four divisions, next came three field-pieces on either flank, Mr Fraser being in charge of one of those on the right, and at each extremity of the line a body of Seapoys. The battle began by the Frenchmen’s discharging one of their cannons, which did some damage, and our artillery replying, the action became general, although we were at a huge disadvantage owing to the lightness of our guns. Having endured a heavy cannonade for about half an hour, and finding his losses considerable, the Colonel retired his troops again into the grove, leaving a small detachment at the brick-kilns and another at Placis House, and ’twas at this moment of disappointment and mortification that Mr Fraser wrote his letter to me. Having with the rest of the officers of the train besieged the Colonel in vain for permission to carry all the guns forward to the advanced posts, and finding himself compelled to crouch down among the troops behind a bank to avoid the enemy’s fire, my spouse sought to mitigate his impatience by scribbling in pencil the history of the morning, which he had leave to despatch about half-past nine by a messenger that Mr Watts was sending back to Cutwah. The brilliancy of the spectacle presented by the enemy seems to have affected Mr Fraser a little disagreeably when compared with the travel-stained and wretched aspect of our own men, for he remarks somewhat bitterly on the magnificent display of elephants all covered with scarlet cloth and embroidery, of horsemen with drawn swords glistering in the sun, of heavy cannons drawn by vast trains of oxen, and of countless standards waving in the breeze—all this show being employed by Surajah Dowlah to conceal the badness of his cause. The dear gentleman closed the letter in somewhat better spirits, however, for our retreat having animated the enemy to an extreme degree of vivacity, they were advancing their guns with a great air of boldness, and Colonel Clive had just given orders for holes to be made in the banks of earth surrounding the grove, through which our field-pieces might be fired.

There, Amelia! ’Tis now two in the afternoon, and this pencilled chitt, which reached me about an hour back, contains the latest intelligence we possess. All the morning I have spent at the top of the tower, with every man of our sick garrison that was strong enough to climb so high, watching for messengers, and listening to the distant sound of cannon brought to us on the wind. At noon the rain began again, and drove me indoors and to my writing, and so far as we can discern, forced the cannonade almost entirely to cease. I had no notion that a battle took so long to fight, had you, Amelia? I have wrote this letter with all the minuteness possible, for the sake of filling up the time; how, I wonder, shall I spend the weary hours still before me, until this battle, which is to decide the fate of Bengall, if not of India (not to speak of your poor girl and her beloved Fraser) be ended? Happily the rain is almost ceased again, and Dr Dacre, who has established himself as a vigilant guardian over me, gives me hope of being allowed once more on my watch-tower.

Half-past six o’clock.

Joy, Amelia! we are victorious. Colonel Clive has justified the confidence of his troops rather than his own misgivings, and Calcutta is avenged upon the cruel barbarian who destroyed her a year ago. A breathless messenger, mounted upon a horse that he had ridden almost to death, arrived a few minutes back and brought us the news, although his errand was to demand the despatch of certain stores immediately to the surgeons accompanying the army. It appears that the cannonade begun by our guns in the morning after Mr Fraser closed his letter to me, was successful in keeping off the enemy, and that Meer Modin,[03] one of the Nabob’s generals, and the only one among ’em that was truly faithful to him, was slain. The rain that commenced about noon spoiled the enemy’s powder, while ours was kept under shelter and dry, and the semicircle of Moorish troops was observed to be retiring within the entrenchments where they had passed the night. Even before this, however, Surajah Dowlah, panic-stricken by his fears and by the death of Meer Modin, had mounted a swift camel, and forsaking his army, fled to Muxadavad. It had been agreed between Colonel Clive and his officers that no advance against the Nabob’s camp should be made until night; but seeing the Frenchmen isolated at their tank, Major Kilpatrick could not resist pushing forward to dislodge them, without any orders from the Colonel, who was snatching a brief repose in the hunting-lodge. On being informed of the movement, Colonel Clive hastened out in much displeasure, and reproved the officer smartly for his independent action; but on receiving an apology from him, sent him back to the grove to fetch up the rest of the troops, and placed himself at the head of the detachment, with the determination to bring matters at once to an issue, and not encourage the enemy by a second retreat. Seeing the resolution with which the English advanced, Sinzaun withdrew his force from the tank, and planted his cannon in a redoubt at the corner of the Nabob’s entrenchment, in readiness for the final assault.

All this time, says the messenger, our commander’s spirits had been perturbed by the perplexing behaviour of a portion of the enemy’s troops, which, being under the orders of Meer Jaffier and Yar Cawn Latty, should, in accordance with the engagements entered into by those chiefs, have changed sides during the battle, a manœuvre for which the amplest opportunity was offered by their position in that part of the half-circle nearest our posts and furthest from the Nabob’s entrenchments. Far from taking this step, however, Meer Jaffier, whether moved by timidity or by the affecting entreaties addressed to him by the despairing Surajah Dowlah, did not even embrace the chance afforded him by the retreat of the rest of the army to separate himself from it, but advanced his troops with such a menacing air against our position in the grove that if his designs were amicable no one could have credited it, and a force was detached to hold him in check. Meanwhile Colonel Clive, having reached the tank abandoned by Sinzaun, planted his guns on its banks, and began a brisk cannonade on the entrenchment, following this up by an advance to a second tank and a piece of rising ground nearer still. The fire was replied to by Sinzaun’s field-pieces and a strong force of matchlockmen, the cavalry also offering several times to charge, but being drove back in disorder by our guns. At last the Colonel, perceiving that Meer Jaffier’s troops were moving off the field without attempting to support those in the entrenchments, recognised that he was secure from an attack in the rear, and prepared for the concluding effort. A strong detachment was sent forward from either flank to attack Sinzaun’s redoubt and a hillock near it, the main body following more slowly as a support. The hillock was gained without a shot fired, and the redoubt abandoned by Sinzaun with only a little fighting, our forces entering it at five o’clock precisely. The exact issue of these last movements our informant was unable to describe to us, since he had been despatched by the surgeons to bring up the additional stores before the final attack was made, and only beheld it from a distance, checking his horse for a moment that he might see its success, and bring the news of the victory to us at Cutwah. Nor was he able, again, to furnish us particulars of the safety of any special person, save that he had seen Mr Fraser working his gun unhurt when he quitted the tank, although there were more killed and wounded in that situation than during all the rest of the day. It was commonly reported, said the man, that Colonel Clive would press on with his troops immediately the battle was concluded to the village of Doudpaur,[04] where he had promised to meet Meer Jaffier, so that I must resign myself, I suppose, to a further separation from my dear Mr Fraser; but I can support that with more equanimity, since I am tolerably assured of his safety.