Brave British soldiers and the Victoria Cross / a general account of the regiments and men of the British Army, and stories of the brave deeds which won the prize "for valour"

by Unknown

CHAPTER XVII.
DR. J. JEE, C.B., V.C., SURGEON; ASSISTANT-SURGEON V. M. M’MASTER, V.C.; AND LIEUTENANT AND ADJUTANT HERBERT T. MACPHERSON, V.C.

No less than six Victoria Crosses were awarded to the 78th Highlanders, for distinguished conduct in the field during their heroic march to relieve the beleaguered garrison at Lucknow. We have already shown how this honourable distinction was attained by Private Henry Ward, and Lieutenant Bogle: it now remains for us briefly to relate the circumstances under which four other officers of the same regiment—one of whom does not occupy a place in Mr. Desange’s Gallery—earned for themselves the Cross of Valour.

On the 29th of July, 1857, General Havelock fought two battles and gained two victories. The mutinous Sepoys, who had taken up a strong position in the town of Oude, which is intersected by the great road from Cawnpore to Lucknow, endeavoured to intercept the army of rescue in their advance, but were driven from their position with considerable loss. They then fell back upon Busherutgunge, another fortified town, but Havelock gave them little time to rest; in a few hours he was upon them: the 78th Highlanders and the Madras Fusiliers rushed forward with their usual impetuosity, and carried everything before them. The loss of the enemy in these two battles amounted to more than a thousand men; it would have been still greater if Havelock had been provided with cavalry to follow up his victory. The road to Lucknow was now open to him. Many a prayer was offered up for his speedy arrival by the half-famished garrison, whose only hope of deliverance was in him. But was he in a position to advance? Cholera, that insidious foe which almost invariably follows in the track of an army in the field in India, had struck down one-fourth of his gallant band; men who had charged with irresistible fury in the morning, found themselves at night writhing with agony in the deadly grasp of their invisible enemy. In the two battles he had lost nearly a hundred men in killed and wounded; the number was small, but a few more such victories would leave him without an army. He had yet to advance thirty-six miles through a country occupied by the enemy, before he could reach Lucknow, and he had not more than twelve hundred men able to march. This number might be diminished by one-fourth, as he would require a convoy of three hundred men to escort the sick and wounded. It was a severe struggle, but the conclusion was irresistible: the garrison at Lucknow could not be rescued from the fifty thousand rebels that environed them on every side by Havelock’s available force, which fell short of the full complement of a single regiment.

There was no help for it; he must retrace his steps to Cawnpore, and wait there for reinforcements. He was not the man to hesitate in the path of duty; the order was given to fall back on Oude, where his army spent the night. The Highlanders and Fusiliers, flushed with their recent successes, and confident in their own courage, listened to this order with dismay. The road to Lucknow was before them, and why should the general refuse them permission to advance? Did he distrust their courage? They had stood by him in seven battles, and won him as many victories. In such moments of enthusiasm, men’s feelings are strung to the highest pitch; rough-bearded soldiers were seen to wipe the tears from their eyes when, for the first time, they turned their backs upon the enemy. No doubt Havelock felt it as much as any soldier under his command; but he was a man who never allowed feeling to interfere with duty, and when he had once made up his mind nothing could swerve him from his purpose.

The beginning of the month of August was gloomy in the extreme; the garrison at Lucknow, with the massacre of Cawnpore fresh in their memories to remind them of the fate that awaited them if they fell into the hands of the bloodthirsty wretches who hemmed them in on every side, fought as the Greeks fought at Thermopylæ, and chose rather to bury themselves beneath the ruins than surrender. It may be that Havelock suffered more than they did: his heart bled for them; he was prepared to make any sacrifice to save them; but their safety depended on his having a sufficient army to effect their rescue. Neile behaved like a gallant soldier: every man who could be spared from Cawnpore was sent to his aid, and every man who came was welcomed as a treasure. Gradually the little army swelled in numbers till it reached an efficient strength of 1400 men, which it never exceeded; but there were no cowardly, treacherous natives in the ranks, and the general and his soldiers had the fullest confidence in one another.

Again the faces of the men were turned towards Lucknow, and their former enthusiasm revived. On the 4th of August the army was on the march, and the small body of volunteer cavalry was sent forward to reconnoitre. They dashed through Oude without interruption; but on reaching the scene of Havelock’s second victory, they found the enemy had taken possession of a series of hamlets between the town and the lake, with the evident intention of blocking up our line of communication. On the same evening they galloped back to Oude, and informed Havelock that the rebels were waiting his approach. After a night’s bivouac, the army resumed their march, and soon joined issue with the enemy on the scene of their former victory. The result was not long doubtful: shelled from the town by our guns, the rebels were chased through the hamlets by the Highlanders and Fusiliers, and pursued to an open plain beyond. The day was ours, but the victory led to nothing; the enemy again awaited our advance, and Havelock was obliged to retire to his former quarters.

The letters which the gallant old man wrote at this juncture to his family and friends, prove that this was one of the most trying periods of his life. His conduct was liable to misconstruction even among his own men; but he was sustained by a sense of duty, and the inward consciousness of right. If he had ever entertained any doubts about the necessity of falling back upon Cawnpore, they were removed by the position of things in that town. On his arrival, Nana Sahib, the butcher of Bithoor, had collected a body of troops, and was threatening our army on every side; his cavalry swept through the suburbs, and even attempted to force their way through the town. Our communications with Allahabad were threatened, and an immediate blow must be struck. While Havelock was preparing to recross the Ganges, on the morning of the 11th of August, a succession of spies brought him information that four thousand rebels had advanced from Nawabgunge to Busherut, the scene of his former victory, with the evident intention of hanging on his rear, and attacking his column during the passage. To have crossed the river under such circumstances would have been fraught with difficulty, if not with danger, and the rebels would have boasted that they had driven the British forces from the province of Oude by their superior valour. Havelock, knowing that an apparent success on the part of the enemy would destroy the prestige of his former victories, and spread the flame of rebellion through the province, turned round like a lion at bay, and advanced for the third time to encounter the rebel army. On the afternoon of the 11th, his column was in motion, and his advanced guard drove the enemy from the town of Oude. On reaching Busherut, he found their army spread out to a great distance to the right and left, and strongly entrenched in the centre. Their numbers have been estimated at 20,000 men, and their position had been chosen with great skill: their right rested on a village on the main road, where they had established a battery among the gardens; their left, on a rising ground, protected by three guns. Their line is said to have extended five miles, and Havelock saw the necessity of postponing his attack till the following day. His wearied troops returned to Oude, where they bivouacked on the wet ground, and spent the night without shelter amid a deluge of rain. But nothing could daunt their ardour. They rose on the morning of the 12th ready to follow their leader to victory. Our right wing, which consisted of the 78th Highlanders, the Fusiliers, the Sikhs, and part of the Volunteer Cavalry, began the attack, and steadily advanced, till their progress was arrested by a swamp, which in the distance presented the appearance of dry land. As soon as they were within range, the enemy unmasked their battery, which poured forth a deadly shower of round shot, shell, canister, grape, and shrapnel; but, fortunately, their guns were pointed too high, and our men were withdrawn without suffering much loss. The Highlanders moved on to the main road, while the Fusiliers, supported by four guns, diverged to the right. It was no time for manœuvring; an effort must at once be made to silence the enemy’s fire—the most severe we had yet encountered. A flanking fire was opened on the enemy’s line, which threw them into confusion, and at the same moment the Highlanders, now reduced to about a hundred, steadily advanced till they were within a short distance of the enemy’s guns, when they dashed forward with a shout, rushed upon the principal redoubt, and carried it at the point of the bayonet, without firing a shot. The honour of being the first to enter the redoubt was equally divided between two of their officers; and when the officers lead the way, the men will never refuse to follow. The enemy’s infantry broke and fled, and the Highlanders, seizing two of their guns, turned them against them, and drove them through the hamlets to an open plain beyond. Our loss amounted to thirty-two men, while the rebels lost upwards of three hundred; and the general having attained the object he had in view, slowly retraced his steps to Cawnpore, with the two guns he had captured. On reaching that town, the gallantry of the Highlanders in carrying the enemy’s redoubt was recognised in the order of the day; and the general promised to recommend for the Victoria Cross the officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier who had been the first to enter this work. The Highlanders had charged with such impetuosity, that Colonel Hamilton, their commanding officer, had some difficulty in ascertaining to whom the honour belonged: in such cases, it is best to leave the matter to the decision of the men themselves, and this was done in the present instance. It appeared that two young officers, Lieutenant Campbell and Lieutenant Crowe, cleared the wall of the redoubt at the same moment; the honour was equally divided between them, and both would doubtless have been decorated with the Cross of Valour if they had survived the campaign: but poor Campbell was cut off by cholera the following day, and the distinction was awarded to Lieutenant Crowe, who still continues to enjoy it. This was the second Victoria Cross bestowed upon the 78th Highlanders since Havelock assumed the command of that gallant regiment.